I said this seven years ago: Cell phones are the new Pocket watch [Some blog on the BusinessWeek web site and unfair & out of nowhere criticsm of it]

Actually the title of the article that I am linking to (in the title) is "Pocket watches are back."

In reality, it wasn't my brilliant punditry that made me say what I said about "cell phones as pocket watches" when I said it (1998). And in fact, I think I said it about SMS text-messaging pagers. But the truth is (Hello. Strunk and While calling William: You need to cut it out with the "throat-clearing" introductory clauses [these parenthetical comments are no picnic either]) I've more or less always (why qualify?) liked pocket watches better than wristwatches. Pocket watches remind me of my Grandpa.

Make no mistake about it, however, my punditry is brilliant. All hail me! The Oracle of Sugar Land! Soothsayer extradonaire! Futurist-Savant!

Haza! Hazaa!! Hazaaa!!!

On to the meat of my criticism of the article:

BusinessWeek is indulging either in a sad or a keenly ironic excuse for blogging (maybe it is both!) The main weakness of the article (and the blog in general) is that it tends to a sticky frappe blended from cultural anachronisms (Cathedral bells and school buzzers? Dude! Are you predicting the end of time or the end of secular public education?), basic "miss the boat"ness about technology, and metaphorical expression tortured in a bag of mixed locutative phrase-coinerismations.

Yo, Author of whatever that blog is called! Write about something current, for example, "the distressing prevalence of Lt. Uhura cell phones" Here is an ironic link that topic, written about "so last year".

Here, I'll start you off:

What's the deal with these ear-sticky-outie cell-phone thingamabobbers? It's like the TMBG song "Everybody wants prostetic foreheads on their real heads"


Enough abouut you. Back to me...

I say, "We are not going far enough."
Technology needs to intrude further into our lives and personal space. Which brings me back to "Inspector Gadget" How about a poem? Yes, a poem.

[ahem]

Ode to Inspector Gadget

What a beacon of our time!
How graceful and noble of purpose!
Oh, to have a cell phone embedded in my left hand, such that my pinky be the microphone and my thumb the speaker!
My heart takes flight, although cell phones must be turned off while the cabin doors are closed.
My soul soars, to the furtherest reaches of my provider's coverage map.

Inspector Gadget, I would call you even if I had only an analog signal.

If they refashioned the redoubtable gray "Gentry" such that a cybernetic arm with a mind of its own would pop out to grab stuff, hold up a magnifying glass (to look at clues), or just rub the ol' chin while both hands are needed to puzzle over a map... people would buy the thing like mad!
But not like M.A.D., for that is the way of Dr. Claw: which is bad bad bad.

Go, Gadget, go.