There once was a girl named Jackie, who watered her plants til they were tacky. She stayed up all night, feeling something wasn’t right, and thought to herself, “I wonder if they get too much light?” It wasn’t very clear, no, not at all, why her plants shed such a tear, and Jackie was blubbery, amiss, giving those dear plants a kiss, knowing all too well, her plants were in certain hell. Even with oxygen and water, her plants simply fought her, and indeed came her fright, when her plants died that very night.

Point of the story? I’m a terrible gardener, and, apparently, a terrible poet. I received my first potted plant as a gift from my boyfriend in High School, who felt a beautiful white orchid with lovely, purple stamens could soothe my post-wisdom teeth agony, and I suppose, appeal to my womanly sentiments  – he always did have good taste. More formally known as a Phalaenopsis, it was planted in a green ceramic pot with pretty lattice patterns, and held the most wondrous bloom: wide open, like a billowy cloud but with a ghostly expanse to its every tendril. I still have the pot – it rests in companionship with other pots on my front porch – but unfortunately, no plant has taken residence in its pretty seat since the day that orchid died. Maybe I’m sentimental, and felt that no other plant deserved the place of that flower, but it’s also a matter of my green thumb – I do not have one. Plenty of pink ones, ones that hold pens and can cook, bake amazing desserts, but none that bear even the remotest ability to plant something, and not have it wither and die. Orchids, in particular, are a fussy species, often blooming but once a year, and require stringent limitations on the amount of water and light, even dryness to the air (they love humidity). The reason why my blooms never returned? Nitrogen deficiency, a common reason why plants fail to bloom year after year despite, otherwise, remaining green and healthy. Time after time, I’ve purchased plants, only to see a jungle of green appear around me, with no other color in sight.

uFlowers by NIX Solutions may just be the answer. Obviously, for anyone with an innate talent for gardening, or for someone who actively seeks knowledge on plants, maintaining healthy plants and flowers may be an an easy task – frivolous even. But, for someone like me, who enjoys pretty flowers, for aesthetic and scent purposes, but who has absolutely no concrete knowledge in plants and doesn’t have the patience to research it on her own, uFlowers is an excellent resource for the iPhone. The app contains a catalogue of plants, each plant listing bearing such pertinent information as the Latin name, its origin, a brief but complete description, and excellent details on how to properly care for the plant, including timetables for watering, proper temperature, optimal light, what soil to use and when to fertilize. It’s very thorough, but still a bit incomplete: the whole app only lists about 70 plants, but these cover the most widely used and loved plants in this country, so perhaps it’s not that limiting at all.

Using uFlowers, I was finally able to decipher what plants I have in my conservatory. The place I moved into recently has a good-sized conservatory, with red brick planters running the entire perimeter like a massive baseboard, all bearing these monstrous, almost Jurassic-looking plants with giant, rubbery leaves, and stems the size of my arm. The plants, apparently, are called the Swiss Cheese Plant (Latin name, appropriately, Monstera deliciosa), and hail from Mexico. They can reach upwards of 10 feet in height (wow), and their leaves, it seems, can cause such severe skin irritation that uFlower recommends using gloves to handle them. This is extremely good to know because when my skin comes in contact with poison oak, the ensuing outbreak resembles second degree burns – I’m definitely wary of any plant with potential irritants.

I’m glad, though, that I now have a handy reference on how to take care of this beastly plant. It requires bright light, but no direct sun; a temperature between 65 and 85 degrees; peat moss soil mixed with sand or perlite for good drainage (drainage is important since it’s a drought-tolerant species); watering may be done sporadically, allowing the top one inch of soil to dry in between waterings; spraying of the leaves may be done every two days for normal room humidity; and fertilizing may be done every two weeks, spring through fall, and monthly in the winter. To better plan my plant healthcare schedule, uFlower allows you to save plants under “My Flowers” and then organizes the watering, fertilizing, and other schedules into a calendar. Small thumbnails of your plants are shown beneath the Calendar, and markers show up on each calendar day to represent however many tasks you have for that day – plant-related, of course. To ascertain more specifically what you have to do on a specific day, tap the To-Do tab at the bottom of the screen, and all your tasks will be laid out neatly for you – for today, 4/14/2010, I must water, spray and fertilize my Swiss Cheese Plant. Thankfully, after today’s run, I won’t have to do anything until 4/18, when I must spray its leaves. You can sync this information with your email and desktop calendar (for the extra fastidious), and you even have the option of sound notifications, and further customizations in the form of adding your own plants or flowers to the catalogue. I wish it was a little easier on the eyes sometimes, and maybe a bit more intuitive on the controls, but for what it does, I’m not complaining much. Though, I have to admit – it does seem like an awful lot of watering for the Swiss Cheese Plant when I know it’s done very well, all its own, without anyone watering it, for a good two months.

