The More Things Change ...

... the more they stay the same.

I am an 80s kid, and sometimes its fun to take a nostalgic look at the past and see what's different now.

Connectivity

Then: Pagers. A small and portable gadget, clipped to your belt, with a tiny LCD screen. If someone needed to get in touch with you, they would page you, and the pager would show the number up on the screen. You then had to go to the nearest landline phone to make the return call.

Now: A cellphone with a gazillion utilities like camera, MP3 player, USB storage, GPS. If someone calls you, you still look at the number, press 'Reject', then go to the nearest landline phone because you don't want to waste your 'daytime minutes'.

Major Change: Pagers did not have those annoying musical ringtones. They would go a gentle 'beep-beep', not 'Lay Up The Bitch You Motherf*****'.

Music

Then: The Walkman. A must-have faithful companion when jogging on those cold mornings, or just something to listen to on the way to work. The tapes had a serious drawback though - to get to the one song you wanted to hear, you had to forward serially through the others.

Now: The glittering Ipod. Reputed to store pictures, videos, and more than 10,000 songs. You still cannot jump to song number 347, you have to hold down the scroll button to quickly pass through the other songs before it.

Major Change: Walkman users would pause their music and listen to you on the street. Ipod users carry around a 'Do-Not-Disturb' sign.

Television

Then: Your TV cost a few hundred bucks. There were 8 buttons for 8 channels. Channel 1 had news, 2 had Pat Robertson, 3 had some hollywood drama that sucked, and so on. There was nothing good on TV. You plopped in your Blockbuster Star Wars VCR that had a few bad scenes because some previous renter spilled Cheesys on the tape.

Now: Your TV and entertainment systems costs more than a small car (think Kia). There's 1000 channels if you subscribe to satellite, or at the least a 100 if you have cable. However half of them are news, Pat Robertson is still on TV and Hollywood drama Joey still sucks. Since there's nothing good on TV you plop in your Star Wars DVD from Blockbusters. The guy who spilled Cheesys has moved on to smudging the DVD's recording side with Doritos-laden fingerprints, so you still got a few scenes that jitters.

Major Change: Never has crap looked so good on high definition.

And finally *drumroll* ...

Politics

Then: Iran is being led by a religious fanatic who stirs up fervent rallies by the angry youth and says America is the Great Satan and Israel must be destroyed. A bunch of guys named Bush, Cheney and Rumsfield are in the White House, leading Americans in a fight against what they called an evil ideology. The US is heavily involved in Afghanistan. Israel still plays the anti-semitism card if someone says 'boo' to it.

Now: Iran is being led by a religious fanatic who stirs up fervent rallies by the angry youth and says America is the Great Satan and Israel must be destroyed. A bunch of guys named Bush, Cheney and Rumsfield are in the White House, leading Americans in a fight against what they called an evil ideology. The US is heavily involved in Afghanistan. Israel still plays the anti-semitism card if someone says 'boo' to it.

Major Change: Saddam Hussein, the same guy he was as he is now, was one of the good guys.

plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.

The more things change, the more they remain the same.

PS. Read this article on Democratically Elected Madmen. Sounds like what someone would say back in the 80s about Thatcher, Bush Sr. and the Ayatollah.

Tags: 80s Nostalgia