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August 16 Bubble Bobble Cabinet UpdateManaged to get a funky stool for my Mame cabinet today, by pure chance Lorraine forced me to go to Dunhelm looking at new curtains....i hate Dunhelm, but today after finding the stool for £15 ive changed my mind on the place, suprising stuff! Taggsta on The Simpsons???If you head over to the official Simpsons movie website you can create your own Simspons dude, this one has been done by my mate Dave and its ment to be me, personally i think im a little slimmer, but still its pretty funny, maybe its a glimps of the future Taggsta!!!! June 27 A quick updateWow its been a while since i updated my blog, there's just not enough time in the day to fit it in these days.
Main things that have gone on in June
Sold my MR2 Roadster
 in preparation for the baby  Took arrival of a Toyota Avensis on the lease scheme at work
 (5 seats and much cheaper ) It has to be said that its not a bad car and im starting to like it + the sound system is great!Booked a holiday to Lanzarote (for the 3rd time) to get some R&R in August.
Father - in - law has moved in to our house as he's split up with my wife Mum after 35 years of Marriage and cant afford to live anywhere else at the mo. (Hence the need for us to go on Holiday to escape for a while) Life like to throw the odd curve ball
 Got offer a job working in Australia last week (Maybe next year)
Had a drive in my friends new Aston Martin Vantage at 110 mph down a country lane (needed clean pants)
Playing Forza 2 loads and customising the paint work.....will post a few picks soon)
Whats been going on in everyone elses life at the mo, let me know
Till laters
Taggsta June 04 Cocktail Clean up Part 2
This weekend ive been working on the legs of the cocktail cabinet. I was going to get them re-chromed but no one locally does it and i also wanted to keep the cost down. Ive used Amarite silver spray paint and with a primer undercoat its given a good finish. Can believe they used to look so crap! The metal base has now been re sprayed black and ive added a new keyset. Next up i getting the PC inside.
May 26 Cabinet clean up  The woodwork has been cleaned up this week and all the cabinet grubin's have been stripped out.
All of the metal work has been cleaned of rust and is now smooth for priming
Coin box repair  This week ive been tidying up the cabinet. The coin box which over the years has been atempted to be broken into with a crowbar was finally removed and straightened out and sanded. The door could only be removed by drilling out the lock. Over the next week or so it will get primed and resprayed mat black May 20 1981 Cocktail Arcade Project RestorationThis weekend i brought a cocktail cabinet from ebay as i fancied starting another arcade machine project. The owner of the machine was based only 10 miles away and was for sale at £130 with the reserve not met. I did'nt get time to bid on it so i just contacted the guy and asked what he wanted for it. He asked for £200 but i got him to let it go at £150. It was described as Pacman, not working correctly and scratched glass but not chipped.
This is what i got
       As you can see its in a real mess at the moment. Not sure if its even worth £150 but my brain is already working on overload on getting it back to a good condition.
Ive powered it up and started doing some research on the game in the machine and where it originated from, so far it seems to be from 1981, its a bootleg of PacMan called Hangly-man by a Japanese company called NITTOH.
May 14 Good news !!! Lorraine is 12 weeks pregnant. This is our 1st scan photo, cool eh!
I feel for her at the moment as she's feeling a little green most of the time :(
Hopefully you can work out whats going on in the photo.
Let me know if you think is a boy or girl and i'll let you know in 6 months time if all is well. May 03 Forza 2 comming June Forza is looking really good now, just hope my machine is back in time for launch.
If you want the latest Forza info go to www.forzamotorsport.net
Also the Japanese Xbox site has some great new Desktop images to download. May 01 R.I.P X Box 360 :(Taggsta's 360 has taken a turn for the worse. Last week it kept freezing up, then on Saturday morning part way through downloading some new marketplace stuff it froze again and the 3 LIGHTS OF DOOM appeared !!!!!!!
R.I.P 21.10.05 to 28.04.07
So long it was nice knowing you April 23 Update - Neils Arcade My mate recently had a few new additions to his home so i thought id give a little space to it on my blog.
Neils recently added Super Hang on & Daytona USA....jammy bugger! A Weekend in LondonJust had a great weekend in London ,we went to see a few shows in the west end.
