I feel like such an old man when I start thinking about just how drastically technology has changed. We grew up hearing our parents and grandparents tell stories about “Back in my day we didn’t have…” and I often find myself doing similar things and it’s kind of scary.

Most of us grew up without the internet and when we finally did get it, it was dial up. When someone else in the house picked up the landline phone, it would knock you off the internet.

We had walkmans and discmans. We didn’t have ipods, and MP3 players. We had to take out the tape and flip it to the other side in order to hear the rest of the song. When CDs came around, we had to carry those thick CD cases and had to be careful not to scratch the CDs. It was inconvenient to say the least.

We had VHS not DVDs. Eventually DVDs even became a thing of the past.

Anyway, no need to go into too much detail but what I’m getting at is just one example of how Tyler has changed since my days there as a kid.

We couldn’t bring our laptops into Whataburger or Starbucks to serve the internet. In fact, you were hard pressed to find either one of those and now, they’re everywhere.

Every now and then, if it was a good week for the kids and the parents, we’d get to go to the video store to rent a movie, whether it was Blockbuster, Showboat Video, Movies and Sounds or one I’m forgetting, that was always a highlight. Now, those are gone. Tyler has…Hastings. Is that all?

It’s somewhat sad to see the video stores become a thing of the past but overall, it’s definitely an improvement. Technology has allowed us to stream movies via Hulu and Netflix on our phones, tablets and computers. We can reserve and rent movies from Red Box, which happens to be all over the city. In fact, if you go to the Red Box website, you can see what movies are in each box in Tyler and reserve it till you get there and that’s just the beginning. We didn’t have any of that when we were kids.

This coming Thursday, the wait will finally be over as the 2013 NFL season officially kicks off when defending Super Bowl champs Baltimore Ravens go head-to-head with the Denver Broncos in Denver.

That will be the first game of Week 1 and will be followed by a whole slew of games come Sunday afternoon.
Sunday Night Football will feature an NFC East rival showdown when the Dallas Cowboys play host to the New York Giants. The Cowboys have yet to defeat the Giants at the new stadium in Arlington and if they’re unable to do so Sunday night, they will have to wait an entire year to do so.

The divisional title could quite possibly come down to the winner of the Giants and the Cowboys so the winner of the Week 1 matchup will have a leg up on the competition.

Dallas has made several changes coming into this season. Bill Callahan will call the offensive plays while the club brought in Monte Kiffin as the new defensive coordinator.

Kiffin looks to install the 4-3 Tampa 2 defense which will move DeMarcus Ware to the defensive line. Even though he’s had no shortage of sacks by any means, you can expect him to more on the line since he won’t be dropping back into coverage like he would at linebacker.

Regardless, the NFL is right around the corner, and I can’t wait. I’m more than ready for some football.

Literally just moments ago I learned of a movie that was released into theaters yesterday called Our Nixon. The only thing I know of the film on Richard Nixon is what I’ve seen in the trailer above and parts of the movie by former president’s closest aides and convicted Watergate conspirators. The movie attempts to offer a new look into his presidency.

The movie’s website, ournixon.com, says “Throughout Richard Nixon’s presidency, three of his top White House aides obsessively documented their experience with Super 8 home movie cameras. Young, idealistic and dedicated, they had no idea that a few years later they’d all be in prison.”

Those aides filmed over 500 reels of home movies between the years of 1969 and 1973 as they filmed historical events that would change the world forever, such as the Apollo moon landing, historic anti-war protests, the Republican National Convention, Tricia Nixon’s White House wedding and Nixon’s world-changing trip to China.

They filmed several world leaders and politicians, whether it was behind the curtain or on stage. They enjoyed showing stages of people in their personal lives to make them appear more human, much like the every-day man. Word has it, they began filming to have something to show the grandkids and wanted to show first hand, just how the Nixon presidency would change the world. It’s safe to say it did change the world in big ways, just not the ways they were expecting.