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Episode 25 – Ballin’ With Bowden

Slam Tilt Podcast·podcast_episode·analyzed·Jan 5, 2017
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.032

TL;DR

Slam Tilt ep 25: In-depth interview with top-ranked player Steve Bowden on competition, skill development, and upcoming events.

Summary

In episode 25 of Slam Tilt Podcast, hosts Ron Hallett and Bruce Nightingale interview Steve Bowden, the highest-ranked competitive pinball player they've had on the show. The conversation covers Bowden's competitive journey, his approach to improving at pinball, gameplay analysis of the newly revealed Batman 66, and upcoming events including MAGFest and Pinball Done Quick charity stream.

Key Claims

  • Steve Bowden is the highest-ranked competitive pinball player Slam Tilt has ever had on the show

    high confidence · Ron Hallett and Bruce Nightingale explicitly state this in the episode introduction

  • Steve Bowden has appeared on all 25 episodes of Slam Tilt Podcast

    high confidence · Ron Hallett states: 'He's actually the only one that's been on the podcast all 25 shows'

  • The primary difference between top-ranked and lower-ranked players is missing slightly fewer shots per tournament, which compounds into significant scoring differences

    high confidence · Steve Bowden explains the competitive skill gap to Ron Hallett in detail

  • American Pinball released Batman 66 gameplay video ahead of the official Stern reveal

    high confidence · Bruce Nightingale states American Pinball got a Super LE and released gameplay before the official reveal

  • Batman 66 has placeholder DMD animations and animation loops that need work in the code

    high confidence · Bruce Nightingale describes seeing DMD-style placeholder animations and looping Joker graphics in gameplay footage

  • Pinball Done Quick is raising millions for charity annually through Games Done Quick

    high confidence · Steve Bowden states: 'Every year they raise millions, literally millions of dollars to this event'

  • The pinball tournament at MAGFest is free to enter for anyone with a MAGFest ticket

    high confidence · Steve Bowden explains MAGFest pinball tournament has 'no charge once you go into the event'

  • Stern-Tropicana (TROP) has had persistent ball search issues since at least the Spike and Sam eras

    medium confidence · Bruce Nightingale notes Stern has 'never had issues with TROP' and mentions the problem existing across Spike, Sam, and White Star systems

Notable Quotes

  • “More consistency, more knowledge of rule sets, more knowledge of secret tricks, and carry them through all at once. more strategy really and that's really what it boils down to it comes down to missing slightly less shots”

    Steve Bowden @ ~15:00 — Core insight into what separates elite competitive players from the rest—consistency and missing fewer shots

  • “The difference between you know a person who's ranked in the top 25 and a person who's ranked in the top 100 is probably two missed shots in each tournament”

    Steve Bowden @ ~16:30 — Quantifies the skill gap between competitive tiers as tiny but cumulative

  • “Once you realize it, you're finished. It's like I just made seven or eight straight shots. I am killing this game. Oh, oh, oh, oh, there goes multi-ball.”

    Ron Hallett @ ~19:00 — Describes the psychological challenge of maintaining focus and not chocking under perceived success

  • “It's the first shot after that. Yes. That is my biggest flaw still.”

    Steve Bowden @ ~21:00 — Both Steve Bowden and Ron acknowledge getting a ruling or ball stoppage breaks rhythm on the first shot after—a universal weakness

  • “I mean, it wasn't as in-depth or you didn't get to see near as much as the dead flip screen, but I just thought that was interesting. I guess the only people would know, would be Stern and American Pinball, whether or not that was supposed to happen.”

    Bruce Nightingale @ ~35:00 — Questioning whether American Pinball's early Batman 66 gameplay reveal was sanctioned or a break of street date

  • “The scoring seems a little unbiased... I think it's been unbalanced... you get the Riddler and you're like, okay, 26 million? Wait a sec. What the?”

    Bruce Nightingale @ ~42:00 — Notes Batman 66 scoring imbalances during early gameplay, though expects updates as Lyman refines code

  • “It's unbalanced. Well, no, I mean, but it's, you know, 200,000 for jackpots, you know, scoring. And then you get the Riddler and you're like, okay, 26 million? Wait a sec. What the?”

Entities

Steve BowdenpersonRon HallettpersonBruce NightingalepersonStern PinballcompanyAmerican PinballcompanyBatman 66gameGames Done QuickeventPinball Done Quickevent

Signals

  • ?

    content_signal: Steve Bowden confirmed as highest-ranked competitive player and only guest to appear on all 25 Slam Tilt episodes

    high · Ron Hallett states in episode intro: 'the highest ranked player we have ever had on the show... He's actually the only one that's been on the podcast all 25 shows'

  • ?

    product_concern: Batman 66 early gameplay footage shows placeholder animations, animation loops, and scoring imbalances that need iteration

    high · Bruce Nightingale: 'some of them just seemed to loop... had, you know, some placeholder frames... literally the DMD animation on the screen'

  • ?

    announcement: Batman 66 official reveal via Dead Flip; early gameplay surfaced via American Pinball distributor before official reveal

    high · Bruce Nightingale: 'American Pinball, which is one of their, Stern's main distributors... got a Super LE, and he did actual gameplay video of it... days before' official reveal

  • ?

    event_signal: Pinball Done Quick confirmed for Jan 8-15 as part of Games Done Quick; expects significant viewership based on prior 20,000+ concurrent viewers

    high · Steve Bowden: 'Last year at the end of the Games Done Quick event... we had 20,000 people watching me and Joe and Austin'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Elite competitive players ranked top 25 vs top 100 separated by approximately 2 missed shots per tournament; success driven by consistency and missed shot reduction

    high · Steve Bowden detailed explanation of skill gap compounding through tournament play

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.357

0:00
Coming to you from beautiful upstate New York, this is the Slam Tilt Podcast, a show about all things pinball. I'm your host, Ron Hallett, here with my co-host, Bruce Nightingale. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What? Whoa. What's the problem? What's with you? You've gone two weeks, I give you a week off, and this is what I get? What did I get? No intro, no Beavis' butthead, no Dungeons & Dragons music. God damn it. Now, I want you to redo it and start it all over again right this time.
0:32
I see here that you are currently employed at Burger World. That's great. Uh, so which of your duties there do you like the most?
0:41
Beaver-fly-crawler duties. Well, great, Beaver. But what type of duty do you enjoy more than any other?
0:52
Let's see. That's a tough one. Well, no. Well, I mean, the ones that, you know, take a long time, you know, are kind of nice. Nice? You really like to get involved. Oh, yeah, yeah. Get your hands dirty. Well, yeah, sometimes. Something you really think you're stupid at.
1:11
Wait a minute. Whoa. You're disgusting. Yeah, yeah, really. Come on. Coming to you from beautiful upstate New York, this is the Slam Tilt Podcast, the show about all things pinball. I'm Ron Hallett here with my co-host, Bruce Nightingale. Getting his head out of his ass for the first time in months. Yes, and welcome to episode 25, Thunderball. Give me some domino, baby. Give me some domino. Domino, who was dubbed, I believe. That was the era where everyone was dubbed. She was dubbed. The main bad guy with the eye patch was dubbed. And it has possibly one of the most impressive notes ever held by Tom Jones in the theme song. Just listen to the last note of that song.

Bruce Nightingale @ ~43:00 — Specific critique of Batman 66 scoring balance issues in early code

  • “Last year at the end of the Games Done Quick event, they funneled everybody to the Pinball Done Quick stream. So we had 20,000 people watching me and Joe and Austin play Star Trek Pro and Premium in a competition.”

    Steve Bowden @ ~65:00 — Demonstrates massive viewership potential for Pinball Done Quick charity stream with 20,000+ concurrent viewers

  • “I like to take care of people who take care of other people, and he does that very well.”

    Steve Bowden @ ~72:00 — Notes his discount to Joe Saeed (pinball lifter.com) for supporting charity events

  • “So if you've got your MAGFest ticket, you have entry into the tournament. So that basically means you can pound on a game all you want and then go to another event, hang out somewhere else, do some more of the MAGFest festivities”

    Steve Bowden @ ~78:00 — Describes the accessibility and non-committal structure of MAGFest pinball tournament

    • MAGFest
    event
    Lymanperson
    Pinball Joeperson
    George Gomezperson
    Steve Ritchieperson
    Dead Flipperson/organization
    Jeff Teolisperson
    Kristenperson
    Kevin Manningperson
    Josh Sharpperson
    Austinperson
    Pinball Lifterproduct/service
  • $

    market_signal: American Pinball positioned as Stern's main distributor receiving early Super LE units for marketing and review purposes

    medium · Bruce Nightingale: 'American Pinball, which is one of their, Stern's main distributors, one of the guys for the company, I'm assuming, got a Super LE'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Stern/Lyman approach involves public release of early code knowing it will receive iteration; scorinug and animations expected to improve post-release

    medium · Bruce Nightingale: 'you know, those points will get fixed... That'll get worked on. That gets worked on as people play. You know how Lyman holds in his court.'

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: First shot after ball stoppage (ruling, machine swap) is universal weakness even for elite players; psychological break in rhythm is hard to overcome

    high · Steve Bowden and Ron Hallett both identify this as their biggest remaining flaw

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Batman 66 incorporates Batman Dark Knight formula on right side (crane shot); left side redesigned with improved flow to remove Lord of the Rings 'Path of the Dead' problem backhand shot

    high · Bruce Nightingale: 'On the right side, yes... they didn't change that formula because it worked... The left-hand side looked really nice. A lot of flow'

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: Pinball Joe purchased pinball lifter equipment with manufacturer discount for charity event support; shipping to Games Done Quick location

    high · Steve Bowden: 'Joe Saeed actually purchased a pinball lifter this week... He'll be there Friday morning... I gave him a cheaper discount'

  • ?

    community_signal: Cross-podcast promotion and collaboration: Slam Tilt promotes Pinball Profile interview; funwithbonus.com merchandise drives traffic; pinball community figures support multiple shows

    high · Ron mentions Pinball Profile interview; Steve Bowden promotes funwithbonus.com; merchandise links shared on show

  • ?

    regulatory_signal: Uncertain whether American Pinball's early Batman 66 gameplay release was authorized by Stern or constituted a street date break

    medium · Bruce Nightingale: 'I wonder if Stern would be pissed... or did they break street date? I guess the only people would know, would be Stern and American Pinball'

