The Rise & Fall of the American mall

In the urban regions of California, no argument here. Flea markets in small towns are getting attention because it's a great alternative to the internet. Even so, the internet is still number one for shopping. Flea markets is rural places are exploding because people do not want to go to a city to shop for certain things. You can now order groceries online and have it delivered to your door for a certain fee. But malls are just too expensive today.

Yeah. I remember I used to go to this flea market circa 2009-2012 and it used to be booths and vendors as far as the eye can see. Now in 2018 it has shrunken significantally and what's even worse is that it no longer has any meat vendors outside of the two beef jerky vendors. Sad isn't it?

Arcades were fun. Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, Cruis'n USA, and Pac Man were awesome. Other arcades that I actually played were Sega Turbo (1981), Monaco GP (1979), Frogger (1981), and Enduro Racer. I've played ports of Pong, Missile Command, Space Invaders, and Asteroids. Fun games.

Back when a drive in theater was around my area they had an arcade cabinet of the samurai fighting game I now forgot the name of that technically wasn't all samurai. Despite it's name a lot of the characters vary in style with one being a female knight one a kabuki clown only meant to represent samurais one being technically a feral girl and even at least one ninja thrown in. I found several console versions but the arcade cabinet is what would bring back all the good memories for me even if beating the opponent with the ball and chain as a weapon was overly hard and if some of the characters seem taken from KOF. Every time I looked at any form of arcade cabinets I look straight for fighting games or shooters. It's how I found out about Carnevil which was hard as heck. Our theater has a few cabinets but since I normally only go there to see movies and feel a need to leave when done I never truly played those ones.