Ok, so as to let everyone off at the next bus stop, so to speak, I have started this thread to do exactly that. I figure why force others to read my posts when I can just put them in here and make YOU force yourself to come in here and read my posts? So I am going to keep my Lamentations in here from now on and only post mostly serious stuff in other threads. This also lets me talk about whatever and not have the thread Facists put a boot to my neck for going off topic.

So welcome to my nightmare, sit back and enjoy the ride.

And welcome. I really want people to know that I am a CGC customer out of choice, and that my desire for my MBrLE machine is no larger than anyone elses, nor do I discount anyone else’s experiences getting their machines, but I like keeping it light and humorous and the situation in the owner thread is getting more than serious enough to warrant moving my humor here. I didn't think my wait would stretch beyond March 25th, but with so many people not getting their machines for so long after ordering them so soon, I’m starting to respect any negativity one would have towards the clown in the room during a funeral, no disrespect to anyone who has lost a loved one recently. But out of respect for my peers and others in the community, my vitriol and anger at the delay doesn’t need to be aired in an club/owners thread, especially one I have waited this long to actually be a member of.

But I will not apologize for being upset and vocal about my own experiences. I will not speak unkindly of a company or a person with the exception of how I have personally witnessed or been treated by said company or person. I will not say something I have not seen or heard first hand, and if you tell me something in confidence, I keep my mouth shut.

Yeah, and if you believe I can keep my mouth shut... no really, I can. I swear an oath

But that being said, how some LE waitees like myself feel is a bit pissed off right now, and very frustrated with what ever system is being used that puts product sitting in a warehouse to no good use if it doesn’t go to the next frantic customer waiting for said product, no matter the distributor. To me that is a customer fail at Manufacturer level. He has product on floor, customers with need, and a distributorship inbetween that is not helping the situation.

Am I crazy, or can I get an AMEN?

And that right there is the pain that got intensified into so stratospherical a level when someone posted “I just went and got one”. Not that I am in the BURN WARD yet with the poor bastards from the Zidware, DP, Heighway, etc... etc... the list is long and doesnt need repeated meltdowns. But I am a sun burned, bottom burned, toasted crumpets, balls on fire, heads a catchin, pissed off customer who just went to TPF and got an earful on my wait that went nowhere to help my state of mind. Call me crazy, but this is not the way to a customers wallet for CGCr#4LE...

I guess we are a larger group than I thought? I have no clue, but nope, no info on my machine. I bought a used SouthPark at TPF and I will get it before my MB...

And why am I still waiting? Because I made a commitment too when I purchased from the distributor. And like people have commented to me at TPF, it’s not his fault, but you quickly find there are plenty of other options in the future, and I have been given the names of several other options from others that will fill the bill.

But I am a stand up guy. I honor my business dealings, even when they go against me in principle, like this delay. Not sure how many people are still waiting, but if my delivery date is in April, that means there are 45 machines being delivered after mine from my distributor. If that is any indication of where production stands, from the last update based on “real” numbers, I was supposed to get my machine by by March 7th so they are currently 18 days beyond that estimate. Back calculating using every number I have at my disposal I get this estimate of production rate of 5 to 6 LE’s a week, so that can’t be right, so not sure what is actually going on, or if the numbers were even real.

@who-dey, I have no idea where production currently is, projected deliveries based on 70 LE’s a week average (CGC’s number back in February) put my delivery March 7th, and by that number, the number of total LE’s being produced, the total number of LE’s on my distributors list, plus my place on it, and even if I get my machine by April fools, the production rate comes out less than 10 machines a week, not the 70 per week average I was told was their hoped for best target build rate, as explained to me personally by CGC, not my distributor.

And I enjoyed meeting the two of you as well, @yelobird, and please give my regards to your wife. You have a makers heart and drive, both of you, and you are doing great things for pinball. Everyone needs a little Mod in their life. On here people get to see my wit but not the heart or how earnest I am when I say I am. Meeting so many other great people at TPF has made it a must stop for next year, and I will look forward to seeing you at Zapcon, CAX, and Expo this year if you are going to those shows. If you need a place to stay in Phoenix, I am a ways out from Zapcon, but it would be a free room and wifi, 9’ swimming pool with waterfall, cabana, balcony overlooking Superstion Mountains. You must like cats and dogs, we have 2 of each. Lol. And maybe you can play my MBrLE, I might have it by then.

I didn’t get an earfull from CGC, I never found Ryan at TPF, others had more luck, but the word is the same, can’t screen LE playfields without rejecting (what I was told on the phone last week by CGC,) 40% of them. My calculations on how far behind they are puts them at maybe 50 or 60 LE’s of total non matched LE production, and that doesnt seem to be right either, but nobody knows what the outstanding order numbers are left on LE’s but CGC and PPS. This could be nothing, or this could a thing, who knows, but I do know where I am on my distributors list and how long I have waited. Right now, if the word comes that it wont be here till late in April, then all bets are off.