    • 2:10
    Yeah. Start singing yourself. Well, this is a very special episode because we have, and Timmy's not going to like to hear this, we now have the highest ranked player we have ever had on the show. Woo-hoo! who we've both known for many years, before his meteoric rise, his ascent to the top of competitive pinball. He's actually the only one that's been on the podcast all 25 shows. That's true, as we've mentioned on all 25 shows. And we are talking about, of course, Mr. Steve Bowden. Good evening.
    2:44
    Good evening, gentlemen. You are, as Nate from Nate Shivers said, you are the podcast whore now. Congratulations. Well, I guess they have now. I mean, Josh Sharp has been around a little bit, you know. I know he has, but you're really comfy now. Yeah, I'm making the rounds. I mean, my non-existent exclusivity agreement has ended, you know, so. Yeah, we were in contract negotiations to the end of the night to get that broken. We had to have Luke Obrasi, like, make him an offer he couldn't refuse, and we got him out, and we got him on the show. So how's it going? Glad to be here. Yeah, it's going pretty well. I'm looking forward to it. I've got MAGFest coming up. That's going to be ridiculous.
    3:28
    And, you know, got a little bit of Pinball Done Quick coming up after that. So pinball activity is definitely going to start increasing. Because we can talk about that sort of stuff later. But, yeah, definitely feeling good about pinball. Who isn't? Very.
    3:43
    We'll talk about that when we get to the news segments. Right. Which we're going to go right now to, aren't we? We are? We're going to go right to the news segment? Well, just for those who are like, who's Steve Bowden? Oh, is this going to be another competitive pinball thing? Well, the answer is listen. Not really. Well, maybe not, but probably. And if you want to learn more about Steve Bowden, go listen to Jeff Teolis' pinball profile interview with Steve Bowden. See what I did there? See? Promotion. Promotion of another podcast. Promotion. Awesome. Excellent. But let's go Steve. Steve, tell us about yourself and tell us how you got into this for those who don't know. Well, if they want to know what I post every day on on Pinball, it's on that funwithbonus.com that this podcast has been so gracious to mention me, at least in passing in the previous 24 episodes. Thank you very much, gentlemen, for that promotion. Always welcome. But, yeah, and I've been playing pinball since 2000, I think it's 2004. I guess that was my first time playing competitively, but as far as casually, it's all my life, but I don't remember my first game. But, yeah, I mean, ever since I just decided to do a search online to say, where is there pinball in New Jersey? And I found out about this place in Morristown and had all these great games. that's where I just started playing relatively seriously. Oh, I miss that place so much. Was it the former video video? Yes. I never got there. Yeah. Oh, no. Yeah. Great place up there. Of course, they have the game vault up there now, so it's coming back up. Oh, is that the one that's like in the bank? Yeah. Yeah, I got to look at that. This is for the building. Yeah, they have a checker in the bank vault.
    5:39
    That's true. Yeah. So what was the first tournament you actually played in, or do you even remember?
    5:45
    I think the first tournament I played in was, I think, was it one of the Brian Smith's tournaments in Pennsylvania? I think I remember driving out to Pennsylvania to it. The Pinball Parlor? I'm thinking it's trying to come back to me now. Wow, okay. Because I was going to mention the first time I ever played in a tournament, I thought it was Brian Smith's tournament at the Pinball Parlor. I think that was mine. It was this place where it was two floors, I'm remembering now. Upstairs was where most of the pinball games were. Downstairs where you had your super sprint and your larger games like that. Hydro Thunder. Yeah, right. Hydro Thunder. That has to be it, yeah. So, confirmed. I think that's enough for that. Wow, that's kind of crazy. Both started at the same. One of us had a meteoric rise and the other went. So you would be the Shawn Michaels to my Marty Jannetty, I guess. Okay, wow. Wow. There you go. For the wrestling fans there, they'll totally get that. Everyone else will be looking it up. He's talking about it. Like kayfabe. Right, kayfabe.
    6:48
    The thing I remember about the pinball parlor is they had a foosball table with a cigarette holder on it. Right. Like, oh, that's cool. That's old school right there. Old school, yes. Well, before we go to the news, I just wanted to ask you this. So you started at the pinball parlor. Right. Now, when I started to play a lot against you was in the old monthly Masters tournaments, which, if anyone doesn't know, just think of, like, the Stanton tournament, but instead of 24 hours, it was basically just you start at, what, noon and go to, like, 8. Right. As long as you go, and it was almost the exact same thing. As soon as a round is done, next round. All head-to-head, you know, foursomes, and he had some kind of bizarre point thing that I never could figure out, you know, you have 4.5 points or 2.7. It's a great tie. Yeah. It's always kind of weird. It's based on groups. And that format sort of carried through a little bit in more recent tournaments to use that format. So just to sort of break ties and things like that based on how high of a group you were in. So if you were in a higher group, you'd get a micro point in order to break that tie. So that points gotten in group one were worth a slightly, It's slightly a bit more than points gotten in group six, say. But, yeah, like monthly masses is basically the sanctum, but for humans who aren't crazy. Who aren't crazy. You ain't kidding. All right. But, yeah, definitely a way to ease myself into competitive pinball and to see, you know, discover better ways to play each game as I was learning each one and seeing how, you know, people would play it and then just learn strategies based on that. I just try to remember rule sets, rule sets, remember rule sets. You had a tournament rule named after you, the Steve Brown rule, which they started doing in the monthly Masters tournaments. Basically, that would be if, say, you're playing Steven of Orsum, and he's, like, on superhero on ball one of, you know, Spider-Man or something. Everyone else could just say, like, we give up. Just stop playing. Can we please finish up? We'll take the loss. And why would they do that, though? You see, it doesn't make sense, right? But why would they do that? It's because you want to play more rounds if you try to get your points up to qualify for the finals. And they have the other rule that would never fly now, which was basically if everyone was done except, like, one group and they were still on ball one, they were playing the two-ball game. Right, yeah, that wouldn't work. I mean, I've seen the two-ball rule where you play ball two. You know, that happens. Yep. But not a one-ball surprise and you're done. Not anymore. So what I'd like to ask you is from those days starting off, and you weren't always one of the better players in those tournaments, but you weren't number six in the world good at that point. What would you say is the difference between that Steve Bowne and the current Steve Bowne?
    9:46
    More consistency, more knowledge of rule sets, more knowledge of secret tricks, and carry them through all at once. more strategy really and that's really what it boils down to it comes down to missing slightly less shots and that's what it's only slightly less like the difference between you know a person who's ranked in the top 25 and a person who's ranked in the top 100 is probably two missed shots in each tournament because basically you missing one less shot means that probably that's one less save you have to make that's one less warning you have to take and that's one less nudge you have to do. So it can really make up for, say, you know, another 50 million points on Lord of the Rings or another 25 million points on Iron Man based on a save that you didn't have to make because you kept making shots. Because that's the way the game of pinball sort of is. I mean, if you keep making shots, you don't have to nudge, and you don't have to nudge, you don't have to take warnings, and you don't have to take warnings, you're not going to die as soon. So unless you're igniting pinball so you can get, you know, quickly bumper it out or just quickly get quickly ejected by a random post or something. That happens because that's the game. But really it can be the difference between there's those small little differences carried on through. It's sort of like an exponential effect. So, you know, I guess that's the closest I can come up with right now is what makes a difference. I don't feel any different. I mean, really, other than I get less tired playing long distances, you know, of playing time. Like, I can play for an hour and I'm used to it. Damn, and I just thought it was a cheat code or something. I'm screwed. Damn it.
    11:27
    Nope. It's literally just miss one less shot. I'll tell you, yeah, I miss too much and what you said about just playing longer games. I just never could get used to that. I mean, I played video games long before, you know, pinball games, and I got to the point where I played like Galaga and I could play for like over two hours. and it just gets boring after a while. You get to a point where you're kind of in the zone and then you get past that point where it's like, I just want to die and move on. I don't want to play this anymore. And that's a great point. Getting in that zone and then not necessarily staying there, but sort of realizing I'm doing really well, but then not realizing that you're doing really well because once you realize it, you're done. Once you realize it, you're finished. It's like I just made seven or eight straight shots. I am killing this game. Oh, oh, oh, oh, there goes multi-ball. Oh, well. Oh, done. Oh, boy. I'm not controlling this ball. Oh, I didn't nudge it. And one thing that I guess can be a difference that I have noticed about my own play is it's not knowing when to nudge. It's knowing when to nudge five seconds when you're supposed to nudge so that you can pre-react to a ball that's going to drain and affect that. You know, like there are certain areas of the play through where you better hit the game in order to get it off a certain area. If you don't, you're going to hit this area of the slingshot and you're going to drain because the game is designed that way. Yes.
    13:00
    Now, what do you see as your weakest point still, Steve? Because I see mine is when a ball gets stuck and then I have to wait. That's it. No, you got it. It's the first shot after that. Yes. That is my biggest flaw still. Yeah. If my biggest flaw is the same as Steve Bowden's, that's it. It's like I have the ball controlled, okay, and now I'm going to make this shot. Now make it after I haven't shot anything for like 30 seconds. Or even worse, like when you had to get a ruling, you know, and then you're trying to make that shot. Or you're a pinbird and you had to move to another game because it broke. In a game where you were in the lead, of course, because that's what always happens. Right. And so you're trying to get back into the flow of the game, And really, you're just looking for any shot to make so that the ball is moving so that you can just keep going and just stay away from bricking that first shot and being out. So that's a battle. My biggest weaknesses are easy, game knowledge, especially in the more complicated games I just get totally lost. Especially where I am, I don't have access to any of these games to play them. So the only way I'm good at anything is if I own it. I could play Metallica. I could play ACDC. I could play Spider-Man because I know them. But if I had to play, like, Game of Thrones, I said it right that time. I usually say Lord of the Rings. Game of Thrones. I know, like, Martel is edible. Most of the better players seem to pick that. I should pick that. Right. You know. And my other main issue is just lack of accuracy. And that's never really going to get that much better, especially at my age at this point. The thing that sucks, though, is my nudging got much better. So now instead of missing and draining, now I miss, save the ball, miss, save the ball, then miss and drain. So it gets even more frustrating because you miss more times. Right. But it gives you more of an opportunity to adjust. You know, okay, I missed it long this time. This time I'm going to miss it early. Okay, I missed it late. And then to try and get into that where it's supposed to be, I almost said dialed in to enter the shot. But I'm trying not to say. We'll be talking about that. I'm trying not to say those two words together. Because we actually have two out of three people on the podcast who played the game. That's got to be unusual in itself. Right. So, Bruce, why don't we go with the news? Okay, start off.
    15:24
    Okay. Batman 66 gameplay came out this week with Dead Flip playing at the Eastern Factory. It came out before that. And I'm wondering. That was weird. This is our long week, so this is actually a full, you know, but it really didn't come out before. They showed you a little teaser. No, I don't mean that. Yeah, they showed a teaser, but American Pinball, which is one of their, Stern's main distributors, one of the guys for the company, I'm assuming, got a Super LE, and he did actual gameplay video of it a couple of full games, like days before that. And I was curious. I was just wondering, like, huh. Is this a scoop? What is this? Yeah, I mean, I wonder if Stern said it was okay if they even asked Stern, if Stern would be pissed, being that they were, I mean, it was being plugged as the reveal. If I remember, that's what it was actually called, Batman 66 Reveal. It's like, it's already been revealed, kind of. So I thought it was like, wait, did they break street date? Like a video game? I mean, it wasn't as, obviously it wasn't as in-depth or you didn't get to see near as much as the dead flip screen, but I just thought that was interesting. I guess the only people would know, would be Stern and American Pinball, whether or not that was supposed to happen. Right, there was a lot of flack from that, so I guess it didn't matter. Well, I think, wasn't American Pinball the one that let the flyer get out? Yes. Yeah. So maybe it's their designated leakers.
    16:54
    Right. I almost, like, I wonder if they purposely, like, can you guys leak this, you know, get a little interest out there. I would be surprised. That would be good marketing. Do you think that was actually strategized like that? That seems too well planned to be strategized by them, but maybe.
    17:11
    Sorry, sir. Sorry. I'm open. You know, give them credit. I'll give them credit. So what do we think of the gameplay?
    17:19
    I like the screenshots, the screen itself. I think the animation works really well. I don't know about the scoring. The scoring seems a little unbiased. Well, that'll get worked on. That gets worked on as people play. You know how Lyman holds in his court. Oh, I know. Lyman's great. Lyman's the master. It's unbiased? Like it doesn't like particular players or it does?
    17:39
