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#09: What Is That All About

Mappin' Around with Scott and Ryan·podcast_episode·1h 5m·analyzed·Apr 27, 2024
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.028

TL;DR

Pinball Map hits 10K locations; LA Pinball League thrives with free tournaments and women's events.

Summary

Episode 9 of Mappin' Around covers Pinball Map reaching 10,000 locations (a 15-year milestone), infrastructure challenges with Mapbox tile hosting costs, new merchandise (beanies), and features like individual machine RSS feeds. Scott reports from Sandy Hut in Portland about Theater of Magic, while interviews with Corey Casella reveal the thriving LA Pinball League (entering its 54th season) and LA Bells and Chimes, which emphasizes free entry tournaments and women's events.

Key Claims

  • Pinball Map eclipsed 10,000 locations

    high confidence · Scott and Ryan discussing Pinball Map metrics in opening segment

  • Pinball Map adds 50-60 new locations per week but removes 20-30 per week

    high confidence · Ryan explaining growth dynamics of the platform

  • Pinball Map is present in 62 different countries but primarily centered around North America (US and Canada)

    high confidence · Ryan describing geographic coverage of Pinball Map

  • Mapbox charged a $120 surprise bill in February for exceeding free tier limits

    high confidence · Scott describing hosting cost issue; later mentions bills continue monthly

  • LA Pinball League is about to start its 54th season

    high confidence · Corey Casella in interview segment

  • LA Pinball League entry is completely free; the bar (82) covers all IFPA fees

    high confidence · Corey Casella describing league structure and venue support

  • Individual machine RSS feeds added to Pinball Map, creating 1,400 new RSS feeds for the database

    high confidence · Ryan describing new feature added since last podcast

Notable Quotes

  • “We eclipsed 10,000 locations on Pinball Map. 10,000. Yep, in the year 10,000. And, you know, that's like 15 years of growth right there. 10,000 is kind of a staggering number to me.”

    Ryan @ ~5:30 — Major platform milestone announcement

  • “Getting attention just means people critiquing things and people flooding the site until it goes down or something like that. Who cares? It's not that fun.”

    Scott @ ~15:00 — Reveals anxiety about viral attention despite community growth benefits

  • “Theater of Magic... I think it's got a bad reputation seems like some people don't like it... well guess what it's not boring to me. Love the theme, love just shooting that little loop over and over again.”

    Scott (from voicemail) @ ~38:00 — Defends often-criticized classic game; highlights casual player perspective

  • “The pinball scene in Los Angeles is so robust that there is a league or a tournament every night of the week at every venue.”

    Corey Casella @ ~65:00 — Demonstrates health and saturation of LA competitive pinball scene

  • “I have one foot up and, you know, I'm a kicker, not a violent kicker, but I will move the leg if I need to.”

    Ryan @ ~50:00 — Personal playing style discussion; reveals player body mechanics preferences

Entities

Pinball MapproductScottpersonRyanpersonCorey CasellapersonMapboxcompanySandy HutvenueLA Pinball LeagueorganizationLA Bells and Chimesorganization

Signals

  • ?

    product_launch: Individual machine RSS feed feature added to Pinball Map, creating 1,400 new subscription feeds for specific machines (e.g., JAWS, ABBA)

    high · Ryan: 'The feature that we added since the last podcast was individual machine RSS where you can now subscribe to a single machine like JAWS or the new ABBA machine'

  • ?

    venue_signal: LA Pinball League and LA Bells and Chimes report extremely robust and saturated tournament/league schedule across multiple venues every night of the week

    high · Corey: 'The pinball scene in Los Angeles is so robust that there is a league or a tournament every night of the week at every venue'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Scott defends Theater of Magic against community perception of being boring; advocates for casual play appeal over competitive meta exploitation

    medium · Scott: 'Theater of Magic... well guess what it's not boring to me... I think it just gets... sometimes people look at games just from a competitive perspective... but you don't have to play by only hitting the left ramp'

  • ?

    community_signal: LA Pinball League and LA Bells and Chimes launching women's tournaments with IFPA sanction, operating across multiple LA venues to maximize geographic access

    high · Corey: 'We recently introduced women's tournaments at the L.A. Pinball League... and then it's a collaboration with the Los Angeles Bells and Chimes... our hope and goal is to travel around the city and get as many women interested'

  • ?

    operational_signal: Bar 82 covers all IFPA fees for LA Pinball League events, enabling free entry tournaments; demonstrates venue commitment to scene development

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.195

0:00
maps pinball and maps mapping around with scott and ryan okay well welcome back ryan another episode hey scott episode nine episode nine no one thought we'd make it to nine yeah we had all these all these people that were like you'd never make it past six and here we are yeah why is it so hard to be consistent about um making a podcast but the pinball map is fairly consistently updated as far as the code and composition goes i don't know it's a rhetorical question i guess yeah yeah then i won't answer it great uh so what's been well before we get into the the pinball stuff what's been going on with you ryan
0:55
um i've been trying to get back into jogging a little more ran for four miles today what kind of running shoes are you putting on out there oh you know what i i don't even remember the brand they're blue they're kind of a little bit flatter i don't know they don't i actually looked at them today because i couldn't remember and i was like what brand are these but they don't say it anywhere on them so i don't know that'll be for episode 10 follow okay yeah i would like to follow up on that i feel like it's pretty important yeah i did a lot of research but it was it's some brand that i don't totally i had it's not nike and it's not reebok and it's not new balance and it's not hope who hoku hoku hoka hoka it's not those ones people just wear those hoka ones even when they're not running yeah i'm kind of jealous they look very nice you like those well i wouldn't say they look nice they look comfy here's my problem with just wearing them like it seems like the the branding is just the name of the shoe hoka really big on the side i don't like that like give me uh give me a swoosh or something a simple swoosh or no name or no logo at all like my shoes have uh are a lot of people in la wearing those uh what are those called on on on shoe on shoes you know those and i don't think so what do they look like are they i don't know they they look like kind of like future issues i was trying to decide what my new shoe brand of choice would be, and I was debating getting those because they look okay. But then somebody said, oh, those are the kind of shoes that Dr. Jill Biden wears.
Bar 82
venue
Theater of Magicgame
Deadpoolgame
ABBAgame
JAWSgame
Slugfestgame
The Batgame
Ice Cold Beergame
Drew Marshallperson
Pinball Brotherscompany
Neptunevenue

high · Corey: 'The bar, 82, really supports us and the growth of the league. So our events never cost a dollar to even enter. So the bar will pay all of the IFPA fees'

