Hang with PTD, American Teen

We scored some free passes to the screening of American Teen this week and want to pass the love on to our fellow readers. If you’re pumped for a little teen-angst documentary style, then drop into our forums to download your free pass. Thanks to Paramount for hooking us up. Read more

This ain’t your grandpa’s bowling alley, bucko! [Poweroutage]

The next time a bolt of lightning hits the transformer outside your apartment during a game of Wii bowling, you could always hit the bricks and try your hand at the real thing.  If it’s RL bowling you’re after, the coolest venue around is the new RedPin Restaurant & Bowling Lounge in downtown Oklahoma City’s Bricktown, an upscale combination of contemporary food, drink and solid maple-and-pine lanes.  Located along the canal just west of the Harkins Cinemas 16 (and downstairs), the RedPin occupies 12,000 square feet on the ground floor of the Centennial Building and boasts a posh restaurant that seats 175, a lounge with a unique one-of-a-kind red recycled glass bar top, and an available VIP room (that seats 20) just off the RedPin’s 10-lane alley.

The bowling experience at RedPin is about as high-tech as it comes, with bowler-specific automated bumpers, flat-screen HD monitors at the score keeping tables and the very cool option of personalizing the giant video screen at the end of your lane.  Each lane features a ‘mini-lounge’ where you can relax while critiquing your friend’s armswing (or lament your last baby split) and every lane has access to the RedPin’s restaurant-style dining service.  Rates are a user-friendly $4 per game from 11 am until 5 PM, then just $5.25 after that.  Bowlers can also rent lanes by-the-hour:  $45 before 5 PM and $55 thereafter.  Hourly rental includes bowling for up to six and shoes.  Speaking of shoes, rental is $2.50 if you’re not doing the hourly thing, and you’ll be setting your dots in kicks custom-made for the RedPin.

Now let’s talk about food.  In a sport that uses terms like turkey and Swiss cheese ball, you’d be excused for imagining that culinary interests are right up there with ball beveling and lane condition for the average bowler - and you’d be right.  At the RedPin, however, a chicken wing is much more than a style faux pax at the line and the food is about as far removed from standard bowling alley fare as - oh, I don’t know - Neptune is from the Sun! 

On my first visit to the restaurant, I had stone-baked pizza (is there really any other kind?), and it was the best I’ve had anywhere.  Mine was a Meat Your Match, which included a tantalizing combination of pepperoni, smoked bacon, grilled chicken, salami, seasoned beef and hot peppers.  There are five other flavor combinations (which I’ll be trying on my next five visits).  Besides pizza, diners in the restaurant can enjoy five different varieties of stuffed panini sticks, an imaginative collection of sandwiches, including RedPin Sliders (mini-burgers with center-cut smoked bacon and cheddar), Grilled Chicken Sliders (you guessed it:  grilled chicken with honey dijon and red onions - or a choice of other toppings and sauces), Grown Up Mac & Cheese (with Parmesan truffled fontina cream sauce, no less) - and more (and, yes, they do have chicken wings - I mean, Flying Elbows).  Several entree choices feature the RedPin’s special upgrades:  guests can order ‘Spares’ (which feeds 1-2 with the selected menu item) or ‘Strikes’ (which feeds 2-4).  All of the food at the RedPin can also be ordered on the Events Menu in party-sized trays designed to feed 20 people - and they’ll customize your order to specifically satisfy your group.

More food-related bowling terms:  sour apple, pumpkin, cheesy cakes and jam.  Sure all of these actually refer to bowling, but they make me think about dessert. At the RedPin, I wasn’t disappointed.  How about Red Velvet Cake with whipped cream cheese icing or Chocolate Lava Cake with a ‘molten’ chocolate center?  Of course, there’s also a traditional Cheesecake, a Four Berry Creme Brulee or even Sinkers and Suds:  fresh doughnuts from OKC’s famous Brown’s Bakery, served with coffee.

