“If we’re going to be damned, let’s be damned for what we really are.”¹

Geek Out

Save Coney Island. Damn it, I really want to play mini-golf and ride the Tilt-A-Whirl at Coney Island every summer. “Save Coney Island” may be the most practical and organized outfit working toward that reality. Their vision acknowledges a need to redevelop the rickety boardwalk area while demanding that developers respect its history. On Saturday, SCI will throw a benefit featuring a cavalcade of carny talent, including The World Famous Pontani Sisters and The Fisherman Xylophonic Orchestra. Get the details on the Save Coney Island MySpace page, which is a garish mess, but isn’t that the point?

Bzzzzz. Also Saturday, the Wave Hill Garden and Cultural Center in the Bronx is holding an “Urban Beekeeping Day,” a day on which nothing could possibly go wrong. Local beekeepers will show you how to set up a hive in your own apartment complex, providing a boost to threatened honeybee populations. Your trained army of insect minions are also a handy way to resolve neighbor conflicts. Old Mr. Winston in #3B might think twice before bitching about your Guitar Hero noise again once he opens his sock drawer to see where that buzzing sound is coming from.²

Geek In

Be eaten by a grue. The tired term “retro gaming” has become shorthand for blocky 8-bit classic from the NES generation, but truly retro gamers reject the decadence of “graphics” and “sound” for text-based adventures. You might have played these on your Commodore 64 decades ago—you know, the games whose picturesque prose you navigated with commands like “LOOK EAST” and “PICK UP LAMP.” You can still battle grues in the seminal Zork series, but fans are creating new narratives, as well—this Sunday, the XYZZY Awards will honor the best interactive fiction of 2007. Whether your chosen adventure is old or new, the Brass Lantern beginner resources are a good jumping-off point.

Play fake pinball. It kills me to plug a pinball video game, as nothing approaches the visceral delight of a classic machine. That said, given the paucity of real pinball in the New York area, pinball fans might slake their thirst with Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection for Wii and PS2. This title was released with little fanfare—the developer doesn’t even acknowledge the game on its website—but initial impressions among “pinheads” on the Web have been positive, including a favorable notice from Game Chronicles. Have fun, but promise to throw down a few quarters the next time you see a machine in the flesh.

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1. According to the class of Starfleet. ↑

2. Dog owners may also want to consider the security benefits of dogs with bees in their mouth, and when they bark, they shoot bees at you. ↑