Gameworks was one of the 'sweetners' SpouseKitty tried to point out when we were moving up here. Me, I was more worried about "How the heck are we going to box all this stuff up?" I knew what I was going to do for fun once we got there to the Pacific Northwest. Unpack.

Somehow, this was lost on SpouseKitty and Kitten. They seemed to think pointing out that Seattle has a outsized arcade would make up for the stress and strain of having to turn 1400 square feet of house into 500 square feet of trailer. Besides, I know that my idea of a fun time in an arcade doesn't overlap with theirs, no matter how they paint it.

The games I'm interested in are generally violent ones. I'm a simple person. Give me a light gun, some zombies to shoot and I'm happy. Alternately, give me a fist-fighting game that hasn't been cranked up to "You can't touch this" and I'll be content. And Kitten would be in nervous hell. Heck she's still scared of even the fantasy violence in films. She was begging to leave the theater during Golden Compass. I bet if I forced her through a Lord of the Ring-a-thon, at the end, she'd completely offline.

But, back to Gameworks.

The actual realization was a bit like a Vegas casino. Dim interiors, loud music and ambient noise, bright lights, and few windows. Come in, drop some money to 'charge' up a mag-stripe card, then play arcade games until you run out of charge. It was originally going to be me and Kitten, but SK decided to come along at the last minute (probably afraid I'd forget Kitten in a state of cathode-ray bliss.)

It was going to be a Kitten and Me day out, and it turned into a Clan Kitty day out. That's fine, I can deal. They have games of all sorts there - motion sims, music sims, air hockey, Galaga(!), racing, shooting, punching, you name it. All available with a swipe of the card. It's not money, so you're freer to spend, say 10 credits than $0.50, or whatever the exchange rate happens to be.

The cards cost $2 per, so SpouseKitty suggested I not buy one. Give how nervous-nelly she's been about the finances, I agree. Kitten loves this one game Love and Berry, one half dress-up, one half push button in time to what's on screen game. SK wants to look up birthday parties there, so I hover around Kitten.

Needless to say, my games are not in Love and Berry Land, where everyone's happy all the time. I'm basically left with trying to shoot real basketballs, a bunch of one-armed bandit (slot machines) that take credits and pay out in tickets, redeemable for made in China toys for pennies on the ticket.

Worse, Kitten doesn't seem to grok the concept of pushing the button in time to the tambourine on-screen. I teach her, but she spaces out. It's her card (see above why I don't have one) and her game (see above why I don't play one) so I just let her miss. And miss. And miss.

A long time ago, video games were a black hole for me. As a geek, I sucked at anything played with a ball. Even bowling. Video games were my surrogate. If I got good at a video game, I'd at least feel like I could do something pointless well just like the jocks were doing something pointless, but well.

C'mon, if our species survival hinges on being able to put an oversized orange through an undersized hula hoop at ten feet, it's already doomed.

Back to Love, Berry and Kitten. She didn't get it. I taught her once, she did it a few times, then zoned out at the dancing characters. Her game, her credits. I hung back, and didn't want to pressure her. But it ground at me.

YOU. DO. NOT. YIELD. TO. A. VIDEO. GAME!

Competitive? Me? Whatever gave you that idea? And this game was set to Super Easy. Literally. You let it vacuum your credits, then it gives you a screen to select your level, from Super Easy to Do You Have Medical Insurance. Anyhow, this game was set to Super Easy, there's only one button to press, the tambourine beats are slow and clear. And Kitten is muffing them. ARGH!

So I distracted myself further, using my uber-phone to check work mail, Gmail (c'mon people -- Gmail's up to 6GB per person, and my inbox is feeling rather pinched!), and IM (my buddy list is also anorexic.) Oh, but that leads to another pain that may be told far in the future. Far, far in the future.

In other words, don't hold your breath.

Kitten finally bores of Love and Berry. Either that, or SK realizes that our family day out turned into a(nother) Kitten-first event and takes pity on me. Somehow, the card ends up in my hands, and I'm admonished to go find a game I like.

House of the Dead 2. It's a classic, but fun. I swipe the card, and 10 credits drop. I blink. The balance shows: 3. Great. Just great. The game starts. I shoot. I hear the reload sound. I shoot again. Reload, reload. Hey, can I just throw clips of ammo at the zombies? It might work better than this mis-aligned light gun.

Don't ask me how they munged the optics to do this, but I have to point at the side of the cabinet for it to shoot straight. By the time I figured this out, I was zombie-chow.

We walk back, and I'm walking ahead, just so I don't have to explain the impassive expression on my face. Around a nervous SpouseKitty, it's better to just ... not ... show ... anything. Her latest medical misadventures are worth another blog entry by themselves, but let's not get ahead of ourselves here. Here, The Kitty Family waited for a bus to go home.

At least they did have the sense to not ask me how I enjoyed my visit to Gameworks. Kitten still wants to have her birthday party there. Joy. (The J is silent, folks.) I can't wait.