I haven't posted here for some time.

Things in my life have gone from calamity to disaster to Thanatoid, and while I'm taking it very well if you ask me, I'm still in rotten spirits.  I've mostly kept to myself for a while now, and I think I've fooled almost everybody, although one or two do occasionally sense something's up.  Honestly, I've lost my sense of trust in people at the worst possible time in my life, and I don't think I've ever felt more alone, let alone been more afraid of being alone.  I've lost heaps of sleep, I've lost about 5kg (maybe more), and I find it very difficult to concentrate.  I make stupid decision after stupid decision, and it's costing me financially, physically and mentally.  When things went from bad to worse, I was so wrought with despair that I did what I always do to in such crises:  I built.  The games room.  If you saw it, or saw me working on it, if you weren't immediately "wow"ed by it, you'd probably think it was a little OCD.  I could say I have good days and I have bad days, but I'd be lying; I have good moments and I have bad moments.  It's the old quagmire of mental quicksand problem all over again.  Am I depressed?  Don't know, don't care.  I'd rather say I have a problem that I intend to fix.

Seriously.  Look at me on July 15th or before.  Look at me now.  Is any part of me the same?  Have I matured, or just changed?

The reason I'm posting this here is not to ask that I may emotionally dump on you, because I have no intention.  You will notice I've not actually stated the cause of any problem, because I'm not interested in blame.  How can good come out of bad?  It can't.  All I ask is if you are my friend, could you please just keep this all in mind and look out for me?  I'm coping, I suppose, but I do feel like I'm losing grip here, and I don't believe in seeing a psychiatrist or anything like that.  I guess the best way to sum it all up is "fear".  And if nobody reads this and/or nobody does a thing, rest assured I will rise again.  This is about mercy, or saving pain.  My solution is to latch onto something, an idea or project, and milk it dry.  Reading doesn't seem a good idea, I like to read biographies.  I read Stephen Fry's Moab is my Washpot and it was downright depressing, albeit a great and very deep read.

I still believe that my life will never be worse than it is right now, and that that's a good thing as it means I have the whole world to gain.

I'm also sorry that it's come to posting this.  I honestly thought I was stronger.  At least I'm not weaker.

We have gone onto eBay and spent about $700, maybe less, on gaming.  Which is a tad smaller than the original budget of $1500.

For this, we got:

1x PC Engine Duo
+ Several games, including:
++ Bloody Wolf
++ Bomberman
++ Bomberman '93
++ Bomberman '94
++ Cadash
++ Chase HQ
++ Don Doko Don
++ Fantasy Zone
++ Gekisha Boy/Photograph Boy
++ Gradius
++ Lode Runner
++ Mr. Heli no Daibouken
++ The New Zealand Story
++ Operation Wolf
++ Pac-Land
++ Parasol Stars
++ Parodius da!
++ Pomping World
++ Power Drift
++ Rastan Saga 2
++ R-Type
++ R-Type 2
++ Salamander
++ Space Harrier
++ St Dragon
++ Valkyrie no Densetsu
1x Beatmania 5key controller, Japanese, with 7 beatmania games (beatmania 1-5, Gottchamix 1-2; no 6th MIX)
- Final Fantasy I, II and III for Famicom

Since many of those titles don't give much of a clue as to what kind of game they are, I'll expand a bit where it isn't obvious:

