Hey there….happy Halloween! Not much new to report in the realm of arcade games.

I have one thing I thought might interest readers that is appropriate for today. For those people that read my site daily (AKA “The Awesome Ones”), you know that we stayed at the Hawthorne Hotel in Salem MA a couple of weekends ago.

We are fans of the show Ghost Hunters on the SciFi channel. For those not familiar with the show, they are real paranormal investigators from Warwick RI that go around the country investigating claims of hauntings. Each episode usually covers 2 separate locations.

We were watching the latest episode last Wednesday, and were excited to see that the two investigations were going to be in Salem MA. We were even more surprised when they listed the Hawthorne Hotel as the 2nd location they were investigating!

So…they start interviewing one of the managers of the hotel, and they lead them up to the sixth floor, stating that most of the recent haunting activity has gone on up there, and more specifically in room 628….THE ROOM WE STAYED IN!!! Don’t believe me? :OP
I have proof.

How cool is that? Supposedly people reported things going missing and then reappearing in that room, and feeling that something was touching their feet when they were sleeping. We didn’t have any of that happen, but it’s still pretty cool.

Tonight, Ghost Hunters is having a 6 hour live investigation (9pm – 3am EST) at the Waverly Hills Sanatorium. I suggest you Tivo it. If you don’t have a Tivo, you best get a case of Red Bull, because it’s going to be a long night.

We are laying low tonight, and are ready for the hordes of little bastards trick or treaters that show up at our door. Every year we run out of candy way too early. This year, we hope we are better prepared. Here’s what we have (after the stuff we already ate):

I’ll post an after picture later to show how we fared. If we run out of candy, we will have to start passing out rocks.

I got this cool Dig Dug license plate a couple months ago:

I had it up on the wall since then, and figured I could make it look a bit better by turning it into a neon sign. Here’s how I did it….

1. Get a license plate that will look cool in your game room.

2. Head to an auto parts store and get a neon frame. I got mine at Autozone for $24.99:

3. Get a 12VDC power adapter. I have loads of these in my cellar, but couldn’t find a 12V. I had to get one at Rat Shack for $22.

This one is 1500mA. I’m not sure how many amps that light draws but I’m sure it’s nowhere near 1.5 A.

4. The frame I got came with instructions. It has a small transformer box that you have to wire to the wires coming off the frame. After that, you wire the 3 wires (red, white, and black) coming from the other side of the transformer to your adapter. There are 3 different modes this light supports. The first is to trigger it with brake lights. I don’t have brakes on my house, so that option is out. The 2nd option fades it in and out:

Connect the red wire to positive, and the black and white wires to negative ground.

The 3rd option keeps it lit all the time:

Connect the red and white wires to positive, and the black wire to negative ground.

I opted for #2:

Here it is lit up:

And finally, a video of it in action:

I just won this Pac-Man plate on eBay, and plan on pimping it like it’s Dig Dug brother.

Here is a scan of an ad I got awhile back on eBay:

Click the image to see it original size.

I think this came from a magazine, but I’m not sure which one. Click here for the original uncompressed scan (9.4MB).

Hey! I finally opened up Mario Bros. Inside was relatively clean. I pulled the PCB out of it’s cage, and this is what I found:

By the look of those batteries, I’d guess they were the ones that came with the game back in ‘83. You can see the corrosion all around the components to the right of the batteries. I believe that dark stuff on the edge of the board is also corrosion underneath the coating they covered the ground trace with.

Checkout the corrosion on the back side:

I got lucky that the corrosion didn’t seem to spread beyond what you see in those pics.

The batteries are only used to save bookeeping info for operators. Seeing as this Mario Bros. is not likely to be put in a real arcade anytime soon I figured it would be best to just remove them. I removed the batteries and holder and cleaned up the area with a small wire brush. Then I went over it with a 50/50 solution of white vinegar and water to neutralize the acid and keep the corrosion from coming back. After that, I went over it with some 91% rubbing alcohol. Here it is after all that was done:

Along that bottom edge, I had to sand it to get rid of the corrosion that was underneath the coating. I also had to replace a capacitor – C1. The corrosion ate right through one of it’s legs.

