Visit the kelpforest....

Me: (raising an eyebrow) You're playing Othello against a cotton candy eating Tyrannosaurus named Marvin?

Him: Yup. And losing. Badly.

After buying the new laptop, soon after John had rush out and buy Hoyle's Casino, because he can't be long without a gambling game.

One of the slot machine games is called Ninjas of the Caribbean.

Angus made a character that wears a cowboy hat and a monocle.

Just thought I'd pass that along...I'm easily amused...

Ok, finish my coffee and go get something done...

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Ah, takes me back, to when I was living in my first one bedroom apartment with Beth. A few months after we moved in, her brother got a divorce, and being one of those guys who's never lived on his own ever, moved in with us. Beth and I shared the bedroom, Logan slept on the couch in the living room. We all got along fairly well, despite being so cramped. On Fridays, Logan would come home from work, stand in the doorway with a balled up paper in his hand and yell, "$20 bucks worth of video games if I miss!" and shoot for a basket to the trashcan in the kitchen. A distance of maybe 20 feet, but miss he usually did (maybe on purpose? ;) ), and off we'd head to the arcade at the miniature golf center in Fountain Valley, where he'd treat us all to tokens and we'd spend the evening playing games.

My favorites seemed to be spaceship games that involved flying around in a circle, often with enemies coming out from the center; the controls were often a spinning dial rather than a joystick. I loved Gyrus because the soundtrack started with Beethoven. Tempest was another favorite, although it was mostly black screen with brightly colored lines and moving shapes attached to them. Burgertime was ridiculous and fun, as was Dig-Dug (which I saw an ancient machine of the other day - maybe at the skating rink?). Beth was a Mistress of Frogger. She usually quit because she got bored; she could otherwise make one quarter last for hours, if she wanted. She was also the only person I ever saw get Dirk the Daring to the end of Dragon's Lair.

A late favorite of mine, probably discovered shortly before Logan discovered his new wife (I think he asked her to marry him on the second date), and therefore ending our arcade trips, was Sinistar. I loved it, but dreaded of hearing "Beware, I LIVE!" - it meant I wouldn't be playing too much longer.

When runsamuck and I got married, one of our wedding gifts from a friend of his was a Super Nintendo. Much used, but I would get irritated because he'd take it over to his friend Jerry's, where they'd play Dr. Mario for money and he'd wind up leaving it there. Unfortunately, we could never really justify upgrading it; and most games we have now are on the computer. I bought Final Fantasy (11? 12?) years ago and never installed it. I have too much music and photos and the hard drive just gets full too fast. Maybe when we next need to upgrade the DVD player, we'll get a combo gaming system.

Then again, we have too many distractions as it is. But I'd love to play Bioshock sometime, before it disappears - that one looks pretty cool.

Edit: How could I have forgotten? The game that got me thinking about this - triggered by an icon in a friend's journal (done in crossstitch and animated, no less)- Joust! I loved flapping those birds around. Those Gametap commercials I've been seeing lately make me nostalgic.

For the first time, the fry and I attended an "Event Cache" - where a bunch of local geocachers get together at a certain point, and some bring things call "travel bugs" and "geocoins" to exchange - these are items or coin-like things with unique number codes, which are supposed to be moved from cache to cache, sometimes with a specific goal in mind ("get Nemo the Fish from the Atlantic to the Pacific"). I got to meet quite a few people who I'd previously only known by username.

Wherigo hint
Newport Beach CA
Sharp VE-CG30
12 September 2008

The above was a major hint from a new kind of cache called a ( Wherigo... )

We took everyone bowling for an hour or so this afternoon. We're still trying to get them to actually roll the ball instead of trying to pitch it.

( one of each... )