I am now 36 years old.

And I've reached an odd spot in life, which I'd like to think all men reach around now, when I've realized two things: One, despite the lingering gut, bald pate and acne scars, I'm definitely received that second wind of attractiveness that blesses some men and not others; I've always cleaned up well with the right coaxing, but I'm utterly baffled by how I managed to look better at 36 than I did at 35 than I did at 25 than I did at 17. After not-looking in the mirror on a regular basis since making faces stopped being a hilarious pasttime when there was nothing good on television and all my books and records sounded boring -- not to mention how much of my face was eclipsed by a beard the last decade or so -- I think I can see my reflection with substantially less loathing than I used to expect.

This is turning into an essay, so let's cut it short for now with: Yes, I do think that song is about me. Add more text here later. Or not.

(the other thing I realized: I don't need to be anonymous for work anymore. Robin at Inkstuds posting a hi-def pic of me leaning out of a shot to the Internets helped a lot, but really it was long past time I gave up on my career of CIA assassin. They never return my phone calls anyway.)

Anyway, for my first day as a 36 year old, I thought I'd take a reflected self-portrait of the moblogger strongly disapproving of the half-assed state of bar-game entertainment. What's next? A fucking WII in every dive instead of a 3/4 scale pool table? You want manly video games in your bar, buy an old PUNCH-OUT arcade cabinet with the arm controls and rake in the quarters. I hate bars, but I would spend hours and all my self-imposed allowance on one of those simulator-like arcade games.