it's time now for another pinball profile i'm your host jeff teals you can find our group on facebook we're also on twitter at pinball profile email us pinball profile at gmail.com and please subscribe on either itunes stitcher or google play we head out to alberta right now which isn't always the greatest thing to do in our frozen winter here in canada but we're going to Sherwood Park just 15 minutes south of Edmonton for good reason. It's called the Short Circuit Arcade and you might have seen a news piece on it because it's been on a lot of news pieces. It's the creation of Matthew and Shauna Russell and Matthew joins us right now. Hi Matthew, how are you? Hi, I'm doing good. How are you? So this Short Circuit Arcade, for those that haven't seen it and we've posted the video on our Facebook page on Pinball Profile, 86 different video games and pinball machines, but it's not necessarily an arcade. It's a special event place, if you will, on your property. In fact, it's a big garage that you built, correct? Yes, it's a two-story garage. So the cars can park below and the arcade is up on top. You built this with the idea of doing this arcade? Yes, I was going to keep it just personal of my private collection. And I decided to, hey, we can rent this out once in a while. Is the idea of renting it out kind of bringing you back to your youth when you and I and people of our age kind of went to arcades that were, you know, certainly a little more visible back in the heyday than they are now. And a chance for, you know, maybe some of the younger people, like when we were young, to experience what we had? Yes, I thought, well, I keep this collection private. Why not enjoy it or share it with other people so they can enjoy it just as much? And yeah, it does bring it back. You know, when the wife and I are in there, it's not the same, but when you get more people in there, it's just like good old days. We're younger. And everything's on free play, but you rent out the facility per hour, I guess, for groups, non-alcoholic. So it's a controlled environment. It's probably a lot of parties and stuff. And you just started doing it this month. Yes, we just started January 1st. And, yes, I put all the games either on free play or I added a little button that you can push, and it simulates the quarter drop. So you don't have to bring your quarters. And we rent it for a minimum of two hours. That's a great idea. Boy, if I had a birthday party in that area, I mean, that's the place to go to. I mean, how much fun would that be? I mean, you can only play laser tag so much, but give me an arcade. I'm there all day. Yeah, no, that was the idea that came after we got about 90% finished. But it had to start somewhere. Now, are you more of a video game guy or a pinball game? Because you have both there at Short Circuit Arcade. Yeah, I'm more of a video, but I have 16 pinballs in the arcade right now, but I have 24 in total. I have to do some repairs on the others before they get added. But yeah, I'm more of a video guy, but I do like the pinballs. I just remember when we were kids, they were 50 cents. So you get two games on the video or one pinball game. So I gravitated more towards the video. See, it was the other way around for me too, because the video games, I thought were very, very fun for sure. But I would get lucky once in a while on a pinball machine, maybe get a match, maybe get a special. And so that could last a little bit longer. So same kind of idea. Just I think it was cheap. I think that's all it came down to, me being a cheap guy and wanting to play a little longer. Yeah, definitely. It's nice when you get those free plays. Or not the free plays, but the specials. So a lot of people in the gaming community that have a partner sometimes have to convince the partner, hey, this is what I want to do. I want to buy one game, then two, then three, then 10, then 86 like you have now. Was Shauna on board the whole way with this? Yeah, actually, I have 174, but I have 86 in my arcade. But she married into it. I had a little collection when we met. And then, yeah, she came on board and she helped me find them and pick them up and haul them downstairs and clean them. She's done a really good job of cleaning them. So she's been on board since day one. So, Matthew, I know the arcade only opened this month, but you have have to been collecting for a little while, haven't you? Yes, I've been collecting for 12 years. I bought my first game in 2007 Which was that Ninja Guidance I don know that game It your ninjas and you go around fighting other ninjas It was on the NES too And I used to play it a lot on the NES. I'm like, hey, you can buy these. So then I went and picked it up. $100 it cost me. Wow. I've heard you say on one of your news pieces, speaking of ninjas, you're a big fan of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. And that's a game you've played for a long time. Yes, that one's probably taken the most of my money. It's a good four-player game, and you get three of your friends, and you can just give her. Same with Simpsons. That's a good one, too. When I've seen the pictures of your arcade, these are the original cabs or maybe refurbished cabs, but it's one game, one cab. I've seen a lot of the games now being sold where you can have 64 or 128 or 500-plus knockoff games all in one unit. Are any of those in short-circuit arcade? No, they're all original. They're all original. Some of them might be in different cabinets, but I'm changing them back to what they used to be. I don't have any multi-cades. I have one game that has an LCD, but that's going to be changed out to CRT. I'm just keeping it all old school original. That's interesting because I thought about getting one of those. And to me, I wanted the LCD screen because I thought, well, it would last longer. But it's certainly not the same original. What's your reasoning behind that? I