# Mr Hart, whatta mess!

**Source:** BlahCade Pinball Podcast  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2017-05-31  
**Duration:** 70m 29s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/blahcade-pinball-podcast/episodes/Mr-Hart--whatta-mess-e1bkfv8

---

## Analysis

Chris Rewis and Jared Morgan discuss Firepower playfield restoration using frisket masking techniques, discover inconsistent number design on the original playfield, and transition to analyzing Jersey Jack Pinball's polished Dialed In! marketing trailer. They praise the trailer's product-focused approach and contrast it with Stern's faster-cut promotional style. The episode also covers Farsight's latest digital pinball releases (Paragon, Circus Voltaire, Terminator 2 with updated physics) and the next table hint (Wipeout/Banzai). A detailed mechanical discussion of Wipeout's ski-lift mechanism and Gottlieb Premiere engineering closes the episode.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] Jersey Jack Pinball's Dialed In! trailer is polished, product-focused marketing that treats pinball machines as commodity items rather than specialty products — _Chris and Jared discussing the official Dialed In! trailer release; Chris explicitly states 'I think the pinball industry is at a point now where you can do that because people are thinking about these things differently now.'_
- [HIGH] Farsight's latest Pinball FX updates include significant physics tuning changes that make ramps harder to shoot and flipper angles more varied — _Jared reports playing updated versions of Terminator 2, Medieval, and Creature on Steam with noticeably different ball physics and flipper response_
- [HIGH] The original Firepower playfield exhibits inconsistent design in its faux-digital font zeros, with the inner dip character appearing in different positions across the table — _Chris describes detailed frisket masking work revealing that Williams zeros have inconsistently positioned inner dips and some numbers appear flipped_
- [HIGH] Wipeout (1993 Gottlieb) features a ski-lift mechanism with lateral playfield motion (rather than tipping) and high-quality mechanical construction including leather-stitched belts — _Jared provides detailed mechanical description from his memory of the arcade machine: 'basically has these turned metal cranks... belt itself is like this sort of leather material with holes stamped in it'_
- [HIGH] Stern's promotional videos use fast-cutting MTV-style editing that obscures detail, whereas Jersey Jack's Dialed In! trailer uses slower pacing to showcase features — _Chris criticizes Stern promos: 'they often chop and change too fast between the views... On a pinball machine, you don't want to see that. You actually want to see the detail.'_

### Notable Quotes

> "I think the pinball industry is at a point now where you can do that because people are thinking about these things differently now. They're not thinking about them as a specialty item. They're thinking about those like, 'Oh yeah, I'm just going to buy one of these things.'"
> — **Chris Rewis**, ~22:30
> _Reflects on shifting market perception of pinball machines as commodities rather than niche products, validated by Jersey Jack's marketing approach_

> "They've done it for a reason, just to mess with you."
> — **Jared Morgan**, ~8:45
> _Joking conclusion about Williams' apparent intentional design inconsistencies in Firepower's numeral fonts_

> "The thing I don't like about the Stern promos is they often chop and change too fast between the views of what it is... On a pinball machine, you don't want to see that. You actually want to see the detail. You want to stick on a shot for like two to three seconds and see what happens there. This is not MTV, you know."
> — **Chris Rewis**, ~24:00
> _Direct criticism of Stern's promotional video style contrasted with Jersey Jack's approach_

> "I just need to get accustomed to it again because it's very different."
> — **Jared Morgan**, ~31:45
> _Reflects on adaptation needed for Farsight's updated physics tuning on digital pinball tables_

> "There's like sound effects missing. There's lighting animations that are missing. There's just a range of like the bonus count noise is actually completely different to what it is in the scripted version. It's totally different."
> — **Chris Rewis**, ~67:00
> _Describes substantial differences between Farsight's emulated vs. scripted pinball implementations in Black Knight_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Chris Rewis | person | Co-host of Flippin' Out podcast; restoring Firepower playfield; pinball enthusiast and critic of Stern's marketing approach |
| Jared Morgan | person | Co-host of Flippin' Out podcast (located in Australia); played updated Farsight digital tables; knowledgeable about Gottlieb Premiere mechanics |
| Jersey Jack Pinball | company | Manufacturer of Dialed In! pinball machine; released polished product-focused marketing trailer praised for professional presentation |
| Farsight Studios | company | Digital pinball developer; released Paragon, Circus Voltaire, and updated physics tuning for multiple tables on Steam; working on Black Knight emulation |
| Stern Pinball | company | Criticized for fast-cut MTV-style promotional videos that obscure detail; mentioned as contrast to Jersey Jack's approach |
| Firepower | game | 1970s pinball machine being restored by Chris; subject of detailed playfield restoration discussion revealing design inconsistencies in numeral fonts and star field |
| Dialed In! | game | Jersey Jack Pinball machine with companion app; recently released professional marketing trailer that impressed hosts with product-focused storytelling |
| Wipeout | game | 1993 Gottlieb Premiere pinball machine; next Farsight digital release (confirmed via table hint); features unique ski-lift mechanism with lateral playfield motion |
| Paragon | game | Farsight digital pinball release now available on Steam with bug fixes |
| Circus Voltaire | game | Farsight digital table with updated juggler mechanism and improved sound effects; praised for fixed farting saucer behavior |
| Terminator 2 | game | Farsight digital table with updated physics; ramps reported as significantly harder to shoot after tuning |
| Black Knight | game | Classic Data East pinball table; Farsight is developing emulated version that differs substantially from scripted implementation |
| Creature | game | Farsight digital table with updated physics affecting flipper angles and ramp shooting difficulty |
| Medieval | game | Farsight digital table showing noticeable speed increase on ramp drops after physics tuning |
| Gottlieb Premiere | product_line | Line of Gottlieb pinball machines (1993-early 2000s) known for solid mechanical construction but recycled mode design |
| Flippin' Out | company | Podcast and pinball distribution company; hosts Chris and Jared discuss industry news and personal restoration projects |
| Pat Lawler | person | Legendary pinball designer; Dialed In! confirmed as a Pat Lawler table design |
| Rob | person | Farsight developer responsible for physics tuning and Black Knight emulation; sent Chris private YouTube debug footage |
| Norman | person | Farsight sound designer credited with creating improved sound effects for Circus Voltaire's juggler mechanism |
| Williams Electronics | company | Manufacturer of Firepower; responsible for the design choices creating inconsistent numeral fonts noted during restoration |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Pinball playfield restoration and artwork repair techniques (frisket masking, airbrushing, paint restoration), Digital pinball physics tuning and emulation vs. scripted implementations, Pinball machine marketing and promotional video strategies, Jersey Jack Pinball's Dialed In! machine features and marketing approach
- **Secondary:** Gottlieb Premiere playfield mechanics and construction quality, Farsight Studios release schedule and table hints, Vintage pinball design inconsistencies and quality control

### Sentiment

**Positive** (0.72) — Hosts are enthusiastic about Farsight's physics updates and Jersey Jack's marketing approach, though with some frustration about Stern's promotional style. Restoration work is detailed and technical without major complaints. Some light criticism of Gottlieb Premiere design philosophy but appreciation for mechanical build quality.

