Omaha, Nebraska, once led the nation in terms of restaurants per capita. Oh, I think the ‘honor’ has passed to other cities now, but the echoes of gastronomic gigantism linger on. Within 1 mile of my house there must be close to 50 places I can go eat. It boggles my mind.
So, too, the internet. Only – more. With the click of a mouse, I can be skipping from podcasts on the ancient Minoans, to Coq au Van a la Julia Childs, A rundown of my team’s performance statistics against the hopelessly inept opposition, to free music, to Disney screenshots, to J.I. Packer, to Reilly videos, to banal facebook entries – ad nauseam.
My own Facebook account is now not only suspended, but pending permanent deletion. I had to dig around to find out how to do that. It’s a buried option amongst the detritus of Facebookian sub-menus. In a Hotel Californian kind of way, you can check out, but you can never actually leave. Turns out you can. And, as of yesterday afternoon, I have left the building.
Next up, my Yahoo accounts. Tried to do that yesterday and wavered. What if my Bride wants to sent me a J at 3:45 – a full hour and 15 minutes before she can smile at me in person? The humanity! The horror! Anyway – today Yahoo will slip quietly into the void for me as well.
I have three friends who have, in the past 4 weeks or so, ditched the ‘landline’ telephones in favor of a ‘cell-only’ service plan. Not seeing the sense in paying for a telephone that only stays on your bench near the microwave (or, wherever…) as well as carrying one in your pants, they have opted to remove the static, delay-ridden device from their lives in favor of the anytime, everywhere convenience of the cell-phone.
Not me, gentle reader. This week, I will be cancelling my cell-phone service. Now, my work provides me with a blackberry and a paid account. I am required to carry it ‘on-call’ once a quarter. I must and will do so – but it is purely a work phone. I get a call from my employer’s voicemail service advising me that I have an urgent call to check up on. Occasionally, a friend who knows the number will try and contact me on the thing. He is invariably disappointed. For me, it’s back to answering the phone on my terms; when I feel like it. Not when it jangles it’s siren call at 65mph on the freeway. In a rainstorm. Between two trucks. Eating a hamburger.
Which leaves this place and brings us full circle back to restaurants. Why operate a small, Mom n Pop eatery with the occasional special when most folks are going to buzz right by your diner for the blog version of Olive Garden? I’d rather shutter the joint and cook for family at home. Most people are either friends, strangers, or idiots. Friends I can count on the fingers of one hand and they know what I think. Why do I care if the rest of world doesn’t know my mind? In truth, I don’t. So – Bye bye, Blogspot. Auf Weidersehen, WordPress. These will be gone today. This place will continue, but be stripped of content, set private and used by me as a way to disseminate stuff to folks that actually care. That is, me and maybe one or two others.
Why? Well, why not? The real reason lies in a desire to step back from instant on for everything. I can zap a meal in a microwave in 6 minutes. It takes likes crap, but I can do it. Does it make it better? I’d argue that it does not. I can regurgitate my every brainwave via blogs, twitter and any number of instant publish mediums. Does that make what I say worth reading? Probably not. Scratch the probably. I can send a message via Yahoo that demands a response NOW. BUZZ!!! What’s for dinner? BUZZ!!! Am I so pressed for time; so valuable intrinsically that the time to send and receive an email needs be done away with? That I can’t call and speak to my Bride and ask that question? No… gotta imagine that I am not that important.
I am embracing Ludditism by Choice. I am Thoreau and the offline world will be my Walden. Doubtless, I will be seen as backward, hard to get in touch with, antisocial, cantankerous, and obstructionary. Invite me to lunch and you can tweet my responses to your Facebook page via your iPhone. Oh, but you pick up the check!
