I was a bit surprised to see, in the IPOD discussion, other people state that they do not own these devices. What popular consumer products, trends, etc. have you steered clear of? Here is a partial list of mine:

+ Mobile Phones--I'm an old fuddy-duddy in that I still see them as business tools. As such, I think that if I needed one of these phones to do my job, my employer should pay for it.

+ Pay/subscription TV--I think that the only time that I have ever paid a cable bill was for a few months in college, when I was contributing to a dorm roommate's cable subscription.

+ Apple IPOD/iTunes--I stick with using PCs or a generic MP3 player to listen to MP3s

+ Hybrid vehicles

+ Aesthetic Dentistry--I go to Kaiser for dental care. Since I haven't had any fillings in almost 10 years, I don't know whether Kaiser dentists still use silver amalgam. Back in 1999, they were using both amalgam and composites, at the discretion of the dentist.

+ MySpace & Face Book

+ TiVo

No iPod, no pay TV, no Hybrid, no TiVo.

Cell phone? Yeah, I've found a cell phone enormously useful and helpful. Since I dumped my home phone it costs me really only about an extra $20/month. The huge advantages offered by a cell phone well outweigh the extra cost. For example, the obvious advantage that I can receive or make calls to friends and family anywhere (even when traveling) is huge. Or having a phone in the car in case of a break-down. Or calling someone you are visiting to let them know you will be late or ask directions finding their house. Or using the cell phone to tether my laptop to the internet, so I can work anywhere even without WiFi (not just "work" but buy plane tickets or book hotels while traveling).

The extra flexibility I get for just an extra $20/month vs. my home phone is way more than worth the money. It's an extraordinary bargain.

However, I haven't opted for a "smart" phone. I'm a touch typist, so I can't begin to imagine trying to read my email on one. Laptop is always with me, actually.

My next car will probably be a hybrid - but I'm not going to go buy one until my 8.5 year old car dies, so it may be a few years yet.

Myspace? Tried it, found it sucked; got tons of spam from scammers trying to add me as a friend. I deleted almost everything from my Myspace profile.

Facebook is a different animal. It's much more intelligently designed. It allows me to keep tabs on old friends I don't see much, including (recently) some old high school classmates I haven't even talked to in 20 years. Somehow email is too personal and active now for such people, but seeing the pictures they add and the status/comments they add on Facebook lets me keep tabs on them and them on me. I think Facebook is extremely useful, too, even though I don't spend much time on it.

I love the idea of TiVo, just not paying for it. Love to get a computer-based DTV free version I can build myself, without a monthly subscription.

Andrew

Dial-up (56k) internet here!

I was also late onto the DVD bandwagon (Die-hard laserdisk fan).

Whats TiVo ?

No iPods, cell phones, pay TV, TiVo, flat screens.

I "splurge" on satellite internet, and text messaging.

I've also "splurged" on getting more economical vehicles, but not yet a hybrid. (Dumped the Tahoe for a 4 cycl Escape. Dumped the gas 4x4 dump truck for a diesel 4x4 dump truck. We also have a diesel Rabbit and a 3 cyclinder Geo convertable! )

One more item that escaped my list is the flat-screen TV (thanks, Skeptical). I have a 25" tube TV, and I think that picture is big enough for my living room. Seriously, when people put some of the new large-screen TVs into mid-sized living rooms, the effect is like sitting in the front row at a movie theater. That's something people generally avoid, right?

...And I forgot another frill that I don't have: satellite radio. I did buy some Sirius stock, and now I am regretting it.

I have a cell phone with all the fancy features (LG Dare), but I only use it as a phone. I hate texting! If someone texts me I call them!

Don't have an iPod or any MP3 player (other than what’s in my cell phone and I don't use that.

I do have Dish Network and 2 of the 4 receivers are DVR's.

I also have Sirius. I think I'd give up my Dish Network before I'd give up my Sirius!

No hybrid. Probably won't unless they can make one that that’s as good a 4x4 as my Land Cruiser.

No flat panel TV....yet. Soon though.

