Comparing now to way back when.
 

Join me.

When I was a kid, we didn't have internets and iPhones and LOLs. We had sticks that had fallen off trees, and we had to make do...
Granted, other kids probably had more actual toys than I did, for monetary reasons, but even they had to pretend at a level that's probably absurdly alien to kids today.
I wonder what goes through the minds of kids who get cranky because their Nintendo DS requires charging. I used to get cranky because it really fucking hurt when I jumped off the roof of the house mistakenly thinking a black garbage bag would be an adequate parachute to Air Assaut into an 'unsuspecting enemy village and rescue my future wife from slightly Russian evil-doers'.

Sticks were anything you wanted them to be. Probably not Xboxes, but everything else.
Main options for sticks were modifying them so that they would look as close as possible to a Ninja Turtle's primary weapon with your eyes squinted. If you were lucky enough to sneak a butter-knife from the kitchen, you were better off if you were Raphael.
Nunchucks were fun to make. Very simple, as well. Two relatively straight sticks + string. Somehow we never got tripped up on those details...

I can't imagine something as absurd as pretending the stick was an iPhone and texting someone with it. Not only did the concept not exist, but you know how uncool it would have looked if I tried to text message someone from my nunchucks?? No respectable ninjas would have approved. Not the turtles, and certainly none of the Transformers. Even David the Gnome would have laughed and spewed inflammatory remarks.

Oh yea, remember GI-JOES? Not the cartoon, as I didn't have TV at the time... but the toy. Yea I had one of those. Actually if was two different halves of one and the rubber band broke and no matter how many bread wrappers I stole from the kitchen, GI-Joe was just inadequately flexible and couldn't perform any quality uppercuts or practically any wrestling moves against any opponent, which sometimes had to consist of gummy bears (who's punishment for failure was being eaten alive). Annoyingly, gummy bears won more often than not due to GI-Joe's inability to hold himself together for very long, and out of sheer childish desire, I was forced to break a lot of rules because I wanted to eat me some gummy bears.

I guess if I had google I could have retrieved the best solution to my GI-Joe and settle the gummy bear score. Maybe I could have diailed GI-Joe tech support and or something.

Heh, I wonder what today's kids would have thought of struggling family food selection during the 80's. "Hey, what are these weird brown things?" "Beans? Oh... is that what goes in Pizza Rolls???"
"Hey, why's this purple drink not fizzy?"
"You guys only eat 3 times a day????"





You have a mom AND a dad, simultaneously??????

You, my friend, are fucking hilarious when you're drunk. :laughing:

lol. More sleep deprived than anything.

Well either way it was funny little essay, esse.

Haha. Believe me, it wasn't funny back then. Shit was serious. I once had to grab a bee to prove how hardcore I was to an imaginary wife.
It did sting my hand.
I remember this because it was my first ever bee sting. I was a fucking idiot... doing that for a woman. An imaginary one, no less.

My first bee sting went a little like this:

Me and my friend were out playing in some cranberry bogs (yes, I grew up in a place with tons of cranberry bogs) and we came across a dozen or so bee boxes arranged in two rows. Being a dick even back then, I dared my friend to walk between the two rows of boxes where tons of bees were flying around. Amazingly he did it and managed to not get stung, but one bee got really pissed off, flew over to where I was standing and stung me right in the fucking earlobe.

Hahaha... That bee was a harbinger of karma.
But I do have to ask, what the hell is a cranberry bog? Sounds pretty tasty, and if it's what I think it is, I would have set up my forts near the area.

One of these things?

what type of G.I. Joe are you referring to? the Doll looking one that was huge? or the smaller ones? I had an original storm shadow that I would bring to the neighborhood G.I. Joe battles

It where they grow cranberries. ;)

They work the same way as rice paddies. They're flat, dry patches of land with canals surrounding them for most of the year, but when harvest time comes they flood them about waist-deep with water. The cranberries float and the workers wander in with hip waders on and use these rake-looking things and big floating barricades to corral the berries over to the edge of the water where they're scooped up and loaded onto trucks. Here's a picture of harvest time:

http://www.sedona.biz/cranberries2.jpg

I wish. That reminds me of Cap'n Crunch with Crunchberries so much. I used to pretend to enjoy the company of annoying cousins just so I could sleep over at their house and eat their superior cereals in the morning. My cereals usually came in a box with little variation in color, which, to a kid, is a major indication of quality. The less colors on the box, the less awesome you think it is. Marketing is a beast.

The small plastic ones who's legs were attached to the abdomen via a rubber band running through the inside of the figure. The arms and legs bent, and made excellent "about to knock you out" stances. But older ones never stayed, as their joints were too loose and were inevitably used as the one's "getting knocked out".

Add a couple packets of ketchup for gore and you got yourself a massacre.

Hmm. I don't think I would build forts there.
I'm not even sure I enjoy cranberries, to be honest. But it looks like those guys are having plenty of fun.
I'm not really sure how to end this reply...

I was a spoiled brat back then so my toy collection was pretty large.

I had ninja turtle action figures...double dragon action figures with the car. the car was a must have because it had some plastic discs that it would fire out. My G.I. joes, I also had these cardboard type planes that you would have to assemble....no I think they were foam if I remember correctly. I had a huge pog collection. I was taking pogs from my friends left and right.

I enjoy cranberries, but as you could probably guess, they're kind of a part of the culture where I grew up. I always though it was funny when I moved to Chicago because people who saw me drinking cranberry juice would always assume I had a urinary tract infection since I couldn't possibly be drinking it because I liked the taste.