just like keeping it original. And with the old CRTs, it was low-res. And with the newer LTDs, they're high-res, so it doesn't look the same. You can see the pixels, and it just doesn't look original. To the pinball machines, have you converted a lot of the pinball machines to LEDs? I have just done one because I blew up the display. So I got for Monopoly, I put a color DMD in there. But the rest are all the orange originals. Which do you prefer, originals? I'm starting to lean more towards the color ones, actually. Just for the way they look? Yeah, it's nice to have a little bit of color instead of just the orange. I saw your Star Wars Data East, and that really popped. Have you done anything to that, or did it come like that? Yeah, no, I've been changing out all the incandescents and putting the LEDs in. And I put spotlights, because in the darker rooms, you can't see the playfields. You put those spotlights on, and it just makes the games pop. And you don't have to change the bulbs. That's the biggest reason I'm a big fan of LEDs. Yeah, they just make the game better. Like the back glass, it just makes the colors just vibrant. I don't know. I like to keep things original, but the LEDs sure did a lot for pinballs. They make them look great. I know you haven't had a lot of volume with many people in there at one time, but as this certainly grows, as people start booking short-circuit arcade for hours, for parties, for maybe even company get-togethers, who knows, you're going to see more use on these games. in what you've seen early on, where is the biggest wear and tear? Where are you finding, oh, I've got to do a lot of repairs on such and such. Where would that be? I haven't really seen too much yet, but it seems like every time I turn all the games on, there's one that's acting weird. So you have to go over and figure out what's wrong. Usually it's the power supplies or something. The pinball games, they've been actually pretty good to me. I've gone through them already, like you say, and rebuilt them. So with more people using them, and then I'm going to probably see some problems. But for now, they've been pretty good. Have you ever thought how much money you've put into not only the arcade, not only the video games, the pinball machines, but setting up the actual garage? Have you ever kind of thought of how much money you've put into it? Yeah, I've actually kept a detailed list. I know exactly how much I put into it. Care to give us a hint? Small fortune. I'm sitting around $250 for the building. I noticed on your website, well, the building would have had to be one of the biggest expenditures. Yes. But it's a permanent fixture, so that's a good investment. Yeah, it's just an investment for sure. And as most people know, when they sell a pinball machine or even a video game, you don't really lose a lot of money on it. Especially you, a guy who's very technically sound, you can buy a game that's not working at a lower price, fix it, and sell it for a higher price should you want to. Yes, that's the plan. That's why I have so many games, but I just haven't got around to them yet. That is the plan though to buy them I bought quite a few cheap and then spent thousands restoring them Matthew what been your biggest stumper as far as fixing a game that you purchased Tough question. I don't really have any big stumpers. I have a good group of friends that I know that can fix the PCBs and stuff if I can't fix them, so I send them off to them because they have the touch fixtures. and the biggest thing is just money and time. I guess time would be the biggest problem because, as you say, you have 170-some-odd games. There are 86 in the arcade, so that means there's a bunch that still need to be tinkered, if you will. Yes, that's the biggest issue. I've been trying to get this building done as soon as I could so I can concentrate more on the games. It's taken a lot of time, but now that the building is done, I can actually have more time to work on the games and restore and fix the ones that are waiting to be restored and brought back to life. How often are you buying now that Short Circuit Arcade is up and running and you've got a bunch in the shop, you've got 86 on the floor? Are you still purchasing? Yes, I've been getting, actually, because of this news coverage, I've been getting messages and phone calls from people that have dead games in their garage that they want to get rid of. So, yeah, this weekend I'm probably going to pick up a couple more. So it's never-ending. And you've never come across a game where you couldn't fix? Not yet, no, not yet. I've been able to find parts out of the US or Canada and get them all fixed up. Pretty much everything can be fixed nowadays. They have lots of reproductions and they have lots of parts. You can pretty much find anything you want. If you look for it, you have the money to pay for it. So other than lights and changing some of the bulbs and maybe some of the boards, I don't know if your DMD screens have all been good or you had to replace those. Have you added any mods to any of the pinball machines? I've added a few mods. I have a Twilight Zone 7. and I added the gumballs and added some of the little toys to them. And my Guns N' Roses, I added a Slash figurine in there. And Rocky Malinkle, I've got a few figurines in there. So, yeah, I do, and I've added a few aftermarket toppers. So I've added a few things. Would you say you're a good player at both video games and pinball? I would say that I'm an average player. Pinball, I'm not too good at. I'm trying to get better, but when you have so many, it's hard and tough to learn all the rules and remember what to do with which game. The video, there's a few that I'm good at, but there's some, like I say, that have too many. So I haven't really concentrated on learning them, but I do try a different game, you know, every time I go out there and try