    I think it's been unbalanced. It's unbalanced. Well, no, I mean, but it's, you know, 200,000 for jackpots, you know, scoring. And then you get the Riddler and you're like, okay, 26 million? Wait a sec. What the? You made three shots. But that 26 million was a total. That wasn't what was recorded. That was billed off. So it's like, you know, those points will get fixed. And then, you know, once they put in the additional, you know, quack and pow animations in the jackpots and stuff and work on that. And then once they bring in the multipliers, which is going to be sick. I mean, if you can go from 2X to, like, 7X now, you know, how are you going to move those around? How are you going to work those? So that's going to be interesting, too. And, you know, that huge toy and that huge rotation. Oh, that thing. Holy crap. What I'd say, like, my impressions, I mean, it's Lyman, so you know the software's going to be good. You know it's going to be fine. You know, he'll keep working on it until it's good, no matter what. Until his fingers are bleeding at the keyboard. It was fast. It looked like it was very fast. The ram shots were really fast. I thought the screen animations, some of them just seemed to loop. Yeah. Like they didn't have them all in there. They had, you know, some placeholder frames. Oh, yeah, you notice that too. Like it will say, like, bonus multiplier at whatever X, and it was literally the DMD animation. on the screen. Or Status Report. Status Report, yeah. With the DMD anime, it's like, wait a minute, okay.
    19:06
    It was just weird, because there were certain points where they were playing, and it was just doing the Joker, and it would just kind of show a loop of him over and over and over, and it just looked weird. And they had some issues with it. Like, the person would drain, and would just sit there, and they'd go into ball search. And I'd like to see, if anyone was worried about that, don't worry. That's not a Batman issue. That's a Stern issue. That's a Stern-Trop issue. I mean, Stern has never had issues with TROP, has it? That's a Stern-Trop issue. They've had that since I can remember. Like, two systems ago, Spike, Sam, they all had it. So don't worry about that. Actually, White Star did, too. So, I mean, if you have anything to worry about, is that humongous contraption. Oh, my God, he was holding that thing up. How does that thing fit? It does look like some sort of time travel device. I mean, that's what I thought.
    19:59
    That thing looks amazing. It looks like this was for Doctor Who 2. This was going to be the new, instead of the original thingamabob there they had, this was going to be the new device. I mean, I thought that was cool the way it spun around and you locked the balls on the unit. Right. So that's going to be pretty cool. Good idea. Great idea. Yeah. Now, how do you, do you think, like, comparing what you saw from Batman 66, did it feel like Batman Dark Knight? Did it feel similar? Did it feel like we were watching Batman Dark Knight? On the right side, yes. On the right side, I did. With the crane and with the shot for the crane in the front of it. That definitely was, you know, they didn't change that formula because it worked. Right. But it did feel like it, except for the loop went pretty fast around it because it goes up and around also. So the right-hand side, you know, it's actually nice to actually see the right-hand side a little bit more because that stupid Lord of the Rings Path of the Dead wasn't a problem. It's not there. Right. Yeah. For all your backhand sides. Yeah, exactly. The left-hand side looked really nice. A lot of flow, a lot of looping shots and combo. You know, it just had a Gomez flow to it, which is great to see again. extra ramp in it. You know, yeah, that's good. That's good. You know who Gomez's idol was, of course. That would be Steve Ritchie, King of Flow. I thought it was me. Yes, his idol was Bruce Nightingale. Yes. He told me. Rock him.
    21:26
    George Gomez, owner of one of the coolest signatures you will ever see. Oh, yes. It is. I don't know if people realize how much talent that dude has between the artwork and building the mechanisms. The mechs? He builds that shit. I mean, the Star Trek ship mechanism, all that, he built all that, even though he didn't do that game. So just give a props to Mr. Gomez. Things are looking up for Batman 66. I think so, yeah. That's what I'm thinking, and I'm just hoping I get to play it at some point. That's right. It's scary.
    22:02
    See, you're close enough to that New York City area. Yeah, there'll be modern sunshine laundering. I'm counting on that laundromat to get it. So I don't get it. See, that's another advantage, man. You get to play these games. I have to go to, like, Expo or Allentown or some show to hopefully get a game in on some of this stuff. So another news we have. Come on, Ron, help me out. The Ultimate Stern fan ended. What? The Ultimate Stern fan. Yes, we have our winner. Ultimate Stern pinball fan, we have a winner. Kristen won. Yeah, Kristen won. And they didn't show us the vote total, so I didn't know what. Yeah, supposedly the other guy had way more votes than she won, so who knows? Yeah, it was kind of weird. I mean, I honestly thought she had the best picture of all the ones I saw from the beginning. It wasn't even close. And I'm biased, but I don't care. It wasn't even close. I mean, come on. She's getting attacked by walkers and playing Walking Dead at the same time. I mean, come on. And be able to get a stern shot. Yes, that's true. It's like, play a stern game in a stern T-shirt with a stern theme. You know, come on. It's done. Perfect.
    23:22
    And so, you know, whatever was happening with the vote totals, I know I was voting normally. So, I mean, so, well, doesn't matter now. She's won it. Congrats. Congratulations very much. And it's going to a good cause also. Exactly. So, that's the best part of it all. I know. Can't wait for that launch party. There's going to be something going on soon with that, you know, as far as the weekend, you know, cover and as far as media-wise, so I can post it or something, you know, just to get the word out there what's going on. So that was great news to see that. It was. Good job by the other contestants, but, yeah, I was biased. I'm going to take off my non-biased hat and just put on, yes, I wanted Kristen to win, and she won. So that was good. Winner. So, Steve, since this is going to be a part of the news we talked about in a couple past shows, you're doing something this next week. Ah, yes. Which one thing? I'm doing an AgFest, and I'm going to PDQ. Yes, you're doing PDQ, which we're going to talk about, you know, with the games being done quick. Right. With all the sponsors, including our own Tim Balls, who's, you know, with the show, and also Buffalo Pinball with Kevin Manning. I said it right again. Hey, look at that. Yeah. Impressive. You did it. And others also. And it's going all for a good cause. Tell us from your view first why you want to do this, of course, and what is going to benefit for everyone who, you know, watches and hopefully contributes also. Yeah, make sure you watch Games Done Quick and Pinball Done Quick is going to be on Pinball Joe's Twitch channel all week, starting from the 8th all the way through to the next week.
    25:13
    I'm jealous because I'm only able to join on the following Friday because of work, but all week, make sure you tune into the stream. People who subscribe to Pinball Joe, that money is getting donated to Doctors Without Borders and charities like that. Prevent Cancer Foundation, And every year they raise millions, literally millions of dollars to this event. And Pinball Done Quick has now become an integral part of this program, Games Done Quick, where they have, you know, trials to complete games as fast as possible and as stylistically as possible. So what we're doing in Pinball Done Quick is we're doing it in a similar vein where we're going to have similar goals, where you whether it's get to a wizard mode or get to a sub wizard mode as fast as possible or something like that so there's also going to be a tournament each day for the people who are there at games done quick to help introduce people to competitive pinball so that's going to be great it's going to be like one every day starting from the 8th so that's going to be awesome um it does many ways to donate you can donate during the stream you can you can donate during the games done quick stream. You can also, I mean, I guess I can if I can pay some bills. This is not bill paying time during the podcast but if you go to ddpinball.com slash pdq, you'll see the t-shirt, the official t-shirt for the pinball done quick stream. So if you go to funwithbonus.com, you'll see it splattered all on the right side, the link to the t-shirt. All purchases to the t-shirt also donated to the charity so that's all that all gets counted toward that so and if you happen to buy a t-shirt please use the code fun with bonus so i get credit oh definitely i don't receive anything from it but i just know this is right we get the plugs in and it all goes to the charity so you know prevent cancer foundation and you know we hope to see you there i know i'm going to be hanging out in the chat you know many a time until i'm able to go there the following Friday, but it's going to start on Sunday the 8th, like right after, you know, the MAGFest event, really, because MAGFest ends on the 8th, and then January 8th, they're going to start with Pinball Done Quick and Game Sun Quick, so you know, if you definitely hang out and see what's going on with the event every day for that whole week, it's going to be ridiculous, and I know when I get there, I'm going to be streaming as much as possible. I might not even sleep. I have no idea. I'm just going to keep going. I'm just going to keep going to raise money for the charity because it's so fun to hang out with all the streamers and especially all the pinball streamers that have volunteered for this event. It's going to be fantastic. Thanks for a very good cause. Very good cause. Awesome. So I thank you guys for allowing me to pimp the event as well as the t-shirts. Get those t-shirts. Represent everybody. Hope to see you on the stream and subscribe. I mean, last year at the end of the Games Done Quick event, they funneled everybody to the Pinball Done Quick stream. So we had 20,000 people watching me and Joe and Austin play Star Trek Pro and Premium in a competition. Like, that really happened last year. So who knows what's going to happen this year. It's going to be ridiculous. It's going to be a happening. So, you know, make sure you tune in to Pinball Joe's Twitch stream and represent. So let's do it. So the good thing also is Joe Saeed actually purchased a pinball lifter this week. So it's getting shipped down tomorrow morning. So he'll be there Friday morning, and he'll be able to hook up and get everything. So you'll actually see maybe the pinball lifter at the shows also. The pinball lifter? The pinball lifter.com. Did you autograph it? No, no, no, no, no. But it is special. I gave him a cheaper discount, too, because he's doing such good events with charity and everything like that, too. Awesome. Yeah, no, definitely. I like to take care of people who take care of other people, and he does that very well. So you mentioned MAGFest. What is that?
    29:31
    MAGFest is ridiculous. MAGFest is a four-day party starting on Thursday and continuing all through to Sunday. The tournament is Going to be ridiculous as well because it strange hours Hours that are you know not quite we not talking about quite sanctum hours but just about, you know, where it's going to be throughout the night. There'll be a break in the middle of the night, and then we'll pick up later. So Magnus has one inch, has like a one-inch EP for the entire event. So the pinball tournament itself is no charge, okay? So, but it's Herbstyle. So you think, oh, my goodness, it's Herbstahl or whatever. Whoever brings the most money is going to win and get qualified. No, no, no. There is no charge once you go into the event. So if you've got your MAGFest ticket, you have entry into the tournament. So that basically means you can pound on a game all you want and then go to another event, hang out somewhere else, do some more of the MAGFest festivities with panels and cosplay and, you know, play all the arcade games and the shops and the vendors and everything, come back and hammer on some more games, again, for no charge. So this is Herb style with an antidote, and that is no charge. So I can play as much Super Orbit as I want? That is correct. Awesome. I know. Last year I played Quicksilver like six straight times before I had a decent score. And it was like me and another player, we were like, okay, let's go back and forth on Quicksilver. And it was kicking both our butts. And then finally we both got a decent score. Like, okay, I'm done. I'm going to this panel now. Are you coming? Yeah, let's go.
    31:17
    So, yeah, it's starting on Thursday and it's going through Sunday. So that's going to be ridiculous. and, you know, and... What do you win? Don't you win some kind of credits or something for merchandise or swag or something like that if I remember? You win swag at the shops. Like, what is the most credit towards the shops? So you basically you win whatever money you get and then you go to... You win whatever credits you get in the form of magfest tokens or coins or whatever and you can use that to spend that for you know, whatever it is in the vendor area and they'll have some very exclusive stuff in the vendor area that they only bring from MAGFest. So you definitely want to see what's going to go on in there. Even if you're not competing, they're going to have some serious swag to buy. But yeah, winners and qualifiers of the tournament are going to get credits and you can go spend them in the vendor area. Yeah, and if you find a parking spot, don't move your car. Don't leave and try to come back. That's the tip of the month right there. If you get a parking spot, don't leave.
    32:26
    Hopefully you have a reservation somewhere in the area, in one of the hotels in the area, so you can park your car and not move it for four days. Because Thursday will be fine. Friday will be iffy. Saturday will be ridiculous.
    32:43
    Because there were people last year who could not come in for the final because the parking was nonexistent. so if you can find a park that's reasonably close to the area congratulations, that's your new home for four days unless you want to risk not getting a park on the way back, so yeah, that's the tip of the month did we mention where it was?
    33:10
    I totally did not mention the National Harbor Maryland, so just search for that Because it's a huge, complex area. So if you search for National Harbor, Maryland, you'll find where it is. I mean, when you drive in, there's this huge Ferris wheel that greets you. So that's when you know you're in the right area. I've been there for, like, a work conference they had there. Right. And it's like it's almost a resort area where you don't need to go anywhere. It's got all the shops. It's got all the food, all you want. And then there'll be MAGFest there. So, well, there'll be all these crazy festivities for the four days in this giant hotel that looks like a mall. So, yeah, so National Harbor, Maryland, and I hope to see you there. I'll be hanging out in the pinball area for most of the time, and then I'll be sneaking out for some panels and other things, you know, just to check out the rest of the event. They got tabletop games up at the top level. You know, they got whatever you want. It's there. So check it out. Check it out. So do we have any more news? I don't think we have any more. Because, I mean, it was the holiday time of year. I mean, other than Batman 66 coming out. Right. That was the big one. I mean, well, we had American Pinball with their little blurb about, we're sorry about not doing the thing that we said by the end of the year. Oh, American Pinball, the makers of John Papaduke's Magic Girl. Right. And Houdini. So, I mean, I guess that's news. That's non-news. What do you think about that, Bruce? Think it's happening? Ever?
    34:48
    Is Bruce on mute? Did we lose Bruce? I'm here. I'm just saying it's probably not – I'm not saying it's never going to happen, but – I don't think so. Aye, aye, aye.
    35:03
    Oh, yeah. No, I don't know. I don't know if it's going to happen, but we'll see. I'm going to give him a little more time. If a company would actually quiet completely, then I'd be more worried. At least they're trying to respond a little bit. But we'll see. I think it's not going to happen.
