Halloween arcade fun at my place (may be the last time)!

jkoolpe

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Halloween arcade fun at my place (may be the last time)!

Well, our house is up for sale and we'll be moving soon...locally, mind you...just to a nearby town with better schools for our little guy, and hopefully some more space (for more games of course :) ).

But that means this will probably be the last opening of my garage/arcade for Halloween at my current place. As always, any and all local KLOv'rs and friends are more than welcome to stop by on Halloween eve and join in the madness that my garage becomes for a couple of hours each year at this time :D . Literally hundreds of happy kids and their parents stop by each year and have a great time...it's so much fun to see the younger generation enjoy the classics for a spell...

I'm still in Daly City, just one town south of San Francisco. Shoot me a PM if you think you want to stop by and I'll shoot you back my address, no problem.

I usually open up around 6:30 or so, and stay open until about 9:30...

All games are fully functioning (knock on wood) and ready to go. Hope to see some of you this year!

Jonathan
 
Good luck and I know when having a party it is hard to get pictures, but if this might be your last time.. make sure to take lots if possible. :)
 
Looks like you have a great collection.

I'd love to see some pictures if you can dude!
 

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I would prolly do something like this at my house but we hardly get any kids in our hood. Do you put up signs in your area about your event? Or any signs in front of your house?
 
I would prolly do something like this at my house but we hardly get any kids in our hood. Do you put up signs in your area about your event? Or any signs in front of your house?

Advertisement is key for parties like this. I put flyers out last year for our Halloween party and had quite a few people mention about seeing the flyers around.
 
Nah...I live in a town house community so all of the places are pretty close together, and the whole community already goes pretty "all out" for Halloween (even before I moved here in 2002).

When I first opened the garage/arcade, I figured I'd get maybe 30-50 people at most, but ended up being completely swamped with easily 150-200 people! I'm pretty sure that a some portion of the kids and parents that stop by are driven there by their parents as my community is also flat and very safe and thus perfect for trick or treating. And now I have a "reputation" and certainly have a decent number of return visitors each year (with more than a few parents telling me that their kids talk about coming to my garage again quite frequently all year long :D . )

And the games pretty much speak for themselves...I do hold out a "free play" sign just to make sure everyone knows there are no quarters needed :) .



I would prolly do something like this at my house but we hardly get any kids in our hood. Do you put up signs in your area about your event? Or any signs in front of your house?
 
Nah...I live in a town house community so all of the places are pretty close together, and the whole community already goes pretty "all out" for Halloween (even before I moved here in 2002).

When I first opened the garage/arcade, I figured I'd get maybe 30-50 people at most, but ended up being completely swamped with easily 150-200 people! I'm pretty sure that a some portion of the kids and parents that stop by are driven there by their parents as my community is also flat and very safe and thus perfect for trick or treating. And now I have a "reputation" and certainly have a decent number of return visitors each year (with more than a few parents telling me that their kids talk about coming to my garage again quite frequently all year long :D . )

And the games pretty much speak for themselves...I do hold out a "free play" sign just to make sure everyone knows there are no quarters needed :) .


Funny that the neighbors love your games at Halloween, but you still get the HOA telling you they need to go so you can park two cars in your garage. I'm so glad I don't have a HOA anymore.
 
Yep...HOAs are a PIA...they do some good, but seem to eventually bite you in the arse...

For all you arcade collectors out there...don't buy anything with an HOA if you can at all avoid it...

My neighbors mostly enjoy the games, but it only takes one sour apple to ruin the orchard. My favorite was when I got a letter from the HOA about a year or so after I moved in telling me that I was running a business selling jukeboxes out of my garage and I would need to cease and desist (and of course make room for my car in the garage (which I was already doing anyway)).

No doubt some nosy, old person with nothing better to do with his or her time complained...

Jonathan

Funny that the neighbors love your games at Halloween, but you still get the HOA telling you they need to go so you can park two cars in your garage. I'm so glad I don't have a HOA anymore.
 
Yep...HOAs are a PIA...they do some good, but seem to eventually bite you in the arse...

For all you arcade collectors out there...don't buy anything with an HOA if you can at all avoid it...

My neighbors mostly enjoy the games, but it only takes one sour apple to ruin the orchard. My favorite was when I got a letter from the HOA about a year or so after I moved in telling me that I was running a business selling jukeboxes out of my garage and I would need to cease and desist (and of course make room for my car in the garage (which I was already doing anyway)).

No doubt some nosy, old person with nothing better to do with his or her time complained...

Jonathan

I guess I been pretty lucky,I been living in a HOA for about 8 years and knock on wood never had any complaints.My neighbors love the games,people walk by and stop and can't believe what they see. Every year I open the garage during halloween funny I had one of the HOA members ask if they could play some of the games that he use to play in his highschool day's. I think HOA rules are good for neighborhoods when you have kids but when it comes to my own personal property that I paid for ,setting rules for what I have in my garage is pushing it.
 
BTW, I love the Charley and Humphrey avatar :) .

Is Pat McCormick still around? Wikipedia claims he's now retired and living up in Oregon. And the clips up on youtube are of surprisingly good quality, picturewise...I wonder where the person who uploaded them got them from? Surely not from an old videotape that must have deteriorated by now...

Also bumping up the thread :) ...

Jon
 
Just bumpin' up the thread...I'm about to start setting up in the garage to prepare for the fun :) .

Anyone else in the area who wants to stop by, just PM me and let me know. Where else you gonna play Inferno, I, Robot, and Quantum at the same place?...well, other than CA Extreme of course ;) .

Happy Halloween to all!!

Jon
 
Jon, I will run this by the lady to she if she wants to head over again, I think this would be my third or fourth year stopping by. I'll be bummed when you move and aren't a five minute drive from our house. If I don't see you I hope all goes well and the kids don't use the joysticks to pull themselves up to see the screen.
 
Jon,

good to see your doing it again, I have been thinking about doing this for a few years in my neighborhood but not sure I have the courage to put my games out there. I keep seeing every year you have a good turnout. Looks like fun.

Luke
 
Another great turn out with lots of happy campers, young and less young :) .

And a lot of folks were quite bummed when I told them that this would likely be the last time at this location and that we are moving, but that's life.

All the games got good workouts...Inferno was a big hit with some of the younger kids. There were a couple of 10-12 years olds (I'm guessing) that were totally into the game for awhile and very excited to reach some of the later levels (using the continue feature of course). I distinctly remember one of them shouting out "Whoa! I made it to level 13!" or something to that effect. That brought back some warm memories as I probably did the same thing when I was there age playing Tempest or another classic game ;) .

Star Wars and Sinistar were in constant use, as was PacMan of course. But really every game got played well, and folks loved it.

Here are the pics. Enjoy!

http://s140.photobucket.com/albums/r4/jkoolpe/Halloween 2010/

Jon
 
Holy crap on the grassman costume. You might want to check and make sure your not missing any sod from your front yard.
 
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