Alabama Jubilee
This weekend, Thundercat and I went to visit her brother and his family, which I call the Alabama Contingency because they live in -- wait for it -- New Hampshire. Seriously, I like going to Alabama. It's a decent state, and the people there always seem to fall over themselves to be friendly to you. Yet the country at large seems to have a negative opinion of southerners in general and Alabamiacs in particular. I've never really understood this, to be honest. I have a theory, though, that would help edu-muh-cate others. You know how, every few months, some random a**hole celebrity goes and spends a few days with Fidel Castro and announces to the nation that Castro's just another great, regular guy who uses his tyrannic rule to keep the Cuban people in impoverished slavery? I think we should get those same celebrities and send them to Alabama. Have the press follow them as they tour cotton fields, visit the space center, are ripped asunder by a hurricane, etc. I guarantee you, the nation will worship the entire state based on the mere fact that some celebrity actually went there for reasons not involving staged photo-ops with hurricane refugees.
Anyway, we went to celebrate my nephew's fourth birthday; let's call him Pikachu (not his real name; his real name is Tool Bench). We took him to Chuck E. Cheese in Birmingham. This is the first time I've been to Chuck E. Cheese since my brother's ninth/tenth birthday, so I was not entirely prepared for the fact that things had changed quite a bit from what I remembered. Such as:
1. This CEC had no robots. Okay, it had one robot, but the "stage show" took place on a series of monitors. I went to Showbiz Pizza as a kid; very similar, but with a pretty cool set of robots, including Billy Bob the banjo-strumming bear. Last time I saw Billy Bob, he was directing traffic in Ohio. True story.
2. There is no building in the free world large enough to house all the kids that get crammed into Chuck E. Cheese. On the outside, the building looks just fine. On the inside, it's a petri dish of children, swarming in all directions, parents not bothering or caring to keep up with them.
3. The TMNT arcade game that kept my attention pretty much most of the time was in a very poor spot; there was another machine directly behind me as I played, and kids who wanted to get to the skeeball machines had to squeeze past. I later told my wife that, in the course of the three hours we were there, I had my butt touched more times than I had in seven years of marriage. She laughed heartily, then added with a wink and a kiss, "No, you haven't!"
4. There were six skeeball machines, all so compact that the only way an adult male could stand in front of just one was to have both of his shoulders surgically removed.
5. The pizza sucks. When you're hungry enough, though, you'll eat anything.
6. They do have beer at Chuck E. Cheese, which surprised me, but only momentarily; how else would it possible for all those beleaguered parents to make it through the day?
7. It's very easy to take the shoes off a little boy, but very difficult to put them back on.
8. The video game- to- ticket-dispensing attraction ratio was depressing low. My memories of Showbiz Pizza were mostly peppered with the glut of classic arcade games from the heydays of the early 1980s. This one had a fishing video game, about six different racing arcade games and the aforementioned Turtles machine.
9. ???
10. Profit!
All in all, the entire weekend was just lovely up to the point where I contracted the worse case of stomach virus in the history of the human being, of which I am still suffering today. I blame the Internet, and the return of swing music.
Anyway, we went to celebrate my nephew's fourth birthday; let's call him Pikachu (not his real name; his real name is Tool Bench). We took him to Chuck E. Cheese in Birmingham. This is the first time I've been to Chuck E. Cheese since my brother's ninth/tenth birthday, so I was not entirely prepared for the fact that things had changed quite a bit from what I remembered. Such as:
1. This CEC had no robots. Okay, it had one robot, but the "stage show" took place on a series of monitors. I went to Showbiz Pizza as a kid; very similar, but with a pretty cool set of robots, including Billy Bob the banjo-strumming bear. Last time I saw Billy Bob, he was directing traffic in Ohio. True story.
2. There is no building in the free world large enough to house all the kids that get crammed into Chuck E. Cheese. On the outside, the building looks just fine. On the inside, it's a petri dish of children, swarming in all directions, parents not bothering or caring to keep up with them.
3. The TMNT arcade game that kept my attention pretty much most of the time was in a very poor spot; there was another machine directly behind me as I played, and kids who wanted to get to the skeeball machines had to squeeze past. I later told my wife that, in the course of the three hours we were there, I had my butt touched more times than I had in seven years of marriage. She laughed heartily, then added with a wink and a kiss, "No, you haven't!"
4. There were six skeeball machines, all so compact that the only way an adult male could stand in front of just one was to have both of his shoulders surgically removed.
5. The pizza sucks. When you're hungry enough, though, you'll eat anything.
6. They do have beer at Chuck E. Cheese, which surprised me, but only momentarily; how else would it possible for all those beleaguered parents to make it through the day?
7. It's very easy to take the shoes off a little boy, but very difficult to put them back on.
8. The video game- to- ticket-dispensing attraction ratio was depressing low. My memories of Showbiz Pizza were mostly peppered with the glut of classic arcade games from the heydays of the early 1980s. This one had a fishing video game, about six different racing arcade games and the aforementioned Turtles machine.
9. ???
10. Profit!
All in all, the entire weekend was just lovely up to the point where I contracted the worse case of stomach virus in the history of the human being, of which I am still suffering today. I blame the Internet, and the return of swing music.
posted by TM520 | 6:35 AM
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