Boulder Bound...
I'm heading to Boulder, Colorado tomorrow for 2 weeks of old hippies, obnoxious yuppies, and limited Internet access. Yay! I'll let youse guys know if anything interesting happens.
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October 22, 2005
October 17, 2005
'E's Not Dead...'E's Resting!
Apologies for the lack of activity here, but I seem to have temporarily misplaced my blogging mojo. Hopefully, it will return soon. In the meantime, please visit some of the fine weblogs I've recently added to my sidebar:
Martin Klasch
My Big Red Couch
Liquor Snob
And even though I don't link to him as often as I should, I'd like to take a moment to recognize the fine work that Gary Santoro does over at Mediaburn. Gary's been a Goof supporter practically from Day One, and the fact that he's graciously offered to ship me a couple of old Thor Heyerdahl paperbacks just proves that the man's a class act.
October 14, 2005
Mouse Hunt
My week in the Bay Area is drawing to a close, it's been the usual mixture of fun and headaches; you can read all about it in the extended entry.
I got together with Ron and Kim on Sunday for a wine-tasting trip to Santa Cruz. Unbeknownst to me, they had also invited talk.bizarre alum, squirty, and her bf, Zak. I hadn't seen squirty since HOTT.BOB back in 1997, so it was a pleasant surprise.
We drove up over the hill to Scrooz and had breakfast at Cafe Brazil, where we were joined by another teedotbee'er, Digger, who lived nearby. The essence of unborn chickens and much coffee was consumed.
Having laid down the proper alcohol-absorbing layer of foodstuffs, we proceeded up the coast to Bonny Doon Vineyards. We tasted several fine whites and reds, along with a couple of excellent dessert wines. I bought a bottle of Big House Red en Screw Cap, Le Cigare Volant, Madiran Heart of Darkness, and the incredible Bouteille Call.
After whining, we headed over to Pescadero and stopped at a little country store that sold a bazillion varieties of bulk beans. I bypassed the lentils and limas, and purchased a jar of olallieberry jam instead.
On Tuesday, I dined upon fine Mexican cuisine with a fine friend at Santana Row, and on Wednesday, I drove up to Dublin to see my old high-school buddy Tom and his wife Melody. Good times and good wine were had by all.
I met Uncle Jim last night at Da Hukilau in Palo Alto for some Hawaiian grub and brightly-colored umbrella drinks. We chowed down island favorites like ahi poke, mahi-mahi, Kahlua cabbage, and SPAM musubi.
So much for the fun stuff. In the not-so-fun category: the shippers destroyed one of my system crates, my laptop's hard drive crashed on Wednesday, and this morning I had mice in my classroom...the furry rodent kind...not the 3-button kind. After scrambling around for a few minutes with a cardboard box, we managed to trap the wily critter and released it back into the wild, unharmed.
Tomorrow, I head back home for Wisconsin for a week, then I'm off to Boulder.
October 7, 2005
Pissed Up
Beerwise is a new weblog tapped from the foamy heads of Konstantin and the Cartoonist, dealing with all things related to fermented grain bevvies.
When the Cartoonist contacted me a few weeks ago and asked if I'd be willing to write something for their new endeavor, I was more than happy to help out. After giving it some thought, I decided to tell the slightly-sordid tale of how I spent my teenage summers in Wisconsin, pounding Midwestern lawnmower beers and scoring with the dairy farmer and mink ranchers' daughters: I call it Doin' It Doggie Style.
Bottoms Up!
In other news, I fly to California tomorrow, so there's likely to be a commensurate reduction in blogging activity next week since I'll be gallivanting around the Bay Area for work and pleasure.
October 3, 2005
Bali Hi May Whisper...Come To Me, Come to Me
Ok, my ass is no longer numb, and I've recovered most of the mobility I lost during my 22-hour deathmarch to Cleveland. Bali Hi is cleaned up and squared away in it's special corner of my tiki bar. It's working, but something funky is going on with the reset function so I'll have to dig into it later and find out what's wrong. In the meantime, I'll regale you with the meagre details of my trip and share a few photos wit' youse.
