Friends

http://alec-longstreth.com/blog/547/

After a week in the suburbs with my parents, I was starting to get a fever... PINBALL FEVER.

The day after Christmas, I googled "Pinball Seattle" and came up with a bar in the Belltown area that looked very promising, called Shorty's. On Saturday, I grabbed some lunch with my sister at Mama's Mexican Kitchen, one of my favorite restaurants in Seattle, which happens to be two doors down from Shorty's.

I walked in at noon, right as the bar was opening, so I had the whole place to myself. It's your average circus/clown themed bar, except that all the tables are PINBALL PLAYFIELDS. Burried at the back of the bar is the "Pinball Cove" which hosts one of the most amazing lineups of Pinball Machines I have ever seen assembled in one room.

I chatted up the barkeep while he was turning a few of my Sacagaweas into quarters, and he said that the owner of the bar was also a pinball mechanic, so he chose the best of the best games and kept them in tip-top order. He wasn't lying. Everything was working great (which is not always the case, since many of these machines are now pushing 20+ years of operation).

I put $2 in a number of machines (which gives you 5 credits) before settling on the crowned jewel of the collection: Revenge from Mars, which is the only other Pinball 2000 machine that was ever created. It's a faster, more challenging playfield, but the interactivity with the holographic screen is a little less polished than the Episode I game. It was still SUPER fun.

Then today, I went BACK to Shorty's with my Dad and we played some pinball together, which was a real treat for me. We mostly played Medieval Madness, partly because it was one of the easier machines to see (the "cove" is lit with black-lights, which makes it pretty hard to see the ball sometimes - my only real complaint of the place) but also because I have access to a Medieval Madness machine back in White River Junction (at the bowling alley, at the top of the hill) so the skills I built up today, learning the board, will not be wasted.

ANYWAY, Shorty's is a super awesome place and if I still lived in Seattle, I would be hanging out in there all the time. As it is, I will just have to make a stop there each time I come home to visit! Tomorrow I head to Portland... and more pinball! Mwa ha haaaa!

http://alec-longstreth.com/blog/546/

Whoa, ELEVEN DAYS without a blog post? I guess I AM on vacation!

It has been an eventful eleven days, in which I've seen a lot of friends and family. As some of you might remember, my sister Galen got married this summer, so this year she is spending Xmas with her in-laws in California. Since I wasn't going to get to see her in Seattle, I chose to fly home from Newark, NJ so that I could see her new place with Nathan in New Brunswick, NJ.

I was on the same train out of White River Junction as Max, which was a good thing, because the train was horrendously delayed after it hit a car (sadly killing two people). We spent a lot of the extra time going through my script for Chapter 4 of Basewood, which is now a lot tighter (thanks Max!) I spent about 48 hours in New Jersey with Galen and Nathan, which was a lot of fun. They have a great place, full from floor to ceiling with BOOKS.

My mom met me at the airport at about Midnight on Monday and the next morning my sister Courtney arrived home after ten days in Uganda where she was visiting her husband. She had all sorts of amazing photos and stories from the trip. That Courtney is a real world traveler!

Courtney and I have been taking the new family dog, Otis, for long walks in the woods each day which has been a lot of fun. He's a very laid back dog, who sleeps a lot and is very sweet. I've been dying to get a dog, so it has been nice having him around to pet and play with.

Other than that, I have pretty much been hanging out around the house since I got back, trying to spend as much time as I can with my parents, who I only get to see once or twice a year these days. We had a very low-key christmas, which was just what I was looking for. I've got a pretty sweet little temporary drawing set up in their basement, where I am chipping away at various comics projects and I have been reading a lot, which I always feel like I don't have time for in Vermont.

Well, I'm here for a few more days and then I'll be heading south. I might have one more Seattle post before I leave... about Pinball!

http://alec-longstreth.com/blog/545/

The semester wraps up this week and then on Saturday I started working my way back to the Pacific Northwest to spend the holidays with my family. I'll also be spending some time with Claire down in California, so if anyone wants to order any Phase 7 stuff, now is the time!</a> (Is there any better holiday gift than handmade minicomics? I think not!) I can take orders up until Friday night (12/18), but after that people will have to wait until the new year for me to send out comics.

And while I'm shamelessly contributing to the commercialism of this season, I thought I'd let you all know that my old Pratt friend Kala Wright just created a new Zazzle store with some great holiday cards featuring her character Snowman Stansfield. Tangible Joy indeed!

I'll probably do some blogging from "the road" but it might be a while until my next post, so I'll just say now that I hope everyone has a great holiday season. I think all in all, 2009 was a really great year. Thanks to all of my amazing friends and family and students and co-teachers and bosses and subscribers and blog readers for making it such a memorable one, and let's hope 2010 is even better!