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Tribe Multiball with Rachel and Tim: Episode 7, Pinball Problems

Poor Man's Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·analyzed·May 23, 2021
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.031

TL;DR

Paul Daniel Donnell discusses tournaments, streaming, and pinball passion on Tee'd Off Tribe Multiball.

Summary

In this episode of Tee'd Off Tribe Multiball, hosts Rachel and Tim interview Paul Daniel Donnell (Tribe Member #11 from Louisville), discussing his recent tournament participation, his pinball collection, and his decision to launch a Twitch stream called Cameron Silver Ball Social Club with his best friend Joe instead of starting a podcast. The conversation covers tournament culture post-pandemic, the social aspects of competitive pinball, and Paul's vision for mobile streaming at pinball venues.

Key Claims

  • Paul Daniel Donnell is Tribe Member #11 and lives in Louisville, Kentucky

    high confidence · Paul introduces himself directly on the show

  • A tournament at Rec Bar drew 26-27 players in Louisville, marking the first tournament since the pandemic

    high confidence · Paul describes the recent local tournament; Rachel and Tim express surprise at the turnout

  • Rachel has four machines in her collection and has only lost money on one (Metallica, sold at $500 loss to a friend)

    high confidence · Rachel states this directly during personal pinball news segment

  • Rachel completed the 'around the world' tournament at District 82 by playing 40 out of 60 machines; Megan Bodeway finished most with 57 machines

    high confidence · Rachel provides detailed statistics from the tournament she participated in on Friday night

  • Paul and his best friend Joe chose to stream on Twitch instead of launching a podcast to avoid scheduling pressure and to enable interactive engagement with viewers

    high confidence · Paul explains the decision-making process and contrasts podcast obligations with streaming flexibility

  • Cameron Silver Ball Social Club streams Mondays and Thursdays at 9 p.m. Eastern time, typically running until 11 p.m. to midnight

    high confidence · Paul provides the specific schedule for his Twitch stream

  • Paul is working on Ladies' Flip Wisconsin tournament number three, originally planned for Winchester Mystery House venue but pushed to July due to a District 82 tournament conflict

    high confidence · Rachel mentions the tournament during her personal pinball news segment

  • Rec Bar owners Tony Thomas and Corey Sims purchased a party bus to transport tournament players between Louisville and New Albany (Indiana) pinball venues

    high confidence · Paul describes the party bus concept shown on Facebook and the planned tournament experience

Notable Quotes

  • “I have a problem. What's your problem? I'm addicted to pinball. I can't stop thinking about this pinball thing.”

    Paul Daniel Donnell @ mid-episode — Paul openly describes his compulsive pinball engagement, setting up the interview tone and establishing his passion level

  • “These things are an investment. You're looking at the prices now, they just keep going up. So anything that we have, it's just money in the bank.”

    Paul Daniel Donnell @ during discussion of collecting — Reflects collector philosophy on machines as financial assets and market appreciation

  • “I spent way too long playing Doctor Who. If I wouldn't have played probably four or five machines on that, I definitely could have finished more than 40 machines.”

    Rachel @ discussing tournament strategy — Shows the balance between time management and personal challenge in competitive play

  • “It was just nice to see everybody again. You know, all these old people that you hung out with a year ago before all this crazy stuff happened. And it was just a blast.”

    Paul Daniel Donnell @ discussing post-pandemic tournament — Captures the social hunger and relief in returning to in-person pinball community gatherings

  • “why don't we just do a Twitch thing? We can jump on any time. We don't have to have a schedule. We can just hit record, and we'll have the play field there. We can sit and chat with people”

    Paul Daniel Donnell @ explaining stream vs podcast decision — Articulates the appeal of streaming over podcasting: flexibility and interactive engagement

  • “I want to be able to move this thing because I kind of get bored with just playing one game for three hours.”

    Paul Daniel Donnell @ discussing stream setup philosophy — Shows streaming philosophy focused on variety and viewer engagement rather than single-machine focus

  • “It's definitely social all the way for me. I love the competition, and that is definitely a part of it, but it's kind of a combination of those two things.”

Entities

Paul Daniel DonnellpersonRachelpersonTim Dan LeepersonJoepersonGlennie RogerspersonStephen Cameron SilverpersonBrett PollackpersonMegan BodewaypersonTony Thomasperson

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Post-pandemic pinball community experiencing significant re-engagement with tournaments; unexpected turnout of 26-27 players at Louisville tournament indicates pent-up demand for in-person events

    high · Paul: 'We had close to I think we had 26 or 27 people show up for that thing. And it was just amazing' and Tim noting people like Asher Lefkoff and Colin McAlpine traveling to competitions

  • ?

    venue_signal: Rec Bar and expansion to New Albany location represents growth in pinball venue infrastructure; party bus concept for tournament transportation shows creative venue operator engagement

    high · Paul describing Rec Bar ownership investing in party bus and planning monthly tournaments; new location in New Albany, frequent machine rotations

  • ?

    content_signal: Shift from podcast to Twitch streaming for pinball content due to scheduling flexibility and interactive engagement; mobile streaming setup planned for location-based venue streaming

    high · Paul: 'why don't we just do a Twitch thing? We can jump on any time. We don't have to have a schedule' and plans to stream at Zanzibar and Rec Bar on location

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Novel tournament format ('around the world' rapid-rotation across 60 machines in 3 hours) demonstrates experimental approaches to tournament design and strategy; participation limited to B-level players (WPPR top 2,000+)

    high · Rachel describing 60-machine tournament with complex strategy about machine selection and scoring; completion rates varying 40-57 machines

  • ?

    collector_signal: Strong market confidence in pinball machines as appreciating assets; collectors report neutral or positive ROI on sales, treating machines as financial instruments

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.203

0:00
Hey, Poor Man Tribe and listeners, this is Glennie Rogers, and you're listening to the Tribe Multiple Podcast with Rachel and Tim. Poor Man Tribe's the thing, that is who we are. It and Drew. They're not in this thing, so how could it go wrong? Flip away with us, to an old blockade, and then we'll learn about each other. From two pennants to another Rachel and Tim, who do we have on the show today?
0:40
Hello friends, welcome to Tribe Multiball with Tim and Rachel A pinball podcast that focuses on a dynamic collection of pinheads That share a mutual belonging to the tribe of the poor man's pinball podcast I'm your co-host Rachel Lilge along with your other co-host Tim Lee thanks for joining us today before we get to anything else I want to thank Glenn Tribe Member Glenn for his work on our awesome theme song what about you Tim? yeah thank you Glenn that was awesome we love it yeah that's pretty amazing I really appreciate all your hard work on that and I hope that our listeners really enjoy that as well it was a lot of fun to do yeah it was pretty cool uh rachel do you want to tell everybody why we chose that particular theme song islands in the stream yes was there a particular reason why we did tim i picked it because you like dolly parton yeah that's true oh yeah i do i really love the love dolly parton pinball machine absolutely and i think we're just talking it was a natural conversation we're just talking about music we're talking about a theme and i think that's how we him about it right yep yep yeah that's pretty awesome and we should actually share the cover art that steven silver did for us that shows yourself playing frontier and myself playing dolly it's pretty cool yeah we'll post that on the site yeah thank you steven should we jump right into our personal pinball news would you like to go first tim yes so i didn't do a whole lot this week. I edited two or three of our shows. We released one on Saturday evening, and we had one in the hopper, so I spent most of my time editing our shows, which is pinball stuff, and it's fun. I did play some of my personal collection, finally, for about an hour, and I put up some decent scores, but that's about it. Most of it was kind of working on the show. How about yourself? Well, first of all, I'm glad that you're able to get some time in on your own collection. I think the last time we spoke, you only had a couple of flips on each game, or hardly any flips at all. Yeah, it was nice, and I put up some nice scores, so it was fun. Yeah, it makes you feel better then, too, like, oh, yeah, I do know how to play pinball. Yep. Yeah. I actually have a little bit of pinball news to talk about. The first thing is I should mention, I failed to do so the last podcast, is that I purchased Demolition Man. Oh, that's a good one. Yeah, thanks. That adds number four to my collection. It's a fun game. It's actually given me some inspiration on another podcast that I'm working on. So we'll see when that shoots down the road maybe sometime this summer. Oh, nice. Yeah. I'm also working on my Traveling Ladies Tournament Series called Ladies Flip Wisconsin. I'm working on my tournament number three. That will be held in East Green Bay, Wisconsin at a private collection. Some other friends of mine. Yeah, I'm very excited about it. They have a Wonka machine, so I'm hoping to do a side tournament on just the Wonka. I was originally hoping to do the tournament in June, but because there's some big tournament going on at District 82 that month in June, I decided maybe I should push this out to July. So that's where it is right there, but I don't have a date picked yet. But it is coming down the pipeline. Sounds like fun. Yeah, I'm really, really stoked about playing the games that they have there. The other piece of information I thought would be interesting to share is a different type of style of tournament that I played this past Friday night at District 82, along with five other pinball players. Now, District 82 has 105 games there. The goal of this tournament idea is like around the world, I guess it's called. A friend of mine, a pinhead friend of mine, his name is Brett Pollack. He came up with this idea of playing around the world at District 82, where we have 105 games. He thought that we could play all of them between 6 and 9 p.m. on a Friday night. Now, let me tell you, I think it's a great idea.

