I saw a video today where the narrator said something that struck me a little harder than I thought.
“It’s too bad arcades are dead . . .”
I had to think about that for a moment.
Yeah, I guess they are.
The last arcade I went to was GameWorks which is only a few miles away from me. It was cool and all that but I could tell just by being there that the glory days of arcades were long gone. Several of the games were not working and the “good” games didn’t hold a candle to the graphics you can get on modern consoles.
I also felt like the oldest guy in the place. For all I know I probably was.
There was a Ms. Pac-Man cocktail table machine there but the screen was “milked” out so it really couldn’t be enjoyed (and that’s why I didn’t play it.)
. . .
There’s a big reason why arcades are dead:
The ones that exist aren’t designed properly.
There is am improper mix of old and new games.
I haven’t seen one yet that has internet connectivity.
Difficult to buy food and drinks in the place (if it’s even offered.)
If I were to design my own cafe, this is how I would do it:
All arcades should be dark. Very dark.
There are several reasons for this:
You can see the screens better.
Darkness allows you to become engrossed in the game you’re playing.
Lighted items show up much better.
My floors would have lighted lines so you could figure out where you’re going. There would be black lights in several places along with other lighted items to give the whole place an outer space feel to it.
There would be five game rooms.
New
Classic
Pinball
Card
Internet
The “new” room would have the modern offerings. Multi-player machines would also be present here.
The “classic” room would have all the goodies we all remember. Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Galaga, Mr. Do! and Tempest to name a few.
The “pinball” room would be nothing but pinball machines. This is something many existing arcades lack. Why? Because they’re much more expensive to maintain than video-based machines. But my pinball room would have the goods.
The “card” room is for Dungeons & Dragons and Magic The Gathering players. It’s a tastefully done room in medieval style with several tables and comfortable chairs. I could easily see people of all ages gathering in this room often to play RPG card games.
The “internet” room is done in the style of internet cafes. There would be 20 PC’s; ten on each side. All connected with good internet games. Like the card room, this place would be easy for teams to gather and play.
Hang on, I’m not done yet, there’s three more rooms to go. :D
Lobby
Eatery
Theater
The lobby is where everyone enters first. This is where you can buy tokens, reserve tables, buy time on in the internet room, etc. This is a well-lit room.
The eatery is a place for people to sit and eat, plain and simple. You could get sandwiches, sodas and I would make darn sure that the coffee is always good. ;)
The theater is actually a mini-theater, like the ones you see in small malls. I would have family-friendly movies play here only. There would be movies playing all day and it would be cheap to buy a ticket. And yes I’d make sure to have a popcorn machine working for people who would want some.
. . .
Yes, I know this is an extremely ambitious, extremely expensive project. It would take a semi-large area to pull it off and I would have to make sure it was designed right, staffed right and secured properly.
It may or may not happen but it sure is nice to think about. Whether I do it or someone does it before me, the return of the arcade won’t be just an arcade. It must offer something for everyone, be a spectacle to behold and moreover give people a reason to get out of the house to go there. (heh)
Once again I was not able to get Linux to do what I wanted it to do. This time it was with Fedora. And man, did I have high hopes for Fedora. It was the best distro I’ve used yet. Everything looked promising, until…
Command line doom
Try to get a DVD to play without going to the command line. I dare you. Can’t do it? I’m not surprised. I’m as adept at the command line as the next man, but when you have to do crap like this, that’s just ridiculous.
Dual-monitor a no-go
Possible to do dual screens in Fedora? Absolutely. Getting it to work right without manually editing xorg.conf? Absolutely not. And in my DVI/VGA setup, X as I mentioned before “hates” that kind of setup. If you have VGA/VGA or DVI/DVI it’s much “happier” with that for whatever reason.
Slow internet speed that can only be fixed in a weird way
My Fedora 7 setup had internet speeds that absolutely crawled for absolutely no reason. I found after searching the internet that if you turn off the ipv6 as mentioned here, then it works right.
And once again, the way to do it is in command line doom.
Stupid. Absolutely stupid. Were it not for the fact I’m so good at Google searching I never would have found the solution. And for first-time Linux’ers, there’s no chance of anything they’d ever be able to figure it out. Not a chance.
. . .
I’m staying with XP. It works and works well for what I do. I am absolutely done with trying Linux distros. I’ve gone thru so many it makes my head spin.
Recently I discovered the Zune XP theme and XP once again looks good. I like it.
. . .
