Actively Nerdy On the Town: 16-Bit Bar+Arcade

You know those ruts you get when all you do is follow the same weekly routine? No matter how fun it can be, sometimes you just need a change. Well I was in one of those ruts all last week. Wake up, write, chores, nap, eat, more writing, Facebook, more eating, sleep. But Thursday, an important anniversary guaranteed that keeping to the same routine would just drive me mad or make me depressed in a hurry. I needed a bit of a change.

So when my friend Emily of the Relatively Geeky Network invited me out for some fun, I jumped on the opportunity. And what can be more fun than a good friend, good drinks, and old school arcade machines?

Welcome to 16-Bit Bar+Arcade, where the drinks are theme, the machines are (mostly) free, and where an acceptable first line is asking what your first gaming console was.

You get carded at the door, because this is a purely 21 and up bar. Sorry 18 and ups, there’s no exceptions. The house rules are that if you buy a drink, you can play any of the arcade games for free. The only exception to this are the pinball machines which are the classic quarter buy-in. It might take a bit to find out how to work the machines, but just look for the glowing white button on the console.

There’s all sorts of games to fit your fancy, from classic Pac-Man or one of the Pac Family, to Donkey Kong, to Time Crisis II and other shooters. They even had a Punch Out machine that was way more punishing than I remember it being. I mostly kept myself to the fighter consoles and quickly realized I had been spoiled by the home versions of fighter games. I would’ve lost more dollars than I care to admit trying to beat the first level of Street Fighter 2.

Where allowances go to die

I mentioned earlier that the drinks were theme. Well, technically the entire bar is focused on the late 80s, early 90s when arcade systems were still one of the most awesome things around. And their cocktail menu reflects that. All of the drinks are named after famous people of that time period, even if they’re not famous now. Neither of us knew who Tawny Kitaen was, but her drink tasted good. My personal favorite was the Alyssa Milano, and I’m very sad to report that I was making “Charmed” puns every time I saw the name. Those were the New Wave cocktails, and all the Old School drinks were named after male stars, like John Stamos and Burt Reynolds. 

Apparently she was the girl on the car in the White Snake music video.

For those of you who aren’t cocktail fans like me, they’ve got a very wide selection of craft beers and domestics, with the highest price you’ll see being $6. They also boast a large selection of bourbon, and cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon are always $2. Of course it is still a full bar, so you can get anything you want. Just be sure to ask for a price!

There’s seating outside and tables inside, but most of the space is taken up by people playing with the consoles. It’s a very relaxed place, and I personally loved the laid-back atmosphere. Be sure to check out the event schedule for their specials though. We were really lucky we went on Thursday, because all of the New Wave cocktails were $2 off.

So would we go there again? That would be a huge yes for me. I’m a gamer, I love the challenge of the old arcade systems, and the drinks are delicious. This was just what I needed to relax, and it was out of the way of the normal bar streets near the Arena District. For Emily? Not as much. The drinks were good and the atmosphere was good, but Em’s not really into arcade games like I am. Might not be our joint go-to place, but I’ll be taking more people there when I get the chance.

You can find 16-Bit, Ohio’s first barcade on 254 South Fourth Street Columbus, OH 43215. For a full drink menu and more information, their website is http://16-bitbar.com/ They're planning on opening up a location in Cleveland in August, so if you're in the area be sure to check it out!

Do you guys have a place like this in your city? Tell me about it! Email me at activelynerdy@gmail.com and if I end up in the area, I’ll check it out.

Also, don’t forget it’s almost Actively Nerdy’s third month online! Email me with any questions you want to ask me for the Q&A video at the same address, or find some way to contact me!

The International Exhibition of Sherlock Holmes

Hey everyone! This one’s going to be a bit shorter than usual. Those of you who know me know how important my family is to me. So this week got a bit hectic when we were hosting my cousin and his new wife and stepson for a long weekend! As an added bonus, even more family was in town but staying with my grandparents. Things got a bit crazy, and what I was going to do for this week had to get pushed back until things died down. But we did see and do some things that are perfectly nerdy, and very active.

