# PNP 584_ Deborah Tahlman Originally Aired Aug 13th 2024! NEW Intro!

**Source:** Poor Man's Pinball Podcast  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2025-06-07  
**Duration:** 87m 51s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://poormanspinballpodcast.libsyn.com/pnp-584_-deborah-tahlman-originally-aired-aug-13th-2024-new-intro

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## Analysis

Orbital Albert re-releases a previously deleted episode with competitive pinball player Debra Tallman, who discusses her pinball origin story, competitive journey, and recent tournament victories at Whipped and Neon Ranch. The episode covers her evolution from casual childhood player to top-ranked competitor, her mindset during finals, learning from other skilled players, and her involvement in the pinball machine sales/distribution business.

### Key Claims

- [MEDIUM] Debra Tallman is described as 'the world's number one pinball player' and one of the top pinball nerds on the planet — _Orbital Albert's introduction; descriptive rather than formally verified ranking_
- [HIGH] Debra won the Whipped tournament finals, defeating players including Leslie Ruckman, Valencia, Kelly, and Zoe Vrabel — _Debra's detailed account of tournament progression and finals results_
- [HIGH] Debra got into competitive pinball approximately 7-8 years ago after meeting someone at work who was also into pinball — _Direct quote from Debra about timeline of competitive involvement_
- [HIGH] Debra has celiac disease, which influenced where she could play pinball and socialize — _Debra explicitly mentions having celiac and how it affected her ability to visit pizza joints with pinball machines_
- [MEDIUM] Jersey Jack's Harry Potter CE cabinet art is praised as exceptionally beautiful, though wizard level art receives more mixed reviews — _Orbital Albert's commentary comparing Cabinet Edition art favorably to other games while acknowledging playfield/wizard level concerns_
- [MEDIUM] Debra also buys, sells, and distributes pinball machines as part of her business involvement — _Orbital Albert's question reference and partial answer before connection dropped; incomplete interview segment_

### Notable Quotes

> "I never fell out of love with it I just like it stopped being a thing that I bumped into randomly"
> — **Debra Tallman**, ~18:45
> _Explains her pathway back into competitive pinball after years away from casual play_

> "When you're having a really good game...the world kind of falls away and you get into that flow zone"
> — **Debra Tallman**, ~37:20
> _Describes the mental state that helps her perform at tournaments_

> "I was backwards stress. I was so happy...like this is so cool and now I gonna get my ass handed to me by like Zoe and Valencia and Leslie"
> — **Debra Tallman**, ~39:50
> _Reveals her positive psychological approach to finals despite facing stronger competitors_

> "If I had gotten stressed out, I would have gotten in my head. And then, then I would not be standing before you with that win under my belt."
> — **Debra Tallman**, ~43:15
> _Explicit acknowledgment of mental game's importance in tournament success_

> "I just was like, okay, I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm just going to do that. And it worked."
> — **Debra Tallman**, ~44:30
> _Describes learning by observation from superior players during high-pressure competition_

> "The moment I started thinking about whoppers it was like something sucked the fun out of the room"
> — **Debra Tallman**, ~53:45
> _Reveals how competitive ranking anxiety negatively impacted her enjoyment, leading her to avoid focusing on WPPR points_

> "It is run by I believe Carrie Hill and Ashley...if I could be a walking advertisement for them constantly, the selection of games...it's worth every dollar I paid for the ferry"
> — **Debra Tallman**, ~46:20
> _Strong endorsement of Neon Pinball Ranch venue and its operators_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Debra Tallman | person | Top-ranked competitive pinball player; recent Whipped tournament winner; also involved in pinball machine sales/distribution business |
| Orbital Albert | person | Host of Pinball Nerds Podcast (Poor Man's Pinball Network); interviewer and pinball community personality |
| Genghis | person | Co-host of We Are Pinball podcast; mentioned in episode opening context |
| Zyron Silvers | person | Competitive pinball player and pinball rapper; son of Lucas Jay; competing at Northwest Pinball Championships |
| Lucas Jay | person | Father of Zyron Silvers; podcast host; recently spoke with Debra Tallman at Northwest Pinball Championships |
| Leslie Ruckman | person | Top-seeded player in Whipped finals; competitor against Debra Tallman |
| Zoe Vrabel | person | Finalist at Whipped tournament; skilled player from whom Debra learned during competition |
| Valencia | person | Finalist at Whipped tournament; competitor against Debra Tallman |
| Kelly | person | Finalist at Whipped tournament alongside Zoe Vrabel and Valencia |
| Carrie Hill | person | Co-operator of Neon Pinball Ranch venue on Vancouver Island; gave Debra positive feedback |
| Ashley | person | Co-operator of Neon Pinball Ranch venue (last name unclear from transcript) |
| Mark Silk | person | Voice actor for Jersey Jack Harry Potter pinball; interviewed by Orbital Albert and Ryan from Phantom Tilt Pinball Podcast |
| Jersey Jack Pinball | company | Pinball manufacturer; made Harry Potter pinball machine praised for cabinet art |
| Whipped Tournament | event | Competitive pinball tournament; Debra Tallman won the finals this year, with previous participation in years 1-2 and competing after COVID recovery |
| Neon Pinball Ranch | organization | Pinball arcade venue on Vancouver Island run by Carrie Hill and Ashley; hosts tournaments; praised for game selection and atmosphere |
| Northwest Pinball Championships | event | Pinball tournament in the Pacific Northwest; venue for meeting Zyron Silvers and Lucas Jay |
| Harry Potter (Jersey Jack Pinball) | game | Jersey Jack pinball machine; Cabinet Edition art praised; wizard level art more controversial; features Mark Silk as voice actor |
| Avatar | game | Pinball machine used in Whipped tournament; Debra played it and demonstrated skilled shot selection |
| Deadpool | game | Pinball machine used in Whipped finals; Debra struggled with tight slings on this machine |
| Target Pool | game | Vintage pinball machine used in Neon Ranch tournament; Debra had never played it before and learned from Zoe Vrabel's technique |
| Doodle Bug | game | Low-scoring EM pinball machine; selected by Debra for bank selection in Whipped qualifying and top 8 rounds |
| Whole Foods | company | Where Debra was working when she met her friend who introduced her to competitive pinball |
| Phantom Tilt Pinball Podcast | organization | Podcast hosted by Ryan and Kimba; featured Mark Silk interview; associated with pinball community |
| We Are Pinball | organization | Podcast hosted by Don and Genghis (mentioned in negative context regarding previous episode) |
| Pinball Nerds Podcast | organization | Episode 584 of this show; part of Poor Man's Pinball Network; hosted by Orbital Albert |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Competitive pinball tournament performance and strategy, Women in pinball and female competitive players, Mental approach and psychology in competitive pinball, Pinball origin stories and player pathways
- **Secondary:** Jersey Jack Harry Potter pinball machine design and aesthetics, Pinball community venues and arcade experiences, Learning and skill development from playing stronger competitors, WPPR rankings and competitive motivation

### Sentiment

**Positive** (0.82) — Episode is enthusiastic and celebratory of Debra's accomplishments. Orbital Albert is energetic and supportive throughout. Debra is reflective, humble despite major wins, and grateful for community and venues. Some brief negative commentary about other pinball podcasters' criticism of Harry Potter art, but primary tone is celebratory and warm.

### Signals

- **[community_signal]** Neon Pinball Ranch on Vancouver Island positioned as premier women's pinball venue with strong community atmosphere and game selection; operators Carrie Hill and Ashley building destination-level attraction (confidence: high) — Debra traveled significantly to attend, Whipped sponsorship connection, strong venue endorsement and willingness to make return trips
- **[sentiment_shift]** Strong positive sentiment toward women-focused tournaments (Whipped) and female-friendly venues (Neon Pinball Ranch); community organizing around women's pinball experiences (confidence: high) — Debra traveled significantly post-tournament to Neon Ranch; emphasized meeting women players; tournament structure supporting female participation and recognition
- **[competitive_signal]** Top female competitive players (Debra, Zoe Vrabel, Valencia, Leslie Ruckman) learning strategies from each other in real-time during tournaments; knowledge transfer and mutual improvement evident (confidence: high) — Debra learning flipper techniques from Zoe Vrabel on Target Pool during Neon Ranch tournament; describes actively learning from other finalists each round
- **[design_philosophy]** Harry Potter Cabinet Edition artwork praised, but wizard level art receiving significant community criticism as looking like 'children drawing with crayons' from multiple podcast sources (confidence: medium) — Orbital Albert references 'pinball podcasters' saying artwork looks like children's drawings; describes it as 'pediatric office' quality; mentions giving wizard level art B+ or B- rating
- **[market_signal]** Debra Tallman involved in pinball machine sales/distribution business alongside tournament competition; indicates secondary income stream opportunity in pinball community (confidence: medium) — Orbital Albert mentions Debra needed to drop off a pinball machine; indicates she buys, sells, and distributes machines; question cut short before details provided
- **[community_signal]** Debra Tallman describes using music, singing, and entering 'flow zone' mental state as key to peak tournament performance; emphasizes positive mindset and stress avoidance (confidence: high) — Direct quotes about getting hyped, singing, and how stress about rankings (whoppers/WPPR) sucked the fun out of pinball
- **[product_strategy]** Jersey Jack positioning Harry Potter as premium aesthetic achievement; Cabinet Edition art highlighted as exceptional versus other Stern machines and competitors (confidence: medium) — Orbital Albert's extensive praise of CE cabinet art; comparisons to Game of Thrones and other modern Sterns; framing as most beautiful artwork ever seen on pinball machine

