Category: Family

Escalator Mystery

February 2, 2011

In the latest issue of Keroro Gunso, there is a scene in which one of the characters pauses before riding an escalator. He was waiting for the step with the footprints on it.

The escalator in the manga was not like the one above (in Singapore), but only had one pair of footprints on one of the steps. It was a typically strange scene in Sgt. Frog, but it triggered in me a memory!

From now on this post is dedicated to BW and AW and MMN and anyone else that grew up in Newcastle: Didn’t we have a wooden escalator in one store that had – on one step only – a pair of painted footprints?

I’m thinking it was probably in David Jones in Newcastle, but may possibly have been in the old Store building. The escalator was not one of the free-standing ones – it was against a back or side wall of the building with another wall built alongside (so it was a bit of a tunnel). As I said the stairs were wooden, and one of them had painted (yellow) footprints.

Is this memory real? I hope someone can verify that it is. But if so, then what was the purpose of the footprints? Why only on one step? Why only on one escalator?

The Year I Buckled Down And Grew Up

January 26, 2011

2010 was a shocking year in one respect: my game collection. The pie charts don’t lie, so here they are…

The above shows total game purchases during the year, broken by percentage. I only got 75 games in total during 2010 – a drop of about 25% from the previous year. Of that total the largest amount was 40 games for the DS. Many of the games for PS3 (28 total) were games downloaded from PSN (and not retail games).

There is the breakdown by cost. You can see PS3 edged out DS by a little, mostly because the retail games are about twice as much. The total dollars spent was almost a 50% reduction on 2009, and in fact was one of the lowest for any year since I started keeping records (1993). I spent a little less than $1300 on my gaming hobby during 2010.

In short: 2010 was a relatively inexpensive year for me as far as game buying was concerned.

The factors? I can think of a few:
– Cheap downloaded games (I rarely buy PSN games costing more than $5)
– Less time to play games, due to me being busier teaching than in previous years
– I spent an inordinate amount of time playing just three games. In fact, gameplay on these titles equals about 7% of my life during 2010, which means it would have been a much larger percentage of the time spent actually playing games (I estimate 50%)

I suppose I should start tracking iOS games as well, and had I done that this year there would have been maybe $20 spent in total.

And so we get to my ‘game of the year’ award. It’s not as obvious as it perhaps could be, but after some deliberation I would have to say this guy wins:

Monster Hunter Tri is a beast of a game, made by men for men. Playing this game is like spending time in the world as it should be.

And in 2010 I spent hundreds of hours in that world 🙂

The Impossible Dream

January 19, 2011

It started in Sydney, when my departing plane was delayed by two and a half hours due to a ‘malfunction’ (never fully explained to us). Boo to United for poorly informing us, since at one point (on the board) the flight was described as ‘cancelled’.

That’s how I feel right now, +1 day after finally getting back here, jet-lagged and very tired. I just finished the most essential class-related work, and am going to go rest soon.

Upon our late arrival in Los Angeles the plane departing for Chicago was delayed as well (due to ice in Chicago). This meant I was able to make the connection, although even then it was known the Albany one had no chance.

I think that goat will remember me for ever. “Never”, did he think, “did I think a human would ever pick me up!”. And for that simple act he came to love me 🙂

United put me in a hotel in Chicago. A spiffy one, better than anything I’d probably pay for myself. And yet it was lost on me for I had no clean clothes and simply washed what I had in the shower and went straight to bed. Only I didn’t sleep, just playing DS all through the night and drying my clothes with the hair dryer.

Even now, +3 days from leaving Oz, do I recall the delicious taste of grilled – always fresh, not frozen – chicken sandwiches. Many things change in life, but that memory will remain always.

The flight from Chicago the next day was similarly delayed. As it turns out our first plane broke, and we had to wait over 3 hours for a replacement. Then we were detained further still. I spent almost 5 hours seated on planes just yesterday, and only 80 minutes of that was actually in the air. When I finally got home to Albany, I almost thanked God.

I must make a correction – I inaccurately described these guys as Rosella numerous times on this blog. They are in fact a different type of Parrot – a Rainbow Lorikeet. I originally described them as both in the video, thinking the two names were synonymous but they are in fact different birds (google Rosella to see how equally beautiful they are). At any rate check out this guys plumage.

If any bird described to be called Rainbow surely this is the one 🙂

Robot Claw