Things we don’t have anymore

Used to be high-tech and are now gone:
Poloroid cameras
Scotchgard (cans) – not replaced but found unsafe
cassette tapes
video tapes
floppy disks

Not gone yet, but quickly on way out:
fax machines
big boxy TV’s
CD’s
plain radios
daily newspaper printed on paper

I have to admit that I miss manual car windows. That’s probably weird for most people.

For the list:

– Typewriters

High diving boards

Two decades ago the high diving boards were removed from People’s Republic of Austin municipal park pools. I asked the head of the park department why and he said it was because of injuries. I ask how many had been injured and he said he didn’t know of any, but the risk was there.

Over the years there have been a few drowning deaths, so maybe park officials should remove the water, too.

Lets see… its odd you posted this since the little fabric tab on my tie broke this morning and I am using a tie tack. For full disclosure I’m 32.

In my daily life I still use:

Carbon paper – for some tax documents

Wite-Out – when I make the church bulletins

Tie tacks – as I am wearing today

Dial-up – DSL/Cable/Satellite is not available in my area
Sound of the modem starting up – it still happens, but I can turn it off.

Non-wireless Internet – Come on, its more stable than woreless, its what I use at church.

Diaper pins – used them this morning for my daughter’s diaper

Wall-mounted pencil sharpeners – have one in my garage workshop as well as the Sunday School

Manual car windows – My 2004 Kia has them

Stovetop popcorn poppers – Makes the best popcorn, and they still sell them all over.

Film – I do have a digital camera I use most of the time but I still mess around with this, can’t afford a nice digital camera with changeable lenses

High diving boards – I plan on watching high diving at the olympics. There is a high dive board in one of the parks in Clayton, Missouri for public use.

Roller Skates (as opposed to Roller Blades)

Baby Walkers with wheels

Large chalk boards (I just got one from business that finally switched to white boards. You cannot get these things any more!) (Well, I suppose a school could, but not your average homeschool family.) (and most schools that I have seen recently have gone dry-erase)

This list is really off the mark. In fact, my secretary is typing something on a typewriter as I type this. We have some legal forms that have to be done this way. Any guesses on what she’ll do if she makes a mistake?

We also use bike messengers all the time. Those folks are amazing, they have a weird looking attachment that straps on to the person – not the bike that allows them to carry up to four document boxes at a time. I moved about 15 boxes of exhibits from my office to the courthouse via bike messenger last year for a trial. We also use them everyday for filing papers with the court. They are not going anywhere soon.

Shoehorns? Is this person crazy. I use one all the time. They help to keep your shoes in good shape.

I make my wife popcorn at least three nights a week in a stove-top popper. It makes the best popcorn.

Also, unfortunately, my daughter was given a UNICEF box from her (former) public school.

Choose your own adventure books are also still around.

Full service gas stations still exist and in fact it is illegal to pump your own gas in some states.

Electric frying pans are not going anywhere either. They are perfect for deep frying (they maintain a constant oil temp. better than a stove top) and making pancakes.

Things on the way out:

Manual transmissions

Shoe polish (friends of mine were amazed at how my shoes look–they’d never opened a can of Kiwi or Meltonian to see how good shoes could look)

Wool clothes (apart from things for marryin’ and buryin’)

Clothes that fit (knits are pushing out decent sewn goods)

Real food (compare virtually anything you can buy to anything you bake at home using real butter and sugar)

Fine woodworking (but we can buy it for $100 at Wal-Mart!)

I hope I’m wrong on all these, by the way.

I think the reactions here show that many things presumed on the way out actually aren’t — they may have merely lost their popularity and retreated to a niche audience. If something is a good idea, it’ll tend to stick around until it truly is replaced.

For instance, just this morning, the half-and-half I put in my coffee came from a glass bottle, which I’ll return to the grocery store to get my deposit back. And the beans I put in my coffee were ground by me in a hand mill. Some of this may be attributed to the fetishization so common among coffee lovers, it’s true, but some of it is because those old ways really do offer advantages. Namely, the elimination of cardboard waste and improving on the lousy job most (cheap) electric grinders do.

So I won’t miss the demise of the cassette, which was always a horrible technology. The portable and recordable benefits it offered were long ago superceded by the CD, and now the MP3 player.

But I won’t give up my wool socks or homemade food (referring to some of Bike Bubba’s list @13), and all you have to do is travel outside of North America to find out how popular manual transmissions are. My wife bought a Whirly Pop popcorn popper last year for our friends who probably think microwave popcorn is meh.

I think the reason most people migrate to the newer options, though, is because they’re cheaper, and people can’t distinguish, or don’t care about, the quality. Perhaps this is due to poor math skills — microwave popcorn is more expensive per serving than bulk kernels, but amortizing the cost of a stovetop popper can be confusing.

Another thing we don’t have anymore: The “Issues etc.” radio show on KFUO and the internet. Its loss is a real blow for gnesio-Lutherans and the true Gospel of the Cross.

What Pete says is true. I just called KFUO and they confirmed this horrible news. No reasons given for this loss. Today we lost my favorite radio show.

oh sorry I did not read petes coment before I posted. I guess I am so steamed about this. I hope this was not done for political reasons. If the synod is broke and has to sell kfuo that is won thing..but if they are trying to squelch wilkins message that is quite another..

I hope God turns this around and resurrects Wilkens program as an independent ministry. I hope God raises up leaders who can sucessfully bring to account those responsible for shutting down this voice for orthodoxy.

I don’t know if this is stretching the theme of this blog but I now know that as of today, due to powers yet unknown, we no longer have the ability to listen to the Issues, etc program on KFUO. What’s happening at the Missouri Synod?

Note: I had not read the previous quotes before I wrote this as it appears many feel the same as I do. I quess I was too upset and just wanted to vent.

I’ve missed wing windows for years. Nothing ventilates like wing windows did.
Something I’ve missed having around is the test pattern on the television, meaning that stations once had the good graces to stop broadcasting for a few hours. Talking heads gave it a rest. (Actually, there weren’t so many know-it-all talking heads in those days. They were consigned pretty much to Saturday and Sunday afternoons.)

No answers yet from the Board for Communication Services of the Missouri Synod as to why Issues Etc. is no longer. I hope there are answers soon.

Yes, don’t just blog – get on the phone lines. I just checked again to see if they are giving any answers for this outrage yet. But no. Keep checking and working for ways to resurrect Issues Etc. The Missouri Synod can’t control all the airwaves.

If the LCMS/KFUO does not offer a reasonable explanation to why this event has occurred, then I am inclined to finding a way to get Pastor Wilken and his producer back in business. In my humble opinion would include diverting money sent to KFUO to supporting these men in this wonderful ministry.

I have expressed to Rev. David Strand my great disappointment over this decision and have requested strongly the reason for making such an abrupt conclusion of Issues, Etc.

Since this was such a public and discouraging event, I believe all of us are deserving an explanation, In that way any speculation can be put to rest, especially to the people that have faithfully supported KFUO financially.

Well thanks to the bureaucrats in St. Louis, we no longer have Issues, Etc.

Wilken, Schwarz and Ron Paul, all lost in the same year. When will their angry supporters figure out that it’s over? What will we do without their angry point of view?