Well, I think I need to apologize first this week to my faithful readers who may have been a bit disappointed when I missed my deadline last week, and there was no new article posted. Actually, this article is being written barely under the wire and as such there may not be an article again for the week that I am composing this for. I also need to publicly apologize to the editors here at FTTW for the same thing. They work hard to make a fun readable website every day, and though things have gotten a bit out of hand on my end, I have failed to give them notice about the wonderful oddness of the past few weeks. Maybe I should tell everyone a bit about what’s been going on.

I work at a hotel located at one of the top ski resorts in the world, and now that the weather has finally begun to co-operate with us, the ski season is in full swing. This means that every evening there is a long line of guests here at the facility that are all vying for my attention at once. One of my own issues when it comes to this particular column of mine is that the only time I have to compose my weekly musings is while I am at work. I am not a computer owner. I would kind of like one, but I am in no real rush to acquire a piece of machinery that would barely fit into my closet like apartment. The past few weekends have been extremely busy, with barely any time to catch “Dear Abby” or even read my own e-mail. So at times like this, it is extremely difficult to write my article, transpose it from writing to the computer, edit, and send it to the editors here at FTTW.

Personally, things have also been a bit strained as well. My guy and I have been doing reasonably well. However I am at a point in the relationship where I do a lot of questioning of myself and my motives. With things as nutty as they are here at work, I find that I have even less time to sit down and really reflect upon the things I want out of my life and the things that I need to accomplish. This puts my poor man into quite a tailspin wondering if he is doing anything to aggravate an already tense situation. (He is hardly a problem… He has been very supportive and sweet.) I look forward to the time I will have coming up where I can sit down with a cup of tea and some nice calm music, and reflect on the flurry that has been the past month.

So let us talk a bit about modern technology. It seems to me that more and more we are depending on technology just to get by these days. I was pondering my circumstances the other day, and was surprised at how dependant my life is upon say, my cell phone. I had never really felt the need to have one. When I decided to go ahead and sign up along with the millions of people already owning one, it was so that I could be reached. I used to have a tendency to wander about the state, and my folks were having a difficult time getting a hold of me. So I figured having a cell phone would enable me to have my own line no matter where I was. Now, about two years later, I wonder how I ever got along without it. To think that almost makes me regret getting the thing in the first place.

A friend of mine, just recently received a computer to borrow, due to the fact that the owner really had no use for it at this time. To my knowledge, they have spent the past three to four weeks, downloading music and more to this piece of machinery. We are talking about games, music, writings and more. It makes me wonder what would happen if the computer were to crash or get damaged, once they have finished. I imagine they would get distraught. Not to mention mad. And all of that information and whatnot would be lost. All the time they took to do all of that would have been wasted within minutes. I am not sure I could handle that. Or at least I don’t think I could handle it well. Remember that movie “The Net”? If you don’t, it stars Sandra Bullock as a woman who finds a conspiracy involving the internet and viruses. The villains do everything imaginable to her character. They steal her identity, and manipulate the computers to make impossible hurdles for her to jump over in order to stay alive. They even manage to mess with the computers at the hospital! The premise for this movie always makes me shudder. Everything we have is on a computer somewhere, from your medical history; to the CD you bought last week. How easily it can be tampered with boggles my mind. This is why I am very reluctant to have a computer in my home. Between the programs you use for day to day management and the software that needs to be updated all the time to prevent such tampering seems both time consuming and also quite expensive. So I am blissfully unaware of the convenience of having a computer at home.

Aside from not owning a computer, and having a reluctant attitude about my phone, I also do not have cable. I am a great fan of television programs, but I do not believe such a thing should be paid for. When I was a young boy, we had stations that were brought
in from an antenna placed on the roof of our home. We paid for the antenna, but we never paid monthly fees in order to catch an episode of "Sesame Street", or even that old eighties program: “Kids Incorporated”. The jingle from which I can’t seem to get out of my head, though the last time I heard it I must have been about seven. So as of right now my television programs are either found by using an antenna upon my TV, or on my shelf in a DVD format. I would much rather crack open a book I paid twenty bucks for, then pay thirty dollars a month for cable access that I would find myself surfing through endlessly, while complaining that nothing good was on. Personally, I think I would spend more time reading every month, and then finding programs worth watching on the cable TV. How more “On Demand” can I get, then wanting to watch an episode of Buffy, and just putting into the player, and pressing “play episode”?

I think I am going to close up this article now, due to time constraints and my need to get back to the job that pays for my electricity and my dog food. My apologies again to my readers. Next week we should be back on schedule with my articles returning to their normal length. Bless you all in the coming week, I hope you find the happiness that you are looking for. Don’t worry about me, I’m a Drag Queen, What do I know?

Matthew doesn't realize it yet, but he's already in "The Net". Archives

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