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PNP Ep. 550- The TRUTH About Pinburghs Return

Poor Man's Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·analyzed·Dec 28, 2023
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TL;DR

Pinburg tournament returns in July 2024 with limited 120-player spots and $25K prize pool.

Summary

Orbital Albert announces the return of Pinburg 2024, a major multi-day pinball tournament launching July 25-27 in Bridgeville, PA with $25,000 in prizes, after a five-year hiatus. The event will feature 120 player spots (vs. the original 400+ pins), include WIPT (Women's International Pinball Tournament) and Bash at the Berg charity tournament, and is being organized by ReplayFX alumni and Papa volunteers. Albert addresses community criticism of the smaller player count, arguing that organic growth and proper tech preparation are essential to recreating Pinburg's legendary reputation.

Key Claims

  • Pinburg 2024 will take place July 25-27, 2024 at Resonene Esports Facility in Bridgeville, PA with 120 player spots and $25,000 in total prizes

    high confidence · Orbital Albert reading official event details directly from pinburg.com

  • The original Pinburg had 400 pins across four categories (100 EMs, 100 solid states, 100 modern, 100 all-term modern), each perfectly maintained and playtested

    high confidence · Orbital Albert describing his personal knowledge of Pinburg's structure

  • Attending Pinburg was one of the best days of Albert's life, ranking alongside his wedding and the births of his two sons

    high confidence · Orbital Albert's personal testimony

  • The original Pinburg tickets sold out in approximately 3.92 seconds, and Albert secured his ticket with help from Mike Dimas

    medium confidence · Orbital Albert recounting his experience getting tickets to the final Pinburg

  • Pinburg featured Swiss pairing, with players sorted into divisions by skill level and playing approximately 8-10 rounds per day across two days

    medium confidence · Orbital Albert describing tournament format from memory

  • Albert estimates 5,000-6,000 people will attempt to get one of 120 spots, making odds approximately 1 in 50 to 1 in 60

    medium confidence · Orbital Albert's speculation based on demand patterns

  • The original Pinburg was not a 'Sternament' and required skill on both EMs and solid states, not just modern Stern machines

    high confidence · Orbital Albert explaining what made Pinburg special

  • Barrels of Fun's Labyrinth was an exceptionally strong first offering, better than most boutique companies' best work

    medium confidence · Orbital Albert's opinion on Barrels of Fun's debut game

  • Zach Sharpe (Flippin' Out Pinball) previously advocated for tournament pinball machines to be completely blank with no themes, modes, sounds, or animations

Notable Quotes

  • “What made Pinberg special was how Papa slowly grew it and slowly grew their group of pins and slowly got to the point that they had literally 100 EMs... What made Pinberg special was the dozens and dozens of volunteers and techs who made it seamless.”

    Orbital Albert @ ~14:30 — Directly addresses community criticism of smaller 2024 format by explaining what actually made original Pinburg special

  • “Literally, other than my wedding day and the day that my two sons were born, Pinberg was... My very, very, very first day of playing Pinberg was the best day of my life.”

    Orbital Albert @ ~24:00 — Emotional testimony about Pinburg's impact, demonstrates event's cultural significance to the community

  • “The biggest mistake that a new venue could do with new techs, with new pins, is overreach. You have to organically slowly grow.”

    Orbital Albert @ ~31:00 — Core argument defending the 120-player cap against community backlash

  • “I would guess somewhere in the range, without exaggerating, 5,000 to 6,000 people will try to get spots in this tournament.”

    Orbital Albert @ ~46:00 — Demonstrates extreme demand and FOMO potential for the event

  • “I'm semi-retired. But if Pinberg isn't a good reason to try to come out of retirement, let's be honest...”

    Orbital Albert @ ~40:00 — Albert's personal commitment to attending despite semi-retirement, signals event prestige

  • “What people don't understand is... Pinberg had 400 pins... what people who didn't go to Pinberg thought made Pinberg special was the fact that it had a thousand players. That's not what made Pinberg special.”

    Orbital Albert @ ~13:00 — Corrects common misconception about what made original event special

  • “I do, do, do appreciate that Zach is doing this... Sometimes I don't always see eye to eye with Zach, but I do really appreciate that him and his wife and their distribution company are supporting something this cool.”

