In a few months, I'll be half a century old. I got my first black-and-white TV in 1981. In 1989, I got my first digital watch with an alarm and stopwatch. I also got a handheld battery-powered electronic game. In 1989, I started playing a Dendy-style console for the first time (it was a paid game that lasted 30-60 minutes a day). In 1989, I started watching my first pay-to-view movies on VHS. It was probably then that I saw "Wall Street" and began thinking about my future profession :) I spent most of my free time outside with my friends.

Once a year, we took a train to the seaside or flew to the mountainous republics of the USSR. My mother tried to show us big-city life with its theaters and museums. At school, we all wore the same uniform. It's silly to respect someone for wearing designer clothes (but some kids envied those who wore imported clothes).

All this time I read books and magazines. Even in 1997, when I started using the Internet, I could find little there; I got most of my information from books, magazines, newspapers, and TV.

I've been going to the cinema less often (there's nothing interesting there for weeks). I've been going to restaurants less often; simple home-cooked food is still tasty and healthy. But yesterday I bought a dolphin for $356 on Hive. Even if the price drops by half or a third, if I'd spent that money on the cinema and restaurant, I wouldn't have any investments. :)