Repairs, and the usual junk

I'm not sure whether I should post more or just lead a less eventful life.

But I should start with some actual repairs I did to a machine. My daughter brought home a bunch of her friends for Spring Break and while they were here they played some pinball. While they were playing Quicksilver I noticed a bunch of lights that were out on the playfield. So after they left I decided to do a little routine maintenance on it. First I lifted the playfield and wiggled the lights -- it turns out they were all just bad connections. Then while I had the glass off I wiped all the dust off the playfield. After that I dug out the Stern lightning spinner that I bought a few years ago and replaced the Middle Earth spinner that was on the game when I bought it.That was an easy and gratifying fix, so I moved on to the ugly-ass "Tokens" stickers that have been on the coin slots since forever. I disassembled the coin slots -- fairly easy, just two screws and friction hold it together -- and pulled the tape off to reveal another quarter plastic and a 25c plastic. Nice! After a half hour of serious goo-gone work to get the tape residue off and running the plastic coin slots through the dishwasher, the whole assembly looks a lot nicer.

Two easy fixes that only took me 23 years to get around to!

I picked up some more pinball music. At some point I found the secret website where a guy was selling music from all of the Williams System 11 games -- I'd heard about it on TOPCast but only managed to find it a few months ago. I immediately Paypalled $5 to the guy and heard nothing for about a month. Then I got an email asking if he had sent it to me, and then about a month after that I finally got it. It's good! Two CDs and very complete.

Then a few days ago I was browsing around at work while waiting for my program to compile and found this site of more modern music. There are about 80 files, which is great, but I have a few problems with them: The sound quality is a little irregular, and some of the music has odd tempo problems. I don't know if that's the guy's computer or how Pinmame is playing them. They don't have gameplay sound effect mixed in, which I kind of like. But my biggest problem -- and one I can fix myself if I get around to it -- is that they are largely unedited. Most of the cuts are about 1:45 minutes, which is fine for main play tunes but awful for shorter cuts. Really, you don't know pain until you've heard the 2.5 second Mola Ram clip from Indiana Jones played over 40 times. Choose Wisely, indeed. But you can't complain about free, and there are lots of great tracks that are neglected in the other collections I have, like Attack from Mars and Cirqus Voltaire. Overall I now have over a day of pinball music, though there are a lot of dupes.

With all the pinball-related traveling I've been doing, I've run up against the limitations of the FSPA's where to play pinball database. So I put out a call on RGP for larger and more national sites; I got a disappointing two responses. And neither of them have what I need, a distance-based search. I mean, knowing there's a pin in King of Prussia PA doesn't do me any good if I don't know where that is. I was toying with the idea of writing my own database, but at this point I'm thinking more along the lines of adapting a spatial search to the larger of the two (it also has URL-based search params, which are easy submit). Anyway, that's my next timesuck which will hopefully yield dividends.

Finally, the other day I got an eBay impulse buy. eBay's suggestions of other things like the one you're looking at are usually pretty far off the mark for pin-related swag, but on Sunday it popped up "30 lbs of pinball parts", which which at the time was priced just under $30. The thought of getting a big box of pincrap and sifting through it for days struck my fancy, and the seller chose to end the auction in the middle of the day on a Monday which is great for guys like me with access to the Internet at work. I bid and won for $65, which shipping the whole thing was just under $100. I reckon I'll get $50 worth of enjoyment just pawing through it and figuring out what everything is and whether it works or not. I plan to resell what I don't need on eBay, so I anticipate the triumphant return of the Dumbass Industrial Average to track my own personal price to earnings ration.

And really, don't I just need more things to distract me from fixing my games? I most certainly do.

Trespassing against those who would trespass against me

February has been a singularly un-pinball month for me. I spent pretty much all of my free time watching all 69 episodes of Battlestar Galactica, plus the mini-series and movie so my wife would have someone to talk with about the last 4 episodes. Mission accomplished!

