So, my wife and I discussed pinball machines (again) this week.
We decided that we reasonable money to start looking seriously. If the right thing came up soon, we should seriously look into it.
So this morning I checked my email. I am subscribed to the mr. pinball classifieds, so I get a daily email of pinball machines that are for sale all around the world. this morning contained two listings which caught my attention.
Addams Family, 1992 Bally: $3175
Very nice, new GOLD cabinet decals, GOLD side rails and lockdown bar
and GOLD legs, GOLD ROMs (LX-3) new cloud header, very little wear around
electric chair an scoop protector installed, full playfield mylar with
no insert wear, clean plastics and unbroken ramps. This is NOT the 1994
version.
some email addy, Mesa, Arizona
Twilight Zone, 1993 Bally: $3100
Stunning playfield, clear unbroken plastics and ramps, gumball and
spaceship mods. This is a clean machine and 100% working, including
original unbroken clock and undrilled clock housing.
some email addy, Mesa, Arizona
Now, these are not particularly cheap machines. But the price is reasonable. Or rather, close to the going rate, if not a bit better. So.
I have a few decisions to make. Is now the time? If it is the time, which one do I get? (I'd love to have both, but that's not going to happen, no way I can spend that much) When do I pick it up?
All I had to contact the guy was a hotmail email address. Of course I emailed him almost immediately fo rmore details.
If you know me in real life, feel free to give me a call or email me at my work address on what your thoughts are.
I'll keep you updated on what happens. I'm guardedly hopeful, but I'm not going to get my hopes up yet. They could be sold already. heh.
Friday, March 31, 2006
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
Meant To Live
Song of the day.
Meant To Live, the lyrics are here.
I wanted to link the actual song, but I found the music video instead. I'm not a big fan of music videos but I'll settle for this as a way to let you all hear the song without actually purchasing it. (Linked from the band's home page)
I also hate webpages that make sound, so you'll have to hit play below. Enjoy.
Meant To Live, the lyrics are here.
I wanted to link the actual song, but I found the music video instead. I'm not a big fan of music videos but I'll settle for this as a way to let you all hear the song without actually purchasing it. (Linked from the band's home page)
I also hate webpages that make sound, so you'll have to hit play below. Enjoy.
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Games
Eek.
I'm being tempted lately by 2 new games.
Civilization IV
and
Oblivion.
Like i have time to play either of them. And they are both time sinks. Not that world of warcraft isn't. heh.
One is a strategy/war game and one is a role-playing game that possibly has no equal as far as "depth" goes.
I need to get a new hobby. heh.
I'm being tempted lately by 2 new games.
Civilization IV
and
Oblivion.
Like i have time to play either of them. And they are both time sinks. Not that world of warcraft isn't. heh.
One is a strategy/war game and one is a role-playing game that possibly has no equal as far as "depth" goes.
I need to get a new hobby. heh.
Saturday, March 18, 2006
Pictures...
The cord on the right in the last picture is my power button hack. It plugs into the arcade machine to turn on and off the power. I got this cool thing called a smart strip. It toggles the power to all of it's outlets when the controlling device is turned on and off.
Gotta run.
Friday, March 17, 2006
xbox work continues
So i worked on the xbox Tuesday night for almost 5 hours.
I better back up and let anyone new know what's going on. I am trying to add an additional port to the player 1 controls of an xbox. I want to do this so that I can have a wireless controller attached and an arcade machine control panel attached to the player one port at the same time. It turns out that actually having both active at once is a bad thing as it's actually a standard USB device. So I decided to put a switch in the power line so that either one gets power or the other doesn't.
Quick basic electronics lesson for those who don't know anything about this, and actually got this far. Think of electricity like water. Your wires are water pipes. You have an incoming pipe (power) and an outgoing pipe (called ground usually). I am working with 5 lines of water, but they all get their water from the main incoming power pipe and it all leaves on the outgoing pipe, or ground line.
