Trapped balls a poppin'

We dropped off our daughter at school, and I took the opportunity to school NASCAR for a few free games. My high score is still on (heh). I managed to get a couple of free games, and things were going fine until I managed to get all three balls stuck. Basically one ball got caught to the left of the race track diverter, keeping it half open, then a second ball that was racing around the track got stuck on the right. After numerous ball searches, it served up the third ball, which I used to try to knock the second ball free. After a few hits the third ball got stuck too, so I gave up, turned the machine off, and slunk away quietly.

The home front is relatively uninteresting. I did find that my complete lack of confidence in myself paid off for a change: When I ordered the chip to replace U20 on the DW CPU, I actually ordered two chips as I was worried that I would break one of them. (In retrospect, what am I likely to do to a chip that will render it unusable?!? Kind of silly, really.) Well, since it appears that my second CPU also has a bad U20, the second chip may come in handy! I should doubt myself more often.

Tonight I took a trip to John's Place, a bar in Fairfax, VA -- about a half hour from my work, or about an hour if like me you take wrong turns and choose the wrong street during rush hour. It's the home of the VA branch of the Free State Pinball Association, and they had a bunch of games available. I had to turn most of them on myself, but that was no problem, and most of them were in reasonable condition since they're maintained by FSPA members. They had: Attack From Mars, Fish Tales, Getaway, Mars: God of War, Mousin' Around, Night Rider, Strikes 'n' Spares, The Addams Family, The Shadow, White Water, World Poker Tour, and a Baby Pac-Man unplugged in the corner. I played 'em all except Getaway, which I couldn't get to accept any quarters. Shadow and Fish Tales were either sluggish or just off their game. I had one good game of ATF. It was nice to play a WPT that wasn't filthy, like the one I played in California... considering Steve Ritchie designed it under protest, I didn't think it was that bad. Mars spanked me. I guess that's the reason he has that smug look on his face. I couldn't get multiball because after every ball any captured balls are returned to the trough, which made it impossible to build on previous balls. I think I've played Mousin' Around before... 1985-1990 Bally games really don't do much for me. And on TAF I got the ball stuck -- and hence the title of today's entry. Near the end of an undistinguished game, I shot the ball with the Thing flipper toward the swamp, and the ball got wedged between the upper-most spot target and the wall. I was hoping it would go into a ball search, give up, and serve another ball, but it never got past step 1. After a while I gave up, turned the machine off, and slunk away quietly.