Living gleefully in the past

This post was supposed to be a funny little audio/video slideshow I made last summer for a class project. It was basically a parody of those old educational films from the 1950s, the ones they were still showing in my high school as late as the mid-eighties. It was also a pointed jab at the mythos of rock and roll. Orson Welles it wasn't, but I thought it was pretty amusing, all things considered. Unfortunately, you're just going to have to imagine you've seen it, because after two hours of screwing around and paying $29.95 for a copy of Quicktime Pro, I still didn't have a file that would pass muster with Youtube. I could have spent that money on beer, dammit!

I'm no Luddite, but I've always been a skeptic when it comes to those who claim that computers are going to magically make all our lives easier and save money to boot. When I buy something it's with the expectation that it'll last me a few years, if not decades. I'm the guy you see getting into his 20-year old car at Carolina Thrift, wearing the $10 overcoat I bought at a yardsale 15 years ago. For all the good things that computers do in my life, they come up extremely short in the all-important longevity/reliability/user-friendliness categories. Next to my bed is a Sears Roebuck stereo receiver that was manufactured the same year I was, 1968. It's still trucking, faithfully reproducing both my original vinyl copy of AC/DC's "Back in Black" as well as the Selmanaires CD I bought last Monday. I could be wrong, but something tells me the eMac I'm typing this post on probably won't still be around in 2046.

Now I know the development time frame for computers and software is much shorter than for stereo equipment or automobiles, but I really have to question some of the "advances" that tech designers have brought us. The iPhone? I'm sorry, but all I really need my phone to do is answer and make calls, please. It seems products today are geared to the attention span of a 14-year-old boy on a Skittles and energy drink binge. It's not enough that a device does what it was intended to do in a reliable manner, but it has to be loaded with bells and whistles and gimmicks that serve no purpose but to make the consumer think he's getting more for his hard-earned dollar than he really is, as well as keeping him in an endless state of amusement. Just give me a product that does it's job with no fuss and complaints and keeps on doing it trouble-free for years to come, I say.

So if I was you I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for my "Citizen Kane." I'm going to end this post, pick up my 1965 Baldwin Vibraslim guitar and play a few "Highway to Hell" licks through my 40-year old Gibson amp. I'll let the young folks deal with all these crazy new programs and websites. I'll just stick with the classics that never die.

Comments

[Billy The Blogging Poet]

"It seems products today are geared to the attention span of a 14-year-old boy on a Skittles and energy drink binge."

Dude, I thought it was me. Am I ever glad to hear you've got it too.