Pinball Sunday Part III - Get Well

Round 3 of Kensington Brewing Company and 3030's Pinball Sunday tournaments was held at Get Well this past Sunday.

There was a good turnout for this week's tournament. The tournament brackets were completely filled up with people that had come for the tournament and others that were just hanging around Get Well. Lots of people did show up for the tournament specifically so that was pretty cool!

Get Well has updated their machines since my last visit during the Pinball Crawl; Pin-Bot has replaced the decrepit Captain Fantastic.

BRIGHT LIGHTS MOTÖR CITY - Michigan Pinball Expo Trip Report

Time to put four to the floor and really get into the Michigan Pinball Expo! In my previous post, I just did a small preview of the Expo and posted a couple of neat pictures of what was there. NOW it is time to get into the nitty-gritty of the Expo! I figured since the Expo was in Michigan, the home state of Detroit, I would do a little Motor City theme. There were a couple of pinball machines with automotive themes so i think it would be quite appropriate! It's obvious that I love pinball and I think I've made it known that I'm quite the car guy too, but if you don't know that yet, let's post some sweet car pix to get into the Motörhead mood!

Alright, quit drooling! Let's head out to the highway ...

This was the fifth year of the Expo and it was a helluva year! There was a ton of great games to play as well as a few rarities such as Orbitor 1, The Matrix, and Predator (the latter two being custom machines)... but those are for another post, haha! We're here to talk about cool cars and pinball, not space and Sci-Fi movies! (Maybe I will do a Sci-Fi-themed post.) ... Enough yakkin', it's time to kick it off with Corvette by Bally!

Michigan Pinball Expo ... 2014!

I just got back from the good ol' US of A for a little bit of pinball! Well, actually, I was in Windsor all weekend and went to Michigan on Friday for the annual Michigan Pinball Expo! Back when I first started Bright Lights Bumper City 2 years ago this month, I did a little trip report about the 2012 edition of Michigan Pinball Expo. Unfortunately, I did not have the benefit of flash photography and had to use a few photos that my friend Nicole had taken. This time around though, I saved up a couple of bucks and got myself a little upgrade from the iPhone pics I usually post...

Nice!

You might have seen a couple of nice photos of pinball posted throughout Bumper City, such as the trip report of my St. Catherines Pinball Journey or Star Trek at California Sandwiches but for those I had borrowed my buddy AK's camera. Now that I have a camera of my own, expect many more photos like this...

... or this...

I came home from the Michigan Pinball Expo with about ... 1000 photos so I have had hella editing to do. I have more than AC/DC pictures though "Luci" was a stunner!

Kensington Brewing Co. Pinball Sundays ROUND 1 - Brass Taps

The first round of Kensington Brewery Company and 3030's Pinball Sunday tournaments has come and gone!

The first Pinball Sunday was held at Brass Taps Pizza Pub on the Danforth. My friend Adam and I got there a little early... We thought it was at 3 PM but turns out the tournament was at 5 PM OOF. We met up with my buds, AK and Sean, and we all went to Detroit Eatery for some tasty burgs!

We stopped by ETON House afterwards for a little bit of Black Rose. My excuse to go to ETON house was to take a few pictures of Black Rose with my new camera... and it was totally worth it! See for yourself!

We played a couple of rounds of Black Rose until 5 PM then went back to Brass Taps. We were met with a decent sized crowd of people and things got under way.

There were a few issues that needed to be ironed out but that is usually par for the course when starting off something new! Everything ended up working out well. Learn from your mistakes and build upon it! After we got the tournament entries lined up, the tournament was under way.

We started off on Rolling Stones but the games soon starting spilling over onto Metallica.

 I took over the jukebox and played hella Judas Priest to get me in the zone.

Adam had previously beaten me at 3030's Those Elite Guilty Pleasures event early on the tournament.

This time around we were on opposite sides and made our way through the ranks to the FINALS! TIME TO FIGHT!

It was 2 out of 3 falls to see who would take away the Brass Taps championship. It was a tough fought battle, with Adam taking the first round with about 22 million points, myself taking the second round with... about 22 million points. FINAL ROUND I was on my third ball, down by a couple million, extra ball lit... NO FEAR!

