There's a big nasty hurricane (Irene) coming our way in the eastern USA:



If it stays a category 2, it will be the largest such hurricane to hit the NYC area in decades.
The potential for disaster here is quite big. I pray for all of us.

Hi guys,
I sort of dropped off the face of the earth as far as arcade collecting goes. I've been doing some cleanup work around the house and in my garage are all of my arcade machines (16 or 17 I think).
My house flooded two years ago and I lost a few of them due to water damage (particularly of note was my 2/3 scale Dragon's Lair I had built four years ago! A real shame as it looked exactly like it's big brother, just smaller).
Anyway, it's good to be back here checking out what Nuno and everyone else is up to.
Looking forward to catching up on the massive number of forum posts and stories from the past several years.
Cheers to you all!
Alex

Pac-land and Professor Pac-man!!
Hooray, soon I will have all the Pacman cabs (need a Super Pacman, Pacmania and Pacman Jr. I'll see what I can do about Pacman Plus and Pac-n-Pal).
I must now try to find the VR Pac-man 3D game too!
Pics when I get the machines (being shipped from Florida).
Alex

Bruno,
You sir are a true madman!
A galaxian3 theatre!!
Wow!!
Are you buying a new house to go along with that?!!
I can't wait to see the write-up on this road trip!
Alex

Last week I won the auctions for the complete Bluth trilogy of games (DL, DL2 and SA)  from ebay.
The machines were 450 miles away in Rochester, NY.
Not too bad I thought, I can rent a trailer and pick them up myself and save a lot of money on shipping costs. It would be like getting one of the games for free.
Well, I had never used a trailer before and my truck did not have the wiring harness for this.
Again, no problem, I ordered it online and installed it myself (it took me a while and some cuts and bruises but I did it!)
I ask for friday as a day off from work and plan my trip for that day.

I get the trailer on thursday afternoon:


I want to leave my house at 5am on friday morning but I oversleep and end up leaving at 6am. I may get hit by bad traffic. Like Bruno does, here's a photo of my odometer at start (in miles):


Here I am driving on the New York Thruway (still some snow on the ground):


Got to take a break:


At 3pm I am almost there (9 hours on the road!):


At 3:40pm I arrive at the seller's house and see my new babies!




Vance, the seller, is a collector and a player of games. I play a few games of Star Wars in his game room. (that's Vance next to the pinball machines).



By 5:30pm I have paid Vance for his games and he wraps up the games and helps me load them into the trailer (he is a big guy, so he does most of heavy lifting! Thanks Vance!)


Once I get on the New York Thruway I see this sign (keep in mind, I have another 65 miles to go past New York City!)


I am driving a bit slower because I am very nervous about the machines falling over or getting banged up badly. It gets dark and I have to take one of many breaks for food, coffee and to check the straps on the trailer:


Parts of the road are empty and very dark. It reminds me of the game Night Driver!


I got home at 4am. I was really tired and decided to take a nap and unload the trailer later.


At 7:30am I get a call from the rental place telling me that someone else needs to pick up the trailer and if it's not back to them by 8am they will charge me $500 and $250 per half hour I am late after that!
I unload the machines really quick (no fun to do by myself):


I start to bring the machines inside, except the DL2, it doesn't fit through the door!!
I have the DL2 in my garage while I figure out how I am going to get it inside.
Saturday I spend an hour playing the games!!



I learned a lot during this trip.
Here's the bad:
1) New York State is a really big state, 450 miles is a lot more than it appears on a map.
2) Going through New York City with a trailer full of arcade games stinks! There are potholes bigger than a tire waiting to swallow up your entire car, trailer and games!
3) Going by yourself on a 22 hour trip stinks. Bring a friend or spouse to keep you company.

Here's the good:
1) I really love arcade games. I will have to get more!
2) I got used to driving with a trailer so I can now get more games.
3) My daughter likes games too so I will have to get even more games!

Thanks to Bruno and all you guys on this forum for getting me excited once again about collecting arcade games.
Extra special thanks again to Bruno and Mr. Jason Finn. Hopefully one day I can achieve such a great collection as you guys.
Talk to you all soon.
Alex

Hi guys,
One of the things that first brought me to this website was to build my own Dragon's Lair cabinet.
I see that Luca and Mike Ryan have both built one.
I was going to base the construction on diagrams posted at Jakobud's website: (http://www.jakobud.com/)
I have several questions. (please pardon my ignorance in these matters)
Where did you get the plans for the cabinet?
What material was used in the construction (plywood, MDF, particleboard, etc..)?
Where do you obtain the vinyl sheets to cover the cabinet?
Where can you find the Marquee parts (curved plexi, marquee holders)?

(This is a great website!)
Thanks,
Alex