Imagine all the games I can haul in this. If only I had somewhere to put them!

Hey there! I haven’t posted in ages. This is a quick post to let you know what I’ve been up to.

I got rid of my old pickup truck a few months ago. It was sitting semi-dead on my lawn for awhile.

I have been wanting to get another (newer) truck for quite some time but can never seem to save the money long enough to do it. I decided when I sold my old one that I would get on the ball and get a replacement soon. I’ve been spending most of my free time selling loads of stuff on eBay to put towards it. Check out my current auctions.

I’m about 80% of the way there. I’m hoping I’ll have another truck in a month or two. Then I may be able to pick up some more games that I won’t have any room for. Stay tuned…

My Mappy Restoration is finally done!

I started writing about this on CoinOpSpace.com to enter their restoration contest. I missed the deadline for the contest, but finished the restoration thread there. You can read all about it here.

I went shopping with the wife today at A.C. Moore and spotted a frame designed to display 20 baseball cards. I’m not into baseball, but I figured it would work well to display my Donkey Kong cards/stickers:

They are normally $21.99, and are on sale right now for 40% off. I saw the same exact one at Michaels for $34.99.

Hey there!

I haven’t had much to write about lately. I sold 3 games that were in my way in the garage. Now I have a bit more room in there to finish up Mappy, Pac-Man, and my Donkey Kong. Mappy is on deck to be painted very soon. I also sold my old pickup truck that was sitting dead on my lawn for quite some time. I have nothing to haul games in, but I also don’t have any room for more games right now. I’m saving up for another truck, and have been listing a lot of stuff on eBay.

We went to a great flea market in Mansfield CT. It’s held in the lot of a still operating drive-in theater. While there, we picked up these 2 stools for the arcade:

I didn’t realize it, but these are all over eBay. You can get them brand new in any color for about $100 shipped for a pair. Search eBay for “bombo stools” and get yourself some.

Awhile back, I scanned and redrew the bezel artwork for Moon Patrol:

It looks like this will be going to print very soon. If you want to see this happen and need one, please head over to KLOV.com and add your name to the list!

Hey there. This a quick note, mainly geared towards helping other people who might be Googling for the same info I was just a few nights ago. I was looking in vain for an answer to this question:

Q: If I install 8GB of RAM in a Gateway GM5664 desktop will the computer’s BIOS recognize it?

A: Yes

This computer came with Windows Vista 32bit, 4 DIMM slots, and 3GB of RAM as follows:

(2) 1 GB chips

(2) 512 MB chips

If you do a lookup on this by model # at just about every site that sells memory it will tell you there is a max of 4GB total, and a max of 1GB per slot. I believe this is because with Windows Vista 32bit installed by default, if you were to install 4GB, Windows will only see 3.5GB. In order to keep people from complaining after popping in more than 4GB and not seeing it in Windows, they must have listed the max memory as 4GB. However, if you upgrade to Windows 7 64bit and pop in (4) 2GB DIMMs it will recognize it and boots fine.

8Gb is probably overkill, though my computer is running faster than it was.

Here’s the exact RAM that I have installed:

http://www.crucial.com/store/mpartspecs.aspx?mtbpoid=BF123C48A5CA7304

OK…first, check out my last post if you haven’t already. I’ve used Novus #2 and #1 a bit in the past but never for anything major and never on a bezel. The bezel on my Mario Bros. was scratched very badly. It had many scratches all over the place and also a fine haze in the middle. The scratches where so noticeable in the center that it actually made it harder to play the game. If I had to rate it, I’d say it was about a D at best.

I had a very hard time getting a picture of this damage, but here is one from a side angle that shows a bit:

That picture is actually not of the worst damage. The center was an absolute crap fest.

For a couple of years I’ve been looking for a replacement. I even ordered one off of eBay and unfortunately the seller didn’t describe it very well. It was cracked and had some sort of sludge all over it so it went unused. I thought I could possibly clean mine up with some Novus but was a little wary of the paint that is on the outside of the bezel. I decided to give it a shot, and it worked wonders:

You can click on those pictures above to see them larger. I spent about 45 minutes on this. I started with #3, and kept going over it several times paying special attention to the worst scratches. I kept that off the painted area. I followed that up with #2 on the entire thing including the paint (though I did it sparingly over the paint). The paint actually had some scuffs and the Novus removed them. I followed that up with #1 and unless you were looking for faults you might think it was NOS. The only real flaw you can see now is where a deep gouge was. It actually almost removed it, and softened the edges to the point where it is hardly noticeable. If you shift your position while staring at it there is a subtle distortion and that’s about it. If I doubled my time on this I think it would have looked even better.

This bezel was so bad, if I got a replacement I would probably have tossed it. Now its about an A-. Novus kicks serious ass. Go buy some.

I just got some crazy quantities of Novus in the mail. Crappy cell phone pic:

I think I should be set for awhile now. I had a small bottle of #1 and #2, and no #3. I’ve been using it more lately and wanted to get some #3 to try to get some scratches out of my Mario Bros. bezel. This stuff isn’t cheap, but I got a good deal on eBay at $60 for all 3.

For those new to Novus, it is designed for cleaning and polishing acrylic. #1 is pretty much a cleaner. You should never use Windex or anything similar on plexiglass, it will damage it over time. I use #1 to clean bezels and marquees, buttons, joystick knobs, etc…

#2 has a tiny bit of grit. You can use it to remove very light scratches. #3 is heavier and will remove slightly deeper scratches. If you have to use #3, you should then follow it with #2 and then #1. If you use #2, you should follow it with #1. If you just use #1, you should follow it with a Sam Adams.