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Gaming Home Base

You’ve got to cut the rope

It’s the end of an era here at der Greenhaus: the rope lights are coming down from the game room shelves. We’re talking about a lighting scheme that I’ve leaned on pretty hard since the last house I lived in, Game Room 2003so… nine years exactly. And the funny thing is, a lot of these rope lights have been around since then, so at the very least it was time to look at replacing some of them.

But that’s not what the plan is. As with every other room in the house, the carpet has to come out of my room, so everything has to be disconnected, moved elsewhere in the house temporarily, and then moved back in when it’s torn down to a smooth concrete floor. Even that is temporary – at some point when we can afford it, we’ll get flooring put in (but not carpet – never again), so it’s kinda like all the fun of moving repeatedly, minus the fun of actually moving it to someplace new and exciting. … Read more

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Gaming

Thus endeth the dream (for a good cause)

Many years ago, I gained a kind of momentary internet fame (if you want to call it that) for my elaborate (and yet, on reflection, kinda cheap) game room setup, originally erected in a room of our old rental house. Rob O’Hara even covered certain parts of the game room (and asked me for a few pictures too!) in his book Invading Spaces, a guide to collecting arcade games and building the perfect game room.

Game Room

Game RoomThe idea was to create an approximation of the stand-up arcade experience without spending stand-up arcade collecting money (and without taking up stand-up arcade space). Two things drove this idea: this magnificent arcade joystick (made for the Playstation 1), and one Playstation 1 each from the U.S. and Japan. The latter allowed me to play the wealth of arcade game collections released in Japan that never came out here.

This also entailed collecting a large number of retro arcade games for the PS1, both domestic and import. Come to think of it, I made a name in video game collecting circles for that too. The game room setup was really neat – actually, it’s still set up that way in my current house, and has been since 2004 when we bought the place.

It’s in the interests of keeping the aforementioned place we’ve occupied since 2004 that I’m now in the process of selling almost all of the above. I’ve been out of work for nearly two months at this point, and we’re definitely on the pain train as a result. I’ve tried getting on as seasonal retail help, but I’ve spent my entire adult life in one industry and I’ve never worked retail before because, well, I’ve never had to. At a time of the year when they’re hoping to hire folks to can get up to speed very quickly, I’m pretty damned useless.

Kick!Anyway, here’s what’s up for grabs: anything that’s not nailed to the wall or on fire! Well, okay, maybe that’s an overgeneralization. All of my PS1 games will be up for grabs – domestic and foreign. My Japanese PS1 will be on sale soon. I’ve even got a small handful of PS2 imports that I picked up years ago in anticipation of modding my PS2… which I’ve never had done, and don’t really care to now.

I’m selling my 30-year-old Kick arcade machine as well, but only to any interested parties who want to drop by and pick it up in person and transport it themselves. Also on the block, and again preferably only to local folkels who can pick it up themselves: my Vectrex and its paraphenalia.

I’ll probably be selling some action figures and other fannish items soon, non-video-game-related.

Am I keeping anything? Yes.

Game RoomAs I mentioned above, the centerpiece of the original game room setup was this glorious joystick that beautifully recreates the feel of ’80s arcade games. I have USB PC adapters for PS1 controllers, and as such I’ll be keeping this joystick for future emulator use. It’s kinda what started me down this road, and I still love it. I’d like for my son to know a little something of the “feel” for these old games I used to spend so much of my income on.

But I don’t want him to know what it’s like to not be able to keep the lights on, so here ends that thing that used to get a lot of people looking in my direction. I’ve said for many years that, as I’ve gotten older, I’m more interested in playing games than in playing the (money) losing game known as collecting. Now it’s time to put up or shut up on that claim. Sacrifices have to be made, and anymore, in the day of near-perfect emulation on a computer or a tablet or the Wii, these games haven’t been opened up and put in an actual Playstation in a long time. If you’re looking to pick up some pieces of a much-loved, well-cared-for collection that are nearly impossible to find outside of Japan, please proceed to eBay with all deliberate speed and level up. I’ll be adding more items through the weekend.… Read more

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Gaming Home Base

De-rezzing the game room

Ever since I moved into this house – heck, the very day that I started moving stuff into this house – my game room has been, for better or worse, probably the most thought-out-in-advance part of the place. Building on the game room I’d put together in our previous rental house, I wanted the game room to instantly say to anyone who walked in, “This is a place where classic video games are played.” But it’s time for a rather major rethink: now this is a place where classic video games are played, and where my little boy lives and plays. … Read more

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Gaming Home Base

Game room redux

My garage-sale-hopping this weekend didn’t produce any games, but I did spend all of $13 on some decent shelves and some baby clothes. Shelves are a good thing: basically, everything of mine that’s in the little bedroom has got to come out of there to make way for baby. That means tons of books, more than a few knick-knacks, boxes full of stuff that’s just been stored in there…and quite a bit of it will probably get tossed out, or set aside for a yard sale of our own that I hope we’ll have the time and energy to hold between now and baby time. So I’ve got my eyes open for storage solutions for the stuff I don’t want to toss.

These two shelves aren’t a bad start.

Earl's game roomRead more

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Critters Home Base

Preparations B.

While working on moving stuff around and hooking it back up today, and realizing that the Doctor Who pinball backglass wasn’t going to be able to adorn the window anymore, I decided I’d like some real live sunlight in the room. This turned out to be a very popular move with my household helpers.
Earl's game room
Olivia seems especially happy with the prospect of being able to sit on top of the computers and watch the bird’s nest that’s been built in the brush that pretty much covers the window. (It’s an interesting privacy screen, but it’s really just a case of me needing to get out from behind the computer and get outside and suck up some allergens to cut it all down. On the flipside, I could always just tell people that my game room is on Kashyyyk.)
Earl's game room
God only knows what the bird were thinking. 😆 … Read more

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Critters Gadgetology Home Base

Preparations.

Today has been all about starting to rearrange the game room for the new gear that’ll be occupying it in about a week and a half or so.
Viewsonic Monitors
Trying to find a way to avoid buying yet another monitor, I pulled down a flatscreen we haven’t used in a while to see if I could get it to overcome a problem it has displayed in the past – namely, starting to display the bottom of a Windows display about halfway up the screen. Turns out that there’s a trick to fixing this (it’s a known bug), and now we’re working just fine. These two monitors will be the Avid edit monitors.
Avid-ready
This is the end result of today’s toil; my main computer (Zen)’s monitor is at the far right, Orac’s is the one in the middle/corner, and the one between them is a 17″ LCD that monitors either cable or the output of my existing (non-Avid) video gear. (Orac’s and Zen’s monitors can also do composite video signals – you may have seen these in action at OVGE.)
Avid-ready
And how do I handle the daunting power requirements of this stuff?
Avid-ready
Kitten power! (ZZZZzzzzzzzzz…)
Only Olivia could crash out while I’m moving stuff all over the place, creating clouds of dust and lots of noise in the process. 😆… Read more