Billy Ray's

[ROM]

I played at Billy Ray's yesterday evening. First off, I gotta say that I just realized how much I truly like daylight savings. It's great to cruise in to Billy Ray's at 5:30pm, and still have tons of natural light streaming into the place. No glare!

Johnny Mnemonic is playing like a dream. I love that game. But for the life of me I can't break 3 billion. I've had so many games in the upper 2's. 3 billion is the hump. I'll get it one of these days. My favorite shot is the right loop. It's so fast, and it feels good when you hit it six or seven times in a row. My problem is that I tend to hit it a lot when in a multiball, and it can be tough to hit it right when it comes back around while juggling other balls. I wonder if the scores from that loop multiply more when in multiball?

Sopranos feels, to me, like it's been caked in a fresh layer of nicotine. The slingshots are a little weaker than before, and the playfield seems slower. Also, the tilt is way more sensitive than before (too sensitive - I was getting major Dangers when barely touching it). Judging from the position of the machine when I got there, it look like it's been taking a beating. Also, I'm really not into that removed post on the right outlane. The removed post allows the ball to squeeze into the plunger lane, rather than always dropping into the outlane. At one point yesterday the ball got stuck on the spot where the post had been removed, and I ended up tilting before I could get the ball off. This is the first Sopranos I've seen with this setting, and I don't dig it.

Monster Bash has a broken Frankenstein. He's stuck up, with the ramp open. Shots up the ramp do not register a body part. And I couldn't get any shots on the edges of the ramp opening to register, either. The only way to get Frank going is to get into the drop hole about a million times. With Frank not working, you can't get all the instruments, and you can't start Monster Bash (right?). The only big multiball you can start is Mosh Pit.

Other than Frank, the machine is playing well. I had fun on it. Played one game, 106 million. But it would have been a much different score had Frank been operating. Bounceback, I was able to pass from left flip to right (I believe you mentioned losing the ability to do this).. but the ball had to have some speed on it for it to work.. as in, I couldn't completely stall the ball and then pass it over.

I did not play Medieval Madness, Scared Stiff, or Creature from the Black Lagoon. So no report. But I bet it's safe to say that the right lane on Creature is still set incorrectly, so that it pushes the ball straight into the right slingshot, rather than onto the right flipper.

[Slingshot]

Played for an hour or so at Billy Ray's last night...

Johnny Mnemonic was playing super fast and clean as usual. It fucking pisses me off though when the ball shoots up the left Ramp and it bounces down if its too hard.

Scared Stiff was fine. I don't play that game very often so its hard to make a judgement on its condition.

I always play like shit there anyways...

[bounceback]

put up #2 on sopranos there last week, and only failed to GC because i choked after lighting boss. i've never been good at sopranos, never made boss, and especially tend to suck at the sopranos at billy ray's, so it was nice. due to my total fuckup at the crucial stage, i missed #1 by 6 million, and GC by around 60 mil, but i was killing it on multiballs and think i would've had it if only... gonna go back and try to boost that.

i still can't for the life of me understand how WOF is so good at elvira. i just don't care about it enough to master it.

bash is still unrepentently one of the trickiest games in town. no ball save at all is bogus when you still can't pass w/ the left flipper, the drain has a powerful magnet in it sucking your balls, and frank is constantly broken. i love that game but i've kind of given up on it. CFTBL is a waste b/c of that right orbit, and they upped the replay back to 500,000, which is once again higher than the GC.

Midieval, as always, could stand to have the ramps cleaned and flippers tuned up so you can make the right ramp shot reasonably, but it's not too bad.

supposedly john ray is painting some murally shit in there? i vote we all sit for portraits, or have him paint from the mugshots. skulled out faces. nude shots. people love that stuff.

[Plunger]

I noticed Billy Rays wasn't included on this list. Anybody been there recently enough to know what they got going on upstairs?

