I love technology. However there is a part of me that would love to live off the grid. Self sufficient, no job to go too, have a little windmill or solar energy, no computers or phones, but who am I kidding? While I would have a hard time giving up the internet, I think I could do it. I could not however, give up cable. But I do wonder/worry sometimes that it is all just too much.
The other day my sister asked her son if he wanted to play with cards. Now understand I always have a deck of cards near me. I have three at my desk at work. A few in my backpack which goes to work with me. At least one deck on my nightstand. And when I look at my end table I see three decks, but I know there are a bunch more in the drawer. Remember my background is magic, I’ve learned a thing or two and while I don’t perform much I’m addicted to what magicians call card flourishes. And no, if you click on the link that is not me, I don’t have the time or patience to be that good. That aside, sad as it is to say, cards play a big role in my life.
So I found it a little worrisome when my sister said: “little boy, would you like to play with cards? go get my iphone” I do play solitaire on my ipod so it should not have been a shock to me. But I did start to wonder does the boy even know what a deck of cards is? Well of course he does. His grandparents own a magic shop. But how many kids don’t, or soon won’t. My sister found a hipsta app for the phone. I looked it up in the app store. It is a Lego application. Yes you can build things with lego on your iphone.
Today I got a call from my mother-in-law, she could not get online with her laptop. She could with her ipod. I know she could with her desktop because that actually has a cable. Later in the evening I was thinking about that call, my wife, myself and my mother-in-law each have three ways to access the internet and god forbid if one of those ways goes down, we are lost. Just the other day my wife asked me if I remember dial-up? Of course I remember dial up, heck I remember life before computers. Dial up was horrible, you turned on your computer went out had something to eat, got yourself a drink, used the bathroom, and if you were lucky when you got back to your computer, you were online. Then it would take a minute or two to actually get to a website. Yet it was amazing, fascinating the world was at our fingertips. Now if the site doesn’t come up before I finish clicking on it in my favourites I worry something is wrong with my connection. And I do find myself getting bored surfing the web, even though the world is literally at my fingertips.
I used to keep up with technology, I am confused by the 3G and 4G thing, more interesting, I don’t really care. Is it just me, or doesn anybody else find it sad that I have three ways to access the internet, four if you count the play station, I’ve a cell phone, a robotic vacuum cleaner, a robot lizard that is sensative to sounds and will patrol the house on his own, yet I’m still behind the times.