After a long break (weird how having a baby just eats up all your free time!) I’m back. I wish I had better things to report, but I must tell you that my local arcade finally closed down. I can’t say that I was shocked to find this out. After I initially reported the status of my local mall’s shameful Namco arcade, the condition of the place went even further down hill…FAST.
I haven’t been making posts lately, as I have been preoccupied with REAL LIFE™ and haven’t had time to devote to online shennanigans. That doesn’t mean, however, that I have had no arcade adventures. Here are a few things that I have been up to since I last posted on the blog
These are just little snippets of arcade-related happenings here at NCV. I plan on going more in-depth with some of those items, but I will do so later. I basically just wanted to get back in the swing of things and needed to dust the cobwebs off my fingertips. Until next time…
I was reading a post over at KLOV asking for folks to reveal what was the most interesting thing that they found inside an arcade game. It sparked a memory of an experience I had a couple years ago. The second game added to my current collection was my playchoice 10. When I got the game, I was able to look inside it before I got it and saw that there was a mess of torn paper and other random things in the cabinet. I figured that a mouse had at one time taken up residence in the cabinet. Little did I know that the mouse still resided there…albeit dead.
I had only been in the hobby for a few months before I was bowled over with the generoisty of some folks. I can remember someone local handing me a bunch of overlays because he could never use them and didn’t know what they were. Turned out they were for Lode Runner, and I was able to flip them for $20 each. I also remember Hans O hooking me up with a brand-new control panel button hole drill bit for free. Sometime later, someone on KLOV started the idea of a “Free Friday”. For the first couple of weeks, a thread would pop up with several people listing (more…)
My wife’s friend came over for the weekend and we had this humorous exchange Friday night:
Her: So what are you about to do?
Me: Oh, I think I’m going to go do a little soldering
Her: Neat! So do you have one of those cool hats?
Me: Um…no…? (thinks WTF?!)
Her: Well, you do at least have gloves, don’t you?
Me: Actually, gloves aren’t really required for soldering – so, no.
Her: Just don’t stare at it, cause you could go blind!
Me: ……………………………….
There is a loooong pause before I realize she is confusing soldering with WELDING. She realizes her mistake too and we laughed so hard we cried.
Well, this isn’t arcade related, but the image below was too good to pass up. Have a Merry Christmas everyone!
I don’t really know how many people follow my blog as RSS subscribers are only a small portion of people who actually read it. I don’t know if there are a lot of regular readers or if most people are just checking my site out for a specific article that I linked to on a forum or newsgroup. However, I was pleased to check out my google analytics to see that my blog has shown a 5,600 % increase in traffic (I guess people like warehouse raids). Granted, I’m not getting massive amounts of volume here, so every visitor helps, but it is nice to know that people find what I have to say interesting.
I made just a few updates to the site today:
If you have a blog that is arcade related, I’d love to do a link exchange with you. If I post something of interest to you, send folks a link.
Not everyone has the opportunity to buy out such a large quantity of arcade games in one swoop. There can be a lot of mystery surrounding the purchase price, some excitement over possible collector sales, but after some time, the deal is forgotten-never to be remembered. I’m sure some people wonder what the motivation behind such a large deal could be. Would a buyer of all this stuff purchase only to flip all the items or does he keep a few? Basically, what happened to it all? Here, eight months after my initial deal and still not completely rid of all of it, I reveal everything. (more…)
Here is another one from Arturo’s Arcade Lab. The MultiWilliams!!!
I found an opportunity to use the old converted Robotron cabinet that I bought a while ago. (more…)
At first Jim down in Macon, GA saw my Track and Field Multigame on my website and wanted it. So he bought it. Then a few months later, he started asking about other machines that I could build for him… anyway, long story short…etc… he only had space for one cabinet, so we agreed that I would build him a full-featured Multigame cabinet, and I would get my T&F back. After much thought, the theme was chosen… Crazy Climber!!! So from the lab of Crazy Arturo comes… The Crazy Climber Multigame!!!
It has a full 2-player fighter layout, plus dedicated 4-way joystick, and 3″ Trackball…
Orange T-molding and buttons complement the Crazy Climber bezel and marquee nicely…
This is really a beautiful machine… Jim and his family will enjoy it for sure…
