🎵 Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Classic Pinball Podcast. My name is George. His name is Dave. Hello, Dave. Yellow George. Dave, I'd like to introduce our guest today. Integral part of Pintastic. He's not only a coordinator, a manager, a repairer, an interviewer, a collector, a cat wrangler, and executive. Please welcome David Marston. Hello, David. Hi. Welcome. Okay, before we get started, so our audience is not confused. You are David, Mr. Marston, and my partner, who I rarely call Dr. Dave. How's that? So no confusion. That sounds good. Dr. Dave, I'll take that. Okay, David. The reason we invited you on is, A, I tried to chase you down last year at Pintastic, and you were doing your cat wrangling. So I backed off, thought it appropriate, given we're less than two months out to Pintastic, for you to talk about the show and some of the new things that might be integrated into that show. The floor is yours. Thank you. This is our 10th anniversary show, and we are continuing several of the things that we've become famous for. But in the realm of new, we have a pinball trivia night the first time. also we're getting a little bit better publicity of all the tournaments going on at the event so if you go to pintasticnewengland.com slash tournaments you'll see not just the silver ball rumble which is of course our headlining tournament that's on the stern pro circuit and the women's tournaments but you'll also see that we've better cataloged what's going on over in the project pinball zone and we'll be having pop-up tournaments that just won't show up on the website. You just have to be there. But what we're already showing on the webpage gives a full schedule for the people who like to come to a show to just play tournaments and not do anything else. On the vendor side, though, for those who come to the show to buy, we do have a couple new vendors coming in. and I haven't seen the signed contract, so I guess I'm not going to give any names right now, but I think you'll be quite excited that these are pinball-related vendors with new accessories for your home game room. And then on the seminar side, as always, I'm trying to put together a seminar program that will have new material never before covered, not just at Pintastic, but in many cases, never before covered at any pinball show. And you can see evidence of that now on our YouTube channel, accessible from the lower left corner of pentestinglingla.com, any web page. On that YouTube channel, you'll see that we now have an entire playlist devoted to tournaments and competitive play, tournament administration, and how to play better, how to preserve your body and your mind to play better. This is something that we've been trying very hard to get those tournament people to come out of the West Wing once in a while and sit for a seminar. So we have a really good program of past events, and we'll be looking at what more we can offer in that subject area, plus the usual new technologies, including things you can do at home, up to and including homebrew games. history of pinball and pinball celebrities coming from the factories. And so far on that celebrity front, we have announced Mark Seiden and Leah Fraske, the designer and artist for the new Avatar game from Jersey Jack Pinball, are both coming. And I will be getting in contact with them later today to get some kind of a seminar organized around the work they did and welcoming Leah into that elite group of pinball artists. As far as I know, she wants to keep doing more pinball art. And certainly on Avatar, you can see that she's learned a lot of the more difficult things that challenge a lot of commercial artists when they try to do a pinball play field. If I can interrupt, I've got a question. Sure. You've brought Eric Stone back, it looks like, and he's going to do something on playing pinball or competitive pinball, correct? well what we've planned so far is another of the learn to play seminars using the new formula where he picks a self-described mediocre player and gives them a tutorial while we watch via the game rig and we see how novice or somewhat beyond novice player learns a few things during the course of the seminar and plays better right there. I didn't realize you pulled somebody out of the audience and showed them how to up their game. It's prearranged. It's not like you go over there and get up here. Too bad. That would make it good. You also have a competitive pinball seminar, but I don't see any name attached. Is that to be determined? Yes. And another one I'm working on is trying to see if we can get an update about one of the documentary movies about pinball. There's one from New England that is in a very mature state, and I hope that the director will have something to say come April. I have another question about seminars you have one listed with Ryan McQuaid and Steve Bowden that was last year oh that's last year? oh so that hasn't been updated? no we don't have enough right and you can see that session with Steve Bowden and Ryan McQuaid on our YouTube channel. The reason I bring it up is they're no longer with the company, so I thought it kind of difficult. How are you going to interview them if they're – or how are they going to do a seminar if they're no longer with the company? Okay, well, we cleared that up. That's last year's program that you see on the page. So when are you going to update all the seminars on the website? probably be another week or two before I have enough. And even then, it will just be a few slots to begin with. We haven't even announced all our special guests. I expect Steve Ritchie will be back again as he likes coming to the show. I expect our usual people from Stern and Jersey Jack and I'm also pursuing as many of the smaller manufacturers as I can to give us at least some kind of a little update. Okay. And, you know, there's always new titles in the rumor stage, so right now we're kind of sitting watching rumors fly by, if any of those mature by April into something we can show. Of course, we won't show it. But you can, right now, look at the free play game list. Again, this is on contestingnewengland.com and see that we have quite a few new games from the smaller manufacturers. So we are going to have Ninja Eclipse from Turner Pinball, who will be on the floor somewhere. And the famous John Manuelian, who really cranks out the homebrew games, he's got a new title called Luau. I don't know what that is, so he'll be showing that. Sounds like Kiki or Hawaiian. Could be, yeah. The Abba game from Pinball Brothers will be on the floor somewhere. I've not played that. and Labyrinth will be there again, and do stuff from Stern, of course, and Jersey Jack. So it'll be Avatar for you to play. I have another question. I was informed that the show is taking a different direction with the Best in Play, or as some people refer to it as the best in show. What plans do you have in replacing that? Well, really, we were facing up to some apathy on that. So what we can do easily is have the people's choice, which is just a matter of getting some ballots and collecting votes. and your listeners should know that that is going to be our measure of how much people care about seeing quality games. So if we don't get very many votes, then we have something measurable that says people don't care that much. And if we get a lot of votes, then we step back and see, okay, what does that pretend? and did their votes seem to reflect what Dave and his team of judges have concluded in the past were well-restored games? So we're going to wait and see the posture there. Aren't you in fear of the latest and greatest Stern or Jersey Jack or whomever being declared the best in show? well we haven't yet drawn up the ballot my plan was to put something on the ballot that says you know recognize the work of individuals not factories and of course we would separate out the homebrew games because that is such a major effort and we have tremendous participation in our homebrew room that's been one of the areas where we took the lead. So going from just plunking down a homebrew game at the end of the aisle, like a few years ago when Mark Seiden, as an amateur, had his Metroid game just in the regular free playroom. We've matured to the point that now with our dedicated room, well, let's see, Manuelian, he's bringing five homebrew games. the Borderlands game is coming back Aaron Small is going to show us his progress on the Warhammer 40k game several other games that have been shown before will show new progress and an entire room where these guys talk among themselves and they also get a chance when Steve Ritchie or somebody from the factories walked in, they can show them their innovations. And our work has been imitated by other shows. We were the leader in setting aside this special showcase for Homebrew Games, and now other big shows are following our lead. Well, you have a track history. I mean, you know, Mark Seiden and Ryan McQuaid getting jobs with major manufacturers. if you go back in time I'll plug here episode one we interviewed both of those gentlemen so still one of our top ten episodes if you want to go back in time it's almost six years now so you do have a track history for that. It seems like your podcast has a track history too. Well I mean if we look at your particular show I mean I think this is number seven or number eight as far as giving visibility to the show. And unfortunately for me, I did want to go to another show the same weekend, and that's the Pimbroke Fest out in Ohio. Unfortunately, it's the same weekend. You know, two different geographies. Dave can talk to it. I can as well. It was almost an eight-hour drive from New England out to Ohio. So I don't think you're cannibalizing each show. I think each show has its own distinct audience. Well, I do worry about that. I would like to not conflict with any show east of Illinois for that weekend. We're jumping around a little in the calendar because of Easter. So I think that the week after, our show is the 10th and 13th, and the week after is Easter. so no show is running that weekend I believe or they're trying to cut short Sunday at least let me double check that Kimball at the Zoo is spring is jam packed with shows in comparison to the fall time frame or summer everybody seems to want a spring show Right. So we got MGC the weekend before us. That's a Midwest gaming classic. And then, unfortunately, we're doubled up with pin brew and then pinball at the zoo. So and then Allentown not long after that. So it is. It's a tough scheduling issue. And we're always evaluating the calendar. So you've seen in the past, we've been in June, we tried a September show. We are not locked in, I would say. We are continually evaluating what's best for the show and best for the overall pinball community. I have another question regarding shows. Have you ever been to the Houston Arcade Expo? No, I have not. Okay. Bear with me for a half a minute. Your show seems to be an amalgamation of several shows. I'll give a shout-out to Keith Christensen out at the Houston show. He fronts a band for his program, but he also brings entertainment in for every night. I've been to the show. Great show. Unfortunately, he's moved it to Columbus Day weekend, which is a tough weekend. anyway so you've got that element you've got the element like you said earlier or previously with the homebrew piece which is unique what else do you guys do you've got a bit of everything I mean you've kind of got a little bit of everything which I think is an appeal and I tell everybody and if