Hey, Poor Man Tribe and listeners, this is Glennie Rogers, and you're listening to the Tribe Multiple Podcast with Rachel and Tim. Poor Man Tribe's the thing, that is who we are. It is true. They're not in this thing, so how could it go wrong? Flip away with us, to an old blockade, and then we'll learn about each other. Uh-huh, from two pinheads to another Uh-huh Rachel and Tim, who do we have on the show today? Hello friends, welcome to Try Multiball with Tim and Rachel A pinball podcast that focuses on a dynamic collection of pinheads That share a mutual belonging to the tribe of the poor man's pinball podcast I am your co-host Rachel Lilge, along with your other co-host Tim Lee. Welcome to the show. How are you doing today, Tim? I'm doing great. How are you, Rachel? I'm doing all right. This is episode number 12. Can you believe that? No, I can't. It's crazy. Yeah, I think it's absolutely insane. Do you want to jump right into our personal pinball news? Yeah, let's go for it. Sure. Why don't you hop right on that train? All right. I didn't do a lot on location or anything of that nature. But I mentioned in the last show that my operator friend Mike dropped off some games. And the reason he had dropped off some games more than, you know, the usual drop off, he dropped off a few, is because we had a graduation party, and I wanted to have some games in the garage. So the only thing of note there is the machines were played non-stop for eight hours and I took note of who played which games the most. So do you want to guess which game was played the most? And it was almost double the other games. Well, the lineup was Monopoly, Stranger Things, and all the rest of your pins, correct? Correct. Well, I would probably, I would guess Stranger Things out of everything that you have. I would also guess Deadpool because I think that's a fun game to play too, but, or like people would be attracted to that as content yeah so here's the interesting thing you nailed it stranger things was played the entire day there was somebody playing it at all times the second most played game was jurassic park now i had jurassic park as soon as you walked in the house it wasn't in the basement with the other games or as soon as you walked in the garage so a lot of people played it even some older folks that hadn't played pinball in 20, 30 years, they had played. And the third most played game was Stern Pirates. And the least played game was, do you want to guess? No. You totally threw me off there. Monopoly. Nobody played Monopoly. And the other game that barely got played, and this kind of shocked me, was Deadpool. Oh, that surprises me. Yeah. You know, I love it, but nobody played it. I noticed that every time I went down or, you know, I went down quite often, nobody was playing it. And the rest of the games were all about the same. So I figured you would find that interesting that everybody played Stranger Things and nobody played Deadpool. I thought Deadpool would be number two just because of the theme. But for some reason, folks just didn't play it, and I don't know why. So that's all. I mean, that's really all my personal pinball news is this week. How about you? I think that's fantastic that you kind of took a poll of what people were playing. It doesn't surprise me that Stranger Things was the winner there, just with how popular the Netflix show was. I also think that's awesome that you had a game right when people came in to give people an opportunity that haven't played in a long time, just to even see what a new game looks like or a new-ish game looks like and give them a chance to fool around on it. That's awesome. Yeah, and Jurassic Park is a fun theme, right? you know it everybody knew Jurassic Park and everybody went right to it so it was cool. That's why it surprises me that Monopoly was not played at all that is a really fun game to play pinball game to play. Yeah but this one's kind of beat up it's it's not in the best shape you know it looks really really beat up it plays perfectly but it was right next to a brand new pretty much a brand new looking Jurassic Park. So maybe that had something to do with it. Yeah, that probably had a big thing to do with it. The thing is, is when I think about games in my head, I think about them being clean and pristine and the most enjoyable game to ever play. Whenever I think of whatever the game is, and then sometimes, yes, you can be sorely disappointed to notice that it's not as quite as nice of a game that you really want to be playing, right? Yeah, I have eight really nice games and Monopoly's kind of beat up. Oh, that's okay. We got to give Monopoly some love then, too. Yeah, it's fun. I play it. That's all. Yeah, that's right. I agree with that. All right. What about your week? Well, I would like to give a little report on a triple flip pinball tournament that I played a couple of weeks ago at District 82. It was a knockout tournament on Friday night, a classics tournament Saturday morning, and a double group match play on Saturday afternoon. It was a lot of pinball. I cosplayed the Thursday night before, so I played a whole bunch of pinball in that weekend. It was insane. That's the triple, though, right? That was the triple, right. And I have never played that much pinball. I was exhausted on Sunday, but I had an amazing, amazing time. I met so many new players. I think that there were, I think I have a note here, there were 22 new players there and a total of 110 different players from eight different states that played. So that's insane, first of all. It included people, you know, like Keith Ellman, Raymond Davidson, this young gentleman named Escher. I got to meet him. He was pretty cool. It goes on. I want to also mention that there was a special guest that was there that played that all three tournaments with me, Jeremy Schmitz, who's another tribe member. Oh, okay, Jeremy. Yeah, and he is, Jeremy is such a cool guy. He knows so much about pinball. And I think every conversation we had was basically about different games or how we played or whatever. Especially want to mention that during the knockout tournament on Friday night, let me explain the format of the Friday night knockout. It was where you could obtain 10 strikes and then you'd be knocked out of the tournament. That's very different than like a three or four strike tournament. And this one also, if you came in fourth place, you got three strikes. Or you came in third place, you got two strikes. If you came in second place, you got one strike. And if you came in first place, you got zero strikes. So it was very different. So I was able to hang in there, and I ended up having nine strikes. And I think we were in like round six or round seven, something like that. And I ended up playing against Jeremy on Cyclone. And I ended up knocking him out and two other guys. Yeah, because we all had nine points. Yeah, so it was pretty cool to do that, but he was still my friend. He might have complained a little bit to the tribe about me being a little ruthless, and Glenn might have made a comment about my necklace of, you know, pinball player's teeth, but I assure you that is not true. The next day of the Classics event, oh, let me get to actually who won that for people that didn't see that on their District 82's