Right now I'm waiting... waiting for downloads of Daniel Pinkwater books & podcasts to finish, waiting for my wife to finish watching Bones (which I would love were it not for all the disgusting dead bodies), and, I guess, waiting for an absolution that will never come. So I might as well do a little more catch-up posting.
Shockingly, my first topic is about Doctor Who. I'm on the mailing list for the DW Wobble Head, where Al of Pins and Vids fame and his pal Mark are reproducing the mechanism to make the Dalek head move as it did on the prototype games. They say they're really close to finishing, and I potentially have the tough choice of whether to spend $275+/- that I don't have on this thing they're unlikely to make again, or... well, let's face it, if you've read more than three posts you know that my ability to piss away money I don't have is the envy of the Bush Administration. Purchasing is pretty byzantine... basically, they're making 10 sets, and the 40-odd people on the mailing list will be offered a chance to buy in the order that they expressed interest. So without getting too mathy on you, I should have roughly a 50% chance of getting the call to adventure. I feel kind of obligated to go for it since I believe in my heart of hearts that my cabinet was a prototype at some point, and it longs to return to its divine state of being. I am but a humble vessel in its quest for enlightenment.
Here's how I justify funding it: Right now I owe my family about $700 for purchases, plus a few bucks here and there -- for example, I just bought a Pin*bot skill shot ramp on eBay for about $18, which isn't included in the total -- so as long as I keep the total I owe under a nice, round, arbitrary amount like $1000, I should be OK.
Well, my wife finished Bones but now she's watching Battlestar Galactica, which I like but I've only watched the first two episodes and I am so anal about watching things in order that if I even walked into the room while episode 408 was on my head would explode. I mean, I'm working my way through Thunderbirds on Netflix, and I'm watching it in order even though it doesn't involve any kind of story arc or character development to speak of. I'm also watching Johnny Sokko and his Flying Robot, which is at least marginally serial... and I'm also submitting episode summaries as I watch them to IMDB. When I was a kid, I only got to see Voyage Into Space, so I'm having great fun watching the entire series.
OK, I'm trying to think of stuff that is less pinball-related than this, and I'm having a difficult time doing so. My apologies to the hard-core.
Hey, this has nothing to do with pins, but is cool for me... I had a question answered by The Straight Dope Advisory Board! It's not as cool as having my question answered in the column, but it's the next best thing. There's even a little discussion topic devoted to the answer to my question. Cecil actually answered a question of mine about 10 years ago, but I asked it under my real name so I'm not going to link to it. See if you can guess which one it is!
Well, BSG is almost over so I'll probably rejoin my wife.
Wait, I thought of a short pinball thing! I have finally, against all odds, got Quicksilver in service again. It has been unplugged lo these many months because I wanted all of my games to be plugged into real surge protectors, not just power strips. I bought a big 'un for the four games downstairs and a smaller one for QS in the living room, but the surge protector required a three pronged outlet and our house, built on or about my birth year, is strictly two pronged. So, over Memorial Day weekend I cleared off all the crap my family has been leaving on the game, swapped the outlet (over the course of two days -- yeah, I kind of suck at this stuff, but I did it right, the ground actually works and everything), plugged the protector into the wall, plugged the game into the protector, and played a fun ol' game. So, I've got my one fully working game up and running, and that's always a good feeling. ^_^;
Friday, May 30, 2008
Sunday, May 18, 2008
The Pinball World Tour: Rockin' the Free World!
So, the Pinball World Tour 2008 officially concluded a few weeks ago, but I am fundamentally lazy and easily distracted. Usually things like chasing after the dog take precedence over blogging. ^_^;
Stop 1: Continental Bar & Grill, Arlington, VA - The tour started modestly with a visit to the bar near my work. World Poker Tour was gone and Spider-man was in, so I played a few games of that.
