It has made its rounds on the Madison and Janesville CL's for abouta year now. At least he has come down from the $4,000.00 price he was at a few months back.
Sadly, yes. I remember the contest. If I remember correctly they never even explained it was a MAME... just "IT PLAYS SO MANY GAMES!!!1!!11" I remember some arcade boards (don't remember which) had quite a bit of discussion on it before someone actually got one when they decided it was useless.