If I had to pick one word to describe this World Cup, it would be 'technology'. If I had to pick two, they'd be 'technology' and 'controversy'. Because we've debated the dubious technology surrounding the roundest ever World Cup ball, the Jabulani. We've cried poor over first Tim Cahill's look-he-pulled-out sliding challenge and second over Harry Kewell's but-he-had-his-eyes-closed, he-didn't-know-what-hit-him unintentional handball controversies. And I've personally been struggling with having too much and then too little technology — it seems we have the technology, but never when we need it.

My grand plans to switch to World Cup time to watch every minute of every game were kyboshed by unforgiving, tsunami-sized deadlines that just kept coming. So I was forced to devise a plan to wake up 30 minutes into games and fast-forward through the guff. Which would have worked fine were I not so technology-obsessed that I automatically opened up my email or Facebook or the FourFourTwo website in my bleary haze. Or were people not sending me 'how 'bout the [insert match-deciding moment here]' texts before I'd gotten up to said key moment.

Is it just me, or would it have taken living in a goddamn cave to have avoided accidentally and prematurely finding out the scores or outcomes of games? And did seeing a million slow-mo replays of how Cahill and Kewell were wronged and we wuz robbed lessen the pain? Having lived the past month in a state of perpetual Homer-like 'why you little...' fury, I can put my hand on my heart and say that maybe, just maybe, there's sometimes such a thing as too much technology.

Of course, technological Murphy's Law prevails when it comes to having to leave the comfort of your own home and catch a flight when a game is on. Like when last Group A team standing Uruguay took on Ghana in the sudden-death semis and the match ended 1-1, with a controversial — is there ever one that's not? — red card issued in the dying moments of the game.

Apparently Uruguay eventually got up 4-2 on penalties. I wouldn't know. By that time I was being a responsible traveller ensconced in the circular departure lounge that was like the tip of ET's finger, far from the body of the bustling airport restaurants that were showing the game.

The departure lounge did have televisions, but one was switched off and the other was showing a lame-o early-morning cartoon. My pleas to have the off TV turned on were met with apathy, an eventual dig around for the remote, and then a shoulder shrug when it was found but turned out to be missing batteries.

Logic told me that there must be a working remote around given that they possessed the technology and battery power to show a cartoon, but that too was met with a non-committal shrug and smile. They'd heard of this thing called the World Cup and noted vaguely that it had been showing on and off on those TVs in the preceding days. But the understanding of the need and urgency to watch the game that had gone to penalties? Lost on them completely.

I'll admit I did look around to see precisely how many kids were in the area and how many of them were fixated on watching the cartoon equivalent of Barney. And I'll admit that the words 'like taking candy from a baby' did enter my mind fleetingly, before being dismissed with the more important 'it's gone to penalties' as I plotted to have the cartoon seamlessly changed to the cup.

Sadly, the departure lounge staff never found either batteries or a working remote (and it must be noted that they didn't actually try,  and I boarded my flight sans outcome soon after — it appears that we have all the technology in the world when we don't need it, but never when we do.