The spoiled under 30 crowd (humor)

[will802]

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!

1. 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!!
2. 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!
3. 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 would usually talk over the beginning and fuck it all up!
4. 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!
5. 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!
6. 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 were horrible! 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!
7. 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!
8. Sure, we had cable television, but back then that was only like 15 channels and there was no onscreen menu!
You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! 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!
9. And we didn't have microwaves, if wewanted to heat something
up, we had to use the stove or go build a fire ... imagine that! If we
wanted popcorn, we had to use that stupid Jiffy Pop thing or a pan
with HOT oil and Real popcorn kernels and shake it all over the stove
forever like an idiot.
10. When we were on the phone with our friends and our parents walked-in, we were stuck to the wall with a cord, a 7 foot cord that
ran to the phone - not the phone base, the actual phone. We barely
had enough length to sit on the floor and still
be able to twirl the phone cord in our fingers. If you suddenly had to
go to the bathroom - guess what we had to do.....hang up and talk to
them later.

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

[mikejones]

Yea, I remember going to my friend's house as a kid and just being riveted by the brand new Atari 2600.

[youcancallmeclaire]

This makes me depressed, because I'm halfway between this and the internet generation... and I remember how things used to be, and yet I think of how things are now; how completely vast the world seems with the internet... and it just seems hopeless. The internet is a great source of information, but a lot of the time it just reminds me how much more talented everyone else, how fast culture is evolving, and how quickly all of us are becoming obsolete.
There's no such thing as "local" anymore. Everything is worldwide and we are no longer special.
Sometimes I really miss the days before the internet.

[youcancallmeclaire]

Holy cow, I just realized I reached 1000 posts! :D

[Trogdor]

Holy cow, I just realized I reached 1000 posts! :D

I gotta make ya a Golden Dragon award later :wink:

I dig the avatar, the collar looks good on you, Claire.
Mind if we chat on YIM later on? ^_^

[T Oracle]

The Spoiled Under 30 Crowd

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


Excellent.

I remember the days when the tranny debate was about whether trannies would ever succeed in killing off valve radios completely.

Every generation should make up its own 'life in my day' list. It would be an eye opener.

[south ov da border]

yea, good post. I'm talking with my grandfather right now who's in his 80's. His list of things that spoiled the generations after is massive; Very interesting stuff. I'll make a list and share...

[ezed]

will802

That was Great! I'm a member of the over 50 crowd who use to tell you we played out doors all day without organized activities and no helmets ... yadda ... yadda ...yadda.

Now combine the two diatrabs and see how far things have progress. We're evolving into a race of bean bag chairs with lighting fast thumbs and excellent typing skills!

[justatransgirl]

I just read this to Jessica, my junior partner by 20 years... and we had a good laugh. Thanks.

I have to occasionally remind myself that I graduated high school before she was born - it makes for an interesting relationship. Keeps me young and I think it's causing her to go grey prematurely...

Giggle,
TS Jamie :-)

[tgirlzoe]

* When I was a kid, I had an Intellivision and my friend had a 2600.
* Later, I got an NES. My friend has one and we played it. I was way better at Super Mario Bros. when I was 10, also Duck Hunt.
* Do you kids know what a Gameboy is? I mean a real Gameboy, about the size, weight and entertainment value of a brick. Black and whiite, no backlight, you could barely see Link on your screen.
* We didn't have a computer until I was in elementary school. Especially if you don't count the TI-99/4A.
* We didn't have internet until middle school, although we did have BBSes before that on a 2400 baud modem. In contrast, my el cheapo DSL is 256,000 baud. I wonder when dial-up noises in 90s techno songs will bee no longer have a meaning.
* Have you kids used a floppy disk? I mean one that was actually floppy (8" or 5 1/4")? Hell, even 3 1/2" disks are being removed as save icons because they have no meaning to many computer users.
* Do you realize that the tiny SD card in your camera holds thousands of times as much as a floppy or even many hard drives (my first was 20MB, yes, megabytes, my current hard drive is over 10,000x the size!).
* When I was little, they did have text-based dumb terminals at the library, though you could still use the card catalogue.
* We had a rotary phone.
* Our TV had a dial that went clunk-clunk when you changed the chanel. Yes, this meant you had to get up off your ass to change it. There was a separate dial for VHF and UHF.
* Cell phones weren't ubiquitous. They were big and analogue.
* Pagers meant you were an important businessman or drug dealer. Do you kids know what a pager is?
* Have you kids ever seen a car phone?
* TV: Full House, Doogie Howser, Alf, Star Trek: TNG (no DS9, Voyager or thank God, Enterprise), Rescue 911, Hercules (and later Xena)
* Cartoons: Care Bears, My Little Pony, Smurfs, Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Thundercats, Conan the Barbarian, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, Transformers
Toys: Easy Bake Oven, My Little Pony, Care Bears, Polly Pocket, Cabbage Path Dolls, Oopsie Daisy, Alphie, Teddy Ruxpin (I didn't have one though ~ expensive!), Girl Talk, Pretty Pretty Princess

Most of the things you wrote apply to my childhood or probably anyone who grew up in the 80s even though I'm still closer to 20 than 30.

