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It's hard to approach another decade rollover in age without reflecting on past birthdays. For me there are plenty of memorable Pubnight outings mixed in there. For example, there was the night I picked a place named The Gaf in 2000. In those earlier days, it still seemed novel to have someone remove their bra during a night out in Hell's Kitchen. Seems crazy now, I know.
But there's one birthday high score it's tough for me to ever beat as an adult. During the height of popular arcade gaming in 1983, I celebrated getting older with a group of friends at a place named River Towne. It was a local knock-off of Chuck E. Cheese's that managed to surpass the original. More games, better food, and even a more intricate animatronic animal show: http://www.showbizpizza.com/photos/misc/captandy/
Dozens of machines to pick from, a vast pile of tokens, playing the still new two-player Joust with my friends. Cursing the damned pterodactyl. Switching to Q*Bert and cursing like @!#?@!. The memory of that night is burned in my brain like a CRT that's spent twenty years showing a badly designed attract mode.
Lots of things have changed since then, but not how much I like playing these games. Also in 1983, I watched a slightly older teen named Ben Gold win an arcade gaming contest on the TV show "That's Incredible". Nowadays, here in 2011, I talked with Ben for a while a few months ago, while we were waiting for a table together at TGI Friday's. After a year where I shared some gaming time with him, Pac-Man and hot sauce king Billy Mitchell, King of Kong underdog protagonist Steve Wiebe, and current Donkey Kong champ Hank Chien, there's only one place that feels right for this birthday: the new (on an arcade gaming scale) Barcade in Jersey City.
This [mumble] birthday is aiming bigger than was possible in 1983. Now you can join me at *four* player Gauntlet:
Just remember not to shoot the food.
-Old Greg[1] and the funky Pubnight bunch