Tech, nostalgia and the coming generation.

Once a week the household gets together with my friend Tess and her family for a 'dinner-and-a-movie' night.  We often revisit old family classics or newer family-friendly fare. On occasion the kids all decide to screw off to my eldest daughter's room to do kid stuff, so at those times we get to enjoy more grown-up fare.

A video came across my Facebook feed called "Kids React to Walkmans" where a group of children are given an early 90's style portable cassette player and asked to figure out what this contraption is and what it does.  As a whole, they're pretty much flummoxed and by the end of the video they have proclaimed modern MP3 technology to be far superior.

Well, duh.  Anyone who has ever had to repair an unspooled cassette with a pen could tell you THAT.

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My kids are fairly savvy with some of the more time-withstanding technologies of the past.  Our cabinet hi-fi sits in the front hall and occasionally gets some play when I get the urge to pull out my limited collection of LPs.  The thing has GREAT sound.  Thank you, Lori.

Watching these kids in the video struggle with what seemed like the relatively simple concept of popping a cassette into a walkman so music comes out the earphones made me think of some of the other near- or completely- obsolete tech that my generation takes for granted.

A few weeks ago for family movie night, we watched The Secret Life of Walter Mitty which, by the way, is now one of my favourite movies ever.  Surprisingly kid-friendly, too.  As we watched, the thought came to me that it was entirely possible that none of the children present even had any concept of film-based photography.  To the best of my knowledge my kids have only ever used digital cameras or at best disposable cameras.  They've not been exposed (ha!) to the fumbling involved in loading film in to a 35mm camera.

Okay, maybe other people found that sort of thing easy, but I have ruined many a roll in my time.

My kids would not be able to point out or name any of the equipment that used to sit in my dad's home-made darkroom when I was a teenager.  Negatives, slides, spools, washes, fixatives.  All completely foreign.

I wondered how much of this particular film went over their head, not being familiar with the process of photo development.

It's not only technology.  We also take the cultural references for granted.

A week later, we gathered and watched Saving Mr. Banks.  About two thirds of the way through I came to the realization that my kids had never actually seen Mary Poppins (Tess's kids had).  We've got an extensive collection of movies, some dating back to the early 20's, but somehow this one had gotten by us.

There's always this misconception that children and especially teens don't have appreciation for things that pre-date, well, them.  However, it's an appreciation that can be built up, with exposure.

One day in car I popped in a Mountain Goats CD and my eldest rolled her eyes and went "Ugh.. old people music.."  (Seriously?  The Sunset Tree came out in 2005!  Old people music.  Psh.)  My response was to put on The Complete Robert Johnson Collection.

You want to call something "old people music?"  There's your old people music.  Sorry, Grandma.

I dunno.  I guess I grew up with an appreciation of my parent's generation of music and film, because I was regularly exposed to it.  When other kids were listening to New Kids on the Block, I was into The Guess Who, Harry Belafonte and Stompin' Tom.

But there are some things that I guess we can't quite recreate, like the excitement of getting a custom-made mixed tape, or seeing animated penguins dance on screen with Dick Van Dyke and Julie Andrews for the first time.

Myself, I haven't seen Mary Poppins in years.

I think I may have the soundtrack on vinyl, though.

Post-Script:  Holy crap! Typewriters! I didn't even mention typewriters.  What kind of crazy old-timey shit is that, amirite?

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And with that, my TV decided to channel Kurt Cobain.

I'm feeling rather grateful. It's been a stressed out week and a bit, but as the dust (and smoke and burning plastic smell - but more on that later) settles, I'm feeling immense gratitude.

I'm grateful that a week and a half after my sciatic episode, I'm pretty much pain-free. I've known people with sciatic injuries who have suffered for months and years on end. To be about 99% recuperated before I even had my first physio appointment, is pretty A-okay if you ask me.

I'm grateful that when my car started needing work, I had friends who were willing to step in and help with advice and work. I'm also grateful that when the need became especially urgent and said friends were unavailable due to circumstances beyond their control, financially I still had the option  of going to a shop and get the work done, armed with the advice given me.

I'm especially grateful that my pain-in-my-broken-ass kept The Well Travelled One and I home last Thursday night when my 6 year old Electrohome CRT television decided to literally go out in a blaze of glory. Let's be clear, when I say it was 6-years-old I refer only to the timeline in which I bought it. I wouldn't be surprised if they stopped manufacturing them much sooner. Its time was due. So as I sat there watching season 4 of Newsradio, Phil Hartman's head got really skinny, then kind of fat, then a little of both. I wondered if it was the connector and the WTO, who had a side view of the set from the vantage point of the computer desk calmly stated "actually, no, it's a small fire" before jumping over to quickly unplug it from the wall and disconnect all the peripherals.

