Wifey Threw Me A 40th Birthday Arcade Party!

It’s been a busy couple of months for arcade-related things here, but this one takes the cake- Wifey threw me a 40^th birthday arcade party!  You have to understand, my wife hates my arcade hobby, hates my arcade games, hates my pinball machines, hates my key chain orders, etc. and then she goes and does this!  Man, I love her.

She approached me about a month before my birthday and told me her whole plan.  I was stoked.  She wanted to keep it a surprise, but also knew that I had a few projects in the garage that I wanted to finish, wasn't sure who and how many to invite, etc.  She said that I would've been mad if it was a surprise and I had a few games sitting unfinished in the garage.  She's right!

Anyway, it was then “go time.”  I needed to finish my multi-rotary cabinet, Champ Sprint and pick up another pin before the party.  I scored a Harlem Globetrotters pin for a decent price and quickly added it to the line up (previous post).

I shopped out both of my pins- cleaned and waxed the playfields, re-rubbered, changed all burnt bulbs and one socket.  I even put a few colored LEDs in my Sorcerer back box.  I put 2 red ones for the dragon's eyes and alternating blue and purple ones for the sorcerer's lightning.  It looks pretty sweet.  I then put together my Champ Sprint and the Heavy Barrel multi cab.  Here's a pic of the garage line up.  The fully restored games are in the game room.

Here is the full line up:

Garage:

- Harlem Globetrotters pin

- Sorcerer pin

- Neo Geo (running 161-1 cart)

- Heavy Barrel (running Heavy Barrel/Ikari Warriors)

- Championship Sprint

Game room:

- Mario Bros. widebody

- Time Pilot

- MultiWilliams

- Crystal Castles

- Pac-Man cabaret (running 60-1 with LL adapter)

- Playchoice 10

Then the party came.  We had about 80 people (kids and adults) in and out throughout the evening.  No rain, everyone showed up and played games.  I blew a breaker twice, but as soon as I moved the music, everything ran smoothly the rest of the night.  The only other issue was that Time Pilot's switcher flaked out around 11:30 and I just shut it down at that point.  I took very few pictures, as I was busy drinking and talking to everyone but here are a few...

My sister-in-law has a custom cookie business and she surprised me with these:

 

My boss and his wife came up with an extremely thoughtful gift!

And here’s a rare site- my wifey enjoying herself playing pinball!  It made it all worthwhile.