If you still can be bothered with the goings on of Lance Armstrong, then this piece by ESPN’s Bonnie D. Ford is one of the best going around.
For those familiar with the Manti Te’o saga around the whole “fake relationship with the nonexistent leukemia victim”, here’s a primer from Salon on ‘How to Buy a Fake Girlfriend’.
As many Almanackers know, the AFL just doesn’t borrow heavily (read, steal) from the NFL’s marketing department, a lot of the narratives in the sports pages during the year will also take their lead from what is considered An Issue in the States. With that in mind, Tom Junod’s ‘Theater of Pain’ from Esquire is well worth a read.
During the summer, some at The Almanac were happy to classify darts as a sport. I don’t necessarily agree, but using that as a precedent, I give you ‘pinnies’1 and this (longish) piece from Laura June from The Verge.
And finally, why don’t we see more of Anson Cameron in The Age? His take on the whole tanking saga was one of the best things found in the sports pages all week.
1. I challenge any Almanacker to beat me at Galaga… if you can find a ‘stand-up’ version of the game – there used to be one at The Brandon in North Carlton, but sadly no longer.
About Craig Little
My heroes are all dead white males, mostly because that seems really attainable for me.
Litza,
I had my first game of galaga for many a year earlier this month at the Port Wilunga Caravan park just south of Adelaide, wasn’t a bad machine either although programmed for many arcade classics. The version of Galaga wasn’t bad either not taking you staright to level 8 earlier than expected anyway. I went ok but could’tr really get past around level 16 or so.
On the machine it had the all time greatest score on galaga registered with the initials and this was 983K It is hard to believe it is true but must be I guess – I used to remember getting past 200K pretty difficult and you know you had had a good game then so was pretty blown away by that score if genuine.
I remember I used to order a hamburger in a fish and chip shop in Sunbury and they had one well into the mid nineties still at 20 cents a pop. I used to play until the burger was ready and hand over to one of the kids to take over as you would be on there for ever – great for impressing my kids on holidays though.
I still have a vintage sit down galaxian game at my parents house still but have not played in a while but was a lot of fun in the kitchen in an old shared house I used to live in.
Won’t challenge you to a game as you sound too confident and I live in Perth but will let you know if I find one out there again.
Wow… that’s two people now that have told me they have a sit-down Galaga at home.
My confidence has taken somewhat of a reality check after the 983,000 scoreline. That said, the Port Wilunga Caravan Park has just gone on my list of potential holiday destinations.
The Knicks @ Celtics recap must be a fast finishing 6th?
I hate basketball.
I’d imagine you guys are aware of the “cheat” in Galaga which you could use to stop the aliens from dropping bombs. Maybe that explains it….
Woahh! I just checked “Galaga” out online. The World Record score? Wait for it…
15,999,990 points
WTF?!?!
Galaga shuts down after Stage 255. Been there done that. There is a glitch in the program where you can get the enemy ships to stop shooting at you.
The only time I prefered a sit-down pinny to a stand-up one, was for Hyper Olympics.
Was aware there was a cheat code, but my entire Galaga career was clean… other than the handful of games I tested positive for marajuana and cheese Twisties.
I could blow the Magicians code and tell you, but you can probably google it.
Another good one was firing a gas stove lighting spark gun just underneath the coin slots. That would rack up 99 credits on some machines. The Galaxian out the front of K-Mart in Belmont always coughed up. It was harder to employ in pinny parlours.
The sit down is ok as long as the controls are still horizontal and not on the flat face vertical, we used to screw off the top of a joy stick to kind of quickly rip over the run button on hyper olympics – used to work a treat.
While we are on the subject and old favorite from back in the day was Tutankhamen – has proved very hard to find over the years even on the new retro games with many on it – has anyone ever come across this ( same goes for elevator action )
The electric toothbrush worked wonders on Hyper Olympics.
My kids have a PS3 which I have never played. But on a recent trip to the Gold Coast, they urged me to play the Galaga at the place at which we were staying. It had been a while since I had impressed them….
There is a sit-down Galaga at the Groove Lounge in Williamstown.
And as for the whole Manti Te’o saga: only in America !
Litza Is salon a hairdresser’s magazine? If so it does concern me that you are reading it although if there are any advice as to why politicians have parted hair from the left I would be grateful
Cheers
TR
Reading Anson Cameron is so dispiriting. It is so wise, pithy and witty that I despair of trying to play in the same league.
But like the hapless Eagles of 2008/9/10 I’ll work on rebuilding my tepid dogerrel in the belief that I can kick the occasional goal.
Thanks Anson for making me smile, think and marvel. Thanks Litza for alerting me to it.
Thanks Andrew – for nothing.
Litza
I am totally and completely convinced that pinball is a sport. I learnt more about the term ‘in form’ from pinball than any other human endeavour.
Friday nights at the Uni club were about many things: 20 cent pots, Bundy and Cokes (bought with the money you’d saved on beer during the happy hour), dancing to Bom Bom – and pinball. Hours of it. Centaur hadn’t made it to the Darling Downs, although many old machines had (the ones where the pinball’s roll made an audible sound on the surface). It was the feature machine at The Club. Centaur revolutionised life because it was the first machine I’d ever seen with multi-ball. The anticipation as the thing started flashing and yelling basso profundo ‘Destroy Centaur’ was up there with seeing Robin Ashney walk in. And the joyful chaos of five balls was something which to this day has rarely been replicated. (1)
(1) Robin Ashney married a grazier and moved to Dubbo.
JTH, we all have a Robin Ashney… although mine didn’t have a name straight out of central casting.
Counter to Robin Ashney’s future as a grazier’s wife, I once dated a grazier’s daughter (gingham, pearls, RMs) who couldn’t reconcile that the word ‘pinnies’ was a significant part of my education, whereas ‘Grammar’ was not.
Xevious, Hyper Olympics, Time Pilot, Galaga, Galaxian..ahhh, the good old days. Finding soft drink bottles for the 20c refund became high priority. Unfortunately for the milkbar, we were playing their machines with money they were giving us for returning bottles that were coming from the back of their shop.
Worked a treat until we got caught. Wasn’t often strapped, but when I was, dad would hold one arm and give me a whack on every word. Unfortunately for me, this particularly strapping came on the back of a long senence.
“You….will….not….” Did me good though. I tsopped hanging around with that crew which is lucky given that some of them ended up with records.
Later in life, I was asked to explain to the powers that be at the end of Year one at Deakin why they should let me continue with my course given my extraordinarily poor results. Obviously they were never in the cafeteria. If Deakin offered a Bachelor of Pinball, I would have been Dux. Held the high scores, also got free games.
Met one guy I was at Uni with years later and he relayed his favourite Uni moment to me. I was on the pinny having a rare game when a mate of mine dacked me. I continued to play without missing a beat and only pulled my pants up minutes later after finishing the ball.
I’m glad my Uni experience was of value to someone.