California Extreme is an annual pinball and video game show held at the Hyatt Regency in Santa Clara.  Next year’s show is July 12-13.  This is one show you don’t want to miss!  The hotel discount rate for the show is $90 per night and the discount rooms sell out months before the show.  If you plan to volunteer for the setup or bring games, I recommend booking both Friday and Saturday.

Go here for more info: http://www.caextreme.org/hotel_info

Join the California Extreme Fans Facebook group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/36189345338/

PAPA World Champion Bowen Kerins and PAPATV just did a live tutorial of STERN’s latest effort.  STAR TREK is the newest design by the legendary Steve Ritchie.  Steve produced instant classics like Black Knight, Getaway, Flash, and Star Trek: The Next Generation.  But despite successes spanning decades, it’s clear he has more in store for us!

I’ve put about five hours on the new Trek and it’s a fun player.  My best score so far is 58M.  You can play it at Hi-Life Pizza at 14th and Franklin, and expect to see additional locations soon.

Even if you were lame and missed the live broadcast (like me), here ya go:

photo:danfontes.com

This Saturday November 9, Pinsider PracticalSteve will be hosting a meetup for Pinsiders and bay area collectors to meet, play, talk tech and of course, collecting.  Come put a face to the name of some other local enthusiasts.

The official hours of the meetup are from 12 PM – 4 PM and the event is free (just pay regular museum admission).  Check out this thread on pinside for more information.  See you there!

Huge thanks to Gene X Hwang for these excellent pics of last night’s tournament.

Check out more of Gene’s great pinball photography at:

http://store.orangephotography.com/sfpins

(My site automatically scales down images, click the link above for better versions)

We had an exciting tie-breaker for first place between Joey Springer and Andreas Pedersen.  Joey was up first on Earthshaker, and had to get either 12 miles or 1 million points.  He did this on ball 2, so in order to force a second tie-breaker, Andreas also had to get it on ball 2.  After Earthshaker totaled his bonus…. 990k!

Congrats to Joey Springer for his win!

“Has the whole world gone crazy? Am I the only one around here who gives a sh** about the rules?”

L-R: Eric, Andreas and Jeff

PUNCH IT

Darren shakin’ it on Earthshaker

Jessica picking up some cash

Local comedian Nina G stopped by to play pinball and remind you not to invade her personal space.

Come down and have some pizza and beer with us, and play the new Star Trek pinball!

When: Tuesday 10/29  7 PM start time.  For this tournament, you can show up as late as 7:30 and still play.

Entry: $5 to enter the tournament, and then quarters for your games.

Where: Hi-Life Pizza in downtown Oakland, 400 15th Street.  It’s at the corner of 15th and Franklin Streets.  The sign says “Rico’s Diner”. DO NOT BE FOOLED.  Games are upstairs.

For BART, take 12th street exit and it’s a five minute walk.

Parking: Meters run until 6.  Street parking is usually not bad in this area.

Who can play: This is open to all players, ages and skill levels.  For example, Ralph Macchio.

What Games: Current line-up is Whirlwind, Earthshaker, Dracula, Indiana Jones, Radical, Batman, Attack from Mars and Star Trek (brand new!)

Format:  10/29 Pin Golf.   This will be a straight 7-hole pingolf with no finals and place determined by final scores.  A tie-breaker will be held as necessary at the end.

Wpprs: This tournament will award world pinball player ranking points (wppr) at 1/4 value.

Payouts: 1st: 40%, 2nd: 30%, 3rd: 20%, 4th: 10%.  If more than 16 players enter, then 5th – 8th also get $5

Obvious: Please don’t bring in outside food or drinks. Thanks.

BOP 2.0 is an update to the original game which adds a dot-matrix display and mode-based play to the classic game.  In addition, they’ve programmed the original BOP rules so you don’t have to choose one or the other, you can have both. It really looks like they put a lot of time into this conversion.  The dot matrix animations are top notch.

The downside?  The price is pretty steep at around $1800, and you still need to find a donor game to boot.  Still, if you’ve already got a BOP and want to be the only guy on the on the block with a unique game, this certainly fits the bill and doesn’t cost Cactus Canyon money.

Not since the Theater of Magic Promo video have I seen something this absurd.  And baby, I’ve seen a LOT of pinball videos.

It kicks off with a stiff introduction.  Not great but no big deal for an amateur production.  Around 1:30 is when the fun starts.  Maybe she ate some bad tacos or lost a bunch of money on her Medieval Madness, I don’t know, but she spontaneously freaks out and goes Exorcist on us.  Just not in a good way.  And by that I mean not in a bad way.  I mean, well, if you thought Exorcist 2 was high art, you’re probably going to love this!

I’ll give her credit, this girl goes all-in with her performance.  But unfortunately we don’t get Linda Blair, here.  It’s more like tripping on LSD while watching an Ultimate Warrior interview.

Highlights include:

– “TNT is DEAD!” (TNT Amusements is a rival game company)

– Zombie girl telling the audience they “suck balls”.

– “TNT Subscribers are bitches!”

Local pinball operator Andy Kuntz carved this awesome Haunted House jack-o-lantern using nothing but Novus 3 and a can of freeze spray.

Or something like that.  Nice work!

The great guys over at the Professional and Amateur Pinball Association just posted their latest tutorial video featuring reigning PAPA World Champion Bowen Kerins.  Check it out!

Pinballpix.com is a gallery of backglass photos from a bay area pinball fan .  Check it out, particularly if you like the art on older EMs and Solid State games.

http://pinballpix.com

Pinsider Bakushan recently posted this pic of a teaser flyer which he received at Pinball Expo.

If you go to the web site: http://dudepinball.com/ there’s a mailing list sign-up and a countdown timer currently set at 65 days from now, which I believe is Christmas Day.  I’m, not part of the cult Lebowski so maybe someone more familiar with ‘His Dudeness’ can comment if there’s some significance to Christmas in the film.

So there it is, there may yet be another new pinball game vying for your new-in-box dollars.  It’s just like, my opinion man, but despite pinball’s surge in popularity in the last few years, I’m starting to wonder if the market can continue to absorb all these new games at the frantic pace they’re being announced.