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Ep 8: Final Round The Movie

Final Round Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 58m·analyzed·Jun 26, 2020
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.030

TL;DR

Final Round discusses COVID impact on tournaments and pinball rules mastery with Colin McAlpine.

Summary

Jeff Teolis and Marty Robbins host Colin McAlpine on Final Round Pinball Podcast to discuss the impact of COVID-19 on tournaments and the pinball community, including the cancellation of Texas Pinball Festival and New York City Pinball Championship. The episode covers podcast production challenges, tournament hygiene protocols, streaming as an alternative to in-person events, and Colin's expertise in pinball rules and code updates, with discussion of multiplier mechanics in modern games like Guardians of the Galaxy and Iron Maiden.

Key Claims

  • Texas Pinball Festival was canceled approximately two weeks before the scheduled event date

    high confidence · Colin McAlpine stated directly: 'we were right within two weeks of hosting it'

  • Jeff Teolis won the Pinball Profile World Tour event in Houston, one of only ten people to win such a trophy event

    high confidence · Jeff Teolis and Marty Robbins both confirmed this achievement; Marty joked about Jeff mentioning it repeatedly

  • New York City Pinball Championship was canceled due to COVID-19

    high confidence · Jeff Teolis: 'there was one that was supposed to be this weekend, the New York City Pinball Championship. Didn't get a chance to go to New York'

  • TPF organizers were considering implementing mandatory hand sanitization protocols before play

    high confidence · Colin McAlpine stated: 'we tried to figure out, we were actually putting in place some protocols where we were going to require people to scrub in before they played every game'

  • Head to Head Pinball Podcast is no longer active

    high confidence · Jeff Teolis asked 'Are they still around?' and when Colin didn't answer directly, Jeff said 'Oh, well No, no, no, no, no, Jeff They knew when to quit'

  • Colin McAlpine is known for analyzing code updates and identifying exploits in modern pinball games

    high confidence · Jeff Teolis stated: 'whenever a new code update happens, Colin's one of the first people on this chat, Raymond Davidson's another one, that really break it down'

  • Robert Gagne has created videos demonstrating extreme multiplier stacking on Guardians of the Galaxy using sibling rivalry

    medium confidence · Colin McAlpine: 'I know there's a great video where Robert Gagno shows just how ridiculous scoring you can get on Guardians of the Galaxy on sibling rivalry'

  • Colin McAlpine recently achieved a 900 million point 'death blow shot' on Iron Maiden

    high confidence · Colin McAlpine stated directly: 'just this evening, I finally, finally was successful at getting a 900 million death blow shot on Iron Maiden'

Notable Quotes

  • “I remember saying to Anne, my wife, I said, this is, again, me in bed on Saturday morning slash afternoon. Can you go check my desk? I might have spilled a drink or two. She said it was caked.”

    Jeff Teolis @ early episode — Illustrates the aftermath of Episode 7's drinking-themed show; humanizes the host with a relatable anecdote

  • “I just want to say, just really appreciate all the people that are putting out content... the amount of effort that each of these people go to, not just us, but all the podcasts go to... is far greater than the accolades you get for doing the podcast.”

    Marty Robbins @ mid-episode — Defends podcast creators against criticism on forums; acknowledges production labor and community contribution

  • “we're all touching the exact same, you know, four square inches of space on the pinball machine of the buttons. And, you know, it's a recipe for disaster in terms of transmissibility.”

    Jeff Teolis @ COVID discussion section — Illustrates why pinball tournaments pose unique pandemic challenges compared to other competitive events

  • “I didn't feel disappointed because I just knew it was the right decision... I was kind of relieved that the decision was made on my behalf, and I didn't feel regrets as a result.”

    Marty Robbins @ TPF cancellation discussion — Reflects mature perspective on prioritizing health over competition; contrasts with community pressure to resume play

  • “you're balancing your risk and reward... that's where the whole beauty of pinball comes into play”

    Colin McAlpine @ rules/strategy discussion — Captures core philosophy of competitive pinball strategy; explains the nuance between casual and elite play

Entities

Jeff TeolispersonMarty RobbinspersonColin McAlpinepersonColin McAlpinepersonRobert GagnepersonRaymond Davidsonperson

Signals

  • ?

    event_signal: Texas Pinball Festival canceled approximately two weeks before scheduled event date; event had been nearly fully prepared with games, volunteers, and logistics; organizers working toward 2021 recovery with merchandise sales and supporter commitments ongoing

    high · Colin McAlpine: 'we were right within two weeks of hosting it... we were pretty much done... it was just a matter of showing up'

  • ?

    event_signal: New York City Pinball Championship canceled; organized by Never Beat Productions

    high · Jeff Teolis: 'there was one that was supposed to be this weekend, the New York City Pinball Championship. Didn't get a chance to go to New York'

  • ?

    community_signal: Community shifting to streaming and podcasts as alternative connection methods during COVID-19; hosts note this has created new communication habits and relationships that may persist post-pandemic

    high · Marty Robbins: 'what this pandemic has done, because it's lasted so long, it's instilled new habits and new ways of communicating'

  • ?

    operational_signal: Tournament organizers planning to implement mandatory hand sanitization/scrub-in requirements before play at future events; protocols being developed at TPF and potentially adopted industry-wide as long-term measure (estimated 1+ year duration)

    high · Colin McAlpine: 'we were actually putting in place some protocols where we were going to require people to scrub in before they played every game'

  • ?

    code_update: Multiple modern pinball games (Guardians of the Galaxy, Iron Maiden, Jersey Jack Pirates) have known multiplier stacking exploits that are being documented in videos and code analysis; manufacturers issuing fixes through code revisions

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.355

0:00
The Pinball Network is online. Launching Final Round Pinball Podcast. It's player versus player and player versus machine. Welcome to the final round.
0:40
Hello once again, my name is Jeff Teolis. My name is Martin Robbins. Welcome everybody to the final round of Pinball Podcast. Will there be drinking in this episode is the question everyone wants to know? I think the question I got, not about me but more so about you, was... What? Everyone was like, how long did it take for Jeff to recover after the last episode? And it was a couple of days for you. I was fine the next day as long as the next day started at 8 at night. I slept until six at night, and then I remember my wife kind of waking me up kind of midday, and I said, hey, can you do it? And before I even finished my sentence, she goes, oh, my God, you reek.
1:24
It was a fun show, and thanks to everybody that came on for being great sports, for drinking, for just enjoying a little bit of chaos in this very serious time. You have to do that, right? I mean, we missed pinball competitions. There was one that was supposed to be this weekend, the New York City Pinball Championship. Didn't get a chance to go to New York and really missed that one put on by Never Beat Productions. I did actually watch Levy's concert live from three blocks from Madison Square Garden. It was so fun. He was just rocking out. He had in his apartment, guitar going, just like 8, 9 at night, playing all kinds of classic rock songs. He had a fog machine inside of his apartment, and it was filmed. It was really, really well done. So that was entertaining. It's certainly the best we can do when there aren't these tournaments and whatnot. But, yeah, we did have fun last week on Episode 7. I've been asked, will we do it again? The answer is not this show, not the next show. Maybe if this continues, yeah, sure. But there are a lot of people that want to come on and play trivia. I love how you say you've been asked. You've asked yourself, do you want to do it again? I was asked by a few others, too. Like, oh, I missed it. That would have been a great fun. I'm like, yeah. I remember saying to Anne, my wife, I said, this is, again, me in bed on Saturday morning slash afternoon. Can you go check my desk? I might have spilled a drink or two. She said it was caked. Like, it was just, it's a brand new desk, too, just ruined. What I loved about this episode, I mean, obviously, besides the fact that you repeated the question because we were just not keeping up. But I remember when you floated the idea of doing this with me, I said, oh, this is going to be a really tough edit for you. and you went, oh, I'm not going to do any editing. I'm just going to record and put it out. How'd that go for you? Okay, so behind the curtain, I'm on one track. Marty's on another track. When we have a guest, that's a third track. What I like to do is edit each individual track so that you take out the kind of dead air in between when the other person isn't talking. So you've got nice, clean tracks. Hard to do on Skype when you have multiple people on there. if we recorded for we did actually record for about three hours condensed it down to just under two that's three hours per track so and then you have to edit the master track so that's if you're lucky that's 12 hours i gave up maybe after about an hour of doing like an hour of the show so that's probably five hours of editing and i went you know what i'm just going to use the skype track so by my old the 40 minute mark i'm like i'm just doing the mix track and we'll go from there people can hear it and it worked i mean it's the audio snob in me i kind of want it to sound perfect but if it sounds audible i guess that's all that matters yeah it came out really well and and obviously that's the the reason why it was a couple of days late hopefully this time we'll be fine but it's complicated guys just putting a podcast together it actually just isn't us getting on skype talking shit and then just releasing it it is us on skype talking shit it just there's That part is true, but you're right. And also, too, I kind of thought, well, we normally release on a Wednesday, and this came out on a Saturday. I thought I was going to have it for Friday, but I thought, hmm, this might be a better episode to actually hear on a weekend because of the nature of the show. Yeah. But I also, the reason I sort of brought that up about the amount of effort that you put into editing, and I used to do for Head to Head as well, is I know it's a bit of a tangent here, Jeff, But many times I've seen, either on social media or on Pinside or other forums, people talking about podcasts. And, you know, the very innocent question is, hey, does anybody listen to podcasts and you recommend them to you? And the responses can get pretty negative.
Carl D'Angelo
person
Ed Vanderveenperson
Phil Grimaldiperson
Dick Curtisperson
Final Round Pinball Podcastorganization
Texas Pinball Festivalevent
New York City Pinball Championshipevent
Pinball Profile World Tourevent
Head to Head Pinball Podcastorganization
Pinbergevent
Guardians of the Galaxygame
Iron Maidengame
Pinball Networkorganization
This Week in Pinballorganization
IFPA 12event

high · Colin McAlpine: 'I've been told that's going to get fixed. But you can still do the crazy multiplier things on Guardians'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Modern pinball design emphasizes risk/reward balance in strategy; competitive play requires different approaches than casual play, with multiplier stacking and shot selection varying by tournament format (match play vs pump-and-dump)

    high · Colin McAlpine: 'you're balancing your risk and reward... in match play or limited entry competitions, you're not going to see that [extreme stacking]'

  • ?

    content_signal: Podcast production involves significant editing labor; Final Round Episode 7 (drinking-themed) required 5+ hours of editing per track; Skype multi-track recording challenges led to compromise on audio quality

    high · Jeff Teolis: 'that's probably five hours of editing and i went you know what i'm just going to use the skype track'

  • ?

    community_signal: Content creators (podcasters, streamers, youtubers) receive significant criticism on forums and Pinside for perceived ego-driven motivations, but hosts counter that production effort far exceeds community recognition

    high · Marty Robbins: 'the amount of effort that each of these people go to... is far greater than the accolades you get for doing the podcast'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Head to Head Pinball Podcast has ceased operations; reasons for closure not explicitly stated but referenced as past decision

    medium · Jeff Teolis asked 'Are they still around?' with implication show is ended

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Colin McAlpine's progression from overwhelming tournament beginner to rules expert demonstrates importance of learning game mechanics; pre-game rule study improves competitive performance and enjoyment across all skill levels

    high · Colin McAlpine: 'I got into this point where I was like, hey, you know what, I'm going to go and I'm going to learn how to play all these games'

  • $

    market_signal: Significant tournament infrastructure being preserved for 2021 recovery; merchandise sales and supporter commitments demonstrating continued market demand for post-COVID tournament season

    medium · Marty Robbins: 'there were a lot of supporters, a lot of things are moving forward to 2021. There was a lot of merchandise being purchased'

