This episode of the Eclectic Gamers podcast is brought to you by the Roanoke Pinball Museum in Roanoke, Virginia. Roanoke Pinball Museum is an interactive museum dedicated to the science and the history of pinball. Their mission is to cultivate curiosity in science, art, and history through pinball while preserving and honoring its role in American culture. The museum is open every day except Monday. It houses over 65 machines with models ranging from 1932 to 2018. Roman Oak Pinball Museum. Don't forget about it. Welcome to the Eclectic Gaming Podcast. Today is Sunday, September 20th. I'm Tony. And I'm Dennis, and we have two, that's right, two, two, two guests this week. And they're going to talk to us about what it's like to operate and run a pinball business in the midst of today's climate. So welcome to the show, Kerry Wing and Nick Greenup. Welcome. Thanks for having us. Well, in the intro, what we normally do is ask, so what's been going on for the last couple of weeks? And we'll modify it slightly for you. But first, I guess, Tony, we'll get you out of the way. We'll get me out of the way, and then we'll let Nick and Carrie actually entertain us with something that's really new. What's going on, Tony? What's happened? Any drama? Did you buy any pinball machines in the last two weeks? No. I didn't buy any pinball machines. I didn't buy anything, unless groceries count. I bought groceries last week. Yeah, they don't count for this podcast. All right. then no, I haven't done much of anything besides just the normal joys of social distancing. I still haven't deleted my notification for tournaments yet, so I got my tournament notification. Oh, yeah. Always makes me sad. It does. I streamed yesterday. I went ahead. I actually played. I hadn't been playing that much, So I played quite a bit of pinball this last week specifically. So, yeah, I went ahead and went. And I've now been streaming Saturday mornings. It's just too hard for me to stream in the evening. And because I put our streaming channel under the pinball network, there are so many streamers now, and they're just dominating the entire weeknights. It's like I'm poaching their listeners, viewers if I do it. And my stream kind of sucks. So it's like, well, I'll do it in the morning where everyone's still asleep, and I get the Australians instead. And video games, I finished yesterday, The Outer Worlds. So I have won that now. Which ending? I don't know. I guess the good ending? Because supposedly everyone is not starving to death? Sure. Is that the good ending? That's a good ending? Yeah. I think it was a good ending. It depends upon what your thoughts of good endings are. There's also the hilarious ending. I consider it a good enough ending. I'm like, yeah, that'll do, pig. That'll do. That's the way I told myself. So Nick and Carrie, since you weren't on the last episode, so there's not really anything to update from the prior episode that the listeners would have any context for, I guess, could you talk to us a little bit about, we'll have a segment where we go into what it's really like to run things in the current climate. But like, what do you guys do in pinball besides play it? Well, we do a lot of things. So I currently have gotten pretty deep into doing a lot of pinball repair. I learned how to repair machines from my dad because we did it as a hobby ever since I was a little kid. and pinball has become so popular that there seems to be an endless supply of people that need their pinball machines fixed. So I do a combination of working at Solid State Pinball Supply for about 25 hours a week. There's always games to work on here. And doing service calls on my own, people's houses. And now I've gotten into the pinball routing business. so I service the games at World League Club, Pizza West Nubs and Solid State which is sort of a location in and of itself so yeah that's kind of what I've been doing in pinball there's not been any tournaments recently I used to play a lot of tournaments in before times yes the before times so Solid State Pinball now Nick this is your brainchild yeah I guess I'll take credit for it I don't know if that's a good or bad thing yet. But maybe three and a half years ago, I started a little pinball shop in KCK where the idea was we were going to sell pinball parts and we kind of didn't know how we were going to make money exactly, but we knew we needed a space to house some more games and work on games and thought, oh, I'm sure we could probably sell some games. How naive I was. But it turns out you can sell a lot of games. I think we probably sold, I don't know, at least 25, if not 35, in the first three years. And then the year after that went, kind of boosted up. But since then, since the pandemic, we actually moved to a bigger location and going all out with an arcade and the parts and a lot more customer repairs. People bring in, I mean, anything from a barn find, hopefully not, but to just something that needs to be shopped and clippers rebuilt and things like that. As well as routing, I mean, I've been routing for, depending on your definition of routing, probably for close to seven years now. Just like Harry, no tournaments. But we want to get that changed. We couldn't have tournaments at the old location. It was just too small. But now we've got probably five times the space. So we've got an arcade. We've actually got two arcades. One's coin drop-in, one's hourly. So that should all be opening soon. We'll get probably more into that later. but the licensing is quite a nightmare. Yeah, I imagine so. All right, yes, we will dive into that in much more detail in our pinball segment. And we'll go ahead and transition to that segment now. I did want to go ahead and open, though, with Avengers Infinity Quest, the new game from Stern. Nick and Kerry, do you guys just want to go ahead and give some thoughts about the game as you've seen it thus far? I think it's incredible looking. I watched kind of the reveal streams and Jack Danger's tips and whatnot, and I don't have a bad thing to say about it, I guess, other than what everyone else is. The glove and the yellow don't really do it for me, but everything else is incredible. I really like the combination of the Keep L1 design and the Avengers theme. I'm really glad that they kind of redid the Avengers theme because I really like the movies. And that coupled with zombie-yetting art, I think it's a winning combination for me. I really like Jurassic Park, so I'm actually surprised that Keith came out with another game so soon, or maybe it wasn't so soon. It seems soon to me. So, yeah, I am excited about it. I haven't had as much time to watch gameplay videos yet. I watched the trailer, and I looked at pictures, and I think it looks really promising. and I basically convinced the guy that's buying the games for 403 to go ahead and get one. He was going to pass and I was like, are you kidding me? He's like, eh. But then I really talked it up. I'm like, I think this is going to be awesome. So we should be getting one any day. It was supposed to be on Thursday, but it's not here yet. So I'm basically just waiting to play it in person and I can feel for it. As a question for routing, with how routing opening new machines, is that as special as when you're opening a machine for home? That's a good question. And Nick and I have talked about this. It kind of gets less exciting each time. I mean, it's still cool. But my first new unboxing was Star Trek at home. And that was like my holy grail pin that I never thought I would be able to afford. And I won it as a tournament prize and showed up on my doorstep. It was like the most exciting thing ever. But my most recent unboxing was Stranger Things Pro at 4.03. And it happened to be a really long day. I worked at Salt State all day, and I went to 4.03. And we stayed at 4.03 until like 1 in the morning, getting the games set up and ready to go to be played on Monday. And so I was pretty exhausted, and I basically just set it up as quickly as I possibly could and I was like yeah, that wasn't quite as exciting as Star Trek but it's still in the game. Yeah, I think, I mean, I had a lot of new in-box games when I was running at 403 as well and the first one was actually Ghostbusters and I had never bought a new in-box game for myself and actually my first like six new in-box games were all for other locations never for my home so the first one was exciting but like Carrie said and it started to become just like, oh, it's here, I've got to go, I've got to set it up, I've got to get it perfect, and that's the job. It does kind of lose some of its magic. However, since we're in the midst of a move when Ninja Turtles came out, I did get to feel a little of that joy again, because I didn't have to get it set up that day, there's no timetable, and I got to just enjoy it and actually play some games right away just for fun. So that was nice. It was really nice. I only ever found setting up games to be a chore, getting them