I'm sorry. There are no old cool guys. There are simply old guys acting in a creepy way because they don't realize their age. It didn't happen slowly. It isn't a secret.
That is what 35 is all about learning.
I mean when you are hanging out with the cool 21 year old girl and you start doing the math, if you don't shudder for second then you truly are creepy.
You know the "whatta great ass and when I was ready to tap it at 18 she was... uh in kindergarten" type reasoning.
Nick
I mean, piss off, Nick.
No, there are cool old guys. Why, I am one. I share the benefit of my experience with young people, interested and encouraging, and still capable of stealing their drugs. My once-handsome face has been destroyed in the course of gaining that experience, but I am not fat.
I listen to avant garde jazz and I've been into hip hop since the 1980s.
Well I'll post what I believe are some positives that are lost on the "youths" of today by not being raised in the 80's and at least part of the 70's. There are a few advantages to having grown up during that time and from earlier times.
/curmudgeon
These kids today seem to have the paradox that they should be continually entertained, are unable to realize it isn't all about them, and lastly are unable to entertain themselves.
First the fact that it isn't all about them. Even when there is entertainment, music, whatever available in a place or room, it must be suited to their tastes. They have never lived in a world where there were not 24/7 services devoted to their entertainment needs. You speak of Saturday morning cartoons and they look at you like you are an idiot. They live in a world where there are 3 a.m. cartoons on a channel whose demographic are 13-17 year olds, all day, everyday.
So they can be in a room with a 70 inch television, or with a surround-sound stereo system, or whatever but if all this equipment isn't devoted to their niche, then they often pout. They are unable to be entertained outside of their narrow band of interests.
As for being entertained, well it had better be available pretty much all the time. It also requires an incredible technological load to sustain. Anything less is their personal definition of hell. You suggest that books travel well and they almost faint on sight.
I encounter this most often when camping. I am shocked by the amount of CRAP people need to leave their homes. My own children are trying to add to our pile and 9 out of 10 times I'll tell them to take a hike on it. Go bike, go hike, go climb a rock, go stare at those damn bugs crawling around and figure out what they do.(including bite)
(A couple outings ago we were camping and we this trolley comes by carting people around. We overhear on the radio someone calling in the fact that some kids were playing with a dead bird. They were our kids)
Then the last point, entertaining yourselves. They can't do it nowadays. Television news has scared people into never letting kids leave their homes and I grew up in an age where you might get smacked if you were seen inside before dark. I can't hear a young person tell a joke. They can't seem to think, only repeat. Worse still they can't understand a joke because it might make reference to something outside their narrow band of understanding, might not make a pop reference, might require understanding, might not be slapstick, etc.
The only telephone we had was a rotary dial thingy that worked on a good day, but the noise on the line was horrible. Speed dial? Answer phone? Only in some rich offices. Camera phones? The only photo we ever discussed was the one you took, spent several days having it developed, slipped into an envelope, waited another several days for someone to receive it, then they called and you discussed it. The event was over a week old by then.
Our tape recorder at home was a Sony which was larger than a Yellow Pages for New York City. It had real push-button action: you had to put quite a bit of pressure on the buttons to get things to click right. CDs were unheard of and MP3 players weren't even on SciFi shows yet.
My car had an 8-track tape player; even had a collection of 20 some tapes. My car now has an iPod nano connected to it in the front and a iPod 5G in the bback to run videos.
My first computer was the TRS-80, affectionately known as the Trash-80. It was horrible. Then came the Apple IIe's, then somewhere I picked up a Timex Sinclair 2000. It had a memory module on the back with a whopping 16MB!
TV was reruns of Mork and Mindy, My Favorite Martian, Star Trek (the real one), Dragnet, Hawaii 5-0. Damn, we saw Eddie Murphy on Saturday Night Live, LIVE.
I remember Nixon's resignation. The only reason though may be my cousin worked at the Washington Post and came over really hyped uup every couple of days about the sensation the story was creating.
Oh. Did I mention the navigation system in the car? It consisted of printed paper maps that were not up-to-date and a dyslexic brotther trying to read them. we really got into lots of trouble. It was fun. AAA TripTiks!!!
Ahh, the Ruskies. Grew uup next to Norfolk Navel Station with the knowledge that any confrontation between us and them would mean our instantaneous elimination from the map. Really put a damper on things, or taught people not to give a rat's looney.
My first computer was the TRS-80, affectionately known as the Trash-80. It was horrible. Then came the Apple IIe's, then somewhere I picked up a Timex Sinclair 2000. It had a memory module on the back with a whopping 16MB!
Shouldn't that be 16 KB? I remember saving up my allowance and yard-moving money to buy a 32KB expansion card for my TI-994/A.
