Consumer electronics, information technology ease our worries in 2011

Hello, 2011. It's good that you finally got here. Your predecessor has been a real roller coaster -- sometimes a real pal, and a times, a real pain in the arse.

A part of me is hoping you would turn out a lot nicer and a lot friendlier than the last one. But you can do whatever you want; I don't really care that much. After all that we have been through, anything you can bring about, we definitely have seen it before.

Also, whatever gloom and doom you might be capable of doing, it would not matter much. After all, we have consumer electronics and technology to help tide us over. Last year was a killer, figuratively and literally. Yet we have survived. Thanks to technology.

Bombings, massacres, and natural calamities? We can go beyond those things. Thanks to our love affair with the latest and the shiniest tech toys. Those self-declared saviors of our freedoms and eternal salvations, they can bomb us all into the next millennium or two, but they cannot make us let go of our smartphones, our tablet computers, and of our wireless Web connections.

In fact, in almost all of last year, the only thing that retained its luster was the technology sector. Humans' achievements in science and technology almost helped us forget about those morons who think killing and maiming each other is their only way to nirvana and paradise.

Those smartphones, laptops, and tablet computers are more than our latest badges of vanities. They are symbols of our ability to overcome adversities, even our weaknesses, wickedness, and ignorance.

Long live, consumer electronics!