"Why Does Everything Have to Have a Remote Now?"

It's probably not a good sign that I've run out of ideas during week two, but thankfully my good friend Lita has come up with a topic idea for today.

So why does everything have to have a remote now? I think we have to look at the fifties when television was becoming big. People were starting to realize that those things worked by looking at them. However, people were so use to huddling up to the radio, they got terrible eye strain and radiation burns from being so close to the picture, according to their moms anyway. However, how do you change between the twos or threes of channels without having to get back up and down? The remote control was born by some engineer who had a lot of free time due to his blindness.

The early remote controls were crude. Then someone got the idea to design one to look like a raygun, but this caused many panics and several people were arrested. However, kids of the time seemed to like aliens and communism, so remote controls grew in popularity. This can be proven by the fact that Fred Flintstone used one.

Nowadays, you see remote controls for a lot of stuff. They can be found for vcr/dvd players, cd players, iPod players, toaster players, air conditioning players, and card shuffling players. So why so many remote controls? Because people have grimey fingers? Because it's a plot by BIG Universal Remote Control? Because of the phallic shape of the remote? Because nerds like to argue about whether it's control or controller? Because couch stores need couch potatoes? No. Or maybe a maybe, but here is what I think the evidence poins to.

The key to the remote control is the button. People like buttons. Go ahead, walk by a button. I dare you not to push it. Uh huh, I'll wait. Still waiting. Haw! You couldn't resist, could you? That's what the remote is like. As remotes matured, they got more buttons. Did you ever notice that there were buttons you never knew the meaning to? Well who cares! You pushed them anyway. Companies realized this and started making everything with a remote control. Soon, Americans were collecting these and even had trophy cases to show off their wealth. Admit it, you know some guy who has 100 button remote controls, and envy the bastard.

Of course, buttons are limited. In the future, we can expect to see bluetooth powered remote controls that allow for more sophisticated commands involving the simple flick of the wrist. Nintendo is an early pioneer in this field, but soon you will be changing the channel by breaking a mirror, or activating the sleep command by "remote whipping" someone in the face. Bluetooth will also allow remote controls to eat batteries at a faster rate, which will give people the excuse to go somewhere and buy more stuff that comes with remote controls. Clearly a win-win situation. Lastly, remote controls will have straps on them, because no matter how many buttons they have, they will always break easily when you drop them. This is an unfortunate constant.

To sum up, soccer would be popular if it was remote controllable. The end.