01 16 05



You
generally never hear anything come out of my
mouth such as…”Those were the good old
days..” The reason that doesn’t happen very
often is simply because I happen to like
change and welcome it as we pass through our
lifetimes. For the most part I think the
advances we have made in science, medicine
and technology in the past fifty years or so
are just nothing short of miraculous. All of
us are living longer and better as a result
of the research and innovation which have
become available today.

 

As I said earlier, this is generally the
case. However there are a few things that I
feel should have been left alone. These are
not in any sort of order, so don’t place any
special emphasis on what I start and end
with.

 

Coffee. In my humble opinion there are just
too many types of coffee available to us
today. We have latte’s, mochas, blended,
espresso, light roast, dark roast,
caffeinated and decaffeinated. On top of all
of this, we have to choose grande, super,
giant, tall, supreme, small and a hundred
others. Then you have to make a decision as
to what to add, whipped cream, half and
half, skim milk, whole milk or creamer. Way
too many things for me to handle for
something as common as a cup of coffee. I
preferred it when all you had to do was just
say…”I’d like a cup of coffee.” Then the
waitress would bring you one in a ceramic
cup that you could use to warm your hands
while sipping on it for the next ten or
fifteen minutes. You didn’t waste valuable
conversation time trying to make up your
mind as to what you wanted to order.

 

Stereos. We were talking the other day about
record changers and one of my kids wanted to
know what these were. I looked at him as if
he’s just dropped in from Mars or somewhere,
but then realized he’s probably never seen a
machine that could change the record from
one to another. We don’t even have a record
player at our house anymore even though
there is a huge stack of albums out there in
the garage somewhere. We don’t have any
tapes either. I never liked them anyway, so
no big deal. You couldn’t figure out where
anything was on the tape and had to listen
to a bunch of junk just to get to the song
you wanted. Eight tracks were the worst. At
least with a record you could pick up the
needle and set it down on whatever song you
wanted. My stereo today is a marvelous piece
of machinery. I’m certain it can do a
thousand things more than just play music.
There are more buttons on this thing than
knobs on a 747. You’d have to have the
eyesight of an owl just to read the print on
them. I’m amazed they can get letters
printed this tiny. I want simple knobs such
as on-off, volume, bass, treble and balance.
Everything else is totally unnecessary and
wasted on me. What do I need ‘fade’ for or
‘random’? Random, what?

 

Thermostat. The instruction booklet for the
thermostat in my house is over sixty pages.
This is way more thermostat than I want or
need. I knew I was in trouble when I read
the opening description which
said….”Combining the brains of a computer
and the simplicity of a garage door
opener….” I want a plain old thermostat that
has a lever that moves to the right for
warmer and to the left for cooler. The top
has a little scale on it printed with large
number that I can read that shows a larger
number running off to the right and smaller
numbers to the left. Simple. You want the
place to be warmer? Move the lever to a
larger number. You want to get cooler, then
move it down. You don’t want anything? Then
you simply move another lever into the off
position. How easy can this be? This is what
I want. My current model has a table of
contents that runs for two pages. It can
tell me the temperature outside, which I
don’t need since I have a thermometer on my
bathroom window. This allows me to see
what’s happening outside and thus I know
what kind of clothes to wear. I don’t need
some device in the hallway downstairs to
help me out, thank you very much. I don’t
need a ‘programmable daily schedule’ since
my schedule changes every day. It might be
cold when I leave in the morning and hot
when I get back home. I need a thermostat
that just sits there and waits for me to
tell it what to do, not try to guess what
I’ll want. It may be wrong. I’ve lived all
of my life without controlling the humidity
inside my house. Why do I want to start now?

 

Those are three of my pet peeves, I’m sure
there’s more but then I’ve run out of room
again. I will admit I do like the new DVD
models better than the old VCR’s. On the one
I’ve got, the clock sets itself
automatically, so I’m not stuck on midnight
like I was for so many years.


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