...Day 157, 158, or a number so large that the average common man has never even concieved of it’s existance...

My, how a few days and a few miles of travel can change one’s life. On a whim, last year, my wife says to me “How would you like to go to Expo, just you and me?” At which point, I had to stop, dig the wax out of my ears, and have her repeat it for my benefit. “Did you just say ‘lets go to Expo this year’? I muttered looking at the ear-canal gold on the tip of my pinky finger. She then says, “yes, and why don’t we buy a new pinball machine too?” It was at this point I needed to sit down. For some reason, I had suddenly lost the ability to stand , listen, and talk at the same time. “Ok, what do you really want, and what have you done with my wife?,” I said as I plopped down in my recliner. Well it didn’t take long for me to wholly agree this was a good idea, and we soon found ourselves on a plane to Chicago. This was our first Expo together in years and we looked forward to it like children waiting on Santa. It had been 10 years since we bought our last pin, and so we were seriously due. Now I will add here, about 10 years ago, I joined the APPL, or Arizona Pinball Players League for short. This collection of good people welcomed me in and I regularly play just about every new, old, or collectable pinball machine built, plus I get to play some amazingly restored machines. Needless to say this can really satisfy a hard core player at the expense of muting his drive to buy more machines. If I didnt have the APPL, my collection would be bigger, so I guess my wife and I owe them a gift basket for saving us about $20k over the last 10 years. So now we get to the Expo, we always go early, and we do all the standard things, factory tour, Kick off Buffet (I kind of miss the banquet, but it was a remnant of the Old Republic and was swept away with the “less industry centered” and more “consumer retro arcade family friendly” vibe but I digress) And then I helped set up a Stern Deadpool Pro and played the first 4 player game on it new out of box for a dollar bet. I lost, but the machine was set on pay for play right outside the tournament area and since the hall was not open yet, we stuffed a bunch of money in it and played. After the hall opened up, my wife and I walked it and played some more pin. And then we saw it. It was like a Catholic pilgrim seeing the Sistine Chapel or Saint Peters for the first time, because I know, I was raised a Roman Catholic, and I have seen both the Chapel and St. Pete’s with my own eyes.

Now encountering one’s Holy Grail title, especially one I never dreamed of owning NIB and one even better than original, you can imagine my excitement. It was like the Spring Festival at our parish, Cotton candy, popcorn, crackerjacks, ice cream, and 55 gallon drum trash cans full of the same only slightly post processed by the Ferris Wheel, the Tilt-a-Whirl and the Rock-o-Planes. I always imagined when I was a little kid what the Spring Festival was like at the Vatican, whether the Pope enjoyed a beer and a cigar like our Parish Monsignor did, did he wear the hat on the amusement rides, and did he ever sneek a little communion wine when he was an altar boy like I did. And a very late apology to the late Father Kreusling, God rest his soul. But that reminds me of a little story I will share about the last day I was an altar boy, and no, its not what you think. It was horifyingly more embarassing, personally, so just wait a moment and I will share.

It all started off normal enough, on days I had altar duty, my father would wake me at 5am, and I was to be dressed and ready to go by 5:15. I was red eyed and still half asleep when I got in the car and my Dad drove us to Church. Now I had a bunch of things to do to prepare the altar for daily morning mass. I had to fill the servers with non-consecrated hosts and clean the drool off the patens left over by the last altar boy crew who conveniently “forgot” to clean them. This was a common dirty prank altar boys played on each other, hoping to embarrass each other in front of the priest. Well, if you are rushed after mass it just happened, thats all I will say about that. Well, this was to be my first mass with the parish’s newest priest, Father “Not Appearing in this Film” (but truthfully Father Francis was a great priest) Now, I must admit, my training to be an altar boy was totally OJT, and like, we had manuals we could have read, and probably should of in hind sight, but this was not rocket science, and they always put a junior boy with a senior boy to share the load of the- chores. (Sheesh people... stop trying to get ahead of the story). Ok, so this morning, I am the senior boy for the first time, and I think I was a little drunk on power, a lot of “first time” anxiety, and maybe a nip of the communion wine (we will get to that in a moment). Here I will say in my defense, I thought I knew everything I needed to know to pull off a mass, even alone if my junior boy failed to show up. What I did not know was there is the altar Rail, the altar Steps, the altar Platform, and finally THE ALTAR, and you had better know which was which. So, back in my day as an altar boy, we wore the black cassocks and white surplices and as a tall lad, I ended up having to wear an adult sized cassock. This wasn’t really important right then but it was about to be.

