The colors…the dragon….so 1980s…Gotta love it.

Also, on the theme of 80s dragons, here’s a tribute to Space Harrier, where the nemesis would try and kill you with what looked like tossed Pepperidge Farm Milanos, not to be confused with Alyssa Milanos.

Maybe This Is Why I Never Liked Roller Coasters

Then next thing that I remember is the car tumbling down into a ditch and the car rolling over a couple times. The car ended upside down surrounded in a thicket of bushes.

After asking if I was alright, my Dad asked if I could find a hammer in the backseat area. The doors were jammed shut and he had to break the glass or something to get us out. I remember looking around and thinking that snakes were going to get me, not realizing any potential other hazard.

Looking up towards the road, I saw a couple stopped cars and concerned people peering down at us. Firetrucks and cops showed up, and we eventually were at a hospital getting checked out. Nothing crazy, just a big bump on my head.

This is a white version of the AMC Spirit. Nice looking ride.

Local Newspaper Article

My Dad recently dug up and gave me this newspaper story about the incident. It’s funny that my Dad looks like a hipster here of some sort.

Age Four

I find this era of life fascinating, when memories are first developing and solidifying. At least it’s the age in which my memories started. I hear of people having memories at age 1 and a 1/2, which is amazing. Unintentionally, sounds and music bring a lot of these memories back. I find the music of Boards of Canada and Stars Of The Lid especially bring back the suburban settings and solitary explorations of my youth.

Another vivid first memory was of a mentally slow neighbor boy following me around non-stop, cramming his face through our screen windows. He would eat dog food in front of me and try to sneak into my parents’ cars when going on trips. He fell down one of our window wells one day and bashed his head open a bit.

AMC Spirit TV Commercial

This car commercial is hilarious. Wider and longer!

Ten years ago today, I was using the first computer that I had ever owned: a bondi blue iMac, the first of the all-inclusive display and computer with a handle to carry it around. I was working at Strongarm Designs in Horsham, PA and hating it. Well, the job was actually quite good, but I was looking to be a rock star back then, and it just wasn’t panning out.

I was living in Manayunk on Silverwood Street with two dudes, loads of cockroaches and a sewage leak basement. We had a couple crazy parties at this house, one entitled “Forties and Shorties” in which we served Wawa Shorty hoagies and 40 oz. bottles of malt liquor. During one of these parties, the neighbor who rarely talked to us literally busted in our front door and screamed “Shut the fuck up!”

Design-wise, I was doing a mix of web and print, spending most of time updating “cut-sheets” that were layed out with Quark. I was starting to learn HTML at home, and dabbling in NetObjects Fusion to set up Strongarm’s first-ever web site.

My car was a white Saturn 4-door sedan, the first and only car so far that I bought brand new. (I later traded it in for my current ’97 Nissan Pathfinder.)

Back then, I didn’t have a digital camera or even a cell phone. I didn’t know anybody with a cell phone, except for my boss who could be “reached on the golf course in case of emergencies”.

I was age 25, and wasn’t dating anybody… I was using Photoshop 4 — not CS4, but Photoshop 4.

Back when I went to Kutztown university, I was one of the lucky ones fortunate enough to have a Brother word processor that clanked out 5-page reports in about 20 minutes and featured a tiny black display with bright yellow text. Sure, we had a computer lab in the library with about 25 Apple computers, but there was always a line or a wait and we hardly knew how to use those damn things back then.

My first computer was an bondi blue iMac, the first iMac that was ever released, back in 1998 I believe. My friend John Roberts hooked me up with Photoshop 4.0 and something called Dreamweaver and I was well on my way into the murky confusion of table based web design, and then the eventual dreaded “DHTML”. I clearly remember designing sites that stated “Click Here for Internet Explorer or Click Here for Netscape Navigator”.

In celebration of the past, here’s a look at some old school computers and diligent workers:

I never got to caddy for somebody like this chap, Max Miller. He looks like a Rodney Dangerfield and a Benny Hill rolled up into one. Maybe I just chose the wrong country club. Not many cowboy types at “Manny’s”…just a lot of frustrated angry old men.

For example, here’s the American "Alex Kidd In Miracle World" packaging:

Oh, that hypnotic simplistic grid with clip-artish illustration.

And here is the Japanese packaging of the same game:

Much more exciting!

I can’t tell you how many lame hours I spent in grades 7 – 9 playing the 8-bit Sega Master System. But, what could I do? I was a total dork and soon realized that I actually wasn’t going to be the next Mike Schmidt…or even Steve Jeltz for that matter. It really didn’t help with the ladies being holed up in my bedroom, mapping out role-playing games with pen and paper either.

Of course, seeing things like this didn’t help me either.

For all you Sega dorks out there, there’s a YouTube user named talbot1939′s that video tapes himself kicking ass and easily winning several games with ease. Brings back some memories! Here he is conquering the game "Black Belt":