Smaller Impacts

Here's a collection of stuff that has an impact or held some sort of significance for me, but I don't have enough to say about these things to make them their own shrine pages.

Noah and Saskia

Noah and Saskia was an Australian and UK TV show that aired on ABC when I was a kid. I actually don't remember watching it much because I was more into cartoons and my attention span wasn't great when I had to sit down. Nonetheless, I have never forgotten the show. An Aussie girl called Saskia and an English boy named Noah start talking to each other on an online virtual world style game/chatroom, and lie to each other about their names and details about their life. Online, Noah is Max Hammer and Saskia is Indy, and both of them are cooler online than they are in real life. This mirrored my experinece on Habbo Hotel as a kid.

I was uncomfortable with myself as a kid, and just wanted to be accepted, which I wasn't in real life. I also thought the low poly graphics of the virtual world was charming and unique, and at the time, I wanted to experience a chatroom with 3D avatars. It was like watching the future! YouTube has all the episodes now, and there's only 13 of them. Maybe I'll get around to watching them all.

During my research into this show, I found out that the company/people who made this show made it because of Kahootz. They designed a software called Kahootz before they made Noah and Saskia, and wanted to implement stuff they could make with the program into a TV show. This is what they used to make the virtual world where Noah and Saskia hang out online.

Sonic the Hedgehog

My first gaming console was the SEGA, which I still have 2 of in my storage cupboard. I would have only been about 4 when dad brought it home, set it up, and in went Sonic. My sister and I spent so many hours playing this game, and with her being the older one, she controlled Sonic while I played as Tails. When my sister annoyed me, I would use Tails to crash into an enemy or something in game that would cause me to lose rings.

I've played both games so many times, and was always a "Sonic kid" since we didn't ever own a Nintendo console until I got a Nintendo DS when I was a teen. I didn't play many other Sonic games since mum and dad were poor and couldn't afford the newer games generally speaking. As a teen, I would play any flash-based Sonic game I could find online, and I liked to imagine they were hacks of Gameboy Advanced Sonic games.

I have this memory of being at my rich cousins house when I was a kid, and playing this Sonic game where they were on a tropic island, and throught research I found it was the Sonic Adventure game, and the level was Emerald Coast. We played on the Sega Dreamcast console. I've just always had a thing for low-poly beach graphics, which this level is the epitome of. I'm not generally into 3D Sonic games, since I prefer platforming style, but this was really novel to play and I never forgot about it.

Emerald Coast on Sonic Adventure, Dreamcast

I don't really have a favourite level on Sonic 1 (Spring Yard zone looks visually cool), but these are by far my favs on Sonic 2. I love bouncing around underwater on Aquatic Ruin Zone, or just going super fast and avoiding the water, and then the boss battle is cool. The whole level of Casino Night Zone is just awesome - the only annoying thing are the weird snail things that cause me to lose my rings lol. I have never been to Las Vegas but if I ever go, I expect it to feel like this level.

CokeMusic

Also known as MyCoke, this was a Habbo-like game that ran from 2002 to 2010. Sulake, the same company that created Habbo, were hired to make CokeMusic, and it shows. Now, I didn't spend a whole lot of time on CokeMusic and I regret not giving it more of a go. Habbo had my heart, and I actually managed to get credits and furni on Habbo. I couldn't wrap my child-brain around the furni/currency system on CokeMusic, so I didn't give it a proper go.

Still, I loved the graphics and often wished that Habbo took more inspiration from their designs. I also thought it was super cool that you could make your own music inside of the game. This was something else I never really grasped but I have some very distant memories of other people playing their own musical creations.

CaveJam is a fanmade recreation of the site, which I check back on every few years. The owner slowly keeps adding stuff, so one day I hope it's a perfect copy of what I remember CokeMusic being.

decibel.fun is another CokeMusic clone that I found out about and am keeping my eye on.

Some screenshots I found of CokeMusic.

Garfield

Garfield's Scary Scavenger Hunt was a game on the Garfield website starting from the early 2000's. I played this game many times during my childhood (and I don't think I ever beat it without a tutorial). You can still find it and play it online, along with the 2nd version.

This is the full playthrough of the game.

Outside of the internet, I read the hell out of the Garfield comics. I remember buying them 2nd hand from op shops and antique shops, and enjoyed sharing these comics with my friend Ajay and Alexander at school. I had a little Garfield plush I had gotten from Hungry Jacks which was the best thing ever. I remember Ajay and I went to the Garfield movie in cinema when we were in grade 6, and I gave him one of my other Garfield toys for him to keep. We sat and watched the movie with our Garfields on our lap.

