TheGrouch
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Switched On: The grouch
Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about technology, multimedia, and digital entertainment. [We have a special treat today -- our Ross Rubin has penned yet another amazing poem, for which we'd officially like to nominate him as Geek Poet Laureate. They have one of those, right? If you enjoyed this, please also check out The Slight Before Christmas, Don't Buy This Stuff, and our all time favorite piece: The Maven, -Ed.]The Arpus in ARPUville liked gadgets a lotBut a grouch who lived close to ARPUville did not.How the grouch hated gadgets. He hoped they'd all break.Even counterfeit knockoffs that kept it real fake.(And those knockoffs are wrong. Not a soul who is wise'llKnock off the fine writings of Theodor Geisel.) Now perhaps it was DRM transfer futilityOr the wonky AC from his local utilityOr the terrible manuals barely grammaticalOr the versions of standards that were incompatibleOr the feature creep that took away from their essenceOr the rapid revamping and quick obsolescenceOr the tech support hotlines that spoke incoherenceOr the wireless networks slowed by interferenceOr the UIs that frustrated each simple deedOr the small LCDs that were so hard to readBut for whatever reasons that made him demonicThe grouch hated all that was made electronic.
