My baby

Billy Corgan from the Smashing Pumpkins once sang, ‘Today is the greatest, day I ever knew.’ And yes, today is that day for your humble narrator. I ordered a monster 23 inch Samsung LCD monitor for a price that is too good to print in this blog. You live in Cape Town your whole life, with an auspicious fortune always within your grasp. You would never imagine that a man, such as I with a modest salary could snag such a beast. But snare it I did. The resolution and clarity is second to none. Previously unseen images, blurred by the soft pixilation of a TV set are now as clear as Lion’s Head on an autumn morning. I installed a 2.1 speaker system to boot; this has taken my gaming into an unheard of stratosphere.

My colleague, who I so dearly call AB, will usually write about viticulture or her experiences in the many restaurants in Cape Town. I am a gamer; my pen is dedicated to the fine arts of the pixel Eden which I inhabit. Miss Sunshine, my girlfriend, has tried her hardest to embrace my hobby and she does so admirably, joining in on many a session. It was a childhood comfort that I have now nurtured into a full blown obsession thanks to my monetary achievements. Sometimes, the outside world becomes a dull blur of shapes as my screen captivates the whole of my attention.

Each one of us has our individual loves. A human being without an obsession is but a hollow shell of a person, akin to a snail’s cove minus the slimy inhabitant. I enjoy shopping, as Cape Town thankfully has a multitude of malls and boutiques to ensnare even the hardiest of anti-shoppers. And I love the outdoors, with the sound of the wind whistling through pine needles and the soft chirrup of crickets being an auditory favourite of mine. Food, friends, music and so on, I strive to diversify my life to the tenth degree. Take a hobby; obsess over it if you will. Do not forget to open the window every now and then to see how the world turns. The gaming calls me away from my writing now. Enjoy your weekend.

This is the target-market Vuka is going after....

I love my scooter but I’m also sick of it. Again, it is broken and again I need to spend R300 on repairing it. What is Vuka’s story? Do they sell these toys on the basis that constant repairs are a warranted necessity? Sure, it beats car hire in Cape Town (the prices for keeping a rental for lengthy periods of time are astronomical). A fully paid-off mode of transport is one of the greatest weapons in any man’s arsenal but perhaps I should get a bigger gun. I will be test-driving the Cherry QQ on Wednesday and with some luck, acquiring it before the month is over. You reach a certain point in your life when a car becomes an essential purchase and today is that day.

It is both a shame and a pity that I did not have my scooter this weekend. The heat was unbearable and a breezy ride on my Vuka would have undoubtedly cooled my fiery temperament, as it were. The temperature gauge indicated 29 degrees, but in the dark heart of Cape Town [Zonnebloem] it was more like 35 degrees. I left all the windows of my apartment open, switched the fan on and zoned out in the hope that less activity would lower my body temperature. I spent the entire weekend doing absolutely nothing, other than gaming that is. Summer is a cruel mistress, but her rewards [tanning, swimming and scooting] bear much fruit over the long months.

My hero.

I think about videogames constantly. As a child in Cape Town, it was not the tennis courts or the soccer fields which called my name, but the incessant beeping of my Famicon [Nintendo] console. From a very young age, my calling was the arcades. I remember my father having to hoist me up so that I could reach the greasy controls of my favourite game. Final Fight, Pac-man, Donkey-Kong and many more, were my teachers. The virtues they extolled on me were no less than “Be the best at everything you do in life”. As I aged, my lust for gaming grew into a typhoon of consoles; a whirlwind of the latest titles flooded my living room floor daily as I swopped between them. Super Mario, Mega-man and Final Fantasy were my friends and I needed no one else.

My obsession has not abated over my 29 years of living. I have had [in order of date] Nintendo, Game boy, a Mega-drive, Playstation one, Game boy colour, Playstation two, Sony PSP, Xbox 360. Many of these consoles drained my poor parents of money but as I entered into manhood I began to purchase them for myself, distancing my collective guilt and further fuelling my lust for the latest and greatest titles. Loves of my life have become ex-loves as I blatantly ignored them over racing cars or space-ships. This may all sound churlish and naive to you, but for millions of men and women around the globe [mostly men] this is a real and exciting world we live in and play in daily. Just this morning, I was wandering around the irradiated landscapes of Washington DC as my girlfriend slept peacefully in bed. It will probably be the most fun I have all day. And when online gaming captures me, there will be no release.