Hugh Grant May Be Bad for Your Relationship

A new study came out that showed that people who watched romantic comedies were more likely to have unrealistic expectations about love and they were more likely to fail to communicate with their partner.

The university's Dr Bjarne Holmes said: "Marriage counsellors often see couples who believe that sex should always be perfect, and if someone is meant to be with you then they will know what you want without you needing to communicate it.

"We now have some emerging evidence that suggests popular media play a role in perpetuating these ideas in people's minds.

I think that when we're trying to figure out how to act, we take cues from other people. We pick up crazy habits from our parents and mannerisms from our friends. I think we also pick up cues on how to act from the movies we watch. Even though we know that movies aren't reality, our minds don't necessarily make that distinction. For instance, when you cry during a movie, it's because you've made an emotional connection with the character - even though that person isn't real!

Now is the implication that watching Rambo will make you want to go out and kill a lot of people? Taken to the extreme, it sounds absolutely fanciful. But I think it does reinforce violence for people who aspire to be violent - it gives them a role model.

In the same sort of way, people who are wistful of perfect love probably like romantic comedies more, and watching the movie probably gives them a model for what perfect love could be like, so they strive for it more.

It's the Data Plan, Stupid

I got the new BlackBerry Bold from work, and it's the first internet plan I've ever had on a phone. It's a lot of fun - I have my work email, personal email, gchat, blackberry messenger, Facebook, and Google maps all on there already.

I realized the future of cell phones is not in voice plans - it's the data plan. Once you can call people over the internet from a cell phone, who cares about how many minutes you have? Cell phone plans are going to be all about data usage.

For that to happen though, the cell phone companies will have to continue to upgrade their infrastructure to create more bandwidth. It's going to be really cool.