The other day, my good pal Merby posted about finally making the leap into the smartphone era a few months ago and how she
became completely assimilated
now loves her new cellphone. When it came time for me to make my usual smartass comment I typically add to most of her posts, I came to an odd realization I had never really thought of before…
No, not that I’m a complete asshole… I already knew that!
Despite the fact that I notoriously DESPISE cellphones in general… I actually kinda like my cellphone now. Why? Because it’s totally obsolete…
Made by Alexander Graham Bell.
As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, we got hit with a winter storm Friday night into Saturday… and about the only conditions under which I will ever take my dinosaur phone with me to work is in the event of bad winter weather. I usually leave it in the car (Anyone who breaks into my car is going to get exactly what they deserve… absolutely nothing anyone would want), but forgot to remove it from my pocket and wound up bringing it in Mecca with me. I got it out to show off before our nightly meeting, and loved the bemused looks on the faces of everyone who saw it.
Wasn’t that invented before the string and tin can?
I’m very old fashioned and practically Ludditish, and few things give me more pleasure than showing people I can get by perfectly fine without all of the newest toys that they can’t seem to live without. Yeah, I own a cell phone that is seven years old and was issued by a wireless company that has been out of business for almost seven years now! Gee, what else to I own that has obsolete written all over it….?
Driven by real pioneers who couldn’t afford a prairie schooner…
How about my Plymouth Neon? Chrysler hasn’t had a Neon roll off of its assembly line since 2005, and they mothballed the Plymouth brand four years earlier! When I needed a new wheel a few years ago after one of my city’s canyonesque potholes dented up one of mine, I had to get it from another Neon in a junkyard. I’ve already bragged about all of the archaic and non-existent features my car has (Sparkyesque linkdrop!) so you can go back and check that post out if you want to take needless pity on what I drive.
What would you like to listen to? Big band or the Children of the Corn choir?
One of the reasons I put so much passion and enthusiasm into my flashback posts is because I really do love the things we had back in the day before all this newfangled technology changed everyone’s life. I raved about the ColecoVision just this past Friday, and how I would gladly take its limited graphics capabilities over what the modern gaming systems produce. The 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System was video gaming perfection… the games actually looked like video games! You can only improve graphics so much before they cease to have that video game feel.
Seriously, which looks more like a video game…. this?
I think I saw this for sale at a Starving Artist event.
Or this?
This is how pixelated alien warfare should look, dammit!
You probably aren’t agreeing with me much throughout this post, are you? I’m not only someone who’s living in a completely different time, but is actually proud of the fact that I’m so primitive. You probably think I’m insane for not owning an MP3 player, not having a DVR of any kind for my TV, refusing to get on Facebook or Twitter, relying on my brain rather than a GPS to get where I need to go… and Lord only knows what else that might make you gasp in horror given all the things people think are necessary for life itself that we didn’t have even ten years ago.
Lock him up and throw away the keyless remote!
I love The Twilight Zone series. I have seen almost every episode, many of them countless times. Do you know which one is my favorite episode? (Juliette knows!)
The State hereby sentences you to death by unicorn!
“The Obsolete Man”, which was the final episode of The Twilight Zone’s second season. It’s a fantastic, well-written episode that seems to get left out of the upper tier of well-loved TZ stories probably because its star Burgess Meredith was also the lead in “Time Enough At Last”… a good, but not great episode that is nonetheless beloved by many of the series’ fans. Anyway, in “The Obsolete Man”, Meredith plays a librarian named Romney Wordsworth living in a time where The State has banned books, and looks to liquidate any members of society who have no “useful purpose” to life in The State.
You are in error, Mr. Twindaddy! The State banned chileh and all words ending in “eh” a long time ago!
The episode is essentially a two man play, with Wordsworth trying to establish that just because he doesn’t subscribe to the new morality of The State that it doesn’t make him obsolete, while the Chancellor (played by Fritz Weaver) holds firm and continually beats down any bit of self-worth the librarian claims to have. In the end, Wordsworth accepts the fate The State has doled out to him, but not before he is able to make the Chancellor crack, and prove to the vast audience watching them that the ideas The State held to be superior to the old ways are in fact very flawed.
Not bad for a Penguin!
I’ve always identified strongly with Romney Wordsworth… a simple person who embraces the beauty of the past and generally shuns the oppressiveness of the here and now, and who is constantly looked down upon by the sheeplike masses who follow wherever the current trends and technology are going. At least nobody can have me sentenced to death for my old fashionedness… at least not in the state I live in (yet). So I will continue to extend the middle finger to all the useless, inferior gadgetry and hogwash that is all the rage in these unhappy days. And if you have a problem with it, just call me up on my cell at 1-800-THE-NEST any time, day or night. I won’t mind because I always keep that glorified paperweight turned off anyway….
Yo, Mom! How the fuck do you dial this thing?
I would also like to thank Aunt Sharon at Gentlestitches for returning the BOTY ’13 nomination! Her “star” has been added to the plaque… and what else could I have used but a Sponkey?