An Ode to One of the First Cell Phones on the Block

Old School Nokia Cellphone
Image from 

I will never forget the day I got my first cellphone.  In hindsight if cellphones didn't come onto the market for another 10 years I would have saved my parents thousands of dollars in the amount of cellphones I have either lost or broke.

Anyhow, I digress because this cellphone wasn't just any stinkin' cellphone.  It was the bomb.  I had the old school Nokia with the supped up antenna.  What up now? And I had a cover that was shiny and blue so my phone was pimped out.

But the best part of the phone by far (minus all of my 9 contacts) was snake.  Snake was the best cellphone game to this day I will say it proudly.  Brickbreaker doesn't stand a change in competing with the awesomeness level of snake.

Something about chasing a small black dot around with a growing black line that grows and grows as you eat the dots was thrilling.  Not to mention addicting, once you started a game of snake, you were zonked out for at least spans of fifteen minutes.  Almost the equivalent of today's Angry Birds. 

An old school game of Snake
Image from here

This first cellphone changed the course of teenage life as we know it.  It was immediately followed by camera cellphones and look at how far we have come today.  But, remember an ode to that old school Nokia!!!!

Also I was just informed of one of the greatest tricks ever for all you snake lovers.  Props to Ryan Haughey.  Anyhow, for everyone with a Mac you can go on any Youtube video pause it.  Once it is playing you press the up arrow button and the left arrow button at the same time and you can play snake on the YouTube screen.  Pretty cool.  Check it out!  Here is a screen shot of playing snake on just an average YouTube video

Image is a screenshot from a Mac on a Black Screen YouTube video. 

Just Takin' a Stroll in My Fresh HEELYS

Heelys came onto the scene in 2000, right around the year I was entering middle school.  They were created by an American, Roger Adams, who sought to make a shoe that could role on command.  The shoe itself was epic.  It basically was designed like a normal tennis shoe, but embedded in the heel of each shoe was a wheel, where the kid was to ride, rather than walk down the hallway, the street, the mall or wherever he/she should choose.

Photo from Dicks Sporting Goods online store listed as
Heelys Street Lo Girls' Roller Shoes

The thing about Heelys was you were either a total expert or a total spaz and the in-between phase of learning to figure out these guys was both epic and life-threatening.  The idea is to lean back with one foot ahead of the other and glide down smooth surfaces.  However there were several initial problems that would arise.


The first, the typical "I-leaned-too-far-back-and-just-busted-my-butt-trying-to-look-cool-down-the-hallway."  Example looks like this.


The second, the also common FACE PLANT.  Example looks like this.


The third, the how-the-hell-do-these work??! Example looks like this.


The cool, suave middle school Heely masters aspired to look like her.  [You go Heely chick!]  These were the elite blanaced kids.  Heelys took going to the mall to another level.  You think your just walkin' around the mall?  Not if you have a fresh pair of HEEELYS!!!!! You can roam the mall like this:

clip from YouTube "Heelying at the mall"

God I loved Heelys, but I was such a spaz to begin with usually would wobble into a face-plant.  But I did improve and then I just got too old to wear them.  It was fun while it lasted and I wish I could just still age-appropriately wheel around, but unfortunately I can't though I am very jealous of those mall kids!  

Onto the Middle School Fads: The GOTH. [watch out for the chains]

The Goth.  The most blatant oxymoron of a fad.  The sheer irony of these kids always will amaze me.  Think about it.  The Goth kids are the anti-society, colored-haired rebels who don't give a shit and have an attitude that screams, "screw-the-world!"  Right? Riiiiight.  This is what they think.  

Well, Goth kids listen to my perspective on things.  You wake up at least an hour earlier than everyone else in the morning just to show how much you hate the world.  You buy pants with chains on them, which has to take an extra few minutes to:

1. Assemble in the morning and 

2. Walk down the hallway

     I mean come on those pants are a walking disaster.  Take a wrong turn and your shoe winds up in the awkward criss-cross straps that are your pants (link or pic).  You take at least fifteen minutes every morning drawing on layers of black eye-liner and caking on that black eye shadow. I mean dayummm those Goth kids in my middle school wore more make-up on a day-to-day basis than Krusy the Clown does. (the goth makeup... OR a much better look...)

