Can You Go to Page Two?

Sometimes paper is better than electronic.  Take catalogs, for example.  But before I begin, it's frustrating to get so many that I never even look at.  I recycle them all, but I would much rather not get them.  That is, until it's getting close to holiday season.  Then, I'd like a single copy of the catalog.  Not one a week for three months, one is sufficient.

Where was I?  Ah, off topic.  Back to paper being better than electronic in some cases.  When it comes to shopping, sometimes having a catalog you can start at page one and go to the end is a great way to look through merchandise possibilities.  It's hard to do that on a web site.  First, I may never go to your web site and second, once I'm there I have to pick a category and possibly narrow down what to find via a search criteria.   There's a good chance I'll decide I don't need anything and move along to get something else done, like this blog entry.

But a catalog is perfectly suited to browsing through items, categories, things you wouldn't ever look up online, because you can start at the beginning and go to the end.

Newspapers are, apparently, like this too.  My mother reads the paper every day.  You see articles because they're next in the paper because they're on the next page.  If you go to the newspaper site (or CNN or MSNBC or any other news site) you get the top stories and then you can branch out anywhere.  You'll get the stories you want, but you might miss out on some good information because it's not in a sequential order.

I got to thinking about this recently when my mother and I were looking for a missing TV show.  We knew the local paper had reported the time/channel change, but we couldn't find it.  I went to the paper's web site and was entering all kinds of search criteria, but nothing was coming up.   My mother said to me "Can you go to page two? It's on page two."

So, some forms of media are preferable in some circumstances.  But it's largely what you prefer.  I'm almost always a digital person, but printed media has its place for lots of things still.

The Big Boy Update:  I got him one of those tunnel house things today.  The contraption will fill a room, but collapses down into a tiny bag when you're done.  It's little tube pieces and some central house sections that have holes, windows and even a tiny basketball hoop.  It also came with some balls.  He's having fun climbing through it and crushing the flimsy thing with his body today.  He's been practicing saying "ball" and "eat" for words today too.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  She's starting to be more regular in her eating.  And by that I mean there's not as much work to get her through a bottle.  She's also eating a little more per meal which is good because we need her eating a bit more before we start rice cereal in a week.  

Right-size Countdown:  13.6 pounds (Backwards?!  And I was so good yesterday.  Bah.)