The warm summer air, the occasional cool breeze that billows in from the window - and the warm glow of the monitor in the dark room, headphones on, lost in my own world.

Moments like this when lyrics of a song really means something, or when the gentle sounds of a heart wrenching piano floats through the air.

It's not a time of depression, not a time of feeling hurt, but more like a ritual of cleansing. Letting go, setting my self free, and accepting reality. The cold harsh reality of a simmering love gone cold.

And as the music grabs hold of my inhibitions and carries them away, I see the light of a new dawn, a new beginning - the weight has been lifted off, and the world can begin to start again - albeit slowly, but surely.

Smile kiddies, its summer, the season of love. What adventures shall we face in the summer break this time round?

This must be one of the most unavoidable, heart bashing and difficult tasks that every person faces during their lifetime. It is a cruel and unfriendly environment, worse than a gazillion university exams put together with the chances of success extraordinarily minimal.

Think about it...how many people on the planet? The chances of you guys actually making initial conversation, leading that on to go out on a first date, then willingly getting to know each other better, communicate more and see fit that you just might be compatible. Then, during the next few years, have enough trust and foundation to last the rest of your lives in marriage and die sweetly together. Sure, it sounds easy, but I'm sure alot of you can relate back and realize that relationships is 95% hardships, pain, sadness and frustration, and only 5% is the reward. But that reward at the end of it, is going to be so damn good, and eventually builds up to be the best thing that would ever happen to you in your life.

During that period when its 90% hard, sometimes you just wish that you were an African and had an arranged marriage, or something to just skip the hard part of dating. Well, I sometimes do.

Then theres those damn facebook status' and msn nicknames - you see people everywhere putting up dates and how much they are so into their partners. That was never the case for me, but I was talking to a good friend the other week about it, and in a way, the status and nicknames seem to be the electronic version of the engagement ring - telling everyone that you are in a relationship and 'hands off.' Its sweet in a way I guess, but it draws attention to the start of your relationship...and even worse, the end of it (touch wood). I mean, I sure wouldn't want everyone seeing my face book status '... has ended their relationship' and then having 60 comments going 'AWWW WHAT HAPPENED.'

But all in all, relationships are hard. They have been going on since the beginning of time, and still, it is the most confusing mystery to ever grace humankind that we have not yet solved. I mean, we can fly to other countries, we can go to the moon, we can find vaccines for cancer, but how come we haven't worked out a fail proof way to date??

I guess the only way is to try your hardest, place your partner's opinion before yours and have a good foundation of communication and trust. Also, cross your fingers because alot of the time, luck is involved and you really do not know how you will end up.

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 =]