out of the box. But I've only done two, so I don't know. I never made it special. Okay, well, thanks for the Avengers feedback, and of course the joys of discussing what it's like to unbox a box of game. I'm not thinking of buying another one this year, but, you know. Well, we'll see. Avengers is pretty tempting. But I have my rule that I want to play it first. I want to play it first, so yeah, that's the thing. It's like I still haven't played Toitals. Oh, man. Well, you can come play our turtles anytime. Make an appointment and we can arrange it so you're the only person in the room and you can just enjoy your time with turtles. Yeah, no problem. That's the power of being a podcaster. Of course, thank you for the usual accommodations that I expect to get from everyone in this hobby. Now, speaking of expectations, though, our next pinball topic is actually Jersey Jack pinball and Guns N' Roses, the worst kept secret in all of pinball currently. There's always a new worst kept secret. However, I was sure, and this shows how inaccurate I often am, I was sure they would be revealing in September, and they have dropped a new trailer, which indicates that the reveal is in October. So there has been a little bit of discussion from people talking that maybe Jersey Jack was moving Toy Story up and that they were going to do Guns N' Roses later, that even this newest trailer says chart-topping hit. or hit so it's like every hint is guns and it's guns and roses okay it's guns and roses and roses just floating through the air i'm just i mean they're like happy birthday slash they didn't sell happy birthday to woody come on so all right so given that like carrie and nick what's your what's your hype factor for guns and roses is there a hype factor or are you guys planning to get one for routing. I mean, Wonka was on route for a while at 403 Club. And before that, I think most of the JJP games were there at some stage through some operator or another. So, I mean, I don't know. What are your thoughts? Is this right? Is this a good theme? Is Avengers going to steal all the thunder and no one stands in the wake of an Elwynn? What are your thoughts? I hope it's misdirection and it's really Michael Bolton or something silly like that. That would be much better. but I think Guns N' Roses is an odd choice I'm not super excited for it but I do like what JJP does and there's been plenty of games that the theme wasn't for me and the game was great not to say I didn't listen to Guns N' Roses back in oh I don't know the 90s but it's not my jam anymore so I'm not that excited but I'm excited to play it but not so excited to buy it and JJP's historically have been rough on route for me, other than dialed in is pretty simple as far as breakdowns and things like that. Okay, so by rough, you meant mechanically rough. Yeah, just, I mean, great games, but a lot more care needed on route compared to the Stern games. Not to say that Stern's any better, just different. Well, let me throw this in real quick before I get Kerry's thoughts on GNR. So given that, though, given your long time with routing some pinball machines, how is the i guess broadly speaking how's the coin drop on a jjp versus a stern though because they are quite a bit more expensive yeah maybe the the initial hype would be a little bit more than the initial hype on a new stern but in my experience it's not as long lived although i mean wizard of oz wasn't my game when i was routing there when it was there and despite all of its problems And it made quite a lot of money over time. I have heard from other rappers not in town that some of their JJPs just crushed Stern all the time. But I didn't necessarily get that feeling with the titles we had. So, Carrie, Guns N' Roses, is that your favorite band? I know it's not a jazz theme like we talked about years ago when we interviewed you regarding one of your many tournament wins. Yeah, when they announced the theme, my initial reaction was, why? because mostly because they've already done Guns N' Roses as a Data East title, and I don't feel like it's popular enough from my perspective to do another one, but I also suspect it has something to do with Slash and liking pinball, and maybe they were able to get the license more easily because of that. I mean, it's not a terrible thing, but kind of like Nick said, it's not really for me, But as far as Jersey Jack in general, my opinion has shifted a little bit on them. I'm liking them more just because I've had an experience now having two of them at home that are not mine, but I'm storing them for a friend. And I think they actually make great games at home because they're so deep. Like, I haven't finished them yet. One of them is Wonka. It's in my basement. and my friend who is obsessed with Jersey Jack has really talked about it. He's like, oh, you know, it's better to work on. I was like, I don't know about that. He talked about the diagnostics and stuff, and they do have some cool features as far as, like, you're the one operating them. The whole manual is, like, loaded into the game, and you can just pull it up on the screen, which is kind of interesting. And then, like, if it has a switch error, like I had a switch error the other day, and I was like, oh, I'll have to look up where that switch is. But no, you can just go into the menu and it shows you a picture of the play field and points out where the switch is and it's like in the head. And so it's kind of cool. It's got some cool features. Plus, yeah, they're just kind of fun to have at home because you don't really get tired of them because there's so much to do. So my opinion of Jersey Jack is a movie. Okay. Well, and they have been, this was a few months prior to you in this latest trailer, But Jersey Jack has been teasing that there will be new innovation, I'm assuming, as of this game, and that the innovation is more than just, oh, look, you can update through Wi-Fi. So I guess we would have to wait and see. Tony, I know we've talked about GNR a bit before. Are you any more excited now? It's J.J.P.'s first Dad Rock game. Oh, let me tell you just how excited I'm. Never mind. It's true. Tony, don't you want to go down to the Paradise City? I don't actually want to go to Paradise City it can join it can join I mean Kerry pointed out that you know it's a remake of a Daddy East game but I mean come on we last year we just got Jurassic Park again this year we got Toitles again yeah it's the year of repeats because you know this is that's just what this year needs had 2012 Avengers let's have 2020 Avengers come on let's just use the same themes it's what we do that's pinball Are you doing everything? Yeah, no. I'm no more excited than I was. I mean, it's JJP. We'll see how it goes. I have been traditionally cool to their games for the most part. They look good. They've got nice stuff. They tend to have nice live shows, but I don't find them nearly as much fun to play normally, except for Dialed In. Dialed In is great. And Wonka wasn't bad. I think the EGP number one Facebook video is still you playing pirates at a show, and then just saying how it sucks. What? That was such a great game. Yeah, and everyone gets shocked and upset with him because Pirates is beloved to a lot of people. Pirates is the best JJP game ever. But Tony played the, it was when he finally played the one without the triple-spinning disc, the non-prototype. And yep, he just, the ball kind of went up and it just strained between his flippers. And then you just, you hear him, and I'm censoring it, just say, this sucks. And then I end the video. Yep. it was very fun. That's pretty much what it was. You know those guys were like 15 grand now. Yeah. It's a surprisingly fun game. I can understand. There's games where I just walk up and play at a show and I'm like eh. I was kind of like that with Houdini and then I got a chance to spend time with it and I was like oh this is actually awesome. And I'm the same way with Pirates. And I was afraid it would be too complicated to figure out but it kind of tells you the rules on a little mini screen on the apron. And so I just sat and watched all the bullet point rules go by, and I was like, oh, okay. Suddenly I understand the game a little better, and it's actually really fun. But it's a little pricey. Just a little bit. Now, and like you were saying about sometimes you play something at a show, and then when you actually get a chance to really put time on it, it's better. You mentioned Houdini, and I played Oktoberfest at a show, and I thought it was terrible. And then I finally got a chance to put some real time in on Oktoberfest. Let me tell you, it came terrible. Yeah, I think it's safe to say from the feedback I've seen broadly that Oktoberfest is seen as their worst game of the three. I don't know. I've heard mixed reactions. We have one on Root right now at 4.03. And I kind of, yeah, I will say that that's the opposite of Pirates for me. at first I was like this is super fun and the more I played