Technology of my Youth

These are a few of my favorite things!

Were you expecting a Christmas issue? Well, actually, you probably weren’t expecting anything… that’s mostly how I roll. Although there won’t be a specific Christmas issue, this is in the spirit of Christmas! Here are a few of my favorite things…

Growing up in the 2000’s meant that if you were a middle-class family, you had the most random pieces of technology ever made. I am not sure what was in the technological development air, but I feel like so many innovative and useless systems were created throughout the 90’s and that glorious first decade of the twenty-first century. I thought I would do a fun retrospective on most of the technology I owned and rented at some point in my childhood. We’re going to break it down into three distinct categories: video games, music and DVDs. One thing I won’t include here is toys. We definitely played with toys! There were dolls and play doh and robo-dogs and action figures a plenty, but I really wanted to focus on the pieces of technology that provided consistent entertainment. Those toys we outgrew pretty early on, but gaming, music and film/TV? Those are ~ forever ~.

I’ll try to go in chronological order of when we would have been using these gadgets, but God knows that will be impossible. My memory is good, but it isn’t that good! You’ll see this later in the newsletter, but my parents and my family in general were notorious for buying consoles at least two years after they came out. The main reason why is because it would undoubtedly become much cheaper once it was no longer new! We would also buy older consoles so we could be retro and play older games. So, literally, who knows when we actually played with anything? Just for my sanity, I’ll at least try and go in order of actual initial release. But when it comes to music, Godspeed. Because we held onto very old devices until they worked no longer. Without further ado, let’s get going!

Video Games

Sega Pico

I was a baby! I couldn’t possibly tell you what this device did. I assume that it is educational. I vaguely remember a Lion King story, but it really could have been any animated jungle narrative. Ultimately, I loved the color of the console, so there you go! Not much else to say about that!

Nintendo Consoles

Our love story with Nintendo started early. I’m pretty sure that my brother and cousin both had a Nintendo 64. My earliest memories of playing 64 was of a Mario Party game where one of the minigames consisted of a giant fish chasing you. I believe it was Mario Party 3. I would always lose. Moving on!

I know that my brother owned Super Mario 64 because I know the story of how he became no longer in possession of that game. I remember being terrified of the water level. Yes, the first water level that you only needed like three stars to unlock. The eel was deeply horrifying and deadly. Why did they make it look so scary even with such poor graphics? Thus began my controversial aversion to water. I can tell you that I have never liked a water level since!

Other games we owned were Glover, Pokémon Snap, Pokémon Puzzle League and Banjo Kazooie. Now, there is already so much to unpack here. Let’s start with Banjo Kazooie. I had no clue that Banjo Kazooie was even a popular game because of how bizarre it is! You have a bird and a bear who are best friends that go on an adventure because an evil witch kidnaps the bear’s little sister. I am sure there is more to that story, but who cares. I always had a blast playing that game because of the bright colors, being able to change into different creatures and freeing the little fairies whose names I forget! The levels were also quite fun -- the Christmas level and the treasure trove level are the ones that particularly stick out to me.

Now, I could never finish any of these games because I was like, 6, and my hand-eye coordination was quite terrible, but watching others play was just as fun! Glover is a game I still am very confused about to this day. You played as a glove that got cursed by a witch(?) and start to explore this incredibly zany world with your trusty ball that can also turn into other different balls/circular objects. Every time you dropped your ball, the most terrifying noise ever made would happen so, I tried not to do that. I only have vague pictures of the game in my head now, but I am remembering fighting a circus clown? What was that all about? Kid games were absolute NONSENSE lol And that’s obviously no disrespect to the video game developers, but, seriously, what were we playing??

Pokémon Puzzle League and Pokémon Snap were easy to get into since one was a glorified Tetris game and the other just involved taking pictures of Pokémon. Unfortunately, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention a boxing game that my brother owned that also scared the crap out of me. No, it wasn’t the violence of men punching each other in the face repeatedly. It was the announcer’s voice that haunts me to this day. Don’t ask. I just found him really creepy and hated hearing his voice, especially when he was counting down towards a knockout. The stuff of nightmares.