No aesthetic dentistry here. 2x a year for cleaning/check ups, that’s all. Be true to your teeth or they will be false to you!

Am thinking about laser eye surgery so I won't have to wear contacts. May or may not do it. It's not a high priority.

Can't think of anything else right now.

Ipod? Check.
Cell phone(s)? Check and check. One personal, one for work (they pay). Both very basic. Make call, take call.
Flat screen? Check. Just got this summer. Sports are fantastic. Concerts also. I gave away 3 tube Tv's when we moved.
Cable with free DVR? Check. Love the DVR.
Cable Internet? Check.
Hybrid? Nope.
Fancy dentistry? Nope. Mouth filled with amalgam? You betcha. I'll probably die from it.

Apple I-Pod: Don't have one, don't need one. I'm pretty much all disc-based. My folks got me an Apple I-Pod for Xmas about four years back but I returned it because the majority of my files (MPEG 1 layer 2) wouldn't play properly. Badabing, extra $275 in my pocket that day. And then I found out about Rockbox several months later..........

Cellular telephones: I use a Track Phone. I think I needn't say more about that. ;o)

Subscription TV packages: There's not much on TV nowdays that makes me justify spending $100/month (or however much Comcrap's charging these days; I haven't a clue, really) to see the same stuff that I can get for free over the air. If I want to see the local & community access stuff, CC Vancouver does pipe that stuff through in FTA QAM mode.

Subscription DAB packages (a' la Sirius/XM): See the thing I wrote about TV pay packages above.

Hybrid cars: Can't pull a 30-foot RV trailer down a rutted gravel road outside G-dale with a Prius.......

(Not to mention I can't even get my enormous 6-foot 8-inch 245-pound frame into one of those things to begin with. Which brings up another question for depate/dispute: should abnormal height be considered for inclusion in the Americans with Disabilities laws?)

GPS/other Navicomputers in vehicles: Remember, Big Brother is watching *YOU*, not me!

Theirspace/Assbook: Nope. This very site (and to some extent Usenet, tho not as much nowdays as in years past) is as far as I wish to take the "social engineeringnetworking" concept. Don't need to bog my computer with spyware and SPAM E-mail memos from the two mentioned here.

Which brings to mind:
E Mail: Never really embraced it to a truly serious extent. I used it quite a bit in high school and now, seven years later, I maybe only get one or two memos in my Google file a month, if even that. These days I mostly maintain an E Mail file so my discussion forum files will work.

Oh yeah, Instant Message systems were HUGE back around that same era. (That was, like, right before text messaging really started becoming popular.) Never really did pick up on that.

Aesthetic dentistry: I've got a mouth full o' metal. I'm not too sure most would consider my silver smile to be aesthetic work but I know it sure brightens up a room, especially when I'm in one of my (rarely seen, it seems) good moods. :o)

Tivo: Wasn't "tie-vo" that aerobic kickboxing workout tape that one dude was selling through infomercials some years back?

Broadband network access: I am on a 56K modem myself. (Yup, just junked the old ISA-card 33.6 dumb modem and upgraded to a serial-port smartmodem last week!! Mandriva didn't seem to like the ISA card but it works fine with this one.) My folks, on the other hand, tell me they are getting a DSL line put in in a couple of weeks, so at least now I won't have to wait for my neighbour to go out of town to get my Linux stuff........ ;o)

VOIP telephony: I'm on 56K dialup, what do you think? ;o)

Online shopping: Nope. Brick & mortar guy meeself. 'Course I don't have a credit card but that's the least of my worries. I have to actually see the product, feel it, play with it, take it to bed with me etc. before I make a decision to buy it. I tried E-Bay a few years ago but never really got into it. (Did snag some rather interesting old-skool Muzak memorabilia on there tho........)

Flat-screen TV's/computer screens: Depends, really. I do like plasma screens but they are too damn expensive for me right now. LCD's are a big, huge no-no (unless it's my laptop screen, in which case I really don't have a lot of choice regardless.) I usually use CRT's.

