Ten Things We Can't Do Without

I just read an interesting article about things we can't do without here in the good Ol' US of A, in spite of a huge recession going on. You can read the article here.


I would like to go over my thoughts on the Top 10.

1. Portable Computers — Everybody has to have his laptop. And I guess, technically, they are functional. If you are out of work, you can use one to search for a job. If you have a job, you can use one to search for porn and lose your job. All very practical.

2. High-Speed Internet Access — Yeah, that is a definite must have, especially since it's the same price as low-speed Internet — The Source Of All Truth. It is no fun to access Internet — The Source Of All Truth – if you have to do it with some type of pre-historic dial-up.

3. Smart Phones — Everybody has to have their iPhone. I remember my progression of cellular devices, from the giant bag phone to my current smaller bag phone. It's always been one of those things where you say, "How did I live before I got this phone?" The answer is always: You did just fine without it. But still ...

4. Education — People are giving up cars and cable and big houses, but they keep their kids in private schools. I love it. Education is fundamental. Education is beneficial. Education is Instrumental. Education is ... well, it's not as good as a long nap in during the rain, but it's pretty good.

5. Movies — A form of escape that people can't seem to do without during good times or bad. Movies take our minds off reality if only for 90 minutes. Unless it's anything with Steven Baldwin, then it takes your mind off the movie and makes you think, "How will I ever get that 90 minutes of life back?"

6. TV — Even though a lot of people are cutting the cable, folks are not giving up television. They just go about it a different way. I was thinking about this the other day: when I was a kid I used to think, "wouldn't it be nice to have a bunch of channels to choose from?" Then cable came along and gave us like 30 channels, including HBO and ESPN. It was awesome. Then cable expanded and gave us expanded cable. Then it expanded again and gave us the option for premium channels. Now, we have 300 channels to choose from and it's boring. We still watch a few shows on a select number of channels. More and more people are choosing to watch those shows from downloads on iTunes, via the Internet — The Source Of All Truth, or from a DVD through Netflix. The television world is changing but we ain't giving it up.

7. Music Downloads — This is one I don't understand. I don't download that much music. But here again, I guess Apple has changed the way we think about music. Now you can download a song for about a dollar, so everybody downloads songs. It's cheap. It's easy. It's another escape. And you can listen to Yanni for next to nothing.

8. Pets — People ain't giving up their pets. Now we don't just have dogs and cats, we have chinchillas, iguanas, snakes, flying squirrels, just about anything we can fit in a cage is going to become someone's pet. But when we are old and senile and can't get out of the house, at least we will have our dog's to share our lives and our food.

9. Booze — Finally, we're getting to something I really understand. Booze never goes out of fashion. No matter how bad things get, booze is still a budget line item. People will turn to booze to celebrate, relax, unwind, forget, find courage, find a date, or just because it taste so darn good. Whatever the reason, go out tonight and tip up a cup for me.

10. Coffee — I'm not a huge coffee drinker, so I don't need to have it every day, but I can tell that a lot of people do. How do I know? Because I have Twitter and Facebook. People every day posts about how they didn't get enough sleep and they need caffeine. So, whether it's Starbucks, McDonalds, Dairy Queen, 7-11 or a travel mug from the house, enjoy a cup of Joe for me today. And please don't order anything with soy in it.

What is it that you can't do without?