Too bad one of them is not male . . . I would name that one Chip for the teacup from Beauty and the Beast.
Sophia says Lilly and Bay?
Thank you Monica . . . just when I thought I had some time, they sent my brother back to the hospital yesterday, so several hours in the ER again. His platelets were low . . . Today I had to move all of his stuff (he tends to "move in" wherever they put him, and with him buying Christmas gifts, it was even worse!
Ian, since I could not post a quote from the old thread-
I chastise the young guys on my team all the time. They claim I use "big words."
I accused them of using "Newspeak" as in 1984. Apparently NONE of them ever read 1984.
I told them that the concept behind Newspeak and Big Brother was that we use language to express our thoughts. With Newspeak, the concept was, if you limit vocabulary, you hamper the ability to express complex ideas.
The larger the vocabulary, the better able we are to express complexity and subtle differences.
One if my guys is a musician an I asked him to imagine composing but only being able to use 2 notes, with no variance. You can compose music, but not as complex as you can with a full freight of notes and color.
I think that texting, email and IM are dangerous in their ways. One of my remote testers would send me emails using texting abbreviations.
I asked her if her Intranet provider charged her for emails by the number of characters. It drove me crazy.
My guys have said that all the young people do it, to which I responded, "If all the young people jump off the roof, do you have to as well?"
I mean I was young too, and much wilder than any of my guys are.
It's sort of strange if I compare generations, their world electronically is larger but physically their world is much much much smaller than it was in my day. I mean, their physical worlds seem really miniscule. Almost like they're trapped by their cell phones into tiny little spaces.
Their curiosity about things seems much more limited. Plus there's also an almost willful ignorance.
They also seem to shock incredibly easily, which surprises me the most.
I must be turning into an old git.
An interesting description that I got from someone else . . . today's young adults are "digital natives", and try as we might, our generation is composed of "digital immigrants". Although, many of us here I would think of as the first digital "explorers". I agree with much of what you said, but think of this example . . .
Last week, our son went to a Brown's game with a friend from High School, who is going to college at USC. She IM'd him, and asked him if he wanted to go with her. They have kept in touch over the three years since they graduated because of the ease of digital communication.
Think about what used to happen with our generation. My friends who went far away to school, I almost totally lost touch with. You would have to either write a letter, or heaven forbid call LONG DISTANCE to talk to them - and the communication might be brief, or with tremendous gaps of experience. Digital communication has allowed a closeness and keeping in touch that we could have only dreamed of. I am still not in touch with such friends.
These boards are also a good way to see how things have changed for the better and allowed new connections.
From another "old git"
We had planned just one night in this area, but we have fallen in love with the Sonoran Desert and will stay another day so we get to see Jackie tomorrow evening.
I had a boyfriend once and the family would spell C O O K I E S and they would go crazy 