During mass, the Book of Liturgy, from the Roman Missals is hauled from the rectory, to the pulpit, to the alter, to the pulpit and back to the rectory. As an altar boy, this was part of the job description. Now the mass has started and we have had the first and second reading, and it is time for the priest to read the gospel. Up until now, the regular swing of things had been going smoothly, and so I head to the pulpit to become the human bookstand like normal. I get to the pulpit and saunter to a halt just as I lock eyes with Father Francis, who has this look of aggrevated disgust, and reaches forward and places a hand over the microphone on the lectern. “What are you doing?” I look at him blank faced and slack jawed, and he continues- “Take the book and put it on the Altar!” I grabbed the book and turned, and being totally flustered, walked straight back to my spot next to my junior boy, set the book on the altar Platform, knelt down, and folded my hands in prayer and suplication, because right now, I didn’t think Father Francis liked me all that much, and I was going to need some serious help from the Almighty to get out of of this pickle. Well, with my luck running low and my total lack of thought running lower, I noticed I had crossed in front of the Altar without stopping, bowing, and paying my respects, and I had done this in front of the entire congregation. The look of Father Francis could have melted solid steel as he glared, disaprovingly at me. After finishing the Gospel reading (he recited it from memory) he gave his sermon. I honestly can’t tell you what it was about but it was tragically short as I recall. He left the lecturn, stopped, turned, bowed, turned, and walked up the alter steps to stand behind THE ALTER. He turned and motioned for me and I did what comes naturally, I stood up.

RIP!

I guess now is a good time to mention that adult sized cassock. For those not familiar with the garment, a thin, black, floor length robe, with a notched neckline, and lots of tiny black buttons to get in and out of, which we never undid, but simply pulled it on and off over our heads. Well, as if I was being punished for my irreverent altar crossing, the deafening sound of silence of the church was immediately ripped in half by the sound of my cassock doing the same. It would seem, (or is that “seam”?), in my fluster as I kneeled down, I had forgot to pull the hem of my cassock up and it was now caught under the heels of my shoes (black or brown, real leather shoes- with heel! per the Altar Boy Manual) and when I stood up I was momentarily converted to a capital “D” or for another visual, an archery bow with the cassock playing the part of the bowstring and my spine the bow. Being in this throat gagged, unnatural, totally off balance, unable to breathe, think-I-am-dying state, I did the only thing I could think to do, I stood up farther and faster.

RIIIIIIP!!

Every eye was on me, including the Padre’s who was giving me a look that would make a Nun nervous. Well, my ordeal was not yet over, as I made it, finally, to his side and he quietly, but firmly told me to retrive the Book, yeah, almost forgot about the Book. I quickly took one big step backwards, and fell promptly down the altar Steps backwards.

BOOM!

Ok, my feet and real leather heels flew literally over my head as I planted the landing with my shins landing on the altar Rail with an audible “crack”, and my face burying its now bright crimson visage into the matching bright red altar carpet. I rolled over, grabbing for anything to help me get up, my arms flailing and finally my hand found a very uncomfortably cold but oddly well shaped handle. So I gave it a tug. Here, I should mention, that there was an uncomfortably cold, but oddly well shapped handle attached to the set of altar bells that HAD been sitting on the altar Steps but a few mere moments before...

RING-RING-RiNG, CLANG-CLANG, ring-ring, ring-ring, ring-ring, tinkle, tinkle, tinkle... ECHO-ECHO-ECHO...

The sound of the bells, their fractured and jangly peels echoing off the hard aggregate stone floor of the church, continued for what seemed like an eternity. I laid there, mortally embarrased, wounded to the core, until the last echo of the last tinkle of the last bell left a silent pall over the whole scene.

Composing myself, I picked myself up and I walked, slowly, over to the book, picked it up off the altar Platform, turned, bowed at the altar, turned, walked up the altar Steps and placed it on THE ALTER. I turned around, walked down the steps, over to the junior boy and whispered, “You are on your own” and exited, altar-stage right, pulled off my cassock and surplice, threw them in the Altar Rosery Society’s “Repair sacred garments” hamper, walked over to the altar boy volunteer roster, drew a line across my name and wrote MOVED next to it, walked out to the car, got in and waited for my Dad to come out. He opened the car door, climbed in, put the key in the dash, and started the car. He checked the mirrors, he looked over his shoulder and pulled out into traffic. He never said a word.

About a week later, my father thinks I should seek forgiveness (or asylum in MY case) and takes me back to church for confession.

So I sit and wait and finally it’s my turn, I enter and I say my line- “Bless me father, for I have sinned-” at which point I hear Father Francis cut me short and say, “Have you fallen off any alters lately? That will be 5 Our Fathers, and 5 Hail Marys for disrespecting the Altar, and 5 Rosaries tomorrow morning for drinking the Communion wine, and when you get done with that, come see me. The little door behind the curtain slid shut with a barely audible thump.

