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Tribe Multiball with Tim and Rachel: Episode 8, Sweep the Leg

Poor Man's Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·analyzed·May 29, 2021
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TL;DR

Tee'd Off hosts Therese Edwards to discuss women's pinball, charity tournaments, and community building.

Summary

Rachel Lilge and Tim Dan Lee host Therese Edwards (Tish), a Columbus, Ohio-based pinball community organizer and player, for an episode of the Tee'd Off Pinball Pursuit podcast. The episode covers Rachel's recent trip to Columbus following her father's passing, where she played in tournaments and connected with local women pinball players, and Tish's extensive work organizing charity tournaments and women's pinball events, including the innovative Battle of the Bells team tournament format.

Key Claims

  • Rachel scored 160 million on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, with 60 million of that coming from the Neutrino Brothers mode

    high confidence · Tim Dan Lee, personal pinball news segment

  • Rachel's father passed away in April; she pivoted to visit her sister in Columbus, Ohio instead

    high confidence · Rachel Lilge, personal pinball news segment

  • Holly Kosikin won the last Whippet, which was the final Pinnberg women's tournament

    medium confidence · Rachel Lilge, discussing her Columbus trip experience

  • Pinball Outreach Project and Pete's Band are 501c3 charities that place pinball machines in children's hospitals

    high confidence · Therese Edwards, discussing charity tournament work

  • The Battle of the Bells team tournament format was started in 2020 at Pinball Expo in Chicago, organized by Therese Edwards and Jen Rupert

    high confidence · Therese Edwards, discussing tournament format history

  • Back Alley Pinball Lounge in Columbia, South Carolina has approximately 20 pinball machines and was opened by Fred Richardson during the pandemic

    high confidence · Therese Edwards, discussing Battle of the Bells tournament location

  • The Chicago Hot Nudge team won the Battle of the Bells tournament in Columbia, beating the Back Alley Babes team in a tiebreaker

    high confidence · Therese Edwards, discussing tournament results

  • Therese Edwards appeared in the 'Special When Lit' documentary in footage from an autograph session at Pinball Expo and playing pinball

    high confidence · Therese Edwards, discussing documentary appearance

  • Therese Edwards and her husband Nathan (Theatre of Magic) own TNT Amusements, describing themselves as 'the smallest game showroom' compared to larger competitors like Todd Tuckey's operation

    high confidence · Therese Edwards, discussing business history

Notable Quotes

  • “I got there, and I scored like 60 million in that mode. So it was kind of luck.”

    Tim Dan Lee @ ~5:00 — Personal playing achievement on TMNT

  • “Back in April, my father passed away, and I had planned to see him the following week... Instead of going out to see him, as my brother said, I made a good pivot and instead going out to Columbus, Ohio to visit my sister.”

    Rachel Lilge @ ~8:00 — Personal life update and emotional context for the episode

  • “It's the first live music I've seen in a very long time, so I highly enjoyed that.”

    Rachel Lilge @ ~15:00 — Reaction to seeing Pete's Natural Street Band perform

  • “So that was really awesome. Sounds great... I was just really excited to connect on a one-on-one basis with other women in other states to talk to them about how they're doing things and what they're doing things there and what I can do to promote pinball for women in Wisconsin.”

    Rachel Lilge @ ~22:00 — Community building motivation for women's pinball initiatives

  • “Therese Edwards, aka Tish. Welcome to the show. Jon Hey, Tish.”

    Rachel Lilge / Tim Dan Lee @ ~28:00 — Guest introduction

  • “We figured out from playing that three is actually the optimum number, but the Chicago team had five ladies, we had four, and each of the South Carolina teams had three players each.”

    Therese Edwards @ ~55:00 — Details on Battle of the Bells team tournament format design

  • “This is my own definition. This is a person that feels that if they haven't had a few drinks, they don't loosen up enough and they don't play well.”

    Therese Edwards @ ~75:00 — Humorous self-description of playing style

  • “That would be F-14 Tomcat... he's got the pinball machine Line up on the bed of the truck from where he brought it home... And he turns on that game and oh my god that you know that game it's a really... your face visually and the call outs are just amazing and plus it wasn't like those EMs that I've been playing...”

Entities

Rachel LilgepersonTim Dan LeepersonTherese EdwardspersonPete QuintpersonNathan EdwardspersonHolly KosikinpersonFred RichardsonpersonRob BurkepersonJen RupertpersonPaul Danielsperson

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Strong evidence of growing women's pinball community initiatives and cross-state collaboration, including the Battle of the Bells tournament expansion to international participation

    high · Rachel's trip to Columbus to connect with women players, Therese organizing multiple women's tournaments, plans for international Battle of the Bells, Ladies Flip Wisconsin initiative

  • ?

    community_signal: Pinball community members using online platforms (rip and stitch groups) to connect during pandemic and maintain relationships

    high · Rachel and Therese met in 'rip and stitch' online knitting/crocheting group; virtual Bells and Balls tournament using Pinball FX3

  • ?

    venue_signal: New barcade opening in Columbia, South Carolina during pandemic with focus on pinball and quality bar experience

    high · Back Alley Pinball Lounge opened by Fred Richardson with ~20 pinball machines, quality food and bartenders, drawing new women players to pinball