Even though I’ve been using Windows ever since I’ve been using PC’s, I haven’t used every version released. I completely skipped ME and 2000 for home use.
It may very well be the case I skip Vista entirely and wait until the next major release. That’s probably what I will do.
So anyway… even though my XP is old by today’s standards, it just works. I’m stickin’ to it. ;)
The sound of a palm tree flapping in the breeze is very interesting to me because it doesn’t sound like a tree. It’s a very difficult sound to describe. If sorta/kinda sounds like thin rubber strips flapping. Believe it or not it’s a very soothing sound.
Per recent communication with a “new” pace car owner, he asked a good question: Do the original Goodyear “Free Spirit” tires exist anymore?
Answer: No.
However there are alternatives.
The first is the Goodyear Eagle #1 tire.
A great looking tire, but it’s not Indy. It’s NASCAR.
The second is the Firestone Firehawk Indy 500 tire.
This tire is very appropriate to the car due to the fact it actually has “INDY 500″ on the sidewall.
For those looking for more traditional lettering that doesn’t have so much of a slant, there’s the Goodyear Eagle GT II.
This tire looks very close to the look of the mid-70’s. While the lettering still has a slant to it, it’s a very “traditional” looking tire and would fit the look of the Buick well.
Being that the goal is to match the look of the original pace car as much as possible, the performance of the tire truly does not matter. When the time comes to strap on the proper rubber on my ‘75, I’d probably go with the GT II’s just because they are the most traditional looking.
Why am I writing about Halloween on October 2? Because every single retail store started hocking their orange’n'black holiday wares last week. I guess that shouldn’t surprise me.
Halloween is first and foremost a kid’s “holiday.” If you have kids, October 31 is their day and not yours. It is one of the few kid-related days of the year that parents don’t mind so much because it is a cheap event. All that’s required is buying the kid a cheap costume, taking him or her out to bug some neighbors for free candy, letting your kid bounce off the walls from a sugar high for a few hours, then call it a night. Fairly straightforward.
As far as adults are concerned who don’t have kids, you either really look forward to October 31 or just pass it off as just another day. I’m the type who believes in the latter. The only special thing I do for that day is make sure I’m not on the road from 3pm to 7pm because there are a lot of kids tromping around going trick-or-treating.
I’d say the only thing I really like about that day is seeing girls in Playboy Bunny costumes because that getup looks so unbelievably slutty. The outfit just screams “slut,” and that’s cool in my book. :D
This Friday I have to take Pop to have some medical procedure done in Ocala. I don’t remember exactly what has to be done, but it will render him unable to drive back home and that’s why he needs the ride there and back.
At minimum I’ve got at least 4¾ hours of doing nothing but driving and waiting. He’s 75 miles away, Ocala is another 45 minutes from him and the whatever-it-is he has to do will take at least another 45 minutes.
I will totally admit this bothers me because it goes back to everything I wanted to get away from in Connecticut. You had to travel a really long time to get anywhere worth going to. I’ll put it this way: The closest big mall was 30 miles away! (In comparison, the closest big mall to me now is less than 5 miles away.)
The town where Pop lives is a place I could not live in because it reminds me too much of CT. It’s very small, very “charming,” and to me very annoying. I just don’t like it. And the fact his appointment is 45 minutes away from his house just reinforces that small-town feel. Everything is far away; something I’m desperately trying to avoid.
When you combine this with a crapload of driving, it tends to get on one’s nerves. ;)
. . .
When planning my move to Florida, I absolutely insisted on purposely moving to a metro area so I would not have to drive long distances to get anywhere. I wanted everything in my face and that’s exactly what I got in Tampa. I really, really like it.
Everything I could ever want or need is less than 30 minutes away.
The supermarket where I shop, the gas station I where I fill up, Walgreen’s, CVS, Goodyear Tire, UPS and several other things are all literally a 2-minute drive for me. In fact, they’re so close I would walk to all of them if I wanted to.
I have 10 Wal-Marts within a 10-mile radius of me, several of which are SuperCenters.
The closest mall as noted above is very close, although there is one I prefer that is slightly farther away.
My boss’ place is about 20 minutes from me.
All of this is awesome. Unbelievably awesome. Total awesomeness, as it were.
Some people would consider it bad to be so close to all of that. I don’t. It’s absolutely wonderful and I say that very sincerely. This is exactly what I wanted.
. . .
