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Episode 121 – Ashley’s Alley

Slam Tilt Podcast·podcast_episode·analyzed·Dec 20, 2018
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.032

TL;DR

Slam Tilt Ep121: Ashley Ludwig discusses pinball restoration work and game preferences with Ron and Zach.

Summary

Ron Hallett and Zach Sharpe host Slam Tilt Podcast Episode 121 with guest Ashley Ludwig from Pinball Alley in Rochester, NY. Ashley discusses her work restoring pinball machines, her transition from sign painting to restoration, and her involvement in local tournament play. The hosts cover game preferences, including praise for Lethal Weapon 3 and criticism of Gottlieb machines, and discuss upcoming Twitchies awards and various classic and modern pinball titles.

Key Claims

  • Pinball Alley has 60 machines on the showroom floor and another 100 machines in storage

    high confidence · Ashley Ludwig describing Pinball Alley's inventory

  • Lethal Weapon 3 is 'the greatest Data East game ever produced'

    high confidence · Ron Hallett's strong opinion about Lethal Weapon 3

  • Thunderbirds won every category in the Twitchies poll despite many voters likely never having played it

    high confidence · Ron discussing Twitchies results from Head to Head Podcast coverage

  • The Beatles pinball machine costs $8,500 for the Gold model and goes up from there

    high confidence · Zach Sharpe discussing Beatles pricing

  • Gottlieb machines use problematic metal acorn screws that twist off every single post

    high confidence · Ashley Ludwig describing technical frustrations with Gottlieb restoration

  • Lady Robin Hood was the second machine ever to have flippers

    high confidence · Ashley Ludwig discussing a wood rail machine that came through Pinball Alley

  • Thunderbirds was a popular British TV show featuring marionettes and was made for the Australian market

    high confidence · Group discussion about Thunderbirds theme and market appeal

  • Data East games share similar background music across titles, making them identifiable by their 'Daddy's music' signature sound

    high confidence · Group discussion comparing Data East vs Williams music composition

  • Ashley received third place and won a wrestling Translite at her first tournament at Silver Ball Saloon

    high confidence · Ashley recounting her first league tournament experience

  • Bad Girls fixed every problem with 8-Ball Deluxe by adding a spinner and multiball

Notable Quotes

  • “I really love, like, early to mid-90s, you know, Bailey Williams. Just, like, you can't go wrong with them.”

    Ashley Ludwig @ ~13:30 — Establishing Ashley's game preferences and aesthetic sensibilities

  • “It's like a giant game of mousetrap. But, you know, I have to change out flippers or solder in a switch or whatever.”

    Ashley Ludwig @ ~17:45 — Describing her hands-on approach to playfield restoration and technical work

  • “There's no furniture in the house. It's just pinball machines. You can't sit down.”

    Ashley Ludwig @ ~26:00 — Humorous characterization of Zach Sharpe's pinball obsession

  • “I hate 90% of all creative work created in any medium ever.”

    Zach Sharpe @ ~48:15 — Zach establishing his notoriously critical stance on game design and media

  • “It's the greatest data East game, in my opinion, it's the greatest data you've ever produced.”

    Ron Hallett @ ~51:30 — Ron's passionate advocacy for Lethal Weapon 3 as a Data East masterpiece

  • “Everyone dance now! Correct answer.”

    Ron Hallett @ ~73:45 — Affirming the consensus best music selection option on Lethal Weapon 3

  • “It's like when you open the door on the Gottlieb and it screams.”

    Ron Hallett @ ~82:30 — Describing the notorious Gottlieb door interlock screech that contributes to Bruce's hate

  • “I've already resigned to the fact that just everyone has bad taste.”

    Zach Sharpe @ ~92:00 — Zach's dismissive reaction to Iron Maiden winning Game of the Year at Twitchies

  • “I played it. Oh, you played it? Unfortunately.”

    Ron and Ashley @ ~43:00 — Ashley's lukewarm reception to actually playing Thunderbirds despite theoretically interest

Entities

Ron HallettpersonBruce NightingalepersonZach SharpepersonAshley LudwigpersonPinball AlleycompanySilver Ball SaloonvenueLethal Weapon 3gameThunderbirdsgame

Signals

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Ashley Ludwig featured as restoration artist and shop manager at Pinball Alley, representing emerging skilled labor in pinball restoration space

    high · Extended interview format focusing on Ashley's role at Pinball Alley, her technical skills, and community involvement

  • ?

    community_signal: Rochester pinball scene showing organizational maturity with established tournaments at Silver Ball Saloon attracting new players like Ashley

    high · Ashley found tournament through Facebook event, competed, won translite; Bruce hosting 45-person party at venue

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Notable split between community perception (Thunderbirds winning all Twitchies categories) and insider skepticism about play depth and artwork quality

    high · Ron and Ashley both express disappointment with Thunderbirds despite its awards sweep; discuss how voters likely didn't actually play it

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Data East games have identifiable signature music style described as 'chunky,' 'raw,' generic across titles; distinguishes from Williams' game-specific compositions

    high · Extended discussion of how Data East games share tonal quality that makes them instantly recognizable as 'Daddy's music'

  • ?

    product_concern: Beatles pinball brutally difficult due to missing post rubbers, creating significant gameplay balance issue

    medium · Mentioned at episode end that Beatles 'do not have rubbers on those posts' and 'really need to put rubbers'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.319

0:00
Uh, are you gonna buy something or just touch everything? Well, I'm looking for a gift for our church rectory. Uh, did you say rectum?
0:15
Oh, what a precious manger. The pastor will love this. But where's the baby Jesus? Uh, he's like ten bucks extra. Charging money for the baby genius. That's sacrilege. You can tell Tom Anderson he's going to hell for this. Whoa.
0:35
Okay, I'll tell him. Coming to you from beautiful upstate New York, This is the Slam Tilt Podcast, the show about all things pinball. I'm your host, Ron Hallett, here with my co-host, Bruce Nightingale. Gottliebs are turds. Wait a minute, you don't sound like Bruce. TNA is a turd. Okay, you really don't sound like Bruce. Dialed in sucks.
1:12
Is this Zach? No. Yes, folks, Zach is with us again this week. Because Bruce, Bruce is in the midst of a party at the saloon. Not a party that he's actually in, but a party at the saloon with like 45 people. So we have Zach filling it. Well, no one can fill in for Bruce, but Zach will be helping me with the co-hosting duties today. Hi, Zach. Hi, Ron. But we're not alone. We have a guest this week. A guest? A guest. It is also from Rochester. We have Ashley Ludwig. Good evening. Hey, guys. How's it going? Good. How are you guys? I'm doing good. So why don't you tell us a little about yourself? I'll do the Bruce line. Tell us how you got into this crazy hobby of ours. I think that's how he would say it.
2:10
He'd probably say it like that. I work at a local company, Pinball Alley. I do all of the artistic restoration for them, and I manage their pin shop, So I oversee the restoration process. So, yeah, I work on pinballs. So how did you get into it? Was it more from the art side? It was from Craigslist. I was a sign painter for Wegmans for a number of years, and then I would look on the side for, like, restaurants that needed signage done, you know, A-frames and window painting, stuff like that. So I would often get on Craigslist to see if there were restaurants nearby that needed signs. And there was a posting that was artists need to restore pinball machines. And I joked about it for a long time, like a few months. And then I figured, well, I'll check it out. thinking it was either a scam or like something that you would hear about on the news that you'd go to and you would be murdered but it turned out to be exactly what it was so it's my full time job. So what does that entail? Like restoring games that are like the artwork's all worn off the play field and you gotta like put it back, touch ups, custom art? We don't really do anything custom but it's Restoration work. So I'm trying to make the machine look as good or better than the day it was manufactured. So the majority of what I'm doing is cabinet work, the outside of the machine, and play field touch-up and repair. Cool. So have you been playing a lot of pinball? I play a ton of pinball. I play pinball pretty much every day. we have like 60 machines on our showroom floor I have another 100 folded up, we have dozens of customer repairs and restorations coming through the door all the time so there's a constant flow of machines and of course you know you have to plan and make sure everything's working correctly alright, hey Zach you got any questions? I keep expecting Bruce to come in Yeah, and then he doesn't.

medium confidence · Zach discussing the relationship between Bad Girls and 8-Ball Deluxe

  • “Lethal Weapon 3 is a great location game, but when you have it in your home and you actually play the thing over and over, it's like, okay, I pretty much saw everything on the game.”

    Zach Sharpe @ ~65:00 — Tempering enthusiasm for Lethal Weapon 3 based on replay value concerns

    • Beatlesgame
    Iron Maidengame
    Bad Girlsgame
    8-Ball Deluxegame
    Lady Robin Hoodgame
    Bone Bustersgame
    Attila the Hungame
    Circus Voltairegame
    WWF Royal Rumblegame
    Twitchiesevent
    Head to Head Podcastmedia
    Texas Pinball Festivalevent
    Data Eastcompany
    Williamscompany
    Gottliebcompany
    Judge Dreddgame
    Addams Familygame
    ?

    gameplay_signal: Lethal Weapon 3 shows strong initial engagement but potential replay fatigue after 500+ plays due to limited rule depth beyond super jackpot

    high · Zach noted getting rid of his LW3 after 500 plays because he'd 'seen everything'; Ron counters that it's held up well for him with occasional play

  • ?

    event_signal: Twitchies awards presentation delayed to March (three months post-voting period) for live presentation at Texas Pinball Festival

    high · Ron criticizes timing as too late, suggesting community may forget categories; presentation planned as 'big' ceremony

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Silver Ball Saloon tournaments use translite prizes for subcategories, encouraging competitive play across different game types

    high · Ashley won wrestling translite at first tournament; referenced as sought-after prize that Zach also competed for

  • ?

    restoration_signal: Pinball Alley uses collaborative model with dedicated technician handling board repairs and electronics while artists handle cabinet/playfield restoration

    high · Ashley describes working alongside technician Brian, learning technical skills through observation while specializing in playfield and cabinet work

  • ?

    product_strategy: Beatles pinball positioned as premium collectible with tiered pricing ($8,500 Gold baseline, higher for other editions) despite high difficulty barrier

    high · Zach discusses Beatles Gold at $8,500 'and that's where you start out and they go up from there' for premium collectibility

  • $

    market_signal: Bad Girls actively traded/sold at Pinball Alley for $650, suggesting ongoing market for premiere-era machines

    high · Ron offering to buy Bad Girls from Pinball Alley for $650 during episode, accepted price point negotiation

  • ?

    collector_signal: Zach Sharpe represents extreme end of collector behavior with dozens of machines, rapid acquisition rate (multiple per month during peak period), and active trading/selling network

    high · Ashley's anecdote about visiting Zach's house: 'no furniture, just pinball machines'; Zach's admission of buying multiple machines monthly during recent period

