J. J. Entropy's Mystery Box

J. J. Abrams of Lost and Alias fame has a Mystery Box, which he bought years ago and has never opened. He keeps it on a shelf in his office, and to him it represents hope and potential. He never intends to open the Mystery Box. This, to me, pretty much explains Lost and why if you watch it (I don't -- I watched 11 eps and stopped for no real reason) you should never expect to have any of the bizarre things you see on the show answered.

I mention this because in the week after I won my own personal Mystery Box of pinball parts that I bought on eBay, I was quite the giddy goat... I was thinking about what was in it, I was planning what I would do with the items I could identify, I was wondering if I had made a colossal blunder or if the contents of the box would allow me to make my fortune in the world. I was in a heighted state of awareness, my pre-frontal cortex was active, and I was doing all the things that the disembodied head of Dr. Ryuta Kawashima tells me I should be doing in Brain Age. But above all, I was filled with thoughts of -- dare I say it -- hope and potential just like J. J. Abrams.

But here's where J. J. Abrams and J. Entropy differ: He uses that sense of wonder to fuel his work, whereas I would get sense of wonder fatigue after a few days and simply open the damn thing. My work (computer programming) and my hobbies (pinball being the one that impacts this blog most often) don't rely on mysteries, they rely on solutions to mysteries. So when the box arrived on Tuesday, I pretty much tore into it as soon as possible on the day it arrived (after walking the dog and discharging whatever other duties I had as the pater familias).

So, what's in the box? Well, I think if we opened J. J. Abrams' Mystery Box, the contents would be very similar to mine. There's an enticing layer of interesting parts on the top, which make up about 1 pound of the box's total weight. Under that is 29 pounds of metal parts, consisting mostly of old pinballs and leg bolts. Remember how I said I would get $50 worth of enjoyment from digging through the box? Well, it's more like a tenth of that. If I were J. J. Abrams and this was what was in my box, I would probably end up bitter and kill off Kirk, Spock, and McCoy in Star Trek.

But I hyperbolize for comic effect. Actually there are some pretty interesting things in it. I did have some fun pulling out playfield plastics and identifying them with the help my pal the Internet. There are a few circuit boards, a lot of pop bumper plastics, a few targets. The biggest thing is the graveyard from BS Dracula. I had great luck cleaning the grime off of a lot of stuff using the dishwasher technique. But the big question is will I be able to sell enough of it to make back my $100? Probably not, but we can always hope.

I have a couple of days off next week, and I plan to do at least one pinball-related thing per day.

In semi-related pinball news, I've seen most of the TV shows and movies that pinball games are based on -- the exception being horror themes like Freddy and new stuff like CSI and 24 -- but I'd never gotten around to Terminator 3. Well, I was working my way through the Terminator series on the off chance that I see Terminator: Salvation this summer, so I finally watched it last night. Man, did it suhuhuhuhuhuck! Especially after watching the first two movies, which were both great, T3 paled in comparison. It was dumb and illogical and poorly thought out and had any number of problems. The writer and director were a couple of good time charlies that felt that the path to success for this movie was to take elements that worked in the other two films then just turn them up to 11 and add as many effects as possible. My verdict: Terminator 3 is the Highlander 2 of Terminator sequels.