# Episode 215 – Stickers **Source:** Slam Tilt Podcast **Type:** podcast_episode **Published:** 2023-09-18 **Duration:** 105m 1s **Beat:** Pinball **URL:** https://www.slamtiltpodcast.com/2023/09/17/episode-215-stickers/ --- ## Analysis Ron and Bruce discuss Slam Tilt's STOMP tournament (44 players, $400 prize, custom wrestling belt trophy), Pintastic show logistics and venue issues (elevator problems, AC failures), various pinball game releases and manufacturers (Godfather accessories, Spinal Tap shipping, Pinball Adventures quality concerns, Haggis support issues), and gameplay impressions of recently released games including Venom and Final Resistance. ### Key Claims - [HIGH] STOMP tournament has 44 registered players with 4 on waiting list — _Ron: 'we got a um yes bruce is going to be going on a cruise cruisy cruise and uh you know so we're going to be delayed for a little while yeah so so you won't see us in two weeks like usual you won't get to see our our stomp post-mortem nope but uh tell them the big news you just told me what's the big news which one what we talked about like seven or eight different things what's the first thing we talked about was it stop yes so yes folks stop the ultimate premier tournament of the northeast area we're going to 44 people 44'_ - [HIGH] Drew Robichaux set world record for longest continuous pinball play at 62 hours 20 minutes on Stranger Things — _Ron: 'do you know who Drew Robichaux is he is the world record holder he's played pinball the longest amount of time ever 62 hours and 20 minutes but he picked a shitty on Stranger Things'_ - [MEDIUM] Haggis pinball has not released software updates in a long time — _Ron: 'But they have not had a software update in a long time and they just don't contact their customers'_ - [MEDIUM] Haggis has known about Kelts lockdown bar stress cracks for 5 months without resolution — _Ron: 'There's been two or three that have stress cracks, and they get worse and worse and worse. He's known about this for five months in haggis. I'll get you a new one, Tia. Insert cricket sounds.'_ - [MEDIUM] Bowen Cairns was blocked by Spooky Pinball on social media — _Ron: 'Bowen Cairns. He posted on his Facebook that he was blocked by Spooky. I don't know. He doesn't even know why.'_ - [HIGH] Pintastic hotel elevator inspection expired August 31st during the event — _Bruce: 'Well, then you look at the inspection notice, and you see that it expired August 31st. Nice. Let me remind you, we were there just a week ago.'_ - [MEDIUM] Godfather accessory package costs approximately $1,200 for all items — _Bruce: 'I guess the price of the whole package was like $1,200 for all of them in one package'_ - [MEDIUM] Rob Zombie Spooky game hurt Alice Cooper sales due to poor quality — _Ron: 'And that probably did hurt Alice Cooper because it was just like, oh, we're not going to fool us again. They were celebrating when they got rid of the thousand for 750th one.'_ ### Notable Quotes > "Bruce is going on vacation. Fuck all you people." > — **Bruce Nightingale**, Opening segment > _Sets irreverent tone of episode; explains Bruce's absence for upcoming content_ > "It says, Ron Hallett, 2017. I won one, so I can sign it. So it only has my signature on it." > — **Ron Hallett**, STOMP discussion > _Reveals original STOMP tradition of winners signing the fire hydrant trophy was forgotten; proposes signing ceremony revival_ > "11 games always playing. I was like, what the fuck? 11 games." > — **Bruce Nightingale**, STOMP preparation > _Humorous math error during tournament planning discussion_ > "Mike from Home Pin... his ego is so insane it's so great... He builds turds." > — **Ron Hallett**, Spinal Tap discussion > _Harsh critique of Home Pin manufacturer; characterizes products as non-functional_ > "You wasted resources. Halloween was a good theme. And then Halloween, they didn't implement it well." > — **Bruce Nightingale**, Spooky Pinball critique > _Criticism of Spooky's theme selection and implementation quality despite good IP choices_ > "Well, Spooky answers emails. Whoa, did you just say something positive?" > — **Ron Hallett**, Spooky discussion > _Rare positive acknowledgment of Spooky's customer service despite other criticisms_ > "I was there when Charlie announced that Bowen was going to be working on a company. He was in tears." > — **Ron Hallett**, Bowen Cairns/Spooky conflict > _References Charlie Emery's emotional reaction to Bowen joining Spooky; contrasts with current blocking situation_ > "It really sucked. Could have used you, man." > — **Bruce Nightingale**, Pintastic layout discussion > _Slam Tilt podcast was asked to have dedicated room at Pintastic but couldn't transport games_ > "That is the ultimate video mode. It's not a video game." > — **Ron Hallett**, Venom discussion > _Defending Venom's character selection mechanic against Bruce's criticism of video game mechanics in pinball_ > "I couldn't hear a damn thing, so I have no idea what the thing was telling me to do." > — **Ron Hallett**, Venom gameplay experience > _Venom speaker audio problems prevent gameplay understanding during preview play_ ### Entities | Name | Type | Context | |------|------|---------| | Ron Hallett | person | Co-host of Slam Tilt Podcast; organizer of STOMP tournament; pinball enthusiast and tournament player | | Bruce Nightingale | person | Co-host of Slam Tilt Podcast; going on cruise vacation; operator of Rochester Pinball Collective | | Drew Robichaux | person | World record holder for longest continuous pinball play at 62 hours 20 minutes on Stranger Things | | Bowen Cairns | person | Pinball designer; blocked by Spooky Pinball on social media; working on Final Resistance game | | Charlie Emery | person | Founder/leader of Spooky Pinball; was emotional when announcing Bowen Cairns joining the company | | Bug | person | Co-owner/creative director of Spooky Pinball alongside Charlie Emery; part of new era leadership | | Scott Denise | person | Software designer for TNA pinball game; currently working with Bowen on Final Resistance | | Mike | person | Owner of Home Pin; creates homebrew/custom pinball machines; criticizes other manufacturers | | Gabe | person | Showrunner for Pintastic event; organizes VIP room with high-end game collection | | Slam Tilt Podcast | organization | Podcast about pinball hosted by Ron Hallett and Bruce Nightingale; runs STOMP tournament twice yearly | | STOMP | event | Slam Tilt Oh My Pinball Tournament; held twice yearly (at Ron's house and Rochester Pinball Collective); 44 players registered, $400 prize, wrestling belt trophy | | Rochester Pinball Collective (RPC) | organization | Pinball arcade venue at 349 West Commercial Street, East Rochester; 50+ games; hosts tournaments; has Rotation 8 (world rotating game) | | Pintastic | event | Premiere pinball show in New England area; recently moved to new hotel with elevator/AC issues; next event in April | | Spooky Pinball | company | Boutique pinball manufacturer; criticized for blocking Bowen Cairns; praised for email support; makes games like Alice Cooper, Rick and Morty, Scooby-Doo, TNA | | Haggis Pinball | company | Pinball manufacturer; criticized for poor customer support, lack of software updates, unresolved hardware issues (Kelts lockdown bar cracks, Fathom t-nuts) | | Home Pin | company | Homebrew/custom pinball manufacturer; criticized for poor game quality and malfunctioning machines; relocated from China to Taiwan | | Pinball Adventures | company | Small homebrew manufacturer; making Elements game debuting at Pinball Expo; taking non-refundable deposits; facing quality control complaints on previous games | | Stranger Things | game | Pinball machine used by Drew Robichaux for 62-hour continuous play world record | | Venom | game | Recent Stern Pinball release in Pro and Premium versions; features character selection with playfield changes; speaker audio problems noted | | Final Resistance | game | Spooky Pinball game in development; Bowen Cairns and Scott Denise working on software | | TNA | game | Spooky Pinball game still in production; software updates through Scott Denise's site, not Spooky's | | Alice Cooper | game | Spooky Pinball game; sales reportedly hurt by poor quality of previous Rob Zombie game | | Godfather | game | Pinball game with new accessory package ($1,200 for all items including topper, horse head shooter, legs, lockdown bar) | ### Topics - **Primary:** STOMP tournament organization and logistics, Pintastic event venue issues and layout changes, Haggis Pinball customer support and quality control failures, Spooky Pinball personnel drama and blocking of Bowen Cairns - **Secondary:** Venom pinball gameplay experience and mechanics, Home Pin homebrew manufacturer quality issues, Godfather accessory marketplace and value proposition - **Mentioned:** World record pinball endurance play by Drew Robichaux ### Sentiment **Negative** (-0.65) — Episode dominated by criticism of manufacturers (Haggis, Home Pin, Pinball Adventures) and Spooky Pinball drama. Complaints about venue logistics at Pintastic. However, some positive notes: STOMP tournament excitement, praise for Spooky's email support, appreciation for Scooby-Doo theme. Ron and Bruce use humor to deliver harsh critiques, maintaining entertainment value despite negativity. ### Signals - **[business_signal]** Haggis Pinball experiencing significant customer support crisis with unresolved hardware issues (lockdown bar cracks) and lack of software updates for extended period (confidence: high) — Ron: 'He's known about this for five months in haggis. I'll get you a new one, Tia. Insert cricket sounds.' and 'But they have not had a software update in a long time and they just don't contact their customers.' - **[community_signal]** Bowen Cairns blocked by Spooky Pinball on social media for unknown reason, creating tension between designer currently working on game and company leadership (confidence: medium) — Ron: 'Bowen Cairns. He posted on his Facebook that he was blocked by Spooky. I don't know. He doesn't even know why. That's just so crazy to me. I mean, he's in a game that they're currently making.' - **[sentiment_shift]** Positive reception of Scooby-Doo theme and rules updates by Spooky Pinball despite previous manufacturer criticism (confidence: medium) — Ron: 'Scooby's a good theme. Scooby's a great theme.' and 'the rules are keeping up they've been updating they have a lot of new blood in there' - **[event_signal]** Pintastic venue change created infrastructure issues including failed elevator inspections (expired 8/31), AC inadequacy, and reconfigured layout reducing tournament visibility (confidence: high) — Ron: 'Well, then you look at the inspection notice, and you see that it expired August 31st' and 'the air conditioning could not keep up in the main room' - **[market_signal]** World record set for continuous pinball play (62 hours 20 minutes on Stranger Things); previous record was ~40 hours (confidence: high) — Ron: 'Drew Robichaux is he is the world record holder he's played pinball the longest amount of time ever 62 hours and 20 minutes' and 'I think the previous record was like 40 hours' - **[personnel_signal]** Potential leadership shift at Spooky Pinball from Charlie Emery era to Bug/new era, possibly driving out or marginalizing previous collaborators (confidence: medium) — Ron: 'when the new, you know, when Bug is there and Spooky Luke in the new era, you know, they probably want their own people. So the old people kind of get pushed out' - **[product_concern]** Pinball Adventures (small homebrew manufacturer) facing customer complaints about quality control and poor support; taking non-refundable deposits for unrevealed game (confidence: medium) — Ron: 'somebody bought one of those, the first game, the Pony Factory ones. and the ink's wearing off the play field and you have much many quality issues' and 'they're taking non-refundable deposits. Of course they are.' - **[product_concern]** Rob Zombie Spooky game (confirmed as poor quality) negatively impacted sales/reputation of subsequent Alice Cooper game despite strong theme (confidence: medium) — Ron: 'And that probably did hurt Alice Cooper because it was just like, oh, we're not going to fool us again. They were celebrating when they got rid of the thousand for 750th one.' - **[technology_signal]** Venom pinball audio system appears problematic with insufficient speaker volume preventing gameplay comprehension during preview play (confidence: medium) — Ron: 'I couldn't hear a damn thing, so I have no idea what the thing was telling me to do.' --- ## Transcript Uh, Beavis, for this next line, I'd like you to try to remember a time in your past when you experienced some sense of deep personal loss. Oh, yeah. You mean like that time I found a dead rat in the toilet, but then Butt had flushed it? Yeah. That wasn't even a rat, dumbass. Well, whatever it was, it was cool. And you destroyed it, bunghole. Coming to you from beautiful upstate New York, this is the Slamtail Podcast, a show about all things