Dispatches, thoughts, and miscellanea from writer Jon Konrath

Dreams, gameworks, Apple CDs

Ever have one of those days where you have some free time, some cash in your pocket, more in the bank, and you just want to go out and do something by yourself like buy a whole stack of books or look at CDs for 6 hours or try on new leather coats or something like that? I’m still feeling sick, or else I would.

Dream from last night: I sold my Escort and bought a Ferarri convertible. I was nervous about calling my insurance company because I was sure they’d drop my policy. I went to a high school reunion and saw a girl I used to like named Christi. She was with some guy, and she asked me what I’d been doing. I told her I just bought a new Ferarri and she got all pissed, because she had a beat up Honda and it just broke down that week.

Food: mix two cup-a-soup packets in a mug: one cream of chicken, one chicken broth with noodles. Add a cup of hot water and mix. I’m still sick, still not eating solids. I tried to eat at Subway yesterday and it almost fucking killed me.

I went to Gameworks last night with Bill. Because of all the hype surrounding the opening, and because it is right by a Planet Hollywood, I thought it would be a trendy place full of assholes, overpriced, etc. It wasn’t too bad – sunday night has a special where you can play everything from 9-11pm for $10. They had the 360 degree jet game I played at Disney, and I got another run on that. Most of the games were newer, and there were only a handful of old 80s games, all of them Atari units like Missile Command and Centipede. I was hoping for Smash TV or Star Wars – oh well. There was a driving game that I liked a lot, and a networked tank game that kicked ass. One shoot-em-up game had a big Rambo-like machine gun that you had to hold with two hands that shook as you blasted the hell out of everything in your path. I loved not having to worry about money – they gave you a smart card with an infinite balance, which was nice for those $1.75 games.

I somehow got signed up to the Apple Developer List, and someone just dropped off a stack of CDs for me. I think I’m going to go install a bunch of junk on my Mac…