Live forever?

It's amazing what comes to you late at night. Most of the time I forget to write down all these awesome ideas I get. Not so this time my friends! And what I came up with will startle you! I came up with a way to live forever... That's right... 4ever!

As I was getting eaten by a big ole dino while shooting stuff in a Jurassic Park III arcade game, I was not so quietly telling the machine that it was bullshit to throw a big bastard like that at me so early in the game. (Note that while I was calling bullshit like Robert Novak on a live CNN talk show, I still hung in there and took the hits.) I blinked red and was toast, but I had been through this already once...I had my fresh quarters ready so I could jump right back in the fray.

That's when it came to me. I'm still amazed at how obvious it was. Just sitting there in plain sight the whole time...

The secret to living forever is to always carry around extra quarters.

Beauty, eh?! I don't know why no one thought of this before. I also came up with some suggestions to make living forever easier too.

First, keep the extra quarters in a separate pocket. You don't want to be fumbling around trying to pick the quarters out of a handful of nickels, dimes and lint while your timer is counting down.

Secondly, you should also carry some Chuck-E-Cheese tokens with you too. It would suck to find out you needed to add tokens if you didn't have any. Similarly, you should probably make sure none of your quarters are too out of spec. Wouldn't you hate to see your quarter dropping through the machine because it's too worn out to register?

If you're travelling overseas, you should probably check to see what their arcade games take. Who wants to be thinking, "Oh...if I had only listened to Shawn and kept some Euros in my pocket..." as they check out? Nobody, that's who. Don't be that guy.

If there are two slots side by side, don't use the one that is stuck halfway in. Your coins are just going to drop through. And don't waste time trying to tweak it free...just put the coins in the other slot. Jeez...

And, finally, unless you have an unlimited supply of quarters...don't keep trying to defeat the big dinosaur. Just run to the four wheel drive conveniently parked in the clearing over there. You'll save yourself a lot of aggravation.

***Coming soon...Tips on what to do to pass the time while you're living forever and further suggestions from the upcoming New York Times best-seller and Oprah Book Club selection, "Arcade Life Wisdom: What Your Video Game Is Trying To Teach You."