How reliant we are on computers

If you're one of those rare people who actually checks into this weblog on a regular basis, you will have noticed there was nothing fresh on Monday.

My days-old commentary about the coming of winter-like weather had to suffice for an extra day.

IT IS BECAUSE I experienced technical glitches so severe that I had to break down on Monday and spend some money in order to buy myself a new computer. My now-former laptop computer developed a glitch so severe that I could no longer rely upon it to write copy.

I could still scan the internet. But there were certain letters on my keyboard that no longer functioned properly.

Such as the letter "o," which everytime I hit that key would cause the keyboard to start spewing out an endless supply of o's that would have turned my thoughts into even more gibberish than they already were.

And yes, in this particular case, I know exactly what provoked my 3 1/2-year-old computer to crash. A few drops of Coca-Cola got spilled into the part of the keyboard where O, L and P congregate.

IT WAS ENOUGH to make my old device functionally useless and require me to buy my new HP-brand computer, which came already loaded with Windows 8 -- so I get an upgrade technologically for my moments of clumsiness last week.

As it was, I filed the commentary about winter weather from a computer at a public library -- which isn't something I relish the thought of doing on a regular basis.

Besides, too much of my living as a freelance writer requires that I have a functioning keyboard to grind out copy -- along with a reliable way of transmitting it via e-mail.

Which is a condition I suspect most of us deal with in our lives these days. In fact, it amazed me just how cut off I felt from the rest of the world during this past weekend with an inability to just log on to my laptop computer and check things out.

ADMITTEDLY, I STILL had a functioning smart-phone (one of those Nokia Lumia devices) that allowed me to continue to check my e-mail (which I rely on for work-related messages) and to do limited checking of the Internet.

Although off those dinky little screens, it becomes a pain in the buttocks to try to read anything of any length on any particular website.

As it is, this is the first piece of copy I am writing on my new machine. I'm trying to get the feel of how it functions, and my ability to grind out copy is definitely slowed as I try to figure out how all of this works.

Because this particular laptop computer actually looks more like my smart-phone. It seems like it is designed for people who want to view their machines as something to play with -- rather than just a tool to do actual work with.

THEN AGAIN, I always suspected that I was different than many people (particularly the younger generation) in that I'm interested in the actual content I'm viewing on this machine -- rather than spending time on the machine itself.

If all of this reads like I'm some sort of aging malcontent who can't quite get with the program, perhaps you're right. Because a part of me wonders how much different the next laptop computer I purchase will be from this machine.

It definitely makes me reminisce fondly of the first laptop I ever purchased -- one that I managed to get seven years worth of use out of. That is a statistic that manages to amaze every technological geek I ever encounter.

They seem to be too used to the idea of replacing something every couple of years.

ALTHOUGH I DO have to admit to one bit of pleasure from my new purchase -- the price.

For someone who can be a cheap as I can be at times, I was amazed at how inexpensive these devices have become.

Particularly since that aforementioned first laptop cost just over $1,000, while the second one (the one that died last week due to Atlanta's finest soft drink) cost me just over $600.

This one was about $475 -- and that includes a couple of upgrades to add memory, along with all the taxes that assorted county, state and federal entities added to my purchase.

WILL THE DAY come when I can get one of these overelaborate typewriters (I am old enough to remember when professional copy was typed out on actual paper, then mailed to a publisher via the U.S. Postal Service) for a couple hundred bucks?

Perhaps. But I'm also wondering if the day is coming when the machines will be designed to take my oral dictation and convert it into printed words; including all the "uhs," "ums" and "you knows?"

Somehow, it doesn't sound like progress to me.

  -30-

11 or 12 inches? It’s just a sandwich

I once worked in a bookstore – one of those places that stocked nothing but remaindered books.

The newest hassle?

Which meant that everything was marked down significantly in price compared to what it cost when it was brand-new and had promise of significant sales. In fact, the store (which has long since shuttered) had a giant sign on the front window promising up to “70 percent” off the book price.