  • ?

    business_signal: Pinball Map experiencing recurring monthly bills exceeding Mapbox free tier limits ($120+ in February); exploring self-hosting alternative to avoid dynamic pricing

    high · Scott: 'We had a hundred and twenty dollar surprise bill in february... but all that leads to you know not have not using mapbox where there's this dynamic pricing scheme... And... it's continued to be over the tier every single month'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Pinball Map releasing first new merchandise since 2018/2019; beanies with embroidered logo, three color options, Patreon discount offered

    high · Scott: 'We have new merch. Beanies... for the first time since like 2018 maybe or 2019... it comes in three colors uh base colors it's a storm gray storm black and storm blue'

  • ?

    content_signal: Episode features voicemail scene report from Scott and extended interview with community leader Corey Casella, expanding podcast format beyond co-host discussion

    high · Scott provides voicemail from Sandy Hut; Corey Casella interviewed about LA Pinball League operations

  • $

    market_signal: Pinball Map seeing accelerating growth in Europe and France/Austria regions; 62 countries represented but mostly concentrated in North America

    medium · Ryan: 'We get a ton of growth lately in Europe and France and Austria and other countries around there... they're becoming more aware of it and they're submitting a lot more'

  • ?

    event_signal: LA Pinball League employs variable season lengths (6-week and 12-week options) with pre-season casual tournaments (split flipper, pin golf) to drive engagement

    high · Corey: 'We try to alternate it... our first season of this year was six weeks... every time we start a new season we make sure to have a bunch of tournaments beforehand'

