Note: This is a re-written version of my slightly drunken rant from the other night, with the profanity removed. Normally I wouldn’t do this, but I think people may actually be right… even I’ll admit there was a wee bit too much profanity, which probably worked to the detriment of whatever it was that was going through my head at the time.

MY VOTE DOESN’T COUNT.

This is a common response to anyone daring to bring up politics around a young person these days. Twenty-something. Late teens. Early thirties. Shit, some people these days who qualify as a young person are at an age where, had they been born a half-dozen centuries ago, they’d be an old man by this stage in their lives.

But they say, “My vote doesn’t count”, and why should it? Statistically, you’re one person. You sit in a safe seat. You bothering to vote means nothing! 62% of people vote for party A, 36% vote for party B, and the rest vote for independents. John Jackson’s 0.05% uranium tax doesn’t go far enough, et cetera, et cetera.

When some guy says to you, in response to this, “Oh yeah? Well, in the famous scare election of nineteen-hundred and whoop-de-fridge, four people decided the election in your district – it could happen again!”

You know it isn’t likely to be the case. It won’t happen. Your vote won’t matter. You might as well wander in and scribble, “I am a cockatoo’s droppings mutated into human form,” for all the good it’ll do.

Well, let’s pretend for a minute you’re wrong. That your vote did matter.

So what should you vote? Well, it’s your business, but you need to do more than just think long and hard about whether you’ll vote for the same party as the one your parents vote for or not. Read some non-mainstream websites. Watch debates (not just the big ones). Follow political writers whose sentiments you agree with – and some whose sentiments you most definitely don’t. Read some that make you angry. Some that make you laugh. Ingest all the information you can, whether written or filmed, to make the most informed decision you can.

You need to think about the merits of the political parties. Just what do they stand for? What are their platforms? Their policies? Why do they make sense to you, personally? What about your local candidate?

What decision are you going to make?

Well, that’s your business. But there is one question I’m sure you’re still asking – why bother? The same question as before.

Because you are not a vote.

You are a person.

By learning – by reading, by asking, by coming to a decision, you spread something. You spread knowledge, education and experience. Even if it is just the experience of reading about the issues and who stands for what.

Someone brings up politics at the bar, around the dinner table, or while you’re playing a round or two of Call of Duty, and you are no longer the backwards, ignorant non-entity you are now. You are somebody with an opinion. With some facts or thoughts to throw around, with or without the obligatory wry smile (that’s your choice).

You know what just might happen? Somebody might listen to you. Somebody might think you’re right, and your vote becomes two… or three… or four. Or somebody might think you’re wrong, and change their previous “my vote doesn’t count” opinion to one that results in them voting in the opposite way.

You don’t need to be one of those in-your-face bastards handing out flyers to make a difference in an election. You just need to do one thing: read a bit, learn a bit, listen a bit, and make a choice.

There’s one thing you spread by being an informed voter: the desire to be an informed voter.

Your mind and your voice are the most important tools you will ever own.

Use them.

This is a fucking common response to anyone daring to bring up politics around a young person these days. Twenty-something. Late teens. Early thirties. Shit, some fuckers these days who qualify as a young person are at an age where, had they been born a half-dozen centuries ago, they’d be a fucking old man by this fucking stage in their fucking lives.

But they say, “My vote doesn’t count”, and why should it? Statistically, you’re one person. You sit in a safe seat. You bothering to fucking vote means fucking nothing! 62% of people vote for party A, 36% vote for party B, and the rest vote for independents. John Jackson’s 0.05% uranium tax doesn’t go far enough, et cetera, et cetera.

When some fuck says to you, in response to this, “Oh yeah? Well, in the famous scare election of nineteen-hundred and whoop-de-fuck, four people decided the election in your district – it could happen again!”

You know it isn’t likely to be the case. It won’t happen. Your vote won’t fucking matter. You might as well wander in and scribble, “I am a cockatoo’s droppings mutated into human form,” for all the good it’ll do.

Well, let’s pretend for a minute you’re wrong. That your vote did fucking matter.

So what should you vote? Well, it’s your fucking business, but you need to do more than just think long and hard about whether you’ll vote for the same fucking party as the one your parents vote for or not.

You need to think about the fucking merits of the fucking political parties. Just what the fuck do they fucking stand for? Why does that make sense? What about your local candidate? Just what the fuck decision do you make?