NOW TO SOMEONE who enjoys books and the process of scouring for them, the joy of such stores is that you might actually find an interesting volume amidst all the junk that nobody wants – priced for about $6, compared to the $25-30 that new books go for these days.

That’s not a bad bargain!

Yet there’s always someone who’s going to find something to complain about with regards to just about anything. And I still remember the one customer who came into the store with a couple of books that were marked down to about $4 each, then tried to argue that the “70 percent” discount ought to be on the $4 price – not on the original price of the book.

In short, someone who had a chance to buy something for $4 (plus tax) was complaining because he couldn’t get it for $1.20.

THAT’S JUST BEING cheap and petty. I still remember the hysterics he went into when I refused to buy into his tightwad line of logic.

And somehow, that same sentiment is popping into my head when I read the reports in recent days about people complaining that a Subway Sandwich foot-long isn’t really a foot-long.

It seems somebody actually felt the need to take the tape measure to the completed sandwich – and came up with an 11-inch measurement.

There is now even a lawsuit pending in the Cook County Circuit Court, and attorneys are trying to get as many people as possible to sign on to make it a class action suit – in which Subway would ultimately have to pay out some huge sum that would be split equally amongst the participants.

THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES reported that an attorney actually believes customers are owed a refund for the one inch of sandwich they did not receive.

So for the $5 foot-long sandwich that Subway sells, that comes to about 42 cents per inch.

It sounds more like a bad Saturday Night Live sketch – a Subway executive being forced to write out $0.42 checks to people to reimburse them for the inch of sandwich they did not receive.

Or $0.21 checks if all they had was a six-inch sandwich that was probably closer to 5-1/2 inches long.

I UNDERSTAND THE concept of “Truth in Advertising” as well as anyone else.

But this seriously strikes me as somebody being excessively petty in the way they approach life.

Besides, anybody who paid attention during school ought to know about certain levels of shrinkage – which is why that bag of potato chips often appears only three-quarters full when you first open it.

And why a loaf of freshly-baked bread is never going to come out to a precise length – which, it seems, is the line of logic that the company is trying to use to defend itself against this talk.

PERSONALLY, THERE ARE other places I would go to if I wanted a fresh deli sandwich with all the trimmings. I’m fortunate enough to live near a real nice Italian-themed grocery store where I could get a good Italian-style sub, or an Italian beef, sausage or meatball sandwich – if I so desire.

But I actually worked in a Subway Sandwich franchise back when I was in high school, and the product they put out is passable – a mass-produced sandwich made to order.

With relatively fresh bread; although I understand that most Subway franchises no longer have someone doing what I did some three decades ago – standing in a back room at the meat slicer turning logs of genoa salami or entire hams into perfectly-thin slices for someone’s edible edification.

Still, how much can one expect if the primary appeal of Subway is that they’re promising you a $5 price above all else?

  -30-

Gasoline price dropped “below” $3 right before my very eyes. Will it last?

Gasoline prices are on the decline these days, and I had the strangest example of getting “ripped off” at the pump.

I was driving Wednesday afternoon around the area south of Chicago, and I happened to notice I could use gas in the car when I approached a Speedway station/convenience store on Lincoln Highway at Harlem Avenue (I’m not sure if I was IN Frankfort, Ill., or just outside of it).

BECAUSE THE STATION was on the Will County side of the street (literally, Cook County was just a few yards away), the taxes configured lower, so I paid $3.03 a gallon. I was able to fill up my car (a Saturn SL2) for just over $20.

As I pulled away from the station, I felt good. That was the lowest price I had paid in gasoline quite possibly all year. So I went about my business in the land where Joliet is just a short drive away.

About a half-hour later, my business was complete, and I was retracing my route to return to the civilized land of Chicago when I passed the same gas station. During that time, the price dropped.

