In today's entry Plume discusses Ultima, Ultima, Ultima, Brøndby and the validity of his mother's pina coladas. If you don't know who Iolo, Shamino and Dupre are you might want to skip past the whole Ultima thing. If you don't know what Ultima is then you might want to go to your local computer shop and buy it. Plume accepts no responsibility for any disppointments you may have if you actually follow his advice. Also Plume is thirsty and will be getting a drink before this entry continues. That is all.

...

Ah. There. That's better.

Day one of my vacation. More or less. Emailed work. I'm a bad person. But I'm on vacation, so it's ok.

Now I have plenty of time to waste. Such a pleasure.

I've been reading usenet. It's funny. There are two things I really like to read plenty of stuff about. The Ultima games and the Smashing Pumpkins. And both things pretty much ended right around the time I got online. By the time I found the newsgroups it had all gone down hill. More or less. It would have been fun to take part in conversations about Ultima X or the new SP album. Not that I ever say anything anyway. But I like reading about it anyway. This. and this. And this. And I could go on. But I know I'm the only one interested in it so I won't.

It's fascinating. Going back in time and seeing people argue about Ultima 9. Ascension. Wether it would suck or they should give it the benefit of the doubt. And you have people listing a whole bunch of what they are worried about and then 2 years later everybody is complaining because that's exactly how the game turned out. It's hard to understand how they could mess up Ascension so much when all the fans were worried about the exact things they were doing before it was even finished. That was the worst sentence ever, but basically the programmers were warned big time. And they still flopped it up.
I still want ultima 10
Speaking of Ultima, I ordered some games online yesterday. Baldur's Gate, Fallout 1+2 and Ultima 8. Used goods, dirt cheap. Maybe I can use some of my vacation time to play geeky RPGs. The thing is that I already have Ultima 8. Actually I completed it when it first came out 500 years ago. But I've never had an original copy. I want to read the documentation and have the box. It was quite cheap so who cares if I'm never going to play it again?

I love Ultima. I remember my first. Ultima 6. Installing it was a nightmare, I've never seen anything like it on an Amiga before or after. You had to unpack the whole thing yourself from the install discs to 4 game discs. Program disc, populace disc, portraits disc.. and something. And if you wanted to start over you had to do it all again.
I am the avatar, I am
And then I saw Ultima 7. I used to skip ym class and go to Stefan's house and marvel at King's Quest and all those fancy PC games. And when I saw Serpent Isle I was amazed. It look so much better than U6. I remember it clearly. Asking some knight in Monitor about the Goblins. Running along the coastline, watching the waves crash against the beach and then reaching Fawn, the city of beauty. It was perfect. And that was when I decided that I wanted a PC. And I loved Ultima 7 part 1 and 2. Still the best computer games I've ever played I think. Only Goal! is up there with them.
monkey island. day of the tentacle. sensible soccer.
The intro sequence to U7 shows the big bad guy talking to you through your computer. It's every boy's dream. To get sucked into a computer game. That's one of the great things about Ultima. The whole story is centered about you yourself. You don't have to play some preset character. The whole point is that it's you who gets sucked into Britannia and the other worlds. I always loved that. Even though Origin did their best to screw it up.
Or EA. Or Lord British. Or all of the above
But I digress. In a big way.

Here is something to get you in an ultima mood: Stones. I love Stones.

If I could watch just one Tom & Jerry cartoon right now it would be the one where they flood the house and everything freezes and they're skating all over the place. That was so cool. Everything was so cool when I was a kid. The Ultimas got worse, the pumpkins broke up. And what was up with that Tom & Jerry feature film? You kids nowadaysdontknowwhatyouremissinblablabla.
that ain't disney
Exactly 10 years ago today Denmark won the European Championship in soccer. One of the biggest sensations in soccer history and one of my favourite memories ever. Such a thrill. I'm sure I've told and retold the great story about how I was sitting on the floor in front of the tv and when we scored I jumped up and smashed my head against the lamp above me. And then when we scored our second goal I did it again. Brilliant.

The goals were scored by John 'Faxe' Jensen and Kim Vilfort by the way. Two Brøndby legends. Faxe is our new assistant coach and Vilfort is a youth coach or something like that.

Just to illustrate how great and wonderful Brøndby are.
forza brøndby olé
My mum made pina coladas today. I've never had a pina colada before. I'm pretty sure this isn't a pina colada. Otherwise I will start a campaign against pina coladas. I mean you can split a banana and stuff it in a glass but that don't make it a banana split. Trust me.

Aaaaaaaaah. Vacation. This is the stuff.

np: zwan - a new poetry (020405)