things you really miss

[JamesC]

Getting the Xmas Radio Times (for BBC) and TV Times (for ITV) and looking for all the good films that were coming on telly.
Even more exciting after we got a video and could record them and keep them forever!

[shaolin_monkey]

I miss being able to stuff my face and it having no impact on my weight whatsoever. Every chip I eat these days seems to instantly add five pounds.

I also miss Star Wars on telly on Xmas Day. Thankfully Star Wars is coming back this Xmas to our cinemas! Here's hoping watching it isn't the equivalent of excitedly opening a prezzie and finding a sweater knitted for you by your Grandma.

[DaveGYNWA]

I miss being able to bend over suddenly without my back making loud cracking noises.

- timely, considering that when I got up off the floor earlier both my knees not only clicked loudly but also screamed "oh for the love of humanity". Wasn't helped when my youngest jumped on my back for a jockey ride.

[JayzusB.Christ]

and then I remember that I was miserable and kinda introverted and lonely for the majority of my teens and early twenties, and I'm infinitely happier and better-off now

Preshishely. Middle age is all about feeling how you used to look,  and looking like you used to feel.  (You can have that one for nowt.)

[Skullmo]

Having a flat belly no matter how much beer I drank. Raving on dance floors. The feeling that life would get better and better. Having said all that, I think I'm generally happier now.

I know what you're saying. I often get all misty-eyed about the past and feel envious of the young, and then I remember that I was miserable and kinda introverted and lonely for the majority of my teens and early twenties, and I'm infinitely happier and better-off now!

Im still miserable, and I cant drink without getting fat! FML!

[JamesC]

Amusement arcades.
Growing up in Great Yarmouth it was a real thrill to go up the sea front at the beginning of the season and try out all the new arcade games. The first time I played the hydraulic Space Harrier was mind blowing (but it was a bit pricey at 30p a go!)
The arcades are still there but it's all prize cranes, ticket games and fruit machines these days.

[Theblazeuk]

I miss Mary Jane being married to Spiderman and I miss the Legion of Superheroes as written by Dan Abnett. I miss caring about Superman and Batman and the Flash and a whole host of supporting characters. I miss feeling like the DCU and the Marvel universe were real places.

[Pyroxian]

Amusement arcades.
Growing up in Great Yarmouth it was a real thrill to go up the sea front at the beginning of the season and try out all the new arcade games. The first time I played the hydraulic Space Harrier was mind blowing (but it was a bit pricey at 30p a go!)
The arcades are still there but it's all prize cranes, ticket games and fruit machines these days.

Definitely this...

Also pinball machines in pubs.

[Dandontdare]

pinball yes - I became a master on Pinbot back in the late 80s but then one by one they vanished from pubs. In Manchester the only place I know that still has one is the geek-bar Fab Cafe, but I haven't been in for a while so that may be gone too.

As a kid on seaside holidays in the 70s me and my brothers were always given 10p in pennies to spend in the arcades, and this did for 10 goes, more if you won (or five if you favoured the tuppenny waterfall).

I remember blagging 10p off my mum to play Space Invaders at a motorway service station back in the day- I wasn't very good and it was over quickly and my mum was absolutely outraged at the waste of money.

[shaolin_monkey]

I remember blagging 10p off my mum to play Space Invaders at a motorway service station back in the day- I wasn't very good and it was over quickly and my mum was absolutely outraged at the waste of money.

Space Invaders was the very first arcade game I ever played, in a now long gone record shop on Roseburn Terrace in Edinburgh.  There was a massive crowd around it, as arcade games were a huge novelty back then.  I lined my 10p up on the screen next to countless others, and waited a good hour for my turn.

As I put my ten pence in I could hear someone say 'Ah, children pick up this stuff quickly - this kid'll be good I reckon'.

I lasted thirty seconds tops, and left the record store totally red-faced.  However, despite the humiliation, it set me on my life-long obsession with video games.

[ThryllSeekyr]

Amusement arcades.
Growing up in Great Yarmouth it was a real thrill to go up the sea front at the beginning of the season and try out all the new arcade games. The first time I played the hydraulic Space Harrier was mind blowing (but it was a bit pricey at 30p a go!)
The arcades are still there but it's all prize cranes, ticket games and fruit machines these days.

We still have them, but all the cheap or otherwise good closed down and replaced by clothing/jewelry boutiques and the only one left have a assortment of crappy games that only run on tokens and there, not good value for money and also I don't know how these work. So I don't bother. Last time I checked that place out was new-eve years ago.

We used to have one in the local town, not city. That was on a street corner no replaced by a arts and craft shop.

Remember games like Golden-Axe and it's scifi spin-off.

Double-Dragon and it's few clones.

Karnov

Teenage-Mutant-Ninja-Turtles that was introduce prior to the original film and along with the cartoon series.

Remember the large one with robot or cyborg Ninjas on a triple-screen. It was huge, this one.

Shinobi

R-Type

Then a few years later, when I moved away from home to live with people I knew closer to the city, we played the sequel to Golden Axe and this fighting game that was one of the many spin-off's of Street-Fighter (And Samurai Showdown called Time-Killers where you had some well known characters from folklore, history (King Arthur!) and science-fiction (Orion. There was this Cave-Man, Samurai, some women with Cybernetic enhancements, a purple-chitinous insectoid alien and the mo-hawked-street punk wielding a chain-saw.

Rancid was his name!

The thing that set this game apart from the other was the chance to sever your opponents limbs, (Only the arms and it this weaken them  as they still would kick and head-butt you and then severing their head that would finish full stop. Many a time there was, when you might still win the battle after losing both your arms or mutual decapitations.....

I once completed the game with the above character, but only once and because a friend of mine who had purchased the machine brand new for his small time business of hiring them out to shops and functions. 

While in the city, a few years later, there was Virtual-Cop, Virtual-Fighter, ()ne of the first three 3D fighting games!)  a whole series of Mortal Combat games that have only survived on todays console's and Killer-Instinct. Of which I almost purchased a earlier console just to play it when it got ported to one! There was the official Dungeons and Dragon game that could up to four player, I think. That one was good. Although, it was clearly inspired by Golden-Axe or vice-versa.

Other games worth remembering......

The original Aliens Vs the Predator Even though everybody hated the film franchise of the same names.

Out-Run the sports car game that paved way for racing games of today and that well known Star-Wars game using vector graphics. X-Wings vs Tie-Fighters and then the trench run at the Death-Star.

That was game many fans enjoyed and first saw that one at a place called Grundy's on the Gold-Coast in the place where all the high-rises were, right in the mall. It's no longer there, I think. Not the last time I checked. But it was big about 30 yrs earlier.   

[JayzusB.Christ]

I was a huge fan of pretty much every one of the first batch you mention, TS; ensconced as they were in the not-so-secret back room of the unscrupulous Mrs Kellett's shop (single cigarettes for kids and forged notes for mitching school a speciality. She would also plug out Wonder Boy if you were doing too well, business being business).

Rock on, Mrs Kellett: Little old lady on the outside, punk as fuck inside.

[JamesC]

What was Mr Kellet up to? Probably doing some porridge.

[8-Ball]

I miss bunking off school in my study period (last thing on a Thursday) to nip into town and buy all my favourite sci-fi mags. Cult Times, Dreamwatch, TV Zone etc. Bliss. Even better, I could get three and still have enough change from a tenner to get the bus home. Those were great days.

I also miss the love of a good woman but that's another story for a different topic. 

[shaolin_monkey]

I miss being given use of a wee storeroom by the art room to work in, and being able to take a nap on school time. I sure as hell cant do that in work. I miss afternoon naps.