Facebook, but Raymond Davidson did take that tournament with a total of seven strikes. The classics the next day was won by a gentleman that we've talked about previously. His name is Max Sinisak. Max. Yeah, he hangs out with Dave Jeff Brenner and Ryan Kuyper with TurboGrafx-7, sometimes on Friday nights. His skills are unbelievable. I took just a tiny little playbook out of my friend Johnny Pinball. I'm going to give you a little shout out to interview him after the tournament. And I asked him just a lot of very basic questions about how he trains for pinball tournaments, because I think true competitive players really do train. And I asked him the first thing, what do you do? This is the best thing I think I learned from Max, is that the first thing that he does when he steps up to the game is he just clears his mind. Now, I have to laugh a little bit because I don't know how to do that. so if there's a secret out there and how to just like clear your mind and i try to poke and prod it at that a little bit but max you were so generous in giving me your time that day i really appreciate it and congratulations to you that was a well-earned win the afternoon it was a double up match play where you're actually playing a bank of two machines and it was just a different style again uh it was also a lot of fun and let's see who won that was Keith Elwin so there you go i also want to shout out to fox cities pinball if you do not follow him tom graph on twitch or on facebook or instagram and encourage you to do that he streamed all three tournaments he also played in all three tournaments and he publishes them all to youtube so you can go back and take a look at them. I think that is everything. Now I should tell you, I will admit that I did not play my best. My best was definitely Friday night and I struggled most of the day on Saturday. Even though I did not play my best, I want to say I certainly had an amazing time and made new connections with people. I also got to chit chat a little bit with all three ladies from Hot Nudge. I got to meet Rebecca. So it was a wonderful, fun-filled weekend for me. And do you want to ask me what I did on my Sunday after that? What did you do on the Sunday after that? Nothing. I did nothing, Tim. I'm not going to lie. I laid around and I watched a little TV and I did some laundry, but I did a whole lot of rest and recovery. I know that there is a, yeah, it was very nice. I know that there is a six tournaments in four days or something coming up up there in October. I can't imagine doing that. But here's to figuring out how to be an endurance competitive player as well. So that's it for me. That sounds crazy. I like that you play all these different tournaments. That's kind of cool. Like in different formats. Every week it's something different. Hats off. Congrats, Max. Keith Elwin, Raymond Davidson I guess if I wasn't there somebody had to win right Well it would definitely not be you Tim I have a high level Of certainty that I could beat all of those guys We'll see Someday Get them really drunk first Oh yeah hey You know that's what you gotta do I will say that It was interesting too to have some fan interaction Of our podcast at the tournament I've also had that on Twitch on Facebook. It's interesting. I am definitely an extroverted person, but I have to take a step back and just a little dumbfounded that people have come up to me and they start talking to me about an episode that I recorded. But I forget that I have listeners because I just think about talking to you, Tim, and to our guest. So it was just really cool, too. So thanks for those that reach out and say, hey, I like your stuff because, hey, I like you, too. Yeah, thank you. Awesome. Yeah. Yeah. So should I go ahead and introduce our guest? Is it Josh Mudd? It is not Josh Mudd. Not yet. Well, he's on my radar. There's a couple of people that are on my radar. We'll just get there. And as long as we're having fun with it, and we get through all 41 of us, 41 tribe members. I lost count. Yeah, maybe we'll have a special guest or a special co host or something down the road here, right? Yep. Sounds good. All right. Okay, so I'd like to welcome to our show today tribe member number 17 who lives in Kansas City, Kansas. He caught my eye in the tribe because he's this cool cat in this newsboy cap, and he just seems like an interesting fellow that I wanted to get to know a little bit more. Tim, you'd also made a little comment about his cap, and I want you to make sure you bring that up, but welcome to the show, Joseph Hood. Hi, Joe. Hey, Joseph. Hey, Tim. Hey, Rachel. How's it going? I'm doing quite well. Glad to have you here. Yeah, it's good to be here. Hey, welcome, Joseph. Well, thank you. You know, we're glad to have you here. And I think that you know already the content or the way that our style of our show works, right? Or do you need a refresher? No, I've listened to a few of them. Oh, that's good. You know, I'm just sitting there fishing for a compliment from you at least, too, you know. I've listened to all of them. Oh, I love that. I know, actually, I think all of our tribe people do or the majority of them do. So at least I know we've got 40 listeners or maybe 38. Well, I only listen to like a few, very few podcasts. You guys are on the list. So that's right in there. That's so sweet. Well, I can ask you that right now, if I suppose. What other podcasts do you listen to within the pinball world? Well, obviously, Poor Men's when they actually post it. My Monday nights are always kind of filled up a lot. So not tonight, but Monday nights get filled up a lot. so I don't get to get on Twitch a whole lot. I like to wait for him because I listen to him when I drive. So that's always my kind of little pastime while I'm driving is listen to podcasts. Sure. I listen to Orby. I miss him. I wish he'd come back. Yeah, we miss him. Yeah. And then Kaneda. I listen to Kaneda. He's very entertaining. I'll just leave it at that. All right. I'm sure he's quite the character in person too. But yeah, and then you guys. and that's basically about it. Every now and then I try another one but I don listen to the Pinball Network or anything Just basically that about it That about all I have time for Well you are listening to the Pinball Network It just the Poor Man Podcast I can't even say that. You say it, Tim. The Poor Man's Pinball Podcast Universe. Network. The TPPPN. TPPN. I like Universe, too. I think it's a little bit better. Good enough. So, after creeping your Facebook a little bit, I was able to figure out that you definitely are a league player. Why don't you tell me a little bit about that, and we'll start there. I wouldn't go so far as to say I'm a player. I show up every week, but no, I just started doing that. I've never – the only competitive pinball that I've ever done was they had a tournament here in Kansas City where they brought pinball machines, and it was actually a gaming expo thing here. They had computers and Xbox stuff going on, but they finally, I guess they do that every year, but they brought in pinball in 2019. And I thought, you know what? I don't have anything going on on a Saturday afternoon. So I just kind of threw my hat in and played and got to meet a lot of people and thought, well, that's pretty