Survival

The other day I had a conversation with someone about how life sucked before we had cellphones. I was telling the story of how my brother and I ran out of gas somewhere and had to walk like ten miles to a gas station (luckily some fat broad picked us up). I then had to call my grandfather from a payphone to come and bring a gas can.

Nowadays this would be a simple fix (I would get gas before the damn thing ran out!)by just calling someone to bring gas to the car. No walking. This got me thinking though, yes cellphones have made life much simpler, remember going out to a bar and having to meet up with people? Now you just have to call them and find out where they are. Everything used to be such an ordeal.

I remember my second semester at PSU, I was the only person living at my apartment with a cellphone. If we would go out, we usually had to come up with a plan, like “let’s start at Saloon, then end at Sportscafe.” That way if anyone left to go somewhere else, they always knew where we would at least be at the end of the night.

As great as cellphones are, does anyone remember what life was like before the internet? All the things you take for granted about the internet. For example, if I was reading a book or watching a movie, and there was a reference to something I had no clue about, I could not just look it up on wikipedia. Instead, I would have to go and find the encyclopedia, which if you have not noticed take up a crapload of space.

Also, what happened if you missed an episode of your favorite show? You had to wait until summer time and catch the reruns. People would actually have to plan to be home to watch their favorite shows. I do remember my mom and dad telling me about how everyone used to gather at someone’s house and party on a Saturday night, and then watch SNL together. I would imagine that between beer and bong rips some of those old SNL sketches probably seemed funny. Now, just check ’em out on Hulu.

I cannot even begin to imagine what life must have been like sports wise. Having to wait for the paper or the evening news to just find out some scores? Heaven for bid there be a big trade one night, you would have to wait until the morning to know about it. Luckily when the McLouth trade happened, I had instant tweets from Rocco DeMaro telling me about it. Within seconds I was able to confirm the reports and find out the players involved. Without needing a journalism degree I was able to dig up all sorts of information about the deal. Absolutely amazing.

What the hell did we do during our spare time before the internet? It could not have been very productive…

Author: Ngewo

2 thoughts on “Survival

  1. I was thinking about some of the same stuff recently. The world is changed forever. Unless we get a mega solar flare that fries our satellites.

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