dauber

I can't believe I have to admit, but I've never played Air-Sea Battle! But I'm going to have to say Sears -- because Combat requires two players. If all you have is the console with its packin, you can't rely on always having another person present!

I can't believe I have to admit, but I've never played Air-Sea Battle! But I'm going to have to say Sears -- because Combat requires two players. If all you have is the console with its packin, you can't rely on always having another person present!

Just in time for the end of November, a super-sized Schook! In this episode:   ∙ the best TV episodes ever -- or, at least some of them! and ∙ a very in-depth review of concerts Sean attended in 2020.   A mammoth blockbuster if ever there was one!   https://schnookpodcast.com/2020/11/30/chapter-27/

While you’re enjoying turkey with your family, why not put Pie Factory Podcast on as your background? Jim’n’Sean discuss two fairly unusual arcade games in episode 117. And so should you.   https://fab4it.com/piefactory/audio/PFP_Episode117.mp3

While you’re enjoying turkey with your family, why not put Pie Factory Podcast on as your background? Jim’n’Sean discuss two fairly unusual arcade games in episode 117. And so should you.   https://fab4it.com/piefactory/audio/PFP_Episode117.mp3

Beagles are cool dogs. I like beagles because they are friendly to people. Very social dogs.

Lola the beagle. Adopted her ten months ago. She's four now.

Lola the beagle. Adopted her ten months ago. She's four now.

I hope those BOOOOOOOs I'm hearing are because it's Hallowe'en and not a response to this podcast! In chapter 26:
Life as a Software Engineer - a peak into a schnook's web site job Music for Schnooks - The significance of rock'n'roll albums of 1970 By the way, post-production on this episode took a long time. To get this episode out in time for October, I didn't actually listen to the final product as I usually do, so if you notice any errors...you get a prize of...being smug enough to brag about finding them!

https://schnookpodcast.com/2020/10/31/chapter-26/

I hope those BOOOOOOOs I'm hearing are because it's Hallowe'en and not a response to this podcast! In chapter 26:
Life as a Software Engineer - a peak into a schnook's web site job Music for Schnooks - The significance of rock'n'roll albums of 1970 By the way, post-production on this episode took a long time. To get this episode out in time for October, I didn't actually listen to the final product as I usually do, so if you notice any errors...you get a prize of...being smug enough to brag about finding them!

https://schnookpodcast.com/2020/10/31/chapter-26/

Downloaded!

Terrific! Thanks for another great episode @dauber‼️

Once upon a time there were two Midwesterners named Jim and Sean. One was tall, the other was...well, also tall, but who cares? There came a time when the two decided that their mission was to discuss two arcade games from Japan, leading them to...well, you'll just have to listen to find out!
http://fab4it.com/piefactory/audio/PFP_Episode116.mp3

Once upon a time there were two Midwesterners named Jim and Sean. One was tall, the other was...well, also tall, but who cares? There came a time when the two decided that their mission was to discuss two arcade games from Japan, leading them to...well, you'll just have to listen to find out!
http://fab4it.com/piefactory/audio/PFP_Episode116.mp3

I'm not much of a breakfast food person. And I never understood why certain foods are considered breakfast food...I mean...what difference does it make what time of day you eat what foods? Your digestive system doesn't check the time and process it a different way whether it's 8:00am or 5:00pm! I hate it when I'm out and the only place I can grab a bite to eat is one that hasn't started serving "regular" food yet. And I hate eggs and hash browns.
Having said that, I do enjoy pancakes and waffles. As a software developer, one morning every two weeks I have to get up extra-early for a release. After the release, I reward myself with pancakes from a nearby greasy spoon before I resume my day. 🙂  (At least during our company's work-at-home-because-of-COVID directive!)

Oh...and I am a fool for sugary breakfast cereal that probably shouldn't even be on the market! I have this stuff maybe once every three or four years, mind you, but it's sooooooooo good! Froot Loops...mmmmmm! (Especially in chocolate milk!) Lucky Charms....Alpha-Bits...

