Had some extra time while in Vegas, always meant to go to this place and finall got here.

As a yute, played tons of Pinball and other arcade games. I lived close to the Gottlieb family and was friends with them, so every month they had a new pinball machine and went and played for hours in their basement. Gottlieb pinball was the biggest maker of Pinball before Ballys. So all those old classics, they had at this place. That alone would have been enough.

But my other place was the bolwing alley in Skokie, when the parents would drop us there for hours. Outside of actual bowling, they had Pong, then space invaders, the safe cracker game , asteroids, pac man, etc.

Then found some Dig Dug, punching game and if anyone watches Amercian restoration, they had the Arm wrestling machine there that Rick and company redid.

Interesting dude that runs the place. It is really a CLUB. They have dues, etc. They operate in about a 6000 SF old strip shopping center on Tropicana. everything is 25 cents.

http://www.pinballmuseum.org/

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"That's what the internet is for. Slandering others anonymously." Banky
“Been that way since one monkey looked at the sun and told the other monkey ‘He said for you to give me your fuckin’ share.’”

I used to LOVE Big Hurt Frank Thomas Pinball. I must have spent a couple hundred dollars playing that motherfucker in Carmen Hall.

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"Play until it hurts, then play until it hurts to not play."
http://soundcloud.com/darkside124 HOF 2013, MM Champion 2014

Junkyard, Funhouse, and Tales of the Arabian Knights are my all time favorite pinball games.

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Good people drink good beer - Hunter S. Thompson

<º)))><

Waiting for the time when I can finally say
That this has all been wonderful, but now I'm on my way

Always loved pinball machines and if I see one will still drop the coins. Have to admit though Space Invaders made me move on.

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If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.

I love pinball! I've always wanted one but don't know what's the best one. There was a car one I liked. I did not like the terminator or Simpsons ones.

That place looks awesome. I like the charity angle. Seems like a very cool guy.

This is still sitting in my parent's basement. Haven't moved it out yet. Thing is probably trash by now.

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I would like a 70's machine like Evel Kenieval not the later ones that got all amusement park in them.

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If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.

Were the pins maintained? I absolutely love pinball (I actually wrote for a website that is now defunct covering pinball in the Chicago area) but the thing that sucks about playing them anymore is that nobody knows how to do maintenance on them (or cares) so half of the flippers either don't work or are underpowered, or they won't fix a sensor that is screwed up, or a thousand other things that go wrong with a physical game. I love the concept of it, but seems like a labor of love to try to keep so many machines functioning reliably especially when the majority of them are over 30 years old.

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"All crowds boycotting football games shouldn't care who sings or takes a knee because they aren't watching." - Nas

The flippers on my machine work. I'm worried about the wiring. I think the ball ejection sticks a bit. Haven't played in years to be honest, but would love to have it fixed up.

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I went to Emporium over the weekend and rocked the crap out of the X-men pinball machine.

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Is George Coztansa okay or should a search party be sent out?
I can't believe he hasn't posted a Seinfeld/Frogger/George's high score quote by how!

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Host of the weekly "We Fish ASA" podcast
Weekly columnist for the Northwest Herald
Bi-monthly columnist for Illinois Outdoor News magazine
Former host of The Outdoors Experience on WIND and The Great Outdoors on CLTV
http://www.wefishasa.com

Hard to believe there were at least four bowling alleys in Skokie. I'm guessing you're talking about Old Orchard Bowl. That place had an awesome pinball arcade. Tons and tons of games. Nobody could beat me playing Bally Mata Hari. I had the high game clinched at Old Orchard and I had to figure out when to drain the ball so I didn't turn the game over and lose it. I'm playing a ball and calculating the bonus in my head and I figure I've got it and let the ball go. The bonus rings up and I'm 10 points short of the high game. Fuck! Three free games blown when quarters were at a premium.




I loved the Bally games from that era. Night Rider was the first one I ever saw with an LED scoring display. That was a great game, trucking theme. Evel Knievel was next. We played that fucker constantly at 7-Eleven on Church. Then there was Mata Hari and the Playboy machine. I could hold my own with anyone on all those tables.

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Communists are just people who are terrible at capitalism.

Mata Hari

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If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.

Hipster.

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The Silver Ball Museum in New Jersey is pretty cool too, if for some reason you ever find yourself in Asbury Park. http://silverballmuseum.com/

Loved Pool Sharks think it was Bally. Owned that machine at JTs on Grand in Galesburg 25 years ago when living in the burg was cool.

Yup. Old Orchard Bowl! Played the Mata as well, was there more for the Space Invaders

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"That's what the internet is for. Slandering others anonymously." Banky
“Been that way since one monkey looked at the sun and told the other monkey ‘He said for you to give me your fuckin’ share.’”

Pinball -


Sarley - it's Frank, not George ... ya jamoke ...

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Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George

Something great about seeing the physcial object you shot fall down. 3D Video just cant retro that up.

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"That's what the internet is for. Slandering others anonymously." Banky
“Been that way since one monkey looked at the sun and told the other monkey ‘He said for you to give me your fuckin’ share.’”

That, and Frogger was not a pinball game.

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8 Ball was my game ..used to tilt it and put bar coasters under the front legs!

Here is a place to go

http://gallopingghostarcade.com/

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I'm going to bounce from the spot for awhile but I will be back at some point to argue with you about this hoops stuff again. Playoffs have been great this season. See ya up the road.

I'm out.

Geeza Walt I remember that well.

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If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.

That was another great game. I had forgotten that it had The Fonz and Pinky Tuscadero on the back glass.

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Communists are just people who are terrible at capitalism.

Another of WWN favorites

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I'm going to bounce from the spot for awhile but I will be back at some point to argue with you about this hoops stuff again. Playoffs have been great this season. See ya up the road.

I'm out.

I sort of protested the digital machines at first. especially when we went from a quarter to 50 cents.

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If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.

I am old too fellas, remember them well and I agree Pittmike, that was bullshit when they upped it a quarter.

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2018
#ExtendLafleur

There's a real beauty about the older mechanical pins. There's also another type of beauty to Addam's Family and Twilight Zone, too.

A decade or so ago my Windows XP computer could run PinMAME (or something like that) really well; it was terrific given the fact that essentially I couldn't play pinball anywhere else - certainly not the scope of tables that were available (other than nothing in the most recent 5 years, everything was out there from Mata Hari to Gorgar to Eight Ball to Bad Cats to Taxi to Doctor Who, etc). For some inexplicable reason, I have never been able how to make it work on Win7. Who cares.

That lead in was only to point out that although it's not quite the same, there does exist a "digital analog" so to speak; I saw it at the pinball expo a couple of Octobers ago (yes there is one each October in the area ... it's heaven). I don't know if this is precisely the one I saw (there's any number of versions and even sizes). All things considered (cost, space limitations, recreating the physical into the digital), it's pretty g-damned impressive.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9RULBcZT_M

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Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George

Perfect...except for Reggie Jackson's sour mug.

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