Daily Dirt: The good ol’ days? Nope, you can have those encyclopedias and TV Guides

December 11, 2022 | By Steve Eighinger, Muddy River News Minister of Culture and Doctor of Love

Daily Dirt for Saturday, Dec. 10, 2022

Sure, the world has plenty of problems, but after reading today’s first item, I’m pretty sure you’ll be glad you’re living in the here and now and not 30 or 40 years ago. Welcome to today’s three thoughts that make up Vol. 472 of The Daily Dirt.

1. Have you ever stopped to think just how much your life has changed since you were young? (If you’re currently “young,” feel free can disregard any deep thought. Just sit back and be thankful you didn’t have to endure the following.)

Many of us so-called baby boomers grew up with the following as integral parts of our day-to-day existence. How did we actually survive?

Remember when we used a 10-year-old (or older) set of encyclopedias for our “research” on various school projects? That was our “Google.”
Phone books were vital. How else could we find someone’s number? (To call on our landline phone, of course.)
Remember when it was OK for public smoking? By the time you got home on many occasions your clothes smelled like an ashtray. (In addition, was there anything worse than being stuck in a car with a smoker? With the windows rolled up. Ugh.)
How about renting DVDs or VHS tapes? Wow. That seems just like yesterday.
How about when the “TV Guide” was the most important item in the house? How else would you know what was on and what time it would be shown on one of the three channels you had on your television?

Yep, those were the “good ol’ days.” Not.

2. It’s almost time for college football’s bowl season. With 41 of bowls this year, there’s a good chance you will see some limited “good” and plenty of the “bad” and “ugly.”

That’s why we’re here to help. Here are five bowl games to skip when your on-screen guide says it is time for them. The following are the worst of the worst matchups.

Lending Tree Bowl: Southern Miss (6-6) vs. Rice (5-7). Southern Miss has lost three of its last four and Rice is in a bowl game because there weren’t enough 6-6 teams to fill all the spots. (Dec. 17, 4:45 p.m., ESPN)
Quick Lane Bowl: New Mexico State (6-6) vs. Bowling Green (6-6). New Mexico State is playing in its first bowl game since 1960. (Dec. 26, 1:30 p.m., ESPN)
Bahamas Bowl: Miami, Ohio (6-6) vs. UAB (6-6). Note the kickoff time for this game. That should tell you everything you need to know. (Dec. 16, 10:30 a.m., ESPN)
Camelia Bowl: Georgia Southern (6-6) bs. Buffalo (6-6).Both Georgia Southern and Buffalo allow more than six yards per play, so this could at least be a high-scoring affair. (Dec. 27, 11 a.m., ESPN).
Hawaii Bowl: San Diego State (7-5) vs. Middle Tennessee (7-5). The big winners here are the teams. Both schools get to spend Christmas in Hawaii. (Dec. 24, 7 p.m., ESPN)

Tomorrow, we’ll provide the best five bowl games.

3. Research reveals that people in Illinois, on the whole, care very little about traveling.

Illinois citizens rank No. 9 in the nation when it comes to not wanting to travel.

The research, conducted by Family Destinations Guide, analyzed Google Trends data of the last 12 months for search terms frequently used by travel enthusiasts and often associated with traveling. These search terms were then combined to give each state a total travel score to discover America’s most and least travel-obsessed states.

Here are the least travel-obsessed states: