A "Touchy" Subject - Where "Touchy" Serves as a Pun, Because the Post Has to do With Touch-Sensitive Screen Technology

My actual eHarmony profile pic.

It's no secret we like to have fun here at the 'tron. Clara was going out for iced coffees and while she was gone, Becky and I put super-glue on her home keys. She comes back, sits down to crack out a post - uh-oh - stucksies! You should have seen her face - it was full of pain and sadness!

But it's important you know each of us are considered preeminent geniuses - excuse me, geniii, my new copy editor Ralph has informed me - in our particular fields. Take me, for instance. Yes, I'm a "race car driver", who's won the Singapore Grand Prix in 2008, but I don't appreciate the label. Do I do advanced vector space mathematics and helped establish the Goddard-Thorn Theorem - um, yeah, a teensy, so what?? You can't put me in a box!

My real passions - no surprises here - are space elevators, vertical farming, automated and electrified vehicular transport, getting Boy Meets World back on the air for all-new, ideally hour-long episodes, and creating a warless unified global culture (if we have time). Well, not that you haven't seen this one coming, but let's just add it to the list to make it official - yes, haptic and tactile feedback on pressure-sensitive, multitouch displays. Did I just hear a collective "well duh"? You knuckleheads! [shakes fist playfully]

Picture if you will this scene: It's 1:40 am in the morning at night. Darkness consumes everything, except for all the light sources. You're on 95 doing 85 pumping Jackson 5 on your 33⅓ (why didn't you upgrade?! Gramophones are the future!) Your best friend is in a coma - no, a gang war! - no, an execution line! - and the only way to save him is if you can get to the, I don't know, enemy's headquarters by 2:00. AM. At night.

You call an audible and take the off ramp at Exit 33. But which way at the light - left or right? You look at your nav screen. It says "Re-route? Press OK". Press OK?, you think. My best friend - and identical twin (had I mentioned that before?) is about to catch a lead one in the temple, and you have to Press 'OK'? You focus on the screen, find the appropriate rectangle, hit it - LOOK OUT!

You stupid, stupid fool. You just rear-ended the Pope Mobile. His Holiness is flippin' out, too, 'cause another DUI and he goes back to county. Despite little damage, you have to wait for police, exchange insurance info, the whole deal - not worth risking the bump in premiums. Plus, Heaven...

Meanwhile, a mere five miles away: [loud gunshot sound! Bad guys laughing and high-fiving! Your best friend, identical brother, and leading candidate for a recently-vacated Senate seat utters with his last breath - "Why, reader, why? Why didn't you promote haptic-feedback touchscreen technology and build awareness for this very serious issue? Whyyy? Hide my pr0n."]

Okay, let's come back now. You're fine - I know that was out-of-bodical, but you're fine. I simply dropped you in an artificial mental state. We're safe now. Did we learn anything? [a solitary cricket chirps, "no".] Really? Nothing about the dangers of touchscreens in vehicles and the need for haptic-feedback? Christ, you're kidding me. Go reread. GO!

[flips through Car & Driver]

Now that I have your attention, peep the vid:




Yeaaahhh. Those two minutes of your life be damned! Look. It's important. That could be your twin BFF in that papal collision. So what can you do, I'll pretend you asked? Contact your state legislator. Say something about johnatron, then mumble words like "touchscreen" and "gang wars" and "if you don't get this technology in the people's hands, a Senator will die!" Then just sit patiently and wait for them. I mean, it. The technology. Find your legislator's name here.

By the way, Clara just goes, "I'm still stuck!" She's crying so hard! What a pip!

Epilogue, For Those Interested

If you're trying to find plot holes, don't bother - I think these things through. You see, you had to deliver the microfilm of the surveillance video from the heist to the gang leader, Alejandro, who, no, is not Hispanic. Good racial conclusion you jumped to there. Way to set us back a year, gringo.

The New and Improved Johnatron - Now With Even More Bytes!

L to R: proposed NYC skyscraper, johnatron headquarters (not shown)

Big day over at johnatronica productions, llc. Big day. Financing finally came through, and I'm proud to announce we're now a partially-subsidized unit of Time-Warner's (yes, the Time-Warner - world's third largest media and entertainment conglomerate, whose subsidiaries include AOL, HBO, the CW Network, CNN and Adult Swim, and whose total assets amount to, oh, just $134 billion - yes, billion) startup competitor "Y2K 4Eva! Website Guyz" (trademark rejected). Y2K4E!WG's management team (Jared) has been working with the johnatron for over a day now, prepping the re-launch of blogspot.johnatron.com - what was considered during the first quarter of 2009 to be "a valid web address with often-functioning links". While critics mostly feigned hearing of us, Roger Sidewinder from Yahoo! Buzz frequently called us "stop emailing me" (3/21/09, 3/24/09 and 3/24/09).

Best of all, we now have a staff! Allow me to introduce you. Come on, allow me.

Meet Becky. Talk about a gossip, this one! I wonder how she gets any work done around here what with all the celebrity news she's constantly yapping about. John Ratzenberger this, Kirstie Alley that. Big Cheers fan, Becky.

Then there's Tommy. Tommm-mmaaaayyy!! My boy! My dude! Home-slice-a-nator!! Yeah, no, actually there's a pretty big generational gap there, Tommy and I. He's interning with us and man, oh man, do these teens speak a different language, what with the ridiculous acronyms and all! Yesterday he goes, "we should cover BHO's big speech at the NAACP". Say what? S.O.S.! Help an old guy out! R2D2! [briefly stiffens and alternately raises and lowers forearms mimicking a 1970s-era TV robot as a metaphor for the seemingly futuristic qualities of abbreviatory lingo common to today's youth in online forums]. Beep!

Clara's another gem. She came highly recommended by another industry colleague, though he worried there may be an issue given that she was born in the 90s. I said, "if I can work with Tommy, I'm sure I can work with Clara!" I was, however, surprised to find out he was referring the 1890s. Yeah, Clara's pushin' six score. Oh she's a doll, don't get me wrong, though possibly not blogosphere material. She tells us she's quite fond of talkies, and she often wonders aloud if we should give Grover Cleveland "another go 'round". Ironically, she joins us after co-founding TMZ.

Clara as a girl, on the "silly" take

Horace. Mute and born without fingertips, he doesn't add much. His mom, though, brings us Mallo Cups daily. It's actually kind of weird - she bring us all Mallo Cups. Daily. I guess maybe Horace's dad works for whoever makes Mallo Cups? I don't know, I can't crack this one. Kinda forgot they still made Mallo Cups. They do. They do.

Well, that's our little johnatron family. And that's what we are, too - a family. We live and die together, and you can't imagine the bond we've - actually wait I let Tommy go this morning. Forgot I did his bio already. So, it's me, Becky, Clara and Horace. A family. Shotgun dad!

So what can you expect from the new and improved johnatron? Well, let me ask you a question: do you like fast-paced, hard-hitting, old-school investigative journalism with a soft side for the warm story and a quirky side that'll keep your funny bone a-ticklin', brought to you day in, day out, with the kind of reliability you know you can count on?

You do? Huh.

Horace's mom brings Mallo Cups!!