Sweet spinal injury
Just thought of another quick one.

About four years ago I was with a girl and we were talking about sweets we used to get when we were kids and I said I not had a sherbet dibdab for years and I bloody loved 'em as a kid. She told me the shop on the corner of her street still sold them so I was up off the sofa faster that Usain Bolt with the shits and no botty paper on his way to sainsburys.
On the way back I felt a slight twinge in my back and the next thing I knew I was on the floor in agony. I couldn't stand, I couldn't sit, I couldn't do anything but crawl very very slowly on my hands and knees the rest of the way as it turned out I'd slipped a disc.
It was ten past nine when I left the shop.
It was nine thirty five when I got back to the flat.
How many houses away was the shop?
Three, three fucking buildings away and it took me just under half an hour to get back.
I'd gone from feeling like a seven year old kid again to an eighty year old in the space of about a second.
I was only twenty eight at the time. Arse.

What came after just made it worse but that's nothing to do with getting/feeling old just that I make some bad choices
when it comes to women but I'll leave that for another QOTW.
(Official Sarc, Sat 9 Jun 2012, 14:55, Reply)

Moving to stay young...
...doesn't work.

I used to live in Nottingham and 10% of the population are students which means you start to feel old quite quickly there (as Matthew McWhatsisface says in his only good role ever: I get older they stay the same age).

The realisation hit me when I was 28 and standing in a club, I had the thought 'shit, I'm a decade older than most of the people in here...'. And then all my mates started getting married and having babies. So I packed it all in and went travelling for 3 years.

When I was coming back I realised that I needed to be somewhere other than Nottingham as I was in my 30's now, that will be worse. So I picked Brum as all my mates here are either pathologically single, younger or gay (or all 3) so the chances of babies were more remote. It's worked out quite well so far. Until I went to one of those incredibly weird gigs that are for some reason open to anyone 14 or above... What's with that? I don't want to be in a room full of teenagers sliding around on their knees, but more importantly as I stood there and watched [spunge] I realised I was 2 decades older than some of the people in there.

Balls.
(Ross McBingobangobongo bingobangobongo, Sat 9 Jun 2012, 14:17, 1 reply)

waterworks
How about thinking you have finished straining the spuds and shook the bugger dry yet still managing to piss down your leg little bit when you pop the monster back in the cave.
Never used to happen before.
(Finster Ate a cat biscuit for a bet, Sat 9 Jun 2012, 13:08, 11 replies)

Miss the 80s?
Try being casually racist and terrified of nuclear war.

Those of you in the north of England might also want to lose your jobs.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Sat 9 Jun 2012, 12:51, 4 replies)

omg i rmmbr wn txt spk hd 2 cntn nly 120 chrctrs lol n u hd 2 b rly crfl cs dey cst lk 20p
Of course, nowadays young folk don't know they're born, what with their unlimited text tariffs and monthly payment plans.
( Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Sat 9 Jun 2012, 11:17, 12 replies)

A couple of years ago...
It was my 50th birthday. My lovely G/F bought me 2 tickets to see Seasick Steve at the Festival hall in that there London. I decided to make a day of it, met my bro in a bar, wandered around London for a bit then decided to go for a stroll down Denmark street to browse the guitar shops.
At the end of said street there's the 12 bar - a muso's hangout so we esconced ourselves on a couple of stools and began making a dent in their Red Stripe supply. After a while, a young, rainbow-mohicaned punk arrived in the bar wearing a leather jacket emblazoned with all of the names of the great punk bands - Sex Pistols, Clash etc etc. as he sat at the bar I sruck up a conversation with him (I have no shame) and started pointing out all of the band logos on his jacket commenting 'Seen them, seen them twice, was at a 'secret gig' with them, got smacked by the bass player of them,' and on and on - like old gits do.
I was brought back to the reality of my age when he told me he was 19 and the jacket was his dad's! Didn't help that he then pointed out that I'd been really lucky to see all those bands "so long ago" as his dad loved them but had only seen them in vids and heard them on vinyl 'cos he'd just turned 40!

Seasick Steve gig was great though.
(Captain Placid 24/7 ball gags, brownie mix and clown porn, Sat 9 Jun 2012, 10:47, Reply)

I shit a little bit when I cum.

( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Sat 9 Jun 2012, 8:35, 15 replies)

I should also add...
(god, I love ellipsesesese).

when I grew up we played things with strings or keys or valves or reeds and bridges and bows and maybe some of the more experimental of us had amps and pickups and microphones.

It does seem a little alien for a performer to rock up to a performance and demand to know where they should plug in their iPad. Even more so when someone needs to ask if they can jack their Ableton control surface on, when it won't work without some kind of actual computer to make the sounds.

