Where's the third flipper? Give me that soul. You're just ain't enough to make me roll. Just playin' back. Yeah, what a shame. Someone pooped their pants mid-game. Where's the third flipper? It's player versus player, and player versus machine. Welcome to the final round. It must be two weeks. Time for another final round. I'm Jeff Teolas. And I'm Ryan C. How you been, Jeff? Happy New Year. Happy New Year, even though the episode we aired, we recorded in December, aired it in January. We are currently recording on January the 21st. If we talk about anything that is out of date, it is not my fault. It is Jeff's fault. I'm sorry. I'm sorry if we talk about pinball machines, about speculation, and they come out already. I apologize. I'll just wait and edit them until they come out in anniversary editions. You know what I mean? If we were to talk Star Wars, I'll just wait until 2027 when it's the 50th anniversary. Everything comes out again. Everything gets remastered. Sure. It's a cycle, Jeff. Yep. First of all, I don't know about you, but whenever I podcast, I know I'm going to be on the microphone for about an hour or so. So, you know, being an older gentleman, you make sure you clean things out before you get on the mic. You don't want to have to interrupt yourself. And I don't know, I always feel like a million bucks afterwards. At this age, Jeff, I thought you just put on a diaper. No, no, not yet. Not yet? No, so I just did that, and I felt great. I thought, okay, all right, let's go record. Now, I record in my basement. You've been in my basement before, and that's where the cat litter is. So I do my business, and my cat says, ha, you call that a poop? My cat just went. And I am now eating it right now. Like, I've already cleaned it out of the litter, but it is just, like, just put in the oven, and it's pretty damn gross, to say the least. so I think of that and I think of you know when we got a dog our Jagger years ago I thought I want a small dog I don't want a dog that poops bigger than me and Jagger's been good so far Freddy or the cat he can go toe to toe which makes me think of your dog you must have do you have any poop envy? So I take him for walks all the time and he always poops on grass and I take him a lot to a dog park and that's obviously grass as well The other day, I was in the middle of the city, basically, and Desmond decided he needed to take a big fat shit. And I don't know why it's different, Jeff, but when you see like a human-sized shit on concrete, just like at a pedestrian crossing, and everyone's looking at you and you're like, You think you're in Paris. You think you're in Paris, don't you? There were no people trying to throw babies at me and handcuff me to a wooden rail, no. Yeah, there's just something different about a human-sized shit coming out of a dog that you just have to pick up in front of everyone. And no one cares, obviously. It was just the first time I had to do it. And, yeah, I was slightly embarrassed, but then got over it. And, yeah, Desmond takes big poops. You know, I have nothing against big dogs. Like, my kids, they have a great Dane, and I love that dog. I think one time I had to take her out, and I was just like, Good God, is there a shovel? I could never work on a farm. They only make, I mean, unless it's a custom one, but when you go to the store, they only make one size doggy poop bags. And it's for chihuahuas and croutons. No way. I go to Walmart and get the, would you like a bag? Yes, seven, please. Yeah. You just have one thing of milk. Seven bags, please. Anyway. Do you have to pay for bags there? Yes. Yes. Okay. As you should. As you should, yeah. Waste, yeah. In fact, here's how our recycling and compost and garbage works in the city where I live. You get recycling and compost for free every week, but garbage is only every two weeks, and you're only allowed, I think, three bags. You can pay for more, but that's how it works. So it really forces you to compost and recycle, and so we should. Do you not have a rubbish bin? Do you have a rubbish bin, or you put them out as giant bags? We have bins or trash cans, as they're known. In fact, your old partner and my old partner there, Marty, once won a trash can at Pinburg. He won the trash talker from Chuck Webster. Chuck Webster. And that prick wouldn't take it on the plane back with him to Australia. How rude. Marty's a trophy snob. It's not the first time that he's denied a trophy. He could have donated it to Trump. Trump's taken any trophies. I assume he's already won a few Twippies. What? Oh, fuck, you don't know? Not to be a political show, but he really wanted the Nobel Peace Prize. Another Peace Prize, yes. Yeah, so the fucking woman who won the Peace Prize gave it to him, and he accepted it. So now there are memes everywhere of people giving their trophies to Trump. I assume he's won Game of the Year for the Twippies. Best animations, Trump. Anyway. So, speaking of Twippies, good chance, slight chance, I would say bet the farm on it. We will not get a single vote for anything. Not that we would because I think they wiped out all the podcast stuff. But even if, let's just say, turn back the clock, we only did five episodes last year. I looked at the math. How many did we record, Jeff? That's how many you released. How many did we record and not release? Man, if we had a real good Patreon, people would be like, God, stop with all these episodes. But no, we only released less than we recorded. Good point. All right. You had a big trip. What happened? What happened on the trip? Where did I go? What's the question? Where'd you go? You made a cool little video. Yeah. And it made me really happy for you and Emma. and just I thought, what a fucking lucky place in the world you live and to be able to go where you went. What happened? What did you do? I went to Vanuatu, which a lot of people don't know where Vanuatu is, even if you tell them in Australia. It's just one of those islands kind of next to Fiji and New Caledonia. Yeah, we call it Epstein here in New Caledonia. Yeah, I just didn't