Defining Childhood Moments of My Life



Now I'm old and withered



As a special treat, I thought I should share with you some of those special occasions that have made me the man that I am today and I strongly remember even though it was long ago...

• Going to the Museum of Natural History with my father and brother at age 4 or so and standing fascinated staring at the collection of mutated specimens pickled in formaldehyde, the siamese twin baby and the two headed snake I strongly remembered and how I wondered why they didn't just make the whole museum about that stuff (I do still wonder actually) 
• Reading a Moomin comic at age six or so and realizing that I had my first pre-pubescent crush on the Snork Maiden (that has passed, the later crush on the Smurfette remains a little)
• Around the same age when Dad brought home our first computer (a ZX81 home computer) and letting us play a video game where you were hunted by an invisible monster in an invisible labyrinth (yeah, no graphics at all) but I've been hooked on games ever since
• When my brother played a tape with a Pet Shop Boys song that he had recorded from the coolest radioshow at the time (we only had three channels in Sweden, one played classical music, the other was all boring talk and the third one sometimes played pop) and getting so fascinated by the sound of electronic music (that never really let up either)
• Going with Mom to her local Japanese foods shop in Stockholm at age 9 or so and walking around bored, looking into their freezer with frozen food and being freaked out when I realize that they had a huge Octopus in there (don't eat the stuff, I take it out of the takoyaki)
• Reading the last Superman Story "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow" before they rebooted the whole DC universe at age ten or so and feeling oddly emotionally moved by the story (this was the time when no one died, the girls didn't have huge boobs and Superman mostly fought with a cowboy on a winged horse or some gay looking guy with thigh-high boots, and hardly carried any emotional weight). It remained with me so much that once when I was visiting home from University I spent the better half of a day digging through the childhood comic collection to try and find it and see if it really was as moving as I remembered it. A few years later I found it and realized that it was written by Alan Moore who I had been a long time fan of, so all the pieces came together
• Visiting Japan for the first time with my mom at the age of 15 and almost immediately getting the odd feeling that I had somehow came home, in a place I hardly knew

Ok, maybe I should have included marrying Mrs. Sunshine, having Toddler Sunshine and getting my iPad (in no particular order) but those are not really childhood moments, so I leave them out. But there you have it, everything you need to know about me comes from these moments (but no, Mrs. Sunshine doesn't look anything like the Snork Maiden)!