# Podcaster panel **Source:** Pintastic New England **Type:** video **Published:** 2019-07-12 **Duration:** 92m 50s **Beat:** Pinball **URL:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcp2FM8Kbag --- ## Analysis A panel discussion at Pintastic New England featuring multiple pinball podcast hosts (Ron Hallett/Slam Tilt, Jeff Teolis/Pinball Profile, Sarah/Backbox Pinball Podcast, Jeff/Pinball Players Podcast, George Jacek/Classic Pinball Podcast, Joe Lemire/Head to Head Pinball Podcast, Stephanie/Riptide Pinball Podcast) discussing their shows' formats, audience value propositions, and the divide between tournament players and collectors in the pinball community. The panelists debate the role of online forums (Pinside vs Tilt Forums vs RGP), community building through podcasting, and editing/production challenges. ### Key Claims - [MEDIUM] There are approximately 120-121 pinball podcasts in existence — _Moderator states '120 pinball ones anyway' out of 666,000 total podcasts_ - [HIGH] IFPA rankings have grown to over 70,000 players, up from 23,000 five years ago — _Jeff Parsons: 'IFPA has grown. They're at over 70,000 right now. When I joined five years ago, I was player number 23,000.'_ - [HIGH] Head to Head Pinball Podcast releases one episode per week (52 episodes annually) — _Joe Lemire: 'How many podcasts per year does Head to Head put out, would you say? One a week. Weekly. Yeah, one a week, so 52. Every Monday.'_ - [HIGH] RGP (Rec The Games Pinball) was an unmoderated forum that predated Pinside — _Jeff Parsons: 'Well the thing is with that you had one part before there was RGP, which is Rec The Games Pinball, which is where everyone hung out. It was a completely open forum.'_ - [HIGH] Tilt Forums is primarily tournament-focused while Pinside has a broader audience including collectors — _Jeff Parsons: 'tilt forums is more like the hardcore. It is more primarily tournament players. In Pinside there's a lot of useful information on Pinside but there's also a lot of drama on Pinside.'_ - [MEDIUM] Pinside has more drama than RGP despite being moderated, while RGP was unmoderated but had less drama — _Jeff Parsons: 'There's a lot of drama on Pinside... RGP probably had less drama, and that was a completely unmoderated forum, as opposed to Pinside, which is moderated.'_ - [HIGH] The Blackwater 100 24-hour pinball marathon had tournament slots that sold out in seconds — _Jeff Parsons: 'The 24-hour sanctum themselves out in seconds. Blackwater 100 players over in Connecticut. 24 hours... The 24-hour sanctum themselves out in seconds.'_ - [HIGH] Sarah is the first female presenter at Pintastic New England in five years — _Moderator: 'I should take this moment to commemorate that you are our first ever female presenter in the five years.'_ ### Notable Quotes > "We collect. Bruce actually operates the location, the Cameron Silver Ball Saloon. We've all been collecting for a long time. We play in tournaments, work on our own games. So it covers a wide variety of subjects, and we try to be somewhat funny so it is not incredibly boring." > — **Ron Hallett (Slam Tilt)**, Early in panel > _Explains the multi-faceted appeal of Slam Tilt podcast format_ > "The show is really not about any opinions I have. It's more about what's new in different parts of the world. It's not always about news. It's about collectors. It's about tournaments. It's about events like this and I've been able to cover a wide spectrum." > — **Jeff Teolis (Pinball Profile)**, Early panel section > _Clarifies Pinball Profile's approach as interview/documentation focused rather than opinion-driven_ > "Well, if you want to learn anything about pinball, I would suggest not listening to my podcast. These three gentlemen do a lot more with interviews and have a lot more pinball knowledge. But I kind of come at it from a women's perspective and from the perspective of a wife who has been dragged into the hobby." > — **Sarah (Backbox Pinball Podcast)**, Mid-panel > _Self-deprecating positioning of new female podcaster; first female presenter at this event_ > "I'm not a tournament player, but I love listening to these. I love the competition. I love listening to guys say, oh, I did this or I did that. So I look forward to listening to you." > — **Jeff Parsons (Pinball Players Podcast)**, Tournament discussion > _Demonstrates non-tournament-player interest in competitive content_ > "The only game I have in my house is Borrowed, And I don't own a single one. Someday, getting a house with a big basement, hope to fill it someday. But in the meantime, tournament play is what I love to do the most, even just casual play." > — **Jeff Parsons (Pinball Players Podcast)**, Tournament vs collector discussion > _Illustrates pure tournament player perspective without collector interest_ > "And the trash talking that goes on there, that's what pinball was for me when I first started playing as a kid... I discovered there was one [competitive scene], I'm like, this is awesome. There are people that have the same passion that I had since I was a kid." > — **Jeff Parsons (Pinball Players Podcast)**, Community discussion > _Explains motivation for competitive play focus_ > "There are no competitions between any of us or anybody else that does a podcast. But I can only listen for so many hours a week. Pick and choose. You know what I mean? Find what you like and go with it." > — **Ron Hallett (Slam Tilt)**, Community discussion > _Addresses apparent podcast rivalry concerns_ > "It's not the recording. Recording is the easy part. Right. It's the editing. Editing... I have eight shows I have to edit. I'm not recorded Mark Silk in February, and it's now going to be July on Monday, and I still haven't released it." > — **Jeff Teolis (Pinball Profile)**, Production discussion > _Highlights major editing bottleneck for multi-show producers_ > "I want the quality to be as good as possible... I will interview somebody who stutters, let's say. You'll never hear a stutter on that show. Not in the same way. Ever... So I cut out a lot of the ums, how you say, all that kind of stuff, because I want to make it sound." > — **Jeff Teolis (Pinball Profile)**, Editing discussion > _Demonstrates commitment to production quality and accessibility_ > "There's room for everybody. That's the beautiful thing... I don't want anybody. I don't have a favorite podcast. I don't have a favorite TV show. I don't have a favorite band. Oh, Led Zeppelin maybe. But I listen to several." > — **Ron Hallett (Slam Tilt)**, Final community discussion > _Emphasizes diversity and lack of competitive tension in podcast ecosystem_ ### Entities | Name | Type | Context | |------|------|---------| | Ron Hallett | person | Co-host of Slam Tilt Pinball Podcast; operates Cameron Silver Ball Saloon arcade location; tournament player and collector; long-time pinball community member | | Bruce Nightingale | person | Co-host of Slam Tilt Pinball Podcast; operates arcade location | | Jeff Teolis | person | Host of Pinball Profile podcast; 25+ years broadcasting experience; conducts interviews with pinball industry figures; manages multiple podcast productions | | Sarah | person | Host of Backbox Pinball Podcast; first female presenter at Pintastic New England in five years; new to pinball hobby; married to Dr. Pin | | Jeff Parsons | person | Host of Pinball Players Podcast; 25+ years radio experience; focuses on tournament play and competitive pinball; not a collector; emphasizes beginner accessibility | | Joe Lemire | person | Recently joined Head to Head Pinball Podcast; tournament player; met co-hosts at Pinburgh event; prevents podcast from shutting down | | Steven Martin | person | Co-host of Head to Head Pinball Podcast; was considering quitting but continued with Joe Lemire joining | | Stephanie Guida | person | Co-host of Riptide Pinball Podcast; podcast releases periodically/sporadically | | Crystal | person | Co-host of Riptide Pinball Podcast with Stephanie Guida | | George Jacek | person | Host of Classic Pinball Podcast; recent podcaster (1-2 episodes); collects pinball machines; created podcast after struggling to get guest appearances on other shows | | Dave | person | Co-host of Classic Pinball Podcast; contributes from collector perspective; first attended Pintastic New England; guest on other shows | | Dr. Pin (Christian Line) | person | Husband of Sarah (Backbox Pinball Podcast host); guest on Mrs. Pin's Pinball Podcast; watched George Gomez at Texas Pinball Festival | | Christopher Franchi | person | Mentioned as respected podcast guest; discussed by Jeff Teolis as favorite podcast segment subject | | Raymond Davidson | person | Number one ranked tournament player in the world; has podcast appearance discussing tournament strategy | | Paolo Daniele Achari | person | One of the greatest pinball players of all time from Italy; English is not first language; interview subject of Jeff Teolis | | Steve Ritchie | person | Stern pinball designer; met by Jeff Teolis at 2016 World Series in Chicago; speaking at seminar during Pintastic New England | | George Gomez | person | Pinball designer; watched by Sarah/Dr. Pin at Texas Pinball Festival; mentioned as notable industry figure | | Lauren Grace | person | Host of Backbox Pinball Podcast from San Antonio, Texas; woman podcaster recommended by Sarah | | Jim Swain | person | Tournament organizer; at Pintastic New England; involved with Blackwater 100 24-hour event | | Kaneda | person | Host of Kaneda's Pinball Podcast; described as controversial and entertaining; very popular; recommended by Jeff Teolis | | Pinside (Robin) | person | Creator/administrator of Pinside website and forums; praised for website quality | | Pinside PD | person | Parody/satirical Pinside account created to represent negative aspects of Pinside forum | ### Topics - **Primary:** Pinball podcast ecosystem and formats, Community divide between tournament players and collectors, Online forum culture (Pinside, Tilt Forums, RGP), Podcast production challenges and editing workflows - **Secondary:** IFPA tournament growth and competitive pinball landscape, Women's participation and representation in pinball, Podcast community building and audience engagement, Social media accountability and anonymity issues ### Sentiment **Positive** (0.75) — Panel discussion maintains collaborative, celebratory tone. Podcast hosts are supportive of each other, emphasizing diversity of formats and lack of competition. Some mild criticism of Pinside forums' toxic aspects, but balanced with acknowledgment of its utility. Tournament vs. collector divide discussed thoughtfully without rancor. Humor and light banter throughout keeps mood upbeat. ### Signals - **[community_signal]** Pinside forums criticized for anonymity-enabled toxicity despite moderation; compared unfavorably to unmoderated RGP which had less drama (confidence: high) — Jeff Parsons: 'There's a lot of drama on Pinside... RGP probably had less drama, and that was a completely unmoderated forum, as opposed to Pinside, which is moderated.' - **[community_signal]** Slam Tilt podcast maintaining engaged listener community through personalized interactions (mail bag, viewer requests for character voices/impressions during commentary streams) (confidence: high) — Ron: 'when I'm on, even when I'm not on my own stream, like when I was at the New York City Pinball Championships and I'm doing some commentary... there's people in chat like, do Stewie, do voices' - **[community_signal]** Multiple podcast hosts report direct listener engagement at live events with listeners recognizing them and mentioning the shows (confidence: high) — Dave: 'when people come up to me and like, oh, I listen to your podcast, and I want to know where they're from, because I've never met these people before. It's fascinating.' - **[sentiment_shift]** Tournament player segment growing significantly - IFPA membership tripled in 5 years (23k to 70k+), indicating shift toward competitive pinball infrastructure (confidence: high) — Jeff Parsons: 'IFPA has grown. They're at over 70,000 right now. When I joined five years ago, I was player number 23,000... Don't you think tournaments are becoming bigger and bigger as we move forward?' - **[community_signal]** Pinball podcast community is growing with new shows launching (Classic Pinball Podcast just starting, Backbox Pinball Podcast as new female-focused show) (confidence: high) — George Jacek launching Classic Pinball Podcast; Sarah is first female presenter at 5-year-old event; Lauren Grace's Backbox Pinball Podcast mentioned as new women's perspective show - **[market_signal]** 24-hour pinball marathon (Blackwater 100) showing extreme demand with slots selling out in seconds, indicating robust tournament infrastructure and competitive community growth (confidence: high) — Jeff Parsons: 'The 24-hour sanctum themselves out in seconds. Blackwater 100 players over in Connecticut. 