The Good Pin Samaritan

 

First of all, that image above pretty much illustrates the dream.  Now, I have a really awesome girlfriend, but the idea of playing pinball SO GOOD that some girl starts getting interested in you is incredible.  I've been doing a lot of color pinball spot illustrations lately, and I'll be posting them up from time to time. 

I was biking around West Lebanon, NH today and I decided to take in a game of pinball at a pizza place, Lui Lui's.  They have exactly one pin, Twilight Zone.  The machine's condition could be described as "shoddy" at best.  Both the gumball machine and the clock are completely dead, and the playfield is just filthy filthy filthy.  Now, all of this is on a GOOD day.  Today was a new low.  THREE balls were jammed in various places around the playfield, and the machine was continually shooting off solenoids in an attempt to free the balls.  The sounds of this poor machine shooting off it's coils again and again broke my heart.  It was pleading for help, and I was powerless.  What about the poor people in that restaurant just wanting to enjoy their pizza in peace and quiet?  They probably left thinking, "pinball, ugh, WHAT A RACKET!"

So, in hopes that I could restore even one shred of dignity to this noble pin, I found the operator's sticker and called them!  I mean, THAT'S WHAT THEY'RE SUPPOSED TO DO, RIGHT!?  The operator picked up and actually seemed happy that I was calling from Lui Lui's, like I was breaking some long duration of enforced incommunicado.  When I told him that I didn't work for the restaurant, he seemed disappointed and told me that an employee would have to place the service call.  When I tried to relay that to a manager that I caught that wasn't busy, he DID NOT want to hear about it.  I even tried to coax him with, "You know, there's a bunch of us in town that really love pinball, and we'd be really excited about a working Twilight Zone game..."  but this guy was flat out IGNORING me.  

I don't get it, I really don't!  I'm pretty much telling this guy that I want to give him business, and all he has to do is pick up the phone and ask for something that he is ENTITLED to through his relationship to an operator; a clean, well-working game.  It's crazy!  I feel like I did the right thing in calling, but to no avail...

Oh well, in the long run, there are a good amount of pins to play in the area, and being down one isn't the end of the world.  In happier news, I found this archive of images squirrled away on the interweb of a warehouse raid.  Look at all the pinball machines all stacked on each other!  It's pretty much the most beautiful thing I've ever seen!  HERE is the link.

Also, there's this:

This really never fails to cheer me up.  It's the ultimate tag team pinball experience.  It's, like, CROSSFIRE, on speed.  It's awesome awesome awesome.