Whirlwind Weekend

GAME ON: Saturday morning we headed to the Sodo neighborhood for an event we've been looking forward to for weeks. It was the Living Computer Museum's "Free Play," an annual event where the museum is open to the public for free, and they have a number of special attractions in addition to their usual (amazing) collection.

Even before we entered the facility, we encountered balloon artists and a face painter.  

        Photo: LCM 
Usually at festivals we talk Annabelle out of getting her face painted because lines are too long. On this occasion, we were there early enough to avoid lines. Ironically, the only girl ahead of us was a child who was in the kids' Gustafer Yellowgold singing/songwriting workshop a couple of weeks back. Small world. 

The first step made Annabelle look like she had a terrible bruise ... 

 But bit by bit it was transformed into a beautiful butterfly. 

But onto the games. :)

The kids got their Donkey Kong on ...

as well as Moon Patrol, Space Invaders, Pac Man, and a number of other arcade favorites.

 

One of the features at the event was a big screen, which Annabelle took to like a fish in water.

There was also a room dedicated to retro console games, which made CJ especially happy. :) (In fact, the LCM will host the Seattle Retro Gaming Expo this September. We have been to the SRGE a couple of times before but didn't go the last couple of years because we weren't so thrilled with the 'organization' of the event. However, now that it's going to be at LCM, we're optimistic that it will be legit. Our experience Saturday was great, so we're all in this year.)

I'd like to go on the record to say that I completely and entirely kicked his arse at the Tengen two-player Tetris game. I feel like my retro game street cred just climbed a notch or two. Go me. :)

Here is what Annabelle has to say about the event: 

On August 15, I went to the Living Computer Museum for “Free play”, an event that involved many arcade games and pinball games all set to free play mode, so you could play all you wanted without paying. They also had carnival games like a ring toss and games for consoles like the NES. The game I liked the most was probably the arcade game “Moon Patrol”, a game about shooting aliens and jumping over pits while surviving for as long as you can. Outside the museum, we saw people making balloons and face painting. I got a fish on a fishing rod balloon, and butterfly face paint. Overall It was fun and I would definitely go again.

As Annabelle mentioned, there were a couple of carnival games, which seemed like an odd one-off to all else that was going on, but the kids enjoyed it.

Here's what CJ had to say ... 

On August 15th, 2015, I went to the Living Computer Museum to their Free Play event, where there were several retro video games on display that we could play. In the arcade room, there were multiple arcade games, including Space Invaders (which I failed pretty terribly at), Moon Patrol, Galaga, and Pac-Man. Another game that was availible in the arcade room was Vs. Super Mario Bros, a somewhat obscure version of the original Super Mario Bros for the NES. There was another room that was filled with several retro video game consoles, including the NES, SNES, Atari 2600, and the Dreamcast. On the Atari 2600, I played E.T. and the port of Pac-Man, just as bad as ever. We were able to rent NES games from one counter, and we rented the Tengen version of Tetris. On it, I played co-op mode with my mom, which is pretty much screwing your partner (and sometimes yourself) over.

Overall, I had a very fun time at Free Play.

NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH:  We spent a bit of time trying to be good neighbors this weekend. For instance, in our walks and drives, I've noticed a number of shopping carts that have been stolen from the local QFC. We decided our Sunday walk would involve rounding up a few of them and returning them. We started with one thrown into the blackberry bushes at the end of our alley. From there, we walked several blocks down to Thorndyke and picked up a couple that were stashed next to an abandoned auto repair shop. We had three in possession as we walked toward QFC across the railroad bridge.

We found one more at the north end of the bridge, so in all, we had four as we returned to QFC. That's gotta be at least $400 worth of QFC merch. We just put them in the collector in the parking lot, and walked home. 

Monday, we used the city of Seattle app to report what I believe almost *has* to be a stolen car (it has recent front end damage and has been awkwardly parked/abandoned since last Thursday, at least) near our nearest park.

While in the park today walking, we were looking for a hidden geocache. Instead, we found the remains of a stolen purse. Bummer. We reported that with the app, too.      
   

EXIT THE DRAGON: On our way home from the Living Computer Museum on Saturday, we swung by expansive Volunteer Park.  We weren't there long, but we saw some lovely flowers ... 

and checked out a really cool playground ... 

But our number one reason for stopping was to finally visit the grave of Bruce Lee, of martial arts and "Enter the Dragon" fame. He's buried, alongside his son Brandon, at Lake View Cemetery, next to Volunteer Park.

A testament to Lee's popularity and staying power, on a random Saturday afternoon, 42 years after his death, there were six groups of people paying their respects, plus some leaving and others coming. I

Tonight we read the account of how Brandon Lee died on the set of "The Crow." Wow. Terrible. I had read accounts right after it happened, but now that all the evidence is in ... unforgivable, really. Such negligence, it's hard to believe people didn't go to jail for it. He was shot dead, at close range, by what was supposed to be a prop gun. Terrible.