Before uFlowers, I definitely swayed toward the minimalist approach to plants: buy cacti. It does make sense in California, though, without being too much of a cop-out, lackadaisical approach to gardening – we are a drought state, and drought-friendly plants not only help the environment by being more indigenous, but help out the green thumbless in the garden department. But, now that I have an excellent guide to preen my feathers, stroke my self-confidence, I can tell you, with the utmost assurance, that I will begin foraying into the more treacherous tendrils of orchids, azaleas, roses, tulips and more.

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Foodictionary isn’t quite what I thought it would be, or at least, what my holier-than-thou, presumptuous nature concocted from the sugar-crusted ravages of my foodie mind. I should have taken a cue from the developer, who describes the app as, “a translation software for food and beverage terminology.” Wow, I don’t believe I’ve ever read something so… what’s the word? Hermetic. Exacting. Cold and calculating, but not of the cold meat variety. It’s definitely not of the jargon I would expect from most foodies, which is the demographic this app is most likely to cater to (ba dum crash). In essence, foodictionary is simply that: a compound word merging food and dictionary. It should be taken at face value: it’s just a dictionary of foods, translated into several different languages of your choice. This isn’t all bad – to the frequent traveler, it’s good to be able to translate what you see on the menu with a handy app. Many of us aren’t fluent in our destination’s tongue, and even if we are, sometimes we don’t know all the specific words and spices and unique fish, flavors, etc that can often be exhibited in a menu. Just in case you feel like trying the Testa in Florence, it’s wise to either consult someone proficient in the language, or this app. Both will tell you, with all the ease of a straight answer, that Testa is pork head. Hey, I’d try it, but that doesn’t mean you’d want to.

In terms of consulting, Foodictionary, at least, really delivers. My first impression, actually, was “Holy Sh**” because the thoroughness of all the lists and the categories, is just so overwhelming. It’s a massive compendium of many different kinds of food, covering more than 12,500 terms per language. It supports 7 languages – English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Greek – with more than 87,500 translated terms in total. I’m still reeling a bit over those numbers – who had the time to do all this? I suppose that’s beside the point, but another pressing question I have is why is Greek included, but no dialect of Chinese? I’m sure more languages will be included in future updates.

The main thing that impressed me wasn’t merely the sheer volume of items, but the attention to specifications. Under the Italian listings, there were several phrases for anchovy, regarding plain, regular anchovies, anchovies of the north Atlantic, anchovies in lemon and olive oil, anchovies with tomato, and anchovies with straight up olive oil. It’s interesting noting these specifications not just for the range of options, but it reflects on the food culture of that language, itself – the Italians must eat a good deal of anchovies for there to be such specific ways of eating them. The Inuit, because their environment was snow, had over 300 words for snow, alone. In a way, this app is an interesting, pseudo-ethnographic study on how language reflects cultural ideas.

Two button tabs at the bottom of the screen let you switch the languages and the order of translation, so you may have items listed in English and translated into Spanish, or listed in Spanish and translated into English, or the same thing using the app’s given languages at your disposal. It’s all very interesting, and quaint – despite all enormity – to have this comprehensive collection of food items in one app. It’s not terribly easy to sort through, and it’s rather dull to look at, which makes me wonder if anyone would use this app, at all? I admit it’s very impressive (my reaction above still stands), but for apps to survive for longer than a week in the App Store, they better be nice to look at, or so well-designed that navigating them is a breeze. But, even if Foodictionary possessed those two things, I’m still not sure it’d last long enough for people to appreciate what it has to offer.

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Soho may be one of the premiere, chic shopping destinations of New York, rife with what I deem a hoity-toity air, a slowly wavering art scene, and a street-walking population of girls is the latest Citizens of Humanity skinny jeans, bug-eyed Prada glasses, oversized leather bags, and cone-shaped, red-lacquered Christian Louboutin heels – or, now that it’s spring, sky high

Plenty of categories to rifle through...

wedge platform that turn someone of my stature, 5’9, to right around 6’1. Soho definitely has its own flair, as does any neighborhood of Manhattan, and Midtown is no exception. Midtown isn’t a neighborhood, per se, but more a collection of neighborhoods, like Chelsea, Gramercy and Hell’s Kitchen, to name a few of the more familiar ones, and it encompasses a vast area, ranging from between 14th Street and 59th Street, from the Hudson River to the East River, at about five square miles or 12 km total. The core of Midtown Manhattan is from about 31st Street to 59th Street between Third and Ninth avenues, about two square miles – this is the area most commonly referred to as “Midtown” and is where the famous Times Square is located.  All in all, midtown denotes any area not labeled as “uptown” or “downtown,” and it carries a very symbolic New York essence to it, representing – if you will – the very heart of New York with iconic places like the Empire State Building, the Museum of Modern Art, Madison Square Garden, the New York Public Library, Penn Station, Carnegie Hall, the Plaza Hotel, Madison Avenue, Broadway, Fifth Avenue, and much, much more. The New York you see heralded in film was most likely shot in some area of Midtown.

