Ready, aim, Kindle Fire!

Amazon.com says it sold more than 4 million Kindle e-readers in December, and I was one of the lucky ones who received a Kindle Fire from Santa.

I've played around with my new Kindle so much, I gave myself a pain -- aching neck and shoulders from hunching over the full-color screen. I've learned to look up occasionally and swivel my head around to keep from freezing up.

Already, I've downloaded mystery novels by Anthony Neil Smith, Paul Bishop, Ray Banks, Mark Terry, John Galligan and Reed Farrel Coleman. Most of those I got for free or at bargain prices.

(Blatant Self-Promotion: All my books are available on Kindle, most for $2.99 or less. Click here: http://amzn.to/cvTTMv. The Bubba Mabry mysteries remain 99 cents each, though the price is going up soon.)

My Kindle mania goes beyond reading e-books. I've got apps for Facebook and Twitter and Gmail, a slew of newspapers and magazines as well as The Associated Press and ESPN, music via Pandora, The Weather Channel, MapQuest, chess and Scrabble and Spider Solitaire. All in the palm of my hand.

I'd be interested in hearing what other apps are tops among Kindle owners. I'm sure I've only scratched the surface so far.

It's a beautiful day here in Albuquerque, and it's time to get outside and enjoy the non-virtual world. But I'll have my Kindle in my pocket.

In love with our new housekeeper

We've got a new personality here at our house, a conscientious worker who's really earning her keep: Our robot vacuum cleaner, Ruby.

Our old vacuum gave up the ghost in a puff of foul-smelling smoke recently, and we used the opportunity to purchase, as a replacement, a Roomba. So far, we love it.

The Roomba sits quietly most of the day, recharging in a docking station plugged into the wall. Whenever we tell it to, it takes off across the floor, vacuuming its ass off.

It's got an electric eye so it senses impending objects and slows down before it bumps against them, and it can get itself into and out of some tight spots, including the forest of chair legs under our dining table.

Ruby (apparently it's Roomba tradition to give them names) vacuums the entire house, under beds, the works. Much more thoroughly that I, personally, ever vacuumed when I was in charge of pushing the machine around the house. It's probably not powerful enough to handle a daily diet of the kind of messes left by kids and pets, but it seems perfect for our empty nest.

You'd think a robot vacuum would be a real time-saver, but I spend a LOT of time following Ruby around the house, marveling at the way she crawls along the baseboards or how she senses her battery getting low and finds her way back to the docking station all by herself.

I talk to Ruby the way you would speak to a pet or a small child. "Are you stuck there, Ruby? Getting tired?" Once in a while, she talks back, including a really cute "uh-oh" tone when there's a problem.

A couple of drawbacks: Ruby doesn't like the area rugs in the bathroom. Their edges roll up and get snagged. Uh-oh. Also, the Roomba works on an odd pattern that, while covering the entire area eventually, does leave weird tracks in the carpet, as if the vacuuming had been done by an extremely conscientious crazy person.

Now if I can find a robot to do the dusting . . .

Screwed by the holidays

Grumpy dads everywhere dread the approach of the holidays. To us, the gift-giving season means one thing: "ready-to-assemble."

We'll spend the waning days of the year hunched over a random collection of parts that don't fit together so well, trying to assemble them into something useful. We'll try to decipher instructions written in a secret code by someone with only a rudimentary grasp of English, while we simultaneously keep one eye on televised bowl games.

Things will go wrong.

Nothing terrible. It won't be the end of the world, for Pete's sake. But it will be frustrating, enough to edge us dads one inch closer to our inevitable heart attacks, and to make us say "bad words" in front of the children.

Even if you avoid "ready-to-assemble" your whole life, you'll still face minor repair jobs that will challenge your sanity. Things break. You've got to fix them. It won't always go smoothly.

Here's why: The recalcitrant screw. The screw that won't turn properly, no matter what. The rusted nut. The missing gizmo. The broken whatsit.

It's not the overall job that's so daunting, it's the minor complication. That's the part that drives us nuts. So much so, that we dread these jobs. So much so, that it ruins the experience for us. We can't revel in the fact that we successfully fixed Aunt Mabel's lamp. Instead, every time we pass that lamp, we think: "I remember that (mutter, sputter) stripped bolt. That was a dark day."

I got to thinking about the recalcitrant screw recently while helping my wife with a home repair project. Rather, while watching my wife accomplish a home repair project. My contribution was to hold the flashlight, some distance away.

In our kitchen, a fluorescent light fixture had buzzed and winked for, oh, two years. It was annoying, but we'd all sort of grown accustomed it because we were too lazy or ignorant or unmotivated or scared to try to fix it. Mostly lazy.

I have a good excuse for ignoring the problem. As the man of the house, I am terrified of electric shock. The reasons behind my phobia -- why I can barely stand to walk on carpet and touch a doorknob -- are deep and complicated, but let's cut to the chase: Me big sissy.

My wife fears nothing. She looked up some instructions in a book and took the fixture apart and repaired a shorted wire and put it all back together again with a new bulb, and it works like a new one. I witnessed the whole thing. For this feat, she will always be my hero.

However, there was a moment when it didn't look so rosy. When she reached the recalcitrant screw. It was the final one, of course, that last little business before declaring "mission accomplished." The screw went in crooked and stuck there. She had to work it out of the hole, then try it again. Crooked. She started over.

It went on like this for a while, and she never once lost her patience or shouted curses. She just quietly noodled that recalcitrant screw until it fit where it belonged.

Not the way I would've handled it at all, and she wasn't trying to watch football at the same time, but whatever. I'm happy the buzzing is gone.

I've learned one thing from this experience. Come Christmas, my wife's in charge of assembling everything.

I've got to look after my heart.
　
　

And a birdbeak stereo . . .

I don't understand why, with all our scientific advancements in cloning, etc., we can't develop animals to do our household chores for us.

For instance, I would happily house an anteater-like creature that would hoover up my carpets. I'm tired of pushing around a loud piece of machinery that breaks if it picks up a crumb. No, don't try to sell me a better vacuum or a Roomba or whatever. I want a critter that feeds on dust.

Haven't these scientists ever seen "The Flintstones?"

PS: Birdbeak Stereo would be a good name for a band.

Rubik's rube

Erno Rubik’s got nothing on me.

Rubik is the Hungarian sculptor and architect who invented the Rubik’s Cube and other games. It takes a special sort of mind to devise such clever, addictive puzzles.

