kitchen
Introducing the RAB phenomenon (Remote Artifact Bonding) - here’s how it works. When you’re together in meatspace you go shopping with your friend (or friends) and buy similar artifacts from the same shop, thus having a good shared real time experience of consumerism. As you connect through space and time in the blogosphere (or whatever medium you use) you connect your artifacts, too! So, click through yesterday’s picture of me (or this link), roll your mouse over the pic on the Flickr site till you find the note that leads you onto Anya’s Flickr – the cube of artifactual bonding. And you can follow this path of polished stone cubes rather than reading my lengthy spiel on faking it!
Increasingly my family networks are maintained and extended through digital media. My 3 daughters all work in office spaces in London. Part of that culture, as I have noted before, consists of circulating ‘joke’ emails. Some aren’t funny at all, and others are politically or ideologically very dodgy – for example stuff about ‘chavs’. But occasionally, I get copied into one that really is funny, or one like this which actually manages to capture something interesting:
YOU KNOW YOU ARE LIVING IN 2005 when...
1. You accidentally enter your password on the microwave.
2. You haven't played solitaire with real cards in years.
3. You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of 3.
4. You e-mail the person who works at the desk next to you.
5. Your reason for not staying in touch with friends and family is that they don't have e-mail addresses.
6. You pull up in your own driveway and use your cell phone to see if anyone is home to help you carry in the groceries.
7. Every commercial on television has a web site at the bottom of the screen.
8. Leaving the house without your cell phone, which you didn't have the first 20 or 30 (or ! 60) years of your life, is now a cause for panic and you turn around to go and get it.
10. You get up in the morning and go on line before getting your coffee.
11. You start tilting your head sideways to smile. : )
12. You're reading this and nodding and laughing.
13. Even worse, you know exactly to whom you are going to forward this message.
14. You are too busy to notice there was no #9 on this list.
15. You actually scrolled back up to check that there wasn't a #9 on this list.
AND NOW U R LAUGHING at yourself.
3 comments:
I think maybe you also know you are n the 21st century when you beging 'doing your e mailing' by looking for all those you will delete before opening. This will for me, include all those that look like lists of jokes.
At one time about five peole were regularly sending me several batches a week. Seems great at first but then starts to be an online nightmare.
this is great, Guy. I agree with Joolz to a point- there are one or two people who occasionally send me jokes I know are worth reading, a couple of others who send me loads but just occasionally there is a gem in there.. wht really bugs me is when they never send any other kind of real message to communicate, just jokes. Why am I there, to make them feel they have a wide email network?
Which begs the question, how do you deal with your mail? I mean are there some people who you eagerly read before others, or ignore completely, or open with a sinking feeling? I read people I like first! And my pet hate is very long messages (I can't seem to concentrate long enough) and multiple attachments (yuk). I usually try to be sparing with attachments they're so time consuming!
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