... and 3D maps to boot.

What MIDTOWNinmypocket does is assist you with finding your way around the giant epicenter that is Midtown, by carefully recording every single worthwhile place to see, shop, eat, sleep, lounge, or otherwise engage in mundane tasks (banks, churches), all in painstakingly organized categories and mapped locations. The app is designed in exactly the same manner as SOHOinmypocket – right down to the chic, Parisian-looking girl with giant, white framed spectacles -  with the option to either sort through categories to find something specific, or by browsing the map for your current location to see what’s nearby. Any mapped location may be tapped to view further information, and pertinent things like address, telephone, hours, and such are given for each place. When viewing a mapped location, you may also tap the “go” button, for your ease, so the app can navigate you there from your current location.

It’s astonishing, actually, the precision of MIDTOWNinmypocket (as well as SOHOinmypocket). The only downside to this app is the map loading time can be slow, but it’s noticeably faster on the 3GS model – it’s not that big of a deal, anyway. It turns out the developer will be releasing a SANFRANCISCOinmypocket soon, which I absolutely cannot wait for – San Francisco, and the Bay Area in general is where Appstruck is based, and I’m always looking for excellent guides to the area. Even if you’re a native, or at least, a long-term resident, there’s always the chance you’ll be surprised at what a guide can tell you.

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Being a writer, myself, or at least, an aspiring one, I can attest to the difficulty inherent in the creative process. Sometimes, it’s an absolute breeze – words, characters, and premises are not so much grasped as fully grabbed, easily plucked from the clutches of your right cerebral cortex to be laid out, resplendent on paper. And, other times, it’s a sad practice in futile desperation, gasping for air when there is no air at all, and mustering what little of your confused sensibilities you have to jigsaw a ragged piece – this is where cliches, and refurbished ideas come into play, the Thomas Kincaid of the writing artform. At the risk of sounding hackneyed and cliched, writing is all too similar to running. There is a state of zen achieved when everything glides smoothly, with hardly any thinking at all, a rhythmic, perfectly sustainable motion. It, plain and simple, just is. Runners, when at their finest, feel a surge of energy they reign in, their endorphins racing, and their concentration wanes in favor of relaxation, dreaminess, an enjoyment of being privy to that state of perfect, almost accidental balance. In that perfectly honed moment of writing, ideas are strangely orderly, and decoded too quickly for the fingers to type, the writer finding himself in a sustained state of mental clarity, alertness, of keeping up, a transcriber to his very lucid thoughts.

Of course, I wouldn’t be a writer if I claimed that all good writing is born from those moments of sheer clarity – which, frankly, aren’t that rare at all for the good writers (the Imaginagicians, as I call them). Writing, like any artform, is also a craft, and whatever skills or talents you bring to the table must be carefully honed and winnowed, cut to a precise, sharp edge. Writing, and its close cohort, reading, are nurtured from a very early age, so in many ways any one person’s talent in writing is set in stone based on these early practices. Well, maybe not stone, but certainly a thick, drying mud, or quicksand – writing can certainly be malleable. Of course, being able to weave a good sentence is far different from being able to create an original idea, of being able to create characters and bring them to life. And yet, the two ideas are inextricably entwined.

What I Need A Muse fails to realize is that the creative process cannot be undone from the act of writing, itself. I Need A Muse may be able to create an interesting, even unique character name for you, and attach it to a slightly eccentric job title, but since you took no part in that process, you miss out on that vital link of emotional resonance. You did not create this character. You did not conduct research or search your local environment for inspiration, from cafes, markets, or from that frumpy woman who rocks in her porch chair every morning, but is seen no where else.  You did not write this character, or decide that he was “surly.” Creative Writing classes will often give its students writing prompts, perhaps even of brief, character sketches, to incite students to nurture that creative spark. But, what I Need A Muse presents is a stark, robotic character, pumped out by a digital machine. Sure, a name here or there might be useful, but what would you write about for Aaron Cruz, a quiet Cashier working in Douglas Memorial Park?

I don’t know, either.

Plenty 'o' apps.

