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#86 Pintastic 2022 The Classic Pinball Podcast

The Classic Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 58m·analyzed·Jun 21, 2022
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.033

TL;DR

Classic Pinball Podcast reflects on Pintastic 2022 with commentary on championships, voting changes, and industry personalities.

Summary

George and Dave of The Classic Pinball Podcast reflect on Pintastic 2022, three years after their first episode covering the same event. They discuss Eric Stone's World Championship win, Keith Elwin's controversial behavior, the shift to QR-code-based voting for Best in Play awards, and their experience being asked to participate in a podcast roundtable rather than being invited. The episode covers tournament observations, speaker lineups, podcast identity, and personal stories about game shipments and venue logistics.

Key Claims

  • Eric Stone won the 2019 World Championship (delayed to 2022) on Dialed In

    high confidence · George and Dave discussing tournament results; they reference Eric winning Worlds and specify Dialed In as the machine

  • Keith Elwin walked away from his final game (best-of-nine tiebreaker) against Eric Stone, surrendering instead of playing it out

    high confidence · George and Dave debate whether this was a 'classy' or 'loser' move; they reference it as taking 'my ball and going home'

  • Pintastic 2022 will use QR code-based voting for Best in Play awards instead of paper ballots

    high confidence · Dave explains the new voting system with QR codes and cloud tallying; George expresses concern about security and paper ballots

  • George predicted in 2019 that Stern would remanufacture retro games annually; this did not happen

    high confidence · George admits this was a bad prediction; he thought Beatles would become Sea Witch or vice versa

  • The Classic Pinball Podcast produces ~25 episodes per year with no advertising or sponsors

    high confidence · George states directly: 'we do about 25 episodes a year. We have no advertising. There is no way in God's green earth anybody is going to sponsor us'

  • Dave took possession of three playfields intended for Florida that were misrouted by FedEx

    high confidence · Dave describes receiving packages marked for Florida; caused forum discussion about FedEx reliability

  • Chris Franchi will not attend Pintastic 2022 due to disagreement with organizers over artwork deemed 'not PC enough'

    medium confidence · George speculates: 'I think there might be some hard feelings there because he had some artwork that they didn't care for. It wasn't quite PC enough for them'

  • George and Dave were not initially invited to the Pintastic podcaster roundtable event on Thursday; they had to request inclusion

    high confidence · George states: 'I had to ask to get in, I don't know, it'd be nice to be asked first, versus you had all these other people'

Notable Quotes

  • “Way to go, Eric. Well done, sir. Well done.”

    George @ early — Congratulating Eric Stone on his World Championship win, emphasizing that Stone's achievement was overshadowed by discussion of Keith Elwin

  • “We don't do it with malice. We're not lying, George.”

    Dave @ mid-opening — Defending the podcast's critical stance and consistency; establishing their philosophy of honest critique

  • “Four hours for two players in match play is just, it's insane.”

    George @ tournament_discussion — Critiquing the length of best-of-nine tiebreaker matches in competitive pinball

  • “We don't have a website. We don't have a URL. We don't have Facebook. We got nothing. We're lucky, and we only introduced it a couple of months ago. We have a Gmail email account.”

    George @ podcast_identity — Defining The Classic Pinball Podcast's deliberately minimal infrastructure and anti-corporate approach

  • “We are not yes-men. We will never be yes-men. We tell you up front that we have opinions. You might like them. You might not like them.”

    George @ podcast_philosophy — Core statement of the podcast's editorial independence and refusal to be promotional mouthpieces

  • “If you want critical thinking, stay here. If you don't like critical thinking, go elsewhere.”

    George @ podcast_philosophy — Direct challenge to listeners about what the podcast offers and tone-setting for their coverage

  • “We are in the sub-basement. All right. How's that?”

    George @ podcast_quality — Self-deprecating comparison to well-edited podcasts like the one with Chris Franchi and Jeff Parsons; acknowledges production quality gap

  • “He might be blind deaf and dumb but he can sure play mean pinball.”

    Dave (quoting Tommy from The Who's 'Tommy') @ mid_show — Metaphor for the podcast's approach: unconventional method but effective results

Entities

Eric StonepersonKeith ElwinpersonGeorgepersonDavepersonJim BelsitopersonRay DaypersonJohn Borgperson

Signals

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Keith Elwin surrendered in best-of-nine tiebreaker against Eric Stone at 2019 World Championship (delayed to 2022), ending match early instead of playing final game(s)

    high · George and Dave extensively debate whether Elwin's surrender was 'classy or loser'; they reference it as 'taking my ball and going home' and compare it to Roberto Duran vs Sugar Ray Leonard boxing match

  • ?

    event_signal: Pintastic 2022 implementing significant operational changes: QR code-based voting system instead of paper ballots, reduced Best in Play judging team, podcaster roundtable event on Thursday night

    high · Dave details new voting system using Alexa/cloud tallying; explains judging team reduced from 5 to 2 people (Dave and Maureen) due to personnel changes; George and Dave discuss Thursday podcaster event inclusion

  • ?

    community_signal: Multiple pinball podcasts operating with different personalities and standards; tension between high-production-value shows and grassroots approaches

    medium · George criticizes some podcasts without naming them; praises Chris Franchi/Jeff Parsons podcast as 'pinnacle of editing' while self-deprecating about Classic Pinball Podcast being 'in the sub-basement'; notes Joe Lemaire has bounced between multiple podcasts

  • ?

    industry_signal: Chris Franchi absent from Pintastic 2022 due to disagreement with organizers over artwork deemed insufficiently PC

    medium · George speculates: 'I think there might be some hard feelings there because he had some artwork that they didn't care for. It wasn't quite PC enough for them and so I think they didn't see eye to eye'

  • ?

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.356

0:00
Ladies and gentlemen, the story you are about to see is true. The names have been changed to protect the innocent.
0:30
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Classic Pinball Podcast. My name is George and I'm joined today by my co-host Dave. Hello, Dave. Hello, George. Dave, I want to start with a congratulations to our friend of the show and your friend, Eric Stone. I think Eric has been given short shrift for winning the world's. every podcast I listened to, instead of focusing on Eric and his win,
1:29
everybody and their grandmother talked about the goat. Which goat? You're looking at me puzzled. Yeah, who would that be? That would be Keith Elwin. He was, I don't know, walking off like that and then taking my ball and going home. I don't know, man.
1:48
Opinions are like patooties. Everybody's got one. I couldn't use the word I wanted to use, but you can fill in the A word. I get it.
1:58
I have a question. So attaboy, Eric. Way to go. Well done, sir. Well done. Eric, we followed you at a party, which we'll come to in a second. It's not long since I've seen Dave. But my question to you about Keith Elwin is the following.
2:19
Classy? Or Loser? Boy, that's a classic. There's no in-between there, George. Well, I would say Loser recently. For doing what the movie did, I would say Loser. Loser move. However, when I met him years ago, played him in California Extreme, classy guy years ago. So I've seen both sides of him, I guess.

  • George will not attend the Thursday podcaster event because he is arriving Friday morning

    high confidence · George explicitly states: 'I will not be participating because I will be coming to the show on Friday morning. I will not be there on Thursday night.'

  • Dave and another person (Maureen) now handle Best in Play judging after other team members left due to relocation or other concerns

    high confidence · Dave: 'We used to have more of a team. We had more like five people doing this. Now it's just Maureen and myself doing it only... Everybody else left? Yep, because of either they moved away, they had other concerns'

  • “What is wrong with you? [in response to Dave playing Rush zero times]”

    George @ rush_discussion — Expresses frustration at Dave's lack of engagement with the Rush game between podcasts

  • “I was made aware from Grant. Grant, thank you for being my guardian angel. I will now, before I put the podcast out, listen to it with earplugs.”

    George @ technical_notes — Acknowledges listener feedback about audio quality and commits to quality control improvement

    • Steve Ritchie
    person
    Mark Seidenperson
    Jack Guarnieriperson
    Ryan McQuaidperson
    Stephen Bowdenperson
    Chris Franchiperson
    Jeff Parsonsperson
    Joe Lemaireperson
    Lauren Grayperson
    Jeff Teolisperson
    David Fixperson
    Maureenperson
    Mike Salpadroperson
    The Classic Pinball Podcastorganization
    Pintasticevent
    Stern Pinballcompany
    American Pinballcompany
    Dialed Ingame
    Rushgame

    content_signal: Classic Pinball Podcast operates with minimal infrastructure (Gmail account, no website, no social media), ~25 episodes/year, face-to-face recording, no advertising or sponsors

    high · George directly states podcast specs; emphasizes they 'don't do it with malice,' won't be 'yes-men,' and no sponsors will touch them because of their critical stance

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: George and Dave express frustration with Pintastic management: QR voting feels over-complicated, they had to request (not be invited to) podcaster roundtable, and they have concerns about voting security

    high · George: 'it'd be nice to be asked first, versus you had all these other people'; 'The powers that be at Pintastic Management a lot of times they overthink. They overthink and overcomplicate'; concerns about dead people voting via QR code

  • ?

    operational_signal: Best in Play judging reduced from 5-person team to 2-person team (Dave and Maureen) due to personnel departures; response was to shift to people's-choice voting model to reduce judging burden

    high · Dave: 'We had more of a team. We had more like five people doing this. Now it's just Maureen and myself... because of either they moved away, they had other concerns'; explains pivot to people's-choice voting

  • ?

    product_concern: FedEx misrouted game playfields intended for Florida; delivered to Dave instead, causing multiple calls and unclear tracking

    high · Dave describes hours on phone with FedEx, bounced between different apartments, conflicting stories from FedEx representatives; caused firestorm on Pintastic forums about FedEx reliability

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Rush pinball machine has advanced flipper configuration options including left-flipper-controls-both-flippers, reverse left/right control, and hold-to-release modes

    medium · George references hearing on a podcast about these settings; describes them as tournament challenge options; questions 'who wants that'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Discussion of whether advanced/non-standard flipper settings improve or detract from pinball gameplay; philosophical tension between 'can do' vs 'should do'

    low · George references Jurassic Park quote: 'the scientists thought about what can we do but they never thought about what should we do'; questions purpose of reverse/hold-to-release flipper modes

  • ?

    historical_signal: Classic Pinball Podcast comparing 2022 episode to 2019 inaugural episode; noting consistency of opinions and gaming preferences across three years

    high · George emphasizes reviewing first episode and finding 'we're very consistent in what we talk about'; both still dislike Dialed In; reference Eric Stone's Beatles and Batman 66 interest from 2019