    Orbital Albert — Shows reconciliation despite past disagreements; demonstrates sponsor commitment to tournament pinball

Entities

Orbital Albert AgarpersonPinburg 2024eventResonene Esports FacilityproductReplayFXorganizationPapa PinballorganizationRoger SharpepersonZach SharpepersonNicole SharpepersonBarrels of FunorganizationMike Dimasperson

Signals

  • ?

    announcement: Pinburg tournament officially returning after 5-year hiatus with July 25-27, 2024 dates, Bridgeville PA location, 120 spots, $25,000 prize pool

    high · Orbital Albert reading official pinburg.com details with confirmed dates, venue, prize pool, and player count

  • ?

    event_signal: 2024 Pinburg restructured with smaller player cap (120 vs. original 400+), but maintains multi-day Swiss pairing format with guaranteed minimum play hours

    high · Event schedule shows 5 sessions per day, ~2-hour rounds, guaranteeing 20+ hours of play across 24 opponents for each registrant

  • ?

    community_signal: Community expressing significant negativity on multiple Facebook groups about 120-player limitation, but Albert defends the decision as necessary for organic growth and proper tech preparation

    high · Albert notes rude comments appearing on 4-5 Facebook groups, directly addresses complaint patterns, and provides detailed rationale for capacity constraint

  • $

    market_signal: Albert estimates 5,000-6,000 people will attempt to secure one of 120 spots, creating 1 in 50-60 odds and potential ticket sales chaos

    medium · Albert's explicit speculation: 'I would guess somewhere in the range, without exaggerating, 5,000 to 6,000 people will try to get spots'

  • ?

    event_signal: Pinburg 2024 includes primary Swiss-paired tournament, Women's International Pinball Tournament (WIPT) return, and Bash at the Berg charity tournament (formerly Intergalactic Pinball Championships)

    high · Albert reading official event details listing WIPT and Bash at the Berg with brief format descriptions

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.197

0:00
All get around, he's on the rebound Hear the sound of our buddy, oh lordy, it's Orby Pinball now to rejoice He's tugging pinball, craft beer and coffee Myth to syrup and honey, hopes to laugh with his family And a random tangent, stories of his boys He's on the poor man's pod network We're gonna get more listeners for the Pinball Nerds Podcast.
0:32
Coming to you from beautiful River Hibbert, Nova Scotia. Welcome back, Pinball Nerds, to episode 550 of your fifth favorite pinball podcast. My name is Orbital Albert, and on today's show, I'm so excited. I mean, I am, but I'm not. I did not want to pick up a microphone for a good, solid two weeks. I was like, see you later. I'm out of here. I'm taking a couple weeks off, hanging up the old microphone, let her collect some dust in the old arcade, right? But we got news. And just like I said on my last show, if there's news, I'll be back, baby. I love it. I love the news. And this particular news is such a nice relaxing change from the BS drama stuff that's been going on last year. It's a much more calm, mellow, fun, exciting. Pimberg's back, baby! We're back in the burbs! Remember that movie, The Burbs, with Tom Hanks? That was a weird one. That was a strange one. But hopefully everybody enjoyed my last episode, Mr. Grinch. Go back there and listen to me sing for a little, if you like. I don't sing too many of the shows. Certainly not a full one minute of a song. but I let her roll, and I truly believe that last episode, you know, I did the 12, I attempted to do the 12 days of Christmas, wrecked my shoulder, which is feeling significantly better, I still can't sleep on my right hand side, but I don't have to sleep at night anymore with that, you know, the arm thing on, and anyways, it's getting better, I don't have to take ibuprofen daily anymore, which is so incredible, I'm doing a lot of stretches, I'm going to see the doctor, thank God, in on Tuesday and hopefully I'll be able to get an MRI or something and we'll see if it's a full tear or just partial tear of my supranatus or something in my shoulder, some type of rotator cuff. That's boring. Let's get back to the exciting news. That is being back. So as I was saying, I really want to thank everybody who took the time to listen, but the numbers are a little lower. Now I assume they would be lower because it's Christmas time. I think there's still well over 300 of you or 330 or so that listened to it and hopefully enjoyed it. I haven't got a lot of feedback. I honestly feel like it's one of the best episodes I've ever done because I tried to be, I guess, like Pinocchio being a real boy. I tried to be a real podcaster just for one episode, and I threw in like six action-packed topics that could have easily, yes, been thrown into like most people's shows, but it's hard for me to squish together six. It's probably, well, I can tell you this, it's definitely my drunkest show of the year, and probably spilled the beans or the beef a little bit more than I maybe should have. I don't know. I don't go back. Many of you know this. I don't go back and listen. That is, I could not. The main reason I can't edit is it's not just because I'm too dumb. Albert can't edit. It's not because I'm just a dumb, dumb brain. It's not just because I have a horrible memory, and it's not just because I don't care. It's not just because I think it's more authentic, and it's not just because the largest podcasts in the world, including Joe Rogan, don't edit anything ever. It's not just because the podcast on YouTube that has the most live views, which is H3, does not do any editing ever. It's because I don't want to have to go back and listen to this BS. I'm sorry. I love talking to you guys about pinball. I don't love editing. If you're someone who loves editing, you want to put it together in a neat little tight package, You'll probably, you know, get rid of all the times you go off topic and, you know, you can clean it up and cheers. Good for you. I just, I can't do it, so I don't do it. But I truly believe if for some reason you have not listened to that episode, I think it's probably my best episode of the year. Episode 549, head back there, take a little listen, enjoy, do it when you're having a cocktail. I don't really talk about Christmas hardly at all in it. I know it's the days 7 to days 12 of the dorking, but it's mostly me just talking about pinball topics that I hadn't got to talk about yet.

