Technology Junkyard: Waste Not Want Not - Am I Officially Old?

I was trying to charge up my old iPod touch the other day after a news story came up on my LG Velvet mobile phone Google news feed regarding the obsolete iTunes store and how it will be gone soon. So, obviously, I had to check to see if my vintage tech was still working, powering up my iMac G5 PPC and checking to see if that still had iTunes. Happily, it still is up and running and even has all my music, radio stations, and even that funky screensaver with the psychedelic bouncy ball. The speakers were great on the relic of a computer but they may need a dusting or they are old, sounding a little scratchy on the left speaker. Running Tenfourfox as a browser and Open Office, I used this aged technology for simple paperwork, listening to my huge CD collection or radio. I noticed the browser is out of date and cannot be updated, while the Open Office software is probably obsolete too. 

I have quite a large vinyl collection and a few years ago I purchased a cheap Victrola record player to enjoy some old music enjoying memories from my mostly forgotten past. The sound isn't great but it has a radio, FM only as AM is analog and the radio waves are digital now apparently according to people who know these things. Regardless, it's great to have on in the background while I'm doing stuff around my apartment. It is a smaller version of what I had when CDs were king in the 90s. It had all of the above plus an equalizer and speakers. I have spent hours looking for the exact unit, noticing it in the living room of

Ken Barlow's home on Coronation Street as he listens to his classical vinyl records. I remember I gave that stereo to my grandfather while he was living in the seniors' home. I spoke of this in a past blog, reminiscing about his love for Don Ho and dancing with the women in the residence. I now play these CDs on many different vintage electronics - my iMac, my Blu-ray DVD player, or my MacbookPro from 2009.

I also have an enormous movie collection of VHS tapes although I have no VCR to play them. My parents gave me a player the other day that immediately chewed up a tape in 20 seconds so I yanked it out and tossed out the unwanted movie I used as a test. I keep them for no real reason other than the large collection of Rom-com and Meg Ryan movies I have. I may give them to an eccentric bar I know, Hail Mary's, that has shelving along the walls near the ceiling encircling the room - a VCR and small TV playing a random movie continuously during operating hours. 

Then there is this relic, my Gameboy that I found but I only have the Tetris cartridge, which is popular even today, but I used to have 20 cartridges. I am sure it's worth some money or more likely memories for every Gen Xer today. With it, I found a mini-cassette recorder with a used tape in it still. I'm certain it still has the incriminating proof of an ex-employee who was fired for stealing, the recording of him boasting about his skills in thievery - the recorder confiscated after he was removed from the restaurant I worked for at the beginning of the century. Oh, the crazy stories I could tell if only I could remember them all.

I have this phone too, another relic from the past. That's right, I have a landline. When the Rogers network went down a couple of years ago, this came in handy as my cell phone was useless unless there was wifi I could use. This was originally used to replace my old apartment buzzer, the console from 50 years ago that buzzed people into the building after the originating wall receiver became obsolete. When there was a huge power outage all through the area where I live the landline still worked. No need to drain your cell phone battery, but good luck if you can remember any phone numbers.

This weird blast from the past was my first computer, a Dell desktop which I ran on dial-up internet. It got me through some long nights chatting with people all over the world when I used to work nights. It ran like a dream at the time, at least I thought, and I learned the basics of Excel and Word. Far before cell phones and Facebook, I used it to hold pictures and videos I took with my cameras.

Long story short, why do I have all of this stuff gathering dust in my small 1 bedroom apartment? Is it like photo albums, collections of vinyl, CDs, VHS tapes, DVDs, or a large library of books already read and reread? Like a past friend of mine who stated recently all of her tattoos are chapters in her life, reading as her biography on every inch of her skin. Large racks of unworn or or never worn clothing, hanging in a closet losing their style every season. A collection of shoes when only a few select pairs have been chosen for daily use. What is all of this clutter with which we surround ourselves? I call them pillowy clouds of comfort, giving us a feeling of inner joy, filling us up with the memories of the past - when we were young and worry-free. If the purge happens will I be able to still remember? Regardless of the possible monetary worth of some of the items - some VHS movies are going for thousands of dollars - emptying my surroundings of these items could deplete my memory even more. Isn't that why we all take so many pics on our mobile phones - billions of selfies floating around in the cloud for eternity - to remember and prove we were there? 

I try to use all of my old electronics as much as I can before finally recycling them. Recently I was pleasantly surprised a suit I bought in the 2000s was still stylish and I could wear it to a Christmas party. I guess all I'm saying is no matter how old you are we all collect things to make us look back so we can see how far we have come. Perhaps our own little museum of our lives is not caught in a display case, but out in the open still being used and loved until it breathes its last breath. Yep, I'm old but I like where I came from - look around!!!