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Pitch Slapped

BlahCade Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 22m·held·Jun 16, 2015
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.026

TL;DR

BlahCade discusses Table of the Week, tournaments, and discovers emerging pinball podcasts.

Summary

BlahCade hosts Chris Friebus and Jared Morgan discuss Pinball Arcade's Table of the Week (Diner), upcoming June tournament logistics, and explore emerging pinball podcasts including Coinbox Pinball Podcast (operator-focused) and For Amusement Only (EM/bingo-focused by Nicholas Baldridge). They reflect on EM gameplay mechanics, backlash restoration using GIMP, and interview insights with James Willing about electromechanical systems.

Key Claims

  • Diner is well-tuned with realistic playfield physics including center drains and unpredictable bounces

    high confidence · Chris Friebus discussing his fresh playthrough of Diner for Table of the Week

  • Eastside Pinball's top earner is The Walking Dead (Pro, not LE) generating 30% of their venue revenue

    high confidence · Jared Morgan referencing the Coinbox Pinball Podcast episode featuring Eastside Pinball operators

  • The Orange County Pinball League's tournament format was originally from The The Pinball Mafia in Chicago

    high confidence · Chris Friebus discussing tournament format sharing with tournament director

  • Works published 1923-1963 are under copyright for 95 years from publication date

    high confidence · Nicholas Baldridge research on copyright duration, relayed by Jared Morgan

  • EM pin-setting equipment in bowling alleys use 2.5 HP motors with cams, gears, and timing rigs designed to run indefinitely with maintenance

    medium confidence · James Willing interview on For Amusement Only podcast, relayed by Jared Morgan

Notable Quotes

  • “if you've got a mammoth game in real life on a table and you say I'm done I need to go away from here now just do something else”

    Chris Friebus @ mid-content — Reflects on burnout dynamics between digital and physical pinball play

  • “It's all about sharing. And it's just interesting that there's different ways of obviously running these tournaments”

    Chris Friebus @ tournament discussion — Emphasizes collaborative ethos within pinball community around tournament formats

  • “if you go in it with an attitude, then you start getting angry when people are beating up on your machine or spill the soda on the machine... it's operational equipment as part of my business”

    Jared Morgan @ operator philosophy — Key insight into mindset shift required for hobby operators to succeed without emotional attachment to machines

  • “there's something to be said about going back and actually playing the EMs... I just played one the other, just this past weekend at our league night”

    Chris Friebus @ EM discussion — Demonstrates active engagement with classic EM pinball in community league play

Entities

Chris FriebuspersonJared MorganpersonNicholas BaldridgepersonJames WillingpersonEastside PinballcompanyBlahCade PodcastorganizationCoinbox Pinball PodcastorganizationFor Amusement Onlyorganization[name withheld pending review]product

Signals

  • ?

    content_signal: Multiple emerging pinball-focused podcasts (Coinbox, For Amusement Only) serving specific niches (operators, EM enthusiasts) indicating diversification and audience segmentation within community media landscape

    high · Jared Morgs highlights discovery of Coinbox Pinball Podcast and praises For Amusement Only as examples of diverse podcast content; notes Australians represent significant listenership

  • ?

    operational_signal: New pinball machines (pro/premium tier) significantly outperform vintage machines in commercial venues; The Walking Dead generating 30% of location revenue despite being non-LE model

    high · Jared Morgs references Coinbox Pinball Podcast data showing The Walking Dead Pro as top earner at 30% of venue revenue, contrasting with older machines in same location

  • ?

    community_signal: Tournament format and league software actively shared between communities; Orange County, Chicago, and emerging operators collaborating on standardized approaches to competitive play management

    high · Chris Frebus describes tournament format sharing: 'It's all about sharing... There's a lot of sharing. I don't think anybody has a problem with that'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Open source tools (GIMP) being applied to pinball restoration (backlash restoration); indicates adoption of accessible digital workflows within collector/restoration community

    medium · Nicholas Baldridge using GIMP for backglass restoration on 1947 Exhibit Mystery and 1937 Ginkgo Jr.; Jared Morgs notes pride in seeing open source adoption in pinball

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Community interest in more realistic EM physics simulation in digital platforms; feedback indicating softer flippers and authentic feel would enhance Pinball Arcade EM gameplay

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.248

0:00
Welcome to the circus! You're listening to the... Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah Blockade Podcast.
0:14
The door's open, so come on in. You are listening to the Blockade Podcast. I am your host, Sugar Trap, a.k.a. Chris Frebus. also joining me from down under as if you couldn't tell by his accent Jared Morgs or as we like to say down here Dan Under I meant awesome yeah that's right and sorry folks it's just us two so get with it so much for two and done because it's two and done The second time as well. Doing down the seagull. Yeah, the second coming. Hey, Jared, speaking of things that go down under, and this happened to make it all the way over to my neck of the woods, I understand you've got a roid-raging kangaroo running around near you.
1:17
Oh, yeah, Skip. In my suburb, which is North Lakes, North Lakes is basically like the... It's affectionately known here in Brisbane as like the baby belt of Brisbane because it's basically just one big suburb full of families living in relatively cheap-ish accommodation, although that's not really even the case anymore.
1:38
It's actually getting pretty expensive to live there because it's becoming really popular as like a hub, I guess. Anyway, yeah, old mate Skippy, he's been here for ages. there's actually a fan what they call a mob of kangaroos collectively that's what you call a kangaroo it's a mob so there's a mob of kangaroos that are inhabiting north lakes in general and you see them more because the developers here are pretty much reclaiming every single pocket of land possible in the state and not really leaving a lot of green space left so the kangaroos being the smart creatures, they go, you know what? I think the golf course would be a good place to go because it's got lots of grass, and kangaroos generally eat grass as one of their primary foodstuffs. So off they go, hopping around the golf course, and I actually even think there's a rule in the golf club rules about encountering kangaroos on the course and what you need to do about dropping a ball. What you need to do is you need to shoot your ball into their pouch.
The Walking Dead
game
Dinergame
Orange County Pinball Leagueorganization
Red Hatcompany
Spooky Pinball Podcastorganization

medium · Chris Frebus noting EM mechanics differ from modern pinball (slower flippers, require different timing); hosts suggest Pinball Arcade EMs need softer flippers and realistic sound effects

  • ?

    regulatory_signal: Uncertainty around copyright duration for pre-1960s pinball artwork; restoration community exercising caution on derivative work distribution despite likely public domain status

    medium · Nicholas Baldridge hesitant to distribute restored 1947/1937 backglass files due to copyright concerns; Jared Morgs confirms 95-year copyright term (1923-1963) meaning these are technically still protected

  • ?

    venue_signal: Hobby venue operating model appears viable with realistic expectations (pocket money rather than fortune); success dependent on community engagement, responsive maintenance, and theme selection

    medium · Jared Morgs exploring hobby operation viability based on Coinbox Podcast insights; notes 'recipe for success' includes location partnership, league management, and community feedback loops

  • ?

    historical_signal: Bowling alley pin-setting equipment (2.5 HP EM systems with cams/gears/timing rigs) demonstrates mechanical reliability engineering principles applicable to understanding EM pinball durability and design

    medium · James Willing interview discussing pin-setter EM architecture; systems designed to 'keep running indefinitely' with maintenance, featuring 2.5 HP motors and timing mechanisms

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Round-robin league format creates strategic gameplay variance where later players have informational advantage; some players exploit this by draining deliberately after securing winning score

    high · Chris Frebus noting fourth player advantage and observing players drain deliberately after surpassing competition: 'as soon as they surpass the other three players, they just let the ball drain'

  • ?

    content_signal: Spreadsheet automation for tournament management dramatically reduces administrative overhead from 4 hours to 15 minutes; indicates optimization of community tournament infrastructure

    high · Chris Frebus reporting new spreadsheet-based system closed tournament and posted results in 15 minutes vs. previously 2 AM+ finish times after 10 PM closure

