So, yet another major hurricane is bearing down on Florida, just as climate scientists have been warning would happen. As the whole state tries to flee back to its native Michigan what has me worried is: my sister and her family are there. They were confident about the last hurricane all of, what, 25 minutes ago, and turned out okay. This time they've been texting the family group with confidence, saying the storm is on track to pass south of them.
They know their location and the track of the storm in greater precision than I could, and what level of evacuation recommendation or order they're under. But I'm also wondering how much is whistling past the graveyard. Also how much of this is driven by it being too hard to evacuate their horses, and too irresponsible to abandon them and hope they can come back afterwards. I guess there was never anything to do but hope, but you hate to face it.
And now, closing out the pictures of the Wizards World arcade.
Custom plunger on the Taxi game which thought of something to do with the taxi theme: show a taxi.
The impenetrable barrier keeping me from any pictures of the backmost row. Recycled from the North American Championship Series the day before.
While ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bunnyhugger played in the women's weekly tournament alongside, mostly, other state and province champions who weren't in the Women's World Tournament, I played games on my own. Here, I figured out something about the game Lectronamo and put up a high score!
It was barely the work of a moment to tell the staff, and they verified, and put up my new score and nearly got my name right!
Poster of 'Pinball Knowledge' that was either inside or next to the bathroom. The upper left corner is a 1954 patent application; the right, backglasses from what's billed as the top ten machines. I imagine this is from the Internet Pinball Database's list at some time in maybe 2004 or so. And beneath are tips to how to play pinball and a short history of the games.
Custom plunger for Stranger Things is a nice glowy d20.
So on the Old Stern machine Lightning I realized: this game is (isomorphic to) Black Knight, a game I'm good at in simulation form. Once I realized that I started playing it as if it were Black Knight and what do you know but I hit another high score.
This time they let me write the high score on it myself.
Then I went over to Skateball, a circa-1980 Bally game which, as you can see, is a 70s Pornstache-themed game. Would I hit a third high score in the day? ... No. But I got closer than I would have expected, especially as Skateball isn't one of the circa-1980 games I know well.
Meanwhile going on were both the Women's World Championship and the women's weekly tournament. (There was also a kids tournament going on somewhere too.)
That row of games where they'd had to swipe the Stars out, and put Harlem Globetrotters in its place. Also, that Creature From The Black Lagoon teased me all weekend with the idea I might hit the super jackpot, and I could not.
And a last look at the Wizards World arcade, peeking behind the staff counter. There seem to be a lot of varieties of Wizard's World drink mugs there. Despite all the merch they had on sale the only thing I picked up was a little tube for holding quarters that I think I haven't yet actually used.
Trivia: The first chemical compound with xenon was formed in 1962; the first with krypton in 1963. It was not until 2000 that a compound with argon was formed. Source: The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements, Sam Kean.
Currently Reading: The Emerald City of Oz, L Frank Baum. Marvel Comics adaptation by Eric Shanower, Skottie Young.
(no subject)
Date: 2024-10-09 10:02 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2024-10-11 01:46 am (UTC)There are some games that get dollar bill acceptors put into their coin slots, but they're still rare. I suppose because they'd want to keep the coin slots in anyway, and it's not like you save that much time putting in one rather than four coins. Might as well centralize the dollars-to-coins thing in the venue's change machine.
(no subject)
Date: 2024-10-11 09:58 am (UTC)I'm aware some machines in '79/'80 had dollar slots as you describe. Harlem Globe Trotters and KISS are two that come to mind. So, it's doable.