20 Years Ago

[sbr]

I was 24, and my oldest daughter was just a couple of months old.  I was working 2 jobs:  cooking at a sports bar and tending bar at a small Mexican restaurant.

Me and the wife and kid where living in a 2 bedroom apartment with the wife's identical twin sister, her husband (who was a friend of mine growing up and how I met my ex-wife) and their 10 month old daughter.

I did not own a computer, game console, or mobile phone and I had never heard of the internet or any of the related things.

I was also happily married and had no cats.

[lustindarkness]

20 years ago:
I was a in college wasting my time, I worked full time to pay my rent and gas money and any left overs were spent in alcohol, had already been in the Navy Reserves a year, the club scene in San Juan was awesome for a bachelor.

[derspiess]

20 years ago almost to the day I went to see Live in concert as well as some little-known band called Weezer.  I had just transferred to Delaware.  Good times.

Oh also I had just turned 21, which really just meant I could start using my own ID instead of my brother's 

[Maladict]

20 years ago would make me a socially awkward 15 yo playing computer games most of the time. I don't necessarily need to go back there. I'll take 17 years ago, but 20? Pass.

[mongers]

If you lived in a town without a dedicated record shop and wanted to find out about new albums or gig, you had to either subscribe to a band specific newsletter/fanzine* or buy one of the weekly music papers** like NME or Sounds.   




* usually you sent the nice person one or several SAEs and these would be returned to you containing the monthly/quaterly fanzine.
** These papers sometimes came with a floppy coloured plastic single from a band being promoted by their label.

[CountDeMoney]

LOL, 'zines.  Now those were the days.

[mongers]

LOL, 'zines.  Now those were the days.

I must have a few lying around somewhere? 

Yeah the people who did them seemed to be genuine peps.  I wonder what the internet equivalent of a fanzine is, band specific blog? 

[Savonarola]

I started with Nextel in 1994.  Back in those days Nextel's primary product was the large 1 Watt phones (the Lingo).  They were so sturdy that one of our sales people, as part of a customer demonstration, took his phone and threw it over a four lane road onto concrete then picked it up and demonstrated that it still worked.  (He got the sale.)  I think of that whenever anyone tells me of how they dropped their iPhone two or three feet and it shattered.

[CountDeMoney]

I started with Nextel in 1994.  Back in those days Nextel's primary product was the large 1 Watt phones (the Lingo).  They were so sturdy that one of our sales people, as part of a customer demonstration, took his phone and threw it over a four lane road onto concrete then picked it up and demonstrated that it still worked.  (He got the sale.)  I think of that whenever anyone tells me of how they dropped their iPhone two or three feet and it shattered.

Those car kits installations were awesome, though;  jacked you up to 3 watts.

[11B4V]

All things considered, I'd rather be in 1994 right now.

at least we'd have Clinton. More productive than Obama.

[11B4V]

1994

[CountDeMoney]

"I said left at the bank, not bank left!"

[Josquius]

Landlines and not knowing who was calling before you answered the phone would be bizzare to many.
I remember when I was teaching a class of 7 year olds last year and to show something I drew a phone...a old fashioned rotary phone, since that seems the most obviously a phone to me. Cue "That's not a phone!" and a kid drawing an iphone instead.

[Ed Anger]

Young people.

[CountDeMoney]

I'd like to choke them with a landline.  NO LANDLINE = TRANSIENT