Alec Guinness, the Obi-Wan Kenobi guy, plays Barnacle Bill in All at Sea (1957).  Guinness plays a former naval officer trying to run a seaside amusement resort in opposition to the conservative city council, who won’t allow arcades games because they believe they’re for gambling.  Skip to 4:10 for the vintage arcade juicy bits.

Now this is trippy stuff!

The band Phish puts on an annual festival and this year it’s called “Superball IX”.  The festival featured a pinball themed lounge area.  Check it out!

Check out this great collection of vintage arcade photos from the San Francisco Chronicle!

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/parenting/detail?entry_id=93175

For those of you lucky few who attended California Extreme, you couldn’t help notice Marco Specialties super-impressive booth.  In a very generous move by Marco and co. they’ve loaned the TRON that was at the show to the Pacific Pinball Museum, the only one currently on location in the Bay Area!  All coin-drop into TRON will go to support the museum.  Huge thanks to Marco for their generous support to the Museum and to Bay Area Pinball.

As for the game, it’s STERNs best in the last two years with lots of great shots, a very satisfying upper ramp and plenty of multiball you can chain and stack.  It has a very nice skill shot, as well as an alternate skill shot that is activated by holding the left flipper while plunging the ball.  This gives you a shot at the upper ramp to spot a light cycle target.  You can then shoot the right orbit for a second light cycle, which if missed and you get a quick drain, will still be returned by the ball saver.  Once in multiball the music and light show really kicks up to 11.

TRON is available in the coin-drop area, so even if you can’t stay the whole night at PPM, it’s still worth a visit if you only have an hour or two to kill.  This is really a super fun game with a great light show, music and fast action.  No TRON fan should miss it!

As you can see below my best score for the night after around six games was 51M and change.   Would have got Grand Champion but I promised Mike Schiess no more death saves.  :-)

Also in the coin-drop line-up is IRONMAN.  Only 50 cents to play.

And if you want something a bit more retro, you can play the fantastic Pat Lawlor-designed WHIRLWIND.  A tough but very fun 90’s classic!

The full show write-up with tons more pics will be on Pinball News (www.pinballnews.com) in the near future.

CORRECT:

INCORRECT:

http://www.hulu.com/watch/254778/wipeout-pinball-is-tricky

Note: if the second video doesn’t appear, click HERE.  p.s. Hulu embedding sux.

A few weeks ago I tried the… interesting Malt Beverage known as Tilt, which you can read here.

But what’s my opinion, anyway?  After all, the only way to know if Tilt is the real stuff for pinballers is to have some real pinball players give it a test try, or swerve as we young people like to say.

Jason and Denise, two EBPL regulars, decided to put on a good old birthday bash for Jason at their place in Fairfield, which proved an ideal test market.  7-layer dips, hot dogs, burgers, ping pong, punk and ska music ruled the evening, and plenty of pins throughout.  It was mostly a good old fashioned American barbecue, in many respects, till the cops showed up and then it… well, no need to dwell on that.  The heat was crazy and we were all sweating buckets, but a great vibe nonetheless.  Jason and his band put on a show and rocked several songs.

But I had work to do.  Serious, scientific work.  Work that would inevitably improve the global community of pinballers.  I had to find out if Tilt really is the Malt Beverage of pinball.

Here’s yours truly giving Tilt Watermelon a shot.  Watermelon is slightly more tolerable than Punch. But it still made my hair stand on end.  Apparently the guys who designed Jolly Ranchers are now working on the Tilt team, was my thought, as Tilt Watermelon starts off super sweet like a Jolly Rancher before it concludes with its inevitable cough-syrup finish.

On the other hand, this unfortunate woman looked like a victim of domestic abuse after a sip of  the syrupy-sweet swill.

Keith loved it.  “This has alcohol, right?  Cool.”

Jim, who scientists have determined has been smiling non-stop since 1984, almost stopped smiling.

Between getting our Tilt on, we got out our tilt on, to Jason’s dozen pinball games.  Here’s a Black Hole and Tales from the Crypt.

Jason has a nice set.  It was a case study in the typical, “use every room possible to jam in more pins” kind of collector addiction.  Four in the living room, four in the anteroom, four in the dining room, and a nice mix across all eras.  Especially nice was the Pinbot, Bride of Pinbot and Jackbot room, rounded out with a Wizard equipped with powerball.

Jason, the birthday boy, was mostly diplomatic, but leaning positive on Tilt.

Denise, Jason’s girl, gave Tilt Watermelon an enthusiastic “thumbs up”, and was one of the many who said it tasted like a Jolly Rancher of old.

Then I asked Denise if she ever took candy from an old man to go into the old, abandoned William’s house up the street when she was a kid, and she got really quiet.

Okay, just kidding.  But score three for this dubious drink.

Roone stopped liking pinball altogether after one sip.  I felt bad.  I’d taken away something from Roone that I knew would never be replaced.

“Mmmm….mmmm….mmmm….blaaaaaah.”  Tilt induced a Rudy impression from Molly.

“If I concentrate I won’t throw up.  If I concentrate I won’t throw up…”

“This is great stuff, f*ckin’ A, yo. The queen’s a wanker.”

Caryn, who enjoys fine wines, had an involuntary eye twitch in response to Tilt.  She more or less refused to talk to me the rest of the night.

Mitch: “This has alcohol in it, right?  Yeah, I knew it.”  Mitch was indifferent about the Tilt experience.  But just in a very subtle way indicated I had really upset him, had offended him deeply.

In the living room Jason’s got Pirates of the Caribbean, Twilight Zone, Getaway and Doctor Who, all in fantastic shape.  The smiling man had not tried Tilt.  Which is why he is still smiling.

This gentlemen said, “It’s a bit bolshy.  It extends it’s welcome, like an old friend.  The nose is a bit over-pronounced and the watermelon accents are a bit rindy, yet the overall effect is of reading old classics in a Victorian study by candle.  The finish leaves with a sense of longing, a feeling for my childhood – foie grass at noon table, idle games of bagatelle with mum, court duties, and croquet with the Nobles just as the sun is dipping.”

Stephen: “I should smack you.”

Here’s a short “slice of life” documentary about London nightlife in the ’50s.  At the beginnging of part 2 is a scene inside a pinball arcade. 

PAPA – the professional and amateur pinball association – will be holding it’s world championship August 11 – 14. Even if you don’t plan to compete, you can play on their collection of 400 machines.