Finding Damo

The story of a man, his job, two cats and the meaning of success.

Archive for the category “family”

16 Apr 2023

Be nice to the dice

The humble die looms large in my life at the moment. I run a DnD club at school and have mostly learned to differentiate a D20 and a D12 without counting the sides.

Five Yahtzee dice all on five in the shape of a cross for no particular reason.

And my wife and I play Breakfast Yahtzee most mornings while – you guessed it – eating breakfast.

I mean, I could (and might later) go on about Dungeons and Dragons and how great it is, and how much I get out of it…

But I’m really caught up in the sentience of Yahtzee Dice.

We play Yahtzee a LOT. So I’m not just talking about one game where things went really well and suddenly “Oh the dice are alive!” We will curse the dice. We will cajole the dice. I’ve even threatened the dice.

And the dice will tease us. They will try to trap us into making a certain move. They will favour one player after another and add insult to injury.

There are three dice reading five and one dice reading one and one reading four (making up a fourth five).

Shereen will sing the number song from Sesame Street to get a large straight. And if the last die drops when she’s singing ‘five’ then she’ll usually get it.

The dice try to help me. I’ll be going for fours. I’ll have three fours and one roll left. The last two dice will inevitably add up to four.

I said they tried to help. Not that they knew the rules of the game. It is honestly like I’m playing with a ghost that is trying to help but has no idea what I’m actually trying to do, so it will assist with patterns that could be useful.

It is a peculiar form of mostly harmless insanity, but strangely insistent. We’ll yell at each other when someone says a number while the other person is rolling. I will find a hand shaking method that seems to work and then ramp it up to ridiculous levels. I try not to say anything that sounds like a number that I don’t want while rolling. The dice might misunderstand and give me the wrong number.

Oh yeah! Do you see that “No dibs”? That’s because one time I said “dibs” on a blank sheet and won every single game. So now there’s “no dibs” and “secret dibs” and waving my fingers over the page is enough to drive Shereen crazy paranoid.

We have score sheets going back years. All have a little W (or a huge crowned W) over either mine or Shereen’s name. And drawings. And notes. And shopping lists.

Every time she writes DS, Shereen says “Crumbs DS!” in a Penfold voice. It’s still funny.

I don’t think I could do it on the computer. I need the feel of the dice in my hand. And it’s good for my basic addition skills.

A row of games where I won every single one. I think this might have been a "secret dibs" sheet.

Anyone else have weird traditions or superstitions when playing board games?

Posted in belief, family, Games and tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment
01 Mar 2023

Why do I work?

My nephew Cai asked my why I work as part of a homework assignment for school. I asked him if he would send me his finished work afterwards. Here it is.

I have worked a lot of jobs throughout my life. There have been jobs I have worked simply to keep a house over my head and to pay for food and movies and computer games. But I never stayed in a job that I didn’t love for more than a year.

There are a few things that keep me working:

I work because it puts me in an environment where I can spend time with other people, interact, learn from and teach each other at the same time.

I work because it is a way to keep my mind active and to stop from being bored.

And I work to earn enough money to enjoy my life outside work.

So would I work if I didn’t have to?

Absolutely. I might not work as much, and I would definitely take a break if I was suddenly very rich, but I have a job that I love and I would hate to miss out on the other parts of work that aren’t the paycheck.

For example, as a teacher, I:

  • Entertain and educate my students (mostly in that order)
  • Am constantly learning new things – from the students, from other teachers, and from everywhere else in order to keep up and make my classes interesting.
  • Play with robots, make movies, write stories, go on camps, play dungeons and dragons, make computer games and interact with over a hundred people every day. It is exhausting and exhilarating and I can’t imagine life without it.

There is the personal satisfaction you get from doing something well. There is the acknowledgement from others and the feeling of being needed. There is the sense of being part of a community and the sense of giving back to the world and to future generations.

Of course, each of these things can be achieved in other ways, but I don’t know of many that can do ALL of these to such an extent.