you haven't listened to our other shows on Fantastic the long and short of it is if you want to play games this is a great show to come play games Yeah, I would say that the clubroom thing is something we're doing that other shows have not picked up on yet. And then the seminars, there really aren't that many shows that do seminars. Expo, which I guess... Yeah, Expo. Are you going again, and have you missed one? I have not missed one. My current plan is to go again, and Rob Burke seems to be counting on me going again. but the Expo program is more like Rob says yes to so many people that we don't get lunch and dinner, the seminars just run straight through where with Pintastic we cultivate contributors that I think will have something good and new to say and since we are putting up videos on YouTube once they say it we don't need to have them come back another year and say the same thing. So we are very conscientious of the quality of the seminars. I have some invitations out to people that have not given seminars before that have something interesting to say. And, you know, last year we had Eric Selak bring his critical mass game, which was the first time he brought it outside the state of Pennsylvania. since it was built. And that was a real breakthrough. And that was Eric understanding the kind of thing we're trying to do with our seminar program. And so he felt that we deserve to have that first outside Pennsylvania showing of critical mass in 40 years. And for him to work very hard to give a very polished seminar on it. That's just one example. Give a quick description. I'm not familiar with the game. Tell us a little bit about Critical Mass. Okay, so the long-form story is, of course, available on our YouTube channel. But in essence, around the time of Haunted House and Black Hole, Gottlieb was willing to take designs from the outside so instead of just having a Krinsky rearrange things on the play field they were in a burst of thinking that they needed more variety of ideas and Critical Mass was a game that was prototyped for Gottlieb specifically. So using the Gottlieb parts, the Gottlieb system of the time, and Gottlieb opted not to take it in and put it into mass production. So basically it was just the prototype. And then there's a longer story about how it was off in storage for a while and needed to be restored. that's all on the video. So are attendees going to be able to play this game? That was last year. I haven't heard from Eric this year, so I don't think he's bringing it this year. You have to come every year. You know, this is not like you go to Pintastic once and you've seen it all. Hey, I'm coming back. I'm 500 miles away. Good. Glad to hear it. Anything else on the show, Dave? I've got a couple other questions. Is Tony Zizek still your repair executive, as you refer to some of your people? He's leading up a team of some very dedicated repair people. And also he's deeply involved in planning the electrical arrangements before the show even starts. Because when you think about it, there are very few conference venues in the six New England states that are intended to have an event that's as intense a user of electricity as we are. so we need to sit down with a hotel electrician and when we first moved to Maldro we needed to pay them some extra money for them to do some work that would make more circuits available so basically we maxed out every breaker panel in the whole facility and Tony was heavily involved with that and we have Brian Hawkins as a vendor hall manager so he's trying to get all the vendors in and keep them happy we have this interesting situation where some of our vendors leave their games available as free play at night and we divide the hall in a strategic way. So at 9pm on Friday and Saturday we pull that divider wall and some of our vendors are represented just by having their games on the free play side after the vending side is closed. And another person involved there is Brian McCauley, a long time member of the pinball scene in New England and he coordinates the placement of the free play games. So after people register to bring their games, at some point they arrive with their game, and then Brian McCauley specifies the spots and tries to have a sensible layout of the games. And again, if you look at our website and you look at the list of games coming, you can click on the columns to sort it different ways. If you click on the year column, you will see that this year we have a really exceptional amount of electromechanical games coming. It looks like about 15 so far, going all the way back to 1947. So we have some short flipper games that you can try out in case you've wondered what was that playing experience like. You see a ballet doggies. So multiplayer Ted Zale design with all kinds of crazy gates and stuff. Hey, Dave, I thought it was called doggies all these years. Well, I'm going from, I think, the theme from the TV show Rawhide, which refers to cattle as doggies, keeping doggies moving. I thought that was the inspiration for that as a theme. I thought it was dojis. Let's not get political. That's the Elon Musk table. Right, right. You better have a politics-free pinball event here. One would hope. Yeah, one would hope. I have another question about the show. You had at one point in time, and I don't know if it's still implemented. Are you still doing the points thing? Not really. Okay, so that's a wash. That's done. Well, yeah, I would like to do something for Steve Ritchie. But I think we're just going to say, please bring games designed by Steve Ritchie and leave it at that. But we do still have, for the GameBringers, a bonus entry in the drawing if they registered their game early. That's still in effect because that's a different part of the MyFlipper software. But the bonus points, we just weren't hearing that people were motivated by the bonus points the way we expected them to be. People are motivated by money. Well, yeah, we do as much as we can in that regard. And then donuts, you know, item number two after money is donuts. Okay. Well, it's not a cop show, so. Anyway, anything else about the show that you want to put forward to our audience and we can kind of move along? well since you mentioned the live entertainment I guess I should say that we do have two live bands and let me make sure I get them in the right order here Friday night is the Metallica band Battery 401 and Saturday night is the ACDC band, the tribute band, Back in Black. And we have pinball trivia earlier on Saturday. Autograph session midday on Saturday. Karaoke night still happening Thursday night. And all this is interwoven with tournaments. Kids tournaments on Saturday. So go to PintasticNewEngland.com to check out all the different aspects of the show. We consider ourselves a major show in the sense that we have many different things, like a Texas Pinball Festival, Pinball Expo, Northwest Pinball Show. We are in that league, and that's right from the first show. That was the intent, is that we were going to have all these different aspects. So it's not just a tournament or not just a vendor swap meet kind of flavor, but all those things put together. Okay. Yeah, going back to the Best in Show and People's Choice, are you going to have just one People's Choice Award? Are you going to try to get them to, you know, look at the homebrew stuff more? I expect one for homebrew and one for everything else. So homebrew and factory, two different ones. Because it so unfair to try to compare a homebrew to a factory game Right exactly And as to George point that what you know we were talking about doing the best in show best in play alongside doing the people's choice. And as to George's point, some people are just coming off the street kind of thing and don't know about the ML machine. They might very well choose Godzilla because it's that kind of thing. But it would be interesting to see what they wind up choosing for, versus like a restored centaur, let's say, or versus like a Godzilla, what would they pick, you know? So it'd be interesting to see what transpires with that kind of an experiment. Yep. So they're going to get, when you go get a ticket, it's going to be on the ticket, like, hey, here's your two ballots that you're going to put in? Well, I think it would be one ballot with two spaces in it. And we have to get people to put the game number because we already have multiple copies of certain titles coming. So it would be some little five-and-a-half by eight-and-a-half piece of paper with some coaching, like this is your chance to show your appreciation for people who have done a great job maintaining their game or, in the case of homebrew, developing their game. That's, you know, off the top of my head, that's what I would want the ballot to say. Okay. Yeah, we'll see how it goes. We'll see what they pick. Yeah, and we can refine it, you know, based on what we see them doing. Yeah, cool. Okay, we're going to be running out of time in this segment. David, you wanted to talk about a couple of topics. So, again, the floor is yours. I think you wanted to talk about some old arcades, which I believe you touched on in our previous interview. But go ahead. I'm all ears. Okay. Well, on the arcade thing, first of all, I want to mention that I've lived in New Hampshire my whole life. So I certainly grew up with arcades at York Beach, Maine, Wells Beach, Maine, and Hampton Beach, New Hampshire, Salisbury Beach, Massachusetts, which were all pretty close by on the Atlantic coast. and then over at the Weir's Beach on Lake Winnipesaukee. And I heard a lot growing up about other places, Revere Beach in Nantasket further down the Massachusetts coast, Whalum Park in Lunenburg, Massachusetts, and on and on. And so many of these amusement parks are gone. And interestingly, Lake Compounce over near Bristol, Connecticut, still exists. It's the oldest continually operating amusement park in the United States, they say. Although how they managed to be continually operating was a struggle some years. Was that a railroad park? Trolley car park? I think it was, yeah. Okay. Yeah, many of them, like Canobie Lake Park in Salem, New Hampshire, is a trolley car park. Was that seat called Seacoast, something or other, Seacoast Trolley Museum? Seashore Trolley Museum. Yeah, that's the one. It's in Kennebunk, Maine. That's a great place to visit if you like any kind of transit, not just trolley cars, but big rapid transit cars are theirs. and they have a close relationship with the MBTA. So whenever the MBTA is obsoleting some class of cars, they make sure that Seashore Trolley Museum gets a couple examples. But back to pinball. On the arcade side, I think it's a good time to call out Fun Spot at Weir's Beach or, you know, around the corner from Weir's Beach on Route 3, U.S. Route 3 in Laconia. They have really turned around their pinball operation. I was just up there last week. They have put out several more older games, including back into the electromechanical era. They have two at-a-ball games upstairs in the American Classic Arcade Museum section. And they've made room by moving more of the newer games down into the pinball outpost. so if you have not been to Fun Spot in the past year and a half I'd say you're going to totally reset your expectations the number of pinball games there which was large before but it's even larger now and the quality of the games there so they are really trying, they have been hosting weekly tournaments of the New England Pinball League, something they would not have done under the old regime. Yeah, they're