Journalist Tool

Kineticist

  • HDashboard
  • IItems
  • ↓Ingest
  • SSources
  • KBeats
  • BBriefs
  • RIntel
  • QSearch
  • NName Review
  • +Health

v0.1.0

← Back to items

The Spinner Is Lit - Episode 70_2024 Reflection

The Spinner Is Lit Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·2h 35m·analyzed·Jan 1, 2025
View original
Export .md

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.035

TL;DR

The Spinner Is Lit hosts reflect on 2024 with tournament updates, personal stories, and tribute to Spencer's late father.

Summary

The Spinner Is Lit hosts Spencer, Dan, and Mark reflect on 2024 and share personal updates, opening with Spencer's tribute to his father who recently passed and introduced him to pinball. The episode covers their recent tournament activities, league results, personal pinball gaming updates, holiday experiences, and upcoming competitive events including an interleague championship.

Key Claims

  • Spencer's father passed away on Saturday, December 28, 2024

    high confidence · Spencer, opening segment: 'I lost my dad on Saturday. We're recording Monday, the 30th of December, and I lost my dad on the morning of the 28th'

  • Spencer installed an Alltech solar driver board replacement in his Flash Gordon for $150

    high confidence · Spencer: 'I just went and bought an Alltech and threw that in. Plugged in. It took like two minutes to put it in. It works like a charm... $150, man, not that bad'

  • The Alltech board works with approximately 50 games including Bally games, Stern electronics games, and games like Fathom remake and Black Sheep Squadron

    high confidence · Spencer: 'it works on literally, okay, every, like, Bally game of that era, all the Stern electronics games of that era, and then, like, two or three others...you can pop that thing in and out of, like, 50 games'

  • Spencer's high score on Flash Gordon is $2.2 million

    high confidence · Spencer: 'My high score on it is like $220 million... It's not $220 million. It's $2.2 million'

  • Mickey (Spencer's friend) rolled Pinbot approximately 2.5 years ago and still holds the high score

    high confidence · Spencer: 'Mickey, about two and a half years ago, rolled pinball one night... he still has the high score, but, you know, it stops at like 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9'

  • Dan competed in a card-based tournament at Comic Kingdom this past weekend where he placed 8th in qualifying but made the Amazing Race finals

    high confidence · Dan: 'we just had a tournament this weekend over at Comic Kingdom... I ended up in third. I think I was in fifth place, if I'm not mistaken, for the rankings... And then we played Amazing Race, and on the final game with Ted, he got me... I got second place'

  • Ted won the Amazing Race finals on Guardians of the Galaxy, beating Dan

    high confidence · Dan: 'And on the final game with Ted, he got me... out of all the games we had to play, it was Guardians. He's owned that game for several years... he annihilated me on that'

Notable Quotes

  • “I lost my dad on Saturday. We're recording Monday, the 30th of December, and I lost my dad on the morning of the 28th, Saturday morning, so two days ago. And a big reason I love pinball is because of my dad, who introduced me to pinball.”

    Spencer @ opening segment — Personal, emotional foundation for Spencer's relationship with pinball; sets tone for entire episode as tribute to his father

  • “And so I want to remember him for just a minute. And so, you know, if there's somebody, you know, he's thinking about, you know, grab him and go play pinball with them. It's a simple joy just sharing a game together and hanging out and talking about nothing and just being together.”

    Spencer @ opening segment — Core philosophy about pinball as social/relational activity, not competitive; applies to broader community values

  • “Because they're worth it, yeah. It's so nice just to pop that board in. $150, man, not that bad, you know. Yeah, $150 and it's playing like a champ.”

    Spencer @ game room update — Endorsement of aftermarket board solutions; signals value proposition vs repair costs

  • “My high score on it is like $220 million. Oh. Yeah. It's not $220 million. It's $2.2 million.”

    Spencer @ Flash Gordon discussion — Shows gameplay competency on Williams-era electromechanical games; minor comedic moment about large numbers

  • “The problem with card-based game is you have to be consistent across all games to be able to get that higher value of points, depending on how you're comparing to other people playing that same game.”

    Dan @ Comic Kingdom tournament — Explains strategic differences in card-based tournament format vs traditional scoring; competitive meta insight

  • “And I had to set the bar on every single game from that point forward all the way up to the finals until we played head-to-head on the final game. But that was a lot of pressure, and it was crazy to be able to set a bar high enough that people couldn't beat or who could get a score lower to give you a chance to move on.”

    Dan @ Amazing Race finals — Describes Amazing Race format mechanic and competitive pressure; shows deep tournament knowledge

Entities

SpencerpersonDanpersonMarkpersonMickeypersonTedpersonCodypersonJuanpersonGeorgepersonMatt GarciapersonShannon Miles

Signals

  • ?

    product_strategy: Alltech aftermarket solar driver board replacement highlighted as cost-effective solution ($150) with broad compatibility across ~50 classic pinball machines; positions as alternative to expensive original board repairs

    high · Spencer's detailed endorsement and technical explanation of Alltech board installation and benefits for aging machines

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Multiple tournament formats observed in local competitive scene: card-based tournaments, Amazing Race finals, pin golf, and traditional league play; suggests evolution in tournament meta beyond simple high-score competition

    high · Dan's detailed description of Comic Kingdom card-based tournament structure with Amazing Race finals; Mark's pin golf tournament participation

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Discussion of player skill nuances (consistency vs single-game performance, objective-based play vs score play) suggests competitive community values diverse skill profiles; formats designed to reward consistency

    high · Dan's explanation of card-based format requiring consistency; Mark's observation that pin golf suits his strength in game knowledge

  • $

    market_signal: Jackpot (WPC-era game) listing at ~$3,200; Spencer references $3,000 as 'the new $1,000' for late uncommon desirable WPC games; indicates pricing inflation in secondary market

    medium · Spencer: 'somebody's got a jackpot for sale for like $3,200... $3,000, basically $3,000 is the new $1,000, especially for like any WPC'

  • ?

    community_signal: Evidence of robust local pinball league with multiple venues (Comic Kingdom, Elbow Room, High Scores, Juan's house), coordinator, regular schedule, traveling championship trophy, and emerging tournament formats; indicates healthy regional competitive ecosystem

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.467

0:00
Hey, welcome to the Spinner's Lit Pinball Podcast, episode 70, and this is for December 2024. I'm your host Spencer and with me are my co-host Dan Hey, how we doing everybody? Happy New Year's And Mark Happy New Year everyone Yep, Happy New Year everyone Before we get started I'm going to kind of drive the bus To a little kind of a side road We're going to take a trip down memory lane My co-host and dear friends, my brothers in pinball Dan and Mark were already aware of this that were made aware of this the morning it happened. I lost my dad on Saturday. We're recording Monday, the 30th of December, and I lost my dad on the morning of the 28th, Saturday morning, so two days ago.
1:13
And a big reason I love pinball is because of my dad, who introduced me to pinball. And my earliest memories of that, I don't remember the episode now. You can go back. It's called The Odyssey or The Way Back. and it was one of those rainy stormy nights where I just did a quick episode by myself and waxed poetic about the great arcades of my youth. And I'll talk a little bit more about that. But I remember the keg room. The small town I grew up in at the time was one of only two pizza places in town. It was the original pizza place. And they always had a pool table, a jukebox, a shuffleboard, and two pinball machines. And I remember playing Volley a lot. And I remember playing a variety of games, Duotron, a bunch of other games up there when I was a kid. But that Volley seemed to sit there for a long time.
2:10
And we had a Shakey. Shakey's mostly at video games, but, like, they had a couple of old Gottliebs. I can remember like a Sky Jump, you know, some Wedgeheads, maybe El Dorado.
2:23
And like the Bowling Alley, always had a few games. And then we used to have a bus station that always had like eight or ten games. And there was a – we had a pool hall in town, and the front had a half dozen – maybe a dozen football machines. I remember a lot of those we used to play. I always stand on milk crates.

  • Dan's league team did not win the league finals; Ted's team won at Elbow Room

    high confidence · Dan: 'We finished league... We did not do well in our semifinals... Ted's team took it winning the finals over at Elbow Room as their location so we did not take the take the crown'

  • Mark won a pin golf tournament at Juan's house recently with 9 holes; Matt Garcia took second and Shannon Miles took first

    medium confidence · Mark says he 'took third' at Juan's pin golf tournament, then clarifies: 'our buddy Matt Garcia took second and our buddy Shannon Miles took first'

  • Mark and his wife both tested positive for COVID over Christmas and used Paxlovid treatment

    high confidence · Mark: 'I got sick also over Christmas... my wife tested and I was like, oh, you're killing me... By Monday I was positive too... we did the whole thing where you do the Paxlovid'

  • “Pin golf's always been a great format for me because I'm pretty good at just knowing what to do on pinball machines.”

    Mark @ pin golf discussion — Shows player strength in objective-based play vs score-based; indicates game knowledge as competitive advantage

  • “The funny thing about it is it really kicks the COVID ass, and then when you stop taking it, you feel amazing.”

    Mark @ COVID illness discussion — Personal health anecdote, tangential to pinball but shows community member dealing with 2024 pandemic effects

  • “I made it in, like, by the skin of my teeth. I think I took, like, third or fourth one season. Yeah... I have a shot at the interleague championship, a very slim shot. Like I'm running the entire gauntlet kind of shot.”

    Dan @ interleague championship discussion — Indicates interleague championship seeding by placement; hints at competitive meta (early seeds vs late seeding advantage)

  • “It doesn't happen, but it has happened. Right. And it's funny, you know, Royal Rumble, because we got a trophy now. I guess it's going to be a traveling trophy, but it's like a championship belt.”

    Dan and Mark @ championship trophy discussion — Shows community embrace of wrestling/entertainment culture in pinball tournaments; traveling trophy indicates regional tournament prestige

    • person
    Scott Buseyperson
    Rustyperson
    Hozierperson
    Comic Kingdomvenue
    Elbow Roomvenue
    High Scoresvenue
    Alltechcompany
    Flash Gordongame
    Pinbotgame
    Jackpotgame
    Guardians of the Galaxygame
    Stargategame
    Starship Troopersgame
    Royal Rumblegame
    Capital Corridor Folsom Leagueorganization

    high · Multiple tournament references at different venues; Juan now league coordinator; new traveling championship belt trophy described as 'Royal Rumble'

  • ?

    community_signal: Pinball tournaments and casual game nights functioning as social gathering points for community; hosts throw parties, share meals, celebrate individual player successes; pinball as social fabric

    high · Juan described as throwing 'absolutely the greatest parties in town'; George spontaneously hosting Thursday night pinball events; celebration of Scott Busey's first tournament win

  • ?

    content_signal: The Spinner Is Lit operates as regular podcast series with structured episode format (year-in-review, personal updates, tournament recap); demonstrates consistent content creation and audience engagement in pinball podcast space

    high · Episode 70 for December 2024; three hosts with distinct segments; planned discussion structure ('Happy New Year', 'what we liked about 2024', personal updates)

  • ?

    event_signal: Capital Corridor interleague championship scheduled for January 18th; regional tournament calendar shows December tournament activity leading into January championship event

    high · Dan: 'I think January 18th' for interleague championships; multiple December tournaments (Black Friday, Comic Kingdom, Juan's pin golf, Lodi League final)

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Flash Gordon player strategy discussed in detail (targeting drop banks for multipliers, managing saucer shots and spinners); indicates game has substantial strategic depth and skilled play differentiation

    high · Spencer's detailed explanation of Flash Gordon strategy: 3X multiplier on inline targets, 4X on top drops, 5X on left drops, then targeting saucers and spinners

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Juan taking on role as Capital Corridor Folsom League coordinator; represents volunteer leadership maintaining local competitive infrastructure

    high · Mark: 'Juan is the gentleman who's taking over the Capital Corridor Folsom League' and 'he's going to be one of our hosts this season since he's the league coordinator'

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: Alltech board demonstrates broad backward compatibility with classic pinball era; engineered as universal replacement spanning Bally, Stern electronics, and specific other titles across ~50 machines

    high · Spencer: 'it works on literally, okay, every, like, Bally game of that era, all the Stern electronics games of that era, and then, like, two or three others... works on the new Fathom remake... Black Sheep Squadron'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Positive sentiment around Scott Busey's first tournament win; hosts express genuine happiness for competitive peer; reflects healthy community culture celebrating individual achievement

    high · Mark: 'Scott Busey won... it's the first time that he's really won anything like this so it was absolutely wonderful to see him take it... I'm so happy for him... he's such a humble, just you know, good dude'

