Condensed Time, Just Add Tech

Let's not discuss the lack of heat in ye olde abode right now. I want the remodel that has been a bright shining figment of my imagination for months now to magically occur over night, complete with new wood burning fireplace. If the elves can't make the whole thing happen, I'd just like the fireplace, please. How about just replacing the single-pane windows? I only feel my toes after a hot shower or first thing in the morning after a night of thawing, er, sleeping on Big Swampy.

Anyway, while my fingers are still warm and nimble enough to type, let me get this post going. Warmth may only be one factor leading to the downfall of this post, now that I think about it. The condensing of time might be what does it in. I read an article the other day on an old fashioned piece of paper, possibly bound together in what was known as a "news magazine" and the speaker pulled the Old Timer Walking 5 Miles Through Snow to School routine. My own 40-year-old brain has forgotten the subject of the article but the gentleman mentioned how hard it was for him back in 19-hundred-and-97 "when all we had was [the search engine] HotBot."

While that reference to way back when was kicking around in my head, I ran across this techno-gem this morning:

The third and last entry of the epic Toy Bot series offers a crescendo of challenges, superb levels and an exciting conclusion to this iPhone classic. link

The iPhone has only existed since June 2007 and the game is an iPhone classic? Was the word classic misused or am I becoming a fuddy-dud? Where is the line when something that was introduced becomes a classic? With cars, I thought it was around 30 years. Apparently with video games, the window is mere months. The App Store is not even a year old and a game has gone classic. I'm dizzy. How long before the game is so cool and old it is retro? When I start to refer to "back in my day" will I actually be referring to a four-hour window or might I be allotted an entire day?

A detail that is adding to this cognitive dissonance is that I'm listening to Full Dark House by Christopher Fowler on my old-school pre-3G iPhone and hearing all about London during WWII. In this time of the U.S. trying to get over itself in terms of international affairs, I considered how New York or Philadelphia or Seattle might have reacted if bombers had reached our shores during that war. Police phone boxes and hurricane lamps and typewriters and magnifying glasses were the tech of the day. (Also described are rationing and going to shelters and emerging to see your neighborhood has disappeared under a pile of rubble. I believe our American psyche with respect to hardship is sorely lacking as compared to the rest of the planet. I'm not saying we should have a war just to toughen us up but I do believe our collective perspective has some major holes in it.)

I'm going to ponder the speeding up of the passage of time more while I find some sticks to ... er, particles to rub together to generate some heat and warm up my coffee.

link for image