Blogging from the Road

I'm not jaded enough at this point in my life that I'm no longer amazed at what technology has given us. Mrs. Talk Talk Talk Talk Talk and I have taken a car trip this weekend, and we'll be arriving home later than planned--too late, in fact, for me to write a Sunday post on the laptop at home. So instead, here I am in the passenger seat of the car, uploading something that will potentially be read in Tokyo, Sweden, South Korea, or anywhere in the world. Less than twenty years ago, I knew a guy who had a portable phone, which seemed incredible enough. It was all very Maxwell Smartish, a phone in a briefcase, but the fact that he could carry it around with him at all seemed a tremendous advance. But now, as I said, not even two decades later, I have a far more powerful device (with a keyboard, no less) that I can stick in my back pocket. What will the technological world be like in another ten years?

While we were out driving this weekend, we had occasion to take a run across the Canadian border. We had our passports ready (although they're theoretically unnecessary when crossing in a car for the next few months), and the crossing guard motioned to see them when she noticed them in my hand. But we also found reinforcement for one of our theories about crossing the border. The secret word seems to be "Shreddies." Shreddies is a breakfast cereal that, for reasons that have never been clear to me, is only available in Canada and not in the United States. It's vaguely like Life or Wheat Chex, but not quite like either. I love Shreddies and try to buy at least a couple of boxes when I'm in Canada. We've found that, when asked what we're bringing back, the answer "Shreddies" seems to put an end to the questions and results in a fairly quick wave through. That happened again tonight, but it was accompanied by the strongest reaction I've gotten so far. When I said that we had a few boxes of Shreddies, the border guard gave me a look of, "Well, yeah, why wouldn't you?" She actually did say, "Shreddies are great! You can't get them in the States." At which, she promptly handed back our passports and waved us through.