... or in this case, quite some years.
After my little "old lady" moment I started to think about all the things I remember... you know... from way back when. If I still owned everything I'd ever had, how much of it would be obsolete now?
Have kids these days ever seen a black and white TV?
We had two TVs, one colour of moderate size in the living room and a small black & white tucked away in the dining room. Mum and Dad always had most of the control when it came to the colour TV. I always remember watching TFI Friday on the little TV with a small [back when a small actually was small] Pizza Hut pizza. I'd have to adjust the dials [yes, dials children] to get a clear picture, which was always a problem if there was someone else in the room moving around.
We only had four channels but there was always something interesting or fun on to watch. I mean ACTUALLY interesting, I don't remember any reality shows as they are today. Challenge Anneka was always a family event, some good wholesome fun. Cookery programs without an angry chef. Classic game shows [Catchphrase will never be the same]. Unfortunately thought there was a lot of soap opera watching. Always Neighbours [ahhh Kylie and Jason], some times Home & Away, home grown Eastenders and Corrie before everything got a bit crazy and some Emmerdale thrown in.
TV was a treat. Eventually I got a TV with a video player in my room, and really everything was probably downhill from there.
Now my TV is an HD smart flat screen [I can't understand the fuss with 3D, if I wanted stuff that looked real I'd go out and see real people]. I've got it wired up to my computer so that I can watch YouTube and stream Amazon Video and Netflix etc [I can do that directly from the TV, it being "smart" and all, but it turns out the companies who make the apps aren't so smart and they're awful to use]. I've got TV apps on my phone and iPad that I can watch catch up TV on. Our flat has three flat screen TVs. Even when I'm not at my TV or phone I can stream video off the internet. I have a DVD collection that was too big to bring when I moved, it's somewhere north of 2000 but after a certain point you stop counting so you don't think about how much money you've spent. I have over 200 channels both TV, film and music!
It doesn't feel like progress to me. I don't watch anything on live TV anymore apart from Mock The Week... so that show has to get my highest praise of course. Cookery programs used to be my favourite, but now they aren't happy things. They used to be light hearted and the most competition you'd see was on Loyd Grossman's Masterchef. Now cookery seems to be a convoluted lecture or a harsh competition with more shouting than praise. Game shows have lost all meaning... you pick boxes now? Where's the adventure? What has happened to good old family fun?
We didn't have the built in hard drives to record on, you'd have a few hours of standard recording, more if you chose long play... but I have vague recollections that we didn't do that very often because the tapes either didn't last as long when you kept recording over them or the quality wasn't as good. If you were going away on holiday you'd program the VCR for the whole two weeks and a neighbour would have to come in and swap the tapes for you... and you'd have to keep your fingers crossed that none of your programs clashed because you'd have to pick, and that was tough with no catch up.
Michael McIntyre does the joke about pausing a video and it jumping about all over the screen... if only it was a joke at the time! Now you can pause live TV... wait... isn't that kind of pointless if you have catch up and a digital recorder?
All the fantastic advancements and I still can't find anything to watch!
After my little "old lady" moment I started to think about all the things I remember... you know... from way back when. If I still owned everything I'd ever had, how much of it would be obsolete now?
Have kids these days ever seen a black and white TV?
We had two TVs, one colour of moderate size in the living room and a small black & white tucked away in the dining room. Mum and Dad always had most of the control when it came to the colour TV. I always remember watching TFI Friday on the little TV with a small [back when a small actually was small] Pizza Hut pizza. I'd have to adjust the dials [yes, dials children] to get a clear picture, which was always a problem if there was someone else in the room moving around.
We only had four channels but there was always something interesting or fun on to watch. I mean ACTUALLY interesting, I don't remember any reality shows as they are today. Challenge Anneka was always a family event, some good wholesome fun. Cookery programs without an angry chef. Classic game shows [Catchphrase will never be the same]. Unfortunately thought there was a lot of soap opera watching. Always Neighbours [ahhh Kylie and Jason], some times Home & Away, home grown Eastenders and Corrie before everything got a bit crazy and some Emmerdale thrown in.
TV was a treat. Eventually I got a TV with a video player in my room, and really everything was probably downhill from there.
Now my TV is an HD smart flat screen [I can't understand the fuss with 3D, if I wanted stuff that looked real I'd go out and see real people]. I've got it wired up to my computer so that I can watch YouTube and stream Amazon Video and Netflix etc [I can do that directly from the TV, it being "smart" and all, but it turns out the companies who make the apps aren't so smart and they're awful to use]. I've got TV apps on my phone and iPad that I can watch catch up TV on. Our flat has three flat screen TVs. Even when I'm not at my TV or phone I can stream video off the internet. I have a DVD collection that was too big to bring when I moved, it's somewhere north of 2000 but after a certain point you stop counting so you don't think about how much money you've spent. I have over 200 channels both TV, film and music!
It doesn't feel like progress to me. I don't watch anything on live TV anymore apart from Mock The Week... so that show has to get my highest praise of course. Cookery programs used to be my favourite, but now they aren't happy things. They used to be light hearted and the most competition you'd see was on Loyd Grossman's Masterchef. Now cookery seems to be a convoluted lecture or a harsh competition with more shouting than praise. Game shows have lost all meaning... you pick boxes now? Where's the adventure? What has happened to good old family fun?
We didn't have the built in hard drives to record on, you'd have a few hours of standard recording, more if you chose long play... but I have vague recollections that we didn't do that very often because the tapes either didn't last as long when you kept recording over them or the quality wasn't as good. If you were going away on holiday you'd program the VCR for the whole two weeks and a neighbour would have to come in and swap the tapes for you... and you'd have to keep your fingers crossed that none of your programs clashed because you'd have to pick, and that was tough with no catch up.
Michael McIntyre does the joke about pausing a video and it jumping about all over the screen... if only it was a joke at the time! Now you can pause live TV... wait... isn't that kind of pointless if you have catch up and a digital recorder?
All the fantastic advancements and I still can't find anything to watch!
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