EDIT: This thread is just one big wall of misunderstandings for the most part. I try my best to salvage some of the damage in this response further down the page and the one following: https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/parent-logic-and-pinball-it-makes-no-sense#post-1934584

But yeah, most of what I originally wrote is extremely easy to take out of context, making it seem more like I'm spoiled and unable to handle money, thus it was a mistake to post it. I apologise for that and will learn to be more careful in the future.

Anywhoo, original post follows for anyone still curious:

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Allow me to relate a conversation I just had with Dad a couple hours ago.

For sake of context: I do indeed live with my father right now, but only until my own projects start to get somewhere financially. As it stands, I make less than livable income off of Patreon support for my web show and am in the midst of coding my first game since 2007. I don't have a day-job because I suffer from a sleep disorder which makes adhering to a regular schedule impossible. I also do not own a pinball machine yet, but we have plenty of space for one and it'll be in the basement anyways, where Dad NEVER goes. I've only been living with Dad for a year as I sold my house last year (after owning it for nearly 10) due to my own failures to get my income going again and to help pay off Dad's debts. I only intend to get ONE pinball machine so I can practice and keep my interest alive and am not going to start building a collection until I actually have a livable income again and am once again living in my own place.

Ahem...

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ME: I'll probably be buying a pinball machine in the next couple days.
DAD: How much will it cost?
ME: $1,000
DAD: This is foolish.
ME: ...why?
DAD: Do you even have $1,000?
ME: Yes.
DAD: ...you shouldn't do this.
ME: Why not?
DAD: You're spending $1,000 on a TOY.
ME: Well, it's not like the money's disappearing. If I ever need the money back and keep the machine in good shape I can sell it for virtually the same amount.
DAD: (no answer)
ME: Besides, you have all your artwork you spent thousands on and all it does is sit on the wall and look pretty.
DAD: Well, I've made hundreds of thousands of dollars.
ME: So the fact that I'm making $250 a month now doesn't mean I can get something I can sell again later if I have to?
DAD: It's your money. Do what you want with it. (Dad's goto cop-out "agree to disagree" line.)
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Also, I know I don't have to say this on Pinside, but absolutely ridiculous responses are ENCOURAGED. I plan to show this thread to Dad sooner or later to see if I can get him to relent. (Not bloody likely, but you never know.)

I'll also definitely post if and when I get the machine I plan to get. Not a done deal yet, but pending!

_{Post edited by Gemini: This really did not come across very well at all... trying to prevent more misunderstandings... x_x;}

31. I've only been living with Dad for a year after selling my house last year. Most of the money from the sale went to Dad to pay HIS debts.

My reasoning is buying one pinball machine, just ONE, with money that's been sitting in my bank account since the sale doing nothing but earning 30 cents of interest a month, is that it lets my money do something enjoyable and I can recover a good chunk of it easily enough if I have to.

I do pitch in to some extent now that I have an income at all. Four months ago I didn't.

Added some more context to my initial post... 'cause I kinda realized I sounded whiny and spoiled and really, that's so incredibly far from the truth when you sell your house and give 90% of the money from the sale to your father. : P

Yeah... context is REALLY necessary to understand the humour in this conversation... now that I think about it, maybe I shouldn't have posted it just for that reason? ... *shrugs* Oh well. Let's see where this goes! : B

Before I reply to some of you, Dad came back to me a few hours later in a more curious mood than contradicting mood, asking me questions about the whole process, the maintenance, how the machine could possibly only be $1000 knowing from prior conversations that they can get far more expensive, (it's a mid-80s pin that's not rare and very low in demand), and even threw in an "I'll play it with you" at one point mid-sentence, suggesting he's actually more interested than he's letting on. That, or he's doing his two-face routine he sometimes does where he'll be completely negative about something at first, then will be completely positive later because he's actually had time to think it over and not just spout words off the top of his head since he's fairly disapproving of just about everything I'm interested in. : B

