Modern Times

Harlan went looking for a cell phone yesterday and ran into one of the main problems of this here technological age, it's impossible to buy something that just does what it's supposed to do. All she wanted to do was buy a phone-- a simple, basic cell phone that allows you to take make calls, answer calls, txt people, and take pictures of our cat-- in other words, you know, a phone. The problem is that nobody actually sells cell phones that just do the actual phone part anymore. They all come with music and web capabilities and the ability to send email and watch tv shows and shoot laser guided missiles. Naturally, this means that they're leaning towards the expensive which may or may not be the reason they no longer make phone phones anymore.

This is one of my big pet peeves about modern technology because as much as I love my baby-- the iPhone-- there's a huge list of things that exist primarily to serve one function yet they're loaded down with so much crap that they're almost impossible to do the one function that they're supposed to do. Like my arch-office-nemesis, the photo copier. The photo copier basically exists so people can make copies of something. Thus it's name. But they're loaded down with so much crap that it's often impossible to actually copy anything. Copy something, translate it into Aramaic and then blast it into outer space to try and reach Aramaic speaking aliens, sure. But to actually copy something....

It's the same problem I have whenever I want to buy sneakers. I just want plain old, plain old sneakers. Unfortunately, they don't sell just plain old sneakers anymore. There's "running shoes" and "soccer shoes" and "walking very fast shoes" as well as shoes that you can pump up and shoes that light up like cylons and shoes that are made to look like they've been signed by a famous sports athlete by a bunch of 14 year old kids in China, but no plain, normal sneakers.