  • ?

    charity_signal: Pinball community organizing tournaments to fundraise for grassroots children's hospital and food security charities

    high · Flip-Off hunger tournaments, Battle of the Bells raising $250 across three tournaments, support for Pinball Outreach Project and Pete's Band

  • $

    market_signal: Pinball is significantly more popular than arcade video games in current location-based entertainment landscape

    medium · Therese Edwards' observation that current pinball popularity represents heyday since 1980s-2000s, newer arcade games getting less play than pinball

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.142

0:00
Hey, Poor Man Tribe and listeners, this is Glennie Rogers, and you're listening to the Tribe Multiple Podcast with Rachel and Tim. Poor Man Tribe's the thing, that is who we are. It is true. They're not in this thing, so how could it go wrong? Flip away with us, to an old blockade, and then we'll learn about each other. From two pinheads to another Rachel and Tim, who do we have on the show today?
0:42
Hello friends, welcome to Tribe Multiball with Tim and Rachel, a pinball podcast that focuses on a dynamic collection of pinheads that share a mutual belonging to the tribe of the Poor Man's Pinball Podcast. I'm your co-host, Rachel Lilge, along with your other co-host, Tim Lee. Welcome to the show. How are you doing today, Tim? I'm doing great. How are you, Rachel? I'm doing all right. Thanks. I'm glad to be here today. This is a double-take episode. We're finishing up with a specific tribe member today. We had a little trouble there recording a little bit ago, but we are polishing it up today, and I'm really excited to talk to our tribe member. But first, as usual, I thought we should get right into our personal pinball news. What do you got for me today, Tim? So like I told you, I'm in the busy stage of my life. May and June's really busy with coaching and so forth. But I've been playing my personal collection. I put up a score of 160 million on Turtles, which I thought was a really good score for TMNT. I've been watching a lot of late night streaming, you know, catching up on some of the streams. I like to watch TurboGrafx, and I caught Daniel's stream the other day, and I thought it was fantastic. That's a really good stream. I highly suggest you all watch it, but that's about it, you know, editing our podcast.
2:05
Yeah, well, that keeps me busy, you know I really appreciate you and all of your hard work on our show. And I appreciate you as well. Yeah, but I hope that you know that. If I say that enough, I'm a pretty grateful person, but hopefully just so everybody's aware, I'm really super thankful, Tim, okay? Thank you. Nobody can say they've never said thank you. You're welcome. Anyways, first of all, that was a great game, 160 million, you said. That's a really good game, my opinion on Turtles. I've never scored, I think, maybe over 100 million, but not that high. Yeah, I got it all on, there was some special mode that I had never been to before. I believe the mode was the Neutrino Brothers. They had a mode, and I got there, and I scored like 60 million in that mode. So it was kind of luck.

  • Therese Edwards believes pinball has reached its heyday since the 1980s-2000s and is currently more popular than arcade video games

    medium confidence · Therese Edwards, opinion on pinball industry trajectory

    • Therese Edwards @ ~85:00 — Origin story of how Therese became interested in pinball

  • “So it, so it. Both Todd and me and Theatre of Magic opened our business, like, I think maybe the same year. And as it turned out, Todd is basically, what, the largest game showroom in there or similar interjection the world. And we always said that we were the smallest.”

    Therese Edwards @ ~110:00 — Business history of TNT Amusements vs larger competitors

  • “I think that this is incredible. Currently, you think currently is the heyday of pinball in there or similar interjection terms of being in there or similar interjection it since the 90s? Yeah, since the 80s.”

    Therese Edwards / Tim Dan Lee @ ~125:00 — Perspective on pinball's current popularity vs historical trends

    • Amy
    person
    Brettperson
    Rebeccaperson
    Lazer Los Carlosperson
    Poor Man's Pinball Tribeorganization
    Pinball Outreach Projectorganization
    Natural Street Bandorganization
    Back Alley Pinball Loungevenue
    Pinball Expoevent
    TNT Amusementscompany
    Hot Nudgeorganization
    Ladies Flip Wisconsinorganization
    Spoonful Recordsvenue
    Special When Litproduct
  • ?

    competitive_signal: Innovation in tournament formats for women's pinball, including team-based Battle of the Bells with flexible team sizes and mid-tournament lineup changes

    high · Battle of the Bells format starting 2020, virtual iteration using Pinball FX3, expansion with tiebreaker as one ball split flipper format

  • ?

    industry_signal: Consolidation observable in arcade game distribution, with some operators (e.g., Todd Tuckey) dominating showroom space while others maintain niche operations

    medium · Therese Edwards discussing TNT Amusements as 'smallest game showroom' vs Todd Tuckey's operation as 'largest in the world'

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Classic electromechanical and early solid-state games (F-14 Tomcat, Twilight Zone) have strong player appeal and emotional resonance for community members

    medium · Therese Edwards' detailed description of F-14 Tomcat and Twilight Zone as pivotal games that 'hooked' her on pinball

  • ?

    operational_signal: Pinball league operations and charity tournament organization requires coordination of prizes, fundraising logistics, and venue partnerships

    high · Therese Edwards organizing multiple league formats, managing prizes, coordinating with charities like Pinball Outreach Project and Pete's Band