    • 5:21
    And the stock-standard comment I see is, oh, it's just people with egos that are just wanting to hear the sound of their own voice. That's not actually the case. I mean, obviously, yes, we do love the sound of our own voice, but the amount of effort that each of these people go to, not just us, but all the podcasts go to... Every one of them. ...to produce content is far greater than the accolades you get for doing the podcast. So, I just want to say, just really appreciate all the people that are putting out content. and there's obviously now a location where you can see the content listing. If you go to This Week in Pinball, you can go to the promoter's database and you can see all the different streamers and marketers and podcasts, all there in one location. So just go to thisweekinpinball.com. What you said was interesting because you said people do this not for the great accolades or certainly not for fame and fortune. It's to provide content. It's to offer an opinion. And it's a way of connecting, really. I get that. I also get that people don't like podcasts. I get that. Talkback radio is what I say. Do you like, you know, the morning breakfast shows and the nighttime after work talkback radio format? Do you like that? Because you're on radio? The truth is, yes. In fact, I would say, and I'm a total music file, I listen to more talk programming, whether it's podcast, talk radio, than I do music. And I love music. It's funny because we're going to talk a little bit later on the program about movies and television shows. I would say I listen to more talk. Next would be music, and then it would be movies and television. Okay. I do not like Talkback Radio whatsoever. So it doesn't mean that I need to then tell everybody that Talkback Radio is shit. There you go. I've said it. Sounds like you're already... No, what I'm saying is I don't like it. Sounds like I'm being judged right here, you know, and we've got a whole show to go ahead, and I'm going to be pissed off for it, but that's fine. I hate podcasts, and yet I'm doing one. No, you know what? Marty, I feel bad you said people don't do podcasts for fame and fortune and their big riches. We do. I mean, that's the only reason we signed on to Final Round. Have you heard our sponsors? Hello.
    7:41
    We get the best sponsors each week. So, for sure. But, speaking of people that go out of their way to provide a platform for people, and they happen to come on our podcast. We've got an interview this week. Marty, as we know, no Pinberg this year, but on final round, we give you the best. No Pinberg? That's okay. We give you a Pinberg winner, also a three-time guest, yet first time ever actually on the show, Colin McAlpine. Hi, Colin, how are you? I'm doing splendid. Well, technically invited on twice previously, came on once, didn't air, But I'm just being, you know, just wanted to technically put it out there, Daya, the facts. So you're too good to get drunk with us on our last episode, Colin? Is that what happened? I was already, I fell asleep, guys. I was drinking, and it was, I got tired, and, you know, sorry. Yeah, didn't mean to dish out on the fun. I listened to it, at least most of it. I didn't listen to all of it, but I caught the second half, which was the much better half. Oh, God. What? Oh, shit. A lot of people have been reaching out to both of us saying how much they enjoyed it. And I don't remember recording the second half of it. So, yeah. Colin, there was one point where Marty and I may have been so drunk that in group five we asked a question. We asked the exact same question in group six. They even said, you just said that. Marty and I, oblivious to it, had no idea that we had just asked the same question. Funny enough, everyone got it right.
    9:14
    But now that you missed, in a way, are you kind of glad that maybe you avoided the shit show? No, I don't know. It was good. It was a major disappointment, but I've got, like, four more times to go before I hit the sharp level.
    9:34
    That's true. But also, you know, you've won. You've won massive trophies. You've won lots of money. It's good to let other people win something, right? Exactly. I mean, I wanted somebody else to win the final round of the final round of the final round of the final round. That's it. I got Diet Pepsi today. I'm not getting hammered, so this is the silver show. You're right, Marty. He has won some big, big trophies. He is one of only ten people in the world to win a Pinball Profile World Tour trophy event that he did in Houston. It lights up. Well, we lit up, so your trophy should light up. You know, why not? I mean, that's nice for somebody that isn't the host of the tournament to win the tournament. Because I think if you win your own tournament, I think that's just, I don't know, it's not cool. It's bad taste. I may have done it the first year that I ran TPF, I won it. So I'm also... Oh.
    10:32
    So, Marty, in a roundabout way, you're saying TPF is shit. Is that what you just said? Yeah. I wasn't being subtle here. So, you know. Well, let's give some background, all right? I went to Melbourne, Australia, a lovely, lovely place. It's certainly no Queensland, but it'll do. And I had a Pinball Profile World Tour event there, and I was one of 47 people in it. Every time I lost a game in a flip frenzy, and there were like 25 games, I had to take a shot of fireball, common theme, it seems. And I still won the tournament. That's why I think I'm the greatest player ever in Australia. Goes there, wins a big tournament, won and done, mic drop. I think if we were, like last week, if we were having to take a shot every time you mentioned that you'd won the World... Did I mention that? I reckon we would be absolutely hammered by now because this would be like the eighth time in this podcast that you've mentioned that you won the Pimple Pro Pro World Tour in Australia. Just saying. Well, smartass, we've got some time left. There might be some more. There we go. And Jeff, Marty, he just slayed you on your choice of alcohol. Oh, my gosh. Wow. Yeah, he judged it based on how much it costs. Sorry, dude.
    11:47
    Wow. Anyway. And how it tastes, by the way. Yeah, for sure. Still on the original liver, okay, boys? Still on the original liver. I'm on my third. So, Colin, CPF didn't happen. Our episode that we recorded with you didn't happen. I would say you're probably more upset about not coming on the podcast. How have you been in your seriousness not having to put on a great tournament like the championship that you put on? It was a big bummer because we were right within two weeks of hosting it. So for the most part, because I've got a great crew of people that I work with, we've done most of the work already. So, you know, obviously there's a lot of work that happens during the weekend itself. But in terms of the preparation work, we were pretty much done. So we were ready to go, had all the games lined up, you know, had most of the volunteers lined up. So it was all primed and ready to go. And it was just a matter of showing up and then putting everything in motion, you know, having a very hectic but fulfilling and fun, you know, long weekend with a bunch of my pinball friends from not just around Texas, but around the country and yet around the world. And it didn't happen. And it sucks. And it continues to suck as we watch the list of events that appropriately need to be, you know, canceled or postponed. But it's still it just it's not it's not fun because, you know, we're used to I mean, there's a reason why we're we all listen to these podcasts and play the pinball and go to all the competitions because we enjoy hanging out with each other and we enjoy competing and it's a lot of fun and we miss it. Yeah. And I've sort of maintained that a lot of people have started streaming over this time. And what's great about that is there's still a way to be able to connect with people and talk with people. And I've kind of really relished the amount of conversations I've had with people over this time because I wouldn't have had any of that contact at all. So it's just, I think what this pandemic has done, because it's lasted so long, it's instilled new habits and new ways of communicating. And I'm really curious to see what we think the aftermath is going to be. What permanent behavioral changes will there be as a result? And one of them I know that people are talking about is how do we now move forward with pinball on location and social distancing rules? I think we all need to invest in the hand sanitizer companies. Oh, yeah. And masks. Yeah. I think we're going to have – because it was always the running joke at every pinball festival and pinball tournament that we all joked about how unsanitary and how there were certain people that would just – not just from a hand standpoint or they would be eating. and then we're constantly having to harp on people going, hey, please, wash your hands and clean yourself after eating before you come and touch the pinball machine again. Come on, be reasonable. Take a fucking shower once in a while. And that, too, is like, take a shower, use deodorant. Here, have a stick of deodorant. Go to the restroom and put some on now. But it's going to become more serious than that because we'd actually considered it as part of TPF, you know, Phil Grimaldi and I and Dick Curtis, we tried to figure out, we were actually putting in place some protocols where we were going to require people to scrub in before they played every game. And we may have to do things like that, at least in the near future. Hopefully, maybe in the long-term future, maybe we can let up. But in the near-term future, and I say near-term, I mean like a year or so, I think we're going to be stuck in this thing of where people are going to have to scrub in before they play or sanitize after they get done playing or be wearing gloves. I don't know, but it's not going to be the same. I guess the one saving grace about TPF being canceled, and yes, it was kind of two weeks out before it happened, was that it gave us time to maybe get cancellation on our hotel and our flights and everything else. And it looks like, from what I hear from Ed and Kim, that there were a lot of supporters, a lot of things are moving forward to 2021. There was a lot of merchandise being purchased, all those kind of good things to really show to support. But had it actually happened, I wonder how many people would have said, I'm not doing it. I'm not going.
    16:16
    I think there would have been a lot because we knew a lot more, you know, two weeks. It was about two weeks in advance of when it was canceled. And in that environment in particular, and even now, it's still things change. You get new information daily. But even back then, it was even a greater pace of change, I think, as far as awareness and information and data, the things that we were seeing in Europe, in Italy in particular, that we hadn't seen yet in the U.S., but were a sign of things to come, obviously experienced full fold, and then some in New York. So, yeah, if we would have gotten to that point, I think there would have been a lot of people that wouldn't have come. There would have been a lot of people that exhibit games. I mean, those festivals don't happen without your exhibitors and without the people that bring the games. And so it still could have taken place, but it wouldn't have been the same experience. You would have had a ton of vendors that wouldn't have shown up, people that were going to do seminars that wouldn't have shown up, because everybody, there would have been, maybe some would have, but it wouldn't have been the same experience. So in some ways, Jeff, I think you're right. It's almost a blessing in disguise that we were able to, you know, Kim and Ed and Paul were able to pull the plug when they did because it would have been a shame to have kind of a cloud or kind of a half TPF, if you will. And conversely, you know, you said it when you first started talking on this program. You said wisely it was canceled. Boy, I'm seeing, unfortunately, some people saying, hey, let's get going. I want to play pinball just like the rest of you. I know you do, Colin. Marty, I don't know about you. You don't like people. So anyway, I want to start playing in competitions. But again, we have to wait until it's an all clear. And we're seeing a lot of people saying, I'm fine. I'm not sick. Let's get at it. And it's shocking the hell out of me some of the responses we're seeing. I just want to stay healthy. Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's a hobby. It's a pastime. You know, it's not this is. How dare you. This is life and death. Well, it could have been literally. Sorry. But, yeah, even as we get to the point where we're seeing in Europe, we're seeing in different parts of Asia, we're seeing in some of the states in the U.S. where you're starting to see some, you know, phased approach to try to reopen and to have different people get back to work, but in a whole new capacity. I mean, these are a pinball festival in terms where we're all touching the exact same, you know, four square inches of space on the pinball machine of the buttons. And, you know, it's a recipe for disaster in terms of transmissibility. Yeah, for sure. But it's disappointing. I mean, as you know, it was going to be my event in the U.S. Like I had said it was going to be TPF this year. In fact, I'd said I was going to do no traveling in 2020. But then I changed my mind at the last minute, pulled all my resources, cashed in all my frequent flyer points, miles, whatever it is, and then canceled. Yep, and ruined the entire economy. Everyone was based on, hey, Marty's coming to the USA, and shit hit the fan. Shut the whole country down because I wasn't there. But everyone was writing to me saying, oh, my God, you must be so disappointed. And do you know what? I didn't feel disappointed because I just knew it was the right decision. So it was kind of like the alternate was flying, and by that time now, I'm glad I did because by that time, anybody that was coming back into the country had to be self-quarantined in a hotel room for four weeks. So at the time, I was kind of relieved that the decision was made on my behalf, and I didn't feel regrets as a result. No, wise decision for sure. And it's funny, we are three different countries here on this phone conversation, and different effects, different restrictions in provinces, states, countries. I think we've got a ways to go before we get back to whatever normal will be.
    20:29