An Ableton interface to me is basically a Speak'n'Spell concept, but matched up with a Lite-Brite physical layer, and then combined with a Moog synthesiser. All of which concepts already exist. Oh but! It can be interfaced to co-enact DJ Decks. But not real actual DJ decks. No, MIDI facsimiles.

For all the people that claim being a Master DJ is a musical profession, I say- play the decks and don't use a set of MIDI controllers in lieu of being able to use real DJ decks. I have a lot of respect for Public Enemy, and zero for DJ Boogie Dave from Birmingham.

When I was a toddler, we had Fisher Price activity centres that were hung on the side of play pens.
babyduckshop.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/fisherpriceactivitycentre1.jpg

Ableton interfaces and MIDI DJ interfaces are about as complex and rewarding as that.
( Rotating Wobbly Hat That's not a banana. THIS is a banana., Sat 9 Jun 2012, 2:43, 15 replies)

What has four legs then has two legs then has three legs?
my uncle, who fucked nine one-legged prostitutes.
( nightbuffalo needs more duct tape, Sat 9 Jun 2012, 2:41, Reply)

Just today!
First day on a new job, chatting to a girl in training with me over lunch, she gets a phone call from her boyfriend, she says "You were right, I've met some nice people, I've been talking too Angie, Kate, I'm having lunch with Mong he's... How old did you say you were Mong?"
"25"
"Yeah, he's 25. Ok, love you gotta go!"
She turns to me "For some reason, I thought you were 36."

The only sound to be heard over the awkward silence was the last of my self confidence shattering.
(Mong goose, Sat 9 Jun 2012, 2:25, 2 replies)

its all relative...
i'm in my early 40s, (and at the time of writing) nagged by minor gripes like creaky knees and increasingly persistent tinnitus.. all lovingly cultivated through decades of physical abuse, noise, and reckless, carefree abandon :) but mostly, i feel blessed by the good stuff that comes with this age.. fair to say these days i'm happy with where my garden is at..

except that, my oldest uncle passed away unexpectedly last month, complications from prostate cancer. he was roughly three years into his diagnosis, and didn't quite make his 80th birthday. his ultimate decline was shocking regardless, which went from clear to routine scan to renal failure to pathway in the space of a couple of months. he was on the pathway for 5 days before he died.

good breeding and the miracles of modern technology have allowed my parent's generation to reach their late 60s and 70s intact and in reasonable health, and i'd never looked at them as being 'old', until now.. at his wake, looking round at my family and all those familiar faces gathered, i was completely overwhelmed, not only by his death, but by the enormity of (my generation's) impending loss, dumbstruck by how small and fragile most of them are looking now.. grief stricken, they seem to have crumpled overnight :(

huge sadness..
( maggenspies mayhaps, Sat 9 Jun 2012, 1:54, 4 replies)

Your feet's too old...
A few years bac in my mid-40s and walking past a shop in New York that sold skate gear, I spied a pair of Etnies that just shouted "Buy me!". I went in and asked the assistant if he had a pair of my chosen style in size 11. He said he was certain had them in that size and then said "Are these for your son or a nephew?" *That*was the moment I realised I had definitely crossed the age divide. He then went for broke and asked my wife and I (both Brits) what part of Australia we were from...
(Roladex, Sat 9 Jun 2012, 1:25, 7 replies)

Macabees
At the Ally Pally tonight. Cool.
Didn't know the music but was in the 2nd / 3rd row with my daughter. The usual flow and ebb of the crowd. Twunts.

More showing my age in that I had to leave my vital spot to go for a smoke! In my day beer stains and fag burns were counted up in the morning.

Pft.
(Suck it and Sea, Sat 9 Jun 2012, 1:19, Reply)

I can remember
When Pluto had Minnie in his kennel and making her squeal like the bitch she is, let alone a desolate piece of rock no-one cares about.
(Suck it and Sea, Sat 9 Jun 2012, 1:13, Reply)

I can remember
when Pluto was a planet.
(Vigilante Man weeps because you're stupid., Sat 9 Jun 2012, 0:54, 2 replies)

I miss
Actual photographs, you know in an album; not these digital thingymadoodles I can't be arsed to go to boots to print
(RabiedRooster, Sat 9 Jun 2012, 0:51, Reply)

