The new generation born after 82'

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

Sorry to Woodstockbirdybird. I was just repeating.

Revedge, I had the fun explaining to my 11 year old when she walked into the room and saw my garter belt laying on the bed while I was getting dressed for a christmas party.
As soon as she saw it she went all red in the face. Well, dear, I like to wear them to hold up my stockings when I wear my skirts. That is what they a really used for. And then later tonite when you dad and I get home then we will get freaky in it!
My kids insisted that one of the TVs was broken because the color fell out.
My son was upset with something about his playstation and all I could do was stare at him and tell him he is so lucky compaired to what I had.
Oh, and when you actually got a VCR, you had to wait forever to even be able to rent a movie. My dads actually loaded from the top.
In our city, most of the gang problems were settled with fist fights or an occational ballbat, not a gun.
My kids are younge enought not to remember a time before the Simpsons or Cops. And what about Spuds McKinsey?
8 Tracks?

22

God, I feel old. I turn thirty in six months.

I remember exactly where I was when we first heard about the Challenger disaster. Sitting in 9th grade physical science class, learning chemistry.

I remember the Chernobyl jokes and the stock market crash in 1987. I’ve won many games of Trivial Pursuit: The 80s Edition just by virtue of having stayed awake. Hell, I remember getting the original TP in 1984 and hearing the battle which my Aunt Maurene fought to get it.

My kids will never know a world without computers and the Internet. I remember getting our first computer in 1981. It was a TI 99/4A. Later, when we got our first real computer, my friend told me he could get me a modem (a screaming 2400 baud) for three hundred bucks. That same modem today is a fossil.

I remember the energy crisis of the 70s, and disco, and forced integration and busing. (The real reason for the oil shortage in the 70s was all the polyester clothing :wink: )

Of course, I make MY parents feel old. They actually remember things like the Cold War and Vietnam. My dad found his draft card, and for a minute, I was slightly ashamed that he hadn’t burned it on the courthouse steps. I was disabused of that shame when he pointed out that if he’d been arrested, he would’ve been kicked out of school, lost his deferment and been spending time in Vietnam. I’m glad I have my dad and his draft card :slight_smile:

Robin

23

>remembers that in 1982 my daughter was 9 years old, my son was 3, I was 25.

:eek:

>remembers never to do the math when it comes to this kind of thread.

24

I was watching this comedian the other night (on Comedy Central), and he was talking about how video games were when we were kids, and how some kids have no idea what pac-man is. His name was Nick something…

Anyway, he was like (not exact quote):

I was laughing my ass off because I can see myself having the same conversation one day with my own kids (if I have any).

25

I don’t know about kids born in the 80’s, but there are a lot of things that my daughter, born in 1996, doesn’t know about. I will never forget one of her first days of preschool. She was so excited about the amazing thing they had done at her school that day. “Guess what, Mom? We watched a movie, but it wasn’t on a TV! They actually had a little tiny movie screen!” She was almost as impressed with the school’s record player. I think that schools still have some of this old technology, and they will trot it out when necessary.

I doubt that my daughter has ever seen a real dial telephone, and yet the dials still seem to figure heavily in baby toys. Why is this?

TV reruns and other media artifacts from the early 80’s do sometimes seem so…fatalistic, don’t they? Even comedies had to deal with “issues” back then. It was all smog and AIDS and toxic shock syndrome and divorce and impending nuclear war and drugs and alcoholism and acid rain and endangered species and teenage pregnancy and stranger kidnappings and bad economies and other disasters I’ve blocked out. As a young kid, I was sure that the world was going to fall apart. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are many around my age (25) who were kind of messed up by that.

26

My 3 year old was pretending to make a phone call on an old phone we have lying around. It’s one of those standard beige office phones with the traditional receiver connected to the phone with a culy cord and the buttons on the front of the phone. When she was finished with her “call” she pressed a nonexistent button on the front of the receiver and said “beep.”

27

I was born in 1971, and I still remember my first grade teacher remarking how she couldn’t believe we were born in the Seventies! I felt so young at the time…

Now?

Well, I must say I didn’t really start feeling old until I noticed the generation gap widening between me and teenagers. I suppose it was in 1992, when Wayne’s World came out, and “Bohemian Rhapsody” soared up the charts, and there were kids thinking that it was sung by a new group, Queen!

