The Spinner is Lit was recorded Memorial Day weekend. This episode is dedicated to all the men and women who have sacrificed their lives to fight for our country, to cherish the freedom we have as Americans. Thank you to all who have served. Welcome to episode 65 of the Spinner's Lit Pinball Podcast. Tonight's episode is the Golden State Pinball Festival Recap for 2024 And of course, I'm your host Spencer And with me are my co-hosts, Dan Hey, what's going on folks? Mark Hey everybody And a very special guest host is the El Presidente The Northern California Pinball Association And a righteous dude, Eric Knapp Hey, good to be with you guys it's so good to finally get you on the show, man. It's been too long. So it's one week out from the last day of the show, and it's really great to get it done this quick because it's still fresh in everybody's minds. And what a fantastic show it was this year. I just constantly heard from people, wow, best show ever, best show ever. You guys hit a new high. We all hit a new high. It was really great. So we're going to get right into it, talk about, you know, the show opened a week ago Friday at 1 p.m. And, you know, it seemed like busier for a Friday. Eric, do we have better numbers than normal? So it's interesting. I would say at the beginning, yes, we had much more early entry because, you know, Friday is when the diehards show up. We don't start getting the general public until after the business day ends on Friday or over the weekend. But what was really telling to me, you know, we have the two lines outside. One is you can go up to the guy at the little table and you can buy a weekend pass for cash. Right. And then you can bypass the line. You're in the door. You're playing pinball. Or you can stay in line and it will get you in the door and you can buy your T-shirts so you can get a weekend pass or a day pass using a credit card. And that line took almost an hour to clear. And that is pretty unheard of. We have two registers at the front desk, and so they'll call people over to the second register around the corner to help get all that cleared up. But, you know, an hour is pretty amazing. then we probably were steady at that front desk for the first two hours of the show. You know, the only difference being is once that initial line was cleared, a new line never filled in. It was kind of shocking looking at the numbers how few weekend passes were sold that day. You know, I think a lot of people with weekend passes are volunteering or bringing games. And so, you know, we might get a few hundred weekend passes sold that day, which tells us that we have a lot more locals and a lot more local families, people hearing about us on the radio, et cetera, coming into the show instead of, you know, diehard pinheads. As far as the show itself and the overall response to the show this year as compared to last, it was basically almost the same numbers as last year except for games. we had more games this year but right about the same number of people right about the same revenue and I always say when people ask me about that because I don't want to make it seem like we didn't have a good show that last year's show was amazing and this year's show was amazing too it was just as amazing and maybe a little bit more amazing but there's nothing bad about it not being an improvement over last year because I would be happy with those numbers every year. That's wonderful to hear. And it's wonderful to hear. And I heard from a lot of people, oh, yeah, this is my first time coming. This is so neat. It's like, oh, you have camping and you can, you know, you have food and drinks and, you know, just all this stuff. It's like, yeah, we want to come back. How do we get our campsites? Go to the website, get on the mailing list. The campsites go really, really, really fast. And I, okay, you know, but a lot of people told me I heard about it on the radio. And I'm like, that's awesome, you know. And another thing I want to point out is, like, the show seemed to, I mean, obviously you're behind the scenes a lot more than us just volunteers are, but it seemed like there were very few, if any, real issues. And if there were, they were very, very minor. It's kind of like being in a band. You know, I don't know if any of you guys have a musical background. I had a minor musical background a couple of decades ago. If you're on stage and you make a mistake and you don't call it out, for the most part, most people don't notice it. There you go. Yeah, exactly. Good analogy. Same thing when running a pinball show. But there really weren't a lot of mistakes. There were a couple little hiccups. There were a few jobs that were typically done by somebody who's not active in the setup of the show anymore that none of us picked up. But somebody realized it, and we jumped in, and we took care of it. We have a great team on the board. I should call them all out by name. We've got Steve Frisvold. Steve Face is our board emeritus. We've got Mike Hosier, Seth Holder. We've got Mike Moretti. We got Jody Dugan. We got Henry Nando. We have myself, Eric Neff. Oh, man, I am just totally spacing somebody. It'll come to me. Or they'll remind me later. Chris, thank you, Chris. Don't forget Chris. He'll take it personally. Exactly. He was on the deck. Yeah, by the way, well, like he listens, we don't mention the name of Seth Holder on this show. He's like Voldemort. He's like, he should not be named. There you go. You know what? Yeah. Go ahead. No, no, you go ahead. I was just going to comment on all you guys and the amount of work I see you do at this show. You never stop. And your lovely wives. Absolutely. It is definitely a family effort. And that includes all the volunteers. I mean, we're starting to see the same faces volunteering every year. It's like a sub board. They know their positions. They jump in. They get everything done. and that's a major, major reason the show went so well. Yeah, it feels like on the other side, the service side, we have people who have been doing this gig now for so long that, yeah, there's not much learning curve. We were actually trying to teach new people this year to do stuff because we were getting more help. It was pretty cool. Yeah, we had the same experience. I wasn't very active in game setup this year. which was very surprising. Normally I'll spend all day Thursday setting up pinball machines, and I didn't set up a single machine this year. It was very nice to watch the crew. You know, they kept going around the facility, and if they found a game they needed to set up, they set it up, they leveled it, and they moved on. Can't give enough credit to them. Yeah, that went really smooth. People knew what they were doing. I mean, they had a system going. I was part of that crew with the volunteers helping set up games, and it was awesome to see people knew what they were doing. We had a little system where we put all the front legs on first just so we could keep track of all the legs that went with different machines, and then we all propped them up, and then we leveled them after that. So we kind of had like an assembly line going, and it worked really well. And I have to say, all the games I played, I didn't feel any games were unlevel or anything. They played just great. Agreed. The funny thing, that's where that came from, because I was in the tournament room. I can't remember what I was doing there. And I noticed that when they were setting up their games, they were soldiered up. They'd slap their front legs on them. They'd move on to the next machine, and then someone would come by with the lift cart, and they'd pop them up on the cart, and they'd raise them. So we adopted that when we were tearing down machines at the end of the show. So, you know, we would get the back legs off, get it up on its butt end, and move on to the next machine because at that point, one person can get those front legs off, they can get the legs bundled, and that process worked very well. We went through almost 40 games in just under two hours. And it got on the truck, it got the truck out the door. Awesome. I noticed that in the last couple, three shows that, because, you know, And since the newer shows, since I'm living out of state now, I don't help break down and put up games anymore. But, you know, I volunteer to other things. And I feel like I'm just getting too old to be doing that anymore. But it goes – like it used to be, man, 9, 30, 10 o'clock at night, we'd still be breaking down games. And now you go in by like 7, 30, quarter to 8, and there's maybe a dozen games, five games left on the floor. I mean, it is empty. They're on trucks and they're already heading home. You know, and we run into that where Thursday, you know, they've got all day to drive that truck up to Elk Grove, pick up machines. We've got the Folsom truck that arrived the night before and was unloaded, and it can go to Lodi. I think we had 24 machines coming from around Lodi this year. And so, you know, they're bringing all these and they're setting them up. Well, the problem we have is we can't reuse trucks Sunday night. We've got this very narrow window, and I don't want the guys driving around at 2 in the morning dropping off pinball machines. So we had a real rush to optimize. We know where the machines are coming from and what order they have to go in the truck, and the reverse order that they're going to be delivered, and just a well-oiled machine tearing down those machines and getting them on the truck. That is awesome. And like you said, it's amazing how many games are provided at the show from all people who donate their games for those three days. It's incredible to see that. A lot of shows you go to and they're like private collections from one person, you know, like 30 or 40 games or something like that. But it's like amazing how much variety of games are available to play from all these collectors from all around the Northern California area. It's amazing. Yeah, and these are their babies. Yeah. We can look at the big groups. It's like I only brought, it was a total of five machines this year. I had a couple over at Adam's house, and then I had a couple more at my house. And really the show is also a good opportunity for us to move our games home, right? They've been distributed around the community over the year. They come to the show, and then we bring them back home, and that way they can get their maintenance and move on to their next temp swap. But if you look at who brings games, We've got the Pinball Museum. So Larry's Artarian always brings about at least a dozen games, and it's nice because he'll bring some really classic wood rails and electromechanicals. We've got the Pirate. The Pirate brought close to 36 games this year, and almost all of them were brand-new machines, if not new in box. We've got the Elk Grove Crew, which I believe was four different locations, bringing 18 machines, which is excellent because, you know, people can bring a machine or two, you know, if they're throwing them in their truck or they're throwing them in their SUV. And we're not asking people to, you know, hop in their vehicle, drive back and forth all day to bring us a number of machines. So supplying those trucks is very helpful. The Monterey guys have a trailer, and so they load up. They're going to be there all weekend. They're going to have a great time. But after that, you know, who really has the capability to bring more than a couple of pins to the show? So you're seeing the labor of, you know, over 100 people, you know, bundling up their games, getting them down to the show, getting them displayed. These are their babies. You know, I emptied out my game room to come to the show. I love seeing people playing my machines, my Barracora. I would get people bumping it into me all weekend saying, oh, I just love your Baracora. That's a beautiful machine, and I love to hear it. That's awesome. Yeah, it's always nice when somebody plays your game and gives you a compliment. Thank you for bringing that. I never see this game anywhere, you know. We need to start the quarter thing. You play a machine you love, you leave a quarter on the glass. Oh, there you go. You know, that's actually a good point. Like, have we ever thought of, like, instituting, like, a best-of-show sort of award thing? Or is that just too – just another bridge we don't want to have to cross? Remind me to bring that up. We're going to talk about Doss Flipper House sometime in the next hour. Remind me to bring that back up because there's some plans they have to put in place, and I think that will be great. Cool. Well, they brought the beer, too, but we'll get into that later. Talking about beer, you know, there's so much going on. I mean, even before the show, you know, because a lot of us get to Thursday in camp or a lot of us get to early Friday morning. I was helping level games Friday morning. And, you know, there's so – there's just – already there's electricity in there and there's so much going on, seeing old friends and making new ones. and then like before a blink in the eye, you know, it's like, oh, like is it dinner time? And then we're at the Flippin' Friday kickoff dinner, which was this year. You were there, of course, and spoke. You spoke great, which I'll let you tell it because you had a great opener. Eric, you had the best opener for this feature. Yeah, oh, man, everybody was talking about that. That was so subtle but so well done. So for the listeners who weren't there, so we had the Flippin' Friday kickoff dinner. Eric's wife, Andrea, and her Girl Scout troop heads up and makes this amazing meal. I always feel underdressed. I always feel like I need to run a tuxedo, but I never do. And we present a member of our community with the Steve Shawn Spirit Award. And this year's recipient is our own Adam Pressworth. And a lot of people said a lot of nice words about Adam and to Adam. It was really a lot of fun. It was really a joyous occasion. Every year it is, more so this year because Adam, he's just such a wonderful and humble human being. and for him to get this honor really was like icing on the cake for him. And, yeah, I mean, it was a really wonderful experience. I know all you guys were there, so I'll let you throw out your thoughts on that. Eric, do you want to go first? Sure. Adam, I can't think of a better recipient for the spirit of Steve Sharman to work. Adam is, I wrapped it up at the end of my presentation, my little speech. We're commenting that, you know, Adam really is the reason all of us are here. And we're EM Lodi for the Golden State Pinball Festival. And I'm not exaggerating by saying that. You know, I was getting into pinball and there were a few other people. There's some people that have pinball machines in Lodi and we never see them. You know, they're not active in the community. And through just a simple mistake and fishing expedition on my part, this is the story I told at the beginning of my speech. I had just bought my second pinball machine, Williams Space Station, and I found a manual for it on eBay, and I ordered the manual. And I noticed on the listing that it was coming from a Campo, California. Well, Campo, California is a suburb of Lodi. It's just a little rural area next to Lodi. So I go on Pinside, and I'm looking at the community map, seeing who's in a Campo. Who did I possibly buy this manual from? I didn't see anybody in a Campo, but I saw this guy travels 180 in Woodbridge. So I sent him a Pinside message saying, hey, I bought this space shuttle manual on eBay. Was it from you? And he's like, nope, I didn't sell you a space shuttle manual, but I have pinball machines and you want to come play? And, of