First and foremost, thank you to everyone for a most enjoyable 2009. My wallet adventure introduced me to many new friends - artists & students, geeks & entrepreneurs - to whom I wish a most rewarding 2010.

As I mentioned a few posts ago, I’m not a machine. After completing the first batch of Atari & Sears cartridge wallets, a few weeks offline was sorely needed. In that time I realized the eBay resales need to be wound down until stock is reduced to the thousand or two of wallet-quality games set aside if the first thousand fail to satisfy demand. Resales, while only ancillary to the wallet project, is completely necessary to build & maintain wallet-quality stock. Each system takes hours to test, clean, photograph and ship, a process that no volume of monetary returns made enjoyable. It was the charitable donations that brought encouragement as we’d remove cocoons from games or scrape grime from joystick folds. While we were able to raise over $650 for charity in less than 6 months, without the resales we won’t be able to raise a fraction of that in the next six months the way things were run in 2009.

Effective immediately, $10 from every wallet sold will be donated to charity as was done with resales, split between World Computer Exchange and Child’s Play. World Computer Exchange is a global education & environment nonprofit that helps connect youth in 67 developing countries to the skills, opportunities & understanding of the Internet while keeping working computers out of landfills. If you have an old computer, please check to see if there is a location nearby to donate it.  Child’s Play is a game industry charity dedicated to improving the lives of children with gifts of toys and games in their network of over 60 hospitals worldwide. Of course, don’t hesistate to donate directly to either charity just because you did (or did not!) already buy one of my wallets. It feels good to donate. Go ahead & try for yourself!

May your 2010 be rewarding and prosperous!

I’ve opened two contests to win a wallet for the Facebook fans of the Atari cartridge wallets running through the remainder of 2009, so the winners start the new year with a new wallet!

CONTEST - EASY: write a haiku based upon an Atari game or, better yet, an Atari wallet! Post your haiku to the fanpage to enter.

CONTEST - HARD:  mis-speak, mis-spell, or mistake the title of an Atari game and take a picture of the error represented in real life. Add a letter, subtract a letter, use homonyms… be creative & NO PHOTOSHOP ENTRIES. Post your picture to the fanpage to enter.

Each contest will produce one winner, resulting in two wallets given away.

Only entries posted to the Atari cartridge wallet fanpage on Facebook will be allowed.

For anyone that knows me, this collaboration was a no-brainer.  Unless by some strange reason you found yourself here because of my lost dog posters, you already know that I repurpose original Atari 2600 & Sears video game cartridges into wallets. The simple beauty of the wallets would not have been possible without the design guidance of my roommate, spawn-mother and wife, Phetnikone.

A Mass Art graduate in fashion design, she has been selling her handbags in Boston boutiques since 2005. Naturally, with the release of the wallets, she created a special line of wristlets to accompany my wallets. More details after the preview pictures.

Read the rest of this entry »

Out of all the strangeness borne of the Atari cartridge wallet adventure, the robopube motherball stands out. I’d like to say I named it, but in its presence the name cannot be denied. As the first batch of ~1200 games began the wallet repurposing process, the springs began to snag each other as I threw more into the box. After a couple hundred of springs were added to the box, the snagged mess formed itself into a round shape. By the time the entire lot was processed all of the springs had taken on a new existence.

The spring starts in a V shape with the tension loop at the bottom and both points are barbed half-circles. Multiply this by a thousand and you have a melon-sized ball of antique tetanus-bearing metal, ready to sink a jabby tip into flesh with every touch. Oh, sure, we had a hoot with it at first, but then the ugly truth became clear: one by one, each spring must be removed to be fashioned into the wallet money clips. As easily as the motherball is ready to jab it is twice as unlikely to let a piece of itself go.

Before I began the painful experience of separating the springs from the motherball, I realized if the wallets succeed and I need to process more, I’ll never have a batch as large as the one I had at that moment. The photos from that lone moment of motherball appreciation adorn the background of this website as well as my twitter profile picture.

I’m not a machine. I don’t want to be a machine, either. They’re too needy, asking too many questions. Can I open this, where should I save this… the questions never stop.

Unlike the questions, I do stop, but not often. Between the full-time day job, the baby, wallet construction, eBay resales and dodgeball, the blog somehow became lost in the shuffle. Instead of writing a ton of crap,I’ll simply summarize the wallet news…

I’ve been working with a group of students for marketing, including a live-action commercial to be filmed this weekend with a Ms. Pac Man costume. Another batch of wallets will be ready this weekend as I begin inserting magnets into the next batch, which includes the big names like Asteroids, Combat, Pac Man and Space Invaders. Atari cartridge wallets will be combined with custom wristlets designed from the included game in a collaboration with Phetnikone Nokham. You can click here to preview the first wristlet, Berzerk.

Time to go match chips up with their newly-finished wallets.

The premise is simple: find interesting dog photos online & create fake  “Lost Dog” posters.

A few points to note before continuing:

• None of these dogs are actually lost
• All of these dogs have happy, loving homes
• None of the photos have been manipulated
• No offense intended towards dogs used or their owners

Without further adieu… have you seen my dog?
Read the rest of this entry »

August will forever be tainted with the childhood horrors of shopping for husky slacks, paper bag bookcovers & #*%(ing Trapper Keepers, with the everpresent fear of velcro shoes. The highlight from back-to-school was always the lunchbox. Perhaps you had one like this, as I did…

Read the rest of this entry »

This morning I was trying to connect to a client videoconferencing codec via their data network and was doing a classic “ping” test to the IP address of the codec to test connectivity. I’m used to the standard “Request timed out” or “Network unreachable” errors, but this morning I experienced an error I’ve never seen in almost two decades of using ping: I experienced “General failure.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Concern: You expect me to carry an Atari cart in my pocket? That can’t be comfortable!
The truth: Atari wallets are the same size as a traditional wallet, but a fraction of the weight!

By the numbers:

…         Atari wallet  vs  Leather wallet  vs  iPhone G3

Length:     3.88 in.        3.5 - 4.5 in.            4.5 in.
Width:       3.32 in.        3 - 3.5 in.               2.4 in.
Depth:       0.81 in.        0.5 - 0.7 in.            0.48 in.
Weight:     46g              224 - 448g            133g
(56g with chip)    (or 5-10 Atari wallets)  (or 3 Atari wallets)

Read the rest of this entry »

The win-a-wallet photo contest ran for two weeks and is now closed. While it started strong with several emails / day for the first couple days, only two people actually followed the directions. I even took the time to suggest simple interpretations - easy to do - to those who sent it photochopped or collage entries, and noone followed through. Too bad for you folks!

So to the two people who submitted proper entries - Joe and Chas - you both should head over to my etsy store and pick your Atari wallet!

Read the rest of this entry »