medium confidence · Orbital Albert referencing a prior controversy he covered in a podcast episode

  • Pinburg 2024 will feature WIPT (Women's International Pinball Tournament), formerly directed by Kat Martin from Buttermouth Bar in NYC

    medium confidence · Orbital Albert reading event details; uncertainty about whether Kat Martin is still tournament director

    • @ ~59:00
    Jeff Teolisperson
    Kat Martinperson
    Jason Zollerperson
    Escher Lefkoffperson
    Bruce Nightingaleperson
    Sean Russellperson
    Joe Stanzikperson
    Nick Greenperson
    Ed Robertsonperson
    Rordenperson
  • ?

    industry_signal: Multiple pinball manufacturers and distributors backing Pinburg 2024: Barrels of Fun, Flippin' Out Pinball, UK Open, demonstrating industry commitment to multi-manufacturer competitive events

    high · Albert listing sponsors: Barrels of Fun (Labyrinth maker), Flippin' Out Pinball (Zach Sharpe), UK Open, emphasizing non-Stern tournament positioning

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Original Pinburg maintained balanced difficulty by pairing fast/brutal EMs with long-playing moderns in each row, requiring tournament-specific rule adjustments and extensive pre-event playtesting

    high · Albert describing 'Friday night at the dojo' training sessions, repair notes, difficulty adjustments, and careful row construction to equalize play time

  • ?

    venue_signal: Resonene Esports Facility reported to have ~100 pinball machines with room for expansion, suggesting potential for Pinburg growth beyond initial 120-player cap

    medium · Albert noting facility can be expanded and questioning 'how large is this facility?' in context of future scaling

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Zach Sharpe (Flippin' Out Pinball) moving from anti-tournament stance to actively sponsoring Pinburg, despite past public disagreements with Albert

    high · Albert acknowledging prior conflict over blank-pin tournament proposal but praising Zach's current support: 'I do, do, do appreciate that Zach is doing this'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Pinburg 2024 will feature EM and modern pins in Swiss pairing, not exclusively modern/Stern machines, positioning it as alternative to standard 'Sternament' format

    high · Albert emphasizing Pinburg's non-Stern positioning: 'part of what was special about Pembroke was that it wasn't a Sternament' and describing multi-category pin balance

  • ?

    operational_signal: Pinburg 2024 ticket purchase will likely have per-person limits (estimated 2-4 tickets per buyer) to prevent hoarding, requiring coordinated group purchases to secure spots

    medium · Albert advising listeners to organize groups based on expected per-person limits and warning against unreliable group members given high-risk money front scenario

  • ?

    historical_signal: Pinburg's original format represented a peak in match-play pinball culture with international attendance (Australia, Japan, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Netherlands, Germany, UK, Ireland) and is positioned as model for future events

    high · Albert recounting international travel patterns: 'people would come from Australia people would come from Japan... all through the UK, Ireland' and characterizing as 'summer camp for' the community

