Pete's Addams Family Pinball Machine
Pete's Addams Family Pinball Machine|
Current Stats |
I (that's me on the right of the photo)'ve always loved pinball (many ascribe my 2:2 vs. 2:1 performance at Oxford to this love) but had never assumed I would actually own a machine. Imagine my surprise to see my wife browsing the Internet (bless her) looking for pinball sites late in 2001 (although she is now thirty too - July 2004 - and I am reciprocating with an equally pointless present that she has always craved - expensive jewellry !). She soon came clean about thinking of buying me one for my 30th Birthday and brought me in to the process and we began looking for somewhere to buy a machine in earnest. Having got into, unfruitful, negotiations with Phil Palmer at Pinball Heaven (I am still on a waiting list there, last contact 8-Mar-2002, and interested to see if I am ever contacted again) ... we then discovered a place called Pinball Paradise. This place was within driving distance so, on the weekend of 23-February-2002, we headed down. One hour later and £1,750 poorer we had a reconditioned Addams Family Pinball machine on order. The only other place I've currently heard of who supplies machines in the UK is Pinball Pleasure, based near London. I've not had any direct experience of them, but have spoken online to a lady who lives near me who seems happy with them. There followed a few shenanigans around delivery arrangements and a tough slog of a very heavy machine up the stairs into my house, but on 10-April-2002 the machine was installed. Since then, I have been tracking each game played on it in a pinball statistics database, which is now available over the Internet. I also plan to keep track of maintainence required over its lifetime. If you fancy practicing or brushing up on the rules, you might want to download and install, the superb Visual Pinball (freeware) which is as close as you can get to the real thing without a visit down to Hampshire and a chat with the bank manager. |