I actually thought Appzilla was going to be a collection of games, much like another app I reviewed that reminded me of those old Atari game packages you could buy. I was a little disappointed when I realized it wasn’t 50 games in one, but I got over that pretty quickly when I saw the apps Appzilla has to offer. In the past I’ve reviewed a currency converter, a price calculator (which deal is the better one), a password app, a tip calculator, and various others, all of which are contained within Appzilla. These apps are the kind that are useful to have on hand, but not necessarily the kind of app you would actively seek out, much less buy – if you have it, great, if you don’t, well, then you’re plumb out of luck. There have been a few occasions where I needed a level and thought of the level app for the iPhone (my boyfriend has it on his iPhone – as it turns out, it’s off by nearly a whole degree), but it’s never spurred me enough to actually download the app. With Appzilla, however, people may be more prompted to download it because it offers three whole pages of apps that you can hide away in one icon, without painstakingly downloading each one as the occasion calls for it. The

Protractor

flashlight, dictionary, level, password creator, price calculator, sale price finder, ruler, tip calculator, unit calculator, and translator are the most useful apps in Appzilla, and the ones I think, most people could reap the most benefit. Sure, some of them have their problems: the ruler isn’t anywhere near long enough, and scrolling to see more inches seems theoretically suitable, but in reality, doesn’t work that well, and the translator isn’t top-notch – but then again, what free translator is? The others work just fine – I get the most use out of the unit calculator, with all the baking I do. I would include the cook timer in this list, but it doesn’t work if you exit the app, so what’s the point? The grill time, too, is silly, because it’s an exact clone of the cook timer.

For every useful app, though, there is a completely useless one, almost thrown in there for kicks, or to round out the number to 50. A buzzer app shows just a red and green buzzer for those times when you want to hold a round of Jeopardy in your living room. It’s quirky and enough to crack a quick smirk, but the novelty dies within seconds (it doesn’t help that the buzzer sounds latently). The Booklamp may as well be the

Dictionary

Flashlight, the Grill Timer and the Cook Timer are the same, a coin flip provides momentary amusement for those times when, curiously enough, you don’t have a coin on you, and a clock app really takes the cake by, gasp, giving you the time. I was rather tickled by a few of the apps that were clever enough to strike my interest, but I would never find the opportunity to use them, apps like the Clinometer, Decibels reader (I suppose I could use this when arguing with someone, showing her that she’s way beyond raising her voice and is now just yelling), the Metronome, Plumb Bob, Protractor, and Tally. Seriously, who uses a Protractor? The Strobe app just flashes blinding white light at you, enough to incite seizures, and the Lighter just shows a burning flame. Really? A lighter? The Massager app turns on annoying beats of vibration, the Trip Wire registers sounds and then sounds an alarm, and I can’t even figure out what the Teslameter is supposed to do, other than the

Buzzer

disclaimer that notes, “This device does not have the ability to measure magnetic fields.” And I thought the iPhone could do everything.

The Auto Camera, at first, seemed like it offered something useful for the iPhone’s much neglected camera, but then I realized a timer wasn’t included in the iPhone for a reason. Unless you prop your iPhone against something carefully, or sandwich it in between two books, you’ll be taking a lot of pictures of your ceiling, 10 seconds after scheduling the camera to shoot. Not exactly the greatest idea. I was really miffed, however, at seeing a Homeland Security app – do I really need to be reminded of this preposterous labeling system? Oh, and are we still on yellow, meaning Elevated risk of terrorist attacks? This is an app I could do without.

Appzilla could be better presented, and have more worthwhile apps, or, heck, even just a reduction to 30, because there are certainly 20 apps in there I could do without. But, I’ll continue to make the argument that having a package deal on a dozen or so apps that you would find useful should the situation arise, makes Appzilla a good app to invest in. Besides, it’s only $0.99 and takes one meager slot on your iPhone page. Who can argue with that?

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Your girl is bored, brotha!

Okay, so MyGirl isn’t porn. It isn’t even softcore porn (read: there’s no nudity). But, after playing around with the app, I definitely felt a lightbulb go off inside my head, especially after reading some of the suggestive comments users left on the iTunes Store: porn could seriously take off on the iPhone. Let me explain. MyGirl by  is a curious app. It’s curious because it’s not a dress-up doll for little girls, but is instead a make believe, interactive girlfriend for adolescent boys and grown men the world around, made, no less, by the suggestive sounding developer LookandFeel. The star of MyGirl is a busty and deeply tan woman with kohl-rimmed eyes, mascara out to there, long, dark tresses teased into a wavy, wild mane, and a open preference for tight, low cut t-shirts and tanks that show off her impressive assets. She’s the cliche hot woman that guys will draw eagerly into blank corners of notebook pages, the girl with an exaggerated hourglass figure, huge knockers, a shelf sized booty, and crazy hair – only she’s a live model. She has a flirtatious wink to her, and every move she makes is carefully calculated so as to better show off that radiant smirk, that cheekbone and cat eye. Don’t get too excited, though, because despite all alleged interactivity, this girl is just a tease.

