Just an FYI – despite the hype, wires and cables still rule our lives in a big, bad way.

It’s something that I was personally reminded of a couple of weeks ago while I was trying to setup our new Blu-Ray player.  And granted, you could say that I’m a bit of a tech geek myself, so I don’t necessarily mind wading through the roughly 600 various cables and wires and miscellaneous vitally important doodads and whatnots nestled sporadically behind our home entertainment center on a highly anticipated movie night with popcorn and a cozy wife anxiously waiting, but that certainly doesn’t stop me from knowing the pecking order here in this stereophonic wild kingdom that’s hidden behind our stereo cabinet and big screen TV!  Nope, it’s quite clear that amongst this mass of HDMI and digital audio cables, I am but a meager herdsman simply praying for the cooperation of old Mother Dolby on my quest for crisper audio and higher definitions…

I mean, sure, this is supposed to be a new wireless revolution that we’re experiencing right now, and at times it can be great … the ability to check up on Facebook from the toilet has really been an invaluable contribution to my daily productivity, but of course, wireless connectivity most certainly has its downfalls, too.  Anyone who’s ever tried to use the wi-fi around our house while I’m trying to cook a delicious Ball Park® Frank in the microwave will vouch that they might as well take me out to the ballgame because they sure as hell won’t be getting a signal around here for the next 45 plump-worthy seconds!

* Baseball Vendors: Bored to death by your game, but LOVE your hotdogs – let’s work on some promotions together!

The thing is, despite what the fine folks at Tom, Dick & Harry Cellular want to tell you, wireless clearly isn’t the answer to everything. Take electricity, for example – you want to talk about a horrible application for wireless technologies … you remember the sight of your kid sister’s hair standing on end when she “accidentally” stuck her favorite Scooby Doo fork in the electric socket?!  Imagine that look on everyone, everywhere if electricity was just flying around above our heads all willy-nilly – aside from making Lady Gaga look relatively normal, it probably still wouldn’t be best for society as a whole to walk around looking like we’re perpetually doing laps around the living room carpet in our holiday slippers!

What about security systems? Do you really want to think, “Man, I hope the alarm system has enough bars to be able to call the police…” when you’re cowering in the corner while your house is being robbed?!

Those tin can radios that you used to run between tree houses with a piece of string when you were a kid – take away the “wire” and now you’re basically just yelling your top secret plans to avoid cooties across the yard!

Braces – where would orthodontia be without wires?!

Ok, so wireless braces actually do sound a lot better because I can only imagine that they’d be far less painful than the medieval torture-inspired monstrosities that I had to wear between the ages of 12 and 17 growing up … to this day those tiny rubber bands still give me the heebie-jeebies…

Of course, when it all comes down to it, the good news is that ultimately yours truly did manage to circumnavigate our ancient temple of an entertainment center, inserting cable A into receptacle B and so forth precisely as instructed, and I was able to make it out of the jungle with little more than some minor scratches and a healthy coating of dust dating back to roughly around the time that we moved in, if my carbon dating skills serve me well.  Now it’s all smooth sailing from here as we sit back and relax to spend our evenings and weekends basking in the glorious high definition glow that Blu-Ray has to offer … that is, as long as the remote control is working, anyways!

Alright, chalk one up for wireless.