Despite the best attempt by people to block me from closing on my house Friday, the extremely helpful Closing Agent was able to get me all of the paperwork I needed on Thursday night and my wife was able to track down everything we needed in order to get the agent the paperwork on Friday morning. We had everything scheduled to shut off by the end of this week and the movers were scheduled for Saturday, so we had no time to spare. We closed on the house with money to spare, which was quite surprising, but quite welcome all the same.
Fast forward to Saturday, and I get a call from the movers that they can't move my Arcade Cabinets. I specifically told them that I was on the 3rd floor, but that wasn't communicated to them and they only move those from 1st floor to 1st floor due to insurance reasons. A quick call to their manager later and a waive of the insurance and down they went. It turns out the movers were retro enthusiasts, and we were chatting about NCAA Football (the title I've worked on for the past two years here at Electronic Arts) and their memories of the Sega Dreamcast. They were excited about the Neo Geo cabinet I have, and took great attention not to hurt anything. They did an awesome job, and didn't leave any scuffs in the new house, even in the narrow stairwell.
To top things off, Crabmaster stopped by on Sunday. We played a few different fighting games on Xbox 360 - I beat him on Street Fighter II', he beat me on BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger and we evened up on Soul Calibur IV. We also stopped by the flea market nearby, where there was a ton of vendors with random video games. I stopped by one vendor that I normally visit, since he used to own a brick-and-mortar store, but his assistant was there. Still, Crabmaster ended up nabbing about 20 games with a Buy1Get1 deal on the Nintendo titles, and we both picked up a copy of Gunvalkyrie for the Xbox.
However, another vendor I've previously bought Atari and Genesis titles from was extremely generous. He normally marks things are reasonable rates, which is unusual in my area. However, he knows that I'm a collector and I mentioned that Crabmaster was a collector as well. Crabmaster picked up a stack of games for ~$60, but only had $36 in his wallet after the previous stop. The guy gave the stack to him for $36 and told him to enjoy them and come by next time he's down from Canada. He also gave me half off everything I picked up, letting me know that he'd rather me have the stuff than a random kid who would end up destroying it. I ended up picking up 5 CIB Atari 2600 games (Original Lineup games, like Outlaw), a NIB Atari 5200 title (Pole Position), CIB Saturn title (Die Hard Arcade), and numerous CIB Genesis titles.
Even better, he pulled out a briefcase and asked if I wanted to see what was inside. I'm always curious, and vendors are always nuts on what they have secreted away. He unveiled a Philips CD-i 220 with a remote, 8 CIB games, and a brand new Gamepad. He set it up to show me that it was working, but the remote wasn't working for him. Since he couldn't get it up and running, he gave it to me for half off ($50). I brought it home to test it, and the remote isn't working and the CD tray isn't on the track. The remote likely needs the contacts cleaned and touched up, and the tray is an easy fix.
Not a bad weekend at all.
Here's pictures of the house. I don't have the ridiculousness of the master bedroom/bathroom here, so I'll put those up once I get home:
A few of the cats during the move:
The house:
Entrance:
Kitchen:
Porch:
Living Room:
Game Room (60% of the move was this room, FYI. There's a lot more there than you can see):
Author