course, I said yes. We went over there and played some pinball in his garage. He was in a condo with a roommate. The roommate had a boat. This is great. It's a speedboat in the garage. So half the space in the garage is filled with speedboat. The other half is filled with pinball machines. But the speedboat doesn't fit front to back. It has to fit corner to corner, so they're kind of arranged strangely around this boat. He showed me how he could get into the zone on Twilight Zone, and we played some whodunit. I can't remember what other machines were there. But we had a good time and kept associating. He went with me to purchase pinball machines, taught me how to buy and review pinball machines. Often he would drive. He had the truck. I didn't. so he would drive when we go pick up machines in his truck. I went with him several times to pick up his own machines, as a hired muscle as it was. He bought a trailer full of project machines from a guy, and I took one and helped fix up another. It was a great experience. He taught me how to do pinball repair, and my initial forays into board repair were under his supervision. and one day he asks me, he was already going to Folsom League, and I don't know how he found Folsom League, but from what I'm hearing, he wasn't really associated with anybody in Folsom League except for maybe Damien. I don't know if Damien was going there at the time. And he tells me that he's like, hey, I'm thinking about starting a chapter of the Pinball League here in Lodi. Are you interested? And when can we start? I mean, honestly, let's get a pinball league going in Lodi. Funny, aside from that, is I'm the only member of the Lodi Pinball League that's gone for every one of the 30 seasons. Wow. We've had people drift in and out, but I'm the only one that's still been there. One time I almost got dropped because I only made it to three nights. I'd been traveling a lot. But I'm glad I'm still in. I'm actually commissioning this. You're welcome, by the way. Yeah, thank you so much. Yeah, Dan let me stay in. I was like, oh, we cannot have pinball league without Aaron. It just wouldn't work out in my head. Exactly. Because you got me in. Yeah. Yeah, after Pinnagogo one year, I was hanging out with you at the key desk, and you were like, why don't you come play in league? And I said, because I don't want to go out to Fairfield. And you go, bro, we got a Lodi league. and you even helped grow. And I was like, oh, yeah, that sounds cool. I think that your actual words were, you don't seem like a complete waste of a human. That doesn't sound like me. Challenge accepted. But, oh, yeah, so. And Adam does more for us, too. He is our electrician at the show. Yeah, Adam's amazing. Exactly. And we did have, I think it was the 2022 was our first show post-pandemic, and we had been switched over to the pavilion, so we had the big hall. And we had spent a lot of time that year looking at the power requirements. There's all these little outlets that are installed in the floor of the pavilion, and we're thinking, oh, this is great. There's two plugs in each one, 20-amp circuits. That's going to run us eight games. We get eight games around each one of these pods, and I think there were 10 of them in the floor. So that's amazing. There's 80 games right there. Well, unfortunately, they were divided up into four circuits, and we were in a position where it's like, okay, so you have these 10 installed in the four outlets, but you can only run four groups of eight off of them. This doesn't really help us at all, and we experienced that the first time we tried to set up games in there. Because it's really almost impossible to figure out what your circuits are without plugging in a bunch of lamps and flipping the breaker to see what's going on. And we have done that before to see where our power requirements and capacity are. And Adam helped us get games rearranged. We figured out how to work that room. and since then we haven't had power issues in there. And I do think there were a number of spaces in there because there were some real concerns this year that we were going to go way over capacity. But Adam had places, we had certain exit doors, which this is a shock to me. You know, we look at that room and on the north wall and the south wall, you have four sets of double doors in a roll-up door. And they break up those walls And it would be wonderful to just be able to go end-to-end with pinball machines on those walls. But, you know, there's exit doors. Well, it turns out that as long as you cover up the exit sign and you don't block too many in the exit doors, yeah, go ahead and put pinball machines right over those doors. So we had a bunch of contingency spaces. You can crawl right over them to get out in the event of a fire. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I would be grateful for that. Yeah. Stop, drop, and roll. Absolutely. You've got to be low anyway. I just kept the fire marshal over in the main room and away from the Greg Creech fire pinball Friday. Yeah. Hey, that's okay. How come you're in this game and someone with a handkerchief on the back? No reason, sir. No reason at all. When I found out about it, it was like, that thing stays outside. Yeah, of course. And I know that he had some issues last year with the melting ramp. From the sun. Yeah, it's like, well, keep that thing in the shade and keep it outside. We're not jeopardizing the show with the fire marshal. We're checking it in. And he said something about da-da-da-da-da, the fire machine, and having a special trick. And I'm like, what are you talking about? And he's like, oh, it shoots flames. And I'm like, and I stop. I'm like, you're not going to do that in here, are you? And he's like, no, no, we're going to take it outside. So I'm like, all right. Because, I mean, I seriously was just like, are you out of your mind? Greg has been active in Burning Man for decades. Yeah. To the point where he's a ranger now. You know, he's had all the fun. He's done all the drugs. And allegedly, I don't know if Greg's actually had all the drugs. to this point where he's like, no, now I'm in management. But he knows the pyrotechnicians, if that is the correct word. And it was a professional job, and it looked amazing. I need somebody to get to work on it. I want to do a sticker that is Greg playing that machine with flame shooting out the top of it, and I want to use the Cheetos font and put flaming hot pinball on the sticker. we need a companion sticker to the Howdy Punk sticker. That would be pretty good. I'd buy a t-shirt of that. I really would. Next time, next time what you could do is take it to the next level is have a hot air balloon hooked up to it so it would float when it would go off. A little hover pinball. Yeah, hover pinball. That's it. Oh, go ahead. No, no. Oh, I had a couple quick, great Adam stories. And, you know, I kind of told at the show, because Mark had called me, and he never met Adam. But he was going to be in town. You were in town for like a two-day teaching, like a special computer class or something. And, like, Adam's like, oh, you can come over and play pinball. And he'd never been there. So he called me up and go, well, you know Adam, you play in league. I'm like, yeah. He goes, well, are you going to come over? I'm like, okay. So I just showed up. Adam was playing catpads. But he's like, no, you guys play pinball. And that's that kind of like, oh, yeah, you're in town. One time Adam had a guy in town from out of state. He'd met him on the Internet or something. And the guy was from like, you know, traveling for business. I forget. He was from like Connecticut or someplace. And, you know, that's Adam. That's how I met Adam. That's true, Spencer. That's when I met him was when he invited me over to his house. And I was like, whoa, he's got a great collection. and I loved playing his Alien Star that was in the living room while he was playing Cuphead. And it was just awesome. You and I played a lot of Alien Star that night. And he was so mellow and just so welcoming. And I was like, this guy is really cool. And, you know, we've been friends ever since. So it's awesome. Yeah, it's really hard not to like Adam. I know. I don't know. I mean, probably speaking more for us who are on the older side, which I guess would be all of us, But, like, he's like everybody's, like, pinball little brother. Yeah, yeah. Like, you know, he's just such a good dude, so sincere, so well-meaning, so into what he's doing. Like, and, you know, there's really nothing bad to say about him. You know, he's, you know, he loves his family. He loves all his buddies. He loves his dog. Like, he's the nicest guy in pinball. He's the Lodi legend, you know, to be honest. Like, that dude just, you know, puts up with all of our shenanigans with extremely good humor and certainly deserved the honor. Absolutely. And on top of that, beyond all the great things we've talked about, he's a damn good pinball player, too. He is. He plays really well, and he's very calm in his demeanor that fits with his personality. Oh, my God. You have no idea how inaccurate that is. No? He was freaking out the whole time. Really? He was so nervous. Was he nervous? Okay. Well, he's calm when he plays. I always watch him play, and he's just, like, so mellow. He went deep, too. He went into the semifinals. We'll talk about that more during tournament talk. Okay. Yeah, he was like, Dan, I'm shaking, bro. And I was like, you got this, man. You're going to be okay. Wow. Okay. Well, that's a surprise. One thing I loved about the dinner and Adam winning the Spirit Award was his family was there. So he had his mom, his dad, his sister, his favorite, I don't want to say favorite, his nephew, Max. I don't want the other nieces to feel like they're not top tier. Definitely his favorite, Max. His favorite, Max. I'll go with that. Yeah. There you go. And it was interesting because, you know, we all had the goal of, oh, who's going to make Adam get teary? You know, it's like we're all gushing about Adam and the great positive influence he's had in our lives. And he goes up there and he's thanking us. And it's really great. He comes off stage in a hug line form. Everybody's getting in there and give themselves a hug with Adam, including Adam's dad. I don't think that his family realizes, you know, they have this son and he's got this hobby. And to them, it seems a little weird, right? It's like he's got his pen and machine, you know. It's like, why doesn't he have normal interests? To us, they're totally normal. We love them. I don't go to the bar after I get out of work. I go home. I've got my family there. I got my game room there. You know, I don't need anything else. And it really, I think, opened up the family's eyes. Oh, he's a huge part of this community. And, you know, all these people love him. And, you know, they all share this same love of the game. And very eye-opening. Yeah, and his parents were really proud of him. You could tell I met him. It was neat to meet his parents. And they were just like, I had no idea how involved this hobby is. That's what they said to me. I'm like, yeah, it's a huge family. And they're like, yeah, this is great to see. This is really awesome. And I think I've known Adam for 12 years. Never met his parents. Yeah. Same here. Yeah. I've never met his parents. I've never met his dad. But I've never met his mom. I have a quick prologue to that. It's after the dinner, I'm walking towards the main hall. The elderly gentleman stops me at the door, and we're just talking, introduces himself. He had just come from the show. He heard about the show. He was on the radio or something. He'd come from the show. He didn't know anybody. And he struck up before the dinner. He decided to go to the dinner. So before the dinner, he struck up a conversation with Adam's dad. and, you know, I'm here by myself. I don't, you know, I've never come before to my first. So Adam's dad invites him to sit at their table. And they're talking and stuff. And, you know, we go through the award and everybody says nice things about Adam, of course. And, you know, the hug line and all that. And he says, I wanted to tell you that Adam's dad said, you know, I never knew. He goes, you know, I used to wonder. It's like, why do you spend so much money on this hobby? You know, all these games are so expensive, and, you know, it's odd to me. And now he goes, I have to look at it in a completely different way because now it's opened my eyes to so much more about, you know, his friends and the community and all the people that love him so much. I thought, all right, cool, mission accomplished, you know. That wasn't like my intent did gold, but, you know what I mean? It was like, oh, okay, we did something really good tonight beyond the good we wanted to do. Like, oh, that was cool. So I felt real good about that And that was a nice way A nice way to Wind down that night Friday night I was wondering who that guy was Yeah, yeah, it was just Yeah, I even got a hug from Adam's dad But I only met him an hour before So, you know, I was like, alright, this is good You know It was just a wonderful night You know, and a great way To kick off This year's show, which was just jam-packed with just pinball and friends and good times and fun and good food and all the experiences. So, of course, we had the after hours fun at the camp, and we rolled it right into Saturday morning. And so now Saturday morning started off with, as I didn't go to it because I was cooking breakfast at my campsite, but we had the swap meet, And we also had the breakfast for people who brought games. Yeah, so a lot of people don't know about that. If you bring games to the show, you're considered a VIP. Those are the only VIPs we have at the show are the people who bring their games. It's not the special guests who present at Pinyu or another place, although they're very important to us. Our only VIPs are the people that bring the games. And we have a breakfast set up for them at 9 a.m. on Saturday morning. and we get a volunteer to bring in breakfast. We had coffee and juice, muffins, cheese plate. Who knew how well a cheese plate would go over a breakfast? We were, you know, at the time, like, cheese plate, what's up with that? And then we started eating cheese, and we just demolished it. Everybody loves cheese. Yeah, what's not to love? The funny thing about the swap meet is, you know, it's outside, and a lot of them are camping. They start early. Somebody had actually rolled in Thursday morning and just put out their boxes Thursday morning and covered them with a tarp. They were ready. Swap meet starts Saturday morning. They roll back the tarp, and they start selling. There you go. I have a great story. there was a Williams Ski Club. Now this EM Adaball machine was owned by the museum And they just had it in storage It really isn the kind of machine you want to let kids in a children museum play for free. It really can't stand that kind of abuse. It was built, I think it was a mid-60s machine and just can't tolerate the wear. And so they had it in storage and they finally decided it's time to move it on. So they brought it over. We had a volunteer run over and grab it for us Thursday afternoon. And they parked it in the entrance hall. We had a little empty space there. And it just sat there. And then Saturday morning comes along and we grab a cart. And I grabbed Mark Howell. Is it Coward? I can never pronounce his last name. Yeah. Hello? I like the sounds. Yes. It's all by him. Exactly. So he's just walking by. I'm like, hey, can you give me a hand? I need to wheel this out to the swap meet. And Jim Vivenzi was going