Change is Coming

Last night we were up late. We did a microdose of shrooms and had a very long discussion about how we feel about the games and where we want to go from here.

We made the decision to not do any cons this year.

Yep, you read that right.

We have been feeling obligated to do them – especially Momo, because we know they keep inviting us as a courtesy. They certainly don’t need our small selection of games, but we’ve been with them for a long time and we REALLY appreciate their continued support of us.

We ADORE FWA, and we hate to bail after only one year, but we must.

We may not do cons again, ever. We are old (no joke) and it’s just too physically exhausting to shlep a dozen games back and forth – even with help.

So, Nick will do SFGE, most likely, and that’s it.

We are going to sell off all games that Nick does not want to keep for his personal collection. If you are looking for a game, please to be following POAS on FB.

And the money we get from this sell off will go towards…something. A project that we BOTH can get into and enjoy. We’d love to get a classic car to futz with, but we don’t have a garage. We might get a classic motorcycle. We might start doing autocross with Romeo. We might get back to doing comics. Nick wants to do some gardening. We’ll probably start yoga again. We will DEFINITELY take a real vacation, godsdammit.

We are tired of being OBLIGATED to the games. They have become an anchor and certainly NOT FUN. We’ll keep our main client (MPB) and rotate games in and out of there so they get played. We are wrapping up the last few private clients and cutting them loose, too. Basically we’re shutting down POAS, but not ending it, since we’ll still have a couple of clients. We’ll keep the site up and field enquiries. I’ve got referrals for repairs and monitors.

We are changing our focus and energy. It needs to happen, desperately. We’ve spent almost 10 years on the games and that is enough. Time to move on. We are grateful for all the support we’ve gotten from everyone over the years. THANK YOU.

Summertime and the Conning is Easy!

Not really, cons are HARD when you shlep arcade games! LOL

We’re in the middle of our 6 weeks of cons. MomoCon is in the can and it was AWESOME!! The fan base is excellent, the staff of Momo is nice and responsive – we were treated very well. Even the dock of the GWCC was great! They let us drive the truck right onto the floor to our area and unload! It took 15 minutes! SAHWEET!! Even with $900 of expenses (truck and hotel), we made a little money.

Speaking of trucks, if you use rentals as much as we do, I highly recommend setting up a business account with Penske. We get a great rate on the rental, plus uber cheap mileage and we can pick up the truck the night before. Very handy!! We use 16′ trucks with liftgate currently, it’ll probably go up next year when we have more games. We had an issue with a truck last weekend – nails in tire – but they got us fixed up and back on the road in about an hour and credited us for lost time. The Penske truck yard is next to Nick’s work, so that helped. If you use trucks often, get a business account. It will save you hundreds!

I’ve finally broken the 185 barrier. My current weight is 184.2, but we all know that it’s probably 188 today, since that’s the way my weight goes. I’m happy that it’s moving again. Cutting back on the vino and starting harder exercise is probably helping.

Speaking of exercise, I’ve got a weight routine going. Sadly, I blew out my left knee with squats yesterday, so those will be skipped for a week or so, but hopefully I can still do extensions and curls despite my knees being little bitches. Here is what I currently do 3x/week:

Treadmill: 1 mile walk/jog warm up (or a full 30 min routine depending on my mood)
Free Weights:
60# leg extensions 3×12 (sets/reps) [this one needs to go up to 65-70#]
35# leg curls 3×12 [might go to 40# for this]
50# squats 3×12 [if my knees will tolerate them; we shall see]
8# bicep curls 3×12 [need to get 10# weights]
8# tricep rows 3×12 [need to work on form for these]
10# medicine ball core side to sides 25 sets

That’s it currently. I’ve got to go back on turmeric for my crunchy knees and see if I can convince them to allow me to do squats. ::fingers crossed:: Squats are really very good for what I need: leg strength. They work the whole upper leg as well as glutes and core. I’m going to dial back the weight to 30-40# and see if that helps, but I’m not feeling confident. Stupid knees. Stupid marching band. Ugh.

Other than conventions and exercise, not much going on around here. The usual insomnia problems, etc. I’m trying to keep Nick on an even keel by providing good food and a calm space for him.

We’ve got Southern Fried Gameroom Expo next weekend, then Heroes right after that. SFGE is an unpaid con, so we’re taking whatever we feel like. Heroes is our vacay con, no worky! We are taking promo material to put out, but that’s it. We plan to take it easy and drink our way through the weekend! We’ve got dinner plans with some folks we rarely get to see but other than that, NO PLANS and NO SCHEDULE. Aaaaaahhh!

Once we’re back from vacay, we’ve got commissions to do and more games to prep for DragonCon (Labour Day weekend).

