The Top Nine Things About the 90’s, Part One
Yep, this has nothing to do with technology, get over it. I’m in another nostalgic mood, and for some reason was thinking about the finer times in life. That;s right, the 90’s. I scrounged up a list of my favorite things about this decade of glory, some of which you may or may not have partaken in. If you had the pleasure of experiencing all nine of these things, you must be awesome-o in every way, and you are hereby rewarded with three gold stars, a smiley face, and a check-plus grade (sorry, you don’t get a plus, only I do for writing this). But, a check-plus was always a solid mark.
Oh and yes, thats my ms paint skills shining through once again, If you want lessons, they’re a bargain at 25 bucks an hour.
On to the list, we begin with a little item of fashion known as the
Slap Bracelet
Hopefully, this freak occurance will be the only time in the history of man that cheap, crappy pieces of plastic that forcefully wrap themselves around your hapless wrist like a king cobra are deemed cool. But man, they were cool. Not exaggerating, I think I tried to get one for around three weeks before I could get my hands on one. What likely happened was by the time I finally bought one, they were considered lame and I got beat up for being behind the times. Last note, I definitely remember having contests with other cool kids that had said slap bracelets to see how far you could throw one onto some other unsuspecting victims wrist. Ah, good times, the glory days.
Continuing on the highest echelons of fashion, I give to you
Hypercolor Tee Shirts
Seriously. All the Chester’s in todays world would absolutely love these things. When else could you freely grope another, for the corny excuse of seeing your handprint show up on their shirt. By the way, whoever’s mitts that left the print on the chick’s shirt are ginormous … My god. These shirts were incredibly terrible, in basically every way, and no one really had them, but they were still awesome. I’m pretty sure you had two ways to go with these things: One, never wash it and keep its ‘hypercolor’-ivity. Or, wash it, and it becomes an ugly colored tee-shirt that doesn’t even have a novelty to keep it interesting. Either way, you only wore it three times before your judgement finally got the better of you and you realized you looked like a moron.
Moving along, I give to you
Pogs
Haha, I’m laughing just looking at these things. Welcome back to the world of Slammers, Pads, Pogs, and lameness. I gotta ask this question - Who here recognizes the character on the pog in the 5th row, farthest to the right? Awesome. Gee golly gee Bobby, don’tcha know? Man I love the 90’s. Bonus question, what the $#%#$ does pog even mean … And how did they get popular? It was like gambling - for twelve year olds. “Dude I’ll trade you my ninja star slammer for your Full House Limited Edition Pog Set!” Bartering and gambling, important social skills to learn at a ripe age. I now blame pogs for the 200 bucks I lost gambling at French Lick a few weeks ago.
Now that I have successfully placed blame on something completely unrelated, I present to you a dual entry
Ravens Revenge / Caramel Apple Pops
That’s some tasty goodness right there boys and girls. I couldn’t really find a good picture of Ravens Revenge, but that’s not important. It was an XTREME (yes, xtreme with an X) variation of Pixie Sticks, in test tube format. They turned your tongue a variety of colors. They were sour. And sweet. And pretty good, if I remember. The reason why I lumped these two candies together is becuase of the rampant black market that occurred during middle school for these candies. Kids were turning mad bucks dealin out this schwag. I’m pretty sure they got banned from my middle school because it got so out of hand. Those sour apple caramel pop things are tasty. I want one now, thinking about it. Or maybe just any candy. Probably some Swedish Fish or Sour Patch kids. Mmmmmmm candy.
Now that I am craving candy from 1992, theres no where else to go except for
Ace of Base
Theres also ‘Don’t Turn Around’, if you want to watch that. It won’t let me embed it, so go find it yourself, slackers. Ace of Base, the best Eurotrash pop group this side of the Mississippi. They sure emerged in the right time in history, because if they tried to come out with this garbage now they would get deported faster than you can sing the ever-so-catchy “free credit report dot com” song (the original one, not the awful remakes).
Now that I can’t stop singing the “free credit report dot com” song in my head, we move on to
Four Square
This four square court looks so sad and lonely without people playing on it. Four square, unlike much of the funny / bad things from the 90’s, stands the test of time. I would play it right now, in the 24 degree weather, outside, in a wife-beater and polyester hot pants. While there were many, many varieties and flavors of four square, any seasoned vet knows that vanilla is the way to go. No bobbles, fireballs, or spikes here. Straight up plain Jane, no holds barred four square. Rumble in the jungle, battle in the Bronx four square. Ok I’ll stop now. Anyways, four square should be a professional league. I mean, there are professional leagues for much worse things than four square, like Scrabble. Or womens sports. Please direct all hate mail to my squire, Macey Dale.
With that offensive blurb I shall retire for the day. Check back for part two of this series, The Top Nine Things About the 90’s, Part Deux.
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13 Responses to “The Top Nine Things About the 90’s, Part One”
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Rofl, I enjoyed all those things for sure except for one. Never have I ever heard of four square, definitely will be wikipedia-ing that one! Maybe it will jog some memories.
Almost as “cool” as those shirts were making tie-dye shirts (maybe that was a Mitchell thing?!).
wow … really? It was huge here.
well done peter, a blog to be proud of. I’m not sure about ravens revenge but the rest were foundations of my coming of age
Well thanks Brian, it was a test tube of flavored sugar. YUM
ummm…k well nailed cherry tree elementry and clay junior high. There was a rampent black market for the RR at school, it was kinda bad. Still have a gold eight ball slammer. Hyper color shirts were a staple at the cantwell household, and they were sweet when you got them wet. Im driving from cincy as we speak for 4square…oh and way to slam womens sports…pretty safe to say that 0 women will ever read this blog tho so your probably safe
Haha let’s hope so
I signed up for digg so i could digg this post. Four square was an amazing game. wasn’t there a move called ‘the sword’ where you just threw the ball as hard as possible at one of the other players? phil thinks it was called ’suicide’ at childs. dunno about that…
haha well I’m glad you enjoy it, I’m hoping to put out part deux tomorrow sometime. As for the move, to be honest I don’t remember most of them, but it the term ‘fireball’ is coming to mind.
Then again, I’m likely way off, Samsonite style.
My friend sent me this post and I laughed and laughed. Did you ever get the Pizza Hut coupons for each book you read in school? You would get a free personal pan pizza if your parents signed it off. Sure, make the kid that likes to read fat so he can be considered the chubby nerd!
wow, good stuff! i was eating Swedish fish as i read the words “Swedish fish” under your segment on candy. they still sell those carmel-apple pops at Wal-Mart…mmm! one other thing on your list that also really typified the 90s (and a large part of the 2000s as well, sadly) was AOL. it used to be all there was…poor us!
Dominique, sure did! I’m trying to remember the name of that program … BookIT!
zing!
Anna - Sweet irony! Love me some Swedish Fish!
Peter,
As a fellow b-town native, WOW!
I just re-lived fantastical moments from the rough blacktop of St. Charles elementary to the Prison warfare of BaTchelor middle school.
Thank you.
Where’s the…old gaming systems, halloween pranking, cafeteria rhetoric?
haha the mean streets of Bloomington huh? I did a top 10 NES games prior, I’ll do more too, don’t you worry.