A fate worse than death

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family

It drives me crazy sometimes, the degree to which we have all become slaves to technology. It’s true the technology we have now improves our efficiency and makes communication easier and adds lifestyle conveniences we could never have imagined outside of an episode of The Jetsons.

But sometimes I think that all that time spent staring at a three-inch screen is time taken away from our humanity, if I may be permitted a grand sweeping vista for this moment. I pass people walking in downtown Toronto who are staring at their phones watching Seinfeld reruns while they walk. Seriously.

Really, is your existence so bereft of stimulation that you need to watch 20-year-old sitcoms while you walk from the train to your office? Or is it that Seinfeld is just so damn compelling and socially timeless that it’s worth bumping into strangers over and over and over en route to work?

Anyway, that wasn’t even my point.

My was going to be about what happens when the technology goes away. Like it did in my house last night.

A modern day horror story, no less. A fate worse than death.

A smashing day on the island

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smashed iphone screen

I’m just going to bore you with a brief posting today on the wonders of technology.

No matter where we go we are slaves to the technology in our pockets or on our belts. The iPhones and Blackberries we carry and use to flip emails, texts, Facebook messages and tweets have far, far more tech power and capability than what the Apollo astronauts had at their disposal when they went to the moon. That we choose to use this technology to watch cat videos and engage in flame wars with strangers is a matter for future anthropologists to discuss.

But my core point is that we wouldn’t leave the house without the phone. If it’s not in our hands or very nearby at all times, a facial tic is almost inevitable. And thus it was to become a moment of smashing clarity for me on Sunday.

Goons, gizmos and games

Given that I have a son who plays hockey at a decently high level, and he is no stranger to dropping the mitts from time to time, you might think that I am a bit of a fan of fighting in hockey.

You would be wrong.

No other team sport of consequence — in fact, no team sport at all that I can think of — tolerates fighting. Just hockey. If you fight in football or rugby, you’re out. Baseball or basketball? Well, aside from the embarrassing slap fights that pass themselves off for brawls in those sports, yes. You are automatically ejected and subject to suspension.

But not hockey. Hockey has a Code which isn’t written down anywhere but is well understood by its participants. Among its foggy tenants are things like, fight guys who are roughly your size. Tough guys do not attack skill guys. Doing things like snowing a goalie or shooting a puck at the net after the whistle will be regarded as invitations to punch that person. Under the Code it’s apparently OK to fight if your team is losing badly and you want to get the crowd going or fire up your team. Or if someone on the other team violates any of the above rules.

Which brings us to the the display of utter stupidity Sunday night between the Leafs and the Sabres.

Going out in a blaze of glory. Literally.

It was a pretty good weekend, all in all.

What with the hockey tournament and the barbeque melting last night.  You just don’t see stuff like that every day.

I’ll recap the tournament, for those of you who don’t follow my exploits on Twitter.
The throw-together team Pad played on in the College Cup prospect event won twice on Friday and then lost game three Saturday. So, they had to win their remaining game Saturday night vs. Wisconsin to advance to Sunday, and they did.
In the round of 16 on Sunday morning they beat another American side, the Midwest Selects to earn a spot in the quarter finals.

Playing on only an hour’s rest, the guys played great for the first half of the game and then ran out of gas, losing 4-0. My kid got thrown out of the game with 1:12 left for a hit from behind which a) he was guilty of and b) appalled all the people around me who didn’t know he was my kid.

So we were back home by 1p and I was in a grocery store by 130p. The afternoon was largely spent in the lazy pursuit of not very much. I asked the boys what the wanted for dinner and naturally Pad said “steak” so last night I fired up the grill.
Literally, as it turned out.

Blog reading: a lesson

OK.
I never intended to confuse anyone with the new look and software. But I want to assure you that most of the blog posts are actually longer than what you see on the main page. I want to keep the main page looking “clean” so that you can see a bunch of entries easily and then decide what you want to read.
So if you would like to read more of any single entry, you should click on the “continue reading” link, which will take to to the full entry.
Some of you seem to be having trouble with this step. So let’s try a drill.
I’m going to put a “continue reading” button here very soon. Try clicking it and see what happens!