Pike Place Market in Vivid Color

Photo Set by Chloe...

Pike Place Market

Seattle, WA 

(c) 2013 photography by Chloe Koffas - all rights reserved. 

Downtown Seattle in Gray

Photo Set by Chloe...

(c) 2013 photography by Chloe - all rights reserved

That Little Angry Guy from the Rarities Album

For all you Gen Xers who remember owning the Rarities album (DGC Rarities Vol.1) I snapped this picture for you while I was at Pike Place Market in Seattle....

At The Great Wind-Up toy store at Pike Place Market in Seattle, this is the table where you get to sample the toys...

When I would listen to this album in my room as a teenager, I'm not sure if I knew what a capture of the zeitgeist this was of the music of that era - it was recorded between 1990-1994.


Below is a copy and paste of the songs on the album - thanks, Wikipedia.  The American edition was different from the British one.   The first list of songs were played from my stereo near the end of my high school days....

American edition

1. Teenage Fanclub, "Mad Dog 20/20" – 2:40
2. Nirvana, "Pay to Play" – 3:28
3. Weezer, "Jamie" – 4:19
4. Cell, "Never Too High" – 5:19
5. Hole, "Beautiful Son" – 2:28
6. Beck, "Bogusflow" – 3:11
7. Sonic Youth, "Compilation Blues" – 3:00
8. that dog., "Grunge Couple" – 3:53
9. Counting Crows, "Einstein on the Beach (For an Eggman)" – 3:53
10. The Posies, "Open Every Window" – 3:14
11. Sloan, "Stove/Smother" – 4:44
12. St. Johnny, "Wild Goose Chasing" – 3:01
13. Murray Attaway, "Allegory" – 4:32
14. The Sundays, "Don't Tell Your Mother" – 2:36

British edition

1. Urge Overkill, "Dropout" – 4:27
2. Nirvana, "Pay to Play" – 3:28
3. Weezer, "Jamie" – 4:19
4. Sonic Youth, "Compilation Blues" – 3:00
5. Beck, "Bogusflow" – 3:11
6. that dog., "Grunge Couple" – 3:53
7. Counting Crows, "Einstein on the Beach (For an Eggman)" – 3:53
8. Maria McKee, "Plague" – 3:44
9. The Posies, "Open Every Window" – 3:14
10. Sloan, "Stove/Smother" – 4:44
11. St. Johnny, "Wild Goose Chasing" – 3:01
12. Murray Attaway, "Allegory" – 4:32

Low Tech Gen X

Mattel did a re-issue of their handheld, late-1970s Classic Baseball and Classic Football games in 2001.  My friend Cory had the originals of these two games as a kid, and then he got the Mattel remakes more recently when they were re-issued.  He let me take some snapshots of the baseball game which is the one I liked the best as a kid.  I love the very retro Gen X childhood look of these....  

This represents the very early days of handheld gaming and I love how low tech these are.  These games have "alarm clock" LED also known as "seven-segment" LED score boards and are the first generation of handheld digital gaming systems like Nintendo's Gameboy that followed many years later.

If you are Gen X, you watched an analog world phase into a digital one.

Now my friend Cory is a software consultant, and it is amazing not only to think how far technology has come in the life of Generation X, but also how far Gen Xers have come in their knowledge of technology from childhood until now. 

My older step-brother had this toy way back in the day.   I wasn't supposed to play with it, which meant I did anyway when he left the room.  Soon he soon caught on and kept it hidden it after that....So I only played with this toy a couple of times and then I never saw it again, which is fine, because I was busy with mastering my Maze Craze skills on Atari, and didn't have time to worry about it.

Do you remember having one of these as a kid?  Here's a fun article on the history of these types of games: 

A Brief History of Handheld Video Games

For my friend Cory and every Gen Xer who had one of these growing up.

(c) 2013 photos and writing by Chloe - all rights reserved