On an unrelated note, I thought I'd post these images- if only to show that when I can't be at home trying to build my cab, I'm busy dreaming about it at work.
These are the result of now cancelled plans to take the show and tell aspect of the project to even more ridiculous levels. Since I enjoyed making the mock ads so much I thought I'd mock up an actual magazine for the project. It was gonna be one of those absurd single issue commemorative magazines you find briefly on newstands after questionably significant events like royal weddings. After finding a magazine printer who could actually produce a bunch of them for a couple hundred bucks I decided I had to do it.
Until my wife refused to tell me what she thought of the idea. That meant it had nothing to do with money... she was in "protect my feelings" mode. Further badgering got her to admit that she thought it was ridiculous to the point of embarassing. I dimissed it laughing that I already knew that. But her look made me suddenly realize how right she was. It wasn't that she thought it was riduculous. It was that she thought it was pathetic. I started to feel like I was obsessing over the project like some teenage kid with a lowered honda and a two foot tall scoop on the trunk.... so no magazine.
Cover idea #1
Wrong, Wrong, Wrong!
My wife accepts my childlike enthusiasm for my cabinet project. It's nerdy. I can come to terms with that. My brother and Sister In Law were up for superbowl. They both said that when they heard the idea they throught it would be crappy. When they saw it, they said it looked like something you would buy. My Sister In Law, actually asked me where I bought the cabinet part (which I built), after I told her I bought the CP parts from real arcade suppliers. We all had a great deal of fun playing it. Every person has "their" game. My Sister In Law was nostalgic about Tetris because she and her cousins took a roadie when the were younger with only gameboy tetris to play. She said herself, it can be a bit nerdy, but it's not like it's the only thing you do. I play sports (broke my leg doing it), teach skiing, build other home projects like fences, shelves etc...
Additional to that anecdote:
My wife laid out all of her wedding pictures with an online company which publishes a bound book. I though that was a little obsessive.... but change the subject matter to, oh, I don't know, an arcade cabinet project..... I can tell you that her mother, all her girlfriends, my mohter... every woman who has seen the bound wedding picture book went absolutely batty over how beautiful it was and how nice it was to have it all bound in a professional looking package. I'd wager any red blooded man who has ever picked up as much as a hobby knife will give the male equivalent response.
Think on that when you ask you yourself if you really want to do up a magazine. Consider also that FutureShop, Loblaws, Kodak... just about anywhere that does digital image processing now offer a book binding service.
Besides you could consider it a graphic design portfolio piece. I don't know if you're a designer by profession, but you're pretty damn good at it.
oops.. was quoting instead of modifying.