Official Resigns Over Post-Quake Pinball

Yahoo! News ^ | Fri May 30,10:16 AM ET | Reuters

[yonif]

TOKYO (Reuters) - A senior Japanese local government official resigned Friday after admitting to playing pinball instead of helping to deal with a powerful earthquake (news - web sites) in the area, Kyodo news agency said.

Takashi Chiba, the deputy governor of Akita Prefecture in northern Japan, was enjoying a game of "pachinko," a popular pinball-like game, when a strong earthquake struck at about 6:30 p.m. Monday, the agency said.

The quake injured about 100 people, damaged buildings, roads and railways and could be felt as far away as Tokyo, about 450 km (280 miles) to the south.

A chauffeur-driven car was waiting outside the pachinko parlor, but rather than return to his office to deal with the emergency, Chiba kept on playing for another 45 minutes, Kyodo said.

"I am extremely tired both mentally and physically and have lost confidence in my ability to do my job," the article quoted Chiba as saying.

A local pressure group is also looking into how often Chiba used government vehicles for his pachinko visits, Kyodo said.

[Ronin]

Pachinko addiction is a strange thing. I don't understand it myself -- especially since the amount of money people win is never that fantastic compared to the time they spend on it.

My own theory is that the flashing lights, sounds, crashing of the balls, etc., all become somehow hypnotic.

Anyhow, it's a big problem, and not just confined to the lower incomes.

[Cvengr]

Isn't it interesting how Pachinko is similar to the Matrix trailor? I have a Matrix screensaver loaded on my PC and its remarkably similar except with a blackened background and vertically scrolling kanji flourescent green scribble as though one is focusing on a Pachinko pattern.

[Dane]

Pachinko addiction is a strange thing. I don't understand it myself -- especially since the amount of money people win is never that fantastic compared to the time they spend on it

The funny thing is that to any outsider(gaijin) who goes to the pachinko parlor one would see what looks like a carnival midway, where a person trades their "winnings"(the ball bearings) for stuffed animals and such. That's the facade. Then that person takes that prize back behind an alley to a shack where they trade it for cash.

I've also read that the pachinko industry is controlled by a North Korean mafia and the profits go back to North Korea.

[Ronin]

Oh heck Dane. I know all that. I've even played it myself and one modests amounts of money.

But I don't think it is the money -- or not JUST the money. There are easier ways to gamble that are no where near as time consuming, noisy or just plain annoying. To me anyhow.

[Hatteras]

This one took many of my quarters:

But I don't see how it could ever go through an earthquake without tilting. You just look at the damn thing wrong and it would 'tilt'.

Grrrrrr.........

[RippleFire]

bump

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Sears sold pachinko machines for a few years in the 1970s. I still have one that works pretty well, set up in our basement.