really up their game. They even have a nine ball there that they brought back in that one of the employees had way back when so they weren't playing anymore on the floor because they had problems. And then he didn't play much at home. I was talking to him. And he wanted to say, oh, we'll put the nine ball back in the front spot. And now, so it's a pretty pristine nine ball. A couple of hiccups here and there because unless you dial a thing in the right way, you have all kinds of hiccups. But it's still nice to see a classic Stern like that in a lineup, along with Kiss, Harlem Globetrotters, a Playboy, and a handful of others early from the late 70s, early 80s. That's cool, too, there. They're doing a good job these days. Yeah. And when I was up there last, I certainly enjoyed playing a few games on Big Strike, which is the edible version of Hotline from Williams. but this gives us a chance to pivot into another topic you know, in general your podcast is about classic pinball and I just have so many interesting memories of the 1970s I was operating for about half of that decade you mentioned Stern Electronics they were fortunate to be able to take the assets of Chicago Coin which was definitely a lesser brand of pinball and turn those assets into something that was very competitive and now we like a lot of those games the Sea Witch design got recycled into the Beatles game but the 70s were just such a wild time when I think of Steve Ritchie coming to visit us again, I think of Atari pinball. And as operators in the 70s, we were just very trepidatious of what Atari was going to do. Were they really going to revolutionize pinball in some way? And we now know they had some bad ideas, but they certainly they spooked the other manufacturers very badly and so you know wide body monstrosities like Ballyparagon or Embryon those are great games I've been playing mine a lot so no dissing on the wide bodies oh we got two minutes to go? Correct. Hey, David, before one more thing. Sure. What's the one thing in pinball that makes David run? I just keep finding out so much more about the history of the game and the way it endures. you know we had such a bad time from the 1930s to 1969 pinball had a bad reputation and it just seemed like anything that was ever said about pinball the most positive it ever was oh look at these crazy people that like playing pinball what's with them and then it turned around and with the hit song Pinball Wizard, and that gave rise to the boom of the 70s. The 70s were so massive for pinball that there were actually entrepreneurs in the United States that thought they should import games made in Spain or Italy to have more variety of pinballs offered in the United States. And it's always been the case that people think the American pinball product is the definitive version of pinball. But the market was just so hot back then. Even with video games taking off, pinball was something you had to be in. We have about a six-second warning here before it shuts down. Okay. Well, thanks for having me. Thanks, Dave. Yes, recording in progress, ready to go. Okay, I'd like to start by thanking David Marston in our first segment. I think we got what we wanted out of it, and I'll just say, I think I'm always the provocateur. How's that? Yes, you like taking the fork and poking the potato and see what the steam comes out. Well, you know, fair and balanced. There you go. I think there's a station like that. Anyway, I want to start by saying my wife and I took a detour a couple of weekends ago. And guess where we landed, folks? We landed in the land of Dave and Maureen. yes you did what a surprise that was, that was pretty cool had a big pinball tournament soiree going over here with Bob and the rest of the gang and all of a sudden ding dong, who's at the door I see this car show up like what car is this with the well no no with the jersey plate jersey plate, who is this jersey plate person, who is this person you know and all of a sudden it's George and Janice it's like wow, that's so cool Yeah, we were on our way to go skiing up in Vermont at So. So it was fun. Sorry we couldn't stay for the tournament. But who won? Adam? Adam was the big winner, yes. Yeah. I had my money on Bob. I think Bob came in last place. Well, last time around, McGordy came in first place. He swept everything. He freaking couldn't lose. And so you never know. Well, it sounds like you got a, you know, a good crew of people that are fairly balanced. So, you know, it makes it for fun. And, you know, shout out to PJ. He was there. John Day, who people have heard us talk about time and time again. Obviously, Mike, who Dave just referred to. So that was a lot of fun. I got a couple of pinball things. but maybe you have a story you told me offline that something happened while we were doing the recording with David Marston yeah yeah just as you guys were getting into it and talking and so forth something popped in my email and I said wow so it grabbed my attention and I muted and let you guys keep going oh I kept I'm like okay Dave when are you going to ask a question? And it was like 20 minutes. I'm like, what the, you know, you kind of left me out there. But good thing I was prepared. I didn't get to all my questions, but I got most of what I wanted answered. Well, then at the same time, you were asking the questions about the best in show and all that kind of stuff. I was like, Maureen had to leave for an appointment, and she has all my pinball stuff in the car. And I was like, oh, I need that stuff. Tell me while you're gone. And so while you're just doing that question, I was like, this is such bad timing. So I had to go up to the car while you're doing that, get stuff out of the car I needed for doing some work here at the shop, doing all that, and then at the same time this email came in. It's like, oh, another thing came in. So it was like, you know, Calgon take me away kind of thing. So I got it all done. It all worked out. You kept the show running and you had all kinds of stuff to say and, you know, carried the show for a little bit. So that was good. Hey, before I forget, so at the hotel in Stowe, they had a kiddie arcade. And this one thing stood out to me. I've never seen this before. Have you seen the kiddie arcade game Cut the Cord? Yeah. Yeah, isn't that the one where you cut the cord with some scissors and you get the iPhone or whatever, some big prize? Yeah. That's the biggest ripoff ever. Mike Engel years ago he had one of those in his bowling alley thing you have to make a ton of money because I watched this little kid put the card in it was like stealing he made a crap load on that game it looks so easy it's all dangling there in front of you just cut the cord and get the free iPhone get this $500 thing no problem easy to do Not so much, no. Yeah, big tease on that game. Made a lot of money on that one. I just thought, no pinball. You know, big surprise. A lot of big Raw thrills games. You know, those $10, 000, $20, 000 behemoths. They had like two or three of those in there. Oh, yeah, those are pretty heavy. Oh, they get a lot of money for that stuff. Oh, yeah. Yeah, they're fun, though, and they're very immersive, you know? No, but I mean, they get a lot of money, like two bucks to play, to sit on the motorcycle or kill dinosaurs or whatever the hell the games do. I didn't play any of them. I wouldn't give them any money. But it's all the card system. Everything's cards now. Minimum, 10 bucks. Minimum, 20 bucks. I mean, don't cry for them. So the days of putting the quarter in the game are kind of coming to a close? Long gone. Well, it's not long gone over here, George. Okay. So, I'm going to say I've got a couple of little things I want to talk about, but why don't you take us into the world of Dr. Dave and the repair business. Something must have happened since we last recorded. Let me back up a little bit. The tournament you guys missed, but you guys came over here. The games that were played were that beautifully restored nine ball that actually survived and did really well now. That's all done. That works great now. So nine ball was there. Belly, blackjack, EM, rare game, bow and arrow, fathom, eight ball to luck, stargazer. Right, but guess what's a good game? Which good? Indiana Jones? Your good game that I got to play with nobody around. Oh, stars. Oh, my God, folks. man, what a beautiful game and a fun playing game yeah, I just basically the last minute before the day before, I was like, you know, I haven't had stars on legs in a long time, I just had my buddy Dave just do a repaint of it maybe a couple years ago and so I basically unwrapped it, put new rails on it new side rails and a new door on it the thing is gleaming, and even has an original play field in it that's pretty nice shape. I even have a new CPR to go into it when I have time. But, you know, fresh rebuild of the flippers and it was playing great. So what I want to do, I'm not going to be able to have time to, of course, I want to have Stars and Nineball next to each other because they're both done by the same guy, Steve Kirk. And the other third one would be Meteor, all three together, it would be a Steve Kirk tournament. It would be kind of cool. But I don't think I'm going to be able to do that. Kirkman. Kirk, yeah, Kirk. And maybe have a ballet Star Trek there, too, for the other Kirk. You know, put James T. Kirk next to him. You know, something special. That'd be kind of cool. I can see a tournament doing that. So, again, Stars was there. Quick Silver, Flight 2000, Stargazer, Stars. So a lot of sterns going on. Yeah, like five sterns in this one. So that was kind of neat. And that was a blast to play. but you also alluded to back up a little other time here about the email I got so let me tell you the email I got while you guys were chatting away about Fantastic and let's see here okay headline hold on let me get my special thing here there we go Okay, well, I'll hear it. Headline, TV story slash pinball repair. Hi, reporter for Boston's longtime Chronicle show and curious about your pinball repair work for an upcoming edition. Oh, you're back? Well, you're back again for the third time. Same guy? Yeah, I think the same guy. Actually, this is the same guy who interviewed me way back when on the first one, I don't know, probably 10 or so years ago. He said, I'd love to hear back and see if there might be a way to include what you do in this show. I don't know, does he remember me from 10 years ago? I don't know. Is that how long? I got two of them. There were two done. There was one that I was in. That was recent. That was right before the whole Cooties 19 came out. So that was like 2019 when we first got started. Yeah, that was October. You know, it's going to be six years in June. Wow. Yeah, no kidding. Crazy. Time flies. Yeah, weird. Anyway, okay, so that's really cool. Yeah, yeah. I was like, all right, cool. Well, I guess I have to, you know, straight up the house again and get things squared away and what I want to show and so forth. Because, you know, things have changed around here, different machines. Do you have that clip from Chronicle out on your website, or is there one out? Oh, yeah. I do. Yeah. Okay. I'll have to go look again. That's funny. That's great. It's great. So I'll get that going. I've got to talk to him later today. Okay. And then in the world of Dr. Dave, what we've done since we last talked, I've been getting a plethora of Monopoly pinball service calls and day spots they come in, it's weird, in batches and it's really strange the Stern Monopoly game early 2000's they all seem to be in well off homes people that are well off own this game maybe it goes together because Monopoly is about money didn't we talk about this once before Probably. Like, some of the Stern games, if the MPU goes down, it's hard to replace because they didn't make a lot of them, or there's no replacement. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah, and also they have problems with their, like, their Rollercoaster Tycoon. Right, that's the one I'm thinking, but that's not Monopoly, two different things? They're two different games, but they're in the same time frame. They're the same, you know, same stuff, same guts. and they get a problem with their, sometimes with their sound generation. They can have issues. And the monopoly I just worked on in Lincoln, Mass., that guy had some kind of, he didn't really care. I heard a sound issue. He didn't hear it. But so I wasn't there to fix that. I was there to actually just get the game working again. That was a really strange one. That one was, I thought it was something simple at first. Oh, yeah, the game just won't serve a ball. But is it looking to play the game? Oh, yeah, it powers up. It lights up and hits the start button, and it says start, but it says, hey, you know, shoot the ball, whatever. I can take the pinball, put it in the game, flip the flippers around and play the game, and you lose the ball, and it won't come back out again. It's like, okay, so you've got a switch issue or a solenoid issue or a wire broke off of something in the trough or the solenoid or maybe a MOSFET transistor for that, someone who kicks the ball. It's like, okay, no problem. You know, I'm thinking, go there. They're like, no, no. Can I answer? Yeah, go ahead. You answer. Go ahead, George. Does this game have multiball? Yes. Do you only have one ball in the machine? No. If you did that, the game would say missing pinball, looking for pinball. Okay. Yeah, the game is smarter to do that. Yeah, smart enough to do that. He doesn't have enough balls. Whoops. Yeah, whoops. So, easy, George. So, yeah, it was basically, there was a fuse blown on the main board, on the driver board, for solenoids. It's like, okay. And then I noticed there was another fuse blown for lights. It's like, okay, and there's two fuses blown. And I think one or two of them were overfused, of course. you know, where a 1 amp fuse goes, why not put a 1 amp slow-bow, you know, to substitute that, you don't have one. A 5 or a 10? No, a 15 amp. Sometimes you need a 35. Yeah. Sometimes you need a 35 amp in there. You know, whatever you got. A tinfoil, penny. Moke them if you got them. Yeah. You know, why not? So I looked at that, and it's like, okay, let me put my – I have these special circuit breaker things I bought, all different amperages. I said, I'm going to use that and not blow out a bunch of my shoe stock. It's like at a buck a pop. I'm not going to do that. So I hook up my little, you know, alligator clips in there. I put it on there, and I still get nothing working. It's like, what is going on here, you know? I get alligator clips are there. Everything's there. It's like maybe my circuit breaker's not working right. So then I took a bunch of shoes, put it in there, and it popped right away. It's like, okay. I realized later on that how does this happen? but one of my alligator clips had non-continuity. It was broken internally. Oh, jeez. So my chest equipment was falling apart. Yeah, that hurts. Oh, it sucks. So I just kept, like, popping fuses and trying things. You know, I popped about four fuses and go, okay, enough of this crap. Let's see. So I started, you know, researching, and I started unplugging. Let's unplug everything from the play field before I started popping fuses. Let's unplug it from the play field, have the game on, put the fuse in there, and see if the game blew the fuse. No, it didn't blow the fuse. Great. Let's start popping in play field connectors back into the driver board one by one. And slowly I put one in. No. Another one. No. And like the last one, slowly putting in there, I see a spark on one of the pins. Okay. That pin there is a problem. There's a dead short somewhere. try to find that looking at the coil that it's talking about, I could do a schematic, it's over on this pump bumper you know, okay, this is the one, now I measured the diode on it, that measured good the resistance of the coil is good alright, so I'm just going to replace the diode on this coil okay, somehow it's shorting, even though it doesn't say it's shorted, and try again, boom it freaking sparks again, it's like, okay before you can blow the fuse it's like, alright, well I'm gonna, I've been on this game too long, I'm already at the maximum amount this guy wants to spend and he wanted to get it working, so fill in the blank, how long did this take, hours? hours, I'm there for like I basically, he, you know, he paid for me to be there for like maybe two or three hours, including parts and I was pushing up to hour two and a half or so and still no solution, and still no It's like, okay, I'm going to do this. And so basically, I pulled the wire off of that connector that's causing the spark to go to the lower pop-up. There's like six pop-up in there. And the lowest one isn't really used that much at all, but that's the one that's causing the problem. So I just like pulled it off the wire, pulled it up there, tied it off, and now game power's up great. No more blown fuses, but the lower pop-upper doesn't work, but it scores points. But when you play the game, it doesn't, it's no big deal. I told him, but I said, well. It becomes like a dead bumper. It's a dead bumper, but who cares? It's not even really used. Right, it's not like it's up on top of the machine where it's important to be active. And on top of it, he doesn't play, his kids, his young kids play the game. They just like to whack the ball around. They don't really care. Can I put a bow on this? Go ahead. A man or woman has a lot of money. Keep the kids happy. I'm happy. End of story. Right, right. They want to send the kids downstairs to be away from them, and they can play all this stuff downstairs. You have good customers. Yeah. A lot of times. Yeah, I do. I do. I have very nice customers. And sometimes I get some weirdos. I get a weirdo story, too. This one. Every basket has one. Yeah. You know, the amount of customers I see, you're going to have, you know, some weirdo. But the majority, 99%, all, you know, regular, good people, you know, get the head on their shoulders correctly. This one was a Stern Star Wars Home Edition. They made in the early, well, actually, they made it a couple years ago. I think 2019. Yeah, that Home Edition was recent, wasn't it? Yeah, recent. Yeah, right. Right around that time. Yeah. and I know I worked on one of these before and I remember saying there's something weird with this game it's not a bad knock off of the original everything's pretty much the same they did kind of dumb it down a little bit the display for it the score display it's like a little tiny I don't know 4 inch by 4 inch LCD in the head of the game that if you don't have good eyes you have a hard time seeing what's going on. You need to really squint over the machine to look at this display to see what your score is, so it's tiny. So they saved money. They saved a lot of money in this game. And they saved money stupidly in this part. They put a fall-of-particle board play field in the game and painted it with graphics. So when you have a ball knocking things around, hitting things, hit screws and whatever, those screws are coming loose real quick, and good luck trying to sock them back down tight because it doesn't hold like real wood. It's like, you know, it's not substantial. It's wood particles and glue. Yeah it crap So this guy this guy older guy I think he like in his 70s or something he lives alone And I found later on he like oh I kind of he in like not the best section He's like near Brockton, you know, not really the best section of town. And I was like, I don't know. I said, oh, no, whatever it takes. I don't care. I just want this running. I've had like four other techs try to work on it. And some people, one guy, they don't call me back. And they work on it. It doesn't work again. And I just want someone like you, an expert, to look at it. And, you know, money's no object. I don't care. I just want it working nice again. And, you know, it's like, okay. Now, I never really talked real money with him, but I just think, okay, you know. Then I found out he's in an apartment. It's like, okay, maybe it's a nice, you know, upscale apartment. We arrived at the place, built in 1960-something. The rugs are all torn up and, like, smoky. This is not your typical customer. No, no, no, no. I was ready to say, I should have turned right around. I was going to say, I'm trying to get a box in the door. But he showed up at the door. He's saying, hey, it's right up here. It's like, okay, we go in there. And it just looks, this place just needed a whole, it's like, it's like Pintastic. Affumigation? It's like Pintastic Hotel in Sturbridge, you know. Oh, oh, Boulderama. Yeah, right, yeah. Oh, rummage sale. Rummage sale. So go in there. It's like, all right, we'll see what happens. And he's all, you know, excited about it. So go in the place. There's a recliner in the kitchen. You walk in front of the door, the kitchen's right there. It's one just kitchen, living room in the same room, and then two bedrooms off of that. Not much space. But in that space, he has a recliner right in the kitchen in front of the stove. Then he's got a big pool table. a big pool table to take the rest of the room a big screen TV and a lot of junk around and then the other room is the pinball machine that he had to move some stuff out of the way so and then I said oh the guy that was working before you could you know call him up and see what he did and say okay so I did I called him up I called him up yeah no I did and I called him up and the nice guy he said oh yeah I worked in madness I told him that he needs to get rid of the game. He plays the crap out of that game. Understand, that thing was so filthy dirty, the black rubber, and this guy cleaned it and fixed it, and then two months later it failed again. He said, oh, yeah, I've had enough with that guy, and I told him what to do with it. But, you know. What, shove it out the door or burn it? Yeah, pretty much, burn it. But he gave me an idea of what he did and what the problem was, never mind from the customer end. I got up at Tech End and said, okay, I understand what's going on. it's the ball lock issue the R2D2 ball lock issue there's like two slots where the ball just kind of comes down to pop over from the top gets lodged in there and then you use your flipper with another ball hit it like you know ball to ball thing knock it out and then you start multiball what was happening was the whole assembly was using optos because things got knocked around in the particle board it got out of alignment so it thinks it's always in multiball, it gets confused, it shuts down, it's just all confused. Is this item, this R2-D2 thing, in any other game that Stern produces? I don't think so. I think it's only in this game. Of course. I guess I knew that before we even started. Wow. Okay, so unique thing. Unique thing. I'm guessing it's never going to be put in a game again. Probably not. Well, definitely not a Fallout Particle Board game. So we get there, and he's like, he said, well, let me just show you what he's doing. Let me show you. It's