    • 2:57
    And I was like, well, that's kind of cool, but maybe not for me. What's going on with the old pinball map?
    3:08
    Website-wise, app-wise, There's been no app updates since the last podcast. Website-wise, we've been – oh, the big one is we eclipsed 10,000 locations on Pinball Map. 10,000. Yep, in the year 10,000.
    3:32
    And, you know, that's like 15 years of growth right there. 10,000 is kind of a staggering number to me. it's just that's a lot yeah it's a huge amount um i think one thing that's interesting is we add i estimate we add like 50 to 60 new locations a week but then we remove about 20 to 30 a week so it's you know we go forward and then back every week and this is still primarily north america right like i know there's some european stuff some australian stuff which is awesome but far from comprehensive, right? Yeah, but definitely centered around North America. I mean, we're in something like 62 different countries, but a lot of those countries just have a couple locations. Most everything is in the U.S. and Canada, but we get a ton of growth lately in Europe and France and Austria and other countries around there. Like every day I wake up and there's a couple submissions from those countries. So they're becoming more aware of it and they're submitting a lot more. So it's building up there. What about South America, man? Think about how big South America is. There's got to be pinball machines down there. I mean, sorry, I don't mean to be a downer. 10,000 locations is amazing, but we got to get the whole world. yeah i mean it's spreading though there's we had one from buenos aires last week clark flipper e arcades clark clark uh c-l-a-r-c-k so in a cool arcade with like eight machines or something like that okay and another place social club arcade is someone from buenos aires yeah they added one they added six locations in one day so you know you kind of get spurts like that like an operator or somebody like that discovers the site submits all their places um so even in yonder south america it's building you know who's from buenos aires right who is do you know who is oh i don't know who's from there johnny rico johnny rico yeah all right forget it all right now now i know that i guess i'll store that away in my pocket and yeah johnny rico there's the starship troopers pinball machine this is relevant all right anyway let's move let's move on okay moving on thanks everybody for submitting all your locations. Okay, moving on. One thing we forgot to mention last podcast episode was just a small note that we were, maybe some people know the site Hacker News on the Y Combinator website. And anyway, someone posted, I don't know who, they posted a link to Pinball Map on there, which means that we get a lot of attention when that happens. And I'm actually, that's not something I look forward to. I don't know if you like being on Hacker News, but getting attention just means people critiquing things and people flooding the site until it goes down or something like that. Who cares? It's not that fun. But luckily, Hacker News also is just a message board and people have a tendency just to divert from the main topic immediately and start talking about tangential things and that's essentially what happened there and so barely anyone was talking about the site itself people were just talking about pinball which is i think better in my opinion the thing that i always get excited about when it pops up on hacker news is the like secondary tweets or whatever's that come out of it um that that's always exciting like david reese you know david Reese get your war on quants he did quants right I think he did that um he mentioned it on his podcast and I think he mentioned it there because he had seen it recently on hacker news I don't I think that stuff's cool yeah you're right that is cool all of a sudden it gets a lot of people's attention and it kind of blossoms from there yeah all right one thing I want to mention about that is we pay for some hosting type stuff, such as the tiles, the map tiles that we show on the site. And you get a limit for free, 50,000 views or whatever they count as a view, 50,000 unique loads per user per day.
    8:31
    I'm not saying that right, but one load is one user per day using the site. And they give you a free tier of 50,000. what happens is that we just like go way over that in this case and we had i think a hundred and twenty dollar surprise bill in february which i got down to zero by asking them politely if they could make it zero and they did which was really nice of them um but all that leads to you know not have not using mapbox where there's this dynamic pricing scheme i'd rather just go back to hosting tiles ourselves.
    9:11
    And I think there'll be no real impact to the end user if once we could kind of figure that out. But we've been very slowly doing it. Mapbox gave us three months free. So we're almost to the end of month three. So we need to figure it out or else. What kind of happened is like after February where we had to pay that much, it's continued to be over the tier every single month. So we have to pay every month. Do you remember when Wendy's tried to introduce dynamic pricing?
    9:40
    Yeah. Wasn't that like a couple weeks ago? I thought that was a couple months ago, and it already failed. Am I wrong? Yeah, maybe.
    9:49
    Okay. Like surge pricing type of thing. Like surge pricing at Wendy's, yeah. Yeah, that seems like a bad idea. People just want, you know, especially if they're buying food and it's kind of a habitual thing, they want consistency. see they they want to know what to expect do you say it was per user per day that's how it works yeah like yeah they count like what cookies how are they even tracking that yeah i think it i don't even know i don't think it's it might be a special type of cookie they basically say though if you if you have it open in a tab and you load the site and you do whatever you want on the site after that for the entire day that counts as one load if you then open it in a new tab that would be a new load so interesting yeah which you know one thing to note about all this is every map tile host measures a load differently from each other and you know there's here maps and Apple Maps, they offer a service, Google Maps, of course, Mapbox. And they try to compare them with each other so you can get an idea of what your costs would be if you moved to another one. But they all measure loads differently. So it becomes very challenging to actually accurately measure prices. And it opens up the possibility for them to just be like, look, we're cheaper because we offer 100,000 loads. And they offer $50,000, but the loads are different.
    11:28
    Man, you know a lot about this stuff. I was just thinking, like, wow, I don't know any of that. I'm glad you do. It just keeps coming up because it's, I don't know. We don't need to talk about it anymore, though, because no one really cares about map types. Hey, this is a pinball map podcast. Like you've just hit the meat and potatoes of what we should be talking about. I was just impressed that you knew it. That's all. I'm over here asking about Wendy's surge prices. So good for you. Well, we have other news that I think is very exciting. Is we have, I think for the first time since like 2018 maybe or 2019, something around there, we have new merch. Beanies. What's a beanie, Ryan? A beanie is like a knitted cap that you wear on your head that goes over your ears and keeps you warm. Yeah, it's interesting because back in the tundras of Michigan, you'd call it a toque.
    12:30
    What? I know. So close to Canada, it becomes a toque. Beanie to me was always like a California thing. Oh, really? I don't think I've ever heard toque. Maybe I should put that in the title so if anyone's searching toque, they know what that is. I don't know how to spell that, though. T-U-K? I don't know how to spell it. It might be T-O-U-K. I don't know. I'm out of my depth here.
    12:59
    These are great beanies. I'll say, even if there was no pinball map related anything to it, this is a comfortable thing to put on your head. yeah it's a the like the waffle knit style of a thermal shirt but which is kind of unique i don't see many beanies like that yeah i've uh i've gotten a compliment on it the only compliment i have ever gotten on it somebody said that looks really comfortable yeah there you go they were right uh how do i get a beanie if i didn't have one you can go to pinballmap.com slash store and it comes in three colors uh base colors it's a storm gray storm black and storm blue why are they all storm no they're not all storm but the gray the gray is storm what's the most popular color so far gray is most popular by a fair amount okay oh and to describe these we put in the pinball map ball logo. So the ball designed by Drew Marshall back in 2008. That's on all our stickers and on the shirts and stuff and all over the site.
