12B -The Michigan Daily -Weekend, etc. Magazine - Thursday, March 30, 2000 0 0 WEBWATCH^ Scan The Michigan Daily - Weeken Berg's Wonderland' sees sanity through t By Toyin Akinmusuru Weekend Etc., Editor The number of people shopping online has increased dramatically in the past two years, at a rate that could account to 25 percent of all consumer purchases by 2003, according to Forrester Research. Most people view shopping in stores and shopping online as separate realms of consumer behavior. Some compa- nies, like Borders and Charles Schwab, have been working on integrating their regualar businesses and Websites in an effort to make online and offline shop- ping as seamless and possible. A promising technology might allow these two spheres to merge in a whole new way. Yesterday, PlanetRx.com started offering ScanCart shopping, a system that allows their users to quickly reorder items before their home supplies run out. The systems is dependent on a handheld scanner the user purchases, that reads the UPC symbols of the need- ed health or beauty products. At a price of S159, the scanner is currently too expensivehassle for most regular online shoppers. As production increases, the price is likely to drop, making the sys- tem economically viable for the majori- ty of shoppers. A different tack on the same idea is heing used by FastFrog.com, an Atlanta- based Website. At participating malls, shoppers can check out handheld scan- ners to use while shopping. Shoppers can then scan in the UPC symbols of desired items for later upload to FastFrog.com. On the Website, they cane compile lists of their wants - which can then be sent as wishlists via email for their friends and family to purchase online - purchases on which FastFrog earns a commisson. FastFrog officials expect that the scanners to take the place of a registry for shoppers using the ser- vice. The implementations bring in to mind another possible way of using such a scanner. It could be soon possible to go Meijer and scan in all the products you want into a personal scanner. At home, uploading the codes to a system like that on Priceline.com, one could get lower prices online and still pick up the prod- uct in the regular store. Both FastFrog.com and PlanetRx.com use scanners from the same company, Symbol Technologies. Other companies Courtesy of Symool Tec-noogies The FastFrog scanner allows shoppers to select products for their online wishlists. are working on similar products, some for than just commerce. Xenote Inc., a similar company, is developing a key- chain size device that will allow users to bookmark people and places, in addition to items. Barring major technological prob- lems in the deploying of these devices, you might soon be just as likely to see someone shopping with a scanner as with a credit card. By Jennifer Fogel Daily Arts Writer ABC's new hour-long drama "Wonderland" is not "ER" br "Chicago Hope." It is like no other hospital drama that has been televised before. This is "ER" on acid. "Wonderland" takes hold of your mind, plays with it a little, then returns it completely mystified. Let's start from the beginning. When asked to describe what a chief of foren- sic psychiatry (the psychiatric study of criminology) at Rivervue Psychiatric Hospital does, Dr. Robert Banger (Ted Levine) explains, "We secretly call it the Barbarians' Gate. When the pressures of modern society become too great for a person. When one's chemical dynamic becomes such that they are unbalanced ... they cease painting in the lines, they come to us." The doctors at Rivervue ark the gatekeepers that guard the "normal" world from the mentally ill. But we soon come to learn that these doctors can't protect themselves from their patients or the world at large. The premiere episode begins with a glimpse into a group therapy session. The scene is basically a metaphor for the entire premise of the show. One simple question or action can lead to unexpect- ed events, including all hell breaking loose. But where's the doctor? The doc- tor just sits there, powerless to do any- thing, as his group begins to fall apart all around him. "Wonderland's" doctors are not about the power to control life and death, but the power to learn that you cannot control everything. Underscored by the percussion of "The Little Drummer Boy," "Wonderland" cuts to the morning rou- tines of the Rivervue doctors. Dr. Banger explores the minds of his two young sons as he makes them Mickey Mouse pan- cakes while worrying that he will per- manently lose custody of them to his ex- wife. We meet Dr. Abe Matthews (Billy Burke), a commitment-phobic womaniz- er who will flirt with anything mobile. He takes the audience along on one of his therapy sessions, where he describes sex as a "brain hijacking" and fears any- thing commitment-related including the Dr. Lila Garrity (Michelle Forbes of "Homicide"), head of the Comprehensive Psychiatric E m e r g e n c y Program (the CPEP, in other words, takes walk-ins and emergency psych patients). These four doctors are on their way to another appropri- "double-team answering machine mes- sage." Next, we're introduced to Dr. Neil Harrison (Martin Donovan), another forensic specialist, and his pregnant wife a Wonderland Grade: 3+ ABC Tonight at 10 p.m. the lack of anything like it before. Peter Berg, who played a doctor himself in "Chicago Hope" and was the brains behind the film "Very Bad Things," cre- ated "Wonderland." He and the writers spent months at a New York hospital researching and working with psychia- trists and ER physicians. The storylines are inspired by real-life experiences of the staff and patients. But what really grips the viewer is the way "Wonderland" is shot - almost as if it t were a serial documentary. Each week we learn more about the inner workings of the doctors than their patients, which makes the show more appealing. "Wonderland" also gives us a glimpse into the world of the "Shadow People;' Ted Levine, most famous fi those who are thrown into the mental help them. These doctor health system with no regard, save from impossible job, trying some who make it their life's work to selves sane, let alone ately crazy day. For starters, Wendell Rickle shoots five people in the middle of Times Square because the gods told him to. (He has a little trouble distinguishing himself from Odysseus, or for that matter, Odysseus from Zeus.) Along with his victims, Wendell is admitted to Rivervue in the midst of a media frenzy. There is no doubt that Wendell is guilty, but is he insane? Unfortunately, that question is not asked right away because it turns out four days earlier, Dr. Garrity had dis- missed Wendell as completely coherent and turned him loose from the hospital. Trying to make up for her error, Dr. Garrity ends up involved in an ER acci- dent that leaves her baby in critical con- dition and the medical review board waiting to press her on her diagnosis. Meanwhile, Dr. Matthews tries to evaluate a suicide patient. In order to make him understand the severity of his problem, Dr. Matthews tell the patient about the "science" the CPEP ward employs. This science explains the vary- ing degrees of suicide attempts, their outcomes and the resulting basis for treatment of suicide patients. Eventually, the man begins to understand his depres- sion, but not before he helps teach this commitment-shy doctor the joys of mar- riage. What makes this show exceptional is «-.. 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