like, okay. And he's playing the game and playing the game. It's like, let me just, you know, take the, I'm waiting there for like 10 minutes while I'm playing the game. Can I just get going? The clock's ticking, you know, and, you know, you're paying, paying, paying. I'm not doing any work yet, so I'm here. I'll figure it out. So finally he got off the game, and I found out what it was. I looked, and I went under the game, saw what the previous tech did. It was all, he tried to bolt it back in. It was all screwed up. It was all torn apart wood down below where this opto board was sending a signal to the receiver board on top. And that's why it wasn't lined up. So I basically did my usual bamboo skewer and wood glue and filled all that stuff area with, like, nice bamboo wood and glue to make it solid, pounded it all down to make a nice new surface to remount some proper holes the right way, and I did that, lined it up, and then it was perfect. But then after that, I said, well, I'll give it a little cleanup and then I put some new silicone clear rubber on it and kind of, it needed a good cleaning too, you know. So I did all that and then I think we were there for like, I don't know, four hours or so. But as I'm really, now I get into working on these games and Maureen's with me, you know, and she usually helps. And I was going to go out to the car and usually go to the car and get more stuff. And she looked at me and was like, you're not leaving me here. I'm going with you to the car. It's like, okay. So what's the punchline? Well, she was getting a weird vibe because he kept giving her gifts. Here's a little light for you. Here's a pen. Kept giving her stuff, you know. And then he's talking about, you know, his wife left him. He's talking about his daughter used to stay there for, like, you know, for ten years, and all of a sudden he went to some island somewhere for a week and came back to the note on the door saying, I've moved out. Oh, boy. And he's never heard from her since. It's like, okay. Do you ever think, what do people think of these stories? God, maybe I'm not going to call Dave. You're going to end up as a sorrier. Just stay away from him. No. Let him do his thing. No, if you're a normal person, normal, nice person, no. Only the weirdos hit the spotlight like this, and there's not many of them. So it's very – I have one that dovetails it right now. Okay. I'm looking – I'm still jonesing for a game, right? And I don't want to overpay. So for the first time, I go out onto Craigslist. I think you said something about it in the last show. I'm like, yeah, let me go look. So I find this game in Fairfax, Virginia, a Valley Playboy. And I'm like, okay. The guy basically says in his ad that he's 74 years old, that he's got arthritis. Well, no S, because I went and looked at these pictures, and he said he posted some more. I can't even imagine what the first ones looked like. These were bad. So I couldn't really get a beat on it. But then I get to the bottom of the ad, and it says, this is not negotiable. I stand firm in my pride. I'm like, okay, this dovetails with Dave's story. Weirdos, stay away. Not worth it. Plus, it was two grand, and the game looked like it was beat with chains. I'm like, this guy has a really high opinion of this game. But they're out there. Lots of people do. Plus, Playboy's not worth it. Not a good game. I never really. I just have a fondness because it was the first game my buddy Jack bought brand new. A lot of memories playing that game because he used to haul around, I think I told the story in the Playboy podcast that we did, that my buddy Tom shoved that game in the back of a rabbit and brought it to my house for a bachelor party. So the game made the rounds, and we always had a lot of fun with it. But I get it. It's not for everybody. so I'm going to circle back to the little story here so Maureen and I come back in with more parts and I'm really getting into it when I get into the game I don't even take a drink I don't stop for anything I'm so focused on getting this thing a task at hand that she usually has to feed me water and feed me a cracker and just keep going so after a while I'm almost three quarters done she goes can you hurry up because things are getting weird well what are you talking about because she's watching me work, but she's watching other things going on. It's like, it's like, he's on, like, the third alcoholic drink right now, and, don't you smell that going on? Smelling what? He's been doing bong hits, constantly, in the other room. Oh, my God. And then he comes in, then I stare, and I say, okay. Then he comes in with some music, some old, chubby checker music or something, and then Elvis crap. It was, well, Don't you like my music? I go, it's okay. Wait, wait. Okay. Did you at least get paid? I was just going to that too, George. Oh, no. So as we're going out to get more parts, imagine this. We're going through the kitchen, and he's in this recliner with a big bong with, like, Dirty Bung Water from 1975 still in this frickin' thing. And he's mid-hit while he's saying, where are you going? Where are you going? He's like, mid-hit. And there are two matches. It's like, we'll be right back. You know? You can't... You can't write this stuff. I'm sorry. I need to write a book. No, you know what? I thought of this. And I think it would be a good episode. I should go back and find all, we should talk about the crazy stories that you've put forward in the 125 episodes we've done and do a best of. Yeah, I like it. Yeah, the compilation. Because you have some really funny stories. I do. So, and then with, so the ending of the story is, come back in, finish the game, plays it, and then he's, so let me play test. Now, he's totally off his rocker and freaking soused. And he can barely stand. He's, like, almost ready to fall over. And he's trying to play the game. He's trying to play the game, and it keeps, hey, I'm getting more than, I'm having five balls again. I'm getting, like, ball eight and nine. Why can't I get as many balls? Sir, your stomach keeps hitting the start button on top of the lockdown bar, so you keep trying to see the score you can't see. And it keeps pressing up players by accident. It's like you're done. I think you're done playtesting. The game works fine. We just want to get out and get paid. So they're, okay, yeah, yeah, well, let me know. I'll get a check. Oh, no. So he got the check and said, well, how much is it? And I said, it's like, well, it's like, oh. And the first person trying to write the check, he can't even write a check. He can't even, it's like, you know what, I'll write it for you. So I'm writing the check. You know? I've got to go to the car. My brother's holding the traveler's check. I need to help him write it out. He can't even write. He can't because he's so drunk. He can't do anything. Okay? So he's trying to write. So I'm writing. Okay. Well, I'm going to be like, oh, I only have $300 in my checking account. It's like, God. You know, that's not enough. No, not for the time of the party. So you didn't put more parts in this thing? I did before this part, but hold on. Hold on. They said, he said, you know, but. You're pulling them out? No, no, no, no. They said, well, did you take credit cards? It's like, well, not usually, but I can. So I'll pay a credit card. I got to pay fees on it. So we'll split the fees. So I charged him the credit card. And he was like, oh, wow, that's a good amount of money. It's like, yeah, well, the game's fixed now, isn't it? And I said, well, is it going to be fixed for a while? It's like, yes, it should be. But, again, you have a fall particle board game. And it's like anything can happen. Especially the way you're playing it 24-7 all the time. Who knows? But so, I don't know. When the phone rings next time, I don't think the good doctor is going to be on the range. Don't even wait for that. Just put the don't accept the phone. Get that right away. Oh, my God. So the moral of the story is, I'll go back to the tech you spoke to. You have the wrong game for what you're trying to do. You need a commercial model. Yes. Sell the game. But it sounds like, it doesn't even sound like the game is, he'd probably freak out because he's not going to get enough money out of it. Anyway, just leave it alone. I think he spent $4, 700 in this game. Oh, you just froze. What did you freeze for? There you go. You're not frozen. He spent $4, 700 in this game for Maine Home Recreation. He bought that and a pool table from them, got them delivered to him back a couple years ago. Of course he did. A couple years ago. I don't know how he afforded it back then, but then he starts saying oh I have I have a lot of money I have no one to leave it to because everyone left me I'm all by myself it's like okay you have all this money somehow whatever that means and he said he does I don't know a couple hundred grand or something I don't know what he said it's like okay well then why are you giving me a hard time by partying with someone to make your the only thing you do in life is get stoned and play pinball you know I'll make your dream come alive for you know not too much though okay that's that's a good story Dave so I'm going to be like Pac-Man I'm going to be one of the ghosts because he's got plenty of ghosts I'm going to join the ranks how much time do we have left? not too much let's see no we've got about five minutes okay are you done with that story? because I have something to talk about yeah I have more stories but that was pretty much the highlight. We'll go to the next segment with your story. Sure. If we have a little bit of time here. So, I was channeling this past week my Dr. Dave. Okay. Guess what I finally got around to? I replaced all three flippers in Embryon. Alright. Folks, it's been a while since I did one. What a difference. It was like night and day. There you go. Well done. So here's my question, Dave. As part of this exercise, George had to go on the great treasure hunt, as always, to find parts. Well, lo and behold, I found a box with all the parts already in it. I'm like, wow, when the hell did I do this? It must be like two years ago. So all the parts were sitting in a box. I'm like, okay, I can do this. it was good it was it's a lot of work but it was well worth it my question is I've got all these parts I found from Skatefall and Xenon and did Hot Dog Enhance those kinds? no I don't know is this stuff worth anything? would anybody want it? Well, what is it? They don't even call them falls. Are these linear flippers? Yeah, the linear flipper stuff. I have a box full of it. They don't call it a fall. They call it a lever. I must have 10 or 15 of them. Old or new? All used. I've been chucking them. Years ago, somebody on Pinside. Yeah, I have them, and they suck. Those little nylon things. No, no, not that. No, I'm saying, well, I got that from, what's his name, the blue nylon thing. I was doing that years ago from... Yeah, well, it worked for a while until I realized you can actually convert this stuff to the proper way with the nice Barry Mata Hari style. But there was a guy in Pinside who was a real hardcore, I want the real old school stuff that was in that game, and I sold him all my stuff. It's like, here, take all this crap. It's linear flip. You can have it. It's junk. So people that are in the know and have any kind of clue will not put that linear flipper stuff in their game. I'm going to throw it out there right now. I chuck it. I'm going to two shows. I just throw it out. If you want it, email me. I'll give you a box full of