# The Spinner Is Lit - Episode 51 Fall Fun

**Source:** The Spinner Is Lit Pinball Podcast  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2022-11-03  
**Duration:** 105m 55s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://soundcloud.com/thespinnerislit/the-spinner-is-lit-episode-51-fall-fun

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## Analysis

The Spinner Is Lit Podcast Episode 51 features a roundtable discussion about fall pinball season, a community restoration project of Creature from the Black Lagoon, and commentary on recent game releases including Legends of Valhalla and Houdini. The hosts and guest Rick Demol discuss gameplay mechanics, pinball restoration techniques, original IP games, and upcoming titles like Galactic Tank Force.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] Dan's restored Creature from the Black Lagoon playfield has fewer than 100 games played on it and was a major community project involving George (cabinet work), Cheddar (swap), Adam (assembly), and others contributing parts and labor. — _Dan describing the restoration timeline and community contributors_
- [HIGH] The new Creature playfield is 'brand new' but the ramps are about four years old; the game has a cliffy covering a previous scoop and requires very precise shots to hit the snack bar. — _Dan detailing the playfield condition and shot difficulty_
- [HIGH] American Pinball is releasing multiple tiers of Legends of Valhalla: a Classic version with flat plastics, a standard Deluxe, and a Limited Deluxe with molded plastic toys and mountain of skulls. — _Spencer and Mark discussing American Pinball's pricing strategy mid-run_
- [HIGH] Stern Pro machines are approaching $7,000; Premium models are $10,000-$12,000; LE models are $12,000-$15,000 depending on manufacturer. — _Spencer discussing current market pricing_
- [MEDIUM] Hot Wheels (American Pinball) launched at approximately $5,500-$6,740 with shipping, only $100-$300 more than Stern Pros at that time ($5,300-$5,400). — _Discussion of Hot Wheels pricing strategy and market positioning_
- [MEDIUM] Houdini has the start button programmed to blink in Morse code, referencing a communication method Houdini and his wife used; the game was built from scratch with minimal reuse from the original Papaduke prototype. — _Rick mentioning a local collector's Houdini and designer's intent; Dan noting all custom design_
- [HIGH] Legends of Valhalla and Total Nuclear Annihilation (Spooky) are recent successful original unlicensed IP games that deliver on all gameplay elements (theme integration, lighting, music, gameplay, shots, kinetics, flow). — _Spencer analyzing what makes original IPs successful_
- [MEDIUM] Dennis Nordman is the designer of Galactic Tank Force and also created the theme; Fran (implied Fran Totti) did the artwork and was the source of a leak about the game. — _Conversation about Galactic Tank Force designer and artist credits_
- [HIGH] Rick Demol streams on Twitch as 'Elk Grove Pinball' and has done production work on the Golden State Pinball Festival tournament stream. — _Rick's self-introduction and stream details at episode start_
- [HIGH] Indianapolis 500 machines have phantom switch issues that require adjustment; Dan's Indy is now playing 'real, real well' after troubleshooting and passed recent league night with no problems. — _Dan describing Indy 500 restoration and current condition_

### Notable Quotes

> "It's been about a year. We started, I think last, this time last year is when we finally took it all apart and sent it in. So it has been a long time coming, but it's great to have it back in the lineup."
> — **Dan**, early_episode
> _Marks the completion of a year-long community restoration project on Creature_

> "I hung like 800 million up on that game... and the way it's set up right now is I haven't managed to break 200 million because I've gotten a jackpot... it still needs a little bit of adjusting."
> — **Dan**, mid_episode
> _Demonstrates the challenge and recalibration needed on the restored Creature machine_

> "If you can get a good game, you know, out there and charge $1,000 less than Stern, I think people are going to give it a chance."
> — **Spencer**, pricing_discussion
> _Key market insight about price sensitivity for competitors to Stern_

> "People do still want an original unlicensed IP. It just has to be a good game."
> — **Spencer**, late_episode
> _Reflects a shift in perspective on market demand for original themes_

> "Galactic Tank Force... Sounds like every cheesy B-80s movie that came out between like 84 and 88."
> — **Mark**, theme_discussion
> _Illustrates skepticism about the Galactic Tank Force theme naming_

> "You can tell that whoever designed that game had a real affection for the material... It is definitely a love letter to Houdini."
> — **Dan**, houdini_discussion
> _Acknowledges designer intent and passion in Houdini game creation_

> "I seriously doubt it... if American Pinball is smart, they figure out a way to get something out there for six grand."
> — **Mark**, american_pinball_strategy
> _Market positioning advice for American Pinball to reach price-sensitive buyers_

> "Your stream is awesome. I was really impressed, and you sound good on the mic, and you have good commentators and the video quality is great. You're up there with the other ones."
> — **Mark**, rick_introduction
> _Recognition of Rick's streaming production quality and streaming community_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Spencer | person | Host of The Spinner Is Lit Pinball Podcast |
| Dan | person | Co-host; owns a restored Creature from the Black Lagoon and Indianapolis 500 |
| Mark | person | Co-host; contributor to podcast discussions on pricing and game analysis |
| Rick Demol | person | Guest; part of Capital Corp; Twitch streamer (Elk Grove Pinball); tournament streamer for Golden State Pinball Festival |
| George | person | Cabinet restorer; worked on Dan's Creature restoration project |
| Adam | person | Helped with Creature playfield installation and assembly |
| Cheddar | person | Performed playfield swap for Dan's Creature restoration |
| Chris Hutchins | person | Master pinball restorer; creating YouTube restoration videos (Whitewater cabinet restoration referenced) |
| Jeff | person | Purchased Legends of Valhalla at Golden State Pinball Festival; helped explain game mechanics |
| Courtney | person | Purchased Legends of Valhalla at Golden State Pinball Festival with Jeff |
| Dennis Nordman | person | Designer of Galactic Tank Force; known for interesting ramps and crazy shots; proven commodity designer |
| Stern | company | Major pinball manufacturer; Pro models $7,000, Premium $10,000-$12,000, LE $12,000-$15,000 |
| American Pinball | company | Manufacturer of Legends of Valhalla and Hot Wheels; releasing multi-tier versions of Legends of Valhalla |
| Spooky Pinball | company | Manufacturer of Total Nuclear Annihilation; successful original unlicensed IP game |
| Jersey Jack Pinball | company | High-end manufacturer; LE models $15,000 |
| Creature from the Black Lagoon | game | Classic game; Dan's restored machine has brand new playfield, new cabinet, legs, rails, glass, back glass, ramps |
| Legends of Valhalla | game | American Pinball original unlicensed IP; selling well; multiple tier versions being released (Classic, Deluxe, Limited Deluxe) |
| Houdini | game | Spooky game; tight shots; custom-built from scratch; has Morse code programming on start button; educational about Houdini history |
| Total Nuclear Annihilation | game | Spooky original unlicensed IP; successful game; originally titled 'Total Annihilation' but changed due to video game name conflict |
| Galactic Tank Force | game | Upcoming original IP game by Dennis Nordman; artwork by Fran (Fran Totti implied); theme polarizes discussion; hosts skeptical of theme name |
| Indianapolis 500 | game | Pinball machine owned by Dan; had phantom switch issues; now resolved and performing well in league |
| Hot Wheels | game | American Pinball licensed game; launched at $5,500-$6,740; priced competitively to Stern Pro |
| Golden State Pinball Festival | event | Tournament event where Jeff and Courtney purchased Legends of Valhalla; Rick Demol did streaming coverage |
| The Spinner Is Lit Pinball Podcast | organization | Podcast hosted by Spencer with co-hosts Dan and Mark; Episode 51 discussed |
| Fran Totti | person | Artist for Galactic Tank Force; source of artwork leak |
| Capital Corp | organization | Organization Rick Demol is part of |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Creature from the Black Lagoon restoration, Pinball machine pricing and market positioning, Original unlicensed IP games (Legends of Valhalla, Total Nuclear Annihilation, Galactic Tank Force), Gameplay mechanics and shot difficulty (Creature, Houdini, Indianapolis 500)
- **Secondary:** Pinball streaming and tournament production, Game restoration techniques and community collaboration, Designer intent and passion in game creation
- **Mentioned:** Houdini trivia and theme integration in pinball design

### Sentiment

**Positive** (0.78) — Overall positive episode celebrating community restoration, praising recent game releases (Legends of Valhalla, Total Nuclear Annihilation, Houdini), and enthusiastic about upcoming games. Some skepticism about Galactic Tank Force's theme name, but hosts express hope it will be great. Rick's streaming work is heavily praised. Community contributions to restoration receive warm recognition.

### Signals

- **[restoration_signal]** Dan's Creature from the Black Lagoon restoration was a multi-person, year-long project involving cabinet work (George), playfield swap (Cheddar), assembly (Adam), and parts contributions from community members including hologram motors from Rob Bell. (confidence: high) — Detailed accounting of contributions: 'Uh, you know, I got the game from, from Mike, uh, a deal with, uh, Sparky. Let me buy the play field. Cheddar did the swap for me. George did the cabinet. Uh, and then, uh, Adam and George helped me put the thing back together.'
- **[product_launch]** American Pinball is releasing Legends of Valhalla in multiple tiers: Classic version (flat plastics, cheaper), standard Deluxe, and Limited Deluxe (molded plastic toys, mountain of skulls) - a mid-run pricing adjustment strategy. (confidence: high) — Spencer: 'they announced that they're gonna have different tiers of this game available... they're not calling a limited edition. I don't think it's like I forget now, but the one that people have with the molded plastic toys and the mountain of skulls, that kind of thing, there's going to be a cheaper, slightly cheaper version that's just going to have like black plastics instead.'
- **[market_signal]** Current market pricing creates a gap: Stern Pro ~$7,000, Premium $10,000-$12,000, LE $12,000-$15,000. Hosts identify opportunity for competitors to gain traction with $6,000 price point for solid gameplay. (confidence: high) — Spencer: 'if American Pinball is smart, they figure out a way to get something out there for six grand. And I know that that's asking a lot in the day and age where Stern pros are about to hit $7,000. But, like, there's still a big segment of pinball fandom that, like, they look at $7,000, and unless it's just blowing their socks off, they're just like, ah, it's too much money.'
- **[sentiment_shift]** Spencer reports a shift in his perspective: originally believed consumers don't want unlicensed original IP despite claiming otherwise; now recognizes people DO want original IP but it must be a good game (citing Legends of Valhalla and TNA as proof). (confidence: high) — Spencer: 'I used to say that, you know, everybody says they want an unlicensed original IP, but they don't. They're full of it. Well, I've kind of changed my tone on that. People do still want an original unlicensed IP. It just has to be a good game.'
- **[design_philosophy]** Houdini game was designed with deep affection for Houdini material, educational content, and historical research. Built from scratch (not leveraging Papaduke prototype beyond name). Designer intent focused on love letter to subject matter. (confidence: medium) — Dan: 'you can tell that whoever designed that game had a real affection for the material... It is definitely a love letter to Houdini. Yeah, being a teacher, that game is very educational. It really does teach you a lot about Houdini and all of his tricks that he did. There was a lot of research that went into that.'
- **[content_signal]** Rick Demol's Twitch streaming (Elk Grove Pinball) receives recognition from multiple hosts for production quality, audio, video, and commentary - compared favorably to established streamers like Fox Cities. (confidence: high) — Mark: 'Your streams are great, Rick, and you did a great job at Golden State... You're up there with the other ones... You're pretty close to Fox Cities, if not equal.'
- **[gameplay_signal]** Creature from the Black Lagoon's snack bar shot difficulty varies with playfield wear. Fresh playfields (like Dan's) have tight, difficult shots requiring precise aim; worn playfields (eroded scoop ~golf ball size) make the shot easier. Tight tilt and short playfield design create challenging gameplay. (confidence: high) — Discussion of scoop wear, cliffy placement, and dead bounce technique for ball control. Dan: 'The best creatures in the world... are blown out... when that hole is eroded away to about the size of a golf ball, hitting that snack bar shot is so easy.'
- **[rumor_hype]** Hosts express skepticism about Galactic Tank Force's theme name and marketability, though hopeful about Dennis Nordman's design track record. Theme name receives criticism as generic/dated (sounds like 1980s B-movies). (confidence: medium) — Mark: 'Galactic Tank Force... Sounds like every cheesy B-80s movie that came out between like 84 and 88.' Spencer: 'what do tanks have to do with galaxies? Like, what are you even doing?'
- **[competitive_signal]** Dan's restored Creature will debut at Thursday league night. Indianapolis 500 recently passed league night with no issues after phantom switch fixes. Both games positioned for competitive play. (confidence: high) — Dan: 'we will be seeing it at league this Thursday... It finally got to play another Indianapolis 500... mine was better in every single way... nothing went down, no problems.'
- **[leak_detection]** Galactic Tank Force artwork by Fran was the source of a leak about the upcoming game; game details surfaced through unofficial artwork channel before official announcement. (confidence: medium) — Speaker: 'I know Fran, she did the art, because that's where the leak came from.'
- **[personnel_signal]** Dennis Nordman established as proven commodity designer known for interesting ramps, crazy shots, and good layouts. Track record suggests competence for Galactic Tank Force project. (confidence: high) — Spencer: 'Nordman... he's definitely a proven commodity as a designer. And I'm looking forward... he's known for doing, you know, interesting ramps, you know, crazy shots, you know, good layouts.'
- **[community_signal]** Sacramento pinball community actively collaborates on restoration projects, with named contributors performing specialized work (cabinet restoration, playfield swap, assembly). Reflects tight-knit local pinball culture. (confidence: high) — Dan detailing community members by name and function: George, Cheddar, Adam, Mike, Brian, Rob Bell, and others contributing specialized labor and parts.

