It Uses What...?

Yes, it's 2010.

I was reading in another blog about a blogger -- an admitted technophobe -- is amazed at the new electronic devices out there, and how her world has changed for the better, receiving some 21st Century technology for Christmas.

While me...I still won't let my pet rock, Seymour, rework an unused VCR remote into a home defense device. Yes, I still have a VCR. And the VHS format tapes that play on it. What's more, I still don't have a cell phone. Or an ipod. Or a blackberry. An HDTV. A WIFI anything.

I willingly admit I'm a technosaurus. Seymour says I'm a chickensaurus. Which 'splains the lifted photo on the right h'yar.

It isn't 'cuz I'm necessarily afeared of new technology. It isn't 'cuz I'm fiscally tight-fisted. I just wasn't a good money manager not so long ago, and live on a tight budget now, so I make do with what I have, until it breaks.

Then I make do without LOL.

*Seymour shot me a look of panic at that*

My stereo system's primary components are circa 1988 (that of them what still work). My TV is circa 1984. My microwave is circa somewhere between 1989-1991. I am content with a landline telephone at home, and being out of touch between home and work, or anywhere else I'm commuting. Until very recently, I used an old 35mm camera for storm chasing and other photography.

Dated technology may not be hip or the current fad, but it still works for me. Heck, I still use an amazing device for music, when I go to the gym. One that I guarantee you no one else has or uses there. Amazing technology, really, for something the size of a man's wallet. It allows me to listen to music while I exercise. It runs on one AA battery, for up to a month. And it is flexible: it allows me to change out the music I listen to, by way of these incredible little things called cassette tapes. Much smaller than the 8 trac they replaced, back when Jimmah Cartuh was royally screwing up everything he touched. Mine has an auto-reverse feature, so I can hear a whole 90 minute cassette tape, without having to stop and flip it over...very handy when trying to throw my back out on the elliptical exerciser, or whatever that abomination of fitness is called.

Even better, it has a clip that attaches snugly to the waistband of my sweats, convenient when I have to stop exercising and dry heave...I can do it hands-free, without some blue-looking thing sticking in my ear, like an outgrowth of an alien probe or something with a dental name to it.

And I still like my head phones, instead of those so-called 'ear buds' that the more faddish crap comes with nowadays. When I wanna drown out someone else who's babbling about work, affairs, or vaginal implants into their ear-mounted dental-named thingee, from a neighboring elliptical torture device, I can just notch up the volume a skosh, and I am in my own music world.

I'll use my Sony Walkman until it doesn't work anymore. Which is fine; I have two spares, one of which Seymour uses, when he's trying to pirate lyrics for new songs.

"Am NOT!"

At any rate...yes, it's 2010. My five year old Dell desk top still serves the purpose, married to it's dinosaur dial-up internet service. Much as my old-enough-to-vote Panasonic 19" TV does, when married up to the VCR, or even -- to keep Seymour happy -- the newer DVD player.

Though, I still have to keep the remotes away from Seymour, if you recall the pteryducktyl scare we had, a short time ago. I don't think the 21st Century -- or my neighborhood -- is ready for 20th Century technology, with a "phasers off stun" twist.

"Are TOO!"

Seymour, go to your under-the-loveseat time-out place.