8-bit Retirement Home
Doctor Popular brings us Pac-Man’s mum sitting on the porch of the Namco retirement home.
But what’s up with Inky’s picture up on the wall? A digital affair to remember? A 7-bit character taking advantage of a younger 8-bit sprite? Inky did always seem to die first – a little PEEK and POKE? Maybe the whole ghost thing was a metaphor.
Or is it a Dorian Grey scenario? EPA&AtB found this picture recently of Inky in his old age (sorry, so not an octopus).
I bet video game characters are like professional athletes and are all beat up when they retire from the game.
BART To The Future
Oh man. Eric Fisher bums us out by scanning this 1961 GE ad of what BART could have been.
(Note the timely inclusion of the USS Saratoga, CVN 60. But I have no idea where that chopper could be coming from – oh, wait, 85th Avenue.)
Note the above-ground tracks in Berkeley. And holy lots of white people on that train. Sex Pigeon, if your telepathy trucker hat has an alternate history setting, what are they thinking?
In all honesty we got a pretty good deal of this, though BART along Geary/Broadway and on the Golden Gate Bridge would have been a pretty epic ride. (And a crosstown BART down Divisidero-Castro-Noe-30th Street-SFO would work for me too. Just don’t turn off that tunneling machine, Gavin.)
Makes you wonder what the bullet train to LA will actually look like 50 years from now. Some space-blogger will be all, “Ha ha, look at this Burrito Justice idiot who said the train would go just 250 miles an hour when in fact it arrives in San Francisco BEFORE IT ACTUALLY LEAVES LA!”
WOLVERINES!
Oh, man, this is awesome — they are remaking RED DAWN!
(For those of you born in the 80s, this is perhaps the best worst film ever. Cubans and the Soviets invade the US and high school kids form a resistance group. Seriously, go watch it and you will realize why people over 35 are so fucked up.)
(Wow, ‘Soviets’ — that seems like a weird word now. Especially when I work with a bunch of Russians.)
Anyway, they are filming in Detroit (appropriate!) but it looks like it is set in Spokane, and this time China is the bad guy. Ahh, the delicious twist, given the Chinese were our allies in the original movie:
Col. Andy Tanner: …The Russians need to take us in one piece, and that’s why they’re here. That’s why they won’t use nukes anymore; and we won’t either, not on our own soil. The whole damn thing’s pretty conventional now. Who knows? Maybe next week will be swords.
Darryl Bates: What started it?
Col. Tanner: I don’t know. Two toughest kids on the block, I guess. Sooner or later, they’re gonna fight.
Jed: That simple, is it?
Col. Tanner: Or maybe somebody just forget what it was like.
Jed: …Well, who *is* on our side?
Col. Tanner: Six hundred million screaming Chinamen.
Darryl: Last I heard, there were a billion screaming Chinamen.
Col. Tanner: There *were*. [he throws whiskey on the fire; it ignites violently, suggesting a nuclear explosion]
UPDATE: 40 Going on 28 points us to this rather sobering assessment of what the film means today by Slate’s David Plotz:
But on re-viewing, Red Dawn isn’t a stark reminder of Cold War fears. Rather, it’s a pretty good movie about Iraq, with the United States in the role of the Soviets and the insurgents in the role of the Wolverines. In Red Dawn, the Soviets have invaded a country whose customs they know not…
The insurgents are at first merely scared, angry kids, but they’re hardened by the viciousness of the Soviets. Seeing nothing to lose, they become suicidal terrorists who assassinate, bomb civilian targets, gleefully murder wounded and captive Russians, and eventually martyr themselves in theatrical, insane ways. Howell faces down a helicopter gunship with nothing but a rifle, screaming, “Wolverines,” as its machine gun cuts him to confetti; Swayze and Sheen make their inexplicable suicide assault on a base with hundreds of soldiers and heavy weapons; Jennifer Grey, mortally wounded and afraid of being tortured by the occupiers, booby-traps her own body so when a Soviet soldier touches her, it sets off a grenade that kills both of them.
(So which Vietnam movie will be the replay for Afghanistan?)
Anyway, I love these propagana posters from the film set. Clever the economic zeitgeist they are leveraging. (These and many more at http://www.reddawn2010.com)
And a YouTube clip:
Man, I need to go find the original on Netflix. The crazy thing is who was in this film:
- Patrick Swayze
- Jennifer Grey
- Charlie Sheen
- Lea Thompson
- Harry Dean Stanton
- Powers Boothe
I should go watch Amerika while I’m at it. And might as well throw The Day After, Threads and Testament in to complete the troika of 80’s nuclear drama. That’d be a brutal evening. Good god those last two were horrifying.
Shitty Kitty Near and Far
Through the magic of the Internet, Shitty Kitty will appear on TWO CONTINENTS SIMULTANEOUSLY this Saturday.
Morocco + Mission Comics + Shotwells = drinking plus a seven hour time difference! Such dedication.
Robots Need Love Too
Since this blog apparently focuses too much on places down the block from me that are about to serve epic pizza and beer, I have decided to make an effort to branch out a bit. Our new topic: ROBOTS.
