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 . . .

Leif's 33rd and last Christmas 2007 - Sun City Center, Florida - Almost 33 years old

Christmas 2007 was the smallest family Christmas we've ever had, just Peter W., Leif and me. My mother was in the Washington DC area staying with our nephew, Rick, and his family, and visiting the family in the area; my sister Lannay and her family. Peter A. and his family didn't arrive here until after Christmas.

Leif had wanted a particular computer game for his new iMac, and I'd gotten it for him, but unfortunately, he never got it to run, so it was only a source of frustration to him. He was subdued at Christmas and it was practically impossible to get him to smile. I knew he'd been unhappy, but he did have some joy and interest in the Mass Effect game on his xBox 360.

Although we had our traditional foods and enjoyed our dinner together, the real fun came when Leif's brother and nephew and nieces got here a few days later. Then he enjoyed joking around with Aly and playing chess with Madeleine.

I'm glad we didn't know it was his last Christmas with us. I wouldn't have been able to bear it.

Leif's Mass Effect Character

From the beginning, when we got our first Apple II in Japan when Leif was just in first grade, he loved computer games. One of our favorite family activities when we lived there and in Hawaii was to go to a video arcade and we all played those games, too.

As computer games became more sophisticated, he became more and more involved with them, enjoying everything from car racing games to first person shooters. In 2000, he found zaon.org and became a part of that community. It was a big part of his life. He was a frequent poster on the Zaon forums, and the members of Zaon were online companions and friends.



He bought an Xbox just to be able to play Mass Effect and played it for hours and hours, days and days, different characters, different pathways to different results. He brought the Xbox to our house to show us the game on the big screen TV and we were suitably impressed.

He was impressed with everything about the game and talked with infectious enthusiasm about every aspect. He made several characters, playing both male and female parts. The picture above is his male character, and you can see that he modeled it closely upon himself.