Remember when...

[Beernik]

I'm having some seriously weird 40 year old déjà vu.

I made the decision to drop pay TV and either stream or podcast everything I want to watch after my DirecTV contract expires in October.

So I'm sitting here looking at roof mounted TV antenna options for watching the local stations.

This could only get more weird if I had a burned out picture tube in my hand.

 

[bleme]

You knew what a BetaMax player is and you also knew someone who had one of those super expensive laser disc players.

A couple weekends ago, my wife asked me how much she should ask for the laser disc player and movies in the yard sale. I convinced her that she MIGHT find a sucker on eBay, but no sane person is going to spend money on a dead technology.

 

[nasty_rabbit]

You knew what a BetaMax player is and you also knew someone who had one of those super expensive laser disc players.

Had a friend who had one but he only had three movies. It got old quick.

 

[IPA-Hole]

Funny you would add Silly Putty - An important ingredient of Silly Putty is PDMS (polydimethylsiloxane) or in brewing circles we call it Ferm-Cap.

Cheers!

 

[unionrdr]

I remember when gas was 25c per gallon,I got some smokes for 35c,& a quart of beer was $1.50. I could fill my tank,get cigs & a 6'r,& get change back from a 10 spot. Cheeseburgers were 15c,fries a quarter. Even the Whopper was only 55c when it first came to Elyria,OH.

 

[beaksnbeer]

A couple weekends ago, my wife asked me how much she should ask for the laser disc player and movies in the yard sale. I convinced her that she MIGHT find a sucker on eBay, but no sane person is going to spend money on a dead technology.

Thought the same thing BUT couple years ago I sold a dual deck beta player/recorder $380.00 + shipping to someone in Japan of all places so you never know.

 

[Goofynewfie]

I remember when me and my wife first started dating, we bought a 19 inch RCA television with a built-in VCR for $500.

 

[brewmcq]

A guy at work asked our IT guy a couple of weeks ago, if he has a floppy disk copy of DOS 6.1......

6.1 was da bomb.

 

[amandabab]

 

[Misplaced_Canuck]

There are still plenty of drive-in restaurants all over the South (Sonic's claim to fame is just that), and some mom-and-pop drive-in's too (drove by one yesterday in fact, in a small town in SC).

My folks had a few old Xmas records that were 78 RPM and were shellac (not vinyl) made and were not flexible like the later records.

We had a radio/record player that was a LARGE piece of furniture (I have a baby picture with me on top of it).

Avocado green fridge... Mairygold (sp) washer-dryer...

Anybody remembers "Lucky One" potato chips & soft drinks? Lucky one would deliver at the house.

Kik Cola? Allan's soft drinks?

MC

 

[Varmintman]

I was just thinking about my youth and while tons of things have changed the biggest change for me is play. Summertime and weekends I would take off on my bike and not come home till dinnertime. I would range far and wide on my bike and my folks never worried. I worry now though about any kids out playing

 

[Revvy]

Avocado green fridge... Mairygold (sp) washer-dryer...


MC

I totally forgot about that, but this was pretty much my mom's kitchen when growing up.

 

[Beernik]

Hey, those marigold washers & dryers lasted forever. I think my parents lasted until 1995.

 

[gratus fermentatio]

I was just thinking about my youth and while tons of things have changed the biggest change for me is play. Summertime and weekends I would take off on my bike and not come home till dinnertime. I would range far and wide on my bike and my folks never worried. I worry now though about any kids out playing

Yep, I used to disappear into the forest on Friday afternoon & not come back till Sunday afternoon. My folks didn't worry, infact, I think they were quite happy to have some time alone.
Regards, GF.

 

[bleme]

I was just thinking about my youth and while tons of things have changed the biggest change for me is play. Summertime and weekends I would take off on my bike and not come home till dinnertime. I would range far and wide on my bike and my folks never worried. I worry now though about any kids out playing

My Mom has told me several times about how she (age 5) and her brother (age 8) used to bike a couple miles into the foothills to play in the rocks and poke rattlesnakes.

Now she wonders if her parents even liked her

 

[gratus fermentatio]

Remember when they told us how the 21st century was going to be so great, every home would have a robot slave, people would be living on the moon and/or Mars, we'd all have 5 hour work weeks & all this quality time to actually live life & cruise around in our own flying cars?

In the immortal words of Avery Brooks: "I still haven't seen any flying cars!"
Regards, GF.

 

[Revvy]

Considering all the idiots on the road driving while texting/eating/talking on cell phones/doing their makeup/surfing the web on their laptops on their laps/plucking their eyebrows/reading a newspaper propped on the steering wheel, or some combination of the above I see while driving to work....I think we have enough issues with cars being on the ground. Kinda glad for the flying cars not being here yet.

Kinda hoping the zombipocalypse happens before we get the tech....hoping we can cull the herd of stupid people.

