# The Critical Mass of Eclecticism

**Source:** NYC PinPod  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2024-09-02  
**Duration:** 37m 23s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://www.spreaker.com/episode/the-critical-mass-of-eclecticism--61232516

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## Analysis

NYC Pin Pod episode 301 relaunches a dormant podcast focused on location pinball in New York City and surrounding areas. The episode features three hosts (Benjamin Furiga, Eric Sweetland, Madeline Lynn) reviewing Arcade at Rockefeller Center as a venue with nine pinball tables and ~30 video cabinets, and sharing summer vacation pinball experiences across various regional locations.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] NYC Pin Pod previously ran 138 episodes from September 2017 to July 2020, then had 9 episodes kept alive by Eric Sweetland before this relaunch as episode 301 — _Benjamin Furiga, host introduction_
- [HIGH] Arcade at Rockefeller Center has 9 pinball tables and approximately 30-35 total arcade games combined — _All three hosts confirm; Madeline estimates 30-35 total, Benjamin estimates video cabinets separately_
- [HIGH] Arcade at Rockefeller Center is charging 4 tokens per pinball game, compared to 2-3 tokens at most 21+ venues — _Madeline Lynn, venue pricing discussion_
- [HIGH] Arcade at Rockefeller Center will close at the end of September and the machines will be redistributed by Barcade — _Eric Sweetland, venue information_
- [HIGH] A tournament was held at Arcade on Saturday, August 10th with 28 players, 5 rounds of match play, and a top-4 finals, won by Crazy Levy Neyman — _Benjamin Furiga, tournament results_
- [HIGH] Madeline Lynn achieved high scores on all five pinball machines in her hometown of Ithaca, New York across four venues — _Madeline Lynn, summer vacation narrative_
- [HIGH] The Stranger Things machine at Liquid State in Ithaca feeds ball down the middle between both flippers instead of to a flipper on the burn-it-back shot, indicating improper leveling — _Madeline Lynn, machine maintenance observation_
- [HIGH] Eric Sweetland attended the Beast tournament in Buffalo, August 1-4, finishing 38th in Classics, 3rd in B Division Finals of Classics, and 68th in Main Division — _Eric Sweetland, tournament results_
- [HIGH] Madeline Lynn achieved 800+ million on Stern Deadpool at Tennessee Barcade in Philadelphia and verified it ranks in top 100th percentile of registered Deadpool scores — _Madeline Lynn, summer vacation achievement_
- [MEDIUM] Hook and Back to the Future are rarely available on location in New York City, making Arcade at Rockefeller Center notable for having both — _Eric Sweetland and Benjamin Furiga, venue appeal discussion_

### Notable Quotes

> "if you stick around till the end of this episode there's a very good chance that you will know whether or not you ever want to listen to another episode"
> — **Benjamin Furiga**, ~2:00
> _Host sets expectations for the podcast's tone and audience, acknowledging it may not be for everyone_

> "I don't know that in my mind nyc pin pod would still be alive if that bridge of the 200 series episodes had not been there"
> — **Benjamin Furiga**, ~10:00
> _Recognition of Eric Sweetland's crucial role in keeping the podcast alive during the pandemic hiatus_

> "you don't often get to play Hook or Back to the Future on location in New York City"
> — **Eric Sweetland**, ~25:00
> _Highlights the rarity and appeal of specific machines at Arcade at Rockefeller Center_

> "knowing the critical mass of eclecticism, I think works for that venue"
> — **Benjamin Furiga**, ~35:00
> _Core observation about the venue's appeal — the diverse game selection functions as a strength despite appearing random_

> "It about community. It about having fun. And this summer in addition to the high scores I got to spend time with my family"
> — **Madeline Lynn**, ~45:00
> _Frames pinball achievement as secondary to social connection and community_

> "I heard more than one person suggest that pinball is no longer a skill game if there's no ability to nudge. That's absurd. That's completely and utterly absurd."
> — **Eric Sweetland**, ~65:00
> _Strong pushback against criticism of tight tilt settings at Beast tournament; defends tournament design philosophy_