    • 4:41
    So you played a lot of machines for work, and then eventually you somehow found one of our events, or Bruce's events, at the Silver Ball Saloon, right? Yeah. So how did you come across that? I believe it was on, there was like a Facebook event for it, just because I'd been trying to find a local league or tournament because I know Buffalo pushes really hard with that, but I wasn't aware of any in Rochester. So I was really excited to find a tournament in Rochester, and lo and behold, you know, it's a great league, a great local league that plays in Rochester. So how'd you do in your first attempt at league? I remember you did fairly well. The first tournament at Silver Bowl Saloon, I got third. But you won the Translite. I did. I went home with the wrestling Translite, which is probably the proudest moment of my life.
    5:52
    Do you have a WWE Translite? I do I won that from the first tournament which I know Zach really tried to get third so then he could win the Translight but you know instead I just had to settle for this lousy stack of cash yeah it's so much to carry you know yeah I think I actually spent it all on my bar tab but so you are you a Rochester native I know that Zach I am. Okay. And you also went to RIT. I did. So did you go there around the same time as Zach or earlier?
    6:35
    I was there 2010 to 2014. So we just missed each other then because I started in 2014. Oh, my. Yeah. Zach's like, what are you, 16, 17 years old? No, no. He's 17. I think he's 17. Sometimes I don't get carded. Sometimes. Yeah.
    6:59
    All right, so you're doing the art thing, and you've got like 60 games. So you're supposed to see a lot of games come in and come out of there. So you must have some opinions on some of your likes and dislikes of games. I have many opinions on my likes and dislikes of games. Because we love opinions here. So what are some of your likes? We'll go positive first. Okay. I really love, like, early to mid-90s, you know, Bailey Williams. Just, like, you can't go wrong with them. But there's a lot of older EMs that I see kind of come and go that I really just fall in love with. We had Lady Robin Hood, which was the – it's a wood rail. So it was the second machine to ever have flippers on it, and it hit the six, you know, one, two, three, up and down the play field. You can't see my hand motions over, you know, us talking, but you get it. But that was like just the artwork on it was amazing.
    8:07
    We get some weird and very uncommon machines come through, which is really cool. What are some other ones that you've seen come through? We tend to get some uncommon Gottliebs, like Bone Busters we had a while ago. Another uncommon one that we have right now, Attila the Hun. I think there were probably like 500 produced.
    8:36
    I wouldn't say that's my favorite. Some of the machines I really like right now, Iron Maiden is great. everyone loves Iron Maiden yeah I know but it always leaves something for me Circus Voltaire I really like that machine I often play Lethal Weapon 3 that's a good one Lethal Weapon 3 is fantastic it's the greatest data in my opinion it's the greatest data you've ever produced I agree completely. How about you, Zach? Don't you agree? I have never played it, Ron. You've actually never played a lethal weapon? I haven't seen a working lethal weapon in my life.
    9:24
    There was one at Pinbird. Yeah, there was one at Pinbird. I didn't see it. You didn't see me blow it up? I didn't see you blow up anything at Pinbird, Ron. Oh!
    9:33
    Oh, boy. No, I'm shooting myself for when Ron gets his, like, perfect, fully rebuilt and tweaked lethal weapon that'll play perfectly and I'll have no complaints when I go and I can find experience, the glory and mastery of lethal weapon 3. You know what a rare Gottlieb is? A good one. Ah, I had to do my Bruce.
    9:57
    Because Bruce isn't here, I have to fill in. I'm not the Gottlieb hater Bruce is. He's in a different category. If it's just Gottlieb, it's just total hate. There is no, it just doesn't give them a chance at all.
    10:12
    You know, I hate Gottlieb because I hate working on Gottliebs. From like an art aspect or a tech aspect? From a technical aspect.
    10:23
    Okay, number one, anytime you go to take anything off of a play field, you have those horrible metal atorn screws, and you twist off every single post along with it. It's impossible to take that play field apart. like, peacefully, you know?
    10:41
    I just grab those with, like, vice grips and just rip them off and chuck them in the garbage. So it's not just art you're doing. You're actually doing the tech work also.
    10:53
    Oh, yeah. So I mainly work with a technician, and he does the heavy technical work, board repairs, stuff like that. But when it comes to play field stuff, like both of us are taking apart play fields, putting them all back together, which I really love doing that. It's like a giant game of mousetrap. But, you know, I have to change out flippers or solder in a switch or whatever. You know, that's no problem. And I always love working around Brian because he kind of talks to himself. So I'm kind of listening to everything that he's doing. So I'm kind of just absorbing that information. And I'm always interested in learning. It's kind of like when I go to Zach's house. It's either you play games or you work on games.
    11:48
    It's one or the other. He puts you to work. If you're not going to play something, you better be fixing something. No rest. He is all pinball. He is relentless. There's no furniture in the house. It's just pinball machines. You can't sit down. I've kept one. There's one thing to sit on per room.
    12:08
    I've limited myself to, like, you know, I could put an extra pinball machine where that couch is, but I've restrained myself for my guests. Yeah, you're restraining yourself a lot by having, oh, I don't know, like a dozen machines. Yeah, I could have a dozen and a half machines.
    12:27
    That's true. Yeah, I do thank you for keeping the one couch there. That's a very comfortable couch. Please don't get rid of that. So, Ashley, do you have any games at home?
    12:38
    I currently do not own any machines at my studio apartment in the city, which I'm certain that if I had any machines in here, my – first of all, I'd have to get rid of something like a bed or a couch, something important. And I'm sure that my neighbors would be extremely concerned as to what was going on in here. But it is nice having access to all the machines at work, so I don't feel like I need to own any machines at this point in my life. Okay. Well, let's say, hmm, if money was no object, what game would you want? And you had space for the one game that you could put in your studio apartment. And your neighbors all of a sudden have become pinheads and are begging you to get a game. If money was no option, I would have a much larger space to have many machines. You can't just have one. Pimbala are like cats. This is good. She's already passed the first. She's not in denial. That's good. She's not in the. I'm not in denial because sometimes it's nice to have a little break. It's nice to play something newer. It's nice to play something older. You've got to have a little variety, you know? Yeah, I was in denial. I did have the only one stage. I don't know. Did you ever have the only one stage or just did you grow up with it? So you probably never even saw an area that only had one game. When I was growing up, we only had Spirit and Fleet. That is a very large variation of game types. I think it's probably like within a year of getting the second game or I guess the third game the first game we bought after Spirit you know it's probably less than a year before we bought the third game and then the fourth game and then the fifth game you know all in like a probably three year period to go from two to five or six and then the number just sort of linearly increased from there. That would be cool to see a graph of like pinball machine count over time I think it might start flat and then spike up, and it'll probably even out. Yeah, mine would have a spike about like two years ago when I was buying more than one pinball machine a month, but now it's slowed down a bit, sadly.
    15:06
    Wow. I don't know, but you're on a different level when it comes to the buying thing. I mean, you're even getting people to buy them for you. Yeah, you know, sometimes I just can't travel quick enough by myself, so I need to enlist some helpers. Enlist some helpers. I wonder who I can enlist to help me get a machine yesterday. We can get into that. So, Ashley, Zach, want to help me go over the news?
    15:31
    The news of the week. Actually, I have three. This is from this week at Pinball. Hi, Jeff. I have, like, three separate pages somehow. These are more frequent updates than I'm used to. So, we'll kind of. The twerpies. Do you remember we did our twerpy picks? That was last week, right? Yeah, it was. And they had the actual twerpy results on head-to-head podcast. And, like, poor Thunderbirds, like, won everything. I think that was a little unfair. I don't understand how so many people could have picked Thunderbirds when there's no way they could have played this game. I mean, half the things you can tell just from, like, a photo. But, like, it can't win every single category by itself. Yeah. I mean, I got to play. I go to every show, and I got to play one game on it. I assume neither of you have played it. I played it. Oh, you played it? Unfortunately. Unfortunately? A second person. Wow. So where did you play? They had a replay. Oh, that's right. I never went to that section at all. Yeah, it was the little, that was the good section. It was the little thing, but, like, you had to really time it, because there were times I would go over, look, and it was a thousand people deep. And then there were other times when you could just walk up to it. Everyone wants to know, did you manage to spell international rescue?
    16:58
    No, I lost interest in the game long before that. Wow. So what made it so bad? It's just the artwork on it is atrocious, in my opinion. I hate the backlash. Does anyone actually know what a Thunderbirds is? Like, is that art, like, correct to the theme, or is it just really bad? No, it is 100% correct to the theme. Okay, so can we really blame them, then? What? They just chose a really, really bad theme. Has anyone here ever seen Team America World Police, the movie? No. I don't remember.
    17:37
    It features marionettes. I mean, I've seen, like, I've seen clips of it, like, on YouTube. Okay, okay. Like, in memes and things. That's what they were... Yeah. The original Thunderbirds was, I believe it was a British TV show, and it was all marionettes, but it was done like a regular show, like they're episodes. I think they were, I'm trying to remember if it was a spy thing or what they actually were, but yeah, I mean, when I saw the back, I was like, yeah, that's Thunderbirds. I mean, I've never actually seen more than maybe a minute of an episode. So just a great theme choice on every aspect is what you're saying. How do you see the best choice to use for a pinball machine? Well, the show from, listen to the head-to-head guys. I guess it was pretty big in Australia, and that's the guy who's making it is from Australia, so I guess it was more for that market. It was a very popular show in Australia. So it's not really for us, per se. I see. It's like Beatles. It's not for your type of people. everyone knows the Beatles except you everyone knows the Beatles no I mean it's only for rich people oh that's what you've been saying right that's what you remember yes it's for people with money it's not necessarily for pinball people not when it's like $8,000 yeah I mean the gold is goes for like $8,500 and that's the gold so that's where you start out and they go up from there but I just feel like the Beatles themselves are so popular that you know they're targeting a select they're targeting a wide group of people to appeal to with the Beatles but they're making it very collectible right off the bat you know Yeah. And I'll say, funny story, at the Beatles launch party that I went to, which we'll get into at some point, these are all like, most of the people go to rock fantasy or metal, like they're into metal. Rock fantasy, metal, metal. And so you got all these metal dudes are going up and playing Beatles, and they know every word of every song on that game. Yeah. You know, they know the songs, they know the Beatles. They're more metal than I am. The Beatles or the people of rock fantasy?
    20:15
    Both, apparently, because I don't know the lyrics to half. I'd even heard half those Beatles songs when I played the machine. Which is bizarre because your dad's got like a jukebox with like lots of old songs on it. There's like no Beatles on there? He doesn't have any Beatles. He has good music. Oh, man. Let the hate mail flow through the mail ball bag. That's all I have to say. those are fighting words Zach let me clue you in on something here the Beatles are the biggest pop band in the history of music yeah they had a few good songs you know again the biggest pop band in the history of music period you should know that I hate 90% of all creative work created in any medium ever so you hate 90% of pinball machines yeah Actually, yeah. Have you got that impression? Yeah. Our listeners have gotten that impression. You hate a lot of stuff? Hate is a strong word, but I really, really, really don't enjoy most of them very much. I mean, everybody has their machines that they hate. Some of us are just long-term.
