Let's remind ourselves that we've got other pinball games to deal with, in this case Doctor Who. I have been slouching slowly towards Bethlehem with that one.
Our boiler has been having a lot of problems for the past year, which is tough because DW, when down, blocked access to it. When service guys have come in the past, I've folded the game up and lifted it upright... making sure to keep it on boards in case of a flood. I decided I was tired of that, so with the help of my wife I finally attached the rusty legs I got back in May. I was going to try to remove the rust from them, but it's probably less trouble to buy a $20 pair of legs in two months than it is to de-rust these legs. Then I put my el cheapo pinball skates (tiny wheels I got at Home Depot for $9 each, thanks to a recommendation from This Old Pinball) and rolled it into a corner. Yay!
So this weekend it was time to do some actual stuff. I'd just gotten a new lock that clamps together the cabinet and the head (plus some #906 lamps) from Bay Area Pinball earlier in the week. I was disturbed to find water in the channel between the playfield glass and the hole into the cabinet! I think the dumbass service guy must have let some water slip when he drained the boiler. It looks like none got on the playfield or in the cabinet, so I dried it off and continued. I screwed on the new lock, then replaced the one or two lamps (I think the Escape flasher is still burned out, but I have to look at it more carefully). When I lifted up the head, I noticed that the DMD panel had come loose from the head.
Tonight I powered it up for the first time, and I seem to have lost a few more vertical DMD lines on the right side, probably when the panel came loose. But on the plus side, after a quick look at Black Knight's door switch, I found the two connectors for the coin door switch, closed them with a wire, and removed another obstacle in fixing the game... when I turned it on, the mini-playfield started cycling and for the first time the game didn't yell at me to keep my damn hands away from the mini-playfield. That was nice.
I was going to try to connect the service buttons that I got on the French coin door, but found that the Molex pins I had were the wrong size. So I got out the old alligator clips and attached it the old-fashioned way (I put paper between the clips to keep them from shorting). Here's an interesting fact: The game won't let you press the buttons if the coin door is closed. I had to remove my short before it would let me test the game.
The test was somewhat enlightening. The mini-playfield goes up OK, but when it goes down it registers an error. My hope is that the opto switch for the mini-pf is bad, since I have a replacement.
My goal this weekend was to get the flippers on, but I wimped. As you've probably guessed if you've read a few of my posts, whenever I get close to doing something for the first time, the Big Fear grips me and I put it off as long as possible. I have always had a huge fear of failure, and it has kept me from doing a lot of things -- like dating regularly in high school and college. Usually either circumstances intervene (for example, my wife asked me out on our first date) or I get over it. Hopefully I'll get around to it soon.
Continuing the World Tour, last week I stopped at a pool place in Rockville which supposedly had a Pirates of the Caribbean, albeit in poor repair. Unfortunately, when I finally found it, it was turned off. The place it's at is under new management, but a few years ago it had four pinball games, and I would go there every few weeks to get my pinfix. At various times, they had (sorry, no links: it's late. look 'em up yourself) Scared Stiff, Medieval Madness, Monster Bash, Whitewater, Attack from Mars, Monopoly, Roller Coaster Tycoon and possibly one or two others. It was also the Montgomery County home of the Free State Pinball Assoc, so the games were usually in reasonably good repair. At some point, though, they moved the games out and I was sad.
Sunday, March 04, 2007
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Dumbass or Dumbf**k: You decide
See, the thing you have to remember about me buying playfields is that I'm not addicted to it... I can quit buying them any time. I just choose not to quit. That totally makes all the difference.
That flimsy rationalization means, of course, that despite my assertion a couple of posts ago, I've made another playfield purchase. And what a purchase. Even Roger is surprised, and he's used to real men. There are seven (7!) in all that I bought from eBay for a little over $330. This will either be the canniest deal I've ever made or be the ruin of my family.
So, I was done buying playfields, but kept my eBay search on. About two weeks ago, a Six Million Dollar Man shows up for some amount of money that was inside my price range down in Bethesda. I ask the guy if pickup is OK, and he says yes and he's also selling a bunch of other playfields. So I look at his other auctions and he's got this 7 mostly populated Bally playfield lot which didn't show up in my search because the title didn't contain the word "playfield". It was $100, so I kept a watch on it. It had two games on my short list, three on my long list, and a two that weren't on my list at all. The auction ended on Friday afternoon.
Of course, that was a turbulent week for us, with our cat Reoki's cancer diagnosis. Thursday was her ultrasound, and we were going to put her to sleep the next day. We even got our daughter from college. I took Friday off work, expecting an ordeal. In the night we thought and had a change of heart (thanks in part to an email from my friend Vicki), and the next morning we decided not to put her to sleep. I'm not really sure if that's the right decision, but that's a subject for the pet ethics blog. Suffice to say, I was feeling a lot better Friday afternoon than I had expected to.