  • ?

    content_signal: Pinball documentary 'Special When Lit' captured industry during period of resurgence; Therese Edwards appeared as background footage in autograph session and gameplay

    high · Therese Edwards confirmed appearance in Special When Lit documentary at Pinball Expo autograph session and gameplay footage

    • 2:50
    Nice. Really nice. I really like to spend a little bit more time on that game. I also listened to Glenn Wechter today talk about it on his little podcast about that game, and it gave me some other fodder for the next time I get a chance to play it. Let's see. So I should talk about my personal pinball news, which is actually a little old. It's a little dated from April. I've been sitting on this because I wanted to release it with this episode for a reason. Back in April, my father passed away, and I had planned to see him the following week. It's sad, and thank you, everybody, that has been very kind and thoughtful about this time in my life. I really appreciate everybody's condolences and all of those things. Instead of going out to see him, as my brother said, I made a good pivot by instead going out to Columbus, Ohio to visit my sister. She's lived there for about three years. Columbus, Ohio has a pretty happening pinball community scene going on there. When I got there, I think it's funny, I just want to mention the first place I went to when I got to Columbus was my cousin Amy and Brett's record store called Spoonful Records. I was so excited to get there and see them that I totally forgot that they have several pinball machines in their shop. Which I think is really funny, including a really nice dolly. And as you know, I really like that game. Yeah, how do you miss a pinball machine?
    4:11
    Well, I haven't seen them in forever, so I was so excited to just embrace them. You know, with COVID and everything, it's been when you're able to finally see family you haven't seen in quite some time. And I normally see them every six months or something like that when I was getting out there to see my sister, so it was great. I also had not seen my sister in nine months, so the hug from her was also amazing. While I was out there, I did obviously get a chance to play pinball. The Thursday I was out there, I got to play in the League Super Awesome Weekly, which was a knockout. I got to play amongst my cousin Amy, who's an amazing player. Of course, Lazer Los Carlos, Holly Kosikin. I can never get her last name right. Sorry, Holly, if you're listening. And a couple of other really great players. I also got to meet Pete Quint, Tribe Member Pete Quint. Pete.
    4:59
    Yes. Yeah, we love Pete. Yeah, it was fantastic. Fantastic. There was one other tribe member I got to meet there, but we'll introduce that person a little bit later on the show. Pete, while I was out there, I also got to check out his Natural Street Band. If you've listened to his episode, I encourage you to go back and take a good listen to him talk about his music, what he's doing to help fundraise, put pinball machines into children's hospitals and siblings rooms, what he's doing there. That project is amazing. The band sounded so tight. It was so much fun to go see that. It's the first live music I've seen in a very long time, so I highly enjoyed that. I also encourage you to go like them on Facebook. Yeah. Pete told me that it was very successful. They met their goal. I believe they may have exceeded their goal. Pete is a dancer when he's playing in the band. I was surprised at how lively Pete is. I mean, Pete's always lively, but, man, he was a mover and shaker, so to speak. Yes, he certainly is. And I will have to see if I have a video. Maybe I can share that in the Poor Man's Pinball fan page. Cool. Yeah, very cool. The other thing that I had an opportunity to do because of our guest today, I was I had the opportunity to go play an amazing private collection in Piqua, Ohio. It is a collection that is above a head shop that's located in the downtown. I think that there's got to be at least 30 games there. It was really, it's just an unbelievable space. The collection itself is just really cool. I believe it was nine of us that played a head to head knockout style tournament. It was a lot of fun getting to meet other women. It was mostly women, it was eight women and one gal's husband. So it's really nice to connect with other women in pinball. As you know, with Ladies Flip Wisconsin and my attempt to grow women within the sport hobby, whatever you want to call it today, I was just really excited to connect on a one-on-one basis with other women in other states to talk to them about how they're doing things and what they're doing things there and what I can do to promote pinball for women in Wisconsin. So that was really awesome. Sounds great. Yeah, it was really great, Tim. The other little note about that is I also got to play, for the first time ever, TNA in co-op mode. Now that was crazy. If you've not played that, it's a lot of fun to work as a team and go after reactors together. But I will say what was so cool is that I was able to be coached by Holly. She won the last Whippet, which was the last Pinnberg women's tournament. The final one, I guess. And she is an incredible player. I've had the opportunity to play a couple times against her. So to be on the same team with her and be coached by her, that was pretty rad. So all in all, I had a really great trip to Columbus, Ohio. So it definitely was fun pinball wise, but it also restored my soul and my mind. And spending the time with my sister, my family there was pretty amazing. You know, and everybody in the tribe sent their condolences to you. But it's good to hear that you had that time to kind of, you know, as your brother said, pivot, you know, get your mind off of things and, you know, refresh your soul, as you mentioned. So it's that's great to hear that you got to spend that time with your sister and enjoy a little pinball as well. Yeah, it really was. I'm just so thankful to have that opportunity to have the time off of work just to have all of that. It was just really, really good for me. So so before I cry or break down or anything else, I think that because I'm feeling a little emotional about all of that and I think that's OK. OK, yeah. Yeah. I know I always have your support, Tim Lee, and I appreciate that. I would like to introduce our guest today. I'm very excited to let everybody else know about this awesome woman that I've had the opportunity to meet in person. Her name is Therese Edwards, aka Tish. Welcome to the show. Hey, Tish. Hi, y'all. Hello. I hope that wasn't too long of an introduction there for you, Tisha. I didn't embarrass you too much, but I really enjoyed meeting you and playing pinball with you and against you. And thank you again for the opportunity to meet and play pinball with other women out in Ohio. Well, we were glad that you and Rebecca were both able to come. Yeah, it was really so much fun.
