Hmmm i'm not sure if this is a bio, or me reminiscing about stuff, probably the latter..Anyway my name is Madija, I'll start with talking about one of the things I get asked the most, “Why the name ‘Ms Mad Lemon’?” Well, to be honest, the name came up by chance, I was signing up to an account and was frustrated at many names and aliases I tried to sign up with being taken, and not being fond of having numbers after my name, I just typed the most random thing I could think of.
“THERE!…NOW tell me this name is already taken you stupid freakin form”
To my surprise it wasn’t, so Ms Mad Lemon became my alias.
Ms Mad Lemon still is the real me, I find it too much of an effort to have an alter ego, even for fun. Good on those who can do it, it must come in handy.
Anyway, if you’re here from my channel, you’d know that I’m a touch loopy, well in the nicest way possible of course :o)
If you’re here for the first time, then you’re wanting to know more about me…I’m loopy, in the nicest possible way of course :o)

One thing thats obvious about me is that I’m a woman with many interests, I mean MANY interest, I’m quite a curious soul. Some of my interests many would probably deem unusual, this is based on the feedback I get sometimes, which fair enough, let’s face it, you don’t come across a woman being into electronics, soldering and retro computers every day, for whatever reason it may be. Those of us who are, tend to be like any typical introverted nerd and like hiding away in our own world tinkering with these goodies. But we do exist :o)

Before I continue, I’ve just realised after writing this section that I’ve veered off to who I am and started writing about memories and how things were..errm.. I’ve always had trouble knowing what to say when someone says “so, tell me about yourself” …*grits her teeth* I never know what to say, so I’m just going to talk about stuff and let you discover who I am by yourself :o)

 

The dawn of my love for computers:

How it began, well my family was always unusual in that way, none of us were rowdy kids, so I was left to my own devices, not influenced so much, but neither were my brothers. So whatever I found interesting I did. I used to enjoy hanging around with my oldest brother, he was always gentle towards me, actually once we got an Amiga 500, I was impressed, being used to the ZX spectrum 48k we had (I still have it) I saw a C64 at a friend’s place and wanted it, but we ended up with the A500 and no complaints from me at all, especially after I saw Avenger megademo and Rebels.
My brother sat me down and showed me how to play Pacmania, my very first game, I was raiding the disk boxes trying out anything that sounded interesting. Not only games, but I got well acquainted with Deluxe paint II at the time and loved that, it brought out the artistic side in me, I wish I had the disks with all the images I had drawn, all those crude childish looking princesses, animals and pretty patterns once I discovered the symmetry tool in Dpaint :o)

When a little older I was obsessed with the Amiga, the games, the animations I created once we finally got DPaint III and once in my early-mid teens, Soundtracker pro 2, thats where my MOD collection began, I had the Action Replay II which I absolutely loved, I’m thankful my brother decided to get one as they were advertised in magazines, that one cart allowed me to rip MODs, Samples and screenshots. I’m still yet to make a video on it :o)

I will link one of my videos where I tell the entire story with more details, at the bottom of this page..

 

I literally just found this old photo of my room, while rummaging in the attic and thought to share it here. Talk about a typical teenage room, all sorts of teen-esque stuff on the walls.
Okay maybe not so typical teenage room, it's what a late 90s teenage nerdy girl bedroom looked like, I had that nostalgia bug even back then.
This was around 1998 ish. I was using all formats as you can see from the table where my Panasonic personal cassette is and some sealed tapes, my panasonic minidisc recorder with all the sealed minidiscs, and my Sanyo CD player with CD singles on display. 'Sash - Mysterious times' I'm still a fan of Sash. I miss that wooden TV, even though it only had RF in, I love the woodgrain look of it, It would go perfectly with my Atari 2600.

I havent seen this photograph for ages, I'm not sure what possessed me to take it, but i'm really happy that I did! I wish I had taken more now! I better move on and stop gazing at this image.

 

This is a photograph I took of my cousin playing on the playstation, I had just got it new, this was probably around 1999 ish. Again very happy that I took photographs just as I had changed my room around. What prompted the change was my father offering me the downstairs main TV (This Panasonic stereo one in the photo) because we had just got a new huge widescreen CRT for the main room downstairs.
I was jumping for freakin joy because i could FINALLY connect my Amiga 1200 via RGB and it look beautiful and crisp like a monitor instead of having colour bleed everywhere, also the speakers on this TV sounded AMAZING!. This is the place where I sat for hours, sometimes all night long, on Soundtracker pro 2 writing music. Ah I miss those care free times!... So freakin care free that i've left my anti-persperant and moisturizers on top of the TV... Wait! Is that an Indoor ariel?? Hahaha! It is!!
I totally forgot thats how I watched TV up in my room!

 

 

The dawn of my interest in electronics:

Parallel to the computer story, I was also developing a childlike interest in electronics, I used to always open things up to see whats inside. As I said, I had that strong curiosity about gadgets and toys. What fascinated me most were fans, ceiling fans, table fans, bathroom fans.. Yeah I was a freakin weird little girl :o)

Yet full of wonder. Then I was shown a motor connected to a battery. Ooh yeah, try stopping me now! … anything I found with two terminals I tried to connect to a battery, mini 6v incandescent lamps, motors, LEDs, capacitors, resistors, scrap tape heads ... :o)
Though when I came across a transistor, it almost broke my little brain. “But it’s got three legs?!?…okay I’m going to put you in this little box out of the way since I don’t know what to do with you.”

I had this yellow bucket full of components and bits of toys and electronics. Don’t get me wrong, I did love toys, I played at the houses of a couple of the girls on the street, but no joke, two things I always found creepy, dolls and clowns. I loved teddy bears and cuddly toys but dolls, especially the ones where you raise them up from a horizontal position and just as the face is coming at you, the eyes open once you’ve sat it up… who came up with THAT idea as a kid’s toy?!

Anyway, in summary, I ended up being a creative and arty yet nerdy/geeky kinda girl, the best of both worlds no? … yeeeeah, kinda, except there is the part where you just don’t fit in with anyone and are seen as an oddity. I accept all that now of course, but every little girl wants to have friends, I did as long as I kept my interests to myself. I never told the other girls what I was into, except for my Amiga, I couldn’t shut up about that and even though they understood it, they all had either master systems or mega drives… But we knew some of the same games, like Lemmings, treasure Island Dizzy and buggy boy etc.

In my teens, still obsessed with the Amiga (An obsession with Amiga is always healthy, I will not hear anything otherwise) ..I got an Amiga 1200, I also started creating electronics projects for it. Like the stereo separation adjustment. Amongst other things (More about this I will write in my blog).

Anyway, before this gets TOO long winded. About me.. errm, well I’m Madija, I create videos on the things I always loved and still do love. But what you see in my videos is just a portion of what I have within me to share, I’m somebody who feels deeply (yet wise at the same time, uff..LIFE!). I love photography and capturing the right shot, capturing moments.
I love writing music, thank you Amiga and Soundtracker pro 2.. as well as the Casio SK-1 I borrowed!..I love painting with oils, thank you Amiga and deluxe paint II
ermm….pfff.. I don’t know?!? I’m not good at talking about my self specifically :o)) ...Aside from loving Arabic style tea with mint leaves and honey <3
So I will leave it at that.