    So we've lost tournaments with COVID and obviously league play. We even lost our guest. You know, it's the third time we've tried to get Colin on. There's a lightning storm going on in Texas, apparently, and you're now on your cell phone. So it sounds like a different Colin, but you are in fact the Colin McAlpine. The one and the same. This sounds a bit different now because I can't use my nice microphone. Now I'm on my Bluetooth on my cell phone. So speaking of storms, the very first time I heard the big, like, the storm warnings, like the big, I don't know, whether it's like a tornado or a cyclone, the first time I actually experienced it was at TPF. But what I love about it is, like, everyone gets these big warnings. They look at their phone and they go, huh, another storm. Well, that actually happened at an IFPA event, IFPA 12. Colin, were you at that? The one in Denver where the roof kind of caved in the same place, I think, where Pinmasters was this past year. And it didn't cave in, but it was leaking, and there was a big storm, and cables were getting wet, and Josh had to tell people, you need to stop playing or you might die. Were you there? I was not at that one. That was before I got good. So here's another thing about you, Colin That, you know, you've obviously been on Head to Head It's a good podcast that either of us do And... Are they still around? Oh, no Call it a day Tough year and a half for them Oh, well No, no, no, no, no, Jeff They knew when to quit No, they didn't I can suggest they might have quit earlier Anyway, the point is You are known for games rules. In fact, I've won or come close to winning certainly a game or a tournament because of the advice that you've given me around rules. Is it something that you still are obsessing about? I would say obsessing. Yeah, I mean, it all started from the first time. I mean, I've always enjoyed playing games and whether, you know, board games and then video games, you know, when they first were introduced when I was a kid, and, you know, learning the ins and outs of them. So with pinball, I would also learn the rules when I first started playing, but didn't really completely get into it. But then I realized when I got back into pinball later on in life, and the ability to process all the information and figure out all the nuance, that it, you know, it enabled you to enjoy the game more, and get higher scores, and get further along towards, you know, different progress in wizard modes. And then in tournaments, it really kind of, you know, it went to a whole new level the first time I went to Pinnberg. So the first time I went to Pinnberg, like I think most people, the first time they go, you're suddenly plunged into these rounds of games where you're playing these older games, which in my case, I hadn't played a lot of older games growing up. I played the early, you know, the late solid states and then the DMVs. And so I didn't know what I was doing. So you're playing these games, you come up to them completely cold, and you don't know which shots will do what. And it's kind of fun to do that. But when you're in a competitive setting and you're wanting to do well, it's both fun but also frustrating. And so I got into this point where I was like, hey, you know what, I'm going to go and I'm going to learn how to play all these games, whether it be looking at online tutorials or reading rule sets that were posted on the internet or reading message threads online or looking at the, you know, game instruction cards that are listed, or in the case of older games, a lot of times you're just looking at the play field and looking at what the lights say, you know, looking at what the inserts say, and just making some notes. That way, even though I may not know fully exactly how the game works, at least I have some idea before I step up to the game. And so the inspiration behind that really was my first Pinberg and the overwhelmed feeling of not knowing three-quarters of the games I was playing. Colin, Marty, and I are on a little group chat, and it's funny, whenever a new code update happens, Colin's one of the first people on this chat, Raymond Davidson's another one, that really break it down and say, oh, wow, look at this. This new rule does this, and that might be an exploit, or now you can stack it with this. So when those updates happen, you must be right into the readme file right away, and obviously that changes maybe how you approach a game. Yeah, for sure. I definitely go straight to the readme file and, you know, just kind of skim through it to see what's been changed. And a lot of times, depending on the manufacturer and the designer even, they will be cryptic in terms of how that readme file, you know, plays out. So then you really have to, you know, play the game yourself or, you know, see somebody else talking about that game or watch it on Twitch or see somebody posting something on Tilt Forums about what they experienced. But yeah, just even from the nature of what's posted, you can figure out that some part of the equation of how a score is done or how you progress towards something or how it's multiplied, things get changed. And so you're just making note of that. The general rule of thumb on modern games in terms of, you know, really knowing how to blow something up on most, you know, Stern as well as JJP to a lesser extent than the other manufacturers, but you see a lot of Sterns and JJPs, is really understanding the compound effect of multipliers. You know, just like in the, somebody who's familiar with classics, you know, the big deal was always getting your bonus X because the bonus was where the points were at. And if you could get that bonus X to 2X and 3X, and then in the case of ballys, it would jump straight to 5X. And some of the older sterns would be additive where you could get the, everything added up on the play field. The same thing exists in terms of your play field and shot multiplier. So you can layer those onto each other on modern games and things get out of control rather quickly. There's some good videos out there where you can see that happening. I know there's a great video where Robert Gagno shows just how ridiculous scoring you can get on Guardians of the Galaxy on sibling rivalry, for instance. Carl D'Angelo has done some great videos of JJP Pirates and showing how the multipliers get insane when you use it on some of the new gold collection code. So Carl has been great about showing some of the multipliers for the JJP games. in particular the Jersey Jack Pirates and some of the beta code that's out there and how the multipliers really kick in and just get insane, especially for Team Action Button for the gold collection and how that all multiplies itself. So in some cases, thankfully, because of modern-day code and the code revision, that gets fixed. And so I've been told that's going to get fixed. But you can still do the crazy multiplier things on Guardians, and you can still do the crazy multiplier things on a lot of different games. So, I mean, I just, in fact, just this evening, I finally, finally was successful at getting a 900 million death blow shot on Iron Maiden. You talked about Guardians there and what Robert does. Robert sends me notes. Do you think the game's unbalanced? I'm like, no, Robert, not everyone can do what you do. Sibling rivalry, crazy multipliers, and the combos. I mean, he's a player unlike many others. For sure. and it's yeah and the other good part about that is yes it's like you said Jeff it's possible to do those things but even for your elite level pinball players it's not something you can pull off all the time so you have to set things up perfectly and you have to have a great game and you know not lose your ball because most of the time the multipliers go away as soon as you drain your ball so that's the nice part about there is some risk reward but the potential exists for just insane scoring with the multipliers and so that's a lot of times that you know the things that I look for as the code develops is just seeing, you know, where are those spots where you can really blow things up. But from a competition standpoint, you're never really, you're rarely going to see somebody take advantage of sibling rivalry in the way that you can go watch the, you know, Robert Gagne's YouTube stream. You're rarely going to see somebody do that in competition. The only time I would suggest you see that is in a pump and dump tournament when you're trying to actually get a grand champion score. In match play, you're not going to do that. In a flip frenzy, you're not going to do that. But when you've got a chance to play a game over and over and over again, okay, maybe. Yeah, that's true, especially because you're going to be able to find the shots, and so you'll get more comfortable with the game and comfortable enough to essentially go for those ultimate high-scoring strategies. But you're right. Typically, you're not going to see that in match play or limited entry competitions, but it still exists for the pump and dump and for trying to put up a GC. But that's what I like about the tips that I get from you, Colin, is you've got... Let's say I said, how do I play Star Trek? I'll use Star Trek, obviously, because it the only one I really know the rules to And you would say to me okay if you going for quick points do this If you going for the longer game do that So I guess what I like is that you thought about how a novice can just get some scores just get the multi-ball and do this, to the advanced player. So it just gives you lots of options to tackle a machine. And is that something that you're consciously thinking of, or is that just really for yourself? Yeah, I mean, I consciously think of it. Because it really boils down to the different styles of approaching the game and the different competitive situations. So even though at an expert or elite level, you're thinking more on the medium-range scores, which even a novice is capable of getting. But the reason why even at an elite level you're thinking about these things is because you're trying to minimize your risk. And so that's where the whole beauty of pinball comes into play is that you are balancing your risk and reward. And so in a match play or limited entry style event, you're not necessarily going to go for the elite level scores and GC scores. You're going to go for something that is more attainable by anybody, but you're doing it because you know that it's more and more attainable. You're actually going to hit that in the three balls that you have in that given moment. Marty, did you see what Colin just did on Iron Maiden? The 900 million death blow? Colin, tell the weaker players how you do that. I mean, obviously, I know how to do that. I've done it many times. Sorry. But for those who don't know, just let's entertain them, shall we?
    31:09
    Hold on. Let me get my pen. Go ahead. Well, if you want to go read the thorough notes, it's fairly rare I go on Pinside these days, but I did actually respond to a post on Pinside of somebody talking about Run of the Hills, and we got into a discussion on 900 million death blow. And so it's obscene because Elwin was the first one to post about it that I read about it on Tilt Forums. And I thought, that's insane. Usually when you see a Deathblow pop up on the display in Iron Maiden, you're getting 1 million points or 3 million points. And so to get 900 million, that's ridiculous. And so the way you have to do that is you have to set things up just the right way. So the fourth Toon Treasure award is called Super Combos and Deathblow. and it essentially gives you a 5x multiplier on all of your combos and death blows for the remainder of that ball, only that ball. And so you can use that to your advantage. And so if you can get a six-way combo, which is very difficult to do but a lot of fun, the normal base value of that is 20 million points for your sixth shot. And if you have 5x combos or super combos going, that becomes 100 million points. Very nice amount of points you can get. and the uh if you can cap that off before you hit another shot with a super death blow so in iron maiden there are certain shots that end your combo you know name like you know certain standouts the captive ball where there's super death blow shots where you hit the revised spinner or the dead eye you know the center of the bullseye will give you three times a death blow value and the death blow value is your same value of your final combo shot so in the case of 5x combos that's 100 million and if you multiply that by three for your super death blow, that's $300 million. And the way you multiply that by three again is by having 3x playfields running. So if you can do all those things and have all the stars align, you can get a $900 million death blow shot. And I was working at it for weeks. I rented an Iron Maiden from my friend Jesse who runs Buffalo Billiards here in town. And so I did the run of the hills and that was a lot of fun. So my next challenge was working on the $900 million death blow and I've been at that for, I think, two, almost three weeks, and I finally got it tonight. That just sounds so difficult.
    33:24
    It is. It's almost, yeah, I almost think it's harder than run to the hills. What I was hearing was, okay, you've got to do this really, really, really difficult thing, and on top of that, you've got to add this other really difficult thing and also another difficult thing. If you can do all those three things, sure, easy, do it. And people are now doing like a speed run version of that. It's not just getting to the 900 million death blow. It's who can do it in the quickest amount of time. Yeah, you've got the streamers out there that are doing the timed run on as well, which I think that's awesome because it's just a fun, it just adds another nuance and level of the competition. But I wasn't timing myself. I was just trying to get to it in the first place because it's so frustrating because like you just described there, Marty, there's so many things that can go wrong anywhere, not just draining the ball. For instance, if anybody's played Iron Maiden, you're aware of when you get your 2x play field, if you go through a lit in lane, which you can control, but you oftentimes don't intend to go into lit in lane, you just do, and that activates your 2x play field. Well, you're done. You now have to start back over on going back and getting your 2x play field again on your way to getting a 3x play field. And it's very frustrating. Like I said, if you miss one little step, you're suddenly back to square one. And in the case of, you know, if you actually initiate your super combos and you drain your ball, you're done. You have to start back at square one and start your game over. Let me translate for you, Colin. Marty speaks, it's Australian. It sounds like English. It's not. What he's trying to say is you have to do this, it's hard. You have to do this, it's hard. What he's saying is, fuck me, I'm screwed. I'm no longer any good. And by the way, Marty, I know that because I feel the same way. Yeah, so here's what I was thinking in my head. It's like most people think the wizard mode is unattainable. You've got it, and you're like, what else can I do that's even harder? Mere mortals are just crazy. But it actually sort of brings up the question I wanted to ask you because you did say that you got to run to the hills, the wizard mode on Iron Maiden. Would you also say that that's a very difficult feat? Or would you say, yeah, that's pretty achievable, it just takes time? No, it's incredibly difficult. I was incredibly pleased, you know, just fist pumping and, you know, fist bumping my kids because they actually were, it was because it was during quarantine. They were all home from school and I was, you know, in my lunch break and, you know, playing a game of hoon ball. And it turned out to be a little bit longer lunch than expected. And that's the cool part about some of the designers, like Keith Elwin and other designers these days, they create different layers of the experience for the pinball player. So, no, there's a very small percentage of people that are ever going to get to run in the hills. And that's okay. But there's lots of other things along the way for, you know, different people, different levels of skill to enjoy. And as people then evolve and improve their skills, they can then go for, you know, higher and higher things, you know, from the first time they finally play multiball and then the next thing, oh, I collected a super jackpot during multiball. and then, oh, the next thing, oh, I'm getting a tomb treasure. Oh, what are those? And then realizing, oh, there's 10 of these things. And, you know, oh, well, if I can get to, you know, I've never gotten more than two. And so they finally get to their third tomb treasure. And that's a big achievement. And that is. It's a big achievement for a lot of players simply to get to the third tomb treasure or fourth or fifth. And so that's a big deal, and that's fun. And so that's the cool part about when you use these modern pinball machines is there's these layers that players can unlock as they spend more time in the machine, as they improve their skills, as they learn the rules. Colin, I just had on Pinball Profile, one of the podcasts that still exists that didn't call it quits, I just had George Gomez on, and he said that games being fun is actually more important than being deep. Now, some of his games are both fun and deep. I want to talk to you about strategies for a game that Marty and I both love. It's really grown on us. The code just makes it better and better. Deadpool. It's going to be a fun game for everyone because you're going to start little Deadpool and that's going to be fun, but if you want to get deeper in the game, we've got to go to a guy who certainly knows how to go deep in games. Before we go into deeper strategies, if you were playing it in match play, so obviously not trying to get a grand champion score, maybe your best strat for Deadpool. So in match play, depending on how the Deadpool is set up, so we'll start with, let's say, a really high degree of difficulty Deadpool, which would then correspond towards also a more novice player on a regular Deadpool is that you want to stack something with your little Deadpool. So in the little Deadpool is when you knock down the drop targets and hit the target behind the – and you start little Deadpool multiball. And so by having – you can stack a mode on top of that. And generally speaking, most people will try to do Juggernaut. And the reason why you're doing Juggernaut is because the first phase of Juggernaut is to hit the stand-up targets on either side, which are drain risks because you're shooting side-to-side on something that is not controllable. And so if you can do that in the safety of a two-ball multiball, especially while the ball stays still going, then you can get to the second phase of Juggernaut, which then lights up all the major shots, which is nice for a multiball because then presumably you're going to be hitting a lot of those major shots just even on accident sometimes. And so that lays down a nice baseline score. Now, Colin, before you do that, should you bring in any of these power-ups, whether it's the Wolverine or Dazzler or Domino? Well, yeah, that gets in the next layer.