Paul Daniel Donnell @ on tournament motivations — Balances competitive drive with social motivation in tournament play, common among recreational players

  • “People are out there wanting to get together and play pinball, and I think, Paul Daniel, you witnessed the same thing with that recent tournament as well. People are excited to get out there and get playing.”

    Tim Dan Lee @ reflecting on post-pandemic tournament enthusiasm — Observes broader community hunger for in-person pinball engagement

    • Corey Sims
    person
    Rec Barorganization
    Zanzibarorganization
    District 82organization
    Ladies' Flip Wisconsinorganization
    Cameron Silver Ball Social Cluborganization
    Dolly Parton (Pinball Machine)game
    Frontier (Pinball Machine)game
    Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory (Standard Edition)game
    Doctor Who (Pinball Machine)game
    X's and O's (Pinball Machine)game
    Whitewater (Pinball Machine)game
    Metallica (Pinball Machine)game
    Demolition Man (Pinball Machine)game

    high · Paul: 'These things are an investment. You're looking at the prices now, they just keep going up' and Rachel: 'I have only lost money on one machine' out of her collection

  • $

    market_signal: Growing perception of secondary market liquidity for pinball machines; collectors report ability to quickly offload multiple machines without loss

    medium · Paul: 'If I wanted to get rid of all four of my games tomorrow, I could, no problem' and Rachel discussing break-even sales to friends and profitable sales to unknown buyers

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Significant positive sentiment shift toward in-person community engagement post-pandemic; players expressing strong desire for social connection beyond online interaction

    high · Paul: 'it was just nice to see everybody again...And it was just a blast' and Tim noting people are 'hungry' to play and compete together

  • ?

    personality_signal: Paul Daniel Donnell emerging as active community figure and content creator in Louisville pinball scene, demonstrating passion-driven engagement beyond casual play

    medium · Paul's involvement in tournaments, streaming launch with professional equipment investment, daily Pinside checking, Twitch viewership development

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Interest in experimental tournament formats and venue-based innovation; players and operators exploring new ways to engage community beyond traditional IFPA competitions

    medium · Brett Pollack's 'around the world' format, Rec Bar's party bus concept, Paul's mobile streaming rig design to avoid single-machine boredom

  • ?

    operational_signal: Venue operators (Rec Bar, Zanzibar, Rec Pinball) actively rotating stock and organizing events; consistent machine availability and frequent new game alerts indicating active operator engagement

    high · Paul: 'They frequently switch them out. So it's always exciting when they get new ones' and Facebook alerts about new game arrivals

