Category Archives: VHS

March 20, 2013

Remember when……Life was simpler

By Recruiterpoet - Professionalism With Flare

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As we get older we mature, we begin to look at the world a different way and make adjustments to our perspectives. We see more value in things we didn’t see initially when we were younger and see the importance of family, respect and love.

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Still, we have undergone unprecedented change in the last ten plus years. Not as dramatic as the first light bulb and telephone but clearly we are seeing life and experiencing things in a way we have never before. As we look at our children, we consciously know, they will never know the life we have.

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Maybe it is time to sit down with the little ladies and lasses and bring on a little journey to the past when things may not have been right at our fingertips but they sure brought us happiness.

Let us talk a walk on the yellow brick road of memories.  Follow me now as we journey to a time of innocence and simplicity..

Remember when…

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    • You put a VHS tape into the VCR to watch a movie and not click a poster to stream it on Netflix

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    • You spent hours trying to figure out Rubik’s Cube instead of spelling out a word on Words with Friends once every two hours
    • A company newsletter was printed  and handed out at staff meetings and you could flip the pages and read it; not view it on the intranet site

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    • A card was made with construction paper, markers, lace and love, not an ecard from Hallmark.com
    • You wrote a note on a napkin or piece of notebook paper; not a text
    • Your appointments were written in a planner with a pen, not on Google calendar

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    • Birds weren’t angry (We love you Tweety)

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    • Apple knew how to “Think Different” and never stop “Imagining”
    • When you won the big race or scored the game winning basket, you cut out the article in the newspaper and put it in your scrapbook; not find the URL online and share it on Facebook

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    • You didn’t need Match.com or EHarmony to find a date; you walked up to a girl and handed her a piece of paper that said “Will you go out with me:  Yes or No”

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  • You stood on line for hours to purchase concert tickets at Ticketmaster for bands you idolized; not buy them online, download them and scan them at the door

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  • You sent a postcard from the amazing places you visited; not take a picture with your IPhone and Instagram it
  • When you met a boy or girl at a bar or club, you got a number on a coaster; not add them as Facebook friends and get lost in the shuffle

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  • A photo album consisted of pictures you took that you couldn’t see for a minimum of one hour; not a digital screen of images
  • A creative image of yourself was a caricature at Disney World or the shore; not an app on your IPad that takes a picture and warps it to look cool

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  • If you had an opinion, you would write an editorial and handed it in to the local town or school paper.  Then you were a blogger
  • MTV showed videos and network television had shows with plots, no celebrities and no sign of reality anywhere

Times were different.

Some argue life is better now; life is easier; life brings the world closer together.

Is it?

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I liked my friends in the neighborhood that played wiffle ball until we couldn’t see the ball anymore, playing hide and seek on eight different yards, going out for Halloween and not even needing our parents, having the door unlocked at night, riding bikes instead of riding a virtual bike on Wii, buying the first baseball cards of the season during a snow storm just so you could do it first, walking into each other’s houses and eating their food, making mix tapes for our friends and girlfriends and just enjoying things a little simpler.

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1 comment | posted in Childhood, good old days, letters, VHS, Youth

October 28, 2011

Is Technology Helping the Recession Along?

By Recruiterpoet - Professionalism With Flare

Last night, I picked up two VHS gems at Goodwill. Yes, I was said gems and Goodwill in the same sentence and yes I still own a VCR. Now that we got that out of the way, may I continue my story? I picked up Slap Shot and A Fish Called Wanda. Take a moment to get the “OMG, it has been so long since I saw those movies and they are so funny” out of the way. Good. This story is filled with way too many distractions.

Naturally, how could one chose between two great movies in their time or any time for that matter. I used the systematic approach and went with the one in the biggest obnoxious plastic case. Last night, John Cleese, Jamie Lee Curtis and Kevin Kline won over. As I was watching John Cleese do a commercial for Schweppes and admiring the aging quality of the print as it would compare today to a blue-ray disk, I had a single thought run through my head. Wait, there was a trailer for Big. Awesome! Back to the story. Yes, I am to blame for the last tangent. I recall as a child, this piece of plastic with way too many screws than it needed cost $89.99 in the last 1980′s. Yes. The prestige of owning a movie that you would watch in the comfort of your own home cost 90 bucks. Now, in today’s economy, who am I kidding, VHS tapes are worth less than bookends, these cost me a dollar each. Actually, it was discount Wednesday so I think they were even cheaper. In terms of nostalgia, they were priceless.

Since then the compact disk, laser disk, mini disk, blue-ray disk and instant internet streaming have out dated each other in a competitive frenzy driving costs down and supply up. I almost said NetFlix as the final link on the chain of advanced sales technology, but the likelihood is that if you read this in three to six months, they may not be here.

Let us take a moment of silence for the fall of NetFlix…….Thank you.

Now back to our show, with limited commercial interruption.

So I can get a retro VHS for a dollar, a DVD at Wal-Mart for 5 dollars or even a dollar at a flea market and a Blue-ray disk for $9.99 on sale. My how competition and bang for the buck has changed. Yet, the cost of movie tickets has increased in increments with inflation year in and year out. Add in the streaming technology and for $7.95 you are unlimited on the number of movies and shows you can watch. Actually you are limited given that there are 24 hours a day and 720 hours a month. That really limits us to about 370 movies if we don’t use the restroom or sleep. This is not to be taken as a challenge for some of you living in your parents basement.

Is this all a result of the the recession, competition or the poster child for a new society. I myself relish my $5.00 VCR I got on Craigslist and my wide assortment of VHS tapes including Strange Brew, Youngblood, Sixteen Candles, Beavis and Butthead Do America, The Way We Were, Youngblood, Dead Poet’s Society, Star Wars and Pump Up the Volume. There is something about the cracking of the tape and the feeling you get that takes you back to the innocence and comfort of youth. If it takes a recession and mounds and mounds of vendors and suppliers to drive down the cost of media, so be it. As a consumer, thank you. I am just glad my retro days have not been buried.

To all those that hang on to the memories of a good classic film on an even more classic media, we salute you. Bring out the VCR, pop some of that Orville popcorn and kick back.

Leave a comment | posted in 80's, Humor, Movies, Recession, Retro, Slap Shot, Technology, VCR, VHS

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