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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 3, 1996)
T** By Paula Lavigne TV-free life has benefits, new freedom Don’t ask me what Rachel and Ross are doing. Deep Space Nine has been galaxies away. No, I haven’t seen the new Smashing Pumpkins video. And I lost track of Sami’s plot to destroy Carrie’s life a long time ago. Four months ago, after I took my television on a cross-country trip in the back of my car, the 20-inch RCA wonder gave up on me. One of two pieces of furniture in my apartment, my TV just sits there looking forlorn. Hooked up to the VCR, it plays videos; but other than that, it’s mute. I didn’t have enough time or money to get it repaired, and, at first, I wondered how I’d live without it. No more coming home and flip ping it on to fill the void of a lonely, silent apartment. No more lounging in front of it while working on a bowl of pasta. So, when I started my TV-free phase, I thought it wouldn’t last. For the first month, it was kind of a pain. I wasn’t a big fan of tele vision before, but I missed the few shows 1 watched. I really missed CNN, but made up for that by' watching the black-and-white TV at work (but only when the sports staff didn’t turn it to ESPN). I started listening to National Public Radio in the morning, and I started reading more at night. Then it became pretty normal, and I real ized the benefits of not being plugged in. Point being, I could have been doing better things. I did. I mean, although it sounds odd for a news person to be turned off by a news medium, I really was sick of television. Aside from CNN, I felt that everything was geared toward the lowest common denomi nator. Commercials, fluff-news pro grams, talk shows, cops shows and poorly written sitcoms were the fruitcake of the television banquet. And I wasn’t very hungry. _t 1 *_i _ c/vum^ uij iiiuiuo, x miiu u 1 jjiw“ tured myself in the elitist position of someone who shunned pop cul ture and refused to give in. to the forces of commercialized broad casting. (Yeah, OK, so that’s just an excuse for being too lazy to run the chunk of metal to Best Buy for a tuneup.) But it was kind of nice be ing free from “Tickle Me” Elmo commercials. Even with that newfound free dom, though, I felt kind of left out. There are things you just have to see — like Nebraska football and see ing Bob Dole on Saturday Night Live. ~ ' So, even though it's been a suc cessful experiment, I think I’m go ing to give up. When I move this January, I’ll get the television fixed and subscribe to Cablevision. , Yeah, I know, it means I’ve: re assimilated. But,hey.Ijusthave to know what my “Friends” are up to. Lavigae is a senior news-edi torial major and a Daily Nebras kan associate news editor. ■ - — Pinball wizardry Game remains popular after centuries of play By Cuff Hicks StaffReporter The Who was singing about it in the ’60s and ‘70s, it was banned in New York City for 34 years, it’s centuries old and it’s still making money across the world. It’s pinball. Despite its age, pinball is still (me of America’s favorite pastimes. No fewer than 20 different major pinball machines are released every year, tak ing in an average of more than $20 million annually. “I spend like four bucks a month on it,” said Chad Weidner, a senior business administration major. “It’s a cheap habit.” Pinball is an addiction for thou sands, and the reasons vary as much as the personalities of those who {day the games. Weidner said he played the game for the thrills involved. “I live for the chance for a replay,” he said. Weidner said his grandfather was a pinball junkie and the addiction was passed on to him. UTi). «__av_ • j _ _ _ n ii a ucuci man viucu games, Weidner said. “You can get a replay for free, which is something you never get on other games.” Free games or replays are skill based, allowing skilled players to rack up enough points to win a free game. Am additional feature known as the “match” dispenses free games if a ran dom number matches the last two dig its of a player’s score. The game traces its origins back to ancient Greece, where it was played on hillsides on a smooth marble surface, using large stone balls and holes in the ground. After that, a large gap in the his tory of the game is filled with Pachinko and bagatelle, both of which are con sidered ancestors to the modem pin ball machine. The fust machine was upright, with just pins and holes in the board, thus coining the.name “pinball.” Actual coin-operated pinball was introduced in 1931. Flippers weren’t added to die game until 1936, and they weren’t placed at the bottom and fac ing each other, as they do now, until 1950. Even then, they were tiny com pared to the now standard flipper size, __I * 1 A«1A umuuuvwu ui 17 tu.—-■ The first customized addition to pinball (after the coin-operation sys tem) was the tilt device, which most pinball players have come to hate. Any severe rocking of the machine will cause a coin-operated machine to lock up, costing the player one of their three game balls. Since then, pinball has cane a long way, with dozens of additional bells, whistles, chutes and other assorted gizmos. But the steps have all been logical, according to Josh Paymer, a pinball historian who owns more than 30 dif ferent machines. “It’s just getting more and more complex to keep the game interesting,” Paymer said. “Players constantly want new challenges and pinball companies Me trying to provide.” Tables, as pinball machines are called, are now themed after various movies or topics. Current machines include: • Goldeneye (after the James Bond film). • Whodunit? (a mystery-noir thane). • StM TVek: The Next Generation (afta the television show). n • StM Wars (after the film classic). Photo illustration by Lane Hickenbottom • Indiana Jones (after the film se ries). 1 • The Twilight Zone (after the clas- i sic television show). There are upcoming tables based on films like “Space Jam” and “Daylight” as well. Movies and television are com mon themes for tables. Currently, Tilt!, on the lower level of Omaha’s Westroads Mall only has one table, “Freddy’s Nightmare” based on the horror icon, but tables come and go TillJ’s general manager, Kevin Kamphuis, said. “They (tables) have their follow ing,” Kamphuis said. Kamphuis also said there is no spe cific age group that plays pinball. “It varies,” Kamphuis said. “We get everybody.” Paymer said, “It’s not uncommon to see younger kids playing pinball, but it’s the older players who nave the skill necessary to acquire a replay.” Weidner said he gets free replays about half the time. Some players even play for more than three hours on one quarter. This system of free replays caused pinballto bp banned in New York City for 34 years. Gaiming the system was a form of gambling, Mayor Fiorello flenry LaGuardia smashed several pin jall machines in front of a supportive ;rowd. In 1976, however, a man by the lame of Roger Sharpe attended a City Council meeting and demonstrated that pinball was indeed a game of skill by winning a replay in front of them. The t>an was repealed. The ban is still in effect on replays in New York City, though. However, most arcades, bars and convenience stores in New York ignore this ban — there are no known cita tions for giving out replays since. There were three major companies making pinball machines at the begin ning of this year: Bally/Midway, Gottlieb and Sega. Of the three, the Bally/Midway group is by far the old est and most respected among players, with Sega amply a newcomer. Each has its own plans for the fu ture of pinball. Sega’s idea is to add more balls and chutes, making game play more challenging. “Sega seems to focus on the bells and whikles a lot, and not all that much on actual game play/* Paymer said. “Plus, they’ve been trying to do multi balls with way too many balls.” Paymer said Sega’s “Apollo 13” table has a 13-ball multi-ball mecha nism. “Those machines are always bro ken,” Paymer said. Bally/Midway is working on a to ken-redemption system, which will be released shortly. Such a move would give players an extra goal for which to strive. % “Bally/Midway are the biggest company in the business and probably the best,” Paymer said. “They always seem to be one step ahead of the com-. petition and their machines are rarely in need of repair.” Gottlieb, however, shut down in October of this year, citing poor re sponses to its machines in arcades and low productivity. Even though Gottlieb p«n fewer than five tables on the mar ket each year, Paymer says it will be greatly missed. “It’s always sad to see a pinball company pass away,” Paymersaid. “If we're not careful, pinball could be come a dead art.” -