Some of the parts have arrived

So far I've received the motherboard, processor, memory, power supply, cooler, ssd drive, and DVD drive. The main video card (GTX 285) that I ordered off of ebay is on it's way. I'm currently researching and finding my best option for the main playfield screen. In the running are several Sharp Aquos 42" and 46" as well as several Vizio 42". I'll be ordering a refurbished screen most likely because I don't need a warranty since the screen will be taken out of it's bezel. I've got a lead on a 19" samsung LCD to use for the DMD and I'll probably be buying a quality 32" for the backglass since I plan to play MAME on it. I'm also planning to take the processor and motherboard back to Fry's and look at getting the processor from Micro Center, they've got an i7-930 for a good price which is a step up from the i5-750. The only drawback is the i7 motherboards are more expensive, but I want this build to be solid and crazy fast. The 1356 socket will also be more future proof with hexa and octa cores coming soon. I'll post a complete parts list once I get everything here. One of the cool things since this is a project on a budget, I've focused on watching ebay, craigslist, etc and landed some pretty good deals already.


On May 22nd I'm planning to go to a pinball auction in Anaheim and hopefully find a non working, wide-body pinball machine to use as the base for this project. I'm also keeping an eye on craigslist and the other classifieds. I've heard stories of people finding such machines for $100-$200 complete with glass, plunger, buttons, coin door, legs, etc. If this doesn't work out then I will look to build my own cabinet, but was hoping to avoid that.

Start of a new project - Pinball Cabinet

Recently I got back into MAME so that I could play a bunch of the old games I really enjoy as well as try and find some news ones. The plan was to get MAME all setup and then consider building a stand up cabinet as I've always wanted such a setup since I was a kid. While reading several MAME forums I came across virtual pinball which I had never seen before. I've always been a fan of pinball, but wouldn't own a machine, because it would get old playing the same game for years on end. A couple of hours later I had Visual Pinball and Future Pinball running and I was hooked. Being able to play nearly all the boards I've always enjoyed as well as new ones and classics I've never seen is pretty darn cool. Shortly after I started reading about virtual pinball and found people that have taken either old pinball cabinets or made their own, put in a computer, several LCD screens among other things and the result is a virtual pinball cabinet with 100's of tables. This really intrigued me and it seemed like something I could and would want to do. The other kicker was that I could use the 32" screen that is used on the backglass of the cabinet to play MAME on as well so I could have both virtual pinball and MAME going. So the build is on, I've done a ton of research and started ordering the parts, more to come...

Won a WSOP $1K seat

A few years back I went deep at a tournament at the Bicycle Casino and with the winnings I bought into the WSOP $1500 event because I really wanted to experience it. Long story short, it was fun, but a real crap shoot and I decided not to buy in directly to the WSOP again due to the variance and not having a bankroll deep enough to play large buy in tournaments. However, if I satellited in I would play and so I set out to do that this year. I was running a WSOP league that didn't quite get off the ground, so one of my friends, Todd, decided to do a one day tournament with several mini tournaments to get a seat at the satellite. I had already won a mini satellite a month back or so for my league, and decided to give another shot at a mini satellite which I did on Sunday morning. I was the short stack when we chopped 3 ways, so I didn't win the complete buy in, but it covered about half, combined that with my other win and I was freerolling. So the main tournament was on Sunday after the mini satellite and I was able to make it into the top 4. After hours of playing 4 handed (the tournament only paid 3 seats), we decided to chop evenly and pay 4 seats. So in early June I'll be playing in my 2nd WSOP event, this time it only cost me about $20 to get in to the 1K event, not too bad. I also have a %5 share of the other seat winners, so there's a good chance we'll get something out of this. I'm also going to be playing several other tournaments in Vegas during that week, in hopes for a big score. I've gotten close quite a few times at the Venetian, and figure I have what it takes to win, just need things to come together on one day.