I did finish the Who-mobile stickers to my satisfaction... I had to reprint them a bunch of times because I couldn't get the color quite right. They turned out looking really nice, imo. Since I assumed that since my game didn't have them out of 8,000-odd machines there must be several people out there who needed them, so I put them on eBay and Mr. Pinball with hubristic visions of an early retirement from the proceeds! Unfortunately, I appear to have overestimated demand by all of them. No one has bought any of them, though I have gotten a few polite inquiries. I must say, I was disappointed, but kind of "meh" disappointed, not slash my wrists disappointed. And let's face it, my game now has its Who-mobile stickers on it that look great.

My other pinball activity of the month was messing with Mr. Pinball scammers. At the same time that I posted the stickers, on a lark I put up a wanted ad for a Lotta Fun backglass. I got one actual inquiry (same machine at my price point but a slightly different backglass, so I passed) and a crapload of responses from clowns trolling for easy marks. They were so pathetically obvious that I couldn't imagine anyone being fooled by them... so for fun I played the part of the eager, yet naively enthusiastic buyer. My wife thinks I ended up having too much fun doing it. ^_^;

Dumbass #1, "Jack Lawson":

Hello,i am located in uk,london and i have
the 1959 Bally Lotta Fun Bingo backglass

you need in good working condition,if you

are interested contact me for price
and shipping arrangement.

Regards,

Jack Lawson.

When he said that the backglass was in "good working condition", I knew I had a live one. So I asked for pictures and he said:

I AM SORRY MY KID MESSED WITH MY CAMERA,IT IS IN A PRETTY BAD SHAPE HOWEVER I WILL SALE THE BACKGLASS FOR $150 INCLUDING SHIPPING.

Darn that kid! So I asked him how it looked, including specifics about details that were on the backglass (clowns) and some that weren't (a ringmaster).

the backglass is in a perfect condition,no paint is missing from the cards,the clowns and ringmaster are all intact,the electronic devices are in good shape so you won't have to worry about any repairs.

At this point I let fly the insults.

Sorry, I can't do this with a straight face any more. It's so obvious that you have no idea what you're talking about and you're trying to rip me off. If you're going to try to pull this kind of thing off, you should at least know something about you're trying scam people about.

Thanks for the laughs.

He actually replied to this by saying "Thanks", which I thought was very polite of him, then finished things off with this bizarre coda:

i am sorry,i have problems with my memory,i comes and goes off,please i am sorry for the embarrassment this may have caused.

Dumbass #2, "Michael Henwood":

Compliment of the season,I am Michael Henwood from UK,... I saw your
wanted ads Listed on this web ..do you still need it ..I have it for sale and in good condition,please I only need a serious buyer,because I have much Emails from unserious buyers and please if you are one of them..Don,t Bother to write me,i have many experience in international shipping, so shipping will be very cheap from my side to your doorstep,i accept paypal., wire transfer , as soon as I hear from you Iwill email you pictures and asking price, my Phone number is + 44702 4093669 ..call me or you can reply via email..Thank you

I'm not sure what season, but since this was on the 11th maybe he meant Valentine's Day. I asked for pictures and price and got this.

Thanks for your email, attached is a pics of my backglass remove from 1959 Bally Lotta Fun Bingo, in good excellent condition, asking price is 100 pounds and i will need your complete home address to calculate the shipping cost to your doorstep, thanks and let me know what you thik

This was accompanied by a picture of the backglass from IPDB. Obviously, I thik he was trying to rip me off, but just to make him squirm I asked for closeups of the damage to the glass.

Thanks for your email, I am sorry ,i don,t pictures of the paint flaking on the lower right side, but i am assuring you that the backglass is in good condition, shipping and insurance to your doorstep will cost additional 50 pounds, total package to your doorstep will be 150 pounds, payment is by western union money transfer, as soon as your payment is receive, i will ship the backglass to your doorstep and i will email you the shipping tracking numbers

And so it was time for my denouement:

Yeah, I didn't think you'd have closeups since you got the picture off the Internet Pinball Database. This was slightly better than saying you couldn't send me pictures because your camera had broken, but not by much.

I think the problem is you scammers need to be smarter than the people you're trying to scam, and you're pretty clearly not. Honestly, does anybody really fall for this shit?

The trouble is, each time after I flamed the guy I would think of some new wrinkle to try, so I had to keep hoping for new victims.

