I Want This Sitting Room...

Speccy Bastard

Apparently the ZX Spectrum is 30 years old.

That makes me feel very old. I think the Spectrum was the third computer/games console I laid fingers on. The first was a BBC Microcomputer at primary school, and the second was an Atari 2600 (I think) owned by a friend. That was also the first time I played a game involving the Super Mario Brothers.

The same friend and his older brother also had a ZX Spectrum, and I remember watching them in 1987, sitting for what seemed like hours programming in a BASIC game. It was distinctly underwhelming.

It's almost strange that in today's modern society you can take computer classes for programming now.

But by 1988/89, I was desperate for a computer of my own, and Mither and Faither (or Santa Claus anyway) very generously bought Baby Brother and I a ZX Spectrum +3. Not only did the +3 boast 128k of RAM, but it had a built-in floppy disk drive, which was a revelation in the tape-dominated home computer market.

I actually broke our first Spectrum on Xmas Day, jamming the power cable into the back of the computer upside down and bending all the pins.

But we got a replacement, complete with a disk of six games that I still love to this day:

• Gift From The Gods - based on Greek mythology, you float around a sprawling underground maze attempting to find stones that will unlock a gate.

• NOMAD  - An armoured droid (NOMAD stands for something something Mobile Attack Droid) batters around a spaceship shooting stuff.

•  Mailstrom - You play a postman in a post-apocalyptic England. Deliver the letters and futuristic violence. Dark humor persists.

•  Daley Thomson's SuperTest - Follow up to Daley Thomson's Decathlon, the sports were more obscure, but the button-bashing was just as fun.

Those games would comfortably run on a modern mobile phone. But at the time, they were cutting-edge. Games on the Spectrum generally had very high playability - they had to, as the graphics and sound were so weak.

Days spent playing Chucky Egg, Dizzy, Footballer of the Year, the games above and hundreds of others are amongst the happiest memories from my childhood.

And now I've found all of the games above on an emulator site. That's my weekend sorted...

If Only It Were Real...

Just A Rock Band

This trailer for Rock Band: The Beatles is a bit special.

Pee-Ah Pee-Ah Pee-Ah-No

Yesterday's post mentioned the Video Games Live concert that Mrs Wife and I went to in Glasgow.

This guy performed this song on a grand piano that night - and did it blindfolded.

Watch in awe.

Soy Un Perdedor

I'm quite concerned that, in the past couple of weeks, my behaviour has shown signs that I am becoming more geeky as time wears on and I edge closer to 30.

I've written in previous posts that I feel the need to have my vast CD collection stored in alphabetical order - but I'd argue that that is chiefly through necessity, otherwise how would I find the CD I was looking for from a library that now runs into the thousands?

And I've never hidden my love of StarWars, Thundercats, He-Man and Transformers - but again, in my defence, I grew up watching the shows and movies and playing with the toys.

But in the past fortnight, I seem to have slipped further towards the point of no return in my geekdom.

The first indicator was the concert that Mrs Wife and I attended in Glasgow two weeks ago - Video Games Live. Held at the Royal Concert Hall, the event saw the Royal Scottish National Orchestra perform music from video games, while a video screen showed footage from the games.

I never thought I'd be in a room with a full orchestra playing the theme tunes from Super Mario World, Sonic The Hedgehog and Tetris, but it was a fantastic concert. Although the audience was formed primarily from men in their mid twenties, many of them wearing video game-related garb.

So, does that count as geeky? Possibly, but it may be redeemed by the novelty of the concert and the fact that the venue and performers are undeniably of the highest standard.

But the next day, with time to kill and most of Glasgow's shops exhausted of entertainment, I took the next step towards giving in completely to my inner geek. I visited Forbidden Planet, the chain of stores that sells, as its primary range of products, comic books (or graphic novels as geeks who pretend they don't read comics call them).

Initially, I only went in for a look and to kill some time. But Mrs Wife offered to buy me something as a present, and I ended up coming out with the "graphic novels" (comic books) of The Dark Knight Returns and The Dark Knight Strikes Again. Which meant that, at the age of 28, I could be seen sitting on a train later that afternoon reading Batman comics.

Is that a step too far towards geekiness?

The third incident that suggest I may be on an irreversible spiral towards becoming a regular contributor to sci-fi forums came last night, when Mrs Wife, myself and some of my work colleagues attended a performance of Charles Ross' One Man StarWars Trilogy show.

Ross does exactly what the title suggests - single-handedly re-enacting the original StarWars trilogy. Without props. In an hour.

Obviously, a good grasp of the plot of the movies is a pretty essential requirement if you're going to understand One Man StarWars. And, from first glance, it seemed that the audience fitted the bill.

Geeky? Perhaps. But the show was highly amusing, and performed with an obvious affection for the films.

So now, having laid all this before you, I have to ask - am I an irrepairable geek?

Fecking Computers

I'm in a frenzy of excitement here in the Dungroanin' sitting room at the moment.

The reason for this excitement? Sega has released the demo version of Football Manager 2008, which I am currently downloading.

Only there's a problem. My steam-driven laptop is notorious for freezing completely, leaving no option but to turn off the power and reboot.

And, having reached the 30% mark in the 523MB download, this antique piece of crap decided to take a rest, forcing me to switch it off and back on. And cancelling the download in the process.

So I've started again. And at a download speed of less than 30k per second, it's going to take a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG time.

The download manager is estimating that it will take a further five hours to finish downloading. So, from 6pm tonight, you can expect no further communications from this humble outpost of the worldwide interweb for a while....

Kidding On

Sometimes, I think I'm 27 going on seven.

