Half Man – Half Machine

I’m inadvertently becoming a cyborg, and it’s not as cool as I thought it would be. I have too many useful gadgets, and they have fundamentally altered how I function.

For the longest time, I resisted getting a cell phone. I even wrote a blog entry about how much I hated them. Then Dad let me use one of his on our trip to Disney, and it turned out to be so damned handy. I managed to dredge up some remaining resistance, but when I started traveling more for work, I broke down and got a pre-paid phone. Of course, you end up spending as much money on one of those as you would to just go ahead and get a real service plan, so we went ahead and got a real service plan. Well, once you have all those capabilities, you’re wasting your money if you don’t use them, right? So I download new ringtones and agonize over my wallpapers, set up groups and voicemail options, and browse the accessories selections. I’m not sure I would know what to do with a plain old wall phone anymore. I find myself having slight panic attacks if I go somewhere without the cell phone, which is annoying. This thing we bought “only for emergencies” has successfully redefined “emergency” to “Can you get some milk on the way home?”. I’m obviously happy to get the milk, but I fear my cell phone is adversely affecting my ability to do advance planning.

Similarly, the media player on my computer lets me instantly choose whatever I want to hear out of hundreds of options. Whatever mood I’m in, I can augment it or change it with a click of the mouse. And if I have to travel, I have a portable player that can jack into my car’s system. Radio? Why suffer commercials or take the chance that they may play a song I don’t absolutely love? I sometimes enjoy the random factor, but I fear my media players are adversely affecting my spontaneity.

My DVD player lets me watch any movie I want, when I want. If the phone rings, or my kids need something, I just pause it. I never miss anything, can skip over the boring parts, and get all those cool extra features. It’s gotten to the point where I don’t enjoy going out to the actual theatre anymore. What if I have to pee? I’ll miss something. Establishing the backstory is taking too long. Can we skip to the explosions, already? I like the control, but I fear that my DVD player is adversely affecting my patience with the suspension of disbelief.

The computer sits in the middle of the den. This is partly a parental oversight thing, for when our eldest is using it, and it’s partly the fact that that’s the best place for the computer desk. Now, I am a trivia freak. Music, movies, TV shows, and other pop culture minutia occupy about 90% of my brain. I use probably 3% for social interaction, 2% for work-related stuff, and I’m guessing the remaining 5% handles autonomic functions like breathing and heartbeat, and keeps me from walking into closed doors or trying to put food in my ear. Consequently, if I can’t quite remember an actor’s name, or a song lyric, I go straight to the magic box. Where I would take the time to thoroughly memorize something in the past, I find that I don’t put as much effort into it anymore, because I know that I’ll be able to find it whenever I want to. I love the instant gratification, but I fear that my internet connection is adversely affecting my self-reliance.

My digital camera. It’s a good, solid, mid-range camera. I got one of the bigger cards with it, so we can take tons of pictures. (It’s ironic, because we don’t. It sends the family into apoplexy, because they’re many hours away, and would occasionally like to see pictures of the kids in between the holiday visits. Sorry, again, y’all.) We don’t have to worry about focus, cropping, lighting, positioning, framing, or any of those things that matter when you’re, you know, using a camera. Anyway, when we do take a picture, we get the image right there on the screen, and if by some miracle the picture is good, we can choose to save it. Yes, we keep it confined to the electrons on the card, never printing it out or e-mailing it, but that’s beside the point. I like knowing that every picture we’re hoarding is a “keeper”, but I fear that my digital camera is adversely affecting my sense of composition.

Speaking of pictures, I do love Photoshop. I get to play with it in the course of my job, so I’m always trying to expand my knowledge of it. The precise control it gives you is incredible, and in the hands of an expert, it can create scenes that cannot be distinguished from reality. I like to use it to put my friends into compromising tableaus. Probably not the most illustrious use for it, but it’s good for some easy laughs. I didn’t realize how deep I was into it until recently. I had gone outside to get some fresh air while I was mulling over a project, and I decided I didn’t like the color of the sky. I actually got annoyed that I didn’t have a slider switch to adjust the hue and contrast. It kind of frightened me, if you want to know the truth. I like being able to put my friends’ faces onto farm animals (don’t ask), but I fear that Photoshop is adversely affecting my comfort with my surroundings.

Well, that’s all I have for this post. I’ll put it up here on the internet, and save a copy to my flash drive in case my computer melts down. Then I’ll send a TXT message to some fans to let them know a new post is up. After that, I’ll do a quick ‘shop on one of our pictures and Bluetooth it to the cell phone so I can send it to the Family group. I may put that off until after I watch the latest Netflix delivery. We’ve had it here for a while, and we need to get it back so we can get the next one in.

I tell you, with all of these labor-saving devices, I don’t have time to just relax anymore.