The Inconvenience of Modern Conveniences

I know I'm living n the future. I've known it for several years now. Everything that was commonplace is starting to take on the look and feel of what I used to envision as the future. Consider light bulbs, no longer light bulb shaped, now they're like a corkscrew. My computer no longer takes up the entire desktop, and my cell phone looks like something they used to use on Star Trek to heal brain aneurisms, which is ironic, because I just read an article that implied that my cell phone might be causing brain aneurisms.

This future full of modern conveniences is creating inconveniences I would never have imagined a few short years ago. My girlfriend, PJ, can't operate our home theater system, for example. It's not entirely her fault, because we lost the remote control for the system when we moved last summer. Try operating your home entertainment system without a remote control. I dare you. Of course, I could buy a new, universal remote, but frankly, they scare me.

Last week the battery for my car fob died and I actually had to use the key to unlock the car door. I don't think I've had to use the key to unlock my car door in this century. I had the OnStar car phone active for a time after I bought the car, but I just couldn't get used to talking through the car's radio. I'll probably try it again later, but I don't really like talking on the phone while I'm driving. And speaking of cars, I was at a stoplight the other day and a small hybrid pulled up next to me. I was in awe at the car and the driver, who wore a pair of sleek blue tinted sunglasses. I know I will never be able to embrace this new age with such tenacity as this guy.

There's no way I can work on my car the way I did when I was a teenager. I could do practically any repair on my '67 Camero. Now, I open the hood of the car and stare in wonderment at the wall to wall engine. I don't know where anything is.

I can leave voice messages on my microwave, but PJ never checks the microwave for messages. Why would she? Why would anyone? I also make voice notes to myself on my phone all the time but forget about them until they are useless. Although I take pictures with my phone, and then don't know what to do with them, my daughter has used her cell phone to document her entire menagerie of animals. She then prints them and makes coffee mugs with the images. Now that's cool.

I bought the hardware and software needed to convert my collection of vinyl records, and cassette tapes, to digital format. I did something similar years make, putting old super8 film on VHS. Wow, that was a chore. The problem with the music is going to be finding the roughly 30,000 hours it will take to record them. I may have to be selective in what I convert. Of course by the time I'm finished, there will probably be a newer, better format.