The basement is starting to get pretty crowded; 8 games on the one wall. And all of them are games I consider keepers. I’m gonna have to come up with something more clever for an arrangement if I get too many more games in here…

The Allentown, PA Pinball Wizard’s Convention was this past weekend. I was only able to go on Saturday, but I had a great time. I didn’t find any really great deals to bring home, sadly, but I met a bunch of great folks that I talk to on rec.games.pinball, and I got to see and play some rare machines. The only problem with going to a show like this is that now I wish it was October so I could go to the pinball show in York, PA.

I have had some more time to mess with the Arduino. Wiring is a neat language, though still lacking in some “high level” respects. Of course, you’re pushing it onto a chip with 16k of RAM, so what do you expect. I’ve been experimenting with a switch matrix, the first major component of controlling a pinball machine, I think. Progress is good, but I don’t yet have a functioning model.

I had a crazy old lady accost me at a McDonald’s on Saturday evening. It was really quite amusing, if not bizarre. First she insisted that I stole her (empty with my receipt on it) tray, then she yelled at me for sitting in her chair, then she got angry that I left before she was done yelling at me. What can you do?

I really dislike drama. I don’t watch TV shows with a lot of drama, and I have a low tolerance for drama in real life. Unfortunately, I had a run in with some friends over a misinterpretation of something I said which ended up being way more drama that I wanted to deal with. I’m sad to say that I think it’ll end up causing me to distance myself from them, but again, what can you do? You can’t control other people, you can only try to influence them. But when that is more work than fun, it’s time to walk away.

Jamaica is only 36 days away! I really need the vacation this year. It’s been a long one with a lot of new responsibilities at work and with the Spring taking forever to get here this year, I’m really ready to get out into some hot weather and chill out.

My buddy Steve bought his first house! Congratulations Steve, welcome to the world of never ending trips to Home Depot and a constant desire to putter around with something or other that’s permanently attached to the Earth.

I’m still trying to come up with something interesting to propose I speak on at CPOSC. If anyone has an idea that they think is both interesting and that I’m a good person to have talk about, let me know.

I found out yesterday that Digg uses puppet to manage their servers. So in spite of the really awful community they’ve created, underneath that is a gem.

And last but not least, my good friend Todd Zullinger has seemed to fall off the planet. I can only hope that he’s doing something interesting, which knowing Todd seems likely.

Anyhow, this guy lost his hosting, so I agreed to host for him. His website is http://mrhide.pinnesota.org and he’s got a lot of really cool art already up, with more being uploaded all the time, as he works on getting everything restored.

There’s just so much detail and interesting art in these glasses, that I figured it was worth a mention.

While the playfield will never be perfect, I’m really happy with the overall quality of the overlays I made. I just hope they aren’t too thick, as it would mean replacing them with something thinner, perhaps vinyl?

My hands are sore from all the sharp edges and my arms are tired from all the metal polishing, but I’m definitely on the upswing on this game, and can’t wait to get it playing. I’ll post pictures of my progress along the way at http://picasaweb.google.com/cmoates/BrideOfPinbot.

In any case, I did some reading, some thinking, and came up with what I think has worked out pretty well. Here’s a before and after picture of the area that I repaired:

I scanned the playfield area using my HP 4600 scanner, which is the best scanner ever made, for usability of this type. I then edited the image in Gimp, cropped out what I wanted, printed it on photo paper, laminated the top, and used my Xyron Creative Station to apply adhesive to the back side of the picture, then cut it out, and stuck it on.

The Xyron is a really neat toy, but it’s a bit spendy. it can also apply magnet to the back of any flat item, or just do lamination (but I have a heat laminator for that purpose).