Bo Eder
Platinum Member
So owning and playing vintage drums has gotten me to another 'vintage' point in my life. I'm replacing all my newfangled landline cordless phones in my house with regular ol' push button phones so popular in the 70s and 80s.
Last year I though I'd be slick and bought a cordless phone set for the house that came with five handsets, all cordless, and they're all linked to one base station that plugs into one phone line in the house. Well, biggest problem is this: when the batteries die in the handsets - they all died at the same time. Replacements cost $22 each. That's $120 for batteries after taxes and then you can't use the phones right away because they have to charge for at least 8 hours first!
Second problem: when you have a power outage - then you can't use the phones because the base station runs off of power! How stupid is that?
As I was lamenting the cost, the wife says, why don't we just get regular phones? And I thought, GENIUS! You remember how those all work: you just plug them into the wall and they work! NO batteries and they're not dependent on POWER!
On the one hand, I like modern amenities, like computers, but there are so many things that need batteries and have to be charged, I'm wondering how far we've really come? I'm also debating getting away from smartphones altogether (both me and the wife have iPhones) but the cost to usage ratio seems quite a bit one-sided. The cost of being connected is depressing (I pay $140 a month for two phones with unlimited data plans). And other than the occasional family member calling me, who calls me the most? WORK. And I don't need to hear from them as much as I do.
I'm being a curmudgeon, I know. But when I think of the cost of all this internet life-style and what I actually get done because of it, there's something completely out of balance. I'm almost tempted to just going back to the house phones and an answering machine!
It's like how I complain about that magazine, Modern Drummer. Well, you call them modern drummers, but the job hasn't really changed. So what's so modern about it? We're all slaves to marketing I suppose. Thanks for letting me vent. I guess my life is very 1970s - 'cause the computerized lifestyle hasn't really made me think thoughts like, "How did I ever live with out this?"
Last year I though I'd be slick and bought a cordless phone set for the house that came with five handsets, all cordless, and they're all linked to one base station that plugs into one phone line in the house. Well, biggest problem is this: when the batteries die in the handsets - they all died at the same time. Replacements cost $22 each. That's $120 for batteries after taxes and then you can't use the phones right away because they have to charge for at least 8 hours first!
Second problem: when you have a power outage - then you can't use the phones because the base station runs off of power! How stupid is that?
As I was lamenting the cost, the wife says, why don't we just get regular phones? And I thought, GENIUS! You remember how those all work: you just plug them into the wall and they work! NO batteries and they're not dependent on POWER!
On the one hand, I like modern amenities, like computers, but there are so many things that need batteries and have to be charged, I'm wondering how far we've really come? I'm also debating getting away from smartphones altogether (both me and the wife have iPhones) but the cost to usage ratio seems quite a bit one-sided. The cost of being connected is depressing (I pay $140 a month for two phones with unlimited data plans). And other than the occasional family member calling me, who calls me the most? WORK. And I don't need to hear from them as much as I do.
I'm being a curmudgeon, I know. But when I think of the cost of all this internet life-style and what I actually get done because of it, there's something completely out of balance. I'm almost tempted to just going back to the house phones and an answering machine!
It's like how I complain about that magazine, Modern Drummer. Well, you call them modern drummers, but the job hasn't really changed. So what's so modern about it? We're all slaves to marketing I suppose. Thanks for letting me vent. I guess my life is very 1970s - 'cause the computerized lifestyle hasn't really made me think thoughts like, "How did I ever live with out this?"