What ever happened to...
In this installment of "what ever happened to..." i bring you:
video games... and arcades in general...
Video games were the shit. I was talking about the kind of games that were housed in cabinets, with joysticks and big buttons, not the xbox/playstation/gamecube crap that there is nowadays. I'm talking about standing around, putting your quarter-on-glass to mark your turn, watching the one kid beat everyone's ass.
Of course, these games could only be found in one of two places: the video arcade, and the pizza hut. (btw, what the hell ever happened to pizza hut, and being able to eat there?) I remember when i was a kid, going to the mall with my mom, and while she would go shopping, i would be given like 5 bucks to go play games at the aladdin's castle (that's what it was called back in tn) until either a) she finished shopping or b) i ran out of money. Usually the latter would happen first, as my mom's propensity for shopping was second only to her propensity for breathing.
Ok, so the arcades had the great gamut of games ranging from frogger (along with it's wonderfully burned-in screen) to super street fighter 2 ultra mega uber cool flexible electric edition, but the real gem of the arcade was, you guessed it, crappy plastic prizes.
Who here hasn't spent 50 bucks in the arcade playing skee-ball so long that you can throw the balls with your eyes closed and hit the 50 pointer? Of course we all have. And what's your prize for going through all of the time and effort to win 4,000 tickets? That's right, a plastic spider ring... more accurately, about 200 of em, one for each of your fingers (that's right, i'm a freak). What's better is taking these new-found prizes home, forgetting about them, and having your parents throw them away? Nothing that's what... nothing...
I guess there's not really a moral to this story except to say that we need to bring back the arcades and the pizza huts so that the children of the 80s will have some place to hang out and still feel cool. I'll get right on that.
Mitch Hedberg's QotD:
video games... and arcades in general...
Video games were the shit. I was talking about the kind of games that were housed in cabinets, with joysticks and big buttons, not the xbox/playstation/gamecube crap that there is nowadays. I'm talking about standing around, putting your quarter-on-glass to mark your turn, watching the one kid beat everyone's ass.
Of course, these games could only be found in one of two places: the video arcade, and the pizza hut. (btw, what the hell ever happened to pizza hut, and being able to eat there?) I remember when i was a kid, going to the mall with my mom, and while she would go shopping, i would be given like 5 bucks to go play games at the aladdin's castle (that's what it was called back in tn) until either a) she finished shopping or b) i ran out of money. Usually the latter would happen first, as my mom's propensity for shopping was second only to her propensity for breathing.
Ok, so the arcades had the great gamut of games ranging from frogger (along with it's wonderfully burned-in screen) to super street fighter 2 ultra mega uber cool flexible electric edition, but the real gem of the arcade was, you guessed it, crappy plastic prizes.
Who here hasn't spent 50 bucks in the arcade playing skee-ball so long that you can throw the balls with your eyes closed and hit the 50 pointer? Of course we all have. And what's your prize for going through all of the time and effort to win 4,000 tickets? That's right, a plastic spider ring... more accurately, about 200 of em, one for each of your fingers (that's right, i'm a freak). What's better is taking these new-found prizes home, forgetting about them, and having your parents throw them away? Nothing that's what... nothing...
I guess there's not really a moral to this story except to say that we need to bring back the arcades and the pizza huts so that the children of the 80s will have some place to hang out and still feel cool. I'll get right on that.
Mitch Hedberg's QotD:
You know how they call corn-on-the-cob, "corn-on-the-cob?" But that's how it comes out of the ground. They should just call it "corn" and every other type of corn "corn-off-the-cob." It's not like if someone cut off my arm they would call it "Mitch," but then re-attach it, and call it "Mitch-all-together."
posted by jon at
Monday, October 24, 2005
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