I got my toys second-hand. Most of them came from cousins. But my cousin Matt did give me a freakin' Ninja Turtle Sewer System, plus the turtle van, all 4 turtles, Bebop, Splinter, and another one that I forget the name... oh Rat king I think. I was PROFILIN' with thems toys. When they fought each other, it was always just an act. I just liked staring at them.

Haha...
"Hey man, you got a cold, or are you just drinking that Robitussin because it's disgusting?"
Yea I can't do the cranberry thing. I think the major rift between me and cranberry happened while I was stationed in Germany.. I had bought a 5th of Vodka and all that was available was a bunch of cranberry juice. So I made vodka cranberries for myself the whole bottle. The next day when I dropped my dueces, they smelled like cranberries. I have never been able to shake the association.

I'm sorta weird about that though. If I smell something gross while addressing something, it's like an auto attach. Even porn can be ruined by my own farts.
/attractive banter.

did you ever get so mad and pissed off during action figure fights with your friends that it lead to play fighting? lol.....

that was always hilarious when it happened....like "no, you can't come back from that attack" and then fists start flying

You know something, I never really thought about it but I wouldn't fight my friend's toys. The only way I ever fought action figures is if I had control of both of them, because I actually placed a pretty significant emphasis on how the punches looked when they were thrown and how I thought the victim should react. It was inevitably always in slow motion, but I enjoyed choreographing the motions.

Otherwise though, ESPECIALLY WHEN MORTAL KOMBAT FIRST CAME OUT, me and friends or cousins would just be ninjas and beat the crap out of each other in the yard.

My favorite gimmick was running to the bathroom and grabbing two bath towels and slinging each over a shoulder and proclaiming that I was indeed Scorpion, then I'd scream "get over here" in a prepubescent triumph.

Uh-oh, a generation gap has erupted. I'll retreat back to my cranberry bog for safety with my Star Wars figures and my Donkey Kong.

Haha... it can't be that huge of a gap. You're what, a couple years older than I am? Putting you around 32 or so?
Forgive me if I forgot or something.
You've seen the posts I've been making. You understand.

I'm turning 34 in two months. It isn't a big gap, but it's funny how it becomes huge when you start talking about toys.

Makes sense.
Although I may have been at a slight disadvantage due to my toys being second hand. My toy hay days were probably yesterdays at the time. Fortunately, sticks don't really go out of style, and I could sharpen those sons of bitches like nobody's business.

Actually, I just got reminded of cave men...
I'm done failing for the night. Off I go. :D

yeah I loved that sticks could be anything you needed it to be. Majority of the time I would find a walking stick to use so I could utilize while walking along these old railroad tracks that went through my town.

We used to play with GI-Joe's too, though they were called Action Force over here. They were not quite as cool as Transformers which was my favourite. Turtles were pretty cool too.

Me and a friend had this forest that we played in where we just lived in our own imagination. There was a dinosaur rock cave that we spent a lot of time in and we also used to run to escape the orcish horde which hung around in the area. And we spent a lot of time just hanging around in trees too. When I discovered a passion for climbing trees, I used to pretend I was a squirrel.

I did have an "xbox" at the time, though. My trusty Commodore 64!

My favorite recollection in this entire thread. :laughing:

One day, I'm gonna go back to the forests of my home town, climb a tree and find a pine cone or something to gnaw on.

i had so much fun when i was a kid. i had the privilege of growing up in the mountains. we lived at the end of a long dirt road, our house was surrounded by forest, and there wasn't a neighbor in site.

my memories are filled with tree houses, model rockets, buried treasure, snow caves, crashing down the mountain side in a red wagon... real calvin and hobbes stuff.

and the toys! transformers, hotwheels, micro machines, MASK, legos, rc cars...

those were the days :)

You and I must be about the exact same age. How old are you?

I once read something on an auction site (actually it's a site for free stuff, but that doesn't matter)
"It's sort of an mp3 player, but with cassettes".

*ouch*
I'm going old.

^remember when they came out with the "water-proof" yellow walk mans.....it blew my freaking mind..

so yeah i've always had at least four parents....sometimes more when they were legally separated and not yet divorced

as for toys it was all Star Wars for me....and a few transformers/go-bots.....but i was leaving toys by the time He-man got crazy popular

i also remember the play gyms at playgrounds....were made out of splitered wood and fucking steel....none of this recycled milk carton bullshit....so basically in the middle of summer you proved your worth by going down the slide and burning the hell out of yourself and when you fell it hurt bad and you bled....plus underneath was hard ground with coarse sand none of this rubber padding!

those were indeed the days

My parents are still together. Altough there have been some doubts lately. I believe that blew over, but it scared the **** out of me.

my parents divorced when i was two....my mom has only re-married once....my father is on his 5th!

it makes me kinda sad thinking about the good ol days

:laughing:

I have been bitten by a bumble bee 3 times in my life, once when I was a toddler and just stood on it! I am terrified by them. :(

I've gotten bumble bees inside my shirt on two occasions :p:

It ain't so bad.

Never wear orange reflective jackets, I had a bumble bee get inside mine and he bit off my shoulder!

That's depressing.



I used to listen to the Donna Summer cassette. I would bring it with me to camp. My favourite song was "MacArthur Park."

back when mix tapes were literally mix tapes...I had loads of them especially from a friend of mines that made mixes and would sell them for 5 bucks a pop. He was on his grind all through high school with his mix tapes.