Monday, January 12, 2009

Conversation with elderly man in cafe

Old Man: "How do you like your computer?"
Cos: "I hate it, haha"
"Yeah? I love my mac book air"
~"I like the machine, I just don't like what it does to me, you know?"
"Yeah! I had this problem with my printer, I have a kodak printer and i installed the 10.2.5 update and the thing no longer runs with it!"
~"Yeah... they're fragile"
"I gave two computers to my grandsons for christmas, and when they came to visit i didn't see them for a whole weekend, haha"
~*nod* "haha"
"They just played on the computers! They love it!"
~"Well that's the problem I'm talking about, I hate these things" *pats laptop*
"Well yeah I carried my macbook air over here and it didn't feel like it weighed a thing!"
~"yeap"
*walking away* "and my grandsons said to me, 'grandpa for an old geezer you're the coolest!'"
~"hahaha!"

Cool.

The greatest generation handing out laptops like lead-painted toys to so many blind nintoddlers. Maybe if grandpa played WoW with them and limited it to a few hours... I'd be less cynical. Hey grandpa: Who plays a board game for an entire weekend? Why can't anyone moderate themselves with these things?

But he doesn't know any better, he can't. In his day they fought a real enemy and played with very real death penalties.

Now we fight digital Nazis just to feel ______.

I'm concerned about the lack of guidance being offered from our tribal elders regarding digital technology. Tell the kids to turn it off...

Why can't I?

-Cos