### Signals

- **[community_signal]** Rob (Farsight developer) shares private YouTube debugging footage with Chris showing live physics tuning of Black Knight, indicating community-focused development transparency. (confidence: medium) — Chris: 'I was watching Rob sent me a private YouTube live link as he was pretty much live debugging it. And it was very interesting to see what that looks like when they're actually tuning the table.'
- **[design_philosophy]** Gottlieb Premiere machines (1993-2000s) recycled modes and mandatory features like apron light sequences across different themed tables, creating a perception of generic design constraints rather than theme-specific gameplay innovation. (confidence: high) — Chris: 'I see that's one of the things that annoyed me about Gottlieb, or Premiere Gottlieb, I should say, which is when you get that mode... it felt like they were recycling. Here, you must integrate this into your table design... Here are random words that you have to spell out because it meets the theme. Just pick a random word from the theme, like skiing, and then spell that out. And it always was six letters.'
- **[market_signal]** Jersey Jack Pinball's Dialed In! trailer uses product-focused, slow-paced cinematography to showcase features and tell the game's story, contrasting with Stern's fast-cut MTV-style editing. Hosts praise this as smart positioning that treats pinball as a commodity product. (confidence: high) — Chris: 'I would like to see one done for Hobbit retrospectively... spending a little bit of money up front, like that, because it wouldn't have been cheap. They would have had to go to... um, probably...' and earlier: 'Jersey Jack... They're treating it like a product. Yeah. And that's the first time, you're right, that I've seen a pinball machine treated as a commodity item like that in advertising.'
- **[product_strategy]** Jersey Jack's Dialed In! includes a companion mobile app with a 'big nuke button' interface, positioning the game as featuring modern connected play features. (confidence: medium) — Chris: 'they also showed a little bit of what the app looks like. It's a companion app for the game, right? It looks like a big nuke button on the phone, which is pretty cool.'
- **[product_strategy]** Farsight is developing an emulated (rather than scripted) version of Black Knight that will include previously missing sound effects, lighting animations, and authentic bonus count behavior, substantially changing the game's character from the scripted version. (confidence: high) — Chris: 'I tell you what, you realize just how much stuff you miss from the scripted version versus the emulated version. There's like sound effects missing. There's lighting animations that are missing... The bonus count noise is actually completely different to what it is in the scripted version.'
- **[product_concern]** Firepower playfield exhibits inconsistent design in its numeral typography, with reversed or repositioned inner dips on zeros appearing in different locations across the table. Chris speculates this was an intentional design choice by Williams. (confidence: high) — Chris details intricate frisket cutting work revealing: 'on the zeros, it's kind of doing that faux computer font, right? So a zero is kind of square-shaped, but then on the inner portion of the O, it'll have like a little dip... But here's the weird part: it's not consistent throughout the table where that little dip is.'
- **[rumor_hype]** Farsight's next digital table release is Wipeout (1993 Gottlieb), confirmed through table hint (bouncing balls, Wipeout/Banzai reference). Hosts speculate about possibility of misdirection with Banzai Run instead. (confidence: high) — Chris: 'Two giant red bouncy balls and a person bouncing in between them, falling clearly, and a bunch of "ha ha ha's" written above it. If you've ever seen the TV show Wipeout, you know exactly what that was from, and therefore you knew what the title was. And that's what your table hint is. Therefore, it's Wipeout from Gottlieb.'
- **[technology_signal]** Farsight's latest physics tuning update significantly changes how digital pinball tables play, with increased flipper angle points (described as going from 16 to 32 contact points), harder ramps, and faster ball speeds on drops. This represents a shift toward more realistic physics emulation. (confidence: high) — Jared: 'Well, I think in getting tuning or whatever, it almost feels like they've given more angles to the flippers now... there might have been 16 points on the flipper that you were able to hit the ball from. It's almost like they put 32 on there now.'