    • 2:48
    And you get a holy word. Exactly. You're looking target. That's worth a pint, right? Totally. Yeah, that's definitely worth a shout from the drinks cart as it rolls around. So, yeah, I've seen the footage. I can't believe this has made it overseas to you guys. Now, here's the thing.
    3:09
    Because the pictures that we saw, I mean, I swear, this kangaroo looks like a Bench 450. have you seen the internet meme do you even lift bro with the kangaroos that are going around it's just like that isn't it he's a big boy this guy ok so he is abnormally built compared to the other kangaroos that are bouncing around well he's a male so the male's always more stockier because they have to protect the mob but do the kangaroos usually have a six pack and knuckle dusters on their claws.
    3:50
    You want to go, mate? You want to go? Come on. Somebody posted a video of, and I don't know where it was, it was some backyard zoo, basically, but they had a very large stuffed animal hanging from a rope. The kangaroo was in the backyard. There was also these ring-tailed lemurs bouncing around, and the kangaroo was beating the ever-living snot out of this hanging stuffed animal. Just punching it and kicking it. And the lemurs, they kept on wanting to get in on the action, but if they got too close to the kangaroo, the kangaroo would just kind of look at it, and then they'd scamper off.
    4:25
    And all I could think of was this thing on the golf course going, come on, come on, come get your ball, come on.
    4:35
    Come on, just take a shot. Take a shot, copper. I dare you. I'll have you. Yeah, he was a big boy. And the footage that I think you saw that you would have seen overseas is that he was between all those little estates that we have, usually all front out to this main road that runs around the estate.
    4:58
    And you have these little footpaths that lead into each estate from the main road. and he was standing in one of those little footpath areas blocking the way. And honestly, they're big creatures, but they generally don't like to fight you. Like, they're not going to walk up and say, you, me, outside, now, and start having a fight. But they're going to, you know, you do have to approach, treat kangaroos with a bit of respect. I mean, they're big creatures, incredibly strong. the legs are designed to disembowel. So when kangaroos fight, they will actually balance on their tails and kick.
    5:47
    And the claws are sharp. They will actually... The end goal when the kangaroos fight is to actually disembowel their opponent because that will pretty much render them useless.
    6:00
    Because kangaroos' hands are so small, they can't gather up all their guts and put them back in. They're like raptors, you know, with their little hands, little tiny hands.
    6:11
    You can't see, but I'm doing a little raptor. See, this just gives further proof that every single thing in Australia wants to kill you.
    6:18
    Yep. Well, come down to us. You'll have some fun. And see some wildlife and see it, and then be fish. And then run in a horror. Cardio is important here as Australia because you need to run away a lot. but I was just thinking when I saw that footage I was going oh now all the Americans are going to be going right so why didn't it have a saddle on because don't you use that for transport down there no Australians don't use kangaroos for transport and like you know as in like you know powered Mad Max style transport exactly yeah put a saddle on it and start running it around speaking of Mad Max did you do your due diligence did you go see Mad Max I haven't yet I went not a second time Jared well I'm living vicariously through you I think at the moment I really want to go and see it two kids and yeah not age appropriate movie for them to take along and go and see I still want to go and see it though something else but we'll get to that in just a couple of minutes yes That's easier.
    7:30
    I know something I do want to talk about. And it happens to be, as some of you podcast listeners might know, we do a thing called Table of the Week. I know. Surprise.
    7:43
    Because we don't talk about it enough. So we do the Table of the Week every week on the Pinball Arcade fan forum. and this current week's table is Diner, which most of season three and four I haven't really played, mainly because by the time I got it on Steam, I was kind of behind the ball and then I knew that I was going to be doing the table of the week and then just kind of went, ah, screw it, save it for when we're actually playing it and then I can look at it with fresh eyes and really go whole hog on it. So Diner, apart from throwing it in and going, oh yeah, it's the sequel to Taxi. Uh-huh, more or less. I didn't really give it much of a second thought. So this week I'm actually really playing it.
    8:31
    And man, if the tuning on that thing isn't as close to, I don't know what the real diner plays like, but just how a real pinball table treats you, in terms of it drains out of both outlanes, it drains down the center, It does wacky bounces that you aren't able to necessarily predict with how it's coming down. I mean, Far Say really did an excellent job of making this thing play phenomenal.
    9:02
    Yeah, I have to admit that when it was being beta tested, I thought, oh, yeah, sort of like another, what is it, System 11 game with shallow rules and just complete all the people and get the burgers and whatever. I mean, really, it's like another taxi. And, you know, sometimes that's what you want when you're playing a game. You just want another taxi. You know, a simple game that you can just switch off and just shoot, you know. But at the time, I just wasn't really captivated by it, and I kind of just let it slide. So I'll let you, I'll admit something here, Chris, and that is that I, in the table of the week, I generally don't play them. I just phone it in when it comes time to do a tournament and go you know what let's give it a go I've actually I don't expect everybody to play table of the week by no stretch of the means you know I only play it as long as I play it as long as I can get to the wizard goal once I have all my wizard goals unless I'm really having a good time on the table I'm pretty much done so that's because there's only so much of the table I can handle before I'm like usually with me doing the wizard goals it's sitting down for two hours straight just pounding on it so by the time I get it I'm so relieved I'm just like I'm done with this thing I don't want to touch it again you know it really is like if you've got a mammoth game in real life on a table and you say I'm done I need to go away from here now just do something else Yeah, it's true. It's the same thing, really. That's why I get angry at certain tables when it takes me the entire week to get the goal. I'm like, nah.
    10:53
    Yeah, I know. It's full on, right? Unless, again, of course, unless the game is actually fun in and of itself.
    11:00
    There's been some tables I've been happy to just continue playing. So what are the... I know I'm putting you on the spot here. what are the tables that will be featuring the tournament for, what is it, July? June? Is it June or July? Yeah, June. What is the June table lineup at the moment? Well, you are putting me on the spot because I've got to think. We're going to be doing – There's going to be Diner. Yeah, there's Diner.
    11:28
    There's Harley-David. Oh, that's right. That's what I always think about with that table just because I'm just like, son of a bitch, I've got to play this table?
    11:37
    Yeah, I'm going to move around. there's that, there's Ripley's Ripley's, yeah that's another one that I can't really get in I know you love it I just haven't found the love for it yet maybe it's because it desperately needs a graphical overhaul and it's just not fun visually for me to place there for that part all over the place because part of the reason why I find it fun is because I can zone out playing it because it is so predictable with where the ball bounces that I just kind of get in this habit zone and it's just all muscle memory going and I find it almost incredibly easy and that's what's pleasing to me about it but on the same hand I wish that it would get amped up in the challenge and have the graphics overhauled exactly it really does, it's so flat yeah and because it's one of the free ones you can play in the launch pack, isn't it? Yeah. Or do they not do that anymore? I don't believe they do the launch pack anymore.
    12:44
    I know on Steam it's now just part of season one. Okay. Yeah, okay. Yeah, I'm sure things have changed in that regard, because it has been like four years.
    12:54
    You would hope that they'd finally condense it down to something that makes sense and not, you know, here's your free table that you need to download, but then you can pay an extra this to get the initial four-pack, but then if you want a Season 1, the Season 1 does not include the initial four-pack. Yeah, that's confusing. Yeah, that's just confusing.
    13:12
    It's kind of like how as much as it sucks that they ditched the on certain platforms, you used to be able to buy tables individually or excuse me, in the double packs or whatever and now it's only individual. I don't know, but I'm just so long as it's all unified and codified, I'm happy.
    13:29
    Yeah, me too. It makes it simple. I've dealt with a lot of people having questions but oh yeah so we've got Ripley's we've got Harley Davidson we've got Diner and we have Eldorado City of Gold ah that's right the drop target queen that thing is hard to get all the drop targets down on wait is that correct yes that's correct I think so yeah part of my confusion is that I know that we're like two weeks ahead of what the tournament tables will... We'll have two more tables by the time the next tournament starts and so that gets me kind of confused.
    14:14
