What is FROGSTAR

Nice site; the author deserved to know that another person likes it.

Also I thought (honestly) you might be amused by some of the following drivel as I rabbit / dribble on for a bit, as I'm sure your curious why I looked at your site, what my inspirations were, etc. though this might be some byproduct of my misunderstanding of marketing feedback (nothing I ever tell someone in a survey ever seemed to make a difference, but then again, you are a real person, not some corporate drone following policies employing the attention span of a whatsit thing that sort of related... nice logo).

I tripped over your website when I looked up "all your base are belong to us" as I'm a computer / console / gaming / retro geek / nerd / etc. (does the world have enough yet?) and have been since the 1980s so quickly got bored looking at references to today's inspirational "green elf needs food" (I like Gauntlet, and "for some reason", this quote came to mind).

I haven't played Zero Wing for a while; I should do that (Got a Sega Nomad a couple of years ago; ideal tool, provided you've got a ton of batteries or convenient mains supply to keep it running for a few hours). I sort of remember it being rather hard with guns that you actually have to aim; I'm more used to the R-Type sort of horizontal shooter, where you tend to concentrate on where to put the ship and hope you're hitting things with the weapons although the R-Type series specifically sort of sports that feature where that fancy pod thing which tends to distract me from what my ship is about to ram. Suprsingly, I tend to do quite well; I guess blokes can multitask, thus fly the ship, aim the pod, shoot in the general direction of things, may be even hit some of the things; mostly, until I fail to dodge something, like a wall or bullet or the big boss trying to crush my tiny ship with about half a screen of pixels each rushing to it as either individual points of worry or collective lumps of clustering gloriously technicolour pixellated things of concern.

My geekdom extends to silly numbers of types, quantities and quality of retro consoles and computers as I've been "planning" to setup a museum with some of my friends for a few years now. However, all we seem to do is buy more and more retro consoles / computers / games / peripherals / etc. (you'll get used to that word), and play them, gradually filling our habitats beyond rational capacity expectations, rather than actually doing something which could make a museum spring into being. We (individually) often travel some distance to meet up (circa 200 miles each way for some evenings and participants) to be sat in someone's house playing Bomberman, FPSs, driving games, etc. for 12 hours or so as a session (then go home, of course, once we've slept somewhere nearby). Some sessions are shorter if we fail to procure sufficient unhealthy snacks during it, as our blood-sugar and junk quota levels might have dropped below "minimum operating levels" thus our greatest enemy (sleep) creeps upon us, unannounced.

I do recall (vaguely) some mid-session occassions of becoming aware of having a controller in my hand and not rembering what game I was playing on account of a slight and worrying visual system input continuity problem; I'd rather invite sleep than have it pounce, as it tends to harm my frag count or other score tracking tools.

Is excessive collection activity actually considered normal, just out of curiosity, given that many of my mates seem to suffer from irrationally extensive collections, regardless of gender, storage space, income, IQ, etc.?

My nerdom comes from being a computer programmer since 1985; being a geek doesn't help but that stems from starting to use a home computer in 1980 when software was practically non-existant so we wrote our own programs, games, tools and what-not. People (even in the IT department) often ask me (possibly, very) technical questions; I don't mind, as long as it doesn't relate to something with less than one processor in it, else I probably can't answer it. I've been trying to teach them a seemingly new word, which they claim to understand (of course) being "Google", as it might help me retain some sort of continuity of focus and attention on whatever it was I used to be doing just before they asked some question they really ought to have known the answer they are paid to know.

Some people have begun to understand that a computer programmer writes programs so probably can't fix your computer, although they will know someone in the support department who can; you'd be suprised how many need to be told, and how often, but still some seem somehow deaf to this irrational connection that people make by default that "you work with computers; you must be able to fix them".

I can drive too, but that doesn't make me able to fix cars either. Unfortunately, this is no longer a theory; radiators are quite expensive, aren't they, when you accidently, and somewhat suddenly, poke them with a spanner that escaped one's frustrated hands just because the bolt I was trying to undo seemed to be designed to rust into a perpetual bond with the surrounding metal I wanted to free it from...

I am also a fellow HHGTTG fan since about 1982 courtesy of the books, then everything else a bit later; unsuprisingly I recognised the Frog Star reference, but thought I'd better check it wasn't a coincidence.

I've converted a few people to the ways and writings of Douglas Adams; forever more he will be missed, as will be his previously anticipated potential for ongoing contributions.

