# 028 - What A Year

**Source:** Punk Rock Pinball Podcast  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2025-12-30  
**Duration:** 52m 21s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://share.transistor.fm/s/d0b46404

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## Analysis

Punk Rock Pinball hosts recap 2025, highlighting the launch of their Facebook community (2,645 members), podcast (30k+ listens), PRPHQ private pinball club (27 machines), and the Punk Rock Pinball Association tournament leaderboard (14 events, 206 players across 16 scene regions). They discuss Stern's upcoming CES announcement (Pokemon or Transformers pinball), IFPA Illinois State Finals participation, and streaming/technical challenges at their venue.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] George Gomez confirmed one of two games—Pokemon or Transformers—is the next Stern machine, to be announced at CES — _Kerry Hardy program interview; confirmed by host as credible source_
- [HIGH] Punk Rock Pinball Association has 14 events with 206 players in first month since launch — _Direct operational data from hosts running the association_
- [HIGH] PRPHQ has 26-27 pinball machines contributed by members to a private collective — _Hosts directly managing the venue_
- [HIGH] Punk Rock Pinball podcast exceeded 30,000 total listens/views since July 5 launch — _Hosts citing analytics; average episode 1,000+ consumption across platforms_
- [HIGH] PRPHQ members Joe Sharp and CJ made Illinois State IFPA Championships — _Hosts confirming local tournament participation_

### Notable Quotes

> "it's going to be Pokemon or Transformers and George smiled and he said it's one of them is the next game"
> — **Host (referencing George Gomez interview on Kerry Hardy program)**, ~3:30
> _Official confirmation of next Stern game IP at CES; major community announcement_

> "we took control of our own pinball destiny here in central Illinois, inspired by cool places like ORD"
> — **Host**, ~17:00
> _PRPHQ mission statement; establishing local competitive pinball infrastructure_

> "it's a pinball training facility it's our home office and a training facility and we're trying to breed powerful competitive pinball athletes we not trying we are"
> — **Host**, ~20:45
> _Philosophy shift from casual venue to competitive tournament preparation center_

> "I just want to play pinball and I spent like two hours doing that, and I just wanted to flip"
> — **Host**, ~55:00
> _Streaming/technical infrastructure challenges limiting content expansion_

> "14 events already, 206 players...It just rolled out like not even a full month ago"
> — **Host**, ~31:00
> _PRPA rapid adoption signal; grassroots tournament association gaining traction nationally_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Punk Rock Pinball Podcast | organization | Hosts' community podcast launched July 5, 2025; 30k+ listens in first 6 months |
| PRPHQ (Punk Rock Pinball Headquarters) | organization | Private pinball club in central Illinois with 27 member-contributed machines; serves as tournament venue and training facility |
| Punk Rock Pinball Association | organization | National tournament leaderboard/series launched ~1 month before this episode; 14 events, 206 players, 16 scene regions |
| George Gomez | person | Stern designer; confirmed Pokemon or Transformers as next Stern machine in Kerry Hardy interview |
| Jack Danger | person | Designer collaborating with Gomez on next Stern machine (Pokemon or Transformers) |
| Kerry Hardy | person | Content creator who conducted interview with George Gomez revealing next Stern game IP |
| Joe Sharp | person | PRPHQ member; qualified for Illinois State IFPA Championships |
| Shelly Sharp | person | PRPHQ member; qualified for ladies division IFPA Championships; scene rep for Central Illinois Bells and Chimes |
| CJ | person | PRPHQ member; qualified for Illinois State IFPA Championships; helped establish local pinball scene |
| Kat Davis | person | Most active PRPA player; attended 7 of 14 events in first month |
| Nick Greenup | person | Kansas City-based collaborator who helped build PRPA leaderboard platform |
| Mike Vinacore (MXV) | person | Competitive pinball player; tied for first in Bottom Lounge pinball gimmick event |
| CES (Consumer Electronics Show) | event | Las Vegas tech expo where Stern will announce Pokemon or Transformers pinball; happens next week from episode |
| Bottom Lounge | organization | Chicago ska music venue with pinball machines; hosted PRPA pinball gimmick challenge |
| ORD (Chicago) | organization | Chicago-area private pinball club; inspired PRPHQ model; hosting first PRPA tournament on Jan 3 |
| Jay's Silver Ballroom | organization | Eastern Iowa venue hosting multiple PRPA events; early adopter with Jay and Emily as scene reps |
| IFPA (International Flipper Pinball Association) | organization | Competitive pinball organization running state championships; Illinois finals upcoming |
| Stern Pinball | company | Major pinball manufacturer; announcing Pokemon or Transformers game at CES |
| Aaron Reddick | person | PRPA participant dealing with COVID; owns games at Triptych in Champaign |
| Spicy Rich | person | PRPHQ community member; participated in 3-hour live stream challenge |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Stern Pinball's next announcement at CES (Pokemon or Transformers), Punk Rock Pinball's community growth and milestones in 2025, PRPA national tournament leaderboard launch and early adoption, PRPHQ venue development as competitive training facility
- **Secondary:** IFPA Illinois State Championships participation, Technical streaming infrastructure challenges, Regional pinball scene organization and growth
- **Mentioned:** Local pinball culture and community engagement

### Sentiment

**Positive** (0.85) — Hosts are enthusiastic about community growth, PRPHQ success, and tournament infrastructure. Minor frustration with streaming technical issues. Overall celebratory tone reflecting on successful 2025.