I actually remember voting in Kindergarten for President. I chose Ford over Carter, only because he was already President so I figured he was the most qualified.

I had the first VCR on my block. It was a clunky display model, quite expensive, and you had to insert the tape into a spring-loaded slot, push it down, and press down this heavy buttons. And yes, it was VHS, though I envied my neighbor when he got a BETAMAX the next year.

I also remember a time when you had to turn the TV dial to change channels, and the picture would take a while to warm up. And there would only be four channels if you had good reception.

On the plus side, I also remember watching closing credits on shows, without having the picture manipulated to the side, or distracting logo on the bottom of the screen. I remember TV theme songs were a given.

I remember dancing around the house during the summer, when ABC was airing their commercials for the new fall season, and they were using “We’re Still the One” as their theme song. (But I thought it was an original, and not borrowed from the group Orleans.)

I actually remember loving the Donny And Marie Show, but mainly for the chance to watch the talented mimes, Shields and Yarnell! (Also big fan of Mummenchanz!)

I had the first video game system in my neighborhood, and yes, it was PONG! Five versions of the game, (1-player/2-player/squash/jai-alai/skeet shooting). Best one was skeet-shooting, cause that was when you had to close all the shades so the room was completely dark, then take your rifle and shoot at the dot on the screen.

I later got an Odyssey2, but really wanted an Atari 2600 (only we just called them Atari’s back then). Still I got to play KC Munchkin which was loads better than Pac-Man cause you could design your own mazes with the Odyssey’s keyboard. From there it was on to my first computer - the Commodore VIC 20, and then the Commodore 64!

I voted for Carter over Reagan in school, mainly because I preferred peanuts to jellybeans.

First pop song I have a clear memory of was Captain & Tennille’s “Love Will Keep Us Together”.

First movie in a theatre? Star Wars. (And that was what we called it, the whole “episode 4 - new hope” idea wasn’t introduced to us until we sat in stunned silence watching Empire Strikes Back with “Episode V” scrolling by. There was no “Episode IV” on the original.

Superman: The Movie was tremendous, but 1982 was the best year for movies with Superman II, ET and The Great Muppet Caper.

Everyone had a big wheel. Everyone wanted a Big Green Mean Machine! Sit & Spin was also popular. And once we had bikes, we would turn them upside down, turn the pedals, and make the wheels spin really fast. (Do they still do that?) Oh, and no one wore a helmet, unless you were a nerd, or a BMX racer, which everyone wanted to be.

Saturday mornings were all about getting up early, eating blueberry pancakes and watching cartoons, especially Superfriends.

It was a good time for growing up, at least in my experience. We had bean bag chairs! Shag carpet! And Michael Jackson was king! JAMS and Parachute Pants were cool.

Well, thats what i remember at least. Mind you, we didn’t have the internet, so it wasn’t all good!

God I feel old! :slight_smile:

28

I seem to remember a fair amount of stuff mentions and I was born in 82… I had a record player (still do somewhere I bet though the turntable is broken) I still have records (I really should get Dad to put them on tape… though some I probably won’t listen to… like Smurfs, Cabbage Patch Kids, Rose Petal Place) I remember not having a VCR till I was about 8 and we didn’t get a computer till 91. We didn’t have a remote control and often watched on Mom’s black and white in the basement. We only had one phone in the hallway on the wall and it was a dial not touch tone. And more stuff like that.

29

I’m an eighty-FIVER, and I’ve heard of 45s (the records), and I’ve even heard of things from BEFORE the boomer age! The NRA is not just the name of a gun club.

30

born in 73’

I remember the Challenger explosion in 6th grade…and how that is was a joke was going around the school at the time.

I still have my parents original VCR, over 20 years old now. The cassette holder pops up from the top of it, instead of the standard front-loading. When people come over to my house they always wonder what it is and if it has a little Flintstone bird in there…lol!

I remember learning to program on TI’s with the green screen in elementary school. And when Apple 2e’s were cutting edge.

I remember waking into our kitchen and turning on our black and white tv to learn that Regan had just been shot.

I remember watching the tv as the Berlin wall came tumbling down.

My fisher price turntable played all my favorite 45’s.

Pong was the first video game I played and my Atari and Pac-man game are still in working order.