I think the best thing to do would be to give me a couple of million dollars and see what happens!

Some other responses:

“I am currently studying so I can enjoy my work more in a new career. I
want to work for more than just money, I think work should be fulfilling and
help society. 

In my previous job as a teacher I was able to help society and help
support my family through the income but I was no longer finding it
personally fulfilling.”

“There are probably three reasons.

  • Money – It’s difficult to do things I want to do, travel and look after the people I love without money.
  • Need to do something with my brain. I don’t know how I would keep my brain engaged without work. My job is challenging and I like to problem solve. If I had holidays all the time I wouldn’t enjoy them. Getting up and getting going in the morning keeps my mental health good. The sense of achievement I get from work also supports my mental health. 
  • Is to do with working in education. When working with volunteer organisations I was not getting any money to teach but I believe in what I’m working for. Education is important and everyone should have access to it.

I have a lot to offer. The work I do fits with my personal ethics and values and is fulfilling.“

“Because I need to earn money to survive. If I didn’t work I would get bored
easily though.“

“For the money and to help people, make them feel good and stuff (Cai’s
paraphrasing of the response).“

Cai’s job was to summarise this information and make some conclusions. It was very interesting.

His report:

Money was five out of five. Fulfilment: 3 out of five. Help people/society: 4 people. Enjoyment: 3/5. Keeping the brain active: 3/5. Connections and learning: 1/5.

Money was a constant between the five people, though everyone had multiple answers and
reasons to the question. There were some recurring themes as shown in the graph above.

His Conclusions:

I think it depends on the sort of person they are and whether they enjoy the job they’ve got,
because some of the answers were really showing how much they enjoyed the job and would do
it even if they were not getting paid and that tells us the sort of person they are. Whereas some
answers were just saying they work mainly for the wages and as they enjoy the job they’ve got,
they would probably enjoy another job more if they could. 

All the people I asked are very kind, thoughtful and caring, so it was really nice to see how much
they did it for the enjoyment and to help others.

Posted in conversation starters, education, family, Money, perryperrysource, Reflection, Relationships, School, Success, Teaching and tagged , , , | Leave a comment
13 Oct 2021
2 Comments

What to do with my corpse

We’ve hit that age. The age of colonoscopies and regular skin checks and worrying about spots and not being able to eat anything you want. I mean, I say we, but I mean me. You might be in your prime and looking at me with dreadful fascination. God I’m glad I’m never going to be that old.

Believe what you gotta believe.

Anyway, we’ve had a few scares over the past couple of years and my daughter is now eyeing us both sideways and initiating conversations about what we want to do with our remains after we go.

And yes, I know that I could unpack that train of thought a lot more. But I choose not to.

One of the more interesting of these discussions was when she said:

“We could cremate your remains and turn them into gemstones and then have them placed in your skull and keep it on display.”

And now I can think of no other way I want to be memorialised than that.

I would absolutely flat out haunt that skull. It is a skull made for haunting. I would be remiss if I didn’t haunt it. I pointed that out to my daughter.

She no longer wants me to be a skull.

But we stuck with the remains being turned into gemstones idea. She suggested that I could be turned into a series of gemstones that could be bequeathed to my nieces and nephews (she specifically didn’t mention keeping one for herself). At this point, I am starting to feel Horcrux vibes. Either that or a quest in a few hundred years where a group of my descendants have to track down the gems and bring them together to… what? Save my immortal soul? Prevent an apocalypse? Power a robot me? I’ll think of something.

So now I am intrigued. Is it possible? Pause for research.

Well yes! Yes I can!

So apparently, a large cremation diamond will take 6-8 months. My family will need “200 g ashes or 10 g hair”. Wait a moment! I could get my diamonds done early! (hunts for clippers)

I can choose my cut (Princess cut, anyone?). How many ashes will I produce? Could I create enough diamonds for four niblings? And I feel like I should give one to my daughter, even though she doesn’t want one. Five is the magical number for remains diamonds especially if there is going to be a future quest.

