Ani MollerOne o'clock, two o'clock, three o'clock rock

I remember getting my first Walkman quite clearly.  I was about 10 or 11, and I remember walking around the electronics store with my parents and seeing the one I wanted in a locked glass cabinet.  By this stage, the Walkman had already been around for about a decade, having been released in 1978.  The model I had was black, plastic, and still really bloody massive.  Regardless, I loved that little beast.

Technology seemed so simple back then.  Play, stop, rewind, fast-forward.  That was it.  Mine didn’t have recording functionality, so I had to keep playing “radio stations” on Mum’s portable radio player.  But it did give me the functionality to listen to one hissy album or cassingle (cassingles!) at a time while sitting in the back seat of my parents’ car while driving to awesome places like Waikanae, Masterton, or perhaps if I was really lucky, Napier.

I became obsessed with music.  I remember going to the mall and buying tapes – my first album being Please Hammer Don’t Hurt Em, by the legend that is MC Hammer.  This led to a live music obsession in my teens, and a continuing adoration for portable music instruments (despite the tinnitus).  But to me, my 5th-gen iPod isn’t really that dissimilar to my first Walkman.  It plays, stops, rewinds and fast-forwards.  I can change albums.  I can listen to singles, but they are no longer prefixed by “cas”.  It’s just smaller, lighter, and prettier.  But what is a Walkman like to a 13-year-old?  Apparently really quite strange.

I can see why though:

1. Cassettes?  WTF?
2. They’re large.  Huge, in fact.
3. One colour?!
4. It’s so heavy my pants are falling down.

I will always have fond memories of my first Walkman.  And especially of listening to MC Hammer on the go.  Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh, here comes the Hammer: on my massively clunky battery-draining tape-chewing portable monster.

I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with my glasses.   I love them because they make me look smarter.  It doesn’t matter how stupid something I say is, I will still look smart because I have glasses.  I hate them because they are a pain in the arse, usually uncomfortable, I can’t actually see without them, and they result in the guys who are attracted to me all having librarian fetishes.

But as much as I don’t enjoy wearing glasses, I am petrified of getting laser surgery.  What if it went wrong?  What if it didn’t go wrong but my sight just went a little bit crappy after a few years and then I couldn’t wear contacts ever again?  What if my tear ducts went mental and kept pissing salty water leaving me no choice but to get my tear ducts cauterised?  (This happened to my workmate in Texas.)  Too scary.  I only have one set of eyes, and even though they are largely broken I would quite like to keep them at a sustainable level of broke.

But today I read about this miracle treatment called i-Go.  These are hard contact lenses that you wear at night as you sleep, which somehow miraculously correct your eyesight for the next day.  To be honest, I don’t really understand how this works and it sounds a bit like voodoo trickery, but apparently it is presently going through clinical trials and is largely successful.

This sounds awesome.  Actual awesome.  The only problem being even if I did want to pay £40 a month, my eyes are actually too broke to do a trial.  But, perhaps yours aren’t.  Wouldn’t these magic lenses be kind of great?

Patrick Barkham tries out new contact lenses that correct your vision while you sleep | Life and style | The Guardian.