Posted: February 16th, 2010 by ROM
Howdy partners!
Remember how much you used to like Bambi when you were a little kiddo? Wasn’t he so fuzzy and cute, and he had those little animals friends who bounced around the magical forest with him and cracked jokes and stuff?? And don’t forget! That back then while you were young and didn’t know much about what life had to offer, what you did know was that you wanted to hug him and be his best friend 4 life??? I remember that, too. That ruled.
But then remember how you grew up a couple years and watched it again, and at the part when Bambi’s mama got shot up and killed by that heroic hunter the whole thing stopped being sad and was instead totally funny? I don’t know about you, but that part made me go, “FUCK YES!” And it was at that seminal point in my life (after I got grounded for swearing) where I decided for forever that the best animal is a dead animal, and that deer in particular can kiss my butt.
In that respect! Local pinball operator Quarterworld has delivered to Portland the newest pinball machine from Stern: Big Buck Hunter Pro. And to kick off the launch of this new bloody beast, Quarterworld and the Bar of the Gods (BOG) has set up a sweet two-day tournament on it.
Details straight from Qdub:
When: 2-16-10 to 2-17-10
Where: Bar of the Gods
4801 SE Hawthorne
503-232-2037
Rules: They are quite simple. You have two days to Grand Champ the table. Who ever is the GC at midnight on Wednesday wins.
What do you win… a cool $100.
#1 score walks away with $50, and yes you can win both GC and #1 score.
If you put up a top score at any point tell the bartender. He’ll get your info so we can get ahold of you. Just in case you’re not there on wed. at midnight. Oh yes, and there’s NO entry fee.
He also noted that the scores on the machine will start out at a measly 1 million or something. So, somebody is going to get the GC - guaranteed!
Now, go shoot the shit out of some motherbucking bucks.
Posted: December 29th, 2009 by ROM
Hey gang, and stars, and everyone in between - I thought I’d share an image of this super rad glow-in-the-dark-in-my-brain CFF keychain! It was made by pinball maven extraordinaires, Jeri Ellsworth and Trish of Ricochet Pinball. They presented them to us at the most recent Voodoo Too Classic Cup… so if you’re a member and you weren’t there, then you’re only chance of getting one is to be the first one to don a comfy sweater and then tell me how right I am about… I dunno, maybe about how colorful and crazy images of elaborate combo shots are enhancing the substance of this website like 2x-3x. Or, better yet! Design your own combo image and submit it. Because I have an extra keychain, and I’m willing to give it away!
A few lucky people got their CFF keychains in mirror color (like, it’s a mirror). So, if you’re like Danny Backglass, you can whip out the mirrored keychain while waiting for modes to start so that you can quickly check up on your carefully cropped bangs.
Thanks Ricochet! You guys are not only circuit board whizzes, and also not only righteous operators, but also good people. Sorry about complaining about machines when I lose. And sorry that I failed to restrain Danny when he kicked Road Show multiple times in front of you after I beat him in that tournament. I’m supposed to be his mentor in all things chill.
Posted: December 12th, 2009 by dropshot
Well I got sick of seeing something about Seattle on the front of our page. So I took initiative to do something about it. Like Sir Snuggles of Tower Multiball has done here with Dexter Evil Genius looking on. You know many times in your life you have wished you could flush Rom down the toilet and take his quarters from him. Sorry if this reminds you of middle school Rom. On another note about Rom, he recently won the last Standard tournament, nicely done. Well I don’t have much to say, just trying to fill some space here. We will be having a split-flipper tournament coming up soon, so start thinking of who you want your partner to be. Ground Kontrol is in the works, the date is going to be April 18th. Also, I have heard word there may be an event thrown in the S.F. area in mid-late Feb. I’m not sure if it is going to be a bigger event or not but we should go down there and win it. Have a good day!
