Digital Slob
Digital Slob
Portable DVD players
feed nomadic urges
Continuing this week, "Digital Slob" takes a look at a few gadgets that are relatively cheap yet useful enough to still be respected in the morning. This week, it's portable DVD players.Locusts and Digital Slobs have a lot in common. Both can consume their body weight in food every day. Both molt (out of constraining jobs, relationships or exoskeletons) several times in a life cycle. And, while one or two hovering around can be safely ignored, in large groups both can devastate entire ecosystems.
Thus, it's probably best for society when, at dinner parties, typical Digital Slobs talk little, eat a lot and make fast exits with no apologies. While their antisocial behavior may turn off Respectable People, it's far better than their sociable side (when inevitably they find each each other, congregate, mix drinks and draw blood during frenzied fights over tiny plot inconsistencies in Japanese anime).
But locusts and Digital Slobs most resemble each other when they hit the road. Their scorched-earth policies leave nothing behind except hapless farmers or landlords who are left to wonder if their insurance will cover all the damage.
And, since many Digital Slobs double their salary by job-hopping every two hours, few things can keep their grass-is-always-greener appetites in check.
Still, relocating is a roll of the dice. Maybe the movers will arrive on time, maybe not. Maybe your collection of Hanna-Barbara cartoon shot glasses will survive the trip, maybe not. Maybe the nurse administering the drug test at your new job will buy your poppy-seed bagel story, maybe not.
But once you break that lease, one thing is certain: you're going to miss a lot of TV. You can expect to be out of the loop at least a month in your new digs, tweaking rabbit ears, trying to tune in the UHF channel enough to distinguish Cagney from Lacey.
For Respectable People, abstaining from TV once or twice every 20 years is no big deal, but for Digital Slobs, who spend half their life thinking about packing, and the other half thinking about unpacking, it can be a problem. So, they instinctively time their moves to mitigate the effect -- so much so, sociologists could track their migrations using TV Guide.
The Mayflower Transit Co. reports that half of the 43 million people who move every year do so between May and Labor Day, which just happens to be when Must-See-TV goes into summer reruns. Last season's "Friends" finale, for example ("The One Where Rachel Has a Baby") aired May 16, and this season's fall premiere aired Sept. 26. Coincidence? Hardly.
But now, thanks to affordable portable DVD players (the Initial brand with a 4-inch screen is about $200) on-the-road-again Digital Slobs can watch the director's cut of anything, anywhere, anytime. The player's battery lasts about two hours, but it can also plug into walls. It can even tap into your TV if you want a bigger picture.
And unlike regular DVD players, you don't have to surround it with 400 cubic feet of styrofoam in the bowels of a moving van to protect your investment. Rather, its size, value and utility earns it a spot up in the cab with you the whole trip, just like your Basset hound and your Hanna-Barbara shot glasses (you can never be too careful with those).
So now, thanks to portable DVD players, the only thing that might give a nation of hyper- migratory Digital Slobs pause is a squadron of crop-dusters.
Next week: Digital cameras.
Curt Brandao is the Star-Bulletin's
production editor. Reach him at
at: cbrandao@starbulletin.com