Shouldn't that be 16 KB? I remember saving up my allowance and yard-moving money to buy a 32KB expansion card for my TI-994/A.
Have gotten too used to MB and GB! You are right: it was only 16KB, and it was a TS 1000, not 2000. Maybe that was KnightRider! God it's so long ago... the memory is fading so quickly...
Have gotten too used to MB and GB! You are right: it was only 16KB, and it was a TS 1000, not 2000. Maybe that was KnightRider! God it's so long ago... the memory is fading so quickly...
OH man, a friend of mine had a Sinclair 1000. God, I remember sharing those cassette tapes of basic programs....subscribing to those magazines that would publish hundreds of lines of BASIC code, which you'd dutifully type in and run only to find hundreds of errors.
OH man, a friend of mine had a Sinclair 1000. God, I remember sharing those cassette tapes of basic programs....subscribing to those magazines that would publish hundreds of lines of BASIC code, which you'd dutifully type in and run only to find hundreds of errors.
Comments
Originally posted by trumptman
I'm sorry. There are no old cool guys. There are simply old guys acting in a creepy way because they don't realize their age. It didn't happen slowly. It isn't a secret.
That is what 35 is all about learning.
I mean when you are hanging out with the cool 21 year old girl and you start doing the math, if you don't shudder for second then you truly are creepy.
You know the "whatta great ass and when I was ready to tap it at 18 she was... uh in kindergarten" type reasoning.
Nick
I mean, piss off, Nick.
No, there are cool old guys. Why, I am one. I share the benefit of my experience with young people, interested and encouraging, and still capable of stealing their drugs. My once-handsome face has been destroyed in the course of gaining that experience, but I am not fat.
I listen to avant garde jazz and I've been into hip hop since the 1980s.
I'm coo-well.
Originally posted by Aries 1B
The 70's really, really sucked.
Plaid pants!
'nuff said....
I remember being hot and bored waiting in the long gas pump lines.....
Originally posted by trick fall
I love beer can hats and do you remeber Bud Man?
Wow -- not until you mentioned it. Reminds me of white guys wearing afros!
Originally posted by trick fall
I couldn't believe it recently when my two fifteen year old nephews had never heard of the movie Better off Dead. I immediately bought them a copy.
I want my two dollars!
/curmudgeon
These kids today seem to have the paradox that they should be continually entertained, are unable to realize it isn't all about them, and lastly are unable to entertain themselves.
First the fact that it isn't all about them. Even when there is entertainment, music, whatever available in a place or room, it must be suited to their tastes. They have never lived in a world where there were not 24/7 services devoted to their entertainment needs. You speak of Saturday morning cartoons and they look at you like you are an idiot. They live in a world where there are 3 a.m. cartoons on a channel whose demographic are 13-17 year olds, all day, everyday.
So they can be in a room with a 70 inch television, or with a surround-sound stereo system, or whatever but if all this equipment isn't devoted to their niche, then they often pout. They are unable to be entertained outside of their narrow band of interests.
As for being entertained, well it had better be available pretty much all the time. It also requires an incredible technological load to sustain. Anything less is their personal definition of hell. You suggest that books travel well and they almost faint on sight.
I encounter this most often when camping. I am shocked by the amount of CRAP people need to leave their homes. My own children are trying to add to our pile and 9 out of 10 times I'll tell them to take a hike on it. Go bike, go hike, go climb a rock, go stare at those damn bugs crawling around and figure out what they do.(including bite)
(A couple outings ago we were camping and we this trolley comes by carting people around. We overhear on the radio someone calling in the fact that some kids were playing with a dead bird. They were our kids)
Then the last point, entertaining yourselves. They can't do it nowadays. Television news has scared people into never letting kids leave their homes and I grew up in an age where you might get smacked if you were seen inside before dark. I can't hear a young person tell a joke. They can't seem to think, only repeat. Worse still they can't understand a joke because it might make reference to something outside their narrow band of understanding, might not make a pop reference, might require understanding, might not be slapstick, etc.
/curmudgeon off
Nick
Funny relevant statistic:
60% of people under 60 believe that wisdom comes with age
less than 40% of people over 60 believe it
. . . paradoxical
Originally posted by pfflam
But with all the not-so subtle jibes aside . . . of course you're right Trumpt . . . and in so many words as well
Welcome back.
Of course I'm right.
As for the words, well I get paid by the pound.8)
Nick
**************************************
Now that I've reached the ripe old age of thirty, I can't help but look
around and notice the youth of today. You've got it so ****in' easy!
I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a goddamned 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 - we wanted to know something,
we had to go to the goddamned library and look it up ourselves!
And there was no email! We had to actually write somebody a letter - with a
pen! And then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in
the ****in' mailbox and it would take like a week to get there!
