1797 Goodbye Wi Fi
Your rent-free office away from home may soon shut you out. Yes, some coffee shops and fast food joints are turning off the router. No more free wi fi for you!
What’s the deal? Too many hacks because most of those connections are unprotected? (Never have unprotected wi fi. You could catch a WTD, a wirelessly transmitted disease.)
This prematurely born budding trend started in Toronto according to press reports. A coffee shop proprietor wanted people to stop staring at their phones, tablets and laptops and start talking to each other.
It’s only partly successful.
People stopped using their internet devices and started reading newspapers and magazines. No worries. The proprietor can’t stop you from that. But the printed page is committing suicide and soon there won’t be any.
Getting people to talk among themselves is a laudable goal. Think of the discussions you’ve missed over the past few years by not bothering your table mate with your annoying non sequiturs and political wisdom. Or vice versa.
It’s like a sports bar shutting off a dozen TV sets. People get into fights.
The coffee house crowd is generally more genteel than the bar flys. But that’s only because they’re caffeinated rather than alcoholated. While you find the occasional drinker of Perrier with a twist at the “The Dugout” or “The Stadium Inn” and there are decaf drinkers at “Giapetto's Espresso” or “Le Figaro,” they are at a disadvantage.
They have neither the tanked-uppedness of the boozers nor the high energy of the Frappuccino Latte Venti Primo of the coffee crowd.
These un-fueled patrons are unlikely to get into discussions with strangers.
The fueled crowd on the other hand is likely to get into bar fights and coffee shop fights.
And if you think the former is worse than the latter, think again. Someone throws a beer in the face of the other guy and the other guy gets wet and angry. Throw a Sumatran Mocha Machiatto in someone’s face and they get wet and burned. And maybe covered in whipped cream or five perfect layers of espresso sweetness and dollop of caramel goo.
A coffee shop fight is a terrible thing to see and even worse to join. Plus at the coffee shop, the drink throwing will end up ruining that Time Magazine with the five buck cover price.
(Sponsored content: Subscribe today and you can ruin a copy of Time at half the cover price every week, plus receive this free LED illuminated magnifying glass with your paid subscription.)
People don’t go to coffee shops to talk with their neighbors. If they converse with the guy next door, they do it at one’s house or the other’s, over the fence in the driveway or building lobby or on the sidewalk.
People go to coffee shops to be alone with their thoughts. They answer email without the kids running around and yelling. They do work- related stuff without the shopping channel audio or Jerry Springer or ads for Xarelto followed by lawyer ads against Xarelto blasting in their ears.
They go to get away from their significant other for an hour. They go because they’re just not going to mow the lawn today.
And sometimes, they go simply for a cup of coffee.
I’m Wes Richards. My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com
All sponsored content on this page is parody.
© WJR 2017. Black. Two sugars.
No comments:
Post a Comment