Ten Years Ago...

The Chef

As we come upon the tail end of 2007 and the year 2008 is staring us smack in the face, reminding us that we're all another year closer to croaking of old age, I got to thinking about how much things have changed in the past decade. Every year and every decade, it seems like things change faster and faster. From the late nineties to the late naughties (tee hee) is no exception, and from the late eighties to now's even greater. We're living in the future, folks.

A lot of these are technology-related, because of the way advances in gadgetry has shaped our lives. Today, even your car has enough electronics in your face to look like Darth Vader's bathroom. However, I'll try to throw in some other memories. We'll just see how things go.

Ten Years Ago...

• The Chef's computer was a Packard Bell Pentium 60, which was merely obsolete then and not ludicrously obsolete. You could, if you were so inclined, get by with a mere 32MB of RAM. It was running Windows 95.

• I knew one person who had a CD burner. He also had a SCSI hard drive with 3GB of space, which was sort of cutting edge back then. Naturally, the entire drive was filled with porn (some things haven't changed).

• Some people were beginning to get the notion that this whole "internet" thing just might have some usefulness.

• My internet connection was 14.4 dial-up. The fastest dial-up then was 48.8. Today, my connection is a satellite connection at 512K (yes, it's slow, but I live in the sticks (Or is that the Styx?) where I can't get real broadband service. No one knew what a wireless router, or that you could use one to turn a whole building into an internet hot spot.

• Ten years ago, I was in college. I'm goddamned old.

• Cell phones were the size of cordless ones, had black and white screens, and didn't play games or surf the internet or play music or anything else - they just made phone calls. No one had heard of text messaging, either, which is a sure sign that those were better times.

• Instead of message boards, we had something called "Usenet".

• Ten years ago, alt.toys.transformers was an active and largely positive fan community, not a nearly-dead troll-filled cesspool.

• No one knew what Google was. Yahoo was around, but had yet to become the bloated evil online empire it is now.

• Ten years ago, country music didn't suck. Rap "music" (for lack of a suitably malodorous term), however, did and still does.

• People still used cassette tapes (both audio and video). No one knew what the hell a DVD was, much less HD or any other crap that I don't know about because I'm a Luddite who lives in the past.

• No one had heard of MP3s. I think the format was around, but no one used it and certainly no one had a pocket-sized brain-melting device from Planet Vulcan that could play the damn things.

• No one would have thought that in a decade, the major players in video game systems would be Sony and Microsoft, and Nintendo would be reduced to second-banana status.

• In 1997, I was still playing Rifts and Nightbane, back when Palladium didn't suck and wasn't nearly bankrupt thanks to Big Kev's stupidity.

• Ten years ago, I started my first web site. It was hosted on Geocities and the entire site could be backed up on a single floppy disk, because Geocities had a 1MB space limit. That site, The Gate, was dedicated to Palladium RPGs. It lasted until 2004, and was host to Shadows of the South, a huge netbook for Nightbane that no one remembers now.

• While we're at it, ten years ago floppy disks were relevant and useful.

• Ten years ago, no one knew what the hell an MMO was, because they hadn't been invented yet. Instead, we had various MU*s. Believe it or not, you can play an entirely text-based game.

• No one seriously believed that George Lucas was going to make more Star Wars movies.

• Remember that Y2K thing? Some pundits and panicmongers were already starting to babble about it. Unfortunately, they were right; planes fell out of the air, ATMs stopped working, millions of bank records were lost, the government collapsed, and chaos descended, plunging the entire world into a thousand years of darkness. And you missed it.

• Ten years ago, I had a mullet.

• Duke Nukem Forever was being developed. It still hasn't been released.

Not Much More Than Ten Years Ago...

• I did my first online research in 1995 on AOL. That was before the World Wide Web, and was done via newsgroups, Gopher and FTP (Anyone remember those?). That was with the aforementioned Pentium 60. Holy fucking God - this means I've been online for more than a decade. Scary, ne?

• Five years before that, in 1990, I was using an 8mhz 286 with an entire megabyte of RAM (well, 640K, for all practical purposes) and a 40MB hard drive. I remember being thrilled and astounded when I added a sound card. If I could've added a CD-ROM to it, I probably would've needed a change of shorts. Today, my cell phone is more powerful than that computer.

Twenty Years Ago (Maybe A Little More)...

• My computer was a Commodore 64, and for 1984 it was ludicrously powerful. I still miss the old breadbox.

• Twenty years ago, they said we'd have flying cars by the year 2008. Where's my goddamned flying car? Damn you, Paul Moller!

• Twenty years ago, the Maitre d's head still looked like an uncommonly large potato.

See more articles from: Mystery Meat

Comments

The Maitre d'

Ten Years Ago

December 21, 2007 05:15 PM

OK, I know I trot out this fact occasionally to make people feel... well, various things... but ten years ago I was on chemo. I mention that because it has been exactly ten years, thus this year's yearly checkup at St. Jude was my last.

It's really bizarre to think of that. Not because I didn't think I'd survive ten years (my likelihood of recurrence didn't really start out high and becomes very close to nil as time passes), just because... holy crap, that was ten years ago.

Also, ten years ago I was in high school. The only person I hang out with that I knew ten years ago was Charlie. Which, incidentally, brings up a good point... going to college in a small town, you run back into people you never figured you'd see again.

The Chef

Well..

December 21, 2007 05:19 PM

Well, you beat the odds in so many ways. Especially in surviving with that head shaped like an uncommonly large potato.

And weirdly, I'm still living in the same town I went to high school in, and I never see any of the people I went to high school with. Of course, that was more than ten (but less than twenty) years ago.

The Maitre d'

You know...

December 21, 2007 05:31 PM

I think we need to post an article that's just a headshot of me, and have people comment on whether it's really shaped like a potato or not.

Not that we'd get much response. Then again, I had to coax people to start posting on my blog, so... who knows.

The Chef

Scared?

December 21, 2007 05:32 PM

Afraid they might think it does?

The Maitre d'

No.

December 21, 2007 05:55 PM

In fact, I imagine most people who commented would come up with their own amusing things to compare it to.

Which wouldn't make me feel better, but at least I could use it to refute your theory.

The Maitre d'

Speaking of your mullet photo

December 26, 2007 01:20 AM

Ten years ago, I didn't have a mullet. I didn't really have any odd hairstyle. Actually, I look pretty much like I do now, sans glasses.

The Chef

Indeed.

December 27, 2007 05:50 PM

Ten years ago, your head did still look like an enormous potato.

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