This
Thursday diary entry (the last of 2012, might I add) is all about
technology, and my general avoidance of it up until now.
December
27, 2012
Well,
as I sit here and type, we only have five days left until turn the
page to a brand new calendar year. Some people weren't sure if we
would live long enough to see the year 2013, but like it or not, it's
coming!
And,
as we enter 2013, I may very well be prepared for it...at least from
a technological standpoint, that is.
I
guess I should explain something before I continue. I always joke
around with my friends that if there is such a thing as
reincarnation, then in my past life, I must have been a prominent
member of the Amish community.
You
see, the Amish people have one distinct personality trait that sets
them apart from the world of modern conveniences. They like to live
the simple life without any electricity, modern appliances, or
computers. Instead of driving to the store in a car, they take a
horse and buggy. They don't buy butter at a supermarket...they churn
it themselves. They don't even use candles to light their homes,
choosing instead to light candles and other non-electric sources.
And
they most certainly would be using iPods, Smart Phones, and Kindles
to enjoy and entertain themselves.
Well,
you know, up until recently, I didn't use those things either.
I
mean, don't get me wrong. I'm certainly not trapped in the age of
the Flintstones (though I admit that it would be kind of cool to have
a dinosaur double up as a dishwasher). But I wouldn't exactly say
that I was updated to 2012 either.
If
anything, I have been stuck in 1990 for the last twenty-two years.
You
don't believe me, do you? Okay, I'll shoot you some examples.
When
I was a kid, I loved playing video games on a daily basis. I played
them so much that I ended up getting a stiff neck because I would
often kink my neck at different angles when I was playing the game.
I believe I may have been one of the first patients ever diagnosed
with “Nintendo Neck”.
Anyway,
minor health issues aside, my video gaming skills were top notch
circa the early 1990s. I graduated to an 8-bit Nintendo system from
Intellivision circa the early 1990s (for more info on that story,
just click HERE), and by 1993, I had the next generation console, the
Super Nintendo Entertainment System.
Flash
forward ten years to 2003, and I STILL had that Super Nintendo.
Now,
keep in mind that by 2003, Nintendo had released two more
consoles...the Nintendo 64 and the Nintendo Gamecube. Neither one of
which I owned. I was still very much happy with my Super Nintendo,
because the games for the SNES just seemed like they were much more
fun to play with than some of the newer games.
From
that moment on, I still managed to lag behind. The Sony PlayStation
(which was released in 1995/96) was my next game console after the
Super Nintendo. I ended up being given one in early 2003...eight
years after it was released. But, I didn't care. Back in 2003,
there were still a few remote places that sold PlayStation games, and
I managed to buy several (at discounted prices, no less) to keep me
entertained for three more years. Then in 2006, I bought my
PlayStation 2, which is the current console that I own. These days
though, I prefer handheld games, and this time, I own a Nintendo 3DS,
which is the most current of the handheld game consoles these days.
Isn't
it funny how that worked? I started off behind the times, then was
cutting edge, fell behind again for the better part of a decade, and
now I am caught up again.
Mind
you, a lot of the reason why I never really bothered to keep up with
the newest video games was because there wasn't a whole lot of money
to go around. Even if I did want an upgrade in system, there really
wasn't a whole lot of point in asking for it for a birthday or
Christmas present because the odds of me getting it were slim to nil.
But even back then, I found joy in the simplest technology. I came
to a decision long ago that I didn't need to have the best and the
most expensive electronics to be a better person. As long as what I
had brought me happiness, that was all that mattered.
And,
here's a couple of confessions for all of you. Confession #1 is that
when I did get a PlayStation/PlayStation 2, some of the first games I
bought for them were re-releases of classic video games from the past
that I either loved a lot, or never got a chance to play the first
time around. Confession #2 is that after twenty years, my Super
Nintendo still works perfectly!
And,
that leads to my next point. Why would I bother with buying the
latest things when the things that I already had worked perfectly
fine?
When
I first got into music, it was at a time in which records were being
phased out in favour of cassette tapes. So, during my preteen years,
my entire music collection was found entirely on hundreds of
cassettes. By the time I entered high school, cassette tapes were
quickly becoming obsolete, being replaced by compact discs, but at
the time, CD Players were so expensive, and I didn't want to replace
my entire music catalog with compact discs. I didn't have the money
for that.
I
was a late bloomer when it came down to switching from cassettes to
CD's. I think I ended up getting my first CD Player when I was
seventeen (this would be around 1998/99). And even though I did have
a CD Player, I still kept all my cassettes!
Upon
retrospect, I think that I ended up making a good decision.
Sure,
there are some perks to compact discs. The sound quality is a lot
better on CD's than on cassettes, and compact discs are a lot easier
to store than cassette tapes. On the flipside though, CD's can have
a tendency to get scratched, and unlike a cassette tape (which can
sometimes be saved), it's nearly impossible to get a deep scratch off
of the surface of a compact disc. I ended up throwing out more CD's
in my lifetime than I ever had to do cassettes. Heck, I even had
some really bad luck with CD Players, and I think I ended up having a
half dozen of them over a ten year period. It wasn't because I was
very rough with them either. They just seemed to break down all on
their own.
I
think that was what factored into my decision to inquire about
getting an iPod. An iPod would not only save me a lot of space, but
it would also eliminate any chance of having damaged CD's or chewed
up cassette tapes.
This
Christmas, I ended up getting my very first iPod as a gift, and
although I didn't have any idea how to use it, I figured it out less
than 36 hours after I got it. It's so easy to Google the
instructions and go from there.
So,
I suppose in many ways, that iPod has helped bring me forward into
the 21st century.
(Even
though most of my song selections are songs that were released
between 1980 and 1995!)
What
can I say? Old habits are hard to break!
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