In San Diego, we are staying at a cool 1960s place called Kings Inn.

These guys have done it right ... all around the US you see old run down 50s-60s places, crying out for love ... these guys have given the place a nice paint job, bought it up to today’s requirements, and kept the retro look and vibe.

It has all you need in a motel in 2019 - very good wifi, comfy beds, good plumbing, a refrigerator in the room, good air con.

And it’s reasonable too - about $70 USD a night. All this adds up to a good 4.3/5 on Hotels.com and high occupancy. Good on them!

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It has a really cool retro diner too, Waffle Spot. Which has a neat Waffle King mascot. I don’t really do breakfast but we tried it out this morning because it’s a cool place. Waffles were great.

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Looks like it ...

https://kingsinnsandiego.com/meetings-events/

I was thinking about the “points” thing you mentioned yesterday, and the impact it has on an independent place like Kings Inn. Do points make everyone so loyal to a brand that they only stay in the same place?

I’ve found with points you usually get a better deal without them - like if you book direct and get the points, you usually find the same place on hotels.com for cheaper (and not offset by any points advantages)

So I book 95% of things with the Hotels.com app ... I do check around and usually most apps prices are much the same. After 10 nights with hotels.com you get a free night (based on average value of previous bookings) which is a nice bonus. Plus you’re not locked in to one particular chain. Sometimes a different one is better (location/price) in a certain city.

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Nothing wrong with the old Holiday Inns, I always find them to be fine.

Good points (pun!) in your post, I forget about employees getting perks. Perks are good.

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I’ll be there!

Unplugging is great.

Ive had my phone on for maps while I’ve been here. I’ve had 2 phone calls in 3.5 weeks. I have people well trained.

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Cruisey day today, as we try and recover before INDISC on Friday.

Headed to Hillcrest to have a look around. Well, we were just driving aimlessly and found Hillcrest.

Hillcrest is pretty hip, it’s the lgbt capital of SD. Lots of trendy places around, and lots of people walking small dogs.

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This wall was pretty cool, you could get some chalk and write in your goals to do “before you die”. Some were pretty interesting...

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Then we went to the Old Town.

We went here last Xmas too, but it was really raining so we didn’t see anything. Lovely day today, so we went back.

It’s a State Park, so free to look around. There are some original places and some recreations as well. There was some interesting history in the main hall, and they do ghost tours after dark, if that’s your thing.

Interesting place to look around.

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Second time lucky at Brewskis tonight ... people showed up for a tournament!

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19 plucky players braved the (slightly) chilly night to battle for the bar tabs!

Danni played well all night, until she was player 2 on BM66 and got pipped!

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I started slowly and played nervously in true RD style lolll but I got a little better as we went along until we were down to 5 left, and I had to play Danni on Houdini.

She had a 400,000 lead on the last ball.

Whoooops, sorry champ ...

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Down to the last three, and we had to play SW Pro, which seriously, nobody wants to play. My first two balls, I didn’t even touch at all. Plunge/save/plunge/drain. WTFFFF. Last ball I had to get 220m to pass Ron and I couldn’t do it. So I was out, Maleko went on to take it out.

Really good night at Brewskis, Aaron the owner is a cool cat. Check it out if you’re in town! Bonus of being next to a strip bar, so if you suck at pinball you can head over there instead.

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Leaving SD! Today’s trip takes us up to Banning, California. Home of the Museum of Pinball, and the INDISC tournament.

We will take the slightly longer route through Julian and the forests, it’ll be more interesting than sitting on an interstate.

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Indeed!

But first we passed through Ramona, I guess about half an hour north-east of San Diego. Looked like a really nice little town.

Then we hit Julian, as eluded to, the place to go if you want an apple pie! They call themselves the Apple Pie Capital of America.

Julian started as a gold mining town in the 1860-70s. Some of the buildings in the Main Street date back to the late 1800s.

The gold miners bought the Apple trees, and they grew well in the climate - the miners have gone, but the trees remain!

Cute little town!

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The road up to Banning got a bit more windy, a bit like a country NZ road. The scenery changed from cow paddocks to rocky hills.

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In the tiny stop of Warner Springs, there was a cool little abandoned gas station, with its 76 ball resigned to the lawn ...

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Shame someone smashed the ball ...

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The 76 ball was so cool, I wanted to tie it to the roof of the Caravan and bring it home.

I used to have a big collection of old signs and shit I’d hoard when I was a second hand dealer. Ive only got one left ... a big 10ft wide x 6ft high wrought iron POOL sign with the 5 Olympic Rings. Got it from the local Olympic size swimming pool when they took it down. Kept it for 20 years to put up on my pool. When I build one. One day. Haha

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So, this happened today ...

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Haha yeah probably.

The new #1 ranking doesn’t have anything to do with INDISC though - the INDISC points won’t come out for another week or so after it finishes.

So, Danni and I went to INDISC today. We played a few tickets and also volunteered as scorekeepers.

Danni hammed it by her banner.

STOP! Banner time!

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Doors opened at 10am - the queue to log in took an hour to get though. By the time we did that, I only got in a few classics games before my scorekeeping shift from 12-2.

This year they have changed the scoring to the old PAPA style card system. You need to play 4 games per card (5 in main division) and all those games need to be pretty good to make the grade.

