Dubious Technological Advances

Grueling day today, posing for pretty pictures for Woodland Dance Academy's 28th annual Nutcracker show (my 12th year with the show). Brian introduced a new technological innovation this year, a television monitor, to allow people to review their digital pictures before they get printed. There was no matching technological improvement, however, to speed people's self-critical judgements (I look funny, my arm was too low, I wasn't centered, my makeup is all wrong, can we get a third picture?, etc., etc., etc.) Thus, even though the school isn't that large, and even though some folks never even showed up, the process took longer than ever.

(in a querulous old-age voice, much like SNL's Dana Carvey's "Old Man"):
In my day, we almost never got pictures, and it was over before we knew it. Weeks would pass before we saw the prints, and if our smiles looked like frowns, or our eyes were crossed, or our eyes were closed, or we looked like geeks, well that's the way we looked, and it's too bad our friends were too polite to tell us, but even though we looked like hell, and we embarrassed the neighbors, no one wasted any time, and THAT'S THE WAY WE LIKED IT!