it I like the less I like it well it won be routed for much longer because you just sabotaged the quarter drop on it But I will say that getting a lot of attention most people didn't expect to see it on route, and it's full zone. I just find it a little bit annoying and a little bit... Dude, Doggy doesn't want to go down the water slide. Yeah, I think it's the fake German. No, this is the real German accent. I learned it. I learned it in Kansas Okay well If you're not excited about Oktoberfest And the upcoming Guns and Roses Then maybe you'll be excited about Deep Root Because that's story number three So Deep Root is Having a reveal on Monday the 21st I'll probably get this out here on the 20th late So some people might hear about the reveal before they actually play this episode But it's set There is Pinball Media down there already Obviously Tony and I are not down there so we are not covering the event live. But the big question is, what's going to be shown? We know it's got Retro Atomic Zombie Adventureland, or Raza, the game they showed the prototype of last year. That's got to be there. So far, it's the only game that they've shown publicly in any way. But let me start with Raza, since we know Raza's got to be there. Nick and Kerry, I guess I'll start again with Nick. I don't know if you saw the prototype stuff with Raza and have any thoughts about it. I've really only seen artwork from it I haven't seen the prototype okay Carrie did you ever look at the prototype is that the one where there's a video of Travis and you replaying it and you couldn't hit the rap the whole time yes Travis sucks we all know that but we're not here to judge him I know it's terrible but that's like the only exposure that I've seen no no actually Tony and I milked that video for so much because it was yes yes no and for those that don't know So Travis, he's a top competitive player out of Oklahoma. He was at the show where this prototype was revealed. My understanding is there were two games there, and at least one of them, the left flipper just could not, even on clean shots, make it up that ramp very often, if at all. And I think Travis said he hit that shot 12 times, and he went fully around the ramp zero. And so when you have a high-level player unable to clear a ramp, it raises some geometrical questions. That or flipper strength questions. It raises questions was the issue. So, yes, that was the Raza. And I guess a picture would say a lot. We're in audio format, though, so even the listeners wouldn't understand if I showed Nick a picture. But the left ramp is like a jump ramp where the ball is supposed to go up the left ramp, and then it flings up and there's another piece of plastic above it with a target and it's supposed to hit that target and then the ball falls. So that was kind of the, it's very, you look at it and you see a lot of J-pop tropes in it, like lots of swirly ramp styles. And he's got, he brought back in a swinging target and then there was even a rotating, not a roto target, but they had stand-ups that are on like a carousel that were just rotating in a circle like a Ferris wheel would, I should say. Yeah, it's different. I mean, I'm very interested to see it and try it. That just happens to be the only video that I saw. But I've also heard from other manufacturers that they've had issues at shows with stuff like flipper strength and with all those games plugged in at the same time. You know, who knows? Yeah, Jersey Jack is notorious for having mushy flippers when they're in a low power situation, which has often made their public reaction to actual live play at shows pretty bad. And a lot of times that might be that they didn't turn up the, you know, it's on default settings and there may be the ability to turn up the coil power, coil strength, but it wasn't done. And then everyone's like, why does this feel like I'm playing with sponges? Yeah, that is a nice thing that I, it can be helpful in the modern games, being able to adjust the flipper strength. I had to do that with Oktoberfest and Turtles, because they couldn't make the ramps, and they were new out of the box, so it was like, alright, we'll crank up the flipper strength, and that did it. So, it was pretty cool. that's what it's there for okay so Raza so you guys have a little bit of familiarity with it do you does anyone I guess any of you think that Deep Root is going to show or reveal the name of even if it's just photos anything other than Raza are they going to do another game they need to that's what I was going to say they need to for sure Carrie do they need to yes just because like didn't they say how many years ago was it at TPF they were going to have the five days of Deep Root and have like they announced I believe that they were going to do the five days in the announcement of the five days I believe happened in 2018 and it was supposed to be the 2019 TPF where those five were shown and they were going to have five games and now like they're still not even really done with the first one so it's like they've got to have something else in the pipeline I hope Yeah, I mean, my take on this is if they do not, if it's only Raza, the reaction to the reveal will be lackluster. Now, I'd hedge a little bit because supposedly they've been working on all this innovation. Like, the thing with the Raza prototype that gave a lot of people hope, you know, geometric reforms aside, was everything about it from the display to the cabinet was all still prototype, and it didn't showcase any of the innovations that the company is planning for all of their games. So the big question is, okay, well, what are those innovations? I'm assuming we will see at least some of the innovations at the reveal. I suppose if the innovations are mind-blowing enough, and it can't just be smacking the play field and not dimpling it with a hammer, because they've already been talking about that. So if there's some other innovative thing that's going on with this, that might overwhelm people in a way that they could forgive there only being one game. But I don't think it's going to be that shocking. So I agree that I think the only way to be seen as successful is they have to have at least two games. I don't know if there's any innovations they could have that could make up for only having one game after all this time and all the talk that they've had initially. And remember when they started, they were doing everything, and they were doing the whole pinball is easy and all that stuff. Yet somehow we still don't have anything. But there's been a pandemic. that doesn't explain why they cancelled the original release of you know 19 that's true Tony there wasn't a pandemic in 19 there was a preemptive pandemic I understand that it takes a long time to develop a pinball machine and if they hadn't over promised that they were just coming out with this game it would be fine but they way over promised early on so it makes them look bad Yeah, I think it's a struggle, and I don't think it helps things that, unfortunately, and a lot of this probably cannot be helped, but obviously they've already flown people down to do the coverage, so they're not going to delay again. Though, that being said, I don't know that games will be ready to ship tomorrow. I don't know if they're going to actually be ready to sell. It might just be this is what it is. But I don't think it helps things that Jersey Jack, which there are a lot of people that just love Jersey Jack games, even setting aside the themes, getting ready to reveal. And Avengers just came out, and it's going to be game of the year in the Twippies, just like all of Elwynn's games are, because Elwynn owns that award. So it's just not a great time. It's like you're kind of wedged between the two behemoths. I mean, Stern's the one real behemoth, But JJP is arguably the second largest manufacturer in pinball at this time. I hedge a little bit because I don't know. They might be third to Chicago Gaming. I'm not sure. But I think broadly, most people assume they're second. They think they're second. They've named them as second. And Deep Root's coming in, and they talked a really big game about being disruptive, about producing more games than anyone else in pinball. That was part of the initial discussion. So if they think they're going to be a volume player, JJP and Stern are the ones that they would be compared to. And you think about other than Stern and Turtles going on, you know, there is a window there earlier this year where no one else was announcing anything. I mean, you had Hot Wheels come out of American Pinball, came at a terrible time. Unfortunately, it was at one really small show and they missed the entire show circuit. Same thing happened with Multimorphic and their heist module. It missed the show circuit. So while it's been very broadly received by people who own P3s, I don't think it's moving a lot of units. I think it's moving a lot of heist modules to people who already own the platform, but I