Are We Just Banging Along Too Fast?
I mean, "hold on just a gol-darn moment, thar!!!"

Remember how everyone touted the advantage of Compact Discs over phonograph records, back in the mid-1980s, and all of a sudden, records weren't being made anymore and CD's were forced upon us all? And remember those Time-Life Music info-mercials that attempted to sell oldies on CD, and the program host would say, "you don't have to listen to SCRATCHY OLD RECORDS ANYMORE because it is all recorded CRYSTAL-CLEAR on CD's!!!" (Okay, that's not an exact quote, but that's pretty much what they said.) Well, last nite, while trying to watch TV and compute (and doing neither very well), on came an info-mercial from Time-Life advertising great-sounding 50's music that you can hear IN ANY ORDER YOU WANT!!! I thot "huh?" and dragged my nose out of the computer to focus on the TV.

It seems that Time-Life was advertising 50's music on MP3! Huh? What? That's right, on an MP3!!! And the lady in the commercial said, "no more CD's; everything is right here at your fingertips; just take the MP3 outta the box, plug in the headphones, and off you go!" (Again, not an exact quote, but that was the sentiment she expressed.) So now, it's been formally acknowledged by the powers that be, that CD's are now dinosaurs, and you're supposed to throw them all in the same tar-pit you threw all your record albums in, and get 50,000 songs that are stored in a single unit about the size of a MATCHBOX. I don't know, but to me, anything that plays back music should have some moving parts; I love to sit and watch the turntable go 'round while the music plays. I don't think it would be quite the same, to position an MP3 on the desk in front of you and watch IT.


Gotta lotta CD's to throw in the trash heap? Here's an alternative!

In the mid-1980's, Beatle George Harrison once expressed chagrin at the demise of the 45 rpm single record, which fell by the wayside first, then followed by LP's. (I shouldn't have to tell you what an LP is.) I'm paraphrasing here, but Harrison said something to the effect that the human race ends up "banging along too fast" (he actually used that phrase), throwing out this and that in the quest for progress and perfection, and yeah, I kinda agree. And I really thought I was "getting with it", when I bought a CD RECORDER last year, and now Time-Life tells me I'm behind the times again. TIME-LIFE's magazine division already is planning for obsolescence, as are newspapers all around the nation...you can read them ONLINE.

So what's going to happen when COMPUTERS are replaced with something else? I've already gone from a desktop to a laptop. I suppose in the future, laptops will be the size of an MP3, while MP3's will be reduced to the size of a computer chip and injected in your skin so you can have your music with you all the time.
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In a recent post, I complained about Keith Olberman being on a football program. On his own program, though...he led off with a story tonite about Verizon, the nation's 2nd biggest telecommunications Company...it seems that Verizon, 94,000 times since 2005, 720 times without any kind of warrant, has provided information about its customers to the FEDS...and I suppose, again, the government will hide behind "executive privilege" and "national security". Shouldn't government GOVERN, not embark upon electronic witch-hunts?


No, that's not me. But that's how I feel when I get my Verizon bill.
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This whole Verizon-info thing is kinda ominous, especially when you factor in who's (allegedly) in charge of this administration...no small irony that the Prezzident's daddy, who was also Prezzident, used to be in the CIA. Ooooooh! I'd better stop right there. I'm beginning to sound like a lamebrained wacko conspiracy theorist.