Welcome

If you are finding this for some reason thanks for stopping and reading. This blog comprises all of my stops in the winter of 2012/13 where I tried to locate as many pinball machines as possible in the Twin Cities area. Some of the information in my stories has changed, but perhaps you will enjoy it anyway.

In the end all of my playing culminated in creating the Twin Cities installment of the Pinball Map. There you will find all you need to know about finding the nearest pinball machine to you in the Minneapolis and St. Paul areas as well as a few from out-state Minnesota as well.

Now go get that replay.

Justin

Josie's Coin Laundry (Roseville near Larp & Lex)

Well as baseball season has started ramping up my pinball season is winding down. I got word that my uncle's laundromat had a pinball machine. I had heard that it was commomn for laundromat to have them, but hadn't ever looked. His has "Fish Tales."

Hank and I stopped in there with $3.00 in my pocket. It turned out it was $0.50 per game so we each got to  play three. The tilt is pretty generous on it, ad although dirty, the game plays very well. I never hit a multiball, which seemed odd, but the ramps are easy to shoot, and there is a built-in video game where you torpedo jet skiers. That built in game is where the points are really at. One round of it and you can get easily one-third to half-way to the replay. I was on the way to the replay when, on my last ball, I tilted and it forfeited my bonus points leaving me just 5000 points away from the 44 million point replay.

Hank's top game was his third. He actually was beating me until my final ball. Yes... I was almost beat by a three-year-old.


Replay: 44 mil
My top score: 43.99 mil
Hank's top score: 3.6  mil

Mortimers' Monthly Tournament (Uptown MPLS)

Well I was going to go out tonight and check out a few places I haven't been yet, but it would appear my truck has different plans. I'll be working on that tomorrow morning. Instead I guess I'll tell you about last Sunday.

I made my way through the snow and ice to Mortimer's for their monthly tournament, which takes place the last Sunday of every month. I was a little unsure of what to expect as far as crowd or skill. All I knew was that my skills were way to scatter-shot to win anything. However, a $5 entry fee isn't bad.

The main reason I wanted to go was to spread the news about the new pinball map site and app that I am moderating for The Twin Cities. A few weeks back while BT was in town he told me all about the app that he uses in Portland to find pinball places to play. I checked it out and they had many cities already listed, but nothing yet for us. I contacted the creators and shared my map with them. They were very excited and put me in charge of creating one for here. Knowing once winter comes to an end and baseball starts back up, pinball will be taking a back seat, I was looking to share the site it with a core group who will help it grow.
These were just the people.

I was initially worried that it may be a pretty close-knit group, but everyone was very friendly and talkative. There were 18 people who entered, and I would say about 1/3 of them were first-timers as well. There were 16 men and 2 women all in the 30-45 age range. We all first played the new Avengers game to determine seeds in the tournament. I placed 14th out of 18. While waiting to get started I told everyone about pinballmap and they were all very excited. I even made up some business cards with the site on it so they would remember later. After we were all placed Fred, who runs the tournament, announced the brackets, and randomly drew four peoples name to get their $5.00 back. Lucky me I won.

From there our 4 person groups each played three different machines. With the best players advancing.
We played Avengers again, AC/DC, and X-Men. I really don't care for any of these and I didn't expect to advance. I was right. I took last place on the Avengers and X-Men, but pulled the upset winning first on AC/DC (although for the life of me I can't figure out what you are suppose to do in that game with the cannons.)

All-in-all it was a fun night, and if you want to join me for February's I'll gladly go again.

Lastly, if you have't yet, join the community and get yourself the pinball map. You can download it for free to any apple device or android, or you can just use the website

http://pinballmap.com/twincities

Rocco's Pizza (Little Canada)

After going to do some batting practice last week I decided to explore some places along Rice Street. I had found Rocco's Pizza on google maps when I noticed the picture on their listing was of pinball machines. Rocco's is a take-out/delivery only pizza place with a lobby consisting of a cooler with pop in it and five pinball machines. I wish I lived by this place so I could give them my pizza business. I started talking with Eddie there, who I believe is the owner, about pinball. He is very passionate about it and excited to talk with.

The five machines they had out were Lethal Weapon 3, No Good Gofers, WWF Royal Rumble, Gladiators, and Roadshow.

I played all of them but NGG, because it was out of order. The other four I can say I did really bad at.

