WARNING: If you’re on 56K, there are a ton of pics ahead.
Well I’m back.
Actually, I’ve been back since last Thursday night. Since then I’ve been busy with the mountain of emails that accumulated over two weeks, spending the gift certificates I got for presents, hanging with MK… basically, “real life” stuff. I had been meaning to post something on the Washington trip but, believe it or not, during my first days back in NYC, I tried my best to avoid the internet when possible. Asides from the two others I mentioned beforehand, another New Year’s resolution is to not spend as much time online. The upside is almost anything is better than scouring forums till 4 in the morning, though the negative is being out of the loop (at least to the degree that I’m used to… more on this later). Let’s see how long this will last…
So how was my two-week stay back home? Boring as fuck. Seriously. Once again, this was not entirely surprising: every year I get sick of New York and can’t wait to go back to Washington, then within a few days I start missing all the action and excitement of NYC, and by the end I’m close to dying from the severe lack of anything to do. And it seems to get worse every year. But this time, it was at its absolute mind-numbing worst.
The thing is, I’ve been saying to years that I couldn’t wait to move out of New York and to relocate back to the west coast, to Seattle. But after each subsequent trip back home, which now includes a regular jaunt to Seattle (I grew up in a suburb of Tacoma, which is south of Seattle, and which is now it’s own city, Lakewood), the once burning desire simply lessens and lessens. And now it’s pretty much dead.
My bitching and moaning about going back home is well known to anyone who knows me, so everyone seriously questioned (quite vocally in some instances) my reasoning for volunteering two whole weeks. The main reason why is, of course, to spend time with the family. I sorta have to. I’ve never had the best of relationships with my parents, but since my mom is ill, I it is somewhat my duty to visit in the hospital, as well as to humor my father.
But again, this year was pretty bad. Usually, the way to offset dealing with the family is to hang with my old friends. But at this point, there’s only three people that I actually care about and would want to spend time with, and two lives up in Seattle, and the third is a schoolteacher and therefore has to go to bed at eight.
Also, I don’t have a car. Hell, I don’t even have a license. Perhaps the biggest reason for my staying in NYC is that you can live life without a car and just use public transportation. This isn’t the case for most of the rest of the country. Especially Lakewood and the rest of Washington.
So what did I do most of the time? Besides hanging with the old man, I basically sat on my ass and did nothing buy watch TV. And that’s pretty much it. Since my iBook is dead, there was no internet. My dad got a DVD player two year ago, but the shitty old family television doesn’t display colors so well, which made viewing stuff a real headache. Hell, like a retard, I only brought two Game Boy Advance games, and I ended up getting rid of one (more on that later).
Okay, I lie; I did manage to do a few things…
- One of best things about going home, for almost everyone I’d like to think, is getting a chance to enjoy the foods one grew up with. And despite my former favorite childhood pizza joint giving me e. coli poisoning on a trip back a few years back, I still felt the same way.
But what do people do when they’re bored? Either drink or overeat, and I choose the latter, especially since it was so plentiful (with my dad footing the bill). So that meant tons of corndogs for me. Though I did try some new stuff, including chocolate covered potato chips, which was about as ridiculous and grow as it sounds.
- What’s another thing people do when they’re bored (as well as poor)? They throw their money away of course! While at the local grocery store there was a machine that had a ton of different scratch off tickets for sale. And I actually bought one! I had to, with Pac Man on it…
- So what did I get for Xmas from my dad? How about what I didn’t get: A Nintendo DS. You’d think I left plenty of clues. Plus it being Washington, the home of Nintendo, every other news story was about the damn thing (the biggest one being about that guy who sold the DS that he was going to give to his kids on eBay).
Though I did manage to score a ton of games, mostly stuff I didn’t get the first time around, at really great prices (just like last year). I forget all that I got (there was so much that I had to get it shipped) but I think the best deal was Onimusha 3 for $7. I did find a copy of Space Raiders, but it was at Gamestop and was the only copy, so of course, the box was gutted, and I simply refuse to pay full price for it.
