Various people around the blogosphere have been linking to Robert Fulghum's website (which, alas, lacks any sort of permalinks), in reference to his recent post on "players" - people who respond imaginitively to impromptu off-the-wall suggestions.
This example of a non-player non-character set me a-thinkin':
Example: Early morning. Lady standing at a bus stop. All seven people waiting with her have wires coming out of their ears. Radios, I-pods, Walkmans, or something. All seven are in a zone - nodding heads in time to music or staring off into space. As I pass, I say to the lady: "They're all alien robots, you know. Their souls have been sucked out of them." The lady gives me a hard look and moves closer to the curb.
Not a player.
So... iPods are soul-sucking devices? Makes sense. If cameras can suck people's souls out, a little at a time, from a distance, surely something that's hooked up directly to the victim for 10 hours a day can do a really good job of soul-stealing.
This is great for Apple! First off, the victims pay good money to Apple for the privilege of having their souls extracted and uploaded to iTunes - what do you think is happening with all that upstream bandwidth, anyway, while you're downloading your music? Then, Apple can sell the souls to Satan. Probably not at full price - this is wholesale, after all - but they've got low overhead, so that's OK.
This is actually an important public service. Since Satan can now get souls wholesale, cheap and easy, from Apple, there's no need to go around trying to persuade the non-wired to sell their souls. If you don't listen to MP3s, chances are you won't be bothered by Satan's minions.
This leaves but one question: in what coin is Apple being paid?
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