I’ve been collecting Presto Magix transfers for awhile now….I used to love them when I was a kid. Usually when I search for them on eBay a few non Presto Magix brands turn up. I’ve never been interested in getting any of those until I found these:

They’re from ‘81 and ‘82, still sealed. The wife wanted to play with these, and I told her if I caught her opening them she would have to sleep outside in the woods. She has been warned.

DiCaprio is officially attached to star as Bushnell in the movie titled Atari, an idea that writers Brian Hecker and Craig Sherman sold to Paramount on Friday.

- picture stolen from FirstShowing.net…hope they don’t mind

This sounds pretty cool…it’s amazing how much old arcade game culture is sneaking into modern entertainment these days.

You can read the full story here.

Anyways…here’s a quick post. This guy hacked his Roomba vacuum cleaner into Pac-Man (sort of):

Look at all the crap I had stowed away inside:

I gutted the inside, took off the back door, and the coin door. I then got on my hands and my knees (sorry, no pic) and cleaned out the inside of the cabinet with the ol’ shop vac and some Fantastik.

Don’t let the weird dust floaty thingies in that pic fool you…I scrubbed every inch of this bitch.

The top support on the back of the cabinet had a big crack in it, which you can kinda make out in this crappy photo:

We all know that crack kills…

…so I had to fix this. I slathered glue all over the affected area, and shot nails haphazardly until it seemed to be structurally sound.

It’s not perfect, but once I go at it with some Bondo and the sander it should be like new.

Hmmm…what else did I do? Oh yeah… the control panel hinge was disgusting.

I put my trusty wire wheel into my drill and went at it until all the gunk/rust/rat droppings were gone:

You can see the fine lines from the wire wheel, but I really don’t care. This hinge isn’t visible, and now it’s not all full of sludge. I will probably spray it with some polyurethane to prevent the rust from coming back.

The last thing I did was to fix the bottom back panel, which was coming off a bit in the right corner:

If you take a look inside, you’ll see the problem:

You can see where the back pulled away from the 2 blocks that it was nailed to. I decided to fix this with some screws. I drilled some pilot holes for them, and drove ‘em on in.

The heads of the screws were sticking out, and wouldn’t pull in anymore. Now, if you’ve done some screwing you probably know that in some materials a screw head will sink right in, and bury itself below the surface. In this case, that didn’t happen. I pulled the screws back out, and drilled again with a countersink bit:

I went nice and deep, because I really wanted to pull this piece of wood way in, and I don’t care about the holes. They will be patched up with bondo later.

Screws back in place:

You can see how the back panel has pulled back in where it belongs. I’ll probably tack a few nails into the back from the sidepanel as well at some point.

After doing all this, I really wanted to keep going but it was getting late. I figured I’d get back to it on the weekend. This past Saturday I went to my grandparent’s house to help cleanup their yard. I got a nasty sunburn, and hurt my knee some how. That pretty much put me out of commission for a few days. I’ve been hobbling around like a 90 year old. The hobbling has now almost dissapeared, and I think I’m going to get back in the garage this weekend and start sanding this puppy. WOOF!

First up, my Centipede keychain from Oleszak Creative:

I haven’t decided, but I think I’ll probably put my Centipede keys on this and hang it on the coin door. The packaging for this was very cool, but I forgot to take a pic of it before I opened it. You can see the packaging and more examples of these keychains here.

Next, some DK art from ArcadeShop.com:

The thing stuck to the marquee in that first pic is the instruction card for under the bezel. I’d love to see these with the masking removed, but I’m not going to remove it until I have restored the Popeye cabinet that these are going to go in. I have all the art I need now for this. The only parts I need are a DK PCB, joystick, and buttons.

Finally….a “Tokens” marquee:

The plan for this is to make it into a backlit sign to put over my token machine.

That is all. Go back to watching cat videos on YouTube.

The first 3 are super cool. That last one is a bit lame.