    • 4:47
    And, yeah, really excited for Pemberg to be back. I'm just going to read some of this stuff off real quickly. I'm not going to read all of it because you ain't got time for that, and I ain't got time for that. All of us, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Joy in the Well, Happy Hanukkah, whatever it is that you celebrate, or if you're like me and you, you know, well, you're probably not an ordained Judas priest. But if you're like me in that you don't give a shats about, you know, the religious side of the holiday. And if you like the religious part of it, you do you. But if you're not into the religious side of it, then at the very least, I hope you got to see some friends. Maybe you got to see some family members. Maybe you got to eat lots of chocolate and get all fat and sassy. Who knows? Maybe you had fun. Maybe you just, I don't know, maybe you just had a day or two extra off of work. Maybe your roommate that you live with went to go visit their friends in their hometown, and therefore your house was a bit quieter for a little. Who knows? But whatever your sitch is, I hope it was a little more swell and a little more seasonal and a little more awesome. And I've seen a lot of people went away on trips. So if you got to go on a trip and go to somewhere nice and warm, I hope you enjoyed. All right. So here we are, pinberg.com, July 25th to 27th, 2024, at the Resonene Esports. Yo, we hooked it up in that res. No, it sounds like it's a pretty hardcore place there. And then you say esports, and you go, oh, no, we'll be fine. Push those nerd glasses up. We all be okay. So it is in Bridgeville, Pennsylvania. I'm assuming that's near Pittsburgh due to the fact that the tournament is called Pinberg. And Pinberg, like, it looks to me like it's on that really cool, like, yellow bridge that you come to the town on. But I don't know for sure. That's what it kind of looks like to me. Either way, I am so excited we're hearing this. Of course, the big tagline here featuring $25,000 in prizes.
    6:51
    That's incredible. So, Pembroke 2024, once the largest match play tournament in the world, will be coming back to life after a five-year hiatus brought to you by a few of the people involved with ReplayFX. That's good news to hear. The event will cover three days, July 25th to 27th, 2024, at the Resonene Esports Facility in Bridgeville, PA. Now, I believe I saw someone say they have about 100 pins. So if you have about 100 pins, you can only have, which is the next line in this year's reinvention, tickets will be extremely limited with only 120 spots. Please stay tuned for details on how to score a ticket. So here's the thing. Here's the truth, guys. Here's the truth I want to tell you about this.
    7:37
    It's called Pimberg. It's near Pimberg. It's not Pimberg. Pimberg had what 400 pins at it it also had some I mean it takes people don't understand this almost every Facebook page that I saw had people being negative and people being rude and saying 120 spots and I'm not going to call it one Facebook group or another because honestly I saw a comment like this probably on four out of the five Facebook groups I saw it shared on and I wasn't even looking for the rude comments. They just filled to the top. 120 spots, that's it? What? What made pinball, what people who didn't go to Pemburg thought made Pemburg special was the fact that it had a thousand players. That's not what made Pemburg special. What made Pemburg special was how Papa slowly grew it and slowly grew their group of pins and slowly got to the point that they had literally 100 EMs. Remember, you got to have 100 EMs, you got to have 100 solid states, you got to have 100 modern and 100 all-term modern, right? You had one of those in every single row, you know, in every grouping, and there was 400 pins, right? So what made it special was you had 100 EMs that were the right EMs, the perfect EMs, perfectly maintained and set up to be played at Pemberg. What made Pemberg special was the dozens and dozens of volunteers and techs who made it seamless. Can Pemberg get back to its old glory? Of course it can. Will it be the first tournament in the world to get back to a thousand? We don't know. It's a race right now. It's a race right now. It sounds to me like they have a very large facility and it can be expanded. That's good news. The question is, I'm sure that they will try to, part of what was special about Pembroke was, of course, it wasn't a sternament. Sorry, Stern, but that's part of what made it so special was that it wasn't a sternament, that you had to be good at EMs and solid states. There's a lot of younger players, not to name names, that are, you know what, I'm going to take that back because a couple of the younger players, I know Zoller, Jason Zoller, and Escher Lefkoff are particularly really good at older pins. But if myself, if a mediocre player or even slightly above average player like myself was in match play, I would have maybe a 1 in 100 chance to beat them at, say, Godzilla. Whereas on EM, I might have a 1 in 10. or even if, say, for some reason, which this would be very rare, but let's say for some reason it was an EM that I had owned or played or knew well or had in league, and for some reason it was an EM that, say, Escher didn't know as well or something, maybe, maybe, maybe I get to a one in five. Who knows? And maybe if he's just, he doesn't care and he's just playing for fun and I'm like, I'm trying to get a story for my pinball podcast and my pinball buds the rest of my life, like, oh, my God, if you did, maybe, maybe, maybe.
