That whirlwind was from an estate sale like a week or so ago, I think whoever ended up buying it paid too much for it, then quickly realized it needed a lot of work and they were in over their heads and tried for the quick flip.

When I first got the game, I was seeking out one of those orange guns from the Big Buck Hunter arcade game to make into a topper. Also, my father-in-law is a hunter and has a nice buck on his basement wall, we joked about mounting that above the Buck Hunter!

Big Buck Hunter for sale in Edmonton. Did you flip it already, noahd42? lol

Game of Thrones

Yes! I saw the traffic increase this morning, so I figured someone influential must have tweeted/shared it! happy to be on Steves radar. We really wish we had a little more hands-on time with the game. it was challenging squeezing it in on the morning before the Expo opened again and trying to show off the modes and whatnot in the few games we got to play, without really knowing a lot about the game beforehand. My dream would be to get locked in the Expo venue overnight after everybody has gone home so we can really crank out a bunch of games with minimal background noise and use the best 4 or 5 games for a video. OR have Jersey Jack just loan us a game for a couple weeks so we can dive deep into the code. I'll give it back! I promise!

If any of you had an opportunity to check out YEGPIN 2017 event earlier this month in Edmonton, Alberta... our video of the event is now live. We do a quick walk through of the venue, and have a great interview with Nitro Pinball's Tommy Floyd! Enjoy!

Since Canada no longer has pennies, and due to rounding, you will either get $0.00 or a nickel... depending on how well the video does.

I've been sort of interested in Aerosmith, but also kind of want to get in on the AC/DC premium vault offering, Star Wars is distracting me too. And MMr and AFMr, man oh man, so many options right now.

Got Star Wars Pro from Nitro Pinball this past week. We had it shipped to Calgary and picked it up ourselves... pretty painless process, and only recommended if you are comfortable/confident with your machine moving and setup abilities. We dragged a camera along, so if you are bored at work today and want to kill an hour, here you go!

So far I am enjoying the game, seems to be fairly popular... lots of on location Star Wars Pros popping up across Canada it seems. Jay Richardson Pinball will be bringing one for folks to try this Wednesday evening (July 26) at the Atlantic Trap & Gill in Calgary!

Have one main letter written, distribute a signature sheet to each key person involved in pinball leagues across Canada and gather actual signatures from everyone, send them back to whoever is providing the craftily written letter, and send it as one big package to Gary Stern as snail mail. Include a few Nitro T-Shirts in the box as a Token of Appreciation.

Regarding a letter/petition to propose Nitro Pinball as a potential new distributor opportunity for Stern pinball... We should probably get some interested parties together for a google hangout or something in the next week or two and see how we can make this happen. We'll absolutely need to coordinate, and whatever we write to Stern needs to be intelligent and present a good business case for them to take attention. Presenting the case to folks so they can understand what exactly they are signing is also important, so we want to make sure our goal is clear and concise and no excess verbiage for them to sift through before we capture their signatures.

I don't mind helping get this started if someone hasn't already gotten a head start on it. I would be interested in hearing from anybody who helps organize pinball league nights in any location in Canada, or if you have a local pinball enthusiast group on Facebook, Pinball Players Anonymous support groups, or whatever! Fire me a PM, and let me know your email address, name, and where you are located, and whether you'd be interested in helping spread awareness for this effort within your local areas. once I've gotten some names We'll try to organize something where we can talk in real time and bounce ideas around.

Also, if any of you are PR or communications people and would like to help us carefully craft our message, I certainly would appreciate the help.

The majority of people will not know who designed a particular pinball machine or that its of any significance at all. So many more people were involved in those projects, and perhaps this happening is a catalyst for us to try to appreciate the other talents that go into making a game. Lets use Ghostbusters as an example. Zombie Yeti's art is phenomenal! Dwight Sullivan did a great job at releasing a fairly complete base of code upon release. Theres a whole team of mechanical engineers and tooling people behind the scenes that work out all the logistics to make the machine physically operate. Their musicians and sound people, the marketing, the licensing people, the folks who assemble it, etc.

I'm sure if you knew more about some people who design all of the every day things we use, and some of the stuff they potentially did, you'd maybe want to boycott lots of different products.

I probably wouldn't seek out getting something on my Ghostbusters signed by JT now because of all of this, but i'm certainly not going to stop playing my pro. If i ever met Zombie Yeti, or Dwight, I'd certainly try to get my apron or translight signed still. Now for you guys with an LE... JT absolutely touched all of your playfields, and i'd say that makes the price tank hard. You are welcome to trade me your tainted LE for my pro.

Stopped by the venue tonight with Tommy and Suzanne from Nitro and heard there were 80-90 people signed up for the tournament. Nice selection of games throughout the bar. Game areas are split between the main game room with most of the usual games that have been available to the league, and then a pile of additional donated machines in the upstairs loft area, and 3 or 4 machines out on the floor in the main bar and dining area. I'm not sure of the exact count... maybe 25ish? Should be a great event, and I think signup is still open tomorrow (Saturday) around 11 AM until maybe noon or so.