My personal favorite part of the Goth fad was the other classifications that branched off, but were “completely different” from gothic.  Though the Goth kids are still around today, most of the Goth kids at my middle school went through a full-scale evolutionary cycle that started with Goth and has transformed into hipster. Apparently when being Goth loses its appeal there are many other options to choose from including: punk, scene, emo and hipster.  Let me help breakdown the differences:

•     The Punk Kid
•     The Scene Kid
•     The Emo Kid
•     The Hipster

Evolution of the pants of the goth to the hipster… 

Another one of my favorite memories of the Goth kids was their transition from middle school to high school.  A significant portion of the Goth middle schoolers gave up their chained pants, colored hair, black eyeliner and combat boots as they entered high school.  I guess they, too, realized that it was just becoming a hassle to wake up so early to hate the world as they decided to shift from anti-conformists to average teenage students.  The shift was shocking, however, for those of us who spent the last three years knowing a student as a Goth, equipped in their Goth attire.  It was kind of like a, “Holy $hi%! You have blonde hair??!!” type of revelation.  Now if I was surprised to see this immense transformation I can only imagine the parents of these kids.  I mean it had to be a giant sigh of relief when your daughter goes from wearing this to school to this.  

For some reason or another being Goth peaks throughout ones middle school years.  Perhaps it’s the awkward transition into puberty that drives kids to adopt this lifestyle.  Perhaps it’s a blatant opposition to one’s parents throughout these tough years.  Whatever the reason may be, I have one suggestion for all the future Goths of the world:

Drop the act by high school.  If you are still dressing up in all black to put your middle finger up at society in high school, you need to check yourself.  It was funny and entertaining for three years, but by high school join a club or organization that professes these ideals you hold cuz let me be quite frank, unless you are a member of Kiss, people will not consider your ideals [whether or not they are valid] in your freaky Gothic attire.

And in case your into huntin' hipsters, check this out:

Just a note to the Goths of the world: this is all in good humor, please do not take anything I write personally.

Pokémon Cards

The epic, the Charizard card.

Image from this website.

1. Unlike Beanie Babies, Pokémon cards actually ended up being worth a significant amount of dough (The Charizard Pokemon card still goes for 36 bucks).


2.  Girls certainly enjoyed collecting Pokémon cards.  Though I was not one of them, many girls have assured me they too enjoyed the feeling of ripping open a fresh pack of Pokemon cards.


3. How about those holograms? "Open up a fresh pack and you see Charizard...it was the best moment of my life" [That was a direct quote from 20 year old Ryan Haughey I have no idea who Charizard is, probably some really large Japanese lizard if I had to guess]


4. It was addicting.  Those cards just took over the schools.  People would get those binders just like the Pog binders and have them stacked to the brim with the evolutionary cycle of each of the Pokémon.


5. Energy cards. "Worthless piece of $^&T energy cards" [Another direct quote from Ryan Haughey]. These cards were used to be able to make your Pokémon attack when you played the actual Pokémon game, but who played the actual game?  I have learned through research in the game respect Pokémon cards were pretty much like Pogs.  Not many people really played the game it was more about collecting the cards that were the rarest.  


6. Lunch time was prime time for Pokémon trading.  Pokémon trading was an innocent hobby that set the future businessmen from the future social workers.


7. On the bottom right corner of every Pokémon card there was a symbol.  You either got a circle, a diamond or a star.  Getting a circle meant you got coal for Christmas.  Diamonds were neutral and when you got a star you hit the jackpot.  The stars were the cards you really got pumped about.  Victory dances that looked like this.


8. Pikachu!  Though I initially thought this little yellow creature suffered from chronic allergies I learned that this was his actual voice.  Pikachu is a central character in the Pokémon anime series, making him one of, if not the most recognizable Pokémon.  


9. Here's another funny question that I stumbled upon while on my quest for research about Pokémon cards.  Ever wonder how they came up for the names of Pokemon cards?


10. The Japanese obviously had some secret chemical that they were putting into their toys to make them especially addicting.  Tamagotchis, Pokémon cards....both were not that fun, but for some reason were that addicting.


Anymore Pokemon memories, anyone?

Beanie Babies (You knew it was comin')

So here's something everyone should remember from the 90s: beanie babies.  These small furry animals stuffed with beads blew up like Hiroshima in the early 90s. And it wasn't about having a few lovable playmates, it was about having as many of these bean-filled buddies as you could possibly have.

