Hey gang. Made my inaugural appearance on KOCT’s “Journalist Roundtable” on Thursday.

TV hasn’t been something I’ve ever thought of pursuing, and don’t think that I’m about to, but ace reporter Robert Boyd recently left The Coast News to write for KUSI (you know what that spells backwards?) and his seat on “Roundtable” opened up.

KOCT is Oceanside‘s civic/public access channel (well, there’s actually two), and “Roundtable” airs live on the first Thursday of each month. It’s replayed twice daily for the two weeks following the live show.

The discussion, of course, is Oceanside politics — which is always a ton of fun.

I was surprised by the pace of the show. Whenever I’ve watched it before, it always seemed sort of slow-moving, but that’s not the case. I didn’t get much in with the first two guests because I hesitated, allowing the other journalists (Dan McSwain and John Van Doorn from the North County Times) to ask their questions. You get about 10 minutes with each guest (there were four), and those 10 minutes go by quickly. But I think I picked up toward the end.

The operation at KOCT is pretty amazing, and it will only get better — the station is going all digital this week.

Couple of things I learned: Don’t hesitate to butt-in when I’ve got a question, Don’t slouch (that’s gonna be tough) and get some voice lessons — I sound like a 12-year-old whose voice is on the verge of changing.

All in all it was pretty good experience. I won’t be on every month, but will pop in when needed.

AS AN ASIDE … Last Friday we were frantically trying to find a copy of “Balance of Power” — the kickass strategy game we played as elementary students on our Apple IIs. If you haven’t played the game, it was pretty fun. We spent about 45 minutes at work Friday night trying to find a copy. I found one. It’s not the original, 1985 version, but the 1988 version. In the ’85 game, if you lost (meaning, you went to war with Russia), a pixellated mushroom cloud appeared with body parts coming out of it. Because of kids like me, who wanted to see the “cool” graphic and aimed at losing the game, the graphic was taken out of the ’88 version. It’s still a fun game, though.