Posted: August 22nd, 2009 by ROM
The scores/rankings have been updated as of 7:30pm Saturday. We still have until midnight!
Edit again: these spreadsheets are now the final ones.
Click the links to see the spreadsheets!
Original post:
Aloha showdowners! The first day of the qualifying round is complete. So far 33 people have entered (as far as I know). We thought we’d show you where every one stands. These stats will show you the overall rankings, plus how each individual has ranked on each machine; and it will also show you the individual machines, and what scores people have been putting up on them.
(To remind: You get points based on how well your scores on each machine match up to other people’s scores. The best strategy for this type of qualifying round is to play all six machines, and get a decent score on each one. A worse strategy is to play one machine over and over, with the goal of having the number 1 ranked score on that machine. Spread it out! Play them all.)
So, Saturday will be the big qualifying day. We expect a lot more people to enter, and the scores to go up and up! But for now, those are the scores to beat. Think you have what it takes to qualify for the finals (top 16)? I think you do, because you are special. Now go prove me right!
Here’s the line-up:
The qualifying round ends at midnight Saturday. But that’s not the only thing that ends at midnight on Saturday! The Dr. Dude Super Excellent Cashbox Shaka Brah Mini-Tournament also ends then! Whomever has the highest score (the Grand Champ) at that time will win the contents of the cashbox (aka lots of quarters). The game is 25 cents to play, and so far it’s seen a lot of action. And guess what? I currently have the Grand Champ! Yay. Right guys? YAY! The score I put up is around 14,775,000. So that’s the score to beat. Think you can beat it? I don’t think you can. Because when I was growing up I was a surf rat, and basically lived the life of Dr. Dude. I really connect with that machine. So, I dunno, maybe you should give up now?
Other things to remember: There are five machines in the other room, for super fun casual play. There are rad bands playing tomorrow night (in a separate room).
Also, Portland’s KGW did a story on the tournament for their nightly news. I missed it, but it sounded cool. If anyone finds the video online, please send it our way.
Hope to see you tomorrow!
Posted: June 21st, 2009 by BounceBack
http://cafeastrology.com/blog/jupiter-neptune-chiron-conjunction-and-your-love-life/
There you have it: the stars have spoken, big things are moving, and feelings are swelling like blistering beach balls, bobbing in the astral tide. Nowhere are big feelings more acutely felt than in the bowels of big things, and that means the massive belly of CFF is twinging with emotions being manipulated by jupiter and its axis of planetary evil… or benevolence, or clemency, or whatever they axisize about.
The bottom line is that you might expect too much from yourself and others during these weird times; demanding more than is fair, or investing more love than you can really spare. Is that fair to our relationship, gangsters? Is it fair to ourselves? I suggest we all take some deep breaths and curl up in bed with a pint of soy delicious with vegan sprinkles and that scrapbook of Cathy comics we’ve been clipping out of the sunday paper for 14 years, then write in our diary for a while and take a quick meditative nap before the meeting tonight (which is at the Vern, where you can rock AFM, MM, MB, and those NGG’s while swilling $2 micro pints aw yeah.)
Other things that are/were big and might be affecting your inner life: The NW Pinball (and gameroom) Expo. Full of stuff. Deserving of a full write-up of its own that it’s not going to get. Featuring a maxed out tournament of pin-elites and a clutch of rare games to burn through your flipper calluses. It was a fun event all around, the tournament in particular making huge strides over the year before in efficiency, competition, and prize packages, and while there’s room for improvement in some areas of the show (the convention center atmosphere might be a necessity due to size and power requirements, but it would be a nice change of pace to see a show with a little more proper gameroom vibe rather than sterile carpet and overhead fluorescents, no food or drink on premises, children were allowed…) all in all, if you weren’t there, you missed something pretty sweet. Oh, and get this– several return players commented on the conspicuous absence of some of CFF’s best from this year’s show, and even speculated that perhaps these luminaires skipped because they were intimidated by the caliber of the players in attendance this year! Fancy that. So, skippers, you missed your chance to put the likes of the sharpe brothers, eden & cayle, trent augestein, neil shatz, and keith elwin in the CFF chokehold they deserve; but there’s always next year, right! (not to mention CAX, PAPA, and a handful of other greatish shows, if you can find a way to get there.)
