Smartphone, Will You Marry Me?

The smartphone. There are many words that can describe it: magnificent, groundbreaking, useful, and in some cases even lifesaving. It is truly a harbinger of the technology to come. It seems that this may very well change the way humans interact socially. With the touch of a finger you can not only speak to but see your contact in live video. We can now more easily network with humans across the globe even if we have no other motive than to strike up a nonchalant chat.  

It also changes the way we consume information and even allows us to consume more information than ever before. We could be the most well-informed public in the history of this country. Yet our access to endless information most likely means that we will look up more pornography than usual or keep a better tab on the Kardashian’s daily movements. However, we do live in America and it is your god given, constitutionally assured right to be violently ignorant if you so choose. 



Enjoy the attention while it lasts. Those things will sag like a hammock holding a fat man.



Now much can be said about the smartphone however there are only two ways we can describe the smartphone user: Sane User or Insane User. I may ruffle some feathers with this one, but I notice this every day. For those of you reading who may fall into my latter category, it must be said. Let me explain.

Cellular phones, as they used to be known as, became economically viable for most people in the early 2000s. I remember getting my first cell phone in 2002. As cell phones became more pervasive in our cities, unwritten social rules came to be.

For example, if out with friends and a phone call came through it was obviously alright to answer it. A brief phone call isn’t really rude considering everyone does it. The call explaining how to turn on the DVD player, invite a friend, procure some ecstasy, order a pizza, or to get a cab isn’t rude. These are social norms.

But if you had to actually hold a conversation, most people would excuse themselves for the duration of the call. Let’s be honest, no one wants to hear half of your conversation with your whiny girlfriend about how she asked you to pick her up tampons at the store. You obviously refused (good choice by the way) and none of us want to hear the fight while sitting on the back porch.  

But the smartphone changed all of this. Now we need a new set of social rules. Only this time I am writing them down. You’re all welcome.



You look like a douchebag. There's no app for that.



Because so many of us essentially have computers in our pockets – which by the way will inevitably cause every male to be sterile – there’s a lot more we can do with them. But just because you can watch a Japanese dominatrix slap a man in the face while on the bus to a sex shop, doesn’t mean you should. 

 For example these actions will get you into the category of Sane User:

• When in social situations, use your internet browsing capabilities in a relevant manner. Look up a video someone hasn’t seen so that they can be brought into the conversation more fully. Make sure your use is altruistic. Everyone gets something from it.  
• In social settings generally limit your internet usage. No one is saying you can’t use it. I like to check the score to the game, see if anyone responded to my ever so witty facebook/twitter status, and what the weather is going to be like.
• Use in private as an extension of your computer.
• Use in private as an organizer, alarm clock, whatever else it does.

Now this is very simple people. It’s called not being a complete jackass. This is all you need to do to avoid the Insane User category of smartphone users. And to clarify, social situations do not include the bus or the train. Bus people and train people don’t count because we all know that nobody really wants anything to do with these people. You are barely a person when on a bus. Everyone is just a body sharing the same body transportation device as a bunch of other bodies.

However no matter how easy it is for most of us not to be an Insane User, people still excel at it. Here are my major gripes with smartphone users:

• Facebook friend someone you just met at the bar and are currently talking to. Wait for request. This is overly social.
• Have full blown conversations with people in Kazakhstan via the latest social networking site. Ignore people two feet away from you.  This is anti-social.
• Not notice the attractive man/girl sitting at the bar as you post to Facebook about how you really need to find a partner. Again, anti-social.
• FourSquare. Really? I need to know you are at Petsmart? Maybe. But that’s only if I’m coming to kill you. Overly social.
• Checking email. You used to be okay just checking your email every ten minutes while at home. Now it’s every ten minutes for the rest of your life. Congratulations, you are insane.

Simple rules for a very complex piece of electronics that most likely caused the death of a few Africans in the Congo. Didn’t know that? Check it out on your smartphone http://bit.ly/d5KSGQ.

Seriously Now

I want to be completely honest and serious right now. I wrote this because I see these people every day in almost every place you can think of. People are literally sucked right out of reality into this little three inch by five inch rectangle. Sometimes when I look at a group of four or five people at the bar or entire families in a restaurant who simultaneously are looking at their iPhones, I secretly wish I was $teve Jobs. After a second, I am glad I’m not one of the men responsible for making people boring. Because we have all this crap at our fingertips, normal social interaction is becoming blasé for some.  Because we have all this crap at our fingertips, people take other people’s company for granted. But for those of you who find yourselves in this situation, don’t worry. Your smartphone will always be your friend.

