Living in a time warp

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Source: Amazon

Source: Amazon

Despite being retired, I think of myself as current (and young too but that’s another post).

I keep up with what’s going on in the world (except for the political debates, sheesh!).

I try to stay technically savvy. Sort of.

Last week I installed a new app on my smart phone. It didn’t go well but it wasn’t me. Starbucks is notorious for ignoring decaf choices and again I couldn’t find one for my fancy drink. What were they thinking? I must be their best customer. I should be in their beta testing group. (I know what a beta testing group is!)

But there are other topics where I’m not so current.

I can’t tell you who the popular bands are. Boyz II Men are no longer on top. Neither are New Kids on the Block. I know some names like One Direction but can’t sing their songs. Isn’t that the fun part of knowing a band? (Who doesn’t know the words to Beach Boys’ or Beatles’ songs?)

I listen to an oldies’ station in my car. They play 60s, 70s and 80s tunes. Those are the ones I can sing. Very loudly. With all the right words. Those tunes make me happy. Put me in a good mood. But…they keep me out of touch with what’s current.

I watched parts of the Academy Awards and kept saying, “Who is that?” I hadn’t seen any of the movies.

I’m always a little late preferring to watch movies in the privacy of my home where we have a 20 minute rule. If the movie doesn’t interest us in the first 20 minutes, it’s outta here. We didn’t spend a fortune on popcorn and soda either!

The shelf life of a “hot” star is so short these days. I saw one quick camera shot of Jennifer Lawrence at the Oscars. She’s no longer the “it” girl (but I still like her – she has pluck).

All those gorgeous hunky guys? (They all needed a shave, what’s with that?). Where was George Clooney? Brad Pitt? (No snickering please. I consider these guys my peers in a strange chronological way!) Was it beyond their bedtime? I was up! (Ok I was in my nightgown but still…)

It’s the same with TV programs. I don’t know most of the younger actors (and damn they do all look alike just like Mom said!)

I haven’t read all the books on the best sellers list either. I have heard of some of them. Truth is that when I pick up a book it’s an invitation to nap so progress is slow.

My mother would enjoy this post. She told me this would happen but I didn’t believe it.

Yeah Mom you were right yet again.

 

 

 

58 thoughts on “Living in a time warp”

  1. Im out of the loop so to speak Kate. Don’t watch the news or know the actors and singers that are hot. Don’t really care. I pick up snippets of world news but really I live in my little rural bubble and the stress is less. My kids can update me on the goings on in the world when they take an interest. For now I have the bliss of not knowing and I happier for it.

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  2. I feel similar to you. I try to keep up, but my interest are kind of like—I have a short attention span. I either get it or get out, like it or move on, and it either excites me now otherwise I fall asleep. Oh, and my wife says I’m stuck in the 60’s. I prefer stuck on the 60’s, but why argue over semantics. 😀

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  3. I watched most of the Academy Awards and was thinking pretty much the same thing. There was a time that I knew all the current actors and actresses, but these days? Not so much. I barely recognized about 20% of the people featured, even those up for the major awards. Guess I just don’t see as many movies these days.

    I still like music from the way-back-when machine, although I also listen to some of the newer stuff (usually the bluesy or folk type of artists). I have vague memories of sitting in a diner booth with the little flippy pages and pushing the buttons, and swooning to “Sitting On the Dock of the Bay”, or “The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia”. Back then, my favorite was “Honey” by Bobby Goldsboro. Made me cry every time, but I loved it. And Charlie Pride, singing “KawLiga” or “Does My Ring Hurt Your Finger” or “Kiss An Angel Good Morning”. Going way back.

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  4. So funny ~ I can relate to all of this! I listen to the oldies, rely on Netflix for movies (the DVDs, not streaming) and I count on my book club for good reads. Don’t know and don’t care about the rest of it. Yeah, I’ll admit it ~ I’m a geezer.

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  5. I do like to keep up. But it’s getting harder. There used to be one or two radio stations, and they all played the same music. EVERYONE knew the new songs. Now music is divided into dozens of categories. Even the young people don’t know the favorite songs of other young people who like a different kind of music.

    My saving grace for music is the mix CD my daughter gives me every year on my birthday. It’s all new music, carefully chosen, about 15 songs. I have a whole year to get used to them and find some new favorites.

    Keeping up with actors is also getting more difficult. How I am I suppose to recognize an actor who covers up his face with one style of facial hair this month and a new one next month?

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    • That’s a great idea that your daughter gives you a CD mix. I have given up on new actors. If they hang around long enough I will get to know them. If they don’t, it wasn’t work the brain cells to remember.

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  6. Every word here resonated with me. I feel exactly the same way. What is that scrubby stubble all over their faces? Yuk? Not much good for kissing. Hubby is worse than me. When Heath Ledger died, he kept saying “Who is Heath Ledger?” Now I am at that point. And I still like Jennifer Lawrence, too. Sigh.
    They took the tellers out of my bank branch by the way. Looking for a new bank.

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  7. I thought I was “hot sh–” on the computer until I got a Windows 10! Now I know nothing and am always on the verge of tears. Music from the 60’s +? My happy tunes are from the 50’s! They did a whole PBS fund raiser with all those tunes and I am tempted to leave PBS everything I have when I die. Familiar celebs at the Oscars? I can’t think of anyone left alive enough to make it to the end of the red carpet. I do love your posts Kate. You are a sceam…. or in modern lingo, “you rock!”

