Sunday, August 23, 2026
Pinball Isn’t as Random as it Seems
People who grew up with video games look at a pinball machine and think that there's no strategy, it's just a matter of keeping the ball in play and listening to random noises. Those of us who grew up playing pinball know better. I was never the greatest pinball player, but I managed pretty well to keep the ball in play long enough to score points, but not nearly as well as someone who had studied a machine and maximized his/her strategy. Roger Sharpe knows how to do that, and gives us some tips on the intricacies of scoring big in pinball. (via Boing Boing)
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My stepbrother Craig could start with a single quarter at the arcade in the mini golf place and keep a pinball game going indefinitely, rack up a bunch of bonus games, and then sell the free games to somebody in the crowd of kids that gathered. He truly was a pinball wizard. And then that song came out. My stepbrother Mark's superpower was, he could do real situps forever. It would hurt him the next day, when he couldn't even get out of bed, but if he could do one situp he could keep doing it until he passed the number he had bet he could do. They're both long dead now. My power was, despite my crippling shyness I could sell things, anything: Christmas cards, imaginary crucifixes... I had /sincerity/. I typed a letter from "Father Flanagan", and my friend Richard and I took a plastic Jesus crucifix and the letter and a clipboard all over the next housing development, knocked on doors, took people's address and fifty cents each and promised them their crucifix would come in the mail. We made $7.50, went to the 7-11, spent it all on candy and stole pocketsful of packs of little cigars. The cigarets were behind the counter, but the cigars, for some reason, were over by the ropes of bubblegum, around the aisle, completely out of sight of the clerk. There's a saying, "Sincerity is key. If you can fake that, you're on your way."
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