Star Wars memories

It’s been a starwarsy few days.

I made the most of my brief time in Seattle with a visit the Star Wars exhibit at the Pacific Science Center. I took many photos. Needless to say, I loved it, particularly the robot show’n’tell that intermixed fictional droids like C3PO with automata from our own timeline like Kismet. The premise of the exhibition was to essentially treat Star Wars as a work of design fiction.

From Seattle, Jessica and I took the train down to Portland. No, it didn’t go under the ocean like the Eurostar, and having WiFi on board a train wasn’t quite as thrilling as having WiFi on a plane, but it was still a lovely journey through some beautiful scenery. Do not pass Go. Do not get groped by the TSA.

Portland turns out to be delightful, just as reports suggested. There are food carts a-plenty. There’s a ma-HOO-sive book shop. There’s excellent coffee. And then there’s the beer. From Wikipedia:

With 46 microbrew outlets, Portland has more breweries and brewpubs per capita than any other city in the United States.

After consuming a few beers in the company of Portland’s finest geeks, we relocated to a true Portland institution: Ground Kontrol. It’s an arcade. But it’s a bar. But it’s an arcade! But it’s a bar!

Amongst the many, many machines packed into the place was the original Star Wars arcade game. Just seeing it brought back a Proustian rush of memories. I had to play it. I remembered a not-so-secret tactic that results in a nice big bonus…

When you get to the trench level on the Death Star, don’t fire; instead dodge and weave to avoid the incoming fire. After about thirty seconds, the music stops. You are now using the Force. If you fire just one single shot into the exhaust port at the end of the trench, you will be rewarded with many, many bonus points.

You’re welcome.

Friday, March 25th, 2011 6:09pm

Tagged with seattle portland starwars game gaming