    14:21
    It's just a little pink knitted ball logo. Knitted in the USA, knitted in Irvine, Orange County, California. Hmm. great it's exciting yeah and also we give a discount to our patreon supporters too i made a little discount code so they can get some for a discount so if you want to support us on there i mean i don't really need to pitch that because we don't really need more supporters i guess because because costs are kept so low yeah costs are kept low although they're going to go up a little bit with the the map tile hosting stuff in a minute but it's still covered it's still covered by the patreon we're very appreciated appreciative of all the patreon support what if uh somebody really wanted to donate money to the cause and you were to say like hold on to that money because we don't need it right now what would you prefer that they do with that money in honor of the pinball map well that's that's come up recently and uh he gave a big old 250 dollar to yeah 250 donation to the oregon humane society on our behalf that's nice yeah we said something animal he asked and we said something animal related don't you remember this yeah i do i i was i was fishing for something funny, like buy yourself a coffee, that kind of thing, like self-care. Instead of buying us a coffee, buy yourself a coffee. Yeah, yeah. Please, do something nice for yourself. It a hard life and it almost over so get yourself a nice cup of coffee There a lot of joys and pleasures that could be had in the world and it good to appreciate those take advantage of them when you can be aware of them when you can. You know, I've said stuff before that has made people laugh, where I'm like, you know, the best part of my day is walking to get a burrito.
    16:37
    I like it. Yeah, I'm just like, oh, I just take a nice stroll to a food truck and walk back. There's no one bothering me. I'm in a nice neighborhood.
    16:47
    I have this sense of freedom when I'm walking where I can take shortcuts. You know, no one's honking behind me or anything like that. It's a very pleasant experience. You know, the best part of my day is the bus ride downtown to go to work. um in the morning it's all commuters and it's really quiet no one's talking everyone's just kind of looking forward because they're so tired and there's just this like uh unity to the whole thing that i really like and i like people going to their jobs it's a very peaceful time i could see that do you see people like playing uh gambling games on their phones or anything yeah i definitely am a creep on the phone. I'll definitely look and see what people are doing. I'd say most people are texting other people, which is kind of nice. But there's definitely some what is it? Kingdom crasher.
    17:53
    Rescue the king or whatever. Yeah, I notice in LA when I take the bus it's a lot of... People are either reading the Bible or playing like yeah kingdom crush type games reading the bible really i see that a lot huh that's great yeah as long as they don't get car sick that's great sure sure yeah ring ring ring ring ring oh look i uh i'm not gonna answer that i'm gonna let that go to voicemail actually i have a that was a phone call but now i'm gonna check my voicemail i just didn't want to get it Live. Let's see who it is. Okay. Check it out. Wednesday, April 24th, 2024 at 421 p.m.
    18:40
    Hey, Ryan. It's Scott again from our podcast. This time I am coming to you from the Sandy Hut on beautiful Sandy Boulevard in Portland, Oregon.
    18:55
    The machine's here. We have Deadpool and Theater of Magic. fortunately located right underneath the speakers that play you know adult contemporary right now which i'm into uh hopefully that isn't too big of a distraction from this scene report i'm in a similar situation i was uh last time we talked i'm here i don't really want to drink anything but i just say at the sandy hut it's even more of a eye raising eyebrow raising um experience to come in here and not order something right like i can't just come in here and play theater of magic so i have relented uh it's a beautiful spring day here and i am enjoying a tecate with lime and playing theater of magic which is actually one of my favorite games I think it's kind of got a bad reputation seems like some people don't like it thinking about Elijah specifically I've heard that it's kind of a boring game well guess what it's not boring to me love the theme love just shooting that little loop over and over again I like the bravado of the announcer it all just kind of works for me and I was thinking how like a tangent sorry about that uh when i was growing up and i think when you were growing up too uh two middle-aged guys here uh the nerdy kids were into star wars and things like that and nowadays you know everyone's kind of into that right like you might not be into it but you're at least aware of star wars and marvel and all that so it's hard to tell what nerdy even means and i was thinking earlier today how because i was anticipating playing theater of magic how the real the real identification of nerds uh for people of our age was maybe the kids that were into magic uh i'm not saying like super super into it but at least like impressed with card tricks and sleight of hand and maybe even had aspirations to do some of that stuff on their own that was definitely me i can't do any card tricks or anything but i'm always very impressed by it it's a weird crossover with that crowd and uh i think the pickup artist community which actually kind of makes a lot of sense anyway uh sandy hut playing theater of magic if you've never been to you you and i have been to sandy hut i'm sure this is one of those like Portland institutions. Pretty centrally located. It's been here forever. Interesting shape of a building. Most famous, I think, because Quentin Tarantino was here once drinking. So everybody kind of mobbed the Sandy Hut. Otherwise, it's just, you know, your pretty standard beer in a bottle kind of bar. I'm into it. Let's see, what else? So there's other thing I learned here i've seen people come in and play video slots and not get id'd so that kind of makes me wonder if i could have just rolled in here oh and not id'd and not um drinking i should say actually i don't want to out sandy hud as a violator of crime they may have been id'd and i just didn't witness it but one thing's for sure they're not drinking well it's like am i allowed to just get ID'd and play pinball and not drink?
    22:33
    I don't know. People, if anyone is listening to this podcast, it's got to be a really frustrating line of thought that you hear me fumble through because it's a simple answer, I'm sure, to the question of can you just walk into a bar and start playing pinball without ordering a drink? There is an easy answer to this. I'm just too lazy to actually look it up on my own. So here I am playing Theater of Magic instead.
    22:59
    Yeah, I don't know, pretty quiet place to be on a weekday. It's going pretty well. How are you doing? Talk to you soon. Love you. Bye. Oh, thanks for calling me there, Scott. Yeah, that's my pleasure. I think it's fun. Awkward, though, to be, like, talking on the phone in one of these places.
    23:21