    35:19
    I know. It's the same. It would be a fail. We do have more news, though. Oh, we have more news? Okay. We do have more news. Don't forget the IFPA rankings ended this past year. Oh, right. That is. So, and you cannot buy a Jersey Jack.
    35:38
    Collector's edition. The collector's edition, right. Collector's edition. Supposedly they were saying you could talk to distributors for another couple days at the beginning of the year, and then it would be cut off. But, yeah. Yeah. So that's no more. But the IFPA points have been cut off for this year, and the wide world of pinball mentioned us, didn't they? That's right. I made sure to get it in. We got a plug. and then we heard some point person's going to take over all the upstate points when he comes up, hopefully. So does this mean you're officially going to come up? I'm declaring, yeah. I'm just a final sell. I'm just trying to see if I can get a hotel because it's a three-hour drive. It's not bad, though. It's a nice place up there in Binghamton. It's a nice area. So definitely nice. I'm going to go right now on Facebook and put Steve Bowden in. Yeah, I'm in. Once I got the clarification from Josh that I could do that, I was like, hey, why not? You know, whatever. I haven't been. It's at a place I've never been, so why not? It's $15. Double elimination. You'll have fun. Right, exactly. So I like that it's double so that if I go up there and I get destroyed, I can, you know, whatever. But I'll be hanging out anyway if and when I'm eliminated because it's a new place to me. So, you know, why not? And it's on Saturday, so double. And if you get eliminated quickly, you can play Moonwalker. That's right. That's exactly right.
    37:06
    I got to play that, just to say I played it. What's the other game they have there? Is it Jurassic Park? Yes, the Jurassic Park. The longest, most atrocities. That's probably a Raw Thrills game. They have at least one Raw Thrills game there, so the Josh influence will still be felt. Okay, well, got to check that out. So, Steve, you're dominating a lot of the places. And on Wide World of Pinball, you stated you're going for New Jersey, your home state, which actually I was born in New Jersey and lived there for 30 years. I like to see that because that means there's one more closer point. There's only four places out of the state of New York finals. I finished 21st, the highest ranked upstater. Wow. Oh, you mean the New York City finals? The New York City finals, yes. Okay, I was just checking. So, since Steve's going to New Jersey, I've got four people to beat up and take some knees out, and I'm good to go. I'm going to be in there. I want to be 16 so I get to play Greg. Right, right.
    38:10
    Now, wait a minute. I mean, if you're 20, what do you say you're 21st? Yes. Yeah, but the top 20 are probably all, like, Super Leaguers. Oh, they are. Every one is Super League. I'm the first. You literally will have to take out their kneecaps and stuff if you want to play. I will. Okay. Or just take away their MetroCard and they're done.
    38:29
    They don't walk to it, man. I don't know. If they're in Queens or in the Bronx, they're going to be walking a while. We could just do a run-in, man. We could form a new faction.
    38:39
    Yeah, they don't appreciate us drivers and us EV passers. Not at all. But, you know, I can't let those points go to waste. They're just, you know, they're just sitting there. The thing they're waiting for you to take their points. You're just going to let them do it? No, you have to go get it.
    38:58
    Go get it. Why not? So, yeah, so hopefully, if not, I still have a chance in Massachusetts because there's a lot of people with the NEPL, the New England Pinball League, which goes to different states also. So I'm 24th in Massachusetts. So I have a good chance this year, again, being in a state finals, which will be cool, of course. But we'll see. We're going to find out in the next couple weeks. I made the mistake of picking Massachusetts last year when I had a shot at that. I could have picked anything in New England.
    39:28
    Well, it was between either New Hampshire, which would have been the Pinball Wizards Arcade, or the Massachusetts, which was the former Lansing Games. Right. And I picked Massachusetts. That was a mistake. Take that out. Yeah, it was all Stearns. and then Bowen showed up because, you know, he shows up like with a minute left, you know, before he's DQ'd. And as soon as I saw him, I'm like, ah, it's over. That's unfortunate.
    39:55
    I think he lost one game. I think it was like 4-0, 4-0, 4-1, 4-0, 4-0, something ridiculous like that.
    40:05
    Yeah. On the sterns, there's just no way. That was dumb on my part. At least in New Hampshire I would have had a fighting chance. But he demoralized you before you even started. I never got a chance to play him. I wanted to play him. I, like, lost in the first round. You know, single elimination, of course. But then they were doing, like, a consolation thing. I'm, like, eating in the restaurant area. Someone comes down, oh, we're doing a consolation thing. You want to do that? Like, sure. He's like, whatever. So at least I won one match, you know, against someone, and I lost in the next one. But, you know, fail, fail on my part. It's going to be a good time now. And maybe, you know, hey, maybe we'll have some fun and we'll play some pin. That's all we worry about now since I'm getting my head out of my ass a little bit. That's the thing. Well, the New York City finals, have they said where they're going to be yet? It says Manhattan, but it doesn't say a location.
    40:58
    I do not know where it's going to be. You would assume modern, but it doesn't say modern. It literally just says Manhattan, New York. We'll probably get an email from Francisco. Right. Yeah, well, you know, as soon as he knows, he's going to pass out the e-mails. But I don't think he's going to be at Modern this time. But whatever, I didn't pay attention because I know I'm going to Ken Rossi. It's going to be good. Hey, that's going to be a good final. That's, you know, because it's Ken Rossi's game. So I'll get the rebid this from Airborne Avenger. Woo-hoo!
    41:30
    Very nice. Airborne Avenger, Steve Ritchie's first game. My God. And the first Atari game with at least moderately normal placed flippers. I think that Airborne, I think you put a Powerball in there. Oh, God. Powerball, Airborne Avenger. Oh, man. Airball Avenger. Yeah, hit that captive ball with that Powerball. Yeah, okay. Good luck there.
    41:54
    Best comment I've ever heard about Ataris is every Atari looks like a prototype. Wow, even Superman? Well, not Superman. We'll take Superman and Airborne Avenger. Removing the Steve Ritchie games, all other ones, looks like bizarre prototypes where you're like, oh, wow, this is weird, man. Imagine if they made this game. They did. Oh, my goodness. Here it is. Time Panda. What is it? Time 2000 with two sets of flippers. Right. Like right and left on either side. It's just, if you've ever. Terrible. I can't even explain it to people. It's so bad. Offset flippers, one way up higher than the other. Like, oh, this will be neat. No, it's not. It's terrible. It's not good. You don't screw with the flipper area. I mean, good designers know this.
    42:41
    That's what happens when you have, like, basically just programmers and engineers designing the game instead of people who know what they're doing. Like us. Cart launch to just put whatever you want down there. It's like, okay. Yeah. Stuff works for a reason.
    42:58
    Do we have any more news? I don't think so. We have a couple other things, of course, going on. Like what?
    43:06
    The ball bag. The ball bag? Oh, wait a minute. We have mail? We have tons of mail because we were off for a week, and you slouched. I slouched? Yeah, and I had fun.
    43:19
    But, no, but Ron actually bought one of my games this week. He bought what he bought. Seabed, Ron. Seabed. He bought what he bought. Yes, yes. You know what I didn't realize, Bruce? What? I knew the rectifier board was hacked beyond all comprehension. I didn't realize they actually replaced the entire wood panel on the bottom from another game. I didn't realize that either. Yeah, that's not like a CERN. If you compare that to the 9-ball, that's an actual different wood panel, a different transformer. That was actually, it went from being a hack to being almost too much work to be a hack. They went through too much work.
    43:58
    I mean, if you look at it, the bridge rectifiers are all neatly in a row, and they mounted it flat. Oh, it's pretty bad, Steve. Yeah, but it's like they went so much effort. They went way too much effort for, at the time, probably, when they did the effort, with a $500 game. Yeah, and the funny thing is, because they removed the original wood panel, they also, like, the knocker's gone. It's not there. Wow, okay. So, see, the unfortunate thing with that setup, I actually have a Sur knocker because of the stars and the fun I had, because that was also missing the knocker, so I got a couple of them. Okay. That's why I have one. Surgery. Yeah, but the problem is getting the original, like, Transformer and board and the power block, the only way that happens is just finding someone, parting out a game, or getting a junker cabinet, like at a show, like Allentown or something, the flea market. Wow. That's probably the only chance I have. But as Zach, see, I mentioned him, Zach, as Zach said, who helped set the game up, he said it works fine. And he's right. It works absolutely fine. Rectifier Board does what it's supposed to do. Yep. And the pot, and you said the pot's fixed now. Oh, yeah, man. It is definitely fixed, dude. Yeah, man. Cool.
    45:13
    See, this is why we need Stern to re-release, you know, these... Oh, my fucking God, yes. Come on. Oh, that's right, yeah. Steve posted, like, where's my Sea Witch at? Give it. I want my Queen Silver now. Give it. they're not going to give it because there's no audience for it except like me and me and guys hey come on give it I'd buy it oh guess what there's not an audience for that Spider-Man either so what the hell I'd say there's more of an audience for that just look at parts availability for old sterns that's all you need to know about the interest level you can't even get the right flipper bats for an old stern that's very true anything I'll take anything right now Cheetah? What's Cheetah? Oh, Cheetah. Come on. I need it. Now, wait a minute. Wait a minute. You still would like a Cheetah after what Cheetah did to you? That's fine.
    46:12
    I think I told that story in a podcast before. Oh, yeah. I've heard it. That one Cheetah does not prejudice me against all the other Cheetahs in the world. We could all be like Steve. It would be a better place. It's just one particular cheetah on that one particular day and that one particular moment in time. You know. I hate Six Million Dollar Man because of that one incident. And it's just, come on, a one-ball playoff. Come on. Even you guys. That's like. That's harsh. That's like we have five spots, six players. Let's do a one-ball playoff on Million Dollar Man. Yeah. Because that's going to take so long. You know, you have to make it one ball. Yeah, that's basically which of you landed in the saucer on the plane. I did. And then it came out and went down the middle. Oh, God.
    47:03
    That's like the only tournament bad memory where I really just say, like, man, I think that was unfair. Right, because there was nothing you could do about it.
    47:13
    Since I have you here, Steve, I think I do a tournament like you make the call. Okay, you make the call. You make the call. And this was, well, actually, if you follow the rules, it's an easy call. But this actually happened. This was an actual situation. This was at the, I believe, when it was called the Southern Pinball Festival before the Street Play Florida. This is the situation. This is in B Division. So we're to the, and I'm trying to think. I think they did, like, pop a, like, scoring with, like, the 4-2-1-0 stuff. 4-2-1-0. So we're in the third game. and there's a foursome and I just happen to be in it. Oh my. I'm in the foursome. Yes, yes.
    47:58
    I want to do a whole podcast as George Ficada. That would be awesome. I think you should. Or just talk like that and see if anyone would like just, yeah, that would be great. But I was, it was me, me and one other guy in the group were in the we don't have a chance. You know, like the zero one club. It was like, you know, both of you had one. Yeah, like a one and a zero and the other one and a zero. It was a big one-one. Yeah, so we have no chance. So we're just kind of spectators at this point. Right. So it's between these other two guys.
    48:32
    And they're playing Joker poker. Okay. And they have Joker. And extra balls are on. All right. And playable. Okay. So player one gets up. And he shoots his ball. That sounded weird. He plays his ball.
    48:48
    That sounds good. Oh, that's a second. You just have to inoculate the word ball by saying it for an over until it's meaningless. That's the only way you get around it. Yeah. He shoots his ball, ball, ball, and he plays his turn, and when he's done, he must have thought he had an extra ball or something because he plunges the next ball, which is player two's ball. Right. Oh, okay. But he immediately notices it, and somehow the ball does not hit a switch.
    49:19
    Oh, wow. And he traps it. They open the game up. They move it over to the shooter lane. Literally, it's like it never happened. Now, the player two is going, he should be decued. He's decued. He did address the game and then started. Yeah. And I always thought, it's like, what does the rule specifically say? Does it say play someone's ball or does it say plunge someone's ball? Well, it becomes what your definition of play someone's ball is. So as soon as you, I mean, he did play it because he plunged it. He did do an action on someone else's turn. Because there was a potential for the ball to hit a target even though it did not. So then it just becomes what's the line of addressing the game? Is it walking up to the game? Is it touching the game? I mean, he definitely went past the line by plunging the ball. That's clear. Well, even if you can plunge the ball, as long as it doesn't come out into the field of play. See, I don't know. I would say that. If you touch the game, that's also a just, I mean, I don't know, is that addressing the game by? No, because I've seen people in tournaments put their hands on the game and they're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, and they pull back and they go, okay. And that becomes tournament director discretion at that point. What they did is the tournament director put it in the hands of player two, whether or not to DQ player one. Nope. So he makes player two have to be the dick. The bad guy. Can't do that, no. So player two is there like, oh, you know, and, you know, we've all been there. Right. You don't want to be the dick. Well, maybe some people do. But, you know, he's, yeah, he's supposed to be there. You're DQ, asshole. See ya. The tournament director had to make the rules. The tournament director really has to make the rules, but he didn't. So the player is just like. No, you can't do that. That's like the referee calling the opposing coaches saying, should I have called holding on this pass play that went for 35 yards? Here's the best part of it. Okay, so he doesn't, he just can't be the dick. He just said, okay, you know, because he didn't actually, you know, he didn't hit a switch, it's still my ball, whatever. So, of course, who do you think wins the game? Player one. Who do you think won B division?
    51:34
