We had set up our computer in Khanom Joon’s dining room and as a result spent a lot of time there playing games, mainly Flight Stimulator. However, it was a new music album that Ardi received that suddenly had us going in a whole new direction. From one of his friends Ardi had not only gotten his hands on Madonna’s Like a Prayer album but also its inner sleeve that contained the lyrics. While Ardi made a copy of the album for both of us, we began scribbling down all of the lyrics as well. We were about half way through when suddenly a thought occurred to me.
“Why are we copying this by hand? I can type it up on the computer. That way we can reprint it if we ever need to.”
And that I did. I typed up all of the lyrics and saved them as BASIC files dominated by print commands. After printing out two copies for ourselves we realized that we might be able to use this as a way to generate money. That afternoon we headed outside and told most of the kids on the street about our booklet of lyrics and that it was for sale. Very few showed any interest and we figured it was because they either did not have the album yet or if they did their English simply wasn’t good enough for the lyrics to be of any use to them.
While we hardly drummed up any sales, however, one positive outcome was us running into a relative of one of the neighbors. He explained to us that he had a computer disk that he was selling and that it had a number of pictures of celebrities on it, including Madonna, that could be printed and possibly packaged with our lyrics. He showed us two samples, one of Madonna and one of Brook Shields, both of which were black and white, low quality, pixilated pictures although clearly showing the person in question. Not wanting to pay the requested 1,000 tomans without making sure we weren’t being scammed, I asked him to bring the disk to our computer so that we could see how it worked for ourselves. He brought in a blue floppy disk and after it loaded up we were presented with a menu of different names to pick from. He chose Brook Shields and began printing it for us. We asked to see some of the other ones but he brushed off our suggestion. Once the adults were removed from the room he explained to us that other than Madonna and Brooke Shields, the rest were all nude or seminude pictures.
We paid the requested amount and waited that night for everyone to go to sleep before exploring the rest of the disk. Just as he had said, the remaining pictures were all semi clothed females although the name for each individual seemed to be completely arbitrary. The picture for Kim Wilde was a black woman. Sandra’s picture most definitely wasn’t her and in fact strongly resembled Samantha Fox.
“Why are we copying this by hand? I can type it up on the computer. That way we can reprint it if we ever need to.”
And that I did. I typed up all of the lyrics and saved them as BASIC files dominated by print commands. After printing out two copies for ourselves we realized that we might be able to use this as a way to generate money. That afternoon we headed outside and told most of the kids on the street about our booklet of lyrics and that it was for sale. Very few showed any interest and we figured it was because they either did not have the album yet or if they did their English simply wasn’t good enough for the lyrics to be of any use to them.
While we hardly drummed up any sales, however, one positive outcome was us running into a relative of one of the neighbors. He explained to us that he had a computer disk that he was selling and that it had a number of pictures of celebrities on it, including Madonna, that could be printed and possibly packaged with our lyrics. He showed us two samples, one of Madonna and one of Brook Shields, both of which were black and white, low quality, pixilated pictures although clearly showing the person in question. Not wanting to pay the requested 1,000 tomans without making sure we weren’t being scammed, I asked him to bring the disk to our computer so that we could see how it worked for ourselves. He brought in a blue floppy disk and after it loaded up we were presented with a menu of different names to pick from. He chose Brook Shields and began printing it for us. We asked to see some of the other ones but he brushed off our suggestion. Once the adults were removed from the room he explained to us that other than Madonna and Brooke Shields, the rest were all nude or seminude pictures.
We paid the requested amount and waited that night for everyone to go to sleep before exploring the rest of the disk. Just as he had said, the remaining pictures were all semi clothed females although the name for each individual seemed to be completely arbitrary. The picture for Kim Wilde was a black woman. Sandra’s picture most definitely wasn’t her and in fact strongly resembled Samantha Fox.
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