Picture Pile-up!

One of my resolustions this year is to go through my computer files and dump everything I don't need.

I thought I would share with you some pics and projects I had totally forgotten about.

First the projects:

This is a duck I made for the arrival of my friend Keith's son. Before he arrived on the scene, they called him "The Captain", so I made this as a joke. These are all 1/8" quilling strips, and my first attempt at doing flat filler.

It's not actual quilling, but I thought the coils looked so much like feathers, I liked the solid contrast next to them.

I made it to fit this shadow box, so they could hang it or put it on a shelf if they wanted to.

Next up, we have Brianne's birthday frame. I saw the plain frame with the bright pink stripe around the inside at Target and it made me think of my dear friend. So, I took it home, started fiddling with my fringer, etc., and a few hours later, I had this.

I had a little bit of a problem with the "N"s, but I wanted to get it finished, and thought it would add that "home made" look to it.

Here it is laid flat so you can see the depth. This is a mix of 1/4" strips and 1/8" strips.

And on to the left over pictures.

I LOVE PACHINKO! I am sure in some alternate universe, there's a version of myself who plays it professinally. When you see pachinko parlors on t.v. or (more likely) on youtube, you see a big wall of stuff you can exchange your balls for.

Really, this is a ruse. What you should exchange them for are these:

Each one of these little chits has a small piece of gold in it. In Japan, gambling is illegal, so you turn in your winnings for something other than cash. This is about 375,000 yen worth of gold. Then, there's usually a place around the corner that will buy back your gold for the "market price, which comes out to around ... you guessed it, 375,00 yen. (Or about $375 in u.s. dollars depending on the day's exchange rate.)

What's funny about pachinko, is that I don't really care all that much about the gambling. I just like to keep playing until I've seen most of the animations in the game. Yes, I am a super animation geek. Don't judge me! (heh)

Also included below is a short clip I was able to take with my digital camera. This is Dragon Treasure, a token game found at Sega Joyopolis, and other arcades around Japan.

This has the typical coin push mechanisim you can find in coin games here in the states, but instead of getting tickets for the coins you push over the edge, you actually get the coins themselves in the return bin.

Each little corral below the screen has a sensor that you have to hit with the coin head on. (You'll be able to see that it's kind of hard to aim and film at the same time.) For the main storyline of the game, you hit the little feet on the bottom of the screen to progress from one area to the next, running through a dungeon or what have you. Along the way, you encounter monsters who float above the screen, and your attacks work the same way (hit the sensors with coins).

When you win a jackpot, the orange lever you see on the left drops down and drops your jackpot onto the top piece of plexiglass coin by coin, and then does one big push to the coins below.

Again, I'm all about the animations, and have probably played through the whole game at least twice to watch most of it.