about me - Tomcat's profile story

My first contact with pinball must have been some day in 1984. I was 10 years old and my cousin celebrated her communion in an local inn. All the children were bored while the family was having coffee and cake, chatting for hours and hours. There was a pinball machine in the corner - can't remember the model. The innkeeper finally took pity on us. He switched it to free play and we spent the whole day playing pinball. Yay!

Almost a decade later, ca. 1992/93 I regularly spent some hours with friends in a billard pub. After playing a few games of pool I always visited the single pinball machine hidden in a corner between the kitchen entrance and the bathrooms. Still remember playing Addams Family and Indiana Jones.

Another break of several years - in 2001 I moved to Koblenz. My flat had a pretty large kitchen. Enough space for a pinball machine I thought for a moment. But the space was used in a more traditional way - a table for six people, useful for the roleplaying groups i use to host.

Fast forward another decade. In 2011 I visited the Extraball Museum in Neuwied an within a few minutes the fever was back. Directly after the visit I started looking for a pinball machine on eBay. Candidates for the first machine were F-14 Tomcat (big fan as a kid, hence my nickname) and Dr. Who (girlfriend likes the new DW series). A few weeks later I was browsing the list of available machines. "Hey, there's a Dr. Who for sale. I'm bidding." i said half joking. A few minutes later i was the owner of my first pinball.

Now in 2012 I still like to escape from the Daleks, have visited the museum a few more times and found new friends at www.pinballparty.de, a pinball club close to me. In july my girlfriend and me move to a new flat with a dedicated "game room". I guess there's still space for one or two more pinball machines....

Oh yes, my other hobbies include: Board, strategy and roleplaying games, collecting books and comic books, old japanese sports cars (got my 3rd Nissan 200SX), archery (quite successful at regional tournaments, still a lot to learn).