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Posted by amethyst on 21-04-2010 at 22:53:
Too Funny to not Share
I'm sure some of you have seen this in an email floating around, but I was busting up laughing at this and had to share. . . .
Growing up without a cell phone
If you are 30, or older, you might 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... Barefoot... 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 my 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! Stamps were 10 cents!
Child Protective Services didn't care if our parents beat us. As a matter of fact, the parents of all my friends also had permission to kick our ass! Nowhere was safe!
There were no MP3's or Napsters or iTunes! If you wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the 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 @#*% it all up! There were no CD players! We had tape decks in our car.. We'd play our favorite tape and "eject" it when finished, and then the tape would come undone rendering it useless. Cause, hey, that's how we rolled, Baby! Dig?
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!
There weren't any freakin' cell phones either. If you left the house, you just didn't make a damn call or receive one. You actually had to be out of touch with your "friends". OH MY GOD !!! Think of the horror... Not being in touch with someone 24/7!!! And then there's TEXTING. Yeah, right. Please! You kids have no idea how annoying you are.
And we didn't have fancy Caller ID either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your parents, your boss, your bookie, your drug dealer, the collection agent... You just didn't know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!
We didn't have any fancy PlayStation or Xbox video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like 'Space Invaders' and 'Asteroids'. Your screen 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!
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!!! NO REMOTES!!! Oh, no, what's the world coming to?!?!
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-finks!
And we didn't have microwaves. If we wanted to heat something up, we had to use the stove! Imagine that!
And our parents told us to stay outside and play.... All day long. Oh, no, no electronics to soothe and comfort. And if you came back inside... You were doing chores!
And car seats - oh, please! Mom threw you in the back seat and you hung on. If you were luckily, you got the "safety arm" across the chest at the last moment if she had to stop suddenly, and if your head hit the dashboard, well that was your fault for calling "shot gun" in the first place!
See! That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled rotten! You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1980 or any time before!
Regards,
The Over 30 Crowd
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Perspective Alters Reality
Posted by SJ_SwanJun on 21-04-2010 at 22:56:
Oh damn ... I have always LOVED this.... ALWAYS!!
There are a few more nice one we can add to the list ... LOL!!
Oh the shit I used to get up to as a kid ... damn ... if Joshie got up to even a 5th of the stuff I did -- I;d never survive it!!
Thanks for the giggle. I sorely needed it!
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Sighhh
Why do men snore when lying on their backs?
Because their balls fall over their butt holes and they vapour lock.
Posted by amethyst on 21-04-2010 at 23:04:
You know, we used to play in the middle of the street. The only rule we had was if the siren for the VFD sounded then Get the Hell out of the Road! Now kids have to go to parks to play (those where for the little kids that weren't in school yet).
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Perspective Alters Reality
Posted by Madilayn on 21-04-2010 at 23:16:
Love this piece!!
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"When I'm old, I don't want them to say of me, "She's so charming." I want them to say, "Be careful, I think she's armed." -G. Stoddart
Posted by Transmute Jun on 21-04-2010 at 23:20:
It just makes me feel old.... 
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Posted by Springie on 21-04-2010 at 23:25:
Bwahahahaha!! So true!!! Those were great!
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Posted by Garnet on 21-04-2010 at 23:29:
I loved this. I remember life before Pong even and I still have many of the tapes I recorded off the radio, and some I recorded of T.V. show, too. I think, if I looked hard enough, I could still find a couple of partial episodes of BotP on tapes I recorded other things on later, when I ran out of blank ones.
Remember merry-go-rounds and metal slides that were more than three or four feet tall, and jungle-gyms on gravel or blacktop playgrounds. And don't forget riding in the back of a pick-up truck and shouting to be heard over the rush of the wind.
I kind of miss those days, sometimes.
Posted by amethyst on 21-04-2010 at 23:35:
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Riding in the back of a pick up was the best part of summer! And gee, looks around, we all survived it! I wonder if we are putting too much effort into protecting ourselves from ourselves and not enough on the real dangers.
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Perspective Alters Reality
Posted by Becky Rock on 21-04-2010 at 23:36:
This is hysterical! I read it my son and I got a lot of rolled eyes and hanging open mouth.