    But yeah, that's what they are. Speaking of, the tournament will be on June 27th. Signups will start on June 24th. So we'll talk a little bit more about the tournament later, but just get that quick bit of info out in case people go Thanks! Came here for what I wanted! Bye! that's cool yeah um so how did it go running it last month with the new spreadsheet oh my god it let's see i closed the tournament and about 15 minutes later had the entire thing posted wow that's awesome yeah and essentially what most of that 15 minutes was comprised of was me shuffling the post itself because I create the groupings and results page and then I just go back and edit it after the fact. So me editing it, placing things where I want them to be placed, that's what takes more time because the spreadsheet is just copy and paste. That's all I do. I mean, I literally push like three buttons, boom, there's my data.
    15:32
    And then the rest of it is me just tweaking the post itself. So, yeah, no, it flew with how quickly. And we had a fairly good turnout, but we also had, I think, 11 people that signed up that didn't post any scores.
    15:50
    And so there was a – It's frustrating. It is frustrating, but that was part of the genius of the spreadsheet is it makes it really easy for me to just drag and drop names back into new groupings.
    16:02
    Some people get angry with where they get grouped because they were expecting to be with a certain group of people and all of a sudden they're with a different grouping of people.
    16:14
    And it literally is me just randomly grabbing names and dropping them in slots until I have all my brackets filled up again. There's not much rhyme or reason to it. I'm not saying like, oh, I'm going to purposely screw this person and put them in here. I don't even bother looking at the scores of people's tables until after I've done that because I don't want to be influenced by that because the way the groupings were initially put was for it to be random also.
    16:46
    Yeah. I guess the great thing is that the spreadsheet makes it easy now, whereas before it really was.
    16:56
    Automation is the key, right, with everything. Otherwise, I closed the tournament at 10 o'clock at night and then get to work on it, and the one time it was 2 in the morning when I finally finished posting everything. So you can imagine the frustration that was. hey on on the subject of um automation and stuff like that i've been listening to another podcast called um the coin coin box podcast which is a couple of operators um out of eastside pinball talking about you know hobby operating it's in itself it's really interesting to hear that because i was thinking of doing that here in brisbane um so it's kind of like i asked a question on the pinheads pinball podcast about operating new equipment versus old and sort of like value for money versus reliability and the whole show practically just it covers that in depth and um from what i've seen at the moment their top earner is the walking dead like 30% of their revenue is the walking dead um and that's a pro that's not even le that they're running there So it goes to show if you have new equipment on site. They had some old tables as well, but the new equipment is what's earning the big bucks. So that's interesting. But what they're doing is they run a league, of course, as part of their site location at the bowling alley they're in. And they've actually got their own league software that they're using, that they've written themselves.
    18:28
    And from the latest episode, which is five, they're actually looking at releasing that to a wider audience after they've done some more testing on it so it's actually going to become a thing that you can actually use to run tournaments and apparently according to them it's pretty epic in the way it works I really want to actually have a look at it I might actually contact them and just see what they have and just check it out because I think it's probably going to be a cloud based thing our league that we're running for the tournament of the month is based off of I based it off of what my league that I play on, Realtables, which is from the Orange County Pinball League. I was talking to our tournament director and he said that they got theirs, the format, from the Pinball Mafia in Chicago.
    19:20
    It's kind of a lot of sharing. There is a lot of sharing. I don't think anybody has a problem with that. That's what the Pinball community is all about, really, isn't it? Exactly. It's all about sharing. And it's just interesting that there's different ways of obviously running these tournaments, because also you can always do the elimination brackets, which doesn't work so well online.
    19:46
    That would be real hell to run online. But it works perfectly fine in a live venue. Because the elimination bracket style relies on the fact that you actually know that all the people are actually there at the tournament and are ready to play. It relies on that, whereas online, anything could happen. Well, not to mention that people are playing right there head-to-head, you know? I mean, making a three-player game and switching balls, and so you're directly competing. You can see what score you're trying to get and you're playing against. I mean, that's obviously a much different style. So and the same thing can be said with my league where you know the group of four guys that you playing with obviously whoever goes fourth has the advantage of knowing what score they need to top And so nobody is you know you don get anybody going I going to play the most epic round of pinball ever A lot of times I seen guys when it comes to third ball as soon as they surpass the other three players, they just let the ball drain. They're like, there's no point in playing anymore. You know, I got the points. That's all that matters.
    20:59
    You know, as opposed to grinding it and going nuts. Now, some guys, they can't help themselves. that's right yeah okay anyway that was an aside what were we talking about again torment you were talking about well no you were talking about these guys' podcast right yeah yeah so yeah I've really found it interesting to hear like the aspects of operating tables and what you have to do as a hobby operator to you know balance out you know your love of the hobby versus making money and it has I think it's been a bit dangerous actually me listening to it because it's made me go you know what I could probably do this if I wanted to and basically with essentially the recipe to success that at least these guys have actually had because they seem to be doing pretty well in their location I was thinking of a similar location perhaps this is actually something that I can look at doing with eyes wide open, of course, and not going down the rabbit hole, but just going with the expectations that you're not going to make a fortune out of it, but you're going to make some sort of pocket money out of it. You also, though, have to approach it with the idea, and this is where it gets tricky for the hobby operator, that these machines, you can't look at them as, this is my machine that I'm letting people pay money to play.
    22:28
    No, that's right. If you go in it with an attitude, then you start getting angry when people are beating up on your machine or spill the soda on the machine or whatever happens to the machine. You start blaming these very people that paid money to play your machine. Essentially, it's just equipment. You have to take the emotion out of it and say, it's operational equipment as part of my business. And I think that's the tricky part.
    22:55
    I think in closing, I think the biggest takeaway that these guys have is just being engaged with their community seems to be the biggest thing that I've got out of this thing. Always listening, always reacting to feedback, being attentive when there's problems, and they've actually got a really nice system around reporting faults with machines. And, of course, it comes down to having a good site as well that's kind of also passionate about the pinball.
    23:25
    And, yeah, it's been really interesting. It's been five episodes of great listening. I really want to give a hat tip to the guys. I think it's – I'll be talking about – I don't know. This might be a good segue into another sort of podcast-related discussion I was having as well. But, yeah, I really like the variety of podcasts, pinball podcasts out there at the moment because each podcast I think gives – That is called The Coin Box. Let me just open up my phone because it's actually loaded at the moment as an episode. I've got this great little app on Android called Pocket Car it's called the Coinbox Pinball Podcast and it's run by Eastside Pinball the guys that actually operate Eastside Pinball so yeah it's great, loving it, really loving it so check it out alright I might just have to do that yeah the other one which we may as well talk about now as well is there's been yet another podcast released called For Amusement Only and this is produced by a really passionate guy called Nick Baldridge, and he's a massive fan of EM and pinball,
    24:34
    EM and bingo pinballs. I mean, down here in Australia, this is, I have no idea about bingos. We just don't see them down here unless they're tucked away in a collector's collection.
    24:50
    So listening, the thing I love about Nick's podcast is that he covers some gameplay aspects of how to actually play certain titles. All the features that bingos have, which is just insane. The amount of, I'll call it programming, but in fact it's actually mechanical computing really with EMs that they've been able to put into these games. It boggles my mind how many features they've been able to implement with mechanics and relays and timing wheels and all this other stuff, it just, as a geek, I'm listening to it going, it's awesome.
    25:29