    21:25
    So, actually, we went into games that you like. What are some games that you hate, Ashley? We won't say this to Zach, because Zach hates everything. So just name any popular game, and he'll say that he hates it. Zach was talking about his hate for fruit and pinballs, and I was like, oh, yeah, that reminds me. We didn't finish our question from before. Pinballs I hate. We have a couple that are on our showroom floor that I don't enjoy being around looking at or playing at all. Bad Girls. Oh, that was so fun. Are you serious? I only played it twice, but I enjoyed it both times. Do you want to buy ours? I'll give you $600 for it.
    22:11
    $650? I don't think I can go much higher than $650. The actual sale taking place on the podcast is $650? It's such a good pinball, and I know that you want it. Is that the one that's 8-ball deluxe but reversed? Yeah. Okay. It was multi-ball. And a spinner.
    22:29
    Come on. What's wrong with 8-ball deluxe? Everyone's like, oh, it doesn't have a spinner. You know, oh, you know. And then Bad Girls fixed every single problem with 8-Ball Deluxe. And then also is a premiere.
    22:41
    So it sort of canceled it all out. But it's still there. I'm thinking the art may weigh into Ashley's decision. It's not the greatest art. I can just pay Ashley to paint me a new backlash. That's true. That isn't as bad as that one. I'm, it's funny because it's like, you know, these, these tough, like, 80s chicks with, like, half-shaved heads and, like, short skirts playing pool. They're so bad.
    23:13
    So bad. Like, it's so, it's so over the top. All right, so there's, there's, there's one game you hate, or I should say dislike. We won't use the word hate, but. I dislike it. The, the other wrestling one. Not the Translate that we were talking about. You mean WWF Royal Rumble? Yeah, Dead East. Or the bad one?
    23:34
    Dead East Rumble. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Tag me in. Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. It's got a tag button. It's like the first action button. It's proto-Star Wars. It's the best. I hate that game, especially because the one that we were working on for a customer, the Switch, kept getting stuck. So it was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, nonstop. That sounds like heaven to me. I mean, come on, Macho Man, Randy Savage, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's in multiple games, man. He's in, he's Bonesaw. He's everywhere.
    24:17
    Yeah, I like that game. Not enough to keep it, but I liked it. I actually, like, yeah, I always liked that game. I liked it more than WrestleMania.
    24:26
    Yeah. Well, WrestleMania doesn't have an action button that you can just hit over and over. What's the point? I don't know how often I've actually used the tag button.
    24:34
    It's not worth going for, but it's just so fun. It's just like, I don't even remember what it says. I just remember, like, Yeah. Big Man says, Make the tag! or something. Yeah. Make the tag! And then you drain half the time, but it's still worth it, just because it's fun just hammering on that button. But I respect Ashley's opinion that she hates Royal Rumble, even if it's wrong. Yeah.
    24:56
    Yeah. But she loves Lethal Weapon 3, so that cancels out any disagreements right there. Yeah. I don't know. Do you think I should get a Lethal Weapon 3? Do you think I'd get tired of it? That just seems like it'll be like a Terminator 2 situation where I'll just, like, after a while, think, okay, I'm kind of sick of this now. Well, I need someone to buy one so I can go play it. You're depriving me of the enjoyment that I would obviously garner from playing this game. You know, it must be so good. It's just so in your face, over the top. Everything is like they somehow, like this is the era where they could actually get the actors in the movie to do voiceovers. So you get Mel Gibson going, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, look for the kickback sound, for God's sake. I mean, yeah.
    25:45
    Yeah. I mean, everything is like. what Leo gets. It's like the most quotable machine ever. They're getting away! And like, it always bounces you between gameplay, and then it's like, grab the gun and fire! And, you know, you gotta grab the gun and fire, and you know, he's going under, like, a semi on a bike, and you gotta shoot people. Cha-cha! It's a lot of fun. It's kind of like guilty pleasure console. I don't like to admit I love that machine, but I love that machine. And I think you might like it, Zach, just because it kind of has its own action button, which is the trigger, which you do have to take your hand off and fire, especially when you hit orbits There be like a guy there and it say like you have to shoot him but if you wait till his eyes flash it worth more points But by then the ball is almost at your flippers and do you risk losing the ball just to get more points Does it use the trigger as well as T2 uses the trigger, though?
    26:47
    Well, it's not the jackpot shot. See, I really enjoy going for the super while balls are in play, just, like, you know, trying to time the super while you're, like. Yeah, that's a lot of fun. The stupid jackpot, as he says. It's the stupid jackpot. Yeah, my issue with the game was after I hit the super jackpot a bunch of times and had a bunch of huge games, it's like, well, that's pretty much it. I mean, it's got the awards on the left side, but once you get all those,
    27:15
    that's pretty much it. It's the game. I think that's a great location game, but when you have it in your home and you actually play the thing over and over, it's like, okay, I pretty much saw everything on the game. Yeah, I think after about 500 plays, I was like, yeah, I'm getting rid of this. But it was fun for the first few hundred. Yeah. So that's what I'm worried about, Lethal Weapon 3.
    27:36
    I'll tell you, I've put a lot of plays on the one that I have access to, and it's kind of held up for me. It's still enjoyable. I don't play it all the time, but when I do, I'm really reminded about how much I like playing it. Oh, and the other question is, what song do you pick at the beginning of the game?
    28:00
    Oh, it's always everybody dance now. Correct answer. All right. I think everybody picks that. If you ever were getting tired of the game, you could just switch the music and be a brand new game. No. The other ones suck. One's like the generic Lethal Weapon music theme music, which is nothing. And the other one is Sharp Dressed Man, which is like it's a synth version of Sharp Dressed Man. Is that the first music pin? pin, like,
    28:29
    I guess it's not the full song, though, is it? No, and it's like, it's not an actual, like, the C&C Music Factory is the actual, it's a sample from the actual song, it's not like a synth. Everybody dance now!
    28:42
    I mean, that's like, when Daddy said, like, Tommy and Stuff, or Guns N' Roses, that's not a sample of the music. I think that's all simulated, too. I mean, the vocals are, The voices are. The voices, yeah. But, yeah, you're right. Like, you know, do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do. It's like, you know.
    29:03
    One interesting thing, that's the problem with Data East. A lot of other games had, like, the same, like, background generic music.
    29:10
    Like, game to game. Like, you could, like, just play the music for a minute and be like, oh, that's a Data East.
    29:15
    Yeah. You know, as opposed to, like, a Williams game where, like, depending on what the game is, the music's completely different. You know. At least that's what I feel. You play like the game you have there, Zach, Judge Dredd. I mean, it's got its own cool music, but it's totally different. Best music. Yeah, but it's totally different than the music you play, like if you play Lethal Weapon, or if you play Star Trek Next Channel, he's another one of the Super Pin series, or if you're playing Twilight Zone, the music's completely different. But if you play like Jurassic Park, you play a lot of the Daddy's games of that era, it's like it has the same tone. It's like, oh, Daddy's music. yeah it's kind of got like a chunky sort of like raw almost like beat to it it there's something about it you just know it's a day at ease it's like when you open the door on the got lead and it screams oh yeah the got leaves scream everyone in the pinball life you just know the got leaves okay what's the got leaves scream i'm not i'm unaware of the got scream. Is it actually just like every time you turn it on or power it up, it makes that screech? Yeah. They have the stupid interlocks where you open the door and the entire game actually shuts off, not just the high power. So you close the door and it just makes this horrible... It's sort of like the Walking Dead sound, but even worse. Ugh. Damn. It's loud. It's as loud as a knock. Or louder. I think it's louder. Yeah, louder, higher, really shrill. Yeah, it's just like a screech. Hmm. I'm starting to understand Bruce's hate then. I mean, that sounds bad. I find it sort of comforting, though. Like, once you get used to it on a later Gottlieb, you're just like, you know, you turn it on, and it's not like an early start, which is like silence, nothing happens for a while, everything's blank to a boot. Oh, all right. It's not as good as the stern seven bleeps of the later sterns, but still, like, you turn your game and, like, you know the game has turned on. I know what you mean now because, yeah, like, you're at a show and someone has started, like, a four-player game and I got leave and walked away and it's like, oh, I'll just turn it off and back on. And then, like, oh, shit, did I break the game? I've heard that that's actually the reason it was put in was, like, so if someone was, like, rebooting the games or something on location, like, people would be able to know what was happening even if they weren't watching closely the games. Okay. Or something resets something. What's worse? the Gottlieb or the System 11 test report, like 10 consecutive knockers that go off?
    31:57
    I think I would vote it's the Gottlieb. It's just so sharp and it's so loud. And it's just when I'm going around in the morning turning machines on, you click it. It's so loud. And your face is right there, you know, and it's just horrible. It's so high-pitched. I don't think I've actually heard the System 11 thing. Oh, yeah. All my System 11s have worked.
    32:25
    Well, it's also a setting. I think there's a setting to turn off the knocker for a test report. And it was on on my F-14, and I turned it on once. And it, like, literally has, like, ten consecutive knockers. Like, what the? Holy shit. Did the game just break? I mean, you literally think that the game, like, all your coils just locked on simultaneously, when you're in the game fried. It's that loud, because the System 11 knockers are loud as hell as it is. It just scared the hell out of me. Got right into that menu and turned that off. Like, oh my God. That reminds me of, you know, like, Adam's family has, like, its own special super loud knocker assembly on it. That's in the cabinets, isn't it? Yeah, and it uses it for, like, the seance and stuff, like, to make the knocking sound. So I was working on one, like, doing some tech work, and they had disconnected a connector, so one of the pop bumpers would also fire the knocker. Oh, that's funny. And it was just like, you know, it's like you just walk up, you full plunge, and Float Hoss is just like, bam, bam, bam, bam, you know, like super, super loud and just like, get the hell out of here.
    33:34
    I'm not actually going to fix your problem yet. I'm just going to try to figure out why it's knocking right now.
    33:40
    That's like one of those haunted machines that is like, why is this happening? and back to news did we even start news? I talked about the twippies coming soon, the twippies are going to be live from the Texas Pinball Festival this is bizarre so the twippies are for the best of 2018 and they're going to have the awards in March that just seems a little late tiny bit I think they want to make a big presentation out of it but it's like three months after the fact I mean, people probably forget what half the categories are or the games are or anything else. And just to let you know, Zach, there's a high probability that Iron Maiden will win Game of the Year. Oh, yeah, definitely. Sorry, Zach. No, I've already resigned to the fact that just everyone has bad taste. Oh!
    34:34
    I don't know how I can explain it because I just don't get it. Okay. Do you like Thunderbird? I never played it. Okay. I doubt it, but... Good.