Stop 2: Game Time, Cockeysville, MD - This used to be a pool place where Mike and his 24 sons fixed games. I had been there to play pinball a few times, but it never seemed to be formally set up for pinball playing. Now it's basically a pinball store where you can play the games for an hourly fee. There was a pretty good selection of games, mostly from the late 80's on. I played Apollo 13 until I got the damn 13 ball multiball. I also got a chance to play Wheel of Fortune, which I figured would relieve the pressure to play it at later stops on the tour. Overall I was surprised that the games weren't all in amazing condition... I would say they were in decent pinball show condition, but not retail sale condition. Anyway, I had fun.
Stop 3: The Pinball Hall of Fame, Las Vegas, NV - I had to go on a business trip to San Diego at the end of last month, and when I found that I could fly into Las Vegas, drive to San Diego, then fly home from there cheaper than a round trip to SD, I was there. I took an early flight out and arrived in LV around noon. It took an hour or two to get my rental car and find the Hall of Fame, and I stayed for the next 8 hours or so. What can I say? It's awesome to have that many games in one spot. I played several games of the Pinball Circus, at right. After the initial shock of being there wore off, I started methodically working my way up and down the rows of games in a desperate attempt to play them all. Sadly, by the time I got the the last complete row I was about ready to fall over from exhaustion, so I started only playing the games that I hadn't played before or were really interesting. I managed to play about half of them, and if take into account the fact that a bunch weren't working, I'd say it's more like 75%. I supposed I should cut them some slack because they have 140+ games, but there were a few games that had some major problems... the Funhouse, which according to the sign had new more powerful flippers, actually had really weak flippers. I should have expected it, but Tim & Co love their crude and terrible puns (the sign describing Roger Sharpe's Sharpshooter labels it "Sharpe's Hooters"). And I did see The Hippie and I spoke briefly with Tim Arnold... I asked him how the search for the new building was coming along and we chatted about that. Overall, I had a good time and wished I could have stayed longer. I spent the night in a Motel 6 on Fremont Street and lost a few hours and about $35 gambling. I got up early the next morning, stocked up on Monster Energy Drinks and drove across the desert in a mad dash to get to San Diego Airport before 2 PM to avoid getting charged for a second day on the rental car. Here's the tragedy: I had my iPod, the car had an auxiliary jack, I had the cable to connect the two, BUT I obviously haven't ripped my copy of Wall of Voodoo's Call of the West album and didn't have the song "On Interstate 15", which I had been hoping to play while driving on Interstate 15. Bad luck there. I did pass by Calico Ghost Town, which my family would go to every few years on vacation when I was a kid. I had lunch at an In-n-Out Burger, for which I'd been feeling the In-n-Out Urge for my last several trips to California but had not had the opportunity to act on. And on the way to SD, I stopped in at:
Stop 4: Round Table Pizza, Rancho Bernardo, CA - I got this place out the the Visual Pinball forum pinball listings. It was right off the 15, and though they didn't have T2 and ST:TNG, they did have an Addams Family in dirty but playable condition.
Stop 5: Poway Fun Bowl, Poway, CA - This was kind of a gamble, because it was a few miles from the 15 and my rental car was going to turn into a pumpkin soon. Contrary to the VP Forums, they did not have a Champion Pub or Theater of Magic, but they did have a Family Guy and Attack from Mars, and the game room had black lights in it which made the AFM all glowy and cool. I didn't play FG, since I had just played Shrek at the PHoF. I finished my inauspicious game, gassed up nearby, and pelted down the freeway to San Diego proper.
