Looking forward to my hoverbike
I am a child of my age: I conduct a significant proportion of my life online and have seventy billion passwords guarding all facets of my official existence. I have conversations with my friends across the other side of the world by talking into my computer, I carry all my music around in a little white box.
However, I am not a particularly savvy nor up-to-date consumer of technology and am hopelessly behind in many ways. Far from this being a source of concern, I tend to enjoy it - my cluelessness often allows me to be delightfully surprised now and again when I discover a new wonder of the modern world.
I had just such an experience last night, in the supermarket, when I decided on a whim to test drive one of the new-fangled self-serve checkouts.
It was ever so fun! It’s harder than it looks, you know - an unacknowledged art form. Finding the barcode, holding it at just the right angle – my progress through my basket was slow and laboured. I enjoyed myself, however, and found it very satisfying indeed. I packed my shopping bag carefully and deliberately for optimum carryability, then swiped my own debit card and took my own receipt. It was great.
The only human contact I had throughout the entire process was with the security guard who was openly laughing at the expression of delight on my face. Apparently I was having too much fun.
Another recent example of my hopelessly slow self being startled with technology happened at a party. I was having a conversation with a boy which had reached that happy point where you realise that you might like to communicate again at some future date. No scribbled number on a scrap of paper at this party – oh no. He whipped a shiny silver PDA-thingy out of his pocket (and he wasn’t some banker-wanker type, either – just a techie nerd with an appreciation for fine gadgetry). He tapped my name and number onto the screen with a wee plastic pencil, then said “hold still” as he raised the silver pod up to my face. I stepped back, startled, as he took my photograph, then blinked in amazement as he busily tapped away at the screen again to complete my profile.
It was weird, but strangely delightful. It’s not that I am unfamiliar with camera phones, or number swapping. It was the sheer efficiency of the transaction that surprised me as I realised that such things will be the norm sooner rather than later.
They're not earth-shattering, these examples, but they were news to me. There is much that is excellent and remarkable about the times in which we live - and I'm not sure that I ever want to stop finding it enchanting.
There is a downside, of course to the fact that the future has apparently arrived: the boy never called. I can only assume that he consulted the deer-in-headlights photograph the next day and recoiled in horror. In such circumstances perhaps a scrap of paper would have worked better for me.
However, I am not a particularly savvy nor up-to-date consumer of technology and am hopelessly behind in many ways. Far from this being a source of concern, I tend to enjoy it - my cluelessness often allows me to be delightfully surprised now and again when I discover a new wonder of the modern world.
I had just such an experience last night, in the supermarket, when I decided on a whim to test drive one of the new-fangled self-serve checkouts.
It was ever so fun! It’s harder than it looks, you know - an unacknowledged art form. Finding the barcode, holding it at just the right angle – my progress through my basket was slow and laboured. I enjoyed myself, however, and found it very satisfying indeed. I packed my shopping bag carefully and deliberately for optimum carryability, then swiped my own debit card and took my own receipt. It was great.
The only human contact I had throughout the entire process was with the security guard who was openly laughing at the expression of delight on my face. Apparently I was having too much fun.
Another recent example of my hopelessly slow self being startled with technology happened at a party. I was having a conversation with a boy which had reached that happy point where you realise that you might like to communicate again at some future date. No scribbled number on a scrap of paper at this party – oh no. He whipped a shiny silver PDA-thingy out of his pocket (and he wasn’t some banker-wanker type, either – just a techie nerd with an appreciation for fine gadgetry). He tapped my name and number onto the screen with a wee plastic pencil, then said “hold still” as he raised the silver pod up to my face. I stepped back, startled, as he took my photograph, then blinked in amazement as he busily tapped away at the screen again to complete my profile.
It was weird, but strangely delightful. It’s not that I am unfamiliar with camera phones, or number swapping. It was the sheer efficiency of the transaction that surprised me as I realised that such things will be the norm sooner rather than later.
They're not earth-shattering, these examples, but they were news to me. There is much that is excellent and remarkable about the times in which we live - and I'm not sure that I ever want to stop finding it enchanting.
There is a downside, of course to the fact that the future has apparently arrived: the boy never called. I can only assume that he consulted the deer-in-headlights photograph the next day and recoiled in horror. In such circumstances perhaps a scrap of paper would have worked better for me.
posted by jLo at 6:09 PM
3 Comments:
Looks like the spam-bots have found your blog mate ...
And as for the tech nerd not calling, all I have to say is, a shiny PDA is clearly no replacement for the capacity to be sensible to one's incredible fortune at meeting the jLo (and you KNOW I don't use the the lightly).
I like that, i've you've got a penchant for exchanging numbers in a drunken condition, take a nice little photo so the next day you can double check that the person didn't look like the proffessor's assistant from a black & white horror film.
My phone just gets used for phoning and nothing else though. i feel so last century.
That should have been if you've, not "i've you've" which makes no sense.
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