Walter Day opened the Twin Galaxies arcade in Ottumwa, Iowa in 1981. After realizing early on that there was no unified record of video game high scores, he started the Twin Galaxies International (now Intergalactic) Scoreboard to keep track of high scores from all over the world. Twin Galaxies began organizing competitive gaming events, and the popularity of video games in the culture at the time led to a LIFE magazine story with a photo of some of the country's best players lined up outside the arcade. Ottumwa's mayor, followed by Iowa's governor, declared Ottumwa "The Videogame Capital of the World" in 1982.

The arcade itself was a victim of the video game crash and shut down just a few years later, but Twin Galaxies lives on as a score keeping organization. There has been an effort for several years by record holder Billy Mitchell, Day and others to build a video game museum and hall of fame in Ottumwa.

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Canteen Lunch in the Alley in downtown Ottumwa, Iowa was the model for the Lanford Lunch Box in Roseanne Barr's sitcom Roseanne. Tom Arnold, Roseanne's husband during the time the show was on the air, was an Ottumwa native. The Canteen, founded in 1936, is known for its loose meat sandwiches... yum.

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Funspot in Laconia, New Hampshire is the "largest arcade in the world" according to Guinness World Records. It opened in 1952 featuring indoor mini-golf and a penny arcade and moved to its current location in 1964. It hosts competitive tournaments (you can see it in the 2007 documentary The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters) and is home to the American Classic Arcade Museum with over 200 classic games from the '70s and '80s.

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After Warehouse: Songs and Stories came out in 1987, Hüsker Dü spent some time practicing and building songs in the Rossmor Building. A former shoe factory that takes up an entire city block, the Rossmor's empty spaces and lofts were home to artists, musicians, and the like in the late 80's. Grant Hart (drummer) was living here at the time. A few recordings have survived that period, but Hüsker Dü called it quits before releasing another album.

Today, the Rossmor is a collection of upscale condominiums- surprise!

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In March of 1979, Hüsker Dü played their first public performance at Ron's Randolph Inn. Although there is no longer a 1217 building at this address, the 1219 building contains the one-story brick building that used to be Ron's.

As Bob Mould recalled:
"I am 99% certain it's the one story building next to the salon. The front windows you see were 'the back of the stage.' When one entered the front door, they were essentially to my immediate left (stage left). The stage was maybe 12 inches high, with a small wrought iron rail — think handrail for a stairway entrance to a suburban house — on stage left. Don't ask me how I remember all of this."

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