Posted: November 16th, 2009 by dropshot
Once again we drank, we ate dogs and we played pinball. However, this year we seemed to be better at the latter. The event was kicked off (set-up weeks in advance) with our own Deathsave against good friend Carlos on Medieval Madness. Jeff maintained his confidence, even though Carlos dropped twenty credits into the machine as the doors opened, and took his first win with Strongbow in hand. Looking back now I probably should not have told everyone in the joint I wanted Cayle round 1 on TOTAN. Well I got my wish, kinda. We played TAF and let’s just say he hit 65+ bear kicks, toured the mansion 7+ times to put his score around 1.8 Bil and never even looked at ball 3. Those numbers may actually be a little low considering I had found myself more interested in the heated battle between CAP and some dude on Fathom next to me. And like most matches PDX pulled through. There weren’t too many games on day 1, I think only 3-4 hours was how long it lasted. Fred had the unfortunate fate of playing 3 matches, 2 of them back to back while others only played 1 match. Sadly, he did not survive. Neither did Kickback or Emma, to my knowledge. So with day 1 over at 7:00pm we all headed to Deathsave’s for his half working line-up, including Flash Gordon, Centaur, Johnny Mnemonic, Firepower and Medusa. The rest of the night gets hazy for some while others dozed off, some drank all night, some ate acid, some ate cheeseburgers, and I heard Mortal Kombat was even busted out.
Come Sunday morning with fresh donuts in our bellies (thanks Davis’s’s’ss’) and even more Strongbow in others our confidence was high. Jake, Noah and myself all felt we had a long day ahead of us knocking people to the curb before we would fall fate to that which would happen to us all. But for the most part we were unscathed: Soundcard, Videomode, Rob “just call me JT” Timberlake, Slam Tilt, Zoe, Deathsave, Sauce, Eric and DannyB wer all still on the winners side. Early in the day Zoe put a hurting on this guy 2-0 who may have seemed a little to confident on Speakeasy. And when I mean a hurting I am talking doubling the score and if you remember those funky little outlanes she was nudging those draining balls back into play. About this time the battle of the giants was taking place on TAF, however this time we weren’t so fortunate as Todd MacCulloch took down Autofire. There was also some questionable play on IJ4 between Sauce and Eric. The culprit was those pesky bangbacks, there was no mention nor was it written that they were illegal and I witnessed Trent use a few as well. Sauce prevailed. Later in the day DannyB and Zoe both had monster wins on IJ4 as well. Trent Augenstein knocked out the youngest and one of the strongest players in the event, Robert Gagno on IJ4 too. Those matches were well into the 2, 3, 400 mil range.
Unfortunately DannyB lost to Robert Gagno’s mother Kathy (who is a solid player) on Evel Knievel, eliminating him completely. At about this same time Soundcard was facing Lonnie Langford on TAF. On this particular TAF the GC was 6.6 Bil with LWL right beside it. Oh and Mike hates this game, so he’s fucked right, especially since Lonnie put up 400 mil to take game one. Well you’re dead wrong, Soundcard won, call it luck, call it skill give the cred to the intimidation of the colors but CFFs own Soundcard has moved on to be one of the only 8 still undefeated. Rev-Tests untimely departure came at the hands of Noah on TOTAN. It was a well fought 3 game series but the mighty Rev struck out. And I lost a friendly fiver on it. Actually the next few big matches all happen on TOTAN as well, Zoe fought hard and lost to some dude from Australia. If she had only skipped the skill-shot and went straight for the lamp like she did on her battle against Sauce 3 matches later she too could have been primed for the top 8 in the winners circle. But prior to Sauce and Zoe, Slam Tilt, Deathsave and Cayle were mowing down the field. Rob was next to face one of Seattle’s favorites Lonnie on Fathom, after splitting the first 2 games and a malfunction on game 3 it was moved to Surf Champ. Once again PDX prevailed and another big hitter was eliminated from the tourney by our own hands alone. Soon after Rob faced Kathy Gagno on TOTAN. At the same time Zoe was playing IJ4. Both being in the losers bracket at this point and both being the only females left made this a huge match. Zoe won 2-0 and Rob battled it out and won the 3rd game to clinch the top female prize to Portland’s own Zoe Vrabel.
