#346 Lappa Palooza

There was an interesting news story the other day. Apparently Dell, the big computer maker, is having to recall about a jillion laptop computers. Turns out their batteries run the risk of short circuiting or something and making your laptop explode into flames. Now maybe it’s just me, but I’m pretty sure that in Federal Way, exploding into flames has to occur at least 15 feet from a hot laptop. Or maybe I’m confusing some other news story. Pretty spooky when you get right down to it. I mean, I don’t suspect that many people actually put their laptops on their actual laps anymore, but still. The notion that a battery can cause a device to explode into flames is not too comforting in this techno-gadget dependent society of ours. If I was to be holding a cellphone to my face and it was to suddenly burst into a bonfire I’m pretty sure my provider would get a hot earful in return. Yeah, I really got burned by Verizon. And what about those little blue-light phones the wired folk attach to their ears. The hearing aids of the cellphone generation. They can’t hear you standing right in front of them but they can hear some guy across town. Imagine, if you will, the wonderful prospect of one of those annoying blue light social monstrosities flaring up, igniting their caked on hair products, and engulfing their head in a fireball. Can you hear me now? Sorry. Apparently I have issues with cellphones generally and that kind of cellphone in particular. I suppose God meant our hearing to be hands free that’s why he invented ears. It’s just that I still have problems with electronic devices dangling from them. I don’t even like Ipod earphones in polite company—an Ipod inferno even less.
Cause really, the notion of Blackberries blazing and cellphones singeing and laptops lighting up the laps of all and sundry is a real nightmare. Could this be the next point of weakness where the terrorists attack? The batteries, they say, came from Sony. Poor Dell, investing all kinds of time, money, and quality control in making sure the little electrons don’t leap out of teeny tiny nano etches in their chips and screw up their computers and to be undone by the most simple outsource in the world—the battery. What Homer Simpson did Sony put in quality control? Or what Osama? Perhaps this is only the first in a wave of terrorist techno threats. Contact solution and toothpaste as bombs. Batteries bursting into blazes. Laptops and cellphones and PDAs and digital cameras, Ipods and satellite phones and walkmans, all walking time bombs ready to blow up like a fanatical fundamentalist exploding the dynamite in his backpack and spattering horrified onlookers with pieces of Shiite.
And worse, every WiFi enabled coffee bar in the land. Filled with the cream of today’s techno youth playing video games. Doom anyone?
America, ya gotta love it.