    So there was one episode that really, it actually got me to pick up the keyboard, so to speak, and email Nick because he was talking about in episode 23, which was bingos and the law, the episode was, and he was talking about restoring one of his pinball back glasses because it was just not in good shape, which is pretty common for bingos and even EMs of that era.
    25:58
    And he was talking about using open source software to do the restoration of the glass. So, I mean, this is something that listeners that have known me for a while will understand that I actually work for Red Hat, and Red Hat's an open source software company. and Nick was talking about using the GNU image manipulation program or GIMP as it's called and you have to understand that I'm sure that the developers of that particular app made that acronym possible.
    26:33
    How can we make it, how can we call it the GIMP? The GNU image manipulation program, yeah that'll do, that makes it so you can use GIMP. yeah exactly right i see it all the time like government departments are classic for it like they use they actually craft the name around the cool acronym they've got right um so anyhow he was talking about how he was using gimp to do backlash restoration and um i sent an email just saying it was really proud i was really proud to hear that he went down that path and was using open source software to do that.
    27:10
    And I also asked him whether he made the files available to other EM and Bingo fans out there. And he gave me a really great response. He thanked me for the feedback, of course.
    27:26
    And apparently, Australians actually make up a fairly large percentage of his listenership, which is pretty cool. I think Australians down here are used to getting their information from the US, so we're pretty accustomed to listening to podcasts, and that's just how we consume things down here because we are so far away from everything.
    27:50
    And I actually mentioned in my email that the closest thing that I've ever played to, I guess, a bingo would have been Safecracker
    27:59
    because it actually has, in a way, a payout feature, which a lot of the bingos pretty much do. And it turns out that Safecracker is actually one of Nick's modern favorites as well. And he actually had one close to him, which I'm incredibly jealous about. I'd love to go and play that cable again in real life. Sadly, I don't think I'd actually have any tokens in it anymore because I don't know if they even make reproduction tokens anymore, probably. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know either. But yeah, apparently he's being swapped out in the location he has there. But it turns out he's actually a pretty avid Blycade podcast listener as well. So he listens to us rambling on and likes how we actually sort of cover a bit of the EM stuff in the podcast as well. So that's pretty sweet. Good to get that feedback. Although we usually mock it.
    28:48
    Well, I think in the last couple of episodes, we were actually going, you know, it'd be really great to see the EMs in Pimble Blycade with softer flippers and more realistic sound effects and stuff like that. And, you know, while the gameplay isn't perhaps as vibrant as some of the other tables, there's something to be said about going back and actually playing the EMs. You know, I just played one the other, just this past weekend at our league night.
    29:18
    And, okay, what was it called? Starpool, I believe. Okay. It was a, again, stupid EMs. It was a pool-themed table in that it had the classic rack of pool balls, and that's about where it ended.
    29:42
    Yeah. It had one of the classic sort of re-themes. Yeah, it had a spinning wheel in the middle that was kind of similar to what Toten has. and it had four drop targets in A, B, C, and D at four different spots on the table that if you knock those down then you got double the bonus. And I'm telling you that's like all there was to this table. There was nothing much to the table at all. It had the hungriest outlaying you've ever seen. One of the guys playing, it literally went in the exact same outlaying four times in a row on him.
    30:21
    That's called consistency, Chris. Yeah, but it didn't catch the rest of us. It was also one of these tables that I, on my final ball, where all I needed was like an extra, I don't know, maybe 800 points to secure my second place finish. And it tilted with me basically sneezing on the table. I barely tapped the table and it tilted. and all I can figure is the guy before me who played, when he finished his ball, he might have given the table a whack until the plumb ball was still swinging. I don't know. But the thing that I took away from it was when I went to go catch the ball and hold the flipper up, you're hearing that audible hum, and you're almost like you start getting worried that if I hold this too long, the machine's going to just smoke. and then when you do go and flip the ball, there's such a different feeling to the flippers than modern flippers because it's not as fast, it's not as hard.
    31:34
    If you wait for the ball to get to the edge, to the tip of the flipper before you flip, it's probably going to drain because there's just not enough speed on the flipper to knock it the way you normally would.
    31:47
    I think that the EMs in Tin Ball Arcade would be much more entertaining if the flippers were as what real EMs flip like.
    32:00
    Definitely give that sense. Yeah, I think you're right. So yeah, the two tables that Nick did the restorations on with the GIMP were his 1947 exhibit mystery and a 1937. 37? 1937? How old is that table? It's amazing. Ginko Jr. So he has these two back glasses that he's pretty much touched up now and he's... I said, why don't you just post them? He goes, I'm just a bit freaked out by the copyright aspects of that. And I said, come on, man. It's 1947 and 1937. No one's going to care. No, no. Surely we've gotten into public domain on those, right? I mean... Apparently not. So from... It's actually, like, Nick did his research, and it's actually 95 years from publication for works published between 1923 to 1963.
    32:54
    So... Yeah, so they'd still technically be under copyright if someone wanted to pursue them for it, but the chances of that happening, which he openly admits, is pretty slim. But he's just erring on the side of, you know, caution, which is fair enough, too.
    33:09
    So, yeah, and one of the later episodes he did too was kind of, it was with James Willing, who, if you listen to Spooky Pinball Podcast, is the dungeon master in the EM dungeon. And number one, it was interesting to hear him out of character because he actually does have a character on that show that he portrays.
    33:31
    And the guy is, I think, 57. James Willing is 57. And he does repairs on not just EMs, but all sorts of tables.
    33:41
    He actually admitted, James, in the interview, admitted that he sort of might be breaking the illusion that some people have of him up on the Speaky Pinball podcast. But it was a long interview, which is quite different for the way that Nick usually does his podcasts, which are small, digestible chunks of information. He usually just covers one topic in each podcast and moves on. but the thing that I found really interesting with the James Willing interview was that James works in well had worked in a bowling alley and talking about EMs basically the pin setting equipment in bowling alleys are basically one massive EM electrical device yeah there's no circuitry and there's this one two point I think he said it was a 2.5 horsepower motor turning constantly and cams and gears and timing rigs and stuff like that um and everything is just they're just designed to keep running indefinitely basically as long as you maintain them they just keep running indefinitely and um it's kind of fascinating to to see so they're the old um the the new i forget the name of the old um pin setters but the new amf ones which is sort of semi like circuitry now because you know with all the screens and stuff overhead that track your score and stuff i think that had to make some changes but just the fact that you know these things are just one massive electromechanical device just blew me away it was really interesting it turns out that nick will be having james back on to talk more about pin set this later because it's such an interesting topic anyhow that's my shout out to nick thank you very much nick for doing what you do. It's an incredibly detailed podcast series that you're producing and I just wanted to make sure you get a good shout out on the show because it's great. It's really interesting to listen to you and listen to your thoughts.
    35:36
    Unlike ours. Well, I think we have our own thoughts. Whether people like to listen to it or not is another thing.
    35:45
    Apparently we do have people who like to listen to it, which is always surprising to me, but I'm happy for it. Which is nice. We like that. Yeah.
    35:53
    Speaking of thoughts, you talked about it previously, and I think you were wanting to talk about it again, but Jared does Yelp reviews,
    36:06
    and apparently he has something he wants to talk about this time. Yeah, I did. I decided to branch out and have a look at a different place this time in the city, and it's a place called the Snag Stand. The thing that it's basically they tout themselves as a gourmet hot dog stand, or as they like to call them, hot dogs, as in hot cuisine. Hot hot dogs. Hot cuisine. Yeah.
    36:32