Anyway, here’s a few flicks from the show– yeah, ok, it looks like about 3 portland bars crammed into one room but really! it was pretty cool.
Posted: June 8th, 2009 by ROM
and tender moments. Recollections of a pinball meeting.
Ducketts recently got a fourth machine, so we piled everyone into the minivan and had ourselves a meeting there.
The first two hours were spent, as usual, going over the agenda, and the previous week’s minutes/scores, and then setting up the bracket system to determine who will play what machine during the meeting.
After passing out our drink tickets, DDT stood back and monitored our activities, determining whether or not the system was “word.” It was.
I put up the first score of the evening. A steady 47million on Family Guy.
Bounceback could not believe it! He was like, “ROM, you’re really good at running modes.” And then, in my modesty, I thanked him.
But what is CFF without friends? Some say it’s just CF. (depends on what you think “CFF” stands for.)
Later on Sauce did a freaking bangback on Indiana Jones. Killer move!
See you all next time!
Posted: May 25th, 2009 by Multiball
Apparently Add-A-Ball is some new place that has pinball in Seattle.
What’s the story?
I must say if this is their website it pretty much rocks.
http://www.addaball.com/
The site features this graphic.
Sure, I'll take my kids here for thier birthday. What's that magazine you're reading?
Posted: May 25th, 2009 by Multiball
Last nights meeting at the Satellite Lounge was a pretty great success. The gang is growing, Jim “Slam Tilt” I’m proud to say has given up his initials for CFF.
It was great to also meet some of the locals on the Pinball scene. Shaun from http://www.pinballcrawl.com showed up and brought a crew with him, also it was a pleasure to meet Jory who’s initials seem to be all over town. Alison made the trek to join us and was rocking the tables.
Allen, (http://pinaholicsnyc.com/) the mayor of pinball in NY couldn’t join us last night however without him pinball would pretty much be dead in Brooklyn. We played on his tables that he keeps well maintained and in good condition, a rare thing for NY tables.
It seems that our combined efforts are going to help us promote and grow pinball to the level it should be at in this city.
SlamTilt
Cause DDT loves to see me jumping.
if you are in NY and want to play with us drop be a line at drew at mohdi dot com and I’ll be sure to let you know the next time we play.
Posted: May 23rd, 2009 by Multiball
While pinball has yet to take off in NY the Portland influence is starting to take place. Satellite Lounge opened up about a month ago and features 4 tables. WOW, 4 tables in one bar amazing!
So Sunday May 24th at 10PM come out and join the small New York chapter of CFF as we tear it up on CSI, LOTR, Terminator 2 and Taxi.
View NY Pinball Map in a larger map
BTW this is my somewhat lacking pinball map of the city. For more places check out.
http://www.nycpinball.org/
These guys seem to stay on top of it pretty well.
or
http://www.pinballcrawl.com/
Bring your quarters your passion and skills. We got some balling to do.
Sunday 10PM Satellite Lounge.
I hope to see you there.
Posted: April 8th, 2009 by BounceBack
someone's getting fed tonight!
Why yes, that’s around $85 that used to belong to other pinball players.
Last night’s tournament at Ship Ahoy was a lot of fun all around, hopefully for everyone, and saw a great turn out– 17 (or was it 18?) players, and only 5 of them CFF members, made for a diverse group including some of Portland’s finest unaffiliated ballers. CAP, COW, eric and fred were all on hand along with a number of up-and-coming players, contesting Bounceback, Dropshot, ROM, Replay, Autofire, and friends for supremacy on 4 machines.
All the games were playing well and felt like they’d gotten recent attention– MM had an altered flow to it, which worked in Bounceback’s favor, as he dispatched all comers on the machine, and by some strange workings of fate never even played a game on TOTAN or Indy. Even CSI was in top notch condition, though the operators were unable to install interesting modes or game objectives in time for the showdown.
Bartending was, of course, excellent, courtesy of our own Soundcard, who generously bought drinks for the finalists pictured. The action was a great test of focus and skill, with some pressure-filled face-offs (Dropshot vs. COW on TOTAN, Eric vs. Fred in the 3rd place match on Indy, were both nail-biters.)