    • 2:43
    I would say you have to look at the facts. remember that the Worlds were for the 2019 season. That wasn't a 2021 or 2022. I believe it was 2019. I could be correct and it could be 2020, but it wasn't the current year. It was before. And the cool thing about... Because it was delayed. Right, it's delayed. Right, it's a big delayed thing. Yep. He does not play in a lot of tournaments anymore. and I'm wondering if he just got frustrated and said, you know what, the kid's real good, I'm just going to pass the torch. I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt. That's the way I interpreted it. No. No? Well, it's on your favorite game too, right?
    3:33
    Which game? Wasn't it Dialed In? Wasn't that the one he walked away from? I believe it is. It was Dialed In, yeah. Right. Yeah. And we're going to come to this, folks. We're going to be scattershot all over the place. But I went out and reviewed our first episode. We're consistent. In our first episode, both of us, we don't like dialed in. Three years later, here we are. We still don't like dialed in. You're going to hear a lot of that over the course of probably the next hour plus. I have seven pages of notes, folks. I'm going to come clean. Dave and I have not recorded in, I think, a month. we went to a party over Memorial Day, which I'm going to thank Mike and Kathy for a nice time and a barbecue. That was great fun. We were watching Eric. Yes, we were. That Saturday. It wasn't, right? No, Sunday.
    4:26
    Sunday, Saturday. Sunday. Yeah, Mike Salpagro had it on his phone there. We were watching it live. I want to talk about Mike and his collection. He turned over some games. I was pleasantly surprised to play Beatles, Batman 66.
    4:46
    We're going to do a show on stars. And again, I'm bringing up Genius John, Mr. Day. He was also in our first show, and we called him... I'd say he's a double E squared. No, but you had, I think you called him Electronic Genius. Yeah, that's him. So, consistent. Sure. Three years later, still the case.
    5:13
    Where was I? You were talking about the collection. You like ramp games now? Beetlejuice and, no, Beatles. It's funny because, again, I'm going to make a reference to our first show, two of the games that were at that show that I wanted to play, and talked about was Batman 66 and the Beatles. Wow. So there's a lot of... We're in a time travel, a time tunnel or something. It was pretty strange. I said to Dave, I went back and listened to the first episode. Actually, I went back and listened to the Best in Play, too, from 2019.
    5:49
    We're very consistent in what we talk about. It was, I think, very revealing who we were and what the expectations were. it wasn't a bad show and it's actually one of our most highly rated shows so if you have not heard it and you're a new listener, go back and listen to show one you'll hear that we have not strayed far from the line we're very very consistent in who we are, what we are our thoughts, our I dare say we may be wrong sometimes, but we're not lying, George. No, we're not. We're not. We don't do it with malice.
    6:34
    Where do you want to go? I can take this in so many different directions. Well, let's go to the world's tourney. I want to try to just... Oh, you want to talk about it? I want to touch a little bit on that. Okay, go ahead. So, what was your favorite part of watching that tourney? Eric absolutely annihilating F-14 Tomcat that was one of my faves too the other part I liked was I didn't realize but it was a masquerade party everybody was all dressed up yeah it's you know hold on inappropriate I don't want to get into the mask I don't want to get into this conversation ok no problem George I thought it was very creative, some of them. Can I stop the mask in my ears right now so I don't have to talk? Actually, that's a good use for them. Put them in your ears. You won't have to hear the naughty stuff. Okay. Go ahead, George.
    7:28
    Let's also talk about, you want to talk about the tournament. The other, I call it a surrender. Oh, yeah. A couple of surrenders. There was a couple of them. But the other one with Escher.
    7:39
    Yes. At 14 time count, he's getting trashed. I get it. you're looking not to invest all that time in trying to make a comeback, which was probably next to impossible. As good as you are, save the juice. Right. Makes sense. Right. But in the case of Elwin. No, that was more taking my ball. And let's talk about the ninth game. Look, it's either a best of five, a best of seven, a best of nine. It's not a best of seven. if it's tied up at six, we go to nine. It's, define it. They don't do this in any other sport.
    8:19
    Four hours for two players in match play is just, it's insane. As much as I watched it, it's still insane. I would say when Keith Elwin did that, I would say he was a Roberto Duran and Eric was Sugar Ray Leonard. You with a sports reference Yes You Yeah, how about that, George? How about that? Isn't that weird? Okay, who just played in the NBA finals? I have no idea, George Yes, me I have no idea The Celtics ended up losing last night to the Golden State Warriors Okay I'm glad they made the field goal That was good It was a really good field goal I just know that Do you want to get into talking about the show, Pintastic, or would you like to do a little walk down memory lane? I gave a couple of little tidbits of three years ago, and we're approaching our anniversary. That was our first show ever. I have quite a few notes here. They'll go quick. Okay. Let's start at the top. Go ahead. The reference to the Franchi pint glass. Yeah. Do you know what that is? I do.
    9:35
    Okay. What is it? Well, that was the one with inappropriate pint glasses. No, yes. But did you know how you got awarded it? I don't think it was awarded. You gave me one. But they were awarded, if you were the top 24, that was like a consolation prize. Did you get a consolation prize when you made the top 16? No, I don't think I did. Well, the top 24 at the 2019 show, you actually got a pint glass. No, sorry. I did get one, but it was a regular Pintastic black and white glass. It was not as cutting edge, let's say. We did a review of the tournament games. Now, I haven't checked the website this morning, but I'm guessing that's not out there yet. But we'll look, and if so, we can comment on the tournament games. But we did a whole thing on, oh, here's all the tournament games, very balanced, a little bit of everything. So I thought that was cool. Here we go, folks. We talked about two people in particular because we thought, oh, you know, people are going to want to hear about them. Well, we talked about our neighbor, and I believe we revealed who our neighbor was, our friend Bowen playing in the tournament. We made a big deal about Bowen and Eric meeting at some point in time during 2019. Yeah. Do you remember? I don't remember. But that was in our show. Eric Stone winning Alice Cooper we talked about that here we go George's bad prediction okay George what do you got I made the prediction that Stern was going to start making a retro game a year and they were going to start with Beatles being remanufactured into Sea Witch or vice versa I guess I was wrong Oh, you would think that they were going to make Sea Witch out of Beatles. Yes. They're going to make a real Sea Witch. Right. Oh, okay. Gotcha. Right. And I thought that every year they would do a retro game. In other words, another old Stern title made new. That didn't come to fruition. Nice try.
    11:40
    How about you with the Pinball Gang? Do you remember talking about the Pinball Gang? No. A little tournament talk. You thought that there should be a league where, like a bowling team, you bring your pinball gang to a tournament and play against... Like the Sharks and the Jets. So you weren't calling it, you know, you called it a gang, which I thought was good, the pinball gang. We talked about Houdini during that episode and there's going to be one this time I know it's a pretty game I know it's a tough game but I want to revisit it because it doesn't come around often and I want to give it a second look I'm going to talk about two people that are now featured speakers three years later. And we actually, in our second show, did a little bit of talk with both of them, Mark Seiden and Ryan McQuaid. Oh, yeah. They're up and coming. The Best in Play episode that we did, I think it was episode two or three. You can go look. Did I say our Best in Play helped them to get where they are now? I didn't hurt, I guess.
    12:58
    So we had that. I'm going to do a little game talk and I think I'm pretty much done we talked about a $770 $6 million man in your backyard I guess that ship has sailed not going to find a $6 million man for $770 no we also talked about two games that I thought I would be interested in and I didn't realize we had talked about these Hot Hand and Trident just came up in the conversation and they were going to be there in 2019 i don't remember playing either one of them so speaking of that i know a hothead i don't remember a lot about that but it was fun i know if a hothead just sold for 300 bucks it was a total basket case yeah like real basket nothing you want to do no no no so that's kind of uh going down memory lane uh any other thoughts do you remember i know you've been to a mall that was my first one i had never been to Pentastic before. So there was a lot of, I think there was a lot of good stuff about us in that episode.
    14:05
    You want to get to the good stuff? Let's get to the good stuff, George. What do we got? Let's get to the juicy stuff. Come on. Okay. What do we got? We should start off with something good. Okay.
    14:14
    You and I, again, are going to Pentastic. You will hear this probably two, three days before the show starts. Dave, you're again going to be doing the best in play why don't you talk a little bit about that first and I'll collect my thoughts as to look at my notes as to where you want to go beyond that I want to start with something positive positive, leave with your positive and do you know of any of the do you actually also do yeah, you do the homebrew games do you do a best in play for that? We used to. We had more of a team. We had more like five people doing this. Now it's just Maureen and myself doing it only. Just us two. Everybody else bad? Yep, because of either they moved away, they had other concerns, you know, that kind of thing, past couple year deal, you know.
    15:10
    So basically, yeah, Maureen and myself doing it. So what we've done, especially the last time in November, we just pared it down. We're going to do the same this time. We're just going to cover, you know, antique, 60s EM, 70s EM, 70s solid state, early 80s solid state, and then the late 80s, you know, all the way up. So five or six categories? Like five categories, I think. Okay. Yeah. And then what we're leaving for everybody, we used to cover all that stuff, all the way to modern stuff, 90s, late 80s, and into homebrew and custom and all that stuff. but now it's way too much to bite into, way too big of an enchilada so and also over the couple of years ago there were some gamma types out there you know, armchair quarterbacks that were kind of like, well I can do it better you know, all that kind of crap typically when you're over the target you get flack maybe we should do people's choice like, hey, you know what you guys, you get your wish you want that you want the people to decide that's great and that takes the burden off us so what we're going to do it's going to be people's choice on everything so one grand champion people's choice and one homebrew people's choice out of everything there and Maureen and I are just going to concentrate on our part of it. How is that going to be tallied? Well here's the thing Oh no. The powers that be at Pentastic Management a lot of times they overthink. They overthink and overcomplicate And, you know. I'm making a wincing face. Yeah. And so there's a lot of banter back and forth. And how can you make this easy? And then some people were in the management saying, well, it's going to put a lot of burn on me to count all these tickets. And I totally get it. So basically it's going to be use your QR code and scan the thing. No, no, no. Yeah, George. It's going to be great. Ask Alexa. Alexa is going to take care of it. It's going to be up in the cloud. I guess I'm not voting. Okay. Great. That's terrific. what happened to a get with it man what happened to a paper ballot they're so welcomed at every major election and now we want to go to a QR code oh god then we know who you are then we can follow you that's true you could well the beauty of it doing this way is this way dead people can vote dead people can't vote this way You take your paper, you check the box, you put it in the box, you stop the ballot. What do you think? Somebody's going to go out to Kinko's and run off a hundred? That's what they did. And I basically gave them a little reality check. I said, listen, guys, there's no monetary reason to do that. There's no money in the line.
    17:59
    What's it called? Motive opportunity? It ain't there. So no one's going to really do that. No one's going to stop the ballot.
    18:06
    And on top of that, it would come down to someone having to count those ballots times like a thousand or whatever. who's going to do that. So no one will come. So this way, let the freaking let the elector of the world count the ballots by click, click, click on there. They are going to basically, when you get your ticket, when they get your ticket in there, Mr. and Mrs. pinball person, it's going to say, hey, vote for this and this here. It's going to give a little instruction sheet as you get a ticket. And they're like, oh, okay. So hopefully they'll do that. So people that are actually going to want to vote will vote. People that don't want to vote, just like in a regular election, they're going to stay home or they're not going to vote at all. People who are motivated to vote are going to vote. I'm not motivated to vote. I'll take your advice. Okay. You have a pretty good eye. All right. Sounds good, George.
    18:55
    Let's go back to a positive for a second. All right. Another positive. Let's do a quick review of those who are going to be speaking. and I only saw this this morning because I reviewed again the show from the last time, from 2019, and there were quite a few speakers. Here we go, the list. Tell me, out of any of these,
    19:16
