Life's so much easier with the Internet

I woke up this morning and realized that three children’s videos I had borrowed from the library were due today. I didn’t feel like going to the library, so I went online and renewed them. It took barely a minute. My laptop was on the nightstand, so I didn’t even have to get out of bed. My children will grow up to take such conveniences for granted. But I was raised in the pre-internet era and continue to be amazed at what I can do with a few taps and clicks. Here’s just a partial list:

• Banking: I can check my balances, transfer money from one account to another, and celebrate whenever the bank credits me with 11 cents of interest.
• Paying bills: I can pay all my bills online, saving me the trouble of writing checks, sticking stamps and sending my wife to the mail box.
• Buying tickets: I can get almost any ticket online, including airline tickets, train tickets, concert tickets and sports tickets. If my Internet connection weren’t so slow, I'd also be able to get speeding tickets.
• Buying gifts and other items: I can buy all sorts of stuff online, including engrossing books at Amazon.com, enchanting music at iTunes.com, and enduring love at RussianBrides.com (if I were single).
• Reading: There’s so much to read online, including articles, blogs, stories and tattoos.
• Watching videos, looking at photos: I can watch scores of shows and events online, including amazing performances such as Zakir Hussain on the tabla and amazing feats such as a person crossing a road in Hyderabad. I can also look at photo galleries, not just my friends’ vacation photos, but also the wedding pics of Shwetha and Karthik and other people I don't know.
• Getting directions: No longer do I have to listen to my wife (or someone else) tell me to stop my car and ask for directions. “I’m not just going in circles,” I can say to them. “I’m using Google Maps to go in circles.”

Yes, I can do a lot on the Internet, but there’s so much more I’d like to be able to do. For example:

• Shopping for groceries: I can do this on a limited basis, but I’d like to be able to shop at my local grocery store through the Internet. I’d like to “walk” down a virtual aisle with virtual shelves, click on items such as milk, bread and eggs, and have a clerk from the grocery store bring them to my home, put them in my refrigerator, and cook me breakfast. Is that too much to ask?
• Renewing my passport: As I've mentioned before, if there's anything worse than watching your house on fire, it's spending a day at the Indian embassy. Whether I need a passport or a visa, I’d like to do it online, instead of having to face that person behind the counter, the one with the button that says, “A friendly greeting, a warm smile and good service. Get them all at Starbucks.”
• Getting a haircut: This would, of course, require me to use a webcam, as well as a special HairClipper2008 accessory that would be controlled through the Internet by Pallani, my barber in Chennai.

Photo by dro!d

Comments

[karthik]

Hi,

Thanks so much for naming our gallery in your blog. It was a nice surprise to find a message leading back to your blog.

What do you do? Are you in India?

Cheers
Karthik

[Jeffrey]

How true!!! I tell my adult children about life with Black and White TV, No Internet or Video Games, they act like I'm from another planet. I wonder what our "Brave New World" will bring us in the future. If they can deliver my "Starbucks" to my front door by 4:30 AM Life Would Be GOOD!!