    Player one. He went all the way to the finals in 1B division. Yes, this actually happened. So I just, I wanted to get one from a high-ranked tournament player. What do you thought of that? But if player one was DQ'd, if he was already through, would it have mattered? Because he was already through, you're saying. Yeah, well, you know, that would have been interesting. If he got DQ'd and didn't get any points. He was already through anyway, wasn't he? Yeah, well, yeah, 4-2-1, 4-5. I mean, maybe it would have been like a tie with someone else or something. Because the only way that the other two people are out from game three is if it's 6-6-1-1, and it's over. So that's true. Well, honestly, I may have misspoken that. I think I may have been the only player who was out. Oh, okay. I think it was like I was out. The player in third place had a chance if a bunch of stuff happened, and then the other two were at the top. Or 2-0, right. Yeah. So I might have misspooked there. Well, 6-6-2-0, rather, or something like that, where the person in third place could win and get six, and then depending on whether the person who has the other six gets zero, which is what we would be talking about, right? Then we'd have three sixes, or we'd have two sixes and a seven, and then there'd be a tiebreaker. Yeah, okay, so it would have to be something like that. Yeah, I just thought that was a funny situation. That is. I mean, yeah, that's the ruling that Derek has to make. I mean, you know, once you find someone else's ball, it's caught. It's fine. That's kind of it. So let's go over some of the new games. Actually, yeah, we could do the ball bag. We could do the ball bag.
    53:14
    Tim first emailed Tim Peters, the one from Albany, and he asked questions about why did Harry Williams design Stern games in the late 70s and early 80s, and Ron had a great example of an answer saying, I love history, Sam Stern, as the president of Williams in the 50s and 60s. Harry Williams was the owner and founder of Williams. However, he wanted to concentrate more on design games. He wanted to concentrate more on making the games. Yes. So Sam Stern, basically he appointed Sam Stern as the president of Williams so he could concentrate more on making games, and that's how they had their relationship. And then years later, when Sam Stern bought out Chicago Coin to form Stern, which I believe the full name was Stern Electronics. Yes, it was. That's what it was called. And that's what it says on their video games like Berserk and Frenzy. He called his buddy, you know, Harry Williams, who was pretty much in semi-retirement. He'd done a couple games. He was kind of freelancing for Bally and Williams, occasional games here and there. And said, you know, would you like to come back and design some games? Said, sure.
    54:15
    Now, what else was on that name of CERN later on in the history of CERN? What other company did CERN buy?
    54:23
    Like Sega, Data East? No, that was the old one. What, the old one? Yes. No, Ron got it. Seaberg. I thought Seaberg actually bought them. I think it was a mutual thing. Yeah, something like that. That's why the S's, the logo, it doesn't actually mean Stern. It's actually Seaberg. Yes. Most people don't know, like on the drop targets, if you see like the S's, like the way they write the S, that's actually for Seaberg's logo, not for Stern. Very confusing. It is very confusing. And what's his name? Tim also said, also, if Bruce was in a situation where all of his current games were gone, were getting there. And he had to buy multiple D&D Gottlieb game machines since Pinball became mainstream again. And these only machines were left were the ones he could pick. Leaving a hobby,
    55:12
    not buying or playing are not his options in this scenario. So, Gottlieb System 3. Or nothing. So, my answer was, put a gun to my head.
    55:22
    Wow! Get that at us. Get that at the Super Mario Brothers now. That's right. Lights, Camera, Action isn't a DMD game, is it? No. Oh. No. So no Shaq Attack, no Titoff, no Frank Thomas, no Barbed Wire, no Street the Pyramid? Oh, God, no. No. Actually, I like Titoff. So I guess I'm in the minority there. You are, definitely. What do you think, Steve? What do you think of Titoff? Indisc made Titoff a tournament game, but that's because, you know, Jim Belsito made it that way. So that gave it points in its favor. Yep. He butchered the habit trail so you couldn't just trap everything. Right. So that instantly made it a better game. But, you know, that's after you destroy the game.
    56:18
    It's a good play field, but it suffers the usual godly issues where the modes are worthless compared to the multi-ball. There are a couple modes. Huge shot, you've got to find. He was just fine for big points. Yeah, but I love the spelling the skins and the doubler. Just that alone. Just to get the most insane score ever, if you can time it right. Purposely not spell skins until you have a ridiculous score, then spell it. And then go for it, you know, all or nothing. And if you blow it, you get nothing. But if you hit it, you will have the highest score. You will definitely have the highest score. You'll have to kind of score someone to look at and say, oh, my God, how is this even possible? Did you have the glass off when you did this? Yeah, did you have the glass off when you did this?
    57:02
    All right, what else is in the slam ball bag? Ryan C. from Australia emailed us again. Hey, good day, mate. He loves that. No. Love the podcast. Love you guys. Don't edit too much. Well, that's because we try to keep it easy, right, Ron? Right, right.
    57:20
    That's the ticket. But congratulations, Ron, on putting your deposit on, dialed in. Woo-hoo!
    57:29
    Jackport went to Australia, and it was too expensive to ship back. So he has a question for it, and I'm going to include Steve with this one. Do you guys ever suffer from pinball fatigue? Your game's having issues, you suck at pinball sometimes, people in the industry annoy you. Do you seem like they walk away once every couple of months just to get a reset? you know well how long would would it need to be to be pinball fatigue i mean because there was a time where you know i would make sure i don't play pinball on two back-to-back days i mean so i mean i i went through that sort of a period where i purposely put a gap between so i just didn't become physically tired so i did so that my hands didn't fall off i mean but i don't I mean, like, I haven't done, I haven't had pinball fatigue where I was like sick of the hobby or anything. I mean, heck, I post on a website. I post on a website every day. So that hasn't happened yet. The moment that happens, you'll see me not post for a while. Sanctum. Yeah, and then sanctum happened. And then, you know, and I still, that's the test. That's really the test every year is like if I go through this and I still like pinball, okay, yeah, I like pinball. Like, I'm going to do MAGFest this weekend where there's going to be pinball and DJs everywhere and you might not hear anything. And if I still like pinball after that, then, yeah. Okay. So, have I gone through a long period of pinball fatigue? I would say no. Okay, good. Ron? We still doing sanctum, Bruce? Oh, we're going to do sanctum. Okay.
    59:07
    I'm going to eat right up there with my thumb. But, hey. What were your thumbs? Oh, my. I would say not particularly because I try to space it out more. I mean, I'm definitely obsessive, compulsive. I would be that guy Like at Papa when a lot of people didn like the format I wouldn care because I get to go to that huge building and play all those games I get to walk over and play Quicksilver and put like $10 worth of tokens in it because I can. I don't care. I mean, ReplayFX was the greatest thing ever. Like the first year when they had it, which would be what, last year? Oh, no, two years ago. actually, at this point now, where they had it at the convention center, and they had the part where, you know, I didn't qualify, and all the games that are now open that were in the Pinnberg tournament are now, you know, free play. That was like dreamland for me. Like, oh, all these games I usually have to spend tons of tokens on. I can just play over and over. I can play stars 20 games in a row. This is great. This is awesome. And for me, I mean, it's not just playing because I have, you know, I fix all my own games. So I can always just do that if I need something to keep me occupied. And I don't, you know, there's days I don't go downstairs and play any of the games. I mean, I do other stuff. If you listen to any of the previous podcasts, I'm getting back into the music stuff because I used to play drums back in the day and that kind of thing. So, you know, I try to keep busy with other things and not get, you know, I don't want to be all pinball all the time. Right. Because I only have so much room downstairs. But as people tell me, that doesn't matter.
    60:58
    So, but, you know, yeah, exactly. So I'd say no, not particularly. I mean, I will get burned out if I, I will burn myself out because I just can't stop sometimes. But that's me. How about you, Bruce? I am actually in mode one right now, actually, because of other things going on. I've only played pinball twice, actually three times in a month and a half.
    61:22
    So, yeah, I'm really, that's telling you something. That's telling you something there. Yeah. We need a pinball intervention. A pinball intervention. It's like the opposite of trying to get people off stuff. You have a bunch of pinheads. Like, you really need to play some more games, Bruce. We're concerned about you. We're very concerned about you. So Scott emailed us. So, yeah, I get all these emails. Hey, Scott. Nice. He tried to call Alltech and see if they can, you know, put substitute ROMs in, and Alltech said, no, not able to. So he kind of complained about that, saying that's BS, and I kind of agree with him, you know.
    61:59
    Yeah, for those who like the enhanced rule sets, and Steve's been over at Scott's house. Oh, yeah. And played his enhanced rule sets of many games, and they're cool. And it would be a lot of people just have the Alltech boards in their game now because, you know, it's a brand-new board, and it's just easier sometimes than to get it fixed. So it would be cool if you could have the enhanced ROMs as part of the ROM set that's in the game. Right. Yeah. So he complained about that mostly, and he said, go screw them all. Scott, that's so unlike Scott. I just want to give props to Scott. He sent me an email today. He mailed the firepower ROMs. Nice. The enhanced rule set. I have all the seven-digit displays in there. And actually, because I have the pinball PCP, the co-alt boards, already jumpered for System 7, because of the previous enhanced firepower ROMs I have in there, I was able to actually hook up the score displays, at least a couple of them. I still need ribbon cables. But they work. But they only display six digits. But they do work. So I should be good to go whenever I get the ROMs. So let's clarify the enhanced rule set for firepower. So your multiball matters now. Oh, yes. What he did is. Because I fear people who hear this might not understand why we appreciate the difference. Well, that brings up an interesting point.
    63:29
    What do you think about this, Steve? I find sometimes getting more and more into the tournament thing hurts my enjoyment of certain games. You know what I mean? Take firepower, for example. Firepower. When I first got that, before I played in tournaments, when I was just playing, I would just play for multiball. Right. Because it was awesome. You hit multiball, you get the cool countdown, the flashers go off. Like, this is awesome. This is great. Then you play in a tournament, and you get to realize, like, it's like, well, this multiball is useless. It means nothing.
    64:02
    Isn't that multiball cute? What is wrong? Yeah. Don't do that. I'm just going to hit these six targets and hit the spinner repeatedly. That's all I'm going to do now. And it takes away your enjoyment of the game because when you play it, it's like, well, why would I play it any other way at this point? You know, so, I don't know. Do you feel it hurts? A football player will try to get multi-ball and then cradle a ball on one flipper and then hit the spinner. I mean, that's the ultimate move is to risk multi-ball and then be able to get that. Then you win. You just won. Do you feel it hurts your enjoyment of any games just because, like, man, I love this play field, but the rule set is just I just can't deal with it? Well, it's certain games. I mean, certain games that slowly end up getting phased out of tournament play, like games that have fatal flaws like Theater of Magic's Left Orbit, hate X or die. I mean, you know, things like that. You know, roller coaster timeout.
    65:04
    Right. So it can harm it that way. But if you see that sort of a game in a tournament, it's usually set up in such a way to kick your butt. So it becomes a point where, yeah, you're trying to do those strategies, but all you've got to do is miss a shot and you're not bored anymore because you're trying to save the ball. Because you just hit it off the fattest rubber in the hobby. Yeah. For example, just for the listeners, like you take a Johnny Mnemonic and you make the spinner so it barely spins. Right. Because that's what you're using. Or you take a Guns N' Roses and make the lock shot that everyone's going to shoot with the thickest rubbers you've ever seen. Ever. So, like, if you're off by literally a sixteenth of an inch, you're not making the shot. You're not making the shot. That's the typical.
    65:50
    They've been doing that less, though. I'll say that. Right. Yeah, they have been. I mean, what's been making up for that, I guess, but it's not angle. I mean, it's just de-rubbering the outlanes, I guess. I mean, that fixes a lot of stuff. Yes. I played a tournament. It fixes Lord of the Rings. They have the game to fix. Yeah. It even helps with that. I played a tournament where they had Demoman, and they just removed the outlane post entirely. Nice. Which was ridiculous. I didn't even realize. Every time the ball went over there, it was gone. It's gone. It was unfavable. There was nothing to bounce it against. It wasn't like we removed the rubber from the post. It was like, there is no post. There's no post. So don't miss a shot, basically. And it takes a couple of games before you look over it. And realize, like, oh, there's nothing here. Like, nothing. Well, like the game of Alien Star they had in Pinnberg last year. Right. In the finals. And they were on that way longer than I've ever been able to be on it. And when I went up there on the stage after the tournament, I think I said this on a previous podcast, but I noticed they had put the post back in. Right. It's like, oh. The poster ran. The numbers were on the right side. That's how they were saving it. Okay. Yeah. I don't suck quite as bad as I thought, but I do suck. But back to the original thing, the firepower, what he did with the rules that – I think there's other things he did. I think he made the track mode fancier or something. But the basic gameplay, he changed it so if you get multi-ball, if you have three balls going, it's 4X.
    67:20