-Most the games were found by hunting around where good deals were easily found (more so than in NYC for natural reasons). As I said before, I had no car, so to get around I had to rely on the fine local transit system. In Lakewood, the bus are actually pretty outstanding; they can take you all over the place and are extremely reliable. The only negative is, it’s a bus, and only weirdos ride buses.
When I first came back to Washington while going to school in New York almost ten years back, it was rather fun running into people from my high school. Despite being a relative nobody at that time, I was greeting with much enthusiasm by all that I met (most stayed close to home after school, so word spread fast that I had gone to the Big Apple, hence why the reception was almost on par to a returning hero). But as the years passed, things just got weird, with those who chose to stay behind becoming sadder and sadder (thanks to drugs and a total lack of opportunity and ambition). Hence why in recent years, I tried making my presence in Lakewood as low-key as possible.
So the last thing I could ever want is to be recognized on the bus, and that’s exactly what happened. An old friend, one of those that did really crazy things (like drinking a whole bottle of Ny-Quil before running a mile in gym class for some drunken high) saw me and a rather uncomfortable exchange ensued. It’s always funny to see what happens to people due to the paths one takes. This particular person is now a traveling glass-blower with a fifth kid on the way. He also expressed a desire to start his one hippie commune, though even he had to admit that one needs to get certification in that (though that’s what community college is for as I pointed out). Well good luck to him I guess.
- But with the bus, I was able to explore my old neighborhoods. One thing which started popping up slowly after I left were low cost teriyaki joints. Now they’re all over Lakewood. Given that Lakewood has a very heavy Korean population, and every single one of these places are run entirely by Korean, it’s pretty damn funny.
- One of my first stops was the B&I. The place used to be my favorite place on earth; under one roof you could play video games, eat corndogs, and watch a chicken play baseball.
Though over the years, the place has totally fallen by the wayside and for a while it looked as it was going to die away (actually, more like it needed to do so). But it ended up getting some re-investment and now lives on as public market place of sorts. Today it’s the place to go for crappy screen printed novelty shirts, velvet rugs, and cheap cigarettes.
But the only reason why I ever went is the massive arcade which seems to become more and more depressing each year. It was one the place to go for the latest and greatest games, but now, most of the machines are out of order.
The worst has to be the gorgeous deluxe sit down Virtua Racing machine, with the huge (around) 50 inch monitor. It used to be my absolute favorite machine in the whole place (it’s one of my favorite racers of all time, right next to Daytona USA 1), and now it’s just sitting there. Dead.
Plus here’s an ultra deluxe Galaxy Force 2 unit, which spun the player around that I found in the corner, also dead.
With many of my faves out of commission, it was slim pickings. I gave the arcade Tetris a spin, but one of the machine’s legs was missing, causing it to rock and making precise movements impossible. The sprites in Magic Sword was so messed up it gave me a headache and the X-Men fighting game’s controller was broken. At least Virtua Fighter was still in tip top shape.
Like I said, there’s also many smaller stores in the B&1. One guy sold a ton of used games at really ridiculous prices, but at least he has this really cool Starfox standup.
The guy also sells old comic books and trading cards. If not for the hefty price tag, I would have totally picked up this box of Return to Oz trading cards.
- I also stopped by the Boo Han, the Korean supermarket to go. Man, they have everything there, from wacky Korean candy…
… to sickles.
And I love the look on this guy’s face for this Korean booze ad.
- Like I said before, I foolishly brought only two GBA games with me. I guess it has to do with the fact that I brought five with me during my last visit, but ended up losing two; while flirting with some girl at the airport, I didn’t catch two falling out of my bag. They were Street Fighter Alpha 3 and Gradius Galaxies, btw.
I took along for this year’s trip the first Kirby GBA game and Bubble Bobble: Old & New which I got just the day before flying. I got it due to the massive amounts of recommendation at the GAF, despite the fact that I have never been good at the game. I figured this would be my chance to actually figure out how to play it.
And guess what? It didn’t work. I got stuck at around level 13, and no matter what, I just couldn’t get passed it. No matter how hard I try, I just can’t get the controls down. And I ended up getting so frustrated that… and this sounds super childish, I know, but I ended up throwing the cartridge away out of frustration. Bare in mind, I was having a really bad day, with family stuff all throughout up until that point. Plus, I have to admit, it felt real good.