    39:11
    So you wouldn't even do that beforehand? Well, it depends. It depends on how it's on a really difficult setup, Deadpool. No, I wouldn't because I'm thinking about, you know, if I've got the, if it's a feather tight tilt and the outlanes are no rubber and wide open and the slings are super tight and sensitive i might just start off with getting my juggernaut and my little deadpool just to as a starting point now i might if i if i then get a feel for the shots that's the other benefit of playing a little deadpool early is just giving yourself the safety of multi-ball to find your shots and once you've found your shots then you bring those team ups and yeah you're right team team-ups are really, I think a lot of people don't know just how powerful the team-ups can be. I think a lot of people just accidentally get them anyway. Agreed. And so they end up with these great scores on something on a mode, and they don't necessarily know how they got them. And so that's the cool part, is that once you, by learning the rules, you can then start to be intentional with trying to get those team-ups. And so, you know, there are certain team ups like the, I forget if exactly, I think the Sabertooth one is one where there's one of the team ups, I think it's the Wolverine. I think it's double the damage. Yes, the Wolverine double damage on Sabertooth isn't necessarily the best because you end up dealing the damage too quickly to your opponent. And I think you actually don't get as much of a score during the mode. Colossus can get ridiculous. So your actual best bet on scoring for the modes in Deadpool is by bringing in Colossus first. Now that's that very difficult U-turn shot that's to the left of the scoop, and you have to hit that twice. But if you do that, it doubles all the points during the battle. And so the nice part about that, and this gets back into the compound, what I like to call the pinball compound multiplier effect, is if you can bring in the Snick shot multiplier or the playfield multiplier, in addition to that, if you can have that going while your Colossus is going, your then final cash out will be a multiplier on top of that. So for instance, if you have the Colossus going, you automatically have 2x. And let's say then you have the Snick multiplier on top of that. So that means you have 4x shots going into it, and then you have the final shot, which is the cash out based upon your scoring during that whole mode, which is also 2x. You actually then have an 8x multiplier on your final shot.
    41:46
    Okay. Can't say that's happened. You done it, Marty? Oh, my God, Colin. Look, this is the thing, right? I get that that is how you're going to blow up this machine. I know that that's it. It's just too much to remember. Well, I'm going to listen back to this next time I play. Yeah, I'm going to have to. I'm going to cradle up. I'm going to be listening to this podcast.
    42:10
    I'm going to be in a tournament. I'm going to go, oh, shit, I'm going to get that podcast that we did and listen to it. Because all I'm saying is that's really, really complicated. And for most players, and also we've got a lot of listeners that are just sort of dipping their toes into tournaments, that can seem quite daunting to be able to blow up a machine. and it's sort of some of the feedback that I've been given where people are sort of saying it really does, obviously rightly so, benefit those people that can understand rules than normal people, if that makes sense. Now that's interesting. I want to jump in here. Colin, because games at tournaments are set up more difficult, your strategy that you just gave us right there is a good kind of baseline for that because you're not going long play. You're not thinking of trying to get a GC. So in a way, is it more beneficial to the players with the better skills than a player who can absorb all these rules and blow them up in leagues, blow them up at home, but when you get to a tournament, you're not used to the tough outlanes, the lack of rubbers, the tight tilts. Yeah, so what I recommend to people there is that when you're playing a game, you know, if you're just playing for fun, and whether it's on your own machine at home or you're at an arcade, generally speaking, when you're at an arcade, you're already paying for the machine on Coindrop at least. But let's say you're at home where it's free play or you're at an arcade where you paid one price and you're on free play now. And the general tendency is for a lot of people is after they've struggled through a ball or two and they realize they're having a bad game, they restart it. And I do the same thing, by the way. I'm not saying that's a bad thing to do. But if you're trying to improve and increase your rules knowledge, not just rules knowledge, but your appreciation for what it takes to get a certain level of incremental points, you're actually better off setting yourself up for a ball three situation. Because this is the Final Round Pinball Podcast. We're talking about competitive pinball. And so you want to put yourself in situations where you feel like you're stepping up to ball three and you're in a do-or-die situation. You're going to get knocked out of this round or you're going to get eliminated if you don't hit X number of points on this last ball. So if you're playing Deadpool and you've only managed to put up 20 million points on your first two balls and you need to get to 60, you just pick a number and say, okay, what do I need to do to get the next 40 million points? And then figure that out. And if you don't know, then play the game and you'll learn it over time or read the rule sheet, whatever you want to do. Different people learn different ways. And then as you gain that appreciation for what it takes to get that incremental amount of points, you'll start to learn those rules, and you'll start to learn what works and what doesn't work. Now, Marty, another game I want to ask Colin about is a game that you play. You stream it on Melbourne Silver Ball. It's one of the greatest games ever, Lord of the Rings, another game that George made that is fun and also deep. So, Marty, I'm going to let you go first. Tell me your strategy, and then Colin, tell me how he's fucked up and screwed up the game.
    45:19
    Well, so what's really interesting about Lord of the Rings for me is ever since I've owned the machine, I've never played it in a tournament. So I've not really been looking at this game on how to blow it up. So I actually don't really know too much. Obviously, I know one of the gifts from the elves is, you know, the two times multiplier. And you want to be able to cash that in when you've got something good that's running. For me, it's always just the standard. make sure you've got a mode running before you get into a multi-ball. I don't know. It's such an open rule set that there's many different ways you can tackle it. What I don't know is what are the exploits, and I'm sure Colin does. Yeah, so the first thing, if you're playing this in competition, if they haven't made the Lord of the Rings hard, is you need to bring a pillow.
    46:11
    And so that's rule number one. That's why you don't see it in competitions. Yeah, it's because once you find your shot, and it's a great game. I own it. I own it for a reason. I love the theme. I love the game. I love the rules. I love the immersion, the experience of it. It's a lot of fun. But I can't play that game with friends when they come over, unless I play one-handed or something like that, because it just takes too long. So in most competitions, you're going to find that game set up very difficult. So we had set that up one year for Bat City Open, and we used lightning flippers on it, and we took off the outlane rubbers and made it wide open, very sensitive slings. And it still played long, but not too long. And so it definitely changed those. So as far as your rules, instead of going for necessarily stacking modes on the multiballs, you're really just trying to safely get into your multiballs. And so the easiest one to do, of course, is you can find either ramp shot is you just finish your in lanes. You finish the keep letters that you spell on the out lanes and the in lanes. You can cycle them, and that gets you into two towers. And two towers, you can put up some decent points there. And then the other one is to return to the king is a nice way. The way you get that is by playing the nth mode. And so if you play the nth mode, it automatically feeds now. Anytime you hit either orbit or when you hit the open, the gate, instead of turning into that miniature orbit, the Gandalf shot, it will now feed the Vuk and it'll feed up to where you can collect more souls and get quicker progress to Return of the King. And so in a hard setup Lord of the Rings, those are the general two strategies, just to get into Two Towers Multiball or get into Return of the King. What about modes? Do you focus on points in modes? You do, but you, and like I said, you use Ents to set up Return of the King because it's just, there's no better way of getting into that upper play field to collect all those three souls than Ents. It's just, that's the only mode that will automatically have that post pop up behind the vertical up kicker on the left-hand side, so that way you can get those souls. Yeah, obviously, if you can stack modes into multi-balls, you're still going to be better off. but you essentially take that as it comes in terms of competition. But, yeah, in terms of exploits, it's interesting that, once again, it goes back to my comments on multipliers. And so your exploits on Lord of the Rings, you know, get into your multipliers. And as you mentioned, Marty, one of the gifts of the elves is 2x scoring, so if you can get that going. And the other thing is to use your Golem multiball if you're going for points exploits is to use your Golem multiball and make sure that you're hitting shots during the Smeagol phase. It's just a timed back and forth between Smeagol and Golem where you're going to get 2x scoring or half scoring. And so if you're in Smeagol phase, you're going to get 2x points. If you're in Golem phase, you're getting half points. If you combine that with 2x scoring Gift of the Elves, you'll now have a 4x opportunity. I saw a good clip of Raymond Davidson playing his Lord of the Rings, and he did that during the Two Towers multiball. And so you have a multiplier 2x gift of the L's. You have a multiplier from Smeagol going. And if you can do that while you're getting into the upper levels of Two Towers Multiball. So with Two Towers Multiball, the general construct is the first shot you hit is worth a jackpot. And you hear the John Rhys-Davies saying, you know, jackpot one. And if you hit the second shot within a certain very short time period, you get jackpot two. Well, that jackpot was 2x your initial jackpot. And if you can get, there's seven shots in the play field. So you get jackpot three, jackpot four, jackpot five. Well, if you can get that with 4x going on top of that, you've now gotten, if you got jackpot five, that was effectively jackpot 20. So just from five times four. And so that's where you can get some really stupid, ridiculous points without getting to the wizard mode, just by simply stacking that 2x scoring with the favorable Smeagol portion of Gala Multiball and getting, streaming together some combo shots during two towers. So just for those people that are listening that are relatively new to this particular game. Get from the elves, there are six awards that you can get, and how you get them is by either completing a mode or completing a multi-ball. It will then randomly have one of those six things, and I think you've got, what, extra ball is one of them, special big points, and there's like a ring frenzy or something. And how you change that award is the stand-up target in the Shire, which is on the left-hand side where the vertical up-kicker is. So you can then, let's say, if you intentionally want to bring in two-time scoring, you've got to hit that to get to two times, and then it's a left-orbit shot all the way to the right scoop, top-right scoop, to start whatever gift is lit. Correct. Yeah, that stand-up target, it's like on the top end of that Shire shot, similar to like the catapult on Medieval Madness, where you get double credit on Medieval Madness if you hit that back target before it drops into the catapult itself. And so the same type of concept on the Shire in Lord of the Rings. Yep. Such a great game. Both of them good. And these are requests from Michael Peterson, who sent us an email at finalroundpinball at gmail.com. Wanted to hear how to play those. I mean, Marty, you and I probably could have, you know, explained it. But I guess when you've got a Pinberg champ, you know, maybe. a guy who's won a few things, pinball profile, world tour event, whatever, get over it.
    51:59
    But the one last thing on Lord of the Rings for anybody that's relatively new to it is the other feature that most people are not aware of is that if you've just gotten done playing a multiball, the Two Towers or Return of the King or Fellowship of the Ring, and if you had already had your Golem multiball lit before you played your multiball, then you end your multiball and then suddenly your Golem multiball becomes lit. And so if you can hit that shot at that Gimli vertical upkicker on the right-hand side of the game, just a few seconds after your multiball ends, you'll revive that multiball. And so I think most competitive players know about that, but if there's any newer players out there to Lord of the Rings, that's a really cool way to extend your multiballs. But also just on that, I think Golem multiball is the only multiball that can be stacked, but you need to start Gollum first or can you start Gollum after you've started another multiple? If you want to stack them together, well, yeah, you can actually do it either way. But you have to, if you want to have it running really to guarantee that it's going to be stacked, you have to start Gollum first. That way you have it stacked. You can have it stacked if you do that resurrection thing that I mentioned but that only works if you can nail that shot during the grace period when the multiball ends. Yeah. Colin, I really appreciate you coming on final round here for the third time. This time we actually put you on air, so, you know, who knows? We've got to get you back. We're going to do that trivia challenge, I think, again. I mean, what else are we going to do, right?
    53:32