This left me feeling a little frisky just in time for the auction's end. It had gone up to $200 or so, beyond my initial $25/playfield preferred price. I decided to research a little more and found that a non-populated version of one of the playfields, Fathom, had sold a week before for about $250 -- and this was one that wasn't in demonstrably good condition. That upped the ante slightly, since it was possible that I could finance the entire purchase by parting out the two playfields that I didn't want. At this point, I was serious enough to escalate the purchase to my wife.
This was a bold move for me. I didn't think I could pull off hiding 7 playfields from her, and she has threatened me with storage in the past... AND she doesn't even know about two of the playfields, since I bought Middle Earth and Mr. & Mrs. Pac-Man while she was taking care of her dad. I made my case, showed her the closed Fathom auction, and she grudgingly agreed... I am spending my money, after all, so despite my aside in the second paragraph I'm not seriously endangering our financial stability. I did promise that they would not significantly inconvenience anyone but myself any more than her leaving fabric dye and felting supplies on the dining room table, he wrote snarkily.
So bid away I did, mentally raising my minimum bid every few seconds. It helped that I had tax refunds and my bonus from work coming. I did have some kind of self-imposed bidding glitch (I forget what it was), which meant I got my winning bid in at the two second mark. *whew* I PayPal-ed him the money and after some quick negotiating we arrived at a narrow pick-up window (between 6 and 6:30 that evening).
Now Bethesda, as anyone in the Washington area knows, is like saying "The Valley" in my old stomping grounds Los Angeles. "Bethesda" refers to an area that's about 30% of the area of the state of Maryland (Silver Spring and Baltimore are another 30% each, and the remaining 10% is everywhere else). This Bethesda was about two blocks from the District line, about as far away as it could possibly be and still be in Bethesda. I left around 5:30, thinking the traffic would be mostly going upstream to spawn... I was sadly mistaken. After some initial zooming, traffic came to a stop on the 270 and I was worried about making it by 6:30 when the guy said he was leaving for the weekend... and I wanted to goof with my playfields over the long weekend! Thank goodness for that GPS that I bought my wife for Christmas. It allowed me to start driving down random roads in the general direction of the guy's house and be assured of a path there. In the past, I would have been stuck with Yahoo or Google map instructions, which are hard to diverge from if you don't know your way around.
I arrived, somewhat frazzled, at 6:20. The guy had to go, but he did mention that he had planned on doing something similar to what I was doing, only he was going to use the Bally boards + cabinet and plug in compatible playfields. It's an interesting idea, but for me the boards and displays are the part I want to remove the most. He showed me where they were and left, and I managed to load all 7 into my Honda CR-V (five on end in the back, one laid on top of them, and one on the passenger side front seat). I drove home very carefully, and I thought every creak was plastics breaking or something. I took streets home to reduce the bouncing. The next day I unloaded them into the entry way and dining room and started shuttling them downstairs. By the end of the day, they were all snug inside the downstairs bedroom, which no one but me goes in anyway.
And you may ask myself, well, what did I get here? And you may tell myself, My God, what have you done? Behold, the Seven Playfields!
The aforementioned Fathom: Mostly unpopulated on top, fully populated on the bottom, lower left corner of the under playfield apparently had a fire (urk!), playfield a little more worn than I would have liked.
Silverball Mania: On the short list of computer controlled playfield games mostly because of the low number of coils (no drop targets) and I like it a lot. Typically worn, missing some parts, and the kicker is dangling by two wires.
Black Jack: Low number of coils, and I do like it, just not as much as SBM. In really good shape, a few wear spots, but the playfield is all solid colors that will be easy to touch up.
Star Trek: Also on the short list, typically worn and typically touched up as well (the stars in the center of the playfield seems to draw bad touch-up artists like moths to a flame). A bunch of broken plastics, too.
Flash Gordon: Sing along with Queen! "Doot doot doot doot doot, FLASH! Emperor Ming awaits!" What can I say... I can remember things I heard 30 years ago on a pinball machine, but I can't remember what my wife told me five minutes ago. Like M&M Pac-Man, Flash G. is a game I like a lot more than the rest of the world, and in spite of the crappy movie that inspired it, too. Playfield in awesome condition with some minor wear, a broken plastic or two. One of the better playfields in the lot... I wish I could sell this, because I think it would yield the most money.