- Bloody Wolf is a funny game which is like Commando.  Dudes with huge muscles and knives/guns, and funny Engrish like when you find "muscle emphasis tablets", which is the best description for steroids ever.
- Bomberman is like Dynablaster; Bomberman '93 is like SNES Bomberman; Bomberman '94 is Super Bomberman 3/Mega Bomberman.
- Cadash is an awesome platform slash-em-up/RPG hybrid.  There's text, which is Japanese, but it's plot only - not really clues to puzzles.
- Chase HQ = "Let's go, Mr Driver!"
- Don Doko Don = Fake Bubble Bobble.  Really.  Except it's by Taito, who made Bubble Bobble.  It's almost as good.
- Fantasy Zone - yes, the SMS game.  Yes, it looks/sounds better.
- Mr Heli = shoot-em-up.  I've never known it by any other name than "Mr Heli".
- New Zealand Story - needs no introduction but I'd like to bitch that this cost too much.  But I wanted it!  So...
- Operation Wolf - this is a surgery game.  Only kidding, you kill terrorists with a machine gun!
- Pac-Land = the platformer.
- Photograph Boy.  This is one of the most original games ever.  You are a photographer for a newspaper, and you have to get the most exciting pictures possible.  You walk along, avoid some minor obstacles, and take photos of things.  Things like people falling over, flashers, DeLoreans...I mean, seriously.  It is a damn AWESOME game, and it's infamously expensive.  (I paid about $40 for it loose, incidentally)
- Parasol Stars = Goodbye, whole day's wages.  Hello, rediculously expensive and rare Bubble Bobble sequel!
- Parodius da! is simply what you would call Parodius.  The original game was on MSX; this is the same one on SNES, NES and arcade.  Arcade-perfect conversion.
- Pomping World = Pang.  What, you don't know what Pang is?  Shoot balloons with a harpoon, they split into two smaller balloons.  Do it again, and again, until they are nothing.  To make the game more fun, there are platforms, power-ups (good and bad) and bad guys who get in the way.  Touching a balloon is fatal.  Y'know what?  When I was a teenager, I spent AGES playing this game on the way to school.
- Power Drift - classic Sega racing game.  It always played second fiddle to Outrun, but essentially it is a circuit racing game with 15 racers, (semi) off-road racing, some elevated tracks and a lot of fun.  Not a serious racing game.
- Rastan Saga 2 - a rather sloppy sequel to the classic original.  But it was cheap.
- R-Type 2 = I'm not really sure.  "R-Type 2" is a vague name and could apply to a true sequel, the second half of the original game, or a fake sequel.  It's been all of those things on various formats.  There is no one "R-Type 2", but it was there, it was $8, and then it wasn't there, it was here.
- St Dragon = I can't even find a ROM of this.  It's a horizontal shoot-em-up, though.  Your ship is like a Chinese dragon of sorts, or like Gradius options if you prefer, and you have this long tail-like body which follows behind you (and from memory, acts like a shield).  How do I know this?  There was a C64 version.
- Valkyrie no Densetsu = like Pocky and Rocky, I guess.  Could have got Kikikaikai, often sold as Pocky and Rocky (P&R is a sequel to Kikikaikai), but it sucks.

The collection here already includes some games.  A partial list:
- Ai Cho Aniki
- Gradius II
- Street Fighter II' Champion Edition

I don't have a multitap...yet.  (auctions pending!)

This is basically, I guess, a complete collection...at least complete in terms of what I want.

Do I regret buying all this?  Not yet...there's some games there I genuinely want to play, the console was way overdue, the beatmania thing was a bargain...I hope buying Photograph Boy and Parasol Stars were worth it! (I doubt Parasol Stars most of all, I've never been able to get into it...but it might be good multiplayer, mmm?)

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In addition to the above, I've mostly cleared out one side of the old room.  I can begin rearranging furniture soon.  I'd like to get that half done before the first shipment arrives early next week.

My GA-KO and mini Megadrive arrive tomorrow.

So today I've kept myself distracted by cleaning out mum's old room.  It's a tough job, but somebody's got to do it, and I really don't think dad's up to the challenge, mentally.  My problem is more the physical demand of it (and the fact I'm sick and have been for several days, as has virtually everybody who works in the city). And since I inherit the room anyway, not him, it's in my interests to do so more than him.