to help me sell it. I was just going to put it out there, and they were just like, well, get an offer. And they'll take it home. And I let them know. I'm like, this isn't a popular title. It's not in great shape. The museum had cut a hole in the side of it and covered it with acrylic so you could see the air working. And that's definitely going to be detrimental to its value. And so we're wheeling it out there on the cart, and Mark's looking over it. And he's like, would they only want a couple hundred dollars for this? And I'm like, yeah. And he's like, I'll take it. We didn't even get halfway there. And he turns around, he goes back inside, he pays Sally for the game, comes back out, and he starts pushing it off towards the campsite. Yep, that's how that goes. I think he got the great deal of the show. So there were a lot of games for sale this year. I think the market's going a little soft for used games. I had several people that wanted to buy Barracora but wouldn't make an offer. So I think that was probably the big deal of the show was him stealing that machine for $200. Oh, that's cool. I saw the game, and I was going to give it a run play, and then it was gone. So I didn't even think about it. Yeah, I thought it was from the Pacific Pinball Museum or whatever. that was, like, for educational purposes, to see the inner workings of the machine. Is that what it was for, or was it just that it was just a hole in it and they just used plexiglass to cover it up? Well, they had cut the hole in it so you could see the workings. Okay, okay. And I'll admit it, having played it at the museum while I was plugged in, it was pretty fun to watch. Oh, that is cool. Those old Williams spark a lot. Oh, yeah, for sure. Well, Mark is a teacher, so it would probably be very useful to him. Who knows? He might bring it into his classroom or something. Mark has a lot of good stuff in the slot, Nate. Oh, yeah. Like the little 1956, I believe, billiard game where it's like it's a billiard game, but it's like bumper pool. Oh, that was a riot to play. That was awesome. Some of the holes have kick-out holes, and then you can do two or three in a row and score an extra point. Really, really interesting. Yeah. There's a funny story about talking about the Williams sparking some years ago back at the old show, at the old location, one of the giveaway games on Saturday, like 20 minutes, people were playing them. It's like 20 minutes before it's time to draw the first winner. On Saturday, the old Williams, I want to say it was like a gay 90s or a gay 80s or something like that. It was an old early 70s Williams EM. I had a quail locked on it. I started smoking and plugged it. And so the lady of one says, which game was it? She goes, well, not the one that Carlisle bought her. I don't know. That game's hot. That game is hot. Hot pinball action. Yeah. Hot pinball action. Hot pinball action. Great creatures like I'll take it. Yeah. Speaking of fire, one of the things that is important for the show for us is the safety machine. We have our check-in system to track the games as they come in, allow techs to repair them, make sure that the person who's picking up the keys to take them home actually owns the machine. We live in fear of that. But it's also important to us not to have fire. And so we do the effort to submit our plans to the fire department, and every year we get an inspection, usually by the fire chief goal. And Chief Dole will come out usually on Thursday or maybe early morning Friday to check it out. Apparently, the office was closed on Friday, so he came out on Thursday, and I met up with him. And the hilarious thing is he always brings a new person from the office every year. So this would be the fifth show he's inspected. And every year he's like, oh, so-and-so, you know, they got promoted, and so I brought so-and-so this year. And it was cool. And it's like we know what's happening. Everybody in the office is going to get to tour the pinball shop. It's like, it's my turn now. Exactly. Well, it was early Thursday, and I'm like, so, you know, we don't have a lot set up. You're free, of course, to go inspect all the areas. And if you have any questions, you know how to find me, and I can explain things. And for the fourth year running, we had zero concerns. First year, there was a van parked in the front hall, and we were told that a van can't be there unless the battery is disconnected. So ever since then, we've been great. But he tells me, he's like, you know, since it's Thursday, we're not full up. He's going to have another person from the fire department come over the next day when we're more full up and check it out. And so I don't remember his name. He was a nice guy. He showed up. And apparently he'd been there about 40 minutes going around the facility, doing the inspection before I bumped into him. And so I talked to him for a little bit, and I gave him the same spiel about, you know, anything you need. I also every year offer, you know, if you guys want to come back later and do another air quotes inspection and play some games, feel free. And they never take me up on it. But he's like, okay, I'm just going to continue looking around. You know, I'm already done with my inspections. Continue to look around. And I go off on my business, you know, and we're setting up and we're getting ready. I come back over and he is in the front hall, the retro arcade part of the show where we had the electromechanicals in the early solid state. And this year I got my Spanish eyes back. This used to be Dan's Spanish eyes. and it came to me in a transaction among friends as all the games seemed to move around our group. It had been brought back to Golden State, but it hadn't been set up yet. So it was on its legs, but the head was still sitting on the floor, and I don't have a back for it. So the back's wide open, and I go in there, and I see the inspector, and he's over there crouched down looking at the head. He's just got this look on his face. He's amazing. He's just looking at all the relays and the score reels and all the stuff that's crammed into the back of that head. Spanish ice is actually a fairly simple game. It's pretty straightforward. Yeah, he could have been looking at the back of a Grand Prix and would have just been blown away. And so I go over and I talk to him, and I'm like, you're looking at, you know, the crazy inventions of cuckoo clockmakers there, buddy. You know, it's like you got all those relays and reels and all that crazy madness to make these machines work. You know, this deep-bub thing makes me have a thought, like, maybe we should cut a piece of clear plexi that would fit that door. You're a genius. So people can still see inside of it. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. We can put the lock on it and everything. It'd be perfect. That'd be tough. I'd love it. I do. Although we did want to do a tiltalica sort of thing. Let's get our hands on another Spanish ice, right? Oh, yeah. And we put them back to back, but we cross-wire the heads. Yeah, who did the second one? So Spanish ice one, Bob. It was Maurice, right? Uh-huh. Yeah, we got to do that. There you go. I don't know how it would play if it would even play, but it sounds like it would be a real hoot. It's kind of an eye that we could probably blow 30 more minutes on, but, you know, we have to talk more about battle games on one of our future episodes because Mark's got some big developments there. Obviously, we'll talk a little bit more about Totalica later. But I think that is an opportunity that, like, if pinball doesn't catch on to it, oh man, they're just leaving money on the table. Yep, they are. Absolutely. Yeah, first. So, yeah, talking about we're in Saturday, there's the games. There's just so much going on. And I didn't even get over to Pinball University this year. And I meant to. There was a couple of seminars I wanted to do. There was just so much going on I never got to. I didn't get to pinball university either. I was just so enamored with chatting with everybody. That was the best part was just seeing all the people. And I'm telling you, there's something about it. When we talk about golden state pinball festival, people are always excited and the games are definitely a catalyst, but I'll tell you just that vibe is just off the charts. I don't know what it is, but there's just this sense of spirit around that area at the Lodi Great Festival Fairgrounds where just people, it's like a humongous family reunion. And everybody is just so glad to see everybody. Everybody's giving each other hugs. You know, we kind of talk about how our families are doing and, of course, talk about pinball. But it's just so awesome to see the love all around. It's just the coolest feeling. And I think that's what everybody looks forward to. That's why everybody posts on Pinside every other day before it starts. And, oh, I can't wait to come. I got my games packed up. It's just that awesome vibe that we have at the show. And I miss it when it's over. I hate it when we get to that, like Spencer says, a pin lag where it's just like it's over and it's like, oh, well, look forward to it next year and before you know it, it's there. But I just love seeing all the people. And I'm sure everybody on the show agrees with me that it's wonderful to see everybody again. You hit it 100%. It is a family reunion with pinball. Yep. Yeah. And I think that one of the great indicators of how much people value the show is how many people are taking time off of work to go. You know, it's like that's not free. You know, they've earned either vacation days or they're taking time off of pay to come down there Thursday. You know, they show up when we open on Friday. You know, they're definitely not working. They're at the show. How many people bring their families or their dogs? You know, the dogs are a great indication. You know, you show up there with your dog, it's because you're not intending on going home all weekend. Exactly. Well, that's so family friendly. like there's I can't think of a show where it's just like you can bring kids of all ages and I mean maybe the very tiny kids might be a little bit like oh my god this is overwhelming there's a lot of noise but anyone who's tall enough to see above the playfield glass or stand on a small stool and see above the playfield glass like the blinking lights the ball rolling around the click clack of the flippers like little kids love ruining your flippers. You flip those foam bitches and as cynical as that sounds, it's really fun to see a kid discover for the first time, oh, if I flip here, the ball goes there. Right. And if I do this, then that happens and this is great. You're seeing these kids who they have the little flippers tournament. These kids are kids, not even like teenagers or late, you know, preteens. These are kids who are like... Yeah, we're talking elementary age. Yeah, elementary school kids who would just whoop my ass on any game. Any game, I was like, this is incredible to see these kids. And they grew up in these pinball families, obviously. I mean, some of them, I'm sure some of them, you know, have just gotten to play games where they can. But yeah, it's just fantastic to see like parents and their older kids and their younger kids can come and enjoy these games in this environment and having a competition for them. That was a Flipper Room sponsor thing, right? Yeah. Unbelievable. Like it's the most genius. There were a lot of kids. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. It's the most genius idea, and you see them play. And it's not like, you know, watching a real, like a t-ball game where, you know, everyone's kind of going through the motions because they're learning it. These kids know how to play. Oh, yeah, and they have their little step tools. It's so cute to see that. And what I loved about it is that the location of the tournament was front and center when you walk in. So you got to see these kids competing in this pot of games, and it wasn't hidden in another room or anything. It was totally exposed to everybody, so it was really a cool opportunity to see these kids flipping the ball around. It was awesome. And they were totally serious about it. Oh, yeah. Yeah, we've got a future champion. You know, there's a future pinball champion in that group. And I'm not talking Nick Stein. We all know that he's getting ready to take over. Right. But he's not a little kid. Not anymore. Yeah, the person who's going to beat Nick Stein in five years was playing in that tournament. Is someone in that tournament. I know we have one, her name's Scarlett, who is from Tahoe, and she is getting to be a good player. I've got to watch out for her. So I met this family Saturday night. I was hanging out at the front desk. And this kid, maybe 10, 12, you know, he's got a T-shirt on that indicates it's his birthday. Right. So I congratulate him. Say, happy birthday, buddy. I hope you're having a good time. And then I tell them the story from last year. So I was in Chardonnay and I was getting ready to leave the headquarters building and head over to the pavilion. And I see this family comes walking in the door. and there's this kid and he's talking to his dad and he says, Dad, this is the best birthday ever. And so I'm telling this family about this and I'm like, you know, that's great. I love that people are coming to the show and they're celebrating their birthdays here. And they're like, yeah, that was us. Nice. Second annual pinball birthday and he was having a great time. Oh, that's great. You know. What an excuse to have a birthday cake that looks like a pinball machine. Absolutely. What pinball machine would it be? What's a good birthday cake pinball machine? I think maybe the Walking Dead. You get a lot of stride over there. Lots of red frosting. Little fondant body parts. We had all that going on. What's that? That's your cue. That's my cue. I missed the cue because I was reading. I'm sorry. Well, you know, we have all that fun going on all day long, and then late in the afternoon, you can win a pinball machine. That's right. And with good ones this year, too. The Deadpool Pro and the Johnny Mnemonic, or Johnny Mnemonic, as we were calling it. Johnny Mnemonic. Which is a great game. It's funny. I mentioned to Dan earlier, I'm like, wow, We're giving away two George Gomez designed games this year. Oh, yeah. That was our homie-gomie year. That's right. It ends up being interesting for us because a couple of years ago, or maybe it was last year, I don't remember, the Pinball Pirate, Chris Koontz, had actually donated a Rush Pro for us to raffle off, and we were very appreciative of that. But we started, I think it was 2019, we had such a good show that we purchased a machine from the pirate at the show. And the idea is, you know, we'll buy this machine. Star Wars, right? Yes, we bought a Star Wars, which I think we traded for, no, we bought a Guardians of the Galaxy, and we traded it for a Star Wars, and we raffled off Star Wars, I believe, last year. and so in 2019 we bought this Deadpool and the idea is we'll play it, we'll depreciate it out, it does public outreach Deadpool had just come back from the Hawk 104.1 the classic rock station in town and they trade us advertising for us bringing one of them on the shoot to play so on air I posted a picture for the guys on the board they had a whiteboard in there and they had a leaderboard going of the different people at the stations and who had the highest scores. And it's one of those places where, you know, we do business with the Hawk, but they have a country station, they have a R&B station, you know, adult alternative. There's