Some of the best news was the smooth running of the bracket system, tournament software, and machine selection techniques that will be used in the upcoming ground kontrol tournament. The organizers were all on hand and seemed to have thought of most of the possible contingencies that might come up during the larger tournament.
So much fun was had that there’s talk of squeezing in one more chance for head to head action before the big event on GK. Stay Posted. If you’re interested in improving your game, there are few better ways to get the jitters out and improve your concentration than facing other skilled combatants, one on one, winner takes all. Like me! Big Winner, Pinball Champ!
Posted: February 27th, 2009 by BounceBack
A week on the road, and so far I’ve managed to track down pins in a few locations. Our first night in Eugene, Danny B, Superloops and I nosed out a filthy, but fully working Spiderman (nicely done Ms. Loops,) and I managed to almost get hero mode on my first game, GC’d it, then followed it up with a totally shit game and went back to work. It was nice to see a choice recent game in a downtown that, like most of America, seems pretty barren on the pinball front. Still, just a few hours outside Portland, Eugene seems as pinball-blind as most of the rest of the world has become.
I’m busier than I’ve been in the past, and working on small stages, have less time than usual to cruise around and browse for machines. I typically have two hours at most, all day, and we’ve played few venues that were close enough to businesses that I could go hunt things out. Inspired by our random walking quest, I’ve been deciding to go analog and word of mouth during this trip, rather than wasting precious time on broken and out dated pinball links on the interweb.
The pic at the top is the inside of this bizarre, massive burger bar called the bear barn or something– yes, it sounds like a good place for hairy hot-tubbin, but in reality it’s a kind of fast food joint covered floor to ceiling in bizarre bric-a-brac, like a more western and over-the-top max & erma’s, or a junkyard hard rock cafe run by schizophrenics. It’s three stories tall, brick, full of winding overlapping rooms, and has little league scoreboard bolted to a fence out back along with pieces of cars and trains and shit. I thought I was out of luck as I wandered through, a little hung over, with a cup of coffee, but saw some old school video games scattered between a few of the rooms, so I kept hunting, and finally spied this:
That’s right– A LOTR side by side with Monopoly. I threw some quarters into the lord, and quickly found that although it felt sort of ok, before I’d plunged my first ball it was apparent that the Balrog was toast and permanently stuck out blocking the center ramp. Goodbye fellowship multiball and all modes. There was a huge lean, which I tried to work with. High scores were all defaults and I did my best to crack the board, but the condition of the game was really frustrating. A pin or something about the entrance to the path of the dead was fucked up, so balls rarely got diverted in; it was very difficult to get anything at all running. I put up a little over 30 million but couldn’t get it to 40, tried a couple of different strategies on my replay, and gave it up. I managed to make those two games last an hour, with that low of a score, and I had to get back to unload the truck. I notified the manager on duty about the balrog situation, and he said (guess what? guess guess guess!) they almost never see the operator, but he would be sure to let him know (wink wink) that there was a problem with the pin. I will say that the one good side of the whole thing was impressing the shit out of a 10 year old kid who got up from his food to watch me, and had to be dragged off by his folks when it was time to go.
That was Chico, and at least I was 2 for 2 on *finding* pinball. I didn’t have such luck in Visalia. We played a cool, weird little theater. The locals did tell me there’s a nickel arcade they thought might have some super old school games, but nothing in walking distance from the venue; there’s a decent little strip of downtown businesses you’d expect to have something, but I walked all over and asked around, only to get weird looks.
In LA, despite the best efforts of our friend Eric to hook me up with some locations to play, I was trapped all day at the Palladium in Hollywood and had family out to the show as guests, so I couldn’t go on the hunt. That’s sad because our next stops were in the pin-bereft southwestern towns of Tempe and Albuquerque. Surely, with ASU in town, there are some pins hiding out in Tempe, but I couldn’t get further than a couple of miles from the show on foot, and there was nothing there.
