Date yourself without dating yourself - How many?

[gfp]

1 minute ago, Blake Hampton said:

6 for me and I'm 24:

- Film camera

- CD

- VHS

- Blockbuster

- Dictionary

- Paper check

 

oh my gosh they don't have turntables and vinyl records in OK ??  Too much tornado risk??!

[John Hjorth]

3 hours ago, LC said:

You're in the danger zone, John!! 

 

Always been, still is!

 

I once had a female colleague that said to me, that there is absolutely nothing as awesome as a  bit of sexual harrasment, because the value of it isen't taxed here in Denmark! Tax free  personal fringe! 

 

At a certain point in time, I had to follow up on her work and management, seriously, asking closed, narrow questions about progress. She went totally ballistic!, theatening to throuw me down the stairs! Her weight estimated half of mine!  Hardcore Statoil / Equinor oil bug. After a couple of days I finally realized it would never work out with anything, or among us, because she posessed  material information, that I really needed access to.

 

Frustrated, deeply, thinking about it seriously what to do, I, a few days later, opted to buy two Ritter Sport chokolate packages for her,  with an apology for beeing an a**hole. All good again! 

 

If I remember correctly, I even tried to introduce her for a fellow CofB&F member! No take, but I still speculate it would have been great, if the mutual interest was there. It wasen't.

 

<John, the failed matchmaker>.

Edited March 5 by John Hjorth

[brobro777]

Man I remember I returned a VHS movie to Blockbuster and those bastards made me pay a fee because I forgot to rewind the tape

 

Blockbuster made $800Mil from late fees alone in 2000... https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna39332696

[UK]

9 hours ago, John Hjorth said:

 

Always been, still is!

 

I once had a female colleague that said to me, that there is absolutely nothing as awesome as a  bit of sexual harrasment, because the value of it isen't taxed here in Denmark! Tax free  personal fringe! 

 

At a certain point in time, I had to follow up on her work and management, seriously, asking closed, narrow questions about progress. She went totally ballistic!, theatening to throuw me down the stairs! Her weight estimated half of mine!  Hardcore Statoil / Equinor oil bug. After a couple of days I finally realized it would never work out with anything, or among us, because she posessed  material information, that I really needed access to.

 

Frustrated, deeply, thinking about it seriously what to do, I, a few days later, opted to buy two Ritter Sport chokolate packages for her,  with an apology for beeing an a**hole. All good again! 

 

If I remember correctly, I even tried to introduce her for a fellow CofB&F member! No take, but I still speculate it would have been great, if the mutual interest was there. It wasen't.

 

<John, the failed matchmaker>.

[DooDiligence]

20 for 20 and more. I remember when all 3 network television channels went off the air around midnight.

They'd play the star spangled banner and that was it till morning.

 

Edited March 5 by DooDiligence

[Rainier]

16 hours ago, rkbabang said:

Yeah, anyone over 50 has all 20.  I'm over 50, so all 20. 

 

The real test though is how many have you done in the past year.  4 for me.

5 for me

 

- Listened to a CD

- VHS (happened to be backing up old family videos)

- Used paper map (hiking)

- Own a dictionary (for Scrabble games) 

- Paid with a check 

[rogermunibond]

@rkbabang in the past year - 6 (postcard, map, dictionary, encyclopedia, paper check, listen to CD)

 

would be 7 but we haven't gotten around to buying a turntable for our vinyl.

 

so much vinyl sitting in storage, hehe.

[rkbabang]

I still own a paper dictionary (I can't remember the last time I used it though).

I still have a whole set of encyclopedias from the 1980s on my bookshelf. (I can't remember the last time I looked in one).

I still pull out my record player from time to time and listen to music on vinyl.  Some as old as the 1970s that I bought as a kid all the way to new vinyl I bought less than a year ago.

I've written paper checks in the last year.  Contractors in my area don't like taking credit cards. If they accept them at all they usually charge a 3%+ fee.