[bounceback]

hmm, maybe plunger doesn't know that if you follow the buttons there can be multiple pages on a message board. i found billy ray's on the ol' list, and it's on the pinball map as well. that's ok. i'm going there today. as of last week the games were still: MM, SS, CFTBL, JM, Sopranos, MB.

word was that they're ditching elvira and getting spiderman. also apparently mike vowed to give some serious on site shop time to midieval to get it playing well again, same with bash, and they're supposed to try to fix the right loop on creature.

[bounceback]

and now we have two...

[ROM]

I merged the topics! like magic.

[bounceback]

that... was...

AWESOME!!!

[bounceback]

some good news-- Midieval is cleaned up and working great. you can hit both ramps, things are moving well. the only problem i noticed was that the catapult sometimes didn't register a ball shot in there, but only once in a while. if you shake the machine a bit it usually gets it. sopranos too seems like it's playing fine.

the big surprise is that the orbit on creature is fixed! the ball comes right back down to the right flip where it's supposed to! excellent improvement.

the downside is that several of the games (including CFTBL) still feel dirty and crumby. the whirlpool saucer and all the ramps on creature are still dirty and dark, and there still appear to be tons of lamps out, making it pretty hard to see what's going on. the playfield feels slow or sticky. i'm super glad they fixed that orbit, now it just needs the kind of thorough cleaning MM got.

the same goes for bash-- overall it's playing good, and there's a long ball saver now-- everything seems to register (thankfully the problems with frank haven't surfaced in a while, so maybe they finally replaced a switch or something,) but it's definitely a little on the dirty side, and the rubbers feel pretty dead.

worse off is Elvira. reportedly its days at billy ray's are numbered. elvira was losing balls shot into the coffin, and going on an endless ball search to no avail. this could be due to the fact that it had its tilt settings reduced to next to nothing again, presumably at the request of the guys that play it regularly and kill scores on elviras with no tilt. there was a dude in there playing when i showed up, and he had 100 mil already on ball 2, but he was absolutely thrashing the fuck out of that game. kind of boring.

i did not play JM to find out if they fixed the glove.

[oneandasixtenth]

where is this billy rays you all speak of? the one on MLK is no longer there

[ROM]

Yes, it's still there. big green house with a glowing sign.

[autofire]

i think its red not green. and the tavern sign out front. if your going north on mlk and you see tinys on the left then look to the right and good ol BR is coming up soon. oh and its red!

[oneandasixtenth]

is this place past north of alberta?

im thinks of the southern food place with the heated concrete countertop..it is south of alberta on the east end of the street it changed names and looks like its not fairin so well

i will put out a ADP for it

thanks

[revtest]

That was billy reeds your looking for billy ray's dive bar red building green and red tavern sign 4 or 5 blocks north of broadway pins are upstairs have fun!

[oneandasixtenth]

was at billys last night and monster bash is down for the count...turned it on for the lemmet theroy and it worked once but then once it whet into frankin mode she shut down with my ladys credit unplayed ...and it took another credit from in in the startup should have known better

[fathom22]

Billy Rays has a serious low power issue upstairs. With all the pins turned on the voltage at the wall outlets read around 106-109 volts (most pins will randomly reset under 110 volts) They also have a dishwasher on the same circuit that draws down the power a lot. I'm meeting with Mara tomorrow to try to figure out a way to resolve the problem.

<MWM>

[autofire]

Mike you are awesome and we are lucky to have you and all your wonderful machines to put our hard earned quarters into! thanks for everything!

[fathom22]

No problem, keep me informed of any issues you are aware of with Quality's pins, i'll make sure they get taken care of.

I talked to Mara and we decided it would be best to give Johnny Moronic the boot from BR's. I was up there today and the other 5 pins were all being played with no resetting with Johnny turned off. Hopefully the dishwasher doesn't kick on during a tournament and all the pins start resetting!

<MWM>

[Soundcard]

That's too bad I like that game a lot. If it goes out somewhere else be sure to post something.

[oneandasixtenth]

fathom 22 you should get the cliffy insert for the MB machine ...easy to install and it will protect your investment..

doing great wish i had you down here on the coast