hotham court

I dont have many friends. Hard to believe, you gasp, but it's true. I have never been one to have a huge number of friends but what I lack in numbers, I make up for in loyalty. Even now, almost all of my friends have been in my life for 15+ years, some longer. One in particular (lets call him Ben) has been in my life for a very long time. So long in fact, that we went to kindergarden together, primary school together, high school together, we even attended the same uni (at least for a year until I got over it and dropped out, opting for the life of a working stiff). I'm 34, he just turned 35. I estimate that we have been mates (not just known each other but actually been good mates) for almost 30 years. That both makes me feel great and old. When you know someone for that long, you realise that regardless of what happens, nothing is going to get in the way of your friendship.

Not only are we friends, but our families are also friends. We have spent many christmases and easters together, many birthdays and even holidayed together. When I was about 12, I used to spend a lot of time over at his place, not because he always had much better toys than I did (which he did), but because I really liked hanging out with his family. Ben had the top floor of the house almost completely to himself, and this included a lounge/gaming area, so we spent a lot of time playing video games. My earliest game related memories all involve being at Ben's house, and it all began on his older brother's Spectrum. I dont remember much about this except the rubbery keys. I think we were too young to interact too much with this computer, but we did get some games running.

On friday nights, for many years, my parents would go over to Ben's house for a social drink and to play cards. It all sounds much more criminal underworld than it actually was - they would play Acee Doocee or Seven and a half (which is essentially blackjack where the picture cards are "halfs") and play for money, but we are talking 20 cents. They would all bring any change they had and only play for change. It really was innocent fun and these fridays are some of my most treasured childhood memories. You see because the card games and laughing went late into the night, so I was allowed to stay up late with Ben, playing games, listening to music, just generally hanging out.

At some point, Ben got an Apple ][+ - The first real computer that I was exposed to. I'm not sure where it came from, or where the games came from, but this computer had a profound effect on my life. We played games like Karateka and Captain Goodnight and Ghostbusters on the black and white monitor. We used to spend hours typing out code from computer magazines to get the computer to generate an image of a car or plane, or we'd load up code for an adventure game. At some point, we began writing code for our own original (well kinda) choose your own adventure style game. You are standing in a room, press 1 to go north. I think it's fair to say that my love of games and gaming had sprouted, ready to bloom when the right game came along. I loved this computer a lot, and would love to get hold of a working one. Meanwhile, my dad bought a Tandy 1000 286 with green monochrome monitor and x2 5.25" floppy drives. I had some games on that too - America's Cup, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, Zaxxon - but none were as great as those games on the Apple ][+

As I mentioned in my last post, for a period of time I would go to the bowling alley on a wednesday night - well that was also with this Ben and his dad. Wednesday night was league night, so while Ben's dad would bowl with his cousins, Ben and I would play video games. I mentioned that this is where I first played Super Mario Bros - well around this time, Ben's parents had been to Hong Kong (I think? Or some other exotic overseas destination - at this point in my life, our family didnt have that much money, so the idea of going overseas seemed like something I would probably never get to do in my lifetime). When they came back, they brought with them a NES console, and LOADS of games. Some licensed Nintendo games, and a bunch of 20 games in one bootleg carts. Now at this point in time, I also had a NES, with SMB and Duck Hunt (dual cart), Castlevania, Metroid, Zelda, and Megaman. I may have had a couple of others but for the life of my I cant remember what else. Ben's parents however, brought back a whole universe of games - most of which I'd never even heard of. It was awesome.

One that I had heard of was Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, and there it was, in all it's gold cart glory. Now I reckon I was 13 years old at this point, and my love for the first Zelda game was immense. I had never heard of Miyamoto, and probably wasnt even aware that the game was Japanese, but I knew I loved it more than most other things in life. I think I was the perfect age for the consumption of the NES and it's games - probably why I still have such a soft spot for it.

Anyway, it's friday night, I'm 13 and I'm at Ben's house upstairs in front of the tv playing Zelda II while the adults talk and laugh downstairs. We probably had pizza for dinner, and have some kind of lollies and lemonade. Sure the game was fucking hard, and I never finished it (though I did make it to the last level), but these really were the best of times, not the blurst of times, and Zelda II, Shigeru Miyamoto, Nintendo and Ben all played a part. This is not borrowed nostalgia, this is the real deal.