 

[gfp]

Yeah we listen to vinyl records every day and still buy vinyl records every month.  I write checks every week to contractors / subcontractors / arborists, you name it.  Definitely not enough to make me want to invest in Deluxe or Harland Clarke though!

 

Owning an entire set of encyclopedias is more a reframing of the question, "when was the last time you moved to a new house" because ain't nobody taking that shit with them.

 

I don't have a fax machine with the curly thermal paper but I can send a fax from my computer and my printer can send one.  Reminds me of the excitement when fax machine technology graduated to "regular paper" - !  what a joy.   I don't miss being woken up in the middle of the night by the loud ass fax machine because someone in Asia decided to send a fax.

[rkbabang]

8 minutes ago, gfp said:

Yeah we listen to vinyl records every day and still buy vinyl records every month.  I write checks every week to contractors / subcontractors / arborists, you name it.  Definitely not enough to make me want to invest in Deluxe or Harland Clarke though!

 

Owning an entire set of encyclopedias is more a reframing of the question, "when was the last time you moved to a new house" because ain't nobody taking that shit with them.

 

I don't have a fax machine with the curly thermal paper but I can send a fax from my computer and my printer can send one.  Reminds me of the excitement when fax machine technology graduated to "regular paper" - !  what a joy.   I don't miss being woken up in the middle of the night by the loud ass fax machine because someone in Asia decided to send a fax.

 

 

I don't think I've looked in one of those encyclopedias since the 1990s and I've moved 4 times since then.  Why do I still have them?  I have no idea.

 

[gfp]

I looked it up and Microsoft Encarta on the CD-ROM came out in 1993!  33 years ago

 

(the kids on this forum are probably like WTF is Encarta??)

Edited March 5 by gfp

[rkbabang]

1 hour ago, rogermunibond said:

@rkbabang in the past year - 6 (postcard, map, dictionary, encyclopedia, paper check, listen to CD)

 

would be 7 but we haven't gotten around to buying a turntable for our vinyl.

 

so much vinyl sitting in storage, hehe.

 

I bought one of these in 2018: https://uturnaudio.com/products/orbit-custom  with the Acrylic platter and Otofon 2M Red cartridge.  Sill running great and sounds amazing.  Mine doesn't have a preamp because I have phono inputs on my receiver.

 

[Rainier]

27 minutes ago, gfp said:

I looked it up and Microsoft Encarta on the CD-ROM came out in 1993!  33 years ago

 

(the kids on this forum are probably like WTF is Encarta??)

Wow that makes me feel old. I remember getting our first PC when I was a kid and getting Encarta. I probably read every single entry on that CD. Despite having a full set of (probably 20 year old at the time) encyclopedias. The encyclopedias were toilet reading for me as a kid. 
 

My favorite thing about one of those Encarta CDs was that it had a feature where you could make it audibly pronounce the word in question. And for some reason, the word “horseshit” was deemed worthy of inclusion in the word bank. I would spam the word with the speakers on max volume, which my mom didn’t appreciate. I can even still remember the way the guy pronounced “horseshit” and I frequently say it with that intonation while my wife questions my sanity.

[gfp]

That's pretty but would get dusty in my house (we have a woodworking mill shop on the floor below the floor we live on).  I have a white audio-technica with a clear dust cover.

 

Outside of vinyl records, which I buy all the time, I'm not even sure how I would give music as a gift to someone?  I mean, I pay for youtube music for our son but when I want to give a christmas gift a record is a pretty good option.  Nobody really has cassettes or CDs any more, although I actually bought a cassette only release last week.  Not sure how I'm gonna play it..

[cubsfan]

On 3/4/2026 at 12:10 PM, 73 Reds said:

LOL, 20+  They left out some good ones:  21.  Watched a large console, black and white TV that took up half the room  22.  Drank milk delivered by the milk man  23.  Used a Trip Tick from AAA to navigate road trips  24.  Smoked a cigar on a commercial airplane (sorry!)  25.  Made telephone calls from a phone booth for 10 cents  26.  Watched the ticker tape at the local brokerage house (and paid up to 5% commissions on each trade where quotes were in fractions, not decimals)  27.  Got stared at when running outside because people thought I was being chased  28.  Didn't know a damn thing about new places I traveled to until I got there  29.  Grew up in the Streets at a time when no one worried or called Social Services if parents weren't around...... Ah, the good old days!