This is why the government is watching me…

OK, so about 6 pounds. 3 Kilos. More than enough for five diamonds. I’m not going to look up the cost. That is definitely someone else’s problem.

That’s two options. My wife wasn’t overly keen on having my skull cleaned. Maybe an Infinity Gauntlet?

My previous idea for afterlife eternal peace was to be turned into a tree. There are a number of companies that turn you into a tree, having your remains buried in the roots of a sapling which will absorb them and you and the tree become one. Haunting a tree sounds nice.

Both wife and daughter want to be scattered. Tasmania, Halls Gap, up in the mountains. If I was to be scattered, it would be at sea. But the haunting possibilities seem a bit slim. And the opportunity to become a sad drowned cursed spirit seem high. I am more and more happy with the skull idea.

When my daughter floated the idea I immediately thought that I could have the skull placed inside a teddy bear. Chucky and Annabelle eat your heart out! Do I even know a voodoo priest?

But honestly, I fully intend to be uploaded to the cloud when I die, and I can’t imagine being overly worried about what happens to my mortal remains after that.

Oh, just so that it’s on the record: the hospital gets to keep the useful bits before the rest gets turned into diamonds. Make sure you’ve ticked the organ donor button people!

Because the possibilities for haunting and possession go through the ROOF when we’re talking hearts being implanted into other people. I’ve never heard of a haunted liver. I could be the first one!

Posted in Death, family, grief, Pondering, Relationships, Religion, story ideas, writing and tagged , , , , ,
10 Sep 2021

Locked in and ranting

Ok, so what is it like to be stuck in lockdown? I know that it’s not like prison. I know that I have it pretty easy with my wi-fi and my devices and various streaming services and food delivery (to look after the local businesses). I have a job and my wife has a job and we’re working from home and that is pretty damn good. We have it good.

BUT

My feelings tell me different. My feelings tell me that being limited to 5k mean that I am trapped. I want to leave every day. To go out of that horrible red ring on my Google Maps. I look at the walks I can do and the coffee shops I could visit and I long for them. And the longing makes me cranky and sad.

I don’t have to wear a tie. And I tell you, if they don’t ditch ties after this I will hang myself with one. They are a dead item of clothing. I don’t have to wear business pants. I don’t actually have to wear pants at all, but I do, for the social conventions. And I’m wandering around wearing t-shirts and hoodies every day and I can’t imagine that is doing anything for my mental health.

I’m doing the same thing every day, but it is different to the same thing I used to do when I was out and about. It is getting up in the morning, going for a walk, getting a coffee, coming home, going to my shed, turning on the camera, catching up with my students. And then at the end of the day I go inside, watch tv, cook food, play computer games, go to bed.

Rinse and repeat. RINSE AND REPEAT.

And don’t get me started on the masks. I am vaccinated. I want to walk outside in the sun not wearing a mask. The mask just makes me feel worse. Of course, it means that I can wear my Orange You Glad I’m Wearing a Mask mask. And the recreation of my own face.

I want to see my friends outside of a Zoom meeting. I want to drive down to the beach. I want to play Dungeons and Dragons with my nephews in the real world. I want to take a train into the city and watch TV on my iPad and walk in the parks. I want to go and stay in a room with a spa bath and order room service.

So yes, I feel like I have it better than most, but that doesn’t mean I have it good. I am trying to stay positive but I feel like I’m going through the motions. I do the things that make me feel more healthy, but i also do the comfort things that I know are not doing me good, but it numbs. Numb numb numb.

Pic version of this blog
Posted in family, grief, rant, Reflection, School, Teaching and tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment
21 Jul 2021

Old

I’ve hit that age.

Every time I go to the doctor, she adds something to the list.

Last time I went, she looked at her screen and took a deep breath.

A picture of Khaleesi with a bunny on her shoulder.

“OK, So you have high cholesterol. You have sleep apnea. You have psoriasis. You have hemochromatosis, halitosis, osteoporosis and myxomatosis.”