pinball. I'm your host, Ron Hallett, here with the other host, Bruce Nightingale. Hello. Hello, and this is episode 215. Bruce is going on vacation. Fuck all you people. Wow. Fuck all you people. he just told all the listeners to get wow how nice um and wait a second would you expect i found a t-shirt i really want to buy oh god it says yes i'm an asshole and i'm good at it that's yeah that works for you yeah it does doesn't it yeah it definitely does um yeah you threw me off there just immediate f-bombs before he you get started so we got a um yes bruce is going to be going on a cruise cruisy cruise and uh you know so we're going to be delayed for a little while yeah so so you won't see us in two weeks like usual you won't get to see our our stomp post-mortem nope but uh tell them the big news you just told me what's the big news which one what we talked about like seven or eight different things what's the first thing we talked about was it stop yes so yes folks stop the ultimate premier tournament of the northeast area we're going to 44 people 44 so i'm gonna that's it because there's there's four people that are in the waiting list so you're in you'll have to contact i'm gonna be contacting the people if it's 43 or 42 41 guess what that's it if you've been on the wait list you're in if you pay not on the wait list so yeah isn't that exciting Bruce you want to hear something funny about Stop when I was in the process of going through and cleaning all 30 whatever of the games which is a pain in the ass you know that the The Jack Daniels fire hydrant I have, the same one you had at Silver Ball Saloon. Yes, yes, I still have it. I looked at it from the side, and I saw something there that I didn't remember seeing before. A signature. You know what it said? No. It says, Ron Hallett, 2017. Wow. I'm thinking our original idea was whoever won Stop would sign the fire hydrant with the year. And then we completely blew it because by the second year, we totally forgot that that was the thing. I won one, so I can sign it. So it only has my signature on it. I'll have to sign it when I get back there. World famous Bruce Knight. We'll have to figure out what year that was. Yes, I can go back and IFPA is great with that. Who else has won? Let's see. Jerry twice. You see, I think he's coming. Yep. Joe, didn't he win? Joe Lemire, yeah. And I think he's coming. Maybe we can actually get that sign of a signing ceremony. I like that idea. So I don't think people came here to hear us talk about Stomp. Did they come here to came? Stomp is awesome. Getting ready for it is a pain in the ass, though. Yes, but guess what? Top prize. If you guys are playing in this thing, it's going to be $400 for the winner. Wow, $400 and a special kind of trophy. And we can tell them what kind of trophy it is. Oh, we can now? Now we can tell them what China trophy it is. Okay, what China trophy is it? The China trophy it is a belt. A belt. A wrestling belt. Yep. Because it's always good to wear a belt. Yes. But we won't say what's on it. Nope. It fits. It fits perfectly. It is so awesome. Ron, I will be wearing my Slam Tilt podcast T-shirt from Mrs. Pin. I hope you'll be doing the same on next Saturday. I will. Good. So we'll be matching. We'll be matching. And for those who may have never listened to the show before and say, what the fuck is Stop? What are they talking about? It's a tournament we have once – well, twice a year. Twice a year. Once at my house and then once at the beautiful Rochester Pinball Collective. Or at the Silver Ball Sloan when we have that. Or when you have that. and it stands for Slam Tilt Oh My Pinball Tournament. Yes. And we've had up to 40, 45 people. We've had 48 people one year and that was too many. So I'm pushing it with 44, but we're going to have a game upstairs. Yes. Hopefully two games upstairs because we should just set up the ACDC. Then we'll have a modern and an old one. So there'll be at least four people upstairs every round. Yep. And hopefully Spectrum doesn't go out like it did last time. Yeah. God. But just think about this, people. We're going to have 21 games always playing in Ron's basement. No, is that right? No, sorry. No. 11 games. 11 games always playing. I was like, what the fuck? 11 games. Math skills, yes. 11 games. Mm-hmm. So how many games are going down? We should like – Three. Although we have to do prerequisite. By going down, do we mean they break and they're fixed, or do we mean like they're out? Down hard. Like down hard. How many do we think are going down? Three. Yeah, we had three last year. We did? Now we're down hard? Yes, we did. I only remember they had 14. Stargazer also kept on rebooting, and we finally took it out because it rebooted twice, and then it was locked in. No, it didn't reboot. It wouldn't boot. And it just kept on. And then when we got the boot, it would reboot and reboot. Yeah. So that was down. And I think there was something else. I'm trying to remember. Stars died. Yes, it did. But that dies every year. It can't be on more than like eight hours. I think it just gives up. And we'll have the inferior sound of Cheetah. Yeah. Yeah, I'm already taking heat on that. Yep. Zach was very upset with you. Yes, he was very upset. Well, Scott, our own Scott is coming. Maybe he'll bring us a ROM. The man who made the code. Maybe he can work his magic and do the blue cheetah version of the ROM. Did anyone talk about our cheetah versions? Like did all blues get blue code or did blues get, you know, or greens get blue? Oh, our conversation last episode. No, I didn't see anything on that. Pretty much fail on that one from everyone. Wow. Telling our listeners they failed. Yes. Even after they sent us so many emails to the ball bag, they still failed. I love the ball bag. Because they didn't answer your specific question. Yep. I saw somebody brought home a blue cheetah today, though. So there's another one out there. Hmm. I thought that was super rare. Yeah. Super rare. I don't know. But the guy who bought it, he's a guy in Ohio, and he grabbed it. And it was a blue, definitely. So they're still out there. They're still out there. It's like ZX Files, like something about we're out there or they're out there or something. Yes. What's new and exciting in pinball, Mr. Ron? Okay. I'm going to go through our wonderful list here. Let's see. And you may have noticed, listeners, that the latest episode came out earlier than usual. Yes. Because I'm minimizing on the editing. Is sanity is going? Because my sanity will be better, and I really don't think people notice that much from what I've seen. But I will say, Ron, this Friday, we're going for ice cream. Oh, yes, yes. We're going for ice cream. Yes. Fuck yeah. And you promised to get something other than just vanilla. Yeah, I can do that. I'll get coffee. Yeah, you were going to get a swirl, you said last time. Or coffee. Of course you'll get coffee flavor. That makes sense. Coffee flavor coffee. well before we get into the shows because we will be talking a lot about pentastic how about godfather accessories did you see those came out yeah what do you what do you think about them oh they're awesome i can make any game i want now yeah they look a lot like the things that came with the collector's edition yeah god any which way to mooch a dollar the things on the legs, the thing on the lockdown bar, except they're a different color. I think they were gold on the collector's edition. These are silver. Looking at them, it actually looks better. And the horse shooter, the horse head shooter. And a topper! But it only has one guy shooting instead of two. Two, yes. Yeah. Cash grab! I think that's your catchphrase now. It is. It is 100% a cash grab, but I think overall the price of the whole package was like $1,200 for all of them in one package, which is way less than stuff. Way less than buying, yeah. Yeah. So I guess – Yeah, we'll see what happens. Their games might be way more expensive, but our accessories are less. Yes. I don't know. Just – Let's see. How many of these would I actually buy? Well, the topper, of course. No. Because, you know, I'm a topper guy. So, yeah, I would get the topper. It shoots at you. Come on. Nope. The horse head shooter. It literally shoots at me. I ain't buying it. Well, no, you don't want that. The horse head shooter. No. I would get a topper that had Nerf bullets. Yeah, exactly. That would be cool. Hmm, there's an idea. Yeah, see? They probably wouldn't do it because they'd be afraid of malfunctioning. Or pop me in the eye. Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. Lawsuit. Yeah. Yeah, it's really going for your center of your stomach, but a little kid's playing it, and it pops right in the eye. With a Nerf pellet, and somehow it hurts him. The horse head shooter, no. No. I don't like the shooter, because... I hate all different shooters that are... Except I have the World Cup soccer one that's a soccer ball. It's the exact same size as the original, so that's perfect. But when they have the scared stiff one that's as big as a freaking pool ball, and you're supposed to be hitting – well, you had it on – I had it – no, my dad had it. I knew you were going to put him under the pool. My dad had it, and I hated it. Yes, it was so hard to hit the skill shot with that big freaking thing on there. Let's see, the leg thing, it looks pretty neat. It's okay, but I'm not really – I like my factory legs. I'm happy. The lockdown bar thing looks good, especially in silver. So that I might get. That and the top. Yeah, not a topper. Just a lockdown. I'm really cheap. You hate toppers. I'm a cheap date. Okay, nothing else on that? No, it was just okay. It was like, yeah, it's there. Well, do you know that Spinal Tap is shipping? To all seven buyers. So get ready, seven buyers. Is he shipping anything to this country? I mean, he hates the U.S. Probably not. He hates the U.S. That's right. Mike from Home Pin I love that guy his ego is so insane it's so great inflate to 32 pounds and he's got it up to 70 pounds in his fucking head 70 pound head yes oh he's just like if I'm not making the biggest noise I'll make it even better I'll make fun of more people and everything like that. Oh, fuck yourself. You got a piece of crap game. Have you played it? No. Nobody has played it. No. It's been at the – Yeah, it's been at the shows, and they don't work half the time. It's at the Pinball Hall of Fame in Las Vegas. All kinds of people have played it. Yeah, okay. And how many have reported that it's been good? I haven't heard anyone report that they liked it at all. There you go. Drop the mic. Boom. Done. Drop the mic on Mike. Yeah. let's see yeah he builds turds sorry he builds turds that should be his fucking logo i build me australian turd mate in china in taiwan i'll say taiwan that's true he's not in china anymore he's in taiwan he found out that might not be a good deal with the whole political climate right okay uh pinball adventures you know the makers of honey factory Yeah, oh my God. There's two stories out there about this. Well, they're coming out with their latest game, Elements, which will make its debut at Pinball Expo in a month, and they're taking non-refundable deposits. Of course they are. For a game that they really haven't shown. Did they have a cabinet picture? I mean, I haven't seen any. They had the back glass picture. Okay. So what are the multiple stories on this, Bruce? Well, somebody bought one of those, the first game, the Puny Factory ones. and the ink's wearing off the play field and you have much many quality issues and but i thought they used what was it uh what the special wood they use that yeah exactly yeah and it looked like shit so the guy's like hey you know he fought it with his credit card company and he gave all the information credit card company credit card company still fell in line with mike and mike won't do anything for him wait a minute the guy mike i mean uh but I mean, a guy who owns Winning Factory. I was about to say. No, owns Pinball Adventures. I was about to say, his name's Mike, too? I don't know what his name is, but yeah, support your product. This is a small hobby, and if you piss off the first group of people. Did you hear his interview? The Pinball Adventures guy on, was it Pinball Profile? Yes. Hi, Jeff D'Aless. Just when he started saying things like, it's easy. Oh, it's easy. Oh, that. Well, guess what? when you have no creativity and it looks like shit anything's easy hey have you played punny factory nope but it looked like crap i saw it i saw the videos and it looked like crap come on you can't say anything unless you play it did you look at it i looked at it and did you think it looked like crap i i like the back glass i know you hated it did you like it did i like the i I thought it looked kind of like a stripped-down game. It didn't have that much on it, but that doesn't mean it's bad. Oh, it's bad. I'd have to play it, Bruce. You should have an open mind. Nope. Nope, nope. Okay. People are still waiting for their freaking