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Crystal Castles

Friday, Dec. 12, 2008 - 1:11 a.m.

The trip from Oakland to Anaheim was a little more interesting than usual, because of the deranged flight attendant's safety spiel once we were aboard, and because of the scenery out the windows.

As best as I can recall, she began her spiel with "Has anybody lost a brown wallet?.... Okay, now that I have your attention..."

And a few moments later, "Should there be a sudden drop in cabin pressure, the oxygen masks will deploy, so as soon as you are finished screaming and hanging on to one another, please fasten the masks onto your faces with the elastic strap. If you are traveling with a child, or somebody who is acting like one, please take care of them first."

Then, with regards to the water landing: "Should this aircraft attempt to transform itself into a cruise liner, the float vests are located..." etc.

And finally, when we landed, for those of us whom she hadn't broken down before then, she welcomed us to San Diego.

---

The scenery to the east as we traveled south was unusually beautiful this time around. I'd never seen a sunset from so far off of the ground before, and if I thought you would believe me, I would swear to you I saw a clear and angular delineation between the setting sun and the encroaching twilight.

Now, I've seen a few indoor solar eclipses in my time, due to a malfunctioning shutter speed on an older 35mm camera, but I have never, not while actually a citizen of the Earth, seen the actual shadow of the earth in anything other than an outdoor solar eclipse.

Or maybe it was just clouds and I'm full of gas.

---

So.

Old Buddy Dave picked me up from the airport and he seemed really extra extra glad to be taking me to Chez Too Old -- like, more than usual. We banged up the stairs with my bags of debris -- and he requested permission to open the door and go in ahead of me. He turned on a light somewhere, and I finally was allowed to step in.

Here is what was waiting for me in his living room:

A genuine arcade console of the classic Atari game Crystal Castles.

This happens to be my most favorite video arcade game ever in the entire history of ever. Twenty five years ago, I was recuperating from major abdominal surgery, and this was one of the only two really physical things I could actually do; work a trackball. (The other was to sing, which is a story for another time.)

Over the year or two that I excelled at the game, it became harder and harder to find where they were. Finally, drives to Sacramento to a place in old town called The Time Zone proved satisfactory, but even they went ahead and eventually replaced it with something else.

I tried to stomach the various versions of the game; my family only had an Atari 2600 game console when I was still living at home, and the version of Crystal Castles that was produced for this platform was landfillably ghastly.

Finally, I just kind of gave up on ever seeing an arcade version of this game again.

Until last night.

---

Old Buddy Dave says the first words out of my mouth were "Are you fucking KIDDING me?" which sounds about right.

Apparently this dropped out of the sky into his universe, with the only condition from the previous owner being to please find a good home for it.

And I'm convinced there is NO way that the Universe is a series of random events.

---

This is what Dave Marron got me for Christmas, folks. It's the best Christmas present I've received since I was a little girl.

---

So I'm here, writing this post, and occasionally I'll see Dave.

Every time I shake my finger at him for doing such an excellent job of keeping the secret of the game's existence, he goes "Bwa ha ha ha...'

It's been a very long time since I've been caught so utterly flat-footed.

This is one of those times. Thanks again, old buddy.

I've already played it for about an hour, and I'll have a nice big Popeye arm by the time the visit is over; it will come in handy when I need to carry my luggage. It will live at Dave's place until there comes a day when I can figure out a way to haul it to San Francisco, but wow -- it's mine. Really and truly mine. And I'm so happy I can hardly find the words.

---

That's it. Have a wonderful Friday.

UPDATE: Here is Dave's writeup.

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