The International Exhibition of Sherlock Holmes has been in town this summer, and my family all got tickets. Now I don’t have photos from the actual event, because it was expressly forbidden and I actually saw a family get kicked out of the exhibit for breaking that rule. I love you guys, but there is no way I was going to risk it. But I can tell you what to expect.

At the start, you’re given a pad of paper because you’re going to help Sherlock “solve a crime”. This will have something similar in each location.

About the size of a rectangular Post-it pad.

The exhibit was three parts, starting first with pieces from Arthur Conan Doyle’s personal collection. You get to see specimens of anatomical forensics up close and personal that were made close to 100 years ago! It also includes information about many of the forensic techniques and areas of the day, along with several of the inspirations behind both the writing style of Doyle’s works and the men who influenced the creation of Sherlock Holmes himself. The beautiful things about the books is that Doyle was always including every bit of evidence that you needed to solve the crimes on your own, never holding anything back to make Sherlock seem amazing or brilliant when something doesn’t make sense. The fact that Doyle’s books inspired the creation of many of the basic principles of forensic science is a testament to the success of his writing.

There is one part about this section that was frustrating though, and it was the part where you were allowed to practice doing an etching to reveal a secret message when aligned with a piece of paper with boxes cut out of it. It was very difficult to do with the materials provided and at the angle you are expecting. The best work-around I found was to line up the paper, figure out where the holes of the punch-out aligned, and just write it in yourself.

It was an absolute mess.  The work around took time, but was less frustrating in the long run.

The second part is the fun part: Solving the crime! While the collection of the crime scene evidence is rudimentary and everything is laid out for you, the best part is going around and testing Scotland Yard’s theories against your own to figure out the crime. There’s the Slaughterhouse, where there are three machines showing you different styles of blood splatter against a sheet of glass, the Greenhouse where you test for toxins by essentially matching colors and checking an etching against poisonous common plants of the time, a sandy area to check for track patterns, and a Penny Arcade to see how different methods can cause different breaks in a stone bust.

My favorite part of the testing was the blood splatter analysis, but I also know I’m hugely biased towards it. I’ve been a forensics fangirl since I was in middle school, and I even went to a science summer camp based completely around forensics. My specialization? Physics and the interpretation of blood splatter analysis. Weird as it is, I take some serious pride in it.

Not ashamed to admit I have the shape to angle mostly memorized.

My least favorite area was analyzing the track patterns, mostly because it required some outside information and knowledge because the tests weren’t too well designed. Out of the 9 members of our family there, there were only two of us who got it right. But we used completely different methods. I overanalyzed the heck out of it, basing my choice on the difference of wet to dry sand leaving on impressions overtime. My uncle kept it simple and remembered that the area was designed so even kids could figure it out. Even so, you were still able to figure out the mystery even if you couldn’t get it exactly right.

The third area was smaller, a little gift shop and an exhibit on more recent takes on Sherlock in the media. This included the C4-laden jacket from the BBC series where Moriarty makes his first appearance, so I was super excited about that. The merchandise was interesting as well, but you could find cheaper elsewhere.

For all you Ohio natives who are Sherlock Holmes fans, this is a fun experience if you don’t take yourself too seriously and want to see some things never before released from the Doyle estate.I highly recommend going to see it. It’s still at Cosi until September 1st before it starts packing to move on to its next location. After that it’s going to St. Louis, so be sure to catch it while it’s in town! To know where else it is planning to open, you can go to http://sherlockholmesexhibition.com/ to learn more.

This was a lot of fun for every bit of my family that went, and a great way to spend a day out in Columbus. Cosi is one of those places that I love going back to whenever they have anything new, and has a lot of happy memories. Now I don’t have a picture of how awesome I felt after leaving (I got to lift a car. Serious She-Hulk moment), but I would totally go again given the chance.

And it's totally non-profit. Cost of admission is to keep the exhibits and building running.

Love your nerdiness, and don’t be afraid to be active about it. It’s just elementary.