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#134 Eightball Deluxe LE - The Classic Pinball Podcast

The Classic Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 15m·held·Nov 20, 2025
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.034

TL;DR

Dave details comprehensive Eight Ball Deluxe (LE) restoration and industry history discussion.

Summary

Dave completes a two-year restoration of an Eight Ball Deluxe (LE) pinball machine for customer Jeff from Ohio, detailing extensive custom work including LED backlighting modifications, CPR playfield replacement, electronics rebuilds, and software customization. The hosts discuss the game's history dating back to Rapid Fire (1982) and subsequent cabinet repurposing through multiple Bally releases, then review listener emails with vintage 1970s pinball top-10 lists and restoration inquiries.

Key Claims

  • Eight Ball Deluxe (LE) restoration took approximately 70 hours of labor and two years total project time

    high confidence · Dave speaking about the specific restoration he completed for customer Jeff

  • Rapid Fire production (1982) consisted of 5,000 units built in April 1982 with Dennis Nordman and Kevin O'Connor involved

    high confidence · Dave citing research documentation prepared before the show

  • Rapid Fire's gun assembly failed in the field—the gun fired at 14 balls per second, causing the tip to melt from friction

    high confidence · Dave referencing Pat Lawlor estimate and management's refusal to include spare guns with machines

  • Eight Ball Deluxe (LE) (1984) featured a smaller backglass redesign to utilize leftover Rapid Fire cabinets

    high confidence · Dave discussing the business decision to reuse cabinets from failed Rapid Fire production run

  • Bally produced approximately 19,400 cabinets across Rapid Fire (5,000), Mr. and Mrs. Pac-Mana Pinball (10,600), and Eight Ball Deluxe variants (2,400+) using leftover inventory

    medium confidence · Dave and George calculating cumulative cabinet production from leftover stock

  • Dave created a custom LED backlighting solution for the Eight Ball Deluxe (LE) with approximately 20 drilled holes to mount lights without any published guide or precedent

    high confidence · Dave describing his unique lighting modification approach and documentation on his YouTube channel

  • Dave replaced linear flippers with fiberlink flippers from late-1970s Bally machines, claiming superior responsiveness compared to WPC mechanics

    high confidence · Dave explaining his restoration philosophy and flipper selection for the Eight Ball Deluxe (LE)

  • Andrew Weebly's custom ROM software for Eight Ball Deluxe (created 10-15 years ago) has become so popular it was integrated into Weebly board standard firmware selections

    high confidence · Dave discussing the adoption of his custom ROM into official Weebly board selections

Notable Quotes

  • “I couldn't find anything any guide to do it so I had to do it all myself from scratch and I documented it out there too on my youtube channel I documented how I did it and that kind of thing in case there's anything else to do in the future”

    Dave @ ~27:00 — Demonstrates Dave's commitment to innovation and knowledge-sharing in the restoration community—creating custom solutions without published precedent and documenting methods for future technicians

  • “I like the bally feel. Williams and Williams and bally and bally, for me anyway. But your mileage may vary and your taste may vary as well.”

    Dave @ ~35:00 — Articulates restoration philosophy prioritizing original manufacturer characteristics and design intent over modern mechanical substitutions, acknowledging subjective preferences

  • “I do better on my game, my original game, when I play 8-Eight Ball Deluxe (LE), even with that little factor to help you, I still, it's a tough game.”

    George @ ~42:00 — Highlights that new, freshly restored machines present different play challenges than aged originals despite identical rule mechanics—suggesting break-in or wear factors affect playability

  • “They said, oh guys, we got to get on this thing. This is going to be the latest thing. This is going to be, you know, the latest pinball rage. We got to make a crap load of these. Let's make 20,000 of them.”

    George @ ~29:00 — Illustrates Bally's reactive overproduction strategy in response to Williams' Hyperball success, showing industry decision-making under competitive pressure and resulting inventory management consequences

  • “So glad I found a real person with so much passion for pinball restoration and knowledge...You and George are awesome and hilarious. So much good humor from two genuine people. Hard to find that nowadays.”

    [name withheld pending review] @ ~55:00 — Demonstrates the community's appreciation for authentic, knowledgeable restoration expertise and how podcast content drives customer acquisition and brand loyalty

Entities

DavepersonGeorgepersonPaulpersonJeffpersonDennis NordmanpersonKevin O'Connorperson

Signals

  • ?

    restoration_signal: Dave pioneered custom LED backlighting solution for Eight Ball Deluxe LE backbox without published precedent, documenting process on YouTube for future technicians. Required drilling ~20 holes into back glass panel, routing bare bus wire throughout backbox, installing reusable sockets, and carefully navigating internal board layouts.

    high · Dave explicitly states 'I couldn't find anything any guide to do it so I had to do it all myself from scratch and I documented it out there too on my youtube channel' and describes detailed implementation methodology

  • ?

    restoration_signal: Dave notes CPR reproduction playfields require significant rework during installation—hole alignment cannot be trusted, requiring manual adjustment of drop target positioning, height shaving, and inline drop target calibration for proper leveling and function.

    high · Dave explains 'you can't trust the alignment of the holes anywhere. So I had to like adjust where the drop targets are sitting to center those properly. I had to actually adjust the height of the drop targets'

  • ?

    restoration_signal: IDC connectors (.100 insulation displacement connectors) used in Eight Ball Deluxe and contemporary Bally machines were unreliable and caused significant failures. Dave replaced all IDC connectors during restoration, requiring several hours of labor and resulting in improved reliability.

    high · Dave states IDC connectors 'were junky and caused a lot of unreliability' and that replacement work was 'a couple hundred [hours] but well worth it'

  • ?

    restoration_signal: Dave prefers fiberlink flippers from late-1970s Bally machines over modern WPC mechanics, citing superior responsiveness and authenticity. He argues replacing original-era flippers with modern alternatives diminishes the authentic game feel, though acknowledges subjective preferences.

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.226

0:00
Hello, welcome to another episode of the Classic Pinball Podcast. My name is George and his name is Dave. Hello, Dave. Hello, George. A journey through the legends, the unforgettable machines, and the stories that shaped pinball history. From the neon glow of the arcade to the sound of quarters stacked on the glass, we celebrate the iconic titles of the 1980s and the restorations that kept them alive. And speaking of legends, Dave has just finished restoring a gleaming 8-ball deluxe LE, reminding us why some machines will always hold a place in the Hall of Fame. Eight Ball Deluxe LE. This has been two years in the making. The person that's going to be getting this is from Ohio. He originally, his name is Jeff. He originally sent me a Knight Rider. His Knight Rider that he had forever that was kind of seeing better days. He sent me that and it took me two years to make that one super nice, but I put a new CPR playfield in that one and made that a super nice game for him. He liked it so much he said, I have an eight ball deluxe. I go, yes, I do. I have an LE. All right. I want you to do the same thing and make that one nice too. And I'll buy that off you. So, okay. So fast forward two years later, I finally have it done. It seems to be two years sometimes in these things. Um, but that's what it takes. Especially with this game. So this game, uh, I've got a while ago and I decided to go nuts on it because, um, his budget was, was nice enough that I could, you know, spend some time on it, some quality, like 70 hours worth of time on it. Um, and on this particular title, this, I'll give you a little history of 8 Ball Deluxe L.E. Uh, originally they made, uh, Rapid Fire back in 1982, I think. I have it all. No, rewind a little bit. Okay. Yeah. Let's, let's start with the first game. So the first game would be 8 Ball Deluxe 1981, correct? Correct. Okay, so 8200 games give or take.
2:28
Yes, you're correct. I believe rapid fire came out in 82 and they had all the leftover cabinets and people know the story but 1984 they released this LE with another 2400 or so games. I'll correct you in all that. So I printed this stuff out but I didn't print out the one I had in a Word doc here because I did a bunch of research on this before the show so So now I got it in front of me. So basically they made Rapid Fire. They made 5,000 of them in April of 82. And Dennis Norman was part of the project. And he told everybody that basically he designed the cabinet, created a force field idea, built the mods for tanks. Kevin O'Connor did the work on it too. He did the complete R package for the game. It was their response, Bell's response to Williams' 81 Hyperball. The pre-production working name of this game was called Crossfire and at Chicago Expo in 2009, President Williams said that Williams referred to his operation Xerox. Jim Patla said the rush to get this game to market, Rapid Fire Valley, meant it was produced in only six weeks instead of the normal one year's timeframe. But there was a problem with the gun assembly. Pat Ler estimated that it fired at 14 balls per second which in the course of steady use caused the gun tip to melt from friction causing gun failure on location. He wanted the spare gun to be included in the cash box of each ship game but the management didn't agree saying that that would be acknowledging that the game would have a problem and you know that's not so good. So for management this is what they get. You got a big fail for that one. So, the leftover cabinets from this production run were used in producing the following games. So we went with in May 82 they did Mr. and Mrs. Pacman Pinball where they made 10,600 and then in August of 82 they did a Bottle Luxe Limited Edition made 2,400 approximately. Jak Bobbeo, Sean nacional Sports exponential elliing, Ali homosexuals, ас

