The Grumpy Old Man Thread (or, Why Today Sucks)
 

You kids think you have it made these days with your in-ter-net and your X-Box! Don't know you're born! Here are some of the things you have never experienced....

1. Wondering how you're going to get more money for the weekend? You took out what you wanted at the bank and now it's closed. Too young to have a credit card, and what are ATMs sonny?

2. Waiting to make a phone call in a public box. Many houses didn't even have phones, and there was no such thing as a mobile or cell phone. If you were out and wanted to check in, find one of these,
http://www.smileexchange.ie/assets/i...s/phonebox.jpg
hope it wasn't vandalised, make sure you had change on you (phonecards? What are they?) and if someone wanted to get in touch with you while you were out, well, just tough. No way to do that.

3. Watching all the ads. No such thing as pausing live television. No way to record anything till about the eighties and even then video recorders were damn expensive. Programmes were shown once (usually once a week) and that was it. No repeat. No plus one channel. No weekend catch-up TV and definitely no On Demand service.

4. Going to a cinema to see the latest movie. No downloading of pirate copies, no Netflix or YouTube or Hulu. And when the video did come out, much later, expect it to be in the region of about fifty to sixty quid.

5. Dialling on a rotary phone. Took ages just to dial one number, and if it was busy, back around the dial you must go.

6. Buying all your albums on vinyl. Record to cassette tape only. Your record collection would fill shelves, even rooms. Ensure you had a good sound system to play them on.

7. Paying the conductor on a bus rather than the driver as you got on.

8. The only way to take photographs was with a real camera, and you had to have some sort of half-decent knowledge to be able to use one. Except for Polaroids and Instamatics.

9. The only way to see the time was on a clock or a watch

Back with more later; I have to have my afternoon nap or I'll get even grumpier.

Fellow grumps, feel free to add your own experiences.
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/i...rsI77M_xzj9oT_

Back in the day if you got amped up on speed you had to watch static on tv from midnight to 6 AM.

No microwaves. You had to cook everything on the stove.

Most important of all: big hairy pussies.

I've done a fair few of the things listed in the OP and I'm only in my 20s.

You missed one of the most obvious ones which was accessing porn. If you wanted to have a wank before the internet era, your options were your imagination, the Argos catalogue underwear section or a discarded magazine/friend's dad's videos. You really had to earn your wanks. But guys now can just fire up the smartphone and access a plethora of explicit HQ material.

Haha. Yeah, the internet is like having a subscription to every magazine that used to line the smut shops in Times Square.

You know, I’ve never been to Times Square since they cleaned it up.

What are these so called "phone calls"?

No ads for prescriptions (In America) and no commercials right after by lawyers cashing in on a class action lawsuit against the drug manufacturer who made the previous commercial.

The days before Pong, where you went outside and played in the grass mud and dirt, not worrying about all the BS people are concerned with these days. Kids were generally healthier. I see too many kids all pasty and frail from a life of video games and Hot Pockets, hardly setting foot outside for long periods of time. It's not natural. Good growth of muscle and bone structure starts at early ages, and if you don't build a solid foundation for a healthy lifestyle early on, you'll have a synergistic effect as time goes on and you grow older. Atrophy sets in quicker and you're more prone to disease and illnesses. The "play for an hour a day" campaign is a good idea and a kind of compromise to meet children in the middle with all the options set before them with today's technology, but imho kids need more exercise than just an hour. Basically, what I'm trying to say is: Gtfo the house ya little brats.

...and in summation:

That's true. When I was a kid the only thing that might make us couch potatoes would have been the Saturday Morning cartoons (do they still exist?). In the afternoon we had to actually socialize. Usually we'd ride bikes or play baseball, football, etc. You don't seem to see a lot of that anymore.

It's not just Saturday Mornings, it's 24/7/365. Cartoon Network, Disney Channel, and Nickelodeon keep the fire burning bright. I catch Spongebob sometimes on Saturday mornings when I'm not having to head into work.