I'm not much of a breakfast food person. And I never understood why certain foods are considered breakfast food...I mean...what difference does it make what time of day you eat what foods? Your digestive system doesn't check the time and process it a different way whether it's 8:00am or 5:00pm! I hate it when I'm out and the only place I can grab a bite to eat is one that hasn't started serving "regular" food yet. And I hate eggs and hash browns.
Having said that, I do enjoy pancakes and waffles. As a software developer, one morning every two weeks I have to get up extra-early for a release. After the release, I reward myself with pancakes from a nearby greasy spoon before I resume my day. 🙂  (At least during our company's work-at-home-because-of-COVID directive!)

Oh...and I am a fool for sugary breakfast cereal that probably shouldn't even be on the market! I have this stuff maybe once every three or four years, mind you, but it's sooooooooo good! Froot Loops...mmmmmm! (Especially in chocolate milk!) Lucky Charms....Alpha-Bits...

I'm not much of a breakfast food person. And I never understood why certain foods are considered breakfast food...I mean...what difference does it make what time of day you eat what foods? Your digestive system doesn't check the time and process it a different way whether it's 8:00am or 5:00pm! I hate it when I'm out and the only place I can grab a bite to eat is one that hasn't started serving "regular" food yet. And I hate eggs and hash browns.
Having said that, I do enjoy pancakes and waffles. As a software developer, one morning every two weeks I have to get up extra-early for a release. After the release, I reward myself with pancakes from a nearby greasy spoon before I resume my day. 🙂  (At least during our company's work-at-home-because-of-COVID directive!)

Oh...and I am a fool for sugary breakfast cereal that probably shouldn't even be on the market! I have this stuff maybe once every three or four years, mind you, but it's sooooooooo good! Froot Loops...mmmmmm! (Especially in chocolate milk!) Lucky Charms....Alpha-Bits...

It sure was!  I just lifted it and stood it on its back edge so I could use the rest of my desk. 

hi dauber,
 
 we just might, stayed tuned!
 
lance
www.atarisales.com
 

Port it to the 7800 and you got my sale. 🙂
 

So a buddy of mine calls me up and asked me if I wanted his non working Ms Pac-Man cab. The deal was that if I fixed it, he could play it whenever he came down, which I had no problem with. This is what the cab looked like when I got it. 

The cab was pretty beat up. Just running my hand across the sides made the paint fall off of it. Someone had painted the entire cab black. 

As you can see the cab was in pretty bad shape. So even before I tried to make the thing actually work, I painted it black. I primered it first before doing so. 



At this point I actually tried to make it work. I found some wires that looked like they were spliced into. I figured these were the connections for power. There was no power plug when I got it. I got a PC power cable, cut the end off and spliced it into the existing cuts in the wiring. When I plugged it in, it powered on...however with some problems..

The screen was all distorted. I had found 10 different knobs in the back of the arcade. I turned all of them to see if it would fix it. Nothing did. I thought maybe they all have to be dialed in perfect. After 3 days of messing with these knobs, I was getting frustrated. I was staring at the back of the cab when I saw this metal bracket with a hole in it. I shined a flashlight through the hole and I saw a potentiometer with a screwdriver slot on it. I grabbed a screwdriver and turned it clockwise and it made it worse. So I went counterclockwise all the way and it made the screen totally clear! ...with some minor distorted on the right part of the screen . Just had to slightly turn it back clockwise to get rid of the distortion 

After that I spent a few minutes to dial in the colors properly. 
At this point, I got a proper power cable for the cab and installed it. 
The control panel overlay was pretty dirty and torn so that got replaced. Put some new buttons too.

When I got done with that, I wanted to go all out. I ended up getting a repro glass bezel and installed it. The repro is very high quality. Very happy with it. 

My friend had got this thinking if he couldn't fix it, he was going to keep the Marquee and get rid of it. Knowing that I got this machine for free, I got a new Marquee and gave him the original. Got a high score save kit as well.

Last thing I got was the panel art and new T molding. When I got the art in, I realized that if I were to install the front part as is, the coin door chop off the forehead of Ms. Pac-Man. So I had to raise the coin door 4.5 inches.
 

I also was able to hide the bolts that hold the coin bucket in place below the surface of the wood so I didn't have to shove them to the front of the artwork. Once that was done I installed the art along with the new t molding. When I installed the cab was finally finished!

I wish the color of the panel art was a closer match to the control panel overlay, but in the end, I think it came out pretty awesome. I'm forever grateful that my buddy gave me this arcade. It's definitely in my top 3 favorite arcade games of all time. It was a lot of work putting this thing together
Here's a side by side of the before and after!

