MODERN APPLIANCES

This is all a little tongue in cheek but there is some meaning in the following, particularly for we older folk.

From time to time it is necessary to replace various appliances that we use in our modern lives and it's nice to have something new but.....I am finding that the old things were simpler to use and gave less headaches when trying to understand how to use them.

Take mobile telephones for instance.  I had a very simple mobile that had a book of instructions which explained in simple terms, with illustrations, how to do everything you could possibly do with that phone.  Of course it did not take photographs, play music or other wonderful things that apparently more modern mobiles will do.  I could programme in numbers I regularly called (or take them out or change them), send text messages and make and receive phone calls without a problem.

The new one is too small for hubby's fingers and even I find them difficult to use too.  I cannot find how to programme in frequently used numbers.  I have only once managed to send a text message.  All the instructions tell us is how to take photos, send super duper text messages and other weird things that we just do not want to do.  I hate the damned thing but take it with us just in case when we go out.  MOH always takes it with him in case he needs to contact me or I him or in an emergency he can ring the RAC etc.  I even have problems making a simple phone call so try not if I can avoid doing so.

Secondly, microwave ovens.  My Panasonic after 25 years decided it was tired.  It's light went out, it's beep became almost silent and then it did a couple of funny peculiar things.  Mmm.   Time for a new one.

Now the old one had 5 heat levels: HIGH, MEDIUM HIGH, MEDIUM, MEDIUM LOW and LOW.  It also had heat from frozen, fridge or room temperatures. This new one has HIGH and then you need to be a genius to determine how to do anything other than cook on HIGH.  My #2 granddaughter tried to explain it to me the other day when she was here and I sort of think I sort of understood but not sure enough to try it out.  The instruction book that came with the Panasonic not only explained everything (defrost, cook, heat etc) in detail, it also had recipes which gave you a great idea of just how to cook certain items.  The new one has about 6 pages of what seems to me to be written in a foreign language even though it actually is in English.

I have a small digital camera with which I can take reasonable snapshots...you've seen a few on here recently but I am still to completely understand how it works although the instruction book in this case is reasonably easy to understand but you don't always carry the instruction book with you, or do you?
Then I have to put the photos into my computer and without me asking them to they go into iPhoto but if I want to show them somewhere (email, Facebook etc) you can't get them out of there but have to put them into another file thingie that stores photos and then take them out of there.  I try to caption them but half the time that doesn't work either.  I tried looking at the instructions on the computer but these days anything to do with computer it is taken for granted you are about 10-35 years of age and have been using computers since you were at school.  Come to think of it I think I can send photos by email direct from iPhoto but if I try it's possible I could stuff it up!!!

There....now I've got that off my chest and I won't even mention our new Victa lawn mower which has worked properly about once since MOH bought it a couple of months back.  The old faithful Victa packed it in after about 20-25 years and went to that lovely big lawn in the sky.  The new one says MOH is like modern cars.  On the old Holdens, Fords or Morris Minors you could get at and work on all the parts but not with the modern ones.

DVD/VCR control has now been handed to MOH.  I was the one (not he) that fully understood how to programme a VCR, replay it etc.  This modern DVD/VCR combination set has already decided to chew up any tapes that you trust it with and the buttons on the control are too small for my arthritic hands and MOH just manages to use it so we won't even bother going into all that as it is as boring as all the above.

This is all called progress but it has in many cases made our own progress very slow as we try and fathom out how these things work and sometimes just decide it really doesn't matter so we don't bother. I do envy the younger generations who have grown up with modern technology but usually they are too busy to explain it to us and I've not always convinced they understand all of it anyway.  lol