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Digital Slob Curt Brandao |
Holding out for
a microwave
and TV in oneThe core difference between Respectable People and Digital Slobs has always been how we use technology.
Respectable People use it to do more and accomplish more, while Digital Slobs use it to do less while accomplishing (roughly) the same amount.
Respectable People want things to go faster, no matter how much extra effort it takes; Digital Slobs want things to go easier, no matter how much extra time it takes.
This is why Respectable People will weave through a traffic jam for 45 minutes just to gain 25 feet (and thus the moral high ground) on the red Honda Civic that cut them off three cars back.
Digital Slobs, by contrast, will gladly wait hours, if necessary, for a pizza to be delivered, if doing so allows them to further delay Phase I of their long-overdue kitchen excavation. (Incidentally, if you walk into a new friend's house and want to size him up, just ask, "Where's the kitchen?" If you detect any pause or glazed look, you've got a Slob on your hands.) At this very moment, many Digital Slobs are waiting out their leases without any firsthand knowledge that the conventional ovens in their apartments are even operational.
So, for Respectable People, patience is an unattainable virtue, but for Digital Slobs, patience actually fuels our sloth.
We exhibited such a willingness to wait it out back in the 1970s, when Respectable People leapfrogged us to jump on the microwave bandwagon. Many old enough to remember when "Carson" was the late-night talk-show host (and not some guy on "Last Call") are probably just like my sister. She has a faded Polaroid tucked away in a shoe box somewhere that captures her ecstatic smile during the historic first nuking of her first early matrimonial baked potato (circa 1973).
Just like her old Raytheon prototype, many Respectable People's first $500 magnetron monstrosities not only tested the load-bearing strength of their Formica kitchen counters, but also triggered occasional brown-outs in 14-block radii.
Grown Digital Slobs were unimpressed, because Swanson was still freezing TV dinners on tin trays, and you'd sooner put nitroglycerin in a blender than metal in a microwave.
Younger Slobs, however, soon discovered the microwave was really a macho Easy-Bake oven. Ball Park Franks may "plump when you cook 'em" in a toaster, but expose any hot dog to enough electromagnetic energy and, before your eyes, it'll palpitate and rupture until it resembles an alien that could jump out, lay its eggs in your mouth and kill everyone in the house except, maybe, Sigourney Weaver. After a few such theatrical displays, (plus the advent of microwavable s'mores) we were sold.
But long before appropriate "software" for microwaves was perfected (Lean Cuisine, PopSecret, Red Baron), Respectable People were willing to adopt the clunky "hardware," suffering power failures and cracks in their homes' foundations just to be the first on the block to defrost a turkey within a lunar cycle.
In the 21st century, microwaves have matured. Some can recognize specific cooking instructions or download recipes from the Internet. Even still, they remain just the first chair in Respectable People's culinary orchestras, never a solo act.
Yet as more and more artificial intelligence gets mixed with our artificial flavorings and preservatives, perhaps one day microwaves will give rise to every Digital Slob's lifelong dream: TVs that feed us.
See the Columnists section for some past articles.
Curt Brandao is the Star-Bulletin's
production editor. Reach him at
at: cbrandao@starbulletin.com