I have two teen-aged sons, so naturally we have Rubik’s Cubes lying around the house. My sons busily work the puzzles while simultaneously watching TV, texting on their phones, scratching, playing video games, listening to music and eating. Such are the nimble minds of multi-tasking youths.

My experience with Rubik’s Cube has been less casual. I sit down and give the cube my full attention, and after turning the colorful tiles every which way for 24 seconds, I say, “That was fun,” and toss it aside. Because that’s enough for me. It would take me hours of concentrated effort to even sort of figure out how the danged thing works, to get some type of system going, much less solve the puzzle, and it’s not worth it. The payoff’s not big enough for the time wasted. Unlike, say, a crossword puzzle, which only takes me a few minutes to work and the solution of which makes angels sing.

Scientists call the ability to see and manipulate objects in two and three dimensions “spatial visualization.” The term comes from the Latin roots “spatia” (or “shoulder”) and “visuali” (“door jamb”).

Several experiments have found that men tend to be better at spatial visualization. Yay, men! No offense to women, but we men don’t get many wins in our column these days. Along with spatial visualization, scientists have found that men tend to be better at lifting furniture, stealing elections and competitive eating. That’s about it.

Men’s special adaptation for spatial visualization, which may go all the way back to the days of prehistoric hunters, certainly explains teen-aged boys’ affinity for video games. I’m no better at video games than I am at Rubik’s Cube, and my failures led me to doubt my spatial visualization manhood. I felt intimidated. My sons mocked me, saying within my earshot: “Imagine the hefty Hungarian brain of Erno Rubik!”

Just as I was wondering whether there was a cure for my spatial visualization shortcomings, a mental Viagra, if you will, I had a breakthrough. I saw that non-Hungarians such as myself face spatial visualization puzzles all the time in everyday life and manage to solve them just fine.

Take, for example, our laundry room. We have two (usually full) laundry baskets. We have a washer and dryer, the tops of which serve as the work surface. The washer’s a top loader. The dryer’s a front loader. No problem, the baskets sit on the dryer, right? Except the lint trap is on top of the dryer. So I have to move baskets to put clothes in or out of the washer and to start each new load in the dryer. Back and forth, open and close. I’m so accustomed to this routine, I do it without thinking. My movements are polished by repetition. The baskets slide back and forth and lids slam and, ba-da-bing, new loads of laundry are under way.

Take that, Erno.

Don’t even get me started on the proper way to load a dishwasher. Oh baby, we could be here all day. Nothing arouses my manly spatial visualization skills like a sink full of dirty dishes. The geometry of loading the big stuff and filling in with the smaller items. The proper tilt to catch the best spray. The ups and downs of silverware.

Whew.

Maybe I’ll try that Rubik’s Cube again.

What your home office needs

We spend a big chunk of our lives working, so it’s no wonder we pay so much attention to decorating and equipping our workspaces.

Visit any cubicle in America, and you’ll find all sorts of gizmos and gimcracks and souvenir snowglobes and clipped cartoons aimed at giving the place some personality. We want to claim the space, make it our own, and if that means thumb-tacking “Garfield” to the walls, then so be it. (Not the cartoons. I mean the actual cat. But that’s just me.)

Manufacturers and merchants have recognized this drive to personalize our office spaces and have responded with tons of products aimed as separating us from the hard-earned dollars we make in those cubicles. The products get more outlandish and high-tech all the time.

A website called Switched.com recently collected some of the latest in a list called “10 Ultimate Cubicle Gadgets.” It’s a wacky list, ranging from a handheld air-conditioner to a high-tech cubicle makeover that costs more than $10,000.

Some items appeal to the inner nerd: a palm-sized polygraph, a device that signals when the worker is displaying poor desk posture, a fingerprint reader for password protection, and a washable, flexible computer keyboard.

Other items included a fancy lamp, a mini-fridge that holds one can of soda, and a round video phone that sits on squat legs, looking very much like the upraised back end of a dog.

These products look like a lot of fun, and I’m sure your cubicle would be a better place if you installed them. But the collection doesn’t address the millions of people who work in home offices, where the needs are more basic and there’s no boss to say what’s inappropriate.

Here are some gadgets you need in your home office:

--A thermal mug, which will reduce the number of times you must run to the kitchen for more coffee. A mug with a lid can prevent expensive spills into the computer.

--A set of screwdrivers. For making adjustments to your ancient swivel chair, repairing your eyeglasses or opening up your computer tower, so you can do some real damage to what’s inside.

--Duct tape has a thousand uses, including emergency hair removal and securing the occasional splint.

--Nail clippers. With no co-workers around, you can do your personal grooming right at your desk. Avoid letting the flying shards land in your keyboard.

--A lobster bib. We work-at-home types tend to eat at our desks.

--A threadbare bathrobe, for pulling on in a hurry when the FedEx driver rings the doorbell.

--A yo-yo, paddle-ball or other time-wasting toy. Because nobody’s watching.

--Earplugs, for those times when children are in the house.

--Solitaire, Tetris or other computer games. Everybody needs to take a break occasionally, right? Even if those “breaks” last for hours . . .

--A calendar and/or to-do list. You need organization and goal-setting in a home office. Otherwise, you waste all day watching old episodes of “The Munsters.”

--A box of tissues. Using your sleeve is gross, even if no one’s watching.

--Notepads, for doodling.

--A music delivery system of some sort, in case you feel like dancing.

--A sharp knife for opening packages. Also handy for slitting your wrists when you realize you’ve missed yet another deadline.

Finally, the most important device of all. Your home office needs a door so can shut out your family and the rest of the world.

You don’t want them to see you clipping your toenails.

Holy Bluetooth, Batman!

At a theater recently, as the lights dimmed and the movie began, I was distracted by a flash of blue light.

Saw it out of the corner of my eye. A blink of bright blue. Hmm.

I focused on the screen. Things were starting to happen there, and I needed to pay attention and, there it went again. Flash of blue.

What the heck? Now, I’m completely distracted. I stare across the dark theater, waiting for the flash. There it is. A guy sitting on the aisle has one of those Bluetooth gizmos screwed into his ear. Every few seconds, its little blue light flashes.

Once I recognized the source, it was all I could see. The movie was forgotten.

FLASH. Son of a gun. How does he not sense that the light’s flashing, right there on the side of his head?

FLASH. What about his wife, on the other side of him? Can’t she see that her husband’s creating a disturbance--

FLASH. What kind of blinking moron goes into a movie, wearing one of those things and--

FLASH. Who needs a phone in a movie anyway? Unless he’s a surgeon, on call for an emergency, he can manage without a phone. And if he is a surgeon expecting an emergency, what’s he doing at the matinee?

