Monday, March 23, 2009

Technologically Tragic

I write for an online magazine, check it out:
www.joiedevivremag.com

One of the other contributors wrote about her lack of flair for gadgets, ie. breaking anything that she touches.  I realized that I too, have huge issues with anything of technological value.

When I got my new phone, I practically had to beg them for the simplest model possible.  They were pushing the iPhone and the Blackberry on me, and I had to hold my ground for a phone with buttons and the ability to make and receive calls. Because that is all I can do.  My friend has an iPhone and the first time I had to borrow it, I held it in my palm and spoke into the speaker saying: "on".  She laughed at me, obviously.  How was I to know that it didn't have speech command?  Isn't the iPhone supposed to do everything?

The most gadgety thing I own is my iPod.  And even that is sometimes too difficult. I have the mini.  Wait, I actually don't know what I have.  It's pink and little.  And I just learned that it has a clock and an alarm on it which was the best discovery EVER.

The reason I don't really care to own anything that is terribly technological is not because I break them.  It is because I smash them.

Unlike my fellow contributor who must have some sort of chemical cell imbalance that throws out weird energy which in turn breaks anything with buttons, I purposely break gadgets.  Here is a secret about me:  I have a really really really bad temper.  Like really bad.

And only two things see it:  bad customer service reps at Rogers and technology that isn't working.  

I compare myself to the Hulk.  Not that I have ever seen it, but to my understanding, when he gets mad he slowly turns into this big, nasty monster.  That is me when my fax machine wouldn't work.  Slowly, this sensation crawled over my skin and I started to only see red.  Before I knew it, I was hitting the fax machine with tears streaming down my face.  Then I kicked it.  Then I threw it against the wall.  Needless to say, it never worked after that.

Same thing with our old family camcorder.  One day, it just stopped working. Instead of calmly trying to find the problem, it too ended up against my wall in smithereens.  Then I had to take it to the fixer man to get the tape out and pretend I had no idea why it was missing parts and had bits of paint stuck to it.

This has also happened to a television set, a VCR and recently, a DVD player.  

I blame my parents.  My temper is from my father and my solution of hitting things is from my mother. That sounds bad.  Let me clear this up:  my mother never hit me.  But when I called her to ask her about the camcorder her easy solution was to kick it and see if it helped.  She just didn't know that my kick was laden with temper.

My head also doesn't get concepts of technology sometimes.  Or the point.  PVR baffles me.  You can record and watch a show, but then you can rewind while the show is actually on?  Confused.  Why do I want the entire Shakespeare library on my phone?  Nice to have, but necessary?  And even things like Twitter.  I just DO NOT understand. Why the heck do we care about your status updates every two minutes?  I digress, I can't throw Twitter against the wall so it does not belong in this discussion.

Here's the thing:  when it comes to technology I am a toad.  I can't set up at IP address or a modem (that is not an apple one, those are great - you just plug into the wall!), if something doesn't work the moment I want it to the Hulk will appear and the poor item will be destroyed.  I wish I could by savvy, I really do.  But who cares really?  As long as I can write this story for you to read online then I must be doing something right?  Right?


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