He stands like a statue, becomes part of the machine

Paul and I finally finished putting together the ping pong table we bought jointly for Christmas. It's been really fun to play with, and we're getting pretty good. We're honing our skills just in time to accept challengers at our lost watching party next week. We set the table up in the basement. It makes the house seem so much bigger when you actually utilize the space down there. We've got a good starting piece to a nice game room of sorts.

I was thinking that it would be awesome to get a pinball machine as our next addition. Looking around, I managed to find some pretty spectacular ones for sale here. I recommend clicking through to see the other larger pictures and the art.

First off, Star Trek TNG. I'm not going to lie, I really really want this. It did not take the fantastic "Pinball at Warp Factor 9" slogan to convince me. This table has a hefty $2,995 price tag, which basically means I could get this or we could get a used second car. I find myself thinking "Carpooling with Paul isn't so bad..."

Arabian Nights. This table has really neat, almost Mucha-like art style to it that really caught my eye. I also like that the whole concept is an obviously re-stylized rip off of Aladdin. What? No, this is a completely unrelated blue genie!

Who Dunnit? This table is cool because it really runs with the whole dark noir, seedy underbelly concept. There's actually a slot machine and roulette wheel built into it, courting the arcade kid and gambling population alike.

Johnny Mnemonic. All the fun of the 1995 cyberpunk cult film, but with flippers and balls instead of lasers and Yakuza. Hooray! Ya know, you never would guess that this machine was based on a Keanu Reeves movie just by looking at the table art. But maybe that was the point.

Last but certainly not least, Red+ Ted's Road Show. At a glance, there's nothing too weird about this. Then you notice horrible gaping maws of Red and Ted, inviting you to shoot hard metal balls into their teeth. The weirdness of this machine is only improved upon by watching this crazy 1994 promotional video for it.



Overall, the video isn't too exciting, mostly because the game designer gets all esoteric and is boring beyond all reason. I really recommend watching it though for the WTF moments (2:43 and 3:47 especially!)