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Blame the Internet!
10 Plays3 days ago
The internet giveth and the internet taketh away! No, seriously. It gave us My Space and Geocities then took away CDs and tapes and magazines and maps and our sanity. Our generation was there at the birth of the WWW monster that consumed us and left us with a pocket full of fiction. Join us as we laugh our way through Josh's blogs and cry with us as we mourn the demise of the Yellow Pages and the good old fax machine with its never ending roll of fading memos.
What do you miss that the internet gobbled up? Go to Speakpipe.com/genx4lifepodcast and leave a short message!
Have a YZZ! day!
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Transcript
The 'Pokemon Syndrome': Mispronunciation of Toy Names
00:00:01
Speaker
So I'm going to start right off by so but by reading something. It's not too long. I'm going to read this. It is called the Pokeman Syndrome. Oh, there's something already wrong with that sentence, but anyway.
00:00:15
Speaker
They're called Beyblades, and they're a spinning battletop that's been on the market before, and they're flying off the shelves. So why can't people call them by their correct name? Beyblade is not a difficult word to pronounce, but for some reason it comes out as Blay-Blay or Blaze-Blay.
00:00:30
Speaker
Sometimes. Bayes, play, blade, blade, blaze, blaze. And just today I witnessed a woman standing in front of a wall of the nonsensically named spinners while talking to someone on her cell phone. And she renamed them blaze blaze.
00:00:46
Speaker
It's right on the package. I call it the Pokemon Syndrome, or PMS for short. It started a whole bunch of years ago when the Japanese pocket monsters invaded North America. Pokemon was brilliant shortening of the pocket monster brand, and it was a hit.
00:01:01
Speaker
Pockets were being filled by the hundreds of thousands with cards and creatures and balls. But then the name change began. Pokemon. Do you want to get some Pokemans?
00:01:11
Speaker
Where are your Pokemans cards? How much is this Pokemon worth? I get that most parents don't get it or they just don't care enough to bother. It's just another freaky plastic alien that will jam up the washing machine or have to be pulled from Rover's jaws.
00:01:26
Speaker
It's when the kids don't get it that it becomes disturbing. After all, they watch the show. They see the commercials. They go online. ah They watch the flash animation websites that repeat the name of the product hundreds of times a second to be sure that the catchy non-words stuck to the insides of their skulls, at least until college.
00:01:46
Speaker
So where is the breakdown happening? It could just be that the makers of these miniscule monster robot vehicles have run out of words to effectively describe their products. The more they make up, the worse they get.
00:01:58
Speaker
And it's even more difficult when the origin of the toy is Japanese and doesn't translate well to begin with. Tamagotch anyone? Bee da man? Pretty soldier sailor moon?
00:02:10
Speaker
So we're stuck being translators of unwords to help hapless parents and kids spend their pokey money on battle plastic Transformer Bada bunnies. And don't get me started on Lego.
00:02:21
Speaker
Or lots of Lego. Which is still Lego, not Legos.
00:02:31
Speaker
Oh, that was beautiful. Hey, don't
Introduction to Yabba Zonkter Zoinks Podcast
00:02:36
Speaker
turn that channel. You've reached Yabba Zuckers Wings, the Saturday morning podcast where your host, Josh Downing, that's me, will take you on a trip through a Gen X Saturday morning of cereal, toys, cartoons, and so much more. So grab your honeycombs and your favorite Micronaut and sit back and enjoy.
00:02:54
Speaker
ah So, listeners, this is Josh. I'm your host of Yabuzunker Zoinks, and I'm joined here today with Tyler, who is very excited about this thing that I just read. Do know what that's from? As soon as you read the title, i was like, oh...
00:03:13
Speaker
pokey man like oh anyway sorry no no what's it from so you don't know who the author of that is oh no yeah you do it's me oh oh well it's kind of funny you say that because when you were reading it i kind of felt like oh did you write this and i well you already said that you're just gonna read something so that okay well then yes of course that makes sense so today's today's topic is The internet.
Josh's Unfinished Toy Blog and Digital Trends
00:03:39
Speaker
so we're Oh, gosh. I know. It seems kind of broad. But it's really funny. I was going through some some bookmarks in my computer.
00:03:47
Speaker
And I'm like, what is this? This looks like something that I saved that I wrote. This is a blog I started to write. ah I want to say back, I think that the latest episode was back in 2010. So that's already years ago.
00:04:06
Speaker
that's crazy Yeah. Oh, sorry. 2012 was my last, that my last published blog. I started it and I didn't finish it. Typical ADHD, but it was one of those things where I was going to start this whole thing where I was talking about, you know, toys in our modern age, um, from a toy collector point of view, somebody who was in the toy business.
00:04:28
Speaker
And I was reading this and like, okay, this is some funny crap. So I'm like, I gotta, I gotta work this into an episode somewhere. Nothing drives me more crazy than when kids say it
Toy Misnaming in Schools
00:04:41
Speaker
wrong. I know. Isn't that nuts?
00:04:42
Speaker
Like, come on. And the thing is, just one kid got it wrong, and then, you know, take it to school, and now everybody's got it wrong. It does. Right. But it's one of those things where umve I've now, you know, kind of captured that moment in time because as somebody who is at the time working in the toy business, this was something I faced every day. People would come in and say, hi. who Sorry about that. That was, that was Tyler's Pokemon.
00:05:13
Speaker
Gotta catch them all. pu Poke dog. Poke dog. <unk> ah It was just one of those weird things. So I blogged about it.
