I’ve always had a manual car. I love them. That is until I ended up dating a younger woman and we moved in together. Several years later the manual turned into the second car only I drove. That got sold and we now have two cars she can drive.

One day I might teach her how to drive manual. We live in a really flat area with no major hills, so it shouldn’t be a problem. One day maybe,

The heads pick up dirt and over time the tapes shed on the play and record heads. It’s a dark brown mass that builds up. The thicker it is, the more it interferes with record/playback. Playback will sound muffled with a loss in the high end. Also, the buildup promotes the tapes shedding more doing damage over time. It usually comes off easy with a few light wipes with an alcohol dipped q-tip.

The only “trick” I’ve heard is you are supposed to only wipe off the tape head the way the tape runs across it. The idea being you don’t want to scratch the head which would then damage the tape. I don’t know if this was just folklore, but it seems logical.

I used to have a reel to reel Tascam 8 track that ran 1/2 tape in my studio. I was always careful to wipe only in the direction of the tape and I’d clean before each studio session. I never saw any build up on those heads.

That’s when I’d put my “smart” phone in the toaster and go dust off the Nokia 3310

I got banned from Reddit and I honestly don’t know why. I could get around it, but I took it as a positive thing being Canadian and Reddit being Reddit.

Whatever. I’m here now.

Am I right or am I right?

I have a smallpox scar on the back of my arm and I didn’t even know it was there.

We got the shots in school and I have faint memories of the Jet Injector. Most scars of people my age are on the side of the arm up near the shoulder. I didn’t have one so for years I assumed I didn’t get the vaccine or my memory of it was wrong.

Then one day in the shower my girlfriend pointed it out. It’s around the backside of the arm and hard to see in a mirror - but it’s there.

I feel kind of special having it as it isn’t that common these days.

I’m the same age. I never knew anyone who had measles EXCEPT older people who told stories of it. I never knew anyone who had it whilst I knew them.

On the flip side, we attended chickenpox parties to get infected. Of course this was before the vaccination and knowing more about Shingles. All the folklore knew was one you get chickenpox, you never get it again and it’s better to have it as a child than adult.

You can download all the old Netscapes here - http://home.mcom.com/archives/

I found Mosaic 1 here - https://winworldpc.com/product/ncsa-mosaic/1

Going from Netscape 1 to Netscape 2 which supported animated gifs. What a day that was!