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## Transcript

Hey, welcome to the Spinner's Lit Pinball Podcast. Tonight's episode is episode 51. I'm your host, Spencer With us tonight A roundtable crew Of course, Dan Hey, what's up? And Mark Hello, what's up? And we have with us Rick Who's part of Capital Corp Rick, pronounce your last name for me It's Demol Just like Demolition Man Only roll that L at the end Yeah Yeah. Nice to be with you guys. It's great to have you, man. It's the first time on the show. Yeah. Oh, I've been lurking in the background listening every chance I can get, and it's great that you guys invited me. Rick gives us a lot of feedback. He also is a pinball streamer. Tell us about your stream, Rick. Yeah, I stream on Twitch, Elk Grove Pinball. So stop on by, visit. I haven't been too active lately, but I'm going to get back at it here this next week. So, yeah, we do some streaming. I did the Golden State Pinball Festival tournaments, and that was truly a learning experience. Hopefully we can up it this next go-round here in the spring. Hey, I think we did super good. Yeah, we sounded good, didn't we, Dan? I think we did super good. But I was actually in the pre-show, I was talking to the guys when we were getting you set up. I was talking about running your stream. And I was like, you know, I helped him do the stream, you know, two or three times. We did a couple league nights and we did the GSPF. And I was actually getting okay at it. And then we stopped doing it. And now I have no idea. Yeah, who knows? I mean, the more you do it, the more you get comfortable with the setup, the microphones, et cetera, moving cameras around. But, yeah, it's a learning experience for me. I'm certainly not at the level of like Carl D'Angelo or Fox Cities. But, yeah, no, it's fun. I enjoy it. And, you know, it's a hobby. Yeah, and don't sell yourself short. It's a super impressive rig. He's got really good production values, and it's really fun both to watch and to be a part of. I think he did. Well, your streams are great, Rick, and you did a great job at Golden State. So, yeah, don't say you're so short. And, again, it's like this podcast. We've gotten better over the years, but we still do it, especially me. I still do it because it's fun. Absolutely. Yeah, your stream is awesome. I was really impressed, and you sound good on the mic, and you have good commentators and the video quality is great. You're up there with the other ones. I really truly believe that. You're pretty close to Fox Cities, if not equal. Well, I appreciate that, guys. We try. I do this for the money. What are we getting paid? I know. Where's my check? Where's my pinball check? So we got some topics going on. We're getting into fall weather. It's cooling off. Well, it's cooling off around now. I don't know about you guys. It is definitely cooling off here. Dan, your creature is alive again. Yes. The journey has ended. So we finally got the new cabinet back from George, and it's been a real community effort. Uh, you know, I got the game from, from Mike, uh, a deal with, uh, Sparky. Let me buy the play field. Cheddar did the swap for me. George did the cabinet. Uh, and then, uh, Adam and George helped me put the thing back together. And, you know, we receded some cables and push some stuff around and it worked pretty much 100% out of the box, which is, you know, just super unheard of. So I felt really, really, really lucky. I mean, it looks like a million bucks. It plays just as well. And yeah, it's been, I think it's been about a year. We started, I think last, this time last year is when we finally, we took it all apart and we sent it in. So it has been a long time coming, but it's great to have it back in the lineup. and we will be seeing it at league this Thursday. So, Rick, practice up. Yeah, I did see that, and I got in four or five games this last week, and it's probably the nicest creature I've ever seen. Wow. Yeah, it's sparkling, let me put it that way. Yeah, it's beautiful, but is it brutal as well? Oh, yeah, I don't think there is a creature from the Black Lagoon that's not just an ass kicker because it's got that short play field right this one because the play field's brand new the ramps are brand they're not brand new because the ramps are actually ramps are probably about four years old i think i've had this game for about four years but the play field only has it probably doesn't even have 100 games on it so there's nowhere at all at the scoop and it has a cliffy on it because i had a cliffy to cover the previous scoop so we just put it on the new one so it takes a very precise shot to shoot the snack bar oh gosh yeah i will second that yeah the the best creatures in the world and i don't think anybody will argue are blown out you know because when that when that hole is eroded a way to about the size of a golf ball, hitting that snack bar shot is so easy. That's true. On, on this game, it's like, yeah, you know, you, you get into, I mean, I'm assuming everyone's familiar with how to play creature, but it's like, you know, you, you plunge for your K, you know, you, you hit a few center shots for your, for your, uh, for your first S and you hit the ramp for, for, uh, no, it's F I L M. So you punch for the F, you do the paid for the L, and you hit the slide for the M. And then it's just like, if you can get through all those snack bar shots without getting murdered, yeah, you know, you still have to make, what, three more snack bar shots to do a search, find the girl, and score the jackpot. Wow. Yeah, it makes you work for it. I played it for probably an hour today. I did eventually get into a decent multiball and get a jackpot, but I still haven't managed to get myself into the whole quadruple super jackpot sort of situation yet. I mean, it's a really brutal game, so I think it'll do good at league. And I'm feeling confident that it's going to survive the rigors after getting a lot of play during practice And after league last week, I had to go in and tighten up a couple screws, nothing too major, and it should be good. Yeah, for me on creature, it's trying to figure out that feed from the right orbit, how to get control out of that and not muff it and drain. But, yeah, I mean, if you can do that, you can be successful at that game. But for me, it's very difficult to control that type of shot. Yeah, you have to. I mean, it's one of those games where, like, if you're really good at the live catch, it will definitely behoove you. But again, the problem is I can pretty much get the ball where I want it to be even now. But it's like, then I take that shot. And again, the play field is so short that if you miss that scoop and you hit that that flower pot rubber or even just the regular rubber on the other side, the ball just comes whip right back at you. Right back at you. Yeah. And I mean, it's it's it's it's in your stomach before you even have a chance to, you know, to slide the game. And the tilt on that game is pretty tight. It lets you get away with it lets you get away with something, but not too much. now i know a friend of mine uh who's in reno he has a creature and he has it set up where when it goes around that left orbit coming back to the flipper if you dead bounce it it bounces quickly and then to the right and then back to the left and i don't know if yours does that or not but um yeah that's let it dead bounce that's a cool trick yeah that's about i mean i think that every game, you know, as you play. And I think that's what Rick was referring to is like, if you let the ball go around and just watch it, you know, and figure out where it's going to end up and where you have to move your, move your flipper, you know, maybe 80% of the time you can, you can find control, you know, 10% of the time, 20% of the time, the game's just going to fuck you anyway. But yeah, if you can, if you can do that dead bounce and you can catch it, you know, then, And then, you know, if you're on the right flipper, you know, you can decide if you're going to go for the snack bar, if you're going to try for the targets, if you're going to go for it or actually if you're going to go for the kiss lane. And if you're on the left flipper, you know, you can go for the slide and go for the right ramp. You know, you have your choices. It's not a game that I've ever had good success with post passing on because it's got a hard one to post. It's got that Trudeau where it's a little wider apart. And so it's a little bit trickier. I mean, you can do it. It's risky, though. It's very risky. And I think also I still have super bands on that game. So I should probably do everybody a favor and put some Titans on there. But fuck you guys. You'll figure it out. Got to make it hard. Right. Make it hard. Great. Well, you know, I think that there's two two trains of thought. Right. Some people love super bands for the pop. some people love Titans because I think it's easier to get control with them you know they seem to have they seem to have more grip I like Titans because they're easier to install man once you get super bands on those bats you don't take them off if you don't have to right yeah they're a bear to get on I just put some on pinball about two months ago and they have that nice glossy look and they never wear out because they're hard as rock so hey Dan and everybody else when you guys are playing creature and getting a multiball are you guys actively trying to find the girl or are you just happy to shoot the ramp and get go see how many times you can go around in the circle and the swamp thing there yeah that's a good question I was gonna ask the same thing sponsor okay because that's all I do I if I get the girl great if not I'm happy just getting up the ramp and just seeing how many times I can crank around in the little circular swamp. Because it's two times, right? And then it's three times. It's like a multiplier, right? So it's up to 4X, right? So you get a million points per letter, and you can do that four times. And I don't know if it continues to give you points per letter after that. But the thing about it is just like the jackpot on Creature is worth, let's say, 50 million points, which on Creature from the Black Lagoon is a lot of points. And so it's like you're smart to get up there and try to get a couple, a couple, a doubler, tripler, quadrupler. But it's like once you have that, like the super jackpot even just normally is like what? 200 million points. It's huge. Yeah, it's just the score is so big. Like, how do you not take that opportunity to just blow that game wide open, especially if you're at 3X or 4X? So, you know, right now, like, I think I hung, I hung like 800 million up on that game, you know, before we took it apart and put it back together. And the way it's set up right now is I haven't managed to break 200 million because I've gotten, I've gotten a jackpot. I don't think I've gotten into a super jackpot situation and it still needs a little bit of adjusting, you know, a little bit of leveling, I think more than anything, but it's, uh, It's hard. That super jackpot is so difficult. I think I've only done it once. I think I've only done it once on a variety of creatures. I've never been able to go get that because you got to get it in the pops and then you got to make that final shot. Shoot the snack bar. Got to make that final shot and that final shot. I always screw up on that. If you have really good pops, though, right? You know, three, four trips through the pops will usually get you there. and it's a center shot, so it's not that bad. And it's coming out, you know, and it's dropping onto the right, and it's usually pretty easy to get control on the right. And then, you know, you can backhand that snack bar shot. I mean, it, you know, it takes nerves of steel. It sure does. You know, you got to be a, you know, you got to have nerves of steel, but, you know, you can do it. Or, you know, you could always, you know, try for a flipper pass, or you can try to backhand the right ramp, and then it'll come out at the left, and then you can take the shot from the left. So there's a lot of ways to go about doing it. But yeah, super jackpot, I think, is always the goal. It's just so exciting to hit it, and it's just one of the most apocalyptic super jackpot call-outs. It's like that and the getaway. When you hit that super jackpot, it's like... You know, just like, holy shit. Yeah, it is very satisfying when you get that. Lord of the Rings is another one. Yeah, Lord of the Rings. Super jackpot. Yeah. But, yeah, so that game, you know, we put the new play field in. We put the new cab art on. New legs, new rails, new glass, back glass, you know, the ramps and everything. We're all pretty new. Plastics are a little ratty. And I know there's a new plastic set out there right now, but for the moment, I'm just going to live with it. And so, yeah, that game's a, it's a real beauty. Everybody contributed in our group to it in one way or the other. You know, people came over, helped, helped with the initial shop job, helped turn screws on it, helped move stuff around, um, contributed parts. You know, Rob Bell gave me, uh, gave me hologram motors, which was, which was just amazing. You know, Brian, of course has helped me a dozen different ways. Um, nice cheddar. George, you know, we'll work for pinball. Adam came over and, you know, it would have taken me another week to have that thing going. Adam came over to help me install the play field and was just like, yeah, let's plug it in. And he just gets in there and just starts plugging shit in. And I was just