Things I Miss (AKA the Old Fart Thread)

[Khaldun]

I miss being able to say, "I swear I've seen that actor in something before" followed by a spirited fifteen minute discussion with everyone else who is watching with you, usually involving comparing various obscure shows or films or trying to remember what you were doing when you saw that person last.

For example, watching Game of Thrones, I could have sworn I'd seen (or heard) Thomas Brodie-Sangster before (plays Jojen Reed) and of course I had, a couple of times--he was in the Doctor Who episode Family of Blood/Human Nature, he's Ferb's relatively-infrequently-heard voice in Phineas and Ferb, he was in Nanny McPhee, etc. IMDB ended the discussion on Sunday night within a few seconds.

[Samwise]

I miss good arcades.

[Lakov_Sanite]

I miss good arcades.

Getting a five dollar roll of quarters, picking nightcrawler on a 4-man x-men game and beating the thing no matter the cost(As long as the cost was less than five dollars).

[Nebu]

Good pinball machines, 25 cent Cokes, Playing Joust or Defender with a roll of quarters, and playing trackball football until my hands bled.



Edit: I just realized that this game was popular in 19-FUCKING-79.  Where did the years go?

[Ironwood]

You Wasted Them.

[Ghambit]

These small old-school boutique arcade/bars are becoming VERY popular in the cities.  Places like "Flynn's" essentially.  I actually thought of opening my own up someday (part of the reason I'm doing what I'm doing in school).
I also had the luck of living a few blocks from the largest arcade in the world (in the 80's), with the largest banked go-cart track as well.  God I miss those days.  Fuckin SNES killed it.

[Fabricated]

This is something I have fond memories of, know I can't have back (and have accepted), but am bummed that kids today can't really do:

-Have an off-campus lunch allowed in high school.
-Not have to wear an ID at school.
-Be able to actually carry my bookbag between classes instead of going to a locker.
-Actually be able to go where in the school you felt like during lunch periods or if you skipped convos.

I graduated high school in 2001 which is about when the real fascist shit kicked in.

It just sucks being a kid anymore.

[Nebu]

This is something I have fond memories of, know I can't have back (and have accepted), but am bummed that kids today can't really do:

-Have an off-campus lunch allowed in high school.
-Be able to actually carry my bookbag between classes instead of going to a locker.
-Actually be able to go where in the school you felt like during lunch periods or if you skipped convos.

I had none of those things in High School in the early 80's.  I went to an inner-city school where we had armed guards and walking in the wrong bathroom resulted in a stabbing.

Wish I had gone to your high school.

You Wasted Them.

Some, yes... I spent too many of them in school to be sure.

[Fabricated]

Oh right, I forgot this was just inner-city school stuff catching up to the 'burbs. But yeah I went to a decent high school that served a weird constituency of 50% rural/redneck kids and 50% upper-middle class/university faculty kids. Had a winning quizbowl team every year...

...and a day where the farm kids could drive their farm vehicles into school.

[Ghambit]

I went to a research High School (early 90's) where all the teachers were hippies, taught class in a circle, and we had New Math.  Then other parents at other schools got jealous and as they say "the real fascist shit kicked in."  And that was that.

[Lantyssa]

I graduated high school in 2001 which is about when the real fascist shit kicked in.

We started getting some of that in Clear Lake between '90 and '91.  No "all black" clothes because that made you a gang member or something came shortly after I graduated but had already hit some surrounding districts.

I know I was such a threat going to the library after finishing lunch.  I'm not sure I wouldn't have walked had I been forced to endure more pointless safety measures (those two years were already emotionally troublesome), so I'm thankful I graduated when I did.

[WayAbvPar]

I miss good arcades.

This place is opening about 5 miles away. Hopefully it isn't a dollar per game and $5 a beer. I also hope my beer is served by a live unicorn.

I miss New York Seltzers. And Godfather's Pizza in its heyday. And Flakey Jake's Burgers (although Teddy's Bigger Burgers are a decent analog now). I miss exploration games like

  and .

 I miss our old family vacation spot.

[Bunk]

Highschool in Canada in the late eighties:

- Chem/Physics teacher who would give us chemicals out of the back room to experiment with. He knew we were making explosives
- Drafting teacher that would send students on McDonald's runs for the class
- Accounting teacher who considered "going golfing" as a perfectly acceptable excuse for missing class

There was zero security of any form in our school. You could buy nearly anything out of a at least some student's locker.

The cafeteria sold crappy pizza and hot dogs and was completely optional. Only thing I ever bought there was ice cream sandwiches.
Oh, and if you were absent (and the teacher bothered reporting it), they had this high tech system that would call home to notify your parents. Of course we all knew exactly what time of day it called, and cell phones didn't exist, so my parents were never actually aware that system existed.

[ghost]

I miss my Cook Brothers BMX bike, complete with the Cook Brothers CNC cranks.   

[shiznitz]

My parents gave me a Honda XR 80 mini bike when I was 10.  I loved it.  If I suggested doing the same for my kids to my wife, the smack would be heard around the world.  Same with BB guns.

[Paelos]

I miss going to see a new release in the theatre for $3.50

[Khaldun]

I miss the old sycamore tree in the public park where some dude used to store his porn that every 14-year old boy in the neighborhood knew about. It was kind of like our library.

[01101010]

I miss running rampant throughout the neighborhood block with my friends till you heard your mother's voice bellowing in the wind to go home right after dusk.

