The David Thuis Blog

You’ve never seen a jamboree like this.

Each time the BSA hosts its signature event, the result is a once-in-a-lifetime experience for the Scouts and Scouters who attend. But 2013′s edition promises to bring the jamboree experience to a new level.

How? Well, just like in real estate, it starts with location. The big event will be the first jamboree at the new Summit Bechtel Family National Scout Reserve in West Virginia.

But there’s more to the BSA’s 18th national Scout jamboree than just the new digs.

The Jamboree Division has made some wholesale changes to the way the event is organized. Such as…

• A smaller footprint: Jamboree campsites will take up about 1,000 acres instead of the 5,000 used at Fort A.P. Hill for previous jamborees. That means the farthest campsite is just 1.5 miles from the arena stage. Result: Less time spent walking, and more time spent having fun.
• An all-Venturers subcamp: You know Venturers can now attend the jamboree, right? Well, in 2013 they’ll get a subcamp all to themselves to meet peers who share their enthusiasm for high adventure.
• No vehicles: You won’t hear, “Look out, here comes a car!” at the Summit. Personal vehicles aren’t allowed within the jamboree footprint.
• More technology: Part of the “BSA magic” will be the integration of technology. More details on this as 2013 nears.
• A focus on service: Each Scout and Scouter will participate in a Day of Giving Back, in which they complete a service project for the area.
• Less gear: The jamboree will provide tents, cooking equipment, and all other troop gear. Result: No more filling up an 18-wheeler and sending it on a cross-country trip.
• More fun for visitors: Can’t make it for the entire 10 days? For a small fee, visitors can enjoy an all-new experience tailored just for them, including “jamboree lite,” which offers a sampling of jamboree activities for families.

Check out the full list of what’s new for even more information. 

The Summit’s main jamboree Web site has a ton of other details for 2013, too, including fees, participant qualifications, and more.

And you can’t miss the new, excellent promotional video, seen below.

So kids, tell us, what is the strange black box pictured in the image above? 🙂

[Via]

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On May 22, 1980, Midway and Namco released Pac-Man, the highest-grossing video game of all time. The insanely popular maze game was the first of its genre and blew reigning champs Space Invaders and Asteroids out of the arcade—350,000 arcade cabinets were sold in the game’s first 18 months. It also introduced the power-up and animated cut scenes, innovations that influence gaming to this day.

Pac-Man endures as a cultural icon of the 1980s; it is recognized worldwide as one of the legends of  old-school gaming. On top of selling licensed merchandise of every conceivable variety, the game got its own animated series in 1982-83, garnered eight Guinness World Records, and even inspired a Top Ten Billboard hit single (below) and got its own parody courtesy Weird Al Yankovic, though it was never officially released.

In 2010, for Pac-Man’s 30th anniversary, Google unveiled the playable Pac-Man mini-game doodle, the first-ever interactive Google doodle and perhaps the best to date. It was a huge hit–people with calculators speculated that 4.8 million man-hours were lost to the novelty of playing Pac-Man in the Google homepage. If you feel like wasting a few more of your bosses minutes, you can still play it on the official Pac-Man site alongside PAC-MATCH Party, a match-3 game in the spirit of Bejeweled. (It’s addictive. I’m still playing it right now.)

Pac-Man enthusiasts can pick up all sorts of weird game themed stuff, including these super-classy tank dresses. (I have to admit that PM looks an awful lot like the WalMart rollback happy face to me.)

Aaaanyway, happy birthday Pac-Man! Thanks for all the millions of hours of fun and frustration. We love you. 🙂

[sources: 1, 2, 3] [images: 1, 2, 3, 4]

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Shared by David

Wish I could see this show!

The Cars are back together with a new album and short tour planned for the U.S. Sadly, none of the dates are even remotely near the headquarters of Stuck in the ’80s. But we’re in luck because Travis Greenwood caught their show Tuesday night in Seattle. Read his review below, and catch more of Travis’ writings at It Goes to 11 at Founditemclothing.com, the website for tees from the reel world.

“Is there anybody here that doesn’t know this is our first show in 24 years?” mused Cars’ keyboardist Greg Hawkes between songs Tuesday night at Seattle’s cavernous Showbox Sodo. The question, posed rhetorically but voiced with a hint of genuine inquisitiveness, was met with thunderous approval from an adoring, sold-out audience — drawn almost equally between children of the late ’70s/early ’80s and a younger generation of enthusiasts that had come of age in the years after the band went defunct — eager to welcome their New Wave heroes back into the fold.

Not that the quartet would disappoint. Its signature sound — a blend of crunchy, power pop riffs braided to synth-y accents — and original line-up largely intact (sans bassist Benjamin Orr, who passed in 2000), the group toggled between its deep catalog of party faves (Good Times Roll, My Best Friend’s Girl, You Might Think) and selections (Blue Tip, Hits Me, Keep on Knocking) from 2011’s Move Like This, their first studio recordings since 1987’s Door to Door. The legacy material registered the loudest ovations over the course of the band’s 80-minute set, but the newer tracks, imbued with twitchy, alt.-rock textures, were also well received, providing a welcome buffer against what could have otherwise been a self-congratulatory exercise in nostalgia overload.

And the love, it should be noted, was reciprocal. The band’s individual members, pushing into their 50s and 60s all, were surprisingly gracious and thankful, stopping occasionally to smile, wave and chit-chat with the audience. Even Ric Ocasek, the band’s notoriously aloof frontman, seemed to be enjoying himself, a fact not lost on the hardcore fans in the venue. Adorned in black Ray-bans and a shaggy, rock star hair cut, he loomed over the stage as the lanky progeny of Skeletor and Lou Reed.

The band chose not to replace Orr on this tour, forcing Hawkes and Ocasek to juggle extra responsibilities on a few songs. This led to a speed bump on Moving in Stereo, when the players couldn’t quite sync their parts, all of which prompted this mulligan from a bashful Ocasek: “Do you mind if we do that one again?” Finding their proper gear once more, the band closed out their performance with an improved, spot-on rendition, proof that the good times really can roll again. Retreating backstage for a quick pause, The Cars encored with Sad Song, the first single from WLT, and a perfectly perfunctory version of Just What I Needed, a seemingly perfect coda to the evening’s festivities.

THE CARS 2011 SET LIST: 

• Good Times Roll
• Blue Tip
• Since You’re Gone
• Up & Down
• My Best Friend’s Girl
• Hits Me
• Touch & Go
• I’m In Touch With Your World
• Keep On Knocking
• You Might Think
• Drag On Forever
• Free
• I’m Not The One
• Heartbeat City
• Let’s Go
• Moving In Stereo
• Moving In Stereo (Redux)

Encores:

• Sad Song
• Just What You Needed