    But, you know, relatively fun. Do you like theater magic? Yeah, totally. I think it's a lot of fun. okay good i never really see it on actually there's one near me at a bar but i haven't been to it but i haven't i haven't played it in many many years but i always thought it was a real fun game i mean i don't know i i hear you that elijah's complained about it before but yeah i'm not i'm not very good at pinball so i feel like theater of magic is one of those games where you can play for a while you know yeah i think it just gets a sometimes people look at games just from a competitive perspective and they're like that's not fun because you just hit the left ramp over and over something like that but you don't have to play by only hitting the left ramp and you don't only have to play competitively so there is a lot more to the game if you don't focus on a single exploit honestly i think my favorite part about playing pinball is getting in the pinball stance so like the longer i can stay in that stance the more fun i have it's is that like yoga is that what yoga feels like um i just really enjoy it are you like a do you have one foot in front of the other yeah i definitely um i have i have a very deep stance which is not cool I get it. Like I take up a lot of space. Um, and I have one foot up and, you know, I, I'm a kicker, not a, not a like violent kicker, but I will move the leg, uh, if I need to. Um, and also, you know, move it side to side with my arms, but I'm off balance kind of when I'm doing that. Anyway, I don't, I'm, uh, I just like the position. That's all. Yeah. I think it's, You know, sometimes in crowded places or in tournaments or something, I feel self-conscious about going to the position, my ideal position that I feel is the best for me. And because we're both pretty tall and sometimes it helps to for me to lower myself a bit so I can. So I'm not looming too far over the play field, but I'm kind of at a lower angle looking up from the flippers. and that requires my legs being far back. I don't know. And me being low, I mean, it's a little goofy or something like that. It takes up a lot of space, so I feel like I'm not always able to get into the stance I want. But when you can, when you've got the space and the freedom to do it, it's really nice. Any new pinball map features you want to tell me about, Ryan? I do, yeah. The feature that we added since the last podcast was individual machine RSS where you can now subscribe to a single machine like JAWS or the new ABBA machine by Pinball Brothers that hasn't, I don't think it's on location yet. But if you want to see where those start emerging at locations, you can subscribe to that ABBA machine RSS feed. And we actually got another – we got a donation for that one too by YWIN. That was like a bounty to do that, and we did it. Oh, nice. Nice.
    26:50
    Yeah, and it is a niche thing. RSS in itself is niche, and there's probably not too much interest in this, but we have something like 1,400 machines in the database, and so we just basically added 1,400 RSS feeds to the site. We have a blog post about it. That's the best way to read about it, actually. And I use it. I subscribe to Slugfest, the 1952 Williams game, because there is a bat game from 1991, which we don't include on the site. And sometimes people add the 1952 Williams game to locations and then they leave the comment that says, this is actually the bat game. Did I say all this in the last episode? I feel like I'm repeating myself. It's worth it. I know bat games is a recurring issue on this website. It's something worth talking about. Yeah. We should have like bat check segment or something every month. how many bat games are on the site a couple things on this topic uh the 91 version i think they have it at um neptune in seattle i think it's called neptune it's it's on that street by shorties um and it's really fun like i know it doesn't belong on the map but you actually play the game and when you win you win real baseball cards how cool is that yeah it's like loaded up with baseball cards and if you score enough points you just get like a ton of baseball cards from the 80s oh that's sweet yeah it does feel kind of cool to walk out with cards um but hey it doesn't belong on the site semi-related uh i haven't actually been playing a ton of pinball recently but something I have been playing a lot of ice cold beer. Have you ever played ice cold beer?
    28:44
    No, actually I've only watched you play it and in Chicago. And then I've, I've watched other people play it. I've never played it myself. It looks, it looks cool. So there's a few in Portland. Um, and they're all in really bad spots. Like there's one at my father's place, but it's literally in a hallway and you have to like take up space in a hallway that's an active hallway so people are always walking by you anyway uh i've just been really taken by ice cold beer i like the little song that they play i like trying to raise it up into the air um i like the theming of the whole thing uh i know it doesn't belong on the website but part of me does wonder like where are all the ice cold beers in town you know i had to find them the old-fashioned way like word of mouth we're not helping you there unfortunately it's fine it's fine i think we need a we have to draw the line right do you think ice cold beer could work as a video game or is there one oh that's a great question oh wait um you mean like literally if you made a video game out of it uh yeah yeah for sure you know i was thinking you know that playdate thing that they made in portland I bet it would be really good on that and probably not super hard to make if you're good at computer programming it's a two dimensional game basically it just seems kind of simple in a way it seems like it would translate well you should try that, try to make it yeah I guess you're talented I used to be a computer programmer I can't get into it on this podcast right now I'm too vulnerable.
    30:32
    Ryan. What? You're more active in the pinball community than me. You actually go to weekly events, right? I go to bi-weekly events, and that's basically sometimes the only time I play. So I'm maybe not too more active than you are.
    30:53
    Oh, okay. Anyway, what's your point? Well, my point is, I don't know what the point is. What I was going to try to say is, like, L.A. has a pretty active pinball community, not unlike Portland. Have you talked to anybody about that recently? Incidentally, yes. I talked with Corey about running the L.A. Pinball League and Bells and Chimes L.A. Let's hear from Corey herself. Let's hear from Corey. so i'm here with cory casella the person who runs la pinball league the co-director co-director co-runs it co-director um and at los angeles bells and chimes co-director co-director that one too yeah okay um i don't want to take any full responsibility okay just the glory so tell me about the la pinball league like how long has it been going on and okay so the la pinball league um we're right about to start our 54th season which is huge yeah um i have been a part of the league for seven years wow and i honestly have no idea what season i started in Yeah. And I've been the co-director for the last five years. Oh, okay. So I believe that the league started before 82 with Pins and Needles in Los Angeles, but I not sure the exact history of when it started and how long it was running and when it became a league at 82 How long are your seasons It depends The other co Jim we already mapped out the entire year for this year but we both have really chaotic schedules, so we'll sit down and be like, okay, can we do a short season, do we need to do a short season, or do we have time to do a long season? Oh, really? And we try to alternate it, but our first season of this year was six weeks, and then this upcoming season that's about to start in a few weeks that is also going to be a six-week season with finals on the seventh week but every time we start a new season we make sure to have uh we make sure to have a bunch of tournaments beforehand just to kind of get people excited and to drum up interest so um we had our split flipper tournament on tuesday night which is always casual and really fun people really love that format and these are like no commitment too like you don't have to join the league but no and it's really like a great we call it like our mixer series basically because it's kind of like when you go to college and they have an ice cream social and everybody starts to get to know each other and then they're like oh i'm having fun i want to come back so that's this is our this is our ice cream social of pinball events yeah so we usually will do one completely casual tournament whether it's a split flipper or a pin golf. Sometimes we do a vote. Sometimes it's, you know, whatever Jim and I feel is kind of the best format for the season. And then we recently introduced women's tournaments at the L.A. Pinball League, which is really exciting. So we'll have this upcoming Tuesday, we're going to have a women's tournament, which is IFPA-sanctioned. And then it's a collaboration with the Los Angeles Bells and Chimes. so it's kind of really a great way for us to get double exposure and also los angeles is so big yeah like geography wise yeah that it's we have a lot of women that want to play but can't commit to one location or can commit to one and not the other so this is a good way for us to kind of our hope and goal is to travel around the city and get as many women interested at as many venues as we can. What's your criteria for a venue that you would run it at? Really, there isn't too strong of a criteria. It's just about scheduling is a huge issue right now. And this is, I feel like we're very fortunate to have this issue. But right now, the pinball scene in Los Angeles is so robust that there is a league or a tournament every night of the week at every venue. So, So when we were trying to map out this first season of the Los Angeles Bells and Chimes, we were like, where can we even have it where there isn't something already going on and it doesn't conflict with something we already have in our schedule? Yeah.