    10:48
    He lets me have one, and he doesn't try that hard, and I win, right? But let's go back to what else makes it special. And what else makes it special is the fact that it slowly got more popular over time, right? It's like each year they sold out, I believe it was $750 or $800 maybe the first year I tried, and then it got up to $900, then it got to $1,000, and then it stayed at $1,000. and even just look at myself it took me five years of trying or four years of trying certainly at least it was the okay might have been three it could be exaggerating it was at least the three I can remember three years of trying to get in and the final year that I got in I had to coordinate with three different people to be on the phone at all the entire time I had to coordinate that Danielle and the boys left to go somewhere else so no one would distract me no would be on the internet. And the tickets sold out in 3.92 seconds, I believe. It was just 8 100ths under four seconds. And I believe that Mike Dimas of Pinball Shenanigans, shout out, secured my ticket as well as two other people's tickets. I believe it was Sean Russell and Joe Stanzik, I believe, who got tickets with us, I think. So anyways, maybe Julie Dorshers was in that group as well. I can't remember. But we ended up getting tickets, and thank you, Mike, for that. It was incredible. I've said this before, and it's no joke. Like, literally, other than my wedding day and the day that my two sons were born, Pimberg was... My very, very first day of playing Pimberg was the best day of my life. It just was the best day of my life. I mean, I met like probably 50 people I had never met before in pinball, all of whom I had been watching them on Twitch. I had been watching them on YouTube. I talked to them on podcasts. You know, I had heard stories about them. I'd read about them in magazines. I'd read about them in books, for God's sake. Like the first time you meet Roger Sharpe in person, you're like the man, the myth, the mustache. Holy cow. All of it. Can you get over it? And then to boot, he's also playing incredible pinball right beside you, and you're like, holy cow.
    13:02
    But I am actually going to, let me just do a little tiny teaser for the end of the pod. I am going to do, I'm going to attempt to do Pimberg in eight minutes or less, okay? I'm going to tell the whole story in chronological order, just the highlights. I know that it was like 300 episodes. I already went over Pimberg, and I probably brought it up since then. But at the very end, in case y'all don't like story time, just want to hear the news from me first. you know I'm saving I've gone off topic already enough and done a little bit of story time but I'm going to save the chronological order for the end and I will be talking a little bit more about not just how Roger Sharp how incredible it was to meet him but how it just it changed my entire outlook on playing Pemberg on a day when I was having kind of a rough time some of y'all will know that story if you've been listening to me for over six years and the rest you won't so yeah, that'll be a new one for you. So hang on to the end. But I think that they're doing it right by limiting it to 120 players. Even if it's only half the people who ran ReplayFX, or even if it's just a quarter of them, or even if it's, you know, Chris Stevens, who I've got to have on the podcast before, and me as well. Like, if it was just him, he actually made it to finals and was on stage, one of the locals there the year that I was there. I did have to leave during the finals, but we'll talk about that later. So I think to each and every person complaining that there's only 120, you have to realize that the biggest mistake that a new venue could do with new techs, with new pins, is overreach. And say, okay, it's the very first year, we're going to start with 250. No, you have to organically slowly grow. It takes years for your techs to get really good in that area. And people are just, I'm sorry, for the most part, I know Bruce Nightingale from the Slam Tilt Pinball Podcast did travel out of town to just go recently do the Beast and was a tech there with Jeff Teolis, right? So, like, I guess there is some super rad people like Bruce that will travel out of town just to help be a tech and help run the tournament smoothly and bring pins. there is some, but most likely if these guys, if the same people who are there from ReplayFX attempted to do, and the leftover people from Papa, if they all came together and they attempted to do a thousand people off the hop, there's no way they could facilitate that. I don't think there's anywhere on planet Earth that has 400 pins that are all, like, a hundred moderns that are all in perfect working condition that have been playtested. like every single Friday night I think they used to call it oh I knew I I think they call it like Friday night at the dojo and it was like training which I think is so cool and they'd go down to the Papa facility and for like six months nine months maybe even the whole year leading up to Pemberg they would go practice all of those pins and they would make repair notes on every single pin like hey this is playing too easy this is playing too long this needs to be made harder somehow okay this needs to be steeper this lights out this one's not working okay you need to