> "it was maybe not quite as nice, though, as the eight hours I spent on Amtrak on the way up and the eight hours I spent on Amtrak"
> — **Eric Sweetland**, ~75:00
> _Humorous closing comment revealing speaker's preference for solitude, self-identified misanthropic tendency_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Benjamin Furiga | person | Host of NYC Pin Pod, started the podcast in September 2017, tournament director, pinball player |
| Eric Sweetland | person | Co-host of NYC Pin Pod, kept podcast alive with 9 episodes during pandemic hiatus, competitive tournament player, participated in Beast tournament |
| Madeline Lynn | person | Co-host of NYC Pin Pod, biology and special education teacher from Ithaca NY, competitive pinball player focused on achieving high scores at local venues |
| NYC Pin Pod | organization | Pinball podcast focused on location pinball in New York City and surrounding areas, relaunched as season 2 with episode 301 |
| Arcade at Rockefeller Center | venue | Temporary pop-up arcade venue in Rockefeller Center plaza operated by Barcade, active during summer 2024, closing end of September, features 9 pinball machines and ~30 arcade cabinets |
| Barcade | organization | Arcade/bar franchise operating Arcade at Rockefeller Center, owns/operates multiple machines that travel between locations |
| Beast tournament | event | Pinball tournament held in Buffalo, August 1-4, 2024, at Pocketeer Billiards, run by Jeff Teolis with volunteers from Toronto and Western New York |
| Pinball NYC Team Leagues | event | Competitive pinball league structure with matches at venues like Jack Bar, Buttermilk Bar, and Barcade on various nights; NYC Pin Pod covers results weekly |
| Crazy Levy Neyman | person | Winner of Arcade at Rockefeller Center tournament on August 10, 2024 with 28 players |
| Lauren Berner Lawrence | person | Tournament organizer who worked with Benjamin Furiga to run the Arcade at Rockefeller Center tournament |
| Jeff Anderson | person | Barcade staff member who placed 4th in Arcade tournament and served as tech for the event |
| Sean the Storm Grant | person | Second place finisher in Arcade at Rockefeller Center tournament |
| Gabriel Chazanov | person | Third place finisher in Arcade at Rockefeller Center tournament |
| Liquid State | venue | Bar in Ithaca, NY with brewery; has Stranger Things and Mandalorian pinball machines (poorly leveled per Madeline Lynn) |
| Rinehouse | venue | LGBTQ-friendly bar in Ithaca, NY, hosts local drag circuit, has Deadpool pinball machine in need of maintenance |
| Tennessee Barcade | venue | Barcade location in Center City Philadelphia, where Madeline Lynn earned high scores including 800+ million on Deadpool |
| Pocketeer Billiards | venue | Venue in Buffalo, NY that hosted the Beast tournament in August 2024; has coin-drop pinball machines and provided space for tournament games |
| Dewey Beach Country Club | venue | Upscale beach dive in Dewey Beach, Delaware where Eric Sweetland played Stern Jaws Premium |
| Zelke's Beach Arcade South | venue | Redemption arcade on Rehoboth Beach boardwalk with Jersey Jack Elton John and Stern Munsters Pro |
| Lefty's Arcade and Eats | venue | Family fun center in Delaware area with bowling, axe throwing, and arcade games including Chicago Gaming Cactus Canyon Remake and Stern Rush Pro |
| Stern Jaws | game | Premium pinball machine available at Dewey Beach Country Club |
| Jersey Jack Elton John | game | Pinball machine at Zelke's Beach Arcade |
| Chicago Gaming Cactus Canyon Remake | game | Pinball machine at Lefty's Arcade and Eats |
| Stern Rush Pro | game | Pinball machine at Lefty's Arcade with stuck spinner that didn't register |
| Jeff Teolis | person | Organizer of Beast tournament in Buffalo, August 2024 |

### Topics

- **Primary:** NYC pinball venue landscape and location pinball in New York City, Arcade at Rockefeller Center as temporary pop-up venue, Competitive pinball tournament organization and results
- **Secondary:** Venue maintenance and machine leveling issues, Regional pinball venues and arcade culture beyond NYC, Podcast revival and content strategy, Game rarity and availability on location
- **Mentioned:** Pinball machine accessibility for non-adult audiences

### Sentiment

**Positive** (0.78) — Hosts express enthusiasm about podcast return, appreciation for venues and tournaments, pride in achievements. Some criticisms raised (machine maintenance, tilt settings debate) but contextualized constructively. Summer vacation narratives frame pinball experiences as positive community and travel memories.

