In four years, I’ve managed to write 93 posts (including this one). That’s not quite one post every two weeks. Prolific I ain’t. That being said, the vast majority of them are more substantial than this one.

The music was automated brain-dead crap with mechanical beats, insipid lyrics, no soul, no balls, and no swing. Even previously great artists churned out synthesized crap. Members of the best progressive rock bands of the 70’s joined forces to give us…Asia?

The movies were equally awful. You had a choice of cheesy teen ensemble romances (complete with best-selling synth-pop soundtrack), shitty slasher sequels, and jingoistic warfare jack-offs where the lone hero fights off the evil Russkies to save America.

The clothes were horrible. Remember the shit people wore? It was hard to find jeans that weren’t acid-washed and all the shirts made you look like some kind of preppy gay circus clown. The guys put more shit in their hair than the girls did.

And contrary to right-wing revisionist history, Reagan was a colossal douche nozzle.

Lamest fucking decade I’ve had the displeasure of living through. Sure, there were exceptions here and there. The Police were pretty awesome, and there was Bladerunner, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and the Star Wars sequels. But mostly it was a lousy time to grow up, and I was honored to be an outcast. And like all the other outcasts, I spent all my time at the arcades.

I don’t know if there even are arcades any more. I sure don’t see them on the rare occasions I go to the mall. I guess there’s Dave and Buster’s, but I’ve only been there a couple times. These days I’d rather stay home and play GTA or smoke some noob in Warhawk.

But in the old days, arcades were seedy joints, owned and operated by bikers and the mob. The air was thick with smoke and the glorious bleeps and bloops of 8-bit music and sound effects at full volume. The lights were low, the floors were sticky with spilled soda, and the machines had lengthy cigarette burns on the panels (because who has time to smoke with brain robotrons on your ass?) and graffiti scratched into the side-art (Puck-Man was quickly renamed Pac-Man, due to the temptation to modify the P to an F).

And in every arcade was the shirtless long-haired stoner who could play Galaga for hours on a single quarter. And when he wasn’t playing Galaga, he was on Joust exploiting the pterodactyl bug. I wasn’t that dude, I was the guy marveling at his skill, my quarter on the marquee waiting for the next game.

The arcade was not a place our parents wanted us hanging around, but we were kids with the freedom of bicycles. My peers and I got our entertainment in 3 minute increments for 25 cents a pop. Our allowance went into the machines. Our birthday money went into the machines. If we got paid for mowing a lawn, it went into the machines. Even our lunch money went into the machines. If we had a dollar in our pockets, we pedaled our asses to the arcade, and when our money ran out we stole from our parents to keep the buzz going for a little longer.

But nothing lasts, and most cool things die a tragic death in the name of corporate profits. The arcades were no exception. Soon it was noticed that all those quarters were adding up to huge bank, and the powers that be couldn’t let it all go into the hands of bikers and the mob. Arcades moved into the malls, and were almost always owned by Bally. Tokens replaced the lowly quarter, smoking was prohibited, and the pterodactyl bug was patched. Oh we still went and spent our money, but the thrill was gone.

Eventually, we discovered girls and weed, and the games got shitty anyway. The industry crashed and never quite recovered. Though I’m still an avid gamer, I’ve only gone to an arcade a handful of times since, and usually just to play pinball. But thanks to emulators, my children know what it’s like to be humiliated by Defender’s brutal difficulty.

This post is the first part of a series. Look for new installments in the coming days.

Now I try to pretend I’m enlightened and respect all life, but the truth is I’m just lazy. They don’t fly or jump, they don’t bite, and they don’t carry any diseases. Mrs. FatDave does a good job keeping them out of the kitchen, so I tend to not care too much about them unless they invade my personal space.

And this has started to become a problem. My wife may sweep them out of the kitchen, but my office is my problem. Anybody whose ever seen my office knows that I’m not the fastidious type. In fact I’m the opposite of fastidious. What’s that called again? Oh yes–slovenly.

So I’m pretty sure there’s a fair number of weevils crawling around in my office, and this is evidenced by the fact that they often launch organized assaults on my Diet Coke cans. See, nothing seems to attract these little assholes like moisture, and I’ve nearly always got a cold Diet Coke within easy reach, and it tends to sit on the corner of my desk sweating which inevitably brings around the weevils.

At first I was a little squeaminsh about killing them, and I’d pick them up in a kleenex and crush them. But now I just smash them with a bare finger, which elicits a satisfying crunch. Mahavira would not approve.

But at certain times of day (roughly 3AM) it seems like the weevils get extra active, and defending my soda was requiring more attention. A better solution was required (I’m not being paid too little to kill weevils all night, after all). Luckily, I was able to come up with one.

As of yesterday, on the corner of my desk, sits a small plate full of water. In the middle of the plate is an empty mason jar on which I set my pop can. The mason jar used to hold my pens, but my children always seem to have a higher purpose for those, so the jar was sitting empty awaiting its true destiny. Now there is no way for a little crawly thing to get to the pop can without crossing water, and as it turns out imported longhorn weevils are horrible swimmers. Essentially, what I’ve done is to build a moat around my pop can, and it has worked wonderfully.

Of course as I was building my weevil trap, some experimentation was needed. I had to determine whether or not weevils could swim, so I poured water into the plate and waited for a vollunteer. Soon I had two; one very small and one quite large. I debated about which would make the better test subject (the smaller may not break the water’s surface tension, but the large one may be more buoyant), but I couldn’t make up my mind. Eventually I just decided to choose the lesser of two weevils.

In this dream, I was back in high school. I’m rapidly approaching 40 years old, yet I still dream I’m back in high school every so often. That’s pretty fucked up if you think about it for too long, so I try not to. Anyway, I was back in high school and thankfully I was fully dressed. They had just freshly painted the boys bathroom, and the principal was lecturing us on not writing on the walls. Somehow, I was lucky enough to be the first person to use this freshly painted bathroom, and I was also lucky enough to have a Sharpie in my pocket. The immaculate walls were too much to resist. I wrote, in big bold letters, “first post”.

And secondly, has anybody ever bought prescription drugs online from a link in comment spam? Like ever? Because I just don’t see somebody reading my silly bullshit posts then saying, “Hey, now that you mention it I could use some Viagra. Thanks for the handy link, spammer!”

I think I speak for the entire internet when I say you should be choked to death with your own cocks.

Then, ’round about 2005 or so, John McCain changed. Right when he should have been distancing himself from Bush, he started laboriously tonguing his ass crack. Religious nuts Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, who he had previously criticized, suddenly became his pals. The Bush tax cuts he voted against were suddenly a good idea.

There were many theories as to why this sudden change occurred. Some thought it was just pandering to the party base for his inevitable 2008 presidential run. Others thought a specific deal had actually been struck, i.e. Karl Rove as his campaign strategist in exchange for continuous public blow-jobs given to Bush.

But I think I’ve finally figured out what happened, as evidenced by the following picture.

This post was inspired by this thread on democraticunderground.com. The McCain picture used was supplied by user Chulanowa.