Arcade Road Trip 24th April, 2010

I don't know... I'm wondering if I have been effected by repeated viewings of Dave Gorman's fantastic slideshows - or to perhaps demonstrate what's involved in a arcade road trip, I thought it worthwhile knocking up a blog of a Saturday spent in the sun - behind a steering wheel!

So its Saturday, the suns up and the vans pre-loaded with arcade goodies wanting new homes.

I'm up early and set off to pick up my partner in crime, in infamous Arcade Oll... Here he is, naturally up and ready to start the road trip.... well - after 20 minutes of me standing on his doorstep waiting for him to sort his life out!

Van filled from top to bottom with arcade cabs!. Lets roll! So Up the A3, round the M25, and down the A25 to Dorking, we reach our first partner in crime... Karl Doe. This guy is a laser legend and had a few workign which he turned on - along with other cabs - for us to just nod and smile and politely say we didn't have time - strict deadlines today... but at

10:26AM - 97 Miles under the belt, Karl Does gets his Star Rider:

Ignore the plaster dust wont you? Something I've been waiting to settle for 2-3 years at my unit. Sigh! Still - he looks happy enough. And Dave Gorman - eat your heart out - we have a "collection" of arcade cab customers receiving their wares [see Dave Gorman's Google whack adventure for what I'm referring to - classic beyond classic story telling and my personal hero!]

Anyhow, KD's cab wasn't on the original schematics for this trip which means we're at south London at the time I'd agree to be at Bedford - none other than MikeDX's. I'd be so sincere and so organised that he had collected P-Man and phoned me to ask where I was as we drove away from Karl's arcade shanty arcade town. Well we were  good while as P-man had left us to it by the time we arrived, but....

 12:44, with 192 mile son the clock, we filed MikeDX's garage with a pile of machines:

Yes - apart from returning his Outrun that had been at RetroKade for too many years to mention, the silly sod had chosen now as a time to enhance his collector status and bought 3 project cabs: Operation Wolf, Gauntlet and Marble Madness. I know he's back up and running with outrun and know the Gauntlet and perhaps Operation wolf will be simple tweaks.

So now Oll and I head for Banbury. Bearing in mind I was mostly dropping off stuff, this was a stop for myself: I'd arranged with Archer to purchase a zookeeper converted to a pac-land. Everythign was in order. everythign was great, but Oll opened a can of whoop-ass and the next thing i know:

15:12 - 220 miles - Rav unexpectedly buys a 2nd cab!

Yes...I'd bought a dedicated Major Havoc. An elitist machine but one I'd had before and I'm pleased I did. but it was a bank breaker as I just thought I was collecting the zookeeper conversion. Still 2 in the van for me! But we've wasted allot of time now and we knew we had a deadline with the Arcade Barn where I had to deliver my final cab in the van.

But I'd made arrangements - seeing as we were passing to drop of a cab to Ade in Cheltenham. The sat av took us to Birmingham on the M40, then M42 then M5 down but we got there at sending misleading sms messages to the guys at the barn so they didn't just up and leave. regardless, we fought thru traffic to Ade's:

17:05 - 326 Miles - Manic cab swap at Ade's

Yeah we'd gone hell for leather and Ade got his Astro Blaster. Oll picked up his Buck Rogers cockpit - all the while trying to fly under the radar of the arcade barn - but they'd been chatting on mobiles so the game was up. however, back on the road - 90 all the way once we were back on the M5, we caught up a little ground...

19:45 - 445 Miles: Dave Spicer gets to get his Firefox project

Yeah we screamed to them and luckily the guys (Aran, Bruce and Dave) had what seemed happily waited for us after all so Dave got his Firefox and showed us a proto LD replication, and Oll crammed a Starblade into the van!

So about 7:55, we said our goodbyes and went on our journey home - again at about 90 - until I got home 23:45 - 596 Miles and sank a beer.

ow thats what you call a arcade roadtrip!