like six or eight radio stations in the building. So they have plenty of people on the leaderboard. but it's nice to be able to have these A-list games in the raffle and it does very well. I did find it hilarious that the two people who won, we had Debbie that won the Deadpool on Saturday and Lars who won the Pinball Machine Sunday afternoon they both come from households with plenty of Pinball Machine Oh. Jenny is active. I don't know if she runs or is active in the Idaho Pinball Museum. They have 150 pinball machines. Oh, wow. And now they've got Deadpool to add to their collection. Cool. Very cool. Well, it's all for a good cause for the charity, so that's awesome. And the nice thing is we'll have, coming up in the future, future games that will be raffled off. We've got Double of Seven, Foo Fighters. We've got, what else? We've got a Jaws. Oh, my goodness. And another game I'm not going to talk about because we haven't talked about it yet. You know the Hawks got to be looking forward to their turn with the Foo Fighters. Yes. That's awesome. Well, on top of that, since we're talking about the giveaways, the silent auction was awesome, too. It's what they had available. and I always wanted to put a kit together to fix pinball machines. Now, granted, I only have one, but I am retiring pretty soon, and I've got to start learning how to fix them, but I don't have the right tools. So they offered in a silent auction with Michael Hosier put together, along with everybody else donating the different tools, a whole kit of all the tools available to help you maintain pinball machines or fix them or whatever. and I was blown away with what was all included. So I was like, I got a bid for this. I want to get this. So I put in my bid and I was fortunate. I was the last person on the list with the highest bid and I got it. And I could not believe what was included in it. I was blown away. I mean, it had everything that you would need. It had a great soldering gun. It had a nice digital multimeter. It had all the tools for the screwdrivers and the hex tools for the Allen wrenches and all those. Usually you can't find that right size. Just amazing stuff. Nut driver set. It had everything. And then on top of that, it had a really nice set of needle nose pliers. And I never have good needle nose pliers. They're always too big and they can't get in the small nooks and crannies of the games. you know, to stretch the springs and stuff like that to the flippers or to drop targets. So I was like, this is awesome. So I'm really thankful for all the people that donated those items for the silent auction because now I'm one of the recipients that got an amazing toolkit to maintain and fix pinball machines. So thank you. That's a CCPL and Mike Hosier donation. And this is not, you know, this is not something from Harbor Freight. These are really nice tools, nice brands. I mean, Klein, digital level. Actually, everything in that basket was from Harbor Freight. Was it? Yep. I don't think so. There was some good stuff in there. Really? Harbor Freight sells good stuff. They've been upgrading. I need to go get one of those Klein digital levels like you have in that kit. So if you're not going to use it. Yeah, there you go. I'm just going to send it on over. Yeah. That's funny because, you know, I have some good tools. You know, I've been doing this for a while. And the nice thing about having Mike Hosier put together that toolkit is he knows what's needed. With a collection like that, you know, he's not messing around with cheap tools. Right. I probably have a dozen of those little $3 Harbor Freight screwdrivers. Uh-huh. You know, each end will work as a nut driver. So if you take the bid out, you've got a large-size lock nut, and the other size is the standard, I can't remember what the standard hex screw is, that's all over the play field. So you've got that, plus you have the Phillips and flatheads. It got to the point where it's like, I'm tired of moving these around. They're $3. I got one in each room. I got one in the jump floor. I got one in the other tools. they're just awesome to have they're one of the most useful cheap tools and if it breaks you throw it away and you buy another one and they're magnetic too on top of it so you don't lose the screws and I love the little tray that I got that holds the screws so they don't go flying all over the place I mean all those tools are going to be useful for any kind of job with a project at home beyond just pinball machines so it was a double win but I'm really thankful for it I even told, I texted Hozier and said, you know, I really appreciate all the time you put into getting this together because it's got all the, you know, all the necessities of having tools that I would be too lazy to put together or wouldn't know where to start. I would be too, you know, going to Home Depot or for Harbor Freight, I wouldn't know where to begin. So having it all ready to go, it's like, I got everything I need now. And of course, you won't have every tool, but I'll tell you, it's probably 90% of the things that I need, I could probably tinker with a pinball machine. So it's cool. And so people got some real bargains in that silent auction. There was some wine there that was easily, you know, $35 to $50 a bottle. And, you know, it's a great chance to be able to jump in there and get that at a reasonable price. They had a lot that I think was five or six cases of Girl Scout cookies. Oh, wow. Yeah, $72 a case. I wonder where those came from. That's a great idea to sign an auction because you know somebody's going to get Girl Scout cookies. And then Jody Dugan, who is on the board. I think I failed to mention him before. There I go calling out my mistake. He has dye sub printers and he has a laser etcher, and he just went nuts this year. he laser etched a mirror with this year's show art beautiful by the way cool yeah and framed it just gorgeous we're all like yeah we want one of those please he made me he made us water bottles that were great they had the one of the tiki guys from the art on one side the show logo on the other I had him engrave a flask for me yeah I got this just really nice black anodized flask and he etched the show logo into one side and the TV guy into the other side as well as we have I guess you'd call them golf towels with the show art on them and key chains and the guy just went nuts and a lot of that stuff was in the raffle as well. That's awesome. Going backwards real quick with the pinball giveaway, this was also some years ago, because you talk about people who won the games, they have a lot of games so they donate them out and they pay it forward, which is great. There's a guy shows up on Sunday with his young son, six, seven-year-old, not active in the community but heard about it on the radio or something. His little kid had never really seen him play pinball. He said, hey, we'll bring him. It'll be fun. They bought one ticket. We told them what was going on. We said, I'll buy a ticket. And they won the game. It was an old EM. I want to say it worked perfect. Oh, gosh. It was like an old Williams, like ding-dong. But they took it home, man. And, you know, they came to the show. They had a good time. They bought one ticket and they left with a pinball machine. So that's, I love telling that story to the casual people to go, oh, you went to a pinball show last week. I'm like, yeah, this is the kind of cool stuff that you'll see, you know. It was a doodle bug. It was a doodle bug. You're right. It was a doodle bug. Yeah, you remember that. Yeah. And that's a fun machine. That's a great EM. It's one of the best EMs. That's a great one. Super fun. But it's always those wonderful little stories like that, or like the birthday boy, you know, just that make our community like, oh, man, we just, you know, without even really trying, just, you know, we bring our games and we have fun. And those little moments happen, you know, every year. I'm like, oh, what a cool thing, you know. I'm glad you guys came and had a good time, and congratulations on winning a game. Yeah. So there was something different this year that never has happened before. And this was kind of cool. And, again, I meant to go to it and got busy playing games and talking with people and having other fun. We had a movie this year. We had an outdoor movie. That is right. It was part of the PINU experience. I can talk for a minute about PINU. So Emoto, who works with Marco Specialties, they reached out to us and said, hey, let's do PINU again this year. And primarily we were in the spot where we didn't have anybody to organize it. And we're all busy, and none of us really had the expertise to know exactly what was needed. So when Imota said, hey, let's do this thing, we're like, absolutely. So she put together all the speakers and sessions and everything like that. And maybe about a month before the show, she says, is there a place where we can screen a movie? And we're like, what movie are you talking about? And it was Pinball, the man who saved the game. It's like, oh, that's excellent. We're thinking, you know, she's just going to, you know, inflate a screen and throw on a projector and everything like that. It's like, no. She reached out to the producers. She secured the rights to broadcast the movie at the show. She reached out to the little flippers. They were going to pop popcorn at the show. We got permission to use the amphitheater at the show. It's a perfect place. They put the screen up on the stage, and everybody had benches they could sit on out underneath the stars. And then the coup de grace. She just nailed it and blasted it out of the park with this one. She got, I believe her name was Lana Link, is one of the producers of the movie. She comes out to present the movie to the audience. She brought in a producer. And the producer gets the honor of introducing Roger Sharp, who had recorded an intro to the movie for us. Oh, nice. Just way, way above and beyond. Wow, that is cool. That is really cool. That's an excellent, excellent thing. And a fantastic movie and just so appropriate for the setting. And the Carl Weathers played along super nicely, too. It was a little cool, but, you know, you throw on your hoodie, bring out a blanket, and, you know, super cool to watch movies under the stars. And I'm not saying it's anything more than a coincidence, but you think about that movie, and is it really about pinball? I don't know. I mean, pinball is heavily involved, but like the show itself, it's mostly about family. Right. Yeah. Yeah, about the, I mean, how to say this, I'll say this without sounding too bad, but about like the impact that pinball had on Roger's life. Exactly. Like if you watch the movie, it's not about pinball at all, though pinball's always there, you know, probably a very healthy way to look at it too. You don't live for pinball, but pinball can be a positive influence. It gave him a sense of control when he needed it. It gave him a release, and he was able to use his passion for the game to not only positively impact himself, but to actually positively impact the future of the game in New York, which was fantastic. And all over the place. I mean, obviously, Roger Sharp's such a gigantic part of the pinball community and has brought us so many of the games and the themes that we love to have. Plus, you know, he made Cyclops, which I always think is spelled wrong, but I guess that's how he spelled it. Yeah. Great game. And Mrs. Sharp puts in an appearance on that back glass as well. Yeah. Well, the thing that's interesting, I said this before on a previous podcast, but the game that he played to convince the people in New York, the Bankshot game is the first pinball game I played when I was five years old that got me into pinball. It was Bankshot. And that wasn't even supposed to be the machine. I can't remember what it was. No, it was supposed to be Eldorado. Eldorado. Oh, man. I don't think anybody can demonstrate skill on Eldorado. Yeah. That probably worked out for them better. It worked out for them, yeah. But anyway, that was cool. And when I see that game, I'm always like, oh, I've got to play it because I played it when I was five. And that started, there were two machines that were down in my friend's basement. It was Klondike, which was also at the show, which I played. and bank shot. He had those two next to each other. Man, I played those all the time, playing the jukebox in the background. That got me hooked. That was it. That was the day. Five years old, in kindergarten, I'll never forget it going over. He's like, yeah, Dad's got pinball machines downstairs. I thought it was the coolest thing ever. It happened to be that game. I don't know if you guys had this planned, Eric, or not, because I didn't mean to ask about it. or if it just kind of organically happened. But in the EM room, you had an entire lineup of all the games with the El Dorado lineup. You had El Dorado, Gold Strike, Canada Dry, El Dorado City of Gold, Target Alpha, and Target Alpha. Yeah, you can thank practical speed for that one. You saw that start to line up. and El Dorado City of Gold didn't show up until late Friday night and he held a spot open for it so he got that line together so cool for listeners that don't know they all have the same layout mhm yeah they're like a family like a weird pin family exactly you got that odd kid who always wants to add a ball or that weird guy who has to be named after a soda I've never played Canada Dry so I made sure I played I played all the other versions and it turns out that you have I have played Canada Dry it's kind of neat too it's little touches like that that make our show really special and I checked for the Canada Dry and I was all like holy shit somebody brought a Canada Dry this year this is great Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if that was an original Canada Dry or if it was a rebuild. If somebody started with a Target Alpha and a Playfield and a Backglass and made a Canada Dry. Either way, super cool. I can't speak to it with any sort of authority, so I'm just going to assume it was an original. Yeah. It played and it looked like Canada Dry, so, you know, we'll go with that. So we had all the right drop targets, you know, however many things. That can't be easy to find. No, no, it can't. But, yeah, so we're down. Okay, so we're going down to Sunday, and I had almost no involvement with the tournament at all other than I came and did some color commentary with Dan for a few minutes before my shift Saturday evening, I believe it was. That's where we got the whole Spinner is Lit crew together this year. Yes. Just for like one minute, we were all together in the same place at the same time. Yeah we got a great picture which is on our Facebook page But I going to let you and Dan and Mark let you guys kind of you know can you talk about the little flippers Let's talk about the other tournaments. The big flippers. All right, well, I guess I can start because my tournament session for the qualifying started on Friday for me. So I got there and got to play in that group. And it was pretty awesome because we had 64 players playing, and it went really smooth how we were assigned to different games. We used, of course, match play to keep track of all the scores and the placement of games and everything like that. But it was – I really liked the format of having match play where it wasn't in a queue system. I know some people were disappointed that you couldn't, you know, do the Herb style where you could just go in and play as many games to get the highest score. But the majority of people were really happy to combine what they