We Say Goodbye to Another Old Friend

Last month, I lost a dear "friend" of mine. Now, this month, we say goodbye to another.Growing up in the 80's, we didn't have DVD's, cell phones, Netflix, streaming or anything else like that. We had a VCR and had to watch our movies on video cassettes. And if we didn't rewind them before we returned them to the store, we got FINED!

And, like my family, we couldn't really afford our own VCR right away. I think they were a couple hundred bucks and with a family of four, that kind of scratch was hard to come by in the early 80's. So, we had to walk to town and RENT a VCR and our movies and lug all that crap back home, set it up and watch some grainy picture (move the tracking wheel to get the best picture) AND WE LIKED IT!

Now, the last company that makes VCR's, Funai, is going to stop making them next month. Believe it or not, they still sold 750,000 VCR's last year. Who still uses these?

Man, what took them so long to finally say, "I think these are pretty outdated. Let's just stop. We're embarrassing ourselves by still trying to sell them?"

Don't get me wrong, I LOVED having a VCR back then. Sure, it was a pain in the ass lugging all that stuff home and hooking it up, but once you did, you had 5 or 6 movies to watch for a two-day period (That's IF you rented them for two days instead of the standard one-day rental)

It's amazing. People that have never had to use a VCR and have had today's technology at their finger tips most of their lives will never know the struggle. The struggle was real, kids. It was real and it was cool... But not as cool as watching whatever the hell you want, whenever you want and not having to get off the couch.

So long VCR. You will be missed.