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 Posted: Wed Jun 22, 2011 10:41 pm
 Corey did a lot of jobs when it came to his arcade. Depending on the day, the other employees, and how busy the arcade was he'd often find himself trying to do two or three at a time many days.
Concession stand worker, laser tag rule giver and demonstrater, prize counter prize dispenser, ticket stocker, coin collecter, janitor, DJ, mechanic/electrician.. if something needed to be done he was the first to try and tackle it. To hell with outsourcing.. or wasting money on other people to do it if he could manage.
Today he was playing janitor, using a lightly damp rag to unstickify and disinfect joysticks and buttons, and another to clean streaks and finger prints off of glass when he noticed the blinking screen.
His eyes narrowed, watching the game curious for a moment, making a groan of displeasure when it did it again. Tucking the rags into his pockets he made his way over to the game, fiddling with his keys to unlock the thing so he could get in to wriggle the wire a little. Hopefully the machine would play nice and it'd just be a loose connection somewhere.
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Posted: Thu Jun 23, 2011 1:03 am
Slooow days. Noah wasn't fond of them. He wasn't fond of fast days either, since he often found himself trying to be a dishwasher and a waiter AND a janitor all at once, but slow days were soooo boring.
Since the fort was pretty much tied down and he'd swept the floor for the bajillionth time back in his little diner, he started to wander. Mostly to the place across the street which looked especially fun. Lights, games... he didn't even know arcades still existed in this day and age. but it was definitely interesting. A 35 year old man playing games during work hours couldn't look too weird, right?
He was just looking. Or, maybe 'just looking' would be weirder, actually. That didn't actually occur to him until his wandering had already led him towards pushing over the doors and surveying what games were actually available to play here.
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Posted: Thu Jun 23, 2011 7:38 am
The two story arcade was filled with games of all sort upon his enterance. Lights and sounds greeted him in a slew of games both old and new. The lower level contained many of the more classic and modern popular games. Whereas upstairs had some repeats and other less commonly used games. To the left signs told tell of laser tag games and announced a tournament in the upcoming future.
Corey was crouched not too far from the enterance, fiddling around with his game when Noah entered.
Oh Space Invaders... why did you have to be so flipping fickle? Yes the machine was ridonkulously old.. but it wasn't like it got THAT much action and yet the poor game misbehaved almost more then any other one in the building.
Corey fidgeted with each and every cord that he could reach easily before peeking around the front of it to watch the screen.
His eyes drifted momentarily to the older man as he waited to see if the screen would flicker again. He didn't usually get patrons as old the other man. Maybe he was a father hunting down one of his kids?
"Hello" He piped out in happy greeting, a silent form of 'make yourself at home'. If the guy was on a mission and ignored him it wasn't too big of a deal.
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Posted: Sat Jun 25, 2011 7:30 pm
Noah was snapped out of his silent milling around by the hello, meeting it with a grin and "Hi!" before he made a beeline to inspect the more classic games.
He approved, and probably would've stopped to play something if the guy who greeted him didn't seem to be in a wrestling match with the Asteroids game.
His perusing ceased to redirect his stride back over to peek over and look at the cords Corey was messing with. "What's wrong with it?" He asked like a curious little kid.
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Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2011 11:08 am
Flicker. A long and drawn out ughhhh of frusteration escaped Corey as he settled himself back into the belly of the beast, giving death stares to the innards as if that would magically help the problem. As of yet it did not seem to be helping at all.
A voice struck him off guard and he looked up to see the older man he'd greeted just a moment before. But he was suddenly rethinking his assessment of him. He didn't have the annoyed 'why is my kid wasting all their money here, why am I not gone yet!?' face of an irritated father. No, he looked quite friendly, quite curious, even young for his age. Corey was surprised, and it was the very good kind of surprised. Like two prizes in your box of cracker jacks good.
"I noticed the screen was flickering every 10 seconds or so. I thought maybe it might just be a loose connection but aughh.. it seems like it might be something a little more serious." He laments openly, making a face that suited a pouty 10 year old more so then a 26 year old.
"Did you want to play it? Or are you a bit of a electrician?" He grinned, if god had sent him an electrician at the exact moment he needed one he would probably fall to the floor in amused delight and girlish giggles.
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Posted: Tue Jul 05, 2011 2:38 am
"Oh," Was all Noah really had to say on the matter when his curiosity was sated but when Corey asked if he was an electrician he gave a shrug and a little bit of a laugh. "Uh... sort of? Actually, yes," He lied. It was only a kind of lie, in the same way he was kind of an electrician. He had worked on cars and knew some basics of electrical systems... in the cars. And once he had to get an OSHA card for some reason where they briefly talked about electricity. Mostly how to not kill yourself.
"Let me take a look!" He offered, ignoring all these facts as he walked around to the open side and got down on his knees.
