Nickey: Showbiz Pizza!

Did you have Showbiz where you grew up? I sure did. I loved it. My memories of it are pretty cloudy, I swear the one on the Northwest side of Chicago had a giant room with a slanted floor that hordes of young children ran up and down. That was all there was too it, just a slanted floor!

Of course, the place offered lots of other excellent entertainment for hyperactive elementary schoolers- like animatronics. Animatronics are like the poor man’s robotics… They don’t actually have the ability to make decisions or function independently, but they can move and talk realistically. Showbiz Pizza had an amazing animatronic band, the Rock-afire Explosion, starring a giant guitar playing bear.

It turns out, there are still lots of people that are obsessed with the Rock-afire Explosion. Showbiz Pizza bought out Chuck E. Cheese in the 1980’s and, eventually, all the stores converted to being Chuck E. Cheese’s. While a few stores are still using the Rock-afire Explosion, most of the animatronic bands were sold off, and kooky fans bought them up! On youtube you can find quite a few videos of Rock-afire performing current pop songs. These are programed in by the fans that own them.

There was a documentary made last year about the folks behind the Rock-afire Explosion and the people that are still in love with it today. It looks really good! I hope it comes to Portland soon, at the moment it’s just playing in film festivals. Here’s the trailer.

It’s obviously a pretty nerdy pasttime, but things like this always make me really happy. I’m glad that people can find something that they can love and be so passionate about. I love that human beings are so strange and obsessive. We’ve all got our own thing going on, and I love seeing what other people come up with.

Paul: Susan Powter Shops at Night

Paul: Idaho Stops

The Oregon legislature has recently been considering a bill that would allow cyclists to treat stop signs like a yield, AKA Idaho stops. For something that seems like a no-brainer to me the debate has become an opportunity for a lot of people to bitch and moan about bikes being a nuisance. The comments on a local news channel’s recent article about the bill were almost all negative and many suggested regulating the shit out of riding a bike.

A lot of drivers think that cyclists pose a danger to them and should be required to hold a license and carry insurance. I cringe at the thought of that, I mean there might be some danger to a kid riding around their neighborhood but we’re not going to institute an age limit or make them pay for insurance. And what about skaters??? Riding a bike is a simple solution to a lot of complex problems, and the government should do whatever they can to encourage people to do it. This video does a good job of explaining what a rolling “Idaho” stop looks like and why everyone does it already anyway.

and just for fun here’s a video of the annual nake bike ride in Portland