  • Eight Ball Deluxe (LE) newly rebuilt playfield has inlanes approximately 2mm wider than outlanes, making the game slightly more forgiving than other variants

    medium confidence · Dave and George observing playfield geometry differences during playtesting

  • Eight Ball Deluxe (LE) uses three playfield fuses (two for GI, one for solenoids) instead of the single solenoid fuse configuration on other Eight Ball Deluxe versions

    medium confidence · Dave noting circuit configuration differences specific to this LE variant

    • Pat Lawlor
    person
    Tom Cicchettiperson
    [name withheld pending review]person
    [name withheld pending review]person
    Jim Rutherfordperson
    Bob Burkeperson
    Eight Ball Deluxe (LE)game
    Rapid Firegame
    Eight Ball Deluxegame
    Eight Ball Champgame
    8 Ballgame
    Mr. & Mrs. Pac-Man Pinballgame
    Ballycompany
    Williamscompany
    CPR (Custom Pinball Reproductions)company
    Weeblycompany
    The Classic Pinball Podcastorganization
    Pastimes Arcadevenue

    high · Dave explains 'I like the bally feel. Keep Williams and Williams and bally and bally, for me anyway. But your mileage may vary'

  • ?

    design_innovation: Andrew Weebly's custom ROM for Eight Ball Deluxe, created 10-15 years prior to this episode, became so popular that Weebly integrated it as a standard feature in board firmware. The ROM adds new sounds from unused chip resources and displays flashing letters to guide 'spell deluxe' progression, with community members creating additional difficulty variants.

    high · Dave notes the ROM 'got so popular that now Weebly has put it into his Main agenda is... Board selection for game selection you actually can select that now'

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: Bally drastically overproduced Rapid Fire cabinets (5,000 units) in reactive competition with Williams' Hyperball, resulting in massive leftover inventory. Rather than absorb losses, Bally repurposed these cabinets for four subsequent game releases (Mr. and Mrs. Pac-Man, Eight Ball Deluxe LE, and others), accumulating approximately 19,400+ cabinets manufactured from this strategy.

    high · George and Dave calculate cumulative production and discuss Bally's decision-making: 'They said, oh guys, we got to get on this thing...We got to make a crap load of these. Let's make 20,000 of them'

  • ?

    product_concern: Rapid Fire's gun assembly suffered from fundamental design defect—the gun fired at 14 balls per second (estimated by Pat Lawlor), causing the gun tip to melt from friction during normal operation, leading to field failures. Management refused to include spare guns in cash boxes despite engineering warnings, valuing reputation over reliability.

    high · Dave cites Pat Lawlor's estimate that gun 'fired at 14 balls per second which in the course of steady use caused the gun tip to melt from friction causing gun failure on location'

  • ?

    historical_signal: Rapid Fire (Bally, 1982) was explicitly designed as competitive response to Williams' Hyperball (1981). The pre-production working name was 'Crossfire,' and the game was rushed to market in six weeks instead of the standard one-year development timeline, contributing to quality and reliability issues.

    high · Dave explains Rapid Fire was 'their response, Bell's response to Williams' 81 Hyperball' and cites Jim Patla's account that rush to market 'meant it was produced in only six weeks instead of the normal one year's timeframe'

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: The restored Eight Ball Deluxe LE exhibits slightly wider inlanes (~2mm) compared to outlanes, creating asymmetrical playfield geometry that favors the inlane shot. This makes the game marginally more forgiving than other Eight Ball Deluxe variants, resulting in longer average ball times and easier play despite brand-new, punchy mechanics.

    medium · Dave observes inlanes 'maybe, I don't know, a couple millimeters wider than the outlanes. So they're not an actual 50-50 shot. So which makes the game a little bit easier'

  • ?

    community_signal: Dave's reputation for quality restoration work drives customer referrals through venue operators (e.g., Bob Burke recommending Dave after successful Cheetah restoration) and podcast listeners seeking restoration services. The podcast serves as a marketing platform establishing Dave's expertise and driving direct customer inquiries.

    high · Customer email states 'He recommended I call Dr. Dave. As he said you are a craftsman who sold him your super sweet restored cheetah a couple years back' and expresses interest in future restorations

  • ?

    event_signal: Podcast receives sustained listener engagement through email submissions of personal pinball top-10 lists, restoration inquiries, and past-guest follow-ups. Tom Cicchetti (episode 81 guest) has spent 2025 in tournament play and restoration projects, requesting return appearance; listeners express deep appreciation for podcast format and knowledge sharing.

    high · Tom's follow-up email states 'I've been spending most of 2025 restoring a few games, being in a bunch of leagues and I'm traveling to tournaments. Would love to sit on the chat again'

  • $

    market_signal: High-end restoration projects (Eight Ball Deluxe LE) command significant time investment (70 hours+) and client budgets sufficient to support custom modifications and premium parts. Two-year project timelines and fair pricing negotiations between restorer, seller, and end-buyer create complex market dynamics around restoration value capture.

    medium · Dave notes the customer 'budget was, was nice enough that I could, you know, spend some time on it, some quality, like 70 hours worth of time on it' and discusses negotiating Theatre of Magic acquisition with multiple clients

    • 5:09
    I'm going to go through this eight-ball Alexa LE. I'm saying this looks, it makes the game look really weak and it's like I got to change it out. I was talking to my friend John Day and other friend Jim Rutherford about different lighting ideas and we were throwing around. It's like, hey, how about doing some LED strips back there and do that and maybe that could work out. Then we're thinking, well, the strips could maybe fall off. I'm going to go outside on a nice sunny day and just map out where the hole should be to light the backbox properly. I drilled a bunch of holes out to make sure... Okay, question. Yeah. How did you do that? Okay, I'm glad you asked. So what I did is I took the back glass artwork and I looked at the back of the panel. It has a bunch of boards in the back of that panel. Not like a regular ballet game where the boards are all inside the backbox. On this game, there's some boards in the backbox and some boards attached to the back of the white light panel. In the meantime, I'm going to highlight different things. So basically I'm going to highlight the whole artwork in the backbox, everything. And did all that, did about 20 different holes in the thing. And all lined up perfectly. Then I ran bare bus wire, like train tracks, everywhere in the backbox on the back of that white panel. Then I put sockets I had in that I reused that are all cleaned up, put those in there and sawed those all in, stapled it all down, and then put all the lights in there and put the retailers �ióъ, P SchoolñaÏwhy.exe commander Harsha Han, deliberative clothesimerk는데едиľ ethanolitch爪Łš érőº Sundayacy épocaÍaŁåláa biliyorsome qi,лавťåˇ nýĝçčílʼn connectá ÖZMŁňaŹŽŸŸŽĨţ 128 ţŽŠŠŚţŽţ Many Thanksgiving快
    8:06
    Tusk MortaläŹŏ são behind the white uh cueball shots of the second action thing like he's actually shooting the cueball into the uh into the eight ball so that's that's how that took a bunch of time to do that to make that super nice but it came out so nice and I did a bunch of research before and again talking to my friends and even looking online on pinside or else from my knowledge no one else has done this I haven't I couldn't find anything any guide to do it so I had to do it all myself from scratch and I documented it out there too on my uh... my youtube channel I documented how I did it and that kind of thing in case there's anything else to do in the future and get a little more of a head start than I did. Not that you have access to it because it's probably buried somewhere, but you do have the small head centaur, correct? I do. Did you look at that panel to see how they did that? That's a great question and I would have done that and I thought of that. I was on my own. I'd like to see a picture of that because dodging all the rails, I had no idea that all boards were mounted on that fascia. In the end, I put links like click on this link to see more in detail of how I did it. So there's actually links on that eight bonus le video. I show in depth stuff on it too. Plus I can send you some pictures too. I did have it to show you more detail there. But I did everything on this game. We I'm Maureen, it's really hard to find the kind of paint. It's like a gold flake paint on this back box hard to get that just right So I had to hunt around go to different news groups and see what other people have used and I got some that's pretty close So Maureen used that to touch up a little bit a little bit of red a little bit of black in there touch that up had To do some cabinet fills a little bit of some chunks were taken out because this cabinet used You know the fall of particle board stuff from Midway on some of the cabinets I had to redo that a little bit. But that came out nice. It looks good. New CPR playfield in there. All new CPR plastics. New drop targets. Flippers, pop bumpers, assemblies, the whole shebang. And all new, you know, I got rid of the stupid linear flippers I can't stand, as you know, as I've said many times in this show. And put in the nice fiberlink stuff that Bally used in the late 70s instead. All of them are great. They're great. They're way better. Way more responsive. My friend John, you know, we go back and forth and jab each other all the time about this stuff because he likes putting in WPC mechs in his ballys like that. For me, it's like it takes the eight ball deluxe sole out of the game. No, sorry. The bally sole out of the game. The bally flippers. I like the bally feel. Keep Williams and Williams and bally and bally, for me anyway. But your mileage may vary and your taste may vary as well. So I have another question so Maybe you are going to talk about this We did a show believe it or not episode 11 when you delivered that 8-ball deluxe yes the 84 oh yeah yeah remember that? That's six years ago Wow time flies So my question is What's the difference between the game you just did I'm John Papadiuk, the director of the Sp pixie and the original, not physically, Playability. Oh, yeah. Are there any differences? Playability, I guess because, well, this game, you got brand new everything in this game. The one I did in the 84 version, that was all an original play. Right, but I'm saying if you had two games side by side from the factory, do they play the same? Are all the games the same? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly the same. So they made money on this game because they had leftover cabinets They had to redesign obviously the back glass to make it smaller, right? Yeah, you know, there's a lot of profit in there I guess is what I'm getting at what I don't understand is they keep claiming that they had all these extra cabinets How many of these things did they order?
    12:40
    Well, they had five thousand The Big number to begin with how many I mean, I'll tell you let's Well, let's order. Let's add it up. Shall we let's go with
    12:53
    5,000 rapid-fire 10,600 miss pac-man. So that's fifteen thousand six hundred then you got a fifteen hundred cent our that's so that's a Sixteen that seventeen thousand then you got a pollux. So you're not so nineteen thousand four hundred approximately these cabinets they made They thought they were going to really have to... And wouldn't you order them in like lots of a thousand or you know, you wouldn't order 20,000 cabinets at once. No, they saw Williams with their stupid game that they were doing, whatever the hell it's called, Hyperball. They said, oh guys, we got to get on this thing. This is going to be the latest thing. This is going to be, you know, the latest pinball rage. We got to make a crap load of these. Let's make 20,000 of them. And then, you know, and then... The rest is history. And then you get this. You know. . And you, not so much. . So, that's the story there. But the cool thing is that I just realized that I have now done like pretty much full boat restos, especially on an original 81 8-ball deluxe. I did the same treatment on with, that was like a, That one actually was a total repainted cabinet, a C-Power playfield, a backglass I got from overseas somewhere. I forget the guy's name. And you know that was a big dollar item too, original 81 that I did. And then I did the 84 after that, another that's a full kind of a full boat too. And then I just did an 8-ball deluxe. So I've done the trilogy of 8-ball deluxes now. Right, but you also did one more. I'm a fan of the one that you did for me, I've never seen it before. Three, three. You did 8 ball champ. Uh. Now is that different? Yeah I did 8 ball champ, that's different, yeah, I did one of those and sold that too. Well we did a show on it believe it or not. Yeah. Yes, that's a great game too, I had two of those. That's good. I started going back through episodes, I'm like oh man, I forgot we did that too. 8 ball deluxe, or that 8 ball champ, that's kind of, its kind of a cousin. So same 8-ball deluxe voice, different strategy, different playfield. Okay. But it was a very challenging game. It's a cool game. Yeah, it's a cool game. You've covered them all. Oh, say again? I missed you. I said you've covered them all. Yes. All the 8-balls. Yeah, pretty much. Even the Fonzie 8-ball. I got that. I did a nice one of those, that one too. I'm a kind of anything else I did in this game that's for notable stuff here. Oh, yeah, so I put in all a lot of weebly boards in this game. He does Andrew's really nice work. MPU. I also did a custom card on it. And all my eight ball luxes I do I give them all the special software that if you get you spell deluxe in order. The end.
    16:26
    He was a big fan of the eightball deluxe, so he goes, okay, let's do, you know, that and different sounds for eightball deluxe, different use. There's a lot of sounds inside the eightball deluxe sound chips that weren't utilized, so he dug into those and could use a couple things and combine things, as well as doing different things like flash the letter in eightball deluxe, which letter is next will be flashing, so you know which one is in order to get. And that ROM, since we did it way back when, I don't know, 10, 12, 15 years ago, got so popular that now Weebly has put it into his Main agenda is... Board selection for game selection you actually can select that now on a Weebly board and it actually made someone even made a further tweak on the code to make it even harder if you have to start at the D and deluxe and go down or start anywhere you want which is even tougher to do because you know it's it's a tough shot anyway I've probably done it maybe and like a thousand games may have done So it's pretty cool. I also did a lot the IDC connectors the point 100 IDC insulation Displacement Connectors They did on this game and a bunch of games in this time frame were junky and caused a lot of unreliability So I redid all those that was several hours worth of work and a lot of sore fingers To get that that was like I don't know a couple hundred but well worth it well worth it. So now it's reliable new red flipper buttons, of course
    17:53
    Oh, another thing with the CPR playfields. There was so much rework to do on these playfields. I had to, you can't trust the alignment of the holes anywhere. So I had to like adjust where the drop targets are sitting to center those properly. I had to actually adjust the height of the drop targets. I had to kind of shave them off a bit to have them all sit properly at level with the game when they go down. I had to do the inline drop targets. I had to adjust those too to make sure those, so there's a lot of like optimizing and fine tuning All right, so you're right. I'm not saying that you should know that, but I'm sure you do get the point across. I do. You said that every time you do one of these. I know. I want to get that point across. Well, you are right. Well, it's not right. But anyway. Oh, and PJ and Paul and I just played the game downstairs. Oh, wait a sec. Yeah. Wait a sec. You never introduced him. Oh, true. I got introduced. My friend Paul is here. I had him come over and say hey come over for the podcast and you can also help playtest this 8 bottle XLI I just finished So say hello Hi Hope everyone doing well out there And the game the 8 deluxe plays amazing Plays like silk. The outlanes are a little more forgiving than other 8-ball deluxes so you can have a longer ball time. And Dave can explain that. Yeah, so what it seems like on this particular version of this playfield is that the in lanes where the wire form is, is maybe, I don't know, a couple millimeters wider than the outlanes. So they're not an actual 50-50 shot. So which makes the game a little bit easier so that you come to find out that the ball is actually favoring you more to come down the in flipper lane than going I'm going to be playing the Outlane versus my 8-Ball Deluxe. It likes going to the Outlane a lot more. But, with that being said, I do better on my game, my original game, when I play 8-Ball Deluxe LE, even with that little factor to help you, I still, it's a tough game. Maybe because it's so brand new, everything's all new and punchy, that right now it's very challenging to play. And Paul just kicked my butt on the game. He got like 1,300 points. I can barely, I don't know if I've even got a free game on this yet. I don't think I've even made 700,000 points in the game yet. It's 1.3. Oh, sorry, 1.3. 1.3 mil. Yeah. Yes, that's right, 1.3 mil, yes. Yeah. So, yeah, so I rebuilt the sauna driver board, the usual stuff, silicone rubber all the way around, a new Weebly transformer board. It didn't have, usually these games come with a clear plastic cover. It didn't have one, so I made one. I made one for it and put some standoffs on it so that looks nice and legit. I put new under the playfield there's like little labels and so forth for fuses and that kind of thing and did all that. Interesting with this game is they instead of just doing one solenoid playfield fuse they do three playfield fuses I think two for GI and one for the solenoids on this particular title versus the other ones. But it was a fun project and I'm so glad it's finally done and the last time I did this game I did the other game for Jeff out in Ohio. I finished the same time in November of a couple years back. I finished at the same time. He said, well, it looks like November is the time you're going to get your game. I was going to try to get it to him before Thanksgiving, but I definitely want to get more playtesting in just to be sure that there's any gremlins to arrest. I want to get them arrested ahead of time. I'll do a little more playtest. I'll get it to him either later this month or later this year. Neighbor dart, Magic God on Internet We'll push it over into the next segment if we have to. How's that? Yeah, we got about 15 minutes or so, I think. Okay, let me start. Yeah. I've got old news. Because I didn't check my Gmail account before we recorded last month, there was stuff sitting in there for all our lists. And here's a voice from the past, a gentleman by the name of Tom Cicchetti. He was featured in our number 53... no, what episode was he in? Oh jeez, I thought I wrote it down. Uh, oh. Yeah, episode 11? Is that right? Wow, way back when. Oh my god, okay. Maybe not. I don't know. Anyway, oh no, here we go. Number 81. Sorry. Okay. I'm looking at something completely different. He was on our number 81 show. He did the Data East Playboy with Marilyn Manson. Do you remember that? It's a long time ago. Yeah. Well, he chimes in. He says, Hey, good afternoon, George and Dave. I was late to listening to the last few shows and I wanted to chime in on the personal top 10 games of the 70s. I noticed that several of the lists you read have a lot of similarities. I think you'll find my choices interesting. I'm sure you will, I'm sure, I don't know, cut off agree, but they are my choices of games and I love to play. Okay, I'm gonna go from 10 to one. World Cup by Williams, I think that was on one of our lists. Flip Flop by Bally, I don't remember that. I sold that years ago, yep. Old Chicago, I don't remember that being on any list. Are these on his, are these on his positive list or his negative list? This is his positive list. Oh boy, okay.
    23:55
    Well, all right. I've got a positive list. I don't have a negative list. Okay, so seven. Bally Space Time. We definitely had that in there. I don't remember this one. Volley by Gottlieb? You know what? He's in the mirror universe of Star Trek with me right now because this is totally opposite of what I would think would be good. Oh, that's why I think he sent us the list. Interesting. And I think that's why he also wants to come back on with us. Okay. He wants to do a show with us. I have some ideas about that, but we'll come to that in a little bit. Number five, Dolly Parton. We did talk about that. Number four, Mata Hari. Number three, Stingray. Oh, really? Does he want to buy one? Number three. Does he want to buy one? I got one. Stars was number two and Eightball, Fonzie Eightball was number one. He had a couple of honorable mentions, Hot Tip by Williams, Hang Glider by Bali. No. I'm a white rider. No. Yeah. No, no, no. No. I gotta, I gotta talk with him. We gotta talk with him. He's allowed to, he's allowed to have his choices and that's why we read them. He did send a follow up email to me last week and he said, I was last on show 81, yeah, we talked about that, August of 19, or 2022. I've been spending most of 2025 restoring a few games, being in a bunch of leagues and I'm traveling to tournaments. Would love to sit on the chat again. I just picked up a Bally Playboy and hope to get started on it soon. Okay. Another thing I did this summer you might find interesting is I put an online bracket and had people vote with the winners. The bracket was the best overall music themed pinballs. This is right up your alley. Is there one? We're not going to do that today because I haven't had time and I think people are growing a little old with our lists but hey, if you send me an email, I'm going to read it on our program. So that was from our friend Tom. How about you? You got something? Hello, Dr. Dave. Really loving the podcast. I just discovered it and I'm now going through listening to your older episodes. I'm a big fan of the format, Ignore the Haters. And hope you're doing well and have fully recovered from the hospital food you had to deal with. I noticed on your website that you have a skateball that is available for restoration sale. Is that still the case? I know you spoke about selling one in conjunction with Bobby Orr on one of your episodes, so I wanted to check. If it's available, I'm interested in buying it and having your This Week in Pinball, Game of Thrones unintertained title or abbreviation for Retro Atmingham, Black Water, Kaneda's Pinball Podcast, Twippies Awards, translite I was burning weeds. Now the question is, which kind of weed? Rolled or was it ground? While listening to this episode. So I was unable to immediately submit a list. Yeah, I'm sure. Okay. Well, there you go. You have our answer. Those weeds must have been really, really good. And then he follows up with another email right afterwards. This is my 70s top 10 list. Okay, I agree with number 10. 4000, I think it was mine too. 4000 BC, the Valley game. Number 9, Kingpin. Number 8, Eldorado. Number 7, Jacks Open. 6, Kiss, because I love the band. Number 5, bow and arrow. There's your game, Dave. Number 4, 8 ball brutally short game times. Perfect to play for a beer in the pub back in the day. Okay. Power play, Harlem Globetrotters, and number 1, Surf Champ, the game I have owned longest and will be buried in. I actually like Surf Champ. I owned one years ago and I sold it because it's like, I don't know, I don't need this game anymore. But now, I like to play once in a while. I'm going to play once in a while. One question. Go back to number one. What was his or number ten? The first one he started. What's the first? 4000 BC. It's not four. It's four million BC. Oh, he's got 4000 BC in the email. So he made the same mistake I did. Hold on a minute. Or I made whatever I said. Yeah, whatever. I made mistakes. If I went back and corrected all our mistakes, it would be a whole show. So anyway, just leave that alone. I have a short one. I know we mentioned this last, but I'll give them a... Dave and Gene holdingthebasketandgettingafreegame. They got a 1959 7 C's. I don't know what that is. You have any idea? I don't know. I got a 58 crisscross for free a while back. Okay. He also has a pin crawler. I didn't know that. Yes, he bought the legitimate pin crawler. He spent the money and got the one with all http://www.knapparate.com.au Good afternoon, Dr. Dave. As you recall during our recent telephone call, which we did talk to a little bit after a couple emails, while trying out an arcade near our house for a lark and falling in love with pinball once again, we played the games in Pastime's Arcade in Girard, Ohio. We started calling around and found some mega pinball restoration houses because we like playing games so we needed to buy a game. Let's call around. So I called around different pinball restoration houses to try and get our first game, but we were disappointed I'm disappointed in how we were treated and blown off as they thought we were a waste of their time. So back to past times we went, a little bit discouraged. Talked with the owner Bob Burke about acquiring a nice restored pinball machine from a good company he could recommend. He recommended I call Dr. Dave. As he said you are a craftsman who sold him your super sweet restored cheetah a couple years back when his arcade was just getting off the ground. And he said, so glad I found a real person with so much passion for pinball restoration and knowledge. I also want to say thank you for recommending the Classic Pinball Podcast. It brings joy to my life. Really does. Love your podcast and so glad you have a deep catalog to listen to. You and George are awesome and hilarious. So much good humor from two genuine people. Hard to find that nowadays. Now I have something entertaining and informed to listen to while I do my work. I look forward to using your show as another guide in our pinball journey. A huge thank you to both of you for doing that. I know we spoke briefly before about the two pinball machines that we covet as of now anyway. And yesterday my wife and I went to Past Times Arcade again and played Indiana Jones and Theatre of Magic. We definitely love both of them, but other two prefer Theatre of Magic the most. But either way, if you come across and are willing to help us purchase and restore them, we will be truly grateful. We know you're extremely busy, but we value the passion and love that you put into the work that you do and would love to have you guide us in our endeavor to one of our favorite restored machines. Please just let us know if you're willing to do this for us and that way we know which way and direction to go. Thank you to both you and your wife for your time and patience with us. So, I actually, one of my friends, one of my clients and friends has one, actually a couple of them do. I'm right now I'm in the process of seeing and I told them both say listen I'm I need to I'm trying to buy your game you know buy it right and give you a fair price but I need to have money in the middle for me to do my thing with it and it has to be you know reasonable enough on the other end for the people to buy it for me so I'm doing a little dance here to try to make this happen theater of magic but but so far I think I got a pretty good handle on what I'm gonna do okay so here's here's an email well actually it was a response On the other hand, on the office on Tuesday of this week, on Thursday of this week, Dave Quran only played the supervising role which he was muted at the YBCCD from the Land of Doubt K. Hart and Warner 1985.
    33:15
    выпол EE purs mentioning the courtts, quda I think he's from California, if I recall. So you'll see him every once in a while on YouTube or one of the shows online for tournaments. So he chimes in with his list. I'll give you 10, but in chronological order, not rank order. I don't give games absolute ranks as a general rule. So here's his 10 games. Fireball, Skyjump, Flip Flop, Grand Prix, Volley, Jungle Queen, Sinbad, Joker Poker, Meteor,Paragon. It's a pretty good list. The other guy who I didn't really agree with... Flip Flop keeps coming up. I don't know why. You know what? I had that game and I got it really cheap and sold it really quick. I remember playing it back in the day. I didn't really like it. I did see it in a tournament recently. It's like, oh, in a tournament, it looks really fun in a tournament. But in general play, it has those flip card things like Wizard has. It just, I don't know, it kind of leaves me kind of, what do you think, Paul, about that game? It's an okay game. Okay game. The other guy you were talking about, I didn't agree with his list that much at all. Was it volleyball? The only thing he liked was soccer. Yeah, the volley, you know what, I think people like volley. It's a tournament game. So I agree. It's a tournament game. I agree with that. Volley is a great game. I thought he said soccer. Soccer is not a good game. No, he had the soccer, he had World Cup soccer on there too. No, that's okay too, but Gottlieb soccer, it's not, it's like a, it's a poor man's version of top score. It's just not as good as top score. Okay. But I think his list is good, even though he didn't rank them. It's a good list. I was actually kind of surprised that he replied to us. So hopefully he hears this. So I want to say, I agree, sorry Tom, I do agree with you, Volley, well done. Grand Prix. I agree. And Grand, no that's the other guy, Tom didn't say that one. That's this guy. I'm going back in time a little bit. Yeah, Mr. Matthews had Grand Prix, I had that on my list. That's a good one too. Yeah, I restored that one. Okay, I had this on my list and I don't want to, it doesn't fit here but it does fit here. Okay, at the end of the show, you had a phone call from Susie. Oh, Susie. Now I'm going to ask you the question. I want you to be honest. Sure. Did you generate that with AI? I did not generate it. Nope. I did not. That's a real person? Yeah, yeah. But I found out who... You didn't stage that? You didn't have somebody call in? Nope. I did not. But I'll tell you the rest of the story. Did you call her back? Uh, yes and no. So I'll tell you the rest, I'll tell you the Paul Harvey, the rest of the story here with that one. So that actually, when I first got that call, I said, who is this whack job calling me? You know? And I looked up in my call history. It's like, wait a minute. My sister just called me. Then it's like, that's my sister. My sister. Oh, it was a stage call. Well, but I didn't stage it. I'll give her props. Yeah. So she did. But then what I did is I took that and made my own little skit with it. I kind of just added a little bit of flavor to it to make it funnier. So yeah, so she did a good job with that.
    36:49
    So I knew I go I know there are people like this out there, but I don't believe it. Yes, no one had it created by AI. Anyway, it's it's come close sometimes to that, but she kind of went out really over the she knew my buttons to push and she pitched all three of I'm not going to give them. We got about 30 seconds. Oh no, she did a good job. Yes, she did. Dr. Dave Hotline, we just got a voicemail I just missed. Let's go see who's calling me here. You have 20 saved messages. It looks like something from Susie from Revere it looks like. Yeah, hi. I got a jungle queen that's a real mess. Okay. And I was hoping that you could one, get it out of my garage. Okay, maybe. Which is unheated. And two, take all the mouse dropping documents. Oh boy oh dear And three have it working and ready to go in time for Christmas Mmm Thanks very much Bye bye That looks like a one two three strikes you out situation on that one So I would say Suzie from Revere, you would probably be best looking elsewhere because that's a three-time loser right there. Not for me.
    38:15
    Dave, why don't you continue with what remaining mail you have. Mine's exhausted. Okay. Alright, this one is from Josh on Pinside. He says, Hi Dave, I just picked up a Stargazer. Interested in the updated code you were talking about. P.J. has got a good scoreNate bottle Lux down there. Can you tell me what code you are running and where I could find it? Very interesting how the game runs with the new code. I've been listening to your podcast for years. I play it when I'm out on my runs and always get excited when a new one is released. I particularly like the one individual game episode, Interviews with Industry People. Josh, did we have that one before? Did I say that before? Does it sound familiar or no? I don't know if it sounds familiar, but it doesn't matter. Tim Fightние A-T- tanks in Winü cirete Ya Präby tava yu i Søsy constitu eatão X Goth專igned X Þrade X Twer anged X To Washington, Pennsylvania. Now, can I start with the trip?
    39:37
    Uh, I know I've said this before, but I will say it again as a reminder. Do not trust Google to take you the best route.
    39:50
    Well, what does George mean by that? Well, are you aware that there's something called the Eastern Continental Divide?
    39:59
    Sounds familiar. But what is that? Well, there's a western continental divide, obviously, which is quote unquote the Rocky Mountains. Okay. Well, the eastern version is not quite as high, but equally as a goat path. How's that? Okay. We went over it on a road where the high speed was 30 miles an hour. Talk about cutbacks, talk about up and down. It was crazy. We did not come home that way. But it was an interesting ride through the Continental Divide East Coast in West Virginia. To get to Washington, Pennsylvania, it is over Hill and dale. And what most people probably think of Maryland is not this part of Maryland. Maryland goes all the way along the top of West Virginia and the bottom of Pennsylvania for quite a number of hours. It was an interesting way to get there. How's that? Okay. You didn't ask the question. Where's Washington, Pennsylvania? George, where is Washington, Pennsylvania? It's a little south of Pittsburgh. So we stayed at quite the hotel casino combination.
    41:20
    Not only Hollywood Casino at the Meadows, it's what it's called. It's not only a casino. I'll get to that in a second. It's a racetrack, horse racing, trotters, you know the ones with little buggies behind. It had a bowling alley, 24 or 30 lanes and a full arcade. Sounds nice. Good place to go. I'm not much of a gambler, but I do gamble. and I bet on this uh... the name's not really good. Irish Sweet. Well, I'm kind of Irish. That sounds good. I'm going to bet some money on that. The race went on and all the horses came in and where's my horse? Oh, he's coming in trotting a couple minutes late and here he comes trotting dead, dead last. Time to port that horse down. I think the horse is done. I have one of those stories from this trip. It's interesting. There was nobody there. We were there on a Wednesday. Casino was dead. Sportsbook was dead. The arcade was dead. The only thing that was going was the bowling alley of all places, but they were holding some kind of gigantic amateur thing at the end of the week. So everybody was coming in and playing. Very cool. Never seen that before. It's like in the basement of this casino. It was a beautiful couple days before the weather just came in and a little windy, but sitting outside watching the ponies go around the track. Um, you know, big bets, you know, $2, $6, nothing crazy, just enough to entertain. Sure. You can sit there and have a beer or drink and watch the races. Okay. So, I think the first race we bet on, or maybe the second, trotters have to maintain a certain gait in order to race. Yeah. And I guess this horse broke its gate right out of the right out of the chute. My horse came in dead effing labs. Right.
    43:53
    I'm like, I'm like, I'm glad it's only two bucks. I go because that was the fastest too. Well, maybe not the fastest, but pretty close. How'd you want to pick in the, that jockey horse? That's an interesting question. I look, would look at the odds and then the name, and then we decide. What were the odds? Did you go for long odds? Very scientific. Long odds or short odds or medium odds? No, that's the one thing with trotters. Most of them came in with very, very low odds. You know, two to one, four for five. There's no real money to be made unless you're heavily betting on it. And that's where I was going to go with this simulcasting piece. I don't think... Oh, hey George, hold on one second. I just gotta take this quick call. Okay. I can always find them. I can continue. Okay, cool. So, the simulcasting like Dave was referring to is probably the biggest piece of racetracks today. I'll talk a little bit about the arcade. Link in description, So this presentation slide, you have five seconds, five seconds.
    45:09
    jim loading test, I'm short time egal a audio conspiracy your sequencing I'm a fan of the casino games. Couple of claw machines, but very well done. Nobody there. Had the whole place myself. The one thing I did like about going there was the fact that you could actually play these games and listen to them because there was nobody there. So there was no other games being played, so you could listen to your whole game. So that was pretty good. I'm trying to think what else at the casino. Dave was asking me if I gambled. No. In the gambling piece is not of interest to me. There must have been a thousand or more slots, some table games, but not much. You know, maybe a dozen or two. Not quite that many. And like I said, it was dead. There was nobody there. It was a Wednesday. You could go to any table and play, you know, whether it's cards or roulette craps, etc. Part of the trip. The main part was a brewery I had heard of a long, long time ago. And I think most people know which brewery I'm going to talk about outside of Pittsburgh. It's one called Helicon. And the story goes, well, why is it called Helicon? I guess there's a 400 acre track of land in that area known as Mount Helicon. It's a very rural part of Pennsylvania. Quite nice. I thought it was a good place. I'm talking about Helicon, but I'll come back to the casino. Did you have any questions about the casino? Other than I told them that there were 75 pinball machines, mostly modern sterns. They had all the other modern titles from other manufacturers. It was good. I broke a couple of games. I'll ask you this, Mr. Stern. Okay. What happens when a game just starts freaking out and doesn't advance to the next ball? Is it in a ball search? It's in a ball search. It's lost the ball. I let it go and it just couldn't find it. I don't know what happened, so I just shut the game off. So anytime I broke a machine, I was telling people, there was nobody. You could play a game, you could actually hear the games. Wow, that's a plus. So, and they had all the games. You know what I played again was Galactic Tank Force. I don't know why I'm drawn to that stupid game, but I play it so well, I don't know if it's so easy that it's good, or that I'm just good at that game. You think that's what it is? You're a boy, you're quick on that trick. I'll give you a little of both on that one. Overall, well done. I started talking about Helicon, which is a little bit south of Pittsburgh. We went there the next day. It's a cool brewery because you're actually playing pinball in I'm not a fan of the brewery. I mean the tanks are right there, the bar's right there, very unique environment. Here's the connection between the Meadows where we were and Helicon Brewery with the pinballs. They're all managed by the same company. Now, I was sworn to secrecy by Chris I'm going to go to George Decoder Ring and you guys can try to figure it out. Let me get mine out. I got to tune it in. All right, I'm ready. We talked about one thing that wasn't in place, which I think is better, but I understand why the op would do it. Supposedly there's supposed to be a card system where you load I think you asked me, you know, last week, how much for a game? A buck a game, which for all the recent titles, I thought was real reasonable. But that system, I guess, didn't work very well. And they went back to quarters, which I prefer. I think it's much better. But I understand why, because when it comes time to do the count, if you're trying to keep some kind of order, you're going to have to do a lot of Cratcando degli Gianni Chatichtしまina,
    50:20
    I don't know. Thanks for watching, and I'm going to throw 50 bucks in like two minutes. There you go. I mean it was like gone. Janice was like, did you see that? I go, that's nothing, just keep watching. When it comes down to it in casino is decisions per minute or per second and that's where they want more decisions. People don't even pull the arm anymore. No. They sit in the chair. Janice said she left, she came back four hours later, the person was still in the seat pushing the button. You got to understand by pulling that arm, that takes more time. I can't put my head around it, okay? I work too hard for my cash, so I can't do it. So it's a really cool place. We enjoyed it. Helicon, he's got 39 machines. Chris the owner spent two hours with me. Oh wow. We were talking. It was just, he's a really, really nice man.
    51:56
    You're gonna laugh. He goes, oh, I'll give you a free game. All my games are on an app. I can give free games on this app. I'm like, okay, I didn't even ask him. I go, okay, cool. I go pick one. What does he pick? Primus.
