Game Day article

Vicente Martinez attended my Game Day last week, and he has posted this cool article about his experience. It's actually kind of weird for me to read about Game Day from someone else's perspective. :-)

Here's the article:
http://www.1up.com/do/blogEntry?bId=8598287&publicUserId=5798509

Sam Blackburn at my Arcade

Sam Blackburn, former Battlezone champion and one of the stars of the movie Chasing Ghosts, paid a visit to the arcade for my last Game Day. It was really cool seeing you again Sam!



Here's some video of Sam playing one of my Battlezone machines.

Game Day Video

Monday's Game Day was a HUGE success! Thank you to everybody that came!

We had about 40-50 people there. Insane! It was really wild seeing and hearing all the machines going at once, and seeing all those people milling around. I haven't seen anything like that since the early '80s. It was pretty trippy with everyone walking around video taping and taking photos.

Here's some video from the event!



We'll be doing it again in the next few months.

Updated Arcade Photos

I've updated my website with pictures of the new arcade!

http://www.peterhirschberg.com/arcade/gameroom.htm

It's all ready for Game Day except Gravitar blew up last night. I hope nobody is a Gravitar fan. The brand new amp that I bought also died the other night. Between the amp dying and the speakers arriving all broken up, I'm very unimpressed with Pyle.

GameTap Interview

Today I had a video crew out to interview me for an upcoming GameTap segment called "Tapped In". I was interviewed about my collection, the new gameroom, Missile Command, and the Vectrex console. I was interviewed for about 5 hours and was pretty tired by the end of it, but it was fun.



If you’d like to check out the series, go to http://www.gametap.com/home/views/watch/watch.jsp, click GAMES on the left hand side, then click Tapped In. Unfortunately you have to install a player to watch, which only worked in IE for me. Bummer. I'll keep people posted when any of the interview shows up on the GameTap site.

Construction Update

Yay! The steps are finally done! I called the builder last night and left a voice mail saying that we've got this big party coming up, and it would be REALLY nice if the steps were done, and he had his crew come out today (on a Sunday!) and finish it all up!

We just need to tell the stain guy that it's done and he'll come out to stain the new parts.



I've worked my butt off all weekend getting the place ready for the next Game Day. I'll take photos after I get the place tidied up a bit and vacuumed. I got all the pinball machines set up, and also put up this cool Asteroids scene in the bathroom (that's why I wanted the walls black in there), and a couple Space Wars ships on the ceiling.

Construction Update

I got the shelving installed for the stereo system. I'm still waiting on an RMA number so I can send back the 2 speakers that were damaged in shipping (actually all 4 were damaged when I got them, but 2 were particularly bad).



And the proper blackout film for the windows showed up yesterday. Hopefully this weekend I'll be able to install it.



Nobody has shown up the last two days to work on the steps. Grrr.

Construction Update

They actually got quite a bit done today on the steps. Looks like they are almost done! I'm glad they showed up today. The weather was in the 70s (in January!), so I would have been disappointed if they had squandered the day. It's supposed to be nice tomorrow too. Maybe they'll finish it tomorrow??

Construction Update

Today I prepped and painted the wall that needed repainting. Tomorrow I can put up the shelves where the stereo components go.

Here's a photo that also shows the Chuck E Cheese sign.



And the other sign.

GAME DAY - Monday January 21st

I was thinking about having Monday January 21st (MLK Memorial Day) be a Game Day. This will be the first Game Day in the new building, and the first Game Day in a really long time.

I'm still trying to gauge interest. Email me if you think you can make it that day. I have a "Game Day" mailing list that I'm going to send out invites on soon.

Construction Update

I think I'm pretty much done with the posters and artwork. Sure, there's still some things I want to add, remove, or move. But I'm calling it done.

I also hung up the 2 large Chuck E Cheese signs (the front parts). Age and shipping has taken their toll on the poor signs, but I think I found a sturdy and not-too-ugly way to get the front parts to stay on the sign. Unfortunately the photos I took of the signs didn't come out. I'll try and get better photos tomorrow. They look SO COOL!



Still left to do - window tinting (whenever I get the correct blackout film) and repainting the wall where the breaker panels are (it got torn up when routing the stereo wires). Once I repaint the wall I can mount the shelving where the stereo components go. And of course I've got to straighten things up in there! I never did figure out where I want that huge "arcade" sign. I couldn't find a place for it that I liked.

The Arcade Formerly Known as Luna City

The decommissioned old gameroom.

Kinda sad seeing it all empty. It looks so tiny now. I thought it would look bigger with the games out.

I am still calling the (new) arcade Luna City Arcade. For the record or whatever.



And since people always ask me - the old gameroom is going to be used as a family room / rec room. We'll probably get rid of the blacklight carpeting whenever we have money.

Construction Update

Nobody showed up to work on the steps today. Oh well.

I spent all day putting up posters and artwork. I - am - so - tired!

Here's what I did today. The large Battlestar Galactica poster is 12' wide x 8.5' tall.



I noticed that I covered over where the speaker mount is supposed to go in that corner. I'll have to switch to using tripods for the speakers. At least for that corner.

Also, I scraped off two of the windows and was going to put on the blackout film I bought, only to find out that they shipped me whiteout film instead. Oops. Back it goes. I should have the correct film by Tuesday. This is to block out light from coming through the windows (and to keep people outside from peeking in).

Construction Update

They did a painfully small amount of work on the exterior decking / steps today. At least they showed up I guess.

Construction Update

I've been working nonstop on the gameroom since the last post. My friend Fred helped me again in getting 2 of the 4 speakers installed on the wall. The other 2 speakers were damaged in shipping and I'm trying to get a response from the seller so that I can get them exchanged. Yay.

I've rearranged the games since last time. Instead of a single huge row down the center of the room, I went with 3 smaller rows going widthwise.




Here's me going through my hundreds of posters. I've got about half of them hung on the walls at this point. What a huge job.




And here's what I've hung so far. I'm still working in there so things are pretty cluttered.



I also applied some vinyl Space Invaders cutouts to one of the walls.




And finally, here's the newly installed 10 fluorescent blacklight fixtures buzzing happily away with the carpet glowing under them.