 
 

Another month, another episode! In chapter 25:
No, my computer is NOT my girlfriend! An exploration into the joys and sorrows of a 13-year relationship Digital Alopecia – What? Does this mean that someone lost finger hair? Well…you’ll need to listen to find out! https://schnookpodcast.com/2020/09/28/chapter-25/

There are usually long stories about where the dupes come from.  🙂  In general:
You buy a big ebay lot for one special game you don't have.  The rest go in the duplicates box. You find a bargain at a local shop.  It doesn't matter if you have them already.  Those babies must come home with you. You give stuff away.  People don't like taking stuff for free, so they nicely send you stuff they think you need.  I've learned to accept anything in trade to avoid making people feel obligated.  Etc, etc, etc.  I'm just glad to give them good homes.  Prices are low, most trades accepted. 
 

Ooh, good to know -- I love Klax. 🙂 We stayed at the Birchwood in Sister Bay. Loved it!
Oh...and my wife asked the concièrge how far a walk it was to the business district. She was told, "It's very close, but you probably want to drive; it's a pretty steep road." My wife said, "We were just in San Francisco a few months ago." "Oh...then you'll have NO PROBLEM walking then!"

Wow...where have I traveled...interesting thing is that when my wife and I lived in New Jersey and lived within a 1-hour drive of Newark International Airport, we didn't really travel many places! But...destinations:
Dauber as a little kid:
a few road trips to Florida (from the Chicago suburbs)...the sights were fun, but the drive was excruciating. When you're between the ages of 5 and 17, it's no fun taking road trips with your parents! (or MY parents, I should say!) When I was a little kid, like 3 or 4 years old (either 1977 or 1978), we were in Daytona Beach and a day at the Magic Kingdom and another at Sea World about seven years later, we made another trip down. Parents booked a room in Daytona Beach that turned out to be crap, and we drove all up and down Daytona Beach and Ormond Beach for a couple of hours looking for a place that wasn't trash. Ended up not finding one and spent a night in a Days Inn in Ormond Beach that had a greasy floor, roach in the bathroom, sand in the bathroom sink, etc. and wound up finding a nice Holiday Inn in Orlando, which is fine because we were also going to WDW and Sea World. Before Orlando we spent a day in St. Augustine, and on the way back home we stopped at the Babyland General Hospital in Cleveland, GA because my mother was into doll collecting and wanted to check out the place where Cabbage Patch Kids come from. NOT the ideal stop for a ten-year-old boy such as myself! a few more road trips, but to Clearwater Beach, FL. I got sick of dealing with my parents, so by the time I was 17 I put my foot down and said I was staying home. 😆 Dauber as a single adult:
Just a weekend trip to Virginia, MN, to go to a friend's wedding. It was an interesting ten-hour drive. I got to drive through Twig, MN -- literally blink and you'll miss it! Stopped in Duluth on the way home to do some record shopping at the Electric Fetus. Dauber as a married adult:
My wife and I have been to Vegas many times. It's weird because every time we entertain the thought of going there, we get frightfully lucky and find a cheap flight, the hotel (Flamingo) has obscenely low rates, etc. Last time we were there I went to the Pinball Hall of Fame. Definitely worth visiting -- and this is coming from a guy who isn't a big pinball fan! (I went because aurcade.com showed that they had Q*Bert's Qubes. Unfortunately, it wasn't out on the floor that day!) I love Vegas, but it's one of those places where when I'm there, I'm ready to come back home after three days. During one of our Vegas trips we took a bus tour over to Grand Canyon. If you've never been there, trust me: the greatest picture in the universe cannot do it justice. Just breathtaking! We took five road trips back and forth to New Jersey to visit my wife's mother, bringing the dog along. When I got my current job, we stopped doing that because I didn't want to blow that paid time off driving. (Now, my mother-in-law comes to us in the summer!) Summer of 2010...I got laid off, and I was at the company long enough that my severance actually funded my entire summer! It was AWESOME! In addition to the road trip with the dog, we took a road trip (without the dog!) to South Dakota and checked out Wall Drug Store, Mount Rushmore, and the Badlands. So, so cool. Went to the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, OH a couple of times. That's...just about the only thing Cleveland has that's worth visiting, and even then, just one visit will do, unless there's a temporary exhibit you really, really want to see. At least once a