Last night we were watching Monday Night Football and I said something that, in my on mind at least, was a wise observation, a profound insight, something I had to share with the world. So I immediately decided to post it on Twitter. But it could wait until half-time. By half-time I had completely forgotten what I had said that I just had to “tweet”.

In just the past few days I’ve moved from a position of mild disdain for people who rush out and buy the latest expensive gadgets to the position of thinking I really need a smart phone so I can “share my wisdom” as soon as it occurs to me and, more importantly, have a convenient way to keep reminders to myself. I’m assuming there’s an app for that.

Of course there’s still the problem of wireless signals being spotty here where we live. If I wanted to “tweet” something I’d probably have to get in the car and drive five miles to the corner store. I could keep my Kindle handy while I’m watching TV, to “tweet” and to look stuff up on IMDB.com and such but it’s been weeks since I’ve been able to connect to the Internet with it. The first week or two after I got it I could almost always get three or four bars but lately the most I ever get is two and even then it tells me that it is “unable to connect”.

I have a real problem with the cost of smart phones and data plans though. The phones seem horribly expensive to me but you pay for those and you’re done for a couple of years. The data plan is another big bill every month and I guess some people would say this is just another sign that I’m over-the-hill but for quite a few years I’ve been increasingly annoyed – okay, honestly really pissed off – about the way people keep coming up with ways to grab another bite of our money every month.

I know, I know… we want these fancy gadgets and services so of course we have to pay for them but… well, I don’t know where I was going with this. Just the standard lament of a penny pincher I guess. The money you have after the monthly bills are paid is all you really have. The rest, you know you are getting something for it – electricity, water, the ability to surf the Internet, etc. – but it feels like you never had that money and taking on one more monthly bill feels like you’re reducing your income. Things like mortgage payments and car payments are a little different. It might be a long time but you know eventually you will “pay off” those things and you’ll still have something.

I know that’s just life but, man! – living in the future is expensive, not at all like the happy communist dreamland we saw on Star Trek. Speaking of ST, and getting back to my original topic, I’m disappointed that I never got to have a flip-phone. I think one of those with the sliding keyboard would be best for me but I’m so behind the times I still think flip-phones are seriously cool. And I’m a little disappointed that we call them “phones” instead of “communicators”. That’s what they really are you know – communicators. Except, the new ones are beyond communicators. So what are they? Tricorders? No, not quite. That’s still in the future, I think, but not too distant. Someday we will all carry around tricorders. But we will still call them phones.