Fifteen years ago today, Windows 95 was released. (Who’s feeling old now?) Many would remember the adverts, which hit TV screens around the world, to the tune of the Rolling Stones’ “Start Me Up”. It was arguably the first modern version of Windows (despite it still apparently having DOS under the hood), and arrived just ... [More]
Category: Retrospectives
Long boring retrospectives
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It was twenty years ago today
Twenty years ago today, I posted my first online writing
Spotted in K-Mart: Lego Prince of Persia. So let me get this straight… this is the toy of the movie of the video game. I wonder if there’ll be (as there was with Star Wars and others) a Lego video game of it. That would be the game of the toy of the movie of ... [More]
Trivia for you: Back in prehistoric times, when most of you had never heard of the Internet and barely anybody used the Web, and way before Twitter and Facebook, I blogged the 1996 Federal election campaign. Several times a week I’d add something new, including a spoof leader debate transcript, a Hippy Party manifesto, Ron ... [More]
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When You Walk In The Room
Some songs evoke a particular memory, of either a specific event or a period of my life. So it is with Paul Carrack’s version of Jackie DeShannon’s “When You Walk In The Room“, from 1987. I bought the 45 (rpm, single) of it, primarily because the (quite amusing) video clip included all of the cast ... [More]
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Hector the Cat
Teaching kids to cross the road safely is a matter of laying out the basic rules, and continual practice. I’d thought over the years it might be easier if the Hector The Cat song was still run on TV, as the lyrics helps make it easy to remember what to do. Happily, thanks to YouTube, ... [More]
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Geek Idol
I’ve had few real idols; people of whom I could genuinely say “I want to be like them.” In my early-to-mid 20s, Ben Elton was one of them. Amazingly funny, both on stage and in his writing. I wanted to write stuff that was half as good as his books, but never quite managed to ... [More]
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How many places have you lived?
Here’s a list of all the places I’ve lived. Some of the info from my early years is a bit vague. I suppose I could ask my mum for more details, but I’m not sure it’s that critical. 1970: A flat somewhere in Sydney — for a short time after my birth 1971ish: A flat ... [More]
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Who are you?
When I was younger I used to focus on a fairly narrow range of music, heavily influenced by what my peers had introduced me to. One day circa 1988 Raoul brought over a VHS tape of some band he liked called The Who. It was a compilation called Who’s Better Who’s Best. I remember I ... [More]
When I was a kid, my dad would take us to Camberwell Civic Centre every April or so, to see the huge model train exhibition they had there. We’d wander around for a couple of hours and I would dream that one day I’d have a really big, detailed train set. Early on I had ... [More]
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900 emails later
On the 12th of August 1990, I sent out an email. It went to a handful of friends, under the name “Toxic Custard Workshop Files.” It was the first of many, initially made up of (allegedly) humorous writing, though these days it’s mostly the previous week’s blog posts. Tonight, 30th of June 2008, I’m sending ... [More]
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Flashback to fifteen years ago
Fifteen years ago I wore a Seiko wristwatch. It was given to me by my legendary Uncle Kevin (UK in the UK), about a decade before. Fifteen years ago I didn’t carry a camera routinely. I had a 35mm Kodak one that my mum had given to me. I It was heavy, had no zoom, ... [More]