Well, that’s your business. But there is one question I’m sure you’re still asking – why bother? The same question as be-fucking-fore.

Because you are not a vote.

You are a person.

By learning – by reading, by asking, by coming to a decision, you spread something. You spread knowledge, education and experience. Even if it is just the experience of reading about the issues and who stands for what.

Someone brings up politics at the bar, around the dinner table, or while you’re playing a round or two of Call of Duty, and you are no longer the retarded, ignorant non-entity you are now. You are somebody with a fucking opinion. With some fucking facts or thoughts to throw around, with or without the obligatory wry smile (that’s your choice).

You know what the fuck just might happen? Somebody might listen to you. Somebody might think you’re right, and your vote becomes two… or three… or four. Or somebody might think you’re wrong, and change their previous “my vote doesn’t count” opinion to one that results in them voting in the opposite fucking way.

You don’t need to be one of those in-your-face pricks handing out flyers to make a difference in an election. You just need to do one thing: read a bit, learn a bit, listen a bit, and make a choice.

There’s one thing you spread by being an informed voter: the desire to be an informed voter.

Your mind and your voice are the most important tools you will ever own.

Fucking use them.

Now, as well as having Jack Davenport in it (who is awesome, and to my surprise has great comic timing) the thing is bloody funny – really well written.

But beyond that, there are two things that leap out at me about the program.

Firstly: that it’s a fascinating look at relationships between people who don’t communicate properly.

Why get awkward if your new partner finds a porn tape lying around? So what? You have some lesbian porn. It’s not exactly uncommon, given that most men aren’t too easily able to ‘imagine themselves’ in place of Ron Jeremy or the like.

These sorts of things should really be discussed, and quite early. Anyway, this brings me to the second thing about the show. It’s about early 30-somethings in the year 2000 (first season).

Why in fuck did anybody even HAVE porn cassettes as recently as ten years ago? I mean, these days the internet can dish up whatever your fancy is with a quick collection of google phrases. You don’t even need to keep the crap on your computer, much less in some archaic format like that.

I understand that these would be 30-somethings in 2000, meaning they were probably busy clubbing, tripping, getting smashed and picking up while I was busy learning about this new thing called the ‘internet’, but it still seems awfully strange as a concept to me.

Hardcopy porn? Really? How… odd.

Even before the internet, I don’t think I’ve ever owned any.

So the real question is: how long before there’s nobody left alive without a magazine fetish who actually owns hardcopy porn?

When I began to discuss getting an iPad some months ago, I found that people responded to this in one of two ways. They either said, ‘Ooooh!’ and got excited, or said, ‘Why?’ and genuinely could not understand why anyone would want such a device. (I’ve literally only heard those two reactions – never indifference – although the ‘Ooooh’ was often modified to ‘Aaaaah’ and the ‘Why?’ was often shortened to ‘Ugh’)

I think there’s really a few reasons for each reaction. The three kinds of ‘Oooooh!’ reactions are:

1. From the “Steve Jobs Is My God” zealots. They react this way to everything, and not even they know why. Maybe they have some kind of virus.
2. From gadget nuts who just like The New Shiny.
3. From people who are genuinely fascinated by its potential. Sometimes, people fit both this category and the gadget nut category.

Then you’ve got the “Why?” reactions. These seem to be for two reasons.

1. The Apple-haters. (Arbitrarily hating something because you dislike the marketing or dislike it because it’s popular is bloody stupid. Trust me. I was like that for way too damn long. The moment something became popular, I switched to an even more obscure brand or operating system – from Windows to Fedora to Slackware to FreeBSD to Linux From Scratch, etc)
2. A genuine inability to imagine how the device might be useful.

It’s the latter I want to talk about. Or, more specifically, how having an iPad has actually resulted in fairly major changes to my lifestyle. (Whether it’s for better or for worse is to be analysed with the benefit of hindsight)

On the Surface (get it? hah… I crack me up…) the iPad is a strange thing. It sits awkwardly between laptops and netbooks, with either less functionality than either (from one perspective) or completely different functionality (from another).

So, it doesn’t have a keyboard, right? Well, not a hardware one. For some people, this is a show-stopper. They don’t type on virtual keyboards. They’ve never gotten used to their iPhone or HTC’s software keyboard, never figure out the most efficient way to use the auto-correction features, and they can’t imagine not using a real / physical one. So therefore the device must be useless, right?

