Saturday, February 28, 2009

Focus, people.

Last night we went to see Ben Folds at the Tabernacle, and I was grossed out by how many people were on their phones / mobile devices the entire time. Any time there was a little downtime, the guy a few rows in front of us was on his Nintendo DS. Brett was like, "Feel free to leave me if I ever become that disinterested in our relationship", as the dude was there with a date. The girl in front of us kept googling stuff on her blackberry during the concert. At one point I leaned way over to see what exactly she was searching, and it was "who is Claire Danes dating?" Her date was on facebook most of the concert.

Um, I am obviously all for the internet when I'm not doing anything else or really need some information, but I go to concerts to see and pretty much focus on the band. Don't really need other entertainment when I already payed $50 for a ticket.

The guy next to us was keeping track of the set list on, gasp, a little notebook and, gasp again, an old fashioned stubby pencil with bite marks. It was so charming, almost like being right back in 1998. 

Another eerily familiar yet apparently obsolete concept was the really drunk dude with the lighter. I like seeing the lighter at concerts. That the cell phone was replaced it just seems way too sterile. Much in the same way I dislike the plastic and cardboard holders for candles at midnight mass.  I know, I know, no one likes hot wax dripping on their hands, but if we're going to hold plastic, might as well just use fake candles. Wait, let's just use cell phones at church from now on. 

This is a pretty ridiculous post. Oh well. Ben Folds was great.

4 comments:

emr said...

this is one of my biggest pet peeves. you may enjoy this:
http://gofugyourself.celebuzz.com/go_fug_yourself/2009/02/holy_fugging_hell_people.html

because its about people texting while sitting in the front row for fashion week. fools !

Courtney said...

I am so with you! I rarely get out to concerts these days, and Ben Folds would be one of my first pics, so I can say that I would be equally as disgusted. In my case, though, I KNOW I would be pulling my phone out at least 2-3 times per hour...
But, it'd only be to check to see if the sitter called. NOT to google!

L said...

I am so stupid with my mobile devices that I only use them when I really need to. When I text Pete, my spellings are often so whacked that he thinks I'm sending him acronyms...

eyeheartorange said...

Court, you have a kid, you're allowed to check.

Erin, ew! Yes! Exactly.

Leah, me too. Except that I get mad at myself when I type something like "ur" but it is so much faster.

I take comfort in knowing that we are among the last of our generation that actually lived a large portion of life sans ubiquitous technology.

I refer to one of my friends as iPhone guy when talking about him to Brett since the first time they met the dude was on his phone all through dinner.