Microsoft is out to de-throne the IPad for best tablet device on the market, and so far, their PR campaign has been thoroughly entertaining. But now, there’s this…

In an effort to reach out to the Apple-product-toting “Y” and “Millennial” generations, Microsoft’s advertising team has put together a tear-jerking, nostalgia-inducing trip down memory lane to showcase their newest device, the Surface tablet, and a newly improved Internet Explorer search engine. Using actual artifacts from the 1990s, primarily toys, clothing and accessories 20 and 30-somethings would have encountered back in the day, they remind us how once upon a time, Bill Gates was our American Idol and a Microsoft computer system was the product to own.

AND I DO. I DO REMEMBER WHEN WE MADE FUN OF THE KIDS WHO HAD APPLE COMPUTERS BECAUSE THEY WERE SO… strange. I remember those kid-friendly, Ecto-Cooler-clutches on the playground, discussing who had the swankiest PC desktop with an Intel Pentium II processor, and how many hours of free AOL service we’d accumulated in the mail (yeah, I was a computer nerd back in the day). I remember turning on the one computer we owned in the house, seeing the little multi-colored Microsoft flag emblem wave across the screen, hearing that distinctive little jingle telling me the system was up and running, and inserting a floppy disk into the tower to play that famous, pixelated version of Oregon Trail.

Damn Microsoft, you are one smooth mothafucka. You’re like the jerk who stood me up on our second date, who I swore I’d never pine over again, who shows up years later with a winning smile and a clever line and I am curiously optimistic once more. Will I turn in my $1400 Macbook for a Microsoft Surface anytime soon? Probably not. But Microsoft’s clever, non-pretentious use of objects from my childhood certainly reminds me how good the 1990s were, and more importantly, how integral the company was in supporting the technological boom that drives our lifestyles today.