Take last night for example. I get home to find Montrose basking in warm sunshine, a condition which I believe was known as summer in days gone by.

Joining Mrs Wife in the garden, the conversation goes something like this:

Mrs Wife: "Perfect weather to cut the grass"

Groanin' Jock: "Yep"

MW: "Are you going to cut the grass then?"

GJ: "Nope"

MW: "Why not?"

GJ: "I'm playing Football Manager and reading a magazine."

This is a fairly common conversational thread at Dungroanin'. Typically, Mrs Wife will suggest I partake of a thrilling activity such as cleaning the bathroom, washing the car or picking my clean clothes up off the floor and putting them in the wardrobe.

I will then usually explain that I am already engaged in an activity, such as filing my CDs in alphabetical order, scanning photographs to put on Bebo, attempting to download Laurie Anderson's O Superman from the internet or kicking some serious dinosaur ass on Final Fantasy X2.

Is it normal for a fully-grown adult male to spend whole days and weeks engaged in such infantile pursuits? In the past few days, for example, I have spent a couple of hours dicking about on Ebay looking at Transformers toys and comics and researching the history of the Autobots on Wikipedia. I have easily devoted more hours to thinking about the way forward for my Everton side on Football Manager than I have on mortgage repayments and car insurance, and I've been more absorbed in repeats of The Simpsons than in the day's news headlines.

And if, in the next few years, Mrs Wife decides to pop out a Jockling or two, will this situation improve or worsen? Would the sleepless nights, nappy changes and feedings adultify me, or would the easy access to toys and Teletubbies send me closer towards the point of no return, when I quit my job so that I can devote more time to my more favoured pursuits?

Birthday Boy

Seems I'm just a big kid in everyone else's eyes - for my birthday I received two He Man and The Masters of The Universe boxed sets, PlayStation games and Easter eggs.

Not that I'm complaining, just saying.....

Lost weekend

Woo-hoo!!!!!!

My copy of Football Manager 2007 arrived yesterday, Mrs Wife is away to see her parents this weekend, I am off work, don't have to get my bandaged foot seen by a nurse until Monday and Man Utd v Liverpool is on the telly tomorrow.

The weekend stretches before me!

Working Nine to Five

Today is pay day for Groanin' Jock. Another month at the coalface has passed, and my bank account is temporarily swollen with cash.

The temporaray nature of this swelling is terribly depressing. Within the next two days, most of my monthly earnings will be siphoned off to other accounts, where they will be soaked up by the mortgage, council tax, various insurance policies and my credit card bill.

But, as the money is sitting in my account today, I decided to afford myself a little treat. In fact, no, treat is the wrong word.

I forked out twenty quid today on what is, frankly, a necessity - Football Manager 2007. This latest strain on my social life, eating habits, personal hygiene and, quite possibly, marriage, is as eagerly-awaited as any album by any of my favourite bands.

I've been hooked on SI Games' management simulators since 1996, when I was first introduced to Championship Manager 2. Since then, I've owned every incarnation of the game - through Championship Manager 97/98 to Championship Manager 3 to Championship Manager 2001/2002 to Championship Manager 4 to Championship Manager 2003/2004 and on to Football Manager 2005, Football Manager 2006 and now Football Manager 2007.

It would be frightening to think how many hours, days, weeks (years?) I have spent playing these games. My managerial career, in hours alone, probably outstrips those of Alex McLeish and Gordon Strachan.

I could wax lyrical about these games for hours on end. Quite simply, I am the consumate geek, a fact I alluded to briefly in an earlier post entitled Can You Manage?. I'm so excited by the prospect of this new game, which will drop through my letterbox on October 20, that I am considering purchasing a new laptop to play it on.

But that would SERIOUSLY screw up the finances.....

Can you manage?

As a fan of football management computer games (or as Mrs Wife would have it, a geek), I was heartened by a story which I recently discovered on the interweb.

It seems that a young chap called John Boileau decided that, with his 30th birthday looming, there were too many aspects of this game we call existence that he had yet to experience. As well as coming to grips with the rules of American Football and losing weight, John was also determined to apply for a Premiership or Championship management job.

Now, there have been countless sad nerds who, inspired by their 'success' at taking Acrington Stanley to consecutive Champions League victories in Championship Manager, have applied for real football management jobs.

But John's story is slightly different in that he sent supporting information with his application - and that he got a reply.

Having applied for the manager's post at Middlesbrough, recently vacated by current England boss Steve McLaren, John received a reply from chairman Steve Gibson thanking for his application.

The correspondence between the two can be seen at:

http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~kritip/managers%20job.htm

The best bit is undoubtedly where Gibson states that 'we were of the opinion that your tenure with us would have been shortlived, as your undoubted talent would result in one of the big European clubs seeking your services.'

At least John's site proves that football hasn't lost touch with its REAL investors - the common fan. It also shows that even some of those at the top, in control of clubs which are now businesses more than sports teams, still have a sense of humour.

Can anyone seriously imagine Vladimir Romanov, David Murray, Roman Abramovich or the Glazer family responding to a letter like John's with the same wit and ability to laugh at themselves?

I always said that if I won the massive Euro Millions lottery jackpot earlier this year, which was around £100 million, I would have bought Brechin City and transformed them into a footballing superpower. I like to think that, as well as having Ronaldinho running down the hedge side of Glebe Park, I'd have been able to run the club with the same respect for the fans, in a similar style to Brooks Mileson at Gretna, who bought ALL the Gretna allocation of tickets for the Scottish Cup semi-final and gave them to the fans for nothing.

And then I'd have bought Celtic and turned them into a feeder club....