    do you care? Do you want to see them? Do you want to meet them? I'll let you know. I mean, if you remember our November show, whomever it was, who was it that I felt sorry for? He was sitting by himself. Whoever it was, you can go back and listen to it. Whoever it was, I hope that's not the case they stick these guys behind a table and they're just sitting there by themselves with nobody interacting. You know what they're going to do if that happens? Just like in Bugs Bunny, put a sign saying free beer. Then they'll come right in. So we've got Jim Patla. Yeah, I definitely want to see him. Roger Sharp. No, don't care. Ray Day.
    19:50
    Well, you should meet him. I should meet him, yes. I should meet the designer of the Rush game, yes.
    19:56
    John Borg. Is he the one who did... Is he on Star Trek? No, that's the wrong board. Isn't he standing in front of Rush? It's inappropriate. Is that his game? Yeah. I guess I should meet him, too.
    20:12
    I just thought it would be assimilated, George. Steve Ritchie, are you going to bring your bullhorn? Oh, boy. Oh, that's George, George. I love him. He's a were-op, man. George. Oh, even I don't go that bad. I don't have... I was... Actually, I don't have one. I wanted to use one for this show. I've got to get one of those cheap megaphone things so you can alter the voice.
    20:39
    You know what I'm saying, right? Yeah, I know what you're saying. I want to have one that says, please disperse. Please disperse one of those. Okay. So I see Richie has a possibility. Okay. Mark Seiden, we know him. We know him. Okay, I'm not going to butcher Jack's name. Jack Garnieri, right? He's been getting a lot of bad press lately. Well, we're going to come to him in a minute. David, stop jumping ahead again.
    21:07
    I'm trying to be more polite because I tend to interrupt and I've been doing it right from the start. That's true. It's true. I know that. I can't restrain myself. If you start going off and it's like, I want to grab you and say, stop it. You walk right over my lines. You put on your blinker. I'm trying. I know.
    21:37
    David Fix, American Pinball. I do Fix. Oh, I repair. Wrong guy. Don't know him. Again, Ryan McQuade, Mr. Spinball. Okay. Interesting. If I have time, I'll probably check it out. And then the infamous Stephen Bowden, who is now working for American Pinball. Nice guy. So, nice bunch of people. I think that's good.
    22:04
    What am I missing with the show? You know I'm avoiding one thing right off the top. Oh, I know you're avoiding it. We're going to get there. What can it be, George? What can it be? What am I missing about the show? We've got all the vendors. That's usually really good. We're going to talk about the games the vendors bring, but don't jump ahead yet. Okay.
    22:27
    Oh, free play games. Right, free play games. No, but what's it called? The Extra Ball Lounge? Extra Ball Lounge, yes. You were going off on that in the first show we did, saying, oh, it's a great thing if you really want to play. You want to play until the wee hours of the morning. You know, low lights, good music. You know, play until your heart's content because it's not crowded.
    22:51
    So you were giving it the old raw, giving it the old corporate support. Look at you. It's good, but some people are complaining you've got to sell a limb to get in there.
    23:02
    I think it's pricey, George. I got the joke. I'm dense, but I'm not stupid. Okay, let's jump into the fun. We'll do the game reviews at the end, but let's jump into the fun.
    23:23
    I look at Pintastic a couple times a day. I'm sitting watching the tube, and I saw on the Pintastic thread that there was going to be an event with podcasters on Thursday night.
    23:42
    George, we're podcasters. Cool. I then sent an email to Dave asking him if he knew anything about this. and the reply back was question mark where did you see this and I said not only did I see it on the fantastic thread I also saw it on the fantastic website what's going on and if you recall folks even though we had only done our first show and it was only out a couple of days in 2019, we were invited to participate. And I think we gushed about it. I know I did. I had a good time. I think you did as well. We got to meet a few people. Yes. Jeff Teolis.
    24:32
    Jeff Teolis. And Jeff Teolis. Exactly. Yeah. Thanks a lot, George. I don't think Jeff is coming to this event, but I could be wrong. I hope he does. I'd like to see him. so you I'm going to hand it to you and then it's going to come back to me you went and did what I went and said hey Dave Marston hey I know you're heading these things up and I hear there's a podcast round table of sorts or get together and say your piece and whatever how do we get on this deal and what you replied to you and I, oh, oh yeah, okay, I can have you guys in there too, yeah, make sure we can get these guys in, I think there's room for you guys, and then, I was like, what kind of a, I had to ask to get in, I don't know, it'd be nice to be asked first, versus you had all these other people we're looking at, some of which I will say, I'm not a big fan of some of the podcasts that are on there, I won't say who, but. Oh, I will, we'll get to that in a second. Oh, good, okay. We'll get to that in a second. Well, let's just say that some of the people on there, they have a dream theme pinball thing on their website. And their dream themes, which I think is a really cool dream theme, I would want for a pinball machine, My Little Pony. My Little Pony will sell so well, I want that one and also an Alanis Morissette pinball machine.
    25:58
    That's two of the 60-plus games they put on there, what they want. I want a Nashua Pride machine. That would be great. That was a, that's an extinct baseball team that I used to go watch with my son, so that would be pretty good. Do you sit or stand with that pride, George? I don't know. Okay.
    26:19
    I was a little, I was a little taken aback that we had to make the inquiry, only because we've done, this will be our fifth show, promoting Pentastic. Now, as our audience knows, we are not yes-men. We will never be yes-men. We tell you up front that we have opinions. You might like them. You might not like them. But you would not listen to us if all I did was sit here and regurgitate the corporate theme or what they would like you to believe. We're not that. George, are you saying – So shut us off. If you don't want to hear this, shut it off right now because I have a couple more words of wisdom. I would say no critical thinking.
    27:15
    If you want critical thinking, stay here. If you don't like critical thinking, go elsewhere. So let's talk about the people who have been invited.
    27:25
    Joe Lemire. Now, Joe has bounced around the pinball podcast landscape over the course of the last at least three years that I'm aware of. Maybe even longer.
    27:39
    Great player. Number 59 IFPA ranking. Great pinball player. But I don't think he's on a podcast right now. And if he is, I'm unaware. So my apologies. second is this gal lauren gray she's got something to do with bell and chimes and i think there's a tournament at the show yeah there is okay i don't know her um so i don't really have much to say about her jeff parsons uh radio personality that's how he earns his living he was on the dais I believe when we were invited in 2019 he's been on several different podcasts actually I think he did for a short time a podcast with Joe LeMayer you know here's a fun fact Joe's brother is Oscar so there oh shit currently Jeff is on the Awesome Pinball podcast and those are the only names that I've seen so far. Unfortunately, because of the late date of being informed, I will not be participating because I will be coming to the show on Friday morning. I will not be there on Thursday night. I kind of thought that was an odd time to do it. I think they were trying to backfill a little bit. But whatever. I will not be there. My apologies. But I did want to talk about the one person that isn't going to be there, unfortunately, and is the only one out of all the people I just mentioned that I've met. That's Chris Franchi.
    29:25
    Oh, what's up with that? I sought him out when we were out in Ohio. Oh, yeah. Good guy. We had a nice chat. Told him I supported him with his beautiful artwork that he had for that particular show Yeah you know I think there might be some hard feelings there because he had some artwork that they didn care It wasn quite PC enough for them and so I think they didn see eye to eye So Chris now is on with Christian. I don't remember Christian's last name. My apologies. And I think Jeff Parsons is now part of that show. Great show. They do a nice job. Chris is an ex-radio guy. I obviously, I just spoke about Jeff. He is as well.
    30:08
    Well edited, well put together, well thought out. If they're the pinnacle of editing, we are in the sub-basement. All right. How's that? Fair enough, sir. Fair analysis. So, without reading this email, I'm going to talk a little bit about our podcast, for those who might have forgotten. Okay, George. The official name of our podcast is the Classic Pinball Podcast. I announce it every time we're starting a show. We don't have a website. We don't have a URL. We don't have Facebook. We got nothing. We're lucky, and we only introduced it a couple of months ago. We have a Gmail email account, okay? So if you want, and Grant, I love your spunk, but we are not going to be on Facebook. Ever. Ever.
    31:05
    Yeah, we don't like doing that. We're not doing it. We don't do that dance. No. How many episodes? We're like Pinball Resource. We do about 25 episodes a year. We have no advertising. There is no way in God's green earth anybody is going to sponsor us because of what we do and don't say about people and their products. God, we're going to be pariahs after this.
    31:29
    We occasionally have guests on our show, but we didn't master that for a while because we couldn't figure out how to plug somebody else in and we did it with the i don't know various anchor and then zoom and then some other stuff our results were sketchy at best we're we're again recording this face to face because it usually comes out better than everything else oh and before i forget folks the last episode I know I put the dolphin sound in there and broke people's eardrums. I was made aware from Grant. Grant, thank you for being my guardian angel. I will now, before I put the podcast out, listen to it with earplugs. There you go. Earplugs. Yeah, earplugs. Good idea. A lot of people are, George.
    32:22
    With headphones or earbuds. No, we're not a live show. Look, we're an old school podcast. That's it. We don't do simulcasting. We don't do Zooming. We don't do Twitching. We don't do Facebook. QR codes. We do QR codes. We don't do anything. We're lucky we can actually meet on a regular basis and put something out orally. So that's what we are, folks. What you hear is what you get. So for those who attend, I'll end with this unless you have something else to say. I'll end with this. Go to the podcast seminar if you want to learn how to do a podcast. Those people have experience.
    33:15
    Have at it. Don't take advice from me. We do everything our own way. There are no guidelines. There are no guardrails. There are no bumpers. we just freewheel it we did not I haven't talked to Dave in a month so what you're hearing now is what we would well cleaned up version of what we would normally talk about I'd say we're kind of like Tommy playing pinball he might be blind deaf and dumb but he can sure play mean pinball yes he can our rush moment what's a rush go ahead tell the audience we'll start with this tell the audience how many times you've played Rush, since I last saw you?
    34:10
    Uh, I don't know. Zero? People are now banging They're banging their heads against the wall. What is wrong with you? So, I heard this on a podcast, and I thought it was interesting.
    34:43
    Again, I don't know who it was, so forgive me. Are you aware of the settings where you can do things with the flipper buttons? On that game? The left flipper button can control both flippers. the right flipper button can control both flippers you can have a setting where left is right and right is left well for tournament settings probably well you're not going to have left is right and right is left no in a messed up tournament in kind of a challenging tournament and then hold the button to release the flippers so in other words the flippers are static you have your finger on both buttons pushed in and when the ball comes to you you've got to release the button instead of push the button to get the flipper to flip I knew you didn't know it's a famous Jurassic Park the first movie the scientists thought about what can we do but they never thought about what should we do so they can do it but who wants that why Why would I want that? I don't know. You're in a drug-induced haze. You want to have some fun. I don't know. I don't get it, George. Okay. Can I get you going now? Go ahead. Get me going. Now, folks, if you recall, I was here when Dave took possession of three play fields that were supposed to end up in Florida. Oh, boy, that one. Oh, yeah. You started a firestorm out on Pentastic with people telling derogatory stories about Federal Express. You lit the fuse and you walked away. I did walk away. And that went on for quite some time. can you try to give us a a short synopsis of the the boards or the playfields ended up back here yes i left for the day yes what happened after that okay so when they that guy arrived we were doing the podcast don't you remember hello bang bang and he's trying to sign this and you dropped them off and I said, okay. So after that, I said, why am I, and I said, what are these? Oh, these are, these are paper planes sent. Why are they back here? They should, instead of my tracking, they're going to arrive today and they arrived here today, not in Florida like it's supposed to be. So I emailed the guy, are you home? And yeah, I was home the whole time or, you know, I could, they put, never put a note on my door. So I was calling FedEx, hours on the phone with them, got bounced by different apartments and then I got different stories. They first, they said that, oh, well, there was nobody home or the business was closed. Depending on who I talked to, they had different stories. Like, what do you guys talk? Then I found out that FedEx Ground has contracted employees who don't give as much a crap as the FedEx Air does. So they do different companies. I was doing so much research. And it's like, why isn't this getting? So then I sent it. I think I sent it. You sent it again. I sent it again. I did send it again. But cut to the chase. Wait, hold on. You're getting there. Wait, hold on. Wait, wait, wait. No, that way. Did I send it again and get it back again? Yes. I did. Okay. I'm trying to. So I sent it again, and this time I reduced the packaging. Not the package back. It was all loosey-goosey. I put a smaller box, tighter, sealed it better, made it nice, sent it up again, made sure with the guy, is this your address? Yes, that's my address. Are you sure? Yes. Okay, send it. This time I sent it UPS. I go, okay, UPS. They're great. they're going to get it done. I even did it for pirate ship, which is a little bit cheaper.