I also miss summers where we used 6 backyards to play hours-long games of ghost in the graveyard or kick the can or hide 'n seek - and not one neighbor gave a shit.

[Malakili]

I miss running rampant throughout the neighborhood block with my friends till you heard your mother's voice bellowing in the wind to go home right after dusk.

I also miss summers where we used 6 backyards to play hours-long games of ghost in the graveyard or kick the can or hide 'n seek - and not one neighbor gave a shit.

This was basically my childhood.  The good old days.

[Lantyssa]

I miss the woods near where I grew up.  ~200 acres of trails forged by kids littered with wildlife and dewberry bushes.

[Merusk]

I miss the thrill of getting away with sex in the GF's house.

I miss days that started at 8:00 and ended at 3:00.

I miss being able to just pick-up and go someplace for 2-3 days with no prior planning.

I miss long car rides where you didn't have to have some form of electronic stimulation for yourself and the kids if it was over an hour.  Or hell, considering "listen to the radio" enough for a 6-hour car ride.

I miss neighbors who weren't asswipes and didn't hover over their children like some predator who lived only a few houses away was going to snatch them at any moment. (If you feel the neighborhood's that unsafe, why move there?)

I miss the joy that came with a new car and the sense of freedom that came with it that's now been replaced by the dread of maintenance, insurance and worrying that some asshole's going to ding you in the parking lot.

I miss being able to pack all my worldly possessions into a single car and being able to move to a new place in a day's notice.

I miss size 30 pants.

[RhyssaFireheart]

I miss running rampant throughout the neighborhood block with my friends till you heard your mother's voice bellowing in the wind to go home right after dusk.

I also miss summers where we used 6 backyards to play hours-long games of ghost in the graveyard or kick the can or hide 'n seek - and not one neighbor gave a shit.

Yep, same with me growing up.

We didn't have an open campus for my HS (early 80s) but that was more because we were a private Catholic HS.  However, we were allowed to carry backpacks to classes and there were no guards.  Seniors got more freedom to leave campus at lunch, etc.  I still remember fondly the "study hall" I had with a few other classmates where the drama teacher would appropriate us and we'd sit around BSing in her classroom.  We spent an entire session once learning to forge her signature (it was very distinctive) under her direction.

[Shannow]

I miss porn being hard to get (oh come on you we're all thinking it)

I miss raiding my parents coin jars for 20 cent coins, or if lucky a gold one and having enough for potato scallops and several rounds of UN squadron at the local fish and chip shop.

I miss going halves with a friend on ''curse of the Azure bonds" from a mail order (military simulations!) and sharing the code wheel and journal.

I miss meeting a new friend who had games I didn't have and heading over to is house with a stack of floppies.

[pxib]

I second the IMDB thing (and Wikipedia, for that matter).

My friends and I used to actually talk when we'd hang out. Pop culture, mostly... things we'd seen on TV, bits we'd read in the news, funny stories we'd heard. Now, unless somebody has a burning issue to discuss, we just sit around watching Youtube and Netflix like we do at home.

Also, at home everybody sticks to their own computer rather than huddling around one screen like my family did when we were a kid.

[schild]

I miss the rains down in Africa.

[proudft]

I miss BASIC.  There, I said it.

Also, geez, how long have backpacks been banned from classrooms?  My school was not giant but it was a several minute walk to get to your locker - having to go there between every class would have been a tremendous pain in the ass.  

We also had a closed campus, but there was basically nowhere interesting to go anyway, and it was probably more to keep kids from getting run over on the highway or by a train than anything else.

[Ingmar]

- scheduling all my classes in college between the hours of 12 and 4, Monday through Thursday, and spending the rest of my time on music, drinking, and playing games.
- the way airports used to be
- being in shape (working on that at least)
- my friends not having kids
- proudft actually running a D&D game

[Fabricated]

Oh yeah:

-Literally not being obligated to do a goddamn thing during the summer if I didn't feel like it.

[Hawkbit]

I miss being able to pack all my worldly possessions into a single car and being able to move to a new place in a day's notice.

I really miss this a lot.  We tried to pare down when we moved from Ohio, but we accumulated stuff after moving.  I'm not sure how it happens.  

I miss learning, even though I'm in school.  

[ghost]

I miss porn being hard to get (oh come on you we're all thinking it)

Good god, why? 

[Paelos]

I really miss this a lot.  We tried to pare down when we moved from Ohio, but we accumulated stuff after moving.  I'm not sure how it happens.  

I miss learning, even though I'm in school.  

In my case, it was because people gave me shit when they moved, in their effort to pare down. I can't turn down a free couch.

[Nebu]

I miss the rains down in Africa.

Step away from the grown-up table. 

Damn kids.

[Sky]

Cars I could work on myself.

The old style phone receiver you could balance on your shoulder.

Drivers who weren't on the phone.

Being able to be away from a phone.

Having an answering machine full of women trying to get into my pants every day.

[Bunk]

I miss porn being hard to get (oh come on you we're all thinking it)

Good god, why? 

We appreciated it more when it was rare. Who doesn't remember the first time you found your father's stash of porn in the back of the bathroom cupboard? Next generations are going to miss out on that.

[Bunk]

Not knowing how bad fatty foods were for me.

The one lb steak at Vista Pizza in Blaine for $6.

Gas at $0.39 per litre.

My 30" waistline.