The internet underworld of extreme drug use finds its voice.

“Everyone who was still left at the party began running like hunted animals. I wasn’t sure if Ray had a weapon at this point so I decided to just run away from him. We wouldn’t have been so scared to fight him had he not been naked and also a 6-foot-1-inch, 180-pound Taikwondo Black Belt. About five of some of my bigger friends restrained him by holding his arms and legs that were kicking furiously. This is when he started to speak as if he were possessed. He would repeat the same phrases in random order. He was saying shit like: “This is perfection, I am Jesus, I am the center of the universe, I’m gay, Come lie with me, Daddy Mommy lie with me, black people, fingertips, Cock!!!” and he would scream at the top of his lungs between saying these horrid things…”
“Possessed Rampage” by TJ
http://www.erowid.org/experiences/exp.php?ID=6839

On underground drug websites, there are tens of thousands of ‘trip reports’ - web-essays detailing the first-hand experiences of users of just about every drug you can image: synthetic, plant, household cleaning product. Speed, cannabis, ecstasy, opium, LSD, alcohol, Benylin, even caffeine, even nutmeg . Plus bizarre ‘research chemicals’ with exotic lab names such as 5-Me0-DiPT and 2-CT-2 that are too new to have earned themselves a street name.

Unedited, unfettered, often unpunctuated, trip reports make compelling, voyeuristic and at turns touching and harrowing reading. The writers have no inhibitions. Anonymity frees them (as do the drugs). Many are typed under the influence: pure streams of altered consciousness, running to thousands of words.

Published in Tank Magazine Feb 04

It will arrive next day by registered delivery in an unassuming padded envelope, promises the blurb on the British website. Inside, vacuum-sealed, will be 7.5g of AK47 - high-grade Cannabis Sativa. “Very strong nice smoke,” gushes the sales copy on the site. “Back by popular demand.”

Published in The Guardian Jan 04

The US army’s foray into violent PC games has been hailed a success. But it didn’t allow for one thing - cheaters

Christopher has been killed in action many times: 305 to be exact. But his most recent death was the last straw. Defending an Alaskan pipeline from terrorist attack, he and his nine-man squad came under fire from a sniper who picked them off, one by one, in just under a minute.

“We were lying on the ground, prone, in thick fog,” he says. “There’s no way he should have been able to shoot us, let alone see us. He must’ve been cheating.”

Published in The Guardian May 03

I produced this back in 2003 for Seethru.co.uk. It’s since become one of the biggest timewasting games on the Net. There’s even a version of it on Facebook called Jetman. Over quarter of a million people play it everyday. I don’t get a penny :(

My hi-score is 2987. See if you can beat it.

Robbings, blackmail, epilepsy, melodrama and chipshops - it’s all here.

In 1978 a small Japanese company called Taito & Midway released a stand up cabinet full of electronics and sporting a bright 14in screen. It was the latest experiment in electronic entertainment. For years, other companies had been toying with the concept of the “video game”, most successfully Atari with its electronic tennis game Pong in 1972. No one, however, had achieved true mainstream success.

So nobody paid Taito’s new gimmick much attention. It was called Invasion Space or Space Invaders or Space Raiders, or something. It was a silly black and white game where you shot aliens in spaceships. It cost an exorbitant 10p to play and had irritating sound effects.

But the world has never been quite the same since.

Published in The Daily Telegraph Dec 98

Apr 1997 - revised Dec 2001

For some, software piracy is a pathological, obsessive, illegal habit. For the software industry it’s a billion dollar nightmare.

Published in Wired April 1997