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Will you miss newspapers when they're gone?
parkint:
A friend just sent me this TODAY and I think it is quite appropriate for this thread.
{Please forgive me if you disagree}
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 whip my
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
Carol Haynes:
But we were happier back then ;)
40hz:
I was at a picnic last summer where a bunch of friends were discussing the late 60s and early 70s. After a while, one friend's 20 year old son somehat irritably remarked that the way everybody was talking made the era "sound like it was one big nonstop party."
My GF flashed him a wintery smile and said, "Yes, it was. Too bad you missed it. "
;D
app103:
My daughter made a comment today in reference to the concept of "grandma's old things". (she is contemplating moving out and we were discussing what to do with her furniture, which was originally mine when I was a kid)
We usually think of that kind of stuff as the old dusty crap from ages ago, long out of style.
Sometimes this stuff gets handed down to the next generation or 2.
Now think of the kids of today and the things they are into. The music they listen to, the books, furniture they decorate the inside of the cabinets with whatever their favorite celebrities are, the clothes.
Some day they are going to be older too, and the stuff they have now may get passed to future generations.
Some kid in the future is going to end up with anarchy t-shirts, stuff decorated with Miley Cyrus, a bunch of bad punk CD's, and a heap of zombie & vampire related books.
What the heck is going to go through their mind when they see that stuff for the first time?
Carol Haynes:
Hand-me-down furniture won't exist in the future in the same way. Out culture (I'm talking about US and Europe here) is too much based on disposable. Not to mention built-in-obsolescence.
For example I have a freezer in my garage that is at least 25 years old and still works perfectly. New freezers won't work properly in a cold environment and if my experience is anything to go by now have a life expectancy of around 5 years.
As for furniture ... who will want antique chipboard or MDF furniture?
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