I wrote the following 4 pages to my dad as opposed to writing it to Santa Claus. On the first page, I wrote the word you a lot. Near the bottom of the page, I wrote, "You owe me tons of money and I want a Sega Dreamcast, $200, VCR, $200, bike, $266, and tons more, now!" I also quoted from my second guinea pig, Ra Ra Roo Roo Hercules Roberto.

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Dreamcast

1999-09-09 - Thursday - Dreamcast - North America Release at $200, 4 pics-2.

This is page 2 of 4 pages I wrote back in 1999. I was fourteen years old. The SEGA Dreamcast was released to North America on Thursday, the 9th of September of 1999. These four pages don't have any dates on them which means I don't know which month this was. I did get a camcorder for my 15th birthday in February of 2000 and the Dreamcast came out in September of 1999. This means there is a window of six months between September of 1999 and February of 2000. But this was probably written before Christmas of 1999. Well, this is assuming I didn't write this before September, 1999. Dreamcast came out in America in September. But I think it came out before that in Japan meaning it was around. So, it's possible that I knew about it before September. But I probably didn't write all of this before September of that year.

On this second page or photo, I wrote a bunch of numbers, math, in order to build my argument that my father owed me money. Now, was I right that he owed me money? Yes and no. He did and did not. It can be argued that he wasted a lot of money in his life drinking, gambling, etc. I say all of that to say I had reasons or excuses for why I was trying to pressure him to buy me presents, gifts, for Christmas, my birthdays, etc. I was generally more vocal about trying to get money out of him than my brother was. And that doesn't mean I was exactly right in everything I did, wrote, said, etc. Well, more so, it can be said that I may have been wrong in how I did things. In some ways, I'm Sorry for many things. But at the same time, I'm also Sorry Not Sorry for a long list of things. I'm planning on writing a Sorry series to talk about all of that. So, I'm not here to talk too much about that or about what I was wrong and right about. The purpose of this post is simply to show you what I wrote both good and bad.

You Owe Me

On this second page, it looks like I made up a bunch of random numbers and words and a wide variety of random things in order to build an argument stating how I deserved money. In some ways, I was acting like an SJW leftist. But not to say parents should not give their children things. But at the same time, excessive entitlement can spoil a kid. But in my defense, we grew up in a trailer in an alleged ghetto. I felt like I was poor. It might be a question of whether we were too poor or not. It is true my dad had money to spare. Either take the money or consider it wasted. Because my dad would flush his money down the drain drinking beer or gambling or who knows what else. So, at the end of the day, I'm not going to say I was absolutely wrong in asking for money and for a bunch of things. But looking back, I probably should have just asked for one thing as opposed to several different items. And I can go back and forth on this. In some ways, he has the right to do what he wants with his money. That doesn't mean he should but he did what he wanted to do. And I wanted to take advantage of the situation. Perhaps it was a lose-lose situation. I think I was trying to turn it into a win-win kind of situation. I wanted to make the most of whatever I could get. I believe in debate, in discussion, in arguing, in bartering, in making deals, in competition. I'm not sure if my dad ever got these 4 pages. But my intent was to have him read all of this. And he probably did look at it. And it's not like he never got us kids things for Christmases, birthdays, etc. Over the years, he got us many things. We went camping a few times. We went on a few vacation trips. We went to the movie theater as a family a few times in the 1990s. We may have went bowling a few times. We played basketball. We went to Disneyland. We went to the beach a few times. My dad a car a few times and we went to a few places a few times. We had a few adventures. We made some memories. He bought us some things. He spent time with us at times. And growing up through the 1990's, my attitude was generally one relating to trying to get as much as I could. I was and still am like a pack rat. And that can be good and bad. These four pages paints a picture of how I was trying to persuade my dad to give me as much as possible. And if he ended up giving me less than $5,000 USD (Which is a number I mention in this letter), then I would have been ok with that because that is how you make a deal. You say a 5 million and they settle with say 1 million for example. And that is a big number. And that was part of my thinking when I wrote this stuff.