fun. And then didn't really plan on doing a lot of competitive stuff. I play pinball mostly just to have fun and just, you know, I'm a very social person, a little extroverted. So I like to talk to people, meet new people constantly. So they came up, well then COVID hit after that and there wasn't really any opportunities. I had actually put some of the local, you know, monthly tournaments into my calendar and I was going to do all that. And then COVID hit and wiped all that stuff out. So been doing a lot of stuff with my own personal collection a little bit lately, fixing things up and redoing some games and the local pinball supply, Solid State Pinball. they uh recently it was actually during covid they were supposed to open up like right at the beginning of 2020 and then they pushed it off but uh they opened up nick just had like a few games in his collection there in his shop and they were more about you know supply service calls selling games that type of thing and he got uh together with uh one of our local very talented tournament players carrie wing who's world champion actually yeah she's very good yeah And she's a really cool gal too. But they got together and started a business and they opened up. They've got like, I don't know, 30 to 40 games in there. And then once they opened up the restrictions for COVID here, they decided to put on a weekly league. And they were just kind of curious on what kind of interest there would be. So I decided to go check that out. And I happened to have my son split time with me and my ex. So I had him with me. And he hasn't shown a lot of interest in pinball. He'll play like when we go to the local restaurant or something, you know, I always have to play a game. And so he'll play a couple of games, but he's never been even with machines in the house. He's never really taken to, you know, go try to play him or anything. But I said, you want to go with me? You can just hang out and you can play all the other games and stuff and I'm going to play. And we got there within 10 minutes. He goes, hey, can I play in the tournament? Because it was just kind of like the first week was just to feel it out, see how many people show up. And then we're going to do the league after this. So I was like, yeah, why not? So put him in there, and he just had a blast. He just loved it. So he and I started going to the weekly pinball league, so to speak, up at Solid State. So we're having a good time with that. That's awesome. How old is your son? He is 15. He'll be 16 here in a couple months. So he has to drive everywhere now. Do you make him drive you to pinball and back home again? Typically, yes, depending on the time of day because we have to kind of go through the downtown. area to get there. So I don't completely trust his driving through heavy traffic, but not yet. No, he drives everywhere we go, depending on unless it's a bad time of day in bad part of town or something where there's going to be a lot of traffic, then I will. But for the most part, he drives everywhere. Has your son beat you yet in a tournament? Not yet. He's come close. He was pretty proud of himself after that very first week. He was only one point behind me and he was like three spots because there were some ties in the scoring and stuff but he was only like one point behind me so he was pretty happy with that and I think that's what got him coming back so if it takes you know him beating me to uh to stay with it then yeah I'll take that because it's kind of it's a real fun activity that he and I get to do together so yeah I've said this before and I'll say it again that pinball is such a great way to bond with your sons and daughters and I appreciate the the family dynamic that happens there because it's just literally having fun and it's an activity where you're you're you're up and doing something and you're also learning you know you're always learning uh different shots or skills or whatever it's not so much fun to do together that's great i can't wait for your son to beat you will you please report on that oh yeah he'll probably jump on there oh he'll just he'll jump on twitch he knows twitch better than i do he'll he'll find it and jump on there and And he'll blast everybody. Yeah, exactly. Guess what? Yeah, I hope that he steals your phone and goes live in the poor man's page or fan page and just starts, you know, giving you a hard time. Something like that. Because I think it's fantastic when the kids are better players than their parents. That happens frequently. Yeah, he's probably not far behind because he's more patient than I am. He traps a lot. Like, I couldn't believe how quickly he picked up on trapping. And like me, I hit stuff off the fly because I'm just too impatient. I just like to play. Just go. You know, I have kind of a go, go, go. And he sits back and he's a little bit more methodical than I am. So he'll probably not too much longer. He'll be beating me on the regular. I think that pinball is definitely a combination of the two, isn't it? There are certain games that you have to play very reactive to because they play fast. Yeah. Yeah. Has he figured out that if he just learns the rules, he'll beat dad? Well, it's funny because he started trying to show me rules on a lot of games and not trying. He was because he pays attention and shout out to the Kansas City pinball community. He's the only kid there and all the other players. I think we had 33 that first week. And so it was a random split up into groups. So he went with three other people that I didn't even know because I only know a few people in the community because I didn't, I never played a lot of the tournaments and stuff. You know, they all know each other pretty well. All right. So he went with three other people, and he came back and was talking about, and then he came over to a game that I was playing afterwards. I think it was Radical, and he started, he's like, do you know how to do this? He's like, well, first you've got to light these up. And I'm like, oh. So he's paying attention, and they're helping him out. And then, yeah, he comes, and so they've been just great. And every week he's talking to new people, and I've had a few people come up to me and say how great it is that he's playing there and everything. That's at Solid State Pinball? Yeah, Solid State Pinball in Kansas City, Missouri. Well, let's give them a big warm hello and a big hug and a way to go and a big high five because that's what pinball is all about is growing people into the community. And once you figure out a game, too, it makes that game so much more fun or sometimes much more frustrating. I don't know, maybe a little bit of both. A little bit of both for sure. Sounds like an awesome place. I have a friend that lives down in that area, so maybe I'll get there at some point. Well, actually, no, I have two friends that live down there in that area. So it gives me another reason to get down there. There you go. Come on down. Let me know. Don't do what I did to you and come to Milwaukee and not reach out. Sorry. Well, I'm not technically in Milwaukee. I'm in our north in Sheboygan, but I won't be that kind of jerk. Okay. All right. Don't be Joe. No, I won't be Joe. Don't be Joe. Well, I'll try not to be. So you did mention that you have been