- Back to arcade games, I swung by the mall (the Tacoma Mall) and discovered Wing War, which was fun (I have a real soft spot for Model 1 games). But at a certain point, I simply ran of places to go and do in Lakewood, video game related or not. I think the lowest point was when I went to Chuck E. Cheese’s. I guess I shouldn’t have been shocked to see mostly lousy redemption machines instead of actual games. Of the few present, the only interesting one was Maze of the King, a Namoi based light gun shooter with an Egyptian theme. I would have played it, but since it took only tokens, I didn’t want to throw away the other 75 cents.
- So with so little to do, I mostly stayed at home and watched television. Thankfully my dad had digital television, so there were plenty of options, but with close to three hundred channels, there was still nothing really good to see. I don’t know why it didn’t hit me before, but this trip back home was when I made a realization: I just don’t care for television anymore.
I was a kid who grew up on television. Now I know everyone says that, but I truly mean it. I had no siblings, my neighborhood was not exactly the greatest place to be if you were some puny kid (I lived near some wild woods, filled with wild and angry animals, plus Nazi skin headed kids so did crazy shit in the dark), I didn’t have many friends, and my parents were too busy fighting each other to give me that much time, so I really was raised on TV. Thankfully my parents gave me full reign on what to watch, and I used my freedom quite responsibly. Aside from cartoons (of course), and the occasional violent films (though I did watched good ones, like Clockwork Orange for example, which I saw at the age of eight), I did watch quite of PBS and other enlightening fare. But for the most part it was stand up and sketch comedy (it being the 80′s and comedy boom was well in effect).
Television was so amazing back in the 80′s/early 90′s. It played a major part in how I developed as a person, and thankfully there was plenty of excellent programming to glean from. I know most will think I’m simply blinded by nostalgia, but it really was better back then. Yes, there are some good shows on today, but it just can’t compare to massive amount of good shows that was almost always on. You had (and bare in mind, some of these shows are still on, but they premiered back then, hence why I’m listing them) ….
… Transformers, DuckTales, Night Court, TMNT, You Can’t Do That On Television, Turkey Television, Pete & Pete, Salute Your Shorts, Out of Control, Dyna-Man, SCTV, SNL (when it was consistently) good, Kids in the Hall, Liquid Television, Twin Peaks, On the Air, Alive From Off Center, Afterdrive, Sports Monster, the State, Pirate Television, the Idiot Box, 120 Minutes, MST3K, Ren & Stimpy, Count Duckula, Thundercats, Inspector Gadget, Garfield and Friends, Pee Wee’s Playhouse, the Jim Henson Hour, the Incredibly Strange Picture Show, Night Flight (dear God, if there was every the perfect program for me, this was it), both Alf cartoons, assorted classics like Car 54, the Ernie Kovacs Show, and classic Steve Allen which was all readily available at the time, the birth of Seinfeld and the Simpsons, and many, many more that I’m simply forgetting (but as I remember them, I’ll add them to the list)….
Hell even the channels themselves were better. MTV was actually watchable back then, which had a real sense of style, aided by plenty of awesome station IDs and assorted short films, plus the videos were far more free spirited and experimental (the channel is now of course the epitome of overly slick commercialized shit). And both MTV plus Nick and Disney Channel were just better cuz it felt smaller, more intimate. Same goes with Comedy Central, but I still much prefer HA! which came before it. It was a time TV was genuinely cool, and once the channels realized this, it all went downhill. Plus the maybe the internet stole its thunder…
About 99.99% of what you find on TV today is pure shit (don’t even get me started on reality television). So I guess there’s digital cable, and with more channels, there should be more and better choices, but its rarely the case. For example, Nick Toons, the channel that has nothing but Nickelodeon cartoons, sound great on paper, till you realize that it has almost none of the shows you would want to see. Toon Disney has the same problem (seriously, here the hell is DuckTales?). Noggin/The N used to have Pete & Pete. Where is that now? You’d think with the wide world of digital cable, with tons of channels to fill with programming, that networks with go back to be daring and experimental since they now have the chance once again, but all of these channels feel like cheap cop outs.
