Category: pinball

The buzz on this title has been great lately. A real sleeper hit. I swapped the default rock music with more classic music from my era.

News of my LE arriving and it being the first sent me to the #1 spot on Pinside.

10 Pins total.

From left to right:

Star Trek LE
Batman Dark Knight
Metallica Premium
Avengers Hulk LE
Spiderman
The Simpsons Pinball Party
Tron Legacy
X-Men Magneto LE
Roller Coaster Tycoon
AC/DC Premium

Added to lineup.

X-Men Magneto LE added to lineup.

I’ve been living in the current rental home for 2 years, which is where we got our first pinball machine. We just bought our first home which will feature a much larger arcade. Below is a video walk through of the “before”.

Robin surprised me by inviting some people over for my birthday this year. I was ready to have a quiet birthday with my family when more guests kept showing up. Was fun to play some pinball! Represented by the guests were several parts of my life, from working in a video game store 25 years ago, my DJ years, and a new bunch of pinball friends.

Robin created a custom cake featuring a photo of my Tron machine!

A good time was had by all :-).

There was a “Pinballpalooza” today in Toronto promoting the musical Tommy. Robin and I went down to check it out.

They had 100 machines on free play, including a bunch of Metallica, the newest pin going. It was packed with people, tons of women and children playing. It was a great PR day for pinball.

Well, I’m definitely maxed out at 5 pins in my current basement. After some fast and furious acquisitions, I’m hoping I can be content and actually play them for a while. I’ve spent time on all of them, but some of the newer ones, like Simpsons, I’ve barely scratched the surface on.

I realized that the 5 pins are all by 5 different great designers, so it is a nice cross-selection:

Tron – John Borg
Theatre of Magic – John Popadiuk (Jpop)
Avengers – George Gomez
The Simpsons Pinball Party – Joe Balcer / Keith Johnson
AC/DC – Steve Ritchie / Lyman Sheats

Notable omissions would be: Dennis Nordman and Pat Lawlor…. hopefully I can add one of their machines in the future.

I can’t believe it, but we moved boxes and a 5th pin can now fit.

AC/DC is on its way!

A few months ago I finally came out to my first Toronto Pinball League (ToPL). I had resisted up until then because the distances to the various host’s homes seemed like a big drive. For a “Toronto” league, sometimes they are more than an hour outside the city, and none are currently IN Toronto at the moment.

I haven’t missed a Monday since. It’s been a lot of fun. To come out and spend a few hours with a bunch of other pinheads is a good time. Not to mention, the collections of some of the hosts’ homes are incredible, and I’d probably never get to see them otherwise.

It is a competitive league, so each night groups of 4 players are put together, and play on 4 machines. Scores are tracked and points assigned to your placement. This is done over a 15 week season. There is a end-of-season playoffs, but I’ve yet to be part of that.

The social aspect of pinball has been an unexpected plus. I’ve met lots of good peeps.

The latest lineup. This might be the maximum of what I can fit in my current basement.

no arcade is complete without neon signs. Here are 2 bad boys I bought.

3 machines, looking good.