    52:11
    Okay, how was that? That's the, you know, the home version stern. I guess that won't Nellie and a couple other games, but it's, you know, your generic layout and it's got Primus. But he said, this is only one of 30 in the States. I'm like, oh, okay. He goes, it's rare. I never played it before. I don't even know if I ever saw it. Rare doesn't equal good. I didn't say that. I mean, it wasn't good. Trust me. It wasn't good. No, the band's not for the most part, the games that had his place, even though he doesn't service and own them. Um, very good. I thought it was cool. Here's the other thing. So sitting in the corner by the bar where, but they refer to in Pennsylvania as skill machines. That's a pinball machine skill. No. Basically one arm bandits disguised in a different way. It's not like if you went to the casino, it's a little bit different, but they want, they want to get out of the gambling thing is gambling illegal maybe. So it's a skill somehow. No, you said that and I didn't so I'm gonna just leave that all alone. Okay. Chris was also, you know, he's at the will of the op. So there are some machines I think he would like to have back in his brewery that disappeared. I'm going to tell you this next thing you're going to just go oh wow this guy person I know his name I won't repeat it over well over 500 locations. Oh my aching back. Not just pinball. Okay. You know coin op. That's eastern I was at the brewery, I was bringing it up on my phone, give me a sec. I played a game for a quarter. It was actually pretty good. And you're going to know it. Where is it? Okay, here we go. Do you know what a Williams Fun Fest is? I've heard of it, but don't really know it. For a quarter, it was a lot of fun. Well, it's Fun Fest now. And villain Sports prendre QR ⁡** Unfortunately, John Popadiuk Jones. WPPR Grandex 등 have a peptoex 바�ria The ¡¯Dear The ¥7,500 Ral nutshell D He's got a lot of 90s stuff, you know. But now he got the, you met him at Pintastic, I think last time around. He was really, cause he was basically all alone down the Cape playing pinball, having people over there. Then I worked in his games and I said, hey, there's a whole community and his some different shows are around. Oh, I remember this, yes, I do. And so he really, he got bitten by the bugs so much. He went out to, what's it called? What's the big one they have just recently? I think Rob Burke is part of it. Oh, Expo? Expo. He went to Expo. He went out to there, got the whole Stern tour. He's been going to different tournaments and stuff and different. And so he's been basically selling a couple games and he's buying some new Sterns. So he bought the Pulp Fiction. He loves Pulp Fiction. Well that not a Stern No it not But it a modern game with a little more of a classic feel to it But he likes that game and something else he got too Maybe a Godzilla or something I think But he thinking of getting Elton John and some other new stuff So mix it up a little bit. So instead of going old school classy, he likes the newer bling. He likes lots of bling. So you'd like this at the brewery. There's a lot of time with me. He's like, what do you collect? And I told him, and they started firing questions. He's like, do you have a fireball classic? Yes, I do. Do you have a Paragon? Yes, I do. Yeah, he was like, oh, man, what else do you have? And I started telling him. I'm a little town called Oakdale and I said, got a really cool place here. You know, there was what, 1130 on a Thursday morning. I mean, nobody's there and I'm drinking beer already. I'm like, okay, this is probably not going to end good, but I was, I was a good boy. Sure. I said, so what's the deal? I go, you know, do you get a lot of people in here, you know, from Pittsburgh? He goes believe it or not because Pittsburgh doesn't have direct flights to very many places It's a stopover and if people have multiple hours and they're into pinball We're 15 or 20 minutes from the airport people come drink a handful beers play pinball and then go back to the airport I go seriously he goes more than you would think Wow I'll go back. He's a real personable guy, authentic, the beer quality. He had some New Zealand hops thing that he was making, some IPA which was really, really good. Had a couple of those. Any Westies? I had a Westie, but not there. Where the hell did I have it? I was thinking of you. I'm going to have to go look through my log. I had a couple of Westies recently. People were like, oh, you have to have, oh, I know what it was. It was at my local place, Grant and Grog. I go in, I go, huh? He goes, you can't choose. He goes, here, you got to have one of these. It was called a 1776. He said it was an IPA. It was, but it was definitely a Westie. It was good. It's a nice West Coast IPA. I'm agnostic. I'll drink it if it's good. I'll drink it. Sure. So that was kind of our trip to Pennsylvania. Cost a living, Dave? Oh my God. You can live like a kid. You can live like a king in that part of the country. Oh, interesting. We went to the world famous. Oh, what the hell's the name of it? The sandwich place. Give me a second. Subway? Eat not so fresh. Well, if you like bioengineered stuff, it's okay. The views and Espresses Design Classic Arcade Pinball Podcast. Sorry. It's okay. Premonte Brothers, right? It's this famous sandwich place from Pittsburgh, right? I'm thinking, okay, we're going to have to go to Pittsburgh to go see this thing, right? Because everybody raves about their sandwiches. You know, they're like big deli sandwiches. Sure. I go look at the website. There's one right around the, I mean, literally in our parking lot where we stayed,
    60:35
    called, and they have 40 or 50 locations. It's a chain, but a good chain. Okay. So here you go. Half happy hour. Thing that you don't usually hear of anymore.
    60:50
    Janice was drinking Tito's and Cranberry. Right? Okay. Yeah, $3.25 a drink. That's a nice tall one or a short one? A short one. But does it matter? No, not really. That's the last time you paid 325 for a drink. Right? Never, never. Here's the interesting part though. Bar, you know, big circular bar, you know, probably 40 seats. Janice was the only person not drinking beer. Women and men included. All beer? All beer. Wow. Yeah, I couldn't figure that one out either. How much were beers? Were beers cheap too? I had two southern tiers. They were $4 each. Oh, cheap. The whole bill was 50 bucks. Janice had two, Janice had three drinks. Whoops. Janice had three drinks, I had two drinks. We had an appetizer and two sandwiches. And I'm looking at TJ in the monitor, he's just looking at me. How the hell can they do that?
    62:07
    It was so cheap. I was like, man, it's cheap to live out here. I'm kind of digging this. So how far away is it from the pinfest, would you say? Oh, God, the other side of the state. Okay. Okay. Oh, no, it was three, almost four hours from our house. It's, you know, here's Chris. We're sitting there. He goes, Oh, you've got the time. He goes, you got to go to Girard, Ohio. I'm like, what, to go to pastimes? Pastimes, yes. And he goes, he goes, yeah. I go, I'm familiar with Gerard. An hour and a half, so it would be an hour and a half from where we were. Well, you should've, you could've told Chris about the cheetah that's there. My cheetah that sold Rob Burke. Mindy. Sorry, didn't remember the cheetah, but I have to let Chris know we're talking about him, so. Sure. Chris, play my cheetah. He will hear about the cheetah. I'm trying to think if there's anything else. No, I think that's pretty much it. Alright, I got some stuff. Okay, your turn. Alright, so a couple items here. So right now I'm working on doing a little day spa in the shop here, Lord of the Rings. So There's a middle ring shot on there that's supposed to have a spinner on it. And I'm looking at it, it's like, there's a switch there with no spinner. What happened to the spinner? This thing's been played to death so badly that the spinner spun so many times it wore out huge holes in the metal it goes into for this ramp shot. And it fell out. It fell out and who knows where it went to. It's gone somewhere. So that doesn't exist. The live tile of plastic below the little green upper playfield thing, that's broken because the ball always landed on it probably a million times, so that broke. And then the flippers don't work because a MOSFET thing went fluid because someone put the wrong coils in the game and that caused some other problem. The game is totally dirty. Black, of course, my favorite black... Where did this game come from again? This actually, this is a guy, a local guy who has about four of these early sterns. Oh, you talked about this in previous shows. Okay. I do remember now. Okay. So he brought this over to me free me going to you know, hospital situation and then I've just started getting into getting it happening and I basically took a picture before to show it with it on lit up and not much was lighting up because it was burned out balls plus black everywhere and Then I took a picture of me like three quarters of the way through all cleaned up with new LED lighting and so forth and And so I showed my picture before and after I said, by the way, both these shots, the games are on just so you know, even though the first shot doesn't look at the games on at all because dead. That's how dirty it was. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I know. Where do you pull the game from bowling alley right? At a location, a bowling alley. Yeah. And they got played the crap out of. So he wants to put these games in his own home game room. So that's why I brought it to me. So, you know, we had a we had a budget in mind. hair rebuildbe365, mixer While properties are on sale Cole-Ventura-hat妹la.com bustprocess Senior I'm not going to go into too much detail on this one, but just so you know where your money is going, here's a before and afters part that goes, okay, I get it, keep going. So, yeah, so I'm doing that. The other one, the 8-Bot Luxe LE that's ready to almost go out the door. I got a guy coming by this week to look at my Restored Bobby Earl Powerplay for sale. I think he might be going, he wants that and or an Evel Knievel. I have both, but the Powerplay is good to go. I think you talked about that too, but okay, so that's good that guy the potential buyer. I don't think so He I don't know about the buyer, but we definitely talked about the game. Yeah, Bobby or yes Yes, but I wanted to say that you know, he's for Christmas. I was trying to get him to go
