What could you do without?

So someone posed this question the other day and it really got me to thinking.  Actually, maybe I thought up the question myself in one of my deep thought walking sessions.  Anyway, the question is, what electronic device that you have now that wasn't around 30 years ago could you live without, and also, not live without.

It got me to thinking about some of the things we have now that I didn't have when I was a kid. 

Like the remote control.

And if you are old like me, do you remember when remote controls actually came out?  Like got invented?  I totally do.  They were nothing like they are now, because let's face it, nowadays you could probably get your remote control to get up and get you a glass of ice water with lemon if you could figure out how to program it.  But when I was a kid, the remote control had 2 buttons on it.  The on/off button and the channel button.  That's it.  So if we were on channel 2 and wanted to go to channel 11, we had to go through every channel to get there.  And speaking of channels, there were only three for a really long time in my house - ABC, NBC and CBS.  And if we messed with the antenna, we could sometimes get PBS.  To get that Sesame Street fix.


Then

And speaking of TV, I remember getting our first color television.  It was so exciting.  Because before that, we had one 13" black and white in the living room, and me and my three sisters had to crowd around it to watch Little House on the Prairie.  In black and white.  Did you pick up on 13"?  As in thirteen.  As in about the same size as the ruler my kids have in their desks at school.  And what the heck is up with the 52" screen that I saw at the store last weekend.  Really?  We need 52" now??

And DVR??!  That might be the thing that I couldn't live without.  Well, I guess I could live without it, but I  really really really don't want to.  I love my DVR.  It makes me very happy to be able to pause.

You know, it just occurred to me that I am pretty much ten paragraphs in and all I have talked about is TV.  Well, that's embarrassing.

Shocker, right?? 

But really, gosh.  There have been so many great inventions over the last 30 years!  Just think about the music situation.  We went from vinyl records (my kids have never even seen a record) to 8 track tapes.  Then from 8 track to cassette.  Then from cassette to mp3.  In the mix we had Walkmans and boom boxes and now ipods.  Like you better not blink or something newer and greater will be out!  I totally remember having a stereo in my room with an 8 track tape player.  We thought we were so cool.  And I totally remember my first Walkman.  I loved that thing.

And microwave ovens!  Oh my cod when I was 10 if I wanted a hot dog I had to boil water and wait til it cooked!  Popcorn got popped on the stove (til the air popper came out!) and TV dinners took 20 minutes to cook in the oven.

Well.  That's it.  I can't accurately answer the original question anymore.  I have too many inventions rolling around in my head and I don't even know if I remember the original question anyway.

But I do know that I want some popcorn and a hot dog.  And I am going to listen to my ipod while I throw them in the microwave.

Let's revisit this topic again when I am less hungry, OK?