---

## Transcript

 this is the blockade podcast with your hosts chris and jared you're listening to the blockade podcast i'm your host chris rewis aka shut your trap joining me as always all the way on the other side of the globe jared morgan that's right with a cigarette in hand after the post-100 coitus coming out. Suddenly, I feel like I'm on NPR. The most boring radio program on the planet. NPR is National Public Radio here in America. It is the sleepiest radio you have ever heard. I don't know there are people that I know that actually drive listening to it and I'm just like how do you stay awake because they literally their conversations are all very thought out and the enunciation is perfect he's just like come on show some emotion if I was listening to that as a podcast, it will be on five times speed. So, I'll need to listen to it too. Yeah. And then it doesn't help what their subject matter is, because you feel like you walked into a little boutique bookshop slash herbal center full of hippie granola chicks and Rastafarian-haired white guys. Yeah, right. I know what you're talking about. I know what I'm talking about. I don't know what the official word is. Me and my wife have always described that patchouli-smelling hippie dippy grunge light. I don't know. Anyway, we just call them crunchy. Granola people. Crunchy. Yeah, granola people. Granola people. Because that's just what they look like. You just know that inside their satchel is a bunch of granola. Exactly. Of course I'm recording. What? No. I wasn't supposed to mention that. So maybe I should be interesting that out. Oh, okay. So we'll have to edit that. My wife had no part of that opinion. Okay. You're awesome. Right, I. Good luck with that. I'll choose whether I just cut that. Oh, she wants me to redo it now. I'm going to see her make noise, though, because I don't want to cut any part of that. All right. We don't need to include. I don't care. Whatever. Oh, dear. So, quick update on Firepower. Yes. So I am preparing the play field for doing my touch-up airbrush painting. Okay. And by doing that, I'm using this masking material called Frisket that is a clear film that you place over, and then you can cut with razor blade. Oh, my gosh, does it take a long time. Oh, really? alright okay well you know the thing is you're sitting there with your razor blade and if it's a straight line that you're trying to cut okay fine I've got a clear ruler basically it's a triangle actually and so I can line it up with the lines and you know that's all fine and dandy but I'm trying to spray all the white basically is what I'm doing I'm cutting out the masking so I can redo all my faded white that's now yellow and paint it back to white. Well, there's a lot more white on here than I kind of at first glance. At first glance, what you got is everything that's underneath the plastics where the general illuminations lights tend to be. But then you start noticing that there's also around all the pop bumpers which look like flames, there's a white border around there. And so they're all jagged along with flames. So I'm sitting there intricately cutting, not cutting into yellow of the flame, which is the halftone kind of lay down that they did. Cutting above that and then cutting out the white. That's kind of intricate and tricky. What's really nuts is around all of these general illumination areas, there's also a pinstriped white line. I'm sitting there. I mean, we're talking a line that is maybe a sixteenth of an inch thick. Oh, jeez. And I'm sitting there just intricately, finely dragging my razor blade across. And if you go too narrow, then you're just going to cut into the other lane. And it wasn't painted perfect either because the pinstripe sometimes fades and then grows thicker again. I'll just leave it. Well, you know what I do? I'm just keeping the line consistent so that when we repaint it, it'll just be one consistent line going through. So there's that, which is intricate, but easily, I mean, I can do it. I'm doing it. The harder part is cutting out all the lettering because that's white on the table, the stuff that says 1,000 or 5,000 when lit, that kind of thing. because it's a really funky font. And what I'm noticing is on the zeros, it's kind of doing that faux computer font, right? So a zero is kind of square-shaped, but then on the inner portion of the O, it'll have like a little dip, like a thicker portion of the line. But here's the weird part. It's not consistent throughout the table where that little dip is. It's sometimes on the upper right, sometimes on the upper left, sometimes on the lower right. That's weird. Yeah, there's no rhyme or reason to it. Now, in the area where it is, it's consistent, but then you go four inches above it to another area where it's written, and it'll be different even there. It's really kind of bizarre. I was like, that's just a – I mean, I guess it had to have been a design choice by Williams. Why would they actually – is it like the numbers have just been flipped? Like the other zeros? Have they actually just been flipped? It kind of looks that way. Yeah. Yeah. So what they did on the one of a 1,000, where on some of them it was, you know, it's narrow on the top and it goes bigger. But then on some of the other ones that it was starting to stick on top and went narrow on the bottom. With the same number? Yeah. Wow. Okay. That's a definite design choice then. It is. They've done it for a reason, just to mess with you. Right? Just to mess with you. I would love to see in person a CPR play field and see if they corrected them. Is the Pimps Dark Blinds completely the same thickness the whole way around? Get your mate to take some photos of it. Because he's got one, eh? Yeah, he's got one. If I wind up going over there for a league time, I'll have to take a peek and really look intently because it's one of those things where I never would have noticed it except for I'm sitting there with my razor blade and it's taking me 10 minutes to do a block of letters. And after you stare at something for so long, the next one you go, wait, why is this one different? What? You know. It is interesting, right? Like when you're right, when you're doing detailed work like that, you see everything. The curtain is lifted. whereas if you just walk up to a game and play it you don't even notice the minutia of that sort of thing it's just it's just numbers whatever it's numbers with that sort of pseudo digital font that they use now the flip side to that is it has made me not so concerned with if my razor blade skills are slightly wonky you know if there's a waver in a line or anything else like that because I'm like dude there's wavers Yeah, there's waivers all over the place on this from the factory. You're never going to notice standing back from where you are under glass. If you put your nose to it, yes, you're going to see it. I guess that raises the other question. With the pinstriping, would you actually notice it from far away? Is it worth the extra effort actually trying? Oh, you absolutely see it. You can absolutely see the pinstriping, yes. And especially it's going to be noticeable if it remained yellowish. and everything else was white. Now that has in turn brought up an interesting dilemma for me, and that is there is a star field all over this table. Yes. Some of the stars are little tiny dots. There's no way I'm cutting them asking for that. You just can't. You can't physically do it. But there's others that are much larger, and I'm debating on if I want to cut out the larger ones and make those white, and then the rest of the star field is going to be yellow, or do I leave the whole star field consistent? Because on top of that, there is areas of the black that have been chipped away that I'm going to have to repaint the black, and there should be stars within there. So those stars I would paint. Do I go and try and match the faded yellow, or do I go in with clean white? If you're going to be doing all the black areas, make your own star field. Make it a unique, crisp field. Well, I'm not replacing all the black. That's what I'm saying. It's going to be little touch-up areas of black where it's been, you know, bolder and bolder. I think if you're going to do it, you should make little nebulas instead of white stars. Make little nebulas of different colored stars and dots, and that will make it – that will solve your problem, basically. Right. Yeah, that's what I'll be doing. Not a bad idea. I think that would be my – I'm pretty sure that's what everyone else does as well. I don't know. I mean, it's the exact same issue that I believe they have the same kind of star field on Pinbot. Oh, yeah. Oh, yes. Yeah. Yeah. They probably use the same sort of design to actually do it because it would have been the same era pretty much. A little bit later, but yeah, same era. I don't know. I think somebody should have made a Jackson Pollock pinball machine, and then it wouldn't matter what the hell was on there. It's just dirt painting. Yeah, that would have worked. Firepower, Pollock edition. That'd be fun to paint. Just throw paint at it. That'd be great. Yeah. We have this artist over here called Pro Heart. He was really, really big in the 80s and his thing was doing massive scale paintings with food. so what he'd do is he'd get like a room and he would just use all sorts of random food and like you know he would actually put a whole like gato on the floor and then shoot it with a blunderbuss and have it go and just like throw out and then the whole thing down here at the end was for I think it was for a particular brand of carpet like a Stainmaster carpet and then they typically the the racially inappropriate housemaid will come through and go, Oh, Mr. Hart, what a mess! And go and clean up all that mess on the carpet. Nearly