Friday 3-1-24 Real Pinball, Dancing & Having Fun

 

We had a super day of having fun. The high today was 68 degrees.

I started the day working on my diamond painting of Stitch. I finished it during the night.

Stitch finished

Larry started the day out doing his monthly projects. He backed up the computers and put bleach in the septic.

Larry asked if I would like to go play some real pinball. There is a game place that opened in Killeen a couple of months ago. A majority of the reviews said it was expensive but the facilities and workers were great. They offer bowling, roller skating, 8 pinball machines, lazer tag and arcade games. They also serve food. 

In Austin there are multiple places to play pinball. We decided to go to Pinballz Arcade. It's located near 183 & Burnett Rd. The reviews were good, they had over 65 pinball machines and tons of arcade games. They also have an onsite food truck with a limited menu.

Pinballz Arcade works pretty nicely. They add however much money you want to spend to a card. We started out putting $20.00 on the card and later added another $10.00. The machines cost between $1.00 to $1.50. To start to play the game you tap your card on the front of the machine, the machine will take the cost of the game off the card and tell you the balance. Then your push the start button. We played a lot of games we have and couple we don't have. There was a giant pinball machine where I could barely reach the flipper buttons and the ball was wooden and very slow. The name of the game was Hercules. It was fun to play. We were there for a couple of hours. We ate lunch there, we shared chicken bites, fries and a diet coke. The place was very clean. Many of the machines were old but most of them worked. A few of the machines had flippers that stuck or were slow in responding. Some of the playfields were worn and the mechanical parts didn't work correctly. The workers were very friendly. Overall we had a super time. 

Playing pinball

Creature of the Black Lagoon

Larry playing Godzilla

Some of the pinball machines

 

Playing Hercules

How to pay for the game

Some of the arcade games

Lunch

On the way home we stopped by the UPS Store to pick up our mail.

We were home by 3:30. I worked out for a half hour using Synth Riders and burned 128 calories.

Afterwards I played games. Before going to bed last night I played the Daily Challenges of Solitaire and Mahjong. Today I played the event, which was Event: Klondike Mini of 5 games. It took me 14 minutes and 26 seconds, which put me in 33rd place in my group. Then I played Angry Birds.

At Pinballz I played The Sopranos and Fun House and wanted to see the difference between the real games and virtual reality. I think our games are a lot better. At Pinballz both of these games needed maintenance, The Sopranos has a safe that you hit multiple times and it will then open, that mechanism did not work correctly, on Fun House the sound did not work at all. On modern machines you really need the sounds because they tell you things you need to do.

With real pinball machines at retail establishments there are always machines that have some type of problems. Many of these machines are decades old and they require maintenance. It is difficult for the operators to keep up with the constant maintenance. Flippers wear out, the playfield graphics wear down from the ball, other mechanical and electrical items wear out or quit. Most places do their best to keep everything working. 

Even individual people who own real pinball machines talk about how much maintenance it takes to keep them working. Many of them purchase new machines but still end up with maintenance. The individual parts can be very difficult to find and expensive. Most individual owners have to learn how to fix their machines because there are not many pinball technicians. Most of the machines weigh anywhere from 250 to 400 lbs making it impossible to take them in for repair, the technician has to come to you which makes it expensive.

With our virtual machine we don't have these types of issues, our playfields always look perfect and there are no mechanical items on the playfield nor any actual lights, everything is software driven and always looks perfect. Sometimes a game will act up but we can simply exit the game and restart it. There is very little maintenance.

Fun House

The Sopranos

 

Real Pinball

In the evening I attended Ett McAtee's Weekly A2 dance at 6:30 for an hour. She called four tips to 13 participants. She worked on Switch Concept and Hourglass Concept. I had a great time dancing with friends.

After the dance we watched an episode of the 13th season of Vera. Then I watched The Da Vinci Code and Frozen from our movie selection. I ended up doing 17,500 steps, which put me in 3rd place in my group.