Coffee is, of course, for the serious bowler (like me), who doesn’t want the edge taken off his game.  For everyone else (at least everyone else over 21), the RedPin Lounge offers an astounding (really) array of beers (draft, foreign and domestic) as well as unique signature drinks and wines (red, white and sparkling - by the glass or by the bottle).

So the next time the power goes off or you forget to pay the electric bill, cruise down to Bricktown and check out the RedPin Restaurant and Bowling Lounge.  You can stay from 11 am until midnight Sunday through Wednesday and from 11 am until 2 p.m Thursday through Saturday.

Oklahoma-born septuagenarian plays CTF. [Interviews]

When California entrepreneur Don Sessions read the history of Red Bull energy drink’s rapid rise in the international beverage market several years ago, one of his first thoughts was “I can do that!”

And as it’s turned out, he was right. Sessions was quick to recognize that there was probably room in the burgeoning multi-million dollar sports/energy drink market for one more product – if he could find the right niche and the right label. And finding the right “label” was extremely important to Sessions, who had spent most of his career in the music industry.  Genesis: Ol’ Glory.

Working with technicians at Corona, California-based Flavor Specialties, Inc., Session developed a vitamin-enriched, caffeine-enhanced blend of guarana and ginseng extracts that he believed would appeal to both younger and adult tastes. “I wanted it to taste good,” he told PTD Magazine in an April interview. “Some of those energy drinks are awful.”  The result was a smooth, citrusy drink without the bitter aftershock of some of the other drinks on the market.  The taste is so appealing to some energy drink fans that it’s actually inspired the creation of scores of Ol’ Glory-themed blogs on the Internet (and at least one Ol’ Glory club in Wyoming).  From the stainless-steel vats of Southern California, the powdered base for Ol’ Glory is shipped east in barrels to a carbonated beverage bottler just north of the loop in Dallas, Texas. There Ol’ Glory is constituted in liquid form and packaged in 16-ounce aluminum cans.

With a recipe perfected and in production, all Sessions needed now was a distinctive label to wrap around his product – and what, he thought, could be more distinctive than the red, white and blue theme of the American flag? Wrapped in its flag-motif and decorated with images of the American bald eagle, the design even includes the complete text of the Pledge of Allegiance – with the words “Under God” in bold text. “I’m tired of people in this country trying to take God’s name out of everything,” he explained. “So I had it put in bold.”

And Sessions is a man who makes bold statements. His interview with PTD was held in the company’s south Oklahoma City corporate home: a 40,000 square foot warehouse that the 72-year old businessman picked up after its previous owners went bankrupt. In one corner of the warehouse is a small office – the rest of the space is reserved for pallet after pallet of Ol’ Glory. Dressed in a casual sports coat, Sessions sported four huge gold rings on his left hand and a couple more on his right. And these weren’t plain gold bands, either – they were embedded with diamonds that would make the showcase at most jewelers look like a collection of glass chips.

“When I’d meet my friends in the [music] business, they’d ask, ‘How’re you doing?’” Sessions laughed, “and I’d show ‘em my fingers. That’s how I’m doing!” Sessions hopes his success in the music industry will translate to the energy drink industry as well.

He and a business associate, Oklahoma City attorney Bill Hall, have turned their focus to distribution and marketing, perhaps the most crucial factor in ensuring the success of the Ol’ Glory label. Sessions chose Oklahoma City as the initial hub of his distribution wheel for several reasons – one of which is that he’s native to the Sooner state, born in the northeast Oklahoma community of Ripley. Besides the nostalgic ties, commercial property in Oklahoma was much more attractive than similar sites in the Los Angeles area where Sessions lives. “And this is more centrally located,” Hall pointed out during a tour of the warehouse facility.