    • 2:43
    And I remember being 10 in the summer of 1976. and Gottlieb Surfer was in the local 7-Eleven, and we would go play that a lot, drink Cokes out of glass bottles back in the days.
    2:57
    And I was surf champ today. I had the four-player. Surfer's the two-player edition. For a while, they had a Williams Big Ben. Then they moved that out, and they got a Buccaneer, which he used to play a lot. But we always, you know, I grew up in a small town, not a lot to do, so me and my dad would always go and play pinball. And then there was the Odyssey, the big arcade. In that arcade, one of the games they had was a Williams-Phoenix, which we beat the hell out of. If you don't remember Phoenix, it was Barry O's first game, first game he ever designed.
    3:29
    Fantastic early Williams, you know, out of 78-ish. Flash Gordon, which I have Sir Champ and I have Flash Gordon in my game room to this day, partly because of that at the Odyssey. Later on, I joined the Navy. I come home on leave, and back at the cake room, We would still go play pinball, and they had a pinbot there, and there's a pinbot sitting in my game room. And so, yeah, I could regale you with stories for hours, but, you know, part of who I am obviously is because of my dad. And Dan and Mark both got to know my dad a little bit. Mark, you saw my dad at a couple of shows, right? I believe I did, yes. Yeah, I met him, and he was around in a few of the shows. And I know Dan spent some time with him. And my dad was basically a good dude now. He was just a decent human being and a good man and a good grandpa. And he loved pinball and rock and roll and a good hamburger and drive-in movies and all that fun stuff that I like. And so I want to remember him for just a minute. And so, you know, if there's somebody, you know, he's thinking about, you know, grab him and go play pinball with them. It's a simple joy just sharing a game together and hanging out and talking about nothing and just being together. So I just remember my dad, CeCe, his first two initials, and remember what a groovy cat he was. And thanks, Pop, for introducing me to pinball, a lifelong love and obsession, and all the times we had together, all the fun times. So this one's for you, Pop.
    5:08
    Okay, I got through that. Great job, Spencer. Thank you. Yeah, and our condolences. Thank you, brothers. I appreciate it. Yeah, I almost asked him if he was eating dinner last night, but of course he wasn't.
    5:23
    So, you know, it's only been a couple of days. So we're going to talk about, you know, we're going to start with, you know, what we liked about 2024. What really set our mind, you know, a pinball. Like what event or, you know, game or whatever this year. Are we going to recap what we've been up to recently? You know what? Let's recap what we've been up to recently. Is it okay if I start?
    5:51
    You got the wheel. I got the wheel. All right. I'm going to pull it back up. You got the call, Mr. Coyne. I'm going to pull it back off the scenic route. We're going to wave the Pops memory one last time and shoot the ball and knock back ice cold Coca-Cola in the glass bottle.
    6:07
    And, oh, what I've been up to. Okay. So, you know, my flash cord has been down for some time. I've got the boards out.
    6:17
    It was the saloon driver board, you know, just having some issues. And it's been just wonky for a while. Play the flippers would work for five minutes and shut off. So for a variety of reasons, the boards fell out, and I just don't want to wait anymore. I'm going to try and get them back because they're good people. But, you know, life gets in the way. So I just went and bought an Alltech and threw that in. Plugged in. It took like two minutes to put it in. It works like a charm. Everything's up. Huzzah! Huzzah. And I'm playing. I've been playing the shit out of Flashcore for the last three or four weeks now. So, you know, I know we have this do-it-yourself mentality. And, you know, it's great to be able to fix boards or have people who will help us fix boards. But you know why new boards are so expensive, right?
    7:13
    Right. Because they're worth it. Because they're worth it, yeah. It's so nice just to pop that board in. $150, man, not that bad, you know. Yeah, $150 and it's playing like a champ. And the other nice thing about it is everything seems a little snappier, like it's getting even better power, you know, because it's modern. The board is modernized, so it's not getting hot. It's not having, you know what I mean?
    7:41
    It's a brand-new board, and it's a newer design. So, you know, the problems with that era of board. Can you remember, man, you look at games like that, like that and Firepower, and I know it's a Williams, but of that era, they were pushing those poor things as hard as the programming of the day and the technology of the day would allow. You know, just, I mean, you know, it's like, you know, Good or wrong, she's got captains. She can't hold it this way, you know.
    8:10
    I think how often those games had just those piss-poor noodle flippers. Yeah, yeah. You know, and it was because those, you know, those boards were doing, you know, they were doing man's work. They were doing professional work. But, yeah, they were, you know, they were the boards of the day. So, yeah, if 30 years later one of these geniuses redesigned and reengineered that board for modern manufacture, of course, you know, they're going to make some improvements. Right. Yeah, exactly. So I could not be more pleased or recommend the Bally solar and driver board replacement by Alltech. And that thing works on literally, okay, every, like, Bally game of that era,
    8:54
    all the Stern electronics games of that era, and then, like, two or three others, like, Oh, it works on the new Fathom remake. It also works on, like, Black Sheep Squadron and a couple other weird games. So, I mean, you can pop that thing in and out of, like, 50 games, you know.
    9:12
    That's nice. Yeah, it's really nice. If you've got a Harlem Globetrotters or, you know, a Sea Witch, it'll work, you know.
    9:19
    So, yeah. So, you know, for $150, man, money well spent. So, I was kind of like a cool present, you know, to myself. So very cool. So you played a lot of it. What is your strategy playing flash quarter? Is it hitting the stand-up targets, the in-line targets? Is it in-line drops? Yes. Yes, it is. Okay, so I don't know how often you've played it, and we're not really going to do a deep dive, but I'll go. Okay, so once you get the three down, you get 3X multiplier, right? Okay. You get it on the first ball. You get to keep that for all three balls. You don't have to – you lose your ball. You don't have to reset that. And then the upper plate-filled three bank drop targets is the 4X, and then the four bank to your left is the 5X. So what I do is once I get those, I go for my four on the side, on the left side, and you get those twice, I get both my arrows loaded, at least one. Then I try to get the double or the triple saucer lit, right? So you get that lit, and you get the ball in the saucer, and you get like 15 seconds, and then I got a lit, I got at least one lit spinner, and I tried just to rip the living shit out of that and just pump up an easy extra, you know, 100 grand plus. Got it. Okay. Yeah, that's my strategy.
    10:47
    So it's three times on the inline targets, and then it's 4X on the top targets, and then 5X on the low. Are those stand-ups? I can't remember. They're all drops. They're all drops, yeah. Okay.
    11:02
    That's a cool one. How belligerent would that be? That would be belligerent, you're right. I mean, the game's already, like, kind of evil.
    11:13
    It's a brutal game. When you can pull a million-point game, it feels so fucking satisfying. And I can pull a million-point game about every 10 to 15 games. Nice. My high score on it is like $220 million.
    11:29
    Oh. Yeah. It's not $220 million. It's $2.2 million. $220 would be really high. $220 would have rolled that game like $10 million. Well, yeah, $2,200,000. Is it $2.2 million or is it like $22 million? No, no, no, it's $2.2 million. Okay, yeah. I was like, that's about right. You're out of your mind. No, no, not $2.2 million. No, fuck no. But you know what? Mickey, about two and a half years ago, rolled pinball one night.
    11:57
    Really? Pinball is, I mean, it's not unhard. It's an accomplishment. But, I mean, it's doable. He got all the way around the galaxy twice. And he had one of his friends over, and they're playing it, you know, having a good time. And I hear him call down. It's like, I hear this, like, Mr. Spencer, Mr. Spencer. And I'm like, hey, Dan, you all right? He goes, Mickey's doing really good. And I look at it, and I'm watching him, and I'm like, you're going to roll it, Nick. and he did. And he got to hear the dope-ass high score music. Yeah, he still has the high score, but, you know, it stops at like 9, 9, 9, 9, 9, 9 or whatever. Right. Yeah. But he still got the high score on it. The high score theme on Pinbot is incredible.
    12:40
    Yeah. It's so good. Yeah, it's legit. And, like, nobody ever hears it. No, no, I do once in a while because the lowest, like, number four high score is only, like, 2.8 million, you know. So, I mean, it's achievable. Yeah, but I mean, once you run up your scores high enough, like, again, it's just, it kind of goes away. You roll it, you know.
    13:02
    Yeah, that high score I put on Pinball, like, not long after we moved here, so it's like three years plus that that score's been up there. So, it's all about really getting the galaxy, huh? Getting it all the way around the galaxy? Or the solar system, I mean. There's some good money in that. shooting for smaller value and then getting the jackpot shots really can you know that can really that can like you know if you're playing and you're like on the second or even third ball you can sometimes double your score literally if you get a jackpot yeah because you can get that thing cranked up to like two million points you know so yeah so I mean yeah that's another one where I saw somebody's got a jackpot for sale for like $3,200 right now. I was like, that's not a bad deal. That's a good deal. I'm not buying another jackpot for $3,000. I guess you will. You'll buy another jackpot. Gosh, yeah.
    14:02
    Well, $3,000, basically $3,000 is the new $1,000, especially for like any WPC. Yeah, man. You know, not like the late, uncommon, reasonably desirable WPC. That's a great tournament game. It is. It definitely is. There's no doubt. And it's a quick game, too. That's why it's a good tournament game. If I could talk Hozier out of mine, I would get it back. That is never going to happen. I mean, you never say never, but I'm not holding my breath. Yeah.
    14:36
    Maybe I could just swap him the creature back for it. What a deal. No, you'll never let creature go. And you should. That game sucks. Not with all the crap I've done to it. No, it's okay. Too much work. Okay, so that's my update to what I got going. That's about it, you know.
    14:56
    Not to be morbid, but, you know, that and, you know, pricing funeral arrangements today, that was a fun way to spend my afternoon. Not a little modeling.
    15:09
    It's like you blood-sucking sons of bitches, you know. It's like, anyway. Yeah. It's just like, that's a new pinball machine. I almost said that. It's like, can I introduce you in an altar? He's doing an altar there, you know. Fairly used. So, yeah, I'm in the wrong business.
    15:28
    Cool Christmas stuff. So, Rusty got the family, the Atari retro console, and it's got arcade games, you know, actual Atari arcade portals, you know, like Tempest and stuff like that. And it's got 2,600 games, 5,200, 7,800 games. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. So we were planning on having a real good time with it the other night. We got it down in the basement, hooked up to the basement TV. So that was kind of cool. And then the boys got me a neon. So it's not actually a real neon. You've probably seen them. They're LED, but they're like LED strips, but they make them look like neon signs. And then it has flippers and a ball and some bumpers, and it says pinball. And it lights up different colors. It's really pretty. So that's neat. Yeah, I'll send you a picture. I sent Dan a picture. And it's really cool. I got to hang it up. But, you know, I've been kind of busy with other stuff. So, yeah. So that's what I've been up to, guys. So who wants to go next?
    16:34
    I'll go next. Okay. I'll go next. I've been playing a lot of tournaments just because it's getting towards the end of the year and trying to get as many possible points as I can get to get higher in the rankings, where I'm almost at that point where I'm kind of plateauing now, and I really can't go any further unless I win every tournament that I play in. But we just had a tournament this weekend over at Comic Kingdom. It was pretty awesome. It was a little more intense than a normal tournament. It was a cards-based tournament, very similar to what InDisc has, where you play your five games, and you really have to do well on all five games to be able to get up in the qualifying to get in at least the top half.
    17:16
    So when Cody put it on, he said that the top half will go through for an amazing race finals. So what happened is I played my first card, and I had a killer game on Stargate, and I was like, oh, I'm not on a roll here. And then I played my next game. I'm trying to remember what it was. If I look it up, I could tell you, but I just totally just bombed it. And I was like, well, that's a goner now. Because the problem with card-based game is you have to be consistent across all games to be able to get that higher value of points, depending on how you're comparing to other people playing that same game. The difference is it's not best game format. It's whatever is the total on your best card. So it was very interesting and strategic of not playing the same games all the time because you could hurt yourself later on. It's better to just play all different games and then go from there and see what you need to work on. I was fortunate. On my third card, we get four cards for $5, and then we could buy an additional card, and there was no limit until it was going on the whole weekend. So it went all the way from Friday all the way until Sunday until 5.30, and then we had the finals at 6 o'clock in the evening. and it was interesting because I was thinking, all right, I got to really do well in these games. So my second card I played didn't do so well either. I played totally different games, no dice, not good card either. I'm like, all right, well, here's my third one. And all of a sudden, my luck went in the right direction and I was able to get three out of those five games the number one score, which was pretty awesome. and then two of the games. The other game, I was about third or fourth place in the points values. And then I was trying to think of the best strategy, and I was looking at the different games that were available, and the one game that was Starship Troopers had only like 12 people that played it. So it was like, well, if there's only 12 people, then the point value will be higher than having more and more people down the list. So I was like, I don't care what I do on here. If I get an eighth or ninth place, I don't really care. Well, I ended up getting the worst score on it. But I still decided to keep that card. And I ended up in third. I think I was in fifth place, if I'm not mistaken, for the rankings, for the qualifying. And I stayed at that five and dropped to eight right at the last minute. But I still made it in. And then we played Amazing Race, and on the final game with Ted, he got me. And out of all the games we had to play, it was Guardians. He's owned that game for several years, and then he sold it. So he knows those rules. You draw for Ted. Backwards and forwards. And he annihilated me on that. I knew he would. I had to go first because, with me, I had to set the score. Now, what was really weird about the Amazing Race format is that I had to set the bar for six games in a row because no one beat my score the first time so I was able to move on to the next game, if you're familiar with Amazing Race. And I had to set the bar on every single game from that point forward all the way up to the finals until we played head-to-head on the final game. But that was a lot of pressure, and it was crazy to be able to set a bar high enough that people couldn't beat or who could get a score lower to give you a chance to move on. And fortunately, I made it all the way through and got second place. Teddy got first, and I was happy for him because I knew he would kill me on guards, and he did. I had one shot that I had to make to get that triple jackpot with Groot, and I could not control the balls. I should have crailed them and just held two and then just hit Groot's mouth continuously, but I was flailing and thinking I could keep all the balls in control. And now I got bored on a couple of them before you knew it. My own ball was over. So, yeah, it was I almost had first, but it was still I was happy with it. And all I was really trying to do was to get at least one or two points to go towards my total to get the top eight. and fortunately the point value should be in hopefully 20 or higher points because it was all weekend with the cards tournaments and I forgot how many entries he had, plus the amazing race that had 14 finalists. So you're talking a pretty good amount of points. So with my lowest or my highest points that I have, or I'm sorry, my lowest point is a five-point something. So I have to get anything above a five to be able to have any points added to my total for the IFPA state rankings. So if everything goes in my court, I should be able to get into the top eight with this second place win. So I'm pretty happy with that. We finished league. That was a moment where we almost had it. We did not do well in our semifinals for some reason. We just blew it on the last round when we were playing over at high scores and it ended up that Ted's team took it winning the finals over at Elbow Room as their location so we did not take the take the crown as you would call it for the league for pinball league but there's always next year that will probably start up in February or January or something like that and looking forward to it. I've been enjoying time with family my son is here again from college She's leaving, going the same time as I'm going back to work, which is going to be in another week from now. And I've been catching up a lot of Netflix movies, so I've been watching Squid Games and just, you know, having a good time with my family and just really a lazy, lazy holiday, just hanging around the house, nice vacation, no stress, and enjoying myself. Still playing pinball a little bit at home on my bond and stuff like that. But, yeah, it's been a nice, relaxing week. and do not want to go back to work. But we still got a week, so I'll enjoy it as much as I can.
    23:48
    Whole nother week, man. Get those kids back to school. Yeah, I know. January 2nd comes, chop, chop. Learning. Yeah, I know. Once the kids come in, it's going to be like, oh, back to reality.
    24:03
    It's just so nice not having any time to have to be dictated with a schedule. It's like, I can stay up until 3, 4 in the morning and get up at, you know, noon. You know, it's nice, like almost like college hours.
