Completely Self-Indulgent "LOOK AT MY AWESOME NEW TOY" Post

[Currently Listening To: The Duke Spirit - Cuts Across The Land]


I have a long and terrible history of making completely frivolous impulse buys. I see or think about something totally unnecessary and usually very expensive, and I become obsessed with it. I feel restless and distracted until I've bought it, or I buy it immediately and think about it later. It's actually probably something I should see a therapist about, or maybe join a twelve step program - especially considering the unnatural amount of brief pleasure it brings me to impulsively waste my money on expensive toys.

Some highlights of my impulse buying over the years include:

• A Robosapien (I've played with it maybe twice)


• An original 1991 4-player Simpsons arcade game (later modded to include Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles The Arcade Game, TMNT 2: Turtles In Time, and - most spectacularly - Michael Jackson's Moonwalker)


• The world's ugliest vintage chair (it sure is comfy, though)


• A 1978 Chevy Camaro Z28


• A $150 Master Replicas Star Wars Force FX Luke Skywalker Light Saber (that's me on a busy street in Melbourne making an absolutely ridiculous scene, by the way)


• $65 worth of gummy candy (some of it still uneaten, many months later)

And now, joining that prestigious list is my latest - and perhaps greatest - expensive impulse buy:
A 2-Player Ms. Pac-Man Multicade cocktail table (!!!!):



It has Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, Jr. Pac-Man, Super Pac-Man, Galaga, Frogger, Dig-Dug, Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr. (which I totally suck balls at), Space Invaders, Phoenix, Burgertime, and Mr. Do (which is the gayest game ever).

This is seriously the coolest thing in the world - that is, at least since a week ago when I said the same thing about the light saber. The cocktail table arcade game, when you get right down to it, is one of the greatest innovations in the history of video games. A video game that you can set your drinks on? A table with a screen in it?? FUCKING. BRILLIANT. And Ms. Pac-Man, one of the greatest games of all time, was practically tailor-made to the concept of the cocktail table, because - since it only requires one hand to play - YOU CAN DRINK AND PLAY THE GAME AT THE SAME TIME. Although, I've always found the rendering on the cabinet art of a sexy, seductive Ms. Pac-Man to be incredibly disturbing:



Does that freak anyone else out? Especially the way the ghost is getting a little spectral boner leering at her like that? Maybe the ghosts are chasing her around to try and gang rape her. I wonder if anyone has ever drawn any pornographic pictures of Ms. Pac-Man? A quick Google Image Search for "pacman porn" seems to indicate not, although it did turn up a bizarre picture of a man in a Pac-Man suit vomiting balloons.

Anyway, time to go work on my high scores. Party this weekend, bitches.


P.S. - Since someone will inevitably question the appropriateness of such an utterly self-indulgent post at a time when thousands of people are dead or suffering in my former home of New Orleans, let me shut you up by telling you I wrote this earlier in the week, but never got around to actually putting it up. So suck me.

P.P.S. - On the New Orleans tip - this page has links to a lot of interesting reading about the Bush administration's numerous contributions to the severity of this disaster. And this article from last October's issue of National Geographic has a startlingly eerie prediction of what's happening right now. And this page has a video clip of a woman shooting a banana out of her ass. You know, to lighten the mood.