HDTV: Ummmm.....the USA is converting to all-*digital* TV broadcasting, not all *HDTV* broadcasting. I can always letterbox a widescreen HD broadcast to fit my regular SD screen!

DVD-Video: I've really only started getting into DVD Video within the last three or four years. Even still, my DVD Video collection, with 46 titles at last count (mostly IMAX & National Geographic documentaries, motocross films and a couple Blockbuster-rental knockoffs) doesn't compare to my 77 laserdiscs and 500+ tapes........

(Although I *will* say I think recordable DVD discs are indispensible for massive data storage. An entire library building full of books could maybe fit in a couple Trapper Keepers of DVD discs. They're just like microfilm.)

Sony Blue Ray: Haven't even touched that format yet. I think I'm going to wait at least a couple more years before I try to do anything with that.

Didn't jump on the "stay in school and get a Masters" bandwagon way back when. Looking back, I probably should have explored it more heavily but with crappy GPA and no money, it was a no brainer to take my first full time job at the AM DA station where I worked part time already when they handed me my diploma.

Didn't go to my senior high school prom. I rode the wood in sports and spent the remainder of after school time on stagecraft doing lighting and making money in support of evening auditorium rentals by outside groups.

Didn't get drunk on beer every night at college. It was pretty popular, albeit the bandwagon had a high turnover rate. I did eat too much my freshman year. I'm 40 lbs lighter today.

Internet: I was an early adopter of DSL with US West. When I started my own business in the mid 90's, fast, reliable internet was a requirement. When you work for yourself, you can't use the boss's connection. Anyway, US West was great. Qwest on the other hand, sucks. When I bought my home and moved out of where I was at the time, I had to go back to dial-up (99) until Comcast finally put internet on the cable.
So I guess I did hop on the broadbandwagon, but so has half of the homes in America. What I didn't do is hop on the ...

Microsoft bandwagon. I think DOS 3.3 is the last great OS Microsoft developed. When Apple brought out their GUI, I knew instantly that was the direction of the future. After all, my first PC was an Atari and besides, back in the early 70's doing graphical programming on the CDC 6400 at school was all the rage. All you Apple haters can go jump in the lake, without the Mac OS we'd all be looking at C:\>copycon config.sys and so forth if not to this day at least into the 90's. So call me what you want, jumping on the "spend time being productive instead of pulling your hair out" bandwagon and letting a world full of fools embrace Microsoft and jump on their bandwagon is not something I regret.

Mobile communications. If you've had jobs where you're tethered to work you know the origin of that can be traced to pagers. Having cell phones is a lot better, making two way communications ubiquitous. I haven't jumped on the smartphone bandwagon, but that's simply a financial matter at this time. G3 technology is to be embraced, it's powerful and helpful.

Never jumped on the "it's cool to be a curmudgeon and reject technological advancements" which unfortunately some of you seem endeared to. It's a laugher.

Haven't gone HD/Tivo in consumer entertainment yet, but again that's mostly a financial limitation. I can rip and edit pre-master in any format, but other than the 'puter can't really enjoy it. The same goes for surround sound. In any case, being an early adopter of any CONSUMER technology is generally overpriced and bug laden.

Never jumped on the "gamer" bandwagon.
Never jumped on the "audiophile/videophile" bandwagon.

Did jump on the lose weight/be fit bandwagon although I resisted that longer than advisable. Without lots of exercise I could never withstand the stress of 8 years of George Bush.

I didn't jump on the "go for a Master's" bandwagon, either, for slightly different reasons. When I graduated college in 1998, the job market in the tech sector was pretty hot. I figured that if it was so easy to get a job, then I should go into the work force, save some money, and consider graduate school at a later date. At least that way, I reasoned, I could get an idea of what graduate programs might be desirable to employers. Unfortunately, I never did go back to school, and the older that I got, the less certain that I felt about my career choice.

I never jumped on the video game bandwagon, myself.