finito. And just clean up all the rubbish on the carpet. Okay, I have to ask. So in Australia, what is the stereotypical ethnicity of the housekeeper? well that's a good question here in america it's typically uh hispanic hispanic yeah um well that's a good question i don't really know actually um i i would think probably now it might actually be filipino okay i think i i'm not an expert on house cleans because we don't to have one. I'm talking about when they depict it on TV and stuff. It's the same thing with typically, you would go into a 7-Eleven and Simpsons obviously highlights this incredibly, which is you'd have a Middle Eastern descent owner of the Quickie Mart of the 7-Eleven. Then when I visited Australia, it was instead, I believe, they were typically Asian of some sort. Japanese, I think, were the owners of the 7-Elevens. Yeah. I think it's definitely Indians here mostly, here in 7-Elevens. It's very much an Indian. I think a lot of the Indians actually use it as a franchise and they have multiple stores here. I don't know what it's like over in America, but in the built-up areas, particularly in CBD, there's usually a 7-Eleven on every corner or within very close proximity. They're often owned by the same, like, business person. Right. Because they're lucrative in the city, you know. But as far as ethnicity goes for housekeepers, I actually think here, like, we have services that, you know, franchises here, again, that will come around and clean your house for you. And a lot of the time it's actually just like Caucasians that do it. They do it as a career. I don't really think it's actually something that the ethnic races do here. It's weird. It's an interesting question because I've never thought of it before. Yeah. yeah curious one to ponder Jared is the one that pointed it out to me on Twitter and it was it kind of made me think but Jersey Jack Pinball just released the trailer for Dialed In and it's one of those things where it's like really a trailer for a pinball machine. I mean, I know they used to make those really cheeseball ads to basically try and sell it to operators. Yeah, promo videos. Right. The whole feature expose and all the bad acting and formal design. It was very good. I actually really enjoy those. It was interesting seeing this one from Jersey Jack for Dialed In. Because it was seriously polished stuff. Yeah. Like I was going, I want that machine now. that's what I was thinking that has really got me pumped up for that machine so they've done a great job with the marketing there I reckon because the promos that we tend to see for Stern wind up just being gameplay it essentially looks like a pop-up video almost gameplay it's actually if you've ever seen any of the promo videos that Farsight does for their upcoming tables. That's what the stern ones tend to look like also. So it was kind of weird seeing this throwback way of selling a table. Highlighting all the features and... Actually like a product. They were treating it like a product. Yeah. And that's the first time, you're right, that I've seen a pinball machine treated as a commodity item like that in advertising. I think it's actually a really smart move, to be perfectly honest, Jersey Jack. I think the pinball industry is at a point now where you can do that because people are thinking about these things differently now. They're not thinking about them as a, like a, a specialty item. They're thinking about those like, Oh yeah, I'm just going to buy one of these things. Certainly not you and I, Chris, we don't think about this going, Oh look, I'm just going to buy one of these things. But sure. I got eight grand lying around. Why not? Yeah I just yeah sure Go and do this Yeah But yeah the it really actually what the ad did for me is it told the story behind it Yeah. And I think up until now, I have not really been following too much about Dialed, and I've been hearing all the stuff on the Pinball Podcast about it. But the ad actually rounded it all off for me. It was like, yep, this is the story behind it. You are doing, you know, the plot, essentially, and this is what you're trying to do as the pinball player. And it was, yeah, very good. Very, very clever advertising. And I'm not sure, but I can swear that I heard at one point they do the typical and it'll increase your profits or something of that nature. I could have sworn it was literally talking directly to the operator. I would have to go back and watch it. I didn't hear it. Yeah. Something to keep the ears. I might have been hearing things. Who knows? I'll have to watch it again because it's actually, yeah, it's worth watching again. The thing I don't like about the CERN promos is they often chop and change too fast between the views of what it is. Like they will jump around and it's supposed to make it look dynamic, you know, exciting, like fast cutting. But on a pinball machine, you don't want to see that. You actually want to see the detail. You want to stick on a shot for like two to three seconds and see what happens going on there. This is not MTV, you know. That's okay. MTV isn't MTV anymore either. so it's true yeah so yeah i like it i really like it actually they i would like to see one done for hobbit retrospectively um and see what that one looks like and um that spending a little bit of money up front like that because it wouldn't have been cheap they would have had to go to a that um probably and it's worth it like they it's like they even got the the character that's playing it is the one that they modeled the character in the game after. It's actually a real person. Right. Yeah, which is very interesting. So that's that little extra little detail. A big deal of saying that it was a Pat Lawler table a few times. Which I was like, yes, that is key. Thank you for announcing that because us Lawler freaks certainly need that. Oh yeah. If you want to play it. Yeah, that's right. So So I think, yeah, and they also showed a little bit of what the app looks like. It's a companion app for the game. Right. It looks like a big nuke button on the phone, which is pretty cool. So, yeah, I'd have one. I'd have one for a dollar. Plus $7,999 more. Yeah. Well, in terms of games that we can get our hands on this weekend Farsight released Paragon Yes As well as all the fixes that we've been talking about on the podcast for the past month So they're out on Steam now, are they? They are out on Steam, in the wild, ready to play I think, I don't know if they're still in testing in Android or if they're still, if they've actually been released as well but I have been playing them and yes I'm very much enjoying Circus Voltaire, I haven't been through all of them in a lot of detail yet, I've just had a surface play of them because my week's been rather busy this week so it certainly Terminator 2 those rams are devilish now like they're so hard to shoot up, like that left ram in a short time I played it, I couldn't get it. And I don't know. I don't know if it's just me or if there's something else at play, but it feels like when the ball is coming down from a loop, it really speeds up, like almost unnaturally fast now. Okay. I don't know. Maybe it's just me getting accustomed to the new tuning that Rob's put in on the tables. But there was that. And what was the other one I played that had a sort of a wide, it was medieval actually. Medieval really, you really notice it when it comes flying down at you. It's like, whoa, and it just like speeds up real fast. I went, oh, okay, that's interesting. So I don't know, maybe it's just because it's so different and it's so not floaty anymore that it's just, that's just how it works now in digital and that's fine. It's just something I need to get accustomed to. but I didn't play, I did play creature a little bit and the ramp is funny. Like it's definitely not as vacuuming as it was, that's for sure, as you were saying. And I'm finding that shooting it from the right flipper is really quite hard. Now, I seem to have glanced it off a target using the left flipper. I forget which one it was and it went straight up the ramp, but doing a direct shot from the right flipper up the ramp, I need to get used to it. Again, I think all this feedback is just, I just need to get used to it again because it's very different. Well, I think in getting tuning or whatever, it almost feels like they've given more angles to the flippers now. Yes. And so I think that's something to also get used to, that there are so many more points for the ball to angle from. So instead of having, this is hard to illustrate without a video format that then gets converted into audio, but if you consider the length of the flipper, there might have been like, let's use an exaggerated measure, there might have been 16 points on the flipper that you were able to fit the ball from. It's almost like they put 32 on there now. Right. Yeah, 32 places with their own physics attached to them. Because where I noticed that on Creature, where I noticed it was when you're shooting either the kiss lane or the slide lane, that the angles were, there was more, it felt more natural, you might say, to be able to hit it, Whereas before it felt like me trying to time where it would go off the flipper, but not where I visually would normally let it go off the flipper. Yeah, it's where the game shot is, not the real life shot. Exactly. And now it feels more like what the real life shot would be. Yep. I definitely love, the thing that delighted me the most was in Circus Voltaire, seeing that juggler behave correctly. like just seeing the ball actually sit in the saucer and then get juggled over and the the pièce de résistance was the fact that we didn't have the farting saucer firing every time that it juggled over i just read perfect if it was anything that they could do is get