working on your collection a little bit. Well, let's delve into your collection first. What do you currently own? What are you currently working on? So I have an Electra, Black Knight 2000, Lethal Weapon 3, Lord of the Rings, Ice Fever, and my most recent one that I've been working on is Terminator 2. I liked you two quite a bit. Yeah, I hope to like it once I get everything working on it. It's kind of been a pain in the butt. I pulled it out of somebody's basement. I went to – it was actually a girl that I was dating wanted a shuffleboard, and they had a shuffleboard. These people were selling, went down in to go load up the shuffleboard, and there's this T2 sitting there. And you could definitely tell they were moving. There was like no furniture left in the house. And she's like, we just got to get this stuff out of here. I'm like, how much? And so I walked out of there with a T2 and a shuffleboard. Wow. And it hadn't been turned on in quite a while. But it looks really nice now that I completely stripped it down and got it all cleaned up, new LEDs and everything. But I just got a couple little mechanical things going on with it that shouldn't be too tough, but it's on its way. Do you enjoy that part of the hobby, just fixing the machines? It sounds like it. I do. It's kind of a challenge, and sometimes I get stumped, and then I got to call my buddy Ari over. Ari Jones, he's another tribe member here in Kansas City, and just kind of cool. He and I became friends because of the tribe. It's a pretty neat deal. He got into the tribe, and I was listening to that episode when he got put in. He actually won a contest for writing the story and got in. And so I reached out to him on Facebook, and we met up at 403 Club, local pinball place here. And me, him, and another friend of ours, the guy that actually got me into pinball, we text almost on a daily basis, you know, just talking about games and getting new games and working on stuff. And so he's pretty good with them. He usually comes over and shows me something obvious that I'm missing. Yeah, I do enjoy working on them. Sometimes I get stuck where I'll get frustrated with the machine, so I'll leave it. So I do a lot more playing than I do working on them. And then they sit for a while, and then I get back into it. But no, it's fun. And I kind of have an electronics background, so I know how to read circuit drawings and everything. That's cool. I enjoy that aspect of the hobby as well. And I'm like you. You get frustrated and you leave. That's it. But I didn't realize that you two were not friends before the tribe. I just assumed because you post pictures of each other hanging out that you guys have known each other for years, so that's a pretty cool story. Yeah, Ari's a really cool guy, and it kind of feels like that, like we've known each other forever. Yeah, we talk a lot of smack and give each other crap like we've known each other for years. It's been a really neat thing. Last time I was in Milwaukee, I thanked Drew because Ian didn't make it out, but Drew made it out to come hang out with me for the night and thanked him for doing that because it's like, you know what? I never would have met this guy and wouldn't have had these cool experiences had it not been for that. Drew and Ian making friendships. Cool. That's right. Absolutely. I feel all of that. What is the name of the non-tribe member in your daily text chat? John. Hey, John. Yeah, he's Viper Jelly. Cracked me up a couple on Twitch. He's Viper Jelly. A couple weeks ago on the podcast, Ian was maybe a little, I don't know, off his rocker a little bit, but John had said something and he repeated it. he had started repeating Viper Jelly over and over. I like that name. Viper Jelly. Viper Jelly. It's hilarious. I missed that. Viper Jelly. Okay. Hey, Viper Jelly. I have to keep an eye out for you. That's pretty funny. You mentioned one game that I have never heard of before, and I believe you said it's called Ice Fever? Yeah, that one has never worked. It's a 1981... Hockey, right? Yeah, it's a hockey theme, and there was another guy that had it, and he sold it. For a 1981 game, so Electra and Ice Fever are both 1981 games, and you wouldn't know it because Ice Fever looks like it's from like – I saw it when I started reading up about it after I bought it. I was trying to get it working, and somebody posted on Pinside, this is a really great game if it had been made in 1973. It's not the greatest game in the world, but I do like ice hockey. My son plays hockey. and so it was the right price for a non-working game and I thought, oh, this would be a fun project, you know. But I immediately started seeing smoke coming out of boards so I turned it off real quick and then I got T2 shortly after that and I've been kind of preoccupied with that. But one of these days I'm going to dive back into Ice Fever and get it going. Do you think that'll be your next project then? Yeah, once T2's done. I'm going to sell one of these because I want to get room for something else. There's been a lot of games that have come up that I've kind of wanted to do, but I got to move one. I'm out of room, so I've only got room for about six machines down there. Are you talking like a new game that you have your eye on? No, I was actually on the list for a GNR LE, and then I backed out. I got cold feet. Okay. Have you played GNR? Have you played it? I played the standard version up at 403. They've got it up there, but I want to play the LE with the upper play field and stuff. I like that stuff. You should talk to our friend Tim Lee about that. Yeah, it's a great game. I think it's a little overpriced, but that's a story for another day. But it's a fun game. If you like Guns N' Roses and you like J.J.P. games, you'll love this game. My wife absolutely loves it, and I enjoy it as well. I just, you know, it's a lot of money for a pinball machine. Yeah, and that was part of my cold feet was like, So I've got my pinball money, and then I've got my money that I live off of, and my savings and real money, and then I've got my pinball money. So like I said, in order to get a new game, I have to sell something, get my pinball equity up there a little bit. So I decided not to dip into my own savings and not get the GNR. And then the playfield issues were happening, and I was just kind of like, maybe not. Yeah. I sold two Stern Pros to get mine, so I know exactly what you're talking about. Yeah. Some days I wish I would have those two Stern Pros back and other days I playing GNR and I like this thing freaking amazing Because it like a show right It an experience Yeah Yeah and I love GNR too That one of my favorite bands so I was stoked about it Yeah I just decided to back out of it at the time but I will have one And then the line got so long, I thought, I'll just wait. I'll wait another year. And then that's when I got my Lord of the Rings too, and it was actually John that was selling it. And I told him when he first got that machine a few years ago, like, do you ever sell this Lord of the Rings? Let me know. And then he was selling it, and I was like, okay, GNR and dip into my own money, or Lord of the Rings that I've always wanted. So I went Lord of the Rings, and I'll probably get the GNR here in another year or two once it slows down. Lord