One of my most notable memories is the controversy surrounding the TY tag on the beanie babies.  I personally found the tag to be somewhat of an annoyance so naturally I ripped off the tags of my beanie babies the minute I got them.  However, it soon became quite a big deal to keep the TY tag on your beanie babies.  People said this was because the tag meant the beanie baby had value.  Looking back I'd like to ask these people, WHAT VALUE?!  I mean the originals were what $5?  And it's not like the toys were some rare specimen.  Every kid had at least ten.  Did people really believe that if they preserved the beanie babies tag they would be able to sell it back years later for a huge profit? Come on.

Though I was strongly opposed to keeping the TY tags on, I was challenged at school by some fourth grade brat: "That's not a REAL beanie baby! It doesn't have a TY tag." "Yes it is, I just took it off," I retorted. "Yeah, right!  Everyone knows to keep the tag on. That's totally fake!"

That was it.  From this point on I found it essential to keep the TY tags on.  The tag was essentially a status symbol.  If your TY tag was on you were flying first class.  If your TY tag was ripped off--you were   in coach, and your parents cheap-ed out of getting you the good one.


So basically having beanie babies was a huge competition to separate the spoiled brats from the kind-of-spoiled kids from the kids whose parents just flat out didn't love them.  The spoiled brat beanie baby conversation would sound something like this:

"I just got the just released, limited edition, brand-new, beanie baby Princess Diana bear.  So now I have 862 beanie babies! Ha!!"


"Oh yeah?! Well, I have 904 beanie babies and my Mom said she ordered the Diana bear plus the new Quacker the Duck without the wings and they only made like 15 Quacker the Ducks in the world!"

Yeah, I couldn't hang with this crowd of one-uppers.  I was in the semi-spoiled group and had my fair share of fuzzy friends, but 904?! Jeez, that's just excessive and spoiling a child at this age will surely backfire on his/her parents; it's just a matter of time...


The biggest problem I faced when the beanie baby storm finally subsided was where the hell to put them.  I had about 110 beanie babies, which was taking up some serious closet space.  And you couldn't throw them away because as rumor had it, they were surely "going to be valuable."  Well to everyone who insisted beanie babies would become valuable one day:


Thanks to YOU I kept 110 beanie babies stored in my closet until I graduated high school. Jerks.

Hey Arnold!

Now if you have never watched Hey Arnold! I would advise that you skip over this post, go onDemand, watch an episode and come on back.


For all of you who have seen arguably the greatest cartoon of my era, Hey Arnold! I have composed a list of universal questions I have:


1. How was it that Arnold's boarding house was so rundown and shitty, but his room was hands-down the sweetest bachelor pad known to man? For God sake the kid not only had a remote control for his couch, but I'm pretty sure in an episode he had a full scale science lab emerge from his ceiling.

2. Who is the local barber and how in the world do multiple character's hair stay the way it does?

3. Why isn't Helga's room infested with rats and roaches considering she lives in the city and has this stored in her closet......

4. Why is Arnold's hat so small and how is it that he is experiencing male-patterned baldness balding at the age of 9?

5. Ever notice that there are a significant amount of characters on the show that fit under a rash stereotype?


Oskar the Russian immigrant who's always mooching off of everyone.

Ernie the angry midget whose job is working a demolition truck [clearly compensating for his lack of height]

Mr. Hyunh the Vietnamese immigrant with a very, very thick accent.  Basically, Mr. Hyunh was the token Asian.  In this pic he is using a rotting fish to ward off spirits...

  
Gerald, the token black guy.  He's a cool, collected brotha who speaks in rhymes and has the vertical fro goin' on.

Stinky, the poor kid from the country [who is so poor his nickname is Stinky].  He's even got his overall's on in this pic.

6. Just how many pairs of glasses did Brainy have to buy?  It seems to me that every time Helga punched him in the face his glasses broke.

7. How does a fourth grade girl have such a profound unibrow?? [see above]

8. How does Stinky stay upright.  Proportionally the length of his nose is the size of his face.

9. Where in the world does Sid's nose start? His forehead? His hairline?? His brain???

10. Are Arnold and Nadine twins?? Or did the artists just get lazy?  

11. Is it just me or does Grandpa's chin look like........ (I guess it wasn't just me because a simple google search revealed this pic^)

(All Hey Arnold! pictures are from http://www.hey-arnold.com/Arnold/cast_kid.html)

Here are my top 11 questions so far, I will be back with more soon....

TAMAGOTCHI'S! [and the epidemic that ensued...]

Right around the time that Pogs became the "it" item another, much more sophisticated toy came onto the market.  I found out about this intriguing toy one morning as I entered continuous progress class [this in a nutshell means that my elementary school had too many students and not enough classrooms so they came up with this brilliant idea to combine the second and third grade into one class entitled "continuous progress" or CP].  That was a small rant, but back to the point.