Camp Orange

In 2006 when I was in grade 6 at primary school, I was flicking through Foxtel (Australia's cable TV) and on Nickelodeon popped up "Camp Orange". It was a reality TV series for Aussie kids, where a duo of friends between ages 10-13 compete against each other to win challenges. Each season was filmed over about a week, with some sort of theme. The season I watched was Camp Orange Slimey Hollow, and for some reason, I loved it.

Since I was so shy and anxious as a kid, I think it stood out to me seeing fellow Aussie kids have fun, and be silly. I wanted friends and to experience something like that; something I never could have. I guess that's why I enjoyed the show so much and I have never forgotten about it. It also interested me that for many years, this show was lost media, until late 2021 when someone uploaded most of the season onto YouTube.

There was a team on Slimey Hollow called the Dancing Dodos, which were friends Chester and Thorsten. I could see myself in them - especially in Thorsten (probably because we both had shaggy blonde hair), and I always enjoyed seeing myself reflected in people since I was the shy kid who didn't speak a whole lot.

During this time in my life, I started using social media more and found that the Nickelodeon Australia website had a forum. I remember making an account and posting frequently on there under the username DancingDodos. I remember wanting people to think I was either of the boys on the team (lol, weird I know). One day I logged onto the forum after school, and saw someone reply to a comment I made saying "Hi Jazz". Omg I was mortified and so confused. I guess I must have told someone at school about the forum, and they put 2 and 2 together...

The following years, I tried watching other seasons but they didn't click the same. I did watch the 2007 season The Mystery of Spaghetti Creek which was cool, but it just wasn't the same. Camp Orange Slimey Hollow will always have a place in my heart, and 12-year-old me will always wish I could have been apart of something like that.

Slimey Hollow on YouTube! It's almost the entire season.

More cool Slimey Hollow stuff

The Nickelodeon homepage in 2006. Here's how I remember the Nick forums looking... so cringe

The Sprouse Twins Magazine

The Sprouse Bros. CODE was a very short-lived magazine made by teenage brothers Dylan and Cole Sprouse. I was introduced to them like many of us were - through Big Daddy, and The Suite Life TV show on Disney. We were the same age, and they were blonde like me, so I instantly liked them.

Here's the funny part - I never actually got to read it or own the mag. I thought the twins were cool as and I was beyond excited for this magazine to come out, but I never saw it for sale in Australia. At the time when it released in 2006, I read as much as I could online about it and watched the launch party video multiple times.

The cover of the mag.

The CODE launch party video.

Some additional related links...
All About Sprouse - old fansite with 2 pictures from inside the magazine.
Episode 1 and Episode 2 of the Sprouse Bros. "Podcast" (I would use that word very loosely).
An archive of the Sprouse Bros website when the magazine was launched.
A sneak peak into some of the articles in the magazine.

Little Lulu

I really liked this show when I was a kid. The cartoon style is in an older format despite it being a 90's cartoon, the storylines were entertaining, the episodes were short (which meant it kept my attention), and the theme-song was catchy. There's one particular episode though that I liked. All I could remember was that there was a ghost, a tree, and a stairway inside of the tree. I forgot everything else about this episode.

Eventually through Googling, I was able to find the exact episode which is episode 36 of season 2, but for years, I couldn't find it online or anywhere. Through making this Neocities page, I have finally found it, and rewatched it! Like pretty much every other episode I love of a random show, I don't think I can pinpoint why I liked it so much.

Here's the episode it's in. I remember the first episode about the thief too, which was a fun blast from the past to see. It's amazing what your brain manages to retain.

You can read about the episode here.

2flashgames

I was in high school when flash games were a big thing. Some guy in my class told me about 2flashgames, and it wasn't long before I found some life/dating sims. I thought they were fun to play, and then it wasn't much longer before I discovered they were VERY NSFW.

I played the hell out of Frank's Adventure and Ganguro Girl. I wasn't particular to the NSFW content - I was too young to really get it and more interested in the game play. I remember playing on my family computer and clicking away from the naughty stuff really fast lol.

Subjectively the games were crappily made, with pretty poor English and dialogue, but I had hours of fun on them, because what else is a kid without a Gameboy supposed to do? The music in both games were catchy and I enjoyed the graphics. Frank's Aventure reminded me of playing a GBA games, and Ganguro Girl seemed really well made at the time to me, with their graphics. I mostly enjoyed the music in Frank's Adventure 1 and 2, and didn't actually play the 3rd and 4th one.

Thanks to the Internet Archive and ruffle, many of these games can be played today:
Frank's Adventure 1
Frank's Adventure 2
Frank's Adventure 3
Frank's Adventure 4 and Frank's Adventure 4 "Gold Version"
Ganguro Girl and Ganguro Girl Deluxe Download (this one used to cost money back in the day! It has 2 additional girls you can date)