For more:

http://bit.ly/ae4YyP

http://huff.to/ae8D3k

http://bit.ly/dkjUs0



I’m Just a Temporary Worker, I’m Not Going to Learn All of your Names: A Rant About My Life Choices thus Far.

A few months ago I received a random call from a staffing agency in Chicago. They wouldn’t tell me where they got my resume and wanted to interview me for a legal assistant position at a firm. Despite being somewhat shaded out by this, I figured What the hell?

If you don’t know me here’s some background. After four years of college at Marquette University in Milwaukee, my brain was recovering from the years of chemical enhancement. In this vulnerable state my brain, and myself in counterpart, decided to go right back into school for education.

I’m going to change the world, man. I know I can show those kids that school is cool.

 Like I said, vulnerable brain from chemical enhancement equals ridiculous life decisions. It would be one thing if I thought that the pension was good, summers are relatively free, and it’s somewhat stable. Nope, chemical enhanced brain thinks

Grading papers will be, like, uh, totally fun.

So I start these classes at the local university. These classes are easier than a drunken chick at her last good friend’s wedding.

Oh lord I’m getting old! I’m going to sink these cocktail sauce covered nails into the first male that passes me. Okay, the one after Uncle Chuck.

Classes led to student teaching, which was very difficult. By the way grading papers is utterly mind numbing. Chemical enhanced mind has recovered enough by this point to come to this realization. Yet, all along my academic path everyone told me that I chose a great program.

Spanish teachers are in great need you know, you’ll have a job so quickly!

And then the economy fell to the floor like that easy drunken chick from the wedding and the government decided that we don’t need teachers anymore.

Why do the kids need teachers when they will never find a job anyway?  

That being said I think you can assume by this point that I can’t find a job as a teacher. I’m not complaining because I don’t have to deal with high school students all day. You know you’re getting old when you look at high school kids and just laugh at how stupid they are. At the same time, you laugh at how stupid you were when you were in high school. It scares me night and day that I have started to agree with my parents about adult-like things. All of these kids – even the ‘smart ones’ are stupid. And that’s not to say they’ll all be dimwitted the rest of their lives, everyone is just generally stupid in high school. Real-life examples of high school stupidity:

There’s no good reason to drive your Mom’s minivan a hundred miles per hour.

Why did you jump out the window?

My hair will totally look cool purple.  

Want to jump out of this van? No? Okay, we’ll just ride on the roof.

Yeah bro, we’re going to go drinking by those tracks where all the rats live.

Let’s go drive around and steal peoples’ pumpkins. Then throw them at their neighbors’ cars.

Going to see Scary Movie 2. You in?

Maybe your high school years were less destructive in terms of health and public property damage, but that just means you were abnormally mature.

So before I started this rant on school I was on the way to a job interview, right?

Right. So I go into this staffing agency downtown and it actually is not a scam! They make me perform a few tests to make sure I’ve seen a computer in the last fifteen years and tell me they will get back to me with a placement. They did and I find myself working at a non-profit daycare center in the city. The assignment is one-month long. Two weeks at the administrative office and two weeks at the school center doing data entry and meeting with a few clients from time to time. The staffing agency's placements are the start of good in-between jobs until I can find something better. Easy enough, sounds great to me.  

Now I have never been in the typical office environment before. Ironically enough, it’s like being in high school. They give you eight hours to finish work that will take you maybe two hours and you are surrounded by a) stupid people b) people you don’t know, don't want to know or just straight up ignore c) the few people you have something in common with or d) people whose arrival prompts you pretend to do what you’re supposed to be doing.

Now I can make this observation because despite my assignment being for one month, I have now been at my assignment for two months. Here’s the problem. The non-profit keeps extending me by a week. Originally coming into the assignment, my strategy was simple:

 Work and get the hell out of there. Restart next morning.

Because of my plan I was cordial to most folk and engaged in mindless small talk, but I didn’t bother to learn all of their names.

Why? My brain is already full of useless junk. I’m only here for a month. I’ll have to make room to learn these names, and then I’ll forget the Star Spangled Banner. That’s not okay with me because when I go to Hawks games, I want to look patriotic.    
  

Maybe this makes me a bad person. Maybe I’m somewhat anti-social. Maybe I’m just prioritizing and allowing my brain to work at peak efficiency. Either way, after being extended over and over again, I only know about twenty five percent of the people’s names who I see every day.

Right now, I look forward to the next job I get. But I’m sure once I’m there for a month or two, there will be another one of these long rants. I may be a lot of things, but I’m definitely a very young old curmudgeon.

October Means Ghost Stories

In my opinion, October is by far the best month of the fall season. Football and Hockey are in full swing and the Baseball playoffs are under way. The weather is changing but for most Midwesterners, we're still not wearing our coats yet. The leaves on the trees are decorating both the sky and the ground with a wonderful spectrum of color.

