Technology and string

My dear sweet father, bless his fuzzy soul, just discovered this amazing website called Amazon. Apparently you can look up books, CDs, DVDs, and whole host of other things, order and pay for them online, and have them shipped right to your door in a matter of days. Shocker. When he called me last night to ask whether I had any experience with said website I assured him that not only was it fun and efficient, but it was also relatively safe and thus far no one had stolen my credit card number and used it to buy a new car. It was amusing to have a conversation about Amazon with him because on this same day, I had the complete other ends of the spectrum too when it comes to technology, starting with a libary patron who wanted to know if he could click on the picture of the CD in the library catalogue and hear the music, and ending with me being blown away by the fine art of file sharing when chatting with my friend on the phone. I have been thinking about buying an IPod (yes, I'm a little behind the times as well) and was confuzzled about transferring songs onto it and "buying" new songs, which he told me was entirely unecessary as long as you know your way around a computer. I'm obviously not the expert on technology, but at least I know more than some people!

The other funny thing that happened yesterday was when a group of boys, who came into the library because there was a huge thunderstorm outside and they needed refuge, decided, after they got bored of Scrabble, to tie their friend up Houdini-style with an elaborate mess of string, tape and a spare sheet that was sitting around from a teen program. I opposed the idea of leaving his exacto knife out to help him escape and suggested that scissors would be a slightly safer option. I could just picture blood spewing out of his main arteries when the RCMP came over and saw him tied up with string - can we say liability, children? I ended up having to cut him loose because it was 5:30, I wanted to go home, and there was no way he was getting out of all that shit. His friends had ditched him by this point in time, leaving only a few errant teens to watch him embarrass himself.