don't think it's selling a lot of platforms. I don't know that for sure, though. But I'm sure it hurt them to not be at the show to showcase it. So I just think that Deep Root had an opportunity. Because remember, they were going to be at TPF this year and reveal Raza there. Just Raza. It was my understanding. but the final Raza with the innovations. And I don't know why it took till September to do the reveal when in theory they needed to be ready for the reveal in March, but it feels like they missed an opportunity is my really long winded way of saying that. Have they hinted to what these innovations are? Some people have found some patents on things that they were considering. So one thing I saw was that a new, easier method to lift and work on the playfield was an innovation that was suggested in the patents. Yeah, and it looks like the whole machine would tip over if they build it like they did in the patents. Because the playfield's like sticking out completely beyond the front of the game. Yeah, I believe the owner, Robert, or the principal behind Deep Root, Robert Mueller, indicated that that design of that patent wasn't what they ultimately were doing. but yeah that was it just made me think of a claw game like the claw they're going to have to add some bricks for counterbalance it's going to be really heavy to ship yeah no and other than that the only thing I know is hammer test hammer test hammer test that they're doing real wood play field but that you're going to be able to smack it with a hammer and not dimple it so they're going for the home market yeah and in fact their motto it was and probably still is I think was something and I might botch it a little bit was every home for a pinball, every pinball for a home or something like that. Yeah, I do remember that now. They just kind of faded out of my memory because I got to see stuff. I mean, I want to play the game. If you just talk, that's not enough. Well, pricing is what, when you have a statement like that about every home and pinball and stuff, I immediately think, okay, so you're going to be pricing under a Stern Pro, right? Yeah. Because games are now like almost $6,000 for Stern Pros. And I'm telling you, every home can't have a pinball at $6,000. That is crazy money. And everyone knows that one is not enough. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's like eating Starbursts or whatever. You can't just have one. It's not how this works. It's not how pinball works. And early on, again, that was one of the other statements was Ferrari quality with Kia pricing was another statement. whoa okay but now i yeah i don't think you're taking that literally because you can get a kia for like seventeen thousand dollars well uh that statement i believe has been walked back some so so now it's more like maybe it's more like ferrari quality with lexus pricing yeah no i don't i don't know my my i'm assuming that they're gonna uh and i i think this is unfortunate and it is just an assumption but i'm assuming that they're going to drop in where everyone else has dropped in at that premium price point area they're going to be flirting around in that seven to nine thousand dollar zone for their starter package and you know that's just like that's the space american pinball is in that's the space that spooky is in that's the space that jersey jack is in i mean no one competes with the stern pro well with the one exception of home pin which no one likes their games or game i don't know i haven't tried china's I was going to say games. Well, you know, China Zombies is supposed to come out. Oh, okay. But Home Pin's got its own thing going on because they moved their factory from mainland China to Taiwan. I don't even know if they're producing again yet. I don't have good sourcing with Home Pin, so I don't get a lot of information out of them, in part because I never ask. That's on me. But what's not on me is our next pinball topic, and that's going to be all about you, Nick, and you, Carrie. I want to understand more about the business of operating pinball. And operating as in actually operating route games, especially like the steps that you all have had to take in terms of the pandemic. And then and maybe we start with this, Nick. You mentioned at the start of the episode that you guys have you went and you bought a new shop. You moved into a much bigger space. Most of the pinball entities I know of have, if anything, been hunkering down and shrinking up, not expanding into new vast locations with tons of square footage. So are you insane or what's the strategy here? Yes, I think about that every day. So just so we're clear, I started this expansion like, well, a month before everything was shut down. And I signed the leases and everything days before everything was shut down. So it's been quite scary. It wasn't a conscious decision to expand during a pandemic. Definitely not. But we've been rolling with it and we were originally hoping to get it set up and get open within a month, which I see how naive that was now. So at first it was kind of like, oh, great, we have you can take a little more time to get this set up because, hey, nobody's going to be coming out anyways. And everything shut down. We were able to get a little work out a deal to get a little bit of a reduction in the rent cost. So everything seemed great. But now that we're this deep into the pandemic and there's still no end in sight, it's quite scary. But we're getting close to opening. The licensing has been, like I mentioned, a nightmare. I knew it was going to be tough, but it is way more than I ever expected. Now, by licensing, is that to be able to operate coin-op? Is that what you mean? Yes, and not only just operate games, but have a place that's main purpose is operating games. It's two different licenses. There's a lot of antiquated laws in Kansas City and Missouri in general, and I found out through this process that nobody does it. I probably would have been better off not going through all the legal channels and trying to do it right, but basically they consider it a nuisance business. Any sort of arcade, if you will, we'll just blanket it as arcade, is a nuisance business and has a very lengthy background check and paperwork process. Well, and I, you know, while the laws are older, let me, you know, kind of devil's advocate. When I lose and have to leave the tournament early, it is a bit of a nuisance to me. So, yeah. Yeah. It's very inconvenient, especially if I've carpooled with Tony and he's still playing and I want to eat tacos and I can't go get them. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Yeah. F*** you. I mean, normally it's the other way around, but sometimes it happens that way. Okay, so you're working through all of that. Any other challenges that have come up recently, I guess, in the process of all that? I mean, I'm sure it's all a learning experience, even though you obviously had launched the shop before, and I'd been to that space. It was very modestly sized. Yes, very, very much so. It was sort of a, hey, if this doesn't work, everything's going to be okay no matter what, And I was routing games that was bringing in good money at the time. But now it's like, oh, the cost is five times my mortgage. What do I do? But I think the fact that we have probably, I mean, right now, we probably have close to 40 games ready to play across the two arcade spaces. We have had people come in and preview and play test and check things out. And it's been really great to see how excited and happy people are for what's going on. And, you know, we have an upstairs and a downstairs. And the upstairs is basically a long room with pins all along one wall. So, yeah, it's great. I'm not going to say it's impressive. It's very clean and nice. But then they walk into the hidden pinball bunker where most of the space is. And it's just row after row after row of games in a really cool, almost feels private space. It's been great. It works so hard. And Carrie's been basically going through a 40-point checklist on every single one of the games that we bring in. I just keep bringing them in, and she just keeps on checking them off. Probably on the games that haven't been routed before, we're talking 20 to 60 hours worth of work on each game. So months of that, and now finally seeing some people get to check it out, it's given me a little hope that this idea is not as crazy as I thought it was. But with the customer repairs have been piling up, too, so people are kind of getting in line to bring us games to work on. So that helps. So 40 games all basically en route at once? Yeah, I'd say a little bit more if you include the Pizza West and Nubz Bub locations. Those are technically segregated from Solid State itself. Right, right. Those are in Kansas, and Solid State is now in Missouri. And in one building, we have about 40 ready to play. and there's another 10-plus waiting to be fixed and put on the floor, and another handful still that haven't even