People on Crackberry

I just returned a week ago from Laos and Cambodia which always leads to some difficult and strange feelings of cultural non-adaptation. Or as I sometimes like to call it in somewhat more popular vernacular - 'mind-fuck'. A great girlfriend of mine, who now lives in Cambodia, recently returned to the States for a home-visit and eloquently and succinctly described that strange feeling of cultural non-adaptation that I share with her:

"Traffic Jams. Sprint. Automated Answering Systems. Dressing for Dinner. Refrigerators that Beep. Everything that Beeps. People on Crackberry, no Time to Say Hi. Advertising. Complaining. Schedules. Entitlement. Belligerence. Reservations. Waste. Protocol. Hello to the Things I was not Missing."

I especially loved 'People on Crackberry.' Last night I was in De Jaren Cafe here in Amsterdam. I was sitting at a table with Malay friends who were all cackling away in Malay so my mind was arbitrarily wandering around. It landed on the memory of her comment 'People on Crackberry' and lo and behold, as I lifted my head all around me I saw people on one or another form of crackberry. Of course, the subconscious observation of so many people on crackberry probably sparked the memory of 'people on crackberry' but that's just another interesting aside. In any case, ten gallon hats off to Lori for her ever insightful and entertaining observations!