Without saying your age, what's something from your childhood that a younger person wouldn't understand?

ObsidianJones

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Damn, I think I might have the ultimate one.

80's kids. 90's kids. Please join me in this refrain.

*ahem*

"I don't know why I ever bought you that stupid gaming system. There's no future in it. No one is ever going to pay you to play video games all day long. Focus on your school work and at least get a high school degree (Bachelor's for 90's kids) so you can get a decent paying job!"

Can you even think of a comment your parents said that has proven to be any more wrong in this day and age?
 

Mister Mumbler

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Damn, I think I might have the ultimate one.

80's kids. 90's kids. Please join me in this refrain.

*ahem*

"I don't know why I ever bought you that stupid gaming system. There's no future in it. No one is ever going to pay you to play video games all day long. Focus on your school work and at least get a high school degree (Bachelor's for 90's kids) so you can get a decent paying job!"

Can you even think of a comment your parents said that has proven to be any more wrong in this day and age?
What's funny is that I never actually heard this one. My family always had a NES while I was growing up (before me and my older sister broke the cables for it using them for a lego cable car), but what's funny is that my older sister was born a few years after it came out, meaning that my dad bought it for himself pretty much (we went from NES right to Gamecube for our home console)

Speaking of, playing in the dark so that your NES light-gun works better for plinking pixelated ducks.

Weird video game artwork. I have vague memories of playing this game, but more than that I remember the cover for it (and with a face like this, it is hard to forget);
1635614219831.png

EDIT: Removed a year.
 
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Schadrach

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DRM that would ask for a specific word on a specific page of the instruction manual.
Sierra always had the best and worst versions of this. Fake ads in Leisure Suit Larry documentation that you needed the phone number from to complete the game, the Liber Ex Doctrina from Conquest of Camelot having a bunch of world building sections on things like the symbolism of flowers that you also had to know some of to complete the game, to the King's Quest 3 spell book (literal paper spell book shipped with the game, using any of the magic in the game required being able to quote the entire spell from the spell book verbatim and so much as a misplaced comma insta-killed you).
 
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EvilRoy

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Damn, I think I might have the ultimate one.

80's kids. 90's kids. Please join me in this refrain.

*ahem*

"I don't know why I ever bought you that stupid gaming system. There's no future in it. No one is ever going to pay you to play video games all day long. Focus on your school work and at least get a high school degree (Bachelor's for 90's kids) so you can get a decent paying job!"

Can you even think of a comment your parents said that has proven to be any more wrong in this day and age?
I got the "you have to memorize all this information because when you're out and working you won't be able to just look it up, you'll have to know it. Are you gonna walk around with a calculator and an atlas in your pocket your whole life?" Followed by a discussion on the best kind of encyclopedia set to buy for my first apartment.

I'm writing this reply on my pocket sized Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy that contains a million times more information than a dumptruck full of encyclopedias and can run mathematica remotely.

Some teens got me good today though. I was hearing about their drivers tests and how they didn't understand why people say parallel parking is hard. Because we didn't have backup cameras you little smartasses! Most of us didn't even have automatic transmissions! These guys did their tests in the loaner car from the drivers Ed place. Which was a Tesla.
 

Dalisclock

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My kid is into Beverly Cleary books right now and we listen to them as audiobooks on car rides. One story(Muggie Maggie) was about a girl who is smart, but she doesn't like the fact she's forced to learn cursive writing in class and all the adults are making a big deal about how important it is to learn to write cursive. I do remember this from being in school but man that story hasn't aged well at all considering everywhere I've ever worked Printing is pretty much mandatory unless you're signing your name and that's when you aren't just gonna type it up anyway.

What makes it even more weird is that the story was written at a time I would have been around the same age as the main character, so this isn't even a story from the 1960's, it's a story from the 1990's.
 

Xprimentyl

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My kid is into Beverly Cleary books right now and we listen to them as audiobooks on car rides. One story(Muggie Maggie) was about a girl who is smart, but she doesn't like the fact she's forced to learn cursive writing in class and all the adults are making a big deal about how important it is to learn to write cursive. I do remember this from being in school but man that story hasn't aged well at all considering everywhere I've ever worked Printing is pretty much mandatory unless you're signing your name and that's when you aren't just gonna type it up anyway.

What makes it even more weird is that the story was written at a time I would have been around the same age as the main character, so this isn't even a story from the 1960's, it's a story from the 1990's.
Oh man, the Ramona books were a HUGE part of my youth. I want to say Cleary actually visited our school, and I had a booked signed by here, but we had several children's authors visit our school, so she might just be caught up in the wash.