### Signals

- **[community_signal]** Private pinball club (PRPHQ) becoming competitive training and tournament venue for regional IFPA qualification (confidence: high) — 27 machines from member contributions; 3+ members qualified for state finals; positioned as alternative to commercial arcades
- **[sentiment_shift]** Strong enthusiasm for local competitive pinball infrastructure; members contributing machines and hosting tournaments across upper Midwest and beyond (confidence: high) — 2,645 Facebook group members; 206 PRPA participants; multiple scene reps voluntarily organizing events; high retention in early days
- **[community_signal]** Grassroots tournament infrastructure (PRPA) gaining rapid adoption nationally with distributed scene representatives organizing local events (confidence: high) — 14 events across 16 regions in first month post-launch; participation from Montana to California to Florida; automated leaderboard system
- **[market_signal]** Regional grassroots tournament scene organization model expanding beyond single venues to decentralized multi-state coordination (confidence: medium) — PRPA with 16 scene reps vs. traditional single-operator model (CJ's Peoria locations, Jay's Iowa); rotating event locations (Champaign/Bloomington/Peoria)
- **[event_signal]** IFPA Illinois State Championships upcoming; multiple PRPHQ members competing in open and ladies divisions (confidence: high) — Joe Sharp, CJ qualified for open; Shelly Sharp for ladies; hosts planning to attend/stream
- **[market_signal]** Boutique/private pinball clubs (PRPHQ, ORD model) gaining traction as alternative to commercial arcade venues for competitive play (confidence: medium) — PRPHQ membership model supporting 27 machines; monthly tournament schedule; private collection positioned as 'training facility'
- **[announcement]** Stern announces Pokemon or Transformers pinball at CES (specific game TBD week of Jan 6, 2026) (confidence: high) — George Gomez confirmed to Kerry Hardy that one of two games is 'next game'; CES announcement imminent
- **[technology_signal]** Lack of accessible streaming/broadcast infrastructure limiting tournament video content production; technical AV/HDMI setup creating friction for hosts (confidence: high) — 3-hour stream with audio/mirrored playfield issues; HDMI compatibility problems between machines; hosts requesting volunteer AV expertise rather than investing in equipment