    38:43
    And I said, okay, I looked at the tracking. Tracking was good. You're going to get it in two days. That two days went by. It's like, hey, I still haven't got it. With tracking, oh, it's going to arrive back here again.
    38:59
    Why am I getting this back from UPS? Why, oh, why does this package will not go where it has to go? Is there a black hole? What is going on? And then someone wrote on it. Someone wrote on the package and said, okay, the package was written with a big measure marker. This person doesn't live here. This is not, we don't have this. Boxes don't belong to me. Please return this vendor. It's like, what the frick? So I said, give me your address one more time.
    39:29
    Oh, it's 127 Euclid Avenue. And I said, I took a picture of it, 137. And he said, there was silence on his end. He said, oh, yeah, oh. Oh was, how do you forget your address, George? How do you forget, you live at 24, but no, I live at 14. So he didn't know his address for some reason. Maybe he's not home much. He must have run out of popcorn or breadcrumbs.
    40:01
    How so, George? He couldn't find his way home. He doesn't know his number? I don't know. I don't know how that happened. But anyway, so he's finally going to make up, oh, that was my screw-up. So now I trashed FedEx this whole time. Although I will say, why didn't FedEx give me all the different stories? They should have told me the story. It was refused and not like the business was closed. Okay, so if I got it refused, it would be a little better. So then I finally got the right address, sent it, he finally got it, and the guy was really, he said, maybe we should just forget it. I said, no, you're going to get this package, and this is it. He wound up actually paying me a little extra money for all my hard work and to get it to him and his screw-up. So it all worked out well. Now you know the rest of the story. Let's talk about whether we're going to see a certain game at Pintastic. Oh, boy, oh, boy. No, no, no, no, no.
    40:57
    Sorry, sorry. I jumped again. I'm stepping on my lines. Oh, oh, pick me. Now, you work at the show, with the show, for the show. Pick whatever word you want. Give us the inside scoop. Are we going to see this at Pintastic, the game? Now you can say it. I don't know. I hope so. You don't know what I'm talking about. Oh, that game. Oh, you mean the game? Oh, that one. T.S. Numo 4. Yeah, I think we are. Yes. Yeah, it's going to be big. Is that confirmed? Because I asked the question nobody wanted to ask on Pintastic. Is the game going to be there? And no one answered it?
    41:45
    I got some kind of cryptic, you know, build suspense type thing. It's like, look, the game's going to be there. It's not going to be there. You know what? I don't know for sure, but as a betting man, I'd say yes. Because I think it's going to be there. Jack's going to be there? Yeah, it has to be there. I mean, come on. Come on. It's going to be there. They're just trying to build suspense. It's going to be there. And they're going to have, they're trying to get someone to play Buzz Lightyear and these characters running around and so forth. No.
    42:13
    I think so. Okay. I'll get a picture of them then. I've listened to several podcasts regarding this game.
    42:25
    They couldn't walk over each other fast enough to be the first podcast out with their thoughts. Wasn't Kaneda the first one?
    42:35
    He, I think, is the loudest of the pronosticators, but I'm not sure. he might have been because I think I saw a text that said something to the effect of I'll have my thoughts out in about an hour and it was released I think at midnight whatever it was I had my thoughts after I watched the Jersey Jack promotional video for it I had some thoughts well go ahead run don't walk away from this pin save your money let's Toy Story has no toys in it let's rewind a little bit.
    43:13
    What a waste of a license. First of, do you care? I don't really care, because it's not a theme I like anyway. But if I did care, I'd be pissed off because this game is a turkey. So the second question would be, most people have seen the original Toy Story. Have you? Yes. That's about it. I think I saw it, and I don't remember when it was released, and it doesn't matter. it was probably because of my son. That's probably the reason I've seen it. So I'm familiar with the characters, or some of them.
    43:48
    Why in God's name would you do a Toy Story 4? Because the people that were doing their podcast, I think almost every single one of them said, I've not seen the movie. And I guess this movie was released three years ago? I'm sure they really said Sporky character on there. That was a whole agenda thing. People said, too much PC, I'm out. That's what I think.
    44:14
    Okay. You have to look into the Sporky. I don't care. I want to play it. I'm hoping it's there. I'll give you my review. I do it for every show we do. You never play anything. Nah, too busy talking.
    44:29
    Fratinizing. I got... If they have a Hocus Pocuser, I'll play that, George. We're coming to that. Relax, okay? We're coming to the games in a few minutes. So do you have anything else that you want to talk about with Toy Story?
    44:47
    Yeah, they're really trying to promote it hard. Pat Lawler working on it. Well, they sold out all the collector's editions. Oh, yeah, because everybody bought them before they even knew what they were had. Now people are going to be on them. You think people are throwing them back? They're going to throw them back. Yeah, people are going to be flooding the market. These things are going to be dropping like $15,000. So you're calling this no Toy Story? No Toy Story. So there's no Toy Story. It's a fake story. I already looked at it real quick. It's a fake story, George. You know, I saw Buzz Lightyear, and I saw Woody. I don't know if I saw the dinosaur. I don't even know what the dinosaur's name is. I don't think he's in there. And Little Bo Peep. Is that what she's called? Yeah. I think Little, yeah. Okay, Little Bo Peep. Yeah. Okay, that's as far as I get. Still this movie. I don't care at all about this movie. It reminded me, and sorry if you like the game. No, I'm not sorry. I don't really care we don't care the Willy Wonka which we talked about that was released at the 2019 show I think I might have played one and they had the characters the actors from the original they had Charlie Bucket Peter Osterhauser Osterman Oster something Osterizer that's a blender That's a blender. Sorry. The Ham and Veruca. You had all the games. Veruca Salt. Right. Whoever that is. Oh, Shane. The Cowboy Kids. Oh, Cowboy Kids. The Cowboy Kids. They were all there. Okay. So, long story short, Toy Story 4.
    46:21
    Why didn't you just do Toy Story? And it reminded me a lot of that game. And I don't really like that game, so I'm probably not going to like this game. And on top of that, with a game like that. Who's going to buy it? At $15,000. I'll tell you who. Some rich parents of some rich kids. How rich are they after this week?
    46:42
    Are you saying the market's down again, George? Down. Punctured. Yeah. Throttled. VIX is at $32,000, I think. Something like that. We're not going to do a stock review. Oh, my God.
    46:57
    You know, you didn't comment again that I'm, not only am I wearing a barrel, I'm wearing half a barrel now because everything else is gone.
    47:06
    Well, you know what? Pinball machines, George. Pinball machines. Unless it's Toy Story 4. I'm coming to that. That's worth gold. Let's talk about it while you bring it up. Do you think, given what's happened in the last week, that it will have any impact on you and what you do for a living?
    47:26
    No. I don't think so. Maybe a little bit, but no, not too much. Uh-uh. No. I think a lot of the people that my clientele can absorb this.
    47:36
    Okay. They're long-termers. They're going to wait. These fluctuates all the time. They're up and down. For instance, I just went to do one yesterday, Star Trek Next Gen.
    47:47
    Gave the bill, no problem. I said, hey, we're going to come again and do some more work. Great. Can't wait until you come back to do more work. Yeah, so I've got to tell you about that story later about that Star Trek Next Gen. Boy, oh boy, what a... Is that for public release? Yeah, yeah, no, totally. Okay, so let's, I want to focus on this. Maybe we'll do that because I have some other stuff that I still haven't used most.
    48:14
    Well, Flight 2000. Yeah, I got to set that up. Oh, yeah. They're used to it. I haven't put it out, folks, because I knew what was going to happen. I've been sitting on it for, what, like two months now? But I'll release it because if I don't, it'll never get used. What are you going to release?
    48:37
    It went off for like 15 minutes on some Flight 2000 that you were going to be working on. You still don't have it working on, so it was a tease. But I'm glad I held back the tease because you still haven't done it. No, work, work, work. And I'm wondering how that's going to impact us over the summer. This was a tough one. I know you're busy. I was busy. I'm hoping we don't have a month in between next time because people were rattling the cage saying, you guys going to put out another episode? That means we're wanted. We're wanted, George. We're wanted. Our numbers have been great, folks. Thank you very much. I don't know what happened, but I think some of the social media that we don't participate in helped.
    49:22
    I'm trying to think. What else do we have to talk about? Anything else with the show? Oh, they're having a band, a Rush band. I don't want to know about that band. I want to know about... Is there some marching band or something that's going to be on Friday night? Yeah, I love my band.
    49:45
    I can't stand marching bands, George. And they're not going to be there. They were going to be there, but not anymore. Not this time.
    49:54
    Oh, so I was right. There was going to be a marching band that plays pinball and video music as their thing.
    50:02
    Geeks Unite, man. Nerds and Geeks Unite. Nobody's going to listen to us. We're just crashing on everybody.
    50:16
    Oh, that's right, because they're doing a wedding. Oh, George is the whole thing. I don't know if I can pull back the whole curtain, though. Hit the curtain.
    50:26
    I'll tread lightly. There's a conflict. Wait. You either have a band, a band, i.e. a wedding band, or you have a DJ. There is no in-between. It's one or the other. No, what happens is if someone double books something, triple book? Isn't it a doll show? Yeah, sorry. It's a triple book thing. A doll show. Isn't a doll show going to be happening at Pentastic? It's also going to be a wedding. Yeah. A doll show Sunday. A wedding Friday.
    51:00
    So... You mean we vacate on Sunday morning and the doll show will be set up? Oh, you gotta vacate... You gotta vacate Saturday night, late. Ready for that doll show, man.
    51:13
    Isn't the show on Sunday too? It was. Not anymore. No, it's not. No Sunday show. Where? Oh, sorry. Sorry. You're corrected. There is a Sunday show. but not the, not the bender hall. Well, we saw what happens on Saturday night when we were at the Ohio show, they couldn't get out of there fast enough when they got the signal that, okay, you can pull up stakes. Boom. It was like, you know, rapid five speed running around. Oh yeah. Packing the stuff. You're playing, you're playing a game and you're all of a sudden the game's gone. Your hand is still flipping. Oh, I'm going to date myself. the Munsters episode with Fair Deal Dan, the car dealer, they don't put this on anymore because they've cut it out, which is just stupid when you watch it. Maybe it's racist or something, George. No, it was just Herman buys the car. The car is a dud. He goes back because it was a tent on an empty lot. And when Herman drives off the lot and fast forward, they're just going to town to pack up and get out and be done. So why wouldn't they play it anymore? Why not play that? Because now they make all these shows fit with commercials and everything else so they can jam another couple minutes of commercials. So they cut that whole piece out of that episode. Well, at least it's worth it for the commercials. Ask your doctor, ask your doctor commercial. I love those commercials. Favorite. Tell your doctor, ask your doctor. What are we missing?
    52:45
    We've talked about... Oh, that'll come with reviewing the games. the game list okay I want you to explain to me what is this my flip R trademark that's when you want to flip someone off oh no sorry what is that is the special super duper QR code I'm sorry I asked never stop aren't you into math Stop. Okay. What is... What is that? Oh, the little dot? Yeah, what is... On the registered games, what is the dot and what's the trophy? All right, trophy, I know that. Trophy means it's in the tournament, or it's in a tournament. Oh, that makes sense. Okay, I'm stupid. Okay, that makes sense. Is the other one for the free ball, free play, freeloader lounge? Yeah, the freeloader lounge. I think that's what it is. Okay. It kind of looks very... It looks like a spiked ball, George, so it's kind of scaring me right now. Before we get to this, is there anything else at the show that we missed? We talked about the seminar. There are other seminars, but I'm probably not going to go to them, so I'm not even going to talk about them. If I do, you'll hear it in the next episode.
    54:09
