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Episode 139 – Still Here

Slam Tilt Podcast·podcast_episode·analyzed·Jan 22, 2020
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.034

TL;DR

Slam Tilt #139: Head-to-Head Podcast ends; Stranger Things criticized; Rick and Morty toppers announced.

Summary

Slam Tilt Podcast episode 139 opens with hosts Ron Hallett and Bruce Nightingale mourning the end of the Head-to-Head Pinball Podcast, then shifts to discussing recent Stern releases (Stranger Things Pro/Premium), Brian Edney's return, designer Lonnie's code philosophy, Spooky Pinball's Rick and Morty topper announcement, and coverage of the New York State Championship Series at Silver Ball Saloon. Bruce expresses strong criticism of Stranger Things' unoriginal rule design and lack of 'wow factor,' while praising Spooky's customer appreciation and discussing tournament logistics.

Key Claims

  • Head-to-Head Pinball Podcast has ended (hiatus becoming permanent goodbye)

    high confidence · Ron and Bruce discussing at bar during SCS event; announced a couple days prior

  • Stranger Things Premium was released and streamed on Deadflip

    high confidence · Bruce: 'They streamed that on Deadflip'; discussed projector mechanics and toy feedback

  • Spooky Pinball announced free toppers for all 750 Rick and Morty machines that sold out on first day

    high confidence · Ron: 'They came out and said, to all you 750 people... Rick and Morty, our thank you for selling out in one day is... yeah, I'll get toppers'

  • Brian Edney is back designing after nearly two years; Lonnie involved in Stranger Things code

    high confidence · Bruce: 'This is my guy... announced at Texas Pinball Festival that he was coming back' almost two years ago

  • Black Knight Sword of Rage has weak magnet and placement issues compared to Black Knight 2000

    high confidence · Bruce detailed comparison: 'This thing, it looks like a floaty ball... Black Knight 2000. When you hit the magnet, it stops. Yeah. Dead.'

  • Stranger Things Premium has reported issues with lock mechanism—balls getting stuck or flying out

    medium confidence · Ron: 'I've heard multiple people say they either get stuck or they've had a couple where it just flew right out of the game'

  • New York State Championship Series was held at Silver Ball Saloon on January 18th with 24 players

    high confidence · Ron: 'The New York State Championship Series took place at the Silver Ball Saloon this past Saturday, January 18th, where we had 24 players'

  • Five media outlets covered the Silver Ball Saloon tournament including Spectrum

    high confidence · Ron: 'We had, overall, for the whole weekend, we had five media outlets come and visit us'

Notable Quotes

  • “We're in mourning. We're in mourning of loss of head to head.”

    Bruce Nightingale @ early segment — Opening announcement of Head-to-Head Pinball Podcast's end, setting tone for episode

  • “There's nothing original about this code. I'm sorry.”

    Bruce Nightingale @ Stranger Things discussion — Core criticism of Lonnie's rule design philosophy on Stranger Things; represents Bruce's design philosophy clash

  • “In essence, Stern is blocking sales because they still have a guy... Stern is blocking sales to Silver Ball Saloon, basically.”

    Bruce Nightingale @ Stranger Things rules critique — Accuses Stern of commercial harm by retaining Lonnie; reveals operator frustration with rule quality

  • “And then when I saw it at Expo and I looking at this thing like holy shit... People are just like, oh, my God. Like, no way.”

    Ron Hallett @ Black Knight Sword of Rage discussion — Describes crowd reaction to Black Knight topper at show; contrasts with Stranger Things lack of 'wow factor'

  • “I can actually thank companies that actually do good.”

    Bruce Nightingale @ Spooky Pinball announcement — Rare positive acknowledgment of manufacturer; contrasts with Stern criticism

  • “I'm sure they're waiting with bated breath every time we release an episode to hear what you're going to say about them.”

    Ron Hallett @ post-Spooky discussion — Sarcastic jab at Bruce's outsized influence; reveals podcast's perceived impact on industry sentiment

  • “When you hit the magnet, it stops. Yeah. Dead. You could grab the ball and try to move it, and you wouldn't be able to.”

    Bruce Nightingale @ Black Knight Sword of Rage magnet analysis — Technical critique of magnet performance; illustrates mechanical quality concerns

  • “That's originality. That's saying, okay, I'm going to make you do something, and if you do it right, you're going to get something good.”

Entities

Ron HallettpersonBruce NightingalepersonBrian EdneypersonLonniepersonSteve RitchiepersonKeith ElwinpersonStern PinballcompanySpooky Pinballcompany

Signals

  • ?

    product_launch: Stranger Things Premium released by Stern; streamed on Deadflip with technical camera setup showing projector integration

    high · Ron: 'Stranger Things Premium was released! Premium was released!' and 'They streamed that on Deadflip'

  • ?

    product_concern: Stranger Things Premium experiencing reported field issues with lock mechanism—balls getting stuck or flying out unexpectedly

    medium · Ron: 'I've heard multiple people say they either get stuck or they've had a couple where it just flew right out of the game'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Bruce criticizes Lonnie's approach as copy-paste across games; contrasts with Batman's orignal orange-shot multiplier logic; advocates for unexpected rule nuances

    high · Bruce: 'There's nothing original about this code' and detailed Batman example: 'If you get that orange shot first... you get two X shots'

  • ?

    business_signal: Spooky Pinball announced free toppers for all 750 Rick and Morty first-day purchasers as customer appreciation gesture

    high · Ron: 'They came out and said, to all you 750 people. Who bought on the first day. Rick and Morty, our thank you for selling out in one day is... I'll get toppers'

  • ?

    product_concern: Black Knight Sword of Rage magnet is weak and improperly placed compared to Black Knight 2000; described as 'floaty' and unable to stop ball decisively

    high · Bruce: 'This thing, it looks like a floaty ball' and 'Black Knight 2000. When you hit the magnet, it stops. Yeah. Dead.'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.310

0:00
Okay, listen up. Part of physical education is learning what makes your body break down. What we're talking about today, class, is alcohol. It's my hope that when you meet our guest today, his disgusting, repulsive physical condition will be enough to convince you to stay sober. Here he is. Now take a good look at him. Whoa. He looks cool.
0:30
Coming to you from beautiful upstate New York, this is the Flam Still Podcast, the show about all things pinball. I'm your host, Ron Hallett, here with my co-host, Bruce Nightingale. Good day, mate. How y'all doing?
0:53
Australian. Good day. I'm sure we'll figure out why you're doing that. So, welcome to episode 139, our first episode of the new year. Good day. Good day, mate. What are you doing that for, mate? Why are you talking like that? Because we're in mourning. We're in mourning. What are we in mourning of? We're in mourning of loss of head to head. You've lost your head? I've lost my head. It's head one head. Head one head. Please explain, Bruce. Well, you know how we had started off the journey with the boys, the head-to-head boys. That's right. You're going to do this ahead of time, aren't you? Yeah, I'm going to. And no one's going to be able to understand what you're saying. What he's saying, folks, is head-to-head pinball podcast. The no more. The more fosters. The no more fosters for beer.
1:51
No more. That's annoying. No more. Crikey. Yeah. It's going to be sad. Very sad. It is very sad. When was it announced? A couple days ago when we were actually at the bar for the SCS. The state championship series? Yes. Head to head was, well, they were on hiatus. Yes, they were. But I guess the hiatus will now be a goodbye. Goodbye. So we outlasted another one. Very good, Bruce. They really, they should have, hey guys, you should do a clusterfuck. Yeah. It's a great way to end your show, trust me. Exactly. Even when you don't actually end your show, like we did. Yes, like we did. It's a ratings bonanza. But you guys are always welcome on our show. Oh, yeah. Yes, we've stated this publicly, and we will always state this, that they are always welcome, all three of them. Even Ryan C.? Oh, Ryan C.'s going to do me a favor eventually. I'm still working on it. Oh, my. What kind of favors are you going to do? Oh, my. You would love to know, wouldn't you?

Bruce Nightingale @ Batman vs Stranger Things design comparison — Articulates Bruce's design philosophy preference; defines what he values in rule depth

Stranger Things Premium
game
Rick and Mortygame
Black Knight Sword of Ragegame
Deadpoolgame
Guardians of the Galaxygame
Silver Ball Saloonvenue
Head-to-Head Pinball Podcastorganization
Deadfliporganization
Eric Russellperson
Bob Merloperson
Greg Rapparelliperson
Zach Sharpeperson
Andy Cushmanperson
Batmangame
Texas Pinball Festivalevent
Jurassic Parkgame
  • ?

    personnel_signal: Brian Edney returns to active pinball design after ~2 year absence; announced at Texas Pinball Festival almost 2 years prior

    high · Bruce: 'You were probably the most excited person almost two years ago and it was announced at Texas Pinball Festival that he was coming back'

  • ?

    event_signal: New York State Championship Series held at Silver Ball Saloon on January 18th with 24 players; attracted 5 media outlets including Spectrum

    high · Ron: 'The New York State Championship Series took place at the Silver Ball Saloon this past Saturday, January 18th' and 'we had five media outlets come and visit us'

  • ?

    community_signal: Head-to-Head Pinball Podcast has ended permanently after being on hiatus; announced a couple days prior to episode recording

    high · Bruce: 'We're in mourning of loss of head to head' and 'they were on hiatus. But I guess the hiatus will now be a goodbye'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Bruce expresses belief that Brian Edney has 'given up' and is 'letting Lonnie do everything' on Stranger Things, signaling loss of confidence in Edney's involvement

    medium · Bruce: 'I think Brian's probably just given up already. He's given up already. He's just letting Lonnie do everything'

  • ?

    design_innovation: Black Knight Sword of Rage topper praised as 'wow factor' innovation by Steve Ritchie; described as highly realistic animatronic that draws crowd attention away from playfield

    high · Ron: 'And then when I saw it at Expo... People are just like, oh, my God... It's almost too real. It's kind of like those animatronic fake people that freak me out'

  • ?

    industry_signal: Bruce asserts Stern's poor rule design and reliance on Lonnie is losing sales to other manufacturers; suggests Stern's business health is being impacted

    medium · Bruce: 'In essence, Stern is blocking sales because they still have a guy... Stern is blocking sales to Silver Ball Saloon, basically. Yes. Come on, Stern'

  • ?

    content_signal: Silver Ball Saloon tournament received significant local media coverage with 5 outlets creating interview content; featured pre-tournament interviews

    high · Ron: 'they asked for a local player and a non-local player... We went Spectrum' and 'I have now all five' media outlet features

    • 2:59
    I will tell Joe Lemire there will not be a Lord of the Rings Vault Edition. I'm sorry. Oh. They would never redo a White Star game. Unless they recoded it. And why would they recode it? If it's popular and they can sell a lot. Hell, they make Prime mess and that kind of crap. Yeah, but you really think they're going to go through all of the approvals, all that shit. to, like, recode it, put it on LCD, and re-release the thing.
    3:28
    Ooh, that'd be sweet, LCD version. Yeah. You remember all the fun when the LE version came out. For those who don't know, that was spearheaded by Jersey Jack, because he was the top Stern distributor. Mm-hmm. And it came out, and everyone bitched about, let's see. Well, the problem was, originally, the original problem was the White Star Borage, one of them was not available anymore. What was not available? One of the White Star boards with one of the chips was not available, so they had to modify it with a different style sound chip, if I remember correctly, and it just turned into a whole clusterfuck with that. Yeah, and then the fuses would blow with the magnets, the constancy. Well, that happened on mine, too. That happened on mine, too. You had to upgrade the fuse holder. You know, the fuse itself. My fuse is not factory. Oh, my. Mine was the second run. Then they had the mirror back glass with the trim that made the thing look like a penis. All over it. Yeah, yeah. And then they didn't have the figurines on any of the plastics. Nope. Because whatever store that sold them, they couldn't get them anymore. Not at all. So people were pissed about that, and it was just bitching, bitching, bitching, bitching. This was pre-Pinside bitching, so imagine if Pinside was around. Oh, my God. Would have been terrible. The anarchy. So, not happening. Sorry. Nope. Luckily, I have mine. Yeah, you have one of the original runs, so yours is automatically better. Yes. Win. Yep. Except the art does suck. You have to look at that. Oh, that's terrible Photoshop art. It's blurry, too. It's just horrible. No, it's not. You think, okay, you think Lord of the Rings artwork is good. Yeah, compared to, like, other games. Yeah, definitely. Compared to what? CSI, terrible.
    5:19
    In the age of what it was, it was actually better than a lot of the other games that were out there. Better than Simpsons? Well, you can't beat Cartoon Art. It was. No, but I'm saying it was better than a lot of other games out there that were put out at that time. Like Terminator 3 is better than Terminator 3. Block pictures of freaking Arnold and Ol' Red. Oh, there's tons of Arnold. There's so many Arnolds on that game. Forget it, but that's terrible. I want as many Arnolds on this game as possible. Yeah. I will not sign off until you do. I will not sign off until you put me in the back left twice. Not once, but twice. I need to be on the plastics. I need to be on the play field. And I need to have a huge head. That's me, Arnold. Mm-hmm. Big head.
    6:05
    Here's a new segment. Yeah, a new segment. It's in honor of the Australians. Yes. And don't worry, listeners. We will get to your suggestions. We will be doing one of them this show. And we will be doing the dating game on a future show. Are we going to have the theme music, I hope? Come on.
    6:26
    That's more work for me. Yes, but guess what? It does rock, that music. Well, just hum it then. No. Yeah, there you go. You're just going to hum it. No, I'm not good at humming. So this one I like to call Untold Stories from the Slam Tilt Podcast. Ooh.
    6:46
    Yeah, a lot of stuff goes on. Behind the scenes. Yeah, behind the scenes. And stuff that doesn't make air gets edited out. And typically we'll never see the light of day. A whole lot. Yeah, a lot. Bruce Rant. But I feel that some of them, if enough time has passed and we don't mention names, we could probably get away with, you know. Can I put in the place that the names had this call, what I really thought of them the whole time this happened?
    7:13
    Okay, sure, sure, sure you can, Bruce. And, you know, I'm sure a listener is going to say, you already said this story before. I don't remember saying it. We've told a lot of people this story, but I don't think it was on air.
    7:26
    Yeah, I think we mentioned it maybe once or like millis. Maybe, yeah. So the more I think about it, the more I think we have mentioned this story. But I'm sure our listeners will let us know if we screwed up. But do you remember like two and a half years ago? Oh, wow, it's been a long time ago. When we did that little contest where we asked the listeners to send in back glasses and replacing the characters on the back glass with us. Yes. It was a great contest. And we had all kinds of hilarious, Future Spot was still my favorite. And there seemed to be a theme where Ron was always the woman. Yes, there was.
    8:04
    Yeah. So we had, oh, man, I don't even know how to go in with this. We had a situation where we had one of our Australian listeners submitted a Captain Fantastic redo. I think you were Elton John, and I was probably, I think I was the woman on the balcony cheering for you. Of course. And we posted that, and we got an angry response. I didn't understand why because I didn't even notice this. Did you actually notice it? No, not until it was said. Okay, so neither of us noticed that this Australian listener,
    8:46
    I'm trying to think of a... Crocodile Ryan, we'll call him. That doesn't give it away, right? Cyan. Okay, Crocodile Cyan. Yeah, Crocodile Cyan. Okay.
    8:59
    On our Facebook page, we had a particular person who was like downvoting everything we would post. We call him a douche. We had no idea who it was. I knew kind of who he was. And he's a pin-side troll. He's a douche. But Crocodile Cyan, he figured out who it was. Of course he did. And he decided to put him in this backlash. Yes. In a very interesting position. Yep. So if you remember the Captain Fantastic backlash, there's all kinds of crazy shit going on in the crowd. Like Hitler's back there. There's a woman giving you the finger. There's, well. Boob. A boob. And there is a woman giving a guy a handjob. Yes. Let's just say it. Yes. So what he did is he replaced the two characters.
    9:53
    One he made, what did he make? Oh, George Takei. Yep. And the other one he made it this person. Yep. Because he's funnier than fucking hell. Yes. Well. We were laughing. But we didn't notice it until the guy. We didn't notice it. The person in question, what did you call him? Douche. Actually, Senor Douche. Okay, Senor. Senor noticed it, and he wrote in to us and told us we had to remove that picture or his attorney would be in contact with us. And we laughed. Which is funny because the picture that Crocodile Diane used was the person's Facebook profile. Which is able to be used. Yeah, which is, I don't believe. I mean, once you put that on there, it is now property of Facebook. I don't think you have any rights to the picture anymore. You got it. Yeah. Which I told him. And he did not like that either because he did not like that. So we removed it.
    10:54
    And Ryan. Cyan. Crocodile Cyan resubmitted it with a change. and let's just say he changed the sign the person's holding up, which is like ring them bells or whatever the hell it says, to say something else. To say the guy's name. Yeah. It's a... So if you look back, you could probably find... I think it said don't be a hater or something like that. So thank you, Crocodile Cyan.
    11:23
    That was awesome. Yes, it was. That was a great early memory. I don't know if you've ever told that on air, but... He is a douche still, the guy. He's a Midwest douche.
    11:33
    Okay. I didn't know where he was from, but... Oh, I know exactly where he's from. You know everything, Bruce. I do. I try not to get involved, and you end up knowing everything. And you don't need to. No, I don't need to. No. So, on to... News of the Week. Are we doing news?
    11:55
    Okay, a piece of news. Well, what's really happened? Last time we left, I think Stranger Things Pro was released. Yes, it was. And now Stranger Things Premium. Premium was released!
    12:09
    So they streamed that on Deadlift Stream. They did. And they did a smart thing. They had a green screen in the background, and then they had a camera right on the, whatever, the screen thing on the game, and then they had it on the green screen. So you could see behind the player close up of it. so you had some idea what the hell the projector was doing.
    12:31
    And, you know, it projects things on the drop targets like flames and things. I thought that was pretty cool. And also on the ramps. It's harder to see on the ramps, but it does project it.
    12:43
    Oh, wow. Okay. So, Bruce, I mean, this is your guy. This is my guy. This is Brian Enney. You were probably the most excited person almost two years ago and it was announced at Texas Pinball Festival that he was coming back. Yep. So have you played the game yet? I've not, but I've heard a lot of people have. But we don't have one close to us. The nearest one is in Syracuse, which is 60 miles away. Okay. And guess what? I'm not driving 60 miles for this game. You're not driving 60? What game would you drive 60 miles for? Hmm. There's a good game. What game would you drive 60 miles to play? Deadpool. Okay. If I didn't have one, yes, Deadpool. I'd probably do Jurassic Park.
    13:30
    Elvira I won't even do, but it's that same place. So I'd actually, if I did go see Stranger Things, Elvira's right next to it. It's another new segment. What game would you drive 60 miles to play? Yeah, if I had free time. Well, you don't. I know. But, yeah, I've heard a lot of discouraging reports from the field. I think you mean disparaging reports. No, discouraging like discouraging people. Yeah, discouraging to me and discouraging to people who want to possibly buy this game. It's not good. But we've heard that before with Perfect Example Guardians.
    14:10
    Well, yeah, it wasn't good. Oh, it was terrible. That was like alpha code. Yeah, it was terrible. I'll give them a pass. That was the whole Deadpool you know, the The whole fire, the pedophile incident, and they had to change the schedule. It was supposed to be Deadpool and then Guardian, so they had to swap them. So that's all. I mean, the thing was pre- I mean, remember, it was just like Groot. It was like the only thing in the game. You just played Groot over and over and over and over. Yeah. Or you got bad sounds when they started explaining it. Yeah. Terrible. But that recovered. It did. It's actually a popular game with some people. Yeah. Not me. You don't like it? I still don't like it. I don't like the shots. You don't like the shots? It shoots great. No, the problem is I like repeatable ramp shots. You know that. And the game is actually too flowy where... Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. The game is too flowy. That's not possible. It is. Because you cannot repeat ramps on a game. If you go left, right, left, right, you can probably do it two times. After the second time, forget about it. So if you're designing a game for Bruce, you need Terminator 2 payback time ramps, or he's not interested at all. Or ACDC. Which is the same exact ramp. Exactly. I'm just going with the work. Yeah, you just redid them. Yes. Why screw up something that works? Why do anything new, just repeat the same things to make Bruce happy? Well, we've seen new, and it doesn't work on Star Wars. Star Wars is awesome. Oh, no, it's not. There was so much Star Wars streamed, and we'll talk about that. It's so awesome. Oh, God, yes. It's so intense, Bruce. Comic book edition's coming to level zero. Oh, it is? Wow, I did not know that. Someday. I haven't ordered anything. I was going to say, wow, that's kind of good. No, no, no. I would have to make room for that. Well, guess what? You probably have your IFPA discount for this year.
    15:59
    Yeah, I used mine for last year, so yeah. I would rather wait until later in the year and see what's coming out. See what exciting new games Stern has for us. Okay, so back to what we were talking about. The things that are stranger? Yes. I've heard a lot of bad things. Not myself, I've not played it personally, but just a lot of people. The toy is not fun.
    16:23
    What is the toy? Just the Gorgon thing? The demigod. The demigod? Yeah. We will say, though, you were wrong about the lock thing. Mm-hmm. When the magnet catches the ball in the back panel, you're thinking it dropped it somewhere. It actually does not. Yeah. It stays on the back panel. And if you like a second ball, the second one stays on the back panel the whole time. How the fuck does that happen? How does that magnet not blow a transistor? It must be like 150 amp.
    16:56
    I don't know, but that's good. At least they have that down now. That's what I was thinking. Like, how does a magnet not blow when they do that? Exactly. I mean, one is enough, like the rain, but this is like two balls is going to be holding there. Yeah. And judging by Black Knight's sort of rage, they haven't been doing too good with the magnets. No. That magnet's weak as fuck. Weak as fuck. Terrible placement. Well, yeah, I won't even get into the button, but just from a standpoint of, think Black Knight 2000. When you hit the magnet, it stops. Yeah. Dead. You could grab the ball and try to move it, and you wouldn't be able to. Yeah. This thing, it looks like a floaty ball. Just barely trying to grab the outlet. Here you go. It looks like a Black Knight, an original Black Knight at a show under low power conditions trying to stop it. You hit it and it kind of wobbles. Whoa, whoa, and you hope the magnet doesn't go off before it settles. That magnet doesn't even wobble when you actually get it. It's just like, ugh, bye. It's just weird. It's very anemic. It's weird. I mean, it's one of the first Spike 2 magnets, I guess. But they use it on Beatles. They have the magnet. It works fine there. So I don't get it. I mean, the magnet on Beetle stops it dead. It does. I was just thinking if it was a board issue or like a spike two thing. But obviously, if they're using this on Stranger Things where they're holding two balls there forever, they can't be having issues with magnets. And I've heard so many good things about the rules.
    18:27
    Oh, God. Are we going to get into this? Oh, yes, because that's what everyone's complaining about also. But, you know, it's your hero, Bonnie. But it's also Brian Eddy himself is involved in this, so come on. I think Brian's probably just given up already. He's given up already. He's just letting Lonnie do everything. Stop the copy and pasting. That's what it is. Every mode in that game has been non-original. Okay, explain yourself. Stop just insulting. How are things cut and pasted? Give me examples. Give me examples, bitch. Come on. Examples. It's four shots. and then you get your something going on. It's this. Nothing original. Nothing like multiplier. Like, if you look at Batman, for example, going by Lyman compared to this. Lyman, if you start a villain, you have an orange shot come up on the play field. If you get that orange shot first, which is opening the slides to go down Batcave, and then you make the left outer loop with the second orange shot done, you get two X shots for the whole Catwoman scene or whatever scene you're trying to do, whatever major villain you're trying to get. That's originality. That's saying, okay, I'm going to make you do something, and if you do it right, you're going to get something good. That's how pinball should be working. Not, I've tried this on 12 other games. It's going to work for the 13th one.
    20:01
    I like originality. And it doesn't have to be a big originality thing. Just a little one that most people might not pick up. Or maybe they'll pick up and go, wow, that was pretty cool. I saw on the screen that it actually gave me two extra this whole mode. Or if you're watching it on a stream, somebody's streaming it. You say, how did he do that? Oh, wait, there was an orange shot. And it differentiated from every other shot. and it's not too hard because it's LED.
    20:31
    I'm sorry. There's nothing original about this code. I'm sorry. I'm actually smiling here. I miss recording. This is so fun. Yeah, but the thing is... All of it is the pinball world, according to Bruce. Am I right or am I wrong? It's a matter of opinion, Bruce. There is no right or wrong. Is there anything original in this game? Is there anything... Well, the rules. That's all the rules. Not the rules. I don't know the rules, Bruce. Other than what? You hit, you hit a shot three times to get the mode ready, and then you start the mode. Exactly. And how many times has that been rinsed and repeated? Including Batman. It's been on Batman also, of course. But, you know, I'm just using that as an example. There's no, like, little tidbits. No, like, hey, but the code is, like, what, .8? Yeah, I agree. But in the past, has it gotten any better with a Lonnie game? Okay, wait a minute Is it Guardians of the Galaxy, a Lonnie game?
    21:29
    Yes, and what happened after Lonnie started it? It had to be reflushed because they were selling none of them Reflushed So he had nothing to do with all the advancements in the game I don't think he did much except for the base code The base pictures and screen Okay, so who did all the rest of it to make it so awesome? I don't know I'd like to find out Because I know by the originality of that code later on It was not Lonnie Oh boy Vlad I'm sorry. When you go to a cheat code, there's little nuances that you pick up. Like stacking everything? Stacking everything or spinners or going for different shots and actually making it part different on the game. Like, okay, I'm going to stop the ball. You're going to get the ball on the flipper, and you have to hit a shot to make a better part of the game. And you can change stuff to make it better. That's originality. That says, hey, I swear to God, I don't understand it with Lonnie. And that's why I will never buy a game that he does. So, in essence, Stern is blocking sales because they still have a guy. Stern is blocking sales to Silver Ball Saloon, basically. Yes. Come on, Stern. You need to make Bruce happy. Don't you know that's your whole. All right. Well, okay. What is the. Do I have a Lonnie game in my collection for rules-wise? Do you? I don't know. Do I? I'd have to think of the Sterns. Okay, let's look at what Sterns you currently have sitting there. You have Deadpool? No. You have Star Wars? No. I have one game that he's played with, and it's not mine.
    23:12
    It's always your... Yeah, okay. Batman 66? No. Avatar. Yes. I like Avatar. Oh, God. It's a great tournament game.
    23:23
    It's exploitable. It's easy. I can figure it out. It's good for people with simple minds like me. Exactly. Just link all day, baby. Yeah, exactly. What? Not fun. No. It's not. Okay. That's it.
    23:41
    That's it? That's it. So, stranger things so far. Well, how about the projector itself? I mean, did that look cool? It looks okay. I don't know if it's really integrated into the game, really. You know, I agree. When you look at the targets change colors, you look at the back screen, it's cool.
    24:00
    But does it grab you? Does it go, wow? No, not for me. What's the last thing that grabbed Bruce that went, wow? Oh, my.
    24:13
    I don't know. Was it like Funhaus? Like, holy shit, does that head actually talk? I mean, was it that long ago? No, no, no. If it's that, let's just call it the turntable of death, Batman actually is pretty incredible, what they've done with all that stuff on that turntable. It doesn't, trust me, it is a mechanical nightmare. Once you got it working, it was great, yes. But, I mean, it still, no, it still is. It still gives me quirks once in a while. It flakes out once in a while. It gets lost. It does weird things still. But going by originality and wow, that is a wow thing. When it first came out, and I still say it to this day, it is a mechanical nightmare.
    24:56
    How about the moving T-Rex head? Eh. Throwing the ball around. That's not a wow? Yeah. I've only seen it a couple times, and it's okay. Really? It's not. Yeah. I don't know. If I had a non-pinhead see that, they'd be like, wait, that actually eats the ball? Oh, yeah, and he throws it, too. What? Yeah. It's okay. Okay. It didn't wow me. Wow. What was the last thing for you? Was that your last wow? Yeah, the T-Rex head. Because, I mean, he had the original Data East one. It's like, okay, what are they going to do with this? No, actually, no, that wasn't the last wow. The most recent wow was the Black Knight Topper.
    25:37
    Okay. I thought you were going to say R2-D2. No, no, no. Because when Steve Ritchie saying you know this thing is going to do this gonna do that gonna be the greatest hopper ever I like yeah sure okay yeah cuz I cynical like that And then when I saw it at Expo and I looking at this thing like holy shit
    25:56
    And you have a crowd surrounding the game and they're not watching the game. They're watching the fucking hopper. People are just like, oh, my God. Like, no way. Nodding and moving his head around. It's almost too real. It's kind of like those animatronic fake people that freak me out because it looks so real. That's almost what it's like. Now, I'm going to jump off the subject for two seconds. Oh, my God. You're going to jump off the subject. Well, I think you've beaten it into the ground. You're not into Stranger Things, and you hate buying. Okay. So what are we moving on to? Did you see what Spooky announced last week? Yeah. That was pretty nice. I like that. They announced. They came out and said, to all you 750 people. Who bought on the first day. Rick and Morty, our thank you for selling out in one day is, yeah, I'll get toppers. Yeah, baby. Yeah, so Bruce is getting a topper. Yeah, you get a topper, and you get a topper, and he gets a topper. And I get a topper. Yeah. Nice addition. Mm-hmm.
    26:58
    So that, you know, that is actually very cool. Thank you. Spooky. See? I can actually thank companies that actually do good. Okay, you thank the company. Congratulations, Bruce.
    27:09
    Congratulations. I'm sure they're waiting with bated breath every time we release an episode to hear what you're going to say about them. Exactly. Yeah. All right. Stranger Things. Wow. Okay. What do you think of Stranger Things? I heard your opinion now. I played one game of it at InDisc. Okay. I mean, flow's okay.
    27:28
    Oh, it's got a flow. Great. I see that. I mean, the shots are fine. I mean, I thought the Pro looked super barren. I mean, or simple. I mean, it has the big screen. That does nothing. Well, no. It comes down. The ramp for the Gorgon thing. That's about it. I mean, it wasn't much.
    27:48
    It makes Black Knight's Sword of Rage Pro chock full of stuff. Well, it does. It really does, because at least the head lights up. The flail does different things. The shield goes up and down. All you're getting is the gate that goes up and down. The art's better. All you're getting, and the music's better. So all you're getting on Stranger Things is the gate that goes up and down. Literally. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. So it's very barren. And where it locks, I guess where it locks the ball, like a thing pops up to stop the ball. Yeah. And I guess they've been having issues with it. I've heard multiple people say they either get stuck or they've had a couple where it just flew right out of the game. Yeah. It's not a strange, it's a strange game. Yeah, the thing is, what hurts, what hurts it for me is that I'm just not, I've never watched the show. Yeah, neither have I. I'm sure if I watched the show, I would be like, oh, this is so great. It comes from the show. I'd be way more excited. But, I mean, since I don't watch the show, you know. It doesn't seem for me either. I'm just playing the game for the game, and it doesn't look like. Honestly, like when I saw even like Black Knight, I saw Deadpool and that kind of stuff. I'm like, oh, wow, I know Deadpool. It interests me. Even the shots, even though they're clunky on Deadpool, they interest me. This game, you know, the shots look good. Just the theme kills it for me.
    29:17
    It really does. The theme is like a CSI theme for me, almost like. Wow. Okay. I mean, I'm sorry. It's not CSI. X-Files. Sorry. It just killed it for me. It just does nothing. All right. We beat that poor dead horse. He's dead, Jim. Let's move on. Okay. Next. this past Saturday at the Silver Ball Saloon. It was an exciting event. Where's that? The Silver Ball Saloon? It's at 135 West Commercial Street, East Rochester, New York, Bruce. Wow. Yeah.
    29:53
    You'd love it, Bruce. Our thing works so well. People are just quoting that during the tournament now. I heard multiple people say that line. Your advertising is working. Oh, good. Yes. Beating in the head. Mm-hmm. Did you see I'm psychic? You're psychic. How are you psychic? Well, if you notice, we had a lot of TV there. Press. Yeah, we had press. We had, overall, for the whole weekend, we had five media outlets come and visit us. You went Spectrum. We went Spectrum. Do you want me to delete all the parts where you said they suck? No. Okay. But we went Spectrum, and we've got other companies, and each company asked me for, besides talking to myself or Eric Russell, who was the tournament director today, They asked for a local player and a non-local player. So Bruce picks two players. He picks local player Bob Merlo, and he picks Greg Rapparelli. Greg, you know, Rapparelli. And funny what happened at the end of the tournament.
    30:59
    Did you pick up on that? No, Bruce, and I don't think anyone else is correct. So what you're saying is you picked the two people to get interviewed were the two people who ended up in the finals. Is that what you're saying? Like you literally picked them because you knew they were going to end up in the finals. No, of course not. But that's... No, but you said you're psychic. I'm psychic. I'm psycho, too. Yeah, you're psycho. Yeah. But that was pretty good, though, wasn't it? Did you pick up on that? I did not pick up on that, Bruce. Because I didn't see any of the features. Why not? It's on our Facebook page. I saw the first one. Oh, I have now all five. The first one before the tournament happened. Yes. They interviewed you. Yes. And you looked somewhat normal. Somewhat. And then you played stars, like one ball. And I played 50,000 on a ball that I wasn't even really trying. Yeah.
    31:46
    I thought that was kind of funny. Mm-hmm. So, let's back it up. The New York State State Championship Series took place at the Silver Ball Saloon this past Saturday, January 18th, where we had 24 players. And a lot of snow. And a lot of snow, which probably kept some of the players away. It did, but honestly, everyone made it there. I wouldn't have made it there. Basically, I got in because we had multiple people, like we had people drop out. Mm-hmm. Then on Thursday, we had someone drop out, and the pinball princess, Stephanie, she got in. We had a lot of New York City players there. Yep, a lot of New York City players there. Upstate players. Yep, upstate. Including ourselves. Do we have any Canadians? No. So we kept the Canadians out good? It is perfect. Perfect. So we kind of guaranteed that the New York State champion would actually live in New York State this year. That was good. So I'm trying to think of anything else before I get into... So I'm staying with Zach, right? Mm-hmm. While I'm there. And guess what my first opponent is? Zach. And I'm there, oh, shit. I can't win here. Oh, wait, it gets better for me. I get one of the upstate locals who actually crushes most tournaments at my place, Andy Cushman. You got Andy Cushman who won the last tournament at your place. Exactly. And he's won, like, four tournaments at my place. So I have Zach who's, like, Silver Ball Saloon is, like, his home location. It is. He had the one tournament where he, in match play, in four-person groups, he was first, like, 11 of 12 rounds of some obscene thing. Yes. And I'm like, oh, shit. And we got a couple new games there, and one is Star Wars. And, yeah, one is Star Wars, and I'm like, oh, God. And another game that's there is Countdown, which is his Countdown. Yes. So I'm thinking, like, this is not good for me. And I hadn't practiced at all. No, I didn't. Because I was busy setting up the rig. Like I said on the stream, I would do it. So I did it. I brought the rig down. I actually brought it down Friday.
    34:04
    Got it mostly set up. But I had to move some stuff on Saturday morning. For room. Yep. Got everything set up. And it's like, okay, when we're starting the stream, who should I stream? And I'm figuring, and honestly, this is my mindset. I'm figuring, okay, I'll lose to Zach, and then I can take over the rig. So, like, for the first round, I'll just follow our group, you know, me and Zach, because it'll be easy. And then after I'm eliminated, then I'll just go behind the booth and we'll be over there. Go for next. That was my thinking. I mean, I'm not trying to lose to Zach. Let me just say that. No, no. I'm trying to win, but I'm figuring it's not looking good for me. Yeah, me too. I thought the same thing. I was like, well, I'll get my $25 and be done. We have this. And check it out. It's twitch.tv slash slam till podcast. The entire eight hours, and we'll get into that, eight hours of the tournament is there. And it starts off with me and Zach having an epic seven game. It's best of seven. Epic seven game encounter. Back and forth. What a battle. We get to the end. It's 3-3, and Zach has to pick. So what do you think he picks? Gee, Star Wars. I'm like, okay, finally the dream is over. The Cinderella boy is done. He's done, folks. He's out of the play. Yeah. And I won. He won. I won.
    35:30
    And Zach's there like, I guess you're staying somewhere else tonight. You don't realize how funny Zach is, but yes. So I am like, oh, shit. Okay, that was not anticipated. So it ended up being actually Zach was behind the booth most of the tournaments of the day. So he's moving the rig around following other groups. Because believe me, you don't want to just follow me the entire tournament. So the next is my phone. How did you do against the crusher, Andy? Andy, we went 3-3. So you went to Game 7 also? Yes, and it was my pick. Oh, God. So let me guess. Let me guess what you would pick. Had you picked stars yet? No. Okay, you pick stars. Of course I did. Of course you do. Live by the stars. Die by the stars. He's not into, like, skill or anything. He's going to pick the most brutal, fast game and see what happens. We were the last group, too. Oh, yeah. He's thinking of the tournament, folks. He wants to keep things moving. So we played stars, and I know Andy was not happy with that pick. I wouldn't be happy either. And I beat him. And afterwards, I'm like, sorry, man. He's like, oh, you had to pick that game. That game. Yeah. So, as a win for me, it really wasn't a win because I get to play, next round, the number one seed. Alberto Santana.
    36:59
    Yes. The guy who always beats me. Usually in seven games, like the last two or three times we played. Last time I played Alberto, I was swept for nothing. Wow. Okay. But you're playing in your home arcades. Bruce. Yeah, it usually doesn't do well for me either. Okay. I have not won a major tournament, any tournament at my bar. Except for little, like, you know, discern army ones. That's all I've won ever. So, first game we play, I get to pick. So, Alberto's thing is, even though he has the higher choice of either pick game or pick order, he always defers. Because he wants to play second. Yep. And you were like, you were surprised by that. And I'm there like, Bruce, he always defers. Yeah, but I wasn't expecting it, still. So I picked Lord of the Rings, and he beat me on Lord of the Rings. So the second game, I picked, okay, I'm going to be a dick. Let's go Stars.
    37:56
    And I won Stars. So Alberto then changed his strategy, and he picked the rest of the games. He picked Monopoly. He picked a couple others, and I swept him. And we went four. He won one game. I won four games. Wow. But let's go back to Andy, though. Let's go back to Andy for two seconds. Andy picked Star Wars in the pivotal 2-2 match. Bruce beat Andy. 1.7 billion. Okay, wait a minute. How is it pivotal if it's 2-2? That means you went up 3-2, but that means you lost again to go 3-3. So how is it pivotal? But it's always a better advantage to be ahead, and you still have the final pick for the last game. Okay, so I'll remember that. 2-2 is pivotal. It is the pivotal game. Because if you lose, you still get the pick for the last game. So you always want to, you know, get that 3-2. And if you lose, you still get a chance, which we'll get to later on. So I did kick ass on Star Wars. So how did you do in your second round? Who did you play? Well, also, in round one, Steph actually won in seven games. So she got to go to round two. A lot of players failed. Yeah. Yeah, he had Frank Romero, the towel himself. He lost 4-1. That was surprising. Because he usually always plays good there. Yeah, Howard lost 4-0. Howard Levine. And then when we got into round two, to me the biggest surprise is Jerry. Jerry Bernard, one of the best players in New York, who was sick. He was not feeling well at all. He was having issues. He lost in seven games to Bob Merlo. Yes, he did. Besides my upset, I guess, against Alberto, I think that was the biggest upset. I played, I'm going to say his name wrong. He's one of the New York City guys. Knitson? I played him, and I won in sixth. Nice. So I went on to the next round. You played Alberto, as we stated. So now it's getting closer to we could have a slam-tilt semi. We were actually in the same side. We were in the same side, so we could have played each other in the semis if we got past our next matches. Which I played. You were playing former New York State champion. I played two state champions.
    40:19
    And the guy who beat me. I'm the one he beat to win the state championship. Yes. Mike Pantino, or as I like to call him, Satan. Because he puts Satan everywhere. Yes, he does. So I actually went up on him 3-1, and I lost 4-3.
    40:37
    He came back on me, and I died by the stars, actually, too. Yeah. He had an incredible game on Sea Witch. He crushed it. AFM, he got every shot to work. I didn't. I went to Monopoly. I had a lot of power drains, which I didn't have the whole day until that game. Just he played better on the final three games. I did not. So I failed. So I played Bob Merlo, and it was one of those where I think I was behind most. Like I'd be down 1-0, then tie 1-1, then 2-1, then 2-2, et cetera. I might have been down a 3-1 at some point. I'm trying to remember. I just remember at some point I kept losing, and up to that point I was playing.
    41:25
    I wasn't doing my usual picking old game crap. I was picking more skill-based games and trying to actually be good. and not just use more luck. You know, I was picking, like, Adams Family, Whitewater, you know, some Stern games, you know, newer Stern games, trying to be more skill-based. Well, I had enough of that shit. I was just like, Meteor, let's go to Meteor. So I won at Meteor. I kind of got back into it. Ended up being tied 3-3, and he picked Iron Maiden, which, honestly, I didn't even start a multi-ball. I was kind of lost on that. I really needed to, like, get a better strategy on that. I must have changed my strategy a couple times while I was playing. You can't do that shit. No. You've got to have a game plan of exactly what you want to do. And I did. That was just poor mental game on my part there. I really need to play more Iron Maiden, I think. Because I played it when it came out, but even then I didn't play it that much, and then I haven't played it since. So I was trying to remember, like, how do you start modes again? And what's the main multiball again? Oh, yeah, I got to sweep the target bank at some point. That's on me. Looking back, what do you think was your biggest mistake the whole tournament? That was it. That was it, okay. That was literally like not knowing that game enough. Me, it was probably trying to, I wanted to get game seven. I probably should have picked Star Trek on game seven because I did really well against it against Andy. Even though I lost, I played really well against it. And I think I would have crushed him on that, too. My fault. So at this point, we're both out. Yep, we're both out. Now we're going to be behind Booth. Now, one of the other upsets, I thought, was you had Adam Kane from New York City. He's one of the better New York City players. He doesn't really play outside of New York City a lot, so you don't get to see him that much. But he put up like $5 billion on Star Wars. I know. It was just ridiculous. And he won like 4-1 and 4-0. So then he's playing Gray Paparelli. Yep. And you figure, like, okay, this is going to be a really good match. And Adam lost 4-0. Yeah. I think he got in his head. That was the most surprising to me. Yeah. You could see it in his face during the stream, because we actually followed that part of the stream. You could see some of the things he was doing. He was very frustrated with himself, and you can actually see his confidence just drain away after the second game. And then he just started doubting himself. And it's not that, you know, it happens to all of us. Trust me. It's a game of human chest. Yes, it is. So Greg won 4-0. Yep. And in the other match, we had Bob Murillo versus Mike Pantino going to seven games again. There was a lot of the seven games. A lot of seven games. Yes. Bob pulls it out. Good. And we get to the final. So it's Bob Murillo versus Greg Padarelli. It's Rochester versus, so it's upstate, or western New York, versus New York City. Yes. And it went to six games. with the final game being on Adams family, which Greg took. Yeah, Greg went ahead, and Bob kind of came back on a couple games. Yep, he did. It was a good match. It was overall, it was a great day. We only had three stuck balls. It was a great day. There was, yeah, three struck balls. There was, like, no major malfunctions. There was no major rulings that had to be made. Two minors. Two minor rulings only. Kudos to, you know, Eric Russell, CNY. He was the tournament director. He stayed out of it. I kind of agree now with some of the rules now with, you know, if we do go to that ruling of IFPA where the Terminant Director cannot be playing in the game in the tournament. I kind of like that in some ways because it actually... Oh, you mean the thing I've been saying forever? Yes, I agree. But actually, this tournament went so smoothly because of it, I think. That was part of it. He was happy not to be playing. Of course, he was. He told me, like, this is going faster than I thought it would. Oh, yeah. We thought we were going to finish at a certain point, and we started at 10.30, which is when we thought we were going to start, and we finished by like 6.30.
    45:31
    I was like, you've got to be kidding me. Like, we're done at 6.30? It was like the smoothest. The stream went smooth. We actually got the finals in for once without dying. But, yeah, no, I get a lot of compliments. Everyone was very happy with the bar. Yes, kudos to Bruce Nightingale. The game's played all great. I made it a little harder. That was a funny thing. I didn't really notice that. The only one I noticed was the Stargazer flippers from hell. The flippers pointed at hell directly down.
    46:01
    Yeah, yeah, it's great. Yeah, not only can you not trap, you can't hit the spinners anymore. Great. I proved that. Oh, whatever. Oh, this is brutal. But, yeah, I learned that Deadpool Pro is just as awesome as Deadpool Pringles. Well, not quite as awesome. It is. He doesn't have the loops, but it's still awesome to play. God, I love Deadpool. I think Bob, in our match, he picked the first game and he picked Deadpool. I felt like saying, thank you. Yeah, he didn't know what you owned. But it is a great game. I love Deadpool. Yeah, I mean, I can't say enough good things about it. I mean, the snow. Here you go. Here's typical upstate weather, folks. So I get there Friday. It's like 10, 15 degrees. Yep. I think even Saturday morning we got there, it was like maybe 20 degrees, 15, 20 degrees. So then it starts snowing when it was supposed to, around, what, 10? And it snows all day. Then by the time the tournament ends at 6.30, so I'm breaking down the rig, and I'm going to start carrying it out to my car.
    47:00
    I walk outside, and it's kind of stopped snowing at this point, and the first thing that hits me is just, like, heat. It's like 40 degrees out. It did? And it's like, what the hell? So I still have to brush all the snow off the car, which is heavy now, which makes it harder.
    47:17
    And then the next day, we're back down to like 15, 20 degrees, and it snows again. I even texted Ron, like, it's nice weather, huh? Northeast is just, oh, it's just, and this is normal. Like, I think nothing of this. This happens all the time, this crap. Oh, I, to us, it's just. And you, I mean, you used to just even more snow and even colder. But even in Albany, I mean, you don't think anything of it. It's like 20 degrees one day, 40 degrees the next day, and then 20 degrees again. Like, oh, yeah, whatever. But now you saw our snow where it snows all day long. Yeah, it sucked. It wasn't like, oh, my God, blizzard conditions. It was just like, you know, okay, we're going to get your three or four, five, six inches, and there you go. Yeah, it wasn't, you know. And the thing is, when you're in an area like Rochester or an area like Albany, we live with snow. Everyone knows, like, all the roads get cleared pretty quickly. Yeah. It's really not. The kind of snow that happened, like, Sunday, where it was just kind of lightly going all day, that's not a big deal. No. That's like, you just shrug that off. Yep. I'm looking right now outside the window, and there's about seven inches, eight inches outside. I'm looking at sun right now. Oh, it's not. It's bright. But I still have sun. I'm looking right out. There's a ton of snow. Actually, when we finish recording, I've got to go out and snowblow. Oh, I had to do that yesterday. I had to, like, power drive into my driveway to get into the house last night. No, I did last night because all the snow plowing and everything for the bar, they plowed it all in and I had to do it. So that was NY. It was a very good time. Thank you very much for everyone coming out. Congrats to Ray Pavarelli, the New York State champion. Yes, champion. He gets to go to Denver with a lot of big wigs that won also. Jim Belsito, Keith Elwin. Yeah, pretty much all the big names you would think would win all won. So it's going to be a stacked, stacked nationals field this year. Yes, it will be. Which is, where is that taking place? Denver. You said, yeah, you just said. One up, I think it was. One up. All right. So, Indisk. I went to Indisk, Bruce. Yes, you did. Without me again. I'd take you if you could get the time off, Bruce. I know, I wish I could, because that's a great show. It is, and you know what? It was really cold again. And by really cold, I mean like 60 degrees, but it's much colder inside because they don't have heat. Oh, God, I didn't know that. Yeah. So I had my Yankee jacket on pretty much the entire time I was there. Zoinks. Okay. Hopefully I don't get in trouble for saying this, but I know a lot of people are calling it like Papa West. Mm-hmm. You know, it's the new major, the new, you know, Papa West. I'm just going to say it's the new Papa. Mm-hmm. I have to agree. Because at this point, I don't see any reason why Papa should come back. Yeah, they have one show. They have one show that takes them the entire year. I mean, that is a huge undertaking, ReplayFX. Why would they want to put all this work in to do Papa? I mean, I don't know if people realize, like, where they are now, where the games are located, they can't have it there. No, they can't. It's not like the warehouse, like the old days. Like, they can't actually, they're going to have to take a bunch of games and bring them somewhere else to do Papa if they want to do that. I agree. And why put all that work in? Yeah, it's not worth it. To me, it's just not worth it. I mean, they have replay effects. To me, they should just, like, just go with that, make it the most kick-ass show possible, and just, like, that's your show. I agree. And keep doing your streaming, like, every week, you know, from where they have all the games now, and just leave it at that. I totally agree with you. I think Indisc has you covered. Yes. And it does benefit both sides of the country, too. You have the one show in the east, one show in the west. That's true. If you can't make one show, you can try to make the other show, and it's closer.
    51:05
    And it feels like a papa. It does. With even more cameras. Because you have Carl with his insane, the amount of technology there. You have all this technology. You have the score bit thing going. So they're not even taking your scores down. They're just, like, showing you the thing. Is this your score? Yeah. Okay. Okay, thank you. But I will say, you did a great job. I was in pure 747 mode As I like to call it Playing over my head Okay my story So I went there with Chris my buddy We been buddies Longer than we been buddies actually I known Chris for like 20 years He not really a pinhead but he likes going to this So we get there Thursday at around noon, 1 o'clock, get the rental car, and guess how long it takes us to drive from LAX to Banning. Four and a half hours. Three and a half hours again.
    52:01
    How did I know? Boy. So we're going to have to do something different. Or just wanting to, uh, you have to think. Yeah, yeah. If you can find a Palm Springs, but then there's another connection. But guess what? And it's more expensive. It's the same as four and a half hours driving. Or I was talking to Jim Belsito and basically said, if we came in late at night. Yes, you have to come in late at night. Or extremely early in the morning. Yeah, exactly. That sucks, too. So I would rather take the extra connection and just deal with it. or go to a major airport, and it's only still one connection. If you took the train from Albany right to New York City. No, I'm not doing that. Listen. I know what you're going to say. Yes, I'm not doing that. And then you go from New York City to, well, they actually have direct flights. To Palm Springs? Yes. From New York City? Yes. Yeah. Then it's your birthday, isn't it? Yeah. Okay. Ow. So we get there Thursday, and. Or you can fly to Orange County. At least then you can go south. It's a pain in the ass that way, but you can do it. So we get there Thursday, and they're having their, the match, the Classics Match Play Tournament, kind of like the Pinberg thing, but all Classics games that they did. It was a, what was it, first to 30 points or something? Yeah, first to 30 points. And they were doing the scoring 3-2-1-0. And Jason Wedrick won that. Congrats.
    53:30
    I had Adam Lefkoff come up to me. It's like, hey, Ron, you know, why'd you come in so late? You know, this Classics match play thing will be right up your alley. It's like, I didn't know you had that confidence in my skills.
    53:41
    That's with Thursday. So Friday we start proper with Classics 1. And that's really all. I just play Classics. As part of the admissions package, you get two free open entries. So I kind of got them out of the way. And as it turns out, one of them, if I had had a decent dialed-in score, of all things, I might have had a chance of getting in that. Wow. But I didn't. So, Classics 1, I played, and let me find Mr. Ron Hallett. Where is Mr. Ron Hallett? Where in the world is Ron Hallett? Alright, Classics 1, the way this works, this is card-based.
    54:21
    So basically, you have to have four good games. If you bomb out of one of them, you're done. You might as well just void unless you want to play the other games. The good old days. Which, on Saturday, you probably don't want to do that because the queues were so long.
    54:35
    So my first entry, I played Flash, Dolly, Cosmic Princess, and Spanish Eyes. And didn't do much. Except for Dolly. So then I get to, okay, I'm going to play my second one. And here's where the hands of fate, not Manos' hands of fate, but the hands of fate took hold. as I was in queue for Force 2, the penis game. Mm-hmm. And I was actually in the second room, the room with 500 games in it, and what I saw was my turn. I was checking the queue. Like, okay, I'm going to be up. I run in there, and they're working on Force 2. Oh, my. And it's broken. So it's like, shit. Like, so I'm going to recue. No penis for you. No, I'm going to recue somewhere else. So I recued Allie. Good idea. And I get $789K. Nice. I'm like, okay, that's a good start.
    55:32
    So then I play, I think I played Black Pyramid. $1.6 million. Another good game. I played Dolly. I like $145K. Not great. Not overly horrible. So I'm kind of in a position where I have, and I'm looking at it, a fifth place game, an eighth place game, and at the time I think it was like a 30th place game around there. So I have a chance to get in if I don't bomb out my fourth game. So I play Flash.
    56:03
    Flash. Which anything like 200K and above was going to be decent. So that's kind of what I'm aiming for. First ball drains immediately. Of course. By the end of the second ball, I have 300K. So I'm like, okay, I'm probably in at this point. Then I tack on another 180K. So I got $480,000. I'm ranked, like, third in Flash. Nice. So as soon as I, you know, you want to accept this ticket? Like, yes, yes. And I immediately go to the standings, and I'm looking in the middle. Like, okay, where am I? And I can't find me. And I keep scrolling down. I keep scrolling down, and I can't find myself. I'm like, what the hell? Like, God damn it. Like, I'm pretty sure I should be it. So I do the unthinkable. I scroll up. I scroll up, and I'm, like, second in Classics. at InDisc. I know. That's pretty impressive. With the best players in the world. This is the hardest classics field possible. Actually, no, that would be Saturday. But as of that moment, it was the hardest classics field you could possibly have, and I'm second. What's wrong with this picture? It's like Stranger Things. The world's upside down. The world is upside down. The world was upside down. Bizarro world. It was definitely a bizarre world. Eventually, I ended up fourth as things move around. and I got past the first round of the playoffs. And the second round of the playoffs, I had a mathematical chance the last game if I won. But I did not.
    57:31
    So I'm not going to go too much into detail because we'll be here for five hours and people are already falling asleep. Still, way better than I ever thought. Like, holy shit. I wonder how much money I'm going to get. But they weren't giving out the money until Sunday, so it's like, eh. The next day, Classics 2. Let me bring that up. So Classics 2, we have even more people because it's now Saturday, and it's packed, and there's like 30-minute or so queues like on every game.
    57:59
    I'm honestly thinking the first day was kind of a fluke, and reality is now going to set in. You know what I mean? Oh, you're right. I'm right with you. You know, now, okay, I got kind of lucky. But, okay, you're not playing anything in the majors or the high rollers. No, this is the only thing. Yeah. I'm thinking, like, I've seen all these queues, but my only saving grace is they didn't swap out any of the games.
    58:26
    That's a good thing. It's all the same games. Yeah, I think the only one they swapped out Force 2 because it broke with something else. I don't remember what they swapped it out with. I still had two entries I hadn't taken. I bought four entries the previous day, and I only played two of them. I played, like, the first entry. It wasn't overly great. I played the second entry, and the second game just totally bombed out, so I voided it. I got two more entries.
    58:50
    So then I played, I started kind of the same thing. I played, I think I played Flash first. No, I played Ali first. And I got, like, 474K, ranked, like, 15. So, like, okay, that's good. I got Flash. I got, like, 175K, not great, but not terrible. And then I played Black Pyramid. Got 2.2 million. I was the number one scorer. Nice. So now, same exact situation. I have three decent scores. Now I need a good last score, and I have a chance to get in.
    59:23
    Yeah, two in a row, and I'm like, oh, boy. So I pick Cosmic Princess because Stern. It's an Australian Stern. Good eye.
    59:34
    First ball, house ball, drains immediately. Second ball, house ball, drains immediately. Oh, my God. Yeah, you're back down the field now. So third ball I played forever. I ended up with a 740K, seventh-ranked score. Nice. And this time I went straight to the top to see if I was – and I was like – I think I was second again. Wow. Second or third. But I knew I was going to drop down significantly because of the Black Pyramid score because there's no way that was going to remain first. So I was probably going to drop at least ten points, I was figuring, because I was probably going to at least drop to second or third, which is what happened. But, you know, for a split second during the day, I was actually first in classics. Nice. And he kept reloading because of the way the stuff moved around. As soon as my Black Pyramid thing got beat, then I dropped down, and then I kept dropping down. And then I ended up – where did I end up? I ended up dropping down to sixth. Okay, well, still pretty good. Tied with Greg Pavarelli.
