How It's Changed

…And welcome back, I hope you enjoyed that brief commercial smell sensation, didn't that smell delicious? We are happy to be back, beaming directly into your cerebral cortex dnd do we have an exciting uplink for you today. In this segment we are going to delve into the world of ancient technological change. You see, back in homo sapiens sapien period, what they might call the late 20^th century, life was a bit “backwards” for our standards. Imagine a world where you had to use a handheld device to communicate with friends and family?!? And communication with their domesticated pets wasn’t even fathomable for them…haven’t times changed? Now let us examine some of the technology these early humans used in their daily lives…feel free to virtually manipulate these objects to really give you a feel for the clumsiness of their archaic lives. Just don’t do it while transporting as this may cause a fluctuation in your brainwaves resulting in distortion upon re-apparition. We do not want to see any transportation fatalities because of our distractive content. W8 & Concentr8

(cue cheesy 'musac' and warming voice-over)

Here we see one of the devices that “revolutionized” communication…if they only knew, right? They called this a Cellular Telephone, after a previous form, yet similar technology of wired communication. The “Cell Phone” as it became to be known as allowed humans to walk around freely in public whilst continuously communicating directly with an unknown individual on the other end…often times making said individual look like a huge douche-bag to anyone overhearing their very annoying and irrelevant conversations.

Next, let us mentally navigate to this rather large, cubed device, popular amongst these early humans for entertainment and distraction. They called it the “television,” and it operated in a most rudimentary way. The front panel of this cube would emit a patter of colors creating a two-dimensional image of dramatized tele-plays that this “civilization” would then watch for enjoyment. Yes, only two-dimensions! Imagine how much we are amused at only five dimensions, our ten must not have even been found in their futuristic fictional ‘tele-plays’…it is hard to fathom what life must have been like for these depraved souls. Our two-legged ancestors would sit for star-rotations on end, watching semi-humorous, vaguely scripted situational comedies, dramas, or athletic competitions to escape from their mundane, labor intensive sun-rotations.

Now, can you imagine leaving your domicile, and your means of travel is a four-wheeled vehicle that used naturally created, but limited supplied, combustible liquid which propelled gears to create acceleration? If they only knew, right? Maybe hundreds of thousands of these early humans could have lived instead of perishing in the final great war and this, mankind, could have survived the last great technological feat that ultimately lead to their doom…

the “gaming console.” Records show that the first and widely popular gaming device, one that allowed for interchangeable games, was known as the Atari. Later advances found better visual graphics and more comprehensive game play. In addition, any advancement resulted in the increase in average weight, laziness, and academic failure rates which we all know led to the eventual extinction of this once proud race of beings. It truly is an amazement how these gaming consoles, in conjunction with their two-dimensional displaying devices completely engrossed pre-adolescent, adolescent, and ultimately post-adolescent humans in interactive game-play, using such themes as war, auto-racing, mythical warriors, sports, and ironically, futuristic, post-apocalyptic hell-scapes.

How fortunate are we to live in a modern time of collective consciousness, a free existence, and a reality that is devoid of any need of a virtual state. Now be well my fellow siblings and remember to never forget the foibles of our ancestors, least we dare not repeat them.

Generation Gap

I’m calling this my old man rant. I’m far from old, but I am beginning to see the gap between myself and next generation. I have reached a point in my life that I am now twice the age of many graduating seniors. And now that I work in an environment surrounded by the aforementioned youths, I am finding some alarming trends. Yet, I’ve been pondering this one for a while…see, I started back in 2008 when I was attempting to get back into writing (this does not bode well for this to be a continuous venture, if history says anything about my dedication to the medium of writing). So bare with me as I take you back to my first attempt and try to pick it up 4 ½ years later, although much of it still applies…

I know, I know, it has been a while…a long while. Hey, it’s me, you know me. I haven’t changed much, same venue - different room. I’ve been thinking lately, that’s what abnormal amounts of quiet will do to you (that’s why you need to turn the music up loud kids). I’ve got a lot of things on my mind and I needed to reach in there and scoop it out like ice cream - I’ll let you add your own toppings

I figured all my ramblings couldn’t be encapsulated into a single, all-encompassing blog, but I think I might have come up with a theme, it might be a stretch, hang in there with me, hope you are flexible.