Early Internet Experiences
00:05:23
Speaker
so ah So today's episode, we're going to talk about weird things on the Internet, because as Gen Xers, we were kind of right there at the beginning of this whole Internet thing. and we were We were adults, so we could buy computers if we wanted to.
00:05:38
Speaker
Or go to internet cafes. Totally. So that's exactly it. You and i were so excited about this whole thing. We just, we went and we spent, I don't know how much it was, like 40 bucks or something.
00:05:51
Speaker
So we could sit in a cafe and wait an hour for one thing to pop up. Right. This is before search engines. Yes. i think we didn't even know what the heck, ah um what was it called?
00:06:07
Speaker
like the The page itself, I know it came from Netscape. Yeah, think i had my my brain... I mean, that was like 20 years ago. No.
00:06:18
Speaker
You'd have to open up ah the browser. You'd have to open up a browser, but I don't think they were called browsers back then. was just the internet. yeah It was the World Wide Web. Yeah, yeah. to be perfectly we would can we Can we rent some please? It was Yes.
00:06:38
Speaker
ah And it was the very beginning of the internet. And i i don't I don't think I even had an idea of what it was going to end up being, that it was going to just sort of permeate our entire life.
00:06:52
Speaker
In 1994, when I was still living in Vancouver, i was going to take a course in 1995 on the internet. like what was What was that class? It wasn't about making websites. didn't even know what that class was going to be. Oh.
00:07:07
Speaker
Oh, the origin? Yeah, exactly. The military designed a, you know, chat feature. Yeah, that's possible. and That they're going to roll out to everybody. And we were all like, what? What?
00:07:20
Speaker
What do you mean? i can get electronic messages? But we don't even have computers in our home. Exactly. Wait, where's the radio shack? Yeah, yeah exactly. there They all know what to do.
00:07:32
Speaker
And remember just like, I was so, so not informed that I had that computer that had been like souped up from my business. And I thought for sure this thing was like internet ready. And when I was talking to the guy at Radio Shack, he's like, oh yeah, no.
00:07:52
Speaker
Oh. No, you need to buy this $3,000 monitor, keyboard, and hard drive with like a six megabyte you know storage or something.
00:08:05
Speaker
And I'm like, six megabytes? That's enormous. I don't know. And you're going to need a dial-up modem. Totally. Yeah. And it was a very, I think I had the very slowest dial-up modem because I already spent $3,000 on this little computer.
00:08:21
Speaker
Just to visit the
Japanese Websites and Digital Cameras
00:08:22
Speaker
14 websites that existed. yeahp Was there that many? i know we were trying to find stuff from Gatchaman, but there was there was nothing. yeah it was It was kind of easy to find stuff from Japan because lots of Japanese people had websites.
00:08:38
Speaker
Well, yeah, they'd they'd already had it for 30 years. With color photographs, I might add, that would only take four minutes to load. Do you remember that? Like those those line by line GIFs, it would just be like ah s line, line, line. The kids today have no idea. my gosh. we We can't even take them back to show them because we didn't have a device to record it. There was no video. There was no sound. But like, do you ever, there's, there's videos on YouTube that show you like old websites and it's yeah fascinating, you know, the horrible fonts, you know, and, and they're all, you know, reflecting or whatever, and just bad gifts and just, you know, oh ugly, ugly websites. Or your website would be like a yellow background with some like torches on the wall. These little yeah pixelated torches. so funny that you had to fight to my yeah Exactly.
00:09:35
Speaker
Welcome to my world. So funny. of po Yeah. Pokeman. if Pokemans. Yes. and bla I have scanned every card. Oh, no. that's All 12 of them.
00:09:48
Speaker
Because there's only 12 cards back then. Totally. It was only the first set. Wasn't even a game yet. so i Wasn't even a game yet. But yeah, it was just it was a crazy time and it happened so fast.
00:10:02
Speaker
It was a life changer, that's for sure. Right? And then ah that was it. Like for the longest time I had, um, I, and I was always an early adopter. Like as soon as I could spend money, i would be like, oh, oh, there's a new kind of, uh, you know, um, there's a new kind of, I don't know. I so i have no words tonight. It's, uh, the, the, the signal into your house. So it used to be dial up and then they went to like the fiber optic or something. Yeah.
00:10:30
Speaker
And I was so excited. i remember in the late 90s, maybe not even the late 90s, but like somewhere shortly after 95, and you were living in Thorncliffe. And you were like, look at this. And it was a video GIF. And so maybe it was like 30 seconds long. i don't even if it was that long.
00:10:50
Speaker
And I was just like, how how are you looking at this? I got don't understand. how How did you get this? Like, whoa, like this is like video. Yeah. no So funny. Yeah. Yeah, and it's weird, too, because i i was already a video gamer, so I had already been exposed to the earliest um sort of live motion capture video in a game, like that famous Sega game with ah the girls being murdered in the house.
Early Mobile Phones and Tech Advancements
00:11:16
Speaker
um but it And it was just the crazy. like How can you like you know transfer real live video into this game? Yeah.
00:11:27
Speaker
But then we were suddenly seeing it on the internet and it was very strange. And I remember that I, I was an early adopter for a a mobile phone. They weren't sells yet, but it was a mobile phone. And it was like the size of, you know, like a military mash phone.
00:11:46
Speaker
do you remember that was big black one weighed about six pounds. Yeah. And no screens. And it was just buttons and it would sometimes work and sometimes not.
00:11:57
Speaker
Remember all that coding that you would have to do by hand? Yes. You load it and it's like, oh, what's wrong? Something's wrong in the code, you know, because you have a colon instead of a semicolon or something. and it's like, oh, that's the problem.