### Signals

- **[venue_signal]** Arcade at Rockefeller Center is a temporary summer installation closing end of September 2024; machines will be redistributed by Barcade to other locations (confidence: high) — Eric Sweetland: 'The place is going to go away at the end of September. They pack it all up. But, you know, it's the Barcade Collection, so these things do float around.'
- **[venue_signal]** Arcade at Rockefeller Center features eclectic mix of classic and modern pinball (Hook, Back to the Future, Pirates of the Caribbean, Venom, Metallica, Toy Story, Dr. Dude, Avengers, Whirlwind, Mandalorian, Stranger Things), highlighting value of diverse game selection for casual and serious players (confidence: high) — Benjamin Furiga: 'knowing the critical mass of eclecticism, I think works for that venue'
- **[operational_signal]** Multiple small-venue machines in Ithaca, NY show maintenance problems: improper leveling, broken flipper gates, stuck tilt bobs cranked to maximum sensitivity after scores exceeded, missing parts (Mandalorian ramp roof, Medieval Madness light lock door and dragon wings) (confidence: high) — Madeline Lynn detailed descriptions of issues at Liquid State, Rinehouse, Chanticleer, and Glenwood Pines machines
- **[competitive_signal]** Beast tournament in Buffalo used tight tilt settings to speed up games and increase pot, generating player criticism about skill and fairness; organizer Eric Sweetland defends the design choice as necessary for tournament logistics (confidence: high) — Eric Sweetland: 'They were the same for everyone... do that so that games move fast and more people get more chances to enter'
- **[content_signal]** NYC Pin Pod relaunches as season 2 (episode 301) with three-host format covering Pinball NYC Team Leagues weekly, venue reviews, and community features; hosts note episode 301 is heavily edited due to scheduling conflicts but expect future episodes to be straight-through panel discussions (confidence: high) — Benjamin Furiga: 'What I expect you to hear going forward is a straight-through panel discussion on these topics... what we present herein is NYC Pin Pod episode 301'
- **[community_signal]** Hosts actively seeking captain participation and match information from Pinball NYC Team Leagues to improve episode content; indicates effort to deepen community engagement and storytelling beyond just win-loss records (confidence: high) — Benjamin Furiga: 'If half of the captains in the league every other week gave us a little bit of information, that little piece of information tells you an actual story'
- **[venue_signal]** Arcade at Rockefeller Center charges 4 tokens per game vs. 2-3 tokens at 21+ venues; despite premium pricing, hosts note it remains affordable and historically competitive with 1984 quarter arcade pricing when adjusted for inflation (confidence: high) — Madeline Lynn: 'Every single table here is four tokens... if you told me that the things that I paid a quarter for in 1984 would only be a dollar today, I'm pretty sure I get less candy bar than I do video game'
- **[event_signal]** Beast tournament in Buffalo (August 1-4, 2024) successfully organized with volunteer coordination across Toronto and Western New York; featured player divisions (Classics, Main), multiple tournament formats (pump-and-dump, card-based), and brought in privately-owned machines from regional collectors (confidence: high) — Eric Sweetland: 'a whole lot of folks from the Toronto area pitched in, a whole lot of folks from Western New York pitched in, and it, I thought, was a really great tournament'
- **[collector_signal]** Madeline Lynn engaged in systematic high-score hunting across Ithaca venues and Philadelphia Barcade, achieving leaderboard placement on all five machines in her hometown and earning 800+ million on Stern Deadpool (verified in top 100th percentile); behavior reflects collector/achievement-oriented player motivation (confidence: high) — Madeline Lynn: 'I made it my mission to make the leaderboards on every single pinball machine in the area... I'm pleased to say on Stern Insider, 800 mil is in the top 100th percentile'
- **[venue_signal]** Multiple Delaware vacation venues (Zelke's Beach Arcade, Lefty's Arcade) have shifted or retained heavy redemption game focus, with pinball as secondary attraction; indicates broader shift in family arcade business models away from pure video/pinball arcade (confidence: medium) — Eric Sweetland: 'This location, which nowadays is mostly Redemption Games instead of the video arcade cabinets I dropped my quarters in as a youth'
- **[content_signal]** NYC Pin Pod explicitly inviting team captains and community members to contribute match information and stories; indicates shift toward community-sourced content and deeper narrative coverage than previous purely results-focused format (confidence: high) — Benjamin Furiga: 'I would like to ask you personally to send us... you can always reach us at nycpinpod at gmail.com... please do so. We will share it here as long as it's safe for the airwaves'
- **[operational_signal]** Arcade at Rockefeller Center notable for serving non-21+ players at a time when most NYC pinball is confined to bars; positioning as family-friendly location during Olympics summer tourism creates unique demographic opportunity (confidence: medium) — Benjamin Furiga: 'zooming out farther if you were i'm trying to think of other places you could play pinball um for any age not just 21 plus and there aren't that many venues there's no pinball at dave and buster's'

