A Digital Life

I finally broke down and got a good digital camera. The pictures I was producing with my palm pilot just were not cutting edge! The lens on the Zire 71 was so small that it amazed me that it picked up anything. Pictures taken with it were instant email quality and worth one quick look and a delete button.

The new camera was purchased at Wall Mart, which was a surprise to me, since, to my knowledge, I had never before been daring enough to enter one of those stores where one had to sort through huge piles of consumer goods. However, it was right next to Best Buy, and I had to comparison shop. Wal Mart is a very scary place! But they had the best prices and a good selection of cameras so I guess they won again, and I made a contribution to their world wide dominance in retail!! It was really kind of a dreary place, though!

As I was plugging the download cord into my computer, and hooking up the battery recharger to an outlet, I looked around the room at all the gadgets and connections that it takes to be considered at the minimum level of the digital age: Hi speed internet connection by Cox, digital phone line from Cox, Palm Pilot cradle hookup and recharger, 3 cell phone cradle rechargers, printer hookups, wireless box set up for the 3 computers in the house (one a laptop).

Our cat even has a digital chip surgically implanted for identification. I think that is a great idea. That is about the only thing I personally am missing. In the next few years I predict that tatoo parlors will start offering chip implants which will not only provide identfication to old codgers like me wandering the streets in a daze, but will also allow people to "google" directly into their cerebelum by wireless connection 24/7.

I often wonder if all these gadgets improve the quality of life, or just complicate and add stress to it!