Fun With Bonus
It shall remain a mystery.
California Extreme Finals Watchable via TourneyCam
Jul 26th
CAL Extreme 2010 Pinball Tourney Modern Finals – Dr. Who from Randy Elwin on Vimeo.
Via TiltWarning:
Two time defending World Pinball Champion Keith Elwin at California Extreme earlier this month on Dr. Who versus Jim Belsito. Spark behind TourneyCam is coming courtesy Randy Elwin of Pinball 101 fame.
Seeing this video made me smile. You could actually have commentators do play-by-play during competition, if we had this perspective. I was watching this wishing I could do some sort of play-by-play and strategy talk with a Telestrator. Forget the EVO tournaments, lets live stream THIS.
Just think how much commentators would help legitimize pinball as a sporting event. Viewers would actually be able to see (and hopefully understand) what we PinHeads are talking about when we discuss whether Jim B. should have continued to go for Sonic Booms or advance toward multi-ball.
Top 15 reasons why your IT sucks.
Jul 26th
I don’t remember where this came from but… here we go! Top 15 reasons why the Information Technology Department of your business sucks.
- Your IT sucks because we can’t possibly know how to do every thing that is asked of us.
- Your IT sucks because our first line of defense are people who may or may not have an A+ certification, because we can’t afford anything else.
- Your IT sucks because we’re undermanned.
- Your IT sucks because half or more of the IT staff are contractors and ultimately don’t care if the company fails.
- Your IT sucks because, although the vast majority of users are fine people, a handful of you drain the life out of us with a barrage of emails complaining about one thing or another.
- Your IT sucks because your upper management gets our attention when perhaps you have the bigger issue, making us look unresponsive and uncaring.
- Your IT sucks because upper management doesn’t support us, forcing us to provide help for any old item.
- Your IT sucks because a lot of us are realizing that apparently we are in the service business. We think that because we all work for the same company that you will be forgiving of our mistakes or lack of knowledge.
- Your IT sucks because we are more than likely a lot of geek/nerd types who don’t want to talk to people, causing you to revert back to your high school emotions every time you see one of us walking by pushing a cart.
- Your IT sucks because you have no patience, and think that 10 minutes should be the turn-around time for every little phone call.
- Your IT sucks because we take a lunch break, too, and you think we should be fixing your computer while you lounge in the cafe with your co-workers. Note: We eat at the same time, and sometimes, we get to go home at the same time, as you.
- Your IT sucks because there’s a fairly good chance that some of us make more money than you, we’re geeks, dress like one, and it just eats you up inside.
- Your IT sucks because you have an attitude when your computer breaks and say we have to fix it mid-day. Don’t act like its our fault that it broke, its yours because you believed those windows that were popping up saying you were infected. So keep your attitude to yourself.
- Your IT sucks because we spend all day fixing the little crap that end users do to their computers. We either: A) don’t give you admin rights but get called when you want to install the latest Adobe Flash player or B) give you admin rights and let you destroy the computer and treat it like your home PC. Damned if we do, damned if we don’t.
- Your IT sucks because, when everything runs well, managers think “why do we need so many IT staff?” and they start firing people.
Kid-testing the Classics
Jul 24th
Do kids today like Sonic, Mario, Frogger, StarFox, or Streets of Rage?
Hydorah
Jul 23rd
Hydorah Official Trailer from Locomalito on Vimeo.
Via Locomalito:
If you fought the Bydo and shot the Bacterians in their core, you are ready to battle the evil god Hydorah. Choose the path to follow and fight planet by planet against hordes of meroptians. The game features lots of short and intense levels with fantasy spacial landscapes, unlockable weapons and secrets, and a large library of enemies and bosses. There is a single dificulty level, based on the 80′s standards. It can be very hard, but with every beaten level there will come the glory.
The whole game takes obvious influence from Gradius, Castlevania or R-Type, but also from other classics treated worse by the time: Turrican, Enforcer, Space Manbow, Hellfire, Guardian, Hydefos, Armalyte and many others…
Take the controls of your ship and prepare to die!
Via Locomalito:
lots of short and intense levels with fantasy spacial landscapes, unlockable weapons and secrets, and a large library of enemies and bosses. There is a single dificulty level, based on the 80′s standards. It can be very hard, but with every beaten level there will come the glory.
The Chipophone!
Jul 23rd
A chiptune organ!
The Chipophone is a homemade 8-bit synthesizer, especially suited for live chiptune playing. It has been built inside an old electronic organ.
ZEN Pinball | MARS
Jul 20th
Via Just Push Start
Coming soon exclusively to PlayStation Network, ZEN Studios is going to release a MARS table for its amazing pinball title, ZEN Pinball. Themed around Mars you can explore the red planet to unlock its secrets, while trying to stabilize gravity on Mars. The table has a load of great features ranging from a space ship which can activate a magnetic crane and Martian symbols to a Mysterious Pryamid and a secret portal of light. This brand new table will help keep the ZEN Pinball experience fresh for all players, while no pricing has been announced yet expect to see its release in the next few months.