    Yeah, no, that would be a lot of fun to do, and I'll make sure that I might stay up. Maybe I can get in the early session. Well, no. Either way, it's a lot of fun. Because you're more west than the people on the east. Think about it. I'm on the, not the East Coast, but the Eastern time zone. So you're in Central, and then the people in Pacific, they've got to come on later. And then, of course, Marty and the Australians, they're getting drunk in the afternoon. So, again, if you're on the East Coast, you get the early shift. If not, sorry, you've got to come on. And listen, what about me? I was on until 3 in the morning. It was not pretty. Yeah, that's true. But we'll do it again. Yeah, it was, I could tell from listening to it, it was a good time. And, yeah, and so I recommend people do that. As we right now, as we well know, we can't go and compete in tournaments and leagues. And so that's really unfortunate. But, you know, get together with your friends online and, you know, play pinball or watch the myriad of streamers. This is kind of the silver lining of all this. There's a whole bunch more streamers now. So if you go and look at the pinball category on Twitch, you'll find a lot of new streamers you probably didn't know about. and, you know, tune into their, you know, follow their streams. That way you get notified, and that way you can interact and you can, you know, chat with people, you know, and watch somebody else play pinball and, you know, laugh it up together. And, you know, we'll all get through this. Awesome. Sounds good, Colin. Thank you very much. I wish you all the best and hope to see you in Austin on 6th Street and enjoy some good barbecue in the near future. Or a taco. Yes. Hey, that's a regular thing for me now. Three weeks in a row, three Taco Tuesdays. It's my new thing.
    55:13
    But do you think to yourself, how did I not have this in my life? No, because it's still pretty dry. Like, it's not really the greasy, talky... Really? Yeah, but I like it. Don't judge. No, I don't. Well, I mean, obviously I judge. You've met me. I'm judging everybody, whether it's openly or in my head. I'm constantly judging. But I say that because, remember, I started drinking alcohol, I don't know, maybe four or five years ago. And caught up. And I had not drunk in my entire life. So at the time when I was saying to people, I've literally just started drinking, people thought I was some sort of alien. So I'm going to cut you some slack because I've been there. Fucking tacos. Everyone's had tacos. Come on. All right, let's pull back the curtain a little more. If you ask any of my friends that I've been around for 30 or 40 years, I don't drink. I do when I go to Vegas and stuff. Look, I'm not working at the time. I don't have to drive anywhere. The kids aren't around. You let your hair down. So I would guess maybe three, four times a year I would have something. I don't ever have, like, a casual beer or something. So when I do, I go overboard. Case in point, last week. You didn't drink that much when you were out here? Well, again, that was my Vegas. It was like a trip away. I turned 50, for God's sakes. I'm not allowed to drink on my birthday? No, what I'm saying was you got drunk once. But for the most part, you really didn't drink at all. Thank you. That's right. No, I get it. Well, yeah, soon enough we'll be all back together again, and we can, you know, raise a toast together in person and clink glasses. And, Jeff, next time you're down here, not only are you going to have good tacos, but I'll blow your mind and we'll have a breakfast taco, Steve. I'm good. I can't wait to get back there and see, as you mentioned, Jesse and Buffalo Billiards and Robert Byers, who's another streamer with Top Rope, and all the fun things on 6th Street, maybe a little Esther's Follies. I look forward to it. There we go. Sounds good. Awesome. Thanks, Colin. Thanks, guys. You know, I thought about taking that interview out to make Colin a three-time no-show, but it was a good interview. Thanks very much, Colin, for coming on. He is great to speak to and very knowledgeable. And, you know, in this time at the moment where a lot of people, I'm actually finding a lot of people I know are actually playing a lot of pinball. because I don't know if that's happened in your area, but a lot of pinball machines that were on location are now being rented into people's homes. And I'm actually getting a lot of people reaching out to me saying, oh, I've now got this machine. How do I blow it up? How do I get a score? I mean, don't worry, they're coming to me. I'm terrible when it comes to rules. But yeah, a lot of people are still playing. I think you're going to see people really know their games inside and out. I actually think we'll become better pinball players. It's a different mindset once you're in a competition. You know, the stress level, the anxiety, whatever happens when you're in that kind of playoff push or trying to, you've got one game to blow up the game. If you don't, you're out, things like that. Okay, but all of my games, I know I'm much better on now that I've been home for two plus months. So I will probably be more comfortable playing those in tournaments, on locations, in leagues, whatever the case may be, even more so than I already was. because maybe I've, you know, some games I'm now playing a different way than I have before. You're probably doing the same thing too. Well, absolutely, because I'm streaming and because I can't go to other people's homes to stream their machines, I've really only got to stream, I say my four machines, but my three machines because my Lord of the Rings is still not working as intended. It obviously meant that I got to Somewhere Over the Rainbow, which I never thought I would have done, and it's just because I've spent time on the one machine. I'm still trying for 5 year mission on Star Trek I've gotten the closest I got 15 out of the 18 missions so you know it kind of gave me this kind of renewed confidence that it is actually attainable but it a one in a thousand games I probably still got to play to get to the five mission with the boat But you're right. Because I'm now playing the same machines over and over, I'm playing them better, and also I'm trying other ways to play them, otherwise it gets repetitive. Have you relaxed things like the tilts to make it easier, or maybe shortened the outlanes, things like that? Or have you just kind of maintained, okay, it's always going to be the same. There is actually only one change I've made, and that's to Star Trek. And one of the updates they had to try and make people play through level one missions was if you tap up the ball or don't do anything for five seconds, the counters stop. Now, it's not a lot of fun to watch a stream of Star Trek when you're timing out modes because you have to time them out. So I tried reducing the timers but put them back. I've now got it that you can trap up and the timer will tick down and you don't have to every five seconds hit something. It just makes it easier for people to watch the show. Yeah, but you never ever trap up, do you? That's something you don't do on streams. By the way, I noticed your stream got a little bit of press this week. Well, it did. So a couple of things happened. So as you know, I've now got two more people streaming on the show. Eric Hansen he has the one that's got like 40 machines in his house and Stacey Borg good friend of yours Stacey Borg he started streaming as well and so Eric did an amazing outland save on April Deluxe it was amazing so go to This Week in Pinball and check it out he actually he was really pleased that he managed to get on This Week in Pinball but he also sent me a link to another save that he did on Metallica because the feedback we got it was very frustrating was, yeah, it was a great outline, but why have you got rubbers on 8-ball deluxe? Oh.
    61:07
    But here's the other thing I want to talk about as well, is that the previous week, it wasn't on This Week in Pinball, but Stacey Borg did an amazing, well, let's call it a Lazarus that went straight into a shat, and he called it the Lazar Shats. On Jungle Queen, or Jungle Princess, or whatever. Jungle Princess, yep. Yeah. That was pretty cool. It was very cool, but then got called out for it being called the shats. What do you think? So what the shats is to pinball competitors is when you have the ball on one flipper and you alley pass it to the other flipper. So you're cradling up, you let the flipper go, and right before the ball drains, right before it drains, you flip, and that angle will actually put it and roll up the other flipper. So if you're cradling on the right, you let it go, it's about to drain down the middle, you flip, it should roll up the left flipper. You see that a lot of times in games like Gorgar. If you watched Eric Stone years ago win his national championships in pinmasters and that great run that he had in 2017, he got a hole-in-one on pinmasters on Gorgar by alley-passing or shatzing. It's named after Neil Shatz, who didn't create the shot, but Neil, who unfortunately doesn't play anymore, I wish he did, he was the Keith Elwin in his day, and Keith used to play against him. And this guy, I think he was out of California, if I recall, but he was just incredible at doing these shots. Someone showed it to him, or he saw it, and he mastered it in the sense that, okay, they just called it the Shats. So, yes, it's an alley pass. I've always called it a Shats. I'll continue to call it a Shats. The reason why I wanted to bring this up is there is a term, and I'm going to probably pronounce this wrong, called Anthomeria. Anthomeria? Anthomeria. Something like that. So, what it is, it's when a brand becomes a verb. I will give you some examples. I'm going to Google that. Okay. Was Google the first search engine? No, exactly. No, it wasn't. Is that also like things like, can you grab me a Kleenex? Yes, because it's actually a tissue. It's a brand name. I'm going to Hoover the room, which I would never do. I don't do vacuuming. It's beneath me. So, I'm going to FedEx that to you. I'm now just reading this stuff off a website. TiVo. Dictaphone. I'm going to record that on my Dictaphone. Well, Dictaphone's a brand, not a voice recorder. So I just wanted to point out there that even though it's called the Alipass, it can also be called the Shatz, which is that word that I just said, Anthomeria. There you go. Okay, since we're not talking about pinball, what is it called when it's, what's the name of the word, when it's not really a word, it's the sound the word makes? It's like burp isn't a word, but they call it a burp because that's the sound it makes. What's that word? I don't know. I'm looking it up. I know Mrs. Pinn listens, but she can't even count to 80, so I'm not going to ask her. She's an educator.
    64:01
    Two-week-in-a-row shot at Mrs. Pinn. I don't know if she knows it. She knows it. I can't believe she was drinking last week. Hello. Actually, that didn't shock me as much as that. For those who didn't know, we started recording at 11.30 at night Eastern. That put it at 1.30 in the afternoon for you So good on you for day drinking And the other Australians Dr. John, Gareth and Greg But by the time we were done recording I think it was 3am So you're already in rush shape Add a few drinks to it Oh boy Absolutely Onomatopoeia Thank you very much Thank you There you go So words Shats Lazar shats A Lazarus Combined with a shat Or an alley pass So there you go Do you think the number one player in the world, Raymond Davidson, will have a shot named after him? Oh, wow. I think he probably would. If he doesn't have a shot named after him, maybe he'll have something unique that he puts into a game down the road because he has a new job. He does indeed. And it's one of these weird things where it came as really no surprise, but it was a surprise. I didn't know he was going to go and work for Stern. Clearly, you did to be able to line up an interview with him on Pinball Profile. Already listened to it. Great interview. Honestly, I didn't. Honestly, goodness, I didn't. No, seriously, and you know me well, Marty. I don't ever, when I respect NDAs, when I had George Gomez on, I didn't want to ask about any future games. I don't care. So things like that, yeah. I mean, I honestly didn't know. I sent him a note in the morning. I'm like, hey, do you want to come on and talk about this? That's it. Yeah, okay, cool. Yeah, awesome. Well, great interview. Sure, we had him on our show. We had George Gomez on our show as well, whatever. Well, I referenced that too on Pinball Profile because that was the – I told Ryan this. I wanted to hear it because, A, I heard it before and it was a great interview. It was kind of the first time I really heard George in depth other than at a show, and it was really, really well done. This is going back to, I think it was August 2018 on Head to Head. Good show. I just didn't want to repeat any of the questions, so I had some kind of questions. I thought, okay, if I'm going to do a long-form interview, I don't want to do what's already been done. Yeah, fair enough. Yeah, it came out as a great interview. Thank you. Well, I mean, look, obviously you're a very good interviewer. Yeah, whatever, move on. That kills you to say that. It actually really hurts. I feel pain. But George Gomez is freaking great to talk to. Just a really nice, personable guy, very knowledgeable. He's obviously, I would say, media trained as well. I'm not saying that he had to go and be media trained, but he's just very good when he's faced with media. Just really good talk to him. So well done. I've noticed that with George. I noticed that with Zach Sharp. We heard Zach recently on Loser Kid along with Josh and Roger Sharp. They didn't get Ellen, though. Sorry. I got Mama. I got Mama Sharp. You did, too. Anyway, when Zach was on Loser Kid, I hear kind of a deep question or maybe a multi-layered question. and Zach or George Gomez or some of these people, they give long answers, but they never, ever, like they can talk for five minutes and they never forget what the question was, and they always make sure they answer it. And that blows me away because you and I can start talking about something and we drift off our short attention spans. What was the question again? How did we move on to that? Those guys are good that way. Yeah, absolutely. So here you go. Well done. Yeah, so congratulations, Ray Day. And, you know, what I really like about this, and you think about, let's say, the last five years, there have always been great players that work for pinball companies. Lyman Sheets has been with Stern for a long time, Williams before that. Great player, no question about it. Keith Johnson, who's at Jersey Jack, he is an outstanding player. I think he's one of the few players, in fact, that has made the A playoffs or A division every single year of pinball. There aren't many people, and Kiefer is one of them, I believe. So those are great players. But in the last five years, think about the names that have been added to pinball companies. Spooky, Bowen Cairns is there. You've got Joe Schober, who's a lights-out player. He's at American Pinball. Steven Bowden at Deep Root. One of the top ten in the world at any given time. And, of course, Joe Katz, also at Jersey Jack. Let's not forget him. He's a great player, too, along with Kiefer. And CERN, they added Tim Saxton. They added Keith Elwin, Zach Sharp, now Raymond Davidson. Don't you think all these people and all of these companies have made pinball better? And what I'm basically saying is, you know, the collectors that are listening to the show, thank you for listening and giving competitive pinball a try, at least listening on a podcast. But these great competitors are making your collections better, deeper, and better pinball machines. So I think kudos to all these companies that are hiring these amazing players. Yeah, absolutely. All the different companies are hiring all the great players. Not you, though, Jeff.
    68:56
    What's that mean? Are you a bit disappointed, rejected a number of times? I can't turn down the current money that I'm making with my regular job and now with the sponsors of Final Round. I'm sorry. It looks like a glory job, but I just can't turn down the paycheck.
    69:13