know what to do for New Year's and bought some last-minute tickets and went to this country that I knew very little about, thinking, oh, it'll be like this country. And I think people like to do that. They're like, oh, yeah, Canada's like the U.S., but just with happy people and no. No, that's a joke. That's a bad joke. It's a great joke. What are you talking about? People like to associate things because they're like, okay, well, this is what it's like. But I'm sure it is like a bunch of other countries. I had just never been to a country like Vanuatu because the main island has about 60,000 people on there and no pinball machines, Jeff. I did open up the pinball map. You could have been the Vanuatu champ like I am of Australia. I mean, I'm a continental champ. You could have been a small little island champ. Use your head. I could have. people ask me what I do for a living and I was like well and I started to explain and I was like this is pointless I need to make up some joke occupation because trying to explain the concept of a pinball machine on an island that has no amusement games at all there's no time zone there's no place where you can play like I think I saw one billiard table and that's it it's just a different place it's kind of trying to be new but they're like they're bush people they are tribes men and women they were eating each other 100 years ago uh and that's it's not like uh that's not a joke that's that's yeah i had to send like the missionaries to educate stop them from being cannibals yeah hey look there's a guy in the sky called god is looking down and you stop fucking eating each other wow and it worked maybe time it more than 100 years ago i think it was like 1880 um it's a be accurate be accurate because people come to final round for that kind of historical accuracies and we want to make sure we're not giving any fake information everything's by the book here yeah it's it's hard to find information about vanuatu because they don't like to write things down like you go there you talk to locals and they will tell you kind of about their history and you then go and google it and a lot of this stuff isn't written down it's just passed on from generation to generation so yeah magical magical place i wouldn't recommend it to everyone uh if you want to go i'm happy to give you uh give people tips and and what i learned about it i can show you my little travel blog um but yeah vanuatu no pinball machines jeff just to bring you back to pinball there are no pinball machines on the 83 islands of Vanuatu. I will ask the question everyone listening to Final Round is asking themselves right now. Did you bring your drone? I didn't tell you this story, did I? No. I don't know the answer. Did you bring your drone? I brought my drone with me and I got to the airport and the lady asked me a question, which I thought was, do you have like chocolates or something? I'm like, no. and then Emma heard it correctly and she said, no, she didn't say chocolate, she said drone, like flying objects or something like that. Anyway. Which rhymes with chocolate, by the way, if you're a songwriter. Flying drones and chocolates. That's our new song, I'm telling you right now. Yeah, they confiscated the drone because I didn't apply for a permit because I was like, this is a small little island, you're not going to need a permit. Yes, you do. Because I arrived on a Sunday, The office was closed, and I could have come back to... I could slip it in then. No one's going to know. They're going to have a part-timer on the weekend. No one will see my drone. Wow, look at you. So you couldn't bring your drone. Did you bring home livestock? Tell me. I brought home seashells, Jeff. Also illegal, I think. Well... It is! It's a gray area. They ask you to declare it, and when we went through customs, we had all of the seashells with us. And the person at customs said, do you have anything to declare? And we're like, yep, seashells. And this was at like one in the morning, and there was a massive line. And the person at customs said, they're fine, right? Like you've washed them, and they're fine. And we're like, yep. And she's like, okay, go ahead. And she didn't search the bag. My understanding is sometimes they have an issue if they're closed seashells. Like you can't see inside, like a conch shell. which we had a couple of, but we followed the rules. They let us through. Emma brought back about 100 seashells because that's her obsession. I'm obsessed with pinball. She's obsessed with seashells. Did you stuff any chocolates or drones in those conches? Have you ever found a conch, Jeff, on the beach that is beautiful but also hasn't fully died yet and dried out? I think in Hawaii yeah I think in Hawaii I saw some some son of I can't remember what it was it was this is like right before a few months before I saw you in Australia I definitely didn't bring anything back I know I was in Key West in Florida and I saw some things but I didn't take them so I basically went to a souvenir shop and and bought them the proper way in fact there's still my bathroom upstairs yeah but then there's a nice story attached to it like I went into Well, there is a story. I went into a store and bought this shell. Yeah, I bought it legally. Hello. I crossed an international border without having to go through customs and having ice, you know. Go on. Anyway, the purpose of the story is that conch shells, well, dying objects on the beach smell. The worst smell I've probably ever smelt in my life was this conch shell. And I picked it up and I wanted to surprise Emma, so I put it in my pocket and didn't realize that it was dying. and then my pants basically have to be thrown away because it smelled that bad, and it took me three days to clean it. I should have just chucked it in the bin or put it back in the ocean, but it's a beautiful conch shell, and I've never found one before. So there we go. The word of the day, conch. If you're just joining us now and you missed the last few minutes, basically Ryan's saying that his rotten crotch was due to a smelly, dying conch, and we're going to go with that story. If you're just joining us, this is a pinball podcast. If you're just joining us... The award-winning pinball podcast. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We've said the word pinball. All right, I'll give you some pinball stuff. I letting you know that there are no pinballs in Vanuatu I give you some pinball stuff Are there any pinball machines in Greenland Jeff There should be because there lots in Denmark but I don know Oh, Greenland, geez. Not political. We'll have to be sending troops over there, heaven forbid, anyway. No, don't be surprised. Yeah. Hey, man, I got to travel in North America, so just I'm keeping all that shit off this podcast anyway. I will say I was in the United States. I was in Arizona at a place called Starfighters Arcade in Mesa, Arizona. My goodness, what a great tournament. First event of the Stern Pro Circuit. A lot of our friends were there. Raymond Davidson came up to me. I want you and Marty to know the first thing he said was, where's the third flipper? And he said, it's a catchy little ditty. Maybe our song this week will be just as good. But what a good tournament. It was a big, big tournament, so kind of a pump-and-dump classics event, a big match play tournament, and a couple other tournaments, strikes tournaments, women's tournaments, and really just a great job. Something I look forward to every year. I can easily say, and I'm not just throwing this out there for everybody, but it is one of my five favorite tournaments anywhere in the world that I went to over the last couple of years. So it's really that good. I can't give any higher praise than that. 160 players, Jeff. There were a lot. There's a lot. How did you fare? I did well in the main event. I was top eight. Fucking Ray Day. Fucking Ray Day. He sees who I'm in his group. I think it was Tom Graff, I think, and Steve Strom. So Ray can pick any bank anywhere. Anywhere. You just can't pick one he's picked before. he goes to I'll start on Ghostbusters like there should be I don't want to promote violence but he should have taken a punch right in the face when he said that, honest to god and I love Ray, but if I could have given you one in the jar or kicked you in the balls and got away with it I would have did he win on Ghostbusters Jeff? oh fuck yeah, a billion something stupid I even played it in league last night some guy picked it and I just rolled my eyes I'm like, do I have to fucking play this game? Surely, Jeff, you have a game like this that everybody hates and you love and you know you can. Marty had WWE, which he loved playing on. And the reason why was not because it was a great game. He's a big Tataka fan. He loves John Cena. Yeah, he knows how to beat people on it. Surely you have your game. It doesn't help that I bitch and complain about Ghostbusters and have for the last eight years. That probably is a big, big clue. But it's not fun to play. It's not like I don't know how to play it. Like I showed Ray, I go, here, here's $500 million just for doing nothing, for really doing nothing, a couple of gear awards. But I played a guy last night, and I was $200 million, he was $200 million, and his bonus was $240, and then he had bonus held, and he had an extra ball. And then he had an extra ball. I'm not even joking. He had an extra ball. It was the last ball, so he had an extra ball, and he had bonus held. so he got 480 in bonus. He plunged, so when you have an extra ball in our tournaments, you just plunge the ball and let it drain. He did that. It stayed in the pops. Gave him bonus held. He got a billion in bonus. Fuck that game. Anyway. What's your, okay, what's your strategy if you have a basic strategy on Ghostbusters? Is it getting the multiplier up to 6x first? Well, it depends where you're playing, right? So the gear award things, easy points, the 6X is pretty good. What is the gear award? That's hitting the right, I think something on the right? Ramp, ramp, ramp, ramp, ramp, hitting the things on the left. Oh. Build it up and cash it out. Which also lights your multiplier. Is it left ramp? If you graze it, there's only one ramp there. Yeah. So anyway, that's one way to do it. Storage, multiball, sure, there's that. there's the scoop there's only two modes to get to the little wizard mode but I don't know it's surviving the worst John Borg it was Trudeau but the Borg-esque outlanes you know the way it just rolls out and then that huge gap oh and then just for shits and giggles make it a premium or LE with the stupid Magnus slings you know when they talk about vaults you can vault Ghostbusters or just actually give it to L1 and make a whole new Ghostbusters game I'd be all for that. Yes. Because it's obviously a great theme. Just start from scratch. Don't vault it. Just start from scratch. I agree. That would be pretty cool. I'm all for that. Do that. But there's that. Anyway, but that aside, what a great, great tournament by Tracy Lindberg, by Kevin Curtis, by Jim, by Bob Kennedy. I don't want to forget anybody. Anyway, there's so many great people there. Kathy at the desk. I love that community. I do go to a lot of places, and you sometimes see there's this group that connects with this group but not this one. And, like, there's little subsections and stuff. In Arizona, everyone's just awesome, right? Like, hey, we're going to go electric bat on whatever day of the week is. We're going to go to atomic art motion on this day. We're going to go to star fighters on this day. They all really work together. I loved it. It was good. John Schaubel, good people there. I'm looking at your IFPA profile, Jeff. 42nd in the world. That's so impressive. I'm proud of you, Jeff. Thank you. 11 years active. Say that again? 