See myself come running back, running back

Pavement is back...we caught up with them at the Fox Theater Pomona last night. I tried starting up an "otra, otra" chant like I did in Tokyo years ago, but it didn't take this time around. I suppose Japanese audiences are hungrier for sing-alongs, synchronized hand gestures, and group chants.

I hadn't been to Downtown Pomona for a while, and it was a lot more lively than I had ever seen it. I'll try to get to their Art Walk one of these days. I'm finally over the lingering dreadful feelings from the three years I drove from West L.A. (home) to Inglewood (work) to Pomona (school) to West L.A (back home).

A clown fish in a sea of animals

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.