Tuesday, September 02, 2008

new technology vs. old technology

The Sober Husband is deeply enamored of his iPhone. He announced sometime ago, with pride, that his iPhone has a new application providing all local movie information. The last time I sought to go to a film, he was deeply frustrated by not being able to get a signal so he could look up the times and theatres. I gave up on his iPhone attempts to get the 411 and instead used my laptop.

Yesterday I wanted to take the children to see "Wall-E", long after the rest of North America's children had seen it. I marked the newspaper up in the morning, after completing my daily Sudoku, and informed everyone of my intention to attend one of the evening showings. In the afternoon, the Sober Husband and I were doing yardwork in our minuscule garden when the question came up as to when we should retrieve Lucy from her friend's house in order to get to the movie.

"Please let me use the iPhone," said the Sober Husband emotionally. "What good is it if I can't use it for these things?" I went on raking and weeding while he fussed with the iPhone for an inordinate amount of time. Eventually he admitted defeat, saying the application was down. I went inside, picked up the marked-up newspaper, and read the moview showtimes out loud.

7 comments:

Dave said...

Ahh..but you probably got ink on your fingers. Nasty newspapers.

Midlife Mama said...

Ain't technology grand? Why does it always seem to take longer to do something with "technology shortcuts"?! And for those tech idiots like myself....just getting through the manual for those clever gadgets to access said information takes forever so that by the time you have clever gadget mastered there is a new cleverer gadget available with more "bells and whistles"...It's accompanied by a newer larger manual and there are times when bigger IS NOT better...

Unknown said...

My geek is similar in his need to use gadgets for easy tasks.

This is my first time commenting. I stumbled across your blog recently and have done nothing for the last several days but read the archives. Bravo!

the Drunken Housewife said...

Welcome, ocd! I'm glad you found me.

Midlife Mama, I can't text on my current phone, idiot that I am. On my old, simpler, crappier phone, I could send text messages, but every time I try on my newer, fancier phone, I lose the message. I should sit down with the manual and master the skill, but on the other hand, there is a significant chance that I might lose or break the phone and just have to learn again on a newer phone.

Dave, I was just pondering the other day about inky fingers. The excellent "Runaways" comic serial had its characters go back in time, where one was disgusted by getting ink-stained fingers from a paper. When I was about 20, I had a pair of very cool newspaper reading gloves. The newer soy inks are very tidy.

hokgardner said...

My husband just got his iPhone, and its presence in our lives has pretty much ended my desire to have one. Is it too much to ask to get a phone that simply makes calls? Husband loves to sit next to me on the sofa to show off all the "cool" stuff his phone can do, but usually the ap he's trying to run doesn't work.

knittergran said...

I would love an iPhone, but have no need for all the extras it has. My old, boring phone works fine. Also, if I had one, I would call it "My Precioussss" and my laptop would get jealous.

Anonymous said...

Very hilarious! (I am oblivious to most new technology, but my neighbour did get an iTouch thingy that has MAPS on it. I do so love maps.)