I can account for much of my inspired English grammatical and semantic confusions (as reported by those victims who have read my "perhaps overly" technical documentation, which always seems to be reported as "larger than expected" or "a bit difficult to follow") by the adventures of Arthur Dent and company since Douglas really understood the English and their language. I suspect the complexities and subtleties have been largely misunderstood by most readers who will have only enjoyed the thin surface of the more obvious bits of humour as the bulk of it will have slipped past their skimpy reading skills should they fail to persistently re-read the books and re-listen to the tapes "like a proper fan should" as it is easy to half read it, as though in haste.

It took me a second reading of the first book to realise that being drunk, from a glass of water's perspective, does not involve a large bar tab, so I did not immediately grasp the discomfort inferred by Ford's description of hyper space travel whilst on board the lead Vogon constructor fleet ship. The joy of discovery... at least for me!

(I felt some pity for Arthur's impending winner of the culture-shock versus other-sources-of-imiminent-panic race, as I didn't think the results would be pretty.)

I remember having difficulty understanding Marvin's thoughts about Trillian as the text was a "proper" exercise in obfuscation (that might not be spelled right; I haven't resorted to off-line editing, so all this text has been entered into about 5 inches by 4 inches of screen space, with a suprisingly tiny scroll bar marker, now). I don't think I've seen as many opposing negatives, ambiguously and derivatively possible negatives, or other semantic confusion tricks, in just the one sentence, before I'd worked out, with some sort of confidence, if Marvin loathed or liked her.

Plus I learned to like commas, lots of bracketed diversionary text, mid-sentence distractions (what's that over there) and so-on.

Sorry.

Mind you, I don't do the full-on spirals of persistent interruptions of the flow of the story that Douglas frequently did.

Look up the English word "Anacaluthon"; it explains a Greek language tactic, popular at the time that the Apostle Paul wrote some of the books in the new testament of the Bible (such as in the King James Version which adds the extra spin of an interesting and thorough use of the archiac English the Greek text was translated into somewhere around 1500AD, give or take a hundred years or so). In essence, it is a mid-flow side-track, hooked into a point to save repeating one-self. One is expected to read "around" the distraction, then, afterwards, read the distraction, as the distraction is put there because it relates to that point in the narrative that it was positioned. However, it makes reading those bits a significant mental exercise, as you've got to work out which bits to "ignore for a bit", then return to, and in what order, and still try to make sense of a big picture blathered in flowerly allegory and complex symbolic imagery. No wonder there are so many religious divisions among those that consider that scripture, like the innumerable reputedly Jewish, Christian or related sects, cults, and divisions.

I'm approaching the age of 42 this year, so I'm hoping that doesn't have some cosmic implications, personal or wider. I'd be upset.

Unsuprisingly, I like Sci Fi, Star Trek, Star Wars, Simpsons, South Park, etc. which might also type-cast me. However, it is a long and largely unexplained list, so I might get away with it a bit.

I enjoyed your random pictures page. For a few hours. It helped to fade off my awful headache while I mentally blanded out for a bit.

Interesting set of images; guaranteed to collectively spark off some sort of inspiration, but it would be a weird outcome.

Oops.

After that, I started writing this comment; probably your longest to date, I'd wager (probably a bag of weevils, just in case I'm wrong, as I presume you aren't some sort of weevil collector who'd actually want them).

All of the above is true except for the bits I made up. Hang on, I forgot to make stuff up... :) ...except possibly this bit;
over there, near that hedge.

As I said; thanks for putting up the website, as it created entertainment for me; appreciated.

Unfortnately, money isn't one of my best conversations, which my landlord (and others) recently hinted at, some of them a bit firmly, like the bloke introducing me to the concept of bailiffs using the "classic" learning-cliff strategy; maybe you can recycle some of my jibber into something other people will enjoy in lieu of the sort of support that pays the bills.

I like the bit in the film "The Last Starfighter" (well, I like most of the film to be honest, in fact rather a lot of films, but anyway...) where they have a brief strategy planning moment between the lead human bloke (sat in the gunnery chair, which he has never used) (who's now in the second spaceship or UFO he has ever been in his entire life, and both in that day) and the alien he just met that's flying the single surviving "Starfighter" spaceship they are in, to the bad guys' rather large and somewhat impressive "Kodan" armarda battle ship fleet;. Thus they spake, but in a more modern dialect: "How are we going to wipe out an entire battle fleet with one ship? I'll figure it out before we reach the frontier. Beep! Beep! What does the beep mean? It's the frontier perimiter warning". I suspect the "Oh Crap" was edited out, as this is not exactly an 18 certificate film. However, business practises keep reminding me of this scene, which tends to keep it near to my predictably frequently throbbing frontal lobes.

