Shiny With Bright Flashing Lights

I spent some time in a New Haven, CT BW3's recently and made an interesting observation. It's not an earth shattering observation because I think we are all aware of it. It was just one of those "aha" moments when something becomes perfectly clear.

It was your typical BW3's: football on TV (I was watching my Michigan State Spartans implode against Penn State) and good wings.

But, this BW3's had another element: It had a gaming area with several large, shiny games with bright flashing lights.

My aha moment of clarity was this: If you put a large, shiny game with bright flashing lights in a bar, grown men will waste their hard-earned cash to play the game -- even if they have no earthly clue how to play it or hope to win at it.

Now mind you, this BW3's was near the campus of Yale, and it was the Saturday of the Harvard vs Yale football game, so there was (or should have been) a lot of brain power in the bar. Brain power that should have known better than to waste money on large, shiny games with bright flashing lights.

But, the allure of these games was too much for the male patrons. They had to test their "skills" against games (a large punching bag game and, what looked like, a large "poor man's" version of Tetris, to name a couple) that were probably unwinable.

To make matters worse, the punching bag game promised a free sixteen ounce beer to the person who broke the high score.

What does it all mean? I think it means that men are gullible, but I'm happy to say that I resisted the temptation to plug my cash into one of the large, shiny games with bright flashing lights. A moral victory?

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