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I find life more joyless without a decent stereo than almost any other device of the modern age. I get kind of irritable and sad if I can't listen to my records for more than about a week. A couple of years ago my speakers blew at a party and I was reduced to using a crappy set of PC speakers plugged into the DVD player and it made me annoyed every time I put a CD on. So. Stereo equipment is the thing that leaps to mind when putting together a 21st century survival kit. It doesn't do anything practical exactly, except keep one sane and bring meaning and joy to life.
-------------------- Now that you've called me by name? Posts: 2007
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quote:Originally posted by Nathan Bleak: I find life more joyless without a decent stereo than almost any other device of the modern age. I get kind of irritable and sad if I can't listen to my records for more than about a week. A couple of years ago my speakers blew at a party and I was reduced to using a crappy set of PC speakers plugged into the DVD player and it made me annoyed every time I put a CD on. So. Stereo equipment is the thing that leaps to mind when putting together a 21st century survival kit. It doesn't do anything practical exactly, except keep one sane and bring meaning and joy to life.
Hmmm... I entirely concur. But music, or access to quality music, played loud, I would consider a timeless essential. I was thinking more of things you can't do without, not necessarily new inventions, that you didn't need a few years ago, say. Or things you use today that you would never have visualised yourself needing. Surprises. After all that is the thread title.
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For instance, looking around my desk, I see a small pot of Boots fragrance free moisturising cream. I get dry skin sometimes and use a little dab of that daily. It helps with the radiation burn from the monitor. Now, five years ago I would've chuckled heartily and asked you if you were some sort of deluded queer if you'd accused me of using moisturiser. And, yet, here we are...
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Yeah, I'm with the music one too. Being more 21st century specific, I'd want to keep my DAB radio because it has a bigger selection of stations which I enjoy listening to, so I'd never be bored, and that would provide news and culture and comedy and sport as well the all important music.
Although I have a major self-confessed web habit, I do think I could live without it quite easily if forced by circumstance - same as the telly. I hardly use my mobile-*censored* at all, and I don't even own an i-*censored* at the moment (situation due to be rectified shortly).
The only other thing I couldn't live without is my bike, and that's 19th century technology so I guess it doesn't count in this survey.
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Maybe a decent digital camera. I'd find it very hard now to go back to the pre-2000 days when taking photos meant going to Boots, buying a film, then rationing out 24 exposures - twenty-four! - or as a luxury, 36, across your holiday. I felt I was getting "professional" safety coverage if I took 3 pictures of the same subject. I'd spend far longer framing shots. And then the ritual of taking them in to be processed, waiting a week (a week!) and receiving one set of prints, for the best part of a fiver.
I'm sure there were pleasures in and advantages to that method - the care of selecting what you'd record, instead of rashly snapping off ten redeyed sweaty shots of your mates in a bar and sending them straight from your fone to flickr - and the anticipation of going in to collect them, reliving your holiday ten days after you returned. There was something to be said about waiting for your "memories", as they used to call them, rather than seeing them instantly.
But now, on holidays in particular, I feel a digital camera becomes my diary, and I usually return with at least 100 genuinely OK to decent pictures - which I then enjoy looking back on. Sometimes, as my 21st century thirtysomething friends and I wryly agree, it feels as though it hasn't happened until it's on flickr.
-------------------- pudgy little saucepot Posts: 738
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As a loosely-related companion piece to this thread, I quite liked some of the suggestions for ways Britain has changed in this BBC item about a couple returning to the UK after ten years in Australia.
Edit: Actually, I just read it again and it doesn't seem to be as witty as it was last week. I must've been in a good mood when I first read it.
quote:Originally posted by Black Mask: I was thinking more of things you can't do without, not necessarily new inventions, that you didn't need a few years ago, say. Or things you use today that you would never have visualised yourself needing. Surprises. After all that is the thread title.
Decent. Cooking. Equipment. and a decent workspace.
