Bridging the Digi-Analogue Divide

Posted by Alex Vanguard on August 8, 2009

I’m one of those people who’s either Gen X or Gen Y, depending on the source. Some cite 1983 as Gen Y, some as Gen X, so I figure I’m actually just really awesome and have a foot in each camp and I refuse to be classified. XD

(If I’m being technical, I am Gen X, since I’m the child of baby boomers. But I like my special awesome not part of either classification better. :P )

Anyway. I’m a rather nostalgic person. I’ve mentioned it before on here. I adore vinyl, old movies, VHS, cassettes, retro games, old consoles, all that awesome stuff I grew up with. At the same time, I’m very at ease with modern technology and the internet. I’ve been using the net since I was in my early teens, around a decade.

(Also, WWII-era code-breaking and computers and Enigma machines are all epic and winsome and :D Srsly, when I saw CSIRAC at the Melbourne Museum late last year, I was quite possibly the happiest little Alex alive. 8D!)

(AlsoAlso, I want to visit Bletchley Park. Like, really badly. Really, really badly. >.>)

I remember dial-up, DOS games, 14.4k modems, and dot matrix printers. I remember doing assignments and referring to actual physical encyclopaedia volumes in the library. Hell, we even had a set of ~20 year old encyclopaedias at home. They were awesome. XD

I’ve been writing websites since I was 14. That’s when I first learned HTML. I remember the first site I ever made. It had a red background and white text. It was awesome. XD

My parents have always dragged me off to op shops ever since I was a kid. They’re the sort of places where, if you’re nostalgic like me, you fall in love with old stuff. Old stuff with character. Every time I buy something from an op shop, I can’t help wondering who used to own it, why they donated it to the op shop, do they still miss it, those sort of things. I could create characters based on everything I’ve bought based on asking those questions.

(In fact, perhaps I should do that one day. Get a bunch of stuff I’ve bought and make characters based on who might’ve owned them.)

But I digress. I don’t know. I’ve got this love, fascination and adoration for analogue technology. We’ve got a record player at home, a VHS player, I think we even still have a cassette deck somewhere. Also, old stuff smell is intoxicatingly gorgeous. Like, it’s like old book smell, but more awesome. It’s old stuff smell. It’s orgasmic. XD

(Er, sorry for the brackets. My thoughts fail at being linear. XD)

At the same time, I rather like new technology and I’ve grown up with computers and CDs and other awesome things that I possibly couldn’t live without anymore. They’ve become a part of my life and world-view and as much as I adore the past, the internet and the kind of technology we have now is really quite awesome and it’s all good and I really should stop now before I ramble any more. XD

This is possibly not one of my better pieces, but whatever. It’s late, I’m tired and yeah. 8D

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