SOMEWHAT FAST, NOT EXACTLY CHEAP, BUT DEFINITELY OUT OF CONTROL
As many of you probably know by now, I am the defacto office manager for a drug clinic in Brookline. That means I order office supplies, call the electrician when our power goes out (which is frequently), assume an authoritative tone to people who are actually smarter than me, and call out for lunch from the local sub shop.
The food from the sub shop (pizza, calzones, subs) isn’t bad, but it really isn’t worth having every single day. Yet we continue ordering from them day-in and day-out. The reason? We have an account there. And I’m sure they appreciate our business. Last month's bill, which nearly gave our accountant a coronary, added up to slightly over $3,500.
But pick your jaw up off the ground, folks, because me and my crew ain’t exactly foie gras-swillers. On the contrary, ‘twas the clinics themselves who racked up that much in take-out. Apparently, nothing brings people together during addiction withdrawal quite like a communal meal setting. And believe me, the Brookline clinic breeds a lot of togetherness. With Narcotics and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings taking place every day, a couple pizzas or sandwiches here and there really does tend to add up.
Over here at the administrative wing, meanwhile, we try hard not to abuse our power. In fact, more often than not, I go pick up the food, rather than have it delivered. This may seem strange to you, that I, the office manager, would deign to pick up lunch. However, there’s actually a lot of practical advantages to this strategy. For one thing, the noon-1:30 pm block represents the busiest time for the sub shop. Why wait 30 minutes for the food to arrive when we’re located a mere block-and-a-half away?
Secondly, I don’t know about you, but I usually feel like taking a walk outside at about midday (Not on a day like today, of course, when there’s more white powder lying around than on the glass table in Phil Spector’s living room). Finally, the local sub shop has a stand-up “Galaga” arcade game. It’s paired with “Ms. Pac Man,” but more importantly, it has “Galaga!”
You remember “Galaga,” don’t you, folks? It was like “Space Invaders,” in the sense of being a low-tech, vertical shoot-em-up that never really ends. The main difference: “Galaga’s” alien insects didn’t scroll side-to-side. Instead, they flew around in connected loops, and could suck up your fighter jet with tractor beams.
Like I was saying, the sub shop has that particular arcade game, and I really get a kick out of going down there and standing in front of the machine’s slightly-concave-shaped monitor. Looking at the images just sends me back in time. Only yesterday, I made such a visit, and it got me thinking of how, back when I was a wee lad living in South Florida, I would take monthly jaunts on Sundays to the nearby strip mall. Sunday would be the day that the arcade would give you double-tokens, and they already had a policy of $11’s worth of tokens for every $10. So my brother and I would cobble together whatever funds we had—usually $10—and that would waste a whole afternoon. No wonder the place went out of business by the time I graduated high school.
Long before then, however, I had discovered books and comics, which seemed vastly more interesting. Also, I grew disillusioned during the 90’s, as the arcades filled-up with one-on-one “Street Fighter” clones. Still, it was fun while it lasted, and I guess it was probably better for me than dealing drugs or participating in drive-by shootings. “Which of those arcade games did I like the best?” you ask. Please, don’t ask me such a question. After all, how does one qualify a medium that, in its heyday, contained such variety? Well, can you tell me? A TOP FIVE LIST, you say? Why, that’s brilliant! Here’s mine!
TOP FIVE ARCADE GAMES:
5. “Galaga." During the bonus round, you get to smash a watermelon with a wooden mallet.
4. “Ninja Gaiden." The arcade game differed from the popular Nintendo series from the late eighties. I liked being able to flip over people, grab them by the neck, and toss them into stuff. But for a ninja, the main character sure moved slowly…
3. “Willow." Based on the 1988 movie directed by Ron Howard. A great fantasy/adventure game, even if it wasn’t as good as the Nintendo game, which my brother used to have (It featured one of the greatest opening sequences ever).
2. “Captain America And The Avengers.” Wheeeeeeeee! Play as Captain America, Iron Man, Hawkeye, Vision, and sometimes the Wasp. As a big comic book geek, the chance to take on the Red Skull, Ultron, Crossbones, the Mandarin, the Grim Reaper, even the Wizard was impossible to turn down. Also, it looked really cool.
1. “Golden Axe: The Revenge of Death Adder.” Only played it once, at a mini-golf/go-cart track in Ft. Lauderdale. For a long time, I assumed it was just a dream, albeit a seriously-fevered one.
