It's official—I'm old · 11:37am Oct 15th, 2014
Hello my readers marvelous and munificent!
My birthday—which is today, alas—has sneaked up on me and now—to my shock, horror, and consternation—I am officially Old[1]. I no longer know what the kids (who I would certainly want off my lawn, if I had one) are into these days[2], and when I try to explain things to them—my day job is teaching—I use confusing old man analogies[3].
Pity me, o Fimfiction, for I am in my twilight years!
Sorry. I just felt like writing an overwrought birthday lament. I like a bit of contrast, me. Though my students do in fact consider me only marginally younger than the Sun. They have that curious zoomed-in view of age that undergrads seem to have where everyone over twenty-five or so is impossibly ancient and of roughly the same (impossibly vast) age.
I was going to write you guys a little story as a present but work interfered. Still, it's high on the priority list and it'll be around as a chapter in OD sooner or later. Well unless my pre-readers go green and throw up when I show it to them. Which is a possibility.
[1] For the purposes of this blog post, 'old' is twenty-eight years.
[2] Okay, okay, I never did, granted, but still... Besides, the concept of 'Whatsapp' had to be explained to me recently and when I described it as 'So, basically Skype? Or Viber?" I got a 'You don't get it old man.' look. First of, I'm sure, many.
[3] Apparently this generation's CS students are young enough that they don't remember what an AGP slot was. And they also appear not to play video games. At all. What use they put their computers to is a bit of a mystery, because it certainly isn't programming, either.
Snuck up on me, too. I totally forgot.
To be fair, though, that means my birthday is coming up in a couple weeks, too, and I've also almost totally forgotten about that one, too. Stupid school. I wonder how much else I may have been forgetting.
Yes, you whippersnappers, you have senility and dementia to look forward to before long. Pity the old, like Ghost and I. (Not least because he has a secret project to convert your pity into the power source for a nanotech immortality treatment.)
Happy birthday!
Happy birthday! Remember, you're only as old as you feel, and short-sighted CS students can't change that.
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Wow. I even forgot to say "Happy Birthday".
It's obviously a long, downhill spiral after this...
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That would be my secret project to convert your memories into the power source for a nanotech immortality treatment.
Wait until you see the number '40' starting back at you from your profile page. Then you'll feel old.!
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Nooo!
I'd be getting flashbacks to the second Neverending Story movie now, except that my memories are being drained away.
Twenty eight is old? Pfffffft.
Pfffffffffftttttttt.
28 is the new old?
What will them youngins think of next!
You had me confused, but I see you are counting in hexadecimal. (In decimal notation 28 is not old). Still you're not all that ancient.
Happy Birthday
Happy birthday! And remember, for the next decade you will turn 29 a Lot of times.
I prefer to think of my age advantage as a head start - the kids are all playing catch up with us, and they will never catch us.
Have a happy birthday!
Happy birthday!
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That certainly is a good point. What is the base? Additionally, seeing as we are talking CS gubbins here, is the count zero-indexed?
Huh. Even though it says that you're a grad student in your profile, I pictured you as older, given how well-read and smart you sound. Well, happy birthday anyway!
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In Internet-Years, we're all senior citizens.
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Senility and Dementia? Why wait!
Undergraduate CS students that don't play video games or know what an AGP slot is? That's crazy talk. Next you'll say they aren't all asian too, and we all know that can't possibly be true.
Bitch, please. I am the king of being old compared to you.
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Where's Georg when we need him?
Ghost... Ghost, my friend...
... shut up.
And happy birthday.
Ghost, I don't even remember being 28[1]. Of course, at my age[2], I'm luck to remember what I had for breakfast[3] on any given day.
[1] Happy birthday.
[2] Once you pass 30 birthdays aren't important unless they mark the end of a decade.
[3] I think it might have been a biscuit? Or perhaps a croissant? Was there coffee? Did I even eat this morning?
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
A happy birthday to you.
Happy birthday!
Are you by any chance writing about Dotting getting older?
(Also, I totally agree with others. Anyone who hasn't even turned thirty yet has zero right to call themselves old!)
ugh, shut up, stop being younger than me. D: Unacceptable.
28? Baa! A mere stripling, barely over half my age. Many, many unproductive years of your life lie ahead, but unfortunately you have to share them with all these young disrespectful kids.
