Caveboy Monday: The Rocks Were Heavier When I Was Kid

I was moaning and groaning the other day about how the world was going to hell in a hand basket (or should I say iPod) when a good friend of mine told me to stop being such a cynical old bastard.

After my initial affront, to my much treasured old bastardry had subsided, I agreed she was right.

I have tried to embrace the new things in life (cell phones, mp3 players, blu-ray, texting, facebook, myspace, twitter oh the fuckin list is too long) but I would have to say that it’s official, I have crossed over to the land of old farts.

I swear to you that this was not a conscious choice.  It just happened.  One day I was all about the newest gadgets and gizmos and then one morning it just happened.

I seem to favor pulling my pants up a little higher these days and have taken to wearing undershirts year round even under my favorite Led Zepplin Tee.

Fifteen years ago when home theater was coming of age my living room was full of shit.  I mean I had receivers, amps, speakers, subwoofers, cables and wire running everywhere, much to my wife’s displeasure.  The next thing you know I go out and buy an LCD projector to enhance the movie watching experience.  You could say I went a bit overboard.  Today all that stuff is packed away gathering dust and mouse turds.

About ten years ago I started building my own speakers.  I learned all the speaker building jargon and could prattle on endlessly about frequency response, standing waves and the perfect dimensions for a music listening room.  Now I have a garage full of speakers I built and don’t know what to do with them.

Then five years ago I decided to buy a bicycle.  I’m was gonna ride that baby to work, save gas, save the ozone, get all healthy and shit, a bona fide tree huggin health nut.  Well that kind of worked out.  For the first year I rode fairly regularly, then it became less regular, then it was non regular.  So last spring I vowed to kick start the riding again.  Second time out I piled that fucker up at the end of my driveway broke a bone in my right hand and wound up having surgery to put pins in.  Anybody want to buy a bicycle?

Video games passed me by not too long after the original Nintendo.  When it got to the point that I couldn’t master a game in 15 minutes then the game was stupid (No dumb ass it’s not the game it’s you).  Now there are three year olds out there that are more game savvy than I ever was.

I’ve been using a computer everyday in my job for over 25 years (yes I remember when most PC’s didn’t have a hard drive, but two 5-1/4” floppy drives, now days the only thing floppy around here is me) and now most seven year olds can text faster on a cell phone with keys the size of infant mice teeth than I can pump out on a full size key board.

I’m not a big fan of lap top computers either.  The key board is too confusing for me and what’s up with that red button in the middle of the key board.  The last time I fiddled with a red button for 15 minutes I would up married.

I bought an mp3 player, hell I didn’t buy it, my wife bought it for me for my birthday, and it holds about 40 songs.  I thought that was pretty good until my son says his will hold something like 14 billion songs plus 9 million movies and it’s about as big as a book of matches.

I tried not to turn into a crusty old bastard, I really did, but I got too comfortable in my elastic waistband pants and sheep skin lined slippers and I let the world pass me by and at an alarmingly rapid pace I might add.

So if I seem a little (a little my ass) out of touch it’s because I am.  I know I am.  However if knowing how to text on your kindle while talking on your 4g wi-fi becomes a requirement to buy beer, that’s a whole other story.

Excuse me I need to change the batteries in my walkman.

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caveboy out