    9:25
    Why are y'all laughing? Get the giggles out. Rachel has the giggles. today it's okay there's nothing wrong with that okay so what have you been up to recently since i saw you last tish well the month of may has been pretty busy pinball wise down here in columbus ohio elsewhere the first thing that we did was we had a really fun kids tournament and all the Proceeds went for Nacho Band, which you guys know, and Pete's band ended up coming and playing after our tournament, so that was really fun. Then the following weekend, we had a Ladies and Friends tournament. It was a tournament to send well wishes to a bell that's moving out to Washington, correct? Yes, it is, and a long time ago, I started doing mostly charity pinball tournaments. mainly because they were small tournaments and it's impossible to, from just the entry fees, to get a really huge prize anyway. So we would always take care of trophies or getting swag to give away, and all the money would go to some charity. Pete's Band has been our charity, that and Pinball Outreach Project. They're in California now. But both of them are very grassroots, volunteer-driven charities. They have the 501c so that you can easily donate to them online. And both of them are doing similar things, whereas in one way or the other, they are making pinball available to kids who are patients in children's hospitals and their families. Yeah, it is really an amazing program. I wasn't aware of that until about six or seven months ago that those type of programs exist or those type of charities, I should say. But it's really actually programs because it's helping to spread the love of pinball within children and families that could really use that little extra special oomph or bump. I don't know what people call it there. Extra love. We were able to like four years ago thanks to the Project Pinball At the time about four years ago there wasn enough money to put a brand new pinball machine in Columbus And thanks to their contacts, we were able to put a hook in the one downtown. And normally their deal is that it's all brand new pinball machines. but they were able to help us get that game in there and somebody's been playing it you know ever since. Oh that's great and these are great charities and it's fantastic that you're holding tournaments to you know raise money for them as well so that's that's admirable. Well the one the ones that were the best were back in the years not the best but that had IFPA backing were the flip-off tournaments. And throughout the country in the month of November, different tournament directors would have pinball tournaments, and all of the proceeds would go to a local food-type charity. And we raised thousands of dollars playing pinball all through the United States. Wow. And they were all sanctioned tournaments too. I never heard of that. That would be something I would be interested in trying to put together is some type of charity tournament like that. I thought about putting together one for cancer, ovarian cancer research or something along those lines with one of my women's tournaments. Just haven't figured it out yet. So, Tish, we're going to have to have a conversation about that so you can help me figure out the best way to make that happen. Because every Bells and Chimes event that we have, one of the members will pick a charity, and whatever we raise goes to that charity. And we try really hard to, when we're doing women's events, to pick women's charities, like the YWCA and stuff like that. That's fantastic. Thank you for doing that. I'm sure that other people have thanked you in the past, but I really appreciate that. I'm so glad, again, to have you on the show today for a lot of reasons. And one of them is that other people can see how pinball can be such a positive effect in communities that people aren't even aware that pinball is a thing. Does that make sense? The other thing that we've got going on, and thanks to, I'd say, Rob Burke, who is the head of Pinball Expo in Chicago, we started this women's team tournament back in 2020. And we had it in real life, and he let us have it there. He set up a bank of games for us. He paid for trophies and prizes and put us on the schedule. And it didn't quite turn out the way that we had. But Jen Rupert and I came up with the idea of doing this team tournament. And the first time that we did it, we didn't really have people who showed up in teams. And we just kind of put people together and made teams. And it was super fun and really competitive. Well, so the next year we were going to do it was everyone was quarantined. So we did it virtually, and we used Pinball FX3 and Stern Pinball to do the tournament. And it turned out pretty good. So now here we come for this year, and this year there is going to be Pinball Expo in person, and we are going to do another Battle of the Bells. This time we're going to call it International Battle of the Bells because hopefully we might be able to get people to come from out of the United States. Who knows with the pandemic and everything. So my friend Fred Richardson opened a barcade in Columbia, South Carolina during the pandemic. And he kept telling me about it. And I really wanted to go down and visit him. So I talked three of the other Columbus ladies into going down with me and doing a Battle of the Bells. We had six teams. The ladies from Hot Nudge came down from Chicago and made a Bells and Chimes Chicago team. We had Columbus, and then there were three, no, four other teams from Columbia, South Carolina. And all but one lady on these teams were ladies that had just started playing since Fred opened his place. It's called Bang Back Pinball Lounge, and I think he's got about 20 pinball machines in there. He's got really good bar food, really nice bartenders, and it's in kind of like a really cool place in Columbia.