So I am grateful that we had turned down the chance to go to karaoke, otherwise the girls would have been home, probably watching My Little Pony, wondering why Rainbow Dash's face was distorting when the set went up in flames. Thank Gord for oddly timed coincidences. Putting aside the most obvious, horrific possible outcome of that scenario.. Well, one traumatic house-fire is enough for any kid. But since my broken ass kept us home, the fire remained contained to the back of the casing, the only evidence a lingering smell of scorched plastic.

Better to burn out than fade away indeed. Tell that to all my other electronics that simply stopped working and didn't feel the need to get all showboat-y about it.

....and we're back.

So as some of you who ventured over to my little bit of the universe may have noticed yesterday, I did eventually manage to get my site blacked out.  Once I got to work, it took me all of five minutes.  Additionally, I've managed to get back to my original template without tearing a hole in the time-space continuum, so that's cool.

I'd say the blackout yesterday was fairly successful, and it was heartening as the day went on to see how many sites were, if not participating, at least drawing attention to the issue and and saying "Hey, this is bullshit."

The fight is not over yet.  There's still the vote to be had on January 24th, so I urge you, if you are in the U.S. to write your congressman.  You can follow the link I've put in the top right-hand corner, and that will stay there until the vote.  If you're outside of the U.S. then be sure to familiarize yourself with any similar legislation that may be in the works.

NOW Toronto has a link with some of the legislation in the works for Canada.  Check it out here.

Solidarity despite my lack of technical prowess.

I don't pretend to know a whole lot about SOPA and its equivalent bills but I understand enough to know that it sounds like a whole lot of bullshit. It threatens bloggers, and without revealing too much professional information, could pose a very real threat to my current place of employment.

Tomorrow a huge slice of the Internet, including reddit and Wikipedia, is Blacking out in protest of this and similar bills. I wanted to join in but I've run into numerous roadblocks so I'm just going to say that this is bullshit, and I'm with y'all in spirit but my computer is broken and there are things on the iPad I haven't figured out yet and I'm going to blame Steve jobs because dude isn't around to defend himself anyway.

So, rest of the Internet, stay strong, and I'm sorry I suck at computers.

P.s. I tried to insert a picture of a simple black box into this post to show my support and I couldn't even do THAT. I fucking fail.

Friday Music Lurve: The Mountain Goats

So the comp is pretty much pooched at this point. My boxing day miracle was short-lived as a software update required me to restart and it just never came back. So after 6ish years I am faced with the prospect of computer shopping. Those who know me well know that big-ticket purchases generally make me itch and/or hyperventilate. I can put it off for a bit because my company was nice enough to gift us iPads for Christmas this year. A friend of mine came over to finally set up the router I was given, after I spent a few weeks struggling to figure out the bloody thing myself. So I'm all wifi'd and working from the iPad. I feel like I should name it. Maybe Jerry.

So onward and upward. I've been listening obsessively to The Mountain Goats for the last week or two, as those on my Facebook and my cubicle neighbors at work already know. I became aware of them a year or two ago after hearing 'Cubs In Five'. I thought it a quirky lo-fi tune and a great little passive-aggressive fuck you.

And the Chicago cubs will beat every team in the league
And the Tampa bay bucks will take it all the way to the top
And I will love you again
I will love you like I used to

Now, I'm no expert on baseball, but I'm pretty sure this is the equivalent of saying "yeah and monkeys might fly out of my butt."

(I really wanted to include a picture of Mike Myers as Wayne Campbell here but I haven't figured out how to scam pictures with this thing. Use your imagination. )

I started listening to them more this year as I discovered tracks off of The Sunset Tree and Talahassee. The last couple of days I've been setting up playlists of five or six albums and just listening for hours at work. I love the themes of encompassing passion and self-destructive love that seems to pop up. I don't know who writes the bulk of the lyrics but there's a feeling of not-quite-impotent rage that pops up again and again... The feeling of someone about to burst out of their shell and go absolutely apeshit on the place.

As someone who fancies herself both a bit of a musician and a bit of a writer, I've always been drawn to powerful lyrics. Here's a few samples of lines that have been running through my head.

