Almost two months ago, a guy put up a post on a german arcade forum that he had been given
two nintendo cabinets from a friend
for free. they had been sitting in a basement since 1989 - untouched! at first everyone thought he was probably talking about some generic cabs with bootleg boards inside, but when he posted pictures of the beauties everyone was in awe
. he wanted to keep one of them for himself because his wife is a huge nintendo fan, the other one, an extremely rare nintendo space firebird, he wanted to trade for a generic mame cab. mr punkrockcaveman himself came to the rescue and offered him one of his hellomats in exchange, at first everything seemed to work out fine, but somehow this deal never happened!
fast forward a few weeks, the same guy posted on the german forum again that he was planning on converting the space firebird into a mame cab
. WHAT? as you can imagine, the reactions "of the crowd" weren't positive (to say the least), so i contacted him and asked if there's anything i could do for him
. he still wanted to have a mame cab and - of course - as soon as possible. so i thought about the stuff in my storage but couldn't really come up with anything good except for an empty taito cab which he could have used as a shell. however, before i made my offer, i wanted to make sure not to go behind joerg's (aka punkrockcaveman aka prc) back who had the initial deal with the nintendo guy. joerg told me that he was no longer interested in the cab, but offered me a deal of his own instead - a deal which i couldn't pass on and which eventually led to my latest roadtrip. so lean back, ejoy, here's what's coming up
although i'm on holidays, i have to start pretty early, because i won't be travelling light.
first order of business: two pallets - transported my superpowerully
why two pallets? well, because i will be transporting two cabs up north. ok, make that 1 1/2, because the first one is merely a shell: an out run cab which an arcade guy from bremen wants to use as his first mame project!
let's load it up
because the weather forecast is predicting scattered showers, i have to project the cab on the trailer!
as for the second cab i'm bringing, have a look inside my alien-infested rear view mirror
have you been able to guess correctly? right, it's my german amidar cab which will be traded in for something else ...
time to set my navigation device: 3.45h is the estimate
without a trailer, so make that estimate an hour longer!
breakfast on the road - i love it
looks like it has already rained here, so far clear sunny skies
while taking a short break, i spot this nice still life on a picnic area: looks like someone's got his lights knocked out and he lost his reigning champion crown!
i also spot this albert einstein crown cap
the last forty kilometers take me through some beautiful scenery
my first stop is coming closer and closer (check out the sign on the right), but as you can see the weather is getting worse!
someone's already waiting for me at mcdonald's - and although he's in disguise (normally he's wearing a hat which he has exchanged for a cap this time) i quickly recognize him!
have you been successful in unmasking him? no? NO??? c'mon, that's obvious, it's the famous
HAMBURGLAR!!!
need proof? here you go
ok, after successfully protecting my big tasty bacon burger from the hamburglar aka joerg, let's complete our mission before it starts raining heavily! and this takes me back to the initial deal joerg had offered me - a "triangle deal" (sounds strange in english): he would prepare a hellomat mame cab for me in exchange for my amidar cab which would then allow me to trade the hellomat in for the nintendo space firebird! make sense?
man, that hellomat is really small!
time to let others do the work ...
with the hellomat now loaded in the back of my car and a huge
THANK YOU to joerg for making this possible, i can head out to the nearby location of the nintendo guy
in the meantime it had started pouring down and some poor guy almost got hit by a train
here i
finally am!!!
"nintendo house" located
the object of my affection (on the left
): an uber rare nintendo space firebird. on the right, the guy named micha who kindly agreed to exchange this cab for a hellomat mame cab (nice shoes by the way
)
fortunately, the rain has stopped again, so we can "download" the out run cab (which will be picked up shortly by the bremen guy) and "upload" the space firebird - with maximum protection from the rain!
but wait a minute, this roadtrip is entitled
ninten-two and you were talking about
two nintendo cabs that micha got out of the basement, so we wanna see the second one as well!!! ok, ok, i give in
holy ravioli - a dedicated donkey kong
since i had made contact with micha i had been pestering him about the donkey kong: some gentle remarks first ("what a great looking cab, would look perfect in my collection"), some more obvious lines later ("i already have donkey kong junior and donkey kong 3, this is my missing donkey kong puzzle piece"). but it didn't look as if he could be convinced to let go of it, when suddenly out of the blue he dropped me a pm entitled "congratulations". in it, he basically said that he had talked to his wife and they had both agreed to sell it to me. of course, it didn't come cheap (as you can imagine), but i had to get it - had to had to had to!!! so let's push this baby a little bit closer to the edge ...
... and down into my car (backdoor is present, just not pictured)!
OH - MY - GOD!!!
the arcade gods are shining down on me ...
... so let's get out those sunglasses!
or not
basically it's raining all the way back to lauda (good thing that i gave maximum protection to the space firebird), so i'm following the sign's advice by
taking my time
a mere 25 kilometers from home, the sun's coming out again ...
... only to produce this fabulous sunset right in front of The Storage™!
the statistics - coindidentally the travelled mileage also represents something else this time - wanna make a guess?
and here's my new friend on the dashboard
one country, four counties, 750 kilometers, 12 hours 42 minutes on the road - this roadtrip is OFFICIALLY OVER! ("geschafft" means done / completed / finished)
stay tuned for the unloading of the cab(s) ...