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## Transcript

 I'm not a perfect person There's many things I wish I didn't do, Cengiz But I continue learning I never meant to do those things to you, Cengiz So I have to say before I go, Cengiz I just want you to know I found a reason for me To change who I want to still be The reason to start over new And the reason is, Cengiz Me, that I hurt you, Cengiz But I never meant to hurt your feelings that bad I was just kidding around And I'm so sorry today because I found a reason why. All right, that's, okay, way too much. Probably like a minute and a half too much of that. But guess what, pinball nerds? Did you ever in your life think I would be back for, what, a fourth day in a row, a fifth day in a row? Who knows? But I am because just recently, speaking with the world's number one pinball player, Debra Tallman. And that's right. She was last night speaking to my buddy Lucas Jay, who's Zyron Silver's dad. Shout out to all three of you up there at the Northwest Pinball Championships. And they got talking, and Debra realized that her podcast wasn't still up, and she was like, I want Lucas Jay to hear it. That would make his day. You know, Zyron might even take a little listen himself when he's not out there. probably win in the whole freaking tournament. Shout out to my pin turn and my boy and my favorite pinball rapper, Zyron Silvers. Go win it all. I mean, other than Debra Tallman. Go win it all. But you both win it all. I'd love to see you guys tie. Can you imagine if it was like a three strikes and you're out and on the very last game, when they both had two strikes, they got the exact same score. And I don't mean on like Doodle Bug or some low scoring EM, but if they got the exact same score on like Jurassic Park or like, who knows? maybe Harry Potter's already there. Jersey Jack's most beautiful machine they've ever made. Arguably the art on the CE on the cabinet, not the back glass, okay, not the play field. But I honestly think that that CE cab art is by far the most beautiful artwork I've ever seen. But today is for Lucas J, Zyron Silvers, Debra Tallman. Here you go. I tried to send it to Debra a couple times. I even tried compressing it. Facebook will only let you send 100 and I said to her it's not fair that this got deleted in the first place. So here you go Debra. Just for you. Just for Zyron Silvers. My boy. Get out there and win it all. Lucas J, his rad dad. Shout out to all the rad pinball dads out there. And shout out to everybody at the Northwest Pinball Championships. If you live anywhere in the Northwest, get your butt toonie there, and if not, get on a plane, train, automobile, make it happen. John Candy, I love you, man. So this isn't just going out to Jenga's, my boy. I know it's been a day, and he listened to every episode, so he needed one. So I got one for him, but I got one for Debra Tallman, who was also itching to hear her own episode. So anyways, without further ado, I'm actually going to be bringing on some pinball podcasters. One in particular is just saying how horrible and how bad it looks like children drawing with crans it's something you'd see in a pediatric what do you call a kid doctor one of those doctor's offices it's like what and they're saying that about the ce art now if you're bitching moaning and complaining about the wizard level i get it because it kind of it's a little photoshoppy i gave it a b plus to try to be nice i don't know or b minus i think it looks better than 99 of like I think it looks better than Game of Thrones, but not many other modern sterns. You know what I mean? So, like, you know, I'd much rather a Franchi or a Zombietti than the other two versions of Harry Potter. But the other two versions of Harry Potter are less than $23,000 Australian or Canadian. So, anyways, shout out also to my friends Ryan and Kimba from Phantom Tilt Pinball Podcast. We most recently heard Marc Silk, my boy Marc Silk, who I got to interview last year. and then Ryan from Phantom Tilt got to interview on his last show. He's, of course, the voice in Harry Potter. So congratulations to Marc Silk as well and Eric Meunier and Jersey Jack and everyone else over there. But enough about my BS. Let's go listen to Debra. I'll just set the stage. I was exhausted. I think I was home alone. I believe my wife and the kids were, maybe my son was working and then the other, I think my wife and Owen, Drop Target Danielle and Little Orby Jr. were backing on terrible, visiting friends in Tirana and London and Eldot and the Forest City and all those places. So I think, honestly, at the time, I was just on my own, living my best life. I managed to get the dogs down in bed, and I think I did the inevitable. I should never do this. I started drinking before 1 p.m., and by the time I got to chat with her, I was a little bit luck-sucked, and we went off the rails a couple times, and I know she had some service issues. She was kind of half-working and chatting. So I don't really exactly remember why I took it down, but I took it down. I took down a whole bunch. I didn't love my episodes in around August. I went through some personal issues and stuff, and I took down a whole bunch of them from August, and I'm allowed to do that. This is meant to be a blog. It's not meant to be up there forever, but in this particular case, I felt really bad that Debra's was down. I was planning to put it up on Patreon or something like that at some point, and I still at some point will want to have Patreon, but it's not fair that there's three or four radical awesome nerds out there in the Northwest Pinball Championships that would love to listen to her awesome interview with me. And when she said, can you send me the interview? I said, do you mean the one with Zyron or the one with you? And she goes, what? I said, are you saying Lucas, like Zyron's dad wants to hear the interview that you were in or the one that Zyron was in? And she's like, he was on your show. And I'm like, yeah, he freaking rapped on my show. Like it was incredible. So anyways, go back and listen to Zyron Silvers. Now that I've said that, I should know what episode it is. But I don't remember. If you just type into Google, it would have been like last summer or last spring, like after I got home from my trip to Wisconsin and been master. So anyways, have you lovely nerds a wonderful day. This is a reissued episode, so I'm not going to be upset if the numbers are particularly low. I was shocked to see my Changas episode. Is it Changas? Like Changas or Jengas? I'm not really sure. Either way, my episode with the gentleman who does a podcast on WAP with the other one that I will not speak of for the rest of my life, that particular show that I did, still today, was getting more, I think it got like 12 or 13 listens. Well, my top five rad about Jersey Jack. Go back and listen to the top five rad. It's incredible. You can listen to the Jenga's thing if you like drama and stuff. I mean, I didn't like having to do that episode. It wasn't very fun. I talked about stuff I wasn't really very comfortable doing. I still think it's a pretty fire episode as far as like a non-pinball episode goes, but as a pinball episode, it's pretty lame. I'm sorry. Anyways, that was Hoobastanks the Reason. So have yourself a wonderful weekend. I'm going to be back with an art major to discuss if Jersey Jack's most beautiful artwork, that CE, that is the only artwork I've ever seen on any pinball machine. I'd actually like to hang up outside of my arcade, if that makes sense. but I'm going to have an art major on to discuss if she believes that the artwork on Jersey Jack's Harry Potter is actually so horrible that it looks like it like I just want to see if that's reasonable or fair a fair thing to say about that machine and geez if you if I was Crystal Gemnick or Jack Guarnieri or even Cam Cromwell who's now left there hearing and listening to Jenga's and And Don just belittle and berate Harry Potter that poorly. And you worked at the factory going, well, I'm not going to invite this. I don't want to see this guy ever again. I mean, Jack Winnerian went off on Cale Hernandez just like for just asking a simple question. So like, Jesus, if Jack Winnery, if I ever sent him like even the 15 second clip of Don saying that, oh my God, I'm pretty sure he'd be banned from Jersey Jack for life. And we know that this particular man only cares about invites. So this would be very bad for him. But I've gone off topic. I've been negative. I've been rude. I'm sorry, guys. let's go Oilers they're playing tonight I can't wait I'm going to go crack open another sour beer and I'm going to forget about all my sour grapes because it is great until next time remember to eat, sleep, and breathe and turn the stairs into a freaking bath Welcome back, Pinball Nerds, to episode 584 of your fifth favorite pinball podcast. My name's Orbital Albert, and on today's show, I have Debra Tallman. And that's right. The, well, you know, maybe some would say one of the top pinball nerds on planet Earth. Women, men, doesn't matter. She's incredible. She does awesome commentary. She also works in the biz, from what I understand. Really excited to have you here, Debra. I know it took us a couple days to, like, align our stars, but we managed to do it. So, welcome to the show. What's a week and a half amongst friends? You know what? Honestly, people think it's so easy to have a pinball podcast and it's so easy to get interviews. And it's like, you're super busy. I'm like slightly more busier than I usually am right now because it's summertime and our busy season here. And honestly, probably the hardest part of any people getting an interview is lining up two times you can both chat. First of all, sup fellow nerds. Hello, everybody. Second of all, doing a pinball podcast is as easy as making a pinball machine, I'm told. Right. Okay, which is super easy. It's definitely not hard. It's the easiest. No companies ever fail. Pinball's easy. I don't know what to tell you. Well, thank you so much for being here. Just to give everybody a quick... Glad to be here. Awesome. To give everybody a point of reference, I usually typically only interview people I've had the pleasure of meeting in person, and I actually did fine after getting to see you do commentary and get to see you play in a lot of women's tournaments before, as well as just kicking ass in all the tournaments, the main and everything. I was so excited to finally meet you, uh, at Lumber, I think Lumberjack Johnny's, uh, during nationals. Yeah. And we played together and you kicked my ass and you took me out. I forget that we're around, we're on like some machine. I knew well, like Metallica or T2 or something, but you kicked my ass, you took me out. And then after that, I actually got to, uh, chat with you for a bit, which was super rad. Um, but like tell everybody else, like, I guess, uh, you know, what do you remember from, uh, meeting me and hanging out and kicking my ass on T2? I think. uh you seemed and I could be totally wrong about this first part but you seemed because I know I'm right about the second part you seemed really um rather inebriated and happy I was totally sober did I fool you what yeah you fooled me I don't at these things I'm constantly like okay so you're one of those people who's high on life aren't you I'm straight edge I'm just kidding no no no no I was I was high on everything no I was short of short of the devil's lettuce and a lot of craft beer but mostly I think I was high on serotonin from meeting like so many like awesome pinball people at nationals that I never thought I'd get to meet and not only meeting them but getting to play with them now did I hang with them so geeky of you it was fun it was so fun it was so great give everybody I know there's certain uh people out there who don't want to hear too much of your pinball origin story but I don't care this is my freaking show I want to know what did you start playing when you were younger in your teenage years in your 20 like when did you start playing and when did you really really get into it how did you get into doing your first tournament uh like yeah when I was a kid I had a choice you know you could play like console at home stuff you could play whatever board games like you could play dnd you could play video games out in the wild or you could play pinball out in the wild and every time I went past the pinball machine I was just like addicted to it and I was always like shaking my mom down for quarters um and then I would like because I didn't have any like concept of like getting free games or like doing like getting replays because I played well I was like a kid I was like wet wet wet flat flat flat that was awesome more quarters please so uh yeah I'm pretty sure my mom was um concerned about my burgeoning addiction but she did more or less uh support the habit and yeah i remember like adam's family and like old school fire and i love fire because it had an up post