(written: 15 October 2003)
If there's one thing I can't get enough of it's makeover shows. Whether it's making over an ugly person, landscaping a garden as a surprise for an ugly person, or revamping an interior, I'm all over it like Oprah on a bag of chips.
I think the biggest kick (uhhhh I'm SUCH a loser) I get out of these shows is the before and after comparisons. Not so much in the making over the ugly person scenario because the softened lighting and sweater knotted around the shoulders a la Sally Jesse just bugs me. No, I'm talking about the revelation of what professionals can do to help out slobs. Slobs who have crammed car skeletons into their guest bedrooms. Slobs who have replaced bathroom tiles with stale crackers. Slobs who make ME feel better about the way I look after my dwellings. I may be messy but at least I don't have things growing in weird and exotic places. And at least I know where things are. Apart from the remote. It troubles me greatly.
*sigh*
Those were the days. Oh... that was a pretty lousy transition. But those were the days. The commodore 64 days. We'd get the latest floppy disk rental "catalogue" (printed out on a dot matrix printer) in the mail and we'd pour over such titles as "Pole Position" and "Ski or Die". We'd go into the store and pick out a rental then go home and... my brother would play it and I'd watch until he'd had enough. Then I'd play alone. *Sigh* My favourite game was Where in the world is Carmen San Diego. Unfortunately I was too young (ie too stupid) to understand the game at all and could never do it. At all.
We had games already on our computer of course. Lemonade Stand was a favourite for some godforsaken reason. Bubble Bobble kept my brother and his friends entertained right up till about age 14. Some crappy RPG type game used to tell us off for swearing. "Please keep my CPU clean!"
Somewhere along the line, when I was about 7 or 8 I learned the heaven sent key command of alt-ctrl-del. When we got C64s at school I was always called on to do my "computer trick". If you think that is ridiculous, how about how when I was 8 I went along by special invitation to a computers convention because I was one of the minority at my school. Those who knew how to quickly type in load"$",8,1.
But eventually *sigh* it all had to come to an end. Both of us kids were at high school and a C64 with dot matrix printer was hardly going to cut the mustard. We had to get fancy schmancy windows... when it actually did have windows. And a mouse instead of a joystick. Tell me... can one get much joy our of a mouse? Eh? NO! If you could they'd be called joymouses. Or Joymice.
It was the end of an era.
Or error.
Or. Something.
And away I go.