Petty irritation....
I spent a part of today at work being talked at.
The chap in question is enthusiastic. Very much so. Inherently harmless and enthusiastic.
And boring.
As I type this I realise that I am being mean and that I am kicking a spoke out from my Karmic wheel, but so be it.
This gentleman - a bloke of the type who was still queuing for condescension whilst they were handing out conviviality elsewhere has a Palm Pilot. And a very good palmpilot it is, too.
Apparently.
I phased in and out a number of times during the monologue, but I'm pretty sure that it's top of the line and will answer the door and tidy the kitchen whilst reminding you to write a new message reminding self to make new palm pilot entries.
During these moments of drift I thought of something that had not crossed my mind for many a year. We had the term palm pilot at school, though in a quite different and far more derogatory context. It is one which I shall not explain since the graphically minded ought to see through the school boy analogy with ease. Suffice it to say that in the early '70s we had no idea what digital technology was or would become. A computer was a big gothic thing with punch cards and programmers and usually bigger than your parents' house.
As a piece of slang, I think it may have been unique to us, for I do not recall hearing it elsewhere with the same usage.
By one of the ironies of modern life, it occurred to me that the instrument of my boredom was probably the sort of kid who had the flanges kicked off him at an early age by kids bigger than he. Thus are nerds and geeks born to the world.
In short, the man who grew up to bore me with fanciful tales and exaggerations of his new palm pilot was precisely the sort of person who would have been called a palm pilot at school.
Spooky really. And a little sad.
And now I feel a little guilty for being so rude about this poor social inept, whose real crime lies only in trying to engage me a conversation in which I did not wish to participate.
The chap in question is enthusiastic. Very much so. Inherently harmless and enthusiastic.
And boring.
As I type this I realise that I am being mean and that I am kicking a spoke out from my Karmic wheel, but so be it.
This gentleman - a bloke of the type who was still queuing for condescension whilst they were handing out conviviality elsewhere has a Palm Pilot. And a very good palmpilot it is, too.
Apparently.
I phased in and out a number of times during the monologue, but I'm pretty sure that it's top of the line and will answer the door and tidy the kitchen whilst reminding you to write a new message reminding self to make new palm pilot entries.
During these moments of drift I thought of something that had not crossed my mind for many a year. We had the term palm pilot at school, though in a quite different and far more derogatory context. It is one which I shall not explain since the graphically minded ought to see through the school boy analogy with ease. Suffice it to say that in the early '70s we had no idea what digital technology was or would become. A computer was a big gothic thing with punch cards and programmers and usually bigger than your parents' house.
As a piece of slang, I think it may have been unique to us, for I do not recall hearing it elsewhere with the same usage.
By one of the ironies of modern life, it occurred to me that the instrument of my boredom was probably the sort of kid who had the flanges kicked off him at an early age by kids bigger than he. Thus are nerds and geeks born to the world.
In short, the man who grew up to bore me with fanciful tales and exaggerations of his new palm pilot was precisely the sort of person who would have been called a palm pilot at school.
Spooky really. And a little sad.
And now I feel a little guilty for being so rude about this poor social inept, whose real crime lies only in trying to engage me a conversation in which I did not wish to participate.