And that was the last time I was ever an altar boy at St. Helens.

...Day ???...

In what would seem the cruelest of jokes of life to play on me, my distributor sent me a text message today saying my machine was ready and would be shipping soon, he just needed me to contact him and acknowledge the shipping info. It was here my cell phone battery finally drained it’s last electrons of current and my phone fell silent, black, and cold in my hands. As I sat and pondered my life’s choices, I remembered oddly enough the date, and thought “ha ha, OK, he got me”... so taking to my feet i staggered back to the homestead, looking for a charging cord and my solar charger...

Pushing aside the old Stellar Wars playfield that I had fashioned into a crude barn door, I went looking for my electronic life line amongst my stuff. I pulled open the top drawer on my make-shift dresser, which I had pieced together from an old Genesis cabinet and a bingo machine, to find my progress immediately halted by what appeared to be one rare, and angry pink rattler.

Pthffftht! <rattle> <rattle>!!

“Jeeee-suuuus! Floyd, ya about gave me a heart attack” I stammered as I reached in and moved him out of my way. A man has got to have his priorities... digging deeper in the drawer I found my handy dandy solar charger complete with charging cord and headed out to the sun. Floyd coiled back up into the drawer and went back to sleep. I think he hates me.

Resting as comfortably as one can on a 117 degree rock, I pulled out my charger, ripped the velcro flap open, unfolded the solar array and rested it on my knees. Reaching absentmindedly for the charging cord that had fallen to the ground, I felt a small prick on the back of my left middle finger and looked over to see what sticker or thorn I had “pricked up”, when to my horror and surprise, what was currently a single prick suddenly became one- two- three more pricks in a row as the brown bark scorpion, the largest one I had ever seen, had just landed 4 solid stings to my hand and was turning to deliver a couple more. “F*ck!”, I screamed as I jumped to my feet, grabbing the solar charger with my free right hand. My phone, which I had sat on top of it went flying through the air in a gentle arc, heading for the opening of my hastily dug, but thoroughly deep latrine a few meters away, tucked out of sight behind a cactus. “Shit!”, I yelled appropriately, as I watched the phone tumble, end over end, on it’s way to the eventual turd touchdown I was fearing. Sploop! A three pointer! and the fans did not go wild.

Turning my attention now to the massive pain and burning of my finger, my rage towards Mr. Scorpion now swelled in me faster than the swelling of my hand and finger, but I was determined to get my revenge. With the only thing I had in my possession at the time with any heft or reach, I took the solar charger by one end and went charging after Mr. Scorpion. Feeling and fearing my oncoming attack, the scorpion turned and started running towards the rock, in hopes of crawling out of sight quickly, but my big human strides took me to his deaths door in less than two. With a giant swing of the solar charger, I brought it down onto the killing floor of the desert in a thundering smack that was sure to do Mr. Scorpion in. Unfortunately for me, but more fortunately for Mr. Scorpion, just about the time the solar charger was to dash him to bits, he had crawled upon a small twig of a mesquite tree that sat in his path on the way to the rock. With the grace and all the pageantry of a Cirque du Soleil vaulting act, the solar charger hit the mesquite branch, and, just like a teeter totter, had launched the now airborne arachnid in my general direction, specifically directly at my face.

It is now, I should note, not only was Mr. Scorpion performing his best Superman impersonation, but he was also NOT Mr. Scorpion, and this was NOT his best Superman impression but instead this was Mrs. Scorpion, this was her HER best Wonder Woman impersonation, and Wonder Woman had kids, lots of them, and they were taking their first Invisible Airplane ride.

Splat! Aieeee! “What the holy F*ck!?! They are in my mouth- yuh! OMG!”...

I woke up, my face, sunburned and puffy from the stings and the exposure. My left eye was completely useless, it had long since swollen shut after taking the brunt of the stings from the tiny, clear, almost invisible baby scorpions that had been riding on momma’s back. My right eye could see fuzzy images, as it had not totally puffed shut like the left. In my limited view, I could see Mrs. Scorpion hiding now under the edge of the rock only a few feet from my head.

The pounding in my head was fogging my thinking as I turned over and tried to sit up. The blinding pain in my swollen left hand reminded me that it had taken 4 or 5 good stings and was probably useless. Turning over onto my stomach, I used my still viable right arm and hand to crawl towards the last known location of my phone. If I was going to survive this, I needed to get help, and my phone was my only hope...

