By Dan Barber
We survived the end of our existence last year that was
predicted on TV by the Mayans, Hopis and some ancient alien speculators who
were sure we would all be sucked into a black hole, or the north and south poles
of the earth would shift or we would be hit with a giant invisible asteroid.
Remember December 21, 2012? It was the year I had a very darn good reason to
delay Christmas shopping until Christmas Eve, or at least I thought I did. |
| This technology was used by the local Native American People for perhaps hundreds of years at the Joshua Tree National Park. |
Many people are easily snookered into believing anything
they read or watch on TV. “It said so in the newspaper, so it must be true…
right?” Wrong, one of my favorite pastimes since I retired is scanning
newspapers to find something stupid that someone wrote and then comment in the
readers section about what I thought was wrong or slanted in some way. I’m
currently watching the developments of that New York Times article that has
come to the conclusion the Benghazi
consulate attack was indeed the fault of a low budget obscure video and not at
all because of terrorists. I think the White House and State Department should
be very careful in cheering those “journalistic” findings.
I am very wary about any new technology, not because I’m old
and afraid, it’s because I was recently no longer able to find cassette tapes
for my tape recorder. I had to spend nearly a $100 bucks for a “digital” tape
recorder! I’m pretty sure the technology of those “digital” tape recorders will
have advanced enough in a couple of months where I can buy that same recorder
for about $20.
I can’t bring myself to throw out the old recorder… it’s
still good if I can just find some blank cassette tapes at a garage sale one
day.
I recall when it cost over $500 for a VCR player. Now I can
find a “Blue Ray 3-D” video player for about $50… videos went from Beta to VCR
to DVD to Blue Ray to someplace in the clouds that I can now download to my
smart phone, which by the way is to dang small for me to watch a movie on! I
still buy DVDs when I’m allowed because my wife wants the Blue Ray High
Definition. According to her and the movie studios it provides a better
picture. I try to explain to my wife that neither one of us have good enough
sight to tell the difference between a regular DVD and Blue Ray.
When I remember to turn on our wireless surround sound while
watching a movie it just causes me to jump up during a movie to see who in the
hell is messing around out in my front yard… it also causes the dog to start
barking! My granddaughter thinks it would be a hilarious prank to buy one of
those “clap on clap off” devices she could hook up to my TV while I’m watching
football or baseball, which of course when I started clapping an excellent play
my TV would mysteriously start going off and on!
I have made predictions in the past that have come true
about some smart kid up in Silicon Valley inventing a new doodad that his
marketing buddies will convince the public that they just have to have. So many
people will camp out on a hard cold sidewalk for a week so they can be the
first among their friends to own the new doodad that will be obsolete in just a
very short period of time.
We also have a new year upon us… I’m not going to make any
new year’s resolutions because tomorrow would I forget what I resolved to
do or not to do… that’s the question.
Happy New Year!
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