{"id":5695,"date":"2016-09-12T20:00:40","date_gmt":"2016-09-13T00:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/?p=5695"},"modified":"2016-09-12T20:00:40","modified_gmt":"2016-09-13T00:00:40","slug":"bowlmor-arcade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/2016\/09\/12\/bowlmor-arcade.html","title":{"rendered":"Bowlmor Arcade"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I made it to Bowlmor on Times Square tonight. I played three rounds of pinball on the third floor. It was not like playing the Baywatch pinball machine at the old Broadway Arcade<\/a><\/strong> but I found the experience close to old school. The three tables at Bowlmor had a common theme of rock bands: KISS, Metallica, and AC\/DC. The Metallica table was pretty cool. I would play that one again. The other two tables made less of an impression.<\/p>\n

At a buck fifty for 3 plays pinball is astronomically more expensive than it used to be. Gone are the days of 25\u00a2 for 5 plays and easy extras.<\/p>\n

I wandered into a pinball hall on Third Avenue a few months ago. I was unaware of how these pinball pavilions work in this year of 2016. I just wanted to go in and throw a few quarters down the drain and blow off some steam. It doesn’t work like that any more, as a somewhat surly security guard informed me. You pay by the hour. I requested to pay by the half hour. I was told I could pay by the three-quarter hour. I paid whatever I paid for 45 minutes of time but I got impatient with the hourly confinement and left after 10 or 15 minutes. I thought it was stupid.<\/p>\n

The finances of the game makes sense, though. Pinball cannot survive on 25\u00a2 a game. Compared to something like a Megatouch or similar touchscreen game consoles which hold hundreds of games a pinball machine takes up a thousand times more space and makes way less money.<\/p>\n

Arcades take me back to Daytona Beach, and those summer months spent at my father’s place as part of my parents’ separation agreement. I played a “Satin Doll” pinball machine at a game room on the Broadwalk. Some glitch in the table let me get virtually infinite extra plays. I would be at that machine for hours, never spending more than a single quarter. I never tired of watching and hearing the machine’s orgasmic lights and bells ring for 20 minutes, a free game being awarded about every minute. I left the machine there with dozens of free plays for whoever came next.<\/p>\n

Not so much tonight, where $1.50 got me about 4 or 5 minutes of pinball play, and no high score. All good, though. The arcade space at Bowlmor felt as much like a casino as a game room. The Arcade area and the bar therein was almost empty but the bowling lanes looked filled to capacity.<\/p>\n

\"KISS

KISS Pinball at Bowlmor Lanes, Times Square<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Metallica

Metallica Pinball at Bowlmor Lanes, Times Square<\/p><\/div>\n

\"AC\/DC

AC\/DC Pinball at Bowlmor Lanes, Times Square<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I made it to Bowlmor on Times Square tonight. I played three rounds of pinball on the third floor. It was not like playing the Baywatch pinball machine at the old Broadway Arcade but I found the experience close to old school. The three tables at Bowlmor had a common theme of rock bands: KISS, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19115,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[27],"tags":[81,423,553],"class_list":["post-5695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sorabji-mobi","tag-arcade","tag-pinball","tag-times-square","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/20160912_173142-640x360-2.jpg?fit=640%2C360&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paumAn-1tR","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5695\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}