Sometime towards the middle of last week, I got sick of dealing with useless jerkfaced bastards customers and quit work early. I headed to the garage to start working on prepping my Baby Pac cabinet for painting.

Look at all the crap I had stowed away inside:

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I was sitting at the computer, and a mail truck I did hear
When what to my wondering eyes should appear
But a bunch of stuff for the arcade.

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.

I can’t stay off eBay lately. I’m a junkie (emphasis on junk). Here’s some more Presto Magix for my collection that arrived yesterday:

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

Maybe I’m just being fussy, but shouldn’t national news reporters know who the current president is?

[Note: 05/14 2:13pm EST] – Duh. This was written last night, and I saved it in Wordpress so it would show up first thing this morning, but apparently I forgot to click “Publish”. Oh well….here’s some late news:

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!)

Sorry to disappoint any arcade fans today, but this post has nothing to do with video games. MAN you are OBSESSED with arcade games aren’t you?! Take off your Pac-Man PJ’s, put on some big boy clothes and get a life already.

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 am a lazy bastard. Why do today what you can put off until tomorrow?

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.

I just got this for $0.99 on eBay:

It’s going to look pretty cool on top of my Baby Pac-Man when I get around to finishing it. There’s a 7-11 down the street from me. I think I’m going to head there at lunch time and see if they’ll give me a free refill.

Here’s what it looks like around back:

I saw other cups in this series before on eBay. I should have bid on them…I think there was a Donkey Kong and a couple other games. I’ll have to keep an eye out for those now.

If you know anything about these cups, please educate me, cuz I be needin’ some o’ that there ed-ja-ma-kay-shun. We ain’t much for fancy book learnin’ in these parts.

I just realized that I never really mentioned how I got my arcade collecting illness. Boy, are you in for a treat.

I mentioned a few years ago to my Wife (girlfriend back then) that my two favorite arcade games were Ms. Pac-Man and Galaga, and that it would be cool to have one of those in the house someday.  So…on Christmas of 2003 she got me this:

Now, this was very cool and all, but I was not yet stricken with the bug causing me to fill up every square inch of available space in my house and garage with arcade stuffs. It stood alone in our living room for almost 3 full years.

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Hello there. I just got some Stargate stencils from Brian at Oleszak Creative in the mail. I had some music on a little loud while working, and didn’t hear the doorbell. My mailman NEVER uses the doorbell, but I guess he finally spotted it. I did hear him practically beating down the door a minute later however.

These are going to be saved for the future….for a day in which I have an empty garage to work in and loads of time on my hands. My Stargate is semi dead, and in the garage as a project game. I bought these same stencils before for my Moon Patrol and they worked great. I’ll be sure to post pics when I use them, but it’s going to be awhile.