Ten years later

Blogger tells me this is my 600th post so I thought I'd do a end of decade retrospective (given that I generally do my year of books wrap up post on New Years Eve).

It's hard to believe that it's the end of the decade (and yes, I know, technically it's not but we're moving into double digit years in the century so let's not quibble). I can remember being at a New Year's Eve party at the end of 1999, everyone joking about whether the lights would still be working after midnight. Thankfully Y2K didn't bring down civilisation so here we are ten years later.


see more Lolcats and funny pictures

So what's happened in ten years?

Ten years ago:

I didn't own a house (I was living in a share house with three male room mates...yeesh).

I hadn't ever written a whole book (finished my first in 2001 and have finished, um, quite a few since then). I did a little bit of writing but didn't really believe I'd ever be a writer.

I therefore didn't have an agent and had never had a rejection (or even submitted anything).

I did own a mobile phone. It only made phone calls. No pictures, no texts, no colour screen, no email or the forty zillion things my iPhone can do. Lots of my friends didn't have mobiles.

I had veeeerrrry slow dial-up internet. Used predominantly for email as surfing took forever. Most of my friends didn't have a computer at home.

My computer had 5mb of RAM. I can't remember the hard drive size but I'm guessing way less than 1Gb.

I didn't know most of the people I now count as close friends (particularly my crit buddies and other writing buds).

Only two of my friends had children. Most of them weren't even married. And I'd never been a bridesmaid.

My grandparents were still alive. I miss them.

I'd never seen a baby being born.

I'd never been to a writing conference or won a writing award.

I'd never made a quilt. Or knitted a pair of socks.

I did have the orange cat and the grey cat.

DVDs didn't exist (laser discs were around but VCR was king).

I didn't know ANY published authors.

I didn't have a blog, or a facebook account or twitter. Blogs probably existed in some form but facebook and twitter and the like definitely did not.

I didn't have an iPod. I had a cd walkman. My computer didn't have a cd burner. It used floppy disks.

No-one had an "i"anything.

I'd never read an ebook though I had bought books online (but I'd imagine only from Amazon.com)

I'd never done pilates or Nia.

I had the same chiropractor as I do now.

I had less grey hairs (possibly none).

I'm not sure if I wore glasses. If I did, it was less than now lol

My parents weren't retired.

My camera used film.

My car had a cassette player. And no air conditioning.

I worked full time. Hardly anyone at work worked part-time back then.

I had the same microwave I have now but not sure I can say that for many other appliances (given I just today threw my ancient popcorn maker away after dropping it).

I didn't worry about terrorism.

I wore lipstick not lipgloss.

I didn't own a hair straightener.

I didn't have any sort of backup for my computer other than putting stuff on floppy disks. USB didn't exist.

I hadn't driven a sports car. I still haven't. Maybe this decade...

I was a Buffy fan. I still am.

No-one spoke lolz.

My age had a 2 as the first number (yikes!)

I had the same number of tattoos as I do now. One day this will change.

I knew less about myself and the world then than I know now but I'm not sure I feel terribly different now to how I did then. Happier which is good. But not necessarily older (except when I catch myself thinking "young folks these days" type thoughts lol).

Life has changed a lot in ten years but mostly for the better. How about you? What's happened in the last ten years that makes it seem like 2000 was a whole different world?