Alliterate Technology

So the Alliterates, our secret society bent on world literary domination, met last night, on a Tuesday because Monday was occupied with romance an' stuff. Our group religiously observes a "Cone of Silence" around our proceedings, so I will not go into details, though they consist of gossip, life updates, critiques, gossip, reviews, gossip, job opportunities, rumors, and just a side of gossip. What set this one apart for me was my slamming into 21st Technology full-tilt, to the amusement of my more technologicall ept brethren.

Normally we meet in a bar, which has the advantage of food and alcohol close at hand, but the disadvantage of other distractions (such as Monday Night Football). This time we met at the Bellevue Public Library, where the Monkey King snagged us a room. And for the first time, the WiFi on my laptop was enabled. This has not happened before. Most of the time the laptop is either at home or at the office, neither of which has a wireless hub, so I've never accessed the net without a cable. Yet here was my computer handshaking with King County Public Library system. Despite myself, I had to download my email (just because I could) and tapped into World of Warcraft (to the amusement of my fellow Allits, to whom I looked like a monkey encountering a bar code scanner for the first time).

Then, one of my fellow Allits gave me his comments on a story I wrote by handing me his USB drive. It looked like a key for a toy car, and I said "Oh, its like a floppy disk". Actually its more like a portable hard drive with its storage capacity, and (after being told) I plugged it into the back of my machine, and got the new millenium version of sneaker-net (Old-guy computer term - running floppies between machines). Again, monkey with bar code scanner.

So now I'm feeling a little behind the technological curve, like a 20th century man trapped in a new century. And I'm scanning the skies for those flying cars I was promised.

More later,