Are there any Pinside meet and greets planned for TPF?

Not that anyone wants to meet me

However, if you do see me on the show floor and say "Hey Bublehead!" loud enough that I can hear you, I will definitely stop and chat. I'm going deaf in my right ear so keep that in mind

I am buying WHEN you see me... but I am hard to miss at 6’4” (or 1.9M for my European friends) tall and 39 and two sevenths stone. I miss drinking in the UK, spent 4 years off and on in Dunoon, Scotland back in the 80’s and drank a lot of sweet black and tans, Tennents Lager, and hard cider. Hit me up WHEN you see me, not IF

And if a certain up and coming manufacturer had not cancelled their 5 days of BS, sorry I meant to say 5 days of Deeproot, this thread would be on page 37 right now... with no real big reveal in the rumor mill, many are not feeling the love and excitement of Expo where we had a bevy of new machines show up. No one thinks Wonka, Toy Story, GNR2, Black Knight 3, Elvira 3, or any new machine from Stern will be revealed. Stern will be whipping up Munsters and Beatles buzz still, along with every title they can possibly sell in a vault edition or another quick run of 250 machines. JJP will still be pushing all their titles, POTC front and center with a teaser YBR Woz reveal? Plus all the wanna be boutique pins that will come slithering out of darkened basements and back alley garages, so there is potential for something cool to show up, just not sure exactly what it is going to be, but I know I will have more fun than those who don’t go to the show.

My first time going to TPF... been to Chicago Expo more times than I have fingers to count over the years. Taking my nephews to TPF this year. Keeping the hobby alive and well with the 20 to 25 year olds, one player at a time. As long as we keep the youth engaged, pinball will never die. I know of two young men who will eventaully be HUO players like myself, and will keep my machines that I leave to them in my will.

Do they give out a Twipy for best restoration?... that is some top notch and dedicated work. I will stop by and play at least a nickels worth for sure.

PM me if you have no firm hookup on your Large shirt... I would be happy to get one and ship it to you. I had a mate from high school from down under who passed recently, so it would just be nice to do something for one of his countrymen. BH

No problem, everyone is going to have a blast.

I always just put it down to CrazyLevi being a New Yorker. Nothing wrong with that.

Hey, I will ask if nobody else does, that is if I am in any Stern dog and pony show where general Q&A questions are taken by someone who might know. The only gambit is pissing off everyone else in the room and get what, the Best Groan Of The Show award? I’m game.

Ok, I have a question... is this the quietest you have ever seen Pinside be before a show in recent memory? Preperations must have everyone running around like a head-less chicken right about now... Better get the suitecases packed this weekend.

Just ordered the MBr interactive trough light... so you need to throw one in your bags...

(Customer D. Roth aka Bublehead)

We will be the three 6'4" tall dudes walking around TPF this year. We will be a foursome with my 5'7" wife in tow, but she may or may not be around all the time. She likes to play solo a lot but she is also visiting with her 6'4" plus nephews, so she may stick around more. She can only take so much of a crowd, but crowds don't bother us giants, it just looks like a sea of hair to us. If you see us, stop and introduce yourself, I might have a little something up my sleeve for you.

PM sent.

You will find I am larger than life in person and also, I’m just plain large. Can’t wait to meet everyone. As for funny, am I like ha ha funny? or do I just amuse you, like I’m your clown funny?... Bring me a bench vise, a pair of pliers, and a blow torch and I’ll show you something funny... wait, wrong movies...

Yeah, I am a down right clown. Looking forward to the meet and greet. Less than a week folks!

Then I am more than plain large, Ice, I think I am “plane large” because, shy of riding a single first class seat, I have to buy two coach seats when I travel, but thats for my knee comfort and out of respect for my fellow travelers. And if there is a low class upgrade (empty middle seat), I get my money back on the second seat. And bunched panties? I am so laid back usually, mine only bother me when I get a sack hair caught up in the leg hole ribbing. Now that is a definition of bunched panties you will not soon forget.

Sitting in my hotel room right now in Frisco... TPF here we come!

Any parties tonight?

I will report... flipped it, LOVED the way it shot. The butter smooth ramps, shots are all makable, outlanes are brutal, right especially, but you can learn what NOT to shoot at, and when to NOT shoot it, and ball times will climb. For the money, the Wife is coming around on a PRO, now just to convince her an LE is going to hit the market eventually, BUT the Premuim, OK, fan of the show? Yes? Premuim is the bomb in person. You actually forget you are playing a black and white machine, the light show is so vivid and you are so busy shooting to even care if the art is in color, your mind fills it in while you play, and you get immersed in “the show”.

The mini lower playfield is diminutive, and the ball is smaller, and it doesnt feel like real “pinball” when playing it, so I didnt like it... wait for it... ...that so many people have not pulled their cranium from thier rectal cavity and realized this IS the best mini playfield they have flipped in years. If you HATE Stewie/Donkey mini plafield from FGy/Shrek I will not be able to convince you that you will like Grandpa’s Laboratory, but flip it before you judge it, folks, the “total” package of Munsters with the mini playfield blows the Pro out of the water, and not just a little bit, but leaves a gaping, steaming, boat shaped hole of nothing in the pond. Anyone making a decision on buying a Munsters based on a thumbs up or down by a FGy owner rating this machine, consider this my glowing review. I didn’t just like it, I LOVED it.