True story and not just a catchphrase on my t-shirt! I managed to score the extra ball and then on my final ball, I lit Electric Chair Multiball. It could have been a game changer but I just could hit it and drained on a missed shot off of the Electric Chair DAMN!

Adam won in a really tough fought battle WOOOO! Congratulations to Adam on winning the tournament! It was a hella tough-fought battle and it couldn't have gone to a better player!

Adam has only won the battle of Brass Taps... but he has yet to win the war of PINBALL SUNDAYS!

Big thanx goes out to AK and Allison for taking some sweet pix while I was playing pinball and stuff!

Kensington Brewing Pinball Sundays

So ya, you should know by now that Kensington Brewing Company and 3030 are the leading hosts for pinball events in Toronto. Here on Bright Lights Bumper City, I have covered the Pinball Crawl back in September 2013 where we went all over the west end, starting at Handle Bar in Kensington Market out to Monarch Tavern in the Little Italy area, Unlovable on Dundas West, and many stops in between, finally ending up at 3030. Phones were almost lost and high scores were made so check out the trip report right... here!

There was also the pinball tournament at 3030's Those Elite Guilty Pleasures. Got my butt handed to me by my buddy Adam pretty early on but I had a couple of beers to drown my sorrow and we all had a good time OK

For the month of April (and a little bit of May), Kensington Brewery and 3030 are teaming up once again to present Pinball Sundays!

Neat! Every Sunday there will be a pinball tournament at bars all over the city, from Brass Taps over on the Danforth to Lipstick & Dynamite on Queen West. Hey wait a minute! I visited both of those places recently for my March Pinball Update! Get Well is on the list and further down Dundas West, we will end up at 3030 for some pinball and a screening of the pinball documentary Special When Lit. It's a pretty cool documentary on the pinball scene and its cult following. dig it.


If you want to RSVP for the event, get yerself on over to the Facebook event and sign up for the tournament or just show up on the day of! Here is the schedule:

April 13th - Brass Taps at 493 Danforth, 3pm - Read about it here!

April 20th - Lipstick & Dynamite at 992 Queen St W, 4pm - what the heck! This was on Easter of all things! no dice

April 27th - Get Well at 1181 Dundas West, 5pm - This one can be read here!

May 4th - 3030 ... dundas west, 6pm - SPECIAL WHEN LIT screening at 8pm ... THE FINAL BATTLE READ ALL ABOUT IT HERE!

Hope to see you out there! If you're up against me, show me what you got!!

Black Rose

 It is not often that you see a classic table in Toronto. I get the feeling that when locations in the city ask for a "classic" machine, they end up getting old Stern tables, which I would not necessarily associate with the word "classic". Case-in-point, Striker XTreme. It's a classic in the sense that it was one of Stern's first tables though the actual gameplay of the table leaves something to be desired so it's not exactly synonymous with "classic pinball".

Though there are a few old school tables in the city, such as Data East's Tommy at Monarch Tavern and Star Wars at Unlovable in addition to Community 54's rotation of 90's Gottliebs like Waterworld and of course 3030's ever-changing lineup of vintage tables, I have been hoping to see some serious classics show up in the city. It seems that ETON House has answered my call. Now, you might be thinking, "what kind of classic table could it be? The usual suspects, Twilight Zone or Addams Family? Maybe... The Getaway or Terminator 2?" Close but no cigar! Instead ETON House ended up with a real cool classic...

DANG Black Rose, how neat is that! I mentioned it in my most recent pinball update but I'll say it again: it's not often you see a table this old in the city, let alone a Bally such as Black Rose! These sorts of tables are starting to fetch quite the price on the collector's market so it's even more uncommon to see them out in public! Not that I am complaining though; Black Rose is an underrated table which I have never seen in person before. I first came upon the table back in mid-February when a couple of buddies and I hit up the Danforth for my birthday. I had a couple of beers and my memories of that night were a little hazy so I made a solo venture out to the Danforth a few weeks later to really take in Black Rose.