I've always loved cooking, but recently I've realised that it is a punishing task without the right environment. A bad workmen always blames his tools? Piss off. I cooked roast dinner for 7 at my girlfriends flat and because they are all students, they seem to have an abundance of Jamie Fucking Oliver non-stick pans. Annoying branding, yes, but the quality speaks for itself. The ease of cooking when you have a draw full of about 30 knives, a workspace larger than two and a half foot and the chance not to burn yourself on the hob as you prepare different parts of the meal.
During the great move of 2005 to London, I ditched all of my worldly posessions to free up my ability to move from place to place as necessary. Now that I think about it, I haven't had decent cooking equipment for years. In my current flat, I rely solely on the equipment of my housemates. The pans leave flecks of black coating in your food. The wok is tinged brown with rust as it is never greased before being placed back on the hook. The copper pans make everything taste metallic. I am in Cook Hell. I fantasise, fucking FANTASISE about the day I can walk around Ikea buying bloody pepper pots and pan lids and fricking matching plates. I dream of splashing out on a set of knives so that I can take a flexible fillet blade to a piece of fish. You are now my bitch, loaf of bread. See how I cut you neatly into manageable slices.
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Yes, thank god for that 21st century invention: cooking equipment. I can't believe not ten years ago people were basically throwing raw ingredients onto fires and scooping up the sludge for dinner.
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But benway surely what you're saying is that you need the bag but none of the stuff you actually use the bag to transport? Doesn't that defeat the point of having the bag in the first place? Or is that kind of the point you're making?
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quote:Originally posted by Ringo: But benway surely what you're saying is that you need the bag but none of the stuff you actually use the bag to transport? Doesn't that defeat the point of having the bag in the first place? Or is that kind of the point you're making?
What I'm saying, jerkwad, is that I now have so many little electronic things to carry around with me that I need a manbag.
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The Jarvis Model SR-1 vacuum system for spinal cord removal on beef or hogs.
•Increases shelf life. •Fast - one operator can handle 800 hog or 350 beef carcasses per hour. •Lightweight handpiece for optimum operator comfort. •High vacuum ensures that operator traces spinal cavity only once to remove the cord. •All stainless steel construction for maximum hygiene. •Hardened nozzle tip for better scraping action.
quote:Originally posted by New Way Of Decay: Ralph, in order to keep up with the times, adopts a lifestyle of gayness by filling his manbag with moisturiser and taking a pleasant stroll.
lol. I already own a pair of gloves like that. Someday I hope to be a hobo, riding the rails where they lead. Seems to me to be an almost perfect lifestyle, minus the gay part.
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So what appeal to this kind of life is there really? To the neophyte, imagine a way of life where you are not bound by time schedules, home owner bill, job expectations, the IRS, you can live where you want, sleep where you want, travel wherever you want as long as its' in the continental US and Canada. Never pay a travel fare unless you want to, never pay rent, electric, gas, water, or cable bills, never pay taxes, and see places in the US and Canada others only see in the movies, or in a magazine. Sound like the lifestyle of Bill Gates, or Donald Trump?, well hundreds of folks live that kind of life every day, in fact that kind of life/culture has been going on since just after Americas' Civil War. A lifestyle/culture so sweet, so addictive, so seductive, so intoxicating, that those of us who retire after 20, 30, even 40 years of are never really free of it. Because Lady Freedom has gotten too far in our blood to gotten rid of her completely. Freedom, complete freedom, and the ability to pursue that ultimate free life, and the vehicle to propel you on such a quest, and a constitutionally based right to free movement. It's truly a drug, a greasy steely drug that once it gets in your blood it's there for good, and no matter how you've retired, no matter how much you deny it, you'll never be free of it. Whenever you hear a train whistle, whenever you see a moving train, or just train cars, or even train tracks, that longing in your heart will tug at you so tight you'll realize that you're addicted for life!