and it was only 25 cents but adams was like 50 cents which seemed atrocious uh like you can't have the games it was so sad and no ball save no ball save um and then like the the competitive stuff uh was actually meeting someone who I was working at Whole Foods at the time and the person that I met was working at a Trader Joe's and we bonded over both having celiacs and she was like oh you're cool do you like pinball and like my whole body was like pinball I forgot about that um and then I've been doing that like the last whatever it is like seven or eight years okay so you you kind of just sort of got back into playing like well doing a lot of uh not that I played competitively when I was younger but I played a shats ton from maybe when I was 18 19 started going out to bars uh laundromats college university all that kind of stuff and then you kind of fell back in love with it like eight or nine years ago sort of like me um yeah like I never fell out of love with it I just like it stopped being a thing that I bumped into randomly like I stopped going to the places that had pinball like was mostly pizza joints and by that time of course I had celiacs so I never went into a pizza joint and they'd probably taken all the pinball machines out years before that anyway like it just wasn't in front of me and I had no idea there was this whole crazy culture of competitive pinball and leagues and international travel and like groups of people that get together every weekend and do this and you you actually are traveling quite a bit first of all I just want to congratulate you on your big win for whipped uh I don't care what anyone says when I watched you play that very first game of Avatar, not the one by the end of finals that I think you ended up winning on, but when I watched you play it earlier, I was like, this, she is dialed in, she is nailing most, you weren't nailing every shot, of course, but the shots you were missing, you were making sure you were nudging early, you were just, I could just tell you were freaking dialed in for that tournament. Did you also believe that maybe you could win that tournament by the time it got down to the four of you? I know you had Leslie Ruckman with you, and I believe there was, who were the other two in finals with you? Valencia, Kelly, and Zoe Vrabel. Yes. So did you also believe, like, somewhere, when did you start thinking, like, wow, I might be able to do this? I didn't. Never. Not even in the end when they passed you the trophy. This is probably, I know you don't do any cutting, so I'm really going to try not to be myself, and I'm going to try to make it simple. But, like, this is the day for me. like um originally like whipped whipped for me when it originally happened I was like tied for I was I was tied at the end it was it was slaughter finals right so only the top four got to go to the finals and I played I like I played well beyond my expectations for that very first inaugural whipped and then I was like tied for potentially fourth place going into finals and we played frontier and I just did not get good balls and who knows I probably like didn't bump right but it was like super tight tilt and it just it just ended and there were no finals and i had done so well and i was like that is the closest i am ever going to get to that freaking podium ever again and then the following year at the second whipped i did well uh but it was like the same thing i just wasn't in the finals so okay fast forward past covid i thought whipped was like done i thought it got whipped and then they're like oh yeah it's happening again and i was still like at yankin I'm pretty sure at Yigpay and I picked up COVID or like something nasty that made me tired for like weeks and weeks. And when we got to Pinburgh, I was still super tired. So I didn't even I was glad that I ended up not getting a chance to play in Pinburgh. But by Sunday, I was like, I got to play. I'm so tired, but I got to play. And I just like, OK, OK, this is what we're going to do. Me, I'm just going to do one ball at a time, one game at a time. And then you're going to go and sit in between balls and it's just you're going to do it. And I was super nervous for the qualifying because I didn't care anything else that happened. I just wanted to make it to a whipped finals. That was the goal. Whipped finals. I always wanted it. So when I got to the top 16, I breathed a sigh of relief. Like that was when all the stress mostly left my body. And then I was like, cool, I did the thing. I succeeded. I'm done. I'm here. Woohoo. I did the thing. You know. And then from there, it's like top 16. You're like, oh, come on. Like I, I, you know, I can't give up on myself right now. Like, like I'm not saying I don't ever give up on myself. I'm not saying that, but like, I can't stop really like putting the push on. Right. Like now is not the time to slow down. Like top 16, go for top eight. And I was nervous in the top 16, like a little baby bit. And then I got to top eight and I was like, boom, I'm done. I'm in, I'm here. Yeah. And I was like, if you looked around the room, all of the women that I was playing against at that point, I was like, yeah, it's going to be hilarious. Like, like I'm whatever I'm going to get routed or I'm going to do well, but who cares? I'm here. I'm happy. Um, and then that's that top eight round, um, the person ahead of me, um, oh, she's, she's so incredible. Um, I hope I'm not going to get her name wrong, but I think it was Sarah. Okay. She rolled, she rolled doodlebug. Oh geez. And it was like, oh, so that's how it is. Cause that's where we were starting. I made top seed for qualifying so I got to choose the bank and I chose the Doodle Bug bank for both top 16 and top 8. Before I got to the top 4 where Leslie got to pick, she was top top seed. But Sarah rolled Doodle Bug and I was like, yep, I know, I know that's what I thought was going to happen, this is fine. And please, I hope I'm getting her name right anyway, she's amazing. And I was just so happy and I went up and I started playing Doodle and I was playing and right before I got up I was like, okay, all I got to do is 200,000, yeah or no no I'm sorry I said all I gotta do is 100,000 and Petey hopefully said 100 um 107,000 yeah um and I was like okay yeah 200,000 whatever let's let's do it and then I I rolled it too and I got all like just up over her score did you do the doodle bug I did the doodle I did I got some I got some sweet sweet doodle on like the fourth or fifth ball or whatever it was and that was you know like when you're having when you're having like I didn't even know what my score was at that point I was just like play play play play play yeah play play play play and I listen to music and I get hyped up and like the world kind of falls away and you get into that like flow zone yeah and you sing a little bit too you're like me when you really get in the zone you like to sing along a little you know we could kind of hear you on the live stream I would I didn't separate the vocals I'm not going to play them now in the background but that's the thing is like I always get embarrassed once in a while if I have a really good game at like my local record store and it's it's a Saturday afternoon and people are looking at records all of a sudden you know I'm almost falling on the ground I'm doing donkey kicks I'm singing out loud like I'm totally in my head and then I look over I look over and like everyone's like dude you're singing to the Beatles and you're in a rock and roll like I mean the Beatles are rock and roll that's amazing I love that about you I try to tone it down you know that's the vibe um so okay so that was like the top eight and I was like oh wow that's crazy I might actually oh okay I'm still in it I just got a first place on the first game maybe maybe this is okay cool and then I just you know I kept up the energy and excitement every time we played Deadpool I swear I would just uh Deadpool was the worst game for me in all of those finals um the and I love that game but for whatever reason when it's set up tight and the slings are tight I just fall apart but I managed to squeak through and so So by the time I got to the top four, I was negative stress. I had, there was no actual, I was like, I was backwards stress. I was so happy so like this is so cool And now I gonna get my ass handed to me by like Zoe and Valencia and Leslie And they all going to kick my ass This is awesome. I'm going to get fourth. I love it. I was just not stressed at all. And I think that ultimately, I mean, that's always going to help me out when I play. And I know that. But whoa, I'm so glad that I was like, y'all are so good. Glad to be standing amongst you. Like, if I had gotten stressed out, I would have gotten in my head. And then, then I would not be standing before you with that win under my belt. Well, congratulations. You absolutely killed it. That was so cool. It was neat. Thanks, man. I mean, I've seen you play great in tournaments before, of course. But this particular time, first of all, you know, I already got to meet you earlier this year. And then second of all, I was, you know, so excited to be watching. I really wanted to go to the Beast this year. It did not happen. I'm coming next year. Watch out, Jeff Teolis. I want to go to Pimberg next year. I'm going to be trying to get Pimberg's obviously even harder to get into. but you actually, after winning that tournament, you actually went the following weekend to somewhere in Canada, I heard. Did you want to tell us all about that quickly? Yeah, I really do, but can I just give a little bit of a shout-out to my girl Zoe? Shout-out? Yeah, do it. Zoe. Zoe, yeah. My shout-out's to Zoe because the game that we played, oh, God, was it called Target Pool? I've never played Target Pool before. I didn't know what I was doing. I'd seen it on commentary, and Zoe had a blow-up game before me. And I was just, I was watching all of her bounces and all of her, like, flipper holds and all of her bounce-overs. And, like, I just was like, okay, I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm just going to do that. And it worked. And it's amazing. Like, yeah, well, it's really cool. Like, it's a testament to the level of skill that we were playing with at Whipped this year and previous years. But it's also like it's amazing to get to play with high quality players. And instead of being like intimidated by it or bothered by it, to like get hyped about it and to learn from like the people you're surrounded with. Like it's it's really an honor to be playing with these people who are so, so good at this. Like I was actively every round that I was in those finals, I was learning something from the players. And I was that was one of the things I was excited I remember to do was watch and learn from the other people around me. So, yeah, shout out to them all. Leslie, Valencia, everyone else in the top 16. Like, it was just phenomenal. Everyone in the tournament helped. Neon Ranch, you asked about. I went to a tournament on Vancouver Island. Okay, perfect. It was amazing. The reason why I did is because, well, sorry. The reason why I, like, was like, okay, now I got to go. After the whips thing, I was like, well, they sponsored it. and it was incredible that they sponsored it. That was huge. So I was like, well, I'll figure out a way. And so I Facebook crowdsourced help. I needed places to crash. I needed to figure out how to get to places. The plane tickets are really expensive. Even when I looked a couple months ago, they were really expensive, which is why I was like, I don't think I can go. But I'm so glad, 100%. I spent four days with the Seattle scene. I spent a day and a half overnight camping at the neon pinball ranch, the selection, but like, Oh my God, like if I could be a walking advertisement for them constantly, the selection of games, like the, the, like the, just the mood that you get into when you walk into the space and what they did to make it like such a killer cool pinball place. Like it's worth every dollar I paid for the ferry. It's worth every, every iota ounce of what you need to do to get there and like hang out with these women and play at the neon pinball ranch like holy crap and it is uh that's such an awesome shout out it is run by i believe carrie hill is it carrie hill and um and ashley uh kala kala kala yes yeah i got to i got to meet carrie hill and uh i didn't get to play with her at d82 even though i met her there but she gave me like the coolest compliment ever we she just finished kicking my butt at lumberjack johnny's on one of the pins and afterwards she goes uh i was asking her what so where are you from? She's like, oh, Vancouver. I'm like, oh, that's so cool. I love it there, blah, blah, blah, going on. And then she goes, where are you from? I said, oh, just guess. She goes, I don't know. You look kind of like hipster or something like New York or California. I was like, oh my God, I could give you a hug right now. I'm