    Oh, I know. Are you going to play in the tournament? Well, I don't know. Looking at the list, George, there's nothing there that I really like. Oh, there's a list? Of the tournament? Yeah, the tournament games. Yeah, you didn't see the list? No. Oh, look at the list. Oh, let's talk about it. Come on. Oh, hold on. Look at that list. Well, you just said the trope. I'm skipping ahead. I'm not thinking. Well, you can go even better. Okay, you know what? You know what? Would you do me a favor? Yes, what's the flavor? Would you go, that's what we're going to go do. Would you go grab two glasses? Oh, we're at the 53-minute mark, so I should probably just do a little cut right here. We'll cut it here, and we'll come back, and we'll tell you about a beer I saved from my beer guy. Okay. He wanted me to try it. It's right up your alley. All right. And that's why I saved it. I'm like, I could drink this, but it's probably not going to mean much to me.
    55:01
    I'm the guinea pig for the beer store. Janice goes in. I told you this. You're a beer taster. Well, when you get free beer. Hey, how do I get that gig? I gotta spend more people are gonna think I'm an alcoholic if you spent what I spent on IPAs at the beer store you would be on a first name basis IPAs aren't cheap what is it a four pack for a hundred bucks well people are gonna discover that when they come to the show if you're an IPA freak or a craft brew freak and you don't go to Treehouse you've really missed the mark So I will go there and make my deposit because I love those beers. But it's like orange juice, though. There's nothing of my style. The one that I brought today is not orange juice. So why don't we cut here. You'll get a couple glasses, and then we'll talk about the beer. And then we're going to talk about the tournament games. And then we're going to talk about the free – we're going to just do a quickie on the free play games. Because we didn't give it a lot of time on the first show. I didn't listen to – I can't believe this is only like, what, seven months ago when we did this? Yeah. Back in November. Do you remember doing that show? No. I remember the Dave's episode. Oh, that was the Dave's one. Okay. No, that was a separate episode. Right, but we did it there. I remember that. Yeah. But I don't remember doing... We did the tournament thing. We did a live tournament broadcast from there. We did that. We did that, too. Yeah. I guess I'm going to... You know, when they get done, they get put on the shelf and I don't listen again unless... But I did do some homework this time, so... Cut it and we'll come back. All right.
    56:47
    Clip it or tell me where to find it. It's right there. You can tell right away. Look at the color. It's not orange juice. You can tell me your story in a minute. Okay. We're back, folks. Glass clink. Here we go. Clink. Cheers. We're having a Rogue Beachy Clean West Coast India Pale Ale, 8.2% alcohol by volume. I've had their beer before.
    57:14
    I don't remember. Pair it with. Really? They have popcorn shrimp, halibut fish and chips, or carrot cake. I would never drink a beer with carrot cake. How about pizza?
    57:32
    Or a pepperoni pizza, carrot cake. Who drinks sweets with a beer? Oh, you should like this. I do like it. It's still strong, but it's stronger than my usual Troves. No, but that's a West Coast. It is. That's definitely a West Coast. Yeah. And it's got, it's a little hazy, but that's pretty good, actually. It's better than the orange juice. That's pretty good. Okay, let's get to tournament game reviews. So you were saying that you did not think you were going to participate in the tournament.
    58:02
    We'll go through the games and you can tell me why. I know you're going to be busy on Friday. Oh, no, no. I'm not waiting until Saturday to do like we did the last time and try to cram 10 pounds of crap into a five-gallon bucket because it just didn't work. You know, I got shut off. You made it through. Anyway.
    58:20
    Oh, I am going to play in it. I will show you the list. I have a list right here. So, Ali is the person. Ali Stern. Classic Stern. Yes. Sounds good to me. Okay. Banzai Run. Sounds good to me. Williams game. I know it well. I don't know that game. That's from 1987, I believe. Here you go. Another Sterner. Big game. Yes. Another one right in my wheelhouse. Okay.
    58:46
    Cosmic Gunfight. Williams game. What is that? It's kind of a rare Williams game. Kind of like Jungle Lord. Kind of like... So we've got two Williams and two Sterns so far. These are classics. Right in the classic era. Doodlebug. I know why they have that game. That's an EM from early 70s. That's because Carlos... Santana? No. Carlos, the podcaster.
    59:10
    De La Sorda. What is this? I watch him all the time, and I don't even know the name of his podcast. Anyway, he's got a doodlebug. It on all the time I think that probably I seen it in tournaments And he was at the tournament in Allentown And actually Doodle Bug that little Doodle Bug in the middle do that in Fireball 2 We talked about that Yep. Firepower. Oh, right in my wheelhouse. I've restored to many of those. Is that Stevie? Steve Ritchie. So he's going to be there. Yep. Now here you go, game you own. Memory Lane. Fun House. This is going to be, just call this what it is. It's a classic pinball tournament. What I wanted all along. I'm going to be there. Let's go Fun House. If I don't know that game well, too. Okay, Memory. Another Stern, Memory Lane. Actually, Funnels isn't in this one. I have it right here.
    59:53
    No, it's not. Look. Well, you know what? That's somewhere else. That's in a different tournament. I'm looking at the Silver Ball Rumble. The Rumble has Ali, Banzaran, Big Game, Cosmic Gunfight, Doodle Bug, Firepower, Memory Lane, another Stern. Yeah, that's on here. It's Mousin' Around the Neck, or Metallica and Mousin' Around. Yep, that's on there.
    60:12
    Stargazer, know the game well, owned it forever. They're going to have one of those, too? I've got to play, too. Oh, you've got to play, Jordan. I'm not going to do well, but I'm going to play. It's a classic turn. And Theater of Magic. I know that game well, too. I know all these games. I know Deadpool. So, prediction?
    60:28
    I think I might at least, you know, qualify. Oh, you did the last time. I have a good chance. You did the last time.
    60:35
    So, card, best of five, right? Same thing as last time. 100 points start, 90 seconds, 89, 88, et cetera. for all the people. Yeah, choose five games from the bank to make one entry. Okay, so the one question I asked in our first show, and I'll ask it here because I think it's a good one.
    60:55
    Which of these games that we just talked about will be the least played in the tournament for one reason or another?
    61:06
    You've chosen. No one's going to choose, do you mean? Well, people will choose it, but it won't be the lowest one chosen. It'll have the least amount of participation in the tournament? I would say Deadpool.
    61:20
    You saw that on there? Yep. Where was that? Deadpool Pro. Yep. I know that game, too. I don't see Deadpool Pro on mine. It's on here. Okay. It's still about Rumble. No, I think that's going to be one of the most highly played games. It's a long-playing game. You won't be able to get your stuff in. You won't be able to get all your stuff in. The people who start on Friday morning... Oh, they'll get their stuff in. Exactly. You watch. No, I don't agree with that one. What one would I pick?
    61:52
    I'd play any of these. I'm comfortable with all of them. Yeah, I'm not seeing a lot of downside. It's actually a really good bank. The Sanctum, I'm guessing they're the ones responsible. There's a lot of games here that people, it should be a good tournament. Again, I think, I don't know, maybe it's just me thinking here, but over the years, I've kind of put out there, talking to Jim and talking to the powers that be at Pentacity, and say, because for a while the tournaments there were mostly heavy towards, a little bit towards Ramper stuff in late 80s, early 90s, some 2000s stuff, and not a lot of old school, you know, some old school and a lot. And so I'd like to do a classic tournament. I'll bring them back on my games and have them velvet rope off and have a classic tourney. And I've said it loud enough so many times and now it's like, okay, we're bringing them. So it's something like they're bringing more old school classics. Well, it's not a tournament. it's an old school but I'm saying there's not one game in this list that is made within the last two years true but still a Stern Pro Circuit event no I understand but they got Deadpool right what's the other modern Stern in there nothing Metallica Pro that's old too right it's not the full bank full of Turtles and Avengers your favorite Guardians of the Galaxy. Oh, I love that. All those games. I've had the Ohio show pass, big pass on that tournament. No, until you get some classics in there, no thanks. So we're in agreement. I agree. I think this is a good bank. Let's do a lightning round with everything that's in the free play for. Just if you have a comment, great. If not, we'll just keep moving. Okay.
    63:36
    Tenth inning. Don't know what that is. Baseball game. ACDC premium. I will play it. Nah, no thanks. Alien poker. Yeah, I'll play it.
    63:45
    Argosy. I need to play that because it's been in a lot of tournaments. I'll play it as in a tournament. Yeah, I'll play it. Well, no, it's not in a tournament. It's been in a tournament. Yeah, I'll get a play. Avatar. No. No, I don't care. Aztec. I'll play it. Your favorite. Bad Girls.
    64:00
    Please. Big Guns. No, I don't need to. Black Hole. I'll give it a plunge. Brand Stroke... Stokers. Missed. No thanks Card Whiz Yeah I'll play that Centaur I own it But I'll play it anyway Just do what it is Clubhouse Don't know what that is Probably a 50s game Comet No need to Williams 1958 for that Clubhouse Cross Country That sounds like another 50s game Bali 1963 Dali 1963 Maybe Cyclone No Demoman No Doctor Who If it has a new pin sound board in it with a modified thing, I will. Earth Shaker. Yeah, I might play that. Yeah, it's an okay game. Egghead. It's a 60s game. Yeah, probably not. Okay, F-14 Tomcat. I'll put in my inner Eric Stone and play that maybe. Well, he's going to be there. Yeah, I'm going to kick his ass.
    65:03
    I'm going to take him to school. Are we going to see some other top-ranked players at this year? We're all going to Top Gun, George. No. Are we going to see some top 50 players at this show?
    65:18
    I think so. Okay. I mean, they complain that this is the only real event. They want to see a couple more events, but I get it.
    65:29
    What do you mean? Who's complaining about the only real event? Well, a lot of people say that if you're going to go to a show, we want to have multiple tournaments because of the cost and the time expended to go to it. Well, there are multiple tournaments. There's a couple other tournaments going on. But they're not really talked about. I don't see them anywhere on the website. New Hampshire Pinball 1. But they aren't as big money or big points as the official one. If you're having them, you would promote them. Anyway. Right. And you would promote them. Right. Exactly. Anyway. Got it.
    65:56
    Flash. No, I don't need to. 4. Flash 4. No. Valley. No, no, no. Valley 1973. Getaway High Speed 2. Oh, I will play 4. Just to check out what it is. I never played it. Getaway High Speed 2. No, I don't care. Godzilla. Nah. Um, available to order. I thought that was weird.
    66:15
    Probably as a vendor brand. It's probably going to be a show game and maybe one with 300 plays on it. Gorgar? No, I've already restored many of those. Did you get rid of that thing? I still have it. I had Firepower and Gorgon on sale. No, but didn't you have one that you delivered to a customer? No, Firepower was going on Monday. No, Gorgar. No, that too. I had that almost ready to go too, but that's not ready to go. Firepower was the one that had to go out. Okay, okay. Firepower was under the gun. Grand Prix? uh yeah kind of a cool game that seems to be a very popular tournament game yeah a great spinner game uh Grand Slam no Gottlieb don't need to no uh Guardians no please no Guns N' Roses make it stop I would if there's not a line I would like to play Guns N' Roses again because I only played it the one time with you yeah I'd play it again uh Harlem yeah I'd play that I'd definitely play that Haunted Cruise no that must be a no I'm not a Haunted House I don't like haunted stuff I don't like cruise Hurricane Ice Review maybe a couple Iron Maidens Judge Dredd so far there's nothing here I don't mind Iron Maid I'll play it Judge Dredd Jungle Queen I'd play that after seeing the tournament I'd play that after seeing Eric play that what was the one Jungle King that was a tournament game that's a newer game no Jungle King Jungle Queen was in the tournament recently there was a Jungle King well Jungle King but that's more of an early 70s godly I think oh no no am I thinking of Jungle Lord I just worked on one of those ok so that was another pain in the neck that's the game that's not here that's one game don't get me going on William Switch Matrix issues man I gotta tell you all about that I know how to get you all there's all kinds of oh Williams Kings of Steel no Kings of Right Target or Right Saucer or whatever Klax, whatever that is. No, that's a video game. Knockout. Magic. Stern.
    68:14
    Okay. Mars Guard Award. Don't inhale your beer. Melody. Don't know. Meteor. Mask of the Rant. Meteor. Oh, here's a NASCAR. No. NBA. You know what? Speaking of NASCAR. NBA Fast Break. No. Why? Why would I want to play that? I don't... Shoot the basket. But there's no traditional scoring. It's all... Shoot the basket. It's all a basketball score, right? Yeah. That's weird. So it's kind of like a basketball game if you're into basketball and you shoot the frickin' basket. I'm going to play it only because I don't get it. Now, Neptune from Gottlieb. That's a weird game with the... King Neptune. Is that a single player? King Neptune, single player with the weird... It's a seven maintenance, a single player. Yeah, it's one of the last EMs they made. New York, didn't you talk about that? I had one of those. I did one. It's a Pioneer Spirit of 76 Oh yeah from 1932 That's the old wooden thing that normally plays They just sit there Pathetically Coney Island Pinball Electro Pinbot Pirates 2006 Rick and Morty I'll play that I'll play it again but it's no fun playing it in a big environment. You need sound. If I have the sound, it's great.
    69:41
    Robowar. No, it's a god. A lot of people like that, but I don't care for that. Rock Lives. Homebrew Premiere. Okay, so it's a homebrew thing. Actually, you're going to get to play Russia unless you invite me to play your game. You can play mine, yes. I've got to dust off it. Dust it off for you.