The iPad isn’t, without accessories, really designed to be a content creation tool. The lack of camera and keyboard make that abundantly clear. It’s a tool for consuming.

To illustrate this, I’m going to give you an example of two typical days – one without the iPad, and one several weeks after getting one.

Pre-iPad

(Please enjoy the ironic picture, courtesy of Google Images)

I wake up. I may or may not be feeling the effects of the red wine from the previous night. I glare menacingly at my phone, which is currently telling me in a shrill, insolent voice that it’s time to wake up. After the glaring fails to stop the horrible noise, I reach over and turn it off (or hit snooze one or more times to irritate my girlfriend).

After a while, I get out of bed, put on a dressing gown and collapse at my desk. I then spend a good half hour to half a day reading home email, work email, chat on gtalk, facebook, twitter, my RSS feed aggregator and the occasional news site that I feel like browsing. After these last few things are done, enough time has passed that I find myself refreshing facebook, twitter and even the odd news site again.

All this done, I make breakfast (and eat it at my desk while checking my email, facebook, gtalk messages, twitter feed or RSS feed aggregator), shower and take my place once more at my desk to write or code whatever it is I’m doing that day, occasionally stopping to either read my work email, home email, gtalk, facebook, twitter or check my RSS feed aggregator.

It’s possible that, if I have no reason to leave the house that day, I will punctuate the work process with a trip to a cafe for an espresso, continuing to work from my laptop – or perhaps read a book instead. This is, of course, important if you’re trying to maintain and air of pretentiousness about your lifestyle – but mostly it’s just so that my chair doesn’t start developing a Rohan’s-arse shaped indention in it faster than it needs to.

Once my girlfriend gets home, assuming I have no plans for the evening, I will cook dinner while listening to a film’s audio commentary or perhaps a podcast, and then watch a film or a few episodes of something with her while drinking wine.

And that’s really the bulk of my day.

Post-iPad

(Please enjoy this second ironic image, implying that the iPad is the future and that we will all become one with the internet. I don’t know who made it, but it’s cool to see a new take on the poster for The Informers)

I wake up in my bed. I may or may not be feeling the effects of the red wine I had the previous night. I glower at my phone, which is presently informing me that it’s time to cart my sorry arse out of the land where I’m an astronaut, and into the land where I’m a filmmaker who doesn’t get paid for it and software developer who doesn’t get paid enough for it.

I switch off my alarm and reach over to my iPad, which has been sitting there quietly all night, the atoms of its aluminium shell slowly ceasing their movement until the device is horribly bloody cold. (yes, this is a criticism right now – once we’re in summer I suspect I’ll feel differently)

I flick the orientation lock switch so that I can read it while lying down, and open up my email. Then I open up my twitter feed. Then my facebook page. Then my RSS aggregator, and slowly read through the day’s news articles.

Sometimes, I watch whatever new youtube videos have appeared on my subscription list (if my girlfriend has already gotten out of bed).

Once this is done (a process which usually allows my cells to age about 20 minutes), I get out of bed, plop my iPad down again and go have a shower. After this, I eat breakfast, usually on the balcony if it’s particularly nice out, or at the dining table in the sun if it’s not. While doing so, my iPad sits on its a-frame in front of me, so I can read any longer articles I flagged to look at later – often by Ebert or Emerson, or perhaps more youtube videos from folks like James Randi or the Skepchicks.

Once this is all done, I put my iPad down again and get to work coding or writing on my desktop.

But something is different. All my personal things are on the iPad. I’m now comfortable reading news articles while lounging on the couch, like it was a book or a magazine. So I don’t find myself doing that on my computer. I don’t keep my email open. I don’t refresh my twitter feed like a mad man (I let my iPad do that and just glance over at it every so-often).

I am more productive. I write undisturbed. I code without hitting apple-tab to the next window full of Stuff(tm) every 45 seconds.

Every hour, I leave my office. I sit on my balcony, or lie down on the couch. This is my down-time. It’s taken me back to when I used to read print magazines such as PC Powerplay or Wired in the sun-room of a morning.

The act of mentally segregating my reading/news/relaxation/communication from my work has changed my day.

The act of being able to read my email in bed without doing more than moving my arm has meant that I wake up easier.

