the budget overhaul

[adminpoll]21[/adminpoll]

Can you tell I had fun making this one up?

Little icons have apparently gone a long way to reminding folks to throw us some spare change. In some time, we might be able to spring for a new server that is actually faster than the computer sitting on your desk (no lie, your computer is probably faster).

Some random notes for the curious:

- If you're wondering, the answer is no -- I won't *ever* get tired of the lobster machine. Prepare to see it as an option in every poll until the end of time, long after it has ceased being funny.
- Don't laugh, Natsumi can drink you under the table, too. The guy to her right is a bartender turned computer programmer, Katsushi. We may not understand each other, but we were buddies based on profession alone.
- Some of my tickets always go to buying the ubiquitous Chinese finger trap. Too bad arcades are dead.
- Don't panic, I haven't bought any cels in over a year. Maybe if sponsorship loot amounted to a quadzillion dollars, but I'm poor enough as it is. I still window shop frequently. =)

This being my first time seeing the Lobster Machine, tell me does that thing do what I think it does?

Wow, I thought everyone would be sick of the lobster machine by now. Yes, it is a coin-operated game we found in an area of Tokyo called "Nakano Broadway" (lots of Mandarake shops in a strip mall there).

Instead of grabbing stuffed animals, you grab dinner. The regulars here had a good laugh about this near the end of summer:

http://www.rubberslug.com/board/showthread.asp?T=292

If you type "lobster machine" into Google, some university guy has a picture of the same type of machine in his weblog... except the one he got a picture of looks a bit cleaner, doesn't have makeshift signs posted on it, and has a tacky backdrop of rocks behind the machine to make it look less like a holding tank and more like a fun game.

Oh wait... lemme get it.

http://www1.cs.columbia.edu/~sedwards/photos/crazyjapan200207/Pages/Image6.html

Don't that beat all, Live lobster,huh? It doesn't pass through a microwave or a steambath on it's way down the chute? Bizarre,so wrong and yet so right.

29%! Goooooo lobster machine!

Can you tell I'm kind of biased?

Flippy