like, oh, OK. I mean, it's it's not the prettiest job I've ever seen with the plug in. But we also didn't like break the harness up and like run everything. Like when I put the cabinet harness in, I started with it in the head and I was very careful about how I ran everything because he kind of had the luxury it was on a table. Once we were, everything was on the cabinet, we're like running it up. You pretty much, you know, you can do what you can do. But then, uh, I don't know if anybody else is checking this out on YouTube, but you have, uh, Chris Hutchins is doing a whitewater right now. And just like his videos, the last couple of days, he's been doing the cabinet and he actually, you know, of course is, you know, master pinball restorer and me and Brian are watching him restore this whitewater cabinet and it's just like so gorgeous i'm just like cool oh yeah it's just like so good i mean and he's doing like these eight ten minute videos where he's just showing you how to do these things and he makes it look so easy and i'm like man i am really glad i didn't see this before i went and put the creature cabinet back together because you know that's kind of where i started was i had a basically naked cabinet and i puzzled it all together and uh but yeah watching him do it i would it would have taken me like six years so it sounds like the creature game um in your possession was a community project among all the pinheads of uh sacramento everybody like i said big big props to george to adam you know to mike hosier for just giving me a smoking deal on it initially you know to brian for helping me get it running you know the first time all the guys mike garcia dan costa they all came over and helped me take it apart, you know, and yeah, we got the thing back together and it is, it is doing its duty. So creature is back. Congratulations. That is awesome. I'm so happy for you. Cause I know when I came there, I didn't get to see the final thing. It's still played good. But yeah, I didn't get to see the final product. So I'm really excited. When you came over, it was even set up. I think it was disassembled. I played it when I came there the first time you still had it running okay and then after that you're like oh yeah I'm taking out the play field and totally shop job of it and and then yeah then after that then it was disassembled and it was unplayable yeah because when when you and Teddy came by after Pentagogo I think at that point the new arrival was uh Indy we just got an Indianapolis It's correct. Yes. We were still working its bugs out, which, by the way, that thing's playing really good now. I finally got it all figured out, all the phantom switches and everything. So it just went through league night and seemed to do real, real well. Nothing went down, no problems. And I finally got to play another Indianapolis 500. One showed up at Pinnagogo, and mine was better in every single way, except for that one had a faster turbo. So I definitely think that I need to rebuild the gearbox on my turbo. Cool. No, not cool. I don't want to do that. No, no, no, no. I mean, it's cool. No, thank you, though. I appreciate it. Yeah. So, hey, have you guys heard about, because we were all talking about Legends of Valhalla a couple episodes back and Jeff and Courtney shout out to them had bought one at Golden State and we played that one a lot, me and I especially at Golden State that is a fun game I think at Golden State I walked out a little bit underwhelmed but once it was in the home environment and the new owner, Mr. Jeff, had a chance to explain to me how that game actually works, I was like, oh, this is actually a lot better than I think that it's a tough game to get a good first impression on because it has that American pinball kind of homemade-y. Not like most American pinball stuff. I guess most American pinball stuff seems to be pretty good, but it has that homemade almost like a spooky quality. right you know and but once once it was laid out it's a really solid you know well put together decently themed game yeah i i think it's a fantastic game i'm you know everything american pinball does i pretty much like i have liked so far but they they announced that they're gonna have different tiers of this game available so it was like um they're not calling a limited edition. I don't think it's like I forget now, but the one that people have with the molded plastic toys and the mountain of skulls, that kind of thing, there's going to be a cheaper, slightly cheaper version that's just going to have like black plastics instead. And then there's different options. There's one where you can get different options, like you can upgrade with the shaker motor and stuff like that, but it's kind of weird if they're doing that mid-run, you know? Maybe they're just running into the fact that the price is too high. Like, how much is taking the molded stuff, which is awesome, by the way, how much is taking that stuff off and replacing it with flat plastics really going to save you? Like, if they take $1,000 off of the price, that seems to be a pretty good deal. It's true. It's a really good deal, actually. I mean, you still have the same gameplay. But I seriously doubt it. Yeah. Because I thought already, like, initially they had at least two different models. They had, like, a premium, and then they had a more standard. And I think the differences were, I mean, minor, you know, back glass, something like that. So I think that if American Pinball is smart, they figure out a way to get something out there for six grand. And I know that that's asking a lot in the day and age where Stern pros are about to hit $7,000. But, like, there's still a big segment of pinball fandom that, like, they look at $7,000, and unless it's just blowing their socks off, they're just like, ah, it's too much money. You know, and now we're looking at $10,000 for a premium and $12,000, $13,000 for an LE, you know, $15,000 if you're a JJP enthusiast. like, you know, there's a lot of money. And, you know, if you can get a good game, you know, out there and charge $1,000 less than Stern, I think people are going to give it a chance. You know, I think that worked with Hot Wheels. When Hot Wheels came out, it was like, how much did you drop on your Hot Wheels? It was like $5,500, right? It was $6,740 with shipping. With shipping and everything? It was still over $6,000 when you bought it? Yeah. Maybe I'm wrong. When Hobbles came out, it was pretty much right, like $100 more or something than a Stern Pro. Yeah, I thought it was like $5,500 when it dropped. And Stern Pros at that time were like $5,300 or $5,400. Right. So the versions now, the classic version is the new version that's going to come out. It's going to be a little more stripped down. I think all the elements will be there, but it's like flat plastics instead of molded three-dimensional toys on some of the stuff. So there's a classic version, the limited deluxe, and then just the deluxe. Yeah, maybe deluxe is the word I was looking for earlier. Maybe that, yeah. Jeff was telling me something about it. Okay, yeah. So I did hear an interesting side note on Houdini and the programming. I'm going to have to go look. There's a local collector here that has a Houdini. He actually has it for sale right now. The start button, when it blinks, it's actually programmed as blinking in Morse code. Yeah, I heard that. Yeah, there's some alternative reality in that game, supposedly. The designer was talking about that, yeah. Apparently it was something that Houdini and his wife would communicate Morse code. Wow, that's interesting. I wonder what the message says. No idea. You know, I know people love to piss on that game because the shots are tight and because I guess the arts kind of hit or miss. But I absolutely love that game because, yeah, you can tell that whoever designed that game had a real affection for the material. because there's just a lot of weird Houdini trivia and facts and lore and, you know, I'm sure some myth. Like, it is definitely a love letter to Houdini. Yeah, being a teacher, that game is very educational. It really does teach you a lot about Houdini and all of his tricks that he did. There was a lot of research that went into that. But I agree with you, Dan. that game is really fun once you find the shots and it's so satisfying when you go for that trunk shot and you can make it in that pretty much the same diameter the width of the ball right it's maybe a little bigger all that yeah with the fact that they built that game pretty much from start to finish because you know the original prototype they use nothing from other than the name. Right. Because it was Papaduke, right? It was a box of lights, and that was it. Yeah, another box of lights with pretty artwork. But the funny thing about that is, you know, again, the guy who, I mean, and maybe it's even because of Papaduke, but like, yeah, he had a real boner to make a Houdini game. And so I think that they lured him in with that. And, you know, it's just lucky that whoever else worked on it also had a real passion for the material, you know, So I think you take that, you know, that kind of good software and that good attention to detail and put it on a play field that, you know, works. Right. And all the different things that happen with the flippers, too, is clever. Like when you push the button and it makes the flipper go down and then when you release it, it goes up in certain modes and stuff like that. That's that's bizarre. It's pretty cool. It really messes with your mind but it very unique yeah I wish I wish somebody around here owned one I mean Joe has one but I wish that somebody in our direct league had one so that I could get around and spend more time on it. That's not Joe's fault. I just need to get over to Joe's house more often. We played one at Jack's. I don't know if that's his. Oh yeah, Jack has one, but Jack lives far away. It's not like I'm just running over to Jack's to play a couple games yeah for me i don't know yeah you mentioned that the shots are really tight um and i can live with that but um when everyone is tight you know i mean like elwin's games he usually has a few that are makeable you know 90 of the time and then he's got that tough oh shot on jurassic which you really have to nail to to get it and so um i like something a little like that more than what Houdini has, but it's a beautiful game. I'm looking at it right now, and wow, I wouldn't mind having one and exploring a little more. Yeah, it's a game that you can really lose yourself in because it's got a lot going on. The little magnet hands thing, it's so cool. Well, same with Back to Valhalla. There's a lot going on in the game. I'm so happy that got made and that it's selling well. It's really doing well, which, you know, I kind of had to change my stance. I was thinking about it and thinking about, you know, I used to say that, you know, everybody says they want an unlicensed original IP, but they don't. They're full of it. Well, I've kind of changed my tone on that. People do still want an original unlicensed IP. It just has to be a good game. I'm excited about Galactic Tank Force when that comes out. I don't know why, but I think a lot of people are excited about it because it's the designer, right? It's Dennis Norman. Right, right. Well, you know, Dennis hasn't, yeah, he's got a good track record. He's a good guy, a good designer. But real quick, touching on the last two unlicensed original IPs that have done well, Legends of Valhalla, obviously, and then over at Spooky, the TNA or Total Nuclear Annihilation. They have all the ingredients, you know, in the stew of what makes a good pinball. You know, theme integration, lighting, music, sound, gameplay, shots, kinetics, flow. You know, all the things that we all want in a pinball machine. And both those games, those original unlicensed IPs, deliver, you know, in all aspects. I think when people say, though, they want something unlicensed, what they want is they want something that's unlicensed, but has the care and the expertise, the time and money put into it that you got with like Medieval Madness and Attack from Mars. And that's, you know, unless it was like a fan project made good, like a TNA, like that's just never going to happen. no one's no one's gonna spend you know you don't have anybody with the with the expertise you know of of a williams in the 90s to take just a generic you know aliens invading theme and turn it into to straight magic i think what is it cosmic tank force galactic tank force galactic tank force yeah i think that's a terrible theme like where did it even come from that's why i like it because it's it's crazy. It's so original. And, and Dennis is known for crazy themes with, uh, that are out of his own imagination. So who knows how it's going to be? Is it, is it Dennis or is it, was that a, uh, so Dennis is the guy who came up with the theme. Uh, I think Dennis is a designer if I'm not mistaken. Yeah, he definitely, yeah. And so with the theme, I don't know. I'm, I'm assuming probably he did too. Yeah. I know Fran, she did the art, because that's where the leak came from. That might make it cool too. I mean, I don't know. For some reason, I'm excited about that game. I don't know why. If you just saw the words Galactic Tank Force, though, in a list of games, are you going to be like, oh, yeah, that sounds... That's where I want to put my $8,000. Not knowing the designer? Absolutely not. Not knowing the designer? Absolutely not. Well, you can say the same thing about Total Nuclear Annihilation. Somebody just