Thank you. Happy Sunday, pinfolk, or whatever day you're listening. This is NYC Pin Pod, in which a panel talks location pinball in New York City and nearby surrounding areas. My name is Benjamin Furiga. My initials are BCF, and I didn't take a trip to fame nap yesterday. My name is Eric Sweetland. My initials are HIP, and I'm a pinball tournament director in New York City. Madeline is on assignment this week. On this week's pod, we'll run down local competition results. In Ball 2, we'll have venue updates courtesy of Pinball Map. And in Ball 3, we'll have a quick holiday grab bag. Let's get started. Let's talk about competitive pinball in New York City and nearby surrounding areas for the past week. Last Saturday, November 23rd, Jess Warren gathered 26 pinfolk for the Stern Army Uncanny X-Men Premium launch party at Rulos after a ladder elimination bracket with six players. Aaron Dick Hamill came out on top, Robert Wong in second, Alberto Santana took third, and Steven Christopher picked up a fourth place finish. Eric, you played in that one, right? How'd it go for you? I did. I played pretty mediocre throughout. I stayed right in the middle of the pack, threatened the cut line at one point, but not for long. Was there a forced game of Uncanny X-Men in every round? How was it represented in the launch party? There was a game of X-Men in every round of the qualifying, and then it was available to be chosen on the ladder and was at one point. As the second half of a double feature at Rulo's on Sunday, November 24th, once again, Jess Warren gathered some players, this time 16, for Stern Army's November RWI, which stands for Rob Wong Invitational. You're invited. After five rounds of IFPA scoring and a group elimination bracket, Tommy Ortega came out on top. Eric, do you want to talk about coming in second? Top four, Tommy, myself, Rob Wong, and Zen Zokniak. We played a three-game bank. The first was James Bond, Rob Wong put up a big score pretty early. I managed to catch up to him on ball three, but not by enough. He caught back past me for the win there. And then we moved to Johnny Mnemonic, and Tommy had an amazing ball one. And I spent a long time trying to catch up. I actually got a good chunk of the way there, but not far enough, and I got another second place. And then the big Lebowski is just a grind. It's on extra hard settings. Everything takes extra shots to start. The upper play field in particular was looking really not great, so I decided to completely avoid any bowling or car moves. Not even trying to go up there. Tommy had a great big Lebowski, and he was the clear winner on the day. I came in second, and then Rob and Zen tied for third, and as a tiebreak, they played Banzai Run with their arms crossed. Was that agreed upon between the players, or was there some... That was between the players. The players decided on that. Okay. So they were given Banzai Run. They opted to give themselves an equal probable disadvantage of cross arms. Very good. Very good. That's fun. That's cool. Well, congrats to Tommy. Congrats to you. And congrats to those two, at least for coming up with a cool way to do a tiebreaker. On Monday, November 25th, the Left Orbit playoffs were convened. The Mutants went to Commonwealth and it was over after three rounds. They picked up a 10-2 win over Parliament, who was the virtual home team. the aristocrats went to bar great harry their former home to play balls of steel who were the virtual home team the aristocrats picked up a nine to three win after three rounds i heard from zen zokniak this very specific statement about i presume it applies to both monday and tuesday this week in pinball ugh in the left in lane playoffs intermission Dolores went to Owl Farm to face the pin pals at a virtual home venue and intermission Dolores picked up a 10-6 win pinball union went to solid state to face special when lit who were the virtual home team despite traveling from south Brooklyn to Woodside And Pinball Union picked up a 12 win I think Eric has a lot of information about this one yeah we got a a note from woody richmond who said sixth seed pinball union defeats third seed special 12 to 4 both teams were missing at least one key player to due to thanksgiving travel commitments pinball union only had five tommy woody lee jay and matt g highlights include lee paris lbp discovered during Pinball Union's soft twist days at the Social, chasing the remaining theater of magics in the city, going 4-0. Matt Grady gradying all night and putting up $1.6 billion on Indy. Oh. And Tommy cranking Harlem Globetrotters as player one in the final round to nail the door shut. Nice. On Tuesday, November 26th, in the Wright Orbit playoffs, pinister six went to visit fourth seed harlem globe flippers at rulos and the home team the globe flippers picked up a nine to seven win over the pinister six i will re-reference zen zokniak's this weekend pinball ug statement about that neptune's treasure went to at the wallace to face danger danger so two brooklyn teams one from north brooklyn one from south brooklyn both went as far away as possible to one of the venues in the league and neptune's treasure took a nine to seven win i heard a little bit about this match from matt grady who sent along a couple pictures of some scores in the score sheet it looks like it was a pretty crazy match Danger Danger went up 7-1 in the first half, and then Neptune's Treasure swept the rest to make it 9-7. And it was apparently a particularly thrilling final doubles game on NBA Fast Break, where Danger Danger player Miriam was about 70 points short as the final player, and managed to put up 65 on one ball. Just off. Oh, wow. I'm not sure that 9-7 could be tighter than that then. If we're talking about five points on NBA fast break, is the difference between 9-7 one way and 9-7 the other way? That's a very fun, tight playoff. That feels like it should set up a rivalry in the future. Exciting stuff. Yeah. Eric's Butterballers awaited Scrapple Squad and Reston Pinball to face off at Buttermilk this week. Scrapple Squad from Sunshine Laundromat beat Reston Pinball, parenthetically RIP, 10-6 to move on. The Pin Babes went to Skylark to visit The Replays at their virtual home, and The Replays took an 11-5 win. On Wednesday, November 27th, Stern Army Sunshine League Winter 2024 No. 2 was convened under Francesco La Rocca's hand. Six players contested the event, and Harlan Kelleway came out on top. Also, Nick Berry tied with Harlan, both at 29. On Thursday, November 28th, No Bro Presents Thursday Night Strikesgiving was convened. 