from the middle of the sticks. I'm from Nova Scotia. She's like, you're Nova Scotia? Because we're known as the tiniest, smallest, kind of redneck backwoods. I don't want it to go too far because there's certainly, we have one large city of 300,000 people, but like, uh, I also have to assume that you've got a city full of nerds. Cause like, yeah. Um, I don't think that they even know my pinball podcast exists, which is kind of how I like it, which is why on my personal Facebook, even though I do tons of embarrassing things, posting my pinball podcast there is not one of them that I do, thankfully. But, uh, yeah, I, okay. I had to ask this too, as well, because, you and me, we're both into Whoppers, right? We love the juicy... Right? Well, so... For a celiac. Hold on a second. I'm popping outside. We're taking this interview on the road. Okay, I'm outside now. Is the sound still okay? Yeah, it sounds fine. So are you saying that you don't play pinball tournaments for the Whoppers? Yeah, no. I had to stop worrying about the Whoppers because they stressed me out okay and like pinball was becoming like less and less fun like the moment the moment i started thinking about whoppers it was like something sucked the fun out of the room so like if i am destined to have whoppers it is by dint of completely ignoring that they exist okay fair enough that's you know what maybe i should do that because if i think about it too much then then i get you know it bothers me way way way too much um that being said i'm sure that you did get a fair amount of whoppers from winning and um i don't know they haven't posted yet oh my gosh so i wrote the chicago expo tournaments and i a couple years ago like i wouldn't post until like the very end of like the deadline because i would be so busy with stuff but i just couldn't find the time and now i understand i do now i understand that i should have posted sooner like next day posting hashtag immediate posting so it's kind of like uh uh it's kind of like your guilty pleasure is checking out your whoppers it sounds like dude like after you do a thing after you like got them yeah like by doing something cool like oh yeah i'm so excited about it like i'm actually after the neon pinball ranch and they did post i went from um being seventh place back up to like top five and women's whoppers wow congratulations yeah you won neon ranch too you didn't even mention that in your your summary yeah that's incredible because that wasn't because that wasn't why i went there like i went there to like party and like you know camp with some cool people and but yeah the first half in there too which is nice that's awesome um so I'm very curious as well you did mention me when we were trying to line up this interview that you had to go drop off a pinball machine uh tell me a little bit about that you also buy and sell pinball machines or is it your side hustle your main gig how does that all work. Hello? Oh, no. Okay. So either she really didn't want to answer that question or we lost her. I know she was traveling. So, oh, incoming call. Here we go. We might have Debra back. Hello. Okay. She's coming in. We can see her. And we're back. Albert. Hey, how's it going? You're back. Trent is actively doing a conference call. Can I call you back as soon as he's done? Sure. Would you guess it would be like five minutes, ten minutes, somewhere in that range? I guess maybe like five minutes, yeah. Oh, okay. Awesome. I will just keep talking until you call back. By the way, thank you for being like accepting of my verbosity. No, it's all good. It's all good. Thanks for being on the show. Like, heck, I'm not paying anything to be here. So, all right, I'll talk to you soon. Talk to you soon. Bye. Oh, my gosh, nerds. You got to hang out with just me until Debra calls back? Okay. Sounds like Trent was busy there, probably getting a big sale. Or, geez, what if he was talking to, like, Stern? And then, you know, we might have given away information. Hopefully no sound engineers blow that up. it could have been Gary Stern just telling them the next seven or eight titles going on there what else did I want to talk about? I am going to be doing a show not tomorrow or the next day but probably the next three or four days people like between and I love Jason Knapp I did say happy birthday to him on the last one but Knapp's Arcade even Kerry Hardy I guess has signed the NDA for it everybody no one will stop talking about Alice in Wonderland please I want a guest on the Pinball Nerds podcast. I want just one single solitary guest to call in and tell me why on God's green earth they think that Alice in Wonderland would be – Debra is sending me messages currently. Why on earth you think that would be a good title. I don't get it. I was trying to think about it. Like I remember when I was a kid. Like honestly think about how many cool themes there are for Disney. I'm not going to name them all right now. but like even one of them could be you know uh the little mermaid you're telling me you wouldn't rather i mean okay i thought that one first because my wife brought one that went up shout out by the way to drop target danielle it is uh it was our seventh year anniversary yesterday and we're going on coming up to 21 years together this fall like that is a long time together i would not want to stay with myself for seven years never mind 21 so uh she's crazy and that's why we love her. Yeah, so anyways, got a nice compliment from Debra there. She said, I love your interviewing style. I don't know if it's interviewing or it's just like two people talking. I try to make it more like a convo, less stripped down. You're going to have to hear all the filler words. I'm sorry, but don't worry. It makes it easy to just fast forward me. And years and years and years ago, someone gave me, I don't know if it was a compliment or backhanded compliment, but they said, you are the only pinball podcast I can't listen to in Fast Forward. And then I said to them, you know, basically, in my first 100 episodes, people said I always had to fast forward you, you talk too slow. So then I tried to talk faster for like 300 episodes. And just recently, in the last, I would say, two or three months, I've really slowed things down again. And I'm sorry, if you have to listen to me on Fast Forward, I'm just very level headed. I'm very measured. That's just the type of person I am. I don't go off the cuff here. I wrote down every single question before I asked her. No, I didn't. No, I didn't. When I'm getting to chat with a friend like this, like same with Franchie, like Franchie just, I just messaged him and said, hey, it's my birthday. You want to call in and chat, right? Thanks so much, Franchie, for that. Drew C. Oh, gosh, darn it. Debra's going to remind me how to pronounce your last name, because she said it, and she said it way better than me, but one of the world's top players. I I think he got second at Nationals. In fact, I'm pretty sure he did against Dalton, I believe. And I believe he got second. Oh, I also want to do another correction. If I screw up on the show, I'll do a correction. How did I forget that Escher Lefkoff, I put him as my background for my cover on Facebook because I forgot. As an apology, Escher, I'm not worthy. I'm sorry. Escher got first at the Beast. I said that it was I said that it was Jared August or Jason Zoller but they got second and third so shout out to all three of them and also Nick Greenan long time listener of the show he always when he saw me last time it was so funny like I hadn't seen Nick in like five years if I said this on a previous show I'm sorry I'm just filling time but like if Nick said to me like he hadn't seen me for like five years I thought he'd be like yeah you know how's Nova Scotia Orby or Albert he knew me as Albert long before I was Orby right so I thought he would say like you know how's it been out there like what's it like or what's the pinball scene like he goes how come on your Facebook post you always say meow instead of now and I said I don't know because it seems funny and I like to speak with like little alliterations is that what they're called I don't know what they're called but I like to be punny I'm a dad I'm allowed to I'm allowed two dad jokes per day okay so like just let me have my dad jokes but sorry to ask your left off he did win it and Nick Green and I believe he got third in the classics uh he's only like 20 or like 21. He's super young and he's just playing at such a high level. You're going to be hearing about and seeing Nick Green in forever and ever and ever. He smoked me at all the, at Maple Pinball there earlier this year. So nice to see him. And just to let you know, Nick, it was so nice to see you then. And it'll be great to see you in the future. Meow. Yes. Debra is still talking to me. I think she assumes that I can like, uh, I'm not, I get the easily distracted squirrel. So I can't really read. This is a very long comment. I can't really read it. Deborah, just call back in when you're done. Gosh darn it. I told her I can't edit. Anyways, I'm just doing filler here. You guys know me. I could fill filler all day long. Um, if you didn't go back there and watch the beast, you can go check it on the Castleman's. That's right. Uh, they have, uh, their channel on Twitch is pinballers. Um, I know they, I think they had some difficulties on the third day, but the first two days are there. My highlight was watching Bruce and Ron, and the other day, go watch Phantom Tail Pinball Podcast, the live stream, go to their Facebook page, watch Ryan Barry do the live stream. Kimba was in the chat, but she wasn't there, unfortunately. They had a problem with their ute, so he's stuck in the south, and she's up in the north or something, but he actually did give some more new, I would say newer tidbits about Haggis, so go make sure you take a listen to that. Thanks to Drew C., by the way, for that. He tossed me 33 bucks. That's Like, do you know how many games of pinball I can play with that, Drew? Like, a lot. One of the top players on planet Earth. He was also out there at the Beast as well. Didn't get to see him there. Did get to talk to him at Nationals. What an awesome dude. Really calm, mellow, down-to-earth. Probably, I even asked him if he wanted to come on the podcast, and he did say typically he doesn't, you know, he's not super vocal and stuff like that. But incredible player nonetheless. And shout-out to Drew. Shout-out to Ray Day for that awesome birthday gift, which most of that, of course, was spent on Drop Target Danielle. But here we go. Debra's calling back. Tommy's Taco Shack, how may I help you? Hi. Hey, you made it back. I'm looking for a pinball machine. Got any? Maybe. What happened, though, is you're not on Bluetooth, so they can't hear you. So I'm going to figure out a way to fix this. It's going to happen. Okay. There we go. Okay, hold on one second. don't say anything too important don't tell us the next five stern games okay it's not elbert orby orby thank you orby there you go is elbert i'm like oh my god he said don't call him elbert i was totally kidding that's more of like a joke because when i come on the show not so much when i'm interviewing or pinter viewing uh but when i'm just like when i'm just doing one of my own shows, I do play a more exaggerated, supposed to be a joke, that's why I joke about being your fifth favorite pinball podcast, the whole point of this for like the first hundred episodes is I was kind of making fun of all the pinball podcasts that took themselves way too goddamn fucking seriously, this was meant to be like a fun, you know, you know what I mean, and this is, with final round pinball podcasts possibly being gone due to the whole Haggis thing, and I don't want to speak for them, because I don't know, but with them being gone, like I would be in the top, like I would be probably the only dude talking about tournament pinball anymore on a podcast, really other than one third of triple drain every two months right so it's like uh we we got to have at least one person talk attorneys right hey question like just for future reference like if since i'm always at tournaments um and we're not always at necessarily the same tournaments i would i would love to like hop on occasionally be like this is what it was like like boots on the ground it's such tournament this is what it was like this weekend like if you want to ever do anything like that. I'm totally fucking down. Debra, you are hired. That would be so much fun to just shit talk with you. Oh, my, am I a swearer? Is that acceptable? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. There was that one show where I tried not to swear, but even that one, I think I said shats. Like, eight years ago when I had, like, when my 15-year-old was, like, 9 or 10, I would just not swear on those shows if he was around, but I'm pretty sure both my 15-year-old and my 19-year-old swear more than I do at this point, and neither of them are home, so yeah, we can go at it. I do feel bad once in a while, because I know if you're driving around with your kids in the car or something like that, or you're listening at work and you work at, I don't know, a Bible study, or I don't know why you'd work at a Bible study, you know what I mean? If you work somewhere where you just can't have swear words, it would be rad if you didn't have to have your headset on, right? But yeah, no, you're hired. You're hired. Every show you go to, you're my new pin turn. Yeah, I'm going to be like your Rachel. I'm going to be the Rachel Maddow dear Keith Over, whatever his name was. That's so cool. Orberman? I have had a couple pin turns over the years. Orby Orberman, that's what I'm going to call you. Orby Orberman, that's a mouthful. I did have a pin turn for a while. Believe it or not, my old pin turn, he did a couple shows for me, Chris Grosner. Chris the pin turn, of course, on Twitch. He actually interviewed Leslie Ruckman years ago back with Game Time Television, which was awesome. and then the other interview he did, which has not aged well, the only other interview my Pinter did was with Damien of Haggis. So I kind of, I was the first person ever to platform Haggis. I'm like, don't come at me, Internet. Don't come and say it's my fault just because my Pinter interviewed a guy at his show, right? But, no, I was kind of asking. This is all being recorded, right? This is all being recorded. Don't say anything that you're going to regret tomorrow. But tell us all the secrets. well just that you know you were the first guy to platform haggis so we should all come at you for all oh obviously like uh i've you know what if my stern rant didn't get me canceled i don't think that a haggis interview from five years ago is going to do shit but uh you know i try i'm uncancellable i try my best i even tried to get canceled today by uh you know doing i i did like a you know i did the canadian version of the australian breakdance and uh yeah i think it broke the internet. I think people really liked it. They've never... Have you ever seen an old fat guy dance around on the ground like that? I have. Um, just neck. Oh, no, you're cutting in and out a little bit. I like that you were wearing the green. Okay, well, so, like, let's just play it by ear, really, and see, like, if it stays on, like, like, once, because we're about to park. on route to a thing. And so as soon as we park, you can tell me if it's still glitching or if it seems like it. It's going, okay. It's going in and out a little bit. I'm not going to lie. We're in the country. That's what we do. We hang out in the country and we play pinball. Okay, tell us what you're doing out there in the country. I'm officially stopped. Perfect. I am. I wonder if there's like Wi-Fi here. Trish is laughing at me. If you can hear me at all, I wonder if there's Wi-Fi. I can, I can, I can. You can hear me? Yeah, I can hear you much better now for some reason with the car stopped. So maybe you just, you're standing on the top of a tall, I feel like we're in that commercial from the early 2000s. Can you hear me meow? Anyways, that was, that was a throwback. The purgatory that we found ourselves in. Yeah, so I'm very curious. I don't remember seeing you or hanging out with you at all at the last Pinberg in 2019 but I know you were there because of your Facebook picture but how special was it for you I know you didn't get to play in Pinberg but how special was it five years later to go back to Pinberg and see all those same people and you know not everybody because a thousand people couldn't fit there of course but you know how cool is that to be even you know get to do commentary for that and get to just see everybody and how are the vibes the general vibes at Pinberg well okay so you can still hear me right just a sound check yep okay so first of all i think 2019 was the year that everybody tied for first place at pinberg because we didn't have pinberg that year yes so 28 was it 2018 probably yeah it probably explains why you didn't see me yet yeah that's why you weren't there well i did i tied deborah tallman guys come on but I'm totally glad that you went because at least somebody did. Hey, if I was the only person there. So yeah, 2018 was, was, you know, 2019 was magic. Hold on. I'm going to like move again. Cause I think I just lost a little bit of, wait, can you hear me now? Yes. Okay. So I'm sorry. Can you say what you said? But like, again, well, yeah, I was just curious the first time. Yeah, I can hear a tiny bit of my feedback for some reason or another, but it's all good. I was just wondering like how special was it to get to go to the first Pemberg back again Yeah it was like it was killer Like I told you I was too tired When I tried to get tickets I was in an airport and it rejected my credit card information And so, like, I failed to get on the, like, tickets. I failed to get tickets. But I also was on the wait list and I was one out. And that ended up being perfect because I just, I didn't have the energy to play that weekend, right? As I was mentioning earlier. and instead you know I just I just I still wanted to go and see it and be there and be with it you know like that's how cool I think Pimberg is and I was so excited it was back and then I got asked to be in the commentary booth which was amazing because I got to hang out with Chris Stevens and and other people who you know just make the commentary booth a lot of extra fun I thought that you did a great job like I've always said Steven Bowden is one of my favorite commentary guys i love jeff tiolis just for color commentary mostly um totally but you and zoe like you two together had such good chemistry like i could totally tell you guys are friends in real life even you and chris stevens did killer like chris stevens knows the rules like 10 times what the average pinball nerd does so you both did incredible um i hope to see you doing commentary more in the future because that was just that was so cool um the one thing i wanted to bring up was we are both well you're already into the 24 hour at the sanctum i am number four on the wait list but i'm pretty for i'm pretty sure i'm gonna get in pretty sure oh yeah oh yeah you're going you're going i'm pretty sure give me some tips and i know that some people listening you know are have never played in a 24-hour tournament but i'm just so curious you've done it before give me some tips and just they could be general tips for every pinball tournament not just the 24-hour ones but also specifically for this particular one just give me some tips some like some like how do people even make it 24 hours i think i've tried to stay up to like 2 a.m and i've just fallen asleep like like at the table you know what i mean so give me some tips for my first time as a newbie um well you know how you said you're like super straight edge that was totally a joke but yes do that that's that's the first step like if you're if you smoke a lot of weed like whatever like people know people who smoke a lot of weed know what their tolerances they know if they stay up for a long time or if they pass out like so plan accordingly if you're like one of the pass out kind like don't smoke weed just don't um definitely like don't drink alcohol until like 3 or 4 a.m not and probably not even then like wait until like 7 a.m then then have some drinks if you want um because we start i think we start at like 9 or 10 in the morning and we go until and it's uh we go like daylight savings so um we have the hour shift and then we go until we've played for a full 24. Sit down all the time. Like, all the time. Always be sitting. ABS, ABS. ABS. Like, just think of it as brakes. Like, put brakes on and sit your ass down. This craziness where people play the games in between rounds, I'm like, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. You idiot. You're funny. It's dangerous. Like, it really is because people start volunteering and then their game goes to crap and then they've had no sleep so they get really salty about it and then like the people in the room who like have that experience where they're like trying to like keep everybody like chill and they're trying to keep themselves chill because now we're all sleep deprived like there's this moment at like 3 or 4 a.m where people are like a little weird a little pissed off a little not paying attention they start clenching other people's balls I do that sober I do that sober it's so good you do that on a regular day I will wait till 4am when there's like 5-6 hours left then I will funnel 3 craft beers I'll do one line of black tar heroin and micro dose some shrooms and that's it by hour 24 I'll come back I'll beat, it doesn't matter. I'll beat Bo and Karen's. I'll beat everybody. You should see me that much. No, I'm just kidding. No, I will. I'm going to take your advice. I'm honestly, even caffeine, I'm going to wait the same thing until probably past midnight. Because... No, no, no, no, no, no. Midnight. Midnight's too early. Midnight's too early. What do you think? Like 2 a.m.? Yeah, you want to, like, again, you want to kind of wait until like 3 or 4 until like things start getting really weird. And then, like, push yourself a little bit of caffeine. you know people who have prescriptions because they have ADHD they might take some Adderall I'm just saying I'm going to be looking for my Adderall friends when I'm there I'll be like yo I've never tried Adderall people have been saying I've needed it for about 20 years so hook a brother up I probably know some people who know some people who can suggest some good ideas some good ideas yeah but don't take the caffeine too early sit down all the time don't drink alcohol oh and also don't do the thing where you eat like a big old like carb meal like for dinner that puts me to sleep that's also no way to go oh hey bring your own like hot water or coffee or like plan you know like I drink coffee while I'm there but it's decaf like the whole time okay and that's it's nice to have like some hot tea or some like decaf coffee to kind of like keep your body like invigorated and people will bring that stuff you can bring a power strip. I highly recommend bringing a power strip. What is that? There's not that many outlets. So if you're going to take one of the precious outlets, it's really just like good deep land to like bring more outlets than you take. You know what I'm saying? Oh, okay. So like, so you can plug in multiple devices. I know what you're saying now. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Cause it's like an old warehouse. Like there's not a ton of like extra electricity outfitted and the stuff that is there is all taken up by Pimble machines. that's so awesome so I had I'm bringing a chair okay oh yes yes yes because all the good chairs are gone within like the first hour or two and then you're kind of you know and I'm sure if you're not in the top you know group uh you know maybe you're standing most of the time but um I'm very curious this is a little bit out of left field but I'm very curious you've been to Canada now multiple times you did Yagpin you did Neon Ranch um what did you find different about the Canadians or maybe the culture, the language, the food? I'm just so curious. I love hearing about all these differences. I know even Lazer Lose, when he came up to Maple Pinball there, I was bugging him so much. He's like, I don't know, dude. It seems normal to me. For the most part, is everything very similar because you live in a state that's bordering Canada? Or what did you find were the main differences, just out of curiosity? I've lived like I've lived like internationally I've lived in a lot of different states in America like in all different kinds of like cultures and subcultures and like one of the like I grew up in Minnesota where passive aggressive like Minnesota nice Minnesota if you're upset about yeah if you're upset about something you can't like just tell someone like it's too rude you have to like bottle it up inside until you're so upset that you tell like their best friend and no one's talking to like the person who like supposedly committed the offense everyone's just talking around it and like it's for me because it's for me that's like the hardest culture like for me to get I I have learned to for my New York friends for my east coast brethren okay even some of my Cali friends who do it like the same but different like just speak your mind like and like speak it with kindness in your heart speak like if you're upset about something just say it now Just like that's the kind thing to do, right? And I know when I go to Alberta, I'm going to run into like some Canadian people who are like, you can't just like, you know, say how you feel. That's like, no, that's rude. That's not very Canadian. I don't want to be scared to say the wrong thing or do the wrong thing. And I feel like I'm back in Minnesota. So like that's the only thing. Otherwise, I'm like Kylo. So I'm