    24:20
    It's like you get up and you're left over tamales, yeah. Yeah. The only problem with that is when you get up too late, then the day goes way too fast because it's already like noon. Yeah, it's dark at 4.30. Yeah, exactly. So it's like, oh, man. And so it's like right now I'm on a time where I'm used to going to bed at like 3 in the morning and waking up at 11. So go figure. I got to go back into the other track. I got to go back to 3 a.m. Yep. So anyway. Man, I'm living those old man hours. Same here. I'm like 11 o'clock. I'm like, ooh. No, my clock is so off right now. But anyway, I'm enjoying my time with my son and my family. My daughter now, she just left to go to San Diego and spend time with her friends. So she's enjoying her last week before she has to go to work or go back to work. So, yeah, it's been nice. But, yeah, that's all pretty much has been going on this month. Well, I don't think I've had as in-depth of a month as you. I spent a week down with the COVID, which was fun. but before that I think we didn't talk about Black Friday on the last show did we?
    25:36
    I don't know if we did or not we can talk about it now so if we didn't we had a Black Friday tournament for our pinball league and actually a lot of the other pinball leagues came it was kind of an open free tournament and our friend Scott Busey won he was so excited it's the first time that he's really won anything like this so it was absolutely wonderful to see him take it.
    26:00
    And then we had a couple bouts of league playoffs, which didn't go so well for yours truly, but, you know, it's an honor just to play with such fine pinball players.
    26:13
    And then just a couple nights ago, we had a pinball tournament over at Juan's house. He's the gentleman who's taking over the Capital Corridor Folsom League. and I took third in that and our buddy Matt Garcia took second and our buddy Shannon Miles took first. Nice. Cool. Was that objective based or was it score based? Yeah, pin golf, yeah, for objectives. Yeah, that's more fun. All the people you named are including yourself. I'm so happy for him. I got him for his first win because he's such a humble, just you know, good dude. That dude is an absolute egomaniac.
    26:51
    And he's a psycho. But, you know. He plays hard, and he wants to win. And you know how pinball is, especially with the formats that we play in. It's awful hard, like Mike was saying, to have the consistency. You know, we used to play head-to-head, and the truth is, head-to-head you could just be having a good day and go all the way. But when you play in the formats that we play in now, they're much less random. It's more about like being a good player, being a consistent player.
    27:27
    And, you know, so for some of us more scrubby guys, you know, it's a little bit tougher to, you know, sneak one in. Pin golf's always been a great format for me because I'm pretty good at just knowing what to do on pinball machines. Right. Oh, right. When the objective is, okay, you need to get to New York and get a jackpot on Foo Fighters. I know, okay, I got to hit some wide arrows. I got to hit this. I got to go to New York, then I got to hit the spinner, you know, and I can do that in a ball or two. The games that really got me were sort of the weirder ones that I probably spent a lot less time on, like Valhalla got me.
    28:03
    Oh, yeah. And it's just because collecting those weapons to start a second level battle is just beyond me for some reason. I started three first level battles pretty much by accident, but I couldn't hit the weapon shots to start a second level, and I had a couple other games where I didn't make it look good. But, you know, I had pretty decent play, a lot of ones, a lot of twos. I thought I might have a chance at it, but, you know, a couple of those guys did a little bit better. But that's okay. We did it for fun. We got some little trophies. We got some stickers.
    28:39
    It was a great party. Juan throws absolutely the greatest parties in town. I'm excited about the fact that he's going to be one of our hosts this season since he's the league coordinator. I guess he's also going to have a night at his house. So I'm sure that's going to be a fun league night. Nice. That's nice. And when you have that, let me know. I love pin golf, and I always never want to miss that. So that's cool. Was that the same weekend as the Black Friday tournament? No, that was just like a couple days ago. Oh, really? That was after Christmas. Okay, it was after Christmas. Okay, well, next time. So we had Black Friday, and then like a week later we had a league final. Then a week later we had the Lodi League final. And then a week after that, or I guess it would be more like two weeks after that, we had the – well, a week after that we had a pinball night at George's house because George is just like, it's Thursday night and I feel like playing some pinball. What are you guys doing? Nice. So we showed up there, did some stall ball, and then, yeah, pretty much a week after that We did pin golf at Juan's house. So, yeah. That's awesome. Nine holes? Or how many did you play? Nine holes. That's awesome. Yeah, he's got a good-sized collection, but I don't think he has, like, an 18-hole collection. I guess unless you were, like, boomeranging back on games for, like, a different objective.
    30:04
    Yeah. That would take a long time, too, when you've got 18 holes. Nine holes is perfect. I mean, it still took a long time, but that was because, you know, by the time that we were finishing, some of the groups were very drunk.
    30:19
    Say about the COVID, but I got sick also over Christmas. In fact, I was in bed the whole day. No, yeah, it was funny. I was going to have some people over to the house, and Jamie's like, hey, I'm not feeling very well. And I said, okay, well, no problem. So I just said, hey, guys, the wife's not feeling very well. I got home and she tested and I was like, oh, you're killing me. Because if you're positive, I'm going to be positive. And by Monday I was positive too. And I felt sick, but I didn't feel so sick that like I wouldn't have like taken some DayQuil and tried the muscle through. Right, right. But this time we did the whole thing where you do the Paxlovid. Have you done that when you got sick? No, I wasn't that. Like the Paxlovid, like that shit messes you up. Yeah. The funny thing about it is it really kicks the COVID ass, and then when you stop taking it, you feel amazing. Okay. So it's just like, you know, because it's like it's really beating the crap out of your system that keeps you well. Yeah. Immune system. Immune is the word. I'm looking for the word immune. Yeah. Immune. Yeah, we had a stomach bug also, so. Oh, yeah. See, that's the worst. Luckily, I didn't have anything like that. It was bad. But anyway, we passed it, and I feel a lot better. But it wasn't the best Christmas date, and definitely Christmas Eve was not at all what we were planning on. Yeah, I missed a week of league, and it hurt my standing. But the way that I played, I wasn't taking the top spot anyway. A bye might have been helpful, but I won my first round and then got splashed in my second round. Yeah. There you go. So, yeah, a lot of pinball last month, you know, some good times. Cool. But you, if I recall correctly, you may have made it into the interleague championships, which is going to be when?
    32:14
    I think January 18th. Okay. I made it in, like, by the skin of my teeth. I think I took, like, third or fourth one season. Yeah. Good job. That's awesome. I have a shot at the interleague championship, a very slim shot. Like I'm running the entire gauntlet kind of shot. And, you know, we've got some killers in there who are coming in much later. So if we don't have a champion behind us, I'm winning the Royal Rumble from entry number one. Yeah. It doesn't happen, but it has happened. It has happened. Right. And it's funny, you know, Royal Rumble, because we got a trophy now. I guess it's going to be a traveling trophy, but it's like a championship belt. That is so cool. We took a picture of it on top of Juan's Royal Rumble machine. Oh, that's cool. That is so cool. I was like, I'm going to show up with a folding steel chair, so you have no problem coming home with me. I might not win it, but you're coming home with me. There you go. You know what I love to see is you show up with Road Warrior shoulder pads. That would be great, man. There you go. I got 20 bucks, man, if you do it. So I'll throw 20 in that pot. I mean, I'm sure it would cost me a lot more to get the football pads and the spikes. But you know what, man? I mean, dude, you could do 8x10 glosses of that and sell them at the show. It would be great. Because I would buy one. So, anyway. Yeah. While you guys were talking about your interview, I muted. I'm listening, but I'm also in my own head because, you know, it's been a week.
    34:02
    So real quick, two things I want to throw out there. One, Mark, when you get free time, Bowen Kearns has got a great tutorial on flash forwarding. It's 8, 10 years old. Oh, cool. Yeah, so great tutorial, so watch that. Dan, remember one more place. junior high Rico's Pizza was like eight doors down from my dad's bookstore and they had first they had a kiss and that was cool, you know, a little ballet kiss and then they got, they replaced that with a Paragon and me and my dad beat the shit out of that machine and ate a lot of Rico's Pizza too that sounds like a pretty good time that's a pretty good time brother and Mark you're like, I don't know Rico's. So Rico's is like, that's like my and Dan's nostalgia. That or Shakey's is our nostalgia go-to. They probably had Rico's in Reno. Yeah, they probably did. Where is Rico's located? Now? Yeah, they used to be everywhere. They used to be like 50 of them. The only one I can think of now that it's in, actually there's two. I guess there's one in series and there's one in Turlock. They're owned by the same person. So since I go down there for work every once in a while, I'll, I'll swing in and I'll grab myself like a personal pizza. Sounds good. No, they were, they were the, the, you know, they were the local, the local chain, you know, they were kind of my childhood pizza place. And then, uh, when I was a teenager, um, and this has a lot to do with my kind of early WPC, like Terminator two era, uh, you know, there was one right around the corner from my house. It had a banging arcade. It always had a couple of the most current pinball machines. Nice. Although, honestly, when it came to pinball, the guy who owned the Lampost Pizza down the block, he was the bomb because he loved to play that Addams Family. If we were hanging out and playing it with them, he'd buy pizza sometimes. He'd be like, hey, you guys want a pie? It's like, of course we do. Of course we do. A lot of teenagers who are playing pinball with you. There you go. Yeah, I mean, a pizza place with a bomb for pinball. Yeah. Nice. I knew that would make you feel pretty good and pretty nostalgic. Oh, yeah. I just remembered that, and I wanted to share it, you know. Yeah. My dad used to take us to Rico's, and like I said, man, a Rico's pizza, a dollar's worth of quarters, trap shoot. Like, that was it, man. That was as good as it got when you were, you know, 10 years old, man. Cold Pepsi with ice or Coke. Yeah. There you go. Yeah. Yeah, it really doesn't get any better than that. Yeah. We didn't have a Rico's Pizza in the Midwest that I can remember, but definitely Shakey's. I remember going to Shakey's, and they did have a killer arcade in the back. Yeah. And they did have, just like you said, that skeet shoot with the light guns. I know. I totally didn't want to. In fact, they still have it. Trapshoot was different, right? Trapshoot was what they called a wall game. And it was basically just one button, and it was all timing-based. And it basically looked like what you would consider like a thick, flat-screen TV, and it had silhouettes of three dudes with guns, and it had lights, and it would show like a little skeet going across the screen. Right, yeah, like a team game, right? Yeah. It was like, clap! And it was like, boom, boom, boom, boom!
    37:35
    I still remember that. They had baseball. But I remember the trap shoot or the skeet shoot you were talking about with the guns, the light guns, too. But, yeah, the wall games were like everything. No, it was a wall game because I remember it was a light that just went in sequence. So it's like, and then you had to shoot it. Every place in the 80s had at least a trap shoot. Yeah, trap shoot. Okay, that's cool. Yeah, I remember that as a kid. I would love, love, love to find one of those. I talked to Al Garber's widow, Debbie, you know, probably eight years back, maybe less than that. And, you know, she was talking about selling owls. And I just said, hey, look, let me know what you decide to do with it because I would absolutely love to give that thing a home. Oh, yeah. You know, and just to have something of owls would be amazing. But at the same time, it's just it would blow my dad's mind. If you could do that and have him over. I would like drive to series I would fly in, drive to series pick up Rico's and bring my dad wouldn't play Pac-Man right I sure your dad probably wasn playing Donkey Kong but he would throw down on some pinball and he would definitely pump some quarters into the trap shoot machine Yep My dad actually would play Donkey Kong He loved that game Yeah, that's cool. Yeah. Yeah, my dad, not a video game guy. He played Duck Hunt. Like, if we had a TV with a Nintendo and Duck Hunt, like, he might play that a little bit. Duck Hunt's cool. The thing about, like, anything shooting, you know, in my dad's style, you know, he's still with us, you know. My mom passed a few years ago, but my dad's still with us. I'm sure I could probably talk him into throwing down on some crapshoot if we had one around. That'd be cool. Where are we going with this? Is it game of the year time?
    39:35
    Is it? Oh, well, yeah. Let's do game of the year, and then we'll do game of the year. Oh, no. We wanted to talk. Did you want to do inspirational moments in pinball first? We did want to do inspirational moments in pinball. We're really just kind of flying by the seat of our pants tonight. Let me get the bus back on the road. I'm just trying to keep us on the road. I'm not trying to pick you up. I've got one hand in those wonderful Doritos. Have you had these, the cheeseburger, the loaded cheeseburger Doritos? No. I don't know. Loaded cheeseburger Doritos? That sounds amazing. Okay. It's like lickable wallpaper from Willy Wonka. Like, you know, let's just sit there and eat these. You can read wall candy? Yeah. She'll go, lettuce, and I'll taste lettuce. And I'll go, tomato, and she'll taste tomato.
    40:16
    And she'll go, mustard, and I'll taste mustard. It's the weirdest damn thing, man. And there's nothing but chemicals in these things, but they're pretty nifty. So, yeah, they're loaded cheeseburger, midnight or something Doritos. It's like I'll be going to the snack aisle real soon. Yeah. It's like hell of a time thing, man. I've got to find some of those. It's a limited time thing. I'll text you guys both a picture of the label. Nice. So, yeah. So, what the hell was – okay, hold on. Let me get the button. Inspirational. My special moment in pinball now is cheeseburger Doritos. There you go. What pinball? Cheeseburger Doritos. What are you doing here? I'm leaving.
    41:03
    So hold on, and I will call you. Back in 20 minutes, fellas. Up to 7-Eleven. All right. Okay, I have a picture of these because I put them on a different pinball group. there's a section called chip chat and so we just talk about potato chips and I know right LM339 yeah forget that I need some crunch taters barbecue crunch taters are the jam anyway jalapeno ones were amazing so I'll get that out to you guys so oh I'm going to start okay so my inspirational or memorable moment from 2024 is when our good friend, our pin brother and good friend of the show, Adam Pressler, received the Steve Sharma Spirit Award.
    41:59
    That was my favorite moment of the year as far as pinball goes because that was just the best guy, just a wonderful, decent, humble, sweet, kind-hearted human getting recognized for all that he shares and gives to the community and to the hobby over the years. It's just a real great moment. His mom and dad were there. The greatest moment of that was his mom was just kind of like, okay, this is Adam's thing. His dad was like, I never understood this or why he spent so much money on it.
    42:37
    Yeah, no, that was his attitude. I remember I was there, bro. Hey, you can go, bro. And then, like, at the end of it, he goes, now I understand. Now it all makes sense. And a bonus to that is, is every year when Adam, who works for his dad, asks for the time off for the show, he's not going to have any issue getting the time off anymore. Right.
    42:58
    It was a good moment. Yeah, and I'm with you. That's absolutely mine, too, to cut in front of Mark before he says it. It is his, too.
    43:07
    And it just goes to illustrate, I think you just brought up the perfect example of just like pinball is great. Pinball, the game is great. Pinball, the machines are great. But what really makes pinball my favorite thing is the pinball community, the people who we've met, the people who open their homes to us, and the guys who buy games and then they're like, come over, play my game, help me fix my game, help me move my game, you know, I'll help you move your games.
    43:34
    Just, you know, bros helping bros and being there and supporting each other and, you know, sisters too. We got plenty of pen sisters. But, yeah, man, you know, seeing Adam, you know, be honored and just, you know, knowing how good of a duty he is and, like, the ridiculous amount of hugs that were going around that day, like, that was a tear-inducing moment.
    44:01
    And, you know, guys, you know, we're not supposed to cry, right, except for, you know, when sports guys retire or, you know, you know. But, yeah, in the case of Adam being honored, it was a tremendous day, and I'm sure glad that we were all there.
    44:18
    Yeah, that we all got to share that. You were there, right, Mark? I was not there. Okay, I'm sure glad that you and the dresser were there, and I'm sorry that Mark wasn't. I was not at the dinner. I thought that the tournament that I was in would run over, and so I did not sign up for the dinner. I thought you were at the dinner. Thanks for not noticing, jerk. No. I felt really bad not being at the dinner. Now I know that the tournament will be over in time, but I wasn't sure and I didn't want to take that chance. But I did congratulate him, gave him a big hug when I found out. I mean, I knew about it, but the first thing when I saw him, I'm like, man, I'm so happy for you. And I could just imagine how the parents see not only his passion in pinball, but how many friends he has and how much of an impact he's made in the community. How well respected he is. That is definitely a tearjerker moment, for sure, to see that. So I'm really happy for him. And he is the coolest guy. I mean, I remember meeting him when I went over to his house one time because I was – And Spencer said this story in a past episode, but to make it quick, I was doing a computer camp, and I just called out of the blue and said, hey, you know what? I'm coming through the area through, you know, through – God, why can't I even remember the name of the place? Lodi. Lodi, thank you. Through Lodi. And, hey, you mind me stopping by? And he was like, no, you know what? You could stay overnight. I'm like, oh, cool. So he let me stay overnight, and we played games and taught me the rules. Immediately. Hand it out. Immediately Mark called me and goes, hey, I'm coming to Adam's, man. Let's meet up. I'm like, all right. Yep. So, yeah. And then we put a lot of games. Adam, what do you want to bring for dinner? Go grab a pizza. Yep. All right. Adam was really cool. Get an extra piece for at the time Eleanor was still with us.