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..nobody raggin' on you if you fancy a nip to keep the cold out. I bet you're thinkin of the drinkin we could do if you could get rid of the burden, eh old friend? Hoo-ee! Those sure would be good times, eh ralph? Remember the times we had together, you an me, huh buddy? You an me, and not a care in the world! Hell, there was no world when we partied, ain't that right pal? Shoot...Aw...I mean, Hell Ralph! Why don't you come see me no more? Huh? Those squares don't like it when we party together? Huh? You ain't your own man now, is that it? Just a little visit once in a while couldn't hurt, right? Come on...Come on buddy. Come and see your uncle Jack one of these days. I'll have something good, cookin on the stove! We can go on a ro-ad trip together, jus you and me, and the sunset on our backs, corn in our mouths, ridin out into the great unknown on an iron horse. We could write some poetry together, go down to a reserve. I got loads of buddies down the reserve! Hell, it's a non stop party down there! Come on buddy... just...pop my lid would ya...? Can't rightly breathe all couped up like this...
[ 14.03.2007, 09:00: Message edited by: Jimmy Big Nuts ]
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Hobo Jungle open to public throughout Convention Hobos visit and entertain at local nursing homes throughout Thursday
Thursday, August 9 8 am-11 am Hobo Bake Sale- Mary Jo’s Hobo House 9:00 pm Hobo Museum & Gift Shop open daily throughout convention 6:30 pm Queens Drive at the Hobo Jungle 7:00 pm Official Lighting of the Jungle Fire at Hobo Jungle / Entertainment begins
Friday, August 10 9:00 am Flea Market Opens 9:00 am Hobo Museum & Gift Shop Open 9:00 am Hobo Memorial Service at Evergreen Cemetery 11 am-6 pm Hobo Art Gallery by LeAnn Castillo – Municipal Building 1 pm-10 pm Giant Inflatable Rides & Food Concessions on Main Street 2:00 pm Ladies Tea at St Patrick’s Catholic Church Parish Hall 4:00 pm Poetry Reading at Hobo Jungle 5pm-6:30pm Alumni Banquet - Social Hour – West Hancock High School 6:30 pm Alumni Banquet – West Hancock High School 7:00 pm Hobo Jungle Entertainment - Hobo Jungle
Saturday, August 11 All Day Flea Market on Main Street 7:00 am Walk/Run - Lions park 9:00 am Hobo Museum & Gift Shop open 10:00 am Giant Parade 11 am-10 pm Giant Inflatables and Concessions on Main Street 11 am-6 pm Hobo Art Gallery by LeAnn Castillo – Municipal Building 11 am-4 pm Armstrong House open 12:00 pm Free Mulligan Stew in City Park 1:00 pm Hobo King and Queen Coronation in City Park followed by the Hobo Auction in the Park Gazebo 3:00 pm Queens Drive 2:30-5 pm Leann Castillo Hobo Art Gallery – Municipal Bldg 4:00 pm Bed Races by Dixie’s Chics 5:00 pm Polka Mass - St Patricks Catholic Church 7:00 pm Hobo Entertainment at Hobo Jungle 9 am-12 pm DANCE
Sunday, August 12 8 am-4 pm Classic Car Show on Main Street 8 am-4 pm Craft Show in the Park w/” Malek’s Fishermen” (bring your lawn chairs) 9:00 am Hobo Museum & Gift Shop open 9 am-1 pm Cheerleader Omelet Breakfast at Municipal Building 1:30-4 pm Pie & Ice Crème Social in the Park – Historical Society 2:00 pm Garden Tractor Pull / Britt Betterment Club
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I can't stand fucking hobos. That one in the picture above is clearly an unsavoury character. His seedy little eyes are a dead giveaway.
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I'll remember to stay away from you then Zygote. But once I manage to rise through the ranks of hobodom and become Hobo King, you had best watch your back.
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quote:Originally posted by Black Mask: What other STUFF has become essential to your life?
My laptop. Without it I would have to spend my days paying 50p per hour in the local library, hitting "F5" all day long (the software package I use isn't 'streamed' via the pcs in the library - or any other slow pcs for that matter). I guard my laptop with my life. We have a unique relationship.
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