---

## Transcript

 Hello. Whoa. Hello to you. Welcome back to the Punk Rock Pinball Podcast, episode... Something. 28? Maybe 29? 7, 8, 9? Something in there. Let me look at YouTube. Although I didn't put the episode number on the title of the last one. We'll never know. We'll never know. We'll never know. Let's see. View all my videos. I didn't put it on the last view. 25, 6, 7. This is number 28. Okay. We're going to recap the wonderful year of 2025. Your hat is so distracting. I got my Pikachu hat. That is something else, honey. If you're listening on the podcast on Apple or Spotify, I'm sorry you can't see this wonderful Pikachu hat. I'm really sorry for you, too. I've never seen this thing. I had no idea you had this. I've never seen this hat. Never. Where did you get this? I bought it somewhere in the western United States. Okay. Sometime around August of 2024. Okay. On tour with the Smoky Pokes and the Get Up Kids. Okay. Everyone else was buying hats at the truck stop. Okay. So I also bought this Pikachu hat. I'm like, I like Pikachu. Uh-huh. And then I wore it at some shows, and then I just felt weird going around in public as a 51-year-old man. I guess I was a 50-year-old man at the time in a Pikachu hat. so I don't wear it that much if I can wear it on this show because we might get to see Pikachu in a pinball machine like next week, maybe from Stern. If they take it to CES? I mean, they're going to announce something at CES. It's going to be Pokemon or Transformers. What do you think? Is it going to be like did George Gomez? George Gomez said one of those two machines are going to be made, but did he say it was going to be the next machine? He was talking about the machine that he was designing with Jack Danger. Uh-huh. Specifically about that machine. Uh-huh. This is on the Kerry Hardy program. Uh-huh. I want to give him the credit because he asked the question. Uh-huh. Not stealing any gimmicks or information. Give him the credit where credit's due. Hmm. But he asked specifically, they're talking about this machine, and he said, is it Pikachu on my mind and on my head is it Pokemon or Transformers and George smiled and he said it's one of them is the next game so we are going to see either Pokemon pinball or Transformers pinball and that's going to be next week at the CES starts next week I used to work at CES It's like every year I would have to go there for work. That was a long week because I would go like a couple, two, three days before the show, and then I'd stay the entirety, and then I'd stay a day after to pack and ship all the stuff. This is when I worked for BDS Marketing as a contractor for Motorola Mobility. I know that's interesting. Yeah, everybody is. We had about 400 or 500 smartphones and tablets and watches at the big CES booth. I think it was like an 18,000-square-foot booth the last year I did it. Oh, my gosh. Huge. I mean, that's bonkers. And me and my buddy, Muhammad, would set them all up, like 500 phones. We'd have to make all the phones look like people used them. So we'd put pictures and Gmail accounts. They mostly were prototype phones, so we'd have to put the software on. And then anything that would break at the booth, I would fix it. So I'd get there at, like, I don't know, 7 in the morning and be there until 8 at night. It's a young man's game. It's a glamorous life. Yeah. Well, there's lots of cool stuff at CES. Yeah. And I'm really excited to see what may get announced in a press release. Yeah, nothing cooler there than a new Stern pinball machine. No way. Can't wait to see it. I wonder like at CES, who's walking the show floor and saying like pinball, that's what we need. Yeah, like the editors from CNET, the website or tech gadget. Is that a thing? Maybe. There's all those weird tech websites. Wired. Are they stopping by and writing a piece on Pokemon pinball? They should be. Should be. Well, we'll see. Because other pinball companies are not at CES, right? You're not going to find Jersey Jack over there. I don't know. Like, there's no Ace Spooky's there. No. You're not going to find Chicago Gaming there. It would only be Jersey Jack would be the only other ones that might have that money. I can't wait to see it. Me either. So that'll be our podcast next week. It's going to be about whatever the hell game that is. It might be in two weeks, or it might be a special edition. It might be. Because it's not going to be on Sunday or Monday. Because we're going to record it probably Sunday and we won't know the game by then. So we'll probably get a midweek episode that week. Marshall said he knows. So 2025, we had a big year. Yeah. We were born that year. We were born? Punk Rock Pinball was born. It was born in the year established in the year 2025. The year of our Lord. 2025. It began as a humble Facebook group on March 16th, 2025. Punk Rock Pinball, as a thing that it is, was born that day as a Facebook group. If you're not in that group, you should join it. The link will be in the description. How many people are in it these days? Right now we have 2,645 lovely members. Punk rock pinballers? Punk rock pinballers. That's pretty impressive, I think, for a little grassroots deal. Yeah, in less than a year? Yeah. Yeah. I love it. And then when was this podcast right here, when was this born? Oh, we put out the first one on July 5th. July 5th. So we probably recorded it a day or two before that. Yeah, maybe we did it on the 4th of July. we're probably like we had been talking about doing a podcast kind of since march since we made the group because we made the facebook group thinking like we'll make a podcast and that group will be where we share it and we had this youtube channel that we're on here that was called live from the rock room which we've changed the name but we're like we'll do the podcast will put it on the rock room yeah and we i guess we're slow starters because we started the group in march and we didn't do the podcast till july we probably had the day off on fourth of july it's probably a weekday and we're like you want to do that podcast and we did and then we did didn't even have the video at the time no we didn't because i don't even know where it was I mean it was on YouTube Oh the video stuff was at Bombsite That's why we didn't do it Oh the lights were over there The lights were over there But then The videos They weren't getting like a ton of views on YouTube Because you get more views If you have actual video And not just a still So we're like okay We'll do a video with it That adds a lot of work It does but it's worth it But since then, since its creation, we've had like, if you combine like the views and the podcast streams, downloads, well over 30,000. Wow. Like well over 30,000 listens. So thank you for watching. Yes. That's a lot. It's kind of more than I expected by this point. It's kind of amazing. Yeah. like we're getting easy over like the average episode is like over a thousand like consumed between like apple and spotify and all those other little podcast deals in youtube some of them go bigger on youtube some of them go smaller