You kids today (mature)

[ColonelPanic]

Just got this so I figured I would share. I'm not 30... But close... However, I can relate to this since where I lived, I was so far in the middle of nowhere, the area was several years behind most places anyway. Worse than below, we NEVER had things like cable. lol!_________________________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 .. through year 'round blizzards. Carrying their younger siblings on their backs ... to their one-room schoolhouse, where they maintained a Straight-A average, despite their full- time, after-school job at the local textile mill .... where they worked for 35 cents an hour just to help keep their family from starving to death! 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! And talk of about hardship? You couldn't just download porn! You had to steal it from your brother or bribe some homeless dude to buy you a copy of "Hustler" at the 7-11! Those were your options!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 (removed)! 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 fast er 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 (removed) 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 *******s!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 JiffyPop 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.

[viberationz]

haha i liked that

[BlueCrush]

(removed)! This just brought back so many memories. I loved Saturday morning cartoons. We'd actually get up early just to watch them.My Atari 2600 was the bomb! I was actually thinking of trying to find and orginal with all the old games I used to play: Pong, Asteriods, Space Invaders, Galaxian, Pac Man, Mario Bros. & Missle Command.I found this site that you can get all the Atari 2600 systems and games: http://www.atari2600.comThanks for the great laugh!

[viberationz]

i never had the joys of playing one. but i did manage to get a hold of the original nintendo - i love that thing, i some how ended up with all of the nintendo systems (which i never play anymore - but thinking of it just makes me want to go hook it up!) but the originals are the best.

[ColonelPanic]

That thing about the 2600 is so true. I remember how I saw a lot more than those cheesy blocks on the screen... The games were hard as hell, I don't think I ever really beat too many. It wasn't like what we had in the Nintendo era where there were cheat codes and stuff. You played, you got your (removed) kicked, you died. Like life. I still have a 2600 and a bunch of cartridges down at the folks place but I don't know if any of 'em work. I did have one of these which had several games built into an (almost) authentic Atari joystick but my dog chewed up the thing! It was a nice blast from the past while it lasted. Yes, those were the days. It was a good time to grow up. Those who came after us have it made but I can't say I would want to grow up during any other time than the 80's.

[scherry2]

don't forget when you wanted to call someone you had to use a ROTARY DIAL phone at home not a cell phone. and boy do I remember pong.I remember my 1st computer had a cassette tape for programs.

[JustinVGT]

I'm 23 and I can relate to a lot of this as well. I remember playing Atari at my friend's place and it was so cool back then. My dad used to have an Apple IIC computer and we played some really cool games on it. These days, kids wouldn't play those games for a couple minutes because they would probably get bored. In Germany, we had to walk to school even in all the winter snow. We found it fun, since we'd play in the snow on our way. Even here in VA when I went to middle school, we had to walk a mile to school.I remember getting up Saturday mornings to watch cartoons. I didn't grow up with cable, so we only had a few channels to choose from. There are a lot of spoiled kids in my area too. My parents raised my brothers and I well, in that if you want something, you have to get a job and buy it yourself. I remember when I was 9-10 in Germany, a friend and I started our own window washing business and we did quite well. My younger brothers tell me about kids in school these days. Parents buying kids new 350Zs, BMWs, etc. Just wait until they get in the real world and hopefully their mommy and daddy cut off the funds. And these college students that get free rides from their parents and they just party all the time. Partying is fun, but some need to be more responsible. I read an article not too long ago how shocked so many college grads are when they get into the real world.Oh well, not trying to turn this too much into a rant about how spoiled many kids are these days. This brought back some cool memories.

[scherry2]

Quote, originally posted by JustinVGT »I read an article not too long ago how shocked so many college grads are when they get into the real world. I would love to see their faces.... LOLQuote, originally posted by JustinVGT »I'm 23 and I can relate to a lot of this as well. I remember playing Atari at my friend's place and it was so cool back then HAHAHAHAHA oh sorry, I'm 49. I was amused at your statement "back then". when was that 1990 something? the atari system came out in 1976/77.

[JustinVGT]

Quote, originally posted by scherry2 »HAHAHAHAHA oh sorry, I'm 49. I was amused at your statement "back then". when was that 1990 something? the atari system came out in 1976/77. HAHA Yeah I know, but that's what some of my friends had in the late 80s. Then when I lived in Germany (Army brat) the school had these old Atari computers. You could put in the Atari cartridges and play some of the old games. The other computers that had color screens were some other Apple PCs which I remember playing Oregon Trail on. Color was so cool compared to green and black lol. We got a NES in '91 I think. Our's still works I think. I've actually been using my Sony PSP to play those old games using emulators.

[Charlievibe]

Wow, like others are saying, you have brought back the memories. Only thing is, we had a microwave in 1977, or something very close to that. I don't think they had been out too terribly long, but they were out. My mom and dad bought one from a friend's father who owned an appliance store and paid something like $500 back then.For those who enjoy the old Atari games, you will die when I tell you this, I still have my 2600 and the games and the joy sticks, and they still all work like a charm. As for cable, HBO was out in the big cities before cable. Cable shortly followed, but in Denver, HBO was the first thing you could get. I rememeber an antenna on the roof of the house so we could get HBO. when cable came in, there was a box with a long cable attached to the TV so you could change channels that way. Man did we think we had it good.I would like to say that I feel old reading all of this but I don't. I love the fact that I lived through that era and have something special to remember that kids today can't appreciate. And I love listening to my mom tell me about when she was a kid and what she didn't have that I had growing up. It is just great to hear the differences.Just think, in 30-years, today's kids will be talking about how hard they had it. It just amuses me!!!

[ragingfish]

i know you're all jealous.i have an atari 2600...loaded with games...and fully working, downstairs in my basement. i think i'll go play some pong.

[scherry2]

Quote, originally posted by ragingfish »i know you're all jealous. I have a Magnavox Odyssey 300 got it in 1976. the first with a dedicated chip. WooHoo

[Mavrik]

lol I have all the old atari games on PS2 discs.And I can relate to all that even though I'm not 30 yet...

[redlava]

Quote, originally posted by Charlievibe »For those who enjoy the old Atari games, you will die when I tell you this, I still have my 2600 and the games and the joy sticks, and they still all work like a charm. I still have my Atari 7800, but I can't play it because I can't find the adaptor that you use to plug it into the TV.And I didn't have cable until I was in college '96(lived on a farm). So I had ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox.

[ColonelPanic]

There wasn't, and still isn't cable where my folks are... Satellite was the only option and it was too costly until the likes of DirecTV/etc. came about in the 90's. So, I was a senior in high school (1996) by the time we got satellite. The big outside antenna was the only way to go before that! And even during that time, since local channels didn't get picked up by the sat. I always got a kick out of screwing around with my antenna so I could pick up distant stations at night. I'd rather watch those, despite somewhat of a snowy picture, it was something cool watching TV out of a different town far away.And I'm sooo jealous, I always wanted a 7800! I remember drooling all over the Sears catalog looking at that thing! You should be able to find the RF modulator for it somewhere, check around you'll find one. I think I found one of those ol' "TV/Game" switches laying around at the ol' Radio Crap a few years back.

[kep427]

thanks for posting this. It was a great laugh and a good way to start the day!

[Thewhite]

This makes me thing to some stuff I talked recently at my job. For me and for other instructors I work with in the Canadian Army Reserve, the age difference or generation's shock will hit us soon. hte minimal age for a recruit is 16 years old (I know, that's young, but they're not allowed to go over sea before 18-19...). That means this summer, we'll have new recruits born in 1990. WOW!