This is kind of a lengthy entry, and one that probably reads boringly to anyone else but myself, …but I got enough emails related to childhood memories in the last update that I thought I’d write this…

Memories from early times in life are indeed strange!  I am very nostalgic and spend a lot of time rehashing old times in my head and looking at pictures from days gone by.  I actually have a particular memory, quite a clear one, from when I was about six months old.  This is a picture of, ...you guessed it, ...the Levelad when he was about that age, ...just for reference ;)  Although I have pictures of me at this time, and I have no pictures of my bedroom. 

I will need use words to describe this memory now, but I still hold it mentally by only its pure emotions and feelings.  It is a memory with no words.  I figure this is similar to how an animal thinks and is aware of things.

I didn’t even know I was recalling a pre-language memory until I described it to my Mom sometime in my late teens.  Until then, I thought I was remembering a strange dream filled with weird symbols.  I related this ‘dream’ to her and she said “My goodness!  That is the little blue ball you had, …and that is the room in which you had your first crib!”. 

The memory?  I remember being on my back.  I was very uncomfortable because I had been in that position for a long time.  Being so young, I couldn’t move on my own accord, not even to roll over on my stomach.  It was like being Gregor Samsa from Kafka’s Metamorphosis.  I remember Mom coming, but not helping with my discomfort.  I think now of all the times a baby cries and how simple the solution probably is.

Next I remember holding this huge blue ball with gold and silver speckles.  It filled much of my visual field.  It was semi-translucent, and I remember how the gold and silver speckles flared with brightness as they caught the sunlight coming in through the window.  I remember having very limited control over the ball.  Although the shimmering sparkles were fascinating, especially when the ball moved through the sunlight, I could not maneuver it well.  This is what I remember the most, that huge blue ball and my limited control over making it twinkle.  Turns out it was a very small, grapefruit-sized ball.  Mom must have given it to me for comfort or at least a distraction.  It worked, obviously ;)

I remember the room was very small, not much bigger than a closet.  Although the walls were rather close, only a meter or so away, I could not focus on them too well.  I remember Mom had to shimmy by because there was not much room for anything other than the crib.  I remember her coming into view, from the top of my eye brows to the center of my focus, as she entered.  My diapers, talcum powder, and A&D Ointment (for rashes;) were on a small set of shelves near the foot of the crib.  The smell of talcum powder almost always invokes this memory even today, some 45 years later.  I remember the crib and its bars, and the sound of the plastic-protected mat on which I lay.  I can't put it in words sufficiently, but the memory of "mom" is very, very primitive.  Sort of like The Grand Supplier and Care-Taker.  Dad?  ...sort of like an amusement park, ...seldom visited, but tremendous fun.

It is difficult to describe what is in my head when I remember this time before language;  a memory without words.  The only current sensation that comes close to this is the difference between how I think when I eat a normal meal or snack, as opposed to how I feel when I am truly hungry, like after fasting or a long sickness.  I have words like “ravenous” and “voracious” to describe the latter hunger, but they don’t capture the true sensation of how I feel while I bite off mouthfuls and barely chew them before gulping them down.

At the time, nothing is in my head other than being the sensation of eating.  There are few words in my head as I devour, ...just a deep, primitive feeling of eating.

I have found two examples, in movies, of this sensation.  In Altered States, William Hurt describes the sensation of rising over a bluff to see a deer and then eating it, and in the re-make of The Fly, Jeff Goldblum describes “insect politics”.  These come close.

It was one of those times I wished someone else had been there so they would think "Damn!  That Levelord is one intelligent dude!".  Buckminster Fuller invented, amongst many other things, the geodesic dome, ...hence the cerebral humor to the question ;)

The school, of course, was for artists.  The auditorium was filled with about 100 of them, yet I was the only one that drew a picture of Mr. Fuller, ...or Bucky as he later told me to call him (why are truly smart people always so humble?).  Anyways, he was so enamored by my drawing of him, that he traded it for an "abstract self-portait".

Memory is so strange.  I can remember this day with such clarity that it only seems like a few years ago.

E3 was incredible this year!  Each E3 gets better and better.  For the life of me I can't tell you why, but Ritual is very popular these days.  We were wooed by just about every major movie studio and every major publisher to work with them.  Each had at least three AAA titles to offer us.

It was terribly hard not to say "Hell YES!  ..we'd LOVE to do that game!  ...and that one, too! ...and that one!"

The people that treated us best were the Apostles of Activision.  Monday night, we were dined at the Typhoon restaurant in Santa Monica.  We ate almost every creature that walks the Earth, from scorpions and ants to clams and frogs to chickens and cows.   Tuesday night, they came to our hotel and opened the bar.  Wednesday night, ...we partied at one of their E3 parties right in the middle of the Paramount Studios lot!  Thursday night, another party in front of the Los Angeles Public Library.

The Levelord finally got to meet, ...no wait!

  ...Trent Reznor finally got to meet the Levelord!

I don't get star-struck too often, but I must say it was awkwardly cool to see this pocket of passion in person.   Just like everyone always says about meeting the insane, ...he seemed so quiet and nice ;)

What really added to meeting Trent Reznor this year was also seeing DOOM3 at the same time.  I don't need to add anything to everything that has been said about DOOM3, but I must say that I haven't been genuinely scared by a game since, ...since, ...well, since DOOM!  Remember those days?  Shit, we all sound like old fart veterans talking about "the BIG war".  It is true, though, those were the days to remember!  DOOM, a new 486 to play DOOM, and Nine Inch Nails.

I also got to meet Tony Hawk at the second Activision party.  Strangely enough, he seemed very similar to most game developers, ...like a child hiding inside a grown-up's body wondering why no one has caught him getting away with all this.

Tony shared a few new skateboard maneuvers with me; in trade, I divulged a few secret QERadiant macros for his keyboard.

On the right?  The Levelord is now an un-official Official Citizen of Croatia ;)   Igor Secen of PC Play and Theo Valich of Vidi Publishing delivered my certificate of entry into the Brotherhood of Madness and Debauchery.