On the other hand, I feel that a finger might be pointing at me with the comment, "it's cool to be a curmudgeon and reject technological advancements." A lot of my friends have these slick 3G phones, but for the most part, I see the phones being used to look at Facebook profiles, to keep up with the events calendar at meetin.org, etc. I'm not saying that 3G is "evil" or anything like that; I just think that in my current situation, one of these phones wouldn't benefit me very much.

Starbucks. Although I have no issues with them or their product.

"I see the phones being used to look at Facebook profiles, to keep up with the events calendar at meetin.org, etc."

Alfredo, you are a wise one, for being so young. That's what I was saying, "make call, take call". That's what a damn phone is for. The rest is computer stuff.

And no, I'm not a crumudgeon (see my above list of crap I use), just a purist when it comes to some things.

I send a text message once a month, if that, and only when I know the recipient(s) won't get email in time. I get annoyed when people send me trivial text messages. 20 cents apiece!

I do hope to get a 3G phone soon, however, just so I can tether the laptop to the internet at a faster speed. I am definitely on the laptop bandwagon. The thing is practically attached to me. It's still not always possible to find a wifi connection out in the world...

Andrew

I like text, but I don't care for any of the rest of it.

Absolutely agreed about the phone being about phone calls.

Text has a coupla nice advantages:

it can be non-interactive

it can be done while interacting.

Meetings are good text times, so is the middle of the night.

Computers do these things well, but sometimes it's good to ping a person, and that ping happens extremely well with text, so I'm there.

I don't use it for the many yes, no maybe so conversations I see people mostly using it for though.

I especially like the non-interactive part. Phone conversations, IM etc., just generally suck all the life out of me.

LOL!!

That's not exactly what I meant. More like a quick notification, or information burst. This is often quite handy, particularly when the loop you are in does not need to be closed.

"got to work ok"

"mission accomplished"

"we are meeting at Dave's @ 7:00"

"Call Kirk"

We started texting because our kids often wouldn't answer thier phones, but they can't seem to resist answering a text. Must be a generational thing.

Totally is!

Here's another bizzare one.

So, I've got the two older kids putting me through parent hell. (Yeah, the run aways)

They won't call for nothing. They know they are being asses, but are having an acceptance problem. Many of us do that. I'll stand strong and wait it out.

They will answer a text, and have long and ugly conversations with text, but won't actually face anybody. (because that really hurts)

Kids like text because it's not real, like actual conversation is. Want to dump somebody?

Text 'em, then go see a movie with your new date!

God, it's gonna be a brutal world out there soon!

As a parent, I am happy to text, but I don't know how to text "YES". (safety tip: better call me!)

Yeah, they hate it, but they DO call, so I can hear the guilt and cut bad things off before something stupid happens!!

Lets see:

MP3 format is crap, I'd rather go back to analog tape than listen to an iPOD. Plus I have a vast 300+ CD collection... if I want a mix CD it's not like it's hard to accomplish.

I dont even own a TV right now. When I did 6 months ago, it just had rabbit ears. I refuse to pay the cable/satillite company an extra 50 bucks a month for something I rarely watch.

I would get solar panels, hybrid, and jump on the bandwagon for other social causes if I could afford it.

I use a cell phone. I was dead set against it but a family emergency was the cause for me to get one. I found out about the emergency four hours later than I should have. So, a few months later, I got one and it's my primary number. The only reason I have a land line is for DSL.

Dentistry? Hell, I haven't been to the dentist in almost a decade.... 200 bucks to get my teeth cleaned? Uhm yeah gunna pass.... ridiculous. The joys of not having health care.

Facebook/Myspace yeah I have a page for each but I was late on the scene for both. I peruse them once every other day or so... just to see what's up.

Just wondering, for those like Moman who don't own a TV. How do you get 'TV type' cultural information so you can relate to your listener. Not judging, just curious. I notice some DJ's talk about American Idol and Survivor on the air (some Tivo, because of their shift) hard to chat about a topic if you have never seen it.

a half hour on the net brings enough nuggets to sound hip. That's all that would be necessary to paint the illusion in the minds of listeners.

Ask Chris this! He does it all the time.

Punching holes in my body, especially my face.

Nope, not for me!