Bad enough to be a hale and hearty senior citizen striding down the pavement, intent on getting there, when I can remember where "there" is, and to be obstructed by some young whippersnapper suffering from the cell-phone stagger or the twitter totter, lurching from side to side, oblivious to just how much real estate they are hogging. I'm thinking of buying a cane to carry with me. Much more refined than a cattle prod, don't you think?
But soon I'll have something else to contend with when the pant-pant, drool-drool, most awaited, super coolest, most niftiest gadget of all time ever hits the street: Google Glasses. Right now it's limited to a handful of uber-geeks, but should be inflicted upon the general public in the fall.
Imagine the traffic jams. How do I get by someone wearing specs that allow an unprecedented level of peripatetic multi-tasking? A polite a-hem, excuse me, won't get the attention of someone who's strolling along taking photos, texting by mouth, ordering pizza by blinking, while at the same time monitoring the behavior of the bitcoin market, cruising re-runs of Baywatch, programming advanced avionic systems, and plotting the demise of whatever evil overlords dominate in their MMORPG universe. Someone who will, at least in the beginning, cause complete gridlock as the curious and envious gather in his or her wake.
I do see that eventually all this may work to my advantage, even if I don't adopt the technology. When I am old enough to be walking down the street babbling to myself and swaying to music that only I can hear, everyone will be wearing googly eyes, and I won't look deranged, I'll look stylish. If they combine it with a self-driving Segway I won't even need that cane.
I only hope there will be someone as fabulous as Freddie to compose an anthem to the poor old smartphone (or insert name of your favorite outmoded tech toy). Radio Ga Ga, Radio Goo Goo, indeed.
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