It's a good thing I don't have children...

...because if my care with cell phones is any example...
 
Not good!
 
Maybe it's good kids aren't pocket-size portable! I'm always leaving the phone in the car, in the bathroom, in the pants that are in the washer...
 
My phone has spent many a night camped out in the driveway, or in the grass near the sidewalk because I've dropped it carrying items in from the car. I don't even use the phone! It's a prepaid anyway because I'm not into talking on a cellphone, so I don't want to pay a monthly fee just to have one that isn't being used. I could go my whole life not talking on a phone. It's just for emergencies and I seem to have my share of those. I doubt Einstein ever used a cellphone and look at all the shit he got done.
 
Been reading a book called, "The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet is Killing Our Culture" by Andrew Keen and so far I'm with him, which is odd because last year I wouldn't have agreed with him at all.
 
"But what these online stores don't have is the deeply knowledgeable buying choices depend upon the anonymous Amazon.com reviewer—a very poor substitute for "the bodily encounters" that Tower once offered."
 
And:
 
"When media companies flounder, employees and executives lose their jobs and shareholders lose their investments. But all the rest of us lose out, too, as the quality of programming is compromised."
 
But I can see it followed even further, to "Fight Club" as said by Tyler Durden: "Man, I see the strongest and smartest men who've ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off."
 
Do we really have better lives because we can email someone an obnoxious chain letter instead of handwriting a personal letter?
 
Do we really have better lives because we can text message our buddies using only our thumbs and without using vowels while we drive?
 
Do we really have better lives because we can add 1000 anonymous people and call them "Friends" on Facebook and Myspace so we won't feel lonely?
 
You know the answer and don't lie to yourself.

Posted via email from jerrylentz's posterous