As an adult, not much has changed. To be honest, I still feel a lot like the 13 year old boy I was - content with a good mate, pizza and some great video games. My idea of a great day off work is to do pretty much what I was doing in 1989. Sure I might add a bottle of shiraz and some koko black chocolates to the mix, but ultimately I'm still that kid. I can only conclude that I'll always be that kid too. Last year, one of my awesome sisters gave me a NES console for my birthday. It was one of the best presents I have received (actually I was sent to a cooking class this year and that too was an amazing gift). Perhaps I should hunt down that gold cart on ebay, take some time off work and finally close the book on Zelda II. That, to me, sounds brilliant.

games

I was recently asked to name my top 5 arcade games of all time. This to me, is like being asked to name your top 5 songs of all time - it could change daily depending on mood or requires further criteria; games that changed your life, games that you played most, games that have stood the test of time, etc. For a while, I considered Holland, 1945 by Neutral Milk Hotel to be the perfect song - raw emotion, brilliant song writing, dirty raw sound, honest and real. I could listen to it any time of day and it would always make me feel something. It reminds me of a time and place; a set of emotions - it was the soundtrack to a section of my life that resides right at the end of a chapter. Today however, while I maintain it's a great song, it wouldn't be in my top 5 songs of all time. Maybe tomorrow but not today.

For me, games have had a similar if not more profound impact on my life - and I'm talking a very early age. This is not a geek-cred wang measuring competition, but to give you an idea how far back this goes, I remember typing out code onto a Spectrum computer at around age 10. I remember typing code from computer magazines into an Apple ][ plus to draw a picture of a sports car and then not knowing how to save the code, so once the computer was powered down, all the hours of coding were gone. Our family had an Atari 2600 back when I was in primary school, I played friends Colecovisions and Commodore 64's. Amstrads, Amigas, x86, NES, gameboy, etc etc.

As well as this, I was playing arcade games from when I was just a lad. I remember riding my BMX down to the local gym because there was a Phoenix table-top cabinet there. I used to have an after school paper round that earned me a princely sum of ~$5. The round was on a tuesday after school, and once it was done, I'd blow all five bucks on doughnuts, coke and Twin Cobra. When I was around 12, my mum was working in Melbourne at a TAB. If I had the day off, sometimes she'd let me come into the city with her and spend the day watching a movie, eating McDonalds and playing video games. It's one of the fondest memories I have of that time. Above the Hoyts mid-city cinema just outside the entrance to each of the theaters, there was a huge game arcade. It was here I experienced the stand up Discs of Tron cabinet. It was also here I played Outrun (moving cab), Wonderboy, Space Harrier, actually a bunch of games by Yu Suzuki, 720 degrees and loads more. I think this is where my love of gaming has it's roots. There were a number of other game arcades around Melbourne at that time too, all with the latest Japanese games in them, moving cabinets and all.

Fast forward a couple of years, and I started going to bowling nights with family friends. I didn't bowl mind you, I went as it was a social outing and because this particular place had Double Dragon. That was one of the first arcade games that I truly fell in love with. I think this was also around the time that games went from 20 cents to 40 cents. 100% increase, I was outraged! A few months on, and new machines kept appearing - Super Bubble Bobble, Bad Dudes vs dragon Ninja and then out of nowhere, a game that looked nothing like anything I had ever seen - Super Mario Bros. Yes, it was an arcade game before it appeared on the NES, and yes I fell in love with it immediately. God knows how much money I spent on that machine.. probably not much actually, I never had much money.

I could mention family holidays where I spent two weeks either in the games room, or in our caravan playing my NES but I wont. Well actually I just did, but thats all I will say about that. During my mid teens, I had become a true gamer. I had a NES, a SNES, a gameboy and would play mine or anyone else's consoles at any opportunity. In the town that I grew up in, an arcade had also opened, and the big game of the era was Street Fighter II. I would play that, New Zealand Story, The Simpsons and a bunch of other obscure games that this arcade had. Unfortunately the arcade quickly turned into a hang-out for undesirables and rumours had begun to spread that people were selling weed there. OMG DRUGS. The place was open for maybe a year, before closing down to the cries of "good riddance" from the backwards fucks that ran the place. At this point, I couldn't wait to get out of such a town.. but we are talking about games, I digress.

