Category: Lighting

As loyal as I am to the glorious PC master race, I have to admit that playing Over-Botch is much more fun on console. The controls are more responsive, and of course the graphics are way better.

I just…had to get that out somewhere. You have no idea how HARD it is to maintain an air of superiority, all the time. It’s gotten to the point where all my friends have stopped playing Over-Botch, which is frankly a tragedy because I was about twenty minutes away from the commercial LED lighting achievement. I was LEARNING things. Video games can now teach us to be better people! For example, did you know that energy-saver bulbs were actually advertised to be 60% more efficient than they were, at first? It was a major scandal that hit the lighting industry hard, and it was all caused my someone hitting the wrong key in an email to the copywriters. For about six months, energy-saver bulbs were flying off the shelves, the kings of the commercial lighting sector, and all because people believed that they were 600% more efficient than all their competitors (while offering 80% of the light). Of course, it was more like 60%. Actually pretty good, but it was a dire time as people lost interest and trust in energy-saving bulbs.

Nowadays things have recovered pretty well, mostly because designer lighting has taken influences from Italian and Spanish designers, and people are much more inclined to buy lights if they look nice.

So there. I figure that if I’m going to play an educational game, I might as well do it with the greatest graphics and controls possible. That’s probably why my competitive Melbourne designer lighting solutions rating is so much better than theirs, even if they don’t want to admit it. This could get me a job, one day. A job designing lights, or perhaps telling people that their home would sell even better if they installed a chandelier. I always knew I was on the right side of history.

-Alastair

Okay, so as it turns out…setting up a business MIGHT be a little but more work than I was anticipating. I made a checklist and everything! And so many things have popped up that were NOT on the checklist! It’s almost as if I shouldn’t have bothered with the checklist in the first place.

I’ve seen so many chic little cafes in the CBD, and I thought I could replicate their success. All you need is a coffee machine (preferably a massive one from the 1970s), a barista with dreadlocks, another barista with loads of tattoos and then a few home-style recipes (with avocado) that I can serve on trendy wooden chopping boards. And maybe some garnish.

Everything else is just window dressing, or so I thought. Now my cafe mentor is telling me to research designer lighting in Melbourne, because the commercial lighting sector can make or break a new business. Designer lighting wasn’t even ON the list for some weird reason! Maybe I need a new list, one with spaces at the bottom so that I can add new things.

Bah, no time! I have to focus on the nitty-gritty, like proper lighting, apparently. I guess now that I think about it, whenever I’ve walked into one of those nice little cafes, there’s always been a nice lighting design. Even in places like Barstucks, there’s always a softness to the lighting that invites people to stay. Maybe sometimes to do with the warm tones helps with this too. I should spend less time on comfy, chic seating options and more time on this. Or perhaps it’s time to do another trawl of every cafe decent cafe in Melbourne. Commercial lighting solutions are a bigger industry than I thought. More important than the barista with dreadlocks?

No…surely not. Nobody will take my cafe seriously if they walk in and the person making their cafe has normal, practical hair.

-Owen