Bleary eyed, early AM pointless crap…

They are back to tearing up our street after a two week layoff…hence the doorbell at 6AM to ask if I owned any of the cars on the street.

No, but thanks for asking.

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Staring at some tech news site this AM, I see a headline that startles me: “11 Cool New Apes For The iPhone.”

Needless to say, it was actually “Apps.” But I like the first one better. Imagine, for instance, the iGibbon.

Now, that would be cool.

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Speaking of the iPhone…a few years ago, I got rid of the Blackberry I had for work pretty quickly, as even then I was becoming disenchanted with the idea of constant, permanent connection to the electronic ether. I’m even more disenchanted with it now, so I don’t think I’ll be picking one of these up anytime soon, no matter how cool it might be.

In general, I like having discrete items for discrete purposes. I like having a cell phone that is a cell phone and does nothing but cell phone stuff. I like using my Palm Pilot for PDA stuff, and my laptop for laptop stuff.

I especially like the idea of turning any and all of them off and ignoring them a lot of the time. I don’t know when we all started thinking that we all have a duty to be instantly available and totally connected to everyone and everything all the time, but I think it’s bad for us — especially as the majority of these devices now come with trackable GPS features. I don’t want people — especially governmental agencies — to be able to find me at all times, and anything I can do to stymie that, I do. I know it’s mostly futile, but I do it anyway on principle.

Not to mention that there’s an inherent narcissism in a lot of the culture that has grown up around it…like Twitter, which really ought to be called “Lookitme! Lookitme! Lookitme!!!” I tried it, decided it was silly, and haven’t tried it again. Most of what I think during the day seems pretty pointless anyway; why keep track of it?

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This has been your morning grouch…tune back in later for more. For now, I’m out.