00:12:11
Speaker
Yeah, so i used to I used to write all the code for my own website. Yeah, it was easy back then. yeah like It wasn't that difficult. like I was doing it. Now I'm like, oh, i have no idea. now Everything would be in DOS.
00:12:24
Speaker
you know yeah Totally. It would be a yellow background with a couple of torches because that's all I remember how to code. so But there's only torch because you forgot a line. Totally. It was half a cat. Cat torch.
00:12:42
Speaker
Oh man. So that's one of the weird things that we were talking about devices not so long ago, but the whole computer age hit us so quickly. And I've, I think I've, I've been one of those people, I obviously ADHD brain. I'm like, Oh, that's new. I'm going to try that.
00:12:57
Speaker
And I, I was always trying something new, like a build my own website. I was building toy collecting websites you know i I launched the PowerDome, which was my PowerRanger toy collection on the web, which is still out there, by the way, PowerDome.com, still up there for now.
00:13:15
Speaker
um It just goes to somebody else's site, though. doesn't have a yellow background. um but And then I was blogging, and then email was was kind of a big thing. But we were also using messaging devices. Do you remember like message boards where you could go and chat with people?
00:13:36
Speaker
In other countries. Yeah. I think we were on a couple of like Sailor Moon boards at the time. oh that's possible. Do you remember that? Wait, wait, wait. You looked just horrified. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
00:13:48
Speaker
Jasmine. That was her name. Jasmine. Remember her? Yeah, yeah. he was the She was the lord over that one. Yeah, yeah that would and that that was a big deal, like having those those message boards. And it was live.
00:14:02
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. You'd type things, and it would be on like sort of a grayish background. And you could share pictures, but it would take an hour to load. Yeah, but once they came through, woo-hoo!
00:14:13
Speaker
Yeah, all eight pixels right there. when you think about the internet in 1995 and the internet of 2000, and the internet of two thousand By the time 2000 came along, it's like, oh, we have everything now, right? Here's Amazon. Everything's good, right? We don't need anything for it. We've conquered it, right? And then, of course, it just got better and better.
00:14:37
Speaker
You're right. that's That's only a few years yeah yeah that we went from like Stone Age right to like Jetsons kind of stuff. yeah Yeah, you're right. that that's That was a short window.
00:14:52
Speaker
PayPal came around was like oh thank you well yeah think about eBay that was one of the first major yeah we got on that 97 yeah you remember bid pay yes where you would pay bid pay and then they would send a money order to whoever was that you were buying something from oh my god
00:15:17
Speaker
that's crazy name along it's like oh thank you that's enough of that Yeah, and then they got and then they got incorporated into eBay, so that made that easier. But you're right, everything was a big hassle.
00:15:29
Speaker
I remember when Amazon bought CD Now, and I was like, wait, CD Now is is my favorite website. You know, anyway. oh that's right. knew Amazon would get so huge.
00:15:43
Speaker
Yeah, totally. Well, and some of the earliest ah online sites were with the bookstores. Right. Like so we had Indigo was Indigo, right?
00:15:54
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And ah that was like, well, hey, we can order books because we, you know, I guess in here, I don't remember us having a lot of big bookstores, but there was bookstores around. But then it was just easier. You could just get stuff from anywhere that was not necessarily in the bookstore. Yeah.
00:16:12
Speaker
I don't remember when Amazon came to Canada. Like I remember really being apart from the States, but I don't remember when like amazon.ca was suddenly there. Like I remember ordering from it, but I don't remember when it launched.
00:16:24
Speaker
Yeah. So what are some, what are some things that you did? Like, I know I blogged a lot and I tried different ways to blog. I was, you know, did WordPress sites and I did photo sites from my toy collections.
Personal Websites and MySpace Era
00:16:41
Speaker
Were there things that you did? i had a personal website and I had a Scooby-Doo collecting website. And I would come home and there'd be all these messages from people like all over the world asking about stuff on my Scooby-Doo site. And I'd be like, how are you finding it? Because I don't remember how we used to go to, like, i remember going to, what was it called?
00:17:07
Speaker
Oh, Metacrawler. Is that what it was called? just going to say, you'd have to go in and put meta words in your HTML. Yeah. So I really didn't understand how people were finding it, but it's like, okay, whatever. So I answering questions all the time, but like I lost interest. You know what I mean? Because, well, actually that's not true. I remember things were advancing and it was like, Oh, this is getting ahead of me now.
00:17:29
Speaker
You know, even though I liked everything I had, it was like all of a sudden you'd be like, Oh, but their site's better or old. There's just a little cooler. And it's like, oh, well, I either need to now go and properly learn how to do this or bail.
00:17:43
Speaker
you know So I bailed. I bailed on my personal website and I bailed on my Scooby-Doo website. But i don't know if I had anything else. But it it was fun. i enjoyed doing that. yeah. you know And socially, there was no limit. Remember LiveJournal?
00:18:00
Speaker
Yes. Yeah, like there's just – there was unlimited social, you know, online too. So you were meeting people from all over the world before that would ever, ever have happened.
00:18:12
Speaker
Yeah, that's totally true. Like Dive Journal was like my first – um experience where i actually met people in real life because of an online journal. So people think like MySpace is old and funny and like, well, I loved MySpace. Before MySpace.
00:18:30
Speaker
Totally. MySpace was really cool, though. I loved it. Because it was it was a place to sort of collect your own kind of stuff, right? It was mostly about music. It's fascinating how things catch on or they don't. Like, why did MySpace not survive?