stuff. Oh, what about your buddy, what do you call him, light bulb Bob? I don't know. Rubber Bob? Jerry bulb. Jerry. Jerry and Jerry bulbs. Oh, Jerry bulb. Bob, whatever. Jerry. I've got rubbers and bulbs and all kinds of crap. Does he like used stuff? Because I can give him the whole box full if he does. He might. I mean, he's going to be with Dave again and have a booth with all their crap they sell. They have a bunch of stuff that, I mean, they both have good stuff, but then they both kind of. Maybe they should just give it to them and let them. Yeah, they can bring it. Over the years, they've accumulated so much crap, they just kind of put it all out there and just, you know. I'm just going to put it in a box with a sign that says free, take what you want. People like free. Yeah, that's what I figured because I'm never going to use any of that stuff. So, you know, the Great Treasure Hunt, oh, what I did find on the Great Treasure Hunt was for $37.99, you can get them at Marco. What's the one they call? You know, the, oh, the bar for the backbox, the back glass lock rail from Bally, right? You know, the thing that you put the key in and it's in your backbox. Okay, yeah. The rail that goes in there with all the little mechanics, you know, the screws and whatever. Yeah. $37.99. I had three of them. I needed one for Embryon. I never put it in. I didn't have one. So this whole assembly locks the back glass in. Correct. And they still have them? Yes, $37.99. But I had three of them from all the games I took apart. So I was pretty psyched about that. Marco is good for that stuff. He's hard to find. No one else has. He does come across with different things that's been kind of cool. You're going to pay for it, but it works out. Right. So, Georgie's Treasure Hunt yielded exactly what he was looking for. So, I'm waiting for my next order from Pinball Life. I got some rubbers and some other crap from them. Continue to work on my games while it's freaking cold out and snowy. Thought I left all that crap behind. We just got home from my mother's place. We stayed down there again for a couple days, doing a lot of honey-do lists for her down there. So I feel that need for her, you know, besides visiting her and playing cards with her is fun, but I do a lot of stuff, projects that no one else can do. I'm the guy. I'm the tech guy, so I get everything done for her. So I came home last night, and I don't know. Usually people are, you know, some neighbors are better than others, but let's put it this way. no one showed up in my driveway no one did anything and it was snow here and ice on top of it and you couldn't even get in the front door so at around 11 o'clock at night I got in the house and took an ice scraper and chopped them way through and it's just like a sheet of ice out in the front driveway and we have cold weather coming up on top of this so this stuff ain't leaving anytime soon so it blows sounds like Ice Station Zebra it is and everyone else is driving around and this is all like clear and black top driveway ours is crap you know and our next door neighbor same problem, they were away as well. We got about 30 seconds, I think. Okay, why don't we cut date and I've got a couple other things. I'm sure you've got another story and we'll wrap it. Okay, sounds good. We'll see you on the other side. Yep. It's been a while since we've done a long-form show like this, Mr. Dave? Sure has. About time. Do you have another story, or would you like me to bring up a subject? Let me look over my code of the notes here. I'll have a... This is a feel-good one. This is a supersonic day spa for an elderly couple on the South Shore. I think they were in their 90s. And they own this game since 1980. And the game came out in 79, I believe. And it's actually a very nice cosmetic shape. A beautiful back glass, nice cab. Playfield a little bit of wear. But not bad. Especially, they never really got it cleaned or anything. And it looked pretty darn good. He replaced a couple rubbers here and there, but a lot of them were kind of rotted off. So we spent probably, I think, six hours there yesterday going through it. the game was still working. The battery on the main original MPU board was all fuzzy and rotted, and things were starting to grow on it. I can't believe the thing was still booting and playing. It looked terrible. So I got the thing out of there, put a Weebly in there, and went through all the boards and the usual day spot thing. Can I stop you for a sec? Yeah. Because I'll forget. What's the deal with the Weebly NV RAM? Does he not sell that anymore? No, he doesn't sell it anymore. He used to, not anymore. So is there a story behind that? We can come back to it later on. But I thought he was the guy. He was the guy. Years ago, I think when he first kicked off his website, maybe it was a way to get everyone's money. And they were cheap, right? They were like $10 each or something? $10 each. They're $30. Oh, I know. He had the best deal on them. I was buying them by, I don't know, the 10s and 20s, you know? I don't have any. That's why I was asking. I was shocked. I'm like, 30 bucks? What happened to 10? Well, the other place I tried to get them from, they're like 30 bucks. I was trying to get them discounted quantity. I got crickets. Nobody wanted to answer for quantity. It's like, you know what? Okay, screw all y'all, except for Andrew. I like him weevily, you know, because he has plenty of good boards besides NVRAM. He does awesome boards. So I buy exclusively from him for boards. But for NVRAM now, you can get it on eBay. For five bucks a pop. For Ramtron poles from old fax machines over in China. They're all poles. I haven't heard a bad one yet. And they work great. Okay. Glad I asked. Go back to your story. So the elderly couple with the supersonic. Let me guess. He was an ex-pilot. No. But they have four girls who are now in their, I don't know, 40s, 50s or whatever. They all love playing pinball. He loves playing pinball. They always go over and war on it. They, you know, up until like two years ago, he had to get two knees replaced and hip replaced, and he hasn't played pinball in a while, and the flipper was broken on it. So when he finally said, okay, time for you to play, Tess, it was late at night, and then he's like, wow, this thing plays better than when I first got it. It's so fast. It's like I have to get, I have to get, his eye coordination was not as good as it used to be. That's what the game's flying on. It's even worse now. and especially he saw me play a test game after I was done, just a quickie test game, and he hit it on five balls, and I said, do you want to oh, I want to try, okay, and I put up 300, 000 points without really trying, and he goes wow, that puts me to shame it's like, yeah, it's just a test game I have mine on five balls too I probably shouldn't, but I do you shouldn't, that's only for EMs no, I got a couple of them I got a couple of feel-good games, you can't have them all just be pounders well just press the start button again start again no I even play games when I'm really doing rotten I play them all the way through because you could have that one good ball and I have so I don't know the age old question do you press another game halfway through do you continue I can press the button anytime I want yeah it's kind of like a mojo I'm waiting for the right mojo to hit me then all of a sudden a killer game you know so I keep pressing them out especially I'm doing crappy the first two balls I only have one more ball left it's like nah I want to get a little better start so so I get that but they were the supersonic people they were happy in fact they couldn't believe the wife there you know she's like an old grandma she's saying I feel bad for you she's not like an old grandma well she is yeah but she also sounds like Mama Celeste you know I think they're Italian Mama Celeste coming there and she goes well let me get you something I wish I I wish I you know I'd make dinner for you and this and that. Like, I can't just see you just working the whole time until this time of night, and you guys don't. So she, so she, oh, no, we're all setting a ship. She brought us, you know, crackers and cheese and other stuff. She kept making things for us, brownies and all this stuff. She said, oh, really, thank you. Mine's a David. You're a good boy. Yeah. Yeah, she was a sweetheart. You know, they're both sweethearts. They're very nice people. And, yeah, they loved the game. They loved the service. And it was really nice. It was a nice, you know, way better than Mr. Star Wars over there. Yeah, that's called night and day. Yeah, night and day. Oh, yeah. I got one for you. Have you ever seen, did you see this on Pinside? A company called Sitara Guitars? No. They take playfields, and I'll give you a list, and turn them into guitar bodies. That's pretty neat. I like that. Okay, so here's the list. I saw some of the pictures of these. Evil Knievel, and Big Game. Now here's a question. Are they using CPR new playfields for these, or used playfields? No, some of them looked like they were vintage playfields. They said, we try not to, you know, I think they do some cosmetic touch-up and put, you know, things in the right place, because they said it's hard, you know, with all the light bezels on a play field to get it in the right spot so that the pickups aren't interfered. So there was a whole thing to it. So CITARA, I'll spell it, C-I-T-H-A-R-A Guitars. It's out on Pinside. There's some pictures. Pretty cool. Oh, I like it. That's great. Go ahead. It's your turn. C-I-T-H-A-R-A Guitars. All right, just going to check this out later. There we go. Okay. Let's see. What else? Um, Twilight Zone and Concord, um, going back on, that was, um, I don't know, some of these times when I do these day spas, I, I, especially for any kind of wide body 90s pin, it's typically, I'm finding out that it's not just a one day thing. It's either, it's either two, three, or sometimes a four day day spa thing on these things. It really should be in-house at this point because there's just so much stuff to, you know. You've got to take it apart, then you've got to put it back together again. Put it back together, and you find all the stuff, and you have all these parts to put in. You've got to tweak it. It's so much crap. So I'm doing this one guy getting into the toilet zone and, you know, spent a good day there and hit most of the stuff. And, you know, I'm going to go back. He says, well, I want to try to keep a certain amount of money. It's like, well, I think I can work with that. But, you know, I want to include, you know, getting a color D&D. It's like, well, for that money, I don't think I'm going to be able to, other things are going to suffer. I can't work on this thing over here if I'm going to do that. That color D&D is big, good money, you know. Is it because people haven't done any work on the games at all, and it's just come to the point where now you need somebody? Yeah, they haven't done much work on the game and let things go. And so now there's so many assemblies on that game that are having a problem, and there are all these toys that break and each toy you work on is time and money and then only so much time in a day so I get to tell him he got a certain amount of money to play with for the next installment it going to be a two day day spa when I done with it like the clock on Twilight Zone I'm surprised this is actually sort of working it worked once and then didn't quite work as this clock is broken which just happens all the time in these games you've