    • 4:46
    Yes, please laugh at that. I know where you're going with this one. Right, so I really admire the idea of playing all of them in three hours, but I just don't think it's a feasible thing. So I convinced him, let's play 60. There are 60 games in the larger side of District 82. There's two different big halls, basically, or warehouse industrial kind of things that's going on there. Anyway, it was myself, Becca and Brock Malman, my friend Megan Bodeway, Brett Pollack, and Tony Trafka. The six of us decided to take on that challenge. So I just thought it'd be interesting to talk about some of the stats and strategy on that. The goal was to have the most number one high scores on the most amount of machines. so it was really kind of a strategy is how you had to approach it out of the 60 games i ended up playing 40 and nobody finished all of them my friend megan got the closest with finishing with 52 games in those three hours i was very tired after playing that because it was a lot of strategy like for example did i play did i put up a high enough score versus everybody else because it was an honor system between the six of us to write down your score it was just really interesting I've never done anything like that. I spent way too long playing Doctor Who. If I wouldn't have played probably four or five games on that, I don't know why I did that. I know why. I rented that game for eight weeks last year, and I still hate that game after eight weeks of last year. So I knew that I could put up a better score than the 20 million, and they'll master laughing at me. So I spent too long on that. Otherwise, I definitely could have finished more than 40 games. Plus, when you know that you can put a higher score on something, I think it's an internal challenge for myself to say, Rachel, you can put up a better score than that on Whitewater or whatever. The tournament, I should also note, was played by what we consider B players. We're all players that are top 2,000 or higher. I also played, my best game might have been on X's and O's because I really like that game. I talked to Brett Pollack today a little bit about the strategy that goes into that, about do you play all of the games or do you just try to get a high score on a couple of different games i went for the second strategy there where i just tried to get the high score on the as many games as i could but i try not to worry so much about time i recognized about an hour in that the feat was impossible we also didn't set any type of negative scoring for not finishing all the 60 games so we talked about that today too like how do you balance that out so anyway i just thought It was an interesting style tournament. It was a lot of fun. Thanks so much, Brett, for putting that together, and I hope that we're able to do that again in the future. It sounds fun. It sounds exhausting. So if only one person plays a game, do they, like, win that game? Yes, correct. Okay, so there could be some strategy there, trying to pay attention to what the others are playing. Right, and by completing all of the games, you might be much more likely, in order to win one, that somebody else didn't play. Yeah, absolutely. But it looks like 40, the, let's see, I completed 40, Megan completed 52, or I'm sorry, she completed 57. Another completer completed 52 and two others completed 44. That's a hard numbers to get through there. Sorry about my stumblage. It was just really an interesting style, but yes, it was exhausting because the strategy that had to go into it was a lot, but I still had a lot of fun. I still had a lot of fun doing that because it forced my brain to think about it and in pinball and a different perspective so again thanks brett that sounds fun i would have enjoyed that drew would have gotten through all 105 because his games are like 30 seconds to a minute long so tim lee shut it okay so i think that's enough about my tournament stuff and my pinball news okay i would like to introduce our guest today who is tribe member number 11 who lives in kentucky i'm going to try to say it louisville louisville kentucky louisville louisville louisville i first noticed this gentleman during the twitch stream commenting about his own Twitch stream. So I thought, hmm, this is a tribe member I haven't interacted with much, and I'd really like to get to know him a little bit better. So here we are. Welcome to the show, Daniel Donnell. Hey, Daniel. Welcome. I'm going to take a sip of my old-fashioned here, because this podcast is definitely not sloppy enough to be a podcast.
    9:31
    We can make it happen. Well, I feel like I'm very stumbling my words tonight, so we can make it a podcast. no worries if you're not stumbling then you're not doing something right so that's right yeah no thanks for having me on the show guys i really appreciate it i am tribe member number 11 and i do live in louisville i just a little bit about me i have a wife fortunately i don't know how but we've been married for 10 years now three beautiful daughters uh seven five and three and they are a handful, I must say. You're a busy man. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Between that, work, everything, I just got a little bit of time for pinball. And, you know, the crazy thing is I have a problem. What's your problem? I'm addicted to pinball. I can't stop thinking about this pinball thing. I wake up in the morning and I check Pinside, what new games are available for sale and what's new on the forums, what are people talking about, what's the next Stern going to be? I just, I have a problem. I watch Twitch streams nonstop. I just started one. I mean, guys, do I need to slow down? Do I need to stop? I don't know. Well, I think the psychologist, Zach Many, would tell you maybe if he had his psychology hat on. But I say no because I'm the same way. I'm constantly refreshing as well, looking for that next machine. Machines don't last very long here either, so I just turn them over quite often. So, yeah, I think Rachel and I are kind of familiar with that issue you have. Absolutely. My answer is also no, but as long as you're keeping your pocketbook in check, you're fine. Have fun. Well, so my wife is the financial advisor in the house, and she might say different, but I think we're doing fine right now. But it's like I tell her, these things are an investment. You're looking at the prices now, they just keep going up. So anything that we have, it's just money in the bank. And if we ever need to pull some of that money out, we can just sell a game, right? I mean, it'll fund whatever. Yeah, exactly. And to your point there, I have only lost money on one machine, and that was Metallica. And I sold it for $500 less than what I purchased it for, but that was to a good friend. So I sold it $500 less on purpose to give him a good deal. But all my other machines, if I know the person, I break even. I just, you know, but I've made money on some machines where I didn't know the person, and I posted it at a reasonable price. So you're right. That's what I tell my wife as well. If we need the money, we're just selling machines. Which we know we're never going to do, though. I mean, it's an asset that's right there. It's something very easy to offload. If I wanted to get rid of all four of my games tomorrow, I could, no problem. Yeah, I mean, why not buy them? If you've got the money, buy them, enjoy them, play them, and then more than likely you'll sell them for more than what you end up getting them for. So why not, right? I totally agree. Yeah, so that's a little bit about me as far as my personal life, the family and everything like that. Well, I like it. We also have to mention the fact that you have chickens. Oh, Lord.
    12:34
    Everybody has chickens these days. I got chicks. Yeah. They're multiplying. Not quite. I've got six little chicks in the backyard. And, yes, no, we don't live in a rural area. We are actually in the city. I just kind of hide them away in a back corner where nobody can see them. Luckily, we don't have any roosters as of yet. Fingers crossed. We've had them for three months, and usually around three months is when you might notice that one is a rooster, and that's when they start waking up the neighbors and stuff like that. But as of right now, no, they're great little pets, and hopefully we'll get some eggs here pretty soon. Wait, hold up. You live in the city, and you have chickens in the city? Don't tell anybody, okay? Just keep that on the down low. All right. We'll keep that on the down low. Yeah, we love them. And they have names. I couldn't tell you what they are. My daughter's named them and, you know, I have no idea what to call them. I just say, hey, hey, chicks, come here. Here's some food. And they follow me. And they know they're like, this is a friendly guy. He feeds us. We'll do what he says. Sure. Yeah, absolutely. Nice. Well, my first question for you is we'd like to we'd like to talk about what you're currently doing in pinball. I do have a couple of good questions here. I think this time, actually, you know, I did some pre-planning instead of being as sloppy as I sometimes am. Again, I think we're the second sloppiest show on the Internet, the second sloppiest podcast on the Internet. You're working on getting to number one pretty soon. That's what it sounds like. Maybe. But you mentioned to me that you recently participated in the first tournament since the pandemic. Would you like to talk about that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. We've got a place here locally, actually a couple places, a few places. Louisville is great for pinball. But the two primary places that we have to play pinball is Zanzibar, which is kind of closer to downtown. And then we also have Rec Bar. And Rec Bar has got close to 60 to 70 pinball machines at any given time. They frequently switch them out. So it's always exciting when they get new ones. And we're on the Facebook page and they're, oh, new game alert. And here comes, you know, whatever. And yeah, just a couple of weeks ago, we we had our first tournament since the pandemic. Obviously, it's not IFPA sanctioned or anything because that's not back yet. Right. I didn't care. And we had a great showing. I was kind of worried that there might, you know, maybe be eight or 10 or 12 people show up. But we had close to I think we had 26 or 27 people show up for that thing. And it was just amazing because, I mean, obviously we're wearing masks and trying to do our best in social distancing. But since the vaccine and everything's kind of become a little bit more relaxed, it was just nice to see everybody again. You know, all these old people that you hung out with a year ago before all this crazy stuff happened. And it was just a blast. That's fantastic. It's really nice to be able