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Episode 216 – O Bermuda

Slam Tilt Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 54m·held·Oct 9, 2023
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.034

TL;DR

Slam Tilt returns: COVID recovery, Stump tournament recap, game maintenance issues, and industry drama from Jersey Jack executives.

Summary

Ron Hallett and Bruce Nightingale return from hiatus to discuss Bruce's post-cruise COVID diagnosis and vacation to Canada, the recently-completed Stump pinball tournament (39 players, single breakdown on F-14), Bruce's acquisition of a Fireball Classic machine, ongoing maintenance issues with Iron Maiden and other games at the Rochester Pinball Collective, and reaction to a Pinball Profile interview where Steve Ritchie made critical comments about programmers and past opportunities while Jack Guarnieri took familiar digs at Stern.

Key Claims

  • Bruce contracted COVID during the cruise to Canada (not Bermuda due to 30-foot waves) and is in 5-7 day quarantine.

    high confidence · Bruce Nightingale, personal experience during cruise

  • New York still pays COVID sick leave until December 31, but the benefit ends after that.

    high confidence · Bruce Nightingale, discussing state policy implications

  • The Stump tournament had 39 players with only one breakdown (F-14 wire fell off) and was delayed 30 minutes due to a player's car breaking down.

    high confidence · Ron Hallett and Bruce Nightingale, tournament organizers

  • Iron Maiden's Captive Ball mechanism fell apart during the tournament with no plays registered; a similar issue occurred on Mummy.

    high confidence · Ron Hallett, post-tournament inspection

  • Steve Ritchie stated in a Pinball Profile interview that his Jersey Jack coworkers are the best he's ever worked with, implying superiority over his Williams era experience.

    medium confidence · Bruce Nightingale, paraphrasing the interview he heard about but did not directly listen to

  • Jack Guarnieri 'threw shade' at Stern in the Pinball Profile interview and has been doing similar digs for approximately 15 years.

    medium confidence · Bruce Nightingale, commentary on interview he did not directly listen to

  • Dipsy Doodle only has 100-point doodles, making it unbalanced and nearly impossible to compete with saucer scoring without extensive play.

    high confidence · Ron Hallett, extensive gameplay experience with the machine

  • System 1 machines use a Molex connector with a keyed pin to prevent backwards installation, designed by Gottlieb.

    high confidence · Ron Hallett and Bruce Nightingale, technical discussion based on experience

Notable Quotes

  • “So I'm in quarantine now for five to seven days. I got to find out. The doctor said seven. Another doctor said five. So I don't know what the fuck.”

    Bruce Nightingale @ Early in episode — Opening context for the hiatus reason and humorous confusion about quarantine duration

  • “I'm going to need you to come in this weekend. It was like that. It felt like an office space. Like, yeah, I'm going to need those TPS reports.”

    Bruce Nightingale @ Work conflict story — Describes forced work weekend that caused him to miss the Stump tournament

  • “I only need 50 of those to reset. But if you're lucky enough and hit the ball the right way, you can get it back up to the top, bounce off a couple things, and get another 5,000.”

    Ron Hallett @ Dipsy Doodle gameplay discussion — Illustrates the luck-based nature of the Dipsy Doodle scoring system

  • “It elevated, and the entire bottom half just fell off. Yeah. It was like sitting at the bottom of the cabinet. It's like, oops-a-dee.”

    Ron Hallett @ Iron Maiden maintenance discussion — Describes a critical mechanical failure on the Iron Maiden Captive Ball mechanism

  • “That is definitely a Gottlieb thing because it's a power supply that they helped create. That's so bad.”

    Ron Hallett @ System 1 technical discussion — Assigns blame for poor connector design on a legacy manufacturer

  • “He told me my Circus Safari played insane. Thank you. Game over. Drop the mic. We're done. Let's go.”

    Ron Hallett @ Zach compliment segment — Humorous reaction to receiving praise from Zach, treating it as the ultimate victory

  • “Steve was throwing shade big time. I mean, basically saying that his coworkers at Jersey Tech are the best ones he's ever worked with. It's kind of like, okay, better than Williams.”

    Bruce Nightingale @ Pinball Profile interview discussion — Captures the contentious tone of Steve Ritchie's comments about his new employer vs. past experiences

Entities

Ron HallettpersonBruce NightingalepersonZach SharpepersonSteve RitchiepersonJack GuarnieripersonJoe LemirepersonJeff Teolisperson

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Stump tournament successfully executed with 39 players, minimal technical issues (1 breakdown), positive community feedback, and stream reaching ~50 concurrent viewers

    high · Tournament completed with only F-14 wire issue, hosts received compliments, positive stream experience with raid from another channel

  • ?

    product_concern: Iron Maiden's Captive Ball mechanism experienced catastrophic failure (bottom piece fell off), with identical mechanism also failing on Mummy machine

    high · Ron found Captive Ball elevated off playfield with entire bottom half fallen into cabinet after Stump, similar issue on Mummy machine, applied Loctite to prevent recurrence

  • ?

    product_concern: Multiple Stern machines have out-hole kickers that kick balls too forcefully, causing bouncebacks into shooter lane

    high · Ron identified issue on Big Game and other Sterns, plans to bend out-hole guides to reduce kicker power

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Dipsy Doodle exhibits severe scoring imbalance where doodle targets are nearly impossible to hit with low-point values, making saucer shots more profitable strategy

    high · Ron extensively played machine (50+ times), calculated need for 500 doodles to score 5,000 points vs. one saucer hit, found ignoring doodles and playing upper playfield more effective

  • ?

    industry_signal: Steve Ritchie made critical public comments about programmers and past Stern opportunities in Pinball Profile interview, praising Jersey Jack team as superior

    medium · Bruce reported Ritchie 'throwing shade' about coworkers being best he's worked with, made comments about programmers, though Bruce did not directly listen to interview

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.344

0:00
Okay, get ready, baby. P. Here she comes. Going down. P1, going down. Going down.
0:30
Coming to you from beautiful upstate New York, this is the Slamtail Podcast, the show about all things pinball. I'm your host, Ron Hallett, here with the other host, Bruce Nightingale. Oh, Bermuda.
0:49
Oh, Bermuda. Like it's in O'Canada, but it's Bermuda. Yes. I guess we'll find out what that means. Yes. And this is episode 216. We're back from our hiatus, i.e., Bruce's cruise. Yes. And it sounds like you got something from the cruise, something you may not have wanted. I got something. I got COVID.
1:12
Yep. So I'm in quarantine now for five to seven days. I got to find out. The doctor said seven. Another doctor said five. So I don't know what the fuck. So I'm just going to probably take seven days off. Well, yep, I got tested positive Saturday, but I had symptoms Friday mid-afternoon.
1:35
Lovely. Yeah, it sucks. And the really fun thing about my cruise was I was supposed to go to... Stop. No. Oh. Bermuda. Oh, that's right. You were supposed to go to Bermuda. Yeah, but there was a storm, and we couldn't get through the waves. They had 30-foot waves outside of Bermuda.
1:56

  • “I'm tired of all the stern digs. I know. 15 years we've been hearing this.”

    Bruce Nightingale @ Jack Guarnieri criticism — Expresses fatigue with persistent competitive commentary from Jersey Jack leadership

  • “They sold way more Guns N' Roses than Stern sold Rushes. I agree.”

    Bruce Nightingale / Ron Hallett @ License discussion — Comparative market validation of Jersey Jack's vs. Stern's licensing decisions

  • “Welcome to System One, Fun. Now you know why I didn't want to take it apart.”

    Ron Hallett @ Countdown power supply discussion — Summarizes the frustration with System 1 technical complexity and poor design decisions

    • Rochester Pinball Collective
    venue
    Jersey Jack Pinballcompany
    Stern Pinballcompany
    Williamscompany
    Gottliebcompany
    Stump Tournamentevent
    Pinball Expoevent
    Fireball Classicgame
    Iron Maidengame
    Godzillagame
    Dipsy Doodlegame
    F-14game
    Pinball Profileorganization
    IFPAorganization
    Count-Downgame
    Circus Safarigame
    Ed Zperson
    Nicoleperson
  • ?

    industry_signal: Jack Guarnieri continued pattern of making competitive digs at Stern Pinball in Pinball Profile interview; hosts expressed fatigue with 15-year pattern of such commentary

    medium · Bruce states this has been ongoing for 15 years since Jersey Jack's founding, references past Guarnieri claims about Rush license and Jaws licensing strategy

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Stern Pinball is hiring playtesting staff at $17/hour to test switch functionality and generate test reports

    medium · Ron mentioned Stern is hiring playtesters, joked about Bruce finding things wrong within 10 seconds, noted playtester would need 'Inspected by Bruce' sticker

  • ?

    venue_signal: Stump tournament growing and successfully managing 39-40 player capacity; next tournament planned for late March/early April at Rochester Pinball Collective

    high · Ron stated 39-40 players is about right size, planning late March/early April date at RPC, discusses needing to avoid schedule conflicts

  • ?

    content_signal: Pinball Profile podcast with Steve Ritchie and Jack Guarnieri generated significant community reaction and discussion

    medium · Bruce reported hearing lots of reactions to interview, spent considerable time discussing the coverage and implications

  • ?

    technology_signal: System 1 EM machines present challenges for restoration due to proprietary connector design and lack of proper labeling on power supply connectors

    high · Ron's experience with Countdown power supply requiring careful orientation; discussed 9-pin Molex connector with keyed center pin designed by Gottlieb as poor design choice

  • ?

    collector_signal: Bruce Nightingale acquired Fireball Classic machine after period without collecting, suggests resurgence of interest in classic Williams era titles

    medium · Ron joked 'Bruce sucks them back in' regarding acquisition, described Fireball as one of only three Classic variant machines, indicates return to collecting after hiatus

  • ?

    event_signal: Pinball Expo approaching with new CERN factory facility coming online; significant attendance and announcements expected

    medium · Hosts discussing upcoming Expo coverage plans, noting new CERN factory will be operational, noting Bruce missed last three Expos (last attended 2016)

