I recently turned twenty-eight and I had those same thoughts I do every January. 1981… Man that was a long time ago. This year it was brought into a new perspective since the innauguration was in full swing shortly before my day. Back in 1981, my mother was home on maternity leave on January 20th as Gov. Reagan became President Reagan. Three days later the Iranian Emabassy hostages were deboarding a plane and my mother was in labor.
It is no secret that I am now a teacher myself and I will be marrying my partner-in-blogging Back this summer. TWENTY-EIGHT YEARS. So when I saw this YouTube retro-rewind on Ben Smith’s Politico blog, I did what I often do; I took a moment to wonder at all the crazy things we have today.
Back will tell you that every so often I throw out a comment like, “Can you believe that I am talking to my parents in a video chat as I WALK around my apartment?!?” This is not an infrequent occurence for me. Yes, yes, I get how it happened – the microchip – but at the same time I am still boggled by everything. It is my hope that this all comes off as a youthful exuberance for life rather than a country bumpkin revealing his naivety.
I HAVE A WEBSITE?!? Can you believe that? In 1993 or ‘94 when the Internet went public my dad bought an Internet phone book. That was the only way to find websites and now I HAVE ONE.
I remember the first time I ever saw two people play a video game online. My friends younger brother was playing Warcraft II-back when there was no World of it- against his buddy across town over the phone line! They had to dial between one another. Now I can turn on an XBox 360 and play any number of games with Farmacy any time we want.
Hey, I know this post isn’t going to top our charts as most viewed and it probably won’t even have many comments but that doens’t bother me. The next time you are Twittering from you iPhone or pulling out your laptop in a coffee shop to use the FREE WiFi -we used to be charged by the minute for the Internet- take a moment, look around and smile at how CRAZY this would have seemed to the people in the video I linked above.
~Forth
5 responses so far ↓
blondeonblog // 29 January 2009 at 6:09 pm |
Back to the Future II is almost a reality!! I get baffled by this kind of stuff all the time too. But not by the fact that I stopped buying cds because digi files didn’t take up any physical space and I’m now in the midst of collecting media that takes up three times as much.
TheBeardedMan // 30 January 2009 at 9:33 am |
I still remember when the handheld football game and Dos based computer games seemed like the most amazing things in the world. How could it possibly get any better than that?
Anyone see http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113243/
I remember them talking about the “new high speed” 28.8 modem, which of course allowed them to do things that you could never actually do on one.
How about
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086567/
Gotta love the fact the futuristic science fiction from 20 years ago seems silly now.
Farmacy // 31 January 2009 at 10:05 pm |
I had a website in like ‘98…Yup I was that big of a nerd. It was a collection of Simpsons and Seinfeld pics and sound bytes, hosted on the local small town ISP’s free 5 MB of webspace! WOW 5 MB! Now I have what, 2 gigs in my email alone? Pfft. At risk of sounding like an Apple fanboy, I’ll admit I still stop and shake my head at times at my iPhone. All the things it does, the stack of books 6 feet tall worth of Medical Data all at the touch of a button, video games, tons of music, whole movies, not to mention the entire internet ANYWHERE. All in this tiny little pocket thing. I guess it applies to most Smartphones.
I sat in a car for roughly 6 total hours today round trip. I managed to text, watch eps of It’s Always sunny in Philadelphia, listen to some Mika, update my facebook, surf my favorite websites all while cruising alone the interstate. No I was not driving. That still blows my mind.
Farmacy // 31 January 2009 at 10:06 pm |
**Cruising ALONG not ALONE.
Sarah L // 4 February 2009 at 9:55 am |
I feel the same way often. When I was in junior high (circa 1991), my friends’ dad was into computers. He showed us one day that he had his computer hooked up to something called a modem. He could then type something to people all over the world. He said it would be the next big thing. I remember thinking that he was a moron and that NOBODY would ever want to type when they could just pickup a landline and call someone. I guess I was wrong.