And sometimes I still prefer tv and movies without color. :slight_smile:

31

I remember how schools started switching over from showing films projected on a screen, to showing videos on TV. For some reason, watching films seemed so much more exciting, and were also easier to see, since they were blown up to a much larger size than your typical TV set. Also, no glare! (And as an added bonus, you could sweettalk the teacher into showing the film in reverse. I can’t believe how big a kick that was in those days!)

Generally speaking, I think kids growing up today are far more knowledgable about the past than ever before, thanks in large part to cable television, videos, and the internet.

What’s interesting though is what lives on today. What has had staying power. Sure, they play 80’s songs on the radio, but not every song from that time.

Do they ever play “Pac-Man Fever”, “Goonies ‘R’ Good Enough”, “The Curly Shuffle”, or “The Superbowl Shuffle” anymore? And does anyone remember that dreadful song by Neal Diamond - “Heartlight”? It makes me cringe now, but I loved it as a child cause it was all about ET!

“Turn on your heartlight, Turn it on whereever you go,
Let it make a happy glow, for all the world to see.
Turn on your heartlight, In the middle of a young boy’s dream,
Don’t wake me up too soon, Gonna take a ride across the moon!”

32

Here’s my first handheld electronic game: http://www.matthewb.redhotant.co.uk/merlin.html

Mine still works, but if yours doesn’t, try this: http://vmerlin.monroeworld.com/ .

I still like Magic Square, so I wrote a Magic Square simulator for my Palm; I know the game too well though, so I plan to modify it so it can generate new “rules.”

33

Hey, Alzarian, I can “sequence” Heartlight for you on my Merlin.

34

Two major flashbacks while reading this: The Green Machine and Merlin.

I envied my neighbor because he had a Green Machine, and was truly the envy of the entire neighborhood.

I had a Merlin. I felt like I was on the cutting edge of technology. My own handheld game. I think that my kids would probably be aghast at what used to amuse me.

35

I was kinda geeky, being partial to Quiz Wiz. Remember that? Got a booklet of hundreds of multiple choice questions, you plugged the cartridge into the Quiz Wiz, and then chose A B C or D. If you got it right… a green light lit up. Wrong? Red light! Woo hoo! It was the Who Wants to Be a Millionaire of its day.

And then there was Perfection and Super Perfection, still available to this day, I believe.

And Operation! That was nerve-wracking. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to play this game on the computer?!

And finally…

Simon!

You know it, you love it. To this day I can still hear the dulcet tones of “Simon”:

buzz… buzz
buzz, buzz… buzz, buzz
buzz, buzz, bizz… buzz, buzz, bizz
buzz, buzz, bizz, buzz… buzz, buzz, bizz, BONG!

36

YAY Quiz Whiz!!

You know what really struck me in grammar school? When they started switching the blackboards for white boards. For the entire school year, kids were BEGGING to go up to the board to do math and spelling just so they could get a quick little huff off the markers. Half the kids in class had little dots on their noses from sniffing too close. They seemed so futuristic at the time.

And teenage girls today just don’t get the same thrill out of feminine men. Remember the “New Romantic” style where men wore lip gloss and had fluffy hair. Sure, there’s Marilyn Manson wearing dresses, but he’s not actually trying to look pretty. Nick Rhodes, now HE was pretty.

37

I know all about that stuff, and I was born in 1984… must of been the good school system. Or the fact that my parents made sure that I knew about their lives, sometimes more than I needed to know. (Part of the reason I don’t smoke pot is because both my parents did, and told me alllll about it.)

38

::dry heaves and retches::

39

I remember that, but why have a Simon when you can play Echo on Merlin? Huh? Huh? Oh, okay, it had colours, big deal…

A friend of mine had this cool robot-like thing that you would plug cartridges into and it would ask you questions (yes, it talked) to which you would press one of four buttons (A, B, C, or D) as an answer. It would then tell you if you were right, and go on to another question. You could play one cartridge for an entire hour of questions! How did it work?

It was an eight-track tape player (the cartridge was a tape). Each track (well, pair of tracks) would have a voice asking a question, then you press the track selector (A, B, C, or D), and the right answer would be the track that said “that is correct!” ( the other tracks saying something like “sorry, the answer was…”).

Clever design, and it played regular eight track tapes, too.

40

I was born in '81 (almost '80), and I only know KISS as a tacky, horrible, over-marchandised and over-rated joke. I’m sure, based on the “KISS in a Pepsi commercial!” mourning thread, they were respectable or at least enjoyable at some point during the 70s, but never for me.