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## Transcript

 Happy Sunday, pinfolk, or whatever you call it. day you're listening. This is NYC Pin Pod, in which a panel talks location pinball in New York City and nearby surrounding areas. My name is Benjamin Furiga. My initials are BCF, and I'm just pleased as punch to be back at this. My name is Eric Sweetland. My initials are HIP, and I play in direct tournaments in New York City. Hi all, my name is Madeline Lynn. She, her, hers. My initials are MXL and I have high scores on all five, count them, five pinball tables in my hometown of Ithaca, New York. On this week's podcast, in ball one, I'll talk about what this iteration of NYC Pin Pod is likely to sound like. In ball two, we will review Arcade at Rockefeller Center as a pinball venue. And in ball three, we will talk about what we did on our summer vacations. Let's get started. let's talk about what this iteration of nyc pin pod is likely to sound like if you are a new listener please let me welcome you thank you for coming along for the ride at least this long even though you're only about two minutes in right now i i promise you if you stick around till the end of this episode there's a very good chance that you will know whether or not you ever want to listen to another episode i'm not going to promise you that you will it might not be your thing and that's okay. But if you're interested in location pinball in New York City and nearby surrounding areas, I hope that it would appeal to you. NYC Pin Pod has had two iterations before this. I started NYC Pin Pod in September of 2017 with competition results and a venue review of a venue that's not with us anymore, branch office, and I discussed, because it was the first episode, addressing the machine at the beginning of a ball. I did 138 episodes from that point until July of 2020, presenting something almost weekly in that period. It obviously slowed down once we hit the isolation period of the pandemic in March of 2020. And it sort of petered out at that point. After the pandemic, there were people asking me if it was going to come back. And Eric Sweetland was one of the first people to ask me the question. And when I told him, I'm not going to do it, but you can have the keys if you want to. He was committed enough to the project and kept it alive for another nine episodes. And now this episode 301 is a new season of NYC Pin Pod. I say season, and I want to point out we are catering this podcast to the weeks that the Pinball NYC Team Leagues are happening. If you're new to the show, when you tune in, you will hear in this first section results of what happened in the team leagues last week of what happened in you know at jack bar on thursday night and at buttermilk on thursday night and at barcade on wednesday night or whatever one-off competitions are happening in that week you'll hear us talk about that here then in ball two the second segment review a venue from somewhere in new york city or the nearby surrounding areas and then after that in ball three we will present some other piece of information welcome back everybody i'm so very happy that we were able to resurrect this i'm very thankful to eric for keeping it alive because i gotta tell you if that bridge of the 200 series episodes had not been there i don't know that in my mind nyc pin pod would still be alive i want to talk about one more thing in this segment, if you're the captain of a pinball NYC team, or frankly, if you're not the captain, but everyone on your team is okay with this, or the person that you might send us some information about is okay with this, I would like to ask you personally to send us, you can send it to me, you can send it to Madeline, you can send it to Eric. I'm sure that we can provide you with lots of ways to communicate with us, but you can always reach us at nycpinpod at gmail.com. You can always reach us on the Facebook page. Search for NYCPinPod. Give us just a little bit of information about what happened at your match if you've got a second. If half of the captains in the league every other week gave us a little bit of information, that little piece of information tells you an actual story about what happened in this. And that's what we would love to be able to do a little bit better than just telling you that they won 9-7. So if you find yourself thinking even every other week, hey, you know what? I could drop them a line about what happened in my match. Please do so. We will share it here as long as it's safe for the airwaves. I want to add one more note here, specifically because this segment is meant to be about the sound of NYC Pin Pod. And I just want to mention that this week, the three of us could not get our schedules aligned, which is why this episode is very highly edited. What I expect you to hear going forward is a straight-through panel discussion on these topics. I think we'll get there. I think our schedules have all calmed down and we've sort of figured it out. But what we present herein is NYC Pin Pod episode 301. I am so glad to be back. And in this space next week, you'll hear results from Pinball NYC. Let's talk about Arcade at Rockefeller Center. This location is about as midtowny as midtowny can get. And look, if you're a New Yorker, you might not want to go there all the time. But here's the thing you can absolutely get there if your train line is anything other than the l or the g or a few random shuttles uh madeline you pointed this out to me before uh the j and z also only go downtown and into brooklyn all of the other 20 some lines run into somewhere within a few blocks of Rockefeller Center, whether it's at Times Square, whether it's at Grand Central, or even at 47th, 50th Street, Rockefeller Center on the 6th Avenue BMT, you're right in the middle of it. You know this location, whether you've actually set foot in it or not. You have seen the establishing shots of the statue that's just half a block away of the place where the tree goes at Rockefeller Center at Christmas, you've seen people skating just 12 feet from where I was playing Pirates of the Caribbean at Arcade, hosted by our friends from Barcade, but as