walked up to you and said, hey, some guy we don't know, nobody's ever heard of, has designed this game called Total Nuclear Annihilation. Yeah, it's terrible, right? Like, Total Nuclear Annihilation. Actually, the original name, which was Total Nuclear Annihilation, was better, but there was already a Total Nuclear Annihilation video game, so they had to put the nuclear in. But yeah, if you had told me, hey, I'm going to give you this list of original theme names, You know, which one do you like? Total Nuclear Annihilation or Galactic Tank Force? I'm sorry, bro. I'm going with Total Nuclear Annihilation. Because that just sounds like it's going to be badass. Yeah. Galactic Tank Force, you know. What was the zombie theme park one? That was ridiculous. Retro Atomic Zombie Adventureland. Yeah, but it catches your eye. Like, you hear Retro Atomic Zombie Adventureland, And you go like, oh, that sounds fucking cool. Like it sounds crazy and it sounds 50s and it sounds crazy. Galactic Tank Force. What? Sounds like every cheesy B-80s movie that came out between like 84 and 88. Oh, man, because like. Delta Force. Iron Eagle. Yeah. What was the one? Was it not Delta Force? What was the one? Megaforce. Missing in Action. No, no, no. It was with Barry Bostwick. It was like some kind of futuristic like Delta Force thing. I don't know. Anyway. I don't know. Anyways, I hope it's a great game and I'm not trying to yuck anybody's yum, but I'm just like, I think that Galactic Tank Force is a terrible theme. It's got an uphill battle. We don't know what it would be like. So, yeah. If you came up with a generic name like Legends of Valhalla, that sounds like a cool theme. Right. You know, any sort of swords and sorcery thing, you know, knights and knights and kingdoms, medieval madness. You know, you hear that name and it just catches your imagination. Like, oh, medieval madness. That sounds that sounds neat. Right. You know, right. Galactic tank force. Nah. Like, what do what do tanks have to do with galaxies? Like, what are you even doing? Come on. That's what we got to see. That's that's I love it. I hope it's good. I hope it's amazing. It better shoot like no other. Yeah. Well, the nice thing is like, yeah, Nordman. I mean, you know, let's let's take the last Elvira out of it because he didn't get to take it all the way. Nordman is known for doing, you know, interesting ramps, you know, crazy shots, you know, good layouts. I mean, you know, he's he's definitely a proven commodity as a designer. And I'm I'm looking forward. Franchi, you know, I don't know if any of you guys listen to Super Awesome. I do. Great show. He seems really excited about this art package. Like he says, this is the first art package that he's ever done where he got to be himself. Exactly. He can go to town because he has no, no limitations, no rules. Cause he's, cause he's a professional commercial artist, right? So he does what his clients need him to do. This is the first time that like he's broken away and gotten to do the art that he wants to do. And he sounds really, really stoked. And I thought that he said that like he had some input, like some suggestions on the theme. But I mean, he says a lot of stuff and I might be putting one thing in front of the other. I don't know if that came from his imagination or what. But like I said, just I hope that, you know, if they're passionate about it and the game comes out and it looks good and it shoots good. Yeah. You know, maybe maybe it'll be the next medieval madness or the next attack from Mars. But that's always been to me is it's just like it's really hard to recapture theming that good and and execution that good, you know, by an American pinball or a spooky pinball. I mean, they've made fine machines, beautiful games, you know, probably in some ways even superior to the all time classics that I'm talking about. But, you know, you're never going to have all rounders, you know, until you come up with the next big thing. I know that's what, you know, I know that's what John Papadiuk thought he was doing with Magic Girl. He wanted to blow the old shit out of the water. Well, he. Instead of his career. I'll tell you. Seeing that game in person is the most beautiful machine I've ever seen in my life. But I think it's tacky looking. That's about it. But I think it's gorgeous, especially the. One man's tacky, the other man's gorgeous. it's like a weird like quasi sequel to like theater of magic and and circus it's got like lots of purples and blues and i mean don't get me wrong you know zombie it was definitely for the moment like it was some some next level pinball artwork yeah you know the back that's how it brings zombie yeti into the into the community right you know so i mean we owe it for that that's true and apparently you know i didn't i hadn't didn't follow much on Expo, but apparently, you know, some guys have finished it. Yep, and people enjoyed playing it, too, from what I heard, because it was now shooting the way it was supposed to and how it was meant. I mean, I know none of us made it to Expo, unfortunately, but did anyone check out any of the streams or anything like that? I didn't see any streams. I just saw a couple of pictures of it. I watched a couple of seminars, but it really wasn't much to talk about, because there was no releases of anything except for it. But Scorbit was announced for American Pinball, which I'm excited about. What was announced? Scorbit is going to be integrated into the games, including Hot Wheels. I think Hot Wheels is one of the first ones that they're going to integrate it in. So I'm excited to see what they have to offer for that. Man, I mean, I want to be excited about that, but I have Scorbit on Guns N' Roses, and I kind of hate it. Yeah. Like, I like it when it works. Right. But it doesn't seem to work super well. And I mean, at first, you know, when they started talking about Insider Connected, I was like, ah, you know, screw you guys. Scorbit's already beat you to the punch. It's like super good. And now I'm kind of come around. I'm like, man, Insider Connected is cool. And Scorbit, they need to get an app or something out there. They're a little janky or a better app out there. They're a little janky. They have an app. They just need a better one. Yeah. I have to say, if I compare the two, absolutely, Insider Connected is solid. It's awesome. Are they going to give it to you all? or do you have to buy a module or something? I have to buy a module, probably a dongle or something that goes in there, but I know that they have two USB ports within the machine, so I just have to plug it in there and try it out. I don't know. I'll have to see how it is and see what the reviews are from people that start using it first and then go from there. You and Rick were both at a major tournament recently. Did they use Scorbit there? They did not. Nope. Okay. So what was that tournament? Super Series. Super Series in De Pere, Wisconsin. Yep, just about a couple of minutes, actually like five, ten minutes away from Green Bay, Wisconsin. The true whopper farm of the United States. If you're looking for some whoppers, that's the place to get them. Definitely the mecca of pinball at this point in time, for sure. What did they have of that? and uh they actually had it in a and it's in a warehouse looks like nothing on the outside yeah district 82 is the name of the place sorry district 82 um it used to be called title town but then the green bay packers did not like them using that name so they changed it to district 82 and what's really awesome about it is it doesn't look like anything on the outside it just looks like a normal warehouse. And then when you walk in, it's absolutely amazing with the amount of machines that are there, the way they're organized. And the coolest part is all the banners that are hung up. And then they have all older playfields with the back glass to match with it all the way around the entire venue. So it really has a neat atmosphere. It's carpeted, which is really nice. So your feet are not killing like Pinberg. And the machines are amazing because they are set up to have a modern game and then a classic game. And it just keeps going in that pattern, A-B pattern, just classic, modern, classic, modern. And the way that they set up the tournament was so organized and interesting. Yet the person who put it on, Eric Thorne, was I couldn't believe how calm and how collective he was for that many people with such a high stakes tournament with money and involved and everything like that. He was so relaxed and he was just there to have fun. And obviously people were OK with it and there was no complaints and it went really smoothly. Yeah, absolutely. And Eric is a one man show. He does it all. I mean, he has a staff to help him during tournaments. But, you know, in between rounds, you would see him teching on machines, keeping them up, and how he plays at his level and does all those things at the same time. It's just amazing. My hat's off to him. Yeah, when I spoke with Eric, I said, how do you have time to do all this? And he says, I do it during the day when my kids are at school because I'm a stay-at-home dad. And I was like, oh, okay, that makes sense then. And so, yeah, he's at District A2 during the day. And when his kids come back from school, then he spends quality time with his kids and family and everything. And the next day he's back at District A2. So he has that as a hobby. But obviously, he is definitely supporting the pinball community, having all these people from all over the world come to these tournaments. And they played amazing. They were really in good shape. I mean, I can't think of more than, what, four games that went down during the whole tournament. They lasted the whole time for that whole weekend. Yeah, and like I said, if something went down, he'd finish his round, and if there was time left over, he'd be over there with his head under the play field doing whatever he needed to do to get that game back up. So, yeah, amazing, amazing quality of games. He played in the tournament on top of running it. Absolutely. And I know a lot of people are like, oh, you shouldn't run a tournament or you shouldn't be playing in a tournament when you're running it with that many people. But he was totally fine with it, and he played pretty well too. I would be a nervous wreck just to run it and then to play in it. That's pretty amazing. But he's got that character that is just calm and collective and just the nicest guy you'd ever meet and felt really welcome there. It's an awesome place. I would definitely go back any day. What's the rarest or most unique game you guys saw there? I would say the Electronimo. I've never seen that before. Is that what it was called? Electronimo? Yeah, Electronimo. It's a little classic Stern. That was rare. They have a game called Palooka. Palooka. I think it's mid-60s. Yeah, it has the kickers on either side of the flippers. and the small one-inch flippers. But that game was actually somewhat controllable, and I find that game pretty entertaining. I don't know about you, Mark, if you had a chance to play that one, but that one is rare. I'd never seen that before at any other place. Yeah, I liked Palooka a lot better than the one that was next to it. Papa Card? Papa Card was awful. It was an old Gottlieb, isn't it? Like an old 60s Gottlieb? yeah that sounds about the right time frame yes it was awful to play i mean it's just like the only way you could make points is making the outlanes it was i've never seen such a wide open field of nothing to shoot at it was and i got that game a lot in in the tournaments that really screwed me over yeah you're speaking of papa card yeah papa card i wouldn't i wouldn't shed a tear if that one was gone. Papa card was, yeah, not good. Not good. But yeah, the Super Series was a series of tournaments of six tournaments over four days. It started off on Thursday in the evening around five o'clock. They allowed practice between that time from one until five, pretty much. and what was really cool and I've never experienced this before maybe you haven't either Rick is that you are allowed to practice between rounds even on the same game that you just played before you went to the next round and I've never been to a tournament where you can just go ahead oh man I'll practice on that game again because they get it later in the tournament and play free play between rounds and amazingly enough when people had to get off when it was time to play they were off and continuing the round with no problems at all. Yeah, I think that's one of the charms of going to District 82 is being able to continually play. I mean, you would have some rounds that, you know, your game was done and, you know, the high caliber of players that are playing, you know, there's some games that are going to run out a little long. So I think it's ingenious to just let people play. um you know we're talking over a hundred games so it's not like you're going to practice and get that game um the next round although it does happen from time to time so it's it's not really changing any of the results like you know if you were maybe in a smaller tournament where you're you're practicing on a game you're definitely going to have in the next couple rounds so yeah no it's it's pinball from the time you get there until the time you leave and they were long days. They started right at nine o'clock and they went all the way till midnight every night, pretty much for, for the duration of the turn. There was one tournament that went all the way until two 30 in the