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Computer in 1998

On this third page, I mentioned how we didn't get a computer until 1998. Now, I cannot say if that date in time is completely accurate. It might be that we got a computer for the Christmas of 1998. But it is also possible that we a computer the Christmas of 1997. Sometimes, I would write things or say things that were inaccurate. Sometimes, I did it purposely and other times accidental. I didn't always verify dates like I do now. I might be a little more paranoid now. I am a little more self-aware as I get older and as I look back at things. I mention how dad would talk about getting a computer year after year and eventually we got one. But I don't know how many different years until we got one for the first time. We got American On-Line (AOL) as our Internet Service Provider (ISP) or technically we had dial-up meaning we had to use our phone service to access the Internet. In other words, it would be like using your phone service on your phone to access the Internet. So, AOL would be more like a web browser or an app in a sense back then. What I mean is that people were not directly connected but instead had to have an indirect connection through the phone carrier which for us was AT&T. So, we first got Internet in 1997 or 1998 at the earliest is my guess.

Oatmeal Wants AOL Oatmeal

For an incomplete introduction outline to my first experiences and impression with the Internet, check out my Oatmeal Wants AOL Oatmeal article which mentions a few things relating to my encounters with the world wide web growing up. Well, I was born in 1985 in Oregon. So, my first encounter with online life probably didn't start in the 1980s. I did have a toy computer as early as the 1980s but that was not the Internet. My mom or others might have accessed online catalogs on computers at libraries which my memories of that goes back at least to the 1990s. My neighbors in space 164 had an Apple computer, 1993-1994. But they probably didn't have any Internet. My dad had friends in Cornelius in the early 1990s. I played some games on their computers around the time they were moving to a farm in Forest Grove. They probably didn't have any Internet. We went on a family trip, probably in April of 1997 or whenever it was, we went down to the bottom of Oregon to see friends and family of my dad. I remember going on somebody's computer. It was connected on the Internet. And we got our own computer and our own Internet after that in 1997 or 1998. Probably 1998 at the latest. This is a brief outline of my Internet and computer life up to that point. Well, a brief outline from the top of my head. I think those were the main highlights up to 1997. But I started using computers and Internet a lot more since 1997 or 1998.

Fixing Computers

On this third page, I mentioned how computers got broken. I would spend time trying to fix the computers. So, I've gone on to learn a lot about fixing computers since then both hardware and software related. So, I started becoming a computer geek in the late 1990s in other words.

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Wish List

On this fourth and last page that I probably wrote in October of 1999 is my guess or in December of 1999 at the latest, I include a list of items that I wanted. I wanted a computer. I wanted a SEGA Dreamcast with 4 controllers. I wanted Sonic Adventures. I wanted a bike. And my dad would sometimes get us bikes once a year or every so often. Sometimes, some of our bikes were stolen. We didn't always lock up our bikes. So, it's not like we never had bikes. We had bikes. We sometimes lost bikes. Me and my siblings were growing a lot. So, we were outgrowing our bikes. I also wrote on this wish list that I wanted a cell phone. Well, I don't think I knew much about phones back then.

Dreamcast

I probably first saw a Dreamcast when we were at a mall somewhere. We must have stopped by Game Stop or whatever the game store was. They had demo games out. So, I played a demo of the Sonic Adventures game. It's possible we were out there at a mall around Christmas of 1999. But it's also possible it was before that too. There were video game demos at Fred Meyers, McDonald's, etc. So, since like the 1990s, I would sometimes play games at those stores or restaurants. That goes back to like 1996 if not earlier. So, my first memory might be from going to Fred Meyers in Cornelius, Oregon. So, they had Playstation 1 and a Nintendo 64. So, I started playing around that time, whenever that was. I was always a fan of Nintendo mostly. But I did like Sonic. I was not really much a fan of Sony back in the 1990s. I didn't really know much about Sony either. Bill Bailey, one of my best friends since 1994 or 1995, had a Sega Genesis. We would play Sonic 2 on it. Jesse Vargas, our neighbor friend from across the street, had a Sega too. So, we also played Sonic there too. And we eventually got our own Sega Genesis console machine probably around 1998. At least by then or 1999. And I think not before 1998. So, around that time. And it was probably around the time the Whiz Bang Video store was going out of business. They were selling videos, games, consoles, etc. So, we bought mostly a bunch of regular Nintendo games.

I've not comment on every single thing I've mentioned on these four pages. This is more like a few highlights. I wanted to give you a quick snapshot into time. This is for the time capsule. Live long and prosper.