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1. ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
22nd May 1980: The release of Pac-Man
The game was developed primarily by a young Namco employee named Toru Iwatani over the course of a year, beginning in April 1979, employing a nine-man team. It was based on the concept of eating, and the original Japanese title is Pakkuman (パックマン?), inspired by the Japanese onomatopoeic phrase paku-paku taberu (パクパク食べる?), where paku-paku describes (the sound of) the mouth movement when widely opened and then closed in succession.
Although Iwatani has repeatedly stated that the character's shape was inspired by a pizza missing a slice, he admitted in a 1986 interview that this was a half-truth and the character design also came from simplifying and rounding out the Japanese character for mouth, kuchi. Iwatani attempted to appeal to a wider audience—beyond the typical demographics of young boys and teenagers. His intention was to attract girls to arcades because he found there were very few games that were played by women at the time. This led him to add elements of a maze, as well as cute ghost-like enemy characters. Eating to gain power, Iwatani has said, was a concept he borrowed from Popeye. The result was a game he named Puck Man as a reference to the main character's hockey puck shape. However, in 1980, Bally division Midway realized it was also a pun on an easily modified common expletive, and changed the game's name from Puck Man to Pac-Man in an effort to avoid such vandalism. The cabinet artwork was also changed and the pace and level of difficulty increased to appeal to western audiences.
When first launched in Japan by Namco in 1980, the game received a lukewarm response, as Space Invaders and other similar games were more popular at the time. However, Pac-Man's success in North America in the same year took competitors and distributors completely by surprise. Marketing executives who saw Pac-Man at a trade show prior to release completely overlooked the game (along with the now-classic Defender), while they looked to a racing car game called Rally-X as the game to outdo that year. The appeal of Pac-Man was such that the game caught on immediately with the public; it quickly became far more popular than anything seen in the game industry up to that point. Pac-Man outstripped Asteroids as the best-selling arcade game in North America, grossing over $1 billion in quarters within a decade, by the end of the 1980s, surpassing the revenues grossed by the then highest-grossing film Star Wars.
More than 350,000 Pac-Man arcade cabinets were sold (retailing at around $2400 each) for $1 billion within 18 months of release (inflation adjusted: $2.4 billion in 2011). By 1982, the game had sold 400,000 arcade machines worldwide and an estimated 7 billion coins had been inserted into Pac-Man machines. In addition, United States revenues from Pac-Man licensed products (games, T-shirts, pop songs, wastepaper baskets, etc.) exceeded $1 billion (inflation adjusted: $2.33 billion in 2011). The game was estimated to have had 30 million active players across the United States in 1982.
Toward the end of the 20th century, the arcade game's total gross consumer revenue had been estimated by Twin Galaxies at more than 10 billion quarters ($2.5 billion), making it the highest-grossing video game of all time. In 2016, US Gamer calculated that the machines' inflation adjusted takings were equivalent to $7.68 billion. In January 1982, the game won the overall Best Commercial Arcade Game award at the 1981 Arcade Awards. In 2001, Pac-Man was voted the greatest video game of all time by a Dixons poll in the UK. The readers of Killer List of Videogames name Pac-Man as the No. 1 video game on its "Top 10 Most Popular Video games" list, the staff name it as No. 18 on its "Top 100 Video Games" list, and Ms. Pac-Man is given similar recognition.
2. TODAY IN MY LIFE
Me Time
The Milk Run
Blogging
Lunch
Meditation
Son Time
Missus Time
Twitter Followers = 2,242 (up 8)
Never-followed unfollowers eliminated = 0
@CashNowLux
Followed unfollowers eliminated = 0
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New Followers followed back = 5
@sandrapowell1, @philZENdia, @VerityDDI, @Evangeline8790, @JenMouserSpammers not followed back = 4
@ShatterRedmusic, @KalaniBallFree, @SwindonLovers, @pvinick84834 @khushburao26, @fgpenvxaoerea
3. TODAY'S SELF-OBSERVATION
My main preoccupation over the last few days has been a watchful eye over Son's breakup with his fiancee. It's been coming for half the two years they were actually together and Son was the last to see it. Distance made it a long-shot from the start, but bottom line was she never loved him back. To her, Son was a potential ticket to a better life, and a rebound from another relationship. When she got a sniff of getting back with the ex, Son was dropped like a stone.
Like all of us who've had a bad breakup, he'll get by with a little help from his friends. It is of course absolutely all for the best. He'll be wiser and stronger at the expense of a scar. He's a lot more fortunate in the support aspect than I was when ex-Daughter decided to go nuclear on me. Son however grew into that role of assuring me it WAS DEFINITELY HER and now it's my opportunity to repay the favour.
With the dust beginning to settle on the new situation, focus is shifting back to my own goals. I am oddly enjoying the challenge of internal silence and how to starve unwanted thought of focus. It's a case of finding a sufficiently stimulating sensual/visual focus that is also wordless. It's primarily breathing orientated and a suitably strong visualization to pair it with. I am experimenting with visualizations as varied as a purple cloud in my head (a variant of a Reiki technique) to an anaesthetic machine (which I associate with the absence of thought and a pleasant numbness)
It's easy to empty my mind when relaxed at home and all primal needs met, but more challenging in other situations. I'm making good progress and I'll know from the feedback I get, particularly from colleagues at the Weekend Job how well I'm doing.
4. TODAY'S QUESTION FOR YOU
What are you doing to develop yourself right now?
5. TODAY'S WEATHER IN BRADFORD
In brief
Dry and mild with sunny periods
Details
Moon
Weathertrack
Air Pressure
1004 millibars and rising
6. TODAY'S ONELINER
A lot of people say I'm egocentric, but that's quite enough about them! :D
7. NOW THAT'S FUNNY!
Would I Lie To You - Who knows Silvan?
8. TRIVIA
The diabetes drug Avandia has been linked to tens of thousands of heart attacks. A U.S. Senate report claims that the makers of the drug, GlaxoSmithKline, knew of the risks and kept them from the public.
9. ZEN WISDOM
Each person possesses a precious inner treasure of infinite worth. To remain unaware of this and stumble about in spiritual poverty is a tragic waste. In contrast, a person fully awakened to the jewel-like dignity of their own life is capable of truly respecting that treasure in others.
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