Vale Harry Melbourne, inventor of the Freddo Frog. Maybe I’ll eat one today in his memory.

Quote of the day yesterday, first school day of the year: “I can’t believe I’m in Grade 6″ — Isaac. (Neither can I, as it happens.)

Just before Christmas I got to meet some of my relatives for the first time in quite a while. My aunt(-in-law) Gem and my cousin Justin were in town for a few days. Hadn’t seen Justin in almost 20 years… both of us were much younger than at present, and while I barely remember it (my sister and I visited them in Brisbane for Expo ‘88, when I was 18) he would have been about 4, and remembers absolutely nothing about it.

He’s a fully-fledged ABC (Australian-born Chinese), while I’m half-a-one. I was slightly amused to see that at 22 he had started to get grey hair, and I mentioned I’d started going grey about the same age, then pointed to my own very streaky-grey hair and said to him “This is your future!” He laughed.

They live in Perth, and said we’d be welcome to stay if we went over. I’d like to see Perth, but it’s a long way away, so I don’t know if I’ll see them again any time soon.

Indeed, talking to them, and looking through some old family photos, it reinforced to me that despite this age of instant and cheap communications, the various arms of relatives of my extended don’t really keep in very good contact with one another. And that it’s almost shameful how little we know about our ancestors and distant relatives.

OK, I admit it, I’m getting a little stressed about Christmas. After a good start, the shopping has all fallen in a heap over the last few weeks. I’ve still got numerous things to buy, both known and unknown. The way it’s looking, this Christmas it won’t quite be gift vouchers at twenty paces, but it might come close.

A bunch of stuff ordered online for the kids hasn’t arrived yet, and if it’s not there at the post office when I drop past this afternoon, the spot underneath the tree might look a bit barren on Sunday night. I might never order anything online to a deadline again.

Meanwhile out there in Retail Land the shops are steadily getting more, as my sister puts it, feral.

Surely the season of joy and goodwill isn’t meant to be like this?

It’s funny, ‘cos with many of us in the family now having mortgages, there was a plan (formulated straight after last Christmas) for adults not to exchange presents. Somehow that’s fallen by the wayside.

Maybe as a compromise we should all convert to Orthodox Christianity and have Christmas on January 7th, so at least we can get all the presents at the post-Christmas sales.

Update 4pm. All the parcels arrived. My faith in online shopping is restored. The children won’t go hungry this Christmas.

In Christmassy terms, I had a very successful couple of days — on Friday I managed to get my Christmas cards (and annual letter) to UK relatives into the mail. I’ve gradually reduced the number of cards I send every year as more people get email. I’ll do some kind of email card in the next couple of days to most of my remaining relatives, but most of the UK ones remain steadfastly offline. With a bit of luck, the paper cards will reach them all in time.

On Saturday I braved the fray at Southland. I didn’t actually find of the presents I’d gone looking for, but did find a couple of things for various people.

And I found something for me. It seems an almost inevitable part of Christmas shopping that I’ll find more cool stuff that I want than for anybody else.

A couple of weeks ago I was trying to track down a magazine, an air-lifted obscure one. The distributor’s web site said it was available through only a few newsagents around Melbourne, and the CBD ones quoted were all sold out. They listed one in Charman Road, but at the time I couldn’t recall where that was, so decided to forget about it.

But I found myself in Charman Road, Cheltenham on Saturday while I was walking from the station to Southland, and saw a newsagent — the very one listed. Doubting they’d still have the mag (apparently it sold very well, and very quickly) I nevertheless nipped in to check. They still had three copies. Apparently, despite their stocking of obscure overseas airlifted magazines, they don’t sell all that well in the burbs. Score!

The mag? A retrospective issue of Edge, the videogame culture magazine. Why had I wanted it? Because I’m regaining my interest in games, and this particular issue, flashing-back to 1993-94, goes back to about the point I started to lose interest post-uni, so it serves as a nice catch-up.

Edge is an inestimably cool magazine. The format, the quality paper and printing, the research, the articles, the whole package. It ain’t a straight review of games, like its predecessor the much-loved ACE. It goes deeper, into the culture and creation of gaming. In the past I haven’t bought it often, maybe once a year, but it’s always had interesting stuff in it.

Imagine my surprise when, on the way home, reading the article therein about the founding of the magazine, I discovered one of those who was heavily involved in creating Edge, the founding publisher, a bloke called Steve, is someone I know through my sister.

Freaky.

On the train the other day I overheard two students from my old high school, talking about the pros and cons of various teachers. I had to chuckle when a couple of familiar names popped up: Mr Kite and Ms Lester. Still there, 18 years after I left. (Gawd. 18 years. It’s a long time.)

I assume it was the last day for year 12s the day before. As I went past I noted big banners up — something about Year 12 (no doubt proclaiming how great they were) along with some kind of politically satirical slogans about North Korea. Glad to see the students of today are switched-on to world politics. (Ho yes, I do sound like an old man when I say things like that.)

The school has many traditions, including a very active Old Boys Association (which I’m ashamed to say I haven’t been a paid member of for some time… maybe I should rejoin). I’ve been pondering the fact that in all probability, my kids won’t get to go there, because entry — by exam, with the school picking the brightest — is very, very competitive.

And it’s getting moreso every year, which I’ve noted via some of the discussions I’ve heard from their students on other occasions… one I recall was not discussing the latest popular music, computer games or TV shows, but something extremely complicated (that I certainly couldn’t understand) in the field of mathematics.

But ultimately it’s not wearing the same old school tie that’s most important, it’s the quality of the education, and I’m confident my kids will get that where they’re going, and with the bonus that, like my old school it’s also government, so I won’t be paying through the nose to do it.

