I saw something the other day that made me think about things that used to be commonplace that are either on their way out or practically gone. Some I thought about in no particular order:
Home newspaper boxes. You know what they used to put your newspaper in instead of throwing it willy-nilly in the driveway, front yard, etc. You can still see them in some areas, just not like you used to.
Newspaper vending boxes. The victim of newspaper cutbacks. I also never got the whole concept that some newspapers did by having an empty vending box outside of a store with a sign in it saying that newspapers were sold inside the store. Did these "signs" really generate sales, or would they have made more money selling the boxes for scrap?
Pay phones. Two words: cell phones. What probably was the ultimate blow to the pay phone was the prepaid cell phone.
VCRs. I'm actually surprised you can still buy them in stores (usually packaged as a DVD/VCR combo), seeing that DVDs have supplanted them in stores and in retail sales.
Pagers. Yes there are folks who still have pagers. In fact, the company I work for actually used them up until a few years ago (they didn't want to have to pay a termination fee). With cell phones and plans being so inexpensive (especially with a prepaid plan), owning a pager makes no sense at all.
Portable CD players. Thank goodness for MP3 players, as you can fit that CD collection you used to lug around with you into a device smaller than a deck of playing cards. The portable CD player is definitely a 90s thing, like the Walkman/portable cassette player was in the 80s.
That's just a few that come to mind. I wonder if in the next 5-10+ years, folks will be talking about when the Ipod was the size of a deck of cards and only had 160 GB of space on it. Or when folks actually had to go get a newspaper/magazine/book instead of merely downloading the latest edition (We're almost to that point anyway, but it really wouldn't surprise me if eventually the days of washing the newsprint off of our hands are in the past.). I can actually remember when vinyl became a niche item, when record stores quit carrying cassette tapes, and even going as far back as 8-track tapes. I remember both VHS and Betamax, the various early generation video game systems that competed with the Atari 2600. We've already had this decade's versions with the HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray battle, and PS3 vs. XBox360 vs. Wii battle. 15-20 years from now, they'll be folks in their 30s and 40s reminiscing about those being the "good old days". By then, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, et. al, will probably be something looked at as a fad of the late 00s.......
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Vegas Is For Douchebags.
By now (unless you've just come out of a 10-year coma), we're all familiar with the Vegas tagline of "What Happens In Vegas....." At this point it has gotten way past the point of being hip and trendy to becoming a tired phrase. Even the classic quote from Swingers of "Vegas Baby! Vegas!" has jumped the shark. The Las Vegas Convention And Visitors Authority has tried some other taglines that involve the "Only Vegas" wordmark. Perhaps they ought to really revolve their marketing around the fact that Las Vegas has become the playground for the vapid L.A. celebutard scenesters (And their hangers on) whose only contributions to society are vapid souless reality TV shows and fodder for the bottom feeding tabloid TV shows. On that note, I propose usurping the long used tourism and travel slogan of the Commonwealth of Virginia and rewording it to best describe what has taken over Las Vegas in the last five years:
Vegas Is For Douchebags.
It seems that along the bulk of The Strip, we've now got Douchebag Central. Hip and "trendy" nightclubs where the door fee could fill up the gas tank in your SUV, where bottle service means you'll be paying many times more than the retail price just for the privilege of not having to stand in line with the unwashed masses who luckily got into the club. I'm tired of getting emails from the various casinos (and casino operators) regarding parties at these douchebag clubs being hosted by some vapid celebutard whose claim to fame is being a vagina on a stick or the village bicycle. Attention casino companies, the vast majority of the people that subscribe to your email services do it so they can get special room rate offers, not to find out that Paris Hilton is hosting a party at the hip and trendy club that replaced a club that was hip and trendy 6 months prior that replaced a bar or lounge that was a good place to meet up with your friends to begin a night out in Vegas.