of the Rings, that's an amazing game. I played it at ReplayFX for the first time. I hadn't played it in the past. It's a really fun game. That era of game, it's kind of iffy if the games are good or bad, but I played that game, and I thought it was fantastic. So it's a great in-home game because it's so deep in the code and everything, like just to get to destroy the ring and all that. It's one that you just want to, you're like almost there. It's like, oh, play it again. I'll get stuck on that thing for hours because, okay, just one more. Just kind of leads you on type of thing. Congrats on that. You didn't go wrong. I'm not bashing Guns N' Roses, but. No, we don't bash any games here. I think we're always just giving our honest opinion of what we feel. I don't think that it's not a good or a bad. It's just the mixed bag, and that's what it is. Yeah, no, I love that game. I think I would say this, Rachel. I think I would say if I paid $2,000 less for Guns N' Roses, I would be sitting here telling you it's the best game I've ever played. Okay. Can I ask a question about production there? Because I don't know everything about pinball, so I like asking my Ricky Rachel questions. Here's the one for today. When they're running Guns N' Roses LE, they're only going to run it once and they're never going to run it again, correct? That's how JJP does their stuff. They run a set number. Okay. And it's a very high number. They've been making these things for nine months now, limited editions. So I forget what the highest number is, but it's very high. It's the collector's edition that's a really low number. Oh, okay. I'm so sorry. I forgot they have their own styling of games or whatever. Yeah, but I'm pretty sure they do a set number of limited editions as well. Okay. Yeah, the different luxury models, shall we say, in pinball games and how it's different from one company to the next, I'm like, whatever. I don't know. It's hard for me to always keep that straight. That's okay. All right. Well, hey, let's take a moment here and remind all of our listeners that Drew sucks at pinball. And let's also remind all of our listeners right here that Tim Lee needs to shut his cake hole. Any thoughts on that, Joe? So I can't say much because I have played Drew, and yeah, he beats me more often than I beat him. Oh, no. I really suck at pinball, so to say Drew sucks at pinball could still be accurate, but I just suck worse. Okay, interesting. I can't say you're not wrong, Tim. I'll tell you a secret. I suck too. I assure you, I also suck. I'm not going to lie. You're going to kick all of our asses at Expo, Rachel. I know it. Oh, I don't know about that. That puts too much pressure on. I'm going to go to Expo and just have a really good time. I actually thought I might not even try to qualify or qualify in the main event. I might just play the women's event. I thought about that a little bit. Then again, at that point, Whoppers will be available, and I'm like, well, maybe I will play both. But I also want to have plenty of time to hang out with the tribe and hang out with other people and stuff and things while I'm there. So I don't know how I'm going to do it all. It sounds like a lot. I've never been to Expo. Have you, Joe? Yeah, I've been to – that's what really got me hooked on pinball was in 18, I went down to Texas for the Texas Pinball Festival with John. Yeah, I came back with an Electra. So, yeah, I got hooked down there. But those events – and I went to Expo, well, obviously not last year, but in 19 and had a blast there too. But I really like those events. They're really fun because there's so many different games you can play. So many, you know, gotten to meet people, you know, and you see them again at the next one. And it's kind of a, I've always kind of wondered that, you know, with the tournament players, do you have time if you're in the tournament, do you have enough time to go out and do all the other things, you know, play all the other games that are around and, you know, meet with all the different people and do all the different, you know, other events besides just the tournament. so that's exactly it i'll have to ask you when you get done with your tournament how much time you had because i often wondered that yeah i'll have to give you a full report it's funny because jeremy schmitz is definitely going to expo as well and he's talking to me about yeah but rachel you can go at three in the morning down to the hall and you can play pinball as much as you want and i'm looking at him like dude i have to rest at some point if i'm gonna if i'm going to play or trying to qualify at all. I have to sleep, you know. Can you really do that? I love that Jeremy appreciated that. Yes, I will have to sleep, believe it or not. No, but can you really get on at 3 a.m. and play? That's what he said. I think they shut it down like at – they usually close the main doors at 1, but there's some games out in the hallway sometimes. I think the first time I met Dave Jeff Brenner was out in the hallway in front of his Cyclops. That was at Expo in 19. Man, it was like 1 o'clock in the morning, I think, when I ran into him. yeah it's insane it's that that kind of chugging along at that kind of rate we'll see how this old gal does now i'm really excited yeah i'm very excited i'm very excited but it's also a lot i'm trying to like figure that out so much crammed into a short amount of time it seems like a lot because it's several days but we'll just see i'm really looking forward to it though i always am tim right now you're gonna owe me this is you're gonna owe me 12 hugs right now that's where at. Twelve hugs. Or twelve. One for each episode. And Joe's going to owe me a beer because I'm number twelve. Damn it. Don't tell the eleven in front of me about that rule. So Ari and I made up our own rule of that because otherwise he'd have to buy me a beer every time we got together. As long as I remember my coin, he'd have to buy. So it's whoever gets theirs out of their pocket first and slaps it on the table. That person has to buy. Oh. And I did actually get Drew on it when I was in Milwaukee. He forgot his, so I got him with it. We'll have to add that addendum to the Challenge Coin rule set or something. Yeah, because Drew and Ian only made up that rule because they were like at the zero and one, or actually zero and zero, and everyone would have to buy them a beer. I don't think it was them that made up the rule. I thought it was somebody else. I thought it was them. I'll have to go back and look. I don't remember. Well, anyways, Joe, tell us how you actually got into pinball. You mentioned a little bit here, but give us the deets. So it was like, I think like 2017 or so, my buddy John that I was talking about, he got a Star Trek Next Generation, and it was kind of out of the blue. I didn't even know he was into pinball or anything, but he had been going to a local place up in Omaha when he goes up to visit his family up there, and there was like a bowling alley right nearby, and he was going down there, playing Star Trek The Next Generation constantly, so he decided he was going to have one, so he bought one. And out of the blue, he's like, hey, can you help me move this into my basement? I'm like, yeah, I suppose. Why the hell did