00:18:49
Speaker
And even though Facebook is for grandmas, it's still the juggernaut. You know what I mean? but so and Yeah. And it started with us. yeah we were all early adopters. we We were all on Facebook, you know, shortly after it launched. yeah You know, we all jumped on eBay.
00:19:04
Speaker
Do you remember GeoCities? i remember the like the word i don't So GeoCities was like the first kind of, they i to me, they were kind of like the the precursor to the whole Google world. GeoCities was where you could go and you can get your own email address.
00:19:22
Speaker
And then eventually you could get your own web building space and you could build your own GeoCities site. So it was sort of that that environment where you could just do everything in one space. And it was also a search engine. Yeah.
00:19:38
Speaker
And I remember I had tons of Geocity sites. And you remember you're saying about how things changed. A lot of stuff was getting gobbled up. Yeah, that's true. Right. I think that's a lot of what happened, right?
00:19:51
Speaker
these These little companies that were starting and doing really well were getting gobbled up by bigger companies that were like, well, hey, I want that technology or I want that that access to customers. Right. So they they disappeared because that. I mean, Yahoo was, was it you know, it was the place to go at one point.
00:20:09
Speaker
I remember, like, because I used to collect movie posters back then more than now, and they would all, even though the website would be on the poster, would still say keyword. I'm like, why? You've got the domain right there. you still want me to go to AOL and type it in, you know?
00:20:30
Speaker
Yep. Did you have an AOL count? No, no. I think I did. had a lot of AOL discs. Yeah. Everybody did. i don't know why we had them. yeah They just gave them away free on the street, I think. They were in everything. Yeah. yeah I remember when we launched Windows at HMV and now you can go on the World Wide Web and they came in and they decorated the place in webs.
00:21:00
Speaker
And I'm like, hey, I don't really get it. They were these thick white gym ropes, you know yeah like spider webs hanging everywhere. And remember how Friends, the the cast from Friends, were the Microsoft...
00:21:15
Speaker
We were running the the Friends commercials on all the moderators. Oh, my goodness. I'm standing there going, what what are we doing? What's happening? happened What's Microsoft? and And what's the web? you know Because michael I know what the internet is, but i don't know what the web is.
00:21:32
Speaker
is This is a Spider-Man promotion. it was just the weirdest thing. bizarre. Can imagine some kids seeing that today? They would just laugh. it's like well Everything has to start somewhere. Why don't you think it's cool? You know what I mean?
00:21:47
Speaker
But anyway. Yeah, it it was ah it was a weird thing. And it happened so fast. I remember thinking it was only for business, right? So when I found out Beastie Boys had a website, i remember thinking,
00:22:01
Speaker
well, that's not cool. It's just supposed to be businesses, not yeah entertainment. you know i don't know why that stopped me, but i that was the first banned website that I think I ever went to.
00:22:14
Speaker
I can't think of any that i remember. I remember that i think with i when I was following Gary Newman stuff back then, I think he was still GaryNewman.net, which was so weird to me. I'm like, why are you using.net?
00:22:29
Speaker
But it was just a weird choice, I guess, at the time. Probably because whoever said, I can get you a website, Gary. Yeah. Yes, totally. at And he's like, I don't know what that is I don't know.
00:22:41
Speaker
Sure, go ahead. It'll be gone. Exactly. How much is it going to cost me? a pound? All right, go for it. Totally. Yeah, I was always looking for places to host pictures because, of course, I have – I don't know. I want to say like close to 3000 pictures of the toy collection that I had over the years.
00:23:01
Speaker
And I always trying to find a ghost digital camera. Oh my God. Yes. My big camera with the big disc. It took a floppy disc. Yeah. yeah that was I love that camera. so many mavika That's when I could understand technology.
00:23:15
Speaker
Right. Like two best buys to find that. Yeah.
00:23:21
Speaker
It's so funny. have not changed. but Did it come from the Future Shop? I think it came from the Future Shop. ah That makes sense. The Future Shop, like the one that's like, ah sorry, everybody, you don't care. The Dufferin, like North on Dufferin.
00:23:35
Speaker
you remember? Yeah. It's a really difficult one to get to. And I think that's where you finally found they had one. I don't care to get it. i just if If my brain clicks on something, I have to have it, and I will drive to 12 locations if I have to.
00:23:55
Speaker
This is a true fact about me. i still do it. I got that camera once. It was a hand-me-down from you, and I loved it. I loved it. You don't still have it? No.
00:24:06
Speaker
What? Sorry. It's too heavy. It's too heavy, but ah you could build some so like upper strength. exactly. It was a great camera.
00:24:17
Speaker
But i would still I would still hold it up like this. yeah you you know that the The lens is way over here. Not up to my eyes. No, no, it was awesome. And I i went through digital cameras like crazy. yeah I think I remember one of the first things I bought was that little device that you could connect to your TV and then you press the button and it would capture an image from your TV.
00:24:41
Speaker
That sounds familiar. Yeah. And i I don't know the technology was, but it was magic. And I just never could get that thing to really work. So I was so frustrated. Sony had one. i don't know if you remember the Sony store that was Davie Street. do you remember that?
00:24:56
Speaker
There was a shopper's old cart and the Sony store was like... Yeah, yeah, yeah. yeah yeah And I went in one day and they had... This is like 94. And they had a machine there, you know, like about yay big.
