Tuesday, July 1, 2008

A new home for me and mine

I haven't been keeping up this blog very well, but I have been busy.

One of the things keeping me so busy is house shopping. My partner and I looking to start a family, and the loft lifestyle doesn't mesh well with having children, so we're abandoning our cool loft for more a more mundane dwelling in suburbia.

After months of looking, my partner and I just bought a house together. One of the considerations was what to do with all my arcade games. She was very supportive of finding a spot that could house my games. I really don't appreciate her enough.

The place we ended up buying had this little shed out back. When we bought it, it had some bug-ugly carpet, a crappy paint job, and a mis-mash of ad-hoc particle board shelve that were out-gassing formaldahyde so badly that one friend refused to spend more than 30 seconds inside it.

But it did have power, and it's own sub-panel with 80 amp service, and we did some quick measurements and decided that it would be a perfect arcade. After a few changes......

So, out came the carpet and shelves, and on went a coat (or two) of Behr Palace Purple (code 630D-6 if you want some of your own), and a fluorescent fixture that looks like it's right out of an 80's arcade:





But the best part was I found a flooring made of interlocking rubber tiles designed for a garage or other workspace, and a checkerboard pattern of navy blue and black ended up looking great.






Tomorrow: What it looks like with some of the games inside.....

Friday, March 7, 2008

Self indulgent, but immensely fun...

I've decided to publish this blog quasi-anonymously, though it probably won't be too hard to find out my real name--should you really care.

I'm a collector of classic arcade games. Ya know... about 6 ft. (185 cm) tall, weigh about 300 lbs (135 kg), and take quarters (insert local currency here). I currently own 14 of them. Even though they're not all at home, the 9 that are tend to fill up the house quite a bit. Luckily, my partner is really supportive, as long as I keep her favorite in working order. Right now, we live in an old cotton mill converted to work-live lofts, so we've got plenty of space, but we need to move, since this is no place to raise a family.

I'l be blogging about collecting, repairing, restoring--and most importantly, playing these monstrosities. As well as trying to balance this self-indulgent attempt to live out my adolescent fantasy of living in an arcade, with the more mundane* issues of work, home and family.

Pneu

* But ultimately more important.