FLASH. Grrrr.

As I was weighing whether to just go ahead and kill him, his wife snapped to the problem and gave him a sharp elbow. The guy snatched the thing out of his ear and stuffed it in his shirt pocket, thereby forcing me to spare his life. I can only hope he missed a really important call.

Am I the only one who’s sick of self-important gearheads walking around with gizmos in their ears as if they’re characters in “Star Trek: The Cellular Generation?” Isn’t it bad enough that they treat the rest of us to their loud, inane conversations? Now they have to FLASH, too?

Hands-free phoning is a good idea if you’re driving (though NOT talking on the phone while you’re driving is an even better idea), but it’s inappropriate in most other places.

I saw a young guy with a phone device in his ear at an outdoor concert. The music was so loud, you couldn’t hear yourself think, much less carry on a telephone conversation. Plus, wasn’t hearing the music the whole point of being there? If he wanted to talk on the phone, he could’ve stayed in his car, driving badly, like everyone else.

I suppose it’s some kind of status symbol to be plugged in at all times. It makes the statement: I’m really important and must be in constant contact with my office because I have big international deals brewing and/or transplant surgery to perform.

But that’s not the message I receive. I see a guy with electronic doodads in his ears and more gear on his belt than Batman, and I think: Here’s a nerd who’s addicted to all the latest toys. Someone who’s so insecure, he has to show off his toys to everyone he meets.

The really cool/rich/important people don’t go around with phones hanging off them like leashes. They have assistants who handle their communications. They have big deals brewing, sure, but on their terms and on their timelines. You don’t call them; they call you.

They recognize that blue flashes are not a fashion statement unless you’re a police car.

For sure, they’re not wasting their afternoons in matinees like some of us.

Flash on that.

Your extended warranty

Thank you for buying your new Appliance or Other Product from Nameless Store That Sells Appliances and Other Products! We’re sure your life will be much improved by this purchase.

This product comes with full warranties from its manufacturer, and that should be good enough, but you never know. We’re not saying it’s going to break or anything, but you might want an Extended Warranty from Nameless Store. Just in case.

For only (a shockingly high sum of money) per year, our Extended Warranty protects your Appliance or Other Product against all malfunction, damage or negligence. If it breaks, we’ll fix it. Guaranteed!

The following restrictions apply:

You must bring your Appliance or Other Product to us for repair. We can’t be driving all over the state, picking up appliances and other products all day. We’ve got a Nameless Store to run here! Ha-ha! But no, really, you’d better rent a truck.

This contract does not cover the costs of labor or parts, beyond certain levels to be determined later by Nameless Store. Haul it in here. Then we’ll tell you what it’ll really cost.

When we say “fix it,” we mean we’ll TRY to fix it. Some things can’t be repaired. Throw your plugged-in Appliance or Other Product into the shower (not that we’d ever recommend that!), and we probably can’t bring it back to life. Or, you, either.

Our repairs follow a certain protocol:

You wait your turn. Yes, you do. We’ll get to you between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. on Tuesday. Or is that a week from Tuesday? I forget.

Your Appliance or Other Product is examined in our Triage Center by an experienced technician named Earl, who’s had the same toothpick in the corner of his mouth for 23 years. Earl will shake his head and pronounce the Appliance or Other Product “fried.”

Sighing and shrugging, he’ll pass it on to Level Two of our Extended Warranty Service Center, where qualified technician Doyle will drink coffee and talk about fishing while his apprentice Skippy screws around with the insides of your Appliance or Other Product, making the problem much, much worse.

A period of four to six weeks will pass. During this period, we will forget you ever existed. Guaranteed!

Eventually, you’ll call and complain. This will snap us to attention, and your Appliance or Other Product will be located and transferred to Level Three, which is over there in the corner with those other losers.

Another period passes. Usually only two to three weeks this time. We’ll await your call.

Once you simmer down a little, sir, we will repair your Appliance or Other Product. Or we will sell you another piece of junk with its own Extended Warranty.

Your repaired/replacement Appliance or Other Product will be delivered to your home and installed by Certified Installation Team members Itchy Bob and Ralph the Recent Parolee.

We guarantee that this repaired/replaced Appliance or Other Product will then work for a short time. Hopefully, for the life of this Agreement. We’ll see.

If the Appliance or Other Product continues to give you trouble, you should contact us immediately, and we’ll send Earl over to look at it. Guaranteed!

Escape clause: Nameless Store is not responsible for anything, ever. Not your broken whats-it. Not for any injury or illness that might result from its use or misuse. Nor small fires, nor anything like that. Nada. We didn’t do it. You can’t prove it. Don’t even think about suing us. Ralph the Recent Parolee remembers where you live.

Guaranteed!

Murphy's Law only scratches surface

Timing is everything, and that's never clearer than when problems arise.

That's why one version of Murphy's Law says: Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong at the worst possible time.

I was reminded of this when the smoke alarms at our home announced they needed new batteries. Wait, "announced" is too polite a term. When our smoke alarms need batteries, they emit a chirp loud enough to wake everyone in a cemetery across town. The startling chirp repeats, ever more frequent and persistent, until somebody by golly replaces those batteries. Or else.

This has occurred three times in the years we've lived in this house. Each time, it's happened in the middle of the night.

Each time, I’ve had to get up, go to an all-night market, buy batteries and replace them before anyone could get back to sleep and/or my wife killed me.

Have I mentioned that our house came with six of these smoke alarms? That they're all wired together somehow, so if only one has a low battery, the others chirp in sympathy? That two of the alarms can only be reached with a ladder? That if you furiously rip one off the wall because you can't stand the noise another second, the others will chirp more?

Anyway, there I was, at 2 a.m., teetering half-asleep on a ladder, replacing batteries and pushing buttons and praying the noise would stop. And I noted once again how things always go screwy at the worst possible time.

You could argue that we bring this problem on ourselves. Clearly, we don't change the batteries frequently enough (like, say, every week). Clearly, I need to study how the smoke alarms work, at a time when I'm not also trying to sleep. At minimum, we should always keep spare batteries on hand.

But such preparation would be tempting fate. If the smoke alarms weren’t going haywire in the middle of the night, it would be something else going wrong, maybe something worse. Like a fire.

Murphy's Law doesn’t begin to cover all the possible variations of inconvenient timing. Here are some suggestions:

Bell's Law: The more important the telephone call, the more likely you'll be unable to answer it in time.

Montezuma's Law: The longer you are on vacation, the greater the chances that one of you will get sick.

Babel's Law: The farther you are from proper health care facilities, the more serious the symptoms will be.