I knew that later on in our collective childhoods, we reacclimated ourselves to 64, playing games like Smash Bros and Star Fox 64. Smash Bros was a constant in our lives since we owned a version of the game on 64, GameCube and the Wii. More on that later. I am sure Star Fox 64 was exciting when it first came out and, trust me, I love doing a barrel roll as much as the next person, but I felt impeccably bored by that game as a whole. Flying in a ship the entire time just isn’t exciting to me. That one time when you got to play on land was the most thrilling part of the game for me. This is probably because I played the superior games of Star Fox Adventures and Star Fox Assault on GameCube prior to playing this game on 64.

If I were to speak honestly, the Nintendo GameCube is probably the most nostalgic piece of technology ever. My brother had a blue one (which I believe was the original color) and me and my sister eventually got a silver one. I still remember the epic start up screen that it would give you when you turned it on. Also, who doesn’t want a cubicle console?

Speaking of GameCube, my cousin was the owner of Star Fox Adventures, the greatest game of all time. I am only half joking because this game was very serious to me as a child. I know people thought it was a Legend of Zelda rip-off, but I would rather play Star Fox Adventures a hundred times than play any Legend of Zelda game… I am so sorry, Link stans. I just could never get into it! Star Fox Adventures had everything I ever wanted in a game… traveling through different worlds, using different weapons and modes of transportation, trusty sidekicks, puzzles, shops and more. One line of the game still rings in my ear. When you tried to buy an item you couldn’t afford, the shopkeeper would immediately say, “Put that down! You don’t have enough SCARABS!” The intonation is still so clear in my head.

But what I WILL say is that the Hyrule level on Super Smash Bros Melee slapped! It was one of my favorite levels to play on, as well as the Star Fox level. Two bonafide classics. In general, Melee was probably my favorite entry into the Super Smash Bros Universe. I always had a blast playing it. Here, I honed my skills for three specific characters: Kirby, Samus and Pikachu. If they had a lethal “Down-B” move, I was playing them! When I wanted to be a little spicy and play with a sword, I used Roy. His power was frequently unstoppable!

My favorite games to play on GameCube were Rocket Power, (Team Reggie!) NickToons Unite, (Danny Phantom supremacy!) Cubix Revolution, (remember the show?) Sonic Riders, (which I’m pretty sure we just rented and never returned to Blockbuster) Sonic Adventure 2 Battle, Sonic Heroes, Mario Party 5, F Zero GX, Turok Evolution, Luigi’s Mansion and Mario Power Tennis. I know… a lot of games! And I barely even mentioned half of them! Most of them were my brother’s. He also owned Tarzan Untamed, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Donkey Kong JungleBeat, Crash Tag Team Racing, and Spyro: A New Beginning. I had a Bratz Game (probably Bratz Forever Diamondz) that I beat in two days and a Teen Titans game that I beat in a week. Although I enjoyed the solo play of games like Rocket Power, Cubix, and Luigi’s Mansion, and the solo adventures in Melee and F Zero GX, multiplayer was always the way to go. I had the most fun playing multiplayer mode on Turok Evolution, F Zero GX and Super Smash Bros Melee. At some point, me and my sister had rented Mary-Kate and Ashley: Sweet 16 – Licensed to Drive. You couldn’t tell us that this wasn’t the best game of all time. We had SO much fun playing that dumb little game!

F Zero GX became my ultimate favorite racing game. I could never get into any of the Mario Karts to tell you the truth — probably because I would lose too much, but out of all of the Mario Karts, Mario Kart Double Dash on GameCube was my least favorite. I did enjoy Sonic Riders and Crash Tag Team Racing, but there was a little too much going on for me to be engaged with it for too long. I did mess with Kirby Air Ride, but because we only rented it once or twice, I was relegated to playing it at the local McDonald’s. If you’re confused, I am so sorry you weren’t able to experience the full breadth of the McDonald’s playscape.

Next on the Nintendo console docket is the Nintendo Wii. First of all… Wii Sports! They definitely ate with that! I feel like playing that game was my version of being active. Forget Wii fitness! (Although sometimes I would walk on it although I was fully capable of walking around my own neighborhood.) Wii Bowling was the star of the show. You couldn’t tell me anything — I was the best of the best at that game. Wii Tennis made me break a sweat for sure and frustrated the hell out of me. I don’t know, I just feel like sometimes it would cheat! Baseball was the most boring of all like… okay, I hit the baseball with a bat or I throw a pitch… right, okay… anything else? Nope! Wii Boxing was the most tiring of them all. Like, it was actually a full workout and I would start running out of breath before even finishing a match. Every time my mom told me to exercise, I am pretty sure I would play one round of boxing and many rounds of tennis and call it a day! I know Wii bundled their games but I don’t remember if our Wii also came with Mario Kart Wii and New Super Mario Bros. Wii. We definitely owned them, so I can only assume that they came with the console. I remember that dumb ass wheel accessory for Mario Kart Wii that we would fight over using. I also remember having an amazing time playing the New Super Mario Bros, like, work! What a fun way to bring that game to a new generation.