Just last week, funnily enough.
Now, any of you that know and lo/ath/ve me will know I'm probably the youngest member of this site. Just 17, just finished my AS levels. I'm hardly getting old, merely staring to stop being a kid (thankfully my physique got there about 2 years early). But the fact that I'm now deeply considering the content my UCAS application really makes it plain to me that I've got a wide world to go into, a whole adult life to lead ahead. There's a fair few things I still need to do to become a man (I'll leave you to guess what). Its not really foreboding, though it isn't really exiting either. I suppose its up to me how the process unfolds. Gotta get it right from now on. So yeah, Its the prospect of leaving home that is making me feel much less juvenile.
Nobody's interested, but one of the 7 courses ( I whittled it down from 1000's very rapidly!) I am considering applying to is PPE at a brilliant uni, which sort of demonstrates that I think I might grow up to be even more of a massive cuntprick.
(Glucose-Maximus All over the world., Fri 8 Jun 2012, 23:53, 22 replies)

I'm watching BBC4 on a Friday night
Punk Brittania at the BBC.

and I know most of the words.

I'm lying down now after a few minutes :( hard pogoing.
(Primo, Fri 8 Jun 2012, 22:50, 2 replies)

... just more fun than being young. But sometimes it hurts just that little bit more.
I got made redundant five years ago - apparently I'm now a legend from the 'olden days' used to keep the youngsters in line.

Anyroads, at the moment I'm writing this from a nudist campsite in the south of France. Just chilling here until the time comes to take the bikes over to Spain for the WSBK races at the end of the month and then come back to Blighty to celebrate a friends 40th wedding anniversary.

Best thing? A girlfriend half one's age is legal.
Worst thing? She's starting to outride me....
(baldybeardy, Fri 8 Jun 2012, 22:10, 3 replies)

Erm.....OK,
Going on holiday to the Algarve, out of season, going to the Antiquities museum at Albufeira instead of lamenting that most the the pubs on sunset strip were closed, on that mile-long street of boozers on the route to the sea.

Getting married at 20 and having a daughter at 25, thus keeping me out of the student/youngster years of pissupedness and mad bonking, by being at home being responsible. On the other hand, now I've been divorced 11 years, all my contemporaries are having to settle down where as we are (relatively) free to pursue what ever we want to (and can afford to) do. While they are now talking about nappies and nursery wallpaper and toy trains, we get off to rock gigs and stay up late getting drunk to loud music :-)

Finding that these days only degree-educated computer scientists and programmers seem to know what hexadecimal is, whereas I got mine from a BBC Micro User Manual at age 11. This is an important part of my work day so it is relevant.

Not wanting to join in with knockabout 'workshop' banter i.e. 'Oi, wanker!' aimed at someone you actually regard as a friend, and not saying 'Fuck you with a rusty fork, cuntstick!' to someone on the internet who can't see your nod and a wink to let them know it's light-hearted ribaldry- I call a spade a shovel, me, and what I say I tend to mean literally. Which is obviously why I failed at the casual ribbing that is /talk. Although to an ousider, /talk looks like the kind of mortal insulting that would get you run through with a duellists' sword in C.18th France.

Being punched by a random drunk teen in an unprovoked attack in my old hometown of Stourbridge, which - because he had a sovereign ring on - cut my cheek enough to leave a crescent-shaped scar and yet- reigning in my natural instinct to retaliate with extreme prejudice (the karate moves I gained when young are still instinctively available under duress) because 'grown man beats up 16 year old' does not make a good headline, especially as the friend I was with at the time was a primary school teacher- 'Teacher of 8-year olds involved in drunken fracas' even less a good headline. So in essence, thinking about consequences.

Putting your back out. By picking up a cat. He is a fat fucker, but still.... full extension sideways, OWW FUCK and 4 weeks wincing when you get up out of a chair.

Not wanting to listen to a SINGLE track in the top 40. There was a dry patch in the 80s that was all Stock Aitken Waterman but then it swung back to Blur, Pulp etc. which was acceptable even though I still am a Metallist at heart. But now? It can quite frankly all fuck off. I even got fed up today being on hold to Orange where I was captively forced to listen to the product of the charts being fed into my ear while on hold. For 40 fucking minutes.

Treating driving as an economy game instead of 'how fast can I take this corner?'. Goddam medium size diesel saloon that's 10 years old and I can still get 58mpg out of it... tiny delicate inputs, calculation of gear changes and apex-clipping arcs, no more than 33% throttle etc.

Watching the Apprentice and instead of thinking 'Aha, thrusting young entrepreneurs who are going to revitalise the economy', thinking 'It's a spot the wanker competition and everyone apart from Nick Hewer is in with a chance of winning'

But probably most of all.... picking up litter that other people have just thrown on the floor right next to a bin.
( Rotating Wobbly Hat That's not a banana. THIS is a banana., Fri 8 Jun 2012, 21:56, 1 reply)

When I get my hair cut more grey than brown comes out.
I'll be 44 in November and it's irrelevant. I've acquired, along the way, rather intrusive Tinnitus (not surprising - I've subjected my ears to all sorts of shite) and an inherited blood disorder which I can control.

