Post #133344 by donhonyc on Thu, Dec 30, 2004 11:41 AM

Tangaroa-

Please...I have no prob with people that are cynical. In fact the attitude shouldn't be called 'cynical', it should be called 'realistic'. Sometimes I get heat because of my 'half empty, bad attitude' when I sit around and talk about how much popular culture sucks. I can understand this...On the one had who wants to hear my shitty attitude, on the other how can you NOT say something about the ridiculousness of a Wal-Mart society (no offense to Wal-Mart shoppers).

As far as iPods...I'm not a huge fan of the walkman format. If I'm out and about, riding the bike or whatever, I like to hear what's going on around me. Not because I like the sound of it, I just like to be aware. The other reason is, having those headphones plugged into your ears all the time is b-a-d for your hearing. Especially for somebody like me who likes to blast music alot. My hearing is already sort of shot and I wanna maintain what I have for as long as I can.

And finally...as we sit here in what we use to refer to around twenty years ago as 'the future' I am still not willing to get on the bandwagon with all of the latest technology. That's a major contradiction since I am sitting here now typing on a message board. Basically I'll get on board with the latest techno stuff if it has some vital functionality that will actually move your life forward. Email, digital photography and that type of thing are, less face it, more convinient than their analog counterparts. iPods I can take a pass on. I'm getting a little creeped out with this constant desire to compact and consolidate 'things'. It kinda reminds me of that Rod Steiger film 'The Illustrated Man'. What's the big deal of having a stack of CDs or LPs? Nothing personal iPod people, but why must we have 5,000 songs at our disposal on a little box? Can't we live without some of this crap? Technology is a great thing, but it is also a major double-edged sword. The upcoming generations of kids are already showing signs of disconnections from reality as we know it. Everything has to be 'now', and that is not always a good thing. The trends now seem to rely less on building your imagination than they do on how to accelerate it.

[ Edited by: donhonyc on 2004-12-30 11:53 ]