Big Changes I've Seen In My Lifetime
 

1) I still cant get my head around how swiftly the internet rendered most reference books obsolete. You cant even give encyclopedias away anymore.
Dictionaries, Thesaurus, all found online. I dig the practicality but at the same time it makes me a little sad ... i remember early schooling activities where we had contests to see who could find a certain word first in the dictionary.
I remember how much i loved the old science and nature Time-Life series of books (which i still have and will always keep) but i doubt my son will look at them much longer. No more door to door encyclopedia salesmen ! (ok - i guess it's not all bad)

2) When you sent your kids to school with lunch - and on those odd days you didnt have (or they didnt want) balony, etc, for their sandwich - the old school standby was peanut butter and jam sammies.
Now - you cant take peanut butter to school so you dont kill someones kid.
Death by sandwich. you cant tale anything with peanuts - or any other nuts in them. boys are forced to wear hermetically sealed asbestos underwear !!
They're taking no chances !

they dont even want you eating it at home before school incase you have trace amounts on your hands, etc..


I dont remember s single solitary kid having a peanut allergy when i was a kid .. whats going on ??!!


I think of some more later .. i'm not thinking things so obvious as the CD/DVD and the generation who never knew any differently .. i'm thinking of the wierder more subtle changes i've seen.

The introduction of the internet...that bought about a helluvalotta change, something "big" I was alive for.

Seems obvious, but the whole sept 11 deal, has changed so much about the way people view things and live their lives. The word "terrorist" becoming commonplace.

Introduction of reality tv. Yeck.

The death of rollerskates. I know you can still buy 'em, but inlines pretty much fucked them into obscurity...now nobody even likes THOSE anymore.

i forgot about that - the whole airport experience has changed ..

also - the US Canadian border .. once the longest unprotected border in the world .. now Canadians will soon need passports to get into the USA.

As far as the peanut thing... No offence, but there was a reason John Travolta was in a BUBBLE in that movie... You cant make the world change just because someone has an allergy to something incredibly common. I had deadly allergies against cats and dogs growing up. Does that mean all the kids with pets have to shower at school before they go to class, so their dander doesnt agitate my tender sinuses?


NO. I kept well away formthe things until i found a medicine that worked for me.

I remember watching the growth of "Sexual Harrasment" and "Political Correctness". From the 80s to the 90s, i think overuse and abuse of these two things made the US both more litigous, and destroyed a massive heap of its little remaining innocence.

Lets face it: Being "Racially Sensitive" is actually segregationist. it forces you to constantly acknowledge and address differences that are better left ignored.

"That guy over there."
"Which one?"
"The black guy."
"WAIT! you cant use that word! Say 'African American!'"
"What was wrong with 'That Guy'?"

I remember shortly after the whole Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill thing, a kid in my school got suspended for a week for "Sexually harrasing" a girl. She was a big fat (literally) snot who had been making comments to this kid about being, shall we say, a good "prospect" for her because he was black, and they are more gifted, and that he wanted her. When he said he wouldnt put his dick anywhere near her ass, she whined to the teacher that he was sexually harrasing her and BAM! 1 week out of school. Instant double standard.

I think eventually, people screamed loud enough that they had to apologize to him, but he still had to stay away for a week.

i cant think of a sigle black guy who would take offence to that ..
if my buddy (who is black) is referring to a black guy in a movie (and he is the only one in this particular movie) - and he doesnt know the guys name .. he'd say 'the black guy'

thats like saying the blonde guy or the redhead, the guy in the wheelchair, quick easy identification .. not based on discrimination.

everyone does the same thing among themselves.., asians, blacks, browns, etc ..

Cellphones have changed life so much. Now you can get a hold of almost anyone anytime you want.

The downfall of the movie theater and the death of the drive-in. Remember when there was one or two new movies coming out a week? Theaters would hold the same movie on their one screen for a month. Now, 32 screen multiplexes (who are all going bankrupt) bringing in 7-11 new movies every week.

Pretty much the rise and death of MTV as far as I'm concerned...

As Phalanx said Reality TV, ugh I'm so sick of all that shit on tv...

The fall of Soviet Russia...

The fall of the Berlin Wall...

EXACTLY! The only people i have known who gave a fuck either way were godamn whiny white people who over reacted to EVERYTHING.

Quotes (actual, real quotes) from some of these people:

"I'm a lesbian."
"So."
"Does it bug you?"
"No. Do you want it too?"

"if you had a kid, would you hit them if they did something wrong?"
"I dont know, maybe. If they did something really wrong, i might give them a swat."
"You would beat your kid?!"