Another trip (more pleasant this time) and another fellow-passenger out of context.

I sat down on a train a couple of weeks ago, and flicked through the MX. I looked up and saw a familiar face in a nearby seat. Who is that? Oh.

So I went over and said “Hi Dad.”

Hadn’t seen him in a while, and I’d been under the impression that we wasn’t getting out very much at present, so it was a surprise to me to find him heading to the other side of town on an excursion. We had a little chat till he got off the train a few stops later, heading for a favourite secondhand bookshop.

A month or two back while heading home I ran into my mum on a train. Those sorts of pleasant surprises happen from time to time.

Marita was reminding me on Saturday of Dragon’s song Young Years (a discussion of various music lyrics that culminated in my car gaining the nickname Black Betty).

Secret meetings at the river’s bend
Simple days when I called you friend
Came a time, we went separate ways — Dragon, Young Years

As it happens last week I had a sudden rush of nostalgia while listening to the radio and they got onto a discussion of “things we miss from our childhood”.

I quite frankly never believed it back then when I was told those days were the best of my life. But since I’ve seen my kids growing up and enjoying their school years, I have been looking back much more fondly on my own time at school. If I had to put my finger on it, it might be the memory of the innocence and the lack of responsibility that I miss the most.

Some of the people I knew back then, I’ve kept in touch with. Others I’ve encountered from time to time on my travels. At least one, tragically, didn’t make it this far.

So I know more-or-less what Raoul M, Mark B, Merlin T, Justine H, Konrad K and Sam V are up to, even if I don’t have time to catch up with some of them very often. I’ve even heard of or from Olivia F (née D), Mark S, Josh H, Conrad L, Stuart/Lisa/Tracy M and Andrew V in the last few years. I know some of them lurk on my blog.

But what ever happened Andrew K, Daniel I, Stephen T, Michael W, David H, Craig B, Matthew S, Ingrid H, Gar S, Josh B, Leon M and all those others who are only a brief entry on the FriendsUnited web site (if that)?

What happened to all those Greek kids that used to be my neighbours? What happened to that other Matthew, the prick who used to pick on me? What about Darren D — did he end up on a farm like he thought, or is he the same guy of that name who is the fire brigade spokesman?

Okay, they’ve FU’d up the FU web site a bit. What’s with having to click through twice to get to the profiles? But some of the people I remember are in here. OMG, this says Undine S has two kids. And Andrew K’s profile shows he’s still the same joker he always was. Stephen P became a pilot just like he wanted. A few people show up in Google, too.

I suppose we’ve all gone off in different directions, scattered across the country and across the planet.

Let’s have that quote from Ben Elton’s Blast from the Past again:

Every golden generation, every fresh-faced group of friends, must statistically contain those who will fall prey to the sad clichés of life. The things they never thought would or could happen to them. Divorce, alcoholism, illness, failure. Those were things that happened to one’s parents’ generation. To adults who no longer had their whole lives before them. It comes as a shock when the truth dawns that every young person is just an older person waiting to happen, and it happens a lot sooner than anyone ever thinks.

Yikes, what a nostalgia overload. I hope I’m not heading to an early mid-life crisis or something.

In each generation, most kids show boundless enthusiasm for creative pursuits. Whether it be drawing, building things, play-acting, whatever.

When I was a kid, there was a lot of Lego building going on. My sister and I constructed whole cities. Sometimes we’d stick to the official designs of the sets, sometimes we’d go out on a limb with our own creations.

Later I moved onto computers, and writing. And at one stage, I was helping with some of my friends to make videos. Video cameras and editing equipment had reached the price point where high schools could afford them, and so over a number of years, we churned out a Blakes Seven tribute, a Doctor Who tribute called “The Battle for Mecros”, and a whole series inspired by The Professionals.

The tapes of all these still exist. I must talk to Raoul (who wrote and produced most of them) about putting the best of them onto YouTube or Google Video. I’m not going to pretend they’re Oscar-winners, but we had a lot of fun doing them, and they do serve as a permanent reminder of our teenage years.

My kids have seen the Doctor Who tribute. They really enjoyed it. They noted my contribution in the title graphics (which alas didn’t meet my expectations, and led me to do a much better later version in preparation for a re-edit that never happened) and my credited appearance hidden inside a Cyberman suit. They watched the blooper clips, which included numerous fluffed lines and footage of putting out a burning Dalek with a fire extinguisher.

Combined with the presence in our house of a digital camera (that shoots movie clips) and Windows Movie Maker, it has inspired a flurry of short film-making. Not just in my house, of course — Chris Anderson mentions the proliferation of free movie editors in The Long Tail book, which I’m reading at the moment. This and other advances in technology are leading more and more people from being just consumers, to also being producers of content.

In fact both kids are embarking on separate Doctor Who tributes, with Isaac and his friend Adrian having been in pre-production for some months now. I’m not sure what the state of the script is in, but I did note with some amusement that at one point Adrian was declaring just about anything that would involve more than a smidgeon of effort to film be deferred to post-production. If they continued down that route, there’d be not a lot actually filmed, and an awful lot of post-production work involved. They have started work on getting props and sets and so on ready, but it seems there’s a way to go before the main shoot commences.

Thankfully some other films have made it to completion. Between them Isaac and Jeremy have completed about 10 short films, varying from live action (the “Two Guys” series… guess who have the starring roles?) to animation (starring a Lego Jack Stone figure).

Anyway my point is that kids’ creative outlets move with the times. And it’s great to see their minds at work.