July 3 brought a quick trip to The Deuce, a new pizza bar that opened up in The Heights. The pizza was pretty good if a tad pricey, and being in what was in effect a “pizza bar” was a great reason to have a beer for the first time in a while. Of course, that wasn’t the only reason I went…

The most notable part of the (rather small) game area in the corner was a Space Shuttle pinball. This, arguably, was the primary reason I went in to check out the place. While my high score on the evening (1.71M+) was nowhere near what I’ve put up in the past, I think it’s pretty good for the best in a series of casual games.

I also got in a quick game of Robotron. My score of 83,925 was best for the day; I’ve done better but I do not consider myself an expert on this game by any means.

I realize it’s a bit late but I will go ahead and post this for completeness.

Yes, Houston got hit with another major weather event, this time Hurricane Beryl. The house has been without power for most of the week but supposedly is once again energized as of last night. I’m fine and made it through the storm safely.

Unfortunately, Facebook (or the “artificial stupidity” in charge) has decided to mark the post to the Facebook page for the July 2 recap as spam, hiding it from everyone except the page owner (me). I can’t guarantee this won’t happen again in the future; I have far more confidence that Automattic will not arbitrarily censor announcements of new posts that come directly from the site. The email subscription form is in the upper right corner of the home page at the very top.

As evidenced by my post history on Rant Roulette, I consider censorship to be quite odious and have opposed it in many instances. This one is no different.

Edit 2024-07-14: The repost also got removed as spam. I’m at a complete loss as to what is tripping the artificial stupidity to call it spam. Apparently it’s perfectly okay to post diet pill/gummies ads, seedy online casino ads, and whatever else, and tag 99 people (the limit) for maximum annoyance. But $deity forbid a pinball wizard from Houston post a couple of arcade visit recaps, that’s a mortal sin in Facebook’s world. </sarcasm>

The story continues on the Tuesday evening of July 2. I made two pinball-related stops this evening, an earlier stop at Eureka Heights again, and then a later one at Little Dipper for the planned weekly tournament. Of note was my 2.93M+ on Pulp Fiction and 54.6M+ on Star Trek (Stern), the rest I can take or leave.

These are just kind of scattered around and random.

On Thursday, June 27: The Simpsons Pinball Party and a (Stern) Kiss (the latter not played/pictured) were spotted at Go Kart Raceway on West Mount Houston/Texas 249 near T.C. Jester Boulevard. This location had been on Pinball Map in the past. I’m not sure if they just didn’t have pinball for a while or if someone removed old games without adding the new ones that replaced them. Either way, it’s good to see they have at least a couple of pinball machines once more.

On Saturday, June 29: Little Dipper gets Pulp Fiction, and I get to play Star Trek for the first time there since it was brought in a couple of days prior.

On Sunday, June 30: I check out Okashi, an “all you can play buffet” style of arcade (a la Cidercade) featuring Japanese  video games (either exports or US versions of fighting games like Tekken 7). The score picture of their DDR game (I think the version is called A20 Plus?) is the only score picture I was able to get, most of the others I didn’t bother taking. I spent most of my time playing Initial D which doesn’t really lend itself well to score photos. Incidentally this is my first time trying to play DDR in well over a decade. None of the songs I knew well from prior versions of DDR were in this version (My Summer Love, Only You, and Upside Down just to name a few).

June 11, Little Dipper and Del Mar Lanes:

One of my better runs on Indy 500, a decent run on Stars, followed by a pretty solid run on Godzilla over at Del Mar. Not bad for an evening, I say.

June 16 Einstein’s Katy:

(On Stars I was player 2, 199k+)

Some of these are ho-hum but some are surprisingly decent, such as the score on John Wick, one of the first few times I’ve played the game. There may have been higher scores but for some reason some of the pictures didn’t take properly.

June 25, Little Dipper:

(I was player 1 on both Jurassic Park and Pirates of the Caribbean.)

Most of these weren’t too bad, though my performance on POTC was handicapped by a couple of dumb shots that ended in drains.

June 26, Eureka Heights Brewery:

I came here mainly to play Pulp Fiction as this game is not available on location anywhere else in the Houston area that I can access to the best of my knowledge. I played The Munsters because it had ¾ of a credit (75¢ of $1) on it, Rush because it had 2 whole credits left behind, and Toy Story 4 as I wanted to play one that I felt had a reasonable chance of being properly maintained. (Cidercade is an “all-you-can-play buffet” location and while they do their best, they often get behind; Einstein’s Richmond does have the game but I rarely make it out there.)

The above 1.96M+ score represents the best effort out of 10 games, 5 of those at $1.50 apiece (coins), then 5 more for $5 ($1 apiece) via the card reader. The newer games are $1.50/play and the slightly older games are $1.00/play, with discounts for multiple games purchased with credit/debit card.