We have tickets to Heroes and Villains con in November. There was a special 2 for 1, so I picked up a pair. We’ll see what this con is all about! [It sucked. BUT Barrowman made the whole thing worth it! -A]

So that’s our summer! If you’re at Heroes, HOLLAH! We’d love to hang out!

Getting in Gear for DragonCon

Slowly getting used to being without my cow cat. It’s been hard. Shasti is cute, but just no substitute. Shasti has decided to be a house cat. I had to actually shove her out the door this morning! She stayed out for 10 minutes and came back in to play and use the litter box. What is it with girl cats and coming IN to pee? LOL

Operation Osteoporosis is still chugging along, although I think I’m starting to feel the omeprazole becoming less effective. I had reflux this morning, for the first time in about a month. Boo! If it stops working, I guess I’ll have to try another drug in that category. Ugh, I don’t know. Suck.

DragonCon is around the corner. No idea what I’m going to wear. I may have to buy another pair of jeans since the ones I got a month ago are already getting loose. Yay! The scale is still wacky; one day I’m 209, the next day I’m 214, so I’m going with the trend and saying I’m at 209, which is about 3# down from when I posted the video Aug 2. No idea about the weight, but my clothes are definitely fitting differently. I eat what I please, but it’s still restricted to about 4-5oz. Protein is still a challenge. Still drinking a shake or eating a protein bar every day.

On the drinking front, I FINALLY got drunk last Friday!! I’ve discovered these wine spritzer things by Barefoot wines that are yummy, so I take that and add a bit more wine to it. Works like a charm! I’m SO happy to have broken through the drinking barrier! I still do NOT get drunk on less volume, which is kind of a bummer, because it takes me a LONG time to get there. Also, it helps if I don’t eat. Which is, of course, NOT a problem! :P

The provisions for DragonCon will be Vitamin water, wine and protein bars. I actually recommend Premier Protein bars for anyone doing cons. They are 30gm protein, very little sugar and palatable. The shakes are good, too, but they have to be cold. You do NOT want to drink those warm. EW.

The arcade game business is starting to get a little action. We had a meeting with a potential client on Monday. We hope they decide to go with us. They had previously spoken to another company who talked a good game but ultimately did not have ANY classic arcade games, oops. Seems to me that the TYPE of game should have been the FIRST thing to ask about, not the last, but whatever. The bad news is that this company is one of those that splits the game profits and doesn’t charge anything to install the games, so the client had a preconceived notion that the games would cost nothing. I hope we got past that barrier by reminding them that if they rent from us, they KEEP all the proceeds from coins and we take care of the games for free. I’m not sure we did. We’ll see.

Which brings me to a small rant about these other game companies. They use the old model of coin operated games that splits the coin profits in lieu of actual rent. Well, what if the game earns $100? Then you have rented out that game for $50? Screw that. It’s not worth it to us. We would rather just rent the games and let the renter decide if he wants to deal with coins or just do free play. We think free play is the way to go, since people will play more and therefore eat and drink more at your bar. It certainly works for My Parents Basement. They LOVE having the games on free play! But if they want to deal with coins, great, deal with the licensing and all that and KEEP your profits. The games might pay for themselves! But for our part, we just want to make a certain amount for each game, so we can figure out how long it will take for the game to pay for itself. That way we can set goals for the company and manage our money better. I just wish the Old Skool guys would STFU about splitting coins and get out of the business – they mess up our groove. We have a modern model of running an arcade shop that we think will work just great for all involved. The Old Skool ways are outdated now that full on arcades are nonexistent. Sure, you could make a living off splitting coins in the old days, but now people have 4 or 5 games, not 40. This is why we created our model. I just hope the new clients will go for it. ::fingers crossed::

OH speaking of DragonCon, we are a part of the ARCADE that will be in the gaming area of DragonCon this year!! The gaming area is in the Atlanta Mart and the arcade will be in the middle of that, so I’m told. We’ll have Simpsons and Sharpshooter there for sure, and perhaps the Gauntlet II, but it died (of course) so probably not that one. ALL the games will be on free play! There’ll be 15 or so arcade games and several pinball games. COME SEE US!! We’ll likely be at the arcade area during the day for much of the con. Keep an eye on our FB (playeronearcadeservices) or Twitter (@playeronearcade) feeds for all the deets.

The hours for the arcade at DragonCon are as follows:
>>> Friday: 1pm to 7pm
>>> Saturday: 10am to 7pm
>>> Sunday: 10am to 7pm
>>> Monday: 10am to 5pm

We hope to see everyone at Con! (Yeah, right, that never happens, but we can dream!)