Eric pointed out, is conspicuously missing the BA, as there is no menu. I went there on the last Sunday of the Olympics. I enjoyed it even despite the crowd, even with all of the ways that I don't love going into Midtown. You walk into the plaza at Rockefeller Center, you walk down those stairs that take you down to the skating rink, and that's where they have set up a whole lot of arcade cabinets. I'm going to say, Madeline, do you know roughly the number? I would say it was 20 to 25. oh geez i want to say we're pushing 30 games because that little hallway has a bunch of little ones so i let's say 30 to 35 video cabinets and pinball tables in total yeah yeah yeah i was i mean i was thinking just just the the video cabinets because we i know we've got nine pinball games but yeah that's i think that's about right call it 35 in total games in the skate rental place. Now look, it's not much to look at. There are industrially white painted cinder block walls and it has that gummy foamy flooring that you have to have at a skate rental place so that people can walk on it in ice skates Yeah But it's a pretty good little arcade that popped up. I think it's only going to be there for a short time. And yeah, I mean, look, it's going to turn into a skate rental place soon. So enjoy it while you can. but I really enjoyed my time there. I really only played a few of the pinball games. Madeline, you turned me on to this joint. Talk to me about your experiences at Arcade. Well, I first heard about Arcade through the Pinball Map app when I was back in New York City this past June for a couple job interviews. I was staying with my family up in Ithaca, and I was like, there's no arcade up here. Why is there nine pinball tables on this? And I was like, wait, what is this? And I was like, okay, okay. So like after every day of like some interview somewhere, I would just go over to the arcade. When I first walked in, I was like, holy cow, let's go. Obviously there was the nine tables in the back, but y'all every single video cabinet in there is just a banger, okay? You've got your usual Crazy Taxi and your Bishy Bashy and your X-Men and your Turtles, but you also have a couple different light gun games I never played. They had 18 Wheeler, which I hadn't seen since the early 2000s Cyber Station. My mother would always take me there when I was a kid. They have Pinocchio, which is made by this Taiwanese company, which is a really good intro to fighting games. It's a one-button fighter. I played a couple of the pinball tables but I really sampled a bunch of different video cabinets that I had not played either in general or through the Barcade franchise Eric, what do you think of this place? I really appreciate the wild collection they've got going on there for overall ambiance it's pretty overrun with kids from all the people who are out on the concourse watching the Olympics so it's a little hectic But, man, some of the cool machines they got there, you don't often get to play Hook or Back to the Future on location in New York City. So I really appreciate that. Cool. Well, fun to try. Okay, okay. You don't get a chance often. Take a chance now. The place is going to go away at the end of September. They pack it all up. But, you know, it's the Barcade Collection, so these things do float around. But it's neat to have right in the middle of Rockefeller Center for the summer. You ran a tournament there. Thanks to the friendliness of the Barcade staff, Lauren Berner Lawrence and I were able to pull together a tournament that we held at Arcade. It was on Saturday, August 10th, and we had 28 players come out. We played five rounds of match play and then cut to a top four, three-game pop-style final, the eventual winner being Crazy Levy Neyman. Second place, Sean the Storm Grant. Third place, Gabriel Chazanov. And fourth place, Barcade's own Jeff Anderson, who was also kind enough to be our tech for the afternoon. With the top four, we went out onto the concourse where they have an Olympic podium for people to take photos on, and we were able to do that with Levy hoisting up our ice skating trophy that we had gotten for him. I wrote down the games list in terms of the games that I played when I was there and the ones that I didn't. The ones that I didn't were Metallica and Toy Story and Avengers, and that's because I get to play those a lot. But the other games that are there are Hook, Venom, Back to the Future, Whirlwind, Jersey Jack's Pirates of the Caribbean, and Dr. Dude and his excellent play. What do you think about the games list? I would say as a whole that the games list is most certainly an eclectic collection. I was foreign to many of those tables before my arrival I think only had I played the Modern Stern, the Marvel Avengers and Venom as well as the Toy Story and the rest I had never played either in general or in person actually I had played the whirlwind once at the Gebhard's I just went from table to table and I tried a couple of each until the coins ran out and then I re-upped and tried a few more. Remind me, they actually do coins there and not tokens, is that right? Yes, or arcade tokens, yes. And all the tables are more expensive. They are four tokens each, whereas if you go to a 21-plus venue, most tables will be either three or two tokens. Every single table here is four tokens, and some of the video cabinets, I think, are also an extra token as well. That said, if you told me that the things that I paid a quarter for in 1984 would only be a dollar today, I'm pretty sure I get less candy bar than I do video game in terms of inflation. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's right. I mean, it's still – sorry. No, no, no. You don't have to apologize. it's still you know a pretty darn affordable place uh zooming out farther if you were i'm trying to think of other places you could play pinball um for any age not just 21 plus and there aren't that many venues there's no pinball at dave and buster's there is one pinball in um the chinatown fair that's like 225 a game and you have to buy a game card and even though it's a dollar which is more in the relative in the absolute hey that's the same price as it is in all the other bars the combination of the daytime the no age restriction and the uh very novel choice of tables i think means that if you're new to the game or old of the game there might be something here for you yeah i only managed to play the games that i was assigned to play during the qualifying portion and i did squeeze in one game of back to the future after everything had concluded just so i could play it because i didn't get drawn on it and i had to you know couldn't leave there without without touching that one. Had you never played it before? I had. Probably at Papa facility back out in Pennsylvania. And after it was used in an exciting game in the finals, you know, I wanted to recreate the magic and get to play myself. Yeah, sure. Well, and you gotta get to 88 miles an hour, right? Basically, all you need to do is hit the ramp. Yeah, that's right. That's the only thing you have to do. And hook. it's just it's that that game and hook i think that that could be said of uh both in this collection which is maybe yeah things that i might say as a pinball player makes me not super love the venue as like a guy who wants to go play complicated pinball machines that have board you know crazy board game rules that like if the best thing to do is just this is this that good of a game? But it at least has the flair for the unique. Yeah, well, and we found also that Hook was not really willing to let you hit the left ramp. The flipper just wasn't going to go up there. So it was actually, you know, a game of strategic compensation. Figuring out what else can you do on the game to get the points. There is a right ramp looping strap but that one's pretty hard to hit i found great success somehow hitting the scoop on the right a bunch of times made the scoop on the center a 20 million hurry up and that was a significant amount of points in the games that we were playing most of the games that i saw played on it were topping out around 100 million so 20 million is a pretty significant chunk of points Yeah, that sounds like a lot. What did you draw? What did you play while you were there? And what did you think about? Let's see. I started on Toy Story. I got a third place. I remember I started strong on that. And then Levy started copying what I was doing and easily beat me. And then everybody else easily beat me because I really didn't do great. I know that you have a special place in your heart for Toy Story. Was that your favorite pinball game in the joint? I know you like the arcade cabinets. What was your favorite pin? Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, I definitely played Toy Story the most, even though I played it before. I am quite pleased. That was the first time I actually got the Kaboom ramps Instead of hitting the little rubber cylinders on either side I went for it and went over and I was like Oh my God I went over the thing And then went around, and I got the timing. I went over the thing again, let's go! I felt really cool. Yeah. Got a first on a hook. That was with that, thanks to that 20 million hurry-up thingamajiggy. Apparently, I had to play Avengers. I don't recall it. I got fourth. Mm-hmm. That correlation may be causation herein. Yeah. Then it was Jersey Jack's Pirates of the Caribbean, which I have a soft spot for. I know it's not widely loved. I think it's kind of interesting. I don't think it's a great shooter. I think it's a real clunk fest. You have like 20 characters to choose, and I'm like, okay, I do not understand this. So let's just go with this one. Interestingly, the software was set to randomly assign characters, so you couldn't choose one at the start. And I think that's a really interesting competitive twist. Something to be dealt with. People complained, but then everyone complains about picking one, too. So, whatever. What are you going to do? That's the game. My last game was Dr. Dude. got a second place on that and his excellent ray it was all there yeah didn't do much I don't think came out with a second finished off right in the middle of the pack and then yeah directed to the finals a lot of fun the variety it works like it doesn't feel like you're getting a you know here's what we have left over in inventory although maybe it is But knowing the critical mass of eclecticism, I think works for that venue. Let's talk about what we did on our summer vacations. I originally pitched this segment to my colleagues as a good idea for Ball 3 in this first episode of this season because it seemed like a good way for you to get to know us. And it gives you a little bit of insight into what kind of pinball players we are. So first, I would like to present what Madeline did on her summer vacation. Hi all, and welcome to Madeline's Mini Mode! No, I'm kidding. So this past summer, I spent in Ithaca, my hometown that I lived for the past 20 years or so. I am and was a high school biology and special education teacher, most recently at a charter high school. But things got kind of hot back in March. So me and my staff, we picked up and temporarily moved back to Ithaca, New York. Ithaca is just about four hours by bus. If any of you are ever interested in wine or food or some nice peace and quiet, I highly recommend taking a trip. There's something like six or seven coach buses a day from New York City to Ithaca. While home in Ithaca over the summer, I made it my mission to make the leaderboards on every single pinball machine in the area, of which, well, there's only five, but hey, it's something to do. Some of the machines were pretty easy to achieve, and some of the machines had surprisingly competitive scores. There are five total pinball machines and four different venues in Ithaca. The first venue that I approached was a bar called Liquid State. They brew their own alcohol there as well as have what is to be voted the best food truck in Ithaca, the Philo food truck with fried chicken. My father is not a fan of the beer there, even though they brew it themselves, and I personally am not a big fan of the chicken. But I do like how Liquid State is a well-illuminated venue. It is easy to see what you are doing. And for me, that's important. For their