For a guy going to college for a degree in information technology it's kind of embarrassing when I realize just how sadly behind I am. This is the point where I either claw, scratch and bite my way out of the horrifying seductive prowess of aged ignorance, or be forever doomed to shake my fist at "those damn kids and their new-fangled gadgets" from my front porch.
I also imagine myself wearing overalls and no shirt for some reason.
The overalls may or may not include a trap door.
So I got me a smart phone and started feverishly downloading apps and whatnot. I set up a thousand accounts, most of which I immediately forgot the passwords for and then spent the next several days wading through password resets. Now I've broken every security protocol and written them all down.
Now here I am, blogging to myself in the darkness of my man cave while the family is snoozing soundly upstairs. They're a good bunch, although the man of the house is kind of a nut bar. That would be me, coincidentally.
I grew up alongside all this technology, really I should be more familiar with it. I'm 32, I was in third grade when all the classrooms got Apple computers and we played 8-bit "Oregon Trail" on Thursdays and inevitably died of amoebic dysentery. Damn amoebic dysentery!
We played Atari... I saved up for a Sega Genesis when those came out, but by the time I got it my friends had beaten me so mercilessly, repeatedly and without remorse in Mortal Kombat that I became dead inside.
My folks had an old piece of excrement of a computer even given the time frame. I remember being amazed by a mouse, then being amazed by an optical mouse.... then a wireless optical mouse... and then at the actual mouse that had chewed through the wire.
It changed fast, and I didn't keep up very well. The catch-up game is tricky! I realized that I just need to dive in and do it instead of being intimidated by it. My phone can now do hundreds more things in the blink of an eye than every bit of technology in my childhood home could do in a week, with the notable exceptions of making toast and scrubbing grass stains out of my soccer jersey. That's cool!
It's a lousy cook but it can find restaurants that deliver, and that's just swell.
What's the moral of all this? Maybe that it's not better to have time to grow and adapt slowly. Maybe it's better to get smacked directly in the face with everything at once and either thrive or run screaming into the night with your hands flailing in the air.
We'll see.
TSN
- The Shadows Nose
2 comments:
Yay, I get the first post for the entire blog! I'm so awesome!
Anyway, I too resisted smart phones. The first time I really started to pay attention to them was when I saw the Black Berry, which looked cool, but their users all looked like crack-addicted chodes. So, not wanting to be a chode, I decided instead to own a regular cell phone, which I used simply as a phone (and not a super-fantastic, do-everything, text-really-fast portable computer that could also make phone calls if you were so inclined). Then came the iPhone, which also looked cool, but everyone had one and, well I can't just do what everyone else does. And to make matters worse, the iPhone was owned by Apple, which I despise as company because I get the impression that they really hate customers and only tolerate them because customers have money. (Side Note: Man I really hate that I hate Apple, because their products are usually very well engineered artifacts of awesomeness.) I didn't own a smart-phone until recently. I discovered two things: Smart phones are in fact awesome and being a chode isn't so bad.
So what's my point? First, I like your blog! Second, I really hate Apple. Finally, if I knew you as a kid, I too would probably kick your ass at Mortal Kombat (but I'm sure I'd feel bad about it)!
Hey! Love your blog, you're really good at this writing thing!
I've had a smart phone since they first started coming out, that's my thing, I have to have the newest and most impressive phone available. But I never figured them out. So they're basically really cool looking phones that can do everything but be comprehended by me. Maybe one day I'll join you in figuring it out...
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