Dumbass #3, "Morris Jacobs":

hello
my name is Mr Morris Jacobs from London , England. i have what you are looikig for. please feel free to contact me.

I didn't even think this guy would pass muster because he didn't even mention what I was looikig for in the email. He replied with a picture -- again from IPDB -- but of a totally different bingo game, Lite-a-Line. I very politely informed him of his mistake, and he gave up. Inwardly, I cursed him because I still had another gambit to attempt and he had inadvertently thwarted me. And unfortunately, he was the last guy (or for all I know it was the same guy). So I put another want ad on Mr. Pinball, this time for a Paragon playfield (again I got one legit response, go figure). But then I struck paydirt!

Dumbass #4, "Frank Geddins":

I am Frank Geldins from the UK.I saw your Wanted Ads on the internet and i want to let you know tha i still have for sale.Please get back to me if you are still in need.

Scammers take note: It's generally a huge tell if you misspell your own fake name. Frank responded with the picture at right of the entire working game. I was shocked to find that Frank had clearly learned from the mistakes of his peers... this was not a picture from IPDB! However, Google "paragon pinball" and look in the images and this is the third picture. See the gray rectangle on the right? That clever scamp covered up the word "SOLD" that's in the original. However, I played dumb and continued our correspondence. Frank gave me his address to send the Western Union moneygram in London. So I said:

Actually, how much would it be without postage? My son is going to school at Oxford and could pop over to London and pick it up from you directly and pay you in cash. His schedule is pretty open... what times would be good for you?

Note that this is almost not a complete lie, since my daughter did attend school in Lancaster last semester. As expected, Frank didn't think much of this.

Thanks for the mail.I would not welcome anybody to my house as am really a strict business man who do business all around UK.I do not have that time to welcome persons to my house and if your son wants to come and collect from my house i think that would be very impossible.Get back to me ASAP.

So I did get back to him ASAP.

Really? Because I think if you were a legitimate businessman instead of a strict one, picking it up in person would be perfectly reasonable.

The truth is, I knew you were a lying sack of shit from your first email, and your picture of the game that you pulled off the Internet (you did cleverly white out the word "sold" from the image, I will give you that) was pathetic at best.

Thanks for the laughs.

Once again showing that this guy -- and I'm positive it's just one guy -- politely thanked me and said he "really appreciate". So I just snuck in a final dig:

No problem... just trying to waste as much of your time as you're making me waste of mine.

And with that I brought my career as a scambuster to a close. As usual, it takes so little to amuse me.

Now that I've successfully discharged my husbandly BSG duties, I'm hoping March will come in like a pinball lion and I can get some actual game work done. As interesting as Travels with Joe is, the blog is here to talk about the games, so I should do that at least every so often.

Superbowl of Wandering Around Looking for Pinball!

This has been a finding pinball weekend.

I went up to visit my daughter at college this weekend for an exchange of prisoners: I gave her a bunch of stuff she forgot/left/couldn't find before leaving, and she gave me the Netflix disc she took with her three weeks ago and still hasn't watched and season 1 of Battlestar Galactica... I need to start watching it because my wife is obsessing on the new episodes and needs somebody to talk about it to, so February is the month when I have to watch all 60-something of them.

Anyway, so we went to dinner at The Pub, which is just a block and a half from her dorm. And to my pleasant surprise, The Pub had a Champion Pub! It had a strobing display and a slightly weak right flipper, but it was in OK shape otherwise. I had the restraint to not play while my daughter sat idling... I waited until I dropped her off, then went back a played a few unremarkable games.

So today was another in a series of pinball odysseys. Today I headed over towards Anne Arundel County to verify some old FSPA pinball locations. The first stops were in College Park. One wasn't there, but the other was Town Hall Liquor Store and Lounge, which had a Doctor Who, Addams Family, and a turned off Demolition Man. It's kind of a creepy location, and I never went there when I went to school at U of MD because I always thought of it as the place where all the homeless guys and alkies hung out. I did pretty good with DW, almost beating the Emporer Dalek stage in multiball, which is better than I've done at home.

