I remember, with a certain degree of nostalgia, the days in high school when you would turn on MTV and be rewarded with over produced, under lit videos that revolved around good music. It was in a fit of this nostalgia that I turned on MTV the other day in order to see if, maybe by chance, I might catch one of the videos that meant so much to me way-back-when.

Instead, I was assaulted by a bisexual woman with bad skin, named after a hangover, and telling me my hair was too short.

This rubbed me the wrong way, and I was reminded of an article I wrote a number of years ago that listed some simple pleasures that have fallen by the way side that I miss.

I was compelled to compile another. So here goes:

1) I miss MTV. Since this is the thing that spawned my interest in writing this article, it deserves to be first on the list. Once upon a time, MTV played music videos. See, that’s how they got their name: Music Television. Now they play Top Stories, celebrity news and reality TV shows. (That’s directly from their website, by the way) Where did the music go? I assure you, Tia Tequila has nothing to do with the MTV that I remember.

2) I miss the fucking Commies. Communism was fantastic, if for no other reason than the country was united in our hatred for them, and there was a clearly defined menace to our way of life. John Wayne HATED pinkos. We may have had our differences, but we were together on this issue. Now, we have the terrorists. And grant it, they are probably a far more dangerous enemy than the Reds, but they are nebulous and ill defined. Our country is left a simpering, whimpering pile of marys, and we really can’t agree on anything.

3) I miss Ronald Reagan. I think Reagan’s corpse could do a better job of running the country than anyone we have currently running for office.

4) I miss elections where the candidates stood for something. I can’t stand “Madison Avenue” candidates. You should believe in SOMETHING, if you are running for office. Your opinions should not be defined by market research.

5) I long for a time when debate was important. I’m not naive enough to think that your appearance and your connections didn’t matter, but so did your opinions. Lincoln stood on a stage and debated with Stephen Douglass until they could no longer stand. Hundreds of people saw it, and told their friends. Back then an audience was limited by how many people you could fit in a field. Now the audience is the whole world. Don’t we owe it to ourselves to put at least as much effort into it when we are reaching tens of millions as when we could only reach a few hundred at a time?

6) I miss the days when I could work a whole day without my feet hurting.

7) I miss a time when women knew where to stand when you opened a door for them. To extrapolate that, I miss a time when women were ladies. They could partake or not partake of chivalry as they saw fit, but none the less they appreciated the effort.

I miss $1.25 a gallon gasoline. (But in my defense, who doesn’t)

9) I miss that feeling I used to have that the world contained endless possibilities, and that the future would be something that none of us could have dreamed of. (The last part was right, if not for the wrong reasons)

10) I miss sit-coms. Sure, there are one or two out there of note, but reality TV rules the roost.

11) I really miss not caring about the consequences of my actions. That was fun!

12) I miss old friends that are lost to us now. The great ones: the world was full of more vivid colors when they were in it.

13) Occasionally I miss my virginity, but not today.

14) I just missed a deadline for a project at work while I was typing this up.

So tell me, what do you miss?

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