Amusement arcade memories

When I was a kid our family used to go on holiday to the Isle of Wight. We probably went to Sandown every year from 1967 to 1976. My favourite part of the day was the visit to the amusement arcades on the sea front and on the piers, Sandown, Shanklin, Ventnor and Totland  Bay.  The machines were mostly on penny play and very inventive. Totland Bay pier had a vintage amusement arcade. During the day I would be given between 10 and 20pence to go up to the amusements with my brothers. When our money ran out we would stand by the penny pushers and give them a nudge and hope for some coins to fall out. Sometimes in the evening our parents would take us to the amusements and join in the fun. I only had a small amount of money to spend so chose the machines I wanted to play wisely. I always found a machine which paid out when it shouldn't. One time this happened I filled up two or three cigarette boxes with pennies. My dad used to really give the penny pushers a shake to get us some spare coins. He didn't care if the alarms went off  and the attendant came over. He would blame it on our dog which we had with us. The amusements always seemed more exiting and bright when you had just come in from the dark. In the evening more adults would be in there so it would be much louder and many of them would have had a drink or be out as a group. 

Many of the games I played then have long since disappeared from many arcades today, so I was pleased to find a few online amusement games I could play again. Tooty Fruity is one of them and I have posted a picture above. You get twenty coins to play with and can replenish them after you have lost them all. It is a very strategic game but also relies on a lot of luck. The odds as always are stacked against you. you can play it here: http://www.nostalgiapelit.fi/tooty-fruity.html  The simulation looks and sounds like the real thing. There are some other great games on the site too which I will leave you to discover. If anyone knows any other similar sites please let me know and I will post them here.

You can also play another oldie called Conveyor here: http://www.pennymachines.co.uk I found this page in the arcade section of the site and it took me ages to work out how to get the machine to work. If you get stumped get back to me and I will tell you how. It involves obtaining coins to play before it will work. Very authentic. If you are not careful you can drop the coins you have and they get lost. Totally frustrating even though they are just virtual coins. Very clever though. I remember this happening playing a game called Wheel 'em In  (made by Streets) which had a unique way of paying out your coins when you won. The coins would roll down a sloping piece of glass towards you and be stopped when they had hit top speed by a thin strip of wood so that they dropped next to the slot where you would put them straight back in the machine. This was if they hadn't rolled onto the floor and under another row of machines. The coins were also vunerable to older brothers or taller kids intercepting them before they even got to you.

Watch one in action here 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62v2drGElXQ

Some of the other games that can be found on the same site as Tooty Fruity are shown below.

There is a collector of these old slot machines who posts movies of these old machines working and opens them up to show the workings. It was always a treat when the man with the keys opened a machine in the amusements. 

You can watch the film stream at: http://www.youtube.com/user/supershotbattymanbor

HAVE FUN!!!!

Podcasts

I am still a proud owner of a second generation 20GB ipod which I still use on the train every day. Apart from my 3000 or so tracks I have on it I recently discovered some podcasts which adds another dimension to the brute. All the pod casts I have subscribed to are free which is a bonus.

My favourites are listed here:
British Invaders, which is about British science fiction television. There are over a hundred pod casts so far and the ones I have downloaded are very well put together. The presenters sound as if they put the programme together via a web link. The presenters introduce themselves as Brian from Canada and Eamonn from England. They cover some quite obscure British television programmes and give you the good and bad points of the series and where you can view them or if they are available on DVD. There was a double episode on Alternative 3 which was a spoof science documentary shown back in 1977, which inspired me to watch it on Google video. It is well worth a look. It runs for 54minutes.

Anyway British Invaders have there own website where you can download individual episodes or listen online. They have a forum on the site too. I subscribed to the podcast through ITunes. New episodes appear quite regularly. A top podcast and very easy to listen to on the train to work. Each episode is between 20 and 30 minutes.

Another podcast in the same sort of vein is from the wonderful Resonance FM which is a station I accidentally came across in the days of cassette radio Walkmans. I tuned into some weird interference which was the recordings of the sounds produced by people and traffic crossing one of London's Bridges. It was very experimental. It is the worlds first art radio station. The FM broadcast is very limited to a small area of London so the best way to listen to their programmes is via their website. Anyway on to the podcast, The Original Soundtrack Track Show . It is resented by Jonny Trunk who plays film Library and television music. The shows last about two hours.

Other Podcasts that I won't go into detail about but are worth a listen are:

The Modcast with Eddie Piller and Friends. Not specifically about mods but alot of mod culture creeps in. They go on for just over an hour and have taken off in a big way in a short time.

For music podcasts I mainly subscribe to 6Music podcasts

Tom Robinson's Introducing which is like a full CD of new music with a bit of talking between tracks. If anyone tells me that music today is rubbish I tell them to listen to this show first before passing comment.

Domino Records also have good podcasts and have free tracks from their artists. I don't like everything but one of my favourite bands is Clinic and they are on Domino. It is a very good introduction to new and up and coming artists.

Mmmmmm pizza

Be creative with your litter.

Homer Simpson

Barrett Homes

I was painting the floorboards of the main bedroom white. This involved removing all the furniture. Once the room was empty and the floorboards were painted, the room looked really spacious. The paint took a couple of days to dry and the room remained empty. It would be good to keep it as a minimalist room. Syd Barrett would have felt at home here.  

We all have our pipe dreams. The furniture went back the following day.