Super Incredible Surpise Stop 6: Loew's Coronado Bay Resort, San Diego, CA - This was my destination, where my company was having its user conference. I tried to check in but my room wouldn't be ready for another two hours. So I was wandering around the hotel in my grubby traveling clothes hoping that no clients would see me and I saw a sign that said "Game Room". And danged if they didn't have a World Cup Soccer, The Shadow, and Dracula, all in playable condition! They also had some driving/fighting/shooting games, but I was stunned at the 90's Williams goodness staring me in the face. Of course, I spent most of my conference downtime in the 
game room, and even coerced my coworker roommate to play a few games. We ended up playing a lot of The Shadow, because of the three it ended up being the funnest. After the fancy dress up party on the last night, I snuck in and spanked World Cup, posting the high score... mainly because a ball was stuck and the various quirks of the rule changes made the game ridiculously easy. By the time I finished I hated the game with a passion.
Stop 7: My House, Derwood, MD - Of course, I have to count the fact that I played Doctor Who a few times. I had gotten a little annoyed the the H switch was in the non-working column, but the game apparently finally figured out the problem and modified the rules. Now when you get the W, the O starts flashing and it hitting it scores the full W-H-O value, including I am happy to say, the extra ball.
Final Stop: Pinball Wizards Convention, Allentown, PA - I'll write more in a later post on this... there was triumphantness, and there was harsh bogosity.
So, the Pinball World Tour was 8 stops, 5 states, and over a hundred games. My fingers are calloused, my wrists bleed, yet still I want more.
And finally, I had to post this most awesome eBay auction description. It reads like the opening salvo from Free Verse Arcade Poetry Slam Night. I have reduced the font size, but the shouting and singular lack of punctuation is 100% authentic. It did sell for about $600. The description is a thing of beauty.
Stop 1: Continental Bar & Grill, Arlington, VA - The tour started modestly with a visit to the bar near my work. World Poker Tour was gone and Spider-man was in, so I played a few games of that.
Stop 2: Game Time, Cockeysville, MD - This used to be a pool place where Mike and his 24 sons fixed games. I had been there to play pinball a few times, but it never seemed to be formally set up for pinball playing. Now it's basically a pinball store where you can play the games for an hourly fee. There was a pretty good selection of games, mostly from the late 80's on. I played Apollo 13 until I got the damn 13 ball multiball. I also got a chance to play Wheel of Fortune, which I figured would relieve the pressure to play it at later stops on the tour. Overall I was surprised that the games weren't all in amazing condition... I would say they were in decent pinball show condition, but not retail sale condition. Anyway, I had fun.
Stop 3: The Pinball Hall of Fame, Las Vegas, NV - I had to go on a business trip to San Diego at the end of last month, and when I found that I could fly into Las Vegas, drive to San Diego, then fly home from there cheaper than a round trip to SD, I was there. I took an early flight out and arrived in LV around noon. It took an hour or two to get my rental car and find the Hall of Fame, and I stayed for the next 8 hours or so. What can I say? It's awesome to have that many games in one spot. I played several games of the Pinball Circus, at right. After the initial shock of being there wore off, I started methodically working my way up and down the rows of games in a desperate attempt to play them all. Sadly, by the time I got the the last complete row I was about ready to fall over from exhaustion, so I started only playing the games that I hadn't played before or were really interesting. I managed to play about half of them, and if take into account the fact that a bunch weren't working, I'd say it's more like 75%. I supposed I should cut them some slack because they have 140+ games, but there were a few games that had some major problems... the Funhouse, which according to the sign had new more powerful flippers, actually had really weak flippers. I should have expected it, but Tim & Co love their crude and terrible puns (the sign describing Roger Sharpe's Sharpshooter labels it "Sharpe's Hooters"). And I did see The Hippie and I spoke briefly with Tim Arnold... I asked him how the search for the new building was coming along and we chatted about that. Overall, I had a good time and wished I could have stayed longer. I spent the night in a Motel 6 on Fremont Street and lost a few hours and about $35 gambling. I got up early the next morning, stocked up on Monster Energy Drinks and drove across the desert in a mad dash to get to San Diego Airport before 2 PM to avoid getting charged for a second day on the rental car. Here's the tragedy: I had my iPod, the car had an auxiliary jack, I had the cable to connect the two, BUT I obviously haven't ripped my copy of Wall of Voodoo's Call of the West album and didn't have the song "On Interstate 15", which I had been hoping to play while driving on Interstate 15. Bad luck there. I did pass by Calico Ghost Town, which my family would go to every few years on vacation when I was a kid. I had lunch at an In-n-Out Burger, for which I'd been feeling the In-n-Out Urge for my last several trips to California but had not had the opportunity to act on. And on the way to SD, I stopped in at:Stop 4: Round Table Pizza, Rancho Bernardo, CA - I got this place out the the Visual Pinball forum pinball listings. It was right off the 15, and though they didn't have T2 and ST:TNG, they did have an Addams Family in dirty but playable condition.
