That phrase and this picture are only going to appeal to readers of a certain age. That age is mostly forgotten – sandwiched between basement sized, punched card munching transactional monoliths, and the birth of the Internet which swept in a digital generation to whom an App is a nicely rendered icon of usefulness accessed with a cursory swipe.

Kids today eh? Back in what was laughingly referred to as the ‘information age‘, the pioneers of micro-computing had broken out of crusty data processing rooms – largely filled with massive multi-million pound suites of humming electronics knocking out the power of todays $200 smartphone. We’d swapped lab coats for mullets, terrible jumpers and trainee moustaches. Nothing worked. Everything was custom built. Soldering irons were mandatory. The vanguard of personal computing in the late ’70s and early ’80s was not a place for the faint hearted.

Or the fashionable. Or the slick and smooth. Or anyone who might at some point consider members of the opposite sex more interesting than motherboards*. No staying abreast of emerging technology was of course more important that, well, breasts. There’s a whole other post on ‘what pubescent boys did for porn before the Internet‘, but for another day I think.

Ah we may have missed many things, but what a time to be a geek. Nose pressed to Tandy’s windows** excitingly pointing out the cutting edge of mobile computing. In a historic marketing event, Osborne honestlydescribedtheir suitcase sized solution to small data a luggable rather than a portable. And every month a new funny shaped keyboard appeared, running some operating system knocked up in a bedroom just like ours.

No big vendor owned the market. There wasn’t really a market to own. All sorts of weird stuff made it into production, and of course none of them would talk to each other. Turf wars were rife, were you a ‘BBC Man‘ or one of those ‘Plastic Spectrum kids’? Which led to some of the most pathetic fights ever ‘Ooooh that ruler REALLY HURT‘.

Anyway I digress. Up there in that tiny little screen,almost hidden behind a massive keyboard, was the seminal micro computing game. It represents many things; an amazing technical breakthrough creating endless worlds in bugger all memory; real graphics of the vector variety drawing you into that tiny VDU,and about a year of my life.

Elite was a truly amazing bit of software. Not that we called it that back in the day. It was a game you spent about 20 minutes loading off a disc drive with as much storage as a single contemporary message thread, and in no time at all you were deeply immersed in deep space trading your way across an infinite galaxy.

None of this linear gameplay which pretty much defined 99{45ac9c3234d371044e23e276755ef3a4dde8f1068375defba7d385ca3cd4deb2} of what passed as passing time with rubbish computers. Smuggling, bounty hunting, smart trading – all of these roles were yours to choose. And with it being an entirely internet free decade, the concept of on-line gaming was more having a few mates round taking turns on the keyboard.

It looks rubbish tho doesn’t it? Well it is 30 years old, and we should all reflect how much better we presented ourselves back then. Having encountered this National Computer Museum working exhibit at a dull trade show, I was desperately keen to reacquaint myself with my lost youth.

I didn’t tho. We all know what happens when you meet your heroes. After a year of frustration attempting to earn my ‘elite‘ rating, the early thrills of mere survival were long behind me, and my ship had more upgrades than the bikes now hanging in the shedofdreams. Eventually I drifted off to other pleasures which has never really included playing games of any vintage.

Apparently gaming now is an older persons pastime. Mid 30s is the sweet spot, or – as I think of it – still pretty much in short trousers. And while I’m happy to piss countless hours away on Internet forums. the prospect of a virtual shoot ’em up doesn’t hold much interest. Even the brand new – and apparently epic – version of Elite isn’t something I want to be involved in.

Heady days my early teenage years. Messing about with acoustic couplers and teletype terminals. Put me on a path I’ve never managed quite to fall off. It’s all a bit easy and yet somehow hellishly complicated now – ensuring myapproach of treating all technology as essentially elven magic serving me well.

Still wish I’d had a go tho. I’d have happily spent a few desperatehours to earnthatlow resolution message flashing on a rubbish screen praising my piracy prowess. “Right on Commander” indeed.

It was no Angry Birds. For which I’m rather sentimentally grateful 😉

* and it was all men. Well boys really. But no woman. Strange really considering that cohort of young gentlemen fiddling with their ram packs.

