patrick.net

RC2006 says

Dude that sucks. Reminds me of getting a 'Team Schwinn BMX bike' instead of the mongoose or redline that I'd asked for. Turned out it wasn't a bad bike though and I got a lot of compliments. Plus it was cool being the only kid who had one.

Automan Empire says

Born '67 in that strange gap between Boomer and GenX. Get told "OK Boomer" nonetheless.

I don't look 55, so I never get that.

Mine was blue. First thing I did was replace that seat with plastic. Then the handlebars. Came with front brakes too, I dunno about this picture. I guess that's a 78 where mine was an 80 or 81.

FuckTheMainstreamMedia says

Gen X guys are lucky; they dumbed down the SAT for them.

yeah lucky to get into expensive schools and major debt for nothing

just_passing_through says

Mine was blue. First thing I did was replace that seat with plastic. Then the handlebars. Came with front brakes too, I dunno about this picture. I guess that's a 78 where mine was an 80 or 81.

This is what we used to ride...The Stingray with the banana seat

FuckTheMainstreamMedia says

I’m still hella bitter about that!

Did you have the uncles that would buy you accessories for the GI Joe Battleship or some Star Wars action play set, knowing damn well you didn't have the play set?

komputodo says

This is what we used to ride...The Stingray with the banana seat

Yup, me too! Age 5 though 1977. Stingray with a banana seat. Mine was red. That was my 1st upgrade bike.

I did not have a "Sting Ray" but a very similar design that included a T-Handle 5 speed shifter mounted on the top tube. Bought it with money from selling TV Guides. Everyone back then rode bikes everywhere, and we all had jumped ramps and ditches. And if you were taking your kid sister someplace, she rode on the handlebars. Everywhere there was a ball field or any other place kids would gather, there was a pile of bikes outside. Inner tubes back then were not as good as they are today, so we all had the tire patch kits and knew how to use them, as well as putting a chain back on the sprocket.

komputodo says

This is what we used to ride...The Stingray with the banana seat

We had an older kid down the street that either went to the Army or College, and bequeathed us, me and my brothers his Schwinn Stingray with the banana seat, but it also had extended forks, and was converted into a Chopper. When you made wide turns, the forks would flip around the back of the bike and you would go flying. I got big gash on my chin, and my face hit the pavement. The next morning to me and my brothers' astonishment, we found the forks had been hack sawed. My Dad blamed it on "The Jigs", and for some reason we believed him.
"The Jigs musta come in the middle of the night and did it!"

Ha your dad sounds like a character TPB. I think over my childhood I must have had 4 or 5 bikes stolen by Beans.

RC2006 says

Ha your dad sounds like a character TPB. I think over my childhood I must have had 4 or 5 bikes stolen by Beans.

We all knew the old man did it, but we didn't dare call him out on it, or we would have gotten our heads knocked in.

Tenpoundbass says

"The Jigs musta come in the middle of the night and did it!"

Jigs were "shifty" back in the day. You had to keep an eye on them...

You were really cool if you also had the sissy bar

I'm I gen X if I grew up watching some of these shows?

www.youtube.com/embed/-ofc-p8ZSjc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kA1NT4I0s34

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yb4C7vSByMM

I was born at the end of the baby boom from parents who were WW2 babies, but I was raised by the greatest generation, my grandparents. When I was born Kennedy was president our coins were real silver and we were at the height of the cold war.

Did all you gen X-ers get whooped by your parents when you were kids? I think they outlawed the paddle in school around the same time I graduated high school.

I got spanked by parents and grandparents, I was lucky to have all 4 until I was a teenager.

Since this has showed up multiple times, fine - I'm generation X. Born in 1971. The year of the Nixon Shock. And since somebody brought up a cartoon intro:


original link

This was on Canadian television, as I grew up on the border of Canada.

I think this site draws people from what we expected and the devastation we are observing. The rules have been ENTIRELY changed in our lifetime. I expected a bunch of people to go to jail in 2008 for the mortgage fraud because of the Savings and Loan Scandal. Our generation is witnessing the development of a criminal hierarchy.

In 1980 if there was somebody like Hillary Clinton, our government would have put that asshole in jail. No longer. We once had a real justice system and it evaporated in the 1990s. I feel very badly for the next generation.

We also made the internet, this was a good thing, but we trusted corporations that betrayed us. We will really try to fix this before we die. My purpose was to give you unlimited access to information, unlimited access to other cultures - to know our respective governments lie and to understand their viewpoints. This was my mission and a mission of many. It seems to have failed, but I'm not dead yet. It seems to be a continual war. I'm basically an atheist, but there really seems to be a force between good and evil.