    70:00
    Let's talk about it. This is a good one. You look as freaking warm as a 60 TV. This is a good point.
    70:06
    Go ahead, George. Sorry, I didn't mean to step on you. That's all right. He stepped on my toes again. I didn't mean to. That's okay. Put your blinker on. Have you noticed how many Rush games are for sale on Pinside? Oh, I'm too late. I've got to keep this game. No. Are they LEs? Are they premiums or pros? What's for sale? Mostly LEs, but a lot. And when I say a lot, like the last time I looked, at least six. And what's the price going for? They're all over the board. It depends how many dollhouse pictures they put. I have a lot of dollhouse in mind. I got a thousand bucks for the dollhouse. I noticed that. But also, you know, another inflection point is I think they're making them next month. More LEs? They're making some more LEs?
    70:54
    Or what? Premiums. Is that the collect? No, they already made the LEs. Premiums. That's the second one down. Not the collector's thing. Yeah, done. Ellie's done. No, right. Yeah. Premium and pro, I think they're making, I would imagine it's mostly premium. So.
    71:10
    What kind of, we don't know the money. They were all within the price range of what they go for. Purchasing, right. Okay. You know, because you can't get one. Right. In a month, there might be a few more out on the marketplace.
    71:25
    I can make a decision, George. Yeah, you do. but, okay, so we got that, Shack Attack, Sharpshooter. I know, maybe Peter will buy mine. Silver Ball Mania. Hold on. Wait, you got Shack Attack, what else you got in there? Silver Ball Mania. Yeah. Sharpshooter 2. No. Solar City. No, none of those. Ryan's going to have a Sonic the Hedgehog there again. Space Mission, Spider-Man. No, no. Star Trek. Next Gen? Which Star Trek? Valley? Valley. Maybe. If it's really nice, I might play it. Star Wars. No. Mando. No.
    72:04
    Yeah, I don't get that game. No, me neither. Stars. I'll play it. Yeah, I'll play it. I'll give it a shot. Usually people can't dial that one in properly. We talked about our electronic genius friend, but we're going to do that show with him. Him and I are the only ones I know that can make that game sing. People don't know how to make the stars work really well. It takes a lot of effort to make that play right. Okay, Starship Troopers. Sega? I don't know what that is Street Fighter 2 Superman which we've talked about I'd like to see if that plays right usually those play like a dog Surf Champ I'll play that another game that we talked about in our initial episode Williams Game 87 that show had a lot of new games a lot Tales from the Crypt a couple of those No. Target Pool.
    72:58
    Terminator 2. Target Pool. I'll play Target Pool. Terminator 2, no. Adam's Family, no. Lock Sequencing. Avengers. I'm sure you don't like that. No. Lord of the Rings. No. Don't need it. A lot of people like that game. I know. It's a great, stirring game from early 2003, I think. A lot of people say it's one of their best games. I'd say it's one of their best games. I've worked on several of them. The Shadow. That seems to be another game. The Shadow with that dingbat of the freaking back glass. Okay. Simpsons Pinball Party. I happen to like that most people. I don't care for that.
    73:29
    They're going to have a Wizard of Oz there. Maureen likes that, not me. Limited edition. It seems like everything they put out was a limited edition. Well, it's not really limited, is it? Maybe we need to tell them what limited means, George.
    73:44
    Time Fantasy. Yeah, actually, that's a fun game. That's actually got panned by a lot of people, but I wouldn't mind. I'd own that if the price is right someday. I don't know. That must be a rare game. A Transformers Decepticon Violet Limited Edition. Don't care. Stupid game. Dumb. Nobody wants it. Transformers Pro.
    74:05
    No. The Volcano. No. A Waterworld. No. A Whirlwind. No. Willy Wonka. No. God, no. Here we go. Eric Stone game. Wizard. Yeah. Wizard or Captain Fantastic? Captain Fantastic, he likes that game. He plays them both. Wizard's fun. I'd play Wizard. I'd give that a shot. So that's the list.
    74:25
    Yeah, I guess I don't really have to play a whole bunch there, so I can talk a lot. None of my games that are on my short list, you know, the comic games that you were not liking. Which games? Popeye and what was the other one? Rocky and Bullwinkle. None of those are here.
    74:41
    It might take a couple of shows to get there, but that brings up the next question. When would the next show be?
    74:48
    It's going to be in probably June. Same time next year. No, but I mean the next show that we might go to. It's like there's not a lot. Well, there's going to be York, but I've never been to York. It's a long drive. That's a long ride. Yeah. Okay. So I don't know. Okay. I mean, there's talk of going to Texas.
    75:09
    I don't know. I'm saying between now and December 31st. No. There is talk of making Pentastic a twice a year show.
    75:21
    Let's talk about that. I thought it was a hell of a lot cheaper to go to Sturbridge in November than it is to compete with everybody. And there is, I don't know about you, but $5 gas has not deterred people from being out on the road. It's crazy. No, you know why? It's not $5 because your dollar isn't worth as much. So it's actually more like $3.50 gas. That's why.
    75:51
    we're not turning this into an economic show we could very easily but we're not what's a pinball machine cost me to put money in to play a game a buck fifty it used to be a quarter hello that's what I'm saying yeah the good old days the value of money is there anything else that we need to talk about yeah yes how about some really great um reproduction pinball parts people doing a great job Andrew over at Weebly does some nice stuff. Real good guy. Smart double E.
    76:28
    John Day and I know him really well. And he's been supplying me with all kinds of good belly MPUs and other parts. And there's one part that I use for these Williams games. I mean, so many classic Williams I've been restoring lately that have, they just didn't build them with all the safety stuff they needed so the game would run without hiccup. he makes this board that's a fuse board. So a lot of times the pop bumpers and the kickers on Williams games, they're called the special solenoid things, circuit. So it's not controlled by the MPU like other things are. So if it locks on, it takes out a fuse, the whole game is dead. The customer can't play. With this board, if a pop bumper locks on, it takes out that pop bumper fuse, you can still play the game. It doesn't make the game dead. Just that pop-up is dead. Does this come as a kit? I'm holding the board in my hand. Well, he sold it complete as done, but he ran out of time or parts to do it, so now he's selling the board only. Just as a blank. A blank, and you put your own parts on it, and basically it's very easy to install. So you just put fuse holders on there? Put fuse clips on there, put a couple strips on there, do a little wiring for it, do a little 156, crimp it on, boom, boom. No, not too bad. Looks pretty good. Yeah. So him and another guy I like a lot is Schwimmer. He does the Williams boards. He does the nice Williams MPU and driver boards. I'm chuckling because there's somebody that you don't like. Well, I don't know if I don't like, but I've had some issues. I've had some reliability issues. Okay. We won't trash on that. We're not going to trash on that person. And I'm looking through my notes to make sure I haven't missed anything. And I don't think I have. We talked about that. Oh, no, there is. Here we go. Insert pig sound here.
    78:26
    See the picture of Spinal Tap? No. Did you even know that Spinal Tap was out? Yeah, isn't that why people made Thunder Turds? Yes. So it's going to suck. It's going to suck. I guess my question is, do you think we'll see one of those at the show?
    78:42
    My guess is no. Probably not. Well, they did have a Thunder Turns the last time we were there. At the show? I played that at Pentastic in 2019. When did the actual, when's the release date for this thing? When did it come out? I think it's out. I don't know. They're kind of a weird, don't you remember the picture I sent you of the guy, the single guy with all the wire looms and all the parts in front of him? Yeah. At the factory? Is it American? It looked like, no, they're Taiwanese or Chinese. Is it spooky or American? Who makes this stuff? No, a home pin. A home pin. But the factory looked like one guy assembling machines. You know what? I think it's ancient Chinese secret. Yeah, it might be. Mr. Lee works there. Yeah. I can't do that. I do have something else. I said we were going to turn it into an economic show, but I do have an observation.
    79:39
    This morning I was greeted by local news that my electric rate is being put up to whoever the commission is for a rate increase. Oh, good for you, George. That's great. You need to save the world. Now, for those who don't live in this part of the world, we're in New England. The majority of our electric is produced by natural gas. Yes. We actually, in the town I live in, have a gas-fired electric plant. Awesome. Literally five miles away. Clean burning. Sounds good. Correct. Yeah.
    80:17
    Guess how much of a rate increase we're expecting if it goes through? Percentage-wise? Yes. 20%. not even close double awesome that sounds great you're going to help save a lot of spotted owls and crap by doing that that's only part of it I'm leading into something else I live close by I think I'm going to have power and if I don't I have a propane generator so I will not go without power what about my electric car you just bought George we're not going to go into that either However, do you think that we will experience here in New England a brownout? That's only part of the question. California, yes. Here, I'm not sure about that one. What would it do if we were in the middle of a pinball show and we had a brownout?
    81:20
    What would people do? I guess they'd have to read a book. I think there'd be some hair pulling out of the head but well maybe there's a big generator in the back actually no there's not I haven't seen one but it'd be nice if it was but no just saying the world we now live in where I have to think about whether I go to a show or not because are they going to have power but we're in a third world country now George we're in Zimbabwe this ain't your America you grew up in is there anything that you'd like to bring up I've kind of dominated the show.
    81:56
    Get a garden, get some chickens, and get off ground. No. Can you talk about the chickens in my town? And now you can't have your own chickens. Now tell me that. You can't have your own chickens now? What?
    82:08
    They kill you. No. They all were contagious. The ordinance in my town used to be two acre minimum in order to have a chicken coop. Okay. Rescinded. Now what? One acre. Oh, good. That's better. No, it's not. It is. What if my patio was on the property line of my neighbor, and they decided that that was an ideal place for a chicken coop? How about no roosters, though? Is a rooster the problem? We used to have a rooster in our neighborhood. Well, roosters are not a problem. That's someone killing the rooster.
    82:42
    Yeah, they called a rooster. If you had the windows open at 5 o'clock in the morning, you'd hear that pecker. You know what? You can hear that peckerhead. You know what he's saying? It's time to get up and get your ass to work, obviously. That stopped. And I don't know who was responsible. Someone stopped it. Did you hear a thing go bang and then it stopped, George? No, but that's a... On Saturdays and Sundays near my home, there is an area where you can go and shoot your firearms.
    83:17
    It's like five or six miles away from my house. You can hear it like it was next door. All day. The sounds of freedom, George. During the week, you never hear it. That's fine, but I kept saying to myself, what would it be like if you lived next door to that? You're sitting in your backyard and all you hear is commando all weekend. It's always Fourth of July every morning.
    83:40
    That'd be a little much, I guess. I don't know. I still, you know what? I agree with the chicken thing with a one-acre thing or even less. As long as you're not, if it's not noisy, would you have a problem with it? Oh, it's stinky. It's not the noise. I don't care about them cackling. Okay. I mean, you know. It's a little stinky.
    83:59
    My sister-in-law had chickens. Yes. How many does she have? I don't know. Like eight or ten. Yeah, that's why. You've got to keep it clean. I don't want to even think about it, okay? I want some fresh eggs. I don't want to think about it. I want some nice fresh eggs. I want an Easter egg. Tony's day.
    84:21
    Anything else he can think of? Yeah. Oh. Please don't say it. Please do not say it. Do not. Don't? Don't. Don't say it? No. All right. I'll say some nice things.
    84:35
    So, I'm actually. Oh, I thought you were going to say the Colombo line. Oh, yeah. All right. One more thing. Oh, you were going to say something else? I was. Yeah, I was. So, let's say. One more thing. Ma'am. Sir. Oh, sorry. They. you know I want to be up to date uh yeah oh I know what's something you didn't talk about what can I talk about I'm looking through my emails here do you want to talk about Canada yeah Canada sure I didn't watch it oh I did yeah I'd say he's an egomaniac full of himself you know you have to pay to listen to him now yeah he's an egomaniac full of himself I think he's just, I think he's kind of a blowhard. Do you think he'll be at the show? I doubt it. He'll be good if he was. I agree. I like him as a pariah. I like him as he pokes at people. I like how he's running against the grain. I like that about him. But he's, you know, definitely full of himself, egomaniac. But he is darn funny. He does repeat himself a lot.
    85:39
    He's a huckster. And he does quit a lot and say, well, I'm going to go. You guys see me bad. I'm going to go home. I really mean it this time. You're going to take his ball and go home? I really mean it. It's like, just shut up, dude. Why do you have to listen to him until he went and asked for money? Yeah, screw that. I'm not paying money. You know, I don't think so. No, when we, I, granted, there's a link to Facebook to listen to a little bit of his thing. So I said, I'll give it a listen. And I liked how he trashed Toy Story. It was pretty funny.
