Mitch's Gaming Goals

[marinomitch13]

Took a break from working on the manual (I'm at RQ) and I beat two of my Cruis'n times. Almost beat the all-track time!!!

Washington D.C.: 1:23.98

S.F. to D.C.: 22:54.03

EDIT: Met a wife and husband, Jodie and P.J., who are getting pretties serious about CUSA (though not quite at my level yet). I gave them a list of my all my times to try to beat. I hope they start beating my times and really pushing me to get better!

[marinomitch13]

I feel sick to my stomach -especially since I know all the junk that's been going on in the background that they've had to put up with: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=685335458177876&set=a.238144889563604.62805.226688464042580&type=1&theater

Well, this will put a serious damper on this blog. My only option now is to play on an Ultracade machine at the Mall of America -which is way more expensive, less fun, less accurate, and lonely. 

Probably not doing BT at the KO3 now...

[marinomitch13]

I'm going over there to hang out and maybe stream some games. Please join me on twitch if you see me streaming.

Note: I've been kindly asked by the owners not to share much of what I know about why they are closing.

[ChrisP]

Whoah, wht da? That was incredibly sudden. I was under the impression that the last fund drive meant that they were good until they could move to their new location.

[marinomitch13]

Yeah, Chris, I can't explain everything as to give you a full answer as of yet (maybe in a couple weeks), but let's just say this: In so far as finances, they are/were completely fine and good (and the donation drives helped secure that fact); however, the real factors that are contributing to their closing (not merited by their own doing)... me as a theology and philosophy major... I'd call what is going on and happening to them downright sinful.

After talking with the owners more, I'm even more mad/sad/disheartened. I heaven't felt this way since my parent's divorce. The manner in which they are being forced to shutdown is truly wrong. That's probably all I can say.


EDIT: I'm not even comparatively sad for RQ anymore... I sad for the owners. It's just evil. I'm trying not to break down in tears in front of them.

[marinomitch13]

On the bright side, it looks like my wife may let me purchase RQ's Galaga cab with an LCD screen and a 48-in-1 jamma pcb in it -so long as it is a good price! That will allow me to keep at some of my goals. I always wanted my next purchase to be a MAME cab or something with a lot of games in it so as to be more efficient -since I care more about getting good at games for right now (I feel that I only really ought to buy dedicated cabs of games that I've mastered at this point in life). We'll see... I'm still tempted to just buy either RQ's Defender or Joust machine instead.

P.s. I watched some of that Defender player's marathon and it has already helped me get more consistent at the game. I also played 1 game of Joust tonight and got 925k even when I wanted to restart after a bad start.

[marinomitch13]

Today is RQ's last day open. Have a ton of homework to do, so I may not even make it down there while they are open, but I'm sure they'll let me in late.

In other news, I will be purchasing their Galaga machine with a 55-in-1 jamma board in it. I'll be able to sell the old Galaga board (which is broken, but I'll see if it is fixable first) as well as the Galaga power supply to offset a bit of the cost. My wife gave me the go-ahead to buy it, so I'm pretty excited about it. The RQ owner said he'd help me modify a CP to work with all the games, so hopefully my wife will find one of the games to be enjoyable.

[alumbrada]

Your wife sounds pretty cool. Cool wives are the best.

[Munteanfo]

Nice for that machine Mitch ;-). What will be next for Sage and Annie, Mitch? Hopefully everything will be okay for them!

Mitchell, you should buy that arcade, that would be awesome, oh yer!

[marinomitch13]

I definitely want to try to open some sort of arcade some day, but I'd probably want to do a pizza joint or something with it as well. First I want to pay off my student debt by working construction and get some online business ideas up and running for constant income. After I master a lot more games, then I'll probably try to start accumulating and repairing games more often as to build up a potential arcade inventory.

Sage and Annie seem to want to move on to more normal jobs like they had in California when they were younger. Annie was a secretary of some sort (for a plastic surgeon I think it was), and Sage has always worked odd jobs. Ultimately, I don't think they will try to reopen. They started the arcade because it was the best option they had at the time.

[marinomitch13]

Two things:

1) RQ is basically completely empty now. I just helped them move out their last arcade machines. However, one of the machines was MY Galaga cab that I purchased with Jamma insides and that has a 9-in-1 board in it! I just moved that into my home, so I'll be able to stream some game on that soon! However, I need to make a new CP for it so that I can play more games than just Space Invaders and Galaga (the joystick only goes left and right as of now). I hope to buy a 60-in-1 board soon enough for it.

2) I've decided that I'm gonna start going for Cruis'n World and Cruis'n Exotica times now at some local venues (mostly movie theaters). So, once I get enough times figured out for the WRs and have some times of my own to compare to them, I'll be updating that aspect of my main post.

[marinomitch13]

Traveled to Illinois for Thanksgiving. Was able to stop by Star Worlds Arcade for a few hours. Fun place. Lots of different types of games: old and new, big and small.

Played BT and got their HS. Also played Joust some, but it was hard because the cab had an 8-way joystick and it was on harder settings. Spent a lot of time on some of the racing games (trying to see how my Cruis'n USA skills might transfer over). Had a great time.

[marinomitch13]

Just as a note, I posted my original list of goals for 2013 over on CAGDC on January 29th, so that is when I will be evaluating how I did for the year (i.e. that's when my "year" for my goals ends). Obviously, Rusty Quarters closing down has really put a damper on me achieving my 2013 CAG goals, but I do have both Space Invaders and Galaga I can play in my Galaga multi-cab (the only games out the 9 I can play with a Galaga CP -gonna make a more universal-ish CP for all the games soon), as well as I have DK and D2K in my DK cab., so, I'll hopefully try for my goals on those respective games by the 29th. I imagine both Galaga and SI should be fairly easy, and D2K might come along easy too (that is, for all I know... I've actually only put in like 10 attempts at that game!), but 1.1m on DK probably won't happen by then. I just don't have a lot of time with my new job. Nice to be making the dough, though!

[marinomitch13]

For my anniversary my wife and I traveled to the east side of St. Paul to Deleo Bros Pizza, which is a nice pizza joint that also happens to have several arcade cabs and pinball machines. They had switched out some games since the last time I visited (which was maybe last summer), so I was able to play Blasteroids for my first time ever, which was pretty fun. I also saw that their Ms. Pacman/Super Pac machine also had the game Piranha playing in its attract screen, but I wasted a couple quarters trying to figure out how to select the game and ended up not being able to play the game in the end. I hope to go back there soon and also play their pins (they had added the Star Wars Episode 1 pin, which I know was unique for it's time -I've watched the documentary about them making that game).

As far as posting my goals for 2014, I think I'll just do that post (as it will take some time to mull over, and will be quite a bit of typing) when I recap how I did for 2013.

[marinomitch13]

Um... yeah... I just bought an upright Cruis'n USA machine, in great condition, for $275. And I already have a location locked up to place it to make some money from it! Booyah.