got to replace the clock board on it and I said I have the power, I can do it but it's time and money for that I'm pretty sure it doesn't affect the game like clock millions and that kind of thing. I don't think it does. But he's having all kinds of other opto issues. He's an opto board. He's having some other... I told him that he should have played after we worked there last time for a whole day. I said, you know what? We're going to come back. We have more work to do. So it's not a finished product yet. But play it a bunch and let me know what else you find out in the meantime. So he, after like 20 games or whatever, he had a whole laundry list of things that he found wrong with it that there's still issues that we didn't get to address yet. So it's like, okay, well, we're... Did he see the progress in the first time you were there, like the things you did fix? So he's not sitting there going, wow, I got this long list. It doesn't look like he did anything. No, he knows we did a lot of work. He saw the work we did. But he's one of these kind of analytical engineer types that's, you know. Yeah, that doesn't help your cause. You know what? I heard this recently, and I fully believe it, and it applies to this game. you better know something about fixing something if you own a modern. They were talking about a modern Stern. But I would say if you've got a game that's feature-rich, i.e. mechanics, you better know something about it because if not, it's a costly game. You should probably own something a little more simple so it's not apt to break as much. Well, here's what I told him, and here's what I tell other people. It's how much you do all that. They get a little sticker shock. I said, well, you know your game is worth $9, 000, $10, 000, $11, 000, $12, 000, $15, 000 restored, so it's not throwing money to an old car. And these things cost money, and you got the game for a couple grand a couple years ago, and now it's worth like $10, 000. So it's worth putting a couple grand into it or more. And these parts aren't cheap. They keep going up. So my cost for my parts is going up. you know, I'm going to pass it along. Sorry, that's how it goes. Or flip the game, buy something brand new, and pocket the rest, and you're in better shape. You've got something that's not, you know, a mechanical marvel. But, you know, to each his own. A lot of people like that game. I'd still take a 90s pin, Valley Williams pin over a new Stern. Okay, so there you go. But see, I know how to work on it. I know the parts it needs, and I can make it all nice and brand new again. You know, so that's the thing. Right. You're making my point. Yeah. What else did I work on? In Swamp Scout, I worked on Elvira Scared Stiff. That had lots of issues there. I think, oh, you know what he did? He tried to replace, well, the game was on. He tried to replace an Eddie board with the game on. What was that? What? Yeah. What a. I think it was in the middle of some kind of pinball, some kind of party he was having. Well, he's having a party, and someone complained this thing isn't sensing the ball hits like it's supposed to. It's like, oh, well. So in the middle of everything, probably a couple of drinks might have been involved. I don't know. So it all just took care of really quickly. Yes, you do now. Yeah. Yeah, maybe. Probably. So he did that, and all of a sudden, boom, a lot of crap wasn't working after that. So they tried to back out of it or something else. So he kept going. So he was struggling with it. He did all kinds of testing on it because he has somewhat of a clue about technical stuff, but he couldn't figure it out. So, you know, ring, ring Dr. Dave, and I went out there and fixed all the issues with the game. But he didn't want me to do my triple day spot because he wants to do that himself. It's like, okay, well, here's what we do, and, you know, I have all the parts and the know-how and how to do it the right way. But he just wanted me to know, I just want you to do the tech stuff I can't handle. I said, all right, I'll just do that part. Not usually what I do, but sometimes in special cases I'll do, you know, bullet point things they want. With understanding that if something I didn't touch fails the next day, it's not on me. That's why I like to do the whole game so that everything's all done. You don't hear from me for a while. I had a road show. Not my favorite game in Natick. Can we talk about this? Yeah. I went back there. That was four days of work on that game. You went there four days? Four times, and he did so much work. Yep. Wow. And weird. I know if we talked about this. Well, we talked about it, but I'll segue into it. We talked about it because of Scott Weiss, the guy we met out at Pimbro. Yeah, Pimbro. Pimbro, yeah. Okay. Right, that game. So, go ahead. Continue. So, this game is a weird problem that if you put a colored DMD in the game, and to call it DMD, to get power, it wise off power from the 12-volt opto-supply on the main driver board, which usually isn't a problem because it has plenty of power there and to spare so it can power a little bit of thing to the DMD LED board, LED display. So, and it booted up, it ran great, but I noticed that the left flipper, it has three left flippers, it's a little weaker than the right, like I can't really get it to ramp, it's weak. What is going on here? It wasn't like that before, so I thought it was the opto for the flipper or this and that. And then come to find out, I did, you know, pin size grapefizz. I do a search for this weird thing. Other people have the same problem. Roadshow is the only game that was noted that having put a colored DMD in the game, it affects power to the left flipper for whatever reason. So what I did is fast forward a couple days later and said, hey, the color DMD is like static key, and then when it warms up, it gets better, but it's weird. It's like, okay, you need a new DMD driver board. So I put a brand new one in there to fix the problem, and then I realized, oh, what else does that color DMD driver board have? It has a special power outlet for a color DMD board, so it doesn't use the Williams power. Oh, wow, cool. So it was made for that reason. Yeah, and I put it right to there, boom, took care of the left. It fixed multiple problems with that new board in there. What board was that? That's a Pinsound board. Pinsound makes it. It is a DMD driver board. Okay. From Pinsound. So I want to dovetail into your Road King story. So Scott Weiss and Chris B. Road Show. Oh, okay. Oh, it was Road Kings we met him with. Okay. I wasn't listening close enough. Sorry. Yeah, you got two roads going down the wrong road. Roadshow is the one with the heads, right? Yeah, Red and Ted's Roadshow. Or Ned, whatever. Red and Ted, and it's an annoying thing. You hit a certain thing, it does like a screech and a crash sound. Yeah, okay. I know the game. So, anyway. Well, this doesn't tough, Dale, but I've got to say it now. So, Scott Weiss and his wife, Christy, are now part of the ownership of the Nickel City Pinball Club outside of Buffalo. Okay. So, brand new pinball club. Go out and hit up Nickel City Pinball if you're in that area. They're taking memberships. I think they have open houses, tournaments, etc. So, congratulations to those two. I know they both listen. Oh, you know who I heard from? David Golden. He was commenting on the Mitchell Lights thing that I was talking about a couple episodes ago. Okay. So he reached out and said, hey, you know, never heard of it. Excuse me. Going to go out and buy some and put one in some of the eminence. So pretty cool. Sorry, drink of water. Did I tell you the story of John Day at your party? No. Okay. So I asked him this question. There was a post out on Pinside that I tried to help, or at least understand my position. Guy was talking about the skill shot on Medusa. And you know you have those five rollovers of the Gorgons? And as you roll over it, if you prime the shot correctly, they light up and they stay lit? Yeah. Well, he was saying he's adjusted it every which way to Sunday, and he can't get them to all light up at the same time. Like one will light, number three will light, number five, one and two and five. There's never all five at the same time, and he was wondering why. And I said, well, somebody told me that the ball might be skipping over some of the rollovers because you're going too fast. And he said, I've adjusted it six ways to Sunday. So I asked John Day the question. Dave way beyond my skill set I'm like whoa okay I can't communicate this John I wish you could answer this guy but I'd like to know the answer if somebody has it he said something with capacities does that switch have do those five switches have caps on them the five switches for which on the left of the right lane? Medusa for the Gorgon, the skill shot. That's a good question. So I'm throwing it out to the audience. I don't own mine anymore. I sold it. But I'd like to know the answer because it happened on my game and I played with it. I finally just gave up. I said, you know what? I can't figure it out. I've tried a million ways to Sunday. So I understand this guy's frustration, but nobody answered him. So, I don't know. they didn't make a lot of them, so that might be part of it. Yeah, how many did they make? 3, 000, some of that? I think 2, 000. 2, 000, okay. I don't have it in front of me, but I know they didn't make a lot of them. I still own one. I have yet, with a new play seal to put into it, I have yet to do it yet, because what causes me pause to actually get the game up and running, because I don't like that third button for the middle post there. I wish it was just a static post like Nineball and Stars have instead of that stupid one like from Fireball 2. Same thing. It has a little middle thing. It's always giving you the middle finger all the time. Yeah. I sold mine. No regrets. I got one shout out. I want to give a shout out to Keith Campanelli at Pimbrew. mentioned it a couple times in the show. Unfortunately, not going to be attending because it's the same weekend as Pinfest. No, not Pinfest. Pintastic. Sorry. Pintastic. So, not this year, guys. Sorry. Yeah, I'd like to hit that show again. I wish I could, again, with the word dovetail, dovetail it into a Cedar Point, Ohio rollercoaster fest. It's just tough this time of year. It is. There's so many shows. I mean, Texas is going to be kicking off in a month. And then I heard David Marston say, pinball at the zoo, and then his show, and the other show. And by the time you're done, you're already into June, summertime, not much going on. And then back in the fall, and off we go. So, yeah, it goes quick. But I'm looking forward to I'm looking forward to Pinfest this year. I booked my room, so I'm going to stay over Friday night, not make the mad dash back and forth four hours each way. Okay, where are you staying? The Sheraton, I think, by Dorney Park. I stayed there. It's compact. It's good. They got a bar. Food's okay. Are you doing a solo run, or are you going with Janice? I think it's going to be solo run, I think. I'm not sure yet. We haven't gotten that far yet. Okay. So there's that. I've got to show and tell if you want. Sure. Okay. How do I get to camera? There we go. Can you see me? I can see you. Okay. Where do I hold this? Okay. Oh, I see it, yeah. Can you read that? Yeah, I can. Okay, who is it? Mike Paycak. Paysek. Mike Paysek. So I was treasure hunting, and I came across these business cards. So, yes, I have his card. We talked about him recently. At AOL. He's an AOL guy still. Is that still around, AOL? I