Gates' Law: The worse your boss' mood, the more likely he'll walk up behind you while you're playing solitaire on your computer.

Eveready's Law: Your flashlight will work fine right up to the moment a storm knocks out electrical power to your house.

Heloise's Law: Surprise guests arrive only when your home is at its messiest.

Goodyear's Law: The harder it's raining, the greater your chances of getting a flat tire.

Caterpillar's Law: If you're in a hurry to get somewhere, you will encounter street construction detours. Every time.

Macy's Law: The more you want a product, the greater the odds that the store sold the last one five minutes ago.

Ditka's Law: The more your wife wants you to take her out -- right now -- the better the chances your game will go into overtime.

Brewer's Law: The later the hour, the louder the chirp.

Fixing to go crazy

Brewer's First Law of Possessions: The more stuff you own, the more time and money you spend on repairs.

Most purchases -- anything more complicated than, say, food -- eventually will break. Then you're faced with a crash of decision-making and out-of-pocket expenses. Do you replace the item? Do you call a repairman? Do you repair the item yourself? (Hahahaha.)

Cheap goods get thrown out and replaced. But big-ticket items, such as cars, should be fixed, if possible, so you get the most out of your "investment." This makes good financial sense, but it rarely stops there.

Brewer's Second Law of Possessions: If something breaks in your household, several other items will immediately follow suit.

All your stuff is slowly wearing out. It's a long march from the factory to the landfill, and your stuff is trudging along, corroding and eroding and collecting error messages. Your computer sees your toaster fall dead, and decides it can't push on any longer, either. A toilet smells obsolescence in the air, and the plumbing stumbles. Pretty soon, you're up to your neck in repairmen.

Each household object you accumulate moves you farther along the Time/Money Continuum until you reach the point where the slightest ripple -- a broken coffemaker, say, or a transmission leak -- can result in tsunamis of lost hours and cash.

Which brings us to the Ultimate Theorem of Owning Stuff: Eventually, all your money will go to maintaining the things you already have, which means you can't afford to buy any new stuff. This (along with the size of your garage) proves that the Financial Universe is finite.

All these theories were proved recently at my house as we went through one of those spells where everything seemed to go kerflooey at once.

My minivan, a Ford Lemonstar, needed a new power steering unit (again). The house's water heater sprang a leak. The vacuum in our swimming pool decided that it sucks to be a vacuum, so it stubbornly would only roll backward. A lamp switch in the living room stopped switching. A cell phone got confused and would only talk to itself. Computers lost their minds.

People who believe in astrology tell us that such universal mechanical breakdowns occur when the planet Mercury is in "retrograde." (And wouldn't the "Mercury Retrograde" be a good name for a car?) Others attribute such woeful periods to coincidence or bad luck or Job-like trials of faith. I prefer to think that my stuff is conspiring against me; I'm pretty sure I hear appliances whispering together at night.

I spent a month dealing with plumbers and repairmen and auto mechanics and pool equipment dealers and Technical Assistance people in India. Many hundreds of dollars disappeared in the process, and more of my hair turned gray. The accumulated aggravation no doubt took years off my life.

Some people tackle such everyday problems as if they're no big deal. Some actually enjoy fixing things themselves, and wouldn't dream of hiring a repairman every time something goes wrong. But I'm not the handy type, and I don't want to spend every waking moment of every weekend trying to fix stuff. That would cut into the time I devote to watching football on TV.

(Of all the broken stuff I mentioned above, the one thing I was able to fix was the lamp switch. Expect an electrical fire at any time.)

We spent all our money on repairs, which means we don't have any left for new stuff. And that, friends, is what they mean by the "service economy."

The pain of the upgrade

If you want to feel like Maxwell Not-so-Smart, get a new cellular phone.

The new generation of phones comes with more gizmos and bells and whistles than Inspector Gadget: digital cameras, video cameras, pagers, music players, electronic games, calculators, alarm clocks, date books, e-mail delivery systems, voicemail, news tickers, download devices, text messengers.

You can even make telephone calls. Fancy that.

But first you have to figure out how to use the phone.

I got one of these new-fangled phones, and I hope to master it real soon, perhaps by the time it's obsolete. So far, I can make phone calls and hear my voicemail. I managed to set a simple ringtone that doesn't involve a full electronic orchestra and 14 rap stars I've never heard of. I've even snapped a few photographs, mostly of my own finger, though I don't know what to do with the pictures now that I've stored them.

Beyond that, I can't make heads or tails of the danged thing.

The phone came with an instruction manual. It's divided into two 80-page sections, one in English and one in Spanish. I might as well read the Spanish section, for all the good the directions do me.

I run across entries like this: "A phone theme is a group of image and sound files that you can apply to your phone. Most themes include a wallpaper image, a screen image, and ring tone. Your phone may come with some themes, and you can download more."

No matter how many times I read that paragraph (and I'm up to 237 times now), it still makes no sense to me. The only "theme" that comes to mind when I use my phone is the ominous one from the movie "Jaws," as the shark of updated technology swims my direction.

It wasn't supposed to be this way. I'd asked for a simple phone, but my wife couldn't find anybody to sell her one. Apparently, all the phones come with all the features now, whether we like it or not. You can say, "I don't need a video camera," but har-har, you've got one, right there in your phone.

The only reason I submitted to an upgrade at all was so I could get a phone that fit in my pocket. My friends had these folding "flip phones," and I saw the convenience of not having to wear your phone holstered like a revolver.

My old phone didn't fold. It didn't do much of anything. It was just a phone, the size and shape of a stick of butter, only heavier. It came in handy on those occasions when I was out of the house and my kids were scattered all over town and calling me for transportation. Otherwise, it sat on the kitchen counter, waiting for me to remember to take it somewhere.

The new phone's a big improvement, though it, too, spends most of its time on the kitchen counter. When I do remember to take it with me, it fits in my pants pocket, which is more convenient despite the unsightly "thigh bulge." I don't have to wear a belt to pack a phone.

When the new phone starts ringing and vibrating, I twist and shout and dig in my pants until I extract the phone, usually just as the screen says "1 Call Missed." If I push the right combination of buttons, it might tell me who called or whether they left a message.

Or, I'll take a picture of my thumb.

Read this resolution

New Year's resolutions are the triumph of optimism over memory.

We forget how long we stuck to last year's resolutions (average: 3.6 days), and instead look to the future with a positive outlook and the absolute belief that we can change for the better.

Most of us make the same resolutions every year. Eat less, exercise more, earn more, save more, be a nicer person, kick a bad habit, pay better attention to our, you know, whatayacallem, uh, families.