like there is no difference. There's no difference. Like it's just normal pinball stuff. politically I would guess that Alberta is a lot closer to certain states in the U.S. and Vancouver is the complete opposite Vancouver is like a whole bunch of like left for the most overall for the most part of you know Vancouver as well as all of really British Columbia is known to be pretty pretty liberal we'll just say here but I'm also very very curious what do you do I know you said you're not really into the Whoppers but do you have goals like do you aspire like two years do you do you sit down each year and do you like at the end of the year do you want to be so far high up in the women's rankings or do you think oh I just want to attend these tournaments like do you schedule out all your tournaments for the year I know like Kate Martin does a really good job doing that and stuff like are you like that as well you're planning out six seven eight nine months ahead of time which tournament you're going to well like you know you can ask two separate questions right you're like yes plan to go to tournaments and like do you have goals or like must-have tournaments like yes yes to both questions like we have we like I we share like this big calendar that has all the tournaments on it that are like major to medium and then anything that's like local here that we think is cool that we want to try to go to we always try to go to new events that are like like pastimes you know when they had some tournaments and um uh i'm gonna remember gerard gerard ohio like when rob burke opened that up um and robin bridget like that place has so many cool new pinball machines you want to go support their first tournament right put that on the list and you know obviously i want to go every single year i want to do the tilt pinball tilt summer pinball thing which is coming up in like i think this next week on the 30th and 31st okay um and that's that's here in ostrander so But, you know, that's easy because that's where I live. I've heard of Ostrander. I really don't know where it is. Is it Ohio? Yeah, yeah, it's in Ohio. Okay. That's pretty cool. It's right between Marysville and Delaware. You can find it. I'm in Delaware. I just remember that from Wayne's World. I expect you to be there. What is this quote? I do not know this quote. Oh, in the movie Wayne's World, he says, I'm in Delaware. And then he goes, what do you do in Delaware? And he's like, I don't know, but I'm here. but I think he's talking about the state, not the town per se. Oh, my God, there's a giant buck outside my window. Please don't eat my marijuana plants, you nice deer. Take a picture. Take a picture. Okay. I'll have to find my phone. But check this out. I would say probably – oh, I did see – don't you have a big whopper farm coming up near you soon or something? Like is that in a month or two? Yeah. Something at the barn? Tell us all about that. Yeah, that's at my place, too. That's the barn. The barn. Tell us about it. Like, tell us about it. Yeah, we have a whole bunch of pinball machines. And the local kids, who are, like, slowly becoming, like, regular grown, swears alert, grown-ass adults, they're like, yeah, it's like Ron Turnivitz here. How cool would that be? Because, like, a couple years back, the reason why the Tilt Summer Pinball thing is a thing at all is, like, we're like, we have all these pinball machines, but we, like, most people don't get to see them like we should at least have one get together a year um and then Evan Bingham was like hey can I run the amazing race at the bar and we're like sure that'd be amazing literally and then Jack Nebraska wanted to do this um Whopper extravaganza and yeah I just I love his organizational skills and how he sets stuff up so I'm really excited about that one that's awesome and obviously people can get more information about that if they wanted to go on, you know, Facebook, I'm sure, under Tilt Amusements, I thought I saw it came up, and obviously they can see it on IFPA as well, right? Yeah, I was going to say, like, again, testament to Jack's, like, forward thinking, like, they went ahead and did, like, a sponsored post on IFPA.com that was, like, on the front page a couple days ago, so if anyone's interested in getting the Big Whoppers, they can go check that out. That's how I saw it. I know we've got some people from Seattle coming. That's awesome. Who is the, who do what, it doesn't necessarily have to be women, because I'm sure you play with women and men, but, like, who are, like, your local besties? Like, who do you go to tournaments down there a lot with? Most of the time, like, the last couple years, I've had some, like, family stuff that has kept me out of, like, town for the local stuff. So, I can't think off the top of my head. You know, like, let me get back to that in a second. No, no, no. You asked me earlier. You asked me if I have any goals. I always have one goal every year because the first year I played, I qualified for the Women's World Championships. I've been in the Women's World Championships every year, so that's just kind of always a thing that I really want to go to. How do you do that? I always know that I'm trying to play well because I would love to keep going to that. Is that top 24 or top 16, or how does that work? I think it used to be fewer but you know as the competition has just like gotten larger and larger and better and like the women's field has just grown substantially I think they've done a good job of seeing that I want to say it was forgive me I've just been like paying as much attention to the details as I can I think it was like 64 done people can always there's a lot of people this year yeah so i've always tried to qualify for that i was probably 30 it's probably 32 um but uh the local people i give a shout out to uh amy kesting who runs spoonful records here doesn't play in as many tournaments but she did phenomenal and uh i believe that she uh she took home like one of the titles at um the women's uh women's worlds or state championship or something like that like she did super super well this year and uh is someone i play with in town um and there's like more names than i could possibly possibly remember to mention but i also get to play like with james scott and you know trent augenstein obviously and carlos uh laser lows carlos is local here yeah yeah he plays so so have you ever caught his twitch stream yes yeah he he plays that out of our barn no way that's your look oh there's so many incredible machines there oh my god okay now i have to go that's so uh so millions that's why you gotta come okay so millions of cheetos have been eaten in your barn by laser that's right yes yes there's it always smells so delicious in the barn and if you've ever noticed that that's oh no you're cutting it out a little bit um okay sorry say that say what did you say at the end there you said if you've ever seen him and then you cut out i'm curious to know what you're saying oh uh uh i said it always smells fun at the barn and i said if you've ever seen bubba and b-dub the cats so is there animals in the barn as well is that who there's cats and one one one moose one cow two two cats and one overnight streamer no cows oh one overnight streamer i love that that's so cool but i guess we have a lot of cows if you count all like the pinball shout outs that that cows are seen in oh my god like uh well gtf uh attack from mars what other ones i'm trying to think of dude exactly well so many of like the williams games from back in the they had cow references. I don't know. I feel like there's a couple cow references in at least, like, Elwynn's, like, recent Stern games. Don't ask me. But, like, if you're playing pinball, if you're playing pinball, you have cows. You've got to have cows, man. If you want cows, this is how you get cows. Except for a public service announcement. I love this couple. They're a really cool, like, homesteading couple up the road. But they don't do a great job with their fences. So their cows are always on the road, and you're just, like, driving down the road, and you're like, so, I'm just wondering if I could drive now, cows? And you have to, like, get out and, like, move the cow off the road to keep driving. I'm like, guys, can you just, I don't want, you know, I don't want it to turn into, well, hey, if I had to come home and butcher the cow myself, I would, I guess. I could try to watch a YouTube video. I don't know. But I've gone off track. That's what I do here. I have two quick questions for you left, and then I want you to give some shout-outs. Number one, tell us about some other content creators. Like, do you watch a lot of Twitch streaming, or do you watch a lot of YouTube, or do you listen to a lot of pinball podcasts or maybe one of each of your favorites? I'm just curious, that kind of thing. Well, I don't personally have a time, again, recently, to check out all the cool stuff, but every time that I'm at a tournament, I will watch the replays. Whether or not I'm in it or someone I know is in it, I love watching the replays from tournaments that I'm in, so I end up watching a lot of Fox Cities. Yes, shout out to Tom Graff. Yeah, yeah. And I love Carl. I love Carl's whole setup. He makes me happy. He did a great job at IFFA 19. Oh, and huge shout out to Yipsy. Those pinball streamers are incredible. They're out of Michigan, and they did a wonderful job at Women's Worlds. I'm looking forward to working with them again in the future. And Fox Cities also streams for Chicago Expo, which is just totally huge. Everybody loves having them there and enjoys that. And I know that they have, you know, just this stable of incredible commentators that come on and just make the event even just so much richer and cooler than it would be without all of that that they add in. So, yeah, there's that. And obviously, like, Lose's stream, like, who's not going to love that? It's got, like, the bouncing cat head. Oh, he's entertaining. He's fun. I mean, I used to always say for years Jack Danger was the most entertaining pinball streamer, but alas, with him only doing a couple streams here and there very sporadically, I guess Laser Lois might just have to take the torch for a bit. Am I right? So I'm okay with that. Well, dude, have you ever seen him eat the egg? No. Tell me about this. Oh, you're missing out. He has like a wheel where I think people can like drop bits to make him spin the wheel. and whatever it stops on is what has to happen next. And I think that there's one or two spots for Eat a Raw Egg. Oh, God. Oh, yeah. I did that when I was a teenager, but nowadays I'm going to pass on that. He also has, this is probably a thing other streamers have, but he has a bot where you can put in a YouTube URL and it'll play whatever song or soundbite. Like, oh, I love that so much. you get the best crazy music like and the fact that it's overnight you can just fall asleep to it and wake up in the morning and it's still happening like i don't know it's just so chill he is like okay like he must be a night owl because i will wait i know like i'm an hour behind you guys but like i will wake up unfortunately when i turned 40 it was so weird i started going from waking up at around like 6 30 to 5 30 so now on average i wake up between like 505 and like 605 a lot of times when i turn on twitch he's still going and i'm like how many hours into this stream are you my guy he's so dedicated i don't think anyone puts in more hours than him so shout out to him um i'm very our neighbor went over to like our neighbor went over to like do something and she was like oh my gosh he's up so early streaming and i was like no girl he's been there all night it's fine you're like no girl like he's 12 hours into this mess yeah i know like you're catching him at like hour 13 or 14 it's 9 a.m so like don't worry Oh my god. Well, shout out to Laser Los. I'm not going to say I almost beat him, but we were playing at Maple Pinball on, I forget, some old EM, and like after ball one, I was like 200 points ahead of him. I was like, I have a chance. And then he played ball two and ball three, and I was like, yeah, not so much. He's like top 25 players in the world. Incredible player. Really nice guy too. Awesome. Go check out his Twitch channel. But I have to ask you the same question I asked my good buddy Glenn the Skateboarder who sings my intro at the start of each episode. I'm coming to Pinball Expo, but I've never been to TPF. I've never been to It Never Drains. I've never been to Pinball Expo. I've never been to I did go to Pinburg. That's obviously a pretty big pinball event years ago, but I'm debating, and all day long, whenever I talk to non-pinball people, they say, don't play in the pinball tournament at Expo. You won't get to see everything. You won't get to talk to everyone. You'll miss Pinball Olympics. And then when I talk to all the other pinball-type players, like Glenn, And he was like, no, no, you've got to play in the tournament. When