Switchbox

I’m going to say this off the bat, but when I walked into this place, it smelled like a sweaty teenager’s unkempt bedroom.
They have a lot of game choices to spoil any video-​game grounded kid whose parents didn’t rule out the possibility that taking away video games at home will only result in their kids spending their allowance money in a place like this. Then again maybe its a smart thing to do since these kids won’t spend it on bad stuff like liquor, cigarettes, and sugar.
What was I doing here? I met up with friend because I thought there would be a pool table here. There was none, but I bought a bottle of water and loitered around looking at the screens in which the drones were glued to heads bobbing to the club music playing in the background. I’m not going to lie I was tempted to logon and unleash the inner Call of Duty silencer-​ninja I’ve long laid to rest but alas I didn’t.
The end.

Switchbox is a PC/​XBOX gaming café located in the Southland area. From what I remember, it has about 60 computers and 4 XBOX consoles. It was a regular place my friends and I used to go to in our junior high/​high school years. We spent countless hours and copious amounts of money at this place.
We went to Switchbox when we wanted to get baked but couldn’t go home because we didn’t wanna get caught by our parents. So we would smoke ungodly amounts of weed (literally ¼ oz. at a time sometimes), walk to the Safeway around the corner like zombies, pick out our munchies (ice cream sandwiches, rotisserie chicken, Mike and Ikes…), and go into Switchbox and play video games. These are some of the greatest memories I have from my high school years (sad I know). Everyone had their own computer, an endless supply of food, and we didn’t have to stress about getting caught by police or worse… OUR PARENTS! With such a wide selection of games, you never really had to worry about getting bored. My four friends and I would play random groups of other teams at Switchbox in Counterstrike (and usually lose because we were too baked and fooling around), but nonetheless, it was always a blast.
But, like almost everything, when it becomes popular, it gains it’s drawbacks. There were many times when we would go there (mainly Fridays or Saturdays), and there would not be enough computers available. So we would be stuck waiting for people to leave before we could play. Sometimes this took over half an hour. Once in a while we would get separated, and one guy would get the shit end of the stick and be stuck by himself surrounded by a bunch of people similar to Neil Goldman from Family Guy.
We started to get grossed out because gamers are some of the most unhygienic people out there. They’re not worried about washing their hands after they go to the bathroom; getting to the toilet and back is like a 50m sprint. They want to do it as fast as possible so they can get right back to playing. They’re also not worried about keeping their area clean. Almost all of the keyboards after time ended up becoming sticky and greasy, and often you would get to your computer and there would be someone else’s garbage sitting there.
The music used to be a mix bag from metal to hip hop to reggae — everything. After it got popular, they switched to satellite radio and always had it set on the indie/​emo station with all these lame buzz-​killington songs. You’d be surprised at how much music affects your state of mind. It’s hard to have good vibes with your friends when you’re surrounded by fucking weirdos and songs about heartbreak and killing yourself are playing in the background.
Which brings me to my next point, the groups of people that go there. Sure you have your every day WoW player, your father working online, your average Joe’s… But there were also guys that would scream out every 20 seconds during their game, yell at people across the room, freak out and smack their keyboard when they lost, and just straight up do some weird ass shit (can’t remember a good example, keep in mind I was baked every time I was there). One thing I do remember, however, was one night everyone in the place kept yelling «SNARF!!!». Every minute or less you would hear «SNARF» and question why you’re spending your time at the same place as these people. These things became too much for me to handle, and we didn’t have to worry as much about having a place to go when we got cars/​our own residences, so we haven’t been there in a while. We might go for a reunion sometime for old times sakes.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m underselling the shit out of it. I had some excellent times there, but once it gained popularity, it killed it for me. If you’re a big gamer, it’s over 50 games installed on one high-​speed computer with great graphics! I don’t wanna trash the place because they were always super cool to my friends and I, and we did have some great memories there. If you haven’t been there before, I recommend going and gaining an opinion for yourself!