The Matrix

Recently, my iPod has been refusing to turn off, which, admittedly, is better than it not turning on, but still not entirely reassuring. Luckily I've been keeping it plugged in to an outlet and a set of speakers, so I can just pause it when I want it to chill-the-fuck-out. But this brings me to my point: technology is largely a bitch goddess.

The simple truth of the matter is we never realize how much we need some piece of techno-garbage until we have it, and then the threat of something going screwy on the damn thing so paralyzes us with fear that we tip-toe around the object as if it were an idol to the angry Apple gods. I've lived in Korea for 18 months without an iPod, so why does the prospect of living without one now so fill me with apprehension? Because back then I didn't know what I was missing. But now I do.

My mother worked for a tech-firm when I was growing up. Actually she worked for the tech firm, and if your gears are grinding trying to figure out what I mean, yes, I did grow up in the Seattle area and yes, I did graduate from Redmond High School. So it's the techies you're thinking of.

My mom used to come home after a long day's work and shake her head in disbelief. She was a simple girl from Buttfuck, Central-Washington-State and she had never imagined the kinds of things they did at the Redmond campus, nor the kinds of cars they bought with the kinds of money they got paid to do it. My mom's dad had owned a gravel company. He dug pits for a living. And now here she was with this company who, during her tenure, damn fucking near conquered the corporate world and sure as shit put her kids through college and set her up pretty nicely for retirement. And she would look at us, my brother and me, and say "Boys, just get your college degrees in computer science. You just sit inside in front of a screen all day and you can drive a Lexus home to your massive mansion lakeside."

When she tried to lure us into careers in programming we wondered if she had ever met us. Sitting in an office all day was so far from what either of us ever wanted to do that it ranked at the absolute bottom of any prospective career lists. We would riff on her career advice, inventing jobs that, while horrible, still managed to sound slightly more alluring then the one she was describing. "Boys, what the job is, is they sew you up in a sack, and then they beat you with baseball bats for eight hours, and then you can drive your Lexus home to your house on the lake!"

I know that all the things I own are just varying levels of technology, including my running shoes and my jump rope, and I know that the march of progress is more or less inevitable. But as my wife and I listen to our incredibly old washing machine go into its spin cycle with our fingers crossed, praying that the fucker holds up just until we can get out the door to go to Japan tomorrow, I can't help wondering who is serving who.

At least this blogging program is actually uploading images today, which is never a given, let me tell you. Or is it? Can you see these pictures? If not, then the machines are winning. Better start running for Zion.

You can find TMH blogging seven days a week at http://anamericanwerewolfinseoul.blogspot.com. -ed.