Photo on 2010-03-08 at 14.54Ernie recently posted Stick It Up Your App as part of his ongoing battle against pointless sillyness. Now I realize Ernie is all for pointful sillyness, such as green beer on St. Patrick’s Day. And, I’d have to agree that many of the apps I personally loaded onto my iPhone were not only pointless and silly but also didn’t work very good.

For instance, Grenade Lite. If it’s the free version they attach the word Lite to it, and charge varying amounts of money to upgrade to the full flavoured version. Unfortunately for them, I’m cheap as a monkey so I never upgrade. Anyways, you slide your finger across the screen to pull the pin out of the grenade and a few seconds later, it “explodes”. Wow. Problem with this app? When you pull the pin on a real grenade, the handle flies off. Anyone that has watched Avatar could easily verify that even futuristic CG grenades work this way. The programmers of this app didn’t even figure out how a grenade works before they made their crappy app, or CRAPP. And, it really has no point. Its not like I’m going to throw my phone to fake a grenade, so I gotta hold it and let it “explode”. That’s not how we did it in the army.

Yeah, I’ve downloaded farting apps, apps that shoot virtual on screen guns, an app that loads a new insult every time you shake the phone, and one where a cow moos at you every time you talk. These were all Crapps. I had one app that just shouts “Woooooo!” every time you push the button. It makes you glad we are improving the universe with such important and functional technological advances.

But then there are all the super useful apps. Like eReader, which lets me read books anywhere and for a lot less money each than a paper book. Or Pocket Wikipedia, which allows me to win arguments on the go with those who don’t have all the facts at their fingertips. And how about Flixter, which allows me to easily find out movies playing and showtimes at local theaters. And lets not forget that I can even get phonecalls! That’s right, not only can I do all that other stuff but I can receive calls, make calls access voicemails, and even phone 911 from my iPhone. Not to mention texting. And of course, I am never one of those distracted texting drivers. I make handsfree calls with bluetooth while on the road.

What self respecting Hi Tech Redneck wouldn’t want to pack around a dozen ebooks and at least two gun apps?

Camping means different things to different people. To some it means roughing it all the way – hiking in five miles, lean-to’s made out of branches, sleeping on the ground, eating pork n’ beans right out of the can with your fingers after you smash it open with a rock ’cause  you forgot the can opener. Those people aren’t me. These days we use a travel trailer so we don’t have to sleep on the ground anymore. I have a lot of back troubles, and I need a real bed or I’m just not having any fun. We don’t have a television set or a DVD player, but we do bring our share of technology with us.

We spent plenty of time camping in Sebekia last summer. There were between 3 and 5 families each time we went out, meaning we had up to 12 children stampeding around the campsite. Add to that 5 dogs (good thing none of us has a dog allergy) and 10 adults, and it becomes a pretty busy place.

On occasion, we had to fire up the ‘ole chitty chitty bang bang, my antique PC laptop, and see what was going on out there in the real world. Thanks to the invention of the aircard, hi-speed internet can be found anywhere you can get cell service, even in our Redneck Paradise. I never take my Mac camping. It doesn’t like to rough it, even when I pack it in one of those special computer backpacks with extra padding and a gajillion pockets for extra goodies.

You can probably imagine how hard it is to fit everyone around the campfire. With all the kids crowded in there with their chairs, it makes for some excitement. As long as no one gets a flaming marshmellow in the face, or a a jab with a hot dog stick, we consider the evening a success. A couple of times we built two separate fires; one for children and one for adults. The toddlers stay with the adults of course!

Some nights the alcohol consumption is a little high. It’s amazing how much Blue Beaver Beer a bunch of redneck campers can drink! But most of the time we are a pretty mellow bunch of campers. We camp pretty close to home so that every couple of days we can all toddle off to our respective farms and make sure all the livestock and whatnot have enough food and water. We rarely go to a conventional campsite, since we like to make up our own rules and get away from all the other people. Our private campground is fairly isolated and we don’t have to worry about intrusive campers making noise all night and such. Unless we stay up late and do it ourselves, that is!