You can go ahead and call me crazy

Crazy... all the way to the bank! This is very much a rant, if you're not in the mood to read, skip to the last paragraph which is admittedly also quite long by itself.

The world is flooded with mp3 players, right?

Think back to the early '90s (specifically, 1994 and Apple's Quicktake 100). The advent of the consumer-level digital camera. It wasn't long before the convenience and portability prospects of this new technology were so unavoidable that an unceasing push for better, smaller, less-expensive models took hold. Obviously, we are very much in the grips of this technological motivation to this day, with consumers buying upwards of 20 million digital cameras a year. Although photography was already an established medium, its safe to say that digital cameras (not to mention video -- that's a whole other story) have revolutionized the attitude of our society towards visual media as well as our ability to access and share it. It wasn't long ago for most of us that a photograph was something to be considered, planned, and carefully executed. With both monetary and physical limitations inherent in the cost of purchasing and developing film and the very real space requirements of carrying many rolls on one's person, it was only natural for any good photographer, or anyone with a sense of economic responsibility, to take the time to set up each of their photographs carefully. Today, we live in the digital age. A typical digital camera has the ability to take as many as 500 high-quality pictures without swapping media. Thus, any given photograph is no big deal. Why should it be? If you don't get it right, just take another 10 shots of the same thing until you get something you like. While this trial-and-error luxury is indeed convenient, it takes some of the worth out of the actual photo. In this way, I feel the digital camera has somewhat cheapened the photographic experience. But this aspect of it has also made photography something that more people can take part in without the need for an enthusiastic interest in creating photographic art. So, the classic double-edged sword. I am reminded of one of Chris Rock's stand-up routines in which he suggests that all bullets should cost $5000. But I digress.

Another thing that the digital camera has done for society: Quite simply, there's more pictures! Without digital cameras, MySpace would be sorely lacking in the area of intentionally-blurry-to-try-to-hide-my-hideous-appearance shots, gratuitous-cleavage-shot-from-the-only-angle-that-makes-her-boobs-look-big pics, and the like. PERISH the thought. But sarcasm and MySpace aside, if we want to see a picture of something, be it a car we're thinking about buying, a computer part or audio component whose inputs and outputs are not necessarily accurately described, or a certain piece of glassware for which words simply cannot do justice, chances are we can punch up a nice, clear 4 megapixel close-up of the widget in question. So, all in all, digital cameras have brought the art and utility of photography to any and all who desire to take part.

This brings me to another piece of now-ubiquitous technology: The cell phone. Like the digital camera, it started as a possibly more-convenient and useful offshoot of an already established technology. Like the digital camera, its convenience and usefulness quickly proved to hold water and the push was on for better, smaller, cheaper, more abundant versions. The interesting thing here is that the paths of these two seemingly separate technologies woud prove to merge as they developed. With cameras proving themselves as the useful indispensable tools that they are, it was only natural that people would want to have one withthem as often as possible. Similarly, a cell phone is only as useful as it is portable. The two properties are linked. And lo, thus begins the age of pants, purses, shirts, coats, center consoles, etc. with built-in cellphone pockets. Hang on, where do you put the digital camera? Surely, it has earned its own pocket. But no, the generally idiotic angry mob that is society decreed that our pants only have room for one electronic accessory. Digital cameras the world over wept as they dangled obtrusively in large dorky cases from tourists' necks.

But wait! A light at the end of the tunnel! November 2000 comes, and along with it, the first camera phone. That's right, folks! Your cellphone pockets can now house two allegedly indispensible pieces of technology, at the same time! All our worries are over!

But even then, the technological itch still seemed to need scratching. Because, you see, back in 1998, Diamond Multimedia, an arguably dying modem manufacturer released the first popular mp3 player, the Rio. With a "generous" 32MB of space, this baby could fit a little bit more than a CD's worth of music at horrifically low bitrates then touted as "high-quality" and was only slightly smaller than the already widely popular portable CD player that I'm sure you all remember from your sordid youth. I know I do. One time, I rigged up a setup with some funky wiring and a plastic hobby battery caddy so I could run mine on D batteries! Alas, although I was the only one who didn't have to buy batteries on the Seventh grade ski trip, I missed out on some good old fashioned girls' hotel room raiding because I was listening to Stone Temple Pilots. Again with the digression.

So anyway, that piece of crap Rio thing turned out to be a big success, helping to usher in an age of music piracy and portability. Now, like the thing what I said before about the pictures and their bein' all over the place, music is not only in our souls, its in our fuckin' pocket. And, like the digi-cam, it was destined to find a home in the cell phones of the financially solvent in a pathetic attempt to either make those people cool or make their unfulfilling jobs seem fun. Ah, the wonders of modern life.

So why the history lesson, you ask? (Here comes a line which is overused in the blogging world -- perhaps signifying the death of language?) I'd be amazed if you actually read all of that! Seriously. I wish I'd made it just a bit more engaging. Well, here's my amazingly simple-minded, chauvinistic, sexist idea that initially motivated me to put forth this drivel:

The Breast-Implant MP3 Player.

You heard me. It's the fucking future, man. No pockets needed. Fuck putting your songs on the cell phone. Fuck music-is-in-your-soul. Music is in YOUR BOOBS! how fucking sweet would that be. Now, ladies, I know some of you might be saying to yourself that breast implants are merely a male-invented, male-encouraged, male-serving, manovation from the land of sexist pigs (America). Well, I'll go ahead and say that I might have to agree. I'm a big fan of breasts and even as scientists work around the clock to make more realistic versions of the implant (improving your breasts since 1963!) the simple reality remains that you can't beat the real thing. But this misses my
point. Let's pretend for just a minute that they DID invent the perfect implant, so real it was totally indistinguishable from those life-force rechargers so necessary to sane existence. Let's imagine them with electronics built in. Now, hear me out. I know, the thought of putting technology inside your body kinda creeps under your skin, right? But come on, people have been extending their lives with pacemakers for 50 years. The silicone implant itself (okay, maybe modern ones are saline) is a foreign material. Isn't there an artificial kidney or lung out there as well? I dunno. Maybe. But anyway, there's no reason that electrical circuits need to be made of rigid materials other than the fact that its easy to lay them out and keep things from coming into contact with each other. Why not gell-based RAM? Why can't a little squishy ball the size of a grape be made to hold 20GB of data? I see no reason. And IC chips? They are essentially made of the same things as memory, that being various configurations of transistors, themselves often made from the surprisingly malleable copper, but perhaps a bit more diverse in properties. So, they'd need to be a little bigger, maybe a cherry tomato. So, lump a couple o' grapes and a cherry tomato or two into a gel sack, and pop that sucker in. Want the 60 gig model? You'll have to step up to the Double D's. Genius! But wait, you say. What about powering the damned thing? Well, the modern pacemaker lasts upwards of five years. Battery tech moves forward just like everything else, albeit more slowly then we’d like. But we live in the era of compact fuel cells, li-poly batteries, and a while back I noticed that the SonicCare toothbrush can charge itself without any physical connection to a power source, presumably through some form of induction. Adapt this for safe intimate use. Not unreasonable. So, how do you listen to the thing? Well.. a semi-reasonable answer to this question escapes me at the moment, but I’m willing to bet that with a little creativity it could be achieved. Just imagine: you’re cuddling with your girlfriend, lovingly caressing her supple, newly enlarged bosom with your face and experienced fingers, occasionally pressing ear to breast to listen to her heartbeat, when suddenly – you are sure you heard it – Barry White appropriately begins emanating from somewhere close but mysteriously hard to pinpoint. “Oh, dear!” She giggles. “You accidentally squeezed play!”