    46:08
    Impromptu parties. It was an impromptu party. It was great, yeah. And the funny thing is when we got there, Adam was playing cup heads. He wasn't even playing pinball. He was playing cup heads. He was sitting on his couch playing cup heads, yeah. It was like, oh, cup heads. And I'd never seen it before. I'm like, what is this? I was watching. I was like, damn, this is like a hard game. And I remember while he was playing it, I was trying to get that spinner lit with five times, you know, for the alien star. Yeah. I remember it was right, it was adjacent to where he was sitting on the couch. And I remember clearly playing that game nonstop trying to get that five times. I can see his old house and the lineup in the layout in my mind's eye still. I can see his new one too, but I can see his old house. And then he also taught us how to finally play, what was it, Rob Zombie's. He had that one in his other room. And it was like, this is actually not a bad game, once I understood what the heck I was doing. No, it's not a good game, though. It's not a good game. Dan does not like that game at all. It's pretty bad. No, I don't dislike that game. Honestly enough, I know a lot of people. Will loves that game. Like, that's where I'm a great machine. It's actually a better game than it is a play field.
    47:20
    Right. It's a very decent game in search of better shots. I mean, the only plus about the wide open play field is it definitely accommodates a lot of multiple. But other than that, it doesn't have a lot of shots. If you can see it. Right, right. Yeah. Play in a well-lit room or perhaps out in direct sunlight. Yeah, it's definitely an interesting game. The gruesome art. and Captain Spalding. Yeah.
    47:51
    So, my memorable moment. Yeah, so Dan and I have the same memorable moment. Okay, cool. That's really cool. And you have a different one? I would have the same one if I was there, but I was not at the dinner. Well, you know, I'll leave off with I told that story. I told that story about you, Mark, going there. I said that's the kind of guy, and they'd never met. And he's like, oh, yeah, come on over and stay the night. Then he called me, and he said, come on over. And so I called out and said, what do you want me to bring? He said, stop grabbing pizza. Okay. Yep, and we did. Yeah, it's pretty funny. My memorable moment had to be surviving the 24-hour tournament. That was definitely a huge accomplishment.
    48:29
    I didn't think I could last, honestly. But then when I realized when I play pinball, it pretty much is an adrenaline rush anyway. And I was pretty surprised. I actually went to work the next day after the tournament. And I couldn't believe I actually survived and made it through the week without crashing and burning. But that was a really awesome experiment that Jim tried out. And honestly, I would do it again. It was just super fun. And it was just amazing how fast the time flew. I still can't get over how fast 24 hours went when you're playing pinball. I thought for sure, oh, boy, this is going to drag. It never did. It was like I was always looking at the clock going, damn, I have six hours left. this sucks. It's going to be over pretty soon. That just goes to show you what problem I really have. But anyway, I saw the pictures that you guys posted like the next day and I was like, dude, that looks like it was a blast. Yeah, next time you got to do it, Dan. I know I would not even make you through a third of it. Like after eight hours, I would be like, all right, well you guys have fun. I hope you enjoy my $100.
    49:38
    I would almost do it anyway, like just to kind of show up. If anything, I'd want to show up about eight hours in and try to like survive the dog hours of the night. But yeah, man, you guys started like what, 11 o'clock and you went until like 10 or 11 the next day? Pretty much. Yeah. I'm like, man, by nine o'clock, I'd be like.
    50:00
    Yeah, I was trying to check the exact hours. A picture of people just kind of kicking it on, you know, because Press Start is a super comfortable, wonderful environment, you know, with all the couches and places to hang out. Picture of you guys just lounging and, you know, people playing games. And, you know, it wasn't like 24 hours of just like solid playing pinball. No, it wasn't. We had two breaks. But I think what was really awesome is you would think that being in a room with 24 hours straight of people that we would start getting on each other's nerves. And it wasn't the case. We were like, everybody was cool and chill the whole time that we were playing, even though it was a lot of pinball and definitely people were getting tired. But no one was crabby. It just was a true test that we have an awesome community here in Reno. You had to be locked in a place for 24 hours. Yeah. Press Start is the place to be locked in. Exactly. They have a bar. So you're good. Exactly. They have a bar. They have chicken. and they're right next door to a bomb barbecue place, you could do a lot worse. And we had food delivered to us, you know, two times during that time, so that was cool too. But that was definitely a highlight because I really wanted to do something really stupid and challenge myself, and I survived. And surprisingly, I'd do it again. It was too much fun.
    51:22
    Nice. Those are all good, man. I mean, you know, and I know there's other moments of the year that were, highlightable, you know, memorable, but I think those were all really nice. I just remember, man, saying a good little prayer for you going, yeah, I hope you make it through this one, man. I mean, because I, you know, it looked like a lot of fun. I'm like, yeah, that's my 30s, maybe even my early 40s, but no, not now. No.
    51:47
    Like, dude, this ain't no five. Where's the couch? I'm out. Exactly, man. Like 12-hour like pinball marathon. I'm like, okay, maybe I would sign up for that, but I'm like 24 hours. I'm like, You guys are out of your minds. Yeah. By about 6.45 p.m., I would have been walking over to or calling over to Port-A-Subs and then falling asleep on the couch with, you know, a belly full of pastrami, you know.
    52:14
    Because that time, that last time we all met up there, that's what me and Dan, because it was Sunday and the barbecue joint was closed. So I hadn't been to a Port-A-Subs in years. And we had some really good times. We were starving, man. Yeah. And that was the one by the gas station. Like, it was even the ghetto port of Southern. I don't care. It was good. You're on, man. Yeah, because, you know, I remember we had gone to, like, an event there before. It was before the chicken place was there. I didn't even know before Brothers was there. But, like, there aren't a lot of places, like, right around Press Start to Eat. There aren't. There's not, like, a bagel place. Okay. Yeah, there's a piece of place called Noble Pie that is about two blocks away. and they have a pretty darn good pizza. They sell it by the slice. Nice. There's a couple places here and there, but you're right. There's not as many choices in that specific area. Pizza by the slice and pinball, that sounds like a pretty perfect combination. Yeah, it's a good combination. Yeah, it's good. Except for Alex. Yeah, of course. Yeah, definitely for Alex. Yep.
    53:22
    Absolutely. My nemesis. How am I going to outplay him for that championship belt, man? There you go. I'm going to have to, like, drug him. There you go. But you know what? No, it's just you have to just get in the zone, brother. You know that. You're either in the zone or you're not. Or drug him. I'm not. I'm never in the zone.
    53:42
    Or maybe in the twilight zone. I'm not in the zone you ought to be in. How'd you win that one, Dan? I had a roofie with Alex.
    53:50
    What did I do? Well, everybody who was there, I snuck up behind them with chloroform. There you go. Let me ask that. I'm doing a lot. I'm doing really well. Yeah. It's almost like I'm going unopposed. You know, when you think about that, like that, that Pinnagogo tournament that he won, there's another moment, a great moment in 24. Oh, that was fantastic. What a day. Everybody thought, oh, he's out in the first round because it was real touch and go. He comes all the way back, and he has that. He literally blew up. He sold. I think he tripled that day after that event. He tripled the number of Barry O's barbecue games that were sold of this season. Now they probably sold upwards of six. Yeah. There you go.
    54:39
    Because, I mean, it's not a bad – it shoots nice. It's not a terrible game. And, hey, but we've all agreed, man, the live show on the barbecue pit Bob Pumpers is pretty legit. It's better than people give it credit for. I still like that game. I'm telling you, I like that game. Would I buy it? No. But if I played it on location, I'd play several games on it. Would you buy it if it was 4K?
    55:03
    Yeah. If a game like that was $4,000? Yeah. Like, how could you not, right? It would be great. What are you doing for a used game price? For 4K, yeah. For 4K, you have to. There's some more over there. And we're going to come back around to American Pinball. Just trust me on this.
    55:21
    Yeah. So moving along. Moving along, do we want to start off with our games of the year, or do we want to start off with our lames of the year? What do you do? I kind of do it like we start off with the games of the year, because I think people look more forward to the lames of the year. I think there you go. Let's do it. So, Dan, you want to start with your choice for game of the year? All right. Well, here are our choices, right? So here's as far as we know what release. Now, we're going to throw this out on the website. You can tell us what your game of the year is, and we can discuss it on the next episode, as well as your lames of the year, which is always popular. But the games that we came up with that were shipped in 2024 were Stern had Jaws, John Wick, The Uncanny X-Men, and Metallica Remastered, which we will count as a this year release because there's a lot of reworking on it, although technically it's 10 years old. Jersey Jack Pinball, which I totally forgot their name there for a second, had Avatar, The Battle for Pandora.
    56:25
    American Pinball had Barry O's Barbecue Challenge. Pinball Brothers had ABBA. This one was a little controversial because we couldn't quite figure out when it came out, but we figured it was a 2024 release because it was December. 2023 was Spooky Pinballs, Looney Tunes, and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. But if you don't feel like that's a 2024 title, you don't have to feel compelled to consider it a 2024 title. We're okay with that. And Multimorphic had The Princess Bride, which was released as both a module as well as two different levels of P3 machines. So I had actually played almost every game on this list I don't think I've put my hands on a Texas Chainsaw Massacre But the game that really surprised me And that I fell in love with after putting, you know, some games on it Was the Uncanny X-Men So that's my 2024 game of the year When I actually, I remember when they announced it Obviously the art was awesome and then we watched that first gameplay stream and it's like, oh, Jack, what have you done? And in fact, it wasn't even what Jack had done because his layout looked great, but it didn't look like they had backed it up with good graphics and it didn't look like they backed it up with good sound. And to hear the community talk about it, it still doesn't have good rules.
    57:54
    But when I actually sat down and started shooting that game, it's such a cool game. Like the ball does, you know, it was kind of like when we were talking about Godzilla a couple years ago, and I'm like, whether you love the game or you hate the game, it makes the pinball do cool things.
    58:12
    Yeah, it does. X-Men definitely makes the pinball do cool things. It's got shots that go this way and that way and crosses over and goes under the flippers and falls into the danger room, and you shoot it out of the danger room, and it's got pop bumpers and weird spots and little passages and, you know, a big animated sentinel head and breakaway ramps and it gives you the finger. Like, you know. And then, you know, honestly, when it came to the software, I think they did some reworking of the music. The music is better than I remember it being in the trailers. It certainly wasn't objectionable to be in person. The voices weren't nearly as rough as they were in the original X-Men. They're not great. They didn't get the real voice actors, which is a shame, but they get it done. And the way that the rules work in that game where you're completing missions and then going into the future and then completing future battles and then coming back to the present, you know, it's pretty neat. It's really novel. And if you know the whole Days of Future Past thing, it actually does a weirdly good job of walking that storyline in pinball form. Yeah, they mixed a bunch of eras together. It's pretty clear that that game was supposed to be X-Men 97 and something didn't work out there. But honestly, if you're into the X-Men as an X-Men fan, a comic fan, a cartoon fan, it sort of serves all masters. And if you're into pinball, especially stern pinball, you know, this is a cool, unique playfield layout that takes you back to, you know, 80s Gottliebs, right? You know, it's not your safe stern layout. It's not your Italian bottom, two flipper, two in lanes, pop bumpers in the usual spot, slingshots in the usual spot, cookie cutter design. And I think that especially if you look at the last few sterns, maybe not all of them, because Joss kind of did its own thing too, but, you know, a lot of the sterns tend to fall into that trap of being very safe, marketable designs to flap a theme on and ship. So I feel like X-Men, of course, it's coming from Jack Danger. The dude does cool and weird.
    60:47
    The software is being done by Wason, I believe, and you don't see a lot of games coming out from him, so I'm sure he's doing his own thing. It just doesn't feel like anything else that Stern has done in the last few years, and I really appreciate that as well as I can get down with the theme. And it's a game that I'll be looking to get my hands on one of these days. So my game of the year, great job, Stern, great job, Jack Danger, is the Uncanny X-Men. Nice, nice.
    61:21
    That's a really good synopsis of why you picked that game, Dan. I really, I like all your reasons, and I got to get more play on it, but I do have to say that there's nothing more exciting or more terrifying than getting that ball in that left area of the danger room.
    61:41
    You know, I'm sure I've lost the ball in the danger room, but I don't feel like I've ever, like, been screwed by it. And I know that there is, like, some of the folks, especially, like, maybe routed machines that aren't set up properly, had a feed problem off of the ramp into the danger room. Oh, don't remind me of that. It's super easy to adjust. Actually, Stern just did a tech video on solving a lot of the uncanny X-Men's problems today.
    62:11
    And it's just an example of, like, you know, a good operator will go in and run a couple balls through the game and probably tune it up. And your common operator won't, right? Jim's definitely a good operator. You know, Cody's a good operator. Their games are going to play right. Right. You know, you're not going to just have, you know, they're not going to put everything on the floor and say, well, hope it works. Right. Well, there's one thing that is frustrating with that game. One is when you shoot and do that crossover shot, if you're not fast enough, if you leave the flipper up, it's a bad idea because it'll hit the back of the flipper and it'll drain immediately from the danger room. And the other one that can get kind of annoying is when you shoot that loop or a ramp, I can't remember what it is, but it will fly around and it will somehow go down the habit trail so fast that it flies past your danger and flipper and it drains immediately. We call that galactic tank forcing. Yeah.
    63:10
    It's crazy. And it's just a matter of, again, proper setup and taking the time to make sure the game is at the right level, make sure that the game is tuned up correctly. And, you know, with some of those, like, real screamers, you know, I think a lot of the folks who play these new games and they don't like how they play and they think that they're wild, they sort of forget that it's like, dude, you need to run 500 games through this thing. Yeah, true. People who are like, oh, I've played my game 40 times. You don't even know what that game is supposed to play like. No, that game you've got to get a lot of time in. You've got to wear some of the new off of it. You know, you've got to put a little friction on that play field. And, you know, like, it's weird to say, because you don't want your games to be filthy dirty, but, like, you know, when a game is pristine, clean, like, it's got a different personality. And the best games, you know, they're somewhere halfway in between. You know, you want it to have a little bit of wear on it. Those rubbers, you know, need a little bit of breaking in. But I think that the more that I play X-Men, literally the more that I like it. And I haven't gotten to spend any time on a pro yet. I've only played a premium. So hopefully when I play the pro, I'll like it just as much. But I would really love to scam my way into one of those premiums someday. So forget everything I said. It sucks.
    64:26
    Sell your premium for $500, and I'll come and take it away from you just because I'm a nice guy. There you go.
    64:36
