The path outside my apartment building didn't look too appealing to walk on (I don't want to break an arm), so I used the grass:
It took no time after the snow for end-of-year holiday signs to appear and it's not even yet (U.S.) Thanksgiving. The next photo is not a Christmas tree but a New Year's tree.
And the next photo is not Santa Claus, but Ded Moroz.
Here is Ded Moroz's sidekick, Snegovik (there is also another, Snegurochka).
Here they are together on sale:
The temperature has finally reached zero (see the lower right):
Local people who only last week were wearing very little now are getting wise and putting on... raincoats:
Not far from the raincoat lady was a car with a Baby on Board sign:
Note the playground equipment in the upper right of the photo. Let's take a closer look:
Cool, an icosahedron! Well, strictly speaking half an icosahedron. Actually, less than half: two edges around the bottom have been taken out (look at the left and right sides). That makes sense, because clearly it would otherwise be very hard for a kid to get inside this thing. A few weeks later, not far from the icosahedron, I saw a tetrahedron which was so wild it had to be chained to a tree:
Last weekend I went bowling. Click on the photo below and you'll see the equipment is by Brunswick. The scoring is all automated on overhead screens (with English words).
I played three games and was able to score a few spares, but only one strike. Here are a few action shots.
If you look closely you'll realize that those photos are not at all chronological, because the background is changing a lot in what should be 2 seconds of activity.
Here is a video where I try to get a spare. Watch closely to see what happens.
After bowling I went back to the museum of Soviet arcade games.
One of the better games there is 2-player basketball, where each button sends air through one of the holes towards the opposing player's basket:
Here is a video I took of people (unknown to me) playing this game:
This is Naval Battle:
A closer look at Naval Battle through one of the windows at the top:
Here is the murky view from the player's viewpoint at the periscope (when you hit a surface ship it lights up in flames):
There are a lot of shooting games. Here is one called Winter Hunt, where you get to murder little foxes, rabbits, and other innocent animals.
I was a pretty good killer. Click on the photo to check out my score of 550:
Of course if you look at the first two photos you'll see my score there was also 550. Shouldn't the score in them be less than 550? Actually the first two photos were staged after my game was over (otherwise my swift aiming and firing in real time would have been a big blur). Now you might think even my third photo is fake. Maybe I am standing in front of the game after someone else scored 550? No, it really is my score. Really?
Here is what the museum looks like from the outside (on a rainy day):
Here is the sound system at the museum. Look, a real record player with authentic Abba and Alla Pugacheva records!
For refreshments there was an old-style kitchen to sit in (I am in such a kitchen almost every evening in my apartment too):
That is not beer I am holding, but cream soda. It was not quite as good as Dr. Brown's, but you can't really screw up cream soda. A friend of mine knows the owner of the arcade museum and told me that it was originally located in an old bomb shelter, which explains one strange machine in the museum: a directory of military maneuvers. Press a button to find out how to act or react in case of nuclear or conventional attack:
Here are some US army defense plans (how did they find out?).
Not far from the arcade museum someone was painting a holiday animal in a restaurant:
Inside another restaurant was my dessert. That's hot flavored tea on the right and a small cake on the left that looks like it has a face on top (think about a wrinkled forehead).
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