rid of that farting saucer it's a really good sound effect they put um in in place of that farting saucer So thanks, Norman, for recapturing that. It sounds real good, real chunky, real mechanical, and exactly what that mechanism should be sounding like. So top work. Now, other news coming out of Fireside, as per usual, when they released the table, they also released their newsletter. They had the table hint. Which I loved. two giant red bouncy balls and a person bouncing in between them falling clearly and a bunch of ha ha ha's written above it if you've ever seen the TV show Wipeout you know exactly what that was from and therefore you knew what the title was and that's what your table hint is therefore it's Wipeout from Gottlieb however when I thought this was kind of interesting as somebody else pointed out in other countries, the show was known as Bonsai. Oh. Interesting. But no. That's a little bit too... If Farsight pulls a flippity-doo like that and makes everybody think they're releasing another Gottlieb premiere and instead we get Banzai Run, that'll be... I'll just need to give him a high five. That'll be fantastic. Way to go. So guys, you have a month to put this thing out. So if you really want to be tricksters on us, yeah, just go ahead and nurse the idea that we're having another Gottlieb premiere and then spring it with Banzai Run. That'd be awesome. And then your table hint would be the world's greatest table hint ever. Yeah, we'll go down in history as the best table hint ever. The best probably table hint. Unfortunately, when I was looking up Wipeout on YouTube, because I wanted to see the table in motion, because I'm not familiar with it, among the many videos that pop up was one that said Wipeout Pinball and it was literally from the show Wipeout and they were dropping giant pinballs on people coming down a ramp so it was like okay yeah that just doubly sealed what I believe this is yep so I will say never having played Wipeout I don't Again, it's one of those I really can't have an opinion on other than my loathing of Gottlieb Premier Tables. But visually, the plastics on it, the white snow slopes plastics, they look like that same cheap plastic that Zachariah pinball machines have on them. Yeah. I don't know. It doesn't make me feel warm and fuzzy towards it. Yeah, although you won't really notice that in the digital recreation of it. No, that's the snap one. So, yeah, there's not as much thickness on the plastics in a gobbler. They tend to warp really easily because they're a bit thinner. But the mechanical things on this, I remember when this was actually in the arcade I used to work in, and the thing that kind of astounded me mechanically about this game is just the amount of high quality parts they put in this thing. Like the elevator that lifts the ball up to the ski field. Right. It basically has these turned metal cranks on it that look like they're actually being machined. And the belt itself is like this sort of leather material with holes stamped in it. And it's like stitched together and stuff like that. So it's like It's not just some cheap rubber belt it doesn't look like it from what i remember it was actually like proper leather so it would actually stand up to the rigors of our grade balls sitting in it and it sort of took me took me back a little bit when i saw it i went wow that's like that's some heavy duty material there that they've used for that particular mechanism and typically on gotley premieres that's what they did like the the gameplay and the tables were questionable but the the build quality and the mechanical build quality of these things, they were tanks. They were heavy to move because they were so solidly built. So, yeah, the mechanisms and stuff on this one are interesting. The ski field, when you load the ball into the ski lift, the ball goes up the top, and a solenoid kicks the ski field left and right. You don't have control over it unless you are in one mode only, and in one mode only you can actually control the soloing weight so it kicks it left or kicks it right with the flippers but generally if the ball is loading up there it just goes tick tock tick tock tick tock and flicks the playfield backwards and forwards pretty much at that speed because at first glance it looks like it would be the playfield that's on Indiana Jones a rocking playfield right but it's not that ball it's a lateral motion rather than a tipping motion so yeah it's a very different style of play field and the pivot the actual main sort of range of motion is at the top of the play field not the bottom so as it's rattling around the top you'll see a lot more lane changes as it goes through the top and then it gets to the bottom where the anchor point is and it starts to slow down so yeah it's that mini play field of course is sort of pretty critical to scoring on the game I think you might actually from memory shoot it to get jackpots as well but overall it's um obviously a ski themed game and there's not a lot of those around no i think it's probably the only one perhaps in modern um tables um and it's it's got its comedic humor in it a little bit of a little bit of humor um for example look at the moguls on that ski bunny terrible terrible humor or something like that there's like this dude ski dude in there that's like you know a hippie and he sounds like a hippie and he's basically like well dude yeah it's great you're gonna get really tired of hearing that um so yeah and it's got the usual capped level of modes that that era of Gottlieb has. It's got like a 6, I think. I don't know what the Wizard mode is. I can't remember what it is. This is of the same era as Teed Off, correct? I know it's from 1993. Yeah, same era as Rescue 9-11 as well. Pretty much that basic generation of Gottlieb hardware didn't change from 1993 to its death. They kept the same operating system. Yeah, but I mean talking about the you know you got the lights down in the apron that you need to light up and this one I think it says skier and on I forget what it was on yeah it's just kind of standard but they I mean by the time they got to Stargate they weren't using that kind of thing were they I'm pretty sure Stargate had some sort of apron lights they always had some sort of apron lights Yeah, because there's always that feature in a Gottlieb Premiere where you have to light the thing to get double mode or feature mode or some sort of mode that unlocks if you light all the things. I'm pretty sure it was. See, I think that's one of the things that annoyed me about Gottlieb also, or Premiere Gottlieb, I should say. Which is when you get that mode. Well, no, I was going to say the mode itself, from table to table, it just felt like they were recycling. Very much as well. Here, you must integrate this into your table design. You know? Yeah. Here are random words that you have to spell out because it meets the theme. Just pick a random word from the theme, like skiing, and then spell that out. And it always was a six-letter. Oh, it was six letters, wasn't it? Well, yeah. Always six letters. You've got to fit those lights. But it's kind of like what the early Sterns, when I say early, early modern Sterns. So your Ripley's, Monopoly, where they had that three bank LED display on the table itself. On Ripley's, it's the jackpot. On Monopoly, I forget what it is. But it was like, really? We're going to have that particular thing on all the machines? The Simpsons pinball party, like that was the thing on Simpsons pinball party. So, yeah, I was like, wow, it's like the new embedded display that got really cheap from China. Let's put them on all our machines. to make it look like a premium feature when we're struggling to keep the business alive. Yeah. That sort of thing. Yeah. I know it's weird, eh, that the things that Kimball companies do over the years that they think are good features. And I'm sure that 10 years after things like Dialed In come out or 20 years after Dialed In comes out, we'll be going, well, why do they use a mobile phone as a thing on there? You know, that's just weird. When we don't have mobile phones anymore, We have subcutaneous communication devices. It's so 20 years ago. Yeah. So it's going to be interesting to see that one come out. Yeah, I'm enjoying the tuning on all the tables. I think it's great. There needs to be more. I like the new sound effects. They're good. So, yeah, I'm looking forward to getting more time on the new tables. What are they? Terminator 2, Creature. What are they, Theater of Magic? I don't really care, honestly. Theater of Magic, don't care. What was the other one? Well, I don't think they touched theater. Yeah, they did on mobile. Let me go and bring up the Google beta testing community, and I have a look at what the latest post was I mean the main ones that I know they touched were Creature Circus Voltaire Twilight Zone Oh, and then they've been doing a lot with Black Knight. All heaps. In the newsletter, it even said Black Knight emulation coming soon. So I have a feeling that that's what their next... And I've seen it. I've actually seen it. Oh, okay. I was watching Rob sent me a private YouTube live link as he was pretty much live debugging it. And it was very interesting to see what that looks like when they're actually tuning the table. Okay. It's wow. I tell you what, you realize just how much stuff you miss from the scripted version versus the emulated version. There's like sound effects missing. there's lighting animations that are missing there's just a range of like the bonus count noise is actually completely different to what it is in the scripted version, it's totally different yeah the game is just completely it's completely different, honestly when this gets released you won't even know it's Black Knight except for the fact that the