These are, of course, entirely personal experiences. They speak to the strange way in which my brain works, the way in which my daily process has changed (and is now changing again) the way in which I’ve found myself using this device.

I’m fucking awful at waking up unless somebody talks to me or I’m forced to read or do something mentally stimulating, so reading my email has resulted in me finding myself awake and productive earlier.

I’m also generally awful at keeping my attention on one thing for too long. That’s why I’m a software develop- OOH look! Change list for the new release of python… be right back…

… so the act of further segregating the things I do in the day into different places within my house has been hugely beneficial for me.

Now, this is not the first time this has happened to me. I used to play games on PC more than anything else. I owned no console. This meant that I would often convince myself that I would just play “one more mission” of something, and then my productivity would go out the window.

Now, I have a few consoles and rarely play games on my computer. The act of sitting down at my TV to play games is a pro-active one. I cannot casually open a game with a single mouse-click.

I am slowly finding that I read less and less on my computer, too, and so the same act of deciding to read some more blog entries, articles, follow links on twitter or get pissed off at facefuck is one I set aside for more specific parts of my day.

Further Thoughts

(In the future, we will all walk through giant hoop-corridors and check our email on our fridges. Cyber-virtual.)

Steve Jobs may be one of the most irritating guys since Steve “Ballsack” Ballmer and his 2 degree field of figurative view, but there is one concept that Jobs sticks to that I agree with more and more each day – that computers should be appliances. Devices. Things you pick up off the coffee-table that either work or don’t – like your mobile phone, your coffee machine or that cousin of yours who lives in a trailer park.

There will always be a use for the full-sized computer on my desk. For editing video. For refining sound. For creating VFX. For playing strategy games. (Yeah, they still haven’t figure out a way to make my wargames work on the 360)

There is merit to this. It’s one thing to put your netbook in front of you and squint as you try to read the tiny screen. It’s another to scroll through articles like you were reading a magazine, comfortably curled up on the couch with your device at a funny angle against a cushion.

Obviously, this isn’t going to be the case for everyone. I’ve never harped on about how the iPad was going to be ‘for everyone’. In fact my general response when given that ‘Why?’ question from earlier was to say that I saw some use for me in it , and to leave it at that. I was happy to admit that I could be proven wrong. I’m happier still, of course, to find myself proven right.

The device isn’t perfect, of course. Not even close, if you’ve got imagination and some background in software design or development. But its existence – and the response by other computers to create both clones and (hopefully) true competitors is, I believe, a Good Thing.

Whether you’re an internet user with no interest in the technical side of things, or somebody like me who secretly reminisces about the days when you were the only one on your block who owned (or really knew how to use) a computer – the success of internet devices like these are, I feel, a truly fantastic development.

Just look at it this way: how cool would it be if your family stopped calling you for technical support because they were simply picking up a thing off their coffee-table to check their joint email account each morning?

That’s where we’re going. And it won’t be a bad thing at all for us tinkerers and hobbyists who recompile kernels for fun.

Note 1: Despite my comment about it not being a content creation device, when paired with a blue-tooth keyboard I found during my recent four-day trip to Brisbane that people break for pedestrians more there than in Sydney. Also, that the iPad easily becomes a very usable tool for writing long emails, blog entries and even screenplays – whether or not you’re used to a virtual keyboard. It won’t truly come into its own until Google Docs works natively on it, though. Cloud computing, a tablet and a park by Sydney Harbour is the future for my writing, that’s for sure.

Note 2: I have also found the iPad to be a unique gaming device. Not ‘great’ or ‘crap’ yet – just underused, but with glimmers of genius. Much like its other uses, it doesn’t quite overlap with other things, and is a strangely social thing to play on. I will write a separate article about this over at Restore, Restart, Quit. If you’re interested, watch that space in the coming weeks.

It’s the latter that had me laughing. Not because they announced it, but because of the way in which it was announced.

The video, in typical Apple style, has a guy who’s a Vice President of Some Division Or Other talking about what “we all” want. Which is, apparently (and correctly) the ability to have more than 4 Applications on our iPhones, iPads, iPods and iTables (what, you haven’t gotten that one yet?) without having a simple way to categorise them.

“FOLDERS!” he screams. “FOLDERS!”

Pretty impressive stuff. I mean, we’ve had it since Q-DOS. Oh, wait. No. Since CP/M. Oh, no, wait. Since Unix systems before that.

