Testing the Water

Blogging. Texting. Twitter. The names themselves sound so unappealing, and can be even more intimidating to join when you are a member of the generation who remembers getting their first microwave oven.

I always used to tease my parents when they were hesitant to join in our technology. Back in the day, I had a pair of cordless headphones with a matching massive antenna so you could get AM/FM radio as you walk around the block. All you needed was six C batteries and the wonder contraption worked.

Then it was the Odyssey in home game player. Long before the Wii and PlayStation, this bad boy was amazing. We would play KC Munchin, a shameless steal of the infamous Ms Pacman. If I wasn't glued to the TV watching music videos (back when MTV actually was music television) I was playing arcade games from the comfort of my livingroom couch.

Then there was the cordless phone. Gone were the days of being land locked by a cord while having a conversation. Like Charlie's Angels who had phones in their cars, with a cordless, you could multi-task while you were on the phone. Put in a load of laundry, get the mail, use the restroom . . . just don't flush! These phones were a familiar relative of the bug-like headphones that predated the Walkman, the first cell phones were as big as my purse, with a battery pack that weighed as much as a large cucumber. Cool? Definitely. Convenient? Not on your life.

So here I am, squarely planted in middle age, and am getting the same smirks I gave my parents from my teenage daughter. Her opposing thumbs masterly text on her new cell phone which has evolved to the size of a pocket calculator. I am learning, that using vowels is just a waste of time, when texting and not only must one learn the how to operate the gadget, you must be bi-lingual. Able to speak the King's English and this post-modern-no-vowels-pigeon-speak.

So I text on my phone, have a Facebook page, and am now trying my hand at blogging. My niece has one, so does (gasp) my mother! So you can teach an old dog new tricks. But I am afraid that like the silver haired fox that can finally afford his sports car, there is a portion of the population that will not be able to raise the "cool-meter" like the generation that keeps inventing the latest must-have.

Nevertheless . . . look at me mom! txtg z fun! LOL. TTFN, C U ltr.