Home made baby food. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve bought jars of baby food and used them for convenience from time to time, but I prefer to cook her food myself. It’s cheaper, it’s easy and I know exactly what she’s eating because I made it.
Loose leaf tea. I don’t keep teabags any more, though I do drink them at work and other people’s houses. At home, I make a pot of tea every time - the flavour is worth the small amount of extra “effort”. The leaf tea range at the supermarket is getting ever-smaller and I think a lot of my peers don’t know how to make a pot of tea.
Same cultural osmosis as me, I guess - I’m 29 and know who Madge is.
Fountain pens, although not at work. I love them for letter writing, too. Oh, and letters - I’m sorry, when somebody’s mother dies you do not send them a goddamned e-mail. That’s gross. So is having me address my own thank you note at a shower, by the way. I’ll also never really like watching movies and TV shows through the internet - just don’t care for it, although I do it when it’s the best or only way.
Just a thought about books…… I never though I would go ebook, but I have, mostly because my eyesight is worse and worse and being able to adjust font and contrast on my BB Storm so I can read is a great help. And, since I now carry the Storm wherever I go, I also have my library with me.
I read way, way more now that I have books on my Storm.
And, with the BB, you don’t need ambient light to read it. It’s best with the lights off, which is nice if my Wife would like to go to sleep and I want to read.
It doesn’t work too well in the tub or a hot springs though.
The gift giving trend now is to put everything in a fancy “gift bag” with tissue paper.
No way. That will never replace wrapping and more importantly unwrapping a present. As long as I’m still alive and kicking my kids (and someday my grandkids) will never get a present from me in a “gift bag”. They’re going to have to tear through some good ol’ fashioned wrapping paper, scotch tape, and ribbon.
That was a joke. Look her up on YouTube, as another poster said, she’d put EVERYONE’S hands in dishwashing soap. Then the horrified customer would be like “DISHWASHING SOAP.” As if Madge stuck their hands in a vat of lye.
The point being these ladies in the salon are paying for treatment they could be getting at home doing their normal housework
I don’t think I’ll ever completely let go of books, but I might be persuaded to be intermittently unfaithful. Providing I come into a wad of unexpected cash. Unless, of course, I used the money to buy books. Could be a toss-up there.
I used to do this too and felt the same way. Then I realized that the companies I sent the checks to were not submitting the checks, they were simply copying the routing number and account number and sending it electronically.
So at that point I figured what’s the use, it’s being submitted electronically anyway
I am not going to swear that I wouldn’t buy a newer technology replacement if and when it ever wears out, but my 1994-vintage 3-pass color flatbed SCSI scanner from UMAX has never failed me and shows every sign of lasting a couple more decades.
That means keeping around at least one computer that can boot MacOS 9. Not that I wouldn’t anyway. I have one that can boot System 7. (I’m going to have to replace my LC with another System-6-capable box though). But I digress. Until/unless someone really does find an OSX driver for the old UC 630, I’ll continue to hook up the old WallStreet in OS 9 and scan from the 3-pass flatbed.
I don’t have kids, so I generally keep my mouth shut, but I also hate all of those stupid interactive toys. My BIL does this; every toy he buys for the poor kid MUST be educational and interactive and most of them talk or sing or get up and sit down, or have little educational things on them. Can’t kids just play anymore? I shudder to think how starved her imagination must be - everything is provided to her on a platter and she never has to imagine a voice or a personality for any doll because they all already have one.
Books, yes.
Mostly I like new things. I toss aside most old things without even looking twice, if the new thing is better. I don’t see the point of Blu-Ray, though - VHS to DVD was a significant jump. DVD to Blu-Ray…er, not so much.
I also like letters. I just sent three letters to India and one to Colorado, but even my family is joyfully leaping into the digital age. I miss those old blue aerogrammes from India so much.
I’m with you on this! I tried to pay a bill online a while back that was such a pain in the ass, and then, they wanted to charge a $2.00 fee to do it! A freakin’ stamp is still under fiddy-cent!
I also swear by long skis. Nothing shorter that 204cm.
