Technology Fail

Nothing irks me more than technology. One promise of technology is that it makes lives easier, but is that really true? We quickly become dependant on technology and then we can't remember what life was like before cell phones, i-pads, laptops, etc. Life existed before the advent of the computer age, and if all computers stopped working tonight - life would still go on, and somehow we would survive.

Now I'm not advocating that we all get rid of technology and embrace our inner-Amish; on the contrary, I love technology and want to thoroughly embrace it. I, however, demand that everything works the way it is supposed to - when I need it to work. This demand, however, seems to be the problem.

For instance, I finally gave up on loading one of the video diaries from the road trip because it was taking at least a day to load the video. When the video was over 75% loaded, the computer would go into hibernation, severe the connection, and I would have to start all over again. Frankly, the thought of sitting at the computer trying to load the video again made me want to projectile vomit. I decided living my life was more important than uploading a video to YouTube. However, I quickly discovered my life is boring and devoid of meaning at the moment. Thanks technology fail.

This post, however, was inspired by Twitter. As you may have noticed, I'm attempting to incorporate Twitter into the blog. Hopefully this will be another way for you all to comment on the posts, and make it easier to share the blog with your friends. I made two Twitter profiles, one for me personally and one for the blog. Yet, Twitter has yet to let me upload my profile photos. I have triple-checked to make sure the photos are within the size parameters and double checked my Internet connection. Everything on my end is in working order, but for two days now - Twitter will not load my fricking pictures! Why can't something work the way it is supposed to? Shouldn't it just load my photos? And if it's not going to work, why can't someone fix the problem quickly? This is America damn it, aren't things supposed to work?

Also, I swear the technology is out to fuck with me.

During the road trip, we would often try to find hotels before we departed, so we would have a location to input into the GPS. Well, Cara and I needed a hotel in St. Louis, and we were in Sullivan, IL. As you may remember, we had stopped there to visit a friend. It isn't that far of a drive - a little more than 2 hours, but we wanted to have a hotel booked before we got on the road. We were using the free wifi at the theatre our friend works at on both my I-pad and my laptop. Patrons were starting to arrive, so we had to go outside on the sidewalk to use the Internet, (maybe 25 feet from where we were originally sitting) but both the I-pad and the computer kept dropping the signal. A signal that tons of people use every day - kept dropping us - as we attempted to find and book a hotel. What made it worse was that our friend was supposed to attend the premier of the play inside, so we were on a deadline and down to the wire.

There I was sitting outside, in the summer sun, on concrete, in a hurry, with two Internet capable devices, and neither of them working properly. Happy people were arriving, excited to see The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, while sweat was dripping from my brow as I hopelessly tried not to swear. I bottled my rage inward, and attempted to focus my efforts on using what little Internet connection I could hang onto. All I wanted to do, however, was shout profanity, punch pregnant woman, and tell old people to shut the Hell up. I was uncomfortable and irritated, happiness was not allowed.

We eventually did book a hotel, and I confided in Cara that I almost lost my shit while I was sitting there. She knew. Apparently I'm not that good at hiding how I feel. (Anyone surprised?) I hope I didn't scare the patrons, but someone needs to let that theatre know that it needs to beef up its Internet connection. Even though it sounds like a question, wifi should be a statement. And that statement should include stability, ease of use, and inner-peace. I think if the world had better Internet connections - everyone would be a lot less cranky - at least I would be.

I swear I'm the only one who has this problem. All I have to do is appear to be busy, and something will cease to work. This could be the plotter in my old office, my personaly printer, a scanner, free wifi, etc. Hell, even camera batteries will die immediately after I put them into my camera. And it's always when I need to use the technology as well. If I didn't need to use the scanner, it would magically scan something on its own, but when it's something I need quickly, it fucks with me.

This has happened since I was a child. My first printer died once while I was attempting to print a research paper. It printed my paper - in hexadecimal notation, and then printed instructions on how to fix the problem... in Spanish. Seeing as how no one in my household spoke Spanish - that was a fun day. Also, trying to explain to your teacher that you typed your paper in English, but your printer decided hexadecimal notation was a better format - is a tough sell. Luckily, after hours of deliberation, we unplugged the printer, plugged it back in, and magically my paper printed in English.

Another peeve of mine is the remote control on my mother's TV. I'd heard of super-sensitive remotes before, but I'd never before seen or heard of a dumb remote before. I can press buttons on it for hours, and it won't change the channel. Finally, I have to drag my lazy ass off of the couch (or sit up and lean ridiculously far off the couch) to get the sensor to read properly. It basically makes the concept of a remote a moot point. Remotes were designed to keep you from exercising while channel surfing, but with this remote I end up getting several crunches out of the deal. Often, I want to take the remote and hurl it into the LCD screen. I've had fantasies of the screen shattering as the remote punched past the glass and into the wall. "That would teach it to not work," I think. "If I broke it more, that would make it work correctly."

I guess it's something I will just need to learn to deal with. Let's face it - technology is fun, but we can't count on it for everything. We can barely count on it when we need it to work. We need to be able to easily access our inner-Amish and come up with a plan B. Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day for me technology wise. I have to believe that Twitter will be fixed, and I won't get my daily workout while channel surfing. Otherwise, I may have to blog about it...