Gadgets Gadgets Gadgets by Gary

Gadgets gadgets gadgets.

Everyone in the world has at least three.

People use it to send messages to one another, to remind themselves of special occasions, and to light up the tiny little alphanumeric plates to look for their seat in the cinema.

Most importantly, people use gadgets to keep their mind from falling into the terribly dull and shallow puddle of boredom.

It’s not that terrible, mind you, to be bored. But we do all kinds of stuff to keep ourselves from getting bored anyway. Images of vegetables and slack-jawed village idiots spring to mind.

As civilization gadgevolved, people split into two factions. The Brainys was one– they believed in fully utilising their gadgets to better themselves, and the world around them. As they sat on the train to work, they worked out complex quantum chemistry formulas on their iPhones, and banded computing resources from their PSPs to perfect a renewable fuel concoction, all while signing online petitions from their MacBooks to save the rare Guinea-Bissauan dung beetle.

The Brainless were the other faction. Well, they did not call themselves that, but nobody bothered to think of a name. The Brainys called them the Brainless because all they used their gadgets for was on mindless entertainment. As they sat on the train to work, they watched VR man on their iPhones, I know what you did last summer, last winter, last autumn, and last Chinese new year on their PSPs, and Judge Judy on their MacBooks.

The Brainys couldn’t stand the Brainless. They couldn’t stand the inefficient use of resources, their lack of intellectual hunger for the betterment of mankind, and most of all…the uncouth sniggering as they watched James Lye battle Sheikh Heikel. The Brainys formed a super neuro network, and through dynamic interactive engagement and collaboration, came up with a faultless plan to eliminate the Brainless.

Which they did. One fine Tuesday an electronic pulse sent through the Brainless gadgets fried them to a crisp, leaving nothing but a tidy pile of carbon dust.

Rid of the Brainless, the Brainys continued to use their gadgets to better themselves and the rest of the world.

Little did they know there existed a secret group of surviving Brainless. One fine Thursday, the rogue Brainless group uploaded the entire series of VR Man onto the Brainy neuro network. In less than a day, all Brainys were hooked on the tales of James Lye and his virtual reality powers.

~

"The idea for the story comes from my daily commute on the MRT. Everybody seems to be fully absorbed in a gadget, be it their iPhone, PSP or whatever. Yet some people seem to regard PSP players with disdain, maybe it is a non-PSP-superiority complex or something."