Octopus Overlords

I saw this in a retweet by Mr. Fed, and thought it would be interesting here. If you are under 14, I suppose you can post 2 things you want to accomplish. Here are my two:

Learned to play guitar.

Became a relatively strong chess player.

Had a successful career in the computer industry.

Hosted a horror movie podcast for 4 years.

Two questions my 13 year old self would have asked: "There are jobs where they pay you to work with computers?" and "What's a podcast?"

Graduated 1st in my college class. (At 13 I was failing two junior-high classes.)

Married a beautiful, brilliant, successful partner. (At 13 I was a nebbishy nerd doomed to loneliness.)

1.) Had sex
2.) ?

The thing is, most of the cool stuff I've done wouldn't have phased 13 year old me. It is either stuff I wouldn't care about then, or stuff that I wouldn't understand then. Beyond that... I'm drawing a blank. I've had an interesting life, and a full life, but not an impressive life in a way that would make sense to a kid.

14 year old me had much higher hopes and expectations than 48 year old me has ever accomplished. He'd probably mostly be upset by anything I told him.

Lived outside the US. 13 year old me was a small town kid. Even then I was beginning to realize that I didn't want to stay in the same small town but living overseas would have seemed crazy.

Had a successful career after coming close to failing out of college. Being good at school was what I did then. Not being good at school was inconceivable. He'd be disappointed that I'm not an engineer (note that my degrees are in engineering) but in the end I think he'd be more impressed that I've managed a good life even though I didn't go into what he thought was a good job.

Had sex with a hot girl for 31 years and was married to her

Owned cars over the years that I dreamed of back then.

Now if you flip it and what would my 13 year old self do that impresses me at 52......

Not hurt at all for days on end until I had a booboo.

Could run for a mile before losing my breath. 52 year old self goal is to one day run to that mailbox at the end of the driveway and not pass out.

Hosted Jim Lovell for an afternoon at the Boston Museum of Science. Apollo 13 exploded on my 13th birthday, so 13-yo me would be especially impressed by that one.

I also had a brief career making PC strategy games. PCs were still way in the future, but I did already like strategy games and would have been impressed by having anything to do with computers.

Joined the army.
Got married.
Retired.

I never stopped listening to punk.

I lived I Ireland.


Probably not my biggest achievements but the ones that would have most impressed 13 YO me.

Successfully drove a riding lawn mower once.

Made it past 13.

- Passed the bar and practice tax law
- Have a massive miniatures collection and still DM at age 50

My 13 year old self would be amazed to learn that nerds do take over the world, carry computers in their pockets and don’t need game to find a woman who like them.

Also that the Star Wars trilogy is completed, movies are made about the Lord of the Rings and Marvel universes, and LEGOs keep getting even more awesome.

I would tell myself to find a way to get to GenCon while it was still in Wisconsin rather than waiting to go as an adult with hepcat. Also to get down to Chicago’s Belmont area while the cool music was still happening there.

Many of the things I hold dear in my life now would have had little meaning and value to my 13 year old self which is as it should be.

#1 Yes. and yes with her. (No need to tell him that we've been married now for nearly 40 years now. He'll find out.)

#2 For a brief season I was one of a few Anglos to play in an immigrant soccer league. Cash was exchanged for my services. It was beer and cigarette money, but my 13 year old self would have been into that.

Traveled outside North America.

Camped in the Boundary Waters.

I lived/worked/got married in another country.

And separately, For a while I was a professional greeting card writer.

Pitched in the college world series.

Become a RN.

Saw a rocket launch from Cape Canaveral.
Coded a text adventure game about where I worked, including some co-workers as NPCs.

I've been on the Space Shuttle.

I was on Air Force One.

Too bad only one of those was real and in active service at the time.

Actually made it to Europe and found a girl who wanted to marry me.

Fourteen year old me was not a good me. I went from being very high on the social and athletic ladder in elementary school to being pretty damn insecure in junior high. By the time I got out of high school at least I had become social again.

I'm a little surprised at how many people list getting married/finding someone as something impressive.

As far as I remember my 13 year old self simply assumed that he would find someone.

Made it to 50.

Got a career in computers.


Although, much like 50 year old me, 13 year old me isn't really that impressed. It's not that 13 year old me had high expectations, it's more like he's disinterested and has the overachiever/underachiever thing going on. So impressing him is hard and he's not gonna but in the work to impress himself. It shows.

