MORE SENSELESS ACTS OF BLOGGERY

It says a lot about 1980s America that Rambo became a cultural signpost of the decade – the fantasy of a one-man All-American army making up for the shame of Vietnam by going back to the jungle to kick some Commie ass and rescue all the POW-MIAs left behind in 1973.

Even pinball games weren’t immune.



According to Internet Pinball Database, the name comes from Rambo’s code name in the first two Rambo films. Of course, the ad tagline is a reference to Chuck Norris, not Sylvester Stallone. But then Norris jumped on that bandwagon as soon as R:FB2 became a hit.

As did Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose line at the end of Commando pretty much sums up America’s attitude to foreign policy in the 80s.



Okay, that was South America, not Vietnam. But you see what I’m saying.

Right. Anyway …

The IPDB doesn’t explain why “Raven” is a babe. Probably because Raven sounds more like a girl’s name. Plus it appeals to Rambo fans for whom the ideal girlfriend is a heavily armed hot babe who enjoys killing Commies and drinking beer as much as they do.

Or something.

Kill ‘em all,

This is dF

ITEM: Stern Pinball has revealed a new line of Metallica pinball machines.

1. The Master Of Puppets version.





2. The Pro version.



3. The Premium version.



The obvious jokes are circulating on Facebook.

“You have to pay for extra balls because Lars Ulrich refuses to give them away for free.”

“To get the Jackpot, you have to repeatedly hit the spinning Napster wheel until it shuts down.”

“Comes with special ‘Haze Jason Newstead’ feature.”

“If you get four people to play, it unlocks a special Group Therapy mode.”

And so on.

But I would totally play this. As bedsitter23  and garbagecanmusic know oh so well.

More info on the Stern Facebook page, if yr interested.

Pinball up yr ass,

This is dF

My kinda dame.



[Via RetroSpace Zeta]

It’ll never catch on,

This is dF

You know you’ve made it when you get yr own pinball machine.

Dolly Parton knows.



[Via Boogie Children]

Big time,

This is dF

[Via Suicide Watch]

I’m on E,

This is dF

Nice flippers,

This is

ITEM: Cheap Talk has an interesting piece on pinball technology and economics in the 1980s – specifically, how the games Black Knight and High Speed changed the pinball industry – and eventually killed it.

Which is probably meaningless to most of you. But it interests me in no small part because I got into pinball just a couple of years before Black Knight came out in 1980, which not only brought pinball into the digital age, but also introduced the concept of an elevated playing area within the table and, of course, multiball.

Turns out High Speed – which came out six years later – was even more advanced, because the boffins at Williams figured out how to use the software to create dynamic incentives for replays.


Both tables paved the way for more challenging games, which was necessary because – unlike video games – the necessary skills to play can be used on any machine. On the downside, the more challenging the games became, the less likely newbies would try them, limiting yr traffic to the hardcore pinball crowd.

And so pinball became too clever for its own good, basically.

That’s too bad. I dropped hundreds of thousands of quarters into pinball coin slots between 1978 and 1999 (which was the last time the local arcades in Hong Kong had a working pinball game – they are gone now). It was money well spent.

Anyway, it’s nice to know some of the tech tricks behind it all, even though admittedly hearing tales of how pinball makers game the players is kind of like hearing about pro wrestling really works, or how stage magicians saw women in half. You know yr being swindled, but in a way that’s also what yr paying for.

Under the table,

This is dF

For those of you don’t know, Coop (a.k.a. the artist responsible for the icon for this post) has relocated his blog, Positive Ape Index. Which is worth mentioning in part because he’s been reposting some older material – like this reminiscence of two great things about the 70s: (1) funny-car drag races and (2) Evel Knievel.

This is true.

I was never a gearhead or mechanically inclined in any sense, but I knew a bad-ass car when I saw one. And funny-cars were epic gut-trembling monsters of insane power and speed compressed into the most cartoonishly sexiest design possible. Like Jessica Rabbit with wheels and a killer paint job.

Which explains why I know who Ed “Big Daddy” Roth is.

Then there was Evel Knievel, whose superstardom and role-model status is hard to explain to anyone who wasn’t actually there. In 2009, jumping motorcycles over things is at best niche programming on Fox Sports. In the 70s, it was prime-time gold for ABC Sports. (And for Happy Days, of course.)

Why? Coop explains it as well as anyone. My own theory is that Knievel’s secret was partly showmanship and partly the fact that no one else at the time was willing to go to such insane lengths to put his life on the line to thrill a crowd. Nowadays, we have Jackass for that.

The difference, of course, is that no one on Jackass ever got their own pinball game.



[Click for a bigger image to read the awesome fine print]

NOTE: Pinball is, of course, the OTHER great thing about the 70s. That is fact, not opinion. Coop has a great post about THAT too.

Go ahead and jump,

This is dF

The Def Xmas playlist is designed for livening up Christmas parties, but by our experience, nothing quite livens up any party like having Oliver Reed and Ann-Margret play yr parents.

So here’s “Christmas” from the film version of Tommy, available in two flavors:

1. The film version with Oliver Reed and Ann-Margret singing:


2. The same scene recut to the original song by The Who:


Do you hear what I hear,

This is dF