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The Old Coots Lounge

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Sekhmet

14:01 / 11.01.06

I just read a news story about how the public schools aren't really bothering to teach cursive script anymore. Handwriting is becoming an anachronism, like calligraphy before it.

This shocked me so greatly that I had to take a sit down, and I realized then that I am a fossil of a bygone era. I remember rotary-dial phones and record players and dot-matrix printers and Atari. I remember when MTV and cable were new. I remember the first time I saw a computer in someone's home.

My children, when I have them, will hear me talk of these things, and they will think I'm older than dirt.

Are you an old coot? What do you remember, miss, and mourn? And what gets your goat about these kids these days? Hell in a handbasket, I tells ya.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

14:05 / 11.01.06

I'll get back to you on this one when I've overcome the shock it's induced in me.

Loomis

14:10 / 11.01.06

This shocked me so greatly that I had to take a sit down

If you were a true old coot you would have made a noise when you sat down, half way between a sigh and a grunt.

I remember all those things in your post. I remember my first computer, a Microbee 16k. These days who would believe an entire computer running on 16k memory? To run a shitty game with little white blocks on the screen you had to plug in your cassette player and play a cassette for twenty minutes to load it up.

Ariadne

14:13 / 11.01.06

I'm already sitting down so I had to just make the noise.

Is that real about the writing? My god. I suppose it sort of makes sense - but ... crumbs.

modern maenad

14:24 / 11.01.06

I remember pasta being new and exciting, and various relatives refusing to eat it. I remember when you strapped roller skates over your shoes. I remember drinking orange juice in tiny teenie glasses 'cos it was an expensive treat. I remember not knowing what mayonnaise was and being super impressed at a mate who's family kept a jar in the fridge. And sometimes I feel lucky I can still actually remember any of this stuff....

Liger Null

14:26 / 11.01.06

Ehh, I could never get the hang of cursive anyway.

Ariadne

14:29 / 11.01.06

I remember the day we got a colour telly. And a 'music centre' - a record player and tape deck and radio all in one. It sat above the Encylopedia Britannica. Ooh, and we had an 8-track player in the car.
And my Mum used to serve half a boiled egg smothered in mayonnaise (or was it, gulp, salad cream?) with a lettuce leaf on the side, as a starter.
I remember the first time I ate garlic - it was the most amazing thing ever. And the first time my mum saw tinned tomatoes - she was utterly perplexed as to what you might do with a tinned tomato.
Ha, and when you first got ravioli in cans, we had it on toast, like you did spaghetti.

modern maenad

14:33 / 11.01.06

Ariadne - you've just reminded me - the days when a tiny teensie glass of orange juice was a starter, on the menu along with the prawn cocktails and pate on toast.

Mourne Kransky

14:51 / 11.01.06

I invented Werther's Originals in 1892, on an idle Tuesday afternoon. I called them after Werther, my horny & beguiling grandad. I'll just move Sekhmet's zimmer frame to one side and make myself uncomfortable on some plastic seventies' furniture by the Calor Gas fire.

sleazenation

15:00 / 11.01.06

Lots of stuff here to remind us how shit the past was. Like one of those clip shows full of ligging comedians talking about space hoppers and spangles...

But also the present and the future will be shit too - an iPod? and all it does is play music and play tv shows - not films, it couldn't connect to the internet of generate holographic 3d games? How the fuck did people survive in 2006?

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

15:08 / 11.01.06

Loomis- 16k? 16k? Fucking aristo. ZX81, mate. 1024 bytes. Count 'em.

paranoidwriter waves hello

15:15 / 11.01.06

We had a battered 'Research Machine'. The (floppy!) disk drive had a DIY cardboard casing.

Alex's Grandma

15:33 / 11.01.06

What is 'a 16K memory,' and where would I get one? It does seem like quite a lot of money, but then again, I'd give my life savings (at the post office, I think, it was a good solid investment,) for some kind of clue as to where my shoes are in the morning, these days.

The humanoids are fucking murder as well.

(For those interested, I'm afraid that my grandson has been returned to The Priory by me, in the hope than he can at least meet that Jodie Marsh, and marry her, before the final curtain. It's not what I'd have wished for him, I admit, but I'm an old woman, and after 'the incident', the one I'd really rather not talk about, the one with that nice Kate Moss, I don't know what else to do. I tried to launch him into high society, but high society picked him up, dusted him off, and then launched him right back at me, I fear... And all I want to be is in a lovely frock in photo-spread in Hello magazine, before the end - is that too much to ask?)

bitchiekittie

15:37 / 11.01.06

I remember those things, sekhmet! I also remember when phone booths were everywhere and using one only cost a dime. now if you're out and you forget your cell phone - or worse, don't have one - you are SCREWED!

I also remember when kids didn't get out of school for inclement weather unless buses and cars could not possibly make it to school. now they open late, close early or close altogether if there is a THREAT of ice or snow. folks in the area will confirm that I am not exaggerating.

bitchiekittie

15:44 / 11.01.06

I also remember that we were one of the first families to own a VCR. they were crazy expensive, but my generous grandparents gave them to their kids families as gifts. they were huge top loaders! I remember the great VHS vs beta debate!