23 players had had enough of their friends and family to go play pinball at Jack Bar under the official guidance of Gabriel Chazanov, although I don't know who ran the event last night. Gabriel Chazanov himself won the night, just beating Eric Rubinsky and Matt Quintanilla and Matt Falzone tied for third. Next week, on Monday, December 2nd, the Mutants will face Lion Persons at Sunshine Laundromat in the left orbit playoffs. That's the fifth seed going to the one seed for a virtual home match. All venues are neutral from this point forward. It was actually true last week also. I had throughout this season of NYC Pinpod faultily suggested that maybe people would get home games in that first week as that has sometimes been the case in the past. It wasn't the case this week or this year. Didn't read the rules well enough apparently. Sorry. regardless the mutants will go to sunshine laundromat where the lion persons will be their hosts at the neutral venue the aristocrats are coming to buttermilk bar to face the new york city flipper sport association eric do you have any thoughts about that it's a nice and close monday yeah as opposed to our regular home matches yeah yeah yeah you get to play at home at your Tuesday home, which is more convenience. I like that. Yeah, that's cool. Also on Monday, December 2nd, in the left in-lane playoffs, this is the lower level playoffs, Intermission Dolores will go to Milo's yard to face the Deluxe Horses, who usually call Barcade Brooklyn home. That's the fifth seed going to the first seed. and the sixth seed pinball union will go to rulos to face the two for oners who call mckenna's pub home on tuesday december 3rd fourth seed harlem globe flippers will go to the first seed no quarters for laundry at jack bar their virtual home match and neptune's treasure will visit the world famous ball drainers at barcade brooklyn in the right in lane playoffs Scrapple Squad the fifth seed will face top seed Butterballers at Solid State That almost the opposite for you You going to have usually your home matches for Butterballers are close and you got to go the whole way to Woodside this time Yep. It seems like we go to Solid State in the playoffs first round every year, every season. Well, that's kind of cool, though, too. There's a lot of games there. It is a place. I like that place. Yeah, and also it's a place that it is easy to find games that don't overlap with buttermilk, which has a lot of games also. The Replace, third seed, will visit the second seed, Schlubbs, at Gebhard's Beer Culture in Manhattan. On Wednesday, December 4th, Stern Army Sunshine League Winter 2024 No. 3 will be convened at Greenpoint Laundromat in at Sunshine Laundromat in Sunshine Brooklyn. Yes. At Sunshine Laundromat in Greenpoint Brooklyn. Easy for me to say. On Thursday, December 5th, No Bro Presents Thursday Night Strikes will be convened at Jack Bar starting at 8 o'clock sharp. And also at Buttermilk bar in South Slope. SSPL 7's fifth meeting of the final season of 2024 will be convened at Buttermilk Bar. What about pinball 8 o'clock? Yeah, pinball 8 o'clock. Yeah, yeah, you know, round that. On Saturday December 7th, Jess Warren will gather players at Buttermilk for South Slope Strikes. That will be the December edition of that tournament. Sign-ups at 5 p.m. starts at 5.30. As of November 29, 2024, there are 280 pinball machines in New York City at 83 public locations. Thanks to the creators and users of Pinball Map for this data, here are machine updates from the past week. Last Saturday, November 23, user Hitchhiker was at Gebhardt Spirit Culture instead of Congo, down for repair for a couple of days. Hope to be back up on Monday, November 25th. Also on Saturday, user Pinball Lizard went by Bar Great Harry and said of Godzilla, leans left, very floaty. Pitch angle needs to be increased. Playable, but a crappy example. And of Monster Bash, the right flipper remains sticky. Ruins gameplay. Has been like this for almost two years. But then on Tuesday, Pinball Lizard stopped back into Bar Great Harry and said this of Monster Bash, HFS, the right flipper has been fixed and the game is playing well. On Monday, the 26th, a couple of users stopped into Gebhardt's Beer Culture and left a few comments on the machines. BTN said of Hot Doggin, I wedged the ball between the glass and the plastic while going for the extra ball. My apologies. and btn said of mouse and around eating quarters user buck squirrel also said of mouse and around lost 50 cents and buck squirrel played tommy and said i could go through each of these games individually but i feel it's unfair to not post the replay value whether or not i got replay after replay let's do a quick holiday grab bag it was a week that there was a lot of travel obviously we had lots of things we had to do and so this episode is going to be you know a little bit less organized than a lot of them we're coming up on the end of our season i wanted to take a moment to do a couple quick things here i want to add in first of all though that just on this weekend when everyone's traveling when everyone's starting up their holiday season and when we should all think about what we're thankful for. I just want to say