Pop-VAhummm

The sound of childhood memories rushing back. Pop-Vahummm, accompanied by the soft melody of static that makes my arm hairs stand up and sway to the unseen tide of electrons. It takes our consul tv a solid minute and a half for transmitted images to fade into being. During those fitful 90 seconds, in the warming glow of the tv, I see my old favorite tv shows played out in the reflections of the gray screen. I see B.A. Baracus shaking his fist at Face. Starbuck smirks as Commander Adama chews him out. You know the tongue-lashing is all about the love, because Ben Cartwright could never really get mad at Little Joe, just like Charles could never really get mad at little Laura Ingalls. Somewhere in this imageless two-dimensional madness, Wonder Woman is deflecting bullets with her bracelets in Hazard County, where Jonathan and Jennifer Hart work side by side with Jim Rockford. Oddly enough, I never see cartoons when I gaze into this dusty artifact of a tv. I guess the pallidness of the waxen screen doesn’t summon forth the recollections of synthetic vibrant colors associated with cartoons.

It’s time to cap off a week of videogame nostalgia brought forth by the Pop-VAhummm of the wood-paneled tv, the rigid monotones of the 2600, and the digital blips of the Pong. It all reminds me of fantasy I used to have involving a cocktail-style Ms. Pac-Man arcade game.

A subconscious vision is slowly evolving in the no-man’s corner of our family room. I have the consol tv, the Atari2600, the Pong, and the lava lamp. All I need is a dark-green shag rug, a beaded curtain, a couple of retro chairs, and fantasy-inciting Ms. Pac-Man cocktail arcade. Boom, baby!

I guess those Ms. Pac-Man machines are a little cost prohibitive. I know I’ve seen some cocktail MAME machines around. I should check into their cost and the quality of MAME games. If there’s a significant price difference, I could make due with a MAME.

So what has turned into videogame nostalgia week ends with a glimpse of a future to come, a future seasoned with flavors of the past.
...and so it was written, shenry at 3/01/2003 01:10:00 PM.
...and so it was appended with .