Stranger Things and their Mandalorian tables, they're both operated by an outside vendor. However, they take both bills and quarters. It's $2 for three games, and both are insider-connected. They're really flat. I'm pretty sure, having played these tables both in New York City and in Ithaca, that they are not leveled properly. I mean, I don't know how to do it, but that ain't it, folks, okay? The Stranger Things table, when you do the burn-it-back shot, it's supposed to feed to a flipper, ideally, but instead it feeds perfectly diagonally down the middle, right between both of the flippers. It was kind of frustrating. Somebody already had put up like $1.8 billion on that machine, which I have no idea how they did, but I was pleased to say that just a few weeks ago the other scores had been wiped and I was able to put up a 380 as the highest first place score and then fill the rest of the leaderboard after that with just my own initials. On the Mandalorian table at Liquid State, that table is also, I don't think, leveled properly. If you try to hit the right ramp in the Mandalorian, and it goes up the ramp and ideally go around to the left flipper, it doesn't. Two weeks ago when I was there last, the roof of that ramp had actually broken off and was holding several stray pinballs on the play field. To get high scores on that table, you just had to do your usual Razor Crest plus your Mission plus your Flamethrower Multiball. and just hope that whatever jackpots were left were not the right ramp. Moving on across the street to Rine House, that's R-H-I-N-E, house. That bar is my favorite in Ithaca. My father is a fan of the alcohol. I take his word for that. And I like how, again, this venue is not only well-illuminated, but also the gayest in Ithaca. After the range on the Commons closed, there was nowhere else for the local drag circuit to perform their shows, and now only Rinehouse remains as the host of the local drag circuit. There's plenty of pride flags all around, as well as stand of Planned Parenthood signs. It is clearly and objectively a women-owned bar. It is a safe, static space for all. There's pool, there's darts, there's board games, and in the back there's a tired dead pool, once again operated by an outside vendor. I've been to Rinehouse many times over the past few years, whenever I go to visit my family. that Deadpool, it needs some love. If you look carefully in the slingshot, you might see one or two pinballs who have lived in the right slingshot for the past while, and it is very hard to get the snick shot or the right ramp on that particular table, along with perhaps the most sensitive tilt bob I've ever seen. Moving on, we have Chanticleer right off the commons. Three generations successfully family-owned business. a total dive bar, also has pool and darts, but in the back has a walking dead. For the walking dead, again, I don't know. I played it in New York, but it just felt really weird in Ithaca. But I was able to get lucky with the prison and well multiball successfully. A few weeks after I'd gotten that high score, a high school friend of mine told me that someone else had beat it. So when I returned, they too had cranked that tilt bob to the maximum sensitivity very frustratingly. Finally in Ithaca, if we move northwest up along Cuga Lake, you'll come to a venue called Glenwood Pines. You've got a view of Cuga Lake right on the balcony. A great place to get a sub-$10 sandwich, one of the few left in Ithaca. And in their game area, you can find mini pool, darts, Pac-Man, as well as a very, very tired medieval madness. $0.50 a game, five pinballs per game. The light lock door does not work. The dragon wings are missing. but if you farm the castle gate and you really nudge the thing so you don't drain straight down the middle, you too can earn a high score there. As a side project, I went down to Philadelphia for a teacher conference. I lived for eight days in the center city Philadelphia Doubletree. I had to do laundry in the hotel with some pie pots I brought on the plane. But every evening after the conference, I would go up a few blocks to the new Tennessee Barcade. And I'm pleased to say I earned six proudly earned high scores there as well. There was a corporate party one night, and one of the employees of the corporate party sold me like $50 worth of tokens for $30 on Venmo. So I'm just carrying around this red drawstring bag of tokens. I didn't have one of the cups they give out, like a pirate mat set. And I'm just going table to table trying to see which ones score high scores, which ones are open. And I'm real pleased to say on the Deadpool table in Center City that I earned over 800 million. Hopefully that high score is still there. I put it on the pin map as the pinball map app as my achievement to my favorite and most prolonged and objectively the best game I've ever played. I'm also pleased to say on Stern Insider, 800 mil is in the top 100th percentile of all registered Deadpool games. Of course it not necessarily about the numbers Same thing that I say to my students It about community It about having fun And this summer in addition to the high scores I got to spend time with my family I went to pinball prom, and I'm looking forward once again to the fall 2024 New York City pinball season. Thank you. My Summer Vacation, the Pinball Version, by Eric Swedlund. I had the pleasure to spend a week last month in Dewey Beach, Delaware, a charming town on the Atlantic coast of the Delmarva Peninsula, next door to the better-known Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, and a place where I have spent many summers. Early on, I ventured to the Dewey Beach Country Club, a joke named Upscale Beach Dive, right on Coastal Highway in downtown Dewey. They have a well-working and friendly-playing Stern Jaws Premium that I managed to GC on $2 and generously low replay values. On a day spent on the boardwalk in Rehoboth, I visited Zelke's Beach Arcade South, unfortunately not the north location, which has more pins. This location, which nowadays is mostly Redemption Games instead of the video arcade cabinets I dropped my quarters in as a youth, has a Jersey Jack Elton