It took me several minutes and a lot of pain to inch my way towards my latrine. It didn’t help matters that with every inch closer I came, the stench of that hole grew stronger. And I had to hurry. I had no clue how shit-proof an iPhone was and I had no idea how long it had been submerged. If it worked at all would be a fecal miracle. Finally, I reached the rim of that festering hole of butt stew and looked over the edge. A sad, iPhone-shaped outline still hung on the surface where it had plunged to the depths, a telltale sign of just how unpleasant this was going to be. Plunging my hand into the warm, sticky goo, I felt around for a iPhone shaped turd and was sidetracked momentarily by my own appreciation on just how amazing deep I was able to dig this hole. Several shoulder-deep plunges later, I was able to retrieve my phone from that god-awful nightmare of self created waste.

After wiping the mainstay of the fudge-like trappings off my arm on the warm rock, I turned towards the solar charger and slowly inched my way back to were it lay on the ground nearby. The cord was fortuitously close as well and so I figured, if I was lucky, I might get just enough charge to text my distributor and tell him I did not appreciate his humor on April Fools Day, and how far up his hinny hole he could shove his joke before the sun set.

I tried several attempts to get the literal crap out of my charging port on my phone using only the twigs and sticks I could scrounge on the ground around me, but I was getting desperate when another thought came to mind. What if he wasn’t joking? What if this was the day, and this was the message I really was waiting on?

With a renewed sense of purpose, and throwing all caution to the winds, I immediately stuck the iPhone, still crusted in my own filth, up to my mouth and started blowing and manipulating it like I was Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull playing it like a flute, little bits of shit and twigs going everywhere. Soon, after what looked like most of the offending matter had been cleared out, I stuffed the plug of the charging cable into the phone and opened the solar array up and pointed it at the sun, which, getting low on the horizon, was slowly sinking behind the distant mountains.

As the last rays of sun tucked slowly behind the purple and brown shadow of the San Tan Mountains, the little red battery indicator blinked once and was replaced by that familiar white bitten-apple logo. Glimpsing the first few pixels of green and white sea-foam wallpaper, I thumb crush the home button to open the phone and start the message app. Ok, Joe @ PinballSTAR, ok new message, as I madly begin to tap out “Ok to ship...”

I don’t recall much else after that. I must have pressed send, but I wasn’t sure until later. The venom of the scorpions had finally got the best of me and I succumbed to the heated fever that enveloped my head as I pitched to the ground and blacked out. The next thing I remembered was coming to, right where I had passed out, a pair of “dually” tire tracks stretching off into the distance, a wooden pallet with a ripped up cardboard box on top of it, and next to me, a canteen full of water. On the canteen was a post it note written in a very familiar looking hand:

“Thanks for letting me borrow your Monster Bash LE, saw it had been delivered and didn’t look like you were going to be using it any time soon. Call me when you sober up.
Sincerely, your brother, Mitch”

is there a way to post a picture and mark it NSFW and hide it initially, or does it need to be moderated to do that?

Test #1

6EF57D42-6353-4D1C-BA45-A8EBC700FA90 (resized).jpeg

...Day 171...

The night air was crisp but not bitter as it whipped across the exposed flesh of my face. I looked out across the horizon at the hundreds of thousands of yellow-orange streetlights that lit up the city and the streets far below. The wind whistled through the railings of the heli-pad as I sat crouched below it’s southern edge. I pulled the anti glare cover of my combo tactical communications and GPS unit open far enough to check the mission clock. 2:45 am. The crotch of my flight suit had ridden up and was chaffing my nether regions and I reached back and tugged at it absent-mindedly. If all went according to plan, I would be back home tomorrow, flipping my new Monster Bash. All I needed was a favorable breeze, a good canopy deployment, and a lot of luck. The smell of 2-stroke fuel and oil filled my nose as I checked the gas level in the backpack. Full. Check. Hoisting it onto my arm, I slung it over my shoulders and fastened the straps around my waist and legs. Checking the mission clock one last time, I pulled the night vision goggles down over my eyes and turned them on. The high-pitched whine of the power supply brought the familiar static of black and green phosphor to life as the image of the Chicago skyline and Lake Michigan came into view. Adjusting the diopter knob, I brought the scene into as clear and sharp an image as possible. A steady beeping was now filling my ears as my thermal sniffer detected the updraft as the air around me began rising with the heat from streets below. Taking the heli-pad steps two at a time, I turned around the handrail and climbed quickly to the top. Reaching the northern edge of the pad, I climbed over the safety rail and dove off into the night sky.

My jump was sufficiently long enough, I had cleared the outer catwalk, and now I was headed down, streaking through the air as my flight suit unfurled and began generating needed lift. Pulling my right arm up in from of me and tucking my left behind, I banked left and set my glide path and direction according to my tactical display on my NVG’s. My trajectory was down the pipe 5 by 5 and if my make shift Jato rig worked out, I would soon be approaching my deployment checkpoint.