I think that my solution will work, but it had a flaw. I was only switching the power on and off. Each of the ports works, and the switch also works (after jiggling a loose cable, that was an easy fix though). The problem is that if there are two things plugged in at once then it causes both ports to not work, even with the switch.
The theory that a friend of mine and I have is that since the ground wire is attached to the other lines, some of the power is "bleeding" out the unpowered device. So if we switch on the power and the ground lines both are connected, the power goes through the unpowered device instead of the powered one -- thus they both don't work.
I have pictures, but couldn't find the cable to download them yesterday, so I'll try to post those tonight.
In other semi-related news someone has ported MAME to the xbox. This has actually been out there for a good long time, but a recent update for the xbox is called "MAMEdOX platinum". There's no official website, but if you're into that kind of thing you might want to check it out.
Gotta run, maybe more later tonight.
I better back up and let anyone new know what's going on. I am trying to add an additional port to the player 1 controls of an xbox. I want to do this so that I can have a wireless controller attached and an arcade machine control panel attached to the player one port at the same time. It turns out that actually having both active at once is a bad thing as it's actually a standard USB device. So I decided to put a switch in the power line so that either one gets power or the other doesn't.
Quick basic electronics lesson for those who don't know anything about this, and actually got this far. Think of electricity like water. Your wires are water pipes. You have an incoming pipe (power) and an outgoing pipe (called ground usually). I am working with 5 lines of water, but they all get their water from the main incoming power pipe and it all leaves on the outgoing pipe, or ground line.
I think that my solution will work, but it had a flaw. I was only switching the power on and off. Each of the ports works, and the switch also works (after jiggling a loose cable, that was an easy fix though). The problem is that if there are two things plugged in at once then it causes both ports to not work, even with the switch.
The theory that a friend of mine and I have is that since the ground wire is attached to the other lines, some of the power is "bleeding" out the unpowered device. So if we switch on the power and the ground lines both are connected, the power goes through the unpowered device instead of the powered one -- thus they both don't work.
I have pictures, but couldn't find the cable to download them yesterday, so I'll try to post those tonight.
In other semi-related news someone has ported MAME to the xbox. This has actually been out there for a good long time, but a recent update for the xbox is called "MAMEdOX platinum". There's no official website, but if you're into that kind of thing you might want to check it out.
Gotta run, maybe more later tonight.
Monday, March 13, 2006
Ehhhh...
So. Some random thoughts.
Been a week, I know. I've been involved enough that I haven't even thought about this blog in a few days.
Thursday was the funeral. It went well enough, though was a bit rough for me towards the end. My skin isn't as thick as it should be sometimes. Thursday was a bit tough, but it was already past the beginning of the end as far as grieving. My grandma was ready to go. Really, I'll miss her, but I know she's where she wants to be now. (Yes, I believe in an afterlife, and yes, she was ready to go there)
I was on an urgent project last week at work, so I ended up working almost 13 hours on Friday and another 4.5 hours on Saturday morning. Add some housework, family time and church responsibilities, and my weekend was gone.
So it's been a week and coming out the other side I'm not really sure where I am. It's felt like a whole lot more time has passed than a week.
Nothing particularly has changed, yet it feels to me like things are changing. Something fundamental, something important, but I can't put my finger on it. Maybe I've stopped running so much. I dunno. I hope that's a good thing.
I have yet to do my soldering. It's a war between that and playing WoW this evening for 2 hours. We'll see what wins. I think maybe I'm subconsciously intimidated by this project or something, I keep finding reasons to put it off. =)
My wife mentioned that she thought maybe for Christmas I could get a pinball machine.
o.O
Not sure that will happen but we'll see. I'm my own worst enemy when it comes to pinching pennies and prioritizing our financial paths.
The first basement quote should be brought around sometime this week. I'm a bit pessimistic, but then I don't have to make any decisions at the moment. Besides, if I get too much pressure from the guy on a decision I can always blame it on the funeral. My next door neighbor is going to school to be a contractor so I'll bounce some prices off of him as well.
