Update!

Finally an update! Well, I haven't actually done anything on the cabinet but I have made a FINAL list of things that I need to do. I'm posting them here so I don't forget.

1. Refine the MaLa Layout. I like the way things are laid out but I want to change the font to something more "girly" - the games are displayed in Arial right now and it just doesn't blend in. I also want to increase the size of the font, if possible although right now any letter like 'g' or 'j' or something that hangs low gets cut off a bit... I also want to incorporate some of the colored flowers from the background of the marquee into the background of the layout... I don't know... I need to teach myself how to make these things.
2. Refine my Gamelists. I don't know how to use the "Tree" functions in MaLa yet - right now I have an "All Games" list, a "Horizontal" list and a "Vertical" list and they are still too cumbersome to sort through. I'm thinking I need to separate them into categories like "Puzzle", "Classic", "Shooter", "Fighter", etc. I also need to go through them and remove the duplicates and generally crappy games that no one will ever play (which there are quite a lot of).
3. Install the microswitches behind the coin door return buttons for "insert coin" - right now I repregrammed the "Pause" button as "Coin" because it was such a pain to keep inserting quarters for credits. This is actually a decent solution (just get rid of pause) but after playing the other day I realized that interuptions are frequent no matter who is playing so a pause button is essential.
4. Install the coin box. This should take 10 minutes.
5. Possibly relocate the power button. Right now if I open the coin door I can reach inside and hit power on the computer itself to power on and off. It works I guess but I'm thinking of relocating it to somewhere on the cabinet (I don't know where yet though - probably the rear of the cabinet). I don't want my kids opening up the cabinet every time they want to play.
6. Apply the vinyl button decals. I had some pink vinyl button decals made to apply to the black admin buttons. They are really cool - the Start buttons are little girl icons. This shouldn't take too long.
7. Make a pink dustwasher for the joystick. I want to take a piece of 1/8" thick plexiglass and make a 2-1/2" diameter circle and paint the bottom pink and then polish the edges. Details like this and the button decals will really make the control panel stand out I think.

That's kind of a lot now that I've typed it all out. I almost wish it wasn't playable so I'd just finish the thing! Once I'm done I'm going to take a ton of pics and maybe even record some footage with our new video camera!