I’m finally nearing the end of finishing up my gameroom (maybe by the end of the month?). My MP3 jukebox is almost done too! I want to make sure I have a good variety of 80s music for everyone to choose from to play in the arcade. I have the top 100 songs from every year from 1982-1988 already, but what songs would *you* make sure you had for an arcade? Leave your suggestions in the comments.
NOTE: I actually wrote this the night after I got the pin, but am just now posting it. It’s still not perfect, but it’s close enough.
My dad died 26 years ago from injuries sustained in a motorcyle accident. I was 10 years old. He was a great dad. He taught me how to play baseball and always went to my little league games. My Mom says he would always say “That’s my boy!” when I played. He taught me to play pool and snooker at the recreation center on base (he was in the Army). We played Atari Basketball and Midway’s Sea Wolf at a place down the street …. and we played pinball.
That place down the street had a Harlem Globetrotters pinball machine. I rememember playing it many times with my Dad. Was he any good? I honestly don’t remember, but it doesn’t matter. My Dad played pinball with me and that’s all that matters. It’s one of my fondest memories of him.
Now that I’m grown and have a gameroom of my own, I thought it would be really cool to see if I could get a Harlem Globetrotters pinball machine of my own. I poked around online a few years ago but didn’t find one in my price range. It came up again in my mind so I posted on a local mailing list a few weeks ago and as luck would have it, a local dealer, Donnie, had one and agreed to sell it to me 100% working and at a great price. I picked it up last night and on the drive there I actually teared up a few times thinking about my Dad and playing this game with him.
Tonight I set it up and played some games with my almost-5-year-old daughter. Hopefully I am giving her some great memories of playing the same pinball machine with her dad. So, the moral of the story? Enjoy your children. Play baseball, video games, chess, pinball or something with them. Make memories. You never know what memory will stay with them for a lifetime. I think I’ll own this pinball machine forever. And Dad, I’ll keep a credit in it for you.
I’m picking up the Harlem Globetrotters pinball machine tonight. So excited! Details/pictures to follow.
When I was a kid, my dad and I used to play the Harlem Globetrotters pinball machine at the local rec center. My dad died when I was 10, but playing that with him is one of my most precious memories. I posted recently to a local coin-op collectors group and asked if anyone had one or knew of one locally. I got a bite and it looks like I will be getting one!!!!
I can’t tell you how excited I am! I have to get rid of a few things in my gameroom to make room for it (and pay for it), but it will be worth it.
Details and pics to follow……
Tags: geek, pinball, basketball, harlem globetrotters, arcade, gameroom
Checkout this from Space Invaders quilt from Flickr:
UPDATE: Kevin pointed me to this Mario Mushroom Quilt
How sad is it that in this Wired article I knew what arcade game this art came from:
Highlight this to see the answer:
| Millipede |
I’m an arcade geek, no doubt about it.
Take a look at some really cool pictures of arcades from the 80s. “Most of these pictures were taken from projected slides - rescued from the dumpster.” Very cool. Notice the sign in some of the pictures? I have a sign just like that hanging in *my* gameroom. Cool.
Geek tags: geek, arcade, video+games, 80s, retro, games, flickr
Now that it is warm again, time to start on my MP3 jukeboxes again. I don’t have TOOO much left ot do really. I got a piece of good news yesterday - my sister-in-law’s notebook computer’s screen died do they bought a new desktop PC and they offered the laptop to me! It should be the perfect PC for the MP3 jukebox! Not sure of the specs yet, but it should do fine - it doesn’t take much to play MP3s and run Wincab.
Technorati: MP3s, music, MP3, jukebox, mp3 jukebox, geek, arcade
Over the past week, I helped a guy (via email) build a JAMMA test rig like mine. I need to do a whole writeup on how I did mine (though you really can find all the info online).