Worthy aspirations all, but the sad fact is that these become our annual resolutions because we fail at them. Again and again.

That's why, this year, I've come up with a new resolution, one that hasn't been tried and abandoned over and over. I'd suggest that Americans everywhere attempt the same. Pick something new and give it a try.

Here's mine: Read the instructions.

I know it doesn't seem like much of a goal. But for me to read the instructions every time requires me to overcome many personal shortcomings:

A) I am a guy.
B) I am a know-it-all.
C) I have no patience.

Why am I this way? I refer you to "A" above.

We guys hate to read instructions, the same way we famously hate to ask directions when we're lost. To do so proves there's something we don't already know.

Better to go through life by dead reckoning than to show any sign of weakness. Better to ignore a problem, in hopes that it will go away on its own, than to consult the instructions and fix it properly.

Here's an example: Recently, our garage door was giving us fits. It has one of those automatic openers, which means we never have to get out in the weather. Punch a button and -- vrr-rrr-rr-rr! -- the door opens or closes, as needed.

One of the great inventions really, right up there with the TV remote control. Until it stops working.

Then, when you try to close it, you get this instead: Punch the button. Vrr-rr. Door stops halfway down. Punch button again. Vrr. Door lowers another foot, then stops. Punch button. Vrr-rr. Door starts going UP. No, no, DOWN, you rotten $*%@! Punch button repeatedly. Vrr. Vrr. Vrr. Door, terribly confused now, moves inches at a time. Up, down, up, down. Finally, catch the door going down and HOLD the button until the door rattles all the way to the ground.

This went on at our house for weeks, until my wife finally got fed up and ordered that I get the garage door fixed. The implication being that if it wasn't fixed when she got home, I would be sleeping out there with the cars.

I went into the house, grumbling, and looked in our household files and found the instructions for the garage door opener. A quick perusal uncovered these facts:

1) This is common problem.
2) It can be easily fixed by two tweaks with a screwdriver.

Five minutes later, the door was working like a new one. All that frustration vanished. And I got to be a hero to my wife. Because I finally bothered to read the instructions.

This solution has arisen repeatedly. The dishwasher. The DVD player. My cell phone. All of these electronic gizmos that drive me crazy can actually enhance my life if I'll learn to operate them by reading the instructions.

So that's my resolution for the new year, and I plan to stick to it. Now I must go. I've got a ton of reading to do in the next 3.6 days.

Stunned by electronics

If your Christmas wish centered on the hottest new electronic gizmo, then you may be what marketers call an "early adopter," the type who must have the latest toy available.

Early adopters drive the world electronics market. They're never satisfied with last year's model. They're willing to spend top dollar rather than waiting for prices to fall. They push manufacturers to make products smaller and faster and ever more complex. They have to be first so they can gloat and strut.

They are, in short, a big pain in the neck.

It's because of these gearheads that your new computer is obsolete before you get it out of its box. It's because of them that cell phones now take pictures and play songs and send e-mail. They killed VCRs in favor of DVD players, vinyl in favor of CDs (then CDs in favor of iPods), stereo speakers in favor of "ear buds" (which sounds like a disease).

Guess it's clear that I am not one of those guys. I resist every new electronic development. I was the last guy to surrender his Betamax. My stereo is older than my teen-agers (and just as troublesome). My computer starts with a crank like a Model T.

I'd still be using land lines and listening to a "hi-fi" if weren't for my wife, who happily buys every new widget that comes along, and my kids, who are thoroughly modern, which means they'd rather talk to their friends by "texting" than in person.

Part of my resistance comes from the fact that I tend to rigidly compartmentalize: cameras take pictures, phones make calls, computers send e-mail, orchestras play music. That makes it difficult for me to fathom one gizmo that does all those functions, and is smaller than a filling in your average molar.

The other reason I resist is that I don't want to spend weeks learning to use these products. Reading manuals (which are always written in techno-speak pidgin English), visiting instructional websites or -- God help us all -- calling technical support all seem like forms of torture to me. Just thinking about learning to take photos with a phone gives me a headache.

So I'm a "late adopter." I'm last in line. I embrace the new technology only after it's been loved by every geek in town. And I use a gadget until it either falls apart or my wife sneaks around and replaces it while I'm asleep. Even then, it'll be years before I learn to use the danged thing, and I only learn as much as I absolutely need to know.

I was drinking beer with a couple of friends one time, and they were comparing cell phones. They had the latest in shiny chrome fold-up phones, each smaller than an Oreo, which did every function you could imagine, short of lubing your car.

When it came my turn, I pulled out my cell phone and thunked it onto the table for their amusement. My phone was nearly as large as a brick. It didn't do anything except make phone calls. It had a belt-clip holster, and looked very much like the "phasers" used on the original "Star Trek."

"My God," one gearhead said, "that's prehistoric!"

"That's right," I said. "And I still don't know how to use the voicemail."

They stared at me as if I were an exhibit at the Luddite museum, with that mixture of awe and head-shaking disbelief that says, "How did people ever live that way?"

I just smiled. And set my phone on "stun."

All thumbs and out of control

If you want to know whether you're out of shape, take this simple test: Count the remote controls you have lying around your house.

If the number exceeds, say, four, then you're probably not getting enough exercise. If it exceeds six, you don't need a mirror to tell you that your jeans are too tight. Ten or more remotes mean you're lucky your heart still beats.

The remote control is one labor-saving device that does its job all too well. It's possible to keep ourselves entertained in countless ways without ever moving from the sofa. The only muscles many of us work with any regularity are the ones that move our thumbs.

Not that jumping up to switch channels was such great exercise. I remember those pre-remote days, when TVs had dials on the front of them, and it wasn't much of a workout to take those few strides over to the channel changer. But even then people found ways to avoid hoisting themselves off the couch. The only reason families had children was so the parents could order them over to the TV to switch from "Ozzie and Harriet" to "Gunsmoke."

Back then, we only had three or four channels. Now, we have hundreds of channels, and there's still never anything good on TV. But we idealistically hope we'll find something worth watching, and the remote control makes the channel-flipping search possible.

Here's the way most people (or, at least, most men) watch TV: Flip, flip, flip, flip, pause for show that might be interesting, nah, flip, flip, flip, brief nudity, flip, flip, flip, flip, check the score, flip, flip, flip, oh, look, sharks, flip, flip, flip, flip, funny commercial we've seen 200 times, flip, flip…

We have Dish Network at our house, and all I watch anymore is the on-screen guide that tells what's on the many, many channels. I scroll up and down, scanning titles and times, searching for something, anything, that might keep my eyeballs busy for an hour. I could spend that same amount of time and brainpower reading a book or puzzling over life's mysteries or planning my financial future, but no, I'm busy hunting for basketball highlights.

