Tales of the Lazy

 

 

What if technology is too smart for someone's brain?  Today's smartphones put all kinds of information within easy reach, but does that matter if you don't reach for it.  That old question of whether a tree falling in the forest makes any sound if there is no one to hear it kind of applies.  Having all the information has no effect if you don't ask the question.

Several of my students confided in me recently that they wouldn't have come here (Canada) to study if they had known what the weather was going to be like.  (Of course, we were working on third conditional sentences, so perhaps they were just making a joke....perhaps....honestly, their facial expressions conveyed that there was some truth to their sentences--but I digress)  Several students did, in fact, make this assertion.  This is nothing new to me because I hear it every year.  However, I paused to reflect because every single student has a smartphone.  Every student can find obscure bits of trivia rather quickly.  My only question was, why didn't they know about the weather?

When I went abroad, now almost twenty years ago, I was armed only with a Lonely Planet guidebook, a look at an atlas and a few pamphlets from the Japanese Consulate (which contained some fabulously out of date photos even then--imagine how old they look now) I didn't have the opportunity to look up anything on the internet.  I read that book (and those brochures) cover to cover.  The truth is, nothing can compare to being there, but I did the best I could.  The funny thing is, I think I was better prepared than my students, who seem surprised at so many things.

I keep forgetting to ask them how they prepared for their trip.  Maybe I am afraid that they will answer honestly, that is to say, they really didn't prepare.  I am reaching that conclusion on my own anyway.  They can find every variation of the Harlem Shake known to man, but couldn't find out that it snows in Canada in the winter?  Seems too unbelievable to be true.  Sadly, it is. 

If I had to guess, they probably don't look up anything until it is staring them in the face.  I have this image of my students landing at the airport, and then having to enter the following words in the search box.  "Toronto, white stuff on ground, cold" and seeing what Google tells them.  You'd think that some of that might have come up when packing.

If I have said it once, I've said it a thousand times.  Smartphones, don't make smart people.

Snowplow--More Priorities Out of Whack

Isn't it always the way.  You get all your winter crap on:  your boots, your gloves, your toque (winter hat, for all you non Canadians).  You get out there, work up a sweat (even worse sometimes, but I don't really want to joke a bout some poor old guy having a heart attack) and finally the driveway and sidewalk are clean.  Then, you hear that dreaded noise.

The snowplow.  Invaluable for making the roads clean, driveable and safe, and perhaps the most frustrating device ever created for the man or woman who has just finished plowing their driveway.  All that work gone for nought.

I have no idea  when the snow plow was invented.  I know they have been around since World War II at least.  I live in a country where they come in all shapes and sizes.  I've seen huge ones, and ones that fit onto an army jeep.  Someday, some half drunk backyard mechanical MacGyver wizard will probably rig one up to a bicycle. (I did a quick google search, and its already been done...I should have known)

Nevertheless, despite years of innovation, despite incredible engineering, the snow plow still manages to plow me into or out of my driveway.  Finish cleaning and it will come past my house and form a perfect barrier between me and the street.  Go out for a quick errand (maybe to the beer store) and come back to find that I have to shovel my way back onto my driveway (or try to ram myself through, and get stuck, and not get to drink the beer I just went out to get).

I have heard that there is an invention to prevent this, but I have never seen it.  If it exists, please tell me, or better yet tell the town council, how I can get this machine to plow my street.  We have superfast internet, but we I still face a mountain of snow  before I can go to work.  Once again, our priorities seem completely out of whack.

Irony (or something like it)

It isn't hard to find irony in life.  I am probably using the definition incorrectly, but I care little.  People call it ironic, so that's good enough for me.  If it has become cliche, too bad.

I started watching the first season of Game of Thrones, and like all good TV shows it has its own tag line--"winter is coming"  Nothing wrong with that.  It's probably good for the show, and good for people watching it.  It would bother me less if they didn't say it every ten seconds. but that's television for you.

The irony is that I just started watching it on Friday night, and I have only gotten through the first four episodes (six more to go). "Winter is coming.  Winter is coming."  Of course it is, and that's why I woke up on Saturday with a yard full of snow.  I guess winter is here. 

I don't recall anyone calling for snow on the weather forecast, and I certainly didn't read about it in the paper (and that includes the horoscope section).  Granted, I wasn't really paying attention on Friday morning--last day of work for the week, black Friday nonsense, and all that.

I really shouldn't complain (though I didn't get all my raking done).  The stores have already decorated for Christmas, so why shouldn't the planet get in on the act as well.  Dress it up for the holidays.  Christmas is only one month away.  If only there was hockey on TV.

Winter

 

As if I didn't need another reminder that winter is coming.  The gigantic pile of leaves that I have to rake up should be enough.  Rather than let us think we have some time left before we are waist deep in the white stuff, the flyers for the local stores have to remind me that winter, and the need to shovel all that snow out of the way is nearly upon us.

When I look through the flyers, anticipating some great sale, or some knowledge of a new and wonderful product that will change my life (sadly, neither of those two things ever happen) the last thing I want to come across is a page full of snow shovels, snow blowers, car scrapers and ice melting salt.

Had I come across a more positive winter image (think Santa Clause, or a snowman, or maybe some reindeer) I would still be a little underwhelmed.  Coming across such a bold slap in the face, winter is almost here, advertisement really doesn't sit well with me.  Couldn't we just cancel winter this year, just this once?