Thursday, April 11, 2013

Bird Brains



I’m generally not a fan of machines with more brains than I have so typically I spend most of my free time in the bathroom where life is simple and both the facilities and myself rely on water power for performance. Technology is fine to a point as long as it is genuinely a time saver, faster, cheaper, or maintenance free. Sadly few ‘Gee Whiz’ gizmos and electromechanical gadgets today actually meet those tests and instead cost lots, break faster, and confound me continually.

Unless I can claim them as a deduction on my taxes, clocks and mindless machines had better not ask me for random extra information or I won’t give ‘em the ‘time of day’. For example, why does my microwave need to know what day and year it is in addition to the time – does it have an appointment or second job that I don’t know about? Hey I smell like rancid buttered popcorn and have food particles stuck all over me too and I never know what day it is, so what’s a microwave want with all that info?

My phone and GPS devices don’t really need names or brains either because I should be their only master, yet when they ring I’ll ANSWER to do their bidding even if I’m the one on the auction block. Of all the far more comfortable places to stick a helper in a car, why did the Onstar people go off and shove somebody into the rear view mirror for safekeeping? There are no airbags up there, it gets hot in the sun, and besides I don’t like talking into my REAR view mirror because it feels like I’m bossing myself around BEHIND my back. 

Clearly I must be the last of a dinosaur breed that likes real hand crank windows in my truck and a foamy mattress on my cot that CAN’T remember what my hefty sweaty sleep number is. I don’t need a dishwasher that has a 4 hour push-button delay before it washes the dishes when I myself can easily delay washing the crud off dishes for days on end without mechanized help. High tech machines don’t need more, chirps, squeaks, or warning squawks for attention, all they have to do is confuse me with the MINIMUM tasks that I ask, and for that - trust me, any ol’ Bird-Brain will do!