    16:41
    So we went down there, did the Battle of the Bells. This time it was teams. It was people who were coaching each other and talking strategy and how to play the games. And in the end, one of the teams that was called Bang Back Babes almost took the whole thing. It came down to a tiebreaker. And in this format, a tiebreaker is one ball on one game, split flipper. That's a great tiebreaker. Yep, and in the end, the Chicago ladies took it. But, oh, my God, they were good. Wow, that pinball road trip, that sounds like a lot of fun, especially after you've been, you know, a year. Absolutely. And it was a beautiful test for the format and the way that it was supposed to work as far as people on teams and working as a team to win. It was great. I was thrilled. I'm really excited to play that format. I do have maybe one or two questions about that. As far as teams, is it an unlimited amount of people on the team, and does everybody have to play before they can play another ball? Yeah, so we've made it totally inclusive to be teams of one person would be the minimum, to I guess however many you want. we figured out from playing that three is actually the optimum number, but the Chicago team had five ladies, we had four, and each of the South Carolina teams had three players each. So what happens is you start out and you pick your players who are going to play the first three balls, and then you can change your lineup after every single person in your team has played one ball. Okay. Again, I'm really excited to play that. Hopefully I will be able to put together a team, and we will have that happen. Well, you know, you and Amy and Rebecca could be quite a team too.
    18:55
    We'll see. We'll just see what everything happens. I'm excited to get there to Expo, and hopefully I'll be able to put together a team from a couple ladies here from Wisconsin. is my game plan i did talk to the assassin if you know who that is i'm not going to give that away that's like maybe an easter egg but i play with a lady and that's her nickname that raymond davidson gave to her and i talked to her a little bit about playing that style tournament and she's interested so if i can and she will be at expo so if i can gain one more it would be nice to have like a little wisconsin yes it would down there yes it would that would be awesome yeah yeah anyway tish that is really a cool format. I can't say that enough apparently. I'm just always excited to find something new. I get tired of playing match play and head-to-head. You know, I missed a Flipper Frenzy tournament recently. So anything other than the normal is so cool. Well, you know something, that is, we don't have large tournaments like the mixed tournaments are, the women's tournaments. There are a lot less ladies. so we it's easy to easier to try every single format that we can find so if you ever find i'd like to sit down and trade format sometime sounds like a plan to me i am looking to shake up a new format for a big lady slip tournament maybe in october so we'll see how that goes but thank you so much for sharing about that do you have anything else that you're working on besides that i mean I think that we're getting close to our Bells and Chimes Columbus League maybe starting up again. Very exciting. But until then, we're going to continue to have our mini tourneys on Wednesday nights with the Bells with Balls. Awesome. I'm glad that you're able to do that. That's great. Actually, everything you just said makes me feel like I should get out and do something. I'm still playing pinball in my basement. Right. Doesn't it inspire you just to get out there and do more for the pinball community? Yeah, absolutely. I agree. Well, so the Battle of the Bells on Friday night raised $100, and over the whole weekend, out of three tournaments, the pinball playing raised $250 to send the pop. Oh, nice. That's awesome. Absolutely. Nice job, ladies. Yeah, and if I knew who had furnished them all, I'd say who had paid for the prizes and all that, but that's the only thing. On charity tournaments, you've got to figure out, you've got to have some prizes.
    21:33
    So sometimes what we'll do is we will just split the money. If we get $40 in the entry fees, then the winner gets $20 and the charity gets $20. Yeah. Sure, $50, $50. Yeah. I like that, too. And you only need so many trophies. I know. I don't have any.
    21:56
    I'm glad that you brought that up because that is a little bit how you and I first met is actually was a stitch and rip.
    22:04
    Like an online stitch and rip or stitch and knit and knit and hook or whatever kind of group you want to call it. It's called rip and strip.
    22:13
    Rip and strip. I was close. I've never heard of such a thing. Rip and stitch. It was an online or a virtual getting together and working on your knitting or crocheting or stitching project. Oh, cool. Yeah, we were stitching and bitching, Tim Lee. Yeah, that's really neat. I just couldn't, I was like, rip and stitch? Yeah. That's pretty cool. We're multi-talented ladies. Rip and stitch. Now, were you there when, Rachel, were you there the time that Allison Ray came on there and she had this fantastic lamp that she had gotten that she was putting, I don't know. I think I was. That was awesome, wasn't it? Yeah. Yes, it was. It was just fun. Again, I'm glad that you brought it up because I wanted to demonstrate that you're also getting other bells or pinball players together to do different things other than just pinball. And especially during the pandemic, like you said, you did the virtual bells with balls, I think that was great, too.
    23:16
    Just being able to find another way to reach out and to connect with people, especially during a pandemic, Tish, that's like, you know, a wonderful thing to do to help others. Well, thank you. And some of it's just trying to stay connected with anybody, even strangers on the Internet, you know. Some of them have become my best friends.