Eight Ball: This one's in the worst shape of all. The paint on the playfield is flaking, and there are a couple of missing plastics. This is definitely second runner up of the ones I would sell, so it kinda sucks that it's not better off. But if nothing else, you gotta love the Fonz! 'eyyyy!!!
Skateball: This one's in pretty good condition, though it has a scratch in the center playfield that looks like it drew blood. Otherwise it's in pretty good shape. I was thinking about using Skateball for the pin project my wife and I are planning to do, but the more I've thought about it, the more I think it's in too good condition. For that, I'd like to find one that's got more wood... no, not this kind. Like serious wear that can't be fixed without an overlay or something. I'm going to keep looking.
Anyway, we'll do more on the playfields individually and have pictures & stuff soon.
These final notes... I picked up another PinballChuck purchase on eBay, a supposedly working Bally 6 digit display. $25 w/shipping. Paragon needs a new one... I need to try it out soon.
Also I tried out the NASCAR at Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theater yesterday, and it kind of sucked. On the plus side, it's only a quarter a game, but on the minus the right flipper was weak, the switch was bad on the left hole so every time you got it in there you'd have to wait for the ball search to continue the game. And this little kid kept asking me if he could have a go. That's what you get for playing pinball in a Chuck E. Cheese.
And Doctor Who is going up on its legs this weekend! More on that later, too!
That flimsy rationalization means, of course, that despite my assertion a couple of posts ago, I've made another playfield purchase. And what a purchase. Even Roger is surprised, and he's used to real men. There are seven (7!) in all that I bought from eBay for a little over $330. This will either be the canniest deal I've ever made or be the ruin of my family.
So, I was done buying playfields, but kept my eBay search on. About two weeks ago, a Six Million Dollar Man shows up for some amount of money that was inside my price range down in Bethesda. I ask the guy if pickup is OK, and he says yes and he's also selling a bunch of other playfields. So I look at his other auctions and he's got this 7 mostly populated Bally playfield lot which didn't show up in my search because the title didn't contain the word "playfield". It was $100, so I kept a watch on it. It had two games on my short list, three on my long list, and a two that weren't on my list at all. The auction ended on Friday afternoon.
Of course, that was a turbulent week for us, with our cat Reoki's cancer diagnosis. Thursday was her ultrasound, and we were going to put her to sleep the next day. We even got our daughter from college. I took Friday off work, expecting an ordeal. In the night we thought and had a change of heart (thanks in part to an email from my friend Vicki), and the next morning we decided not to put her to sleep. I'm not really sure if that's the right decision, but that's a subject for the pet ethics blog. Suffice to say, I was feeling a lot better Friday afternoon than I had expected to.
This left me feeling a little frisky just in time for the auction's end. It had gone up to $200 or so, beyond my initial $25/playfield preferred price. I decided to research a little more and found that a non-populated version of one of the playfields, Fathom, had sold a week before for about $250 -- and this was one that wasn't in demonstrably good condition. That upped the ante slightly, since it was possible that I could finance the entire purchase by parting out the two playfields that I didn't want. At this point, I was serious enough to escalate the purchase to my wife.
This was a bold move for me. I didn't think I could pull off hiding 7 playfields from her, and she has threatened me with storage in the past... AND she doesn't even know about two of the playfields, since I bought Middle Earth and Mr. & Mrs. Pac-Man while she was taking care of her dad. I made my case, showed her the closed Fathom auction, and she grudgingly agreed... I am spending my money, after all, so despite my aside in the second paragraph I'm not seriously endangering our financial stability. I did promise that they would not significantly inconvenience anyone but myself any more than her leaving fabric dye and felting supplies on the dining room table, he wrote snarkily.
So bid away I did, mentally raising my minimum bid every few seconds. It helped that I had tax refunds and my bonus from work coming. I did have some kind of self-imposed bidding glitch (I forget what it was), which meant I got my winning bid in at the two second mark. *whew* I PayPal-ed him the money and after some quick negotiating we arrived at a narrow pick-up window (between 6 and 6:30 that evening).
Now Bethesda, as anyone in the Washington area knows, is like saying "The Valley" in my old stomping grounds Los Angeles. "Bethesda" refers to an area that's about 30% of the area of the state of Maryland (Silver Spring and Baltimore are another 30% each, and the remaining 10% is everywhere else). This Bethesda was about two blocks from the District line, about as far away as it could possibly be and still be in Bethesda. I left around 5:30, thinking the traffic would be mostly going upstream to spawn... I was sadly mistaken. After some initial zooming, traffic came to a stop on the 270 and I was worried about making it by 6:30 when the guy said he was leaving for the weekend... and I wanted to goof with my playfields over the long weekend! Thank goodness for that GPS that I bought my wife for Christmas. It allowed me to start driving down random roads in the general direction of the guy's house and be assured of a path there. In the past, I would have been stuck with Yahoo or Google map instructions, which are hard to diverge from if you don't know your way around.