    And if you have two balls, it's 2X. Nice. So if you could get, like, two balls cradle, do the Elwin, and hit the spinner. Then you're good. You had a 4,000 a spin, and you need seven-digit, Rob, for that, because you're going to get up in seven digits in a hurry. I mean, that's kind of what I want for a game like Barracora. You know, like, I think, doesn't Barracora have an ultimate thing? Yes, they had it at Free Play Florida, where if you got the multi-ball, you got the two, yeah. The scoring actually the way it's supposed to work, but it didn't get there for some reason. Yeah, that's good, because otherwise I'm just trying to lock my insurance ball, and then, you know, use the upper lock so you can lock it in there so if you drain that ball, it comes out and you still get to play. Yeah, that's right. I forgot about that. The all-state ball if you want to go the interest. Yeah. So you can still have that, but still I appreciate a little point boost for going for the three ball other than the nearly guaranteed two ball that you get from just hanging around the bumper area and it lands in the hole. Oh, two ball. Now you just have to hope it doesn't kick straight down the middle when it comes down. Yeah, unless for me. It didn't treat me too well in the finals there. No, it didn't treat me well at all. Not like Barricor. That's what really sucks. When you play a game you really like and it totally screws you. And it's just like, oh, man, you know, whatever. I trusted you. Especially if it's your own game or something. Like, I took care of you. I shocked you, and this is how you treat me. Right. Right down the middle. I hate you now until the next game. Until the next game, yeah. until I play another game of Dracula, because I have to. Right. Anything else in the ball bag? That sounded weird. One more in the ball bag to be slapped on your face. Okay. Oh, my. What's your next game? Eric Ruffles. Which one? He's going over both S's. Okay. That's getting old. I'll stop that. Don't worry. Well, don't worry. He'll be on next week. He will? He will. That's your tease for next week. Eric Ruffles will be on. Okay. He talks about episode 23 and 24 together. He puts a – I have to say, though, I tried connecting his ground lead of his multimeter to his forehead, as you just suggested in Episode 23, and it didn't work out. But don't worry. He figured it out. With one lead in the ear, and each ear it worked, actually. It turns out he didn't have constant 5 volts to his brain, so I guess that's why he was resetting periodically. He just wanted to watch the car boards up his nose, and now it's all good. Nice.
    69:47
    He talks about Jeff being a great guest on Episode 24, and he talks about giving Mike Smith, who is the owner of Pinball Wizards up in Syracuse, a bubble level. And he said, that's probably not the location you're referring to. And it was not. Telescopic magnets are very good. And he actually voted for you, Ron, to get the week off. But Ron really didn't have the week off. He lost the vote. But other things happened. Yes, you did. You actually lost four to three.
    70:15
    But I had other things going on. And Ron was gracious enough to say, no, we'll take the week off anyway, and it worked out well. Because we're so energized now that we're running long. Yeah, yeah. And there's no problem with that. Whatever. There's no problem. I don't care. It's only time. The funny thing is, you'll have some listeners that are happy. Oh, I like the longer ones. And some that are like, oh, the long one. Well, that just depends on the commute. That depends on the commute. That's all it is. Oh, it's good for my commute. Oh, this is terrible for my short commute. Oh, this is great for my long commute. So it really does matter. It does matter, especially when you're driving to Rochester and back. And then to Zach's and back, which I did yesterday. That had to be eight to nine hours of driving in one day. That was a wonderful experience. Ron got to see Zach's father's house. And honestly, it's like going to a Lionel store back from the 40s and 50s. Wow. It is incredible.
    71:18
    FAO Schwartz levels. Oh, my God. It's still in the boxes. Still in the boxes from the 40s, 30s, and even 20s. Yep. All kinds of cool miscellaneous amusement stuff and old jukeboxes. Very cool. Wonderful, wonderful things. So is that it for the slam bag? Slam bag is empty. I was sent my slam bag. He's emptied the slam bag. Every drop of the slam bag has been emptied. Yes, it has. All right. So, game you like, game you hate. Well, before we get to that. No. No, fuck you. No, no. This is my show. You're the host. I am the co- Oh, no. I'm the host. I think you said it right. Yes, finally. I pulled a Bruce at it. He did a Bugs Bunny on you. He did a Bugs Bunny. I love it. He did a Bugs Bunny on you. Rabbit season. Yeah. I'll see if it goes. Fire. I wanted to get Steve's opinion on some of the games from Expo that I know he got to play. Okay. That a lot of our listeners probably haven't played yet. Well, we went over Batman 66.
    72:27
    Yeah, the dialed-in talk is hilarious when you put me to that four, which is the greatest thing I've ever heard. Oh, God. Well, before we get to dialed-in, how about Alien? What do you think of Alien? Or was it just not finished enough to really make any kind of an opinion? Well, at that point, I mean, the rule set wasn't in enough for us to make a good opinion on it. It was just based on play field and shots, which are there. So, you know, it's got the shots. So when the software is in, and we saw a preview of the rule set that was posted, the initial rule set. So, you know, confidence is high on it. You know, it has enough flow. It's not as much flow as they dialed in, but it's there. I mean, it's definitely, it uses all parts of the play field. So you're going to spend some time. There aren't any areas where you're going to not hang out in. So, you know, I definitely like the innovation of the kickback slash lose the lock area that they have. Like if you earn a lock, you'll light a ball save on the left out lane. If you use it, you can lose your lock. You sort of trade it for it. So if you have two balls locked, you basically have a guaranteed save on the left out lane. But if you take it, you lose a lock. So, you know, there are different innovative rules like that which are going to go into the game. So, yeah, and it's not – well, when I played it, of course, when we were there, we had that little issue with the mode start hold, but that's mechanical. I mean, you know, they're going to fix that. However, that doesn't really count. That's like a trough issue on Batman 66. You know they're going to fix that. So that's fine. Okay, how about this game? And this one wasn't newer, but we've talked about this game at length, and I know the software may not be totally done or whatever, but at this point, what is your opinion on Ghostbusters?
    74:17
    I like everything about Ghostbusters except actually playing it. I know that makes me a terrible person. No, I have almost the exact same opinion. I like the art, and I don't pay attention to art, and I like the art. I like the dots. I like the music. I like the sounds. I like the call-outs. I like watching someone else play it. It's like that.
    74:39
    If someone else is having a great game, I want to watch that happen. Oh, yeah, you found the hack. You found the 6X.
    74:48
    We came, we saw. It was 6X Playfield, and now you have $6 billion. Okay, congrats. And then the next game you get $25 million because outlanes and center.
    75:01
    Outlanes and center. I think you captured it. the best, that's the best one I've ever heard. I enjoy watching someone else play it. That's what it is. Because, yeah, like you watch some of these videos, like, watch me get $4 billion in five minutes or something. Yeah, it looks awesome. I can't do that, though. But then I'll play it, and I'm like, okay, and I'll get a couple of bills, and I'm like, okay, I've been looping the super. This is my 25th looping super. Why am I not enjoying this? Oh my god, thank you, Steve. Thank you. I'm thinking there's something wrong with me What is wrong with me that I'm not enjoying this You know because I'm enjoying watching I love the you know the Sullivan Signature when he spells out the super jack That's awesome you know the same thing He did from Getaway and Other what was it Game of Thrones has it I love that but then Why am I not this is strange I don't Understand that and I think it's something where I'll Get to I'll learn to like It at some point just like I learned to like Walking Dead once the LE came out and the premium with the button, which changed everything. You know? But, yeah, I don't know. That's kind of where I'm at. I really like everything about the game except playing it, which is strange. Good. That's my very idea.
    76:21
    But you like Walking Dead now? I like Walking Dead premium because of the button. The button changes everything.
    76:29
    It changes the whole game. It makes the game from a good game to an enjoyable, okay, I have a lifeline almost game. It's that much fun. And it's the lifeline that you earn because it's like, okay, I am one shot away from multiball, and I have this button. So I'm basically invincible until I screw up, and then I can use the button. So I can choose to play around. I can set stuff up. I can mess with other shots. I don't care if the well walker doesn't work this time, because that was my initial frustration with Walking Dead, is that I would hit the house or the prison or whatever it is, and it wouldn't work. And like, no, wait a minute, I just risked this shot, you know, and it didn't work. And then I just hit the well walker, and I risked that shot. I know I did this, and not only did I risk it, but it didn't work. So I'm still in the same spot where I am. But that got a little better. So, you know, like all the shots, that really made it better. Because it used to be a whole bunch of coin flips in the game. And then it was like with a whole bunch of dice rolls. The house was a, not the house, the prison. I keep calling it the house. It looks like a house. Okay, the prison was a dice roll because if you hit it, is the magic going to drain you? And in that dice roll is a coin flip. Will the target work or not? Heads or tails? You know, same thing for the well walker. The dice roll was when you hit it, are you going to drain off it with another coin flip in it, which is, is it going to work when you hit it? Heads or tails? What do you get? And then you have the ultimate dice roll, which is the bumper exit. You know, do I hit the game on the side? Do I nudge it or not? And you don't know. You don't know whether or not you should have nudged it until after the fact. You know, that's a question that gets answered after. But with the Walking Dead Premium with the button, if you take enough risk and earn that button press where you're one shot away, Now everything is in favor of the player. It's like all of a sudden you're playing blackjack and you learn how to count cards. It really – it slips into your favor. So now you can – now if you screw up and start multiball without the button, that's your fault. You could have taken more advantage of the game by getting a mode ready or setting up more zombies to get a multiplier or, you know, things like that. So, yeah, that's Walker. Yeah, Walker. Yeah, zombie. Walker. Yeah, I haven't seen the show at all, so whatever. Me neither, but I know they're walkers on the show. They're not zombies. They're walkers, yeah. That's got to be some whatever. We can trademark that probably. Yeah, license it.
    79:06
    So that's my deal. I mean, I learned to love Walking Dead. I mean, Walking Dead was another game that I liked watching someone else play because I could see all the code work out. Oh, this is awesome. Look at this thing that Lyman put in. Oh, wow, that's cool. Look at this stack. Yeah, just watch Keith Owen play it. You can see the entire game. Yeah, this is awesome. Cool. Nice. You know, exploding people with nuclear weapons and stuff. Whatever you drop at the end of the game. All right. Well, one more game. Yeah. And you know what this one is. Dialed In. All right. Dialed In, and it's 20%-ness. Or I guess a little bit more than 20% now. Now, you did the stream, the Buffalo Pinball stream, at the Jersey Jack Factory. Right. And if any of our listeners haven't watched it, I would say. Hold on, hold on. Ron, what's the name of the show? What's the name of the show? Bro, Do You Even Pinball? Hey, you finally got it right. Go ahead. Ding, ding, ding. I get it right. What? I always get it right. You said it wrong. You said it wrong a couple times. Don't go there. Thank you very much. If you go to the Twitch channel, which I believe is Buffalo Pinball, and look it up. It's on YouTube somewhere, too. That might be a better place to look for it. Now, I had actually played it. But if I had never played it, if you watch the first 15 minutes of the stream and watch Steve explain the game or see how much money he's having play the game, you would want to buy one just based on that. It's like, this has to be good. They're like, get wallets out. Get your wallets out. I'm calling combos, and I'm not even caring if I'm going to hit. You know, it's like, and that's what I'm saying. Like, I want people to step in front and make your first left ramp right orbit combo and then loop that into the center shot and then hit your left, hit your side ramp Lawler shot and have it drop down and then hit the hole for like a five-way combo. And then your wallet is out. I mean, because you're buying the game. Wallet is out. Wallet's out. That's got to be a new thing. Wallet's out. So if it's a good game, wallet's out. There you go. Get your wallet out. Wallet's out. Yeah, I mean, and, you know, I guess the software is, I guess, what is it, 25% now? Because there's three more disasters on there. I noticed on the latest video that I saw There were 8 disasters on this cell phone And when we played there were 5 Like there's a singularity disaster now That I saw So they're adding more We'll see what happens with it But the shots are definitely there So the play field is fine We're just waiting for code And if code is going to be good I know one place you'll get to play it If you ever make it up here Yeah right So, yeah. And if I get one eventually. Who knows? Bruce is saying, like, yeah, you'll get it in, like, 2019 or something.
    81:50
    2018. Okay. And I want to see how they're going to integrate that phone, your physical actual phone, into the game. Like, what are they going to do with it? Is there going to be an app for dialed in where you can get power-ups or something? I don't know. I'm just thinking of things that I would want because you have a cell phone. And once you have a cell phone, you can have an app. Once you have an app, you can do whatever you want. You know, you can buy power-ups from something, you know, and then save them and then use them against your opponent for something, you know, or use them on yourself to have double scoring for 30 seconds or make your opponent have half scoring for 15 seconds starting now or make them quiver their flippers once, you know, out of nowhere. You know, of course, not used for tournament play, but, you know, just for fun. Well, just because you're hanging out with your buddies and there's alcohol involved and you're playing Dialed In and, you know, and money is going into the coin box because that's what happens. So I just wanted to see what else they're going to do with that phone, you know, because you can do whatever you want. Plus with the game itself. I use my Dialed In app to get credits on the game. You know, I use that app to put money in it, you know. Pay range. You get your pay range, right, but Dialed In. So, yeah, that's the question. What would you use? What sort of power would you want to use either for or against your opponent if this is a thing? And this is all just coming out of what I hope would happen. If they had some kind of shaker motor but in a different way, maybe shakes the flipper button area, and you just do it at just the wrong time for them.
    83:25
    That's one thing. I'm trying to think of physical things you could do to screw it. Electric shock. No. Well, I got one. make it strobe like LEDs in a 90s Williams game that someone's put in. Oh, woo! So you get the, like, payback time and you can't see. Perfect.
    83:44