[Trogdor]

* Do you kids know what a Gameboy is? I mean a real Gameboy, about the size, weight and entertainment value of a brick. Black and whiite, no backlight, you could barely see Link on your screen.


The Gameboy was still fun. :mrgreen:

[trish]

When I was a kid (okay maybe when great grandpa was a kid):

1) The U.S. tortured neither combatants nor non-combatants (or if they we did, no one of any political persuasion would dare publicly argue in its favor as military policy).

2) We never dropped bombs on a city to preempt a war (back then dropping bombs on a city was thought to be one sure fire way of starting a war).

3) The audiences for presidential speeches were not screened to filter out people of opposing points of view.

4) Politicians wrote their own speeches.

5) People read newspapers, often twice a day; newspapers that run regular op-eds by people of opposing interests and points of view. This instead of picking and choosing just the slant that suits you best from the media that requires the least of your divided attention.

[eggbert]

Kids have it much tougher today than we did (I'm over 50). Other than in medicine, advances in technology have done nothing to make the quality of life better. Yes, you can microwave your meals and have them in seconds, but is it as good as if you had cooked a "real" meal, and didn't you miss out on the enjoyment of cooking the meal. Instead you're rushing to cram some food down your throat because you're running to get something else done that has to be done NOW. This is just a microcosm of many daily occurances cauing stress in todays kids.

[Edmund]

I dispute the microwaves one. Those have been widely used since the mid-70s. Other than that, hilarious.

[McB]

I’m over 30 and I can add my spin to the list.
1. We didn’t have cable TV. We had local broadcast only with rabbit ears for an antenna (and yes sometimes we added aluminum foil for better reception).
2. We didn’t have an Atari 2600. We had Pong.
3. We listened to actual albums, 33’s and 45’s. When cassette tapes came along and walkmans where the rage, we taped from the album to the tape.
4. We sent away for whatever piece of trash they where selling and the end of the comic book and it took 4 to 6 weeks to get.

[Trogdor]

I dispute the microwaves one. Those have been widely used since the mid-70s. Other than that, hilarious.

Microwaves kill enzymes in food.

[will802]

I’m over 30 and I can add my spin to the list.
1. We didn’t have cable TV. We had local broadcast only with rabbit ears for an antenna (and yes sometimes we added aluminum foil for better reception).
2. We didn’t have an Atari 2600. We had Pong.
3. We listened to actual albums, 33’s and 45’s. When cassette tapes came along and walkmans where the rage, we taped from the album to the tape.
4. We sent away for whatever piece of trash they where selling and the end of the comic book and it took 4 to 6 weeks to get.

ah yes 33's and 45's... playing the 33's at the 45 speed to hear the chipmunk sound, and trying to spin the discs backwards to see if there were any hidden messages. Such as The Beatles and the Paul is dead Paul is dead myth.......

[tstv_lover]

When I was a kid (okay maybe when great grandpa was a kid):

1) The U.S. tortured neither combatants nor non-combatants (or if they we did, no one of any political persuasion would dare publicly argue in its favor as military policy).

2) We never dropped bombs on a city to preempt a war (back then dropping bombs on a city was thought to be one sure fire way of starting a war).

3) The audiences for presidential speeches were not screened to filter out people of opposing points of view.

4) Politicians wrote their own speeches.

5) People read newspapers, often twice a day; newspapers that run regular op-eds by people of opposing interests and points of view. This instead of picking and choosing just the slant that suits you best from the media that requires the least of your divided attention.

In some countries that's still the norm.

[tgirlzoe]

I don't own a microwave. So yes, popcorn (which my roommate's favorite snack) does involve a pan of hot oil. Works and tastes better than microwave popcorn anyway. I use a toaster oven for toasting bread or tortillas, as it's cheaper than the gas broiler (I think).

I don't own a dishwasher. When I lived with my ex-girlfriend, I did all the dishes and just used the dishwasher as a drying rack. I don't like them. You have to half wash everything anyway and one dirty thing plasters specks on all the glasses. Even with seven people in the house (five adults, two kids), we still hand wash.

I rarely eat pre-processed food. Earth Balance margarine (the only non-hydrogenated kind) is my only big exception. Essentially everything is organic and comes from the produce or bulk goods section of the local food co-op. We also get food from the farmers' market seasonally and, of course, from our own gardens.

