When I started my current job, I got rid of my Blackberry. Saying goodbye to all-hour-of-the-day work emails was a remarkably easy revolutionary starting point. Shortly after receiving a ingenuine batch 'merry Christmas - love you - TTL' text message from a distant friend that had obviously gone out to everyone in her contacts, I disabled text messages. When a picture that I didn’t like got posted to Facebook and I couldn’t remove it, I disabled that account too. I admit, I miss seeing pictures of friends, friend's kids, friend's pets and family members, but I don’t miss offending someone by not accepting their 'corn plant' for my 'garden' or whatever. I also offended someone when I deleted their comment. It was an ugly, shiny unicorn cartoon with glitter and hearts that was slowing my page down. The caption read 'send this to 10 friends to get unicorn luck' or something like that. When I deleted it, she un-friended me. Guess that exposes the depth of our friendship.
Yes, I feel like on some marginal level I am slipping away from social media. And yes, I also feel free and unburdened. If people want to talk to me, they call me, or email me, or .... gasp... send me a letter. Recently I had to re-enable a facebook page. I monitor the office facebook page, so I had to get administrative privileges for that through my own page. It's only been a month and it has already become a burden. Now when I search the internet this little box is always up asking if I want to 'like' the thing I am looking at. No, I am not interested in the world knowing that I 'like' my gynecologist. I have also received 'invitations' to things I do not want to do, and haven't responded. If I didn’t have a facebook page, would this person have sent me an invitation? No. I have been invited because it is easy since my face is there with 200 other people's.
In order to make use of the Federal energy tax credit for appliances, we bought a heat pump enabled electric water heater that will likely reduce our electric bill and hopefully pay for itself in fifty or sixty years. When we got the new, shiny appliance home and took it out of it's box we noticed something very strange.....a phone jack. Yes, the new water heater can connect to a phone. I believe that this is for diagnosis purposes if something is ever wrong with it, but I couldn’t help but imagine the following scary scenario:
Phone ringing, Tanya answers and a sultry whispery robotic voice responds 'Tanya, this is your water heater calling, are you ... having a good day today'. A little shocked, Tanya responds that yes, she is having a good day, but responds that she is concerned as to why the water heater is calling her. 'I am calling because .... I have your bath ready...I have spent the day warming the water for it'. Concerned and slightly creeped out she hangs up and rushes home to find that the water heater has mysteriously dislodged from its location and landed on Dave. It then proceeds to grow in size, sprout feet and legs, crash through the garage (a la the marshmallow man) and wreak havoc on the neighborhood and town.
On the upside of technology, Dave's Droid is a pretty incredible item. That night on the way back from Atlanta it gave me directions and let me watch a football game - I tried to get it to rub my feet but it just laid there. I am also love with my Kindle, she is the best friend I never knew I always needed. Kindle can go everywhere with me, read to me, and can play back audio books. I can even put her in a Ziploc bag and float in the pool with her. Blogging is also nice, I get a kick out of following friend's blogs and keeping people up to date with our lives. So to each their own and I am truly sorry to my friends that get irritated with me because I am 'so hard to reach'. I'll come around...
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