Throwdown: 1978 vs 1979

Eventually, after spending enough time with some one, conversations tend to lead to an odd form of competition based on pride. Who was born in the better city or who had the better first car. Conversely, looking for sympathy there is always the negative side - who had the most difficult childhood or who spent the longest time feeling lost just trying to figure out what the hell they want to do with their life. These are just a few of the many examples that everyone participates in on a regular basis.

Megan and I recently had a similar conversation about our birth years - 1978 (mine) vs 1979 (Megan's). Initially, a typical discussion of this nature begins as "well I was born in this year, so it was clearly superior... blah, blah blah". Ha ha. As neither of us particularly like to "fight", so we decided to take the argument to the most obvious of arenas and allow VH1 to make the decision for us. What makes VH1 the obvious deciding factor in this particular debate, you ask? They just happened to be airing a marathon of the series "I love the 70s, Volume 2", with a one hour segment dedicated to each year of the decade. We recorded both episodes and judged based on the quality of pop culture that influenced each year.

We watched 1978 first and I knew I was in trouble early on. 1978 seemed to be a pretty bullshit year (in terms of pop culture), with Battlestar Galactica being the lone bright spot (seriously, Andy Gibb and Mr. Whipple can hardly be considered positives). The 1979 episode could have stopped 5 minutes in after covering the creation of ESPN and it's most important program, Sportscenter, and ended with victory. But add on the emergence of the B-52's (check out 1/1/08 "Resolutions" post to see the importance of the B-52's to this blogger) and the debut of the Happy Meal and I was totally sunk. I was forced to admit defeat in shame. Damn you VH1! Maybe it isn't a total loss and the argument can still be alive, if, and only if, VH1 had used 1978's best material in the Volume 1 of the series. The best I can hope for is a draw, but for now, I will be forced to cling to that one glimmer of hope, that one ray of sunshine to make my desperate plea for help.


Note: Wow, that took an odd turn at the end. I get a little carried away some times. I could have gone back and rewritten it, but I find it amusing, so it stays.