like we've got some that are closing in on 2,000 views here on YouTube and some are just a few hundred, which is weird. It's just the way it goes. The podcast numbers on the audio side are very consistent, where it's like a couple hundred, like two to three hundred each after they've been out a little bit. But on YouTube, you'd need like a hook for the algorithm, which is kind of annoying. because you have to anything if it's got costco or star wars in the title like it's way more views because people are searching that stuff so you have to have like some kind of big name thing in your title on youtube if you want to have like if we don't have that it's like okay this one's going to get a few hundred views or if you have a bigger name thing it's like okay this one might get a thousand we're learning that's the nature of youtube it's annoying we're learning we had christmas this week we just did christmas merry christmas belated yes new year's coming up new year's happy new year's yep what else did we do in 2026 we started the punk rock pinball hq oh yeah we we i can't believe i still can't believe we did this Yeah, we took control of our own pinball destiny here in central Illinois, inspired by cool places like ORD and in the Chicagoland area of having a private pinball club. Yeah. And in this case, if you build it, they will come is true. Yeah. So many of our friends down here in the middle of the state are participating. Our members have contributed games to the collective. We're up to, I think, 26 games in there. 27 maybe. So if you're a member of our HQ, it's yours too. Yeah. So thank you, everyone, because I know we have some members that don't get to get out there a lot. Yeah. But they still pay a monthly due. So thank you very much for helping us make that happen. Yeah. Thank you for being part of it. And, yeah, it's just like it's so cool. It's just kind of like is a little overwhelming. Yeah. It's awesome. Like it's a great place for I feel like the tournaments there have been really great. and without all of our members it wouldn't be because we couldn't afford to just do this on our own it's not an arcade it's not an amusement venue where you can come and just pay us money to be amused we don't have open hours it's just a private collection of games so extra special thanks to all of you that have games in there and trusting us to keep a safe place for your games And everyone that's paying the standard membership, thank you for helping us keep the lights on over there. And the gas bill, we just got that. That was pretty big. Pretty big gas bill. It's been cold here. Yep. And I think we're able to provide a really awesome location for tournaments in this area. There's nowhere else in central Illinois for tournaments that has this many machines with that kind of a variety. we've got lots of the latest stern machines we've got several like dmd machines we've got ems so it's really becoming like a pinball training facility it's really what it is it's a pinball training facility it's our home office and a training facility and we're trying to breed powerful competitive pinball athletes we not trying we are and a few of which are going to be competing in the state finals for IFPA Yeah that true That's coming up in a couple weeks. Because I think Joe and CJ both made it. I believe so. Joe Sharp and CJ and Shelly Sharp will be in the ladies' finals. So cool. All members of the PRPHQ. Yeah. We need to make sure they're swagged out. Yeah. If you all want any of the latest designs, we'll get them to you. So that's pretty awesome. Maybe one day I will never make the Illinois State Championships in the open. Never. Maybe we'll have to go out to like Wyoming. But you know what we might make? You might make the ladies next year. I don't know. You're good enough. You just need a little better performance than some of those bigger. at the expo one you should have maybe more focused on the open side versus the ladies i'm learning i'm learning the strategies but congrats to them on that super proud of them we're gonna have to go cheer them on either virtually or in person yeah i'm sure the men's one will be streamed i wonder if the they should stream the ladies one on the chicago water and fire i don't think That's announced. Oh. Did I just spill some beans? You might have. It's fine. Okay. I just said that on the Twitch they have that stream. Okay. The location's not announced for that? I don't believe so. Well, it might be somewhere cool. Did we leak secret IFPA information? I might beep it out. You could beep it out. I don't want to, like... We can look and see if it's announced yet. Oops. Yeah, you can bleep it. um so that's super cool we've got um we did a gimmick this weekend we did we were at bottom lounge but we did create one more thing in 2025 oh yeah sorry we did we did the prpa the punk rock pinball association it was originally i just wanted to have like a cool leaderboard for our tournaments here was the first idea where I wanted to track like all of our tournaments as like a series and just see who's the best here. And then I'm like, why don't, if that's going to happen, why not just make it a thing where everybody in the country can play? So that's what we did with the help from our friend, Nick Greenup from Kansas City. Couldn't do it without Nick. That just launched. If you want to see what it's about, you can just go to punkrockpinball.com. And in the main menu, there's a thing in the main menu called Punk Rock Pinball Association. Click that. That will tell you all about it. And there's links on that page to every other page that you'd need to see. If you want to host Punk Rock Pinball Association tournaments, there's a form on the website. You fill out that form. It will come to me. I'll get you a login and you can start hosting tournaments and submitting your own results for the leaderboards. We'd love to have some more folks participate. We've got like 16, I call them scene reps, because eventually we're going to have some scene leaderboards. So we've got 16 scene reps right now. It just rolled out like not even a full month ago. And there have been 14 events with 206 players. That's amazing. And the leader of top five is the same as it was last week on the Pokemon episodes. I don't need to read them again. It's all Kansas City people. That's going to change soon because we've got our monthly tournament coming up on the 17th. We've got leagues. And we've got leagues and Joe and Shelly's New Year's Eve thing will be a PRPA. So we're probably going to knock off some Kansas City people soon unless they have another one soon. I don't know what they have up their sleeves. I don't either. 