used to have with the match play of a target match play type format, and then they would have the Herb style where you would go in and you would basically pump and dump and try to get the highest score you can out of a certain number of games. But having that as part of the qualifying really made it nice because it provided an opportunity to have 64 players for each day, Friday and Saturday. And it worked out really well. It was a lot of pinball, and there was hardly any downtime. We did have a little break for lunch, and then we got right back to it and got done about 5.30, roughly 5.30, 6 o'clock was like the latest time. I thought it was going to go a little later, but it actually went really smooth, and it was done before the kickoff dinner, which was nice for people who were attending that. The games were awesome. They had a good variety of classic games and newer games. They played very well. Obviously, they had some rubbers off, and they had the outlanes pretty large, but you have to because otherwise you're going to have Andre playing for an hour on one game. So you probably don't want to have it too easy. But I have to say I give props that the tilts were not nearly as tight as they were in the past. so you could actually shape the game and make your ball saves and everything like that without breathing on it and tilting. It was a lot more fair on the tilts. There were some great players. Definitely the competition was high. I didn't do as well as I wanted to, unfortunately. I kind of messed up at the end. I was off to a really good start. I played Zeppelin. I hardly ever play that game. And, of course, I played great on it, not knowing what I was doing. And then the game that I knew what I was doing on, I didn't do as well because I was trying to think of all the shots I had to make. And then it got in my head, and sure enough, I had a couple of games where I had some unfortunate house falls and left outlanes where I just had no time to get even any control of the ball, which happens sometimes, and that's pinball. But I had fun. It didn't matter how I did. I just had a great time, and I knew that the competition was fierce for those top 16, or actually top 32 players. I knew it was going to be tough to compete against those people. However, I was really happy to see that Reno represented on the last, On Saturday, we had Kyle and Jeff Dixie Reinhardt successfully get into the finals for the Sunday, which was awesome to see that. Everybody else from Reno did not make it, but we did get two, and it was cool to just have father and son. And it was a pretty awesome nail-biter, and with all the stream that was going on, I got to have a chance to participate in that, watching Jeff play and also the final eight. I think it was when I was on there on the mic and watching the stream. But it was so organized. It was a great tournament. People were happy. It wasn't an intense feeling like it normally is when you go to a tournament where everybody's just so serious. It was more a little more casual, and people were having a good time. And that's kind of unusual when you have people, when they're playing in those high-stakes type of tournaments, especially from people from the San Francisco area. Everybody was pretty mellow. It had that same vibe kind of like the rest of the show. People were just there to have a good time. Of course, when it got to the final eight, it got a little more intense. But as always, people are great sports, and the games played great. And it was a lot of fun, and I really had a fun time playing in the tournament. I just wish I did better. I can back most of that up. So I played on Saturday and kind of the same experience. I started playing pretty okay, and then we took our lunch break, and I actually got to sneak out and go to the George and Mike barbecue and ate some food. Not too much food because I was mindful I needed to stay hungry, but apparently too much because I came back from lunch and just got so calm. I took a series of last. I took like last, last, first, last, last. And I was just like, oh, my gosh. Well, there goes my day. But like you were saying, nobody was really so high pressure and nobody was really like pushing you so hard that you felt bad. Like you just, you know, the groups, you know, if you didn't have a good game, people, you know, patted you on the back and said, hey, man, you'll get them next time. If you did have a good game, people would, you know, shake your hand and say, hey, great game, good to play with you. The only game that didn't kill me after lunch was, shoot, what was it? Oh, it was, I don't know, it was one of those games, oh, it was Globetrotters. Oh, yeah. And that game was just playing so hard that, like, it wasn't that you beat it, it's that it beat you less bad than it beat everybody else. Yeah. Yeah, I got to play some Galaxy. that Galaxy was unbelievably fun the Joker Poker that somebody brought was a super popular pick and was playing unbelievably well a lot of good just a really good mix of games you know all stuff that like you look at that lineup and you just go man these are just unbelievable and unbelievably varied and well kept lineup of games for this event And, you know, Friday or Saturday I went all the way and didn't qualify, which was disappointing. But we did have, you know, one of our local boys qualified, which was Adam, and he went pretty deep on Saturday. And then Friday afterwards we had the women's final. Or Saturday afterwards they had the women's final, which was won by, and I always bangle her name, but it's like Louise Wagonstetter. Right, Wagonstetter? Oh, yeah. Great player. Luis is always so good. And the women's final was a nail-biter. I didn't stream it with them, but I came back on Sunday morning, and we streamed the finals. Okay, good, good. The finals were awesome. You know, all the best players came in there, and, like, you know, the field thinned so much faster than you think it's going to thin. and, you know, when we got down to it, it was Gabe DaSilva who ended up winning, and the whole stream is still available on Elk Grove Pinball, streamed by our good friend Rick Demmel, who finished 17th. Our local boy Adam took 8th, and it was just really, really a pleasure and an honor to be allowed to comment on these guys' pinball, even though I, towards the end, I was so, like, into the games that, like, I just stopped commenting, and it's all just reactions. Yeah. It's like playing Swords of Fury. Oh, man, I'm telling you. It was just like, oh, oh. Yeah. Here come the guards. But, no, it's Lion Man. It was fantastic. And the guys who put it on, you know, Mike Hosier and his team, they did just a fantastic job. It was stellar. It was so organized. I just couldn't get over how smooth it was. It was just great. It ran so smoothly. I didn't see even, you know, I know some of the games were a little dramatic. They always are. They're pinball machines. But, you know, there weren't a lot of glass offs. There weren't a lot of big delays. There weren't a lot of big problems. We got to see some absolute superstars, you know, with very play styles. Like, I would give a pinky to be able to play pinball like Andre Masson-Caul. Oh, my gosh. because he plays exactly like I play, but good. Right. The difference with Andre is he knows what shots to hit. He actually talks to himself. If you watch, he is already saying, this is a shot I'm going to hit, this is what I'm going to hit. He already knows ahead of time what he's going to hit. It's unbelievable. I talk to myself, too, but I'm like, oh, man, you suck. Oh, you blew that shot. What are you even thinking? You can't play pinball. You should just go home and cry. No, it was great to see those guys play. And like I said, that final round, it was Tim and Gabe. And Tim, he needed to hit one more shot on Joker Poker. That would have given him the lead, and just the game denied him. And so Gabe outlasted him. So, yeah, it was just an absolutely unbelievable finale. So, again, if you are on Twitch, Elk Grove Pinball, there's a lot of content. And we even streamed some Tiltalica, or Rick streamed some Tiltalica. I actually appeared on that stream playing. Yeah, I was on there too. I was like, oh, I did actually hit the shot. Cool. Simply fantastic. A fantastic setup. You know, technically everything went really, really well on the stream. And, you know, we have a really, really good setup provided by, you know, Rick, who just has put a lot of pride into building that rig and getting on there and bringing us some local pinball action. Yeah, his setup is so professional. I mean, it's so good. And speaking of games, Big Game is a game that killed me. That game destroyed me. I could never make any shots on that. I would much rather play Big Game than nine ball twice. Oh, God. Nine ball is ruined. Well, I didn't play nine ball at all. That was there. I didn't even know it was in that lineup. I'm actually bummed because it was the only nine ball there. I didn't play nine ball. Shoot. I didn't play Joker poker. Yeah, nine ball or the rack-em-up. The rack-em-up. The rack-em-up. The rack-em-up. The rack-em-up. I'm sorry. I always do that because they're both pool-based. Oh, by the way, this game I sucked at, too. Oh, rack-em-up. Yeah, rack-em-up just ruined me, like, twice. And I'm like, I know what to do. I just can't do it. That game is so misleadingly brutal. You want to hit that spinner. Yeah, you want to hit that spinner. Of course you want to hit that spinner, but then the ball rolls back out of the spinner and right down the drain. Oh, I hate that. I know. And what's so frustrating is I had a really good bonus. I had like a five times bonus, and I tilted on the third ball. Wow. Oh, no. And that destroyed my score. That got me last. But to anybody who's like thinking about if they want to play in that event, It's just, it's a fantastic tournament, even if you're not super, super experienced. It basically runs itself so, you know, you don't have to worry about being in the right place at the right time. Just be there. And, you know, even if we sell all the spots, like, be sure to wait list because we are taking people off of the wait list to finish the bracket. So, you know, if you ever did want to get involved in competitive pinball, maybe you're at the league level already. Maybe you haven't done anything at all. You know, this is a wonderful opportunity to come in and play with, you know, truly top-ranked players. But it's not as intimidating as you think it's going to be. No, it's not. It's the fun of it. Yeah, it's fun. It's you and the machine and the people around you. And, again, you know, there's no – I mean, I won't say there's no hard feelings because obviously, you know, it's hard to get beat by the machine. But for the most part, I think that everybody had a really good sense of fellowship and everybody had a really, really good time. And, yeah, it's a great way to spend a day at the show. So I'm watching the stream after the fact, and I'm lying to myself because I've seen the machines that they're playing and I'm like, oh, big game. I'm great at big game. I'm in the home league. And Counterforce. I'm great at Counterforce. They're not playing it right. I'm just laughing. You know who's great at Counterforce is your daughter, Erin. She's just... Before she went to college, she just like... I was playing with her and two other people. I remember two other people that were like both older adults. And here she is at the time, like 16, 17, and she's just mopping the floor up. I mean, it was like, oh, I scored a point. She's like, I rolled it six times on the first roll. It's a known legend in Lodi of the counterforce queen. Absolutely. When she comes around and guests the league, if we play counterforce, she's going to beat us. Uh-huh. Maybe it doesn't always happen, but don't let the truth get in the way of a good legend. Exactly. Well, and the secret is she doesn't know that that game's supposed to be hard. You're shooting drop targets. How easy can it get? It's all that way. But, no, I know that you don't. The great thing about you saying, oh, I'm watching it on the stream and I'm talking to myself about it. See, that's why, like, and I know you don't have the time, but it's like you need to get away and do some commentary with us. Yeah, that would be so much fun, especially on my machine. I would have loved to have been there for the finals. So the women's finals on Saturday, four-way tie at eight points. Unbelievable. Yeah, there's no tie coming out of this. A champion will be crowned, and they're playing my joker poker. And I'm yelling at my screen the entire time. And they're playing it wrong. Why aren't you just going for the queens? Spam those queens all day. And if you luck into enough aces, you can get an extra ball. you know. Oh, yeah? Yeah, and if you just happen to be on the left flipper, put it up top and see if you can get your A or C lane, you know. There's only two real shots on that machine. You know, it's like, knock down a bank, light the light, spam it for 5,000 points a shot until you drain. And, you know, they played great. They did amazing, especially since they were going for the bonus ladder, and it was like, this is full of sucker shots. You know, your 10, your jacks, your kings. The bottom of the That bottom king is death. Death on a play field. Exactly. And then for Sunday to roll around in the main tournament to finish on that. And it's funny watching these guys. How are they pulling so many inlanes? Yeah. It's just grass down there in the inlanes. And I'm like, I own this machine, and it's never treated me this nicely. Mm-hmm. I could take my closure. Yeah, it was a star of the show, for sure. Like, that machine definitely was, saw a lot of action, saw a lot of time on the stream, and everybody always has a thought about it. Well, it's a great game. It's a great league and tournament grant game, and yours is a very nice example. Yeah, we can thank Mike Hozier for that. He sold it to me. Right. Yeah. Cool. Oh, I carved my name in the side. Is that cool? Well, of course. And, of course, on the score, Snow. You don't play the cabinet. Spencer. Yes, sir. There we go. Spencer was here. 24. Well, we're talking about games, man. You know, we always get these wonderful little special treats. People bring newest games, old rare games, one-off games. You know, it's real special. the variety we have on our show. We got a lot of the new games. Not every single new game that's out right now are going to be out, but almost. There was only one or two that I can think of that didn't show up. Spooky, we did have a Looney Tunes there, but we did not have a Texas Fans on Massacre. Other than that, I think pretty much just about everything new, upcoming for the most part was there, including the coup de grace of two John Wick pros. Special thanks to Doc Swipperhausen. Eric, you had a special story or something to tell about that. Oh, yeah. It was crazy. So we had a supporter who had a John Wick on the way because talking to Chris Koontz, He wasn't sure he'd be able to get one. You know, it was really one of those things where if a truck shows up with it Friday morning, I'll bring it to the show. Right. So the supporter, I'm not sure if I should call him out or not. I don't want to get him in trouble with anybody. He said, my game's coming in. I'm going to drive it down to the show. And we're like, this is amazing. You know, we can't thank you enough. And then he gets back to us and says, my shipment's been delayed. And there were some allegations that maybe we weren't supposed to get a John Wick at the show because maybe another show had an exclusive for it. No. I