HAPPY NEW YEAR! 2013 in Review

Holey moley, the chapter of 2013 has come to a close and what a great year it has been! Not just for pinball but in general! I had a pretty good year and I hope that you did too! There were a lot of good things about pinball this past year; lots of new machines popped up and a bunch of cool events happened. Let's take a look-see!

The year was a FINE HUNT when it came to find out new pinball machines. I found a lot of new locations all over the city.

Back in the start of the year, I discovered Monopoly at Humber Cinema...

Andy Poolhall came up on my radar with their lineup of NASCAR and Roller Coaster Tycoon (based on the top-selling PC-CD ROM game)...

A couple of european sports bars had pinball machines, one being Rosa Bianca Cafe with X-MEN...

The other, Euro Sports Bar that had Harley Davidson and later, Playboy...

Shane and I ventured outside of Toronto in search of more pinball. We ended up in Peterborough hunting down a great Creature From The Black Lagoon. (Terminator was out of order)...

... as well as a Demolition Man sitting in a pitch-black bowling alley.

Speaking of Demolition Man, Shane and I tripped out to St. Catherines on a pinball journey. We stopped by my favorite haunt in Port Colbourne, Harborfront Inn, which housed a Demolition Man in amazing condition.

During our pinball journey, we made a wrong turn in Niagara Falls and ended up having to make a detour along Lundy's Lane. There was a car show in the plaza of a No Frills and, Shane and I being a coupla fellas who like cars, we took a look at it. We almost passed it up until we saw THE LAST OF THE V8 INTERCEPTORS!

While we wandered around the plaza's parking lot, I noticed an old laundromat that inhabited the stripmall. Shane and I decided to take a peek in there and found a Theatre of Magic!

Laundromats seem to be a good place to find pinball as our journey to Colonial Cleaners in Port Colbourne can attest to.

Speaking of Stars Wars, I've been spending a lot of time and money on Unlovable's machine which was recently fixed up and is looking downright pretty!

Star Wars is a lot better to play on now that it is running well again. I've managed to not only get High Score #4...

But I was able to make it to the top and become...
 

NUMBER 1!!!

I've been getting a lot of high scores lately, a couple of which I got during Stratford Festival's Pinballapalooza.

They were pretty easy to get since I was going up against the default scores.

But ya gotta play tuff to get Playboy Champ!

In order to become Playboy Champ, you have to light all 12 Playboy Bunnies. Easier said than done!

I also did my first ever VIDEO Impromptu Review! BIG Thanks to my buddies AK and Reem Himself!

Stratford Festival put on Pinballapalooza to promote their production of The Who's Tommy. During one of my lunch breaks on a Friday afternoon, I moseyed on over to David Pecault Square and stumbled upon OLG putting on an event promoting their casinos as well as Stratford Festival's Tommy. What got my attention were the two pinball machines under the the OLG tent!

I spent my entire lunch break there playing pinball. I had to get as much practice in as I could so I would be ready for the 2013 Canadian Pinball Championships!

Needless to say, I got my butt kicked... BUT I did get to play on some awesome machines like The Getaway...

 And White Water!

I'm just plain bad in tournament settings, I guess! Regardless, I had a good time talking to fellow pinball players and getting to play on a bunch of different machines. I entered a more casual tournament at 3030 Dundas West and... I got my butt kicked there too.

3030's ol' skool tables made the tournament a lot more accessible to casual pinballs but don't let that fool you! Stay on your toes and make sure you bring yer game, no goofin' off like I did haha!

This was the second event presented by the combo of 3030 and Kensington Brewery, their first event being the Pinball Crawl.

Long story short, we went to a bunch of different bars, played a lot of different pinball and drank lots of different beer. Good times.

Stern had a big release with Star Trek, Steve Ritchie's spiritual successor to Williams' Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Stern pulled out all the stops with Star Trek,  such as being the first of Stern's Pro-level tables to be entirely outfitted with LEDs. Previous Pro-level Stern tables included a few LEDs here and there on the playfield but Star Trek is completely outfitted with them and it is BRIGHT!

Last but definitely not least, I ventured to the country's capital, Ottawa, for the Ottawa Pinball Expo!

BIG Thanks to my buddy Penstone for giving me a place to stay and joining me in attending the Expo!

Something I noticed about the Expo was there were a lot more obscure tables.

There were not many of the perennial favorites like Twilight Zone or The Addams Family and instead a lot more lesser-known tables which made for a cool experience.

That just goes to show how much went down in 2013 and that's only scratching the surface! I'm looking forward to what 2014 will bring! I'm sure there will be more tables to find and lots of cool events coming up! Keep tuned in to Bright Lights Bumper City to catch all the latest in pinball! Don't forget, I'm also running a Tumblr where I post a pinball picture every day! Lots of neat stuff that I don't post on here.