This is the first time I've heard of Tim yelling at kids...

Well look, you can either have him spend all day talking to you, or you can have him back to fixing up the Cactus Canyon. Which one would ruin your trip more, him not cuddling with you for a while or you not being able to see Bart's hat move?

First time I went, my wife and I took our (then at the time) 2-year old son with us. Tim came over and showed us over to the crane games and pointed out that the little spiky balls are really easy to grab because they're grippy and it's easy to win. My kid won a couple of them and he left more than happy. We still have those balls, and my now 17-month old kid plays with them all the time.

All this happened without Tim going into a rage and yelling at my kid.

No, not at you, just in jest overall.

Don't sweat it. I think they're all just choosing the top option.

Every time the PHoF is brought up I get a little more disappointed by the sense of entitlement that is growing in this hobby. It's really disheartening.

What I see are a bunch of people complaining that LOCATION games in a highly trafficked location aren't up to their HUO or collector quality standards. A game isn't "virtually unplayable" if it has a couple of switch errors here and there. The place isn't home to terribly maintained machines. Are some machines down on any given day? Of course they are.

Complaints about Twilight Zone or Medieval Madness having a few issues are so shortsighted. These are the most popular pinball machines of all time, getting played on hundreds (at least!) of times per week. All of those machines in there are getting played far more than yours do at home. How do you expect a guy and a handful of volunteers to keep everything in 100% working order 100% of the time? It's simply not feasible unless you want to employ 2-3 full time technicians and pay them a livable wage of $40,000-$50,000 per year. So ok, do that. Now you're cutting $120,000-$150,000 a year out of the bottom line just from payroll. Add in benefits and it goes up from there. You're taking a huge chunk of what the place makes and taking it away from charity, THE WHOLE REASON THE PLACE EXISTS.

If the PHoF was about preserving pinball rather than charity, Tim could have just left everything in storage or in warehouses set up to play for his circle of family, friends, and the lucky few that got invited from time to time. That's not what this place is about. If that's what you're looking for, go visit one of the other pinball museums out there, because their mission statement is more in line with what you're hoping for.

And no, you can't have it both ways.

As for Tim's attitude, most people don't have any sort of problem with him because they just leave him alone. Any time you go and distract him, he's getting more and more behind on keeping the place kept up. Say hi, let him do his thing. Don't pester him for 20 minutes and then whine that ToM has an issue that "should only take 20 minutes to fix."

Do we know this? Do we know for sure that the vast majority of his visitors even care? A hardcore pinhead will notice a flaky switch in the orbit on an AFM, but will the random visitor? If the random visitor doesn't notice, which makes up the biggest part of his customer base, why raise overhead? It's not like he doesn't want the games to be in good condition, but the trade off probably isn't worth it for Tim. He does the best he can and hopes that people will love the place regardless of a few rough spots here and there.

To be clear, I'm not saying that Tim is a beacon of sunshine and happiness. I personally haven't seen him get upset with anybody, but I figure if you go enough times, it's an inevitability.

If you're a big fan or admirer, don't dig too deeply into Mother Teresa's dealings...