Running at the Mouth

Pac-Man Turns 25

I can remember being 6 or 7 years old, crowding around a Pac-Man machine and standing on tip-toes to watch an older kid clear level upon level, thinking to myself how indescribably cool it would be to be him.  About a year and a half ago, I got my chance to be that kid.  My wife and I were waiting for a table at a restaurant that had Pac-Man in the waiting area.  And I was cleaning up.  I had about half a dozen ten year-olds crowding me, gasping and oohing every time I'd narrowly avoid Blinky or Inky and reach a power pellet, and cheering every time I cleared a level.  I had their parents watching, too, and laughing at me (well, maybe not at me, but near me).  I was thinking, "How cool would they think I am if they knew I have tattoos and can stay out past midnight?"

For as much fun as that was, though, it was also pretty damned sad:  that's the only time in the past three years when I've really felt youthful.  I mean, it's harsh coming to grips with the fact that there are certain stores in the mall where I can't shop, lest I be the "too old to be here guy," and make everyone else uncomfortable.  It's the same experience I had a couple years ago, walking around the campus of my college alma mater in a suit.  It's like I'm having a mid-life crisis and I'm only 29 years old.  So I run, and I lift weights, and I follow men's fashion trends.  (One of my biggest fears -- along with Lyme Disease and tornadoes -- is that I'll be one of those guys who stops changing anything when they've hit the height of fashion.  You've seen them; they look like they've just stepped out of 1992 or something, because in 1992 they were the tits.  Then the rest of the world moved on without them.  I don't ever want to be that guy.)

What's the point of all this, besides me humiliating myself?  This year marks Pac-Man's 25th birthday.  [Link via A Small Victory.]  My God, how did I get so old?  Anyway, in Pac-Man's honor, check out this sweet site chock-full of vintage arcade offerings from Midway, the link for which I shamelessly culled from the comments to Michele's post.  It doesn't have Pac-Man, but it's still highly cool, if only for its inclusion of Tapper, one of the greatest time-wasters of all time.   

CauseHeads in Code

An entity calling itself the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, which seems to be on the up-and-up, is sponsoring what has to be one of the most ill-conceived sim games of all time, called "A Force More Powerful."  In it, you are the chief of staff of a non-violent resistance movement. You mobilize your minions carry out actions such as making speeches, striking, etc.  You can even bribe members of the regime you're looking to overthrow.  Here's how it works:

While “A Force More Powerful” sounds like a more sophisticated version of political entertainment games such as Tropico, where players impersonate a dictator, or Revolution, where they try to overthrow one, what makes this design unique is its emphasis on methodical military-style planning. Indeed, the process resembles how U.S. military commanders war game a situation by considering various alternatives and their consequences.

When a player begins a scenario, a series of menus force him to create a strategic estimate. First, he chooses his goals from a list that includes regime change, altering specific regime policies such as racial discrimination, persuading security forces not to intervene and gaining the support of the media. “You can devise a strategy based on what you feel is the best way to proceed,” McNamara said.

Next comes choosing tactics that range from strikes to protests. Finally, the player divides his plan into phases and which objectives he’ll try to achieve in each phase. At the end of the game, an evaluation screen will inform him how well he did versus the expectations of the scenario designer.

The review doesn't mention whether you can make your sims craft huge papier mache heads to carry during their marches.  Nothing says, "We're mad as hell and we're not going to take it anymore!" like giant freak-heads.

Let's be honest:  this has to be the worst sim game ever.  I can't imagine trying to motivate a bunch of patchouli-soaked causeheads to do anything besides whine or borrow a van to drive to Burning Man. 

No Longer Searching for Bobby Fischer

He was arrested in Japan, reportedly because he played a 1992 chess match in the country formerly known as Yugoslavia in violation of U.N. sanctions. And we care, why? Because this is "Ashkroft's Amerika," that's why. See, Fischer is an ex-pat who has publicly praised the 9/11 attacks and made virulent anti-semitic comments (despite being Jewish). While I think Fischer is a huge prick for his views, that doesn't mean he should be punished for having them.

Word Quiz for Word Geeks

Peep this insanely difficult vocabulary test, which asks of two hundred paired words whether they are (mostly) the same or (mostly) different. I got 161 correct.

Link via A Small Victory.

Red in the Poker Face

Jay Lovinger, former managing editor of Life magazine and ESPN Page 2, is writing a weekly column for Page 2 chronicling his experiences playing high stakes poker. Lovinger isn't just a putz playing with Disney's bankroll, either; he learned to play in college, then sharpened his chops playing with (and beating) the likes of Bob Woodward.

Anyway, in this week's installment, he recounts this truly embarrassing and amusing tale:

In my first tournament at Binion's legendary Horseshoe Casino -- a $225 buy-in, super-satellite, no-limit event with about 200 entrants (the top 8-to-10 finishers would win free seats in the $10,000 World Championship event with a first prize of about $3 million) -- I was sitting with one lonely chip in front of me when management decided to break up our table. They sent the survivors to fill out other tables where various players had been busted. Since everybody but me would be moving along to their new tables with 10-to-100 chips each, the potential for embarrassment was already great.

Moreover, to make matters worse, the Horseshoe has a rule that you cannot just pick up your chips -- or chip, in my case -- and move to another table. No, you have to use a rack, which has room for 100 chips.

So I looked pretty amateurish showing up at my new table with one lousy chip, which was rattling around in a plastic slotted rack the size of a small beer cooler. To make matters worse, I noticed that the empty seat at my new table would place me right next to Chip Jett, only one of the 25 best players in the world. At the same table sat Mel Judah, a former hairdresser from Australia who had recently won a $1 million-plus World Poker Tour event, patiently nursing a short stack until he could eliminate T.J. Cloutier, only the biggest tournament money-winner in history, and dot-com multi-millionaire Paul Philips, himself the recent winner of the second-most lucrative tournament in poker history.

As I attempted to slide into my seat while attracting as little attention as possible, my chip slid toward the edge of the rack. Before I could grab it -- I was also clutching my note pad, a pen, some PR handouts and other accoutrements of the journalist's trade -- it fell to the floor, bounced once or twice and landed under the chair of the startled Jett. Reaching down, he retrieved the chip, looked at my empty tray, and said, "What, they only gave you one rack to bring that pile over here?"

Ouch. I think that's even more embarrassing than the scene in Swingers where Mike and Trent, trying to act like high rollers, make utter fools of themselves at the $100 blackjack table.

Boundless Self-Flattery

Not by me, but by Slate's Clive Thompson. In this column, he compares reading and understanding great and complex literature like Ulysses and War and Peace with (wait for it) playing video games. Speaking as someone who both plays video games and has an advanced degree, there is no comparison. As Jules Winnfield would tell you, they ain't in the same ballpark, the same league, or even the same effin' sport. But this is where is self-aggrandizing rationalization for spending hours upon hours playing with himself turns to bald-faced lies:

I'll often whip out Mario Kart for few minutes in the middle of the day as a quick pick-up-me, a little blast of fun. In contrast, when I play Ninja Gaiden I have to pencil it into my day planner. I turn off my mobile phone, lock the doors, and tell my girlfriend I'll be unavailable for the next three hours. It requires that level of monklike devotion. (Emphasis mine.)

Anybody who loves video games this much could not possibly have a girlfriend.