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If you’ve read our print edition issue cover to cover, you’ll notice that we have gone a little off the deep end with these QR codes. Those would be those little boxes you're seeing everywhere that look like a tiny digital mime exploding.
Some of you may even be annoyed with these QR codes. The rest of you have only recently got your smartphones, and have scanned each and every one you’ve come across because right now you’re in the honeymoon period, and everything your smartphone does is amazing.
I’m only in my second month of smartphone ownership, and already I’ve become deeply annoying to nearly all my loved ones. All smartphone owners know the progression: The first time your new lightsaber app lets your phone make sound effects when you wave it around, it’s astounding. The twelfth time, it’s obnoxious.
By the time your wife catches you pretend-fighting Count Dooku in the kitchen, it’s officially become a sickness.
But there must be some reason we buy them, right? Well, kinda.
Like many of you, I purchased a smartphone with the intention of catching up on work when I’m away from the office, instead of wasting time “raising my children” or “sleeping.”
“I’m just going to use it stay on top of my 152 emails a day I get from the Joe Wilson mailing list that every Monthly editor going back ten years has tried to remove themselves from,” I told myself. “I’m not going to be that guy.”
“That guy” was of course the gentleman over in the corner playing Angry Birds and slowly forgetting how to interact with other humans.
So for the first few days I proudly skipped the temptation of the app store as I diligently read urgent emails from Joe Wilson (“America is awesome, Rep. Wilson boldly declares”) while the rest of my family was eating dinner.
That was two months ago.
Now, if someone tells a bad joke, I have an app that plays a rimshot. If I’m hanging photos, I have an app that acts as a carpenter’s level (albeit a $200 carpenter’s level that will shatter in a million pieces if I drop it). If my virtual alcoholism is giving me the shakes, I have an app that pours a fake beer when I tilt the phone.
In short, I have completely become that guy.
But apart from the debilitating app store addiction, having a smartphone has been great. Here I am, walking around with the entirety of human knowledge at my fingertips, with more information in my pocket than all the world’s libraries combined, and with the security of knowing I’m never more than a few seconds away from pouring one out for my digital homies.
If you really feel like putting your smartphone to good use, hit us up on Facebook. In case you missed it, we’re putting up $100 from Daniel’s to one lucky Facebook fan.
Click here to become a fan of Hilton Head Monthly or email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it to engage me in simulated lightsaber duels, drinking contests or discussions of Joe Wilson's email policy.
