Flipping through the Metro this morning – the handy little 15 or so page newspapers custom designed for mass transit commuters – I once again was reminded of the teasing made by technological advancements during a time when the economy is on the brink of collapse.
With everything from oil still trading above $120-a-barrel to simple commodities like milk getting more expensive by the day – with even farmers feeling the crunch, no less – it’s getting increasingly difficult to picture myself upgrading to the iPhone 3G or even to a MacBook as my current 4 year old IBM Thinkpad sadly putters while trying to load such system intensive applications like Calculator.
So when I read (or more accurately, have wet dreams) about new televisions able to pick up high definition wireless video from any device in your home during my commute – a commute that will apparently cost 13% more by 2011 – I wince yet again at the dangers of teasing my synapses with such startling new technology.
Because at the end of the day, the economy is in the shitter and as a college student I will have no opportunity in the near future to earn the kind of income necessary to satiate my technological hunger.
I suppose I shouldn’t be too sad about it though as our country faces far worse problems, and my bitching about not being able to buy a piece of $1000 technology is kind of elitist when there are at least 406,000 unemployed folk filling out applications at Starbucks to no avail since they’re closing 600 of those, and when Starbucks starts closing it’s time to get scared. If Wal-Marts start closing, however, it’s then time to leave the country.