I remember 8 tracks, and that all stereos were huge and had turntables. my grandmother had one of those old fashioned record players and lots of records, including a bill cosby record. I had a holly hobby record player, and my absolute favorite thing was a mr jinx, pixie and dixie cartoon show.

grant

15:54 / 11.01.06

We still have a rotary dial phone or two in the house. You need a special adapter to plug them in, but they're useful after hurricanes -- they would work when none of the other phones would, because (apparently) they require less electricity off the phone line. Most of our friends not only have touchtone phones, but they only have *portable* phones, which didn't work at all.

My mother -- I'm pretty sure that as a little girl in Germany she learned Blackletter (well, Gothic, anyway). All Germans of that age have similar handwriting, with little curlicue serifs on their letters.

I think what I miss most are telephone area codes that made sense -- when there were only two at most per state (and some states I think shared one), and the middle digit was either 1 or 0. I miss being in 305.

Captain Zoom

16:40 / 11.01.06

for Canadians: No tax on books.

first "computer": The Odyssey game system. Sort of a proto-nintendo that came out in the very early eighties. It had a keyboard that you could do fuck all with. Atari 400 came after that.

I remember the black and white telly when I lived in England.

The first transformers to come out? Mine was Cliffjumper.

Comics being 75 cents (again, for Canadians)

I make noises whenever I sit down or get up now. And I was told this very day that being over 30 makes you old.

Fuckin' kids.

Sekhmet

17:03 / 11.01.06

Tell you what, I don't make the noise when I sit down, but I bent over to pick something up yesterday and my knees creaked, and when I stood back up something in my lower back went "TWANG". Now it hurts whenever I raise my arm.

What is it about hitting 30 that suddenly makes you have pains for no reason? Time was, if something hurt it was because I did something to it.

Dangit all to heck.

Spaniel

17:10 / 11.01.06

I remember when 2000AD cost 25p.

I was never taught cursive script at primary school - my teacher was against it. She was a strange woman, with a beehive.

Remember beehives?

sleazenation

17:22 / 11.01.06

only the voice that eminated from the beehive...

Quantum

17:26 / 11.01.06

Bah, stupid newfangled technology. I just spent ages handcrafting a headshop thread bemoaning the perceived fall in literacy and linking to statistics and relevant sites and Haus' comment and debating the future ov speling and the gender inequity in education internationally and... then it disappeared as the PC turned off. Never had that problem with the Acorn.

Now it turns out not only does spelling not matter, they're not even teaching children to write anymore. Thirty is definitely old.

"Daddy, in the olden days before machine telepathy how did you control your nanite swarms?"
"Wuzzah? Marmite horns? Whyzer sparkly dust roundjer 'ead? We 'ad to make do wiv tellyphones in my day, I 'member when they were bigger than your thumb!"
"Ooooooh! Tell us again about the flightless cars!"

Mourne Kransky

17:32 / 11.01.06

I remember when Spiderman cost 9d.

I remember when the pubs shut at 10pm and didn't open at all on Sundays.

I remember when computer games loaded up from cassette tapes.

I remember when the record player gave you a choice of 33 and a third, 45 and 78 rpm.

I remember when you could spot a homosexual male by his long hair and Peter Wyngarde moustache.

Spaniel

17:33 / 11.01.06

I remember when Spiderman cost 9d.

Oooh, you old fart, you.

Mourne Kransky

17:35 / 11.01.06

And, in Central Scotland, cursive script was only for public schoolboys. At the local comp, we had to make do with Marion Richardson: the calligraphic equivalent of Doc Martins.

Quantum

17:36 / 11.01.06

I remember Milk Monitors and penny sweets, but at least they were new pence sweets and not d.

Ta Xoc, I feel young again! Woohoo!

Ganesh

17:40 / 11.01.06

Ta Ganesh, I feel young again! Woohoo!

Wha?

Spaniel

17:42 / 11.01.06

I remember 1/2 pences, and 1/2 pence sweets.

Mourne Kransky

17:49 / 11.01.06

You childe!

I remember thrupenny bits, with the wrens on the back and polygonal sides.

Spaniel

17:54 / 11.01.06

Uncle Xoc, what did you do in the war?

What about Spangles, who remembers Spangles? When boiled sweets were still all the rage.

Benny the Ball

17:56 / 11.01.06

I remember Star Trek:TMP ice lollies, with trading cards in the wrapper... I always got that bald bird.

Benny the Ball

17:58 / 11.01.06

boboss, you pretender, Spangles came back three years ago - begone!

paranoidwriter waves hello

17:59 / 11.01.06

I remember Richard Digence

Spaniel

17:59 / 11.01.06

By Crikey, did they? I managed to miss that.

I had a Texan bar earlier this year, however.

Mourne Kransky

18:01 / 11.01.06

Persis Khambatta. Former Miss India. Zoroastrian poster girl. Died suddenly of a dickie heart a few years back. Shame.

Olde English spangles. Didn't they get banned or something? Probably had cocaine in them. They were verrrrrry good.

Quantum

18:01 / 11.01.06

Ganesh- I immediately moved to amend it after my old brain labelled the wrong member of the dynamic duo (Midnighter?) and PM'd Xoc to blame the hivemind effect. Damn these slow convo mods highlighting my stupidity before I can cover it up, chiz chiz*.

*a chiz is a cheat or a swindle as any fule kno

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