Illness, Cup-A-Soup and Technology

ILLNESS

So, after getting over the flu, that was all good and well, a few days ago I fell ill with food poisoning. When I say fell ill, I mean cramping over in pain through most of the night. It's really not much fun, mostly because you're in pain all the time, but also because you just can't (and don't want to) eat anything. Being unable to move much without immense pain, I couldn't change the DVD, so I ended up watching Back to the Future three times. Not that that's a bad thing, mind, but I'm in no danger of forgetting the whole storyline any time soon. Anyway, what helped a little through the illness was...

CUP A SOUP

Something I had completely forgotten about but is a rather awesome creation. Soup in a cup. It's create, you stick the kettle on, put the powder in, pour the boiled water in, give it a stir and it's done. Magic. I know it's hardly a new invention, but being reminded of it I intend to make it a frequent part of my diet. I have a problem with not being able to eat a lot - not for want of trying - and I tend to want to drink a lot to, so Cup A Soup helps in that respect. Maybe I'm incredibely lazy and that's why Cup A Soup appeals to me, but I'm going to for now with the chicken noodley goodness that has me hooked.

TECHNOLOGY

Onto the serious bit. Something that bothers me a fair bit is everyones utter reliance on technology. We've lost touch with ourselves and each other a lot because of relying way too much on easier means to do things. I've seen both sides of it, in a sense. The rest of my family grew up in a time before the internet, before consoles, in the day when if you wanted to speak to someone, you'd phone them up, or go and see them at their house. Nowadays, you just need to send them a text message, an email, a Facebook message, a MySpace message, or just read their Twitter updates or their Facebook statuses. If you want to find out something about people, why go to the trouble of talking to them to find out when you can just look at their "profile"?

I've always been slightly behind in technology, something which sometimes frustrates me, and sometimtes I can sit back and smile about it. While everybody else was carrying around a phone that not only had ringtones, but text sounds, WAP, Blutooth, all that junk, I was carrying around a plastic brick that didn't even have a decent digital display. This was never a bad thing, my phone could create and send texts and make and recieve phone calls. It's what they're for, aren't they? Still, usually behind in technology with games even, sometimes while everybody else is playing Dead Space, I'm happily sitting back running through Doom once more, or going back further, trailing through dungeons in Dungeon Master or alien bases in Captive on the Atari ST. Perhaps its nostalgia, perhaps its reluctance to indulge in the ever lazier modern technology. I am in no way saying it's bad technology, games, music (well maybe music), but simply that it's all applied in ways to make us a lazier generation.

So before computers you had toys, and even if you didn't, you had imagination. I think I can safely say that my imagination for my writing came from the dying days of those times. I'd happily sit for hours playing out a new story with my brothers Star Wars figures, recreating characters from the old, even carrying the story on for more than one day.

So I grew up with Ghostbusters and my brothers Star Wars figures, and computer wise I played the Atari 8-Bit or Atari ST. I was mostly left to my own devices to play when younger as the age gap between my brothers and sister were just too big. When I wanted to play with toys, they were too old for that. It all helped toward my imagination though. Now, yes, I did spent a fair amount of time too in front of the Atari, but then games back then were difficult, and especially on the Atari 8-Bit, still required a fair amount of imagination to go with it. There was one particular game called Star Raiders II on the Atari 8-Bit. To accompany playing this game, I used to build a makeshift spaceship cockpit out of cassette tapes, and grab a couple of Star Wars figures and pretend that they were piloting the ship I was playing in the game. I can't quite see a kid these days grabbing some CD cases, sitting a David Tennant figure on them and pretending he's driving a Nissan Skyline GT-R while playing Gran Turismo.

Games and toys these days don't inspire imagination, they've replaced it. And the many means of getting information about people and contacting them have crippled socialising. I wouldn't say so much I'm blaming technology. Who wouldn't want to make their lives easier? But surely we need to have some kind of balance? Don't rely on technology. We're all guilty of it, I'm guilty of it. I see it's somebodys birthday on Facebook and I leave them a wall message wishing them happy birthday. It's a bit impersonal, but I like to at least be able to make some kind of effort, as a good few of my friends are across the country.

I haven't mentioned the good that comes out of these things. Yes, such new technology allows us to be able to talk to these people who are across the country and keep in better touch, but what I'm getting at is it should be an accompaniment to keeping in contact face to face, by phone or by letter... it shouldn't replace it outright.

I've rambled enough. Ja ne~