    • So we went to Canada. Wait a minute. Isn't that like the opposite direction? Yeah. We found out, like, honestly, when we were pulling into New Jersey the night before, and we had, like, some warm clothes because, of course, we're going to be in New Jersey, and some, you know, nice clothes for, like, being at the pool and everything like that. And my wife looks at me and she goes, we're going anyway because it's our anniversary and we're just doing this. Yes, we did. We had a good time and we got to go to the Bay of Funday.
    2:28
    The Bay of Funday. Yep. I'll let you all look that up. Yeah, I have no idea what that is. It's like Funday. Funday. But they call it Funday. All the people there call it Funday, but it's Fundee. Oh, yeah. Okay. And it's a small little fishing town. We got to see the tides there are really interesting. The tide rises 40 feet from high tide to low tide.
    2:57
    40 feet! I'm talking feet! Yes, sir. And the ship has to only go into certain times to get in there, or it can't make it past the river to get into the town.
    3:10
    So, pretty neat. Good vacation. got COVID. So I have a second vacation now. Luckily the state of New York still pays until the end of the year of COVID pay.
    3:24
    Oh. Does that end next year? It ends on the 31st of December. Wow. So after this you get COVID. Fuck you. Too bad. Yeah, exactly. You have to stay home, but you don't get paid for it. So guess what's going to happen next year? All these rates are going to go skyrocketing.
    3:47
    There you go. You guys have a nice little sound to my nose. There we go. Yeah, and I don't edit anymore, so you're going to hear that. Yes, you will.
    3:54
    Well, I guess if you work from home, it doesn't really matter. No, if you work from home, it's great, but I don't work from home. I'm not that privileged. I'm not as lucky as most people in this world. I work with my hands. Oh, my. Yes, I do, and my brain. Maybe it could have a bubble room. The COVID room. We do have a bubble room. Yeah, the COVID room where people with COVID go.
    4:16
    Yeah, unfortunately. And your hands just stick out of the room. Yeah, like a bubble, like a thing like, yeah. Yeah, I hear you.
    4:24
    So how was your vacation? You had a week off, too. No, I didn't. Yes, you did. You had a week off from me. Oh.
    4:33
    That's true. Well, you sent me something right before. I did. You made a pickup. I made a pickup. One of the great Valley games of all time. Yes, I can tell. I love it.
    4:46
    Zach just looked at it. I think he walked in the room, looked at it, and the co-op just went and just ignored it after that. Oh, it's great. It is going to be great. I am now a half owner of a game again. Again. See, Bruce sucks them back in. And this game is a classic, a literal classic. It's a classic. It is a fireball classic. Yep. Only one of three classics I think there are out there, right?
    5:10
    What are the other ones? Iron Man Classic. Was it called Classic? Yes, it was. It wasn't called a pro because it was for the Costco, remember? Yeah, I always heard it referred to as Costco Iron Man. Yeah, but it's called Classic. I think you're right. I think that was Classic. And also Batman Classic. Oh, man. This is the original Classic, though, so it's the best. The original Classic, yes. So, yeah, we got one from a buddy of ours up in Ra-Cha-Cha, Brad. Thanks, Brad.
    5:40
    It's got one little issue we've got to figure out. He says, all the sounds don't work, but I have an idea what it could be. Ah, because we need those weird-ass sounds to work.
    5:51
    It's like it wants to talk, but it can't. He's like, I got a new soundboard. It's still doing the same thing as the old soundboard. And I think I know what it's going to be, and it's going to be really stupid. I bet you it's the rectifier board like I had on my, what's it called, embryon. My embryon would not play half the sounds when I had a rectifier board in that wasn't putting out perfect 12 volts. Oh. So I'm going to try the new rectifier board, see if that works. You can try the new rectum and see if it works. Rectum, I hardly even knew them. Ah, very good.
    6:29
    We're back, ladies and gentlemen. Yes, we are. Steve and I'm sick and in quarantine. I got plans this week, though. I got plans. I'm going to redo the whole basement. Oh. Actually, what are our plans for two weeks? Because I'll be coming back from Expo. Yes, you will. How are we going to record? We'll probably do it during the week. We'll probably do it a little later. Yeah, we'll have to do it during the week because everyone is going to want to hear the incredible Expo. Including myself. Summary or whatever. Including myself. We'll get into that. Yes, we will. First, I want to talk about Stump. We had Stump. What? And I missed it because I had to work. You had to work, Bruce. What happened? Well, I got called into my boss's off, you know, not office, but area at 1.30. He's like, we need an emergency meeting.
    7:17
    I'm like, oh, no. Okay, well, let's see what's going on. It's probably about this weekend. They know I'm not going to be here. They probably want to make sure all the, you know, I got enough people working and everything like that. So my boss comes in, and I'm the only one in the meeting. Uh-oh. Like, where's everyone else? I'm like, I look at my boss, and his boss is there, and his boss is there. They're like, hi. I'm like, okay, where do I hand my badge? Here you go, guys. See you later. Bye. They're like, no, no, no, no, no. But we don't want to call it mandatory, but we are going to call it mandatory because we need you to work this weekend. Like, what?
    7:53
    I said, I got plans. They're like, yeah, we know, and we really need your work. We don't want to make it mandatory, but it is mandatory.
    8:04
    I was pissed. They said, yeah, we're going to need you to come in this weekend. It was like that. It felt like an office space. Like, yeah, I'm going to need those TPS reports.
    8:17
    And I got a better deal out of the deal. I got some good stuff out of it. I had to work both days, unfortunately. I had to work Saturday and Sunday. I had to do 16 hours total. I did 12 or 10. And I watched Stomp while I was there because I just put it on the Internet and watched it from my phone.
    8:38
    But, yeah, I had to work. It sucked. I miss everyone. I'm so sorry. It went well. We had 39 players. A couple people backed out at the last minute. We had a couple COVID people also. And we were about 30 minutes late starting because we had a person who, like two miles from my house, their car broke down. So he messaged me while I'm at work. I then call Ron, who then I worked with Alberto because he was the guy with the car, and he went out and got us. Which is great. That was nice teamwork. That was some teamwork. The teamwork makes the dream work. And we got started around 1230 instead of 12. So that's fine. And only one breakdown. Yeah. Well, there's one breakdown. There's a couple other things I noticed after the fact that I'm surprised no one brought up, but I'll get into that later. But, yeah, the only breakdown was F-14.
    9:31
    And it didn't really break down in that it's just a wire guy fell off, but it's in the upper left underneath the whole ramp thing, and there was just no way. I could see the holes where it went in, and I tried to fit it back in there. And you have girly hands. And I have girly hands. I have, like, Donald Trump hands, and I could not fit it in there.
    9:51
    And, yeah, I'd have to take the whole ramp section off. It's like, no, that goes out. Turn it off. And what else? Nine ball had its usual fun, kind of sitting there sometimes, like not registering drains because they blow by switches, but easy fix stuff.
    10:10
    I do have to go through all the sterns and just start bending some out-hole guides. Because my out-holes are too powerful. My out-hole kickers, it kicks the ball out into the shooter lane so hard that it bounces right back in the shooter lane, and it kept happening, especially on big game. I've had it. I've got to make some adjustments there.
    10:32
    I noticed just yesterday something else. I don't know how no one noticed this. I turned on Iron Maiden, and I get a test report saying that the orb, The Power Orb hasn't registered. The Captive Ball. Oh, wow. On a premium, it's Captive Ball. On a pro, it's just a target.
    10:55
    And I'm looking at the Captive Ball, and it looks like, what? Is it supposed to be elevated above the play field? I don't think so. No. No, no. It fell off.
    11:07
    On Iron Maiden, and I don't know if it's the same on Godzilla, but it's got the Captive Ball. and the rod comes out of it and it's threaded and it screws in to like the holder thing. And then the other end, there's a separate piece that screws in from the other end. It's so that you can take the whole thing out. If you take the one part off, you can just pull the other part out and all that. I always pull out. It's a two-piece part. And then it goes into the, it looks like a pop-upper mech with the, what is it, the spoon? Yes. It rides in the spoon, Bruce. Oh, my. And, man, I don't like these. They're super hard to get. Oh, yeah. How hard? Super hard to adjust the switch. Oh, yeah. How hard? Oh, God. But it elevated, and the entire bottom half just fell off. Yeah. It was like sitting at the bottom of the cabinet. It's like, oops-a-dee. So, yeah, I reassembled that. I put a shitload of Loctite on it. We'll see how it goes. How many plays did that game come on? Next to none. There you go. Yeah, I don't get it. And the other one. Hey, but don't forget they're hiring playtesters. And the other one, which is the mummy captive ball, it's the same exact mech. That was coming loose, too. Excellent. So, yeah, if anyone out there has any better ideas other than just Loctite and the shit out of it, please let me know because it seems to me this is going to happen again. But I'm surprised nobody noticed because you could physically see the captain ball is, like, elevated, like, a half inch off the play field. Yikes. But, you know, they're going to be hiring play testers, I hear, for $17 an hour. Really? You could get paid to play pinball? Yes. Wow. That's the testers, how they just test all the switches. I could do that. I usually find things wrong within the first 10 seconds. They'd be pissed at me. This game has 72 reports. How come Jose's game only has seven?
    13:08
    Oh, I don't know why. Yes. Well, you would write stuff like the lights are too bright for any flight game. Yes, exactly. So these ignore your report. Every game, too. Tested by Bruce May.
    13:21
    I need my own sticker. That's one guarantee. Oh, yes. You need the sticker. Inspected by Nightingale. Bruce May. Inspected by Bruce.
    13:30
    It just says Bruce. But let's see. It was fun when time was had by all. I say the only issue I see is one that I really am not going to correct because I'm not moving my games around. We did it by different eras. Yeah, and you have a lot of eras. A lot of the eras are close together. Yes. So in order for that to work, you'd have to have old game, new game, old game, new game. Yeah, like we do at the Cove. And you lose space if you do that in my basement because you want the smaller, The narrower back box was next to each other so you can fit that one extra game at the end. So you can't do that. So I could not bring out countdown to Ron. Yes. So we were one less game. But. I got it out to him. Zach brought out a game. Yes. He brought out a gypsy doodle. And I would like to thank him because I have played this game like 50 times now since it's still here. Yeah, and? and I am so glad I did not get doodled on. Wow.
    14:35
    You hate it that much, huh? I fucking hate. You want to talk about unbalanced scoring. Hey, let me go in the saucer for 5,000. How many doodles do I need? Well, let's see. If it's only a 10, because it only does 10 in 100, I need 500 doodles. Watch that. I got 100-point doodles. They're lit after much pain. Somehow I lucked out and didn't drain, and I got that started. I only need 50 of those to reset. But if you're lucky enough and hit the ball the right way, you can get it back up to the top, bounce off a couple things, and get another 5,000. Well, no, because they have AC pops. They didn't have DC pops yet. So the pops are weak enough that it just doesn't want to go in the hole. I don't understand this now. They're all the same coils on this thing. Now, we're going to go a little technical.
    15:28
    They're all the same coils, but that middle coil is always weaker than the outer coils. Yeah, actually, if I was going to do DC pops, I would just do the top middle. Yes. And it would be all set. I would just get a different bridge rectifier, a new coil. Well, no, get a bridge rectifier. I don't think it has a bridge rectifier. No, I mean, get a bridge rectifier, make it DC, and then different coil, and then boom. It would be a fun game. It would be more even. The more I played it, it's like, okay, we have a cool gimmick. Yes. And we're going to make everything turn it off. Yes, this is true, too. And I started playing it, ignoring the doodle completely. Oh, yeah. And just going up the sides. Yep. And trying to get up and have it go in the saucer. And my average score went up. Like, that was way higher percentage. Yes, I agree. So I'm ignoring the whole bottom part that has the cool shit. Yeah, because the problem is if you get the one, two, usually when you hit one, two, three, four, there's four targets you have to hit. and they're across the whole play field, left to right. One is in the left-hand side. And it's got the little thing in the bobby that comes up so you can't drain through the center. But it never helps you. You get too confident with this because the side flippers, the side tops of the flippers, the ball can go past them, and you're fucked. Yep. So ignore the bottom, keep it in play up top, and try to light some pop bumpers. It made me angry in a very bad way. So Ron hates the game. Yeah, I can use that for later, but yes. There you go. I got it. Number one. Yes.
    17:04
    I'm so glad I didn't get one. Although I have the worst one. Dipsy Doodle is the worst one because it only has 100-point doodles. Yes. Now, if you got 1,000-point doodles going, now we're talking. Now we're in a different dimension. What about 10,000? Well, that's impossible.
    17:24
    Unless you're like Laser Lose, who plays it for eight hours straight and finally gets one. Yes, if you play it that long, I think a lot of it's just fucking blind luck sometimes. I agree also. I think it's too much luck.