to catch up with them in person. Facebook is one thing, but being able to socially distantly stand next to another person or flip on another, the same game with them can be a lot of fun. Yeah, it was killer. I look forward to doing more of them. So it looks like we're going to have one at least once a month. I think our next one is June 11th, if I recall. And the owner of the bar, Tony, I've got to give a shout-out to Tony Thomas, amazing guy, and Corey Sims. They're both the owners of Rec Bar. They opened up another location in New Albany last, I think, well, about a year, probably about a year ago or so. And they bought a, I want to call it a party bus. They just showed it on Facebook like today, and they're like, okay, guys, what do you think? We all we have a tournament and we'll we'll go to the rec bar in Louisville and we'll play two hours and then we'll all jump on the bus and we'll go over to Indiana. That's where the A1 two comes from. That's the whatever it is, phone code or whatever. Anyways, we'll go over there. We'll we'll we'll booze it up for two hours and then we'll ship you all back. And I'm like, okay. I mean, where else does somebody do that? Buys a party bus and wants to take pinballers around to the different locations to play pinball in a tournament. It's amazing. I am totally jealous. I want to come along on that trip. It's like a poker run kind of thing. Yeah. Maybe. Yeah, no. Come on down. Sounds awesome. Absolutely. Oh, I'm going to be very busy on June 11th. That is the triple flip at District 82 which after looking today is completely stacked with the waiting list Do you want to know who on the waiting list for the Classics event Oh no Asher Lefkoff and Colin McAlpine On the waiting list.
    17:05
    On the waiting list. They're in for the afternoon event, but I'm just going to tell you that it blows my mind. People are out there wanting to get together and play pinball, and I think, Daniel, you witnessed the same thing with that recent tournament as well. People are excited to get out there and get playing. Yeah, absolutely. And those two guys making the trip out there to do something like that, it just shows you people are hungry. They just want to get out there, play their game. I mean, I'm guessing that those two guys are liking to socialize as well. But, yeah, no, it's super exciting. Tim, do you have tournaments going on where you're at? I have not seen one. Now, I am about an hour and a half from Pittsburgh. I think they're having smaller tournaments. I did see one pop up. It was at like a car show. Somebody was having a tournament. But I go to Helicon Brewery, and I haven't seen one announced for that particular location yet. Now, we are going to go down on May 28th for my birthday, me and some friends to play. But that's not a tournament, but we could use a party bus. I mean, you're like at the epicenter. I mean, in Pittsburgh. I mean, besides Chicago and maybe New York or whatever, I mean, Pittsburgh is where it's at as far as pinball goes. You'll have some tournaments come up here soon, I promise you. Yeah, I'm sure they have them. It's just, you know, the places I pay attention to haven't had them. You never know. Hopefully they start back up, and as soon as I see one, I'm going to play. For sure. As a tournament player, are you naturally competitive, or are you more of a let's socialize and have a beer and hang out? I find that me as a tournament player I'm both ways and I found on our last episode asking Billy YJ that same question it was an interesting answer what's yours? I'm competitive as hell like I do not like to lose like Joey will tell you'll see it on the stream like if you ever watch us or whatever like Joey beats my ass on a frequent Joey's my best friend he does the Silver Ball Social Club stream with me and yeah he frequently kicks my ass he's very good but I am still competitive but I am there more for the social aspect of it. Absolutely. Like, I would say it's probably like 70-30. I love getting together with people, talking, chatting, seeing what new games they've got, seeing what's going on in their life. You know, it doesn't have to always be about pinball. But, no, I'm definitely on the social side of things. I agree. It doesn't always have to be pinball when you're standing there waiting for your round to go. It can definitely be about that, but sometimes it can just be, I don't want to talk politics or religion or big, heavy stuff, But we can also talk about, hey, how have the Green Bay Packers been playing or whatever, whatever the case may be. It's just nice to be able to have that. Aaron Rodgers. We can't even talk about that. I haven't followed any of the drama. I don't have cable. I don't watch TV. So I really try to stay away from most of the news sites anyway. So it's just better to not talk about Aaron. A-A-Ron. No worries. Yeah. Yeah, no, it's definitely, I agree, it's social all the way for me. I love the competition, and that is definitely a part of it, but it's kind of a combination of those two things, you know, just the competitive fun of it. I'm not Ezra Lefkoff. I'm not Keith Elwin, you know, but I'll have a good game every now and then, and I'll feel pretty proud of myself. Me too. Having a couple drinks, throwing them back, and just hanging out for the night and just forgetting about everything else going on in the world is just amazing. I love that too. Just a place where I can turn off and click out of all the tabs that are open in my head and step up and play for, you know, 10 seconds or for three minutes on a game or one ball, I should say. Well, that's happened when it happens when it's three minutes. That's amazing. But just be able to shut out everything else and just play. There's just something so rewarding. And actually, people laugh at this, but relaxing about that as well.
    20:59
    Even when you have a crappy ball or a house ball. Happens all the time. Right? Trust me. So you mentioned your best friend, Joe or Joey, and I wanted to talk a little about him and your Silver Ball Social Club.
    21:14
    You said that you originally, or you mentioned to me that you originally had thought about doing a podcast, but instead you decided to choose Twitch streaming. Why did you choose that, or why one versus the other? uh okay well we had we've kind of been throwing the idea around of doing a podcast never twitch streaming before this okay it was always just man we got to get a podcast we we need to you know let our voices be be heard and and we've got all these great ideas and and we just need to do it all we need is a phone you know we can just record ourselves and load it up and we um one night we we sat down here in my basement my man cave and hit record on the phone and just kind of went through a trial basically of what we would sound like and listen to it back and everything. And it was okay. It wasn't bad. Nothing wrong with it. We had a great idea, like kind of a gimmick for the show. And this still may happen. So nobody steal our idea, okay? I promise. But our idea for the podcast, it was going to be called Pinball Dreams. And what it was is he, for the week, he would go and think of a game, actually a theme that he thought would be great for a pinball machine. And I would go and do the same thing. Okay. And then every week when we met together, we would kind of discuss and throw out both of our ideas. You know, if he wanted to do, let's just say for instance, a nightmare on Elm street pin, you know, like another, well, that's probably a bad example because we've already had one, but let's say he wanted to do a, I'm trying to think of a theme. Twilight. Yeah, that's perfect because he loves Twilight, right? Well, that's funny. I'm breaking his balls here, okay? He doesn't really like Twilight. But anyways, yeah, he wanted to come up with the dream Twilight pen and what mechs would go into. And I came up with my pen. And we would sit and discuss it. And, like, he went hardcore with it the first week. Like, he took it very seriously. He sat down and, like, drew out the play field and, like, where the mechs would go. Like, he was like, I'm going to be a designer for Stern. I'm like, you do your thing. You do your thing, buddy. And so, yeah, we sat down, we did the podcast, and it was cool. It was cool. But we got thinking about it, and I said, you know what? I said, why don't we just do a Twitch thing? We can jump on any time. We don't have to have a schedule. We can just hit record, and we'll have the play field there. We can sit and chat with people, which is really what I like about it. You know, it's not just me and Joe talking about it because we do that all the time. But when you start a podcast, there's a certain kind of pressure that comes along with it. Oh, man, we told our fans it was going to be every two weeks. We've got to make sure we put out a podcast, even if there's nothing to talk about and all that kind of stuff. And I just really wasn't into that. I just thought it would be a lot less stressful to just have a stream. And so I said, Joe, let's look at doing a stream. He said, okay. And then literally like three days later, he sends me a picture on my phone, and it's of 20 boxes stacked up, Sony handy cams, tripods, microphones.
    24:21
    And I'm like, what the fuck? Like, is this really happening? He's like, yeah, yeah, we're doing this. I'm like, okay, okay. So he kind of pushed me over the edge because I thought, I figured it was just going to be something where, you know, we might get to it later on, you know, just kind of dreaming about it. But no, yeah, he got all the stuff and we kind of set up a crummy rig around a pinball machine that had wires going everywhere and, you know, just kind of guerrilla style setting this thing up. and we hit play and just started streaming.
    24:49
    Since then, we've actually kind of streamlined things a little bit, gotten rid of the wires and made it movable, which is important to me because I do not want to do the Jack Danger thing or what most people do is they set up the rig and it's over one machine over the whole night. I want to be able to move this thing because I kind of get bored with just playing one game for three hours. So we made it so that it's mobile. and I think the goal of this thing is to just have a regular weekly stream and then we're actually in talks with Zanzibar, soon to be talking to RecBar, about going and streaming games on location because I've only got so many games down here that I can do. I don't want it to be boring and I want to play these other games too and learn them and eventually do tournaments, kind of like Carl D'Angelo does and like Eric Wurtenberger of Cincinnati where you have these mobile rigs and you can kind of follow the tournament and there's commentary and stuff. That's kind of the end goal, I think, for us. That sounds fantastic, the whole vision. It really is like, I'm sorry, what did you call your podcast originally? Nobody Rip It Off?