24 hours. To play 24 hours of pinball.' - **[community_signal]** Joe Lemire transitioned from guest appearance on Head to Head Pinball Podcast to joining as co-host, preventing the show from shutting down (confidence: high) — Joe Lemire: 'After being on mine several times... Steven Martin was thinking about quitting, and I refused to let him quit... me and him hit it off.' - **[technology_signal]** Podcast production increasingly bottlenecked by editing rather than recording; multiple hosts report editing as limiting factor to release frequency (confidence: high) — Jeff Teolis: 'Recording is the easy part. Right. It's the editing... I have eight shows I have to edit. I'm not recorded Mark Silk in February, and it's now going to be July on Monday' --- ## Transcript Let's get started. I've got a question for the audience first. Audience, how many of you out there are podcasters yourselves or recently podcasters? Put your hand up, Joe. Okay. So about half the audience claims to be podcasters or recently retired there from. There's another one walking in right now. All ringers in the audience. All right. And somewhere up there we should have the basic information about all our podcasts here. I asked a couple questions to kind of get them out of the way. How you run your podcasts, whether you have guests or how you interact with people. with people in the outside world because we might have some people here who are not doing their own podcast who might want to appear on your podcast. So that's one of the questions there and approximate number of podcasts you issue. So with that information taken care of so we don't have to verbalize it, I want to go down the line here and ask you guys to answer for our audience, why should they listen to your podcast because there is two-thirds of a million, 666,000 podcasts out there, not all about pinball. I've got pinball ones. There's 120 pinball ones anyway, but why should they listen to your podcast? Ron, you look like you're ready to answer. Why should they listen to Slam Tiller? Good answer. Good answer. They're fun. That's good. Yes, good breadth of knowledge, I would say. in multiple areas. We collect. Bruce actually operates the location, the Silver Ball Saloon. We've all been collecting for a long time. We play in tournaments, work on our own games. So it covers a wide variety of subjects, and we try to be somewhat funny so it is not incredibly boring. That's why I would say to listen to us. Okay, Jeff? I kind of started it because I've been broadcasting for 25 years, doing a lot of classic rock radio and also interviewing sports stars, things that are passionate. Well, I fell in love with pinball and I happened to be at the 2016 World Series in Chicago and in Cleveland. So when I'm in Chicago, I'm like, hmm, I'm here early. Let's go to Stern. And I got a factory tour and Steve Ritchie was there and at the time others. And I interviewed those people. and I thought, okay, because I know how to interview people and I'm fascinated by anybody, really, if they've got a story to tell. So I thought, oh, I'll just put this out and see if it's pinball connected and that's kind of how Pinball Profile was born. So the show is really not about any opinions I have. It's more about what's new in different parts of the world. It's not always about news. It's about collectors. It's about tournaments. It's about events like this and I've been able to cover a wide spectrum. So it's a lot of fun for me. It's a little different. Okay. And you're getting good feedback from listeners that you're providing something they'll want to listen to? I keep getting requests to do a few of these. And thanks very much. Thanks a lot. How much did I? Okay. That'll be $10. What's your name? What's your name? I'm Canadian. A social lubricant has appeared. I'm Canadian. And so, the whole time I'm on there. Cups are up there. Clearly, he found the store next door. Yeah, not too hard to find the liquor store around here. Sarah. You and me, bud. Why should people listen to your podcast? Well, if you want to learn anything about pinball, I would suggest not listening to my podcast. These three gentlemen do a lot more with interviews and have a lot more pinball knowledge. but I kind of come at it from a women's perspective and from the perspective of a wife who has been dragged into the hobby, and here we are. Okay, well, I should take this moment to commemorate that you are our first ever female presenter in the five years. Whoa! Fantastic. Whoa! Great. So, we finally got a woman who dared to come up and give a woman's perspective. Wow. Well, that's fantastic. No wonder Pinside Petey loves you. And then there's that other Jeff who told me to call him the other Jeff because he always calls himself the other Jeff. Why should people listen to your pinball podcast? Well, a lot like this Jeff, I've been in radio for a little over 25 years, and people always told me because we'd stand around at league or any time we were playing pinball and we would talk pinball as we're waiting for our turns and said, you're a radio guy, why don't you do a podcast? I'm like, you know what, that actually could be fun, and decided to do it, and I kind of wanted to take a spin of, it's named the Pinball Players Podcast because it pretty much focuses on just playing. I don't collect, I'm not looking for the scoop on the latest rumors that's happening at Stern. I'm talking about, hey, this is basically saying what we say at the tournaments, how we're talking about pinball amongst ourselves. Hey, did you see Willy Wonka? What do you think of that? What do you think of this as a tournament game? This sort of stuff. And I kind of gear it a little bit towards people that might be new to the hobby too. I think people that are pinball aficionados might listen and say, Boy, you're really over explaining this. But I'm always thinking of when I'm doing the show, Who am I talking to that might have just discovered pinball, doesn't know much about it, and would like to learn about it from a very simple starting ground. I think that's really where I aim it. I honestly say why people should listen to me is if you're new to pinball, you might enjoy it. Kind of like Mrs. Pin, how she crushes it. Okay, so that's the part that they knew I was going to ask. All right, see you. Now questions get harder from here, kids. I'm going to need a shot of that. I'm going to trot out a question that is a cliche when we have a game designer here and transform it for you guys. Again, we'll go down the line. They don't know what I'm about to ask. Oh, boy. Of all those 120 or 121 now pinball podcasts, what is your favorite other than your own? What podcast would you recommend or do you like to listen to yourself? I'd say head-to-head. Okay. Head-to-head gets a vote. Jeff. I listen to these three regularly. I do listen to head-to-head. I love when Christopher Franchi talks. Stephanie Guida, who with Crystal, does a fantastic job on Riptide. I would recommend all of those. You know, there are a lot of great ones, and there are a lot of different varieties, too. You know, Kaneda is extremely popular. He's controversial, but he's entertaining as heck. So a lot of people gravitate to that, and get a kick out of that as well. There's a lot of different ones popping up, do or die. Raymond Davidson, the number one player in the world, is talking about his tournaments, and he gives a little strategy too. Joe Lemaire is doing that now on head-to-head, picking a game. They did a great one last week on Game of Thrones. I haven't played that game for years, didn't know things until Joe brought it up. So find one you like. Maybe it's a topic you like. Maybe it's the host you like, but these three are fantastic. Very definitive answer right there. That was very concise too. My husband and I listen to a lot of podcasts. Is your husband in the room by any chance? He happens to be right here. Couldn't be closer unless he was at the table. Stand up please. Please stand up. Dr. Penn. Dr. Penn. Let's see. We listen to Lauren Grace from San Antonio, Texas, Texas, Backbox Pinball Podcast. That's a new one that is done by a woman, so obviously I'm slightly biased. I like the women's perspective. And all of the ones that have been previously mentioned, we listen to as well. Okay, and Jeff? Not to just kiss up to everybody sitting at this table, but no joke, they are the people in this room, including Joe and Head to Head, are the one, my go-tos. specifically because they talk about a variety of topics. There's a lot of podcasts that I listen to that will focus just on collecting, and I'm gone because I'm not a collector. I like hearing people talk about game strategy. I like hearing people talking about games and just having fun, and that's what everybody at this table does, especially this one. She's out of control. Just great to listen to. So these really are the top four on my list. why Mrs. Pinn is so amazing is because of the shirts that she made. First of all, Ron, stand up. Like, look at this crowd. Oh, yeah. The swag princess here. And also, too, just every time I listen to Mrs. Pinn, the very first episode, she's talking about Dr. Pinn watching, I think it was TPF, and watching George Gomez. Who the hell is this George Gomez guy? And she's getting into it and trying to, I don't know if it was you like pinball or you just wanted to, okay, what does Christian like and I want to be part of that. Sure. And then you instantly fell in love with it. You were like, really? And you wanted to learn more. And it reminded me of when I first really got into pinball and just was like, well, yeah. Every time you have an episode, it reminds me of something like that. And now you're explaining games and you're understanding things. And it's innocent. It's fun. It's beautiful. Please don't ever change. I won't. Don't worry. I didn't get a shirt. We were just talking. We need like a poll. A Parsons shirt. I just said you were going to. Do you want a drink, Jeff? Yes, please. Go ahead. Thank you. No, well, you do have like the normal shirt. I mean, yeah. You were one of the first people to have those. Okay. All right. There you go, Parsons. Thank you. That should help. I think we should identify these other podcasts. Much better now. Can you summarize what you're doing just quickly? Well, George here started the Classic Pinball podcast. He said Dave has a really cool idea. He came up with this idea from a collecting perspective. But let's go to George. Hi, my name is George Jacek. Actually, this was all born out of trying to get Dave on other people's shows and coming up short. So I finally figured out that there's an idiot-proof podcasting software that somebody like me could use. And I started putting together what I call a podcast, nowhere near as professional as the people on this dais. I do listen to everybody here, with the exception of Jeff, because I didn't know of you, Jeff. Well, hey, that's fine. Move down the bench. No, no, no. No shirt, hasn't listened, I get it. I mean, there's only so many hours in a week, but Dave always says, how the hell, I'm retired. So I listen to a lot of podcasts. I watch a lot of tournaments on Twitch. Probably know a lot about most of the people in this room. So it's a lot of fun. I'm happy so far with what we've done. And you've done all of one podcast so far? The intro, which was basically to get us on the map. 1.2. one to get us going and we just did two hours recording in the bar of everybody who won ribbons for the tournament. Oh, wait. Yes. Come on. Okay. Can you pass that to Dr. Pinn? That's where I come from. You're a guest sometimes? Yeah. I'm Christian. I'm