Food is very important to us. We have two open community meals per week where friends, family and the homeless join us for soup or pancakes. We also cook about once a month at church mid-week for 75-100 people (dinner is after Eucharist and before classes). Food often forms a focal point of community.

Community is the reason that I am not putting computers so high as a great advance. My computer rarely computes much of anything. It is mainly access to the internet (and is 10 years old, BTW). The internet is a communication tool and that can be helpful if you are transsexual, because 99% of the people we are around can't relate. But for general community, I find that the Internet distracts, not helps. I was more social when I didn't have a computer.

The washing machine, however, is a great invention and I couldn't live without it. I could probably live without a refrigerator, but then my beer would be warm (which is why we need a root cellar). I am also glad for gas stoves and crock pots, cooking my food over wood would be good but tiring (my grandma had a real wood stove to cook on). I do not own a car, nor have any desire to. Sometimes I walk because my bicycle is too fast. We all just bike everywhere. I am happy for indoor plumbing and electric lights.

Technology should be used where it helps but sparingly. There is great value in doing things the way our parents, grandparents and ancestors did them.

[Tomfurbs]

My older sister fucking loved ' My Little Pony' when she was growing up. She collected the dolls and everything.

'Care bears' was seriously messed up.

I'm 22 and I remember Gameboys. My dad once threw mine out the car window on a car journey once. Couldn't take the rinky-dink sounds anymore.

[trish]

1) we listened to the song "fish heads, fish heads, rolley-polley fish heads..." on the radio and we liked it.

2) we first learned about sex through actual (not virtual) experience.

3) cheerleaders actually lead the audience in cheers relevant to what was going on in the game instead of putting on a competing gymnastics show.

[noellejordan]

Also, when did EVERYBODY get a 42" TV? I remember being perfectly content with my 13" Samsung all through college, but now I complain if I have to try and watch on anything smaller that 32"... does House's head need to be bigger than mine?

[brickcitybrother]

I remember the first person that had cable. Everyone came over and we watched fame. We couldn't believe they showed titties. Damn talk about times changing.

[celticgrafix]

DAMN MAYNE IM 26, ITS SAD BUT TRUE AND FUNNY AS HELL

[will802]

There was a lot less worry about being politically correct. Parents could actually discipline their kids in public (spanking on the butt) and not worry about someone reporting you to the police for child abuse.

[tslvrnyc]

FYI - I'll be 30 in July.

1. TV went OFF! And it came back on around or 6, and the national anthem played.

2. No microwave, VCR, cable, et al. We might have been late adopters for some of those things but it wasn't unusual. We got cable when i was like 10 - around the same time we got the rest of those things.

3. Families w/ 1 car. I don't know if that was only an NYC thing, but we had one car until I was like 12. We'd walk a lot and get dragged around all the time. Dropping off dad at the train was common.

4. Kids riding their bikes around (w/ no helmets). When I was a kid it was definately less safe than today. However, I saw far more kids then than now, and they had more freedom. We've become a nation scared of everything.

[tslvrnyc]

1) we listened to the song "fish heads, fish heads, rolley-polley fish heads..." on the radio and we liked it.

2) we first learned about sex through actual (not virtual) experience.

3) cheerleaders actually lead the audience in cheers relevant to what was going on in the game instead of putting on a competing gymnastics show.

Hah! Dr Demento!!

[qeuqheeg222]

this is a great thread!!very refreshing in a nostalgic way for the ha....im 40 and some of the this is too funny...i remember tube t.v.s that needed to warm up before a picture appeared(member the tube testers at the front of the grocery store!!-fuck atari3000 i'm talking tubes fellas)..there where only like 5 channels and barbara walters on the today show was young...an who ever heard about air conditionede schools they all had windows and you cooked in the spring/early fall and weezed with the clangin steam heaters in the winter.....remember when sony walkmans were 200 us dollars...

[T Oracle]

Did they actually do the remake of 'Life on Mars' for US TV? I know they announced they were going to, but did it air?

In the UK, Life on Mars was about a policeman in a modern day car accident, who awakes to find he is a policeman in 1973 - or perhaps he is in a coma today, fighting for his life. Life on Mars played quite a bit on the things we take for granted now not beng around then.

There's a sequel out at the moment, Ashes to Ashes, Bowie-esque. A police psychologist gets shot and appears to be back in 1981, the dawn of political correctness.

[kimjongil]

4.We sent away for whatever piece of trash they where selling and the end of the comic book and it took 4 to 6 weeks to get.

Sea monkeys and plastic army men are not trash. :lol:

[TheLongChodeAhead]

That's fuckin stupid....