Among other things that have kept me very busy recently... -I also
managed to purchase my first two arcade machines.

In my entire life, I only ever promised myself twice I'd own
particular arcades: Black Tiger and Street Fighter II: CE.

And now I have both.

http://members.shaw.ca/media1/ma.html

I didn't have any interest in owning World Warrior, nor Hyper
Fighting, SUPER: New Challengers or SUPER Turbo.

It's always been SFII: CE. I can still remember the day I promised
myself I'd own it some day... at the time, I figured it'd be years
into the future. I never thought that it'd be this soon.

I was always glad that PCE only got CE, since it's my fav SFII and
the best of the bunch.

Its the original cabinet. The only thing missing is the cardboard
frame around the screen advertising the players(but I'll soon track
one down).

Its in great condition and the screen is good as new(it was hardly
used).

Now, as cool as that is, to me, the big deal is managing to find my
absolute fav arcade of all time locally:

Black Tiger.

It's still the best all round arcade game of all time(in my opinion
at least).

I'm just about back to being able to finish it with one quarter
(credit). Its just the cheap deaths that get me.

Its in a cocktail table with flipping screen(for 2 player). Like with
SFIICE, the controls are pretty much perfect.

It was filthy, inside in particular. Basically a 20+ year old ash
tray. But I did an amazing job cleaning it out and resupporting the
hanging arcade board.

The sides had ugly fake wood panelling and the legs had peeling
chrome, half rusted and caked with grime.

I took the legs off, cleaned and stripped them, then painted
everything with black enamel(even the under side of the glass).

It took about a week, but now it's better than new.

Its also got a custom credit button on the bottom side near the 1P
controls.

I still have to get around to cleaning the SFIICE properly, but it'll
have to wait until I free up some time.

I have Bloody Wolf, P.O.W. and Shinobi JAMMA boards coming in the
mail to use in my SFIICE cabinet.

I plan to collect every decent arcade game I played when I was
younger, along with all the Turbografx arcade ports and most of the
PCE.

I also have brand new unpealed side art marquee for Ghosts & Goblins
that I'm saving for my next dedicated cabinet(+ Final Fight sideart
and Strider marquee too, -but will just save for now).