They crawl out of their holes for me and I blog; you blog

Yes, there's nothing quite like a Gary Numan reference to really date you as a child of the early 80's. I'm thinking of the 80's a lot lately, probably because I acquired a lot of the stuff I'm selling on eBay in that era. The Fathom playfield went for $58, which I won't pretend wasn't a slight disappointment. The clown who offered me $100 didn't even bid on it, though for all I know he was an eBay agent trying to trick people into selling stuff in violation of eBay's rules (We are clean, don't ask, I'm an agent... it's an all Gary Numan post!!!). Anyway, so that accounts for 7DPF going up perilously near the 50% mark... I've only got about $24 more to go to pass the halfway point, and the DIA in the low 60's... who'd a thunk? The Loser didn't fall drastically, because I spent more than I thought I would at the White Rose show, so that ate up most of the proceeds from the playfield.

White Rose was fun, the usual collection of good stuff, crap, and some old friends (it wouldn't be the same without the whitewood Scared Stiff or Future Spa with the hand touched up playfield and gate that doesn't work. The drive up was nice... I've been listening to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and that added a twisted counterpoint to the idyllic MD/PA farmland. Nothing really leaps to mind as an outstanding game... I played Jungle Lord, which I used to play back in the day. The worst of show had to be a Gorgar with a half-gone backglass, weak flippers, worn playfield, and toward the end of the day added messed up sound and wonky displays that the guy wanted $650 obo. I was tempted to offer the guy to let me take the game and he could give me $650, and I'm guessing that would have been his best offer. I played a couple of the games I played at the Mid-Atlantic show... Mike & Co. fixed the rubber that trapped the ball on Cirqus Voltaire (I didn't write about that, but it happened during my Voltaire-spanking game) but not the thing that spotted the Q.

Purchase-wise, I bought two white spot targets for Centaur (only to find when I got home that it needs 4 ^_^; ), some #47 lights and a couple of #555 compatible LED lights (just to try... I couldn't afford to convert my games over to them at $2 a pop, though it would probably help Paragon's power issues). I also dropped a load on a guy in the flea market who was cleaning out his parts inventory... I found all but one of the pieces I need to fix the remaining Fathom inline target assembly, and I was lured into buying a playfield from him... well, lured kind of indicates that I wasn't fully responsible. Let's say that I convinced myself like a blamed fool to buy another playfield. As we can see on the left, it's a Flash that's not in too bad condition. A few wear spots, a missing bumper & flipper (& more?), and a hole drilled in the top with a coat hanger stuck in it most likely as a storage device. The guy also had a somewhat beaten Lost World and an OK CE3K and he offered to let me have them all for $125, but that was pretty much all the money I had at the time, so I passed. There was also a nice clear-coated but largely depopulated Lost World... if I was blessed with infinite finances, I would have bought both and populated the clear-coated one with the parts from the beater. I will admit sheepishly that while recounting the day's purchases to my wife I was not wholly forthcoming about it... I really need to work on that controller so I can stop this playfield skullduggery.

Anyway, so that's all I got. My dad and brother are coming in for a week tomorrow, so I'll take an eBay vacation until then.