Our first real game on the Wii was the goated Super Mario Galaxy. I don’t know a better game. Except for, maybe, Super Mario Galaxy 2, which we also eventually got. Super Mario Galaxy was a game I could play by myself for hours, but it was also easy enough that a win felt attainable, which feels good as a kid! We, of course, also owned Super Smash Bros. Brawl. I kept my favorite character Kirby on my roster, but I pretty much retired Samus and Pikachu in favor of Pit, Mr. Game and Watch, and the ever-powerful Zelda. This time if I wanted a guy with a sword, I would play as Marth. Pit actually probably became my most played character in that game, like, I was OBSESSED with him! I remember we also had a Metroid game that I played semi-frequently. I beat Bratz The Movie in eight days… I’m sure there were other games as well that I simply don’t remember!

Nintendo Handheld Consoles

I am pretty sure one of my cousins (or both?) owned a Gameboy Color that I sometimes played. There was one of the Pokémon games (you know, the one named after colors or gems) and I vaguely remember playing an Elmo game where he was looking for his blankie. There was a DOUG game too that existed. What was the color of the Gameboy you ask? A critical question to answer! Well, I couldn’t even begin to tell you what color it was and I don’t really care to. Next!

I owned a Gameboy Advance that mysteriously went missing one day. It was a golden Pikachu one. I didn’t remember any of the games off the top of my head so I did a quick internet search of the top selling ones… I definitely owned a Pokémon game, a Super Mario Bros. World game, and a Kirby game. I believe I frequently borrowed my brother’s Donkey Kong Country game to play. And honestly, that’s really all I got!

Then, came a red Game Boy Advance SP. It took the same game cartridges as its predecessor. I remember being very excited by it having a built in light since I remember playing my Game Boy Advance under a table lamp. Pictures of some Brother Bear game, as well as one of the Final Fantasies pop into my head as well. I think I had to borrow whatever Final Fantasy Game I played because I only played it during family gatherings.

Finally, the Nintendo DS. A truly iconic handheld. The touch screen changed my life, along with the stylus. I know people loved to play Nintendogs, but that definitely wasn’t my ministry. I liked games based on movies so I remember having a HSM game and a Cheetah girls game. My brother owned Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games and Super Mario 64 DS that I would sometimes play as well. Eventually, my nana threw away my case of games when she cleaned my room, and I was never more upset in my entire life! I have since re-purchased a Nintendo DS and have really enjoyed playing all the random games I bought.

PC

I guess I am, in fact, old enough to remember dial-up internet? Is that what it was called when you couldn’t use the internet and be on the home phone at the same time? What a conundrum! Our home computer was in the corner of my parents’ room and boy o’ boy, did I play literally anything and everything. Spider Solitaire was my absolute favorite because it was easier than normal Solitaire. I also, of course, played Minesweeper and 3D Pinball. And that one game with the color matching marbles and the frog that I couldn’t find the name of.

Of course, I used the internet to play games as well. On Disney, Nick, TeenNick, Y8, Cartoon Network, Millsberry and all the other classic kids’ gaming sites. But that, my friend, deserves a newsletter of its own.

I also must mention the PC games at my local library. In the kids’ section, we had those old school Mac computers loaded with games on it. There was an Arthur game and some game called Bugdom that I was simply obsessed with.

Miscellaneous Consoles

There were, of course, other consoles that were a part of my growing up. My dad was the owner of a PS2 that lived in my parents’ room. I remember playing a single game… a Pacman game. It was either the second or third Pac-Man World. Otherwise, my dad would just play football. I’m not going to lie… the concept of the PlayStation pissed me off. Because why are the buttons SHAPES? Gaming isn’t geometry, like, what the hell is going on here?