have no idea. Oh, hey, look. Hey, there you go. Dr. Dave's pinball. How old is this? I know it's probably got a million of them, but I just found it. I don't know how old it is. The cool thing is I like what you did to the back. Thank you. That picture there is from my Fireball Classic. It's a nice close-up shot of that. I put that in the back of the card. That's pretty cool. I like that. Oh, this is a good one. my card sir I am somewhat of a BS artist myself but occasionally I enjoy listening to a professional please carry on that's good that's great that's one oh here's one do you remember this guy where is all my going here do you remember this guy Bismo no Oh, you don't remember this guy? No, it looks like he has the Blues Brothers. He used to show up at pinball events in the Blues Brothers cop car. It looks kind of familiar. Oh, he was a trip. I can't believe I found this. He had the business card with his name. Bismo at Yahoo.com. I wonder if that's still active. And then he must have had a website, HailTheTiki.com, whatever that is. Yeah, keep going. So here's one. Did Zach Menny buy this business? And do you know who Larry Kitchen is? I don't. Larry Kitchen? Hmm. That's an interesting name. Isn't that a weird card? But it's flipping out pinball. That's Zach Menny, you know, the guy who sells all the Stern stuff. Larry Kitchen. He's actually the cousin of Robbie Livingroom, I think. Okay. Okay, here's one for you, Dave. You can comment if you'd like. Oh, yeah. Interesting. I know very hard to get a hold of. A lot of people say... We'll leave it at that. Yes. And do you know this guy? I haven't heard from him. I shouted him out early when we started this, but not in a long time. Don't know him. You don't know Mark Roller? No. Guy used to work for Disney, like the parade floats and stuff. He's really good with animatronics and stuff. And a real EM guy. Used to come from Florida, living somewhere near Disney, all the way to Allentown every year. And drive this pickup truck that, I think we talked about this in one of the shows. let alone go 10 miles down the road he would go a thousand miles in this thing I don't know how it made it what kind of vehicle what was it for a vehicle when I say old I'm talking like early 60s maybe late 50s I'm talking antique this thing looked like it had been run through the ringer and you said you came from Florida in that all games in the back of it You're talking the pickup truck from Lassie? I'm talking old. But I haven't seen, he hasn't been to Allentown. I don't even know. Again, I throw names out there hoping that in the ether that somebody comes through and hits the website and says, Hey, I'm still here, or I know him, or, you know, whatever. So, Mark Roller from Florida. So that's my show and tell, old business cards. the one that says the BS card, who gave you that one? I don't know I kept it though I thought it was funny I just threw out probably a thousand business cards but these were the pick of the litter so no, I have no idea who gave it to me, somebody speaking of throwing it out, I have so much old stereo equipment I've been holding onto for way too long CD multipliers and a three-disc CD player and all this DVD stuff that I don't need anymore. And, I don't know. Would you like a solution? Yeah, what's your solution, George? You're going to have to wait until next show because I don't remember the name of the place. I took all my old stereo stuff, even some new and boxed stuff, to a place in Haverhill in the old mill. What's the name of the pizza joint that's famous in Haverhill. Oh, crap. Domino's? No. I'm not prepared to talk about it, but I thought about it the other day. That's why he took all my stuff. He's supposed to sell it to other people. I gave him a brand new pair of, what the advent, bookshelf speakers. I think I paid $30 for him. He gets them. He's like, well, these are really nice speakers, but the phone is all disintegrated. I go, well, what the hell do you want? They're 40 years old. They've been in a box for 40 years. So they re-phoned them, and it cost so much that I got nothing for the day. It's like, oh, okay, that was great, but at least somebody got a nice pair of speakers, but I haven't heard from them, so I'm not going to endorse them because I haven't seen dime one. I'm wondering if they're still leaving in business. This guy had stacks, I mean stacks of equipment. There is a place that does like a swap meet, kind of like the Allentown show. That would be better. But it's like all this kind of stereo stuff. Hey, if you don't get rid of it, you got to pay to dispose of it if you want to be legal. There are people that will go to the back of corporate buildings and see a big dumpster there and, you know, keep home. And a lot of those now are locked because of people that do that. If they're smart. A lot of them aren't smart, George. But I wouldn't know anything about that. Me neither, George. No. That's very bad to do. Right. Okay. that's that's my list for today do I have anything else on my list here I think that's it yeah I think that's it I do have a freedom monopoly from before I was talking about I got this lady right now at the same time I got the email about Chronicle wanting to do another episode with me from Southern Connecticut, kind of near Bridgeport, so two hour drive. She wants me to see if I could pick it up, deliver it to her new place in Rhode Island, Plymouth, Rhode Island. I don't know if that's a nice area or not. I think it is, though. And deliver it, and then once I'm delivering it, I then basically day-spart on site of the new place. So, if it all works out, I'm thinking, I've got a better idea. I'll pick it up, bring it back to my shop, do it and then bring it to your new place and then it's all done right, then you can work on it at your leisure and not be under the gun exactly makes sense, what game? Monopoly, Star Monopoly another Monopoly, sorry ok, well what about next month? we're going to do oh, I have some show ideas let me run this by you go ahead how about a show Weird Things in Pinball okay, do you have a sample thing? what are you thinking? I don't know, I just, there's gotta be some strange things that we could make a show out of I just never gave it a lot of thought the guy with the bong that's a strange thing right, but I'm just saying like weird just weird things. I don't know. Just think about it. Okay. Here. I'm going to give David Marston an idea. I would do a show or a seminar for him that would be kind of like a game show. I would solicit a bunch of vendors for their wares. Okay? And then I would have a camera pointed on a dais where I take these products out one at a time and say the first person who identifies it could win it or something along those lines. What do you think? Not a bad idea. I think I like your... Promotion for the product. Yep. Fun atmosphere. People are winning stuff. and, you know, it could be a good sideline for a while. I like the idea of a trivia thing. Like, did Dave say he's doing a pinball trivia thing? Yeah, they're doing the trivia thing on Thursday night when, you know, it's mostly vendors and the early birds. But I wonder what kind of trivia. Is it going to be a pinball trivia or just regular trivia? I guess you're going to have to go and find out. See, I'm thinking, like, do a pinball trivia. I mean, even the other one is to do like a pinball tech trivia. You give the audience, here are the symptoms. Yeah, I think that's been done. What was it? That's been done at a show somewhere. Okay. But I was thinking more of identify the product or identify the thing, and then, you know, you win. So everybody's paying attention like, okay, what's he going to pull out next? Do I know what it is? And, you know, if you win one thing, you can't win any more. You know, you win one thing. I mean, you can't have somebody dominate and win everything. But, you know, it's a good way to plug people's products. You know, like, what is this thing? Oh, I know what it is. You know, anyway, just an idea. I like the trivia thing because, you know, we go to Olive Garden once in a while, especi ally at late at night. Nothing else open when we're on the road. You know, not the best Italian food. It's corporate. But, you know, if you want to get soup and salad cheap, all you can eat refills. Not bad. and that's what we usually do, but we like going there for that and they have a trivia game that each table has this thing, it's a little kiosk thing, it's a little handheld, little miniature laptop thing that you can pay your bill with you can go play games on it, all kinds of things but once you do and say, yeah, I'm going to play something immediately, when your bill comes to the food they add $3 on for the game, which is like alright, I'll throw you $3 for it, but what they have They have a trivia game on there, and random topics like sports, entertainment, movies, all kinds of stuff, science, nature, history. And you can select either to play with people at your table or play the entire country. So we only play the entire country, and you can pick your icon, what you want to be, like a lion or whatever, and then some kind of name of combining two words they give you as your name, your avatar name. So it's like, you know, Big Indian or it's, you know, Small Fry or something, you know. And it's really interesting because it's all time-based. So the question comes out there, and the quicker you answer it correctly, the more points you get. And you can see as the time goes on, it's like 10 seconds to answer. You can see where the percentage of where people, your competition, is what they're going to answer. You can say the certain answer over here on the right is getting like 75% people want that answer. So your chances are that's going to be the answer, but not necessarily. It could be the 10% answer. So people from Las Vegas are playing, Indiana. It's kind of cool. And so one time, I like it when I actually come out on top, and it's like, you know, we did that last night. It came out in first place and second place. But you're playing against a lot of sharp people, and we just wind up, we close the place. In fact, the place was closed at 10 o'clock. We're just like 20 past 10 when they're trying to sweep up. We're still playing the game. It's very... Oh, they loved you. Oh, they did. Okay, why don't we bid adieu to our audience for another month? We'll come back next month with, I think maybe we're going to have to do our pre-Pentastic show. We can't break that chain. Yeah, we'll look at what they've got coming in, and we'll comment. Spicey comment Oh yeah we'll do our Our game review as it is I think I have a couple other things we can talk about Okay so With that said Stay lit and tilted This is George February 2025 See you next month And everyone I want you to stay gold Stay gold? Stay gold. Stay gold, you know. Stay gold, Tony Boy. What's his name? Pony Boy. You know, the outsiders, George. Old reference. People will know what that means. Stay gold, Pony Boy. I didn't even saw the freaking movie, but I remember what that thing said. I probably should see the movie. Then I really would know what it said. Oh, boy. So, stay lit, tilted, and especially stay asymptomatic. This has been Dave and George. Peace out. Now here's something we hope you'll really like. Who do you call when you want your pinball machine restored? I love Dave! Dave! Who? Dave! D-A-V-E! Yeah, Dave! Dave! Right. George, you don't know what you're saying. You're under their control. George, we've had it with you. Say no rodeo, bro dad. Hasta la vista, baby.