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Thirsty For Technology – Or Maybe Drowning In It!

Where would we be without today’s technology? It’s a wonderful thing this digital age. Everything’s going digital. Without computers the world economy would collapse. There’d be no electricity, planes couldn’t fly straight, the whole world would come to a grinding halt.

There’d be no Twitter or Facebook. I’d have to get out of my chair to change the channel on the TV, and -oh, my God – no Amazon!

I just love technology. Years ago I had a DVD player. I’d go to the button and open the tray, place the disc thereon and press the button again to close it. While there, I’d turn on the TV and select the right channel, adjust the volume and brightness, before returning to my chair to watch the film.

Recently my wife and I purchased a Blu-ray player. It was expensive, but the very latest in modern technology. A few nights back we decided to watch a film. I had to get out of my chair to select the right disc. I knelt down on the floor and pressed the player’s on/off button, to be rewarded with the glow of a small green LED. Then I tried to open the tray, but it wouldn’t budge. Getting up off the floor, I went back to my chair, collected the remote and tried to open it with that. Nothing. The little green LED glowed balefully. I got up again, went back over to the player and tried again. Still nothing. In desperation, I pressed the ‘OFF’ button but the darned thing refused to shut down. That blasted little green LED just carried on glowing.

My wife, aware of her husband’s rapidly increasing pulse rate, suggested we just watch some TV for a while. OK, so I returned to my chair, and pressed the TV remote ‘On/Off’. The TV came on – and the Blu-ray player’s tray opened.

It’s a wonderful thing technology. Our Blu-ray player won’t open its tray unless the TV’s on because it obviously thinks to itself, “No point in opening up. They can’t view what I’d be playing because they’ve not turned on the TV. So I’ll just sit here and save my energy till they eventually realise and do something about it.”

Meanwhile I’ve made two trips from my chair to the player, twice knelt down on the floor and sworn bitterly under my breath, then had to make a third trip when the darned device finally decided to cooperate.

No doubt the next time I have to buy the latest Blu-ray player, technology will enable it to simply yell at me, “Turn on the TV first, dumb-cluck!”

Okay, so then I’ll be taking orders from my entertainment centre.

Remember maps? You know, those large sheets that enveloped you every time you tried to find the quickest route home. Then they invented map books. No more fighting yards of undisciplined, quick-to-rip, paper that insisted on turning into a tent before being flung in a crumpled heap on the back seat of the car. Map books made driving so much simpler – provided, that is, you could fathom where D42 on page 57 ended and C16 on page 65 began.

Then came the ‘Satellite Navigation System’.

“Turn right at the next junction!”

Now I’m taking orders from a digital women inside a screen in my car. But, what the hell! No more map tents or ‘D42’s on page 256’, just enter the destination and enjoy the ride. Well, most of the time. My wife named our digital woman, “Suri.” We’ve become quite attached to her. We’ve had lots of nice adventures with Suri. There was the fun time we got bogged down in mud when she took a ‘short-cut’ across a farmer’s field. Or, the twenty-five mile detour down those pretty country lanes to get to the airport, when it would have taken ten minutes on the motorway.

Then, of course, there’s the odd occasion – usually in the middle of a busy city at rush hour – when she decides to take a nap, puts up the shutters and retires, leaving a nice little note on the screen saying, “Recalculating,” over and over again. Once you’ve finally negotiated the ring roads, skimmed past the forty-ton truck, driven six times round the same roundabout, “I do think we’ve been past this supermarket before, dear!”, narrowly avoided flattening the old lady where they should never have put that zebra crossing, and escaped onto a recognisable motorway that you know will eventually take you within a mile of your home, she’ll wake-up again and chime, “In five hundred yards take the next exit on the right. Then turn left onto Dingle Brook Lane.”

“Perhaps we should buy another map book, dear?”

Technology? Where would we be without it?

2 Replies to “Thirsty For Technology – Or Maybe Drowning In It!”

  1. LOL! I enjoyed that!
    We have 6 remotes on the coffee table in front of the TV – I suppose we could get husband’s techie grandson to come combine them, but we think it’s good for the mental synapses or whatever to have to remember which does what and why.
    We prefer not to have GPS, a set of laminated state maps reside in the container in car’s door, on my side – me navigator ! Anyjazz says that, when on the road, a day on which we don’t get lost is a wasted day. 😉

  2. Twilight – I swear remotes are really technology’s answer to single-celled amoebas that reproduce through the night while we’re asleep. There always seem more on the coffee table in the morning.
    You’ll never get lost with a GPS, but you may have an exhilarating journey. Mine has a choice of ‘Fastest Route’ or ‘Most Economical’. Set to the former it’ll take you down country lanes, across farm fields, and hardly ever touch an interstate. Set it to the latter and it’ll take you down country lanes, across farm fields, and hardly ever touch an interstate.
    We keep a map book for emergencies!

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