    25:56
    It was called Pinball Dreams. So this is your pinball dream. You're still working on it in just a different way. And what a rad best friend to have. I need a best friend like Joey because I actually thought of streaming as well. Billy and I talked about it, but I thought I need somebody to stream with. Yeah, it's me by myself in the basement would be fun, but I just kind of felt like I needed somebody to stream. Brad Hopkins, our first guest, also said the same thing, where he has not done any streaming either, pretty much based on the fact that he'd rather do it with other people. It's just not as fun or as engaging, and I can see that. I've also thought about streaming. I think that I could do it solo, but I also might get a little bored unless I had a really big following. You know, it's like if you have more people to interact with or engage with, I think the more fun it is. Do you have a set schedule now?
    26:46
    So the schedule as it is now is on Mondays and Thursdays, we stream at 9 o'clock, 9 p.m. Eastern time. And we typically go till 11 to midnight. It just kind of depends on how drunk I get, really. When I start like slurring and seeing double of the balls and start shooting really shitty and Joe like, you know, mocks me constantly, that's usually like, okay, it's time to go to bed. Okay, you need to go home now. So, we're usually good for a couple hours. So, but, no, we have a blast. Like, it's doing what we always do, which is just have fun playing pinball, sharing a couple drinks. And just the best part about it for me is when people actually jump on and start talking to you. And you're talking back. And they're, oh, man, what do you think about the new Mandalorian? And, you know, just all these little subjects. And even, it doesn't even have to be about pinball. I mean, we've had people, you know, talk to us about, you know, stuff that's going on in their life. It's just fun. It's like that tournament thing that I was talking about where, you know, the last year we've just been stuck inside for the most part. And there really hasn't been that social interactivity beyond, you know, going on our phones or on Zoom or whatever. And actually having just a connection to the outside world. So that's what I really enjoy about it. The Pinball community can definitely give you a personal connection. I need to put that quote on my Facebook or something, but it's really a true thing. The connection that can come there, especially after a year where so many people stayed home, didn't see their family or friends, or it was very limited. I think that it's such a great way to reconnect with people. I'm so glad, again, that you had that tournament and were able to see people you haven't seen in a year. That makes me so happy to hear that. Yeah, no, it was great, and I look forward to the many coming up. We actually, we do, I have what's called the kickback pinball tournament. And we did that, the first year was back in 2019. And we did it in August. And then, you know, it was amazing. We had people bring in, I think it was something like 12 or 13 pinball machines to my house. They brought it from their place, set it up in my house, and then actually had to take it home, you know, after the tournament was done. But, I mean, if that doesn't show, you know, the kind of commitment and the kind of craziness that the pinball community has, I don't know what does. It's just coming here and just donating your games for a one-night pinball tournament. It was amazing. And we hope to continue doing that. We actually want to do that this summer as well.
    29:15
    Where the heck did you put 12 or 13 pinball machines? I just have to ask. Did you stick them in your garage, in your living room? I'm going to flex now. I've got a mansion. No, I'm just kidding. No, I've got plenty of room in the basement, but actually they all went. We're not going to drag those machines down my basement and back up. So we've got a sunroom that we had three machines set up in. We moved a couch in our living room, and we had five machines set up in there. My kitchen, we've got a dining room table. We set one up on each side. We just kind of placed them sporadically throughout the house, which was kind of cool, you know, because it's not all in just one area. And, you know, when you've got 30, 40 people, you know, running around downstairs, out to the sunroom, it was just, it was kind of, it was kind of cool. They're like, oh, where's Star Wars? Oh, you need to go to the kitchen, man. You know, and it was just, it was just a blast. Yeah. We found room for them. Trust me. Bring your games. I will find room for them. Yeah, you just squeeze them in there one way or another, I suppose. Did you feed your folks then, too, at the tournament? No, no, no. Bring your own food. Bring your own, no, I'm kidding. Yeah, no, we had, we had, I think we ordered. I don't know, 10 pizzas or something like that. We had all the chips, all the dips, all the candy, all the beer, all the booze. No, we take care of it. And we actually made our own. My wife, she runs a printing company, and she was able to make T-shirts for the event. So she got a graphic designer on it, and we actually have kickback, first annual kickback pinball tournament T-shirts. And people sport them all the time. Like, literally, I was at the tournament a couple weeks ago, and somebody had it on, and I'm like, dude, I love it. Like, it's just amazing to see, like, they're sporting it. They're proud of it, you know. So it's going to be a thing. It's going to be like the next Pemberg, I promise. Nice. That sounds like an amazing time. I've dropped machines off at people's houses, but I've left them there for a couple of months, not just for a night. But, yeah, I might have to drive down for the next one. Yeah, I was going to say, Tim Lee, we better have a special inviter be on that next guest list, don't you think? Yeah. I have driven to Louisville before from my location. You said it right, Tim Lee. I like that. You said Louisville. I like that. It took me like seven tries.
    31:29
    We'll have you guys out for sure. You will be on the guest list, and I hope you can make it. More the merrier is what I say. Thank you. We'll put you up for a place to stay. We've got plenty of space for you. No worries. Fantastic. You mentioned that you have a mobile streaming rig, so I wanted to ask what your current lineup is. Okay, so the current lineup is somewhat underwhelming, I would say. They are amazing games, don't get me wrong, but I'm down to three right now. Okay, and two of them are Joey's. Okay, so Joey, he lives about a block away from me, and his wife, Better Hat, is not too crazy about the sound of pinball machines late into the night.
    32:13
    So Joey said, you know what, I've got a solution. What I'm going to do is I'm going to bring them over to your house, put them in your basement. You can play them whenever you want. And I can play them a couple times a week when we go over and stream. What do you think? I said, that's a great idea. I mean, yeah, I'll take. So here's what it is. He's got an Avengers premium and he's got Led Zeppelin premium. Two fantastic games.
    32:36
    He brought he brought those over. So we've got those down here. And I've also got my Iron Maiden, which is kind of my bolt to the floor game. Love Iron Maiden. I've had up to, I think, seven games down here that were mine only, but I've traded and sold, and now I've got kind of a stockpile of pinball cash. Unfortunately, right now, I probably don't want to be buying games because they're kind of, I mean, what I would say is the height of their value. But who knows? I mean, they could go up. But I do have a Guns N' Roses LE coming from Zach Manya flipping out pinball. Hi, Zach. Love you. But where's my freaking Guns N' Roses?
    33:15
    Yeah, it's been like six, seven months. But it's not his fault. It's not his fault. But, God, I've got to ask, where the fuck is that game? And then I've also got a Mandalorian that I just purchased. Well, I haven't purchased yet, but I'm getting one as soon as the pro gets here. So the Mandalorian will be number three then? So you just have those two games? Yeah, it'll be Guns N' Roses, Iron Maiden, Mandalorian, and then I've got some cash left over. and I'm looking, so you just got a Demoman. That is on my list. I want either a Demoman or a Baywatch So if anybody out there is listening has a Demoman or a Baywatch and lives somewhat close to Louisville I would like to buy your machine please So just let me know. Well, maybe I'll sell you mine once I get bored with it and just take a road trip down there or something like that. Yeah, yeah. When I throw the tournament later this summer, just bring it on down. Sure. Friend prices, and, yeah, we can do that for sure. Yeah, we'll talk turkey. Is your maiden a premium? No, no, it's just a pro. Yeah, the pro on – there's certain games, you know, that you can get a pro, you can get a premium, and it really – if it's got all the stuff – you know, premiums sometimes have that extra that, oh, I've got to have it. I've got to have the premium. No way I'm getting the pro. Like, I would say Led Zeppelin, for instance. Like, a pro on Led Zeppelin, it doesn't have – you know what I'm saying? It's got that shot that it's missing that's on the premium where it kind of loops around from the third flipper, that upper flipper there's just some games that you need to buy a premium and there's some games that you're okay with getting the pro so i got the maiden pro it kind of services everything that i need yeah i i had a maiden pro my buddy dropped off for about three months and it was every bit as good as the premium so why did you go with the mandalorian pro because i ordered the mandalorian as well and i went with the premium before i even saw it and then i told my children who loved the Mandalorian, so we were locked in. And when I was watching the videos, I thought maybe I should have went with the Pro. So, after seeing the videos, I was like, oh my god, I'm getting the premium. That's it. I've got to have it. I've got to have the premium. Oh my god, did you see that play field? It goes up and down, all that kind of stuff. It's got the magnet. Oh my god, and the Yoda. What does it do? And then, I started kind of looking at it, and I was like, okay.
    35:37