you buy a pinball machine? I was like everybody else that you talk to that does – those still exist. They still make those. Same response every single time. You're right. I know, right? Like, oh, where do you even play that? Where did this come from? Yeah. So I got to playing his, and then he got another machine, and then another machine, and I was just over there all the time playing. And then he invited me down to TPF. He's like, hey, I'm going down to TPF. Do you want to go? I was like, I'm not going to go to a pinball festival. And then I started thinking about it. I'm like, you know what? Why not? I've got time off I can take. So let's do it. So I went down there. And like I said, I came back with an Electra and then started kind of building my collection from there, trying to find good deals on machines that are in somebody's basement or somebody's shed that have been sitting there a while and they don't want to mess with it. Just here, this doesn't work, but I'll sell it to you pretty cheap and then I'll fix them up and tear them down and get them working. And then I have a machine to play for a while. And then the goal is to sell it and then kind of work my way up. But I've only sold two machines and I've got six in my basement. So I'm not really doing very well at the selling thing. I get attached to them too easy. Yeah, so you went to TPF, you were on the fence about going, and then you came home with a pinball machine. Yeah, pretty much. And I bought it on Friday. The first day we were there, I bought it. Oh, wow. That's great. That's an interesting choice for a first game as well. Yeah, it was a really neat game. I played it a couple times, and John pointed up. He's like, hey, this one's for sale. And I was like, what's it worth? Because I have no idea what any of them are worth at this point. Well, in today's market, who knows what anything's worth? You put whatever number you think is higher than what you think it is and then add $500 to it and it might be close. Add another $1,000, right. But yeah, and he's like, well, I'd offer him this, and if he takes it, I would do it because we played it and there was nothing wrong with the game. Everything was working really well, and the guy said, yeah. I'm like, okay, here we go. So, and then the rest of the, the rest of the festival, I'm like walking by, you know, cause I've got the keys to it now. And it's like, that's my machine. It's sitting there on the floor. And every time I see somebody like even look at it wrong or nudge it, I'm like, Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey. That's great. No, not really. But clean the glass like every trip around. Yeah. Hey, stop breathing on that game. You wouldn't want me to play your game then. Sorry. Oh, I've gotten over it. Oh, that's good. That's good. I didn't nudge or anything back then either. I didn't know how, but I've started to do that a little bit more now as I've learned how to play. So I'm a little bit more hard on machines than what I was originally also. And I am still way too hard on machines. I don't have to be that hard on machines. Working on that micro nudge, Brad, I'm working on it. I don't mind if people are hard on the machines while they're playing them, but when I hit the machine because the ball drained on them or something, I don't have a lot of patience for that. That irritates the heck out of me. Do not slam your hand down on that glass, either one of them. You do not be mean to that game just because you played terribly. That's not called for. I'm 100% with you on that. Yeah, we had a guy at a local place that I haven't seen the guy around since COVID. But, yeah, we'd go up there. I'd meet John up there for, you know, after work on Fridays or something to go play. And the guy would yell, and he actually would stand back and kick the machine. and I was like, man, if that was my machine, I'd be kicking that guy. Now, I don't ever kick a machine, but I will tell you if I've had a really bad ball, and it doesn't matter. Anyways, I'm just playing for fun, and I already have two dangers. I might bump the game with my foot just to give it the tilt. I'm not going to lie. I don't kick it. I don't whip my foot back and full-on kick it. I might give it a little nudge with my foot. No, this is like some Cobra Kai stuff, like stepping back and hitting the coin door. Oh, gosh. Yeah. I know what you mean, Joe. I've seen guys do that and it just, it pisses you off. Yeah. Yeah. I always like to remind people it's, you just watch how the owner of the game plays it and you should act accordingly. I think that's the best tip I can give about that. Right? Yeah. Play it like you own it. Yeah. Or play it like you own it. That's right. I do feel what you're saying about collecting games and not being able to get rid of them. I'm thinking about buying something and I need to, after discussing the options with my spouse i was encouraged to sell one of my games so i'm thinking about that taking you know good consideration on that i think i need to get rid of my first game but when you put time and effort and also into repairing something and you really enjoy the content so hard to get rid of it or let it go yeah one of the games that i sold was twister it was one that i wasn't necessarily attached to but that was one that my daughter actually took an interest in to help me rebuild It was over Christmas, and we were both – she was off from college and back home. And I always take the last couple weeks in December off, and I had just gotten this thing. And so she helped me strip it down and do all the stuff on it. So when I got rid of that, she's like, what? You're getting rid of Twister? I was like, well, I want to get other games too. And this one's my least favorite. I think it was Black Knight is the one that I wanted when I got rid of Twister. Black Knight 2000, that's what you have as well, right? Yeah. Tim likes that one too. Have you had to rebuild Right Flipper? Because I think that's all that game is, right? Yeah, so I had a Doctor Who also, and when I got Black Knight, I'm like, well, I don't need two Right Flipper-heavy games, so Doctor Who got to go also. But no, I haven't. I've had it, oh, about a year or so, and that one actually came to me completely all good. I did buy new rubbers for it here recently, so I am going to go through it and replace the rubbers and stuff on it. but that was one that I didn't have to tear down. Nice. Yeah, I like that game. My son still is upset with me that I got rid of it, but I don't keep games very long. But it was a fan favorite in my house. All the kids liked it. So they now want a BKSOR. My son just asked me this weekend for a BKSOR. So it's a cool game. So the premium one? Yeah, I found a pro, and they're like, no, we want the upper play field. So I'd probably – I have a guy lined up to buy my Deadpool if I can find a BKSOR premium. But finding one a year ago, I could find 20 in a weekend. But I can't find one now. Yeah, there's some people that like the Pro better because they don't like that upper play field. Yeah, my kids like the upper play field. My son we went to that museum in Pittsburgh PA Pinball Or maybe it Pinball PA And he played for about an hour or two just BKSOR premium they love it so let me ask you Joe you didn play pinball