Chore Hero the Hard Way

My pal Joseph texted me the other night, all agog over something he called "the greatest thing ever;" it took me three different messages to get him to explain that he'd simply gotten a new "gee whiz" phone that did everything but change the oil in his car. Yesterday, he taught me the intricacies of shooting dice (NOT "throwing" as I thought), and it didn't really cost me all that much money to learn, either. This was a phone app, apparently, which requires one to shake the phone to make the dice roll about, issuing realistic sounds all the while.
Of course, he has the internet and every other imaginable application. I can hear him chuckle in the office next door every time he discovers something new. It would seem that having a do-it-all phone has surpassed my reel-to-reel tape deck as a music source as well. Joseph was also much amused to demonstrate his new ring tone as well: the Subway commercial in which the number five is repeated about , well, five times. And now I find out that apps are all the rage.
Withdrawn from the Olympics? Apple has an app titled X2 Snowboarding which takes a lot of practice to master...as does the same thing in real life for my money. It's $4.99
Like the idea of launching birds from a slingshot in an attempt to knock pigs off a tower? Then Angry Birds is for you.
Can't get enough Farmville on Facebook? Try Astro Ranch, an app that lets you try to raise crops and domesticate animals on another planet, and it's only $2.99!
The real money maker lately, though, has been Plants vs Zombies, and app in which animated plants attempt to save the world from zombies. Really! When this was released in February, it sold a million dollars' worth in just ten days, and when it's going for $2.99, that's a LOT of buyers.
But my favorite would have to be Chore Hero in which points are gained by completing household chores! Each chore gets a different score, and there is apparently a part of it that let's the player complain about having to do chores around the house! My advice is to save the $2.99 and try it for free at your house!

It's no wonder I feel like I'm being left behind. While I have a cell phone out of necessity because my students refuse to look at or answer email messages, my Razr will soon be on exhibit at the Smithsonian as an artifact of technology.
It doesn't have a qwerty keyboard...I can't take and send pictures because it's not connected to the internet...it does not play music...ringtones? nope...it buzzes when on vibrate and has a tinny ring otherwise.
In short, it is anachronistic.
And so am I.