Hmmm, I Wonder If I'll Ever Need That Again?

I was digging around looking for something in my desk and I came across an old dial up modem. Remember those? You would boot your computer to Windows 95, click on the AOL icon, and then sit back and listen to the music.
"Beeeeeeeeeeeep, blaaaatzzzzzzzzzz, Squeeeeeeel, Beeep Bleeeeeeeeeeeeep"
Once you got signed in to AOL you could do almost anything. Join a chat room, go to a BBS, or look at the boring pages supplied by AOL. That didn't last long though because the internet was growing and soon you could go to the internet through the AOL portal which you soon discovered you really didn't need anyway.

I'm always amazed at the crap I end up throwing into the garbage. Today I tossed my Directv DVR\receiver. It wasn't the HD model, I had to return those. This was the standard definition DVR that I paid a couple of hundred dollars for. Garbage now, as is the modem I found. I'll throw that away along with the DSL modem from at&t that I have sitting on my desk. I have memory strips that I paid for, cell phones, and a ten year old PT Cruiser. All obsolete. I guess that is one way of gauging just how damn old you are. It's when the Smithsonian comes knocking, and asking if you'd donate that killer eight track tape player for their exhibit on life in the mid-twentieth century that you know you've really crossed the line.
"Glad we caught you when we did sir. I'd hate to hear that your surviving relatives tossed such a fine example of early American, electronic ingenuity. Very few of those left you know."