Behind the tech curve

I am so upset. They have done it to me again. Just when I thought I was getting up to speed with my new high-definition flat-screen television, I find out that I don’t have the new thing, 3-D. I can fully expect my TV to be obsolete within two years.

My DVD collection, carefully crafted, unlike my old, random VHS collection, is now passé thanks to Blu Ray, whatever that is. The silver lining is that the new TVs do not last that long (the one that died lasted 15 years). Flat-screen technology is not robust. I will be ready for my new 3-D TV then. The attachment to accept the new holograph transmissions will, of course, not be compatible.

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My Windows 98 died hard. I was coerced into the 21st century when they withdrew all support as the system was deemed old and irrelevant, kind of like me, which is probably why I liked it.

Of course my Windows Vista was not really up-to-the-minute even as I was purchasing it. I am obviously being followed by a team of marketing spies who wait for me to update, then contact whatever manufacturer I have just patronized and tell them it is OK to release the new edition now as the last person in the world likely to buy the current edition has popped for it so all potential sales have been exhausted.

Many years ago I remember getting so excited when they put Super 8 motion picture cameras on sale. Finally I could afford this essential family memory machine. The projector for the spools of developed film was pretty reasonable, too. Of course I couldn’t really afford to get the film developed, and lugging this thing around with the required auxiliary lights would put me on the periphery of every family event.

One roll of film would stay in the camera for at least two Christmases. Little did I know that the reason these cameras were on sale was that the entire technology was about to change.

One area that seems to have got it is cell phones. Companies like Jitterbug and Tracfone allow us to buy backwards in time. My phone does not take pictures. I cannot receive e-mail or check my stock portfolio (portfolio?) or set my DirecTV recorder.

I push the green button and make a phone call, and then I shut it off. My phone is for my convenience, not everyone else’s.

If it wasn’t for all the extra free time that computers and robots are giving us in this new millennium I would be really upset. Oh, wait, I don’t have all that much free time, and I am upset.

Bill Abrams resides (and fumes over really up-to-date, or is it outdated, technology) in Pine Plains.

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