sometimes on my wife's podcast, Mrs. Pinn's Pinball Podcast. I think I'm part of the reason she got into it. She kind of goes after any new thing in her life at 100%, 110%. and this kind of took off, and I've enjoyed the ride, so thanks for bringing me along with you, and you're definitely my favorite podcast. I didn't have a choice, but that is so sweet. Give me that cup back. Give me that back. That's adorable. Joe, what's up? Joe Lemire. I recently joined Head to Head podcast. After being on mine several times, by the way. Yeah, yeah. But unfortunately, Martin asked me first. I know. So, and Head to Head was always my favorite podcast, and we met at Pimberg, and we did an episode, and it came to my attention that I talked to Martin. Martin was thinking about quitting, and I refused to let him quit. So he's like, fine, well, we'll have an episode and see how it goes, and me and him hit it off. Just we get along so well, and everything is – And how many podcasts per year does Head to Head put out, would you say? One a week. Weekly. Yeah, one a week, so 52. Every Monday. Every Monday, very efficiently. I should be recording right now in a little bit soon. So it's been great. We've gotten, I think, eight episodes now. So if you can pass that microphone back to Chris back there. You know about Joe. You don't want to say anything? If Joe didn't step up, Head to Head wouldn't exist anymore. So I'm glad you're doing that, Joe. I'm convincing him to the best of my ability. Is there anybody else? Steph? No. Stephanie. Hi, what? What podcast do you do? I'm co-host of the Riptide Pinball Podcast. And how often does that come out? All the time, right? Eventually. It happens eventually. Okay, so periodically then. Yes. All right, any other? I think we covered all our podcasters in the room. with Chris is retired now from whatever. Okay. All right, well thank you. So we know who's who here. Now I noticed an interesting thing here which fits in with something that I've been seeing like also in online forums. I am better able to do online forums than podcasts because I don't have like a long drive where I can listen to something. Running around all the time, running shows like this. But I saw something about labeling Pinside as, oh, tournament people don't hang out here, and they're all over tilt forums, and it's like the, I think of it as the two worlds of pinball, and we just had that come out that George and Dave are going to that collector's world and then there's a tournament player's world and that it shows up in podcasts also. I think most of you guys probably, if I gave you that dichotomy, you might say you're in the tournament player's world. But what do you think? Is that the way the whole pinball hobby enterprise is, enterprises that there's tournament players like they'll come to this show and we have to drag Ron away from the tournament long enough to sit him down here in the seminar room because it's... Anyone ready to go on that one? Well the thing is with that you had one part before PENSAI there was RGP, which is Rec Games Pinball, which is where everyone hung out. It was a completely open forum. And it was kind of the, you weren't into pinball unless you were the hardest of the hardcore. But Pinside came along, it was more like you have your, maybe not the hardest of the hardcore. I don't know how to say it in the nicest way. And at the same time, the whole point system and IFPA rankings, that all was hardening the tournament world, I think. Well, there's a lot of tournament players like that's all they'll go to a show and never see any of the show because they're in the tournament area the whole time. I tried I tried never to do that. I mean, but there's there's definitely different segments. There's people who like just like to collect. There's people who like to play in tournaments that don't own any games at all. There's people like bling, put as much bling on their games as possible. don't even care how they play, just as long as they look incredible. There's all kinds of different factions in pinball. But I would say you would probably say tilt forms is more like the hardcore. It is more primarily tournament players. In pin side there's a lot of useful information on pin side but there's also a lot of drama on pin side. If you try to avoid, I mean, RGP probably had less drama, and that was a completely unmoderated form, as opposed to Pinside, which is moderated. So Ron's been in a long time. I've really only been in this pinball thing for five years. For you, a couple years. I don't know about you, Jeff. How long? About 10. 10 years? Okay. So it's about five years for me. 20. 20? There you go. 51. You win. You win. I went to Pinside first and was fascinated. I still think it is an amazing website. It's really well done, what Robin does. when it comes to the forum, I've often called it drive-by shooting because it's people that don't have a face to their name and they can say whatever they want and there's some awful things on there. And kind of that's the joke of creating Pinside PD was to be that, pardon me, asshole that you see a lot on Pinside. Not that Pinside's bad. I love Pinside. So it's kind of, I wish I maybe didn't call it that name. But anyway, the joke of Pinside PD is it's everything that's bad about Pinside. It's everything. It's the complete opposite of me. Whereas Tilt Forums, and I'm in this group more of the tournament player, and that's kind of what I like in pinball. But I agree with Ron. It's funny. There are people there that will never see anything other than the show or the tournament. I like to do a little bit of everything. I try to secure my spot, if I can, in the playoffs, in the tournaments, but you're missing out. If you don't go to a show like this and check out these seminars and TPF and Expo and all the great shows, you're missing out if you're not checking out the wonderful speakers. I mean, look who's here. I mean, Steve Ritchie and Christopher's got a seminar tomorrow. These are important things to check out too because I still think there are more collectors, more fans, than there are tournament players. For sure. I'm conscious of that when I'm doing my show of try to cover everything off, not just tournaments. So don't you think tournaments are becoming bigger and bigger as we move forward? IFPA has grown. They're at over 70,000 right now. When I joined five years ago, I was player number 23,000. So three times seconds. The 24-hour sanctum. Jim Swain is here right now, and Jeff, you'll be there as well too. And Ron. The 24-hour sank themselves out in seconds. 100 players over in Connecticut. 24 hours. To play 24 hours of pinball. Why are we doing that? Why? It's insane. Why are we doing that? I'm flying from outside Toronto. Like, for me to go there, it's probably going to cost me about $1,500 to go and punch myself in the face to play 24 hours to get magical Whopper points. But it's so much fun. And Jeff Parsons, I mean, you made this remark just a few minutes ago about your podcast. You're interviewing players. You're talking about players. Yeah, it's... So kind of the opposite of these guys with the collectors. I'm not a tournament player, but I love listening to these. I love the competition. I love listening to guys say, oh, I did this or I did that. So I look forward to listening to you. Well, thank you. Well, with all respect to people that are collectors, it's just not my thing. The only game I have in my house is Borrowed, And I don't own a single one. Someday, getting a house with a big basement, hope to fill it someday. But in the meantime, tournament play is what I love to do the most, even just casual play. I honestly don't like playing pinball alone. It's no fun. It's much more fun when you punch up a four-player game. It's more fun to compete. More fun to compete. I think that might be a – Does anybody play dollar games here, like just for fun with your buddies and stuff like that? I'm up when we're done this. Because it's so much fun. And the trash talking that goes on there, that's what pinball was for me when I first started playing as a kid. And when I played as a kid, I did it all by myself. But when I got older and started getting into the competitive scene 10 years ago when I discovered there was one, I'm like, this is awesome. There are people that have the same passion that I've had since I was a kid, and you can actually play and maybe even win prizes and stuff. This is great. So that's kind of the way I focus. And as far as you mentioned Pinside and Tilt Forms, I check out Pinside. I mean I use it to promote the podcast because that's there. But I just – I can't even go there because one of the best things about this hobby is meeting people and having fun with people and making friends. And there's none of that happening there because everyone – it's that whole anonymity of the internet. And some are – Twitter is the same. Twitter is the same way. Facebook is the same. It's not so much. There's no filter. You just let it all out. RGP was not though. Right. Yeah. I remember RGP. I kind of lurked, but it was a nice conversation there for the majority of the time. It's just you don't get any of that on pin side. So I just stick with tilt forums. RGP is still there, by the way. Oh, yeah. It's hidden. I was there at the founding of RGP. Oh, really? It started in New Hampshire. Yep. Sarah, do you have an opinion? Do you think there's two worlds of pinball and you have to pick your side? No. You definitely do not have to pick your side. I think anybody can play in a pinball tournament, which is how my husband and I got into pinball. It's great. I mean, there's so many facets of pinball. You can be a collector. You can be a player. You can want to just go and have fun. It's so much more accessible than people think. And going on Pinside I love Pinside because as somebody who is new to the hobby you can find out a lot of good information on Pinside And I stay very far away from drama in general in life but I think that Pinside is a great source for figuring out how to fix something on your pinball machine or figuring out where you can find things that might be difficult to find. It's kind of like a networking, you know, it's kind of nice for that reason. But I think that it is tough because there's so much negativity. And really, like, I don't watch the news because I don't like to see the negativity. So the parts of Pinside that tend to be more negative, I tend to avoid. I'd like to point out that be careful when you put somebody into a box, too, because somebody might do something that you don't like. It may be something horrendous. We've all made mistakes. Every single one of us in this room have made mistakes and will make other mistakes. The key is do we continue to make those mistakes? If we learn from those mistakes, okay, that's good. And I think that's what we want. We want people who make these mistakes to have some sort of redemption. Humility and grace. I agree. and the problem with Pinside, Facebook, social media, all this stuff is again that putting somebody in a box they are this person because they did this one action. That's really not that's not fair and it's disgusting. There are some good causes that are brought up by some social media concerns but I'm not a big fan of somebody is guilty until they're proven innocent. I think that's disgusting, and that's my biggest problem with social media, pin signs like that as well, too. Are your listeners a community unto themselves? I think, Ron, I think with your mail-ins and your... The mail ball bag? The mail ball bag. Yes, the mail ball bag. As Bruce would say. Yes, I'd say so. I mean, I find that when I'm on, even when I'm not on my own stream, like when I was at the New York City Pinball Championships and I'm doing some commentary for the Classics Tournament, there's people in chat like, do Stewie, do voices, do this. It's like, oh, so they must listen to the show. Do Stewie. Do Stewie. Hey, what? You want me to do him on command? Fight me. You know I'm home. I'm in New Robert Englunds. This is where I'm from. Is that the best cartoon voice you can do? Pretty much, yes. All right. So it's the cartoon talker invitation we have up here. He's one of the best. Yeah. Anyone else want to take that