playfield looks the same, but its behavior and its feeling, its character is completely changed with the emulation. It's amazing. And just to highlight what Rob said last time in our podcast, and that is the month off, you might say, to fix bugs and all that, they're planning on having that be an annual thing. So probably between each season that'll be the gap month. That'll be perfect. And then I would imagine that they're still going to continue trying to do tables a month of bug fixes for two pick two tables yeah so that's going to be really good to see that finally get chipped away I think they're at the point now where they have the resources they can start to chip it and just do what they can but I think having that month off we've seen what they can do with just a month of downtime and yeah it's a lot of stuff it's the tuning it's the tuning and physics stuff that really it takes a long time for i won't go into details about what rob was fixing on black nine um but the process he needed to use to just fix the one problem that he counted it would have taken about 30 minutes to diagnose and and fix so that's this one tuning aspect of the table yeah multiply that by all the other aspects on the table and you get an idea of just how long it takes to perfect tuning on the table fine tuning and if only they could do some artwork too yeah it'd be great if they could recapture the play feel on that one because it's muddy as anything um it really it would be great if they could sharpen it but the the emulation i think they've done something with the i think i was watching a dx11 version of it so not the mobile version but the the dx11 lighting um it's looking really good. There are no flashes on that table. Yeah. It doesn't have any flashes built in. But the general illumination and the lighting patterns, wow, you're going to be looking at it going, geez, it's a pretty dynamic table for its age when you actually have the proper code in it. So there you go, kids. Go ahead and capture your video now of what Black Moon Knight looks like so that then when the emulation comes through, you can do a true comparison and be like, Yeah, I think I'm going to be doing it. Placebo effect. Yeah, I'm going to be doing it. I'm going to be doing a video on mobile, and then when it comes out, a video on Android to see the before and after, because it's kind of staggering. Yeah, so it's looking really good. Finally, we're getting it. And then I think the next step of that might even be Gorgar. That's not confirmed, though, because that's another one that's scripted of the same era as Black Knight, I think. yeah well once they get the emulation for Black Knight it will apply to Gorgor it will apply to Firepower so then obviously it's just a matter of tuning that's the other thing I know in Black Knight the back glass integration is not really implemented at all in Black Knight but that now works so when your multiball is happening it will actually have all the numbers scrolling on all the back glass things back and forward like it does in real life. Exactly like Firepower does in real life. It really took me by surprise when I actually got multiball on that game in the world. I went, wow, this thing goes off when it goes into multiball. And in TPA it doesn't do anything, basically. It's very anticlimactic. So yeah. When you got on the backglass on Firepower where it multiball is highlighted, it's written big on the back glass, you realize that, hey, this was a big deal. This was an advertisement for what it could do. And, yeah, in TPA, you just kind of go, eh, it's just another table. Oh, what, multiball? Oh, yeah, been there, done that. Yeah, it doesn't make a big fanfare over it. Yeah, back then, that was something to make a big – that was a selling point. That was having a cell phone integrating with the pinball machine. Yeah, that was a huge feature. Yeah, exactly. wow Jared we actually had pinball to talk about this week yeah we did we actually had some proper digital pinball chat wow it's good go figure it's really good that's the problem we're going to have to plan ahead for next year and have a whole lot of weekly topics wind up for that hiatus period where there's no digital pinball oh you'll be happy to learn that last night I watched Prometheus yes what did you think I thought it was really quite good the in typical Ridley Scott fashion it all happened at the end and that's fine but I really quite enjoyed the story and the lead up to the end and the end itself was really interesting the sticking points that I was able to look past and my buddy never was was the fact that the for a bunch of scientists, they were incredibly stupid. Just in terms of how you handle biological things you had known nothing about. Yeah. You know, let's take off our masks in a foreign environment and let's point, you know, let's stick our finger out at a weird thing coming out of black goo. Let's not do that. Let's run the frack away. Normally there'd be some protocols. But again, I just kind of went, you know, you let it happen. You let it happen. Well, those two guys were like stoned at that point, apparently. Well, one guy was, but yeah. And then another sticking point was you have the giant engineer spacecraft rolling on its side, and Charlize Theron running away from it, and everybody was like, just zig and zag. And instead of it staying in the exact same path as it's coming so that it can swish you. now interestingly enough though is somebody took that to its extreme and went here's why zigging and zagging wouldn't matter because they wound up putting it to scale for how wide this thing actually is as opposed to how small the human is and it would be basically like trying to zigzag a football field not the from end zone to end zone zigzagging Oh, right. That's the scale that you're dealing with. You know, in the movie, you don't quite get that true scale. But they were talking about just, you know, when they walk into a spaceship, you get the idea of how big that interior is. Just look where the space jockey is, right, and how wide that chamber is. So the ship has to be at least that wide, and it's probably even wider and stuff. So anyway, they were pointing out that, yes, although it looks like she should have, serpentine serpentine it wouldn't have made a difference she's still gonna get squished she's gonna get squished hot and and the part that that i disliked with the movie was the very last shot of the movie which is when they show finally show an alien they call the deacon and i felt oh that was just a that's just a bunch of fan service right there you know making sure you got an alien in an alien movie but watching alien covenant it made me feel good about it oh okay that's the bit of having watched covenant you kind of go okay no i'm fine i'm cool with what you did you know we're good this all forgiven this makes sense yes so it's like it's like that What I got the feeling about was that Prometheus, as far as like the aliens and to an extent predator sort of lines that the movies take, that was well and truly focused on the aliens aspect of the franchise. like all the stuff that was happening to the people and the fact that, you know, the big squiddy like creatures. Yeah. They, I was a little bit confused at one point because the way they interacted with the architects when the, at the, at the end scene there looked like the behavior of a face hugger in a way. But, but then I realized, well, hang on. no, because of the big snaky thing that goes through your mouth and, you know, then infects you. And that's essentially, it's sort of a little bit like a, well, a facehugger is really the alien side of things anyhow. It's not really a predator thing. But sort of like, well, that's a, it kind of looked like the big squid thing was just a massive facehugger. Yeah. Really. And, yeah, like a, yeah, a big daddy version of the facehugger. It's scaled up to meet the size of the architects, really. Once you watch Alien Covenant, it answers certain questions that you have with Prometheus. And like I said, I feel that it's a bit of retconning because what they did in Prometheus, they thought everybody would be cool with, and then people weren't cool with it, and I feel that Alien Covenant kind of went, okay, well, let's smooth some of those waters. Let's make it feel like we actually knew what we were doing the entire time when we didn't. We planned to piss you off in Prometheus so we could make it all better in Covenant. Well, because if you watch the documentary that's on the disc of Prometheus about the making of it, you realize that there were decisions made after shooting was completed. They were made in the editing room with relabeling things, renaming things, things that were done in voiceover that you went, well, wait, that wasn't what was in the scripted. And you realize that while they were shooting, they had one intent. And by the time they got into the editing room, they started having another intent. And so that kind of changed some of the things. There's even a scene in Prometheus where one of the crew members comes to the back, and basically they open the door to the ship, and he's crouched down on the ground, kind of like how an alien sits. And then he looks up, and he basically attacks everybody, right? Well, We The Digital did a version. They were supposed to do a version of him that he had much more alien-like qualities to him, like he had started to look like an alien. And when you watch that footage, it really bugged me because I was like, oh, my God, you should have kept that in because it explains some things. But Ridley really liked the guy's performance and was like, well, I'd be ashamed to just slather some digital makeup on him. So I will just leave it as is. But to me, that muddied the water. It made it unclear