Hamlet's Blackberry, chapter 13 Internet Sabbath Critique

The summary is, in the words of Harry Potter, "complicated." Powers admits he and his family broke the internet sabbath by watching the rest of The Blob with Steve McQueen on the internet. The modem is supposed to be turned off on the weekend; yet there are exceptions and texting is still allowed on the weekend.

Another point that Powers makes is that he and his wife work on the weekend. He never says what Junior is doing. On his phone? Texting? Senior says there is a full slate of family activities on the weekend, but he never says what they are.

This all leads me to the conclusion that work, not technology, is the real enemy.

Weekend Haboob...

In Califas or the borderlands people would always say, "We need a good earthquake to get rid of this wind." All weekend, day and night, the wind blew sand everywhere. Into the car, the pool, the house, literally everywhere.

Although people in Phoenix resist the use of the Arabic word, Haboob, that is what a severe sandstorm is. In Califas no one is so narrow minded as to hate the word Haboob simply because it is Arabic. After all the majority of Spanish words come from Arabic.

I took many showers this weekend, which is to say I still went outside during the Haboob. Ironically the worst part of the sandstorm occurred in broad daylight at Costco off the 10 Freeway.I still feel grains of sand in my eyes, ears, and mouth. Lesson: it is better to stay silent during a Haboob.

To make things even more bizarre, tonight at 1058 pm is the lunar eclipse.

Enter the hipster...

Since last Thursday, I cannot carry out my business without running into hipsters here for Coachella Fest. I go to the pool to swim...hipsters everywhere...why? Why are they in the country club--the ghetto one--swimming pool?

Friday afternoon I see many charter buses. Oh  I wonder if school children are returning from a field trip... No, charters are brought in to accommodate the hipsters.

Friday afternoon I have business at Staples. I drive up Washington. Traffic jam. What does the Tennis Garden have to do with it? Oh, charter bus service. Beautiful luxury buses while we locals suffer with the ghetto natural gas ones that never go anywhere directly. We have to transfer at the mall no matter what.

More hipsters in the way. Some just sitting on the benches inside Staples... glued to their phones and their phones wear more clothing.

Later at the pool, more hipsters. The discussion among locals was... what about us? Saturday, I go shopping. More hipsters buying clothes, shoes, hats, etc.I wait.

Traffic jam. The charter buses gone.The hipsters in the stupid hats and iphones gone. How did we benefit again?