My brother owned an Xbox which somehow ended up being life-changing for me. He used it both for music and gaming. Halo is probably the single game that had the most impact on me growing up. There was something about the world it created that was eye-opening for me. It didn’t feel real like Call of Duty, so there was something kind of enchanting, challenging and thrilling about it. I loved every chance I got to play it and blast some aliens away. I also remember being quite fond of a Star Wars game and a James Bond game: Star Wars Clone Wars and To Russia With Love, respectively.

As I alluded to before, the Xbox also played CDs. There were these Christian rappers that we bought CDs for at a gospel concert. I believe their names were Richie Righteous and Shabach. Flip the Channel by Richie Righteous had a particular chokehold on me. Another album I remember is Turning Point by the iconic Mario. It featured the singles Let Me Love You, How Could You, Here I Go Again, and Boom. I also appreciated the intro track 18, who I assumed would be aimed at Usher, who was seven years his senior and released his record-breaking album, Confessions nine months earlier. Well, since we fully transitioned to music…

Music

A lot of my music technology comes from my father who is a DJ. So, I would inherit a lot of his older stuff. One of his devices was a Walkman, probably a relatively newer version. It could play the radio and also played cassette tapes. When I went to a glorified summer school between fifth grade and sixth grade, I would listen to the radio on the Walkman since the bus driver refused to turn it on. It was the summer of 2009 and Michael Jackson had just died. Hot 93.7 was playing tracks like Every Girl, Best I Ever Had, Crack a Bottle, Knock You Down, Down, (Jay Sean) Break Up, (Mario) I Need A Girl, Obsessed, Fire Burning, Throw It in the Bag and more! I had a grand old time on that bus!

It is also worth noting that at some point, I had a hot pink ipod nano - fourth generation. I couldn’t possibly remember what songs I had on there… not even if I tried. Before my ipod nano, I had an mp3 player that had 13 pre-loaded songs that I never listened to. I believe it could only hold like thirty songs in total. The change in music capacity over time is absolutely major.

My mom had an iPod classic that as far as I’m aware could hold like 30,000 songs? Which is soooo many! It was full of Mary J. Blige, Babyface, Ne-Yo and gospel realness.

My sister had a karaoke machine that played CDs. We shared a room so she would terrorize me with No One by Alicia Keys and the That’s So Raven Too album! Shine is still a hit, no matter what they say.

I also owned a small radio/CD player and one of my favorite memories is listening to Take Care to fall asleep at night. The beginning of Over My Dead Body still rings in my head until this day. And then, when I was sad, I would pop 21 into that bad boy. I literally just let it sit on my bed and turned the volume real low.

My dad would also lend me his portable CD player. I loved the focus of only having the option to listen to one album at a time when you’re on the go. A brief digression: Burning CDs?? Remember that??? That used to be very fun. I should have burned so many more CDs in my lifetime so I could create physical playlists of my favorites! It would have been like a glorious time capsule of what songs I was listening to at a given time.

Eventually the parade of various cellular devices I owned became my mp3 player. I would download songs from YouTube and other downloading sites I won't shout out here.

DVDs

TV and film were definitely a large part of our lives. I know there is a lot of criticism of parents who allow their children to watch too much TV instead of playing outside or whatever, but I don’t know, I feel like I turned out fine and still excelled in school, even if I watched hours of television a day! A big part of this experience of watching film and tv was renting and owning DVDs. My dad’s closet was full of them. And in the times we did not have cable television, it was my saving grace. We had the entire series of Martin and we would play that DVD out. Well, I should say we would watch the Season 3 DVD specifically, as that is the best season of Martin and I won’t be taking any other opinions of this.

We also owned The Wiz on DVD, which was really my only exposure to any Wizard of Oz property for a while. You Can’t Win is one of the greatest songs ever made. The movie I probably re-watched the most is Rush Hour 2. We eventually got the entire trilogy on DVD, but for years and years, it was just Rush Hour 2. It is the best Rush Hour after all. I can probably be one of those annoying people that quote the entire movie to you. Carter singing Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough is burned into my brain as well as so many other moments in the movie.

I’ll list some of the other DVDs I remember owning below:

Dreamgirls

The Players Club

Brown Sugar

Breakin’ All The Rules

Fat Albert

High School Musical 2 (all mine)

Freaky Friday (Sister’s)

Hitch

The Lizzie McGuire Movie (??? I think???)

