Category: default || By jt3y

Someone once described the Internet as being like a giant library, where all the books were dumped out on the floor. Google has gone a long way toward --- well, if not organizing the library, at least stacking the books in neat little piles.

I have no idea how many times a day I use Google at work, but it's got to be more than a dozen. It's become a public utility for me, like Duquesne Light. Just as I'm shocked (no pun intended) when my electricity goes out, I'd be just as stunned if Google suddenly went out.

I don't call directory assistance any more to get phone numbers, unless my dial-up connection is down. I just Google the name of the store or business (or, if it's a person, I use Verizon's site). Sometimes I come home and find a hang-up call on my answering machine. Press *69 and get the number, and then Google it: Oh. Why are they calling me?

The true sign of acceptance of a technology, I think, is when people start using it for frivolous purposes. Take telephones. Telephone calls were originally considered a special event --- if you had to tell something to someone, you wrote it in a letter and mailed it. No one in the 1920s thought of just picking up the phone to chat. You certainly didn't call across the country just to shoot the bull. And if you got a long distance telephone call, brother, something terrible had happened.

But a concerted marketing effort by Bell Telephone after World War II convinced people that they could afford to use the phone just to say "hi." "Let your fingers do the walking." "The next best thing to being there." "Reach out and touch someone."

Now, people have cell phones, and you can't get them to shut up. "Guess where I am right now? Yep! The bathroom!"

I use Google for similarly frivolous purposes. A while ago, I purchased the first two volumes of "SCTV" on DVD --- a frivolous enough thing in and of itself, but "SCTV" is just about the only TV show I would purchase on video. On one episode, there's a parody that turns "The Nutcracker" into a Neil Simon play set in a grand hotel, a la "Plaza Suite." Naturally, "SCTV's" version is called "Nutcracker Suite," and it features Dave Thomas as Neil Simon, Andrea Martin as Marsha Mason, Rick Moranis as Richard Dreyfuss, Joe Flaherty as Alan Alda and Eugene Levy as Judd Hirsch. It's better as a concept than in execution --- the sketch is a little long --- but it's entertaining enough.

"SCTV's" budget was so low that many sketches were shot on location, rather than on sets. In "Nutcracker Suite," there's a brief shot of the exterior of the hotel, and the marquee, which says "Hotel Macdonald." Hmm. Google came to the rescue, of course; sure enough, it's in Edmonton, where "SCTV" was taped for several years, and the reception desk and entrance are recognizable.

The same episode has a fairly well-known running sketch (at least to "SCTV" fans) where John Candy, playing blustering, blubbering, blowhard producer Johnny LaRue is forced to do a man-on-the-street interview show on Christmas Eve as a punishment. Again, it's got to be in Edmonton, but on what street? I got a glimpse of a restaurant sign in the background, Googled the name, and there it was: The Red Ox Inn. It looks exactly the same as it did when that episode was taped, more than 20 years ago.

The mind boggles. Millions and millions of dollars has been spent to install a technology infrastructure, so that I can sit in my stocking feet and looking up the address of a bar in Edmonton, Alberta, 2,000 miles away.

Actually, I just checked. It's 2,170.9 miles away. And don't get me started on how much I like online mapping programs.

...

To Do This Weekend: It's high school basketball playoff time --- is that "February Madness"? WPIAL Class AAAA boys' basketball quarterfinals, McKeesport vs. Mt. Lebanon, 12 p.m. Saturday, Ringgold High School, Carroll Township, Washington County. Class A boys' quarterfinals, Serra High vs. Leechburg, 1:30 p.m. Saturday, Woodland Hills High School, Churchill. Class A girls' quarterfinals, Serra vs. Duquesne, 12 p.m. Saturday, Woodland Hills High School. ... Julius Falcon Combo plays the ballroom at The Palisades, Fifth Avenue at Water Street, 9 p.m. Saturday. Call (412) 678-6979.