 

That's hilarious. Did them all!

 

In my first sales position, we used to have to carry rolls of quarters to make prospecting/customer calls, being on the road, from my favorite phone booths.  I remember when the company gave us a 1-800-Sprint calling card that we could use - I thought I died and went to heaven!

Still had to punch the number in - but I could actually make multiple calls for an hour or so - and it would keep me on Sprint line..

 

I thought I was really living large!

[John Hjorth]

22 minutes ago, gfp said:

Yeah we listen to vinyl records every day and still buy vinyl records every month.  I write checks every week to contractors / subcontractors / arborists, you name it.  Definitely not enough to make me want to invest in Deluxe or Harland Clarke though!

 

Owning an entire set of encyclopedias is more a reframing of the question, "when was the last time you moved to a new house" because ain't nobody taking that shit with them.

 

I don't have a fax machine with the curly thermal paper but I can send a fax from my computer and my printer can send one.  Reminds me of the excitement when fax machine technology graduated to "regular paper" - !  what a joy.   I don't miss being woken up in the middle of the night by the loud ass fax machine because someone in Asia decided to send a fax.

 

LOLz! 

 

Been there, done that! 

 

I had a client for few years, likely then the richest man on the Danish island Funen then, if you even would consider him Danish. He was a Danish expat, tax resident at Gibraltar [no tax], large double merged penhouse with a view to the Gibraltar harbour and the Gibraltar Strait, a Wine Chateau in France [, where he almost never was, mind you], two large farms in Virginia, 1000's of cattle on the farms, one of them with a landing strip for his personal jet, and three homes here in Denmark.

 

The only client I've ever adressed 'Mister <something>' talking with him, never adressing him by his first name. Simply because he liked it so, old fashion. No harm done to me by that.

 

He simply wore me out, I was running totally cold on him, gradually, over time, he taking most of my time to serve him.

 

One night I woke up by my personal fax machine starting ticking, being noisy. Checked it. Fax from Mr. <someone>. Very displeased, not amused at all. Halfway theathening. From one of the farms in Virginia. He had been personally hit by large [several 100 K DKK] on guarantee fees related to a personal guarantee he had issued, covered via a predecessor to Nordea in Luxemburg to guarantee his negative cash flowing commercial real estate refinancing here in Denmark.

 

And our personal agreement was that I should never engage in his financing stuff. I got so stinking furious, that I, right away, transmitted him by fax a two-liner cancellation of the client relationship with immediate effect, caused by his gross misconduct.

 

- - - o 0 o - - -

 

Fax machines are old age, out of favour. But they were awesome, to get some things done! 

[73 Reds]

9 minutes ago, John Hjorth said:

 

LOLz! 

 

Been there, done that! 

 

I had a client for few years, likely then the richest man on the Danish island Funen then, if you even would consider him Danish. He was a Danish expat, tax resident at Gibraltar [no tax], large double merged penhouse with a view to the Gibraltar harbour and the Gibraltar Strait, a Wine Chateau in France [, where he almost never was, mind you], two large farms in Virginia, 1000's of cattle on the farms, one of them with a landing strip for his personal jet, and three homes here in Denmark.

 

The only client I've ever adressed 'Mister <something>' talking with him, never adressing him by his first name. Simply because he liked it so, old fashion. No harm done to me by that.

 

He simply wore me out, I was running totally cold on him, gradually, over time, he taking most of my time to serve him.

