Fallout!

Alexis, a waitress who typically does graveyard shifts at a Pasadena, Texas IHOP has this pretty spiffy Fallout tattoo. I looked up Fallout at Wikipedia and apparently, it, as a game, has existed since the end of the 1990s, but I am only hearing of it now that I have moved to Houston (well, Deer Park) and I work with some millennial guys into games. I was able to recognize Alexis' tattoo for what it is after noting a colleague playing Fallout Shelter, a spinoff of Fallout that has sort of a The Sims-flavored, pimp-out-your-fallout-shelter-and-try-to-keep-it-afloat theme to it. The Android phone is a platform for the spinoff game. I have not played either game and I probably never will being an old man of Generation X but from the outside looking in I am fascinated by game themes the Wikipedia article on Fallout describes as retrofuturism. I have fallen halfway in love with vaporwave by which I mean that I like all (Mmm... well, many) of the vaporwave .gifs on tumblr and the aesthetic of pastels and palm trees out of the Al Pacino Scarface movie but I am less impressed with the music half of vaporwave which is clearly meant to be enjoyed on pot which I haven't touched in eleven years. I really have the same split opinion of Azealia Banks you know? She's a little firecracker and has me intrigued, but then you listen to her music and it's just like this watered-down elevator music of rap music that you should be on marijuana to get into. That band Pussy Riot sure has a good back story and it would be nice if there music was good too but it's not. I'm not really all that impressed with the girl acts of punk rock. Aimee Allen of The Interrupters might be the token girl in punk yours truly respects. Why are boys better than girls at punk rock? I digress. Anyhow, alongside vaporwave imagry I get a kick out of the retrofuturism of Fallout. I find myself Googling for images and the like. Retrofuturism is defined by Wikipedia as the now seemly goofy futuristic look of a bygone era, and I don't mean 1970s tacky metallic cloth clothing but instead, a farther back, pulp comic book Cybermen of Doctor Who thing. Picture people spacefaring in bubble glass helmets and otherwise skintight clothes. There is a Kennedyesque queso that is pervasive. It has and holds my attention. Let's strap on our rocket packs.