are you going to get to play in a tournament this big? And so I'm worried and I'm wondering, what do you think? If it's my very first time and I'm going to be meeting all these brand new listeners I've never met before and I'm going to be like, you know, I don't know if I'll be like, I don't know. Maybe two people will recognize me. I have no clue. But the point is, should I play in the pinball tournament, do you think? Can I play in the pinball tournament and still be socially like talking to people and meeting people and checking out all the booths and doing everything else I want to do there? Or would you recommend for, like, my first expo, I just go into it and just go have fun with people and say, screw the tournament? No, I wouldn't say screw the tournament because, like, one of the things that I'm protective of is making the tournament so you don't have to be there 24-7 like at other tournaments. Like, it's not Herb style. Right, it's not a match player. Fuck that. Like if you want Herb style you can go like pump and dump classics all day and all night if that what you want But the main tournament is pay the flat fee You play... It's probably going to be the same like last year. I think like 12 entries. Or 12, 20, something like that. But 20 entries, you're done. That's it. You don't play anymore. You don't have to finish your full 20. I won't hate it. We change... And the reason why I might sound unsure about the specifics is because we changed it to make sure that it was like I wanted to make sure it was certified last year and so we were like whipping that together not last minute but like kind of later in the game and I know it's a big so like some slight changes from what it was but the point being you have limited entry and when you're done you're done and then the next day everybody starts playing in the big bracket guessing your skill level you would play that that next day if you're really high level like Escher you're going to be playing starting on Saturday I am I'm definitely rated escher's level 100 100 so like you don't have to worry about playing on friday like you just play the tournament it's fine um but then you you play in the tournament um it's like two tier so like two strikes and you're out um and you just like you play until you win your division or until you're out like it's not a huge time sink so unless you go to finals you don't even play for low time what's that oh so i was just saying so like you do all your qualifying it sounds like on like the Thursday or the Friday and then the Saturday is the big bracket and unless you're going to like finals unless you've done really well and you're one of those top like whatever 30 players you don't even have to play Sunday it sounds like um so like everybody the thing about the big bracket is that like everybody makes the finals um and then this the finals is like it starts on Friday and finishes usually on Saturday like Sunday Sunday is just finals for classics typically. That's awesome. If you didn't play the Herb Style Tournament, then you're going to be playing finals on Sunday morning. But the regular tournament, like the main tournament, got wrapped up on Saturday night. The only Herb I like is the stuff I roll up in a paper. Oh my god. The only Black Tar Heroin you like is the blackest of the Tarrist Heroin. We're going to have to get you off the heroin and onto the coke at least. Oh, well, I don't cross the border with the heroine. I always leave that with the Canadian guards. They need it after dealing with the Americans all day. Oh. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. The funny part is, like, I'm half Dutch and half Texan, and I've never been to Texas. Like, my grandmother, not my Oma, of course. The Oma's from Holland. But my grandmother, unfortunately, who is no longer here anymore, Bernice, she, like, literally moved up. I don't know why you'd move to Toronto of all the places from Texas. You were in Houston or somewhere cool. Come on, Grandma. But she decided to move up here probably to hang out with my grandpa. And then on my other side, I'm Dutch. So I've been to Holland. I've done Amsterdam. I've done Rotterdam. I've been to Amsterdam. I've done everything in Amsterdam because I had a girlfriend at the time. But I've done most of the stuff you can do in Amsterdam. And I've never been to Texas. So I have to go to TPF. but even more importantly, I have to go to Expo. It's right up there on that list. Those are the two that I absolutely have to make it to. It's so expensive for me to get to Texas that like Expo, I want to go to each and every year. I know you're a little bit biased because you live so close to Expo, but would you say TPF is like number two of all the cool stuff that I would need to go to if I've never been to it? Or like, how would you rank that kind of stuff for like the fun and whatever? Like what outside of Expo should I go to? Yeah, this is like a brand new, oh, by the way, I also should mention that it's always been like single day qualifying for the big bracket for XO. But last year we changed it to Wednesday and Thursday instead of just Thursday. So now there's like, yeah, it starts like Wednesday evening and then all day Thursday for qualifying. And that's kind of like a big deal difference for people that like want a little bit of extra time to just do the qualifying part and not have to stress about getting all their entries done. Mark your calendars now, nerds. So anyway, this is a hot take. Like, a lot of the Expo shows, I think they're awesome for what they do, right? But, like, I have been to Seattle, and my mind is blown. So if anyone was like, what is the must-thing do I need to be happening go to, it would be Seattle. Go to Seattle, go play pinball in Seattle, go on a weekend, and you'll find, like, four different premier tournaments with tons of whoppers, if that's what you're into. You could take that ferry ride over to me on Pinball Ranch. like the locations there they're full of games and they're old games mid new all the players there are you've got everyone from like newbie beginners to like high rated um like like you know carlos carlos level kick your butt again if that's what you're into and like the seattle scene is just so good i can't believe it took me like eight years to get out there like i can't wait to go back is there just like tons of awesome like pinball bars that are well the machines are well maintained and like you could just almost like you could take your pick of one or you know one to three different pinball tournaments almost any day of the week kind of thing like is that what you're saying they have yeah they have a massive um like they have a huge schedule like the weekend i was there they're like oh well on thursday you can go to this thing and then on friday we're gonna have a big whopper thing then and then on saturday oh on saturday you can go to jermaine's thing and then but on sunday then we're gonna do the thing that and then oh don't leave because on monday And I'm like, dude, dude, that's incredible. Like, and I got the impression this was not, like, unusual. Like, this is what they're doing. And it's awesome. Like, the people there are just also just badass and cool. Like, Ashley Weaver, Aaron, Melissa. Like, you know, Carrie Hill up in Victoria and all of those people who are playing on the island. Like, dude, yeah. Oh, and Adaball and Icebox and 4B. And there's just, like, so much pinball. It's just so cute. that is so cool I digress anyway well we've hit the one hour mark yay fun but go to Seattle go to Seattle check out Seattle I and you know I'm gonna say if you live in say Ohio or Michigan or where's Buffalo what state is Buffalo in is it New York State well you tell me I don't know is it I don't know I live what do you mean you don't know I don't know the states I don't I don't I know the province is a little, but it's right across from where my sister lives in Welland in Niagara Falls. But anyways, if you live in any of the places within a two-hour reach of Maple Pinball, get your butt up there and come play with me in the fall because it's going to be super fun. You could probably even drive up with Laser Los because he came last time. So, like, two hours away, you can go to Toronto. Yeah, you're good, thanks. Yeah. I mean, it's, I'm not going to lie, Jeff, I love you, but, like, there was no seats last time. So, like, bring your own seats if you're coming to me. Everyone put their own seats out front and everything. but like there was this it's it's kind of it's kind of close quarters once you get like 60 70 80 people in there but uh it would be great to play with you again it'd be great for you to you know come to canada and uh hang out and uh obviously i'll probably see you at the sanctum that's coming up in september do you have any shout outs for us like did you want to give a shout out to anyone or anything on on the way out always give the uh the guests a chance to give a quick shout out on the way when we're finishing yeah no like we talked about all the things i You gave a lot of shout-outs. This show is awesome. I think it's fun. I think it's awesome. Like, anything that's just off the cuff doesn't take itself too seriously. You're just having a good time. So, like, claps to you. Hey, thank you so much. Thank you. Honestly, like, the first, like, 400 shows I did of this, I was so embarrassed. I never posted a single, like, I didn't post it to my Facebook. I didn't worry about any of that. Because it's just a dude talking into a $50 microphone. It's supposed to be what you would hear at a water cooler. So, like, say you and I work together or something. This is, like, the exact conversation we would have had at lunch in our lunchroom just talking about pinball, right? And that's what it's supposed to be. And that's why I have no notes in front of me at all. Now, sometimes, especially, like, next week, I am interviewing Stephen Silver of P3 Multimorphic, the designer of The Princess Bride, which is now on the line. Shout out. And for Steven, I will try to go out of my way, especially because I know he has kids who might want to listen to it with him or something like that. I will go out of my way, Steven. and I will try my best. I do give a tiny shats. I will go out of my way to try not to actually, like, swear for that one, and I probably will write down some questions. I could have for you, but I felt very comfortable with you. I've already talked to you before, met you before. You know, we were both tournament players, so there's so much I could have just brought up out of nowhere. I probably could have gone on for two hours and talked to you, but I've taken so much of your time, Debra. Thank you so much. Have yourself a rad night. Yeah. Can I, like, stop you for a quick second? Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, all right. So I actually do have a question for you. Okay, okay. Like, what's the weirdest thing about, like, what's the weirdest thing about having, like, what's the thing you've learned or, like, that shocked you or, like, that you got out of it that you didn't expect by starting this podcast and doing this? Oh, God. If you were to ask me, like, eight years ago. Like, you've talked to people that you've, like, never, yeah? Yeah, I mean, kind of, kind of. Like, the thing is, though, that, like, some other Pimble podcasts, they'll read, like, their mailbag. If you email me at pimblenerds at gmail.com, I'm not reading it on the air. It's just not happening. I just don't do that. I don't care. The thing is, like, okay, maybe. Or are you, like, excited all along, like, as though people should, and then you're like, no, I don't do that either. Well, I just, usually, honestly, I get more people angry writing me, or like, oh, you made a mistake. uh was was uh the first machine by jjp not the second and i'm just like dude it's just it's like i've never i've never gone to like a lot of the other pinball podcasters are radio show hosts like franchi worked at a radio show for years like jeff tiola still is big red in kitchener waterloo where i grew up and lived whenever my dad was listening to the oldie station i had to listen to big red jeff tiola's talking on the radio so like i'm so intimidated by him i'm i don't i i was a TV show host on local public programming for like a craft beer station or sorry, like for a craft beer show. Like, I don't know anything about podcasting and stuff like that. That's why it was kind of meant to be like a blog. If you go back eight years ago, if you said after 600 shows, how many listens do you think you'd get? I'd be like, oh, I'll easily be at two or 3000. Some shows I only get four to 600 listens and I go, okay, well, you know, I tried. And then other shows I interview, like, you know, I get it probably your interview today, Debra that's gonna rock but sometimes I get a Craig Bobby or a David Dennis or Christopher Franchi and then I might get 1200 1400 listens which is like great but I know a lot of the