I arrived, somewhat frazzled, at 6:20. The guy had to go, but he did mention that he had planned on doing something similar to what I was doing, only he was going to use the Bally boards + cabinet and plug in compatible playfields. It's an interesting idea, but for me the boards and displays are the part I want to remove the most. He showed me where they were and left, and I managed to load all 7 into my Honda CR-V (five on end in the back, one laid on top of them, and one on the passenger side front seat). I drove home very carefully, and I thought every creak was plastics breaking or something. I took streets home to reduce the bouncing. The next day I unloaded them into the entry way and dining room and started shuttling them downstairs. By the end of the day, they were all snug inside the downstairs bedroom, which no one but me goes in anyway.
And you may ask myself, well, what did I get here? And you may tell myself, My God, what have you done? Behold, the Seven Playfields!
The aforementioned Fathom: Mostly unpopulated on top, fully populated on the bottom, lower left corner of the under playfield apparently had a fire (urk!), playfield a little more worn than I would have liked.
Silverball Mania: On the short list of computer controlled playfield games mostly because of the low number of coils (no drop targets) and I like it a lot. Typically worn, missing some parts, and the kicker is dangling by two wires.
Black Jack: Low number of coils, and I do like it, just not as much as SBM. In really good shape, a few wear spots, but the playfield is all solid colors that will be easy to touch up.
Star Trek: Also on the short list, typically worn and typically touched up as well (the stars in the center of the playfield seems to draw bad touch-up artists like moths to a flame). A bunch of broken plastics, too.
Flash Gordon: Sing along with Queen! "Doot doot doot doot doot, FLASH! Emperor Ming awaits!" What can I say... I can remember things I heard 30 years ago on a pinball machine, but I can't remember what my wife told me five minutes ago. Like M&M Pac-Man, Flash G. is a game I like a lot more than the rest of the world, and in spite of the crappy movie that inspired it, too. Playfield in awesome condition with some minor wear, a broken plastic or two. One of the better playfields in the lot... I wish I could sell this, because I think it would yield the most money.
Eight Ball: This one's in the worst shape of all. The paint on the playfield is flaking, and there are a couple of missing plastics. This is definitely second runner up of the ones I would sell, so it kinda sucks that it's not better off. But if nothing else, you gotta love the Fonz! 'eyyyy!!!
Skateball: This one's in pretty good condition, though it has a scratch in the center playfield that looks like it drew blood. Otherwise it's in pretty good shape. I was thinking about using Skateball for the pin project my wife and I are planning to do, but the more I've thought about it, the more I think it's in too good condition. For that, I'd like to find one that's got more wood... no, not this kind. Like serious wear that can't be fixed without an overlay or something. I'm going to keep looking.
Anyway, we'll do more on the playfields individually and have pictures & stuff soon.
These final notes... I picked up another PinballChuck purchase on eBay, a supposedly working Bally 6 digit display. $25 w/shipping. Paragon needs a new one... I need to try it out soon.
Also I tried out the NASCAR at Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theater yesterday, and it kind of sucked. On the plus side, it's only a quarter a game, but on the minus the right flipper was weak, the switch was bad on the left hole so every time you got it in there you'd have to wait for the ball search to continue the game. And this little kid kept asking me if he could have a go. That's what you get for playing pinball in a Chuck E. Cheese.
And Doctor Who is going up on its legs this weekend! More on that later, too!
Saturday, February 24, 2007
This just in: I am not a complete loser
Things have been kind of down in our household... we're on a deathwatch for one of our cats, who has a pretty bad abdominal tumor. The mood isn't conducive to a chatty blog about pinball, but I figured I'd get this post in while I'm thinking about it.
There was an eBay auction last weekend for a Doctor Who in similar condition to mine when I bought it. Of course, I'm always worried that I'm spending too much money for this or that, so I was watching it to see if it sold for more than mine did. Also, if it had gone for cheap I would have bid on it myself just to resell the parts. The final price was $517, almost exactly twice what I paid for mine. It always helps when the market confirms that you're not a complete dumbass. Well, OK, the next post may indicate that I am, but we'll just have to wait for that. It will be a long one.
