Why Can't Things Just Stay The Same

For those who use Facebook to stay connected, it’s been an interesting last few days. They’ve changed it. Changed the way it looks and acts. Just when I was getting comfortable with it, it’s all different.

I know it’s a sign of my advancing age that I seem to be more comfortable with familiar things, but I take comfort in the old saw “people don’t know what they like, they like what they know”. I can’t believe I’m the same person who in the 60’s wanted to change everything.

Just when I got comfortable with Windows 95, they came out with Windows 98. My first computer ran Windows 3.1 and the computer I’m writing this on runs Windows XP, and that’s where I’m stopping. No Vista for me. I’ve learned to get XP to do what I want it to do, and I’m not fighting the battle again. As far as I’m concerned, the Mojave Experiment is alien science.

One of the companies I write for wants me to upgrade to Microsoft Office 2007 so I send them stuff in Word 2007. I have Office 2003, hence Word 2003. I’ve installed the Office 2007 compatibility pack, but that’s it. I’ve been stalling them by saying “your IT people can convert it to whatever they want”. I can read their stuff, and they can read mine.

I’ve been forced to make the change from VCR to DVR, and it seems to be for the better. But I can only tell my DVR to record a certain program…not to record a certain time. So if the program starts late, I get the end of the program that preceded it, and miss the end of the show I wanted to see. If I thought that was going to happen back in the VCR days, I could set the timer to record an extra 15 minutes or so. I can’t figure out how to do that with the DVR.

My anti-virus software is constantly demanding that I upgrade it. I’ve given up that fight. I just let it boss me around.

They always used to have 64 teams in the NCAA Basketball Tournament, now they have 65. The Super Bowl used to be in January, and now it’s in February. The World Series darn near ended in November last year. Spring Training used to start in March, now it starts in February. They seem to be constantly fiddling with the date we set our clocks ahead or back an hour.

Why can’t things just stay the same?