What I didn’t like about Munsters...
Double flipper buttons, but not the fact they are double, but the placement of them on the cabinet side. If you think they should be more liKe magna save button locations, raise your hand HOWEVER, Dwight said, to my face, he wanted to throw us off our game by placing them lower and so get out of your comfort zones people, Dwight don’t want you to feel comfortable while flipping both tables at once, and now you know WHO to thank for that idea. It is also almost impossible to manhandle the machine while flipping the lower buttons unless your are a Madagascar Aye-aye Lemur, so this is something done on purpose.

Dragula count down and launch is just too long, imo, and could be sped up some... it puts a pause in the flow that detracts a little. The mono targets are not as big an issue, they remove some “down in sequence” rule structure possibilities, but all in all, drops for Lily or Dragula would have been wasted $$$ on BOM unless they used the “down in order” risk/reward paradigm, which could add some rule depth, but that would just cloudy the waters on casual players and may be totally on purpose to keep the game moving without crushing new players with too many things to learn.

All in all, I like it. It was fun, and can only get more fun going forward. Is this a players “got to have it” title? It is probably not for everyone or forever, but for fans of the TV show and clean family fun, I think it is.

For anyone who played the South Park at TPF, I want to apologize for the trough switch problem that was causing you issues while playing... however...

I just purchased it yesterday, so I inherited the problem and wanted people to know I had located the issue and where the problem is in the through switch wiring harness (trough switches looked like a disco dance floor in switch test when you wiggled the harness) but I have no tools with me or I would fix it. The original owner was going to have a guy look at it, but not sure he ever got around to fixing it Saturday. This was such an easy one to troubleshoot, just hope the breaks in the shitty Sega bell wire wiring harness don’t plaque me forever. Hope everone had as much fun as I did at TPF, and congrats to all the new owners of machines they are shipping, dragging, or carrying home in a basket.

And heres a moment of silence for all those pinball machines who, if beyond a shadow of a hope of a last minute reprive at the dumpsters edge, have been lost to the pinball gods forever.

My wife wondered why I did a spit take in the car while reading this... and to be honest, it was a delayed reaction... “what does a dentist have to do with a 22 gauge wiring harne—- <Nose Blast> <Choke> <chortle> lol

Yeah, dentists also hate (which means they love it) popcorn old maids... my dentist once said they account for over 75% of broken teeth, crowns, bridges, braces etc...

Someone who was really looking forward to a CGC produced Aliens?

For those who missed it, the drama, as Kanada told it from the pulpit, er, I mean the lecturn, er, I mean the podium while accepting his Twipy was that the source of the rumor was none other than George Gomez (I was drunk whe I posted SR in error, sorry Steve) and named him by name. I am NOT picking any side on this one, too hot for my tastes, however, as an innocent bystander, it was some high drama for the pin world. Thats a really short take on it, but figured if anyone was still in the dark on what happened, this explanation might help.

i want to thank everyone, sincerely, for correcting my mistake and making it clear that I was having WAY too much fun at TPF.

To Steve Ritchie, my apologies for the INCORRECT attribution of said rumor, and my apologies to Kanada for mis-quoting him and his source. Total failure on my part, and not done with any malice or bad intent. Simply my brain on too much alcohol, fun, and pinball. Not an excuse, just the facts.

And to my peers, thank you for correcting my mistake, I certainly wanted to be accurate, and I was as wrong as you could get. Thank you for clearing it up while I was passed out on my flight home. All the Pinsiders I met were cool, and it helps to finally put faces to avatars and avatars to names. I enjoyed talking with everyone I met. It helps to see we are all human, and in person, you people are not the crazy, tin-hatted, keyboard warriors living in your parents’s basements like me that I thought you were. Ok, technically it’s not a basement, they are not my parents, the hat is lead, not tin, and I don’t sit around sharpening my keyboard with a whetstone.

Again, my apologies, and thanks.

On another note, there was a TOM there that I blew up, scored 1.813B on, working 100%... of course I lit and started Grande Finale to simply drain it on ball three... typical.

Ahh! My eyes! Over 100+ faces of people you recognize standing next to a face we can’t for some reason seem to forget... why is that?

And yet not one picture with me Hope to see you at my next big show (zapcon yay! Our Hometown show, CAX, and Expo)

Ok, this has to be the most surreal photo from TPF... a man who played a Munster playing a Munsters

I think the place is big enough, but the layout of the room needs to be looked at and they need to have the event planning team design a layout based more on a tiered space utilization and sponsorship program imo. When a large event like this is planned, most of the time space is allocated and reserved on the first come, first reserved basis, with vendors and exhibitors estimating and buying what space they need. This makes for a very fragmented and sometimes cramped experience. The solution for shows like this is a shift from the first come/first served model to a totally centrally planned experience, with a total space design package, with a professional who looks at a vendor’s exhibits and determines if it will fit in the space they are requesting. A lot can be determined from picures of this years Festival, then use that to evaluate best untilization of space. Now, instead of waiting for tennants to sign up, you send out a Floor Space Sales rep who “visits” each vendor/exhibitor and actively sells them their location on the floor, making recommendations based on floor traffic, sales, bottlenecks (yes, a vendor may want a bottleneck to make people stop and watch the exhibit) and the like. There are companies that do this, and it is their sole purpose to maximize the customer experience for all clients.