Also, apropos to my last post, I discovered a new pinball machine near my house! Last Monday -- Washington's Birthday -- I was buying dinner for my wife and I to buoy our spirits (this is going to be a huge parenthetical aside, sorry... not only were we upset about our cat, but my daughter had just gone back to school -- she was coming down for an Anime convention, but came down a day early because we almost put the cat to sleep and she wanted to be there, but once down she came down with stomach flu, missed the con, and spent the whole weekend with us. My wife then came down with said stomach flu this week, but, to quote the Weird Al Show theme song, that's really not important to the story). I was getting Chipotle for me and Boston Market for her, and in the same shopping center there is a Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theater (yes, I am old school, so I use the complete name whenever feasible despite the fact that none of them have those animatronic freak shows in them any more). I poked my head in, not expecting much -- during a fruitless portion of my world tour that I didn't chronicle, I'd looked into one in Bethesda -- and lo and behold, there was a NASCAR right by the door! I didn't play because I really needed to get dinner home, but I'm hoping to give it a go this weekend. Later that night, I proudly entered it into the FSPA pinball list, though I kind of fudged the rating since I didn't actually play it. NASCAR is one of the few newer Stern games I really enjoy, I think mainly because it has nice clear shots and a clean design around the center playfield, which appeals to my late 70's Bally aesthetic.
Next time, for sure: I will really, really embarrass myself for your benefit with my latest lunatic purchase.
There was an eBay auction last weekend for a Doctor Who in similar condition to mine when I bought it. Of course, I'm always worried that I'm spending too much money for this or that, so I was watching it to see if it sold for more than mine did. Also, if it had gone for cheap I would have bid on it myself just to resell the parts. The final price was $517, almost exactly twice what I paid for mine. It always helps when the market confirms that you're not a complete dumbass. Well, OK, the next post may indicate that I am, but we'll just have to wait for that. It will be a long one.
Also, apropos to my last post, I discovered a new pinball machine near my house! Last Monday -- Washington's Birthday -- I was buying dinner for my wife and I to buoy our spirits (this is going to be a huge parenthetical aside, sorry... not only were we upset about our cat, but my daughter had just gone back to school -- she was coming down for an Anime convention, but came down a day early because we almost put the cat to sleep and she wanted to be there, but once down she came down with stomach flu, missed the con, and spent the whole weekend with us. My wife then came down with said stomach flu this week, but, to quote the Weird Al Show theme song, that's really not important to the story). I was getting Chipotle for me and Boston Market for her, and in the same shopping center there is a Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theater (yes, I am old school, so I use the complete name whenever feasible despite the fact that none of them have those animatronic freak shows in them any more). I poked my head in, not expecting much -- during a fruitless portion of my world tour that I didn't chronicle, I'd looked into one in Bethesda -- and lo and behold, there was a NASCAR right by the door! I didn't play because I really needed to get dinner home, but I'm hoping to give it a go this weekend. Later that night, I proudly entered it into the FSPA pinball list, though I kind of fudged the rating since I didn't actually play it. NASCAR is one of the few newer Stern games I really enjoy, I think mainly because it has nice clear shots and a clean design around the center playfield, which appeals to my late 70's Bally aesthetic.
Next time, for sure: I will really, really embarrass myself for your benefit with my latest lunatic purchase.
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Pinball World Tour
I am catching up... this only happened about three weeks ago.
Before my wife got back from her dad's house, I decided to take advantage of the unseasonably warm DC weather and find all the pinball games in my area. Using the extremely convenient Free State Pinball Association guide, I planned a route and took off.
My first stop was Jerry's Subs where they had a Simpsons Pinball Party. Unfortunately, a couple was playing it, and after waiting a while I took off. Jerry's used to have two games (MM and something else), but the legs were sawed off so kids could play and it ruined my back.
Next was the infamous Crab Towne USA, a seedy crab cake restaurant with a 70's style arcade attached to it. 24 pinball machines, a few dozen arcade games, and all of them filthy and in serious need of repair. The first thing I noticed when I walked in is that Anne Arundel County allows smoking in restaurants, which Montgomery banned a few years ago (and good riddance). They're mostly newer games, but there are some odd chestnuts like Eight Ball Deluxe and KISS... honestly, when was the last time you played KISS in an arcade? All of the games I played had something wrong with them, but it was still fun. I had a good Twilight Zone game. Of course, I always love my Fish Tales and Pinbot. Whirlwind was broken so that a ball would lodge in one of the holes and score you points, so you couldn't miss getting a free game.
Then I went to Beltway Chevron, which inexplicably has a Funhouse and Lethal Weapon 3. A guy in a wheelchair was parked in front of Funhouse so I left without playing.