But yeah, there's not really a financial issue in the pipe here. I want to clarify this very much: Dad's SOLE reason for calling it "foolish" is because he perceives pinball machines as TOYS that no one, NO ONE, should spend hundreds, let alone thousands of dollars on. : P

Every one of my friends I told this conversation to so far laughed at it, which is why I thought of sharing it here... guess I kinda forgot just how much context is really necessary to see the humour in it so yeah, kinda regret posting it now since it's giving the wrong impression of everything going on. Sorry about that, guys. I'll be a bit more careful from now on. : )

Anywhoo... REPLIES! : D

Actually, I have a good chunk more than $1,000 to my name as I'm really good at not spending money I don't have to. (Dad doesn't actually know how much I have saved up.) It's all been sitting in a savings account for a year doing nothing but building up tiny amounts of interest. It's only been in the last four months that I've started making money again, but unlike before, this is money that's pretty much guaranteed so long as I don't anger the fans of my web show by doing something extraordinarily stupid, and so long as I keep delivering new episodes on my regularly scheduled basis. I figure now that I'm on a net increase per month I can afford to buy a cheaper pin with a portion of those savings so I can get practice both in play and in maintenance and can worry about buying more when I have a REAL income from any other work I do and my own house to put them in. :B

Besides which, I don't splurge at all. I only eat at a restaurant once every month or two, always buy sale items when I can (not if they're unreliable though, since then it can just make things more expensive), I virtually NEVER spend more money in one month than I presently make, except once a year when I decide to purchase something special for myself to keep me from going stir-crazy from how little spending I do. I even did all this back when I still had a house so I could weather my lack of income as long as possible after my sleeping issues got worse to the point of ending my last day-job rather badly... >_<

My sleep specialist and I have tried about four different treatments over the course of a year including light therapy, CPAP, and drugs. None of it's worked. :/

But I do think positive, contrary to the way I come across sometimes. I know exactly what needs to be done to get myself back where I need to be and I'm on the right course for sure, regardless of my screwy sleep patterns where I'm asleep during the night one week, during the day the next, and having 12-hour and 30-hour days completely at random next to my "typical" 25 to 26 hour day cycles.

YOLO! XD

I will admit, this is a small part of my reasoning, but well calculated since, if something super-bad happened which the rest of my savings couldn't cover then a $1,000 pinball machine is probably not going to be enough to make the difference, and if it COULD... it would actually make more sense to just borrow some money from my sister, my brother-in-law, my father, or my mother, THEN sell the pinball machine, pay them back whatever I get for it, and if it's not enough to cover what I borrow, give them the rest later on when I can make it up to them. : B

I actually get along really well with everyone in my family... including Dad. It just bugs me a bit how little interest he has in absolutely everything I enjoy.

*shakes head* I'm VERY careful with how I spend my money. I definitely want more than one machine someday (the list I'm making so far has about 12 on it) but I also know what my financial limits are without straining what money I have, and just because of the size and weight I also know it would be an absolute PAIN to have to deal with more than one in a house that's not my own. To that end, having one, relatively inexpensive pin for now, fills a gap in my life that I never realized was there until I rediscovered pinball, and it will satiate that part of my psyche until I finally can have more than one in a suitable, responsible way.

In short, OF COURSE I want more than one! But, being smart about my future comes first! : B

Besides, for the moment, if I want to play other pins, there's always our monthly league nights! ; )

Whoops, more responses 'cause of how long it took to write that last one!

I... don't want to go into specifics about why I gave Dad most of the money from the sale of my house, but it was more of an immediate thing than an ongoing thing. Not because of legality, but out of respect for his privacy. (I don't mind making fun of his logic though, he does it to me sometimes!)

As for my house, I bought it back when I had a professional programming job. Got it right out of high-school, though it wouldn't be until much later in life that my friends and family told me it was extremely lucky, as I had taken it for granted given my lack of workplace experience.

