HELP! MY BANDWIDTH IS SHRINKING!

Why Having Too Little means so Much is the title of a new book by Eldar Shafir (Globe 14 Sept). He informs us that we only have so much bandwidth available in our brains. Scarcity hijacks a lot of it, and that explains why poor people make poor decisions.  Scarcity of money takes up all of their bandwidth.  Shafir is critical of government agencies that offer welfare payments but impose a high cognitive load on the poor, such as making them fill out forms and adhere to office hours. You see, the distraction of poverty can cause subjects to drop about 13 IQ points in a matter of minutes, which makes filling out forms between 9 and 5 practically impossible.

Thanks for explaining that to me, Professor Shafir. Now I realize why I can’t get my IQ up. It’s the serious distraction of choosing a handbag, which imposes a high cognitive load on my brain. As Sarah Hampson explains in the Globe (14 Sept), a bag isn’t just a bag. It is the New Boyfriend this year. A Beau Bag is the ideal companion to tote around town, but he’s an expensive escort: $500 and up. Okay, maybe Sarah is joking, but due to a scarcity of handbags and boyfriends, my IQ has been dropping like a stone, and humour is becoming hard to discern. The handbag/boyfriend choice is highjacking a lot of my bandwidth.

Clearly I need to draw a line in the sand, like Obama with chemical weapons, but more effectively. He lost traction after Putin highjacked his bandwidth with a piece in the NY Times.

Why the hell would Putin want to publish anything in the NY Times? To get on the bandwidth of American voters of course, those poor sods who are already juggling mortgages worth more than their houses and are being told that Americans are nothing special. If that cognitive load isn’t a serious distraction and will make their IQs plummet, I don’t know what would be.

Well maybe the fact that Twitter is planning to put out an IPO. They already have 500 million registered customers. With a widely enforced 140 character limit, there’ll be a scarcity of words that will highjack the human bandwidth. This in turn will cause a drop in IQ at the rate of 13 points in a matter of minutes. That would add up to dropping 780 IQ points in a matter of hours and reaching zero IQ in a matter of – well, you calculate it. My bandwidth has just run out.

Riding the Trending Curve with Nigella Lawson

Sarah Hampson (Globe, July 9) sympathizes with celebrity chef Nigella Lawson, whose husband recently wrung her neck, but described the move as a playful tiff. This sort of thing is bad, Hampson says – for Nigella’s neck? For her marriage? No, for her brand.

OMG! I’ve missed out on another trend. Here I am, stuck with my dusty old personality, while other people have long converted theirs into a registered brand.  

OBVI, I need to update my personality to something that can pop up on your website, something recognizable that will make you say: There’s that F*** blogger again. Come to think of it -- would that be the right brand name for me: The F*** Blogger? Naw, too generic. F*** pops up in practically every teenage sentence.  

Mother F*** Blogger? I think I’ve missed the boat on that one. As a mother, I mean. I didn’t lean in enough.

I was stumped for a name until I read Nigella Lawson’s comment: I still go to the supermarket with no makeup on, like a bag lady. Thank you, Nigella. You’ve just branded me: the lady who goes to the supermarket with no makeup on. Look for my new masthead, people: THE BAGLADY Blogger. No, make that THE BGLDY Blogger.

That’s settled then. Whew. I’m back on top of the trending curve. But wait. Just reading a bulletin of the American Council on Exercise (ACE) which tells me that I must have a personal trainer. According to ACE, this involves finding a guy with whom you can connect, who has the right chemistry, whom you trust, who truly understands you. No wonder Nigella Lawson’s marriage ended in disaster. She probably looked for a husband when she should have been looking for a trainer!

To be honest with you, I’ve made the same mistake myself. So now I’m stuck with a dusty old husband instead of the must-have personal trainer. I immediately scoured the trending topics on the ACE web site, which contains such intriguing headings as The Little Black Dress Workout. No, it’s not what you wear during the workout. It’s what you are trying to fit in after the workout. The accompanying video looks strenuous. Maybe I’ll stick with the bag lady brand for now and skip the personal trainer, at the risk of falling off the trending curve and never landing a sponsorship deal with Lululemon.

But maybe anti-ads are the new trend. Or why would the Canadian embassy in Colombia offer this advice: We recommend looking for a trip that does not include a stop in Canada (Globe, 10 July).

OK: I recommend websites that do not include this blog.

Am I on top of the trending curve, or what?