Whu...? You're younger than I thought you were, Ghost. I thought you were in your early thirties. Anyways, Happy Birthday!
Oh, and if my stalker powers are correct, I'm the youngest posting here. Well, other than FoME... I think. I think we're a couple of months apart.
I get to act more immature and bratty than any of you guys =3 I'm 26 and I look like I'm 21 :P People mistake me for a high school student.
Also give you a Starbucks Cinnemon Scone for your birthday, Ghost. Bad Horse really likes these, at least when he was a bit younger[1]. So, I guess I'm really giving you his envy, assuming he sees.
i.imgur.com/ivWq2xY.jpg
[1]Stalk stalk stalk, yo
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I'm a 17 yr old with 17 years of experience.
Ah, to be 28 once again.
In any event, Happy Birthday Ghost!
Such wisdom! Have you finally gotten around to stepping in the river twice?
I'm doing my undergrad work as an ancient 24-year old and it seems that the only games that exist are League of Legends and Destiny. I get blank stares from my CS class when I talk about modding Skyrim...
I can't imagine what it would be like for someone who played the original xcom games or actually knows what a Commodore 64 is.
Happy Birthday, Ghost!
Apparently I'm too late to mock your conception of age with my far more advanced ancientness attribute. Happy birthday anyway, kid.
Me, I don't think of it as getting older. I think of it as my body catching up with my maturity level.
(Hah. Yeah right, HV.)
In any case, happy b-day.
Wait, you're younger than me? But you always seemed more so much more sensible and wise.
Now now, you aren't old. Why, I'm 29, and I'm still considered to be young.
Admittedly we dragons use a different aging chart than you humans do, but I'm sure the difference can't be that big.
Old, eh? Well, welcome to the club!
Here, I have your complimentary gift basket. As you can see, it's filled with hard candies and mothballs (don't mix those up, now!), a pipe, an old cardigan that smells like pipe tobacco, a pair of pants designed to be belted around your rib cage, and your very own senior discount card (never leave home without it!)
I've put an order in for the rest of your complimentary "old man" gear, so, among other things, expect to get your specially designed "shakin' rake" (to be used to chase the kids off of your lawn—if you don't have a lawn, one will be provided), slightly warped golf clubs, various ointments and liniments, and a membership to the Soup of the Month club!
You should be seeing... wait... hold on. Did you say 28?
Oh, dear. This is quite embarrassing. I'm so very sorry, I'll be needing that gift basket back. Yes, even the hard candies. Please spit that out. I'll go ahead and cancel that order for the "old man" gear. Check back again in a few decades and...
Ah. Yes. Well, I did warn you about mixing up the hard candies and the mothballs, didn't I?
Kids these days.
(Happy birthday, man!)
Facebook. No, wait, that's on phones now. I got nothin'.
We need a better word for all these low-processing-power internet-connected bazillions-of-forms computing devices. I propose co-opting Ian Bank's "terminal". I figure that should cover everything.
I reckon there's about 5 ages:
1) about as old as me.
2) definitely older than me. This is usually 8-10 years older through the next chunk, but probably depends on context and authority.
3) my generation's parents.
4) really old. Not just really old, but like really, really old. Like, 70 or something.
5) those young idiots who think they know everything. (Sometimes, I think I belong in this chunk.) Always includes your little brother, or at least until you're both four times as old as the age difference.
Happy Birthday!
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*blows raspberry*
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Why do you know of so many cooler things? Like music and stuff? I don't wanna listen to the radio anymore. Stuff back then sounds cooler. Like, you got to live through the 70's. Things were funkier back then.
*Turns on some Bee Gees[1]*
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If it helps, I forget shit all the time now. Maybe it's because I've had to keep track of so many things at work that maybe I've stopped caring(?) Or maybe I'm suffering memory loss at an early age. That would suck.
You know those times when you're about to tell someone something, but then you forget what it was and can't ever remember it again? Happens to me way too much.
Maybe tie some thread 'round your finger when you have to remember something, Bradel. I dunno. Actually, that's a lot of thread. I can share some of mine with you. It's black sewing thread ^_^ works to mend most of your clothes when like 98% of your wardrobe is black.
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Bump, because you should be envious of Ghost because he gets tasty things and you don't 2534359 :P
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Eww...
