Long...but funny

[dtel's wife]

Dtel's sister sent this to me and I thought it was pretty funny...

"THE SPOILED UNDER-30 CROWD!!!

If you are 30 or older you will think this is hilarious!!!!

When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were when they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning ... uphill BOTH ways .. yadda, yadda, yadda

And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it! But now that... I'm over the ripe old age of thirty, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today. You've got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a damn Utopia! And I hate to say it but you kids today you don't know how good you've got it! I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have The Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the damn library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalog!!

There was no email! ! We had to actually write somebody a letter ... with a pen! Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox and it would take like a week to get there!

There were no MP3's or Napsters! You wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the damn record store and shoplift it yourself!

Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ'd usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up!

We didn't have fancy crap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called they got a busy signal, that's it!

And we didn't have fancy Caller ID Boxes either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your mom, your boss, your bookie, your drug dealer, a collections agent, you just didn't know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

We didn't have any fancy Sony Playstation video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like "Space Invaders" and "asteroids" and the graphics sucked ***! Your guy was a little square! You actually had to use your imagination! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen forever!

And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died! . Just like LIFE!

When you went to the movie theater there no such thing as stadium seating! All the seats were the same height! If a tall guy or some old broad with a hat sat in front of you and you couldn't see, you were just screwed!

Sure, we had cable television, but back then that was only like 15 channels and there was no onscreen menu and no remote control! You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on!

You were screwed when it came to channel surfing! You had to get off your a** and walk over to the TV to change the channel and there was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning. Do you hear what I'm saying!?! We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled little rat-***tards!

And we didn't have microwaves, if we wanted to heat something up . we had to use the stove or go build a frigging fire ... imagine that! If we wanted popcorn, we had to use that stupid Jiffy Pop thing and shake it over the stove forever like an idiot.

That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled.

You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1980!

Regards,
The over 30 Crowd"

[michael hurd]

Nice, I can relate to that, as I was the "channel changer" for the hitatci television with 26 or 27 channel push buttons. I am only 29, but alas I had an atari and loved space invaders, I used to have a whack of games for it. I have only an original NES-001 with about 40 or so games. Still works good. No xbox or PS 2/3 here.

[dtel's wife]

Michael,

Space Invaders was my favorite also. I think dtel's favorite was Asteroids.

My grandson always talks about how many levels he can get on a game and how many "lives" he has on a particular game. I thought the part about the "Atari" game was really funny, as well the dj's talking through part of the song.

[lwhaples]

Neat story! But I remember black and white TV and board games.

Larry

[maxg]

Anyone else remember the tennis game that preceded space invaders? The one with the 2 oblongs slowly batting a square ball back and forth? what a game that was - hours of fun (waiting for the ball to cross the net).

I also remember black and white TV - I watched the moon landing on it at 4 years old (my father woke me at 3 am for the privilege).

Come to that - we only had 3 channels back then - and one of those only started broadcasting at 6 pm - and they all went off the air around 11:30.

I have a feeling people had more sex back then - there were fewer distractions.....and by that I mean the real thing - rather than phone sex or internet sex or whatever it is now....

[pauln]

Max, that game was "Pong". The Bally company (yeah, the same Bally that

is the fitness centers today) made a set for about $250 that connected

to the TV back in about 1976 - my college roommate and I got one of the first ones. The thing had a very simple

microprocesser and access to it via the game control ports. Someone

discovered how to peek and poke the chip's RAM, mapped out the

undocumented functions, and a crude underground copy machine version of

a newsletter was circulated with various folk's discoveries of how to

program it and connect it to outside devices. When I was in graduate

school in the late 70's we bought a few of these machines to program

using the newsletter for reseach and laboratory experimental control.

Then came the Commodore 64, Apple II, and a few years later the IBM PC.

[Roc Rinaldi]

I have a feeling people had more sex back then - there were fewer distractions.....and by that I mean the real thing - rather than phone sex or internet sex or whatever it is now....

Uh huh. more sex back then. But that would be your own fault. Nobody said you had to cut back on the sex. Is there some better choice for you to spend your time doing? I don't think so. And don't tell me that music is better than sex. Or is it? No..........it's not.

Remember, sex is a lot like pizza. When it's good it's really good. When it's bad it's still pretty good.

[Audible Nectar]

Nahhhhhhh....us "over 30" crowd have it all over the younger set. I'll take what I have had vs. what they are getting any day of the week.

