Monday, 4 May 2009

If you like it then you shoulda stuck a pin on it

I love technology. I just hate it when it doesn’t do what it says on the can. Or rather, when I can’t get it to do what it can, and should, do. I have been trying to find my inner geek since He-who-must-be-adored gave me a super-dooper-all-singing-and-dancing-thingy-ma-jig of a small shiny thang. It may, in fact, have been a peace offering from He after another one of our little discussions where I was right and He was not. Whatever! I love it. I want to kiss it. I want to marry it. Only, it didn't start off too well:

Me: Take it back
He: why?
Me: because it’s broken
He: how?
Me: there’s no-where for the Sim to go

…later after returning the damn thang to the shop …

He: there's a leaflet in the box
Me: really?
He: there's a pin in it
Me: What?
He: See this leaflet, on the back, there’s a pin, you should have stuck a pin on it!

First hurdle overcome fairly painlessly. Second hurdle - feeling too old for new technology - more tricky. Trickier still was the realisation that my thumbs are fat. Fat thumbs and small shiny i-phones do not go. I feel really sorry for those with fat thumbs and no Teenager. How are they supposed to cope? My lovely Teenager mastered the thang in a nano-second, downloaded all sorts of Apps (applications for you non-geeks) and ever so patiently gave me a lesson, without treating me like the complete old fool I feel I have become. Now I just don’t know how I lived without it.

Ok so I have never put up a shelf in my entire life (I have six brothers for god’s sake why would I?). But now I can tell the shelf-hangers whether their handiwork is level using my handy i-spirit level. I can feel my inner foreman coming to the fore. After criticising his handiwork I could use the i-stethoscope to tell He-who-must-be-adored that shouting at me is raising his pulse above healthy levels.

At the tip of my little fat thumbs, I have instant access to the world, and his wife. So, should the fancy take me I could find out where to buy oysters, get directions there with a traffic and weather update and check out the jam cams en route. Ok so I could have done that before with the yellow pages, a map, the radio, and my computer, but that’s not the point. I can carry my diary and shopping list in my hand so I know instantly where I should be and what I need. Even if I am not where I am suppose to be, I can apologise, by text or email, instantly. I can enjoy a game of hangman or tictac. I can play my mini-piano and drums (‘play’ perhaps is the wrong word for the noise I make). I’ve downloaded a compass app, but can’t find north yet, but Oh how I love that thang.

I pass my time dreaming of apps I might enjoy. Then I wonder if they do exist could I get them to work? If they don’t would anyone want them anyway? So instead of chatting to myself about how to handle the latest emotional turmoil heaped upon me by the dustbin lids or He-who-must-be-adored my headspace goes something like this: A 'lazyreader' could review new books so I don’t have to bother reading them. Mmmn that’s what reviewers do. And I like reading books. Ok, so what about 'The Screwdriver' that could tell me the tools and ‘bits and bobs’ needed for any given job. Mmm I’d rather ring a man who can ie He-who-must-be-adored. I can do i-shopping, banking and social networking, but I really am holding out for the app that will choose a menu, get the ingredients delivered, hire someone to cook it and clean up afterwards. Mmm the high street is already full of those – Restaurants I think they’re called!”

Small wonder no brain space for blogging!

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