There's a real fight there, we need to educate the younger generation. There is an absolute responsibility beyond our lifetime to ensure a better future for those that come after us. Our previous generations did it, we must as well. This is an absolute obligation.

I was born 1980. What I can remember is that no parents were watching us past age 7. By age 8, we were all over town on our own. The fire company rang a siren in town for lunch and one for dinner. Somewhere along the line, the idea of not looking after your kid even in your backyard is frowned upon. I've purposely raised my kids with minimal screen time and kick them out of the house with little supervision. My 8 year old son is old school to the core. We got him a vinyl record player and gave him all these records from the 60s from our parents collections. He loves it. HisI friends all got ipads. We gave him our NES and SNES. I got him a power drill, bits, and a set of screwdrivers/wrenches. He sits around in the basement building crap all day.

I'm a Baby Boomer.

richwicks says

Hillary Clinton

If she becomes secretary of anything outside of the prison law library there is no justice!

richwicks says

We also made the internet,

Sorry. Al Gore was a boomer.

MAGA says

Shout out if you still have teeth!

Space Ghost!

Onvacation says

richwicks says

We also made the internet,

Sorry. Al Gore was a boomer.

Haha, I remember that, and the Internet isn't like a series of tubes.

Nearly all of the development of the internet was done by generation X. The reason Silicon Valley exists, is that we had to congregate to build the basics of the communication system. HP is often credited with this area being created, but it was the development of communication that actually made it.

The bad news is there's a bunch of Internet central oligarchs that have seized control of it, the good news is that the Internet was made purposely to be decentralized to survive a nuclear attack. There is so much available that has been forgotten that can be revived. On a $70 raspberry pi (that includes case, power supply and board) I have the power of a mainframe in college where 10,000 students made use of it - simultaneously. People have absolutely no idea what sort of computing power is available to them.

It's not that difficult to make a server for a home, but the problem with doing this is that not only unfettered, encrypted and uncontrolled information be made available, ALL information can be made available. Censorship is justifiable to some extent, content that very few people would object to being censored. Next stage is absolutely no censorship.

Sorry world, I'm doing it.

Onvacation says

richwicks says

Hillary Clinton

If she becomes secretary of anything outside of the prison law library there is no justice!

You still believe in justice at this point?

The FBI lied to the FISA courts to try to remove an elected president then destroyed evidence by wiping all their phones. Our government is nothing but a criminal syndicate.

richwicks says

Nearly all of the development of the internet was done by generation X.

I thought ARPANET started in 1969?

Dang smart little Xers.

DARPA created the protocols and the basis for it. If you liked a text-only interface to anything, that's where their input ended. Gen-X would be the group that created nearly everything on top of that, app servers, E-commerce systems, search engines, etc.

Shoulders of giants, and all that.

Karloff says

Shoulders of giants, and all that.

Yeah, too much credit for gen-X. I know this because a boomer family member of mine did contribute in a huge way (not Al Gore) to developing the interwebs and now has swimming pools full of cash. He also was one of the initial inventors of disk drives.

theoakman says

I was born 1980. What I can remember is that no parents were watching us past age 7. By age 8, we were all over town on our own. The fire company rang a siren in town for lunch and one for dinner. Somewhere along the line, the idea of not looking after your kid even in your backyard is frowned upon. I've purposely raised my kids with minimal screen time and kick them out of the house with little supervision. My 8 year old son is old school to the core. We got him a vinyl record player and gave him all these records from the 60s from our parents collections. He loves it. HisI friends all got ipads. We gave him our NES and SNES. I got him a power drill, bits, and a set of screwdrivers/wrenches. He sits around in the basement building crap all day.

My mom used to lock me and my brother out of the house in the summer.

HunterTits says

I remember us GenXers being called the Latch Key Kids. Because we were left alone at home while growing up as the two-income family hit our generation first.

Also, many of us identify w/ the video of Smashing Pumpkin's "1979", even though I was just born that year, as the idyllic childhood which didn't happen.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=4aeETEoNfOg

I've always had a problem with this anime.

If an alien society was launching weekly raids on earth, where are our armed forces?

Instead of letting some teenagers fight off each weekly attack, have the armed forces launch a major offensive on their home world and teach 'em a lesson.

Don't Fuck With Earth!

richwicks says

Our government is nothing but a criminal syndicate.

Yes, and I suspect with actual mafia members in high places.

krc says

After 1994, SAT was considered an achievement test that one could study for.

Really ? I studied for the ACT and SAT in 1986. I would not have scored as well if I did not study. The same goes for the GRE in 1991 and 2008.

Rin says

I've always had a problem with this anime.

If an alien society was launching weekly raids on earth, where are our armed forces?

First, this was a Sandy Frank adaptation. They drastically changed the storyline from the original Gatachaman source material and of course, it's a kid's show.