know. And so while this is all going on, JJ from Game Exchange lets us know there's two machines coming in and they should be delivered Friday. And we're like, who's receiving these? Who's receiving these? And we find out that it's the Flipper House, that they're buying these two games from JJ and should be delivered to the show. And so we have this configuration right as you walk into the main building of the service desk. This is where people can get customer service, where they can sign in their games, you know, they can get a tech, all those things. And then right next to it is this walled off area that's the Penn Hospital, right? If we have to pull a game from the floor for repairs, it can go into the Penn Hospital, and those guys can do what they need to do in there, away from the prying eyes of the public. So these two pallets with these boxed games come rolling in, and the names are taped off, right? And we're due to open in minutes, right? So we rapidly disassemble the Penn Hospital because these blue walls that were surrounding the Penn Hospital are like these articulating walls. And so we're able to say partitions. Exactly. We are able to build a cube around them. And Dallas and Christopher are in the cube setting up these games away from everybody's eyes. And somebody puts a sign on the outside saying, you know, reveal a GSBF at 2 p.m. And so after we've been open an hour. So they're in there setting the machines up and getting them leveled, and everybody's buzzing. They don't know what it is. So at about a quarter till, I peek my head in there, and Dallas is in there. And he's got them updated. He's got Insider Connected going, and I'm like, they all ready to go? And he's like, yeah. I'm like, are they level? He's like, we should play them. Oh, I hop in through the door. I pull the clothes behind me. We put a nice test game on each machine. They're playing pretty well. So 2 o'clock comes in. There's got to be 50, 60 people standing around. There's not a lot of room there. You've got the line for the Princess Bride. You've got the service desk. You've got some of the pirates' machines are there and the main row of machines. So it's not a huge area for all of these people. And so they crack open the walls, and there's two John Wicks sitting there. They've got the Doss Flipper House banner up. They have a couple of nice flags. They have John Wick on them. You know, they put together a really nice setup there. They did a great job, and we are eternally in debt to these guys for putting in that extra mile to get these to the show. a real coup for us and our guests. They had no reasonable expectation to getting a single John Wick to the show, and they got two. And they showed their love by never... There never was an open space to play that game. If you wanted to play that game, you had to get in line. You had to get in line. You had to get in line. All weekend long. It wasn't bad. The lines at this show are not obnoxious. You'd be three or four groups deep sometimes. But it's a bastard, so them lines was moving. I remember the Pacific Pinball Exposition. It was up somewhere in the North Bay when they introduced Waz. And they had a line to play Waz, and you got to play one maul. yeah it was like that except you got to play entire games now here's something that we had alluded to earlier that I've been holding on to um Das Flipperhaus is looking at doing some awards at the show uh best of show best mods best home brew uh that sort of thing so we're going to be working with them uh we're incredibly thankful for them to to help highlight that aspect of ownership. People do take a lot of pride in their machines and being able to reward them for all the effort that they put into it. And I think of some of the machines eight ball beyond, right? We know Gray Wolf's firepower is incredible. I was going to suggest that one. His Gray Wolf's flash, Williams flash. Exactly. There's my Babacora, which I think is an amazing machine. There's some Tiltalica. I talk about a mod, you know. I don't think it was any near as hard to implement as it was to conceive of. But, you know, three years running now, it's like Tiltalica is the major thing people love to do with the show. Yeah, and what's great is we're talking all about the show as far as during the actual show hours. but then when you're speaking of Tiltallica there's another show going on which makes this show unique out of any other show and that is the Silverball Campground Camp Silverball which this year sure is glowed in the dark by the way yes what a great opportunity to be able to play games on a campground and a couple of things just to go over real quickly I, Tiltaco was amazing. That's one of those things where the party just never ended. I was blown away. And this is what amazes me. It's like, if you are going to have a spot in Camp Silver Ball, you have to realize that there's never going to be quiet until maybe five in the morning. Right around the time it's time to wake up. When it's time to wake up, that's, yeah. 7 a.m., it's tranquil. I'm up I'm up at 5 every morning there having my coffee and I see people getting up to go to the restroom and then people go in the restroom before they go to bed yeah it's oh it was just such a rush and it's like okay I gotta play one more I gotta play one more I'm looking at the time and it's like 3.30 in the morning I'm like I gotta get some sleep and there's like 20 people still hanging around like ah let's play another game before you know it's 4 Then it gets to 4.30. And it's like, what am I doing? I'm not going to be able to sleep because I'm actually going to have the sun coming up. You know what's crazy about the campground games is it kind of started with Mike's Midnight Madness. Yeah. And then the Tiltallica thing started, and that's pretty much all Shannon. You know, I'm part of it because I let him take one of my games, and I get to maintain it afterwards, which it always comes back. just filthy and destroyed. But Mike and Jack Jarrett, they're the ones who actually, you know, kind of engineered making it work. They got the idea from Chicago from, what was it, the Pinball Olympics. Yep, Pinball Olympics from Bangs J, who rigged those machines to do what we emulated. But it's definitely taken on a life of its own, and I think what it's done is it's inspired other groups to have various campground events. Like we have a huge round of pin golf. Yes. That goes around all the different campsites. And if you got out to the Monterey site, that's like a city. Yep. Right? Like a tent city. Like I said, it's almost competition for the show at this point. We should charge an extra admission. Yes. And you make a good point. There are people who could come to the show, have a great time, and never pay for a campsite and never pay for admission. Let's not give them that idea. If you're not wearing a wristband, I'm not trying to kick you the F out. Yeah, we want people to support the children, of course. But if you just wanted to come out and hang out with your buddies in the campground, yeah, there's plenty to do out there. In fact, you can even get a free meal Saturday afternoon. Yeah, that's true. And the other thing, too, is not only was there pin golf and tiltallica, and for those of you who are not knowing what tiltallica is as new listeners, tiltallica is when they wire the machines together so that if you hit a certain shot, the other shot, yeah, the piston shot, which is behind the fuel targets on metallica, it will tilt out the other machine that you're playing against. So it's basically a survival of the fittest where you play 12 balls total with four people in each group, and when you get tilted out, you have to go back to the end of the line, or if you drain the ball, then you have to go to the end of the line. And it's great because you're not waiting long in line because before you know it, somebody drains out or gets tilted, and you've got to be right up, ready to go. So it's kind of like knockout with pinball. If you've ever played basketball and you're trying to make the shots to knock people out, it's kind of the same thing. But the difference is that you're not considered out until all the balls are done on the opposite machine when you have no more balls to play. And then that team who has balls left over wins. And it was just so fun. I mean, the game is probably lasting five minutes. And it is just a riot to see how some people are behind. And then all of a sudden it gets down to like each person has their last ball. and sometimes there's a kill shot when both of them tilt at exactly the same time. And everybody's like, whoa, everybody just goes nuts when they see that. But, wow, really, that's awesome. And then in addition to that. Yeah, the people around you make it unbelievable. Oh, yeah. Because it's not just that it's you and your team, but it's like there's two or three other teams at any given time waiting to play. Yes. And, yeah, if you're the one who – it sucks when the round ends because somebody drained out, right? Like, don't get me wrong. It's cool that you won. But, like, if you get the kill shot at the end of the game, oh, yeah, it's badass. Yeah, it is badass. In addition to that, what was going on at the same time on the opposite end, as we call the Reno camp, We always have our place where we camp out right next to the amphitheater. Behind the amphitheater, there were two machines set up to play stall ball. And there were some epic stall ball games with doubles there and electronimal. I think that's how I say it. I always get that word wrong. But, yeah, so it was awesome to see that with these huge lines of people seeing who would be the last one to survive to get the ball to stall. Isn't there only one software on DevilsBear? Say that again? I'm sorry? Go ahead, Spencer. Oh, that was Mike Huntsman's baby, the stall ball tournament. Yep, yep. He loves stall ball. Isn't there only one software on DevilsBear? I believe there is two that you can do. There's two you can do. The one behind the flipper that kicks back up to the upper flipper. Yep. That's the only one I can think of. You've got to be quick. There's one where you lock the ball, and there's one that's up above in the upper left-hand corner. It kind of loops around, and then it sticks there. We were playing on Huntsman's Mars Trek. That was a really good game for us. Yep, yep. Because it's got lots of saucers. Electronimo was great for stall ball, too. That was a good one. And, in fact, a lot of people switch over to that. One more thing on Tiltalica before we let it go, and I know I mentioned this earlier, but, again, Elk Grove Pinball streamed a couple hours of Tiltalica. Yes. So if you can't quite get your head around what we're talking about, but you're on Twitch or you know how to get to Twitch, go to Twitch, search Elk Grove Pinball, and look up Tiltalica. And it's a small piece of the mania, but it's a fantastic thing, and it's an idea that I really wish that some of these pinball companies would look at because head-to-head pinball is about the most fun I think you can have. Right. And with your clothes on anyway. Yeah. It's fantastic. Yeah, and the other thing too. If you're playing naked, maybe it's even better. Well, it's a little cold. If it was a little warmer, that might have been a possibility. But what I think was really neat is, speaking of that, talking about head-to-head, in Reno we are developing a system to be able to have two games linked together wirelessly so you can choose a shot that is on a machine even against another machine that has a different shot, but they both communicate with each other. So we're testing that out in Reno, actually, once he gets all the boards set up and everything like that and go through the tests and the prototype. But it's really a cool thing that we're going to try out. And we did try it out at the campground with, we did it with Avengers, which was a shot for the Captain Marvel loop shot. And then we did the upper shot on Iron Maiden. So there were two difficult shots, but each person had a different game to play when you were playing head-to-head. And it worked great. If that ends up working out as well as it sounds like you guys have it working out, that could change the whole head-to-head game. That would be unbelievable. It could. It could. And there is a possibility. And one of the things we're going to try, once we get past the spike one and spike two system, he's Greg from Reno. He's trying to get it so that it will work between more than two games. So, like, for example, you could do the rad shot in TNA and have three linked together. So it's something that we're looking into, and just stay tuned because next year we'll be even more epic at Golden State Pinball Festival. Stay tuned. Nice. That's a nice wrap-up. I want to remind everybody, if you're not familiar with the show, if you're listening in another part of America or the world for that matter, all the proceeds, nobody makes a penny. We spent a lot of people, a lot of good people spent a lot of their own money and time to make this show happen. Bringing in games, volunteering, the board puts forth hundreds of hours a year to make this show work. And all the proceeds, beyond the cost of rent, the building insurance, that kind of thing, all go to local kids' charities. Eric, do you want to tell us more about that? Yeah, so there's a couple of charities that we support. Our active charitable partner is the World of Wonder Science Museum. So this is a science museum for children. They do interactive programs to teach kids about science. They have a museum in downtown Lodi with a lot of interactive exhibits. They've been here. Well, of course, they were here before we moved the show to Lodi. They've been our partner for that long. In addition to being a charitable partner, they also host the snack bar at the show. So we work with a local brewery and local winery, and they are allowed to sell beer and wine for us exclusively at the show, as well as they did ribs this year and sausages. And it was, you know, people enjoy having options on site where they can feed themselves without having to leave the show. and the nice thing for them is they get all the proceeds from the beer and wine sales so they're just immediately adding to their bottom line there and then after the show we'll cut them a check we make sure that we have enough money to run the next year's show and to take care of our bills and then we cut them a check to help support them in their operations and this was our fifth show and over the four previous shows we already donated over to the WOW So they have been a very good partner to us. Likewise, we had a new group that we're looking to support this year. They're called ACES. This is a group that supports Special Olympians, and they would be a great recipient for us. We also send some money back to the Pacific Pinball Museum. Our charter includes that we provide educational opportunities for people to learn about the science and recreational aspects of pinball. And nobody exemplifies that more than the Pacific Pinball Museum. They're great supporters of us, and we'd like to be great supporters of them as well. Yeah, we have such a great EM lineup, especially classic old wood rails and EMs because of the museum. And Larry's Artarian, in particular, curating those games and bringing them out to us. And they always work. Oh, yeah, they're impeccably maintained. I have a story about Larry's Artarian that I think would be best aired in public, so let me get to this. so Larry they rent a truck and they bring out a dozen old games for us and they're the cream of the crop some of these games