Reaching down, I grabbed the piece of ‘chute cord tied to the safety pins of my “Jato” units that I had rigged together using a couple of 2 liter bottles, a whip cream dispenser, 3 canisters of Nitrous Oxide, two feet of Tygon hose, a third of a roll of duct tape, and 4 liters of kerosene. Nothing risky here. With a quick yank on the cord, the safety pins pulled free, and the kerosene began spraying out the crude thrust nozzels I had fashioned from compressing kitty litter with a wood dowel and a mallet. The cord then pulled tight on the road flare starting cord it was also tied to and the night sky was instantly filled with wonderment and an amazingly bright light.

To this day, Chicagoans swear there was some kind of UFO activity that night, or some kind of meteor that had crossed the sky, but neither of those myths where true. The actual truth was I had just set myself afire while traveling at ludicris speeds while jumping from the until recently renamed Sears Tower at 3 am in the morning while attempting an assault on the CGC building to liberate my MBrLE, which currently was sitting on the loading dock in Cisero, Il. Other than the scortching smell of my flight suit, the melting rubber of my flight boots, and the unbelievably warm and wet sensation spreading through my groin as all bladder control functions were quickly over ridden, I was enjoying my flight. But that was swiftly followed by the total loss of all control of my bowels, as I suddenly struggled to maintain course and alltitude. By struggled, what I really meant was I careened blindly towards the ground, the sky, the ground, the sky, wafting a con trail of piss and shit behind me as I went. Just as if nothing else could go perfectly wrong, it occured to me that maybe waiting one more week might not have been a bad idea, but at this point I figure I am commited (or I should BE committed, not really sure which) so I continued my mission when the Jato units unexpectedly sputtered and died.

Now, I have to admit, when I let loose the fire gods strapped to my legs, the feeling of free falling anxiety, the noise, the flame, and the adrenaline had all combined to make my stomach just a wee bit “on edge” but the utter horror of the loss of thrust, my impending impact with a non-movable object (like the ground), and the realization that although the thrust had quit, the flames had not, had sent my gastrointestinal system into ageda overdrive. And to top it all off, my “flame retardant” flight suit had retarded as much flame as it was ever going to and had now begun burning in earnest. This was turning into a real pickle.

If there was one thing that I have learned in my 6 years of military service, you are never really truly screwed until they catch you in the act, but falling out of the sky, on fire, while trailing a stream of piss, shit, and vomit from all three holes while attempting a B&E to liberate your own propery from the evil clutches of an incompetent shipping manager is a little more that being caught in the act, but if my luck held out, like it had while I was waiting on delivery the last 170 days, I figured the fall was going to kill me, so no harm, no foul. But the Navy didn’t spend $2.2 million dollars to train me to be an idiot, and had relied on my problem solving abilities to overcome any situation I was faced with, but this was a real head scratcher for sure.

Getting tired of the smell of burning leg hair, I reached and pulled the Jato cord one last time to “eject” the bottles and they fell silently away, still burning, and disappeared behind me. Wiping the remnants of the regurgitated Mountain Dew and Doritos on the back of my left sleeve, I grabbed the D ring on my flight suit harness with my right and tugged the deployment cord hard. In the briefest of moments, the cable attached to the ring pulled free from it’s sheath and released the contents of the pack on my back into the dark sky above. Within a couple blinks, the canopy rippled, waved, and flapped as the air rushed into the folds of the black, rip-stop nylon and inflated the high performance parafoil above me. A sudden yank between my legs reminded me that there is an unpleasant side to para-sailing as the harness dug into my nads and made them seek some form of rapid retreat from their harness-compressed hell, possibly looking to take my anus as emergency escape route. Deciding they actually wanted to stay connected and together, they just simply shared their displeasure with my life choices with a blinding flash of pain.

Eyes crossed double, I was having a slight problem finding the D ring on my right upper shoulder and it took me a few seconds of playing touchy feely with my right man boob to realize that somehow in the mix of the flames and the uncontrolled spiral of death towards the ground, it had become dislodged from it’s velcro mount and was dangling free. Grabbing it in frustration, I tugged at it several times to start the whirlwind in a cage that was the 2 stroke engine and fan blade in back that made this whole rig a viable means of transportaion. With a blast of blue smoke and a slight pop, the engine sprung to life, and I mashed the throttle lever that was velcro’d to my left index finger. The fan blades roared and I felt the sudden thrust kick me in the seat as I reached up and grabbed the toggles on my risers and began navigating towards Cicero Illinois and my MBrLE.