I entered my second/third grade homeroom class on one dull morning to find one of the third grade boys surrounded by an awestruck group of classmates twirling some keychain around his index finger.  I found myself caught in the midst of quite a dilemma.  I, too, really needed to check out this new toy, but I was challenged in the height department and not only was I the shortest student in the entire second grade, but I was stuck in a class filled with mostly third graders, which essentially made me a smurf, or more appropriately a leprechaun as I stood a whopping three-feet tall with flaming red locks.


Anyhow, back to this toy.  I finally squeezed my way through my classmates and got a good look at this...thing.  What was it?  It was called a Tamagotchi.  It was a Japanese made toy that was a keychain, which fit in the palm of your hand.  It had a small black and white screen and three little rubber buttons.  Now the tamagotchi was like an innovative, robotic baby doll.  Basically, you bought this tamagotchi and the second you turn it on it hatches from its egg.  And then this tamagotchi is your child.  The three buttons are for the three essential needs of life: food/drink, bathroom, and playtime.

Image by Nate Lanxon from http://crave.cnet.co.uk

So, basically what would happen is every few minutes your tamagotchi would need food.  You had to feed it or it would lose life.  If you neglected this tamagotchi it would die.  The tamagotchi would also leave you presents in the form of giant mounds of crap.  In hindsight this old school Japanese toy was effectively teaching us youngsters how incredibly demanding having children is.  The tamagotchi was extremely needy.

In fact, this electronic baby was so incredibly demanding of attention it became a mini-epidemic through the halls of the Fort.  I'm sure you can guess what happened after that third grader showed off his tamagotchi to the second and third graders.  If you're having trouble figuring it out: by lunch every elementary schooler was obsessed with the tamagotchi.  Thus, when each child got home to their parents that night he/she begged for the toy.


Come the following Monday and just about every elementary schooler was walking through the halls of the Fort with their eyes glued to their keychain child.  class time became disrupted as there were kids shooting their hands in the air every three minutes begging Miss Block to let them feed their tamagotchi. "Samara, we are in math class this is no time for toys." "But Miss Block!  My tamagotchi is my CHILD and he is going to DIE if I can't feed him!!!" This same conversation repeated itself endlessly throughout the week until they were officially banned from Fort Garrison Elementary.


And what happened next?  Well the cool kids ditched the original tamagotchi and upgraded to the Nano Baby [a tamagotchi on steroids with some more cool features].  Teachers beware!

Pogs

Well, I would first like to introduce myself.  I am Samara and I am new to the blogosphere.  [Hi, Samara.] Though I have read my fair share of blogs, here is my first attempt at originality.  My blog is somewhat of a trip down memory lane for those of you who, like me, grew up in the roaring 90s.  I am 21 years young and on the verge of graduating.  Throughout my school days I have experienced an array of different fads and items that were absolute "must haves," which leads me to my first topics.

Pogs.


Now, if you are not aware of what a pog is you probably didn't grow up in the 90s.  So let me explain.  A pog is a circular piece of cut out cardboard with a picture or color or word on its front [see above].  Everyone had pogs.  Throughout my young days as an elementary schooler if you didn't have pogs you either had truly awful parents or were living under a particularly large rock.


Anyhow, what was so great about pogs?  Well, here is the sheer mystery of it all...I have absolutely no idea what was or is so great about those circular cardboard cutouts.  But, what I do know is that I had around 5,000 pogs, set up in order of the prettiest to the ugliest in an enormous black binder and if anyone were to touch my pogs without permission, I was NOT a happy camper.


And I was not alone.  Just about every kid at good old Fort Garrison possessed an average of 1,000 pogs--boys and girls.  And the funniest part?  You ask any kid from the 90s if the had pogs they answer "Of course!"  Then you ask, "Wait, do you remember how to play?"  Not a single person will have any concrete memory because not a single person really knew how to play the game.  It involved pogs in a circle and a slammer?  For those of you who may not know, a slammer was the ultimate, or if you will, the king of the pogs.  The slammer was metal and had engraved or colorful designs on its front and was the "it" item.  Anyhow, the slammer was definitely used in the actual game of pogs, I am just not quite sure how.  It is possible you stack the pogs and throw the slammer, but really, I have no idea.


So I ask you readers out there...who the hell remembers how to play pogs??