* Hero of the Beach *

Forgot to mention two instances where I saved the day for pinball.

When I first went to find info on the Hershey Gameroom Show, the street address on Mr. Pinball was missing a letter, making it unfindable on all of the mapping programs I tried. So I emailed Mr. Pinball and he corrected it.

And way back in August of last year I blogged about the IPDb not having the correct lamp pages for Quicksilver. Well, last month I finally got a response:

Changes you submitted to the Pinball Database for the game
titled 'Quicksilver' have been accepted in whole or in part
by an editor!  Thank you for your submission!

The following changes were made because of your submission,
and may include additional corrections and listing changes
made by an Editor:

add new file Stern_1980_Quicksilver_Lamp_Driver_Schematic.jpg
 - Lamp Driver Schematic []  [#3643]
add new file Stern_1980_Quicksilver_Solenoid_Driver_Schematic.jpg
 - Solenoid Driver Schematic []  [#3644]
add new file Stern_1980_Quicksilver_MPU_Schematic.jpg
 - MPU Schematic []  [#3645]

You can see these changes at http://www.ipdb.org/machine.cgi?1895

I am remiss in my blogging duties

Yes, it has been two months since my last confession, but honestly there hasn't been a lot going on. There's been some progress on the work area, but not so much that I can really brog about it (brog == my neologism of the day: blog+brag). Ditto on the games... most of them are buried under the detritus of the cleaning effort.

I did go to the Hershey Gameroom Show two weeks ago. Whereas previous shows had multiple vendors and were more gameroom-oriented and not pinball specific, this show turned out to be nothing more than the Pennsylvania Gameroom Warehouse parking lot sale, albeit in a dumpy old agricultural fairground building. Lots of pins, mostly 90's but a few before and after, and one or two vendors that might have not been PGW front organizations, but that was about it. The flea market consisted of two vendors, both of whom were most likely guys who shovelled out the PGW dumpster. It was like going to the Republican National Convention.

Here's my problem with the pins that were there: Most of them has been lovingly restored cosmetically and were achingly beautiful, but most of them couldn't play for crap. Bad flippers, non-working switches, bad displays, games that rebooted, and so on... and all priced a few hundred dollars below PGW's showroom prices. Would I pay $2300 (marked down from $2700) for a Black Knight 2000 that spit out all of its balls? How about the T2 with one of the plastics on the playfield? Or Hurricane with a bump where the lower ramp connects to the upper that slowed down the ball and caused it to drop off the ramp SDTM? They obviously spend all of their time getting the games to look good at the expense of basic functionality. IMO, you can't have one without t'other.

However, it was worth the trip for one thing: They had a working Lotta Fun. I played that a bunch of times so I could experience what my game will be like when it's fixed up. I also got plenty of cell phone pics of the backglass so I can try to reproduce it -- at least so I know what numbers correspond with what lights (I wish I'd taken a real camera, though). I was also surpised to find a modern Gottlieb game that I actually enjoyed playing, Title Fight. I has some fun in the old school section playing Centaur, Xenon, and Silverball Mania, all canted at bizarre angles on the uneven exhibit hall floor... Xenon was so far off kilter that the ball would stop in the tube.

I didn't buy much... my biggest purchase was a copy of Mad Dog and his Art, Gene Cunningham's somewhat amateurishly made love letter to pinball uber-artist Dave Christensen. I'd been meaning to buy a copy the next time I made a Illinois Pinball run, but it was there and I wasn't buying anything else so I went for it. It's a little disappointing... I'd like it to be about twice as long with more pictures, especially of the playfields. Maybe not worth the ~$35 price, but it's not a travesty, either.

Moan moan moan. I don't have a lot of good things to say about anything, do I?

Next weekend is the York show, which should either wash the bad taste out of my mouth or poison my perception of pinball shows forever.

Another example of how my life juxtaposes rather nicely: I was listening to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on the ride, and that same week I had Netflixed the first season of Pushing Daisies, both of which are narrated by Jim Dale. As my mind wandered during the drive, I kept thinking Jim would say, "The facts were these: At this point Harry Potter was 16 years, 51 weeks, 3 days, 5 hours and 23 minutes old."

Here's the thing that I noticed about Pushing Daisies after watching all 9 episodes in a two week period: The costume designer loves the cleavage. 'nuff said.

I also don't think I've mentioned my latest acquisition (aside from the usual small pin parts that I've picked up here and there when eBay exudes them): After looking for ages online, I finally got a pachinko machine from a local garage sale in July. My wife alerted me to it, so I stopped in and took a look. They were asking $25, and it had no balls and was missing parts. While I was looking they offered $15. I thought I'd make them sweat, so I left and ran some errands, and when I came back they asked $10 and I took it. I bought a load of balls on eBay, but I want to clean it up before I set it up. Another wonderful project that will fill my copious free time!