Earlier this week I wrote about the time I spent at the 1UP Arcade in Denver attending the Kong Off 3, but my buddy Robb Sherwin took me to visit a few other local arcades over the weekend as well. THE 2UP 717 East Colfax Avenue, Denver, Colorado Just across town from the 1UP is the 2UP. While the space may be slightly smaller, the fun was just as big. My buddy Robb (you can see him in the picture there) and I spent several hours hanging out at the 2UP playing games and watching football. Like the 1UP, all… (read more)
Posted by RobOHara ( @Commodork) on November 20th, 2013 in Adventures, Arcades/Arcade GamesAt 5:15 A.M. on Monday morning, a Kansas state trooper pulled me over. By that time I had already been on the road for two hours, doing five over the whole time. “The reason I pulled you over,” he said, “was because you were swerving a bit back there. Everything okay in here?” “Oh yes sir,” I responded, “just a little tired. I left Denver this morning around 3 A.M. and I’m heading back home to Oklahoma City.” “Mmm,” he said. “What were you doing in Denver?” “Well sir, I just got back from attending the Kong Off 3, the… (read more)
Posted by RobOHara ( @Commodork) on November 19th, 2013 in Arcades/Arcade Games, PodcastI’m home from Denver after attending the Kong Off 3. What a fun weekend! I’ll be writing more about it tomorrow, but to hold you over until then, here are a few recent podcasts I’ve appeared on. You Don’t Know Flack Episode 145: About Podcasting Episode 145 of You Don’t Know Flack is all about podcasting, literally. In this episode I talk about what it takes to start and run a podcast. On this episode I was joined by 8 fellow podcasters who also give their input and advice. If you have ever wanted to start your own podcast, this… (read more)
To whom it may concern: I am writing to inform you that effective immediately, my son will no longer be delivering newspapers for the Daily Sun. Additionally, I have grave concerns regarding the safety of the route he was assigned that I would like to bring to your attention. I initially allowed my son to take this part time job due to its relatively straight forward route and small number of customers. Despite only having ten customers (on a street with 20 houses), my son must cross three busy intersections. Despite having crosswalks, cross traffic does not stop or even… (read more)
Posted by RobOHara ( @Commodork) on September 17th, 2013 in Arcades/Arcade GamesLast weekend the family and I drove to Bentonville, Arkansas to attend my buddy Brian’s 40th birthday party. The next morning on the way out of town we swung through Fayetteville and stopped by the Arkadia Retrocade. Arkadia has changed a bit since our last visit. There are more games now (close to 95, I think) and they’re laid out more logically now. All the Mario games are up front, all the space games are in a small island together, all the military games are in a row, and so on. On Sundays Arkadia is open from noon until 6pm.… (read more)
Posted by RobOHara ( @Commodork) on August 30th, 2013 in Arcades/Arcade Games, Raspberry PiIn the comments of my last Raspberry Pi post, reader Ben politely pointed out “you’re doing it wrong.” And I was. Along with a couple of other helpful suggestions, Ben also pointed me toward PiMame, which comes as a precompiled image — simply download, extract, boot, and play. Now that the raspberry Pi is out of the box and connected, I only had two goals: 01. Download/extract/configure PiMame 02. Play games. Would this one work better than my first go ’round with RetroPie? Read on! 01. Download/extract/configure PiMame I downloaded PiMame 0.7.8 from the following link: http://blog.sheasilverman.com/pimame-raspberry-pi-os-download/. I used Win32… (read more)
It’s been a few weeks (apparently) since I announced my new podcast episodes here. Episode 127 is about BASIC programming. This one has old stories about programming in BASIC, a few new stories about Visual Basic, and some new forks of the BASIC programming language that are still being updated. Episode 128 is (fittingly) about the Commodore 128. Packed in and around stories about the C128 are a couple of stories about S.A.M., the old voice synthesizer for the Commodore. Episode 129 is all about the collection of arcade games I owned while I lived in El Reno, Oklahoma. The… (read more)
Here’s the second post that got gummed up in the system. Episode 125 of You Don’t Know Flack is all about the video game crash of 1983. “It was a dark and stormy night…” or was it really? In this episode I talk all about the causes of the video game crash of 1983, and why I missed it. From the voice mail box I answer the question, “what’s the worst arcade conversion I’ve ever seen?” Link: YDKF Episode 125: The Video Game Crash of 1983 Facebook: You Don’t Know Flack (Video Game Crash. Get it?)
This podcast is actually two weeks old, but for some reason this announcement didn’t go through. So, here it is. Episode 124 of You Don’t Know Flack is a recap of my visit to the new Arkansas retro arcade, Arkadia Retrocade. Our visit to the arcade sure helped cure my case of Pac-Man Fever! Link: YDKF Episode 124: The Arkadia Retrocade Facebook: You Don’t Know Flack (I have no idea why he is pretending to play guitar in this clip.)
Posted by RobOHara ( @Commodork) on November 30th, 2012 in Arcades/Arcade GamesA block and a half beyond the Freemont Experience in downtown Las Vegas sits Insert Coin(s), a “Videolounge Gamebar” at 512 Fremont St. I haven’t been to every big retro arcade across the country, but I hit a lot of them while working on my book Invading Spaces and had hoped to hit Insert Coin(s) the last time I was in Vegas. Unfortunately we had the kids with us that time, which meant we ended up visiting the family-friendly Pinball Hall of Fame over the more adult-oriented Insert Coin(s). This time around, no kids meant I was able to finally… (read more)
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