arcades

I'm tingling for tonight's return of How I Met Your Mother — even though I'm most psyched to see what happens with Barney and Robin (remember his geeky reaction to their one night stand?), I'm also curious to see if Stella accepts Ted's marriage proposal.

From the looks of this photo, all I can say is that if they're in a video game arcade, all signs point to yes! Video game arcades remain for me, the most romantic places ever. As a youngun, my first dates (or casual hangouts, if someone was too scared to ask specifically for a date) were at arcades, because it was one of the few parent-approved places you could go as a pre-teen.

Once inside, things got awesomer: you played adrenaline-pumping games together, cheered each other on at shoot-'em-up games, and if things went really well, you rode in those two-seater "ride to Mars" games. So tell me: do you have any old video game arcade date memories?

Photo courtesy of CBS

Tokyomango - a site that offers everything one might want to know about the "birth city of Godzilla, Gundam, all-you-can-eat shabu shabu and panty vending machines" - recently featured this great photo of its editor rocking out to a dog walking video game.

Here's more:

This is arguably the most challenging arcade game I have ever played. Much more so than Beatmania or DDR (j/k, I so don't play DDR) or Street Fighter II. Basically you have to walk on a treadmill while holding this white dog's leash. Walk too fast, and he'll get tired. Walk too slow, and he'll get bored. And when obstacles like the neighborhood bully dog or a oncoming car shows up on the screen, you better steer clear! If you mess up, your dog dies.

While I know a couple of animal lovers that would likely go hog wild over the possible dog fatality, I love that this isn't a "shoot 'em up" or dance kind of game. Okay, so I just want to say I walked my dog in an arcade. Can you blame me?