** not a euphemism. More an electronics emporium,

Rememberthose makeover programs? Rammed the TV schedules before Britain discovered baking. Lawrence pretentious-git-twat stencilling Tigers arses on lime green walls thendeclaring it ‘modern and zesty with an undercurrent of primal longing’ or some such shit? I do, and not much has changed in 20 years other than a ever lengtheninglist of in house projects which have gone horribly wrong.

Previously on the hedgehog, my inability to engage with how other believe Sundays should be wasted has been put down to guileful rubbish-ness and a somewhat more basic laziness. More recently, it’s become apparent my missing DIY gene is not a displacement tactic – no it’s just that I’m really shit at it.

Picture a Venn diagram with circles representing cack handed, clumsy, impatient and clueless, andfind me maroonedat the intersect point. Spitting out screws,whileabsent-mindedly emulsioning the dog.

Yet even knowing the result of even a smidgen of home improvement action will result in either calling out the fire brigade or the bomb squad, I’m always ready* to have another go.

We’re not talking artisan furniture creation here; beard stroking craftsmanship whittling this and shaping that before a wardrobe – imbued with such rustic authenticity it comes supplied with the original tree – emerges triumphant from a flurry of shavings.

What we have insteadis something a little simpler; one plank of pre-drilled wood to be attached to one flat wall. Supplied complete with screws, raw plugs and, because I was intricately involved, an idiot.

This woody ordering of chaotic coats required three drilled holes to receive what I believe is known as the ‘mounting equipment’**.Instantly I dispatched myself to the shedofdreams(tm) to dust off terrifying power tools, each accessorised with whirly-death-metal evisceratorsstraight out of the Mad Max props department.

Encouraged by having the tools for the job, I even broke out the spirit level to reinforce my tool handling proficiency.The first hole was a triumph, almost round and ready to receive a stiff rawplug to its diameter. A fine start barely diminished by it occupying a location some 50 millimetres from the optimal position.

Easy mistake to make. Drilled three more in quick succession, whichfrom a distance (say space) had horizontal alignment written all over them. Believingthe worst was over, I was stuffing rawplugs like a man desperate to discover if the giblets had been left in a dead chicken. The difference being what went in refused to come back out.

Professionalism now out of the window and accelerating fast from the scene of the crime, the prospect of understanding why this might be never got close to usurping some light hammer action attempting to rectify the problem.Leaving me with three rawplugs which still didn’t fit, but were now nicely splayed across some freshly cracked plaster.

Not being one to give up when the odds are against me, I scuttled back to the shed in search of a big sodding knife to hack them flat. This was – to my mind – the perfect solution until, some days later, the whole edifice crashed from the wall creating a localised coat tsunami.

Luckily, and before I accidentally hacked my own head off, Carol came to the rescue removing them using some kind of arcane magic. Smoking newts the lot. No way there was a simple solution that didn’t involve – for want of an example – manly warnings of ‘fire in the hole’

Determined to reassert my DIY authority, I cleverly repurposed the drill as a custom ‘hole enlarger’ which, while triggering a ‘Beavis and Butthead’ snigger, didn’t really solve the problem.

Well it did in that the plugs-of-bastard now fitted into the enlarged aperture for a given value of ‘fitting’. Fitted in, fell straight out. Like throwing sticks down the Mersey Tunnel (I might at some point get bored of crude sexual references but we’re 500+ words in, and it’s not looking likely)

Still pleased with my work, we offered up this ‘simple to fit coat-rack’ which went well tothe point wherethe last screw failed to engage with that tossing raw plug, and instead inserted itself insidiously into the rather wider hole I’d made to get the bloody thing to fit in the first place.

With a heartfelt ‘OH FUCK THIS’, I sulked off back to the shed and instead attempted to fix only mildly broken things on my bicycles. I think we can all guess how well that went.

The only conclusion that can be drawn from all this is some people are born with a generic ability to bevel, while the rest of us are left to frustrating muddle through in impotent useless-ness.

The solution is staring us in the trades directory; get a man in whose easy competence and balletic power tool operation leaves me both in awe and irritated.

