My Retro Little Life of Contentment

I do believe that the time has come for me to take a step into the current decade ...

Three out of four of our VCR's in our house do not work in some capacity. Up until last night, I could record on the VCR in the living room and play it back in my bedroom  ... but this morning, upon rewinding the tape and trying to play it, something went amiss. I heard that most horrible sound of tape getting caught up in the mechanisms and I knew that I would not be watching the last half of "Signs" today.

I may have to investigate getting a PVR or a DVR or whatever current video recording devise is on the market. I can see our video tape collection flash before my eyes. I can accept that and move on ... but it is the home videos that my brother made that I hate to lose.

My new-to-me 1997 vehicle is state of the art. It has all of the music capabilities of its time and then some. An AM/FM; cassette/CD concert sound system rocks my world where ever I go. Ever since I lost my radio in lieu of a CD player in my previous car, I am over-the-moon to have a radio ... let alone the other frills this car comes with. Yet ... what is this that I see in the newer vehicles? Satellite radio? IPods that you plug and play? A UHB port so that you can download your playlist into some computer chip in your car? Am I even close to understanding our new reality??? You can see that I am not ready to step into that brave new world.

Cell phones. Let's not even go there. I have no desire to be any more connected to the world than I already am. When I am at home, it is as though our computer has a magnetic pull and I cannot sit through a commercial, walk by the living room or sit still if I think that there is even a remote possibility that I may have received an email or someone may have updated their blog or maybe there is some new Facebook status that I haven't read. This is CRAZY!! Do I need a phone with a data plan so that I can carry this addiction with me where ever I go? I think not. Yet ... the idea of getting a plan so that my phone can 'talk' to my netbook so that I can feed my internet addiction when I am not in a Wi-Fi zone when I am away from home sounds rather alluring at times. But for now, my cell phone continues to be my electronic phonebook and a tool that I use for my convenience (my Oldest son has often chided me that all I need is an outbound call cell plan, since I never answer my phone).

Then there are our TV's. I am not fussy when it comes to televisions. We don't own a flat-screen TV (LCD or plasma or whatever other choices are out there). The TV in the living room does not even go past Channel 99 (nor does the DVD/VCR player that is connected to it as I recently tried to tune into Channel 113 and would have had to go to my room to find a device that aired three-digit channels). I am just as content to watch a 12" tube TV, as I am to watch any other electronic contraption which plays my TV programs. Since our VCR's no longer reliably record and/or play back shows any more, I watched all of the episodes of my favorite shows that I missed on the computer with its variety of delays, freezing up and having to restart from the beginning or watch another day. There is nothing quite like watching 'Dancing With the Stars', when the video doesn't quite keep up with the audio. This is how little things like pixel resolution, pixel orbiting, contrast ratio and burn-in susceptability matter to me (yes, I had to Google "LCD verses plasma" to find a vocabulary for that last sentence). I just want a TV that tunes into the channels we have available. And a remote control is nice ...

Don't even get me started on how backwards (or is it okay to call it 'retro'?) our house is! My newest addiction is tuning into the Home & Garden network (I watch this in a continual loop all day, in between checking for emails & blog updates). I cannot even begin to guess what people would have to say about our basic, tidy and barely maintained 1965 bungalow if we were to have an open house. But have no fear ... I think Mike Holmes would have the place condemned before we opened the doors. Never have I worried more about all that is hidden behind our ceilings, walls and attic space.

I was quite content living in my backwards little world until ... I woke up this morning and couldn't play back the last half of the movie "Signs". I think if I can just watch that last hour of my movie, the world will spin back on its axis and I can continue to live a quiet, content life in the backwoods.