Remember running around the local arcade as a kid, jumping from cabinet to cabinet with friends, blasting aliens, guzzling Coca-Cola and begging your mom for more quarters Replace the Coke with a Deschutes Mirror Pond Ale and your mom with a bartender, and you have Ground Kontrol, a barcade in Portland, Oregon, where the clanging pinball bumpers, flashing neon and well-trodden carpets colored like whirlpools of graffiti are all intact. <p><br class="spacer_" /></p> And the games, too. Whether childhood meant Asteroids and Pac Man or Area 51 and the monstrous six-player version of X-Men, they’re all here, just as you remember them.<p><br class="spacer_" /></p> We meet up with Ground Kontrol owner Anthony Ramos and manager Art Santana to discuss the history of the barcade, how they go about choosing which games to populate the floor, and more recently, how Ground Kontrol got into the running for a $25,000 prize from Stride Gum’s Save the Arcades contest.<p><br class="spacer_" /></p> Interesting in helping Ground Kontrol cinch the prize and expand its collection of classic arcade games even more Start whiling away the work hours with some Cowbots 2010 and be sure to donate all your points to send your points their way!