what was what was really going on. And that's the kind of thing where it was like, yeah, so you had all these intents and purposes during the shooting. but in the editing you kind of went, well, no, I kind of like that. Well, now you're changing. You've changed one aspect and now it's branching in many ways. Now you have to, you, you create a snowball of other questions. So that's what I feel like alien covenant kind of went back and was like, okay, we get that. There was some questions we're going to, we're going to fix some of these and make it seem like it's like we knew what we were doing the entire time. One thing that as you were talking, I was going, well, what's all that about is at the very beginning of the movie when you see the big alien ship going over the landscape and then it sails over the waterfall. And then you see that lone architect drink something. It's like the black serum stuff that you see in the, the black goo. So that I'm still, maybe I missed something in the movie. It was a bit of stuff going on last night when I was watching it. I wasn't fully concentrating on it sometimes. Um, What is the black stuff? Is that the stuff that infects them and makes them turn into aliens? What you've got to realize is this stuff is essentially a virus. A virus. A biological weapon. And it attacks anything that is living, not plant matter. We call it animal matter, you might say. it attacks that and adapts from that. So it's a highly malleable. It needs some sort of meat DNA. It needs meat DNA to basically change form. But I guess the next question is that the ship we saw in the beginning was an oval-shaped ship. Yeah. And that was the last time, unless I'm missing something from the last three movies that I'm low in detail on, but that seemed to be the last time that we saw that ship in the movie. Correct. Correct. So I'm trying to work out what that ship was and why the architect at the time decided to infect himself. And it's, it's the, the engineers were basically conducting experiments and this person was sacrificing themselves for the good of the experiment. Right. You know, there's a little bit of a ritual, you know, think, think a Mayan culture almost, you know, It definitely had that feeling because the way that he extracted the virus was it was in like this very specialized looking container. Yeah. So it's a very ceremonial thing. What's going on? Yeah. Yeah. But still, when you get the big weird ship, the weird ship threw me off big time. Yeah. Well, there you go. Yeah. Speaking of weird things, I've caught the first four episodes of Twin Peaks. Oh yeah? What do you think? Oh my god, it's everything and more I could have hoped for. So this is actually the bigger portion of this particular tangent. So I really wanted to watch this new Twin Peaks. But I didn't want to subscribe to Showtime for the two months that it's going to be on. because I just truly think Showtime's a crap channel. They don't have good movies. I don't know. I never enjoyed their stuff, but it was like, dang, I really want to watch this. Now, I'm also not a fan of torrenting shows. Yeah, because of the industry you're in. You know, I don't know. It's just, I don't know. I don't know if it's just I hate watching things on my computer screen. I want to watch it on my TV with the full surround sound or whatever, but I don't know. It's one of those things where, especially if it's a show that I know that I really, really, really want to watch, that it's, hey, you can always just wait and purchase it when it comes out on Blu-ray or whatever. But I realized that I had, when I renewed my PlayStation Plus subscription back in March, they were running a promo, which was renew it online. You'll buy it through the Sony store. They'll give you another three months of a subscription. and they'll also, because they want you to try out their PlayStation view, which is essentially PlayStation's version of a satellite network. Okay. A whole bunch of channels on it and stuff. They want you to really try out PlayStation view and they were offering a free, again, I think it was three months of showtime. That's pretty good. So I received my email notification that I got the additional three months of PlayStation plus, but I never received a verification code for getting showtime. That was one of those things where I didn have Vue downloaded on my PlayStation 4 yet and I just kind of you know slipped my mind but all of a sudden I like oh man Twin Peaks is out I want to see it on Showtime and I never got that voucher let's do something about this. So, I contacted, I used the PlayStation website, and went into their online chat, and specifically went into, had a view agent come on and said, hey, what's your problem? I explained the situation. His response wound up being, oh, hey, no, I understand. You never got the email. We don't actually have that promo code anymore, but I can offer you $20 in your PlayStation wallet. I'm doing the math and going, okay, well, that's worth, I guess, two months of showtime, basically. Then I thought, wouldn't it be easier just if I had the promo code? And he even said, I can give you that or I can kick you over to chat with the PlayStation Plus agent and they might have the voucher. So I went, you know what, let's just do that because it'll be easier if I could just enter in the code and not have to worry about actually purchasing or anything else like that. So he transfers me over to that. I explain my situation. and the person immediately is like, oh, no, well, we don't have any of those. That's a PlayStation View promo. You need to talk to them. Like, oh, but I just did talk to them. They sent it to you. Well, there's absolutely nothing we can do. We don't have anything on our system that can do that. We only offer PlayStation Plus. That's our area. We have nothing to do with PlayStation View. You need to talk to that person. Okay, so send me back. So I get sent back to that. Hi, what can I help you with? Of course, it's a different person. I explain the whole situation again, and the person goes, yeah, well, you know, I sympathize with you, but there's absolutely nothing I can do. And it's like, well, the person that I was speaking to before suggested there was. Exactly. So can I speak to that person? And that's what I said. I said, well, I understand that you don't have the vouchers anymore, but can I just go ahead and get that $20 put into my wallet like that person offered? Well, I can't offer you that. I'm not authorized to do any of that. I think you've been misled. Like, oh, really? So it is at this point that I realized that now it's time to go into how to handle customer service. So having worked in retail, I know there are two ways that customers like to deal with you. Way number one is to scream their heads off and call you every name under the sun they can think of, as if bullying you will make you give them what they want. Yeah. And then there's the other way, which is being reasonable, if you will, while still showing your displeasure. Because you don't want to just be like, oh, okay, well, you know, you tried and walk away because that's exactly what they want you to do. Yeah, exactly. But, however, if you scream and yell at them, well, that person's like, hey, I'm not responsible for what the other person said. and so I started typing things of this nature which is you'll have to excuse my frustration and I don't mean to take it out on you but I'm now frustrated because this other person made this offer I in good faith went a different route and when I found out that route was not available to me I came back and now it's not being offered to me and I don't understand how one person can offer it and Another person can't. That person kept going off about, well, I'm not able to do it. I'm not able to do it. And then they finally go, well, we show that the voucher was issued to you. You should be able to access it in app. I went, okay. So they go, go turn on your PlayStation. Go turn on view. Look up Showtime, and it should be there. Okay. So I go, look up Showtime. It says, start your free trial. I'm like, oh, maybe that's what it is. I click on that. Nope, it's a seven-day free trial. Seven days is not two or three months worth of free show time. Exactly. So I tell the person that. I said, it didn't go through like that. Well, that's about all I can do for you. At least on our end. And I go, so you can't give me the $20. Nope, there's absolutely no way I can give you the $20 voucher. I'm like, okay. But maybe you need to talk to PlayStation Plus. They're the ones that can handle it. Okay, fine. Send me back. No, they're not. Those came from there. Yeah, so they sent me back to PlayStation Plus. So I immediately told the person, I go, look, I know this is ridiculous. I know you're probably not going to be able to do a thing about it, but this is what they just told me. Again, lay out the whole thing. Person's like, yep, not a thing I can do. And I go, just to be clear, I go, is it not a thing you can do because this was a promo from PlayStation View that happened to be attached to PlayStation Plus, but it's completely their thing? Yes, that is correct. Okay, fine. Would you like me to send you back to a PlayStation? Ancient. I go, you know what? At this point, it's probably pretty pointless, but sure, why not? Why not? So one more time I get sent back. Because I'm thinking the longer this log is of all the chatting I'm doing, there's also a theory that when you're dealing with online help of this nature, the object is for them to get rid of you as fast as possible because it's economical. It's costing them money. Exactly. So my thought is, no, let's stay on as long as possible because then in order to get rid of me, what they want to do is pay me off. Yeah, totally. And that's what I