Sunday, February 24, 2008

An Incomplete List of Obsolete Things

I recently came upon a site which listed skills that are now obselete, some of them only recently so. I plucked a few of the ones I found interesting for this entry. Enjoy!

Adjusting Rabbit Ears On Top Of aTV

Adjusting Horizontal And Vertical Holds on a TV

Be Kind-Rewind

Calling A Phone Sex Line

Calling Collect On A Payphone

Cash Register Used Manually Entering The Prices

Changing The Ribbon On A Typewriter

Converting Your Albums From Vinyl To Cassette Tape

Cuff Links

Dialing A Rotary Phone

Filing Cards In A Library Card Catalog

Finding Channels On UHF

Getting Off The Couch To Change Channels On Your TV Set

Having Your Gas Pumped For You And Your Oil Checked At A Full-service Gas Station

Kick Starting A Motorcycle

Knowing What Part Of Town Someone Lives In By Their Phone Exchange

Loading A Reel To Reel Tape Drive

Making An Operator Assisted Phone Call

Making Hot Chocolate By Heating Milk in a Pan, Then Adding Cocoa Powder and Sugar (remember the "skin" on the milk?)

Marriage (NOTE: This was actually on the list -- it isn't my addition)

Meeting People By Answering Personal Ads In A Newspaper Or Magazine

Opening A Can Of Beer Or Soda With A Church Key

Peeling The Developer Layer Off A Polaroid

Percolating Coffee

Placing A Coin On A Tonearm To Prevent Skipping

Popping Corn In A Pot With Oil

Porn Not From The Internet

Putting A Needle On A Vinyl Record

Rewinding An Audio Cassette Using A Bic Pen

Selling Something In The Classified Ads

Shave With A Straight Razor

Shorthand

Smelling A Freshly Mimeographed Test Paper

Switching To High Beams By Stomping On A Button In The Floor

Taking The Tape Out Of An Answering Machine

Testing TV Tubes At the Drugstore

Using Carbon Paper To Make Copies

Using Correction Fluid

Using A Party-line Telephone

Using A Pay Toilet


Feel free to add some of your own.

4 comments:

Kathy said...

I felt old after the first handful, then it got worse! Wow, we've seen a lot of progress. I'll add one: Rolling a car window down manually.

LMC said...

"Having Your Gas Pumped For You And Your Oil Checked At A Full-service Gas Station".....I miss that for a couple of reasons....One, I have no idea how to check my oil....two, .....damn there were some great fantasies that come out of that!

Patty said...

Thank goodness I can still roll down our windows, they are not power controlled. Also I still have a place that pumps gas, but they don't check the oil or air in the tires. And I still pop corn in a pop corn popper that has a handle you turn as you're popping to keep it from burning. You use 1/4 cup oil, 1/2 cup of corn, then I salt with popcorn salt after it's done popping. Pop corn salt is very fine. You know what, pop corn use to be delicious popped in lard.

Lex Valentine said...

I liked changing to high beams with my foot! And disabled people with handicapped plates still get full service in many self service stations. But I do have one to add... getting faxes with a fax machine. Our copy machines send and receive faxes. So does our Zetafax software. We don't have an actual fax.