Stop 5: Poway Fun Bowl, Poway, CA - This was kind of a gamble, because it was a few miles from the 15 and my rental car was going to turn into a pumpkin soon. Contrary to the VP Forums, they did not have a Champion Pub or Theater of Magic, but they did have a Family Guy and Attack from Mars, and the game room had black lights in it which made the AFM all glowy and cool. I didn't play FG, since I had just played Shrek at the PHoF. I finished my inauspicious game, gassed up nearby, and pelted down the freeway to San Diego proper.
Super Incredible Surpise Stop 6: Loew's Coronado Bay Resort, San Diego, CA - This was my destination, where my company was having its user conference. I tried to check in but my room wouldn't be ready for another two hours. So I was wandering around the hotel in my grubby traveling clothes hoping that no clients would see me and I saw a sign that said "Game Room". And danged if they didn't have a World Cup Soccer, The Shadow, and Dracula, all in playable condition! They also had some driving/fighting/shooting games, but I was stunned at the 90's Williams goodness staring me in the face. Of course, I spent most of my conference downtime in the 
game room, and even coerced my coworker roommate to play a few games. We ended up playing a lot of The Shadow, because of the three it ended up being the funnest. After the fancy dress up party on the last night, I snuck in and spanked World Cup, posting the high score... mainly because a ball was stuck and the various quirks of the rule changes made the game ridiculously easy. By the time I finished I hated the game with a passion.Stop 7: My House, Derwood, MD - Of course, I have to count the fact that I played Doctor Who a few times. I had gotten a little annoyed the the H switch was in the non-working column, but the game apparently finally figured out the problem and modified the rules. Now when you get the W, the O starts flashing and it hitting it scores the full W-H-O value, including I am happy to say, the extra ball.
Final Stop: Pinball Wizards Convention, Allentown, PA - I'll write more in a later post on this... there was triumphantness, and there was harsh bogosity.
So, the Pinball World Tour was 8 stops, 5 states, and over a hundred games. My fingers are calloused, my wrists bleed, yet still I want more.
And finally, I had to post this most awesome eBay auction description. It reads like the opening salvo from Free Verse Arcade Poetry Slam Night. I have reduced the font size, but the shouting and singular lack of punctuation is 100% authentic. It did sell for about $600. The description is a thing of beauty.
pin bot pinball machine williams
THIS IS A PRETTY NICE ORIGINAL WILLIAMS PIN BOT PINBALL MACHINE I BOUGHT IT ABOUT 7 YEARS AGO HAD IT PROFESSIONAL SERVICED AND CLEANED PLAYED IT AND KIDS FOR ABOUT 2 YEARS UNPLUGGED IT AND JUST LEFT IT IN CORNER IN BASEMENT ABOUT 6 MONTHS AGO FIRED IT UP THE RIGHT FLIPPER STARTED ACTING UP BUT STILL WORKED THEN IT STARTED RESETING ITSELF WHILE YOU WERE PLAYING IT THE SERVICE MAN CHANGED THE BATTERY PACK IN TOP AND NEW BATTERYS 7 YEARS AGO DONT KNOW WHAT IT IS OR IF ITS IT SIMPLE LIKE THAT OR NOT .KIDS LOST INTEREST AND IM READY FOR A DIFFERENT GAME IT HAS VERY GOOD RAMPS TO PLAY AND A ROBOT LIKE IMAGE MUTLIBALL ETC VERY FUN IT STILL HAS COIN CHANGERS AND KEYS BUT YOU CAN MANUELY ADD CREDITS EASILY SO ITS VERY NICE BUT A FEW BUGS GLASS IS GOOD ETC. LOCAL PICKUP IS RECOMENDED, BUT I WILL WRAP IN BLANKET AND PALLET FOR YOU IF NEEDED AND I CAN HELP LOAD TRUCK BUT YOU NEED TO ARRANGE FREIGHT HAVE FUN THANK YOU !Thursday, May 01, 2008
Ecce homo, ergo elk
The Pinball World Tour has officially started, but let's clear away the auction business first.
