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October 27, 2005
Sportsbars and malls
I love sportsbars and malls. I hate sports, drinking, and shopping. Well, I can deal with shopping, but less now that computer games are pretty much vanishing from the retail market.
That's what I loved to do when I was a kid -- go to the Electronics Boutique at Smith Haven Mall, and scour the shelves for Infocom text adventures and Electronic Arts construction-set games. This must have been during the video game crash -- pre-'86 -- because console games were totally not on the scene.
One entire wall of EB -- the long wall -- was stocked with Amiga software. Can you imagine that? I eyed that wall enviously from the Apple II section. A couple years later, we got an Amiga (my parents wouldn't let me have a NES), but by then Commodore had begun its death spiral, and the Amiga section at EB dwindled and eventually disappeared. Later, so did Commodore. Even later than that, so did EB -- Gamestop/Barnes & Noble just bought 'em. Now there's only one mall game store company, only one computer platform that has games developed for it, and pretty much one computer game a year that I'm interested in.
I can't really explain the sportsbar thing. They just exude unpretentious, working-class fun. I don't drink and I don't like sports. I guess I like being around a bunch of good-natured people who aren't too neurotic to be happy, which is what people seem like when they're watching sports and drinking.
Chain restaurants in general, really, I'm a big fan of.
Posted by tony at October 27, 2005 11:02 AM
Comments
This is fascinating. I would not have picked you, Tony, to be a fan of chain restaurants and certainly not sports bars. So it's refreshing to hear you explain it. It's like someone explaining why Paul McCartney is their favorite Beatle, even though that someone is aware of the potentional un-coolness of that choice.
I can see the appeal of sports bars, definitely. Dark wood. Bright neon lights. Relaxed atmosphere. They can be happy places. AIRPORT sports bars for some reason are depressing sinkholes of despair, but regular sports bars I can get on board with.
Posted by: Will at October 27, 2005 12:13 PM
Whenever someone wants to treat me to a meal - say, for directing their show or something - I always choose an Appleebee's/Bennigan's/TGIFriday's national chain. It's guilty pleasure at guiltless prices.
Tony, do you have any projects you'd like me to work on?
Posted by: Kula at October 31, 2005 11:08 AM
