need help with possible new cabinet build...

[severdhed]

well, just recently i upgraded my cabinet.  i replaced the dead monitor with a new one, replaced the x-arcade control panel with all new controls (u360s, utrak) and upgraded the PC as well.  i'd still like to do some side art or something, but the cabinet needs sanded and repainted, so that will have to wait until it is warmer outside.

so, now i have a gutted x-arcade, fully functional PC and recently got a free 17" LCD that someone was getting rid of.  so I'm itching to build a new cabinet.  I originally had 3 cabinets...one that was complete and two that were works in progress.  when we bought a house last summer, i had to make some sacrifices.  the place we were renting had a finished basement, so i had plenty of room for my projector setup and a few cabinets.  the house we bought doesnt have basement that is suitable for finishing.  it gets a little water in now and then and just isn't laid out right.

but we do have a decent sized family room on the main floor that we didnt have before.  i have my theater setup in there as well as my first cabinet, that i named ZakMan after our first son Zakary.

so now that we have another son, i would like to build a cabinet that i can name after him somehow.  i don't really have the room for another upright cabinet..so i am considering either a cocktail cabinet/coffee table, a mini upgright cabinet for the kids to play on, or perhaps a small wall mounted unit.

since i am using this LCD monitor, i think a cocktail is out of the question since the viewing angle sucks.  i'm not a big fan of cocktails anyway.   it is only a 17" monitor, so a small cabinet would be best matched to it's size anyway.    but i need some ideas.

the cabinet i have now is an upright cabinet, with a 19" monitor mounted horizontally with 2 sticks, 6 buttons and a trackball.  I've come up with a few rough plans, but am not sure the direction i should take this project.

my first plan was to mount the monitor vertically, two players each with an 8way stick and probably 4 buttons.  that should be enough to handle most of the vertical games.   but the problem is alot of the vertical games i like to play use either a 4way stick, or a trackball. ( i love centipede) 

i thought about just making it a single player panel with a 4way stick and 3 or 4 buttons..but that would really limit the amount of games that could be played on it.  plus the 4way stick that i have is really not that great. 

or i could just use a horizontal monitor and make it basically a smaller version of my current cabinet, without the trackball.  that way the kids could play on it without beating on my u360 sticks.

then comes the name.  i'm not sure what to call it.  I started my first cabinet before we had kids, but once my son Zakary was born, i decided that it should be named after him...it didnt take too long before Zak-Man popped into my head..it was an easy thing to do.  the problem now is that my other son is named Xander.  i'm just not finding anything that fits as easily as zakman did.  so if you have any suggestions...please let me know.

[garnerb350]

Xandercade???

Use the "X" on the x-arcade as your base for the art scheme

( just off the top of my head)

X-cutioner???