For the kids and many adults the highlight of the month is definitely Halloween. The history of Halloween goes back to the British, Irish, Celtic, and Roman peoples. Their beliefs varied but it all revolved around spirits coming back to earth and humans avoiding them by wearing masks and disguises. Somehow over the last couple hundred years that turned into hitting up all your neighbors for candy during the day and dressing up like Taiwanese whores at night. But who can really complain about any of that?

That being said one of my favorite aspects of Halloween is the telling of ghost stories. There is nothing quite like it. When a random bar friend tells me a story about how she saw a person who looked JUST LIKE Brad Pitt downtown today, I debate taking that emergency pill I have in my breast pocket. But when someone is telling a ghost story, they have everyone’s attention.  So without further ado, I want to share a ghost story with you.

This story is a family heirloom so to speak. I’ve told it so many times I’m excited to finally put in down on paper. About twenty six years ago, just before I was thrown into this world via my mother’s birth canal, my family went on a vacation to Captiva Island in Florida. My Mom and Dad came with my older brother Phil and sisters Holly and Tina. They were quite young at the time. Along for the trip were also my Grandma and Grandpa with my Uncle Iggy.

They had rented a house right on the beachfront with a beautiful view, beach close by, tennis courts, pool – the works. But the weird vibes began as soon as they got to the house. As my grandfather opened the door to the house after checking in, he and my dad noticed something very odd. The living room had curtains that extended from the ceiling to the floor covering some sliding glass doors leading outside. They both noticed the distinct shape of a man behind those curtains. Now my grandfather and dad are both no-nonsense type of people. Ghosts? Yeah right. They tried to re-create the shape by opening the door this way, that way, slam it, open it slow. They tried and tried to no avail.    

That was weird but it’s no big deal. We’re on vacation. Upstairs there was a loft that my uncle was sleeping in. He thought it was really cool and was unnecessarily excited to sleep in this thing. One night he was in bed when suddenly the door closed. As my uncle described it, something invisible jumped on his chest and was holding him down. He began to struggle, thrash, and try to get this thing off of him. It was strong and caught him off guard so he began to yell. As he did this thing put its hands over his mouth and muffled his screams. Luckily my grandfather heard something and went to Iggy’s room. As he opened the door it was pushed back closed. My grandpa struggled to open the door but something was preventing him from doing so. And as quickly as it began, it ended. Iggy, who was eighteen years old and trying to act cool on the beach for the ladies, slept with his parents the rest of the trip. I’m sure he didn’t mention that to any of the bikini babes.

Now my Mom had a different experience that was much less violent. And to preface this a little, my Mom has had different paranormal experiences before so it sounded like she took this pretty well considering everything. She awoke one night in her bedroom with a group of glowing orbs in the room. As she turned to observe them she noticed she could see the tops of the dressers. Upon processing that, she realized she was floating above her bed with these orbs. She tried to wake up my Dad but that would never work. To this day my Dad will sleep through the awesomeness of two Kodiak bears fighting outside his bedroom door. And just like the experience my Uncle had; as quickly as it began, it ended.   

The last experience was a collective dream had by all the women in the house. Every night they would have a dream that they were enclosed in a dark box. The box was moving and they could never get out. More on that later. The sum of all these experiences naturally caused everyone to rethink this vacation. They decided to call it quits and return home to Chicago as everyone was sufficiently freaked out. After returning my grandfather received a call from the rental agency. They wanted to let him know that they were going to charge his credit card for the damages occurred during their stay. Apparently after leaving the dishes were broken and strewn about the kitchen, water damage had occurred to the floors, and sand was thrown in all the plumbing fixtures. The place looked like a hurricane had come through. Now obviously my grandpa was not going to claim a ghost did it. Why look like a crazy person if you don’t have to? He just paid the damages and decided to put everything behind him.

My Mom decided to do a little research on the area considering the madness that ensued on the trip. It turns out that these experiences may have been the result of a distant history. When the Spanish were colonizing the area around Florida and the Caribbean, Captiva Island had an interesting role. Spanish ships would sail near the island and drop cargo boxes overboard. The boxes would wash ashore to Captiva, where they were collected by other Spaniards. One of the most common cargos dropped off to Captiva were women to be sold or forced into prostitution. That explains the dreams the women had about bobbing up and down in a dark box from which they could not escape. The angry violent spirit that cornered my Uncle and appeared to my Dad and Grandpa probably had something to do with this as well. But maybe he was just a terrible person trying to attend to unfinished business. Whatever the exact reason, there were a lot of different spirits telling my family to leave.