I've had some good weeks and bad weeks on eBay, some struggles and triumphs, some pride and prejudice, some sense and sensibility... but luckily, no crime and punishment (yet). I started off the eBay season at the beginning of March with my usual collection of pinball stuff and bizarre junk from the 80's that I never threw out. Since I got the populated Centaur playfield,
I decided to sell off the bare playfield and stuff I bought for it. I figured that if the "crazy eyes" Xenon could get over $100 (twice!) I could probably get twice that. What I discovered was what I thought was a good deal at the time turned out to be way more than the market would bear at resale time. I put the playfield up with a $200 reserve and the first time around it got up to just over $100. See, having a certain amount of integrity meant that I wasn't going to post a blurry picture of the front and back like so many eBayers, but rather posted high res pics plus closeups of the flaws... and boy, in retrospect there were a lot of flaws. There was the touchup done on the whip handle, there was wear along the ball launch path, the right cheek of the drain babe's butt, and the captive ball captive's junk. It just was not worth the ~$340 that I paid for it... if only I could have gotten the guy who bid against me and some other clown in a bidding war, it would have been great. Anyway, I couldn't take $100 for it, so I relisted, it went for $150, and after a little thought I sold. I just shipped it off today. As far as the parts went, I was generally disappointed. I paid about $100 for them, and I think I made around $40-50.
On the plus side, I disassembled the parts from High Speed and made a killing. Of course the game didn't work when I tested it, and I tried booting the CPU board but it had too much battery damage. As I mentioned, I did find the working alphanumeric display, but everything else had to be sold as untested. Still and all, I cleared $275, with the bulk of that coming from the police light topper ($112.50) and the display ($69). Even the non-working displays sold for $4, and I was brutally honest about the fact that they had been tested and found wanting. The awesome HS sales combined with some unexpected vintage computer ad sales ($108 for an IMSAI catalog? Yeah, baby!) to propel me within spittin' distance of a $500 week, my second best ever (first would be hard to beat, $565 for a copy of the Apple II version of Ultima with all its packaging).
Finally, to balance the bad and the good with a dash of ambivalence, I sold some of the Doctor Who parts I got from Illinois Pinball. The first time I sold them, I got double what I paid for them, then I since that did so well I sold a second batch the next week and barely covered my costs before shipping. So the important lesson I learned is either don't sell stuff immediately OR eBay is a chaotic system that defies logical explanation. I'm not sure which is the more valuable lesson.
And to balance out my sales, I pulled the playfield out of High Speed and put the cabinet up in my first ever Mr. Pinball classified ad! (I've created an amazing simulation of it on the right.) I guess I kind of had dreams that it would draw a bunch of offers so I would have to sort out the "or best" of them, but as it turns out the only one was from a guy from Missoura who said it was exactly what he needed and agreed to pay full price. The only problem? He lives over 900 miles away. The solution? Luckily, unlike me he has actual friends, and one of them who lives only about 200 miles away from him is going to Pinball Wizards, so I will bring up the cabinet on Saturday and give it to his proxy. If you're doing the math, that means I've made $325 on High Speed, which is just north of what I paid for it, which means it, like the Doctor Who parts machine before it, is PROFITABLE!!! And I still have the backglass and playfield glass to sell! Yay for our side!