One television in the entire house and only 7 channels.

10 for us. UHF had 2, 5, 7, 9, 11, 20, 26, 32, 38, and 44.

Chicago Television- Changing Channels Part VIII

I remember being a human remote too. Good times man.

Getting high and watching TV is still the poor man’s Hawaii.

Why watch TV stoned when you can play video games?

Or watch porn.

Gotta be the right porn or else the cringe makes it hard to watch. No mainstream porn at least. Gimme dat Sybian ****.

Video games are too much work.

Not if you play the right ones. Dynasty Warriors takes no skill sober and when you're stoned the bright colors and repetitive gameplay are a revelation and a journey. Extra points to Gundam Warriors cause giant fighting robots and even brighter colors. And I don't even particularly like Gundam as an anime.

Now just imagine that this is the easiest game in the world to play and takes little to no skill on easier settings while being the most satisfying thing in the world when beating down on peons who can do nothing to stop your might. It's ****ing hypnotic on weed.

The number of opponents I must have beaten down over the years in all Warriors games combined... I don't want to know that number.

Pretty sure I'd be an even greater mass murderer than R2D2.

BTW if I don't respond to **** for the rest of the day it's cause I now have to play Dynasty Warriors Gundam 3 like a bitch. **** you all.

So it’s like Star Wars except you got to keep jerking off the remote to get the movie to play.

I don't know what that means but yes basically.

Cos I'm a good Irish Catholic boy. What are these "wanks" of which you speak?
Oh man! I forgot top shelf magazines in newsagents. Not even adult mags any more now, nobody wants them.
Don't you know anything? Back in the day, phone boxes would keep communication open by calling to each other across vast distances. These mating calls were known as "Phone calls".
Yeh, lawyer ads in general: had an accident at work? Mis-sold a PPI? **** off you bloodsucking ****s.
Agree 100%

The Little House On the Prairie story again...

Oh man yes. When you actually had to get up to change the channel. And anyone remember getting your new TV and having to tune in all the channels?
You're a sick man. Oh. Wait... did you say ...?
https://image.smythstoys.com/origina...top/141649.jpg
I have to ask: why is R2 a murderer?

How many people died on the Deathstar? Who in that movie tried harder to kill all of those people than R2D2?

TGIF sitcoms in the kitchen on your 11" tv with the built in remote, while your parents watch old people law and order in the living room.

I feel sorry for anyone who didn't grow up with Sabrina the Teenage Witch. It was one of those life defining shows.

Um, all of Red Squadron? Are you high? R2 just sat in the back like Luke's overpacked luggage. He didn't kill anyone.
#FreeTheDroid
#R2Innocent

He was always sticking his dirty droid tools into things. I'm sure he gave at least half the technology in the SW universe robot AIDS.

Didn’t it beep out some kind of signal?

There were other options besides just "on the stove," you had the oven, broiler, steamer, toaster oven, deep fryer, or barbecue grill. Or you could just go to a pizza parlor, Chinese restaurant or McDonald's (or other fast food chains) and had the option to eat it there or take it home.

Yeah: it translated as "I'm no ****ing murderer!" I think there was a later addition: "**** off Batty!" :D

I don’t have a microwave. They take up a **** ton of space.

R2D2 went through a spaceship under fire to kill all of those people. He traversed a desert planet on wheels with no real expectation of success to kill those people. He braved the inside of the Death Star to kill those people. Red Squadron just got in some X-Wings. R2D2 was outrageous with the lengths he went to to murder hundreds of thousands of people.

I’m glad C3PO wasn’t there to translate.

Seriously though, as far as I remember, neither of the two droids killed anyone, or if they did, they were individuals. I don't get Batty's point at all. Actually, I never want to get Batty's point. But I don't understand where he's coming fr - you know what? You know what I mean.

I think he was using a dialect of Bacci that the gay golden guy wasn't familiar with.

The R2 Unit was like bin Laden. Everyone else was a hijacker.