Then and Now

I am not old yet, I would say that I am in my prime years.

Nevertheless, when I was little boy growing up, my favorite television shows were Flinstones, Ultraman, Semut Hitam. A little older was Thundercats, Jetsons, well, you get the drift. I grew up at a time when the Donny and Marie Show, Dallas, Rockford Files were the top shows on the tele. I loved watching M.A.S.H., I enjoyed Mind Your Language, Mork and Mindy, Space 1999, Lost in Space, Manimal etc. My favorite "reality" game show on TV was Telematch and it taught all of us in that era some German ... well at least to count from one to five.

I do not watch the tele much nowadays, but I still enjoy shows like House, CSI, Chuck. Cartoons have now evolved into anime and a big following of anime. Cartoons like Naruto, Yu-gi-oh, Dragon Ballz, Sailor Moon etc etc.

Interesting that I use evolve for anime. Anime was first started in Japan in 1930's by animators like Osamu Tezuku who were influenced and inspired by Disney's early features like Snow White. Osamusan simplified the techniques to reduce costs as well as reduce number of frames thus allowing for quicker time to process and market.

Even Ultraman now is so high tech.

Certain things in life move so fast like lightning, apart from an example above of cartoons. Look at the way computers have evolved. As a young boy, I remembered seeing the first computer in my dad's office, it was an Atari.

My first personal computer was a 286, right now, it would be difficult to explain what a 286 could do. My RAM was 8MB and I had a 256MB hard disk. Imagine that? My current computer has a 3GB RAM and a 200GB hard disk.

And yet somethings never change. When growing up, I thought for sure by now i.e. 2008, I would be able to travel in space easily and cheaply. Obviously that has not happened.

I also thought that we would have cars and vehicles that were significantly more advanced, i.e. like Jetsons, and obviously that has not happened.

I also thought that people would be wasting less and re-using more and recycling the rest, but that too has not happened.

I thought flying to New York will be done in matter of seconds . . . beam me up style.

I thought we would evolve to do what we enjoy without having to worry about the need for money, food or sustenance . . . again Star Trek inspired.

Despite many vast improvements and changes, there are vast areas where the changes have been slow.

Nevertheless, I still enjoy playing live games i.e. Ultimate Frisbee, Table Tennis, Swimming, Basketball, Squash rather than the computer versions of these games. I myself have never been into computer games but I am always intrigued.

I was hoping for computer games to evolve Ala Star Trek style as well, go to a room and get the computer to create any environment and game to your liking.

Nevertheless, I am living a good life, my forefathers lived a good life and my grandchildren will lead a good life . . . different lives, but all good.

A little trivia, so please do response : Which is the most distributed and most played computer game ever?

Take care and be well.