Also, back then, this whole notion of suffering from a sleeping disorder didn't occur to anyone, not even me, because of the nature of it, so it went completely untreated for many, many years. The last day-job I had aggravated the problem so badly that I lost a lot of the control I had over it and during one period where it prevented my working for several days on end, my manager told me I couldn't go back to work without a doctor's note, and that's when I really started to clue in as to just how disruptive this was for leading a "normal" life.

Treatments didn't work, but I couldn't find a doctor who was willing to sign disability papers because there's not only this whole stigma still that sleeping disorders are not that big a deal, but that they can ALL be fixed. >_>

So, that left me in a position where I could continue bouncing between jobs I couldn't keep or move up in, or try to re-focus on my own efforts so I could eventually make money on my own accord. I chose the latter route, with permission from my father, fully aware that, even without the issue he ran into, I'd probably have to sell my house before too long if my savings dried up before I could make any real progress on my own goals.

I started making real progress a few months ago, so I know I'm on the right track now. Yeah, maybe it is a little impulsive to want to buy a pin before I'm completely back on my feet, but the whole process is exciting and that excitement just makes me want to do even better at what I'm already doing! : )

...heh, kinda feel like I'm telling my life story now... *shrugs* : B

Been a member since May! Mentioned I was going to league nights somewhere in my wall of text responses to everyone to try and undo giving a seriously wrong impression of everything going on in the initial post. ^_^;

Hey wait... I can link directly to specific post numbers in the thread... *goes to edit the original post some more to prevent more misunderstandings*

Yeah... as I just edited into the top of my original post, there's so much context necessary to see the humour in the conversation we had that starting this thread was a mistake for sure. Even with the edit there's probably still going to be misunderstandings. : /

OH. One more interesting piece of context: For a period of 13 months about a year and a half prior to me selling my house, DAD WAS LIVING IN *MY* HOUSE. He was selling his house to move into the city, but the people purchasing his house screwed him over big-time and as such, it took about a year for him to get paid, during which time he didn't have anywhere to live nor money to purchase a house because most of his funds were tied up in other assets.

See what I mean? There's SOOOOOOOOOO much context necessary to see the humour in what I posted... *shakes head* Oh well. I'll learn from my mistake. It's the best I can do by this point. : P

I'm glad I at least included a "You're both crazy" option in the poll because that's probably closer to the truth. XD

For those who feel the story has some holes in it: Yes it does, because I haven't explained them and don't want to explain them out of respect for Dad's privacy. I'll explain my role for sure but as far as Dad goes, I draw the line at talking about his finances, partly because I don't know all the details, partly because it's up to him to want to discuss them, and partly because I promised him awhile back not to.

For those wondering about my sleeping disorder, basically, my circadian rhythm is completely busted. Normally, a person's body wants to follow a certain rhythm of waking and sleeping, which is what makes it possible to maintain a routine schedule and fall asleep and wake up around the same times every day, or to get back on track if your sleep schedule goes off track. In my case, my circadian rhythm is pretty much random. I can be dead tired just two hours after waking up, or it may take as many as 30 hours. Worse still, if I'm not sleepy, I can't sleep, and my body's necessity to sleep is essentially a time window. If I miss it, I'll be dead tired... but also can't sleep. Add on to that the fact that caffeine has no effect on me and essentially it makes it extraordinarily difficult to plan ahead or do things on regular schedule. : (

I do appreciate how candid everyone's been though. I understand where some of the harsher opinions are coming from and believe me when I say, I'm doing everything I can to pull myself back up to where I once was in terms of income. The thing there is that, if the money I'm making is not livable, then it doesn't matter how much I save up, I'd eventually be right back in the same situation if I tried to move out. Even if I was making $1,000/mo, that's still not livable (although very close) so moving out would be disastrous. So instead, once I got that high, a good chunk of that would go towards helping to pay for things with Dad and then some of it would go towards savings. Once I hit livable, I'd firstly let Dad know my intention to do nothing but save so I could afford a mortgage down-payment, then once I was ready, off I'd go! : B

