The Bagman Cometh

Do you guys remember Bagman? (and for that matter - everyone should set KLOV as their home page). It was an arcade game and I think it made an 8 bit home apearance as well. Anyways, unless you dropped your allowance one quarter at a time into the coffers of sweaty guys named Tony, you may have no idea what I am talking about.

My friends Josh and Todd and I used to hammer down nickels until they where roughly the size of quarters. There where few games that used to take our poorman slugs, but Bagman was one of them (and Gorf, Carnival, Centipede, Defender and Space Fury - "You were an adequate opponnent"). I think. Until I am proven wrong, my memory serves the truth as always.

So BFS isn't "dialed in" to a real time database. She wouldn't listen to reason and kept towing the party line. The website is a little closer to the nerve and knew that my bags had been corraled. She gave up the information that I needed to hear once I sweated her out with a very intense light on the screen and repeated F5's. After a tightly executed raid, Baggy (a yellow, smallish duffle bag of Jamaican decent) and Bagly McBaggerson (a green, purple and black backpack from Scotland) where brought into custody as they Landed in Indonesia with a devious plan to sell their organs and other inards on the streets of Tanjung Pinang. Its too bad, I would have liked to go identify their picked over corpses and learn how to surf while there to "get over the loss". (For the record - they got found in JFK and deliverd on the next AA plane to Toronto, but I have an over active imagination some times).

A real voice called to let me know that the bags were in Toronto, and would be delivered to my location by 3pm. Where is your location? "I am at a water access only cottage 2 miles south of Dorset, Ontario." Hmmm maybe tomorrow. "I'll need them delivered today. I don't have any clothes and am sitting here in a 15 year old red track pants which were donated by my friend Aaron and a brown sweatshirt that I found in the back closet. You are starting to affect my street cred and I haven't felt this mismatched since I was set up for a swinging threesome with Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbah"

So the Bagman. A difficult to understand Russian accent who had developed a bit of relationship with my father through the several calls he had made to my Dad's cellphone (first practical reason why not having a cellphone is good - other people have to field calls destined for you). 3 -> 5 -> 9 -> 11:30pm. The bagman had "Many, many bags to collect and deliver". Reality imitating 8-bit vids. So true. All the time. every day. all day.

He was so shocked at the situation that he was disappointed he didn't bring a camera. He was floored. "I never". Another instance where my humour doesn't really cross cultures very well: we met him at the dock (after crossing the lake in a rising fog) where he was promptly standing with Baggy and Baggly and I told him that these simply weren't my bags. RICH! So funny. Well he wasn't having any of that and just shoved a clip board into my face to sign the delivery receipt. My balloon deflated and flew all willy nilly about. Oh well... good humour is wasted on some people.

Yay - stuff.