Game lineup for the weekend at the Silverball Rodeo in Calgary this weekend is as follows:

Pinbot
Black Knight
Aerosmith
Metallica
The Addams Family
Terminator 3
Revenge From Mars
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Cyclone
Bram Stoker's Dracula
Game of Thrones LE
Mata Hari
Ghostbusters
Xenon
World Cup Soccer '94
Monopoly
Johnny Mnemonic
Golden Arrow
World Cup Soccer '94
Jurrasic Park
Last Action Hero
Lost World
Bad Cats
Theater of Magic
Demolition Man

Check out the Pastafarian playing Theatre of Magic. I had to do a double take when i saw that dude walking around today.

Pingolf in Edmonton this weekend too! Another tournament at The Station in Calgary next weekend, and Vancouver FlipOut the following week. It's a busy few weeks for pinball for sure!

So our Calgary Pinball league started back up for its 3rd season this week. We've grown so much we've had to split the group into 2 nights! I believe I heard we are sitting at 80+ members, which was rumored to be the largest Pinball league in Canada!

I'd be interested to hear from some folks in other leagues around Canada to hear about your league growth over the last couple years, and what sorts of events you have planned, Open tournaments, etc.

For anybody who is interested, we just released our Vancouver FlipOut 2017 Pinball Expo video. Enjoy!

Awesome news!!!! congrats Nitro!

I see a few other dealers here in Western Canada announcing they are also distributors today. What’s going on?

I got a Pin Stadium kit for my Star Wars with the GI and UV Flasher, but i am thinking i might actually move it over to the Metallica because i feel like it it will benefit from the UV flash in a cooler way. But all in all, I really like Pin Stadium! I feel like I need it on every game now. Quick install too... 10-15 minutes, no tools needed unless you want to hard wire it in to your GI and flashers permanently.

Yup, I have an install and review video in the works right now. probably release it in the next week or so, but I can share a little raw gameplay footage. I have the GI color set a little more on the purple/blue side in this video. The nice part is when the UV flasher fires, which you can see a little better after the 1 minute mark when i start into a mode.

I have the same feeling with the Pin Stadium lights seeing it next to my other games as I had when i got my first LED lit game and saw it sitting next to my incandescent bulbed games. it's hard to really portray it properly using any sort of camera.

Here is another quick pan shot of my pins in the arcade where you can really see the difference between the Star Wars and the others. Again, i've got my GI tuned a little heavier on the purple side, but regular white is just as bright if not more. The nice thing is you can tune the brightness to fit your liking.

For shits and giggles, I contacted SML this afternoon and they quoted me $8499 + Tax for a new Guardians Of The Galaxy Pro! That's cray cray

7590 + tax was another that I got from a different P1 dealer in Alberta, but Johns Jukes wouldn’t give me a quote because they didn’t want to step on another dealers toes from a different province, but I’d imagine it’s similar.

Just to be clear, I have not purchased a GOTG, just been gathering quotes to see what the pricing landscape looks like after the dealer/distributor shake up.

We were super lucky to be able to babysit an Attack from Mars LE Remake that Nitro Pinball recently shipped out to us here in Calgary! In a week or so, this game is going to be heading down to a brand new pinball joint called Pin-Bar! This place is going to have a KILLER starting line up of games (I believe it should have around 20 or so), a kick-ass menu, and it's not too far from downtown (501 17th ave s.w Calgary)... slated to open February 22, 2018. We were able to put the machine through its paces, film a few games, and give a short review for our channel before we hand deliver it to Pin-Bar.

Pin-Bar is a lot of fun! They have pretty much every in-production pinball machine available to play. There have been a few changes, as they did have an Alien but there were continuous problems with the machine breaking down... the ball trough (among other things) ended up having a problem that couldn't be fixed without waiting for Heighway to send some replacement parts, so better than having a broken game sitting around taking up space, that game has been replaced with a 75th Anniversary Wizard of Oz! I think I heard that Alien would be back someday if Heighway works out all their issues. I believe Concord is a partner with Arlen on this. The head chef is from the Palomino and they've got a pretty great menu, lots of tasty sandwiches and a good lineup of beers and other cocktails. We have a video tour of the place in the works and it includes some of the behind the scenes stuff when the games were being brought in, we interview Arlen and we do a walkthrough of the games. I hope to get that video out in the next week or two.

We (Chance and myself from The Canadian Arcade and another friend) picked up most of the games when they were shipped out back in February and delivered and setup a lot of them, along with some help from Tommy and a couple experienced operators/enthusiasts from BC that Nitro brought to help configure the games and share some knowledge with Arlen. I've only been in a few times since the doors opened now, but Chance is in a few times a week helping out with fixes and some maintenance stuff and keeps me updated on happenings.

The Station in Riverbend has an MMR LE!

