Be Kind Rewind

I'm browsing The New York Times website today and stumble upon an article about a new movie coming out with Jack Black and Mos Def that is about a video rental store accidentally erasing all their videos. The article discuses the life of the VHS and how DVDs have come to permanently replace them. In essence, the movie is a nice memorabilia for the VHS, something entertaining to remember it by, hence the title "Be Kind Rewind."

I find this movie very intriguing because, despite my youth, I find myself getting lost in trying to keep up with all these new technological advancements that are meant to make my life easier, and yet I feel like they are completely unneccesary. Of course I would prefer watch a DVD over VHS, the quality is nicer it's easier to "fast forward" or skip chapters (in DVD talk) theres no need to rewind or worry about the tape getting unraveled or have to wait while it did that weird "tracking" thing.

Sometimes I wonder though about the attitude of technology users today.
I just need an Ipod I can watch movies on. And I seriously do not have enough time to watch the half hour news at night so I have to watch it on a podcast. Don't even THINK that I have time in my busy schedule to rewind that VHS I have at my house...that's only used to prop up my plasma screen T.V.

So I know I sound like some old guy that had to walk to school five miles uphill in both directions in the snow, that yearns for the good old days when he got five channels on his black and white T.V. and they only came in when the antenna is at the exact right angle.
But I am not saying that at all. I love new technology especially when it makes my life easier because I am fairly lazy like most Americans. I also think that technology that enhances journalism is the best kind of technology because I'm a fan of journalism and of ways that journalism can draw in young people who don't want to buy the newspaper anymore. They need to be informed just as much as their whining grandparents.

I guess what I'm asking is for apple to not come out with a new version of itunes every couple of hours. That does NOT make my life easier. I spend a half hour *downloading a new version that happens to be able to read my mind and just know what songs I want in which playlists (*not an actual function). And maybe for my printer to only have three different functions (fax, copy, print) instead of 15. Then I won't have to take it to get fixed every time the printer gets confused about which function it's performing and decides to completely shut down instead.
And seriously lets have more things to honor past technologies that have long passed their expiration dates, like the VHS.