    So, the Pro has a static play field with one flipper, and it's kind of a more, I would say it's kind of a more difficult upper play field. And I don't even know if it's an upper play field on the pro, but it's just got the one flipper where you're going to have to use the nudge a little bit to kind of get it over to the flipper and get your shots in. Whereas with the premium, you've got both flippers and you can kind of, you know, catch the ball, hit your shots. You know, I know it does go vertical, but no, it seemed like a check towards the pro side of it whenever I looked at that play field. something I would like and then I looked at the magnet and I said man the magnet I don't know it really just doesn't do much can I even see it just didn't seem like it made much sense where the magnet was on that upper portion on the left what is it the ramp in the middle or whatever that kind of diverts the ball either up yeah that's cool as fuck okay I gotta give it to you like that is the one thing that's like okay I might need to get a pro but is it worth $1,700 $1,800 hundred dollars. I don't know. And so I went back and forth and just kind of looking at the positives and negatives and everything like that. And the pro just it just seemed like, OK, I get a pro and I still got some money in the bank. I can get that Baywatch or that Demoman and the pro will suffice. It'll have we haven't seen the code. We don't know what the video clips look like in the sound. We know that Carl Weathers is in and they've got real footage of, you know, for the video. That'll all be the same on the pro premium. It doesn't really matter. The other main difference is the artwork. I thought the artwork looked fantastic on all three models, although I do give the nod to the premium. I think the side where it's got the whistling birds coming out and killing everybody is actually amazing. But I do like the Pro Translight better than the premium.
    37:21
    But that was kind of it. I talked to Joe, because he's kind of the guy that advises me. And I said, you know what, I think I'm going to change it from a premium. Because I told Zach, I said, give me a premium. and then a day later I had to go back and be like, I'm sorry, can I get on the list for the pro? And hopefully I'm not like 200 down the line on his list or whatever because I was pretty high up on the premium. But yeah, no, I went with the pro and also saved me a topper because he's the topper king.
    37:55
    Yep, yeah, I'm on the list for a topper as well with Zach. I thought the same thing. I should have got the pro, but I was locked in. And first premium I've ever purchased, and my kids were excited I got the premium. So we're sticking with it, but I think you're better off to go with the Pro. When you say you're locked in, what does that mean? Like you've already paid for it? I mean I told my kids I was getting it. You're like, hey, kids, I'm getting the premium Mandalorian. I'm not getting the Pro Mandalorian. I'm getting the premium, right? Yeah, and I had committed to it with the distributor, but I could probably change. No, no, it's more locked in with the family. Honestly, it's an amazing machine. It looks like it's going to be amazing. I hope that it lives up to the expectation. But everything that I've seen, it just looks like it's going to be a fun, fantastic game. It's going to be a great family game, Tim. So I think that even whatever you choose, the premium or the pro, it's going to be fantastic. I think if it was me and I was in your shoes, I'd probably pick the premium because I'd want to really have all the bells and whistles, especially since your family watched that show together. I think it just has a little bit more meaning that way as well. Yeah, they went crazy over it. Like, huge reaction when it was announced. I also cannot imagine purchasing a new unboxed game without playing it. I'm still having a hard time as a newer pinball player, right? I'm having a harder time trying to figure out how to get over that because, again, spending, what, $8,500 plus? I don't even know how much. I don't look at the prices. It's probably a good thing I don't. But it's tough for me to decide to do that until I really like the game, you know? Yeah, I'm rolling the dice that it'll hold its value because I ordered a Turtles before I played it, but then I played it before I committed. So this is the first game I have ordered without playing. It'll hold its value. Is this the first new in-box game you've purchased? No, no. I love opening that box. It looks amazing. I haven't had many. I bought a, the first game I got was a Guardians of the Galaxy.
    39:58
    That was my first new in box, I should say. Not my first game, but first new in box was a Guardians of the Galaxy. I originally, my first game that I bought was a Bride of Pimbot. I bought it for $2,800. I sold some of my video game collection and bought that. And then I traded that for a Whitewater.
    40:17
    Believe it or not, I traded my Bride of Pimbot for a Whitewater. This was like three years ago. And then had fun with that, loved that game, want to get it back eventually, but not at the current price mark. Me neither. And I traded that to Tony Thomas at Rec Bar. The Whitewater I traded for a new in box Guardians of the Galaxy because at the time he was a Stern distributor. And so that was my first new in box. Second one was Jurassic Park Pro. Oh, yeah. It was one of the first ones that got in on one of those. I called around everywhere to see because I was having a kickback tournament. And this game had just gotten released like maybe a week prior. So the pros were just kind of hitting the local bars and stuff. And I called all around and I didn't. Zach, unfortunately, Zach couldn't help me out with that one. But I called down to Nashville Music City Pinball and talked to Rob down there. And he said, you know what? I've got three of them. Two of them are already sold. You can have the last one. So literally on Friday night before the Saturday tournament, I drove down to Nashville, got off work early, talked to my boss. Hey, man, please. Come on. I got to go and drove down to Nashville, grabbed it. New inbox, brought it up, unboxed it. That game is amazing. Love. Wow. The last new inbox that I got, and it's technically not a new inbox, but it kind of is. I bought a Monster Bash special edition CGC remake from Zach, and he had it at Pinsonati. And he said, look, I'll cut you a little bit of a deal if we open it up and then we let everybody play it here at the show. And so I said, okay, let's do it. So that's kind of a new inbox, but not really, if you don't know what I mean. so that kind of transitions into our next segment in our show is we like to talk a little bit about how you got into pinball did you grow up playing as a kid no uh i wish i had honestly because when i was a kid the prices were a lot better with these machines well yeah absolutely for sure i hear about people like back in the late 90s and early 2000s buying like uh circus voltaire for like $1,500. And I was like, God, if I would have known, of course, back in early 2000, I was in my 20s, early 20s, and I would have had the money to buy them anyway. So I guess it really doesn't matter. But no, I got into pinball. It was probably back in 2012, 2013, initially. And Corey Stupp, he's a friend of mine. He actually is the tournament director at Rec Bar when we do our tournaments. He also is a coder for Stern. I believe he worked on the Mandalorian. I'm not a hundred percent. I haven't talked to him about that. He probably wouldn't tell me anyways, cause he keeps everything close to the vest, but he's a great guy. I love Corey. And, um, he, uh, he ran the Louisville arcade expo, um, still does. I went to Louisville arcade expo to experience the game side of it. The, uh, the arcade games, uh, in particular, you know, going and playing the four-player Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the Mortal Combats. People would just bring all these games in from all over these states around, and you could play them just like it was back in the day when you were at Aladdin's Castle.
    43:34
    So I went there looking for that, and then I saw all these pinball machines showing up. I'm like, what the fuck? This is like an old man's game. What is going on here? I'm looking around, and I see an ACDC pinball machine. Yes! This was back in, like I said, 2012, 2013. That's when they released it, and I guess somebody had gotten some.
    43:53
    And I jumped on it, and I was like, okay, what is this all about? And I'm double flipping, you know, and I'm just doing whatever I can to get the ball not to drain. And I'm hearing the music, you know, Hell's Bells and all that kind of stuff, and I'm hitting the bell in the middle, and it's going across the track, and I'm like, God, this is really cool. Like, this is amazing. People have these in their homes? It wasn't even a concept to me.
    44:17
    And so I didn't even get my first pinball machine until probably about four years ago with the Bride of Pinbot. But that was kind of the moment I was sitting here thinking about this past week. That was probably the moment that I was like, okay, pinball, like, this is cool. This is a thing. And the thing that really got me hooked on it was that there was actually, like, one skill involved. Like you can, you know, you could post pass, you can dead flip, you could death save if you're Joey. But so there's there's that kind of skill involved with it. And the other thing is that it's unlike arcade games where most of them are, you know, if you play most of these arcade games, it's kind of following the same pattern game after game after game. Like you play a game of hell, I don't know, Pac-Man. Right. The level is the same every time you start and there is a certain pattern that you can go to complete it. And if you know that same rule set. Right, exactly. So with pinball, it's it's completely different. Every the ball is wild. Like it's under there. Every game is going to be different. I mean, I can step up to any of these games that I've got down here and play them. And I could have a really shitty score. I could have a great score. I could have the best game of all time. But on those are old arcade games like it's just the same thing kind of over and over. I love those games, but a main cabinet will fill that void. Like you can just get a computer, set it up like an arcade and just have every one of those games at your access. You're never going to be able to emulate the pinball machine. I know people have tried another virtual cabinet thing is a thing. I've tried a lot of those. I've thought about getting those. But it's pinball like you've got to have the ball roll around, hitting the flipper, hitting the slingshots, just doing whatever it does. And the creativity behind some of these games is just unbelievable with the mechanisms they've had between, you know, I would say probably from, you know, 80s on up or whatever. The old EMs I'm not much into, they're okay, but they all break down on me and I