Oh and we made another cake yesterday. I swear, my wife lets the girls make a cake whenever they want just so she can decorate it.
More later.
Been a week, I know. I've been involved enough that I haven't even thought about this blog in a few days.
Thursday was the funeral. It went well enough, though was a bit rough for me towards the end. My skin isn't as thick as it should be sometimes. Thursday was a bit tough, but it was already past the beginning of the end as far as grieving. My grandma was ready to go. Really, I'll miss her, but I know she's where she wants to be now. (Yes, I believe in an afterlife, and yes, she was ready to go there)
I was on an urgent project last week at work, so I ended up working almost 13 hours on Friday and another 4.5 hours on Saturday morning. Add some housework, family time and church responsibilities, and my weekend was gone.
So it's been a week and coming out the other side I'm not really sure where I am. It's felt like a whole lot more time has passed than a week.
Nothing particularly has changed, yet it feels to me like things are changing. Something fundamental, something important, but I can't put my finger on it. Maybe I've stopped running so much. I dunno. I hope that's a good thing.
I have yet to do my soldering. It's a war between that and playing WoW this evening for 2 hours. We'll see what wins. I think maybe I'm subconsciously intimidated by this project or something, I keep finding reasons to put it off. =)
My wife mentioned that she thought maybe for Christmas I could get a pinball machine.
o.O
Not sure that will happen but we'll see. I'm my own worst enemy when it comes to pinching pennies and prioritizing our financial paths.
The first basement quote should be brought around sometime this week. I'm a bit pessimistic, but then I don't have to make any decisions at the moment. Besides, if I get too much pressure from the guy on a decision I can always blame it on the funeral. My next door neighbor is going to school to be a contractor so I'll bounce some prices off of him as well.
Oh and we made another cake yesterday. I swear, my wife lets the girls make a cake whenever they want just so she can decorate it.
More later.
Monday, March 06, 2006
Quick post...
Just wanted to say that today or tomorrow I'll be doing some soldering on the xbox and I'll try to post some pics.
And if you hadn't heard, my grandmother died this past saturday. So I might be spotty posting for a bit.
Oh and not that anyone cares, but the upcoming world of warcraft patch will be a big deal.
Yes, I'm a geek Bon. Get over it. =)
And if you hadn't heard, my grandmother died this past saturday. So I might be spotty posting for a bit.
Oh and not that anyone cares, but the upcoming world of warcraft patch will be a big deal.
Yes, I'm a geek Bon. Get over it. =)
Wednesday, March 01, 2006
rip-off
Okay, so I love a good conspiracy theory.
On a whim I followed a link on the web about some documentary on wal-mart. I was midly interested in it, I figured it's $12.00, no big shakes.
I watched the video last night.
let me jsut say that on the local level Wal-mart is run by people, and though their policies are quite poor, they are still people. And people are generally good.
Now, at the corporate level it's scary how much everything revolves around the bottom line. And that's what this documentary talks about.
I won't make any opinions at this time, but I will say that there's much more going on with wal-mart than you'd think. And I'll forever after think twice about shopping there.
This is the website for the movie.
Apologies to NobodyYouKnow, my website is now looking more and more similar to his. Maybe I'll have to change my template a bit.
On a whim I followed a link on the web about some documentary on wal-mart. I was midly interested in it, I figured it's $12.00, no big shakes.
I watched the video last night.
let me jsut say that on the local level Wal-mart is run by people, and though their policies are quite poor, they are still people. And people are generally good.
Now, at the corporate level it's scary how much everything revolves around the bottom line. And that's what this documentary talks about.
I won't make any opinions at this time, but I will say that there's much more going on with wal-mart than you'd think. And I'll forever after think twice about shopping there.
This is the website for the movie.
Apologies to NobodyYouKnow, my website is now looking more and more similar to his. Maybe I'll have to change my template a bit.
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