My premature Jato cut-off not withstanding, a quick check of my tactical display alerted me to the fact thay I had barely enough gas now to make it to Cicero. I can never seem to catch a break on these outings and tonight was no exception. Listening to the beep beep beep of the thermal sniffer signal in my left ear and the boop boop boop of the homing signal in my right, I eased off the throttle and tried to soar the oversized parafoil to a higher altitude in an attempt to improve my craft’s limited range. Slowly, the rapid beeping increased as a much needed thermal caught me and my machine and lifted it slowly upwards, the indicator in my display clicking off the rising altitude painfully slowly. The tactical computer was calculating my estimated distance till end of powered flight at an even 10 miles, and the distance to target read a sad 10.1 miles and was not budging even as the rapid beeping in my ear slowed and warned me I had flown out of the thermal and was once again heading down under power. My airspeed was coming up and I watched as the distance numbers ticked down and the virtual readezvou point in my viewer slowly grew closer.

The linchpin in this entire plan was my brother and I had signed him on early as the get-away driver, and if it wasnt for a strict code of radio silence, I might have asked him if he was in position or not, but no news was good news, and as long as I had not heard anything, I could safely assume he was waiting around the corner of the loading dock, engine running, door open. He had been an easy recruit for this evening’s mission after being duped by the box of rocks they had “shipped in error” the last time. Sobber up indeed...

“Coming up on designated target at Cicero, estimated arival one minute” flashed in my display and I checked the gauge on my fuel supply... “E” was now registering solidly in the window, not dancing back and forth between a quarter tank and empty like it had for the last mile. As if the engine felt my anxiety, it let out a sputtering pop as the last of the precious gas vaporized in the carborator and the motor leaned out momentarily and increased in speed. In one final spurt of defiance, the prop shuddered to a stop and the night became eerily quiet as the last thup-thup-thup of the blade was lost to the sound of the wind roaring past my ears.

I checked that the auxillary parachute was firmly attached to my harness, and then reached and unfastened the riser buckles for the para-foil, letting the canopy and power unit fall and glide off to it’s desinated landing zone at a nearby landfill as I began my final free fall decent and assault on CGC. The automated IR laser target designator sprung to life in my helmet and began painting the CGC building with a bright icon in my field of view that guided me to my point of entry. Using the flight suit and my amazingly bad piloting skills, I was soon heading directly towards my target at full speed. As I was firmly commited, I figured a quick radio check with my brother would ease both our minds that I had made it this far and he was ready for the pickup.

“Break for radio check, this is Greased Lightning on TAC2, come in Rip Van Winkle”

“Yeah this is Ripped, what’s your twenty, Greasy, come back?”

“Deploying Auxillary.... NOW!”

I reached down and grabbed the rip cord of my aux chute and tugged hard as down below me, my brother had dropped the shift knob of the rental van into drive and gunned it towards CGC’s loading dock. Taking the last turn by the employee parking lot, the van came roaring around the guard post, slinging gravel and dust and rocks everywhere as it bounced off the curb and headed for the main loading bay.

My parachute popped open with a sudden crack as my downward velocity slowed and I could see the transparent fiberglass skylight of the shipping dock roof glowing from the infrared energy of the safety lights inside. Reaching and pulling my survival knife from the leather sheath at my belt, I braced for impact. The scortched but thick rubber heels of my jump boots crashed through the skylight and I plunged through the brightly illuminated hole they had created. Now dangling from the cords of my chute, I swung my arm and knife above my head and cut them clean in two with one violent swipe and plummeted to the floor below.

My boots had barely touched down on the cold concrete below, when the main loading bay door exploded in a shower of splinters, sparks, and broken glass as the rental van, my deranged brother at the wheel, was bearing down on me like a dog on a piece of raw meat. Now this wasn’t in the plan.

Seeing the oncoming catastrophy and thinking about the long, painful recovery from a double broken pelvis, I instinctively tucked my right shoulder and rolled towards the right, hoping my sumersault would allow me to avoid becoming instant roadkill. I was halfway through this roll when my gaze went beyond the bumper of the rental van trying to turn my head into a piñata, and noticed the emptiness of the shipping dock. There wasn’t a NIB pinball machine to be seen anywhere.

Seeing the black clad, large, human shaped object falling from the ceiling directly in front him, my brother did what he thought was best and heaved the wheel of the van to the left, sending it skidding across the loading dock and swinging the back end wildly around in my general direction. The makeshift ripcord of my Jato units was still tied to my leg and the shoulder roll I was currently executing had flipped it’s noose-like end up just at the perfect height as it calf-roped the van door latch like a seasoned wrangler in a rodeo. Instead of rolling to a crouch like my spy training (that I wished I had had) would have prepared me for, I was immediately yanked off my feet and went swinging around the room like a psychopath swinging a dead cat by the tail. My brother and I took a few turns around the room, the van doing 360’s as we went, when the rear latch had finally had enough and said “f*ckit!” Just as the rear tires came to a screaching stop. This lead to a chain of events that I will describe only as “miraculous” and leave it at that...