Why am I ranting and raving here? I dunno. I suppose in order to help explain that I used to feel guilty about not watching as much TV as I used (as insane as that sounds), but now I finally don’t feel that way. Plus it sorta felt profound since I finally realize how bored I was on the same television set which was my gateway into far more awesomer times.
- Okay, now I know why I mentioned all that: I finally got to see G4TechTV. And Jesus Christ, it really was as bad as everyone has been saying.
Believe it or not, I was somewhat optimistic when I first heard of the merger between the ultra shallow all video game channel and the extremely informative and entertaining tech related channel, since I assumed the very best of both networks would be intelligently combined. But like the masses, I too was horrified to hear that the powers that be were actually going to get rid off everything that was worthwhile on TechTV (which had built a strong reputation and consistent ratings) and infuse it with the same shit that’s been dragging down G4 (including potential ratings) since day one, such as the dip-shit bimbo hosts, an overly slick presentation which isn’t even that technically impressive, and shows that basically makes me embarrassed to be associated with video games in any manner. At least they kept X-Play. But the rest of the programming is literally written by the network’s forum members.
Though the absolute worst has to be what has happened to the Screen Savers. It used to be an hour full of fun factoids, trouble-shooting hints, and hacks for anything that has a circuit board or just a tiny bit of ram in it. Granted, most of the stuff really didn’t apply for me and went over my head, but it was still fun to watch. Plus the hosts were great: especially Leo Laporte who’s ultra likable, knew his shit. He was a real-deal, bonafide, been into computers for at least twenty years nerd, hence why I trusted him. Plus there were others, like Cat Schwartz, who, unlike the other “hotties” from G4, actually knows that it takes more than just wearing a NES shirt to be techie geek.
But now they’ve all been replaced with a gaggle of idiots that support the “commercially acceptable” version of nerds, which are a bunch of twenty somethings who dress all emo or “Xtreme!!!”, live to flaunt stupid, egocentric gadgets like iPod Minis, and think that just wearing glasses, chatting on AIM, playing PS2, and saying you think William Shatner is “totally rad” is enough to quantify you as an uber geek. I just love how actual nerds are still shunned by soceity thanks to this new, Hot Topic shopping, Starbucks drinking, My Space-ing breed. So anyway, now the show really doesn’t give any real helpful hints, the info they provide is far too lightweight or dated to be of any help; I’m certain that most people who desire any real insight or dirt already knows about Engaget or AICN (I mean, seriously folks).
As for the rest of the channel, there really isn’t much. TechTV had like a million different shows, and with the exception of Screen Savers and Anime Unleashed, they’re all gone. G4 originally had only 10 shows and a few of those are gone as well (though none are missed). The only thing from that end that’s still remotely interesting is Cinematech, which is a great idea… showing just flat out game footage… but is still marred by poor editing, shitty licensed music, and poor selection.
I’m actually happy not to have digital cable anymore, which I was missing for a while. And it’s simply the ultimate example of why I just don’t like television in general, when something that’s guaranteed to appeal to me, a whole channel dedicated to video games, can annoy me so much. But at least there’s still some good shows on Comedy Central, plus Cartoon Network is still pretty watchable (it’s the really the last network to be so).
- Other than TV, I did manage to see on film, the Life Aquatic, which I really enjoyed. I was actually expecting the worst; I really dug Rushmore, and totally Loved Bottle Rockets, but couldn’t stand Royal Tenenbaums. It was just too much of a celebrity jerk-off fest for my tastes. But this one had a great story, characters that I could actually tolerate, and Jeff Goldblum finally being used well. Plus there were dolphin jokes. I love dolphin jokes.
- Real quick, back to the topic of anime, on the aforementioned G4TechTV showcase, I caught some of Last Exile which I had been dying to see. From what I saw, it was pretty awesome (I’ve always been a big fan of the character designer, Kouichi Chigira). They had a marathon of the whole series on Xmas, but watching all 24 episodes of a show upon first viewing is a bit much. Plus they also had R.O.D. which I actually sorta dug.
