Today’s prompt is consuming impatience which let’s face it in today’s fast-paced gratification-driven society we experience way more often then we should. If you need to connect with the feeling just think back to the dark ages of dial up. When I first got the internet back in ’99 I spent more time waiting to establish a connection then I spent online surfing. I am the first to admit that I am impatient. When I know the time frame I am pretty tolerant even if the wait is long, it’s the not knowing that disturbs me the the most. Some more examples to contemplate
Waiting (traffic jams, doctor’s appointments, inconsiderate dates, waiting for a child to finish eating)
Listening (I love Sam and he is an interesting and highly amusing guy but he takes epic conversational pauses. Often I think he’s finished talking and wander off when he’s still buffering)
Assembling Ikea furniture (actually I love assembling furniture but Sam beats me to it)
Learning something new in a challenging area
You’re hungry and there’s no food in sight (this for me is the worst)
Lust
Tech support I have never called them as I’m married to the IT guy but I hear it is awful
Arguments
An alternative prompt
Consider what your life would be like without the internet. How would you fill your days? What would your social life look like? Would you be more isolated? Did you meet someone special/irreplaceable online that you might not have met? Would you exercise more? Do you spend an unhealthy amount of time online? Or do your friendships online keep you from certain destructive addictions?
mindlovemisery 
oh man… the days of dial up Internet, unstable connections and 14.4 baud modems ugh :S
lol it was barbaric wasn’t it
Great challenge. Where to start. I can remember pre internet days…..I must be old…..
I can too I got the internet in high school
Waiting for a 100kb jpeg to download seemed interminable. The excitement when windows 95 came out. The insidious, creeping feeling of addiction to the ‘Net.’ Obviously it is a plot to enslave the masses, 🙂
I do think the net has some enslaving/addictive qualities. I lived in the boonies when I first got internet I am not sure that I downloaded anything lol
When I was in grade 9 or 10, I watched my first video — because a friend’s father who worked for the National Film Board (Canada) brought home this behemoth sized machine and played a video tape (I forget what we watched, it was the technology that grabbed me) for us. He said the infamous line “someday, everybody will have one of these at home, and watching television and going to movies will never be the same.” Just as I’m sure parents have said to their child since time began and will until time will end.
I didn’t a VHS player until I was teaching (some 20 years later) and needed one (actually two so I could bootleg) to create tapes for teaching.
I remember the first time I saw the internet was in the computer lab in our department at Grad. school (it would have been 1992 or 3?) when another grad student, after telling me all about it, showed me how to access it. I was blown away — back then it was the information super highway, or the world wide web, but hey, I’m not sure exactly what my friend’s father called what we watched or if it was VHS or the other dueling format. Heck, I remember 8 tracks, lol. Don’t have any 8 tracks, but still have cassettes, and VHS tapes, and an email account from the 1990s. And no microwave.
That is so cool! We used VHS when I was a kid. We did have a stereo with an 8 track. I thought 8 tracks were from the 80s but if not then we had an old player which is totally possible haha I remember cassettes I used them for quite a while even though CDs did come out I was always behind. I remember the blank tapes were never blank and often had creepy background tracks usually abut religion (I bought cheap tapes okay). No I wasn’t the only one who heard them other people could to. I got an internet connection in 1999 it was in my last year of high school I think I was 18. Before that I had only typed journals and played solitaire on my mom’s Tandy. I had the first Nintendo and I never did upgrade even though lots of consoles were coming out and everyone else had something cooler. Honestly the old Nintendo games are still the best haha i have a Wii now so I can play with Isadora
Hubby took computer night classes when I went back to school to finish my BA in the later 1980s (I was typing my papers on an IBM selectric typewriter!). Our first computer was a Radio Shack Tandy (which was finally recycled in 2011) with a floppy drive and about as much memory as my nonsmart phone.
After my grad school supervisor died in 1995, I was asked to compile a complete bibliography of all his published (and unpublished work) over the course of a long career. Hubby and I had to run all over campus to find any computers that could load old 5″ discs, various formats of floppies, etc on which were his earlier CVs, articles, manuscripts, etc. It almost took longer to find the technology to read the material, than to write up the bibliography itself! (He never even used a typewriter — he only ever wrote with a pencil, then graduated to a pen!)
One last tech story, I promise (sorta). When I went to university the first time, I was in the what would now be called “executive assistant” stream. We were shown a typewriter than was a very crude wordprocessor (about two lines at a time), and were extolled the virtues of the future “paperless office” by a visiting rep. for the typewriter. Most students thought it was funny, but remembering my friend’s father’s comments, I was willing to believe. Of course, paper still exists, but office’s sure aren’t the same!
And, as a ps: I like your technology “stream.” We’ve never been cutting edge (despite my exposure to it, lol), and there is something to be said for “the old ways” no matter what the phrase refers to. And, getting something techy that you can share with Isadora (a wonderful name by the way) is special, not “trendy.”
Thank you so much! Thank you for sharing as well that is very cool. I do remember floppies not very fondly though haha. I remember in high school so many of us lost our saved data. I had to restart so many research papers!
I’ve been reflecting this week about exactly when I began using Internet. I guess it was 1998. I used computers a few years before then and often look back with affection at my first MS-DOS Version 5.0 computer. I didn’t get fast broadband Internet speeds at home until 2006. Yesterday I did some online research and discovered that the first website went online in 1985. Well actually there is always some disagreement but it was certainly the first registered .com in the world. It was and still is called Symbolics
Oops! Not sure if I can post a link?
Oh wow I didn’t know that!
I am defo impatient and this:
“Listening (I love Sam and he is an interesting and highly amusing guy but he takes epic conversational pauses. Often I think he’s finished talking and wander off when he’s still buffering)” – happens to me with my husband almost daily. Or my dad. It is like he takes 4h to finish a simple sentence. I really wish I had more aptience in general.
I have very little patience I am afraid. I can’t maintain attention for long before I have a stupid absence seizure. He pauses so long I can’t remember the conversation and he has to start over, which is frustrating for him too. I am trying so hard to focus and listen and I want to hear but I have a short window.
Cool prompt – I went the heartbreak route for this one! 🙂 🙂
That is a good route =)
I would read, write and watch TV more. My on line socializing is more then it would have been. if the Internet was unavailable. I know how to be busy.
I would read more too now that I read blogs my eyes are too tired to read books. As much I wish I could I am unable to read all day. I didn’t watch much television at all in high school before the internet and I am not really inclined to do so. I was so active I couldn’t maintain my weight properly. I’d probably be skinnier without the internet lol
It’s so easy to get lost in this complicated, fast-paced world that promotes instant gratification that we miss out on so much. Very important to pause and take in what is really going on. 🙂
It really is Kev =)