fathoms from Haggis. It's supposed to be by, what, the end of the year, they said? End of the year, they said. So we're going to hold them to that. Okay. They got two and a half months. Right? Yep, two and a half. And are they going right into Centaurs, or is it going to be like a delay? I guess they are. I have a bit of good news, though. Oh, okay. What's that? Guess what game is leaving the RPC? Well, Fathom already left. Yes, it did. So being at your horrible negative attitude, I'm assuming it's Kelts. Kelts is gone. Yes. but that's you never had any issues with that no we didn't i just came really bad it really it's got a play it shoots well well okay it's just well so how is it bad just it's not fun like it's very unbalanced rules like if you get into one of the multi-bowls it's you're up to 20 30 million and then the other ones you're going i got three million what the Fuck. And plus the support there has just been, ugh. Examples. You can't just say things. Oh, very easy. I have a ton of examples. Give me some examples. All the problems with the fathom we had with all the parts that broke and everything like that. And the T-nuts underneath and everything like that. But also, Keltz, he's had the lockdown bar cracked. Literally cracked. The lockdown bar. Yes, the bar. The actual bar. The metal bar cracked. Yes. Okay. The one that he stamps with haggis. Did somebody pound it or something? Nope. Sure. There's been two or three that have stress cracks, and they get worse and worse and worse. He's known about this for five months in haggis. I'll get you a new one, Tia. Insert cricket sounds. Yeah. Why? It's a shame because they have a good bunch of people there. His communication skills suck. He needs somebody to actually answer and do communication for that company. He needs Marty to do that. Marty would be great at that. I thought he was working on the games, Bruce. Exactly. But guess what? You can't sell games or have good support for games if you don't answer the questions for people. All the problems that are on the pin side links for Haggis, everyone's complaining about the same things. That should say you have a problem. Let's address these. It's crickets. Literal crickets. It's a shame. It really is. Because they have a good bunch of people down there. And when the product, I know the product is good, it comes out and it's really good. But they have not had a software update in a long time. and they just don't contact their customers. Well, get back to the customers. Yeah. Get back. Guess what? If I'm emailing you and you don't hear anything after two weeks, that's a problem. Even a week, that's a problem. I will say, even Spooky answers emails. Whoa, did you just say something positive? I did say something nice. Spooky answers emails. Wow. So what does that tell you? Well, you know who they don't answer? Anything from Bowen Cairns, obviously. You got it. You like that feed right there. I softballed it. I like that feed. That was good. Softballed it right in. Yeah, Bowen Cairns. He posted on his Facebook that he was blocked by Spooky. I don't know. He doesn't even know why. That's just so crazy to me. I mean, he's in a game that they're currently making. I know. TNA, which they're still making. If you beat, was it the ninth reactor? It says, Bowen, is that you? Yep. And I know that's not going to get changed because the software for that is by Scott Denise. If you need to update software for TNA, you don't go to Spooky's site. You go to Scott Denise's site. And I know Scott Denise is not going to change that because he's currently working with Bowen on Final Resistance. Yep. Well, yeah, what a shit show. What the hell happened there? Are you blocked yet from Spooky? It's just, but he did. But are you just blocked? Their best games, like software-wise, Alice Cooper. I know. But are you blocked from them? Are you blocked from them? I wouldn't think so. I'm not either. How many times have we bashed the shit out of them? Oh, we're blocked now. I mean, that's just, there's something that happened there. Oh, yeah, there's something behind the scenes. There's something behind the scenes because, yeah. Either they heard that Bowen said something or they heard of some – it's something like that kind of shit. And then, oh, well, and somebody said something and then somebody said something back. I was there when they hired – I was there when Charlie announced that Bowen was going to be working on a company. He was in tears. Charlie was in tears. And it goes from that to like he's blocked by Spooky. Banned. That's so weird to me. It's not smart. And it doesn't make your company look any better. It really doesn't. It doesn't put you into a big bright light. It just says Teddy. Yeah, but as long as their themes are still good and their support gets back. No, they're not good. Yes, spooky. Scooby-Doo is not a good theme. Oh, and what's it called? What's it called? Freaking Rob Zombie was. And Jetsons was. And Domino's was. Well, they were out of sort. They were done for the other companies first. I know, but still, they're not good. Guess what? You wasted resources. Halloween was a good theme. And then Halloween, they didn't implement it well. Yeah, but it was a good theme. Scooby's a good theme. Scooby's a great theme. I'm thinking probably whatever they have next is going to be a good theme. Rick and Morty was a good theme. Rick and Morty was a great theme. So as long as they do that, their support gets back to people, Bruce. They do. I agree with that. And they actually make the product, which they do. They will keep selling regardless of who they block. Unless they get another fucking flaming turret of a Rob Zombie. that's why alice cooper didn't sell you think about it it struggled to sell yeah yeah because of rom zombie if they get another one of those the next game say either the theme's bad because they had they had what was the first one called again uh america's most haunted which was it was good enough where it's like oh okay they got something out let's go and and then they showed Ram Zabi and you saw the art, especially the cabinet art, and you're like, oh, damn. It was awesome. Yeah, and then it was a turd. Oh, it was a fucking fried chicken turd. And that probably did hurt Alice Cooper because it was just like, oh, we're not going to fool us again. They were celebrating when they got rid of the thousand for 750th one. They were like, yay, we got rid of the last one. We got rid of it. Yay! We got mail. Yay! We got mail. You got mail. Yay! What's that from? I'll let you think about that one. Is that like crank anchors or something? Yes, it is. That's why I was waiting for it. Yes, it's just like, yay, got mail. Yay! Well, yeah, it's just, you know, if they have another turd, it's going to hurt them. I think Scooby is fine. Oh, I think Scooby's okay. I've only played it twice it's a really good theme integration the artwork is just magnificent the rules are keeping up they've been updating they have a lot of new blood in there not just the owners anybody that lives in Benton, Wisconsin is hired hey Joey I just moved here you're hired I wonder if some of that is what the whole issue is you had the Charlie era But when the new, you know, when Bug is there and Spooky Luke in the new era, you know, they probably want their own people. So the old people kind of get pushed out and then you get, you know. Now, let's think about this. Who blocked Bowen? Was it Charlie or was it Bug? Oh, yeah. Spooky. We don't know. Who knows? Oh, so much drama. As the pinball turns. what else do I have here do you know who Drew Robichaux is he is the world record holder he's played pinball the longest amount of time ever 62 hours and 20 minutes but he picked a shitty on Stranger Things I applaud you Stranger Things what a great game and it held up Bruce the game held up for 62 hours and 20 minutes of continuous play. I'm surprised the cool stops weren't on the fucking round of the cabinet. They must have changed them before this started. But congratulations, Drew. I think the previous record was like 40 hours or something and he just kept going. I guess he doesn't want anyone to beat his record. No. We'll just have to beat it. Ready, Ron? No. God, no. Oh, that would be... No. I would never play that long. You get to hang out with me for at least 63 hours. Are we playing together? Is it like next to each other? We're playing together. Oh, no, you're going to motivate me. We'll do it at the same time. Well, that would be playing together, Bruce. No, no, no, no, no. We're not playing together. We're playing on two different games. That's what I meant. At the same time. Yes, playing together. No, we're not playing together. You're playing a different game. Playing together is playing the same game. Okay, sure. Am I right or wrong about this? I'm not going to say you're right. Because you know I'm right. Okay. If you want to tell me that Bruce is right, you can write to us at slamtillpodcast at gmail.com. You like that? Or you can message him on his other podcast, and then they'll have to make, you know. If you want to visit Bruce in person and tell him that he's wrong, you can go to the Rochester Pinball Collective. Where is that, Ron? At 349 West Commercial Street in East Rochester. What's sweet, Bruce? 2965. How many games do you have there, Bruce? 50 I hear you have the world Rotation 8 Is that true Does it actually work Yes it does and only one of two on location Wow So it rotating In the world. It's rotating. It's rotating around this world, and it's rotating in RPC. And the lineups at RPC are always rotating. Yes, they are. New games are always coming in, leaving, et cetera. Just like kilts. Bye-bye. Gone. Wave to it. Mm-hmm. All right. Let's get on to the shows, Bruce. There's been shows, tournaments. There's been stuff happening since our last episode. It is a happening place. September is insane. It's like crap every weekend. It is. It's silly. Right now, the Summer Open is going on at the world-famous Rock Fantasy. I just thought I'd bring that up. I have no idea who's winning. It's 6.30. Oh, they're still playing. They're still playing. They definitely still got to be playing. They just started the seventh round at 4.20. Yes, yes. 4.20. Did you get it? Yeah, I got it, Bruce. So let's see. Let's just do Pintastic. Dun, dun, dun. The premiere show of the New England area and their new hotel. What was the hotel again? I couldn't tell you. I wasn't there. You guys were there. Yeah, I can't remember the name of the hotel. But it is much better than the Sturbridge Hotel, that dump. That dump, I love it. This was much improved. much we got sheets i think they got air conditioning i think we got us a new home that's good yeah i yep uh the only issues i saw were the elevators the elevators are old bruce like they make the ding ding so you're like oh okay we're kind of old and then when i go in the elevator it does all kinds of weird movements which kind You know what I mean? When you want to go down, it goes up, and when you want to go up, it goes down. Well, then you look at the inspection notice, and you see that it expired August 31st. Nice. Let me remind you, we were there just a week ago. Dun, dun, dun. And I think at least one person did get stuck in an elevator. Excellent. So other than the elevators, oh, and the air conditioning could not keep up in the main room. Oh, my. That's not good. At all. and they had separate units in there and it's, yeah, no. It could not. Well, the next one's going to be in April. So hopefully it's a little better because it was hot outside. That didn't help. So hot. Let's see. This year, the way that it was set up, I'll explain it to you, Bruce, since you weren't there. If you remember the previous ones, they would have the vendor room, the free play room, and then had a couple satellite rooms, like the VIP room area, where you need a special badge to play all of Gabe's games, like the really high-end shit. Yes. Gabe, the showrunner. So this year, what they did is they had, like, it was a combined vendor free play room, which I'd say was maybe a little smaller than the vendor room was previously. Kind of felt a little smaller. and then a ton of satellite rooms. One I didn't even see until the end of the day Friday. Right across from the main room, the main hall, was another room with more games. Then you would go down the hall to the other end of the hotel, and there would be a room that was the Southern New Hampshire Club room and then the Western Massachusetts room and then the Bells room and then some other room. They asked us to be a room too. and we were like, he can't drive out so many games for us. It really sucked. Could have used you, man. Oh, he can use more games. Then if you went to the end was the tournament room. I kind of missed having the tournament in the vendor area because it seems like you were more in the action of the vendor. Like you got more people just kind of going by watching like, oh, what's this? But then it's a dedicated area. You