So here we are, still in the 0’s but almost out into those fun teen years,’08 to be more precise (at least I hope to be done with thing before the end of the year). Life and technology are moving faster than anyone can keep up with (yes, even you). No amount of doping or HGH will help you keep pace. I have come to observe that even the separation of a few years can greatly characterize where we are in our social interactions. Using myself as an example, and I always assume that I am the norm, deal, I graduated high school in the mid-90’s, attended college thereafter. During that time, the interwebs was coming of age to the general public, beginning in the academic arena. I had access to Netscape, newsgroups, and the beginning of what we called the world wide web (the www for those of you who didn’t know why we have to type that in front of our web address). My major form of communication in college was e-mail (see here for more info). Upon graduation I got my first cell phone (still have the same # I was first issued amazingly enough) and used it sparingly to call friends and family (again, see above link).

…so its now 2012, see much of the above still does applies, sadly. And yes, I still have the same phone number…hit me up! (the end of that sentence just shows you how out of touch I am with the new breed of teenagers) Obviously I did not finish that train of thought at the time, thus is sat on the shelf, collecting dust, allowing time pass, allowing more technology to be invented, and widening the gap between past and present. With technology developing at such an exponential rate, a lot has changed in that time. But with any advances in technology, and far too often, societal changes are not considered for the sake of greater laziness. I’m this has been believed since our grandfathers’ grandfathers experienced life with electricity for the first time, “these elevators are going to make these kids all fat and lazy.” If they only knew how right they were. Thus the reason why I am calling this my old man rant. Now, picking up where my ’08 self left off…

‘12, not yet a teen but in that awkward stage of development when you start noticing “those changes”. I can’t even imagine what life must be like for the youth of today, and I interact with them on a daily basis. One thing is for sure, their cell phones are firmly implanted to their person. If desire is the aspiration of progress, then you’ll be seeing Bluetooth contacts with a heads-up displace of cell phone screens in the not too distant future. (helps that I have already implanted suggested that idea to my student) I crossed out implanted because in the future they are going to implant microchips into our brains so can remember things. Which is a good thing because I read some where that access to all these search engines, looking up information instantaneously, is causing our long term memories to shrink. Until that is accomplished there’s a chance that my students won’t remember my suggestion and we’ll remain left with young, distracted danger-mobiles on our American roads. Let’s hope we all make it out of our teen years.

Don’t get me wrong, many of these advances have provided our population with improved quality of life, longer lives, easier lives, allowing us to do other things with our lives. However, much to the detriment to society, some of these technological advances can create unintended side effects. And if you don’t see the rise in popularity of zombie-themed pop-culture productions as a metaphor for our mindless dependence on technology, then maybe you are one yourself. And that’s today’s word.

Hello, 2007, it's me, 2012.

I step out into the cold, turn up my collar to the brisk wind that swirls in this barren wasteland of modern life. It’s the year, 2012 anno domini – and in this futuristic landscape you’ll find images that would be unrecognizable to my younger eyes, things only a sci-fi film of 2007 could create with computer generated effects. As I look around with amazed bewilderment I see people staring at small, portable devices with screens that emanate bright colors and sounds, unable to tear themselves away long enough even to acknowledge the traffic that is also not acknowledging them as they walk across – what is now seen as a loose interpretation of an intersection (see, in the future, for most, laws are mere suggestions). Well, citizens of 2007, I write to you from the future, a time spiraling out of control toward a vast and powerful worm-hole of technology, greed, and divisiveness. Speaking of…

Politics

Hey, you remember all those movies that were set in “the future” and you knew that because the President of the U.S. was black (it is ok to say black now, as appose to African-American because most black people don’t want to be lumped in with actual African-American – immigrants from Africa. How futuristic is that?!?). Well, the future is here my friends…Barack Obama was elected as the first black president (well, half-black, but it’s a step in the right direction). He was also the first black president to get re-elected, not bad for first timer. And in those movies, the Presidents had to deal with some kind of natural apocalypse threatening to put major cities under water or in a snow-covered wasteland? Well, that almost happened (see “Superstorm Sandy”, even the name conjures up a Roland Emmerich / Jerry Bruckheimer -esque flicks) Some blame the destruction on NYC and NJ on their liberal debauchery and secular tendencies…I blame Snooki and “The Situation” for being, well, Snooki and “The Situation” - that and global warming, speaking of…