I might have gotten those last two wrong. Do men get osteoporosis? And I’m not sure even rabbits get myxo now. Don’t they get the Khaleesi virus? Wait, no, that’s Game of Thrones. “BOW DOWN BEFORE THE MOTHER OF BUNNIES!”

What was I saying? Oh yes, old.

Old so that the teens wince every time I walk towards them carrying snacks and pronouns. I heard my daughter saying to her friends: “You have to make allowances for the old people. They come from another time.”

I remember rocking up at home in full goth regalia and an earring to shock my parents. It didn’t work. Anyway.

I mean, they’re right to wince. I’m a middle-aged white guy. They have to be wary! We don’t have a good track record. I feel that desire to judge people and pigeonhole them, welling up inside of me, because of my race and social status.

But I will rise above! I created a list. A sort of BIGOTPATCH(TM) that I can use when I’m feeling especially judgemental.

“Damn you, you…” (quick check) “Audi drivers!”

“I really hate… companies that insist on surveys about their performance!” (I really do. Seriously. “How did we do?” Well, you did the thing I paid you to do. Do you want a medal?)

“Go to hell… right-handed people! You have ruined my life!”

Yeah, you know who you are, with your neat handwriting and your ability to use scissors.

Middle aged is a stupid term. And probably needlessly optimistic.

Nevertheless, I got rid of my life insurance this year. I mean, there’s a kick in the teeth for your Peter Pan complex. You’re basically betting a company that you will die before you pay them more than they will pay you!

Not to mention the effect it has on my wife. We bought life insurance and all of a sudden I was worth more dead than alive! I had to look around nervously when I was at the top of the stairs. I kept tasting almonds… in my almond milk latte, but still. That’s how you would do it. And whenever I leave the seat up on the toilet I catch that look in her eye. That speculative gaze, weighing up my earning potential against the instant influx of cash if she bumped me off.

So I convinced her to ditch the insurance. I didn’t mention that it was because it disagreed with my philosophical stance that I will live forever, or that I was stressed out by the target it painted on my back. Just that it was too expensive.

An image of Halley’s Comet taken in 1986. (Image credit: NASA)

Why did this come up? I was thinking about the possibility that I would see Halley’s Comet again. It swings by every 76 years, and the last time it visited I was in Grade 6. The next time is 2061. I’m not saying it’s impossible – I still have two grandparents well older than the age I need to hit to see that. But I’m nowhere near as fit as they are (see above list).

I need to get better at computer programming. I might yet be able to live on in the cloud. Bring on my robot body!

Using FaceSwap
Posted in comedy, Death, family, Love, Money, Pondering, rant, Relationships, Uncategorized and tagged , , , | Leave a comment
17 Mar 2020

FINDING DAMO BUCKET LIST 2020

A few years ago I put together a bucket list of things I want to do before I die. Last night my daughter was talking about creating her own bucket list, so I thought it might be time to update my own.

But first, let’s have a quick look at the first one. From that list, I came incredibly close to buying a purple suit, but balked at the last second. Now that I have a bit more money I think I need to do another trip down to Rosebud.

No penguin costumes, no troll costume, no replaced eyeball.

In fact, I have to say no to most of the old bucket list. Let’s see.

I have had a play produced – had a couple in fact – through GemCo. You can even buy the scripts. There was a link, but now you need to email them.

I have been an extra in Revolving Door’s Pokemon Resurgence. (here, if you just want to see me). I’ve published Dwarves in Space, and I am in the process of finding a publisher for the ‘Thropes series (again, let me know if you can help). I’ve also won a couple of money prizes for my writing, so that’s good.

I have a guitar, but I’m not playing it. I am playing the ukulele, which is a lot of fun. I have a piano, but I need to get it tuned.

And I still haven’t read any of those massively boring books.

Weirdly enough, a desire to do standup comedy didn’t even turn up on that list, but I have done a few gigs and even entered the 2020 Raw Comedy competition. So that’s an arrow in my bow.

