A television as big as the Ritz arrived on Saturday while I
was outside busting rocks on the chain gang. I’ve put off getting an HD TV for
an extremely long time, but when Roku told me that I was on the losing end of
new content, I finally gave up. The TV is still in its box, waiting for the new
stand on which it will sit. When that arrives, I’ll wheel the old TV into the
basement (it’s free for the asking, if you’ve got the strength and 11 friends
to get it into your car) and set things up with the new one. At some point I’ll also move the
even older TV that also takes strength and 11 friends into the back of my car,
somehow, to toddle off to the TV dumping ground. That one only works
sporadically, unlike the present one that works perfectly well. That’s been why
I’ve kept it for so long. It’s hard to move away from something that works
fine.
But that’s the nature of technology these days, isn’t it?
Everything works fine, but something comes along that finally demonstrates that
it’s time to upgrade because you’ve fallen so far behind you think that MySpace
is the greatest thing since sliced bread and everyone else just shakes their
head whenever you walk by. That’s why it took me forever to get a smartphone,
then forever to upgrade same. That’s why I don’t upgrade my old MacBook,
because the new Macs, although they’re sexier than sex itself, don’t do
anything noticeably better. In fact, lacking the odd slot, port or drive,
they’re slightly less good, unless you’re firmly entrenched in the cloud. And
I’m not there yet. I’ve gone over with music, though, and now swear by Spotify (if for
no other reason that I am assured that I will never have to listen to Taylor
Swift on it, a blessing if there ever was one). I still love my megapod and all
the music on there for driving in the car, but the rest of the time, unless I
want to listen to the Beatles, I’m good, if I have wifi. And, let’s face it,
when don’t I have wifi?
I hope to get the new TV up and running before heading to LV
and NDCA, but that may be wishful thinking. The stand that hasn’t arrived yet
needs assembling, for one thing, and I’m the world’s worst assembler, I sadly
admit. Last time I assembled something, though, I discovered the socket wrench
in my toolkit, right after I discovered my toolkit, and things when swimmingly.
And I did assemble a desk lamp this weekend, and that was pretty exciting. At
the bottom, I guess I’m a software kind of guy. Or a writing kind of guy. Or
any other guy than the handy type.
Although, as I began, I did spend some time doing hard labor
over the weekend, busting rocks. Or more precisely, shoveling rocks that the
plowmen (or ploughmen, which is how we English majors usually put it) managed
to pile up while they were theoretically moving the snow off the driveway,
whereas in fact, they were actually moving gravel. Sigh. Manual labor is just not my cup
of tea. I would have much preferred playing the IOS version of BioShock on my
iPad, which I did do for a little while until my head started spinning. But rocks don't move themselves, unfortunately. And the rocks must move.
Is this life after coaching?
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