So basically what I plan to do with it...well, there isn't much of a plan yet.  But I'd like to improve on the floor space by reorganising things.  There's a bedside cabinet I won't need.  I probably don't need the bed either, but I doubt I could put it elsewhere.  Clothes are bagged and ready for the Lifeline bin.  Books are stacked but not quite sorted - I've sorted fiction for the Lifeline bin (I don't read fiction), kept aside some antique and classic books (read: things in Hungarian I can't understand, books on cooking I might *need*, childrens books from when I was a kid I daren't throw out, funny things like a 1977 car show guide, and some priceless-looking booklets of things like songsheets which might even be worth framing!), kept aside some Readers Digest books (they're good timewasters, but I probably won't want them in this room if I cna choose not to), and some other stuff I won't want to throw out - the original four TMNT books, first editions of magazines like Simpsons Illustrated, Commodore 64 manuals.  There's Expo 88 souvenirs by the dozen, and some Hungarian antiques such as a decorated cow horn, some kind of jade-looking ashtray/flask set, traditional wooden and woven curiosities, that sort of thing.

Next, I have to finish clearing out stuff (once I have room again!), clean the walls (they're cigarette-stained and even though the paint is the same as this room, it has a completely different hue!), and pretty much remove everything before putting what needs to go back, back in the room.

Ultimately I don't have a plan for the room, but it's short on power points - I think it has only two.  It also has less room overall.  I'm planning to rotate a shelf currently in the middle of the room (mum put her console/gaming stuff there) around so it's against the wall and beside a similar shelf, put the TV where it was, and whammo - I have a lovely display cabinet for all my retrogaming goodness.  Behind it is an old computer desk with an old computer attached to it.  That can stay, as I NEED a computer with a parallel port.  But I'll remove the printer and a few other things.  There's a sewing machine desk with machine included as well - I'll keep that.  I'd like to use it (albeit seldom).  I plan to remove the couch from the room, put my moon chair in its place (it folds, saves room), and probably sit on the bed anyway.

You see, there's heaps of machines I have that aren't on display.  Nobody's ever seen them.  I should fix that.  Oh, and they will be available for use, of course.  And while I'm at it, I'd like to display some of these heirlooms...and buy a few antiques on eBay, like an antique steno machine.  They're cheap, too.  A cheap conversation piece, such a rarity!  I saw a great one on eBay earlier, the keys were even labelled (despite the fact they never are anymore).  Well, I thought it was cool!

Anyway, I got some stuff coming in from around the world - a Minimig from Germany, two GA-KO Alarm Clocks from HK and Japan, a PowerPak from the US, a miniture Megadrive from HK, a Canon camera bag from somewhere south, and I want to import a 48k and/or 128k ZX Spectrum from the UK.  It all sounds expensive, but only the Minimig and PowerPak were over $100.  The camera bag is in fact free.  And I already have the Speccy games.  And the Minimig seems expensive, until you realise it costs the same as an Amiga on eBay, which could blow up on you anyway.  And is drastically overpriced.  And I already have one, and it's going on the shelf.  When I find it.

I'm going back to cleaning, me!

I made a spaceship out of Powerade caps.

This is proof I am cool.

[03:02] Ping? Pong!
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[04:05] Ping? Pong!


(nope, that's it.  This is art.)

So much for 'do not read in August'.

Oh well.

• Wow, I am actually allergic to something and I looked like...some red guy!  Satan, maybe!
• Bush Turkey on inner city rooftop!
• "Oh, god.": BEST PHONE RESPONSE ON A HELP LINE EVER.
• I have no something.

Overall health/etc levels today:

Physical:  Poor.  Severe allergic reaction to God-knows-what and sinusitis, which I took no painkillers for (due to my giving up of them and confectionary).  I'm also REALLY hungry.
Mental:  Average.  Thinking capability slightly hampered, which was compensated by me randomly learning much about the British monarchy.
Emotional:  Mixed - mostly happy, sometimes frustrated or anxious due to outside influences.
Social:  Good, however not enough people to mix with.
Work:  Adequate.

 

Take care, radical dudes and possibly radical dudettes!

Today I got a jacket.

I spent much of today trying to avoid further random acts of aggression aimed towards me, and the remainder was spent thinking hard on how to avoid such encounters or better yet, neutralise them.

Tomorrow I will buy pants.