On the whole, though, I'm having a lot of fun getting older. I'm not fixating about a time in my life, I'm embracing the more acceptable bits of popular culture and enjoying them, I still love live music and get to new bands whenever I can.

So - what is getting old? There are numbers in an inevitable chronology but there's also an attitude, a frame of mind that disregards that irrevocable progression.

I'm not about to suggest that I have any sort of commonality with da yout' - neither should I. It's their youth and it's an entirely other culture to mine.

I won't get wilfully old and it's the concept of submitting to a calendar - dictated number that dismays me. There is an immense assumption that calendar years equal assumed goals and the slavish adherence to this perception of achievement is nonsense - class-conscious shite that has risen from the distillation of the class system.

Do what you do. If you feel old, tone it down. DON'T be constrained by the number on your birth certificate.
( The Disappointed Caravanner of the year, Fri 8 Jun 2012, 21:25, 1 reply)

Thinking about it
I've been lurking on this site for more than half of my life. Yeah, I'm 20 years old and first discovered this when I was in primary school.
(horrific, Fri 8 Jun 2012, 20:41, 1 reply)

I looked at my b3ta profile...

( Boot I want to know what you meant, Fri 8 Jun 2012, 20:14, 3 replies)

*click* eeeeeWAAAAAeeeeeWAAAAAAeeeWAAeee...
A little while ago, I was reading one of those "10 classic games of our childhood" articles. Being in an office full of gamers, the link inevitably got shared.

I have never felt so old.

"Manic Miner? You know, it's the one which plays In The Hall Of The Mountain King. On the Spectrum... alright, fair enough, what about Chuckie Egg? That was a classic... really? Oh right, fine, here we go. Number 1 on the list. You must remember Elite. Everyone remembers Elite."

I work with people who have been playing games since they could hold a controller who DON'T REMEMBER ELITE. People who are old enough to have jobs and houses and in some cases even children. Some of them have never known a game to come on any physical media other than a shiny silver disc.
(Timberwolf, Fri 8 Jun 2012, 20:02, 3 replies)

I have a simple test.
The day I find "Last Of The Summer Wine" funny is the day I finally admit to myself that I am old.

Although the other day I went to the shops in my slippers so it can't be that far off.
(Big D, Fri 8 Jun 2012, 19:33, 1 reply)

I might not be feeling that old.
However, someone who left school the same years as me is incredibly enthusiastic about her new hoover. She's 29.
(The Luggage is haunted..., Fri 8 Jun 2012, 18:25, 1 reply)

It's lunchtime.
The Sullivans is on.
(judgetheobscure used to sweep in butchers' shops., Fri 8 Jun 2012, 17:50, 5 replies)

I've been doing your mum since before you were born.

( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Fri 8 Jun 2012, 17:45, 10 replies)

You know you are old when:
Several parts of your body are nearer to the ground than they used to be.

The Prime Minister is younger than you are.

It doesn’t matter that your hair style is out of date. If you have hair, that is.

Tunes played on Radio Two sound groovy instead of pathetic.

You dress for comfort instead of to impress.

You frequently say things like, “Now what did I come in here for?”
even when there is nobody else around.

The stupid things your parents used to say start to make sense.

The names of film stars, household objects and your own children temporarily escape you.

There is always at least one part of your body that’s aching, sore or doesn't work properly.

You think repeats of the Old Grey Whistle Test are much better than the stuff they churn out these days.

You realise you were already an adult before there were such things as calculators, cassette tapes, or polythene carrier bags.

You can embarrass your kids simply by dancing.

You get called ‘Madam’ or ‘Sir’ in shops even when you are not complaining about something.

You know who Al Read, Archie Andrews and Billy Cotton were because you used to listen to them on the wireless.

A clean hankie and a good weepie on TV is a more attractive prospect than going to bed early with your spouse.

You prefer large white cotton underwear.

You catch yourself looking through the ‘gadgets for the elderly’ mail order catalogues with interest instead of derision.

Policemen are not the only ones who look young. Everybody does. Judges, bishops…

You say “AARRGGHH!” whenever you bend down.

Your arm is not long enough for you to focus on small print.

Your children are taller, stronger and faster than you are.

You cannot trust a fart.
(grumpy old ratbag, Fri 8 Jun 2012, 17:39, 2 replies)

I'm so old
I remember when "Dungeons and Dragons" was a cartoon :D
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Fri 8 Jun 2012, 17:27, 8 replies)