Look, here’s the situation. It’s the last day before work breaks for Christmas, all my co-workers are out getting on the turps, I’ve only got one more article left to write for the day, so if I want to write about Lin-Manuel Miranda buying up an NBA Jam arcade machine then buddy, it’s bloody well gonna happen. I don’t care how relatively inconsequential it may seem. “How is this news?” you’ll all probably holler. “Who got paid to write this crap?” Folks, here’s the damned answers: I got paid to write this. I know this isn’t really news. But it’s fun, it’s light-hearted, NBA Jam kicks ass, and I can bash it out in 10 minutes, set my Out Of Office auto-reply, and then dive head-first into a beer. So that’s how this shit is going down.
[jwplayer sKZZk6x3]
Miranda has made absolutely no secret of his love of the classic 1993 arcade game in the past, posting repeated tweets about the game in the past, even spending his birthday last January practically surgically attached to a machine.
I spent the birthday evening with friends at my favorite place on earth…the NBA Jam arcade game pic.twitter.com/GtM9hg5Toe
— Lin-Manuel Miranda (@Lin_Manuel) January 17, 2018
But as anyone in their 30s knows painfully well: Going out sucks ass. And spending too much time on a public machine is a bit of a money sink.
So Miranda, as any self-respecting nerd with ample disposable income would, went out and bought himself a machine of his very own.
Look at this glorious thing. Look at the kick ass cabinet. The curved CRT screen. The perfectly maintained joystick decals. It’s beautiful.
Me: success has not changed me
Also me: *buys this for my house* pic.twitter.com/U9bJtYZUPE— Lin-Manuel Miranda (@Lin_Manuel) December 20, 2018
True joy right there. Absolute heaven.
Old mate wasted no time after getting the machine into his house to fire it up either. Take a look, y’all.
.@VAMNit: hey Lin, what’re you doing? pic.twitter.com/7gjmvKjfjK
— Lin-Manuel Miranda (@Lin_Manuel) December 21, 2018
Now then, the pressing questions:
Does he use the infinite turbo cheat ad nauseam like I, a coward child, used to do?
Who’s his go-to team? A fool might think Utah with John Stockton and Karl Malone or Charlotte with Alonzo Mourning and Larry Johnson might be the picks of the bunch, but true geniuses recognise the rounded brilliance of the Seattle Supersonics lineup of Shawn Kemp and Detlef Schrempf.
Has he managed to clock the entire game yet, right through to the annoyingly overpower Chicago Bulls side?
And what’s his three-letter name? Does he go with LMM for his initials, or is he more of an ASS person?
All questions I will find the answer to, one way or another, in due time.
Now then, Merry Christmas. I’m having a drink.
