Hello and welcome to another edition of Dominik’s Little Old Purple Column the 11th of its kind. Slightly less chaotic scenes than last week but it is still ironic to be writing a column about games and technology while my fingers are drawn and puckered from washing my own pants in a hotel sink. ROLL THEME TUNE!
THEME TUNE PLAYS. SORRY IF YOU’RE JUST DOING THE READING. BUT LISTEN TO THE AUDIO VERSION BECAUSE THERE ARE SOUNDS EFFECTS IN THAT AS WELL AS SONGS!
There’s a wee theme of Technology Armageddon in this week’s column podcast podlumn colcast, because of something that happened here in Canada where technology really let us down over here. And it scared me. And it made me realise we are so reliant on certain tech stuff now that it only takes a couple of morons to plunge us into the (relatively) dark ages again so just in case you are ever somewhere in a power cut, and you need to wash your pants OR you are just a Scottish Dad trying to live frugally out of a suitcase while he starts a new radio job? Here is how you you’re your pants for free in a hotel room.
What? The radio show? Well, it’s ROCK OF THE ATLANTIC 7pm til midnight Atlantic Time all over Canada or wireless or internet. No, you CAN”T get it in the UK without internet black arts but please tell EVERYONE you know in Canada about it.
(PIC: Now THAT’S what I call a radio show promo pic!)
Here is how you wash pants in a hotel room.
1. Don’t buy washing powder. Hotel room shampoo works just as well and is less abrasive on your digits.
2. Wash them while you are showering to save time. Yeah, this is probably what the millennials today call TMI.
3. OK here is the hack! Once you wring them out? Lay them in a hotel towel, then tightly roll that towel up and it wrings them out more AND absorbs the water at the same time.
(PIC: Damp pants and socks all rolled up in a hotel towel. Real life, kids, eh?)
4. Hang them on the back of a chair or an eScooter.
I say eScooter because I bought one this week. More on THAT little adventure later.
Anyway, if you follow steps 1 through 4 then dry pants can be yours within an hour. And bearing in mind that the Prime Minister in the UK has resigned and assorted ne-er do wells are jockeying like jackals over the corpse to take over? If ANY politician ran on a manifesto that included the phrase “dry pants within an hour” I would consider voting for them.
GREAT MOMENTS IN GAMING HISTORY
Ok. So those who know me obviously know that Sensible Soccer was my footy game of choice in the 90s, for many reasons. It was immensely playable, it was made by a bunch of guys who loved the game, I had my own team in Sensible World of Soccer (The Catholic XI), and it had the two most impossible of game things to get right. Humour. And cool. If you try too hard to get those things? If you have people trying to create those things who are not themselves humourous or cool. And what was truly amazing about Sensible Soccer was that they made it cool even though it had the word SOCCER in the title, and we were brought up in the UK anyway to think if you used that word then you didn't really know football. Now obviously these days I don’t feel the same because I have played and coached football in Canada and now I will soccer the shit out of that word. And what made Sensible Soccer so great was that the ball stuck to your feet. Not a lot. But more than Dino Dini's Kick Off, which I still think was the most difficult video game to get to grips with of the whole 90s.
But what that DID mean is that scoring while playing Dino Dini's Kickoff was a real achievement - especially for me. Swear to God I think I only ever scored 4 times in as many years - and they were always the same goal - run straight from the kickoff and hoof it towards the goal and if you were lucky, it came back off the crossbar and you could head it home. It was Wimbledon AFC basically. But what I would like to know is... is there anyone out there who was GENUINELY good at Kick Off? Or - dare I say it - anyone that thought it was BETTER than Sensible Soccer? So let me know in the comments section. And give a proper reason I can understand. Don't just be one of those wankers who are like "yeah well Kick Off was better than Sensible Soccer" just to try and be arch. Like the people who say The Style Council were better than The Jam or Ian Brown's solo stuff was better than The Stone Roses or Angel was - gulp - Better Than Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Unfortunately, you can only use the comments section on the substack page if you are a paid subscriber. It's a gated community and we police it very tightly. No, we don't. It's just a place to hang out and chat about games and technology with me. And this week we were talking about the Uncharted Movie, The Miyoo Mini and how to stop people talking to you on a plane.
But this week's Truly No Seriously Great Moments in Gaming is that time I actually was able to score a damned goal in Dino Dini’s Kick Off.
(PIC: One of those goals I scored on Kick Off on the Amiga. Ish)
OK that’s your FREE version of Dominik’s Little Old Purple Column #11. If you want another load of funny words about games and tech that is an additional two times as long as this bit – I’m sure there’s a better way of phrasing that. Then it’s the price of a McDonald’s coffee a week. You know how much that is yeah? WHY ARE YOU BUYING MCDONALDS COFFEE I QUITE GAMESMASTER SERIES 2 OVER THEM?
That’s OK I eat at McDonald’s too now. They’re a different company now, run by fluffy bunnies and kittens.
In the PAID version of the column: How Canada nearly died this week and what that means for all of us in regard to how technology can fist us up the bum bum, what was it like when I Dominik Diamond bought an eScooter. At my age. And why my favourite mobile game of all time is also my favourite videogame of the last ten years or so, but I’ve been too embarrassed to reveal it.
PAID subscribers you hang on to your heinies cos I will run right through to that but FREE subscribers until next week this is me Dominik Diamond saying Keep It Little Keep It Old Keep It Purple.
Dominik's Little Old Purple Column #11 FREE