It was getting late, so I cut the next few short. I went up to a Hard Times Cafe where they were supposed to have a Harley Davidson, but I think they'd gotten rid of it. I ate dinner there... I can only handle their chili about once a year. My final stop was pretty close to my house at Buffalo Wings and Beer, which was supposed to have a Scared Stiff, but it had been replaced with Lord of the Rings... kind of disappointing, butwhat can you do. This was a working one -- the last one I played had a broken Balrog -- so it was fun. Here's an interesting tidbit... when trolling for the LOTR link, I found a pic of the German poster, and apparently its name in German is The Man of the Ring... kind of like the Man of the House, but he has a ring that can enslave the world.
A few days later I headed back to Beltway Chevron after work and played Funhouse (I'm not a big LE3 fan... Data East == barf). It was in surprisingly good condition... Rudy's eyes were permanently shut, and I think the second step switch was broken, but that was it. Also, during my most awesome game of the night the ball got stuck under the playfield and I had to tilt to get it out. But I loves the Funhouse.
I guess I'm kind of Pat Lawlor heavy on this post... not sure why that is. Here, I'll round it out with the full set: the Addams Family at Crab Towne had weak left flippers, so that kind of sucked.
Next up: You will believe what I did, because it follows the pattern of my behavior perfectly!
Before my wife got back from her dad's house, I decided to take advantage of the unseasonably warm DC weather and find all the pinball games in my area. Using the extremely convenient Free State Pinball Association guide, I planned a route and took off.
My first stop was Jerry's Subs where they had a Simpsons Pinball Party. Unfortunately, a couple was playing it, and after waiting a while I took off. Jerry's used to have two games (MM and something else), but the legs were sawed off so kids could play and it ruined my back.
Next was the infamous Crab Towne USA, a seedy crab cake restaurant with a 70's style arcade attached to it. 24 pinball machines, a few dozen arcade games, and all of them filthy and in serious need of repair. The first thing I noticed when I walked in is that Anne Arundel County allows smoking in restaurants, which Montgomery banned a few years ago (and good riddance). They're mostly newer games, but there are some odd chestnuts like Eight Ball Deluxe and KISS... honestly, when was the last time you played KISS in an arcade? All of the games I played had something wrong with them, but it was still fun. I had a good Twilight Zone game. Of course, I always love my Fish Tales and Pinbot. Whirlwind was broken so that a ball would lodge in one of the holes and score you points, so you couldn't miss getting a free game.
Then I went to Beltway Chevron, which inexplicably has a Funhouse and Lethal Weapon 3. A guy in a wheelchair was parked in front of Funhouse so I left without playing.
It was getting late, so I cut the next few short. I went up to a Hard Times Cafe where they were supposed to have a Harley Davidson, but I think they'd gotten rid of it. I ate dinner there... I can only handle their chili about once a year. My final stop was pretty close to my house at Buffalo Wings and Beer, which was supposed to have a Scared Stiff, but it had been replaced with Lord of the Rings... kind of disappointing, butwhat can you do. This was a working one -- the last one I played had a broken Balrog -- so it was fun. Here's an interesting tidbit... when trolling for the LOTR link, I found a pic of the German poster, and apparently its name in German is The Man of the Ring... kind of like the Man of the House, but he has a ring that can enslave the world.
A few days later I headed back to Beltway Chevron after work and played Funhouse (I'm not a big LE3 fan... Data East == barf). It was in surprisingly good condition... Rudy's eyes were permanently shut, and I think the second step switch was broken, but that was it. Also, during my most awesome game of the night the ball got stuck under the playfield and I had to tilt to get it out. But I loves the Funhouse.
I guess I'm kind of Pat Lawlor heavy on this post... not sure why that is. Here, I'll round it out with the full set: the Addams Family at Crab Towne had weak left flippers, so that kind of sucked.
Next up: You will believe what I did, because it follows the pattern of my behavior perfectly!
Sunday, January 28, 2007
I am a bad person with bad thoughts
I done a bad thing... I bought another damn playfield. This time it's an Atari Middle Earth... not one of your great pinball machines, but it is -- get this -- the first pinball game I remember playing. Purely a nostalgia buy. Sorry about the lousy image quality, but I took this with my cell phone (both digital cameras are out of the house right now) and it's wedged in a corner so my wife won't see it.
Believe me when I say I was very conflicted about this purchase. It was on eBay for $35, and nobody bid on it. Shipping was expensive, but it was up in New Jersey and the guy said I could pick it up. So I bid on it with the understanding to myself that I wouldn't go any higher than the initial price. Nobody else bid on it, so I won. This was back in early December, and I arranged to pick it up two days before my wife got home -- so she need never know, heh heh heh.