morning, which was crazy. But like Rick said, out of the 150 people that participated in the tournament, 50 of them were the top 100 in the world. So we're talking really major players there. that we had to play against. So when I look at my scores, I'm like, well, I feel okay, actually, because these were like the best players. So I felt pretty good when I was like, all right, well, maybe I didn't finish as high as I wanted to, but it was definitely a great experience. And the games were brutally set up. They were set up to be very fast, and somehow they made it so that the timing, even with the long playing games, they didn't last that long. And it pretty much stayed on time all the way up to the next tournament that started in the afternoon. So there was always one tournament in the morning and then one tournament in the afternoon until it went all the way to the evening. But the outlanes were as wide as you could go. The rubbers that they used, I don't know what they used, probably Titans or something that were all super bouncy and you really had to know how to control it. And it was brutal. There was a couple of times where I was like I had no flips, two balls in a row, and it was wow. That's all I can say. I mean, what are your thoughts, Rick? Yeah, I mean, you know, I've been there four times now, so I'm somewhat familiar. But, yeah, I think he has increased the difficulty of the games and the way they play. A lot of games, especially the moderns, without a ball save, some have some tight tilts. Like you said, the rubbers, the pops and the slings are really, really active. They kind of keep you on your toes. So, yeah. And then, you know, going to the classics, you know, that's sometimes is a randomizer and equalizer. So you can get some random results in that as well. But, yeah, to to run off a string of games is very difficult, especially against the high caliber of players that that you saw at that tournament. Yeah, absolutely. It was it was a challenge. So, Rick, players aside, the games are hard, but are they hosier hard? I would say they're comparable. They're comparable. Absolutely. See, there you go. He's just been toughing you up all these years so that you're ready. Actually, the way that Hozier sets up his games was pretty close to how they were set up at District 82. And that's why I was like, oh, I know how this feels. It was very similar to when it was at Golden State. Yeah, because we had all that outcry that the games were just too damn hard. But then you go to these real like these real top level world class competition tournaments and you see that they don't they don't set their games up with a lot of fuck around. They don't like they're like they're designed to make you work for it and to punish your misses. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I'll give you an example. I won my game on Jurassic Park and I think I got thirty five million. so exactly yeah that's a game i usually crush you know in the hundreds of millions and so um yeah it he whatever he's done steeping it up you know tight tilt slings um they were steep there's no question those games were steep yep yep but yeah see i'm borrowing rick's jurassic park and i can tell you all of his high scores are in the billions i put up like a couple hundred million. I was real proud. It was a long game and I felt like I did a lot of good stuff. And I knew I wasn't going to get a high score. But I'm like, how far off was I? Oh. So yeah, he knows Jurassic Park inside and out. Somebody in our NorCal crew, I forget what it is now, had a getaway on location, a little burger and brew place in Vacaville. So I was down there one day and I got done with my work early. So I'm like, all right, I'm going to take late lunch and go play pinball. So I did. And I was so proud of myself because I put up a 90 million game and got high score number four. Since then, having Dan's old one at my house for a time, I've gotten way higher than that. But I looked at the number one high score at the time, and it was Neil Schatz. It was 900 million. Oh, yeah. So, yeah. So it's like, all right, I got a ways to go here. You know, and Getaway does feel like one of those games that, like, once you have a handle on it, you can play it endlessly. But it will betray you and kill you. So, yeah, the fact that Neil can, you know, stand there for what had to be an eternity and run up a billion points on it is just disgusting. Yeah, that's just gross. He's such a freak of nature, man. Yeah. You know, and just the sweetest guy, because he came to one of Hozier's tournaments, one of Michael's tournaments some years ago, again, pre-COVID. So I'm going to tell you, it was probably around – you were there, weren't you, Mark? I don't think I was there when Neil was there. I can't remember. Yeah, he was living and working in Reno at the time. He came and he just showed up. So it was – you know, I remember what it was now because it was actually, unfortunately, as sad as this is. It was – so it was five years ago. So it was the day after Steve Sharlin's memorial service because I'd shown him pictures from the memorial service because somehow the sudden come up. Yeah, you know, I'm glad they had tournament today so I could make it because yesterday I was at Steve Sharlin's memorial service. He goes, oh, I heard about that. He goes, I'm really sorry I couldn't make it. I said, well, you know, here's some pictures. But he was just the sweetest, just most down to earth guy. But yeah, just watching him play is pretty fantastic. Fantastic. He doesn't like to lose, though. I have two high points of my life. I beat Rick at Space Shuttle. Ha-ha! And I beat Neil Schatz at Funhaus. It was a total fluke, but he was pissed. That's funny. Was he as pissed as me, Dan? You were so gracious. You were so gracious that somewhere in my heart, I think you let me win. uh no i was i know you didn't but like i said you were so gracious and like so like everyone was so nice that day like it was just such a good feeling and i was just like i was like somewhere you know in that little core of self-doubt that you always have it's just like he let me he let me win but i know you didn't i know you would have happily crushed and humiliated me you'd have been like yeah i'll be happy with second i need another first yeah no that was your day and and like i said if you know if i didn't win i was happy that that you got that honor it was i thought i was about to have another one you know but like a month ago but just couldn't just couldn't seal the deal stupid jurassic park well that jurassic park at district 82 was like rick said brutal i couldn't a bastard yeah i think my game was over in five minutes i was done Yeah, I didn't have it in the lineup on any of the tournaments. In fact, in many of the tournaments, I had the same damn games. So it really pissed me off because it was like there all these games and I have Lost World again I had it like three times if I not mistaken Which Lost World Jurassic Park Lost World or the old Bally The old Bally. And that thing was brutal. That one's all about that plunge, right? It's got like that really weird plunge. Yeah, it's about that plunge. And then the other one that was super brutal was Cyclone. That thing, I swear, you had a game on it maybe three minutes, and you were done. it was so brutal Comet and Cyclone are both those games are nut kickers I can see why they're so popular and why they're such good games I finally got to play a good Hurricane at Pinnagogo and I can see why that game doesn't live up to those other game standards it's a grind it's a grind you ain't grinding shit on Comet and Cyclone. You're just trying to survive. On that machine in particular, absolutely. In fact, I was playing with Travis Murray. He was in my group. He said the best method was to shatz it or shots it. Shatz. Shatz it and then go for the Ferris wheel. Don't even go for the Cyclone ramp because it was so tough to get it up there for some reason. some people hit it and so death when you miss it was so death and definitely don't hit that center target or you're over quickly but I got stuck with that game two times too yeah it was just very interesting but the really cool thing about the Super Series was there were so many different variety of formats of tournaments the first one was a 10 strike progressive tournament. And we've played that before in Reno. So I totally can be familiar with that. And for those people who don't know, it's basically what place you finish, you get the number of strikes. So if you are fourth place, you get three, third place, two, second place, one, and then you get zero strikes if you get first place. And then once you get to 10, you're out. And I hung on for a long time. I actually, that was my tournament that was the best that I did. and I think it was probably because I was the most relaxed and I wasn't thinking about points or anything like that. And then towards the end of the tournaments, then I started going downhill because I was thinking about, oh, if I could just get this many more Whoppers, I could get up higher in the ranks, and it just messed with my mind. But yeah, the first one that I did, it was really funny. Out of all the people, the first group I had was Rick in my group playing Whitewater. and that was yeah that played okay that was not that brutal um but uh yeah we had a tough group right we had uh see it was rick jim hartley and david whitlock are the ones that i see on match play um but i ended up winning that one and i was feeling oh i'm feeling pretty confident because rick i beat rick i was like well maybe maybe look things are looking up here but uh yeah it was a good match and that was fun um and then the problem is it's it's set up for uh swiss pairing swiss tier pairing so you as the better you do the harder people you play against so before you know it i'm playing against colin out mcalpine on x's and o's on the second round and that's when i started getting a little nervous i'm like oh gosh here i am playing against colin i'm like he's going to just destroy me. And of course, he made those skill shots perfectly on X and O's because that's what it's all about. And then not realizing, I just was stupid because I was like, oh crap, there's targets on the top and I never used the upper flipper to hit those targets. I was always having to go back and trying to just get it up that orbit again. Ugh, stupid. But I did make one skill shot on there and I felt really good. But yeah. I think that's good strategy though. Like, aren't you supposed to avoid the upper flipper? Yeah, for the most part, but it is good scoring out of control. It does. Yeah. Well, maybe that did work for me or whatever. I got one strike. So maybe you were doing the safe strat, you know, just instinctively. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. But a lot of it was just a lot was luck on some of the wins that I had because people just couldn't handle the brutalness of the machine. and I just had a good one. Now, my best game out of all those, and like I said, I'm going to do my highlights, otherwise we're never going to get done with this show, was Theater of Magic. I scored 1.4 billion on that one and I just kept hitting the jackpots, basically, and I just trapped the ball and I just kept shooting the trunk, hitting in the trunk, and I was just nailing it every time and that felt really good, winning that one. With 1.4 billion, I actually put my initials in that. Nice. So that was exciting. I made my mark, as I always say. And then I did get to play a Dolly Parton. And usually I suck at that game. But for some reason, I was able to light that spinner and I just ripped that spinner like at least six or seven times. And it just totally just skyrocketed my score. And I was able to win that round. So I did really well for the first tournament. And then, Rick, you can talk about yours. But I ended up in 14th place out of 150 people tied with Andy Rosa, Raymond Davidson, and then some other ones that I'm not that I don't recognize. That made me feel really good. We were watching that, by the way. I mean, not like on stream or something, but like I had the thing up where we can see how you did. Yeah. And yeah, I was like, oh, dude, Mark is Mark is making a run at this. Yeah, that was really cool. I mean, I didn't get up as high like where Zach Sharp and Steve Zoller are, but hey, I'm happy with that. My goal was to be in the top 50, and I did not expect to be in the 14th place. So that gave me, I think if I'm not mistaken, 28 whoppers in 14th place. And that was the highlight of all the tournaments. I was like, wow, this is really good. And I'm like, I think I can handle this. and then you get overconfident and then things yeah things go south i did pretty well in the second tournament but rick go ahead and talk about how did you do on the progressive strikes uh let's see what do we have here i don't think i finished as high as 16th in any one of those events but uh what was my highest place 28th in the second event which which got me some whoppers Just piggybacking off of what Mark said, you know, it's a long, grueling event. And, you know, it's as much about mental as physical when you get to day two, day three, you know, and the end of the tournament. So, you know, it's difficult to be consistent across six events. And I think I ended up across the six events placing like 37th, which, you know, if there's 50 in the top 100, I'll take that. I mean, I'm not in the top 100. So I think it rewards consistency on that level. But, you know, playing against some of the high-profile