Next up was the Crofton Bowling Center, where they had a Roller Coaster Tycoon with a non-working right flipper and a NASCAR with a few flaky switches but otherwise in pretty nice shape. I won a free game but gave it to a kid that was watching me play. After two years of playing Pizza House's loser NASCAR, it was nice to play one that had all of its parts and has been cleaned.

Then I made a stop that I have been looking forward to, Happy House Pizza, which had a Tales of the Arabian Nights. No GI, strobing display, dirtier than all get out, but perfectly playable and a load of fun. They had a Stern Harley Davidson, but I didn't play it.

The next stop was a bowling alley that was supposed to have a SW Ep1, but it was gone. But on the plus side, I stopped at a convenience store and they had my soda, Vault Zero.

So I went on to my last stop, good ol' Crab Town USA. I didn't have a lot of time since I wanted to see some of the Superbowl. So I played a few games... Twilight Zone, KISS, BK2K, Pinbot, and Fish Tales, plus a bonus game of Punch-out. Everything was in surprisingly good condition, though Fish Tales had a big chunk of plastic on the playfield which eventually blocked the lane and the ball got stuck. But this time I noticed there were little request forms on the wall from the operator, so I left a note for him.

And then even though I'm not a big football fan, the Superbowl was actually worth watching until the end. So overall it was a pretty good day!

Doing Things! To Pinball Machines, Even!

OK! I've actually done stuff to pinball machines lately, so here they are:

One of the projects I've been working on has been replacements for the missing Who-mobile stickers on DW. I scanned the one on the ramp from the parts game, double teamed it with Photoshop and GraphicConverter, and went through about a zillion printing tests. The photo at right shows an early test for size and color. I finally arrived at one I'm satisfied with, so I printed a bunch on the nice glossy paper. This weekend I plan to run some endurance tests on them, possibly give them an extra seal depending on the results of the tests, turn them into stickers, then cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war. I plan to make a few extras and share my bounty on eBay and/or Mr. Pinball. When I have something worth showing, I'll post a pic or two.

While I had the glass off, I decided to take care of a few odd cabinet-related jobs that have been sitting around for a while. I replaced the molding in back that holds the playfield glass, because my original one was cracked and I had two to replace it with (I had forgotten about the first one when I bought the second). I put a lock on the coin door... not because it swings open like my Black Knight's does, but more because it should be there. Both of these items got me thinking about other things I need, and while browsing around Marco's site for tangentially related things, I was stunned to find a backbox lock assembly. Since mine is completely missing, yoink! I think I had searched for the backbox lock on Illinois Pinball's site, but nowhere else. I ended up buying the lock plate (I have a spare lock) from Bay Area Amusements... it was $1 more than Marco, but BAA had the playfield glass switch in stock so I went with the dealer who had a quorum of items. More toys!

Like Stephen Colbert, I have been a strong advocate of Wrist Health in pinball since discovering that doing squeeze ball exercises reduces the amount of wrist soreness after pinball shows. Lately, though, I fell off the wagon because I was let down by my tools. I had an awesome balloon filled with sand, which was great until it broke. Then I had a green ball filled with little green beads, which was fantastic until a hole opened up and the green beads started emigrating... I tried to re-patriate them, but like the INS found that it was a losing battle. I got a free gel-filled ball from a vendor at my company's user conference in May. It started off feeling like a breast -- the squeeze ball's Hellenic Ideal, imo -- but a few weeks of hard-squeezin' segmented the insides, which left it unpleasantly mushy and definitely non-breast-like. Then I tried a foam ball someone had at work, but after two weeks the painted exterior disintegrated and I ended up with green flecks on my pants. Finally I tried an inflatible dog toy, but it deflated under the constant pressure. Plus it was ribbed for a dog's pleasure but not mine, and it hurt my hand. So at last I decided to lay down sheckles for the real deal, and after a fruitless retail search I found one at Amazon that I kind of like. It's egg-shaped and comes in five levels of firmness. I chose medium, and two weeks in it is holding up pretty well. My only complaints are that it is a little smaller than I would like and it can be very cold after a night in the car with the temp in the single digits.

All for now, hopefully more sticker news soon.

MLK + Barack Obama = 4 Day Weekend!

