iffageek falls

...even her jeans had neat little creases. ;-)

So eenyhoo, tired, dehydrated, and need to actually watch the last 30-40 minutes of 'underworld' before i have to take it back again without finishing it, but eric and i were hanging out in seattle (much much much much fun, by the way), and i saw something that i haven't quite ruled on yet -- it was either funny, or sad, or both. you decide. presented, for your consideration...

we started out the evening by hitting elliot bay (books) so eric could pick up the next few books in the series he's reading (completely disregarding the increasing pile of books i keep building into a fort around him: "here eric, read this... and this... ooh, you'll like this... and this one, you'll probably hate, but try it anyway..."). on the way there, he treated me to his new social consciousness spending theory, in which he tries to support the independent media retailers, because the big conglomerates are the embodiment of all that is evil in this most evil of all possible worlds, or something like that (i don't know. you live in SF for a while, you get some sun, you get some fog, you get some funny ideas); all the while blithely ignoring the fact that since i work for [major retail chain], as he expounds this crackpot theory, i am slowly developing a pointy tail, a cool evil mr spock goatee, and a 2nd degree sunburn. but i digress...

so. gressing onward, we went to todai (mmm. all you can eat japanese food...), then did some shopping and dropped the stuff in the car. after walking (wait for it) THREE-QUARTERS of the way around the block because neither of us remembered where it was, we went and played video games at gameworks. (really, we went up 6th, crossed pine and went right along pine, then went right cause we saw the sign, thus crossing pine again and walking along 7th, then had to go all the way to pike and take a right to find the new entrance halfway between 6th and 7th on pike street)

See, now you think that the sad part is the fact that two guys in their late twenties (sorry eric, but you had your birthday, so now you're closer to 30 than 20; how does it feel?) spent so long playing video games, but it's not. however, i have to say that spending that much time in an arcade was nice, especially since i got to play games like missile command, dig dug, and robotron 2020. it was just like being in high school again, which i think was the last time i was actually in gameworks, but i regress...

and now you might be thinking that the funny part is that since eric said elliot bay and dinner downtown, then the fact that i was wearing slacks and a work shirt in an arcade was pretty funny. i'll admit that i definitely could have been more comfortable, especially in the game that actually required you to duck and hide like your character, but that could have been my knees creaking, too. definitely, if i had known we might go to gameworks, then i would have worn some jeans and a t-shirt, maybe with a casual button down that would have... but i redress...

(wow. i can hear eric screaming all the way from tacoma... all right. i'll stop with the jokes and get to the story.)

yes. i was feeling a bit overdressed, but then i saw a group of kids standing near the entrance in TUXEDOS and PROM DRESSES... yep. i joke you not so much. there's something to be said for watching girls in formalwear play video games, which i'd definitely say if i wanted to be 'creepy old guy.' i'd start in like the voice in my head which noticed the ones in the group that didn't really look thrilled to be there, and the moment when they really should have left because a number of them were just sitting around bored, but i won't because at the time i was inexplicably CHANNELLING MY MOTHER.

No. the irony, the sad, the funny... the part that i wish i had my camera to capture, because i could have won so many photo contests... i looked up from a game we were playing to see three of them standing around watching the fourth play Dance Dance Revolution... You heard me. They were spending time at an arcade instead of a dance to stand around watching somebody pseudo-dancing (alone), on a simulation...

If i had written that into my movie script, i could have sold it to miramax -- they love clever stuff like that (but not TOO clever, isn't that right Mr. award-winning, critically-acclaimed director-type Michael Moore?). Ooh. or a video game -- SimProm!

never mind. i laughed, i cried, i didn't hurl... it was a good day.

m