This really rewards the consistent players - I’m not that consistent so not really my favourite format. I’ll smash some good games, and the next game will be a shitter and wipe my card out. I got the 7th and 15th highest scores on some games today, but they were worth 0 because the card was bad. Qualifying ended at 5:45 and we didn’t make the top 24.

Oh well ... always tomorrow.

In the main, Danni and I both only played one card.

We are restricted to A division because we are both ranked higher than 250th.

Danni smashed it and was in 6th place!

I got the 4th best score on Cheetah, and again had a shitter on other games and ended up in the 40s.

There are around 250 people this year, they expect there to be 300 tomorrow.

Back into it tomorrow at 9am ...

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So, big day at INDISC today.

I finally strung together 4 good games and made the playoffs in the classics. Nice!

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The first game was Joker Poker, which I won well. The second was Eight Ball, where I came second.

So, going into the third game, the only way I could NOT make the next round was by Jason Werdrick winning, and me coming last. Which of course, is exactly what happens. Lolllll!

I didn’t touch the first three balls. The other guys all went well over 100,000 which is a pretty mean feat. So on the last ball I went “risky strategy” for some lols and got up to 80,000 just hitting the centre target. Haha.

So I had to play a tiebreaker with Jason - he chose Laser Cue which I had never played before.

And that went poorly as you well may expect. More lollls.

And of course, the only two games streamed were the last two where I sucked. Haha!

Oh well! 17th is pretty good I guess. Better than last.

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Hasn’t finished yet!

Still over an hour to go .... cross your fingers ....

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Well, unfortunately Dannis Main card didn’t hold in the top 24. Amazing that it remained there until almost the very end. 30th is still a very credible result, out of 240 very good players.

I didn’t play much Main ... I was all done after Classics. “Pinball is hard”.

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There was an amazing 3 way tie at the top of the Woman’s division. I’m not sure if they’ll have a playoff to decide seedlings, I guess they will.

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Woman’s playoffs start 12pm Los Angeles time. You can watch all the finals live on twitch on the “iepinball” channel.

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So, Dannis day didn’t go to plan - very tough group in the Woman’s today!

Her group ended 7-5-5-4 ... Danni was on 5 so she needed to play a tie break with Keri Wing and came off second best.
Overall 5th place, out of 55 ladies, so not too bad.

Thanks to Jim and Karl and all the helpers who made INDISC happen!

Karl roped Danni into doing almost an hour of commentary on the stream ...

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The Museum of Pinball has flourished into probably the best permanent pinball/arcade facility on the planet. Not only do they have 500+ pinballs and 300+ arcades, they now have a licences bar area, really good toilets, plenty of inside/outside area, heaps of accomodation and food in the area ... it’s a real winner.

Congrats to John Weeks and chuckcasey and all the volunteers that make it all work!

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Player of the weekend goes to Louise Wagensonner who not only won the Woman’s, she also got 2nd in Classics II. You go girl!

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As promised ... here is the Pee Wees Big Adventure dinosaur. And the spot where the Wheel Inn restaurant was, until recently. 7 miles from Banning.

You can still go inside the big dinosaur.

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No plans as yet, but could well be. Danni likes to catch up with all her pinball buddies!

Had dinner last night with Ron from Slam Tilt and his buddy. He has a message for non Stern Stars believers...

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Cool Mike!

Saw lots of familiar faces out at INDISC - Aurich, Kyle, Shane from Ayer, Adam, I’ve forgotten a lot more ...

Thanks also to the dozen (ish) people who came up and said they weren’t posters on Pinside, but they enjoy reading the threads. Sweet!

We tend to forget that there are about 10,000 people reading Pinside, but only about 100 people who actually post stuff regularly. Nice to meet some of them!

Cheers to everyone!

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Shitty old rainy day in LA today. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen more than just a trickle of water in the famous “LA river” .. the large concrete channels they have all the car chases in in the movies. There was a heap of water in there today.

Big morning ... had to drive from Bell (where we are staying) to Universal Studios to drop off Danni, as she was going there with Olli-Miko and Ari from Finland. Pinballers from around the world unite! Looks like they’re braving the rain ok ...

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THEN we had to drive all the way down to Gardena to unload the pinball and arcade at the shipping place.

THEN we had to go to Fox rent a car to drop off the Caravan before 12, as they only rent for a max of 30 days. Fox are douches by the way - the car deal was good, but their service was terrible and the desk guys were really aggressive in the upsell. The last thing you need when you get off a 15 hour trip to America is some dick telling you you HAVE TO buy the extra insurance at $20 a day even when you already have it in your prepaid rental. Just skimming their commission.

I couldn’t get an answer on the phone a week ago after 30 mins waiting to try and arrange an extension - also sent them an email a week ago, no reply as yet. Up yours Fox!

THEN we had to get to Alamo to get a car for the remaining 3 days. Alamo are the go-to at LAX - good rates, and you just take whatever car you want from their garage. Always an upgrade. This trip I wanted a Mini van though, I’m case I found a pin, and Fox were $500 less than anyone else, so we went that way.

Amazingly, all went to plan, despite the horrendous LA traffic. Dropped off the Caravan at 12:03pm - nice!

Nothing much else to do in the rain, so Fiona and I came to the movies at City Walk to wait for Danni. We will meet them all at 6, going to plan.

PS - this is how you cram 4 weeks of miscellaneous toy purchases and spray cans and tools and heavy pinball parts inside a 1979 pinball machine. I got more in there after I took the photo!

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