you're never going to find to play anywhere else and so as a valued supporter in VIP Larry will reach out to me and say hey I want to add so and so to the guest list he's got some friends who want to come by the show and every time he tells us that, you know, put them on the guest list, let them in, and then when I get to the show, I'll pay for them. And every time I'm like, don't worry about it. You know, you don't need to pay for them, right? And so at this point, he kept saying, well, you know, I'll come by and pay for them. And I'm kidding. You don't have to pay for them. I'm going to anyway. So I put on the guest list this year, by no means allow Larry to pay for these, And I told him, I said, I've instructed them at the front desk that you don't get to pay for your guests. And he insists he's going to. So he challenges me that we're going to play a wood rail. And if he wins, he pays. And if I win, he doesn't have to pay. I'm like, okay, this is a good challenge. So he picks Gigi. and I love the idea of playing GG because it's got oh man like 14 bumpers on it you know a number of them are pop bumpers and the other ones are passive bumpers and there's a group of yellow bumpers and a group of red bumpers and the idea is you want to light an entire sequence of one to seven either yellow or red and so he says let's play for sequences so we're not worried about score And so the idea is you light one to seven on either color, you get a sequence number, and sequences kind of count as bonus. If you hit a yellow one, the yellow ones are closer to the top of the pinball machine. It will turn off the red of the same number. So you can really hurt yourself if you're bouncing around up there and you're taking away the reds you needed to complete a sequence. So we play three games of this machine, and we are tied. We can only get, you know, we'll either get no sequences or we'll each get a sequence. And there's no clear winner of this game, right? And I can see where this is going. So I say to him, let's just play for score, right? And so we play for score, and I beat him. And I'm thinking, this is it. This is sweet victory right here. I won. I'm getting my way, right? And he thanks me, and it's a good challenge and everything. It turns out he left several hundred dollars at the register to pay for his tickets, unbeknownst to me. So I won the game and lost the battle. And, again, that's a testament to, you know, Larry and just all the good people, man. They just want to, you know, they want to help out and give back. Absolutely. So Cheddar goes marching off to war. And Larry's like, peace was never an option. He was playing a game, but it wasn't pinball. And he beat me at that game. So do you guys have, each of you have a favorite game of the show? It can be an old game, a new game, a homebrew, whatever. I really enjoy playing 8 Ball Beyond. I really actively want to support the homebrew community. I want to get involved in it. But that was a commercial-quality game that just hasn't been produced yet. It was excellent. You and I talked about that earlier. That's exactly my sentiment on that. I thought this looks and feels and plays, minus some side art, like a commercially available, you know, not homebrew, but micro game. Boutique, yeah. Boutique game. Boutique game, yeah. And it was really fun. And, you know, it was like, but it had that, it had modern, you know, features, great music and soundtrack, great display, great layout. It had great call-outs with the robotic voice. It is such a good game. I end up playing it all the time. Same here. I'm so mad at myself for not getting over there and taking a minute to play it. Yeah. So, yeah. Hopefully he brings it back next year. Hopefully it's still around unless it gets produced. You never know. But it's, wow, yeah, it's so solid, just everything, the code, the rules. I love all his little, like the spinning cue ball. I think it had like some kind of projection on it or something like that. Yeah, that was kind of neat. Just cool stuff like that. And then the eight ball. I never knew that you shoot into that and then it shoots up into a tube. Yeah. I didn't even see that. I was like, oh, shoot. It's like a Denise-y lock on the far right. Yeah, there's like a Denise-y lock. You shoot it up, and then a single drop target pops up and catches it, and then it drops it right to the flipper, and you flip it across the play field, and on the other side, just above all the regular drop, the one through nine drop targets, there's another drop target. You knock that drop target down, then shoot it. There's a vertical up kicker, kicks it into the eight ball, down a lit tube, and then back to the left flipper. So cool. And you know, the other thing I liked about it with the visual appeal was how we had those targets look like spheres. Yes. That was the coolest thing I've ever seen. And normally, you know, they're just flat stand-ups, but I don't know if he 3D printed those or what, but they are just really eye-appealing. You look at it and you go, that looks so cool. They look like little miniature pool balls, yeah. They look like little miniature pool balls, absolutely. a target on Tommy. Yes. Yeah. Tommy got that round ball target. That round ball target. Mm-hmm. Or like the eyeballs on Last Action Hero. Yes. There you go. Yes. Yes. Somebody should license that game. Yeah, they really should. I really hope somebody does. There's some great videos on YouTube. So look on YouTube. There's a couple. Somebody did an interview and then did a short video on it. It's on there. Just Golden State Pinball Festival or 8 Ball Beyond. You'll be able to find that. It feels a lot like a spooky pinball thing, but, you know, if American pinball was looking to actually make something that people would want to buy. Ouch. I like American pinball, don't get me wrong. Yeah. This is a good opportunity, guys. Here's a non-licensed theme, kind of, that people would really want to play. I mean, I like the other thing I like about it is the triangle, you know, where you obviously have all the balls set up before you break them. I love how it has the modes. The rack. The rack, thank you. The rack has, like, the modes that are listed as the balls. So you see, like, what kind of rewards you get or, you know, objectives. Just what an awesome game. I kept wanting to play it more and more, And I was glad there wasn't a huge line for it because I know when it was at Chicago, there was a long line to play that game. So I was like, oh, here's my chance, and it's here at Golden State. And I was like, I was so psyched when I saw that was listed on the list to bring as a homebrew. It was awesome. I was fortunate that when I stepped up to play it, the creator was there. And Sean was like, oh, here's what you want to do. Now you want to shoot here. And it really enhanced that experience for him to be like, you know, you want to have fun? Here's what you do. Yep. I wish he was there standing next to me because then I would know what I was doing. But even though it was pretty self-explanatory because it told you in the code. It told you what to shoot for and you heard the call outs. I wonder who did the calls. I wonder if he did them. I don't know. It was just cool. Just what an amazing, solid homebrew game that, like you said, is production quality. Yeah. So the Monterey guys actually got a stream of 8 Ball Beyond. It's up on YouTube. Okay. Oh, good. So I checked it out on there. If you haven't gotten a chance to check it out. And they do have a conversation with Sean. So it's super, super cool. So check those guys out, Monterey Pinball. Those guys are great friends of the show. I got a chance to talk with him very briefly. And I said, what was your inspiration, you know, beyond 8-Ball or 8-Ball Dwells? He goes, oh, it was definitely he was inspired by TMA. Total Liquid Annihilation. So if you're a TNA fan, it's not a ripoff or a copy or anything TNA, but it's got that same flavor but in an ability game. Single-level play field. No, no ramps. It's got the same flavor. It's got with the music and the lighting, and it's just, like I said, it's a completely different game, all original, but it's got that flavor. Yeah, he definitely saw what Scott Denisey and then, I guess, Spooky Pinball had stepped in and done and said, I can do this. Yeah, and he did. And maybe even better. He really did a wonderful job. It's a fun game. I hope it gets into, I hope it gets manufactured into arcades in people's homes. I really hope so. A legacy pinball brand. I don't know what the copyright on that would look like. Do you think there's some sort of Bally, I mean I suppose Bally would still have some sort of claim to pinball. I don't know. His layout is pretty original, but it's like a collaboration of all the famous pool games. I'm just saying the name. It needs hot girls and high heels and really short 80s haircuts on it. Because you have to be bald, and you have to be bald a lot. Bad girls beyond. Bad girls beyond. Don't talk about the Gottlieb property. There you go. That always ends badly. For me, I think being the resident P3 aficionado, I got to say I was really happy to get my hands on Princess Bride. Oh, yeah. What's your take on it? Because I know you're excited about it. Huge thanks to Cody for schlepping that out and actually for setting up the deal with Jerry and Multimorphic to be able to bring it to us. So that's just fantastic. And I liked it. The funny thing about it was he brought it out and we set it up and it wasn't on or anything. And immediately I was like, oh, man, the module looks kind of dinky. Like it looks small. And I mean, I've been playing Final Resistance and I don't think anything looks impressive next to Final Resistance. But when you turned on the game and everything was lit up and you got to see all the assets in action and hear the sound and actually watch all the cool ways that the module interacts with the ball. Like the ball doesn't come shooting out of a scoop. It actually comes out of a flap in the ramp that you really don't see until it's in action. Or when you're hitting the Cliffs of Insanity and the ball is moving up magnetically and then it gets drug up to the top and rolls down, the game actually has a lot of weird ways that it interacts with the ball that at first you don't really give it credit for. and then you sort of see it in action and you're just like, all right, I got to admit, that's pretty clever. And, you know, I think that the one thing that if I was looking at it and it was kind of, maybe it's just because I haven't played it much yet, but the modes where it's like you're using different flipper buttons to do different things on different sides, and I know a lot of people say this about P3, is that it's a little bit hard to keep up with. So, you know, when you're doing the left-handed swordsman thing and you have to use just the left side of the game, like, I just tank that mode. That is hard to do. It's hard as balls. And, I mean, don't get me wrong. I know that's just great theming, but it's like, man, there needs to be an easy mode. Easy mode, yeah. Because that's definitely a mode that, like, you know, it's the coolest part of the movie. You want to go through this. You want to be successful at this. And, yeah, I just tanked it. I was trying to flip them both at the same time. I was trying to move my other hand over so I could, like, flip on one side of the machine. My fingers are just not that smart. But I really had a great time playing it. and I do think that, you know, as much as the wider Internet just loves to be like, oh, my God, why couldn't it be a normal machine? When you actually play it on the P3, it's another great example of the guys that Multimorphic are using the P3 platform to do things that no other machine could do. Agree, and the assets, how they put them together is really well done. Oh, yeah, the movie. It's awesome. The movie's there. And the funny thing is, is it uses the movie. Like, it's not just like you're watching the movie as you play the game. Like, it is directly giving you things to do that you're playing parts of the movie. And you think, oh, how do you do that? You're just making pinball shots. Just trust me, when you actually get to play it in action, I don't think that there's ever been a game that more directly has you playing parts of the movie. It's another thing that Jaws does really well, too, to be honest. But rather than it just being like shots set to a part of the movie, it's actually really directly saying like, hey, now you're going to play this scene. And then that scene will lead into other scenes. So like you go through the whole fight with Vizzini and with Inigo and with Andre or Fezzik. and, you know, you just, the way the whole game flows is really cool. I had, like, one really good ball and then I had a bunch of really bad ones. So I got to experience a good portion of the game and, you know, it's super cool. Like, I went from going, like, eh, if it's $4,000 worth of fun, I don't know, to, yeah, I'm going to probably have to figure out how to get one. So, Dan, when it popped out of the ramp, there's different sections of the ramp. Did it pop out out of different parts of that ramp in the flaps or just out of one particular flap? Because it looks like it shoots out of different areas. Because, like, sometimes the ball comes down the ramp faster than others. And I don't know. Did you do that? Knowing what I know about the way the P3 dispenses balls, it has to be the same flap every time. Okay. Because it's unless, and, you know, again, I haven't looked at the module out of the game. I've only got to play it at the show. unless there's even more going on behind the scenes that like I haven't seen yet. That's what I would just kind of assume. But, yeah, it's another really cool game. And, you know, hopefully everybody got to put their hands on it. I know I had some people, you know, saying like, oh, man, you know, I just I don't get it. I don't get the P3 thing. Why do all the flipper buttons have to be in different places? And I'm like, I get it. But I think if you spend a couple games on it, you'll get the magic. And here's some great things, too, that when I talked to Cody afterwards, after the show was over, I said, did you have any downtime? He said it worked the whole show. He had no issues. Yeah, I was impressed. So for those people, yeah. I kind of chickened out on bringing my P3, number one, because of things like 400 pounds. Oh, yeah. Because I was like, I was a little freaked out, but I'm just like, I don't want to put it out there and have it fail. Right, right. And, you know, seeing his game just chug along all weekend, I was like, man, I could have brought final resistance. Yeah. I'm telling you, you made the right choice because I think, fortunately, I did not wreck my back. But when I was helping him lower the back of that machine, I thought I was going to die. I helped him set it up. It was heavy. Oh, my gosh. I was lifting all of my legs, of course not trying to stretch out my back, but I was like, oh, this doesn't feel good. We had five dudes. I just kept waving more guys over. Yeah, I was just coding me and lowering it. You two take that side. You'll put the stand underneath. We're not messing with any of this. I'm going to get extra manpower for this project. Yeah, next time I'll make sure I grab some people because I was like, this is not good. This thing is, oh, my gosh. When I started getting it, I was like, I do not want to drop this on the floor. But I'm like, okay, I'm about three inches down getting, oh, okay, I got to find the ground. That was heavy, heavy. What about you, Spencer? What was your