don't know how to fix them, so I stay away from those. I have a couple of EMs and, yes, they do break down, but I am learning how to fix them. So it depends if you're into doing that or not. It's a slow process, but I think there's something to be said about that to understand how the game internally works too. I don't know. Yeah, I get it. I had an Aztec that was kind of my second game, I got it for $250 at an auction. Wow. And this was when I was so new into it that I didn't even know how to fold the back box down. You don't fold a back box down on an old EM. You unscrew it, and you take out all the plugs, and you throw them in the cabinet. I know that now. But back then, when I bought it at that auction, they were like, okay, you've got to get this out of here. You just bought it. You need to get it going. I literally picked it up and set it in the back of my truck and on all four legs and drove it home and put it in the sunroom on all four legs. And people I mean, I've seen like pictures of people making fun of people like me that did that. But that really is a thing. Like, I didn't know. Number one, I would never unplug anything from a pinball machine back then and plug it back in because I didn't know what hell I was doing. But no, I do love – I don't want to say I don't like EMs. I'm just – the EMs are amazing games. I just – I can't work on them. I look at that thing underneath the play field, and I'm like, holy crap. That looks intimidating as hell. Yeah, I like to play other people's EMs. I mean, I like the games a lot, but they can be a handful. You also mentioned to me, Daniel, that you like to – the hunt for the game is a big part of it for you. Enjoy – maybe it's finding the deal. but I guess my question is is what is the holy grail for you to hunt for right now is it demolition man there's no holy grail I mean it's well I thought there might be for some people there could be you know I mean obviously like okay a holy grail would be like okay somebody's down the block for me is selling a big Lebowski for five hundred dollars oh my goodness that'd be crazy hey that's a grail right but I mean that's never gonna happen however I have found deals in the past that were pretty fantastic. Like I said, I got the Aztec for $250. I think that's a pretty good deal. I found, if you search on Craigslist enough, you might come across some stuff or Facebook Marketplace. Back a couple of years, well, three years ago, I just happened to get on Craigslist at the right time. And I was searching Nashville and a Game of Thrones popped up and the game of thrones was going for two thousand dollars and then oh my goodness and back then that was kind of a newer game like i mean it was probably only one year old maybe two years at the most and i called the wife well number one i texted the guy i said okay uh i want the game of thrones can i have it he said yes all before i said can i give you some money to hold it because i know that this thing is gonna be gone like if if i don't he's like no no you're good i'm a man my word, whatever. And I called the wife immediately and said, look, I found something. And she trusts me. She knows I know prices and stuff. And I said, look, this is like a $5,000 game right now and I can get it for two. And she's like, yeah, no, go get it if you can go get it. So I rolled down, got it. It was in Nashville. I went and grabbed it. It was at like an old, like kind of a putt-putt place. And they were closing down or expanding or something. But they had a bunch of other games. I also bought a Buck Hunter, a big Buck Hunter Pro from them as well for $800, which is also a pretty good deal. I took both of those games home, and I actually, about a month later, I didn't keep Game of Thrones too long. Don't hate me. The new code was not out yet.
    50:03
    Don't hate here. I traded the Game of Thrones a month later for an ACDC Pro Vault because I knew my wife loved it. That was kind of the game, like I said, that initially got me into pinball. Was ACDC. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I really love that game. I enjoy playing it. But, yeah, no, so it's those kind of things. I mean, deals are still out there. They can be had. You just have to really search for them now. It was a little easier a little, you know, a few years ago. But you can stumble across estate sales. You can stumble across Facebook ads and Craigslist.
    50:38
    Pinside, you're not going to find any deals, I don't think. but it the thrill of the hunt and I got all that from searching for video games back in the day like going to pawn shops and buying Super Nintendo games Those same games that I bought for like a couple bucks at a pawn shop, you know, in 2005, 2006, 2007, whatever. Those games now are worth like, you know, 100, 200 bucks a piece, some of them. I mean, it's just nuts. But that's kind of the thing is the thrill of finding something and getting it and, oh, man, I got it, you know. So, yeah, you know, what's happened to me a few times. I don't know if this has happened to you is somebody just calls me or sends me an email or text and said, hey, such and such told me that you like pinball machines. Would you be interested in, you know, buying my machine? We got a Bram Stoker's Dracula last year for $800. Word of mouth is like the best thing ever. Like to just have an insight like people like in my business, I work, you know, I run a cabinet and countertop company. OK, so I deal with a lot of contractors and builders and designers on a daily basis. And they all know that I'm a pinball geek. And I let them know that. And I say, look, if you go to somebody's house and they've got a pinball machine sitting there collecting dust in their garage or their basement, you know, let me know. Or maybe inquire about it and say, hey, what do you do with this thing? And try to get leads the best I can and get an image. So what were you saying about the Bram Stoker's? I was curious what happened with that. So a buddy just called me up and said, hey, this guy has a Bram Stoker's Dracula and went out and checked it out and it was filthy. It had been in his basement for 20 years and he never maintained it once. He didn't do anything to it. And so I took it to my friend who's a professional restoration guy and he won't charge me for labor or anything. But it had a couple of mechs that needed a little bit more fixing than my ability. but we didn't put more than five or six hundred dollars into it and it came back looking pristine because once he once we cleaned it up the play field was perfect and it's it's actually my buddies i had a really good friend that always wanted a wanted a dracula since the day i met him he talked about having a dracula so i let him take it and uh but my other buddy fixed it up and still has it it's still beautiful so yeah that was our best find 800 bucks and the guy would have given it to me for two or three hundred dollars the guy was just like you know i take it um yeah i'm like dude i'll give you 800 bucks for it you know he just kept you know going lower and lower but at the time i didn't know i was a i was a rookie and i didn't know if the board needed replaced so i told the guy it'll be 500 if i if i need the board replaced because it had battery damage on it but we were able to clean the board my buddy helped us okay in the board even at 800 even if it needed all new boards you would still be pretty good oh yeah I don't even know what that game is selling for right now but I would definitely like to own one I talked to a guy yesterday that had one for I think it was $3200 or $3300 but it was kind of like players condition not pristine or anything most of them are hard to find pristine but yeah they're going around $3,000 or so at least if not $3,500 but the funny thing is that with the dirt and the dust and grime and everything on that, it probably actually helped. Once you clean that stuff up, it kind of created a protective barrier.
    54:09
    And once he shined that up, I'm sure it was beautiful. Yeah, it's the nicest Dracula I've seen, which is weird because when I saw it, I was ready to take it to the dumpster. But, yeah, once we cleaned it up, it was fantastic. Now, Dave Brennan has the nicest Dracula you're ever going to see at some point. Maybe you'll have to go back. I think he streamed that already, but you'd have to go back and look at it. But the mods that he has on it, it is so beautiful. Unbelievable. Yeah. Yeah, I've seen it. Dave and my buddy are kindred spirits because they're both like professional restoration guys. I wish I could do that. I mean, the bride that I got was, I mean, it was already in decent shape. But, man, that was the first game and I took the glass off and I was so intimidated about even touching it because I was like, I don't know what the hell I'm doing. But you watch enough YouTube videos and you do enough research, you can kind of figure things out. Yeah, no, I did a top-down teardown of it and took off all the plastics, all the rubbers, changed them out, did LEDs. And actually, I was so nervous about it, I took a piece of cardboard, which this is what somebody suggested. They said, take a piece of cardboard the same size as the play field, kind of roughly draw out where everything's at. And then when you take screws off, just kind of place them, you know, where they are on the cardboard. and then when you go back to put it back together it's so much easier because it's kind of your road map to getting it back there that was very intimidating but got through it the mods that I put on that thing, that is another thing that I do I mod the shit out of my games and I try to do it as tastefully as possible I don't do any clown puke kind of stuff you've seen but I love doing the mods for sure Yeah, I like light mods, but back to your previous statement, your first restoration is kind of scary. I had somebody walk me through it. My son and I actually, we restored a game last year, Batman Forever together, and we had about 140 hours in it, and we just wanted to do it as a project, so similar to your first project. and we took pictures and everything, but when we got done, we had like four screws left. And I'm like, where do these go? And it's like we never found it. We looked over that thing for like two hours, and we could not figure out where their screws went. You plunge that first ball, and you just hope and pray. You're like, okay, everything's good. We played it for a year and no issues. So I don't know if they were just there, and I somehow picked them up. They were just extras. You don't need those. Yeah, don't worry. Yeah, we don't need those things. Well, congratulations on getting a Mandalorian, I guess, to both of you. And it does sound like, you know, we don't really discuss pinball news. We don't do a lot of