Jolt Country

Got to Denver Thursday evening, in time for a viewing of The Space Invaders at a local theater. It's a great documentary about people building home arcades.

http://www.thespaceinvaders.org/

Friday, ICJ and I hit up the 1-Up arcade, where the Kong Off 3 (TheKongOff.com) is taking place. It hadn't started yet so we hung around, played a few games, and then split.

We had a late lunch at Fat Sully's. ICJ, his girlfriend and I ordered a 26" pepperoni pizza. Yum.

Last night we ended up at Lyons Classic Pinball, a place that has 30 pinball machines. What a neat place! Next door is a blues bar with another 15 or so arcade games downstairs. I played a cabaret Gorf and felt like a big man. Because cabaret machines are small.

We're hoping to hit more of the Kong Off 3 at the 1-Up today, along with meeting some other friends for some gaming and also ICJ's girlfriend says she knows a place that serves Bloody Marys for breakfast so that's on the list too.

How was the pizza?

And should I see The Space Invaders? It is running on Amazon Video, but since I don't have an account I'll need to pay the $30 for the blu-ray set - is it worth the cost of admission?

The pizza was really, really good. They make a good pie. It was weird, though. We were going to get an 18" pie to split. The waitress told us that they only do the 18" pie for takeout. That didn't make any sense. Put it in a box then and we'll eat it on the patio???? Well, it does not matter since there was a lot of it left over.

Lots of arcade fun to be had this weekend. A couple fellas and Flack dropped by my place to play some games for a couple hours. It makes me very happy when the games get played downstairs. We even fired up Castle Crisis for the Atari 800XL (which is an arcade-perfect port of Warlords).

RetroRomper wrote:And should I see The Space Invaders? It is running on Amazon Video, but since I don't have an account I'll need to pay the $30 for the blu-ray set - is it worth the cost of admission?

I'm not sure how else to sell it to you. It's a 90 minute film that covers 80s arcades for 45 minutes and people who build arcades in their basements for 45 minutes.

It is also playing for $0 on TPB.

I will try to relate some stories as I remember them...

Our friend exidy is one of the owners of the 1UP, where the Kong Off was taking place. I ran into him Saturday. We said we were hoping he could bring Walter Day over for a photo.

Walter is so nice. He always asks you about yourself right away. He saw that I was wearing a Saints shirt and asked if I was a fan. I said that I was and he called over for Billy Mitchell. Walter said that Billy's kid plays HS football and I shook Billy's hand and said that I hope he makes it onto the Saints. That is 100% true, and Billy Mitchell's kid ripping the head off of Matt Ryan in a few years would give us no end of good times. By "us" I mean everyone who lost their suicide pools because Atlanta lost to the Jets this year.

ANYWAY. What a nice couple of guys.

Flack and I also got a zillion multiballs for the pinball game "Metallica" over at the 2UP. I can say that it is a fun game if you do not know the ruleset. I told Flack my goal was to hit the guy in the electric chair as many times as possible. I feel we both did that rather well.

This happened, a LOT (LINK)

ICJ and I went to three places in Denver that had pinball machines. Two of the three places had the Metallica table. Slingshots Pinball (Cactus Jacks) in OKC also has one. Based on the fact that 75% of the places I've visited that have pinball machines own this game, you would think I would be good or even decent at it. I am not. I am terrible at it. I am not even remotely good at it, which makes sense as I am bad at pinball at general, and this is a pinball table. I wish I were better at it or at least not laughably bad. Everybody has to be good at something in life. I am good at weakly plinking the ball up the left hand ramp and then watching it dump directly down in between my flippers, time and time again.

The Metallica table at Lyons Classic Pinball had the Smiti Metallica Figure Playset mounted on top of it. $80 for a set of figures to mount on top of your pinball table seems expensive until you realize that the tables run $5k or more, at which point it seems like an inexpensive interior decorating design.

I can't afford or justify a new pinball table, but if I got one, it would probably be the Metallica one. I would say the Tron one but, I know a place where I can play it for free. :)