technology. savvy?

since coming home from my mission, i have felt extremely un-hip in many ways. first of all, there was definitely a noticeable retardation in my appreciation/knowledge of quality music that had come out while i was gone. m ward and the sea and cake didn't really float my boat, so i kind of gave up on the music scene until recently. in that case, willfull ignorance was partly the problem.

but i have found that the willfull ignorance has spread to other facets of my life as well. for example, when i was a student, i used to feel pretty confident about my computer skills. i knew how to use the internet, i knew how to use word, i knew how to save to a disk. apparently i was on the verge of being NOT technologically savvy, and would have discovered so had i not left on my mission. at least, that's what i think now that i've been thoroughly mocked for my ignorance.

ipods for example-- apparently those were out before i left. is this true? i left in october of 2003. it probably is true, but i find it so disturbing that i had never even heard of them until delroxy wrote me a letter saying that she had purchased one in january or so of 2005. (the fact that delroxy was purchasing one at his time leads one to believe they couldn't possibly have been out much earlier than january of 2005.) when i first laid eyes on one, it was apparently a prehistoric model, the equivalent of the "brick/car-phone" in the history of the cell phone. the owner was obviously embarrassed and felt the need to explain himself. to me, it could have been the size of a watermelon, and i still would have been impressed by its alien appearance.

the word "blog" was also a mystery to me. obviously, i have progressed somewhat in that area. however, i seriously doubt i will ever progress much beyond the utilization of the template provided for me here. not to mention the lack of digital technology and knowledge that keeps me from posting photos. the cameras i use are still film only, and i believe i will need to be remedying that soon.

i was then enlightened by some benevolent individual as to the existence of usb, jump, or flash drives. these are still somewhat of a mystery to me. i purchased one today for the first time, and have yet to get it to work in any of the public libraries' computers. (it's not just my lack of technology savvy, the hip and savvy librarians didn't know either. they said it was likely that my jump drive simply is not compatible with their system. let me know if that sounds stupid or not.)

also, i apparently should be using a phone that is as thin as a stick of gum. my phone is somewhere between the brick phone of antiquity and the "razor" phone of today. it was free with my plan, and has graphics that remind me of supernintendo.

if anyone has any hip or savvy advice for me, i'll be shopping online for "the idiot's guide to technology."