A little while back we had the opportunity to help pickup/deliver/setup all of the games for the brand new Pin-Bar in Calgary. I know most of the local Alberta folks have made it down to check it out, but for any out of towners who haven't had a chance to see what its all about and are thinking of a trip to our neck of the woods, heres our Pin-Bar video. The interview with Arlen (owner/general manager) starts around the 21-minute mark if you want to skip over all the nerdy ride-along loading and unloading portion of our video. Pin-Bar currently has 18 pins, and a small growing collection of arcade games

I thought that big auction was next weekend?

Ive been keeping an eye on the auction this morning. there are about 400 items before they get to the games, and they are at about 250 now. Lots of random things in the auction... from coins, and old money, hockey cards, bulk lots of yarn, shoes and laptops.

I know a few guys who have their boots on the ground and have taken a look at the games. mostly junk, lots of water damage and termites. A lot of the arcade games look ok from the front, but seems they have a lot of damage from the top.. like they got rained on, or maybe sprinkler system went off on them.. who knows.

A few options.
Retroactive in Edmonton - https://retroactivearcade.ca/collections/t-molding-1
Gameroom Designs out of Ontario - https://gameroomdesigns.ca/arcadeshop/58-t-molding-20-length/
Playdium Store in Ontario (but they ship pretty quick) - http://www.theplaydiumstore.com/category_s/2205.htm

- Attack from Mars LE
- Avengers LE
- Pabst Can Crusher
- Metallica Pro
- Dead Pool Pro
- Tron Pro
- Iron Maiden Pro
- Kiss Pro
- Medieval Madness Classic remake with color DMD
- Batman 66 Premium
- Walking Dead Pro
- Wizard of Oz 75th
- Monster Bash LE
- Star Wars Premium
- AC/DC Premium
- Game of Thrones Pro
- Aerosmith Pro
- Tales of The Arabian Nights

Arcade games
- Golden Axe, Hit the Ice, NBA Jam, Marvel Super Heroes, Street Fighter 2 Alpha, Metal Slug X, Pacman Battle Royale

It’s possible the monitor is going into HV shutdown. Can you hear the game still playing when the monitor goes out ? Want to rule out the game itself crashing/freezing up. Monitors are usually pretty easy fixes for the most part as long as they aren’t the crazy tri-mode monitors found in some of the newer games that take like 70+ capacitors to replace.

Yup, we got hit crazy hard on Saturday. We've actually had a few notable hailstorms in Calgary in the last 10 years or so. This will be my 3rd storm in this house. One in 2012 where it just shredded siding on the west and north sides of my house. At the time they couldn't match the siding color and I ended up getting the entire house and garage re-sided. 2016 storm again hit the north and west sides of the house, we were able to match siding this time, so only had to replace part of those walls.. but had to put a new roof on it at that point too, since the shingles were getting pretty tired.

Saturday's storm was kind of weird and the damage was a little different than the previous ones. The wind was coming directly from the west at about 100 km/hour this time, my house is sandwiched in a row, so the neighbor's house shielded us from a lot more area damage on the outside walls. I have a big window in my stairwell that took a lot of impacts from hail bouncing down from the roof of the house next to us, and broke away the outside pane almost completely, and eventually breached the inner pane, punching about a 6-inch hole through. Luckily it didn't leak water in too bad, but lots of hailstones went through the hole and bounced off the window sill and flew down the hallway into our bathroom, which was a good 16 feet or so away from the window. we kept a few of the hailstones we found, they were slightly bigger than golf balls and weighed in around 40-45 grams. (A pinball weighs about 80 grams). Houses that were entirely exposed to the west got wrecked waaaaaaay worse than us.

Literally every car that was outside parked around our block had a smashed windshield or back window (or both). The hood of my van looks like a new Stern playfield after 200 plays.

My hail deductible used to be 1,000 bucks but now is 2,500.. so that kinda sucks. Since only one side of the house got nailed, we'll likely just do the siding and see if the roof needs to be done. If we ever get a storm again that nails two sides or more, we'll probably upgrade to hardie board.

I did film a bunch during the storm, and a quick walk around the block to tour some of the damage the next morning. Video is up on youtube now and hit 20K views just an hour or so ago.

One funny thing that happened during the storm... I was in the basement in a panic grabbing some tools, and I could hear this white noise pssssh sound. I thought it was my sound system playing static. I went over and flicked off the system, but the sound remained. I was a little confused, looked around a bit and then I realized it was the outside water line going full blast. Turned out some hailstones hit the water faucet knob enough to turn it wide open. Not sure how long it ran for, but glad I caught it before it ended up running all night... likely would have eventually leaked back into the basement with how saturated the ground was at the time. Also noticed the hailstones turned the natural gas line switch to my garage too!

2020 has been such a shit show, I just laugh now and wonder if someone went back in time and messed up the space/time continuum and this is what we get. I saw this meme yesterday and I looked at it and said "Holy shit, YES! Absolutely"

2020MEME (resized).jpg

That was the episode where we almost peeled the roof off of the Penske rental truck on an underpass during rush hour in downtown Calgary (as an added bonus, it was -35C that day). We had also declined the all-perils insurance when we picked up the truck. That almost turned into a really baaaad day.