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I'm writing a book. I've got the page numbers so far...
Posted by clouddancer on 21-04-2010 at 23:53:
This is great. Thank you for posting.
As a teacher we talk about these differences all the time in the staffroom, adding in many other ones as well. 
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Don't sweat the petty things and don't pet the sweaty things.
Posted by SJ_SwanJun on 22-04-2010 at 00:07:
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Gawd.... in the back of a ute!!! I remember driving from Darwin through to Perth in the back of a pickup when I was 14... During Cyclone Season!!
Totally awesome trip!! The Thunderstorms were the best bit...
Of course now a thunderstorm is, like, my greatest fear... LOL
__________________
Sighhh
Why do men snore when lying on their backs?
Because their balls fall over their butt holes and they vapour lock.
Posted by UnpublishedWriter on 22-04-2010 at 00:17:
Several months ago, for some reason, the guys I work with got to talking about their childhoods. There was much mention of washtubs. The kind you filled with water from a pump or well.
They're all around my age. And they had used washtubs to wash their clothes and themselves not that long ago.
Did I mention that I now live in a town of around 20,000 people, in middle Georgia?
I felt so urban. I've always had bathtubs inside bathrooms, and wells were something I saw in movies and on TV.
Amazing what technology accomplishes.
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Benefits, not features; benefits, not features
Posted by lborgia88 on 22-04-2010 at 03:06:
RE: Too Funny to not Share
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I love this!
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This is where I would add "And we only had two channels!"
Posted by Mad Katharine on 22-04-2010 at 04:16:
Ah, you young whippersnappers had it good in the eighties! We didn't have VCRs in the seventies- we had to use tape recorders to tape the audio of BotP episodes, when we were lucky enough to get home from school in time to record them! Heh!
-Disturbed
/get off my lawn!
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-Katharine
Disturbed in NorCal
Posted by Garnet on 22-04-2010 at 11:37:
Actually, when I knew I wouldn't get home in time, I'd set the tape recorder up and tell my mom when to run in and hit play and record then when to go back and turn it off. Sometimes she'd forget and I get weird stuff on the ends of the tapes. Still have a couple of tapes around with just pieces of old BotP episodes on them. Does that make me feel old, or what? Those tapes are over 30 years old.
Posted by Transmute Jun on 22-04-2010 at 13:44:
OMG, I did the same thing... holding my 'portable' tape recorder (the side of a giant textbook) up to the TV speaker to record audio! And then getting mad if my brother came into the room and made noise! 
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Posted by amethyst on 22-04-2010 at 14:46:
Wow! You all were privileged. We actually got a microwave before we got a tape recorder, not too long before VCRs and Walkmans came out
Although, we did have about 10 or 12 channels on cable system, but too far for any off air stations even with antennea.
__________________
Perspective Alters Reality
Posted by Garnet on 22-04-2010 at 15:14:
I think I got my first tape recorder in 1974. They were a status symble at my school--but what do you expect with a bunch of blind kids. We taped T.V. shows, songs off the radio, you name it.
I think we got cable in 1979, but only on the T.V. in the living room. I had to wait a year or two to get it on mine.
The microwave came in 1980, if I remember, and it was at my mom's insistance I think. Things were starting to come out that were miicrowavable, plus there was this sales pitch about less cooking time, and mom wanted to save time in the kitchen.
Now, if it can't be nuked, my daughter and I rarely eat it.
Oh how the times do change.
Thinking about the tape recordings, and how mad we'd get when someone walked in on one, makes me realize that half the fun now when I find an old tape and listen to is hearing all the background stuff that got on there.
Posted by UnpublishedWriter on 22-04-2010 at 21:56:
I audiotaped some shows, too. Not BotP, though. Made it interesting, to imagine what was happening to account for all those noises and sounds.
__________________
Benefits, not features; benefits, not features
Posted by Madilayn on 22-04-2010 at 22:00:
I only ever audiotaped songs from the radio. Not sure why I didn't do TV shows.
__________________
"When I'm old, I don't want them to say of me, "She's so charming." I want them to say, "Be careful, I think she's armed." -G. Stoddart
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