In ‘burque I asked the local production runner after the show where I could find a bar with some pinball, and she said “pinball? really?” with an incredulous look on her face. Our merch manager said “that’s a good question,” even though he knew better than to encourage her. I said “fuck you both” to their faces and walked up the street to a divey punk joint called Atomic, which I instantly remembered from my last trip. It has seemingly the only pin in town, a highly distressed Simpsons P.P. ALL the general illumination was out, backglass AND playfield– only a few flashers were working, and in a dark corner of a dark bar, it was almost like playing blind. Weak flippers, a thick layer of dirt, I managed to get a couple of multiballs out of about 6 games. Unfortunately, in the middle of my best game, a bar fight broke out right behind me between a huge mexican in a zoot suit and some methy white skater kid. They both had posses, and there was a bit of a full on melee. thankfully everyone stuck to throwing punches instead of glasses. I cradled my ball on my right flipper and stepped to the side of the machine, out of the way, so people could brawl past me. A couple of bartenders managed to get the whole dogpile out the door to finish it in the street while the cops came, and I didn’t even spill my drink. Unfortunately it did throw off my flow and I fell short of reaching the board on that game too before last call.
Luckily we got the fuck out of dodge, rather than being stuck in NM for another day. I’ve had most of the afternoon in Boulder, where there’s actually at least one operator, Lyons Classic Pinball, with two locations of their pins posted on their website. Better yet they donate half their proceeds to charity. One was out of my range, but I played a Tommy machine at their other spot. It was fun and mostly working, but I don’t know the game that well, and it leaned right far enough that the ball comes away from the wall off the right loop shot, screwing with your set up for the right ramp (double jackpot) shot. I found a Decently working No Fear in the basement of the Pearl Pub, and put up 4th place. This one had a right lean too, but it was lenient enough on tilt that I could give the right corner a good pop off the rubber and send the ball back into play occasionally. Place was packed and loud, and after I finished up my free games I split, since I was getting bumped into constantly. I rolled over to a place called Smoky Joes that had a champ pub and a monster bash the last time I was here. Champ Pub was gone, and Monster Bash had been moved into the corner of the kiddie game room in the basement, along with air hockey and area 51 and so on. No backglass, no ball save, incredibly sensitive tilt, and the right flipper was doing that thing where it sticks up and you have to repeatedly slap it, or the opposite flipper, to get it to drop back down. I put together a couple of decent games, 1st and 2nd place scores, and a monster bash champ of 81 mil, but although I was close to monsters of rock on my best game, gave it a rest after it switched from *sometimes* kicking SDTM from the scoop to *always* (over 90%) kicking SDTM, hard and fast. Incredibly frustrating, given that I felt ready to gut that machine if I could just be allowed to finish a few balls without that fucked up kickout.
And that folks, is where I am now. That’s your glimpse into the world of pinball outside pinball mecca, Portland Oregon. It’s bad. It truly is.
I will remain undeterred in my search, and will give you an update again when I can. As we know, the dude abides.
Don’t forget to go out and play a little extra appreciative ball for me this week, and to count your blessings.
BOUNCEBACK
Posted: February 20th, 2009 by Multiball
This site where they put heads on hoodies gave me some ideas about the CFF gear. It would be pretty awesome to have the logo on the hood. Perhaps a pinball head would work too.
I like that skull.
Posted: December 8th, 2008 by ROM
SSW and I launched the new Portland Pinball Map website last night. The site rules, and everyone should please start using it. The old map is toast, and you won’t be cool anymore if you continue to use it.
This new site has many fantastic search functions! And you can add comments on machines. And you can add and remove machines from locations. And you can put your scores next to machines, so we can track bounties and stuff. And you can do so much more!
I started a thread on it on the message board, so please write stuff on the subject in there or here. I hope you all find the website to be useful, and I hope you all use it a lot.
In also news, last night we inducted three new members: Scoop (long time coming!), Bumpers, and Mystery! That brings our member total to 34. And since Scoop and Bumpers are females, that brings our total in that category to five? I don’t know, but I think so. Progress is progress.It was a fun induction ceremony - beer was swilled and spilled, tiaras were worn, penis-shaped balloons were hoisted to the heavens, and some really weird belts were worn.
Hopefully I’ll get photos of all our most recent adds (dropshot, revtest, videomode, and the three most new, and everyone else still missing) so that I can put their faces onto the profile page.
If anyone has photos from last night, please gimme one or more, and I’ll add them to this post.