I hit the road at 5am sharp on Saturday morning and made good progress in the pre-dawn hours. There was the barest sliver of a crescent moon bouncing along the treetops to guide my way, and the weather was perfect. Things proceeded swimmingly until I hit Chicagoland and its endless procession of tollbooths, road construction, and TOTALLY FREAKIN' INSANE DRIVERS! Chicagoans, you're all total dickwads behind the wheel and I mean that in the most loving, nuturing way possible.
I zipped along the Indiana and Ohio Turnpikes passing many interesting sites along the way that I unfortunately had no time to stop and visit. I arrived in Cleveland 10 1/2 hours after I started, and pulled into the driveway of Bill Kurtz, journalism teacher by day, pinball wizard, author, and arcade collector extraordinaire by night, on weekends, and during school breaks.
Bill's basement was crammed from top to bottom with pinballs, video games, and arcade ephemera of every description. Bill owns the world's largest collection of pinball flyers (over 14,000), many of which he sells on eBay. He also possesses the world's largest collection of Kentucky Fried Chicken memorabilia, purchased directly from the estate of Colonel Harlan Sanders' widow. One of the Colonel's trademark white suits hangs in a corner; it's surprisingly threadbare, apparently the Colonel didn't waste any of his millions on buying a decent suit. Bill has also written 4 excellent books on the history of arcade mechanisms.
He then introduced me to the object of my desire which was sitting in a far corner of the basement. He fired it up and let me play a few games while explaining the machine's various quirks. Bali Hi is an "EM" (electromagnetic) pinball, which means that it contains absolutely no solid-state circuity...no transistors, no integrated circuits, nada. A peek inside the top box and cabinet reveals a twisted, writhing mass of mass of wiring, relays, and solenoids. It's a good thing I still remember how to use a voltmeter.
After plunking down my hard-earned cash to buy it, we broke the game down into smaller chunks and hauled it out of the basement with a fair application of sweat and elbow grease. The pieces loaded easily into the back of my wife's Subaru.
Bill then showed me some of his newest purchases: a old arcade crane, a highly-collectible Fireball pinball machine, and the controversial Death Race video game. He asked me if I'd help him take the crane and the pinball down into the basement which I agreed to do gladly when he offered to comp me a autographed copies of his books Arcade Treasures and Slot Machines and Coin-op Games.
We chatted some more, then I headed out on the road again. I made it to Ann Arbor around 10pm and knocked on the door of yong-mi and Art, who'd graciously invited me to stop by. We chatted for a couple of hours, then I crashed on their fold-out. The next morning, Art gave me a yard of ale with a wooden stand and an old box of Whiskey Sour mix both of which I accepted gratefully. I took them out for breakfast, then drove back behind the Cheddar Curtain, stopping only for gas and a chicken-fried steak with some stanky radish greens at Cracker Barrel...mmm, Cracker Barrel! I got home at 6pm, so sore that I was practically unable to stand up straight.
After work today, my wife and son helped me get the cabinet into the basement where I cleaned 33 years worth of cigarette smoke residue off the cabinet and put all the pieces back together. The machine looks great as you can see from my photos, and it fits in perfectly with the rest of my bar decor. I couldn't be happier with it.
Well, that's the entire tale, of how I, like a latter-day Thor Heyerdahl of pinball, sailed my own personal Kon-Tiki to the exotic land of Ohio to prove that ancient interstate travelers could have made the long journey from Wisconsin in search of retro-arcade machines.
I just pray the Tiki gods won't be leading me on any more 1400-mile journeys any time soon...my poor ass just can't take it.
October 2, 2005
Tiki Pinball Deathmarch 2005!
Aloha.
I have returned from Cleveland with a 1973 Bali Hi pinball in above-average condition (the pinball, not me; I'm in below-average condition), a couple of books on arcade games, a box of ancient whiskey sour mix, and a yard of ale (thanks, Art!).
A trip report will follow as soon as I'm able to obtain a suitable donor for the ass transplant I'll be needing after sitting on it for close to 22 hours while making the 1451-mile roundtrip to Ohio, with stops in Ann Arbor and points in-between.
Any volunteers?
And here's special message for the state of Illinois: your toll road system SUCKS ASS!!!
Aloha.