    The branding on this place is basically the shop is all yellow, and it's yellow and black, and they've got, like, you can get burgers there. They've got, like, pulled pork and stuff like that and all different sorts of hot dogs. And the one I had was pretty nice. It was a, I think it was the American. It had like a sort of a general wiener style thing with like pickle spears and cheese and tomato and all the good things. I think it had some like jalapenos on there too. So it was like they just piled the stuff on this hot dog. And it was that good. My mate, Scott, who I work with, he came out with me. We always used to go for a wander at lunch to get out of the office. And he went, okay, so I'll let you in on a secret. I'm a really big hot dog fan, and I could actually quite happily just live on hot dogs, he says. So I now know where to come if I actually want to have a pretty delicious hot dog and get my hot dog fixed. So this place is a thing for us now. I think I might even go there after lunchtime today. Now, let's clarify what an Australian hot dog, though, is. because when I was in Sydney, I had a hot dog, and it was probably one of the most disgusting things I'd ever had.
    37:52
    Yeah. It depends where you had it. Yeah. This hot dog, it was more like when you bit into it, it just kind of oozed out of the casing.
    38:07
    Yeah. It didn't have any kind of firmness or meat, like, feel in the mouth. It instead was like biting into a tube of toothpaste. Gelatinous goo. Yeah, it was really quite disturbing.
    38:23
    Yeah, so it was one of those sort of like red casing sort of like Stavroids style thing, weaners. I think they're probably called that in the U.S., yeah. this one was actually I think it was sort of like a wiener style but didn't have the casing on the outside of it and it did actually have some like texture to it like the sausages are actually from I'll see if I can see from the sign but they actually are from like they tell them to be from like master butchers which is like a thing here in Australia so they're not like your sort of cereal like basically you know what they call lipsticks and ass for the sausages that you get with the weaners with just like, you know, offal in them, basically. Like, these are actually proper meat. Okay. And they were really, it had a really nice, well-seasoned, really nice-flavored snags. And, yeah, like everything about them. That's what you guys call them, huh? Snags. Yeah, yeah, mate. Throwing out the snag in the barbie. We don't put shrimps in the barbie anymore. Like, Hoag's, like, tried to do in the 80s. but yeah it's mostly sausages and steaks over here in Australia we like to cook shrimps or prawns as they're actually called here not shrimps they usually stay off the barbecue generally so I'm assuming that since you're planning on eating there and going back that you've got a pretty outstanding Yelp review from you yeah it's actually it's on my it's on my long list of things to do but yes I do need to I've got the pictures of my tablet here at the moment and I really do need to put up a Yelp review for these guys. I'll go back again today and maybe just make sure I got everything right and then I'll do the Yelp review today. It's always good to try things again, you know? Yes. Yes, you've got to make sure, you know. It's not a long off, right? Yeah. And on the subject of food, I nearly reached through my tablet and stabbed you when you were talking about a double-double animal style in the diner. when I was there last year I actually went all the way down to the pier at San Fran and went to that lovely lovely establishment and oh man it was great and yes I still long for the double double animal style with the Neapolitan shake it was great so good yeah so yeah screw you I know I have one within less than 10 minutes from my house, and I rarely go.
    40:58
    It's one of those things that comes right for you. You don't think twice about it. If it's halfway across the world, you do. Yeah, that's all you can think about.
    41:08
    Yeah, totally. Anyhow, see you, hot dogs and burgers. There you go. Hey, you know, so I was mentioning that I just had my pinball league, and I got to mess around with some brand new tables You were mentioning Walking Dead Guess what was there? Walking Dead. And he had the LA. I got to play the Walking Dead LA. Oh, nice. And, you know, that was, because I've heard some people say they're not that impressed with it,
    41:43
    and I was having a pretty good time on it. there are some tricky shots on it. There's some... This one shot, basically there's a barn at the top, just off center of the table. I think I call it. It's where they lock up all the zombies, apparently. Yeah, yeah. So you hit the front of that and it flips open and then a zombie head pops out. And then you continue to whack the zombie head a couple of times, and that's what's going to start your multiball. The tricky part about it is, it is a straight down the middle death if you don't hit it correctly.
    42:26
    Ah, right. And there's also, and I thought I loved the touch of it, they have the, if you watch the show, there was the zombie that fell down the well and got just a wee bit soggy. So that when they pulled it up, he split in half and gooed all over the place. So they've got that zombie on the table. And if you whack him, he's on a spring and he rocks back. And it's when he rocks back that you can see his guts.
    42:57
    And it's just a quick glimpse. Just an ever so quick glimpse. But it's just the perfect amount of time for you to go, ugh!
    43:07
    There's a couple of little gross elements, especially in the DMD animation. There's some good old violence. I jokingly asked Chris Enright, who is one of the color DMD guys, and he's our tournament director. And I was like, so when are you going to color this one? And he's like, I don't even want to do this one. We're like, why?
    43:29
    And he's just like, I don't have the stomach to do this one. Yeah, that's pretty graphic stuff. I'd love to put some more time on The Walking Dead. It looks like a great table. So it was a lot of fun. It did have the, because it's the LE, it had the crossbow feature, which I got to shoot it, and I saw a couple of other people shoot it, and none of us could make a shot with it.
    43:54
    Right. It wasn't like Terminator with its cannon where it's kind of easy to aim. There was something delayed the reaction. I don't know what it was, but nobody was making shots with it.
    44:07
    It doesn't help either when the table has brand new rubber and the slightest grays of the pinball, and the pinball goes craning in a different direction.
    44:18
    So, it was rather grippy that way. And it had some mods, and I'll talk about mods in a moment, but I want to touch upon the other brand new table that was sitting in there. It was the Medieval Bandits reproduction.
    44:35
    Oh, nice. Very nice. When I saw the table, I was like, I wonder if that is. I don't. I'm looking around. There wasn't a single piece of Williams branding on this thing. And I went, it's got to be the reproduction.
    44:50
    Oh, I see. That's the giveaway. Ah, right. Okay. So what is the branding on it? Is it? So no branding at all.
    45:01
    Oh, okay. Interesting. Yeah. I was expecting it to be some company's branding on it. Nope. All it was, all it said was Medial Madness all over the place. And that was, that was it. Um, Oh, okay. Interestingly enough, because I had beaten the wizards on El Dorado City of Gold, like, within two days, and I'd gotten it in my head to play Medieval Madness for some reason, because I'd never beaten the video mode or Battle for the Kingdom.
    45:33
    Right. I had read some thread that was talking about if you just shoot the castle lock and do castle multiball, that you can increase your score massively and by default work your way through all the modes to eventually get to Battle for the Kingdom.
    45:54
    And I'll be damned if my first three games weren't all at least double what my high score previously had been. And it was a fantastic technique, and it worked really well, and that got me motivated to, okay, I'm going to see if I can get Battle for the Kingdom. And, yes, I did. So thank you. That's cool. And I also beat the video mode, which, again, I was totally stoked. And my high score wound up being like 760 million, which I know is a drop in the bucket to some of these guys. But when your previous high score was 320 million, that's pretty darn good.
    46:27
    Yeah, for sure. But so anyway, it's kind of one of those things that I'm always worried about if I have just played extensively a table on TPA, and then I go to the tournament, and that table is there. Because your muscle memory, it tends to mess you up. Because obviously a real table is not going to play the exact same way. And this Medieval Madness, holy cow, was it bouncy.
    46:56
    Oh, really? Was it just the rubbers they had on there? Like it was so new and shiny that the rubbers were all fresh? Yeah, no, the rubbers, I mean, I'll put it to you this way. Most of the high scores for the tournament, like where most people were ranking, were right around 8 million.
    47:14
    Right. That's pretty low. Pretty dang low, right? Yeah, yeah. I know it's a tough table. In real life, it's not an easy table to play. The higher scores were usually in the 20 millions. but there would only be like one or two of those.
    47:30
    I did see somebody score 80 million, and you could tell they suddenly figured it out and got the rhythm. But again, it was like if you just grazed a post wrong going up the ramp, it wasn't going up the ramp. It would bounce and rattle around.
    47:47
    The kick out from, well, not necessarily the kick, but after you do the pop bumpers and the ball rolls down the right side, You know, in TPA, you hold up your right flipper, it'll catch the ball just perfectly fine. So here it comes rolling down, it hits my flipper, and immediately bounces over to the left flipper.
    48:07
    And, I mean, I think that's where the ball spin came into place. Where the way the ball was rolling was very similar to what Pimble Arcade was doing, But then you could tell that it was how the ball spin was affecting based off of how it touched the rubber and everything. It would then go careening in different directions. So catching the ball on this table was exceedingly difficult. So everything was on the fly with the ball rolling. Which I guess is arguably the way you play Medieval Madness because there's a flow table.
