JJ BANKS’ Blog

     As golden as the arches of this fine establishment, the same can be said for the money making opportunity that awaits you. I’m of course talking about the annual artery clogging game called “McDonald’s Monopoly”. But before you abandon your healthy lifestyle of tofu and hummus for Big Macs and Large Fries I thought it would be nice to provide you with the list of “Rare Pieces” for the game:

     Now if you don’t know how the game works….well…you’re a moron. Don’t worry the Mickie D’s employee with Down Syndrome by the shake machine can explain it for you. Don’t get me wrong. I know this game is a sucker’s bet in its truest form. Hell, the game was halted back in 2001 after a company called Simon Marketing, which organized and promoted the game, had been removing all the “rare pieces” from play and distributing them to friends and family. The scam went on for several years and netted the conspirators over $24 million in prizes. The scheme was eventually uncovered when one of the participants informed the FBI. There’s always one, isn’t there?

     But its good to have you back “McDonald’s Monopoly”. I already have “New York Avenue” and “St. James Place”. Anyone out there have “Tennessee Avenue”? We’re talking $5000 the easy way here.  

     Yesterday I headed down to the Tropicana in Atlantic City to check out “Batman: The Dark Knight” on an IMAX screen. Unfortunately the 4pm, the 7pm and the 10pm shows were all sold out!!! This movie is totally ape! So I headed over to the poker room and played some 1/2 No Limit for 8 hours and banked $179. The Trop has a bad beat jackpot now I guess to try and attract more players. Bad beat jackpots are cool but I’m not really thrilled about the $5 rake they use to build it, because I mean what are the odds you’re actually going to be involved in it? It’s a sucker bet if you ask me, that’s why real card rooms like The Borgata don’t need these kind of antics to attract players. But anyways, I left the Trop around 1am and since I didn’t know how many more times I’ll be out late like this this summer I decided to head to my favorite after hours hangout.

     I got to Jilly’s Arcade in Ocean City, NJ around 1:30am and was ready to take down the “Spider-Man” pinball machine but to my surprise there was some hot chick playing it while her boyfriend was playing air hockey with his friends. C’mon what are the odds? The whole reason I come to the arcade late at night is because I know that most of the machines will be open, and they were, all excpet for “Spider-Man”. So instead I cashed in for a pocket full of quarters and headed over to the “Medieval Madness” machine.

     “Medieval Madness” by Williams is an awesome pinball machine. It’s humorous, has a great layout and very fun and exciting to play. There are multiple ways to rack up a high score from destorying the castle, killing the Dragon, launching catapults, winning jousts…it goes on and on. I had played this game a few times before tonight so I already knew the real key to getting a high score was destroying the castle, which I did a few times and before I knew it I had a ”REPLAY” by getting a score of over 25,000,000. I went to see if the hot chick was still playing “Spider-Man”, she wasn’t, but instead there was some young kid with a huge afro playing it now. WTF? So I looked for another game to play.

     “The Sopranos” pinball machine is a pretty tough machine. The ramps and power-ups are pretty hard to hit and the main level up element is a safe right in the middle of the board that is kind of dangerous and causes a lot of your balls to fall down the middle. But the game is definitely entertaining and does incorporate a lot of the characteristics of the TV show. With a few tries and the help of an extra ball I was able to get a “REPLAY” by getting a score of over 15,000,000 which is actually kind of low for a replay score, but then again this game is really challenging.  I then played a game of the “RollerCoaster Tycoon” pinball machine but the top right flipper on the machine didn’t work so after 3 balls I was done with this game. Jilly’s is pretty good with maintaining their machines, but I’d avoid the “RollerCoaster Tycoon” and “The Adams Family” pinball machines because they have flipper problems. I then noticed that of the 10 pinball machines on this side of the arcade that I had obtained a “REPLAY” on all of them before except for the machine at the very end. So I forgot about playing “Spider-Man” and headed over to the “Harley-Davidson” pinball machine.

     If you want to play a fun and easy pinball machine than “Harley-Davidson” pinball is the game for you. The “REPLAY” score on this machine was 70,000,000 which seems a lot until you start playing and notice that you can score 30,000,000 bascially without doing anything special. Whereas the game isn’t very challenging it does excel at being a lot of fun. The machine shakes and sounds like a real motorcycle. Obtaining multiballs is easy and hitting the jackpots is even easier. So needless to say I got a score of over 100,000,000 with no problem and had my third “REPLAY” of the night. It was around 3am and the “Spider-Man” pinball machine was open but I thought “maybe next time webhead” and headed home.

     Jilly’s Arcade in Ocean City, NJ is no doubt my favorite arcade of all-time. Not only does Jilly’s have a wide range of both classic and new arcade games, it also has one of the largest selection of pinball machines I’ve seen anywhere, and better yet every play is only a quarter. But what truly makes Jilly’s THE BEST is that during the summer it’s open 24 hours 7 days a week. And this worked out perfectly for me after I left the Borgata last Saturday and didn’t feel like going home. It was 3:00am so what could I do? How about play some pinball? Excellent idea!!!

                                                                                                                                                  South Park Pinball

     What kind of people go to an arcade at 3:00am you ask? Well, it was just me and some riff raff teenage kids shooting pool, along with some Russian immigrant who was the only person working there. It was actually kind of like a dream though to basically have a whole arcade to yourself. No kids running around screaming, no annoying girlfriends hovering over your shoulder waiting for your game to end, the arcade was nice and quiet, just me and the machines, it was a perfect storm. And because of this I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that I had one of the best pinball experiences of my life. I not only got my first replay ever on my favorite pinball machine, South Park Pinball, but I scored over 100,000,000 putting me among the highest scores ever on the machine. FYI - the record score is over 400,000,000 - that is just fucking sick, because I rocked the shit out of the game to get over 100 million.

