It's kind of funny; I had no use for technology whatsoever until I started at Wal*Mart, and, at the risk of patting myself on the back, took the liberty of learning about it. Since then, I find myself wondering how many of these things I could live without. I've become so spoiled by many of them, even though there's a few shades of my former self:
* I dropped my Ipod in July and it broke. My buddy agreed to sell me his in November when the current series released. I couldn't justify spending the money on a short-term, but bitched daily about how bad the radio was. The first thing I bought along with my Ipod was an FM transmitter; I detest the radio by and large. If I forget my Ipod or the battery's dead or what have you, I'll listen to sports talk on an AM station.
* Virtually every cell on the market has features that I have no use for (camera most of the time, Mp3, internet), so I've kind of been forced into that corner. I did download Score Mobile for my phone, but I find I very seldom actually use it.
* Have a 360, but I've been playing video games for as long as I can remember. This was probably the first system I ever felt an urge to buy ASAP, though.
* I don't think I need a TIVO or PVR on the grounds that I don't watch enough TV to justify it (80-85% of what I watch is sports, and there's highlights on 'round the clock), but almost everyone who owns one has said the same thing, and have advanced to "You'll find things to watch when it's in your control). The one thing I will offer is: How the hell did my parents watch football when they were my age? One early game, one 4pm game? Two at most? That's caveman stuff. I can't imagine not having the sports package: Thirty bucks a month for basically every major sporting event in North America.
* I also didn't realise how much I liked the Internet, until I was without it for two days last week. It's not like I spent that time curled into a fetal position, but I did stop and think at one point "Wow, I really am online a lot". A frightening comparison is when I did a starve-a-thon in '06, I didn't realise how much I ate, just for the sake of eating. There you have it: food = internet in terms of importance.
* In 2006, I bought a Nintendo DS. A buddy of mine kept saying I needed to buy one, I finally caved, played it twice, and returned it. My 360 is more than enough.
* I'd like a Blu Ray or HD/DVD, but my 360 upconverts, and I'm happy with that.
* I was long indifferent to surround sound, until I heard some really good ones. Read my HDTV reply for a similar response.
* EDIT: This, as VX pointed out, was a pretty wordy entry that really had more to do with family problems than it did with HDTV. So, my edited response is that the standard-tv-owner-mentality of 'What I don't know won't hurt me' makes sense, but it really is a night-and-day difference. I'd also like to point out that there's more HDTV owners like Marvin then there isn't. We're a generally spoiled bunch.