From 'Up the Wolves'

I'm going to get myself in fighting trim
Scope out every angle of unfair advantage
I'm gonna bribe the officials
I'm gonna kill all the judges
It's going to take you people years to recover from all of the damage

From 'No Children'

I hope when you think of me years down the line
You can't find one good thing to say
And I hope if I find the strength to walk out
You'll stay the hell out of my way

From 'This Year'

Then Kathy showed up and we hung out
Trading swigs from the bottle all bitter and clean
Locking eyes, holding hands
Twin high-maintenance machines

Again, still getting used to this iPad. I wanted to link to all these songs, but i'm sure all my readers are savvy enough to know how to go to YouTube and look them up.

I highly recommend you do.

I almost forgot. This is super-cute.

Mountain Goats sing The Mountain Goats

In the span of 12 hours I vanquished a fear and had it realized again.

I don't go around saying it very often, but I'm pretty smart.  With the standardized tests to prove it.  So it's frustrating when there's something I really want to master but I JUST.  CAN'T.  FACKING. DO IT.

For a long time now, I've wanted to learn to sew.  I can do simple things like hemming pants or repair a split seam, but I really want to learn to design and create things.  Thing is, sewing by hand is slow and bullshit.

I have a sewing machine that was given to me by my mother, which was given to her in turn by her mother which was bought as a gift by my grandfather and has been used maybe 8 times in total.

This would be the monstrosity right here.

My Nanny wasn't much of a seamstress and my mother always preferred to used the old Singer that was given to her by.. oh.. hrm.  Some female relation or another.  I think it was my great grandmothers.  Anyway, she likes to use that one (probably because unlike this one, it doesn't have a whole table attached to it).

Sewing machines elude me.  My mother was still making my halloween costumes when I was 24 because I would get this lofty idea that I would sew my own costume, I'd borrow her Singer, sit down in front of it and promptly forget the method for setting up the machine, despite Mom having shown me 47,000 times before.  Gord forbid I'd have to change a bobbin.  Forget it, not happening.  I'd get all flustered and it wouldn't be long before Mom was sewing my costume for me.

Pathetic.

So when I got this one, I had every intention of learning to use it.  I took it out on one or two occasions and would do a few test runs.  My first attempt resulted in this:

That was enough to scare me off for oh say... a good year and a half.  Meanwhile though, I kept hanging on to old T-shirts with dreams of making them into pillows and quilts and such.  Today I braved the machine again.  I threaded it, got the bobbin set up with the help of the 50 year old instruction booklet and much to my delight I managed to mend a couch cushion and two of the girls shirts.

I was on a roll.  I went into town that afternoon and excitedly told my friend Lori about how I had braved the sewing machine and that I was going to learn to make shit, starting slow with simple things like pillows.

I guess I got too big for my britches because tonight I cut up some fabric and pinned it and set to work.  I decided to try the zig-zag setting, but for some reason everything kept getting tangled, so I played with some settings and tried to adjust the tension.

I fucking broke it.

I have barely touched this thing over the last 2 years because of my intense fear that I would somehow break it and would end up with a very heavy side table.  I broke the goddamned tension dial.  As I was turning it, the dial popped off and springs went flying everywhere.

And I don't know how to put it back together.

You said it, Natalie Dee.

I'm not dealing well.  I'm not good at feeling stupid and this epic failure on my part is way more upsetting than it should be.  

*sigh*  Faaaaack.  Anyone have any expertise on how to fix a 50-year-old sewing machine?

Photo Credit:  www.nataliedee.com

The Electronics are Revolting!

Will be taking a *hopefully* small blogging hiatus.  My computer at home has gone kablooey and the work computer, which I am at during work hours, is generally meant to be used for work.  In the meantime my cell phone has begun doing this weird thing where it blinks on a intermittent basis, and although the phone is in full working order otherwise, it's driving me frickin' batty.  Time for an upgrade.

The lack of online time sucks, because I have a lot I'd like to touch on, like the Rebecca Watson/Richard Dawkins/Creepy Elevator Guy fiasco and how everyone has gone apeshit over some woman who had the audacity to mention in a videoblog that getting propositioned in an elevator at four in the morning felt a little creepy and that if guys want to avoid being perceived as creepy, maybe they shouldn't do creepy things.

THE NERVE.  /sarcasm.

Also have some writing bubbling up in the old head. It happens, especially when I read something breathtakingly beautiful such as this. It'll be relegated to paper, for the time being.