I put it all back together and it still worked (phew!). Here are a few pics showing it in its new location in our game room.

We just picked up a Mario Bros on Saturday, in Wakefield MA:

A little history for those that don’t already know…Mario Bros was released after Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr., and Popeye. It was primarily marketed as a conversion kit to convert those 3 games into Mario Bros to “Clean up after Donkey Kong” (man, THAT would be a sucky job!). It was also released in a dedicated cabinet, seen above. The dedicated cabinet is sometimes known as a “wide body”, as it is a bit wider than the cabinet for the previously released games that I mentioned.

I saw this in an ad for a Tapper that was listed for $2100. They also said they had a Mario Bros for $250. Me being a cheapskate, I opted for the Mario. There were no pictures, and only a description of it. I couldn’t find out on the phone whether it was a widebody (which is what I would prefer) or a conversion, so I took a chance and said I’d take it. I got lucky that it was a widebody, and it’s in pretty good shape. I seem to be getting most of my games from Craigslist, and usually at a good (sometimes great!) price. With Craigslist, you have to just keep checking as often as you can, and when you see something you are interested in you have to be quick or it will get snapped up in no time.

As with most of our games, it could use some cosmetic work. The game itself plays great and the monitor looks like it recently had a cap kit. Here are some more pics:

I’ll be picking up repro side art for it at some point. Before I put it on I plan on patching the cabinet here and there and painting it so it looks mint. I will also need a repro control panel overlay, as this one has been used and abused:

And…I could also use a top marquee bracket as this one is long gone:

I’m ashamed to say that I have yet to open the back of this cabinet. I had a very busy weekend, and today was a Monday from hell. I should be peeking inside it tomorrow….if anything jumps out, or if I find all those socks in there that you lost over the years I will be sure to post more pics.

I just found this on BoingBoing.net…for those that haven’t seen it – Vanhalen was touring in NC and as the last song they did “Jump”. The synthesizer parts were prerecorded, and were somehow played back at the wrong bit rate, causing them to be at the wrong pitch. What results is a nasty sounding mess…it’s absolutely horrible. Go ahead and puke. Might as well puke.

Hey – I made some new wallpaper for my iPhone with an old school rotary phone dial. Here it is if you want it for yours.

Now that I got the part of our trip to Salem out of the way that most arcade geeks are interested in, I’ll tell you a little bit about what else we did there.

Last year, we opted to stay there overnight so we wouldn’t have to drive up and back all in one day and could spend more time there. I started calling about 6 months before Halloween, and none of the places right in Salem had any rooms left! We ended up booking a room at a Day’s Inn in Danvers 6 months in advance.

We went to check in late at night, around 11PM. The lady looked up the reservation and said it was for the following weekend and that they had no rooms available. We came very close to having to just head home that night. After I got all up in her grill, she ended up giving us a room they normally don’t rent because it had no heat (and because it was probably a former murder scene).

After that fiasco, we decided to stay somewhere nicer. While there last year ,we stopped in at Hawthorne Hotel right in downtown Salem and booked our room for this year, for 2 nights.

Here’s the hallway to our room on the sixth floor…I was really itching to ride my big wheel down it but I didn’t pack it this year.

We discovered during a ghost tour that a guy jumped off the roof (above our room?) to his death. There have also been reports of a ghost in the bathroom in room 325. I bet he leaves the seat up.

The room we had was one of their regular rooms. While it was nice, it wasn’t anything spectacular and was $179/night. We got room service for breakfast and it was around $55 for 2 people. Between eating there at the restaurant one night, drinks, etc…it came to $609 for a 2 night stay. If you aren’t raking in the cash, I’d recommend staying somewhere a little cheaper like we are going to do next year.

One of our favorite restaurants is Salem Beer Works:

They make their own beer on the premises and the food is great. If you go, get the sour cream & chive fries. They kick serious ass. Seriously.