I literally laughed. I mean, I love lots of the stuff that Apple do. They make my online life a metric fuckton easier most days (an imperial fuckton on others) because they know how to make things Work(tm) iEfficiently(r).

But Jeebus H Psykes that’s silly. Why make a big deal about something we’ve had for ages? Like, say, Video Calling? You wouldn’t make a big deal of that, right?

But anyway, I digress. Folders.

Apple: “You can just drag two applications on top of each other, and it makes a folder…”

Me: “Oh, cool. That’s actually pretty simple and intuitive. I can get why that’s worth smiling about once you’ve updated your iDevice.”

Apple: “… and it intelligently names the folders based on the app types within!”

…

Okay, now that just fucking rocks. I mean, it’s obvious – the iApps are already iNamed and iCategorised. They have to be in order to go through the iRelease process. So why not just use the meta-data you already have in an intelligent and useful way?

My only question is this: Why in FUCK not start with the cool shit, instead of sounding like a iWanker who doesn’t understand the strengths and weaknesses of their own products, much less what innovations have happened in the last 65 years?

Let me re-write that pitch for you.

“… we’ve noticed that people are using a lot of the many useful and cool applications available for the iPhone, and as the number of applications on your iPhone increase, the harder it becomes to find things. So in order to help you find and sort through your applications better, we’ve introduced an intelligent and intuitive folder system.

Just drag applications on top of each other, and you’ll get a folder describing what sort of apps you’ve thrown in there. Easy!”

Probably too long-winded, but eh… I’m too tired to be concise. Which is why a facebook status update became a 500 word blog entry, I suppose.

As domestic flying becomes more and more like catching a bus or a train, how long until my hang-over goes away?

Brisbane has water restrictions. Why do they not just squeeze caine toads? Also, when will my hangover go away?

In Brisbane, people seem much more willing to saunter out in the middle of the road while drunk, trying to hail cabs and such the like. Certainly, at least, a lot more so than in Sydney, where the act of doing this on George or William Sts would very likely result in you becoming a very drunk pancake. My question to the Brisbane jaywalkers is: when will my hangover go away?

Brisbane airport also seems rather dead if you happen to fly in too late. This is a pity if you’re waiting for the next person in your troupe to arrive. My question to the no-shops-or-bars-open Brisbane Airport is this: where am I supposed to work on my hangover?

Then you have wankers. They can be good fun, really. I mean, everybody knows complete wankers. Especially when you’re out on the town, you meet a lot of them. And sometimes a complete wanker can be very entertaining. He rides in on his wankery horse, spouting complete arse-shite and inventing new ways to embellish stories. And that’s fine. Everybody needs a wanker every now and again. Hell, most of us are wankers, when given the right prompting. (Usually a half-dozen shots of some kind of draino-like spirit)

Dickheads… well,they’re something much more common. I’m a dickhead most of the time. Bet you are too. Generally not to our partners, ’cause that’s not appropriate. But otherwise, ‘being a dickhead’ – or its lesser cousin, just being ‘a bit of a dick’.

Fuck-knuckles can be pretty frustrating. You can’t do much about them. You usually work with the fuck-knuckle in question. He or she might be that person who steals the last tim-tam out of the fridge, or maybe the guy who uses your coffee mug or uses the serving spoon meant for the sliced tomato to serve up tuna, getting the feral dessicated-corpse-matter all over the tomato in the fucking process. So, yeah, I don’t have much time for fuck-knuckles. Especially the tuna/tomato/coffee-mug kind.

Turd-burglers are also frustrating. You can’t avoid them, even if you try. So, the turd-burgler in question steps the fuck up to you and invites you really awkwardly to have coffee, and you don’t want to because you’re currently standing in fucking line or waiting for your fucking coffee to be made by that weird Christian/French dude who seems uncannily good at turning out a wicked espresso. So you don’t want to deal with a random meeting with a turd-burgler. But in he walks, and your mouth twitches. Best you can do is lie. You’re busy. You’re doing something like, say, shooting the second fucking series of your web-tv show thing, and you’re too fucking busy to catch up and hear his or her warbling arse-boogers singing the song of the turd-burgler. Of course, if you happen to ACTUALLY be busy shooting the second series of a web-tv show, then you’re in luck – no lying required.