question about community? Sarah, I think maybe you... I mean, you keep telling us XO. What was the question? Where your fans or followers or you are leading us in some way, making community out of... It's about fans, Jeff, so you may not have any. Yeah. Shots fired. Okay, true or false? about Ron, all right? His friends call him stink face, true or false? False. He doesn't have any friends. Oh, very good. You wanna drop that mic? I wanna know how long you've been saving that one up for. Did you write some down? Did you like take notes? I've got more, I've got more. I'm so excited about those. Yours is stand up comedy, it's all right there. You must have been a horrible stand up comedian. Ooh, okay, all right. I'll save it for, oh wait, you're on my trash talker team. We can't talk trash to each other. Not to each other. No, we've got to save it up for everybody else. We'll have our own. Wow, what does PD see in you? I'm so sparkly. Dave, the community, going to shows like this, and this is my first time in Sturbridge. You've been here before. Have you been here? I've been here every year. So this is my first time, and when people come up to me and like, oh, I listen to your podcast, and I want to know where they're from, because I've never met these people before. It's fascinating. It really is. It's humbling. And again, right at that moment, I'm more interested in who they are, what's about them. And I usually bring up my phone. I'm like, tell me about you. Oh, Dave, tell me about you. You should do a podcast. And Dr. Dave, I already know who Dr. Dave is, but I've never talked to him before. I'm like, okay. So I see him here. I'm like, hey, give me three minutes or whatever, and we'll talk. So that's kind of, I want to know a little bit about everyone and pass it on to other people that listen to the show. And that's what the show's about. Yeah, that's, I mean, I saw when I did the questionnaire, I found a contrast between your podcast, where you always are talking to other people, versus Sarah, who's very much a personal. Sorry. 100% true. It's all about me. Well, in the zine world, it would be a personal zine. It's just her ranting. There's room for everybody. That's the beautiful thing. It really is. It's just like the shows. That right there. I don't want anybody. I don't have a favorite podcast. I don't have a favorite TV show. I don't have a favorite band. Oh, Led Zeppelin maybe. But I listen to several. Like I don't just watch one TV show. I don't just listen to one music. So it's not, there are no competitions between any of us or anybody else that does a podcast. But I can only listen for so many hours a week. Pick and choose. You know what I mean? Find what you like and go with it. If you work on pinballs, it's real easy. Oh, while you're working on it? While I'm tweaking my electromechanical leaf switches? A good point. Okay. I love, I'll use your show as an example. They're longer shows. So an hour and a half longer or something. I drive an hour and a half to work. That's Derek also. So that's a great podcast for me to listen to. Other people have quick commutes, so maybe a shorter podcast. And mine are super short. You know, that might work. So it depends where I'm going, how much time I have. Oh, it's 15 minutes. They're great. Yeah. They're lazy. They're not great. Wait, wait, wait. I've run out of steam. That's all they are. So we have a couple of broadcasters here. Do any of you guys say, I am going to cut off this show at a certain amount of time per episode? Well, you just said an hour. When we started, the original idea was the episodes would be an hour. And that went in the toilet quickly. We tried to give you a half hour, but we're an hour. Yeah. I mean, when we started, before we got used to it, I mean the first few episodes were generally boring, I thought. They just weren't that good. So we got a little more comfortable with it. They just started going longer and longer than I'm looking, and it's like two hours in, and it's like, oh, there goes the whole one-hour idea. And we were doing that like every week for two years. I think we missed – in two years, we missed two weeks. So it's like an insane amount. Yeah, it was crazy. Yeah, it was crazy. What was it? More power to head-to-head for keeping the weekly mantle. It's not the recording. I learned this from every one of you. Oh, it's not the recording. Recording is the easy part. Right. It's the editing. Editing. I don't know. I have eight shows I have to edit. I've recorded Marc Silk in February, and it's now going to be July on Monday, and I still haven't released it. So you put stuff in the can and just. It's not that. It takes a long time to edit because I don't know. Well, it's different for you because you record first person, you're right there, and then you put it up. I know Jeff does this. I know Ron does this. Definitely Joe does this, and probably Stephanie too, is editing is an issue. When you're on Skype and you're interviewing somebody, I know Jeff and I will agree, I want the quality to be as good as possible. It took me a long time to release my pin site. Derek's over there. it took me a long time to release my Pintastic episode because I had a problem with my mic. I'm like, do I redo this? No. Or do I just put it out? So will people be okay with that? So I take a bit of pride in that. And the editing too. So I will interview somebody. No names. I'll interview somebody who stutters, let's say. You'll never hear a stutter on that show. Not in the same way. Ever. I interviewed Daniel Achari, who is one of the greatest players of all time from Italy. Italian is not his first language. Italian is not his first language? No, it is. I would hope not. Try again. It's not. It's not, actually. Pig Latin was. Anyway, the point is, English wasn't his first language. There you go. So I cut out a lot of the ums, how you say, all that kind of stuff, because I want to make it sound. So if I record Daniele and it took an hour to record that, Ron, help me out here. Five to one. Three to one, five to one. Well, we had an episode where I wasn't even on because they didn't record me. And the entire episode was Bruce and Scott from Allentown basically insulting me, and all my comebacks are not on it. So it's just a dead air and I had to somehow splice it together to something listenable. It's usually, for me, it's double whatever it is. So if we record for two hours, it's going to be four hours to edit. You were like a ninja then. And it depends. Sarah, you don't have that. No, you don't. Here it is. Well, you know, I mean, let's be real. None of us get paid to do this. What? No. At least I'm not getting paid. Is somebody paying you? None of you are carrying ads. That's one thing that all these four have in common. You guys have radio DJ voices, and I am a stay-at-home mom. So it really, for me, is I want to get – what's that? Nobody gets paid for this. There you go. And this is my first dollar. Maybe I'll have to frame it. Yeah, so for me, I have less, I mean, I want it to sound good, but my idea of good and their idea of good is very different. That's my problem is I want too good. The broadcaster in me who does this for a living edits every day and edits. You have a question? I live with him. Yeah, I know. You have to. I live with you. On the Q97.9, everyone. Power 97. I talk about you. It's all my stuff. Joe has a question. But the reason that we care so much about the editing is once it's done, it's out there. You can't go back and fix it. So do it right the first time. I've literally recut questions. I've redone things. I take out every pause, breath, to trim it down so it moves smoothly. And with the morning show that I do, I'm constantly looking at a clock. And I've gotten to the point of doing it so long now, it's like I can just sense the time something is running. And so I've been able to time out my shows for about close to an hour just by doing it for so long. And I want to keep it at that hour because if I edited any more than that, it would just be daunting. I, no joke, I probably, editing between cutting out all my stuttering, guest stuttering, music I put in, sound effects that I put in, bumpers, this sort of stuff, is probably, I would say an eight to nine hour edit for me. There's a lot to it. I process the audio so it has a level audio and boost. I do a lot of work to make it sound good because I just, that's just in my brain. It's what I do for a living and I want it to sound good. So what episode was everyone's worst edit? Everyone's worst edit. Oh, mine was when I had, well, you've experienced this. You've had a lot of guests at once. I had four guests plus myself. And I record, if you don't know anything about it, everybody is on a different track in the editor. And when you record over Skype or whatever you're recording that's over the Internet, there's a delay. and you have to match it all up so it sounds smooth. So I constantly shift things so that everything lines up and I ask a question, they've immediately got the answer where really it was four seconds before I heard the answer. So that takes a long time too. But in the end, when I put it out there and I listen back to it, it's like, okay, yeah, that's what I want it to sound like. That's also a reason I haven't done them as much as I used to either because it takes a long time. Yeah, mine, ours was definitely the Lyman episode. Oh, yeah. episode 100 because he that was probably our biggest accomplishment because lineman doesn't do that many interviews i know he was on head to head afterwards but here and he doesn't yeah he doesn't really talk much he was on this old pinball top pack top cast if you want to go like some of the original podcasts i was honestly impressed you guys got him but um he came on and originally we were just like okay we're just going to talk about like day to east in williams because we figured like you won't be able to talk about Stern the first thing he says is like no talk about anything like really okay so he proceeds to go basically through his entire career from beginning to end up to Batman 66 yeah then he wanted to do some re-records because he thought thought he was too negative about some certain subjects so we re-recorded and I challenge you to figure out where that is in the podcast it's because there's a part where it's it's me him and Greg, who was on there, but no Bruce. He was not on there. We had seamlessly cut that in the middle. The part he wanted to re-record. And if you're at Lyman, talk. He does a lot of what I just did there, that kind of thing. I did a lot of clean up. I wanted Lyman to sound as good as I could possibly get him to sound. And he takes his time with his answer, too. Most of my editing, I edit the podcast the way I want to hear something. I don't want long pauses unless it's for comedic effect like there or something like that. That wasn't very funny. You've got to try a different time. Dan stopped with me. Can I ask the dance a question? Joe has been waiting longer. Do you have a comment on production techniques? When it comes to editing, I remember the first episode I did, I had a mic problem. My mic wasn't very good. We painstakingly edited out. I hate people with bad mics. Oh, kill me. Whoa, hate people. Hard take. You're going to do a podcast. Get a headset. What software did you pick? I'm new and I picked the new software. Okay. Super cheap. Super cheap here because we're on a budget. I'm very cheap. Even with 29 games, I'm still a very cheap person. The most inexpensive way, frugal. You get like a lot... It wasn't F-A-R-G-P. It was C-A-R-G-P. Yes. You get a... Who here would know what that means? So you get a like Logitech, it's like $19.95, $20 a dollar Logitech headset, get them on Amazon. Get a couple of those, get a little filter for the mic part, and then I use Audacity because it's free. Audacity is free. Audacity is free. And it's super easy to use if I can do it. Jeff has Zencaster. Yeah, there's a couple things I use. For recording interviews, I use a service called Zencaster that I pay for because quality guy wants it. And the interesting thing it does is, unlike Skype, it records all the people that you have in your group locally. So first generation. You're not getting it. You're not like somebody