iPods and laptops

Nothing new here, but something new for me: past my backpacking prime by a good 5 or ten years or so, and here I sits in a common or garden youth hostel quite by chance. Sure enough, instead of the random drunkenness and drug taking of the bygone age I see a bunch of traveling macheads and folks sharing the holy white buds between them. In the old days we'd be getting drunk and perhaps smoking pot, waking up the next morning with a slight hangover and a vague recollection of some happy community feeling but not much more. I'm not necessarily becoming a Luddite - I'd be hard-pressed to choose between the two.