Unfrozen Newhandythal Man

I am notoriously (if one can be notorious among a circle of acquaintances which totals eight or so people) crotchety about getting new personal accessories. I have purchased probably five pairs of shoes in my adult life, one watch, one wallet - which is now gradually disintegrating from the punishing condition known as chronic tropical swampass - and most of my electronic equipment has been battered hand-me-downs from my much earliery-adoptery wife.

Why do I hang on to stuff for so long? While most people seem to be thrust into effervescent spasms of ecstasy by the act of buying a new car or cell phone every other year, for some reason, there’s something about buying new stuff that actually disturbs me.

I think it’s partly because no matter what you buy, they keep making better, cheaper ones every six months, and partly because I hate to admit that my old whatever-it-was is not good enough any more. If I have to get a new whatever-it-is every couple of years, then doesn’t that make me an idiot for buying the old one? Shouldn’t I have chosen better in the first place? Agh.

Anyway, for whatever reason, I am the polar opposite of an early adopter. Late adopter doesn’t begin to cover it. I am such a late adopter that by the time I adopt something, it’s old enough to be cool again in a retro kind of way. I am a T-800 grappling my way clumsily through a world of T-1000s, still rocking the same clothes, boots and bike I took off the first guy I met. So imagine my pleasure (mixed with vague uneasiness) upon my wife’s getting me a brand-spanking-new cell phone for my birthday. A gleaming, sleek metal phone with a camera and a sort of Tricordery flippy part and God knows what else.

Actually, my new phone was purchased slightly used, and the model has been out for a couple of years, but compared to most of my possessions it was if this thing was an example of some unimaginably refined future technology that had just been beamed down from an alien spacecraft. I hadn’t the slightest idea what to make of it, but excitement definitely had the upper hand over technophobia. For, within minutes of being presented with the phone, I had an idea for personalizing it, alien gadget that it was.

I decided I would force it to play Zork.
More later.