Well, not quite. I was thinking of a place that didn't require thousands of dollars and a passport. Let's go all the way...to the 80's/90's!
"Ehh."
(sigh) Some people ya just can't please.
When I turned 14 I got a computer for my birthday. A Tandy 1000. The premier line of home computers. However, it could only play games that needed 256K of memory or less. Which excluded about 90% of the games out there. There was one, however, that I could play, that changed the way I thought about how one was supposed to live one's life. And that game was...
Leisure Suit Larry!! If you've never heard of it, this guy (Larry) has a go-nowhere life and decides to move to a city called Lost Wages (sounds like Los Vegas yes?) so he drives there and sells his car and has only one thing on his mind: losing his virginity before midnight. What you have to do is try to convince the women in the game that you're where the party's at. Along the way you must pick up objects, buy objects and gamble in order to keep your cash flow...well, flowing. I spent hours trying to crack this and when I did I felt a real sense of accomplishment. Of course I needed a few hints along the way, but who didn't? In the summer of 1990 me and a couple of friends went to the mall (for the life of me I don't remember how we got there) and there was a sotre called Electronics Boutique that had this book about the history of the game and hints on how to beat it. So I picked it up and it was pretty entertaining. I don't remember what happened to it but I would love to have it again. It was written by Al Lowe and was mostly black on the cover with a few pictures of the women in the game. Those friends? Haven't seen them in 15 years...who knows if I ever will again. But that day was awesome.
"CBS Storybreak"
This show always seemed a little young for me, but I always seemed to have trouble reading a book all the way through, so this kind of brought it to life for me. I wished someone would repeat it somewhere. Ah well.
Baseball cards
I started collecting these in 1988 and had thousands of them. Unfortunately, 99% of them were not worth...well, anything. So, last year during my vacation, I went through all 20,000 of them and tossed the "commons". I did keep about 1,000 as they may be worth something if some of these guys get into the Hall Of Fame. When we lived in Canada, we'd come back to Texas for the summer and always found time to go to Toys R Us in Duncanville where I would buy them then go through them at my grandma's house where we stayed. What a time. I'd love to get back into it but man are they expensive today! $3 and $4 for a pack? I get a pack here and there but I don't open them. You may not know this about me, but sometimes I buy things and don't open them.
I think we're going to Hawaiian Falls today! It's a $10 million water park they opened in Mansfield. We got passes so if we go like 3 times they're paid for. We already did that I think. Or maybe today will be the 3rd. Either way, we're golden.
Did you know gas is expensive? Let's track the cost of filling up my lovely 1997 Sentra:
2001: $40 a month (bought the car then)
2008: $135 a month
In seven years the cost per month has more then tripled. We should just ban gas and force everyone to drive electric cars. I mean, it's killing the planet anyway right? All people seem to care about is finding more oil and finding more oil. We're even proposing going to Alaska and drilling in a wildlife preserve! Maybe it's just me but there can't be a limitless supply of oil in this Earth. And when we burn it, it adds to global warming. And ethanol is even worse. At least thats what Crane Pool & Schmidt brought up in an episode of Boston Legal. But the people and Shell and Exxon and whatnot seem to think the center of the Earth is made out of oil.
P.S. In case you didn't notice, I mentioned the 2 places in the beginning again! Was a coincidence really. That's all...
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