    60:35
    Actually, not tied. He was seventh. I was sixth. And Bob Merlo was there, too. I know he was. And a week later, we're playing in Rochester. It is quite the small community when you think about it. It's going to save people.
    60:50
    That I lost in the first round. But I had the same situation with the last game. I had a mathematical chance. I had to win, and I didn't win. Bummer. That Sunday, I picked up my money. For Classics 1, I got like $105. For Classics 2, I got $85. So still, money is money. I'm ahead.
    61:10
    Not only was I cashing Bruce, I was ahead. I know. Go figure, huh? And in the tournament area, they had Mario Kart Racing there, so you could kind of play it while you were waiting in queue. And they had Pac-Man Battle Royale Edition, which was pretty fun. Played that. It was like a four-player thing.
    61:30
    I don't know if you've seen those. No. It's pretty cool. I went over the second room that has the 500 games in it. I'm trying to think what I played there. I played some Waka. Was there anything new? New? Like, you know, like new old stuff? No, not really. They just had the latest and greatest they had. Well, they were using it in the tournament, but the Jurassic Park they had was LE, of course, because that's all they get there is LE editions. I attempted to play Alien, but it was broken. Of course. I decided to do a little experiment with my buddy Chris because he's not a pinhead, right? So I brought him over to Elvira House of Horrors Okay, I brought him over to Elvira House of Horrors and I'm like play this game, tell me what you think and he's playing it and he's not a great player he's not really a good player but he doesn't double flip or anything he's never going to trap he's going to hit everything on the fly right so he's playing it and he's playing it and he's playing it and he's playing it and it's like what do you think it's like hmm plays pretty long seems pretty easy and it's like yeah it does doesn't it I just you know because we us panheads say how you know how long that game plays how the shots are unmistable and all this other stuff well I wanted a unbiased opinion and you got and I got it. Yes, it is very easy. And he was enjoying it and just, I think we're a little sheltered in our pinhead bubble, but for someone like him, this would be a great game. Because he could actually play this thing for a while. You know what I mean? We always, we seem to get on games cases when they're too easy.
    63:15
    But for him, I mean, he was having fun playing this thing. But then I decided, okay, the other end of the spectrum, let's do this. I brought him over to Houdini.
    63:24
    And guess what happened there? He played long. No. Houdini. Oh, I didn't know. Maybe he got lucky. No.
    63:33
    No, you don't know sometimes. You watch people play stars for the first time. And then you might get like 80,000 and you're sitting there going, really? No. This is Houdini. He did lock a ball. He locked a ball in the trunk. That was it. And he was like, I can't hit anything on this game. Yes. That is correct. Welcome to the world of Houdini. So maybe we need to have him as our Our roving I mean because he's impartial And he came up to me He was over in the other room He's playing all these games And Chris is the one who loves fire Fire Like that's his favorite game Fire He comes over and he's like I found my new favorite game It's better than fire Like whoa Okay what could this be I don't know Is he going to say Popeye or something like that Oh my god Okay what is this? What is this game? I gotta know.
    64:27
    8-Ball Deluxe. Like, okay. Fine. Nice. And then the funny thing, I played this other game, Ron. It was so bad. It was one of the worst games I've ever played. I'm like, okay, what's this going to be? It was like Bugs Bunny's Birthday Something.
    64:47
    And it's like, okay. We're not crazy. we are all correct that game sucks you know he played it because it's oh Bugs Bunny and then he's like oh my god this is terrible that's fucking hilarious oh so yeah I'm trying to think of any more in disc memories there but no that was it was awesome kudos to Carl to Jim to everyone involved to me it's the new Papa it's it replaces Papa as the major It's just in my eyes. And congrats to Eric Stone, who won. He is the champion of InDisc. I guess maybe I should say he won the other ones. Classics 1 was run by Kaylee George. Classics 2 was run by Eric Stone. So he won that, too. And the high stakes was won by Jim Belsito. Who also won California's SCS. So that's a great thing. So good month for him. Yep. And the women's was won in a playoff by Stephanie Traub.
    65:51
    Nice job. She beat Louise Wagensahner, who won it last year. My father would have been happy. The seniors division was, I think, 55 and above. Because he always complains 50 is ridiculous. Like, I'd have to play against Lyman. That's stupid. That's not seniors. Yeah, he wants it to be like, I think he wants it to be like 70 and above at this point for seniors. But I'm trying to find the seniors playoffs here. I can't find them for the youth playoffs. Oh, my God. Breaking news.
    66:25
    Kudos to you guys head to head. We love you. No. More breaking news. Oh, they're back. No. Oh. The last TWIP just released. What do you mean the last TWIP? The last? This Week in Pinball is no longer doing This Week in Pinball. Oh, man. I know. Really? What the hell, man? I know. I wonder why. I'll have to listen. Yeah, I know. Man, they're just dropping like flies, Bruce. I know. See, we still hang out like freaking herpes. And we're still here for some reason. How do we do this? I couldn't fucking tell you. When did we start again? Like summer of 2017?
    67:06
    So, yeah, we're like, wow, two and a half years, and we're still here. Oh, God. Damn, we're good, Bruce. I agree. Oh. Man, that's a bummer. I just read that post and I was like, holy shit. That's actually one of my favorite ones to listen to. They have great chemistry. This sucks. It's a dark day. But it's a bright day on Pinside. I'm sure they're happy. They hate podcasters. I know they do. We all suck. According to them, these movies were invented so podcasters can jerk themselves off. I read it on Pinside. I agree. Fucking sad. All right. I wonder who's going to win the Twippies this year.
    67:42
    Oh, Jesus. I was thinking about Indus, though. I just laugh at one thing. I laugh at one thing. Okay, you're still on this. You've got a hand inside, so here we go. I just laugh because guess what? What? They love this guy who does short podcasts, but his overall week total is more than ours.
    68:01
    Scratch head. Okay, done. Okay, I didn't even understand that, and I won't ask for an explanation. No, because somebody podcasts and says, I don't want to do a podcast longer than an hour. But he does five podcasts or four podcasts in a day or in a week. So it's more than most podcasts are all the time.
    68:24
    Yeah, go fuck yourself. Wow. All right, back to InDesk. I just made a little note to myself about. Bruce getting off topic. No, no situations where, like, I'm stepping up to Cosmic Princess Day. I need this game. And, you know, the first two balls drain. And the whole concept of, like, pressure. Under pressure. And I, you know, and this will sound, how will this sound? This will sound like I'm a douche or something, but I can't remember the last time I really felt pressure playing pinball. I do when it's the first game of, like, SDS. You know, because, and I'll say, watching in-disc, I was watching things like Raymond Davidson, right? He's playing Wizard. He's in the finals. He's trying to alley pass to get it to the right flipper, because that's the only flipper you want to use, of course. Of course. And it's not working, so it's just like, screw it. He tries to tap pass. Like, probably the first time he tries to tap pass on the game. And it's in the finals. It's in the finals. It's in the hole. And his whole thought process is like, well, I tried to tap pass really early on the flipper, and I figured if I screwed it up, I could still save it. You need that mentality. You need to not have fear. And I try to think of it this way. if I'm in a big situation at a game, if I had a choice between either being at work in a three-hour tech conference call with an idiot tech at another location trying to get a VPN tunnel up, trying to show them how to use their own Palo firewall monitor tab, sorry, going a little off there, or would I rather screw up a tap pass on stream at a tournament somewhere? I would rather do the latter. Wouldn't you? Yeah, I agree. I would rather be doing that than at work.
    70:12
    That's the way I think about it. And I try to play stupid. That's another thing I try to do. Oh, you do that very well. And I don't mean, like, not shooting or know what I'm shooting for. I mean just as oblivious to the situation and as, like, I'm playing best when I'm not even thinking about the game as I'm playing it. I used to be able to do that. That's from playing video games. I used to be able to do that playing these two, three-hour games of Galaga, where I'm playing, I lose it all track of time, and next thing you know, I'm 20 boards past where I last remember because I was just thinking of something completely different, but my body was just kind of muscle memory doing its thing. That's what I try to do when I'm playing pinball, just blanking out my head as much as possible. I find that works for me. How about you, Bruce? You don't really wear headphones or anything. No, I used to. But you sing and do all kinds of crazy stuff. Is that your method? Yes.
    71:07
    Just acting as crazy as possible? No, I like to goof off and relieve some pressure. You see it on the stream that I did for... Oh, yeah. Yep. Just, you know, want to relax and just distract. Actually, the best thing for me at a tournament... Distract? Relax. Yes. It does. New quote. It does, because when I work on pinball machines, when I'm working at a tournament, it really just takes my mind off everything else.
    71:34
    So if somebody says, hey, I got a ball stuck or the game broke while I'm playing, okay, walk away. But the worst thing ever, ever in a tournament, and I know it's happened to all of us, is when you get a ball stuck. And then they got to take the glass off. And you have to wait five, ten minutes. Then they put it on your flipper, which sometimes gets worse. And it's like, okay, I'm ready. And then you scoot and miss and drain. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, that's the worst. If you can get to a point where you can do that regularly, then you have ascended to the higher levels of pinball. I will, like, in that situation, I will tell myself, get ready for the drain. Because you're probably going to miss this. So just be even more cognizant than usual that you're probably going to have to move this game a little bit because you're about to miss. Oh, I totally agree. That is the worst thing in pinball. Mm-hmm. So what else is on the docket, sir? All right. Let me look here. Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do. Probably sounded like an idiot. You know, like, I just picked it up. Like, you just picked my comment after 10 minutes. That was live. That was right on the fly.
    72:41
    Huh? Like, it sounded like I was thinking about how it just sounded like when I said, what's next on the docket? Like, I just totally did a, you know, a total change of, you know, attitude and everything like that. Like, let's try this. Like, it was. And now for something completely different, Bruce? Exactly. Okay, now for something completely different. Thanks to the listeners for all the suggestions. We are going to start doing those. We're actually going to do one of them today. Bye. In future episodes, we will be doing the dating game idea. Yes, where we're going to have to get another guest on to actually help us out. No, no, you're the bachelor. No, no, the games.
    73:19
    Yeah, you'll see. You'll see. Well, you have access to our e-mail account again now that I gave you a password, So you can actually see the idea. I like the idea. I have to be the host, though, and Bruce will – God knows what Bruce will say. But that's going to be the fun part. Yeah, exactly. But we had – let me see. This email up here. Are we doing the mail ball bag? Kind of. This is kind of the mail ball bag.
    73:47
    You just had to see her comment. This is so great to be back, isn't it? It is. See, we got an email in here from Twitch. Hey, Slam Till Podcast. Hey. It's got the statistics from the stream from the New York State Finals. We had max viewer count of 110 viewers. Hey. Average viewers of 78. Wow. We did very good. 179 unique viewers. 27 new followers. Thank you. Thank you very much, guys. Nice.
    74:23
