Where Everybody Knows Your Name

Hello Friends. I haven't written in a couple of weeks and thought i probably should. I mean, it is the right thing to do, isn't it??
Take a look at the graphic on the left for a moment. Pictured are a pair of TVs; one a clunker with rabbit ears and the other a modern flat screen. Some days i am awestruck with the advancements made in the Tech Industry over the last thirty years. More on that in a moment.
When i was in third or fourth grade, the teacher would assign story cards to us. You'd drag your person out of your seat and pick one from this plastic file box, return to your seat, read it, and answer questions from the back of the card. (Lavender Chick and/or Painted Groove Girl may remember this practice) One day i drew a card that has stuck with me these last four years since... Okay it's been more than four, but you get the idea: It stuck with me. The card i drew was on the SST; which stood for Super Sonic Transport. It talked about airline passengers being able to fly at speeds greater than the speed of sound cutting down on travel time. It went so far as to say you could wake up in London and eat lunch in New York. It's funny, that "some day soon" story turned out to be the British Airways Concorde. The Concorde flew for nearly thirty years and today it's just a memory. In my life, it went from a possibility, to a reality, to obsolescence. Toward that end, Telecommunications has followed suit.
I have great memories of dialing four numbers to make a call.  My kids will never ever know what it's like to get a busy signal when you absolutely have to tell someone something and it can't wait. I guess texting killed the busy signal. The TV only had three channels in the daytime, but some nights we'd pick up the PBS Station. Two of the channels had bad reception in the early evening and required regular tweaking of the rabbit ears. I remember how grateful i was as a teen to catch either The Midnight Special or Don Kirchner's Rock Concert; both of which preceded the message thanking you for viewing, but this concludes our broadcast day. Naturally, this was followed by the National Anthem and that stupid Indian test pattern thing and that annoying 440hz tone. I'm guessing on the tone, it sounded like an A to me. Here again, my kids will never have to find something to do when the broadcast day ends. We don't have ends to the broadcast day anymore; we have outages. The greatest thing though, was the radio. We had some mixed genre station back then and made terrible jokes about it. However, if you were out and about after it got good and dark, you could get KOMA out of Oklahoma City. For some of us, it was the place where we learned the songs and the bands who recorded them. Many a night i sat up with my friends hanging out, doing what kids do, and listening to a whole different world than the one i was growing up in. My poor boys, they don't know what they've missed. Their equivalent is to program an SD card with music and pop it into the stereo in my car. It's convenient, but it's just not the same. Between the two of them i have seen a hundred little girlie friends run through, but not a mix tape between them. That innocent intimacy from making a girl a mix tape is lost forever. I can't even imagine what they do these days. Do they text a bunch of YouTube links to a girl they like?? So not the same.
I've run a little far afield and I'm going to redirect myself now. Back to Television where i had planned to write. In '97, i made a bet with one of my former boss' that wireless, most assuredly the cell system, would be the go to medium in twenty years for everything. Instant communications, video calling, and you'd be able to watch anything you wanted past or present at will simply by bringing it up on your TV. I have to admit, i was a bit optimistic, but are we not nearly there?? I'd say that instant communications and video calling are a done deal and being able to watch anything past or present is nearly there.
I have a smart TV that is a few years old and a smart phone that I'm hoping Santa does something about at Christmas. together, they nearly remove the laptop computer from my life. Between the three i am nearly always online and available which makes things interesting at times.
 I get Facebooked to death. Then there are the people that would rather text than just dial the number and have a chat (though I'm not sure dialing is the right term for making calls today), and i love my Netflix. I have spent my lunch time over the last three weeks watching the entire series of The X Files from start to finish. It was awesome. For the last week, it's been Ally McBeal and yes i have introduced my guys to Norm and Cliff from Cheers. I must admit, watching entire series like this gives the storyline a much more linear feel to it and i love it.
I guess when it's all said and done, my phone isn't bound by my house: my TV isn't bound by scheduling, my book is never overdue, i carry all of my music with me all the time, and the list is growing every day. What will the world look like in another thirty years. Only time will tell, but I'd really like to see a little more Gene Roddenberry in its implementation.

and on that note, i feel my usual closing is lacking so I'll proffer,
Live Long and Prosper, D