    35:22
    So that's really our criteria for venue. And it has to be a place with the X amount of machines minimum probably or something, right? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I mean, there really isn't a situation where there wouldn't be enough machines, I think, in all of the venues that we have available to us in Los Angeles.
    35:42
    So we'll always do our casual tournament, and now we're doing a women's tournament before every season, and then we do our main mixer tournament, which is IPA-sanctioned, and that's the week before a league starts. So that's kind of just to get everybody really excited, really riled up, and ready to come back and start a league. I like the idea of dynamic lengths for your seasons because sometimes people will be like, sure, I could do a six-week season, no problem, but I can't do like a 12-week one.
    36:13
    Well, the other really great thing about the Los Angeles Pinball League, and I have nothing but positive things to say about it, so you can stop me if I'm saying too many great things, but the bar, 82, really supports us and the growth of the league. So our events never cost a dollar to even enter. So the bar will pay all of the IFPA fees. That's for tournaments. That's for leagues. That's for women's tournaments as well. And the entry to every tournament is free. So there's no cash prizes being awarded. It is strictly fun. You're paying coin drop only, and then we go a little crazy with our trophies. We always have really fun trophies that are kind of on theme with whatever season we have. So I can't take credit for the trophies. That's all Jim. He gets really excited. in the trophy shop. I mean, that's a lot of work to make trophies for all these. Well, I mean, we use a trophy distributor, but he is the one who will go in and he'll come out and be like, I found the best theme for our trophies. And it's always something really funny. Like last summer we did a, we didn't want to have a league through the summer since people were always traveling. So we did a summer series where it was just every week was a different format tournament. And so he found all of these trophies that were summer themed. like one was like a barbecue grill so it's kind of like just really all about us having fun and i think people do come to our league for the trophies if i'm being honest that's kind of what drew me in i was like i want a trophy do you give them who gets them first or third or or just first or what yeah so we do uh first second and third place gets a trophy When we do Split Flipper, we make sure that there's two trophies for each place. So you and your partner both come home with a trophy. And this past Tuesday night, we had a Split Flipper tournament. And for the first time ever, we got trophies that were awards for best team name. And people got really excited about that. So we always have really funny team names. Like everybody participates, which is great. And the winner of that trophy was two girls, one scoop. that's pretty good it was yeah it was pretty good i was glad that they i was glad they won yeah um who voted on that it was um everybody that showed up as a participant got to do like a round of applause vote situation like a clap-o-meter whatever um and so that was i think the clear winner although we had some really great really great team names um there was one couple that were Fellowship of the Pin, and the team that came in second place was Pinky and the Drain, Drain, Drain, Drain, Drain, Drain, Drain, Drain, Drain. I don't have many drains. So everybody gets really into it, and it's a really fun time, and it's just a really great way to get people excited about what all of the events are coming up. What about Danny B.? Does he support you there? Danny B. is the best. I mean, Danny is one of my favorite people in Los Angeles. I could talk about Danny B all day long, but he's incredible, and he supports the league. We started doing a really fun thing before every league night where we do the Danny B surf report. So he'll come up, and we give him the megaphone, and he will let us know, like, oh, the drop targets on Skateball aren't working, or, you know, this might not work, but you can still play it. And that's our surf report every week, and so it's really fun. And everybody loves Danny B. so have you ever seen back to the beach is that with annette finichello yeah the big kahuna is that that one okay they have a really good surf report guy there okay has like multiple cameras in front of him are that are all showing the beaches in malibu uh-huh and uh i don't know i'll need to revisit it it's been it's been a while but that's our danny b i guess so so tell me a little bit about the new bells and chimes okay so the new bells and chimes we're really excited there's never been a bells and chimes in los angeles before and really up until very recently we haven't had women's tournaments in los angeles before so um it was kind of one of those situations where i wanted it and then started working on it i ran it by the bar are you cool if We do some women's tournaments. Yeah. And they totally supported it. And now it just kind of feels great that there's just so much more exposure for women in this sport, hobby, whatever you want to call it. I think it's a sport. But, you know, when I first started playing pinball, which was like seven years ago, I'd never played before. And I found 82 kind of by chance with a friend of mine. and she really wanted to compete and wasn't sure.
    41:17
    So she really wanted to compete but didn't want to do it alone. And I'm one of those people who will do anything. I'm like a yes girl. So I said, I'll do it with you. And I'd never played pinball before. And that's how we found the L.A. Pinball League at 82. And at the time, there were barely any women playing. It was us and it was Cece and a few other, a handful of other women. And in the last, I want to say five years, I've just seen so many more women, girls, non-binary, everybody coming into this hobby. And it's really great. It's really inspiring. And I think if we're not promoting it, then it's not going to grow because it's really easy for someone to feel discouraged when they're surrounded by people that aren't necessarily like them.
    42:11
    Especially, you know, we have such a rich community of excellent pinball players. So it's been my goal and my partner Jim's goal to constantly, you know, like get excited about new players and encourage them to keep coming, keep showing up. And it's just like really great to see that we have so many more women now. And even this league is just so much more than when I started playing.
    42:38
    So in not only Bells and Chimes, but L.A. Pinball League, like there's a big range to some people are brand new. Some people are totally seasoned, and you make it fun for all of them, basically, right? I mean, we try.
    42:53
