Today was my birthday. Dave Sweet and Dave Woo were nice enough to spend some time with me to celebrate it. We went to Dave and Buster's, a sort of Sports/ Entertainment Bar/Restaurant. It's a large place and quite new over at the Great Mall in Milpitas. One bar near the entrance, with several large screen televisions showing various sporting events. A restaurant section that can seat 60+ people. A section with billiards and pool, a small virtual golf room, presentation rooms, a small theatre which I forgot to go to, and a large arcade room with a bar, various physical-type games, and various video games.

The arcade machines all use this credit card that you get there. It keeps track of your credits, which cost 20 cents each if you buy $20 worth. Each game costs at least a couple of credits. Basketball was 2.9, Skeeball 2.1, most of the video games at about 5-6 credits, there's even a BattleTech Virtual World setup that costs 16-30 credits, depending on the time of day. In general if you think about it, it's more expensive than a normal arcade and since you're using this card you tend to forget just how much money you're spending. Quite clever. There's a 10% discount once you've bought 1500 credits on a card.

First we ate. Just far enough away that we couldn't really tell how the Kings- Lakers game was going. Woo had the spaghetti with two large meatballs. Dave had some sort of personal pizza. I had the Jack Daniel's BBQ Ribs, a full rack, and it was good and filling. We had Spinach and Artichoke Dip as an appetizer, which was also good. The guys couldn't finish their meals, and they kept threatening to tell the waitress it was my birthday so that the waiters would come out and sing happy birthday.

After that we went to the arcade. First we played some Skeeball, which I'm pretty bad at. I think I got 240 in one game, although usually it was the upper 100's. Woo got a 300 game and could usually get in the 200's. Dave was also ok, although not quite as good as Woo. We actually came back to it a couple of times, as it's a weirdly addictive game.

I should mention that they do have slot machines and other gambling machines. You bet credits and win tickets, which can be redeemed for various prizes. Skeeball, basketball, and some of the other physical (non-video) games also gave out tickets if you scored well.

We played Gauntlet 3d, the one were it's hard to tell where you are shooting. We were actually pretty persistant and finished two of the worlds, getting one rune stone. Eric Rowe arrived about here to wish me a happy birthday. He played a bit of Gauntlet with us but had to leave.

There was a truck driving game we played. One player only so not as fun. A speedboat race we played together. I think I won both games as I'm pretty good at pure racing games. There was also a Star Wars game, you assault the Death Star, fight on Hoth and Endor, then destroy the new Death Star. I didn't like the controls, it's a fighter pilot-type stick with two fire buttons, there are also two big push buttons off to the side so that you can summon help (but only when the buttons are blinking). I just found it hard to control the cursor precisely with one hand. There were also a couple of scenes were you fight Boba Fett and Darth Vader, you have to move your light saber to the section of the screen highlighted by arrows. I kept getting up and down confused because of the pilot controls. But I did go through the whole game.

We played some basketball. It's a row of basketball machines, you shoot the basketball at the basket, which will move around depending on the setting. This is also a linkable game, so you're trying to outscore the other players. At the end the machines tell you who won. That was fun, but after three or four games my back was hurting. Best I did was score 43 points, enough to beat Dave. Dave usually scored 40+ points, Woo could score 90+ points at times. Usually I got 20+ points.

The last game was this linkable tank game. Up to four players, with two teams of four. After a false start we three stayed on the same team. The console and seat shakes when you fire and are hit. Forward and back pedals, steering column and a fire button. You can't rotate the turret, it takes three or four hits to destroy a tank, and you can pick up more shields from destroyed enemy tanks. We didn't really play coordinated, just sort of went off by ourselves. Not too good since the bad guys tend to gang up on the nearest target. But we did win most of the games as a team. Individually I won one or two of the games.

All in all it was a fun night. Dave got me a fondue maker as a present.