    34:46
    I don't know. Maybe I would like it. You wouldn't like it. There's a lot of just hitting the same ramp, like, over and over again. I know you don't like games like that. I stuck at them, too, so... Hmm.
    34:59
    Hmm. Well, how about Pirates? Pirates might, like, get the edge because it was released at the end of the year. Kind of like the Oscars are. You know, the movies at the end of the year tend to win more stuff. what about Beatles as far as I mean it plays great but it plays great because it's Sea Witch yes I mean that's one thing playing a lot of Beatles now okay one thing I gotta go along with Zach here as far as it is so brutally hard because they do not have rubbers on those posts They really need to put rubbers on those posts because I played it. The one at Syracuse, I played the one. The one at Rock Fantasy played better because they actually had a thing jacked up in the back.
    35:48
    And, you know, past this hell. And, like, anything that goes in that area, you're dead. It's unsavable. You can't shimmy it out. You can't bump it out. It just doesn't hit anything. It's gone. I am not liking this trend on the last few sterns to ship them without outlaying rubbers. Like, Deadpool was like that, too. and it's just not good. Like, I get you want to speed up the game times, although for some reason you left them on Iron Maiden, the longest playing of any of these games, but, like, it's just like, oh, well, I'm not going to bother trying to do anything here now because there's no upper, it just rolls right over it. And with Beatles, I mean, you have the whole, like, why don't you explain the super jackpot thing, Zach, that I didn't even know about. I didn't know about either until Hilt Forums told me. So apparently, or so, in Beatles, after you complete a song, it lights a super jackpot on the left target behind the left drops, which is a new thing in Beatles that Sea Witch didn't have. So you have to break down the drops. So first of all, if you manage to hit the target while only, like, one drop is down, you get an extra 100,000 points, which is pretty cool. Like, you can just thread it in between the drops. but if you don't collect the super jackpot and you complete another whole mode and then you collect the super jackpot your previous mode's super jackpot will now be doubled and your last mode will be singled if you do three modes for collecting you get a 3x on the first jackpot a 2x on the second jackpot and a 1x on the third jackpot but what happens if you would need to do this on the same ball right oh yeah because the jackpot does not have memory between balls that's where it gets laughable folks because if someone's played Beatles the thought of someone getting two or three like stacked super, a super hit like no, you are lucky if you get through one song of all it is that hard so the fact that's I don't know, I mean maybe with a looser tilt and you put those buggers back on, it would be more manageable, but like, yeah that game is more brutal than Sea Witch is usually and then on a certain time, like you'll watch people play it. It's like, okay, I'll pick the pop bumpers. Okay, now I'll do loops. Third ball is always going to be the multi-ball. Kind of getting into a pattern thing where it's the same. You're going to see the same songs every time.
    38:12
    But again, the game's hard enough where it's still interesting to me because it is hard, but it's almost too hard. I probably enjoyed it a bit more before I realized you could change the mode on the plunges and your flippers. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
    38:27
    At first when I played, I would just walk up and plunge the ball, and as the ball went up the top, I would say, oh, okay, that's my mode. Okay, let's go. Let's do this.
    38:36
    But a completely free mode choice, I think, is a bit... It lends to just games in general being too linear. That's my worry. If I ever actually got a Garden of Galaxy, I would just play the same exact sequence of modes every single time. So you can just choose any mode at any point. Yeah. There's no lighting or anything. It does get that way. and like, even things like My Dirty Harry, when you have it in tournament mode,
    39:00
    it plays all the modes in order, the same order. So you hear the same things every time. It was like the Ghostbusters thing. You know, you have the different strings and it's always the same order, the same thing. It's like, you know... At least Ghostbusters has like the three separate sets of modes. The three separate sets, yeah. But you should always do the same mode in the stack first. Unlike, say, Star Wars, where you have the four hot dogs, but you also have four different characters. No. Star Wars really mixes it up. There's so many choices. A lot more variety to your play. You know, you can't just repeat the same thing each game. What's the matter, Ashley? You don't know the awesomeness of Star Wars?
    39:38
    No, I do. It's just I know I've seen so many streams of Star Wars where people are like, oh, this is how you have to start this game, and this is how you go through it. And then it's like someone totally different is like, oh, I do this one, and I do this. and then they blow it up, and I'm like, what? You can choose any character and, like, almost any skill shot and still, like, I mean, I really appreciate that, like, there isn't one diehard strategy. Like, I guess what I figured out is, like, you can choose to pick what you're good at. You know, as long as you play it and you know what you're good at, it's, like, if you can find a strategy and think it through, whatever it is, like, you can do that. What I liked about it was just, like, when I was at Zax, like, usually do the Han Solo things, you know, we'll pick this character instead and try this.
    40:36
    Han Solo, High Fiver. What did you have me pick, Zach? Whatever it was, I got, like, five billion doing it. I think it was Luke. Yeah, and I went for the, what is it? The star in the road. Yeah. And like, wow, okay, that was another way of approaching it. It could have been a much better game, but I blew the extra balls, unfortunately. But still. Yeah, you got stuck in lightsaber. Yeah, I got stuck in lightsaber. Oh, it was so annoying. That kills every single high score. Damn, a game that makes you finish something. Oh, how dare it do that. Makes you finish everything. Oh, that's so lame. I just want to time everything out, right? You can time out lightsaber duel. Yeah, but. It won't count as completing it, so you can't get the wizard mode. Yeah, exactly. So you've got to finish it. Oh, whatever. Well, but at least you could, like, hold it off to the last thing. Yeah. Because if the other modes in Star Wars, you can't time them out. You are stuck in them until you finish them, no matter what. And you have to go for it. All right, enough Star Wars. I think people are probably so, like, man, Ron, drink the Kool-Aid. Stop talking about Star Wars. So, yes, the trippies are going to be in March. Did anyone see the collector's edition pictures of Pirates of the Caribbean?
    41:49
    Is that the one of David Jones? It's the one that has barnacles and stuff on it. Yeah. Barnacles. Yeah. Honestly, I didn't, because they had this at Expo two years ago. I wasn't a fan of the barnacle thing.
    42:07
    And looking at it on this game, I'm still not really a fan. I want my lockdown bar and stuff to be smooth. Oh, you're not going to get that. There's starfish and stuff on it. There's a Walking Dead around here that has, like, blood spatters on the lockdown bar, which looks really cool, but my hands always feel weird putting them on the lockdown bar because you can feel the blood spatter paint on top of the whole thing. And, like, I can just picture this barnacle thing being absolutely horrible. You would not like Highway Games then because it always felt a little different because of the way they did the... Ron, what is the number one game on my want list?
    42:45
    I know. Oh, that's right. So you didn't mind it on Alien. No, I didn't really notice it that much. Okay. It is a bit weird that they have that really wide border on the edges.
    42:56
    So I didn't notice it that much. Ashley, did you ever get a chance to play Alien? Let me preface that. Working Alien.
    43:04
    That's like a retro question, right? No, I wish I had one. No, I'm confusing it for another one of your games.
    43:12
    No, I haven't played it. Or I haven't found one that's working. Yeah, I had the worst luck with Alien.
    43:23
    It's tough to match my bad luck with Alien, as far as going to every show that had one, and it would either break right before I got to it, or break while I was playing it. Yeah, well... And it was never the updated version with the better hardware. Or the lighting where I can't see anything, which I'm told by Zach that there's better lighting versions, which would be nice because I couldn't see the ball in the ones I played. Yeah, they're making better LED light stacks for them now. All it takes is, like, one bad experience with a game, or, like, if you play a game you haven't played before in a tournament and you just have a horrible game, it, like, ruins it for the game for you. Yes, Six Million Dollar Man. Yeah, there's one.
    44:07
    I try to never base any opinions on, especially playing games at shows or something, just like you're not going to have the experience that you would in any other situation like that. So I'm looking at these pictures, and there's lots of barnacles on it. And also, they switched the playing field artwork, which is something that you don't normally see on different editions of games. Yes, they did. They did. So you get to stare right at Davy Jones, gorgeous mug, all the time you're playing. And that's pretty much the same as it was two years ago when they had it at Expo. They had the two different versions, and it was Davy Jones' face and the barnacles. So it really hasn't changed. Yeah, there's a reason they're not sold out yet.
    44:48
    Huh. I got an email from Pinball Star, I think, like, hey, we've got, you know, Christmas sales, and, oh, we still have a Pirates of the Caribbean CE edition. I'm like, yeah. Yeah. You will. What are they again? They're like $15,000.
    45:04
    I think it's like $10,000, but yeah. Yeah. They're really expensive. Yeah. Oh, they have the Tokyo Perfect Drift game we talked about last week. Did you get to see that one, Ashley?
    45:18
    No. You can appreciate the great artwork on it. The great artwork if you like the classic butt side boob art shot, because it uses a lot of that. Yeah.
    45:30
    Awesome. let's see just going through here ifa announces whopper formula change which i don't really pay attention maybe did you do you look at this back here you're the man i heard about it and i still don't understand the whopper formula i feel like it's just made up well it is made up but not that kind of made up but it is yeah i've never been able to follow like how tgp is calculated or anything. I just assume that if some people show up to an event and they play pinball for a while, and then you beat them all, you might get a few points. If you take second, you'll get absolutely nothing because it falls off drastically.
    46:11
    And that's about all I know about TGP. Do you know what I know about IPA? The state championships that are upcoming, now that we're at the end of the year, we have a situation where because of the dollar fee, the states that have the most action are going to have the most money available. So I guess New York State, and I'm sure you got the same email that I got from the New York State representative. Oh, yeah. It's like what? It's like $2,000-something available for the SDS for New York. So I was thinking like it is $2,355. So I was thinking like, hmm, I wonder what Washington's is because they have the most, I mean, And they have tournaments every hour, seemingly. On every block. So it's like, how many do they have? And it's like over $4,000. Yeah. $1,300 to the winner of Washington. So when Raymond Davidson probably wins, he will get $1,300.
    47:16
    Meanwhile, the winner in New York will only get $660. Well, even better. You know, I haven't qualified for any of these states yet. I'm getting something from New York, which is funny. But, and, oh, yeah, they're taking the 24 instead of the 16, but that's only for states with a lot of action. Is that how that works? Yeah, I think it's if enough events are run or enough people play in them or something like that, you reach some threshold, and they bump you from 16 to 24 players. Because I remember you mentioning, like, you're probably going to Sunshine for the SES, and I'm, like, I'm looking, like, you're 22nd, And, like, everyone above you will probably play in it. How are you going to make it? And it's like, oh, that's how. Well, I mean, even, like, last year I think I was around 22nd. I made it into the 16 anyway. Like, with room to spare. Yeah, but I was looking at the list. Most of the people are NYC or people that would actually play there. A lot of them. But I assume then, like, a few people won't. Yeah, yes. I'm still, like, ninth in Maine. So I'm like, huh. So I could play in Maine. So I wonder how much they are. So how much do you think Maine is? How much money do you think they got for the year? They got a world of dollars. Make a guess. We'll do it like Price is Right style. Who's closest without going over?