    82 is, I think, a really fun place to play, especially on a Tuesday night. It's more of a bar than a venue, where some of these other places are more of a pinball venue than a bar. So there's something for everybody, really. But when I found the L.A. Pinball League, it was about showing up, having fun, making friends. and was very casual, and that was something I was looking for. Everybody was having drinks. Everybody was friends with each other, and it kind of built this community, for me at least, where I didn't really know anybody when I moved to Los Angeles, and I attribute most of the friends I've made to finding this hobby. And no money involved. That kind of changes the dynamic. Back then also there was no IFPA points at the beginning too. That kind of perhaps changes the dynamic. Yeah, I mean, definitely. I know that when we made the decision to go IFPA-sanctioned, we kind of went back and forth about it a lot because it always has been a very casual league. But I really do think that we still have those casual vibes. Like, if you come on a Tuesday night, everybody's having a good time. And our league has grown so much. we get about I want to say our last season we had almost 60 players that committed for all six weeks which was amazing and especially knowing that it is a commitment to keep coming back that we have that many people who wanted to keep coming back and I forgot to mention when we were talking about the trophies that we do have trophies for our B division as well so we really do get all skill levels and I always joke that it's kind of a starter league in that sense where people are showing up because they're drinking and having fun and then as they get better, they're determined to make it into A Division and come home with a trophy and it's kind of exciting to watch that. Yeah, it gives you something to work toward and if it's an encouraging environment, people will get better. I mean, everyone gets better when they compete and are getting tips from others and watching others.
    45:03
    um we focus sometimes on tech stuff on this podcast okay how do you communicate with members and like what software or platform do you use oh okay um so for us the la pinball league is really we're on instagram that's kind of the way we communicate with people i know that there is a very large group chat that i am not a part of i've had many people ask can i add you to this group chat and my answer is no um i have so much on my plate i like to keep it a little bit separate i think it's really easy to get fully consumed when you're running things and playing and things and then trying to have a social life outside of your work so um i know a lot of people are using that group chat to spread the word about different events that are happening throughout los angeles and then we communicate everything with our league through instagram instagram stories Instagram posts.
    46:01
    Jim runs the Instagram and he's really great at it. He'll create polls and we generate a lot of participation. I guess that's not the word I'm looking for, but you know what I mean.
    46:15
    So that's one way and then I will cross post things on Facebook for the people that still use Facebook. That's pretty much the only thing I use Facebook for. But the thing about the LA Pinball League is it's been running every Tuesday for so many years that if people don't know whether or not something's going on they just show up on a Tuesday and we always encourage people like oh we don't know the schedule yet but keep coming on Tuesdays and they do and and the bar is really great too every time Jim and I have the schedule for the next season we share it with the bar they post it on their Instagram they have our calendar hanging up in the back of the pinball room. And I can't talk about how great the partnership is with 82 enough because part of the reason we've been able to grow so much is because of the support that they've shown the league. Cool. But Bells and Chimes, that's not at 82, right? Bells and Chimes right now is not at 82.
    47:12
    We're about to have our second Bells and Chimes tournament at 82. But right now, our home turf is Arrow Lodge in West Covina. Yeah. It was someplace where we were able to find availability on a Thursday night. So we're right now doing every other Thursday alternating with the ace league. So just like that demonstrates how tough it could be to schedule it here. Exactly. It's really it really was a struggle. And I had a lot of girls come up to me and they were like, we can't do two Thursdays. Can you do a different day? But I think one of the really great things about the Los Angeles pinball community is we all don't want to step on each other's toes. So there is a number of like groups where we're all communicating with other TDs and there's channels on Discord. And we're saying we're sharing our calendar constantly because we don't ever want to steal attendance from somebody else. That's how you grow a community is kind of by working together where everybody has like the greater good. And, you know, if I'm hosting events the same night as one of the other competing bars in Los Angeles, I'm not going to get the attendance I want. They're not going to get the attendance they want. And then there's going to be bad blood and there's no reason for that.
    48:33
    Cool. I don't think I have any more questions. I know you ordered food. so that probably we don want to get cold it be fine okay um anything else you want to add um no I mean I think that you know I try to make myself very accessible If anybody has questions about the leagues, the tournaments, the community, they can always reach out to me. I'm pretty good about responding about stuff like that. And, you know, Jim and I are working really hard to keep the L.A. Pinball League going strong at 82. and I would just say if anybody's curious about whether or not a pinball league is something they want to be a part of it's a great way to figure it out because it's low commitment no cost to you and it's a really fun way to make friends so yeah for sure all right thank you yeah thank you okay thank you wow yeah that's really that's interesting that's an interesting journey yeah i mean i play it's it's funny because you play against people in league you're matched up with different people every week but then sometimes you end up like locked in with them multiple weeks in a row and so sometimes i'm locked up against cory for weeks at a time and then we diverge and but uh yeah cory's cool cory aside like how do you approach small talk with these people? Like, do you feel compelled to like, can or carry on a conversation or do you just stand next to each other while you play? It all depends on the people there's, I say we play in groups of four and out of the three people I play against, there's usually maybe one that's on the quieter end and the other two are more outgoing and I will engage with them more. we just chat we we talk about work sometimes we talk about definitely do definitely do small chat i i i always struggle because people ask me about the rules sometimes not that they expect i know everything but they think they see me do something and then they're like what'd you do right there you you hit that and then you activated and i'm like i don't know what i did right there just shoot at the thing that's flashing yeah like yeah generally the move yeah i i know how to light the locks and then shoot the flashing items and uh that's what i was going for right there and i don't generally know the names of the shots i i could say the left ramp but if that left ramp has a name i don't know the name of it so i i feel like i'm always disappointing people because I don't know how to answer their questions very well. What's that thing called where as the ball's coming down to the flipper, you flip the flipper up so that as the flipper goes down, the ball lands on it and is like stopped, basically.
    51:35
    What is that? And it's the one where you stop it with the flipper in the up position or you kind of drop the flipper with the ball? you drop the flipper with the ball and it slows the ball down and it just kind of sticks to the flipper i don't know that's one i've looked up a bunch and now i forget it's like dead drop or something like that is that dead i thought dead drop is when you just don't do anything and it just hits the flipper and moves i think that's dead flip but you don't actually flip for that one why is it anyway uh i think the the wedgehead podcast covers all this but anyway the reason i'm bring it up is that's the only move i can do like with with like consistency and if i if i do that a bunch of times i consider it a good game like yeah i think it's a really smooth move to do it's so satisfying yeah um yeah okay i remember i got i was at the shorties tournament in whatever 2008 or something like that and somebody from like denmark complimented me on my use of that maneuver and uh i still still remember it i was like man you came here from denmark i'm sure you're good and you just complimented me on that little drop thing that i probably overdo but it's just like an easy way to i mean not easy but it's a consistent way to slow the ball down it doesn't take much i think like uh a good way to go about in this world if you see something nice call it out just say something nice it doesn't you know it's free as long as you actually mean it i think it goes a long way with people we're all you know especially in competitive pinball too you know we're all getting frustrated people