Pinball Aficionado T-Shirt!!!

She's an Aficionado, are YOU???

Hey everyone! I've been getting a lot of feedback and questions from watchers and aficionados about my STERN factory tour from last week. Along with the big obvious questions like "When is the Star Trek code update coming out?" (not sure, can't say), and "Did you see Medieval Madness anywhere in the building?" (no I did not) and "Is Jack Benson really that tall" (sort of), I got one other question from many people: "Where did you get that cool T-Shirt and can I get one!" I can now answer that question! I officially present the extremely rare, super awesome, highly collectible, Pinball Aficionado Version 1 Limited Edition Fan T-Shirt!!!!!

Front of the Shirt

Back of the Shirt

It's a thing of beauty! This shirt is black with gold lettering (like the blog) and sports the site's name on the front and a neat, slick pinball design on the back. The design was made custom for me by the in-house art staff at Arcade Odyssey. Like I said before, this shirt is a first edition and will be limited (will not make them for long), and once they're gone, THEY'RE GONE, and subsequent runs will be different, so this is the only chance to get this shirt. 

Local tournament player (and Pinball Aficionado) Joel Cohen with his shirt

Serious arcade gamer girl Lis sporting her shirt

Me and Jack Benson: Stern programmer and 2014 PAPA C Division Champion wearing his Pinball Aficionado T-Shirt

--> **ALL SHIRTS ARE NOW SOLD OUT** <--

For every shirt sale, $5 dollars of the purchase price goes toward Project Pinball. The amazingly great charity organization by Dan Spolar and the Pinball Asylum that uses donations to purchase pinball machines and deploys them for free in children's hospitals across the nation (WOW!). 

Their Facebok Page

Just last month, Project Pinball hosted over 30 IFPA endorsed tournaments across the US, all to help raise money for the effort, and just this past week some of the fruits of that labor were realized as they installed a brand new Star Trek Pro at a children's hospital in St. Louis Missouri.

The Florida Crossroads Tournament: One of the local Project Pinball sponsored events held last month

So all I have left to say is: "Are YOU an Aficionado???"

Point Monster Tournament at the Pinball Asylum Part 3

The Main tournament at Point Monster event at the Pinball Asylum was a huge deal (if you want to know more check out PART 2)! It was worth a full 25 IFPA points (as it's considered a yearly event) and was capped at 40 participants, who mostly preregistered days and weeks before. The format of this main event was slightly different from the Classics Tournament. It featured unlimited qualifying attempts for the participants from 11 AM to Midnight on Saturday, with the top 16 qualifiers vying for the win on Sunday, which ran from 10:30 AM to completion. 

Competition was rough, with a very strong field of competitors, playing on machines that are not very common today. Saturday's qualifier featured a 5 game bank consisting of: Jack in the Box (what a fun layout with a challenging 10 bank drop target to shoot for!), Avatar LE, World Cup Soccer, Gorgar, and Grand Prix. 

Jack in the Box, gotta love that Gordon Morison artwork!!!!

Check out those drop targets!!!

Then the top 16 qualifyers duked it out on Sunday on a refreshed bank of 5 machines (with only World Cup Soccer surviving the changeout). The four replacement games were Hot Doggin, Avengers Pro, Phoenix, and Surf Champ. 
After hours of fierce competition by the top 16 (including an unbelievable performance by one Al Neumann on Surf Champ - where he rolled that EM on Ball 1 and proceeded to roll it a second time before the end of his game!!!), the final four emerged and then a winner was crowned.

Congrats to 2014 Point Monster Pinball Champion Brian Dominy:

The Champ

The other four finalists included Atticus Palmer (2nd), Jeff Palmer (3rd) and Spencer Carey 4th.

Congrats to them as well!!!!

The pinball wizards with their super cool poses from L to R: Spencer, Brian, Atticus, and Jeff

It was a very fun weekend and I encourage any pinball aficionado out there to check out the pinball asylum if you're ever in Ft Myers FL. It's well worth the drive. Thanks again to Dan Spolar, David Denholtz, and the rest of the Asylum crew for putting on an awesome weekend. Can't wait for their next one!

Here's more photos from the event!!!

Fast Draw, excellent Gottlieb EM!

Managed to Roll it and get to the final shots while I was checking it out.

The main tournament bank on Sunday (check out those cool PAPA style monitor setups).

Pro Pool, you don't see too many Add a Ball's around nowdays :D

Avatar LE with all that chrome

Voltan's Artwork by Dave Christensen... WOW! (I guess one doesn't need to be warm in space... ;) )

Surf's Up!

Pinball aficionado Howard posing for the camera.

Hot Doggin, in all it's glory.

Nice Widebody playfield, with some challenging drops up top.

See that switch, it's actually part of a larger disappearing kicker mech, not too many games had this (link credit: Jeff-Z.com). 

Voltan, in all its glory.

That's all for now, stay tuned for my next post about other facets of the pinball universe!