Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me

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. ^_^;