names, I mean, there was one game where I looked up and I was against Carl D'Angelo, Colin McElpine, and who was the other one? Oh, Stephen Bowden. Oh, wow. That's a lineup there. Talk about being intimidated. Oh, my gosh. You know, and I'm kind of getting over that, and, you know, pinball and difficult games and classics, anything can go any way. But, yeah, it definitely, you know, those guys are consistent, and they're at the top for a reason. And then one game I played against the Sharp Brothers, Josh and Zach, on Indy 500 and actually came away with a win. So that was another highlight. Oh, what was the other one? Okay, so one of the strikes tournaments, I don't remember which one it was, but, you know, say it was an eight-strike tournament. You know, we all went into that with seven strikes. So everybody was going home except the winner. And I think Raymond Davidson was in my group. It was on hot dogging. And so, yeah, I managed to pull off a win on that one. So that was definitely a highlight. Three inlanes, right? Three inlanes and it went into left out lane. Unbelievable. I mean, just the clockwork. But it's weird. But yeah, it was weird, you know, traveling 2,000 miles. and then the first round I draw a mark. That was really funny. And I helped set you on your way to your big Whopper Hall there. You did. So thank you. Yeah. You're welcome. It was a close game, though. I think we were real close in the scores. I can't remember exactly, obviously, but I was trying to get that five times play field. But it's so clever how they have it so difficult to get to by hitting it random with the pops. but um i think i had i forgot what i there was one where it was where you add the balls um whirlpool is that what it was called whirlpool yeah i think i had that started and had things going but um i think what helped me is i was able to nail that shot uh three in a row right i think i did three and i just that helped because then i was just able to hit three jackpots in a row and of course that triples. So I was like, Oh wow. Yeah, this is good. So, Oh yeah. You were rolling. I was rolling there. Yeah. It played jackpots on a row on whitewater. It did. Oh yeah. Boom, boom, boom. Nice. Yup. Well, you know, once you've done that, then every subsequent jackpot is a triple jackpot. Exactly. And that's what I kept shooting for. I just kept shooting it into the lock and then it just went in there and I just kept firing it. Yeah, that was good. I know one of the things that I just kind of learned out of these tournaments is, you know, don't get too low when you have a bad game because the next game is always something different. And, you know, the opposite applies to if you win a game, you know, it's not necessarily going to continue on. So you just need to keep even keel and do the best you can. And, you know, even if you can prevent like a fourth place to a third place, it's just so huge because in the end, in the standing, you know, a couple points can really, you know, move you 10 spots easily. So, you know, keep an even playing field. And that's what I admire about you, Rick, is that you are very low key and calm. I'm not. I get pissed. I get pissed at the machine. and obviously I'm a good sport after it's over and shake hands and everything. But man, I'll tell you, there's one game, Police Force, where Eric put rubbers that are literally like, I think they were like one and a half inches thick. So you couldn't fire up that ramp and hit the million every time. You could barely hit it maybe once or twice in a whole game. He definitely took those shots that are repeatable And he made it like, well, you're not going to be dues in that strategy, which is smart because then nobody would be done. I mean, you'd probably have Escher probably hitting the hundredth shot up that ramp. So it definitely helped with that. But that center ramp is such an easy shot. It's an easy shot. So he obviously he made it. I don't know what he did on it. He put like these huge rubbers on it. And then it was like it was almost like a half circle, like like a gigantic, almost like a I don't know. How do you describe it? Like a crescent that went all the way around the ramp. It's crazy. It's basically, yeah. The pinball could barely fit through there. So you really had to avoid even going for that center ramp, and you had to go for the right ramp and multiball and what is it, like top cop or, you know, the jackpot shot. Yeah, and double your score. You had to make it six times in a row to get the double your score or best score. For the record, police force is garbage. Yeah. I know I say every pinball machine is good, but I hate police force. You would have hated this one. This one was really bad. If I had those like gigantic fat white rubbers like on the lock shot on on Adam's freaking. The chair. I can't think of the name. No, no, no. On his grand lizard. Oh, I don't even know. I thought you meant Adam's family. I don't even know where he found a rubber that big. Oh, that's funny. It's like it had to be invented. Yeah. Yeah, that's what Eric did, too. That's what Eric did. He did that on, what was the other one? Oh , yeah, Pharaoh. He had really thick rubbers on that entrance shot. So if you hit those rubbers, you're dead. It was over. Yeah, lightning flippers. Lightning flippers, yep. They're tweaked at weird angles. and I hate it when you have to, you know, just bastardize games like that to make them playable in tournaments like that. You might as well just move on to the next game. Right, right. Yeah, just leave them out of the tournament. There's a few games that they just don't put in tournaments, unbalanced scoring, things like that. I used to own a Joker's, and it's a fun game to play. I really like the call-outs in that game. But it's a very unbalanced scoring, so you don't see it in tournaments. Yeah, you never see it in tournaments. I used to play that a lot in college. It's very unbalanced, yeah. But it's a fun game. That's Police Force. Police Force is not a good... It's a good casual game for casual players. It's not a good game. South Park is a good casual player game. South Park was right next to it, ironically. That one actually played okay. That was not too brutal. But it definitely was a little harder than a typical one you see on location or something like that. I had to get used to it. It was a fact. and that's how Eric set up his games and I respect that because otherwise we'd be there until the sun came up. So it was good that he set them up that way and like Rick said, it gives you a chance, especially those classics. Anything can happen and I needed to have a better mindset of knowing that it's not the end of the world. If you get a couple of zeros, you can always bounce back and I did on a couple of things. but yeah I just got to play a little calmer that's all you don't have to be good at pinball you just have to be better than they are yeah exactly that is so true but yeah Rick you're just calm you're nice and calm you're having fun and you don't get uptight on yourself and that's good I admire that I wish I had that that's not my personality Well, yeah, I kind of hold some of that in sometimes. Yeah. Yeah, I try to, you know, like I said, not too high, not too low. That's right. Yeah. I'm going to have to make a trip out to Wisconsin next summer. District 82. So worth it. It's really a lot of fun. I did good on my second tournament. I ended up, I think I was in the top 50 on that one. And then, yeah, then I played games that I'm familiar with, like Adam's Family and typical Adam's Family. I didn't get two flips. I missed the skill shot, and it came right down the left out lane instantly. So, yeah, just one of those things. But, yeah, it was fun. What was that one called again that was not worth being in their high hand? No, not high hand. What was it called? Pop a card. Pop a card, yeah. Pop a card. We call it poop a card. Poop a card and take that game out. Old wedgehead got one. I had that game three times in the tournaments. Three times. It knew how much you liked it. Yeah, exactly. And I was like, oh, maybe I have a shot after the third time I play it. But, yeah, it was not a game that I care for at all. Well, you guys were there at that tournament the same weekend as Pinnagogo, right? That's correct. Okay. So you guys think that I didn't come out for Pinnagogo this year. Dan, you went to Pinnagogo, didn't you? I did. I did spend some time at Pentagogo this year. How was it this year? It was a good show. I mean, it was very Pentagogo. For people who are familiar with Pentagogo, it was pretty much the traditional layout. So we had the big hall, and it had the two big rows of games. Nothing really too exciting or new, although we did have Toy Story there, so I got to put a few more games on Toy Story. Crowds were super manageable, even at their busiest. You didn't have to wait very long to get on anything. We had some good vendors selling some good junk. I picked up a $40 Champion Pub Black Glass for Brian. Nice. And I picked up a, God, what am I thinking of? Oh, a Slugfest topper for Henry. Oh, nice. I know. So that's a really cool, like, plastic toppers at Bay Area. I haven't seen it on their website yet. But they had one for Shadow that I thought about real hard, but I didn't end up buying. And then the EM room was a little light. It didn't have a lot of EMs, but I think that the organizers were selling a lot of stuff because there was a lot of new in box, like an open stuff that actually was pretty decently priced. There was a thing that was like a Sopranos that was new in the box. And there was a that was a episode one that was new in the box. And Pinball 2000 comes in two boxes, which is probably one of the inconvenient things about it. And it was like six or seven grand. A brand new Pinball 2000. Wow. Brand new, brand new episode one. And I actually kind of like episode one. I know it's a Bootsy game, but part of me was like, oh, that'd be really cool to have that. But, you know, buying a 30 year old new in box, who knows what you're going to be buying. And so, um, but yeah, man, uh, Jeff came with me and we had a really good time. You know, we played a lot of games and, uh, we, uh, we didn't really get any king of the losers on, but we did do some really good versus games. I had that a big, I had a big grinded out on hurricane. That was, that was a pretty funny one. You know, like it was a long game of hurricane. And I actually, I hurricane is one of those games that I know it's kind of crap, but I, I low-key have always wanted. I've never had one except for me and Brian bought a $100 parts game. And I was always like, man, I'd really like to have a Hurricane. I don't know why. I know it's not a good game. The ramps are cool. It does have some really good ramps. The ramps are cool, how it goes around in the back and then it comes back. It's cool. And the Ferris wheel thing, the double Ferris wheel thing is cool. I like the fact that it has tie-ins to the previous games in the series. I like the fact that it acknowledges that it's part of a series with some lineage. You know, so it has the it has the, is it the Comet ramp or the Cyclone ramp? I don't think it has all three, but it has one of the original ones and then it has the Hurricane, which is the big roundy ramp. Yeah, it has one of those, yeah. I think it has the Cyclone ramp. Yeah. But I think it's cool that it acknowledges its lineage. And Toy Story, I can't say enough good things about that game except for the fact that it's too expensive. It shoots nice. Hitting that jump is a really satisfying shot. It's got that Lawler. It's well thought out. He makes all of his shots work. There's really nothing bad about that game. The art's good. The theming is fine. I know everyone hated that it was Toy Story 4 and such as Toy Story, but it's fine. and the Duke Kaboom jump ramp is really, it's a lot better than the slam ramp on No Good. Yeah. No Good Gophers. Like, it's really fun to launch that thing up and watch it go into the hole, and it's just like, I really wish that JJP had managed to keep that game in kind of the, you know, the high price range that JJP fans already expect, you know, to have made it so expensive that even JJP fans are like, whoa, I'm not sure about all that, you know, was kind of a mistake. But I guess, you know, they're selling as many as they want to sell, and it seems like people are opening them every day. So I think Toy Story is pretty worthwhile. It's a fun game to shoot, and it's not hard to understand, which I love. And it is a little more easier, for sure. But you could probably go into the settings, right, and make it harder. I mean, oh, yeah, you can take any game and make it tough. I mean, I I'll tell you what, I don't know why people are talking about it being so easy. I didn't have a game where I felt like I blew it up. Oh, OK. Like it's still got outlanes. It's still got bounce back. It's got posts that are going to send the ball right back at you. I mean, you know, it's it's still a pinball machine. It will kill you if you let it. Yeah. You know, I just I didn't really see anything wrong with that game. I thought it was I thought it was great. My favorite part of that is ripping that spinner. It's so satisfying in that center. That's really cool. You know, with these new optical spinners that they're putting on games, yeah, the spinner shots are really, really... That's right. Those are opticals. That's why. Yeah, so, I mean, you get a big satisfying spin just every time. You know, JJP continues to make the Cadillacs of games, And I still say that, I mean, I know