Back in the Saddle Agin

No DIA updates today, but there should be some soon. I posted the Mini-playfield, the wire ramp, and the Skateball plastics on Sunday, and everything has at least one bid. After the Doctor Who Plastic Debacle (as it is now known), selling everything will do a lot to bring back my eBay confidence, which was shaken severely. I'm extra happy about the Skateball plastics selling, since some of them are in terrible condition. It also helps that some stuff my wife is selling is doing pretty well, too.

I'm very happy with the way the mini-playfield cleaned up. I pulled the mylar off, which was really grimy, but decided against putting on new mylar. I tried cutting a new steel piece, did a really crappy job (because I don't have good tools for cutting steel), so I just cleaned and re-blued the old one and it looks fine. And I cut a washer and glued it to the plastic, and it looks better than a missing piece. The gray targets don't look great, but they sure look better than they used to. I'm really proud of the Dalek targets and ramp... I am looking forward to putting my own filthy targets into the washer. Overall, it's much cleaner than it was before, and the market has agreed to the tune of $66 so far. Plus, I got a lot of valuable experience that I'll be able to apply to my game.

Cleaning (plus decent weather and the requisite accompanying yard work) left me no actual time for game work last weekend... I do need to get on that, so I can go to Pinball Wizards in two weeks with a proper shopping list. Very excited about the show... I've been training with a squeeze ball for the last month while commuting to build my wrist strength. I'm hoping to partially allay post-pinshow soreness. I'm up to my goal of 15 minutes per hand per commute -- 1 hour total of squeezing per day. I plan to keep that up after the show so if the opportunity to play 8-10 hours of pinball should occur more than twice a year, I'll be ready for it.