As for those of you worried that if I buy one pin I'll just want to buy more and more, I don't have that kind of personality so I can guarantee you that won't happen at all. I'm the kind of person who's able to buy a box of cookies and make it last a week or longer. When I buy potato chips a single bag lasts me for five servings. And with all that in mind, the last frivolous thing I purchased with my savings that cost over $100 was... umm... *thinks hard* ...wow... this actually goes all the way back to when I got my DS Lite, and that was at least a couple years ago... maybe three; I forget exactly when I bought it... Everything expensive I've bought since then has been for the sake of productivity, not strictly fun. (Though in all honesty, some productivity items can be used for fun, like the computer I'm using right now to type this.)

So yeah, as I said earlier, I really shouldn't've started this thread. All it's done is paint me in a bad light and made me out to be irresponsible, and now I have to live with the consequences of that going forwards trying to make useful contributions to the Pinside, plus it's required me to be extremely open about myself to people I don't personally know... all because I felt a conversation was funny given the massive amounts of context which go with it.

*shrugs* As one of my favourite YouTubers often says, "Mistakes were made!"

Actually, one thing that's interesting about my sleeping disorder is that the vast majority of people who suffer from it are blind, so the reason they suffer from it is because they can't see sunlight, thus their circadian rhythm can't be "programmed" as it were, so it's often not considered a disability because being BLIND is a far more recognizable disability. This is partly why it's made it impossible to find a doctor willing to sign the necessary paperwork to allow me onto disability in the first place, since the doctors who do understand this aren't family doctors and thus aren't able to sign the papers, and family doctors don't understand it and thus don't want to sign the papers figuring it's not a disability and something that can be treated. (Which, to be honest, often can be.)

All that said though, knowing I have this problem and being open about it with people allows me to adapt and to make my life work. Besides, in the end, I'd rather make money off of my own merits than have the government hand it to me. : B

It is, though it's better to just watch it straight from my website: www.pixelships.com/adg

The show's called "Ancient DOS Games" and each episode focusses on an old DOS game, discussing them from my own point of view as a game designer and programmer, and telling people how to obtain them (legally) and get them working on modern computers.

I also did some pinball related stuff recently on the show, which is what prompted me to get back into pinball in the first place. I actually do have a couple pinball "toys", I mean those small things you can buy kids for under $100, which are fun in their own right but still don't play like the real thing due to the different ball size, the mostly-plastic construction, the smaller scale, the constantly whirling motors of extreme volume, the lack of any rubber anywhere, the fully-mechanical flippers that take tons of force to press in... I even did a comparison between the four most prominent pinball programs, comparing their physics to what I've experienced with the real thing more recently. It's amazing how different every program is and just how wrong they all are. : O

Yup. Which is why I'm not mad at anyone in this thread for speaking their mind. I much prefer harsh truth to an easy-to-swallow lie, 'cause it's difficult to keep your life straight and to make your future the best it can be in the face of lies.

Even when a comment is irrelevant in some way, there's usually a way to see why the comment was made and often times it is indeed possible to take something positive out of it. Even Whysnow's. ; )

_{Post edited by Gemini: Meant to say "impossible", not "nearly impossible".}

You don't have to apologise. I appreciate when people are candid and forthcoming and not holding anything back. You always get the most honest responses that way and honesty is important to me! : B

#1 plan is actually to get my own projects to the point of a livable income. My web show is only the larger half of the work I do, the other half being game design. Time frame I had when I first moved in with Dad was 1 to 2 years, but because of some major design difficulties I ran into (which I finally overcame more recently) it'll probably end up being more like 2 to 3 years. I'm currently coding all the foundation stuff I'll need so I can make games more rapidly.

