Does anyone remember Pong?

Posted on February 27, 2007
Filed Under Australia - The land down under, Irony Anyone?, Stupidity and randomness | 2 Comments

I spent about an hour this afternoon trying to play Super Mario Brothers 64 on my son’s DS light. I say “trying” because you really couldn’t call what I was doing “playing.”
His Nintendo DS light (a Christmas present) seemed pretty straight forward in theory. It’s virtually the same as a Gameboy but you have a touch screen with which you use a stylo.
It wasn’t the mechanics of the game that stumped me but the game itself! It seemed so complex and hard to follow right from the very beginning!
When I was 10 my father bought us a Commodore 64. I could play Pong, Space Invaders, King’s Quest and many others, whoohooo! Incidentally, KQ took FOUR floppy disks - you know, the big ones that really were floppy? They were great and I was amused.Then, I progressed to my very own mini arcade game - Pac Man! I remember jamming it into the pillows to try a muffle the sounds it made when I was supposed to be sleeping. No mute buttons back then.Then came the ‘Piece de Resistance’ NINTENDO!! Remember the original Super Mario Bros? I loved the side scrolling, beat the pattern action. I used to be able to beat the game 5 times over (more, I’m sure) and keep playing over and over as the screen scrolling got faster and faster and more bad guys appeared. From there, Castlvania and Faxanadu followed and then finally…Ta-Dahhh The Legend of Zelda! WOW! No side scroll and the graphics were awesome.Today’s games leave me feeling seasick and more than a little uncoordinated with their first person perspectives and 360 degree movement. I say let’s go back to the side-scroll!

Or at least re-release Commodore 64’s?

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Innocent woman?

Posted on February 26, 2007
Filed Under Australia - The land down under, Irony Anyone? | Leave a Comment

Well, I did the research. as it turns out I found some substantiating evidence that Martha could have been innocent! On this site is a whole lot of information on Diphtheria but most importantly, the sentence that follows:

“If the tongue and mouth become dry and brown, give hydrochloric acid ten to twenty drops, simple syrup, and water, of each two ounces; a teaspoonful every one, two, or three hours.

This is what she claimed she was doing when her step-children died. Perhaps the reason she maintained her innocence until her dying day? Just maybe, she loved her step-children and didn’t want them to suffer with, let’s face it, a pretty icky disease and was doing her best to cure them. I suppose I can’t help but have a little faith. I know how much I love my kids (all of them including the steps) and I can’t imagine any woman deliberately killing children with acid! For you sceptics, yes, I know weirder things have happened but still…

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Execution of a Step-mother

Posted on February 23, 2007
Filed Under Australia - The land down under, Irony Anyone? | 1 Comment

For those that noticed that there is a female name on the below list of hanged prisoners at Fremantle Prison, I did a little research out of my own curiosity. I wanted to know why a woman was hanged and what form of murder she committed. (Why this is more interesting than what the men did… I don’t know.) In any case. this is what I found.

“Martha Rendell (c. 1871 – 6 October 1909) was the last woman to be hanged in Western Australia. She was found guilty of the willful murder of her defacto husband’s son, Arthur Morris, in 1908. She was also suspected of the killing of his two daughters, Annie and Olive. It was alleged that she killed the children by swabbing hydrochloric acid on the back of their throats. Martha however always protested her innocence, maintaining that she was treating the children for diphtheria. There was considerable public outrage at the time; the press portrayed her as a “Scarlet Woman” and “Wicked Stepmother”. There was some debate on the appropriateness of execution for a woman, but on 6 October 1909 she was hanged at Fremantle Prison. She is buried at Fremantle Cemetery, in the same grave where Eric Edgar Cooke was interred more than half a century afterwards.”

As I am, in fact, a stepmother to two beautiful teenagers, this struck me hard. Another woman portrayed as perpetuating the inherent evil-ness of step-mothers! I am curious as to whether her diphtheria treatment reasoning had any rational back then.

I think I may do a little more research…

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I sit, corrected.

Posted on February 22, 2007
Filed Under Australia - The land down under, Irony Anyone?, Stupidity and randomness | Leave a Comment

My friend Stephen had brought to my attention that his “morbid” curiosity led him to search the last hanging at Freo Prison. You were correct, Stephen! Here’s what I found….

“The last person to be hanged at the gallows in Fremantle Prison was Eric Edgar Cooke, in 1964. Cooke was a serial killer, and although charged with, and tried for, only one murder, evidence plus his own voluntary confessions, indicate that he killed a number of others during his three or four year reign of terror in the suburbs of Perth.”

All of the information that I put on my last post was not researched, but re-told from the information the tour guide gave us. I must have misunderstood his point of “22 and a half years ago” to mean the last hanging but it was in fact, the last year that the gallows could be used before the death penalty was abolished in 1984.

For those who also have a morbid sense of curiosity, here are all of the hangings that took place between 1888 - 1984.