only get the hardcores. There are the only people going in there. Let's see. What else? they did bands again they did a band Friday night it was like a kids marching band or something with horns and stuff they were really loud I'm sure they were good then Saturday they had the cover band and that's why they need to come out with a band pin every year otherwise they're going to run out of acts because they had the first time they had the Guns N' Roses cover band last year they had the Rush cover band so this year they had the Foo Fighters cover band yay yep and they were fucking loud great they were loud I went up they were like right next to the elevator they're playing I get in the elevator I go up to the fourth floor get out I could still hear them oof luckily we were nowhere near the elevator our room but yeah really loud really loud and I'm sure they were fine mmm What else? Usual vendors, you see there. They had a couple of Pulp Fictions. They had a Final Resistance in one of the satellite rooms that I just couldn't get on to play. Oh, Venom was there. I got to play Venom. I got to play. They had pros and premiums. So I got to play. I played the pro, and I played premium. Are you going to ask me? No. No? You're not going to ask me what I thought? Why not? They both suck. What do you mean they both suck? Did you play them yet? I don't like – I actually watched a lot of it, and it just doesn't – Okay, again, you haven't even played them. No, I have not played it, but I don't like the – Stop. You know, guess what? I can play against somebody. He swipes and I swipe in. Guess what? He can be more powerful than me and kick my ass on a game. Yeah, but it doesn't do – That's trash pinball. No. That's fucking video games. Yeah. Everyone complains about fucking video modes. That is the ultimate video mode. It's not a video game. It is. No, it's a video game mechanic, yes. Exactly, which sucks. It's not meant for pinball. Which is not even on when you're in tournament mode. So what are you worried about? I'm just worried when I'm in a private place. You don't think that would be good in RPC? People being able to log in and pick up where they left off? Nope, nope. Then you're totally wrong, Bruce. No, not at all. You know me. I'm never wrong. And stop making those noises. This is because of my headset's hitting my chest. Yeah. Oh, man. Wow. Is that a lot of chest hair going on there? That is a lot of chest hair. You've got to wax that stuff off so we don't get that sound. So I play Venom. Yes. I couldn't hear a damn thing, so I have no idea what the thing was telling me to do. I don't know why you'd want the pro. Just because you picked the premium, you pick different characters, and shit on the play field changes in front of you. Like this thing rotates. Like it's a ramp. No, it's now a scoop. No, now it's this. And the pro doesn't do that. So immediately it's like, well, why would I want the pro? I want the premium. The doppelganger, what is it, the forearm Spider-Man thing? Yes. With the big ass. I kind of had this. In my head, I kind of pictured him coming down slowly like a motor. But he does it. He comes down. like really fast whoa they're held and then he just goes right up much faster than i anticipated cool uh the live things are pretty cool so the balls are always moving yeah i'm just not really i'm not not feeling that one and sales have shown that it hasn't because you can still get an le yeah it has not moved at all actually i was going to talk about that the market is slowly drying up with money i think slowly drying up with with free money everyone has all used to have this free money like hey i'll sell this other pin and i'll get the newest pin and all these people with these old pins are going like you know trying to sell godfather i'm selling godfather for 1200 under what i bought it for and usually people would be grabbing them, grabbing them right up. It ain't happening right now. The market is going down. So you're saying the market is softening. It's soft, all right. It's big and soft, and it gets a little gushy. Oh, my God. Yeah, there is definitely more stuff. You see it, that more stuff is available. You see some of the distributors, they have ads now where they're, you know, cutting prices, this is so much off, this is so much off. I have this available, this available, this available. I have everything available, which wasn't like that before. Is that a good thing for us collectors? Maybe we can actually get things? I mean, well, the prices will never go down, ever. Yes, I know that. Well, they are starting to go down. For new stuff? Yeah, I think they will eventually. If they can't sell, if they can't, wait a second. If Venom doesn't sell, they're usually going to A, stop it at one run. B, wait until like a year and hopefully gets better and then try to run it again. Or C, we'll have to drop prices. But if they show that soft and then say another game comes out right behind it and that goes soft, guess what? You want to keep that production line running or you're kind of fucked. Do you think another game is coming out from Stern this year? Because there is a break in the production schedule. There is going to be a break in production schedule, but I think they're going to still try to – they're going to take out some of the backlog. It's been slowly getting better, but they're going to take the money that they have right now. What do they still have a backlog on other than maybe Godzilla? Yeah. Also, what else? Not Elvira, but it was something else that's come – but there's a couple others. There's like two or three other games that have – but guess what? But they're going to sell the games that they know they have money for or people who have guaranteed put deposits down. I don't see warm and fuzzy time for Stern in the next six to 12 months. Really? I don't see it for any pinball place. Dooming glue for Bruce. I'm going to be honest. The market's not that strong. So all these people who bought these games at these ridiculous high prices, they're thinking like they've done for the past three to four years. I'll just flip it and get the newest one. Now they're going, oh, wait a sec. I can't flip this thing anymore. I can't get the money I want for it. Oh, shit. Now I'm screwed. Now I got to do this. So I feel that way. What do you feel? I mean, I could see it in all the ads. Yeah. it's getting tighter people they're going down $500, $1000 off their original prices and nothing's moving Ghostbusters down $2,000 ain't moving probably still James Bond whatchamacallit the 50th anniversary one 60th 60th but it's just really tight and people don't want to spend that extra money. They really don't. So, guess what they're going to do? They're going to tighten their belts a little bit and go, yeah. Because guess what? They don't have another 12 grand to spend or 10 grand to spend on a new LE if they don't sell something. And if they don't sell, that's what happens. What do you feel, Mr. Ron? There was a tournament been a pintastic wow um yes i didn't win you didn't win again no i didn't win again you got second though right i didn't even qualify bruce so they had the what was it called silver ball rumble run by the sanctum guys yes sanctum guys hi sanctum guys hello jim so when i saw the games I played almost all of them at some point. I saw Dirty Harry. Oh, Dirty Harry's back. All right. But $500 million was the best I could do. I could not replicate my previous performances on that game. Very upsetting. Well, everyone has a little performance issue once in a while. So it's card-based format, meaning you have to have five good games. Actually, if you had three really good games and two mediocre, crappy games, you could get in at the bottom. Yeah. So Zach, our Zach, he played his first entry and he was in. And that held the whole way. Must be nice. Yeah, must be nice. A lot of players did that. I was not one of them, but I also didn't just spend ridiculous amounts of money trying to get into this thing. I tried, I think, three times in one day, twice the other. Was it five, maybe seven entries? It wasn't a lot because it's a circuit event now, and the level of talent is so much higher there. It's so much harder to get in in a format that I was never that good at to begin with, and I was, nah, I wasn't going to just keep putting money into the Jason Zoller College Fund, which is pretty much what it is. Wow. When you saw the players in this tournament, it's like, okay, either Jason Zahler or Eric Stone is winning this. Before, I mean, unless something crazy happens, that's what's going to happen. And guess what? Guess who the final two players were? Gee, I wonder who. Jason Zahler and Eric Stone. Ta-da! And they changed it. It always used to be three out of five. Yep. And the finals were all head-to-head, which I always liked. Head-to-head finals. but it went four out of seven this year. I know. Something to do with having to get more points and whopper crap. And, uh, it just makes everything take way longer. It finished way later than it usually does because of that. Um, and we had a somewhat controversial finish. Yeah. I don't consider controversial. Not really, but basically it was three, two. Well, It was 3-1, Jason Zoller's in the lead against Eric Stone. So Eric Stone picks Hulk, and he wins at Hulk. So it's 3-2, and Jason picks his kill game, I call it. It's the game he would pick whenever it's like, okay, time to win. Time to win. Paragon. And like the fairest playing Paragon you will ever see, and Jason played it forever like every time. Yeah. So it had extra balls on. This is important to remember. It was told from the beginning of the tournament. Well, at the beginning of the tournament, there was a sign on there that said, play extra balls. For the finals, it said, plunge extra balls. And Jim, when he did the finals speech to all the players, specifically stated, make sure you do not plunge someone else's ball or you will take a zero. So there you go. There you go. So Jason plays his first ball and has a good – he got like all the in-line drop targets down. You get in the saucer twice and you get an extra ball. So he gets the extra ball. He walks away from the game. And Eric, who had been doing this the entire finals, like he was just walking up and plunging immediately. No hesitation. And he did that. And as soon as he did that and he sees points scoring on Jason's score and not his, he realized he plunged the extra ball and he just shut the game off. Yep. Like, okay, you win. Yep. So pay attention, folks. Yes. The life you save may be your own in a tournament. Your own. Have you ever had a situation where those rules were in place and you think somebody walked away on purpose? To try to get you to plunge the extra ball? Sometimes I feel that way, yes. You do? I've actually felt it, yes. I have. Interesting. There was a whole conversation on this in one of the discords I'm in. Yes. And according to the almighty holiness, Mr. Josh Sharp. Who's that? You would lose the game if it affected the other player. And obviously scoring points for the other player, you're affecting it. Yes. But if you were to plunge and say it didn't hit anything. And it went down back. And it went down. And they didn't lose their turn. No scoring. Nothing was amiss. According to him, that's okay. By at least his rules, which I assume would be IFPA rules. Isn't that interesting? That is very weird. I don't feel that way. Now, in this particular situation, the tournament director said straight off, you plunge someone else's ball. Yes. You get zero. And don't forget, we always have to go by the tournament director. Yes, that is the overriding yes. Yes. But I never heard that. So then people were saying things like, well, what happens if it's a classic stern? I plunge someone else's ball, realize it, and I tilt on purpose. Then you would get a yellow card for tilting intentionally, but you wouldn't get a zero on the game. Exactly. That was like, wow, okay. I got to remember this for any like big level IFPA events. Yes. And that's supposed to be the rule. And if you did it on, if you did it on the valley tilted. Well, you would tilt through. So you would get to zero anyway. So yeah. So you're just screwed on that. Yes. Well, in an IFPA tournament, if you're playing on a valley, you're playing like players one and three anyway. Exactly. So yeah. I just thought that was interesting. But would it be tilting through if it was actually not on? Yeah, I guess tilt-throughs are allowed if you're playing one and three. That's the whole point. Yeah. But if it didn't go to the next player, you didn't tilt through somebody's game. You just tilted on an extra ball. Is that a tilt-through? Being honest, right or wrong? Think about that. Because I remember being in Street Play Florida. and I was in a group where a player, same thing, player had earned an extra ball, didn't even realize it. They didn't realize they had the extra ball. Player comes up, plunges. This is on Joker Poker. Somehow manages