who's on a phone. Right. So most of us do Skype interviews, and a Skype MP3 recorder is also free. I cheat. I use licensed Adobe Audacity for my radio station. I stole it from the radio station. So funny enough, what is today, Friday? Sunday I do my classic rock show and I recorded it in the hotel room last night on this phone using a Shure microphone I sent in Jeff will get this I sent in just my breaks listening to Big Red's Retro Rock on K106.3 that was Boston and blah blah blah sent it in edited it that's the hardest word to say edited Edited. Edited it on Audacity. Not Audacity. It's like Audacity. It's a little...you can multitrack. It's a little bit better. It's a... Audition. Audition. Adobe Audacity and there's Audition. But the great thing about Adobe Audition is I have an old license because the new license sucks because it's... Yep. The new license, it's kind of cloud-based. You have to ante up every year. That is so Adobe. It sucks. So I have an old one. Please, God, don't let it ever die. and that's what I use. I don't know. The Zencast thing worries me. Just the whole like, yes, it's recording locally, so you're counting on their machines to not suck or have an issue. And I like total control. If I use Skype with MP3 recorder, I'm recording locally on my machine, and I can check it while it's recording to make sure I have everyone on there. So if it screws up, it's all on me. When I interviewed Dave and Derek and Gabe from Pentastic, I can see the file go. That's on Skype. I can see I'm recording. Something switched. My microphone was recording through my laptop mic, not my professional Shure microphone in my home studio. It was like, Mike, are you kidding me? My mic's right here, and it's recording on my laptop over here, and that's why I sound hollow and crappy. And I did that for three episodes in a row, including Daniele Achari, including Johannes Ostemeyer, the world champion who just won the IFPA 16. But it is the best 10 minutes of pinball. For those two, I'm like, I have to re-record it. I had theirs. I had to re-voice mine, which kind of doesn't sound really great, but I had to do it. For theirs, their quality was good, so I thought, okay, I can do this. And it was time-sensitive, right, because the event's this weekend. Any other production tips or things you wish you could say? Cluster bucks are hard, very hard. If you're going to do a podcast, just make sure you get a good, for me personally, get a good microphone, whether it's a headset or whether I use a Yeti microphone, and it sounds really good. I think they go for a, yeah, it kind of looks like an old-fashioned microphone, but it, well, they make snowballs as well, but it looks like an old-fashioned, and you can change the direction of it too. So if you're doing a two-person interview, you can have both sides of the mic receive. Oh, it can do that? It can do that, yeah. Ken Caramo helped you out. Ken Caramo does Special and Lit. Very nice. And he helped out Sarah with just, I assume it was a windsock. So popping the P's. There's a diaphragm inside this microphone. So if I talk directly into this and I say P, you can hear that pop. so broadcasters talk over a mic and project but that windsock kind of kills that the letter b the letter d yes it's called a pop god whatever it is you can make it for five cents with a nylon yeah a stocking which i have several of them and that's that's what i have on my headset too it's basically a glorified like pop guard you just put it over the mic yeah yeah it's like foam Yeah. And if you're recording, like, if you're recording, like, two people, like, partners, anything, it's really advantageous, well, if you can record separate microphones so you can edit them separately. Especially if you end up talking over each other or something like that. You know, when you're on a podcast with Bruce, you get talked over a lot or have a talk over him or if I'm laughing over something. So I use MP3 Skype recorder because it basically puts me on one channel and him on the other channel. So I can clean up both sides. When you release it, do you release it in stereo? I release it in mono. I do it in stereo. Oh, you do? I do it in stereo. I only release it in stereo because I have music in it usually. Yeah. Ditto. And also because I pan like 20% to the left and Bruce is panning 20% to the right. Okay, that's the right answer. I make sure I'm under 30 seconds because on iTunes you can do 30-second samples. There's a great episode of The Office where Michael Scott broke up with his girlfriend, and he's sad, and he wants to hear sad songs. He's on iTunes, and he's playing a song, and it ends because he didn't pay for the song. He just paid 30 seconds for the song, and he plays it again, plays it again, and they go, why are you doing that? He goes, I just want a taste. For me, I use a lot of pinball soundtracks from games for my, and usually I pick something that I'm talking about during the show. And I'm not too worried about the copyright on that. I mean, I don't think Williams or, no, no. I don't put it on YouTube if you do. No, yeah, you see, YouTube may have an issue. But if you're just putting it out yourself and you're not, especially if no one's paying. Yeah, if no one's paying for it, it's not, you know, it's under the radar. Like if anyone remembers, like, yeah, if you remember, like, this old pinball, like, DVDs, VHS tapes back in the day, they had tons of copyrighted material on them. And, yeah, but they were sold basically for charity to support the Pinball Hall of Fame in Vegas. So, and again, if you're under the radar and you're not charging anything for it, no one's going to care. like a lot of like the Stern stuff that made Gary Stern not giving his permission for like the old classic Stern stuff Again a lot of it under the radar Think of TNA Think of the sound effects and that Those were common for anyone to use They used Google, yeah. Walking Dead. What's her face? Google. Sure. Miss Google, whatever is the voice. This guy right here, when we're talking about editing and production, I beg, and I had dinner with him last night, Christopher Franchi. I beg him to do the super-duper, pooper-scooper, super-extravaganza, extra-awesome podcast. Pinball show. Because he's a funny guy. He is my favorite artist. And even when he was on Slap Save just recently, that 10 minutes was so well edited. You have such a radio voice. It's amazing. You need to do it, Christopher. You really do, because it's very entertaining. Chris talks about doing some stuff. Good. All right, good. You heard it here first. There it is. There's the slam. There it is. I knew we couldn't get through this without one slam from, hey, where's your show? Derek's recording this, so now this is out on the Internet. I know. I know. I know you love it. I appreciate that. You saw your lesson of the latest, right? How's everyone in the back doing? I'm loving that Hartford Whalers shirt, by the way. A good buddy of mine from the 90s, Jim Sandlack, played for the Hartford Whalers. I love that team. Oh, hi. You do have a lot of game audio. Where do you record that? A lot of it I get from Pinball Arcade, the majority of it. Some of it I find on YouTube. Some people will have recorded a game. I think Black Knight 2000, someone's got the entire soundtrack of it on YouTube. Perfect. Yeah. There you go. You can find everything on the Internet. We did the same thing when we opened with Dungeons and Dragons. It was our opening theme song for a while. I didn't even know that until all of a sudden I played Dungeons and Dragons for the first time. I'm like, oh, wow, that's where this came from. That music is kick-ass. Steel Panther is way better. But, yeah, I just got that from the Internet. Or you could also just get it from Pin Mame if you just play the ROM and then you can get it. I have done that a couple of times, but that's a lot of work. I didn't start using music until maybe a year ago. and now the music is a joke. When I talked about Pintastic, obviously I had Boston playing, and I used the song foreplay a long time because it had been a long time since I released an episode, so there was a tie-in there. I like to kind of use music as a bit of a joke to me. Should have used dirty water. Should have used dirty water. Yeah, that would resonate here. Dave, what's up next? Well, we haven't heard much from Sarah. My comments after this are that these guys have a lot of technical knowledge that is incredible, but don't forget that anyone can podcast. So if you have something to say, especially about pinball, it's something that is very easy. I use my phone, a laptop computer. It might not sound nearly as nice as these gentlemen's podcasts, but anybody can do it. But that's what I like about yours. It's raw almost. It's just you in the moment talking with him nine times out of ten. The girls come in and they just talk. It's great. She swears better than the rest of you. Absolutely. Absolutely. By the way, that's one thing I should mention that a lot of people have asked. Why don't you swear? And it's like, well, he's gone now because I bored him, but my 12-year-old son was here a second ago and walked out. but I listen to a lot of podcasts in the car and if he's in there I don't want him to be hearing podcasts that are doing that if they want to do that great but I want mine to be family friendly mine is not family friendly no it's not don't listen to that one I talked about this before just like broadcasters always know what time it is because their internal clock is so calibrated to real time clocks they also have their FCC filter on in their brain most of the time. I never swear, but when I was with Martin, it just came out. Okay, so it's context dependent for some people. Sometimes you just need to add it. It adds so much. It's seasoning. It's like pepper. I swear therapy is for real. It does widen your audience, though, if you don't swear. No, it does. It does, for sure. Okay. You can be played in more places. What did you say? It widens your audience? I think if you don't swear. Okay. If you're more family friendly. I mean, when you had coast-to-coast pinball, he would always make sure he did not swear or bleeped out. Like he would have, he'd have a, what's the guy's, Barenaked Lady guy? Ed Ed Robertson. Ed Ed Robertson. And he'd have him on and be like a music guy. Of course, he'd drop an occasional F-bomb, which we'd always bleep out. Okay. I refuse to swear on my show. Meet me out there. I'll show you every swear word there is. It's not that I'm approved by any means, but when I go on head-to-head or when I go on, I've been on Jeff's. I haven't been on this one yet, but I've been on Slam Tilt a few times. It's a big release because they have that. It's unfiltered, and you can be whoever you want to be. I don't swear for the sake of just swearing. It's kind of a cheap laugh sometimes. If it works, great. If not, that's kind of an old stand-up comedy role, right? If you can get the joke without throwing it at mom. You can be who you want to be. So on your show, it's like, it's fake, Jeff? I just said it the other day. I just said I like what I do because it's, to me, different, and you get to learn a lot different about all the wonderful people in pinball. But the fun shows to do, slam tilt, head-to-head, because you just, you know. Let it fly. You let the hair down, as they say, right? Those of us that still have it. Yeah, that's good. But then, you know what's funny? I also wonder, because in the show and Pinball Profile, I'm doing the interviewing. I'm not offering any opinions or anything like that. When you go on these shows, you offer opinions. And I wonder if people want that or not, because you can get in trouble. Oh, yes, you can. You can get in trouble once you offer an opinion. You said a couple things, but I'd like to go back. Well, that's what I said earlier. You know, I mean, sometimes you make mistakes. I talked about that I wasn't, at the time, a fan of the Twippy Awards. And I said it on head-to-head pinball. Because I thought it made one winner and everyone else was a loser. But I went to Texas Pinball Festival. I watched the great celebration of that. There were no losers. I don't know why I thought that in my head. I didn't care. I never once