But the absolute worst of all – the ones you can’t deal with, cope with, get over, or sometimes even survive? Well, they’re not idiots, wankers, dickheads, fuck-knuckles. Not even total fuckers. Nor tools or cock-breaths or fishy joes or bogans or pretentious gits or raptor-toothed monkeys or politicians or giant steaming piles of semi-congealed cheese that walk around and praise God. Hell for man-made fucking inventions because they’re incapable of realising that they’re inherently pattern-seeking creatures and so of course you’re going to fucking see patterns if you’re looking for them. Aint no such fucking thing, you monkeys, as fucking starsigns. You read whatever fucking ass-hattery you want into anything you see. Now get the fuck over it, tune out, tune in, or do whatever the fuck you do when you aren’t being a total fucking shit-beaker or douche-nozzle.

But I digress. They can be dealt with. The ones I really can’t handle? They’re not even bimbos, tramps, boof-heads or just plain-old, basic, industry-standard nostral-fuckers.

No. These are much, much worse. These are muppet-fuckers. I hate those guys.

And now, it’s time for my morning coffee.

Me: Hey, I just have a few more questions…
Me: GAH! Fuck! What the hell are you doing in my house?

Me: Well, I live here.
Me: Oh yeah.

Me: So, anyway. I was wondering what you thought about the idea of beer in kegs instead of in bottles?
Me: Oh, now that’s just harsh. You know damn well I feel crap his morning, and it’s almost exclusively because you can’t figure out how many quiet beers you’ve had while cleaning the house when they’re not in a specifically sized bottle.

Me: I know, I just wanted to hear you say it so that I could say, “Ha-ha!”
Me: Fuck you. Now let me get some breakfast.

Me: No, no. More questions. Now, let’s see… anything interesting happen last night?
Me: Look, can we do this while I make breakfast?

Me: Sure, I guess. Can you make me some too?
Me: Fine.

Me: So, last night.
Me: Yeah, right. Well, last night the building fire alarm went off at about 11pm or so. Real loud. At first I thought it was somehow my fault, but then I realised one was going off in every apartment, and people were running downstairs.

Me: Bet that was fun.
Me: Yeah. Watching 15+ people stagger downstairs in various forms of undress, looking bleary, only to find a very embarrassed looking woman down there before us and a fire engine filled with fellas storming the place. “I think it was my fault… there was lots of steam,” says the concerned woman.

Me: Steam? Why in the fuck would steam set off a smoke alarm?
Me: I know, right? No sense in it. I mean, the saying doesn’t go, “There’s no steam without fire,” does it? But apparently, according to our volunteer fire warden dude or whatever he is, they also respond to steam. Well, most of them do. The ones in the bathrooms don’t.

Me: Well that’s bloody good.
Me: Yeah. And what’s more – hey, do you want tabasco with your eggs?

Me: Hmm? Oh, yes please.
Me: So, yeah, there’s more – they also respond to FLY SPRAY, apparently!

Me: Fly spray?
Me: Yeah, or kitchen grease spray. Anything with a propellant. The stupid things can’t tell the difference!

Me: I’m not sure if that’s good to know or not.
Me: Yeah. I smell a script coming along…

Me: That’s not a script, that’s your toast. It’s burning.
Me: Oh, fuck.

Me: Do you want me to cover up the smoke alarm so it doesn’t set off the building fire alarm again?
Me: Please.

[Segment deleted]

Me: Those were good eggs.
Me: Thanks. So, I’m going to have a quick shower.  You’re not going to follow me in there, are you?

Me: Well I don’t have much choice, really. But can you just, uh… now… for the readers at home… what’s your favourite egg recipe, and do you think it affects your filmmaking?
Me: Fuck OFF!

Me: I was just… hey! What’s your favourite colour?
Me: FUCK OFF! I’m trying to take a shower-

Me: Fuck isn’t a colour.
Me: GAH! Go AWAY! I mean, I’ve heard of imaginary friends, but this is RIDICULOUS.

[Segment deleted]

Me: Do you want me to put some cream on that? I didn’t mean to bruise you so hard.
Me: Just go away.

But anyway, as nobody else is interviewing me, I thought I’d fill the gap and interview myself.

Me: Hi.
Me: Hi.

Me: So, you’re Rohan Harris, right?
Me: Mostly.

