metamerist

Saturday, March 10, 2007

Noisy Apartment Building

My father loves fishing. A major appeal for him, I believe, is serenity. Drifting quietly in some remote bay, it's a tranquil escape from telemarketers, family squabbles, nagging and the interruptions inherent in daily life.

Most of us who don't fish have some equivalent form of escape. For example, rather than a remote Northern lake, my escape usually entails diving into a computer screen. I find it easy to be blissfully swept away by computing problems and a never-ending flow of knowledge and fascinating news.

Unfortunately, my computing experience is becoming progressively less and less blissful. In contrast to a quiet lake, it's becoming more and more akin to living with my mother in an urban apartment building with a bunch of bickering children.

Let the Wayne's World dream sequence begin...

Child #1: "Dad?"
Me: "What?"
Child #1: "Dad, can I play your mp3s?"
Child #2: "No, I wanna play your mp3s!"
Child #3: "You said I could play your mp3s, and he took them. Can I take them back?"

Child #4: "I wanna download your pictures!"
Child #5: "No, I wanna download your pictures!"

I think I just heard my mother.
"Mom?"
"Son, we need to clean up your room. You have unused icons laying all over the place."
"Just a second. I need to bat a couple tooltips and get the door."

Door.
"Hello?"
"Hi, I'm from Microsoft, building maintenance. Is it okay if I come in and fix a few things."
"Weren't you here just last week?"
"Um, yeah, this is something else. Need to set the building clocks... and we need to change your locks."
"I thought you changed the locks last week. I hope you're not going to make me leave the building and come back in again..."
"Um.... Nope, no fire drills this time..."
"Whatever. Come on in."

"Mom?"
"The icons!"
"Yeah, I know, but I'm okay with the mess. Sorry. Door again."
"Hello?"
"Hi, I'm from the PDF viewer company. Need to do a little fixer upper on your PDF-ef."
"Fine. Come in."
"Son?"
"Yeah, Mom."
"I brought your mail in. There's about 700 lbs of it. A lot of it is stock tips."
"Yeah, I know."
Door again.
"Hello? Not you again. No, I don't want to punch the monkey!"
"Son?"
"Yeah, Mom."
"Why are you putting your coat on?"
"Because I'm leaving!"
"Where are you going?"
"Fishing..."

1 Comments:

Blogger Kilroy Trout said...

Ha!

BTW, your father gets it. For me it's a fly rod and a cold Colorado stream.

If I couldn't create something with a computer, not even the internet could hold my interest in the thing. I'm a closet luddite :-)

11:51 PM  

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