Cactus FLACK'S

Flack · Post by **Flack** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 5:28 pm

ICJ wrote:Yeah, let me do this - I just called precision-navl and asked for an estimate for two games. They said they would send me an e-mail with what it would take to get it from your ZIP code to mine. (Which is awesome of them.) They also asked for the games that would be shipped, which makes sense as I think they have a special agent that works specifically with arcade games.

I'm working with the assumption that carrying these goddamn monstrosities to the new house is not what you want to do. Fuck, I hate moving them around so I can vacuum around them.

What hours are you going to be at the 1984 arcade, anyway? Actually, after writing that sentence I looked to see what it would cost to fly in and out the same day from Denver. $1,181. I wish airlines would just put up a middle fucking finger when they obviously don't want to take people places. Haha what the fuck, over a grand to get from Denver to Springfield in the middle of the fucking week. I paid $300 to go to Edinburgh!

When I was working on Invading Spaces, NAVL was quoting people $400. I do not know if NAVL and Precision-NAVL are the same people or not, but if so, their rates went up.

As of right now, other than piling them up in the garage of the new place, I have no where to put them. I did have one storage option open up, but it's not a great one.

A couple of other people have complained about the price of flying into Springfield and I think they flying in somewhere else close by, like Joplin or Branson or something. But yeah, for $1k+ ... shit just take a taxi at that point, have them leave the meter running while you play games, and then take you home that night.

Flack · Post by **Flack** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 5:30 pm

Tdarcos wrote:
Flack wrote:Because really let's face it, everybody else I know (like all my local friends) have already seen the collection, and it's not like I'm hanging out at clubs meeting people and bringing them back to my house to show them my collection of arcade games or something.
Man: Hey, baby, how would you like to come by my place and see my huge collection of <s>etchings</s> coin operated video games?
Woman: (Smiles) Sure! I'd love to!
(Drives her over to his place.)
Woman: Jesus, you weren't kidding! You really do have a huge collection of quarter eaters!
Man: Well, what did you think I meant?
Woman: I just thought you were making up something just to get me over here so we could screw!
Man: Why would I want to do that? I can get any bar skank if all I want is a broad to bang! But a woman who's interested in video games is much rarer!

Although I am happily married and have never entertained the thought of cheating on my wife, I'm pretty sure if I ran into a girl who was that interested in arcade games, my wife would probably let me sleep with her just so she wouldn't have to hear about the strategy differences between Centipede and Millipede one more time.

Tdarcos · Post by **Tdarcos** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 8:18 pm

ICJ wrote:Aw yeah, bringing broads back to the SExxxCADE, COMMANDER!

Tdarcos, if you could own a single arcade game, what would it eat?

Electricity.

----
Man 1: What's the most lucrative form of writing?
Man 2: On a word-for-word basis?
Man 1: Yeah.
Man 2: Ransom notes.

Tdarcos · Post by **Tdarcos** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 8:22 pm

ICJ wrote:Aw yeah, bringing broads back to the SExxxCADE, COMMANDER!

Tdarcos, if you could own a single arcade game, what would it eat?

Quarters.

----
"All I want is the chance to prove that being rich won't make me happy."

Tdarcos · Post by **Tdarcos** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 9:12 pm

ICJ wrote:What hours are you going to be at the 1984 arcade, anyway? Actually, after writing that sentence I looked to see what it would cost to fly in and out the same day from Denver. $1,181. I wish airlines would just put up a middle fucking finger when they obviously don't want to take people places. Haha what the fuck, over a grand to get from Denver to Springfield in the middle of the fucking week. I paid $300 to go to Edinburgh!

Jonsey, use your head for something other than a hatrack. The cheapest price is two weeks in advance, so let's pick one, say Wednesday, October 12. Oklahoma City Will Rogers Airport to Denver, OKC - DEN. Kayak.com says Frontier will do it for $123 each way. Cheapair has Frontier at $108.

Booking a one-way as of now for Wednesday the 21st, Kayak.com shows Frontier has it at $210 each way.

Certainly, if you want to book a ticket really soon, you're considered a business traveler and you pay out the ass.

The other possibility is to find one where it has to go through a city as a one-stop can be cheaper than the direct route. An associate of mine found a wierd price, something like Terra Haute, Indiana to Washington DCA, it was like $120, and required a change of planes in Chicago. But booking the same trip from Chicago to DCA was like $400.

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 9:41 pm

Tdarcos wrote:Jonsey, use your head for something other than a hatrack.

This ought to be good.

The cheapest price is two weeks in advance, so let's pick one, say Wednesday, October 12.

Flack wrote: I am going to the 1984 Arcade on Wednesday, November 9th.

Oklahoma City Will Rogers Airport to Denver, OKC - DEN.

