[Tom Houlihan]

Unfortunately, not a Houli original, but funny nonetheless...

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!

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!

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, 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 Atari! With games like 'Space Invaders' and 'asteroids'. 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... And you only had 3 chances before you died!!!

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 on screen 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 rat-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 wanted popcorn, we had to pop it in a pot with oil on the stove or use that stupid Jiffy Pop 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!

[Geek44]

The ripe old age of thirty?! Don't make me laugh ()

[Jim O]

Geek44 said:

The ripe old age of thirty?! Don't make me laugh ()

I was thinking the same thing. I already had my bachelor's degree in 1980 and grew up without cable (didn't have it until I was 25). I actually got my first ATM card in 1980, and I was an "early adopter". We played Asteroids and other "video games" at the pizza shop or in the seedy arcades in Times Square or at beach resorts. Call waiting arrived when I was in High School, caller ID much later, and cell phones way after that. Until at least the late 1970's NASA hadn't made a major launch or landing without me watching, they were such big events. In my lifetime the Berlin Wall went up and came down, and the first (and only) moon landings were made. I hand wrote a letter to President Johnson asking about the Vietnam War in 1967 or so. The FBI probably opened a file on me back then.

Most all of these events occurred before my first child was born in 1987, with the exception of my first "car phone". That was probably very early 1990's right around the time that the Berlin Wall came down...

[Ghost Rider]

I am 30 now. I grew up in the 1980s and we had a microwave for as long as I can remember. Why do people always think that because they are older that the younger people have it easy? My mother said this not very long ago and then she said that computers were going to make our lives easier. But when I asked her if it was really easier. She thought about it for a minute or two and then said that all it seemed to have done for her is make it so that her company required 100 times more work from her than it did before they bought computers. She even blamed her big butt on the computer.

I could not find a way to disagree because I was laughing so hard. I guess that I should remember that my mother is a woman and agreeing with her about something like that is probably as bad as answering a woman when she asks you if she looks fat.

[cyberia]

Tom Houlihan said:

You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1980!

Why do the words "back in 1980" sound so strange?

[Geek44]

I got my first job in 1984. I turned 40 last year. I remember the moon landing even though I was only two. Actually, I remember the occasion but not the landing itself. My father invited his employees to our home to watch it on our black and white TV. We probably got our first colour TV in the mid 1970s.

[Tom Houlihan]

Hey, I said I didn't write it! I was just sharing!!

I'm 46, by the way...

[cyberia]

Tom Houlihan said:

Hey, I said I didn't write it! I was just sharing!!

I'm 46, by the way...

What I'm saying is, the phrase "Back in 1980" sounds strange. To me, 1980 does not seem that long ago.

[Geek44]

Tell that to Pat Benatar Paul.

[lufttiger]

I think Paul is right, its strange that the older we get, it seems like 5 years ago was just yesterday.

As for the younger Gen, its gonna get even harder for them, yeah we didn't
have all those gizmos while growing up, but nowadays kids learn to do much
more at a younger age. They have a tougher problem staying healthier cuz
their sitting all day in front of a computer, or vid game as well.

[Whiterook]

Every 10 years brings such massive changes too, not the least of which older bones!

[wolfcub]

Dadgummed bunch of younguns.

[MAGNA]

Grumpy old buggers aren't they kids....