Technology

I am sitting here typing on a laptop that is five years old. The CD/DVD player “fell out” some time ago.  This Toshiba still runs good and does my low tech email, searching and blogging just fine. The display is still quite impressive. I do not have a TV in my house that is newer than eight years old. I have a digital tuner box on the TV in my room and the twenty year old television in the living room area. The TV on my son's Wii/PS2 system is at least fifteen years old. I am a child of the seventies and I do not have a decent stereo system. I had a kick ass Pioneer system until I was robbed by a crack head. My cars are all at least twelve years old.

Even though it sounds like I am complaining, I am not. Occasionally I get frustrated with the junk, like last night when I threw the remote at the combination TV/VCR/DVD that no longer plays DVDs and eats VHS tapes. It was cold and I was in bed and I just wanted to turn the damn thing off and go to sleep. I could not get the thing to turn off. I chucked the all-in-one remote at the on/off switch.. I would have look for the batteries in the morning, I thought. The button on the TV does not work well so it took about three pushes to get the freakin thing off. The point is, I think that in the near future, I am SOL with all my stuff. I could actually be without a computer, TV, cell phone (six year old virgin mobile no contract battery challenged phone) and car in the blink of an afternoon. I can picture it. I will be driving home when the timing belt on my thirteen year old car goes snap, crackle and pop. I will take out my cell phone and watch the roaming symbol flash until the battery goes dead. I will be trying to call my wife who is out looking for a nice used TV because the one in the bedroom fell off the wall and smashed the computer. The tumblin TV yanked the cable line out of the back of the digital tuner box and my wife thought to dump water on the smoking mess. So, in less than a blink of my swollen eyes, I am techno-screwed and it will take most of ten grand from my retirement fund to get me out of this snarl.

Ignoring the monetary problem, I just do not think I can upgrade my old brain to handle the new stuff. I would like to buy new stuff of course. Will I need to know XML to set up the new flat screen TV? Will I have to buy a new DVD player although they will be obsolete in less than five years? Should I go to the edge and get a system that will handle streaming content? Do I need a phone that plays Scrabble, takes pictures, searches for country diners in Yehaw Junction and has GPS so they can find me when my car breaks down and I take a short cut through the swamp?

I have an Apple Centris 650 in my shed that works as well as the day I first used it twenty years ago. My daughter drives a 1991 Honda Civic named Percy. I have my grandma's eight dollar mixer in the kitchen that has those metal spinning things that throw cake batter all over the walls. I like the stuff of memories. I am sure that once I upgrade my brain along with the endangered technology in my life, I will feel secure and be able to sit back in the uncomfortable easy chair I got from a yard sale at a thrift store. I remember trying to upgrade the Toughbook firmware in order to load Windows service pack 2. The old laptop did not upgrade well and it is in the shed with the rest of the old junk.

Happy acres here I come.