ARE
WE THE B.O.O.F ?
December 22th, 2003
STS on the keys to try and bring you my latest views on our Scene : it's not
the first time we go through such empty span of time, but as always I wonder
if this is just another break or a * REAL * sign of extinction. I, as first
culprit, have to confess heavy laziness, surely emphasized by heavy work (but
hey you're not the only one working hard sucker !), still I want to believe
that it is still too early for showing the END part... We are only growing
older and busier than ever with was most of us still call "real life". Odd
don't you think ? How many of us, of YOU, actually feel more alive, important
and surrounded in this Scene than in real life ?
[ If you have instantly thought "bullshit" then waste no more time reading
this article and go read something worth... ]
But if you are reading this, then it means you -even partially- agree with me.
It is very both strange and captivating to me to see and understand what
belonging to this, or others, Scene means...
But hey, what the fuck does B.O.O.F stand for ?????
Wait another second and I swear I'll come to it :)
Sure, some of us need be involved in projects to * really * get started and to
speak the truth I'm one of them, tho being quite mentally ill-balanced I tend
to be made of a hundred different sides of views :p To wrap it up, some people
do believe that it may not be worth working hard on a demo or game if they
don't get a thousand feedback mails. If I can understand their opinion, I
still feel surprised to notice that I am not the only one who expects nice
comments to feel sure he's actually been doing something good !
Oh, before I forget, B.O.O.F stands for "Brotherhood Of Old Farts" as someone
told one day on IRC when talking about the current Scene, describing us as
"people clinging to a past, an obsolete system and not looking forward". once
again this is tho pretty superficial, another feature of my humble person :)
Already when I see so called Next Gen consoles, I don't feel too drawn to the
teasing millions of polygons they offer : what is the point bragging about so
much power and use it for brainless sequels ? Today, computing and video games
have become daily common features, turned to consumption items, gulped in a
second like a plastic tasting hamburger...
Maybe we are old farts... Tho I cannot be sure of what 'farts' implies here :)
Surely we cling to a long time obsolete computer, but I find no fun nor decent
challenge in modern computers with which you need 128Mb to have a scanner or
printer running (thinking of the actual printing coming with such device !). I
don't want to paint in TC, nor even in 256 colors, I would just waste too many
of them while I can peacefully paint crap in 16 colors and then blame it to
the limited resolution and palette :p
I don't care being called 'old' (tho as we say it only happens in your head :)
but one has to admit that the younger generations don't care anymore about the
creative part of computers : they use computers for single sided tasks like a
mere coffee machine while ALL kinds of computers - mostly older types - still
show many surprises and 'hidden' features, understand things they are NOT
supposed to be able to produce. I'm afraid we cannot rely on youngsters to see
and understand our love for these small systems and that's really bad because
we ALL hope to see new sceners join and strenghten our forces... Please tell
me I'm wrong otherwise our Scene - and others too - will vanish and disappear.
UPDATE or something looking like one :) Over the last weeks, some Atari demos
have been made available as videos. Sure, I would rather run them on the real
system but it's nice to show my students what a humble (or CT accelerated :)
Falcon can do ! Not to forget Strider's great demo compilations ! Surprisingly
kids love to see these demonstrations ! Spread the word ! Show the world ! And
maybe we can turn some youngsters away from the Mac Donald way of life !
But the most important feature in our Scene is the 'brotherhood'. See how many
golden years sceners have come back to life and told us that today our small
community is much friendlier than in the early nineties ! sure we tend to
grant respect to the people who have done things but please don't get mad at
them if they now speak of Peecees with strange brightness in their eyes. They
have forgotten how to dream, fight against the "main stream", though they were
among the first to make us dream. I wonder what some of them remember from
this time in their lives. People like Chuck, Mic, Cyclone or Keops are still
hanging around on #atariscene and/or doing great things ! It would be awesome
to see more stuff from Keops on the ST though :)
Even though we call ourselves Sceners (not without big pride as far as I am
concerned :) I call all of you friends : good if you want to do things, better
if you ACTUALLY do them even and don't forget to be *THANKFUL* to all of these
people because they spend an awful LOT OF TIME doing them while they could
simply sit on their couch, have a beer and watch brainless TV shows... Maybe
some of you are feeling touched here :) Maybe you will even get started again,
who knows ?
Personal greetings to Ultra of CREAM : Hey Olaf, the few things that I've seen
of HEFTIG rock like hell !!!! Please complete the demo someday ! Cheers !
---------------------------------------------------------------------STS-------
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