When Age Catches Up

Cat was reading an article by Effendy Azmi Hashim where he was remembering his younger days when the video recorder was a new phenomena here. As a result, everyone was seeking his help in programming a show.

That was the good old days, wasn't it. (soft smile). Usually, kids were supposedly 'only to be seen and not to be heard'. The elders were to be respected and whatever they say, are to be followed and no questions allowed. The elders are the wise ones and we were just 'too young'.

Somehow, when the information age arrives, we suddenly became the 'hero' saving our elders from wrongly taping the wrong programs on VCD (putting on tape a cooking show instead of the much awaited horror movie). Not only that..we were much sought after just to set the correct time on the digital screen. How smug and pleased we felt at that time! The elders do not know everything! There are things that we youngsters could teach them! :p As Effendy says, it was as if the electronic products were created by kids for kids!

Alas, payback time is here. As the world became more and more advanced in technology, newer products were invented. The pace in which these gadjets were introduced in the market were also quite fast. Do tell cat..do you really have the time to read and take note of what new product is 'in' and which is 'out'? As we get older, we spent more time at work, reading specific articles or magazines that is linked to our current job that we sometimes do not even have time to read the newspapers. Reading novels? You are lucky if you can finish 2 pages before falling asleep after a tiring day at the office..zzzzz

Kids are a wizard at this as they do have more time to read, google and tinkle with the so called 'MP3', 'MP4' and now 'MP5'. (Hmm.. is there already an MP6?). There's the I-pod, the blackberry (which boss is always confusing the name with blueberry :p yucks!). Nowadays, even a 7 year old kid knows how to create a 'blog'! and also to edit beautiful photos, to 'bing' and 'youtube' a videoclip. Just imagine, a seven year old kid showing you how to play a video game and to use a new device!

Well, I know. You are asking why on earth does this 'adult' not looking at a small little book that comes enclosed with the so called new device? The answer is :
1) Cat just do not have the patience to go through that little book with it's chapters and indexes on how just to get the device to show green light that informs you that it is ready to be used? Grr.. the photo really seems so simple.
And once, you manage to get it to switched on, why is it not printing anything?

How time has changed and has finally caught up with some of us (minus out those IT people who gets away with anything that has numbers on it!:p) The more things were said to be fully automatic, the more complicated it is to set it up. That is also why , cat always make sure that the salesperson is there to set up the thing as much as he can and waited patiently as he runs everything 2 times for cat! :p Just to be double sure on the instructions. So that she will not have to resort to asking anyone under her height on how to operate even a simple thing like a digital camera.

That is the problem with today: You would want the latest thing in the market (so that you will not be left out) but then you just used the basic functions because you just do not know how to use the rest of them and you are not willing to ask a younger person:p Cruel world!

Signing off,
A tired cat..trying to read a manual on how to operate a printer and praying that it will occupy her whole mind and make her fall asleep tonight. How she misses looking at the stars at night.