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!

Watch my twitter feed on Thursday morning for a one-day twitter-only wallet give-away.

The catch? The winner must give the wallet away as a gift!

The rules? Not until Thursday…

In the spirit of looking at things differently, I’m looking for people to “see” Atari game titles in the real world. Of course you’re not going to see an example of real-world Missile Command in your daily life (not everyone gets to visit MIT Lincoln Labs - great place, very cool. I hope you like the Missile Command wallet Marc!) so I’m encouraging wordplay on the titles. What do I mean?

- Perhaps photograph a self-obsessed security personnel.
(Vain guard)

- Take a big letter D and photograph it against the front of your car.
(D - fender)

- Work at the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority? Take a picture of yourself at the main controls.
(MassHole Command)
Seriously. MassHole is a common term for drivers in Massachusetts. People drive like psychotic meth-fueled thugs up here.

- Draw, build, or smoke signal your idea.

-Photoshop entries will not be counted.

(more…)

There have been many comments about the ease and comfort of carrying an Atari wallet. While I’ve been carrying one for years, I forget that people will be concerned about carrying a piece of plastic in their pocket. Words flow from me like warm chunky peanut butter, so below is a much more eloquent response from a current Atari wallet user to others who expressed the same concern:

(more…)

I’ve had quite a few suggestions to include an option to send in your games for wallet repurposing, and I hear ya. The thought crossed my mind, too, but as the wallet-making processes became clear so too did the challenges of doing mail-in custom wallets.

The first challenge everyone recognizes is the need to keep all the parts marked & together. In reality, this is the least of the challenges, adding only a few minutes to the process. Sometimes issues crop up during the machining process and not all make it through the process alive. Hell, some carts do not have the proper internals to complete a wallet, but enough carts fail along the way to balance out against the number of carts missing the necessary guts. Let’s also keep in mind I have to have enough carts to warrant another machining run, which unless the wallets become overly successful this will not be happening with frequency enough to support this kind of request.

Have a wallet suggestion of your own? tweet @nilesz or drop a comment.

A thousand thank yous to Ray Corsini for his bringing this vision to life, both literally and creatively. On my budget of nothing but favors, he was able to make it all come to life.

Astute observers of the video may have recognized that the Pac Man wallet in the video opens “backwards” - it opens on the left - unlike the wallets available in the store. I f#*ked up. The first few shells machined were done with the hinges on the wrong side, from which this Pac Man was made. I have not completed any normal opening Pac Man wallets yet, but they are in the works, along with Joust, Kangaroo, and perhaps even a Mario Bros. Obviously, Ms Pac Man introduced herself in the video, but a lady like her shouldn’t need any introduction.

Fortunately for us, the reverse Pac Man worked better for the camera angle we were working from than a regular one. I was prepared to complete one if necessary, but we felt the backwards wallet got the point across as desired.