Technology

The aforementioned and often commented on cell phone addiction has exponentially worsened. As predicted by yours truly, cellular devices have replaced actually human interaction. Remember when your phones could only make voice calls and send text messages…well now you can ignore people in the virtual world as well, by using your phones to access the internet, check facebook (oh, that’s this site that’s like myspace but easier to use, and now is kind of unpopular amongst the kids because more people are using it…even your parents), oh, and twitter. Speaking of…are we supposed to be interested in what Kathy Griffin thinks of Dancing with the Voice Stars X-Factor? Apparently people do because they’ll emerge themselves in the digital glow of pixels while enjoying a meal in a romantic restaurant with their significant others, who are also emerged in the ambient glow of LED illumination. Speaking of…

Pop Culture 

You know those annoying reality TV shows that dilute your cable TV menu…well, imagine them on steroids…yeah, Lance Armstrong style. The Voice, X-Factor, Dancing with the Stars: All-stars, Undercover Boss, Kitchen Nightmares, American Pickers, Coast Guard: Miami, America’s Next Top Baby’s Daddy: Most Wanted Alimony Avoider Edition. I mean, reality shows that are on channels that have nothing to do with the content of the reality show. Pawn Stars on History Channel? Oh, and the so-called stars of these shows somehow make more money than firefighters, police officers, teachers, factory workers, military personnel…combined (ok, that might be an exaggeration). Of course, if we didn’t watch them, they wouldn’t be on. I blame you 2007, if we had just stopped watching American Idol after they discovered the only 5 talented singers in the country not already discovered, then we would have never gone down this shit-slide of muddled mediocrity.  Speaking of…

This blog

So those blog posts you added in that ancient and archaic year of 2007, maybe you should have done some revising to fix all those grammatical errors, what are you, some kind of uneducated 2012 high school student? Get with the program. Now, if you could give me some advice on how to find that great age of innocence, to remember what makes something humorous, and to find the time to update this thing more than once every 5 years.

2007, my memories of you are fading to an unrecognizable blur of faces and events, like ripples in a pond of time. Your bright optimism and sundrenched world have been replaced with dim pessimism and cloud covered days….wait, 2012 isn’t all that bad. It’s actually pretty awesome. Bet you wish you had access to iPads, self-parking cars, and holograms (ok, that one isn’t here yet, but we’re closer to it than you 2007, ha!) So stay tuned 2007, cause 2013 is just around the corner (if we are all still here – I’m looking at you, Mayans). Get ready for some not-so-humorous, often ridiculous, and definitely erroneous dribble coming to a sundrenched world near you.

Not So Deep Thoughts III

- No offense to anyone in Gaza, but death by drowning in a sewage flood might be one of the worst ways to die. Not that any way is really all that good.
- I think I’m going to start walking around pretending to talk on my cell phone so that it looks like I’m popular…or at least mildly important.
- Are people really getting that bad at geography and becoming that lazy that we need cars to tell us where to go now? This is just the first step in the complete take over of the world by The Machines. Terminator? Matrix anyone? Those are just possible future documentaries.
- Would it be inappropriate and/or morbid to send an e-vite for your own funeral?
- I wonder what percentage of the world really gives a crap what happens to you.
- Anticipation is the best and worst feeling ever
- It is hard to hold your head up when you have no reason to
- “One day I’m going to grow wings – a chemical reaction.” Some days I wish Radiohead songs would come true.
- How many ways can you come up with to distract you mind from thoughts you don’t want to be thinking? (still not enough)
- Some things just can’t be avoided, like all the forces in the universe are tag teaming against you – and they are all on steroids.
- Boots in the summer? Times keep on achangin’.
- What’s the Russian word for “idiot” because I am sure it is exactly what I need to hear and probably sounds much more ruthless, scary, and appropriate than “idiot”
- Why does everything sound more creep when it is said by a monotone computer voice reading text.
- Anything made in the ‘70s just seems funny to me now: horror movies, TV shows, clothes….me. Fortunately they didn’t have hi-def TV or recording equipment…your children are going to hate you about 20 years from now.
- Anyone else worried that the girl in the Will Farrell landlord video is going to grow up to be just like Lindsey Lohan?
- Everyone is so impatient…most of you probably didn’t even make it to this thought (note to self, never embed links to funny videos on youtube, readers will never come back)
- Why do kids make everything seem so much more humorous?
- I’m sorry for everything I have done wrong to anyone I know.