    48:45
    Yes and no. I do a lot of catching on that table. I mean, I do a lot of catching on that table. Let's put it to you this way. in order to shoot the castle lock consistently, you're going to need to be catching it on that right flipper.
    48:58
    I agree with you on that. Shooting it on the fly is really difficult. So here I had spent a couple of days doing nothing but catching, and now all of a sudden I'm having to play flow.
    49:08
    So it was really tricky, but all in all, the table looked fantastic, and it looked really great. Here is where the discussion is going to shift a little bit. Those two tables, as well as a couple of others, had mods put onto them to various degrees.
    49:32
    So Medieval Madness had the kind of mod that I don't like. And that is where it looks like they went to the local toy store and found some medieval figurines and glued them to the table and maybe attached a light bulb to them.
    49:49
    And that's it, right? I don't care for that. And one of the reasons why I don't care for that is one of these was right near the castle gate. And the drawbridge, you know, going up and down. Well, the drawbridge got caught on because of so much bouncing of the pinball. One of the figurines had shifted a little bit. And then the drawbridge got caught on that. And so the drawbridge was no longer raising or lowering. So fortunately, the game goes into the default mode of what happens when the drawbridge or the gate ceases to work anymore. But it was that kind of thing. That's frustrating. It just cheapens the look of the table. I don't care for that.
    50:32
    Mods are fine, I guess. Mods are fine to put on. But if they start to affect gameplay, they need to come off immediately.
    50:41
    There's no way I'm on it. Even if they affect the art. I don't like it when it looks like, like I said, when it looks like you just went to the toy store and put something on. Conversely, the Walking Dead, he had purchased the guard tower. Oh, yes, from Measle Mods. I think that's really nice. Yeah, it looks pretty cool. He had purchased the, what do you call them, the cabinet rails that hold the glass in. Mirror blades?
    51:10
    No, no, no, on the outside. On the outside of the cabinet. Anyway, they sell it so that instead of it being plain black, it looks like it's blood splattered.
    51:19
    Oh, yes, the armor. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he had that. I'm trying to think if there was another mod on there. But anyway, those, they completely integrate into the table so that you don't even realize.
    51:36
    They look like they belong there, you know what I mean? There was, we had a getaway there. and I've seen some getaways where they put in the donut shop.
    51:50
    Yeah. And that's just where the ball lock is, and now you don't see the balls, you know, because the donut shop is hiding it. And I think that's, I like it when it's integrated like that. This particular getaway had a different translate that was semi-not safe for work. I saw it on Twitter. Yeah, there was a rather plunging neckline on two gals standing next to a car. yeah that was on Twitter I was going oh man that table looks fantastic like that and was the biggest thing with that particular game is the supercharger now were all three accelerator magnets working in that thing or was it just one or two so all three were just flying around there it's so good when all three are working it basically if you've got a getaway out there on location just go and buy replacement magnets for that supercharger. It completely changes the way that game plays. It's just amazing. I reckon that we'd be doing those balls with full magnets and everything configured correctly. I reckon they'd be doing at least 100 kilometers an hour around that loop if you clock them with a speed gun.
    53:00
    Possibly. To scale, definitely. I know the Attack from Mars that was there had the mirror blades, which I think mirror blades just look cool. They look great on the table.
    53:12
    And then the Metallica table that was there. Like I said, I get to play all sorts of new tables. They had a Tron there too, but I'm not a fan of that table, so I'm not going to talk about it.
    53:22
    Although, again, you know what? He did have a mod on that in terms of he had the arcade. There's a little arcade cabinet on there, and he had the full monitor working on that. Oh, wow, that's cool. Yeah, that looked pretty cool. That looked pretty awesome.
    53:43
    Now then, the Metallica, the guy that owned that table, had completely redesigned the back of the table, the back panel, and had added in his own artwork, which was skull heads and lights, but he had also put in these arcing plasma circles. so it would give this cool lightening effect going on.
    54:12
    He's actually going this was the prototype and I think he was mentioning it was going to go into production if all goes well and the difficult part about it though is he says that it's not just a matter of replacing the back panel you also have to replace a wood block that's in there so it's quite involved. but he had also repainted Sparky to look a little different he had gussied up the hammer now I don't know if the on the real game the hammer has spikes but this one did and it looked really medieval and wicked that's cool and so that's the kind of I can totally get on board with where it's just like yeah you can go in there and paint and make things look a little bit better kind of like what they did on Scared Stiff when people started painting the bony monster to look like real bones instead of just painting regular. I'm all for that. I did have an idea, though, for Walking Dead that I think needs to happen, and that is on the top glass, make a double-paned glass, and then just every now and then squirt some red blood or liquid. Yeah, fake dye that would just kind of ooze down the glass.
    55:32
    And then randomly get re-injected. And then, yeah, it would cycle through and then, you know, it was like, you know, hey, that'd be appropriate on the table. I also had the thought with that table, is it the one table that you could let get dirty and it wouldn't look bad?
    55:46
    No, that's true. Because everything was dirty. The biggest complaint people have about that table, the biggest complaint people have about that table, and this is for all versions, is just how it dribbles out of the pops. and how it can actually be quite variable when it dribbles out of the pops past the well walker.
    56:04
    Apart from that, it seems like it would actually shoot really well. Yeah, it had interesting shots. It was varied from where you needed to shoot. I felt like I was using both flippers.
    56:18
    I rather enjoyed it. And I got to say, because this is me when I look at these tables, there's not a single actor on that table. it's only zombies. There's not a single actor. It's only zombies. There's not a single actor in the DMD. There's no actor voices on this thing. I'm like, holy crap. This thing needs to come to pinball arcade because you're not having to pay off anybody except for AMC for AMC. Exactly. I think, I wonder if this was strategic on Stan's part. I wonder if they're actually thinking, you know, do we actually start making this game with the view of digitization later on and making that license easier to obtain?
    57:03
    Because I know they have been talking about it for a while going into digital and I think I heard on another podcast recently that... On Twitter right now, Stern, well by the time this comes out this won't be the case but Stern is at a licensing convention right now and they were like, hey what license should we do next? And so I made sure I tweeted that, well, whatever license you do next, make sure you put TPA into the contract. Yeah, totally. Yeah, digital pinball as well for the win. That would be great. Because they also had, at our league, they also had Jurassic Park. I took a look at that, and that has like every single actor in it on the table. Yes, that's right. That was back in the days when you do the license pin, you kind of went all in and just licensed all the things. If you think about it, though, think about Jurassic Park without all of the actor references in it. I don't know whether it would actually work or not as a theme, as a table at that era. It would lose.
    58:02
    Not necessarily visually would it lose, but all the call-outs, the voice acting in it, they would definitely lose.
    58:12
    I know that Dada East back in that age often used voice actors to substitute the real actor voices. just yeah because I know that the in Back to the Future that is not Michael J Fox doing a voice no it's pretty clear it's not even on the back glass yeah that's right yeah so I think back then they were getting around that problem as well but you're actually using voice actors but yeah interesting yeah so there you go I think we're going to make this podcast rather shorter than last time. I think we used up an extensive amount of time last time, but I do want to touch since we hinted about it. Let's talk about the movie Jerry did go see instead of Mad Max.
    59:01
    Yeah, that's right. We had an anniversary, my wife and I, and I thought, well, let's go to the movie theater. We got this really great little movie theater that's a bit of a drive away from us, but it's essentially like, I don't know if you guys have this over in the US, but it's like gold class, where you have sort of the big chairs and they bring you in food and drinks and stuff.
    59:21
    Yeah, that sort of stuff. Well, this is sort of like the, I won't call it the poor man's version of Goldcast because if you go to the proper brand name Goldcast cinemas, you're paying 30 bucks just for the movie. And then on top of that, you're paying like exorbitant prices for the food and drinks. But this place is called Blue Room Cine Bar and they actually keep things affordable. You don't have the big recliners and everything like that, but the seats are really comfortable, and they bring you in food and drinks at a reasonable price, and it makes going to the movies affordable and fun. So we decided to go and see Pitch Perfect 2. Ladies and gentlemen.
