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Take a stroll down memory lane to the time you were young and video games were the reason you dashed home from school. How many of these 20 games did you play on your NES, SNES, or Genesis? See them all in their original animated glory at Unreality magazine. Link
I once referred to the candy bar as Peter Paul’s Almond Joy and my kids thought I was crazy. But that’s what the candy was called when I learned to love it! You’ll see all kinds of sweets that were sold a half-century ago in the 1949 NWCA Candy Salesman Book. Link -via the Presurfer
How well do you remember the TV game shows of the 1980s and ’90s? Find out by taking this Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss. Hint: there are a lot of kids’ game shows represented. I was lucky to score 60% because I haven’t watched them. Maybe you will do better! Link
This just made my day like you don’t even know. Nickelodeon has announced that they’re bringing back all of your favorite Nick Shows from the ’90s- I’m talking Clarissa Explains It All, The Adventures of Pete & Pete, Salute Your Shorts, Are You Afraid of the Dark? and Ren & Stimpy – in a midnight to 4 a.m. block called “The ’90s Are All That.” It’s kind of like a PG Adult Swim, right? It starts on July 25th.
Here’s a complete list of the shows, which is thrilling except for one glaring omission: where’s Hey Dude?
Link via The Daily What
Surge hasn’t been sold in ten years. These 40 things will make you feel old (assuming you’re not young in which case you won’t get these references which in turn will make the rest of us feel old.)
I don’t know about you guys, but ever since I got a digital camera, I’ve never looked back. Film is so unpredictable, expensive and the limited quantities are always frustrating. That being said, there is something comforting, artistic and nostalgic about photography using film -the same thing that made so many people carry a soft spot for Polaroids years after they became impractical.
Maybe that’s why I’m so fascinated with this awesome post on Photojojo that shows you 20 different ways to use a disposable film camera and end up with something wonderful. My favorite project is the one pictured above. Apparently, if you tape two of the cameras together at just the right angle and take a photo with them simultaneously, you can superimpose them together to create a 3D image. Pretty cool, right?
And that’s not the only hack worth messing about with. Some of the other tricks involve damaging the lens or film, which can result in a surprisingly artistic or nostalgic look depending on how you do it. Another great suggestion is the idea of putting a colored or patterned filter in front of the lens or flash in order to add a little excitement to an otherwise mundane shot.
The ideas are so cool that I’m inspired to grab a disposable camera and try out my luck with their suggestions. Have any of you tried this hacks or discovered your own methods to enhance your disposable pics?
Now that Generation X is moving into middle age, they are leading a resurgence of the game Dungeons & Dragons. The game that “taught millions of geeks to socialize, empathize, level-up (in game and in real life) and emerge from the dungeons of their solitude to tell heroic stories” is being taught to second generation players and celebrated by those who grew up with it -and who credit the game with helping them to grow up.
Looking at PlaGMaDA, I remember how D&D taught me to love maps and hand-draw them myself. In that trove of old gear I found at middle age, I had discovered my beloved backdrops for heroic stories and imaginary derring-do: the Craggy Hills, the Untreaded Lands, the Lorsearch Plains. Mountains called Ramen-Nashew I’d painstakingly scribed with a blue quill pen. Here, an evil wizard’s lair etched in Magic Marker. There, an underground labyrinth guarded by traps and monsters, with rooms numbered from 1 to 37, which I had drawn on aqua-lined graph paper, now smudged, almost sepia-tinged with age.
But by playing RPGs (role-playing games), I was not only teaching myself shoddy draftsmanship. I also learned to be confident and decisive, and to feel powerful. Even feel cocky. Some of the guts and nerve I role-played began to leak into the real world. By the time I graduated high school, I had transformed. I had used escapist fantasy to gather strength for later, when I was ready to come out of my shell. In this sense, the wave of nostalgia I’ve felt also springs from a desire to pay tribute to D&D. To thank the game for the gifts of creativity and self-actualization it bestowed upon us.