Our newest remote arrived when we recently replaced our 20-year-old "hi-fi." Naturally, the new stereo came with a remote control. Now I can play hours of music without jumping up to change CDs or adjust the volume. I can even skip that one lousy song that's federally mandated to be included on every album.

The stereo remote brings the number of remote controls in our living room up to four. (Household-wide, we have eight, I think, but I might've missed one.)

Since I insist on being in charge of all the remotes, my place on the sofa looks like Captain Kirk's command chair on the bridge of the Enterprise. I've got complete control of all electronics, and I'm steering us right into the Obesity Nebula.

I know there are "universal remotes" out there that combine all the functions of all the electronic gizmos onto one skateboard-sized device, but I'd never be able to program one. My VCR said the time was "12:00" for years, until my kids got old enough to fix it.

So, I'm stuck with my many remote controls, exercising control over my electronics, but little else, only getting up from the sofa to fetch more snacks. (If they ever design a remote control for the fridge, I'm doomed.)

But my thumbs are in great shape.

Plugged

We've become a nation of nerds.

The average American now spends more time using media devices -- TV, radio, iPods, cell phones, computers -- than any other waking activity, according to a new study.

Coast to coast, we're "plugged in" to music and news and text messages and Internet shopping. We still read newspapers and books and magazines, but way too much of our time is devoted to television and our beloved electronic gizmos.

"As a society, we are consumers of media," said researcher Robert Papper of Ball State University's Center for Media Design. "The average person spends about nine hours a day using some type of media."

Papper and his cohorts spent several months shadowing 400 people in Indianapolis and Muncie, IN, where Ball State is located. The researchers recorded information every 15 seconds on what media the subjects were using. All told, they studied 5,000 hours of media use.

Here are some of their findings:

--About 30 percent of the observed waking day was spent with media as the sole activity, and 39 percent was spent with media while involved in some other activity. Only 20.8 percent of the day was spent solely on something called "work."

--In any given hour, no less than 30 percent of those studied were "engaged in some way with television, and in some hours of the day that figure rose to 70 percent."

--About 30 percent of all media time is spent using more than one medium at a time.

--Women do more media multi-tasking than men. Papper told the New York Post that men seek media contact of "short duration and instant gratification" while women are interested in "longer, more thoughtful" interaction. So, it's just like sex. Proof once again that "Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Calgon."

--The average American spends four hours a day watching television and three hours a day using a computer.

As a casual observer, I would now like to say: Great Googly-moogly! Nine hours a day? We spend more time "consuming media" than we do sleeping? Are you kidding me?

Four hours a day of TV, and there's still nothing good on? Three hours a day on a computer? Does that count all the time spent waiting on reboots?

Imagine how much crap we're stuffing into our brains every day. No wonder we can't remember where we left our car keys. We're too busy processing the latest update on Britney Spears. And listening to an MP3 song we don't remember downloading. And turning away telemarketers. And waiting for the computer to finish displaying its annoying pop-up ads.

It's All Input All the Time here in America. If we're not on the phone, watching TV and surfing the 'Net, all at once, then we might miss something.

We stay indoors, filtering the wider world through a haze of electronics. When we do leave the house, we block out extraneous sounds by blasting music into our heads via "ear buds." We sort through our e-mail in coffee shops. We check our voice-mail in movie theaters. Apparently, some of us cannot drive without talking on cell phones.

Media consumption is the true "Revenge of the Nerds." The nerds didn't recruit us into their pocket-protector cult. They just designed neato gadgets, and we all willingly joined their ranks.

Danger, we'll robot soon!

Recent scientific breakthroughs have brought us closer to the day when we can each own a smart-alecky mechanical maid like the one on the "Jetsons."

Several companies have demonstrated new robots lately, ranging from Honda's "Asimo" humanoid to little droids that ferry medications through hospital corridors. Each new model raises the question: When, oh when, will we have our very own domestic robots to cook our food and wash our socks?

It may be a while. Researchers say they've still got a few kinks to iron out, such as giving robots proper vision and a refined sense of touch. (There's a fine line between a friendly handshake and a bone-crushing claw.)

We aging Baby Boomers are expected to once again drive the market. As we get older, we'll need "carebots" to give us medical attention and household 'bots to clean up our spills, or so the experts predict.

(Some of us are thinking: That's why we had children. To clean up after us when we're senile. But hahaha on that. The little ingrates will be busy pursuing their own lives, leaving us desperately trying to scrape together enough pennies to pay for our Depends.)

Many of us already are dependent on machines. Laptops, Palm Pilots and cell phones don't just make modern life possible. In many ways, they run our hectic lives. If you don't believe it, think back to the last time your computer crashed. How was your mood the rest of that day?

Do we really need walking, talking, artificially intelligent machines in our lives, simply to do little chores? Do we need more machines managing our lives? Isn't this situation fraught with peril?

(Example: Anyone who has seen the Will Smith action movie, "I, Robot," can tell you that advances in robotics pose the very real danger of producing greater numbers of mediocre action movies.)

But the robots are coming, whether we're ready or not.

Already, you can pay a mere $200 for a robotic vacuum cleaner called Roomba. The machine -- which looks like a bathroom scale on wheels -- will run around your home, bumping blindly into walls and furniture, vacuuming every square inch of carpet, until it is, in an unfortunate misunderstanding, killed by your dog.

Also available are robot lawn mowers which operate much the same way. You input the parameters of your lawn, and the machine takes off on its own, mowing like crazy. We all know how fallible such human programming can be:

"Look out, it's headed for the swimming pool!" Splash.

Robotics experts are looking for new market niches, and I'd like to suggest a robotic coffee cup that will follow me from room to room. Currently, I misplace my coffee cup an estimated 23 times per day. I thought about attaching it to my dog, since he follows me from room to room anyway, but he tends to drop to a sleeping posture without warning, which could result in undue spillage. I need a coffee cup delivery robot. Or, cut out the cup altogether and design a coffee urn that will follow me and squirt java directly into my mouth. That's what I'd call a "carebot."

Another marketing suggestion for us machine-dependent Baby Boomers: Design a robot whose sole responsibility is finding the TV remote.

We'd pay big money for that.

Meeting expectations

It's a common notion in the business world that "nothing gets accomplished in meetings," but that couldn't be further from the truth.

