Surprise!

Tonight I went to pick up my daughter at college, and I thought we were going to eat dinner together, but when I got there and called her she was already eating. That annoyed me, so I went and got my own food at the local pizza place (called Pizza House probably because it's in a house, but it's next to a bunch of frats so I like to think it's a Greek joke). While I was eating, I heard the tell-tale sound of flippers, so I scouted the hidden alcoves of the restaurant and was surprised to find a Medieval Madness! Needless to say my mood improved. The game wasn't in bad condition, either... a couple of things didn't work and it was in a completely dark room, but I payed for two games and got two replays and a match.

And I did a bad thing. After all that high and mightiness about not getting more games, I bought a Mr. & Mrs. Pac-Man playfield on eBay. Nobody bid on it until yesterday, and I was really hoping to get a $1 playfield, but no such luck. It went for $32, the plastics for $12, and in theory shipping is about $10 because it's just down in Richmond... my ideal playfield cost is $50 or less, so that's at least in the ballpark. I'm hoping it will arrive while my wife is out of town so I have a chance to secret it in some dark corner of the basement. M&MPM is actually a second-tier game... in the group after Xenon, Centaur, and Fish Tales. I always have great fun playing it, even though it's a relatively simple game.

I probably forgot to mention, but with one of my orders from Marco or Bay Area, I got one of the Life After Death videos on a whim. I can't say that I was impressed. From what I can tell, their raison d'etre appears to be to give people who hate the guys in This Old Pinball videos to buy. The two guys try to do the same basic shtick as Shaggy and Norm, but they are lacking in charisma. The production isn't as well done, though there is some useful info... but nothing that I hadn't already gotten from TOP. And despite the title they didn't bring a dead game back to life, they just tuned up a working game. I'll stick with TOP videos unless LAD comes out with a video on a game I actually own, which TOP has NOT (KISS and Black Knight/Firepower are on their upcoming productions list, but... and when I pulled up the page to get the link, I saw that they released another video which is NOT the two I need). Plus TOP videos are way cheaper.

My wife -- usually the villain of these pieces, I know -- has been trying for a while to get me to attempt to "trick out" a pinball machine... kind of like case mods for computers, with after market parts, etc. Well, I finally came up with an idea that's worth doing. I told her and she's pretty interested. I have to flesh out the idea, find a beater playfield that I don't feel bad about sanding, cutting the hell out of, & repainting, and develop metal working, woodworking, and electrical skills that I don't currently have. Probably it would help to get some nunchuck and bo skills, too.

I'm always amazed at guys who retire and can't figure out what to do with themselves. Clearly they don't have pinball machines.