On a sorta/kinda related note, in the past there were those who either directly said to me or implied that I’d never be able to make it in a big town. If you happen to be one of those people reading this, don’t worry because it wasn’t just you. There were several others who felt the same way.
I now know it is they who could never make it in a big town. It’s one thing to visit but it’s totally another to live in it. And when I say “live in it” I mean to be directly in the thick of things for at least a year or more.
Some talk the talk, but can they walk the walk?
I can, but I can’t say the same for those who said I couldn’t.
This post is about the video shown above, that being David Lee Roth’s rendition of the song California Girls.
About the song itself
The Beach Boys may have done it first, but Roth did it best. It’s probably Roth’s best studio performance. The is one of the very few songs he recorded where he doesn’t “belt” it out. Rather he actually sings normally. In addition, the song has a timeless quality to it even though the recording is 22 years old.
And don’t tell me for one second you won’t find yourself singing along to this song. It’s unavoidable. :-)
About the video
The tourists are all stereotypes. Every single one of them. Now for anyone who watches this video they’ll just see it as it is: A campy show with some crazy characters. But if any “watchdog” agencies saw this it would be taken off the air in a heartbeat if it were released today.
At the lyric “The Midwest farmer’s daughters..” you can see a cow in the video. A real cow.
The girls at the end of the video are all standing mannequin-style and do not move. I always wondered why the director chose to do that. My adult self thinks the director was trying to purpose show the girls as things rather than real people… maybe? No one knows.
Unless I’m mistaken, every single “California Girl” shown is white. And as anyone knows, California girls do come in different colors besides white.
The director chose to show the California Girls what I call classically beautiful. You will notice most of the girls used aren’t very buxom and that was a good choice. Instead they picked girls who wear a bikini well, and that’s exactly what you see. That was smart.
Interesting things to note
Assuming all the girls were all the age 21 at the time of the shoot, they’d all be 43 today.
Three U.S. Presidents have held office since this video was introduced.
Many of the California Girls in the video are wearing sunglasses. That has never gone out of style and today’s Hollywood starlets still wear them. The shades may be a bit rounder today but in essence still look the same way they did in the 80’s.
Many men in today’s age do not want a stereotypical “California Girl” because it assumes a girl who’s made of more plastic than flesh and has a shallow personality or none at all.
Only David Lee Roth could get away wearing a tangerine-colored suit.
I recently decided that now is the time to start playing with other musicians again, so I posted an ad on a local internet message board stating I was on the hunt (or as the older generation would say, “getting the feelers out.”)
In my listing I posted some of the YouTube vids of me playing and that apparently helped out a great deal. I’ve received a few responses. One of them decided I didn’t exactly fit the style they were looking for (and that’s fine, at least he was honest,) but I’ll be visiting some guys later today in St. Petersburg. Maybe it’ll work, maybe it won’t.
This is the first time I’ll be playing with any musicians in Florida since moving here. For those keeping score, that’s almost 1½ years ago.
Why so long? First, I wanted to get settled in FL. Second, I absolutely didn’t want to deal with band drama the moment I set foot in the Sunshine State. Lastly, it took my brain a while to figure out that I live in a big town so the Rule of Default doesn’t apply anymore.
And just what is the Rule of Default?
It means that if you live in a small town, you will inevitably play with the same assholes in the same band you did before by default. Why? Because there’s no one else around (or at least no one within a reasonable driving distance.)
Here’s a better explanation:
You know the six degrees of separation thing? That can be brought down to two degrees or even one with small-town bands. If there are five bands in the area with four members apiece (for a total of 20 people,) each one of them has played in each those five bands at least once. The default happens when the cycle completes and they eventually all get back into their original lineups playing the same shitty music they did before.
Side note: Every one of these bands always labels the original lineup as a reunion and bills shows as such. The problem with this is first that it’s not a reunion; it’s the Rule of Default. Second, no one remembers the original lineup and third, no one gives a shit.
So anyway, like I said that rule doesn’t apply anymore. The guys I’ll be jamming with later today are totally new. I have never met any of them before.
Said honestly, I’m not really nervous about it. I’ve got the chops to hold my own so I don’t worry about trying to impress anyone. What I’m trying to accomplish is just to get out there, play, and have fun doing it.
Just got back from playing in Valrico. Spent a few hours playing and it felt pretty good. The guys were younger than me but that was okay. Whether there’s any permanence with this group is unknown at this point because it was the first meet-up.
Tomorrow I’ll be heading to St. Pete to jam with some other dudes. Should be fun.
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