    Full LED mode. That's perfect. Like, LED mode for 10 seconds without warning. You know, like, oh, my God, that blue light is right in my eye. Yeah, that's good. That would be, like, laser pen mode. Just points laser pens at your face. That's awesome because then you can get revenge. You know, yeah, exactly. Especially if it can be based on how well you play or something. Like if you kill that spider and that spider gives you something, I don't know, because in that middle area it had boxes, it had spires, it had emeralds, it had things appearing in there, and that theater in the back that you would get. And it was points and stuff, and the spider was points, and you just kill it. But, you know, who knows what you could put back there. But, you know, the flow was there. It's super flow. I mean, it's got magnets that aren't unfair. I mean, this isn't Adam's family, the power magnet, either. I mean, the magnets are in an area where it's like, you're probably not going to drain. I mean, I'm sure you're going to get avatared a couple of times once you take a rubber out. Yeah, it's not Ghostbusters premium slash LE magnets. Right. Which are, that seemed like a really cool concept until he grabs it and just tosses it down the middle on you. I was like, give me this bar. Yeah. Then it gets really old really fast. Like, yeah, no, I don't like that. I don't like that at all. Hey, that's pinball. Deal with it. Yeah, that's pinball. Deal with it. It's random. It's the randomness of pinball. Yep, it is. Yes. Okay. Bullshit. Yeah, bullshit. Yeah. See, I would take the Beast Slayer, which that's in Paragon. That's the pop bumper on the left. I would take that over ridiculous magnet flings any day. I would take Beast Slayer on both sides. Oh, wow. I have Beast Slayer. I want that. That's my game. Both sides? I want Beast Slayer on both sides of the game. That'd have to be, oh, God, that'd have to be whiter than Genie, Roller Disco. No, no, no. Beast Slayer on one side, and then Future Spa, the drain hole on Future Spa. Oh, the face. Oh, God.
    85:56
    Yep. Oh, that would be awesomely painful. That would be great. Do it. I'm ready. I'm so am I.
    86:06
    I'm ready for it. Bring it on. Come on. They're making the games harder. Let's do it. Be innovative right now. You know, come on. Let's get that remade by Star Trek. Yeah, let's innovate by bringing back old stuff. Right. Well, that's what we do. You make old stuff and you staple it together with something else and you make it better. Make it new and exciting. The staple two things that have never been stapled before and present it as a new thing. Hooray.
    86:32
    Crossbow. Austin Powers, anyone? Thanks. Yep. Stern shows no good mech will go on, like, not used again. Unused. It was like, no longer will our crossbows be unused. We shall put them in. Walking dead. Finally got rid of those 2,000 crossbows. We had an inventory because we thought Austin Powers would sell more. Hey, whatever. Make that money so you can make more games for my pleasure. Yeah. That's what you got to do, Sterling. The slam bag is empty. The bag is empty. Games you like. Games you hate. Okay. I got to go back to what I was going to do the previous week, my previous list, to see what I had. Let's see. Oh, no. I already. Oh, crap. That was, oh, dear.
    87:23
    You guys go first. Oh, great. Okay, Steve, as our guest. Oh, really? Okay, game I like. All right, I'm ready to start some stuff now. Here we go. Okay, so I'm already on record as my favorite game being Spider-Man. So I'm already on record multiple times for that. So I'm not going to use that because that's too, you know, trump card, Ace of Spades-y, you know, stuff. So I'm going to go to my 1B so I can start some stuff. and the game I like because Bruce is on record as kind of crap. Oh, he plays like crap. Yeah, Bruce is not. So I'm going to pull that out and make that the game I like. This is my second favorite game in all the world. It is 1A. It depends on which one I'm playing at the time, really. But, I mean, I like it so much I can help Bruce's argument and still like it. Oh, wow. Wow. Because, you know, I have this habit of seeing multiple perspectives at once, and sometimes it freezes me as far as making my own opinion, because I can see multiple perspectives at the same time. And so I tend to, like, so what, you know, so, I mean, with Twilight Zone, sure, let's go over the negatives. It's a three-way combo game, if you master it. Left, right, right, right, organ, piano, left, right, right, right, piano, you know. Half the modes you don't really play, or unless you really play them, you know, while you're doing the left, right, right, right combo. There's an entire area of the play field where you don't want to be. The town square is death and a half. So, you know, if you go in there, it's your fault and die.
    89:10
    But as far as what makes me like Twy though are things like you know the music that is unique to each mode just about so I can not look at the screen and kind of know where I am by just listening to the game which is another reason why I don understand people who wear headphones I mean, I understand, but I would never do it because music and sound is so important to me when I play pinball.
    89:33
    And I also like, especially like the choreography of the game. Like one of my favorite moments in Twilight Zone is having the, I think if I can describe this, It's like having the extra ball lit and then having the multi-ball restart also. So when you hit it and that hurry-up music is playing, you hit it, and then everything goes dark and silent, and all you hear is Talking Tina saying that you got the extra ball. And right after that, boom, we start. And then things like when you shoot the jackpot, you have ten real seconds where the ball is out of play, where you know you can play with this other ball and relight the jackpot. The game gives you ten real seconds during all that celebration time to allow you to relight the jackpot. And if you don't do it in that time, you pay for it with multiple balls in the play field, and it's harder to relight the jackpot in that camera. So you've got to use that time that the game just gave it to you to have fun with your jackpot sound to relight it so you can get into a flow of collecting jackpot, relight jackpot, collect it, relight. also different choreography of the game will help you if you shoot certain shots like if the ball is in the slot machine about to come out but you hit the right ramp the game says hey he's got a chance at the jackpot let's delay the ball coming out of the slot machine a bit to give him a shot at it and if you miss that shot here comes the ball out of the slot machine but if you make it congrats you know little things like that I notice and also the fact that You know, there's the cheater 50 million from the powerball, the cheater double jackpot sometimes from the slot machines. If you can hit the jackpot from the slot machine, I mean, hit the jackpot in the piano and then have a ball waiting in the slot machine, the game might give you a double jackpot and get confused, you know, so things like that. You know, so that's what makes it fun for me. And, of course, you know, the power, you know, how do you battle the power? Do you prefer to battle the power just by flailing wildly, or do you battle the power like, say, I do, where I flip, literally where the game says flip here, that's where I flip. Like, there's words on it that says flip here. That's when I flip the ball. I do. I do it like you. Yeah, so it hits the bottom and bounces up, because if you flip too much, it's just going to bounce around and not do anything. But you can get more points that way, but you're probably going to lose and land into the town square, which is no man's land. Got it. You know, things like that. So, I mean, that's why I like it. And it can be a grind. It definitely is a grind. It is a linear game. Even when you get to Lost in the Zone, it's kind of linear. I mean, you're not going to score huge points from it. So it does have – there's no, like, explosive points in it for you to get, I mean, unless you can cash in on the collect bonus, which has changed tournament games there. But, yeah, I mean, that's kind of where I am with it. And, you know, it's still sitting at number 1A on my favorite list right now. There are definitely a few games that battle with it sometimes, but it's right there. There.
    92:47
    See, I'm like, you know, Bruce says it's crap. I actually think it's a good game. I just don't personally. It just doesn't float my boat.
    92:55
    Crap. I can hear that. After all that crap, still sucks. Crap. Okay, game you hate, or maybe moderately dislike, or strongly do not like. I was liking the 2001 choice from last week. Wasn't it 2001 that was your last pick? I liked it as a badge, but it kicks my ass every time. I mean, that's the game that I slightly don't like.
    93:26
    I love what you agree with me. Hold on, did you see it? But, yes, that was a game where I happened to win by five points at PPO, so that was nice. But it did give me a little bit of tennis there, a little bit of love. But, yeah, I mean, I guess to say that, it's more of a prejudice against many Flipper games. Many Flipper EM games were a tilt-end game. Yes. All of them, period.
    93:53
    Wow. Okay. So games like Fireball are saved because tilt doesn't end game. games like Doodle Bug are saved because they're normal slippers. You know, but 2001 and even Pinball Pool, I mean, I tolerate them. I mean, you know, I'll play them, but I don't particularly like playing them. But it's not like I hate EMs. Grand Prix is my favorite EM of ever. Oh, yeah. You know, I mean, beautiful spinners, and you better control the ball right, because if you try and catch the ball, you pay for it with those suicide outlanes. I love those suicide outlanes. You know, that's a good name for it. That's what I heard them called as, so it sounded nice. So it's a definition that's not posted yet. It will be now. So, yeah, so that's why, like, you know, definitely some EM games, I definitely rock, like, Monocode, Aztec, you know, things like that. But if it's got many flippers on it and where tilt ends game, if it's got many flippers and I can tilt and survive, then okay, because then I can play around with it. But, you know, so I have a slight prejudice against that. Not to say that I, you know, if it's during a tournament, that's different. I mean, I'm in a tournament. I'm playing it, so that's different. You know, you play lots of games you hate at a tournament. You just, that's what you have to do. I mean, plus you play the game differently at a tournament anyway. One of my favorite Seabound memories was the Super Orbit. It was one of the classics at Papa. Super Orbit was one of the games. I'm standing in line. I'm like, hey, Steve, what do you do on Super Orbit? And his answer is, don't die. Don't die.
    95:37
    Don't die. Okay, that's easy to remember. Because I didn't know until later it would shoot the very target, you know, because that's essentially what it is. I mean, there's that spinner over there. But if you can shoot the very target and survive, then that's the game. I mean, they have all this collect on it. but shooting the spinner, which is good, but it puts the ball so much out of control that you pay for it. Yeah. I love the fact that, like, in Pinnberg they have that. Was it Pinnberg that had that in the finals, like, two years ago? It was me, and it's like, yo, this is clearly probably the greatest game of Super Orbit that has ever been played, or at least the most important game of Super Orbit that has ever been played. It's occurring right now. Yeah, like, some game will become some sort of cult favorite. Like, you have your TX Sector, Alien Star. Alien Star, Super Orbit. What's going to be next? Stars.
    96:28
    Stars has already got it. Stars is already awesome. Everyone already knows it's awesome. It is. Okay, Bruce, your turn. Okay, game I like. I can cheat now. Sea Witch. I don't own it anymore.
    96:43
    Lame. Okay. That was an 80-mile-an-hour pitch down the middle. I know, but it was perfect. It was perfect, but I love the game. It's four flippers, outer loop, three sets of drop targets, great multipliers with the sternolds, three pop bumpers, star targets up top to make your spinner worth more. Great overall game. Even the delay collect on the targets, too. Yeah. You hit two of them, because people don't see that normally. You hit two of them, and then the bonus collect on the target will like, it's like, no, don't wait. Wait a second. Okay, now get it. It's like, what do you mean? It's worth more. You know, little subtle things in there. The lights, the special little lights that are flashing at you, it's the best thing of all. Yeah, and according to Keith Owen, if you replace the upper right flipper with, like, a Williams flipper, it plays even better. Oh, really? I guess it would be sometimes. Yeah, because it, like, makes the loop better, or it makes, like, the ability to hit the spinner shot, to get it past the flipper easier, something like that. Right. I can see that. Okay, so which God League 3 am I picking this time, guys? Well, what have you picked like Shack Attack? You've done Frank Thomas. You've done Super Mario Brothers. Is that a Gottlieb 3? Is Super Mario in that class? It's not exactly in that class, but it's not this time. I'm going for the real stinkers now. Okay. World Challenge Soccer. Wow.
    98:12
    Okay, what was that? I didn't even get what that was. That was World Challenge Soccer. That was in Southern, I think, right? That was in Southern Football Festival. Oh, terrible game. It's Car Hop. Wait, was that an actual game? Is that like a weird game, or is it just a regular football game? No, it's a regular football game. Really? Who made that? It was actually made in 1994. John Norris designed it because it's actually based – the play field is very similar to Car Hop.
    98:40
    And, oh, my God, it's a terrible game. Car Hop's a terrible game, but this is a really terrible game. I'll have to look this up. I've never heard of it. So basically, what's the goal of the game is to spell World Challenge Soccer, to get to 100 million, and then there you go. And that's it. Then you've got to do it again. That's the exploit, yeah, because it's like 5 million, 6 million, 7, 8, 9, 10. Then it's like, oh, 10, 20, 30 million, 40 million, 100 million. So, yeah, there's the hidden Gottlieb point exploit, and you're looking terrible. So there's a gameplay video of it online because it was at Southern Pinball Festival. So you can see, I think, the one where the ball hopped the flipper on Adam Lefkoff's ball. You see that? So that's where it was down, and he had the leaping lathres back onto the flipper. I think that was on that game. So there's a video of it online. Wow. That's cool.
    99:38
    So that gives it a little bit of pity points, I guess, for liking it. Doesn't it make you feel like, Me? Okay. My turn. It's your turn. No, no, let's go to the next one. Come on. I feel like the little kid waving and saying, me, me, me. Okay. All right. Game I like.
    99:58
    Solar Fire. Good game. Very good game. My favorite. Upper, lower level Williams. Nice. Really? More than Black Knights? More than Black Knights. No. That's wrong. Nope. Sorry. Nope. Sorry. You're wrong there. You're wrong. No. It's three grams. I'll use the Steve. I'll use the Steve Bowden logic here. When you have a lock lit and you hit the right end lane, lit left spinner up around to the upper flipper into the lock all in one shot, boom. That beats the other three games. The other three bi-level games. None of them have a shot like that. Wait, wait, wait. That game is so good. The Solar Rider is so good, they made it again. It's called Grand Lizard. Yeah. Have a nice day. Boom. What did they make again? What? The same play field, upper play field, but not being a raised play field, is actually Grand Lizard.
    100:55
    It's probably the same designer. It is. It's probably both Barry Ousler. Yeah, that basically has the same score with the targets and the targets. Exactly. Everything. Everything the same. Then the two balls. Yeah, you're right. It's got the five targets. I never thought of that. Yeah. That's how good it is. It's been made twice, and people love both. Oh, Jesus. So that's, well, Super Orbit was made twice. It was. It was made three times, wasn't it? It was made three times. Yeah, it's, those games are, yeah. Okay, game I dislike. I think this was the previous one you had that you disliked, but I have to agree.
    101:31