OT Woody Hayes, infamous coach of THE Ohio State Buckeyes football team, passed away the morning he was supposed to come to my elementary school and give a talk. My school was on the Ohio State campus; we'd all collected in the gym that morning when they came in and told us the unfortunate news. I tried to take my girlfriend by my old school last year only to find it doesn't exists anymore. Sad times...
 
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Satinavian

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Yes. Never did it for something like chess, only for games that need far fewer interchanges which had more information each.
 

Mister Mumbler

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(What is with this formatting, I mean honestly. This paragraph wouldn't fit the previous post)

In keeping with the theme of books, my grandparents had a few Richard Scarry books at their house that I would read through when spending time there. Also, my parents got me a couple of copies (one for me which I then destroyed, and one that was held onto for me as an adult, which I now have) of a hardcover book of the entire Thomas the Tank Engine/Railway Series, complete with illustrations.
 
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Gordon_4

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(What is with this formatting, I mean honestly. This paragraph wouldn't fit the previous post)

In keeping with the theme of books, my grandparents had a few Richard Scarry books at their house that I would read through when spending time there. Also, my parents got me a couple of copies (one for me and then destroyed, and one that was held onto for me as an adult, which I know have) of a hardcover book of the entire Thomas the Tank Engine/Railway Series, complete with illustrations.
I have what I'm pretty sure is that same Thomas the Tank Engine omnibus, and a few of the postcard sized individual stories. Whenever book culling is mentioned in my house, I let it be known loud and clear that if anyone touches those books there will be fucking murders.

Also Jesus Christ, Richard Scarry. For the longest time I thought I halucinated that shit because no one else knew what the fuck I was talking about when I mentioned it.
 

Mister Mumbler

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I have what I'm pretty sure is that same Thomas the Tank Engine omnibus, and a few of the postcard sized individual stories. Whenever book culling is mentioned in my house, I let it be known loud and clear that if anyone touches those books there will be fucking murders.

Also Jesus Christ, Richard Scarry. For the longest time I thought I halucinated that shit because no one else knew what the fuck I was talking about when I mentioned it.
This one, right?
1636217103415.png
It is a fantastic book, I especially love the illustrations (and their evolution as the series went along). Funnily enough, I saw my own copy had a bookmark stuck in it from my recent reading of it, and wouldn't you know it when I opened it up it was at the beginning of the "Gordon the Big Engine" book? Always enjoyed your avatar (though more of a 'James' man myself), as I also had several VHS tapes of the TV series growing up too, and a large collection of wooden trains from Thomas now that we're talking about it (also stashed away for future young'ins).

Same with Scarry too, I just completely forgot about it until about a few years ago, when I saw an illustration of his somewhere randomly (I think a Youtube video) of either the worm driving the apple car or a member of the little fox family, but it all came flooding back to me (kind of like Clearly a couple of posts up).
 

Gordon_4

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This one, right?
View attachment 4849
It is a fantastic book, I especially love the illustrations (and their evolution as the series went along). Funnily enough, I saw my own copy had a bookmark stuck in it from my recent reading of it, and wouldn't you know it when I opened it up it was at the beginning of the "Gordon the Big Engine" book? Always enjoyed your avatar (though more of a 'James' man myself), as I also had several VHS tapes of the TV series growing up too, and a large collection of wooden trains from Thomas now that we're talking about it (also stashed away for future young'ins).

Same with Scarry too, I just completely forgot about it until about a few years ago, when I saw an illustration of his somewhere randomly (I think a Youtube video) of either the worm driving the apple car or a member of the little fox family, but it all came flooding back to me (kind of like Clearly a couple of posts up).
Thats the one, by golly gee is that the one.
 
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Dirty Hipsters

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EDIT: Toys sold, not on how fun they were, but on how much they would gross out your sisters/parents.
You can cock block your sister so good with these gooy spiders! Squeeze them and they'll explode. Scare off her boyfriend!
 
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EvilRoy

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I have what I'm pretty sure is that same Thomas the Tank Engine omnibus, and a few of the postcard sized individual stories. Whenever book culling is mentioned in my house, I let it be known loud and clear that if anyone touches those books there will be fucking murders.

Also Jesus Christ, Richard Scarry. For the longest time I thought I halucinated that shit because no one else knew what the fuck I was talking about when I mentioned it.
There was actually a brief animated series of the Busy World of Richard Scarry. I remember my brother and I would be so excited when we found it on TV because it never seemed to be aired.
 
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