11 years active. You've been playing competitive pinball for 11 years, Jeff. Yeah, but I'm in my 50s, so think of had I played when I was younger. Are they ever going to create the opposite of a youth ranking? Have they done that yet? I mean, like a seniors ranking? I thought you were going to say a senior ranking. Yes, the seniors ranking. Yeah, like a plus. Oh, shit. You know what? Indisc's coming up, and this is the first year I qualify for a senior, and I'm not even going to be at Indisc. I unfortunately can't make Indisc because it's the week after the Canadian National Championships. I just can't go back to back. So I wish Indisc a lot of fun at their new location, but they've got a seniors thing. Damn it. That doesn't matter. What's the cutoff for that? It's going to be 55? Probably. Who knows? Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, listen, that's Donovan Stepp. That's Adam Lefkoff. There's a lot of great seniors, Bob Matthews and stuff. And if I sound a little hoarse, Bob, I'm blaming you. He was sick at that Arizona tournament, hacking up a storm. I'm like, I don't mind if you're sick, but maybe call me crazy. Pretend you're nice and wear a mask. You know, the same people that didn't wear the mask during COVID. Anyway, that's a whole other side. Giggle, giggle, shots fired. Anyway, what did we say we were going to shoot the shit about? American Pinball. American Pinball. Fuck yeah. Isn't that something? Coming to save the motherfucking day, girl. America. Fuck yeah. It's like my own ball. It's like my own ball. American Pinball has been bought, Jeff. Yeah. Okay. I'm curious to see what will happen. Listen, I like American Pinball games. I have an American Pinball game. I just, we were talking about Arizona. I went to this one arcade, another arcade, and I only had time to play one game and put money in it, and I put money in Galactic Tank Force. And it was so much fun to play. It was really well worked. So I find these games fun to play. I just hope they can get manufactured and the build quality is there and support's there. Yeah, I went on NAP Arcades, and I was just reading the articles. he did a little kind of mini interview with the guy who bought it, Brian, not Ryan, Brian, Ryan with a B. Here's just a little tiny snippet. There's been some speculation that the owner might move the company to Texas, but currently it's staying in Palantine, Illinois, Illinois factory. Brian bought American Pinball assets and intellectual property from Ametron and is leasing the existing facility from them. Ametron will no longer have any involvement in the operation of American Pinball. It's American Pinball's goal to launch three to four titles by the end of 2027 at a cadence of two or so per year, consisting of 2,000 to 3,000 units. I think that's pretty high goal. Well, I think everything needs... The reboot button has been pressed. It's not like everything was smooth sailing and, you know, Aintron has sold American Pinball while things were flowing out the door. Things have completely stopped. They need to hire everyone again, train them, start producing pinball machines. There has to be demand for them. I hope everything goes well, but I think, yeah, it's nice to have goals, but I think that one is a fairly high goal. The thing that I have a feeling they will be able to manufacture, The speed, I don't have any idea. I care less about the speed than I do the quality. But the curiosity is what's going to happen with the next titles. And they do want licensed titles. They don't know more of that kind of trying to do Barry O's barbecue, which has great rules, by the way. I don't know if you've actually played it. It's a really good rule. Steven Bowden did a great job on that and a nice tribute to old Barry's old games. I don't think any Barry O's have come to us. Maybe they have come to Australia. Well, that NAP article said there might have only been less than 200 sold. And that's definitely stopped. They said they're going to... Hot Wheels' contract ended last year, 2025, but they're still making some Houdinis. They're finishing up on that. I feel like everyone who wants a Houdini has a Houdini. That's not a Metallica remaster that's going to fly out the door. That's on its last legs. they need to release new titles and new titles that people want and people have to trust people become a little bit wary when this stuff happens even if this dude this bloke brian may be able to manufacture better i'm not sure how to measure better if he can manufacture things better than aimtronic it's still people are still going to be wary of putting money into it just like when highway pinball went bust and pinball brothers formed and had to release alien people like all right well what's the bill calling gonna be like and what's warranty support gonna be like and is this place is this pinball brothers company gonna be around for a while i think people will still have those those questions people have trust in spooky right now like here's the title here's some play field stuff here's some play here we're taking orders now you know it's going to get built you know roughly the timeline you're still buying it before you're playing it so there's still that risk but i think the model to follow if you're american is barrels right you're not necessarily a boutique pinball manufacturer but you know you're not asking for so much in advance so look at Alice in Wonderland by Dutch Pinball I don't know I mean they said we'll take deposits but if we don't manufacture them by 2025 we'll give you your deposits back so they do have to give some back but they have made the games I have seen them I don't know if that model would work for American again I think you've got to go the barrels route but you get a title it all comes down to money right usually that's like well we need to know how many we're going to make to order the parts and i guess that's that's the guessing game is maybe not so much about i need this to fund the manufacturing of this it's i need to order parts this far in advance so we kind of need some kind of solid commitment from people to be able to do it what gets them some wins you know it's obviously a good title a good ip but i would say hiring a name that you trust and you've seen some history with. And there's obviously guys out there in all aspects of manufacturing, design and code