The Truth Hurts.

By Gerald McGrew on March 3, 2011 in Other

“What you do speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

And so I bought a new iPhone.

Regular readers will know this is an astounding back-flip, one that rivals Peter Garrett’s personal disarmament of his political ideals back in 2004. I finally handed in my trusty Blackberry and entered a whole new world of technological self-loathing. Why would I do this? Why would I suffer the raised eyebrows and merciless sledges from mates who only yesterday were copping the same from me every time they started frigging about with their iPhones? Anyone who knows me also knows that my knowledge of the latest and greatest in the tech and online world contrasts sharply with what I actually own and do online.

Anyway, I’ll come back to this – as it gets worse.

You see I also bought a shiny new Xbox to replace the one I bought back in 2003. This new model has a very fancy extra bit called a ‘Kinect’. This is the motion sensor that allows you to play games using your body: jumping over things, ducking, waving your arms to play ping pong etc. It’s fantastic. And also a little bit scary – this is a first generation consumer technology and it’s eerily close to what we saw that short chap using in Minority Report. We used to wonder what a new technology would look like in a few years; now we expect to be amazed next year, and probably will be.

One other thing about the Xbox, the shooting games are some of the most immersive technology experiences I’ve ever had. I know that last line sounds like a complete wank, and to be honest it felt like it, but my Dad thought I was watching The Hurt Locker when I was playing one war game. It’s that real. And don’t even think about what these things must be doing to the brain of an average ten year-old that plays for twenty hours or more a week!

So apart from the new iPhone and new XBox what else have I done in 2011, my year of tech hypocrisy?

I started a Twitter account. And also a blog – see, I told you it gets worse!

Now before you finally decide that I must be a massive knob I can confirm that I haven’t actually made a single tweet or blog post. While I can tolerate being seen with an iPhone the thought of sending my first pointless message into the Twittersphere is one that I can’t bear. There’s a great website ‘Tweeting Too Hard’ that has also scared me off ever doing anything on Twitter. I suppose I could post these articles on my blog, but seeing real stats that prove no-one reads them might be too much for my fragile self-esteem.

What’s surprised me is how quickly I’ve caved in to the siren’s call of all this new stuff. It only felt like yesterday that I was putting shit on most of it. Even though I’m relatively anonymous, after confessing to you the acquisition of my new phone, gaming console, virginal Twitter account and blog I still feel a little bit dirty.

And speaking of dirty… porn looks great on an iPhone!