    60:04
    Yeah, and this was actually something we both agreed on. I wasn't dragged to this at all. You know what? Honestly, I enjoyed the first one, so I wouldn't be dragged to it either.
    60:14
    It was funny as. There's an Australian actor in it called Rebel Wilson who plays Fat Amy, and she's got the best lines in the movie.
    60:26
    But it brings up an interesting thing. If you follow me on Google Plus and all that, you'll probably get the hint that I actually really quite like a cappella as music. And, of course, Pitch Perfect is all about collegiate a cappella in the US. I don't know if that's actually a thing. Did they just make this up for the show? No. Is it a thing that you do at college when you're over there? There are certain... I know in the Ivy League schools for sure it is a thing. Oh, right. Okay. That's cool.
    61:01
    So, yeah, anyhow, the first movie was great. The second movie was just as good. And because I'm well into the music, I actually got the hint that this particular group called Pentatonix were going to be cameoing in the movie. And Pentatonix started off on a US TV show called The Sing-Off, I think it was called. And they took it out, basically. They won the show. And you can actually go on YouTube and watch all their individual performances on the show. They're really good. They're a five-piece with a vocal bassist, a beatboxer who can actually play cello while he's beatboxing. and then like a tenor and um uh i don't know tenor soprano and um a mid um singer and the stuff they're able to do with their voices just blows me away like there's this one clip which i'll probably cut into the show which is of a a daft punk daft punk medley and the the musicality that these guys have is just phenomenal You would not really know that they not using instruments You don miss musical instruments at all with these guys They're amazing. So the whole movie itself is based around, of course, a cappella.
    62:21
    And it was all about the Barden Bellas, who are the sort of primary focus of the movie, going to the World Championships of Collegiate Acapella and their journey along the way, basically. And it was a fun couple of hours. I really don't have a bad thing to say about the movie. It was full of laughs. It was full of great one-liners from Rebel Wilson. And I totally give it at least four stars out of five. So what you're saying is if you want to earn brownie points with the lady in your life and not suffer in the process, it's not a bad call at all you could do worse than actually go and see Pitch Perfect 2 yeah definitely it's not like Crimson or Fifty Shades of Grey or whatever where you're just like oh god kill me no it's actually entertaining it's designed the movie itself is produced in such a way that it's supposed to be entertaining for everybody it's not just like a chick flick or like a dude movie or any of that it's actually just it's just fun you switch off your brain enjoy the music, which is really, really good in it. It might actually change your opinion of acapella if you go and see it, actually. It would be a good introduction to it if you've never sort of exposed yourself to that music before. It's pretty amazing, the technique. So, yeah, that's my movie review. How fun, I get to contribute a movie to the Vlog Game Podcast.
    63:50
    Yeah. Hey, I wanted to squeeze in, because I feel it would be mean if we didn't. Just some of the May Tournament of the Month results just to get them out there. 10th place went to Ernie1977. 9th place was PinballWiz45B. 8th place was In Vitro. 7th place went to SuperDamn. 6th place went to Maggie. Then in 5th, we had Neglectoid. 4th place, Dylan H. And our top three, number three, Viking Eric. Number two, Jay Pelter. and number one was switch three flip um so that's uh how the tourney ran and uh if we look at our uh season results the current leader for the season uh which we only have two more terms go um jay pelter is number one of 148 points two points behind him is gus at 146 and then in third place, we have Dylan H at 140. So the spread is starting to spread much more. I squeaked into 10th place with 127 points. So the difference between 127 and 148, yeah, 21 points between us. That's kind of a gap. That's a fairly big gap. You'll notice that I don't feature in the top 10 this time. Surprise, surprise. The date you do, season to date, you're number 9. I'm clipping at your heels, dude, and you've got 131 points. So I think that's going to be my... I need to bump you up.
    65:24
    I had the most terrible, terrible round that last month. It was just... Yeah, I tried to squeeze it in. It was a really busy day, like family-wise, and I just tried to squeak it in during the day, and my heart just wasn't in it. And I just bombed terribly. I've got no one to blame but myself. But hey, it's only pinball. It was still fun. So, yeah. I think I am going to try something with the tournament on June 27th.
    65:51
    We'll see if it helps with the people that have become no-shows. And that is, there seems to be confusion from when you sign up versus when you're actually able to play.
    66:06
    I thought that I've made it plenty clear that you play only on that Saturday, and that the hours of play I thought I've made those really clear. I think when I'm going to try this time, because basically we're trying things out so that when we go to season two, it just runs perfectly smooth and there's not a change throughout the season. This is called the beta season, as you will. But I think that once I get everything posted in terms of the groupings on that Friday night, as soon as I have the groupings posted, I'll go ahead and flick the switch, basically giving 24 hours of play.
    66:43
    So that will... Yeah, I think that would be really good. That'll help the Euros and help you down under being able to manage your time a little bit better.
    66:53
    It might even allow me – what would be really good for me down here is like maybe actually being able to do the playing in my evening. Because at the moment, it's during the day, and really it's just I can't do it during the day. It's too much stuff, family stuff going on. But if I'm able to do like sit down of an evening, like say from 7 o'clock onwards, like GMT plus 10, for example, and just plug away at the tables. I think that will actually, number one, result in better scores for me, but also allow me to balance the time. Well, my main concern had been with when we first started this was people cheating, basically.
    67:36
    I don't think people are, though. I don't either. I was trying to put in every kind of fail-safe I could think of to minimize people's options of doing that. But by and large, I don't think anybody's been pulling a fast one on us, and everybody's been really embracing the true spirit of Tournament of the Month and how it's being run. So I think it's time to flip that switch and see if it'll work. So that's the announcement that I'm making to you people, that once you see your groupings posted on the Pinball Arcade Fans forum, you may go ahead and play. You can stop playing. It'll still close at the same time on Saturday evening, which is 10 p.m. my time.
    68:21
    But that should give a full 24-hour window that'll help our Euro players. It'll hopefully erase the confusion for anybody that's brand new to the tournament. I guess it really makes sense. It really does make sense if you think about it.
    68:37
    As soon as you've got your groupings, you should be able to play technically because it's a known issue. It's known who you're playing against. So yeah, I think probably in the past that might have been limited a bit by the fact it was just so hard to set them up. But now that you've got the cool spreadsheet, you can just go boom and you're done.
    68:55
    It's a lot simpler in that regard. So I think it's definitely worth testing. And I think, personally, I think it's going to actually probably increase participation. We shall see.
    69:08
    So, yeah, if you need the website links to where to sign up and where to post your scores, follow Blockade on the Twitter, at Blockade. The link is always posted there as soon as it's available on Pimble Arcade Fans Forum, or stalk the forum on Wednesday the 24th. And then the tournament itself is on the 27th. We look forward to playing and enjoying. If you have any questions, if you have any suggestions for the tournament come season two,
    69:46
    like I said, we're kind of refining the rules and everything, but feel free to email us at blahblahblockade at gmail.com. love to hear suggestions and work in anything that makes sense for the tournament might even be worthwhile opening up a thread on that subject on the forum as well just to capture feedback as well ahead of season 2 starting it would be good to actually get people's thoughts now I think we'll do that right around probably in the month of July ok so if people want to jump in now they can do it via email but later on we'll be collecting essentially how do we go I might create some polls or a survey something of that nature to just kind of get where people are I think that's a good idea we have to make sure we continuously improve as far as running this and actually making it relevant to people otherwise there's not much point really is there exactly and I'm kind of getting sick of chasing people down on the day of the tournament where's your scores how can you put your scores in or during sign ups where it's like hey don't Don't forget to sign up. You've got to sign up. I'm almost thinking some people are not signing up until I give them that message, and I can't be doing that. You know, you should actually see if Zanaja can put in an email thing that, if they haven't actually signed up and they've been previously participating, sort of just flick them out an email to their registered email address or whatever. I don't know. Maybe something to think about if it can be done. essentially like a contact management side to the tournament. If I could maintain the exact same link to the signups every month, that would be helpful, but now and then I click a button accidentally and it changes what the address is. Then I have to repost. But I change that posting every place that it is posted in the forum.
