Well I'll be damned if it isn't a new year. I barely had time to acknowledge 2005 and here we are staring down the barrel of 2006. Seems like yesterday we were all hoarding 12-packs of bottled water and size C batteries in anticipation of Y2K, fearing a world resembling Mad Max. I believe I went the other route and stocked up on Rolling Rock and Fritos, with the understand that the foot of snow in my backyard would provide enough water to last me through spring and if the batteries in my flashlight died, I'd just go to bed.
Ah...those were the days. I'm thinking about renting 2001: A Space Odyssey just to see how far in the wrong direction we've really come. No space travel, no polite speaking computers, no flying cars, no time travel, no aliens living and working amongst us, no teleporting, no telecommuting, no universal dress code, no paperless work environment, and no microwave toaster ovens (you can still cook an entire TV dinner in a microwave oven faster than you can toast a piece of bread).
Even worse, we also still have traffic, cancer, global warming, male pattern baldness, the designated hitter, hockey, reality shows, Florida, France, and George Bush.
One might argue that the "Internet" is what the millenium is all about. I'm certainly a participant in everything that is "online". Yet I can't help but wonder whether the eventual takeover of the world by machines and the enslavement of humans (see Terminator, The Matrix, iRobot, etc.) has already begun. Sure, it's not exactly as violent and dark and horrifying as the movies make it seems. But any "machine" that can force us to stare at it's screen for 12 or more hours a day definitely has some sort of hold over us.
Also, am I the only one who's sees the connection between the number of anti-virus, anti-spyware, anti-popup, and anti-everything software being marketed, with the number of viruses, spyware, popups and everything that afflicts our computers? It's like the tow truck guy that drives around with a bucket of nails in his truck, offering to fix your flat tire.
I don't have many lofty goals for 2006. It's not that I'm not motivated to fulfill some sort of personal quest. It's just that it's fairly difficult to fit in a normally unobtainable goal around the 23.5 hours of personal responsibility I already have. So if I was going to have any kind of goal for the year, it will most likely involve unplugging myself from some of the useless clutter of technology and spending more quality time breathing fresh air and enjoying the natural beauty of my surroundings. I know that sounds lame, but I'm actually going to try to do it. Wish me luck.
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