    17:41
    So unless it's Zach's Love Bug, which he's had modified. Yes, he modifies his EMs. So it holds over the, what is it, 100, no, 10. It holds over the doodles between balls, between 10 and 100 or whatever the hell he did. So you actually have a chance to get 1,000. Yeah, you can catch up a little bit. Then, yeah, then it's acceptable. I agree. But Dipsy Doodle is not acceptable. No. Nope.
    18:13
    All right. I don't totally agree. So you did get the countdown now. Yes. I did get the countdown. The sack dropped off this week. I had it at the coop. Yeah. Because I took it off. Originally, here's the whole story. I didn't want to take it apart because of the connectors.
    18:28
    So Ron's like, I can't get out of my car with it all together. Because I'm old and weak. You're old and weak.
    18:36
    So I'm like, I'll bring it out next time. So when I'm willing to go put it in my car, my new CRV, doesn't fit. Yeah, the new CRV stuck. They're better than, I like it. Don't get me wrong. I could have put it on its side. It would have fit. But I was like, I'll just take it apart. Took it apart. And then I couldn't go out to stomp because of work. So I put it at the coop.
    19:04
    So I said, Zach, can you bring it out to him before you go to York? Because Zach goes out and meets his father right by Ron's house in Albany and then drives down with his dad. And right by my house, about 40 minutes away. 40 minutes away, which is right by compared to my house. Compared to your house, yes. Yes, which is three hours and 40 minutes. So I guess, Ron, you met him out there?
    19:25
    Yes, yes. Right before they left for York, Friday morning, I picked it up, and I was about five, ten minutes away when I realized that I didn't have the legs or the bolts or anything else. Whoops. Yeah, we kind of forgot that. So actually, right after we record, I'm going to see if anyone's back, because he was going to leave the stuff there. I'm going to see if anyone is there so I can pick that up so I can actually set the game up. That would be nice. Whoops. Don't forget the power connector has to go on. There's a label on the power connector. Yeah, what special System 1 thing do I have? Because I don't have no System 1s for this. I know that. There's a connector on the bottom of the power supply that goes in and says, this side up, make sure you don't put it backwards or it will blow up the whole game. Oh, okay. Oh, yes. All right. Is that coming up from the body of the head? Yes.
    20:23
    Okay. Coming from the transformer. It has the label on it, this side up. It does, unless the label fell off. If the label fell off, then stop. I won't know which one it is.
    20:32
    It's at the bottom of the power supply. It's at the bottom of the power supply board? Yes. It goes into that board. It's an eight-pin connector. By this side up, they're all like edge connectors. So that means that that side is facing it. No, it's not an energy connector. This is actually a Molex. Oh, so when it says this side up, how does it plug in?
    20:53
    Unfortunately, you can turn it 180 degrees. It's four pins and four pins with a middle pin blocked. Real smart. Wait, wait, wait. Four pins? No, it's nine pins. Oh, no, no, no, nine pins. Oh, wait a minute. Wait a minute. So they put the key pin in this center so it wouldn't be the way. That's the stupidest fucking thing I've ever heard. Thank you very much.
    21:17
    Who is that? Now you know why they have a sticker saying. Is that Rockwell? Do we blame them? No, we blame Gottlieb for this one. Oh, okay. That is definitely a Gottlieb thing because it's a power supply that they helped create. That's so bad. Yes, it is. Welcome to System One, Fun. Now you know why I didn't want to take it apart.
    21:36
    But I want to first stop. Thanks to everyone who came. Yes. Thanks for the compliments. those are nice when I hear the, you know, your games play so great that's like one of the reasons I do it thank you to thanks to Nicole for helping out with yelling out announcements because we didn't have your voice there yes, thank you Nicole thanks to Ed Z he gave me these cool speaker magnets oh yes, I heard about this they say level zero, they have my logo on them nice And he put them on Godzilla so the flames are behind them. So they look badass.
    22:15
    And I got the ultimate. The ultimate happen and stop. I got a positive comment from Zach. What? Yes.
    22:26
    He told me my Circus Safari played insane. Thank you. Game over. Drop the mic. We're done. Let's go. I think the episode's over. Yeah. See you later, guys. Thank you very much. I told him that that played insane, but yes. He didn't believe it until he played it? Well, no, he didn't say anything. This was weeks before. Yeah. And when he played it, just out of the blue, he says, the surface of the floor, he plays insane.
    22:51
    Wow. Like, fastest one he's played. And I can't tell you why. I didn't do anything special with it. It's just a regular shop job. But, yeah, I don't know why it plays the way it does, but it does. It plays better than Zach. So now you gave Zach a challenge. Yeah, I gave him a challenge. Maybe it's high-tapped. By a previous owner or something. Who knows?
    23:12
    But, yeah, congratulations to Joe Lemire. Joe Lemire got to grab the belt. He got the belt. We didn't even mention the belt. We didn't even mention the belt yet. This is the best thing. What do people think when they saw this belt?
    23:27
    Okay, here, I'm going to let up the whole thing. Only a couple people knew about the belt. The belt. Of course, one. It was a – first, I showed pictures of it to these guys because I have to do a simulation of how it's going to look. So on the one side, I put IFPA certified. You know, I got a nice. Yeah, for those at home, it's like a wrestling belt. So it has the main plate, and then it has a plate on either side of the main plate. So we had to figure out, okay, what are we putting on the smaller plates? And the smaller plates, we put IFPA on one side. Then I put a Stars play field on the other side. Then around those, I put on one side, oh, my. And then on the other side, I put Ron and Bruce. But I think next time I make the belt up for the next tournament, I'm going to put the winners around like 2017, 2018, 2019, the winners, so you can actually be part of the winning heritage.
    24:23
    And so the Star Playfield was in the one side, and the IFP was in the other side, and in the middle is mine and Ron's belt. Yes. I wish we used the old logo for that, just so it's more of a caricature. I'm going to use the old logo for the other one or something else. I have a couple ideas. Seeing my actual face on there was weird. So Joe Lemire had to put it on, and his face was next to his junk. Wow.
    24:56
    Okay. He said it was the greatest thing he's ever won. It is. He did. He actually said next to his Papa Trophy that he won. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was the best bet. And it's six pounds. This thing is heavy. So when Zach thought, I guess, he said, I thought it would be like, you know, pound, pound and a half, small, little. You're like, no, this thing is huge. My favorite part is the first stop we had in 2017. Yes. I remember Askin was there. He's in Connecticut. He used to stream with Timmy all the time at the Sanctum. At the Sanctum, yes. And he was a little kid, right? This year when he's there, he's like six foot now. I know. It's like, oh, shit.
    25:43
    And he was in the Final Four. Final Four, he did really well. And kudos to Mr. Lemire. He recovered from the thing that usually spells disaster. Yes. Where we were doing the three-game final matches. 3-2-1-0. For scoring. Was it 3-2-1? Okay. Yes, 3-2-1-0. So he did the thing.
    26:06
    After two games, he can't lose. He can only tie. Yes. Two closet playoffs. So the only way he can't win is if he finishes last. And the winner. And Jerry finishes first. That's like the only way. And that's exactly what happens. Yes. Now, normally when this occurs, the person who blows it, they're done. They never went after that. And Jerry got to pick the game afterwards. And Jerry got to pick the game afterwards, and he picked Cheetah.
    26:39
    And, yeah, Joe kicked ass at Cheetah. He did. He took it. The winner got $400 plus the big trophy, so a nice haul. I think we're going to try to make it a little bit bigger pot next time. I think everyone had a great time at your house. I didn't hear any complaints at all. Yeah, 39, 40 people is about right. That looks good. And we had two games upstairs because we had the Dipsy Doodle and ACDC guys taking out of Mothballs and reset up. There you go. And that got a ton of play. People were playing that all day. Good. They were liking some ACDC.
    27:16
    So thank you for everyone who helped out. Thanks to Zach, who was the TD Tech. Yep. The Iggy Zack money guy. He gave me the money. I put it in the fire safe. Ooh. It felt official, and then I hid the belt.
    27:32
    Until the final four. Yeah, in a completely other room, like closed off. So I got to here, like, go get the belt, Ron.
    27:41
    Oh, and the stream. The stream? Was flawless. It was golden. The stream was good. Yes. You got a couple followers also from it. Oh, yeah.
    27:53
    So we had the pinballers. They had a stream going. Yes, they did. They did a raid. That was nice. That was very nice. And I think what actually helped us a bit is, I hate to say it this way, but they had pinball at the lab. I kept saying, like, I think it was pinball at the lab, which I.E. Pinball was going to stream, but I believe Carl ended up, he was sick. Oh. So he couldn't stream it. So it was streamed, but it was streamed on another channel. Oh, and nobody knew about it. And, yeah, well, they found it eventually. But there's a big difference between that and, I mean, Carl is a partner. No, what is it called? Twitch partner. Yeah. The highest level or whatever. So we didn't get dinged as hard as we would have got dinged there. So we had up to I think 50 people watching at some point Nice So that was nice I like that That a good thing All right So thank you very much for everyone coming on out And the next one will be in late March early April we thinking Ah, nice. I have to stay away from, what's it called? There's so many things we have to stay away from now. Yeah, I think it's going to be late March.
    29:04
    And it'll be at the RPC. The wonderful Rochester Pinball Collective. Where is that, Bruce? It's at 349 West Commercial. No, it's not. It is. Yes, 349 West Commercial Street, East Rochester. I always confuse that and then one, you know, my old place. So it's because it's right down the road. 349 West Commercial Street in East Rochester, New York. Suite number 2965. Open twice a week. I love that. You get on my case to say the address every episode and then you fuck it up. Yeah, I do. Isn't that great? It is great.
    29:37
    All right. You're the one that forced me to talk about it. I never bring it up. No, you do. You say, and where is that, Ron? Yes, I do. You're the one who always says, well. But the RPC, we have 50 games. I got a couple game issues there. We'll talk about that in a few minutes. Or an hour, or whenever we get to the repairs, because we've got a lot of stuff to go through. And then we've got to ship load. So that was our week off.
    30:03
    I have a little note here. I thought this was kind of, this made me chuckle. The GTF. Oh, yes. GTF. Yes. Galactic Tank Force. The trademark expired. Huh? They let the trademark expire. How do you let that happen? I don't know. Maybe they've renewed it by now, but last time I looked, it was expired. Here.
    30:33
    But you can meet the cast of Galactic Tank Force at Expo. Yes. A lot of stuff's going to be happening at Expo. Yeah, and I'm going to miss it again.
    30:41
    Oh. What's the last Expo you went to? 2016, my dad and me. That's a long time ago. It is. I missed the whole new CERN factory that was in between now. Now the new CERN factory is going to be up and running. Oh, that's right. So, yeah. So you didn't even see the second one. No, the third one. The third one. Yes.
    31:08
    Let's see. What else do I have here? There was a pinball profile episode. Hi, Teolis. Hi, Jeff. He had Jack Guarneri and Steve Ritchie on it. Now, did you listen to this at all? No, I did not listen to it. I've heard a lot of reaction to it. Steve was throwing shade big time. I mean, basically saying that his coworkers at Jersey Tech are the best ones he's ever worked with.
    31:39
    It's kind of like, okay, better than Williams. Made some comments about programmers and stuff that, you know. I thought he kind of threw Timmy under the bus, honestly. Yeah.
    31:56
    That's not cool. And it's like, dude, your game better fucking rule after all. I know. Because he said about the whole Led Zeppelin, like, you sure I make a Led Zeppelin game about Stairway to Heaven, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, okay, Elton John better be awesome, dude. Better get some Yellow Brick Road and some Tiny Dancer, bitch.
    32:19
    I'm still standing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Hey, that could be the Steve Ritchie theme music, you know. It could be. I'm still standing. Better than I ever did. It's just like this game better rule.
    32:32
    It better rule. And then Jack had to do his stern dig. He does every one of these. Every fucking time. This has been now, how long has this been now? I'm tired of all the stern digs. I know. 15 years we've been hearing this. Well, since 2011. Yeah, but I'm talking about 15 because he was starting to dig. Well, yeah, that's why he did his own company. I know, exactly. So it's been about 15 years we've been hearing the digs. But it's, I mean, in previous interviews, he's had things like, we could have had Rush, but we passed on it. We did Guns N' Roses, which, I mean, that was a good decision. Let's be fair about that one. They sold way more Guns N' Roses than Stern sold Rushes. I agree.
    33:19
    Jaws, you know, we couldn't get the full license, so we're not going to do it if we don't have the full license. Why? Every other title you haven't gotten the full license for. No. What the fuck? Come on. It's just pirates that they didn't have the full license. And Toy Story. Well, no. Toy Story. No, they only got the one. No, Toy Story, they chose to do the fourth movie. Yeah. Except when their other. Oh, a big cock being shoved down your mouth. Except when his employee, one of his own employees says, like, oh, no, Disney made us do that. Yeah. And Willy Wonka. Well, that has, like, that has. No, they couldn't have any drawings. It had to be pictures. Oh, it had to be the art, the existing art and stuff like that. Guess what? You did not have full throw. Full throw? Yeah, full throw.