So far, the focus on distribution has yielded good results. According to Sessions, Ol’ Glory is now available in 22 states and in such major venues as Wal-Mart, K-Mart and 7-Eleven stores (for a complete list of retail outlets, visit Ol’ Glory’s website at www.olglory.com). To make sure distribution to their retail outlets is timely, the company maintains 25-40 truckloads of Ol’ Glory in the warehouse at all times (1,600 24-pack cases per truck – do the math: that’s a lot of caffeine!). As the company expands into other parts of the country, Sessions plans to develop other regional bottlers and distribution systems.

With a unique taste growing in popularity and an equally popular price-point of 99 cents, Ol’ Glory has already established a solid foothold in its distribution area, and Sessions plans more for the new drink on the marketing front. The most recent innovation was the introduction of a new 4-pack format, which began shipping in mid-April.

The most significant marketing coup for the company, however, is a new relationship with the Army National Guard. Hall, a Viet Nam veteran who spent time ‘in country’ with the 4th Infantry Division, was instrumental in bringing Ol’ Glory to the attention of the Oklahoma Guard and after a series of meetings, a new can design was developed that advertises the National Guard on the rim. New point-of-sale and promotional posters now feature the Army National Guard and their recruitment efforts. “We found we had a parallel message,” said Hall, describing the blending of Ol’ Glory’s patriotic design and National Guard advertising. The National Guard distributes Ol’ Glory free in its recruiting efforts and at special events. It’s a win-win situation for both.

“I’d like to see Ol’ Glory become the drink of the Armed Forces,” said Sessions. To facilitate that, he and Hall are planning a trip to Washington, D.C. to speak with representatives of the other branches. If that effort is successful, the Ol’ Glory label will make a quantum leap in visibility – and the drink will be on its way to national recognition.

Then maybe Sessions can buy some more bling - so stay tuned, we’ll let you know how the old man is doing!

10 PRINT (”Hello World”); [Vertical]

Welcome to the first issue of Playedtodeath, Oklahoma’s premier video gaming news venue.

We’re glad you picked us up and we know you’ll look forward to fresh newsprint every month, as well as daily industry and cultural updates on our interactive website.  Each month we’ll talk about the things that are important to gamers:  reviews of new games and gaming systems, features that focus on your unique lifestyle - including the cooler places to hang when you’re not leveling up - and straight talk about the products that you find interesting (your phone does what?)

To make sure we provide the very best in computer gaming news, we’ve assembled an international staff of writers who bring years of computer gaming experience to the keyboard.  Our people know the movers and shakers in the industry personally, and we don’t cut corners when it comes to bringing you the latest stories:  when Kaz Hirai keynotes the 2008 Tokyo Game Show, we’ll be in the audience mentally translating yen to dollars and wondering how many people can legally share a sleeping tube.  When a new energy drink is introduced in OKC, we’ll be there to guzzle a freshly-minted can and crush the empty against our foreheads (or better, our friend’s forehead).  When Nintendo or Sony or NCsoft rolls out a new release, our reviewers will literally play it to death, to give you the best info to use in deciding how to spend your gaming dollars - that’s our promise to you.

And we want you to participate in this adventure, too - by giving us honest feedback on the reviews and articles you read on these pages.  If your thinking is concise and your analysis piercing, we might even print your emails in our Forum feature (spelling and sentence structure is important - we hope you didn’t stop paying attention in fifth grade).  Let us know about gaming-related events for our monthly activities calendar, like the LAN party you have planned in the basement of your sister’s cousin’s daughter’s house - who knows, we might show up and bring door prizes (generally expired pizza coupons and stuff like that).  Playedtodeath will occasionally even be news (as opposed to reporting it), when we sponsor the biggest LAN party in the state of Oklahoma later this year (keep your schedule clear during Fall Break).  And every month, you’ll have a chance to win cool stuff (with very little effort on your part).

In short, we’re going to make every effort to be that computer gaming newspaper that you always wished (at least since last Thursday) you could read while you were waiting for a Saturday night table in Bricktown.  

So, enjoy - and keep doing that thing you do with the PS3 controller!