Where my parents live is one of the fastest growing areas of America. When we moved from Britain ages ago, there was nothing out there, and now when I come back to visit them, I often get lost due to all the new building going on. But one thing that for a long time, they lacked, was a local bar. America's not like the UK, with every city, town, and village having a good ol' pub with a fancy or fuuny name. In America, they have sports bars. You've probably seen them in movies and tv shows. The wood pannel walls, the tv showing all sorts of sports alien to anyone but the yanks themselves, and the really cool interactive triva machines. While they may not have the character of those gambling machines down the pub, they sure are fun in a hah-I-know-more-trivia-than-you sort of way. Good times.

An American Bar. Yesterday.

We finally got a bar several years back called "Ricky's". Good old fashioned American sports bar sort of place. Booths for the families and high tables for the dads just off work. Even had arcade machines in the back for the youth. Their speciality was hot sauce, and that's an important thing to specalize in. The yanks love their chicken and buffalo wings. It's all part of the Budwiser and NFL image. It's a cultural thing. Sort of like the Carling and Premier League image of Britain. Or not, whatever. I knew that it was a chain restraunt, but other than my friend worked there for a while, that was about all I really knew about it. Untill the other day.

Pint of Best for you sir?

Back when it happened, I read about Billy Mitchel and his perfect Pac-man score. "He's from Florida you know." said I. "That's facinating." said my mate in an over the top sarcastic voice. Well I thought it was. Flash forward to the other night. I read the fantastic article by Prof. TT and then in black and white it was staring me in the face. "Holy crap that bar down the road is owned by the greatest aracde gamer ever! We have to go!" Luckily I was down visiting mum and dad for the week, and some old school friends and I went one night to see if he just happened to be there. Us being us, of course, we arrived way too late. Nevertheless, I was determined to go to the bar I'd been to many times before, but this time to sit there and go "Wow! Guess who owns this place!" to everone else there.

Pac-who?

I went the next night and everyhitng seemed so much more exciting than it had the million other times I'd been there. "Ohhh there's a Ms. Pac-Man / Galaga machine in the back!" I remember there being a Crusin' Something but maybe they changed all of the to Pac-related machines after he won. For food, I had wings to start with (mild) very nice. Covered in sauce, as they should be. Then I got the chicken finger platter, a traditional favorite of mine in American restraunts. Dad got a massive cheesburger the size of a small house, Mum had dolphin. Yeah, good ol' flipper tastes mighty good on the grill. There was a bottle of Rickey's World Famous Hot Sauce on the table. I opened the top and had a sniff of the world famous itself. Needless to say, it was stong enough to give He-Man a bloody nose. On the way out I went up and asked the barman (who had been there since it opened) is the chap that owns this place the best Pac-Man player in the world?" (I probably sounded like some sort of English cowboy, looking for the toughest guy in town) "No it's his son. Best player in the world." I detected a hint of pride as he said it.

But on the beer menu, they spelled it New Castle. Weird.

December 2005

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