and stuff. So I think some of those wins would help buyer confidence a little bit, but I still want to see it before I put any money down. That's a big ask for a new company. That's a lot of money out and not a lot of money in, but you got to believe in your product and hopefully they do well because I do like American Pitbull. They should hire all Australian true blue aussie Escher Lefkoff to uh he's got an australian flag next to his uh name on the fba website to join american pinball who better to code their new games than all australian true blue aussie Escher Lefkoff well they there was a time where i know asher was certainly interested in being some sort of uh pinball whether it's ambassador or some something in a pinball capacity. I think that's a name you'd probably trust for something like Game Designer Rules. But again, we know Keith is an elite player, but he can show us that he can give us, here's a Bozo multiball right away for T-Rex or something like that. Well they are No that what I call them Bozo multiballs You did nothing and you got them they call them something something similar don they no it a I don care what they call it in this broadcast it's a bozo multiball is that little Deadpool that's a bozo multiball T-Rex multiball bozo what's the one in Iron Maiden Mummy is Mummy bozo Mummy Mummy's a little hard at least it's 10 shots right I don't know maybe if you don't spell the full Mummy off the bat but I'm talking like the three-shot multiball. The number one bozo multiball of all time. Well, I'm not including when you plunge and you start with a multiball, but I'm saying you hit something and it starts a multiball. Guns N' Roses, amp multiball. I went down an in-lane. What? Oh, congratulations. Well played. multiball. Yeah. If you have that in comp mode, maybe get rid of that multiball. We can't get rid of amp multiball. You can make it harder. No. No, I'm not. Listen, it's attractive. It gets people excited to play. I understand the whole reasoning behind it. I'm always trying to think of, I shouldn't be thinking as a competitive player. But multiball kind of used to be a wow moment. And now when they just give it to you, okay, you better have some other wow moment. Because multiball used to be the thing, right? Yeah. But now it's just, oh, hit this pop-up for three times. Ta-da! Okay, wait. It used to be the thing to draw people into pinball. You know, do you actually get excited by multiball now, Jeff? In competition, you bet I do. Boner alert. Would you rather be playing in Metallica? Would you rather be playing crank it up or, you know, electric chair multiball? Crank it up because it's a wizard mode. And I've already played electric multiball probably at that time. Yeah. See, multiball doesn't get me excited anymore because... Well, I think it doesn't get me excited anymore because I'm not good enough to really... If I'm playing Iron Maiden and I get a trooper multiball, I'm not good enough to play it properly because the super jackpot shot is too fucking hard for me. I'm not skilled enough to hit that shot on purpose. It's always by accident. Always. It's always a ricochet off the mummy thingy-jigging. Bally Williams games, those multiballs excite me, even if they're very simple and boring as fuck because I know how much the jackpots are worth. It's not a multiplied thing, and I know I'm good enough to get them. But I can't think of a modern multiball that really excites me, besides the fact that I'm not going to drain out and lose the ball. It depends on the game. Some games are more mode-heavy. Like, for Dialed In, I never need to play a multiball. It's about completing the modes and getting the... whatever that thing is on the side shot, the impossible... Sim card. Sim card. yeah but you're more likely to get a sim card if you're in multiball and you're more likely to complete a mode you're likely to fall into it yeah exactly multi-walls a safe yeah what was there was a capcom game we were playing in arizona i think it's called pinball magic and it has a multiball but who cares the modes are more like i like i like when modes are worth a lot and they're more important i don't know i'm probably missing something yeah there There probably is a lot of multiballs. I just can't think of one in my head where I'm like, wow, what a moment. I would say Attack from Mars. It's pretty awesome. No, I'm modern games. Total Nuclear Annihilation. Modern games. You're thinking what? Modern, modern? Yeah, like in the last 10 years. It's so funny. You know, at our Ontario Provincial Championships, one of the games picked was Led Zeppelin. They had a premium, and I'm the Turner Director, so I immediately made it a pro. Fuck you, Electric Magic. That's a bozo multiball. That is a bozo multiball. So I disabled that, and the guys who blew it up never did multiball once, ever. So it depends on the game. There's a modern one where I don't care. But Rush is a game where you've got a lot of hard shots to hit. Multiball is more of a safety thing, right? I can cradle one up. I can hit a bunch of shots. If I get down to two balls, I can add a ball. That's what it is. It hasn't always been before it was. That's where you blow up the game. but I guess people are just too good at pinball now that if you can blow up the game with multiple then that's the entire game. So I blame it on Bowen Kierens and Keith Alwyn and Eric Stone and Jeff Teolas. How about Lyman Sheets for making the code? I can't blame it on him because he's not alive, Jeff. That's illegal. You said Eric Stone. Can I give you a little tip about Eric Stone? By the way, congratulations. He won his fifth Florida state championship. But this is a betting tip, okay? If you're listening right now and you're about to bet on future sport events, find a game that's happening, especially if it's a New Robert Englunds or Florida team. Quickly look at Eric Stone's post and see that, you know, it's the first quarter of a football game and his team is down 7-0. I said forever, you know, I knew they couldn't do it. Oh, well, congratulations. The