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Food'n'drink Retrospectives

Finest cuisine

I’ve mentioned this briefly before, but back in my uni days, my diet was pretty shocking. Often a bunch of us would go down to the corner shop (now razed and redeveloped as Yet More University Buildings). I’d chow down a $1.50 hotdog, and maybe some chips, perhaps a Big M or an OJ, and if there wasn’t another lecture imminent*, we’d retire to the back of the shop and play video games. I remember my friend Brian remarking that he played so much Tetris, he used to have dreams of falling blocks.

Those days are long since past me. I don’t know how many of those hot dogs I consumed, but it was probably more than was healthy.

Following some comments left, and as a result of the pizza place the kids and I sometimes go having an out-of-order phone on Wednesday, we decided to try Jasper’s Pizza in McKinnon. They made a good first impression, giving us bits of garlic bready pizza stuff to nibble on while we made up our minds what to order.

Then one of the guys behind the counter looked at me. I thought he was about to ask about TV (it happens; last night on the train I got buttonholed by a TravelSafe team), but instead he asked if I used to study at Monash Caulfield. “15, 20 years ago?”

“Yeah…”

“I thought I recognised your face. I used to run the corner shop!”

He said they sold up in 1994, and the Commonwealth bought the land, no doubt to commence the aforementioned razing and redeveloping.

So it seems I’m not the only one who remembers those $1.50 hot dogs.

I wonder what happened to the Tetris machine?

Oh, the pizza was delicious, by the way.

*Well, that we wanted to go to.

By Daniel Bowen

Transport blogger / campaigner and spokesperson for the Public Transport Users Association / professional geek.
Bunurong land, Melbourne, Australia.
Opinions on this blog are all mine.

4 replies on “Finest cuisine”

Reminds me of high school where my standard order at the canteen was a peanut butter roll and a coffee scroll. And yes I’ve now got a bit of a cholestral problem, not too bad though, now gone on a strict no fat diet. (Not eating beef or lamb for environmental reasons eg/ water also helps !)

Good to see you the other day.

I’ve had the odd Tetris Dream through the years. Tetris dreams are a recognised phenomenon, aparently they can happen after planying many games for extended periods of time before going to sleep.

Your friend Brian clearly hadn’t played Tetris quite enough. Back in the day, I didn’t need to sleep to see Tetris blocks everywhere, and that music (from the Gameboy version) never did seem to stop…

Ah, the chip shop. I was pretty frugal with money back then (still am) and I found the best combo for me was a bucket of chips with lots of soy sauce, vinegar and ketchup. Tasty!

And speaking of Tetris, I bought the Nintendo DS version – it’s excellent! I misplaced it for a couple of months and it turned up again this morning! Time for Tetris dreams again :)

I’ve heard that Jeff Minter’s new Xbox360 game, Space Giraffe, is having a similar effect on people – they’re seeing strategies in their dreams :)

I’m seem to remember us skipping a lot of lectures too, even if one was imminent! Table tennis was played, as well as Tetris, rather than go to those InfoSys lectures. ER diagrams, data flow diagrams…wow, never used much of that :)

Sad to hear its gone, though, it was a good place.

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