On the opening page she sways around, bored, a question mark appearing above her head as she twirls her hair, an expression of both impatience and indifference drifting in between her brows. She’s waiting for you to make a move, buddy boy. But, before you start thinking of dirty deeds, and of interactively touching those two, round, beauteous bounties, reign yourself in, take a cold shower, whatever it takes for you to realize that the only way you can interact with this nameless

Blowing the bubbles you gave her

hottie is to use the menu at the bottom of the screen. In the Lite version, a present and a mouth eating a strawberry are shown, allowing you to give her a present or to feed her food, respectively. While you make your decision, she undoubtedly will be amusing herself onscreen (read: once again, totally not dirty) in some nerdy provocative way. She waves her iPhone around, while wearing glasses (geeks, rejoice), thinking of teddy bears and indescribable scribbles, while undulating around, blowing you kisses, and otherwise just moving way too much. It’s actually pretty silly, and hardly sexy at all. You can mush your stubby fingers onto her all you want, but she’ll continue smiling like an idiot, blowing kisses, and demonstrating how exactly a Neandertal would react to an iPhone.

Give her objects in a very lifelike way

If you tap the Present icon, you’ll be shown a list of the different things you may tickle her every desire with, including a necklace, a flower, perfume, soap bubbles, and a teddy bear. You may give these in any order, for however many times you like – don’t worry, her reaction will be the same each time, for those needing a stroke of the ego – you may as well, because you’re not going to get stroked in any other way. It was hilarious to note that her outfits changed for each category, to keep you interested I suppose – mind you, the outfits may as well not change at all, because they’re all of the same suction-fitted, cleavage-enhancing, slightly trashy type. But, I digress, because here is where the cool part of the app comes in. To present the model with your gift, you must drag it to her, and as you do so, her hands come up to meet the item, in a surprisingly believable way. Once you let the item go, the actual item will appear in her hands, and she’ll go about her business, liking it or rejecting it. For some of the presents, you must interact with her more, like opening the soap bubble jar, or attaching the clasp to her necklace. It’s all done in a very lifelike way, which makes me curious, if a little squeamish, to think of the interactive possibilities this app could have.

Pouting - she likes to pout.

MyGirl isn’t all sweet and sugar, though – she’s actually kind of high maintenance. I expect this app was developed by a male (no woman would ever concoct this up, heterosexual or otherwise), and this male obviously thinks it’s sexy, or expected, for a woman to childishly refuse a gift with a pout, and extravagant turning up of the nose. I half expected a holding up of the hand, a tsscht sound, and tossing of the hair, arms either crossed across the chest or resting akimbo on the hips. If you’re going to make MyGirl an ungrateful, high maintenance bi***, why not go the whole way? She dislikes perfume so much she throws it at you, cracking the screen in the process. Woowza, she has a temper that one.

At least she’s all smiles and apple cheeks when you give her a teddy bear or a necklace. Better yet, give her some coffee right after a cocktail and she’ll go into some sensual, psychedelic zone of dancing and what I’m sure below to be gyrating. Apparently, there are other ways to get her to do interesting, and bizarre things, depending on the order you give her things. But, after everything has been given, and the only two things eaten, this app is just flat and disappointing. Mind you, I felt it was disappointing to begin with, maybe even a little perverse, but if anyone is going to bother buying an interactive girlfriend, then there better be plenty of ways for the user to interact with her. Of course, since only men will be buying this app, that means she better be able to blow you.

In the past, I’ve praised the gifted ability of Airfare to find my low-priced flight tickets; unfortunately, it seems for the past few months the app has been burdened with painfully slow loading times, crashes, and oftentimes simply not working at all. I’ve since moved on to scouring JetBlue and Southwest Airlines for discount deals (I remember several months back JetBlue had an outrageous offer for flights from SFO to JFK for $14 each way – those sold within minutes). I haven’t particularly liked any iPhone apps in recent history – I’m sorry, but the highly regarded FlightTrack Pro is usually off by 30 minutes at a time, so what’s the point of tracking your flight’s arrival? – so I’ve relegated to using, once again, all those flight finder sites, like Orbitz, Kayak, Expedia, and more, taking a good 30 minutes just to view all of them and compare prices. It’s a pain.

As if the flight gods were overhearing my agony, BookMe landed in my lap a mere week ago. BookMe is a free iPhone app by BookMe.com that searches the best travel sites for flights, hotels, car rentals and cruises in every country in the world. It presents them to you in one neat package, never leaving the app, itself, until you make a purchase, so you can avoid individually visiting each site and plugging in the same information. I tested it out with fairly low expectations – how much time could it really save me? – but I was grateful at how breezy BookMe is to use.