14 events already, 206 players. A bunch, there's an event in Colorado coming up. I'll pull that up on the Facebook group. There's stuff in Colorado. At the cake shop. Tons of stuff in eastern Iowa, like at Jay's Silver Ballroom. They've had like the most events of anybody so far. It's Jay's Silver Ballroom and a couple other spots out there. So thank you, Emily and Jay. Yeah, Jay and Emily, thank you so much. You're early adopters, early supporters. We appreciate that. Let's see. What's this? Where's the Colorado one? I saw it in the Punk Rock Pimple Facebook. I apologize. Because I saw our friend Barry is going to go. Is Barry Binder going to go? I believe he said interested. Barry Binder and your lady, Tracy, you should go. Yeah, you should go. Barry has some questions that we can do on a different episode about, like, kind of how to get better. He's like a super noob. We are not super highly skilled players, but we have some skills. We will tell you everything we know. So I think we're qualified to teach, like, a brand noob. yeah but if you're looking for advanced um pinball strategy like way advanced it's not gonna be from us we'll get you just enough just enough yeah to wet your whistle we're not like top level players no gosh no you want more advanced stuff like listen to some of the travis murray things and just watch the fox city streams when they're streaming like the major events and watch those big dogs play yeah and they talk about strategy and what you're trying to do there's the commentators are awesome next level yeah and the electric bat their live streams surge surge is great with the rules like they can guide you through like advanced tactics we can get you like yeah like try to hit specific shots you know like practice catching and trapping the ball, like the basics. Yeah, we can do a little of that. Yeah, and I can't find that one. I should have had that prepared. I'm sorry. But there's one in Colorado coming right up. It might be this weekend. I can tell you what the name is. It's like Cake Bite. I don't know if that's the exact name. Kevin Johnson's going to be mad as hell. Kevin, I'm sorry. I apologize in advance, Kevin, as I'm trying to look through stuff. I'm just trying to find the form, and then I can tell you the fellow's name that's setting that up. Individual. But you could talk while I'm doing this. Well, while Mike's looking that up, yesterday we went up to the Bottom Lounge where there was four different ska bands playing. Yeah. And ska people are very friendly. They are nice. Like, so friendly and so nice. We did a little pinball gimmick of a high score challenge on a few of the machines. Our friend who owns Bottom Lounge and Delilah's in the city is also a pinball fanatic. And he put all of the games on free play for us, which was cool. And we did a little gimmick with some folks who are new to pinball and a couple of friends that we'd never met before in person. and plus our good friend Mike Vinikour showed up. Yeah, MXV was there. Thank you, Mike, for coming out. He ripped up all of the machines. Mike and I tied for first place in our gimmick event. Congratulations to the Mikes. Yep. Congratulations. Yep. What an accomplishment that is. What an accomplishment that is. I beat him on the Beatles. Wow. Wow. That is an accomplishment. It wasn't a great score. I'm not going to say the score, but it was higher than Mike's. All right. And he was about to go shoot another score right before we left because you could do multiple tries on each game. And he's like, oh, I'll go do another one. And he had just gotten through explaining to me how he doesn't care about how he does in tournaments. I'm like, Mike, you just said it doesn't matter. He's like, okay, I'll let you have top billing. That was a nice event. Thank you, Mike. So maybe, I don't know, is that coercion or something in an approved event That was for points that I talked Mike out of going to, because he would have beaten me probably. This whole PRPA is a sham. It's a sham. But this little gimmick, because it wasn't a proper tournament, we have a way where you can do like some single game challenges and it gets you 25% of what the full points. So full points were not awarded at this event. No, just like a very small amount of points. Yeah, because we had like 11 players, but only like 9 or 10 submitted scores. So the first place got 10 points, but it's 25%. What's 25% of 10? 2.5. 2.5 points were earned that day by me. One other thing I want to call out on the leaderboard is there is one person on the leaderboard who is grinding, who has attended and participated in seven events. And there's been 14 total. So this person has been to half of the PRPA events. Our friend Kat Davis. Yep. Congratulations, Kat. You are the most active Punk Rock Pinball Association player thus far. seven events played with more to come this next week probably because she'll probably be at joe and shelly's for sure and she'll probably be at our monthly so like cat's gonna have 10 events under her belt in no time we're all gonna be chasing cat yeah oh my gosh and once she like wins a couple i was like boom yep i love it i love it the colorado events being hosted by uh Adam Jordan. Thank you, Adam. At Bite Me Cake. Is that what you said it was? Yeah, I thought it was Cake Bite, but... Bite Me Cake Company slash Flip A Coin Arcade Bar. That's coming up on the 3rd. Yes. That sounds like an amazing place. Like, it's a bakery. They have cake and pinball. Does that sound right? I think so. God, that's like heaven. Also on the 3rd. But it's a big day because ORD by Chicago is having a Punk Rock Pinball Association tournament. Their very first one. Their very first one. Thank you guys for signing up for that. Yes. So January 3rd, two tournaments. That ORD one is probably going to have a good number of players. Yeah. It looks like. I hope our friend Aaron is feeling better so he can make it out. Yeah, Aaron Reddick, he's got the COVIDs right now. Yeah. Hope you feel better. Him and Jess, I hope they both feel better. Lots of people have that right now. I know. Going around like crazy. I don't want it. I hope we didn't get it yesterday. Yeah. I mean, I guess I washed my hands a good bit. I did, too. And we met our friend Matthew Nippon yesterday. He owns the games where we play at Triptych in Champaign. He has games at a few other locations around Chicagoland. He's going to have some of them doing Punk Arc Pinball Association tournaments. So we'll have like a strong foothold in Illinois here in Iowa. And we have Dory up in Wisconsin is going to be doing some, maybe has done a couple already. So kind of our upper Midwest here. I guess that's where we're rooted. And then you got Colorado and there's, where's the other, there's one other farther away one. Montana. We have somebody in Montana. Is it our friend that watched the live stream? Yes, it is Seth I don't want to get his name wrong I think it's Well, that's cool We need some people down in Texas We need some Florida Yeah, there's a Florida scene We need some Oregon We have Tyler in Tennessee, Tyler Campbell Alright, Tyler We have Jay Gross in Iowa Adam from Colorado I was going to read them all You didn get your name out there Robert Rob Natoli from ORD here in Chicagoland Matthew Nippon Chicagoland Shannon Miles in California. Oh. They're out on the West Coast. Okay. I think they're going to run some Bells and Chimes stuff. That's so cool. So that's cool, Shannon. I don't know if Shannon listens. Emily