Can't Make a Sound

Why I hate my job and other things that put me in the mood to listen to Elliott Smith. In a vain attempt to make myself the new dooce.com, sans the humorous literary commentary and edgy, put-it-all-on-the-table openness, let me just try relay to you the absurdity of my job. I am sure many of you can relate unless you work from home and never, ever, have to deal with stupid people. Right. So, now please join me in a collective scream at the top of your lungs to put you in the appropriate mood for the following diatribe on the fake plastic cubical life. Now let me preempt this by mentioning that I work at a technology helpdesk and I am happy to have a job that allows me to do many things other corporate type jobs do not allow, like access the internet [although that is kind of essential for this job], use a cell phone if need be, listen to music, and have flexible hours. But the pay is crappy so I guess it all works out. At least I have a job, albeit temporarily, but this is more a commentary for people who are stuck in jobs they would rather not be in…which I know is actually a smaller fraction than many people would believe. See, in America we have the fortunate opportunity to seek other employment if we are unhappy with our current one, given the right skill set and desire. I just happen to be in one of those transitional periods where I am trying to acquire the necessary skill set to move on to something I prefer better than this current situation…which is just about any other job.

Any given day begins with the blaring, earlier-than-the-Devil-wakes-up ungodly hour alarm that varies between pitch black and blinding sunlight throughout the course of the four seasons on Earth.

Step 1: Sleep walk to the shower while avoiding serious toe stubbing or forehead rapping, always a craps shoot on hot water availability, and stare blankly at the man you have become in the mirror wondering where the years went and why evolution hasn’t stopped your beard from growing so that you don’t have to shave at least once a week.

Step 2: Clothes. Inevitably whatever you wear will not be appropriate for whatever occasion or weather that will have to be faced that day. “I swear the weather said it would be sunny and 85 today.” And as you attempt to run in between the downpour raindrops to your car, you remember you have a meeting with the boss’ boss’ boss today: performance review. You know, the one after the one you got the comments about dressing more appropriately for work. And on that day you thought it was “wear your favorite character’s costume from Pirates of the Caribbean day” at work.

Step 3: The commute. For whatever reason, no matter what time you head to work, EVERYONE in your city/town is also heading to work at that time, and all of them are late for work. No matter how fast you drive, it is never fast enough so cars weave around you like you are one of those cones on the stunt driving courses you see in the car commercials because the late employee commuter is exactly the target market they envisioned when engineering that car.

Step 4: Find a parking spot. This may not pertain to everyone but anyone who works in a city or for a large university knows what I’m talking about. That fun musical chairs game like they have in that new VW, Kia, or Volvo commercial, except involving more fender-benders – not a very safe game to play kids. Don’t try it at home. Or your other option is to pay what amounts to higher rent to park your car than to live in your first apartment…and still have to walk a half mile to your desk.

Step 5: Get to your desk. Imagine it is the Middle Ages and you have been stripped naked, forced to run a gauntlet of whips and spits, mud and crud, and chains and rains. Except in the modern office it is each and every co-worker making a comment about getting caught in the rain, or something about the weather, or “how was your weekend?”, “Its Friday!” or “I can’t wait until the weekend, the week is going by sooooo slow”, that ridiculous minutiae that excels in wasting that precious life minutes at a time. It regurgitates that vomit you had been repressing since that Friday night binge you went on just to forget all that tedious bullshit in the first place.

Step 6: Start it up. Oh, flashbacks to corporate retreats and team building exercises to the Rolling Stones…the head’s still pounding, like a bad brain freeze. OK, now go through your mental checklist: caffeine – check, writing utensils – check, paper – check, phone login – check, deafening volume emitting headphones – check. Now, if the stars align just right, the planets make a straight line from the sun outward, and comet dust is sprinkled just in the right places then your computer will turn on, have internet connection, and the e-mail servers will be actually delivering messages.

Step 7: Work? Probably the high point of the day comes just before you start doing actual work, for a few short, brief minutes you check your personal e-mail, catch up on the late sports results, check your fantasy sports squads, get updates on world and local news events, and read those daily comics. Then it is all down hill from there - for the entire rest of your work day. And by the end, you finish lower than when you started, kind of like the stock market during a recession.