Author Ethan Gilsdorf relates his experiences and those of others in this article at Salon. Link -via TYWKIWDBI
From the folks who brought us Growing Up Heroes comes another nostalgia blog, this one dedicated to Halloween. You are invited to submit photographs of your childhood Halloween costumes, and enjoy pictures of trick-or-treat long ago. Personally, I don’t see this adorable Ewok from 1985 as “long ago”, but there are pictures from different eras as well. Link
I’m Remembering is a blog of “Pop-Culture Nostalgery From The 80′s & Early 90′s.” That seems like just yesterday to me, but if it was the period of your childhood, you’ll enjoy the photographs, toys, TV shows, and other blasts from the past. Link
This article takes a look back at 8 of our most famous vintage toys, what they looked like in the beginning and how they were created. Includes looks at baseball cards, comic books, Hot Wheels and Pez dispensers.
Matchbox cars were started in 1953 by British toy company Lesney Products. Co-owner Jack Odell created the idea for the tiny cars because his daughter was only allowed to bring toys to school if they could fit in a matchbox.
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by pholley.
The computer generation has become nostalgic. The blog How I Met Your Motherboard collects photographs and stories from the days before computer nerds ran the world. Consider the memories Laura has of 1984.
Along with the ZX Spectrum, my parents had also presented us with a selection of computer games. Loading them was an undertaking in itself: each fed into a cassette player, its buttons held down with thumb-numbing force, while the tape whirred and spluttered and made a sound that may be roughly transposed as chkeeewschyrrrrrfffffllychkxduhuhftttt. My brother had three games: a vampire adventure named Transylvanian Tower, a treasure hunt called Espionage Island and a complicated programme that followed the process of evolution. For me, there was a solitary cassette, a numeracy aid named Count About. I cannot deny that I was at that age rather muddled by mathematics, but it only added to my sense of dismay that my computer time would involve assisting a badly graphicked monkey clamber up a tree to collect a specified number of coconuts.
You can contribute your own memories to the collection. Link -Thanks, Jason!
A funny look at 10 of the weirdest and also the most awesome book covers for the ’80s book series, Choose Your Own Adventure.
Yes, AWESOME! I don’t see how the story could live up to the bad ass title and cover but I give Jay Leibold credit for totally going there. A cyborg that is also a ninja. This exists and it is bad ass. Question: Am I the ninja cyborg or am I fighting the ninja cyborg? Points taken away if I’m fighting the ninja cyborg, but points given back if I’m also a bad ass ninja master. Who’s the dude in the blue tights in the background?
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by pholley.
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If you are a sucker for nostalgia, this will make your day. I can remember getting that amazing trio of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Super Soakers, and then a Gameboy. In fact, those would still make great gifts for grown men with a penchant for walks down memory lane.
The holiday shopping season is quickly descending upon us, which means this year’s more popular toys and consumer electronics are soon to become in increasingly high-demand. In recent memory, the Sony Playstation III, Beanie Babies, and of course, the Tickle-Me-Elmo have generated a considerable amount of hype – quickly selling out, and then establishing a re-sale market. But have you ever wondered what the “it toys” have been throughout the decades? We have; and as a result, we decided to compile a time-line which illustrates the top toys from the last 50 years. Here they are, the most popular Christmas toys since 1960.
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by jadalan.
Why do old people think life was great in their younger days? Science finds out the answer: our brain remembers the good stuff and forgets the bad ones!
Report author Professor Roberto Cabeza, from Duke University, North Carolina, United States, said: "Older people have learned to be less affected by negative information in order to maintain their well being and emotional state.
"They may have sacrificed more accurate memory for a negative stimulus, so that they won’t be so affected by it. Perhaps at different stages of life, there are different brain strategies.
"Younger adults might need to keep an accurate memory for both positive and negative information in the world.
"Older people dwell in a world with a lot of negatives, so perhaps they have learned to reduce the impact of negative information and remember in a different way."
