From a 30 year old ...

Forgive the language -- but it just emphasized the point here and I did not want to edit it out ...

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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 ass! 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 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 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 want ed 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.

Yeah! To hell with mircowaves!

Hey, when all us high-school and college students grow up more, we'll be complaining to the kids of the next generation. We had to actually click a mouse instead of just thinking about it. Our video games were just 2d pictures of a 3d world while they get to go inside of the game and immerse themselves. Also, we'll be saying that you could only hear someone talk on the phone instead of seeing them. And if you wanted to go somewhere, you either had to drive at crawling speeds or pay hundreds of dollars to fly in an uncomfortable plane seat, not just take off in the skycar and get a hundred miles away in 15 minutes.

It'll always happen... as long as inventors keep making our lives easier. Still, I must wonder if there will even be a critical mass where our lives are too easy...

^Meh. I see what you're saying TJ, life is easier for us in most respects. When i come home from school everything is easy, apart from homework, coursework and exam revision. Im just glad you didt say school and exams have got easier, as some of the stuff i do at school my parents dont know about, and my Dads an engineer so hes got pretty good qualifications. It kinda annoys me when people say school has got easier, as i work my fecking ass off to get my grades (my lowest predicted grade is a B in Science (even though its my best subject), and i managed to get an A* in my last exam and only lost 1 mark) and then people turn around and say, so what, you got an A*, its easier these days, you would have got an E back in my day. Thats what annoys me.

But yeah, other things have got easier, and will do in the future like CJD said. I suppose its just life. BTW i still use a pen and paper to write to people sometimes. [:D] But hardly ever, i use msn most to talk to people from far away, and email, so i get your point.

[hyyyper]

most of the things you're naming "modern" like a remote control, a microwave, cable-tv, internet and pc-games came when i was 9, so i grew up primive...i still have to cycle 5 miles to school and 5 back, and then 15 miles of paper round everyday when it's freezing outside...

and we still don't have a Caller ID Box

[gouldy]

Tcon, if there was a caveman alive, he'd say the same thing about everyone. "I had to go out and kill my food with my own hands, not go to a shop to buy it, or even have a gun with which to shoot it". And, we'll be saying the same thing about the next generation, ("we had to go to school for 15 years of our life, we didn't just get a chip put in our brains at birth") it's the way it works and well, I don't care, so shhh [:)]

TConwell = mid life crisis

CoAsTeRkRazY= Mr. Genetic Stupidity

gazag = clueless

To the rest of you cretins who sought to criticize, it was meant to be something funny. Geesh you guys really are that ignorant, aren't you? Genetics .... such an amazing study of the affects of in-breeding.

Genetics .... such an amazing study of the affects of in-breeding.

It's actualy only the religous people that are inbred, according to the 'great' book. (Trying to find something more ignorant to say....nothing)

Being a Aborigonal and stuff, I'd rather go kill my own food and use every part of the it instead of going to the store and not wondering if the meat is even real.[:p][xx(]

And I'm sure your not the only one who thinks these things TConwell, But my dad is around 50 and he's gotton past this, now I'm teaching him how to use my computer and stuff, so I'm sure he's finally excepted that technology is getting better and better.[:)]

You realize you are still a pretty young person right? Btw, whats in-breeding? Oh, and I get as being funny, it looked more like a statement then a 'hehe' thing, but you had no smilies or anything so.... good points in there, Yeah....[confused][:)]

I thought it was funny And I agree 100% i'm spoiled, lazy and pampered all the way lol

Great I'm 36, 37 in less than a month! Guess its all patch patch patch from now on! I remember 1980 TJ very well.. Activisions Pitfall on the Atari VCS, Missile Command and Adventure.. sigh

Missile Command! There we go! Finally, someone that speaks my language!

^How about Asteroids and Star Raider Tcon?

Originally posted by TConwell

gazag = clueless

To the rest of you cretins who sought to criticize, it was meant to be something funny. Geesh you guys really are that ignorant, aren't you? Genetics .... such an amazing study of the affects of in-breeding.

Do you know if that is the correct spelling of cretin, because my social studies teacher uses that word a whole lot, and the spelling has been bugging me.

I agree TCon, we do have it really easy now a days, but we'll be thinking the exact same thing next generation. Advancement in technology is all it is really.

Indeed Woodie ... indeed Woodie. How about Galaga?

Hmm. I've played and liked that game as well as Galaxian which is my favorite of those old Namco games. Dig Dug is high up on that list too.

Dig Dug! LOLOLOLOL!!!!!

Originally posted by TConwell

gazag = clueless

To the rest of you cretins who sought to criticize, it was meant to be something funny. Geesh you guys really are that ignorant, aren't you? Genetics .... such an amazing study of the affects of in-breeding.

Lmfao, now that is the funniest thing besides the first post in this thread that I have heard all day. I'm 31, so I can remember all of that stuff very well. Jiffy-Pop popcorn sucked, by the time the darn thing finished popping you weren't hungry anymore, lol. Great stuff TConwell, and so true!

Galaga! Oh yes, and how about Phoenix, Defender, Gorf, and Sinistar.. "Beware I live!" Old 80's retro arcade games that put the player into a sense of panic as you played, while your mates crowded round the cabinet begging you to give them "1 of your lives!" all of which I believe can still be played on the current super consoles of today..

Somewhere in NY there is an arcade that owes me return on the investments I had made on those cabinets ... not too mention the amount of vulgarity learned from the reflection of those angled monitors.

BRING ON THE CENTIPEDE!

Atari's Centipede. That bloody spider used to get me everytime!
I know that's actually available on the PC with many other 80's arcade games (for us old timers), cos I have it! Think it's called Atari Greatest Hits or something like that.. Battlezone, Tempest, Gravitar etc.. worth a look. [:)]

You can get ataris greatest hits for PS2 and the new PSP (im getting it for Christmas hopefully YAY but its real expensive so i have to put some of my money to it). But whats wrong with all the new games? Pro Evo, Medal of Honour, Timesplitters, Final Fantasy, Ratchet & Clank, Tomb Raider, and GTA? I agree lots of the old retro arcade games are good, but i love the new generation games. Dont get me wrong, theres nothing wrong with space invaders and the like.......

Nothin' wrong with em at all! GTA SA well.. No wonder it won 5 awards at the Golden Joysticks!!