We were getting down to the nitty gritty, Mike played STTNG and at one point he looked frustrated but upon looking at the score and watching him make 7 straight shots and easily clinch the victory I was able to walk away to watch the big match-up going on between Trent and Eden on Fathom. Trent won game one, Eden won game two and Trent put up 4+ mil on game three to seal the deal. Maka was next on the list, and he still owes Soundcard and myself lots and lots of drinks for setting this one up. For some reason (only a few still know why) he got to play Trent on Evel Knievel which everyone thought had been removed from the tourney but now was somehow back in. Well, Maka is a machine, and what do machines do? They produce! At this point I would like to apologize to Trent’s wife, Karen I believe it is, on behalf of Seattle from Portland. It’s a shame and disgusting that amongst all our very friendly battles for the title there was a thief that rummaged her purse leaving things everywhere with no wallet to be found. Her ID’s and credit cards were found later under a booth and I am hoping her flight was not missed because of this.
Zoe’s strong(bow) run finally came to an end on TAF, she won game 1, lost game 2 by a 4 mil bonus with scores in the 80 mils. Very hard loss, and on game 3 Andy Pettersson got 2 EB’s and was just to much. Soundcard played Elijah on TOTAN which was described by both as ugly ugly pinball, well more ugly for Seattle than Portland. So Soundcard’s next opponent was either going to be Deathsave or Cayle. Slam Tilt beat the guy who owns the Tiger Lounge on Champ Pub to make it to the finals and on game 3 Deathsave was playing split flipper with Cayle on his EB’s on Monster Bash. So it was Soundcard and Deathsave on Champ Pub, very bad draw for Sound. He conceded the second game to fellow CFFer stating the only money he had ever put in to CP was the 4 quarters to play those two games. Also at this time Slam was getting beat by Cayle on MM.
And then there were 4. Deathsave and Andy on Speakeasy could be arguably the closest game of the tournament. It came down to game 3, Deathsave got screwed by subtract-a-ball but then got 4 jokers to get it back but then lost it again. He was up 400 thous to under 200. Only Andy had 2 balls to his 0, Andy also got an add-a-ball and on his final ball he drained 48 thousand short and with 36 thousand bonus….but….he drained down the outlane and that means a free spin which landed him 15 thou and gave him a 3 thousand point win. So next up Andy v Slam on Surf Champ. Slam won game one and Andy won game two on his 5th ball double bonus. It all came down to game 3, after ball 3 Slam had a strong lead, I told Fred all he needed was to get it up to 30 thou and he got it to 40 thou. And two balls later the place went nuts. CFF had finally made it to the finals at Shortys and we had our shot to take down Cayle once again. Everyone got a beer and a smoke and after 5 we all gathered up front around Barracora. It was going to be a single game match, which means Slam still had to beat Cayle twice. Cayle opted to go second and watch how it played first. After ball 1 Cayle had Slam 65 to 52 thousand. After ball 2 even more bad news Cayle had him 364 to 113. But just to refresh your memory, it is a 5 ball game.
On ball 3 I witnessed some of the finest 2 ball multiball flipper skills in my life. Slam was slaying and he brought his score up to 783,000 by the end of it. With 2 balls left Cayle fought back and made it close. Going into Cayle’s 5th and final ball Slam was at 1.3mil to his 1.0 and when the bonus settled Cayle came up short with his 1.2 mil. Which could mean only one thing. Cayle’s veins turned to ice. He chose to go first on this match and tilted his first ball, so things were looking good. However, I later thought about it and am assuming he tried to tilt it to see what he could get away with. I also forgot to mention during game one Cayle was slowly mastering the game. He found the way to lock 1 ball and if his newly plunged ball drained the locked ball would be released essentially giving him an EB. Oh and mentioning EB’s he figured that one out too. Slam had no chance. Not even a lucky pecan was going to stop Cayle. At 3.4mil on ball 2 with the ability to get an EB on every ball, not to mention locking 1 or even 2 to get the 3 ball multiball, the question of whether he would roll it or not was circling the room. However, to many cheers and some boos, including from myself (for not rolling the machine,) Cayle won his unheard of 3rd straight Shorty’s Annual Pinball Tournament. Congratulations to Cayle, you truly are a Pinball Wizard. There were many prizes given out. Zoe won $50 plus a shirt or something. Noah also got a shirt along with Soundcard who took 5th (one spot shy of cash) Deathsave took 4th and won a roll of quarters and a hat/shirt. Andy/birthday boy won something and a shirt but I can’t remember, I think it was $50 though. Slam Tilt who battled so hard to come up just short won a pair of long john underwear. For second place. What a joke! Oh wait it was, he also received $100 and a PBR snowboard. The long johns are just to keep those skinny little legs warm this winter. And of course the grand prize.