OK, I’m glad I didn’t die back then. Let’s see how my attitudes have changed.

Fashion

  • I want a summer outfit that is properly summer – like the clothes they wear in really hot countries.
  • I still want a purple suit.

Food/Health

  • I would like to magically not care about food and eat healthy, to lose weight, ditch the psoriasis and stop needing the sleep apnoea mask.
  • But failing that, I want to eat the perfect hamburger. The problem is, I have to try all the burgers to find the perfect one. Hence my desire to stop caring about this.

Fame

  • I want to be paid to act.
  • I want to have a book published by a mainstream publisher.
  • I want to be paid for my standup comedy.

Family

  • I would like to be debt free so that we can travel more.
  • I want to get the house fixed up, or move to somewhere smaller and cheaper.
  • I want my family to be happy in their endeavours. The rest can come out of their own bucket lists.

Creativity

  • I want to write a screenplay.
  • I want to finish the Faux Pas first book at least.
  • I want to complete Yarra Noir (and talking to Shereen, I might actually have the plot point I needed to get it done).

Travel

Ireland, Great Britain, Spain and the Camino Trail, back to Japan.

Learning/Reading/Watching

  • I need a movie night once a fortnight to keep up a bit with the movies coming out, as a Media teacher.
  • I want to learn to make games in Unreal, or VR exploration spaces.
  • I want to spend more time learning Spanish and brushing up on my Japanese.
Posted in Death, fame, family, food, Money, Movies, Pondering, Reflection, Relationships, Success, Theatre, writing and tagged | Leave a comment
20 Jun 2019

Imagination Master

Voting has opened in the Focus on Ability competition. Please check out our entry and vote for our chance at the Voter’s Choice Award and your chance to win a $50 iTunes voucher daily.

It’s been awhile. I’ve been busy. But hey, I’m always busy. This time, the busy-ness was due to my involvement in this year’s Focus on Ability competition. Basically, I wanted a reason to spend some time with my family in Bendigo, and this seemed like a good one.

So I asked Cai: “I want to do a movie with you, showing your abilities. What do you want to happen?”

And he said: “I want a wizard who lives in a cavern of fire, and I want to do magic.”

So I adjusted my expectations and we started work on the most epic five minute amateur film ever.

And now it’s done. And we have entered it into the competition. And we need your help to get the voting numbers. Below is a voting link, and below that are some of the behind the scenes bits that will get you excited about what we did. It was a mammoth effort involving three families, and I’m hoping it gets the attention my families deserve for all of their efforts.

Promotional Materials

It looks better in the end.

FINALIST!

2019 Focus On Ability Short Film Awards

Open Short Film Section

I’m writing to let you know that my film The Imagination Master is a finalist in the NOVA Employment 2019 Focus On Ability Short Film Awards.

Focus on Ability (FOA) is designed to encourage filmmakers to focus on the ability of people with disability. This year they’re celebrating 11 years of doing just that!

About Focus On Ability:

Based in Australia, this year’s FOA festival had an amazing 245 entries, including 104 school entries and 61 international films. Following successful screenings last year right around Australia, in New Zealand, New York, Zimbabwe and Malawi this year the competition received entries from 26 countries. More info.

Last year’s winners from the Open sections can be viewed here. As you can see, the competition is stiff!

Judges Choice Short Film
Winner – Sebastian Chan – Bus Trip

Judges Choice Documentary
Winner – Kasimir Burgess – Paul

Most Online Votes
Winner – Nicole Molloy & Matt Watt – He Will Walk

Best Australian Actor
George Holahan-Cantwell – Inclusion Makes the World More Vibrant

This could be the richest short-film festival in the world, with over $175,000 in prizes to be shared among the winners.