    66:14
    and Then I got I want to do a shout out to JR spooky shack in Hudson, Massachusetts the what JR spooky shack
    66:24
    So he's got this whole macabre Halloween theme kind of shop has all this interesting. This is a business. Yeah, but he operates year round. He figured just Halloween he'd be done. No, I was in his place the other day working on he's got a of course he has a what's it called? Evil Dead. No, Tales of the Crypt. Yes, Paul got it right. Tales of the Crypt loves the game because it has a theme. In the center of his shop, he's got like what looks like a real electric chair. He has an electric chair with the leather straps and the metal hat thing and everything. Do you send it? No. No, I don't think so. No, I don't need that right now. Thanks. Pass. He has, you know, this kind of like, you know, spooky music going on the whole place. He's got all kinds of eclectic stuff from all these different scary movies. He's got masks from Killer clowns from out of space. Wait, wait, where is this place? In Hudson, about 10 minutes away from me. In the downtown? Yeah, right in the downtown. Yeah. Yeah. Spooky Shack. Yeah, he's doing really well. That's a new one on me. Doing really well. So he called me up about Tales from the Crypt. I worked on it about a year ago for some other little problem it had. He didn't have the money to want me to go crazy and do a day spa at that point. So I worked within his budget and got a couple things running. He said, this thing definitely needs more attention but you're running for now. But just so you know, I don't know how long I'm going to be running for because there's more stuff to do. So he understood. So he just called me recently and said, yeah, right now it's not booting at all. It's basically come lights on, it's like, okay, lights on, nobody home. So I knew immediately what that's going to be. It's going to be the crappy data use power supply in these games. The Caps always just crap out compared to the Williams Cousins last a lot longer. And he also had a weak right flipper. So that's because the flipper power supply on these D8 East games are crap. I don't know why they use the flipper power supply. Williams is a better build quality than the D8 East from the time. What year is that game? Ninety-three. So it's a DMD. It's got a DMD in it. He actually bought it from somebody who put a colored DMD in it. Textbook I'm not going to be surrounded by scary movies. No, that's not my deal either. I could not believe how many millennials and younger people were coming in this place off the street. It looks so kind of cool. The glass, the shop glass, the displays, very interesting. If you're into that kind of thing it's like, this is interesting. Let's go see what's in here. But it's in Hudson, Massachusetts. Yeah, right, but that mainstream. I mean if it was in Salem, I'd go, okay, I got it. Too far out of the way. I think the Main Street Hudson, they're like, I think they got voted top Main Street in the US for being... Well, it's kind of centrally located, so I get that. But it has a lot of cool things in it. It's a lot of cool, they even had a piano at one point out in the middle of this, out in the side street where people can play. That got taken over. I actually played that one time. They have all kinds of cool restaurants there. It has a nice little vibe to it. So, so anyway, so we've got a good gig going on there. I went to a friend's house and worked on his high speed. All the switch rows were shorted. So that was a really weird problem. He bought this game from Pintastic that the owner basically just put a new hardtop on it, gave it a new paint job on the outside. Not much else done to it. So the game looked nice, but it's like taking a car and giving it a new paint job and never looked at the engine. So, but he kind of knew that when he bought it, but it was playing okay, but now it's not. So he has four games. He bought I don't know. I think he's a, I think he's an, I don't really know who he is. I forget his name. I'm not going to say his name anyway, but I think he's a known guy. But sometimes with these games at shows and you buy them, they just kind of get them ready for the show and kind of without doing the whole thing. As I call it, set them adrift. Yeah. But because he knows you're not going to get full restored prices at a show. I'm going to get tire kickers are going to kick you down so you're not going to sell your best stuff or it's all gone through so case in point there needs work and so you know so I basically you know I basically I just we would have like two three I just charge them for the I put a new new used board I had for it I just tried them for that but it's kind of like I don't know I just spent a lot of time it's like I could be home making money but but he's a friend of mine so I just kind of whatever I just gave him I just put the board he charged I tried him for the board He has other problems too. He's got a big guns with problems. He's got all these weird problems. Except for the game I restored, that's working great. I did a Spirit of 76. That thing runs like a top. It's an EM. All the other games there, I need a little help. What else? Oh, and so, and now to fast forward to games on my, that are coming up to do. Just like the shutdown we just had causing flight delays, my Pinball Tomrick is a bit backed up with flights. The field work coming up is put off for about a month or so now and I'm pushing into December, January,February is Scorpion, Speakeasy, Bride of Pinbot, Evil Knievel, Firepower, Swords of Fury, Black Knight2000, Kings of Steel, Elvis, Apollo 13, another Speakeasy, Genie, Space Invaders, T2, Mr. and Mrs. Pacman, Whodunit, Stars, Stern Ali, Twilight Zone, The Getaway, 8 Bottle Lux, another The Getaway, So are you ever going to leave your house? Probably. Well I have to go work at these games. These require me to go out of the house. Oh I thought these were inbound. No I would never leave. Oh my god that's a huge list. Yeah that's a huge list. I'm going to be, and the thing is, these all require Don't complain. That's a good thing. Well I'm not complaining I'm just saying these require day spas. They require daylight. Quick part brief I got it. And then going out to eat all the time afterwards. I don't want to be, I mean my... Dietary requirements have changed. Yeah. Because I got some great, for the first time in a long time I got an awesome report card from my primary care saying wow you got an A plus. All your numbers are fantastic. Yeah, you know why? I've been stuck home eating home cooking and not having any beer and alcohol. There you go. It makes a big difference, Dave. Oh yeah, especially when you get 60 plus. So, so yeah, so that's a good thing. But now by being out and doing this work, now we got to plan while you're out late at night, we always used to stop at a restaurant on the way home, and you'd have a beer or two, and some not so good food for you. So I just got to be a good boy, maybe pack a lunch or pack a dinner for the way home. I don't know, we got to figure out something. Or start really early in the day and getting out there. You'll get there. I'll get there. And just as Dr. Dave's restored 8-ball deluxe proves that when the silver ball shines again, so does the magic. Happy Thanksgiving. Stay lit and tilted. Very nice, George. Very nice. Happy Thanksgiving all and to you George and your wife and I will say stay lit tilted and healthy. Well, it looks as if our time has just about run out. Just enough left to tell them who the sponsor was. Who do you call when you want your pinball machine restored? Dr. Dave! Who? Dave! D-A-V-E! Yeah, Dave! Right. George, you don't know what you're saying. You're under their control. George, we've had it with you. Say no rodeo, bro dad. Hasta la vista, baby.