Ebay purchase turns into home arcade adventure.

Broodwich

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So yesterday i got a great deal on a copy of NBA Jam TE that had no sound but the seller didn't have any of the cables that ran to the sound board other than the ribbon cable. Come to find out that the seller lives less than 15 miles from me and offered for me to come and pick it up.

Now i've heard stories of people going to pick things up from others only to find that the seller has a treasure trove of games. This story is no different....

I passed this guys house 2x as it was hidden below a freeway bridge, i pull in nice house, 3 car garage behind it and a 2 car next to it. Park my car look on home owners back porch and i knew i was in the right place. As i walk up the steps i'm greeted by a very used table saw, a Dedicated Simpsons cab missing CP, a cocktail table covered by random arcade and home repair items, and to the right of the main door an original konami Blades of Steel Dedicated cab. The older gentleman that answers the door is in his mid to late 50's and definitely a home builder or contractor of sorts.

He greets me warmly and invites me inside where on the table lies my newly purchased Jamma and sound board on the table across from a bowling pinball. I almost completely ignored it when i see the house FILLED with what i can only describe as a very large collection, there were jamma boards casually leaning on the walls EVERYWHERE!!! guy says to common in and he'll hook up my board to show it's working, i round a corner guarded by 2 60in1 converted MK cab's to a room filled with atleast 6 pins, 2 sit down drivers, a simpsons bowling, another 60 in 1, a small cocktail pinball cab and a giant 34" dedicated MK4 which he plugs my NBA JAM into.

This was just in the house, another ebayer had pulled in to pick up his Space Gun, i figured i'd stick around and good thing cause getting that into a honda odessy is not easy lol. heading out to one of his 2 garages i walk into a 2.5 car garage full of games. I wanted to kiss the ground. there were another 20 or so games in that garage and he had another 4 car garage filled with parts/broken games to boot.

All 3 of us spend another hour or so chatting about this game or that and repairing this or that and our mutual hatred for messing with charged monitors, the guy with the Space Gun had to drive back to Vermont and had to leave but one of the sellers good friends had shown up and we continued our arcade stories.

Come to find out that the friend that showed up has an old Atari Game w/ broken vector monitor. i mention that i'm still looking for a MK style Control panel box and the atari guy says "oh i can make that no problem". we continue to talk and he mentions that if i can find someone who can fix his vector monitor he'll make me my cp box free of charge. Angels came down from the heavens and i quickly mentioned that i would ask here. so i've already made that thread :D

before i leave i snapped some pics of the vector and back of his monitor tube, as i'm snapping shots the home owner hands me a Killer Instinct 2 board and says "look it's fried, want it? free! take it". So i gladly took it, and eventually might try and repair it, reguardless it needs a compact flash/hdd.

So that's my story, i know it's not "cool story bro" material completely but yea this was a great day for me and is exactly why i love this hobby and the people that are into it.
 
I'd say that qualifies as "cool story bro" material! Sounds like you made some new friends!
 
i just threw that in there so i was the first to say it lol
 
Good news is the sound board works fine on NBA Jam TE just needed the wiring and pot. Guess i'll have to order up some more 18" 20 pin ribbon connectors :D
 
I'd say that qualifies as "cool story bro" material!

That's not a nice thing to say. I'm starting to think neither of you realise what "cool story bro" means... xD

Figured I'd add the "definition" of "cool story bro" to clarify what I meant.

"Cool Story, Bro" is a popular catch phrase / image macro used as a sarcastic response to to thread posts, trolls and general comments that are deemed boring, pointless or just too long to read (also denoted as "tl;dr").

;)
 
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lol i know the definition and was just beating out the trolls / jokers to the punch. I'm not a writer by any means and thank bil gates for the spell check (red underlines lol).

tho i didn't know that it was also denoted as tl;dr (wtf is that anyways lul).
 
tho i didn't know that it was also denoted as tl;dr (wtf is that anyways lul).

Too long; don't read

blah blah blah... common occurance is when someone makes a long post, or a thread is a bunch of pages and someone replies after just reading the thread title. Ends up (sometimes) that post doesn't make any sense if you consider the body of the post/thread because it was too long to read BUT for some reason someone wants to reply anyways.

FWIW, I actually read your post :p
 
Too long; don't read

blah blah blah... common occurance is when someone makes a long post, or a thread is a bunch of pages and someone replies after just reading the thread title. Ends up (sometimes) that post doesn't make any sense if you consider the body of the post/thread because it was too long to read BUT for some reason someone wants to reply anyways.

FWIW, I actually read your post :p

skewled :D glad you read it :D

benkeezer said:
Nice story. Guess I'll have to pay a little more attention to eBay. If he's near you, he's near me!

right in our backyard. ebay has it's gems from time to time, all us capitol district peeps gotta stick together.
 
Larry is a great guy, I've known him for a long time and we've done many deals together. My daughter loves his MM Tetris Lol. He's as fair as they come and a good friend.
 
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