    It's one of those things, right? But I talk to a lot of people. You talk to a lot of people. It's kind of everyone's dream to be able to work for a pinball company, to be a part of the design, the manufacturing process. It's just something that we'd all love to do. Well, can I tell you a couple of things? One, you know, this right here is my connection to pinball. It's not working for a company. I have my regular job. This is my connection to all things pinball and not just one company. You have voiced on a pinball machine. I have voiced on a pinball machine. That's kind of fun. And those are kind of little freelance jobs. We're not tied to any companies. But that was kind of good for shits and giggles for sure. Yeah. I know there's a great pinball company that we're all looking forward to seeing do great things in Melbourne, in Haggis Pinball. You know, you're there, buddy. Between you and Ryan and all the great people there, you could offer great things to Haggis Pinball. And who knows, maybe that'll happen down the road. So we're connected to pinball just at our own kind of pace. And it's funny, if I think of things that are really cool, you know, you say it's kind of the dream job. When I was in my 20s, I used to do almost every single weekend stand-up comedy, and I kind of got pretty good at it. I kind of won a few competitions. I was getting paid to do it for a guy who just kind of went to open mics when I was 21 years old, and then the next thing I know, I'm getting little opening gig stuff. I'm like, all right, this is cool. An agent kind of set us up for some shows. I'm like, this is really good. And when it came time to do I move to L.A., do I move to New York, do I try to pursue this as a writer or a comic or something like that, The reason I never did is because I had a full-time job with benefits. So when my dad used to say to me when he was alive, you know, I really wish you kind of pursued that. And I'm like, Dad, I don't have a job. I went to school for radio, and I now have a career in it. This is my dream. The other stuff is just shits and giggles, like I just said. It's to make my friends laugh. It's something that's a hobby. It's not really anything I really want to pursue. And look at that. in radio, in podcasts. I still get to crack a joke once in a while. So, you know, it's the best of both worlds. And some of them get a laugh. Some do. Well done. And some of the people don't get it. And they're called your co-host. And you're like, oh, whatever.
    71:22
    And guys drunk on gin, whatever. So, anyway, again, some of what you're saying really is we are now benefiting the fact that all these top competitive players are going to these companies. and, sure, we've seen it with all, we've seen it with other games as well. They're not just making, which I think was the fear that a lot of people had at the start, they're like, oh, but are they now going to make these machines really tough because it's a competitor? No. They know what shoots well, they know the rules where you can make something more accessible, you know, starting a multi-ball pretty early on, so they just know what works and we're enjoying the fruits of that. Look at Jurassic Park, which you own. You get a T-Rex multiball pretty much right away. You see the ramp. You're going to want to hit it because there's a T-Rex on there anyway. I'm like, okay, let me hit that thing. You're going to start a multiball pretty quickly, even if you're a novice player. Well, Keith's not a novice player. And as you want, you can get more deep in that game, and it gets more difficult. And that's what makes that such a good game. I talked to Raymond about that, too. And he and I, unlike yourself, love the Simpsons pinball party. I did hear that. and he says, you know, you can kind of do everything in that game. To get deeper, you have to do it at a different frequency and time shots and things like that, but you can kind of hit the couch. You can kind of, you know, start a TV mode. That's kind of fun. There's a lot of great callbacks. Okay, that's kind of a fun game that is also deep. Lord of the Rings is another great game. You can bash Balrog. You can hit the ring. There's all kinds of ways to start multiballs. Lots of fun for the novice player, yet an incredibly deep game. So I love that these players, who are amazing players, Tim Saxton too, obviously Zach and Bone and Steve Bowden and Joe Katz and Kiefer, they all know how to play and they can make games a real, real bitch if they want to. They're not going to because they want fun pinball machines and boy, they're putting their names on some amazing games. But to be fair, just going back, I did say, it was a couple of episodes ago when we were talking about the Stern Showdown and we talked about the Simpsons Pinball Party and I said, And I remember, because I literally just listened to this before we started recording, that I don't like it. I really don't like it. But if I had it in my home and had a lot of time with it, I reckon I'd really like it. I agree with you completely. And we're going to get into that Stern showdown again, because round one is complete. And we were, what, 13 for 16? Yeah, we did okay. But also the ones that we really got wrong, we didn't get completely wrong, if we're honest. I mean, a lot of them were pretty obvious. You know, Lord of the Rings against Mustang, it was always going to win, and it did by 85%. A couple of them that we sort of disagreed on, Guardians of the Galaxy versus Batman 66. You said Batman 66. I said Guardians of the Galaxy. And you won the tiebreaker vote. We kind of flipped back and forth, and we advanced Guardians, which was fine. It wasn't going to stand a shot against Lord of the Rings after that. But it was a close vote. but it was almost 60 to 40. But Batman did win. I'm not surprised about that. The one that really shocked me, there were two that we got wrong. I think we both agreed Game of Thrones was a better game than Kiss. Although Kiss is pretty good. Kiss is up there. And that was the closest vote in this whole Stern showdown round one. Yeah, 54% went to Kiss, 46% to the Game of Thrones. So pretty close. I don't know. I was a bit puzzled by this. But when I say puzzled, it was like, okay, let me think about why KISS would have gotten more votes than Game of Thrones. Because if you've got to remember, at the time, KISS did not get good reviews or favourable reviews. But I think you can understand KISS. I said, obviously, on that episode that I think Game of Thrones has got one of the best rulesets, certainly Dwight's best ruleset. But I still think it's pretty complex for a lot of people. And KISS is just, you know what you need to do. It's funny, both of those games, when the original code came out, were like, eh, not really crazy about it. KISS got very good, and Game of Thrones, out of nowhere, I already thought it was a good game. I really like the new code update. Yeah, absolutely good. Really, the only other ones that were close, Iron Man vs. Stranger Things, Iron Man 60%. So, 60-40, that was the only other one that was really close. That one surprised me, because I can't imagine Stranger Things, being that it's such a new game, I can't imagine a lot of people have that. Yeah, well, I think maybe people like the thing. You know, I also think Iron Man, if you think about Iron Man, there weren't a lot of them made. But it's been vaulted twice. Yeah, okay. But I don't know how many units they make each vault.
    76:06
    So... Good point. It's just, that one shocked me. But actually, the bigger shock to me was, well, maybe it shouldn't be, but Elvira beating X-Men by, you know, almost two-thirds. Yeah. Again, how many people have Elvira? I can tell you, less than a thousand people have that game. Because that's how many games they made. Yeah, but how many did they make of X-Men? It sort of came out when Stern wasn't really hitting its stride, so... I bet you they made more than a thousand. I don't know. I think X-Men also... Don't forget, X-Men was known for a very, very long time of having unfinished code. They did go back to it. I reckon probably about three years ago they gave it a code update. but it had a bit of a stigma against it because it didn't have finished code. I don't know. I love these results. I don't necessarily look at them and say they got it wrong because it's a public vote, people got it right. I just love delving into why these things could happen. So based on round two that's now going on on Stern Pinball, you can find on social media and vote, are there going to be any surprises? It's Lord of the Rings versus Batman. I can't see Lord of the Rings losing that, can you? No, I don't think so. Kiss vs. The Walking Dead. Kiss surprised me in the first round, but The Walking Dead is an amazing game. It's got to win. Elvira surprised X-Men. It's not beating Jurassic Park. See you later, Elvira. No, that's right. Yeah. And then Iron Man vs. Metallica. It'll be Metallica. So I don't think there's any surprises on the left side of the bracket. ACDC vs. Star Trek. This is the one that's going to be close.
    77:39
    I obviously prefer Star Trek because, as I said, I've had a love-hate relationship with ACDC. But I think the popular vote will go to ACDC. Can I tell you, with COVID-19 and staying at home and playing the hell out of ACDC, I said to my wife the other day, out of all my games, I said, I think if I only had to have one in my house, it would actually be ACDC, out of the ones I own, because I'm now playing it different ways. You know, there were some songs where you're like, oh, that song you can never get a good jackpot on. And I thought, well, you know what? You Shook Me All Night Long was another one. Like, I had a crappy jackpot score, and I thought, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to start with a different song, then go into jam multiball, build it up, never cash it out, then switch the song. Now I've got a big jackpot for it. So I'm now playing it different ways. I'm like, all right, some of those assholes that came to my house to put up high scores, I now know how to get them off. All right, this is good. Do you know how funny you should say that? I don't pick You Took Me All Night long. I always do War Machine just because I love the left. Or sometimes I do that train one. Rock and Roll Train? Yeah, Rock and Roll Train, particularly if you've got an Ellie that stops it from coming over to the right flipper. You can just keep looping that.
    78:48
    But I remember once, just for shits and giggles, I did actually choose You Shoot Me All Night Long. And my score was huge. And it wasn't even a long game. It was just huge. That mode's no good unless you bring multiballs into it. So, yeah, it's fun that way. So, round two, the other right side, Spider-Man versus the Simpsons. I guess that could be close, but to me, I think it's Spider-Man. It wouldn't surprise me if Simpsons wins. I think Simpsons will win. I don't care for either at this stage, but I think Simpsons will win. Deadpool versus Tron. Well, Tron barely beat Black Knight Sword of Rage. True, that was another close one, 59% to 41%. Deadpool could win the whole thing. It's got to be Deadpool. Yeah, I reckon Deadpool will beat Tron. Ghostbusters beat Star Wars. Now, we predicted that correctly, but actually, if you listen back to our show, I thought Star Wars was better. You had the tiebreaker vote, so you gave final round the correct vote by going with Ghostbusters. But you're not going to see anything against Iron Maiden. Yeah, I think Iron Maiden has got such a big following that I think that it will go into the next round after that. That's fun and good marketing for Stern. A little social media fun with the Stern showdown. I have seen a much better, not showdown, but real social media puzzler, if you will. A lot of people are posting, here are my 10 albums. No reviews, just post a picture and then nominate someone else. There's a way better one on social media.
    80:18
    Marty, have you seen it? Do you know what I'm talking about? So, again, I don't mind that someone has nominated me to tell you an album for the next 10 days, etc or a movie or something but what was actually what inspired me to do my top 10 influential pinball machines was a friend of mine on facebook put his top 10 chocolate bars one each day for 10 days i thought that's funny i really like that that's different and i went hang on how about i do one about pinball and i encourage people don't nominate other people don't force them to do it But I'm kind of interested in what machines have influenced people. And I've put six up so far. And what you've got to remember is these aren't my favourite games. These aren't games that I necessarily think are good. Just influential. But just influential in that these are games that got me either into pinball or obsessed with pinball or back into pinball. So, Disco Fever, for example, was one of them that I put up. It is not a good game, Jeff. Why did you put that up? Listen, nobody, and you don't know anybody who loves disco music more than this guy. True. But that game, forget it. No, it's not great. I've even played it with regular flippers. No, there's nothing to shoot in it. So, for those people that don't know, look it up. It's got banana flippers. Banana flippers. One of two machines. Time Warp was the other one because they made too many banana flippers and they needed to use them again. Poor Barry Elser was stuck with them. He's like, oh, I don't want them. That's right. So the point is, I'm not saying that Disco Fever is a great game.
    82:02
    It came out in like 1978. But it was the game that actually got me right into pinball because it was in a milk bar. Look it up. I've explained what a milk bar is. Corner store, mom and pop shop, all that kind of stuff. and I used to play this machine on the way home from school. It just happened to be near the train station near my school and it's what got me into pinball. So it's influential. You said there were six. I've put six out there so far. There's four to go. Did you name them all? Okay, so the first one was Firepower. Steve Ritchie, love it. Yep. Second was Genie. That's a game I didn't see very much of. I'm surprised you did because they were probably more accessible in North America than there would have been in Australia. No, Genie was everywhere here. Really? Yeah. But again, it's sort of a moment in time. So, Lunar Park. We have two Lunar Parks in Melbourne, one in Sydney, one in Melbourne. I grew up in Sydney, so I used to go to Lunar Park every school holidays. But instead of going on the rides, I would go and play the pinball machines. And Genie was there, and I just have these memories of always going to Lunar Park and playing Genie. What else is on your list? Metallica. Okay. Because that got you into the modern games? Because that was the first game I played in a tournament. Oh, okay. It was a tournament in Melbourne, and I think they had eight. Something like eight Metallicas there. It was for the launch of Metallica. And so it was my very first game in a tournament. I played against James, and I beat him. You know James.
    83:38
    But also, Metallica is a modern marvel of games. So then we had Disco Fever Next one was Space Shuttle My absolute favourite spinner in all of pinball It's nice isn't it Well I like it because if you hit the bank The spinner increases And you can do it up to 7 times Which really is great I mean sometimes you can do it 2 or 3 times I like games like that And you think of Harlem Globetrotters Hitting those inline targets on the right And it increases the spinner I like games like that Yeah I love it But if you think about And this is what I noted on Facebook Look, when Space Shuttle came out, it really sort of energized the pinball market again. There was something about it. It was the sounds, the light show, the call-outs, the layout, the fast pace. Everything about it was really fresh. And people have sort of said that that was the start of one of the many resurgences that we've had in pinball, was due to Space Shuttle, and I'd agree. I love that game, and I can't believe, I think I'm not alone when I say this. How many people did it take for them to realize that the little display in the middle of the play field actually spells things like tilt? I did not know. Are you serious? No. I'm not looking at the play field.