So in short recap CFF had 3 in the top 5. PDX probably had 8-10 in the top 25 or 30. Strongbow is good. Kitty burgers should never be eaten. Cayle will beat you. Eden still has lightning bolt burns AND failed to bring me Molson. For how much we all bitch about Shorty’s and said we will not go back next year, you all know we will. And if you are 135 yards out, use an 8 iron!
Posted: November 14th, 2009 by ROM
If our sponsor was me… which, in a way, maybe it is?
Howdy Gangsters,
The best and the brightest are off at Shorty’s this weekend (I got a little tipsy last night, and totally failed to join with the ride that was available to me at like 7am this morning). Hopefully we’ll get some news from the front, to see how it’s going. But in the meantime, let’s reflect a little bit on some stuff that’s been hurting my brain to think about (full disclosure: thinking about anything hurts my brain). Shall we?
When playing pinball, whether you’re competing against the other initials on the board, or against the replay score, or against player 2 in a heated $competition$, or just against your inner demony things, you ARE competing. It’s difficult to remove that factor when playing pinball. If you care at all about how you play, then somewhere in you is a competitive drive. During the last year, we booted up the laptop and harnessed that drive. Nearly every week we’ve had around 20 people compete against one another at one of Portland’s many great pinball venues. Many of us have had shiny moments where we did well; ALL of us have had crappy moments where we totally flailed. But however we fared - it’s always in good fun. We respect one another as players, we accept newcomers to the fray, we keep egos in check, and we learn from mistakes. I have little doubt that all this organized play has allowed us to progress as players. And it’s also helped to strengthen the pinball community in Portland.
So I hope you represent well in Seattle!
Anyway, I totally forgot to post this winner’s picture from the Slabtown weekly that was a few weeks ago.
But it’s an awesome picture! And worth sharing, even if it’s late. l-r: Emma (3rd), Steve (1st), Videomode (2nd).
That was a fun tournament. Good turn-out. We played on some fresh machines - Dr Who, Swords of Fury, and F-14 (in addition to all the others that were already there). Congrats to Steve for winning. I believe he’s now off in Hawaii, soaking it up at a 5 star resort.
This just in: News from the front!! Cayle vs Dropshot in the first round at Shorty’s. Holy cow!
Posted: October 16th, 2009 by ROM
The results are in! After much pinball playing, and water and/or beer drinking, and Dodgers watching, one man and one man alone stood tall on his hindquarters, chin toward the stars, cash in hand, points in process, and said to all us losers, “Wot wot?” And that mensch of a man was… REVTEST. Congrats Jake “Revtest” McGhee, for winning the Standard Regulation Tournament at The Standard (22nd and NE Burnside).
Here are some action shots.
Dropshot, after being relieved of his duties as… I don’t know, what did he used to do again? Run weekly tournaments for a year straight? Something like that, who knows… anyway! here he is enjoying his freedom.
Also in that photo is our trusty laptop, which I just named Reggie, that contains the precious tournament bracketing software; plus Eric, monitoring Dropshot’s progress; and in the background is Zoe, maybe competing against Sauce.
And speaking of Sauce!
The battle rages behind him (l-r: Emma, Revtest, Jeff Weston, Dropshot), but all he’s thinking about is how awesome it is to be alive and playing pinball with pals. What a positive thinker, that dude. Little did he know that in just like an hour or two he would LOSE IN THE FINALS. Ha! Funny to look back now… that smile, once so full of hope.