Flack wrote: I am going to the 1984 Arcade on Wednesday, November 9th.

Kayak.com says Frontier will do it for $123 each way. Cheapair has Frontier at $108.

Flack wrote: I am going to the 1984 Arcade on Wednesday, November 9th.

Booking a one-way as of now for Wednesday the 21st, Kayak.com shows Frontier has it at $210 each way.

Flack wrote: I am going to the 1984 Arcade on Wednesday, November 9th.

The other possibility is to find one where it has to go through a city as a one-stop can be cheaper than the direct route. An associate of mine found a wierd price, something like Terra Haute, Indiana to Washington DCA, it was like $120, and required a change of planes in Chicago. But booking the same trip from Chicago to DCA was like $400.

Tdarcos · Post by **Tdarcos** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 9:42 pm

Excuse me, I just realized you're talking Denver to Springfield, not denver to OKC.

I see what you mean, a short-term booking, Denver to Springfield MO, is anywhere from $1100 to $1600. So let's see what we can do.

Denver to Springfield is 769 miles and about 12 hours. You can rent a Toyota Corolla from 9/21 to 9/24 for $169, plus fees. What's wierd is, order it for a month from now and it's more expensive. 1600 miles at 40mpg is 40 gallons, or about another $160, so traveling by car will cost $320 if you borrow a car, $160 if you use your own.

Here's a better idea. You can fly Denver to Kansas City (MCI) on the 27th for about $167 each way, then rent a car and drive MCI to Springfield. Rent a Toyota Corolla at MCI for $89 for one day. It's 166 miles.

A direct flight DEN to SGF (Springfield) on the 27th is $768.

So the cost to fly into KC then drive to Springfield and back is about $400, if you do it a week in advance.

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 9:42 pm

But yeah, those are pretty sweet rates to fly into the midwest, all things considered.

Flack · Post by **Flack** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 9:47 pm

You could fly to Hawaii, then rent a kayak, then hitchhike to Missouri.

Or you could fly into OKC and ride up with me, then ride back home that night and fly home the next day. That would give us 10 hours in the car together to discuss the use of that purple font.

Tdarcos · Post by **Tdarcos** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 9:53 pm

Jesus, Jonsey, this is what you got when you locked the goddamn forums so we can't go back and edit something once posted.

All you had to say was you're going on 11/09. The huge tirade was absolutely unnecessary, and, in fact, wasted effort since I can see it's just bitching and I'm not going to even bother to read it.

Even now, it's $792 each way, DEN -> SGF because you have to go on one of the ripoff carriers, United.

Again, fly Denver to Kansas City for $129 each way (Frontier) then rent a car (Toyota Corolla, National Car Rental) for about $81 for the 9th to the 10th and drive the three hours from KC to Springfield, plus probably another $20 or $30 in gasoline.

Tdarcos · Post by **Tdarcos** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 9:57 pm

Flack wrote:You could fly to Hawaii, then rent a kayak, then hitchhike to Missouri.

Or you could fly into OKC and ride up with me, then ride back home that night and fly home the next day. That would give us 10 hours in the car together to discuss the use of that purple font.

Kayak has DEN -> OKC at the same rate on 11/09 as DEN -> MCI, $129 so Jonsey could follow your advice and he'd save the cost of the rental car, and if you're not making him chip in for gas, that too!

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 10:32 pm

Tdarcos wrote:Even now, it's $792 each way, DEN -> SGF because you have to go on one of the ripoff carriers, United.

Huh, it's almost as if flying to and from Springfield on the same deal is really expensive. Someone should have said that earlier in the thread and saved us all a lot of bother!

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 10:33 pm

Look, we're getting off track here. One of the greatest home arcades in the world is coming to a close, and I post not to bury Cactus FLACK'S, but to praise it.

God, I wish I had taken photos. And I wish I could pull off the "games along the side, and then a middle row" thing at my place.

Tdarcos · Post by **Tdarcos** » Tue Sep 20, 2011 2:17 am

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:Look, we're getting off track here. One of the greatest home arcades in the world is coming to a close, and I post not to bury Cactus FLACK'S, but to praise it.

God, I wish I had taken photos. And I wish I could pull off the "games along the side, and then a middle row" thing at my place.

I have my collection of everything, a pouch that contains my ID, specifically my Metro Access card with allows me to get paratransit service, but here in the Washington DC area gives me free transportation on Metrobus and Metrorail, plus PG County and Ride-On (Montgomery County). I get 1/2 price on just about everyone else (Laurel connect-a-ride and Fairfax Connector). The only one I pay full price on is Alexandria Transit, they charge everyone $1.55, even senior citizens pay full price.

My case 1 contains my money, credit cards and cell phone, it was a camera case.

