The original point behind the blog was to chronicle attempts at a recognized (by Twin Galaxies) video game or pinball record score. This is still in the works as of 2021 July (and progress was not helped in the least by the COVID-19 pandemic). For the moment, pinball leagues and tournaments have accounted for more activity, though posts about my video game play or more generally about the pinball and video game scenes are still within the nominal topic of the blog.

Shawn’s IFPA number is 26733, and he is in Matchplay under ID numbers 1241, 20762, and 50497 (apparently, an artifact of playing under different tournament directors).

This is believed to be Firepower, sometime in 1979 or 1980 right before the original video game craze of the early 1980s, at a convenience store near Shawn’s childhood home. Other notable titles from the infancy of Shawn’s love affair with pinball include KISS (Bally), Centaur, Black Hole, and Eight Ball Deluxe.

A one-off tournament originally labeled as a video game tournament, organized by the physical education (PE) teachers at Olle Middle School in Alief, Texas. The tournament was played at Emerald Bowl across the street from the school. It was a simple high-score format, but games were time-limited to two minutes. Shawn was a seventh grader and played on Road Kings, coming in second. (The eighth graders played on Secret Service with a replay score stuck at 400K, and the sixth graders played on High Speed.)