    86:07
    Especially after I watched the promotional video for Toy Story, so I totally get what he's saying. But he's like, he has a shtick. He has a whole shtick going on. You know, he's a personality. People have compared him to, and I don't think it's correct, to Howard Stern. Yeah, he's like a little flavor, but I don't. But Howard Stern is so hacky and old and crap. Howard Stern's done. He's been done for years. And he's part of the system. He's part of the freaking, he's part of the club. He's in the club. But we're not part of the club. No, we're not part of the club. That's why we're cool. That's why we're good. We're the cool kids club.
    86:41
    You think that. Idiots go somewhere else. This was told to me by my business partner. Were you aware that the winner of the Kentucky Derby was asked to visit the president and be congratulated on his win? President of what? Just the president. Okay.
    87:06
    That's not funny, Plissken. Okay, yes. Just the president. I know. Yes. Bear with me. People know what I'm talking about. And the quote from the jockey was, he turned him down. Awesome. Yay. And he said, if I wanted to see a horse's a**, I would have come in second. Oh, fantastic. Great answer. Good answer. Number one on the board. Ding.
    87:31
    Number one on the board. Now, do you understand why it was the president? Yeah. I like that. The president. Could be anybody. Right. Okay. You want to hear my other joke? Sure.
    87:46
    I thought it was a real story. It's too bad it's not. I don't know. Is that a joke or a story? I think it's a real story. It'd be great if it was a real story. No, it's not. It's actually been refuted on Fact Check. Well, those Fact Check, that's a bunch of BS, too. Those Fact Checkers, they live in lies. Do you want to hear my other story? We don't really know. Fact Check to Fact Check. I think this is more of a story. Okay. This is about the eagle and the frog.
    88:08
    Okay. Have you ever heard of it? I've heard about the frog and the scorpion. Okay, but you never heard one about the eagle and the frog. So, one day, the frog is out on his lily pad and down swoops an eagle. Okay. And swallows the frog whole.
    88:27
    And the eagle starts taking off for the upper reaches of the atmosphere. Okay. And the frog's like, man, I just got poached. Let me see if I can try to get up through the throat and take a look out and see where the hell we are.
    88:52
    Does she know where we're going? Is she aware of this joke? Okay. so Frog finally makes it up to the beak and the eagle must have went into ultra mode and he falls all the way back out to the back of the eagle Okay. And the frog finally pokes his head out of the eagle's behind and says, where the heck are we? We must be really high up. He goes, oh, yeah, we're at 6,000 feet. Frog says, you're not shitting me, are you?
    89:37
    Oh, boy. Wow. Wow, boy. And you talk about me saying dad jokes. Oh. I had to wait for that, too. I had to wait and wait for that to come out. Oh, boy, oh, boy. I owe you big time.
    89:55
    Payback's going to be a bitch. So, horses, good. Eagles and frogs, no good. Okay. Horse was good. Okay. Yes. I'm done.
    90:07
    Very nice. Am I done? Oh, I'm not quite done. One more thing. Yeah. Storage. Storage wars. So, I had 20 games in storage and a full tech area basement full of games.
    90:24
    They've heard about it. The warehouse. They did. The new warehouse? No. What? Your basement. Oh, that warehouse. Yeah, they have heard about it. Where? I can't move.
    90:36
    They've heard about it. I don't know how many times. Well, now I'm doing something about it. It's come up that now I can turn my 20-game unit into a 50-game unit for not too much more. So I have been in the process of every couple days, four games, four games, four games, leaving, leaving, leaving. and now it's getting better and better down there. I'm going to resurrect my Chime Central. Put some about four EMs down there. Can I put in a request? Go ahead. What's your request?
    91:06
    We talked about some old Stern games that we wanted to do. We wanted to do some shows on. I've got to think. I know we've talked about it. I just don't remember.
    91:18
    We could redo the Stargazer again. We could redo it. you've got other games that we could probably do Ali we've never done nope we've never done that and Ali I've got a special mod I'm doing we've never done Meteor we've never done Stars we've never done I'm trying to think there's probably other stuff Nineball no we haven't done that either that's a great game I'm restoring Nineball before the end of the year so hopefully for somebody maybe we'll see what happens sure churn churn churn you gotta churn oh I know yeah that's right Spatula Next Generation just worked on this game yesterday um you ever pinball warehoused up in uh yes okay did a great job for a while in Mount Haverhill uh somewhere up in that area Wakefield there you go okay they've been defunct for 10 years but these do a pretty good job they had nice I guess they got clean games sort of off route they cleaned them up and did this and they're you know they sold for pretty good money back in the day. A lot of my customers, I've been coming into a lot of them lately. I would go with a customer that has their card on it. Well, over the years, they were getting less and less good. And toward the end, not so good. This game here, it had like, a lot of the wiring was all like cut, spliced, and taped, like electrical tape was all falling apart and stuff. They had big whole burn holes in driver board, a big burn hole. They had like... This is from what game? Star Trek Next Generation. Really? I went there, and here's the thing. I have to learn customer speak. Sometimes customers, I try to get it out of them. What's wrong with the game? Oh, well, the ball doesn't come up, and I need more information. What else happens? There were flames shooting out of the back box. Well, that'd be nice if I got some flames, but no, no. And it smells like burning plastic. Well, this one in particular, he said, well, yeah, the game needs to be leveled because the ball doesn't come out of somewhere. I think it gets stuck somewhere, and the game needs to be leveled. I think that's all it is, is a little of that. I said, well, you probably need a pinball day spot. Well, I might need that too, but I think just that. And I said, well, trust me. Let me go through the game. Okay, I'll let you go through the game. When I went there, I turned the game on.
    93:33
    And you hear a bong. Like, bong. You have no display. You have no feature lights coming on. The game is dead. But the MPU is booting up because I can go into the service mode and start to hear I'm getting the service mode, but I can't see it. I go, okay. but no lights anywhere. So I said, so did this just happen to me now or is this all or nothing like that? It's like, okay, it would be great to have that information ahead of time. Why don't you say, hey, can we do a Zoom call or can we do a... Even better, even better. What I do most times is I'll actually pull information out of the customer and say, can you turn the game on and can you play a game? Can you play a game on it right now? I say, yes or no. Yes, I can. Oh, no, I can't. Okay, good. So the game does not play. Good, so now I know where to go. But this one sounded like it was working but needs a little bit of TLC. But good thing, I basically put my whole tech area in my car. I packed the whole thing full of everything I need, except for the one board I needed, which was a DMD driver board. Went back home to get it, put it in, and that made the game come up because the driver board was dead. And the reason why the driver board was dead, I'll back the track. The connectors for all the general elimination and all these lights were burnt up to beyond recognition. Burnt up and crap. Crispy Molex? Crispy Molex. And these were replaced once. Someone replaced these, and they're still burnt up. I can tell they were replaced once. And didn't do that great job replacing them.
    95:03
    So, I even asked the customer. And that was the only board that was fried? Yeah. Well, that and the D&D controller board.
    95:11
    Sounds like everything could have been done. Oh. I asked the customer that. I said, come down here a second. So, it looks like this game was left on for, I don't know, days, weeks, years at a time. You know, oh, no, no, we just got into it. And I said, you know me, I like to go after the truth. I like dig, dig, dig. I want to find out. I'm a troubleshooting guy. I want to find out the answer. Like, why, why, why did this happen? I asked why. Do they think that you're, like, putting them up on the stand and putting the light on them and saying, what did you do? Yes, yes, yes. That's when I got, after a while, when I started questioning more and more. So how come you just don't disarm him up front and say, look, I'm not passing judgment. I need the facts, or I can't fix this thing. No, after a while, when I said a couple times, are you sure you're leaving on? I could tell he was getting a little bit agitated, so I backed right off. It's like, okay, I want to know. I'm not accusing him. I just want to go data, but like you said, I should have said, I'm not accusing him. Time is money. If I've got to figure it out, it's going to cost you a lot more than if you tell me what's wrong. Exactly, but this guy, I don't know. If you went to the car dealer and you said, hey, my car doesn't work. Well, what's wrong? I don't know. Figure it out. That's right. Okay. And when the bill comes and it's five times more, well, you didn't tell me what was wrong, so I had to look at everything. Right.
    96:27
    Sorry. So I fixed the whole GI circuit, the whole lighting circuit. I put all new pins in there. Everything's fine. It's looking good. Rebuilt the board. Turn it on and put the other board in it. Now it all comes up. Great. I still have no lights. I go, okay, look in the manual, all the pins are correct. What did I get wrong? And then I said, it can't be that stupid.
    96:49
    You know what it was, George? Every single light bulb was burnt out. They were all tarnished black. They turned black from being on so long. They turned black. And what happens with the circuit? What kind of bulbs? You know, regular 55s? 555s and 47s, 44s. They all turn like a silver color. Those weird, I don't like those. No, they'll suck. They're the worst. Some are those and some are the regular push-ins. Have you bought a Yopsicle or a Quibble? No.
    97:18
    I bought some just to see what they were. Do you know why it's called that? Because his name is Yop. Well, part of it. But Popsicle is a name. It looks like a Popsicle stick. Right? No. Yes and no. Okay. First off, good job, Jeff.
    97:37
    Jeff Diolos interviewed him. Oh. All right. Yeah. How'd that go? It was good. It was short, but, you know, it was something I wanted to do.
    97:48
    We should interview Andrew from Weebly sometime. I don't think other people have tried, and I don't think they've been successful. Okay. He might be one of the ones.
    98:00
    Yeah. Now I forgot where it was going. The obstacle. Oh. To kill us. when he made the prototype, he used the end of a popsicle stick and glued an LED to it with the connections, and that's why it's called a yopsicle.
    98:20
    Oh my god. Look at these bulbs. They're silver. Yeah. You know what happens when a bulb turns silver? It takes even more power. It acts as a heater, and it makes even, it loops back and makes, draws more current, which makes the current, makes the connector burn up more. Burn, burn, burn, burn. They're like mirrored silver. Oh, yeah, mirrored silver. They're working. Oh, my. It's like a 1960s... The whole game? The whole game.
    98:42
    Yep. Oh, yeah. Oh, let me see the bag of debris. Yeah. Oh, look at this. Look at this connector. Look how burnt up this thing is. Let's see.
    98:52
    Yeah, there we go. Burned right a hole right through it. Oh, my. Oh, man. And the board is solid. So how many hours did you spend... That was a seven-hour job. We're not done yet. I've got to do another five hours there. I even... I even smell it. Yeah, right. Oh, that bag is disgusting. Oh.
    99:11
    Yep. Ugh. Bag of fun. Yeah. And actually, my friend Jerry, he'll be getting these as part of his Jerry bulb collection. No. You're not giving him those. No. I might do it as a joke. I think you could. I'm going to do it as a joke. But I know he doesn't listen, so this will be a test. Are you planning on, unless there's something else with this, are you planning on doing the interviews like we normally do, best in play, if everybody decides that they want to be interviewed at the show. Yeah, why not? Sure. No, I think you should. I always think it's good. People like listening to it. Yeah, okay.
    99:47
    Anything else? Yeah, the story behind the man behind the game, the story behind the game, that kind of thing. Or even the they behind the game, if you really want to think about it. The they behind the game? We've got to keep up with the latest, quickly correct crap. No, we do not. Do you stand or sit with anything? No. Okay. All right. Well, sometimes I stand in the bathroom, but it depends.
    100:06
    Can I abbreviate? Yeah, you can abbreviate. These days, you can't just say, you want to say merchandise, you have to say merch.
    100:14
    I'm not adhering to any conventions. I'm going to say what I want to say. And if you want vegetables. It looks like it's going to rain now. It is. If you want vegetables, you have to say veg. No, we don't. Okay.
    100:25
    Only one snowball. Pretty soon we're going to be grunting. It'd be ones and zeros. That's where it's going, George. I get it. I know where you're going. Yeah. What, the one place where you can grunt? Yes. Yeah. Well, I mean, well, if you think about that for a couple minutes, there might be more than one place. But we'll just, we've come full circle, folks.
    100:56
    I will offer you one more time. Is there anything else that you'd like to talk about? Let me consult with my consultant.
    101:06