    71:48
    Hopefully, I think people just need to... Most of the people are aware there's just a few that need their hand held yeah that's okay we don't mind that we'll accommodate you but so yes please join the tournament and get your shout outs and oh I should mention also last month Farsight came through and gave us some codes for both Xbox One and PS4 Xbox One I was giving away Taf Gold and was also giving away TAF Pro, and for PS4, we are giving away TAF Pro and Adam's Family Ball Packs. I still have those to give away for this next tournament. You don't have to be playing on either of those platforms in order to win.
    72:43
    If you win the codes, do with them what you will. So we do want to thank Farsight for giving us those to pass out to you guys. maybe one of these days we'll be able to give out some Android, iOS, or Steam codes. I don't know. We'll find out. I'm happy with that.
    72:59
    Don't forget to come July's tournament, the final tournament of Season 1. We will be giving away the Randy Macho Man's Shooter Rod from Wizard Amusements. I just talked to Mike at our league, and he was asking about it. I was like, nope, we haven't given it away yet. Don't worry. It's in July. He wants to give one away practically every month. Oh, really? I love his generosity. I do, and I don't want to abuse the generosity, but hey, there's always season two.
    73:30
    Yeah, that's right. Season two, season of abuse. Maybe we'll get some t-shirt action in there at some point, too. Who knows? I keep on threatening it, but then I don't hear anybody in the forum ever talking about dark t-shirts, so I think it's just I want people to want it, and nobody has said they do. I actually really do want one, but I think I might as well just make it up myself and do it locally.
    73:57
    I really do want one. I want to pimp it when I go to the pinball tournaments and stuff like that where my blockade should represent.
    74:06
    Speaking of tournaments and the like, I actually need to openly admit that I effed up in the tradition of the pinball podcast with Don and Jeff. I effed up. last podcast I was talking about Death Valley this new place that's got some location pins from one of my mates who's at a pinball league, Ed from All Pinball and it's actually not Death Valley Records and Tapas, even though that makes sense, it's Death Valley Records and Tapes I think I would actually need to go to Death Valley to kind of get it but I think they're shooting for a retro type advice because tapes i i don't even think you can play those anymore you know but maybe for the audio enthusiasts you might still have a tape deck lying around but anyhow i think i have a tape deck lying around still but the um the thing that i wanted to um mention uh is that these guys are running a uh their first tournament it's the death valley um tournament kickoff and it's going to be happening pretty soon actually. I think it's the June, let me scroll down the page it is well, I know they've actually got some cool prizes so I can talk about that. They've got it says here on the Facebook page, the winner of the Death Valley kickoff can select either a Haunted House reproduction pinball back glass which is valid at $300 or $100 cash. So that's pretty nice. the runner-up receives whatever prize the winner declines and the remaining prize, either the back glass or 50 bucks, will be randomly drawn at the end of the finals at around 9pm you've got to be there to claim that, which is fair enough so and it's not really like an entry fee or anything for this tournament, it's just game fees so purchase of credits and I know that for the final playoff, they'll be on free play. So the finals will be played on free play.
    76:10
    Apparently it's the top score qualifying and it's Herb style. I don't know what Herb style top score qualifying is all about, but I'm sure that if I can manage to get along to it, I'll find out on the night, which is Wednesday, June 17th from 6pm.
    76:28
    And you get WAPA points for this too, IFPA points. points, so it's worth heading along if you're trying to maintain that. Hey, did I tell you that I looked up my walker points?
    76:38
    Oh yeah, how's it going? I'm in like 7,000th place. I don't even want to look at mine. That would be terrible. It would be helpful if I actually entered any of these tournaments other than just playing my monthly league tournament, because you kind of need to be playing a lot in order to actually go anywhere in the whopper points but um yeah somebody somebody looked it up for me i think actually cassandra looked at that for me and uh and because i was mentioning that our league was you know ifpa sanctioned or he's like oh that means you have points i'm like what no and then he's like yeah here you are and i looked up and yeah it's like 7 000 place i'm like nice hey the other thing i wanted to um mention in passing so i just popped into my head then in australia we have um the very first KISS pinball machine on location.
    77:35
    Yeah, they've actually, there's this place down the Gold Coast that I mentioned before, Time Zone, and they pretty much get every new inbox and what they do is they air freight it. They air freight it in a KISS Pro and they have it on site right now. You can play. I'm thinking probably the fact that they actually had to air freight it it's probably like $4 to play. But, you know, we're talking air freight from the US to Australia,
    78:07
    a, what, 300-kilogram pinball machine? Yeah. Something like that. That's not going to be cheap. But they're first in Australia to have it.
    78:21
    He'll just pack them in the crate. That's right. Just chuck them in there. You know, it's a big crate. Exactly.
    78:27
    Plenty of room. underneath the playfield. I found out that the operator mate is actually getting a kiss as well, and I'm not sure what his plans are to do with it, but he'll be getting it and unboxing it in a couple of weeks, so hopefully I get the nod to go over to the place and actually see that and play it for the first time when he's unboxing it. That'd be pretty sweet. I don't know whether it's actually going into Death Valley or not, but it makes sense that it would. But yeah, I'm not sure. I'm sure he'll listen to the podcast and go, oh, yeah, well, maybe not. I don't know. So, yeah, if you're listening, Ed, there's your plug in the apology. So there you go, mate. You know what I like about our show, Jared? We've been trying to wrap it up for 20 minutes.
    79:18
    You know, if we were being played off, like we were at the Academy Awards, the orchestra would have gone home by now. They would have actually played themselves off. So there you go. Yeah, we were shooting for a short time. I can imagine the listeners going, oh, they said they're going to end real soon. Okay, I'll just listen a little bit more. And then they're like, oh, my God, will they ever shut up? So you know what? I think it's time for us to shut up. Shut up. Chris, shut up. Yeah, Jared.
    79:44
    Shut your pie hole. Yeah. I wonder where I've heard that before. Hey, we've already mentioned the website or the web address. We don't have a website yet. Hey, does anybody want to make a website for us? go for it. Um, let us know how it comes out. We've got content. Um, you can email us at blah, blah. Cade at gmail.com. Uh, follow us on Twitter. I am at shut your traps. Jared is at Jared Morgs, or you can follow the blockade at blockade. Um, all information, uh, regarding table of the month or tournament of the month and table of the week always, uh, go through the blockade Twitter account. Uh, I think I've covered everything there.
    80:30
    I think I have. All the social medias. All the social, yeah, all that important stuff that just goes, move along, come on, who cares.
    80:38
    Fundy, who does this? The last thing is that I'll be doing the editing this month for this podcast, so Jeff is, I'm trying to give Jeff a bit of a break, so if it sucks, it's my fault. I like how we saved that for the very end too make him sit through the entire podcast and go what's wrong with this why has the quality gone completely downhill that's right the Aussie's doing it that would explain it we will return next month Jared's got some tech talk that we didn't have time for today but we will certainly get in next time we'll be able to talk about the brand new table that came out on Pinball Arcade which would be Roadshow oh yeah looking forward to that it will be pretty awesome and who knows me and Jared might try and drop hints as to what table number 40 is because we're both just like squealing with joy if it is indeed what we think it is oh yeah it's hard not to say anything it is very hard and yeah I think that'll do it so thank you all for listening hopefully the clue that fast side will drop will make it obvious and then we can go oh yeah well it's this exactly so we can yeah move along to holding our breath about the other three or four tables that we know about yeah that's right alright Jared thank you once again and thank you to our listeners and we'll catch you all next time at the blockade podcast see you later and thanks for listening remember to leave a review on itunes or any podcasting channel blockade is distributed through we can't improve unless you tell us how until next time remember hey it's only pinball
    82:48
    you