I'm not even that old yet (compared to geological formations) but I understand why the older generation is that way, I'm starting to become that way myself. They definitely are getting crankier, but for good reason. I think the younger people today are getting dumber. There's a lot of truth in all these funny replys. Things have been getting easier and easier for kids, to the point that they're almost not able to think for themselves anymore.

[start rant]
when i was a kid, there were no computers everywhere. When you went to the library and wanted a book, you looked it up in the card catalog. There was no browsing by keywords, if you didn't know the title or author, tough luck. It was all done by the Dewey decimal system. If someone else was looking at the drawer you needed, you had to wait. And if somebody was lazy enough to rip out the card rather than right down the number, you were screwed! Cuz there was no way in hell you were gonna find it now.

We didn't have remote controls growing up, when you wanted the channel surf, you stood right beside the TV changing channels. Fortunately, there were only 7 channels. There was no TIVO, Netflix, or even VHS. If you weren't around to watch your show, you didn't see it until it came back on reruns. No fast-forwarding the commercials either, you sat through them and got brainwashed. And how many kids nowadays have ever had to fiddle with rabbit ears or that damn dial around the channel changer while watching their favorite show? Sometimes you just listened to your show while watching a fuzzy white screen.

Don't even get me started on the 10 year olds with cell phones and computers. I still have my rotary phone, no such thing as push buttons back then. If you didn't have the skill to spin the dial around all the way on the first try, you had to hang up and dial the whole number again. Those phones had actual hooks too! So when you say you left the phone off the hook, it really meant something.

[end rant]

The funniest part about that first letter above is the part about video games. It's true, every video game back then ended the same way. You died. There was no end, there's no cool story or special treat for finishing. The game just got harder and harder, until you were killed. The best you could hope for was getting a high score, which you then got to brag about by putting your initials in. I don't know if that's a sign of the times, not wanting to hurt childrens egos by having them experience failure. Guess what, people are gonna fail, whether you protect them from it or not. I just can't stand some of these new laws and restrictions that are trying to isolate children from failure. It's a part of life, deal with it. this whole thing reminds me of a quote from John Wayne. "Life is tough, but it's tougher when your stupid."

Anyway, to get back to the original subject, yeah, there are a lot of cranky old people out there. But even more annoying is the arrogant young people out there who think they know it all because they read it on the internet. The interenet is full of pimply faced 16 year olds debating over which is the best car, when most of the most of them can't even drive yet and have never gotten behind the wheel. Same thing goes for just about every other subject. The net allows everyone to exchange information much easier than before, but the actual information is pretty much the same. So just because these kids are able to surf for info better than anyone else, doesn't mean they know more about it than some of these older guys. In fact, in almost every forum out there, the most prolific posters probably aren't the ones that know the most, they just spend most of their time on the computer regurgitating facts. Because the guys with the real knowledge aren't the ones sitting in front of a computer typing.