It was now $2.999 per gallon. Admittedly, that gets rounded off to $3 when it comes to paying the cashier. But seeing that price gave me a jolt – both in that it was the first time in a long time that I had actually seen a gas station offer gasoline for a price starting with a 2 and because I felt a second of disgust that I had missed the chance to pay that lower price.

JUST OUT OF curiosity, I stopped, went back into the gas station/convenience store and asked, and was told by the manager that he had just finished resetting the pumps. He had literally in mid-day been given the approval to lower the price yet again.

Now I understand that gasoline is NOT the significant part of the business for these local franchise operators who have gas pumps as part of their store.

Offering me cheap gas was supposed to entice me to come into the store and buy some of the junk food, overpriced office supplies and other goods that he was peddling (and in fact, I bought a newspaper – the Joliet Herald News, out of curiosity as to what was happening locally).

For all I know, the store made more of a profit off my $0.75 for the Herald News than it did off my $22.36 I paid to fill up my gas (which considering that at the worst point I was paying nearly $40 to fill up was a good price).

I HAVE ALWAYS realized that it was not the gas station operators who were getting rich in recent months, as gasoline prices soared over $4 per gallon, and even had some people speculating that we would someday see the $5 per gallon price at least in downtown Chicago proper (where gas always costs more), if not in all of Illinois.

All this came soaring to my mind when I read a Chicago Sun-Times account Thursday about the price of a barrel of oil dropping below $67, which is resulting in some stations being able to price gas at as little as $2.81 per gallon (the metropolitan area average is $3.22 per gallon, according to the Chicago Motor Club, and I know a Shell gas station located one block from where I live was charging on Thursday $3.19).

Could Alaron Trading Group really be correct when it told the Sun-Times that gas prices could be as low as $2.80 average across the Chicago area? That could mean the cheaper gas price places could be charging as little as $2.50 per gallon (perhaps more, if they’re really determined to get you inside their convenience stores to buy those rubbery hot dogs or greasy pizza slices that no one with sense should ever eat).

Now a part of me wants to be optimistic. Prices are going down. Perhaps a sense of rationality is returning to the market.

PERHAPS THOSE ANALYSTS who offer lofty opinions are correct when they say that oil companies saw how much people hated paying prices in the $4 range for gasoline that they learned to “drive smarter” and use less gas.

Oil companies are realizing that more gasoline will be sold, which results in more of a profit for the oil companies – if not necessarily for the local gas station owners.

But then I wonder what yet-to-occur event will trigger a paranoia that will result in gas prices soaring again. I can’t help but see the lesson being that people in this country are so dependent on their automobiles and other motor vehicles that they WILL knuckle under and pay up.

Plus, we as a society have now been put into a mental place where we think gasoline for less than $3 per gallon is cheap.

I CAN REMEMBER when people were outraged to pay more than $2 per gallon, although a part of me is lodged enough in the past that I think paying anything much over $1 for a gallon of gasoline is ridiculous. I’m just like those old-timers who remember when “penny candy” cost one cent.

So where do I go from here?

There are times when I’d love to be able to scrap my car altogether and rely on public transportation. There’s a certain convenience to not having to worry about gas prices or finding parking spaces that I enjoyed back in the times of my life when I did not have an automobile.

But then I look at the funding cuts to mass transit and the rising fares that result in lower ridership, which means more service cuts. The whole thing becomes an endless cycle, which means I’m stuck with the need for a car.

-30-

EDITOR’S NOTES: People purchasing gasoline at stations in downtown Chicago were paying (http://www.suntimes.com/business/1237603,CST-FIN-gas23.article) $3.99 per gallon earlier this week.

Dominick’s supermarkets are working with BP to offer gasoline discounts to people who shop (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/transportation/chicago-gas-dominicks-oct22,0,245367.story) at the two stores. It’s too bad I carry a card for Jewel supermarkets in my wallet.

Tensions in the Middle East, or even another hurricane in this country, could send (http://www.nwherald.com/articles/2008/10/22/news/local/doc48fef58389185909062465.txt) gasoline prices back on the rise again.