are feeling i mean basically the i think the predominant feeling when you play competitive pinball is you're disappointed in your own performance over and over and over and over so if you're getting a nice compliment from somebody i think it could give them a boost here's uh yeah no you're right we should we should move on but here i just had an idea i want to put it out there you know what pinball places should really invest in uh an area that's just like comfy seating facing the machines to like you know decompress between between matches now i'm not an operator i don't you know i don't have absolutely no idea what i'm talking about owning a bar i'm sure this is a lot of real estate that it takes up so people don't want to have space like that but how cool would that be to like fall into a lounger after you're frustrated and just like relax there for a suck. Yeah, it sounds nice. Sounds nice to me. It does sound nice. I mean, and you know, put a table in in front of it and people could put their drinks on there. I mean, it's it's useful real estate, I think. All right. What else has happened with the pinball map? I know there's at least one more big thing, right? One more big thing. So this one as the background is everyone knows IPDB, the internet pinball database a lot of people use it i can't vouch for how many people like it but it definitely has some good information on there i mean i use it primarily for what year did this game come out and is there a picture that shows me what the game looks like and you know the problem is that ipdb hasn't been updating uh new machines they haven't And it's supposed to be an all-encompassing database containing every machine that's been made. And there hasn't been a machine since 2022 in it. But it's kind of done, it seems like. Or its usefulness is diminishing as all these games are not being added to it. So on the website and on the app, every time we show a machine, we link to a couple other resources. We link to Pintips, which is a way to get some quick tips, and we link to IPDB, and now we've since removed all those IPDB links and replaced them with Kineticist links. Colin at Kineticist has put a lot of work into the machine pages, and I don't know, I think they're pretty great. Of course, they link to IPDB. They link to Pinside.
    56:16
    You could network out from there to the other resources that are out there that are good. But it contains all the base information you need to know, who designed it, when it was made, other tidbits about that, as well as links to gameplay videos and tutorials and other things like that. So each one is a really nice resource. And, you know, there's over 1,000 on there. So it ends up being a more useful link to link to than IPDB, which, you know, in addition to being incomplete, just there's not always that much, like, directly useful information on IPDB on, like, how to play a machine and things like that. So I think, yeah, we replaced them all with Kinetasys links.
    57:01
    Is Colin entering all that stuff by hand? What is this? Yeah. Colin started with OPDB, populated the database, and then he just, you know, has his own GUI database where he starts punching in different links. And yeah, I think he goes nuts and has been adding thousands and thousands of links to videos and things like that manually and pictures and all this stuff. Like, I feel like it's like I can imagine it's been an enormous amount of work.
    57:33
    Do you think he's watching like TV shows in the background? Like, what do you think he's doing? I would assume he's listening to pinball podcasts. You think so? Yeah, because he's listening to pinball. I mean, because he runs the This Week in Pinball and is always listening for rumors and things like that and news, and I think the only way to stay on top of that is to listen to a lot of podcasts is my guess. All right. I don't know. Colin, if you're listening to this, what are you what are you doing when you're updating your database yeah come on colin it's not pinball podcast is it it's like old episodes of little house on the prairie it's uh fuller house give me something we'll see who's right ring ring oh um hang on a second that's my ringtone uh oh geez it's a call from you Ooh, yikes. Yeah. Wait, how is this happening? You're calling me and I'm talking to you? Oh, too late. It's gone to voicemail.
    58:45
    Hang on just one sec. Let me check this. What is it? 4-1-1? No. Star 4? Let's see. Okay, there we go. It's calling in. Friday, March 22, 2024, at 7.46 p.m.
    59:12
    He's got a try-on. Colin from Revengers in L.A., Comics and Pinball, playing James Bond right now. it's kind of hard to play while talking on the phone because my head is crooked in a weird way I just met Blofeld little scene report about Renja place is very very cool it's a comic shop with 26 pinball machines the room I'm in is made to look like a outpost on an unearthly world the folks that own this place work in the entertainment industry doing set designs and other things like that so it's very cool I'm the only person in this bank of machines right now, there's other people behind me playing tabletop games I want to play the Pulp Fiction which they just got I live about five minutes from here walking so this is the spot I come to most often very fortunate to have it around it was actually featured a couple weeks ago in some Stern promotional video after they were celebrating their two year anniversary here Whenever you visit We should come here I don't really know much about comics But they seem to have a ton of them here And they also have really good cookies So that's about it I like to stop in here and play a few games I picked up a lotto ticket And then on the way back I decided to hop in here for a few games on a Friday night.
    61:17
    Talk to you later. Bye-bye. Wow. So you're out there recording too, huh? Yeah, I got to. I got to do the scene reports. I feel like we need to be in the field, you know, reporting in on what we're seeing out there in the world. uh speaking of which if anyone listening to this would like to send us their own scene report i mean i'd love to hear it yeah i don't know there's 10 000 plus locations out there so what place do you like what place do you like what machines are there like how does it feel to be in the place like really give us a sense of of space you know yeah like space and your own feelings within that space yeah what do you what are you worried about when you're there what are you happy about when you're there what are some of the struggles you have do you feel present there when you're playing or the moment you walk in do you think i got a half an hour and i got three dollars and quarters and you're already sort of out the door you know mentally let us know also what should be like a time limit four minutes or something like that i'm not interested in putting a time limit on any of this honestly if you're gonna if you've got something to say i mean there's no guarantee it'll all end up on the podcast but i will personally listen to it i i'd say here's here's how to approach this You've got a voice memo app on your phone. Just turn that on. Just record a voice memo and then share it with us via email. Easy. Yeah, admin at pinballmap.com. And, yeah, everyone will think you're just talking to someone on the phone. It won't. It doesn't need to be awkward. Yeah, and if you're nervous about it, just laugh every once in a while, like pretending somebody on the other end said something hilarious or comforting. Mm-hmm. Okay. Uh, Ryan, we should get, we should wrap this up, but any words of wisdom before we go? Like anything people should be meditating on for the next month or however long it'll take to get to episode 10? No, I don't have any wisdom. What about you? Oh, um, wisdom. No, I don't think so. I mean, we're starting to get into the warmer months, which naturally brings everybody back outside, right?
    64:05
    I found that it's kind of nice to just sit somewhere and just stare into the distance a little bit sometimes. Maybe do that. Yeah. Yeah, just like I was sitting on my porch the other day, and people were just walking by. And I thought to myself, there's a whole world out there. and did you then get up and just march out there no i think i went to the movies after like i went inside a dark room and watched a movie okay ryan nice to talk to you again um maybe maybe i'll see you again in a month you too let me know if you're coming down to visit anytime i'm always here okay sounds good all right see you later bye bye