Pop!

Technology has changed the past few years that one could not imagine even ten years back the gadgets we have now could even exist. And in turn our lives have been changed drastically.

Cellphones with cameras/videos. I-pods. Laptops. Bluetooth. To name a few. And of course, the 20th century version of the wheel, the internet. The greatest single invention recent history has produced.

Because of it, globalization, where as before was an abstract concept of the world coming together through commerce and communication, has become a virtual yet tangible reality.

I could go praising on and on about this invention but I should just stick close to what matters more to me. Music.

When I was "younger" listening and "getting close" to the bands I love would mean going to music stores and go "sonic shopping." A more complete experience to window shopping. I would be there for hours listening to the music blasted from the speakers and at the same time browsing through (no, make it "breathing information" as if hanging on to dear life) the album in-lays. For me, everytime I do that the time just stops. Even until now, I couldn't resist the lure of the record shop. I will find myself staying there for hours. Friends and wife be damned.

At that time, you only submit yourself to what is available. Of course you can not really expect a small record shop in a small city to have everything. From the latest to the back catalogues and most especially from bands even the local DJs are not aware of.

But now, because of internet, my laptop has become my virtual record store. And I am constantly in nirvana. Fuck, even my wife thinks I should sleep with my laptop.

Even in my laziest days I can not stop romancing my laptop. How can you when you can now download songs from records that you have only dream of having when you were just a skinny little kid who does not even know what a bank account is for when money just barely grazes through your hand-me-down wallet?

Just like that, through a few fiddles in the keyboard, songs pop out. And it is for free! Wohooo!

Right now I am into "If I were a carpenter," a tribute album to (tada!) The Carpenters by bands and artists who were as unknown then as they are now. But it is such a visceral and orgasmic experience hearing the all-too familiar and depressing (almost suicidal) sound of the tragic duo through the unique voices of these bands. Try it but please don't kill yourself.

Without the internet, these songs would have been just peripheral experience. Just a faint soundtrack to the younger years. Of course there are moral and criminal issues to downloading songs to profit from it. But I am not. And many are complaining about information overload in the age of internet. But I am a news buff myself. So who's complaining?