Ends of eras
On Sunday, a couple dropped by to load up my dear old Kickman arcade machine to take it home. I have to admit I was being a bit of a “helicopter parent” to a machine that was no longer mine: I was practically grilling them about whether or not they had the necessary gear to load, secure and transport it home. “Do you have straps? Have you seen the clouds building overhead – do you have a tarp?” How they resisted the urge to tell me to shaddup and go inside, I have no idea. The point is: thanks to an inept employee of North American Van Lines, I never got to get the full enjoyment out of the machine, because he damaged it all but ramming it through the walls of my house when the machine was delivered to me years and years ago. The wording of my auction was pretty strict: don’t bother to bid on this unless you know the proper way to get it out of here. I’d rather keep the machine and not have the money than watch it get beaten up even more on the way out the door. … Read more
In a few days, provided that the daily downpours cease for a while (not that I’m complaining – aside from the fact that the lawn has risen, zombie-like, and begun to grow again, we really needed the rain here in northwest Arkansas), the highest bidder – well, only bidder – of my eBay auction to get rid of my Kick arcade game (generally better known as Kickman) will be here to retrieve his loot. I’m grateful to him; the proceeds go a long way toward my attempt to kick (ha!) this whole self-published-author gig into driving gear. It’s fair to say that me getting that off the ground is far more important than something the size of a fridge sitting around in my room, still needing a new cap kit, still being here.
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I’ve made little secret of the fact that I’ve pretty much bred a duplicate of myself. Little E loves daddy’s video game collection. He’s inherited my GBA and many of its cartridges. But sometimes this isn’t such a great thing: what do I do when he’s not interested in his homeschool lessons because he’s got Super Mario on the brain? … 
Video games are a pretty big deal in our house. Even though I’ve liquidated large chunks of my formerly sizeable collection, I still think it’s a bigger deal that I’ve been a writer for various video game publications and web sites, sometimes even on a paid basis, and even when I’ve been a stay-at-home dad, the PDF DVDs have brought in the bacon. My interest in this particular field of entertainment has helped the family out quite a bit. (I’m hoping that my equally-obsessive interest in other things can have a similar effect, but we’ll talk about the June release date for VWORP!1 another time.) Video games have also inspired my son to keep striving to learn how to read, because all of the little on-screen descriptions in Super Mario World aren’t going to read themselves. Video games are a force for good in this family.
For many moons I have been searching for a decent arcade emulator for 
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Over on the book o’ the face, a hint has been dropped that the date for OVGE 2012 will be announced soon. That’s the good news.
The 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.
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.
As 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.