00:25:09
Speaker
And ah so ah small machine for those folks not watching me. And they had the Terminator on on a television and he was just printing out shots from the movie. He would just hit the printer and out it would come, you know, standard photo size. And I was just like, this is the most incredible thing I've ever seen in my life. You know, like you are printing, printing the Terminator.
00:25:34
Speaker
But what are you going to do with those pictures? Totally. But he didn't have like a three foot long dot matrix printer. No, these were photographs, like glossy photographs, which yeah I remember. right You know, so. Yeah.
00:25:50
Speaker
and I remember that technology because I was like, well, I want that. I can't imagine working in one of those electronics places where you're just seeing everything just constantly in place. Yeah. Imagine going to the to the team meetings. Yeah, no. The annual team meeting where they're like, guess what we're rolling out next.
00:26:08
Speaker
i've I've always said I marvel at these kids who work in like cell phone places and stuff who just know all the new tech as it comes every week. It's beyond me, that's for sure.
00:26:21
Speaker
Well, yeah, and it's beyond us old guys now because we're just like, yeah, no, I'm i'm comfortable with the you know my iPhone 3. yeah Well, it does seem like things have settled. like I'm sure others would disagree, but it just seems like, okay, well, we're settled. You what I mean? I have my 4K player, have my iPhone. Everything seems a little chill right now. you know Yeah.
00:26:45
Speaker
Yeah. Changes are coming. I'm sure. yeah I don't want change. That's too expensive. It's too expensive. I like my, my three gig, you know, five network, uh, digital signal.
00:27:00
Speaker
It works sometimes. Do you remember the first thing you bought online? No, I don't. like I don't remember. it would have come down. I was hoping you'd remember. Oh, He'd be like, it was a Super Sentai something.
00:27:15
Speaker
like I'm sure it was from eBay. Whatever I bought was either from CD Now or eBay, but I don't remember what it was. Yeah, it was probably eBay. because we we were I think I started eBay right when it started. Yeah, in 97.
00:27:30
Speaker
yeah yeah And I was like... Remember, like eBay was like that couple and San Francisco. If you had a question, you just emailed them. yeah I would answer you in like a minute. you know Totally. Dreaming that thing would take off. Oh, seriously.
00:27:47
Speaker
Yeah. Seriously. oh It was amazing. Yeah. and it just it opened up the world for us. Yeah. Yeah. So it's funny because... You don't think of Gen X as being that sort of technology generation because really it was the generation after us that grew up with this. But we were all there at the beginning.
00:28:08
Speaker
So like I said, we were early adopters. you know I was the one of the first people I knew that had a computer in my house. I've always said i'm happy that I was 25. when we got the internet because if I was younger, i would not, there's no way I would go to school. in the house I would have been addicted yeah because like all that information yeah i crave, like I was a magazine guy and every weekend I'm buying tons of magazines and you know and just devouring the information it's giving me. If you'd give me the internet in high school, yeah access to the bands that I love,
00:28:47
Speaker
you know eight ah and i just i wouldn't i wouldn't have left. I know that. I know me. So yeah I'm glad that that didn't happen while I was younger.
00:28:57
Speaker
Yeah. and And it's scary, though, for that generation that did get that and the generations that are still... you know the the The minute you're a kid, you're you're turning on this device. It's just downloading nonstop. And I know for me as an adult, it's it's tough.
00:29:14
Speaker
It's hard to put my phone down. Even though I know it's it's overloading my poor little brain. like i I can't go without it because I'm still an information junkie.
Digital Consumption: Past vs. Present
00:29:25
Speaker
But I'm talking, I'm on it for half an hour in the morning and maybe 10 minutes at night. Wow. So like like that's all.
00:29:34
Speaker
Wow. Yeah, i'm I'm still struggling. I'm still struggling to put it down more often than I do. well but i i'm not I'm not doing it before I go to bed now because it really does disrupt my sleep.
00:29:47
Speaker
So I'm not doom scrolling and I'm not doom scrolling in the morning either. But if you're enjoying it, then I kind of don't see any harm. You know, what I don't understand is people who are just like looking for anything just to keep going.
00:30:01
Speaker
you know like i Just scrolling. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I wouldn't want that because eventually, you know, like how have you not run out of interest? You know what I mean? When it's just feeding you anything at this point, you know? Yeah.
00:30:15
Speaker
Yeah. And so much of it these days is not even real. But I do miss the days of like whoever you were following let's say on Instagram is all you're being fed and you could catch up to where you finished off the last time you were on. And now it's just like, how come I don't see anybody that I follow, even though they're posting, you know, or on Facebook, how come my, my feed is just ads and things they think I'll be interested in. I'm like, well, yeah people extreme following why can't I ever see that? You know? So, but there's no way could live without it Absolutely. no way no I need that information. crave it. love the connection. Yeah.
00:30:56
Speaker
God. Yeah. Yeah. I love the access that it gives me. But like, look at all these people who are in these group chats or family chats, you know, and I'm like, Oh, that's gotta be, wouldn't want that, you know, cause it's like, Oh, grandma wants us all at whatever on Sunday. I'm like, no, I don't want,
00:31:16
Speaker
i don't want people like controlling me like that Well, for me, I'm i'm on some family chats on Facebook just because it's a good way for us to connect, right? Because they're on the other side of the country. oh it So I love it for that.
00:31:31
Speaker
But it's so funny you say that because um our neighbors were like, hey, we're all on ah WhatsApp. yeah And so we were like, oh, what do we do?
00:31:42
Speaker
And so we finally joined. I immediately turned off notifications because I'm like, I do not want to be pinged every 30 seconds ah but because somebody's dog just, you know, spewed on the carpet. Yeah, yeah.
