It took a few months and many attempts (glad I was not paying by the quarter, or is it loonie these days?). But - MISSION ACCOMPLISHED (where's my flight suit?).
Woo Hoo!!!
And not just by a little bit either, smacked it out of the park baby 
Originally posted on 2006-10-09:
Metroid Prime Pinball High Score - Pirate Frigate Single Mission, originally uploaded by michaelbd.
Step way back to the mid - late 70s and early 80s on any particular Tuesday night and you'd likely find me hanging out at the local bowling alley. While my Mom or her Parents were knocking down pins in their league I was often chocking up points on the old classic pinball games.
Other than Galaga - which still rocks on the Nintendo GBA / GC, pinball was my thing. Something about the tactile feedback and sequence missions satisfy my compulsive stimulation requirements (OCD posting coming as soon as I perfect it with an even word count and balance the sentence symmetry).
Some of my friends participate in a pinball league which I dare not try as I'm sure to get sucked in beyond rescue. But I'm there in spirit and kicking your butts: John + Tom
The best of form factors for me is the Metroid Prime Pinball (http://www.metroidprimepinball.com) on the Nintendo DS (Lite). A combination action packed pinball game with embedded mini-game challenges from the Metroid shoot'em up series. All in a package easy enough to keep my brain from exploding from contemplation of germ sources and distribution patterns on my daily Subway commute.
I generally stick to puzzle type games that I can get in and out of very quickly with little if any back story and deep command sets to learn. E.g. tetris, galaga and f-zero are some of my longer running GBA favourites and now sudoku and metroid pinball on the DS.
Watch out falconpain - I'm coming after you.