    84:54
    So the bonus numbers, it's a grid. I think it's five by three. But it also spells letters when you tilt some things. Oh, I did not know that. Well, there you go. I've learned. Go on. The next one, Twilight Zone. That one shocked me. Not as much a disco fever, but I know that some of the Lawler games aren't your favorites. By the way, I love Twilight Zone. What did it for you? So everyone knows I dislike Twilight Zone. And I did clarify by saying, and I'll elaborate further, have you ever had a food, a food or even a song, anything that you just listen to so much, so much in such a short period of time that you get to this point and you go, oh my God, I can never eat this or I can never listen to this song again because I've just overdone it. That's what happened with Twilight Zone. When it came out, it was just this phenomenal next generation of pinball machine. It just was jam-packed with everything, and I played it so much that I overplayed it, and to this day, I just have that sense of, I just don't like it. So those are your six so far. Interesting. As you were talking and I was pretending to listen, I wrote down my six. Go. First off, and I've said it on several podcasts, it's definitely Black Knight for me. It's funny, you have Firepower, I have Black Knight. Two Steve Ritchie games, the talking of it, they both talk. I think it was the magnets, it was the upper play field. I was just like, this is a lot of fun. That would be it for me. Black Knight is on my honorable mentions, by the way. Okay. You haven't named your other four. I'm sure Wizard of Oz has to be on there. You'll see. Oh, come on. It's not. Wow. All right. Because remember, it's not machines I love machines that I think are fantastic. It's machines that have influenced me and made me who I am today.
    86:45
    Keep going. I wrote down Medieval Madness slash Attack from Mars. I mean, those are games that you could just blow up and play over and over again, so that was kind of nice. I still love this game. I don't know if I'd say it's my favorite game. I'd love to own it if it worked and didn't break and didn't cost a fortune. Champion Pub makes me laugh every single time. And it's not just because I'm beating the hell out of an Australian named Dan Under. But it's just a fun... There's nothing else like it. The jump rope, the box... I just think it's phenomenal. And it's unique. And anyway, there weren't a lot of them. They break a lot. But I love that game.
    87:20
    I wrote down Gorgar. And that's a game I played a lot when I was a kid. And of course, it spoke to you. And you're like, wow, that's pretty cool. I didn't do very well in it, but I just remember playing it over and over again. T2 is when I went, Okay, pinball got really, really cool. Yep. A lot of Steve Ritchie games here. And the other one I wrote down, again, is ACDC. We talked about it because when I saw that in, let's say, 2000, if it came out in 2013, whatever year it came out, when I saw it that year in Florida with my kids, I hadn't played pinball in 14, 15 years. It was sitting beside a Spider-Man game, another game I love. And I was like, wow, I didn't realize pinball was still being made. I didn't realize there was an ACDC pinball machine. That's what got me back into it. So always a soft spot for me for that. Those are my little six. Okay. Again, I can't criticize your six because that's really personal to you, and it's what has got you into pinball in various different ways. So by the time this podcast airs, the last four of mine will be out there. Let's see if you can guess maybe one or two of them. If I guess them, will you tell me? Yep, absolutely. Well, I guessed Wizard of Oz, so there goes one of my guesses. Well, we might count that, but I'm asking now. Okay. See, I want to say Star Trek, though. Yep, it's there. My first year in box. So definitely Iron Maiden will not be on there because Ryan put his filthy DNA on it He touched it tainted it before I got to it With his taint Yes Oh That fanning Okay so I got one right Star Trek. Boy, I don't know what you love. I mean, I would have to think it's something when you're, the genie thing blew me away and Disco Fever, the fact you saw these. So if these are nostalgic games, you know, back when, what are you, 60 now? How old are you? Oh, yeah, funny one.
    89:07
    I assume Humpty Dumpty, the first time you saw this thing with flippers, you're like, holy fuck, what's this? I've been playing Pachinko. No. I'm wrong there? Okay. I give up. Okay. Avatar. I've heard you say that before, that it is a very underrated game. I do, but also, it is the game that got me out of my hiatus. I hadn't, I'd played video games for years, and Avatar came out. I loved the movie. God, I still love the movie, and so it was kind of like, okay, well, there's an Avatar pinball machine, I'm going to put my money in that. And I went, okay, I'm now back and I'm really enjoying everything that I used to enjoy about pinball. So Avatar is what got me back into pinball. Centaur. Oh, great game. You know what I mean? Just of that era. And again, my thought is, I used to do ice skating. Sure. It wasn't figure skating. I used to do speed skating with the big long blades. Just couldn't you have left it just right at ice skating? Couldn't you have just left it right there? I knew. I know I knew needed to clarify because I knew you were going to dig in.
    90:12
    And so I used to go ice skating to the ice skating rink, and many different ice skating rinks, three different ice skating rinks in Sydney, and they used to always have pinball machines, and Centaur was there, and I used to play Centaur instead of skating. Wait a second. How the fuck are you an ice skater, and I'm the Canadian and can't skate? Well, I don't know. I just, I don't know. It was just something that I got into, And I did actually have Hockey Blades. I then moved to Speed Blades. The last game on my list, Roller Games. Oh, I should have known that because you love that game. You should have. That was the first game you owned. That was my first game I owned. And I was given, like people will sort of say, why would you choose that as your first game? I chose the first game I wanted to own as Roller Games because I just remembered from when I was totally obsessed with pinball in the late 80s, early 90s, roller games stood out for me because I just remember it being really freaking hard and I wanted to buy a game that would be hard so I would become a better player. And then I found out after I bought the game that there was a TV show. I didn't know that, too, when the game came out. It was very short-lived, but that's funny because my first pinball machine was Lethal Weapon 3 and people were like, why are you buying that? It's such a shitty movie. Well, it's kind of a fun pin. So, you know, I was like, okay. And again, the first one that was in the price range I was looking for, a friend was selling, I knew it worked. Got it. Okay. So you talk about roller games. A fun pinball machine, terrible TV show, Lethal Weapon 3. Which I've never seen. Not a good movie, a good pin. Well, that, by the way, doesn't surprise me. I've heard of some of the movies you haven't seen. Let's go through the list here, all right? Oh, wow. Okay.
    91:58
    I was saying this to George Gomez when I was talking about his games, and we were talking about Johnny Mnemonic. I said, you know, it's amazing. That is not a very good movie. Didn't win any Oscars, but it's a great pinball machine. You've obviously seen the movie, right, Marty? Do you know what? I haven't. And I'm a Keanu fan, but I've just heard so many bad things about that movie that I don't want to watch it to then have a lesser opinion of Keanu. So there you go. All right. Lethal Weapon 3 we just talked about. You've seen that one, right? Yeah. No, I haven't. You have? No, I haven't. What about one of the best great pins, shitty movies, The Shadow? No, never seen it. Never seen it. Okay. Great pin, though. It is a great pin. All right, let's go with some classic movies. You've obviously seen The Godfather, either one or two.
    92:43
    Wasn't there three Godfather films? I was cutting you some slack. I wasn't going to penalize you if you haven't seen three, because I figured you'd seen one or two. I haven't seen any of them. No, I haven't. Okay. My favorite movie, Shawshank Redemption.
    92:59
    You know I haven't seen it. All right. This might be the all-time biggest movie ever as far as box office. Surely you've seen Titanic.
    93:10
    I don't want to spoil the ending for you, but you should know. No, I have not seen Titanic. I have no desire to see Titanic. I'm trying to think. Okay, back to pinball machines. You've got a Star Trek. Have you seen the Star Trek movies?
    93:26
    Kind of. I've seen all the Star Trek movies since The Next Generation. I haven't seen... I think I may have seen The Wrath of Khan, but I haven't seen any of the original series movies. No, I don't think I have. I'm looking at my Guardians of the Galaxy. Huge Marvel movie. Have you seen any of those? I've seen both of those. You've seen the Marvel movies? Well, I've seen Guardians of the Galaxy 1 and 2. I've not seen... I think there's a few movies that I may have missed, Like, maybe Captain America, maybe one of the Ant-Man movies. I think they may have done two. Maybe an Iron Man here and there. You know, scattered here and there. You know, I'm just not that into superhero-type films. I don't know if I'm going to have to edit this out because you're fucking things up royally. I've got our sponsor of the week here.
    94:22
    And you already pissed off our last week's sponsor. You made fun of Fireball calling it a cheap alcohol. Oh, look at me. It's $15.
    94:30
    Real bad move there, dude. Sponsors are paying our fucking bills, and you're shitting all over them. So I will read this week's Sponsor of the Week. You shut your yap for a second here, okay? All right. Fair enough. I'll still split the bill with you, even though you don't deserve a fricking penny. Here we go. Okay. Stuck at home? COVID-19 getting you down? Thank God there's Netflix. All the great, fantastic movies, like Godfather, like Titanic, like the Star Trek movies. Shawshank Redemption. How about Johnny Mnemonic or Lethal Weapon 3? Marty, if you're fucking listening, watch one of these. It's called Netflix.
    95:09
    Now at least we get paid. All right. I'm surprised. I'm sure there's a You Know More movies that I haven't watched as well. And in my defense, I'm just not a big fan of the blockbuster movies. and the one that I probably get the most criticism for, and everyone knows I've got sort of opposite tastes in a lot of things, I watched all the Batman movies and enjoyed them up until The Dark Knight. And I watched the first, I want to say maybe 40 minutes of The Dark Knight and turned it off. With Heath Ledger. Yep. And you turned it off. I turned it off because I just thought, this is a bit silly. Because Jim Carrey is not silly Right You know Arnie being Mr. Freeze Is not That's not silly Anyway Do not kill the dinosaurs The Ice Age Like give me a break Funny The Bat Visa card Oh Arnold Schwarzenegger was on Melbourne Silver Bowl this week Just bringing it back to Pinball So If you Catch up on Daisy Borg's Dr. Curly text stream You'll see that And he makes an appearance. Last Action Hero? Yes. But actually on the stream, in person, kind of. Oh, really? Okay, I'll check it out. You've got to. If you go to Melbourne Silver Bowl on Facebook, I've linked it there. It's hilarious. I assume that's a movie you've seen, Last Action Hero?
    96:38
    Why do I assume this? Well, but no, I haven't seen it. Marty, here's what your task is going to be, okay? You are, listen, I do all the editing. You sit and drink and piss off our sponsors. Does the video look pretty yet? Yes, exactly. You need to do something to step it up, all right? What's that? I'm sick of carrying you here on Final Round, all right? I don't want to blow up like head-to-head. Listen, we do every two weeks. We can make the piece for 13 days. We can piss each other off for the 14th day. But you have a job to do, Bucko, all right? Here's your job. What's that? Stern Showdown, old news, all right? We all know that's going to end. We need something better. We need to do something on this topic. Great Pinball Machines, Bad Movie Themes. All right, we'll do a bracket of eight. Okay. Here are the games I've written down, and you figure out what the bracket will be, but agree or disagree. I know you probably haven't seen the movie, but you'll agree these are great pins. Demolition Man.
    97:34
    I'm supposed to agree that that's a good pin. Good pin, bad movie. No. Great movie, terrible pin. Oh, come on. No. Do you know what? As you know, so going back to head to head, Right. You know, it was a common occurrence that we would talk about movies that I haven't watched. But through that, I would watch a movie. So I watched Demolition Man, I don't know, probably about 12 months ago. I actually really enjoyed it. I don't like the pen, though. Okay, I guess that's not making the list. I think that's a great pen. All right. Okay, but who's it up against? I'm going to name some what I think are great pens, but bad movie themes. The reason I'm bringing this up is look at the themes that have come out in the last few years. They're like Hall of Fame themes and licenses. The Beatles, Star Wars. I mean, they're just some huge. Elvira, of course, certainly huge to the pinball community. You can't knock Pirates of the Caribbean and, of course, Willy Wonka, we've all been waiting for. Some great themes. Sure. But some great pins were done on some not-so-great themes. Yeah. All right? I didn't think Demoman was a blockbuster. You obviously thought it was the greatest movie ever made. It's certainly better than any of the Godfather films. But anyway,
    98:48
    Congo. Great pinball machine. Shitty movie. I like the movie. Oh, no. Do you like the movie? I liked the movie. But, I did like the movie, but I also think that that is a fantastic pinball machine. Can that make the list? Let's pretend like it's not the greatest movie ever. Okay, terrible movie. Sure. Did they make Congo too? I don't know. No. It was an absolute flop at the box office as well. Thank you. Widely known as a terrible movie, but I liked it. Sure. It had Laura Linney in it, and I really liked Laura Linney. Anyway. I like Tim Curry. Sure. Johnny Mnemonic will agree about that one. I didn't think this was a great movie. I think it is a fantastic pin. So if we're looking at that ratio of great pin versus theme, first of all, this game wasn't even supposed to be this game. They didn't get the license on Alien, and they switched it Bram Stoker's Dracula. Do you remember that? Yeah, but are you going to say that Brands, Strikers, Dracula is a terrible film? Yes, Keanu fan, it is a terrible movie. It's not. Come on. It's a great film. Oh, my God. It's got great actors. It's got Anthony Hopkins, of course, Gary Oldman. It's not a good movie. Come on. You're killing me. It was a great movie when it came out. But, again, it's a great, really great pinball machine. Better pinball machine than theme. Sure, okay. I'm just thinking of the standpoint of when you see Bram Stoker's Dracula versus Star Wars, the Beatles. Okay, sure. Sorry, what are you gravitating to if you're a non-pinhead? You're looking at the themes that are like, wow, I've yet to see anybody walking around with a Bram Stoker's Dracula T-shirt. Okay, sure. Seen a few Beatles, seen a few Star Wars. Okay, it didn't age well. Keep going. Okay, you cannot disagree with me on this one. Although, you probably will. It's been consistent so far Flash Gordon Great pinball machine An absolute turd You're laughing Oh my god Okay I actually started watching the Flash Gordon film For the first time since it came out Which was what? In the 70s right? 1980, 81 I think There you go Something like that I loved Loved loved that movie when it came out. Why? But it is a terrible film. Thanks. It is a terrible film. Well, because I was 11, three years old at the time it came out. Maybe, I don't know. Maybe I wasn't born in 81. I don't know.