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    • I like a lot of tunes from the 50s. They just aren’t played on my oldies station. I have Windows 10. I have a lot of computer issues but they started when I got this new one a year ago before W10. Not sure what it is but it’s my last Dell for sure. I’ve spent days on the phone with Calcutta (or whatever they call it now).

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  8. Almost all of what you wrote made me think “This could be me!” With the exception of music – I have two teenage girls who love music and play it loudly in the house. Every so often I like something and ask what it is. (Yesterday it was “Stressed Out” by 21 Pilots – cool song!) What I liked best about this post, though, is the Dali melting clock picture at the top. We have two of those clocks in our house – presents from Lyart (do you read her blog too?)

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    • No, I haven’t stumbled across her yet. When you have younger people around it is easier. I was introduced to the Black Eyes Peas through a younger co-worker and do like some of their stuff. The problem is wading through tons of stuff that I don’t like and sounds too similar for my tastes.

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  9. You do make me laugh, Kate! I sure don’t know as many of the current names and so-called “stars” as I did a few years ago, but I think working with college students helps me at least know names and then I just ask a lot of questions. The bigger question I should be asking myself, though, is why would I care! I think there’s a little part of me that isn’t quite ready to admit that your mother was right! LOL! But we both know she WAS right, don’t we!

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  10. Lol..Mom’s are always right. The real age shocker for me is watching the Grammy’s. I listen to all kinds of music but most of the people that come up on stage to sing or perform are foreign to me. Still, I watch for fear of not staying topical..:)

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    • All true of me too. We love music so we watch the music awards and I don’t know a lot of them. With the individual singers it’s easier because they are always in the papers for something but the groups not so much.

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  11. So very true! It’s as if someone is going around with cookie cutters. I listen to all sorts of music, even the current trash since my kids are young and the gym I go to is young. How many songs about asses can there be? Too many!

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  12. I just had this conversation with a friend. We were noticing that Boomer women all look different now, looked different back then. Gen Xers have a distinctive style, however they don’t all look exactly the same. But Millennials all look alike, dress alike. I think that their dependence on social media for connection has something to do with it. They’re much more of a group mentality than Xers, for sure– and Boomers, sort of.

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  13. I was getting a haircut the other day from a stylist who wasn’t a conversationalist, which is always a relief for me. So I sat there while she cut and I listened to all the songs playing on the top-40 radio station playing in the salon. Of course, I didn’t know any of the music. But what really got to me was how literally every single one of the female singers sounded alike. To me there was literally no difference between any of them. When we heard Grace Slick, Carole King, or Pat Benatar we knew it was them!

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    • I know. I didn’t want to put that in my post because all the young’uns would take offense. They really do sound similar. I also love a stylist that doesn’t talk. So hard to find.

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  14. Amen, sister! I was thinking the other day about the silly songs my mother used to sing to me when I was little. I’m guessing that our generation will be the last to hear them… and, of course, we are forgetting the words anyway as time goes on.

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  16. Our parents music saved the world; ours changed it. I wonder what that means for our kids’ music????? Perhaps that’ll accompany the world in that handbasket!

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  19. The thing is, though, our culture, actors, music, etc. was vastly superior to what’s out there today. I mean I know our parents said the same thing but that’s because they were old and grouchy whereas we are, you know, something that’s not that. Fresh! Hip! Happening!

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  20. Well, you lasted longer than I did. I gave up in my 4os. I occasionally find new music but only because someone makes me listen to it, not because I’m listening to anything but the oldies.

    Do you know what worries me? Pretty soon the oldies station is going to start playing stuff I don’t recognize. Then what do I do?

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  21. My Grandmother used to say, “That is not music, that is just noise!” And I would always disagree with her. Well, as far as today’s music goes, Gram I guess you were right. And I too don’t know any of the names…but I don’t want to know either! I watch many of the awards programs, (they often preempt a show I normally want to watch) and also hardly know a soul. I have decided that the CMA awards are a must. Not that I am a huge country music fan, but those men in their tight jeans….I don’t care who they are.

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  22. I would love to comment, but have little to say except I agree totally! I consider myself to be very comfortable with computers and such, but get really frustrated when an update changes the location of key buttons! Given “short term memory challenges”, I need the button placements to reach long term memory cells before I can remember where they are…. so change them and I am lost all over again! The icing on the cake (facetious) is that more often than not, the functionality has not changed, just the location of the important buttons! (:

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    • A few weeks back there was a major update of something that totally screwed up my computer (as I knew it). It took me weeks to reverse the defaults to things I prefer. Some things I still haven’t found where to change it. As for remembering, argh! My Kindle is about 3 years old. It was updated about a month ago to require a password. Now I need to remember a password for that. I wonder if I’ll need a password at the pearly gates.

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  23. We didn’t watch the Oscars, but we have seen a few of the films that got nominated. Ones we liked:

    The Martian ~ Matt Damon
    Bridge of Spies ~ Tom Hanks
    Truth ~ Cate Blanchett
    Pawn Sacrifice ~ Tobey Maguire
    Inside Out ~ animated

    I no longer know the names of most contemporary actors because I don’t need to clog up my memory banks with that info. Netflix keeps a list of what I’ve seen. If I like an actor, I can click on the link and see other films they’ve done. Unless I plan to be on Jeopardy, I see no reason to store their names in my head. 😛

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