I think this post would relate more to the guys than the girls.. , because it would be my first post about the topic of video games!! Also, it is very long.. so beware!

Now, I admit, I do play alot of games, I dont know how Louise stands this, because if she was to game as much as me, I would be really annoyed all the time and be so sick of myself!

The earliest memory of me playing, is on the really old original NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) that I got second hand from my cousin because they had upgraded to a SNES. This was when I was around 1993 or something So the games I remembered playing on my super old television included duck hunt (which was awesome with the super cool NES light gun) and this really frustrating port of Star Wars, where I would die in the exact same place each time. What made it worse, was that the game had no saves!

Another early memory I had was playing my first PC game. This was on another very very old computer that ran on those 5 3/4 inch floppy disks, and the only game on it was another bad adaptation of indiana jones with just the colours purple, white and black. It was horrible. But so addictive! Games were so simple and pixelated back then.

The next time I would discover video games would be in year 4, when I got my first game boy pocket gold edition, with donkey kong land. I swear, I played every single minute of the 13 hour flight from Sydney to Los Angeles that year, over this stupid game - donkey kong land, which I thought was the best game ever. You have to remember! There were no save points back then! When I got to America, there was a SNES in my room from my cousin.. and I would play more Donkey Kong and StarFox!! Also, my older cousin had a PlayStation too (which was pretty new back then) and that was the first time I was introduced to the Mortal Kombat series. My goodness, that was pretty violent for a kid my age, but I was immediately hooked again, and would sneak into his room when he was out at school just to play!

I never really kicked off with the 2nd generation of video game consoles, and I guess I would have to skip to my next memory of video gaming, which was the Nintendo 64 / Sony Playstation era. The Nintendo 64 was my BEST Christmas present EVER. I still remember, openning it early on my birthday with mario kart 64 and lylatwars and feeling the euphoria of owning this system! I remember dragging my mum to Big W with me so she could buy me Goldeneye (it was MA15+) and playing over and over again so when I went to my cousin's house to sleep overnight, we would just play till the early hours of the night on Goldeneye multiplayer. We played so much on Stack and Temple maps that I memorized all the spawn points, and even the spawn point orders!! I remember being amazed by Zelda Ocarina of Time, and enjoying the best times of my youth being so amazed at the graphics back then. It was the closest feeling of love that a 10 year old kid could have.

I was always a Nintendo fan back then, not really a Playstation fan, even though I would go down the street to play with these white kids that lived on my road all the time. One of them owned a Playstation, and I would often go to his house to play Tekken 2 and Tomorrow Never Dies on his old Sony Playstation.My other neighbor had a house that smelt of cigarettes and alcohol, and would always play Banjo Kazooee on his N64 as well... those were good times!

Around this time, Pokemon came out, and I was earnestly addicted to that game, buying RED version and finishing it probably 3-4 times, using the rare candy cheat to fight missingno and to get infinite masterballs. After this, I bought gold version and used the cheat to duplicate Pokemon by pulling out the transfer cable halfway through transferring! I also remember going to Blacktown Westpoint for the PokeTour and getting a free mew pokemon. I was pretty happy that day, and got called to sing the PokeRap to try and win a Pokemon soundtrack CD. Unfortunately, I didn't win that contest, but I made my mum buy the CD for me anyway at target in the afternoon.

Fastforward to high school.. and people would run to the library to play games. Shamefully, I admit, I was one of those kids, and would play games like Liero, 64K, xmen vs streetfighter.. and as we got older.. Quake 3 Arena, and of course, Counter strike in my free periods with the good old bunch of school friends (one of them played for Australia).

It was during early high school that I used to play Starcraft on the computer with some church friends pretty often, and most likely in the few hours before we left for Sunday School. Looking back, I must admit I was addicted, as I would talk to my friends Colin and Stephen about Starcraft every single day, play that game every single time I would be at home and fantasize about all that sort of stuff. (Man I must have been the biggest geek back then!)

Around year 8, Warcraft 3 came out, and this was the first game that I admit, I have ever bought. It took a while to get used to, as it was a big change from the previous game.. but then after awhile, I got abit obsessed with it too.. It got to a point that, in year 9, even after my diasterous event at the Snowy Mountains that led me to have a broken wrist, arm, jaw and brain haemorrhage, that, as soon as I got home from Canberra hospital, crawled to the computer room to boot up The Frozen Throne expansion pack that came out just a month before and played for 4 hours non stop.

This game would be the best investment I would have in my entire life (I still play it, it has lasted me 7 years) and I have no regrets spending money on it, but looking back, all those hours lost.. could have probably been used more wisely.

Also, in high school, me and my friend Robin, would spend earnest amounts of time and money at Timezone to play DDR and Initial D. We even entered DDR competitions (and got knocked out pretty early) and researched all this infomation on Initial D!

So what am i playing now? I'm more into single player storyline games now..a shift from the old challenging games that would take impossible skill and effort to finish, and rather, would like to appreciate the art form of games than just plain beating it. But the occasional Street Fighter, Heroes of Newerth would not hurt.

Anyways, thanks for anyone to make it this far! I guess it was a more self reflecting and retrospective look into my childhood for myself =]

Member since 7/22/2004.

Thats what it says on my Xanga home page. That is more than 5 years of blogging! You might be surprised, but I am not always really good at sticking to one particular hobby! But 5 years is quite a big anniversary dont you guys reckon? Thats from when I was in year 10! Oh, it certainly does bring back the smell of innocence and younglove.

But I am not here to make a self glorified moment of being such a Xangaholic, I would just like to take the time to appreciate the community that springs up from this blogging site.

I guess there has been ups and downs when blogging, both reflected through the posts themselves and the comments that people make (It took me a while to realize that quality > quantity). To be honest, Xanga was quite big a few years ago, but with the rise of these microblogging Twitter and Facebook sites out there, its pretty plain to see that only a minority of people will still read up on Xanga blogs either from friends and the few good bloggers out there. This might be due to the time constraints of blogs that of course, will take a larger amount of time to read than the instantaneous status update.

But that is the one thing I do like! It may seem unusual to detour from the mainstream highway of internet updates of Facebook and Twitter (I don't actually know anyone that uses that) but in a way, it kind of reflects the notion of 'stop. revive. survive!'

For facebook, if I put my head down to read some notes or grab a bag of chips from the kitchen, there would be 20+ new notifications by the time I come back to the computer. For Xanga, every few days would mean 5-6 new posts these days. Back in its prime, there would be a whole lot more, but now, Xanga has settled down and it even seems like the retirement village of internet blogging! But why does that have to be so bad? If I look at my subscriptions and comments that you guys leave, I can actually feel a sense of a community and a feeling of home! If Facebook is the busybeeworld of university life and partying, then Xanga is a quick return back to the peaceful solitary confines of home.

Where else can you share your thoughts with the select few that read your posts, as compared to the rest of the 300+ friends that would be quick to judge in the status update that posts straight to their news feeds?

Even looking at the other Xanga blogs out there like datingish and hardestlevel, all the people that comment are the same bunch of guys and girls. It is this close knit community that gives such a warm, interglowing feeling that I really have not appreciated until of late. It is the place where people can scribe their innermost secrets, reveal their deepest thoughts and provide support to each other at a more intimate level than just clicking the 'like' button (which, as I should point out, does not have an UNlike button located next to it).

What I mean to say is, I guess, even though there is a rapid influx of social networking sites and systems, nothing feels as deep and meaningful as an actual blog.