Name Crime Place Date
Long Jimmy Murder Fremantle 02/03/1889
Pres Arle Murder Fremantle 08/11/1889
Ah Chi Murder Fremantle 16/04/1891
Chew Fang Murder Fremantle 29/04/1892
Lyee Nyee Murder Fremantle 29/04/1892
Sin Cho Chi Murder Fremantle 29/04/1892
Young Quong Murder Fremantle 29/04/1892
Mahomet Goulam Murder Fremantle 02/05/1896
Jumna Khan Murder Fremantle 31/03/1897
De La Cruz Pedro Murder Fremantle 19/07/1900
Perez Peter Murder Fremantle 19/07/1900
Peters Samuel Murder Fremantle 9/09/1902
Psichitas Stelios Murder Fremantle 15/04/1903
Mailliat Fredrick Murder Fremantle 21/04/1903
Rocca(Rokka) Sebaro Murder Fremantle 7/07/1903
Ah Hook Murder Fremantle 11/01/1904
Mianoor Mohomet Murder Fremantle 4/05/1904
Espada Simeon Murder Fremantle 14/12/1905
Hagen Charles Murder Fremantle 14/12/1905
Marquez Pablo Murder Fremantle 14/12/1905
Sala Antonio Murder Fremantle 19/11/1906
DeKitchilan Augustin Murder Fremantle 23/10/1907
Smith Harry G. Murder Fremantle 23/03/1908
Oki Iwakichi Murder Fremantle 22/10/1908
Rendell Martha Murder Fremantle 6/10/1909
Robustelli Peter Murder Fremantle 9/02/1910
Smart Alexander Murder Fremantle 7/03/1911
Smithson David H Murder Fremantle 25/07/1911
Spargo Charles Murder Fremantle 1/07/1913
Odgers Charles H. Murder Fremantle 14/01/1914
Sacheri Andrea Murder Fremantle 12/04/1915
Rosland Frank Murder Fremantle 12/03/1923
Rennie Roystan Murder Fremantle 2/08/1926
Coulter William Murder Fremantle 25/10/1926
Trefene Phillip J. Murder Fremantle 25/10/1926
Milner John Sumpter Murder Fremantle 21/05/1928
Hulme Clifford Murder Fremantle 3/09/1928
Fanto Antonio Murder Fremantle 18/05/1931
Smith John T Murder Fremantle 13/06/1932
Tapci Karol Murder Fremantle 23/06/1952
Thomas Robert J. Murder Fremantle 18/06/1960
Fallows Mervyn Murder Fremantle 6/06/1961
Robinson Brian W Murder Fremantle 20/01/1964
Cooke Eric Murder Fremantle 26/10/1964

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Prison life…um, No thanks!

Posted on February 18, 2007
Filed Under Australia - The land down under, Irony Anyone?, Stupidity and randomness | Leave a Comment

Yesterday, Mum, Brian, Jamie and I decided to go to Fremantle for the afternoon. First we spent a little time watching this guy on the street.
He was doing some kind of Vaudeville type show and had the crowd laughing and clapping. In this photo, he is actually standing on a couple of old suitcases piled one on top of the other. Eventually he juggles stuff and jumps off… grand finale!

From there we moved on to explore the Fremantle Markets They are located in an old warehouse and cover a lot of ground. I’m sure we spent over an hour just browsing around and that is with skipping a lot of places and not really LOOKING for anything in particular. I imagine, if we hadn’t had the boys with us, Mum and I could have spent the whole afternoon in there… easily.

By this time we were all feeling a bit peckish, so we walked along the Coffee Strip (South Terrace) looking for a place to stop and eat. The smells wafting out of Madonna’s Restaurant was too tempting to pass by, so we sat at an outside table and enjoyed lunch while watching the foot and car traffic go by.

After our lunch we headed off towards the harbour. This is what Fremantle is famous for and is a little like Montreal’s old port. Here’s Mum sitting on a lobster crate/statue thingy. We thought this might amuse Barrie as he is a lobster fishing enthusiast from Prince Edward Island.

From there we made our way back inland to the famous Fremantle Prison where we took the “Doing Time” tour. It takes about an hour and 15 minutes and it extremely interesting…and scary! It’s hard to believe that this prison was still in operation as little as 15 years ago! Out tour leader, Emanuel (who reminded both Mum and I of Robert DeNiro) was well informed and very interesting.

After buying our tickets, we proceeded into the Prison itself

The photo below and to the left shows the “Now and Then” aspect of Prison security. The “Now” part being the razor wire on the right and the “Then” portion being the broken glass bottles cemented into the top of the walls. I don’t think I’d venture climbing over those on hands and knees!

To the right, a prison cell. Home to all 600 or so inmates. This was a standard cell up until the 1960’s when the cells were made bigger by knocking down the dividing wall between two rooms. It measured 1.2 x 2.1 metres and was furnished only with a hammock, a stool, a bucket and a fold down table. Talk about tight living quarter! Even the rooms twice the sized looks so small.

If you were really naughty, you might get solitary confinement. The SC block worked as follows. A first infraction would get you a cell near the front of the block with a decent amount of light and space (though still tiny). Further infractions would get you a cell further down the block until you’d reached the last cell (left) which was virtually light-less and about half the size of the first cell in the block.

And then, of course, there was death row. The last person to be hanged here died about 22 and 1/2 years ago. THINK ABOUT THIS! Not that long ago at all! They were walked up here and blindfolded at the door. The noose was slipped around their neck and a lever dropped the floor out from under them. The chair was for those with watery legs. Even that wouldn’t halt the hanging.

All in all, it was fascinating and a definite prod to obey the law at all costs! LOL . The Prison closed in 1991 but remains open to the public with several great tours. There is the tour we did “Doing Time” but there are several others as well. There is also the “Great Escape“, “Torchlight” (which I’ve heard scares the wits out of you!) and “Tunnels” tours (not for the claustrophobic!) If you check out the Fremantle Prison website, you can take a virtual tour as well.

Have fun! And be GOOD!

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— keep looking »