    48:32
    I'm going to say $450. I was going to go about $600. $308. Oh, dang. Yay. In January, they had a whopping $12 come into the prize pool.
    48:47
    Yeah. So that means the finals, which... They got to an amazing $66. The finals that will either be at Arcadia or JR's, where Pin Mania was, is like a four and a half to five hour drive to go play a single elimination four out of seven match where I could lose four games and be eliminated.
    49:09
    You're guaranteed a minimum of $6.12. Isn't that awesome? I could win $6.12? That's, I'm sure that would pay for my gas money. No, I'm sure that would pay for my hotel. He'll give you a giant, you know, foam check with the six-foot foam on it. You know, directly from Josh Sharp signed. Oh, that's so bad. No, they'll pay it to you, like, in coins, like in tokens. There you go. Only in tokens. Oh, man, that's just like, damn, I guess it pays to be in the right state. That'd be a long drive home. Yeah, but one thing it will, I think, stop is you had a lot of your better players who would purposely play weaker states to win, and now those states are not going to have the payout. So we'll see if they care more about money or actually winning.
    50:02
    Yeah. So let's see what else we got here for that day. It's interesting. I haven't gotten an email from Massachusetts.
    50:09
    Or is New York just ahead of the schedule on things? Oh, I haven't gotten anything from Maine either. New York is probably ahead of the schedule.
    50:16
    Let's see. We also had Munsters is on the line. I don't know if Stern just purposely put the picture in there, but they showed Primus is being made, and in the background you can see a guy working on a Munsters. It's on the line. I don't know about that because they said that they were announcing the next pinball mid-January, I believe, or mid-February. So I don't know if it was a legitimate mistake or not. Yeah, and they also had the guy that was on the Munsters saying that, like, it wasn't going to be revealed until the Texas Pinball Festival, which I can't see them waiting four months to reveal the thing when it's obviously ready. I mean, it's on the line. And the rumors were they're making them for Europe right now. So we'll see it soon enough. Well, I mean, the pictures were out. A lot of us have seen it already. You'll see it when you go to Texas, I'm sure. You know, us Plebeians in the upper states of New York might have to wait a bit longer.
    51:24
    Or I might just already be at the local bar for all we know. Come on. I mean, realistically, New York, I mean, if you're in New York City, you're going to see all the new games. I mean, they were one of the first to see Beatles. They're one of the first to see everything. Because they have Sunshine that buys all the LE games and stuff. They're crazy. The amount of stuff they get to play there. They got a freaking Supreme there. Yeah, but New York City isn't New York. That's why we have a separate finals. Oh, that is true. That is true. There's New York City and then there's Upstate.
    51:56
    How are you doing in the Upstate rankings? I have no shot at that whatsoever. Let's find out. I have no shot at that because I did not play in Buffalo. and I do not yeah that's about how it went that the reason I would I got in the previous so many years is because I would play in the Buffalo Open and I would always qualify for classics then usually get a couple rounds in into the finals and I would get a lot of good points but I did not go this year how are you ranking Zach? in upstate New York I am 10th which I would and I wonder how many people ahead of me did not play in the Buffalo Open It might just be Jerry.
    52:37
    And the thing is, where is the upstate going to be? Like, has that been decided? I don't know. If only we could ask our upstate representative. Bruce? Bruce. Okay. Bruce? No. Darn. You know, and the funny thing is about this email, about the New York State Championship invitation, I like when Francesco is the ref. He sends it out, and then everyone does reply all on it. So I get to see everyone's response, and it's like, why are you doing reply all? Not everyone has done it this time Well one just literally just came in That what it popped up on my screen It like oh you know like I won be going It like that wonderful Don reply all
    53:19
    Sorry. That's a pet peeve of mine. Just like we had someone at work. There was an email that came out and she replied like, that's right, bitches. I think she thought it was just the one individual person, but it was an all staff. And we were just like, oh, that's pretty funny. Sorry. I just, yeah.
    53:40
    She was hiding herself the rest of the day. Iron Maiden toppers are out. They look pretty cool. It looks like any third-party topper to me.
    53:52
    Is it interactive at all? Like, do we know? Is it just a piece of plastic? Does it spin? You mean as cool as the R2-D2 one that will never come out would do? the one definitely just looks like artwork the other one does have his head it looks like a 3D like piece I would hope it does something and the Stern website got a new look which I haven't seen yet so I'm going to open up the page right now this is my first look at Stern's new website so have either of you two seen Stern's new website I'm typing it in right now sternpinball.com
    54:33
    come on internet. Whoa. They put their newest release, like, just front and center in your face. This doesn't look that different to me. I don't actually think it looks that different. I like this nice, like, listing of the last three, like, you know, with, like, the slash, like, sideways images in the middle there. Yeah. Pretty snazzy. I like how you scroll all the way down, and you have, like, the merch photos. You know, that's new. That's new. It looks cleaner. It looks more fun.
    55:09
    Large font. And Jack Danger is dressing as a champion, obviously. Yeah, Jack Danger is wearing his Sterns Ball shirt.
    55:21
    Very cool. I think I would say established 1986. Yeah, that's when Daddy East came out of his shop liver. Pretty much, yes. as far as... That's old Sturm. That's classic Sturm. They just steal their designs and stick them in the Deadpool background, but they don't acknowledge them at all.
    55:44
    Let's see. Yeah, it looks nice. I just... The very first, like when you open up the first page, I think it's scrolling through the games a little too quick for me. Like it's literally one, two, three, four, exactly five seconds. I might have been maybe eight seconds. I mean, it's just a minor thing. I think when they were designing it, they were looking at it as like a full-length page rather than when you type it in, it comes up and you see it because, you know, half of the pinball is like cut off. It just doesn't look like it's fit as well on the page.
    56:25
    But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the mobile version that you would see on your phone is a little bit more simple. bit. Well, just one thing for sure. I'm sure if you're looking at it in Microsoft Edge, it probably looks terrible. I just had to insert Microsoft Edge. I'm sorry. Does anyone here use Edge? Does anyone use Edge?
    56:45
    We hate that at work. Why? Why would you use that? It'll be dead soon. Don't worry. Interview with Brian Eddy that Bruce really wanted to have, we lost out on that one. Special and Led had it. It's unfair. They're in Chicago. They just go right to them and interview them. It's not fair. It's only because we've got a Chicago correspondent. We do, but he doesn't talk to us anymore. He doesn't talk to us. He doesn't want to be on the podcast. He doesn't want to do podcasts. I think he thinks he'll get in trouble. He doesn't do the podcast. He just has to connect the other people to the podcast. It's not like he works there or anything. Yeah, but we still have you there. Timmy, come on. You could just chill stern for the entire two hours. We have no problem. You could just, like, photobomb, but just, like, sit down at the lunch table and just be like, Hey, guess what? You're on the Slam Tote Podcast. And just leave your phone there and run. Just give us a finger.
    57:40
    Did you know the band Ghost wants a pinball machine? I did. Is anyone here familiar with the band Ghost? I listen to Ghost. I know Steve Keeler, the world-famous rock fantasy does, because he's been to several of their concerts, because I know from his Facebook pictures. So their gimmick is they wear, like, is this the one where it's, like, the lead singer's the only guy that's the same, and it's just different dudes behind masks? Well, you don't know if they're different or not because they're behind masks. I think the Wikipedia says they're different guys behind masks because I think they suit them. One set of dudes suit them. Yeah. But, like, it could be multiple other sets or one other set behind them now.
    58:20
    But, yeah, everyone except him wears a mask, and, well, actually, he also sometimes wears a mask. But what kind of music would you say they play, Zach?
    58:29
    Softcore occult metal, I guess. Softcore occult metal. Okay. Occult metal. Softcore occult metal. All right.
    58:39
    They want their own pinball machine. Give them one. It works pretty well. Cool. Hey, Spooky, here you go. This is custom-made for you right here, man. Do a band from this millennium. It might help. Yeah, there really is no bands from this millennium. There you go. We got two millennials on the line. What do you want to see? What bands would you like to see? What themes would you like to see? Oh, no. I don't want to see any more bands. I'm sick of it. I want something fun. that I just feel like with these bands, it's like they're, I almost feel like they're restricting themselves in terms of who they're marketing to, like Aerosmith. Obviously you have to, if you don't like Aerosmith, you're not going to buy the game. You know, it's just like they need more appeal, something more fun. The music pins are fun, but like they've been doing a lot of them recently. Yeah. A lot. Like, hopefully they, like, hold off for a while, and then, like, one every two years, you know, or two and a half years would be good. You know, my dream theme is, of course.
    59:59
    Yes, Ron. There's only one theme, baby. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Beavis and Butthead needs to happen. It needs to happen. That's the fun I'm looking at. I mean, it is fun. The fact is it's stupid. Yeah, it's pretty stupid. It's pretty stupid. I don't think you can argue with that part. Well, yes, but that's the point. I feel like if Beavis and Butthead was produced, it would be manufactured by Data East.
    60:28
    And it wouldn't be very good either. No, it would be like South Park. It would be a big, like, blood-head figurine or something. Oh, God, it would probably suck. Gottlieb would have never produced that. No, no, that would not have fit their family-friendly image. that would have been a dead at east and they would have had a thick like track to it it would have been awesome but like i mean it's perfect in that you only have to get one guy one guy does like every damn voice on the show it's it's like the cheapest thing you just need mike judge that's all you need it's not like simpsons where you need all these like we can only afford three of them okay so we can't use any of these other characters so because about it so what's your theme zach What's the perfect Zach theme? I've seen mention that someone's going to do a Scooby-Doo, and I'm like, I would never have thought of a Scooby-Doo theme being interesting, but I did watch a ton of Scooby-Doo as a kid. I would probably enjoy it. I mean, if it was done well, of course, but that's definitely a theme that my ears would go like, oh, I'll keep an eye on that versus a lot of the certain themes. I'm just like, Scooby-Doo-Doo, where are you? Ooh, what's that? And it would have to have the Mystery Machine somewhere. Yeah, and there'd have to be a Mystery Machine in there, definitely. That's the one thing that absolutely has to be in there. And no Scrappy-Doo, please. No Scrappy-Doo. I want classic Scooby-Doo. Just make sure they'll have, like, Scooby-Doo and then, like, the new version of Scooby-Doo, like, I forget what it's called. And they'd have, like, the LE version would be the live Scooby-Doo movies. That would be terrible.
    62:10