Step 8: Work. Don’t get too excited now. I know you are in your 8’ x 8’ cubicle surrounded by people who might actually want to do less work than you and the only windows you get to look at are provided by Bill Gates and expand to a whopping 19” at best, but please hold the enthusiasm – serious work needs to be accomplished. Alright, time to start taking a few calls…forgot your password? OK, no problem. Why? How am I supposed to know why you forgot your password? Maybe you should take out that stupid rod that’s impaled through your skull. Yes, that very thick skull. There, now isn’t that better? Oh, watch out! Oh no, I think you might have just been stabbed by the idiot stick. Yes, you need to use a number in your new password, see, exactly how it tells you there in the instructions on the screen in front of you. Thank you for call, look forward to talking to you in about 5 minutes when you forget what you set it to. Bu bye.

Step 9: Avoid work. Now is the time you seek out any and all possible avenues to avoid doing actual work. Use the bathroom, take a smoke break (even if you don’t smoke), walk around with papers in your hand and look really frustrated like you are trying to accomplish something really important or looking for someone to help you, this will send any and all running in the opposite direction. Check work e-mail even if you have read it all already, gives you a good excuse not to be answering phone calls. One hour later, answer another call just to keep a good appearance. Hello. Your computer’s not working you say? OK, what seems to be the problem? It is not working, hmm. You tried turning the monitor on and off? That’s good, that probably should have worked, yeah, definitely, good work. Now how about we actually try restarting the computer. Yes, that box looking thing on the floor. Yeah, it sure does take a while to load. What can be done to fix it? Besides removing the 18 IM applications that all load at start up? Yes, I understand, you gots to stay in touch with your peeps. Yeah. No, you probably should be trying to open that application while the computer is still booting, most likely why it takes even longer to open it. Oh, it is working now? Yeah, pretty amazing. Yes, it must be because you called the helpdesk, haha, never heard that one before, it always seems to work when you are talking to us, yes. Murphy’s law, yep, uhmm, yep. OK, bu bye.

Step 10: Lunch. Yes, that’s right, it is only lunch time.

Speaking of which, time for me to take a break. I should finish this on Monday and post the rest then. Appropriately on a Monday. You might see a different mood in that post, should be fun.

Happy Slapping

So the French are considering a law to stop what they call “happy slapping.” It prohibits the filming and posting on the internet videos of real, actual violence, such as fights and police brutality. This type of law is worrisome for a few different reasons. First, France is not China, and China shouldn’t even be like China, so this type of move totalitarian effort by a governing body needn’t be taken lightly. I do not condone the use of violence and certainly frown upon the posting of it on the internet for humiliating purposes, but what it does is protects the rights of citizens and provides useful evidence for the public to make personal and informed judgments. Secondly, where does it end? If the government looks to control the information citizens see, hear, or can even talk about, then that’s like putting the car in reverse while going 65 on I-95. I’ve never tried it but I know we all have considered throwing that gear shift to that red ‘R’ while sitting in the passenger seat of our friend’s ’82 VW Rabbit and I can’t imagine it would be good for the transmission. It is the age old question of who is going to police the police. James Madison felt very strongly about a system of checks and balances and it should be citizens’ right to expose brutality by police or even other citizens in an effort to curtail unnecessary violence in the future. If the government can watch us with cameras, wire taps, and/or surveillance, then we should be able to do the same in the public realm. Lastly, restricting the posting of such videos on the un-policed internet is just another segment of the ongoing debate on internet regulation. As grey as an un-selectable link, the internet has become a virtual community without law or governance, but with all the dangers. Where do we draw the line between freedom/privacy and control/safety? By the time regulations are place by states or the national government, technology has changed and moved on.

Memory

What is it about us that make us forget things so quickly? Are our short term memories being slowly bombarded with so much information so quickly that it is imploding on itself so that anything we just thought about is instantly washed away with the next wave of useless knowledge? Maybe it is just me. I find myself forgetting things mere moments after I think of them. This is why I must do things when I think of them. It doesn’t help that I am all about the procrastination.

What is worse is when you remember that you were supposed to do something. It always comes at the least convenient time, like, say when you are heading to work and you get like 7 blocks from your house/apt., too far to turn back, but close enough to feel guilty about not doing it. At least if you were to remember when you reach your destination you could say, “well, there’s nothing I can do about it now.” Or you remember at 1am, just fell asleep after watching one of those really bad movies on TBS or the USA network that you are not sure why you stayed up to watch it in the first place but had to watch the end because, hey, you watched this much already and you need to see how the guy with the prop knife and patch-stitched ski mask gets impaled with a nail gun that stuck him to the tree that is about to go through an automated wood-chipper that is conveniently located in a dark, in-the-middle-of-nowhere factory that the brunette just happened to run too after her boyfriend got it in the gut. And suddenly she’s all Xena the Warrior Princess and drop kicks the “scary” bad buy just in time so she could reach that nail gun.

