'Zactly. What the hell happened to
Your direct line to thousands of the smartest, hippest people on the planet,
That was all true! Over 25 years ago 
. Now, though…
I’ve never been to any Theme Park. We barely even had amusement parks where I lived.
I’ve never been to the Northern Hemisphere. In fact I’ve never been to a country with a land border.
I’ve never been to a professional sports game.
I’ve never been to a desert. I live in Australia which is 80% desert, and yet I have managed to skirt around it in my limited travels.
I think I’ve never been fully submerged underwater.
Skeptical. And I’ve been since it was paper.
I’m getting a big “impoverished rural basement dwelling sociophobe” vibe from a lot of this.
This isn’t Mrs. Howell never having eaten a hot dog or been in a Sears.
This is Jed Clampett before he shot him some crude, not food.
I will shamefacedly admit it - I’ve never eaten squirrel OR opossum.
Me neither.
That I know of. Who knows what goes on backstage in certain kitchens?
Maybe part of it, but in my case and I’m sure for a number of others, the motivation for avoiding some of these business/experiences is not being primitive and ignorant. Instead, the feeling is more like “I’m smart and don’t need to go for that popular stuff, I’m above it”. For example, that’s how I feel about casinos and gambling.
That’s why I don’t use Walmart or Costco. Or watch much TV. Many of the things being eschewed are admittedly lowbrow. Others are pretty mainstream.
It’s an interesting look at the wide cross-section of USA (and elsewhere) society we have here. Here we all interact with people we’d never have an opportunity to meet IRL.
What do you eat? Typical breakfast / lunch / dinner?
The only Streaming I do is pissing in the desert.
I struggled to come up with something since I’ve either done it, don’t find it exceptional to have skipped or I don’t think it really applies given the amount of effort. For example, I’ve never been on a cruise but I also live around Chicago and don’t find it noteworthy that I never taken the time to travel ten states away to go ride on a big boat. I’d assume doing so is the exception for most people rather than the norm.
Anyway, the only thing I could come up with is that I’ve never been to a major sporting event. Really, I don’t know if I’ve ever been to a sporting event, period (minor leagues, little league, whatever) but I’m willing to hedge that I’ve forgotten something somewhere once.
Never went trick or treating or eaten anything that was pumpkin shaped AND chocolate.
I’ve never seen an episode of M * A * S * H. I was a 1970s kid, and Dad didn’t want us growing up thinking there was anything funny or entertaining about war.
On a similar note, I’ve never seen either of the “Top Gun” movies either. No philosophical problems with them, or anything; just never wanted to.
I’ve been in our local Costco, when they had guest day or whatever, but I have no desire or need to get a membership to it, or Sam’s Club for that matter, as a single person. I did apply for a job at Costco (and no, not in the pharmacy although I would have been willing to fill in if needed) before it opened, but they never even called me for an interview.
I was about to say that I have never attended a Catholic Mass, but scratch that. John Paul II came to my city in 1979, and the marching band, of which I was a member, went there to sell food as a fundraiser. However, I had to get up at something like 3am because of security issues, and slept through it anyway.
I never watched “Game of Thrones”, “Mad Men”, or “Breaking Bad” either.
For breakfast I eat cereal and skim milk. An apple and cup of yogurt for lunch. For dinner I’ll usually have a can of tuna (in water) added to some broccoli and kidney beans, or whole wheat pasta w/ fresh spinach, or something like that. As you can probably tell, I am not a “foodie.”
That pasta must be crunchy without cooking.
Our sole reason for not doing Costco is just that we do not purchase and consume good in that manner. We try to buy as little as possible, and only what we know we want and/or need. There are only 2 of us, and we don’t wish to buy/store bulk goods.
That’s a fine reason not to shop at Costco. The other thing is the membership fee of $65, which means you need to save that much annually to justify the cost.
With a lot of tech, I personally do not care for doing things on my phone. Nothing more than my simple preference. I vastly prefer my laptop with its keyboard and larger screen. (MacAir - VERY light and compact.)
When I am out and about, the things I am doing very rarely require tech assistance. I guess I don’t do a lot of spontaneous stuff that requires that I look things up on the fly, but I’m generally able to get sufficient information before I head out, using my laptop. And my personal preference is to view and interact with my physical surroundings, than spending time with my phone. (I do note that 2 of my 3 downloaded apps on my phone are Merlin and Seek, which help me identify birds and plants I encounter. The 3d is Google Maps.)
At home, I only use my phone for calls/texts. I prefer typing searches into my laptop and assessing the responses myself, rather than relying on AI interpretations of my spoken questions. My “unease” may be unfounded, but I do not like the idea of having a device “listening to me” in my home. I feel my peace and privacy is so under assault anywhere I go, that I may be excessively guarded about it in my home. So even if my concern is only symbolic, it provides me assurance which outweighs any benefit I would perceive from a device like Alexa.
I also am frugal with my money on things that do not interest me - like food delivery, so I can spend like a drunken sailor on things I AM interested in. I reached this preference - in part - out of a desire to work a job with predictable hours and no OT, which earned a good but not spectacular income sufficient to be the primary support of our family of 5, and which will support a comfortable retirement. Everyone is entirely free to make their own choices. Rather than working harder to make more $, so I could afford to pay someone else a premium to do things I don’t really mind doing. I’ve preferred to earn AND spend less, over my wife and me working more hours.
As I live my life, I do not perceive that I am “underserved” by tech. Nor do I readily perceive any ways that my using tech more/differently would significantly enhance the quality of my life. Certainly not to an extent that would outweigh the (minimal to many) added costs of learning how to learn how to use them - and inevitably re-learn them when I use them only infrequently. I do not intend this to sound defensive. Just expressing what I consider to be valid lifestyle choices - which largely reflect attempts to be selective in my consumption, as well as to reduce my susceptibility to marketing. I think it unfortunate that what I consider to be a valid choice is perceived by many as codgerism. But I can live with that (at least for a couple more years! ;))
Yea, I guess I don’t define boiling water and adding pasta as “cooking,” but perhaps it is. 