to not hit anything. He doesn't hit a single switch. Gets it on the flipper. He lets it drain. So no harm, no foul. But they let the tournament director know, and then the tournament director did something you should never do. He let it up to the player whose ball got plunged. He says, well, technically we can DQ him for that. Would you like him DQ'd? Would you like to take the victory? So now you're making the player make the decision to be an asshole. Luckily, the player was not Bruce Nightingale because he would have been like, yeah, drink. Yeah, DQ the fucker. Sorry, pal. Yeah. But, yeah, I do feel sometimes people, if they get extra balls, do walk away. Yeah. And the icing. Yes. The icing. Guess what? There should be a clock of two minutes. I feel that should be an IFPA. There was some icing done. Oh, there's a lot of icing done. I won't name names, but I know at least one. It's getting more and more common. I know at least one player. They're like, I've got to go to the bathroom. I'm like, okay. But the other player played their ball first, and then they're still waiting, still waiting. Exactly. Screw it. I'll go to the bathroom. They go to the bathroom, and there's the player that supposedly said they had to go to the bathroom. They're standing outside the bathroom on their phone just waiting. Yep. Because they're doing the ice. I really feel of a two-minute. As soon as the balls drain, a timer should start. Two minutes. Yeah. After two minutes, the tournament director or whoever's in that group, who's not that turn player, this is a head-to-head, of course, plunges the ball. The funny thing is, in this case, that the player who was doing the icing was way better than the player they're playing. Yes. So why do you feel you need to ice someone who you're almost certainly going to beat anyway? But still, it seems like it's that way all the time, and it's getting worse. Like literally, some of these tournaments. They'll have a player that gets a bye, and then, okay, the previous round finishes, so here's your opponent, or you're about to go out, and then the player got the bye, I need to go to the bathroom, I'll be right back. It's like, dude, you literally just had all that time. Yeah, you had all that time. Sorry. You're first, you get up here and play. Two minutes, we plunge. Done. Yeah. That's the way it should be. We want to be a mainline sport. We have to stop taking these breaks. Well, it's not a sport, Bruce. Well, people want it to become one. And want it to be on TV. And want it to be famous. And the problem is we need these kind of rules also. And guess what? If you're in a tournament, one round, you get one bathroom break for four minutes. That's it. The only way you ever make the game popular is you've got to show it in a 30-minute, way-edited-down version like they used to do with the poker. Well, they probably still do with the poker. They do do with poker. And you've got to have players who are complete assholes and make them, you know, yeah, be an asshole. Like, totally be an asshole. It's like wrestling. You've got to have heels, faces, et cetera. That's the only way. And if you're playing – I don't want that if I'm playing in it. I don't want people to be intentionally be assholes to me or something. Guess what? You're being an asshole to me by bicing. You are. I would never ice you, Bruce. Oh my. I just want them to be gay instead. I don't want icing. I think that's a stupid part of the game. Especially in hockey. I hate when icing happens. Oh, icing. It just breaks up all the action. It brings you back to the other zone. that face-off. Isn't it like Olympic level they don't have icing or something? Yes, there is. There is icing still. There is? Yes. Oh, they don't have – you can pass it longer. Yes, you can go two-line. Two-line pass. There we go. Yes, you can. I knew there was something different. Yes. Okay. But, yeah, so that was a good tournament. Who won, Ron? We said that, Jason. Zoller won. What about the classics and the – Oh, wait a minute. There was no classics. That was the one tournament. Oh, they don't have classics there? No. Oh, I didn't know that. I haven't been there in years. They had other mini tournaments there, which, let's see, I have some of that information. Good. They had the Silver Bell Brawl. They had that on Sunday. That was run by, oh, God, Shannon, D-U-C-H-A-R-M-E. I'm not going to try and say it. Congratulations. So who won the seniors tournament? The seniors tournament. Yeah, because we don't have that any fucking more, and I'm old. We should have a seniors tournament. And they had other tournaments, too, I think pre-tournaments. Pre-tournaments. I actually said that. Oh, my God. Yes, you did. Fuck yeah, it's working. Oh, no, no. It's working. It seeped into my head. They had earlier tournaments on Thursday. I think the Thursday tournament, Jerry Bernard won. Jerry, Jerry, Jerry. So that was fantastic. I thought it went very well. Really liked the new building. It wasn't hard to improve on the old one. No. But, I mean, they could have picked another turd, but this one, it was much nicer. And depending on how the relationship goes here, you never know. Oh, yeah, you don't know. But I would say they found a new home. Good. Congratulations to them. So how about Klee Pin? Well, before that, the same weekend that that was going on, you had the Northwest Pinball Championships, which is a tournament. It's not a show. It's just a tournament. I think it's in a bowling alley. I think something like that, yeah. Something like that? Something like that, yeah. So let's see. The overall champion of the Open Finals or whatever was Kaylee George won. Okay. Congratulations. Classics were won by Robert Gagneau won. Classics. Okay, cool. Let's see. High-stake finals for God knows how much money. I have no idea. Won a million dollars. Zach McCarthy won. beating Carl D'Angelo in a playoff. Oh, no. On Prospector. Mm. That's a good game. It is. And the women's finals was won by Hannah Hatch. Okay. Congratulations to all. Congratulations to all of the Northwest Pinball Championships. Amazingly, the tournament happened, and then the points were posted, like, the next day. Surprise, surprise, surprise. And then we had another tournament this weekend. Well, we had another show this weekend. Cleveland. Taking place in Cleveland, Ohio. Cleveland sucks. Yeah, you had Mike. Was it Mike? Mike Dimas. And a couple other people. Catalytic converters. Yeah and some other people got their catalytic converters stolen in the parking lot of the hotel where the show was Good security there folks What else we got They stole some trophies A belt was stolen What the fuck Very, just really good. Good job, Cleveland. The mistake by the lake is its call. Oh, God. Oh, it just doesn't look good when that happens. And then the stream was just, oh, the classic stream was terrible. Oh, you're so mean, Bruce. No. Guess what the whole classic stream was until the finals. What was it? Alien Star. I love Alien Star, but I don't want to watch it for six fucking hours. Oh, well, they had two different... I'm not allowed to move the thing until the finals. What? Well, they had two different rigs there. Yes, they did. Two different people streaming. Two different channels streaming. Straight Down the Middle was doing... The main and the women's. The main and also did the women's. Yeah. So for classics, why couldn't we move this fucking stream? Did you see the rig when they moved it? Oh, it was... Well, it looked like it was... You know, whenever I see rigs, I always have this nightmare of, man, what happens if one of the cameras or something falls off, falls on the game during the game? Yeah, that was about ready. This thing worried me because when you see the thing rolling, it was kind of wobbling around. It kept on dropping out. Really? Oh, it dropped out so many times, William. Funny. I'm sorry. I saw the final game. It looked fine to me. That was fine because it was stationary. Well, usually you have to. Every time he moved it, it was good sometimes. And then all of a sudden, one time, he's like, I got to jump off. I lost OBS. I got to jump off because I lost sound. I got to jump off. I'm like, I swear to God, if you probably look at Twitch on this, there's probably 23 stops for this video feed. Wow. You know how much he was getting paid to do that, Bruce? You know how much he was getting paid? He was getting his name out there for the Northeast Ohio pinball thing. Yeah, it wasn't good at all. It wasn't pretty. Bruce is really mean today. It was just like, we're watching this. What happens if stop? What happens if the stream goes down there? If I lose spectrum again, are you going to bust on the channel because spectrum went down? No, 15 minutes. No, 15 minutes we're sitting there watching a floor shot. Floor shot. really i can't move this they won't let me to the finals then why the fuck even showing this like i'm like i i turn it on for the first time like oh wow eric's playing okay let's see what the next game we're going to eric russell cny was there yep i'm sitting there going all right let's see who the next game he's going to no we had another group that's playing the same game. Oh, cool. Next, Jeff Teels is on there. Okay, maybe they couldn't reach the game or maybe they're single. No, there's another group coming up and they're playing Alien Star again. And somebody's like, is this Alien Star hour? And the guy had to go like, no, I just can't move it to the finals. And people are like, what's this good for? What do you mean finals? Do you mean finals, finals, or the quarterfinals? No, the final finals. They weren't allowed to move the rig until the final four. Maybe that's Because that's all I saw, so it looked fine to me. Yeah, it was fine. But before that, you were waiting 20 minutes. Oh, I'm sorry, Bruce. It was fucking terrible. I'm sorry this free stream disappointed you so much. Yes, the golden free stream was piss poor. And congratulations to Jack Nebraska, the winner of Classics. Yes. Great name. It's Jack Nebraska. Jeff Taylor's got third. He was driving the bus, I think, too. Was it a magic bus? Magic bus! Let's see. The women's tournament was won, and our Zach would have loved it. It was a ladder final. It was one by Beck Gallagher, who was the top seed. Congratulations. They won on Legends of Valhalla. It was the final game. Let's see. And then the main tournament. Mm-hmm. It ended in a playoff. Nice. It was a tie between Nate Grant and Raymond Davidson. So they had a playoff on one of your favorite games, Frontier. Oh, great. And Raymond won. All right, Raymond. So Raymond won Klee Penn. Congratulations. Zach didn't do too well. Our own Zach. Our own Zach was there, and he did not qualify in Classics. Or Maine. Sorry. I couldn't believe he didn't qualify. And classics. I know. There's a lot of good games and classics. Just because he's really good at classics. And it was pump and dump format, but cheap pump and dump. Cheap dump pump and dump. What was it? Five? What was it? No. It was nine entries for $20. So for $100, you have 45 chances. Yeah. I wonder who would do 100 chances. Who would do $100 worth of chances? A lot of people. I mean, 100 chances. Oh, there was people who did. I know. A lot of chances. Oh, I know there was. But before, Zach, as time expired, he wanted to get on PinBot. But there was someone on PinBot. And the person who was on PinBot just kept hitting the ramp over and over. Yay. Just to stall. Because as it turns out, that person was 24th. And I think they were doing a block. Yeah, the clock block. They were making sure Zach didn't get on, which is a perfectly valid strategy. Oh, it is. And it worked perfectly. He never was able to get on Pinbot. Pinbot was stranded for Zach. Yeah, it was stranded. Pinbot stranded. I didn't hear much about the show itself. I don't hear anything. Yeah, I heard there was nothing. Zach said there was nothing really to sell there. It was more like a garage sale half to vendors. and did they have i heard they had a lot of high-end games there yes they had a lot of high-end games almost every wpc 90 95 so yeah it was very popular with that but not a lot of the sale so not if you were buying stuff if you're buying stuff but hey if you're trying to keep or sell you know you get to play some stuff that was cool so very cool okay so i don't really know much more about cleapin you know i except for don't don't park there Don't park there, yeah. You might get your converter stolen. Just fly in and then, you know, take a shuttle bus. Catalyst converter. What do they do? I mean, do they just, those hot things on the market? No, they're very hot. The materials inside is worth like $500 to $600, and converters go up to $1,000, $2,000. Oh, my. Yeah, he got his converter stolen, and they took the O2 sensor. So, yeah, Mike was not very happy. Fucking people suck. Didn't it happen to him last year, too, or something? No, it's just other problems he had last show. Yeah, he's had some no fun for the shows. Oh. Oh, yawn. He muted his yawn, though. I muted my yawn. I heard the beginning of it, though. Yep. All right. The Giants just won, and the Jets are going to lose. What? The Giants won? The Giants won. That's impossible. They were down 20-0, and they just won 31-28. My father completely gave up. Yep. Wow. And the Jets are losing right now 30-10, so I can see my Jets being 1-1. So we're going to be 1-16 now. How do you feel about what's-his-name never got to throw a pass? Hey, well, he's never threw an interception. So guess what? Got to look at the positives. Got to look at the fucking positives here. What's-his-name again? Rogers. What's-his-first-name? What's-his-name? You don't even know. No, I don't. I didn't even want him. Oh. I didn't. I felt like Favre all over again. Oh, that's right. 