    For the dozens and dozens of spinners listeners. Mark, did you want to go next? Sure, I will. All right, this is hard. There are a lot of good games from 2024, a lot. But I have to say that the one that is the most cooked, as I can say, as far as the gameplay, as far as the rules, as far as the theme, I have to give it to Jaws. Jaws is my favorite game of the year, And the reason why is because that theme is I'm not like a Jaws fan, but I definitely grew up with it in my childhood, and I can relate to all the clips and the theme going with it. And I was pretty amazed how they were able to take something that was so basic in its delivery because there's really not that much action in Jaws. If you watch the movie as a whole, it's a lot of dialogue, and everything. But the way that they put those clips together to make it an adventure like you're really shark hunting, they did a really good job. The layout is super fun. I absolutely love how it's almost like you think you're going over and over or you're going into orbit, but in reality, it's a ramp. But it's just so satisfying in that far right orbit, which of course is a ramp. And then that other spot where you shoot the wave ramp that sometimes makes it all the way around to the other habit trail, just a genius design. And then if you don't make it, it goes into the other habit trail. So it was obviously designed that way on purpose. So you didn't just get a ball that just fell off of the habit trail and then drain right down the middle. The other thing I love is the lighting is great with the night swim where it gets darker and then it eventually gets brighter or vice versa, depending on what mode you're in. The rule integration with the theme, like making sure you hit the chum bucket and then be able to attach the barrels. Just the rules are just so concise and they're, for the most part, pretty easy to understand if you are just going in and trying to get multi-ball started. You know, hit the captive ball, tie the barrels, and then shoot the yellow shot. So the colors are very clear on what you have to shoot for. And the other thing is if you want it to get more complex, then you have all of the different tools that you can use down at the bottom, which is the machete and the binoculars and all those other things that go with the theme of the game, but it gives you perks. They're almost like power-ups. And then what really took it to the top, and I have to say that's why I really think this is game of the year, is because they put in that Nintendo-esque Jaws Revenge mode where it's a separate game in its entirety, and it is super fun. It's like I'm playing an actual Nintendo game, but I'm using a pinball machine as my controller. Super awesome how you have to be the shark and eat the swimmers, and then it adds another ball to it. It's like a whole game in itself, and it's super addictive to play it. the artwork is beautiful as always just that wide open ocean look to it you gotta have the classic the Jaws back glass art which is similar to the poster it's just such a good game and it's frustrating for me every time I play it in tournaments but when I play it on my own I really enjoy the game and I just like the progression of the rules and how there's always something added new to it that gives it a fresh appeal to that one more game appeal, I guess you could say, to be able to go in and want to play it over and over again. And then to be able to go right into the wizard modes if you want, the shark teeth. There's just so many cool ways to make that game more interesting than just playing a regular game of pinball. And that is why I would say that Elwin nailed it again. That Jaws is game of the year for me. Do not forget to give some credit to Rick Nagel. Oh, absolutely. I know everybody loves Keith Elwin. I love Keith Elwin. No, it's Rick Nagel, too. The rules. Yeah, if you look at all of Elwin's games, like his software guy is a genius. It's incredible how well it's done. Yeah.
    69:11
    And what's great about it is it's easy to get to the first multiball, but then it's not like rinse and repeat. It's like you've got to really work for it to get that second barrel attached. and then the third barrel.
    69:22
    It's just so awesome how it works. And then you have like the mini wizard modes where you have to, you know, do the shark hunt with the Mako shark and then the tiger shark, and then it keeps progressing. So it's really a great game to have. If I would trade my bond, I'd probably get a bond or a Jurassic Park, probably one of those two, to really get into the game more and try to get to the end. But it's a good game. They just nailed it with everything, video clips. and I remember when they first came out with it, they were like, what are they going to really do with it if they don't get the movie rights or whatever? It's like there's really not much to it, but they really nailed it and did an excellent job. Yeah, another example of like the world's stupidest controversy, oh, they can't use Roy Scheider. Like the first thing they get is like a minute-long clip of Roy Scheider. Right, exactly. And the whole story behind it is they didn't get a whole, the people didn't get back from his estate, and they didn't have it in time enough to get the artwork approved, So they just had to go with two people on the play field.
    70:23
    I love Jaws. I think it's a great game. It's definitely my second place. Part of me, you know, agrees with that. Listen, you talk about it. It's like, oh, how did I not choose Jaws? I think Jaws and X-Men, I think, are kind of opposites where they're sitting right now. X-Men is an awesome play field in search of, like, software perfection. I don't think Jaws is Elwin's best play field. No. I think that Jurassic is probably Elwynn's best play field for just being a ridiculous face melter. Right. But I think that the software in Jaws is doing so much heavy lifting. And as long as you're good with the whole theme of shark hunting, and I know some people are just like, why are you guys so Jaws-y? And it's just like, because when we were kids, Jaws was still a big damn deal. And it was like Jaws and Star Wars. It was like one of the first movies that was being shown on HBO when HBO came out. Oh, well, it was their first blockbuster, right? Yeah, exactly. I remember it, too. I remember having the little HBO magazines. Remember those? And then right on the front, it had that same art as, you know, the back glass. It was the first blockbuster. So, yeah, Nas is a great pick. I 100% can get behind that choice. Yeah, there's a lot of good ones out there. But that one, as far as the most baked game, that's really pretty much out of the gate. It really came out that way.
    71:53
    It's a good game. Yeah, well, it's had, you know, the longest time to be, the longest time in the oven, I guess. That's true. It's the most baked. It's the most baked, man. Yeah.
    72:06
    Yeah. God, I'm stoned. Ben Saar, are you with us? I'm with us. I'm with you gentlemen I don't know how much experience you have with the current releases I've not played X-Men yet I've only played a couple games on the web I can only go with what you know and I was in total agreement with you Dan I still am just from the videos and everything just with X-Men because both his titles.
    72:44
    And not to take anything away from that one or any other designers. They're all great and I love them all. But help me out here, boys. Jack Danger, man. He brings the weird. He takes the risk. He's willing to take a risk and go in a different direction and not just do, okay, we're doing another family out. It's going to have an Italian bottom. He's like I said, He pulls the good parts of the classic Gottlieb and puts it in a modern game and makes it all work. And that's not a need to be. Which maniac in this day and age was going to bring us a Gold Wings homage? Yeah, yeah. You know, right. I mean, you would have thought that was going to happen. Okay, or, you know, and I'm going to go backwards. Just the danger room instead of the danger zone. Right, exactly. I'm going to go backwards just a second. Okay, if you're shouts in the out lanes on any game, it's cool, and you can do the rollover. If you're shouts in the out lanes, or shouts in the in lanes, rather,
    73:49
    make famous fire to your friend Neil Shouts. If you're shouts in the in lanes on Blue Fighters, you're hitting a stand-up target. That's true. Where else do you just see that? You know, that's really innovative and unique and different and cool. But I agree with you too, Mark, with JAWS. And, you know, it's like, again, you know, and Dan brought up a great point. You know, JAWS is a decent play field with an amazing rule set and software that's, you know, that is just top of the line. Where X-Men is like, okay, we've got to work on some software and some rules. but that play field is just you know it's like okay now that's different you know that's something new that's something creative and inventive and something we haven't seen ever or some things we have seen but not in a very long time and like Dan called me on his ride to you haven't played X-Men dude I haven't played X-Men so can I vote it best game of the year you know you can vote for whatever you want I was just saying I think at the end of the day I think it is because I love Jaws. I love everything about it. I'm going to go backwards again with my dad. I remember 1975, that summer, Jaws is a hit movie. I don't remember. I want to tell you it was Big Ben, and it was either Jack in the Box or Jumping Jack at 7-Eleven, and I was getting Slurpees in a Jaws Slurpee cup. God, I wish I saw the Slurpee cup. because there were plastic cups you could, like the souvenir cups you could keep, and it had the Jaws movie poster on it, and some, you know, wax and poetic. Funny thing about the Slurpee cups, I saw a picture the other day of someone's Slurpee cup collection, and I've got a few Slurpee cups that are, like, you know, Legend of Zelda ones from Canada, actually. But, like, it was a collection of the Slurpee cups for, like, every classic arcade machine. Oh, man. Like asteroids and Pac-Man and space invaders and all that. So from like 82? Yeah, Slurpee Cups used to be like a touchstone of American culture.
    76:10
    Yeah. You know, I'm going to go a quick trip down memory lane. Slurpee Cups, okay, you're exactly right. They had a rock star series. Alice Cooper was a Slurpee Cup. Later on, it became a pinball machine. They did some baseball ones back in the day. And one of those on there, and I wish I still had this cup, was Gary Nolan. Gary Nolan pitched for the Cincinnati Reds. Gary Nolan went to the same high school as my dad. They were friends.
    76:40
    You know, he was born and raised in the same town my dad and I were born and raised in. And his greatest accomplishment wasn't, he said, and when he was asked, which greatest accomplishment in baseball? Was it, you know, winning a World Series? He's like, nope. It was striking out Willie Mays three times in one game.
    76:58
    So, and he had some tricks. Yeah, what you took from doing. Yeah, because Willie Mays was, you know, he was arguably the best that ever played the game. You know, arguably the best.
    77:10
    You know, or one of the truly greats. And, but, you know, I mean, those are all those little moments, man, that just, and they all intertwine with my youth and pinball and, you know, that was the thing, man. I remember BTL, Bachman Turnovers, right? I've had a Slurpee cup, man. You know?
    77:30
    Yeah, that used to be Dan Hinton on here. It was a touchdown. So that brings a lot of nostalgia for me, which X-Men does too, but, like, by the time, like, you know, I read them a lot in the late 70s and in the early 80s. And then later on I wasn reading comics as much because you know I was married and had a young child and like that So and then when my kids all got a little older I started buying them comic books buying them their own You know, letting them pick the stuff that they thought they might like. You know, kind of introduce them to a few things. And all my kids still read comics. You know, my daughter's 32, and her and my son-in-law are crazy for comics. So, yeah. And this one's got a weird blend, too, where it's like it's definitely a 90s sensibility, but it's based off of that early 80s, Days of Future Past storyline. Right. Not even late 70s. Yeah, right. It's kind of like if you're an X-Men fan from the 70s and the 80s, there is material there for you. If you're an X-Men fan from the 1992 animated series era, there's material there for you. If you're an X-Men fan from the current X-Men 97 era, there's material there for you. In terms of the art, and I mean, that's all just on, but Yeti just absolutely killed it. Yeah. Like, the art package is amazing. The side art. The side art that's the Days of Future Past cover with Wolverine in front of the posters with this Bob Potter. That is so cool. With the metal bearing down on them. Like, I'm like, I would buy an Ellie just for that. That's so hot. Right. Well, you know what's interesting is when we talk about Jack Danger, he's bringing back the 90s. He definitely has that 90s nostalgia. That 90s sensibility. He's a little younger. He's younger. So it's cool to see that. He's 10 years younger than, like, we are. Right. Maybe 15 years younger than we are. So it's nice to see that he is appealing. He's, like, 30 years younger than we are. Right. And it's nice to see that he's appealing to the 90s kids, right? So he's getting those people interested in pinball, and thanks to Foo Fighters and Uncanny X-Men, which, like you said, goes across a lot of generations.
    79:51
    Definitely, he is trying to get that. I mean, like, I want to see a Beastie Boys so bad. Oh, my gosh, right? I mean, come on, you can't see a Beastie Boys pinball machine. My wife would probably let me get that because she loves the Beastie Boys. There needs to be a hip-hop pinball machine. And like I said, the groups that I think would really sell to the pinball community, Beastie Boys would be a huge one.
    80:19
    Eminem, you know, would probably do well. And he had that one album that straight out has like Gottlieb Devil Dares as cover.
    80:28
    So, you know, there's definitely the community that would be into it. you know, you can have your, you know, your Jay-Z's, your Dr. Dre, you know, any of those guys I'm sure would, you know, the ego trip of having their own pinball machine would be amazing. But as far as we know, the only band who's ever walked up to Stern and said, hey, where's our pinball machine, has been Metallica. Of course, the whole story of Guns N' Roses has also been that, like, Slash is a gigantic pinball aficionado, and he went to Data East and was like, hey, pinball machine, and then I don't know how the, I guess he's homies with Jersey Jack, and they said, hey, pinball machine. So, you know, these music acts would love to have their own pinball machines, because how else, you know, these guys have got, you know, solid gold toilets and private jets and this, this, that. But, you know, besides the Slurpee Cup, man, what immortalizes you in American pop culture more than having a pinball machine with your picture on it? And I mean, maybe just being a member of a niche hobby talking, but I mean, dude, that's dope. That would be awesome. They really need a pinball machine. Back in the 70s, the two things you knew you'd made is if you were a question on Hollywood Squares or a post-dispenser. Or Weird Al Parody's one of your songs. And now it's if Weird Al Parody's one of your songs or you get on a pinball machine. There you go. And Weird Al did kind of pave the way for hip-hop on a couple of his songs that is in a pinball machine. But not a true hip-hop theme. The fact that there's a Weird Al pinball machine, like, my life's complete. Yeah, that's right. Like, it was never going to happen. So here's the deal. If Weird Al gets a pinball machine, like, yeah, you know, Beastie Boys will get a pinball machine. It's just a matter of time, man. It's just a matter of time. But, yeah, it'd be great. I mean, run. Yeah, go ahead. Two volts. It's two volts per day with the air and jaws. I mean, it's a clean sweep by Stern for us, which is crazy because usually we're kind of like everywhere else, but stern. I couldn't give it to Ninja a close, even though it did come out in 2014. I haven't played it yet. Of course, I don't play that many either. After all the shit that you talked, you turned around and gave your game of the year to Ninja. I know. I would fire you from your own podcast. I'd be like, nope. This is called the No Spencer is Lit.
    83:03
    It's lit right now. How much scotch can I drink and not die of alcohol? Here's the thing. How good can I be?
    83:14
    I mean, I definitely would say for, and we don't have to go into this totally in detail, but I would just have to say honorable mention would definitely be Avatar, just because it really is an experience to play that game, and when you get the topper and all that combined. But it just wasn't, the gameplay just did not appeal to me as much, and it wasn't as challenging. But maybe to other folks, they might disagree with me, but. Well, yeah. I know, and I mean, just because we chose the one thing doesn't mean any of the other games aren't good. Right, right. Besides maybe Yabba.
    83:47
    That's actually fun to play. I actually like that game. I know, I know. I'm just being a shitter. But it's funny. Like, you know, we said, you know, we played Berrio and said it's not as bad as people say it is. Right. You know, obviously, you know, a lot of people are crapping on John Wick right now. But, you know, that's actually a super cool game to shoot. That's going to change. It's just going to be awesome. You know, everyone likes to talk smack about the P3, but Princess Bride is awful fun.
    84:17
    Everyone likes to talk smack about spooky games, but, you know, Looney Tunes and Texas Chainsaw Massacre are, you know, at least Looney Tunes I can speak for is definitely one of their most rounded layouts yet, you know. So every pinball machine, you know, there aren't a lot of companies out there making games that are just tragic, You know, that you just can't accommodate at all. Maybe, who's the one in China that made Blues Brothers and Home Pan? Maybe Home Pan, you know, but I've never put my hands on a Thunderbird, so I couldn't tell you.
    84:54
    But speaking of lame things, so let's harness our negativity. Now we're going to go to the other side. Oh, boy. Oh, yeah. What is the worst thing that happened or the thing that we are feeling the strongest about to ourselves in pinball? What is our lame of the year? You guys want me to lead off? I know what Mark's going to say. I can't wait to hear Spencer. Yeah, Dan, please, take it away. So this is your baby. So for me, my lame of the year has got to be, and I mean, I guess it kind of goes back to last year, but just the terrible collapse of whatever's going on in American pinball.
    85:34
