\jeff{krimmel}

Playing Ball At Dave and Busters

Last night a big group of us went to Dave & Buster’s to celebrate Ger’s birthday. Dave & Buster’s is a restaurant/bar with arcades and billiards in the back.

We had a group of 13, so the evening started with a two hour wait time. Fortunately Ariele and I needed to go to Santa Anita Mall anyway (which is where Dave & Buster’s is), so we just swung by D&B’s as we got into the mall and put our name on the list. For whatever reason, their staff had given Heather a hard time about making a reservation, so we weren’t able to make any prior arrangements.

Everyone arrived with about an hour yet before we were scheduled to be seated, so we went to the bar area and got 25 oz. glasses of the Newcastle Brown Ale. What a big glass of beer that works out to be. Good stuff, though.

We eventually got our table, which was set aside in a semi-private room adjacent to the main dining area. We even got our own television in the room with a separate speaker system. As we were sitting down, the North Carolina-Duke game was winding down, but our television was tuned to the Lakers-Pistons game. So, I thought I’d get up, go to the fancy digital control for the television and make the channel switch myself. Within two or three seconds of me standing in front of the digital control, one of the waiters drops in with an “Excuse me, sir”. I was informed that they would send someone to take care of it.

There are few things I enjoy more in sports than watching Duke lose. Especially come tournament time. Even though this wasn’t the tournament, it was senior day, and watching the freshmen at UNC take it to the Duke seniors made for nice entertainment. A second attempt at fiddling with the television to go back to the Lakers game after the UNC-Duke game concluded was again unsuccessful. Another call for a member of the wait staff had to be made.

After the meal, we went to the arcade and did our best to embarrass ourselves at almost every video game imaginable. The game playing started with a one-on-one competition on some Dance Dance Revolution knockoff. I was a spectator for that one. But, I quickly made it to the back corner where they had their basketball games. They had two such games: one was of the miniature variety where the backboard moves forward and backward relative to the shooter. There are six or eight stations, with all the players competing against each other. The second was a full-sized basketball goal that was maybe ten to fifteen feet away from the shooter and a full ten feet high. There were two of these goals so people could compete head-to-head. I think the rims were slightly smaller than regulation size, to get the carnival-like effect of tons of shots just rimming out.

This second, full-sized basketball game was definitely the most popular. Each shooter got 45 seconds to shoot as many balls as they could. Each made basket counted two points. The most I saw anyone score was 26 points. The lines were full of teen-aged kids who obviously knew each other and were wanting to go one-on-one. I went back there by myself, so both times I went up, I just had to ask some random kid if he wanted to play against me. The first time I did it, there was a big group of people behind us, and I got hot. I made several in a row toward the end and beat this kid pretty badly. I turned around to make my way back toward the end of the line, and some gang-banger looking guy right behind me tilts his head back quickly and says “Nice shootin’, bro.” And I recognized right then that was the most street cred I would ever have. Shooting baskets with sixteen year old kids at Dave & Buster’s on a Saturday night.

To my knowledge, Ger enjoyed his birthday party, and we all collected our tickets to buy some shot glasses and a kickass kazoo. Mike then proceeded to serenade us with the Black Eyed Peas’ “My Humps” on the kazoo. A fitting end to the evening. Happy Birthday Ger!