Today is Martin Luther King Jr Day, and tomorrow our office is closed for the Obama Inauguration because we're right across the river from DC. It's a four day weekend! Thanks, Black People!

It kind of got me thinking about how white pinball is. Black people are not well represented. I can think of a handful of black sports stars (Ali, Shaq, Michael Jordon, Frank Thomas), a few movie stars (Wesley Snipes in Demo Man is the only one I can come up with off the top of my head), and I think there's a guy who could be on the Funhouse backglass. That's about all I can think of. I really don't see a lot of black guys at pinball shows, either.

There are a couple of Asians (San Francisco and Chinatown are a few I can think of). Arabs ostensibly have a few games like Ali Baba, but most of the "Arabs" are white women in harem garb. Forehead dot Indians are pretty much gross parodies, like in Ace High (and again, surrounded by white women). Feather Indians were popular in the 50's and 60's, and they were mostly benign portrayals, surprising given the number that cowboys were shooting on TV and in movies. There were a couple of Noble Savages like Totem in the 70's, but nothing particularly modern. Hispanics have a few EM games maybe... all the ones I can think of (El Toro, Spanish Eyes, Toledo) are more Spanish than South or Central American. Australian Aborigines have Boomerang. That's about all I can think of. With the exception of Totem, all of these are EMs. In general, a pretty poor representation of the world's people.

Enough of that silliness. We took my daughter back to school last week so I snuck over to Pizza House for a game of NASCAR. They had fixed the ball lock switch, but now the switch for the hole at the top of the playfield is broken. My ego is gratified that my high score is still there, though.

I was watching the extremely terrible Superman IV: The Quest for Peace and that featured two pinball machines in supporting roles: Black Knight and Vector. When I see pins in movies, I always like to see what machine it is... I'm still trying to figure out what the EM game is in My Name is Earl. I think the solid state game is Dragon.

Today I took advantage of the Federal Holiday and finished up my Montgomery County pinball tour. I went to Beltway Chevron and played Funhouse, but the kickout was weak which caused some pretty bad drains and something seemed to be blocking the ramp entrance. I was doing OK, but then I locked up the machine: I got a two ball multiball and suddenly the flippers stopped working and it wouldn't do the ball search. After waiting I turned it off and on again. Then I went up to Max's Kosher Deli to play The Simpsons Pinball Party, but both lower flippers were dead. I did have an OK but expensive hot pastrami on a kaiser roll, though. And people wonder why no one has pinball machines any more... anyway, I was so annoyed at my bad luck that I stopped in and played a few games of Family Guy on my way home.

OK, you say, but what about fixing up games, which is what this blog is supposed to be about? Well, I'm using this weekend to work on some projects, so next post we should have something worth reading.

Roman Numeral Two

Yes, it's my second post of the month. My reader Lunchbox asked if the last week's entry meant I would be posting more often; clearly, the answer is Yes! So far!

Today I attempted another pinball mini-break after work. During a lengthy compile I started checking locations near work, and thanks to the FSPA I found two available in Falls Church, about a mile or so apart. First I went to a Bowl America where they had a very dirty Sopranos for 50c per game. Unfortunately, the only Big Pussy to be found was me... I sucked pretty heavily so I only played once. My second and final stop was at the Lazy Sundae Ice Cream Shop, which not surprisingly was closed. The Simpsons Pinball Party therein taunted me silently. In all, somewhat disappointing, but look at life as a journey it's not so bad. In this case, it was an almost pointless journey that included taking the wrong freeway during rush hour, but it was a journey nonetheless.

I've been pesimistic about the future of pinball in general lately... partly it's bad economy scenarios playing out in my head, partly the Stern layoff news, and partly thinking about CSI. Everybody has been trying to be encouraged by the old saw that pinball traditionally does well when the economy goes south, but here's my problem with that: In past recessions, pinball was in a lot better shape than it is now. There were multiple manufacturers, there were fewer distractions to the potential player, and you didn't need to spend 20 minutes on the Internet and drive for half an hour to find a game. So I don't think the current recession is going to revive Stern, and I honestly don't expect Stern to make it through 2009. Obviously I'm not happy about that, but I don't see another outcome. Plus, CSI? It sounds like the genius who thought Wheel of Fortune was a bankable idea was working overtime. It doesn't help that my opinion of the show is not high... Mrs. Entropy and I watched one at her sister's house and it was one of the dumbest things I've seen on TV for years.

Luckily, after years of being a capital-I Iconoclast, I'm used to the things I love failing miserably.

But enough moping! Let's have some reasons to be cheerful, part 3!

Um. I can't think of any. Sorry.

Well, let's address this: Lunchbox states in his comment that he doesn't have time for his pins and is thinking of getting rid of them. I respect your right to decide the fate of your games, sir, but I beg you to give plenty of serious thought before selling. I have been a pinball owner lo these 23 years now, and there are times when my collection has lain fallow for incredible stretches of time. When I'm distracted -- any shiny object will do -- months will go by when I don't even think about my games. I think between 1987 and 1990 Quicksilver was parked in my parents' garage on a dolly. Even when I'm in a non-playing stretch or when it seems like all the games are acting up, I'm frequently comforted by the fact that I could play them. Potential pinball can keep me going through rough patches. So just think about it.

Happy Holidays!

Yes, it's happy holidays Chez Entropy, as you can probably tell from the festively decorated Quicksilver in our living room. It's hard to see, but I even made a little Santa hat for the backglass lady... since she isn't wearing a stitch of clothing, the hat should keep her warm as temperatures plummet.

This year the holidays consisted of me and pinball not quite seeing eye to eye. There was the usual amount of panicking and throwing things around, then my brother-in-law from Indiana came to visit with 12 hours notice, then I got sick, then I had to compress all of my vacation chores into about 4 days, and then it was January 2nd and I had three days before I went back to work. About all I'd done so far was more basement cleaning, which hasn't yielded a usable work area yet (though having to beat a path through our basement for a new washing machine did help a lot). It's getting there just not fast, and at this point I'm kind of at an impasse. When I go down to clean I wander back and forth trying to figure out what to do next and after 45 minutes of puttering I give up. I'm going to make an attempt at building playfield storage and I hope that will break the stalemate.

So today was the self-declared pinball day. At first I was going to give a little love to the pinball operators of Montgomery County by touring all of the known games on location (except for the Creature in Montgomery Mall that is inside a theater which requires admission). Then I cut the NASCAR at Chuck E. Cheese because I didn't feel like being treated like a pedophile when I went in. Then I cut out the Funhouse at Beltway Chevron because it was too far south. But finally I got some action. I played Pirates at Dream Wizards and did OK even though the auto plunger wasn't working. I stopped by Max's Kosher Cafe which is walking distance from where I used to live in Wheaton but they closed at 2 today, probably because of that darned Sabbath. The I went up to Sole d'Italia and played Family Guy, revelling in the fact that the sound was turned up and the restaurant was empty, so I could actually hear all of the game's sound effects. Since two pins was a pretty pathetic showing, I fired up Paragon and Black Knight here at home and played a few forgettable games.

Another location story: A few weeks ago my group at work went out bowling, and there was a NASCAR there. The game was filthy, but you couldn't tell because the gameroom was not well lit and the GI was out.

For Christmas, my wife decided she was going to surprise me with a pin-related gift and got me cabinet stencils for Eight Ball Deluxe and Black Knight from a guy who seems to be the stencil-kit king on eBay. It was a nice gift, something I need, but also in line with her agenda to make the games look nicer. As usual she got me another big gift so I felt like she spent too much on me. It's also a huge time suck, and the cabinets on those games don't look that bad... the game that really needs it is Quicksilver, which has a bunch of dings and strapping tape damage. But since it's my lowest production game (only 1,200) that's not going to happen. I could also use one for Lotta Fun, since it's been painted over, but I've resigned myself to making that one myself. So at some point when I do a huge overhaul of the games I've got the stencils for those two machines ready to go.

And while 2009 may not be the year I get around to stenciling, it will be the year I get off'n my butt and fix up those games. It's resolved and everything, along with a couple of other project that have been waiting in the wings. So if my next couple of posts don't show some real movement in that regard, feel free to kick my ass. Hard. With, like, boots and everything.