I Need Assistance

Our U Wink screen:


Yes, we went back to UWink at the urging of Isa and her friend. This time we brought Tomi, whose gorgeousness and single status would bring good fortune to our table. I posted earlier about a prior visit and subsequent UWink investor's comments. The investor commented on the fact the ladies having fun would bring me out of my negative funk to have fun as well.

Ok! This time I was going to have fun.

I tried to tell the waiter that we'd been there before, but Tomi objected; not knowing the 'training' to use the computer would take a solid twenty minutes. Three minutes in she realized she made a mistake, but there was no stopping the waiter at this point. "See where the picture of the drink is? Okay, so if you want a drink you press on that. You want a cocktail? Okay, then we need to press where it says "Cocktails." And on. And on. "I was a computer programmer for years, " I protested. "Plus, anyone who has ever waitressed since the 90's is going to know how to use a touch-screen ordering system."

The waiter looked hurt.

The kids had already ordered while we were receiving our training.

Finally I could order my drink. We noticed a man under the table next to us, arms filled with wires: a repairman. There was also a raucous crowd in the back, drinking beers and yelling out answers.

We found out very quickly that they had changed the system. They now give "credits" for food purchased that go toward the games, which aren't free anymore. I thought to myself, well, that's understandable, you can't have people nursing a coke and playing How To Be a Millionaire all day can you?

Isa and her friend ran out of credits within five minutes.

Tomi helpfully swiped her card to buy them ten dollars worth of credits, and six minutes later they were begging again for more. They were also asking to shop at the 'virtual store' for stuffed animals and other items like pink digital cameras. Tomi and I went over to their (greasy) screens to investigate their desperation. Turns out they weren't playing just games, but they were playing games to win prizes (such as the aforementioned cheap made-you-know-where crap) and these games took a lot more credits to play.

At that point, we heard a loud pop and our screens went dark. A collective groan emanated from the party in the back. Other tables were still happily poking away at the screens. "Maybe the computer has lost our order and we'll get a free meal," I thought, and the server moved us to a new table. Within a few swipes, Tomi's name and yes, our tab were waiting for us.

We let the kids each get a stuffed animal and one outfit, because in ten minutes there was going to be a restaurant-wide trivia game, and Tomi and I were feeling like a good team. Also, I knew that buying the bears was going to be a lot cheaper than the kids trying to win them. (I can say this because I consider myself to be excellent at both Chuzzle and Bejeweled I and II and there were games similar to that and I couldn't even get close to winning a keychain.)

In the meanwhile, our food came, and we weren't the best at not duplicating orders, so I requested assistance.

"Sarah" won the trivia game. We knew this because it was blasted on the giant screen. "Who is Sarah?" Tomi and I yelled, and right behind us a mousy woman with long brown hair and glasses cheerfully raised her coke to us.

We got more credits and were determined to beat Sarah.

She won the next game and the next. How did she know so much about sports? All the other players were pretty drunk so they were easy to beat. But Sarah, sitting there drinking coke and nibbling on a fry, was not going to waver. Tomi and I decided to come back again, without the kids, and win the trivia contest.

We got the bill.

$270.

UWink

A while ago, John took Isa and I to a new restaurant, UWink, in a Woodland Hills mall. It had touch screens at each table, for ordering food and playing games. Some were pong-like, others were those trivia games seen in bars.
I wasn't that impressed; pong-games aren't going to do it for me anymore, and ordering food on a touch-screen is like being my own waitress. Plus, the trivia questions were just god-awful-- as well as repeating over and over again. I wondered to myself what kind of random number generator were they really using to dish out these horrible questions?
Isa, on the other hand, was wild-eyed. She begged us to order more drinks so she could hit the now-greasy touch screen. I was surprised at her obsession with the restaurant.
When Isa brought it up again for the umpteenth time the other day, I decided to google UWink. The wikipedia entry included "The company was founded in 2000 by Nolan Bushnell, the co-founder and former CEO of both Atari and Chuck E. Cheese."

Well, that explained the pong and the crappy food.

I'm somewhat disappointed in Mr. Bushnell. I'd have much rather had a joystick and played Adventure than field that touchscreen menu. Perhaps he's onto something-- creating a nostalgia for Isa's generation to buy into. I suppose there's nothing wrong with playing Tank and eating a burger, is there?


UPDATE:
This appeared on a Uwink investment board:



Another Brief uWink Blog Review


http://www.saltinwound.com/2008/03/uwink.html


A very good example of the "polarizing" nature of uWink (a good thing!). You've got some people that come in and find a negative in everything (like the blogger). BUT he's got a friend (READ: female) that is obsessed with the place.

In the end, who wins (this is hypothetical)?

1.The introverted guy who just doesn't want to have fun and complains about it to the "world" on his blog:

"I wasn't that impressed; pong-games aren't going to do it for me anymore, and ordering food on a touch-screen is like being my own waitress. Plus, the trivia questions were just god-awful-- as well as repeating over and over again. I wondered to myself what kind of random number generator were they really using to dish out these horrible questions?"



2. The extroverted gal who is having so much fun that she just keeps bringing new people to the place so that she can have even more fun:

"Isa, on the other hand, was wild-eyed. She begged us to order more drinks so she could hit the now-greasy touch screen. I was surprised at her obsession with the restaurant.
When Isa brought it up again for the umpteenth time the other day, I decided to google UWink."


My Opinion:
Eventually, the guy comes around because he realizes that regardless of how little "fun" he is having, uWink is attracting all the ladies, which will eventually attract him. This thing is going to work :)


BERNIE'S RESPONSE:

Dear Uwink investor, you've got one this nailed on the head. I am certainly a negative blogger, and Isa is definitely a pretty young gal that loves video games like nothing's doing. I will have to take her back there, so you do have us as customers in Woodland Hills.
As far as Atari goes, dear investor, I may have played more Atari than you ever will, and I will never forget that snowy Massachusetts day that I first laid my eyes on Pong. Yes, I was hooked. So yes, Mr. Bushnell is an integral part of my life.

But please, for my sake, get a programmer to update the trivia questions? I can make it last if the questions are decent.

Bernie

Review: Raiders of the Lost Ark

Since the next film is coming out, I netflixed this one for Isa, because she hadn't seen it.
"Can we watch Indiana Jones?" she asked me.
Score one point for the entity that changed this movie's name. In case you didn't know, it is now Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, which I think is blasphemy.
Well, that may be how you feel about learning, as I did, that the film has been digitally re-mastered as well.
The music has been redone. The sound, the erasing of the shadow of glass between Indy and the cobra, everything.
Sure, the technical aspects of the finished product are amazing. But this was a cheesy action-adventure made in 1981 about the Nazi era, itself stylistically referencing forties movies. The movie I watched last night looked like it could have been made yesterday, but with the actual celluloid struggle erased, we have no context left to place this film in. So many layers of pastiche have been erased, one thinks, what is this film now?
For example, the animation scene of the plane flying from San Francisco to Nepal has been replaced by something that looks straight out of a power point presentation. At least the original one was using forties technology, and certainly was supposed to mimic WW II movies of planes crossing the Pacific.
And so on.
I don't think I've seen the film in at least twenty years, so I was reminded of the lack of any other women in the film, besides our dear Marion. The Spielbergian plot device to get her into the beautiful white dress was simple: "Put it on," the French bad guy commands. Then later, she is given another white, silky number that she has been commanded to wear.
Maybe this can still fly as a film with the "eighties-ness" gutted from it.
Regardless, I'll never forget the countless hours slaving away at the Atari video game. That's about as eighties as it gets.