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Rosalita Bumblebee




The sheer volume of technology in my house is starting to freak me out.
This is my desk.
I have a Koba, a Nintendo 3DS, a computer and a Motorola Smartphone which is taking this picture and which has become the devil that directs my entire life. Right now, I'm trying to read Les Miserables which I got for free on Kobo, but I keep getting distracted by the phone two minutes into each page. It's taken me four hours to read three pages because every few minutes, I have to check my Facebook, Twitter, email, Messenger, Blogger, Wordpress. Then I put down the Kobo and pick up the 3DS and play four hours of Mario and Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story.
At one point, I look up and wonder: where did the day go?
All the while I'm doing this, I have CTV Newschannel, CBC, or CP 24 on the telly to make sure I don't miss one single minute of Rob Ford calling a journalist a pedophile or bowling over an innocent senior citizen. Today, the Rob Ford channel was interrupted by the Nelson Mandela funeral which droned on in various languages, peppered by some mighty soulful singing and booing.

My various devices have brought me to an entire new level of multi-tasking.
It's a condition they call FOMO -- Fear of Missing Out -- and I have it big time.
I've always had this condition. That's why I spent so much time at the press club when it was open. Fortunately, the press club closed before my liver shut down.
Now I get my FOMO virtually, as I sit here and watch my middle aged tush turn into a ham and chedder crepe, complete with air pockets.
I'm literally a stone's throw from the stove and a further toss to the fridge which is also a problem. Now that I've quit the gym temporarily due to the fact our car blew up, I've already gained two pounds over and above the Mac truck that has become my once luscious body.
Dr. Oz has told me that I need to take 10,000 steps, and I figure I take maybe 400 tops between trips to the fridge, the bathroom, the mailbox and the front door to let the dogs out.
Finnigan is so mad I think he's going to eat me.
I need a job really really really really badly.
After I lost my crappy assignment due to the callousness of the French in April, I have literally done one week's work all year. The rest of the time has been spent bouncing from one device to the other, interspersed with several "naps" which can sometimes last for hours.
And now, because of all the screen time, I have completely lost my attention span.
Rosalita Bumblebee, that's me.
This is worrying.
Scott comes home and I'm either lying on the couch or attached by my retina to the computer screen, unless there is a new series on Netflix in which case I'm glued to the flat screen for sometimes eighteen hours. I've been known to stay up for two days watching Homeland or Sons of Anarchy.
At least when Blockbuster was open, I had to get up off my ass and walk down the street. Now I simply switch channel changers.
This is what it must be like to be a film editor.
Oh well, at least I'm learning something. I'm also well read and a good conversationalist, if you consider 140 characters a conversation.
Victor Hugo would have had a stroke. Or would he?
What would have happened to Victor or Shakespeare or Voltaire if they'd lived in the technological age?
There would be no great books, only instant E's or tweets.

Romeo: Yo Jules, WTF? Did you see my vine?
Juliet: LMAO. Nope, still busy watching the Kardashians.



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