Over 30 - one of those Internet rants going around in email

[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Over 30 - one of those Internet rants going around in email

Posted: 3/13/2006 9:45:25 AM EDT

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!

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 faster 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 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 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!

Regards,

-The 30 Something crowd!

Posted: 3/13/2006 9:49:57 AM EDT

[#1]

All true.

Posted: 3/13/2006 9:56:54 AM EDT

[#2]

Jiffy pop is storta fun and you get a free tin foil hat to boot!

stupid JiffyPop thing and shake it over the stove forever like an idiot

Posted: 3/13/2006 10:00:36 AM EDT

[#3]

Soooo true. Soooo true.

Reading that made my day. Thanks!

Posted: 3/13/2006 10:04:36 AM EDT

[#4]

You know what reallly cracks me up, is all the whining about "so-and-so didn't ship my order until a week later".

The norm when I was growing up was about 4-6 weeks per mail-order. If you were lucky, you might occasionally get your order at just under three weeks. If you were lucky.

Posted: 3/13/2006 10:05:52 AM EDT

[#5]

Boohoo. Cry me a river.

The 45-60y/o's could make a similar list compared to the 30somethings too.

Blah blah, no VCRs.....no cd's......

Posted: 3/13/2006 10:07:17 AM EDT

[#6]

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 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 faster and faster until you died! ... Just like LIFE!

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 use that stupid JiffyPop thing and shake it over the stove forever like an idiot.

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

(left all the good stuff in)

Posted: 3/13/2006 10:07:55 AM EDT

[#7]

Quoted:
Boohoo. Cry me a river.

The 45-60y/o's could make a similar list compared to the 30somethings too.

Blah blah, no VCRs.....no cd's......

Uh, that's the point, and the author even said so at the beginning.

Posted: 3/13/2006 10:08:18 AM EDT

[#8]

<------- Feels old. Class of 1988.

Posted: 3/13/2006 10:08:26 AM EDT

[#9]

Some of those aren't exactly true for any body around the age of 30. Microwaves should have been relatively common for most of your life (certainly by the time you were a teen when it matters), and I've seen console TV's from the 70's with "clickers" (they called them clickers for a reason).

The internet wasn't available to the masses, but he did mention having an Atari 2600. Modems were available, and so were tons of free BBS's. I'm 26, and was running a BBS at 14. This sort of thing had been going on for years before I ever discovered it. Common? No. Available? Yup.

Oh, and porn was easy to find before the internet. Refer to my BBS comments. Granted it took a little longer...

Other than that, he's probably right. I'm not 30 though, so most of what I just said may certainly be the misguided ramblings of a spoiled whipper snapper.

Posted: 3/13/2006 10:15:03 AM EDT

[#10]

Quoted:
Boohoo. Cry me a river.

The 45-60y/o's could make a similar list compared to the 30somethings too.

Blah blah, no VCRs.....no cd's......

I got my first CD player in college and when I was in elementary school you only got to see Disney movies when the local theater played them in the summer time during the day and your mom would have to haul you have way across town to get you there.

Posted: 3/13/2006 12:15:46 PM EDT

[#11]

Quoted:
Boohoo. Cry me a river.

The 45-60y/o's could make a similar list compared to the 30somethings too.

Blah blah, no VCRs.....no cd's......

RIF = Reading Is Fun

Remember that one!?!?!

"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..."

Posted: 3/13/2006 12:22:09 PM EDT

[#12]

bump.

Posted: 3/13/2006 1:04:56 PM EDT

[#13]

I'm 36 and just about everything in that post is spot-on.

Posted: 3/13/2006 1:15:52 PM EDT

[#14]

Quoted:
snip...

Oh, and porn was easy to find before the internet. Refer to my BBS comments. Granted it took a little longer...

snip...

And it was ASCII art...

Edit: Ay kant spel.

Posted: 3/13/2006 1:28:08 PM EDT

[#15]

Quoted:
Quoted:
snip...

Oh, and porn was easy to find before the internet. Refer to my BBS comments. Granted it took a little longer...

snip...

And it was ASCII art...

Edit: Ay kant spel.

Ha! No, but I do recal waiting a few minutes for some B&W gifs. Back then, you had to provide a pretty dang good description of the picture, before somebody would bother spending 5 or 6 minutes to download it. They didn't thumbnail them back then. Heck, heavy use of ANSI (you read that right) graphics made some boards unbearable to use until modems became much faster.

Posted: 3/13/2006 1:29:40 PM EDT

[#16]

I agree.
Max

Posted: 3/13/2006 1:30:01 PM EDT

[#17]

Actually I specifically ordered my line without call waiting, despite them offering it to me for free.

[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Over 30 - one of those Internet rants going around in email

General » General Discussion

Warning

Confirm Action

About AR15.COM

Stay Connected

Newsletter

Contact Us