What I Did This Past Weekend

Well, as usual, I was quite busy this past weekend and managed to pack in a ton of activity in just a few days. On Friday, one of my fellow arcade collector's from NEACF called me to tell me about a Craigslist ad for a BurgerTime arcade cab that was located just a quarter mile from where I live. The ad was for a yard sale on the following day. I had to work the following day, so was a bit nervous about missing out on this game. Knowing full well how cutthroat Craigslist can be, I decided to head over and see if I could touch base with the seller that evening, check out the game and hopefully score a cool cab.

As you can see from the photo above, my mission was successful. The game, which the seller had owned since the 80's, was not currently working, but in excellent condition. After talking with the seller for a while, we agreed on a very reasonable price and I headed over to the ATM to snag some cash. Burger Time is a very much desired arcade game, in part due to the unique cut of the cab itself, which is cut out in the shape of the chef's hat worn by the main character in the game, Peter Pepper. Though I love the cab, the game itself has never been one of my favorites.

Since my basement arcade is curretnly at capacity with games and I can only keep those which I know that I will play on a regular basis, I called up a friend whom I knew would want this game and it now resides in his arcade and hopefully will be up and fully functional very soon.

I went to work on Saturday, happy in the knowledge that I was able to get a classic arcade game into the hands of one of my fellow collectors, a bit of "Pay it Forward" that would come back in my favor as you will soon see.

After working a half day on Saturday, I met up with my wife to do a little shopping and exchange some duplicate items that we received for our recent wedding. As we were walking through the mall I noticed a very nice outdoor display for Crate & Barrel in an empty retail space which included a sweet Webber grill. Since our grill has been on its last leg for two seasons, I mentioned to my better half that we should head over to C&B and how much the grill was. So after speaking with the sales person for a few minutes, she told us that they had that particular grill in stock. I looked at my new wife and asked her "should we spend some of that wedding money and get a new grill?" Her response" Absolutely!" <God I love this woman>

This thing ROCKS! Of course the first thing I had to do was get this puppy built and try it out. So we grabbed some hardwood charcoal on the way home and I set to putting all the pieces together. Once constructed, I proceeded to cook up some nice Bison meat that had been marinating in beer for a few days in preparation for a long-overdue update to my blog Cooking in The Great Outdoors. Click on the preceeding link to check out this beast in action and get the recipe for my soon to be famous Bison Stuffed Anaheim Peppers.

On Sunday my wife and I gathered up some food for a picnice and headed to meet up with some friends at a play wave on the Merrimack River under the I-293 overpass in Manchester, NH. While we were there we shot a short segment for my CITGO Web TV series that combined some whitewater kayaking action with some a river-side picnic. Be sure to keep an eye out for the video, which should be posted by the end of the week.

While driving to work on Monday, I decided to catch up with some of my podcasts, including Major Nelson's weekly show. During the show, Eric Neustadter or E aka "TheVowel" on Twitter, mentioned several Kickstarter projects that he was following closely, including this Kickstarter Star Castle Project to create a version of the classic arcade game for the Atari 2600 VCS console. Immediately upon arriving at my office I pulled up the project page and made my contribution as a HUGE fan of the original game. The Kickstarter project has been fully funded (and then some) so I will be receiving my very own cartridge copy of the game that I can play in my Atari 2600 in July. You have a few more days to contribute and get yourself a copy as the funding window closes on May 24th. Since some of you may not be familiar with Star Castle, I decided to film a short segment of the game as ported to the Vectrex home console system. The Vectrex version is very true to the arcade original. Check out the video below.

http://youtu.be/n-jicqTdEH8

Finally, remember that whole Pay It Forward thing I mentioned with regard to getting the BurgerTime cab to my friend? Well, today I discovered that he had a pinball game up for grabs and guess who is going to get it - Yep, THIS guy right here. I have been wanted to expand my arcade knowledge and repair/restoration skills into the realm of pinball, but have always been kept at bay by the cost, as pinball machines tend to cost considerably more to buy (and maintain) than arcade games. However, when he told me what he would sell me this machine for, I could not pass it up.

I am sure that you will all agree that the theme of this pin is perfect for me. The game needs some work, but the playfield is in excellent condition. I can't wait to get my hands on this puppy and start figuring out how to get it up and running for my next arcade party.