How Much Would YOU Pay? Well, DON'T!

I noticed this SmartMoney article about ten supposedly obsolete or near-obsolete consumer products that the, er, smart money says we shouldn't be bothering with any more. Here's the list, together with my thoughts:

1. DVD's - Well, I'm pretty much a Netflix junkie already. However, I do maintain a small library of my own consisting of movies I love to watch over and over again, rarities and oddities, and bargain stuff that I stumble on at random.

2. Home Telephone Service - They say the landline is dying out. I say they'll make me carry a cell when they staple it to my cold, dead hand.

3. External Hard Drives - I don't know what this means.

4. Smartphone Also-Rans - Sigh. While I am a telephone Luddite, the rest of the occupants of Orgle Manor do not share my views, with Mrs. Robbo and the elder Llama-ettes having already turned into Blackberry zombies. By the way, can I just say here how much I hate the word "app"? I put it in the same category of linguistic barbarism as "carb".

5. Compact Digital Cameras - Well, we have one but I rarely see it myself.

6. Newspaper Subscriptions - Orgle Manor is ahead of the curve on this one, as we gave Pravda On The Potomac the boot a number of years ago.

7. CD's - Says the article, "When was the last time you bought a CD or even walked into a record store?" Wull...I buy CD's all the time. Nobody has yet shown me how iTunes can come even close to duplicating the variety of classickal musick available on them. Besides, we hates iPods.

8. New College Textbooks - This makes sense. Indeed, I bought all my law school texts used. On the other hand, if like me you buy a book on the assumption you're going to keep it forever, you don't want to pick up something that's falling apart. Also, beware buying a textbook that has been previously owned and annotated by a moron. It'll get you in trouble.

The article also suggests online downloads. Do you know that at the Orgle Manor New Year's Open House, one of our guests, looking around my library, had the nerve to suggest that I ought to buy a Kindle (or whatever those digital book thingies are called)? Feh. Again, you can pry the dead-tree version out of my cold, dead hands while you're busy stapling the cell phone in.

9. Gas-Guzzling Cars - I don't even know what the standard is anymore. To me a "gas-guzzler" still means our old '72 Ford Country Squire station-wagon (with fake wood paneling), that got about 13 gallons to the mile. All I know is that I think of all Prius and Civic hybrid drivers as self-satisfied prigs.

10. Energy-Inefficient Homes and Appliances - Heck, I'd be perfectly happy to replace the forty-year-old windows and storms on Orgle Manor with something less drafty. On the other hand, I'll betcher that we have a smaller carbon foot print than ol' AlGore does.