 

[GrogNerd]

amen, Rev

 

[Jacob_Marley]

My Mom has told me several times about how she (age 5) and her brother (age 8) used to bike a couple miles into the foothills to play in the rocks and poke rattlesnakes.

Now she wonders if her parents even liked her

About 10 years ago I bought a house in a particularly industrial area. At the time I overheard a conversation between some neighbors talking about when they were young in the neighborhood they used to like to play with the mercury that would well up out of the ground and push it around into piles with their shoes and sticks and such.

Reminded me of Dan Aykroyd's character Irwin Mainway who sold dangerous childrens toys.

I'll stick with slingshots and Jarts/Lawn Darts, thank you.

 

[beaksnbeer]

About 10 years ago I bought a house in a particularly industrial area. At the time I overheard a conversation between some neighbors talking about when they were young in the neighborhood they used to like to play with the mercury that would well up out of the ground and push it around into piles with their shoes and sticks and such.

Reminded me of Dan Aykroyd's character Irwin Mainway who sold dangerous childrens toys.

I'll stick with slingshots and Jarts/Lawn Darts, thank you.

We had a big glass jar with a glass stopper full of mercury, we'd dump some out and separate it into little globs, and then try to crush press it etc. When all done push it all back together and back in the jar I think we also weight it as well fun stuff in grade school

 

[gratus fermentatio]

Remember those toys with a little glob mercury inside? They were usually a maze of some sort & you had to tilt it this way & that to get the mercury to the center. It was sealed of course, but the thing was just plastic & was easily breakable.
I guess at some point people thought kids playing with mercury was a bad idea, so they replaced it with BBs in those types of toys.

Remember those toys that were a cartoonish drawing of a face, sealed under a plastic cover & had iron filings inside? You'd use the enclosed magnet to move the black filings around on the picture to create hair, beard, etc...
They looked something like this:
http://www.taosgifts.co.uk/wooly-wi...cture-maker---magnetic-personality-1314-p.asp
Regards, GF.

 

[Revvy]

You must be a tad older than me brother....I don't remember mercury in toys. God, we were so naivie then...what are we deluded bout now?

 

[gratus fermentatio]

Revvy: Now we hold "graduation" events for kids in Kindergarten so we don't hurt their feelings.
Which reminds me; does anybody else find it odd that there are parents who go to the prom with their kids? They don't go in & dance (at least not that I noticed), but they take pics & interact with the prom-going kids. Now I can see & agree with taking some pics of the kids in their fancy duds at home before going to said prom, but parents actually going to the site where the prom is being held, but not as an official chaperone? That seems very strange to me.
Regards, GF.

 

[gratus fermentatio]

Remember when transistor radios were new?
http://image.shutterstock.com/displ...ith-hand-strap-for-easy-carrying-76962985.jpg

Remember life before the satellite?
http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/underwire/2012/04/telstar_1.jpg

Remember when nobody worried about calories? Remember getting milk delivered to your door?
Regards, GF.

 

[Revvy]

I had that exact same model of transistor radio. I remember in 6th grade being fascinated by the Watergate Hearings (I come from a huge politically family and was precocious.) And I took it with me to school to listen. The teachers pulled me out of class and parked me in the teacher's lounge one day and had me listening and they'd pop their heads in every now and then and I'd give them reports. It was really funny. And fun.

(No wonder I got beat up a lot in elementary school.)

 

[Airplanedoc]

I took my dad to the Dr the other day, they gave him the standard 10 pages of BS to fill out. Here a are a few of the questions and his answers

Q. Have you ever been exposed to Lead? A. I'm 70, of course I have been exposed to lead, my crib was probably painted with it.

Q. Have you ever been exposed to asbestos? A. Again I'm 70, I am sure I have, that **** was everywhere.

Q. Do you take recreational Drugs? A. Does Viagra count?????

I'm not sure those were the answers the dr was looking for.....

 

[Hoppity]

We used to play with Mercury. It came with chemistry sets or you could buy small bottles in hobby stores. Dipping your pinkie in the bottle and having it come out 'dry' was very entertaining. So was chasing it around on a desk, merging it, splitting it, then herding it back into the bottle.

 

[gratus fermentatio]

Remember playing with your erector set?
http://www.eliwhitney.org/new/sites/default/files/erector-set_0.jpg

Or playing "Cowboys & Indians" with your cap pistols?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sean_ohara/5858531382/

 

[unionrdr]

I still remember when I was a little guy,I had the Mattel winchester rifle & colt pistol that had metal cartriges you put these lil round caps on & shot red plastic bullets. That lever action was cool.And my transistor radio was AM only & was rather boxy with the earphone. I also remember how space capsule heat shields changed after John Glenn's backside got done up like a belgian waffle. But I think my favorite was the Mighty Apollo Saturn five. Now that's horsepower!

 

[gratus fermentatio]

Remember "Duck & Cover?"