March 13, 2009

• Geezers and Gadgets

  It’s no secret that I am looking forward to being a dirty old man. In my spare time, I practice old people catchphrases like, “hey you kids, get off my lawn” or “how about a nice egg?”. There are many reasons I dont worry as much about getting old, among them…

  1. Knowing my proclivity for risky activities, I will be shocked if i make it to old age
  2. Life has been pretty damn exciting thus far, cant wait to see what the future will bring
  3. Old people can get away with just about ANYTHING…seriously, the same peers/nurses/female health professionals who would give a disgusted snort at being told by a male coworker they look nice, will smile and shake their head at a slap on the rump by anyone over the age of 70…oh those incorrigible old people. I HAVE SEEN IT.

  However being old certainly has it’s downsides as well. Your body starts to fail you, your friends and family shuffle off this mortal coil, you have to take roughly 15 to 20 pills a day just to live normally. It’s not all fun and games. Technology is probably one of the areas where we will most quickly become obsolete…

  “Boy, why aren’t you following my Twitter? Don’t you want to know what your old Granddad is up to?”
  “Granddad, nobody uses Twitter anym -”
  “”Heh heh heh, did you get that video I linked to on your Facebook boy?”
  “Faceboo… oh, you mean that old ‘website’ thing you made me sign up for? You know I don’t really use that stuff Gran… oh JEEZ Granddad, 2girls1cup AGAIN? Seriously?”
  “Heh heh… no, keep watching boy! It’s not what you think. They’re gonna do something else in a minute!”
  “Granddad, I KNOW. EVERYBODY knows. Just… look, just stop with this stuff, okay?”

  “Help me out with this, son. Your old Dad’s a mite pissed at this website; I’m firing up the old Low Orbit Ion Cannon.”
  “Oh god, Dad, not again… For the millionth time, that doesn’t WORK anymore. We don’t even use TCP/IP anymore! All that old ‘internet’ stuff is just emulated on the Cloud!”
  “Yeah yeah yeah, you just help your old man and keep your ‘Cloud’ crap to yourself. Now why won’t it work? Do I need to install windows vista again?”
  “Oh, Dad… jeez. I give up.”

  “honeybunch help me out will you? I need to get this running and it says I’m out of space. I don’t know what that means, I’ve deleted everything off my hard drive and…”
  “Um, it’s talking about your cloud space Granddad. You have plenty of local storage, but the app needs more room in your… oh good lord, what’s with all these freaking cats?”
  “Those are LOLcats honey! Oh, I have some funny ones, let me show you…”
  “Um… yeah, I know they’re LOLcats Granddad. I just… ugh. You just… listen, just don’t save them to your cloudspace, save them to… oh, nevermind. Here, let me move those for you, ok… ok… all right, you can install your app now.”
  “Look at this one! It’s an anteater! ‘Fuck you, I’m an anteater!’ Ha ha ha ha. Sorry honey, the old man’s sense of humor is a little vulgar sometimes.”
  “GRANDDAD…”

  Maybe you won’t be that kind of old person. (Yes, you will.) But even if you aren’t (and really, you will be), they will be your peers. You will relate to them. You will understand them, and you will appreciate what they think is funny, and it will seem completely fucking normal.

  You don’t have to believe me… all you have to do is wait.

  • 11:43 am
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