The options are presented as such: search for flights, hotels, car rentals, cruises, flight+hotel, flight+hotel+car, or flight+car. Let’s say I just want to search for a roundtrip flight to New York, airport preference up in the air. I pick a flight date of June 20, set to return on the 30th, with the departure from SFO and the arrival at any airport in NYC. I plug in this information once then tap the “Search and Save” button. Well, if the button says “save” then they best bring me the best savings that searching can provide me. A list will pop up, almost immediately, of the sites that provide arguably the best deals in terms of price. For my hypothetical flight, Skyscanner, Bing Travel, Kayak, Travelocity and Orbitz are shown. I’ll try Bing Travel first, if anything, just for the perky name. A new tab emerges, taking me to an in-app page of the website, and the loading time is roughly 10 seconds, if even that, depending on my current connection. The arrow keys at the top allow me to browse the site as I would via the web – only, make sure not to tap the Back button at the very top of the screen, or you’ll be sent back to the main page of BookMe and start from scratch. I made this mistake the first time around, as it’s easy to assume, based on its positioning, that the “back” button is used as a web browser’s; remember, you’re using BookMe, so the interface isn’t the same. Instead, should you want to return to your search results list, use the Home button at the bottom left of the screen, next to your first tab (which, for me, is Bing Travel).

I’ve decided that $342 for a flight to New York isn’t bad at all, but maybe some of the other sites have something better to offer. I tap the Home button and this time I select Skyscanner – I like how BookMe keeps the sites currently on tab highlighted in blue, so you don’t forget which ones you currently have open. A second tab appears at the bottom of the screen, and BookMe opens to the Skyscanner page, where apparently, I can book a flight for the same price (it’s important to note that some sites, like Skyscanner, list separately the prices for your departing and arriving flight, rather than combining the full price, as with Bing Travel. Also, most sites don’t tack on additional fees until you total the purchase, so take this into account, too). Kayak took longer than the other sites to load, and then eventually crashed, but it was the only crash I experienced throughout my entire use of the app (several hours worth). After I searched through all the sites, I discovered that each of them offered the same price of $342 – which is cheaper than any airline site I searched, and was ascertained by me much more quickly than had I searched each of these sites individually.

I wish some filters would be applied – I would like flights to be arranged in terms of their affordability, priced low-high, to make for easier navigation, as it’s currently unclear whether BookMe automatically performs this duty for you. Overall, though, an excellent app I will definitely use in the future for any traveling arrangements.

Well, I know that’s definitely not true. Not that Petaluma is laden with crime, or anything, but we do have plenty of cops to go around. In some ways, our cops are more visible than those in Oakland, less likely to be lurking in dark alleyways and more prone to driving aimlessly, in full black and white splendor,  around town, in the hopes of nabbing a senior citizen in a rolling stop, or pulling over a teenager who drives two miles above the speed limit. They’re a crafty bunch, the Petaluma troopers, and spotting three around town in one afternoon is a common occurrence. Daily, even.

I suppose that’s why I really wanted to like SpotACop. In Petaluma, residents like to gripe about the police, and for a small town, quaint and lovely with a crumbly patina, we have a surprising amount of DUI’s handed out, like raffle tickets – in small towns, teenagers have nothing better to do than roam the empty hillsides, drinking their Mickeys and their 40 oz Miller High Lifes – the essential, tarnished oil cred of every bankrupt youth – and many of them jump in their cars, maybe just with a tiny buzz, because they know that cops have better things to do than pull over kids on an empty, dirt road. I suppose that’s one reason we call teenagers naive and reckless. But, in any case, the cops in Petaluma are perfectionists, and there are way too many of them for the amount of disturbances we see in Petaluma.

SpotACop was created with the intent of warning drivers of these impending cop interactions, to prompt drivers to slow their speed ahead of time, and to drive cautiously, within those DMV regulations – you know, those rules we like to treat like guidelines, starting from the time we leave the DMV with that brand new shiny license. Oh, right… those. Or maybe, SpotACop was created with a more mischievous bent, to warn those driving without a license to take a detour instead of driving past the cop on the 101, ready to pull over anyone with the slightest grievance, or to warn those driving drunk of an oncoming checkpoint just a mile down the road. Well, regardless of the app catering to those in illicit activities, the app can certainly be used in this manner.

Unfortunately (or fortunately?), SpotACop doesn’t work very well. You must use your current location – despite the app offering the “Don’t Allow” option – otherwise the app will jitter and spurt, shooting out bolts and coils, and reading an error message repeatedly. However, if you are based in Petaluma, or based in any location other than a huge city, I’m sure,  SpotACop won’t spot-a-cop, and all you’ll be left with is a useless app, that registers nothing, and that doesn’t allow you to look up another location. On an amusing side note, SpotACop gives you the option of changing your search radius from 1 to a, gee, whopping 5 miles, so you can search for nothing even further away. Until this app works out its quirks and develops a community user base, I don’t see it being useful at all. And, honestly, I don’t think many people would be inclined to use this app – I think most of us are inclined to fend for ourselves, and if someone else gets pulled over, then at least that someone isn’t us. This app should be renamed SpotAWhat? and include, in parentheses, For Repeat Offenders Only.