    34:03
    His dig in this episode, in this interview, was they just hired Tom Capera as their new COO. I think we talked about that in the last episode. And he said, we believe in hiring people from the industry, not outside the industry. Obvious Seth Davis dig there. It's like, why? Why do you have to do this? Like, you still haven't made two games in a calendar year yet. Yes. Although that might change. That might change. But still, stop. Stop throwing all the shade. I don't know why he does that. It's like, hey, we have to just prove that. We are dicksville. I mean, and the way he does it, it's just like, just do it the Mueller way. Do it the Hulk Hogan, Rob Mueller way. We're going to change the industry, brother. They all snuck. We're going to do it all. We got the pin bar, dude. That's right. I'm making a comeback. I haven't been in prison yet, brother.
    34:57
    My butt is still not, is still emergent. I got wife number three, and she needs the jewelry, brother. We need to sell the pinball games, dude.
    35:09
    All right. You got to do it the Rob Mueller way, where you just say, we're going to do everything. We're going to kick everyone's ass. Yeah. Don't do it in the just like, mm. I know. It's just a passive aggressive. Is that what that's called? Whatever.
    35:25
    It's the backhanded disrespect. Like, you know, like, we're not going to pull it right out like, yes, these guys suck because they did this. It's like, well, we hire people from within the hobby. Yeah. You don't want to just pull it out. Yeah. You've got to keep it holstered a little bit. Holstered, yes.
    35:49
    Okay. If you haven't listened to it, Bruce, you should. It is interesting. I actually did no Internet for five days on the cruise. Oh, my God, no Internet. Yeah, my wife kind of snapped and went the last day. She's like, I'm getting Internet. She did. She actually is like, I'm getting fucking bored. And I had plenty to do. I had books. I had my phone just for games on my phone. What was it? A Beavis and Butt-Heads. He turned it. Let's just turn the TV off. He turns it off for like five seconds. The beep is. I know. That's what my wife did on the fourth day. She's like, I got it. That's what I get. So she bought it, and she was very happy. She got a coffee card, too, on the cruise, which is really cool. Coffee. Oh, card. Yeah, card. Oh, card. Card. I think they're like coffee cart, like they roll it in. Here's your personal coffee card. You get 15 punches, so you can have 15 coffees for $36. which is for a cruise that's pretty cheap and the good thing is you can bring the card on other cruises so you use only five punches for this one you coffee people, I don't get it love coffee what do you think I'm having right now? coffee let's see what else, next I have the UK Open happened last weekend and I was told from someone there, Ron why aren't you here, the Classics Division and it's like it's made for you. Awesome. It's awesome. Yeah, it looks like my basement.
    37:17
    He had a Quicksilver with the Miracle play field in there. Yeah, how'd it look? Looked good. The penises looked excellent. They looked as green as ever. Yes, the green penises look great. I love penises.
    37:31
    There was flipper hop on it, though. I couldn't understand that. Yeah, that's weird. Now, that worries me. Does that mean the hole's in the wrong place? You know, these are new play fields. Or didn't care. Or maybe they purposely did that because they didn't want people just doing that all the time. You never know in a tournament why they do things. There's reasons. There are reasons. They look good, and that's my first or second thing to do this year. With the new basement, I'll have a place to work on games. Ooh. And I'll be doing some swapping. I'll be swapping some things around. Swapping. So for, let's see, the UK Open, they had Classics 1 and 2. which I always like that. I love that. I love the two classics. So let's see. Who won all this stuff?
    38:18
    Classics one was won by Julio Vicario. I think I said that right. Julio Vicario. I can't trill the R.
    38:29
    Can you trill the R? Julio Vicario. Okay, no, you can't either. Okay. Because I'm sick. Oh, if you weren't sick, you would be able to trill the R?
    38:37
    Oh, there we go. Vicario. Classics 2, and I'm sure we'll never hear the end of this, was won by Jeff Teolis. Oh, God. No, we'll hear about this one because we can't hear about another tournament.
    38:51
    I thought he stopped that. The one he won in Australia when he won his own tournament? Yes. Let's see. The UK, let's see. The women's was won by Amy Zeigenhagen.
    39:06
    She might have been European. Amy Ziegenhagen. And then we had this one. It's listed as PBR. It was the Pinball Republic Championship, which basically they just use new games.
    39:26
    But when I say PBR. Oh, that was for the whole fucking tournament. I think, yeah, that was the last one to finish. Yeah. Whenever I see PBR, I think professional bull riding. All right. No, I think a beer. PBR beer. Oh, Pat's beer. That's your left off on that.
    39:43
    And then the main tournament, the main finals, was won by Raymond Davidson. Go, Ray. I think Raymond Davidson was in the final four on almost everything. Nice. Go, Ray. Go. He was on fire. El Fuego. Yes.
    40:00
    And they had multiple rigs. And they were, like, streaming it. Well, they couldn't stream it 4K, but they were filming it 4K. Nice. I think Neil McRae, the guy who runs Eastlake and IT. So they had like an internet circuit put in for the event. Nice. But somehow that got screwed up, so they ended up using wireless, and it still was fine.
    40:21
    But, yeah. Works out well. And they do the Ol' Papa card format slash InDisc card format slash Fantastic card format.
    40:33
    It's still not dead. But for their classics, they were doing three-game. That's pretty cool. So basically, if your first game sucked, Void, you need three good games. Yeah. Yes.
    40:45
    So let's see. Covered that. Check that off. This whole non-editing thing is great, Bruce. Getting the podcast out within a few hours of recording them is awesome. I'm here to help. And I haven't heard any of our listeners. I haven't said anything.
    41:00
    I wish you would cut all these out and stuff. I haven't heard anything. So I'm just going to keep going. It's way more fun for me. It's awesome. I have my little notepad here, and I'm just putting the order that we do things.
    41:16
    And if you say something just horribly offensive, I will put the time code down so I can cut it. Fuck yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, oh, speaking of talking about InDisc, they had their tickets. They do this thing where they have their tickets come on sale for the super package. No, it's not even high roller. It's the all-inclusive $1,000. You get everything. You get entries for main, classics, high stakes. You get in the classics target match play. You get it all.
    41:53
    And it's like $1,000. So maybe I'll do that next year just because of the stress of trying to get into the other thing. Because the classic target match play has a cap. So if you don't get in, you know, you get put on a waiting list.
    42:08
    And last year I was actually on the waiting list. I didn't get in. And then I almost ended up winning it. That was cool. Yes. So this year I was sitting there. Ding, ding, ding. Yes. Saturday. It was yesterday. 1 p.m. Eastern. So I'm looking there, and they were using a new site, a new ticketing site. So I went, like, a minute before I'm hitting the button, and it had a timer pop up. like you have actually a couple of minutes before, but it's like, you have one minute and 50 seconds. So I reload it and it says, you have one minute and 50 seconds. Like, Oh, I reload it. You have one minute and 30 seconds. Like, Oh, okay. So there's like a technique to this. Yeah. It would like fluctuate around. So I'm figuring like, okay, what I'm going to do is when it gets within a minute, I'm going to keep reloading until I get the drop where instead of saying the same thing, it like drops down a little bit and then, and then I'll let that one go. And that's what I did. You know, 50 seconds, reload. 40 seconds. Okay, stop. Just let it count down.
    43:09
    And I was just hoping that when it counted down, it would auto-load, like, the screen to actually get the tickets, which it did. And the very first thing was the thing I needed. Boom, in cart. Immediately.
    43:20
    And I heard it sold out in a minute. Like, it was like, boom, instant. So I got in. So I was happy. Very happy. I sent you a link on something, Ron, in our Facebook. In our Facebook? Yes. A book in the face? You sent me a link? I sent you a link. Is it dirty? No. Okay.
    43:41
    All right. Man, browsers are difficult. I need more monitors. I only have my one monitor. I only have one here because I'm using the music room as the recording studio. Oh, I didn't know that. No more. No more bedroom? No. Well, technically, this is kind of a bedroom. It is your second bedroom. It's your third bedroom. Free fall. It's a free fall, Bruce. I already have one, so I was trying for you.
    44:12
    You want underwearless chicks? Yes. This game is for you. Yes. Free fall. I'm not used to it. I'm not used to paying free fall.
    44:23
    It's got some wear. It's got some dirt. But it's a pretty good price. Yeah, it looks pretty good. It's got an 8-ball next to it.
    44:32
    In the Indianapolis 500. $3,900? That's a good price for this now? I don't know what the prices are anymore. I paid $32 for mine. So it's got some wear like mine did. And guess what? We have a personal touch-up queen with Ashley. She did mine, and it looks awesome. Oh, this is in Canada, eh? Hey, this is in Alberta. Oh, yeah, eh? Oh, yeah. I saw this, and I thought of you. That's right there, you know. It's all in Canada. Yeah, it's in Canada. Just like my co-host from my other podcast. Who is that? David Dennis. Okay, thanks.
    45:12
    Or my other podcast, Silver Ball Chronicles, which you can listen to on the Pinball Network. Our latest episode will be coming out soon. I think we beat it.
    45:22
    We probably will beat it, yes. See, I did my mention. Yes, you did. Oh, and we were mentioned in an article. We were mentioned. In the Kineticist. Yeah, which I was surprised about. Yeah, it had, what, best podcast list? Best podcast. Yes, and I was on it twice. Yeah. I'm on it twice, Bruce.
    45:46
    Actually, I think there were at least three people that were on the list twice. Can you name them? You, Mr. Fiolis, and David Dennis.
    45:55
    No. I'm not David Dennis. I mean. The other Dennis. Dennis Creasel. Dennis Creasel, yes. From the Pinball Show and Eclectic Gamers podcast. I love Dennis. So there you go. And, yeah, there were some people that were upset they weren't on the list. They were butthurt. And they kind of went at poor Colin, the guy, the kinetic. I know. We didn't know we were in it. We didn't even know we were going to be on it, you know, and somebody posted things. No, someone just gave a link and said, hey, you're on this list. Oh, cool. I was like, oh, wow, that's cool, you know. And I'm like, hey, I don't notice why somebody isn't on the list. And then the next day or two, the Connecticut put out a big article about, you know, how somebody has a problem with everybody, which he always does. Yes, everyone has problems. Poor Christy. I don't know why Christy has these problems. One of these days I will witness a fight at a pinball show. It still hasn't happened yet. Yeah, it's not going to be from him. No. I saw an aftermath of one.
    46:54
    And, of course, it was Texas. Yeah. I saw the cops arrived and everything. I saw who I assumed was the loser of the fight. Sitting in the lobby. Yeah, he looked like he got the shit beat up. And then we're going into the game area, I think, to find the ass-kicker person who beat up the guy. Wow. Yeah, that was at the previous hotel. Oh, boy. So that was a while ago. Yeah, Chris had a problem because he was not one of the ones mentioned. Mm-hmm.
    47:23
    And that's bad. Very, very bad. It's fine. He'll win the Twippy, as usual. Yeah, he'll win the Twippy. And he'll be fine. Because guess what? We've all pushed it off because bots do great. And I know we're going to hear comments about this because he commented about other stuff that we did a couple weeks ago. Well, he comments on you. He comments on me, and I don't give a shit. Yeah, I just care. If you notice, I let it go right with the flow. Right with the flow. He gave us a compliment a couple weeks ago. Ron deleted it.
    47:50
    That's what I love about Ron. Well, I wanted to delete before Bruce saw it. Like, oh, God, no. And, but yeah, we have no problems with any podcast. I'm going to say it. Even with Chrissy, I don't have a problem. No, we're, yeah. But I have a problem when you bash or try to go after. He goes after every podcast.
    48:13
    It's like, I have to show you, like, I am the biggest swinging dick in the world. I have to do this. And you know by mentioning this that he's winning, right? No, of course I do. But that's why I'm just going to bring up a point. But it's Bruce. Yeah, exactly. I don't give a flying fuck. Yes, yes. This is why Kinetic has put out the article afterwards saying, you know, how he got berated and pushed into this whole debacle with Chrissy.
    48:41
    And he's like, he wanted to have a nice conversation with me over the phone. And then Chris puts it on Facebook Live. Oh, yeah. He timed it so he would actually be talking to him during his Facebook Live. That's a douchebag move. That is a humongous douchebag. This is why you're winning trippies, because you want to be a douchebag. Guess what? I'm an asshole, but I don't want to be the king douchebag. Oh, I've got to remember that. Asshole, but not the king douchebag. King douchebag. God. Stop being a douchebag, Chris. I'm being honest. And Bruce sent me another link. This was for a Starz. Yeah, you're going to crack your head open on this one. $5,000 Starz. It does look good, though. It's beautiful. But by pay? Holy fuck. Yeah, but it stars. It stars. But just, Chris, calm down. Breathe a little bit before you get all butthurt. The reason why he got butthurt, and I'm going to give the whole story. Oh, God. He was not invited to an expo get-together with other podcasters. That wasn't even his thing. This was another thing. This is the original reason. That's why he had a butthurt problem with kineticists, with Colin. because he didn't get invited because people said, I'm not going to go if he's going to be there because he has a problem with everybody.