What arcade games did you use to play?
As many of you probably know by now, I am the defacto office manager for a drug clinic in Brookline. That means I order office supplies, call the electrician when our power goes out (which is frequently), assume an authoritative tone to people who are actually smarter than me, and call out for lunch from the local sub shop.
The food from the sub shop (pizza, calzones, subs) isn’t bad, but it really isn’t worth having every single day. Yet we continue ordering from them day-in and day-out. The reason? We have an account there. And I’m sure they appreciate our business. Last month's bill, which nearly gave our accountant a coronary, added up to slightly over $3,500.
But pick your jaw up off the ground, folks, because me and my crew ain’t exactly foie gras-swillers. On the contrary, ‘twas the clinics themselves who racked up that much in take-out. Apparently, nothing brings people together during addiction withdrawal quite like a communal meal setting. And believe me, the Brookline clinic breeds a lot of togetherness. With Narcotics and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings taking place every day, a couple pizzas or sandwiches here and there really does tend to add up.
Over here at the administrative wing, meanwhile, we try hard not to abuse our power. In fact, more often than not, I go pick up the food, rather than have it delivered. This may seem strange to you, that I, the office manager, would deign to pick up lunch. However, there’s actually a lot of practical advantages to this strategy. For one thing, the noon-1:30 pm block represents the busiest time for the sub shop. Why wait 30 minutes for the food to arrive when we’re located a mere block-and-a-half away?
Secondly, I don’t know about you, but I usually feel like taking a walk outside at about midday (Not on a day like today, of course, when there’s more white powder lying around than on the glass table in Phil Spector’s living room). Finally, the local sub shop has a stand-up “Galaga” arcade game. It’s paired with “Ms. Pac Man,” but more importantly, it has “Galaga!”
You remember “Galaga,” don’t you, folks? It was like “Space Invaders,” in the sense of being a low-tech, vertical shoot-em-up that never really ends. The main difference: “Galaga’s” alien insects didn’t scroll side-to-side. Instead, they flew around in connected loops, and could suck up your fighter jet with tractor beams.
Like I was saying, the sub shop has that particular arcade game, and I really get a kick out of going down there and standing in front of the machine’s slightly-concave-shaped monitor. Looking at the images just sends me back in time. Only yesterday, I made such a visit, and it got me thinking of how, back when I was a wee lad living in South Florida, I would take monthly jaunts on Sundays to the nearby strip mall. Sunday would be the day that the arcade would give you double-tokens, and they already had a policy of $11’s worth of tokens for every $10. So my brother and I would cobble together whatever funds we had—usually $10—and that would waste a whole afternoon. No wonder the place went out of business by the time I graduated high school.
Long before then, however, I had discovered books and comics, which seemed vastly more interesting. Also, I grew disillusioned during the 90’s, as the arcades filled-up with one-on-one “Street Fighter” clones. Still, it was fun while it lasted, and I guess it was probably better for me than dealing drugs or participating in drive-by shootings. “Which of those arcade games did I like the best?” you ask. Please, don’t ask me such a question. After all, how does one qualify a medium that, in its heyday, contained such variety? Well, can you tell me? A TOP FIVE LIST, you say? Why, that’s brilliant! Here’s mine!
TOP FIVE ARCADE GAMES:
5. “Galaga." During the bonus round, you get to smash a watermelon with a wooden mallet.
4. “Ninja Gaiden." The arcade game differed from the popular Nintendo series from the late eighties. I liked being able to flip over people, grab them by the neck, and toss them into stuff. But for a ninja, the main character sure moved slowly…
3. “Willow." Based on the 1988 movie directed by Ron Howard. A great fantasy/adventure game, even if it wasn’t as good as the Nintendo game, which my brother used to have (It featured one of the greatest opening sequences ever).
2. “Captain America And The Avengers.” Wheeeeeeeee! Play as Captain America, Iron Man, Hawkeye, Vision, and sometimes the Wasp. As a big comic book geek, the chance to take on the Red Skull, Ultron, Crossbones, the Mandarin, the Grim Reaper, even the Wizard was impossible to turn down. Also, it looked really cool.
1. “Golden Axe: The Revenge of Death Adder.” Only played it once, at a mini-golf/go-cart track in Ft. Lauderdale. For a long time, I assumed it was just a dream, albeit a seriously-fevered one.
What arcade games did you use to play?
posted by Phil at 3:06 PM
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