Gladiators is one of the fastest games I've played, both in speed of play and time I played.
Replay: 188 mil
My High Score: 12.8 mil

Lethal Weapon 3 kind of sucks, but you do get to choose what music you get to listen to. There are two choices; ZZ Top and CC Music Factory. Clearly between the double-consonant choices you have to go with CC.
Replay: 128 mil
My High Score: 26.9 mil

WWF Royal Rumble is pretty awesome as the whole game actually rumbles when you play it.
Replay: 395 mil
My High Score: 102 mil

Red and Ted's Road Show also has the rumbling effect to it, as well as two construction worker heads that are very similar to Fun House. I liked this one a lot, but couldn't even fathom the scoring on it. Nearest I could tell there was no replay just an extra ball award. Still though I think it was my favorite.
Extra Ball: 467 mil
My High Score: 69.1 mil

The Spot Bar (West 7th, St. Paul)

The Spot Bar was our second to last stop in St. Paul for the night, but for purposes of this blog the last place worth writing about. After this we went to the Goby Pub, which was incredibly uninteresting and has "World Poker Challenge" which you can find everywhere.

So, on to it. I think of all the places we went to The Spot Bar is the one that I would most like to go back to and hang out. Its a little bar with an all wood interior. Definitely that quintessential Northwoods feel. When we walked in there were four guys at the bar regaling each other with stories of rock concerts from their days-gone-by including complaining about people singing along to the band Tool. The bartender was an older fellow who understood what we were there for. He welcomed us when we walked in, and said "Have a good night fellas," when we left.

They have the wonderful game "Tales Of Arabian Nights." It's $.50/1 or $2/5 plays and it is quite possibly my new favorite game. I honestly don't think I have ever done so well. I cleared the replay twice despite the shooter being a little week and making the skill shots tough. Otherwise there are some great ramps and crazy magnets. Plus there is a Genie that you need to repeatedly hit in the crotch for extra points. Search this game out. So far this is the only spot n town that I have found it at, so its a good thing its such a cool bar.

Replay: 5.5 mil
BT's High Score: 3.1 mil
My High Score: 6.8 mil

Skinner's (West 7th, St. Paul

Stop #10, Skinner's Bar. This is your typical local bar/restaurant. We went through the main room to the side  dining room where "Ripley's Believe It Or Not" was located. It was turned off, so we asked  the waiter to turn it on for us. He started it up, and it couldn't find a ball, so it just kept cycling and cycling until the waiter grabbed the machine and vigorously shook it until it started working. I started trying to put money in the machine, but it kept falling back out. Finally one of the kids at the table next to the machine instructed me on how to do it, and we started our game.

It seemed a little uncomfortable how close the family in the booth next to us was while we played. We soon learned that the famil was the cook's ladyfriend and their kids (approx 12 and 8 years old.) The wings on their table looked good, and the pizza smelled good. I really wanted to just reach down and grab one. I was certainly close enough to.

The waitress was chatting with them about a rash on her arm, until she was called in back. She returned to deliver the bad news that owner was not willing to pay for the family's meal. At that point the cook went back to work.

The game was pretty fun, as well as easy. We both passed the replay and got our extra game. Occasionally the ball would get stuck, but we were always able to shake it free without tilting.

After we finished our free replay games, wouldn't you know it, I hit the match for another free game. I looked over at the table, which only had the kids sitting at it, and said to the oldest, "Wanna play?"

To which he replied forcefully, "We don't play."

No sooner had he said that did his little brother jump over him and in front of me to start playing the free game. Its nice to see that kind of want in a young kid for pinball. We started walking out and his mom ran past us yelling "Get off that game!"

I assured her that we had a free one and we let them have it.

Replay: 4 mil (bumps to 8 mil)
BT's High Score: 5.9 mil
My High Score: 5.8 mil

JR Macs (West 7th, St. Paul)

Making our way west we stopped in at JR Macs. Stop #9 of the night was a nice bar as much as I didn't care for the game that was inside. The game "Roller Coaster Tycoon" was right inside the door, and boy weren't we floored to see someone actually playing it. That's right. Save the two arcade I have visited, we witnessed live, in-person, for the first time since I started this blog, someone playing pinball. We couldn't believe it. We were so shocked that we had to order ourselves a beer. 

The bar is a union-friendly joint with stickers all over the taps. I found Local 539 proudly representing. I probably should've asked if they gave discounts to card-carrying members. We sat and drank our beers and discussed who the ad-wizards were who came up with the idea of basing a pinball game off of a moderately successful PC game. When it was our turn to play we found that clearly little effort was put into the game as it has sound effects ripped off from the South Park pinball machine, and for some reason it randomly has a troll doll popping up inside it. The lighting in the bar makes playing a little difficult. It has four flippers, of which the top right one serves no other purpose other than to infuriate you. However, its only $.50/1 and $2/5 plays and the replay seems reasonable. BT was able to hit it, but I just sucked.

Replay: 3 mil (bumps to 8 mil)

BT's high score: 4.5 million

My high score: 867k