entered the building. Well, I mean, I know, we're Kansas City, but by Kansas City standards, 40 pinball machines, that's not an arcade, that's a space station. Right. So, I mean, that is a lot, because up until this point, at least from the competitive player's perspective, the largest location has been 403 Club, which topped out at one stage with 13 or 12. Yep, that's right. We did have 13 at one point for a little bit, but almost always more than nine for the last few years for sure. So, Carrie, you've been working part-time about 25 hours a week for Solid State. How were you lured into this? Well, it all started with a pinbot over a year ago. Well, yeah, that's the first game I worked on. And Nick basically at the old shop which was much smaller asked me a couple different times like hey would you ever be interested in just coming in and working on games for a little bit And one weekend I was like all right let try it This weekend I come in you tell me what you want me to look at and we'll see how it goes. And I believe the first game was Pinbox. It had a sling that wouldn't work, and it was really bizarre. You would think it would be very easy. But after a few hours of troubleshooting, it ended up that the wire was pinched under a bracket for the slam tilt, but it was hidden in the wiring harness, and I had to pull back some stuff to see that. Yeah. I actually remember Nick sharing the struggles. I think it was on our Kansas City Pinball Discord about what he was trying to figure out with this pinbot, because it was like a – that was a really long one to get trouble until you came in and solved it. I just remember seeing it. I shared some stuff, I think, as my dad, who's an electrical engineer, emailed me. He's like, I think it's this, Dennis. I'm like, no, Nick, check that. It's not that. Yeah, it just kept roasting transistors. We're like, what is going on? And I finally found by using my meter that there was a short somewhere in the blue tire. So I just followed it all the way through the game and found a pinched tire. And from there, I was like, oh, what do you want to work on next? and that has been happening for the last year and a half or so. It just hasn't been easy. And you've also been repairing. So, like, maybe one of you or both of you can explain, like, 403 Club, it's always been a little interesting in that there's been more than one operator that has worked through that location. So, Carrie, you're doing repairs not just for Knicks games. Correct. Yeah, I always kind of wanted to be an operator, but Nick and David were doing such a good job at 403 and Eric was doing such a wonderful job at Pete's West that I didn't want to step on any toes. I just figured I'd just kind of wait for my chance if it ever comes along and somehow within very quick succession I am now working on games at all three places and the way that it happened first of all, David Luttrell moved to North Carolina so he had a majority of the games at 403 Nick had several games as well and so there was going to be kind of a void that needed to be filled and at first it looked like Nick was going to fill that void and then through a convoluted set of circumstances that I won't go into it ended up that someone from Omaha his name is Jojo Stiles, he is the founder of Anti-Drink Pinball ended up buying the games for 403 Club. And he needed somebody to service them because he's in Omaha. And he knew me through Auntie Drain and through going to tournaments. And he asked me to do it. And we came to an agreement. And so, yeah, now the games at 403 are owned by him and serviced by me. We decided to cut down on the amount of games due to the pandemic. So there are currently six, but as soon as we feel like it's safe, we're going to expand probably to 10 or 11. We're not sure yet. So, yeah, so that's 403. And then shortly after that all kind of settled, I was asked out of the blue by Eric Anderson if I would be interested, along with Nick, in taking over Pizza West and Nubs. and I was like, oh, let me talk to Nick and we'll see what we can work out. And that ended up working pretty seamlessly. Eric made it really easy for us. He sold us some games. He helped us move the games in. And yeah, almost overnight, Nick and I became responsible for the games at Pizza West and Nets Club. Now, I wanted to ask about that because I remember when that was announced. and now Nick you noted earlier with Solid State that it was all just barely but all pre-pandemic when you signed the new lease for the new space and you'd already made all these plans before the pandemic my impression which seems to be confirmed from what Kerry was explaining is Eric's decision to get out of operating in Nubs and Pizza West happened during the pandemic so what made you guys decide to get routes picked up during the pandemic well it seemed like it too good of an opportunity to turn down. If there was a, I mean, I don't know if Eric was going to quit, whether he found someone or not, but seeing as that could have been a possibility, I mean, for the past 11 years, I've been all about Kansas City pinball. So seeing a good location like those two die, I couldn't let that happen. So, you know, obviously monetary-wise, I thought it's not going to be a moneymaker right now, but I'm thinking long-term, we keep it going, we get back up to the full number of games and it'll all be worth it. And we still have more places to play. I don't think it benefits anyone in the Kansas City pinball community to have just one good location. I think the more we have, the better. Well, I mean, just for my part, and Tony can speak for himself, but I really appreciate that they were picked up because Nugs and Pizza West, they're only 15 minutes away, whereas it takes me over 30 minutes to get all the way up to KCK. Okay, so. Right. For me, they're much farther away, but they're still the ones that I tend to hit the most often. Like if it's just if I have one of those free days that don't really exist anymore, but I used to have where it'd be just me at home during the week. A lot of times I'd go up to one or the other for lunch to play some pinball before coming back to pick the girls up from school and all that. Right. And pre-pandemic, I could justify going there if I worked from home for a lunch break and say, okay, well, I'm going to take 90 minutes and spend an hour actually at the facility and be able to do that, whereas I wouldn't. I would just be like, I'm going to lose at least two hours if I go up to KCK and spend any decent amount, not to mention that I'd have to order food in for 4.03. Now, Nick, do you still have games at 4.03, or are those all JoJo's now? Those are all JoJo's now. I've got a lot to focus on with, as we talked about, all the games at the shop, and now Pizza West and Nub's Pub. So I've stepped away. I still can't wait to go back and play tournaments when those start back up and all that. And it's kind of nice to be able to just go into 403 Club and not have to worry about anything. And people don't tell me everything that might be wrong, which is rare since Gary does such a good job. But I don't have that pressure, and I can enjoy myself there. So it's working out. Good, good. And, yeah, so obviously you mentioned that with the new facility for Solid State, at the shop, which we're going to be referring to as the Space Station from now on. The Space Station has enough space that you will be able to actually host tournaments. I'm assuming that once things settle and the IFPA is back to sanctioning, that you're planning to schedule recurring tournaments there? Absolutely. We're going to be doing a monthly, just like we're going to continue doing the monthly at Pizza West. We'll have a different day. So that may be too many tournaments, but what we're hoping is to get a lot more people involved in tournaments. so we'll see how that goes we are also going to do yearlies and we have a very cool rooftop deck on the building gives me ideas for some pinball on the roof oh throwing pins off the roof you know Todd Tucky did that and I think he did a street fighter too you could possibly do a shack attack oh no I could do that to a shack attack I'm just saying most people won't object now that's probably another permit that you would need I mean, bear in mind that there are likely restrictions. And we'd want to light it on fire to one-up Tuck Tuck. Yeah, and so you'll definitely have to have the fire department deployed because they want to oversee any controlled burn that happens in city limits. And there's probably a fee with that. The tournaments, though, to bring that back, is we want to do a lot of pinball events. Not everybody's into pinball tournaments, but they're still into pinball. So we're hoping to, like, for example, we're about to start at the beginning of next month a pinball enthusiast meetup on Sunday mornings where hopefully we can pull out some of the collectors, some of the just the pinball fans that it's not their life. They're not competitive