talked about the Twippies. But I realized I'm missing something. I made a mistake. And I have no problem. I owned it to Jeff Patterson and everyone else. But it was more not so much a mistake. I just didn't get it. I don't like those kind of contests and stuff like that. Because, like I said earlier, you don't have to pick one podcast. Listen to Sarah's. Listen to Jeff's. Listen to Ron's and Joe's and everyone else and Stephanie in the back. You don't have to have just one, you know. It's a beautiful thing. Breaking news, by the way. Breaking news. we may be doing a podcast with Head to Head if everybody agrees here on this table to do it. Oh. Wow. Next question. Coming soon. Yeah. Okay. I can say about being careful what you say and not even saying the wrong word even though you have no idea you said the wrong word, completely accidental, which I've had that happen, and getting messages from people that you... You hate Jersey Jack, I hear. Apparently. Apparently you hate them. Yeah. But like, because we were talking about Spider-Man in the last episode. Yeah, and I met, I was saying, I thought Jonah Jameson, and I said Jenna Jameson. Where was your mind at the time? I didn't know who that was. Uh-huh. You didn't know who Jenna Jameson was? No. Really? You must have seen it somewhere. He's an innocent soul. I have no idea who that is. Oh, Jeffrey, who is that? I don't know who that is. He's lying. He's lying. I might have Google image searched once, OK? What's up, Dave? I do want to point out, I find the slam tilt kind of interesting that rather than one host, you're selling it, at least to me, that it's a dialogue. So if I don't have someone to talk pinball with, I can just put that on and listen to two guys talk pinball and you know you've been talking to each other for so long. I mean our show started because actually anyone familiar with this flipping podcast? Okay. So I mean if you want the most non-edited literally just two guys talk and they just hit record for three hours and then just release it. That's it. And I listen to that. It's like wow someone could do a podcast like that and it's like Bruce would do that with me because I mean before he had the bar and he had a regular job he had actual vacation time and we went to that he was the one I went to all these pinball shows with all the time that's we talked all the time so there was never any there's never anyone else I was gonna ask to be on the show sure so nobody else could do it you got you guys are just do it you mesh so well because you're such polar opposites by the way It's not easy. It's not, or not as opposite as you may think. Well, maybe. Well, at least you present it that way, though, I think, in your show. I am, yes. If you want a classic comedy, I'm the straight man. He is the comedian, the goofball. And that's fairly accurate. But I can be goofy. Well, you have chemistry. Yeah. And you can't manufacture that. Do you have a question? You keep poking your head up there. You just want to show off that silver ball saloon shirt, don't you? From East Rochester, New York. Great venue. What made me bring up that thing about the two of you there is the remark a couple minutes ago about it being fun. Okay, none of you guys are doing it for money. Just to double check this, do you ever feel like guilty or got to put out a podcast? It's been so long. Oh, my God, I feel like that all the time. Stop it. All the time. I call it the podcast guilt. I know it was three months, but I just put one out, all right? He promised you'd do one the next week. Well, I've been trying to book the guy, and he's out there. I'm actually going to grab my phone and sit down with him. It's more so when we did weekly that I would feel that. Now that we're not quite on a schedule, but I feel like we can't go more than a month without one or it may be a problem for some reason. I talked to Dennis Creasel of the Eclectic Gamers podcast. He does a great show with Tony, and he was talking about how podcasters have burnout, And it usually happens after about a year and a half and you see them kind of not do it as much Jeff That right on cue right on Friday, buddy But I said to Dennis I said, you know what the worst thing you could have done is said we're gonna release every Saturday such a time or Monday. That's the worst thing you can do Don't do that. No, you know what? It's it's harder for you and then you won't enjoy it because if you have to do it Because of that, because of Head to Head has to come out on Monday, we recorded it because Martin was playing in that tournament. We recorded it on a Sunday night, and then he got it out Monday morning. I give you guys a lot of credit for that. Anybody who comes out on a schedule, it takes so much work and a lot of dedication. But? Yeah. I don't know what I'm going to cry about, though, now we have a plan. And people have lives outside of pinball. It's, you know, your kids come first, your family comes first. What? I have a life outside of that. But I respect that. The fans are just excited to get that. For sure. Maybe it's on a schedule. Maybe it's on the Monday at 8 a.m. for head-to-head or whatever the case may be. But it's about the quality, not the quantity. That's very, very important. And when I saw that, I've been following the podcaster channel on Pinside, and that headline popped up a new thread. I won't name the podcast, but the second part of their subject line was new episodes every Wednesday. And I think, boy, they signed up to make themselves miserable. It's a lot of work. Yeah, the thing is, with our podcast, we found it best if we really didn't have much of a format. We'd have maybe a rough outline, and we'd just go. And when you have Bruce on, he will say anything. And we'll try anything. And sometimes it's not funny, so we gotta edit it out, or it's extremely offensive, and we have to edit it out or something, so I just, I took it upon all myself to clean everything up to get these episodes. And that was the best format, it was the most entertaining, it always worked good. After I got sick of editing, it's like, let's make this more of a format, let's follow like an outline, And the episodes weren't as good. I mean, there was less editing, but they just weren't as good. And that's kind of the point that I said, yeah, I just can't do the weekly stuff anymore. I think a lot of it is going to be weekly, just freewheeling. And so now we're back to, it's maybe twice a month, but it's nice. I mean, our last episode, I loved our last episode. We just went and we looked. It's like an hour and 45 minutes since. It was like the old days. Yeah, it was like we were just recording for five minutes. This is great. And it's like, okay, this is the perfect place to end it. And it wasn't work. It was natural. That's all I had to edit. I'd like to ask, and I don't want to assume that people in this room are listening to any of our podcasts or any podcasts, but what is it the people in this room want to hear in podcasts as it relates to pinball? And if anybody can step up. I'm just curious because – I think we could try a few things. Like who wants to hear news of the pinball industry? Let's start with that. One, two, three, four, five, six maybe. Steph does not know. What about tournaments? Tournaments. What about events? Oh. What about game designers? Yeah, interviews. So what we're seeing is not everyone agrees on everything. So that being said, and I say this to anybody who's podcasting, don't think you're going to make everyone happy because it's impossible to do so in this podcasting world. Do the best you can do. Some people might like some episodes, not other episodes. They might like certain topics. You have to do it for yourself. That's it. You have to. That's it. She nailed it. If you're not having fun doing it, you're not doing it for the right reason. Same thing I say about pinball. If you're not having fun playing, why are you playing? There's always Bruce's advantage. He just doesn't care. He doesn't care if you don't like him or whatever. That's an awesome thing though. Stephanie's got a question. Stephanie Guida, the printable princess from Riptide. Hello. Nice pin, by the way. Didn't he say something like you can't please anyone any of the time? You can't please anyone any of the time? Yeah, I don't know. That's a Bruce-ism. Yeah, he has these Bruce-isms, these things he said that just don't make any sense. And yeah. But it does make sense. No, it was him. It does. Yeah, it totally, yeah. But we know what he's trying to say. It's just Bruce-y though. It's like Bruce language. You've got to translate. That's literally his comeback. Well, you know what I meant. So it's good enough. Do you know what keeps me going? In this room, this man's been doing it the longest. Does fireball keep you going? Is that it? No, it's funny. Actually, until this right here, I can't remember the last drink I had, so I don't even think I'm a boozer. But I'm also not driving. I'm in Massachusetts. I'm like, you know what? I'm in a hotel room for three weekends. Let's meet some friends. Let's have some fun. Anyway, this guy's been doing it for three-plus years. It's actually almost three years right now. Almost three years, yeah. I'm just under three years, and these people have come on recently. It's the feedback we get that kind of keeps us going, I think. Sarah, do you agree with that? You get feedback? You get a ton. I get some seriously amazing feedback. I mean, you have to do it for yourself, but just know that people will tell you what they think, and you just kind of have to take the laughing approach to it. Because, you know, if you make a mistake, someone will email you. Oh, yeah. And they will tell you that you are wrong. And I am trying to learn more about the hobby, and so I appreciate that. I might have emailed you once that you were wrong. I think it's been probably more than once. It's all right, though. It's okay. Because, you know, I am wrong. But this is a learning podcast for me, myself. And my podcast, the whole shtick, is that it's for people who don't know anything about pinball. Pinball for dummies. Exactly. So you'd have to retire after you get too knowledgeable. That's my fear of Sarah. That's my fear. That's the thing. Where's that charm I love? But she has. If you listen from the beginning, the very first show she did, it almost was like, is it really a show or not? Are we really doing this? It was basically mocking Jack Danger. 100%. 