And there were no MP3s or Napster! You wanted to steal music, you had to go
to the goddamned record store and shoplift it yourself. Or we 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!
You want to hear about hardship? You couldn't just download porn! You had to
bribe some homeless dude to buy you a copy of "Hustler" at the 7-11. Those
were your options.
We didn't have fancy shit like Call Waiting. If you were on the phone and
somebody else called they got a busy signal!
And we didn't have fancy Caller ID Boxes either. When the phone rang, you h
ad no idea who it was it could be your boss, your mom, a collections agent,
your drug dealer, you didn't know!!! You just had to pick it up and take
your chances, man!
And we didn't have any fancy Sony PlayStation videogames 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 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 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. A tall guy sat in front of you, you
were ****ed!
And sure, we had cable television, but back then that was only like 20
channels and there was no onscreen menu! You had to use a little book
called a TV Guide to find out what was on!
And there was no Cartoon Network! You could only get cartoons on Saturday
morning... ...do you hear what the **** I'm saying!?! We had to wait ALL
WEEK, you spoiled little bastards!
That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy.
You're spoiled, I swear to God! You guys wouldn't last five minutes back in
1984!
The only telephone we had was a rotary dial thingy that worked on a good day, but the noise on the line was horrible. Speed dial? Answer phone? Only in some rich offices. Camera phones? The only photo we ever discussed was the one you took, spent several days having it developed, slipped into an envelope, waited another several days for someone to receive it, then they called and you discussed it. The event was over a week old by then.
Our tape recorder at home was a Sony which was larger than a Yellow Pages for New York City. It had real push-button action: you had to put quite a bit of pressure on the buttons to get things to click right. CDs were unheard of and MP3 players weren't even on SciFi shows yet.
My car had an 8-track tape player; even had a collection of 20 some tapes. My car now has an iPod nano connected to it in the front and a iPod 5G in the bback to run videos.
My first computer was the TRS-80, affectionately known as the Trash-80. It was horrible. Then came the Apple IIe's, then somewhere I picked up a Timex Sinclair 2000. It had a memory module on the back with a whopping 16MB!
TV was reruns of Mork and Mindy, My Favorite Martian, Star Trek (the real one), Dragnet, Hawaii 5-0. Damn, we saw Eddie Murphy on Saturday Night Live, LIVE.
I remember Nixon's resignation. The only reason though may be my cousin worked at the Washington Post and came over really hyped uup every couple of days about the sensation the story was creating.
Oh. Did I mention the navigation system in the car? It consisted of printed paper maps that were not up-to-date and a dyslexic brotther trying to read them. we really got into lots of trouble. It was fun. AAA TripTiks!!!
Ahh, the Ruskies. Grew uup next to Norfolk Navel Station with the knowledge that any confrontation between us and them would mean our instantaneous elimination from the map. Really put a damper on things, or taught people not to give a rat's looney.
Memory lane...
Originally posted by Bergermeister
Norfolk Navel Station
I don't mean to nitpick or even pick on what might be a simple typo or mis-spelling. However...
A navel station and a naval station are probably two very different things.
Originally posted by DanMacMan
Tomorrow (28 January) is the 20th Anniversary of the Challenger explosion. I was 4 years old. Damn.
Time flies. I was five when that happened.
Originally posted by Bergermeister
My first computer was the TRS-80, affectionately known as the Trash-80. It was horrible. Then came the Apple IIe's, then somewhere I picked up a Timex Sinclair 2000. It had a memory module on the back with a whopping 16MB!
Shouldn't that be 16 KB? I remember saving up my allowance and yard-moving money to buy a 32KB expansion card for my TI-994/A.
Originally posted by midwinter
Shouldn't that be 16 KB? I remember saving up my allowance and yard-moving money to buy a 32KB expansion card for my TI-994/A.
Have gotten too used to MB and GB! You are right: it was only 16KB, and it was a TS 1000, not 2000. Maybe that was KnightRider! God it's so long ago... the memory is fading so quickly...
http://oldcomputers.net/ts1000.html
Originally posted by Bergermeister
Have gotten too used to MB and GB! You are right: it was only 16KB, and it was a TS 1000, not 2000. Maybe that was KnightRider! God it's so long ago... the memory is fading so quickly...
http://oldcomputers.net/ts1000.html
Hmm, just looking at the pictures make me shutter...
Ahhh. Those were the days.
Originally posted by midwinter
OH man, a friend of mine had a Sinclair 1000. God, I remember sharing those cassette tapes of basic programs....subscribing to those magazines that would publish hundreds of lines of BASIC code, which you'd dutifully type in and run only to find hundreds of errors.
Ahhh. Those were the days.
I had a game printed in one of the magazines.