Now, where was I? Oh right, memory, or lack there off. So yeah, you remember this thing at 1am and bam, you are awake for another 2 hours because it happens to be an important thing but like I said before, you can’t do anything about it now, but come the morning, you best not forget. So you stay up telling yourself not to forget to do that in the morning. Come morning, you are so tired and four hours of sleep separated you from what you had to remember, next thing you know, you are 7 blocks from your house/apt.

The weird things is, I can remember just about every hole on every golf course I have ever played, but tell me you have a tee time on such and such golf course and it takes me an hour to remember which one that is. I remember faces, I remember names, but faces with the names together, forget about it, no chance. I could see someone everyday for 2 years, not see them for about a month, then see them and blank, nothing. Ever find yourself in this position? So frustrating. A little tip I picked up from my Pop, go through the alphabet, thinking of names that start with those letters and usually it will hit you.

I remember being in my PSYC101 class several years ago (didn’t do to well in that class, shocking, I know) but we did one activity to explain why phone numbers are usually only 7 digits long. Apparently most humans can only remember a sequence of up to 7 digits and it significantly drops off after 10. Or try that game where you start a sentence and pass it down a line and see what you have by the end. If that is not proof that short term memory is about as big as (geek alert) the RAM on a 286 DOS based computer system. Actually, to continue that thread, people are a lot like computer systems, but maybe I will leave that for another time. Maybe someone can explain to me why I do better on the first game of Memory then any subsequent games? You know ‘Memory’, that game with the cards that you flip over and they have pictures or shapes or symbols on them. Back in the day they were actually cardboard cards, now all you have to do is click on the screen, isn’t technology wonderful?

Alright, I’ve forgotten everything else I was going to say about this topic so I will have to leave it for another time. Now go do whatever it is you are thinking about right at this moment, before you forget.

Bore-dumb

Boredom.

It recently occurred to me one reason why I do this thing that I do: boredom. I find myself going stir-crazy after 2 minutes of non-stimulation. I need sensory overload. I need flashing lights in all the colors of the world changing at the speed of…well, light. I need noises so abundant that my entire body vibrates with the voracity of a jet fighter flying at mach 2. I need my eyes spinning, jittering, bouncing 80 times a second that one day I will have to bob my head up and down like a bird just to see straight. Surround sound…how about surround vision? When’s that SV-TV going to be available to the consumer market? Imagine your TV viewing as if it were in an iMax theater…only with better quality and shows designed for that TV. They could incorporate the audience into the show…now that is interactive television.

What has fueled this onset of boredom in modern society? Efficiency, technology, sugar coated sugar dough? Mmm, donuts. Just take what we can do today in a fraction of the time it use to take the pre-computer age world:

-Filing taxes: No more writing onto forms, calculated dependents and deductions, rifling through receipts to see if you can write off the “spa treatment” you got on the business trip to Vegas.

-Video games: No more of that wasteful reading the rules for strat-o-matic baseball simulator (seriously? people still do this?), Risk, or Monopoly. Forget the wrist wrenching pain of dice rolling (you know, those little cube shaped things with dots signifying the numbers 1-6 on them? They’re still going with the dots aren’t they? These number things have been around for a while you know). Now we can use a controller to step up to the plate with our favorite steroid laden All-star and smack homers out of the authentic - computer generated - baseball stadiums. Who would have thought those days of Combat Games, Pitfall, or Baseball for the Atari 2600 would evolve into the sensory stimulating, virtual reality game-fest of today? Those old ‘board’ games could last for hours, now you can play 18 different video games in the same amount of time!

-Applying for…: Anything. Apply for school, apply for competitions, apply for authorization to buy supplies in mass quantities, “apply online now for your new low rate credit card”, no need to wait for that pesky post office mail to begin racking up massive debt.

-Break up: Uncomfortable with that time consuming and awkward “its not you, its me” speech every time you want to break up with that significant other? Well now do it online! E-mail, hire someone to do it for you, put in a classified add, post on your significant other’s website, IM the “Dear John” and consider yourself free and clear.