to figure out what's going on. I remember the first time I saw Dragon's Lair, and that took video games to a whole new level. But the disappointing part was it was a pattern. you know it wasn't you know like there didn't seem any randomness to it to me yeah no dragon's lair is all about the timing and and just memory i'm still trying to master that one i remember when i first played it it was do i play this game or do i buy 100 mojos because at the time you could get two mojos for a penny so 50 cent game was quite a bit and i opted to play this the dragon's lair and it lasted about 20 seconds i should have got the mojo but yeah it's a tough game to master for sure. If I think of all the money I put in Dragon's Lair as a kid, I could have owned one by now. Yeah, definitely. I actually, Dragon's Lair, it has the laser dex, but now they have a replacement pie called a dexter. I put that in my Dragon's Lair and it runs awesome. It's a good game. I'm still trying to master that and finish it. Wasn't there a sequel to it, like Space Ace or something? Yeah, they have a Space Ace. I have a cabinet, Space Ace cabinet that I got to restore. They also had Dragon's Lair 2. I have that in the arcade. That one wasn't played as much. It came out later. It didn't really last too long. What do you think is the best multiplayer video game and pinball machine? The best multiplayer, I would say, is probably Ninja Turtles or Simpsons. And the best pinball game, I really like the Daddy Star Wars or the Daddy Jurassic Park. Those ones really appeal to me. Shoot the Death Star. Worst C-3PO ever. Shoot the Death Star Do So you were talking about some of the games you found I heard on one of the newscasts that the weirdest find or at least one of them I heard that in one game you found 10 pounds of dog food. Yes, I acquired a paper boy, and that's a really, really, really heavy game. It wasn't working, so I started digging into it and figuring out what was going on. I opened up the back door, and where the coin door was, there was about 10 pounds of dog food just stuffed in there. And I had to actually cut the wood to get it all out so I could get a vacuum in there and suck it all out. There must have been some little critter saving their food for the winter or something. Well, you'll find that in pinball machines too. My friend Bruce Nightingale, I think he bought, I can't remember if it was a cheetah game, but it was a rat's home for many, many years. Do you ever come across that? We don't have rats in Alberta, but yeah, you do find mouse poop and lots of bugs and just sawdust. You just find weird things, for sure. Is there a dream pinball machine you'd like to add to your collection? I'm an old school guy, so I like the old games from the 80s and 90s, but the Iron Maiden and the Metallicas, I would love to have those. Those are my favorite bands and they would look really good beside Guns N' Roses. You've done well, young Padawan. Great games, great choices for sure. Yeah, yeah. I hope to, maybe one day, I don't know. It's kind of out of my vintage, you know, what I'm trying to keep, but I don't know. Those are great bands, and they're great games. One day, maybe. So if people are in the Edmonton, Alberta area, and they're having problems with their games, you service them for them, don't you? Yes, I do repair and restoration. I'm working on a Star Trek right now for a fellow. And yeah, I rebuild monitors, and usually that's the issue, monitors and power supplies. So I do do that for people. Contact me and I can try to figure out what your problem is. Go from there. Well, Matthew, I'd love to see Short Circuit Arcade. I'm going to be coming in your area at the end of April for the Yegpin tournament. It's in Edmonton, run by Derek Thompson. It's fantastic. And there's some video games. There's a lot of pinball machines. But you should definitely check it out. And I might check out Short Circuit Arcade while I'm in the area too. Actually, last year I've been donating games for Yegpin. And last year I donated 30 video games for that. And I actually won a Q-Bert because every game you enter, you enter a draw to win a game. And I won the Q-Bert last year for my 30 games that I entered. Forgive me, Matthew. I was the guy who probably drew your name then. I was the emcee at that event. Oh, perfect. Thank you for drawing my name. I don't know if it was a draw. I think they went by, well, no, there were draws. That's the great thing about Yagpin. and they had a special VIP night for all the vendors, which was really, really nice. I know Tommy Floyd was there from Nitro Pinball, and that's great to hear that you donated all those games. I think that's a fantastic event. You know, there's other great events around, and last year it was the same time as Allentown, which is another fantastic event in Pennsylvania, but I went out to Edmonton, and even this year with the great Pinball at the Zoo show, the same weekend, I'm out in Edmonton. So I really was impressed when I went out there, and I'm looking forward to that this year and every year. So thank you very much, Matthew, for your donations to that. And congrats again on all the media coverage, and I hope you get lots of rentals for Short Circuit Arcade. This is great. Yes, thank you for the interview. This was good coverage too. And yeah, I just hope that I can share the arcade with as many people as I can so they can see what we had when we were kids and the older folks to relive their youth through their children watching and playing games with them and just hanging out and having a good time. Sounds like a win-win, and thanks very much for doing it, Matthew. Thank you. Appreciate it. This has been your Pinball Profile. You can find our group on Facebook. We're also on Twitter at pinballprofile, email us pinballprofile at gmail.com, and please subscribe on either iTunes, Stitcher, or Google Play. I'm Jeff Teolis. you