Case 2 contains a video camera and batteries. I always carry my camera and I always keep fresh batteries in the camera. This means I'm always ready to take snapshots or video.

All of this hangs around my neck.

AArdvark · Post by **AArdvark** » Tue Sep 20, 2011 3:11 am

So what's (if any) you're point? You carry stuff with you. Very nice.

What does that have to do with arcade games?

Flack · Post by **Flack** » Tue Sep 20, 2011 6:22 am

Tdarcos wrote:
Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:Look, we're getting off track here. One of the greatest home arcades in the world is coming to a close, and I post not to bury Cactus FLACK'S, but to praise it.

God, I wish I had taken photos. And I wish I could pull off the "games along the side, and then a middle row" thing at my place.
I have my collection of everything, a pouch that contains my ID, specifically my Metro Access card with allows me to get paratransit service, but here in the Washington DC area gives me free transportation on Metrobus and Metrorail, plus PG County and Ride-On (Montgomery County). I get 1/2 price on just about everyone else (Laurel connect-a-ride and Fairfax Connector). The only one I pay full price on is Alexandria Transit, they charge everyone $1.55, even senior citizens pay full price.

My case 1 contains my money, credit cards and cell phone, it was a camera case.

Case 2 contains a video camera and batteries. I always carry my camera and I always keep fresh batteries in the camera. This means I'm always ready to take snapshots or video.

All of this hangs around my neck.

Flack · Post by **Flack** » Tue Sep 20, 2011 6:46 am

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:Look, we're getting off track here. One of the greatest home arcades in the world is coming to a close, and I post not to bury Cactus FLACK'S, but to praise it.

God, I wish I had taken photos. And I wish I could pull off the "games along the side, and then a middle row" thing at my place.

The current layout came more out of necessity than any grand design idea. The first iteration of the "Flackcade" only had two arcade games, an air hockey table, and a slot machine. In fact, when I first set it up, I moved a bunch of video game consoles and computers out there too. It wasn't long before additional arcade cabinets were purchased. The home consoles were the first thing to go back into the house. Then I sold the air hockey table, to make room for more cabinets.

Although the room is roughly 14x32, there's a ledge in the back that's 4' deep and 6' off the ground. Only my shortest games will slide under that ledge. Altered Beast (dead), Nintendo Cabs, and Gauntlet cabs will slide under there, no problem. Things like Karate Champ and many of my other cabinets are about 6'2" tall and won't fit, so I had to juggle things around.

So the building ... I don't know if you noticed, but there are these wood support timbers for the roof, two of them. I put them in there because one day I noticed the roof sagging and discovered that the building was 111" tall on each end, but 103" in the middle -- the roof was falling in!

I kind of though it looked weird with these posts in the middle, so I moved everything around and came up with this one layout design.

M = Machine, . = Open Space.

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|M.M.M.M|
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That might not be the exact number of machines, but you get the idea. That layout gave me an aisle on the right, and then three little rows. The games on the left were lined up back-to-back. This gave me more room, but also made it a pain in the ass to get into the back of any single machine to work on anything. Also, the aisle on the right was wide enough for a machine to slide through, but that was it. If someone was playing a game on the right, it was pretty tough to walk past them down the aisle. Also if you were in a "row" it would be impossible to walk past someone playing another game.

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Eventually I got the idea of putting games down the middle, so I moved everything around and that worked so, that layout (the current one) is kind of like Version 3.0. The problem at the moment is, I'm at capacity -- past it, in fact. I made a little room by selling Q*Bert, but right after that was when I picked up Ms. Pac-Man and Centipede, and since then I picked up 720. As ICJ can attest to, I have 3 machines in my garage simply because there's no where else for them. The Flackcade is literally bursting at the seams.

Tdarcos · Post by **Tdarcos** » Tue Sep 20, 2011 7:29 am

AArdvark wrote:So what's (if any) you're point? You carry stuff with you. Very nice.

What does that have to do with arcade games?

You didn't read what I said. I am always carrying a camera. If it's not around my neck it's close. So if there's anything I need to take pictures of, I can. I have used my camera for sudden shots.

Jonsey was complaining he didn't have pictures around. I don't have that problem; I always have the capacity to take pictures at any time.

Which reminds me of something. i need to put up an advisory for people who have insurance to get lots of pictures of their stuff. If you have an insurance claim, pictures - and even video - of what you had before the damage, then what you have after, will make a big difference in getting the most money out of your insurer.

pinback · Post by **pinback** » Tue Sep 20, 2011 12:34 pm

Flack wrote:

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That looks like a fetus!

Can I kill it??!!

Flack · Post by **Flack** » Tue Sep 20, 2011 1:58 pm

"I love babies ... I just can't eat a whole one."