Animated GIF Of The Day

He'll be hungry again in an hour. From Jody Love.

Nostalgic Activities Today's Kids Will Never Enjoy

Blowing in Nintendo games, the horrible sound of a dial-up modem. Yeah, things sucked. But that's why they were awesome. And kids today will never know it. From Funny Or Die, by Dan Abramson.

MAKING A MIX TAPE

Kids will never know the satisfaction of putting a cassette in your stereo and waiting for your favorite song to come on, fingers anxiously waiting on the record button. A message to today's children: mixes weren't always made by iTunes based on MATH. We had to work for these.

FIXING CASSETTES WITH YOUR PEN

So you've got your mix tape and you invite your friends over. You announce "Check out this new Naughty By Nature song I recorded from Hot 97," only to press play and hear the worst possible noise. No, I'm not talking about the verse that Vinny raps (that's some Naughty By Nature humor for you). The sound your stereo makes when it eats your tape. The only way to fix it? A pen and tons of patience.

USING THE TV GUIDE

There was once a day where we did not have an "info" button on our remote controls. Instead, we watched the beginning and tried to guess what movie it was. And when we finally realized it was not Major League 2, we would consult our TV Guides. And if we couldn't find it, we would FREAK THE FUCK OUT and blame our siblings for losing it. Yeah, shit was hard back then. And it made us stronger.

USING A PAY PHONE

Speaking of pay phones...yikes. I don't miss these at all. Kids are lucky they no longer have to rely on owning quarters to make urgent phone calls. Though, they do miss out on freaking out squares by dialing a special number and hanging up twice. Yes, that's how you made pay phones ring on their own. Now you know.

BLOWING ON NINTENDO CARTRIDGES

Has there ever been official proof that this even worked? We can all agree that we all looked like idiots treating Excite Bike like a harmonica, right? No big deal. What I wouldn't give to still be huffing that Contra cartridge. Then again, I certainly do not miss that friend who would use his lips while blowing on the game. When he came over, he'd be all "I'll fix this" anytime the game froze, only to mouth-rape Mega Man with every slobbery blow.

WRITING IN CURSIVE

To be honest with you, I'd be surprised if kids even knew how to hold pencils. Everything's on their texting machines and porn boxes these days. But years ago, when we wanted to look professional, we wrote in cursive. And when we forgot how to write a lower case "f," we just scribbled a print "f" and connected it to the next letter, praying nobody noticed. It was a way of life.

(See the rest at Funny Or Die)

I can add about 100 to this:

• Getting up to change the TV channel
• Crank-calling people without worrying about getting busted
• Flipping an LP or cassette to hear Side Two
• Using a plastic insert to play a 45 on your record player
• Making appointments to fight after school without fear of getting expelled
• Having to worry about getting paddled if you got sent to the principal
• Dodgeball
• Opening food or medicine without cutting through three layers of security plastic
• Using white-out
• Making carbon copies and getting the carbon all over your hands
• Bottled water = tap water poured into your empty Coke bottle (and it was free)
• Getting a dime back for every soda bottle you returned to the store
• 31 flavors of ice cream in one place? That's insane!
• Playing with unsafe toys that were a lot more fun (lawn darts, pellet guns, etc.)
• Cars that were made of metal, not plastic
• Cars that exploded if someone rear-ended you
• A videogame arcade in every mall
• A cheese and sausage shop(pe?) in almost every mall. Free samples!
• Movies that stayed in theaters longer than a week
• Real butter on your popcorn

What else?

Before you answer, do me a favor and GET OFF MY LAWN!