game of the show? I did play it, and I really, really enjoyed it. Rusty and I got a game on it, and I really enjoyed it. I, you know, the mechanical aspects were really nice and really well done. The theme integration from, we were playing it later in the evening, and with the way the speakers are set up, I could hear it fairly well. Theme integration is really nice on that game. I did get one game on Labyrinth, and same thing. You know, fun to shoot. Theme integration was really good. It seemed to work pretty well all weekend. I never saw it with the hood up, which was really nice. Those guys out of the gate did a really nice job. I have to play, I only got one game. I have to play it more, but I'm really, really liking what I'm seeing from them so far. I really like Looney Tunes. Elton John was freaking amazing. Oh, man. You know, that's probably going to get Game of the Year, and it'll be well-deserved if it does. I don't want to – we can talk more about the game stuff, you know, as it goes on. Remember, being where I'm at, it's the first time I got to play Jaws. It's the first time I got to play Xenom. Right. I really love Jaws. Venom wasn't bad. I want to play it more. I played the Pro and the LE, and I played the Pro and the Premium on Jaws. I got a game on Queen. I think I like the ball lock. I have to play it more. It's not a bad game, but I don't think it's a great game. You know, it's like it's a game, and it's fun to play, but it's not going to, you know, it's not one I would go, I have to have this. Barbecue, played that, didn't hate it. Likes the layout. I really wish I'm a huge Barry O fan Like we all are And I really think he deserved even more Fitting and a better tribute than he got But I didn't hate the game I thought the layout wasn't terrible You know How did it shoot? Was the flipper strong enough to get around the ramps? Yeah, I was able to hit the ramp shots With pretty good regularity A couple times it rolled back But I mean that happens in any game It's weird video assets. It's like some kind of weird 70s horror movie barbecue thing going on. It's super bizarre. It's super bizarre. It's weird. I did play Pedrotti's Funhouse because I wanted to play the standard version. It was literally broke most of the weekend. But overall, man, I got to play John Wick and really enjoyed it. I like the fact that the layout's just a little bit different. It's got a lot going on, some tight shots. When you hear them sweep, they feel good and it's fast and flowy. So much, so many games, so much going on, man. And it was just like. Real quick, Spencer. Yeah. To be fair to Pedretti's Funhouse, from what I heard, it might have been show power that was making things rough on those games. Okay. Because the other two seemed to work fine the whole weekend, so seemed to. But that makes sense, you know. I'm not knocking. I'm just saying the one I wanted to play kept breaking down. Well, it would be up, but it was like having issues. So, you know. They were not happy with Show Palo. Okay. You know what? That's a fair assessment. Okay. So, you know, I'm not beating up on the guys. But, you know, that's just, you know, as a category. But you got to see the new artwork on the play field. I thought it was pretty cool looking. Yeah. And that's the same artist who did this year's show poster, I'm told. Yeah. Yeah. So, I know. Right? Is that who did it? I believe so. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Mark, do a game. I really enjoyed Labyrinth. I thought it was really a good build quality. I loved the max of the different characters popping out on the sides to taunt you when you drain your ball. I couldn't hear the audio really well, so I can't really speak for that. But I kept going to that game. I played that about four or five times at the show because I just wanted to play another game. It was just really fun rules, great shots, surprise diverters. I loved the system where you had to hit and lock the ball with the forks coming up, and they had to hit the captive ball to start another type of multiball. Just a really great job with the video assets. I really, really am looking forward to other things that come out from Barrels of Fun. I think I'm a total believer in that company, so I can't wait to see what they come out with next. And the other game that I really enjoyed playing was Pulp Fiction. Some of you already had those on location. I know Flipper House already had one before the show. Didn't we have like four of those show up? We had a lot of fun. We had a lot. It was great because everybody wanted to play. We had one in the tournament, and we had, I think, three on the show floor. Two of them were side-by-side, right? Yeah, and we had one on the campground with Monterey, with Lynn's Arcade. They brought a Pulp Fiction there. So that was awesome to see. I played a little bit of Alton John, but I played that before here in Reno, which I'm very blessed to be able to do that. but yeah, Pulp Fiction was awesome I really had a really great time trying to start the different variety of multiballs I like how there were different shots to lock the balls that made a little more variety the same thing that went with Labyrinth too Labyrinth had different shots to lock the balls instead of just one orbit or one scoop or something it had a lot of variety with it assets were great on Pulp Fiction as far as the audio callouts and everything great game. Yeah, Pulp Fiction is a definite winner and Labyrinths are the ones. And I also had a chance to play a standard edition Guns N' Roses, which I never had a chance to play until they had it. I didn't play it. It was really good. It was very flowy and man, I was like into it. I was to the point where when I was playing, I was like, man, this is really, I'm really getting into this. I was getting into the songs and I was in the zone so much that I was starting to hit the flippers because I'm a drummer. So I was drumming with the flippers as I was making the shots. And I ended up with grand champion because I was so in the zone. And it was just awesome to play that. What was your score? 42 million. Okay. People are lighting up giant scores on that game with the new update, and I'm still, like, in the 50, 60 millions. I still haven't even beaten Rick's high score on my game, which is, like, 80 million on old code. I walked by it a few times, and I knew that one of the homework assignments was to play it, but there was always somebody on it, and I was always on my way to do something else. Yeah. And I knew I had it at home, so sorry, Spencer. Sorry, Mark. I meant to play it. It's a little scary. Play it for our group. I play it for our team. I feel like if you're looking for a pinball machine right now, man, a Guns N' Roses LE is still the best deal in pinball. You can get those things unbelievably cheap for how cool of a game it is. Yep. And the new code is awesome because it really smooths it out. It's interesting because, and I don't know if maybe I'm wrong with this, but when it played the song, it only played one ball. And then I added balls as it went instead of starting with five balls. No. No? The way the multi-balls work or the way the songs work on that game is they're always one ball, but you can lock balls before you start the song. Okay. Got it. So you can take five balls in if you lock five balls or if the game gives you balls from a mystery award. Okay. Going back to Pulp Fiction, yeah, I got to put about four hours on that game last night. Oh, you did? I got to do some emergency teching for our friend Scott, and we hung around and played that game. And, yeah, you know, it doesn't – I was afraid it was a bit of a one-trick pony. It's got that retro quality, and it's got a bunch of sound bites. man I walked out of that night wanting one of those games so bad like it is such a cool game and so fun and the modes are smart and the shots I think the shots are the weak point on that game like it's got a lot of tight annoying shots but just it's got that same thing as Guns N' Roses too where when you finish the scene where the scene is like the song you have to hit the really difficult mode start scoop to basically cash it out. Yep. And yeah, that game kicks ass. It's so good. I can't wait. We're going to get one in Reno at two locations, so I'll be playing that a lot. And of course, I got to play John Wick. I played three or four games on that, and I really like the speed and the flow, and the code is just going to make that game even better. It's going to be a great location game, and I'm looking forward to see what they come out with as they advance the code, but the Shots were great. It was very addictive to hit the car. Deadly. Every time I hit the car, I drained almost every time. Because it kicks it back at you. I don't think anybody knew from the thing that, like, when you kick the ball or when you hit the car, even on the pro, the car, like, lunges forward and launches the ball. Yeah, it launches it right down the middle. Yeah, so that was pretty wild. But, yeah, and it seemed like the assets were done really well already. and like I said, it's a very early code, but I was not disappointed at all and I was so psyched to see it because I remember it was Friday when we got them, right? When we got the games? Yeah. Is that correct? It was cool because I saw JJ running down the truck and this huge semi came pulling in. I'm like, oh, those have got to be John Wick. Those have got to be. And I was so psyched when I saw the little reveal sign. I go, oh, I know what that is. And people were excited and it was great. It couldn't have been better to have our show be the first to have the public play it. That was cool. Yes. Well, like all good things, the show had to come to an end, and we all packed up our bags and said our so longs and see you when we see you. And so I think it's about time to wrap up the show. Our very special guest, El Presidente. Eric, do you have anything else to add? No, just thank you. Dan, Mark, Spencer, it's been great. I really enjoyed being here. Thanks for being on the show. Thanks for coming on. Do you have any shout-outs or thank-yous to anyone? You know, you have some wonderful volunteers that always deserve every shout-out they can get. We've got Dan. We've got Kendra. We have Adam. Mike Quinn is a new name. He helped out last year, and he's been working with Adam this year on electricity. It was amazing. Michelle Nanjo running the front desk almost the entire show. Emoto Harney running PINU. I mean, what can I say? These people are amazing, and we couldn't do the show without them. Nice. Nice. Dan, shout-outs and thank yous. thanks to Eric and thanks to the whole board for everything that you guys do. Thanks to Eric also for just agreeing to be on the show. I, I really hit him up at the last minute and he was a super good sport, but I just knew he, there'd be no better, no better guest for, for this episode. And, you know, I know that we do this a lot, but, you know, just a huge thanks to Spencer and to Mark for coming on here every month and doing, doing this with, with me. Like, you know, I have a really good time being a part of this process, and you guys are a couple of the best pin bros that anyone could have. Plus, this way, I think that this will just cement us as the official podcast of the Golden State Pinball Festival, right? Absolutely. There you go. Of course. And have Eric on here. Absolutely. My presidential decree. Yes. Boom. So let it be spoken, so let it be done. Yes. There you go. It shall be done. It's official. That's awesome, man. Yep. So, Mark, you got something? I'm putting that on the website just so you know. You can put that on the Facebook page. Do it. There goes the dog. Let me. Sorry, don't worry about it. Okay, well, no. The dog is saying thank yous, too, so we're good. All right. Go get it, Mark. All right, so I want to have a shout-out to all the people who put on the show, everybody, the volunteers, the show organizers, everything. It was just such a great show to attend for people to have fun, and I can't wait until next year. I want to thank you, Dan, for letting me stay over, get some pinball games in, and just hang out and just relax before the show started. So thank you for that. It's always cool to stay up until like 2 o'clock in the morning playing pinball the morning before we have to go start working. I know. You're the man, Bonner. It was awesome. And then thank you to all the silver ballers from the campground who trusted us in playing their machines, sitting out in the open and offering us drinks and food and the barbecue, everything. It was just so cool for everybody to just have that camaraderie of a family and just sharing everything and just having everybody just experience the fun that we all could have after show hours. So thank you to that. Well, man, I had my... And of course you guys. Of course you guys. Of course I had my mic muted because of the dogs going after the squirrel. So... You're up. Yeah, of course I want to thank you guys, man, because there's been some drama about podcasts and things in the news lately, you know, in our hobby. And it's like I always say, you know, I say it all the time to you guys and everybody else that will listen. I do it because I'm having fun. If it stops being fun, I'll stop doing it. But it's still fun. And just like the show, man, it's just fun. We look forward to it all year. And, you know, all the members of the board, you know, the show would not exist without them. And all the volunteers and all the wonderful people who bring games and the wonderful vendors, you know. My shout-outs to some special vendors out there. Of course, Rob Anthony. Of course, you know, Starship Fantasies, man, just supplies for all kinds of crazy parts. And Planetary Pinball. And I don't remember the name of their mod company, but it's George Gonzalez and Mike Garcia. And then they brought Genie Mods. Genie Mods, yeah. Genie Mods, yeah. And then they let Sparky come in and set up his mods. If you haven't seen his new Fish Finder TV mod for Fishtails and or Jaws or any other cool maritime game, it looks like a little miniature real fish finder. Very cool. And, yeah, the stuff they're making is really off the chain. You know, so many wonderful people. Two just friends of the show and fans of pinball that I got to meet this year. One's a pinsider, Asmodeus. I finally got to meet him and shake his hand. We got to talk for a bit. And what a wonderful guy. Shout out to him. And shout out to local guy, Davis Ping, who I finally – Ping. I'm sorry, Ping, P-E-N-G, Davis Ping. Well, I finally got to meet this year who's friends with Dan in real life. And it was a pleasure meeting you, man. So shout out to you. I know you're listening. Hope you're listening. And, you know, to all the wonderful people who come to the show and, you know, make the show happen. And, you know, people, you know, because we wouldn't have a show if people didn't come and play pinball. So and that's the whole point, man. Just play pinball. Have a good time. That's pinball. It's a recreational fun activity that brings people together in a special way. And I can't wait for next year's show and what's coming in the future. So I think that's it. Anybody else got anything else they want to add before we shut this popcorn stand down for the night? Take us home, Spencer. All right. Again, from all of us to all of you, find us on our flagship at SoundCloud. Email us at thecenterislit at gmail.com, or you can come on to our Facebook page, it's Finners Lit, and comment or, you know, ask questions or give thoughts and opinions. So you guys know what to do. Play pinball. Keep America Strong. you