Andy did you hear about this one?

[austin_dern]

Come Saturday I did have a free day, although it was one there were some natural constraints on. I needed a haircut. I'd needed one for a while but had figured to get to a barber around town, when the sudden call back East gave me fair reason to go to him instead. He was having a surprisingly busy day, though; there were four or five people ahead of me. A guy gave me his place in line, though, so he could finish a magazine article he was reading. I suspect my barber's contracting Cranky Old White Guy syndrome, based on the increasing frequency and general crankiness of political comments that come from nearly-evaporated conversational links. He's also been going through a distressing number of actual sick periods, though, and prolonged dealing with medical care companies will turn even rational people into raving maniacs.

The flip side of this was going to my barber meant it was easy to get also to the Silverball Museum. Their recovery from Superstorm Sandy has continued nicely and they've got the Boardwalk entrance reopened, along with Asbury Park in general having the Boardwalk laid down again. (Asbury Park was also having a weekend carnival, although none of the rides were roller coasters.) They've switched to a different door on the Boardwalk, for whatever reason, but at least the orientation is right. There wasn't a party going on, but there were a large number of kids in the museum, for the usual mixed blessing. The squeal of excited kids discovering something they'd never tried before is great. The kids who start 85 games and leave them half-finished is annoying if you're mildly obsessive-compulsive and can't stand games not being played the whole way through.

Part of the Silverball Museum's redesign again was that they've put in space for a Game Of The Month, which is the sort of obvious-once-you-said-it thing that makes it hard to remember they didn't always have that. Their game for this month (and I'm willing to bet for more months to come) is a brand-new one from Jersey Jack Pinball (from just a little south and west, in Lakewood), The Wizard of Oz. That is an incredible game and deserves a couple paragraphs of undivided attention.

Though I did again go to White Castle for dinner, I didn't get in any trouble by forgetting to leave lights on. Also, at a Wawa, the in-store radio was playing ``Man on the Moon'', and at the key parts everyone in the place sang along to the ``yeah yeah yeah yeah'' bits, so apparently that's a whole generation carefully programmed there, which is something.

Trivia: The Ancient Egyptians are thought to have used geese as guard animals. Source: Know-It-All, A J Jacobs.

Currently Reading: Sovereignty and an Empty Purse: Banks And Politics In The Civil War, Bray Hammond.

Comments

[porsupah.livejournal.com]

Ooooo.. someday, I must visit the Silverball Museum. Trouble is, I don't really have much by way of ties to the East Coast, so it's rare for me to not fly into/out of SFO, maybe LAX. Then again, I suppose there is that place in Las Vegas - not my kind of town by a long chalk, but I suppose outside of the Strip, it's fairly routine.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Yes, you ought to visit. It's a good spot and kind of the start of a long string of shorefront attractions (besides the actual shore) in that part of New Jersey.

But, yeah, without anyone much to see there it's hard to make a trip like that make sense.

[chefmongoose.livejournal.com]

It's rather good; It slightly surpasses the also-excellent Pacific Pinball museum in Oakland-ish.