    What's going on? We did a lovely Jungle Lord, which has been pulling my hair out over that one because it's damn William Swift Matrix. I think you've heard all those calls. I get these Williams games, these Williams Switch Matrix classic games. It's like, I want to strangle someone from Williams because, yeah, I should do a little bit. I want to strangle because it's a, Valley Games, I never had this problem. Valley Games, I can't wait to be done with the Williams games so I work on this ballet stuff I have ballet stuff waiting for me for two years like the centaur I'm supposed to do I want to get in that I want to do Knight Rider I want to sink my teeth into Savannah and get rid of this Williams stuff like I'm done I'm like although I'm getting really good at it I'm getting better by suffering through these freaking weird problems man so many ghosts in the machine but yeah oh uh that was it was that it anymore tech tips or anything no that was good We covered the whole gamut I did just release a thing on YouTube One of my What game? Dale Jr. I did some Yes A little flashback Yeah, yeah A little pig there NASCAR You know I got another person calling me That wanted that game It's like wow You and the other guy The only two people that ever want that game It's a game for everybody So yeah When it goes on the truck exit When you go up the little ramp there It kicks the ball out It tries and tries sometimes It wasn't Designed right so I went through my website and my YouTube channel and I showed people how to fix that so it fixes that problem once and for all look at you free of charge give them back people actually do like you doing this when you give the tech tips alright well this tech tip look at my YouTube channel it's right on there you go what's your YouTube channel Dr. Day's Pinball Restorations Okay. I guess I should probably give out our email address. Yeah, why not? I wanted people to contact. Oh, I know.
    103:03
    I do have one last thing. Do you have another last thing? Yeah. You first. Yes. My motto is with my business, I don't fix, I restore.
    103:15
    So I don't just go in there and just hit one little thing. You just teed it up. Perfect. Thank you. You're welcome, George. Go ahead. Great to hear the clip I have. All right. Excellent. First the Boston cops, then the reporters, now you. I'm going to get sure what you do. Restorations. I have a request for both you and our audience. The request is, I would like you to budget some time and interview Eric. You. Okay, yeah. I have some questions, which I will give to you. Okay. But I'm going to put it out to the audience. Audience, keep it clean.
    103:59
    If you have a question that you would like Dave to ask Eric, please send it to our Gmail account, theclassicpinballpodcast1 at gmail.com. I'll put together the list and Dave will ask the questions I already have a couple they're good alright, sounds good I'm trying to think if there's anything else I think that'll do it so at the show? maybe at the show why not sounds good I don't want to do it I'll do it cool
    104:42
    We'll do other... I'm sure we'll do some other stuff. I know we'll do the best in play. That was always big. We're not going to do the playing in the tournament thing. We've already done that. No, we should do a little bit. We should try to do a little bit of playing in the tournament. Because this one has all the good classics in it. This has a lot of good games in this one. Well, that's what I forgot to ask you. I keep rambling here. People love the rambling. Do you still have the joke? For you, granted. Because people will listen to this while they're commuting to the show. Do you still have the Jones for doing commentary? And the reason I ask that is because you know these games. Oh, yeah. If you listen to us in our first broadcast about Swords of Rage, I'm going to tie this together. Okay. You were all over it. I know Swords of Rage. And I said the same thing because I had watched like a billion broadcasts at the time because it was a brand new game. Sure. We fell flat at Allentown. Neither one of us had any clue. Back to you, Mort.
    105:47
    We let whoever we were sitting with. Good thing he carried that one. Oh, my God. Bring on the Mata Hari. I'm tying it all together. So I'm going to give you the last. Is there anything else other than that? Well, I guess who do we have to talk to to maybe get on the mic for that? I'll just say, hey, I know these games. going to be there.
    106:06
    Levy, Levi. Well, he usually, he's not the guy that brought it. He'll jump in and do it. Usually people just jump in behind the mic. Well, it's usually him and Paparelli, right? Is that his name? Greg Paparelli? Papadelli? Papa something? Papadu? No. Those are the two that I, but you got Thouden there. You know he's going to step in.
    106:29
    I'm sure there will be others that I recognize. But we'll put the pitch out there again. I keep doing it.
    106:36
    Put Dave up. I'll sidekick and just be an annoyance. We could do that. Put George up too. He knows this stuff. I don't know.
    106:48
    I don't know anything. Oh, Ali. Speaking of Ali. I have an Ali. I know how to tell you this. The last show. I bought one of those 5-inch bells from Pinball Resource. She put a 1950s game.
    107:09
    That's pretty heavy duty. Heavy duty. How much was that thing? That was like 50 bucks for that thing. Okay. I'll tell you. That's pretty cool. This is the biggest one that Pinball Resource had.
    107:20
    What would this normally have gone in? Like a 1950s game. Like a 50s... Commonly used? No, but maybe like a pitching bat or something with a lot of big bells in it, you know? Okay. So, imagine this. So, externally, it's based on, you know, a fight, you know, boxing. And so, of course. So, you know. Yeah. You know. So, at the start of every ball, it goes, blung, blung, like that, because there's no chimes or nothing. It's an electronic sound card. It's always electronic sounds from 1980. So, it's blung. And I always wonder, like, why? Is the sound not so good? No, it's good, but I didn't know what they were trying to get at when they did the blung blung at the beginning. So what you're telling me is when there's a round ending, it's supposed to go ding ding. When does it normally do that in the game? The start of the game, the start of the ball, when the ball shoots. It goes ding ding ding. Nope, nope, nope. To the shooter lane. Nope. When the ball goes to the shooter lane, it goes bling bling. Like the start of a fight. Right. Then you shoot the ball and you play the game. Can we talk about this? And I told you about the company that actually sells, in Connecticut, sells a bell like that that you can hang on the wall and it sounds like a prize. Oh, you did. You bought it. Okay. So my buddy Scott, who's a genius at doing these custom ROM stuff, I was wondering, because I downloaded all the stuff he did for all the Stern games he's done. I downloaded all his ROMs. and one of them was Ali, and it was only one simple mod. It was like, it was take, it was like, take the knocker and make it into, or take something and make it into something, oh, take the bling bling sound and convert that to make the knocker go knock, knock. So the start of every game, instead of going bling bling, it goes knock, knock. Right? So it's taking a sound file and turning it into a signal that's on, off, on, off. On, off, on, off. So instead of getting a credit knocker, it makes it go bang, bang. So what I'm doing is I'm taking that credit knocker out and I'm putting in this nice big bell and you're going to hear.
    109:45
    That's pretty good. How about that, right? Is that a nice after ring? that's a long ringer that's a humdinger yeah that can be great yeah it keeps going he's going that's a lot of after ring okay so this is for your game for my game that's a quality that's worth 50 bucks so we're gonna see that game set up yeah with this in it have you already decided on the five games that you're gonna set up down there five right five uh i think four Have you decided the four? I have not decided the four. I'm racking my brain. We talked about two.
    110:23
    Flight and Nineball. Those would be two good ones. Flight and Nineball would be a good one. I mean, just make it Stern Row. I could make it Stern Row.
    110:37
    See, originally, that whole room was dedicated to Chime Central. It was all EM Chime games. I'm going to throw something out here because it's really good tie it all together I've done that three times already tie it off you talked about gang pinball you have a team yes now I'm not going to be a team member but I have an idea I'm a team player you're going to be on the team I'll be the manager alright self appointed Freddie Blassie we'll come to that that's for another show I forgot what I was going to say so gang pinball yes stern classic stern I have a suggestion for one team and I'm going to throw it out there and see if it gets any traction. We'll see if they listen.
    111:47
    I think you should be on the team to compete against the following three people on Classic Sterns. And you could even invite them here to do so. Or we could do it away and go to their side. Go on a road trip.
    112:06
    Don't laugh and don't comment. Just listen. Hallett, Nightingale, and Zach Craig. Okay. You, and you can pick two more people to be on your team, and I'm hoping you pick Eric Stone. Oh, yeah, I would pick Eric Stone. Just a ringer.
    112:29
    Well, no. I'll pick Eric Stone all day. But I think that would make for... He can just play for all of us. Pinch hit. Now, I don't think he's going to be there. I think two out of the three are going to be at Pintastic. but that would be a great broadcast.
    112:49
    Team against team on games that you like. You find two or more people that like classic Stern games because those guys are part of the pinflation in the Stern market because they've been talking about it for five years or however long they've been on podcasts. But I think that would be good. So we'll see if that gains any traction. So how would that work? So at the show, we'd find a couple games and just go around with three. Well, no, I think it would be easier if we went to their home court, which is up in Rochester, New York. It would require a road trip. But hear me out. So you pick a bank of classic Stern games. Okay, yeah. And we come up with a match play format of some sort. Sure, okay, yeah. Where two against two. Right. And you want to add the element of, hey, somebody's doing poorly. You could do a tag team. Right, okay. You guys on the bench, hey, you sucked on ball one. Right. Tag. You take my ball two. Okay, yeah. You're only allowed to do that. We could come up with some kind of agreeable format. But I think it would be, somebody's going to take this. They're going to take it right now, Jordan. I can tell. But it's a good idea. It is. And it could be done on any, it doesn't have to be, I only thought of them. That's a great idea. They're all on. I like the tag up thing. That's a good one.
    114:07
    I mean, you could do it on moderns. You could do it on anything. Yeah. You know what? If people want to steal this crap, do it on waters. Go ahead. I think it's a good idea. That's a great idea. I just had a favorite. And I don't think it should be done all the time. No. If you're at a show and you could pull it off, it would be pretty good. Or a private, you know, like the Rochester. I mean, give them the Rochester Cooperative where they have 50 some odd machines. And, you know, I think to get people to do it, if you're going to make certain, you probably put some money in the line. probably everybody ponies up whatever X amount, 50 bucks or 100 bucks a person or whatever. You know, it could be. To make it worth, you know, their time. Now, Hallett is a twitcher. Okay. So, he's got a broadcast. He's twitching? He's got a broadcast. Okay. So, it would be very easy, and I know they have all the Wi-Fi and everything up at the co-op. It would be very easy to do there. Now, that's a long way from here. It is. But we've never been. That's a whole other adventure. Just an idea. I have a lot of idle time, so I can think of some really... Is the olive branches okay with that? I mean, they give you some hard time with the valley thing with these guys. They're kind of giving you a hard time. I don't care. I'm the manager. I'm not playing. They're leaving me alone. You can make all the fun you want of me. Well, yeah, I don't care. Look. I haven't talked much with Hal, but I've talked with Bruce, and Bruce and I get along. But I don't know about Hal. I haven't really talked to him. And, you know. Frey, you know, took you to task. He's going to be, you know, he's... Oh, Frey's the guy that I... Yeah, I get along with him. Well, he's going to be... You know he's going to be up in task. Yeah.
    115:46
    He's going to be there, and Howlett's going to be there. Oh, so he's... Is he up in that way? Is that me? Yeah, they all live up... Well, no, no. Howlett lives in Albany. Okay. The other two live up in the Rochester area. Okay.
    115:58
    Yeah, no, there's... A method to my madness. I think it would be good. I've got to figure out who would... Who would go up there with me? I mean, me, you, and Eric. I throw it out there because it's my experiment. Let's see who's listening.
    116:12
    Let's see if anybody grabs on to an idea. Because I've seen way too many coincidences of some of the things that I've done. And I don't know. I'm just wondering. I've got a prediction. They're going to grab on to it, leave you and I back home, and they're going to go run with it. No, we're not part of it. We're not part of it. I'm used to it. I don't care. hence the pinball podcast roundtable at fantastic keep your friends close enemies closer i didn't say that you did okay well i'm going by i was just gonna let it have the movie you know the good what's not good fellas what's it called there the good the bad the ugly yeah yeah that too the good the good the good father no the godfather it wasn't a good father more of a godfather thing a bad godfather we're now just filling time and space say goodnight Gracie I'd like to thank everyone for listening to us who've been with us for the last three years this is the classic pinball podcast my name is George hopefully I'll see some of you at Pintastic if not you'll hear us in a couple weeks with our review of the show. And this is Dave, Dr. Dave's Pinball Restorations, wishing you a wonderful day and a great Pintastic. Hope to see a bunch of you there and come up and say hi. Bye.
    117:57
    Like a cool kid I wish that I could Be like a cool kid All the cool kids They think they got it I wish that I could Be like a cool kid Like a cool kid Dave! Who? Dave! D-A-V-E! Yeah, Dave! Hey, right! But George, you don't know what you're saying! You're under their control! La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la.
    118:43
    you