-Get your news: Wait for the morning paper? Why wait to read about that crazy Astronaut’s drive from Houston to Orlando? Get your info online, watch the pundits, talking heads, and her high school acquaintances psychoanalyze the situation from the comfort of your work desk. Although crazy Astronaut lady probably could have taken care of this all online, without having to drive non-stop along I-10 in diapers to meet the other woman at the airport….the AIRPORT, really? That one place in Orlando where the security personnel don’t look like Mickey Mouse and are probably more abundant than at the Magic Kingdom?

Just to name a few.

With all these technological advances, one wonders what did citizens in the pre-20th Century do in times of sheer, utter boredom. Sleep? Probably. Who has time for boredom when 18 hours of the day you are tilling the fields, pulling the weeds, harvesting the crops, grazing the livestock? Even when they got bored they didn’t do it right…next thing you know all the sheep are being attacked by a wolf and no one believes you.

So if you are still reading this, then that means you are really bored and I have done my part to help you through that. Now go find something productive to do…or find some other way to stimulate you senses with flashing colors, loud noises, and hair raising adrenaline. Then let me know what it is so I can beat back the boredom and monotony of work and everyday-ness.

Exposed

This recent and overwhelming call to blog has left me with quite a dilemma. As a few of my closest confidants warned me of the dangers of putting yourself out there on the internet, you know, expressing an opinion. Particularly for someone who will be entering a career in the public sector, and as important as the one I have chosen. Yes, you guessed it…Miss America. Oh, now that would be a funny post. (Speaking of which, Miss USA Tara Conner will be on Larry King Live this evening at 9pm)

See, here I had planned on writing a witty repartee on the pageant and male competitors but I feel that I must censor myself, thus not be funny, thus return to the true, underlying topic at hand: Internet and the public sphere. Miss America, or Teen Miss America, you know, the one the Donald let off the hook with a slap on the wrist. Well, I would like to think that Donald Trump is aware of the changing and modernizing of American culture. Kids, young adults, and even recent college graduates have been exposed to the internet since they could walk and talk, some even before. Computers and the internet are revolutionizing the world in ways that we can’t even predict. Just the other day, I was having lunch at a decent eatery in the area. The popularity of said eatery required close proximity to other patrons. Conversations were inevitably overheard (ironically like posting on the internet) and a group of recent college graduates were seated next to us. One of the young women exasperated on about a situation she recently had. The long short of it is, she used a phrase so common nowadays that it should be place along side the annals of such verbs as googled, or, well… blogged. She ‘myspaced’ a recently encountered individual and found some unwanted information involving a fiancé, yada, yada, yada. Other warnings have crossed my path recently from professors and relatives and here I pass it on to you dear readers / fellow bloggers. Anything – ANYTHING – you post on the internet, no matter how secure or believed private sites, can resurface in the future. Information, media, pictures, all can be downloaded, copied, stored, re-posted halfway across the globe.

Picture this, you are a 9 year old kid, you Dad tells you to do something cool while he is pointing his phone/digital video recorder at you. So you start gyrating and breaking off some funky funk moves in your kitchen…next thing you know little kids in Taipei are gathering around a laptop watching you go all weeble-wobble like. Eight years later you are randomly on vacation in New York City, walking with your lady and you see yourself on the big screen in Time Square and she breaks down in hysterical laughter. Then they turn it into a Cisco commercial…not cool.

Moral of the story my children…lock yourself in the deepest, darkest, devoid of all light and technology dungeon, with only books, musical instruments (no recording devices), and Tom Hanks movies until everyone is low-jacked and walking around in one-piece silver jump suits.

Communi-can't

Well, the world has spun around one rotation to bring us to another day…and another blog.

So since I decided to start this blog a whopping 2 days ago, I have notice myself saying the phrase, “I should blog about this” way too often. Apparently there are a lot of topics that can be blogged about. Because no one in the right mind would actually talk aloud about half the crap they would write about into cyberspace. So here we are, another day, another topic not worth talking about to another human being…