I hate how they think they are doing the world a service for "Hurting for others" and being so oversensitive that they explode without provocation.

my wife works with a gay guy .. who incessantly goes on about being a gay guy.
she works with several gay men (dunno why this particular profession) but he's the only one that prances around like a ballerina outing himself - and others...

no different than me talking to him (in paticular) non stop about being straight ..

gay or straight - who would want to hear any of that shit 24/7.

people like that just want a reaction .. its usually the only facet of their personality that they think is remotely interesting so they allow it - encourage it to define them.


i cant stand any focused outre personalities like that ... it reeks of phoniness and desperation and i have a natural aversion to that.

I find people like that hilarious, they only give weight to sterotypes and create more for themselves to bitch about, which i imagine is their ultimate goal.

Something i thinkis funny is how styles have been changing for decades, with each having a few distinct looks, then suddenly, in the middle-late 90s, EVERYTHING became acceptable. Leather, bell-bottoms, big hair, MULLETS, stonewash.... They are everywhere now.

I guess it's not a big change but I can't stand those little rollerskate shoes. Whenever I see a little kid glide by me I think two things. The first being that I could just stick my arm out and make him be more careful around people. The second being a quote from Friends.

"Kids! Roll your way to childhood obesity!"

Christmas/birthdays are two more big ones for me. When I was little, me and my cousins would start immediately playing with toys and being as noisy as we could once they were unwrapped. Now at Christmas, there were 9 children there last year 10 or under. Once the gifts were unwrapped, they all sat down quietly on the couch with their handhelds & quitly played video games. No interaction between each other at all.

there is a very distinct style of the last 10 years .. the goatee ..
every other guy has a goatee.

and the close cropped hair .. not a crewcut - 1 stage longer.

in hollywood if you are behind the camera you have crazy ass long hair .. if you are in front of it its that short cut - with a goatee.

hand held? my aunt wishes I got him a hand held!

When I buy gifts for my little cousins I always buy the loudest, most annoying toys. Last year I got this "space" rocker with lights that makes space ship sounds when you rock on it. :cool:

When I was young a doctor would come to your house if you were sick.

We had a thing called a milkbox at the front door. You put your empty (glass) milk bottles in it and the milkman would come in his truck, take the empties and leave you fresh milk.

Halloween was a time when kids escaped from parents and went carousing by themselves, connecting with their inner demon.

There was a neighborhood theatre that showed a weekly "kiddie mattinee" on the weekends- showed a double feature (quite often 2 horror movies), cartoons, old serials, newsreels, and gave away prizes! All for $1.25.

Comic books were 12 cents and were fun to read.

Radio stations played everything from Frank Sinatra and Peggy Lee to Led Zepplin and Johnny Cash - on the same station.

Hey....


I actually had noticed this too. Notice how suddenly everyone in the 1800s, 1700s, 1600s.... In movies suddenly started sporting them?

I have one for one simple reason: The wife likes it. It itches, i have a weird compulsion to tug at it constanly, shaving around it without screwing up the edges is a bitch, but she finds me more attractive with it, so it aint going anywhere.

I have nice SHORT hair, because i am lazy and i cant get the above mentioned wife to agree to me just shaving my head.

Nice:cool:

That's what I always do. I go down the kids list. Video game, video game, video game, clothes (obviously mom put that there)....


Aha! SuperSonic Nerf Rocket Launcher that shoots 200 rounds a second and sounds like Hiroshima. There ya go, ya little bastard! Go break something like kids should!

some houses have that little door built into the side of the house leading to a little compartment where they could put the bottles without going outside..
i still see them on the older houses.

and you hit on something else ... when we were kids - at 5 years of age we'd go and play in the neighbourhood park by ourselves... shit you'll never see that again.

My kid's class has a big ol unabridged dictionary (he told me he looked up "penis, vagina, shit and sex" the other day)

AND

I pack him a PBJ almost every day

the artistic comunity dictate the fashion standards - always have.
actors/musicians are portrayed as cool .. the people YOU want to be...
so people will try to look like them.

this has been going on since forever.

lately the trends are lasting longer ... we already went through the cycle of 50's, 60's 70's 80's, then back to 50's, 60's 70's 80's .. the 90's and 2000s show signs that people are getting tired of reinventing themselves .. i just dont think there's any interest in rehashing the cycle again so we settled on safe chic or urban for style.. then there are the rest of us that dont really follow trends...

trends are really only followed in the major centres anyway - mostly the very socialite downtown crowd. there are always exceptions in the smaller towns ... but hardly any..

my kid would get sent home.



ps .. give the kid some variety 'super dad' !