    And the greatest part is when we got to the final couple of rounds, IE Pinball, which is Carl D'Angelo's stream, his powerhouse stream, started streaming the California finals where they had Jim Belsito match they were showing, and we were beating them for the last hour that we were on. Nice. Yeah. Woo-hoo. I'm probably too happy about that, but yeah. I guess it is what you stream and not, it's like what you're streaming. Because when I stream just myself playing stuff, I do not get 100 people watching me. No. This is from Sean. Hi, Sean. We're listening, and this email's from Wally. This is actually from November. Listening to the latest episode, you're discussing how you two first met. The discussion evolved into what machines Bruce had at the time. I wonder if there was somewhere buried in that discussion an idea for a new segment, as in, in so-and-so year, my collection looked like this. These were my favorites. These are the styles I was into at the time, why some of the machines left, et cetera. Tastes change over time. It may be interesting to look back and discuss. Now, I don't know if my memory is good enough actually to go year to year on what I had. I can tell you when I met what I had there. Yeah. So I was thinking more of just a general discussion of how our tastes have changed over time. When I met Bruce, it was 2005, where I came over to his townhouse for the Yahoo Group. Yes, it was. The Western York Yahoo Arcade Group.
    75:55
    And what did you have? I had Twilight Zone, Medieval Madness, Tax for Mars, Safecracker, Black Knight 2000, World Wind.
    76:11
    Champion Pub I just got. What else did I have there? Indiana Jones I got just before that. I'm just going to try to go through the picture in my mind of anything else. I'm probably missing one or two, but a good gist of it. And you had video games. Don't forget those. Let me see if I remember. You had a vertical main machine, a horizontal main machine, a Hyper Sports. Yes. Oh, you had a Space Ace and Dragon's Lair. Space Ace dedicated cabinet, which was a big deal. And the Dragon's Lair. Yeah. But for the pinballs, my taste for war towards Pat Lawler.
    76:54
    Very surprising. Mm-hmm. And that kick went really fast. But you're talking to the person that owned a road show for a week.
    77:03
    See, in 2005, what would I have had? I would have had Black Knight, I would have had the Firepower, the Getaway. And you didn't have my Black Knight yet, too. No, no. Because I had the four for a while. What was the fourth one? Black Knight, Firepower, Getaway. No, I did not have the Flash yet. Those might have been the only three games I had at the time Wow just those three games You still have the Steve Ritchie bug Yeah yes Yep Because the Black Knight I think came in and that was the fourth one I had, like, the four. That's when I already ran out of room, and I started having to... Bruce had to get the idea. No, that's before the living room became game land. That was when it was only one room, and eventually I got a storage place, and just started, you know, one would go there, and I would get a new one in. And then eventually you came over and told me that I didn't need the couch anymore in the living room, so we got rid of that. So I had seven games going in rotation.
    78:05
    But I remember the getaway, that was in storage the longest. That was in storage for probably almost eight years or something before I finally got to see the sun again.
    78:16
    So as far as taste changing over time, I definitely would say it started early solid state, Williams. And then it got into your classic Bally Williams stuff that everyone loves. You know, so I had to be able to get away my World Cup soccer. I had a Terminator 2, you know, my Star Trek Next Gen, you know, that kind of era. Yeah, I started with that. That's what I started with. And then I went to early Bally's and then early CERN. and then I went to then I started to go to early Sternland and I started doing that and got all the Sterns and then first in there would be an occasional new Stern like the first home use only game I ever had was Terminator 3 and then eventually I got the Spider-Man like with me and then I got some of the other new in box ones I've gotten then I tried to be once I got past like the I had a lot of the new Sterns the older Sterns I started trying to get more variety and get some of the newer manufacturers in so I got like the you know the dialed in you know the TNA that you love oh I'll get my own soon I've spookied my first spooky so I got yeah the spooky the Jersey Jack finally got a data east as in Lethal Weapon 3 finally got the Bally and the Harley Globetrotters and that's kind of where I'm at now,
    79:50
    and I am like, you know, I'm going to be putting the Dracula, I forgot that, the Bram Stoker's Dracula and the Star Trek next gen up soon. You know, it's constantly evolving. It was like old, it got newer, then it got older again. Then with some newer, because, you know, I got the Deadpool, which I love. Maybe you should just let me borrow the next generation for a little while so I can put it at the bar and make tons of money on it. And piss that golf. Yes. You were a ballet man, weren't you? Oh, I had a lot of ballets. But then the problem with ballets is the rules are pretty much the same on a lot of them. It's just the layout that's different. Mm-hmm. And I got kind of bored of it. And then when, you know, you started getting some discerns, I was like, wow, those are really fun. But Ron's three and a half hours away, so at the time, three and a half hours away, I'm like, boy, I'm going to get my own. And we started collecting. And I got into those through Scott. Scott, of course. I played Scott's, of course, in the beginning, and I enjoyed him. Scott, you know, our Scott, he used to live in Allentown, and he would have like a party like Friday night after the show at his place. And I went down there, and I had never – I'd seen a bunch of them at Expo one year, but I never saw the amount of them I saw at his house. Like he had everything. And it was like, oh, my God, look at these things. And you're playing them. Well, yeah, they're Scott's, so they play like obscene. And so that's where I kind of like, okay, we need to start getting some of those. The prices had started to go up, but they weren't crazy yet. No, not at all. So I was lucky to get in on that part. And it helped make the prices more crazy. Oh, yeah, it's all us. It is all us. Yep. We caused the problem. We apologize. I don't. Well, actually, no. Screw you. We got all the games. They're all ours. I like my games. I'm going to go downstairs and play some Quicksilver right now. Oh, well, that sucks. What a dick. That does suck because it's half mine. I like to get that. All right, I'll go downstairs and play my Stargaze instead. Okay, good. I had people last night asking for Quicksilver, or two nights ago. They're like, oh, you should bring back Quicksilver. Like, uh, I pointed to you.
    82:01
    So those are kind of our tastes changing over time, and they will continue to change, I'm sure. Yep. I've gotten a couple EMs, you know, and I've gotten rid of a couple EMs. I have one more now. I still have one EM. I mean, when you've been in this game as long as Bruce has, what, 40 years collecting? I'm actually at the point where I'm kind of like, I don't even know what game. I would like to get another game besides new, and I really don't have a lot of selection for the bar like I want to get. What would you recommend for me to buy? See, that was another thing I think that made the New York State Championships just run so good was that the different eras. So you had something because we were playing IPA rules, so we had to do the crap. Like if someone wanted to play a game, you could wait. Yeah. Which we usually, like when we run our stuff, we like, no, no waiting. Just go. You can wait on the third ball. On the third ball or something like that. I don't think anybody waited, though. But no, we had someone waited for, I think, Adam's family, but that was the only one I remember. Okay. But because you had... 26 games. Yes, and you had a bunch of Valley Williams, so you're covered there. if someone wants to play a Valley Williams game. You had a bunch of the new Sterns. So if someone wants the new Stern experience, you have selection, and then you have a bunch of the early solid states. I mean, the only thing you don't have there are EMs. Or, actually, I would like, you know what I'd really like to get? What would you really like to get again? And it's weird, and I know you're thinking, I'm going to be stupid about it, is like another System 9 slash 11.
    83:34
    I would love to find a Radical, but they're just way out of price now. Oh, yes. But I would like to find maybe, like, a nice copy of High Speed. If you get your Radical, make sure you put the Soren Rons in it. Yeah, I know. It fixes a ton of issues with that game. I know. But the way I look at it is I'd like to get, like, something a little more 80, or even, like, a nice space shuttle. Even though it is spinner all day, I get that. Space Station.
    84:01
    No, I don't like Space Station. I really don't, because it's just locked now. Well, also, I don't think your customers would like it, because it doesn't have the regular bottom. No, I know, but they like Stargazer. Yeah, but you can almost trap with that. Yeah. I guess you can. Yeah, you can trap in space. Let's see. So you want like a flashy, in-your-face System 11 type game?
    84:23
    Either that or I'd like to get something that's just different. We did have a lot of System 11s, and we whittled them down a little bit. Now I'm kind of saying like... Yeah, no more Lion Man. No more Lion Man, no more Fire, no more Taxi. I still have the Taxi at my house. but I like to get maybe a nice high speed or something you know, Grand Lizard Maybe you should put a Facebook poll up Oh no Oh well, I tried folks, I tried But maybe they need to offer me They offer you, just offer you games No, no, listen, douche That's Sir Douche to you Yeah, I might be getting my taxi soon So maybe if somebody's got some trades out there You know, my taxi, not the prettiest one, but she works pretty darn well. She's got a couple little issues, but it's got a perfect, it's a Maryland, and it's got a perfect Maryland back glass. This is the only Maryland back glass I think I can actually say is a 10 out of 10. Wait, wait, wait. You said back glass? Back glass. Not a trans light? I thought they were trans lights. No. No, back glass. So they made both? They made both. Hmm. Was it like the back glass was early in the run and then they switched to trans lights? Early in the run, yes. Why did they do that? though, because they were already doing translights at that point. Why did they decide to do a backglass? They couldn't get the mirroring right for everything, and that's why I think they... I know it's cheaper. But I have a... Whoa, whoa, whoa. It was cheaper to do a backglass? No, cheaper to do a translight. Yeah, but what I'm saying is before that, like, F-14's a translight. I know. Leading up to that, most of the games were translights, so they'd already converted over. Why would they all of a sudden, like, okay, we're going to do a backglass for this one? They did. some games they did. Look at Black Knight 2000. That was a back glass. That's true. And so even in the WPC era, they did what was it? No Good Golfers and Champion Pubber back glasses for whatever reason. So, you know, they did do that, but I have a back glass and it is beautiful. So if somebody wants to trade bait, offer it up. Cabinet's not pretty on mine, the play field's not pretty, but it works good and it's got a perfect back glass.
    86:30
    So you heard it here first, folks. Pokes? Pokes. Message us on Facebook or just email us at slamdillpodcast at gmail.com. That's slamdillpodcast at gmail.com. Now that Bruce can read them. Yes. He can read all his five-star reviews he gets. Mm. I've been doing it a lot lately. Mm-hmm. Once in a while, you get a douche.
    86:53
    Anyone who doesn't like me is a douche. No, no. Guess what? You don't put a lower rating and then not say why it's wrong. Well, that is kind of douchey. At least bitch, if you're going to do that. Exactly. Tell me what's wrong so I can try to fix it. There you go. You heard it here from the owner. The owner of the Silver Ball Silhouette. And where is that again?
    87:14
    135 West Commercial Street in East Rochester, New York. 144-45. Which I have to go to work today, even though it's Monday. What? We have a private party. Oh, my.
    87:27
    And I have to swap out a monitor out of rush. Rush. One's failing. Oh. I have two spares. Plus, I have two new in box. Of course you do. Jesus. All right.
    87:40
    Let's see. We do have... Let's see. I think that's it for... Do we have any more mail? I did have one more ball bag item. Hold on. Let me clean this up here.
    87:53
    This one's from Tim. Hi, Tim. It says, Hi, guys. I enjoyed your decade in review and various game observations. You totally failed to mention Ghostbusters or Guardians of the Galaxy, though. No. He's absolutely right. No. There are multiple reasons why, number one, Ron screwed up. Number two, some of the games we didn't mention, because there were other games other than that that we didn't mention, I noticed are not on IPDB.
    88:19