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This thought peppers my mind every morning, as I’m sure it does for most women, or hey, men too. Especially when you have one of those Carrie Bradshaw closets, brimming to bursting with stacks of shoes, a tree’s worth of hangars, and accessories galore, and not to mention the jam-packed pile of laundry in your once tidy bathroom, that quiet, secondary artery to your closet’s main supply. I developed a habit in college of laying out the clothes I would wear the next day, usually draped over the back of my desk chair, but I also developed this irksome habit of changing my mind in the morning, hitting the reset button, and switching out the polka dot top for a plaid shirt, and the black boots for puma sneakers. It was just convenient to pretend I was actually accomplishing some modicum of organization, in some bizarre cognitive trick like getting ready for a run, but then never actually taking one. But, at least I never kowtowed to that college standby, where pajamas and slippers masquerade as actual clothes, and the slumber of twilight slips unnoticed into the commons of daily life. Californians call this style casual or comfortable, but in all honestly, I just call it sloppy. It doesn’t take much planning, or effort, to be presentable.

Unless you’re naturally disposed to picking out outfits quickly in the morning, this app I stumbled upon, called Closet, may appeal to you. I’m pretty good at knowing what I want to wear, but I’ve definitely had my fair share of mornings where I stand stupidly in front of the closet, shifting my weight from side to side and sighing, having absolutely no idea what to wear and being absolutely convinced that, yes, everything is my closet is wretched, and thinking, “I HAVE NOTHING TO WEAR.” Here is where Closet comes into play. This iPhone app acts as a digital closet: it carefully organizes your every article of clothing into distinct categories, and allows you to piece together outfits, save them – once again, in distinct categories – and then schedule these outfits on a calendar system. It’s like having a mini personal assistant for your daily fashion crisis. Sure, there’s a good deal of manual effort that goes into Closet before it becomes a useful organizational tool, but trust me, the results are well worth it.

The app starts as a blank slate. A calendar is shown of the current month, with a tab along the bottom indicating Calendar (presently showing), Outfits, Items, Favorites and Tools, the second two of which you will be using anytime you add new material to your digital closet. Obviously, your closet is empty upon first using the app, so you must fill it – and I mean fill it, uploading every item in your wardrobe. I know, it’s an exhaustive effort, rooting through your entire closet, piece by piece, but the process has its perks. When sorting out my clothes, I found myself tossing clothes into a giveaway pile, to either sell or donate. Just by digitally organizing my clothes into the Clothes app, I was inadvertently organizing my own closet, de-cluttering it of items I no longer wear, or don’t wear nearly enough to justify keeping them, shoved in the dark bowels of a drawer. That alone is a reason to use this app, if you can summon the courage to roll up your sleeves and dive head first into the mothballs. Not that I have mothballs, mind you.

Uploading is easy. First, select a category of clothing – you are given a default list of Tops, Bottoms, Footwear, and Accessories – or create your own, then lay out an article of clothing and snap a picture, and save the item (don’t worry, the camera is conveniently a part of the app). At first, I thought the default categories were all I needed, but then I realized I needed more categories to effectively created layered outfits. I originally included jackets and coats in the Tops category, but when attempting to piece together an outfit, I realized Closet was registering only one Top, one Bottom, and one pair of shoes – in short, Closet was suggesting I wear my peacoat and jeans with nothing else. So, I created a few additional categories, like Outerwear, Vests, and Sweaters, which helped with the layering concept. If I really wanted to get ambitious, I could even include respective categories of Jewelry, Socks, and Lingerie if I really wanted to streamline my outfits (“Yes, today I’ll be wearing the matching pink polka dot bra set and the turquoise earrings with black argyle socks”).

After uploading all your articles of clothing, I recommend taking a break, but then the next line of duty is creating outfits for all kinds of occasions, to later schedule into your calendar. Once again, default categories are given – this time they are Casual, Formal, and Work – but feel free to create your own categories, as well. Go dancing with your friends every weekend? Maybe a “Clubbing” category would suit you. Avid golfer? Then, fair chap, make a section on Golfing outfits. Just go wild with those categories, it’ll make your life easier. Creating outfits is where Closet starts getting fun. First, select a category, then tap the plus sign in the upper right – Closet will prompt you with using either the Item Grid or the Manual option, but please, use the grid, because not only is it way cooler, it’s way easier. With the Grid selection, a grid will appear, with all your categories in rows stacked atop one another, starting with Tops, followed by Bottoms, Footwear, Accessories, and then whatever other personalized categories you created. You’ll notice the items on the far left are highlighted, with all other pieces to the right darkened – the highlighted article of clothing indicates this is the active article, the one that will be a part of the outfit you create. There will be times when you won’t want a certain category in your outfit – for example, I don’t think I want to wear any hats or headbands with my dress, so I simply scroll to the left where a blank X appears, indicating nothing for that category. In earlier versions, this was a clumsy thing to perform, as you had to sort through every item in order to blank it out – it was very inefficient for an otherwise impeccable app. Thankfully, Closet’s creator realized this, and for the app’s current version (the one I’m using), the highlighted outfit portions are blanked out by default – the logical solution, and the way it should have been to begin with.