    49:57
    Me? Hey, come on. Bring it all in, bitch. I'd be like, come on to the party. We can have fun then bashing you. Because I'd say it right in front of them. I think Chris knows this. I think everyone knows how I am.
    50:11
    I have no problem. I have this vision at the end of the party you're like best buds. That would be hilarious. no nothing I'd just be going straight out with all the shit you know me but guess what Chris got butthurt and in a way I have to agree with him why am I not included on supposedly the best podcast in the world and then he starts bragging about how he makes $3,000 and I don't have to pay a house payment that's the douchiness and this is why I get pissed off all the supporters you guys are fucking stupid enough to give him $3,000 to do this.
    50:51
    To be a douchebag. Stop. Well, you know, Bruce, I'm so rich. We don't need Patreon at all. No, we don't need Patreon at all. We donate our money. If you notice, he never brought that up in his things.
    51:10
    He never brought up that we earned $12,000 because of his being a douchebag and me saying, hey, why don't you donate some of that money?
    51:21
    You notice how he never brought that side of it up. And guess what? Chris, thank you for giving me the idea of it. Because guess what? It helped out a good cause. And it helped out. And another good thing is, I'm going to say it right now. Uh-oh. No, no, it's great. It's great.
    51:37
    Lyman passed away, of course, and his girlfriend's been dealing with all this. Penny's been great. She had a couple tournaments out there, and they earned $15,000 for suicide prevention.
    51:50
    Fucking awesome. That's how you make a good hobby into a better hobby, Chris. Not being a shit show.
    51:58
    Stop being a shit show. Do the good things. That's all I'm going to say. Okay. My rant is over. Rant is over. Okay, congratulations, Penny. Penny is a sweetheart. She had a great tournament out there. A lot of people donated. Guess what? Props. Humongous props.
    52:17
    And it just ended the Suicide Prevention Month. So hopefully next year we'll ask for more good things.
    52:26
    And, you know, but it works both ways. Let's see. I'm trying to think of a segue here for this next segment. Segue right into circuit finals. You know the Stern Pro Circuit, Bruce? Yes, I do. Now, do you remember when they had the finals last year before Expo, and they were, like, in this secret location, which I think it was just, what is it, Jack Danger's place. Yeah. And they filmed everything, but they wouldn't say who won. No one could say who won, and they were going to supposedly show it. You know, they were post-producing it and all that. Well, they just started showing the post-produced tournament matches on Stern's YouTube site, Yep. A YouTube channel about a month ago. Yep. After a year. Really, guys? And yesterday they showed the final match. So congratulations, Carl D'Angelo, for your victory a year ago. A year ago. And the funny thing is, I believe it was on IFPA's site. Yes, the whole time. It was listed under a pinball tournament. Like it had no name. And then I noticed Saturday. Which I feel is kind of wrong because guess what? It should be the proper name of everything that's gone with it. Well, the thing is, I'm surprised they put it there because it kind of gives away who wins. I know. But they had to, you know, think about it. If I name my tournament Stomp 5 and I put my results in there, I can't go back and say, hey, can you change the name of this so nobody can see this?
    53:57
    Can you? I guess not now. Have you ever tried? Yeah, just at a pinball tournament, something like that. And then within the last few days, they actually changed it to say Stern Pro Circuit Final. Yeah, but that's douchey. It's douchey changing the name? It is douchey. Tournament name changing is douchey. It's douchey. Don't change the name of your tournaments ever. Why are we catering to one thing? You should never cater to one group. It should be across the board. Like all the rules are for IFPA, it should be across the board. Well, speaking of other events, the York show was this weekend. Yes, it was. Neither of us were there, so I don't know what we can say about it. It was a good show, I heard. Okay. We got some games coming to the RPC. Oh, wait a minute. So he picked, okay, so our Zach was there. No. We stated earlier. Zach did not buy anything. Oh, he didn't. Wait a minute. He didn't buy anything? Mm-mm. He bought parts and that kind of stuff. To him, that would be a fail. Yes. But our own Mark bought stuff. Oh, okay. And he sold stuff. There's a lot of stuff that's leaving the RPC. Should we leave it a secret?
    55:05
    Yeah, we can give a couple teasers. We could be able to give a couple away. You're going to be happy about one of them. A lot of our listeners, you know, do not live in Rochester area. No, they don't. They could be in Australia and they're never going to see any of this anyway. They want to come to Rochester now. Right.
    55:20
    He sold TNA. Okay. He sold his own Mando, not the one at the co-op. He sold his Mando. He sold, what else am I going to go into? I have a list of what he sold. Give me two seconds. Oh, and congratulations to our Zach. He won the tournament. Yes, he won. He won the tournament. For the third time, I looked it up. He's won three times there. And I think I beat him. I think I won the time before that. I think I'm going to call him. Mr. York. York to Zach. Zach York. How can we work this in?
    55:53
    Sir York. Sir York a lot. Okay, here we go So Mark got rid of Hot Hand He had a version of Hot Hand Mando Spectrum he sold Both Haggis So he sold A couple weeks ago He sold his Fathom He sold his other Haggis Keltz And he sold TNA damn so he must have had a lot of room he did have a lot of room and he bought some things what did he buy? you own one of these games that really helps no no you own one of these games and you love this game love as in it's your favorite Williams oh Demoman? nope Johnny Mnemonic but yes a Solar Fire he bought which I didn't have one and a better Grand Lizard, which is Solar Fire. Oh, no.
    57:01
    Man, he loves that upper play field part because he sticks to the same thing. It is the same thing. I was like, why don't you buy both of the same game?
    57:09
    So that was kind of a, you know, query, weary, like, huh? That would be like having a Fireball and a Fireball classic. Like, just pick one. Just pick one. And we picked the right one. Yeah the right one so yes we have some things changing at the coop and plus we be talking about repairs in a few minutes But what were we talking about before this
    57:33
    Stars, $5,000 stars. Yeah. I just said I have a link to $5,000 stars. There's no way we're $5,000. But it looks beautiful. It looks beautiful. I can eat off this thing. Gorgeous.
    57:47
    New play field, looks like. New side art, new artwork, new everything. Oh, I forgot. The one thing I did, I got something else other than the countdown from Zach. Oh, what else did you get? NOS Alien Star Backglass. Oh, yes, Backglass. I heard about this. It has been installed. It is now in the, which is funny, I took the old Backglass out. Did it fall apart on your hands? There was a big sheet of paint literally just peeling off when I took it out. Like, damn.
    58:16
    Talk about good timing. You've got to steal that thing now. It's in the junker pile. It's just, like, off to the side now.
    58:25
    So they have the pods, the match-ups, for next year's. Pods? Match-ups? They call them pods. Okay. You're talking about the circuit finals. Yes. The ones that are coming up in, like, a week. Yes. They're going to be at, what, Interium or something? Yeah, Interium. But right before Expo, and they're doing away with the ladder because they have like a zillion people there now. I know. And they're doing pods, which I have no idea how any of that works or what that means. So you have two people face off, and then the person who loses, the winner moves on to the next person. Then after that, the person who loses. So it's a ladder pod? It's like a ladder pod, yes.
    59:08
    A potter. Yes, some of the groups are pretty fucking hard, I would say. Well, our own Zach is in this thing. Zach is in it.
    59:17
    Yeah. Are you thinking he's going to get eliminated quickly? He could. I mean, it's the Stern Pro Circuit, so it's going to be on all new Stern games. Yes. So, I mean, it's.
    59:29
    But some of the pods are Joe Lemire versus Adam Lefkoff. Then after that, they have to face Bowen. And after that, they have to face Eric.
    59:40
    Oh, Eric Stone. Yeah. It's not our meeting room. No, no. Okay, then you have Donovan Stepp versus Robert Byers. Then the person who wins has to face Brian O'Neill. And the person who wins after that has to face Jason Zahler.
    59:56
    Yeah, and it's all going to be on all-new sterns, too. Exactly. Aren't they? It's going to be the longest fucking tournament in the world. He'll still be playing that when the Expo starts. No, when Expo ends. Oh, it ends. He'll be playing. It's going to be like, where are all the players for the tournament? There's no tournament. They're still playing at the circuit parks. Now, here's the best group. This is Zach. Zach has to play Jeff Teolis. After that, they have to play Zach McCarthy.
    60:21
    And then after that, the winner plays Escher Leskoff. Wow. Yeah. Oh, wait. Wait. Here's another great group. I don't think Zach is getting out of that group. I don't think so either. He does. If he does. Yeah. Yes. You are the man. Here we go. We have Colin McAlpine versus Dalton.
    60:42
    Then after that, you have Andre Massinkoff. After that, you have Travis Murray. It's like, holy shit. I just got one hammering to another hammering to another hammering. Yeah. Wait, here comes another one. Kerry Wing versus Steve Strom. And then it's Louis Bevins. Then after that, you get Raymond Davidson. Mm-hmm. Wait, next pod, you have Josh Sharp. Okay, no. Bill Mason. Wait, then you have Trent. And then you have Carlos De La Sera. De La Sera, sorry. And then after this one, I'm getting one more. One more. Zach Sharp versus Keith Elwin.
    61:20
    After that, you get to go against Derek Price. And after that, you get to go against Steve Bowen. Holy fuck. There's no easy path. Nope.
    61:29
    And the winner will get, what, $5,000? Yes. And a new pinball machine. And a new car! Now, that would be cool. That would be fucking awesome.
    61:41
    So, yeah, that's coming up. Yep. Let's see, what else? Little tidbits I had here. Spooky, on their latest Twitch stream, they mentioned that when they were doing America's Most Haunted, they were actually negotiations to do a Mystery Science Theater pin.
    62:00
    Yes, you would have had a bad pin right off the bat, Ron. You would have felt how bad they were. and I guess you would have bought it probably I guess the issue was everyone involved with the show wanted a game if they did it like I want a game and they they's like yeah that's too many free games they'd have to give out so that didn't happen so yeah well I kind of got the Mystery Science Theater pin it's called Elvira House of Horrors yeah exactly because they have to have the movies in that game are ones that were on Mystery Science Theater at some point yes they were Ah, let's see. What else do I got here? Oh, when I heard this, I thought of you, Bruce. Oh, boy. Stranger Things. Oh, God. They're coming out again. Yeah, they're coming out again because why do you think they're coming out, Ron? Because people want the game, you know, the one that you hate. They want the game. No, not true. No, they're not making them because they think people want them. Okay, what is the reason? It's the last season coming out. They're going to go for them. Get it all. Get milked the license as much as they can. But it's nothing. It's the last season. Okay, so are you saying they're going to have something new in the software? No, no, no, not at all. But they're still milking the whole thing. They're milking the license. If they put it out two or three years from now, it's not going to be worth anything because the show is over. Guess what? Season five is coming out in a couple months. I know people want them because it's good. No, it's not good. It's awesome. People, it is stupid.
    63:28
    Stupid is what stupid does. Now, it looks like, I read somewhere, it's actually going to be, they're doing pros and premiums. Yes. And the premiums are going to be a little bit less than Venom, it looks like. But then I've seen other places where it's the same price. Either way, it's not more. Now, I heard that you don't get the expression lights with them either. Because the game doesn't have expression lights. Exactly. You mean the UV kit? Why didn't they do that? That would have been a cool thing on the side. Then you would have pissed off all the previous owners. And we've done that before, Stern. So what the hell is different? Look at JP 30th anniversary. So they did. There's no. It doesn't come with the UV kit. So you're going to have to buy the UV kit. Yes. The projector in it, in the premiums, is a new projector. Yes, better. Not necessarily. I don't think it's better. I think it's literally the old projector they can't get anymore. So they have a new projector. I think there's parts with the old one that are NLA. So this is a new one. So it's not backward compatible with the old ones. Something to know.
    64:33
    And it does supposedly, you remember all the issues they had with the premium and the LEDs, like the back panel locks and stuff like not working? Yes. Then they had bulletins, tech bulletins on how to fix all the shit. It sounds like on these ones, those bulletins are in the game. Like the fixes that were done in the tech bulletins will now be in the game for you. And work. Yep. But which is exactly, if you go back to a previous episode, I think I mentioned that at some point, that it would be cool if there was another run or, you know, people were waiting for that run that had all the fixes in it and it never happened. Well, here you go. It's going to happen.
    65:15
    So you just now pissed off all your games that you. Here's the funny thing. No, you could have done the fixes in the tech bulletin if you had a brain. True. But here's another thing is people are going to go, I want the better one now. I'm going to sell mine for top dollar.
