Dispatches from the Fury Road: Begone Progress, Begone!

There are few things more foul than having to update your computer.

If you’re a mere mortal who uses only a tiny percentage of what your technology is capable of, then you’ll know what I mean. I know there are boffins, half-boffins and amateur boffins who will laugh at us when I say setting up a new computer is excruciating. I put the stress levels up there with moving house, buying a house or watching the last few seasons of House.

I bought the computer from a young man who was nice and capable. He was quick and efficient. He had soulful eyes popping up over his mask. I could also smell the faint odour of Purple Haze on his clothes. We found the computer I needed and I was ready to go.

“I haven’t bought a new desktop in nearly 9-years,” I said just before I left. “Is there anything I should know before I begin the set-up?”

“Nah mate. It is all very intuitive. You’ll be right.”

Except I wasn’t right because it turns out technology has changed in the last decade. Consider this: the last time I bought a computer I was seeing Interstellar at the cinema once a week, Pharrell Williams’ “Happy” was blaring in 73% of stores and Brad Pitt was turning up to events not only with his wife Angelina Joelie but they were also wearing matching Saint Laurent power suits. You could say a lot has happened since then.

I kept the new desktop computer in the box for three days before finally conceding I had to set up this bad boy at some point. Suffice to say things didn’t run as smoothly as my masked pal had suggested. Luckily for me I have this thing called Adam Support. It is just like Apple Support but it is more fabulous and speaks in a language that I kinda understand.

“Waaaaaah!” I wrote to the Fabulous Adam Richard.

Nothing more needed to be added. He knew that pitch well. The next day he came over, identified what was wrong and set everything up so I could slowly begin the process of getting my desktop to work in a way that this idiot can understand. And all it cost was breakfast and my ongoing lack of dignity when it comes to these matters.

What bothers me the most is that I am not a total dunderhead when it comes to tech. Yet I can feel it racing ahead of me, leaving me behind in the virtual dust. When we were younger we found it hilarious that the older generation were bamboozled by an ATM but now that I am knocking on the door of 50 I’m looking at my new computer thinking, “Me nOt UnderSTAnD sTuFf anYMORe”. The future comes for all of us in the end, whether we like it or not.

Before I’d left the Store I was chatting to the sales assistant while we waited for the purchase to go through. I told him about a near Covid scare I had earlier in the year. It turned out he also had nearly caught the Spicy Flu when his three housemates all tested positive.

“I just sat in my room for two weeks and took cannabis oil twice a day,” he said. “I’d read that it helps ward off Covid and guess what? I didn’t get it.”

Thank David Bowie (or whichever god you believe in) that there are some things that stay the same.

Hammo!

Surry Hills

Feb 2022