year my wife and I do a weekend getaway in New Buffalo, MI. Very small town, but great for a weekend getaway, and a lot of "Harbor country" is an easy drive from there. Easy drive TO New Buffalo, too; an hour and a half from Chicago on a bad day. Went to Door County, Wisconsin last summer. HIGHLY recommend it. We stayed in Sister Bay. We saw a tourism documentary about Door County on the local PBS station and decided to check it out. We effing LOVED IT. We were planning to do it again this summer, but things are shaky with the COVID-19 situation. They actually asked people to not come out to Door County because they don't have a big enough hospital to accommodate a lot of people, should people be affected by the pandemic. We're going to New Buffalo instead -- which is fine because the place where we stay doesn't have any enclosed public areas. Bermuda -- we took a honeymoon cruise there the spring after we were married. Such a cool place. It's good for those who are afraid of change: it's British enough to be a foreign country to Americans, but USA-compliant enough for us Yankees. 🙂 If you like alcoholic drinks, you GOTTA go to the Swizzle Inn and have their claim to fame: the rum swizzle. If you order one, they plunk the pitcher on your table and you're practically overcome by fumes. 🤣 New Orleans -- my wife and I have been there twice so far, but we've yet to visit anywhere but the French Quarter. Such a good time. Quite humid, but there's enough to keep you occupied so you aren't terribly bothered. I consider New Orleans the #1 WORST place to visit if you're trying to lose weight -- the food there is just effing amazing and plentiful! (#2 - Chicago; #3 - Austin) San Francisco - my favorite place ever to visit. I could go on for so long about it. For details, listen to chapter 9 of Autobiography of a Schnook on your favorite podcast supplier. 🙂 A few years ago we took a trip to Los Angeles. It was my first time there. I was expecting it to be kind of creepy and not really a fun place to be, but I really really wanted to go just to say I've gone. Oh my GOD, did I have an amazing time. I was shocked at how NOT creepy Hollywood is -- I always heard bad things about it! I think they really cleaned it up in the last ten years. The weather was perfect. The scenery was amazing. We saw Brian Wilson do Pet Sounds at the Hollywood Bowl, which was easily one of the most amazing musical experiences of my life. (When concerts start up again, I'm going to constantly check the Bowl's schedule just to see if I can come up with some kind of excuse to go there again. It's my favorite performance venue. I so wanna go back!) We also spent a day in Disneyland during that trip; neither my wife nor I like Disney, but I have to admit i had a great time! Portland, OR - very cool place. I don't know what more to say. Well...except they have what I consider to be the greatest book store in the world, Powell's City of Books. Toronto, ON -- my wife and I went there a couple of times for a few days. I felt very at home there. Quite a friendly place, easy to navigate, abuts the Great Lakes, good food, and pretty safe. (Kinda like Chicago, I guess!) Can't wait to go again! Washington, DC -- history was always a terrible subject for me, but I maintain that if I had learned US history by spending time in D.C. as a kid, I would have had a much better time with it. So much there. Smithsonian, National Archive, FDR Memorial, the list goes on. Highly, highly recommend visiting. Austin, TX - just a cool place. (Figuratively speaking, that is; it can get pretty hot and humid!) Good music scene and dangerously good food! Nashville, TN -- gonna admit, I didn't like it. At all. Went there for a concert at the Ryman (which actually is a really beautiful place), but...I couldn't wait to leave. Then again, we spent the whole time on Broadway downtown; I'm not averse to going back to see other parts of the town. San Diego, CA -- been there three times, and each time I was there I WAS SICK. Just ONCE I'd like to visit healthy!! We were supposed to go in April, but you can guess how that worked out. We rescheduled for late July, and so far things are looking good for that. Wow...just realized that was a LOT of travels. My wife and I aren't rich by any stretch of the imagination, but I think one thing that contributes to our frequent travels is that she's a teacher, and NEEDS to get away for spring break every year! We live in Chicago now (which I'm going to say now is my favorite place on the planet), and we have easy access to two international airports, and by gum, we use 'em. We luck out a lot with frequent flyer miles, credit card rewards, etc., that keeps our travels affordable. We're saving up for an eventual trip to London and to Hawaii. Maybe by the time we're 90 we'll be able to afford it!