:p

I HATE PBJ. I know, i accepted long ago that i am a freak. i also dont like baloney and cheese.

i dont like BBJ on bread - but i LOVE it on toast !

melted peanut butter ... mmmmmmmm

I usually send my kid to school with a club sand. which he really likes but occasionally if I'm out of ham or turkey or something and in a rush I'll make him a PB&J, there's never been any kind of peanut problem at his school...

You aren't the only one, I love pb&j's like that...

Peanut butter on toast is good, but the additoon of jelly, jam, whatever fruityness, just turns my stomach.

However, i like drinkign coronas with lime while eating a MR Goodbar. Odd combo, great pairing.

What about peanut Butter and banana?

I dunno about the close cropped hair, but the style I see a lot is the messy gelled style where it's supposed to look like they just got out of bed and didn't comb their hair, but you know they styled it like that.

we never eat jelly ... not many people do up here - its mostly jam.

peanut butter and strawberry jam is tops..

but i also love paenut butter and corn syrup (its heavier than honey so it doesnt run off the toast as much) but it drives my wife nuts because she cooks with it.

That IS a good combo... especially with the introduction of chocolate.

its good if you slice the banana really thin .. otherwise you look like a dog eating a peanut butter sandwich .. 'ack, ack, ack

lmao I just cut 4 big pieces and put them in.

keep the phone close with 911 already dialed :)

When I was a kid my mother took me to a fancy restaraunt and I ordered a peanut butter and banana sandwich- which thoroughly embarressed my mother. Hey- it was on the menu!

During Mardi Gras in 2000, my freinds and I were in a restaurant on Bourbon Street, and i ordered a cheeseburger. I wanted a damn cheeseburger, i had been eating cultural food for 4 days straight just wanted some beef.

my freinds got all embarrased, but the waiter was cool about it. he stood there and smiled. my friends said "He's kidding..." The waiter said "I know, Im waiting for his real order."

i caved and had fried catfish. it was good, almost worth the $19 i paid for it... (the fucking cheeseburger was $5....)


then my friends proceed to bitch about the quality of their meals (crawfish for one, something with hushpuppies for the other), and dropped $7 a pint for guinness. i spent significantly less on corona.

they were going to stiff the waiter a decen ttip because the food was sub-standard fro the most part and the drinks way over priced, but i told them if i was cornered into spending 4 times what i was going to for a meal, they were sure as hell goingto leave hima good tip, he was great waiter.

in the end, i think the meal came to $90 and we left him a $35 tip.

Just thought of one...the fondue craze...that pretty much blew right up HUGELY, then just blew on out.
I know there's atill places that do it though...god knows, it's easy enough and (now) cheap enough to simply buy your own setup.

While still on food...
The widespread acceptance of "sushi", of all styles. I have always loved it myself, but I remember a time where the stores were few and far between here, where every second person would say "ew, raw fish" if you so much as mentioned it. I guess word of mouth eventually worked for this one.

The cell/mobile phone revolution, now they're almost considered "neccessity" by (I'd say) 90%+ of people. Still don't like 'em much myself.

One that's underway at the moment, that I personally consider pretty "big", is the gradual phasing out/banning of public smoking. It's a smart move...IMO a lot of smokers simply aren't respectful enough about it, I accept that they're spoiling their health, cool...but they don't tend to look outside and see the damage it does others, or don't acknowledge it anyhow. But yeah, I think this is one of those "big changes" I'll live to see.

kids tying shoes ...

its all velcro now ... they dont have to go through that onerous rite of passage anymore until they are old enough to have more dexterous fingers.

i stopped to think how much of a negative imact this might have and couldnt think of one ... unless your kid was planning on becoming a professional present wrapper or a shoe salesman.

Fondu... The Melting Pot... mmmmmmmmm.

I HATE people who stand 2 feet from an entrance and smoke. Fucking inconsiderate as hell. I smoked for the better part of 10 years and was very concious of others when i was smoking. I wasted entire cigarrettes making sure i wasnt smoking around little kids and babies.

By the same token, I hate the pseudo-hippie "truth.com" anti-smoking adds. For one thing, they are all staged.... The "Fake-reality" thing is REALLY old now. And really, are they sharing any NEW information? "Cigarrettes are bad for you! The tobacco companies lied!"


"AND?"

Ew- raw fish!

I finally got a cell phone this year because it was required when I made a supervisor at work. I tend to view the damn things they way Bradbury did in his extremely prophetic story "The Murderer."

You may be right about the public smoking thing!