Leif would have loved it - Google's Celebration of the 30th Anniversary of Pac Man

Google has created a playable logo of Pac Man to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the game. How it brings back memories for me! Thirty years ago Leif was five years old and we were living in Japan. The video arcade phenomena was huge and there was a large one not too far from our housing area, in the city of Sagamihara. I think I've already written that one of our favorite family outings was to have dinner (tonkatsu) at Matsumoto's, which the Americans called the "Little Pork Place" and then go to the arcade. We would get a lot of tokens and each of us would have a bundle of them and we'd play, all of us, whatever video games appealed to us. Pac Man and a bit later Ms. Pac Man were popular and so much fun.

Leif later had Pac Man as one of the retro games on his XBox360. I don't know if he ever actually played it as a 32-33-year-old adult, though I bet he at least tried it out for old times sake.

With Leif's memory, he would remember those outings and all the fun we had together. We still played at the arcades in Hawaii, mostly at the Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center where the arcade was on the top floor.

How I wish Leif were here to share this with, the fun of playing it with the arrow keys on Google. I don't know how long they will leave it there, but it you want to play and remember, too, just go to google.com. Then click on "insert coin" and you'll be playing. Use the arrow keys to control your Pac Man.

And remember Leif playing when he was 5-10 years old . . .