Angry Old Fat Man here. My mobile phone is dead.
Actually, it was dropped a couple of times in the past year or two and doesn't display or sense screen input anymore. It was a very nice Samsung smartphone, very expensive when I paid for it. It had an outstanding camera which took beautiful pictures even in low light. It had 32 GB of RAM which allowed me to load a large number of apps if I so desired (a grocery list one and a couple games were great). It allowed me to get on the Internet from practically anywhere and look up important stuff, like the date when Abe Vigoda died (you have to be pretty old to get that joke). And most importantly it had an alarm clock that got me up every morning without an annoying buzzing noise.
But yeah. Phone dead. No texting, talking, or alarming.
Being an old fart like myself, though, has made me hate anything and everything "smart". I like the good old days, when everything was dumb.
Why is that? you may ask. Well, that was when technology was much simpler. A device had ONE JOB, and if it didn't DO THAT ONE JOB WELL, you scrapped it and got a new one, usually from another company.
That nice but non-functional smartphone, for instance. The repair shop that can make it as good as new wants $190.00 to do so. But hey, you'll get all of your contacts and their phone numbers and their e-mail addresses back. Until you drop the phone again (even with its thick rubber protective cover).
Back in the old days, you didn't carry a phone around with you. You had that sumbitch plugged into the wall, and if it sat on a table, it was usually heavy enough to beat a burglar's head into a greasy, bloody pulp, after which you could plug it back in and it would still work wonderfully.
But it was dumb. It had ONE JOB. It allowed you to talk WITH SOUNDS FROM YOUR MOUTH to other people, and then allow you to HEAR THE SOUNDS FROM OTHER PEOPLE'S MOUTHS. Sounds more commonly known as WORDS.
No photos (you had dumb cameras for that). No music (unless you like "on hold" elevator-type music or you had a dumb music player for that). No texting or "apps" (provided by not so smart computers as e-mail and PROGRAMS).
Finally, you have dumbass politicians that promise dumbass things that have been (in some form) lied about by dumbass reporters.
Sometimes, the more things change, the more they stay the same.