    23:39
    I think strangers on the Internet is the best thing and I so glad that you and I have been able to meet Yeah it sounds like that you have a really eventful next couple of weeks coming up and I wish you a lot of luck and a lot of really good big super jackpots and a really good time. Speaking of strangers on the Internet, you know we all love Pete. I was just joking earlier, but I wanted to ask, did you meet Pete through pinball? Yes, it was through pinball. I, since the 90s, have off and on run pinball leagues. And when Pete and I met was about maybe, I don't know, six, seven years ago. A company opened this place in town called 16-Bit, and it was a barcade. And they contracted with my husband, Tom, to fix their game. And when he told me about it, I started bugging him. can they put some pinball machines in there? Can we put some pinball? How about we put them in there? Can there be pinball machines? So I bugged him so much. He talked him into putting pinball machines in. And what I kept saying was, if we can get four in there, I can run a league on four pinball machines. So we got four in there, and this place was just fabulous. It was the first barcade in town or around, and it just, it was really great. So I started doing a league there, and we did some flip-off hunger tournaments there. We did a kids' tournament there. Then Pete, I believe, came to something, one of those, I don't know what. He would probably remember more than me. Okay, cool. yeah Pete is one of our well-known tribe members and and everyone on the show knows and loves him I was just curious I think it was weak and and I'll tell you what for a while I I once again I could go back and look at the uh the pages but for a while I can remember that like for maybe one or two weeks in a row Pete was ahead of everyone and I would write must beat Pete I love it so actually when he's playing he and he's feeling comfortable Pete is a pretty good pinball player okay I had no clue Pete was the guy to beat that would be cool on a t-shirt must beat Pete well here's the deal no matter who I'm playing with if you're ahead of me then that too must be beaten okay yeah as it should be I like it must be Pete we should yeah We could get little shirts that say that. And, you know, must be Pete.
    26:35
    That's funny. Tish is also really quite an active physical player, just like I am. She likes to pick and shove and nudge. And those feet of hers watch out. She needs to have a radius around her just like I do, and I love that. Well, I'm afraid I have a secret about that. It seems that I'm a bit of a pinaholic. Do you know what that is? Okay. You tell me. This is my own definition. This is a person that feels that if they haven't had a few drinks, they don't loosen up enough and they don't play well. Okay. I can believe that.
    27:14
    So stay five feet away from you two while playing pinball. Yeah. Anyway. No kidding. But I'm like Pete. Sometimes if I'm not nervous and I don't, most of the time it's when I don't give a crap, I can definitely spoil somebody's day. I don't typically win much anymore, but I can sure take some people out of some tournaments. You know what I mean? You have an ace up your sleeve. I have an ace up my sleeve. Yeah. Two shots of tequila.
    27:48
    That's great. Tish, can you remember the first pinball machine that you played? No, but I can tell you the one that actually made me start liking pinball a lot. What game was that? That would be F-14 Tomcat. Interesting. Yeah. My husband and I have a small game company, and before I saw that game, We were playing things like flip-flop and royal flush and maybe, I don't know, Grand Prix or something like that. So I was in the house, and one night it was kind of like dusk. Tom comes home, and he says, come out in the backyard. I want to show you something. So I come out in the backyard, and he's got the pinball machine up on the bed of the truck from where he brought it home. And he's plugged it in. and he turns on that game and oh my god that you know that game it's a really in your face visually and the the call outs are just amazing and plus it wasn't like those ems that i've been playing you know so i really really really really started liking pinball more than and video games. And then the one that put me over the edge was Twilight Zone. Great game. And same kind of sort of feeling was we had a shop by then. Tom went to buy the Twilight Zone and he bought it back. We turned off all the lights and turned the volume just about all the way up and played the shit out of that game. Absolutely love it. So that's pretty much, that one totally hooked me on pinball. I love it. Love that game. I love the TV show. We just watched all the episodes again.
    29:40
    Yeah. I think in all the times I've ever played it, I've only gotten lost in the zone ever once. And it has great music on it. It's Golden Earring. Okay. So can you tell us a little bit about the business? What's the name? Give us a little bit of the history. well so tom my husband worked for funway freeway which were arcades that were in malls and he went to work for them i think in maybe 75 or 76 in the mid 80s and we opened our um business and it's called tnt amusements so we're not we're not todd sucky in pennsylvania we're Tom, Nathan, and Therese in Columbus, Ohio. Got it, got it. Both Todd and me and Tom opened our business, like, I think maybe the same year. And as it turned out, Todd is basically, what, the largest game showroom in the world. And we always said that we were the smallest. That's funny. So you got to witness the glory days of location pinball. yes since actually the glory days of video games really because yeah i guess so because for a long time pinball machines were kind of side bought i think i mean ski balls and video games would be crap out of pinball machines any day for sure an arcade running for a long period of time i can see Right now, pinball is, I think, I mean, maybe it'll get bigger, better, whatever, but it certainly, from my opinion, has reached its kind of heyday kind of thing. I