Pac Man Fever, new tail in the house, Happy birthday mom

Yesterday on the way home from work, the radio show I listen to, Stan & Haney, were taking calls from people about old video games.  Haney, whom is around my age is still a very avid gamer.  After hearing people call in and reminiscing about games like Pac Man, Space Invaders, Asteroids and more I was ready to call in myself and chip in, unfortunately I didn’t have the studio number available.

I don’t know if I ever talked in detail on just how big video games were in my life as I was growing up, so now I will.  Read on.

I think the first exposure I had to electronic games of any sort was the handheld Mattel Football game.  The game was incredibly simplistic,  You controlled a red LED via 3 directional buttons and simply tried to avoid being touched by the lighter colored LED’s (the defense).  I remember when my mom bought it for me from Two Guys department store.  I felt like I had just been handed a pot of gold.

My first home console was an Intellivision, I never owned an Atari 2600.  The Intellivision was more advanced than the the Atari, with better graphics, an unique disc controller with keypad buttons and even games with voice! (later)

My brother and I played that thing to DEATH.  We especially enjoyed the sport titles for the Intellivision.  I can not tell you how many thousands of games of baseball we played.  I can only tell you I won more than I lost. 🙂

Of course arcades were extremely popular back then.  An arcade to me was like a drug dealer for a crack head.  A pocket jammed with quarters meant I had a couple hours of video game “high” ahead of me.

I played all the early favorites incessantly, Asteroids, Space Invaders, Donkey Kong, Missile Command, and literally hundreds more.  I was never fantastic at these games, I would put my skill level at mildly good.

The arcade that I most frequently visited was at the local bowling alley which was within bike riding distance.  I can still imagine quite vividly the smell of the place, the mixture of the oil used on the lanes, stale cigarette smoke and the antiseptic they spray in the rental bowling shoes.  If I added up the hours I spent in that place it would be staggering.

A real treat would be when I went to the Berkshire Mall and visited the huge arcade up on the second floor.  They had all the latest and greatest games.

I could literally do a few books describing my experiences and thoughts about various games.  Like the exhausting, huge trackball football game where you literally controlled X’s and O’s on the field.  Or how about the laser disc games like Dragon’s Lair and Space Ace that sucked enough quarters out of my pocket to pay off the national debt.  They were maddeningly addictive.

My hard core video game habit even lead me to a life of crime.  One time when we were on vacation in Rehoboth (boardwalk arcades were AWESOME), I actually snuck money out of my mom’s wallet once my own personal stash of quarters was consumed.  I felt really bad about it and eventually confessed my larceny to mom.  I remember after that happened it made me really evaluate just how much time/money I was spending on video games.

Even with my slightly less obsessed attitude towards gaming, I have continued to love the hobby all through out adulthood.  I have owned an Intellivision, Colecovision, Neo Geo, Sega Master System,  Sega Genesis, NES,  Super NES, Wii, Playstation, Original Xbox, and Xbox 360.  I may be forgetting a couple.

Well into my adult years, I spent a lot of time and energy on console gaming.  I remember when my idea of a good time was going to malls/video game stores and seeing what new titles were available.  I would actually drive 50 miles to other areas in the hope they had something I could not find locally.

Although I obviously am still quite tied up in the virtual world of today it is a bit different.  My love of console gaming has faded in the past decade or so even though if I throw a game in my 360 I almost always enjoy my time playing.  But for whatever reason the desire to get me to throw a game in there just isn’t present.

If I do game it is either on the PC (Wow) or the occasional game on the Iphone or Kindle Fire.

I do credit my life of gaming to some positives as well.  It definitely helped mold my mind into the troubleshooting tool that I use both with my line of work and in my personal life.  Speaking of work, my love of gaming definitely helped steer me to my career in IT which I have done very well in.

So if you ever want me to talk your ear off, bring up old video games.  It’s one subject I can never run out of things to say about.

This weekend I will have a new dog under the roof, Lucky.  Lucky is the dog of my friend from work whom is going out of town for the weekend.  Instead of kenneling the pooch he asked me if I would watch him which I of course agreed to do.  I met Lucky before, he is a good boy and reminds me of Sadie in a number of ways.

It should be interesting to see how he adjusts to my surroundings for a few days.  I know he will love having the backyard to go crazy in.  I also look forward to having Nicki and Sadie come out to meet him.  Sadie will appreciate having a set of younger dog legs to run around with.

Today is my mom’s 65th birthday.  It’s hard to believe that number, almost as hard to believe as my number will be 45 next month.  The years click by so damn fast at this point.  I am taking mom to dinner Saturday night to celebrate even though I don’t think either of us really feel that “celebrating” birthdays is very genuine at this point. The last birthday I recall being excited about was 24 years ago.