    65:30
    Oh, I'm not. Oh, no. No. Yeah, they all went on sale, and none of them are going to sell now. Exactly. My premium for $12,000. No, that's not selling. No, not selling at all. No, not when I get a new one for way less. Yeah. Sorry. Exactly. So it's just like it's a shit show beyond shit show beyond shit show. But it's a great game. No, it's not. Yes, it is. That's why distributors are selling out. I've already seen at least a couple of distributors. They've already sold out of their initial allotment of this.
    65:59
    Well, people, guess what? And then another year from now, when the next new game comes out, you know what's going to happen? They'll all be back on sale again because that's what always happens. The market is getting very softy. So if you want to write in and tell Brutus he's wrong about Stranger Things, you can write in to slamtelpodcast at gmail.com. That's slamtelpodcast at gmail.com. The problem is they're not going to because they're going to say, boy, Bruce is fucking right again and again and again. Oh, come on. I love straight-to-the-face. I know you hate when I'm right all the time. I considered it, but I have too many new sterns, and I really can't be getting another one. Yeah, you can't.
    66:41
    I'm kind of – I don't – I'd have to start replacing older games to get newer games, and that goes against my code. I agree with that, but I'm surprised you – I can replace the newer game with a newer game. So wait a sec. You're saying that this game is so awesome that you can't buy it? I'm saying if I was going to replace it, if I was going to buy it, I would have to replace one of my newer games, and I don't want to do that. So you're saying it's not as good as the other games that you have, your new ones? Yeah, I'm saying it's not as good as Jurassic Park, Godzilla. Yeah, okay. Okay, Jurassic Park, Godzilla, Star Wars. What else we got new that you have? Deadpool. Iron Man. and I'm missing one here that I just got. We mentioned it earlier.
    67:24
    Come on, Iron Maiden. So all those games are better than Stranger Things. Thank you. You just admitted that. Thank you very much. They're all great games, Bruce, but I like those better.
    67:36
    Nope. You just admitted that. Stranger Things with the UV kit needs the UV kit. Otherwise, there's no point. In a dark room with the sound cranked up, it's an awesome experience. It is truly an experience game. But the prices are going down. I love it. Oh, yeah, you're the soft. It's getting soft. It's getting fluffy in somebody's hand. God. Yes, he is so back, folks. He is so back. Yes, Stranger Things Pro, they want $7,500 for a home use only. Yeah, good luck with that, buddy. Yeah, I can get a new one. It's definitely cheaper.
    68:17
    I love this fucking hobby. Did you know that the, what the hell is the, Demi Gordon, is that the thing with the. Yes, the Demi Gordon. The Demi Gordon and the premium vibrates and the one in the pro doesn't. Did you know that? I did know that, yes. I didn't know that, but.
    68:34
    Yeah. Oh, they mentioned, yeah, they had fixes, like supposedly that shot will be easier now. Yes. Remember when that didn't work at all? Oh, it didn't work at all. It was a shit show. Go back to one of our old podcasts. There was a shit show when that came out. especially with the premiums, with projector issues, the locks never working right on the back panel. The lock pin popping out completely. The original code made it so you had to get it in his mouth, which was, like, impossible in most games. So they had to change it into more of a bash toy than anything you actually hit it in. Yeah. They had a lot of initial issues with that. Yeah.
    69:10
    Initial. You still do. The game sucks. You're wrong. Okay, let's talk about Expo. Pinball Expo is coming up, Bruce, and it looks like there's going to be no less than three game reveals. Ah.
    69:25
    Well, Bruce doesn't think no one's going to happen because he sees there's a loophole. There's a loophole. Okay. Well, let's go through. We'll do that one last time. Okay. So at Expo, confirmed, we have there will be the new Mystery Pinball Company, which we got another email from.
    69:43
    Yay. And everyone seems to believe it will be Labrath. Why? The Jim Henson, David Bowie film. Yeah, who knows. They're probably not going to get any music from it, which will suck, because that was one of the better parts of the thing. Well, they have, like, his codpiece thing, because he had a rather large... Codpiece. Yeah, yeah. Will that be part of the game? I hope so. Will that be the best? I want to have to be bashing that codpiece all the time.
    70:10
    And when you hit it, it goes... They could have cool puppets and stuff in there, you know. That would be cool.
    70:18
    But nope, they won't. And this is all conjecture whether it will be Labyrinth, but it definitely seems, all the clues they've given are pointing to that.
    70:27
    Then we have confirmed title, which will be Elements by, what are they called again? Pinball Adventures. No, Pinball Adventures out of Canada.
    70:38
    Canada. And they've shown some pictures of the play field, and it looks pretty cool. It looks okay. Wait for those LEDs to kick on. You'll be all blinded again. Well, it's got a thing in the center that looks like that time tunnel game, that EM, that actually goes into the play field. It's got a little upper mini play field. It looks way cooler than Pony Factory. I agree. You've got to say that. Oh, I think anything's better than Pony Factory. Oh, yeah, you really hate that game. Even though you've never played it, fail. It looks like a shit show.
    71:07
    But, yeah, that looks really cool. Yeah, but we'll see what happens. But then Jersey Jack announced they will be revealing the game. Well, go ahead, Bruce. Do your stick. Whoa, whoa, whoa. I'm going to do the stick, because it's true. Jersey Jack, a day and a half ago, posted on his Facebook page. On his personal? You mean Jack's personal? No, no. Nope. Jersey Jack pinball's Facebook page.
    71:30
    Countdown to launch. October 19th. Save the day. What's after that? What do you mean what's after that? October 19th Are you trying to say because it doesn't say a year? Yeah, it doesn't say a year and I know this guy So you're saying Jack is saying it's going to be back the next year You would never know with this company I think it's safe to assume that Elton John will be there So that tells me that Godfather did shit and Toy Story has done shit There's a lot of distributors out there pushing Godfather's.
    72:12
    I mean, I don't think Godfather did particularly well. No, I think it was a shit show. I think Toy Story definitely did better, just because it's Toy Story. I think it did better than Godfather, but I think both were not numbers that they were hoping for or expecting for. I think it was the big old book. And you think that precipitated this release, where the first time ever they can actually release two games in a calendar year? Yes, because their lines are empty. They need the build-up, and they usually do. That's one thing I will give props to JJP. They usually build a couple hundred when they're announcing stuff. So when it's ready to be released, they can at least get the first games out, like Stern does, within a couple weeks. They actually do it beforehand, which is even better. So those lines, since you're not selling, you're not selling Godfathers, and your choice stories are sitting around now too. I've got to keep the factory busy. That's the number one rule of Gary Stern and everyone else. Keep the fucking factory busy.
    73:16
    We need to get this game out ASAP. So, oh, the timey flipper. I guess that's why they call it the blues, Bruce. Yeah, that's why they call it the blues. It's going to be a sad song if they can't spell these games. Sad songs they say. No, you've got to say Sassu. Sassu, because that's what he did later on. I'll turn them on. Turn on those stats. That's all. Stats on. All hope is gone.
    73:51
    Yeah, you know. Yeah. It's going to be a kick in Expo, I think. It's going to be a good Expo. Not as good as last year, I think. You have more games last year. Well, wait. How do you know there's going to be – how do you know there's more games last year for something that hasn't happened yet this year? No, I'm talking about releases. I mean, like, everyone released a game last year. No, that was Texas. That was Texas, Bruce. That was Texas? That was Texas. That was Texas when they had the five games released. Okay. Wrong show. No, no. What he's like, Expo did last year was – I don't remember what it was last year. You have to go look back, man. No, Godfather was like March.
    74:34
    So was it Toy Story? No. Toy Story was around Pintastic. I remember that. Yeah. So maybe it wasn't. I know all. Well, we don't know about that.
    74:46
    Hey, I'm going to send you another link. Here you go. Oh, God. You're going to laugh at this one. I'm sure our listeners love these links that they can't see. They can see it. It's all on Pintside. Oh, okay. So we have, first they have Pirates of the Caribbean prototype, which means what, the triple discs that are programmed? Yep. It's very rare. It has the spinning disc. God, I play these at every show. I know. Forever, these. I know. Because it took forever for them to actually come out with the production model. Oh, only $48,000.
    75:22
    No. Yes. And it's in Melbourne, mate. Right. I lost these. It's a triple spinning disc that's not coded. Yeah.
    75:31
    Yeah, you get the old code, which you can't upgrade. Well, actually, well, that's the other thing. Did they ever come up with 1.0 code for Pirates of the Caribbean? No, no, no. That's insane to me. Yep.
    75:44
    But guess what? Bond hasn't even gotten up to 1.0 yet either. But it will. It might. It will. Wow. Oh, boy. Yeah. Let's see.
    76:00
    Let's do repairs. Yes. And then we'll end with the ball bag because there's a thing at the end of the ball bag we have to do. I have to tear apart my Star Trek LE again.
    76:11
    Oh, no. Optos again. Opto prompt. Oh, in the – The prop target optos again. Ah, yes. I love that area. Oh, God. It is the worst fucking area. I've had that apart so many times. I know. So have I. And Zach's like, hey, the optos aren't working again. I'm like, oh, fuck, I did just pull it. He's like, what do you mean? I did just pull it, put it in the back. We'll figure it out later on when I get back. And then, of course, I had COVID. I had a thing where it would reset and the target would just fall down, so it would give you another free hit. Keep screwing with that. I had all kinds of washers and stuff I did with it to get it to work perfectly. Yeah. And the problem is there's a lot of material, like metal. I get a lot of crap on there. The opto gets really dirty. So you've got to try to clean them. If they get misaligned, you're fucked. You've got to take everything apart and get them perfectly aligned again. It's a pain in the ass game to maintenance and keep up. But that thing's only got 60,000 plays on it. Well, you know, my Spider-Man is still working just fine. Yeah. Yep. Give it a couple more months. You just jinxed yourself. What other repairs? We talked about the fireball I have to get in touch with and get working on. The Addams Family gold is almost gone. That will be at the house. Not my house, but out of the RPC.
    77:35
    At the RPC, we're also going to get another Stargazer. Another one? Okay. Another one. So that one is getting approvals. Bad Girls will be coming on the floor in a couple weeks. Yes, bad girl. Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad. Bad, bad, bad. And we're going to be replacing stars.
    77:59
    Yep. You can't do that. With another stars. Oh, okay. Whoa, you had me there for a second. Yes, my stars is coming home with me. My stars have been on location for five years almost now, so it needs to come home to Papa. It needs to come home. stars comes home and somebody else's stars will be in the place of it which is good never a bad thing what else do we have to repair on we worked on I guess lethal weapon 3 the new power supply is working so we had to get that voltage back up so it wasn't resetting and it has not reset so we have to figure out now what we're going to do with that power supply yay That was giving us a low voltage of 4.92 volts at the board, and we got it up with a new board and new connectors, male and female, to 4.97.
    78:58
    So something on the board must be taking it down a little bit, so we'll see what happens. That's it? That's it. All right. I'm trying to think if I had anything else. my lethal weapon 3 I replaced the kickback bell armature assembly or the bell armature the plunger thing the nylon part was just loose and the front of it was pulverized you literally see it was just destroyed so now my kickback is kicking back better gotta have a good kickback gotta have a good peck yeah I think that's it. Because the other stuff I mentioned with the captive balls raising up out of the play field. Now, that would be cool if that was a mech that did that. I know, exactly. Let me think about that. A captive ball that raises so you can't hit it and then lowers.
    79:56
    Exactly. Hold on. I've got to trademark that right after I trademark GTF. Yes, exactly. That would be awesome. All right.
    80:08
    So let's get to the ball bag. It's a pretty full ball bag. No comments? Very full. No, no, I'm blowing my nose. Oh. I didn't think you wanted to hear that. So full ball bag. I love when my ball bag is full. There you go. All right. So first one we have is from Kevin. Hi, Kevin. The subject line is fire champagne restoration. Ooh. My friend Chris would love this. It's his favorite game. He says, hey, guys, love the show, especially the ball bag tech portion. Yeah, I love my ball bag. It's got techies on it. Last year I was fortunate enough to pick up an original fire champagne edition for a great price of $2,500. It was in decent shape and with some minor playfield wear and cabinet chips. I wonder how the buildings were. They just destroyed. I've absolutely always loved everything about fire. from your amazing artwork, best play field art ever on a System 11, in my humble opinion. Yeah, I don't know about that. To the long Barry O. proprietary signature horseshoe ramps, all the way down to the ragtime music and sweet bell topper. I do agree with that. Ding, ding. Why this game gets so much hate from the community is beyond me. I like the game. They don't like ramps that just go up to a target and then come down. I like it because if you make it hard, they go right down the middle. In past episodes, I've heard you guys talk about this specific game and your appreciation for it. Anyways, I've been in the hobby since 2019 and love to tinker, solder, clean, rebuild, max, and generally work on my games. Very nice. Currently, I'm working on a full ground-up restoration of Fire, my first full restro after six months. I'm finally getting close to done. I'd love to hear your guys' honest opinion on it once it's fully completed. it.
