________ ________ ________
2018-05-07 / \/ \/ / \
/ __/ /_ _/
Gonna just run my mouth a spell about / _/ / /
shit that's going down. I'm still over here \_______/_\___/____/\___/____/_
in the sunny Pacific North West and it's / \/ \/ / \
been up and down, what have I been up to? / _/ /_ _/
/- / _/ /
I feel boring writing stuff because to be \________/\________/\___/____/
honest it's really a "chilling with family"
kind of trip so we're not doing much to speak of, just lots of talking,
eating, cruising around.
Watching too much TV hahaha.
Last Thursday, I think, we went out for dinner and drinks with my partner's
friends and it was a wild time. We hit up a nice Mexican cantina and then a
barcade in the Admiral district. The restaurant was nice, comfy and the food
was really good and pretty reasonably priced, it was nice to have some salad
with dinner haha. I had a sandwich kind of thing which was really good but in
hindsight of how good it was I should have got something else because it was a
pretty vanilla choice.
The Admiral district, which is like west of Seattle, is really nice. It
felt comfy and safe and reminded me a bit of Port Adelaide in Australia.
We met up with everyone over dinner when hit up a arcade named Vidiot that
was nearby. Now I'm biased here, I've seen my perfect barcade so every other
barcade I visit is going to be held to an unfair standard but I did really
like Vidiot.
I'm not sure how to summarize the venue, it's kind of weird. The front door
leads to a short corridor and then into the bar proper which is nothing
unusual but once you're in it's a high-ceilinged open room with a bunch of
arcade machines and a bar to one side but past the bar is a weird pirate
themed room, made to look like the aftercastle of a ship and beyond that is
another, smaller arcade room. It was pretty strange. The back wall of the main
room was all sliding windows too, so aside from the pirate ship part the whole
place felt like someone had just repurposed the big back room of a dry
cleaners.
The bar staff were friendly and were nice enough to take a photo of the
Dorbz toys they were using as handles on the beer taps, he said he's done it
so many times that he's a pro. The machines they had were pretty solid, too.
Lots of multi-game machines which, although not authentic are really good in a
drunken, casual setting when you just want to play games with friends and
don't give a shit about being a purist. They also had plenty of racing games,
almost a dozen pinball tables and Virtual On: Cyber Troopers which was
fantastic, I hadn't played that since probably 99 or 2000. I'm still
completely shit at it but I love it haha.
Excluding the pinball tables, all the machines were free to play, too,
something I've never seen in any of Melbourne's barcades, a really nice touch.
The drinks were nice too, I just had beer but they had Black Raven's
Trickster IPA on tap and I really like that beer so I was more than happy. My
wife had a cocktail which, I dunno, it was nice but it lacked any subtlety, it
just tasted like a bunch of liquors thrown together haha. They weren't
unpleasant together but they didn't really blend, it tasted more like shooting
one after the other. It was also strong as heck.
I like my partner's friends a lot, they're really great. The only one I
don't really get along with is her ex, he used to be a bit of an asshat and
I'll admit he's a lot less grating than he used to be but he's one of those
"gamers" - as in the kind of gamer funking up the games room at a convention.
The kind of gamer hollering at children half their age at Pokemon tournaments.
The kind of gamer with no inside-voice, no sense of boundaries and social
nuance, etc. I just avoided him though haha.
After we played some games we piled into her friends' car to what? Smoke,
of course, it's Washington! I mentioned back when I was writing about the
microdosing that I don't really smoke all that often so when I do that shit
knocks me on my ass. Wife and I smoked a bit a couple days before she was fine
but I was knocked the fuck out, rolling around on the bed nodding in and out.
I only smoked a bit when we were out but I had more than a few drinks and
ended up all fucked up completely. 100% offline. Hahaha. I bailed from the car
for some fresh air and a local, I'm assuming, decided to snark at me about the
smell, "Smells like marijuana," she said, "I remember when it smelled like
coffee."
Fuck off, dick head. I just grinned because I was on the moon oops haha.
We talked shit for a bit then went our separate ways, one of the friends
driving us home. A bit of background on her; she smokes a lot and knows a lot
about it, she's basically a weed scientist, so if she says she's ok to drive I
trust her.
She was ok to drive but she did have some trouble navigating haha.
I don't know the proper word for it but I was in a state where, though
completely trashed I could still kind of process what we were doing and it was
simultaneously frustrating and hilarious, one one hand I really just wanted to
be home not getting on and off the freeway endlessly but on the other hand we
were getting on and off the freeway endlessly, ducking in and out of the
industrial and port districts and it was fucking hilarious. At one point we
got held up by a train for a moment and then the train straight up stopped
across the road, we had to turn around. All the while the GPS was gibbering
and the friend driving was replying "Hm. Oh. Ok. Hm." - it took us about 40
minutes to get to the bar, with traffic, it took us just under two hours to
get home. Admittedly we had to drop another friend off on the way but it was
the early hours of the morning and there was literally no traffic, aside from
that train.
We did eventually make it home in one piece though and it was a really
good, completely ridiculous night.
