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The Arkadians return
It’s been waaaaay too long since we invaded the arcade, so today the boy and I capped off a weekend-o-fun together by heading to Fayetteville to mash some buttons and blow stuff up.
Tag: Video Games
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Invade the arcade (again!)
It’s been a heckuva week. One of those weeks where you just want to blow stuff up. What better way to do that… well, legally anyway… than by hitting the arcade?
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The Mario Project: an update
A while back I asked for help in rounding up some classic Mario and Zelda related carts for the Game Boy and Game Boy Advance for my own game boy, who’s turning five in less than a month. I want to thank everyone who responded and had stuff on the list that they were willing to part with – the list really got whittled down significantly, much faster than I was expecting, and with much less expenditure on my part than expected. … Read more
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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
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But… why Kickman?
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.
But why did I get it in the first place? There’s a story there. … Read more
White Bucket Games preview
Obi has a bucket.
Due to all the VWORPing going on around here, the time-space coordinates of the contents of the white bucket have been distorted a bit. But trust me when I say that some of the rarest goodies at OVGE will be found here. … Read more
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Identify yourshelf!… and win a signed copy of VWORP!1
For the “about the author” photo in the back of VWORP!1, I constructed a “set” using plastic shipping crates that a local store’s been getting rid of fairly cheaply; they’re awfully handy things to have around. For lightweight items, they actually make pretty nice shelving. I threw a few knick-knacks from my vast knick-knack collection in there, set them up next to a window where I already have marquees from old arcade games set up, and boom, it looks like I live in a warehouse full of geek-a-licious relics. Which, of course, I do.
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The secret of classic video game enemies
Once you see this, it cannot be unseen. … Read more
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A (pac) man of letters
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? … Read more
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…and THAT’S how important video games are in this house.
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.
But just how important are they? … Read more
