Epilogue on Technology

Epilogue
But first a digression: I’ve spent enough time trying to figure out how to comment on my own post, thinking I would put the epilogue in a comment box, like you guys have done. Can’t find a way to comment on my own post, so — new post:

Yesterday, my son Bucky came over. He listened patiently to my grumbling, asked for a wire stripper, and before long he had the old radio/cd player fixed. I had fun saying Watch me! Watch me! as I moved around the stations and volumne etc. w/o looking.  (Tactile sense should not be so lightly discounted by the new engineers who design these new radios.)  He put up with all this silliness, and all it cost me was one Elizabeth’s mushroom and banana pepper pizza and a Corona.

Adam, I also have at least one old Sheaffer pen that I’d like to find, and one gold (coloured) fountain pen of a brand I forget. I’m about to start looking for those — you may have just started a run for the fountain pen industry.
Does anyone remember those inexpensive knock-offs that came around in, oh, maybe the early ’70s? Had fountain pen nibs but were filled with a cartridge. I actually like those, but then I don’t claim to have classy taste.

Now I have to decide what to do with this new $150 Brookstone iDesign radio/cd/ipod gizmo.  And also still curious about why it is that with all the other radios in our house (three) simply walking around in the room will cause static.  Sometimes just have to peel the potatoes standing in a different spot to clear the static.   Maybe I’m radio-active hee hee.

A yearning for older technology

For some years I’ve had in my office a radio/cd player that I like.

I like the remote control. I can sit at my desk and turn the radio on or off, or change the stations (I have only two presets) w/o even looking at what I’m doing. Just pick up the remote, feel the top right button for on/off, press it w/o even looking up. It’s an actual button — sticks up off the surface of the remote.

But for some months, maybe a year,  this radio  has picked up a habit of suddenly crackling and then going mute.  I have to turn it off and back on, sometimes more than once, to get it going again.

So fast forward to today– I have in here a new radio with ipod dock.
And a remote control.
Brookstone.
And I yearn for the older technology. This little remote control has no substance to it. It’s tiny and lightweight, and the “buttons” are just places on the surface that you press. Can’t do that without looking. Have to pick it up, hold it up close to read the tiny blue writing on a black background.

As I removed my old radio, I noticed one of the speakers had a wire that had come loose, almost off, just hanging. I think if I had re-attached that wire, I would have solved the problem.

So I’m wondering — do I keep the new radio that’s smaller (which is good) but not as easy to use? Do I fix the old one and bring it back in?

Do I take the old one to Goodwill and get used to the new one? Maybe I can stick pebbles onto the virtual buttons to achieve the tactile feature that the engineers of today don’t seem to value.

A chilled glass of Australian Chardonney (Little Penguin is my favorite, with Black Opal running close) solves many problems, but so far it has done little if anything for this one.