The winner of the Judges Choice Open Short Film section wins an amazing prize! Winner – 1 return ticket to Los Angeles, 6 Weeks Accommodation at UP(st)ART Creative Living, 1 Ticket to the American Film Market, 1 Ticket the Australians In Film Gala Dinner & Membership to Australians In Film, Meetings with International Judges for mentorships, Live Studio Tapings of US Shows, $5000 worth of legal services from Kate L Raynor & Associates, 1 Ticket to Media Access Awards & Acknowledgement, Warner Bros Studio Tour Tickets.

My film is also in the running to win Best Screenplay, Best Actor, Best Director, Screen Producers Award and…

Most Online Votes – Winner – $5000 cash prize courtesy of Club York

This is where you come in!

Even though I’m confident the judges will love my film, if our local community gets behind me, it might just win the Most Online Votes!

Voting starts 20 June and concludes 3 July: http://www.focusonability.com.au/

Voters go in the running to win a $50 iTunes voucher, but you can only vote once in each category. The six categories are:

  • Australia & New Zealand Schools Documentary
  • Australia & New Zealand Schools Short Film
  • Australian Open Documentary
  • Australian Open Short Film – this is us
  • International Documentary
  • International Short Film.

Winners attend a red-carpet event at The Concourse in Sydney on 6 September 2019.

Quotes from Martin Wren, CEO NOVA Employment: (FOA was his big idea!)

‘Focus is a constant source of amazement for me. It came as a random thought bubble, “Wouldn’t it be cool if we could use the medium of film to highlight the ability of people with disability?” It could change the world!’

‘Now, I’m a Brixton kid – I’m hard as nails when I need to be – but I can guarantee you that I’ll weep at least 5 times when I watch those films. I hear, see and feel people saying things like, “I didn’t know that anyone would ever love me” and “It feels like I’m being destroyed”. I have to go back and replay to check: “Yes they actually said that in my film fest.”’

‘I don’t think, as a person, you can fail to be impressed and inspired by taking ten minutes to see a couple of FOA films. FOA changes attitudes about people with disability and this is important because it’s the first step towards an inclusive society.’

Posted in Costumes, fame, family, Movies, stories, story ideas, writing and tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment
17 Jul 2018

Three stories

I want to tell you a story, but I must tell you two other stories first.

The first is about forest water.

I went up to the Grampians with my wife and daughter, my sister, her kids and husband and his sister. I don’t know why I think all of that is necessary information.

Anyway, I absolutely loved it and the kids had a ball.

When wandering through the lovely morning bush, Shereen taught the kids about forest water. There is a special chi you get from licking the tiny drops of dew off the leaves of the trees. It’s cool and refreshing and makes you feel one with nature.

The second story is that I went to see Hereditary with my wife’s cousin and family.

It’s a beautifully shot film that is deeply flawed while still having a lot of potential. Anyway, there is a phenomenally horrible scene involving beheading and a car and I’m truly sorry if you wanted to see it but came here first.

hereditarycarmini

So, these are the things in my head for the following:

My wife and I were driving home from the mountains and it was lovely and misty and there was dew on the leaves and everything was picturesque. So I had to ruin it with my dark mind.

My wife pointed out the dew on the trees and said “forest water!”

And my immediate thought was:

He sticks his head out of the car, telling his wife “Hey, get closer to the edge so I can lick the forest water!” and then it’s

Licklicklicklick

“Mmmm… Forest water– ow! ow! wait, no aaaargh!”

SMACKsmackSMACKsmack rrrrrriiiiiipppppp

Plop.

Gush gush bleed bleed.

thumbnail

Was it worth the wait?

Posted in family, stories and tagged , | Leave a comment
03 Aug 2017
2 Comments

Pokemon Go FD.

me in a PokeballI wanted to look at this issue from two perspectives – me the blogger and me the teacher (who is also a blogger). So I’ll put something up here and then do something similar but slightly different over on the PerryPerrySource– and then link the two.

Pokemon Go was an incredible effort by Niantic. A year ago, it exploded into the public consciousness. We took over Lilydale Lake chasing Dratini. We scared the penguins down at the St Kilda pier and got shot at by the owner of the Glen Waverley Golf Club while chasing Charmander.