20 years from now, we're going to get, what's his name, 20 years from now. You got Favre. That's right. We're going to get Love in 20 years from now. Love. Is he going to be any good? Who's Love? That's the guy that's now on the Packers. We keep on getting the fucking rejects. We got Favre. Oh, that's right. Now we're going to get Love. That's right. You watch 16 years and we're going to be talking about it. We're going, the fuck it, we got Love. Fucking Jets fans, I suck. Oh, the Jets. Yes. We're going to be 1-16 this year, count my words. Okay. Are you ready for the ball bag, Bruce? I'm always ready for a full and loaded ball bag. It's pretty full. It is pretty full. It's pretty full. It's full of the goodness of our people, our peeps giving us messages. All right. He's like, all right. Wow, that was a very. All right. No, I was looking at something else. All right. This is from Mark. Hi, Mark. Subject is episode 214. Wow. What would this be about? Well, it's the previous episode. Wow. Hey, guys. Been listening for about three years now. Would like to say I like the show. In reference to the discussion about Stern's NFL, let's see. You know the locations where the game can be found. One of them was at Peter Paul's in Rome. Oh, Rome, New York. Yeah, that's when we said it was local to you. And you're like, I ain't local. It's a small park with bumper boats and go-karts and things of that nature. They also have the following pins. Pinbot, High Speed 2, Data East Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Star Wars Episode 1. I'm kind of their unofficial tech in maintaining the machines. Well, thank you. Please, continue maintaining. Yes. It's funny because Pinbot was down last year, and I asked the owner if they had someone who fixes the games, and he said no. I took it upon myself to fix it because I love the game. So now I guess I'm the fix-it guy. Thanks for the good entertainment, gentlemen. Mark. Thank you. Thank you, Mark. Welcome to hell. Oh, God. We have one. The subject line is Fox shows in the 90s. Okay. Because we had our whole discussion. See, this is from Greg. Hi, Greg. He says, don't forget Get a Life. Oh, Get a Life is fucking awesome. Just watch the submarine episode and the zoo animals on wheels episode. Absolutely brilliant. And Parker Lewis Can't Lose and the Tracy Allman Show and the It's Gary Shandling Show. Yes. Wow, they did have a lot of good shows on, didn't they? They did. there was an irreverence on Fox and this mixed with some great syndicated content like Star Wars Next Gen that's right that's where I watch most of them on Fox made my local Philly Fox affiliate totally awesome great show guys great thank you sir thank you sir isn't this great oh god we got one of these again actually we got two of these it's from the mystery pinball company Bruce did you see these oh god From George Spelvin. Hi, George. It says, now that... Did we invent any wrestlers for this company? Because we had Hogan as... What's his face? I got the guy. Nope, I got it. We had Dusty Rhodes for the American Dream of American Pinball. Who is this? This is Ted DiBiase. The Million Dollar Dream. The Million Dollar Man. The only thing I know is his laugh. Or whatever. making his summer home in Hyannisport, Massachusetts. The million-dollar man, Ted T.P. Hussey. You got to say it that way, too. Yes. I miss him. I wish he didn't die. Howard Finkel. Oh, it was so good. Let's see. He would make champion so many syllables. The World Wrestling Federation champion. Let's see. Now that Labor Day is over, the work begins, it says. Boy. So what was he doing before this? Sleeping? And it shows a backbox doing a code update, and it shows powder-coated lockdown bars. Isn't that exciting? All right. We'll move that to archive. Maybe if they ever come out with an actual game. I agree. We have one from Scott. Our Scott. And he sent it to the ball bag, which means I guess it's okay to read this. Let's see. He sends a link to Pinside. Uh-oh. About Capcom. Kingpin. Finished software project. So it's like, so Scott says, the guy that did Tales of the Arabian Nights 2.0 is upgrading Kingpin. Although not sure if he has the actual game. Doesn't seem like it. murko is selling his tales of the rabianites 2.0 without any compensation to him and he can't stop them selling it oh jesus how is that possible that's fucking bullshit okay hopefully put a back door in it oh my oh my yeah and it's it's joshua the password you hear and they said kingpin the people who are making kingpin done circus maximus yep done yeah well you bought the Translight, didn't you? Yeah, I bought Translight. I like the Translight. Translight's awesome. But you're not getting a kingpin. No, doesn't bother me. It only puts $75 in it. I don't care. It's not thousands of dollars like other idiots did back then. Scott says, how are your Reclear Quicksilver Mirko playfields holding up? Wow. When we put them actually install them, we'll know. Yeah. RPC one might be a better gauge as it would probably get more play than Ron's. Yeah, probably. No, ours got re-cleared, though. Ours are super cleared. They're awesome. Yes, they are. He says, do you need anything for Stomp? Yeah, code. Code for... Yeah, we don't need machines, but we need that version of Cheetah that you gave me, but with the blue sounds. Yes. I'm having... I play it now, and it just feels so wrong. Oh, it's terrible. It feels so wrong. It's terrible. Please, Scott, please, please take it upon... Just give us the right code. I guess there's things with the sound and he doesn't want to – you could screw something up or whatever. I don't know. Don't worry. He's just a guinea pig. Ron's just a guinea pig. No. I don't want guinea – I'll probably run it on the current code for Stomp and switch it later. No, we can't have that game in there if it's on that. So we can only have it with the new sounds even if it's completely untested? Yep. Unlike the tested version I hav e in there? Yep. All right. This is from Jesse. Hi, Jesse. It says, sup, guys? I just recently learned of your podcast. Oh, no. And I've listened to a couple of recent episodes. Keep it up. I know one of your segments has to do with stuff you fixed recently, so I thought I'd share mine. Oh, yes, we will get to repairs. I have a superstar and a planets at home. Planets? Planets. Both early 70s Williams. Both have real shitty flipper action in my opinion. They are weak as hell and super buzzy. High tapping doesn't help. I finally posted on Pinsight about it and got mixed reactions. Some folks insisted it's the way things were meant to be and I need to adjust my expectations. Others were more sympathetic. One commentator pointed me towards a Mr. Pinball repair tips site. It just shows how to change the flippers from AC to DC. Oh my God. And that's what I ended up doing on superstar. Holy fucking hell. The flippers are goddamn amazing. Now I bet they are. Yeah. Soldering tiny bridge rectifiers really sucks, but the results speak for themselves. As of this moment, I feel like every AC flipper needs to be converted immediately. Early seventies flipper Williams flippers are a pox on humanity. Have you all changed any of your AC flippers to DC? Did it work over time? my only concern is that the newfound power will maybe beat up the superstar drop target it's going to beat up more than that a small price to pay for a game that is now a thousand times more fun to play it's your game do what you want man i played a getaway once where the guy had modified the transformer for 100 volts so it's getting 120 yes everything was insane the supercharger was the fastest supercharger ever. Oh my god. I don't know how it didn't break. It was incredible. But the issue with the Williams flippers is there are a bunch of small parts that are all mounted to the wood. Yeah. So that you already have more play than you should have. This is why actually Sonic were way ahead of Williams. And they used Williams parts, but they did it better. They had the clear coat, the highly toxic clear coat, but their playfields still look great now. They used Williams flipper parts, but they put them on a base plate. So there's no play. No play at all. And they flip so much better. Their chimes were better. They sounded better. They did things like in their saucers, they'd have like a metal guard around them to protect the wood. They were actually ahead of the game in many areas. Now, their cabinets sucked. They did. So that's the negative part. But in so many other areas, they were way ahead of Williams. So, yeah, AC to DC, that'll do it. Yep. I don't think I've ever modified anything. I know our Zach, he put an extra transformer in his Black Knight, and he runs the bottom flippers at 50 volts. Yes. And, yeah, it plays way better. It does play way better. You can actually make up there any which shot. And even a weak one, it'll still make it up. Yeah, I know. And when you hit the spinner, it's like, oh. Oh, it's beautiful. It's beautiful. Yes. Yeah, I would be concerned. I just sent you two pictures on Facebook. So on Messenger? Yes. Okay. Book in the face. So, yeah, the only thing I'd be worried about when switching to DC is just breaking shit. Yeah, you'll break a lot of shit. But guess what? It's your game. But if it plays great. Fuck yeah. You can run. Let's see. What do we have? It's better than clown LEDs. Oh, definitely. Oh, it's very good. So Bruce sent me a picture that says, this explains why stormtroopers miss everything. And you can see by their helmets that your eyes don't actually line up to the eye holes in the mask. Yep. So they're practically blind. That's why they can't shoot anything. There you go. Thanks, Bruce. Then the second picture? Is Alien Star. Yes. Oh, and the scores are upside down. Yeah, that's the great street we had. And I see Bob Matthews' picture. Yes, of course. You can't miss Bob. Even though I don't see his face at all, I can still tell it's him. Oh, yes. All right. Such a full bag of balls. It is a full bag. Let's see. We got, I'll save this one. AI knows pinball. As in AI. You know AI, artificial intelligence? Yeah. This is from Rabia. Hello, Rabia. Let's see. He says, hey, guys, thanks for keeping up the episodes consistently. Looking forward to my local show. We just fucking shot his fucking. That was going to kill us at the beginning. Oh, what, the hiatus hernia? But we warned people. Yes, we did. Looking forward to my local show at Pinball Expo this October. Let me know if you all will be there. I'll be there. Ron will be there, so give him a hug. He loves hugs. No, do not listen to this man. I found this exchange fruitful when asking AI about opening up a new pinball business. Let's see. See below. Okay. It says, also, question. Why don't pinball locations set up any more incentives to play their games? For example, getting discounts and or claim prizes based on high score, et cetera. Mostly, I think this would be a great draw for the kids in these kid casino establishments. Cheers. We do that. We give high scores out if you get a high score during the month. Wait a minute. You give high scores out? We give them right out. That's how you win sometimes, Ron. You just give them the high score. But if you get the high score and you keep it until the end of the month, you get extra stamps, which will get you into the place sooner. So we give away free stuff. Make it worth your while if you're good at pinball. Okay. Try again. So here's what the AI said. Here are some tips to help ensure your pinball cafe is profitable. Cafe. This is what the AI says. Artificial intelligence says, research the market demand. Consider your location and demographics to determine if there is appetite for a gaming pinball establishment. I love appetite of destruction. It's their best album. Create special promotions. Offer happy hour specials. Gameplay loyalty rewards. Host tournaments to drive traffic during slower hours. Maximize food and beverage sales. Price menu items strategically with good margins. Upsell with add-ons. What does that mean, upsell with add-ons? What does that mean, Bruce? Upselling, so like if you – I don't know how to work in a pinball. That would be a hard thing in a pinball, but upselling would be like, hey i have a room that's like