Best song with ‘robots’ in the title:
Dan Magdan – Robots (Need Love Too) (iTunes)
(Note that this is our best defense against SkyNet and the Animatrix.)
Best album with ‘robots’ in the title:
The Flaming Lips – Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
Best band name involving ‘robots’:
Fembots – Good Days
(These guys are awesome – Ice Cream and Transit Song are also good songs.)
Best iPhone app involving robots:
Seriously, buy this app, it is ridiculously entertaining. It’s basically a multi-touch four-channel synthesizer with auto-tune, and a cute little robot that dances and sings along. I got it for my 13 month old daughter but its awesomeness has led to epic iPhone control battles. I can make the little robot talk — he can say “What?!” “Woah!” and “Wow!” (Please note that this is equally entertaining to myself and someone 34.2 times younger than me.) Best $2 I’ve spent in a long time.
[YouTube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpgxd8bljtg]
There’s also a loop/echo feature so you get your very own delay stompbox. (I suggest setting the echo to fade a bit otherwise you get the dreaded dutch concert effect.) A more detailed demo video is on the Bebot website.
Best blog post on the social implication of having a robot double
Mock Duck – Robot Doubles
(Roboganger? Note also that significant research on the effects of readily available organic duplication was conducted in the late 80s by Professor B. Watterson of C&H University.)
Best robot picture on Flickr
UPDATE – and it turns out I have already done a robot post. So much for originality.
UPDATED UPDATE:
Best unreleased TV pilot based on the Adam Sandler skit about a robot who lives in a fraternity and discovers he is gay after a wine cooler is spilled on his circuit board:
Best comic drawn in 24 hours about robots:
Robots Don’t Know Anything About Twitter
Mission Street Food Anniversary
Mission Street Food’s first foray in the truck was a year ago!
The LA Times has a nice article about them and Foreign Cinema. (The Times also used Jesse / Beer&Nosh’s pix!)
And if you miss that eat-on-the-street feeling, just order a Mission Burger at Luc Doi’s and sit on the sidewalk at 18th. (Hey Luc Doi, how about a couple of benches? The ass of my skinny jeans is getting dirty.)
Pi Bar Comes Alive
The sign is lit!
Beer list.
The Trippel was pretty damn good — Pi Bar got one keg, Toronado got there other. Never had the Blind Pig before, very enjoyable. (And note the elephant in the corner…)
It’s a glorious slice!
Throw your dough in the air…
Pi Bar is a very welcome addition to La Lengua and a worthy successor to Suriya. Very casual, very comfortable. Excellent, simple, thin crust pizza, just the way the pizza gods intended. I look forward to many a happy hour there. (And they have coat hooks under the bar which is a sign of a superior establishment…)
BC Ferries, Moon, Dolores, Bernal, Sutro
The wake behind a BC Ferry:
The moon from 35,000 feet over Oregon:
And here’s a blind shot that worked out rather nicely: Dolores, La Lengua, Bernal in late afternoon shadow — and Sutro peeking out from the bottom.
Pi Bar, Suds, Subs
Pi Bar’s menu is live! (Not many prices yet other than the 3.14 derivations.)
Nice surprise — Submarine Sandwiches Served With Red Sauce And Melted Mozzarella (Meatball or Sausage & Peppers)
No word on pitchers, but Death & Taxes Dark Lager and Racer 5 on tap! Rochefort and Saison Dupont in bottles! Hooray!
Hey, does KevMo work at Pi Bar?
The only way to know what it truly there to eat is to be at the Pi Bar in person. It is hard to order and eat food over the internet. Being there in person improves consumption potential.
The only way to know what it truly on tap is to be at the Pi Bar in person. It is hard to order and drink a beer over the internet. Being there in person improves consumption potential.
Pi Bar Open Oct 1st, πr² Happy Hour = Slice + Pint = $6.28
All hail round food! (via urbandaddy.com, bayareabites)
via UrbanDaddy
Brought to you by Rich Rosen (Chenery Park, Boulevard), a Queens transplant who’s always lamented the lack of real New York–style pie in SF, Pi will deliver a taste of Long Island moxie, done up SF–style. Which means you’ll find no-nonsense pizzas in 15-inch or 21, as well as pizza by the slice (preferably held taco–style with three fingers while standing)—made with whatever standard toppings (not fennel fronds or roasted garlic) you want.
Of course, it wouldn’t be a San Francisco restaurant without using fresh, local ingredients. And, you’ll appreciate the other thing they’re keeping local (with some select Belgians thrown in the mix): the booze. Look for 12 craft brews on tap—with only Anchor Liberty Ale and Blind Pig IPA staying in rotation—that are mostly one-offs like the Sierra Nevada Trippel, as well as more than 30 by the bottle. And if you want to study up, they’ve put together a beer bible with insider stories on each beer in house.
There will also be a nightly happy hour—”Pi R Squared”—that’ll be a slice and pint for $6.28.
I look forward to watching those lacking east coast pizza experience learn to eat a pizza with one hand.
More photos on Flickr by xbleh (including the one above, apparently), and Adam at MenuPages has links to the permits.
Burrito Justice 