other team's the winner. quickly bet on whatever the opposite Eric does because he just does that all the time. And he does it on himself too. Like, oh, Saka, I only qualified fifth in the tournaments. I can't play pinball anymore. Guaranteed he's about to win the tournament. I've seen his post before, Jeff, where he loses the first two rounds of pinball on a very long day of match play, and he'll write some very dramatic post saying, like, I'm done with pinball. Like, and he won't blame them at Sheens. It's all like self-degrading stuff. Like, I just don't have it today and blah, blah, blah. And then, yeah, you find the tournament on Match Play and, you know, a couple of hours later and he's first. He's won 10 games in a row and he will win. So if you can, can you still bet on pinball games? I remember for a little while you could do the same for pinball. We're bringing it back. With all the fan duels and DraftKings shit they've got in Major League Sports, yeah. let's bring back the pinball stuff i like the pinball betting did you yeah it is it is something that i like i like the corruption of it too i do i think it's i think it's funny oh that's that's bullshit i mean anyway it's something you can bet on where the judge of the pinball competition can also play and win the competition how many other sports is that a thing where the person that makes the decisions also can be the person who wins might be a little batshit crazy you're right uh speaking of sports you love the afl right the australian football league is that what it is not as much but sure yes i love afl what's your team please don't hate me everyone in australia but i support the essendon football club who's the biggest rival they've been shit for a very long time, but I would probably say Collingwood. Collingwood, Carlton. Sure. I'm going somewhere with this. Yeah. So whatever, you know, in North America, you've got the Yankees and the Red Sox and baseball, the heated rivals that just hate each other. You know, you could say the same with the San Francisco Giants and the Dodgers. You could say that about everybody in the Dodgers, really. But, you know, in hockey, it's the Montreal Canadiens, Toronto Maple Leafs. Heated rivalries. Well, if that isn't the topic of a hit television show based on a book, it's called Heated Rivalry. Have you heard about this? Please tell me, Ryan. I have not, sir. Tell me. Hold on a second here. So what's going on with this show? I'm telling you right now, I'm going to watch the whole thing, and apparently there's a season two and all that kind of good stuff. Well, imagine you've got two superstars on opposite teams. One happens to be, let's say, Russian and one's Canadian, and they're going toe-to-toe. They're going to go toe-to-toe to Olympics. the next 10 years in their career they're going to be going toe-to-toe. But what if they were also toe-to-toe outside of the hockey rink or arena or whatever venue they play at? Meaning they're life partners and no one knows. That's the whole premise of the show, right? Is that these rivals that are supposed to hate each other are secretly madly in love with each other. What a great concept of a show. Do they meet on the the sports field? I have no idea. I mean... Wait, have you watched the show, Jeff? No, no, but I will. I'm dying to watch it. You haven't even watched the show. No, I know, but everyone's ranting and raving and I told my wife, I said, yeah, let's watch it. We just got to get through Landman. Anyway. 99% on Rotten Tomatoes. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, okay. I like the idea of it and I just thought... I'm always looking for pinball to go to the next level. heated rivalry the pinball series would be freaking awesome do you have some people use well i'm just saying in mind i got one in mind right now like two people that are just bitter enemies but little did you know they're absolute soul mates can i go first yeah sure what do you want to go first no go ahead buddy Josh Sharpe and wait for it gft all this I can neither confirm nor deny I can say it work By the way, Josh and I were texting all Sunday night when his Chicago Bears were playing my Los Angeles Rams and we said a few things over the phone Tick picks? No, we were happily married Pick a pick No, no There were none of that. But wouldn't that just shock the world? Or maybe not. Maybe, right? Okay, no, yeah, it's not controversial enough. Yeah. I can see it happening. Yeah, who you got? Bruce Nightingale. And Lonnie Ropp. Oh, he just badmouthing every chance he can on Slam Tilt. And then when the mic's off, here she comes. What are you doing? Come on over. Bruce Nightingale cats away on a Antonio Cruz come on over Lonnie Bruce Nightingale and fucking the entire Stern employee list I feel like and anybody who anybody in spooky yeah yeah you know spooky yeah there's a lot of people on Bruce what if it's all ruse what if it's all ruse and he's like every manufacturer's pin cushion what if his cruises are just giant swinger parties and it's just it's just a massive sex party with the entire Stern factory. You know, you're a consenting adult, Bruce, and you can do whatever you want, but I'm just going to put this out there. You're an ignorant slut. I got another one. I got another one. Okay. Jack Danger. Ooh. And the guys from Brody, Eve, and Pinball. It's a love triangle, Jeff. Jeez. Whoa. That might be a little inside info. I have no idea what you're talking about. But anyway. Jack Stone and Jack Guarnieri. Sorry, Jack Stone. Okay, okay. I could see that one. Keith Elwin. Keith Elwin and... Who's Keith Elwin? Bowen Kierens. Hmm, interesting. Wouldn't that just shock everyone? Heated Rivalry, the pinball edition. Send in your... Your wish list? Valentine's is coming up. We're going to play a little pinball Cupid here. They do Pinball Santa on Pinside. We're going to do Pinball Cupid. All right. That means you have to release the podcast in the next three and a half weeks, Jeff. The point of this is we need more love in the world, less homophobia and all that kind of