Pinball

[unixronin]

So I've just figured out part of what bugs me so much about pinball ... granted, part of it is the sheer mindlessness of pinball, but part of it is that every time I see someone hunched almost motionless over a pinball game (mechanical or software-emulated) repetitively pushing the flipper buttons in return for blinking lights and astronomical point totals, my mind's eye sees a rat in a laboratory cage repetitively pushing a lever in return for occasional food pellets.

Does anyone else see this, or is it just me?

Comments

[jilara.livejournal.com]

I used to be a pinball wizard, and it's no different to me from playing something like ping-pong, but with a LOT more interest. However, I won't touch an electronic game. It's not the same thing at all.

Pinball is kind of like a table sport for geeks. (Back when I hung with the EE Club at Cal Poly, our two favored "sports" were pinball and air hockey.) To be really successful, you have to develop a kind of zen mind state, which goes well with relaxing after sitting staring at a terminal until sweat beads on your brow. No-mind, as opposed to mindless. It has a lot of similarity to practicing martial arts, I find, speaking as someone with years of background in that discipline. You must fall into the zen of physics, understand how small changes can effect behaviors of moving objects. Someone loaned us a PinBot machine for the Stratus rec room, and I was one of the regulars, enough that one day someone pasted a photo of my face over the PinBot robot. ;-)
If all you see are the blinking lights and point totals, you're not in the right mind state for successful playing.