Get off my goddamn lawn!!

I'm getting old, sad as it is for me to admit that. A few months back I read about store owners putting up loudspeakers emitting fantastically high-pitched noises that only people younger than their mid-20s can hear, presumably to drive away teens who would otherwise loiter. This same phenomenon has been transported to the realm of cellphones, apparently, as youngings are now using it to hear when their phone rings in class, all the time avoiding detection by their elder teachers.

I found out about this yesterday when a guy next to me in the computer lab asked, out of the blue, "can you hear this?" Uh-uh, I replied. Well, it was that damn ringtone, and the three other people in the lab could hear it, but not me. Lord, I'm a geezer.

I'm also keenly aware of my age-limitations, and also my geographic limitations, when I use the internet to suss out the meaning of some bit of slang I read or hear. Particularly useful is urbandictionary. Yes, that's right, I now have to go online to get the straight word on the latest slang. How hip is that, huh? On the plus side, I finally realized why Jay-Z calls himself Hova. Damn, that's cool.

While writing this post, I realized I had gotten myself caught up in a spiral of supreme uncoolness. My first thought was, hey, it's hip to be square! But then I recalled that Homer Simpson said the same, and had to be put to rights:

Homer: So, I realized that being with my family is more important than being cool.
Bart: (unimpressed) Dad, what you just said was powerfully uncool.
Homer: You know what the song says: "It's hip to be square".
Lisa: That song is so lame.
Homer: So lame that it's... cool?
Bart and Lisa: (dismissive) No.
Marge: Am I cool, kids?
Bart and Lisa: (dismissive) No.
Marge: Good. I'm glad. And that's what makes me cool, not caring, right?
Bart and Lisa: (dismissive) No.
Marge: (frustrated) Well, how the hell do you be cool? I feel like we've tried everything here.
Homer: Wait, Marge. Maybe if you're truly cool, you don't need to be told you're cool.
Bart: (puzzled, uncertain) Well, sure you do.
Lisa: (bewildered) How else would you know?

Oh, and that spiral I talked about? The Simpsons has been pretty crappy for the last few years, so the very fact that I'm quoting mid- to late-1990's tv shows to make a point shows three things:

1) I'm old.
2) I'm lame.
3) I have an abundance of free time.

Edit: After posting this I realized that I had made the title read "Get off my goddamn awn!" I guess the mind really starts slipping when you get old.