HALLIE: Please, indulge me a rant...When I went to start yesterday’s blog on words, I searched bookshelves for my thesaurus but it wasn’t there. Then I remembered--awhile back, I got rid of it because I needed the shelf space more than I needed a paper version of something that’s just as complete and easier to use on the Web.
Ah, the digital age. Countless thesauruses and dictionaries and encyclopedias have been consigned to the dump. Typewriters, their keys harvested to become jewelry, molder there, too, like great tuskless elephants. Reel to reel tape recorders and VCRs and film cameras. Rotary phones--we have one in our front hall, and it’s such a pleasure to pick it up and hear “Dial 1 to hear an important message”-- and after a power outage it’s the only one in the house that still works.
Even species born in the digital age like fax machines and scanners are becoming obsolete.
Which made me think about all the other things that have gone belly up or are gasping their last breaths as the Internet offers the same thing...sometimes for free.
- Newspapers and magazines, of course
- Cookbooks. Travel books.
- Video rental stores
- Channels that you can watch just by plugging in your TV
And you know this idea that it's free? We’re now paying for...
-- Cable T
V-- Cell phones and house phones and office phones and...
-- Computers and modems and printers and...
Not to mention the constant flow of electricity that ALL of that stuff draws when I'm not even using it. Couldn't they at least make it easy to really turn the things off?
I refuse to give up my old TV. It works. My ancient green porcelain and stainless steel milkshake machine. My clock that actually ticks and needs to be wound. And of course, novels with covers and pages that I can dog ear.
Are you going with the electron flow or getting dragged kicking and screaming?
