May 17, XLV, A.S.

Although I have been a complete lazy tit since, what, April 30^th, in the writing department, I have not exhibited that same idleness in the thinking, observing, and saying 'What, exactly, the FUCK am I talking about' segments of life. In fact, during many of my outwardly appearing 'idle' moments, I have functioned as sometimes, somewhat, something of a combo form of Adviser / Confidante / Talk-Show-Host / Court Jester, (if such a combination is even relevant or desirable in today's high tech, Reality TV society). Plus, as a sort of off-handed bonus, I'm learning (and re-learning) a huge amount of MassCool shit. Prime example: the whole 'romance' thing, as experienced by a 14 year old. I had totally forgotten just how difficult, frustrating and awkward 'romance' could actually be. I had also, (presumably during that same episode of sociocultural amnesia), allowed my grasp of the rules and regulations pertaining to early teen dating to lapse considerably, along with what little I recall of the MASSIVE list of what constitutes acceptable behavior in the sometimes pimply, often bitchy and almost always Nightmare world of young adult dating practices. I personally thought that the whole, age-old Boy / Girl interaction thing had actually gotten easier over the years – certainly nothing like the rigid, Draconian, etched-eternally-in-stone set of laws we'd had handed down to us! Nope. Hasn't changed. And not just hasn't changed maybe a little, oh no. Hasn't changed one fucking bit. I had made the awesomely bone-headed assumption that all of our technological advances would also include advances in the basic field of desirable wetware interfacing – an assumption I will never again entertain. Even in our phenomenal hyper-tech world of the future, one set of Ancient Universal Truths remains – zits are still zits, skins are still oily, and teenaged boys will still turn 97 shades of red and refuse to make eye contact when speaking to the object of their desires. Sorry, I won't single out the boys: the girls are afflicted just as bad. Increased computer literacy, high-tech gadgets anywhere they'll fit, astounding advances in every single one of the sciences (except, of course, the one science that actually counts) have, quite obviously, removed virtually all of the technophobia that plagued my age cohort, and let's face it – to us, living in the 'way back times', everything was totally new and alien. Even the most basic concepts behind many of the newly sprouting tech wonders were beyond us. And if that wasn't bad enough, the only people around to explain these things to us were our parents, who knew and understood even less about technology than we did. This was not a case of the blind leading the blind, it was more like the thick leading the dense. Or maybe the dead leading the stupid. But here, let me make this a little easier for you to grasp. No amount of description, no pages of oh-so-clever phrasing could put our primitive level of technological retardation into perspective more completely then these next 3 words:

Pong Impressed Us.

No shit. A tiny square of light batted across a TV screen by 2 equally unimpressive sticks of light had us stunned fucking rigid! Pong was like something we had never even imagined. Why, you could actually play ping-pong, and even tennis, right there in your own home, right there on your own TV – all through the miracle of 'Modern Technology'! Large groups of us would skip school, get ripped senseless and have mass Pong tournaments lasting upwards of 8 hours.

Now you tell me, is that not one of the saddest, most pathetic things you've ever heard?

And now you answer me, yes. Yes, Rob, it is.