1/3 Life Crisis

[wehstar]

So, in a couple of years I'll be thirty. I was thinking, one day I may have kids. If I do, then I will be able to tell them that I lived in a time

- before the Internet
- before Mobile Phones
- when only rich people had phones in their houses, in fact
- before people had a robotic voice called Jane in their cars telling them to turn right in 200 yards
- when there were only 4 channels on telly
- and when those tellys took up whole corners of your room instead of being hung on the wall like a mirror
- before you could record stuff on your hard-drive, or DVD recorder, or VHS recorder
- before Microwaves, and George Foreman health grills. In fact, when frying bacon wasn't bad for you
- before the "active" and "passive" interpretations complicated the offside rule, when goalkeepers could pick up a "back pass", and when we had teams instead of squads
- when the potentially racist term "black board" was used instead of "chalk board", and kids were allowed to sing the nursery rhyme "baa baa black sheep". In fact before being Politically Correct was important.

 

[jomar]

when only rich people had phones in their houses, in fact

That one is incorrect. But you lived in a time before MTV!

 

[Belegon]

I was gonna say... I can't remember ever not having a phone and we certainly were never rich... hell, I never felt poor, but as I discover things from a more distant perspective... well, we were on the ragged edge. And we always had a phone.

 

[MagicaPractica]

I'm assuming this is an email that went around which he's quoting while applying to his own life. It looks familiar.

I do remember party lines out in the country.

 

[jomar]

I'm assuming this is an email that went around which he's quoting while applying to his own life. It looks familiar.

I do remember party lines out in the country.

My grandmother had a party line.

I'm older than wehstar so I remember life before remote controls were common. And color TV became affordable for the middle class when I was a child.

 

[kimbalee]

My grandmother had a party line.

I'm older than wehstar so I remember life before remote controls were common. And color TV became affordable for the middle class when I was a child.

No way! MIne did too, and we used to listen in on the converations of the single girl in the apt next door. She was aa bad girl!

We didn't have a remote until 1985!

 

[Belegon]

My grandmother had a party line.

I'm older than wehstar so I remember life before remote controls were common. And color TV became affordable for the middle class when I was a child.

I remember black and white just fine and I definitely remember my dad using me as the de facto remote, walking over and clicking that dial at his direction... going out side to spin the antenna...

 

[kimbalee]

I remember black and white just fine and I definitely remember my dad using me as the de facto remote, walking over and clicking that dial at his direction... going out side to spin the antenna...

That sucked, huh? How about foil on the rabbit ears? lol

 

[The_Fool]

And I have the basketball game in a window on my PC.

 

[logophile]

Ahhh.... Pong.

I miss Pong.

 

[tickledkitty]

How about that 8-track player? I miss my Frampton Comes Alive tape.

 

[kimbalee]

Ahhh.... Pong.

I miss Pong.

Yeah! And Space Invaders, and Tank, and Kaboom- all on Atari! We thought we were the shit!

 

[jomar]

I remember black and white just fine and I definitely remember my dad using me as the de facto remote, walking over and clicking that dial at his direction... going out side to spin the antenna...

People were thinner in those days.

 

[wehstar]

It wasn't an email, but a reformatted cut'n'paste from a conversation in an MSN window...

When I was a kid in the eighties we had a red phonebox about 3 houses away. People used to call us on that if they really had to! One of the local kids would answer it and come and knock on the door for us!

I remember a game on the spectrum called Splat. I loved that.

 

[Liar]

Now, try and imagine the coming 30 years.

 

[kendo1]

Donkey Kong!

Asteroids!

 

[jomar]

How about that 8-track player? I miss my Frampton Comes Alive tape.

I had Frampton, the one before Come Alive. He recorded it in a castle. Then I went to college and all I heard for months was Frampton Comes Alive from every frickin dorm room I passed. It ruined Frampton for me. I do like his Geico commercial, though.

 

[wehstar]

Now, try and imagine the coming 30 years.

Teleporters. It's gotta be teleporters!

Or robotic house slaves.

 

[Liar]

Or robotic house slaves.

House slaves? House?

 

[starrkers]

- before pocket calculators
- before dishwashers
- before automatic washing machines (remember twin tubs or, better yet, mangles?)
- before FM radio, listening to crackly AM stations bleeding into one another at night.
- LPs and singles on 45
- before air conditioning (we opened the windows and hoped for a cool breeze)
- before clothes dryers (we used the sun)

 

[Emerald_Dragon]

Do you remember when there was nothing on but static after midnight?

Our first remote was called a clicker.

 

[TheeGoatPig]

Now, try and imagine the coming 30 years.

When I imagine how far video games and computers alone have come in the last thirty years, I am just amazed. From Pong to Crysis (look it up, the visuals in it are amazing), I am just bewildered trying to picture what the rest of the world will be like in another few decades.

And yet, at the same time, it will always be the same. People living their lives, just trying to make sense of it all.

 

[jomar]

Now, try and imagine the coming 30 years.

I know. What I was thinking, too. 3-D TV? I don't think the road systems will be in place by then so all you have to do is get in your car, enter the destination and read a book until you get there.

 

[tickledkitty]

I had Frampton, the one before Come Alive. He recorded it in a castle. Then I went to college and all I heard for months was Frampton Comes Alive from every frickin dorm room I passed. It ruined Frampton for me. I do like his Geico commercial, though.

I think I inherited it from someone who came to visit my mom and left it at our house. I think I was only in like 7th grade.

Genesis was huge when I was in college. We'd moved on to cassette tapes by then.

 

[kendo1]

I played Adventure on an old ICL mainframe, back in college. All typed instructions. That slowed everyone else up.