per se. But let's get them in the shop around all these games. Let's talk. People can maybe work out some trade deals and buy deals. They can ask questions about working on their games, just kind of everything and bring out some of the people that we know are out there and only come to maybe the one giant events a year, but would love to come talk pinball. And we're para-classes. We've got some popular names like Eugene coming out to do some classes. He wants to really bad, but obviously with the pandemic, we've got that on hold. But we have enough space now to do any of that. And I'd like to see a 50 or so person tournament happen eventually and actually kind of be in the running for the Missouri points. Oh, yeah. You're on the Missouri side. Exactly. So I don't think we're going to have that much of a conflict with the other locations. No, because I normally don't play for fake points. Yeah, OK. Oh, excuse me. Missouri, Missouri. Now, the Sunday meetup, you are going to call that Donuts and Drains, right? I guess we are now. If we put it out there, we have to. Well, no, it's your idea. I'm just I'm just saying, you know, like eggs and issues is a common thing to call political meetups that legislators do. So I was thinking, you know, donuts and drains kind of. What do I have to pay you for that? That's free. Ideas are nothing. If I had to lecture people in pinball over and over, you can't. Your idea isn't special. You have to do it. So if you're a doer, you win. If you just are an idea person, no one no one cares. Well, I'm sitting here next to a box of donuts in the shop with Carrie talking to you two, so I guess this is technically the first Donuts and Drains. Oh, well, what have I never drained? Anti-drain. Donuts and anti-drain. No, that doesn't work. Never mind. I mean, you might get some sponsorship dollars. See if the donut company will sponsor it. That's an idea. That's not a bad idea. Yeah, maybe they can provide coupons for people and help drive. A little quid pro quo there. I have all sorts of ideas I never execute on because I'm not an entrepreneur and I have no entrepreneurial spirit in me along the track of thought we do have a coffee and tea shop that just opened upstairs and they have I don't know if they have donuts they have danishes and things of that like so we could direct people through the coffee shop on the way in coffee and tea wow talk about not picking a lane jeez well and there's also a well we originally wanted to do a coffee and pinball shop, but there was a coffee shop in the building already, and so we were like, great, but they closed during the pandemic. Are they already open? A different one came in, and they are already open, so I'm very happy about that. And there is a 5,000-square-foot bar and restaurant opening up in the same building, five feet from our upstairs arcade. Hopefully this month. They're saying this month, but you're going to be able to get pizza sandwiches in the full bar, and likely we'll have a couple games in there as well, So people just have to have a beer while they play. That's for you. There are some that they do. It's the only way they can make their shots. That was a bit of a pun. Shots. Sorry. I mean, it's Sunday. What can I say? Not me. If I drink and play, then all of a sudden the ball gets faster, and I'm like, how did this happen? It's crazy. It's crazy. I don't know. I think most people are worse. They just think they're better. Yes, I agree with you, actually. I just like, there's nothing, scientifically, that makes no sense. I mean, I guess maybe if you, some people say it calms their nerves. I'm like, you've been playing pinball, like, for four years. How are you still nervous when you're at a local tournament? Right. I'm only nervous at a local tournament when I'm still in the top four, and I'm like, I can't, I'm going to choke. I'm going to choke. I guess there's a few players that might make me a little nervous. No. Yeah. But you've beat all of them before. I have, but man, I'm going way downhill. I think I spent too much time moving these things around town and fixing them. I need to be doing some more playing. Yeah, that's true. The rust could be accumulating. It is. I can't even imagine how bad my play, because the only game I play anymore is my Campus Queen. Well, that game's brutal, though. You're probably all like, yeah, I can now drop catch on a two-inch flipper all day. I mean, that Ted Zale stuff, yeah. There's something to be said for that, because I spent a lot of my childhood on two-inch flipper games, and then when I go to three-inch, I'm like, this is easy. Yeah, well, no, and that's why, I mean, Carrie, that's one of the things that you're fairly well known for, is how you perform in tournaments on the EMs, and a number of them are two-inch flipper. Of course, you have a lot of EM experience, two-inch and three-inch flipper size, so. We just got a bonanza in at the shop, and, you know, of course, our first game, correct me if I'm wrong, I think it was your first game here, was like over 1,000 or over 1,500 points. I got like 400. It's definitely an acquired skill. Yes, yes. To be fair, we just realized that if you do multiplayer, sometimes it'll score points on both players. Oh, yeah. I don't think that's happened. That hasn't happened on those first games. You can use that as an excuse. Okay. I like that. I beat her on Space Station, so. That's like one of the last non-Italian bottoms I can think of. Yeah. It's a lot of fun. Yeah, I like Space Station. It's a super nice one, and it's funny that you call us the Space Station, because we just got a Space Station. Well, and part of that, and the listeners don't know this, because why would they? But when we started as well, Nick had a Skype backdrop that was Space Station. Ah, yes. I'm not really creative in coming up with things This is all things I've stolen from other Things I've seen Like how half my lines are from movies I just don't admit that I steal my own dialogue It's really quite sad But that's you know it's pinball what can you do Oh well okay so is there Tony did you have any questions that they didn't cover Answers to regarding the Pinball business side of things No not really They covered pretty much everything That I had thought of before we came in here today. Yeah. I mean, we've had a number of people write in either asking about, especially with the pandemic, just how people are doing things, how they're planning things, what their longer term goals are, or others that have actually asked, they like, you guys talked about this and you don't know what you're talking about. We want to come on and explain what we're really doing. Okay. And then they fall through. So it happens. Yeah. I have a couple of things I could expand on a little bit just because I know not everyone is getting out yet and I totally understand it. Because of the position I'm in, I am getting out just to check on the games and stuff. And so I kind of get to see, you know, how things are going at 403 Pizza West and Nubs. And I'm sure some of you are probably wondering. So each place obviously requires masks. They are social distancing. The the occupancy limits are no longer in place, but it hasn't really been a problem because it's not like it's packed. So there's hand sanitizer, wipes everywhere. And yeah, I was really hesitant at first getting out during the pandemic, but now I've kind of gotten used to my routine, which is to wear a mask everywhere, wash my hands obsessively. I have hand sanitizer in my car. I always sanitize when I'm done working on stuff. And I find that, for me at least, I feel kind of okay because things are spread out enough. Like at 403 where, you know, people got masks, they're spread out. The games are spread out. It's not too much of an issue. The games are spread out at PCOS's nubs right now as well. I will note that at places that serve food, it's a little more difficult because once people are at their tables, they can remove their masks to eat. And there are a couple, you know, tall tables kind of close to the games. So, you know, I'm just being honest. So if you're worried about it, you know, maybe take that into account. Don't go during the time. Yeah, yeah, exactly. If you just want to come in and play games, there's plenty of off times. Like, don't go during mealtimes so that you can come in and feel like you've got enough space. And especially at Pizza West, the way things are going, people don't tend to eat in the pinball room. So when I go there and play games, I'm often the only one in the room, so I do feel pretty safe there. They're doing a lot of carryout business, so I think they're kind of hanging on. They're doing okay, but there's not a lot of people, like, packed in there. So, you know, if you do feel like coming out and playing games, you can wear your mask, you can come to Pizza West at an off time, say in the afternoon or something, and kind of feel like you have your own space to play. Well, we can move to our final