Furthermore, look at how silly ANY superhero fantasy film is from an adult perspective.

Have you ever seen "The Boys"? The entire show is about how ridiculous it would be. If there was ever a superhuman in existence, it's HIGHLY unlikely that IT would be a force for good. In The Boys - the superheroes are basically all villains. Any scandal is handled through massive public relations and it works.

To be entirely honest, I look at any film with "good guys" as being silly. There's no such thing. I mean look at us as a nation in reality - remember when the United States shelled a hotel to kill reporters for Al Jazeera?

https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/882795/posts

Look at what people wrote in those comments as well. I wonder if they were propagandists or if these were just people who didn't realize that they were ultimately slitting their throats and their children's throats?

Oops another "mistake".. At some point, you have to see the world for what it is, and it's deeply cynical. There are no accidents like this. Al Jazeera's website was down from 2001 to 2003 as I recall. I was fiercely in opposition to that war and lost all faith in my government as news sites I used to access in the Middle East were purposely cut off. I knew the 1st amendment was under attack then. I knew the danger. I tried to warn that this would lead to censorship within our nation - and it did.

Now we have no legitimate news, AT ALL, we have internet censorship and don't delude yourself thinking these companies doing censorship aren't doing it at the behest of our government. They are.

Nice being an oblivious kid, but man, quite another thing to see the world as it actually is. From 20 to (nearly) 50 I've studied the world with great interest. I remember suspecting there was something like a "deep state" - it exists. I remember thinking maybe my government does false flags (they do!), and though possibly there is propaganda in the United States (there certainly is!).

At every step if I discussed my suspicions about these things I suspected to exist, I was basically considered "nuts" although they wouldn't be that open about it. But I'm right. Our entire society is gaslit. It's impressive what kind of control there is exercised upon the public. I mean, it's astounding. I though society was corrupt and controlled 5 years ago, now I finally know how bad it actually is.

20 years ago I was talking with my cousin as we talked about government and life and one of us posed the question along the lines of "would you rather be oblivious and happy or miserable and know precisely how things work?" We both agreed we wanted to understand, and both of us are miserable seeing the world as it actually is. You basically must be ignorant in order to be happy. I know what "Ignorance is Bliss" REALLY means now - it doesn't mean that you're better off not knowing your wife cheated on you 5 years ago, it means you're better off not understanding the world. It's horrifying to see it.

richwicks says

First, this was a Sandy Frank adaptation. They drastically changed the storyline from the original Gatachaman source material and of course, it's a kid's show.

Furthermore, look at how silly ANY superhero fantasy film is from an adult

Actually, I was a kid when I'd first seen 'Battle of the Planets' and yes, even from a kid's perspective, I couldn't imagine a world where the USA, NATO, SEATO, and even the Soviet's Warsaw Pact, wouldn't be alarmed at weekly assaults on the Earth, depending only upon teenagers, to save our collective asses.

What was more believable was 'Star Blazers'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTY1i9F_7Yw

where the entire Earth's resources were combined for an effort against the Gamelons who were constantly tossing nukes at the Earth.

Nevermind, the following season with the Comet Empire!

Rin says

Actually, I was a kid when I'd first seen 'Battle of the Planets' and yes, even from a kid's perspective, I couldn't imagine a world where the USA, NATO, SEATO, and even the Soviet's Warsaw Pact, wouldn't be alarmed at weekly assaults on the Earth, depending only upon teenagers, to save our collective asses.

I cannot defend the logistics of a cartoon I watched when I was 6.

I find nearly every film ridiculous now. I can't even stand to watch most films. When I watch a film, all I can do is point out plot holes now and logical inconsistencies. It drives me crazy to watch a film and it would drive me mad to watch a cartoon at this age that I watched nearly 1/2 century ago.

There's maybe 100 films that I've seen that don't piss me off if I actually think about them. They are the only ones that can be enjoyed twice.

richwicks says

They are the only ones that can be enjoyed twice.

My list is far shorter than that..

komputodo says

You were really cool if you also had the sissy bar

I had the same bike. It was a hand-me-down from my older brother. I beat the hell out of that thing. My parent's home was built on the top of a hill that used to be grazing land for cattle. Our lawn was huge and there were large rocks we'd use to jump our bikes over and we'd get air. I am surprised any of us survived to adulthood.

HunterTits says

I remember us GenXers being called the Latch Key Kids.

They were called latch key kids, because for the first time, all of the American jobs were killed and shipped off. So for the first time in American history, both parents had to go out work a shitty low paying job, just to make ends meet.
It was also for the first time, more single parents than married parents.
Latchkey kids were late GenX not early. I was in my late teens, when kids younger than 10 were being labeled that.

We left our doors open when we left the house, as did everyone else.