I drove up on a Saturday... it was about 4 or 5 hours each way. I had bought my wife a GPS for Christmas, and thought this would be a good time to try it out. It worked out pretty well... not the choices I would make (I would have gone up the NJ Turnpike), but the GPS took me through old mill towns and stuff so it was an interesting drive. I got to the guy's house and picked up the playfield, and we chatted for a while in the cold. He was a pretty nice guy, and he had some interesting projects of his own... he was restoring a video game and a few pins. I don't know why -- maybe because I had been getting dvds of Seinfeld from Netflix while my wife was gone -- but when he asked me what I was going to use it for, I confabulated a complete lie about how I had a game that I was restoring and I was just getting this one for the parts and the boards looked OK but the CPU didn't boot and yadda yadda yadda. It was a real George Costanza moment. I still have no idea why I didn't just tell him the truth. But aside from that it was fun talking to him. Then I had a relatively uneventful drive back. I put the playfield in the basement under a blanket behind the Black Knight playfield on the off chance that my wife would see it, but as far as I can tell she hasn't even looked in that room.
In other pinball news, I have ignored Doctor Who but made progress on Eight Ball Deluxe. I cleaned the playfield and reinstalled all the parts, played a few games, then turned my baleful eye on the mechanical problems. With the help of rpg, I've determined that the chattering flipper is most likely a problem with the coil, like a broken wire or something. I tried to see if I could reattach it, but it looks like I should probably just replace it. Luckily, I bought two coils a long time ago for the chattering Paragon flipper, and EBD uses the same coils. Over Christmas I did practice soldering, so eventually I'll work myself into enough of a frenzy to replace it. The bad switches aren't as obvious, but with my newfound soldering skillz I can test the switch diodes and see if they're bad. I'm not sure what I'm going to do about the lights that don't work (yes, I have replaced them with known good bulbs), but I'll worry about those later.
I also had some pinfun today, but I'm going to write a separate post for that.
Sunday, December 17, 2006
Gasp!
This is my first post using my new Christmas present, a spankin' new 20" iMac, which is pretty darned sweet.
The big news is that I have officially received my last part to get Doctor Who to work. I was emailing about this and that with the guy who sold me the speaker grill and mentioned that I had the mini-playfield motor but needed the cam. A little while later he emailed me back with a cam, but not the cam... it was one from the Ringmaster in Cirqus Voltaire. I told him, no that's not it, but thanks for looking... I had done all this myself, so I didn't expect anything. A few minutes later he emailed me another cam, and that was it! It was just $15 from Illinois Pinball Co., and I'd never found it because it's listed solely by its part number (A-15035) and name (CAM ASSY) but not by the game, and there was no picture. I had to change my pants, I was so excited. I ordered it that night and it arrived a few days later. If the speaker grill guy had been here I would have kissed him. mmmm-mwah!
So I got around to installing it tonight (I needed to get a few screws and things from my local hardware store). First I hooked up the motor and ran the mini-playfield test, and the motor ran. Then I attached the cam and worried it into position... it's a little tricky, but I did it by unscrewing the mini-playfield opto sensor and swinging it around, positioning the motor & cam, then swinging the opto back and screwing everything in. I put the playfield down, started up the test, and held down the flipper buttons (which you have to do to avoid crushing your hands)... and the crazy gizmo really worked! Then it gave me an error! That's great news, because the error is probably because the opto doesn't work. So I ran the test again, the playfield went up, went askew ever so slightly, then stopped and gave another error. This time, it wouldn't go down. I left it the way it was and didn't go in to see what was wrong, but still, I was reasonably flush with semi-triumph! Mini-triumph, even!
Which leaves me with this chilling challenge: To install the flippers over my Christmas vacation! Then assuming I can get the mini-playfield reliably running, I should have a fully working game.
The bad news is that the guy selling the Dalek topper did indeed relist it for less money... $5 less. Then some clown bid on it, which just enabled the guy's bad behavior. Sheesh.
Anyway, late now, so gotta go to bed. There's more purchasing of stuff to write about, just not now.
The big news is that I have officially received my last part to get Doctor Who to work. I was emailing about this and that with the guy who sold me the speaker grill and mentioned that I had the mini-playfield motor but needed the cam. A little while later he emailed me back with a cam, but not the cam... it was one from the Ringmaster in Cirqus Voltaire. I told him, no that's not it, but thanks for looking... I had done all this myself, so I didn't expect anything. A few minutes later he emailed me another cam, and that was it! It was just $15 from Illinois Pinball Co., and I'd never found it because it's listed solely by its part number (A-15035) and name (CAM ASSY) but not by the game, and there was no picture. I had to change my pants, I was so excited. I ordered it that night and it arrived a few days later. If the speaker grill guy had been here I would have kissed him. mmmm-mwah!
