Resolutions for the Geeks Who Keep Designing New Electronics

Silicon Valley, take this pledge — please!

In 2010, we in Geekdom will not invent anything else you can do while you're driving.

We will also invent some way to stop whatever we've already invented from functioning while you drive. Or, at least, while your kids drive.

Any object meant for the ear will turn off every five minutes, forcing the wearer to hear some portion of what is being said to him/her by a human being in close proximity (breakfast table, office, bed).

When we throw around ideas of what to invent next, it will not involve talking, reading, listening, writing or sex. At least, not all at once.

Any object that we invent from now on will not only be so simple a child can use it, it will be so simple a middle-aged mom with some slight short-term memory issues can use it. Without her kids' help. While she's doing the laundry, which it would be nice if the simple hand-held device did, too, while it was at it.

In the coming year, we will not make anything smaller. No smaller radios, MP3 players, phones, cameras, phone-cameras, MP3-radios, MP3-radio-camera-phones-decoder rings, nada. If anything, we will feed them some extra chips so they'll plump up to the point where you can actually read the words "On" and "Off" without a scanning electron microscope.

The cell phones we bring out next year will, if they are in a purse, jump out of said purse when they ring. No more need to root around, mutter, miss the call and wonder if everyone else has this same (expletive) problem, too. They do. We're aware of this and are working on the problem. Please be patient. Or, at least, please buy one of these new jumping phones so we can avoid any more layoffs out here. It's been brutal. And don't sue if it hits you in the eye.

The jumping phones will also jump off of the table near the door when you're about to leave the house without 'em.

And they'll be fully charged no matter what you forgot to plug in last night. Nice!

Our remotes will do nothing that involves the button currently labeled "Sub menu," unless it brings up an actual menu, on your screen, from Subway. If so, any and all sandwiches will be instantly available with a single click.

Nor will we dare to keep the following remote buttons around because, frankly, we can't remember what they do anymore, either: "SD Card," "L Night," "Subtitle Timer." What were we thinking?

On the other hand, we will recall all Apple-inspired or actual Apple devices that consist of just a white hand-held thingy with no hint whatsoever of where to press or what will happen if you do.

When we add even more pixels to a camera or recording device, it will be because the naked eye can actually see the difference.

The video cameras for 2010 will turn off after 23 seconds. Just because after that amount of time, almost every home video becomes unbearably dull. Yes, even when they involve the world's cutest kitty.

Any devices we invent to bring porn to someplace it isn't already will be put on hold. Not sure how long we can hold out, but we'll try.

After and before school hours, adolescents' phones will remain on even when they try to turn them off. Even when they planned to tell their parents, "Sorry. I guess the battery died." Should the adolescents attempt to ignore the ringing, a nasty shock occurs. Attempt to ignore it a second time and the phone blares a prerecorded message of the parent's choosing: A) "I love you very much." B) "Do your homework!" C) "I bought you some new underwear."

Next year, we'll skip a year inventing anything at all so you can catch up.

Lenore Skenazy is the author of "Who's the Blonde That Married What's-His-Name? The Ultimate Tip-of-the-Tongue Test of Everything You Know You Know — But Can't Remember Right Now" and "Free-Range Kids: Giving Our Children the Freedom We Had Without Going Nuts with Worry." To find out more about Lenore Skenazy (lskenazy@yahoo.com) and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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