Last Monday afternoon, amidst the dogs barking and the children peering out our windows, I sprinted for the door. Flinging it open I found the UPS man placing a carefully wrapped package at
my door. With excitement I snatched it up, hurtled the still
barking dogs on my way back into the living room and set
up a spot for myself on the floor. Tearing open the
box, with no respect whatsoever for the
aforementioned packaging, I removed the bubble
wrap, receipts, and other packaging materials and
something soon became visible. The label
read "Wii Fitness".

After hours of BMI tests, yoga poses, and balance

games, the family was exhausted. I was packing up the game when I realized something rather profound. Were we playing a video game? Things really have changed.

I have quite fond memories of my childhood dinners huddled around the TV. “Married With Children” playing as Pop discussed his day at work and Mom complained about her commute. After dinner, my father might challenge me to a game of Nintendo Golf or Tetris if a major sporting event wasn’t on. We watched a lot of TV. We were a family of couch potatoes. That’s not to say we didn’t do anything active. We did, but we also gathered around the television just about every night.

That Monday evening I had a vision of my children’s memories being totally different from mine. I’m sure some families still gather around the TV every night watching “American Idol” or “Dancing with the Stars”, but mine does not. The advancement of technology, and my immersion in it, has totally transformed the way my family receives media. I can’t remember the last time we watched something “live” on television. We have Tivos, iPods, and Macs hooked to every possible outlet in the house. Even our television has a Mac Mini hooked up to it with my entire media library (courtesy of XBMC) and most of the web’s (hulu.com and Netflix ) on demand libraries available at the click of a mouse. And with The Wii, and games like “Rock Band” and “DDR”, even our video game experiences, the ultimate couch potato time-waster, have evolved into an interactive form of exer-gaming.

Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s great that my children won’t be as compelled to waste their time sitting in front of a box waiting for the next great catch phrase. I love the fact that their video games have added a physical element to keep them active even when their not. I just find it odd that the very technology that created the stereotypical “fat and lazy” American is changing in such a way that those Americans who embraced the laziness and became “couch potatoes” are becoming out-dated.

So Mr. “laying on the couch all day with a bag of chips and a can of beer guy”, I tip my hat to you. Keep on keepin’ on as long as you can. Because the days of people huddling around the TV for extended periods of time, watching mindless live TV maybe soon approaching the way of the Dodo.

Apparently, the five-o in Chattanooga, Tennessee have a new nemesis. College student Clay Palmer decided he would honk his horn in protest when he witnessed a police car moving through a red light with it’s flashers on and no obvious emergency. For this admirable stand in the face of injustice, he received a nice, shiny ticket for a noise violation.

Now, I never claimed to be the brightest crayon in the tool shed, but I know enough about real life to know when to shut the #$@% up! Obviously, Clay is not from the Chris Rock school of police interaction. Still, we’ve all seen this happen. Traffic is awful and some cop comes along with his lights on long enough to make through the intersection. What gives him the right? Unless there is some pressing emergency, he should have to wait there obeying this electronic demigod like the rest of us. No one is above the law… right?

The best part of this case was the judge’s comment “The horn blowing is not the real problem here, it’s that you were trying to correct the police and they didn’t need correcting”. Wait, wasn’t Clay in court for a noise violation? Never mind…

The real point here is if you have a flashing light, a badge, and a gun, you can pretty much do whatever you want, and all of your friends will back you. Luckily for Clay, his charge was reduced to a warning.