as a kid then back in high school or back in the day no I remember when I so I grew up in a really small town in Wyoming of about a thousand people so like the nearest arcade was over 100 miles away literally so like we didn't have a lot but the bowling alley did have a Harlem Globetrotters and I remember playing that when I was a kid a little bit but it wasn't like uh i'm in love with pinball no they also had galaga too so love galaga so i was i was more into the video games and stuff so and then yeah it just completely dropped off my radar until john had one in his basement all of a sudden it's like and then i just really just took to it it's always interesting when you don't play as a child and i find a lot of people that played as adults were you a badass back in wyoming a badass where's that coming from wow well i'm getting to that he reminds me of my uncle tim i told rachel this joe when you were on the tribe zoom session and you have your hat i forget what those hats are called you have the yep and black cap yep and you were wearing it and you were talking i'm like i snapped a picture and sent it to my sister like this guy looks like uncle tim so i sent it to rachel i thought it might have been crazy i'm like i sent a picture of my uncle i was like does this remind you of Joseph. So what do you think, Rachel? Absolutely. I think that that actually should be something you share on Facebook there, Tim. I thought it was kind of uncanny. Yeah. So I'm going to start calling you Uncle Joe. Is that okay? That's awesome. I'll take it. I always think about Uncle Joe as the Uncle Joe and Wonka in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Or no, it's Grandpa Joe. Never mind. We'll delete that. Never mind. Hey, hey, hey. I got a 21-year-old daughter and I ain't ready to be a grandpa yet. Well, you know, things happen. Hopefully not, but, you know, things happen. Stop. Just stop. All right. Okay. I'll stop. Sorry. Uncle Tim was not a badass, but he was a really cool dude. So you're cool in my book, Joe. Awesome. Sounds like I'm in good company there. Yeah. Yep. Within my Facebook creeping, I also noticed that you enjoy mountain biking. And I have to mention that there is a pretty funny video of you taking quite a digger a couple of years ago. Would you like to talk about any of that? I saw that one. Yeah, everybody's seen that one. That was, yeah, and I've got some asshole friends that like to, every year, you know, when it comes up in their Facebook memories, it gets reposted, and then it gets another 30 comments on it. Yeah, it's, but it's fun. I, you can't help but laugh when you see it, and I didn't get hurt too bad. My ankle was banged up for a while, but yeah, I almost hit that tree, but I didn't, but no, I got into mountain biking a few years ago, too, and have really enjoyed that. In fact, yeah, yesterday just went on what we call like an urban ride because we get a lot of rain here in Kansas City in the spring and in the fall. And that's the best times to ride, except for when they close the trails because it's wet because it tears them up and whatnot. So we do urban rides where we go downtown and ride underneath overpasses and along railroad tracks and find all kinds of interesting things. So just did that yesterday. But now that, so the wreck happened, one of our mountain bike buddies, he lives over in Missouri, like in southern Kansas City, south of Kansas City, a little ways out into the country a little bit. But he had been, he has this little like mile and a half trail in his backyard. And he had been working on this berm, this wooden berm, and he wanted us to come out to try it out and break it in. And so we all came out, you know, planned to have food and everything. And so we went out, we were all riding it. I rode the thing like four or five times, you know, and those of you who don't know what a wooden berm is, it's basically just like an embankment, you know, but built out of wood where you use your momentum to kind of carry and you're kind of sideways a little bit. But if you stand up straight, bad things happen. So I decided to get a little bit daring and I wanted to kind of come off the end of it and kind of do like a jump off of the end of it. But I kind of stood up maybe a little bit too early and just flipped right over the side of it. Yeah, you can find that on my Facebook if you're really that interested, but it is pretty damn funny. I laugh every time I see it. I watched it about three or four times and might have had a little giggle about that. I don't think I've ever met anybody that just said, oh, I only watched that once. I watched it like ten times and I was still laughing my ass off. Yeah, I think I showed it to my kids. Yeah, right on. Sorry, Joe. No, don't be sorry. That's awesome. Hey, if somebody falls and nobody's around to see it, then what good was it? You know, I mean, those things need to be celebrated. That's true. Nobody died. So, yeah, some of my favorite videos are watching people fall down on ice. I'm not going to lie because something about it is just really, really funny. I don't know why, because it's an unexpected thing. Usually a person's OK to get back up. But I think that's hilarious. Yeah, I like those like the Facebook groups of like drunk people doing things, you know, or like Instagram, you know, drunk people doing things. And it's a lot of falling down and smashing into things. And yeah. I want to be invited into that group. I didn't even know that existed. That's cool. It's pretty great. I wanted to ask you, what is the best place that you've gone biking that you enjoyed the most? Or it was nature was the best for you or is the best day biking? But what was the place? Man, there's been a few. There's Bentonville, Arkansas is really awesome. In northern Arkansas, that's where Walmart started. And the Walmart boys put a ton of money into the bike trails. There's bike trails that go through the town and everything. It's really fun down there. That's only like three hours from here, so that's fun to go down there. We've got a ton of trails right here in Kansas City to ride. And then, like I said, what we did yesterday, I really enjoy doing the downtown rides. We'll throw our camelbacks on and throw four or five beers in there, and then we'll stop at a liquor store or whatever. And yeah, we stop along the way under overpasses, stop and have a beer. And yeah, it's not, at least for me and for most of my friends, it's more about going out and having fun. It's not like a mode of exercise, even though you're exercising. It's more about just getting together with friends and having some beers while you're riding. Yeah. It's just fun socialization. I can imagine that on an urban ride like that, that you're coming across interesting little places within the city that you would not normally see. Right? Oh, exactly. Yeah. Yeah, you're underneath the interstate that you've been over a zillion times and seeing it from the underneath. Like there's all kinds of old buildings and stuff down in the West Bottoms part of Kansas City that we ride around. And yeah, places that you normally wouldn't go and then places that you can't go in a car even. Right. A whole different way to venture and to explore the city. I think that's awesome. Yeah, we ride along the