John and a Stern Munsters Pro. The whole place runs on swipe cards, which you fill with money and also hold your tickets won from Redemption Games. Elton John seemed fine, but the Grandpa Scoop on Munsters didn't register. I also introduced my nephews to coin pushers and saved up enough tickets to get some stickers and some bang snaps. One rainy evening was spent at Lefty's Arcade and Eats, a family fun center that includes bowling, axe throwing, virtual golf, and another Redemption Arcade with two pins, Chicago Gaming Cactus Canyon Remake and Stern Rush Pro. The spinner on Rush was stuck in a horizontal position, meaning it never registered, meaning that shot never registered. I turned once again to coin pushers and redeemed my tickets for a silly flashing Bluetooth speaker. For my summer vacation, I took Amtrak up to Buffalo for the Beast tournament across the first weekend of August. It was run by Jeff Teolis and just too many volunteers to name. Key personnel whom I'd personally like to thank include Brian Shepard, Bruce Nightingale, Ian Harrewer. I'm positive I'm missing four names that I should be saying, But a whole lot of folks from the Toronto area pitched in, a whole lot of folks from Western New York pitched in, and it, I thought, was a really great tournament. It was a pump and dump. I played the main and classics divisions of the main tournament. I also played a sort of preview tournament the night before that was played on games that typically live at the venue. I should also mention this was at Pocketeer Billiards in Buffalo. They were great hosts for the weekend. They do have a lot of pinball machines there that are typically there for coin drop play. And in addition to that, they had all of these tournament games set up that were brought in by folks from around. From Buffalo, I'm sure. From Toronto, I'm sure. I know some of the games were Bruce Nightingale's, who I believe comes over from Rochester. So get games from all over the place that were owned by individuals, not the venues games that are typically there for Coindrop. I can't thank enough the people who pitched in regardless. I finished 38th in Classics and got third in the B Division Finals of Classics. I finished 68th in the Main Division. I finished next to last in the preview tournament and I was somewhere middle of the pack in the extra Sunday tournament it was a card based tournament instead of a pump and dump on the banks of classics and women's games that were no longer in use now that they were in only mains finals mode I really enjoyed myself at this tournament and I have to say I heard a lot of criticisms on the ground about the tilt settings of the games. I found them to be frustrating, but I didn't find them to be unfair. They were the same for everyone. I maybe would have had a little bit more fun playing the individual games if the tilt settings were a little bit more forgiving, but I'm not sure that I would have had more fun in the tournament. And frankly, you do that so that games move fast and more people get more chances to enter. it's a pump and dump tournament. You are driving up the pot by doing that. And frankly, I think that's a good move. The thing that I think offended me most about those criticisms was I heard more than one person suggest that pinball is no longer a skill game if there's no ability to nudge. That's absurd. That's completely and utterly absurd. I just want to say that. I started this tournament in kind of the cutest way possible in that I met a gentleman I had on my radar that I was going to play Dolly Parton first, that I was going to be standing there when the venue opened. And I was going to not only was I going to play Dolly Parton first, I was going to be the first person in the queue for Dolly Parton. That was my plan. and Hadi Saeed Ali beat me to being the first person on the game but when I walked up to it and saw him there he handed his phone to someone he was wearing a Dolly Parton t-shirt and he said excuse me could you take a picture of me standing in front of this Dolly so that I can send it I don't remember who he wanted to send it to but it was just as cute as fucking Christmas and I That's how I started my tournament. It was a great weekend. After I finished on Sunday in the additional tournament, whatever that, the Crazy Eights was what they called the additional tournament. But after I finished that, I left the almost suburban Buffalo area and went downtown. As I do when I travel, I found an independent bookstore. I bought a book on local matters, local history, or whatever I actually bought to. And then I went and found some dinner at a venue that had pinball in it. And when I was at that venue eating my dinner and playing some pinball, I ran into some friends from Toronto and some friends who were about to drive back to Pittsburgh who had just finished up at the finals at the venue. It was cool to run into a few extra people. I like to travel alone. I'm an only child, so I spend a lot of time alone on purpose. It was a nice way to wrap up the weekend. And as I point out that I tend toward the misanthropic, it was maybe not quite as nice, though, as the eight hours I spent on Amtrak on the way up and the eight hours I spent on Amtrak on the way back, where no one expected me to do anything but read my books. That was kind of my favorite part of the weekend. Even though I had a lot of fun, I really loved just sitting down and reading a book and nobody bugging me. That's all for this week's pod. On next week's podcast, in Ball 1, you'll hear us break down Pinball NYC competition results, as well as any other one-offs that happen in this next week. In Ball 2, we'll review Buttermilk as a pinball venue. We all three play there in Pinball NYC, so it seemed like an appropriate venue to review early. And in Ball 3, we will discuss the changed landscape of pinball in New York City, Since the pandemic. You can report your results or tell us anything you'd like to communicate with us at nycpinpod at gmail.com or facebook.com slash nycpinpod. Go get them this week, pinfolk. Thank you.

_(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 564c2deb-7ddf-4181-b63f-24892193a95d*