Tag Archive: nostalgia


This email or things like it go around about once every 3-5 years. This one is entertaining because it talks about how easy things are today by comparing it to about 20-25 years ago. To be honest; things weren’t that miserable 30 years ago either. They were different; but I’d still take the creature conveniences of 30 years ago over the lack of conveniences of say… 90 years ago.

So… this is a fun walk down amnesia lane for the 30+ crowd. (I know some of you have already seen it via email and blog)


SPOILED UNDER-30 CROWD!!!

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’. 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 on screen 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 ass 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-bastards!

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

This occurred on March 15th (The ides of March), 1998.

Very busy 4 days ago. I forgot to remark that I have been an initiate of OTO…

For 10 years.

Dude.

Aum Ha

Do you know what a Snowth is?

Thanks to everyone that played:

Now presenting the muppet known as “Mahna Mahna” and his backup singers ‘The Snowth

I have often posted about probably my all time favourite film. “Escape to Witch Mountain”

Thanks to a link by shadesong it looks like Disney is going to take another poke at the venerable film. Like anyone else who loves a classic film or book… this makes me fidgety in a ‘not so good’ way.

There are so many pieces of this original film that just work so well together. The original preview for the film was pretty much excerpts from the intro with several clips cut in. The music was haunting and riveting. This coupled with the simple images left me (at about the age of 8) contemplating the mystical symbolism of the title, the children running, and of course the animated dogs.

For those that haven’t seen this (and those that just want the nostalgia rush); I attach the opening 3 minutes of the film. This is predominantly the film intro with credits. I suggest headphones or a quiet room.

This is a film that lives in my library and I am MORE than happy to show it to anyone who is curious.

P.S. This one stands alone. The sequel, the remake, the pilot. None have the magic that this film carried.

Final note: This isn’t so much trivia as I don’t know the answer; but I’d be thrilled if someone out there did. The original film is credited to be based on the book of the same name. I, however, remember that there was some legal fluff that the book itself was based (plagiarized) off another story. The title was along the name of, “The People”… It’s about a woman (School teacher?) who comes to a quiet town and discovers a quiet bunch of folks. The interesting characteristic is that everyone in town shuffles their feet. She later discovers this is out of fear that they will fly (from Telekinesis) A town full of people hiding and ashamed of their abilities.

Any info on this story (which was became a made-for-tv movie) would be VERY appreciated.

That’s all for this morning.

Dungeons and Dragons’ creator Gary Gygax botches saving throw at age 69

Thank you for several years of fun geekdom.

Edit: princekermit beat me to the joke by about an hour.