stuff. So let's just share good times and put our differences aside. Kumbaya. I'm all in. Anyway. Talking about love, Jeff. Oh, okay. You ran into someone the other day? I told Ryan that I ran into an ex-girlfriend of mine that I haven't seen in 20 plus years. So this is well before I was married. Either time. And you're over 40 now. Okay? Correct. So imagine you were with somebody in your 20s. And then you don't see them for a quarter of a century. I mean, you might see pictures on Facebook there, but eye to eye, it's a different story. And we were at a funeral of a mutual friend. Oh, jeez. What a place. I'm not, listen, listen, dude. We're both extremely happily married people. It's just we happen to be, we both worked with this guy years and years and years ago. And, yeah, it was kind of shocking and just, you know, I'm polite and I don't have any enemies and stuff. So, hey, how you doing and stuff? This is the weird thing. I didn't even tell you this. She's with her daughter, right? And her daughter, I think, is first year university or something like that. And so she says, oh, hey, this is Jeff. This is an old friend of mine. We used to date. She tells her daughter. I'm like, I just was so embarrassed. I'm like, why would you say something like that? And her daughter kind of. You couldn't be my daddy. No, no, no. She looked at me like, she might as well just come out and said it. Him? Because I don't look like I do when I was in my 20s. I'm a little heavier, a lot more gray. I have facial hair now. I wear glasses. Your zip is always undone. Well it was then too The years haven been kind to me And so you kind of see somebody and you kind of do the quick up and down like whoa Anyway, I just thought it was pretty funny. It was funny yet embarrassing. But anyway, I say this to you, buddy, because I've been looking at your pictures. Guess what's starting to win the race? On you. I've already lost it, but Gray is knocking on your door, my friend. Yeah, a bit of salsa, Pippa. That's fine, Jeff. I was fine with a little gray here and there. I don't think I'm ready yet to go bald. I think if that happens, I'll have a bit of a crisis. I might book a trip to Turkey, but I'm fine. A similar thing happened to me, Jeff, maybe two years ago. I was at an event. It wasn't a funeral. I saw someone, and I'm like, is that the person? and I just really didn't think so because she looked very different and it was the person that I lost my opportunity to. Whoa. And then I went home and I... By the way, are her rates still the same? Oh, Jeff. I found her on Facebook, Jeff, and I messaged her and I was like, hey, I don't know if you remember me from a very long time ago. Were you at this event? Like, that wasn't you. And she's like, yeah, that was. I didn't see you. You should have come and said hi. And I'm like, oh, okay. Anyway, I would love to tell you the story of how I lost my virginity, Jeff, but that is for our Patreon subscribers only. And it's a horrific story. Yeah. And good chance we probably mentioned it on a podcast we never, ever released. by the way on one of the podcasts that we didn't release i sat there and talked about harry potter for like 10 minutes and i feel like i owe it at least 20 seconds here harry potter is fucking amazing uh if you if you like pinball and you haven't played it you should play it and you should probably buy it it's a masterpiece i i haven't felt that good playing pinball for a a very long time i played all these new pinball machines at an event we had in melbourne uh evil dead alice in wonderland so many like 10 new people machines that i was playing catch up and it was nothing on those other games like there's a lot of great games in the in the mix there but harry potter is elite level if you play them side by side harry potter is yeah it's you know made in 2025, but I feel like either every other pinball machine is from the past or Harry Potter is from the future. There we go. It's great, and I still don't think we'll see it in any tournaments anytime soon. Unfortunately, the JK Rowling stuff is just too prominent. That doesn't mean... I know a lot of people that are... It's not going to be in pinball tournaments. Even if there wasn't that controversy, hardly any JGP games are in there because they're not geared towards pinball tournaments like Stern Games are. So they play a little bit longer. Jim Belcedo mentioned this to me and I agree. I've seen Willy Wonka in a lot of tournaments. Dialed In is in definitely a lot of tournaments. Yeah, you're right. I can't say I've seen Hobbit in many. I've never seen Avatar, but I've seen Toy Story and And you have to make it a little tough on especially the left locks. And it's a good game. I think Toy Story is one of those games where you look back and go, shit, I missed the boat on that one. Toy Story is a great game. Missed the boat on what? On owning it or saying it was good when everyone was saying it was good? On owning it. Yeah. People were, oh, it's Toy Story 4. Why not? All that kind of stuff. And fun. Fun. Great coded designs. Good shots. I like everything about Toy Story. I really do. But the Harry Potter thing, you know, I think I know a lot of people that are like, I'll buy it, but I'll buy it used, which doesn't really help Jersey Jack, but they just don't want to support JK, so they'll buy it that way. It's, I guess, their way of protesting. It's selling well, and funnily enough, the CE is the least limited edition there is. Oh, really? Yeah, which is, I mean, some people buy limited edition because they want the best. Some buy limited edition because they want it to hold value or whatnot. But yeah, the standard edition of any JGP machine, they stopped making them for a while, but they've started again. They are always the rarest models. Eric came into my garage. We hung out a little bit when he came down to Australia and he saw my Guns N' Roses Standard Edition and he's just like, oh, you've got the Super Alley. We didn't make many of them. It's really, you know, does that make it more desirable? No, it