00:31:57
Speaker
Like with with WhatsApp, when it came along, it would automatically import your phone book. And I'm like, no, I don't want that. but Now I understand it doesn't do that, but I still don't have it only because it just can't be bothered. It's one more thing. But I do love that you can call anybody for free. you Like, that's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. It's totally cool. Like, the good thing for us now, though, is we are connected with neighbors that we weren't connected with
Neighborhood Connectivity and Obsolete Items
00:32:23
Speaker
before. And we have a security issue in our neighborhood. So now we're all sharing information.
00:32:28
Speaker
Love that. that's That's when I appreciate it. But when it's just chitter chatter, I'm like, no, no, I'm just going to jump away from this for a bit. So i think I think we're lucky in as much as, i mean, it would also depend on on your personality, but I do think we were lucky to not...
00:32:45
Speaker
have gone through the internet at a younger age Totally. Look at this. Okay. What was It's awesome. is that that I think you showed that to me before. It's it's been on your desk for a long time. Yes, I know it has been. i think our episode two the late desk no cool. That's an awesome podcast, by the way. This is a Digimon upper deck.
00:33:13
Speaker
Is it a CD-ROM? Oh, yeah, it is a CD-ROM. This is a trading card. Oh, it's probably the the digital trading cards. That is so funny. And here's all the requirements, you know, that your computer has to meet.
00:33:28
Speaker
Windows 95 or 98. Oh, boy. That's going to be tough. Isn't that funny? Wow. And your display monitor must be 16-bit.
00:33:41
Speaker
Wow. Quick time. Isn't that scary? oh yeah. That's all gone. All right, we're we're going to play a quick game to wrap up today's internet episode. Okay. this I got a list here. I want you to to guess some things and see if you can guess some of the things on this list.
00:33:58
Speaker
This is the list of 10 things that the internet made obsolete. So these things don't really, they're not really around anymore because of the internet.
00:34:09
Speaker
So go ahead and guess one and we'll see if you get it. Where's my buzzer? That won't be necessary. Okay.
00:34:18
Speaker
All right, go ahead. Take a guess. Wait, you haven't asked, what was was the question? do You have to, you have to guess. Oh, I have to tell you what I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. You tell me. All i'm thinking about is, is, is old businesses that aren't around anymore.
00:34:30
Speaker
Okay. no what Well, yeah, that's kind of like one of them. So what don't we have anymore because we have the internet? Yeah. Oh, it's going to be so many obvious things. I'm sorry. Um, I want to at least think of one thing.
00:34:45
Speaker
So what do I do online that I don't do anymore? I'm not going to say shopping because that's not true for me.
00:34:56
Speaker
maybe going to the bank.
00:35:00
Speaker
Uh, it's not on here. No, this is a boring answer. Sorry. Um, No, sorry, that wasn't for you. ah See, I'm a little different, though, because like i'm a visit i like I'm a physical media person, so I'm not going to say, like, well, i don't need this or I don't need that, because I actually do.
00:35:18
Speaker
Okay, but here's here's here's one off the list. Yeah, thank you. Maps. We don't use physical maps anymore. Well... Okay, Tyler still uses physical maps.
00:35:32
Speaker
I have a stack of maps, but I just go to Google now. I just bought a map within the past year. I'm trying to think where for, because as a backup.
00:35:44
Speaker
Yeah, right on. As a backup, because, yeah, and I pin it to my coat. Totally. Because I want to have that backup just in case something goes wrong.
00:35:57
Speaker
So, yes, I get why map is an answer, but the funny thing is they're not easy to get. you know but i know i want to know what map just bought that's so that's hilarious literally within a year bought one i was like oh good but now i can't because i haven't been anywhere in three years so i don't know what i bought anyway so we used to drive around with maps in our car like you you tuck them into that little pouch in the back of the driver's seat right yeah i had the purley so i could always like yeah but yeah whatever neighborhood i needed to know to for whatever reason whatever whatever i was doing
00:36:32
Speaker
But I haven't opened one of those maps probably, I want to say, 19 years. The unfolded ones. Yeah. Yeah. All right. What's another one? You know what? I think it was a map of Buffalo because I had to go to the Buffalo airport to pick something up.
00:36:50
Speaker
I think that's what it was. It was like, God forbid anything goes wrong. Okay. You're going have to tell me all these things because I'm not a typical. All right. Okay. Encyclopedias. Yeah, going I get that. What bothers me about that is how do I know the source is really... Well, that's the thing. There was a time when it was probably factual, but now it's not. Now it's just made up stuff. Or it's wiki. Somebody's just made it up.
00:37:15
Speaker
I go to thesaurus.com a lot. and I go to dictionary.com a lot. Yeah, those are on here too. Dictionaries. Yeah. to Dictionaries, encyclopedias, diaries. Yeah. diaries Diaries and day day planners. Day planners are gone. Okay, so you know me. There's no way i would ever give up my physical calendar that has a thousand things written on it because I need to see it. I'll never do that on my phone.
00:37:41
Speaker
I'll never leave note on my phone. Yeah, so i'm I'm a bit of a scatterbrain as well, and I always start with some really nice day planners, and then I'm done with it by like week two, and I'm just back to doing stuff on my phone. I have a hard enough time putting notes in my phone.
00:38:00
Speaker
Well, good for you for doing that. I just, I refuse to make that switch. Okay, so you're way more Gen X than I am. Okay, well.
