The Fredösphere

Monday's edition of The Ann Arbor News covered the arrival of an exhibit of pinball machines opening today at Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti.  You can see 29 machines selected from a collection of 400.

The idea of pinball design is to integrate the pinball machine's theme with everything that goes on during a game, [collector David Silverman] says.  That includes the lights, bells, whistles, music, text and features such as extra points.

Oh really?  I thought the idea of pinball was to create an excuse to display ultra-soft, ultra-low-quality p0rn.  I can't help but associate the machines and the subculture around them with sleaze of the most off-putting kind.  (I'm not saying this is a fair generalization; I'm just reporting an impression.)  I would love to claim my avoidance as evidence of a superior virtue, but really it was mostly just snobbishness.  Therefore, although I like video games, the high-tech offspring of pinball, I never played pinball much.  I owe it to my parents, who simply chose not to raise me in a bar environment.  I should also mention that my childhood was consumed by various jobs I was required to work.  (I played piano in whorehouses.)