100%. And then it just snowballed into your own thing. And you went from somebody who knows nothing about pinball to you are all in. And that is what I love about your show is watching you go from point A to point B and look what has happened to you. We're playing in the tournament over here and somebody, no names, sends me a picture of, hey, look who's beating you, Schmeff, or whatever. I'm just like. So she's now all in. I mean, I have to represent myself. And when I'm in 22nd and he's in 24th, you better believe I screenshotted that shit. I mean, it only lasted like five minutes, but whatever. Listen to this guy, the new guy from On the Block on Head to Head Pinball, right? I mean, Head to Head Pinball is a great show. It's been nominated for the Twippy twice, all right? I mean, they have, it's like Van Halen of podcasts, all right? They had David Lee Roth, and then they had Sammy Hagar. And then one of them left, and they brought in Gary Cherone. Oh, wow. Yeah. Wow. I like to read our reviews. Things like, boring, total bore fest, avoid, long drawn out talks about tournament pinball, also makes up fake news. Same thing every week. every time Ron doesn't win a tournament. It's something other than his personal skill to win the tournament. Hey, at least you've got reviews. What are reviews? People review you? One of our first ones. These guys are new to podcasting, but they just drone on or not exciting to listen to. I can't do it. Sorry, guys. Someone called me schizophrenic once. He might have been right. That was like one of the first ones. These are reviews anyone can read on iTunes. Or now Apple Podcasts. Yes. Yes. We like Twisted Tea, yes. We both like Fireball. We have a lot of similarities. Both have the same name. Yeah. It's scary, really. Okay. Would you like to date Jeff? Same name. Same name. Joe, did you have a witty rejoinder? Well, I just wanted to talk about when it comes to getting that, you guys especially from a tournament player's perspective, when you're giving opinions, like you said, now I'm a Jersey Jack hater because I gave my opinion about Monaco. Oh, most definitely. You hate it. Even though it was like I bought a Jersey Jack in my first game, lost the ball machine. But it was Hobbit. I know, the worst one. Yep. Perfect. Oh, so you hate that too? No, I get what you're saying, Joe. Joe, on the last episode of Head to Head Pinball, was talking about Willy Wonka, and it's a theme that he loves because he loves the movie. I love the movie. You'll hear it on Pinball Profile. I talked to the three kids that were here at the show, and it's great that they were brought here for that. But there are things that we would have just... I guess when we knew Willy Wonka was coming out, we thought, oh, will it have this? Will it have this? and it didn't and I understand why because licensing didn't like the estate of Gene Wilder wouldn't allow any of his singing in the game so it's not that Jersey Jack didn't say here's the money they said no but because you said that you know and that's an honest opinion people are like oh I think he means he hates Jersey Jack which is not the case at all the game's great the expectations were a little we could wish that about any game that this had this, this, this, this, right? That's the opposite problem with having licenses. You have to come into games with expectations. Yeah. That license being in the game is just some... Who's played Willy Wonka? Everyone here? How great a game is that? It's pretty amazing, isn't it? I couldn't make an opinion. Oh, go ahead. The flippers couldn't hit things, and everyone... We played the same Willy Wonkas. We played the same one at New York City Pinball Championships. The bottom left flipper was like... It literally wasn't even strong enough for the hit the ball. That's a voltage issue. I was talking. No, here's the thing. They can fix it. We brought this up on the podcast many times. It may be a voltage issue, but something with their system just does not take low voltage well. It never has. All their games. I've been to every expo since 2004. I played every Jersey Jack game. When they have it in the seminar room, like when they're revealing it and they have it plugged in here, like when I played Dialed In, when I played Pirates. It's like, yeah, you can hit everything. It's great. Then they bring it into the main hall, and they have Eric Minier there, and he's cranking all the way up the power, and you can still barely hit stuff. Great. Great, Ron. Good take. Who here has pinball machines that they play in a great grand hall with hundreds of other games? Anybody? Pandering. No. Not pandering. The point is when you playing it at home it a little different I know Well my other point is you have brand new sterns that are in the same power situation and they may not be as strong as they were if you were at your home but they strong enough to hit all the shots I heard a neat thing today on American Pinball because I like that Oktoberfest game a lot, and I was talking to Joe Balcer, and he was saying that when the ramp is up, on the left ramp of Oktoberfest, please play it if you haven't. There's six machines out there. when the ramp is up, the voltage changes. The code actually changes to make the voltage on the left flipper stronger. When the ramp is up, they go under. No, the left flipper. Right flipper. Well, both. It's the right flipper. Okay. Well, they change the voltage in the code. I think that's pretty cool because that's the biggest ramp. It does work, too. It does work. It does the right flipper. So the issues that you may have, I think, are easy fixes. And they'll get there. That's the showcase. Yeah. I don't know if it's an easy fix. I think it's the base operating system that they're using because they're using all Williams parts for the flippers. This suddenly became a podcast. That sounds like a podcast all of a sudden. Now they're filming all this and they're going to think I hate Jersey Jack now. We want to hear what Mrs. Penn has to say about this. I mean, flipper strength is seriously high on my list of important things. But I think that, you know, one of the things that drives me crazy about pinball is that so many times things are put out and things are released and they're not done. I mean, what if, like, I gave you a pie and I only cooked it, like, halfway and then you had to wait for the rest of it to be cooked? Like, what? I'd eat it. But I think that there's always this hype of needing to see the newest and needing to see the greatest. And they want to get it out, which I respect. But I wish that sometimes they would wait a little longer to just get it right. Well, they can fix that. People just don't buy it until it's ready. They do it now. I know, but that's annoying. Okay. I mean, I'm just saying. when when Oktoberfest came out at Expo there were three games there were that's all they had from American pinball and some of the shots didn't work though it was hard to go up the big the Simpsons side ramp if you'll call it that yeah it was hard to stick it in the scoop because this flipper was so strong it would hit it and come back out they went back and changed that from the feedback they had at Expo and I just said to Joe Balcer I said it's kind of neat that you know You want to hit it out of the park right off the bat. You want to have that pie full cooked. But they got some good... I have the best idea ever. You got that feedback, and they went back into the drawing room and changed it. I don't know if they've done that with other games. No, I don't think they have. They've done that. Hobbit. I'm just going to put out there to the cosmos that perhaps they should just fly an amazing panel of podcasters out to test all their games. That's what I'm doing. Who thinks that's a terrible idea? That's a terrible idea. That's an amazing idea. Terrible idea. Free airfare. Hello. But they've done that. Hobbit had the original art that was at Expo. Everyone hated it, so they changed the art. They've had. Put that around. Again, you can't please everyone. No, you can't. This is the real reason these guys do podcasts is because they have all these critiques of the manufacturers, and they want to get their bigger amplified voice out there hoping that they'll influence the manufacturers. True or false? False. False. I don't talk about them. I don't care less. I don't think they're listening to us or care what we think. I think it's an informed opinion for the most part because I have a Jersey Jack game. I have Stern games. I have a spooky game. And so when I say things about, you know, yeah, it's kind of weird that total nuclear annihilation doesn't have any connectors. They really went old school. They just soldered everything directly to everything. Like, okay, or like I brought this up in the last episode, Jersey Jack, they use connectors for everything. Great. They tie wrap everything together so if you need to remove a mech, you have to cut all the tie wraps to get the mech out, which kind of defeats the whole purpose of it. But just little things like that that I don't know anyone would care about. But we mention that kind of stuff on the show. What did you think we thought? That we were trying to influence others. You get energized to do your podcast because you get to right those wrongs. No, I'm no different than anyone in this room. Do what I say. Okay, you guys, are you avenging anything? That's right. They don't listen to us. Are you crazy? No, not a chance. They're smart. Yeah. Well, Ron, would you call up somebody at Stern if you had an engineering question of why did you do it this way, you guys? Or email someone? I might have engineering questions, yes. OK, so you could take that alternative route. If you wanted to make Stern change their ways about some little engineering detail, you could try going that way. I've had less issues with Stern. I think some of the other companies, like, I think Jersey Jack is issued just because their entire development crew is in, like, Chicago, but the factory is in New Jersey. So you have separation there. I think the one thing Stern has is everyone is in-house at the same facility all the time. Okay. So they have less, like, a lot of the other companies, like, I don't know, American Pinball, Joe Schober does programming, but he lives in Virginia, so he's doing it remotely. I just think, and I think a lot of that, Bowen Spooky, he's kind of, I mean, he has a regular job. He's more of a consultant. He's not doing code. He's going to come in there and say, this is what the rules should be, and someone's going to code it. Deep Root has Jon Norris living in Vegas, Dennis Stortman's in Chicago, Barry Elser is in San Antonio. So that's, they've got their artistic work in Utah. David Thiel is in the Northwest, so they've got them all over. But that being said as I talked about earlier in this I did my radio show from this thing It doesn't matter you don't have to be in the physical room. You can do it anywhere And that's just the way I would still argue having them all in-house Promotes a better team environment or in especially speed the the speed that they can fix things So we had Orin day on who worked for data East and Sega back in the day and he had moved to I think North Carolina and was working there for the last couple games remotely, which I was surprised they let people do that in the 90s. Yeah. Well, so now you're telling them how to manage their company, I'm just saying my opinion. Wish you were filming, and I'm sure they'll all be shown and hate me. I'll tell you one thing companies should do. Okay. All right? Oh, boy. I think you'll agree. You'll agree. This woman right here needs to be creating toppers. Yeah. I'll agree with that. companies have you seen what she has done right oh thank you she could also start a trophy ridiculous and shirts and apparel so I'd like to see that actually You get trophies for us. Yeah. There you go. But it's more of like a fun thing. You know, like that's the whole thing. You can make bank on this. Maybe you are making bank on this. I don't need bank. I'm married to a doctor. Whoa. Wow. I make the big bucks staying at home with our kids. His face is as red as his hair. What was that Kanye song, Gold Digger? That's my theme song, actually. It really, it truly is. It's a bit of a joke. It's a bit of a joke. Okay. Do you have any opinions where you do want to change the world of pinball in any way? Do you present them on your podcast? I don't aim to change pinball. I love pinball. I feel like the pinball world is ever-changing, which I think is one of the greatest things about it. I don't feel like I need to try to change the companies. I don't even try. I don't care. Maybe I should. Maybe I should. Do you have companies or show administrators like me or tournament administrators? Do you have messages for them that you're – No, I mean I think that everybody in pinball is very open and very receptive for the most part. And I think that if you go to somebody and you say, hey, I'd love to see this or I'd love to see that, if somebody emails me and says, I really want another stupid song about rehabbing pinball machines, then I'll catalog that and I'll try to make people happy. But ultimately it's their business and it's not mine. So I can comment on it and throw my opinions out there, but ultimately they're just that, opinions. I don't know. If they change something about pinball that I want to change or I commented, then awesome. But I don't think that I have the voice to change flippers. I would argue that change is already happening. Oh, yes. As we saw the earlier seminar, we had Tim Sexton here. I mean, everyone is getting younger and the older guard is going to be, and they know, and George Gomez knows this, he's getting more and more young people at Stern for the next generation, the next iteration. Steve Ritchie has to talk about, I'm not retiring because people- I'm never retiring, never. I presume it might be. Jeff Parsons, do you dispense any opinions? JEFF PARTLOWSKI- I totally was pretty much. Ron said what I was thinking is