ONE SELF PORTRAIT EVERY DAY in 2020 : 204

22.7.2020.
I’m happy I have never been interested in video games. In the mid eighties in Rome, Alessandro Giorlandino who lived in the next building had an Atari and we used to go to his house and play football on it. Then nothing until 1994 when I bought my first Mac and had installed a skiing game, it was basically a stickman that you had to zigzag around triangles (I think they were supposed to be pine trees). Your races would be timed and you would be ranked and given points and after a certain number of races you would see how you ranked in the world championship. That day I played all day and by night time after many many attempts I had become world champion. Then I got really depressed as I had wasted a whole day, I have never really played again although I can see that video games have become so attractive. I lie a bit as every now and then, I play a game of Fifa with Emil and get regularly beaten, sometimes I can see that he tries to help me score, I get pretty close but I can never shoot on target, apparently is because I press the button for too long. Ah, also, in the eighties I used to play PacMan or space invaders in bars.
I own a table top football tables and it has been in our garden wrapped up in plastic for many years and today Emil suggested we unwrapped it and played. After cleaning the cobwebs we had a few games and it made me think it’s a pity that video games have taken over in such a way.
I rarely play but every time I have played against someone who isn’t Italian and around my age I usually trash them. I’m thinking that that’s not a useful skill but a skill nevertheless. I have other useless skill like being able to raise each eyebrow separately and wiggle my ears.
I bought this table for £60 on eBay about 12 years ago (the seller had a dozen of them he had got from a youth centre in Manchester). I hadn’t expected to win it and now really didn’t know how I would collect it from Manchester and was thinking of saying keep the money but we can’t collect it when the seller offered (without us asking) to deliver it to London for £50. I accepted of course.
They delivered the table at 7am which means they drove during the night. Katarina and I offered them coffee and I asked “would you like a croissant?” and they thought that that was hilarious.
I AM STILL ALIVE

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