that Godzilla really proved that Stern can do it. You know, Stern can make something that's probably every bit as good as what JJP is making right now. But I still say, you know, people look at JJP to release the biggest, most exciting games. And they need to understand that, like, that's their strength. If they want to charge more than everybody else, you can't release a game that people don't understand what they're getting for their money. Like it needs to blow people out of the water. And I think that was the problem with Toy Story. When you sit down and you play it, it's a fine game. Beautiful, super, super amazing lighting, you know, everything that you expect a JJP to do. But no building that sinks into the play field, you know. No turning force field with a spinner and a jump wrap to a magnet that catches it. No collapsing bridge, you know. It doesn't do as many cool tricks as, you know, a Godzilla Premium does. and a Godzilla premium costs $2,000 less. Right. You know, the theme in the art is subjective, but yeah, you can't fault the fact that one has a lot of mechanical action, one has a ramp that pops out of the play field, and a doll head. And everybody's seen a bash toy pop out of the play field. No one cares. Right, right. There's one and a half wow factors in that game. Yeah, exactly. It's solid. It's fun. You know, it does everything it needs to do, but it doesn't do what JJP needs to do, which is, you know, blow people out of the water. Guns N' Roses didn't have any big exciting mechanisms either. It just had, you know, the best light shows ever put into a game. You know, you go back before that, you know, Wonka had big fancy mechanisms, the cameras, stuff like that. You know, Pirates obviously was Pirates, you know, Dialed In was Dialed In, Hobbit was Hobbit, Woz was Woz. Like, every one of their games got bigger and better and more spectacular until Toy Story. Toy Story is just good. And I think that, you know, especially with a $2,000 price jump, they needed it to be more than good. But, yeah, I liked it. I had fun with it. And I was really hoping that, you know, people would – people might – you know, we might get lucky and, you know, someone would do something crazy and we'd end up with a James Bond there. But no, we didn't get a James Bond. A little too early, you know, because last year we got lucky and we had the Godzillas and we had the Insider Connected. This year, no, it was just a pinnagogo. But for anyone who lives in Northern California and, I mean, even, you know, the West Coast, it's definitely worth coming down. It's a three-day show. It costs $20 to get in. Super laid back. No seminars. No tournament. I mean, I noticed some people, they're just like, oh, screw that. That doesn't sound interesting at all. But, you know, there were probably 150 pinball machines there, manageable crowds. That's pretty awesome. Yeah. Dixon's a cute little town with, you know, good restaurants and decent places to eat. And, you know, if you have buddies who are going to be there, it's a super cool social, you know, very accessible show. It's not going to blow you away. You know, you're not going to be like, what do I do? Like Golden State, you got to kind of know your way around. You know, we had three rooms worth of games at Golden State last year, one of which I think people didn't even find. Yeah, one didn't even. Yeah, they didn't even know about it. Exactly. You know, and that was more an accident of, you know, circumstance. But like, you know, Pinnago goes right there. It's in your face. You know, here's the games. Here's here's the here's the dealers. You know this is what you see is what you get If you been there you know it You love it If you haven been there and you expecting a big fancy Chicago Expo you not going to get it But if you're looking for a little laid back country, you know, and it is it is a farm town country, country style pinball show. You know, it won't disappoint you. And that's what I like about it, Dan, is that you go there and you feel like you're getting your weekend's worth to just play pinball and not have to fit other things in. that's the one thing I like about Pinnagogo. There is no tournaments to worry about. Like you said, there's no seminars. You get that whole time to play as many games as you want. And a lot of times, there's some rare ones there. I mean, I don't know if what was the one that they had? It was oh gosh. We had Kingpin last year. Yeah, the Capcom one. Kingpin. Yeah. It wasn't there this time? I think DJ came through with Kingpin. No, not this year. Okay. We had a lot of Cactus Canyons this year. A lot of Cactus Cactus Canyons. Did you have aliens? A lot of Cactus Canyons. There might have been an alien. I don't remember. I think I would have noticed that. Okay. Actually, I think that there was one. It might have been right at the end of One of the Rose. 2019 was the last year I went. And they had somebody who brought a class of 1812, a beautiful one that played perfect. Yeah. That's a cool, weird game. It is really weird, but it's awesome. Like that is definitely a cool, weird game. And there were some good games for sale. I don't recall seeing any like smoke and must-have-it deals, but there was actually a Cactus Canyon, like an original Cactus Canyon there for like $7,000. That was actually in pretty good nick. But, yeah, in a world where it's like you can get that continued standard or special edition for like $8,000, oh, my gosh, it's hard to turn that down. That's true. Yeah. They did a great job on that as well Yeah, your presence was definitely missed I'm glad that you and Rick had a good time at Super Series but it would have been great to have had you guys come through obviously, I always miss Spencer at these shows because he was a constant fixture and now with his relocation He was for sure, I mean that's how I met him I gotta convince you I gotta get you to fly out for these things Yeah I got a plan better. I'll pick you up from the airport. You can crash at the house, but, like, you got to get out to California, man. Yeah. Well, I'll be there for Golden State, and we'll see for next year. Because, you know, the reason I wasn't planning on going to Pinnacle this year is because I was going to go to the Mile High show, the Denver show. And we've had an unusually warm and nice fall here in Wyoming this year. And it's about a four-hour drive over to Denver, about two and a half, two hours and 45 minutes over to the Colorado border, which is just the other side of Cheyenne. That's some of the worst area for bad weather. So, of course, the day I'm going to go to the show, Sunday, because I had to work half a day Saturday, the weather turns bad. And it's been like Friday was 75, Saturday was 72. Sunday it was raining here in Casper, and it was snowing and, like, 60-mile-an-hour, 70-mile-an-hour wind gusts. So I just didn't go. All right, so I missed it. Somebody had brought a bond premium I saw pictures of, and they had a toy store. It's like, okay, I missed that opportunity, and it'll be next year. Probably JJ. Plus, it was the same weekend as Expo, so that kind of caused a wrinkle. Well, JJ had to do it from Game Exchange. You know, that's his home show. So he flew out to Expo for the first couple of days and then flew back for the weekend for the Denver show. So I didn't go to the Denver show this year, but I did have a pinball party. And that was a lot of fun, and that was really cool. So I'm going to go backwards about two months. I'm at my new doctor's just for a checkup, kind of intake. and I forgot to turn my ringer off on my phone. I don't know. I'd gone straight from work. And so my phone rings, you know, some robocall, you know, your student warranty is about to expire. And it's, you know, it's a godly pinball ring. So my doctor's like, is that a pinball ring, Tom? I'm like, yeah, it is. I'm like, I'm so sorry, doctor. I thought I turned the ringer off. He's like, no, that's cool. Don't worry about it. He's like, it's like you like pinball. So I started, you know, yammering about pinball. He's like, I have an old high speed in my basement that's for about 20 years. He goes, it needs a little work. I'm like, well, you have my chart. You have my information. Call me. I'll come over and help you out. Not a lot of pinball repair people in Casper, Wyoming. So about a month and a half goes by, and just kind of like, it's probably not going to cost us. One day the phone rings. It's like, are you available this week at all? I'm like, yeah, I can go. So I came over. We made a parts list. We got back together, worked on it. So he came. His wife wasn't feeling well, but she was really excited about coming. I said, we'll do another one, you know, soon. So he came, and I invited some people from work, some other people. You know, some trail life dads and kids and like that. The boys had some friends over. some of our friends that usually come over and play pinball and come over before they were out of town. And the kids, you know, high school football game and marching band and like that. But what was really great is I had three co-workers who'd never, you know, been to my house for them. They knew I liked pinball, which go back again. my boss, his brother who helps out part-time has his own business but he was out at a client's house and got talking, he goes, where's your anger guy? Well, he left, he goes, I'm filling in but we got another new guy, he's from California but he's really cool he's really nice, you'll like him he goes, is that the pinball guy? because it's, we moved in the house, we bought the house there was a washer and dryer here And I was waiting on the Escalera to get here that I had ordered before I moved our washer and dryer into the basement. And so I didn't, you know, we didn't need those other two. So I just put them on Craigslist for free. And they needed it. It sounded like our washer just went out. It's like, well, take them both. So they did. And it was those same people. So I'm known at work now as the pinball guy. So it was a really great experience because, you know, all my games are older games. I don't have anything really super new. My newest game right now is Pinbot. And so I have Pinbot, Flash Gordon, My Godly Pistar Champ, and the Hot Tip. And everything worked perfectly, no issues. It worked through the whole night. Everybody had a great time. But what was really great is, like, my doctor, his name's Carl. I won't use his last name. But so Carl leans over, and he's talking to my boss. they're playing, he goes, this is like being in high school again, being at the bowling alley. And it's like, yeah, this is awesome. And for them, it really, because my doctor played a lot. He still enjoys playing. He played a ton in college. And so these guys all enjoy pinball. Another one of my co-workers played a lot in high school and college in later years. The mall, they're still in arcade. They had one pinball machine when I moved here. Adele Jr., they just recently took out. But they used to have a bunch of pinballs. And he used to talk about playing Indiana Jones there and No Fear and like that. So all these guys know pinball. And my boss was like the same age as you or two years older than me. We talked about 7-Eleven and the glory days of when they had pinballs and like that. And the underlying theme was these guys love pinball, and they've grown up playing it, but they're not plugged in like we are. They don't go to the shows, and they don't go on Pinside. They're not in the media aspect of it, but they love the game. And it was so beautiful, so pure, because it wasn't like, oh, you don't have an LE in your collection, or you don't have this. Like, oh, yeah, pinball, cool. We're good. In fact, my boss enjoyed playing the two oldest games the most, because that was the era he played most of his pinball. So it really took him back, and everybody had a good time. But it just reminded me of the most important thing is, you know, hey, man, if you got the coin to drop on a $12,000 LE, awesome, you know. And if you don't, but you've got an old game, you know, an EM or a couple of EMs in a solid state or one DMD in two solid states, whatever you got, you're like, oh, you know, I'll have the newest games. It doesn't matter. If you've got games and they're working, you're doing great. You know, have people over and just have fun with it and enjoy it. And if you don't own any games but you can get to ones on location or to friends, that's awesome too. The whole point is just to enjoy pinball. For that simple, pure, like I just enjoy playing, have fun, hang out with my friends. You know, Rusty made a ton of food. And we had, you know, sodas and water and we had beer and whatever the fruity Hawaiian type drinks. she likes. But everybody just had a good time. And it was really like, I mean, everybody kept hearkening back on, oh yeah, this is like when I was in high school or, you know, one guy's like, yeah, you know, you know, my parents, we go to dinner at this restaurant. My parents want to go have a drink in the bar. They give me, you know, a bunch of quarters, go, go play pinball. We'll see you in a bit. You know, so it was, it was just, everybody kind of got to relive those moments from their youth for a little bit. And, and everybody had a really good time. So, So we're talking about getting a little league going. The two local people I met that have collections, or two of the three, actually, no, all three. There are three. There were three I invited. None of them showed to the party. So I was like, hey, I'm working on starting a league. So I told