that there already is change going on. I mean, you mentioned, Tim, not only younger people, but people that play pinball, that know what players want in a game more than designers and engineers and that sort of thing. And the other thing that I think is changing as well is how many people are playing pinball. It's grown so much and it still continues to grow. So as long as we can keep that going, this hobby is going to be around forever. And we had our time where we're like, oh, this is over, when, you know, Bally Williams said bye-bye. But it made it through yet another one of those long turns, and hopefully it will stay that way. There was even, I mean, you've been to every expo ever. I've been to every expo since 2004. And I'd say you definitely saw, like, when I first started going to the expo, I was probably one of the youngest people there. at the time. I was in my 30s. Going to the shows now, you see more and more younger people, which is the best possible thing you could hope to see in my opinion. It's because of the younger people who have discovered it. They kind of like, not to pigeonhole there, but I think a certain class of millennials like retro things. When they discovered this, it's like, well, what's this cool thing? They have latched onto it and honestly saved the hobby. Got a whole younger generation into it, and it just continues to grow. Now, Joe, not the exact same example, but you were a video game player and then kind of discovered pinball, and you were just fascinated by it. And I think the more people that do that and can see what pinball actually is and what it does. Like my son, for example, he's just now started. He's 12 years old, just now starting to play, really getting into it. And, you know, obviously I had an influence on it, but he's really pretty good for his age, and I think a lot of it is because he's a video game player, and he's got those reflexes playing Fortnite and everything. Dexterity. And he's beating me in League right now. And so it's people like that that can find. And he's my son. Yeah, I know. I just – I think it's just a great – I don't want to say a gateway drug, but, I mean, it's similar to that. It's like video games is kind of the jumping off point to get to pinball. And the more that happens, the better things are going to be. Like who's the world champion right now? Yeah. 17 years old. Yep. I'll survive. I don't know if it's so much a – do you have a question? Yeah. Is there a social media aspect of your podcasting? Like if your downloads zeroed out and, you know, all the reviews were bad, would you continue to make podcasts and put them out there? Well, I was just talking to somebody about this just recently. I've done 200-plus episodes of Pinball Profile, and not every episode is for everyone. And I make sure everyone knows that because I will interview people that I'm not interested in that topic, that game, that event, that tournament, or that person. That's fine. Go to the next episode. But when I released an episode, I've had two. I released one where I interviewed Gene Simmons. Greatest episode ever. Gene Simmons is a wonderful man. Anyway, I interviewed him because I had him on my rock show. Kiss was playing at a concert nearby. I've had him on a couple times. I tried my hardest to get him to talk about pinball. All he wanted to talk about was this vault box is fantastic. It's all my crap from 40 years and all this garbage. I tried, but I put it out there anyway. Another one was Ted Nugent, right-wing crazy maniac. But I had him on my radio show because he was playing a concert, and I thought, well, damn it all, there was a Nugent pinball machine. Can I get him to talk a little about that? He was reserved. Anyway, well, I cut stuff out. Oh, okay. I cut stuff out. He went off on Hillary or something like that, and I cut it off. I'm like, okay, I'm not telling you what side I'm on or anything like that. But whenever I interview somebody, anybody, it's not an endorsement of that person. It's just their side. Because as we did that little survey earlier, what do you want to hear? People want to hear different things. And that Ted Nugent pissed a lot of people off because he's a madman. He's crazy. And it didn't talk about pinball. So why am I doing this? But one thing that did happen from that is the late David Taylor from Alabama contacted me. I'd never met this man before. He had seen me at tournaments and said, I just saw Nugent concert, loved him, and I actually like the music too. And he said, it was a great concert, I loved that interview, blah, blah, blah. And we got to know each other really, really well and became one of my greatest friends in pinball and sadly passed away last fall. I got sick real quick. I never would have met that guy if I didn't interview Ted Nugent. So I'm glad as hell I did. And the great thing about Pinball Profile and these podcasts and everyone else is the pinball community is made up of so many different people. Just even in this room of 30 people right now, we all come from different walks of life. And we never would have met any of each other if it wasn't for the common love of pinball. And that's my favorite thing about why I do what I do. It's giving back. It's something I love. It's something other people love. Not always a home run, but once in a while pretty good. I'm getting all choked up over here. I know, geez. Pass the tissues. I love people. And I'm open. I love everybody until they give me a reason not to love them. you know as you get older you know you want you know you're in the as you're on the back nine you want things to you you want to make amends with everyone you want everything to be good and there's just no room in my world for hate right so i i that's what we talked earlier about the social media stuff it's just like it creeps you know i don't let it bother me i don't let it because sure sure but a lot of people do like a lot yeah i mean i think that a lot of people do a lot of people reach out they do and and you know when you make a podcast your your email is connected your your name is connected to it it's easy to track people down i mean i've met people all over the country just putting it out there. So, I mean, I think a lot more people than you would think would reach out and connect with you just because they hear your podcast and they think you're funny or they like pinball a lot or you say something that resonates with them and they shoot you a message and it's awesome. I was honestly surprised when I went to Pinburg last year the amount of people that came up and said, hey, I love your podcast. And I had no idea who they were, but they introduced themselves for the first time. And it wasn't until then that I realized, okay, well there's people that are actually listening to this. I mean I get emails once in a while but, and honestly, I don't care how many people are listening. If somebody's out there and enjoys it, that's enough for me. I'm not looking for big numbers. I'm just, like I said, what we all do, we do it because we enjoy it. If somebody else enjoys it, all the better. That's a bonus. Well, you got final remarks, Ron? Well, I just found it. Being in pinball for a long time before we did the podcast, I was not ready to be recognized. Let's just say that. I go into a lot of shows and people will be like, I love the podcast. It's just weird for me. I always try to stay in the background. I had a whole YouTube series of pinball machine stuff that I had out there for years where I would do home game room series, film people's game rooms, film locations, and I would never be seen on camera on purpose. You would just do a walkthrough. A set of people recognized me was weird. But that's not why you do it. No, no. I would prefer not to be recognized, honestly. Bruce, on the other hand, would love to be recognized, I'm sure. And easily is. Easily is. All right. Well, you're all being recognized tonight. And I think we had a little sample of what you're like on your respective podcasts, plus handy tips. Chris, if this inspired you to get back in, you're thinking, oh, I do love this after. Do it. No. Do it. No, okay. Say this. Do it. You were talking earlier about what people like about your show, people like terms, people like this. I think the most important thing about what you guys do is that people like your personalities and people like your takes on things. Because listening to your podcast is like meeting you in a coffee shop once in a while. So if you're talking about terminants or you're talking about an artist or a designer or whatever, it's just nice to sit down once a week or once every three months. I knew that. You saw that coming, right? I work all day at a desk, and I have my own office, so the more podcasts, the better. If it's an hour long, hour and a half long, that's awesome. And then it's whatever, out of the next one. It's just nice to sit down with people once a week and hear your takes on things. And like I said, it doesn't matter what it is. It's your take on things that I'm interested in hearing about. Because I could give crap about tournament, but if you're talking about it and they're giving me your take on it, then I'm interested in it. I will say Bruce is wrong. Teal is an excellent color, like teal. You know, Jeff and I know this from radio, and Jeff has done a morning show for years and years and years. people are used to listening to the voice and they feel they really know you because they wake up in the morning with you they have coffee with you and stuff like that so in a way podcasting is like that in radio too so yes we're shocked impressed flattered beyond belief when people come up to us and say thanks for doing your podcast we like listening to it i'm sure there are others that looking at us like that theolis is an or whatever like that there you go right but but it makes you happy i mean it's not why we do it we don't look for the recognition it's super super sweet and sarah was the one who kind of asked i think i don't know if it was gabe or derek or dave here at pintastic hey what about a podcaster's panel this wouldn't have happened if somebody I had nothing to do with this. You did. No. You did. And then I saw Derek at, he sent me an email, said, hey, would you be interested in coming to Pintastic? I said, sure, $3,000, I'm there. You're spending lives. No, but we met at TPF, and I said, you know what, I'd love to come to Pintastic. I feel like I'm an honorary. Where the hell did my bag go? I feel like I'm an honorary New Robert Englunds person because, first of all, it's a great state and area, but hopefully Narragansett won't sue us yeah I have one quick drop mine if I had known this was a thing yeah you gotta drop your eyes and you're all good to go. Yeah. Drop my RS. Oh my God. I have one more thing. I don't know if anyone would be interested in this. I forgot I bring this along. This is a hundred dollars off a game purchase with a pinball star does not include spooky games, I guess, cause they can't do a spooky game. So it would be like wizard of Oz dialed in Willy Wonka medieval madness remake attack from Mars remake monster bash remake Houdini Oktoberfest Thunderbirds. No P three or the vertigo or vortex virtual pinball. I don't know what that is. Here's the, here's to catch. It's $100 off, but you have to be paid in full by June 30th, which I think is tomorrow or the next day. Sunday. What's the year? No, it's something I wanted. Pinfest. I don't know. Would anyone be interested? Otherwise, there's just going to be a piece of paper that I'm probably just going to throw out. $100 off the game. Come see Ron. You've got two days. I've got two days? Okay. I thought I tried. All right. So we can't even bribe our audience. We'll probably do this again with different podcasters every year. So I want to thank all the podcasters up front, all the podcasters here. And please, all of you, keep plugging Fantastic New Robert Englunds on your podcast. Thanks, Dave. Thanks, Dave. Thanks, Derek. Can't believe you guys stayed all this time. Who's playing dollar games? Let's do this. _(Acquisition: youtube_groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_ --- *Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: efcdef5c-7095-4e9a-b792-6dad0a60915d*