    I think Wonka or one of them. There were some big-name games that came out within the last year or two that are actually not on IPDB. And I was just going through the list. No, we didn't miss Ghostbusters unpurposely. I would just try to forget that game even though I have it in the bar. Jurassic Park came out after Monsters, yes. And Bruce really needs to get more sleep as some of his game opinions are totally insane. No, they're not. No, they are. I agree, Tim. He is quite insane. Thank you. And again, if you want to send any email to the ball bag, it is slamtillpodcast at gmail.com. And speaking of our listeners, I need help from our listeners. I need help with something. Because one thing I've learned from this show is they're way smarter than we are and come up with way better shit. And it's like stomp, which we got from a listener. And pretty much all the good ideas we get, we get from listeners. So, if you want to give me another good idea, I am looking at going forward with my stream character idea, which I mentioned on the show many times. I want to start streaming on a regular basis, which will probably mean once a week. But streaming in character as another character, which I have ideas. But the one thing I can't come up with is the name. I need a cool character name.
    89:43
    So that's what I'm looking for. And nothing like Johnny Silverball or something stupid like that. No, I want a good original name I can use for this character. He's going to be playing pinball, and he's going to be doing pinball karaoke. And it's going to be great. Aren't you excited, Bruce? Yes. We'll make it up here. You can join in. We can do a duet. There we go.
    90:06
    That's my idea. Try to make a more entertaining stream. and since, you know, I do sing and have actually done recordings and stuff, I figure why not do that? It'll be interesting. Or it'll bomb entirely, and the cool thing is if I'm a completely different character, then it's not me bombing, right? Yes. I need character names. So, again, slamtiltpodcast at gmail.com. Send them in.
    90:33
    Let's see, what else do I got here? Stream character names, I'll check that off. Nothing else in the ball bag? Nothing else in the ball bag. Oh, yes. New York City Championships. Yes. 240 spots for registration. Yeah, they sold like half of them. There's still plenty. But it opened yesterday, which would have been January 19th. Yep.
    91:00
    So if you want a very unique, expensive experience, I'm not going to lie. If you're going to go to this, you're going to be paying some buckos, probably more than you're going to pay in any other tournament.
    91:13
    But you are going to get a very unique experience. I think if I can get to go, I'm going to stay at my sister-in-law's.
    91:22
    Okay. She lives in Jersey, so I'll just take the train and walk down to Hell's Kitchen. It's not that far. What, a 10-block walk from MSG? Yeah, I do it every year. I've done it all the time. Here's the worst thing. I used to have to park at MSG. There's a great, humongous parking lot that's 24 hours, and I'd work in the city of Lott at the time, and I would carry my tools, which was a 70-pound bag. Yeah, I remember that thing.
    91:50
    Well, you know, people don't realize that you're actually a powerlifter. I am. I can lift pinball machines by myself. Yeah, what game did you deadlift? I deadlifted Catacomb without a head. He just puts his hand around it, deadlift it up, move it over. Yep. I had to move it out from the car to the inside of my garage, which catacombs back in the garage. I've got to work on that eventually, trying to figure out that sound issue. It's gotten better each thing I've done. I think I have to repin every connector. Oh, that's the game that replaced Force 2, Catacomb. Oh, okay. Yes, it was funny watching people play the bag of cell game. The sad thing about it is for tournaments, you just try to plunge the rightmost lane and hit the spinner. And that's all you do.
    92:38
    It's really not that fun in a tournament situation. It's way more fun to play it and try to actually complete the... But the spinner's not an easy shot either.
    92:48
    It's not. Can I go? But New York City Championships, they're going to have... And there's multiple things you can get. You can do it just playing the tournament. They did sell out of the Thursday night thing Yeah. It's at Adam Schwartz's house, or not Schwartz's, it's the place he owns, where you can play some of the highest-end Stern games, super, super high-end stuff, and I think they're going to try to actually have it on the rooftop, so that's going to be interesting. You can see the city skyline while playing. That's going to be some nice photo opportunities, I would think. I'm not going to that. If anything, I'd just go down Thursday night and then try Friday, Saturday, and everything. They had talked they're going to have some kind of Battle of the Greats or something. Yes. Which I love that idea. It's going to be, is it one game or three? I don't know. I don't think all the details are out yet. Yeah, but it's going to be just the four of the best players, and it's going to be short, and it's going to be winner take all. Yep. And they're going to stream it. That sounded cool. And we've got to start planning for Stomp 3 West. Yes. Yes, and I have people asking me in Indisc when Stomp was going to be. Yes, at Indisc. Wow. Where's Stomp going to be? Because, you know, they want to see my shirt collection, Bruce. They do. There's some stern lovers. The early stern lovers, they want to come over. I told them we'd probably have it around the same time we did last year. Because that worked out well. It did. It wasn't like anything else was going on. It wasn't in the middle of the summer where it was like 300 degrees. I would like to maybe do 32, 36 instead.
    94:23
    I think it would be a little less crowded. More. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Stop. You're insane. I am insane. But we're going to have Stomp West probably the end of March or the early bit of April.
    94:40
    And Ron will bitch about bringing the rig and saying he's not going to bring it and all that. And then I'll bring it anyway. I almost fucking feel like I'm married to you. Yeah, yeah. I bitch and bitch and then I bring it anyway. I mean, I would have brought the rig even if I hadn't made the files. I know you would have. I would have just brought it. It cooperated, except for your column of doom in the room there, the part that comes out. As soon as you get in that one section, it starts blocking signals. We had some issues with the player camera, which if you're going to have issues with a camera, that's the one you want to have issues with because you can still see the play field and the score. I think next time I'll keep the couch, I'll put the couch along the side. Well, what I think it is, Bruce. We'll put the other thing right in the middle. Well, I think the main issue is, too, is you think about a regular tournament. They have, like, one row of games. Yeah. And then you have the receiver bar behind it, and they're both parallel to each other. So each of the three camera transmitters has line of sight. When you think about how we had it, we had one is, like, one direction, and the other is the other direction. I know. I think that's another issue. And there's no way around that. I think it would have worked better if I moved the bar to the center. Yeah, that's what I want to do next time. Right where the couch was. But then the cable would have went across and everyone would have tripped over it. No, I would have put it behind the railing. The thing is, the cord isn't long enough. Like, it would have went across. We would figure something out. Well, we could have moved. When we do a stop, we can just, this table, like where I had it originally. Yes. Just there. And the receiver bar right in the center, right in front of it, then you're fine. Then I can move the cords off to the right side where no one can trip over anything. And then we leave the couch where it is. Yeah, you can literally leave the couch where it was, yeah. And then what we need to do is get a long HDMI cable. You need a long HDMI cable to reach up to the TV, because that worked out well, too. That worked awesome. We had a TV in the actual tournament area with a direct feed, and everyone was crowding around it to watch the matches. And then Bruce had the Twitch feed up on the other TV in the bar area. Yeah, using my phone data. Yeah. Everything we did, that was good. Let's do the same shit again. Yeah, I think it worked really well. I think we're getting down pretty good. We're getting the kinks out of it. It's only with Shirley. Stop calling me Shirley. Yes, I will stop calling you Shirley. I think I'm done with all the items. I'm spent, too. I have to go to the bar. I've got to put a monitor in. I've got to work on some stuff. But I'd like to first thank everyone who came in, came to the bar, and helped us with SCS. Eric Russell, you, Ron, you did a great job. Zach, everyone who helped out. Greg Pavarelli. Thank you all. It really means a lot to me and Kathy. And actually, thanks to all our listeners for sticking with us. Yeah. We had our first non-weekly year. Yes, we did. I guess. And we will continue to do these. We are not going anywhere. It's just too damn fun. It's not fun editing, but it's too damn fun to ever just stop. I told you. I think we're going to have to get the subscribers. We need to get people, like, what's the thing that they take the money from? Patreon. Go fund me. Yeah, that kind of thing. We get subscribers, and they get the unedited version. Oh, Jesus Christ. Yeah, the problem with that, Bruce, it's called the internet, and the second they get that, it'll be posted in a Dropbox link on Pinside somewhere. See what Bruce really thinks of so-and-so. Yes. And then it defeats the whole purpose. I know, but I say it, so I guess whatever you want. No, it's, it's, no.
    98:20
    Maybe we do think you have to sign an NDA. Yeah. And we arrest you. But that works so well for Stern, the NDAs. Yes, it does. What are the next five games? Actually, the worst is Jersey Jack. Like, everybody knows what their next games are. I know. I mean, Stern, they managed to do Stranger Things, have them at distributors, ready to go, and it didn't leak somehow. That was the amazing thing. That was pretty cool.
    98:47
    So, yeah, I think I'm done. So how do we get in touch with us? Well, we said it twice, but I'll go through the whole spiel. We are the Slam Tilt Podcast. You can contact us at our email, slamtiltpodcast at gmail.com. Search for us on Facebook. Or the easier way to do all of this is just go to slamtiltpodcast.com. In the upper right-hand corner, you'll see links to everything, including our Twitch, where you can watch a video on demand, eight hours long. Or you can just watch the first part of me beating Zach. or you can go right to the end of the finals. Eight hours of New York State pinball action. I also will be uploading it to our YouTube channel, whose link you can also get from our Slam Tilt page. It will be in beautiful 1080p, 60p, awesome high-deafness, and I'm just going to put all eight hours up. I'm not going to do any editing. Is it deaf, like you don't hear it?
    99:44
    Yeah. so again thanks to everybody thanks to this idiot here on the other end sticking with us here I like how when he makes fun of my comments and then when I make a comment you're an idiot I'm a douche I get it I got it so we are the slam show podcast thanks to goodbye to head head we love you guys we're going to miss you we need to get you on You guys are insane. I want to say I was hanging out with Dr. John Cosson at InDisc. He is insane. His wife is insane. She's also a doctor.
    100:24
    Australians rule. I need to get to Australia someday. I know. I'd love to go down to Ryan's tournament, but that will be a long time coming. What's Ryan's tournament? He's having one in a couple weeks for the World Football Profile World Tour. Oh, Ryan Singh. That's right. He has to deal with Jeff Teolis. Yes, he will. Oh, my. Oh, my goodness. But his wife's, you know, Jeff's wife's cool, so you get it all set.
    100:52
    Hi, Steve Bowden. Hi, Steve. Bumble bonus. Hi, pinball princess. Crystal, I hear you're looking for a taxi. Taxi. He's got one. I got one. Come on, hit me up, Crystal. New Riptide coming out. That's what I hear. Oh, and don't forget, they were on the Backbox Pinball Podcast. Listen to that. Crystal and Steph were there. Good episode. Check it out. Anyone else we're missing? I'm sure. Mrs. Penn. Mr. Penn. Dr. Penn. Well, you can hear Dr. Penn on the other, what's the super duper awesomeness show. Is that it? I think I got everything. I'm sure I missed something, and I'll remember as soon as we end this. But I'm going out to shovel some snow now. Bruce is going to a private party. Oh, my. Yes. So thanks, everybody. Until next time, say goodbye, Bruce. Goodbye. Bye, Ed.
    102:11
    Oh my. We forgot to talk about one thing. What? The new pinball machine coming out by China. The Chinese zombies. Oh, fuck that.
    103:00
    What, the home pin one? Yes. Okay. Actually, I would not mind playing that. I would not either. I would like Chinese zombies. All right, bring that on. Bring the shit on. I'm ready. I actually want to play that. Don't tell Holm pin that. Okay. See you, Bruce. Bye.