RSVP.

Sorry for the delay in posting, gentle readers, but as I sat in front of my computer last night, my mind was a blank slate. After being mocked for an hour or so by a blinking cursor, I decided to pack it in for the night and see if I felt a bit more inspired today. I blame the nearly five hours of All Star game I watched last night.

So, I have to give you a word of warning, I'm a little bitter today, so if you aren't interested in hearing me rant a tad about the shortcomings of my generation, you might want to look elsewhere. If not, I hope the following entertains you a little (as I always hope to) and makes you give a little look into a corner of manners that has fallen off the map. I'm talking, of course, about planning.

We live in an amazing world. Technology allows us to check our stock quotes while we're on the john, record our favorite programming by name instead of time so that it simply records whenever the name pops up, and even allows our military, pathetic and misguided though they may be, to drop bombs on unsuspecting foreign countries via remote control fighter planes from the comfort of a barcalounger. So, why is it that no one seems to be able to figure out when anything is happening, or keep any dates straight in their head? A reminder, folks: a cell phone is not an excuse for punctuality. If you say you are going to meet or do something at 3:00 on a Sunday afternoon, calling at 3:15 and saying you're just leaving your house does not make it all better. The recipient of the call is still sitting at the pre-disclosed location by themselves for however long it takes you to get there. It seems like such a simple concept: when you make a plan with someone, record it wherever it will do you some good, remember it, and, in the end, keep that plan. Show up where you say you'll be when you say you'll be there. How hard is that? People have been doing it for centuries. It's a sad commentary on our time and people when someone is praised for their punctuality. I am not saying that I'm perfect or blameless in this gripe, but I can say for damn sure that I have been on the other end of this issue many more times than I have been the offending party.

The other component to this is remembering dates. I'm not talking about the forgetting your significant other's birthday or something like that; I'm more concerned with the number of times people seem to need to check or verify a date that they have already confirmed for something: travel plans, dinner reservations, concerts, or just days to get together and hang out. In this advanced age of smartphones that synch up with your computer's planner and send you mobile updates, why is it that the guy who keeps everything written down on paper is the only person who knows what date things are happening?

These are amazing times, people, so why is it that our reliance on technology has only taught us to circumvent the time-honored traditions of punctuality and adherence to our word?