I've never been very good at video games, and I have zero patience for fighting games like Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat.Maybe my dispassion goes back to the days as a kid in San Jose...my parents liked to eat at this hole-in-the-wall taqueria called El Paseo, located at Tully and King. (Actually, my dad only referred to the place as the Greasy Spoon.) I'd hit him up for a quarter, played a quick round of Pac-Man, and that was it. No second quarter, no follow-up game. The owners later rigged up the Pac-Man arcade machine to play at an impossible triple-speed. That put the nail in the coffin for my gaming career.
I am good at one arcade game...Galaga. However, I didn't take it up until I had free hours between college classes, and I had nothing better to do (study?) on campus after the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill hearings ended.
On Saturday I noticed that the Space Invader tiles are missing from the Giant Robot store on Sawtelle. The store worker said it's been a couple years. Geez. This guy has a great photo collection of Space Invaders in Los Angeles.
4 comments:
El Paseo was a great restaurant. I wasted many summer days playing Super Mario Bros. there. Since they were right next door, our families always exchanged restaurant food. I would have never discovered the delights of menudo without El Paseo.
I got really good at Bust a Move at the arcade near North Campus (Rolfe). 2 for 1 days were the best. I'm pretty good at Space Invaders cuz that was the only game my dad had on his Commodore Vic 20.
Mr. Referent...my mind could be playing tricks on me, but I swear I now remember you playing games at El Paseo...was your family already running the restaurant around '84, '85?
Jane...yep, I clocked lots of Galaga time at North Campus...that's also where I watched Orrin Hatch and Arlen Specter grill Anita Hill on the big screen TV...strange times
'84 and '85 was when Tony's family opened it up, yeah. We acquired it from them some year right before the 90s though.
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