I am referencing the pinball tables Swords of Fury, The Bally Game Show, Rollergames (the glass art included a guy who sort of resembled James Caan, and that couldn't have been by accident) and Waterworld; yes they made a Waterworld pinball table. I played all those games this weekend.
Here's the recap of what I've done in the past week. I don't even remember doing anything last Monday so I presume it was a dull day. Tuesday, I went to Wawa for dinner; I got a sub sandwich for me and a sub sandwich for someone else. I also got myself a frozen drink, as that was the perfect thing to do on a day where the high was only in the 50's; the day before that it was like 30 degrees warmer than that, so it was real strange. At least their food is pretty tasty.
Wednesday, I went out to dinner with someone. We decided on Chili's as we hadn't been there in who knows how many months. Turns out, that place was remodeled. Well, it could be called a refresh as it wasn't extensive but it was still obvious. The food there was about what you'd expect from a Chili's. My time was there but I saw an odd site as the nearby bar area: a young man dressed as a pro wrestling referee! It was a Wednesday evening and while I do not follow the local independent pro wrestling scene like I used to, I thought I'd hear about a random Wednesday night show happening in the area. I did not recognize the guy either, so it was pretty odd. Thursday I relaxed as I knew Friday and Saturday would be busy days and oh they were... unfortunately the days were pretty terrible aside from the main thing I did.
Late July of '12 and '13 I attended events in Orlando on International Drive in a hotel known as Gamewarp, where a big room holds plenty of arcade and pinball games and by paying a flat fee you get to play them all. They didn't have a Gamewarp this year for whatever reasons; who knows if they'll ever come back. However, on this weekend was a new event (well, renamed from something else) called Free Play Florida and it was quite similar, down to being at a hotel on I-Drive, although one that was by the convention center and I didn't have to spend too much time actually driving on I-Drive; that's a plus as the road's always busy and always full of stupid tourists.
Friday, I experienced horrific traffic on the way there and back; there was tailgating, for one thing, and on a road with a 35 mile an hour speed limit a lady driver was a complete maniac, going way over the speed limit. Was she drunk, mentally ill, on drugs... I have no idea; I thought of calling the cops but to be honest if I tried to speed myself to get her license plate, she may have started driving even more erratically. As for the hotel, it was a Doubletree, so it was frou-frou and having to pay a few bucks for parking, I wasn't a fan of that. Having to pay each time you park, that limited food choices; most of the food they had there wasn't “normal” or not priced outrageously. Friday I ate at the bar in the lobby, where I had to listen to two random socially awkward dudes throw a huge stink over one of the employees asking for their credit card after they ordered some food; that sort of thing has become standard procedure now but those fools did not get the memo. I didn't even try to explain it to them as it'd be a futile gesture.
As for the crowds there, Friday wasn't too bad but Saturday was more hectic; it was what I expected. They had a mix of games there I played before and new ones. The number of tables based on 90's films was impressive, from Stargate to the mediocre Jurassic Park sequel. I'll list the ones that left the biggest impressions on me:
Swords of Fury will always make me laugh as the one I've seen is LOUD and a digitized voice screaming “LIONMAN, LIONMAN!” is amazing.
The Bally Game Show is actually a fun table, and the “game” is hosted by a stereotypical host known as Keith McTeeth.
Rollergames is a table I recently heard was good, and it was.
As I did well on it, I'll mention the Spiderman table.
The Twister table was rad, with some nice gimmicks.
NBA Fastbreak wasn't even a table I had ever heard of but I dug it and how you picked a team to start off with and the way you score points is to shoot the ball into the basket.
Baywatch was a table I had played before, way back when.
I did see people there I knew. It was nice to see them and I presume the feeling was reciprocated. There wasn't much time to chit-chat with them but that's expected at such a hectic event. Unfortunately aside from actually playing the games there my Friday and Saturday were pretty bad, between the traffic and other issues I won't get into. I can mention that I was disappointed how there were too many rude/ignorant people around on Saturday. It's a shame as most of the people there were fine, but there was also jerks present. I'll try to forget about all that and how I was dead tired by the time I left Saturday night, and I'll remember the good of playing those games instead of all the bad.
Speaking of bad, the Chicago Bears game vs. the Tampa Bay Bucs on Sunday... I was able to watch the game at home, so I did. It was quite hard to watch, as both teams are terrible and while Chicago won 21-13, for the first half of the game they were getting embarrassed by a team that had won only two times all year, and it was their mistakes more than anything else that let Chicago win. The Bears are playing Thanksgiving Day also, and it'll be while I have the big meal with some loved ones. I am expecting the game to be a loss.
I will return a week from today and while that week won't be as action-packed as the one I just had, there still will be some interesting moments.
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