The Commodore Kid

As I mentioned in the previous post, a lot of my time in grade eight was spent wrestling or on the commodore 64. Today I was going to continue from my last post but I thought I'd delve into the c64 and keep the wrestling story on hold for the time being. Although neither of these subjects ate directly related to music I still decided to write about them, as I don't have much grade 8 material left. There are still a few stories to be told and I'm trying to stretch it out before I get into grade 9 and things really start to snowball.

So my friend Alex had the commodore 64 in grade six, and I was at his house every chance I could be. Al lived right across from the school so we'd play on lunch and I'd go over for sleepovers a lot, which consisted of watching movies like The Warriors, Friday the 13th, and the "Ninja" trilogy with Sho Kusagi....and of course we'd play games on the computer. I was amazed at how many cool games he had. Eventually my friend Duane got one, and he lived around the corner from me so I pretty much became a permanent fixture in his house. I had also had a falling out with Alex so this was now my only place to play c64 unless I was visiting my cousin Gord.

Duane and I fishing. A rare moment away from the computer.

So in grade 8 the school started using c64's and they actually established a "computer club" in the computer room on lunch. All you had to bring was yourself, and if you owned games you were allowed to bring your own discs in and play them. I had no games so I used koala pad a lot, it was illustration software that the school board had installed on all the computers. I got quite good with my creations and when I got bored I'd walk around and see what other kids were playing. 

Eventually my cousin Gord sold me his c64 and he had tons of floppy disks full of games! I was now bringing my own games to school with me. I also started trading games with other kids which brought my game collection to epic proportions. The majority of these kids were bookworms, nerds and loners, the kind of kids who generally would get picked on day to day. That wouldn't be happening anymore now that they were supplying me with all the newest games! If someone wanted to bully one of these kids they'd have to go through me first....and no one ever did!

A hero for the geeks & the nerds!

I became more and more into the commodore now that I owned one. I spent practically every waking minute in front of that thing when I was home. There were endless games and even programs to make your own games. Plus I was learning all the commands and coding in school so I could actually make my own choose your own adventure word games, similar to "Farmers Daughter" one of the commodores finest filthy masterpieces. 

The summer after grade eight I ended up meeting my old Asian friend Patrick, whom I hadn't seen since grade 5. We were going to the same highschool in September so we started hanging out again. One day Pat took me to his cousin Bernard's place to rock some games on the c64. Bernie had an accessory I had never heard of before that would introduce me to an entire new world via the c64....the accessory was called a modem.