want. That's what I want. And so I told this last remaining person, I said, look, if the very first person I'd talked to had said, nope, there's nothing we can do. the offer expired, you were too late to sign up for it, I would have been like, fine, I understand. I snoozed, I lose. But the fact that that person really quickly had their supervisor authorized to give me that money in my wallet, that's why I'm here, continuing, because I don't understand why that person was right off the bat willing to do it, and now nobody is able to do it. So the person's like, I understand, I completely do, but I'm sorry, there's nothing I can do. I said, you know what? Fine. I think I'm done here. I'm going to try calling. All right. So I hung up, called the customer service line, get through, talk to a person. And yeah, it's amazing what happens when you actually talk to a person rather than just chatting online. Explain the whole history, whole story to them. They could hear, you know, the the the tone of voice that I was using, that I wasn't yelling, but it was also, hey, I'm annoyed. and they went ahead and it took about 10 minutes but eventually it was like, okay, here's this code, write it down, then I want you to go enter it in, make sure it works, boom plug it in, boom, 20 bucks in my PlayStation wallet, thank you very much. Thank you so the lesson learned here is don't even bother with chat, go straight to voice and get the job done that's right, isn't it? Because the reason is, there's things missing from a chat conversation and that is inflection, tone and intent. Yes. That's the thing that you miss in online conversation, which is exactly why moderators like us on forums get pulled in because people misinterpret words. Yes. So, yeah, stay in the phone queue. You'll get a better experience. So that being said, I was able to watch these first four episodes that have been released of Twin Peaks and I It is so very much, so little about Twin Peaks and so much more about Agent Cooper trying to get out of the Black Lodge and these other events. They just kind of keep on coming back to Twin Peaks more to show you what has happened in these people's lives, but there is no story going on with any of these characters yet. it kind of feels like the culmination of everything Lynch has been building up to. If you enjoyed Lost Highway, if you enjoyed Mulholland Drive, if you liked the weird episodes of Twin Peaks, this is, he's just coalescing it all. And he said that this version of Twin Peaks is essentially an 18-hour movie. And you've got to watch it that way because he lingers on stuff for an eternity. And it basically, you start feeling uncomfortable, you start feeling unease, and then it keeps on going for so long that you kind of start laughing about it, and then you kind of relax, and then he hits you with the big boom. And it freaks you out again. That's some clever writing there, isn't it? You can only do that. I would love to look at the script and see how that kind of thing is written. Yeah, it's crazy how it happens. everyday normal things that now are going to freak me out. Electrical light sockets. The cigarette lighter in your car. I don't know. It's just he lets these things just play out with the camera not moving and just being fixed and the sound just kind of enveloping you. He's definitely one of these people you've got to turn up the sound for because it has a presence to it. But I also realized that all these shows that I've been liking recently or loving, things like Fargo and Stranger Things and Preacher, even something like Better Call Saul, they all owe such a huge debt to Lynch. And now it's him stepping into the room and basically going, all right, well, thanks for holding my place for me. Let me show you how to really done now. Get ready for a listen, son. Yeah, I'm going to school y'all. and then you all can go back and try and duplicate me for the next 10 or 15 years much like with Alien Covenant where if you didn't like Prometheus you're not going to like Covenant with this if you didn't like the weirder aspects of Lynch's films if you can't stand watching Fargo because it seems to just be so much on its own slow pace that drives you bonkers. There's people that I was just having a conversation today that were saying that they didn't like Legion. They're three, four episodes in and going, oh my God, is it even worth it? Because it's just like, what is going on? Get on with it already. And me, I was just soaking it up going, love it. This is great. Things like Mr. Robot where the camera work is so deliberate with where it's placed that you realize, These are all shows that you can't play on your phone while watching. You have to just put everything aside and focus what's in front of you on the screen. And like I said, this is taking it to the next level. So I'm really, really pleased with what I've seen so far. And as is typical with most Lynch things, I'm just as confused as everybody else. and you really can't explain what you've seen, but you do understand it. It's much like when you've been dreaming and you wake from that dream and you go, that was an awesome dream. You're like, I got to tell somebody about it. And then the minute you start putting words to it, the whole thing just crumbles and falls apart and you can't even figure out for the life of you how it works. But that feeling doesn't go away. You still feel that it was an awesome dream. That it was an awesome dream. that's what watching this is like for me where it's I can't explain it the minute you try to it just kind of cumbers apart but while watching it I'm just going I'm liking this so much so yeah okay it's pretty cool yeah we'll see we'll see what I feel at the end of the 18 episodes but at the end of the 18 hour movie yeah yeah exactly but we'll get back to you all on that I think we should pull the plug on this yeah Yeah, let's tie it up. Why not? Yeah. Why not? Like we say, it's the afterglow. We're relaxed. We're now at square one again. Episode one with just a 100 in front of it. That's right. It's 101 and things. That's like the basic level of understanding. Right. That's something to say. I'm going to have to weave that into the show title, I think. why don't you go ahead and follow Jared on Twitter he is at Jared Morgz you can also follow the show it is at Blockade you can follow myself at ShutYourTraps and hopefully during this week I'll have pictures of me airbrushing Firepower something to look forward to that'd be cool you can also fire off an email to the show it is blahblahblockade at gmail.com Why don't you contribute to the conversation? Tell us what you like in the show. Tell us what you would love to hear us talk about. Any and all suggestions are welcome. Last but not least, visit our website. It is blockadepinball.com. That is where you can find all of the past shows. Well, everything but the first 11 as we highlighted last time. But go way back, deep dive, have fun listening to past episodes. Jared has put show notes as well as web links for anything that we happen to point out during our conversation. Interesting enough, there was a competition in the 100th episode. Nobody has entered it. And what was the competition specifically? The competition was, in the last episode, you mentioned in the podcast the first date that Blycade was released, so the first episode. And if somebody was to go and email blahblahblycade at gmail.com with that date that you quoted, they would actually receive a Steam unlock code to Pixel Jam Studios' Snowball, which we've covered on the show before. Yes, we have. And strangely enough, no one, either people don't read or people don't care. So if you are interested in a Steam key for Snowball, you can go and do some homework. Go back through the show, find out that date, send it through to blah, blah, blah. Okay, the first person to do it will get the code and have a free copy of Snowball for their enjoyment on Steam. Yeah. And also, I actually got that code by filling in a survey for Pixel Jam. They've done the same thing with their new space shooter called Nova Drift, which I have to say, if I had a Steam computer, I would totally be backing now on Kickstarter. It looks like it's a twin stick asteroid style shooter, but it allows you to actually upgrade your craft almost like an RPG. And each upgrade you do has a subtle effect on other parts of the ship. and man, some of the weapon configurations you can get in this game are just amazing. There's rumour that if they get enough support for it, they may actually attempt to release it on Android, which believe me, if they did, it'd be an insta-buy for me. I would be all over this game. Visually appealing and looks pretty awesome. But anyhow, they did an outreach campaign recently and offered everyone a Steam key unlock for some of their other games. So look out for that one being given away in the upcoming episode of Blackade. Because I don't have a Steam platform, so I want to spread the love around and let you guys try a game from a pretty nice little indie studio. Never let it be said that we don't give things away. That's right. All right. Well, hey, gang. we will be back next week with more pinball goodness. Thanks so much for listening. See you then. See you later. Wizardamusement.com. The site to visit for custom pinball shooter rods. Easy to install. Totally unique. Mention Blockade Podcast for 10% off your order. Wizardamusement.com. Sales, restoration, customization. Don't forget to leave a review on iTunes or your favourite podcast hosting service that BlackAid is delivered to. We can't improve unless you tell us how. Now stop listening and play some pinball.

_(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_

---

*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 6ead5018-a3dd-419e-a132-34e5b0db15bd*