Tag: cell phones

Young People Are Grim

girl-4378283_1920

For years, I’ve been trying to figure out why young people are so relentlessly grim.  And, I’m not just talking about millennials — the You-Can’t-Have-Any-Ice cream generation.  It’s their children as well, now called Generation Z, as if this is the end of the line for the human species.  These folks — pretty much anyone born after 1980 — spend their days acting like corporate accountants who’ve just had a root canal.  They could give lessons to Puritans, for God’s sake!  And (have you ever noticed?) they always laugh with their teeth clenched – kinda like a Terminator trying to smile.

And there’s no reason for it.  We live at the apex of human achievement.  There’s more good stuff now — and less bad stuff — than at any other time in history.  There should be dancing in the streets.  So, what’s the deal?  Simple: cell phones.  Most young people wander around with a stick up their ass because they know if they step out of line, somebody’s going to video record it, and 20 seconds later they’re going to look like total morons – across the entire planet!  Plus, the Internet never forgets.  Whatever they say or do today, may come back and haunt them, 10 years from now, when social standards change.  This is peer pressure to the Nth degree, and the only way to escape it is keep your head down.  Don’t give the cybermob an excuse to come after you.  In other words, bland is best.

When I was a kid, I did some stupid things. In my generation, we all did. It was part of growing up.  You learned, sometimes painfully, not to be a jackass.  However, there was no permanent record in those days.  My transgressions were shared, laughed at and admonished by a very small group – who (mostly) had my best interests at heart.  Now, time on, they’ve been forgotten, except on rare occasions when old friends get together and play Remember When.  I carry no brand for strangers to judge.

These days, young people don’t live with that luxury.  They’re all sitting under a cyber Sword of Damocles, one upload away from, at best, humiliation and at worst, disgrace and total ruin.  They not only have to fly right, right now; they have to see into the future and measure up, and that has got to be a full time job.  It’s no wonder they’re all trudging along as if somebody just shot their puppy.

It’s Summer – Live With It!

summer

It’s not even midsummer and I’m grouchy already.  One more 50 calibre motorcycle screaming through my tranquil afternoon and I swear I’m going to ….  Actually, I’m probably not going to do anything except grumble about it in the privacy of my own head.  That’s the problem with summer: ya can’t do anything about it.  And now that I’m on the subject, here are a few other things — ya just can’t do anything about.

The price of airline tickets is never the same as the one they advertise. — According to some recent TV ads, I can go from Vancouver to London and back for $799.00 — except I can’t.  I guarantee you, if I show up at the airline ticket counter with $800.00, I will NOT — I repeat, NOT — get a return ticket to London and a dollar change.  Why?  ‘Cause there’s the fuel surcharge, the airport fee, the sales tax. the departure gouge, the baggage scam, the seat selection swindle, the in-flight menu con job and, I’m sure, the You’re-A-Dumbass-Tourist tax is hiding in there somewhere.  The truth is, by the time the airlines get finished with all their extra charges, the price of your $799.00 ticket is so outrageous that the only thing you’ll be able to afford to do, once you get to London, is beg in the streets!

Fast food never looks like the picture. — Take a look at a photograph of the Burrito Supremo, and it’s huge: fat and round and bursting with meat, peppers and melting cheese.  You can practically smell the fried onions.  Buy it and what you get is this sorry, deflated tube of hamburger and diced veggie surprise, wrapped in an dingy grey tortilla.  Pick it up and it sags in the middle and starts oozing orange out the bottom.  (Cheese sweat?)

Nobody but Stephen Hawking can understand a contemporary telephone plan. — Like everybody on this planet, I have a mobile phone and like everybody on this planet, the person who sold it to me gave me 20 minutes of gibberish and 30 seconds to make up my mind about “Which plan is right” for me.  King Solomon had more time to make a decision, and he had information he could understand.

And there’s more:

Emails that keep on giving, even though you’ve unsubscribed — daily — for the last two weeks.
The parent in front of you at the ATM who’s trying to teach their 4-year-old how to electronically renegotiate a mortgage.
The pedestrian who’s halfway across the street and can’t figure out whether to walk, run or hide from oncoming traffic.
Coffee drinkers who abandon their empty cups wherever and whenever the whim takes them.
Joggers and cyclists who insist on traveling side-by-side and driving anyone coming the other way into the weeds to get around them.  “Yeah, you’re healthier than I am.  Big wow!”
Wine snobs.
Trump haters who refuse to change the subject — even though you’ve told them 12 times that you’ve already heard what an idiot the guy is.

And finally:

There’s going to be somebody out there who’s more than willing to point out that these are all First World Problems. — Yeah, I know, and I’m sure you’re a better person than I am — but I’m hot and sweaty and I’m not hurting anybody.  Besides, admit it or not, sometimes, it just feels good to bitch.

Phone Apps We Actually Need


telephoneApple Unveils 4-inch Phone

Sweet Jesus!  If you have any mercy in your soul, please save us from yet another piece of useless electronic crap.  How many different phones do we need?  Enough is enough already!  Look, it doesn’t matter whether the iPhone SuperGalaxy S9 is two millimetres shorter than the SuperGalaxy S iPhone 17 or not.  It’s the same damn phone!  It runs the same Apps, streams the same brain-chewing videos and posts the same stupid bathroom mirror selfie to Instagram.  Newsflash!  Size doesn’t matter: it’s the same technology!  It’s time the scientific community pulled their thumbs out of their collective orifices and developed some Phone Apps that we, the people, actually need.

For example:

We need a Phone App that automatically calculates the calories in the Double Mountain Chocolate Mocha-Mocha Cake-a-Thon we just ordered for lunch.  It needs to sound an alarm, flash, buzz and in the voice of our hottest ex-girlfriend shout, “Put the fork down, you fat bastard!  No wonder I left you!” over and over again — until we leave the restaurant.

Or an App that remembers how many drinks we’ve had and, somewhere in the middle of four, automatically telephones our mother, our sister, both our grandmothers, our boss, the Archbishop of Canterbury and Alcoholics Anonymous — not necessarily in that order.

Or perhaps an App that measures the ass groove we’re binge-watching into the sofa and automatically shuts down Netflix until either the groove or our asses lose a couple of centimetres.

Or maybe an App that can analyze the guest lists of dinner and cocktail parties, calculate the exact moment we’re going to be bored out of our minds, and automatically phone the police to report a kidnapping.

And finally, the very best for last:

What about a Fitbit bracelet that not only programs our daily “Fitness Goals” but monitors our progress and, when we don’t achieve them, activates a Taser that zaps the shit out of us until we do?

These are things the world needs — not more pixels on itty bitty screens.