No Man's Land

You know what scares me? Virtual landscapes.



They are CREEPY. Flight simulations, computer games, even Google Earth freaks me out. I believe there is a very specific incident that triggered this fear in me. So settle down, children, it's story time.

 I love the caps lock-button on this.

Photo from here

It was the eighties, and my crafty brothers had recently aquired the must-have object of the century: the Commodore 64. It was sleek, shiny (in a metaphorical sense at least) and could entertain two pre-teen boys for hours with cutting-edge graphics and thrilling car games. Who can forget Spy Hunter or The Last Ninja? What better way to kill an hour than by doing a few levels of Mr. Robot or Jumpman Jr? Or a full Saturday Summer Games II tournament with the neighbourhood kids?

I mean, there were two buttons on that joystick, the possibilities were endless!

Photo from here

 
But neither one of these games scared me at the time (apart from The Last Ninja: those eyes in the intro screen could frighten anyone), and I have no trouble playing any of them now if I am so inclined. No, it was a different game that made the hair on my back stand on end. A small, obscure game no one really remembers. Apart from me. And a very few others. So few, in fact, that I spent a whole half hour searching for it on the Google, and we all know that a search session of such epic proportions means that whatever you're looking for is very, very obscure indeed. 

But I found it. Here it is. Watch this video. If you dare.

Wow.

What, were you scared of being bored to death, you ask? 

I know, it's dull, monochrome, ugly, slow (was it really that slow?) and annoying. But picture me as an impressionable six-year-old playing this game, that eerie rendition of Greensleeves playing softly in the background, those green walls enclosing me, that oh so black and empty sky above. And then I get lost in the maze. I have forgotten which button to press to get help. I start to panic. I move about more and more randomly. I see a black square and aim for it. Maybe I found the way out! Oh but no. Nooo. Nooo! An empty, black abyss lies before me. With the scariest message I have ever seen:

Yeah! I know! Freaky, right? This experience was sufficiently significant for me to result in that whenever I want to check a map online to see, for instance, how I get from A to B in a car and have to zoom in to see small details, I keep my eyes half closed in case I somehow end up BELOW the map surface and plunge into No Man's Land again. It's like those robots you see that are very human-like, but not quite. Nothing is more scary than that not-quite-ness.

Wild horses couldn't drag me onto the Holodeck on the Starship Enterprise. Unless they paid me. A lot. And gave me free therapy sessions afterwards.

(By the way: I couldn't find a screenshot of the No Man's Land image up there, so I made it myself in Photoshop. You can download the Commodore 64 font for free, who knew!)

(By the way 2: my cat is sitting in front of her food bowl right now, looking like that guy in the corner at the end of The Blair Witch Project, weird)

Boo!

How Babies Are Better Than Computers

I don't have a TV.

I know, right? Sounds weird, but I don't. In Norway, it costs quite a lot of money each year to own a TV, and as there's usually nothing on anyway, my husband and I figured we'd just throw it out and spend our time more wisely. You know, pursue healthy hobbies, take long walks in the forest with our dog, keep the house nice and tidy, those sort of things. We didn't quite consider our own ability to find other stupid things to fill all that time with. Meaning that instead of mindlessly staring at a TV, we're now mindlessly surfing round the internet on our laptops instead.

 "This is SO going on my Facebook profile"

 Photo from here

The first time I went online was at primary school when I was about thirteen years old. I can remember staring around the web browser trying to figure out how to get from one web page to another, but by the time it took to enter a web address and waiting for it to load, the bell rang and class was over.

In high school I became quite proficient at computers, when our teacher Andrew ("you won't make any money on the planet Mars!") patiently talked us through using Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator on fresh new 1998 Apple iMacs. The internet speed had picked up, and I spent innumerable breaks and free periods glued to the screen of one of those juicy, colorful little things. I got my very own Hotmail address. I spent hours at the Smashing Pumpkins message boards (one, I was a huge fan, and two, Facebook hadn't been invented yet. I am THAT old). Then, in Uni, I taught myself how to use Dreamweaver, signed up for free internet domains and set up my own websites. When my mum bought a computer, I set it up for her, thereby forever cementing my role as eternal computer techie for my less-than-technologically-gifted mother.

 Look, complimentary colors! And warm-cold contrast as well! Told you I'm an artist.

Pictures from here and here, Photoshopped together by me LIKE A BOSS

I bought my very own computer, a laptop, in the summer of 2006. Later that year, my boyfriend (who is now my husband) got himself a desktop computer. In 2009, I won a scholarship and bought another desktop computer with Adobe Photoshop and one of these beauties. And finally, as a reward for squeezing out a baby earlier this year, my husband bought me ANOTHER laptop. Which I then equipped with a Wacom Bamboo and Photoshop Elements.

Lost count yet? I also have my brother's Commodore 64 lying about in the attic somewhere. And a few spare keyboards and things. I spend A LOT of time on computers every day. Mostly for work, but in the evenings as well. I am beginning to see a small hitch here, though.

Remember me mentioning that baby that I squeezed out? Well, he's going to grow bigger. And move about. And grab things. And destroy them. My computers. Oh. My. God.

Not that I love computers more than I love my baby! Oh no. I mean, sure, there are many similarities between my baby and my computer, such as the fact that they cost a lot of money to maintain and upgrade. Also, they can both catch viruses. And they both need recharging and sometimes crash for no apparent reason. However, where you consciously have to feed your computer new programs and updates and put more memory cards into it to make it smarter, the baby will do that all by itself. And come on, my computer cost, what, 5-6000 Norwegian monies to buy, but my baby was FOR FREE! Sure, computers don't drool on your sholder or poop all over the changing table, but no number of videos of laughing babies on YouTube can compete with the full 3D experience of seeing (and hearing) one live.

A real baby has way higher resolution than this

Also, you can personalize your computer as much as you like, with programs, add-ons, applications, skins, alert sound settings, fonts and even different colors on the hardware or a sweet bag to keep it in, but your computer will never, ever look like you. Nothing is more special edition, one-off, hand numbered, custom made and unique than your own baby. If it wasn't frowned upon by the general public, I'd sign mine. "Made by Jorunn Hanto-Haugse, 2011". Right there on his georgeous pink little belly.