    Oh, no, no, no. So I just was, you know, as a kid I was confused by that show because, like, they had the original run where, like, the ghosts are not ghosts, they're people, and they capture them in the end. You know, I would have got away with it if it wasn't for you meddling kids. And then all of a sudden, like, there's Scrappy-Doo and the ghosts are real. And I confused that. I remember when they switched it over to the ghosts being real. Yeah. I was like, uh. And then the stage in between where they had the celebrities. Like, Scooby-Doo meets the Globetrotters. And I had no idea who they were. I'm a little kid. Like, Scooby-Doo meets Sonny and Cher. Who are they? Sonny, you know, Scooby-Doo meets Mama Cass. Like, who is that? I have no idea who these people are. What is this? I would definitely look at a Scooby-Doo machine, though, and, like, it would have to end every single mode with them unveiling the guy and him yelling, I would have gotten away from you if it wasn't these meddling kids. And then, like, as the whole total show. Yep. You could have it like Rocky and Bullwinkle where he pulls them out of a hat, you know, Action back glass. Let's bring it back. Yeah. And then somehow do a – combine it with a hologram so it's a different head.
    63:18
    Yeah, technology. That'll never break. Stern's getting a phone call tomorrow. I'm sure they are. I'm going to call them. Well, I'm sure, you know, Stern employees are listening right now. They're right now. We're in that shit down. Yeah, we got to take them out of the hat. We can reuse the Mac. We probably still have it for Rocky Bullwinkle because we love reusing Macs. Copyright 2018, Swamp Toad Podcast. Yeah. Yeah, just put it out there. I mean, really, they did the transporter effect, and they did it. It's pulling out the hat. Just combine them. Boom. I'm sure that they are just filling up every notepad that they have in that factory. I'm sure. In the second floor of the office area were all the magic happens.
    64:03
    Oh, what do we got here? Going back down the stack a bit, we still have more news of the week, don't we? Like what? I'm just finishing up here the news of the week. So what's the other news? Or do you mean my specific news? Your specific news. Okay, yeah, okay. Just things I remember us talking about. All right. Well, this weekend, I went to the Rock Fantasy Beatles launch party and got to play a lot, a lot of Beatles. And a bit of Sea Witch. They were right next to each other. And when you play them like, yep, this is the same game. And you can see the little things like, okay, they made that a little wider. That's why the loop shot's easier now. Okay. But, I mean, it's the same game. It's a layout more than the lack of the weird flap thing on the entrance. See, here's the thing. I miss the ability, like on Sea Witch,
    65:04
    you can do the thing where you go under the flipper and it goes back into the shooter lane. you can't do that on Beatles because it has a big one-way gate there. Yeah. I actually don't like that. I would prefer if the gate was removed. In general, I feel like shooter lanes are always an underutilized aspect of the play field. Like, you have, like, literally, like, at least, like, 5% to 10% of your play field being taken up by a shooter lane that you just use once per ball. I mean, my issue, my thing about playing Beatles is, like, When you get in the modes, like, where you're looping, you know, the beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep around the loop there. But if you have it on the left flipper, it's like, okay, I can loop the other way, but then what? It's going to hit that upper left flipper, and what do I do with it? That's the safest way to get it back to the right so I can loop the way I want. I try to just shoot it into the pops from the upper left flipper every time. Okay. Pretty much. Because I was trying to, like, leave it up. It hits drop targets. It's, you know, try to, like, actually try to flip it the other way and get it to go to the other upper right flipper.
    66:08
    I don't know. I couldn't figure out exactly what to do when I'm looping it the other way. Meanwhile, on Steel Edge, you just never hit that shot, so it's okay.
    66:18
    Well, this one, you could actually hit a repeatable loop shot. Of course, from the left to the right, no. No. Yeah. Like, even if you manage to shoot that shot, the spin is going to take a little momentum out of the ball. Yeah. I like Beatles' new Opto Spinners, which are super cool. I like them. Yeah. We need another good spinner game. You know, like, now that we have the Opto Spinners and everything, we could do a good spinner game. I just want... Like, every mode you complete adds another million points to the value of the spinner. Yeah. Million? When do you start ripping the spinners off? Yeah. Just ripping a good spinner is the best. I want a game with all spinners. Like, what was the last game with a good spinner? Like, was it Johnny Mnemonic? You mean where it's actually worth something, or you actually hit it? A spinner that you rip, and it actually can be made worth valuable amounts of points.
    67:13
    Well, TNA has the super spinner. It's not worth much. Well, kudos to George Gomez's slight little tweaks on that for the second spinner.
    67:27
    Like, where it is, it's really good. You can actually backhand it, too. I like where that is. I like the, you know, the super jackpot target on that whole thing. That was cool. Would you own it, Ron? Money aside, is it worth a spot in your basement?
    67:43
    Yeah. Not mine, because I already have a Sea Witch now down there, which actually my dad's Sea Witch. But it's like, if that was priced like a pro, if that was priced like a pro, or maybe a little more, that would have been my father's Christmas present. Because he is, I mean, he has all the Beatles albums. That's how I heard all the Beatles songs from him. And instead you just got him a Metallica. Yeah, I brought a Metallica over there.
    68:08
    But I mean, like when we would go on pinball, when we go on pinball trips, I mean, if he played Beatles albums, I mean, he knows every song, not just the hits, which on the earlier Beatles albums, almost every song is a hit. But still, songs like Michelle, which is half of it's sung in French, and he's singing the French parts because he knows all the French words. It's like he is full on into Beatlemania. They were his group growing up. So to have that game, and he would totally dig that game. Yeah.
    68:40
    I got there early before the tournament started, and I was scared at first because they posted a picture of them updating Beatles to the latest code. and I could tell from the picture it was in Rock Fantasy. It was sitting next to their attack from Mars. I know exactly where it is. So I go into Rock Fantasy, and the Beatles isn't there. Like, um, shit. They'll tell me it's at the bowling alley already, because they had two parts of the event.
    69:07
    The first part was the launch party, or just the regular tournament, which was at Rock Fantasy and Taft, and then the second part was at a bowling alley. So did they move Beatles to the bowling alley? I go over to Taft, and there's Beatles. Like, oh, thank God. so I got to play and I played a ton of it the thing the other thing about it if you're going to have a game that plays that hard they had it we mentioned the tilt at Rock Fantasy before tend to be a little loose I think there's a new sheriff in town because that was not the case the game worked tight and Beatles was too tight on a game with no post rubbers and it's a buck to play to have it that tight. Like, you hit the flipper button too hard. Warning.
    69:53
    So it was the same as the one in Syracuse, pretty much? Yes. Yep. Yeah. That is a bit too tight. It's a little too tight.
    70:01
    If Ron Hallett thinks it's too tight, it's too tight. So you agree, Ashley? Oh, totally. When we went to Syracuse for league night, I, and we played it at Tapper's, Trapper's, I, like, slapped it. Like, I didn't even slap it hard. I just gave it, like, a little love tap, and it just, it was like, warning. I hate that. I hate the love tap warning. I probably do that more than most people I know, just hitting the flipper button so hard. I just get warning. Yeah. It's like, I like to keep my tilt pretty loose. I like to kind of move a machine when I want to. I'm not going to break it. They're very hard to break. And the Rock Fantasy Beatles launch party, I had a, I think I mentioned, my company's holiday party was the same day. So it's like, am I going to go to one or the other? So I decided I'm going to try both.
    71:02
    Yeah. Because they made an important, the match play one was from one to six with no finals. It's like, ah. So there's a hard cutoff. So if I leave at six, I can get to the holiday party by like eight. Yeah. Something weird happened, though. I ended up playing well, and I was in the top group like almost every group. And so was Steph, the pinball princess.
    71:26
    We were kind of in the final four or the final eight, like the last couple rounds. And we get to the last round, and I had to haul ass and get out of there because we played Beatles in the last, so it was a quick game, but everyone else was still finishing up and I had to get out. So I told them, like, whatever I win, just donate it to Project Pinball, which ended up being, like, $20. I ended up, like, third.
    71:53
    But it's like, don't you want a translate or something? It's like, I'm good. But, Ron, I've got to ask, will you win the money? Yeah. Because I know you would. Yeah, I want $20. Well, Project Pinball. As Chris is standing, I need to ask that question. Yes. Yes, I was cashing.
    72:09
    And Roger Pinball was cashing. And the Translight they had was, they actually had like an Iron Maiden Translight, which would have been cool. As opposed to, you know, when I win like Wheel of Fortune Translights or World Poker Tour Translights. Wrestling. Oh, yeah. Although I did get a Batman LE Translight the one time. That was nice. Batman 66.
    72:31
    That's nice. That was nice. That's the best Translight I have. That I've won. I'm sure if Zach won the Iron Maiden Translate, he would refuse to take it. Well, the only trance I'd ever won was Kiss.
    72:46
    And what'd you do with it? I gave it away. Gave it away? You didn't even sell it? You just gave it to somebody? No, I have a friend who likes the Kiss game, so I gave him the Kiss Translate. What a nice guy. I don't want it. They hang it up on my walls. They're already so covered in artwork and stuff. Yeah, sure they are. So I get out of Rock Fantasy and I get to the holiday party. That goes well. And to my surprise, they have three pinball machines there. If you remember last week, we tried to guess what they would be. And I'm trying to remember. I know Bruce guessed Roller Coaster Tycoon.
    73:26
    I think I guessed Terminator 2. I don't remember what you guessed. I don't remember what I guessed either. No. So the games that were there were a Simpsons pinball party. Because you love, you never see those around. Yeah, you never see those around. And it played better than the one that's in our league, which is nice. It was on five ball, but had no ball saver.
    73:49
    Doesn't it not have ball saver by default? Is that like a Keith Johnson thing? No, it has like a short ball saver, I believe. I mean, it's literally had no ball saver. Either that could be our league Either way it was on 5 ball Which is weird because the other two games were not on 5 ball They were on 3 ball Second game was Jurassic Park Which had some kind of bizarre I don't know maybe they put the wrong number of balls in it It seemed to be getting confused frequently As to how many balls were in play Jurassic Park The better one The one without the total The mech from hell So Yeah.
    74:28
    So that, and the right flipper was all weird, but, I mean, it played. Played fine. Except for, you know, being a multi-ball when I only have one ball. Cool.
    74:39
    And the third game was Roller Coaster Tycoon. Ding, ding, ding. Mm-hmm. And that played fine also. The funny thing about Roller Coaster Tycoon is I recognized several of the initials in there, including Alberto, my nemesis. His initials were in there.
    74:58
    And they had it down in the, they called it the library area. Man, it was so hot. It was ridiculously hot in that room. I eventually had to leave. I don't know.
    75:08
    Wow. And they had two video games, but they were like, one was like a main thing, and the other one was like a mini.
    75:16
    And those were in constant use, so I didn't get a chance to, you know, show off my track and field skills or anything, or my Gallagher skills. but that was cool to see three actual games there so that was the holiday party then there was yesterday well we're recording Tuesday we were supposed to record Monday but Ron had a change of plan because he decided to go to the Sanctum holiday party this is the same Sanctum that has the 24 hour tournament and I had a very enjoyable time. Was there way too late? Steph at Pinwall Princess was also there. Way too late? Yeah, we were probably the two furthest away people, and we stayed till the end, meaning like 2 in the morning, which is way too late when you have to drive two hours home. So I got home at like 4 a.m. That's kind of stupid, but hey. and we were streaming Viper from like 2-1 in the morning, which was crazy. They played stall ball on Viper, which was interesting.
    76:24