everybody, I'm going to start working on putting together a league. I've been talking about this for a long time. And, you know, well, it's right close to home. like my realtor um i invited him last year around halloween and this year he's like i really want to come because i got like six other parties to go to that night so and i'm like no worries we'll do another one so i'm going to do something off where it's not like a holiday weekend or anything again soon same kind of thing i'm just going to you know like make some chili and whatever and uh and have some sodas and beer and say okay this saturday night boom everybody come over was going to hang out and play pinball. But I just want to remind everybody, man, it's just that simple joy of that old-fashioned social interaction where you're hanging out, eating junk food, drinking soda pop or beer, and just talking about nothing, talking about whatever, and playing pinball together and having a good time. Yeah, you got to remember, man, it's like pinball is just a vessel. like you can stand there in front of a pinball machine and you can play pinball and you can love pinball for the game and you could love pinball for collecting and you can even love pinball for the money but i think what most of us really love pinball for is the fact is that there's a social interaction to it you know whether it's competition you know whether it's it's entertaining and Spencer, you've always been one of the most social ambassadors of pinball of anybody that I've ever met. So I know that when you have a party or a tournament or something like that, it's going to be a good time for all involved. Absolutely. Yeah, Spencer, you planted the seed. It'll be interesting to see how it will grow so fast. How many people did you have at your party? just out of curiosity. About a dozen. Nice. You know what you do, man? You start with a tournament. Yeah. That's what I'll probably do. I've only got the four games right now, but it's a good place to start. What I'll probably do is maybe do a pin golf tournament. Pin golf is always a good way to start it. We just go through each game four times or three times or whatever. You can have a tournament on one game. Don't get all caught up because, again, you don't have a dozen games. Right. The fact that you own a game is awesome let alone you have what four yeah you know that's a great lineup no it is it is and and i think that you know people you know are going to get over there and and they're going to play and they're going to have fun and you know you do a tournament do a monthly tournament whatever you're going to end up doing and if you get good turnout and you get good response you know you spend that off into a league i know that for a lot of us in ccpl we're excited about CCPL Wyoming. Well, since it's Casper, and I've been meaning to reach out, I've got to do that this week or next, reach out to the commission and go, hey, can I borrow your can I just use your copy and paste your rules? But I was thinking about calling it CPL, the Casper Pinball League. There you go. I'm lazy. You either do like Casper and the friendly ghost holding the ball or because nobody cares if I steal Casper. I mean, they really don't. Yeah, you wait and see how that turns out. Yeah. The other one I got was the University of Wyoming logo. You guys have seen it. It's the Bucky Bronco with the rider. Yeah, they protect that logo. They're hardcore. They will mess you up if you steal their logo. So I'll come up with something. I'm just a generic ghost or like a, you know, a cowboy holding a pinball, something. I don't know, figure something out. So, but, oh, another really funny anecdote about that was Carl was like, he hadn't seen a pinball in years. I told him, yeah, I have a pinball. He goes, I love that game. Played all the time in college. So he's like, is it okay if they take pictures and send to a buddy from college? I'm like, yeah, go ahead. and I said, yeah, if he ever comes into town to visit, man, have him over. And they were texting back and forth going, oh, my God, that's such a beautiful pinball. And his high speed is really in pretty nice shape. He's had it for like 20 years and just needed some, you know, he never even had the glass off. So it just needed a good cleanup and some maintenance. Tell him to give him $1,200 for it. There you go, right? Yeah. I'm pretty sure he paid less when he bought it but again he's had it for 20 years so but it's a mylar playfield so other than a little tiny bit of bubbling at the flashers I mean the playfields are in really good shape there's a tiny bit of wear at the saucer that's normal but I mean overall you know for it's age and being all original. Really good change. But yeah, it was just a really good time and everybody was just like, oh my god, that was so much fun. And I'm like, no, glad you guys came out and had a good time and we're going to do it again and hopefully we'll get a lead going and get some tournaments going and get some stuff happening. And you'll never know. Those people that came over might catch the bug and all of a sudden they go, yeah, I just got a machine. It happens all One of the guys couldn't make it because he had to work. He's got a side gig he was doing Friday night. I said, we'll do another one because we've got to do it on Saturday. I'm like, I promise we'll do it. I'll do it soon. I'll do it on Saturday. He has a game. He has a cocktail pin. I forget which one he had. Roy Clark, the entertainer. Not Roy Clark. It's another game plan, not Boxy Lady. Night Moves? Night Moves. Thank you. Star Trip? Oh, you got it. No, no, wait. No, is it Star Trip? Not Night Moves. I loved Star Trip. Caribbean Cruise, Night Moves. Caribbean Cruise, yeah. Night Moves. It is Star Trip. Hello. Yeah, no, it is Star Trip. I remember now. I said, okay, so if you need anything, let me know. Rubber rings, whatever. You know, I've got. Oh, and a funny story about that. Okay, so when I bought the pin bot from the guy, he gave me like a ton of parts, and I already had a bunch of fuses. Well, I blew a fuse on a flash cord in the 94 Cleaning, I don't know what the hell happened I moved it, pulled the glass off Cleaned the glass, put it back on Can't get the flippers to work, got the flippers to work And then all the Insert lighting and all the Flashes were out, so I finally located And when we get on The Mighty Mope helped a little bit And the one fucking Fuse I need, I don't have I literally have every other value Bags and bags of these things That the guy gave me plus ones I had had from Radio Shack unopened, you know, from 10 years ago. So there's an auto parts store like three blocks from the house. There's a couple of them. So I called up the first one they had. I bought two bags. Got it working again. But through the whole night, man, hundreds or dozens of plays on every game, everything was flawless. But that was just funny. It's like, oh shit, think how I can get up there and get a car. It's always nice when nothing breaks. It is. But, no, we just had a really good time, man. It just made me really reinforce just, you know, like I said, you know, dude, I'm ahead of the curve. I've got a great little collection of four games, and they're all clean and fun and working good, and everybody had a wonderful time. So we're getting, you know, plan the scene. We're getting something going. Excellent. So, yeah, man. So that was my invite, man. I would have come. I miss you guys, you know. I do. And that's, yeah. And that's, well, you know, Mark talks about how we met. We met, it was at Pinnagogo and Rusty and I were playing Hobbit. And I was like, hey, you wa nt to jump in? He's like, yeah. And that's how we met Mark. Yep. That's right. Playing Hobbit. Good old Hobbit. So, yeah. Well, you know, there's a couple that was going up for sale. So, locally. One I know for sure locally to you guys where it was going up for sale. I think that one is already sold Did that one get sold already? Yep It's staying in the family though That's nice to hear I figured some of those interests We could talk about it all But anyway That's what I got for tonight man And I think that's our show Because we're at about 140 Which is about where we like to be So Since Rick is our special guest Thank you for coming on tonight Rick Yeah, thanks, Rick. Well, no, this has been great, guys. Anytime. Yeah, we'll have to have it back on again. You got any shout outs or thank yous or anything you want to add to the conversation before we close it out? Yeah, I want to thank Mark. He I flew in, you know, when we went to Wisconsin, I flew into Milwaukee. He picked me up and we made our way up towards Green Bay. We rode up with Mike and Stacy. So if they're listening, thank you. Yeah, Mike and Steve LaFrieda. Yeah, they were fun to be with too. What a great group. It made the trip that much more enjoyable just to be able to talk pinball between rounds, after events, et cetera. It was a great time. And so, yeah, just a shout out to them. And then, you know, if you can, if you guys could follow me on Elk Grove Pinball, we have like three or four of us in the Elk Grove area that are big, huge enthusiasts. And we're going to be doing more in the future. And yeah, just a shout out to my Twitch handle. Awesome stream. I love watching it. And shout out to me. Yeah. It's Twitch, right? So Elk Grove Pinball on Twitch. Okay. Yes, all one word. Yep. And my shout-out goes to Rick as well. Piggyback off of you. I really had a great time. I really didn't know you that much except from tournaments, and I would go with you to any pinball tournament anywhere across the country because we really got along great, and you were really fun to be with. So thanks for being my companion out there and having fun playing pinball and being competitive, but keeping our cool and learning all the great strategies that you share with me. A huge thank you to your awesome spreadsheet that you put together. I refer to that like before every round. So thank you for putting that on, and it will help with a lot of things with the games. So thanks for sharing that Google spreadsheet of all the correct strats to go with every game that was there. So thanks, Rick. You're welcome. And also shout out to Stacy and Michael for driving us up to Green Bay. So if you are listening, thanks a lot. It was wonderful and really fun to bond with each other. How about you, Dan? Oh, you know, just always a big thanks to you guys just for being here. And a big thanks to the CCPL, the coordinators, everyone who makes that possible. Keeps me playing pinball. Keeps me involved. big thanks to my wife for putting up with all this bullshit and big thanks to all the organizers of Pentagogo for giving us a fall show and something to do I'm going to throw a couple, well I'm going to throw a shout out to Jerry Stonberg, him and his lovely wife whose name I forget, I'm terrible with this because I don't know, well I've met Jerry a couple times, but anyway, they had a baby so everybody's mom and baby and dad are all happy and healthy and doing well so congrats to them now get back to work on my weird Al there you go you can you can baby with one hand and build with the other we've all done it but no congratulations to them so shout out to the mighty Mo shout out to the mighty Mo Mo is kind of a Bay Area pinball legend. Legend. Shout out to the magical, practical Steve, who as soon as I posted, hey, I'm doing show prep for tonight's episode, and we're going to record you. That was up shortly, a few days. He was right there with a thumbs up, man. Always a good supporter. All the NorCal guys, all my new pinball buddies in Wyoming, too. And, you know, everybody who came to our pinball, little pinball party, and had a good time and shared food and drink and pinball with us and great stories about, you know, when they were young and what games I remember playing and where they were and, you know, just those memories, you know, being able to help them bring those back, man, and me being able to be the conductor to say, well, jump on the trolley. We're going to go down memory lane for a bit with you. That was really enjoyable for me. So to everybody that came to my little pinball party, thank you. Shout out to you guys. I want to make one more shout out, too, to Eric Thorne, who put on the District 82 Super Series tournament. It was so much fun. A lot of work was involved. I know he probably worked hours and hours preparing those machines for the tournament. But if you're listening, Eric, thanks a lot for providing an amazing whopper farm because it really helped me jump up in the ranks thanks to those tournaments. And it was just fun to see everybody from all over the country, even I think there were a couple from the world that were there. And it was just an awesome opportunity to play competitive pinball but yet have fun at the same time. Right on. Yeah, so thank you guys who always come. We meet whenever we get a chance and do our episode show. I've been bouncing around the name of the show. I'll change it again. It's probably just going to be fall fun or something. I don't know. Episode 51. So without further ado, this has been Episode 51 of the Spinner's Lip Pinball Podcast. You can listen to us on our home at SoundCloud. We're also on iTunes. You can reach us with request commentary and all those fun veiled death threats at thespinnerislit at gmail.com. So take us out, fellas. Play pinball. Keep America strong. Bye.

_(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v4)_

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: ebb9b26b-46a6-4275-9732-12580d887bd3*