that I'm thankful to both my panelists, my co-panelists, and my friends in the pinball community who contribute to this podcast, who listen to this podcast, who are part of this podcast. It is a space where I feel free to express myself. I think a lot of people don't have that. And it is also a space where I I consistently feel positive reinforcement coming back at me, and I hope that it is a matter of the community that we built. I hope that that is what we can bring with NYC Pinpot. I'm thankful to be a part of this pinball community, and I'm thankful for the ways that it contributes to my life. I hope I can give just a little bit back as a member of the group that presents NYC Pinpod to you. So let's just do a quick little couple things. I want to read an email that I missed last week from Pinball Princess, Steph Gaida. Steph signs her emails to Pinball Podcast's Stephanie Gaida. She, they, player 31915. That's her IFPA player number. Steph says, good morning. I consulted the visual aids for the latest episode, 312, like housework. While skimming the list of proposed IPs, I noticed that the bulleted points may have rebelled slightly. Titles like Gremlins Harry Potter and The Witcher are all on one line And on the other end of the spectrum Red Dead Redemption is split into Red Dead and Redemption where at my post I would want to know of a formatting mutiny such as this I am heavily enjoying the current season of the pin pod, despite being physically removed from the subject matter at hand. I'm currently more so in the Western New York scene than the NYC or OCPC scene. Keep up the great work. Thank you, Steph. And then Steph scanned some of the places where the visual aids were not quite up to par. I'm going to do my level best to get to that today and actually update those things. And I am thankful for Steph for listening. You can see her on Twitch at Pinball Princess. She runs all of the Bells things, I believe, in the Western New York scene. I expect that I will see Steph in a couple of weeks in Rochester. and I'm excited about that. Thank you for that email, so I'm sorry that I missed it the week that you sent it to us. Apologies about that. I want to talk about one other thing that happened this week. When Zen Zokniak sent me that email or that text that said, this week in pinball, ugh, I immediately thought of the website, This Week in Pinball, because if you don't know, that is... If you wanted pinball... business news or pinball scene news this week in pinball is the place on the web for it and that they don't pay me to say that they don't probably pay anyone except well i don't know who they pay they probably don't pay anyone but i went to this week in pinball to see if zen's text to me was meaning to point out that there was an article that he was bemused by on This Week in Pinball, or if he was simply bemused by the results of his team's performances. It turns out that it was the latter, but I did see something interesting when I went to This Week in Pinball. This podcast is not a podcast that goes to This Week in Pinball and then discusses whatever is on the front page there. There are lots of podcasts out there that do that, and they can do it a lot better than we can. When I went to This Week in Pinball, I found a post stating that there's a Roger Sharp action figure out there now. That's awesome. And in particular, that Joe Shirovino of Pinball Degenerates, friend of the show from the Toronto area, wrote the notes on the back of the thing. So I'm excited to read those notes. I still haven't done that. I am hopeful, even though their 100 count sold out seemingly very quickly, that I might be able to get my hands on a Roger Sharp action figure at some point, almost as much for the packaging so I can have Joe's words on the wall. But I just thought that was kind of cool that someone decided to make a Roger Sharp action figure, and in particular, that this week in pinball were the folks to do it. They did a run of 100 of these that are numbered. They seem to have sold out almost immediately. It looks like you can sign up. You can be notified when they're back in stock, which is probably how they're keeping some amount of a wait list. So if you're interested in a Roger Sharp action figure, if you read carefully the post, it goes on to say that if they do another run of these, they're not guaranteeing that they're doing another run of these, but if they do, they're not going to guarantee that they will be made to these exact same specifications. They may try to find something that they can do at a greater scale because these were made very specifically with one artist and with small manufacturers. So if you're interested, you might want to go take a look at that. That seems to me like a really, really interesting gift for the pinball player in your life. That said, it's a gift for a pinball player in your life that you're probably not going to have by this holiday season. I just wanted to, I went down that rabbit hole. I thought it was kind of cool that this thing is out there and I just wanted to highlight it briefly and shout out Joe Shirovino of Pinball Degenerates. That's all for this week's pod. I'd like to thank Zen Zokniak, Matthew Grady, and Woody Richmond for providing us with updates about their matches. I'd like to thank Steph Guida for the email about our games list from two weeks ago. I would like to thank you, dear listener, for listening. Join us next week when we will run down local competition results, including the semifinals of Pinball NYC. we will review minis i think as a pinball venue in sunset park and in ball three i think we're gonna do a 10 game challenge wherein each of us graphs out our scores across 10 games on a single machine just like madeline has been doing to see if we can find some interesting patterns in our play. Between now and then, whatever you're up to, go get them, pinfolk.