FRIDAY FROTH...

Despite my disappointment in the iPad, I'm a huge Apple fan and I am anxiously awaiting the release of the new iPhone OS 4 this summer.  (This will be Steve Jobs' chance to get the g [for genuflect] behind his name again in this blog.)  The new phone is promised to be more powerful and will be able to multitask.  There is a current limit of 180 apps that you can have on your phone but the new phone will be able to manage 2160 apps--amazing!  To get you started I thought I would introduce you to some favorites.  If you are already into apps, comment and let Qmuse know what your favorites are and why.

One of my favorites is Shazam--a great name and so fun.  If you hear a song you like or want to know more about it, just hold your phone up to a speaker and Shazam will tell you the name of the song you are hearing, who sings it, and more.  It will also connect you to iTunes to download the song.  You'll have to pay for the song download but the app is free.

Hungry?  Urbanspoon uses Wi-Fi to find you and then gives you restaurant recommendations in your area.  You can lock-in neighborhood, cuisine, or price and then shake your phone to find alternatives.  You can also get reviews and ratings and this app is also free.

 My Vacation will cost you $3.99 but it is worth it.  This application will help you plan your vacation, journal and then share your notes and pictures.  I want to go on vacation just to play with this app.

So many apps; so little time!

                                                             ************

And now for the HOUSTON WE HAVE A PROBLEM segment of FF...  Would you like to take a guess at the percentage of people that will be paying NO federal income tax this year?  The answer is 47 percent.  Yes, that means almost half of filers will pay nothing.  Most people that I queried guessed that the number would be in the in the 20 percent range.  It gets worse--of that 47 percent that pay no federal tax, 40 percent will actually get money back from the US Treasury.  Also interesting, the top 10 percent of earners pay 73 percent of taxes.  There are rumors that a VAT tax may be in America's near future.  It's controversial, especially now, because it's a consumer tax and it may slow consumption in an already slow economy.  Maybe, but I would be all for it if it replaced the income tax.  It makes no sense to me to penalize people for working and making money.

                                                            **************

If you are feeling down and want to wallow in your sadness then head to the nearest cinema and spend a couple of hours watching the recently released, The Greatest.  This film stars Pierce Brosnan, Susan Sarandon, and Carey Mulligan (An Education) and explores the different ways people grieve. There are no surprises in the ways that this families' grief is manifest, but there is a complication between the parents. The movie starts out strong--there is an especially good scene in the beginning of the movie of the family stuffed together in the backseat of a limo on their way home from a funeral.  The director keeps us in the car watching them for what seems like forever--it forces you to look at grief and feel just how uncomfortable it is.  There are some good moments throughout the movie, but it solves everything a little too fast and too tidy.  A good film if you need a good cry.

                                                       ***************

In my continuing effort to keep us all feeling good and looking great, I have to report that an article in the New York Times this week suggest that when it comes to weight lifting, more weight is better: "...when women performed various resistance exercises at different weights and repetitions (85 percent of their maximum ability for 8 reps, versus 45 percent for 15).  Subjects lifting more weight fewer times burned more energy and had a greater metabolic boost after exercise."  Two other studies support this finding and one specified that the women who used the heavier weights lost more "intra-abdominal" fat.  So, the bad news is that your gym workout needs to be harder.  The good news is that you'll be out of there sooner and headed for that latte with non-fat milk, because we all know you need some protein within 30 minutes of a workout to really benefit those muscles.