My Earliest Gaming Memories

Blaugust Day 8 - Earliest Gaming Memories

Being just a bit older than your average gamer, my memories of gaming seem to be very different to some of those I read about on other blogs and Twitter. We had one of the first home entertainment systems and I remember playing Pong and other games on it. When I checked the Wiki for Pong, it says the home version was released about 1976 so I reckon my Dad was a pretty cool dude back in those days!

I also remember Space Invaders arriving at the local fish and chip shop. It was a place the kids used to hang out at as it was connected to a cafe and the older kids hung out there, drinking coke and putting their pocket money into the juke box. Wiki says Space Invaders was released in 1978 which kind of tallies with my memory but I did think I was a bit younger when I played it but obviously not!

After that, there's a bit of a gap as school got a bit more intense and as I lived in a small village, there was nowhere easy for us to hang out and play games. I do remember Galaxians (1979) and later Galaga(1981) being installed at the local Bus Station cafe where we used to hang out before school. I was a bit of a demon when it came to Galaga and was often late to school because I hadn't died by the time my bus came!

My favorite game though was Mr Do - released in 1982. I had started skipping school and hanging out at the pub by the time it arrived in the UK. It was one of those tabletop versions and I quickly became addicted to it. I must have missed hours of lessons, just sitting there playing that stupid game and I held most of the positions on the Top Ten Leaderboard until it was replaced!

We never had another home based entertainment system after the Pong one though so there are loads of games I have only heard of. I'm not sure I ever heard anyone describe themselves as a gamer in those days and I definitely wouldn't have called myself a gamer back then, I was more of an addict!

Then real life took over and it would be many years before I started playing video games again. But that's a story for anther day.

What are some of the earliest gaming memories you have?

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Farewell, Funny Man

Yesterday I cried - all day. I woke up fine, did my usual early morning stuff then opened Twitter on my PC and the first thing I saw was a RIP Robin Williams tweet. That on it's own made me tear up, I've always loved his movies, even the not-so-great ones, but then I saw the cause of death and that he'd been fighting depression and then, then it hit me - hard!

I have no idea why it hit me so hard - I wouldn't have called myself a big fan, I haven't even seen one of his movies in the last 5 years or more, but I felt like I'd lost a member of my family. I honestly howled & sobbed so hard I gave myself a headache and hiccups!

As I calmed down to more gentle weeping though, I realised it brought back the panicked trip to the hospital, following an ambulance and arriving 5 minutes too late. How I drove my husband & brother-in-law home that day, I don't know.

It brought back the day the police knocked on my door and asked if I knew my brother-in-law. The younger policeman had to dial the phone and hold it for me so I could tell my husband to come home.

It brought back all my teen years when I sat and stared at bottles of pills for hours, never quite having the courage or desperation to open those containers.

It brought back the fear - the fear that this monster black dog inside me might come back and sweep all my current happiness away. As if some wicked being somewhere is keeping score of how many days of happiness and sadness I've had and it will soon be time to head back into sorrow.

I want to scream that I've only just woken up again, I don't want to go back. I want to live in the sunshine, not the grey, noiseless, tasteless, emotionless void that I was in before.

Maybe I'm a bit silly but I've been reading a lot of the blog posts that people have been writing - I think of it as innoculation - read all I can about depression, get upset about it now so if & when it does happen to me again - and I'm pretty certain it will, one day - then perhaps I'll be better equipped to deal with it.



Attitudes to mental health are definitely changing - my time working for ecdp has made such a huge difference to my own attitude about all disabilities and they are working to continue pushing that change forward. For all the joy & laughter that Robin Williams brought to the world, I am grateful and I am so, so sad that he's gone but maybe now, he can find some peace and rest at last.

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U is for Umbrellas

Umbrellas - yup - a whole blog post about that nifty anti-rain invention we always lose or forget, just when we need it most! Being British, I have a love/hate relationship with my brolly - I have to find one that folds down small enough to fit in my handbag but then it isn't as strong or as big as it needs to be to keep more than my head and shoulders dry. I've lost count of how many umbrellas I've had over the years. They also make a fantastic accessory for photo shoots or of course, as the main subject of a shoot.

That's just a few umbrella images I found quickly on Flickr - I also carry 5 white umbrellas with me when I do a photo shoot or if I'm shooting a wedding. They always come in handy for a general shoot too as I can use one to bounce light around my picture. At home I use a silvered one for that but they are too expensive to use in the rain!

Funny enough, one of my happiest moments came last year when I didn't have an umbrella but I really could have done with one! We'd gone out to lunch on a late Spring day, warm enough to not worry about a jacket and as we came out of the restaurant, the sky was black! We were in an area I'd not been to before so my fella had planned to show me around but as the heavens opened, we ducked into a manicure/pedicure place.

After a couple of margaritas lunchtime, I was all a bit a fluster (hehehe!) and as I'd never had a pedicure, he said he'd treat me. Well! I don't know which one of us was more amused - me at the motions of the massage chair or him at my face when it kicked into high gear! I giggled most of the way through my pedicure though!

When we eventually left, the skies had cleared so we headed for home. As we left the train station, it started spotting with rain again. We'd arrived between buses though so we decided to start walking, hoping we could get home before the downpour started. Needless to say, we didn't make it and as we sheltered beneath an overpass, the wind howling through and bringing a lot of water with it, we weren't very happy! About 10 long minutes later, will no let up in sight, we saw a bus at the stop we'd just left. We were about halfway to the next stop so we decided to run for it.

Well, I have to say, I'm no gazelle and as I leapt across a huge puddle, I ended up ankle deep in rainwater. I was huffing and puffing my way to the bus stop, soaked through to my skin and giggling like a total idiot. Luckily the bus driver saw us and waited a few seconds and as we got on, both of us laughing, the whole bus kind of laughed with us too. I haven't been that wet, laughed that much or run that far in years and I'm sure it will stick as a very special memory for a long, long time to come.

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