MUSIC:

We had the bands. The Beatles. The Stones. The Grateful Dead. The Who. This was when music had SOMETHING TO SAY. Now bands that have anything to say are "indie" - assuming you've even heard of them at all. And those new indie bands won't be playing at the UMBC Bank Stadium, Tweeter Center, WeGoThruYerCashLikeWaterhouse Arena, or any other corporate monikered albatross in your neighborhood. Those will be reserved for Britney Spears, the American Idol champion, or some other 80's band that hasn't played a note together in 20 years. I saw that 80's band the first time around for $10 -$20 and had $3 beers while doing it.

AUDIO GEAR:

We had Heritage Klipsch in dealers across the nation and in almost every city. Today, folks have Bose and IPods with earbuds. Enough said.

SPORTS:

We could actually SEE our heroes perform, and could actually get playoff tickets. When we got to our seats in a non-corporate monikered stadium or arena, we could see from almost every seat and spot in the house. Now you need an oxygen tank when you sit higher than the skybox levels due to high elevation, and you will need a telescope with tripod and a smooth mount to see any of the action. And again, while those beers used to be $3 or less, now they are $7-10, all the better to pay the corporation whose name hangs on the doorway, and to build more skyboxes. But hey, you get steroids at no extra charge, and new home run records to go along with that.

EDUCATION:

Back when I was in school, everyone took United States Civics. Mention that today, and the typical response is "yeah, I drove one of those, and yeah, I heard they are made in the U S now".

ECONOMY:

Then, it was "Earn first, then buy". Now, it's "Borrow and own now, pay later". You could "earn first" back then on one income per family. Now it takes at least two (and better off three or four).

LEADERSHIP:

Back then, LEADERS were people you looked up to, that you would want to follow in thier footsteps, and who WANTED you to follow in thier footsteps. They would open doors, and were true "mentors". Now, "leaders" are simply "owners" who seek to defend thier positions and to enrich themselves as much as possible, avoiding those who might be future leaders, in fear that those moving up might end up replacing them. It used to be more common to see leaders want to pass on those crafts and skills to a new generation....now they will simply sell you a book on how to get rich quick in real estate for $99.95.

MEDICINE:

It used to be that if you got sick or injured, you went to the doctor and got "repaired"....and a prescription only if necessary. It was more common to see a doctor regularly for normal checkups, to prevent bigger problems later. Now, we go to our doctors only when we are sick (because it's expensive), and usually to ask the doctor for a prescription medication seen advertised on TV. As Bill Maher once explained, when you go to your doctor to ask him for scripts you see on TV, he is no longer your doctor - he is your DEALER.

So being over 30 does have it's perspective.

[Roc Rinaldi]

Nahhhhhhh....us "over 30" crowd have it all over the younger set. I'll take what I have had vs. what they are getting any day of the week.

MUSIC:

We had the bands. The Beatles. The Stones. The Grateful Dead. The Who. This was when music had SOMETHING TO SAY. Now bands that have anything to say are "indie" - assuming you've even heard of them at all. And those new indie bands won't be playing at the UMBC Bank Stadium, Tweeter Center, WeGoThruYerCashLikeWaterhouse Arena, or any other corporate monikered albatross in your neighborhood. Those will be reserved for Britney Spears, the American Idol champion, or some other 80's band that hasn't played a note together in 20 years. I saw that 80's band the first time around for $10 -$20 and had $3 beers while doing it.

AUDIO GEAR:

We had Heritage Klipsch in dealers across the nation and in almost every city. Today, folks have Bose and IPods with earbuds. Enough said.

SPORTS:

We could actually SEE our heroes perform, and could actually get playoff tickets. When we got to our seats in a non-corporate monikered stadium or arena, we could see from almost every seat and spot in the house. Now you need an oxygen tank when you sit higher than the skybox levels due to high elevation, and you will need a telescope with tripod and a smooth mount to see any of the action. And again, while those beers used to be $3 or less, now they are $7-10, all the better to pay the corporation whose name hangs on the doorway, and to build more skyboxes. But hey, you get steroids at no extra charge, and new home run records to go along with that.

EDUCATION:

Back when I was in school, everyone took United States Civics. Mention that today, and the typical response is "yeah, I drove one of those, and yeah, I heard they are made in the U S now".