Greetings earthlings. Nasa is making some sort of announcement today at 1PM EST.

NASA to Announce Success of Long Galactic Hunt

WASHINGTON — NASA has scheduled a media teleconference Wednesday, May 14, at 1 p.m. EDT, to announce the discovery of an object in our Galaxy astronomers have been hunting for more than 50 years. This finding was made by combining data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory with ground-based observations.

Click that first link above for info on how you can listen to the press conference. My money is on an announcement that they’ve discovered a new moon orbiting around Star Jones. (I can make fat jokes, because I am currently a member of that very exclusive club!)

http://www.nodeliverance.com

I love this band. Their first major release album “Rubberneck” was released in 1994, and I had it on cassette (remember those?).

I wore this tape out. Back then, I thought I was cool and was in a band like 50% of you reading this. That band is still around, without me of course.

The Toadies were on tour for this album, and were coming to the Strand in Providence RI. I was planning on seeing them, and right before that date we got a gig at a tiny little club across the street called The Raven. Because of this, I couldn’t see them. We played there while they played across the street.

Just as we were about halfway through our set they must have finished because loads of drunken Toadies fans poured into the club we were playing at. They loved us. I think we could have played nursery rhymes on bagpipes and they would still have been into it. Alcohol seems to do that to people. Here’s some pictures from back then (I’m the bald dude):

OK….after 7 years, they finally released another album in 2001 - Hell Below Stars Above. This album took some getting used to, but I think that was because I had 7 years to get used to the first one.

I would say this album is just as good as the first, but has a slightly different feel to it. Go ahead and touch both cover images on your monitor to see what I mean (told you!).

Right after this album was released, the band broke up, citing differences with the bass player.

Since that breakup, Vaden Lewis (singer) started another band with a similar sound, called The Burden Brothers. I have their albums, and they are good. They are just not the same as the Toadies, however.

In recent years, the Toadies did some reunion shows in Texas. They finally got back together for good, and this new album will be released 7 years after their last one. They seem to like that timespan for some reason.

Here’s an article with some info on the new album. Here’s their official website, which will hopefully get updated soon.

I hadn’t cut my grass yet this year, and it was getting shamefully high. Neighbors jogging by would throw up a little, and small children riding their tricycles stopped in front of the house on the way by for a good cry.

We had some company coming over Saturday, so I figured It was time to get my butt out there and cut it. I had one problem however…my lawnmower was trapped in the garage. I had so many arcade games in there I couldn’t get at it. I figured it was a good excuse to take the time to bust up the old water logged Baby Pac cabinet that I was going to toss anyway.

I took the restored playfield and working parts out, and put them in a safe spot in my cellar.

Here it is after I took the back door off and knocked the bottom back panel out with my foot.

I put my feet on the bottom, and pushed it forward…the bottom fell right out as planned.

(Check out the grass in that pic above, and compare it to my neighbor’s lawn!)

Then, with the cabinet still in the position above, I grabbed each side at the base of the cabinet, and pulled them apart like the Incredible Hulk. I did have to hit it a few times with a hammer afterwards, and this was the sad result:

I did feel a little bad about doing this, but there really was no saving this cabinet. It was swollen worse than Angelina Jolie’s sausage lips.

Here’s what the garage looks like from the front now:

This is after I pulled the lawnmower out and cleaned up a little. The lawnmower is normally on that left wall where the broom is.

I actually have a tiny bit of space now! I think I have enough room to lay my good Baby Pac cabinet on it’s side to work on it. I think I’m going to repaint it, but I’m still not 100% sure if I will, as it’s in pretty good shape already.

While I was busting up the cabinet, a neighbor was riding by on a bike with his kids. He stopped to ask if I was selling any games, and I told him how I had to make room to get the mower out. His kid cuts lawns in the neighborhood, so I ended up having him do it. It was perfect timing, with me being lazy and all.

Now that I have a little more room, I think I will be working on getting that good Baby Pac cabinet restored soon.