Ok, I can’t leave it at that- As the door swung open and the van stopped, my rip cord played me out like a Duncan YoYo, snapping me at the end of the string and making me suddenly head in the opposite direction back towards the now open back door. Tumbling to a heap in the van, I rolled to become a crushed up pile of flesh and smoldering flight suit mounded up against the back of the front bench seat. With one last tug on my leg, the rip cord went tight once again and slammed the rear door shut with a loud thunk! Remembering the lack of NIB machines laying around on the dock, I raked the night vission goggles off my face, and croaked a weak “get the F*ck out of here- theMonster Bashes aren’t here, they must have shipped them all...”

My brother shot me a puzzled face then a wave of understanding rolled across it. “Oh! Now I now what this email is... “ my brother gunned the gas and the van ripped through another loading dock door and careened off into the night. Pulling my bruised, strained, and burned body up into the front passenger seat he, handed me my phone... this was what was on it...
6BB9644E-05C1-4021-A53C-42535D1036E6 (resized).jpeg

In hope and prayer, I'm holding a candle light vigil every night till it arrives.

Ok, I guess I could have simply said it shipped on the sixth and is estimated to be here on the 11th. But where is the fun in that? and it has no gripping tale to it. Besides, I took these laments out of the MB owner thread and put them here so people DIDN’T have to read them! lol

But I enjoy spinning yarns, otherwise I would not have made a very great sailor

Hello Pinside... so Bublehead finally got his Monster Bash remake Limited Edition and has got it dialed in, working 100% and it has been frustrating me to no end. The wife has asked me to block the outlanes, but I compromised and just tightened them up, because they were sucking the fun out of the game for her, and they were just totally frustrating me, along with the 6.5 degree factory suggested slope... the amount of slow rolling flailing going on has made me slap the sides of the cabinet so hard my fingers are going numb. Really loving owning this machine...

No, I stuck it out and I guess that was the better choice since my game actually got here, it was perfect and I didn't loose any fees or deposits. Love the game, however I just turned it off and walked away in disgust just now because it was giving me the oopty doopty treatment. Save the ball just to have to save it again, then again, then again, then finally taking that final rebound off some stainless piece with one last little “thwick” it heads strait down the middle or outlane. It feels like you are just being toyed by it... never getting any energy into the ball because it just keeps tipping and tipping and tipping off a flipper, no real strong hits, and then rebounds that take it into the slings then into a piece of stainless, looses all energy, then back to the tip of a flipper or sdtm... you can only sit there and take 10 games like that and you just have to walk away... You can leave just so many Bashes and MOR lit and qualified while draining your last ball when you decide the machine is not giving it up and cut your losses and turn it off for a while.

I almost pulled the trigger on TLB as my first NIB preorder... thank the pinball gods that I waited on that one, I also was tempted by JPop when that all started, so I missed that mess as well, and the Alien mess was another one that I had interest in but didn’t pull the trigger.

I am glad I waited for CGC and MB, although they almost had me at MM and did have me at AFM, but the wife was less enthusiastic untill she saw the topper in person and by then all LE’s had sold out. I was looking at getting a AFMrLE on the secondary market, or a BM66 premium, or a DP LE NIB at Expo when we saw CGC’s booth and played MB and that sealed the deal.

@who-dey , I will post pictures of MBrLE soon, I got to get the poor South Park sitting next to it up and running. I got a driver board on order, hopefully that will fix the lamp matrix and I can pull the old driver and repair it on the bench at a leisurely pace and let the wife play the machine for a few weeks before disassembling it for relamping, rerubbering, cleaning, refurbing, resocketing all the IDC lamp sockets that are broken, adding all the characters and figures back in, get the rails and lockdown bar powder coated etc...

Every time I see one of those Kaneda threads, my mind kind of does this:

“Welcome back Pinball fans to the World’s Kaneda Cup. Currently the score is all tied up at nil and nil with the Kaneda Fanboys with no goals, and the provisional Kaneda Haters Club with no goals either. This is turning out to be yet another one of those epic battles in the war of “I don’t give a shit” that seems to rage on in this league, Bob.”

“You are absolutley spot on, Ray, these matchups have got to be the pinnacle of any pinball enthusiasts week. I know I can barely make it through my busy week without going on Pinside and see yet another one of these knock down, drag out, soul crushing tit for tat spats that seem to permeate the Pinball community”

“Got to agree with you there Bob, the way these folks go at each other, you would think there was some kind of award or trophy for being the biggest asshole on Pinside... and the more assholey you are, it seems, the better...”

“So true, Ray, I am not sure exactly just what the upside is here, but one thing is certain, give any two pinheads any argument, and they will chew and fight over that bone for thirteen pages and not one single post will be worth the time it takes to read it.”

“Wait, you can read Bob?...”