    Black Belt. Oh, yes. Oh, okay. See, while you're picking all the golly-sissing threes, I'm getting all those, the bally, what are they called again? I never get this right. 6803. 6803s. wow now see I have looked at a black belt in my life but I'm not flaking you're a better person you're not missing anything it's another one of those games with the linear flippers that has these plastic ramps that you can't freaking hit half the time especially at a show when you have anything less than full power it's the same piece of plastic crap and it's got just the plastic in the center some dude with his legs apart it's no it's a fail is that the one where the guy looks like Shownuff in the middle or something from the last dragon so I've definitely looked at this game but I've not okay it's either not working or it's off or something okay wow So, tournaments to talk about the past two weeks. We had two in upstate New York. Actually, there was three tournaments in upstate New York. There was? Yes, there was. Tis the season of pinball at the, what's it called? I can't think of it. The Syracuse Pinheads out in the mall location. He has seven games there, and yours truly won that one. Woo! By a big 2.9 points. 2.9 points as we live in upstate New York. We suck. Woo-hoo! Then we had the Central New York Pinball League had their finals, and Eric Russell won. I was in second. I got beaten by Eric Russell. And then we had our Location League for the year. Eric does the Central New York Location League, and it's for the whole year, and Eric won that one. He beat me in Batman. We went to five on five games, best five, and we went to the fifth. Wow, okay. But do you still have the points, Lee Bruce? I do. I guarantee the points lead. You are the upstate points whore, guaranteed. I am. Two years running.
    103:41
    Two years whoring. Hey, the points are there, man. You know, you got to get them. So other than that, the upstate points will be, upstate championship will be on the 21st at Moonwalker Arcade. Keep on saying Moonwalker. He's still on bond. We got a ways to go to get to that. But on the 21st, doors open at 12. It starts at 1.
    104:08
    And hopefully we're going to see Bounty there. It's open. It's a normal location. So you can come on in, watch out, watch some great play and some great players. There is lots of party. There's enough. There's enough party. Okay. All right. That's good. Other than that, MAGFest coming up this weekend. Don't forget about that. It's going to be sick.
    104:32
    still cosplayers walking around. Oh, God, there'll probably be so much Star Wars crap there, too. Oh, yeah. There'll be stormtroopers everywhere. Yeah, last year was Undertale. This year is going to be Star Wars. So, yeah. So.
    104:47
    And just think, one of my favorite movie series of all time, another one's coming out this weekend. Um, it is? It is? Okay. E.O.O., The Real Story? No.
    104:58
    Underworld. Oh, okay. Yeah, the new one's coming out with Kate Beckinsale again, so I'm like, yes, cannot wait. Cannot wait. Woo-hoo. I have to re-watch those to get that. I have to re-watch those now. Yeah, they're good. They're really good. I like them. Oh, I forgot, you know, because I've seen them, but yeah, I have to re-watch those. Yeah. The new one's coming out this weekend, so very cool. I kind of dropped out of pop culture in the mid-'90s. I've never recovered. I'm still wearing T-shirts from the mid-'90s and pants from the mid-'90s. That's a good thing. Ron actually noticed I lost 15 pounds since he last saw me. Okay, slim trim and ready to kick ass. Yes, I'm trying to get myself more in shape for that 24 hours. Yes, yes. You need that. That's key. That's not even a joke. Okay. That's not even a joke at all. I know it is. Lose all the weight you can. I've already been formulating my plan, which is to actually take an extra day off, get there the day before, or no, leave from work on Friday, Get up there to the hotel. Stay awake as long as possible. Sleep at least like nine hours. Wake up maybe half hour before the tournament's going to start and get there to maximize sleep. And then let's see what happens. Right. Then you've got to get your nap strategy good. Your nod-nod game has to be strong. Oh, definitely. You know, there are people there who have it down. They have their director chairs out in the hall, and boom, next round, they get up. Well, if you're not off, are the people at least nice enough to wake you up, or they just say, no, let him sleep. He doesn't play the next round. No, no, no. They'll make sure you get up. Yeah. You know, it's like, next round. Or it's announced anyway, so it's not like I can hear it. You know. You do get up. As long as you're reasonably within, you know, the area. Yeah, which is, you know, it's in a building, so you're going to be in the area. Yeah. There are people outside chilling with the food truck. So if you see all of them go inside, it's a new round called because it's on, you know, it's on the system. What's the online system that I forgot what it is? Oh, my goodness. So you can log in and you can have a profile and everything. It's registered on that. Match play? Yeah. So you'll get the text and it'll say it's the next round. And so once you see everybody rush in. It'll say it's the next round. The group has finished playing Game of Thrones. Right. You know, after everyone else finished like an hour before that. Right.
    107:23
    That's funny. So that's what I'm, you know, now they had like all the, they had like the second one. They could probably get down what games were taking the longest and do whatever they needed to do with them. Because if you keep the game down, the more rounds you can get in, the more fun it's going to be. Right. And if you're sitting around, like, you play Super Orbit and have your five-minute game, and you're like, okay, I'm ready for the next round, and you have to wait an hour, because, you know, Steve Bowden and, like, Bowen and Johnny Monica and whoever else is playing Game of Thrones for an hour, you know, then you're going to get bored. Right. But then you might be able to catch that nod, whereas the people who just played the Game of Thrones aren't going to sleep at all. You won't catch the knot because that'll happen, like, at noon, you know, when it's starting, that that'll happen. So you'd want that to happen later on. Like, oh, man, I can sleep now. This would be crazy. Like, mm-hmm.
    108:20
    So I have no need talking about shows too much more. You know, I've kind of been out of the loop a little bit. But anything from you guys? I'm always out of the loop here. Oh, I do. Okay. Just two more quick things. Tournament related, since we have Steve here. since there's all the controversy about the changing of the Pampa format, what would you say is your favorite tournament format?
    108:45
    Favorite at Pinberg? I mean, really? That's it. Any Pinbergian format like Sanctum or, you know, Pinberg himself or anything that's similar to that. Monthly Masters for Life. Right, where you're guaranteed play, you know. You're guaranteed to play in Pinnberg You're guaranteed a second day You know so it's not like you're gonna get You're gonna come in Have a bad day get kicked in the teeth Twice and then you have to leave So you know It's more fun that way Here we go This is a good one here You are in the world champions Chip whatever you want to call it Whether it's IPA, Papa, whatever You are in the final match With Keith Elwin and you're tied Whoever wins this wins.
    109:36
    And you have game pick. You can pick any game you want. Oh, wow. I didn't even get it out. So why would you pick Tron? Because Keith is publicly frustrated by Tron. So you're going to go more for the root, play to his weaknesses? Because I have to, because he's a better player than I am. Okay.
    109:57
    So I'll go for a game where I know I can reasonably play well, where I might have a shot of catching them off one. Either that or some strange EM or something. I mean, you know, go for the full drunk driver pick and pick some strange EM. Drunk driver pick? Is that a term? Is that in the dictionary? Drunk driver pick? Yeah, the drunk driver picks games that are more luck-based to counteract the difference in skill. So, you know, which is why you'll see, you know, games like, yeah, I guess, well, I guess whodunit is the drunk driver pick now. it's been pretty much devalued as a tournament game now so that's got out which is a shame, I like that game I wish they just fixed it in log and then you could have it in there but you know it's fun to commentate on, it's fun to watch play when you're trying to guess the killer you picked the wrong one no, they said it no one ever gets that but the yeah, like if I was playing Elwynn, I definitely wouldn't pick Dirty Harry or Godzilla.
    111:04
    Oh God, no. Or Frontier. Walking Dead. Or Walking Dead. Car. If you pick that game, just get in the car and wait. Or pretty much any game.
    111:15
    Because the dude averaged like $3 billion on it at Expo. So, you know, whatever. It was ridiculous. It's nice to see his semi-retirement has gone so well winning like five majors or something. I don't know. Bro, whatever. Ridiculous. I got to tell Bruce one time, the ridiculous thing about him is Papa has the head-to-head chart. Do you ever notice? Actually, the IFPA and their rankings. It has your record against all the other players. Not the record playing, but how many. It's all green. He's the only player who's green. Bowling's not all green. Zach's not all green. He's the only one that's all green. winning record against every person ever. Yikes. That's crazy, because that counts every random classics event. But we beat him. We beat him. I beat him on Space Invaders. I beat him on AFM and Nineball.
    112:12
    No, he won one of them. No, he don't. He won. I beat him. He got second. I lost. One I got a three on. I got the last place. One I got second, he came in And, no, I got first on one. He came in second. And then you beat him once. And I was, you know, it was something like that. But I did beat him once. That was hilarious. The first ever pin burg. Like, okay, the first group, you guys are in a threesome. You know, because of however it worked out that way. So you'll only be playing three games. It's going to be you, Bruce Nightingale, uh-oh, and Keith Elwin. Oh, okay. Nailed it in. Nailed it in, Jimmy. Hey, I won C division, and Keith actually came over and shook my hand, I think only because he recognized me. Like, oh, that's that dude I played in the first round. Hey, want something? Congratulations, dude. He ruffled his hair a little bit. Good job, kiddo. Well done, sir.
    113:07
    Oh, man. Well, I'm out of topics. I'm out of questions. I'm out of time. You've had a good time over these couple of hours. That is. So this will be good for those people who are driving to the X-Fest. It'll be bad for my editing. I had to get a week off because now I'm going to have fun. You have double time now. Double time. See? Double. See, that was the magic. But I'll look forward to it. Hopefully we can get some kind of tournament in my house so we can get Steve over here. Mm-hmm. Right. Do a live thing. I don't know. The only problem is my internet sucks here. Upload. For what you need for the stream. Unfortunately. And I've looked into it. I literally have no other options. I have Time Warner, and in order to get enough speed for streaming, I'd have to go to the Extreme package.
    114:01
    Who do you have? Time Warner. I'm on the regular, which is like 15 down, 1 up. So you're not even kind of captic like that? No, no. And then, so I have to go, there's Turbo, which still doesn't have enough upload. I have to get to Extreme. Turbo? Yeah, they're standard, turbo, extreme, and ultimate.
    114:28
    Oh, wow. Fifty and five, it is, Steve. Ultimate is fifty and five? No, extreme is fifty and five. Ultimate is seventy-five and ten, I think it is. Something like that. Wow, oh, my God. But it's like, yeah, you get to that point, you're paying like $100 for internet. Yeah, that's business class. Yeah, I don't have TV. Like, I don't have cable. I don't get, you know, I just stream everything. I just use internet for everything. So it's just, I'm not paying $100 for internet. I just, you know, something in me that, like, cannot compute that. Yeah, what local TV do you really need other than sports that I don't really watch? No. Because you can get everything online. Or you can just stream it off their site if you happen to know someone's dishes account. There you go. Yeah. There you go. Oh, they're streaming. There you go.
    115:12
    Well, I'd like to thank you. Oh, yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. No, I was going to say, Ron, now do your spiel. Pay the bills. We did it. Pay the bills. Oh, I love it. Steve is telling us our format. That's why he's the only one that's been on all 25 shows with us. There you go. Have we mentioned him yet? Yes. We did mention him. The Bowden from Fun with Bonus. Woo-hoo! Go buy a T-shirt.
    115:34
    Pinball done quick. Go buy it. Do it. Bye. Just go on my website. It's plastered on the right side of the page with my goofy-looking cartoon avatar, which I really love. It's actually really good. They've really done the best. Yeah. I really love it. So, yeah, go get that and use the offer code FUNWITHBONUS so I get credit for it. You know, I don't receive anything from it, but it's all for charity. You know, Prevent Cancer Foundation. Come on, let's get on that. Let's create people's lives with the dollars. Steve, you are now invited to come back anytime you want. Well, thank you very much. No, definitely. Thank you. You've been a great guest. I certainly enjoy myself. Definitely. Good. We'd love to hear that, you know. We love that you post for us on FUNWITHBONUS. We're very grateful for that. Thank you again. Absolutely. So I'd like to say thanks. Okay. Another better start. Do it, Ron. Do it. Do it, Ron. Do it. Yeah, yeah. Do it. Yeah. I have one more. This is one fun fact. No. This is one fun fact. When we were playing, see, I didn't know this about Steve. When we were playing in the Buffalo Open. Right. Me and Steve were doing, like, Dusty Rhodes impersonations for, like, ten minutes.
    116:51
    That was, like, really? Like, you're in the state, Dusty Rhodes? Yeah, that was so – Bruce was like, I have no idea what they're talking about. I know Dusty Rhodes is on the inside and taking guys with him. Yep, baby, yeah. That's a bad thing. It's hot time, baby. It's hot time. Everybody has a Dusty Rhodes. It's like everyone has an Ed Sullivan. You know, everyone has a Dusty Rhodes. It's hot time, baby. I thought pinball, you could do an angle where Steve's about to win, but then the four horsemen jump him in the back and, like, break his flipper finger. He has to come out with a cast on and, like, play.
    117:25
    It was like, it's on Anderson, baby. He came out and he tried to prevent me from getting the kill. What wrestler best represents Steve Bowden? I know who I'd pick. I have no idea. Easy, Ricky Steamboat. Oh, wow, okay. It's got to be Ricky Steamboat. Okay. Just your perennial baby face, your un-booable baby face that everyone loves. It's got to be. Yeah, I hear that. Yeah, wow. There you go. So it is Steve the Dragonbound.
    117:57
    Yeah, play some Dragonfist. There you go. Another game I'd love to have. There you go. Dragonfist. But thanks to Steve Bound for appearing on this podcast this week. Thank you very much. After our hiatus of the week, again, pinball done quick. Go check it out. MAGFest, go check it out. Go check out our Facebook page. Just look for us on Facebook, Slam Tilt Podcast. Look for us on YouTube, Slam Tilt Podcast. I did put a video up there recently about some of the projects I'm working on. If you want to send comments, concerns, worship, feel free to send to slamtiltpodcast at gmail.com. So I'd just like to say thanks to everyone here at the podcast. This has been episode 25, Thunderball.
    118:44
    Goodbye, Bruce. Goodbye, Craig Douglas.