Illustrations and Funspot

Hey, internet, long time no see.  I've been really busy over here at DTZ HQ.  As such, I've amassed a neat little pile of pinball drawings.  Here are some pinball doodles:

(I don't drink like THIS.  I've always thought that idea of a barcade would be more common)

I LOVE DRAWING PINBALL MACHINES!  Oh, and playing pinball.  DUH!  Alec, Claire, Colleen, and a whole HOST of other pinball / arcade lovers took a trip to Funspot this weekend.  I don't think I need to say it again, but that place is completely ballin'!  They have around 35 pinball machines, seperated out in Electro-mechanical, early Solid State, and more recent Solid State Games.  Here's the pros and the cons.

Pros)
-A lot of machines!  You never needed to wait to play!
-Great variety and classic examples of different eras!
-Cheap games!  All the pinball games were only 1 token!
-THEY HAVE MONOPOLY!  The 2001 Stern Monopoly game is one of my favorite games of all time.

Cons)

-Machines in various states of disrepair.  *Sigh*  I know this is going to make me sound like a negative Nancy, but I was really disappointed with the amount of inoperative games.  There were probably 15 out the 35 that were turned off.  Some of the ones that were on also had problems.  Funhouse's alpha-numeric displays were illegible, the middle ramp needed to start the multiball on Fire wouldn't pop up, Paragon's 2nd right flipper was freaking out, you know, lots of little things.  Which is really too bad.  Now, I'm not unrealistic.  I'm cognizant of the fact that Funspot is the world's LARGEST ARCADE!  I'm sure that maintaining those machines is a full time job, and with so many people getting play time on them, it must be hard to get in and make even little adjustments. 

This was an otherwise tiny blemish on an otherwise AMAZING trip.  Here are some other highlighs:

-My girlfriend played the heck out of the Chiller Arcade Game.  This game is the most violent, messed up thing I have ever seen.

-Alec and I met up with Dave Marston (who Alec had met earlier ) and we talked pinball.  He was super-duper awesome and gave us a copy of the last issue of Multiball that we needed to round off our collection!  It was great to play some pinball with him!

-FIRE!  As I mentioned before, there was a problem with the center ramp popping up on the williams game Fire needed to start multiball.  The real tragedy in this was that I LOVED THAT GAME!  I would love to own one someday!  It was a blast to play, and that bell on top was super beautiful.  

Well, I think that's it!  Let's go play some pinball!