I'm spending a couple of days visiting my folks in Arbroath on the east coast. I've taken today as a day out in Dundee, where I grew up. I left this city over 20 years ago, and I have to say that I'm satisfied that I don't live here anymore. I could've said 'glad', but that would've been to overstate the case. In any event, there is now and always has been a certain pleasure in returning to the haunts of my childhood and youth, and seeing how they've changed. This is all the more so since the changes that present themselves to me all seem for the better.
As if that nostalgia rush wasn't enough, this post also marks... well, the culmination of a notion that has haunted me since I first read Gibson's cyberpunk classics in the early/mid 80's.
I mean, your (not so) humble scribe sits here in front of a computer in Debenham's ecafe in the old Overgait centre in Dundee (the oldest mall of my acquaintance; one that has, btw, been reinvented in recent years into a space which I dream of hiring for a HAF (Huge As F***) party, or similar event).
OK, so I'm not reporting in from some exotic location of the sort that might feature in a novel, TV series, or movie. But I am now a roving correspondent for RD/KA! in a way that finally begins to realise the dreams opened up by Gibson and his associates during the cyberpunk revolution that reinvented SF in the mid 80's. All that's missing is neural jacking and VR interfaces.
This is exciting stuff.
Meanwhile, naturally enough, I have spent my afternoon visiting the local gaming emporia, renewing acquaintances, spending money on neat stuff, and enjoying a good liquid gloat.
But more of that anon when I'm not paying 50p/10mins for my cyberspace access. Meanwhile: hoo hah, but doesn't this ICT s**t just rock!
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