mean, this is incredible. Currently, you think currently is the heyday of pinball in terms of being in it since the 90s? Yeah, since the 80s. I'm sorry, since the 80s. I apologize. The 80s were like the heyday of the good video game when they started, you know? And then in the 90s, I guess, I don't follow video game history too much, but when Nintendo came out and PlayStation and Game Boy and Sega Saturn and yada, yada, yada, then it became the heyday of non-arcade video games. But now, in the 2000s, somewhere in there, pinball has crept in. And it's way more popular than arcade video games right now, I think. Certainly growing in popularity. We did buy a Pac-Man Royale and some newer skee-ball machines. They're not on free play, and they get the crap played out of them. No, you're right. Pinball is very popular. I wish they'd go back and update the Special When Lit movie, you know, to show kind of how pinball has turned around since the movie ended, because it really ended on a downer, like pinball was dead, but it is not. So, Tim, I didn't get any credit, but I'm in that movie, Special When Lit. Seriously? That's awesome. Yeah, well, unfortunately, it was the worst hair year I think I'd had in, like, decades. I can't wait to go walk. I cannot wait. I'm going to screw that up tonight. So there's just some footage of me in the autograph session at Pinball Expo.
    33:12
    And then there is a little small footage of me losing a ball and kicking the pinball leg and walking away. That's great. And I think that was at Papa. Very nice. But I didn't get credits. No one spoke to me about it or anything.
    33:33
    No royalties for you. I think that Tish probably has quite a few really cool pinball stories that she's sitting on. Is there anybody really cool that you met? You can define that however you want. That you had something go awry or something funny that happened? Hmm.
    33:51
    Hmm. I was told not to bring up the no good gopher story because that made you sick. Oh, I want to hear that one.
    33:58
    No, we're not going to talk about it. It's just too typical anyway. Yeah, probably physically kicked during tournaments two players. That would be gone awry, right? People who I've met in tonight in pinball, gone awry. One was Trent Ogdenspeen, and I was to his right, and he was playing. I was playing. I kicked him in the back of his shin area. He went down. He jumped right back up. He did not lose his ball. He continued playing. And I was so humiliated and embarrassed that I probably didn't have another good ball the whole tournament. I don't know. It's shocking.
    34:42
    So there's Trent Augenstein, and that was at a tournament at level one in Columbus. And then Michael Stewart at pinball at the zoo. I guess I must have been to the right of him, too. but I actually sort of kicked him, but he didn't fall down, and he was really funny about it, and he kept telling me afterwards, hey, kick me again. That was the best game I had on that machine all weekend after you kicked me. Don't stand to the right of Tish. Oh, I love that. And you know what? My first experience with a pinball machine that I really remember was I went to Virginia Beach when I was like 16 years old, and my friend and I went into an arcade, and we had some money and we put it on the glass and it was like some nickels or dons or something and the money slid under the glass and we were trying to get this money out Boys came up and said yeah we help you and they went to help, and they broke the glass, and then they ran out, and I paid for the glass.
    35:49
    Uncool. No! It would have been like 1972, and it cost me $16 to pay for the glass on that pinball machine. So that was my first real memory of a pinball machine was those stupid boys. Yeah, we'll help you. And they break it and run off. What jerks. Yeah, well, maybe they, I don't know.
    36:19
    And so far, that's the only pinball glass that I have broken so far, as many of them as I've touched. I stepped on Raymond Davidson's foot.
    36:31
    I thought that was great. We're both going up to grab a sheet off the printer, and we just bumped shoulder to shoulder. I stepped really hard on his right foot. And I'm like, oh, and he was so gracious. He just said, I don't know, I'm not sure where I'm going, or something along those lines. It had been a long day. It was the very last round of a very long day. and he was real cute about it. And I apologize for stepping on his foot. That's the last thing you want to do. But then he went off to win the entire tournament, so he was just fine. Yeah, you'll be his good luck charm from now on, Rachel. Hey, Rachel, can you step on my foot? I need a little motivation here.
    37:11
    Maybe. One time I got locked in the ladies' bathroom at Pinball Expo during women's finals, and I had to crawl under the door to get out. Ew, that's gross. Oh, my God. Gross. So gross. There's more stuff on the ride. Yeah, you seem like you have pretty entertaining stories. I was told by perhaps Pete Quint and one or two other people that I met when I was in Ohio the same thing. Yeah, I have a dumb life.
    37:40
    You're pretty entertaining. Yeah, that's okay. We're just having fun. Tim, did you have a special question today for our guest? Well, before I ask the special question, I want to kind of put Tish on the spot. Now, Tish, you've talked a lot in this episode about kind of your history in the industry. All the games you've played gave us some really neat stories. So I wanted to ask you, I wanted to do a little segment, Top 5 with Tish. I'm going to put you on the spot and ask you, what are your top five favorite games of all time? Which order? whichever order you would like.
    38:22
    Go five to one. That's harder. You said whichever one I want, right? Yeah, whichever one you want. It's your show. So my first one would be Revenge from Mars. Ooh, okay. I didn't expect that one. Do I tell you why or just cut through the list? Yeah, absolutely. We want to know why. So Revenge for Mars to me is Attack for Mars on crack.
    38:52
