Last week I was walking in the hot sun after a nice lunch and I realized that my shoe had come untied. Not relishing the prospect of a doing a face plant, I began to kneel down intending to relieve myself of this unfortunate liability. Suddenly I was watching my beloved Rio Karma MP3 player hurdle downward in slow motion and crash upon the asphalt. As the battery cover flew off and the battery rolled hurriedly away I began to realize the immensity of the boner I had just pulled. Had I really been idiot enough to put my Karma in my front shirt pocket and then bend over without taking the effects of gravity into account? Argh!! I quickly tied up my cursed shoelaces and collected the scattered pieces of my precious mind-soothing device. I popped in the battery, snapped on the cover, and quickly pushed the power button with great anticipation. Nothing. Falling to my knees with arms to the sky and mourned the passing of my friend with a protracted knell of agony and despair.

Tonight I found some time to do a proper autopsy and attempted to determine the probable cause of death. After some difficulty getting the plastic case off I finally came to hold an elegant little assemblage of circuitry and computer chips. I didn’t expect to see anything here that I could understand as being the point of failure. But as anyone who understands the hacker ethic will tell you, there can be great joy in taking broken shit apart just to have a look inside. And yet I held out hope that just maybe there was something I could do to restore my trusty gizmo.

The modern world is one of miniaturized circuits with multipurpose components and the magic of digital logic powering even the simplest products we buy. So how could a lone geek with an amateurish grasp of electronics engineering expect to make heads or tails of a dead MP3 player? This very thought was beckoning me to turn back, to gather up my pile of plastic and wires and drop it into the trash. But then, as I held the brain of my favorite gadget against the light, I saw it! The power switch came unseated from the PCB, and the solder pads were still intact!

I knew then that fixing it wouldn’t be hard. Hell, getting the case off was ten times harder than soldering the switch back on. And yet, seeing it come back to life again felt really good. It was the first time I had used my soldering iron to fix something I accidentally broke. Besides to proclaim my victory, there’s another reason I decided to write about this. Simply put, I’m fascinated by the evolution of tools. According to archaeologists, our ancestors first got the idea to start making and using tools about 800,000 years ago. Since then our technology has come so far along that a great many of the tools most people use in daily life are far beyond their ability to reproduce, repair, or even maintain. For the most part, We don’t even question the absurdity of this situation. Something breaks and we usually toss it and just buy a new one. If it’s something costly we sometimes take it to a specialist for repair but increasingly we find that such expert services are cost prohibitive anyway.

Considering the case of my broken MP3 player, what percentage of consumers have the confidence and skill to do the kind of repair that was necessary? It’s surely far below even one percent. My tiny triumph feels great because I now know for certain that at least sometimes, with a little bravery and a few cheap tools, I can fix my own stuff and save some money. Things aren’t so tiny yet that people like me are totally helpless.

It is sad to imagine that as consumer products begin to integrate nanoscale electromechanical devices the ability to keep things working with a little careful inspection and a DIY attitude will evaporate. The quality of our lives will be so vastly improved while simultaneously rendering us helpless to the tactics of planned obsolescence.

I respected Bryan Singer for The Usual Suspects and the first two X-Men movies, so I trusted him to treat the legacy of Superman with the reverence and artistic vision it deserves. Unfortunately, it turns out that Bryan Singer is just a sucky gay jerk. He went and turned Superman into a brooding, forgetable sadsack. Brandon Routh manages to nail the look and mannerisms pretty well and he’s a good lookin’ dude and all… but he simply doesn’t have the kind of story to work with that could impart him the respect and momentum of households names like Christopher Reeve and Hugh Jackman. I suspect that had the material been more befitting the spirit of the previous films he may even have the natural talent that it takes to fill the big red boots of the Man of Steel. Remember how unconvincing Val Kilmer was as Bruce Wayne? To Routh’s credit, the same is hardly true with regards to the steamer that Kilmer hatched. Then again, since even the casting was excellent this cinematic misfire is all the more tragic.

The sound, effects, cinematography, acting, and the lines were all great. Aside from the plot itself it was a great ride actually. In the end, they made a great movie with a really stupid plot with all sorts of stupid crap in there that’s sure to please anyone who thinks Oprah is a great show.

Real Superman movies are supposed to capture the excitement of Superman. He’s invincible! He can fly! Lex Luthor is a major pain in Superman’s inpenetrable ass. But this one fails make you wish that Superman could really be out there helping those of us who need to be saved. Half the wide-angled crowd shots in this turkey show people staring silent and slack jawed as Superman performs his amazingly heroic feats. If they don’t care enough to cheer, why should we?

These are supposed to be movies that make you believe that Lex Luthor is evil incarnate and millions of people could suffer in the course of his dastardly schemes. Returns phones in these vital aspects of the franchise by going through the motions without imparting any emotional involvement. Part of the problem with the plot is that they crammed it so full with sissy emotional boo-hoo’ing that they didn’t have room to give Lex an Otis to play off of and deliver some decent comedy along with all the suspense and drama.

We want Superman to be with Lois. We want that relationship to draw us into the action. Hell, where was his awesome ass power to kiss girls and manipulate their memories at the same time? That’s gotta be taboo on Krypton. Still, had Singer’s Superman just managed to get his freakin’ kiss (arguably, an obligatory prize) he could’ve just gone into Lois’ mind and replaced the guy from X-Men with memories of Clark Kent. Sort of a sick move, but Singer’s Superman totally lacks any ball; which is more sick? Who wants a movie about Superman getting cock blocked and then getting shanked by a kryptonite dagger? Wow, he sure was lucky that Lois Lane and Scott Summers decided to swoop by in their seaplan just in time to save his ass from drowning! This movie really sucked.