    So I'm thinking like... So that was in the turret, is it still? The turret or if you lock it. Oh, yeah, well, that doesn't happen, so... Well, no, someone locked the ball. But the turret was because you have to sit there and wait and make sure it stays in the turret before you run away. And the next person comes up, you know, reverse turret, fire. Then we're trying things with the turret, like, can you do a suicide turret? And you can. You can wait until the turret comes all the way around and just shoot it right down the middle. I've always been curious, how does the ball not fall out when it's playing downwards? Yes. The same exact thing I was thinking of. Like, how does that not fall out? Ingenious, stern engineering. That's how.
    76:59
    All right. That explains it. Trying to think what else. I mean, there was tons of food there. Oh, yeah. And then they had a knockout tournament, which I was late for, so I had an instant strike. But I got pretty far into it. I got eliminated on stars.
    77:14
    But the thing is, there was a certain person that's on this podcast who was happy to see me go to this party.
    77:20
    And I'm sure he can tell us why. It was really convenient because then I didn't have to go to the Sanctum. Well, you're in Rochester, so that would have been a long freaking trip to go to the Sanctum. Yeah, it would. So what was at the Sanctum that tickled your fancy? There was a pinball machine there.
    77:38
    There's 48 pinball machines there, but yes, which one? And one of them is not there anymore. and it is a two-player game, which really narrows it down. Hmm. Ashley, guess what two-player solid-state game is no longer at the Sanctum?
    77:54
    Oh. Oh, I don't know. That actually probably really narrows it down. Asteroid Annie? That's one player. Oh, damn it. I wonder how many two-player solid-states there even are.
    78:06
    Stars. Supposedly some models could be set to that. Yeah, and Stingray. They could do that. Yeah. We'll give you a clue.
    78:16
    Are you familiar with T-Dolph? I'm very familiar with T-Dolph. And T-Dolph has a little feature in the center of the play field, underneath it.
    78:27
    The little wheel. Well, that's the clue, because this game also has it. I guess Roaring Twenties would be another clue.
    78:37
    T-Dolph just has never played this game. That's true. It's kind of unfair if you've never played it. They're like, why can't you name this game you've never seen or played?
    78:44
    What game was it, Zach? It was Valley Speakeasy. No, I don't know this machine. Now, why do you, you know, Zach will fall in love with play field elements, and he likes the wheel, and also has the flip things. Well, I don't like the wheel. My dad likes the wheel. Oh, okay. Give him a wheel. It's thinner. But I've got a fantastic. I've got Super Score.
    79:12
    I thought I had another one, but I can't actually think of it offhand. I've got at least three games with a little roulette spinner thing in them. But the thing that I always liked about it is it has a button labeled Sacrifice in capital letters. Extra flipper buttons in general are always cool. It means something interesting is going on in that game beyond the norm.
    79:33
    You know, Mag Save or Extra Flippers or Sacrifice. The play field itself is interesting in what it's made of. Yeah, some kind of resin or something? Yeah the resin play field So I got some words of advice from Jim from the Sanctum Make sure you don strip anything out If you do you going to have to have some kind of epoxy or something to put in there Oh yeah And the wear that's on the play field is the one insert, I think it's the 60 insert, like, the light below it is always on, even in track mode. So the insert basically heats up, and then it's sunk, and that's why that's the only wear. Is it not supposed to be? on all the time? No, it is. It is by... It's like the nine-ball arrow. Yeah. Yep, the nine-ball arrow up on top that always, like, just melts or, like, misshapes the insert because it's always on. Yep. So, same thing. So, that's, like, really the only wear on the playfield is from that. All right, so, Ron, can you name any other two-player solid states since we're here?
    80:35
    Um, Stars and Stingray. There. I win. Nope, nope. You just said name one. I did. I win. Those are two or four players in the count. Oh. Oh, man. Solid state? Yeah. Well, EMs, it's easy. Well, yeah. A ton of EMs. Because there's only ten.
    80:57
    Ten different... Oh, okay. And three of them are Rav and G, so we'll just ignore those. Oh. Wow. We'll ignore that. So that's down to one, two, three, four, five games possible. Speakeasy is one of them. There's one more Bally and the rest are Williams I don't know I'm sorry We got Defender was a two player game? Really? It's one of those cost cutting Like Time Fantasy Yeah they're trying to cut down on that stuff Then we also got Joust So any video game Re-theme into the pinball Is a two player And a hard con Oh, Varkon. Okay. And Baby Pac-Man. Oh, that game sucks. Yeah. Another video game, too. No. They're all video game things. I'm trying to remember, because they had... The ones with pinball video games. They had the one... Is Baby Pac-Man the one that's just a video game with pinball elements? What do you mean, pinball elements? It's like a little... It's like a pinball within, like, an arcade cabinet, almost. Yeah. Yeah, because there's one that's more of a video game. Like, you're playing the video game, and then when you go to certain areas, it just activates the pinball part. And you play it for a little while, and then you go back to the video game. Yeah, that's Baby Pac-Man is the one you're thinking of. Yeah, because there's another one that's actually pinball. That one has the grid that you can actually play on. Yeah. I'd like to play one of those sometimes just to see what is going on, even.
    82:40
    That grid. suck is going on. That's what's going on. All right. So, man, I'm going through. Oh, Beatles. A little interesting tidbit with the Beatles.
    82:52
    Oh, I forgot to say, the winner of the launch party, or the first part, the match play at Rock Fantasy, was Steve Keeler, the owner himself, was the victor.
    83:02
    And the winner of the Beatles part, the part that was at the bowling alley, was Ed Zeltman won. I believe it's his fourth consecutive one he's won.
    83:13
    So he is on a hot streak. But Mr. Keeler gave me a little tidbit about the Beatles code. There's something in the code, like most of the Stern games, you can set the date and time on it. So if you are between Christmas, like if you were in December, leading up to Christmas, it will play Beatles like Christmas quotes.
    83:36
    I heard that. Yeah, like you'll just like, hi, this is Ringo from the Beatles. Merry Christmas or something like that. I heard a couple of those when I'm playing. It's like, huh? I'm going to do it tomorrow. I'm going to look at it. Yeah, I think Keyleth said like every 10 quotes or something like that from them, it'll be like at the end of the game, it'll be a Christmas one. Do you think after Christmas those quotes with the date change will just stop? Supposedly. Supposedly it's in the code to do it during a certain date. So I wonder if they're going to do like, are they like ones for Thanksgiving? Oh, this is Paul. Thanksgiving.
    84:23
    Happy New Year. Is he going to say Happy New Year to you? Happy President's Day. Oh, gosh. Thanks, Josh.
    84:30
    Hello, this is Joel. Happy President's Day. Oh, I can't do a British accent. I can't do their British accent. Let's put it that way.
    84:37
    I want this to be a real thing, but every day it just, like, does, it says something, something different. Yeah, I want, like, you can put your birthday in there, and it just tells you happy birthday on your birthday.
    84:49
    Yes. You know, who should really be doing this? Jersey Jack, you're at the forefront of the home model games. I mean, your games are basically for people's homes. Have all kinds of stuff like that. You put your birthday in. It does, like, the characters in the game, happy birthday.
    85:06
    Because that's what they did for, I believe, Batman, the, whatever, $15,000 one. There's, like, custom speech for, because they had the names of all the Super LE owners. So they had Adam West say their names. So now the games will actually say them, their names. Yeah. So if Zack paid 15 grand, he could have Adam West saying, you know, hello, Zack, to Batmobile or something.
    85:33
    Get in the Batmobile, Zack. Because you want to live. Come to the Batmobile if you want to live. It's only Terminator 2. Come with me. That would be good. Come with me if you want to live, Zack. I'd like to see a Terminator pinball machine.
    85:53
    Wait a minute. they did that. There's two of them. No, there's Terminator 2 and 3. I want Terminator.
    86:01
    Was it The Terminator? Yeah, you're correct. It was The Terminator. So you want to see The Terminator. Yeah, I want to see The Terminator, the pinball machine, just to complete the trifecta. So in that game, you're trying to blow him up instead of him being on your side. Yeah. Okay. And he could, like, shoot here and here, but he just pointed at, like, death targets. Is this your dream machine? No. But I think it'd be cool.
    86:31
    You know what time it is? It's time for the mailbag. I can't get the comment. Maybe Zach will do it. It's time for the mailball bag, Zach.
    86:39
    Oh, my. I don't know. Actually, I'm glad you don't want to make any of the weird sound effects he makes. I think I could. No. And you shouldn't either. You should not. Okay, this one is from... Greg. Hi, Greg. Hi, fellas. You asked me to write back about my EM expert suggestion last week. Oh, yeah, when we were wondering if he meant you or if he meant Nick. He said, I wasn't thinking of any guests in particular. While I don't collect or repair or even play EMs outside of tournaments, why not? I would love to hear someone talk about them occasionally the same way you guys do, about solid states, which are the good, the bad, and why, repair tips, et cetera. what are good EMs, Zach? What makes a good EM? Most other EM people will disagree with me on this stuff, because they all like Gottlieb, so. Well, except Nick. Yeah, oh, there's like a new, like, the new EM faction that's coming up is less Gottlieb-focused, it seems. But despite owning, like, 26 EMs right now, I'm not actually much into the whole EM scene or anything. Like, I have to ask other EM people, like, is this a good game? Like, is this even a game I should know? Like, I just, I don't know anything besides from the ones that I've already seen somewhere else. Hmm. Any EM favorites, Ashley? Um, there's a lot of really great EMs out there. There are a lot of EMs out there. There's a lot of EMs out there. There's a lot of, hmm, dang, I'm just thinking of, like, every, you know, show I've been to or place I've been where I've been like, oh, this is cool, oh, this is cool. Just because everything is really simple. It tends to be much more simple than any solid state that you're going to come across, and, like, the artwork is always so strong.
    88:38
    Jeez, there's just too many. There's a lot. One thing I learned going to the Pacific Pinball Expo is, my God, there's a lot of EMs. That's, like, the most EMs I've ever seen in one show. The other problem with EMs, like, shows are the easiest place to play a bunch of them, but most EMs don't play that good anymore, because most EMs have not been rebuilt at all or anything. They don't play the way that a fully rebuilt new EM plays. Yeah, they're not at the exact level. Like, I streamed Spanish Eyes this past week, and my center pop-up, between the flippers pop-up, it's not popping to my satisfaction.
    89:23
    It's already been partially rebuilt, actually, by Zach. Yeah, but didn't help much. No, I'm really thinking it's the switch, because the switch was so burnt together, if you remember, when you tried to get it close, it was actually sticking, because it just goes burnt. Yeah. So, I'm thinking maybe I should get, like, a Gottlieb one and then Frankenstein it into that. Well, no, you don't want a Gottlieb one because the Gottlieb ones aren't high enough current because they didn't do DC pop bumpers. Then what do I get? Because, you know, I know Pinball Resource has blades, but none of them have the actual nubs on them. You'd have to, like, have a rivet press or some way to put them in. They have what they claim are high-current ones, high-current contacts that you could rivet in. Even those, I doubt, are the high-current specialty ones that Williams, like, they have a specific card on the bottom of the franchise playfield that says, like, This uses new special alloy contacts for the pop bumpers. So you're saying I'm screwed.
    90:18
    I'm saying you need to, like, find a used EM plate field. Well, somebody out there, please, one of our listeners, help me. Help me. I want to get a new switch if it's possible. Or I could swap. I could swap with one of the other pop bumpers. Yeah, I mean, the lower center is the most important one. Yeah. He also says, Greg also says, thanks for the advice on the nine ball bulb assemblies, like the light boards. I have an order on the way. Excellent.