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I don't get it either. I honestly expected him to be like 31 or 32. He just has that air about him. I dunno.
All I know is that Ghost is Sheldon Cooper RL[2]
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The most disrespectful. U R made of pu pu an' pi pi
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Ghost is disrespecting your authority by being much younger and more smarter than you.
You should do something about it, I guess. Take a massive bite or two out of his cake at his birthday party when he isn't looking and totally don't look suspicious at him as cake crumbs tumble down your beard as your cheeks deflate slowly as you chew. That'll show him good.
I will pay you seven dollars in Loonies and Twoonies to sneak out a piece. Ghost didn't invite me to the party.
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Dotted Line getting older? That'd be interesting. He already seems like he's in his 40's from what I garner from Canterlot Carol. He seems so... weathered. Old. Seen much of life.
Then again, he could be 28 like Ghost.
[1]What? I don't spam goth music all the time. My musical taste is eclectic, and I enjoy music that was made before most of us were born, among other things.
[2]This is a compliment. Sheldon Cooper is awesome and cool! :)
Bah, you've only got eight months on me.
Give me a moment, and I'll send SPark over here to shake a walker at you.
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I remember when my "Quake" directory filled most of my 5GB harddrive.
One of my early doomed projects was trying to make giant destructible boats in Quake. Unfortunately, I was crap with C, not even CustEnts could do what I wanted in terms of "LOD destructible floating trains", and don't even get me started on the problem of draw distances in the original Quake engine.
I did manage to have a half hour conversation with some fellow on IRC about this, as he was releasing a game, and had worked through some very similar problems. However, this game didn't involve naval warfare.
It was called Half-Life.
2534889 At our age (3- though I refuse to believe I could be toafans father) we come to understand that Disco didn't suck after all (but, really, turn off the BeeGees and put on some Donna Summer or Gloria Gainer).
I wouldn't know. I was like in my 4o's when I was 8.
Birthday, I would say happy but we both know how it is.
They get old after 20, I do LOVE getting socks though, I hated them when I was young but I can't get enough now, also underwear.
I'm 27, looks like I'll be old soon as well.
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I just need to consume his brain matter to gain his strength. :B
Perhaps I can offer an alternative perspective: where I went to undergrad, you were considered an "old person" once you had a paying, full-time job outside of academia [1]. Sounds to me, sir, like you may still be young by the standards I'd like to hold on to [2].
[1] And yes, you could go from being old to being young again.
[2] Said an old person X years your junior.
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I'm a bit more partial to white rooms with black curtains, myself.
..and red doors. That I want to paint black.
My girlfriend and I are easily old enough to be your mother and father.
Catatonia? Fine, take as much time as you need...
There. Feel better? But seriously, although you've said it's been rough for you lately I think you have much to be grateful for, and much be proud of. Grateful for your family, health and education. Proud of having stayed on such good terms with your parents--and in your twenties that takes work, trust me--of having done so well in your studies, and of returning some of that good fortune to your juniors in the form of instruction (even if they don't fully appreciate it).
So in the things that matter, you're far ahead of where I was at your age. And I haven't turned out too badly. At least my parole officer thinks so...
Oh. Well, Happy Birthday! then.
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Alas, the former is not a true statement.
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Probably
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Beats me, probably classify themselves as old without knowing and then wonder how they got themselves in that predicament.
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Perhaps you were once. I can safely say that, at 22, I beat you at least for youngest.
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Of which at least 4-5 are almost completely useless aside from being expended in the noble aims of learning to walk and talk acceptably well and perhaps at attaining the useful skill called 'reading'.
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Which makes we weird because I know what a commodore 64 is but I definitely have never seen one in person. Lots of people are only interested in the latest thing and consider everything else old news and unworthy of consideration.
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Which means that by all rights we should shun you and ignore everything that you say, right?
Almost forgot to mention.. Happy birthday, Ghost of Heraclitus!
also forgot to mention.. did I ever tell you I won a pole dancing contest?
Happy Birthday, Ghost!
May your experience, maturity, stress, and pesky undergrads stop trying to convince you that you're old, because you certainly are not. You have a long way to go, my friend.
For your birthday, I got you a second page of well-wishes!
It's a little empty right now, though. Fortunately, I can get a head start in fixing that!