10 Things That Make Me Feel Old

It always amazes me how fast things have changed since I was a kid! I remember my mom telling me about how they had 8-tracks and records in the 70's and then cassette tapes in the 80's, but in nearly the same amount of time, I've seen the transition from CD's to MP3's to iPods, to iPhones, to iPads, and who knows whats next! Of course progress is good and almost always needed, but as we find ourselves in the post-modern, postindustrial, post-information age, we must seriously ask ourselves "What's next?" I mean is it really a good to have new things popping up soo fast, and by the time you finally get the top-of-the-line-whatever, something else comes out that makes it obsolete (but I guess that's the whole point of a consumer economy)?  As far as technology goes, I like to keep it simple myself. I had a basic cell phone that could only make calls all throughout high school, and halfway through college. Anyway, it boggles my mind how many kids growing up today have no idea what a VHS tape is, or a beeper. Now, lets take a little trip down memory lane, and have a look at the top 10 things that make me feel super old compared with these young'uns  today and their fancy iPhones.

• Game Cartridges: Yes, that's right, I remember when all game console games came on those cartridges that were almost as thick as VHS tapes. All of my older cousins had them, and I remember thinking they were the best things ever, and how cool my cousins were to have them! 

• Mortal Kombat: I remember when Mortal Combat came out, and all the parents made such a big stink because this one of the first video games to show blood violence and all. I had never actually played it until I got in college, since my parents wouldn't let me play anything with violence in it. Actually, one of my engineering friends reconfigured his PlayStation to play these old games, so I finally got a chance to play MC2. Oh boy, I was really surprised because the blood splatter that everyone was going on about back in the day was soooo unrealistic that it was actually quite comical! 

• Floppy Disks: I remember when all computer programs came on floppy disks. I started playing computer games when I was 5, and these were all on floppy disk (yeah, you know the ones with the pixels that were as big as your head!). I remember being a little shocked when the computer we bought around 2005 (the one I convinced my mom to buy so I could play Age of Empires III on) didn't even come with a floppy disk drive!

• "Rocko's Modern Life": Before there was Spongebob Square Pants and Fairly Odd Parents, or whatever else kids these days are watching, there was Rocco's Modern Life. This cartoon was on in the early days of Nickelodeon, and was about all the weirdness that happen to Rocco (I always thought he was a kangaroo, but I can't confirm that), and his best friend Heffer (obviously a cow).

• The Dancing Baby: I'm not so sure what the appeal was with the Dancing Baby, other than the fact that it was one of the first 3D animated images to be used in mass media, but that thing was everywhere, even on Ally McBeal!

• Beepers/Pagers: Back in the 90s before cell phones were commonly used by everyday people, pagers and beepers were like iPhones! You weren't super cool and in-the-know unless you had one. Of course, now I realize that they were actually quite ridiculous and unnecessary, although technically they are the forerunners for texting!

• "Duh": This one word basically summed up the 90s. I'm not sure if this was the decade it was coined or not, but for some reason this word was everywhere!I remember there was a girl in my 3rd grade class with a shirt that said "Duh!" on the front, and, of course, she would be super popular every time she wore this shirt. Even the teachers went on about it!

• Book bag Purses: At my elementary school you weren't cool unless you had one of these, and naturally, I didn't have one :(. Basically, a book bag purse is just a miniature book bag. These were really big in the 90s, and if you look at a lot of 90s movies, almost all girls in them will have a book bag purse.

• "Cops": I think Cops may have actually gotten started in the 80's, but I remember it being one of the first Reality TV shows. Everyone in my family watched it, especially my uncle, which is ironic since he was always getting arrested. 

• 10-10-321/10-10-220: Dialing these numbers before making a collect calls on pay phones would lower your long-distance costs. By in the late 90s and early 2000s, the commercials for the 10-10 numbers became an art form, and actually got to be quite entertaining in themselves, with most of them featuring celebrities. Of course, now these are practically obsolete, thanks to cell phones.