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Posted: Tue Jul 05, 2011 11:30 am
Sort of? Well, that was good enough for the ever trusting Corey! Despite becoming pretty handy in patching things up around the arcade he was still pretty amatuer in the electronic stuff. Duct tape and jiggling he could do, splicing stuff eehh.. that probably would require some goggling.
And besides.. even if it wasn't fixed as long as he didn't do any additional damage then there was no harm done. "Sure thing! An extra set of eyes and hands never hurts"
Shuffling back Corey made room for Noah to take a peek, before it was his turn to hover and peek at what was going on. "I'm Corey by the way!"
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Posted: Wed Jul 06, 2011 11:56 am
Noah didn't hesitate stick his head in the case and get to jiggling and messing with the cords to get a feel for what was what, eventually resting on his back to look up to where they went and freeing up a hand to stick out and wave in response to the name.
"Noah," He introduced in turn and turned his attention towards fiddling with the connections to the screen.
"Maybe if... like... you resoldered all these?" He suggested, not really able to pick out an especially loose one. He was tempted to give each one a little jerk, but he had no idea how secure they were and didn't want to accidentally damage it further.
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Posted: Fri Jul 08, 2011 11:42 am
"Resolder huh..?" His face scruched in thought as the suggestion was offered. Remelding the metal together wasn't really what he wanted to do.. it was a pain. And something he'd only done a time or two before in the past. But it was better than other options.. like having to bring in a repair guy.
"I think maybe.. I might have a kit hidden away somewhere in the back. Maybe.." It seemed like something he'd had to do before.. but it was so long ago.. did he really own it or just borrow it?
He needed to go look but.. blahh.. the desire to do productive things was illuding him atleast momentarily. More importantly there was the stranger laying there before him. His curiousity got the best of him. "Thanks for helping Noah. What brings you here today if you don't mind me asking"
"Electrician senses tingling?" He mused with a grin.
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Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2011 1:21 pm
"Actually, I run the burger joint down the street," Noah said, still playing with the connections even though he'd already offered a suggestion for fixing them. A little more couldn't hurt, he figured. Unless he broke one, in which case, oops.
He was definitely an advocate of soldering, but, it was because part of him just really wanted to burn stuff.
"I honestly though arcades were a thing of the past. you know, ones that didn't double as playgrounds and pizza places. It was interesting," He admitted. "That and I was kind of hoping to skip work and play for a while." It wasn't that irresponsible if there was a lull in customers, right? Right?
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Posted: Thu Jul 14, 2011 10:43 am
"Ohhh?" There was a sound of interest, as perhaps excitement as Noah spoke of what he did. A fellow businessman, awesome! One that actually came into an arcade, even more awesome! They were kindred spirits, two warriors fighting the good fight of the american dream! And best of all Noah wasn't really the competition. Hell.. if anything it might be a way to drum up new business!
The wheels in his mind were turning already, coming up with ideas of possibly cross advertising in each other's places. Yes yes.. that could work REAL well. "You're right, they like to throw little bitty arcades into places like movie theatres and stuff which doesn't help business.. but every once in awhile you can find an actual place for it. The laser tag helps a lot though."
"I totally don't do that..." He teased with a knowing wink. It was totally and woefully true. Corey was certainly serious about his job.. but when he had a little lull in business or he was asked nice enough well.. it didn't hurt to play a game or ten. Besides, all of his quarters just came right back to him.
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Posted: Wed Aug 03, 2011 4:36 pm
"Yeah, I'll bet the laser tag helps," Noah said with a good natured laugh in his voice, but honestly, until Corey had brought it up, he had glossed over the laser tag portion. He'd seen the sign, it just didn't seem to register until now.
Suddenly, he'd lost interest in the machine he was fiddling with. Eh, nothing was happening with it and he had gotten bored, and while he usual route was to purposely wreck something out of the childish glee and hoping to see sparks fly, he figured it might be impolite to do that to someone else's stuff and just pushed himself back out of the casing and got up.
"We should play laser tag," He said with the hyper urgency of a kid as he skittered around towards the left where the signs were.
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Posted: Wed Aug 10, 2011 2:32 pm
Solution offered, it wasn't so strange for Noah to backup out of the game. Running off towards the lasertag though.. he hadn't expected that. Closing the door to protect the machine innards until he had time to fuss with it again, he was quick to follow after the older male, laughing a little in amusement.
There was a quick glance up towards the scoreboard, before Corey slid behind the main counter, tapping at the keyboard momentarily. "It looks like there is a game starting up in about two minutes with room if you want to hop into that one."
"Otherwise it's going to be about 20 minutes if you want a one on one game"
Offering him the two options Corey ran his hand once through his hair, pushing the longer strands back over his shoulder again. Both options were fun and good in his opinion.
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