My attitude is, my income is deposited to my account electronically. I get no real money, just virtual money that is a string of ones and zeroes going through the ether. So I’m comfortable paying my bills electronically. Even the ones I send through the postage have an option for a debit card or virtual check for payment. No real money changes hands either way, credit just moves from one account to another electronically. I know of course, I can demand real cash, but I trust my money exists, whether it’s in physical form or not. I only see cash if I go to the store and pay with my debit card and ask for extra cash back.
As for writing letters, pblthhh! I call my brother in Pennsylvania on his cell phone when I want to talk to him. We’re both on the same carrier, so we can talk all we want without using our minutes. When I have something that’s not really important enough for a call, I text him.
I think a lot of then-obscure advertising campaigns ala ‘Madge’ were resurrected in the 1990s by MST3K, and kept reincarnated enough to make it to the 2000s and immortality by Wiki (in which people record the most obscure things).
Why do people think certain things, like rakes, would ever be obsolete - you are NOT getting leaves out of your hedge or unders fences or in corners with a leaf blower no way, no how (and even when garden plasmarizers are perfected, how are they gonna to distinguish (dead)wood fencing from dead leaves?).
And for those of the hand tool party, Alex W. Bealer’s “Old Ways Of Working Wood” should be in your library, if nothing else as for a display of overfondness of the past - I use hammers, planes, hand-saws, but also welcome random orbit sanders, scroll-saws, and other powered tools - while the author’s persona in that book seems to think any power tool degrades the workman and his workmanship (and to end he has an appendix describing how to make pole-powered and treadle lathes - no thanks, I’ll take the electric motor kind anyday).
Baking bread the old fashioned way. I have a bread machine, last time I used it was about 3 years ago when I first got it.
There is something viscerally satisfying about making bread by hand that just doesnt happen with a bread machine.
My woodstove. The hot water baseboard heat leaves huge over hot or over cold areas in the house. My woodstove sits there radiating a toasty heat until the entire place is warm and cozy, we burn excess wood from our woodlot instead of oil based fuel, and it doen’t need electricity to function.
Eyeglasses have already been mentioned, although you never know. My father, who had worn glasses for 65 years, finally got rid of his when his vision was corrected during cataract surgery. So mine might eventually go, but not as an elective choice.
They’ll go eventually when they become obsolete, but I’m hanging on to my VCR and tapes as long as I can. I’ve always said that they were my favorite invention of my lifetime, it just never occurred to me that they could also be replaced in my lifetime. I have a DVR now, but I still use tapes for their portability and ability to be saved longer term (I know they only last around 10-15 years, but that’s fine for my purposes).
Analog timekeeping devices. I need to be able to see how long I have until my appointment, or how much longer I can stay in bed. I want my watch, my main household clock, my alarm clock, and my oven timer all to be analog. Digital is fine, but it’s just a bunch of numbers to me. For instance, on a digital clock, 12:44 looks like I’ve got plenty of time until 1:00, while 12:46 means I’d better hustle. On an analog clock they give me basically the same message.
Just think of the poor gift wrap-challenged. For me and others like me, gift bags are one of the greatest inventions ever. Instead of ending up with ungainly packages covered in wrinkled paper and mounds of crisscrossing tape (not to mention the bits of tape stuck all over my clothes, and the weird odds and ends of wrapping paper that I had to recut to make everything fit – or a personal favorite, the extra strip of wrapping paper taped over the gap), I can now present neat, professional looking gifts. But feel free to stick to the old ways if they work for you.
I hope I’ll never have to give up CDs. I don’t enjoy having to manage downloaded music, plus, I like looking through the liner notes. I still have all of my vinyl from high school (and some I bought years later), but sadly, eventually I had to stop counting on it always being there.
I like my VCR. I have 20 year old tapes that still work as good as the day I bought them. I can get good ones from the thrift store for a dollar. VCRs are very cheap and sometimes free; I’ve gotten one from someone on this board and two from Freecycle.
I’ve gone through three DVD players and my little girl’s DVDs are useless after a few months. A tiny scratch is all it takes.
I will hold on to my tapes and VCRs as long as I can.