pinball topic, and that's pinball repair. And Carrie, you brought this up, so I'm going to turn it over to you. Yeah, so as you heard me say, we've been doing a lot of pinball repair lately. We've been at the shop, we've got people bringing us games, we've got our 40 games to maintain, plus all the location games. So sometimes we come across unusual issues and it takes us a bit to troubleshoot and then once we do find the thing that caused the problem, it's like, wow, I wonder how many people would have guessed what the problem is. So we kind of wrote out, I think, two or three questions based on issues we've had. And I figured Nick and I kind of, we can ask each other the questions. Oh, you guys don't know each other's answers then? Well, we both were around when this happened, so I haven't really had any ideas. Now, your other option would be to try and have Tony and I guess what's wrong. I don't think that's going to go well. I mean, no. So I'll ask my first question, and you guys weigh in and guess what you think it is, and then I'll have Nick answer it. So the first question, now I worded this as a hypothetical, but you can probably tell this happened to us. Let's say you have a Doctor Who at a pub. Hmm, a pub, okay, go on. Yeah, it could be any pub. If it's Shawnee, it could be anywhere. You turn it on and it says check fuse 114 Check fuse 115 All flipper and stroke switches are stuck closed After a few seconds, all three flippers start flipping on their own constantly until you turn the game off. What is wrong? Something turned on automatic play mode. What would be wrong? It says telling you to check two different fuses It also thinks that all the Switches for the flippers are closed Yes And I will tell you that I checked The interstroke switches they were not stuck closed And I checked the fuses and they were not Blown Yeah well I'm not surprised Yeah I'm not surprised the fuses Aren't blown if they ended up flipping after A few seconds so that That makes sense. I would almost wonder if, okay, my guess will be that there's some transistor that's leaking. I had this happen once, but not with flippers. I had a transistor leaking on a pop bumper, but in that case, it was, I guess I'll just describe it real quick so you have a sense of what I'm talking about. This was on a Gottlieb, and so one of the transistors in the backbox, apparently, even though it was not supposed to have activated the device, it was actually allowing power through it, but not full power. The fuse was getting hot, but not hot enough to blow because it was a slow blow fuse. And it actually, though, was engaging the coil enough on a pop bumper that it was holding down and it would melt the coil sleeve if you left it on for a significant period of time. And the transistor was bad. It was actually allowing a little bit of power to leak through it and go to that pop bumper. Wow, that's a new one to me. Okay, well, apparently if it's new to you, that means this is not the right answer, and I'm wrong. Oh, no. So, did you have a guess? No, my guess would be there's a short somewhere that's punching power down, so it's thinking the fuses are blown, but it's getting power to actually flip things, so there's got to be a short where the power's going across somewhere. Yep. Well, you're along the right lines. Nick, what was the solution? We had a bridge rectifier going bad. So yes, it was allowing power through. Yeah, we ended up having to take the driver board back with us to the shop and Nick was able to figure out that bridge rectifier one was shorted and fixed it, tested it in one of our games at the shop and it was all good to go. I don't think I've ever on any of the games I've worked on had a bad bridge rectifier. I remember when I bought Sharky's Shootout, the operator who was selling it told me he thought it was a bad bridge rectifier in terms of why the slings weren't working. And no, it was because he had cut the wire that fed the slings. That'll do it. Yeah, bridges do fail from time to time. On certain games, it's actually a good idea to fuse the bridge rectifiers for the solenoids in the lamps, such as 1980 Black Knight. We had a situation where I shopped one out and sent it to a customer. Six months later, it wouldn't start and turned out to be a bridge rectifier. And, yeah, thankfully, it just popped the fuse that I had installed because when those go bad, they can go really bad. So it's an important thing to do, and that's why we do a lot of bulletproofing at the shop so our customers' houses don't burn down or anything. Well, I'm glad you're anti-drain and anti-fire. Yes. yeah we actually had a bridge regulator file on X-Files as well where it would the bridge regulator had went out and it killed the voltage regulator for the 5 volts for the MPU but I changed the voltage regulator or the voltage regulator it worked for about 5 minutes and then it all broke free again and nothing will boot and still waiting on some more voltage regulators to see if I'm correct but I'm pretty sure that you know But putting in the new voltage regulator without a new bridge rectifier popped it, and then I put in a new bridge rectifier and it still didn't work. Because the other one's toasted. Right. Interesting. I think Nick might have another question. Okay. You want me to do one here? All right. Okay, so here's the scenario. It's a little long. Bear with me. You spent 25 hours getting your Gottlieb spring break ready for a pinball campout. you've traveled nine hours with it in a U-Haul gets played all weekend with minimal issues, you haul it back home leave it folded up for a few months move it again, set it up in your new shop and it kills all of the power, not just at your breaker box but in a breaker box outside of the space upstairs in a locked closet what's the problem? Okay my guess is while it was folded up a small, probably mammalian creature has crawled inside of it. That is a good guess, Johnny. Very similar to Venis's, I was thinking Possession. Maybe you brought back one of the dark ones with you. I definitely had that cross my mind. I was absolutely floored by it. I haven't ever had a machine even knock out a breaker locally, but elsewhere in the building was shocking to me. Kerry, you want to Tell them what happened. Well, yeah. So someone, who I won't name, accidentally pinched a wire under the edge of the transformer bracket. And that said person drove the game to Colorado and back. And somewhere along the bumpy road, the insulation on that wire got punctured. yet somehow the game miraculously still worked for a little bit until one day I came in and flipped it on and the lights knocked out and I was like what is going on how did the wire get pinched at the transformer I don't know somebody did 25 hours of work on it he didn't see it and pinched it oh when doing the ground mod yeah so what happened was obviously it was me when I was doing the ground mod in the cabinet if anyone's done it before you have to really hang inside the cabinet so I removed the whole transformer plate to get it up in the air a little bit more and just managed to pinch one little wire underneath the corner of it and of course everything worked so well for so long I had no reason to check or something like that, but it just wore its way through, I guess, after all that traveling. Yeah, the wire turned out to be the 110-volt line, and it shorted to the bracket, which was grounded. Okay, so it took out all the breakers as well. Yeah, that's a lot more intricate than just a mouse getting in there and grounding itself against the wire or something. I'm interested in the wiring layout of the building that it took out some, uh, breaker box so far away. Well, I think it had to do with, and, and this has all been changed since then, but the emergency lighting system, um, the lights themselves, the fluorescent lights in the shop were tied to the emergency lighting as well. So that if the power was out, they'd still be on. And that wall, that game is plugged into happens to be wired to those lights as well. The same circuit. Ah, interesting. Wow, that in itself is its own little story. It really is. Wow. So most of these things, in theory, pose fire risks. That's very interesting. Are there any other repair tales of woe? I think Nick has one more. I guess maybe this would be better just as a little story, but we got a Black Knight 2000 in, and I accepted it in thinking it was a game that had been in a customer's home working fine for years maybe and this needed some work. When I got it, I found out that it was purchased on Craigslist and brought directly to me. Oh, a barn find? Pretty much, yeah. It needed a lot of things. It ended up being way more than I expected, but the upper playfield had some real mysteries. Most of the inserts were either not working or constantly on. Most of the switches were either not working or triggering other switches. There was a solenoid that wouldn't fire and had absolutely, appeared to have absolutely nothing