I think we’ve taken a ghost tour from everyone that gives them now. The best one in my opinion is the one we did this year. It is run by the people at the store “Remember Salem” on Essex st. Sadly, we didn’t catch any ghosts on film, so here is a consolation one.

We checked out all the stores, and the vendors setup outside on Essex street. Before we left Sunday, we had breakfast at Red’s:

You have to go early or you will be in for a long wait. They open at 6AM. The food was really good – fast, hot, and cheap (like my women).

The wife and I took our annual trip to Salem MA this past weekend. This is our favorite time of year, and Salem is a great place to visit right before Halloween. For those of you that aren’t big on fancy book learnin’, Salem is known for the infamous witch trials, where 20 people met there deaths as punishment for practicing or being associated with witchcraft.

I’ll be writing more about Salem before Halloween, but this post only focuses on a new place we discovered there – Salem Willows Park.

It’s located right near the water, about 1.5 miles from the historic cemetery in downtown Salem.

It’s setup almost like a boardwalk…except…replace the boards with a big parking lot, and in between that and the water put a park with Willow trees and loads of squirrels. Other than that, it’s exactly like a boardwalk. All the different locations are connected together with storefronts facing the park.

The arcade is split into 2 separate buildings, one being the arcade…

the other a “Casino” with all redemption games:

Both the arcade and the casino were awesome. We got there when they opened at 12pm and stayed ’till closing at 6pm. We lucked out, as it was the last day they were open for the season.

They have a good mix of old games, classic games, and new games. What I mean by “old” games is penny, nickle, and dime machines from the pre video game era.

This band of monkeys greets you at the entrance of the arcade:

Here is a “Relax-a-Lator” that is supposed to relax your tired feet. We’d been walking around Salem for 2 days and my feet were killing me. When I saw this bad boy I just had to take it for a spin. This thing should be called the “Leg Snap-a-lator”. See those handles up top? If you try this puppy, make sure you use them. It shook violently for about 2 stomach churning minutes. I was praying for it to end, and I think I threw up a little. For a second I thought of getting off, and thought better of it. If I put one foot on the ground, the imbalance could have sheered my other foot clean off at the ankle. It wasn’t until I finally disembarked from this pre WWII torture device that I noticed the blood stains at the bottom from its prior victims.

For classic games, here are a few I remember off the top of my head:

• Pac-Man
• Ms. Pac-Man
• Space Invaders
• Galaga
• Galaxian
• Sea Wolf
• Rampart
• lots more that I forget

There were also a decent number of pinball machines. Here are a few more shots inside the arcade:

On to the Casino…

I’m not normally big on redemption games, but we had just as much fun over in the redemption area.

This Pac-Man coin pusher was sweet.

and I think we need one of these Simpson’s Kooky Carnival machines:

It’s made by Stern, the same people that made Linda’s Simpsons Pinball Party pin. Here is a closeup of the back:

I have a lot more pictures of this place here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/17948214@N00/sets/72157602454041254/

As for the rest of the park, I’d advise you put on a haz-mat suit before entering the bathrooms. They are located outside in the park, in separate buildings and haven’t been cleaned since the Reagan administration. For food, you can choose from 2 pizza places, 2 Chinese restaurants, and 3 ice cream places. If I were you I’d get something from each place, mix it all together and eat it right before taking a white knuckle ride on the Relax-a-Lator.

Hey there, hi there, ho there. Checkout this strange Pac-Man marquee that I picked up on eBay:

Things that are wrong with this as compared to a regular marquee:

• No Midway copyright notice
• Art under logo is slightly different
• That instruction box is not on the normal marquee
• The Pac-Man in that instruction box is eating more pac-men instead of ghosts(autocannibalism?)
• The fruit is all wrong. The first fruit should be a cherry, not a watermelon (which doesn’t exist in Pac-Man). The banana doesn’t exist normally either.
• The instruction box calls Pac-Man “Cruncher”

The reference to Cruncher and the look of the instruction box are identical to this marquee for a game called Cruncher:

I’m guessing Cruncher is a bootleg as well. If you know anything about that game or this weird Pac marquee let me know.