Okay, so I had some extra money floating around and I was wanting something big to replace the foosball table we had. I'd always wanted an arcade game, and I just got the bug. So Ryan and I went looking, checked out the local Wunderland and within about a week and a half I'd bought this machine. The story continues below.

Above you see my buddies Joel (he's bending over), Pletsch (guy in the corner) and Ryan (my roommate) helping to unload the Player 1 side of the game. I snapped this candid shot after we already had the Player 2 side inside. You'll notice the coinbox attached to the lower right side of the machine pictured.

Okay, so the story goes like this. Ryan and I were out on a Monday early afternoon. I had several hundred dollars cash and the urge to buy an arcade game. We drove out to the Wunderland on 82nd Ave. that used to be the old Games People Play. We pulled up in Ryan's GTI and talked to the counter guy to get in and look around without paying the $2.25 it costs to get in. The manager was on break, but would be back in about 10 minutes. Ryan and I checked out the games for sale, and I decided on the Virtual ON, even though the Player 2 side had display problems and it was being sold "as-is."

The price was right, after spending some nickels on games, the manager arrived and I said I wanted to buy the Virtual ON. Breif explaination that it was a cash sale, no guarantees, etc. I was prepared for that. So, I handed over the cash, signed the receipt and the game was mine. Ryan and I then went off down the road to the U-Haul so I could rent a truck. I got one for about twenty bucks. Drove back to the arcade, and we started unbolting the two halves. A higher-up guy with Wunderland came and he helped us get the game apart. He was a dumbass though basically. Luckily the game is on caster wheels with leveling feet. So, once unbolted apart from each other, the games roll easily across the floor. With the handy ramp on the U-Haul truck and the three of us, it was no problem to load the two halves into the truck.

The dumbass guy gave us some racket straps that he never saw again ;-) to secure the game into place. We cranked down a couple of the leveling feet and the thing was secured solid. Then I got in the truck and started to slowly drive home. And anyone that knows me knows I don't like to drive anything big. But with Ryan following me in the GTI I made it home just fine. We then called the guys.

We'd figured out how to move the game out of the truck, but from past experinces with the TV showed, getting anything really big and heavy up the wooden steps onto the porch was a big pain in the ass. Ryan and Pletch (who'd come over by now, he lives across the street) went to get some food. I drove my Subaru XT to the lumbar yard and bought a sheet of 3/4" plywood. The plywood was jury-rigged to the top of my car with twine and I drove home with one hand out the window holding on to it the whole way home. But the plywood made for a beautiful ramp when laid on the wooden steps up to the porch. Fit perfectly, the four foot wide by eight foot long sheet.

As mentioned earlier, I don't drive big things. Joel on the other hand, he drives a similar truck for work everyday. So he backed the U-Haul up onto the curb and we used the ramp pulled straight out as a bridge to get the game onto the landing. We have 5 or 6 concrete steps from the sidewalk that go up to a landing. The landing then has wooden steps that lead up to the porch. Backing the truck up was an interesting endeavor. The tranny in the thing was shot and it wouldn't go into reverse and we almost had it stuck nose-in to the curb across the street. Then backing it up onto the curb took speed and a lack of concern for the rental truck. Almost broke the handrailing by the concrete steps, but not quite.

We'd moved the furniture out of the way in the house, and soon enough the four of us were pushing the Player 2 side out of the truck, across the ramp bridge, swiveling it, muscle-ing it up the plywood onto the porch, and wheeling it into position in the house. The wheels didn't even mar the hardwood floors in the duplex. The whole process was actually very easy. We'd been prepared for a big ordeal, but it went very smoothly and was MUCH easier than moving in the big screen.

We had to take the coinbox off of the Player 1 side on the porch to get it to fit through the door, but after that all we had to do was bolt the two back together and connect the wires. Joel did most of this. We plugged her in and fired it up. Worked like a champ (well, as good as she had at Wunderland).

We commenced playing.

Being a Monday, I had to work at the bar at 8pm, so I drove the U-Haul back with Ryan following again in the GTI. THe hot girl at the U-Haul (and she was hot) gave me $20 off the rental because of the screwy tranny. Total cost was about $50 for the rental, but well worth it. I paid $425.00 for the game.

I ended up having a repairman come out to try and fix the Player 2 side. Ends up it is a bad boardset, I need a new one. If anyone has one, please let me know. Total cost for diagnosis and attempts at repair cost me $175.00. So I'm into the thing for around $600 total, and she's damn impressive for the money. The Virtual ON is usually the first thing people notice when they walk through the front door of the place. One of the main reasons I bought it.