So I got around to installing it tonight (I needed to get a few screws and things from my local hardware store). First I hooked up the motor and ran the mini-playfield test, and the motor ran. Then I attached the cam and worried it into position... it's a little tricky, but I did it by unscrewing the mini-playfield opto sensor and swinging it around, positioning the motor & cam, then swinging the opto back and screwing everything in. I put the playfield down, started up the test, and held down the flipper buttons (which you have to do to avoid crushing your hands)... and the crazy gizmo really worked! Then it gave me an error! That's great news, because the error is probably because the opto doesn't work. So I ran the test again, the playfield went up, went askew ever so slightly, then stopped and gave another error. This time, it wouldn't go down. I left it the way it was and didn't go in to see what was wrong, but still, I was reasonably flush with semi-triumph! Mini-triumph, even!
Which leaves me with this chilling challenge: To install the flippers over my Christmas vacation! Then assuming I can get the mini-playfield reliably running, I should have a fully working game.
The bad news is that the guy selling the Dalek topper did indeed relist it for less money... $5 less. Then some clown bid on it, which just enabled the guy's bad behavior. Sheesh.
Anyway, late now, so gotta go to bed. There's more purchasing of stuff to write about, just not now.
Sunday, December 03, 2006
Why do I get the feeling that we've picked up another pathetic life form?
Because we have. Mr. & Mrs. Pac-Man finally arrived yesterday, so I took a look. The first thing I noticed was that it reeked like a smoke filled room... the seller is obviously a good friend of the Tobacco Industry. The pictures from the auction really didn't adequately show the full extent of the playfield wear. But I've seen worse. And it's astoundingly complete -- I couldn't spot a single piece of hardware missing, not even flipper coils -- and the mechanicals look pretty clean. The only thing I couldn't find in the box was the right return lane clear plastic... I'm hoping the seller still has it and will mail it along. Of course, I sent this request after I left feedback mentioning the glacial shipping and distinctive odor. ^_^; We'll discuss in detail at a later date.
But the big news in Who-ville is the successful acquisition of a real speaker grill! Two of them went up on eBay within a few days. I bid on the cheaper one that included speakers, and ended up getting it with shipping for less than the opening bid of the other one (sans speakers). It arrived a few days ago and I installed it tonight while watching Bleach on Cartoon Network (which I've seen some of in Japanese, so I don't need to pay 100% attention to in English). After replacing most of the lights and one of the sockets, I found that almost everything works except for the Doctor 7 lamp. While I was there, I put #555 lights in all of the empty backbox sockets (which was most of them), then closed it all up. You have no idea how satisfying it is to get rid of the flimsy-ass thing I made. When I put the translite in, it sat squarely in the groove rather than sitting at an angle and looks like it will fall off if I look at it funny.
The expensive grill guy was also selling a Dalek for too much money (starting bid $100, and - surprise! - it didn't sell). I'm hoping he'll relist for a more reasonable opening bid.
What would a blog entry be without pictures! Here's the DMD shootout... mine versus the real thing. Can YOU tell the difference?!?
And here is the installed grill in the newly lit game. I took the pic without a flash, so it's blurry but shows the lights working. Hee!
This final note: I sold my spare Black Knight plastics last week... I got $110 for about half of them, which is great because I payed $100 for them 3 years ago.
But the big news in Who-ville is the successful acquisition of a real speaker grill! Two of them went up on eBay within a few days. I bid on the cheaper one that included speakers, and ended up getting it with shipping for less than the opening bid of the other one (sans speakers). It arrived a few days ago and I installed it tonight while watching Bleach on Cartoon Network (which I've seen some of in Japanese, so I don't need to pay 100% attention to in English). After replacing most of the lights and one of the sockets, I found that almost everything works except for the Doctor 7 lamp. While I was there, I put #555 lights in all of the empty backbox sockets (which was most of them), then closed it all up. You have no idea how satisfying it is to get rid of the flimsy-ass thing I made. When I put the translite in, it sat squarely in the groove rather than sitting at an angle and looks like it will fall off if I look at it funny.
The expensive grill guy was also selling a Dalek for too much money (starting bid $100, and - surprise! - it didn't sell). I'm hoping he'll relist for a more reasonable opening bid.
What would a blog entry be without pictures! Here's the DMD shootout... mine versus the real thing. Can YOU tell the difference?!?
And here is the installed grill in the newly lit game. I took the pic without a flash, so it's blurry but shows the lights working. Hee!
This final note: I sold my spare Black Knight plastics last week... I got $110 for about half of them, which is great because I payed $100 for them 3 years ago.
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