Mullahs, baseball and my iPhone

Technology's advances raise the ante of what's necessary and, well, what's not.

When I was growing up, the loss of power from a summer storm was a huge deal … no lights to see by, of course. But worse, the large, massive fan that Dad installed at the east end of the hallway upstairs -- to keep the house cool -- would sit idle. So much power, and yet, so dead. A big deal in the humidity of summer nights in St. Louis.

Tonight in Kansas City, a raucous thunderstorm rolled through. The lights dimmed, went out, then within seconds recovered. Cool.

But then, an hour later, our cable service went blank. No TV, no wireless on the laptop. Except for radio – radio?!! – nothing.

Normally, no big deal. But tonight the Kansas City Royals were trying to save some pride by beating the Houston Astros for the second night in a row. Luke Hochevar, the lanky, Jimmy-Stewart like pitcher for the Royals, had dealt a masterstroke game.

Yet we were down 2-1 at the bottom of the 8^th. I was glued to the tube … until our cyber link was severed.

My dad would have rushed to the radio. Not me. I have my iPhone. I quickly downloaded the iPhones “ap” called MLB At Bat Lite. Basically, it gives you the bare bones of the score, inning, who’s pitching, who’s batting, and how many outs there are.

Prior to that, I’d also signed up for a service that would text me with key bits of Royals news, including the final score of each game.

As I write this, my phone just texted me to let me know we’d tied it up – 2-2 in the 9^th. Normally the service would only send final scores. But I guess it thought that, because we’d been playing so miserably, any rally by the Royals was worth an urgent text. Yay!

Everyone’s heard of the iPhone, a sure sign that the functions now served by most computers will be concentrated eventually into our cell phones.

That’s not a bad thing, really. Last weekend, Cindy and I had just left The Kansas City Star's  store on The Plaza and thought we’d see where “Angels and Demons” was showing – and at what time.

I downloaded OneTap Movies, an iPhones “ap,” and, within seconds, learned it would start in a half hour a mere five blocks away.

That same morning I wanted to learn the latest about Iran. I tapped the “CNN” ap and saw that the violence was escalating. Then I clicked the New York Times ap to confirm.

Also that morning, while reading the newspaper, I noted an ad reminding folks that we had an author signing at 1 p.m. at our store on the Country Club Plaza. I clicked on the Facebook ap and quickly posted a note on our newspaper’s Facebook site telling the newspaper’s hundreds of fans about the event.

Drat! The Royals jumped ahead, but the Astros tied it in the bottom of the 9^th. It’s now 3-3. Joakim Soria, normally our ace closer, choked again. What’s up with that!? Now there are men at first and second, two outs … a base hit would kill us.

Those who know the iPhone know that it is, well, exponentially different. Like its various “smart phone” competitors, it promises to change the way we work and play.

It does, and it has.

It’s not like I’m an expert with this. I’m not. There’s a restaurant ap called “Urbanspoon” that’s kind of cool that friend Diane told me about … you indicate your preference in terms of location, type of restaurant and cost range, then you literally shake the iPhone to see what it suggests. It knows where you’re located because of the built-in GPS.

At a recent trade show in Pittsburgh, though, me and Diane and other friends Edie and Rita were tired and hungry … and using my iPhone, we’d zeroed in on a restaurant. But I shook the damn thing when I shouldn’t have, and lost the map. We wandered Pittsburgh’s streets for 10 minutes or so until we found our way back.

I was embarrassed and grumpy, but hey … it was a lesson learned. Know thy technology. Practice makes perfect.

Hold on … Soria managed to clear the decks. He got the final out. On to the 11^th. This is why Royals baseball is so damn mind-numbing …

There’s a serious side to this smart-phone phenomenon. It’s interesting to me that Americans have been a bit slow to embrace all that their phones could be. Europe, Japan, certainly China, have warmed to the smart phone as a show of independence, I think.

Certainly Iranians have. Iran. Goodness. That a democracy could eventually be built upon a smart phone. But it’s true. At the time of our revolution, the manual printing press was key. In Tehran, it’s the smart phone. But the thrust is the same. How many American presses were destroyed by the British? How many of the captured protestors’ phones will survive? How many of the protestors themselves will survive … ?

Serious business, indeed.

Somehow, magically, the Royals managed to earn a run in the top of the 11^th. My iPhone’s MLB ap tells me so! Now closeout pitcher John Bale – Soria was yanked – needs to end this thing.

Baseball is so inconsequential to what’s happening in Iran and elsewhere. But yet … so intrinsically intertwined. This technology is necessary. Not because of restaurants, or movies, or baseball games.

But because it speeds the news and, in most cases, the truth. And it does it globally. I don’t give Iran’s dictators much hope that they’ll be able to get this genie back in the bottle. But we shall see.

Bale does it! But so does our offense. In comes the text – ding ding! – at 10:46 p.m. explaining what happened. “Miquel Olivo homered at the top of the 11^th inning as the Royals beat the Astros 4-3 in 11 innings.”

Well played, Royals.

God speed, Iran.