The final match begins! On Black Rose.
And then it was over.
The final three celebrate their agreeable placements. (oh wait, Sauce is still smiling. I take back - partly - the stuff I may or may not have said about him earlier in this post.) Revtest with 1st, Sauce with 2nd, Dropshot with 3rd.
The place was kind of dark, so I didn’t take many photos. And my camera doesn’t do well with focusing when I use a flash in dark rooms… but rest assured, many other fun/fine folks were there, and they fought valiantly, and lost sadly. Your hero, me, got a respectable 5th place. I only played Twilight Zone and The Getaway all night! But the random game generator-picker for this tournament was my trusty 4-sided die. One can’t argue with that die. But I wish I could have at least played some Dark Knight 2K… oh well.
The machines were in top order. Ricochet’s Jeri was on hand the entire time, so when a ball bounced unexpectedly we were able to immediately whine to her, rather than wait until we were home and on the message board.
Until next time!
Posted: October 13th, 2009 by ROM
Pinballog Entry: It’s been, like, a fortnight since I left the paradise of Portland and embarked on my journey to the congested badlands of San Francisco. Before boarding the aeroplane at pdx aeroport, I left my trusty portland pinball map in the hands of my cat, Solomon (pictured). It would be worthless there: San Fran is unmapped territory. The whatabouts of the local pin sitch is all word of mouth. And as Fox Mulder once told me after he’d recently come back from time traveling to 1860s San “Gold Rush” Francisco, “Hey stud, trust me on this: trust no one in that town.”
But, whatever, I didn’t need a map. This expedition was to an exposition. And at the expo some dude on the internet promised me I’d find hundreds, nay three hundreds, of pinball machines. Including Future Spa. So with my shoes on my feet and my pants around my legs, I ventured headlong into the realm. So long Solomon and friends, I said to myself - don’t forget to maintain the map in my absence.
Once inside the expo, I found this:
Pretty rad blow-ups of backglass. I soaked it in. Then I freaked out and ran around in circles until I found some familiar faces - my Bros from the northlands, plus Jeri. I don’t even know what happened after that. Basically I played a ton of pinball for two days straight. And I ate a bunch of In ‘N Out and trail mix.
I competed a little in this section:
Oh, I was devastated to find that Future Spa was NOT there. Those fucks on the internet lied to me.
Some games I liked a bunch: Fireball, Pharaoh, Roller Disco, Corvette, Alien Star, and many more. There was a nice array of games. Some rad Sys11 Gottliebs. Not enough ’80s/’90s machines, I’d say. But I played a bunch of games that were new to me. And I played many exciting matches against my friends.
And here’s another picture.
So that’s about it for this entry. I doubt you found it informative. That’s because it wasn’t really.
Posted: September 8th, 2009 by ROM
It was once guesstimated that not as many people would show up to a weekly tournament if it took place somewhere other than a bar. Too many of the regular contenders are hopeless alcoholics, was the reasoning. But you all proved that unnamed guesstimater wrong. Good show everyone.
19 fine folks entered tonight’s tournament. And that is good. And thus, from henceforth this tournament that ended like an hour ago will now be dubbed The First Annual Voodoo Too Classic Donuts Cup. So shall it be known!
As an 8x bonus, right before the battle commenced, our tastebuds (and not to mention our monstrous egos) were delighted to discover that Voodoo Doughnuts had made us a special doughnut platter, with a huge Super CFF Doughnut in the middle:
Pretty amazing, huh? Thanks, Voodoo!
Also, thanks Ricochet for putting four sweet pins in the place.
All in all, I didn’t eat dinner, and instead just ate three doughnuts. Now, after my shocking loss, I’m trying to set things straight again by eating a lot of chips. But I don’t know. Sometimes losses are forever.
Congrats to Dropshot for being victorious. And congrats to Trish for getting 2nd place. I hope you’re both happy.
Posted: August 23rd, 2009 by ROM
After three days of pinball mayhem, the showdown is complete. Victory! For Portland’s Noah Davis. Congratulations, Noah. Noah took home a Lethal Weapon 3 pinball machine (the machine plays a song by C+C Music Factory, in case you didn’t know that), and $180 cash.