We stayed in a 5* hotel in Mayfair which was booked through www.lastminute.com and got a great bargin. The hotel was classed as 'Top Secret' and it didnt give you the name of it, only the location. If you know the area you want to stay in i would recommend anyone to try a 'top sectret' hotel as its a bargin. Our hotel would have normally been £250 a night, but we got it at £120 special rate. For London , in Mayfair thats cheap.
On Friday night we went to see the The Blue Man Group
 BLUE MAN GROUP is a euphoric theatrical and musical journey. Enigmatic, endlessly inventive and musically thrilling, the Blue Men and their incredible live band captivate audiences with a fusion of irresistible humour, dynamic rhythms and breathtaking spectacle.
Originally staged in New York, where this award-winning show continues to astound sell-out crowds, you can now experience the visually stunning and brilliantly funny BLUE MAN GROUP live in London. Its Crazy Stuff and weel worth a look at £20 a ticket on rows A-D, which is on 3 metres away from the action.
April 06 Arcade 99% complete Finished the bezel around the screen this week and now its about finished, just the rhs T-Moulding to go!
I downloaded a program that now saves all the high scores on each game, so its time to start racking up some points!! March 31 More pics This is the front end for my machine, you just scoll up or down with the joystick to choose your game. It displays the title screen and flyer for each game.
At the moment theres two custom lists for the games, you can choose 'Top Ten Favourites' 'All Games' or 'recently played' so its easier to find the one you want.
 Not long to go now. Hopefully the side art and bezel art will be finished next week and thats it.
Its taken 10 weeks to get here and i have to say its turned out much better than i imagined.
March 28 Quick update Just thought id do a quick update on the arcade machine project. I think im about 85% completed now. The bezel around the monitor has been this weeks job, at the moment the bezel needs a black strip around where the screen meets it. I then need to add art around the top and sides of the bezel for more detail.
Hopefully by the end of next week the plexi front screen willbe installed more side art and thats about it.
Things have been a little slow in progress as ive had to do lots of play testing :)
March 17 Arcade Photo Update As you can see the coin mechanism is now in place. The machine takes 10p only. The sign above it is taken from a Donkey Kong machine.
Today i bought the key cylinder and keys for the black door, it now opens to reveal the keyboard and coin collection tray.
The Smarties print is a adhesive laminate which i thought seemed to go with the Bubble Bobble colourful theme.
 The side artwork is work in progress at the mo, the Bubble Bobble sign with the Smarties behind it looks pretty cool. I plan to add different size bubbles scattered around the sides and front with the charicters.
Still need to add the T moulding around the side panel edges.
 Still undecided on the monitor to use, hopefully i can pick up a larger CRT monitor around 21" instead of the one in the picture. Currently im using a LCD 17" but its picture is very sharp, with a CRT it will give a more arcade blur to it. In the MAME options you can simulate the scan lines a original arcade monitor would show though so it wouldnt be to bad with a LCD.
 Check out the TAITO ashtray from Japan!!!!!, should be enough 10p's in there to keep my mates entertained.
March 01 Time to put it together!Wednesday was a good day for progress on the arcade cabinet. All the time consuming measuring and cutting finally paid off and now the cabinet is standing up with no wobble and all joints are solid and square.
Next up is to finish the area around the Marquee, cut a front door and position the 10p coin mech and wire the control panel and Marquee.
February 27 Cabinet sides(update)Yesterday and today i glued and clamped supports to the cabinet sides, these will be used to screw the front and back panels together.
This method of fixing will strenghten the cabinet and hide the fixing points. (Check out www.arcadecontrols.com for loads of home cabinet designs, how to build them.The forums can help with every part of a building a home arcade machine)
Hopefully tommorrow after cutting the front and back i can start to put it together .
Its taking longer than i thought as the glue takes 24hrs to bond fully and i had to buy some more clamps to get a good fit.
At the end of the day its best not to rush the job and get it right first time.
 February 22 Arcade front end and cabinet sidesIve been pretty busy recently and had to cram in some work on the arcade cabinet as and when i can, but progress is being made and so far im happy with the overall quality.
Over the weekend i'll put up some new pics of the front end design which shows the arcade games,flyers e.t.c. Ive designed it the same as the control panel with a Bubble Bobble theme.
On Monday i managed to get 4 hours on the cabinet.The side panels are cut out and the control panel underside as been cut and built.
By Monday next week i hope to have the cabinet standing up.
Really enjoying this project so far, more info soon. |
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