I love pinball. It’s physical. Getting to push around the machine. Slam my hips into it just hard enough to avoid the tilt – but still manipulate the game. It’s frustrating in the good kind of way, like a puzzle. It takes concentration and a little muscle.
As a child I grew up playing pinball at Celebrity Sports Center and actual arcades. I rediscovered it my junior year in college. I played a lot of pinball in college. I even won a few contests held at the student center.
A few weekends ago I went to the Rocky Mountain Pinball Showdown and had a blast. I played for about five straight hours. Fifteen dollars, all you can play. At some point in the evening they turned out all the lights and the warehouse, filled with 91 pinball machines, transformed into a dizzying blur of flashing lights and loud zoinks, bonks, sirens, and bells. It was like some sort of surreal, geeky Las Vegas. My wrists were killing me by the time the night was through. My evening consisted mostly of this:
I didn’t sign up for any tournaments this time around but I definitely will next year. I was only beat twice by Am’s all evening and ended up with the highest score of the weekend on Mousin’ Around and the 3rd and 4th highest scores of the weekend on Pirates Of The Caribbean.