And I ended up watching more of Super Milk Chan. At first, I was all excited for it, due to being a fan of the artist behind it, and even told everyone to check it out when it premiered on Adult Swim, despite never seeing an actual episode. And almost immediately afterwards, I felt really embarrassed about doing so. But now, I have to admit, I sorta get it. Before I thought it was some bullshit excuse concocted by anime fans (sorry, but as much as I love anime, many of its fans are often completely irrational, and some of the excuse they generate border on either hilarious or just plain sad), but I guess it really is a parody of anime and Japanese culture. But it still tries way too hard. Plus, the real issue here is how it’s actually perceived, and most fans don’t seem to realize that there is a joke. But learning to separate the content from its fans is something I’ve always struggled with…
- And back to the earlier subject of news, I really don’t watch televised news anymore. And forget about the papers, especially when you consider the shit we have in New York. I get all my info online, so without that, I had to rely on television to learn about happenings in the world while at home. On the global front, there was of course the horrific tsunami in Asia. On the local end, much of the news was about the suicide bomber who killed soldiers while they were at lunch in Mosul, Iraq since six of them were Stryker Brigade members from Fort Lewis, the Army base near Lakewood.
But one thing that really caught my eye was a story that was supposed to help parents “lessen the trauma caused by kids withdrawing from the holiday season”. Seriously, what the fuck? And yes, they were serious. Some of the helpful hints included leaving Christmas decorations up longer (by the time I left, which was almost two full weeks after Xmas, absolutely no one had bothered to take down any lights or decorations if they had them on their lawn) and to give kids extra presents in mid/late January. Pretty pathetic really.
Yet not so shocking. One major reason why I’m always so happy to return to Washington is to get away from the bullshit New York attitude. Sorry, but I really can’t take anyone seriously when they actually claim to enjoy dealing with the snarky, pissed off attitude that a lot of people on the streets openly display. One can try to tune it out, but that only goes so far.
Washingtonians on the other hand are very nice. And I like nice people. Most have pretty good dispositions, and it’s a real breath of fresh air (maybe it’s the actual fresh air now that I think about it). But the negative is that people there are extremely passive aggressive. Plus, everyone is so overly political correct. So when you add the fact that they, or at least everyone in Seattle, can be pretty uptight, I ended up causing a big scene when I’m in town, though it’s always unintentional. Though I’ve been told, that’s the main reasons why friends are so happy when I visit Seattle, since they’re so sick of it as well. Speaking off…
- I got to spend some time in Seattle again this year, mostly to just hang out with my old high school buddies Steve and Ray. Steve is the editor for a paper that services Mercer Island and Ray is an active (and
Here’s the three of us on New Year’s Eve…
… this was taken around 10:30, but I was already drunk (as you can tell by my red, Asian face) by 7, when some woman, who felt bad for her annoying friend at the bar, bought Steve and I shots of whiskey. I had two, plus a third right before that pic (I’m a real light drinker, btw). Guess that it explains why it would have been funny to look like Sub Zero (from Mortal Kombat) using some party hats.
– The next day, I went out to Vashon Island with Steve to visit some friends of his girlfriend’s. They live in this huge old house and was shown the ultra creepy basement which has a ton of ancient dental equipment.
It was totally amazing. Remember the scene where the Joker got his face reconstructed in the Tim Burton Batman movie? That’s what it was like exactly.
Steve and another friend of his girlfriend manage to get the equipment operational, much to the surprise of the residents of the home (they had been too scared to spend that much time to tinker around). We found tons of crazy (and scarry) looking equipment, false teeth, and the lead vest used during x-rays (everyone took turns wearing). I looked around for some gold or confederate dollar bills (since it just felt like the kind of place where such things would be stashed) but was unsuccessful. The scariest thing was perhaps the fact that the space was being used up until 1987 according to some records we found.
- I also found time to explore the city. One of my first stops was the Pike Place Market (yeah, so touristy, I know).