uh you know it's interior room on a on a cruise ship if you up buy you can get the window view if you pay more you even get a balcony if you pay wow get a suite that's up selling and up buying and if you pay enough you just get thrown in the water yes leverage your wife leverage multi-revenue streams in addition to food drink generate revenue from machine play merchandise event fees but the problem with that is with food and everything else and drink like that, then you have more fees also. Refrigeration, electricity. So sometimes they don't go hand in hand. Control operating costs. They must have heard you. Negotiate good deals with vendors, distributors. Manage labor efficiently at slower times. Utilize social media. Promote new pinball games, events, menu items heavily on Instagram, Facebook, et cetera. Et cetera. Build partnerships. Collaborate on events, promotions with local businesses, arcades, radio stations. Focus on return customers. Create a fun, welcoming vibe that makes people want to come back frequently. Track metrics. Use data on busy times, popular machines, food sales to optimize operations. Stay on top of the machine maintenance. Stay on target. You're too close. Stay on target. You're too close. Stay on target. Pull up. Whatever. Loosen up. Well-functioning machines get played more, reducing downtime. That is true. There you go. See, that AI is somewhat smart. Let me know. Do you have any other specific tips on optimizing the financial success of your pinball cafe, Bruce? Fix your own machines. You don't want to be paying somebody else to fix your machines. There you go. That is definitely number one. You need to know what you're doing before you try to start a business. Like if you own a collective and you don't know how to fix all the machines there, it won't help you if half your machines are down or broken or not playing well. Or playing well. Or not playing well. Yeah, not playing well. So it's not just that they're working. They have to be playing well. Playing well, too, of course. By playing well, you mean just simple things like the flippers can actually reach everything? Yes, exactly. not being like, oh, hey, it turns on and plays, but oh, yeah, I walked away after the first ball because I couldn't hit anything. That's not a good game. It could be the best game ever. It could be, you know, it could be not Star Wars. That's a terrible game. Star Trek. Well, Star Trek. Oh, perfect, Bruce. Perfect segue into this next email. This is from Cole. Hi, Cole. He says, hey, Cornholios. Already endearing with the first line. I've been listening to old episodes in order as I drive around for work, as I really enjoy the podcast and laugh regularly. Good. Just listen to the episode where it was discussed that Embryon had a vagina on the play field. It does. I am disappointed that you guys didn't get that. It should then be put with a Quicksilver and the green penis. Yes, it would be swarming. And if you put it to the left of it, all the sperm would be walking to the vagina. So you'd have a wide-body Quicksilver. Yes. Would you be the kid? Yes. You would have Quicksilver wide-body. Yes. After a few months, you would have a new pinball machine like Magic if they were together. In Bruce's case, he would just end up finding Gottlieb machines. Oh, I love this one. I love this one, Bruce. I have to agree with Ron when it comes to Spider-Man and Star Trek. Spider-Man is the better game, and Star Trek has no soul. the call outs are just that good with Spider-Man. The call outs are great. That's the only thing great about it. Bruce just doesn't like hearing that he has a cute outfit and his husband picked it out for him Wow Wow Since Bruce has probably interrupted Ron reading this saying that Star Trek is the superior shooting game Hey he did it It is It is superior shooting game All I can say is follow what Steve Ritchie yells at you and play better. It is a superior shooting game, so that's why I play better when I play Star Trek. You know when I played at Pintastic that I hadn't played in a while, that half the call-outs that Spider-Man and friggin' ACDC come from? No fear. It was fun. It's okay. I played it until I got to the wizard mode. Yeah, wizard mode. Then you go, okay, I'm done. Game's over. Yeah, that's what I did. But I still love... I knew all the call-outs. I still love it. Ah! Yeah. No limits. Everything is lit. You know. I love the call-outs. Let's see. Love listening to both of you and look forward to every episode. If you ever do another donation to Suicide Prevention again, I will gladly donate again. you guys do with the money that everyone else should do and it shows that even though you may be the biggest assholes in the world fuck yeah you still care about other people i can tell you that it does resonate with people like myself for better or for worse that is appreciated good thank you look forward to hearing you again and we look forward to continually being assholes well these spruce well i told you i'm gonna get that shirt all right uh oh god another email from the mystery pinball company oh yay two in one week yay but this one has a little more stuff thanks this one i was trying to figure out what it means thanks to all of you for playing along we appreciate your inquisitiveness we will have lots of no excuse me hold on time out what playing along means you're actually caring about what they're doing and having banter back and forth. Well, we are. We're talking about it right now. We're talking about it now, but not in emails, not anything else. We're kind of bored as fucking shit over this thing, fucking million-dollar man. Get the fucking game going. Million-dollar man. Listen, brother. You got to get this game. You got to get it out. You got to get it out now. Making his winter home in Geneva, Switzerland. We appreciate your inquisitiveness. I said that. We will have lots of stickers delivered next week. Oh, yay, stickers. And if you want to be ready for our game launch, please email me back your address. No. Okay, you can't mean email address because they obviously have that because they emailed it. Yes. Does he mean my physical address? Physical address so he can mail you some stickers. Stickers, yes. Come on, man. No. Why would I give you my address? why so you can then spam me more with just by not by the i don't know how he's spamming us we didn't sign up for any fucking thing uh he sends them so all all the podcasters exactly so now that's when he opens himself up like this game on bitches so they actually have an under playfield shot yeah with the crappy which looks pretty packed but it looks like a stern it's got the uh like a node board looking thing yep and that's it i mean there's no other information we see cabinets um ron i wanted to give him your and we're gonna give him your address right now so he can get some stickers because stickers are the most important thing in the world not good gameplay or good theme stickers fucking rock stickers stickers we love stickers i call them pasties god I think we have a title. Stickers. That sounds good. Stickers. You know, when I drive my NASCAR, I usually put some stickers on there instead of slicks. You know, the slicks don't go too well in the weather. But we put some stickers on there, we can drive like that for miles and miles and miles. Why do all NASCAR people got southern accents? You're kind of insinuating something here. There's lots of northerners like NASCAR, too. My dad likes NASCAR. Yeah, she does. Dad. I'll tell you what, man. It's all about www.com. You got naked chicks hanging out there. It's real easy, man. Segway into Boomhauer there. Okay, we got one from our Zach. He sent us an email. Oh, boy. We haven't had him on in a while. It's a pin-side post. Okay. Best read through live on the air for reactions. This one's going to be tough, Zach, because it's very visual. Oh, my. Basically, a guy bought a TwinWin. Okay. Then he opens the thing up, and the post is called, TwinWin, what are these things? He opens it up, and he sees, and you've got to see the picture. They're little jars with tubes running to them. Running to, like, relays. And he's like, what the hell is this stuff? and the next 20 posts are people trying to figure out what the hell these things are like what is this all about and what is it and what it is if you go down eventually somebody found it it was modified so a handicapped person could use it oh and they can blow they could blow and and like launch the ball flip the flippers etc using air power so if you know your arms legs don't work and it had modified legs on it so it was shorter. So if you're in a wheelchair, you could wheel up to it and blow. So I advise people to check this out because it is pretty neat. It is pretty cool. Because the items that they used for this, I guess the little, there's like four of them, they're like $200 a piece. It's not something you would just be like, oh, I'm just going to do some modifications. No, this was done for a specific reason and that was the reason. Nice. But check it out. I'd like to actually play this thing just to, like, blow the flippers. That sounded so wrong. Use my air power to actuate the flippers. And it even has an article in here. It shows a person using a pinball for people of all abilities. And it shows someone playing it. Actually, this one they're playing a digital. They're playing a Gottlieb. Looks like a victory. Yeah, that's a victory. Not a bad game. Not a great game, but not a bad one. I like Victory, but it's by that guy. Yeah. Super! Okay, Bruce. All right. Yeah, boy, want some candy? Yeah, that's more like it. Yeah, he's a real-life Herbert. Why don't you come down to the basement? I got some candy. You want to take your shirt off? It's a little hot out today, yeah. I can't believe that's an actual character that made it to the air. Like, how do you even? Yeah, we're going to have this old guy's pedophile. Yeah. No, it's going to be hilarious. Trust me. He's going to be a popular character. Like, what the hell? And his dog's going to be named? Was it? Jesse. That's right, Jesse. He was funny. His dog has no rear legs either, you know. The Star Wars parody where he's Obi-Wan. Yes. And his lightsaber gets stabbed. Yes. Looks like you showed up just in time. See, it's funny. So wrong, so wrong, so wrong. Forget we even said that. Erase, erase, erase. Okay. Nope, nope. All right. Let's end it up with repairs. Repairs. Got a weird one today. Actually, I got a weird one this week. We got a, how does family gold to work on? True gold. true goal somebody redid the play field what do you mean by redid like repainted they took it off retouched it up cleared it and then put it all back together and the lower left flipper is weakest not the thing flipper no the lower left oh yeah sorry yes is weakest shit no strength at all only acting like it's only on the hold, not on the power. No broken wire. Swap the optos from left to right, you know, for the flippers. And the problem didn't move. Didn't move. Okay, so it's not the optos. Oil tests the same left and right for ohms. Diodes test good. Can you test them when they're attached, though? Yes, because here's where we found it. Oh, so you found the issue. I did. It was easy. When they did the playfield swap, they put connectors. Did they swap something? No, no, they didn't swap anything. They had a bad crimp. Oh. So when you move the wire a little bit, Flipper got nice and strong again. And then when you moved it another way, it went really weak again. Very nice. Yep, so that was an easy fix. And now we're just going to go through the game. I mean, it's got a weak kick out out of Fester and a couple of other things, but it's a true blue gold. Wait a minute. It's a turd. It's a true blue gold. Yep. Okay. Well, you have some, there's some fake golds out there. Fake golds. All right. Yes. This is a true blue gold. By fake gold, you mean they just took a regular one and put the software in it? No, or they put software in it. They even put the decals on it. ah bruce i see people are already answering you for stop yes see that's how powerful i am they're just so happy to be in the premier event exactly northeast so uh yes there's some you know in the original adams family it didn't have optos that at least switches for the uh flipper buttons little known fact you can buy everything else for it can't kind of fake that out no it's a turd hate the fucking game oh yeah and I hate it in tournament oh my god okay what are we going to do here hit the ramp, hit the scoop hit the ramp, hit the scoop if we get into multiball let's time out the magnets I heard that gold ROMs are not preferred in tournaments they're even worse Okay. They're even worse because you get at you. They actually spot you mansion spots. They spot you mansion spots. Oh, no. Oh, yes. So, yeah, not good. Other than that, what else did we fork on this week? Whirlwind went bye-bye. Customer was very happy. We got everything working on that. And we moved Kelts and brought back in Alice Cooper. ah