in my day...

some things from childhood that are so much better than now, and cause me to pity the children of today that have to put up with such ridiculousness...

telletubbies - tubby custard you could buy at the supermarket which tasted awesome (pink yogurt, anyone?), the blue vacuum cleaner that looked like an elephant, characters whose vocabulary extended beyond 'booobahhh' and who weren't morbidly obese, rather, just cutely chubby. and, they embraced homosexuality (tinky winky, enough said), and they had a live and extremely cute laughing baby for a sun.

while we're on the subject of television, we actually had good tv shows, such as johnson and friends, arthur, hey arnold, the ferrals, george and martha, the ORIGINAL rugrats and many more. now what do they have? ben ten? as if that compares to SAILOR MOON or the adrenalini brothers. also, the occasional pointless but totally original cow parade, in which they sang 'mamini mamini mamini moo, maaah, meeeh, moo!'

outdoor activities. from building cubby houses that fell down within 5 minutes, to bikes and scooters, and drawing with chalk on the footpath. endless hours of exposure to vitamin D and other good things. plus, we made heaps of friends. nowadays, it's playstation, government-approved playgrounds (read, plastic boxes a foot above the ground and monkey bars that are extremely stiff) and kiddie laptops featuring franklin the turtle and dora the explorer all the way.

cool food, like cheezles you wore like rings, and those freakish cheese sticks that melted in your lunchbox and stuck to the wrapper, and dunkaroos. now its all processed, colour-free, fat-free, flavour-free and taste-free. why not just feed your kids packing foam?

while i am not advocating super-unhealthy food that makes kids fat and sick, what has happened to happy meals? the whole point of a happy meal from mickey-dee's when you were a kid was that it made you HAPPY, because it was a treat to be allowed to eat skinny fries saturated in deep-fried salty goodness, and chicken nuggets that we later found out were made from rabbit, and watered-down cups of coke filled to the top with ice. not to mention the super-junky but awesome in our eyes toy that came with the meal. in present times, chips have become apple slices, nuggets are weird shaped pasta with stuff inside, and fizzy drinks that make kids go nuts for an hour and then crash are strange juices. why not just make that stuff at home? the point of a happy meal was that parents don't have to cook, and kids get a break from broccoli and mashed potato. if you're going to feed your kid a 'healthy' happy meal, you're better off making a trip to safeway.

and that's all i got for now, but yes. i can safely say, my childhood rocked. the end.