So today my wife and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary, tomorrow we're going to see a matinée of Iron Man (her choice! yes, I am the envy of men everywhere), and Saturday is the pinball show... we'll discuss all that soon with all the details of the Pinball World Tour. Sheesh!
I've had some good weeks and bad weeks on eBay, some struggles and triumphs, some pride and prejudice, some sense and sensibility... but luckily, no crime and punishment (yet). I started off the eBay season at the beginning of March with my usual collection of pinball stuff and bizarre junk from the 80's that I never threw out. Since I got the populated Centaur playfield,
I decided to sell off the bare playfield and stuff I bought for it. I figured that if the "crazy eyes" Xenon could get over $100 (twice!) I could probably get twice that. What I discovered was what I thought was a good deal at the time turned out to be way more than the market would bear at resale time. I put the playfield up with a $200 reserve and the first time around it got up to just over $100. See, having a certain amount of integrity meant that I wasn't going to post a blurry picture of the front and back like so many eBayers, but rather posted high res pics plus closeups of the flaws... and boy, in retrospect there were a lot of flaws. There was the touchup done on the whip handle, there was wear along the ball launch path, the right cheek of the drain babe's butt, and the captive ball captive's junk. It just was not worth the ~$340 that I paid for it... if only I could have gotten the guy who bid against me and some other clown in a bidding war, it would have been great. Anyway, I couldn't take $100 for it, so I relisted, it went for $150, and after a little thought I sold. I just shipped it off today. As far as the parts went, I was generally disappointed. I paid about $100 for them, and I think I made around $40-50.On the plus side, I disassembled the parts from High Speed and made a killing. Of course the game didn't work when I tested it, and I tried booting the CPU board but it had too much battery damage. As I mentioned, I did find the working alphanumeric display, but everything else had to be sold as untested. Still and all, I cleared $275, with the bulk of that coming from the police light topper ($112.50) and the display ($69). Even the non-working displays sold for $4, and I was brutally honest about the fact that they had been tested and found wanting. The awesome HS sales combined with some unexpected vintage computer ad sales ($108 for an IMSAI catalog? Yeah, baby!) to propel me within spittin' distance of a $500 week, my second best ever (first would be hard to beat, $565 for a copy of the Apple II version of Ultima with all its packaging).
Finally, to balance the bad and the good with a dash of ambivalence, I sold some of the Doctor Who parts I got from Illinois Pinball. The first time I sold them, I got double what I paid for them, then I since that did so well I sold a second batch the next week and barely covered my costs before shipping. So the important lesson I learned is either don't sell stuff immediately OR eBay is a chaotic system that defies logical explanation. I'm not sure which is the more valuable lesson.
And to balance out my sales, I pulled the playfield out of High Speed and put the cabinet up in my first ever Mr. Pinball classified ad! (I've created an amazing simulation of it on the right.) I guess I kind of had dreams that it would draw a bunch of offers so I would have to sort out the "or best" of them, but as it turns out the only one was from a guy from Missoura who said it was exactly what he needed and agreed to pay full price. The only problem? He lives over 900 miles away. The solution? Luckily, unlike me he has actual friends, and one of them who lives only about 200 miles away from him is going to Pinball Wizards, so I will bring up the cabinet on Saturday and give it to his proxy. If you're doing the math, that means I've made $325 on High Speed, which is just north of what I paid for it, which means it, like the Doctor Who parts machine before it, is PROFITABLE!!! And I still have the backglass and playfield glass to sell! Yay for our side!So today my wife and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary, tomorrow we're going to see a matinée of Iron Man (her choice! yes, I am the envy of men everywhere), and Saturday is the pinball show... we'll discuss all that soon with all the details of the Pinball World Tour. Sheesh!
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