The New Boombox

Way back in the fifties and sixties the thing to have for music for teenagers was a transistor radio. Eventually that evolved into the high-tech boomboxes of recent times.

In the last week, three times have I noticed the newest music-playing phenomenon: Laptops. One of the times I saw a kid ride by on his bicycle with a laptop strapped on the back of it playing some sort of pop music. Another time I saw a gangster-looking teen walk by with the typical pants falling down and punk swagger with the computer propped on his shoulder blaring rap music. It seems to me that besides the awkwardness of carrying an open laptop on one's shoulder or bicycle, a computer would be more useful than an ordinary boombox because it would be a cinch to take advantage of people's unsecured wi-fi. (Not that I am condoning that at all.)

As an aside, our neighbors had a wireless internet connection and frequently we would see teenagers standing at the corner with their laptops doing whatever. Once my husband showed our neighbor how to properly secure his connection, the teenagers never came back.

Which reminds me of another tangent. There are several wireless usernames in our apartment complex. One which appears sporadically is "Fetusharvesters." I hope I am not the only one who finds that very disturbing.