There’s tons of things to be found, like this really cute hat which I picked up for MK (they’re actually for babies, but the woman who made them had adult sizes due to “popular demand”). And luckily, she loves it (and looks super cute, as expected).
Underneath the market there’s a whole underground mall full of stores. I killed a good amount of time at the comic store, plus the magic shop. I almost got this book in juggling since it was super thick and seemed extremely informative. But the price ($15) was a bit steep for me. But if you want to learn how, this is the book to get.
- The city just opened a new public library that’s the darling of the architectural world, and I managed to swing by. Its was pretty damn impressive.
The entire second floor was all red…
And the bathroom was all green…
When you ride the escalator, you’re treated to really cheesy video art…
- And of course, I stopped by the Gameworks. Last year I was pretty disappointed since it was my first visit in years, yet they had virtually no new machines (and tons of hard to find greats, like Sonic the Fighters and Sega Touring Cars, were no where to be found). So I almost didn’t go this time around, but I’m glad I did. They didn’t have much new stuff, but at least they had some.
First off, Initial D and F Zero GX were both on hand. I’ve only played Initial D once before, and that was over two years ago at the San Diego Con (so it was only the first version of the game, of course). The whole time I was there, it was being dominated by two Japanese kids who were so good, they managed to score one free game after another by consistently beating online opponents. One even lost of purpose I think, just to let me play a round. I sucked pretty badly, naturally, and wasted no time getting out of his seat.
As for F Zero, I’ve played AX to death and have been dying to take a stab at the arcade counterpart for well over forever. As amazing as it looks on the Cube, it’s simply mind-blowing on a huge, lush arcade monitor (I really need to examine the Cube’s progressive scan output capabilities). The controls, as expected, were superb.
I didn’t know that was a Need For Speed arcade game, but it was there. Not too surprisingly, it looked like total ass. Just a cheapo PC game in an arcade housing.
But the real surprise was Ollie King, (sorry, no good pics are available) a game which I was almost certain I’d never see. And man, it’s fucking hawt. I’d like to consider it Jet Set Radio 3 (though with skateboards, obviously) since it shares the same visual style (but it’s even better, if that can be believed) and that same killer Hideki Naganuma sound. Again, the graphics were pretty insane (thanks to the Xbox based hardware). Too bad it’ll never make it’s way home.
The rest of the place is the same ol’, same old. Still no Virtua Fighter 4 (given that Sega runs the place, that makes no goddamn sense). They still had Solar Assault, the 3D Gradius game which absolutely no one ever talks about (well… it’s not that great, really).
And the eight player networked Indy 500 is still popular, though at this point, I’d rather see something more recent (and better) like Daytona USA 2.
- One thing I was happy to get plenty of which back home was sleep. I normally have awesome dreams; I hate to brag, but I never have bad dreams or nightmares… or maybe my definition of such things are just different…. like the time I dreamt I was being eaten by cyborg dogs. It was scary and gruesome and all, but for some reason, I just wouldn’t call it a bad dream per say. Anyway, during this trip, I had some real doozies. Unfortunately, I forget most of them after being awake for just thirty minutes (I really need to keep a dream journal or something), but I do remember parts from the best one.
It was scenes from Kill Bill vol. 3, and in it, the Bride is about to give birth to her second child. By her side is Bill (I’m a big David Carradine fan, btw, and thought he was brilliant in the film. I still say the Oscars are total shit, but I still hope he gets a nod, and award, for best actor) and they have a flashback to the very first child she had, who apparently had a birth defect which made headlines. With the bride is a celeb who has decided to shed light on the tragedy. The celebrity is Hulk Hogan. The child, which has six legs, six arms, and was lying inside a hoagie roll, on a bed of lettuce and cheese.
I guess you had to see it.
- And during my time in Washington, not only did the Spirit pass away, but so did Chicken Boy. Also found out that Red is dead.
… So now that I’m back, and have taken care of business (plus there’s already new things brewings), now comes the tough part: getting caught up with the world of video games. I know it’s only been three weeks, and but considering when I returned to work, and Steve asked “So, exactly who owns Ubi Soft now?” , it’s pretty clear that there’s plenty of work ahead.