Via Just Push Start
Hot Touch Arcade Pinball Emulator Accepts Real Coins
Jul 20th
Via Ubergizmo:
Just because you’ve got a pinball emulator running doesn’t mean that it has to be confined to your boring old beige PC box. If you’re good with your hands, you can always do what this person did, and come up with a 1/3-scale pinball machine, dubbed the Hot Touch Arcade. This design saw the emulator packed into the pinball machine, and is powered by an Intel Atom processor, NVIDIA graphics card, and runs on top of Windows XP. The pinball surface is displayed on the 19-inch 16:9 LCD display, and its creator has even popped in physical shooter, flipper buttons, along with a coin acceptor. If you’ve got nothing to do during the holidays, this might be an interesting project to emulate (pun intended).
Via Ubergizmo:
New Jersey Pinball Open 2010 Results
Jul 18th
Ed Zeltmann (1st), Sean Grant (2nd), Frank Romero (3rd), Jim Fordham (4th)
Last Saturday, 25 competitors battled it out for the New Jersey Pinball Open Championship at Eight on the Break in Dunellen NJ. The National Pinball League (NPL) chose to run the qualification rounds as if it were a Monthly Masters event. At about 5:00 PM the top 4 groups (16 players) advanced to the playoff rounds. The top 8 players started in the winner’s bracket for double elimination play while the remaining 8 players started in the losers bracket for single elimination play. Each match was best two games out of 3, and if a third game was necessary it was a 2-ball game.
In the end, the winner was Ed Zeltmann, who went undefeated in the playoff rounds. His victory will give him at least 25 World Pinball Player Ranking points which will raise his world ranking considerably.
Jim Fordham, NPL New Jersey State Champion
Also at stake was the NPL New Jersey State Championship. Jim Fordham won the title since he was the highest finishing player from New Jersey. The top 8 players from New Jersey will be invited to the NPL Regional Championship later this year as will the top 8 players from each of the other State Championships.
Additional notes about the tournament:
- The format worked out extremely well. We were able to get in 7 or 8 Monthly Masters rounds, have each playoff match as a best two out of 3, and we still finished the competition before 9:30 PM.
- After the first two rounds, I was dead last and yet I still managed to make the top 8 by a fraction of a point.
- There usually are a bunch of older, non-working arcade cabinets in the pinball area. The Break moved those cabinets for the tournament so we could fit an extra game in there, and have a more manageable space for everyone to play and move about the room. I hope those cabs never return, or maybe I could at least take that Neo-Geo cab that was there, if it’s working of course.
- Even though the heat and humidity were close to unbearable, the pinball games themselves held up quite well with no major breakdowns.
The Maryland Pinball Championship | August 1st, 2010
Jul 18th
Another unrelated pinball pic
Via Chris Newsom:
Announcing:
The Maryland Pinball Champoinship
The tournament will be held on Sunday at 1 p.m. at Town Hall Liquors, 8135 Baltimore Avenue, College Park, MD, 20740-2431. Qualifying will begin at 11 a.m. There will be two divisions.
Entry Fees:
$50.00 A Division $20.00 B Division
All entry fees (less ~ $150 for awards and plaques for each division) will go to prize fund as follows:
A Division
1st: 50% and laser engraved award (A minimum of $300 is guaranteed to the A division winner)
2nd: 25% and laser engraved award
3rd: 15% and plaque
4th: 10% and plaque
B Division
1st: 50% and laser engraved award (A minimum of $100 is guaranteed to the A division winner)
2nd: 25% and laser engraved award
3rd: 15% and plaque
4th: 10% and plaque
Games will be priced at 50 cents per game. Extra balls will be disabled on games where this is possible. Ball savers will be turned off on games where this is possible. Bang backs and death saves are not allowed. The format for the tournament is head to head, best two out of 3, double elimination. Each loser from the main bracket will go to a second chance bracket for another match, with the winner of that bracket going to a final match against the winner of the main bracket. In order for the player from the losers’ bracket to win the tournament that player will have to defeat the player from the winners’ bracket in two straight matches (thus givinig that player their double elimination).
First, second and third place will be decided by the double elimination. All other players will be put into a quick playoff round to determine fourth place. Initial brackets will be seeded by a one-ball qualifier. Competitors ariving to the tournament too late for qualifying will be given lower seeds. We expect to have between 5-8 games for the tournaments. Competitors deemed too skilled to play in the B division will be placed in the A division. This includes but is not limited to players who have won pinball tournaments in the past and players who have been successful in pinball leagues. I will be running the tournament but will not compete in them.
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World Pinball Player Rankings
