So, just in case nothing on my Amazon.com wish list calls to you as something you’d really like to get ol’ Jas for Christmas this year, here’s another idea:

This is the Ultimate Arcade unit, now available at Costco. As the ad copy describes it, you can:

Play all your favorite classic games with the Ultimate Arcade by the Chicago Gaming Company. Made by a real coin-op game company, the Ultimate Arcade has all your favorite games from Atari, Capcom, Midway, Golden Tee Golf, and Universal. It even has a deactivated coin door so you play for free!
Features legendary arcade games, authentic in every detail, including Asteroids, Battlezone, Berzerk, Centipede, Millipede, Missile Command, Mortal Kombat, Mr. Do!, Street Fighter ll, Tempest, Mega Man, Super Breakout, 1942, and more.

You can read a complete list of the games included in this nifty toy by clicking the link. I could bore you all with specific memories relating to many of them and nostalgic recountings of the early, wonderfully simple days of videogamery, but for now let’s just say that a significant chunk of my middle-school experience is represented here. (Although two of my favorite vintage arcade games, Q-Bert and Zaxxon, are glaringly absent. And so, I see, is Donkey Kong. How the hell can you do a classic game retrospective without Donkey Kong? That’s just wrong…)