I used to spend a lot of time at my next door neighbors house throughout my teens years, and the vast majority of the time was spent playing games. NES, SNES mostly. I wasn't a Sega kid, but I knew other kids who were, so had access to play them. I also worked in a toy store during high school, and this particular one used to hire out games, so I could basically borrow any game I liked for free. As a result, I played a LOT of SNES games. I also once entered a Tetris competition and made it through to the final (held at Myer melbourne when they still had a roof top carnival). Unfortunately I was knocked out of the comp but won a Super mario t-shirt which I wore really only around the house. You see at this time in gaming history, whether you played console games or pc games, you were one in the same - a nerd. Gaming was NOT a cool past time, and gamers were marginalised. Well maybe not marginalised, but we were definitely a niche group. Looking back, there are upsides and downsides to this. When Sony released the Playstation and used marketing to make gaming seem cool, the entire game industry changed. It's because of this that we now get AAA titles like GTAIV, but it's also because of this that we now get AAA titles like, well pretty much everything EA and Ubisoft make. Shit games like Tombraider get more attention and sales than much better games because now they have a marketing budget. Uh oh, I'm digressing again.

N64, Playstation, Gamecube, PS2, Wii, DS, PS3, etc. I'm now in my 30's and two things have remained constant: my love for music and my love for games. Music: bands, songs, instruments are dotted throughout my life, providing mood to memories, or emotion to situations. For me games play a similar role. They evoke that extra depth when remembering a time and place, they take center stage in parts, they have played a huge role in who I am today and why I choose to study what I did at university. Sure it's nostalgia, but it's much more than that.

I think rather than try and choose 5 arcade games, I may write about games that I love and games that had a profound impact on me in future posts. Yes, but not right now.

electioneering

Like almost everyone I have spoken to, I am a disheartened, disenfranchised voter. I see the upcoming election as the worst one of my life, and possibly in the history of this country. For the first time, I am being forced to choose between two parties that essentially represent the same ideals. Gone are the days where the Libs looked after business to the detriment of workers rights. Gone are the days of the ALP protecting the worker, supporting the union movement, leaning slightly to the left. At some point, while I wasn't paying attention, both parties transformed into one in the same - vying for the vote of bogan Australia. The breeders from the outer suburbs - two cars, two plus kids, anxious about boat people threatening their capacity to live in a McMansion and consume like Paris Hilton would if she were a bogan from the suburbs. Worried about their children being exposed to the dangers of the internet, bullying, obesity, but think it's the government who are responsible for protecting them.

One party wants to censor everything and couldn't manage a thumb up their own arse. The other party wants to go back to the good old xenophobic days of J Ho, and cancel the one and only good thing to come out of an entire term of ALP rule: the NBN.

It's fucking depressing.

So what do you do? Well one positive thing to come out of this is that I now have a much greater understanding of how voting works in both the lower house and the senate. I understand preference voting and how the left over votes are distributed. I have a very clear understanding where all the major parties stand on a wide range of issues (thank you internet) and I even have my own how to vote card thanks to belowtheline.org.au.

Still, as I mentioned elsewhere, it's like being forced to choose between cancer and cat aids. My only hope is that the greens can win Melbourne (i'll try and help with that) and hold the balance of power. Perhaps then they can act as a filter and a representation of urban dwelling left-leaning intellectuals (well mostly). Surely if that is all I can hope for, then there is something broken in our political system? It's not like I have extreme or even fringe views on most issues. I just wish our politicians stopped pandering to John Q Bogan and acted a little more progressively and with more humanity.

Regardless, come this saturday we're fucked.

winter

I ventured out into the wet weather today to take some photos. I actually like rain, and especially like driving in it. Anyway, I put a bunch of photos up on my flickr page. You can access it from the link down the page a bit or if you are lazy, by clicking here. I really do love the process of creating these images.

back

yep, back. gonna type stuff too.