Gross. Well, Ashley in Madison. And Felicia, that's also in Iowa. Lots of folks in Iowa. Big support in Iowa. You know, the people that love corn. Tim Alexander up in Superior, Wisconsin. Oh. That's like way up there. So we're all over Wisconsin. If you want to play a punk rock pinball tournament, we're all over Wisconsin. Got Lindsey from Moline. Quad Cities, kind of Iowa-ish, Illinois, Iowa there. Seth out in Montana. I think Seth ran a tournament already. I don't know if he submitted the results yet. I think they had – or no, it's coming up. So you can be a punk rock pinballer in Montana. Who would have thought we'd be in Montana? Brendan Krause over in Michigan. Friends of the Bathroom of the Future boys. Yeah, they're like up north, aren't they? Michigan band. Cool. Dennis Kepi over there in Moline Quad Cities lots of if you're in the Quad Cities you're going to have probably soon all the leaderboards are going to be filled with Quad Cities people oh geez once Dennis starts doing big ones too and you have the Jay and Emily ones and the Dennis ones we need the scenes to break out man yeah we need the scenes to break out yeah this leaderboard you created that none of us will be on Jamie from St. Charles oh yeah they're running I think Some open ones and some ladies-only ones. I think some bells and chimes. We've got Dory up in Wisconsin, in Milwaukee. Tiffany in Middleton, Wisconsin. Oh, Tiffany. I called her Ashley. Tiffany. Yeah, she's super nice. Scott Millman over in Iowa. Lots of folks. We're going to have to go to Iowa. And we've got you. Stephanie Wysocki here in Bloomington, Illinois. Yeah. And Shelly Sharp is a scene rep in Peoria. Yes. Shelly Sharp and I are, she just sent me confirmation today. She had the Peoria Bells and Chimes renamed officially to Central Illinois Bells and Chimes. Oh, that's cool. Ladies, we're going to kind of make it inclusive of Champaign and Bloomington and Peoria and just make it a bigger deal. Springfield. We've got to recruit some folks from Springfield. Yeah, we do. There's got to be some players down there in Springfield. Well, yeah, they've got the dumb records. They've got pinball machines. Chris O'Brien, he's from Springfield. He's a PRPHQ member. Yeah. Yeah. So there's got to be some ladies in Springfield that would come up and play Peoria or Bloomington. Yeah. Good job, Shelly, renaming that because that's really what – And like no one of these cities are really big enough to have their own like big chapter for Bells and Chimes. But when you add them all up. Because now you can maybe host one in Champaign. Mm hmm. It should rotate between like Champaign, Bloomington and Peoria. And then if you could find a place in Springfield, even just rotate the four. It'd be cool. Yeah. Yeah. And if everybody can't make it, no big deal. Hopefully we find some new people. So maybe we'll have to talk to Jeff at Dumb Records. That's really neat. Yeah, super cool. And they should just all, or they could all just be at Punk Rock Pinball HQ because it's central to all those cities. It's fun to mix it up. It's fun to mix it up. No, it would be cool because Joe and Shelly's house is a great place to play. If our friend Brad ever puts more machines in the Porbros in Peoria, that would be a good spot. Yep. uh poor bros in bloomington you could even have one there if you wanted yep punk rock pinball hq in bloomington could probably have one at someone's house in the champagne from the champagne league probably or over there at triptych yep triptych might have the last bells at shelly's house was big that would have been too big for a triptych almost she had 24 ladies that's great yeah i mean And I feel like Shelly and CJ are, I mean, they've really worked hard to grow that. Yeah, because CJ was hosting all those at his various locations in Peoria for a while, getting that really established so that it wouldn't exist without his locations where he had games. We wouldn't be doing this if it wasn't for CJ. No, because we got hooked by playing the Night Shop tournaments. Yeah. So thanks, CJ. And then this wouldn't be a thing unless we had gone to Joe and Shelly's house and saw, like, okay, it made it seem, like, less weird. Because that time we only had Jaws. I know. Before we went to Joe and Shelly's, and they had, like, 11 games. And then we were like, well, they have 11? Because I remember we were talking about maybe getting a second one, and I was like, is that crazy? Yeah, and then we're like, these people don't seem crazy, and look at all the pinball machines in their basement. They had 11. Now they have like 20, I think. Yeah, because they've got three over at the HQ now, and their basement's full. So I think they always need to have a couple more than we have. That's all right. Yeah. But if you calculated the value of the collections, theirs is much higher. Yeah, theirs are fancy. They've got the fancy machines. Because we have mostly Stern Pros or the older used Sterns, like the Pirates and the Ripleys and a Firepower. Fun House. We only have a couple premiums. This is Jaws 50th and The Walking Dead. Yep. Oh, my gosh. This week on, I don't know what day it was, Saturday night, we live streamed. It's embarrassing, but I'm going to say it. We live streamed for like three hours, it felt like. It was three hours. It was over three hours. And there were a few of us at HQ. Spicy Rich and Pamela were there. But Spicy Rich and Kevin and Joey and you and me. Rob. And Rob. And we tried to, the goal was to crack 300 million. I put that number out there because if you got 300 million, and I think you'd be in the third spot on our leaderboard at the HQ. So it's been done on that machine. And more. So, yeah, it's been done on that machine. We played for three hours, and no one really even sniffed it. Kevin got the closest. Kevin got 200-something. It was shameful. The game just beat the crap out of us. Yeah. Yeah. It made me feel like a terrible pinball player. It was embarrassing. and it's up on YouTube. It's on YouTube. Don't watch it. Don't watch it because you know what? I don't even know if the audio probably sucks. I got to figure out the audio on these. Audio probably sucks. We also had the Playfield cam was mirrored so it was backwards. That's fine. It won't, I know, I'm just saying. It was only mirrored like part of the time. Like for half of it. Rich fixed it. I did. You did it? Yeah. Well, Rich and I did it together. And then Rich was like monkeying with some other things. But I got to figure out, a way to make the streaming more compelling or to not do it because we need to have commentary i know but i don't have the proper gear for that and i don't know if i want to invest in that gear to do the streams i don't know you tell us do you want us to try to make the streams better and to do more streaming. I find it to be fun but also stressful because I don't really like figuring out that technical end of it. All right. Well? Because it would be cool to stream our tournaments, but I would want to stream it and have the player names up there, player 1, 2, 3, 4, and all that. But I don't want