We’d like to extend our thanks to a number of folks for helping to make this a great weekend. First off, thanks to Brinda Coleman and Sam Soule at Slabtown, for hosting the event and advertising it and making it rad. Slabtown has 12 machines right now, and from what I’ve heard they’re going to stay there. Thanks to Jakob Chandler and Mike Mahaffey at Quality Entertainment. They dialed in the machines, and Jake stayed around (and competed) the whole weekend and made sure they all played well. Thanks also to Trish and Jeri from Ricochet. They operate the six non-tournament machines (Demo Man and Dr. Dude were used in mini-tourneys). Those machines are great, and thanks for putting them on free play all weekend.
Special thanks to Aaron, Eric, and Fred for organizing and running the tournament! And super thanks to Jake for putting a lot of work into the shopping out the prize machine.
Also, thanks to everyone who came from out of town. Maka, Cayle, Nycole, Julie, Deathsave - they all came down from Seattle. And we’re glad you did!
Here is the 16, with their payouts:
- 1. Noah Davis (Lethal Weapon 3 - $180)
- 2. Cayle George (tie breaker against Jay for 2nd place - $300; top qualifier - $50; Dr. Dude - $35)
- 3. Jason America ($216)
- 4. Fred Franken ($120)
- 5. Maka Honig ($48 - tied 5th)
- 5. Jeff Gagnon ($48 - tied 5th)
- 7. Aaron Nelson ($48)
- 8. Jake McGhee ($48)
- 9. Louie Hamlett ($24)
- 10. Dennis Brenhaug ($24)
- 11. David Dimoff ($24)
- 12. Nycole Hyatt ($24 - and top female qualifier - $50)
- 13. Chris Rhodes ($24)
- 13. Eric Hill ($24)
- 15. Danny Backglass ($24)
- 16. Paul Kalk ($24)
And Justin Lentz won on a vicious battle against Jakob Chandler on Demolition Man to earn the PBR snowboard.
Uh, I took this casual shot of the top four, but it kinda came out as the most depressing winners shot ever. The next picture I took, with them smiling, came out totally out of focus. So this is what you get.
Okay, here are some pictures, starting from last night.
The Saturday night scramble!
There was some serious scrambling for position during the final hour on Saturday night. The most common word I heard floating around the room was, no doubt, “Fuck!” And during that hour this man right here, Chris Rhodes, kept things under control. Sometimes wielding two clipboards at once, he bounded back and forth behind the play area, marking scores, barking orders, grabbing quarters, and encouraging players to hit jackpots. It’s no surprise that on Sunday he traded in his Session hat for about 10 Session beers. If you ever happen to see Rhodes puttering around town on his scooter, make sure to rush out in the street and give him a high five.
Eric during a lull on the final day.
Jason “Kickback” America, 3rd place finisher, takes a breather during the second round of the final. I wonder what he’s thinking about? Maybe pinball?
The first game of the final round was - surprise! - played on the prize machine. The machine was set on the stage in the main room. Here, Noah plays his first ball while everyone watches.
Kickback has a go.
Solitary warrior - Cayle George.
Blurry shot of the line-up. This is during the final game of the final round.
Viewers and competitors during the final game. The energy in the room definitely became more tense during the final matches.
Today’s final rounds were a lot of fun (for me, fun to watch and keep track of scores). It was exciting through and through - lots of close matches, big come-backs, valiant efforts, and epic battles. We hope everyone had a good time.
Posted: August 23rd, 2009 by ROM
Coming into the finals, here is the top 16. These folks will be squaring off against each other, starting at 1pm. Good luck.
If you didn’t make it into the finals, thanks still for entering! There was strong competition, and it was a lot of fun (speaking as someone who didn’t make it). The mini-tourneys and bands and free play really helped to turn it into an even cooler event.
And cAyle George won the Dr. Dudical Radtastic Coinbash. Congrats! He got 24million or so.
Come check out the final action tomorrow. It should be fierce!