Spider Man 2

How the Grinch Stole Christmas

Rihanna: Good Girl Gone Bad Tour (mine)

Rihanna: Loud Tour (mine)

Rihanna: 777 (Mine)

Can you tell I was a Rihanna fan? I bought these DVDs of my own volition and my most-watched was Good Girl Gone Bad. I especially loved the Rehab performance and her cover of Is This Love?

One of the biggest parts of my childhood was watching Michael Jackson: History on Film. It was part of the reason me and my siblings were such huge Michael Jackson fans that could not stop singing his songs. It was a double disc: Side 1 was music videos of his greatest hits including Thriller, Billie Jean, Beat It and Smooth Criminal. Volume 2 was music videos from his HIStory album including You Are Not Alone, Stranger in Moscow, Earth Song, Scream and They Don’t Care About Us. Notably, Side One had his legendary Motown 25 performance as well as his iconic 1995 MTV Video Music Awards performance. So, it was impossible to not know him as the greatest performer who ever lived. Side Two also had Blood on the Dance Floor, which I think effectively introduced me to what sexuality is. Like, I don’t know, you just had to be there. I also must mention how serious Earth Song was to me and my siblings. Like, we went crazy every time that came on: the passion, the angst, the RAGE, it was all there! I counted a jam out session to Earth Song as exercise! Because it was!

We also owned the Michael Jackson: Live in Bucharest DVD. It was a filmed version of The Dangerous Tour. You couldn’t pay me to know why he decided to film it in Bucharest. You could barely pay me to tell you where Bucharest is. For many years, I thought it was in Budapest, and then I found out that Budapest, in fact, isn’t a country, but the capital of Hungary and that Bucharest is the capital of Romania… (I did type this fully hoping I was right and then went to check my work later. Thank God for my memory.) The crowd was insane and of course, Michael Jackson was known for having people faint. Of course, me with an older eye, knew that this was probably just folks collapsing from heat exhaustion and dehydration, as they were probably standing for hours and quite unwell, but little me was IMPRESSED. Like all he had to do was appear and people were losing their MINDS. Before he even opened his mouth to sing! This was a true performer, the best of all time! Anyways, although I still probably hate his live rendition of Workin’ Day and Night, as I am pretty sure it lasted for forty days and forty nights, I still remember fondly his performance of She’s Out of My Life. That taught me a lot about emoting, for sure.

My nana also owned a few DVDs, which reminded me of the concept of DVD GAMES. You know, sometimes DVDs had games and special features on them related to the movie! I vaguely remember an Incredibles game! But I also had a blast playing the Deal or No Deal on DVD. Yes, I was also a game show child. Watching Deal or No Deal was one of my favorite pastimes. PLAYING Deal or No Deal was excellent. I am pretty sure my nana owned Johnson’s Family Vacation featuring Cedric the Entertainer, Vanessa Williams, Bow Wow, Solange and a lesser known (at the time) Jason Momoa. This movie is so important to me. I was shocked to find how awfully low its score on Rotten Tomatoes is since it is actually the greatest movie ever made. The scene of them throwing the CDs out of their car based on who got shot will never fail to make me laugh.

Earlier in our life, we’d also rent DVDs from the library. That’s how my dad would watch The Wire and how me and my sister would watch every Mary Kate and Ashley movie ever made. I remember explicitly watching The Challenge film again and again and again and again. I love that they wanted to make sure we knew that it was filmed in Mexico. The concept, from what I can understand, is essentially a teen version of Survivor? I’ve never seen Survivor, but I think it has those vibes! The library is also probably how I watched Cinderella III: A Twist In Time, the best Disney movie ever made. I’m sure we also rented That’s So Raven or Hannah Montana on DVD at some point.

Later in life, I owned The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 and The Fault In Our Stars, the quintessential high school movies lol

I am also pretty sure we had a few things on VHS, like, Barney’s Great Adventure (I used to think this was the greatest film ever made) and Scooby Doo on Zombie Island. I remember my cousins having the orange VHS tape of Rugrats In Paris. Ah. The simple things in life. All in all, of these material things shaped me as a person! It shaped the way I watch media, my taste, my sense of humor, and more. I might have been addicted to a screen, but it helped form my perspective of the world around me. And for that, I am eternally grateful.

Well, this was fun going back down memory lane! What was your favorite piece of technology from your childhood? Recognize anything I mentioned here? Let me know!