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Noob asking for guidance/opinions on a few fronts

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NoSkill:
The problem with a cocktail is that there is no way I'm going to be able to hide it in the house when I'm gone (or easily lug it around) and I really do not want anyone touching this thing when I'm gone. Story time: the first few years the gf and I lived in our current house, we would leave our wireless router and ADSL modem plugged so people could surf the net. We made it very clear in our "rule sheet" that there were no guarantees the thing would work and that calling the agency that took care of our bookings was useless if they encountered a problem (I had issues with my provider and my internet would be down for days at a time).   

Fast forward to last year: we get a phonecall, while we were 500km away, from the receptionist at the agency. Some jackass had made a scene in their offices about our internet not working and started to demand refunds and what not. We also had kids who got to our Wii (we didn't have a locked room back then, we simply hid it below our staircase) and they managed to break a controller. So I clearly do not want these people to have access to a machine that is most assuredly not as user friendly as a wireless router or kid friendly as a Wii game system. But 99% of the people who come to our house are made out of pure awesome, you just have to think about the sleazeballs and doofuses constantly, so now we don't even mention we have internet and just put away the modem and router. 

Plus, I'm hella whipped and the gf would probably not approve of a cocktail. Gotta ease her in this hobby before building a huge stand up complete with lightguns, steering wheel, flight yoke, and 150 LED pushbuttons :cheers:

bkenobi:
There are a number of examples here of people building cabinets that resemble furniture more than a classic upright cab.  I can't remember who built it, but one person here built a cocktail style cab out of an old radio (you know the big wooden box type).  There's also examples of ones built into coffee tables that can either be hidden (you can't tell it's an arcade) or ones that are tastefully incorporated.

If people treat your stuff like crap and are searching your premises for whatever they can find and abuse, I don't see how anything would work for you.  If someone can locate a Wii (smaller than a bread box) then how are you going to hide a bartop (many times larger than a bread box)?

IG-88:
I'm sorry but I guess I'm just a hick. What the hell do you do for a living? You rent out your house AND belongings to total strangers?

HanoiBoi:

--- Quote from: IG-88 on December 14, 2009, 10:57:01 pm ---I'm sorry but I guess I'm just a hick. What the hell do you do for a living? You rent out your house AND belongings to total strangers?

--- End quote ---

IG-88, pretend it's a shore house.  When you rent out a house, condo, apt, etc., you rent the house and whatever's in it, not locked up. 

NoSkill, I know it's not as aesthetically pleasing, but have you considered simply a portable control panel and laptop running MAME?  You could make it wide enough for two players and it would be very portable.  Maybe a rubber matted bottom to keep it from slipping on any (well, most) surfaces that you might decide to plant it.

An earlier thought I had would be to make something sturdy enough to withstand a small beating, AND disable it when you are renting ("Sorry, it's currently not working").  Then you could offer up a PS2 or something as a sacrifice.   ;)

NoSkill:
I guess I should explain better my situation. I live in a town that is swamped with tourists during summertime due to the view and the sea. Thus, for people that like to travel or go camping, it's very attractive to rent during summer since it's easy money. We haven't had a year in four years where we weren't booked to the gills. Plus, it helps A LOT with the house payments, you just have to make a few concessions along the way: ie. not having a dedicated game room/basement lounge (yet) and instead having 3 bedrooms. We also put away any personal belongings when we are gone (clothes, books, etc.): so the only "personal" stuff they mess with are our beds (we use plastic covers and different bedware, don't worry) and cookware (I also put away my best knives). 

HanoiBoi, I currently have an X-Arcade controller hooked up to my laptop and I find it less than satsifactory. On a tangent, the people who broke our Wii controller paid it in full, so it's not a case of people being ?$%?"$ as much as kids playing hide and seek, pulling the box on the top shelf and the controller slamming on the ground and breaking. Now we have a locked crawspace where we can hide stuff that a bartop could easily fit in.

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