In Bend, pinball machines are more common than you'd think. There are a couple of pinball museums in the country, the most significant being down at the Las Vegas Pinball Hall of Fame where 400 or so machines blink inside a massive showroom. In fact, they say the place is seeing a steady increase in patronage, complete with (as of this printing) 26 machines, all well maintained and all functioning properly. It's not just a nerd-centric audience flocking to pinball at the Ground Kontrol, as their management tells me. In Portland, there's a place called Ground Kontrol that boasts the largest collection of pinball machines in the Northwest. For example, last weekend a pinball convention brought some 350 different machines, and a few thousand people eager to play them, to the Seattle Center. Pinball has become increasingly popular, especially here in the Northwest. At least I haven't for the past decade or so, but I'm a sucker for pinball - when the opportunity arises. Nevertheless, I drop another three quarters in because obsession is a real son of a bitch. And once again, I see the ball rolling down the middle of the table, splitting the difference between the two flippers and creating an all-too-familiar clunk as it lands in the mechanical mystery zone that is the inside of a pinball machine. I think - as I've thought at other places during my week of intense pinball immersion - that I've got this thing figured out. This is my fifth pinball stop of the day and even as my wrists become a bit sore and my pint glass again empty, I can't find a good stopping point. I've invested a couple dollars into this device, which happens to be promoting the popular television program, CSI (which I've never seen), and I feel a few more bucks worth of quarters burning a hole in my pocket. So it doesn't make a whole hell of a lot of sense that I'm in the back of a dark bar swearing at a pinball machine. They're drinking on patios and wearing bright colors and stylish sunglasses. It's a perfectly nice day outside, one of the first in a long while.
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