That's NOT How You Got Pregnant

There was a headline over at The Huffington Post today that I just loved. And when I say "just loved" I mean "just made me want to stab my myself". The headline read "Man Loses iPod, Accidentally Impregnates Wife". Uh-huh. I'm going to need to know more about this, even though I'm guessing that it will increase the urge to stab.

The headline is referring to an iPhone Touch. But the guy in question (lots of questions), a one Doug Wilson, also has an iPhone 4 which he carries around in his hand all of the time. Literally. The guy doesn't put it in his pocket because, according to what he told those at the fledgling CNN, that "...would be too risky, he said, because he might miss a photo opportunity -- like that crazy "rat tail" hairdo he saw at a fast-food spot recently. ("I was like, 'I've GOT to take a picture of this!')" Um, yeah. OK. Wouldn't want to miss that! All rightee, then. Where does the pregnancy come in?

Well, somehow, this guy managed to find himself a wife at some point, a one probably lovely Ashlee. I'm guessing it was before he started carrying around his iPhone 4 with him whenever he is awake. Just a hunch. Anyway, he claims that it was Ashlee whom he "...accidentally impregnated one evening after forgetting to look at an iPod app that explains the details of the rhythm method." Wait a minute. What now?

Correct. He told CNN "That's how we got pregnant...because I lost my [iPod Touch]." If you'll excuse me for a moment, I need to find a wall upon which I'm going to bang my head for a few seconds.

OK, I'm back. Ow. Where was I? Oh, that's right. I was about to bellow "THAT'S NOT HOW YOUR WIFE GOT PREGNANT!" Your wife got pregnant because you had SEX. It's all of the SEX that gets one pregnant, NOT the app! I'm sure that it won't surprise you to learn that this man, who believes that his iPod has the power of spermatozoa, is from Arkansas. I kind of figured that something like that was in play when he got so excited about the guy with the rat tail hair.

The story doesn't conclude with Doug saying that he has now learned what the rhythm method entails or that he's invested heavily in a nice, large supply of condoms or, most importantly, that his iPod had NOTHING to do with his wife getting pregnant. Nope. None of those. It concludes with Doug asserting that "...the slip-up was yet another reminder that his phone should be turned on, in his hand, ready to accept alerts -- all the time." Good Lord. Really? It wasn't even your PHONE that had the damned app on it! (In other news, there's an app that details the rhythm method for you. According to iphoneapples.com "There are currently 180 apps available in the App Store that help women calculate their time of the month." Huh. So, 180 calendar apps are available. Good to know. Morons.)

While I am glad that they are thrilled about the impending birth of their little girl, I'm a bit afraid for that child. Granted, things were a little stacked against her in the first place, what with the Arkansas locale and all. But this whole "I got my wife knocked up because I couldn't find my iPod" is a bit troubling. I wonder if there's an app that will help one reduce the dependence upon apps? A bit ironic, sure. But in this case, probably warranted.

iPhone Drawings

In lieu of the many posts I've been meaning to write, here are some iPhone drawings I recently completed using the Brushes and Sketchbook apps. I'm still learning how to use both, but I decided to try both out as a way of not always defaulting to snapshots. One of the challenges is using my index finger or thumb instead of a narrower-tipped instrument, like a stylus or pen or pencil because the iPhone screen responds only to electricity. Another was figuring out how to erase, undo marks, and resize the screen to add details. I want to try darker backgrounds and more colors.

I know some artists have been using the Brushes app extensively; in addition to Jorge Colombo's much talked-about May 2009 New Yorker cover, David Hockney, one of my favorite artists, has begun to produce daily Brushes drawings that he mails out to friends and followers, and one of Jersey City the artists whose studio I visited last month during the big local open house festival had a worktable full of them. I don't know of anyone else who's using Sketchbook (perhaps a simple Google search would answer that question), but I find it a bit easier to use, and more powerful as well.

Here are five of mine (pretty crude, but they were fun to create):

Man on the subway (this was the very first one I tried)

Still life (Cup and book on coffee table)

C

Woman on the subway

Kitty cat