    82:02
    If I emailed you some pics and videos and my complete restoration list, would you mind taking a look and rating the completed machine and my skill? Flamesuit equipped in the event you want to roast.
    82:15
    Okay. Tasty. I don't think I've ever done a restoration of that level. No, I probably haven't either. I just done play fields. Sorry for the long email. Thanks, gentlemen. Keep up the great work. I love fire. So I'll be happy to... Fire! Fire, fire. I would only... You know who hates it? Who? Just the person who hates it. Zach? You got it. Well, he hates everything. I know. I would only consider the champagne edition. Yeah, me too. I love the champagne. I think it's really cool. Do you need the back box to be on fire? Yes. It's very important.
    82:48
    Oh, God. Okay. We have an email from the bastard son of Pinbot. Remember him? He's the one who... Yes. What did he call Zach? An energy vampire? Energy vampire. Yeah. The first time he emailed, he wanted me to read it like I was Pinbot. So I wonder if I should do it again. You should. Maybe you should. Greetings, Ron and Bruce. Circuits activated. How are things? Imagine being a teenage girl in the 90s waiting impatiently by your translucent landline phone for your best friend, your BFF, to call you about when you will be going to the mall later to see the newest flick, 10 Things I Hate About You. This is what it feels like to be a lonely robot waiting for Stu McVicker's response to my Doodle Bug Challenge.
    83:34
    Wow. Did he make a Doodle Bug Challenge? I know it's never going to happen because Stu hates that game, too. Stu. Hey. You want to play some Doodle Bug against this guy?
    83:45
    That game sucks. He's the biggest piece of shit I have ever seen. So, no, it doesn't sound like it. No, that ain't happening. Okay. Why is he in my house again? Oh, whatever. He's sitting right in your fridge right now. Ah, weird. Your fridge is empty. He's like Indiana Jones. Oh, he's empty. He thinks there's going to be a nuclear blast, so he went in my refrigerator. Yeah. So bad. Bonning up about sad news, let us talk about my newest pinball idea.
    84:11
    I have been reading about a brilliant new pinball manufacturer, and I wanted to hear your thoughts on the matter. Have you guys heard of the game Punny Factory?
    84:21
    Yes. Do you know what a pun is? Did you know that pun is a literal pun of the word fun? Absolutely genius.
    84:32
    No, no comments. Not only is the play on words art, but the art of the cabinetry and play field is so vibrant and beautiful, I can't stop looking at it. Now I see you indeed. Imagine the finest cliff art from the preview best in days of the Internet, and now copy and paste it ad nauseum. What a gift to the pinball community.
    84:53
    But it doesn't stop there. Or does it? News. Punny factories are no longer shipping with color. Yes, the white playfield edition punny factories are ready to ship today on their website. When you buy a pinball machine from Stern, you expect to do maintenance on it. Why not just airbrush the playfield while you're at it? Finally, a hands-on game that will bring the family together. Little Jimmy, get out those crayons. Wow. With all of those new innovations in pinball, I knew I needed to go to the next logical place. I, the bastard son of PinBot, am creating my own pinball manufacturing company. I call it the Bastard Son Pinball Company. And let me introduce you to Bastard Son's first pinball game, a new innovation in pinball manufacturing, Turd Base. Details to follow. Well, they got the name right, Turd Base. It's going to be a terrible shit show. Okay. We got this one from Andrew. It says, hey, guys, this one is going back a ways, but they discovered and mapped an eighth continent Zealandia Zealandia It New Zealand and something else if I remember correctly Holy fucking shitballs, Batman. Brewster's right. Is he from the future? Is that how he knows all the pinball releases ahead of time? Keep up the good work. Oh, you must have said there were eight continents. There is eight continents. That's what everyone says. It's New Zealand. All right. This is right. Right! Crikey.
    86:33
    And this one is from the Mystery Pinball Company where they showed a picture of the lockdown bar receiver where it says, install five balls.
    86:44
    Yay. Yeah. We haven't got the stickers because we didn't ask for them. Oh. But yeah. I'm looking forward to Labrith, guys.
    86:54
    Yay. I am. Let's see. This one's from Carl. It says, good day, boys. Okay, that's right. Good day, boys. How's them hanging?
    87:04
    Just a quick email to say I love the show and have listened to all your shows at least three times over while I work, many times laughing my arse off, three times apiece. I always laugh when prices on pinball comes up. I wish we had your prices. Our main guys here for pinball are AMD. They do a great job, but their prices are fucking bullshit. Please take a look at it for yourself for reference. Keep up the awesome show going, boys. Your mate from Sydney, Australia, Arcade Carl. P.S. Fuck yeah.
    87:37
    All right. The problem is when I look at the prices, they have like a different – is there stuff more? There's a lot more. It's like $1,000 there. It's like $100 here or something like that? No, it's not that bad. The exchange rate is pretty bad. and the problem is then you have the shipping because it has to go over in containers and then you have to wait so long and when they get, you know, imagine a run of a thousand games. You're only getting like maybe 50 to 100 games down there. So, it's really hard to get games down there. You've got to find them and the hunt is harder down in Australia. Just, I don't know, out back.
    88:16
    Roy! I'm trying to open the damn page but I'm having issues with my wonderful laptop here. Bruce said he might be getting a new laptop. Yeah, 10 years old. 10-year-old laptop. It's amazing you can, it even works. I surf very well. It's just everything else doesn't work.
    88:35
    Let's see. I want a new Venom. How much is that? The Pro is $11,950. Well, right now you can get ours for $69.99. The Premium is $15,500.
    88:50
    Ouch. Well, the thing is, Bruce, I don't think they have to worry about containers and shipping if you're buying from... Oh, no. What am I saying? It has to come there. Duh. What the fuck are you talking about? Yeah. Do you know something about Stern's Australian Factory, Ron, that you're not telling me? Exactly.
    89:08
    Yeah, that seems pretty expensive. Yes, it is. It is .64 cents to one Australian dollar. Right. And Canada, I don't know what Canadian is right now. Let's do the Canada. Oh, Canada. Canada is .73.
    89:30
    Yes. All right, we have Glenn. Hey, Glenn. Glenn, the originator of the Fuck Yeah song. Fuck yeah. Says, hey, boys, I'd like to nominate Pharaoh to the floor. This is Turd or Treasure is the subject line. It only needs three or more votes on Pinside to get an official rating. My question to you is turd or treasure turd? Also, did you know about the naked women on the back glass? I did. Yes. But I never could actually find them. And then he sent a picture, and now I see them. Yes. And, yeah, full frontal. Yes, I love it. Damn.
    90:07
    I like the game. I don't mind any of the upper-level games. This is the worst one. The pachinko part is a little, yes. It's the worst one. But it's still a fun game. I think it shoots really well. No. It's a turn.
    90:22
    It's a good thing. I like when we have differing opinions, but yes. Yes, because guess what? You know, you think Stranger Things is good. It's good. I actually think Pyro's pretty good. And it talks way more than the other three. Raw, raw, raw. Go, bros.
    90:39
    Maybe it's because at Pacific Pinball Expo, they bring the same one every year and crank up the volume way too loud, and that's all I would hear, and I think that gave me a certain hatred for it. So that's fourth on the upper lower play field games for you? Yes. That's number four? Yep. And number three would be? Solar Fire. Wow, okay. And then number two would be? Black Knight, actually. Okay. And number one is? Jungle Lord. Jungle Lord, when you actually look at all the rules on that and all the stuff it does, like, damn, when was this game made? I know. It is a lot of cool shit on it, and it actually plays good. It plays really good. And it has a buzzer, and I love the fucking buzzer. Yeah. When you don't hit the thing. I agree. I love that.
    91:27
    So, all right, next one we have is from, oh, Eric Russell, CNY. Hello, Mr. Eric. Yes. I just talked to him last night. Yes.
    91:37
    He told me at Stop, he's starting to kind of go over to your dark side when it comes to all the Dwight lighting stuff. Yes, because it's getting fucking old. But he said, the Klee Pin Show has a nice tournament area and some really nice games brought for free play each year. But Zach is right that there isn't a lot of turn... Oh, but Zach is right that there isn't a lot in terms of pinball parts vendors. One really good part of the show, however, is that Tilt Amusements has a huge presence, that's Trent, with the new released Stern games. I think they had close to 20 new machines there, including four Venoms, two Pros and two Premiums. a bunch of Bond pros and premiums, Jurassic Park, Mando, etc. All set up with Insider Connected scoreboard to track the high scores throughout the show. I always liked that feature. It was a really nice setup. Trent and the rest of the crew at Tilt Amusements deserve some praise, and thanks for putting all of that together. It was definitely appreciated. Eric, Russell, C, and Y. Yes. Now, last night, I'm going to say first, nice job, Trent. Great that you actually make the show better. Perfect. Now, me and Eric had a conversation last night about Venom.
    92:48
    Oh, God. Hold on. I'll get one more thing out of the way here. Okay. We had another email from the mystery pinball manufacturer who's making Labyrinth, and they say, don't miss the pizza party at 9.30 p.m. Friday, October 19th at Pinball Expo. They didn't put a year either, Bruce, but I think it's assumed that. So they're doing it the same day next year as fucking Jersey Jack? What are the odds? Food, drinks, and cash bar. Meet the team. Play the game. You will have an amaze, in quotes, zing game. That's why I flabbergasted. It is amazing race. Amazing race? Okay.
    93:22
    Okay, Bruce, what were you about to bash? I didn't bash it. Eric bashed it. Okay. Eric brought up the flasher issues. Of what? Of Venom. Okay. As soon as you hit that lockdown bar button, what do you think happens?
    93:42
    Flashers go off in your face. You got it, baby. Wow. Who are we going to fucking learn, Dwight? This is why we'll never have him on the show. Because we're truthful here. Because he likes things too great for you? Blowing people is not the way to play pinball or to program pinball.
    94:02
    That's it. Done. You have no response to it, so you know I won this one. I always like you, Dwight. Don't listen to this guy. You keep going. Yeah, keep going. Keep lining more people one game at a time.
    94:17
    You're so mean. Okay. So the next email is actually from the pinball kineticist, Colin. Hello. Hello, Colin. And they have two questions for us. Oh, boy. Yes. And no? Maybe? And no. I've never done drugs. True, false, the Beatles. No, they're very simple questions. Okay. Well, kind of. But I think the first one, we're going to do it a little differently because that's what we do here. First and wrong. The two questions they have for us is, what are your top five pinball machines? And what do you love most about pinball? Now, we can get to the second one later. Yeah. The first one, we're slam tilt. We don't like anything. And as you've heard from Bruce on this show, he is even more negative than I am. So we're going to do our top five most hated pinball machines. Yep. I can do this. And I may not be able to get five, but Bruce says he's got, like. Already got them written. He's already got them written down. It took me two seconds. Two seconds. All right. I will start with Dipsy Doodle. That's number five for you. Maximum 100-point doodles. That's number five for you. Well, there are no particular order. Oh, okay. I'm going in order, too. Only 100-point doodles when you can hit a saucer where you get 5,000. Terrible, stupid. I mean, I know it's because it's a four-player, and they probably didn't have enough relays or whatever for what they needed to do. But you have a game with a cool feature, and then everything else in the game turns the cool feature off. to the point where if you do anything in a game, it just seems like complete blind luck. And then you have pop-uppers that are too weak to get it back in the saucer half the time.
    96:08
    So, yeah, hate it. I can go with that. For me, Mandalorian. Whoa, okay. It's a shit show. The rules are terrible. The flasher show is fucking terrible. If you have a premium or pro, So you get the famous gold dust mining on your own play field because it's above the other play field. A $2,000 topper, that's worthless. It looks great. It's worthless.
    96:36
    It's just not a fun game. It really isn't. If you have a pro, you get the plastic ramp, which really suck. You get the premium LE. It's a little better, but it's still a shit show. It's just a one-ramp show. Let's hit the center ramp. Hit the center ramp. Oh, wait a second. I have to hit one of these other ramps. it's just a shit show. Definitely a fucking turd at number five. Okay. Second one, I have to say this one. Even though I might not hate the whole game as much as the other ones, but the situation made me hate this thing. You know where I'm going. Six million dollar man.
    97:13
    It says six score displays. Oh, goody. It's another valley. Just the saucer up atop. I had to play this in a tournament where they used this for the tiebreaker, and I got one ball. I got one ball on this wonderful game. And mine went in the saucer, came out, and just went right down the middle, and I never touched it. Sure plays a mean chin ball. And ever since then, I hate this game, although it might not be fair for me hitting him. I think we need to buy one for Ron. What do you think, everyone? Everyone kicks in $10, we'll find a nice example, and he has to keep it. Well, the art is good. See? He's got that good ballet art. It does have the great Balliard. Yeah. Your mission, if you choose to accept it. Is to not play this game ever. Your turn.