Plenty occurs in your typical business meeting. In particular, careers are ruined because participants don't know how to play the game.

No matter what your field, you eventually will be expected to "take a meeting" with your superiors or co-workers or clients. Somewhere, I'm sure, lumberjacks are forced to sit around a long table and analyze performance and profit ratios.

(Even we lowly workers who toil in home offices occasionally are summoned to headquarters or forced to pitch our ideas to customers. We tend to be ineffective in meetings because we're accustomed to working alone, muttering and cursing and wearing coffee-stained sweatpants.)

The key to a successful business meeting is to be prepared. You must know your material and how best to project it. You must know the participants and what they expect. You must make sure you don't have spinach stuck in your front teeth.

All the etiquette lessons your mother tried to teach you apply to business meetings. Since you didn't listen to your mother any more than you currently heed your boss, let's review:

--Mind your manners. Common courtesy is expected at business meetings. Don't talk over other people, no matter how slow and befuddled they seem. Don't shoot rubber bands at co-workers. Don't chew gum while meeting with a client, and never, ever stick the chewed gum to the underside of his desk.

--Know your audience and what connections lie behind the scenes. Do some research, so you know which client is a slack-jawed idiot and which ones simply look like slack-jawed idiots. Dogpile-on-the-boss'-nephew almost never works. And, how many salesmen have been ruined by referring to competitors as "Satan's spawn," only to learn the customer is married to one of those competitors?

--Avoid sweeping generalizations. For instance, don't say "golf is for morons" until you find out your client's handicap.

--Don't hog the conversation. Nobody likes a know-it-all. Give others a chance to dig their own holes of ignominy. (Note: When you witness a colleague sink his career in a meeting, it's considered impolite to snort-laugh.)

--Pay attention. No matter how long-winded your boss or how unproductive a meeting seems, it's always bad form to start leafing through magazines. Just like in school, the teacher always calls on the student who's staring out the window.

--Know the terminology. You won't make a good impression using terms like "gizmo" and "widget" unless you work for Universal Gizmos and Widgets, Inc.

--Dress appropriately. At one time, the traditional business suit was the correct uniform for all meetings. No more. Part of knowing your audience is knowing how they dress. Hollywood types, for instance, tend to dress like carpenters. Computer engineers go for the "surfer/nerd" look. If you wear a business suit to a meeting with software geeks, they will sneer and flick pizza on you.

--Be careful with jokes. "Two drunks walk into a bar…" may not seem funny to a client who's active in Alcoholics Anonymous.

--Make suggestions. If you sit silent as a stump through every meeting, co-workers will start treating you like a stump. Or, worse, the way dogs treat a stump.

--Be prepared to back down. Don't insist that your idea is the only workable one or that the boss is stupid to ignore you. Wait until you're out of the meeting, then say those things in the "safety zone" behind your manager's back.

--Stay awake. No matter what.

If you follow these simple rules, you, too, can be effective in business meetings and go on to have a successful career. Particularly if you're the boss' nephew.

You call this (outdoor) living?

As spring blossoms into summer, we homeowners face the annual Monsoon of Gardening Catalogs.

These catalogs arrive as faithfully as robins in spring, and in greater numbers. Every day, the mailbox is stuffed with slick rags featuring gardening gizmos and patio furniture and whizbang tool-display racks for the garage.

The arrival of warm weather gives people an itch. We want to get outside, spiff things up, turn our weedy, potholed yards into "outdoor living spaces." The catalogs are timed to arrive at the exact moment that homeowners feel that itch.

These catalogs come under scores of different names, but you know which ones I mean. If they're selling rubber gardening clogs, you're in the right place.

We homeowners flip through these catalogs, and say, Whoa, look at this! I never would've thought of disguising my garden hose by hiding it inside a giant plastic tortoise "that looks like cast-bronze statuary!" I should buy one of these for a mere eighty bucks! Then I could waste an entire weekend placing and anchoring it!

Gardening catalogs give us unique insights into our society and the ways we are inspired to ruin our weekends.

For example, somewhere there's apparently a thriving industry in artificial boulders. The catalogs show page after page of "realistic" plastic boulders for use as hose-holders or address markers or hidey-holes for spare keys.

These boulders can't possibly be biodegradable, not if they're made to stand out in the weather, so they'll last forever. You have to wonder what they're going to think, centuries from now, when archeologists dig up fake rocks.

And what will they think about Soil Aerator Sandals? You see these in all the gardening catalogs. The soles are covered by steel spikes over an inch long. "Aerate your lawn -- easy as taking a walk!" The archeologists might assume we turn-of-the-century types were into kinky massages.

(Here's what would happen if I stomped around my lawn with spikes on my feet: I'd hit a tree root or something and be stuck fast. Would my family even answer my cries for help? They'd probably leave me out there as a lawn ornament, a convenient place to hide their spare keys.)

An ad for another item is headlined: "Disguise yourself as a dragonfly, and mosquitoes will leave you alone!" This immediately calls to mind a costume with antennae, diaphanous wings and a rod-like tail. No matter how much you're bothered by mosquitoes, such a get-up might give the wrong impression. ("Disguise yourself as a dragonfly, and the neighbors will leave you alone!")

But no, that's not the invention at all. It's a small electronic repeller you wear on your belt, which "simulates the low-frequency wingbeat sound of the dragonfly, the mosquito's mortal enemy!" Mosquitoes hear the clicking and "they turn tail and leave fast!"

Sounds wonderful. Here's my question: Are dragonflies attracted to this sound? If I use this product, will I be followed everywhere by swarms of aroused dragonflies? I might prefer the occasional mosquito.

Another hot gardening item: The new recoiling water hoses that "put themselves away." The hose looks like a giant green Slinky. Have you ever tried to untangle a Slinky? Get a foot caught in this hose, and you might find yourself tied up tighter than Houdini.

Then there's my favorite item, the "humane" trap for pesky varmints that dare enter your property to sniff your fake boulders. The cage-like trap always is depicted holding a well-groomed live skunk. The skunk looks very annoyed at being captured.

Here's what I always wonder: What do you do next? Once you've humanely captured the live skunk, how do you then get rid of it? When it was running around loose, the skunk was simply a problem. Now that you've caught it, it's become your responsibility. And you've made it mad.

Better to stay indoors in the first place. I've found the best use for all the gardening catalogs: Stack them up and use them as an ottoman. That way, you can stay on the sofa where you belong. And you won't scratch the good furniture with your Soil Aerator Sandals.

Freedom to assemble

Want to chill the typical American male to his very toes? Then utter these three simple words: "Some assembly required."

