Hello all,
My name is Brad, and I am from Sedalia, MO. I too am new to the hobby, but I have jumped in with both feet. The amount of information I have learned over the past 3 months rivals that learned during my entire doctoral studies, and I have never been happier. I am a police officer in the Kansas City, Missouri Metro area and an adjunct college professor in my spare time. I am also a research assistant at NDRI specializing in police health research.
I started my addiction like most of you as a child in the 80's spending my time at the local arcade. My fondest memories are playing Zaxxon and
at the roller rink and dumping countless tokens in Dragon's Lair only to die within seconds (50 cents a pop!!!). In 2009 I obtained my first multicade. It was a fluke running across it, but I was the happiest kid on the block (yep...I said kid as I don't think I've grown up much...farts are still funny and, well, you get the point). After I graduated with my doctorate, and a long night of drinking, I stole my wife's credit card and ordered an X-Arcade which is basically a 250 in 1 MAME machine. I did it solely for Paperboy and Dragon's Lair. I told her about it while she was at work so the chance of a beating was substantially reduced. "Hey sweetie, I dropped 3 grand of a game last night, is that OK?" Then came discovery of John's videos.
After watching every episode of the Pac Man cabaret restore I was hooked. Feeling like an expert and clearly over-empowered I bought a couple dedicated cabs. I overpaid like nobody's business, but I don't think I really cared. I took a cat urine stained, sitting in a barn for the past decade Galaga and restored it to its original Galaxian (I still have to finish the wiring but it looks great and smells a ton better!). Since then, I have purchased a few more. In the three months since discovering John's videos and realizing I might be able to do this, I have 6 cabs. Yesterday I removed my bar from the basement to make room for more.
So, thank you for the intro to a phenomenal hobby! I look forward to discussions with you all!
Brad Anders