Finding Damo and his buddyLooking at my buddy stats, with one of my Pokemon buddies, I walked over 300km, and that’s just one of many Pokemon companions I have had over the year.

It has been really exciting to see the evolution of the game from a buggy, crashing mess to a completely different buggy, crashing mess.

I kid. The stability of the game has improved out of sight.

I understand that Niantic completely underestimated the impact that PoGo would have on the world. They couldn’t deal with the influx of customers. And then they couldn’t deal with the tracker they had implemented. And then they couldn’t deal with the spoofers and hackers and cheaters who flooding the game with fake names and hugely inflated Pokemon.

When Niantic decided to do a huge event to celebrate the first year of PoGo, I predicted that it wouldn’t go well. I hoped that it would, but I assumed that it wouldn’t. Sure enough, the phone towers couldn’t handle the traffic, people who had flown in from all over the world were left high and dry and the lawsuits have begun.

I want to say “It’s just a game, get over it.” But it seems like more than that. Niantic wanted to create a phenomenon. They created a phenomenon. And they let it loose on the world without any way to control it.

I’m still playing a year later. I take my family on raiding parties to catch legendary Pokemon. We go on long walks to hatch eggs and incidentally explore and discover new places. It’s like playing a board game or participating in a family activity. We’re spending time together, being active and having fun.

I really want to see what comes next. The Harry Potter AR (PottAR?) game seems to be on the cards. There’s a fantastic-looking horror game that uses your phone, although it seems to have been lost in development hell. And there are a HEAP of other AR games that were already well established before PoGo reared up out of nowhere, including Niantic’s own Ingress. There’s a market for augmented reality. With Trump running a country, we need to insert a bit of fantasy over the top of the weirdness that is real life.

TrumPokemon

Posted in family, Games, Monsters, Reviews, Uncategorized and tagged , , , , , , ,
30 Dec 2016

To the future…

I used StumbleUpon and hit upon this site.

The idea that you send a message to your distant descendants in the future. All of the messages will be whooshed off into space, or into a time capsule, or buried in mud, or something. I didn’t read that bit very closely.

Here’s what I wrote:

a drawing of meI really hope that you know the name Damian Perry as having done something great. Or at least recognisable. Or at least not infamous.

leaving earth angryI hope that you left the planet of your own choice and not because we ruined it for you. If not, I am truly sorry for my generation’s actions.

this is a horseFinish this sentence: a horse walked into a bar and the bartender said: _________________________

Look up the lumberjack song. If you don’t know Monty Python, you should.

Read Terry Pratchett.

Read Shakespeare.

If you’ve invented time travel, come back and say hello.

cats and dogs are coolWe do some stupid things to the planet, but one that I don’t regret is having pets. We have dogs and cats and they make your life so much more bearable. I know they aren’t great for the carbon footprint, but they are good for the soul. Goldfish, not so much.

Does Apple still exist? What number iPhone are they up to?

Do they still talk about 2016 as one of the worst years ever?

Watch Star Wars.

Watch Casablanca.

Watch them as movies, and not as holograms or dreams or whatever they’re using for entertainment these days. I’m pretty sure Empire Strikes Back is still the best of the series, no matter what Disney does to the franchise.

I don’t care how plugged in to technology you are, it is absolutely vital that you get out and play. Being bored is essential for creativity. Paint something, draw something. Use your hands instead of a machine. Sing. Dance. Let your imagination take you somewhere you can’t get using a computer.

come back and visit in your time machineIs Doctor Who still around? Who is your favourite Doctor?

Definitely come back and say hi. I’m sure they’ll have time travel by your time.

Don’t use transporters, because there’s no guarantee that your soul will be transported along with your body. Seriously. Think about it.

transporters steal your soul

The real you is turned into computer information. A dead-inside clone appears on the other side. YOU ARE NOW DEAD.

Have fun. See you soon,

Damian.

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