Flashback to my Joystick Days

If you want to see to evolution on "crack", referring to rapid changes, then I highly recommend going to events displaying old versus new technology devices. You will smile and aww seeing what has changed in the past 20 years.

The Arcade was My Battlefield

Maybe some can relate to the childhood memory of mom dragging you to the mall as a kid. Nothing, I mean nothing, was cool about the mall.
Clothes....hella boring. Girls (or boys for some).....uhhh gross, and possibly infectious. Summer sales......omg, this means an extra 2 hours of waiting time.
My negativity toward shopping was obvious and pretty clear that I would be annoying my mom's shopping habits. The solution, send me to the arcade with $2 and leave me there while she can shop until dinner time. This was pure bliss for me. The arcade, eventually becoming my battlefild, was where I found worth and adventure at the boring mall. The mission was simple: become pro at games where winner stays on and losers pay. Fighting games, like Mortal Kombat, become my obsession. I win and take people's money :) Ok, not really taking people's money, but as long as I kept winning, I could keep my quarters in my pocket.

Arcade Exhibition in Amsterdam

Over the past couple weeks, one of my Amsterdam frienden (friends) has been running an awesome game console expo where you can play on various antique and classic game consoles and even the newer technologies. Remember Duck Hunt for Nintendo. Mortal Kombat!!! I favorite was there....and btw...I actually remembered Sub Zero's fatality where he rips the opponents head off. I got immediate props for that one!....although I'm sure people are saying, "what a nerd" in there heads. Jealous!
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It was really cool to see where games have gone. Xbox is now making 3D games, and I was completely amazed by how it looks. Parents beware!! I can sense some serious addiction. But even some artists have gone an extra step to take game consoles and create their own games versions and music. One artist set up a Microsoft Kinect video to capture motions of a cigarette to play the classic Pong game. All in all, this was a great event to relive some of those childhood memories. I remember going to the grocery store and spending hours copying the latest moves/codes for Mortal Kombat and studying them prior to going to the mall. I stored them in my bluebook (the child version of the "blackbook"), like I was recording the scriptures of some king. Ahhhh...those were the days when taking someone's quarter was like being king. ...but something went wrong. Now I play Xbox and get dizzy :p Side note: Video to be produced!