The Dark Side of Technology

So I tried my hand at a romance-laced blog last time and it turned out that it was not my cup of wine (I do not drink tea) so I guess I need to move on to some other interesting topics… even though my friend Keenu commented on my last blog that if I write romantic stories featuring shirt-ripping or shirtless Salman Khan, my blog will get flooded by readers….and here by “readers”, she means crazy girls smitten by a below-average-looking (albeit muscular) guy in his late-40s, whose claim to fame is starring in some mind-numbingly idiotic movies, such as Dabangg and Dabangg 2 . And hence, for me writing about Mr. Khan is an unbelievably unappealing option.

I guess the issue here is that Keenu is completely out-of-sync with the real world because she has been living in this small, sleepy town, called Charleston, West Virginia for too long now. And, trust me, Charleston indeed is a sleepy town because some of the most sensational headlines of the local newspaper I have seen are – “Kohl’s to add 3 more jobs in Charleston” or “A 82-year old man suffers a heart attack after taking two pills of Viagara”, or “Mayor’s wife/sister elopes with a high school student” (those of you wondering about the wife/sister combo need to know that incest was proudly invented in West Virginia). So after having lived in that state for 15 or so years, and having been surrounded by penniless, shirtless, and teeth-less native West Virginians, she has completely lost touch with reality. Oh well, I guess this is the collateral damage of living in a state full of natural beauty… but ranking 49^th out of 50 in terms of per capita income (thank God for Mississippi).

And Keenu, if you are offended by my comments and are planning to send a couple of mail bombs my way, my address in Canada is:

786 Peace Blvd, Nobelville, ON, B4P2C6

And my permanent address in the US is:

420 Darenot Street, Opposite FBI building, Legoland, CA, 90201

Let us now move on to today’s topic. With Valentine’s day around the corner, love is in the air so let us talk about something we all love – technology. We obviously are in love with our iPads, iPhones, and Samsung Galaxies but we need to always remember that if we are not careful, these gadgets with their own minds and attitudes can create pretty hilarious, as well as some awful situations for us. As I mentioned in my last blog, as a part of my research on romance, I ended up watching this desi flick called Jab Tak Hai Jaan. The movie was as interesting as a nuclear wasteland but I liked a couple of songs from the movie so next day when I typed in the name of the movie in Youtube’s search bar, my iPad automatically converted it into ‘Jab Tak Hai Japan”. I know that birthing in Japan is a dying business and the country currently has a lot of major economic/political/cultural issues, such as a tanking yen, a shrinking population, tensions with China, flooding of DVDs of Salman Khan movies from India etc. but no one in his/her right mind will believe that Japan is going to die as a country…unless watching lots of Salman Khan movies accelerates the already serious suicide problem in that country. Trust me…that CAN happen.

And then it irritates the hell out of me when I check some of my stock prices on my iPad. As an Indian, I am required by law to own a lot of gold but since my soul mate Anshu does not like gold jewelry, all of my gold investment is in an ETF with the ticker GLD. And every time I type GLD, the iPad automatically changes it to GOD and obviously there is no stock price for God (though based on the efficient market theory I learned at Chicago Booth, God’s shares should be traded on NASDAQ as religion is by far the most lucrative industry in the world). And then AMZN (Amazon) is always converted to Amen, BBRY (Blackberry) to Bury (yup, they will be buried forever soon the way their stock is going), and FB (Facebook) to FBI (though IMHO, FB does need a visit from the FBI to investigate the cause of a dramatic drop in world’s per capita IQ ever since FB was started as a company….and no, I do not have a FB account and never will).

My friend Rajesh has his own axe to grind against technology. As a good citizen, he does some voluntary work and in this case he was helping with a fundraiser. One of the events for this fundraiser was the screening of Cinderella. He was requested to send an e-mail to the target audience so he typed the following message on his iPhone

What – Screening of Cinderella

Where – Anderson Auditorium

When – March 1, 2013 at 6:30 PM

Ticket Price - $5

He sent this e-mail out at around 11 PM and went to bed. Next morning, when he got up, his inbox was flooded with 219,751 e-mails. He was scared that his account had been hacked and hence he was receiving junk e-mails from all over the world. He started reading these e-mails and they all seemed genuine where everyone seemed to be asking how they can send the money right away in order to secure a seat for the show. Rajesh was a little puzzled by the sheer number of e-mails, as well as this strong interest in the screening of Cinderella. And the surprising part was that each and every e-mail appeared to be from a man…until he noticed something while scrolling down to his original message – turned out that his iPhone, being really a super smart phone, had converted the word “screening” to “screwing”. No wonder every original recipient male of this e-mail had forwarded it to all of his buddies and many of them were ready to come from far-flung places, such as Dallas and New York to watch the “screwing” of Cinderella for $5.

Rajesh obviously was pretty upset so he decided to file a defamation lawsuit against Apple. He searched for the best lawyer in Toronto and sent him an e-mail. Within 5 minutes, he received an angry reply from the lawyer’s office threatening that he may press charges against Rajesh for writing that kind of e-mail. Rajesh was really puzzled so he re-read his original e-mail and realized that his iPhone had slightly changed the meaning of his first statement…. It read, “….and I was told that you are a highly respected liar in the area of defamation suits…..”  Needless to say, Rajesh has sold his iPhone on eBay and has bought a brand new Blackberry Z10. Welcome to the world of BBM, Rajesh! 

And, as always, my final thought:

Keenu, all jokes apart, I really applaud what you do with the Bollywood Night in Charleston, WV. It is great to give something back to the community you live in. Anshu and I are really proud of you!!