    And it has the best call outs and it has Bill Clinton impersonated on there and the modes are just funny and everything on it is just, it's, I love it. Okay. It's a good game. I agree. There's a lot of humor there. I can appreciate that. Yes, there's a lot of, I mean, it's just packed full of humor. Right. It's great. Okay. All right, what's the next one? Okay. Hmm. Yeah, maybe I should have done the other way. Hmm.
    39:30
    You can do it whichever way you want, Tish. This is your show, girl. Okay, so I'm going to maybe say Twilight Zone. Oh, I agree. Love that game. It is a fabulous game. Yes. It is, and it's hard, and it's got its own little funny stuff to it too, but I just love it. All the shots are so cool and inventive in that game. I really like it. Yep. We have ours out on location right now too. The same one that you bought back in the day? You know, I thought it was, but I think it's not. Okay. I don't know. We sold a lot of really good games during, I guess, what some people would call the recession so that we could live. Yeah. Yeah, I understand that. All right. So what else you got? What's number three? So I'm going to say Dead Poo. Okay. I'm torn between that one and... All right. Give us number four then. What are you torn between? Led Zeppelin. Really?
    40:35
    Okay. Let's see. Then I'm torn between that one and ACDC. All right, so there's three, four, and five. Yeah, but then I can't leave out Creature. Oh, yeah. And then I haven't even named any of the EMs.
    40:52
    Well, all right. Well, I'm looking at Deadpool now. It's a great game, but why do you like Zeppelin? Is it the theme? Well, I'm a big Grandma Rock fan. Grandma Rock, okay. I haven't heard that one before. The music on the Led Zeppelin is just really nice. And the vibe, I just like it a lot. Okay. I like the flow. I guess I would be called a flow player as opposed to a control player. And I can play that game sometimes. Yeah, it certainly has a lot of flow. I think that's really interesting, Tish, that you said Led Zepp because when I was there, we played at Sideswipe. Yeah.
    41:40
    Yourself, Pete, my sister, and I, we played a game, correct? And that was, I think, your first game on it, wasn't it? Yeah, I don't know. I don't remember, but. That's a while ago. Did I beat you?
    41:53
    Well, I loved watching you play because you're physical and you kick those feet around and dance just like I do. It's a party, girl. It's a party, yeah.
    42:01
    It's a pinball party when we play. I think that I'm pretty sure that you won. I think I won. I'm pretty sure.
    42:12
    Yeah, that was so cool. So much fun. Yeah, but Let's Up is a good game. But if I had to choose that or ACDC, I would pick ACDC. Yeah, I know. And then I didn't get Medieval in there anywhere. Oh, man. And I love Medieval. How about a top five EMs? Top three. Well, right now I am grooving really high on this space time that's at the level one.
    42:43
    I've never heard of that space time. I'll have to look it up. It's the four-player version of, I think, a game called Time Warp, which is a one-player game. Okay. I love Fireball. Yeah. I love Wizard. I love... I'll tell you what else I really love too, which aren't EMs, but I really love Capcom games too.
    43:09
    What's your favorite Capcom game? Probably Breakshot. I've never played that. I have, yeah. That's a really good one. I can't pick. I'm sorry. We're into a top 11 with Tish now. I think it was more like top 15, but that's okay. I know, and I keep thinking of ones that it's like, no, we can't leave that out. We can't leave that out. I mean, I haven't even named one Gottlieb yet. Yeah, class of 1812. No, not that kind of Gottlieb.
    43:45
    I like that. Hey, I just streamed that with TurboGrafx-7 a month ago or so, and I really enjoyed that gig. No, I'm just kidding.
    43:54
    Not for everyone, though. I get it. All right. Well, that was great. I really enjoyed that segment. Thank you, Tish. Rachel, do you want to wrap it up with the most important question of the evening? Yes, Tish, it's a very difficult question to answer. If you could please let us know how you became Tribe Number 31. So I have a friend named Pete Quint.
    44:18
    Yep, yep, yep. I'm familiar. So he invites me to a pinball Zoom happy hour party. Yep, Tribe Happy Hour. And this is during the quarantines and everybody's doing their little Zoom thing. And I think it was a Friday night maybe and I had absolutely nothing going on. And so I click on the link and I go in there and in the Zoom room. And my friend Pete, who has invited me, is passed out on the couch. I was there and that's an absolute true story yep he's passed out on the couch you can see him at least you can see him on the zoom that he's at least there but um he's passed out on the couch so I wasn't doing anything else anyway so I sat and chatted a little bit every once in a while I would yell hey Pete you know what kind of friend are you you invite me to this thing I don't know anybody here and there you are passed out on the couch yeah yeah and he had his hat over his face which was funny he slept with his hat over his face well and unbeknownst to me the tribe i guess it seems like they like to torture pete anyway so yeah i guess at that point i sort of fit in a little bit and then um i don't know maybe i told some pinball stories or something um and lo and a hold what a jerk i was i was in the tribe i think yeah you you stole the show that night i was there like who's this and then you started asking for pete and you told a lot of stories and we had a great time and i knew right then you were going to be in the tribe you know i was kind of like all right she's going to end up in the tribe because you got along really well with everyone and that was a really fun night so um i can't pete could have been there to live you know see I can't remember one single story that I told.
    46:29
    It was a great night. It was a fun night. And so the tribe was hopping. All right. So let's wrap this up then.
    46:40
    You're welcome. that must have been a fun night nope we love you all we appreciate everything and we sounds good well thanks Tim for being a great co-host as always Tish thanks again for being a wonderful guest and helping us finish up the episode today do you have anything else for our listeners Tim all right happy flipping