Me: What that your attempt at an ironic reference to something you wrote last year?
Me: I guess so. It didn’t really work, did it?

Me: No, actually that was pretty pretentious.
Me: Sorry. Shall we get on with the interview?

Me: Yeap. Okay, so… you make films, right?
Me: Not really. I have in the past. I mean, I film stuff, don’t get me wrong. And it’s usually (read: always) things that I’ve written. But it takes so damn long to do that I”m beginning to suspect that it’s really just a hobby and probably not worth mentioning as much as my other projects, these days.

Me: Wow. That was a pretty long-winded response.
Me:  I could draw it out further, if you like.

Me: No, no. I’m already bored. So… you make films… now, when did you first realise that you wanted to make films?
Me: Actually I don’t. I want to make computer games, really.

Me: Oh. So why don’t you?
Me: Fuck, now you’re depressing me.

Me: No, really. I mean, you’re a professional software developer by day. And didn’t you get into that originally to become a game programmer?
Me: Jesus, being interviewed by yourself sucks. And yeah, I did. Back in the Microprose days. When most games were 70% coding/design and 30% art.

Me: And now they aren’t?
Me: No.

Me: So you like playing the type of game where-
Me: Small games. Turn-based, usually. Thinky strategy games, usually with a basis in economics, business or espionage.

Me: Right, right. Why not make those? If they’re mostly coding, then shouldn’t it be easy to-
Me: Fuck me, you really are depressing. Can we get back to filmmaking?

Me: I thought you said you didn’t really want to make films.
Me: What? No. I mean, well, yes. I mean no. I mean, I don’t really want to make really big stuff. I’m not into action films, and I’m not out to make big award-winning films. I’d just like to make the kind of films that I want to watch, that are missing from the market.

Me: So you do want to make films?
Me: Well, yeah. I want to MAKE them. They’re fun! Being on set is the most fun you can have, I think.

Me: Great. Good to know.
Me: Yeah. Uh… was that a question?

Me: No. I’m out of questions.
Me: But this is supposed to be an interview.

Me: Oh, okay. Uhm… so… what did you have for breakfast?
Me: Eggs on toast.

Me: Cool, cool. So, uh… how’s the, uh… the whole SZA thing going?
Me: Oh, a little tiring. It takes time to make these things, you know.

Me: Yeah, I know. So… what’s next for you after the second season of Sharehouse Zombie Apocalypse is done? Another web series? Perhaps moving into actual, on-the-air TV?
Me: I dunno.

Me: You’re shit at answering questions, you know that?
Me: You’re shit at ASKING questions!

Me: Hey, I’m just trying to give you really open questions that might give you the chance to get onto interesting topics.
Me: Oh. Can we just have a beer instead?

Me: Okay, you sold me.
Me: Righteous.

Me: Oh, wait – one more. What did you have for dinner last night?
Me: A small tree and a volkswagon beetle.

Me: I think you’re lying.
Me: No shit. I mean, fuck, does it really matter? Even if I was fuckin’ Famous McActor, the Scottish performer who headlines every movie and directs random plays on the side, nobody would care what the fuck I had for dinner.

Me: Okay. So, feature film or web series next? You didn’t say.
Me:  I’m going to write and direct a web series about the Romanian textiles industry. There. You happy?

Me: No, I’m thirsty. Can we get some coffee now?
Me: I thought you wanted beer!

Me: Beer? Oh yeah. I did say that, didn’t I? Well, let’s go with coffee instead.
Me: It’s a diuretic, you know.

Me: Oh, shut up.
Me: You know, you’re a really boring person.

Me: Speak for yourself.

I mean that occurrence, late at night, when you stagger home, drunk, and aren’t tired. You think you want to play a game. But something is different. It’s not that normal urge to play Mass Effect 2 / Bioshock 2 / Napoleon: Total War or whatever else you’re playing right now.

It’s that urge to revisit some classic. Something from your past. Something that makes you warm and fuzzy inside.

You want to visit a place in a nice, low, safe, comfortable resolution.

With banana-pickers. And vegetarian cannibals. And giant Monkey-heads.

Of course, I’m talking about the world shown in “Full Throttle”.

So, my question is this: what worlds do YOU want to re-visit when drunk? And what worlds do you think the generation after ours will want to visit when drunk? Will they boot up HALO? Or quickly re-download and play that classic, “Modern Warfare 2″?