    Yeah. A couple years ago, you know, Mark had Hot Wheels, and we did a story on that, like a humongous review, and, you know, we were very bullish on American pinball being on the rise. I still think no matter what anybody says, Galactic Tank Force, you know, when it was being made was, you know, it was poised to be a big thing for them. It was Chris Franchiard. It was Dennis Nordman doing the layout. It was whoever the hell does the software for them. Oh, it was Kugler. It was Kugler doing the software. Like, it was supposed to be their breakout game. And by the time that that game came out, like, just American pinball couldn't market their way out of a paper bag. I hate to point a finger but it's just you know every time he appears on a podcast or something it just makes the company sound worse it's you know it's David Vicks is not fixing anything over there you know I love American Pinball Games I mean it actually sounds weird but like all of their releases I think are a lot better than people give credit for Houdini is actually a super fun game with a clever theme. Oktoberfest is a much better game than people want to give it credit for. Hot Wheels is great. I would definitely have a Hot Wheels. Valhalla took a while to grow on me, but, you know, I like the fact that that game really goes all in on its theming. That's probably more the Riot pinball guys, but, like, that's a really cool game. Again, I think Galactic Tank Force is just one of the most beautiful games built with a great layout and the makings of a super cool rule set, but they just, you know, the software will probably never be as finished as it should be, which sucks because that's just one update away from being a super, super good game. And, you know, don't get me wrong, it is probably the world's worst theme and it's got some ugly display work on the software, but like, Areos is actually a fun game when you stand around and run a few games through it. Is it God's gift? Is it better than Jaws or Uncanny X-Men? No. So that's like it's not a complete waste of pinball life. But I just, you know, now after that last podcast and all the word coming out of American pinball that everybody's been laid off and David Fix not knowing if they're going to be around in 2025. And just, you know, I think that, you know, as much as I've said in the past, look, you know, they're owned by a big company that apparently makes its own money. You know, they don't need to do much to survive. They just need to make games once in a while and, you know, keep people employed. And it sounds like maybe we're at the end of the rope there. I think that that's a real shame because, you know, at one point, you know, especially right around the time that they had finished Valhalla and were launching Galactic Tank Force, like it really did seem like American Pinball was about to really break through. And now it feels like they've broken through the ice. And, you know, it's probably over. Bye. You know, I would love to see them, you know, I'd love to see Cuphead. It's funny you brought up Cuphead earlier. I'd love to see Cuphead see the light of day since that sounds like their next game. I would love to see them get around to Yukon Yeti or Whitewater 2 or, you know, whatever that game was supposed to be, it sounds like. You know, Norbin has that game. You know, Norbin was saying that that game was ready to go before barbecue was. and those are obviously two banger themes or two banger machines. It doesn't mean that it's over for those games. You know, it seems like games that die on one company, you know, have a good opportunity by another company and given a chance, especially the Whitewater one, right? Like, who doesn't love Dennis Nordman's games and who wouldn't love to see what a modern Whitewater would be like? I mean, that's pretty awesome. I certainly don't know if it would be as intricate as the original in terms of the theming and the mountains and the moldings and all that. But it would just be really cool to see that game get the time of day. But unfortunately, American pinball seems to have forgotten how to make and market pinball machines. and that's a darn shame because, you know, a few years ago, they had the talent and they had the desire and it really seemed like they had the investment to bring in some good people, you know, to bring in Dennis Nordman and to bring in, I think, for like a hot second, they had, did they have like Bowen there?
    90:30
    I know they had Stephen Bowden. I think Stephen Bowden they had. Yeah, they just had, you know, just a roster of just talent, you know, and it just seemed like, you know, they were going to make it happen. They had a franchise on art. Yeah, they had a franchise, and then Tank Force came out, and, you know, and David Fix took over, and all the good people left, and, yeah, now, you know, from what I heard, everyone's gone. You know, I heard they have like, you know, one mechanical engineer and one artist. Yeah, that's not good. And you're not finishing pinball machines like that. Well, what's interesting is American Pinball always came out and they said, you know, we're going to make original themes. We're not going to have a license. I remember them saying that when they came out with Houdini and they were showcasing it over at, I think it was at Pinnagogo, if I'm not mistaken. Didn't they have Houdini or was it at? Yeah, it was at Pinnagogo. And they were starting off and they were actually testing out the market out in California. And what I thought was interesting is that they came out with a theme finally. They had Hot Wheels and they did a really good job with that. Of course, people wanted to have the loop-de-loop instead of, you know, just a half-turn type of track or whatever. But the whole idea behind it was after that, they didn't pursue other major themes. And I'm sorry, in today's market, you have to have a theme to sell a pinball machine to make a whole bunch of them. I don't believe that. You don't believe that? No. I think original themes, if they're good themes, will sell enough. And, again, I don't think that American Pinball's intention was ever to sell stern numbers. I mean, maybe if they'd grown into that. Right. I think that we need well-received games so that enough people will buy their games. But, like, look at what Spooky's doing, right? You know, they're making 800 Evil Deads or 888 or however many. You know, they really missed their chance to not make 666, but maybe that was just a little too few.
    92:34
    And I think that with, you know, again, and I keep coming back to Tank Force because I have Tank Force, and I actually think that's a great game. And I think it's a good game, and I think it could have been a great game if it had just gotten, you know, finished. But I just think that, like, The theme is a little too weird, right? But the 50s sci-fi thing is good. You know, the ice cream thing was kind of a step too far. So when people hear about it, they can't really envision how it fits together. And then you play the game and you're like, okay, it's really cheesy. But it works, right? It's funny. But like I say, it just kind of simplified and said, we're going to do the 50s sci-fi thing, you know, and it's going to be funny, and we're going to have this great art, and we're going to have this play field that's done by, you know, an industry veteran, that game would have been better. But they always, you know, they just tried to be a little too extra. It'd be like if they took Medieval Madness, right, which is one of the great original themes.
    93:39
    And then they're just like, and on top of that, you're going to be making hot dogs. Yeah, right. Like somebody there had like a food fixation, because they went from the ice cream in space to the barbecue challenge.
    93:51
    And I guess, you know, people continue to eat, but it's just, you know, it's like Attack from Mars, except for you're also trying to sell pizzas. It's just like, come on, guys, you know. It doesn't make any sense. You didn't need to really go extra, you know, the cows thing, right? And I know that cows and pinball is a classic, you know, that's almost undoubtedly a Dennis Nordman thing because it's like a irreverent in-joke from the Williams games. Yep. That somehow ended up being the entire theme of a machine. But once you actually play, like, and before I even played it, I was just like, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. But when I actually played the game and the theme was in front of me and it wasn't completely overpowering, I was like, oh, okay, you know, yeah, I'm going to hit ramps and look for ice cream ingredients. Okay, that's stupid, but it's fun. And hitting a tank is very satisfying. That is fun. But, yeah, fighting tanks in space would have been a better theme than saving cows from, you know, from, you know, Sonya from Mortal Kombat. Yeah. So, yeah, I just, I think that that was their mistake. They tried to be a little too extra. But, yeah, they had just, you know, stuck with that 50s sci-fi thing, you know, kind of attack from Mars it up, you know, with you fighting tanks. And, you know, the whole goal was to fight these tanks and keep your base shape. You know, maybe even a little more like, like, you know, Attack from Mars was great at being militaristic without being overly militaristic. You know, Return to Bibles was better. Right. It would have been a lot better. I mean, you know, because they got all that stuff. And also just don't put your designers and coders in as characters in your games. Yeah, that was quite interesting, too. That was the moment, right? Because friggin' J.J.P. did it at the same time with Godfather. But apparently in J3P, there's literally an option to turn that off. So maybe I'll go back on what I said. It's not that they need. They need a more solid theme is maybe what I should say. Yeah. Instead of a licensed theme. Yeah. They need to have a more solid theme. And the other thing they need to do is they need to fix their problems that continue to always be rampant. I mean, every time I play Galactic Tank Force, there's that lock issue that they never really fix. No. Just loses track of balls, and it's like it's so frustrating. It's like, and I even talked to the engineer and said, hey, when are you going to get this fixed? And the problem is the guys who made that game are gone. They're gone. I know. The mechanical engineer is no longer with them. The software engineer is no longer with them. The designer is no longer with them. The artist is no longer with them. You know, unfortunately, that game is going to go down in history as like, oh, yeah, man, this could have been a really great game. And there's always, I'm always, you know, holding up that hope that, like, maybe, you know, Josh Coogler is going to be, like, one of those crazy lineman guys who will just do his own software on the side and somehow get it to us over the Internet. You know, maybe it'll be a community thing like what happened with Highway where, you know,
    96:52
    Alien came out and then the company fell apart and then the fans took it upon themselves to make that game work as well as it does. but like honestly you know we're probably looking at that game just being what it's going to be you know they're going to be too busy trying to make whatever they're trying to make next to go back and and bother to save you know the i can't even imagine that they've sold a thousand of that machine you know to go back and try to make us happy you know maybe maybe but yeah you know the collapse of american pinball you know is is a real shame and i sure hope that they're not, you know, going to go out of business. But the pragmatist in me can't see how there's anything left there to save, you know. It didn't sound very hopeful when David Fix was doing his interview. Well, you know, and then the news that came out right after that everybody had been laid off, perhaps including David Fix, is pretty bad. Yeah, that's pretty bad. The hope of that is unless, like, the powers that be in American finally just decided to clean house and, you know, like, for God's sakes, man, just bring back Balser and let Balser rebuild the team that he had built the first time around. Oh, true. Maybe, you know, because American Pinball under Joe Balser seemed to be doing some pretty cool things, you know. They did. It's a shame. They took yet again another version of the J-Pop train wreck machine. Well, no, it's not anything like the J-Pop train wreck machine because they designed games, they built games, and they sold games. No, no, but all I'm saying is the problem with the J-Pop train wreck machine was lots of promises, no games. Right, but he built that Houdini prototype for them, which was just a box of lights with, again, really pretty artwork. And they went, uh-oh, and then they came in and within six months had a fully working, real, actual game. Yeah, that was ball-surfing. That was ball-surfing. That's what I'm saying. That was ball-surfing. Funny thing, I was talking to somebody. Was it you the other day? I think I might have been talking to Spencer about this, but Mark will appreciate this. American pinball seemed to have a weakness for making people's dream themes.
    99:04
    Houdini was a dream theme for Papa Duke, right? And so they basically lured him in and said, hey, look, you designed this game for us. We'll make your Houdini, right? And, of course, it didn't work out. There's also some sort of weird thing where they were going to help with the magic girl problem, which they kind of did. And then Oktoberfest was Balser's dream team. He'd been making shit made even in the Day to East days, right? And so he's in charge, and he makes this Oktoberfest, right? Then they make Hot Wheels, right? And maybe that was like their keep the lights on. I don't know if anybody there was like a dream team guy for Hot Wheels. Maybe, maybe not. And then Riot Pinball, right, the guys who they basically just kind of bought that design. But as far as I know, that dude's dream theme was, what was the one before that? Wrath of Olympus. And so then, you know, he makes this Legend of Valhalla. So it's probably a huge thing that he wanted to make. And then Galactic Tank Force was apparently a thing for Nordman for years and years and years. He'd always wanted to make this space tank game. So, like, American Pinball's themes seem to be, like, the people who work for that company really wanted to make this game. And nobody else can make them. I can't wait to read David Fix's memoir, How to Fell Upward. Well, you know, I don't know where David Fix, I don't really know what David Fix was doing before. I guess he worked for ICE or something, not immigration. Yeah, the people that make the entertainment and the ice, you know.
    100:40
    Yeah, I don't know what he was really doing before. Bubble hockey. Yeah, they make like super checks. Yeah, yeah, which I'd kill for one of those. So, yeah, I loved that with Super Chucks. Oh, yeah. So freaking great as that. Right. So, yeah, I just, you know, it was just a weird thing where, you know, and I love that, you know. I know that everybody, all the armchair pinball, you know, company owners and the podcasters and stuff like that are like, you need a licensed theme, you need a licensed theme, you need a licensed theme. And I'm just like, I like unlicensed themes. I mean, I think that every license, unless it's already something that's timeless, you know, will probably feel dated or will appeal to a very specific age set. But something like Medieval Madness is forever.
    101:32
    Because castles and knights will always be a cool thing. You know, something like Attack from Mars will be forever. You know, something like Whodunit, right? Like, even at the time, Whodunit, and Whodunit's like a great example because it's like a really cool game, but the software was never quite there, and it has kind of an interesting layout. It's sort of like William's Galactic Tank Force, you know, except for, you know, it doesn't lose the balls in multiball. But they didn't really ever take that game all the way out because it wasn't a big hit. But, like, that hard-boiled film noir detective story thing, that's a great theme. Yeah. And it's not attached to anything, although I guess it was supposed to be Clue. I don't know. It was supposed to be Clue. I don't know if that's true or not, but I've heard to that effect that it was supposed to be Clue. That makes sense, yeah. It definitely is like Clue, that's for sure.
    102:23
    But Gibson-Obson, I mean, jackpot. It's a Gibson-Obson stand, and, I mean, you know, it's like we all, since the beginning, have been raising the banner and rooting for America to succeed. And it's like watching an episode of Why World of Sports. You're like, ooh, the thrill of victory. Oh, yeah. I'm going to be defeated. Yeah, no. Wow, that's going to leave a mark. Okay. It's too bad. That dude flying off the ski jump is definitely like burned into my soul. Everybody that grew up in that era watching that, man, you'll never forget that as long as you live. And you're like, man, that's – The next American pinball theme, Wide World of Sports. That's actually a really good theme. Like if you'd like just like a – like a – almost like a go-to beer, but just kind of for like random sports. That is actually a really good thing. You could have like downhill skiing. You could have track and field. You could have, you know, all kinds – yeah. No, I like – that's it. Put that on the back burner, man, because Wide World of Sports is a thing. Because you can go back. Spencer's Pinball Company. There you go. Our first title is going to be Wide World of Sports. My first title would be Get the Gasoline. I'm not doing this.
    103:45
    I'm a professional. You're a dumbass. There we go. We've told that story on there, right? Yes, we have. Okay. All right. Cool. Yeah. I'm a professional. You're a dumbass.
    103:58
    Good fun, boys. Who's next? Mark or Spencer, lame of the year. I'll go. I got to go. You might have the same one, Spencer, but I was a witness of it firsthand.
    104:12
    Lame of the year for me, without a doubt, is Wonderland Amusement. That was the biggest shit show I've ever seen in my life. You walk in, and there's just a box with a black cover on it with nothing to see except just the name of the company, and that's it. Nothing. No evidence of any video of what it might look like. No description of what the product was. It was like they were just there, and it was just super lame because there was nothing to show for, and there still is nothing to show for right now. It's pretty much like vaporware as far as I'm concerned. I was very disappointed because I've heard about it, and I was like, well, this is kind of a neat concept to have a mini, you know, like you said, like a Zizzle-type, you know, affordable pinball machine that actually has real mechanics in it. It had nothing in it. We didn't know if it was video. We didn't know if it was real. It just was just nothing. And it makes sense because you're following the rabbit down the rabbit hole anyway, so what a perfect company to have for that. You're going nowhere. And anyway, that was a super lame thing. If they come out with something for 2025, I'll be shocked.
    105:30
    I just thought it was a total joke to come to an expo and have nothing to show except a box. Not even a box of lights. It's the premier pinball show in the world. The original. The box of nothing. In the backyard of where every major pinball manufacturer on planet Earth throughout the history of pinball has been located. Yes.
    105:53
    Box of nothing. Yeah, it was ridiculous. And no one even knows what the product is. And some people are like, I don't know. We have to know. Digital pinball is this. Yeah, people are still asking online, is this digital pinball, or is this going to be a real scaled-down pinball machine? People are still asking. And I went to go into the website to see. It's like coming soon. It's like they don't even have their website done yet. It's like, wow, what an embarrassment. and they just have a Facebook page, and they have nothing. It's like, oh, we're working on our prototype. I actually saw one just for December 14th. I was like, well, let's see it. Let's see what you got. You got nothing. My theory is still that they lined up the spot and then ran out of time and were just like, well, we paid for the spot. Yeah, exactly. Let's just show up and talk to people and just take the heat.
    106:50
    Wow. Wow, what an embarrassment. I mean, at least Pinball Adventures had, what was that one, Elements, where at least they had something to show. It didn't play at all, but that was my land of the year last year, by the way. So it's funny that they're both two things from Max Bowman because it's much more credible to see that nothing was shown being face-to-face with the person from the company and have nothing to show to anybody that was walking around on the show floor. It was just ridiculous.
