To aide my workout kick, I’m eating more fish now. It’s high in protein, and that’s good for building muscle. With that in mind, I’ve started eating a piece of fish with breakfast. Catfish and grits sounds country to some, but it sounds like good eatin’ to me.
The other day, Kroger had catfish and salmon on sale, so I loaded up on each. I know what to do to season catfish, but I didn’t know anything about salmon. I knew my buddy Clarence cooks salmon, so I asked him what he seasons the pink fish with. He told me what he does, and then he told me what he does when he cooks salmon in a pan.
And that made me think–when’s the last time I cooked meat in a pan? Outside of browning ground beef or turkey to do spaghetti or something, I have no idea the last time I put a piece of meat in a skillet.
Why not? You know why not–the George Foreman grill, one of the greatest innovations of my lifetime.
So that got me thinking of innovations, large and small, that have come around in my lifetime. Here’s 13 of them. Too busy today to do 25, so feel free to help me out with twelve more.
The George Foreman Grill. With the Foreman and another entry on this list, it’s possible to do a full, healthy and tasty meal in about ten minutes with little to no effort. Think of how much time you have to spend hovering over meat just looking for the moment when you have to flip it over. What a waste, man. I’d rather be watching TV while waiting to hear that beep from the Foreman saying the food’s done. The other beep I wait to hear from in the kitchen is from…
The Microwave. It can bake potatoes in eight minutes per. It can turn last night’s dinner into tonight’s nourishment. And I honestly have no idea what people did before it. A couple Christmases ago, the microwave at my parents’ house broke. I really had no idea how to heat up anything. I would have starved in that house had no one been able to tell me how you heat up turkey or dressing with old school kitchen appliances.
Cleaning Wipes. Maybe I’m just lazy, but I really dig the convenience of opening a package of wipes and cleaning my kitchen, furniture, or bathroom. I wonder why it took so long for them to get hip to this one, though. Baby wipes have been around forever.
The .mp3. I’m sure the record label’s not to fond of this one, but I’m a big fan. The .mp3–and the ease of its distribution–might be the only reason I have the career I have. Napster and friends gave me the grounding in all types of music from all eras that I used as a music critic to provide somewhat unique analyses. Plus, I got to jam a bunch of great shit.
The CD. Before the .mp3, we had CDs. Digital sound, small package, and the ability to jump from track to track. Small problem–one could argue that the ability to easily get to a song made strong, continuous albums less important. After the album boom of the ’70s, we saw that wind back toward the old single model. Why? Maybe because the CD turned every song on an album into a single.
Hybrid Automobiles. I don’t have one, but it’s amazing to me that they make hybrids now that run like regular cars. It was also a great hustle for the carmakers. Think about it–it’ll take a while for someone to make up for the higher cost of a hybrid in gasoline savings. So instead of that money going to gas stations, they go to carmakers. Very wise move.
Really good stereo cables. The other day, I upgraded all of my cables in my entertainment center. If you’re using the red/white/yellow joints that come with your electronics, go to Best Buy and take care of that. Cheap cables simulate sound according to the limited sounds it can create. Optical, digital coax and other nice cables do a much better job of streaming sound as it actually sounds. So don’t scoff when you see the high prices on cables. They’re actually doing good things for you.
The wireless router. More on computer stuff later, but the router actually makes laptops worth the added expense. If you’ve got to stay tethered to a desk, than the laptop’s only real advantage is portability between locations. With the router, you’ve got portability within locations. That’s crucial.
The 808. The bestest sound ever.
The Internet. This is just as important as the printing press. Both greatly decreased information costs, allowing pretty much anyone to research easily to find out what’s up on a range of issues. It allows for instant cross-referencing. And oh yeah, good looking women are always one click away. And I didn’t even get into YouTube!
ScotchGard. Cuz I’m just a junky mother sucker.
Please add more. And if you haven’t already, check the India.Arie post below. It’s been interesting.
15 thoughts on “A Few Magnificent Technological Innovations of My Lifetime”
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Digital Cameras: I’ve had one since 2000 and they continue to get cheaper, smaller and more efficient. I’ve taken thousands of photos I never would have before, saved myself hundreds in film costs and the only thing I can think of is how irritating it is we didn’t have them in the 80s and early 90s.