Funny thing was, I was going to write about procrastination, but I’m going to procrastinate on that and write about a topic that just popped into my head…communication. More specifically - the lack of face to face communication in the modern society. I like to consider myself an amateur sociologist since that was my undergraduate major, and since you can’t do anything with that as a major except consider yourself an amateur sociologist, I believe is enough right to expostulate on social communication and the effects of modern technology on social interaction…Sure, why not. So let’s delve, yes let us. So head down to your local College/University in between classes and you will find a disproportionate number of students surgically attached to cell phones and/or iPod devices. I should preface with the fact that I am not here to ridicule those individuals that communicate non-verbally or enjoy listening to music, that would be hypocritical of me, I am merely making observation and hopefully make it humorous. OK, back to the cell phone babies…now I have had the pleasure of working with computers back to Windows 3.1, and I insisted my first computer have a modem so that I could call my friend (who was and still is much more advanced than me in computer wherewithal). So without any ISP I was on my way to peer-to-peer modem dial-up connectivity. Granted back then (early ’92-ish to be specific) computer-to-computer communication was limited, very limited, and I never really got into BBSs because they were like fraternities, you had to know the admin, have something to offer in return, just be granted access to their bulletin boards. Then came the World Wide Web and newsgroups, easily interfaced by using this program called an internet browser: Netscape. Then college = “high speed” internet connection, Pine e-mail, and, wait for it...wait for it, Windows 95! (what a revolution). Pine e-mail was a very basic DOS and Unix based application that allowed users to read messages. Well, the program, as far as I can remember, made you log in each time you wanted to read new message…well, I probably checked that e-mail account about 18 times a minute while in my dorm room first year. That deep blue background would laminate the dark room in a wave of blue colored tinted bliss…until I realized I never had any new mail. About 6% (arbitrary #) of the population used e-mail in ’95 (I found that 29% of households in ’95 accessed the internet, so I’m sort of close). And today? Well, let just say if our University e-mail system goes down for about 5 minutes we’ve got the entire academic, medical, and administrative community calling us for ETAs and how dare we ruin their lives by causing the servers to crash like we did it on purpose. Which brings me back to my observation which I will begin with an anecdote of one such user…

So this woman calls all panicky about not being able to send out e-mails for this important blah, blah, blah. So I tell her that the e-mail servers are acting slow and message sent out may take some time to reach their destinations. And she’s all like, “But I’m just trying send them down the all and around the corner.” As if your distance from the recipient is in direct relation to the time it takes to receive of the e-mail by said recipient. For the uninitiated, its not exactly. Yes, to some degree, but in this case, no. The point being…the recipient is down the hall and around the corner. Its not like she even had to pick up the phone! Just stand up, take 22 steps and see the person – IN PERSON. Alright, another thing you should know about me…I have some weird phobia about calling people on the phone, not talking to people on the phone, just calling. Not to this degree: Phone Phobia, but more like this: “Cold Call Phobia”, so I prefer to talk to people in person…or better yet, by e-mail. But if e-mail is down or unavailable…I prefer to go to the person/store than call. Don’t ask, I don’t know why. I’m sure my friend just think I don’t like them when I never call but that’s not the case. Place that in today’s ultra-cell phone/electronic society and that makes me antiquated. So that should give you some idea where this observation is coming from…but back to the topic at hand, which I have no idea what it is anymore…thanks for playing along.

Oh, right, non-personal communication. IM, text-messaging, E-mail, chat rooms, myspace…blogs (oh the irony) and other non-verbal communication are creating a whole new level of dangers that our younger generation faces with the added accessibility and connectivity to the larger world. Not to mention the distractions when driving, in classes, or walking alone…so what are we to do to protect society from falling into communication overload, attention deficit, and over exposure? That is a tough question to answer but it is certain that technology and teens (and younger) will always be one step ahead of regulation (see file sharing). Cell phones certain have their benefits: protection when walking alone (I know, I’m contradicting myself, but it can act as a deterrent and distraction from your surrounding), calling for emergencies or if lost, etc…we all know what they can do and how they have revolutionized our lives. Children of today will take it for granted and we will be the old geezers talking about the days before cell phones, phone tag, non-caller ID, rotary phones, and quarter pay phones…and actually remember people phone numbers by heart. And I am sure there are endless uses for cell phones that I am completely unaware of, but what will happen when we get to a point where we are talking to people by cell-phone, or atom-phone, or implant-a-phone, to a person right next to us. Or when we don’t recognized our own children when we run into them that one day we just so happen to be in our house at the same time.

On an unrelated note, I recently got a Bluetooth hands-free headset for my cell phone and it totally kicks ass. Now I can blog, chat, e-mail, drive, look pompous, talk on my cell phone, talk to other people, talk to myself without looking crazy, all with this fashionable earpiece dangling from one ear. I highly recommend them. Until tomorrow…unless I procrastinate some more.