Applelane

I don’t remember the exact day when I started to play the game. The year was 1998 when I tested it but the serious total time playing began in 1999, I think. When I got my own computer (1999 Dec) the never-ending (lunatic?) friendship had started. If you exclude the army period (14 July 2003 - 9 July 2004) the longest time without Elma has been one week. It was in 1999 when my class went for class trip to Rhodes.

Most days I play Elma - at least for some minutes. Approximately it’s about 30-60 minutes per day. Nowadays I play mainly only Headbanger. Just cruising the lovely level. My best time is 46,23 but that’s not important. I love to be able to do the pipe so often. I still remember the summer 1999 when we (me and my friends who also played Elma back then) saw some picture on PRA page which showed us the sick style. After some time we found a replay of the style (time was 56 seconds) and then Ultra hoyled one night and tried to learn the trick. His best attempt was about half screen down to pipe and we all were impressed and excited “how can one of us do that?!”. I was so sure that I will never make it myself. And here we are. Give me 100 tries and I go through it 10-20 times.

But it’s not only the playing. I irc at four different Elma channels: #across, #elma.fi, #flowermen and #fem05. I also read my abu@moposite.com email address, Mopolauta and sometimes I even bother to update something on the Moposite. And don’t forget Elma meetings.

But it’s not only that. I think and dream about Elma. I tell about it to my friends. There is no issue that I wouldn’t find a relation to Elma. At the same time it’s pretty nice but also annoying. I have bored my friends so many times with my Elma stories. I don’t realize it myself immediately but just keep going the talk. Normally after 30 minutes I realize the situation, apologize and shut up for good. I know many different people around the game which is the best thing I’ve gotten from Elma. It always goes like this: my friend tells something: “I saw one guy in the university walking and ircing with his cell phone!” and then I - of course - reply: “yea, one Elma guy, Karlis, does that all the time in the work … and he’s a UPS deliverer, driving car baah baah and then booh booh” etc. Actually I don’t have to include that “Elma guy” because they all know who is Karlis. Elma guys who are more than others in my stories: Karlis, mr, Luther, ramone, px (not really an Elma guy for me), psy, emps, kimitys, skint0r, milagros, Hibernatus (in the order they came to my mind). They have affected to me because of their ways of living, habits and attitudes.

I’m not sure if I should say this aloud but I think there is no Elma guy in the community who would live more Elma than me. I’m not bragging, neither complaing.