Fantastic one.
I’m just amazed you left your beloved iPod off the list. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think it belongs, but that’s just me.
bigdogg,
You forgot the cellphone, laptop and my beloved Blackberry!
Ahhh, the Blackberry–makin people look more important than they are since 2000!
More recent and not yet fully mainstream – High Definition TV. (I hear that only 40% of the HDTVs sold utilize HD channels)
It almost trmups actual game atmospheres, so long as you have irate, rival team fans in-house.
The automatic public toilet is a great invention for the guys here, especially for the urinals.
Best places: Airport, fast food, movie theatre, theme parks and definitely stadiums and arenas.
Not just the internet you mentioned, which has been around since the 60s as ARPANET (or something like that), but consumer level broadband (which reared its head around ’97 or so), has really revolutionized the ‘net.
Well, in MY lifetime I would say the TV remote control. In concept it was the first interactive wireless/radio controled device I can remember, and it started it all (for cell phones, wireless routers, bluetooth, etc.)
Not just the internet you mentioned, which has been around since the 60s as ARPANET (or something like that), but consumer level broadband (which reared its head around ’97 or so), has really revolutionized the ‘net.
Well, in MY lifetime I would say the TV remote control. In concept it was the first interactive wireless/radio controled device I can remember, and it started it all (for cell phones, wireless routers, bluetooth, etc.)
I would add the remote control, keyless entry for vehicles (albeit a stretch and not really vital for living), CD-ROM drives and burners (remember trying to put all your stuff on floppy disks?), DVD’s and DVD Players(how did we handle watching movies by adjusting tracking, and waiting for them to rewind?), the cell phone, the cordless phone, digital voicemail (no tapes, that was a mess), and maybe even as a strectch, keyless entry remotes for cars.
About the Hybrid Car entry…the U.S. is actually in the process of demanding manufacturers of those vehicles to re-do their mileage benefits from the Hybrid engine. Meaning, car companies have been citing in-accurate mileage advantages of Hybrid Cars. When they say 40 mpg as opposed 24, they are over-looking several factors, and in some cases, the companies are even contriving those mpg numbers. I believe by 2007, there will be stricter regulations on this whole Hybrid Car thing. Basically, it’s not as legit as it seems and the advantages are not over-whelming by any stretch of the imagination.
I don’t like how you can’t edit on this thing. I didn’t mean to put keyless entry twice. My bad.
Sliced Nasty Cheez: because I was tired of having to micorwave my nasty cheez to get it to act right or squeeze it out of a can. Nasty cheez has sustained many a starving artist and preschooler throughout its existence.
I guess if you get right down to it, the greatest technological innovation of all would be the concept of numbers, which I believe predates Christ by a few thousand years (depending on your faith), specifically the number 1 and the number 0, because without those two numbers, there would be no digital data to record music and voice, no streams over fiberoptic cables, no texting, no ipod, no bomanijones.com…we’d all be writin’ letters to each other…
oh, and Rex, they’re gonna redo mileage claims for ALL cars…seems the auto industry’s been lying to us…surprise, surprise…
Funny you brought this up. Just yesterday I was talking about the ipod. I can’t lie, I have one – but remember the days of waiting till your song came on the radio and pressing record and getting it FOR FREE! The ipod convenience is what draws people in and the fact that people like new things, but I don’t understand how we have gotten to the point that we are convinced its ok to pay for things that we used to get free. I know some will argue that times have changed this is true, but we now have gadgets that we “just can’t live without” that we continuously pay to keep up and we are not making anymore money than in the cassette
days maybe its me but I feel duped!
Farmdog, you’re dead on on point #1, but you and Rex are both way off on #2. The EPA signs off on all those MPG numbers, so forget about blaming the manufacturers. You can actually get those numbers out of most cars anyway, just not in anything that even remotely resembles actual driving conditions.
Also, SUV’s get by on a loophole. They allow the manufacturers to classify them as “trucks” thereby allowing lower gas efficiency standards than a sedan or small SUV.