Now, you can manually enter in clothing to create outfits if that suits you better, but the great thing about the grid system is it allows you to visualize the outfit as you create it. It reminds me of those silly, children’s storybooks where the pages are divided in three so that you may flip each page individually at your leisure, switching creature’s heads and legs and thereby creating entirely new creatures. With the Item Grid, I can switch my bottoms to see which pairs nicely with my blue and white silk striped blouse – as it turns out, I would never have thought to pair it with my light, redwood mini skirt, but seeing how nicely they looked on the app, I had to give it a go. The result? Success, and it’s now one of my favorite outfits on Closet (with boots and thigh high socks, no less). I add this one to my calendar fairly often, but if I ever want Closet to take more initiative, I can simply tap the Random button, and an outfit will be created randomly for me – one I can either reject, or accept, and add to my calendar. Or, Closet will take it up a notch for added efficiency, and allow you to switch out just a top or a bottom, etc, in an otherwise saved outfit. This is a particularly awesome feature.

As with any behavior, it takes concerted effort to make Closet a good habit – you have to faithfully input all your clothing, and then uphold your decision to use Clothes by adding any new clothing you purchase. After the initial sorting, though, Closet is a breeze to use, and I’ve found it does streamline my wardrobe decisions – there’s nothing like creating outfits you love and then committing to wearing them on specific days. Variety may be the spice of life, but that doesn’t mean you have to ponder endlessly, trying on different cloths before you throw up your hands in defeat and just throw something on. The only time you’d have to sever your ties with Closet if an unexpected downpour or snowdrift occurs, in which case you might have to switch to another pair of shoes and add an umbrella, or maybe on one of those accursed “fat” days many a woman has, in which case the body-skimming dress may be rejected in favor of the thicker tweed dress you own. It might even be useful for moms when planning their kids outfits – but then again, young toddlers don’t mind wearing ridiculous, mismatched items, and older kids prefer taking the initiative in what they wear, eccentric and mismatched, or not.

I certainly didn’t add all my clothing the first time around, but I fancy I will.

Parking lets you forget the memorization game by keeping track of the street rules for you – however, it is only with the current version that the text alerts have become effective. In prior versions, the Parking App had to be left often, or else you had to re-open it near the time of an alert in order for you to be reminded (thereby completely defeating the purpose of a text alert). Frankly, the push notification used in the latest version should have been included in the first version, but oh well, at least they finally got around to doing it – I suppose cgCraft didn’t mind all those low ratings and reduced purchases for something so simple as not using effective text message alerts. The latest version, too, is more streamlined and modern to behold. cgCraft did away with the bland, boring, white background that seems the blank slate or virginal birthright of every productivity app in the iTunes Universe, and updated to a sleek, bluish-grey motif, with a darkly lit parking timer, and the hints of a shadowy cityscape at the screen’s bottom. A vast improvement, to be sure.

Using the app is very straightforward. A timer at the top mimes the face of a parking meter – all you have to do is adjust the time (30 minutes, say?), and select the recommended option of including an early warning alert, from 5 or 10 minutes prior to longer than that. You can use the app simply for Parking means, if you desire, though I can claim it’s just as easy to track 30 minutes on your watch or cell phone – setting the stock alarm on your iPhone may be easier, if not as snazzy. The real intent of the Parking App is for you to input the various rules and times and alerts for street cleaning, no parking times, etc, so that you’re not a jumbled mess attempting to remember all these. Take my friend, for example: all the streets within a 2-block radius of where she resides have their own rules. With Parking, all she has to do is label a street name (even pinpoint it on the map for later use if she saves her car’s location there), then choose times for the restrictions, the alert times (one or two hours prior may be handy for most working professionals who need adequate time to move their car), and the amount of occurrences (daily, only on wednesdays, every first week of the month, every first and third week, and so on). She could add every street in her neighborhood if she wanted, so when she parked, she could simply pinpoint her car’s location on the map, save the location, and then select, say, Frederick Street at Cole, which has street cleaning on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 8 in the morning. After syncing the information with Google Calendar (you must do this), my friend would receive reminders from Parking to move her car. The location hint is pretty unnecessary, I think, unless your memory is so poor you just need that photo of your car by that unmistakable stretch of sidewalk – besides, you can save your GPS location, so why take a picture? And, another quirk is if you decide to enter the map feature, you have to exit the app and reopen Parking – very, very annoying.

But, really, with the latest update, Parking is quick, efficient, and a friend to every city-dweller.