Please don't tell me I'm mad; my friends keep reminding me as it is, so that is getting a bit boring now. Especially after this many years, I could tell you. I can't be, anyway; I've been tested, and apparently (somehow) I'm quite normal. I know, the crowd might have gasped at that one. I must have cheated that test somehow, too... as my brother Mike put it.

Mike hasn't even called me a nutter for a few years now. Mind you, on that occassion, I was doing donuts in a large car park at the time, sending bits of gravel off to far and flung locations, so I suspect he was referring to my pre-speed-camera driving habits, as I've had to calm down alot, just as a Police officer suggested. Or it might have been one of the other Police officers on some other, possibly a bit more recent, occasion who (may have, perhaps) pointed out that I was "driving quite quickly" (as I interpreted what he said, since he seemed a bit excited, in a "can I see your driving license and car keys" sort of way).

It shocks people to hear that I still have a clean driving license (now the previously persistent speeding points have aged) and I don't (and haven't) hit things with any of my cars (well, the working ones, anyway, bearing in mind those are the ones that tend to be capable of movement). Mind you, some people are quite crafty and wait until I've parked before they ram whichever car I'm using (usually the one that is working, as I don't get as much legal choices of those that I own as my collection "sort of grew" (familiar trend, to be honest) from when I "used to have money" so I have about 7 cars (it depends on your definition of "car" and "have" as this is not trivial, in my case, but I definitely own at least 6 cars that could be called cars) of which only one works but two are road legal). There is a point where a pile of rust ceases to be a car, and some of mine are investigating the boundaries, although I've tried to help by removing some of the bits for use later, in the hope there will be something left to put them back into.

There are some simple things in my life, and, if you'll give me a few minutes, I'll remember what they are. Eventually. Got it! It's me. I'm the simple bit! Oh. Crap. That probably explains why everything else is complicated, then. Well, all things are relative, apparently, so maybe I'm not simple in a bad way, but I hope, just, "not that simple".

:)

Regards.
Pete

(The sort of bloke that easily remembers the nearly useless stuff that almost nobody should need to know but can't seem to remember the sort of things everyone else thinks "you couldn't possibly forget because its so important", like what day it is, have I eaten today, am I wearing trousers, etc.)
(I'm sometimes suprised that I haven't forgotten to breathe, if you get my gist, since I've forgotten most other stuff everyone else thought was really important, at some point or other.)

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CORRECTION TO THE ABOVE:

Spelling error in the ramble above; I intended "Judaism" when I said "Jewish" with reference to my under-explained opinions on religions.

(Sorry; no offences were ever intended, nor will I ever intend them. Dumb human make error again.)

I am an Apostolic Christian who is learning what that means (so don't ask me, yet) but the simple version goes "do what God and Jesus said; become an Apostle of Christ" so think in terms of the ten commandments, as represented in Bible, plus all of the other big stuff that's in there (you know, sin, baptism, the cross, repetence, forgiveness, holiness, studying what God and Jesus said, "Gain knowledge, and with it, understanding", praying a lot (asking for forgiveness and every sort of help) and all that sort of thing). You'll have heard about this stuff at some point, though probably with more cogent coherence.

The trouble is, it is quite hard to work out how to make being an Apostle of Christ work, which is why so many people have chosen to follow slighlty different intrepretations of basically the same ideas, sometimes with quite substantial differences arising from subtle points.

I know God has a sense of humour; you ought to read the bit where He enabled a donkey (I might not get these details perfect as they'd be important, so please check) to talk back to the owner, because the owner was being unreasonable. Funny thing is, the owner got quite argumentative and didn't seem to notice that most donkey-types tend not to have the capacity for speech. Shrek's side-kick doesn't count as he's only a digital donkey.

I know God has a serious side too; just read about Job, who had a really hard time until he realised what God had been trying to teach him. Then, God made it up to Job by a a huge factor, because his suffering was so much. Thank God that we can learn from reading about Job, as I wouldn't want to learn those lessons the way Job did.

However, I digress (unsuprisingly) and this was not intended to be a discussion on theology or Christianity (Sorry).

Regards.
Pete