wrong with it, even tried a different coil. So in the end, what it ended up being was probably about 12 hours of tracing every single wire that was in the upper play field and finding out that somebody had, I took out extra wire because somebody had put so much extra wire up there that I measured 35 feet of extra wire when I was done. So I think people were just trying to bypass stuff and they didn't really have the knowledge of what they were doing. it would be like cut a wire here and then immediately splice a new wire between that existing cut like it did nothing except for add some more wire meanwhile another one maybe went to oh we're going to pull the ground off of the lights for this other thing it was very bizarre ended up a bunch of diodes had gone bad as well with all that so I'm thinking maybe there was some diode issues on the Switch Matrix, and they were trying to get around those by jumping wires rather than replacing the diodes. So it was a fun one. Yeah, I think that one probably does qualify as a hack job. It was the most hacked I think I've almost ever seen, other than we bought three games from a local old-time operator, a long-time-ago operator, and all three of them had arcade power supplies wired inside to run the various voltages. rather than go through the power supply board. So that was a fun one. Did you submit photos of this 35 feet of wire to that Pinball Hacks Facebook group? No, but I still have photos of it in place and in piles. I should. I'll get on that. But you can look at it as a nice tip. Recycle that wire. Make a little extra cash on the side. Oh, okay. He might have a harness patch wire for days now. Right. Did they use proper harness wire? I mean, I've seen worse. It wasn't that cord. It wasn't speaker cord, but it was not the right gauge, and it was obviously pulled out of something else. Was it one of those where they just cut apart and strip the insulation off of an extension cord to get some wire? Thankfully, no. It wasn't quite that bad, but we have come across that pretty often. I've seen some, not pinball, but I've seen some other stuff where it's like, this is an extension cord. Yeah, it works. Right. So all that reminds me of the game that I'm currently working on, which is kind of an unusual story. because normally if you want us to work on your game, you would call us in advance and schedule a time and tell us about your game and what it might mean. But in this case, a customer left me a voicemail, which really they should be calling Nick, and just said, we live 100 miles away. We rarely come to town, but we've got a pinball machine in the back of our truck and we're on our way. and uh so I was like oh it was raining and uh I was like this uh so uh it happened to be at the same time that we were getting two other three other games delivered all in the rain so we needed to coordinate getting everybody in the parking garage so they could unload and uh we didn't even know what game it was we didn't know what they wanted done to it and this game pulls up to the parking lot and it's standing on its legs in the back of a pickup truck with the head up and it is a Gottlieb Genesis. Oh, Genesis. I love Genesis. Yes, fun game. They had owned it for 30 years and it had been sitting in a barn for I don't know how long but a significant number of years as it looked and Mick basically was like, look, if you want us to fix this the way we think it needs to be fixed, it's going to be very expensive. And they said, okay. So we unloaded it from the truck. We asked them, we're like, how did you get it on the truck like that? And they're like, we used our tractor. Okay, well we don't have a tractor for unloading in this manner, but we'll make it work. We ended up holding the game up in the back of the truck and getting it off the truck, putting it on a dolly. Anyway, I have somehow got it working. I got all the mud dauber nests out of it, got a whole family of spiders out of it, and just found a giant wasp in the trough yesterday, but I got that taken care of. And, yeah, I put a new Iffy U in it, and it's mostly working now. I just need to fix the robot, which is being stubborn. But, yeah, it still smells like a barn. And for whatever reason, Genesis has a fan in the back, and somebody had just cut the cord into it, so I rewired it, and now the fan blows barn smell out into our shop. And so Nick came up with the genius idea of taping a dryer sheet over the fan grill. So now we have a giant air freshener, and it's awesome. It smells like fresh laundry. That's funny. You know, that's how I moved my first pinball machine, was that same way. I remember that story. I'm not proud of that story. Yeah, in my case, I picked it up from the old Great Mall of the Great Plains, and they had a loading dock, so it was level with the truck bed. See, in that case, it makes sense for the loading. Now the unloading. Oh, yeah, no, that was two people and me tilting it at a really extreme angle, and, yeah, it worked out. Skylab somewhere lives on to this day. And if it didn't, no one would care because it's Skylab. It just amazes me the thought of driving 100 miles with that upright back of a truck. Yeah, no, I mean, because I only went like seven miles or so with mine. I was so, I had to go so slow because I was, you know, terrified that if I, you know, you couldn't take any turns fast. So, because it'll tip. They're heavy. I always wondered about that when we were in, whenever we went to the shows in Texas and you'd see people loading games up in the back of their pickup truck with like, you know, Kansas or Nebraska tags on it. You're sitting here going, you know it rains every year when we're on our way home from Texas. Every single year. They're like, I've got a tarp. They have a tarp, Tony. It's just a tarp. It's just a tarp. It's not. Okay. Yeah. Congratulations on your purchase. These customers had it tarped, and the tarp blew off. And they said they stopped and bought another tarp. And I'm like, I don't know. Somehow this genesis has come out remarkably well, despite circumstances. Yeah, it's going to be the best before and after. He doesn't want to die. That's what it amounts to. Now, when it's all said and done, though, would it have been cheaper for them just to buy another one? Yes. I figured. I mean, I'm just being honest. No. I kind of told them that. Yeah, they were warned. yeah they wanted this one and they basically got it for nothing so they didn't care but i don't know how they're going to get it home i guess i'm probably going to have to deliver it because i don't know if i can feel comfortable charging it for the repair work and then putting it back in their truck and just waving them off i kind of want to at least make sure it's set up in their in their house and working. You'd show them how, like, okay, well, the legs do come off, and... Yeah. Because, I mean, they didn't, when I bought mine, they didn't tell me anything, so I didn't know I could take the legs off until I started to research pinball. Right. Because it was a spontaneous thing. They saw me break it down outside in the parking lot in the back of their truck, because that was the only way we could get it out of the truck safely. I don't know what they were thinking. I mean, sure, get it in there with the tractor, but how are you going to get it back? Well, they probably assumed you had a tractor. Right? Yeah. I mean, I assumed that you did. Us city folk don't have tractors. Yeah, well, but it's Kansas City. It's a cowpoke town. Well, they're going to be really happy with it in the end, and I'm glad they managed to get it here and found us and persisted. But, you know, if anyone else wants repairs, please get on our list. Contact us. Don't just show up with a game. It'll work out better. Yeah, don't just show up. But if you do know that they'll take it that's the more we'll charge you more you didn't you didn't do a sorry karen you gotta go it doesn't matter if you talk to the manager right okay well we've reached the end of the show so carrie and nick thanks so much for taking time out of your sunday to come on and talk with us yeah no it's fun i guess uh in terms of now yeah it's give me the link and i'll get that in the show notes to the website so people can go and check you out and other than that if people want to check out stuff about our show we are most active on Facebook that's facebook.com slash eclecticgamerspodcast we also can be reached via email eclecticgamerspodcast at gmail.com we're available on Twitch Instagram and Twitter as eclectic underscore gamers and in two weeks we will be back will there be guests will there not be guests will Tony and I be here I don't know I don't have the answers to the questions you seek but we will do the best two weeks is a long time two weeks but But at that time, we will know the truth. We will know the answers. And maybe we'll know something about Deep Root. We can always wait and see. Until then, goodbye, everybody. See you. Bye. See you, guys.