Alan and I cruised around Normandy Park for old times’ sake when I was last back in town. The neighborhood had changed. Normandy Park, a pretty nice island of a neighborhood nestled between the undesirable sea of “Close to Sea Tac Airport” and “Burien” has not reflected the property value increases seen by most of the Seattle area. In fact, houses there are still fairly affordable, and the commute into Seattle is by no means onerous – at least not compared to where most people seem to be buying houses nowadays. But people are starting to realize this.
The multitude of retirement homes and churches along 1st Ave are still there, death and salvation staring each other down from across the street. One block from my house, a somewhat large new home development was springing up over the prickly blackberry patches of my youth. The Dairy Queen was boarded up, but the roof and sign were still there, starting to age. We drove over to White Center Pho for lunch, probably one of the bombest pho places on earth, and just across the street, a pinball/ice cream place (Full Tilt) was having their grand opening.
I love pinball – I love the tacticle feel of bumpers and flippers against ball, I love the weight of the table, I love the lights and visceral experience it offers. But I’ll be damned if I am not seriously the shittiest pinball player of all time. Most guys walk up to the machine and go for a few minutes – I can gutter through all three balls in one minute flat. I’m there jostling at the table, ice cream melting, score reaching the triple digits, concerned parents looking on as yet another freaking ball goes along the side and I have to go back to the front to change another dollar. Meanwhile, there are these pinball superstar nerds who write for a pinball magazine or something taking pictures of the place and pretty much owning high scores left and right making me look like the kid everyone pitied for singing Journey off-key to a backing track at a high school talent show.
I take solace in the fact that somewhere, there’s someone who loves Guitar Hero and all the music in it, but has no hands. Luckily this place had good ice cream and most tables only cost $0.50 to play, which for most people would be a deal, but for me would still cost $30 an hour, which is about as much as hiring a personal financial advisor according to careerbuilder.com (his advice: stop playing pinball, retard).
On the way back from lunch, I told Alan we were swinging by my old house. I hadn’t seen it since we sold it a couple of years ago, and I wanted to make sure the yahoos living in it weren’t screwing it up.
Hot damn:
Look what these assholes did to my lawn! Look at that randomly placed POT on a PEDESTAL! You can’t see it, but there was also a motorcycle on the other side (across from the randomly placed gas can).
Good to see that my place went to a loving family of SUV driving motorcycle wheeling lawn ruining ceramic worshippers.