The only way I might even consider attending such an affair would be if they guaranteed me a blow job from Paris Hilton (Although considering the walking petri dish that she is, I'd have to request she do it covered.), and even then, I might decide I'd rather go watch the newest Viva Vision show (Have they scraped the bottom of the barrel yet? Getting KISS to approve a Viva Vision show is not that big of deal considering Gene Simmons will slap the KISS name on anything you throw his way if the price is right.) on Fremont Street (Which thankfully is a douchebag free zone most of the time because Downtown isn't hip and trendy with the celebutard scenester crowd.).
While some may argue that the celebrities have made Vegas their playground for many years, there's a huge difference between the celebrities of the past who made their bones by actually contributing to society instead of being part of the downfall of society. The celebrities in the past actually put on shows where they actually sang to a live band and even did two and sometime three shows a night. Not to mention they would go to other shows and sometimes perform in them. Hell, Frank, Dino, Sammy, Joey, and Peter were shooting Ocean's Eleven by day, performing in the Copa Room at the Sands at night, and then sometimes shooting scenes after the show with a little carousing in between. You think the hotels on the Strip will dim their lights in honor of Britney Spears or Lindsey Lohan when they die? Will the cast of "The Hills" be talked about in the same reverent tones as the Rat Pack or Elvis? Hell no. Even if they were to shuffle off of this mortal coil while still somewhat relevant, life will go on in Sin City. The hotels reserve dimming their lights in honor of those who really made an impact on Las Vegas. The only impact these celebutard douchebags have made is trying to turn the Strip into a playground for the rich and priviledged.
Vegas Is For Douchebags.
It seems that along the bulk of The Strip, we've now got Douchebag Central. Hip and "trendy" nightclubs where the door fee could fill up the gas tank in your SUV, where bottle service means you'll be paying many times more than the retail price just for the privilege of not having to stand in line with the unwashed masses who luckily got into the club. I'm tired of getting emails from the various casinos (and casino operators) regarding parties at these douchebag clubs being hosted by some vapid celebutard whose claim to fame is being a vagina on a stick or the village bicycle. Attention casino companies, the vast majority of the people that subscribe to your email services do it so they can get special room rate offers, not to find out that Paris Hilton is hosting a party at the hip and trendy club that replaced a club that was hip and trendy 6 months prior that replaced a bar or lounge that was a good place to meet up with your friends to begin a night out in Vegas.
The only way I might even consider attending such an affair would be if they guaranteed me a blow job from Paris Hilton (Although considering the walking petri dish that she is, I'd have to request she do it covered.), and even then, I might decide I'd rather go watch the newest Viva Vision show (Have they scraped the bottom of the barrel yet? Getting KISS to approve a Viva Vision show is not that big of deal considering Gene Simmons will slap the KISS name on anything you throw his way if the price is right.) on Fremont Street (Which thankfully is a douchebag free zone most of the time because Downtown isn't hip and trendy with the celebutard scenester crowd.).
While some may argue that the celebrities have made Vegas their playground for many years, there's a huge difference between the celebrities of the past who made their bones by actually contributing to society instead of being part of the downfall of society. The celebrities in the past actually put on shows where they actually sang to a live band and even did two and sometime three shows a night. Not to mention they would go to other shows and sometimes perform in them. Hell, Frank, Dino, Sammy, Joey, and Peter were shooting Ocean's Eleven by day, performing in the Copa Room at the Sands at night, and then sometimes shooting scenes after the show with a little carousing in between. You think the hotels on the Strip will dim their lights in honor of Britney Spears or Lindsey Lohan when they die? Will the cast of "The Hills" be talked about in the same reverent tones as the Rat Pack or Elvis? Hell no. Even if they were to shuffle off of this mortal coil while still somewhat relevant, life will go on in Sin City. The hotels reserve dimming their lights in honor of those who really made an impact on Las Vegas. The only impact these celebutard douchebags have made is trying to turn the Strip into a playground for the rich and priviledged.
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