levee, you know, along the river. And yeah, it's pretty fun. I don't want to use the word awesome again, but I'm going to say that's really awesome. It is awesome. I enjoyed the picture you put on the tribe page, or maybe it was the fan page with you sitting on the railroad bridge. I thought that was really cool. Yeah, that's a defunct railroad bridge, by the way, which I work for the railroad, so it's kind of a tender spot of mine. I hate seeing pictures of people sitting on the tracks and stuff. It drives me nuts. There's no tracks even leading to that bridge. But yeah, that's a fun bridge to kind of ride on a little bit because you can see down in between the ties, you can see the river down there. There's no real – there's no grading or anything to keep anything from going through. It's kind of – if you don't like heights, then it's not a good thing. We've got one buddy that will not go out on there. Some of those old railroad bridges are really neat. I like the abandoned railroad bridges. You hate to see them abandoned, but when you go out on them, it's really neat. And I'm a railroad guy as well. We've talked about the railroad before, so I really enjoyed seeing that picture. I like to see pictures of old abandoned rails and old abandoned railroad bridges for some reason. I think they're neat. Tim, would you walk across a bridge like that? I would, but I would be nervous. I think I could do it as well, and I'd also be nervous. I might flap my arms out around a bit. Hopefully not any balance, but I'd be a little nervous. Yeah, the older I get, the more I'm afraid of heights. When I was in my 20s and went to the fire academy and all that fun stuff, I climbed the outside of a three-story building with all these tools. I probably couldn't get halfways up the ladder today. I don't know why, but just as I get older, I become afraid of heights. But I think a railroad bridge I would be totally fine with. So, Joseph, when you come to Pittsburgh, I'll talk to my buddies and we'll go do some mountain biking and find some abandoned railroad bridges and abandoned buildings to check out. Yeah, that'd be sweet. Sounds good to me. Is there anything else that the two of you gentlemen would like to discuss today? I'm good. Before I wrap it up. Okay. Joseph, you got anything you wanted to bring up that we didn't? No, I think we pretty much covered my little piece of the pinball world. Okay. I really enjoyed exploring your little piece of the pinball world. Yeah. Tim, would you like to do the honors and ask it? All right, Joseph. The most important question you're going to be asked in a very long time. Are you ready? I'm ready. How did you get in to the poor man's pinball tribe? Well, it was – we were coming back from Expo in 2019, driving back, and we started at Expo. I didn't even know about the whole podcast world of the pinball community. And then I'd seen some podcast stuff while we were there, so we decided to listen to some podcasts on the way back and started listening and found Poor Man's. I like that one the best because it's like what everybody else has said. It's not going through a bunch of news, and it's not going through a bunch of the drama or anything to do with it. It is a little bit, kind of just enough of that, but it's like sitting around with a couple of your buddies at the bar and talking about pinball. So I really just kind of glommed on to that one. And then so I was headed up to Milwaukee for work, and I was trying to figure out where to go play pinball in the evening after work. and so I'd been listening to the podcast so I wrote down before I went up I put I wrote them an email and said hey I'm gonna be up in that area here's when you know where should I go play and I think it was Drew that responded back and said hey just hit me up when you're up here you know there's a couple spots locally you know and I'll I'll let you know you know what nights you're gonna be here and stuff and so I reached out to him when I got there and got a hold him over a Facebook Messenger. And then I was like, hey, if you're not doing anything, come out tonight. So Drew came out and yeah, we had a hell of a good time that night and hanging out. So then I just started sending emails and stuff and started talking to Drew on Messenger and everything. So kind of posted a little bit of stuff about him on Facebook and everything. And so I kind of covered the known three pillars. And then the next thing I know, I was getting ready on a Tuesday or Wednesday or something like that to, you know, pull up the podcast. And all of a sudden I had an email from him that says, welcome to Tribe Butthole. I was like, nice. So you didn't even have to write him a check and send it. You just paid him in person. Yeah. Yeah, unfortunately. It's a good thing I had cash on me. You paid him in person with his friendship, Kim Lee. Oh, that's a cool story. I love that. Yeah. Yeah, so now I have friends in Milwaukee, so whenever I'm up there, I can get a hold of somebody. That's right. I think that, again, that's such a great part of the Poor Man's Pinball Network is that you're able to connect with people. You're having a pocket of friends or a friend in different cities around the country or around the world. That's a really cool thing. Yeah, it's awesome. Best part about the tribe. It is. It absolutely is. Yeah, and never-ending support there, too. Well, I think that is everything for me. I would like to thank you, Joseph, or Joe. I like calling people by their full name, to be honest. Tim, I really like to call you Timothy, but I think you just really prefer Tim. But maybe from here on out, that's what I'll do is call everybody by their full name, because that's really our given name. Anyway, Joe, thank you so much for being our guest today. Learned a lot about you and 100% about what Tribe Multiball is all about. thank you tim for being my wonderful co-host editor as always yep thank you rachel thank you joe and drew sucks at pinball shut up tim oh sorry ian sucks at pinball hey oh come on now oh you know what we should also say here there's something else we should say here too is that ian and drew have taken a little break yes from their podcasting and i'm wishing them a lot of happiness taking a little break away from all of that. I think that's good for them. But I also want them to know that we miss them. And I can't wait for, what is it, July 12th? Is that when they're coming back? Yep, that's what I hear. All right. So a little plug and a little love to them. Yep. You say something nice about them now, Tim. I like Ian's creature. Whoa. Wait a minute. I love them both. I talk to them both all the time. Drew's got a good heart, great guy, and so does Ian. Both have great families, great wives, great kids. Stop sucking up, Tim. Stop sucking up. What are you doing to say something nice? All right. Drew sucks at pinball. Oh, shut up. All right. Take care, folks. Happy flipping. It's such a good feeling to know you're alive. It's such a happy feeling. You're growing inside and when you wake up ready to say, I think I'll make a snappy new day. It's such a good feeling, a very good feeling, the feeling you know that I'll be back when the day is new. And I'll have more ideas for you And you'll have things you'll want to talk about I will too