#14: Travel Agencies

With the appearance of internet travel websites, the writing was on the wall for these operations, which took kickbacks and commissions from airlines to book passengers on one airline or another.

And with the realignment of the world economy, fewer and fewer people will be booking a trip to, say, Kenya, to shoot animals. Certainly, someone familiar with Kenya would be the better place to book your trip to shoot Babar, but you are not going to Kenya.

Even though this CEO still prefers you go with an agency, most people from the age of 35 and under have never used a travel agent. and that does not bode well for this industry. Recently, online travel agencies have slashed their booking fees, making it even more enticing to book online rather than through an agent.

Before all this, the travel agent was crucial. How could I possibly know what the best hotel is in Reno? Where would I find the time to stay on the phone with an airline reservation agent? And where would I find a car once I landed in Chicago? All this would be handled by your friendly neighborhood travel agent.

But now I can search for Reno hotels and get a nearly comprehensive list of where to stay. Airline reservations are just about 20 seconds away and I can not only book a car reservation, I can pick which car I want and all the amenities therein. And of course, if I am looking for a travel bargain (and who isn't?) I absolutely must go with something like Priceline or Hotwire.

On top of all this, there has been a recent spate of travel agents swindling people out of money. It appears the crime created by these tough times aren't just internet scams, theft and shoplifting.

Here in Boston, I noticed just yesterday that the iconic "Please Go Away Often" sign that used to grace the American Express Travel Agency in Harvard Square was recently put away.

Which made me think to write this.

#13: Yellow Pages

Twice a year, it seems, I come home to a huge stack of bound yellow paper booklets which I unwrap from its cellophane shrink-wrap and promptly put into the recycle bin.

They call them "Yellow Pages."

With the recent news that Yellow Pages publisher Idearc has a total of $9 billion in debt, it appears that task is soon to come to an end.

Formed in 1878, telephone phonebooks are only good to stack behind a steering wheel so Bobby can learn to drive. Like JC Penney, the Yellow Pages were born somewhere in Wyoming. It looks like the least populous state better start banking more on its celebrity ranchers.

Even more on deathwatch are yellow pages cousin, the "white pages." My cellphone contains all the phone numbers I need. Like many people, I don't even know my girlfriend's number. Hell, I don't even know my mom's. White pages, a directory of landlines, are quite unuseful. Even a reverse phone number lookup on whitepages.com finds no hope for looking up cellphone #s.

Such a look-up does work on Google, however.

For future generations, the white pages will be quite odd. "You mean there was a giant book that had everyone's telephone number? Available to the anyone?" Timeless telephone crank calls will be nothing but a funny memory. Even most links in this page of prank call websites are dead, after all.

Much to the pleasure of Michael Hunt's everywhere.

#12: Soap Operas

Had a few ideas for today, but once word came down that Guiding Light, a show that is so old it began as a 15-minute radio serial, is shutting down, the answer was easy.

Obviously, the main market for soap operas, the "housewife," is becoming as cliché as the form itself. Originally called soap operas because, you guessed it, they were sponsored by soap companies (Palmolive, Lever Brothers--now Unilever--etc.) whose main customer was likely stuck at home all day with some kind of early robotic washboard in what was the beginning of our unnatural obsession for cleanliness. Procter & Gamble, the megahuge multinational manufacturer, is, even still, the one who actually makes Guiding Light.

This is a form of entertainment so dated and cliche that a parody ran on network TV 30 years ago. It's hard to believe they've survived this long after the turn of the millennium.

Guiding Light was hard-up enough to introduce a budding lesbian relationship, which apparently didn't have enough heat. The one and only time I would watch this drivel was when I was at home sick from elementary school and even then it didn't make sense. I didn't have much choice--there were only 4 channels I could watch.

We won't miss soap operas because we never watched them in the first place. This is an entire realm that TWWM is based on. Phenomena that blew up with Baby Boomers and will perish with them.

Stay tuned.