doesn't. When he came over, did your neighbor ask him to move his car or anything like that? Anybody sunbathing nude in the back with a bird's turban? What's going on? What's going on in your neighborhood? Things are pretty cool. I haven't run a pinball tournament for over a month, and things are cool. I'm getting along with my neighbors out of sight, out of mind. Yeah, yeah. Everything's fine. Getting along with them, meaning haven't seen them yet. Nice. Yes. I need my buddy guard, Brody, just in case I have another encounter with him. That sounds funny as heck, too. The wrong guy, right? You picked the wrong guy. Yeah. All right. I'm going to call it a day so I can get this edited and get it out before April. Jeff, you've missed something, Jeff. I want to do interviews, and you told me, this is not head-to-head, we're not doing interviews. Other people do interviews, and Pinball Profile's all about interviews, so you can't fucking do it, Ryan. But I want to do an interview, and I've done an interview, Jeff. It's a small interview. It's a small interview. You can just copy and paste it in, but the rumors are that the next remastered game is not what people thought. it's going to be Kiss. Not Lord of the Rings, not Tron, not all these other ones. So I managed to get someone very special to answer a couple of really quick questions about Kiss. Can we roll the tape, Jeff? Sure. Beep-bop, beep-bop, beep-boop-boop, beep-boop-boop. That's the sound of the tape. Ladies and gentlemen, today on Final Round Pinball Podcast we have the one and the only Gene Simmons. How are you going, Gene? The pleasure is all yours. Gene, it's 2026. Why is Kiss Pimble coming out in 2026? Wasn't the original profitable enough? You can always make money on Kiss machines. There's always a demand for the greatest rock band of all time. And can you give us a bit of goss? How many versions will there be? The Pro, the Premium, the Alley? Will there be Super Alleys, Ultra Alleys? Gene needs a new Yacht Alley. if you want you can even buy a pinball machine where you come to my house you set it up you pay your own bill to come here you fly on your own dime you wait until i'm home i don't give you a code to get in the gate and you'll be able to set it up and watch me play only for ten thousand dollars and you leave the machine behind by the way i know you're a busy guy gene let's finish off with uh what's the most expensive part of you know this new remaster machine is that the parts Is it Stan paying you the license, or is it your ego? It's the bill you're about to receive for this interview, first of all. There were years ago where Paul, Ace, rest in peace, Peter, and myself used our actual blood in the comic books. We cut ourselves, we put it in the red ink, and there was actual blood in there. I'm not going to tell you what it came from, but the plastic on the playfield protector was stretched out from some other form of plastic that was used at the Playboy Mansion. I kept that artifact because it was one hell of a night and now it is in the Super Alley Edition. So a little bit of Gene, a little bit of somebody else. Thank you, Gene. I'm not sure what to think about that but that was an illuminating interview. Please send the bill to finalroundpinball at gmail.com and please address it to Jeff Teolis. Thanks, Gene. We'll see you next year for the next release. Rock and Roll is Dead, Kiss is Alive, 1, 2, 3, 4, the symphony version as well. And make sure you go on kissonline.com. And that was it, Jeff. I know you haven't... Fuck, wow. Yeah. That's a good get. Yeah. It's not like you're a Slam Tilt podcast and you're trying to imitate Gene. Come on. You got the real Gene's image. Yeah. Yeah, that was awesome. Allegedly. Allegedly. Yep. Gene Simmons spelled Simmons with three Ms. What? Wait a second. That's not... Anyway. All right. Where can people reach us? FinalRoundPinball at gmail.com. Follow us on Facebook. Don't follow us on anything else because even though I promised Jeff that I will do stuff with social media, I don't because I don't give a shit. But just FinalRoundPinball at gmail.com and Facebook. and obviously our website, funaroundpinball.com, where you can find our podcast. You can listen to us on Spotify, sometimes on YouTube when we don't get copyright claims. Subscribe, subscribe, tell all your friends. Vote for us in the Twippies and the Nobel Peace Prize. And join us again in two weeks for the next edition of Flat Orbit. I'm Ryan. See you later. The final round The final round It means know what I mean. Ryan jet set to Venata looking for the thrill, but there ain't no pinball machines, man. What a bit of pill. His drone got confiscated. Customs took his toy. Found a conch shell on the beach. Smells worse than Jeff ship. Oh boy. Pinball rivalry. Who's the king of the game? Who's got the biggest ego, baby? Stake your claim We're talking love and hate Flippers and fade Pinball rivalries You can't escape American pinball just got sold to a cat named Brian Will they rise up strong or just keep on crying? New blood in the factory, new dreams on the line Time will tell if they shine or decline Gene's remastered pinball dropping this year, oh yeah Gene Simmons swears it's the greatest thing you'll ever play Super limited edition comes with a stretched out condom, baby From a wild playboy party signed by Gene himself, maybe Send your application tape to Gary Stern right now to buy jeans, old crusty, come. You take a bow. Ooh, the rivalries are flowing. Who's the biggest? Who's the king? Let's settle this right now with some bling. Grim old rivalries. Ooh, it's packing the biggest stick. Bruce Nightingale and Lonnie Rock Or is it Jeff Teal and Josh Shife They fight all day but late at night they play Whispering sweet nothing's like Baby tilt my weight Yeah They got that secret flipper romance Uh-huh Handball rivalry Who's the king of the game Who's got the biggest ego, baby? Stake your claim We're talking love and hate Flippers and fame And more rivalries Y'all can't escape Yeah Ooh Ooh Ooh Ooh Oh, I won't Yeah, yeah, yeah Yeah