    107:26
    So that definitely, without a doubt, is lame of the year for me. It's an unfortunate choice for a company name. Yeah. Wonderland Amusements. Well, because, you know, there's a game in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland coming out at the same time that you have nothing to do with. Right. That's how it's poetic.
    107:47
    It's just, yeah. You have to almost feel for them. Like, again, you know, they probably thought that they had the best idea in the world at one point. And we were sort of touching on this before the podcast, but, like, the arcade one-up, like, craze kind of seems to have run its course, you know? Yeah, it's crashing and burning hard. There were a couple years there where you could get these, you know, consumer-level, you know, smaller format arcade games. And I'm sure that, you know, when they started thinking of this, they were probably like, oh, this is the best idea ever. But you know what? Arcade 1-Ups tried it. The other company that does the Arcade 1-Up style things has tried it. Making a small pinball machine, you know, Sizzle tried it back in the days. You know, probably the most successful thing Papa Duke ever did. That wasn't a Williams game. Like, pinball has to be pinball-sized. Right. You know, you're not going to make a small pinball machine. You know, if you want to make a virtual pinball machine, great, make a virtual pinball machine. But, like, you know, the ball needs to be this size. It needs to be this weight. You know, Williams tried to make a small-format pinball machine with Safecracker. Didn't work. Valley tried to make one with, you know, Baby Pac-Man. Not great. You know, like, guys, you're... Probably caveman. Yeah, exactly. Granny and the Gators, you know. Granny and the Gators. There's a reason that pinball, every successful pinball machine has always had basically this size, basically this shape, but most importantly, it's used that very specific ball. Right.
    109:35
    So... You can't alter that feel. Yeah, you know, it's not. going to be pinball. No. Multi-pinball, maybe.
    109:47
    You know, an under-playfield that uses a smaller format ball, you know, Stewie pinball or Grandpa's Basement or whatever the mini-playfield is on Avatar, so it feels like you're further underwater. You know, maybe there is like a three-quarters or four-fifths scale ball or something that, if you want to make a machine a little smaller, great, but yeah, a three-quarters scale machine, and Then, you know, can you make it cheaper? Can you make it cheap enough that people would even give it a chance? How cheap is that? $1,500? You're not going to make anything good. $2,000? Garbage. Yeah, and there's $8,800. That's what they sell. And it has to be able to work time after time after time after time after time because then who are you going to get to fix them?
    110:32
    Right. Yeah, I heard so many of those Stern home machines that were in the Costcos were just broken.
    110:41
    At Costco they were. I could never get that darn thing to work. And you have to remember that it's like, you know, like we were talking about with X-Men, you know, right out of the box, a perfect brand new pinball machine is not perfect. I mean, they're super lucky, but they always require some tweak, some adjustment, you know, periodic cleaning. You know, it's not a product for the masses. Right. And Wonderland Amusements or whatever they are, you know, they're trying to make pinball toys.
    111:14
    Yes, right. At least that's my theory. We don't know what they're doing. And that's what, yeah. So anyway, that is my lame of the year. That is a good pick. That's a very good one, Mark. Mine is more poignant. Yours is just more lame. Yeah. You know, Mark, for a week now. Mine is like I feel bad. Yours is like, no, that was your weakest mark. I had that as my name in the ear, Mark, with you, all week. I thought about it and thought about it and thought about it and thought about it, but there's just something I can't let go, and you guys all know what this is. So it's really high on my list, but these guys, out of the gate, I think once they finished the show, they realized we've been off way more than we should. We were in way over our heads. We need to just go crawl back under whatever rock we came from and let this one go. So my name of the year is not that, even though that's a high watermark as well as yours, Dan. Both beautifully done, well done, and truly worthy of the name of the year award.
    112:20
    Mine, of course, you guys should all know, is the Dutch boys, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. I was hoping somebody was going to say that. Okay, these guys come out of the gate, and they come to Expo about 13 years ago and do nothing but badmouth Stern and say what a crap show they are and how they're going to show them. Thirteen years later, they managed to ship one title in approximately, what, 150 units of said title in 12 years. They did finally, after out and out lying to their customers who had paid in full years before, misleading, misrepresenting, lawsuits galore, and just a crap show extraordinaire, they did deliver all the games. So at the end of the day, after 12 years, they delivered approximately, I'm going to say 150 to 200 units, nobody knows the exact number, of the machine, the one title they promised. Then they started talking about, well, we got this new guy who's got some kind of engineering experience but knows nothing about pinball and then says things like, you know, needle-nattles, tackle bars aren't good games. Okay.
    113:44
    Or how about, you know, the games I just don't care for. It's a bold claim. Bold claim, right. We're going to do it better. Okay. And we're going to do that. We got back to the future. Okay. Put a pressure up, boys. Nope. We're going to do this rehashed, half-baked, cardboard cutout, foam core nonsense, a J-pop. Because it's got really good art. Okay. Well, so the Cosmic Carnival. And it's a fine one that works. You can.
    114:16
    So they show up at Expo. And people, you know, use a couple of preview pictures. And, oh, my God, look at that sculpt. It's a watch. Yeah, I get it. Because the rabbit had a watch. And inside the watch is what? A video. A cell phone screen. Good job, guys. Wow. You got a watch that tells time in the pinball machine. Because that's never been done before.
    114:41
    It has no toys. It has abominable sound, music, call outs. Okay. The Mad Hatter sounds like the pedophile guy from Family Guy, Herbert and Pervert.
    115:02
    Okay, but it's got good art. Okay, good art that's like softcore fucking like adult fantasy. You know, my girlfriend dressed up like Alice in Wonderland for my birthday week, week, nod, nod, saying nothing that casual.
    115:18
    You can see her on OnlyFans for five bucks. God, where else can we go wrong with this? What's really great is the, you know, we're going to get the scoop. You know who we're talking about. The two guys in pinball, Kerry Hardy, and God bless him, and our boy Kaneda. God bless him as well. Good dudes. They really are. But I got to give them some grief. And we'll sign an NDA. We will literally, okay, we'll lick a dog's butt to sign an NDA. They should just have that on a bumper sticker. They really should. And then they were just talking it up, talking it up, talking it up. Here comes the show, and then here comes Metallica. Oh, look at these scopes. And then crickets. Just crickets. Okay, Alice didn't even manage to make it as the hot topic through the entire expo. Because Metallica showed up, and it was game on, bitches.
    116:15
    Because Stern actually knows what the hell they're doing. Not to mention, we just talked about no toys, a couple of ramps, no rule set whatsoever. You played it, Mark, and you said it's got a couple of nice ramp shops. It blows your eyes, but there's nothing there. No. It's an empty box. It's pretty empty. Yeah. Okay. And even though they announced it this year it not going to be shipping until 2025 Look at Spooky new game Okay now you may not the theme may not be for you and that okay It not going to be for everybody But look at Evil Dead 1 and 2. Look at the mechs. Okay, you want to talk about sculpts? Look at the sculpts. You want to talk about mechs? Let's look at mechs and toys. You want to talk about theme integration, getting the callouts, the music, You know, the voice talent from the movies, call-outs from all the movies. I mean, the art, Chris Franchi art, the total package. That's how you do a pinball machine. That's how you do a theme, ladies and gentlemen. And now these guys are talking about and it's rumored that they're looking for someone else to build their Back to the Future game because they want to be able to sell more. It's like That was the one you should have Let off with that boys If you're going to lead off And you could have had an exclusive thing And it could have probably been something pretty cool And pretty special But you know again Dutch boys you fulfilled your obligation You got your Lebowski done Which is a great theme And a pretty decent game When you can actually find one that's actually working correctly Which is not often But yeah That's my lane of the year because go, oh, just go. Go away. Pinball's American. It was invented in America. They're all built in America. Every successful company, guess where they're located?
    118:22
    The Chicagoland area or New York. We're all nationalists. No, it's true, though, man. It's true. Pinball is huge in Europe. It's huge. Yes, it's huge in Europe. In the golden era of the 90s, half of the pinball machines being made were going to Europe. The biggest distributors were the European distributors. Fact. Yes. But all the games were not made in Europe. They were still made in the good old U.S. of A. Well, but, I mean, it doesn't mean, you know, like, you have to kind of look at it this way, right?
    118:52
    Pinball started in Chicago, and that's where it's centered, right? It doesn't mean that pinballs that come from other places can't be good. No, no, not at all. Dutch pinball. like my problem with with Alice and I was hoping you would say Alice because uh my problem with Alice is just like and kind of goes back to what you said earlier and talking about your favorite person and how he was associated briefly with American but like I think that the thousand people who bought this this Alice in Wonderland I don't think it really mattered about the art or about the gameplay or anything like that, it's because they're getting this lost Papa Duke design. Whether the guy wants to admit it or not, it's a J-pop design. It is. And pinball has this weird kink for people who want things that they're not supposed to have or that they couldn't get or that they missed out on and now they could get again.
    119:53
    You know, like nobody wants to buy something at first, But, like, if you stop making it and then say a couple years later, oh, you can buy it again, someone's going to be like, oh, hot damn, I want it. Right. And this Alice in Wonderland was, it was a failed, it was a failed thing from the Zidware days that, you know, maybe two or three people were excited about. And then they said, hey, we're going to make this game that you weren't going to be able to get. And now every, you know, a thousand people are just like, here's my 10,000 bucks. and it's just like you're buying. I mean, I know people, I don't know if they're still in on it, but I know people who are in on it, and I was just like, look, I hope for your sake that it's better than it looks.
    120:37
    It's not. But, you know. In fact, a lot of people when they saw Metallica asked for a refund. I just don't get the sick fascination with like these pop, you know, with these J-pop designs, with Retro Atomic and with Magic Girl and with Alice. And I don't know if he had another one floating around out there. He did. And then he had, of course, the Kiss prototype. But that was, he built that for a friend who was a Kiss fan. Yeah, he did that for Fonzies. But, like, you know, Peter is a great game. He did everything for Fonzies because, you know, he's a hack. World Cup is a great game. Peter is a great game.
    121:16
    Altair is a great game. Great game. Yeah. Those games are good. But, definitely maybe nice is a great game. Star Wars Episode I is eh. You know, the guy made some good games. He's obviously got capabilities as a designer. He was obviously the worst fucking businessman. Maybe I didn't even put his name on it. Well, he was the worst businessman to ever live. So, yeah. And, you know, but I think that in some weird way, like, I think if Papa Duke did, like, if Stern took a chance on him or something and the game was halfway decent, pinball would forgive and forget. Like they just had this weird love affair with Papa Duke. Gomez could probably get something good out of him. That was the whole thing is, you know, the Williams days, he had the best pinball people in the world, you know, focusing him and picking up for his, you know, they were basically accentuating his positives and making up for his negatives. They just had a guy sit there and hold up a jelly bean. It's like, get this screw turned in. You can have a jelly bean. I don't think that's how it was. I mean, because if you look at the dude's designs, they're ambitious beyond the capability of physics. Right. He loves to design wild machines. He just needs a good mechanical engineer that's like, that doesn't work, dumbass. It doesn't work great. It's like an altered time, space, and dimension. We got to hit. Exactly. You know, you can make this ramp once in every 9,000 times you shoot at it. No, you can't make this ramp once in any time. It don't work. It doesn't go anywhere. It's like the Winchester Rehouse pinball design. There's no way to get to it. Yeah. That's the beauty of it. Get the fuck out of here.
    123:00
    Just stop. So I hope that American, not an American pinball. I hope that, I don't want them to make it either, But I hope that Dutch Pinball does not make Back to the Future. Because, first of all, that's a game that I would probably want to have.
    123:16
    Yeah, that's not a green theme. Right. I'd want it to come out from a company that's, like, actually going to produce it. You know, if it can't be Stern or JJP, you know, maybe a Spooky.
    123:29
    You know, maybe, I mean, shoot, man. I mean, maybe even, like, a Barrels of Fun, you know. Labyrinth is a pretty good game. A great first effort. It's a great first, I mean, tremendous first effort. Yeah. But, yeah, just please, please, you know. I've heard what, isn't it the big thing now that they're going after Blade Runner? Yeah. Yeah, that's kind of what pissed me off more because I'm sure. That would be another cool-ass thing. The original Blade Runner is a classic. And that was also my dad's. That would be killer. Yeah, like, talk about things that you don't want to, you know, have to wait 15 years for your fucking machine to arrive. Yeah. Back to the Future is a great one because you're going to have to travel back in time to when you ordered the game to tell yourself, don't do it. Don't do it.
    124:17
    The original Blade Runner from 1982 was my dad's all-time favorite film. I love it. And, you know, when it comes to Blade Runner, give me the theatrical cut any day. Yes. Yeah. The original. I know everybody loves the director's cut. I don't. You know, they had to go back and make changes, and they had to add the narration, which nobody was excited about. I don't know why, but to me, like, his kind of just bored-like sounding narration just gives it that detective story. Like, he's just narrating it. Like, he's not trying to emote. He's just telling you, why I did this. And it's so Harrison Ford, right? It's so Harrison Ford. Don't you hate that? No, that's what I was saying. Like, they forced him to go back and do it. But to me, it makes the movie because, like, hey, kid, it's not that kind of movie. I love that story. I said, pay attention to your hair. We got bigger problems. Yeah, big. Hey, kid, you never told me that. Yeah, that's right.
    125:24
    Mark Hamill is almost a better Harrison Ford than Harrison Ford is. Oh, man. He can have the job. So, yeah. So, yeah, I agree, though. So, like, but, you know, for almost a different reason, just like it's just a weird, I mean, it's not like going back and buying like a lost, you know, like John Trudeau made a game, right? And you're supporting somebody as bad as Trudeau was. But not. I wonder how many listeners are going, who's John Trudeau? What did he do that was so bad? You know, anyone who listens to us knows who the fuck John Trudeau is. Yeah. So. And don't get me wrong, you know, he's made some games. I mean, I own a couple of Trudeau games, but at the same time, it's like, yeah, you know, I don't want any money to go into the man's pocket. Right, right. I'm sure that, you know, J-POP's not getting paid anything for Alice in Wonderland. I'm sure that, you know, the rights went from him to Deep Root to the Ninja Eclipse guy to the guy who bought him from the Ninja Eclipse guy. To the guy next to the garbage dumpster at the Shell Station. To DPX. Yeah, DPX. Not to the guy at the dumpster. What's the guy's name? To my weed dealer at Shakey's. Exactly.
    126:41
    To the homeless guy that led people to our pinball show five years ago. Yeah, dude, man, the pinball hobo, that guy was the real hero. I really want to meet him, shake his hand, and buy him dinner. I really do. Pinball Hobo Yeah, you know, it's like What's the guy, the designer guy Or the engineer guy, Melvin, okay You know Melvin's something or the other You know Look, you know, build Just build a couple of your own teams, man Show us what you got, okay I would pay attention to that I just, anytime you continue To want to resurrect the J-Pop stink.
    127:26
    And, you know, the guy from Dutch Boys or whatever, you know, he's got so much baggage, and it's like, you know, I'm not going to forget that, man. You know, you lie and cheat people. Yeah, you're, you know, I'll never do business with you. I mean, I'm fine with the redemption story, right? It was a mess. It was a bunch of companies trying to screw each other, but, like, they made right in the end. They did. And I give credit where credit is due. They didn't make right. But it is interesting to me that like a thousand, it's a thousand units of that, Alice, right? I believe it's a thousand, yeah. A thousand people were willing to give these guys $10,000 knowing that the last time that they scored a game, it took ten years to get delivered. Well, like I said, it's a Papa Duke curse. I haven't seen a good one since. But again, that's what I said. I think it's a pinball thing where they want something that they were not going to be able to get or that they were not going to be allowed to have. Well, let's go back and look at the Papadum. A lot of design. Yeah, you're right, but let's look at Papadum. He shot his wide on his first game. His most cohesive, best playing, best fun overall game, World Cup. And he didn't even work on that that much. He had to go there. Here's the thing. I like World Cup soccer, and I think that's a great game, and I heard Steve Ritchie threw in on it. Yeah. But, like,
    128:54
