paul smith's Snaps & Bytes e-home
October 2000: Paul Smith writes… of disappointment and bad behavior
I wanted to write about the ECTS, but having tried several different approaches I've decided that whatever I chose to say about it would be as irrelevant as the show itself. So there.
Just about the only worthwhile thing I learnt was that Playstation2 is not a Holy Grail in slinky black plastic. I was expecting a quantum leap in performance of SNES/N64 proportions. What I saw was no paradigm shift. It was a Playstation1.5 at best. Far more impressive was the Nintendo Game Boy Advance, which my carefully honed gaming skills tell me is going to sell like thoroughly heated cakes. Even the Dreamcast looked good on the Gem stand, where a bundled deal with a DVD deck was catching folk's attention. Don't write this system off just yet, boys and girls, because if you've all out of Playstation2's by November the 30th this could easily be your bread and butter for Christmas. Just stick the demo of Half Life on in the window and see those noses pressed to the cold fern frosted glass on Christmas Eve!
Quick half-hearted rant time! 15" monitor, 14" viewable screen. 14" monitor, 13" viewable screen. Now that's not so hard is it? I'm tutting as I type this….
Mad, bad and dangerous to know?
You may recall last month I told the world that I'd met my new girlfriend via the Internet in a totally non-sordid way. Many said a relationship based on such 'flimsy' as a joint interest in the television work of David Renwick was doomed to fail. They were right. Ho hum. However I have been talking to another girl via the 'net (I am at my most attractive when typing) for a while and the other day I chatted to her on the 'phone too. Yes, you're right, this is going to get sordid! Thinking I had nothing to loose I suggested we meet up sometime for coffee, as you do, and to my surprise she accepted. The next day I drove to meet her in my best shirt. When I got out of my car at her local McDonalds (classy) I realised with a sinking heart, that I had no idea of what this girl looked like, as the only picture I'd seen of her was of her arse! So short of wandering around asking people to stand up, how the hell was I going to recognize her? Fortunately I'd not been so shy about showing my face in the picture I'd sent her, and she spotted me as I looked around the car park with a worried expression. A stunningly attractive blonde in her 20's waved me over to an outside table... We walked her dog (not a euphemism) and had a pub lunch. My observation? That the Internet isn't a just about porn, e-commerce and Dot-Com millionaires, it's also about beautiful bored women with an interest in S&M.
483 words Dale. Not sure about this one…the ebb and flow of it doesn't seem quite right to me. Does Feng Shui (my spell checker has, Elvis-like, left the building) work on written documents? Do I have this problem because my bed now faces the door? Am I North/South when I should be East/West? Let me know if I need to do a re-write.
Paul Smith
P.S. A small invoice will be wandering your way again soon. Sorry.