20 Year old me did get stuck in traffic jam upon entering the Golden Gate bridge and seeing an ocean for the first time. He got out of the van to take in the site when the jam lifted. He tried (and failed) to catch the van and ran across the whole bridge. That would have impressed 13 year old me, maybe, both impress him and would see him calling 20 year old me such an idiot.

Now the list of things 13 year old me go after me for? That's a long list indeed. Probably the single biggest would be get after 17 year old me for starting smoking after resisting the temptation of joining his smoking peers for three years.

Madmarcus wrote: ↑Sun May 09, 2021 9:04 pm I'm a little surprised at how many people list getting married/finding someone as something impressive.

As far as I remember my 13 year old self simply assumed that he would find someone.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure marriage was the least of my interests at age 13, I think even home ownership would have rated higher. As for me, I've been a journalist and I have more money in investments than I had seen in my entire life up until that point.

I remember at 13 dreaming that if I could make $400, I could live in an apartment. I had no idea how much the cost of living was, even in early 80s money... Nor how horrible apartment living would be once I finally made that jump. The idea of living on my own turned out to be way more appealing than the responsibility/reality/cost.

1) Traveled around the world for 1.5 years. (Pics on Instagram under @poetic.voyage, just scroll down a bit)

2) Reached a point in life where I can buy any video game I want any time I want.

Of these, #2 is probably the bigger deal for 13 year old me.

1. Not die in a war. When I was 13, young people were expected to be drafted and sent overseas to die.
2. Not be murdered. I was impressed by my own parents for avoiding this seemingly common demise.

Hamlet3145 wrote: ↑Mon May 10, 2021 9:56 am 2) Reached a point in life where I can buy any video game I want any time I want.

Of these, #2 is probably the bigger deal for 13 year old me.

You found it! You found the thing that 13 year old me would be impressed by from 50 year old me. Not exactly a source of pride.

Hamlet3145 wrote: ↑Mon May 10, 2021 9:56 am 2) Reached a point in life where I can buy any video game I want any time I want.

And for 13 year old me. Grew up rather poor and never had any money for video games.

The two things I came up with are:

1. Run a half-marathon
2. Build an arcade machine.

13 year old me would be amazed that someone could build an arcade machine with thousands of games.

LordMortis wrote: ↑Mon May 10, 2021 8:44 am I remember at 13 dreaming that if I could make $400, I could live in an apartment.

Not a story of 13 year old me but not that far off.

I was always a math geek. While I was in high school my parents bought us a computer. The games weren't that impressive (I didn't see the big appeal of computer games until college) but I did mess around with programing and the spreadsheet program. 17 year old me was very impressed on how little money it really took to live and how quickly compound interest and high savings to get you 1 million dollars! Some of this even worked out later when I actually had an income.

At 13, my parents bought my first computer. I loved programming on it. I thought "could I actually make a living doing this and make good money?". Yes. I absolutely love my IT job. Though I haven't programmed at my job for over 10 years now.

Learned to surf. Slept with multiple women.
My 13 year old self was not the most mature 13 year old ever.

Remus West wrote:Learned to surf. Slept with multiple women.
My 13 year old self was not the most mature 13 year old ever.

Multiple at the same time? My 50 year old self is impressed


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AND while surfing, apparently!

1) I married way, way, WAY above my pay grade (especially considering that at 13 I was a dead ringer for Wormser ) and, 2) I get paid to teach people how to drive Ferraris and Lamborghinis on a race track.

(Honestly, 49 year-old-me thinks these things are pretty cool too.)

Darkness warning.

Visited the Kremlin and Lenin’s tomb in Red Square (we were in the middle of the Cold War when I was 13) and hiked on a 1,000 foot deep glacier in Alaska - plus flying to both places because air travel wasn’t the mass market thing when I was 13 that it is now.

geezer wrote: ↑Mon May 24, 2021 5:53 pm 1) I married way, way, WAY above my pay grade (especially considering that at 13 I was a dead ringer for Wormser ) and, 2) I get paid to teach people how to drive Ferraris and Lamborghinis on a race track.

(Honestly, 49 year-old-me thinks these things are pretty cool too.)

65 Year old me thinks that is pretty cool.

Default wrote: ↑Sun May 30, 2021 3:49 pm Darkness warning.

I'm glad that you impressed your 13-year-old self.