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This page used to be considerably larger, but then I decided that very few people want to read a rambling mix of bio, likes/dislikes, and interests of a total stranger, so I brutally culled a lot of it. Since I have a lot of friends overseas, many of whom have Internet access, I'll leave this up here as a vehicle for occasional news, otherwise its a shortened version mainly for browsers that drop by from the gaming pages and just want to know who I am. At the beginning of July 99 I transferred all the RuneQuest stuff and photos to a new site with Primus Australia, after learning that Yahoo had bought Geocities and apparently owned some rights to any material I chose to put here!
| my Mother's site | GONE | My GONE |
| Cthulhu | GONE | Glorantha |
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As an experiment here is my
GONE, in zipped form. It's Word 6, and about
58 pages. Its not yet fully edited, but almost, and is fully legible. A couple
of people said it took too long to load and read on site, so if you scan
it and like it enough to read further, then here it is. (Fully edited version
here by the end of Aug 98.) Very briefly, this piece is about Official Overseas
Aid and its dubious ethicality.
I started this site around June 97, after a friend
told me she had a website for free with
Geocities.
I grew up in Merseyside in the 70s, across the river from Liverpool, and really didn't have a fun time in general when I was a teenager, so I moved to London when I was 18, after failing my A-levels. London was certainly more exciting, but after a couple of years the pollution and rat-race mentality started to get to me, I met a great girl called Hilary and we went off an lived on the South Coast, and in the West Country for more than two years. This was wonderful and the SW of England is my spiritual home if I have one in the Northern Hemisphere. (Southampton, Exeter, Bristol, Glastonbury, Avebury, Lyme Regis, Frome, and expecially Bath.)
I've travelled a bit and I've seen some great things,
like the Grand Canyon,
Hanging
Rock,
and the Blue
Mountains. But somethings you can find in your backyard wherever you
are. Back in England in the summers I used to sit around in
Crop
Circles. There was this story that these two guys with a wheelbarrow
hoaxed them all. Interesting idea, except there were thousands made each
year in the UK and abroad. Now, I don't think that they were made
by flying saucers,
but that's a simpler explanation that an international conspiracy of country
bumpkins with wheelbarrows!! They are also extraordinarily beautiful to
experience.
In 1994 I graduated from a Social Science Degree at
BCHE in
Bath (not the University). At least
it was called BCHE (Bath College of Higher Education) when I was there, and
now its called Bath Spa University College.
I majored in global sustainability, and took some good units like studies of media. I had an excellent time there, spoiled only by poor communication on both sides with regard to my thesis. (Displayed on this site if you are heavily into ranting and raving about the unfairness of exploitative economic systems.)
After finishing my degree I knew I couldn't live in Britain any more. Don't ask me to explain it, I can't. I travelled in Germany for a while (mostly hitch-hiking), and lived in Berlin with my friend Maidon for a few weeks, where I studied German at Language School. But the previous year I had visited Australia for three months, backpacking on my own, and its call was irresistible, so in November 94 I returned, and I'm still (May 99) here.
When I first got to Australia I lived in North Sydney for a few weeks and used to walk into the city over the Harbour Bridge. Then I moved to Bondi Junction for the 7 or 8 months.
My first job in Sydney was shrink-wrapping CDs in a warehouse near Crow's Nest, it was pretty gruesome, but average wage and so I reckon I did quite well. I decided to try and get UNI work and dropped a CV round to all the departments at all the UNIs in Sydney that had anything remotely to do with my British Studies in Sustainable Futures.
To everyone's surprise a Professor the Faculty of the Built Environment at the University of NSW offered me work as a Research Assistant in urban sustainability and Fuzzy Logic (don't ask!). (A much more interesting site is that of my former colleague, Graham), who works in helpdesk.) There I worked happily for a few months and then fate took me elsewhere.
I was called to Melbourne, a city I didn't like much at the time. But the longer I live here the more I like it!
For two years I lived in
Clifton Hill,
and years ago I used to get this great pizza in
Clifton Hill
in another part of the world. Since December 97 I have lived in St. Kilda,
and was married to Carrie next to Melbourne Botanical
Gardens in May 1998. I met her at
Swinburne
University where she was working as a Sign-Language Interpreter
for deaf students, and I was (until April 99) working in Computer Applications
and Administration.
When I first got to Melbourne I worked
at an Organic Grocery in Brunswick. At first it was great, but then I got
the impression that the boss was a bit inconsiderate. Perhaps
it was just my own opinion, and I'm sure the high staff turn over and the
wage cut we received was purely coincidental. My last few months there were
hell, and eventually I bailed out by getting a job at Swinburne
in April 97.
First I was working In Computer Science and Software Engineering, then TAFE Student Administration. In Sept/Oct I was working for the International Student Unit (ISU), and then for the School of Design . Don't half get around! :) I was given a one year contract in March 98 which was extended until April 18th 99. I also just (March 99) began studying 'Professional Writing and Editing' at night school in the city. Now (June/July 99) I'm working Administering the new new Melbourne-based Circus Skills course at Swinburne!
I am a writer and player of role-playing games,
particularly Runequest (in fact I'm one of the volunteer html editors for the official site) and
Call of
Cthulhu. You can
find free scenarios available on the Net, and now I have put some of my own
rpg stuff on the my Cthulhu and Runequest pages. In 1997 I designed
and was running (sporadically) my own system based on Cthulhu by Gaslight,
Vampire
and general weird gothic horror such as covered in Tim Powers book
The
Anubis Gates, and, (I'm almost embarrassed to add) Andy Lane's 'New
Adventures of Doctor
Who' story, "The All Consuming Fire" (a unique blend of Dr. Who, Sherlock
Holmes, and Cthulhu by Gaslight!). Last year (1998) I began running
RuneQuest again, much more consistently, and I've been collecting out of
print material and writing away to my heart's content.
What else do I do with my life? I'm finding that
Iyengar Yoga is just amazingly
good for me, sort of hurting my body back into condition!
This page wouldn’t be complete without saying how great I think
Geocities are for
setting up a free homepage facility for me to play with! :)
You can get free Netscape based E-mail
somewhere too.
If you want to talk to me, copy this...
arkat@primus.com.au
and send me a mail!
It might even work for you as a clickable link, depending
on your computer set-up
Thank you for being visitor 
And here's a shortcut back to the top
of the page.
and send me a mail!
It might even work for you as a clickable link, depending on your computer set-up
Thank you for being visitor