00:38:13
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Oh, here, we'll give you one of these. Yeah, but you're more of it. You favor technology more than I do. I do. And I trust technology a little bit more as well. Oh, yeah, yeah. I have issue with that. It's because I had that camera, that Sony Mavica. That's what started it all. It gave me trust in technology.
00:38:31
Speaker
Letters.
Physical vs. Digital Media Debate
00:38:33
Speaker
Letters. Do you still write letters? I mail birthday cards. I mail Christmas cards. My Christmas cards have letters. Yeah. But that's because I'm a fan of edited stuff. You know what i mean? so I love that stuff. i just I wrote a letter to somebody probably 10 years ago, and I just never even mailed it. I'm like, you know what? Here's a text. How are you?
00:38:58
Speaker
It's so funny. Yeah, so people are like, who uses the post office? I'm like, well, some of us are in line every day. Yes. Recipe books. Long gone. Although I do have a collection of recipe books.
00:39:10
Speaker
Yeah, see, I would disagree. ah get that for quick reference, but I'll bet you recipe books are a huge seller on Amazon. Yeah, they probably are. Yeah. Yeah. i guess I still like having them because I also like looking at the pictures and I hate when I'm scrolling through a recipe and they're telling me their life story.
00:39:33
Speaker
You know, was walking through the garden and I smelled the rosemary. So I was inspired to create and I'm like, shut up, just get to the ingredient list. And now all the recipes online are fake AI generated.
00:39:45
Speaker
Yes. Like, yes. Anyway. Poor Grant. Poor great, great Nana. Yeah. Bookstores. Long gone. I loved bookstores.
00:39:57
Speaker
It's funny because I was thinking about the world's biggest bookstore not that long ago. I loved that bookstore. Yeah. Yeah. um But, like, again, I buy a physical books. I buy comics. So...
00:40:08
Speaker
You still buy physical meat like music too, right? Yeah. So until it's forced, like I will switch when it's forced, but until then I'm like, no, I want the tangible good in my hand. I enjoy it more. I own it more, you know, and if I have to, I can sell it, you know? Yeah, that's true. I say, I still love buying books. Yeah.
00:40:28
Speaker
So I will still, there's still, you know, in my neighborhood, I've got a couple of, uh, Sort of vintage and used bookstores. And I love, love browsing and buying books. Yeah. So for that customer, there's always going to be bookstores, but I certainly get, you know, it's very easy to buy books online. It's easy to buy anything online.
00:40:47
Speaker
Maybe not whole thing. Well, you know, it's easy to buy it, but it's not, you know, to me, I'd rather do that in person. Yeah. And clothing, clothing's okay. If you know the company, yeah like, so for me, like where I shop, I know the clothes, I go to their physical stores, but I can also go to the, the online store because I know how everything fits.
00:41:07
Speaker
Right. I'm not going to order my clothing from T-Moon. Oh, it's just not going to happen. Yeah. i i I've made my mistake of ordering stuff through companies on Instagram and oh my god.
00:41:21
Speaker
oh the Nightmare. i think I told you about the the shorts that I got. they looked They were supposed to look like these really cool hiking shorts, but they ended up just being like a little kid's cutout sort of short that looks like it was made for a Barbie doll. With glued on logos that were crooked. Oh, a nightmare. nightmare gosh wow The yellow pages.
00:41:45
Speaker
Yeah, i get I get that. Because it's funny because there was that time between Jiffy and the Yellow Page is being gone where it's like, well, how do I hire a plumber I don't know anything about them? you know So I'm great for Jiffy.
00:42:02
Speaker
Yeah, but that's still going in the States. Yeah.
Craigslist and Pre-Modern Apps
00:42:06
Speaker
Because we have Kijiji and they're like, what's that? And they still have Craigslist. Yeah. Yeah. But that for a while, that's what we were using. oh yeah. Those kind of things. Right. Like that's we sold stuff. That's where you would find out where yard sales were. That's where you'd find a, you know, a plumber.
00:42:21
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. But I just remember like the yellow pages. Awesome. You could just flip through that thing for hours and look at all the cool pizza graphics. That's what I would do when I would travel. The first thing i would do when you get to the hotel is look at the yellow pages. Okay. Let's see the record stores. You know I mean? Like what, what does the city have? You know?
00:42:41
Speaker
Yeah. Where's the model kit stores? Yeah. Yep. I hear you. Fax machines. Well, if you're a doctor. or yes i was going to say, you still, are you still operating yours? Oh my, I've got fax coming in right now. Yeah.
00:42:56
Speaker
i I know I've told you the story, but when I was a kid like in the eighty s and the fax machines came around and somebody was showing me how it works and they said, you know, you feed the thing through here and then the paper comes out at the other end. and I'm like, what?
00:43:11
Speaker
The paper comes out the other end? They're like, yeah. I'm like, the paper comes out at the other end? like, yeah. And I'm like, no, you're not getting this. I'm like, this is science fiction. This piece of paper is now coming out in England?
00:43:26
Speaker
No. Oh, he didn't tell me that. Yeah. Now I understand. but That's awesome. Yeah. So funny I remember the, the last one, the last, one of the last clothing companies I worked for every night at the end of the thing, you had to write some numbers on a piece of paper and fax them in.
00:43:45
Speaker
And then the next morning they would fax all your clothing shipping orders over. So we'd have to go through like, you know, 40 feet of fax paper to figure out what shipments were coming in.
00:43:56
Speaker
Do you remember the two things here? there was They're both movies, and I don't remember what they were called. One of them has this very important facts that comes through, you know, that will, like, solve the whole case, right? And when it comes out, it was still that curly paper.
