Let\'s see, now.
In the 70\'s, at the age of 8, I bought my first miniature (1979). It was a wizard that looked rather like Gandalf, and I painted it with Testors enamels. It looked absolutely horrible, and I still have it somewhere. With the same paint job. By 1980, I had spent my allowance on a regular basis, buying every miniature I could get my hands on from the only hobby shop I was aware of at the time, Keith\'s Hobbies.
Fellow Torontonians familiar with this shop at all, please join me in bowing heads for a moment of silence, as they\'ve left their location by Yonge and Empress, and have moved to Whitby, after more than 40 years of business in the same place.
In the 80\'s, there was a bigger allowance, and a paper route, and so, more money to buy miniatures. I painted perhaps one of every fifty I bought, and the rest went into storage (a shoebox, no blisters. What did I know about collecting?) until such time as I felt like staging great wars between the forces of good and evil on my bedroom floor. Stats? Who needed them. The good guys always win. Even in the 80\'s. (Megaforce was my favourite movie, but I was too young to have taste, yet, when it came out) I had a huge crush on Cyndi Lauper, because she was so completely different from anything I\'d ever seen in my young and sheltered life.
Moved a lot in the first half of the 80\'s, so things were pretty rocky for a while, but always, I managed to find places to buy miniatures. Amazingly enough, they seem to be almost everywhere, if you look hard enough.
Hair bands, glam rock, Glam Hair Rock, sweat bands and leg warmers (thanks Flashdance), even on guys, sometimes.
Acid wash jeans came and went faster than a stock car going full out.
I discovered bicycling (for more than getting from A to B), weight lifting, boxing, tae kwon do, karate, judo, aikido, running, and girls, about in that order.
From what I\'ve been told, girls discovered me more quickly, but I was quite oblivious.
\"Wil, want to come over and study? My parents are out of town.\"
\"Sorry. I have a 20 mile ride scheduled, tonight.\"
I think the only reason they didn\'t start to hate me was because I was sincere. I actually went bike riding. Pity my 80\'s self for all the opportunities lost.
The 90\'s. . .
Oh, the 90\'s.
I don\'t even know where to begin. A Tale of Two Cities comes to mind...
\"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...\"
The information age began with the publicising of the internet. In my opinion, the biggest change to hit the world since Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone. We\'re still recovering from the impact, really.
It was also the decade of apathy, of \'self expression\' (which always seemed to manifest as a tongue ring, a nipple ring, a tattoo of a kanji on the shoulder, or earrings in multitudes), of \'political correctness\' as someone mentioned, which got so extreme that it quickly became a joke, and remains so despite some people still trying to cling to it as a necessity.
New bands came, and kept on coming, all starting to sound more and more alike. Grunge was passe before it even spread across the entire nation, and everyone was some sort of elitist. \"Indy music is the only music worth listening to.\" *snort*
Spandex got very popular in there. And far too many women thought it was a right, rather than a privilege. Worse, biker shorts on guys. Nobody wants to see that. Ever.
And this decade...
Well, we\'re all still here, so that\'s something, right?