Off camping with the kidlets for the next few days anyway, so I'd be MIA.  Some time off will be nice.

Conversations with my sister: Good parenting.

Recieved a text from the sister last night:

N: Hey what you doin?
Me: Just packing up after the fireworks
N: {my brother in law} n {my nephew} n i aret mom's
Me: Are you drunk?
N: No lol E was on my lap and it was hard to type. lol.  jackass.
Me: you shouldn't call your toddler a jackass.  that's not nice.
N: lol no love YOU'RE the jackass

I mean, I already knew that, but I couldn't resist such a set up.

I amuse myself far too much.

But I'm using my whole ass!

Lies.  No, I'm not.  Frankly, I'm a follower, and who doesn't want a donkey on their blog, at least once?  So a ala the Simple Dude, here is my half-assed weekend post.  Go visit Simple Dude and give him some love, since he has given me a donkey.

I'm attempting to scan some pics so I can list some new goodies on my Etsy store, 100 Watt Smirks.  My scanner is temperamental.  It was gifted to me by Lori at A Vintage Witch, which was super cool of her.  I wonder how many people I can pimp in one half-assed post.  However at some point in time one of the demon cats knocked the damn thing off the desk.  So now, mid-scan, it starts clicking and making godawful noises and I have to give it a good thump to get it back in order.  It still scans better than my craptacular HP 3-in-1.  Hewlett Packard, you suck.  I may keep an eye out for a nice little printer so I can get rid of the 3-in-1 completely because honestly, the thing is junk.  Trying to use the software grinds my entire system to a halt, which is a giant pain when all I want to do is resize a couple of pictures.

My campaign to win back @jplaskett to my Twitter-fold was an utter failure.  *sigh*  Not only did it not take off and become the internet meme of the decade, but it didn't even warrant a courtesy 'Will you STFU and leave me alone' follow.  Even Jann Arden threw me a bone, when I hinted.

Today is laundry day.  Taking kids to the Seventh circle of hell to get some Xmas portraits taken today.  Time to take this ass and put some pants on it.

Confessions of a headphone junkie

Originally written for the Tay Township Report, January 2008

I lost a dear friend of mine two weeks ago. As I was driving home from work, I stopped to pick my children up at their father's house, and hit pause on my iPod Nano. When I came back, all signs of life had disappeared. Frantically, I held down the play button, waiting for the tiny screen to light up. I cradle it's tiny body in my hands, uttering words of encouragement, lightly sprinkled with the odd obscenity, in hopes of talking it out of its apparent technological suicide. After a few minutes, I realized I would have to drive home, with only the radio and the happy squeals of my children for company, for that long five minute drive home. Dejected, I listened to the spurts of chatter and sporadic bursts of melody, as the car stereo scanned in search of a station to suit my needs. Upon arriving home, I crossed my fingers as I plugged my little silver and pink friend into my computer, certain that, like someone in insulin shock, all it needed was a little juice. Nothing.

It may be time for an introduction. My name is Andrea, and I have a problem. I am a full-fledged music junkie. There are plenty of music lovers in the world, but I am an addict. I used music the way others used anti-depressants, as a method of keeping me balanced. When I clean, when I drive, when I walk, when I exercise, it's there, keeping me company. In the early days of my current employment, one of the main draws of the job wasn't the pay, or the hours, but the fact that I was able to spend over 7 hours a day with my then-generic-brand mp3 player, as dear to me then as my little buddy is now. My head would swirl with ideas for playlists. I spent an entire day listening to nothing but the Pixies. More recently I embarked on a plan to listen to every track in my music collection, alphabetically by title. I was excited, and life was good. Poor thing didn't make it past the 'I's.

Upon returning to work after a period of mourning (okay, it was monday) I settled back into my routine. It was then, I had a revelation. Although I had never realized it before, my co-workers wanted to talk to me. Perhaps I was happily distracted, or maybe I just plain couldn't hear them over the melodic strains of Social Distortion, but they had been attempting to communicate with me, and I had been missing out. Every junkie hits that moment, when they realize that their habit has become a hindrance on their life in some way. I realized that my physical and metaphorical attachment to those little earbuds were having a negative effect on my social life - and probably my hearing as well.

It's been two weeks. In a moment of optimism and desperation, I've just plugged my little buddy back into my computer, and imagine that... a tiny, faint apple appeared on it's screen. I'm joyous, but also wary. I hope that, given this second chance, my little friend and I can start over in a relationship thats a little more healthy, for both of us.