#2 is of course, then move out! ; )

I'm the kind of person who likes to leave things for a surprise when I can. ; )

Oh yeah, he's already said it's OK. He'll never have to see it anyways as he never goes into the basement. His reasoning for trying to persuade me not to get one is three-fold, none of which is money related:

1. He's worried it'll be loud and obnoxious based on how loud and obnoxious arcades were in the 80s and 90s. I've already tried to assure him that there's volume control and everything, plus I plan to mod the knocker to make it only a dull thud instead of a loud crack, mostly for my sake as the knocker volume is the ONLY thing about pinball that bothers me, though I understand the reasoning behind it. Still, I'll probably only play it when he's out, which is fairly regularly. : B

2. He himself has no interest in pinball. He kinda wishes I was more like him but the thing is we have VERY different interests. So because he has no interest in pinball, he says things in subtle ways to try and discourage me from playing it at all. He never actively tries to stop me from pursuing my interests, he just wishes I was more like him.

3. In his eyes, toys should only be enjoyed by children. We all know pinball machines are essentially big, expensive, commercial-grade toys, but in his eyes, because they're toys, grown men and women shouldn't be playing them. : P

And yes, I'm getting a game I've already played in real life, and have already played emulated on the computer quite a bit. I know *I* enjoy it, even though it's one of the lesser-desired games out there.

If all goes according to plan I'll be picking it up on Friday! : )

LEGO is awesome; I still have ALL of mine! Last time I took it all out was before the move (it's all in storage for the moment) and I decided I was finally going to sort it all into separate containers to make it easier to find the pieces I needed to build stuff. I have a small yogurt cup sized container full of nothing but tiny 1x1x1 pieces! ; D

Actually, I help Dad out in lots of other ways too, helping him out with his phone, computer and TV issues and such, helping with chores inside and around the house, making dinner every once in awhile (though he LOVES to cook so that doesn't happen often)... he doesn't mind having me around at all really, 'cause it actually makes things easier for him in many ways, and he's told me all of this a number of times. : )

This was never about money, it was never about my sleeping issues, and it was never about having to move in with him, but those have become what most of this thread has focussed on and the debate of whether or not buying a pinball machine in an approximation of my situation is appropriate or not... which is not where I expected this thread to go at all and it's put me in an extremely awkward situation where I either have to explain my life story as best I can to people I don't personally know, thus igniting all the debate which happened, or just ignore everyone and look like an irresponsible jerk who shouldn't have anything to do with this website. : /

So yeah, starting this thread was a HUGE mistake and I promise to be extremely careful about this sort of thing in the future.

To try and end things on a more positive note: A few people so far have said I should just buy the pin, treat myself since I don't own one, because you only live once, etc. etc. The interesting thing is that, every person in my immediate family, myself included, knows that enjoying life is the MOST important thing. Dad also knows that I can't move out on just $250/mo, but that it's a step in the right direction, so it's more important that I stay the course and continue to improve upon that number, and spending a little bit of my savings on a one-time purchase of something I could re-sell for a similar amount if I had to is, quite simply, not going to screw up my future, especially since I'm not the kind of guy who goes out and splurges on a regular basis.

Actually, I could move out on just $600/mo if I was willing to room with a friend of mine again, but believe it or not, Dad would prefer I stick around until I'm making enough to purchase a house, than to waste money on rent, since a decent chunk of the money spent on a mortgage doesn't get completely lost.

I'm not even kidding here. Given the option between staying with Dad and renting, Dad would rather I stay with him because it makes more financial sense. : O

The whole source of the humour of the conversation we had is just the differences in our interests and Dad's consistent attempts to get me to be more like him. Some of my friends have similar issues with their parents, who ironically are the same friends I initially shared this conversation with which is why I thought it was funny enough to share publically...

...whoops. : P

But yeah, I'm picking up the pin tomorrow. I'm excited, my friends are excited, at least a few league members are excited... it's exciting times and when all is said and done, I'll still be right on course towards my personal goals:

Plan #1: Get projects going and make livable income
Plan #2: Move out! ; D

_{Post edited by Gemini: Changed "weather" to "whether"}