Hello and welcome to Dominik’s Little Old Purple Column the 37th of its kind, the tech and games podcast you can read or the tech and games column you can listen to. It does both, meaning it’s always twice as good as I think it is. That’s just basic maths, eh? Theme tune!
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Last weekend saw another Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. I am old enough to remember when the mainstream press didn’t bother that much with CES but now every news organization is there, and I love reading all the headlines. Here was my favourite this year:
CES 2023: Smelling, touching take center stage in metaverse
More on the details behind that headline in the PAID PALS version of the column podcast colcast thing. Back when I used to go to the CES in the GamesMaster days it was the most amazing experience. The first one I went to was in Chicago, the only time I have ever been to that city. It was terrific. I was lucky that the wonderful people at Virgin Games took me under their wing and I just hung around with them. We went to the most fantastic restaurants and bars, including Mother's which was the bar they used in one of my favourite movies of all time, St Elmo’s Fire.
It’s where Rob Lowe’s character is chatting up some lady and he says let’s get out of here and she says that she she is with some friends and Rob replies.
“That’s OK. This face seats five.”
A truly wonderful line. It’s basically the “here’s looking at you, kid” of teen movies.
(We also went to a blues bar in South Chicago where I thought I was going to get shot in the toilets over a misunderstanding about a hand dryer, but that’s a story for another day.)
It was such a lovely experience I didn’t even mind having to share a hotel room with another human - something I abhor - because in this case it was Simon Jeffery, who went on to be - among other things - President of Lucasarts and President of SEGA America and was a lovely chap. That said he was responsible for one of the most confusing moments of my life when I came back one night absolutely roaring drunk to find he had apple-pied my bed. For those unfamiliar with the dark arts of bed apple-pieing, this is when you fold the sheets over around about halfway down the bed so the victim can only get themselves halfway in. It is very common at boarding schools in between doing things with digestive biscuits, but I obviously forgot about that part because I spent twenty minutes trying to force my feet into the sheets before Simon told me what he did lest he die from laughter-flavoured asphyxiation.
I have tons more CES stories involving swordfish and porn stars and roulette and forged money which I will get into at a later date because I want to make sure I haven’t told them all in that GamesMaster The Oral History book. And also I have given you enough free stuff for this week. Hit the SUBSCRIBE button on the Substack page of the column for details on how to become a PAID PAL.
For less than a quid a week where you get a thing 5 times the length of this (which this week is actually 6.5 times the word length as it happens) and this week happens to include…
Why virtual reality headsets are shite
The dumbest piece of stupid announced at CES
What happened when I played Hamsterball with my son
And you know what that means?
Even more hilarious Hamster facts that are even better than the hilarious Hamster Facts last which are now generally refered to in Parliament as “the best most hilarious Hamster Facts in a podcast column colcast thing ever, even better than that Hamster Podcast you all love!”
If you want to stay a free subscriber, then I will see you in this section next week. Until then keep it little, keep it old, keep it purple.
(BONUS PIC: Home made Italian pastries from my amazing colleague Anna Zee, one of the many reasons I love the radio house I am in again!)
Dominik's Little Old Purple Column #37 FREE TEASER