Not sure pinball will rise to that level of need, but we can hope and dream it someday will. As far as this festival was concerned, and all the past Expo’s I have attended as contrast, the only thing different between them is the focus on the industry (Expos of the past) or the hobby (TPF’s in the past) but the retro arcade vibe is starting to permeate the entire hobby and industry. I think we will see all of them join retro forces between vids, pinball, and consoles going forward eventually and I do not fear this in the least.

I have met Jack on several occasions. This is just Jack being Jack, as far as I can tell, the man never stops more than 5 seconds, because by second 6 he has moved on already to the next thing. I haven’t figured out if it’s just a Jersey thing, but what ever you do, get whatever you are going to say out in the first 5 seconds, and it helps if you reach out to shake his hand first, that is the best way to start a conversation with him. And remember, its more about what he is doing for you lately that gets him started, and it is harder to check your phone or dial with my fat fist in his hand.

For example, I put out my hand and said “Jack, great call on WOZ YBR, that baby is stunning, long time fans, glad to meet you again, and we’re glad you keep building us great pinball.” Now, he may just shake your hand and thank you and say nothing else, or pick up his phone, or look at the squirrel... or he may talk your ear off about the YBR edition, but I respect his time and don’t mind when he is short or seemingly rude, that is not really what drives it. He barely heard the word “stunning” and had let go and was moving on. That is just Jack being a businessman first, warm wonderful person second, because even at events where he is near fans, he is working every minute he is at the show.

When I first went to Pin Expo in 91 with my wife as a new pinball couple, this was almost everyone you talked to in the industry. Very short, direct, and somewhat baffled and slightly amused that someone was actually interested in their work. To some of the old timers, this was a job, not being a rock star. It was like as if suddenly an accountant had people walking around asking him for his signature for keeping the company books straight. They just didn’t get the passion. After our disappointment (of meeting industry insiders) of that Expo wore off, and we went the next year, and we had a better understanding of the industry, and so we backed off the fanantical aspect of it and took a more “appreciative player” attitude, and we have pretty much kept that vibe in our hearts ever since. So we are surprised when we have met people like Eric, or Python, or Barry Oursler after talking with him over the years, he likes to talk about his games. This has made pinball a much more enjoyable experience for us.

I took my wife and 21+ old nephews to TPF for the first time this year and everyone had a blast. Waits were there on some machines, like already reported, but we all got to play what we came to play, and we played a lot of pinball we hadn’t expected to play too. Vendors had plenty of wares, there was fun, drama, and more pinball than you will see at any other show, except maybe Expo, and although the vibe is different, the experience of Expo and TPF are very similar. Pinball takes over a major hotel for a weekend of fun. The organization is different, the weather is different, the people are different, but there are enough recognizable faces to let you know you are in the middle of the pinball universe for a couple of days each year when you attend either event. I have been going to Expo off and on for over 25 years, but now TPF is permanently inked into the calendar as well. Kudos to the organizers and sponsors for such a great festival. For anyone who did not stay at the Embassy, we stayed at the Legacy Marriot and would recommend it for those looking for a little peace and quiet away from the constant press of the crowd. Not that that is a bad thing, but when you spend the entire day with a room full of pinheads, a quiet dinner, a soothing, relaxing nights sleep, a wonderful breakfast buffet, and you are ready to go elbows deep back into it the next day. The drive over is easy, no main roads to fight traffic on, and it was the only closest, nicest, Marriot with vacancy

This was an amazing piece of custom woodworking, the skiball was a nice touch. What was the donor machine? I figured it was a Bally due to zipper flippers, but it wasn’t a Fireball. Enjoyed playing a game on it.

This is fine if they want to try and elivate pinball up above the smoky bars, bowling alleys, pool halls, and back alley arcades and make pinball a mainstream consumer item, but they can not forget the player and not show them a little love. I think if DR actually gets off the ground and starts building machines, teaming up with TPF like Stern does with Expo will be the way to go for TPF. But other Chicago manufacturers have eyes on the Expo sponsorship, according to a sales manager I talked with recently, but its just talk.

I would like manufacturers to know that traveling all over the country to these shows is how word of mouth from players gets back the quickest to enclaves of other pinball buying customers. When I come home and go to my pinball league, I will tell everyone about the new machines and what was fun and what was not. These are high end customers all the way down to the guy who is there because he can only afford $15 to play in a monthly league, but these are the people driving the resurgence of pinball, and reports from a show are the most meaniful to them because these are players and people in their league that they trust, not some random Pinsider review or Youtube channel, or podcast, no offence to any of them.

Well at first glance, it screamed Ski Ball, and that seemed oddly appropriate in a coin op amusement machine.