    90:48
    Let's see, we have Howdy Slam Tilters. This is from Fighter. That's actually his FYTR. This is Howdy Slam Tilters, long time listener here. Big thanks for all the entertaining episodes over the last few years. I hope there is more Slam Til coming in 2019, maybe monthly. We'll see. Let's see. This really isn't going to work because this is all, like, getting on Bruce's case, and he's not here to defend himself. Even better. Yeah, you can play the role of Bruce then. Top five reasons Bruce should love, love, love TNA.
    91:23
    He's fresh and hip on the inside and old and classic on the outside. I think it's pretty fresh and hip on the outside, too, personally. He doesn't like TNA. No, he hates it. I mean, he has his reasons. like, it's not just like arbitrary hatred here. He doesn't like all the hot glue and everything else and all that stuff. Yeah, I like the game's not being made of foam. You know, it's definitely an improvement. It's an on-the-fly player's dream. Rarely much of an opportunity to trap up, that's for sure. It's the opposite of on-the-fly players, because everything's so close you're gonna die if you, like, flail at all. It has a total immersion factor, unlike any other game with its pounding soundtrack and light show and massive adrenaline rush. It has to be loud, though.
    92:13
    I agree. I finally put the new speaker cable in there, as suggested by Spooky, and it seems to have cleared up my sound issue. I think it has some of the best shaker motivations I've ever seen in a game. Short of, like, actually Earthshaker. Like, it does, like, low rumbles and, like, pulses and stuff, like, with the music and things. I have mine turned off because I don't want all my mechs to fall out.
    92:37
    I've already had a couple screws fall that I've had to lock tight in because of the vibration in that thing. Just live it up while you can. Then when it all, like, collapses in a heap one time, then you'll know what you have gotten your worth out of it. I do have to agree with Fighter that the soundtrack to it is amazing. All the noises that that machine makes are great. Agreed. It's pure classic pinball. turn up to 11. Not a lockdown bar button in sight.
    93:08
    It's the modern equivalent of stars. Brutally difficult, but highly rewarding to play. Oh my goodness. See, I would have liked an action button while you're in the upper play field to increase the reactor target to blow. You know, instead of trying to flip around up there, you can just keep bashing and hope that you can bash faster and the ball can bounce. Ron, how do you feel about P&A? Oh, being that I own one, I really like it. Oh, yeah.
    93:36
    Oh, yeah. I might stream that again now that I actually have everything working. Do you have the old sound check selected? Do you have the old sound check? No, I don't have the old beep. I do miss the old beep. I wish all the fuss you made about the old beep. Yeah, but the old beep also didn't have co-op mode in it, so. You can't just take the old sound of the new code? I don't know. Can I? I mean, you're the one who owns the game.
    94:02
    You want me to be changing the code now? What are you, insane? And also, you know that Scott Denise hears what you say, so you can just get him to do it for you. Yeah, and you know what? Scott Denise is really nice, too. He is. He might even forgive Bruce for all his hate. Yes. If Bruce takes it back, he'll add the beat back in for you. But, Scott, I know you're working on a new code revision, and just please, my one suggestion, when you're in co-op mode and you fail, it should say, you all failed instead of you failed. or all of you failed something because it knows that you've been playing more than one player, so it should say something like that.
    94:39
    Let's see. The top five real reasons why Bruce doesn't like TNA. His worn-out reflexes, hearing, and eyesight just aren't up to the task. He is a classic stern shill.
    94:52
    His feeble manhood is threatened by the prospect of playing a game with a strong female protagonist. it's all part of his nefarious plan to lower the street price so he can pick one up at a discount and the number one reason bruce says he hates tna is because ron liked it first i agree completely with all of that what do you think about that bruce exactly and i just want everyone to know you know bruce is always like i've been on every episode and i remind him that he was not and he said well you missed an episode meaning the one where the Mike didn't work.
    95:27
    Well, I'm now ahead of him because he missed another one. Next email is from the Pinball Princess. Dear Ron and Bruce, I am currently listening to the episode in which you had Tony and Dennis of the Eclectic Gamers podcast as guests. I have to say I quite enjoy the rapport among podcasters and this effective crossover. I am immensely enjoying the extended Game You Like, Game You Hate segment at the moment. Next up is Premiere, and the dark, gleeful laugh that just erupted from Bruce is concerning. I knew he would have a field day with anything Gottlieb, but I feel unprepared for the sheer torrent of hate that is imminent in this episode. Also, I would like to step in in defense of the seasonal Rock Fantasy Opens. They are not commonly held after the season is over. They're commonly held on the last possible weekend that qualifies as the season. That said, I think the Winter Open is scheduled for sometime in January right now, as opposed to mid-March. So we are fully capable of being seasonable. As a final thought, would you buy that? Would you, under any circumstance, buy that? And it's a link to, looks like, a NOS Circus Voltaire back glass.
    96:40
    How much would you pay for an NOS Circus Voltaire pinball back glass, Zach? Fifty bucks. How about you, Ashley? How much would you pay? I, it's just because I'm always in the market for this sort of stuff with the work that I do. I do know a price range that they can go for.
    97:01
    Backlashes is $200. They can go for a lot. Okay. This one is going for $1,200. $50 shipping. Does it include the game? Yeah, does it include the game or another game? That might make it almost worth it. Yeah, do you get the rest of it?
    97:23
    Well, wait a minute. It's got a, well, it shows the back. It looks perfect. But if I remember, isn't this like plastic? It's not glass, if I recall. I don't think it's glass because it has the grating in it for the speakers.
    97:37
    No, I would not buy that. And I think if Bruce was here, he would also say he would not buy that. It does. The back glass is like a plastic. So it's $1,200 for a piece of plastic with some printing on it. With some printing on it. Yeah.
    97:54
    Let's see. Probably going to write in halfway through listening to the next episode, player 31915. And we have one more.
    98:03
    Also from the Pinball Princess. It says, help, all I want for Christmas is you is stuck in my head. Dear Ron and Bruce, I must say that I had the most amusing experience due to being slightly behind on the podcast. As is my want during long drives, I had my playlist going yesterday evening and night, and the timing happened to make it such that I was listening to the episode on which Jim of SanctaFame guested while on the way to and from said New England pinball hotspot. So, oh, yeah, this was just sent. What made this particularly amusing to me was Ron was expressing hesitance at attending an upcoming Sanctum event because he was concerned that he would end up staying way too late on a work night. Hearing that after departing from the Sanctum at 2 in the morning on said work night was timely, and especially to my slightly sleep-deprived mind, absolutely hilarious. Thanks for the experience, and I look forward to the next episodes. The Zach one is going to be a treat, and I wager this one will be too. Always wordy, apparently. Player 31915. P.S. Wow, Bruce really does sound different when he's lost his voice. I hope doing the podcast didn't put too much strain on you and that you got your clarion call voice back. Do you know what that is? What's a clarion call voice? I mean, it's a good voice. Okay. Well, maybe not a good voice, but like... Um, clarion... It's the kind of voice that Bruce wants. Ah. See, P.P.S. Ron, you do not suck because you don't feel comfortable offering pin help at every turn at league or elsewhere. If that's something you want to work on changing, that's fine, but you do not suck PMA, positive mental attitude. If applicable, PPPs. I know we've only met once, but hi, Ashley. Hi.
    99:49
    She knows all. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, we only met once. I didn't know she was called pinball professor. Not all of us have cool nicknames.
    100:04
    I don't have a cool nickname. In fact, none of us have a cool nickname. Well, I'm Slam... No, I'm Chilt.
    100:11
    It's so cool that you can't even remember it. I can't remember. Zach is just Zach. Like, he doesn't even... He's just Zach.
    100:20
    You know, this was episode 121, the fifth flash. I didn't even say that at the beginning. Zach, what's the fifth flash? I'm guessing it's U11. Because the last one was U-10. I remember because I was here for it.
    100:35
    Sorry, double-check that. Okay, so that's the fifth flash, folks. We're getting close to booting up, which means we're getting close to leaving. If you're wondering what the fifth flash is, it's the exact same as the fourth flash, but with an identical different chip. So just reference previous episode's intro. I just realized I couldn't find that. I really forgot to even say the name of the episode. Oh, man.
    101:03
    I want a game with dual manual kickbacks. So you want dual kickbacks. Would that be controlled by one action button? No, no, a second button each side. Oh, that's too much money. I know, but I want it. Jersey Jack, come on. Quad kickbacks.
    101:25
    It's like roller games. It's dual stage on both sides. You just take up the total. You'd have to have a wide body. So you could have a wide body, but it plays like a narrow body because the entire sides are taken up by the dual kickback, Mac. And they could fire around to dual upper flippers. Yep. Like you could do upper play field sort of like on F-14 again. That was a cool play field. But with drop targets instead of other targets. We got it. Okay, so if we see that on a game, Jersey Jack, we'll know you stole on our idea. Oh, hit X.
    101:58
    Well, thanks. Ashley, thank you very much for coming on the show. Yeah, thank you. Thanks, Zach, for filling in. Anytime.
    102:11
    Thanks, Bruce. Well, he's not here. Oh, whoops. And he's at the bar probably working his ass off, so it's probably not fair to insult him anymore. No, it is. But that's what it's like. Yeah, you saw.
    102:27
    Well, where's the Silver Ball Saloon, Zach? 135 West Commercial Street in East Rochester. Yes, go to the Silver Ball Saloon. Check it out. They have bowling. They have darts, pool, foosball, and is it 26 machines? What do they have, two? I think it's 26, yeah. They have 26 pinball machines, and hopefully the piano will be leaving, and they can have at least two more. Woo! Ashley, do you recommend this Silver Ball Saloon? I highly recommend it there's a few titles that I really have always loved to play like Medieval Madness and Bruce, and I've told him this before like the first time I played it I was like, this is the nicest Medieval Madness I've ever played but he maintains his machines very well and it's cool that a bar owner also, you know he's played and worked on the games forever, so he maintains them very well. And he's got so many titles. 26, you said?
    103:32
    Yes. He has so many titles there. I mean, he is the owner. He's a part-time bartender, cook, maintenance guy, league player. Sometimes all simultaneously, as Zach can attest to.
    103:45
    Yes. So this is Episode 121, The Fifth Flash. thanks to our non-sponsor sponsors. We have Joe Newhart at Pinball Star Amusements. Use them for all your non-stern pinball needs. We have Mike Foupal of Flipper Fidelity. Try his pinball sound systems in your pinball machines. He is also a stern distributor. Hello to all other podcasts and podcast land. Head to Head Pinball Podcast, Mrs. Pin, Pinball Players Podcast, Pinball Profile. There's also Fun With Bonus, Steve Bowden, Hi Zach, Oh, you're right here. Hi, Zach. Jeff of This Week in Pinball.
    104:25
    Am I missing something? I'm sure I'm missing people. You can contact us at slamtillpodcast at gmail.com. Also, check us out at slamtillpodcast.com. We can be found on Facebook, Twitch, Twitter, Instagram. We're everywhere. Thanks, everybody. Thanks to the listeners. Thanks, Ashley, again. Goodbye, I guess. Goodbye, Zach. Goodbye, Nick Kaiser.
    105:18
    Oh my. I want a game with dual manual kickbacks. That might be so cool. Just like a front kick.
    106:04
    What? Two... Never mind. You know, kickbacks. You're like, oh, kickback. Two kickbacks. Like a front kick. Never mind. Just cut that out. Just cut out this whole thing. Sorry, guys.