                                                                                                                                                                  Indiana Jones Pinball

     But wait there’s more!!! News Flash!!! Stern Pinball has released their newest machine and its called Indiana Jones Pinball. The game is pretty cool because it showcases all of the Indiana Jones movies from Raiders to the latest Crystal Skull whaterver one. So after rocking South Park I checked it out and within 3 attempts I got what may have been the first replay ever on the machine because the replay score was only at 39,000,000. I finished with a score of 51,000,000 and to tell the truth the machine isn’t that easy. The board has a unique layout that requires accurate flipping oppose to just whack and smack pinball. Also, Inidana Jones Pinball has one of the coolest surprises I’ve seen in a pinball machine in a long time. All I’m going to say is that when you unlock the secret of the Ark, “Don’t look into the Light!”

                                                                                                                        Here I am playing the board “Isolation” in Halo 3.

     Great news guys! I got my X-Box back after experiencing the Red Ring of Death and I’ve been playing Halo 3 nonstop!!! Fuck Yeah! Stay Alpha!!!!

     And since I got my X-Box back in working order I thought this would be a good time to show off my kickass set-up that peasants in third world countries could only dream of obtaining. We’re talking a 56″ Samsung DLP HDTV along with an X-Box 360 Elite that includes the HD DVD add-on. Yeah I know, you don’t have to tell me it rocks.

     Now I’m Audi 5000 because I’ve got to go back to pwning noobs! 

     Last night my X-Box 360 Elite got the dreaded “Red Ring of Death” and now has to be shipped off to Microsoft and will probably be gone for the next 3 - 4 weeks. And you know what? That’s fine with me.

     Because a funny thing happened last night when I turned on my X-Box and saw the three red lights flashing at me, my heart started pounding and I had a fear in me like one of my family members was in danger. And then I stopped and was ashamed to think how upset I was getting because my X-Box was now out of comission. Here I am about to turn 31 years-old and I’m worried about a fucking video game console. What the fuck am I doing with my life? It made me think….if my X-Box could all of sudden just drop dead, then what about me? And if I did die today, would I have made the most of my life? Who knows how many hours I’ve spent in my lifetime playing video games? Living and dying in a virtual world. But the question is…am I making the most of the opportunities presented to me in The Real World?

     So as of right now I’m done with video games.

     Wait! What I mean is that I’m taking a break from video games. A break that was obviously forced upon me by ”The Red Ring of Death”, but even when I do get my fixed X-Box back I don’t plan on playing again anytime soon. Which surprises even myself because I was currently playing GTA IV, which in my opinion might be the best GTA game, if not the best video game ever, and you also got Ninja Gaiden II coming out in June, but I feel this is a great chance to focus on other things I want to accomplish in life. I’ve got my World Series of Poker Event coming up, I want to get back to advancing myself as a filmmaker, and for God’s Sake maybe now I can finally motivate myself to get back in physical shape. Charf, Steams, Coco and everyone else in the SW Community I’ll miss talking to you guys over X-Box Live, but hey I do intend to keep contributing to this Blog in my hiatus. It just seems like this is a good indicator that maybe its time to unlock some achievements that would increase a different kind of gamerscore.   

     Traveling up the Northeast Extension of the Pennsylvania Turnpike is like time traveling 25 years into the past, and I’m not just saying this because I spent a Saturday afternoon with Charftong and Graberman playing pinball. I say this because Allentown, PA is a town time has forgotten. For Christ sake I saw a Little Caesar’s Pizza Place in Allentown! Who still has a Little Caesar’s in their town? I thought I was hallucinating. Maybe I should have eaten there though, because if you ever do go to Allentown avoid any kind of beef product. Charf and Graber did that Bar-B-Q sandwich hit you like it hit me later in the day? It’s also sad when the newest and nicest building in your town is a L.A. Fitness. Wow? WTF? But I’ll say this about Allentown, they do have one of the best pinball conventions around going for them, so let’s focus on the positive!

     As much as I love classic video games my passion for pinball might be just as strong. The flick of the flippers, the violence of the bumpers, the thrill of getting a multi-ball or a replay, pinball is equally exciting to me today as it was when I was a kid going to the arcade at the local bowling alley. On that Saturday though I was pretty much “The King of the Ball Save” but I did get better as the day went on. At first it was hard to even get on a machine because it was so crowded, because for $15 at the Pinball Wizards Convention you get to play as many games as you want on a variety of different machines for free, but as the day went on the pinball players thined out and it was easier to play.

     In addition to playing you could also buy any of the machines if you had the scratch to do so. I myself felt bad about this for two reasons. 1. I don’t have enough room in my condo for a big loud-ass pinball machine and 2. Do I really want to drop over a “G” on ”The Simpsons Pinball Machine”? Well, the answer to 2. is “yes” but I don’t have the funds right now to do so. If I had a wish list and money wasn’t an issue here are the 3 pinball machines I would buy today: 

                                                                                                                                              Checkpoint Pinball Machine

     I dug all the machines at the convention whether new or old. Most of them were in perfect working condition except for a few that had small problems like weak flippers, broken bumpers or burnt old lights, but overall the games were awesome. Here’s a list of all the games I played:

                                                                                                    The world of professional pinball….what’s the deal with the 7′ gaint watching?

                                                                                                  Charf attracted his own crowd while he rocked out on Family Guy.

     Man, after writing and posting all this I realize I really want a pinball machine of my own. I guess I better do good in the upcoming World Series of Poker.