    97:57
    Okay, number four, Led Zeppelin. Whoa. Really? I'm a fucking turd. I hate the play field on that thing. Well, pro or premium? Pro is terrible. Okay. Premium's okay. But the problem is, in the early premiums, the mech didn't work.
    98:14
    Oh, the electric magic? Yeah. It's just like, it's a shit show. So the game never got its due course, and I hate Led Zeppelin, so it just added to the fucking shitshowness of shitshowness. Man, I hope that Kineticist doesn't have any issues with swearing. Oh, fuck yeah. I hope not either, but it's going to be there.
    98:34
    Oh, shitshow. Terrible game. Okay. Next. My next one is, I played this at Pinberg. I remember this game was in my match that was going to be after the dinner break or the lunch break. And when we were going over with my group of compadres, you know, what's in your next group? And I said this game, and they were like, oh, that game is a turd. Yeah. It's a box. The top is a box. Just try to get it in the saucer. If it doesn't, you can't score anything. And that game is strataflight. Oh, God, I hate that fucking game. And then I played that, and it's like, you know, you're absolutely right. It is a box. I hate that game, too. The top is a box, and if you don't go in the saucer. You're fucked. Yeah, it's so bad. It's terrible. It is the worst, one of the worst EMs ever, and it's one of the worst pinball machines ever. It makes El Toro Valley look pretty good. Oh, you gave away my next choice.
    99:36
    Yeah, go on. It's your turn. Okay. Hey, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Stern. Wow. A lot of newer games you don't like. Oh, I hate them. Mechs that don't work half the time. Crappy rules. Like what? Unbalanced rules. The Glider doesn't work half the time. But what other mechs? Just the flow of it. It's a flowy, fast game. Don't get me wrong. It's a very flowy, fast game. It just doesn't, I don't get into the feel of it. I really don't. It's one game where, like, if I play it, if I don't pick the right character and do the right thing, you're lost. You fucking lost. If you don't pick the right character and get the right thing and do the right stuff. Or write the right topping or something. Yeah, exactly. It's terrible. Stop making these games where you have to go to certain ways to do it. And they're going to say, we'll play more of the same game. Guess what? The other three characters don't mean anything if one character is overpowered. Sorry. It sucks.
    100:38
    And plus a terrible light show, if I'm right. Again. Okay. My next one. Oh, this is the fourth one? Yeah, fourth one. El Toro. Yeah. I played that in a classic tournament, and I was like, wow, this game is terrible. It's bad. And then I just started hearing around me that my opinion was universally shared. That's fine. It's like, everyone hated this game. Oh, it's terrible. There is a good El Toro, but that's the Williams one. That actually is an excellent game. I love that game. But the Bali El Toro is a complete utter turd. But it's better than Strata Flight.
    101:17
    I have to admit. It's better. Okay. At least I can shoot something in Strata and El Toro. In El Toro, yes. I can't shoot anything. Yeah. All right. Next. Ghostbusters! Oh, man.
    101:31
    Shit rules. Shit play field. shit mechanics for the freaking slingshots. So we're talking premium. Yeah, the premium. The Magna slings. You're not a fan? It was a fail. This is the only game Ron won and sold.
    101:49
    Well, it's the only game I ever won, but yes. Yes. It is a shit show. I don't mind the pro. The pro is okay. The premium was the bad decision because, yeah, the Magna slings, the other stuff. Oh, it's terrible. The Pro shoots way better. And Slimer never works on half the games that you play. It really doesn't. Terrible Mac again there. The ramps being so steep. If you don't have a strong, if you're on a location game, the flippers aren't that strong. You go up that one ramp, it's coming right back down, and you're going to be fucked. The Pro is fine. I like the software on that game. I like the light shows. I disagree. Could not disagree more. No, that's a terrible game. Terrible game. Great call-outs.
    102:31
    Terrible fucking game. Okay, Bruce. Next for you. Last one for you. My last one. Man, see, this is where I said I don't have near as much hate in my heart as Bruce does.
    102:42
    So I don't know. You know what I'll say? I'll say this one. Although when I played it years later after I got better at pinball, I didn't hate it as much. But some of the first tournaments I played in back in the day were at the Fun Spot. And I remember they had a Close Encounters of the Third Kind. and I played that thing over and over and over and just could not do anything. And I hated that game. Now, when I played it later on, it's like, I don't hate it near as much as I did before, but I need something to round out my list.
    103:14
    So Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Can you guess my number one? I know you can. It's got to be another Dwight game at this point. And which one is it? Oh, Star Wars. You got it, baby!
    103:28
    One of his just classic games. Classic shit shows of light shows, cock blocks of your lightsaber mode, mechs that don't work. What mech doesn't work? Oh, premium. Premium. Oh, premium. Okay. Oh, that's right. That doesn't fucking work. Well, I'm used to the pro. I mean, I never played a premium. Yeah, guess what? Premium shit show. Premium LE shit show. Pro is a little bit better, but it's still a shit show. You still get cock blocked with fucking lightsaber battle. And you have to know the right way to get your characters to go right. And a crappy fucking video mode. Hands down, number one shittiest game in the fucking universe. And I'm going to say galaxy. Fucking Star Wars. Yes, for those at home, this is the one they continue to make and do runs of because it never stops selling. Guess what? The theme is great. The theme's great. Game sucks. You know, I think right after we're done recording, I'm going to go down and play some Star Wars. I got somebody I know that has a new in-box LE.
    104:33
    Mm-hmm. Still new in-box. Oh, they haven't taken it out? Haven't taken it out of the box. Are they having second thoughts, Bruce? Is that it? I don't know. Have you poisoned them with all your rhetoric? He hears all about it. He's like, oh.
    104:46
    But it's still new in the box. In the box. Mm-hmm. It's a great game. And that great artwork on the back glass for that LE, too. It's a great game. Oh, terrible. It's a great game. You couldn't be more wrong. Oh, my God. I am so right. So when you want to agree with Bruce on this one, please send your e-mails to slamsofthepodcast at gmail.com. Because guess what? There's going to be a whole lot of them when it comes to Star Wars. And now the answer to the second question of this segment that probably won't even air on the Genesis now because of the 30,000 F-bombs you have put through. What do you love most about pinball? Being able to find a niche of the games that you like. Like we both like Stern, Solid States. And some people want to buy always the newest games. And some people want to collect EMs. And some people want to have the WPC era. You can find what you like. And you can get what you like mostly very easily. They made enough of them where it's not like, oh, my God. Like, if you like, let's say, Dragon Fist. Yes, there's only 300 of them, but guess what? With enough money and enough things, you can find one if you really look, if you put out the thing. So that's what I like about the hobby. What I really love about the hobby is I've been doing this for, oh, God, almost 40 years now, and it's all about the hunt, finding that game, finding what's next. finding a game that originally I did not like, as you said, with Close Encounters. But guess what? I found a game, and I'm like, boy, I'm getting to really like this because my tastes change over time. And the pattern for pinball is usually this. When we got into the hobby, me and Ron, buy every WPC. WPC you can.
    106:41
    Then, oh, maybe I'll go to Classic Valleys. Then I'll go to Classic Stern. And now I'm coming around and going a little with Old Gottlieb, some of them, not all, don't get me wrong. There's not crack in my head. But for me, you're changing taste. You can find the games or game room that you want to make the way you want it to. And if people come over, and as you said, you like when you hear people come over and say, hey, these games play great.
    107:10
    That's what you like to hear. I don't like going under somebody's house and going, wow, you got every LE for the past 12 times. You didn't make them great because they usually came out of the box pretty good, usually. But, you know, that's their taste. That's what they want to do. That's up to them. You can make the hobby in what you want to. You can even not own a game at all and still be the best podcaster in the world.
    107:38
    Mm-hmm. You can not own a game and be a high-ranking tournament player. Exactly. You just don't have room to own games or you don't want to work on them. You're scared or whatever. Yeah. Yes. So there's every different possibility, and that's what I like about pinball.
    107:55
    Okay. What do I love most about pinball? Bruce. Especially after this episode. For this segment that will probably never air. What do I love most about pinball? I like the fact that it's a gaming thing that's physical. Because I was a gamer. And to be truthful, I was a video gamer. We all were. I played video games. I didn't play pinball. When I got into pinball, it's like, wait a minute, I can play this physical thing, and I can fix it too. Like, I can work on it. When I was a little kid, I was the one that when the operator would come in to empty out the coins in the machines, like, he'd have the jukebox open. I'd be looking in there. Like, how does that work? Ooh, look, there's, like, a little arm that grabs the record and all that. Ooh, that's cool. I loved, like, the jukeboxes where you could see all the mechanical stuff moving. So for pinball, you had the mechanical stuff that I could work on, and it's a gaming device. It's, like, perfect. How could I go wrong? And when I got my first game, it broke almost immediately. So I got to work on it.
    108:59
    And you've owned a Ghostbusters, and it sucks. So guess what? It all is perfect. It never broke. It worked fine until the end.
    109:06
    And that's our Kineticist segment. Yes. Which, however much of it may actually air, who knows? I doubt 5% of it will probably air. I like pinball.
    109:22
    Pinball is great. It is great. All right, so. That's what he's going to cut out from that whole thing.
    109:31
    So that's all I got, Bruce. You got anything else? Have fun at X-Foam in two weeks, everyone. Have a safe trip out there, and enjoy yourselves.
    109:43
    Remember, like the dummy says, it's only pinball. Right, Bruce? It's only pinball. Yeah, bucko. I'll be close to trying to dance, and I guess that's why they call it the blues. Time on my hands. Oh, and I can't wait until they put Pinball Wizard in there.
    110:06
    Oh, they're going to do the Elton John version. They have to do it. Oh, yeah. Every pinball player is going to be like, oh, fucking douchey. Oh, this is so bad. Oh, my God.
    110:18
    Admit it. They are going to go, oh. I'm still waiting for the Who pinball machine, honestly. Deep Root had the license. Please, someone else get that and do a proper Who pinball machine. There's so much material there you can use. No, there's great stuff on there. Hey, you know, hey, I can go and almost go to jail for it.
    110:36
    Oh, did I say that out loud? Oh, you're making fun of me, brother. I'm back. I'm going to kick your ass. I'm still not in jail, dude.
    110:44
    Like I said, I'm starting another pinball company. It's called Rooting Deep. Nobody will ever figure out it's me. That's right. No one will ever figure out it's me, brother. All right. This has been episode 216 of the Slam Tilt Podcast. A long one. Yes, you can email us at slamtiltpodcast at gmail.com.
    111:04
    Let's see. Plugs. Yes, I'm on another podcast. Silver Ball Chronicles. You can hear us on the Pinball Network with my co-host, David Dennis, and that is two. That's two. You've overloaded. He doesn't let you have two or three. He checked out our website. He doesn't let you have two or three. Do you understand? He does. I can do it. Unless he edits it out. I don't listen to the episodes. Exactly. He only does one usually, so Mr. Dennis is censoring you.
    111:28
    Okay. You can check out our website, slamtelpodcast.com. All our links are in the upper right-hand corner. including our YouTube link. You can go to our YouTube channel. The stop finals were uploaded. Yes. So they're all there. You can relive the brilliance.
    111:46
    Plugs. Anyone? Hi, Zach. Hi, guys. Final bonus. Everyone in the Cluster of Uxred. I think I got everything this time. I don't think I forgot anything. Sure. I'm looking right at it. I think I went through everything. I mentioned everything. I think we're good. I'll see you all at Expo. You forgot something. Give Ron a hug. Exactly. I was about to say, you mentioned Expo. I was going to wait until the end. That was going to be my... See, folks, this is why we're on the same wavelength. Oh, yes, of course. Like, we don't talk for weeks, and then we come on, and it's just like, it's just there. It's just there. It's there all right. Oh, it's there. It's scary, it's there, and it's ready to rock. Okay. But, yeah, until next time, you got your name ready, Bruce? I'm Chief. I'm Bruce. Okay. Until next time, say goodbye, Bruce. Goodbye, Adam Deuchman.
    113:06
    We'll be right back. Oh my That was a good one. Yeah. Man, yeah, they're going to use nothing of that.
    114:17
    As soon as we started F-bombing, it's like, oh, God, they're never going to use this now. Of course not. So mean. And guess what? Guess what was 5A? Game of Thrones. Oh, God, you just named, like, every Dwight game.
    114:32
    Get better, Bruce. Recover from your COVID. Yes, I know I'm moving the whole basement around this week So I expect you to purchase that free fall I'll be close My free fall And have fun with your tiny dancer I will