    Papaduke's best game is Theater of Magic. Well, a lot of people say that. Absolutely. I agree. Circus is good, too, if you get one of that. Tales is good. They're all fine. Like I said, Episode 1 is, uh. Yeah. But, like. The most cohesive and best rule set, I honestly think, is his first one.
    129:16
    Yeah. I don't understand why people like WCS so much I mean maybe it's just people love soccer it's easier that doesn't have anything to do with J-pop anyway well no it doesn't like that's whoever did the rules for World Cup well it's like your big imagineers aren't terrible they're good but you know yeah All those games are decent, but, you know, the rule set's not super deep is what I mean. But, yeah, what you're talking about when you're talking about J-pop, and it's almost like when you're talking about Nordman, right? You're talking about the ramp shots and the twistiness, and generally there's some sort of – it's almost got a whimsical sort of quality. Right.
    130:05
    Right. You know, World Cup is definitely the least J-pop of all the J-pop games, and I would argue that the most J-pop of all the J-pop games is probably Tales. Tales or Circus. Yeah. They're the fruitiest, for sure. Yeah, for sure. And you can see when he went off on his own, like, and you see Magic Girl, if that was, like, his dream theme of what they were going to make. Yeah, Software on Design is Papa Duke and Larry DeMar. Software is Larry DeMar and Matt Correale. Larry DeMar. It's not good rules, but, yeah, you're not going to go too far but wrong on your software when Larry DeMar is on the stick. Yeah, Larry DeMar is kind of like, you know, the software guru. And let's be honest. The dude who makes World Cup soccer is Tim Kittrow. Yeah. Because without the announcer in that game, it would suck. Yeah. That's so true. So true. Yeah, that's true. Yard's not that great. It's fine.
    131:03
    It's dog pinball. But, like, you know, the guy is a wall. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so that's my lane of the year. I just, like, what are you guys doing, you know? What are you guys doing over there? We have a coach. We made a watch. And we put a watch in the watch. Look at you go.
    131:30
    And I'm sober, okay? I'm drinking Coca-Cola and eating my Reese's Peanut Butter Custard, man. I got a really nice bottle of single malt scotch for Christmas.
    131:41
    It's not a rough couple of days, Spencer. You've obviously got a busy day to work through. Yeah. Yeah, I know that, right? We're here for you, buddy. Tell us about that watch again. Yeah, tell us about that watch again. Would everybody just go and get to that fucking clock? Get the fucking clock. You've got to pay $10,000 for a machine with an upper play field you can't get to and a fucking clock. I think this paper was literally ripped off from Twilight Zone, okay?
    132:06
    And half of a zombie Yeti art package. Yeah, which half? Not the good half. He's like, you guys won. If you look, it's like some of the stuff is clearly like Yeti's line work. Yeah. But it was all, like, basically that whole game was like someone else's work that somebody else traced over. I know. Right. They traced over the J-pop design. They traced over the zombie Yeti art. And who knows who the hell's going to else. I want a console, but I'm going to paint over it and make it my own.
    132:34
    Yeah, exactly. And then, again, that's their way of saying, oh, no, it's not a J-pop game. It's a Marvin whoever it is game. I don't know. The guy's thinking this is a good idea. Anyone who's buying that game knows why they're fucking buying it. I mean, unless there's just some sort of cracked super fan of, like, generic Alice in Wonderland interpretations.
    132:56
    Yeah. What I can't wait for is, you know, because everybody's like the FOMO, you know, and that's going to be worth money. And I'm going to love watching these guys eat $5,000 to $7,000 in two years. Look, trust me, there's a lot less galactic tank forces out there, and they're going cheaper. So if you want something that no one's going to have, buy an American pinball. There you go.
    133:16
    What's the tank version? I forget. What's the tank, what the tank treads, what's that one called? Well, there was the Deluxe, which is the normal edition. Yeah. Then there was the something else, the tank one, and then there was the signature, which was like the really expensive tank one that came with like lunch boxes and glasses and stuff that you could order from the car now. There was one that had the tank tracks. That was the one that was like 16 grand. Yeah, 16 grand. I don't know if it's that one, but there's one in the Denver-ish area, in the Colorado Craigslist, and it's going for nine. They're asking nine for it.
    133:50
    Wow. I've seen the boxes, which I would still say is the one that you want, and the one that most everybody wants. I've seen Deluxe's going for $6,500. Yeah. Which pains me since I own one. I would like it to go for more. But at the same time, that's about what I'm into it. So, you know, it could be worse. And, you know, I think it's a cool game that nobody else owns. I think it's a cool game. John Papaduke had nothing to do with.
    134:16
    So, good game. To finalize, my lane in the year is that. Yeah. So I feel like the odd man out because we got two Wonderlands and one American pen. You got no rabbit hole in yours. I just got towels and space ice cream. And actually, no, at the end of the day, I do have kind of the mad hatter. I've got David Fix.
    134:46
    Love of God, don't let him talk to the media. It's like somebody's calling. I know, right? Like, if I owned a pinball company and David Fix was the world's best executive, I would still be like, bro, don't go on any podcasts. No doubt. And get a good microphone. Exactly. Don't go on any podcasts from the other side of the room. Upper management is probably going, you are not allowed to ever go on a podcast again. Well, but that's what I was saying. It's like, I don't think that the management at Ametron cares. Like, I think that, like, one of the kids who, like, the kids of the owners wanted to do this pinball company thing, and I think that their whole thing has just been like, okay, great, like, it's a tax write-off, you know, make a couple games, don't make us look stupid.
    135:30
    And, you know, I think that eventually somehow David Fick scammed his way in, and the problem was either at that point they decided to stop paying people or what, but it's like, yeah, it seems like all the good talent that they had took a hike. Who knows who works there now It's as if like if UHF was not A UHF station but They let George and Bob run a pinball company Right but The moral of that story is they turned it around Like it'd be like George and Bob Came in and it turned out that the janitor Was like Keith Elwin Like you want to design a pinball machine Keith? I guess so Actually to have it be funnier, the janitor would have to be Jack Danger. There you go. It's like this wild, obnoxious pinball machine, and the theme would be space ice cream.
    136:26
    And it would catch the public's imagination. The janitor would have a mop. Yeah, he'd have a mop. And a fire hose. The theme would be space mop. Yeah, space mop and a fire hose. Look, we can design a better game. Look, I have a pinball machine with a drink from the fire hose mode. My life is complete. That's our film.
    136:49
    They should do a module. They should do a software module for Weird Al's museum, which is just UHF. Yeah, there you go. It should be so cool. That's such a great movie. You know what? Weird Al, you know, if you've ever watched UHF on DVD, Weird Al does the commentary on it. you have to listen to it. I've never done commentary. I'm going to have to do that. Like, he recalls, like, names and, like, addresses and stuff from, like, when he was making that movie. Like, that dude is seriously smart and, you know, just super well-spoken. But it's a very amusing commentary track. Although nothing's better than Schwarzenegger doing Total Recall where he just sort of describes the movie to you as it happens.
    137:36
    Watch this. I'm going to grab this guy and use him as a human shield. Oh, that was fantastic. Very, very true. doing annual sidetracking. Carrie Fisher doing commentary on Star Wars. She sounded drunk. She's all, I have to go over the same outfit every day for a week. It's like, is she drunk? I think probably. Like she was drunk when she was doing this.
    138:02
    Yeah, that's funny. Well, she also had like, you know, she unfortunately had that like history of drugs where like, you know, you never come back quite all the way from it. Yeah. So, yeah, that's kind of a rough thing. My favorite Carrie Fisher moment was this weird George Lucas, like, it's like an award. It's like a Lifetime Achievement Award, and she did one of the presentations. And I can't do it justice, and I won't even try, but look it up on YouTube. Yes, I've seen it. It's great. It's so fucking funny. It's hilarious, yeah. Where is it? I've got to watch that. What is it? What was the line she did? It's like a Carrie Fisher George Lucas Award. Every time she looks in the mirror, she owes George Lucas like a buck 25 or something. Yeah. It's hilarious. I love money. She was super, super witty. So let's take it home, fellas. We've been going for a couple hours. Who wants to do some shout-outs and thank yous?
    138:55
    Mark, you want to start? Yeah. Shout-outs. Wow. I think the shout-out is making it through 2024. for everybody who has supported me throughout this whole year with this crazy year we've had.
    139:15
    It's been quite a ride up and down, but yeah, I got to thank you guys as always. Shout out to you for keeping this show alive and, and getting more and more listeners. And it's pretty awesome. I mean, obviously thanks to all the people in the pinball community here in Reno of just always wanting to put on tournaments and all different areas and bring more people into the hobby, and it's pretty awesome. But, yeah, I think just survival, man, survival. It's getting through this year and looking forward to next year. So the shout-out would be here, here to having us all survive 2024.
    139:58
    Dan, you're up, sir. You know what? I want to throw one out to my Manchester. you know you will be missed you know to all the clingens you know I feel for you guys my heart's breaking for you know but he left behind a great family good sons good grandsons good granddaughters you know so you know big big love to you guys for what you're going through and of course you know you know where we're at when you need us beyond that you know my lovely wife, Mark, as always, is the man.
    140:37
    Everybody at CCPL, thank you for putting up with a lot of shenanigans so that we can play pinball on Thursday nights and the occasional Saturday.
    140:46
    And, you know, especially in the last year, just anyone who's hosted, who's done, you know, pinball get-togethers, who's come over to help move games, who's come over to help service games, You know, Adam Pressler, of course, Hugh, Jermai Garcia, George Gonzalez, you know, Cheddar. Cheddar's the man. Cowboy Cheddar.
    141:10
    You know, just everybody, you know. 2024 wasn't the best year. It wasn't the worst year. You know, it felt like it was simultaneously a long year and an incredibly short year. Yeah. Like it was a good time, but it was a good time, but, you know, you had to muscle through it. So, but, yeah, you know, just I hope that everybody who listens to the show had a wonderful 2024.
    141:43
    But no matter what, I hope everybody has a better 2025. And, you know, Happy New Year to all of you. Well said, gentlemen. Well said, both of you. Thank you. So my thank yous are put to both of you guys.
    141:58
    You know, the first call I made was to, you know, my daughter Hannah, and then I started, you know, calling some family members. You guys were the first two people outside of the, you know, bloodline family that I called, you know, because I knew you guys would be there. Not that they weren't. I'll get to my thank yous and shout-outs too. I was with you guys first and for, you know, continually every month going, all right, let's talk about pinball and try to keep the bus on the road.
    142:30
    The outpouring of love and support I've had from, you know, family and friends has been really overwhelming. So thank you to all you wonderful folks out there for that. And, you know, thank you to my dad for introducing me to pinball. So thank you to all the listeners who continue to listen and support this show. And I wish you all a happy and safe new year. And belated birthday wishes to Dan, which was November 30th?
    143:04
    November 29th. Okay. Because it was after we did our last show. And then me on December 15th. So one more tip of the clock and I turn 60. So you're not 60? No, 59. I thought you were pushing 80. Yeah, I know. It feels like it too. No, it's easy for me to remember because you're 10 years older than I am. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, 10 years. You look like 15 or 20 years older than me. Yeah, this last year will do that to a man, you know, so.
    143:35
    Spencer, what was it? You posted that picture. You posted a picture from Pinnagogo like 10 years ago.
    143:41
    And everybody looked like babies in it, except for Spencer just looked like Spencer. If you notice that, I don't. Spencer, weren't you ever young? I know he was young, of course. If you, and I was one year since he was 40. That was the year that I got sick. That was the year that, like, I had, like, you know, I mean, I had been, like, out of the hospital, like, five weeks when Pinnagogo happened. And I was like, I'm not missing Pinnagogo. For the listeners, if you know the story, I woke up after 21 days in a coma, and my first words were, shit, I missed Pinnagogo? You know?
    144:16
    No, that's true. Wow. Yeah, that was literally my first words to my lovely wife, Rusty. To my lovely wife, Rusty, who's been so good through all of this.
    144:33
    I'll tell you guys. She's the rock for sure, man. So my dad had been battling and being in treatments for leukemia for the last year-ish. and I'll post a picture on our Facebook page. The picture I posted on Facebook is a picture of me, my dad, and my middle son sets at the ballpark on his 80th birthday last July.
    144:58
    And Mickey's not in the picture because Mickey's the mascot of the baseball team, the Spuds. So he's entertaining everybody. He got Papa the opportunity to throw out the opening pitch, which was great. It was a great bump for Papa. I really enjoyed that. It was a good day for Bob.
    145:15
    And so there's a picture. It's like a selfie I did, you know, and it's a great picture. So he just finished another round of chemo, and he's kind of like loopy and just – but these are normal side effects that come along with his treatment that he's been having. So I didn't think too much about it. So Friday night, you know, he's out on the couch sitting there. He wants some cocoa. I make him some cocoa, and we're just talking a bit. You know, he's kind of in and out. He's having a couple, you know, some clear moments, and he kind of bathes. He's like, well, I'm going to bed. I'm like, okay. I check on him before I go to bed about an hour later. Mickey checks on him a little bit later before he goes to bed. And I'm having breakfast in the morning. I have to work. It's like 630 in the morning, 6 o'clock in the morning. So I'm eating breakfast, the rest of the time we're talking. And I say, you know, if Papa's not doing better when I get home, I'm going to run him into the hospital, make sure he's doing okay.
    146:14
    I go to work. I get to work an hour later. I get a call from Rusty that says, I don't want to tell you this this way. I don't.
    146:25
    Pop is gone. Pop has passed. She goes to the paramedics area now, but they called it. I was like, oh, let's bring down the show. I'm sorry, guys, but it's okay. We are headed out, so, you know, which I'm like, well, you know, what are we going to do, honey? You know, tell me, hey, I got something to tell you when you get home, right? You know, yeah, so, you know, there's no easy way to do this. So I don't even know why I'm telling you guys this. It just feels good to verbalize it.
    147:01
    And I'm still doing my shout-outs and thank yous and whispers. Probably going, damn, this is going dark fast. Guys, just, you know what, man, if you got a family friend. They know where the fat's going.
    147:11
    That's what you got to say. That's what I got to say. But that was. People who care will listen. You know, so that's it, man. That's how it all came about. So, you know, he had 80 good years on this earth and he had a pretty good life. And his last 12, 15 years he lived with me. And I took care of him and just, you know, he was retired. He didn't have to do anything, you know. I even asked him over to empty the trash or anything. If he offered to help and wanted to help, it was fine. I was like, yeah, thanks, Pop. But I never asked him to. I was like, I ain't retired. Enjoy it. So I was able to give him that, and that makes me feel pretty good. And he lived long enough to see his grandchildren all grown to basically adults and to see his great-grandchild born. So not a bad run. And he managed to finish. I don't know if you guys know this story either. I have copies of his last book. He finished his final book. I edited it begrudgingly. I bought him a really nice laptop, and he kept asking for an old-fashioned manual typewriter, and he wrote everything in pencil, and he would give me a page of like a 50-page short story and ask me to make changes with no page number or title of story, and this was every day for six months. as I, you know, labor that we're trying to edit this thing and deal with his eccentricities. So, but it's done. So I have copies for both you guys. And yeah, man, that's it. You know, I want everybody to have a safe and happy new year. I want everybody to play pinball with somebody they love. And I'm going to leave you guys with that. And Mark's going to do something real special if he can in post. He's going to play one of my dad's favorite songs. Baker Street by Jerry Rafferty. Some of the best saxophone work ever recorded. So I guess we'll take us out, guys. So everybody have a safe and happy New Year's. This has been Episode 70 of The Spinner's Lit. Catch us on our flagship at SoundCloud or iTunes, wherever fine podcasts are sold. Please email us at thespinnerislit at gmail.com and check out and like our Facebook page and play pinball. Keep America Strong.
    150:02
    Thank you. I'm in your way down a big street Light in your head and I'm dead On your feet with another crazy day You'll get the night away And forget about everything This city doesn't make you feel so cold It's got so many people but it's got no soul And it's taking so long Why not you alone when you thought I held everything I used to think that it was so easy But you're trying, you're trying now I know that you remember me happy Just one more year and then you'll be happy But you're crying, you're crying now
    151:58
    Thank you. We'll be right back. He's rolling, he's rolling home. Wake you, wake up, it's a new morning. The sun is shining, it's a new morning. You're rolling, you're rolling home.
    153:28
    Thank you. © transcript Emily Beynon