to have anything to do with making that happen. Okay. On that end of it. You just want to play. I just want to play. Okay. So if somebody at the HQ wants to take that on or has those skills, then I'm happy to put it on the channel. But I don't necessarily want to be the technical person behind all that. Okay. Because I want to just play. Okay. Unless there's a great demand. We don't have a lot of people watch the streams. So unless a bunch of viewers comment here, like, no, you need to do the streams and just make them better, maybe that will inspire me to want to figure it out more but anybody that's a member at the hq if you want to learn the stuff and maybe even invest in some of the equipment which is not that cheap uh i'm happy to be a part of figuring that out but i don't want to just do it okay yeah maybe we can make a committee maybe there could be a streaming committee we'll figure it out because it just that kind of stuff like i couldn't get the hdmi out of the walking dead to work i know and i got it on avatar it's the same gear plugged avatar and just worked walking dead i'm just getting a black screen but then i tested the cord to the tv and you got you got it and that kind of stuff just makes me crazy and i just want to play pinball and i spent like two hours doing that, and I just wanted to flip. So we need somebody who's more of like an AV nerd. Okay. That maybe already knows how to do that. I don't know. Attention, AV nerds. AV nerds at PRPHQ if you're listening to this. Not everybody at the HQ listens to this. No, I know. Or if you aren't at PRPHQ and you have some tips. or if you've got tips or if you're in the bloomington or central illinois area and you're like i'll come over and show you how to set that crap up cool come watch in to play pinball i love that yeah you don't have to be a member like we have the keys you can come and play if you want to help us help us make our live streams better i just feel like the product so far our live stream product isn't up to par with the good ones. Probably why retro Ralph didn't want to play with us. It could be why he didn't want to play with us. Cause his, he does a better stream. Yeah. He is like high production value. His production value on his live streams is better. And ours, it's mostly like on the audio side and like we could have better cameras and yada yada, but like it's mostly the audio needs to be better and we need to be able to have commentary. because otherwise you're just watching some random people play pinball. Right. And on The Walking Dead stream, you're watching them play pinball poorly. Yeah. Except for a couple games by Kevin and Rich had a good game or two. Yes. And that was it. And everyone else just kind of got their ass whipped by The Walking Dead. So there needs to be a way to make it interesting and have it sound good. And if somebody wants to come in and help, I'll also help. But I don't want to just do it. Okay, that's fair. Got it. Point taken. Cool. What else? What are we looking forward to for 2026? We're at 37 minutes. Just look down. She's got a timer on her thing. So we could wrap it up here, but I want to talk maybe, what are you excited for for next year? Because that's coming right up in a few days. well i'm excited we have well i'm excited for more punk rock pinball events and traveling a little bit to go do that like taking the show on the road i'm pretty excited about that i am also I'm also very excited about like all of the new friends that we've met and meeting more new people to play pinball with That pretty cool Yeah We both social people Yeah So that like I excited for that We don even know what going to happen I excited for potentially getting some art blades for my Jaws 50th Yeah. Yeah. Well, they'd be making specialized Jaws 50th art blades. We need to know. So that I'm looking forward to. Yeah, I don't know. I'm also very excited for like the creativity and contribution of people within this punk rock pinball community near and far. Like they're just kind of surprising me every week. There's just something someone's doing something that is super cool that maybe we hadn't thought of. and it's kind of taking on the life of its own. So I'm really excited for the future of this and to be sitting here a year from now and hopefully just kind of being in awe of what happens. I think it's going to continue to grow, I guess is what I'm saying, and I'm excited for that growth. We're giving it a shot, I guess, even if it just flops, we're giving it a shot. Yeah, it's already not flopped. I mean, we have, as a show, I mean, the numbers from the show have been bigger than already expected with like 30,000 plus listens. Mm-hmm. I didn't think, I thought it would maybe be sitting at this point like maybe getting 100 per episode and getting like 1,000 per episode. so that's already like to me like a success even if we quit tomorrow if we didn't make this is the last episode it's been a success it's cool the punk rock pinball association i really have no goals for that so that could i mean i want it to grow and i want to provide this kind of organization and leaderboard for anybody that wants to use it that's going to be hosting like safe and fun and fair tournaments as an option to ifpa we have nothing against ifpa but if you want a different option there like i want to build out the functionality of this leaderboard and have it out there for everybody and then it's really up to the people if it grows or not yep and i don't have any hard goals on on that like we'll use it for all of ours and if it gains like nationwide like adoption that would be wonderful but if it doesn't i'm it's still fun for our little area of the world here yeah i totally agree and what i'm looking forward to with that is to do some team tournaments and i was going to have it be like scene versus scene and if you're one of our tournament directors like jay and emily or dennis keppy i know a lot you guys have a lot of ideas i'm thinking of like travel teams but based on the location so let's say there's a jay's silver ballroom team and let's say there's uh the nick has his team from the solid state pinball supply and let's say there's a punk rock pinball hq team just from our punk rock pinball hq members what would be the best format for us to compete against one another because we will travel. I think we could get at least five to come and play like any of you guys. And we would invite you to come here to Bloomington. Quad Cities is not that far. Kansas City is not that far. Dory, pick a location up in Milwaukee with the busiest one and make a team. And let's travel around and let's have some team location versus location team tournaments. And I just want to hear from you, from my tournament director people. We'll send out an email probably. How do we want to format this, the competition? If we do this, it has to be streamed. Okay. Well, then somebody, a friend of the PRPHQ, please help figure that out because it's not going to be me. I know. I'm just saying it has to be. I've figured like 80% of it. If somebody needs to go on a Tom