00:44:12
Speaker
you know So it falls to the ground and goes under the unit that it's that it sitting on, right? And nobody got the facts.
00:44:24
Speaker
Oh, my God. There's that other movie. I've almost got the title, but I can't think fast enough. where like the, the picture of the killer is coming through, but it's coming through in the tiny little strips, like a line at a time loading like this. And the tension is mounting and it takes like half an hour during the movie for that picture. i can tell you what movie that is. say it is called no way out with Kevin Costner. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. So funny. Like that was the internet.
00:44:58
Speaker
Yep. That's it right there. 40 minutes. Yes. Yeah. So funny. Oh my God. Cause of course at the end it's Kevin Costner. That's on the fact. Oh, spoiler alert. Sorry.
00:45:10
Speaker
Oh, sorry. I ruined it for everybody. that's Awesome. And then the last one is print media. Yeah. Like magazines. There's still magazines and magazines are awesome, but they're everywhere they're just, there's, there's, they're few and far between though. But yeah, like there's probably lots that of course are gone, you know, like consumer report or something, you know what I mean? But for, yeah you know, you go to places and there's tons, which I love and I'm happy that that's still going, you know?
00:45:41
Speaker
But it's the people who are like, oh, who buys magazines? Who goes to the post office? Who goes to the record store? I'm like, just stop talking, please. There's no other way to get retro fan. Like, seriously. It's so funny.
00:45:55
Speaker
My stack of ah magazines on my desk. I have the next retro fan for you. i can't oh do you? Good. hover yeah Who is? I can't think of who's on the cover. It's somebody retro.
00:46:05
Speaker
Of course. Very vintage-y.
Tragic Plotlines of 'Little House on the Prairie'
00:46:08
Speaker
Yes. um Speaking of vintage, i'm I'm catching up on my Little House on the Prairie, by the way. As one does, yes. Yes. We all know how the series ends, right? Anyway, on.
00:46:19
Speaker
Well, you know, i've I've discovered something, and this might not mean much to you, but every time Albert does something, somebody dies, and it's really very tragic. Like what? If Albert like gets a B in school, somebody dies? Yeah.
00:46:32
Speaker
Well, albert Albert decides he's going to smoke a pipe, and then he burns down the the blind school that they just built, and Mary's baby dies in the fire. God. Seriously. It's a tragic show. Is Albert the son that he had with another woman? Like, what? No, that would have been better. No, he was adopted. They just found him in a tree somewhere. In a tree? I don't know. was running away. He should have called him Chestnut or something. Seriously. Seriously. No, that's the horse's name. No, wait. The horse's name was Bunny. Oh, my gosh. No. And then he takes James to the bank and then James gets shot by a bank robber. Who's James?
00:47:15
Speaker
He was another adopted son. Oh. see and all you adopted kids i know it's so tragic so i'm starting to i'm starting to kind of be aware of like whenever albert's on the screen something bad's gonna happen that is so funny so bad he's like the the omen of walnut grove or something but then he does it to himself because at the end albert ends up getting cancer and dying Oh my God. Is that true? Yeah. At what age?
00:47:50
Speaker
Uh, he was just about to start college. Oh my God. So he was probably like 19 or 20. Wow. Yeah. He was, he was going to get married. was going to go off to college and then he started getting sick and then, uh, yeah, he turned out he had cancer.
00:48:08
Speaker
It wasn't really a soap opera, but was it? It was a very it was a very soap opera kind of show. I don't really remember it that well, but it certainly sounds like like it was just so tragic. right like A friend of mine used to know that what would Charles was that the dad's name. Yeah, Charles. The man's always crying. I'm like, that's funny, but it's probably true. He probably was always crying.
00:48:30
Speaker
was just tragic everywhere. Oh, everybody was losing babies left, right, and center. It's really just awful. Just married blind was enough for me. im like I know. Too sad. Like, I can't handle it. Right. Like, Mary was awesome, and then often she's blind? Yeah. And then she has to go to, and then there's a whole school of blind kids? Like, what? Yeah.
00:48:51
Speaker
And then the blind school gets burnt down because Albert wants to smoke a pipe? Like, seriously. Remember they had that hot bowl that they would put in the bed to keep their feet warm? Yeah. I remember that freaked me out when I was little.
00:49:05
Speaker
Yeah. You're just going to spill it. You're going to spill that hot water. No, it has a lid. Yeah.
00:49:13
Speaker
Yes, yes, made of paper. It was probably cancerous, and that's why. And linen. Well, of course it was. That's why Albert died. it's because they didn't buy it from the Olsens. They bought it from Timu.
00:49:28
Speaker
Okay, that's it. We're wrapping up this awesome internet episode. But um thank you, listeners. Thank you, Tyler. um And we're going to be back soon, hopefully next Saturday. So have yabba zonker zoinks.
00:49:46
Speaker
And I got to find my music now. guy So dramatic. trigger Internet. Internet. yeah Okay. Internet. Go. You've been listening to Yabba Zonker Zoinks, a Gen X for Life podcast.
00:50:00
Speaker
Don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss any exciting episodes. You can reach out on Instagram at Gen X for Life podcast. That's Gen X number four life underscore podcast or send an email at Gen X for Life podcast, all one word at gmail.com.
00:50:17
Speaker
I'd love to hear about your favorite Gen X Saturday morning memory, maybe a favorite toy or the cereal you just couldn't wait to tear in into. Until then, have a yabazonkerzoinks day, and I'll be back bright and early next Saturday morning.