so that's back out on the floor how about lethal weapon lethal weapon is i think ready but we have to play it a couple more weeks because uh it's it we have the voltage at 4.96 not a true five volts but i don't know where we're losing it it's got to be something in the board drawing it down trying to stop those resets from happening and zach hasn't been around because he's been at every show every weekend yes this weekend he'll be at stomp oh yes yes so yeah it's It's not going to be for a couple weeks at least. We didn't even mention Zach's little incident. Oh, I didn't. I'm not going to bring that up, but that's up to you. Oh, come on. You can do it then. Go ahead. I don't think he would mind. Oh, you never know. Well, we mentioned it at the show to people there. He brought his. It's not going to be what you think. He brought his homebrew. Oh, okay. Yes. He brought poker to the. they had a room there that was just the homebrews so i'm there like cool look at to hear my awesome voice you turned down the volume no one heard me because they had the metallica yacht rock in there just blasting and another game next to it blasting and you could not hear a fucking thing from his game so annoyed so you want a glory in power and didn't get any of it no i was there though when Rob Burke visited. Rob Burke was there. He always does this thing where he's at the very beginning of a show. Yeah, he's coming around. And then he disappears. And he's gone. Then I think he just leaves. But, yeah, he asked Zach if he would bring that to the show. And what did Zach say? No. Well, he wasn't driving there, so unless you know someone's going to drive it there for me. Yeah, exactly. So if someone in Rochester is driving to Expo and can bring Zach's homebrew, Or further, go Boston or, you know, Albany area, you know, driving past. Just saying, just trying to get that out there, you know. We want to get Zach hired by a pinball company. Because pretty much everyone that is a programmer who is good at pinball seems to get hired. Yep. Can you take me hired by a pinball company? Because Josh Henderson, remember him? He's one of the original Boy Wonders. And then he kind of stopped playing for a while because he went to college. Yep, now he's back. Now he's back. And he's working at Stern. Wow, go figure. Because he's a programmer. It's like, Jesus, every programmer that's a good player is working for a pinball company. It's weird. Very weird. Any more repairs, Bruce? Not for me. How about you? Just a lot of tweaking, going through the games, just finding little things here and there. I got to re-rubber I got to re-rubber bad girls bad girls bye boom ching coo boom ching boom ching boom ching but my here's one that I can't if anyone out there also owns a Jurassic Park if you could write us back at slam till podcast at gmail yeah try that again gmail.com that's what it sounded like I said it did slam till podcast at gmail.com and tell me you know the post that sits in front of the upper right flipper yes so you can't hit the flipper the one that always gets loose because they just pound it chips yeah chips now where it goes through the play field on mine the nut for it is actually underneath the base plate of the flipper yes it is yes because we had to do the same thing it makes no sense it the base plate would not screw all the way in you could see it's off of the wood plus the post will never be all the way in because it's hitting the base plate ours is not ours is not we have one and ours is yeah mine is and i must have a long one big boy and i'm looking at it and i'm thinking why did they do was there a reason they just didn't move the base plate over a little bit well that you can't because there's room yeah i know there is room but with ours they have a washer underneath between the the yeah same here okay but ours we have like we had like at least quarter half inch yeah you can take a picture of it yeah well how we tightened it was by the wrench yeah but mine mine has it has a washer a washer above washer below and it's still it's hitting the base plate you can see the base plate was like off of the wood you went out you must have a real long one there buddy yeah so i'm there like this is bullshit this is stupid so you need You need to get a shorter one. So I took the screws out. I just turned the base plate, and I'm looking like, is there any reason they just didn't put it here? Because now everything is accessible. Way easier. Is there any reason they didn't put it? I can't see any freaking reason. There's none reasons. So I tightened it, and now it's beautiful. Flipper works great. Post, I have full access, so when the thing gets loose again, I can just tighten it. I don't understand why the base plate is where it is. I don't understand. We just used a wrench. That's all we did. We just used an open-ended wrench. Yeah. I mean, I could tighten it a bit, but it's still like the actual screw part that's coming through is hitting the base plate. Yeah, which I don't know why. Ours is shorter. I will take a picture of it, and you can see how short mine is compared to yours. Mine is so much longer, Bruce. It is. It's so much. It's so hard. It was banging against the base plate, Bruce. Yes, it was. What else? Things like that. tweaks, stuff that wasn't working quite right. Lethal Weapon, which I've never gone through since I've gotten it. I've never done my usual full teardown. So what got me down this path? Something got me down this path where I ended up taking the apron off, and I saw somebody ran wiring up there. They had some LEDs in the out hole. Oh, yay. So you could see the flippers better, actually. That's the reason they're there. Ripped that fucking shit right out. No, I actually left that in there. But the kickback was loose. The shooter was loose. The out-hole kicker was gummed up. So I went through all that stuff. Nice. A lot of little adjustments. I pulled the Wi-Fi dongles out of all the Spike games. Good boy. Sorry. You can't get high scores. No, I just don't want. I had an incident. I brought this up on the podcast. I was in the middle of a game. The servers became available at Stern, and it literally locked up my game. And that was the reason. Confirmed, that was the reason that my game locked up. Confirmed. I can't have that. And I'm not just going to tell people, don't sign in, because people will probably sign in. So easiest way, just pull the dongle. There you go. Pull it, baby. Real good. Boom, boom, boom. So that's all I got. All I got to do is I got to just do a rubber. Oh, next month, after all of Stomp and after my vacation, the game room will be changed downstairs. Oh, in the basement. Yes. And I will be making a repair room out of the corner like I used to have in the old house. Ah, yes. And we will be doing some playfield swappage. Ooh. So, yes. Mm. I might do first JT's, I own half of a other Stargazer, and he's been bugging me as all hell. Can you get my Stargazer working? It's our Stargazer. And he's listening right now. Oh, yes, he's going, motherfucker. Yeah, I would too. Yeah, but he's saying also, oh, yeah, I can get it fucking going. So I have to move the whole basement around, get everything the way it is, And then I'll be able to bring that in and start playing with that, hopefully. Maybe by January or February, because I want to have it done before League Night. Excuse me. It's past my bedtime, but League Night for Western New York Pinball. We still have five spots free. You could put that Quicksilver Playfield in. We could after that. Do the swap. Oh, I love swapping. But we've got five spots left for Western New York Pinball. Ron, what are you doing every Saturday afternoon at 3 o'clock? I'm not driving out to Western New York. Why not? No, no. And actually, what am I doing? Saturday's nothing, but Sunday's league is starting again soon, Bruce. I saw that, but you should come out to a better league. We're more professional players. So we have to record in the morning, assuming I'm not golfing. Or consuming I'm not working. I can't help that, Bruce. I know, it's been busy. It's either that or we'll have to record later at night, because I'm not going to get back until probably 8 from league. Or we just record on a Monday through Friday. It will suck. But now my new editing techniques, it'll be great. Yay. You don't care. You don't have to edit shit. I care a lot. You know, my name's half on this fucking thing. It's half on this. Even I do 10% of the work. Yes. That's a good one. Well, even that one, that was a good one. What? So, yes, I think that's it. Hey, where is, hold on, I'm looking for the place where it is. Hold on. So just a reminder, folks, we will be a temporary hiatus. It's just going to be an extra week. A week, isn't it? Because Bruce is going to be out on a cruise. Cruise news. Yes. What are you looking up, Bruce? No, I was looking where this place is. It's on Long Island. Memory Lane for sale. Oh, Jesus. You need a Memory Lane. He's always looking up games. The ones I used to love. I'm trying to get Ron. I think I got Ron on a half-see. Do I have Ron on a half C? Yes. Okay. We're half seeing it again. We're half seeing it on a great game. That's going to be hopefully at the RPC and Zach will hate us. Yes. We're like the only two people I think in the world who like this game. Yes. And I can't wait to put it out. And I've said it before on this one. It's Fireball Classic, folks. Yep. It's going to be great. The great sounds, whatever the hell they are. It's just like they did the squawk and talk. but forgot to actually record any actual talking. It's just a squawker. Yeah, it's just squawking. Squawk it out, you big boys. Oh, I love it. You know what's going to happen, Bruce. Zach's going to blow a gasket. No, no. That will end up being in the final of some freaking thing there where I actually have a chance to win, and someone will pick it against me, and it will fuck me hard. Hey, guess what? We can put zipper flippers in it, and then we'll have some really good time. Zipper flippers, okay. You said somebody did a newer one. Somebody did that. Yeah, you'd have to cut the play field and do all kinds of crazy shit. That's fucking okay. I don't mind that. No, it's fine. It'd be cool, wouldn't it? Zipper flippers on that? It's perfect the way it is. It is. It's going to be a great game. Oh, it's going to be a great game. So I'm going to talk to him this week, and we'll get that hopefully hooked up and have some more repair news. Yes. All right. I'm fucking tired. The old yawn says I think that's all for episode 215. I will remember to do all the plugs this time. Really? Congratulations. Let's hear them. Yes. I'm on another podcast, Bruce. Are you? What podcast? Is this Bob's Repair Lane with Ron? No, this is Silver Ball. How about the other one that you do? Shut up. This is Silver Ball Chronicles with David Dennis. Who? David Dennis. Who? He was at Pintastic. He gave me cookies. Who is he? When we talk about pinball history, our latest episode was about John Borg. I heard it did very well. Way more listens than we ever get. Just saying. Who? Boo-who. Who? John Borg. Okay. Yes, Silver Ball Chronicles, as can be heard on the Pinball Network. The Pinball Network. I'm required to say that or I get fired. Yes, if not, you get fired by Mr. Manny. I get removed from their Discord. I'm out. Yeah, I'm done. So, yes, you can contact us. for the third time, I think, on the show. SlamTiltPodcast at gmail.com. You can check out our website, www.SlamTiltPodcast.com. Look in the upper right-hand corner. I will be streaming a little this week because I want to get the rig ready, so I'm going to be doing some testing to make sure the thing doesn't, like, fail on me. Maybe you'll see us Friday night after ice cream. Yeah, maybe we'll do a stream then. Golden. Golden stream, yes. Maybe I'll say that right in there, Bruce. We'll just say, Golden stream from level zero, just to see. We'll get 500,000 people on stream. Yes. Holy shit, I don't believe we're doing it. Oh, I came here for the golden stream. Ron, do you see how many followers we got right now? Oh, my God. All right, all right. We just went the plaid. Yes. No platinum. We went right the plaid. So thanks, everybody. Isaac everyone yes everyone in the group the clusterfuck did I forget anything forget anything I don't know I think I got this week you sure I'm pretty sure so this is episode 215 until next time which will be a week later yes due to Bruce's cruise yep so until next time say goodbye Bruce goodbye Michael Wynn Can you slide? Hold my mind. You can boogie if you try. Hold my mind. It's guaranteed to keep you alive. Meteor! Level Zero! Clusterfuck! George Takai! Tim Bowles! Bruce Isms! Tournament Talk! Car Holder! Cheetah! Xanadu! Cash Grab! ELO! Ball Pay! What You Buy It! Game You Love! Game You Hate! Tournament Talk! Pinball Princess! Sir! Oh my! _(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v4)_ --- *Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 359c3183-6abe-4af4-88cc-ade1252da546*