top five like bigger pinball podcasts than me they'll get three four or five thousand listens but they'll also only put out one show every two or three weeks do five or six hours of editing or more me I sometimes put up three four hell I've done two shows in a day before right so because I'm not editing oh yeah because I'm not edit well how do you do 600 shows right when you take two years off in the middle of five years but uh it depends if news is dropping i'll do it i'd say the thing i like the most and honestly i know ray day is probably sick of hearing this but like when i got to d82 ray day took the time and energy and we're there with all of the top players in the world and he's getting ready to play his round he was playing in the afternoon i played in the morning for uh pin masters and he took like probably 15 minutes out of his day to let me know and i'm sorry, Ray Day, I hope it's okay I'm saying this, but he let me know that he listens to every single episode. He did say, you know, sometimes you go off topic too much and I just turn it off. I go, that's fine. Everybody has that right to do that. I get that. That's, I do the same thing to other pinball podcasts, so it's totally fine. But like when he sat there and he said, you know, he told me, he thought that my show was doing the best job at not necessarily Win Schilling, because I have said no to multiple sponsorship opportunities. I don't F with distributors. I don't want a sponsorship from a distro or from a pinball company um i want to be able to just be kind of like hands off and just say what i want to say without like hurting someone's feelings or you know i want to just be able to speak off the cuff and when ray day actually took all that time out of his day then we got to lumberjack johnny's and that whole night he was like he took the time rachel risto and i he took us over to um rush and he showed us through all the different shots and explained the rules and like it was like getting our own personal time with him and that's like that's the cool stuff for me to think there's even one person at all stern there's even one person at any other pinball company or one other content creator that takes the time and energy out of their day to listen to me just chat with another pinball nerd and it's unedited and the sound quality is not perfect that just it sounds lame but it warms my heart it makes me excited it stokes my fire of course the donations help of course someone buying some tea or coffee is great but mainly it's just the fact that i get i know that the words i'm saying are at least being heard by like I said Drew uh pronounce Drew's last name for us all Sedolia Sedolia thank you Drew Sedolia he saw me at nationals and he actually like was very like he was like dude I you know like during COVID and stuff like I listened to your show all the time and you actually gave me some like tips outside I can't give Drew any tips on pinball he's way better than me but he said like you gave some tips on like how to live life and how to be positive and how to you know get through like I think my show did help a lot of people kind to get through COVID and he said he said I don't know if I can ever come on your show Albert because he's not really he doesn't really like to he's he's not super out there like you know what I mean um but he said like that show really helped him like on a whole other level and I was like my guy like the fact that you would like I was just staying there like in shock you know and even like Dalton when I met Dalton and got to play with him he kind of knew who I was yeah Escher Lefkoff when I tilted on uh that stupid uh what's I don't that wide body game at DADU when I tilted on that after I'd only plunged the ball he came over and he he left the booth and he left Fox Cities to come over and just say dude listen listen listen if you watch the video you went right up after someone tilted you should have just waited a second I know it's super tight but like he was kind and he was nice and he knew who I was and he took the time and energy to actually like tell me what happened wrong instead of maybe just saying on the live stream oh I can't believe he went up and plunged right away didn't you see a tilt it's like no I was tired I was exhausted I was half asleep on the couch someone nudged me on the shoulder and said it's your turn to play and I ran up and went, oh my god, I'm on the live stream, I better plunge, and immediately tilted, and Escher was the only, I mean, I'm sure lots of people there thought about it, I think I played with him the night before at Lumberjack Johnny's, I might have been his only win on Metallica, we won't talk, or his only loss on Metallica, we won't talk about that, but he's just, he's, like, I just love these people so much, to me, like, as, you know, growing up, I did a little bit of hockey, I did a little bit of baseball, this would be, like, for me, getting to go play with, like, the top, you know, for me to get to just even meet these people one time, and just even be on the live stream with them and just you know like that was just it's probably other than maybe you know other than maybe the days my sons were born or the day I got married like literally the day I got to play in nationals was probably like the coolest moment of my freaking life and then it just got even better when I went to uh I was gonna say Sada City but uh Lumberjack Johnny so it's just those moments and I'm sure for you just that moment of you winning whipped was like okay all these years of hard work and practice and studying and like they all just came together at that right moment and that's what we play for that's what I play for that's why I do this pinball podcast uh like the coolest thing I got out of pinball like like the thing I'm getting out of pinball more than all the other things like the fun is really cool like the fun is like number one but the thing that I've gotten out of pinball that I never expected was like how to maintain composure and to think through a problem to think through like a ton of stress and to stop myself before I've become stressed out about something to like subsume it and to like be capable and like go above and beyond when I would like, like I'm the kind of person when I get emotional and like stressed out about something, my brain like shuts off. So having something that's actually like taught me how to like not do that is like, you know, like, like I couldn't have had a, like a life coach that I've spent thousands of dollars on couldn't have possibly taught me that. Like I would never have gotten that if it weren't for, and like, that was, that was like the key for me to winning whipped and it's like the thing I will tell anyone else like as long as they'll listen to me is like have fun I'm not I'm not joking it's literally just stop and have fun Dave Stewart from Seattle was like remember pinball is fun and he was saying that to me during the finals and I laughed but I mean like he helped like he helped keep me in that that meant that's the headspace and then like dealing with that stress um it sounds like you're gonna be like my rush whisperer because you got like the goods from the like the designer himself which is cool shout out to Elizabeth Elizabeth Gieske who did the same thing with me on Jaws oh did she talk you through it a little bit oh yeah we were at Wizards World in Fort Wayne Indiana which is actually where I'm going this weekend and she's like yeah Jaws I was like oh thank you so cool and the designers are so cool for people to they're just people Like pretty much anybody on the Stern team. And you can be like, hey, like I noticed this glitch in the code. Like, hey, I thought this particular rule was super sweet. They're going to appreciate that. And like, yeah, playing against the best people in pinball and occasionally beating them is just like one of the many perks of the hobby, right? Occasionally is the big word. So you're going to be busy kind of, it sounds like, helping with the Expo tournament. But are you also going to play in the Expo tournament? Or you're not sure? I usually do. Last year I really flubbed it. I was trying to run a whole bunch of things and play at the same time, and I think that's conscionable. You should never fuck up your time schedule when you're running the thing. So I'd like to play it again this year, sure, but I'm going to do something very different about when it's my turn to be playing in the tournament for the big bracket. I'm going to make sure that that doesn't trip other people's time schedule up because I still feel terrible about that. But yeah, I think it's amazing to play in as many tournaments as you can get your butt into, even if you're running them and you do poorly as a result. It's still fun. If you're running a tournament, you get this sense of what other people are experiencing. And I don't run my own tournaments to get an edge and win or anything. I just play in them because I'm there. Actually, to that point, I would bow out this year if I feel like I don't have the support staff to allow for me to do something like that. no no i totally would though like like you know i know you would but i want you to play in it because i want to challenge you to see who finishes higher between you i swear to god when i watch you play we play very similar we have a very we honestly like of all the people i've seen play when i was uh down there in good old wisconsin i watched you play and i was like no we have a similar like you you nudge similar to me you're better you're better but i'm you know i feel like i'm of all the players i watched there i was like okay like we're kind of in the same realm. I might be a level or two lower than you, but I'm coming that direction. If I could ever win Whipped, I'll tell you what, I'll do it. Probably not going to happen. That's really cool. We definitely have to play some more. Maybe we'll play a couple just for fun games at the Sanctum? Maybe. Maybe. Maybe if we're like 23 hours and 59 minutes and 59 seconds through and my poor knees, my hips, my shoulder, my spina bifida, don't worry, it's the good one, but like if my whole body can cooperate, I don't even want to try to bring all my supplements across the border. They're going to be like, what the hell is this you have here, dude? But no, it's just maple syrup. It's just maple syrup. I should probably let you go. I love you. I can see my beautiful dog here. He's so stoked. He wants to go outside. He wants to go play. I try to keep the shows under an hour, but you and I were both chatty Cathy's, and we got going. So that was so fun. Thanks for spending so much time with me. I really, really appreciate it. I can't wait to see you at, I guess, Sanctum will be first. if I get into it, which I think I will, knock on wood, and then probably, hopefully at Expo as well. And honestly, like you said, anytime you're going to a pinball tournament that I'm not going to be at, if you want to call in just in the next, you know, obviously within the next two to three days, four days, whatever, within the next week, and we can chat about it, oh my God, that's incredible. And if you get really, really ambitious, and you'd like to do like small little mini interviews, say with the person who won, who got second, or the person you commentated with, or whoever, Chris Stevens, Escher Lefkoff, whoever you see there, If you ever wanted to do that, you're more than welcome. Anytime you're here from now on, you are now my co-host, not a guest. That sounds awesome. I did do a couple small interviews with people, like, just for funsies, like nothing recorded, just because it's fun to talk to people. Like, it's like it was fun to ask you a couple questions. I'm glad we got to shoot the shit, and I'm glad that we went over time. I'll talk to you soon. Sounds good. Have yourself a rad night, and we'll chat soon. This will be uploaded within, like, the next hour, so you get to hear it. I do apologize, everybody out there who's listening. I do have good old Elon Musk here. Don't worry. It's not Debbie's fault. We did have Hurricane Debbie roll through here. She's gone. But we're actually just getting, like, there was a weird, like, not a tornado. What do you call it when it's over water? There was a weird spout that was near here. And so my internet's been cutting in and out lots. And then you live out, yeah, a water spout. Then you live out, you know, you're in the middle of nowhere. So, like, your internet connection's not great. So, sound-wise, it wasn't the best show. But you know what? Content-wise, you killed it, so thank you. Obie. I'll send you a picture after I'm done, but I'm literally standing in the middle of a big empty field. That's so funny. Well, thank you for standing in the middle of a big empty field. If you know it, say it with me. Until next time, pinball nerds, remember to eat, sleep, and breathe pinball.

_(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 742b3566-fe32-424b-9735-e11529a705eb*