Yes, it's terribly simple. The good guys are always stalwart and true, the bad guys are easily distinguished by their pointy horns or black hats, and, uh, we always defeat them and save the day. No one ever dies, and everybody lives happily ever after.

Giles ,'Conversations with Dead People'


The Crying of Natter 49  

Off-topic discussion. Wanna talk about corsets, duct tape, or physics? This is the place. Detailed discussion of any current-season TV must be whitefonted.


Connie Neil - Jan 17, 2007 8:24:51 am PST #3523 of 10001
brillig

I am not old enough to remember when it came out, but I am definitely old enough to remember when it was like 11:59:45 or some shit during the Reagan era. Not that it's a digital clock.

Oh, Christ, yes, I spent much of the '80s going, "Good god, what's that man going to do now? They've got nukes! We've got nukes! And he's got penile size issue that he's trying to solve with the military budget!"


sarameg - Jan 17, 2007 8:26:00 am PST #3524 of 10001

I mean, doesn't it just cause MORE drama by making people freak out about the state of the world that it measures?

Oh yeah, you weren't really around for the Cold War... It was all about the drama, by its definition. MAD, nuclear winter, banging shoe fights...


shrift - Jan 17, 2007 8:27:10 am PST #3525 of 10001
"You can't put a price on the joy of not giving a shit." -Zenkitty

Of course, in 10 more years, The Daily Show is going to be, like, News For Your Mom.

I'm so not ready to be uncool. Although I suspect I already am.


Jesse - Jan 17, 2007 8:27:50 am PST #3526 of 10001
Sometimes I trip on how happy we could be.

You're cool!


tommyrot - Jan 17, 2007 8:27:58 am PST #3527 of 10001
Sir, it's not an offence to let your cat eat your bacon. Okay? And we don't arrest cats, I'm very sorry.

MAD, nuclear winter, banging shoe fights...

Hot kitchens, pop songs about nuclear war....


P.M. Marc - Jan 17, 2007 8:28:12 am PST #3528 of 10001
So come, my friends, be not afraid/We are so lightly here/It is in love that we are made; In love we disappear

Dammit, our Academic Decathlon topic was the '80s.

::brain explodes::

This is as bad as having to explain WKRP to someone yesterday, when he thought we were talking about a real radio station.


megan walker - Jan 17, 2007 8:30:25 am PST #3529 of 10001
"What kind of magical sunshine and lollipop world do you live in? Because you need to be medicated."-SFist

I knew I was getting old when I discovered that I could no longer use The Breakfast Club as a shared cultural touchstone.

Sometimes these things slip when I'm teaching and it's always a sad OMG I'm old moment.

Luckily, teaching is also how I'm able defend all my current TV watching "because I have to relate to the young people."


§ ita § - Jan 17, 2007 8:30:47 am PST #3530 of 10001
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.

OMG now I feel really old.

Your adolescence? His history class.

What is Mutually Assured Destruction but lots and lots of sturm und drang? Did anyone have any plans for how they'd win that one? It was mostly not about losing first.

Okay, I need to go look up this guy in India who moved to a small village and taught the villagers how to install and maintain their own solar energy equipment so they could power the village and bring in computers and networking to link themselves electronically to the wider world. And now they are spreading that training, making technologically self-sufficient (okay, they're not making the stuff from scratch, but you get the point) powered communities one at a time.

I just can't remember his name...


tommyrot - Jan 17, 2007 8:31:32 am PST #3531 of 10001
Sir, it's not an offence to let your cat eat your bacon. Okay? And we don't arrest cats, I'm very sorry.

I just can't remember his name...

Jesus?


Jesse - Jan 17, 2007 8:34:00 am PST #3532 of 10001
Sometimes I trip on how happy we could be.

Your adolescence? His history class.

Yeah, thanks, gramma.

Hot kitchens, pop songs about nuclear war....

North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe