Here's an actual blog-sized post, not the bloated Proustian epics that I usually write.
I've been using the fully working WPC CPU in DW for about a month now, and the game pushed me up into the expert bracket right about the time that Boing Boing published this link a few days ago about auto-percentaging in pinball. Coincidence? I think so!
Of course, we've known for a while that DW was a smart cookie since the old CPU changed the W-H-O ramp rules to account for the Hang-on switch not working. The game has permanently upped the replay score and lowered scores on ramp shots... not quite as lowered as the DW that I play in the Baltimore league, but it's getting there. Interestingly, even with the adjusted scoring my top scores -- top, mind you, not typical -- are still in the 1/2 billion range... probably because I'm learning to exploit certain money shots more effectively, like the Sonic Boom.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Saturday, November 28, 2009
2 T2: Misjudgement Day
I am in a crappy mood today. Aside from Thanksgiving, which seemed to go pretty well, I haven't gotten much done this weekend and what I have gotten done has been pretty sucky. So I thought I'd just make everyone feel sucky by posting an entry.
Like Doctor Who, the two Terminators kind of appeared out of nowhere. There was a liquidation guy up in PA who was eBaying over 100 pins in various stages of working-ness and Europenosity (that is to say, some worked, some didn't, and a lot of them were 220V). It looked like the guy had bought out an operator or collector that had gotten a bunch of container games and was in the process of fixing them up. I had been keeping an eye on these games as they appeared, because a lot of them were pretty interesting... most went outside of my price range, though. It finally came down to a choice between a pretty complete Dr. Dude and two Terminators being sold together. I think The Dude abided for a little less than I would have paid for it, but by then I had already set my sights on the 2T2s. I won the auction for $535, and buyer's remorse set in immediately. ^_^;
They guy lives near York but since he wasn't a pinguy he wasn't going to the show. And since my SUV only holds one pin on a good day, I decided to pick the first up the week before the show and the second the day of. Logistically this was a stretch because my daughter had our SUV and we had her newly purchased used car because her school won't let her park with temporary tags. But luckily the license plates arrived the week after I won the auction. My lovely wife and the dog decided to join me if we added some sightseeing to the agenda, so on Saturday we went up to Gettysburg and dropped off my daughter's car, picked up our SUV, and headed east towards York. I picked one of the games at random and the guy helped me load it up.
We stopped at a really nice dog park in York and had a picnic lunch, then went on to look at a Victorian mansion in Oakbourne which I think my wife found on the Internet while looking for God knows what. Really, this place has to be seen to be believed... it's like a miniature East Coast version of the Winchester House. The most striking feature is a water tower that is designed in the style of the house... that's me in the picture. It was a really weird and cool place. After that we headed home. Considering it was primarily a pin-centric trip, we all had a pretty good time.
When I went up for the York show, I left at an ungoshly hour so I could pick up the second game -- I had to load it myself because the guy was out of town -- and then toodle over to arrive at the fairgrounds as close to opening as possible. The only real problem was that he said he would shrink-wrap the game so I could load it easily and he didn't... I ended up using an extension cord to keep the head from falling off while I lifted the game onto a dolly. But after some struggling I got it loaded up. There was also an ethical conundrum... in addition to my game, he had left out about 10 others, with random circuit boards and translites strewn around an overhang next to his garage. It would have been the work of but a moment to get a few extra parts while I was there, but I chose civilization over anarchy and left with only what I had paid for.
So now we get to the games themselves. They have no boards in either of their heads. One has all of its ramps, the other doesn't. The one on the left looks like it was operated by a Charles Dickens character... it is worn, filthy, has electrical tape splices, and the faded cabinet looks like it was stored in water. Every time I touch the front or back of the playfield my hands come back grimy. The one on the right is relatively clean, is in an unfaded but not perfect cabinet, but is missing paint over the auto-fire insert. Neither has the Hunter-Killer ship, but one has the wire that holds it (yay?). Everything on both games within the line of fire of the cannon is beaten to shit, though the nicer game is in marginally better shape. Both are 220V.
The plan -- and I did have a plan, believe me -- is to combine them into one game, sell the spare parts, play the game for a while then sell it, hopefully netting a tidy profit. I'm pretty sure it's possible, but it will take a lot of work. The biggest hurdle I have is to NOT keep the second playfield for the playfield project... I keep thinking that maybe if I sell enough of the cabinet parts I could keep the playfield, and then I flagellate myself to purge myself of the unclean thoughts. I really can't afford to keep the playfield.
I've started looking around for replacement boards. Part of the plan -- I did mention the plan, didn't I? -- was to fix and use the spare CPU and display boards that I bought for DW, which would mean I'd only need to get the driver and sound boards. The driver board was no problem, and within a week I had bought a hacked but theoretically working rev 3 driver board from eBay. It won't work in T2, but I have a rev 1 board in DW, so I've use the 3 board in DW and the 1 board in T2. As I mentioned elsewhere, I also picked up a third and blessedly working CPU board. Both boards were a little over $100 each... the CPU was a bargain, and hopefully the driver board will turn out to be as well. And I just review an earlier post and found that I pretty much said all of this already. Well, I guess it just bears repetition.
My initial decision was to use the filthy playfield with the parts from the clean game; so I stripped it down and threw all of the appropriate parts into the dishwasher. Once again, the Shag came through for me... the disgusting wiring harness came out of the washer looking like new. The wires actually had colors instead of being uniformly London Blitz gray. I gave the denuded playfield a few weeks ago and gave it a thorough cleaning this weekend. As the grime comes off, it's pretty clear that it's not the better playfield. So far the only problem I can see on the clean game is that wear spot, but on the dirty playfield the area around the bumpers is worn through the mylar, the "Timer" insert has lost paint, and it looks like the area above the auto-fire insert has been touched up. There's also a scorch mark on the underside where it looks like a flipper coil 'sploded. Yeesh.
And that's pretty much where I am right now. I'm kind of bummed about the playfield being in as bad a shape as it is, but on the other hand if I go with the clean playfield I won't have to transfer the parts, which was something I was dreading.
I think my next steps are to get a cabinet ready to go, buy some legs (there are some on sale til the end of the year from an arcade supplier with an office in Baltimore... good timing), switch it over to 120V (luckily I bought a US line filter when I was acquiring DW parts), and see how far I can get until I start a new round of What Am I Missing Today?
But now I'm exhausted AND in a crappy mood. So all of this will have to wait for another time.
Like Doctor Who, the two Terminators kind of appeared out of nowhere. There was a liquidation guy up in PA who was eBaying over 100 pins in various stages of working-ness and Europenosity (that is to say, some worked, some didn't, and a lot of them were 220V). It looked like the guy had bought out an operator or collector that had gotten a bunch of container games and was in the process of fixing them up. I had been keeping an eye on these games as they appeared, because a lot of them were pretty interesting... most went outside of my price range, though. It finally came down to a choice between a pretty complete Dr. Dude and two Terminators being sold together. I think The Dude abided for a little less than I would have paid for it, but by then I had already set my sights on the 2T2s. I won the auction for $535, and buyer's remorse set in immediately. ^_^;
They guy lives near York but since he wasn't a pinguy he wasn't going to the show. And since my SUV only holds one pin on a good day, I decided to pick the first up the week before the show and the second the day of. Logistically this was a stretch because my daughter had our SUV and we had her newly purchased used car because her school won't let her park with temporary tags. But luckily the license plates arrived the week after I won the auction. My lovely wife and the dog decided to join me if we added some sightseeing to the agenda, so on Saturday we went up to Gettysburg and dropped off my daughter's car, picked up our SUV, and headed east towards York. I picked one of the games at random and the guy helped me load it up.
We stopped at a really nice dog park in York and had a picnic lunch, then went on to look at a Victorian mansion in Oakbourne which I think my wife found on the Internet while looking for God knows what. Really, this place has to be seen to be believed... it's like a miniature East Coast version of the Winchester House. The most striking feature is a water tower that is designed in the style of the house... that's me in the picture. It was a really weird and cool place. After that we headed home. Considering it was primarily a pin-centric trip, we all had a pretty good time.When I went up for the York show, I left at an ungoshly hour so I could pick up the second game -- I had to load it myself because the guy was out of town -- and then toodle over to arrive at the fairgrounds as close to opening as possible. The only real problem was that he said he would shrink-wrap the game so I could load it easily and he didn't... I ended up using an extension cord to keep the head from falling off while I lifted the game onto a dolly. But after some struggling I got it loaded up. There was also an ethical conundrum... in addition to my game, he had left out about 10 others, with random circuit boards and translites strewn around an overhang next to his garage. It would have been the work of but a moment to get a few extra parts while I was there, but I chose civilization over anarchy and left with only what I had paid for.
So now we get to the games themselves. They have no boards in either of their heads. One has all of its ramps, the other doesn't. The one on the left looks like it was operated by a Charles Dickens character... it is worn, filthy, has electrical tape splices, and the faded cabinet looks like it was stored in water. Every time I touch the front or back of the playfield my hands come back grimy. The one on the right is relatively clean, is in an unfaded but not perfect cabinet, but is missing paint over the auto-fire insert. Neither has the Hunter-Killer ship, but one has the wire that holds it (yay?). Everything on both games within the line of fire of the cannon is beaten to shit, though the nicer game is in marginally better shape. Both are 220V.The plan -- and I did have a plan, believe me -- is to combine them into one game, sell the spare parts, play the game for a while then sell it, hopefully netting a tidy profit. I'm pretty sure it's possible, but it will take a lot of work. The biggest hurdle I have is to NOT keep the second playfield for the playfield project... I keep thinking that maybe if I sell enough of the cabinet parts I could keep the playfield, and then I flagellate myself to purge myself of the unclean thoughts. I really can't afford to keep the playfield.
I've started looking around for replacement boards. Part of the plan -- I did mention the plan, didn't I? -- was to fix and use the spare CPU and display boards that I bought for DW, which would mean I'd only need to get the driver and sound boards. The driver board was no problem, and within a week I had bought a hacked but theoretically working rev 3 driver board from eBay. It won't work in T2, but I have a rev 1 board in DW, so I've use the 3 board in DW and the 1 board in T2. As I mentioned elsewhere, I also picked up a third and blessedly working CPU board. Both boards were a little over $100 each... the CPU was a bargain, and hopefully the driver board will turn out to be as well. And I just review an earlier post and found that I pretty much said all of this already. Well, I guess it just bears repetition.
My initial decision was to use the filthy playfield with the parts from the clean game; so I stripped it down and threw all of the appropriate parts into the dishwasher. Once again, the Shag came through for me... the disgusting wiring harness came out of the washer looking like new. The wires actually had colors instead of being uniformly London Blitz gray. I gave the denuded playfield a few weeks ago and gave it a thorough cleaning this weekend. As the grime comes off, it's pretty clear that it's not the better playfield. So far the only problem I can see on the clean game is that wear spot, but on the dirty playfield the area around the bumpers is worn through the mylar, the "Timer" insert has lost paint, and it looks like the area above the auto-fire insert has been touched up. There's also a scorch mark on the underside where it looks like a flipper coil 'sploded. Yeesh.And that's pretty much where I am right now. I'm kind of bummed about the playfield being in as bad a shape as it is, but on the other hand if I go with the clean playfield I won't have to transfer the parts, which was something I was dreading.
I think my next steps are to get a cabinet ready to go, buy some legs (there are some on sale til the end of the year from an arcade supplier with an office in Baltimore... good timing), switch it over to 120V (luckily I bought a US line filter when I was acquiring DW parts), and see how far I can get until I start a new round of What Am I Missing Today?
But now I'm exhausted AND in a crappy mood. So all of this will have to wait for another time.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
We give thanks... for Pinball
You may recall that last month was my birthday, and for reasons explained in previous posts we celebrated late. Well, my wife gave me a pinball-related gift this year: A weekend driving around playing pinball. It was kind of an interesting idea. I scoped around a locations within a few hours and came up with two options: The Silverball Museum in Asbury Park, which just opened fairly recently... I think I heard about it on rgp. They look pretty EM heavy, but whatever. A guy in league and he had been there and it's pretty neat. There were a couple of other options which I got out of the Pinball Locator, but I decided on Castle Video in Branchville, NJ. They are weighted towards new Stern and WPC, so that will balance the museum nicely. I was thinking of a third or fourth stop -- Eight on the Break in Dunellen, NJ and the Pinball Parlour in Earlington, PA were what I was thinking of -- but decided that the former doesn't have as many games as Castle Video (though they have a few nice ones CV doesn't have) and I've been in the latter a few times now and their hours make it hard to swing. We're going up the weekend after Thanksgiving and we'll stay in a bed & breakfast near the museum. Should be fun!
League is going well-ish. I'm in first place in VA and have squeaked into the top five in MD. I'll definitely be in the playoffs in VA no matter how badly I do next week, but it could go either way in MD. I seem to play for crap when the pressure's on, but we'll see how it goes. If I could just play as well on Doctor Who there as I do at home, I'd be in pretty good shape.
I'm going to try to discuss T2 in my next post, but first here's a useful thing I made. I got the T2 ROMs from reliable ROM source John Wart Jr. and wanted to test them just to make sure. So I got out a WPC CPU board, plugged in the ROM, and used my power supply and some alligator clips to connect it up. This is always very stressful for me, because I'm worried that the clips will short against the wrong pins or something. So last week I decided to get the ROMs for Fish Tales and came up with a bright idea. I made a connector for the CPU's power plug so that I can easily attach the power supply's clips to the proper wires (color-coded, smart me!). It works great, and it's one less thing I have to worry about when I test CPUs.
The White Rose pinball show was fun. I got to play a bunch of games, I ignored the crap and enjoyed the non-crap. I was kind of disappointed at the shopping, as I didn't find much that I would need for T2. But I did invest in a full set of LEDs for Quicksilver. I did see one of the guys there from league, but he was just there to pick up a game so we didn't interact much. I picked up the second T2 and the Fish Tales playfield, and I sold a guy a pair of gold legs (painted, not real ones) that were on the first T2 for (what turns out to be) the bargain price of $10. I had my after-show Roburrito which was tasty. Some guys there had a solid state repro of the EM game King of Diamonds, which looked and played beautifully. It was a few thousand dollars, though, kinda out of my price range at this time. I think they plan to make other games. That's about all I can think of, other than the flyer in Roburrito for someone selling a hearse for $1200 ("Want a sick ride?" it said). It would probably be good for hauling pins...
League is going well-ish. I'm in first place in VA and have squeaked into the top five in MD. I'll definitely be in the playoffs in VA no matter how badly I do next week, but it could go either way in MD. I seem to play for crap when the pressure's on, but we'll see how it goes. If I could just play as well on Doctor Who there as I do at home, I'd be in pretty good shape.
I'm going to try to discuss T2 in my next post, but first here's a useful thing I made. I got the T2 ROMs from reliable ROM source John Wart Jr. and wanted to test them just to make sure. So I got out a WPC CPU board, plugged in the ROM, and used my power supply and some alligator clips to connect it up. This is always very stressful for me, because I'm worried that the clips will short against the wrong pins or something. So last week I decided to get the ROMs for Fish Tales and came up with a bright idea. I made a connector for the CPU's power plug so that I can easily attach the power supply's clips to the proper wires (color-coded, smart me!). It works great, and it's one less thing I have to worry about when I test CPUs.The White Rose pinball show was fun. I got to play a bunch of games, I ignored the crap and enjoyed the non-crap. I was kind of disappointed at the shopping, as I didn't find much that I would need for T2. But I did invest in a full set of LEDs for Quicksilver. I did see one of the guys there from league, but he was just there to pick up a game so we didn't interact much. I picked up the second T2 and the Fish Tales playfield, and I sold a guy a pair of gold legs (painted, not real ones) that were on the first T2 for (what turns out to be) the bargain price of $10. I had my after-show Roburrito which was tasty. Some guys there had a solid state repro of the EM game King of Diamonds, which looked and played beautifully. It was a few thousand dollars, though, kinda out of my price range at this time. I think they plan to make other games. That's about all I can think of, other than the flyer in Roburrito for someone selling a hearse for $1200 ("Want a sick ride?" it said). It would probably be good for hauling pins...
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Halloween at Castle Entropy
Halloween sucks for us. We live on a busy street with no sidewalks, so we've gotten about 3 trick or treaters in the 10 years we've lived here. And with the Entropy Scion at college, we don't even get a little run off from her holiday. Mrs. Entropy and I carved our pumpkins, watched a little Anime, and ate most of the good candy ourselves. Boo hoo.
On Monday I bought a new WPC CPU board that was advertised as 100% working on eBay for just over $100 + way more shipping than it should have been. Although I've been burned by the "100% working" ploy, in this case it was truth in advertising. I plugged it into Doctor Who and it seems to work pretty well. I can hit those ESCAPE targets now, and it certainly makes the Hang On shot actually scorable. There's one opto that I know is out (the right-most gray button target) and the right bumper doesn't seem to be working, but these are minor things. I played a few satisfying games with the new board. I also bought a new power driver board, a somewhat hacked rev 3 board which can't be used in Terminator, so the idea is that DW is going to donate its rev 1 board to T2 and use the rev 3 board. That's assuming the new board works, but testing it is a lot more effort than a CPU. Plus that wasn't sold as 100% working, it was "functional when it was pulled out of a BSD."
I really need to narrate the T2 story, but that will have to be another time. However, Shaggy has come through again with another wonderful dishwasher tip: Throwing the wiring harness in. I ran both of the T2 cabinet harnesses through (each as their own load, in deference to my wife who doesn't want Pinball Grime on her dishes) and they came out really nice... one was already pretty clean, but t'other was filthy and that looks really good now.
Wednesday's league was good, I think it was 3 wins and 1 loss. Pasted them on Mousin' Around with a season high score... MA is proving to be my goto game for decent scoring. There's one in both locations now, and it tends to be pretty good to me. My loss was on Fish Tales, which I just can't get started on in league... every other FT likes me, but the one at the Volleyball House has it in for me. I typically hit the boat ramps repeatedly to activate the Monster Fish award, but I have a hard time getting 3 ramp shots. The bad news about Monday league is that my complete destruction of my group last week has pushed me into A Division. Kinda cool when looked at from a distance, but up close it could spell my doom... the A Team seems to be a lot better than I am, so I'm really not sure how well I'll do.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Birthday Pinball Extravaganza!
Yesterday was my birthday, and my wife gave me possibly the best gift of all... she kept my sister-in-law and the boyfriend-in-law busy while I goofed off alone in the house with the dog. We actually kept my birthday a secret from them... my sister-in-law has an uncanny sense for coming to visit at the worst times. Once my wife told her specifically not to come around a certain day and the sis-in-law came during that week. This time we didn't tell them not to come, we just lamented their timing. It's not because I don't like my wife's sister, it was just that I had no desire to celebrate one of my rare prime numbered birthdays (47) with my wife's sister's boyfriend, who at the time was a complete stranger. So I informed my wife that we would celebrate my birthday after they left, and she was OK with that. And now that I've met the bf-in-law, I feel it was the correct course of action. I mean, he's OK, kind of monopolizes the conversation with stories of working for the Oakland city car barn, but he's not a guy I really want to party with. It's sort of like listening to my Dad's WWII stories, only boring and with no familial connection.
Anyway, so I thought I'd check the FSPA pinball location database to see if there was anything around other than Sole d'Italia's Family Guy. Well, there was! A Fish Tales in the Potomac Community Center, only one of my favorite games on a street that I take home from work when the Beltway is backed up (more or less every day)!!! E. Yoink. Exclamation. Point.
So I drive down there and the game's in great shape! It's there with a bunch of video games in the game room. They keep them turned off so parents can regulate their kids' gameage. FT kinda was a little tilted in the wrong direction so the ball goes SDTM a little more than I'd like, but cheeze! I got a couple of free games, and at one point I had six three foot kids clustered around watching me because the Halloween party had just let out. That was kind of funny. Anyway... frickin' awesome. A game I like on my way home from work. A great surprise on a largely covert birthday.
But the hits just kept on coming today! In league, I was 2 points away from a perfect night! I came in demonstrably first on three games and second on the fourth... recall that when the 2nd and 3rd scores don't add up to the first place, first place steals third's point. I was making my shots... jumps in No Fear, 3 or 4 Borg shots in a row in Star Trek, an awesome Penthouse Party in WhoDunnit... and if I had kicked ass on Twilight Zone (possibly by getting the extra ball that was lit but I couldn't seem to hit), I could have done it. I feel bad for the guy in my group that came in 3rd on all three games, because I think he got 0 points (*cringe*). But I can't feel too bad for him, because he was 3 points behind me in our division. Honestly, I think I could have handled him getting a few points instead of me completely destroying him, but I guess that's the way the pinball bounces. Now if I can just do that well in the Wednesday night league, maybe I'll be getting somewhere.
Anyway, so I thought I'd check the FSPA pinball location database to see if there was anything around other than Sole d'Italia's Family Guy. Well, there was! A Fish Tales in the Potomac Community Center, only one of my favorite games on a street that I take home from work when the Beltway is backed up (more or less every day)!!! E. Yoink. Exclamation. Point.
So I drive down there and the game's in great shape! It's there with a bunch of video games in the game room. They keep them turned off so parents can regulate their kids' gameage. FT kinda was a little tilted in the wrong direction so the ball goes SDTM a little more than I'd like, but cheeze! I got a couple of free games, and at one point I had six three foot kids clustered around watching me because the Halloween party had just let out. That was kind of funny. Anyway... frickin' awesome. A game I like on my way home from work. A great surprise on a largely covert birthday.
But the hits just kept on coming today! In league, I was 2 points away from a perfect night! I came in demonstrably first on three games and second on the fourth... recall that when the 2nd and 3rd scores don't add up to the first place, first place steals third's point. I was making my shots... jumps in No Fear, 3 or 4 Borg shots in a row in Star Trek, an awesome Penthouse Party in WhoDunnit... and if I had kicked ass on Twilight Zone (possibly by getting the extra ball that was lit but I couldn't seem to hit), I could have done it. I feel bad for the guy in my group that came in 3rd on all three games, because I think he got 0 points (*cringe*). But I can't feel too bad for him, because he was 3 points behind me in our division. Honestly, I think I could have handled him getting a few points instead of me completely destroying him, but I guess that's the way the pinball bounces. Now if I can just do that well in the Wednesday night league, maybe I'll be getting somewhere.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Barfin' up a blog entry
I'm really tired after a long day running around Gettysburg with my wife, daughter, dog, sister-in-law, and boyfriend-in-law. Much time was spent in strained silence while the bf-in-law, dog and I rode around by ourselves while the ladies kept their own car. I see it as penance for buying a crapload of new pinball stuff.
Yeah, I said a crapload. A pair of Terminator 2 parts games from eBay, a nearly complete Fish Tales playfield from rpg, and a mostly incomplete Bally Playboy playfield from Craigslist. Yoink!
More fascinating blow-by-blow accounts will follow, but I thought I'd open the blogging floodgates to try to get the flow of information moving again. Sadly, even though I haven't been writing, things have continued to happen.
Let's start with easy stuff. I did decide to do both the Virginia and Baltimore leagues after all. I failed pretty decisively for the first few weeks, but I've been surging in VA so now I'm #1 in the hood, G. Last week in MD I had my first really good week and moved up into the top 5. (Both of these are in B Division, of course.) MD is an interesting league... it's in an old warehouse that's been converted into a mecca for Volleyball, and in the corner are the league's pinball machines. It's an odd place to play pin... last week, a guy was playing Shrek and a volleyball bounced off the playfield glass, barely missed his head, and landed in the kid's play area. He didn't even miss a beat and kept right on playing... I think he ended up with a pretty good score, too. They're doing construction so parking is a bitch. Overall, they're nice guys... I think they're a little more competitive than the VA gang, which would explain why I'm on top in VA and in the middle there. I don't know if I'm going to continue two nights a week after this... I'll probably alternate between the two depending on how I feel. VA is more convenient to go to after work, while MD is more convenient from home and I work at home most Wednesdays. It's also rough on the finances, because each league is $60 minimum per season. But we'll see.
And I see by the clock on the desktop that it's just past midnight, so I am now more or less 47 years old.
Yeah, I said a crapload. A pair of Terminator 2 parts games from eBay, a nearly complete Fish Tales playfield from rpg, and a mostly incomplete Bally Playboy playfield from Craigslist. Yoink!
More fascinating blow-by-blow accounts will follow, but I thought I'd open the blogging floodgates to try to get the flow of information moving again. Sadly, even though I haven't been writing, things have continued to happen.
Let's start with easy stuff. I did decide to do both the Virginia and Baltimore leagues after all. I failed pretty decisively for the first few weeks, but I've been surging in VA so now I'm #1 in the hood, G. Last week in MD I had my first really good week and moved up into the top 5. (Both of these are in B Division, of course.) MD is an interesting league... it's in an old warehouse that's been converted into a mecca for Volleyball, and in the corner are the league's pinball machines. It's an odd place to play pin... last week, a guy was playing Shrek and a volleyball bounced off the playfield glass, barely missed his head, and landed in the kid's play area. He didn't even miss a beat and kept right on playing... I think he ended up with a pretty good score, too. They're doing construction so parking is a bitch. Overall, they're nice guys... I think they're a little more competitive than the VA gang, which would explain why I'm on top in VA and in the middle there. I don't know if I'm going to continue two nights a week after this... I'll probably alternate between the two depending on how I feel. VA is more convenient to go to after work, while MD is more convenient from home and I work at home most Wednesdays. It's also rough on the finances, because each league is $60 minimum per season. But we'll see.
And I see by the clock on the desktop that it's just past midnight, so I am now more or less 47 years old.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Pinball Elbow?
So, my right arm has been hurting for a few weeks... mostly one of the muscles in my forearm hurts when I pick up something heavy, or when I was doing my squeeze ball exercises in the car. I finally went around to going to the doctor and after a few probing questions she said it looks like Tennis Elbow. When I told her my major arm activities were mousing and pinball, she said she thought the twisting in pinball was causing the problem. At this point I told her she was thinking about foosball, not pinball, and described the flipper motion. She agreed that that probably didn't cause the problem, but suggested I lay off while under treatment (consisting of an anti-inflammatory drug, a cream, and wearing a brace).
So I was pretty good and didn't do any pinball until last night, when I went to the end of the season party for the pinball league. It was at a members house, a crazy big affair in the semi-rural suburbs of Virginia. They had tasty Mexican food and a basement filled with pins, almost all 90's and 00's games with a decided bias toward Pat Lawlor. One of the few exceptions was a 1934 World's Series, which was actually kind of a blast to play. There were two contests. The first was a Safe Cracker Assault the Vault challenge, where they inserted a magic token into Safe Cracker, which puts it into Assault the Vault mode, a 90 second ball free-for-all, and the highest score wins. I didn't win that. The other was way more fun than it sounds: Cashball, which was basically a half playfield that Williams put on top of a slot machine (probably to use up pin parts after they got out of the business). It basically autoplays a simple game of pinball, shooting the ball around a track with flippers and autoplungers. Various things get you extra balls, and each time the ball goes through the playfield everything is worth more points. The only interaction you have with it is shooting the ball, which you can get a skill shot. So I didn't win that either, but at the end of the evening I played a few more games... and on the last one I spanked it within an inch of its life. I got about 3-4 extra balls. The highest score had been about 2,700 and I scored over 11,000. The guy who owned it said he'd never even seen a score with 5 digits before. Sadly, there was a bug in the high score function so although it showed I had the high score, it didn't display it properly. Anyway, it was a lot of fun.
So on the way home from the party, I noticed that my arm was hurting more than it had been since I started treatment. At that point, I was willing to give my doctor the benefit of the doubt. In the long run, I don't know what I'm going to do about that... league starts tomorrow, and I'm even thinking about doing the Wednesday night league in Baltimore too (subject to my wife's approval, and she wasn't too keen last time I mentioned it). Also, I'm wondering how messed up my arm will be after the pinball show in three weeks. Anyway, we'll see how that goes.
I did have an anemic start to my eBay season... sold 4 out of 9 things for some decent change, including a part I bought for $5 which sold for $17. To add insult to the buyers' injury, I sold a second one I had to the second highest bidder for $16. And I've still got one left. Sweet! But then I spudded last week and almost got there this week, but no go. I would like to sell enough so that I've paid off my debt to the family by the time the show rolls around (about $100 to go). eBay has not had much I want to buy at prices I can afford lately... I don't know if it's the new fees or the changes in seller agreements or what. It doesn't really bother me since I'm still making money, but the guys on rgp are always bitching about it. Well, I suppose waiting for next week to sell means I can get more stuff ready.
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