I was going through some pictures a week ago, and I mean actual photographs. I'm not saying that digital media isn't photography, because I am one of the biggest proponents of it. Anyway I was looking through these photos of me and of times past and I have so many memories to unpack from them. It's a bit of what looking back was my directions and maybe my ability to look forward at the same time..
I can kind of space the photo as being taken sometime around 1992-93. Very important years to me as a nerd/geek.
It was during this time that I was very much still beginning my life as an anime fan. The reason not obvious in this picture is in one of the games. Ranma 1/2 Hard Battle; only it was the Super Famicom version. I was a young man who loved video games and loved anime. The Super Nintendo was the third system I had owned up to that point(the first two being the original NES and the Turbografx-16). Were were living in my grandmothers apartment in the building that she owned. She had passed away at that point. I was very interested in the future, and it was in video games and anime/manga/comics as a whole; where I saw a future.
The game in the Super Nintendo is Street Fighter 2. The only games I had were Street Fighter 2, Ranma 1/2 and Super Mario World; and only because It came with the SNES. I had a good Christmas that year; even if the rest of it wasn't as great.
Beneath that hideous looking table; which was very popular back in the 80's are three books. I believe one of them was a Heathcliffe comic digest and the other is To Kill a Mockingbird (I think).
Underneath the TV are a box of 3 1/2 Floppy Disks. Ancient technology existing before USB. That was how we carried around documents. Low capacity, terribly fragile, and yet, I was able to install Wolfenstein 3D and other assorted Shareware game on school computers because of them.
Next to it is a Nintendo Controller; 3rd party I think. I don't think I had a use for it at that point anymore. I didn't play Nintendo much after the SNES came out.
It's funny that this was me pre-cyberpunk days. This was before I had truly realized what cyberpunk was and what it would mean to me. It was only less than a year later that I discovered what it was through the SNES RPG Shadowrun.
On top of the TV are two speakers that I used for additional sound. The TV had speaker jacks that you could plug in speaker wires from. I used those on top and the one behind the TV stand to do just that. The Tv was a Goldstar that my grandmother had won and at the time was one of the best TV's I had owned. It weighed a ton, but it was the TV I that got me through most of my teen years.
The bag hanging from the lamp was an Eddie Bauer. This bag was significant because it was my carry along bag when I traveled first class for the first time in my life. My mother believe that Eddie Bauer was quality; she wasn't wrong.
In looking back then I knew three things for certain:
Comics books were worth collecting.
Videogames were worth collecting
Computers were worth knowing.
This is the young and impressionable me. Not the father, not the backyard wrestler, not the loss of fiance', not the jaded graduate. Just regular me guided by simple ideas and a love for the future. I was a visionary then because I was looking for ways to implement different forms of technology. I was looking to change, alter and improve. I saw a way for things to improve while never forgetting to laugh.
The future is an interesting place. Pictures like this remind me that we have come so far in my life. The significance of the time period of this pictures is proof of that. We had a 386 Computer. I wouldn't use a Pentium for at least 3-4 more years and only dialup was available. Street Fighter 2 was still brand new for SNES.
The future is a much more interesting place since that time in the picture.
I can kind of space the photo as being taken sometime around 1992-93. Very important years to me as a nerd/geek.
It was during this time that I was very much still beginning my life as an anime fan. The reason not obvious in this picture is in one of the games. Ranma 1/2 Hard Battle; only it was the Super Famicom version. I was a young man who loved video games and loved anime. The Super Nintendo was the third system I had owned up to that point(the first two being the original NES and the Turbografx-16). Were were living in my grandmothers apartment in the building that she owned. She had passed away at that point. I was very interested in the future, and it was in video games and anime/manga/comics as a whole; where I saw a future.
The game in the Super Nintendo is Street Fighter 2. The only games I had were Street Fighter 2, Ranma 1/2 and Super Mario World; and only because It came with the SNES. I had a good Christmas that year; even if the rest of it wasn't as great.
Beneath that hideous looking table; which was very popular back in the 80's are three books. I believe one of them was a Heathcliffe comic digest and the other is To Kill a Mockingbird (I think).
Underneath the TV are a box of 3 1/2 Floppy Disks. Ancient technology existing before USB. That was how we carried around documents. Low capacity, terribly fragile, and yet, I was able to install Wolfenstein 3D and other assorted Shareware game on school computers because of them.
Next to it is a Nintendo Controller; 3rd party I think. I don't think I had a use for it at that point anymore. I didn't play Nintendo much after the SNES came out.
It's funny that this was me pre-cyberpunk days. This was before I had truly realized what cyberpunk was and what it would mean to me. It was only less than a year later that I discovered what it was through the SNES RPG Shadowrun.
On top of the TV are two speakers that I used for additional sound. The TV had speaker jacks that you could plug in speaker wires from. I used those on top and the one behind the TV stand to do just that. The Tv was a Goldstar that my grandmother had won and at the time was one of the best TV's I had owned. It weighed a ton, but it was the TV I that got me through most of my teen years.
The bag hanging from the lamp was an Eddie Bauer. This bag was significant because it was my carry along bag when I traveled first class for the first time in my life. My mother believe that Eddie Bauer was quality; she wasn't wrong.
In looking back then I knew three things for certain:
Comics books were worth collecting.
Videogames were worth collecting
Computers were worth knowing.
This is the young and impressionable me. Not the father, not the backyard wrestler, not the loss of fiance', not the jaded graduate. Just regular me guided by simple ideas and a love for the future. I was a visionary then because I was looking for ways to implement different forms of technology. I was looking to change, alter and improve. I saw a way for things to improve while never forgetting to laugh.
The future is an interesting place. Pictures like this remind me that we have come so far in my life. The significance of the time period of this pictures is proof of that. We had a 386 Computer. I wouldn't use a Pentium for at least 3-4 more years and only dialup was available. Street Fighter 2 was still brand new for SNES.
The future is a much more interesting place since that time in the picture.
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