Just registered my Star Trek Pin collection for TPF 2017.
Be there ... or you are square.

Can you reserve seats? Or is it first come, first served?

rd

First come, first served.

Chris Franchi will be there as well!

This is quickly building up to be the best TPF ever (and likely best show of the year)! Can hardly wait, two more months...

Much agreement. With Multimorphic saying they are in production... there looks to be a whole slew of new machines for TPF. I'm guessing by March; my pocket book/savings account will be reduced by way too much cash.
I'm just bummed I didn't get in early enough on their pre-order to be getting one of the first batches.

How many days left, labnip? I can't count

Feels like about a million... and then on Sunday it feels like the show was only 15 minutes long.

-Rob
-visit me at TPF! or at http://www.kahr.us to get my daughterboard that helps fix WPC pinball resets or for my Williams system 3-7 sound board potentiometer solutions

We have reservations for the hotel. I'm trying to figure out how to actually pay for it...

(part of the reason I'm at work doing 12 hours of overtime today.)

Our Air BnB was less than $30 a night last year. Can't walk to your room but you'll save a bunch of money.

That would be viable if we weren't already supporting (sort of) freeloaders.

Usually my brother or my wife's friend will end up crashing in there. Sure hope my brother is planning on going again this year. He was awesome helping load/unload last time I went.

We just realized we're flying in to Houston for the rodeo the same weekend as TPF. Now we're considering making the long drive out for a few hours of Texas pinball. Well, I'M considering..

Are we doing a Big Smoke or Cigar Events this year? ( Or did labnip ruin that after the 'incident'
?)

Glad to hear it will be playable. I am looking forward to it.

The sounds and call-outs should make this new Jetsons pinball machine fun to play. Could end up being the best part.

All - saw this post in another thread listing a bunch of games that will be available in the swap meet:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/post-project-pins-for-sale-here-cl-ebay-pinside-and-others/page/92#post-3571011

-Rob
-visit me at TPF! or at http://www.kahr.us to get my daughterboard that helps fix WPC pinball resets or for my Williams system 3-7 sound board potentiometer solutions

Anyone's brother or uncle own Thrifty or Alamo car rentals? Lol

Need a car out of Houston for 3 weeks ... anyone got any hook ups, let me know.

Cheers
rd

Low cost accommodations? Home Away or AirBNB. It's up to her to decide how "safe" the accommodations are that she finds.

Is she cute ?

LTG : )

Try searching "extended stay" in Dallas. I see that Extended Stay America has rates as low as $62.99 per night. Other hotel brands may be cheaper. These hotels have refrigerators and stoves. They also have interior access rooms, meaning that you need a key pass to get into the building unlike motel6, super8, etc.

Only 40 (of 160) spots in the Texas Wizards Tournament remain. They WILL sell out and I promise I'll get 10-15 emails from disappointed players asking to get on a wait list because they just can't believe it sold out.
http://texaspinball.com/tpf/tournaments/texas-wizards-tournament/

IMG_7071.JPG

I use hotwire.com regularly to rent cars. You don't get to pick the agency who rents to you, but you pick the car class (size) and the price. You pay when making the reservation and they tell you the rental company after you pay. The major rental companies support this to fill otherwise unused inventory. As an example, I just went to the site and put in Houston, TX arriving 10 March and departing 31 March and got rates from $27 per day. Another example, I'm taking the family to Florida on Saturday... using Hotwire I got a 4-day rental on a mid-sized car from Hertz for $98 total.

-Rob
-visit me at TPF! or at http://www.kahr.us to get my daughterboard that helps fix WPC pinball resets or for my Williams system 3-7 sound board potentiometer solutions

Thanks ... I have used them and Kayak before, as well as Expedia. Kayak has a full size for $33 a day out of downtown Houston but it's a lot dearer out of the airport. All adds up when you have the car for almost a month.

rd

Got my room booked. This will be the first time for me. Super pumped.

I made all my reservations in Oct but had to book my stay at Aloft Frisco. Recently underwent surgery for a torn Achilles and now my plans are up in the air. Hoping to be somewhat mobile in a boot by the time of the show. Anyone else staying at Aloft Frisco?

In for tournament...like 27 slots left.

Any idea when games will be announced for this?

Ah crap. I better start practicing and pray they don't put SM or Tron in the line-up this year

Must get Elvira 3 news faster! Come quicker TPF I need a new Elvira fix!!!

Don't worry..Marcus knows what I'm good at and does a pretty good job of ensuring I can't possibly get 1st by including games with arcane rules that nobody knows.

That is definitely one thing about TPF versus other big tournaments... you're not going to see a lineup of just the standard DMD tournament games, like...EVER.

Haha. Guilty.

Well, this year you can thank Ken and Colin as they will be working together again to include games with arcane rules that prevent you from winning first.

And doing a fantastic job at the same time.

Marcus

I don't even know that I saw the final game list from last year, to be honest.. but yeah...it's a fine line. It's nice to have the "popular" common games that everyone knows the rules for, but at the same time it gets BORING to play the same 10-15 DMD games over and over and over again. On the flipside, it's really irritating to walk up to a game like...oh..Capersville...where the rules are totally WTF to 80%+ of players, and then on top of that, doesn't it carry over balls in the top saucers from *game to game* too? I don't have an issue with stealable locks in a match play format, as long as they can be reset each game/round, but games that do that have no place in a 'score-for-points' single player qualifying format, IMO. Those are the type of things I would like to NOT see.

One thing is a given about TPF: Usually new games are going to be in the tourney area regardless of how terrible their rulesets might be, and there will usually be at least 2 games in the Solid Sate or EMs that I just see sitting there and shake my head. I don't expect this year will be different.

I suggest with this format that you see what you can do to be official helper and play tester for the games. That will get you some warm up time to learn feeds and skillshots. Limited entry format, means that will help greatly. Good luck frax! Tough competition in TX!

Aside from the fact that I'm just not that personable when I'm tired and cranky, it's hard to be both wasted and a scorekeeper. I didn't get to attend last year, I'm looking forward to trying out this format. It's going to be whatever it will be. I'm only playing in the off chance that I might leave with more money than I spent. I can't qualify for B so.... top 8 out of 150 seems VERY unlikely, but I've been wrong before.

There are quite a few in Houston - but one not to miss is Killen's BBQ in Pearland, which is a small suburb south of town. Weekends he has a line out the door for lunch - and they are only open until he runs out of food - but well worth the wait.

So true!

Xerico, one question ... with 150 entrants, why only 16 finalists and not 32?

32 would bring more points, and it wouldn't take that much longer to run a 32-17 one round knockout.

rd

Bound to be some good food near NASA that he would enjoy.