speculation. But I did read something again today about Toy Story being Jersey Jack pinball's next machine, which I think that would be interesting. I think that Spooky really has kept things very much under wraps. And I have spun a couple of ideas about things. If we're going to stick with the horror theme, what do you think, Daniel? What would they come out with? What kind of theme or what type of game? Is it what do I want them to make or what do I think they will make? Both. Okay. What I think they will do is probably like a Halloween or a Nightmare on Elm Street. Okay, cool. I mean, I know there's already been a Nightmare on Elm Street, but let's be honest, it's not the best. No, I played that recently when I was out in Ohio, and it was not the best game, I'm not going to lie. So I think Spooky could do some justice to that title, and people are remaking games all the time, so I definitely don't think it's out of the realm of possibility for them to do another Freddy Krueger type of game. With Rick and Morty, they sold all those games so quickly, they've got that bankroll, I think they're going to put that money back into the company and really try to knock everybody's socks off. And I think that a Halloween or Friday the 13th or Nightmare on Elm Street would be something really good for them. But if we're talking about what I want them to do, I want an Army of Darkness pinball machine. Army of Darkness. Crickets anyone? I'm sorry. I'm not going with that. I'm sorry. I was thinking they were going to go with Evil Dead. Yeah, that would be interesting. So it's in the same realm. And I know that they kind of worked on an Evil Dead pin with Ben, oh God, what's his name? He's escaping me right now. Ben Heck. So they actually, Ben Heck and Spooky collaborated on an Evil Dead pin, allegedly, a few years back. And for whatever reason, it just didn't come to fruition. So I definitely think that's a possibility that they would revisit that. But the Army of Darkness, I think that it's got that sense of humor. and with Bruce Campbell, if they can get him on board to do the call-outs, he's an amazing character.
    58:58
    I just think it's got the horror, it's got the comedy element. I just think it would be a fantastic pin. I'm going to be honest. I think that would be a fantastic pin. I might think of buying that one. I'm not a big scary movie kind of guy, but I would probably be in on that one. I would also think of, you know, I was really disappointed when everybody said it wasn't Scooby-Doo. I got really excited when you said Scooby-Doo yeah I would have joined the Fang Club or whatever and got in on that one right away but I would like a Zombieland pinball machine me and Joe were talking about that earlier today I was like man what is this literally we were talking about it and I was like Zombieland like it's you've got to have for me it's just hard to believe that you would just go strictly horror like it just seems a little too dark for like the mainstream kind of audience. And now I know that they're only going to sell a thousand for their next run. That's what they've said. Okay, but I want to make a comment here. I don't classify Rick and Morty as horror. I classify that as sci-fi kind of stuff. No, no, no. Rick and Morty is definitely not horror. Right? But most of the pens are horror related. I agree with that. Right. Kaneda has stated, and that's the only reason I say that, Kaneda has stated that their next thing will be a horror thing.
    60:17
    Whatever. whatever right the two themes that i thought about other other than scooby-doo because that would be so awesome and i think that would be such a like that would be like the mandalorian for a lot of people there's people and collectors that would just want to have that but the other two that i thought about would be supernatural the television show supernatural they had 10 years i think 10 years of that uh show and there's a lot of fodder there about the different monsters and such that you could battle. I just thought that would be interesting. And the other one is I don't know with all the stuff that's going on with the creator, or not the creator, but the producer or director of the show, but Buffy the Vampire Slayer. That would be an awesome pinball machine too. I can't be the only person on the planet that thinks that a Buffy pin would be the Slayer. Only if it's based on the original movie with Christy Swanson. No, thank you. It's gotta be the series. And Rubik's. down. Yeah, well, you know. I didn't see Buffy, so I can't speak to it, but I have heard it is a fantastic show. It is, and I actually think about going back and re-watching it. Before my sister moved out to Ohio, she gave me all of the seasons on DVD. I just need to find a DVD player.
    61:32
    And then maybe I'll watch them. It'd be interesting to... Well, you're not a true fan then, Rachel. Oh, man. You can get a DVD player to watch it. Okay, well, I will take the assignment. Okay, it's not completely true. I do have a DVD player, but I recently moved, and I put in the first season, the first disc, but because I couldn't find the remote for my DVD player, I got lost in the move. I could only watch the first episode of every disc. Oh.
    62:00
    I'm like, so it got shelved, okay? You're looking all over your DVD player like, how do I, can I get to the next, where's the controls for it? Right. So I'm looking at the machine and I couldn't figure it out, so I just – the project got shelved. But I do want to go back and watch it. Bummer. I think whatever they bring out, as long as it's not like – they could do the true horror like Saw or whatever, Phantasm or Friday the 13th. But I feel like it needs to have some kind of like a sense of brevity to it, just a kind of a lighter mood to it. It needs to have a little bit of comedy to it, which I think Freddy Krueger does. You know, I think there is a little bit of, you know. Maybe it's it. Yeah, but it would be good. It would sell. Maybe.
    62:50
    Oh, there's another one on the tip of my tongue, but I forgot. That's okay. Tim Lee, I want to mispronounce your name because I heard recently that you mispronounced my last name, which is Lilgie for the record. I thought it was Lilgie. I apologize. Oh, that's okay. You can mispronounce it, but the guy that I've been co-hosting a show with, he should be able to pronounce my name, my last name by now.
    63:13
    I got it right on our show. I guess that's all that really matters. Anyways, Tim Lee, would you like to do the honors and ask Daniel our most difficult question? Yeah, so to wrap this up, we always hold the most difficult question until the end. How did you get into the tribe, Daniel? I have no fucking clue.
    63:36
    I love the honesty of everybody's answers. I don't know. It just happened. Look, look, I'm tribe member number 11, okay? So I'm kind of early on, right? I mean, there's, what, 40 of you guys right now or 45 or 50 or something like that? 42 maybe? Yep. I'm 12 right behind you. Awesome, awesome. So the best insight that I can give, I saw that they were doing the podcast, and I was listening to it. I was like, these are really good guys. These are my kind of guys. They're laid back. They're drinkers. They love pinball and, yeah, no, they're doing this tribe thing. Okay, I'll buy it. And so their pillars, you know, share, which I did, share, you know, on Facebook or whatever, Instagram, like, easy enough. I can hit the like button. What's the other ones? I'm losing it now. Support or stay in communication with them. Okay, yeah, I definitely did that. I was writing them and stuff like that. I was giving them dad jokes. I was giving them how to make a bourbon, you know, eggnog cocktail because it was around Christmas time. Oh, delicious. Yeah, it was delicious. It still is. And we don't know the fourth and fifth columns. Nobody does except the tribe members. We keep that secret. The fourth one they mentioned, actually, in one of their podcasts. They said the fourth pillar they had to go against when they put Chris Franchi in the tribe because their fourth pillar was we're not going to let any podcasters slash streamers into the tribe. And so they broke that. So that was the fourth pillar. Okay. The fifth one, nobody knows. I mean, only they know. And honestly, I think the real answer is there is no fifth pillar. I think they're just messing with us and just being evil and just making us all wonder what the heck it could be. I mean, unless there is one, I haven't heard it. I haven't heard from any tribe members. I don't know. Do you guys have any insight on what that could be? No, I don't think there's one either. I think it's just like something really dumb, like, yeah, just somebody that we want to have in or there is none. No, I think there is a fourth pillar there, maybe a fifth pillar. And I think that it is that it's a person that is passionate about pinball, that is doing their own personal thing to share and spread their love of pinball, meaning everything from designing games, art, to streaming, podcasting to people that just want to share and, and evolve the community. and I think that's what one of the pillars are now that we've been, this is our seventh episode today and I think that that's something that I'm gaining is that Ian and Drew are picking people well now it's up to actually tribe members to vote in. The interesting eclectic people that they've gathered I just, that's what I think about it at least You might be right. You might have a good point there Rachel, I like that Yeah, well do you have anything else for us today Tim? I do not Do you Daniel?
    66:27
    Rachel, I do Now, if you want to get a hold of us, you can get us at silverballsocialclub at gmail.com. And if you want to check out our stream, we're there Mondays and Thursdays at 9 p.m. I know the Poor Man podcast, what time does that usually go off on Mondays? Is that like 9.30 or 10? Starts at 9.30 Eastern. What a weird time.
    66:48
    Come by and check us out before the stream, and then more than likely we will outlast them because they get pretty shitty on their podcast, on their live stream. sloppy yeah and check us out afterwards we'd love to have you guys and uh no that's it i appreciate you guys having me on today it's it's been wonderful thank you daniel and absolutely i definitely wanted to plug silver ball social club on mondays and thursdays 9 p.m eastern time zone i think that's everything that i have thank you so much for being a great guest it was really interesting to learn about thanks man tim as always thanks for being an excellent co-host with great little questions and comments in between. You're welcome. No worries, guys. Thanks a lot. Cheers. And also thanks, Glenn, one more time for a theme song. That's it for us. Happy flipping.