Les Bonnes Choses

I am extremely educated. I've got a PhD, a Masters and not one but two undergrad degrees, one of which is in Computer Science. In my role as a postdoc, one of the items in my portfolio of responsibilities is to deal with "computer related issues". The lab in which I work has amassed several hundred lines of computer scripts which I have written, mostly to relieve everyone of many of the most tedious tasks, but some of them do some pretty fancy stuff. So I find it somewhat unsettling that there are some rather common pieces of technology that I just don't get -- like cell phones. I can use a cell phone to dial a 10-digit number and talk to the person at the other end. But in the extremely unlikely event that I ever became interested in [countryname] Idol, I have no idea how to text 'VOTE' to 436501.



And then there's the iPhone, or more generically, the smartphone. Rebecca hinted it might be neat for us each to have an iPhone. And my dad's wisdom came to me: "Lie down until the feeling passes," I said. I promised I'd look into it. I mean, I know several people who have them, and they're all successful. I want to be successful. Is there an app for that? So I went on to the Rogers website to look at their plans (in Ontario, Telus and Rogers carry iPhones. Bell does not. I really, really wish there were more options because I think both Rogers and Bell might be technically guilty of crimes against humanity). To me, the phone plan descriptions were like a window into a foreign world. Anyways, this all may be moot, because everyone seems to be sold out of the damn things anyways.

Update: I googled "why the hell would I want a smartphone" this morning, and found this link, which I think describes my situation.