By Jesse Torres (U-Wire)
Arizona Daily Wildcat
April 28, 1998

Technology gives me the blues

(U-WIRE) LOS ANGELES - It never fails. There I'll be, calmly sitting in lecture, listening to the soothing drone of my professor as he goes on and on about strong, rebellious Jane Eyre. My eyes will begin to glaze over, and I'll begin my gradual descent into a comatose state as my body slowly begins to shut down. All of a sudden ... Beep! Beep! Beep!

I lurch to my senses, knocking over my neighbor's lecture notes in the process. The torment continues, seeming to grow in strength and annoyance.

Beep! Beep! Beep!

What the hell is that? I start to panic. Is there a fire? Are we getting bombed? Shouldn't I stop, drop and roll or something? Then I see her, two rows in front of me. She's rummaging furiously through her backpack, spilling papers, throwing books around, causing chaos. Now she's looking through her purse, now her coat. Wait! There. She's found it! It was in her right pants pocket. She pulls out the instrument of torture for everyone to see. Damned pager.

What is the matter with you people? Why is your pager blowing up in my early morning lecture? You know you're not good-looking enough to be getting a booty call at 9:15 a.m. Don't you know that pagers lost their coolness back in the early '90s? It happened right after they started coming out in they those bright fuchsia colors. I don't need to know when somebody is trying to get in touch with you, OK?

And try reading that little manual that came with your pager. It has this nifty little section called "alert sounds." Within this section, you will find a setting called "vibrate." Say it with me. "Vibrate." Very good. Damned inconsiderate bastards, waking me up in the middle of lecture. Be a little courteous next time.

I, sorry to say, also own a pager. It was a birthday gift from my sister. At first I thought it was going to be a very useful item. Family and friends can now get in touch with me in emergencies. How convenient, I thought. Instead, what happens? At first, all I got were those cutesie messages everybody thinks are so funny.

Oh, how cute! I just got a "Hello" written with numbers! Ooh, somebody just sent me "Boobies!" That rascal!

Yeah, my sister's money is definitely not going to waste here.

And then I started getting messages from people whom I never wanted to get a hold of my pager number in the first place.

"Jesse, this is your boss. Your pager number is the only one I could get a hold of. Would you mind coming in at 8 a.m. tomorrow? I'd really appreciate it. Thanks."

"Jesse, this is your psycho prom date from four years ago. I got your pager number from a friend of a friend of a friend of yours. Gimme a call. If you don't, I'll just keep leaving message after message after message. Talk to you later."

"Jesse, this is your priest. Have you accepted Jesus as your personal savior? Your soul is in danger of burning in the eternal fire. Gimme a call."

Technology bugs me. I have problems with anything that beeps or buzzes or blips. Just the other day in my apartment, I had been typing up something extremely lengthy on my roommate's computer when the screen suddenly went blank. I stared for a moment before I started pressing random buttons. "Esc." Nope. "F6." Nope. "Scroll Lock." Nope. Blind panic.

I started pressing all of the buttons my hands could cover at one time. Uh oh. At that point I stood up. I counted to 10 and then in a fit of fury, I started slapping the monitor to and fro. My roommate heard the commotion, ran in, saw me delivering the beat-down to his computer and promptly tackled me. Thankfully, he gave me a few quick slaps to settle me down. Upon analysis, it was discovered that I had accidentally touched the sensitive on/off switch on the computer. No memory lost.

I think I started losing respect for all that is technological after I watched my beloved Atari system descend into the pit of technological has-beens. No more Pac-Man, no more Space Invaders for me. Now it's these new fangdangled games that have too many buttons, too many characters. Whatever happened to Pong? Blip, blop, blip, blop. Or my man Q-Bert? Boing, boing, boing, boing. Sometimes, whenever I feel nostalgic, I like to go into the arcade in Ackerman. Now that's something not everybody likes to admit, so let me be the first.

Anyway, I go into the arcade, I push past the droids lingering around the huge video games that cost about a $1,000 to play and I head straight for the back. There I meet with my old flame - Ms. Pac-Man. Cherry, banana, orange, peach - yeah, baby! Oh, the memories!

I think my biggest problem with technology is that I always feel like I'm trying to catch up. Just when I think I've got a good handle on the situation, everybody suddenly changes all of the rules.

Two days after buying a new computer, it becomes obsolete. New special TVs that I can't afford, pager watches, Internet service faster than the speed of Skip Hicks, on-line classes, DVD, new, faster, better, hurry, hurry, get ahead, catch up, quick, don't get left behind!

I wish I could slow down a bit, get off that electronic superhighway for a while, catch my breath, maybe take a trip down to the beach or go hiking somewhere green. And I don't mean a virtual hike either.

But the world stops for no man. Spend some time away and by the time you get back, maybe you'll be obsolete too.

Maybe I should learn to embrace my technological side. Maybe spend my afternoon in Circuit City or something. Soak up some of that flashy electric ambience.

Hmm, maybe tomorrow ... I think I hear my pager beeping. Gotta go!