Thursday, May 6, 2010

Kids Today...

TheBoy checked out one of the Harry Potter books from the local library the other day. On tape.

As in cassette tape.

First of all, we had to search far and wide for a portable cassette player in the house. The only tape deck we have is in the family room, a large home stereo-ish deal with CD player/radio/tape deck. TheBoy wanted to listen to the tapes while he followed along - it's a novel experience.

I managed to find a portable tape recorder that I had bought when in graduate school some {mumble} years ago. Oddly enough, the batteries were still good, even though it hadn't be used since the early 2000s (I recorded TheBoy's first coos and giggles, hey, I'm a proud papa).

So he finished the first side of the first tape, and asked Mrs. G. what to do next. She tells him that the tape needs to be rewound*, and shows him which button to push.

He didn't last more than five seconds before he asked, quite impatiently, "Isn't it DONE yet?"

That is all.

*In a further comment on the auditory choice of milieu, Mrs. G. completely forgot that cassette tapes played on both sides...

15 comments:

scotaku said...

"Novel" experience?

Zing. You are *on fire*. :D

Anonymous said...

Some day, when TheBoy's old enough to handle it, you must explain the concept of 8-track to him.

Stretch said...

Try explaining mechanical pencils and slide rules to digital babies.

PISSED said...

Find a Rotary Phone to hand him :)

Anonymous said...

Teevee....with a mechanical remote free channel changer.
That outta be good....

Anonymous said...

Teevee....with a mechanical remote free channel changer.
That outta be good....

Anonymous said...

Teevee....with a mechanical remote free channel changer.
That outta be good....

AnarchAngel said...

I've got them all as MP3s (the Stephen Fry UK version. I bought and ripped the CDs), and I'm listening to them with my kids now.

You want them? If he's just taking them out of the library anyway, I have no moral qualms about sending you MP3s of them.

Jay G said...

Chris, that would be AWESOME. I could upload them to his iPod...

AnarchAngel said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
AnarchAngel said...

You've got my personal email. Email me your address, and I'll mail you a couple DVDs with all the MP3s on them.

They're about 10 gigs total if I remember correctly.

I'll upload the first book somewhere for you if you have a file drop; so he can listen to that while the DVDs are in transit.

Bradley said...

Dont be too hard on the kid, i know i told my dad that dvd's needed to be rewound just like VHS tapes one time, and he spent the better part of 3 hours trying to do that. I still feel bad about that. sorta

ZerCool said...

They still make tapes??!?

Lissa said...

I played with an eight-track once. It was weird.

Geodkyt said...

Went to a high school play recently -- production of Grease.

The girl playing Sandy had very obviously NEVER seen a rotary dial phone in use, as she stabbed the buttons to call up "Frenchie".