Digital Planet

There's this contest on the BBC World Service now where you can win a digital camera (that's a camera you operate with your fingers) just by telling them about the picture you'd take if you won.

I decided the way to win would be to tell them I live in Prague and I want to take a picture of some traditional Prague institution that's in danger of disappearing now that the country has joined the EU.

I started trying to come up with the perfect subject and I realized the best shot would combine a bunch of these things, so I'm going to write and say I would take a picture of a smoking wiener dog with a mullet serving me a well-poured beer that I didn't order. (And yes, I realize EU membership has not, as yet, posed any threat to Czech wiener dogs, but that doesn't mean it won't - once canine mobility becomes a reality we could be up to our ankles in German Shepherds, French Poodles, and Italian Sausage Dogs.)

Of course, I won't win. Some guy from Nigeria will win and I won't be able to grudge him the digital camera because how can you grudge some guy from Nigeria anything? That's right, you can't.

Maybe, instead, I can write a children's story about a wiener dog with a mullet who smokes and serves beer without the children even having to ask. I'll call it, "The Little Mole."