I console myself with the thought that I’m quite good at doing the stuff that makes me money, even if nobody can actually identify what that might be***. I can even write stuff that desperate content seekers will pay real cash for.But put a screwdriver in my hand, and it’s just going to be disasters wrapped up in chaos until someone loses an eye.

So I’m giving up. Accepting I am just shit at this kind of stuff, and admittingit’s not going to get any better. Buying more tools or taking more time is merely throwing good cash and time at bad technique and stupidity. Even paintbrushes are probably an implement well beyond my meagre ability.

So I’m off the mow the lawn instead. Assuming I don’t set myself on fire starting the lawnmower. 50/50 chance I reckon.

* Assuming it’s raining, there nothing on the Internet, and I’ve failed to escape the questioning glare of the house’s only proper adult.

** had to check the instructions quite carefully at this point. Expected them to be rated 18. Some disappointment followed especially when reviewing the diagrams.

*** I’m not being enigmatic, I don’t know what it is either.

Tonight I’m back on the mat for the first time in a while. A long while in fact – while harvesting the original post for my single previous experience of what I’ve come to think of as low impact yoghurt, the date was back in 2007. I’m sure it was really about two Fridays ago, or maybe the week before that.

How can it be 2007? Anyway I expect I’ll be even more useless and quite a lot more sweaty. Attempting to stand up after the Monday spin class sometimes feels like I’m overachieving, so I expect to find myself slumped in the corner of the Gym with various joints popping and clicking after about five minutes.

Which is about all you need to read that article from 2007.

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Anyone for Yoda?

 

In preparation for a date with a destiny, that I would happily have run over broken glass to break, my early evening reading was the refreshingly kaftan Mung Bean Times incorporating ˜What Lentil’. Yes, dear readers, I’m going to admit on an open blog “ or Chronicle of Angst as I’m increasingly thinking of it as “ that a relatively healthy and not totally mental bloke went to Yoga.

The vision that’s impossible to shake is made up of a room full of Cassandras’ and Skys’ clothed in tie-die shirts and leg warmers, chanting runic base lines and inserting purple painted toes into jewellery infested ears. Add a dash of dreary music easily categorised into relaxing tunes to slash your wrists by and some way out hippy imploring us to locate our inner child, and the whole foot laceration begins to look like the less painful option.

Obviously there were no blokes except me and a few of the women were certainly of the original bra burning generation. But not all of them “ one of which was my wife as I cravenly refused to go on my own. In case someone gave me a jostick and insisted on adorning my person with occult jewellery. And as for the instructor “ well let me tell about Darcie, who is supple enough to throw a leg carelessly into the next room while elegantly rotating on a single finger. And “ apparently I didn’t really notice as Carol was yoga-matted right next to me “ she was pretty damn hot too. Fellas, consider this “ extremely athletic, the perfect figure and probably susceptible to the odd recreational pharmaceutical. Quite a combination I should think, if I were thinking about it. Which I’m not but the rest of you, go fill your boots. Or something.

Anyway it was bloody hard “ stop sniggering at the back “ and while ladies who lunch stretched languid muscles with irritating ease, I was all trembling veins and slouchy posture. Twenty years of cycling has reduced my hamstrings to a length better suited to a 10 year old child. Whereas my flexibility would be better matched to an 80 year old man with arthritis. Or possibly rigour mortis.

Blokes generally like lifting big weights or sweating in a manly manner while sucking in their gut and thrusting everything pelvic in the opposite direction. But this isn’t like that at all, it’s all the pain you can handle by pitting opposing muscles in an uber bitch fight and there really aren’t any winners. Except “ and it’s not without some grudging am I writing this “ an hour later, all sorts of previously unseen rotational vistas had opened up.

Thankfully for all my stereotyping, mung bean made a late entry into proceeding when we all had a much needed lie down with the lights off. Someone even brought a blanket. I was doing my best to relax but¦ (edited for reasons of not wishing to die horribly by cheese grater) instead found myself thinking that this wasn’t quite as silly as originally envisaged.

As the great man/dwarf/Jedi may once have said Practise the art of Yoga or touch your toes you will not. I had a far better line for the old loppy eared one but the thought of the cheese grater made me reconsider.

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