Living in the 21st Century


Remember 'way back in the 60's when most of us were kids, and the 21st century was suppose to promise us the following:

...Well, we got the Super-duper advanced computers, but unfortunately they all run on Windows which merely demotes them to Computers-for-Retards. Another goodie we got (instead of the cool flying cars) was the "Dick Tracy 2-way telecommunications wristwatch", otherwise known as the CELL PHONE (or 'CEL-PHONE' with one "L" in the original techno-slang).

I could never understand the appeal of cell phones. When I was a kid, there use to be this mentally disturbed man who wandered around aimlessly throughout the neighborhood, talking out loud either to himself or to his invisible friend. All the neighborhood kids were told to steer clear away from this guy.

Nowadays, we have thousands of people walking around Wal-Mart yakking away endlessly to their own invisible friends... those mysterious persons at the other end of all these cell phones! Sorry, but if you're clacking your jaw to a plastic box the size of a credit card, you remind me of that same guy we use to affectionately call "Weird-o".

Another bad side effect of the cell phones is that it makes the GUYS worse drivers than the GALS. It was bad enough when we had to cautiously avoid women zooming haphazardly on the highway, as they apply their war-paint while balancing spear-like utensils near their eyeballs; now we have to worry about some sales-guy on his cell phone who happens to be completely oblivious to his dangerous 65 MPH environment.

Think of it: how many times do you NOT answer the phone, because of the avalanche of solicitors you encounter or in-laws wanting to borrow half of your monthly salary? If you already have Caller ID, why on Earth would you want to own a cell phone? Missing a once-in-a-life-time opportunity is devastating; but missing a telephone call is not (never!). Why bank on insurance for an emergency call that might never occur, only to play phone tag for the next few hours when it does actually happen? Is ANY phone call that important? They never were before.

Another thing I wasn't prepared for in the 21st century was the cost of cigarettes. Four dollars is way too much for a pack of smokes. Of course, the high price is merely a reflection of all the trillion dollar lawsuits that big tobacco has to pay off, because no-one bothers to read the warning that's been printed on every pack for the past 50 years:

SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING:
Smoking Causes Lung Cancer,
Heart Disease, Emphysema,
And May Complicate Pregnancy.

Simple and to the point; sometimes the wording changes slightly, but the message is clear... if you smoke, you DIE; and it's all your own damned fault. Why is it that some people will read a fortune cookie and take it seriously (like betting on the lucky numbers on the back), but not heed to the grave warning on a pack of cigarettes?

If you happen to be a juror on the next tobacco settlement case, try this: look at the guy in the courtroom who is suing big tobacco and ask yourself, "If that guy ever got kidnapped, what would be the maximum amount anyone on Earth would pay to get him back?" A billion dollars? A million? In most cases, not even a few thousand. Smoking is indeed dangerous, but awarding a sub-moron (who cannot understand a warning label or use common sense) a trillion dollars becomes a national security breach issue.

Of course, the high cost of smoking isn't all because of lawsuits; about 1/4 of the price is due to a sin-tax that is piggy-backed on every pack. For you non-smokers, this is the same tax that helps pay for the newer smoke-free stadiums and smoke-free malls. Not only do the smokers have to foot the bill, but we get to die earlier and not hog up all that Social Security. So, before anyone decides to lecture against the evils of cigarettes, think about what would happen if all that extra income were to suddenly disappear.

Besides, if the public wants to create a real Class Action Suit with any kind turn-of-the-century reasoning, the lawyers should concentrate on the advertising agency alone. Think of it; on the low-end level, how much time/money do you spend/waste sorting through junk-mail or spam? Or waiting through 6 minutes of commercials on cable TV (even though it was suppose to be commercial-free since you are paying for it up front), forcing free TV to go the way of half-hour infomercials just to keep up? And what about having to fast-forward/skip through those first 15 minutes of every VHS/DVD tape that you bought or rented?

And worse yet, (on the high-end level) how many of you had to spend time AND money to remove Spyware, Adware, and all those other annoying pop-up viruses that continue to plague your computer until it slows your basement buddy down to a grinding halt? This particular Class Action suit would not only reap millions or billions, but into the glorious trillions instead. C'mon, 21st century lawyers; I'm throwing you a free bone here! What are you waiting for?

Please donate to my website, and become a member!

Don't you get tired of this? A lot of times while web-surfing, someone (or a lot of someones) insist that they need finacial help keeping their web-site alive, or else they may have to (shudder the thought) close it down pernamently. So why invest on something that has such a questionable budget to begin with?

How much does it cost to maintain a web-site anyway? Maybe $10 or $20 a month. Nothing compared to a cell-phone bill or the monthly cable-TV service, neither of which I have the priviledge of owning; but I'm willing to bet that those certain webmasters indeed do, along with all sorts of other digital perks that my outdated analog based world cannot even comprehend. And yet they still need the cash.

Okay, okay; enough ranting here and it's time for me to shut-up. I try not to vent via the web, but at times it's the perfect place to do so, even though hundreds of thousands use that same excuse to crank out paragraph after paragraph of blogs, opinions, etc.

On the other hand, there is s-o-o-o much to type about, so be ready for these upcoming "attractions":

You may question that using the "a"-word is a bit harsh (and I totally agree), but I have admit that after several hours of thumbing through the dictionary and its supplemental thesaurus, I personally cannot come up with a more apt desciption for those characters. Unfortunately for me and millions of others, I happen to live in the black-hole of rural corruption known as NE Ohio

CMcF
11/28/02


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