ECONOMY:

Then, it was "Earn first, then buy". Now, it's "Borrow and own now, pay later". You could "earn first" back then on one income per family. Now it takes at least two (and better off three or four).

LEADERSHIP:

Back then, LEADERS were people you looked up to, that you would want to follow in thier footsteps, and who WANTED you to follow in thier footsteps. They would open doors, and were true "mentors". Now, "leaders" are simply "owners" who seek to defend thier positions and to enrich themselves as much as possible, avoiding those who might be future leaders, in fear that those moving up might end up replacing them. It used to be more common to see leaders want to pass on those crafts and skills to a new generation....now they will simply sell you a book on how to get rich quick in real estate for $99.95.

MEDICINE:

It used to be that if you got sick or injured, you went to the doctor and got "repaired"....and a prescription only if necessary. It was more common to see a doctor regularly for normal checkups, to prevent bigger problems later. Now, we go to our doctors only when we are sick (because it's expensive), and usually to ask the doctor for a prescription medication seen advertised on TV. As Bill Maher once explained, when you go to your doctor to ask him for scripts you see on TV, he is no longer your doctor - he is your DEALER.

So being over 30 does have it's perspective.

And I thought it was just Classic Coke that made us the better generation.

[Roc Rinaldi]

Either you like pizza or you don't.

[Wrench722]

Anyone else remember the tennis game that preceded space invaders? The one with the 2 oblongs slowly batting a square ball back and forth? what a game that was - hours of fun (waiting for the ball to cross the net).

I also remember black and white TV - I watched the moon landing on it at 4 years old (my father woke me at 3 am for the privilege).

Come to that - we only had 3 channels back then - and one of those only started broadcasting at 6 pm - and they all went off the air around 11:30.

I have a feeling people had more sex back then - there were fewer distractions.....and by that I mean the real thing - rather than phone sex or internet sex or whatever it is now....

Here is your Pong today.

Plasma Pong

[dkp]

I remember a trick to getting around the busy signal. When my friends were on the telephone, we'd call the operator and ask him/her to check for trouble on that line. When they did that there was a "click" of some sort that was audible to the party currently on the telephone. When you heard that "click" it was time to hang up and take the call from your friend! lol

David

[oscarsear]

We had cartoons in the afternooon, after school.  Lame *** cartoons where the background repeated itself.  Then came Rocky and Bullwinkle and things got better.  We also had Soupy Sales that even the older people found funny.   

But what about typing class papers.  The mis-type errors that had to be erased carefully lest you breeched the paper.  Want a copy, get the carbon paper.  What a friggin pain.  Now days that is history.  They have "spell check".  They can write then edit, and re-edit.  How many copies do you need?  Want them in script or with colors.  Headers well centered and in larger type.

Skateboards were literally skates attached to boards.  Metal wheels nailed to a dumb arse board and away you went.

Bikes had one speed.  Grunt your arse off to get uphill.  No bike helmets, no pads, no nothing,  Just some worn out denim and bare skin hitting the asphalt.  Kids used to look like war veterans after bike or skateboard mishaps.  How many recall Mercurichrome (?) the wonder cure for all scrapes that exposed nerve endings.  They should have just torched the silly things, it would have been less painful.  I remember thanking the Lord when Bactine came out. 

Shoes back then sucked.  No style, no fit.  Put em on and break them in.  Bloody blisters on top of blisters until your foot changed or the shoe gave way.  Tennis shoes....high top Keds....period.  Flat footed, uncushioned, canvas and that odor.  Then they wore out in no time.  Whatever held the front sole section onto the shoe gave way 1st leaving the user flappin when they walked.

Lead paint, asbestos, DDT, all sorts of poisons abounded lending lethal treachery to each and every day.

No seat belts, no car seats.  I remember nearly hitting the windshield starting from the back seatwhen my Dad panic stopped the 52 Chevy one day.

Moms who smoked and drank whilst we all sat blithely in their wombs sucking our prenatal thumbs.

Toothpaste (Ipana?) that didn't brighten and kill every friggin germ in your mouth.

 

No 911 on the phone.  If you had an emergency you had to dial the police or the fire department.

This is why our generation is so spectacular...we survived.  All the stupid or hapless souls died long ago leaving just us really smart and lucky people behind.  Then we procreated....what have we done????

[Roc Rinaldi]

....and back then AFGANS were quilts, a mouse was something you caught and Coke was a soft drink.