Florida Arcade & Pinball Expo Part II

Par for the course, here I am with Part II of my trip report for Florida Arcade & Pinball Expo several months after the fact. At the very least, here it is! In Part I of my Florida APE trip report, I covered a few of the unique tables at the show, The Champion Pub and Banzai Run! I have been looking through my photos quite a bit, trying to stir up some ideas for another post and the main thing I noticed is just how good looking many of the tables at the Expo were. Like I mentioned in my trip report preview post, the dark arcade-like atmosphere of the Expo was a great way to showcase how much love and care were put into these tables. Private owners and a couple of operators put a lot of hard work into restoring and maintaining these tables and it really showed, what with all the lights turned down.

One table I was quite excited to see at Florida APE was Swords of Fu-LION MAN LION MAN-ry. Last time I saw this table was at the 2013 Ottawa Pinball Expo and was quite surprised at the complexity of this System-11 machine! I talked about SoF in the Ottawa Pinball Expo trip report but I don't see why I can't talk about it some more! Plus, I have some really nice pictures of SoF so why miss out on sharing them with you?

Sunday Afternoon Hangouts at Cabin Fever

It was another snowy weekend in April here in Toronto. Just when we thought we had escaped the winter hellscapes of January and February, Old Man Winter hit us with one last blast. The weather didn't stop a couple of folks from the Ottawa Pinball Scene and House of TARG from swinging by Cabin Fever for an afternoon of pinball! I came out to visit the boys from Ottawa and represent the Big Smoke. When I stepped into Cabin Fever, I saw that Toronto Pinball Fever were having their first End-of-Month tournament so we had a great showing of the Toronto Pinball Crew.

I had a great time catching up with my buddy Monty of Ottawa Punk Pinball (follow him on Instagram @OttawaPunkPinball) and hearing about what's shakin up in this nation's great capital. It sounds like things are going real well there and House of TARG is kickin' ass! I can't wait to head back up to Ottawa and do some work at stealin' girlfriends and high scores. MUF has made his mark known before...

A few of the guys that came down to the city with Monty work at House of TARG and were quite excited to see The Shadow as a part of Cabin Fever's lineup. House of TARG has had quite a few machines in rotation over the past two years and most of the tables at Cabin Fever had been a part of TARG's roster at one point or another except for The Shadow. So, we played quite a few games on that table in between Toronto Pinball Fever's tournament rounds.

Speaking of Toronto Pinball Fever, I want to give a shout-out to the newest league to pop up! The format of Toronto Pinball Fever is a bit different than that of City Pinball. It's a "Super Selfie League" and you register at Cabin Fever each month for only 5 bucks. It's super play so you can play whenever you want on any of the tables at Cabin Fever and when you get a decent score, you can post a selfie with the score on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter to record your score. Make sure to tag @TorontoPinball and @CabinFever in your post! You can post as
many scores as you wish and the top 50% will go on to the End-of-Month playoffs! It's a good format for those that might be busy on the Wednesday nights that City Pinball runs or just want to play a more casual league format. I've signed up for April so hopefully I can start posting some scores! I had a few good ones last night but I didn't want to get in the way of the play-off games by awkwardly squeezing in between the machines for a selfie. Next time though! You should drop by Cabin Fever 'cause they have great lineups. Great lineups of pinball, records, beers, and sandwiches too! Dig all the pinball-themed names! There is even a sandwich named after one of the City Pinball fellas, Mike Bartolo!