Asklemmy

Forest floor dirt after a rain...smells so earthy and good

The smell of pine tree resin in summer. Mixed with the salty coast winds gusts, and the rusting iron of the train tracks. My childhood in a nutshell

Being in a basement, on a couch, playing Sonic Mega Collection on a CRT TV while also being able to pause and switch from AVI to DVR using the button on the TV to catch my favorite cartoons.

I spent a lot of time playing that game growing up, but I'd say doin what I described above was pretty peak for me back then, before middle or high school (couldn't tell you which grade, though). Probably summer, not much to do, could switch between Sonic 3D Blast and what I think was a marathon on Cartoon Network, back when I used to be so much more into the pokemon anime, during the diamond and pearl era. I do remember a single fragment of an episode, with that aura guy with the blue hat and cape and his lucario.

I definitely relate to that. I spent a good chunk of my formative years just hanging out at the mall after school with my friends, sitting on the outdoor balcony with ridiculous coffees, openly smoking although we were underage, and just shooting the shit. Maybe we'd have hit up the music store beforehand and we'd chat about what we'd bought, read the liner notes and talk about the artwork. I miss music stores too, but I think a lot of people my age do. The mall used to be somewhere you could just hang out. I don't know what's changed, maybe it's me. In my area they seem to be as busy as ever, but they all seem so sterile and hyper-optimised now, even though the floorplans are still the same as they were decades ago.

Me, I miss the proliferation of arcade video game cabinets. I miss arcades too, but I don't think that's out of the ordinary for old nerds. Going to them for a lock-in session was always a fun event, even by myself. Also having one at nearly every mall and being able to just go there and drop a few bucks and kill half an hour while you wait for a bus. What I really miss though, are the machines they'd just have randomly in places; corner stores, video rental places, restaurants, bowling alleys. We'd spend entire days riding around, scouting out new places for good games, which place had the cheapest Street Fighter 2, discovering weird obscure import titles no one had ever heard of. Of course now if I have a few minutes to kill I can game on my phone, but it's such a non-event. Arcade cabinets were special, they had -presence-. When you found a good one you kept that location burned into your brain, told only your closest friends, and when they removed or changed it, it was such a tragedy.

I know this is probably a very dumb question but I must ask- are there no malls near you or which is the reason you miss them so much? I work at a mall, it doesn't have a fountain in particular (others do) but otherwise it's still pretty much as you described

Slides. The static as it builds and discharges as you glide along, the wind flying by as you are lost to the lack of control hurling you along