    101:28
    It was... No, and everybody loved the film when it came out, but... No, no, no, no. Of course they did. No.
    101:36
    It wasn't like Dune. Hold on, I'm pulling up the review right now here. I'm sick of your bullshit, Marty. I'm pulling it up here. Hold on. Flash Gordon movie review. Come on, Siskel and Ebert. Two big fat thumbs down. Come on. Here we go. I'm looking it up as well. Oh, fuck. 84% like the film. Ahem. Mm-hmm. 80% on Rotten Tomatoes. So, whatever. Keep going. Come on. Roger Ebert, what did he say? The movie came out in 1980, by the way. Yep. Flash Gordon is played for laughs and wisely so it is no more sophisticated than the comic strip it's based on yep still waiting to hear what they don't like fantasy is what I heard yep keep going 84% god yep I'm trying to get 8 shitty movies great things probably needed to research this a bit better for a guy who doesn't watch a lot of movies and loves all these shitty ones Imagine if you actually saw a great movie. Like Titanic. I didn't say that was a good one. Dancers with Wolves. What were the other ones that we talked about before we started recording? One of the best picture. Shawshank Redemption. No, I've never seen it. How about Goodfellas? No. Flash Gordon, though. Yep, I'm all about it. I used to watch a lot of movies, probably up until mid-80s to end of the 80s, and then I just stopped going to films. but also I used to my mum would give me money enough money to get on the train to go into the city to see a movie I would not see the movie I would spend that money playing pinball machines I would ask somebody about the movie so just in case I got asked about the movie I could say what it was about but I'd never seen the movie I went and played pinball instead extorting his mother lying to her face my good buddy Marty Robbins thanks that's good Stargate Come on, man. Shitty movie. Come on. What? It's a great movie. I can't win. Starship Troopers. Please, dear God, do not say that's a good movie. Of course it's a great movie. It's not aged very well, but hello, Denise Richards in her first major starring role. She was awesome. T3? Yeah. It really started going downhill from there, didn't it? Well, considering they just made a new one and they said, forget everything that happened after T2. Here's where the new Arnie movie starts. I would say it's a shit movie. And it's a pretty good pin. Yeah, okay. Yeah, I think it's a bit of an underrated pin, but it's not top ten material. I don't know if I'm believing you. I think you're just trying to get out of doing work to do an eight bracket thing, because you're not helping here. I'm happy to go a bracket with all these machines. Okay. Now, the other way around, too, there are great themes that haven't made for great pins. Probably the newer Indiana Jones game is not maybe the best. I like it. Fuck. You really like the game, seriously? I understand how flawed it is, but eight ball, multi-ball. And, you know, before we had Aerosmith with the toy box, you had the balls coming out of the Ark of the Covenant. Come on. But yeah, it's flawed. No competitive player ever went for that. It was just hit the scoop, hit the scoop. Hit the scoop. I know, I know. That's why I say it's flawed. Rules-wise, it's flawed. And layout-wise, it's, you know, it's kind of okay. It's a bit generic, but anyway, whatever. You know, we make fun of spelling International Rescue. You had to spell quite a few things to get that part to come up too, right? Okay. But at least it rewarded you with a lot of balls. Correct. Second time around, yeah. Yeah. You must love Apollo 13 then. Oh. Yeah, great movie. I did actually see that at the movies. The 13 ball multi-ball in Apollo 13 is joyous. It is phenomenal. It is just so much crazy fun. It is the only thing that is good about that game. I think it's the worst thing about the game, and I'll tell you why. I think when you have too many balls, I think six is a nice number. Anything over that, there's no real control. It's just chimp flipping, right? No, of course. It's a novelty game. Champion Pub is a novelty game, and I'd much rather play that. I would rather play Champion Pub than Apollo 13, but, you know, it's not so much. Other movies that are maybe, I don't even think this is a good movie. I don't think it's a great pin either. Goldeneye is kind of a wishy-washy in both. It's not a terrible game. I had never really spent that much time on it when it came out, but when I first started Melbourne Silverball, and we used to have it located at a bar in Melbourne called Bartronica, they had Goldeneye as one of the machines. And I think it's a John Borg design. It's not bad. There's just nothing magical about it. Yeah. I don't own it. I've played it in League. I enjoy it, especially if it works. Okay, how about some of these Batman movies you haven't seen? There have been some good Batman games. There have been some terrible Batman games. Sure. So, what do you want to know? The first Batman that came out from Data East, I played it a lot when it came out. And then when I got to play it many years later, it's not great. Mainly because of that center shot, which is just in the view of everything else. So, it's all you can do. No, it's not great. Batman Forever, another game that's not very great. It's really interesting. Come on. No, you know what? No, I haven't had enough time on it to form a really good opinion on it. But I think it was an ambitious game. It's a very complicated rule set, and unfortunately a lot of things go wrong with it. I also think that the rules framework is a bit unfocused. It could have been great. It just wasn't. The only other movie I have on here, and it's definitely not a good movie. Some would say it's a good pin. Some would say, eh, it's got its issues. But Godzilla is the other one I'm thinking. Yeah. I remember going to see Godzilla at the movies when it came out and just walking out of that cinema just so, so disappointed. Were you disappointed because you could have kept the money and lied to your mum? Is that why? Well, he was actually... Thanks for bringing that up again. No, this was actually, it was like a school outing. So it was paid for. I had to go anyway. Hold on one second here. What? Godzilla movie.
    108:04
    That movie came out in 1998. I know how old you are. What do you mean school outing? I just remember it being a group like of about, I don't know, 50 or so. Oh, you know what? I know what it was. It was a work function. It was part of our social club, and we all went to see Godzilla.
    108:25
    Sorry. Yeah. Your mom didn't call you out on your bullshit, but I am, all right? You're not getting any money from me. You say you're going to see a movie, you're going to see that damn movie. Why are we spending so much time talking about a movie that is so terrible? 16% of Rotten Tomatoes, and that is 16, maybe 15% too much. It made $379 million at the box office. It's a blockbuster, I guess. It had a few good stars. It was in New York. Anyway. Anyway, whatever. Got any more on your list? I don't think so. Am I missing any that you can think of? No. Is there a movie that you would want to be made into a pinball machine? Well, yes, but if I was the one backing it as far as putting the money behind it and saying this is going to be excess, you're an idiot not to say Harry Potter. But for me, there are... Ah, jeez, I don't know. That's a good question. For me, it would be The Matrix. Easily. I think it would make a phenomenal pinball. Oh, yeah. And it's funny. So here we are talking about movies, and God bless our sponsor, Netflix.
    109:28
    We were talking about that, you and I. I don't know how it came up, but I was saying, geez, I don't really remember The Matrix, because you told me it was your all-time favorite movie or one of them. It is, okay. I said, you know, I'm going to watch it tonight. Anne and I watched it. We got a big thing of popcorn, checked it out. It was good. I mean, I also remember it being spectacular in the day, like, whoa, what was that? you know, dodging the bullets and stuff. It's dated a bit, hasn't it? But I'm not a snob for that. I realise, you know, what it is. Well, they are making a new Matrix movie. So even though it would be a little bit risky, because I think when we had Gary Stern on Head to Head, he was talking about and saying that, I think someone, it might have even been George Gomez, wanted to do The Matrix, but they picked Lord of the Rings instead, I think it was something like that. Yes, yeah. They felt they sort of dodged a bullet because Matrix sort of went downhill after the first movie. So it's a risk. You just don't know whether a movie is going to be great. And it's not... I don't know. You can maybe tell me in recent years, let's say from Stern, certainly not from Jizz Jack because they take older things, but has Stern really released a game with a theme that is before it's become popular? I think they're quite wise in that they wait for a show or movie or band or whatever to show that it's got staying power before they'll do a machine based on that thing. I was surprised Stranger Things came out as early as it did. I know it had three seasons and it's probably at the right peak time. I just didn't think that had the popularity. That one surprised me a lot, I'd say. Yeah, okay. Yeah, I'd agree. Oh, Batman 66, maybe. Well, what's interesting to me in the last few years is some of the games that are coming out, huge licenses, as we mentioned, but licenses we've seen before. So making the games better. There's obviously the rumors about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Black Knight came out with its third game. Elvira with its third game. Batman, another version of a Batman game. Guns N' Roses, rumored to be coming from... Yeah, that's another one, yeah. Jersey Jack. Jersey Jack did another version of Pirates of the Caribbean. And Star Wars, another Star Wars pinball machine, and even Jurassic Park. Yeah. So, KISS. Sure. KISS, yeah. We're seeing these great licenses be redone to make it better with the current software, with the displays, and being able to do a lot more things into a pinball machine. So, are there any great licenses out there? You mentioned the Matrix. We talked about Harry Potter. Are we going to see more? Is that the new trend, seeing remakes? I think it is. It could be. I mean, there's only so many 60s and 70s rock bands that they can do a theme on, I guess. Still got to do Led Zeppelin and The Who. Anytime you're ready. The Who have already got their machine. Come on. No, I want a proper... I think I even heard Lyman Sheets. I'm sure he did. He said on my show, he said he wanted to see a proper Who game versus The Wizard or the Broadway version of Tommy. Yeah. Because that's only one album, too. I don't know. I've seen the movie Tommy, by the way, just so you can put that on your list. I only remember seeing it a couple of times when it came out. I just remember it being really trippy. Or maybe that was just the Tina Turner, Acid Queen section. But wasn't it really like a bizarre film? Hold on a second. I love that earlier you said you saw Godzilla, a 1998 movie, on a school trip. And you said, I remember seeing that when it came out. That movie came out in 1975, you old fart. There you go. So I was five years old. It was very trippy, for sure it was. And Margaret and the baked beans, and yeah, it was nuts. So, I don't think that Tommy from Data Reached really was psychedelic enough. Well, the Who, like the Rolling Stones, like Zeppelin, like the Beatles, have a huge catalog. And because those games, especially Tommy, was based on one album. There's Who Are You? There's Won't Get Fooled Again. There's Who's Next? A great album there. there's quadrophenia. A lot you could do with a hoop. They've had heaps of hit. Stop it.
    113:46
    Quadrophenia. How great was that? Do you really like that movie? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Wasn't the one that had Sting in it? Yeah, he was Space Ace or whatever the hell he was, yeah. Yeah, there you go. I'm impressed.
    114:00
    See, look what happens when there's no freaking competitions. We get off on tangents about movies. I know. We need competitions or should we just wait? What do you think? You know what? I think, I mean, it's really what a lot of people have been talking about now is what happens when we can do tournaments again. And I think in Australia, we're thinking that the first tournament may actually happen, I don't know, maybe in probably six to eight weeks, maybe two months away. Seriously? I think that's because you've still got to think about it's a contact sport. You've got to have everybody's flipping those same flippers, and the virus is spread through touch. So, you know, I think people are being very cautious at the moment. So certainly no talk of tournaments. Everyone wants tournaments, but I don't think there's really any talk of them starting up just yet. I hate to inform you that there have been tournaments. I just saw in Wisconsin at Titletown, a beautiful facility, they had a tournament this past Sunday. Now, it's not an IFPA one. They had precautions. You weren't allowed to come in without a mask. Every person had a mask. It's a big facility. I don't know how they did with spacing, but they had a lot of people. And I saw it on Facebook. I got to admit, I was a little surprised. I certainly hope no one gets sick because of that or no one's sick going into that. But it seemed to me premature when the rest of the world's not really ready. But I know people are antsy. They want to get out. Yeah. People are definitely starting to go stir crazy. and if pinball tournaments are your passion, let's say they are the number one thing that you live for and it's taken away from you, I can imagine how frustrating that would be. I'm lucky in that, and you're lucky as well, in that we have an outlet with this podcast and you've obviously got Pinball Profile as well and I do my streaming. So I've still got a way that I still get satisfaction from pinball, but if all of that was taken away from me, I'd be wanting to do something. Like watch a movie. on Netflix.
    116:09
    Shut up. I know. You know what is neat? And you can participate and it is safe. It's the little quarantine selfie league that Laura Fraley's done. She's had, I think I read on the weekend, almost 1,700, probably by now over 2,000 scores that she's had to enter because that many people are participating. I think that's great. How good's that? Like, again, making lemonade out of lemons. There it is. You're just saying lemonade and you're thinking about drinks right now because you're looking at the clock going, alright, I need a drink here. We've done enough here. Can you tell?
    116:45
    Alright, well that's been fun. I think we're good for this week. Thank you once again for listening. Thanks to Colin McAlpine for joining us and actually getting on the program this time. That was not easy to do, but well done to you. Martin, I hope you have a great week. And thank you to our very generous sponsor, Netflix. We appreciate all your support. Yeah, you don't have to worry about Marty using a bandwidth. We'll be fine there.
    117:08
    So that's it for another episode. We'll do this again in a couple weeks. My name is Jeff Teolis. My name is Martin Robbins. It's been our pleasure. Thanks, everyone. Really funny. What do you mean I'm funny?
    117:23
    It's funny. It's a good story. It's funny. You're a funny guy. What do you mean? Do I talk? What? Just, you know, you're just funny. It's funny the way you tell the story and everything. You mean, let me understand this. Maybe it's me. I'm a little fucked up, maybe. What? I'm funny how? I mean, funny like I'm a clown. I amuse you. I make you laugh. I'm here to fucking amuse you. What do you mean funny? Funny how? How am I funny? I'm not. Just, you know how you tell the story. No, no, I don't know. You said it. How do I know? You said I'm funny. How the fuck am I funny? What the fuck is so funny about me? Tell me. Tell me what's funny. Get the fuck out of here, Tommy. You motherfucker. I almost had him. You stuttering prickhead.