Furniture and bicycles, toys and stereos, computers and exercise equipment all arrive at our homes these days requiring final assembly. And the average male gets out his tools and muddles through the "instructions" and proceeds to break whatever item he's supposed to be assembling.

This average male is thinking the whole time: "Don't they have someone more qualified to do this? Isn't there someone at the factory who knows how to do the final assembly?" Sure, the furniture (or other item) needs to fold flat for shipping, but wouldn't we all be happy to pay higher shipping costs to get the item in its finished form?

I'm sure some guys love the challenge of "ready-to-assemble" furniture and color-coded computer cables and toys in which the battery compartment is hermetically sealed, but I'm not one of them. And I think most guys fall into my category: Irredeemable klutzes who have no business assembling anything.

We klutzes know who we are. We'd never attempt to, say, create a piece of furniture from scratch. We know we're not gifted with the innate ability to handle tools properly. We stay away from power saws because we don't want the nickname "Stumpy."

But give us a piece of furniture compacted into a three-inch-thick box, and we're gung-ho. After all, the parts are all there, right? The holes are pre-drilled. The box contains instructions written in some semblance of English. Why, any fool could put it together!

Soon, though, we find that we're not just any fool. We're the fools who can't do anything right, the ones for whom "some assembly required" might as well read, "Forget about it, you idiot."

To be fair, it's not entirely our fault. Ready-to-assemble items rarely are truly ready to assemble. If there were truth in advertising, they'd be labeled: "Random assortment of parts that may or may not fit together. You're on your own."

Murphy's Law is hardly adequate to describe the pain and suffering faced by a guy who's trying to "insert tab 'A' into slot 'B' at a 45-degree angle." Here, then, are Brewer's Laws for Ready-to-Assemble Items:

--Tab "A" never fits into slot "B." There's always a ragged piece of plastic that prevents them from sliding together smoothly. Remove that excess plastic, and the tab will wiggle loosely in its slot. Forever.

--Instructions are written in pidgin English by someone from a foreign land, even if the item is labeled "Made in the USA." The foreign land that produces such writers is "Venus."

--Illustrations in the instructions will be so tiny, you won't be able to tell which part goes where without a microscope.

--No matter how carefully you handle the plastic bag full of nuts, bolts, screws and washers, you'll lose at least one of them. The missing hardware will be the one piece of that holds everything else together.

--Missing screws, etc., will be some oddball size they don't carry at American hardware stores.

--Yes, ready-to-assemble furniture comes with pre-drilled holes to make it easier to line up the pieces, but one of the holes will be in the wrong place. It won't be off by much; just enough to make you slowly go insane.

--If tools such as Allen wrenches are included with the hardware, they'll be made of flimsy metal that just begs to be broken. And, they'll be too small to use with your actual hands. If you try to use real tools in their place, the tools will not fit. The next sound you hear will be the stripping of a bolt.

--When pieces don't fit, you'll eventually get mad and try to force them. This will result in permanent damage, both to the item and to your fingers.

--If you succeed in assembling the item, there always will be a few screws, etc., left over. These parts should be discarded immediately before your wife sees them.

Remember these rules when faced with "some assembly required." They won't make it any easier, but they'll remind you that someone, somewhere, is getting a good laugh at your expense.
My money's on those Venusians.

You dropped your pocket

As warmer weather arrives, many of us find ourselves suffering a severe shortage of pockets.

We're very busy people. Mobile. We need pockets for all our stuff as we hurry from place to place. As the slow strip-tease of spring takes us toward the island-castaway summer outfit of swimsuit and tank top and sandals, we have fewer and fewer pockets to go around.

It's a sign of sophisticated simplicity to go around with free hands. If you're not lugging a briefcase and a laptop and a cell phone everywhere you go, it means you've made some good choices in life. You haven't become a slave to business and its machines.

But we all have our stuff. Money. Sunglasses. Certain necessities like car keys that we need handy, yet in a safe place where the dog can't swallow them. And for these items we need pockets.

I travel light, but as I write this, I have the following in my pockets: wallet, comb, keyring, loose change, grocery list, checks and deposit slip for pending trip to the bank, blank paper (in case inspiration strikes), pen and business cards. And that's while I'm sitting here at my desk, phone and coffee cup within easy reach. Imagine if I needed to go outside.

I used to carry a Swiss Army knife, so I always had ready access to a corkscrew. Now there's no room in my pockets for it, so I've had to resign from the Swiss Army. Better not to be packing a knife these days anyway. Never know when you might get patted down.

What about people who carry more stuff? They've got it hanging all over them. Key chains jingling on belts and pagers clipped onto pockets and cell phones holstered on their hips. We're all starting to look like cops, the tools of our trade weighing down our belts.

(I saw a guy in a coffee shop the other day. He had the usual battery of high-tech toys on his belt, threatening to "pants" him, plus he wore a telephone headset and talked loudly as he weaved between tables. I'm thinking: Yeah, yeah, we're all impressed by what an important little businessman you are. But we'd be more impressed if you were so successful, you could afford to take a leisurely, phone-free coffee break.)

Once you pass the dangle limit, you must graduate to a purse or a book bag or a briefcase or a backpack or a llama. And life's responsibilities begin to weigh you down.

A note: Avoid the "fanny pack." Any item that includes the word "fanny" in its name is a bad fashion choice.

Some people try to solve the overflow of stuff by adding pockets. That's how "cargo pants" were born. They're very popular with boys, especially if at least one of the pockets is big enough to hold a live frog. But these pants are not for us middle-aged men. The big side pockets tend to emphasize the hips, which call enough attention to themselves already. (See "fanny pack" above.)

Now that it's warm, we'll soon go around in our cargo SHORTS, with ever more stuff crammed into fewer pockets, bulging out so much it looks like we're wearing bustles.

Have you seen the TV commercial for the stealth trousers that have cargo pockets hidden inside the legs? In the ad, a woman peers through X-ray glasses and can see the male model's cell phone and pager and other junk all zippered away in there alongside his thighs. She's VERY impressed by this, which is surprising when you consider what else she might be espying through his pants. Maybe Mr. Headset in the coffee shop knows something I don't.

It's time for a solution to the pocket shortage. It's time for America's technological and business geniuses to get together and design something that fits all our needs so we can continue to race headlong through life unencumbered.

I suggest utility belts, like Batman wears. All our little tools of life encapsulated in one snug package, everything miniaturized and computerized and labeled with cool bat logos. Strap that baby on with your swimsuit and you're ready for summer.

If someone can figure a way to include a cup holder, we'll pay extra.