"awesome things from my childhood"

(lifted from LilBro's FB update...with a few edits... what?  I am the older sister after all!)

themushroomkingdom.net.

"While growing up, my sister and I would only get about one hour each to play Nintendo, on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. To most of you that seems ridiculous, but it is what it is. One of our favourite games was the obvious staple, Mario Bros. 3. But since our time was so constrained, we had to devise plans to beat the game, and collect as much power-ups as we could for the final fight against Bowser. Trust me when I say, we had shit down to a science.  Warp whistles, P-wings, you name it, we had it covered.

One great example of this meticulous calculation was the sheet we created of all permutations of the N-card Match game that used to pop up randomly. It took us literally months to figure out that there were eight different match games in the game, and over the course many months, yes months, we had a full cheat sheet ready to go at a moment's notice. It was an accomplishment admired by our friends, and to this day I don't think I have put that much dedication into a video game.

Looking back, I remember clearly memorizing about 4 of those puzzles in my head because of the time spent deciphering them. We never used to have game genie or had Nintendo power growing up, so all these little secrets and gems, we found on our own.


I find that this is a microcosm of what children really gain. I never even knew about game genie until I saw an ad for it on video and Arcade Top 10, and I didn't even know Nintendo Power existed before I saw a copy of it at my buddy's house when I was 8. Hell, our parent's didn't even get us the Nintendo, that was our Uncle.

You see, I don't remember not having things growing up.
I could clearly see that my friends had more in the way of things and stuff, but really, it wasn't necessary in my development. Because, as children, my sister and I both found a way to defeat bowser, and use what he had to do it. It's not about the stuff you give your kids, believe me. I see a lot of kids now with so much technology just thrown at them, and I wonder if they would ever sit down with their younger brother, and write down angles for Angry Birds.

Children have little concept of money and, while they are adept with technology, they don't need the latest anything to have fun. Go get your kid a 50 dollar laptop with MSpaint and see how much fun they have.

I know these things to be true because when I remember Playing Mario Bros. 3, Mario World came out that year. Think about that."