I Love / I Hate “Progress”

Today I read that the entire amount of knowledge we accumulated in history doubled in the last two years.  I can believe it, because recently, I bought a new DVD player.

I was unhappy with the old one because the colors were distorted. It looked like somebody threw a red shirt into a load of whites. Pink clouds, pink walls, pink socks. Bleah. So I bought a simple model from Target. Plugged it in, but it looked like we were watching the movie through a window screen. Took that back, too. Decided I was going to have to spend more than thirty bucks.

For eighty, at Best Buy, I got a sleek model with Internet capability. I asked the clerk why I needed Internet on my DVD. She said it would download automatic updates, and we could also watch YouTube and Netflix instant streaming.

I like Netflix, so I bought it and tried to connect it, only to discover I’d selected the wired model when in fact I needed wireless. Took it back and exchanged it for a more expensive model. At that point, I was in it for several hours, a hundred dollars and lots of driving.

I now have a TV with a DVD player that’s actually a kind of secondary modem that interfaces with the Verizon modem in my office. It connects with Netflix, YouTube and Pandora Radio, but nothing else. So now I’m thinking, why not the whole Internet? And can my wireless keyboard interface with it? How about phone calls? Texting? Voice recognition? Come on, Sanyo, don’t leave me hanging.

All this to watch frickin’ TV.  Life is so complicated now. Don’t even ask me about my car. It’s like a rolling iPod or iPad or something. The other day I was trying to show my son a video on my smart phone. We were standing in the driveway next to my car, which was running. Because my phone and my car are connected by Bluetooth, the car overrode the phone and we couldn’t hear any sound. The car had turned my phone’s audio off. I had to turn off the car to restore the audio!

This is life in 2013. I shudder to think what it’ll be like in another two years. I’ll probably need a master’s degree to flush the toilet.