Graff boot camp weekend or something, and to pick his brain on how to do it baby style, because he's got quite the setup there. Yeah, because we don't have the money to buy the Tom Graff streaming setup. No. That's insane. No. I've looked at that. It's intimidating. It's super intimidating. And Tom Graff, kudos to you, man, for setting up that crazy system and playing in these high-level tournaments and playing well. Like, kudos to Tom Graff. Yeah, he's awesome. Yeah. Yeah, so awesome. But, yeah, we need a baby version of this. Yeah, anybody in our little scene want to go, like, pester Tom Graff the next time he streams a big tournament and just write down all of the stuff? Yeah. And maybe we could collectively buy all the stuff. Or we have some of the stuff. I know that Jack Danger just did like a whole new rig of stuff. Maybe we can get him to come down and stream it. Yeah, like what's on his new rig? Or maybe he could give us a walkthrough of his new rig. Yeah. Because we can do it. We have the stuff to do it. We probably don't have all the right stuff, definitely not on the audio side. But I want to do these team versus teams. It should be streamed. You're right. But what's the best format? I was thinking like five-person team, okay, five-on-five. And the home team, nobody knows in advance who's playing who, and you do like three, like a certain number of rounds of like head-to-head play. Okay. Where every player plays like three times. And say the home team picks like, if we're the home team, I put forward Joe Sharp and then the visitor gets to pick who's going to play against Joe. Okay. And then you go down the line. Okay. My player two is CJ. Then Iowa gets to pick who plays against CJ. One team picks who's going to play first and then the other team picks the game. Okay. So if I put forward Joe, you pick a person, guy or gal or whoever, and that person picks the game. and then maybe like the winner of that match, they decide maybe the player and the game next time. There's a lot of ways you could do it. And then each game is just worth a point. And then after three rounds, it'd be 15 matches. It's like who has the most points. That's pretty fun. That sounds fun. That sounds super fun. Uh-huh. Okay, let's do that. Let's do it. I feel like we could get that going against like some Quad Cities, Eastern Iowa folks like pretty quick. Yeah, probably. because we'll go there you can come here and do one a home and home home and home match yeah yeah uh-huh let's do it you set up a season where like once we establish the teams uh every team gets like a home and home against every other team so let's say you have kansas city we have quad cities we have milwaukee we have chicago and we have central illinois Then every team plays every team twice, so you'd have 10 matches per year. Let's do it. Okay. Okay. I think that'd be fun as hell. Yeah, it's kind of like pinball meets roller derby. Uh-huh. I love it. And everybody can have their team name. And some special shirts, so we recognize each other, so we can identify each other in the crowd. Yeah, special shirts. Uh-huh. Some warm-ups. Uh-huh. Oh, yeah, some warm-ups. Yeah. Full outfits. Okay, Ryan Young doesn't listen to this, but I wonder if he can. Yes. He can print our, he could embroider for our team. I'll buy these for our five people. Uh-huh. Like a whole, like, tracksuit warm-up suit. Yeah. And we come with our embroidered, shiny, like, Adidas tracksuits coming to flip. Yes. Yes. And Ryan already knows a tracksuit because he has one. He loves them. He loves a tracksuit. He wears the full outfit. Because we're going to be comfy in our soft pants, ready to flip. Just don't watch me play The Walking Dead. This is all falling apart. It all falls apart. Well, that sounds super fun. All right. Well, that's going out to the world now. And then 2026, I'm just also excited about the potential Stern pinball lineup. I mean, that goes without saying. Because you know what it is. You know the rumor of what it is, all of them? Planet of the Apes? I heard Spooky had Planet of the Apes. Oh, that's right. I like the Spooky. I just wish they could make more games. I get it. Because the Spooky has Planet of the Apes. I want one. Yeah. But I just can't get in line like that. So what games? So they're saying Pokemon. Mm-hmm. Want It. Mm-hmm. They're saying Transformers. Doesn't interest me. But it's by, now I've forgotten his name, the fellow that designed John Wick. Well, then maybe I'm interested. Yeah. and I'm sorry I forget his name and I just had it on the top of my head. He's good. He's very good. That is a great game. Yeah. They're saying that a possible Batman 66 Anniversary Edition. Oh. That's what they're saying. That game's great. It is great. They're saying a possible ACDC remastered. Whoa. as the remaster? Those are four bangers. They're saying a possible Keith Elwin Fallout. That's very interesting. That sounds like five games I need. And then you got Spooky with Planet of the Apes. Sounds like six games I need. And that Planet of the Apes. But that won't be until 2027 because they're making Beetlejuice all next year. True, true, true. Which looks amazing. we're not getting one because we didn't get on the thing no but we'll play it we will play it yeah we know we might even do a thing yeah we know a couple places that are getting uh beetlejuice we might even do a beetlejuice launch tournament somewhere tbd that might happen i would i would love one if they could crank them out like stern we'd probably have one coming to HQ soon, but maybe they'll get there. They'll get there. So I just, I can't share everyone's full excitement on those just because they don't make enough. Well, we're going to get to play it in 2026. We're going to get to play it probably in like two months. That's so exciting. Well, yeah, I think that's a wrap. Yeah, that's a wrap. It was a good year. We did it. We did do it. Put it out there. We made this whole thing. And it's all thanks to, if nobody watched and nobody joined our HQ, Marshall liked it. He doesn't like a clap, he likes a high five. He said congratulations to you. Because if it weren't for all you people in the Facebook group and all the people watching, and that the HQ, all the members and the people that come play the tournaments, we wouldn't do any of it. So thank you all. Yeah, thank you very much. For a wonderful pinball year. And, yes, this is just an awesome community, and I'm glad that we get to contribute back to it in some sort of a way. Yeah. And connect more people. It's cool. It's great. Our dreams are coming true. Pinball dreams have been made. We're making new players. We're finding new players. Yeah, we found some yesterday. We found like four or five brand new players yesterday that are like, oh, I'd never really thought about pinball. I think I'm hooked now. You're welcome. You're very welcome. welcome okay welcome and you're welcome all right that's a wrap all right we'll see you in the new year and toodaloo goodbye

_(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: a01114cd-0ddd-4036-810b-56214daaebab*