John's Arcade Forum - Classic Arcade and Pinball Collecting and Restoring Discussion Forum - RETRO MAME - Nintendo Vs Forum

A couple of the arcade forums I've frequented for years have died down in interest and/or gotten lame, so here I am.  I use the same forum name on every gaming forum, for those keeping track.

My name is Chris Mansfield.  Was born and raised in a smallish town in Missouri.  Graduated high school in 1990, same year as Johnny Hotcakes.  Studied Civil Engineering at University of Missouri-Rolla (now called Missouri University of Science and Technology) until I couldn't take it anymore and left 17 credits shy of a degree.  I even passed the 8-hour FE exam before throwing in the towel.

Moved to Seattle in 1996 to fix and support computers for a living.  Why Seattle?  Loved the music scene of the time, and had visited a friend here for spring break and felt more at home here than where I grew up.  Did okay with tech support for 15 years until it got really old and I lost interest.  Had to retrain two years ago and now I drive a semi hauling freight around Washington, Oregon, and northern Idaho for nearly double the hours and 60% of the pay.  Driving a semi is fun though, until you have to chain up on an icy mountain pass in the dark.

Picked up a woman in 1997 and we've been together for 17 years now.  Saw "The King of Kong" at the Seattle International Film Festival in 2007 and it changed my life.  Visited Funspot for their tournament in 2008.  Got my first game (Crystal Castles) later that summer.  Got married in 2009.  Had 22 games in storage by the time we bought a house in early 2010.  Have 29 games at the moment, all from the golden era except for a Neo Geo MVS 1-slot w/ 138-in-1 and a Toobin'.

Current games in my home arcade:

Alpine Ski, Arabian, Bagman, Black Widow, Centipede, Circus Charlie (in Kicker cab, which is a converted Scramble), Congo Bongo, Crystal Castles, Donkey Kong, Elevator Action, Empire Strikes Back, Joust, Jungle King, Krull, Mario Bros. (widebody), Millipede, Moon Patrol, Neo Geo MVS w/ 138-in-1, OutRun, Punch-Out!!, Qix w/ 60-in-1, Quantum, Robotron, Super Punch-Out!!, The Tin Star, Toobin', Tutankham, Wild Western, Zoo Keeper

I am the world record holder on Arabian and Wild Western, and former world record holder on Kicker and on Mario Bros. "No POW" doubles with former singles champ Perry Rodgers.  Got pretty deep on Donkey Kong (778,600) five years ago before getting sick of how much attention the game was getting at the time at the expense of so many other great golden era games, and so I virtually stopped playing it.  (Little did I know that it would only get much worse in the years to come.)  As far as I know I'm still ahead of Johnny Hotcakes on Pole Position (64,310).  My home arcade hosted, and streamed live, John McAllister's 54-hour Joust marathon record (http://westseattleblog.com/2010/10/video-game-champion-going-for-a-record-in-west-seattle) in October 2010, and I stayed up with John for most of it.  I think I slept 90 minutes total.

Went to Grinkfest 2014 and had a blast.  Met John and Joe and talked with each for a while.  (Here's something funny: John and I were both at the same tournament at Richie Knucklez back in 2010 but didn't know it.  John took a photo (http://www.johnsarcade.com/knucklez_2010/Pages/13.html) of me playing a Congo Bongo cocktail.)  Met Shawn just before leaving, so only got to say hello.  I placed 3rd out of 38 in the Main Tournament, with 2nd place scores on Carnival, Circus Charlie, Pole Position, and Popeye; 5th place scores on Baby Pac-Man and Burgertime; and 7th place scores on Dragon's Lair and Vs. Excitebike.  Pretty happy with that.  I also placed 5th out of 25 participants in the Manufacturer's Challenge.  I didn't do the Black and White Challenge.  I learned how to play Dragon's Lair, Circus Charlie, and Paperboy during the tournament, as I had never really played those much before.  (I have a Circus Charlie board set in my Kicker for friends to enjoy but I had played maybe three games of it ever before Grinkfest.)  Had never played Earthshaker pinball before at all.  Alpine Ski was set on harder settings than TG, but despite owning one I haven't played it much yet and have never learned how to play this game properly.

Ehhhh what else...  games on my want list are a Pole Position upright, Food Fight, and an original Dragon's Lair cab running Daphne on an SSD so the video quality doesn't suck and the game is more reliable, and so I can also play Space Ace, which I actually played more of as a kid.  I wouldn't mind a Monaco GP mini or a Berzerk running JROK's FPGA board, but as long as I don't have those two it gives me a great excuse to go to my friend Gary's awesome home arcade whenever he's hosting something.

Yo, Sante! Glad you made it here.

Ha! I didn't know you were at Richies when we were there. And, I took a photo of you? FUNNY!