 

One night I woke up by my personal fax machine starting ticking, being noisy. Checked it. Fax from Mr. <someone>. Very displeased, not amused at all. Halfway theathening. From one of the farms in Virginia. He had been personally hit by large [several 100 K DKK] on guarantee fees related to a personal guarantee he had issued, covered via a predecessor to Nordea in Luxemburg to guarantee his negative cash flowing commercial real estate refinancing here in Denmark.

 

And our personal agreement was that I should never engage in his financing stuff. I got so stinking furious, that I, right away, transmitted him by fax a two-liner cancellation of the client relationship with immediate effect, caused by his gross misconduct.

 

- - - o 0 o - - -

 

Fax machines are old age, out of favour. But they were awesome, to get some things done! 

John, ironically the fax machine still serves a very useful purpose in my businesses when security is an issue for transfer of certain types of confidential information.  

[rkbabang]

2 hours ago, gfp said:

That's pretty but would get dusty in my house (we have a woodworking mill shop on the floor below the floor we live on).  I have a white audio-technica with a clear dust cover.

 

Outside of vinyl records, which I buy all the time, I'm not even sure how I would give music as a gift to someone?  I mean, I pay for youtube music for our son but when I want to give a christmas gift a record is a pretty good option.  Nobody really has cassettes or CDs any more, although I actually bought a cassette only release last week.  Not sure how I'm gonna play it..

It does have a clear cover.  I don't know why they don't show it on most of the pictures on the website.  Here's a picture that shows the cover.

[Spekulatius]

On 3/4/2026 at 11:14 AM, rogermunibond said:

 

20 for me

 

When you grow up in the 70’s like I did, the answer to all those is yes. I even used a punchcard tos save my Fortran 77 program at school. I also learned basic Assembler code on a Z80. I have dabbled in the lost art of doing calculations with a logarithmic ruler too.

 

Ever seen a TV remote with a wire?

[rogermunibond]

 

had a wired cable box like this one.

 

@rkbabang nice looking turntable.  we have a receiver too so it's nice to be able to not have to purchase the preamp.  acrylic vs mdf?

[Parsad]

53 minutes ago, rogermunibond said:

 

had a wired cable box like this one.

 

@rkbabang nice looking turntable.  we have a receiver too so it's nice to be able to not have to purchase the preamp.  acrylic vs mdf?

 

Never seen that!  We didn't have any sort of cable box like this...ever.  Was it a smaller local provider...not the Big Three back then?  Cheers!

[Rainier]

1 hour ago, rogermunibond said:

 

had a wired cable box like this one.

 

@rkbabang nice looking turntable.  we have a receiver too so it's nice to be able to not have to purchase the preamp.  acrylic vs mdf?

 

I had a similar wired tv remote as a kid, but not as shiny:

 

 

Edited March 6 by Rainier

[rogermunibond]

@Parsad old Time Warner cable in the Midwest.

[Parsad]

10 minutes ago, rogermunibond said:

@Parsad old Time Warner cable in the Midwest.

 

Explains why I've never seen one.  It's funny the things we made do with back in the days...you have no other choice, so it looks very simple for back then, but seems ridiculously unnecessary today! 

 

I see my little niece and nephew talking to Siri to get information or look up a program, and I'm like flabbergasted with how easily they can do it.  I think my nephew at 11 now already has surpassed me in most technology, setup, use, etc. 

 

And I'm only 56!!! 

 

That being said, I don't think they've ever heard the word "flabbergasted!"  

 

Cheers!

[Pelagic]

19, while I've seen one and pressed a few keys on one, I don't think I've ever typed anything on a typewriter. The cassette one had me reminiscing about an odd piece of tech my buddy in college had, it was what I can best describe as a digital cassette that fit into a car's cassette player but could then plug into an iPod to play music from the iPod before aux ports or bluetooth were options. Since there wasn't a similar option for CD players I ended up with an even more fascinating piece of tech that plugged into the cigarette lighter and would broadcast a faint FM radio station while connected to your iPod that you could then tune the car radio to. Thinking about it, this was actually a pretty practical way of doing it since you could sync several cars at a tailgate to the same station.