Lord Gonchar

Probably not the place or subject to get into this, but the internet really is amazing. You can find everything somewhere on the internet.

I always laugh with my mom because back in the day, if you didn’t know something, you just didn’t know it. End of story. If you needed information and no one had it – no matter how meaningful or trivial – you just never knew unless you found a way to find the information…and even then it wasn’t very efficient a lot of the time. Most of the time you just ended up taking the word of someone who you thought might know what they were talking about and hoped to remember to look up the answer sometime at the library or something.

Made me think of this:

Google circa 1960

Not just info, but memories. I can’t even begin to list the things I’d forgotten that someone else remembered and I rediscovered online. Old toys, old shows, old moments. Old hazy memories brought back to life. Which leads me to the point of this post.

I was just thinking of old concerts I’d been to (courtesy of a Facebook post by a friend) and one thing led to another and I dug out some old tickets I had saved. Among them was this:

Christ. I was just a kid in 1992…living 1200 miles away from all that I knew. The school of life. (smile)

But I remember going to that KISS show. That was the year the Revenge album came out and, quite frankly, the tune “Unholy” kicked serious ass. It’s still one of my favorite Kiss songs. The arena was only about half full because across town at Bayfront Park MTV was doing a Headbanger’s Ball show with Megadeth and that was admittedly WAY cooler. But damn it, I wasn’t going to hear Unholy at that show. I went with the KISS tickets.

So one a whim, I searched “KISS Miami 1992″

Turns out the entire show is on YouTube.

How fucking insane is that? Something that was the distant memory of a practically different kid almost half my life ago is right there for me to see again. Fucking nuts.

This is what I paid to see. It loses some edge at that tempo (a hair too fast) and Paul is doing his queer little dance moves to one of the darkest songs they do, but that’s what I came to see.

Meh. Maybe I should’ve gone with the Headbanger’s Ball tickets.

Then again, that video isn’t online. (I don’t think)

The generational thing has always interested me. What makes us different than our parent or grandparents or our children? What events shape our general attitudes and outlook? That sort of thing.

This article is a fun one as we’re starting to look past Generation Y and their shitty sense of entitlement (kidding…kinda) to the younger kids.

Seems like just yesterday I was reading about how Gen X (that’s me and my peers) were unaffected, cynical, slackers with no sense of work ethic. Well, in hindsight, we know that turned into a sense of individualism, a realistic outlook and an adaptability (flexibility?) that’s uniquely ours. (Maybe there is hope for those spoiled-ass Y’ers yet?) And now the people who study, follow and try to quantify such things are looking to my children.

I thought it was a neat read, but then again, it’s an area that fascinates me. If had had gone into a field of study, it certainly would have been something along these lines. I’ve always been interested in what makes people different (and alike) based on generation or geographical location or income or whatever.

I also really enjoy a good donut.

I finally got my hair cut today. I’m officially old. I was hating the ‘longer’ length that 7 months of growth put on my head. Seems like forever ago that I was a crazy longhair.

Also hit 30 pounds on the weight loss front. That puts me at X+29. Two pounds to reach my second goal point and then I can look ahead to my third and final goal of X+17 (give or take – I’d be ok settling anywhere from X+15 to X+20)

Kings Island tomorrow evening. Cedar Point on Sunday.

I SO wanted one of these when I was a kid. Never did get one. Come to think of it, I didn’t know anyone who had one of these. I wonder how much they cost back in the day? I’ll have to look into that sometime.

(video link – if you were reading my blog you’d see the embedded video)