turn the extra balls off on here, you need to change this over to a tournament setting. How can you, for lack of a better term, jimmy rig this pin to make it play brutal? And what they did is they tried to make every single set of four pins So if you had a modern pin that played really long like I don know Godzilla wasn out then but Godzilla Elvira neither of those pins were out then But if you had a modern pin that played really really really long you would have it in a row with an EM that was particularly quick and brutal and fast and that like nobody could play for a long time on, you'd have it there with, you know. So it was made so every single solitary row was equalized and even the top players usually could finish in under an hour. And I'm trying to remember if it's 10 rounds you do in a day or if it's 12. I think it's just 10. Maybe it's even just eight. But like the first two days, you're just doing like eight rounds a day. You're getting put like into like your division where you are. No, no, it's just the first day. Just the first day you get sorted into your division. You play eight rounds. It's Swiss pairing. So, you know, the very first round, you'll be in there with like a little bit of everything. And then in the second round, you know, if you won your first round, you're in there playing with like incredible players right off the hop because it's everyone who won and then so on and such forth. So my first day, I kept getting to play with like great players. I know I played with Neetsan. He was really cool. I think I played Hang Glider. I like that EM. Someone has Hang Glider, let me know. If you have a Hang Glider in decent condition, especially if you're somewhere drivable within like, I don't know, five to six hours of like the main Canada border. I might be interested in trying to grab that. And here's the thing is, I happen to know that all the pins, well, I mean, y'all know too, that all the pins from Pinberg were sold and it would be so hard. I mean, half the people may have sold them since then or, I mean, I hope not. But the funny part was, I know I was in talks with good old Jeff Teolis there and I should have just bought a pin. I was a big fraidy cat. I was worried that we wouldn't end up getting the HELOC or have money coming in the future, so I didn't buy a pin. Had I bought a pin with Jeff, he had offered, not necessarily free, but a very inexpensive safe wave to get it traveled up to Ontario until I could get it. Ironically, I found out that the person that it was bringing it up with was Bare Naked Ladies, Mr. Ed Robertson himself, so I might have even my lifelong dream of meeting Ed Robertson might happen. Now that I've met Keith Elwin, you know, and Jack Danger, Ed Robertson's all I have left, guys. Well, I mean, I got to meet the Beaches, too, so that made it a lot easier. But, yeah, so, wow. I can't wait to, I will try. I will be there. Let's read on a little bit further about how you actually get into the tournament. But I am excited to try. However, I've retired from pinball, as you guys know, But I would come back. I think I said with an asterisk, you know, if I had a really big event where my whole family could attend, I would maybe consider going. Let's just say I'm semi-retired. But if Pimberg isn't a good reason to try to come out of retirement, let's be honest, if I had to guess, I would guess somewhere in the range, without exaggerating, 5,000 to 6,000 people will try to get spots in this tournament. So my best guess is you've got between a 1 in 50 to a 1 in 60. So I'll tell you guys right now who don't have any experience doing this, details are going to come out about how many tickets each person can buy. If each person can buy up to eight, you better get a group of you and seven people. If each person can buy up to five, you better get a group of you and four, so on and such forth. And what you want to do is make sure you have no distractions. You want to make sure that you, you know, I don't think you have to get it in writing, but I would try to do it with people you're pretty close with. because the person who is able to buy the tickets will have to front all the money, and then the other seven people. What I'm saying is you wouldn't necessarily want to do it with a group of people on Pinside that you just met randomly because, you know, if Bob doesn't go to the show and you're stiffed for the money, I don't know if you can transfer the tickets over. I'm not sure how that works. But at the same time, I think very, very, very few people would legitimately try to sign up and spend this time and energy to go to Pemberg if they didn't want to play it or they wouldn't at least take the time to get their money back. and send their ticket off to someone else. But just be careful. Be careful because whoever many, I don't know, maybe they let you do up to 10. I doubt it because then only 12 people will be able to buy tickets because every person is buying the max ticket set list. Me personally, I think, I don't want to say only one per ticket. That's crazy because nobody wants to go by themselves. But probably the fairest way to do it, and I'm sorry to say this, but the fairest way to do it would be you to allow, especially for this first year when there's only 120, the absolute safest way to do it would be you and one other person because a lot of times you're traveling from across the country you want to be able to travel with at least one pinball friend you know and you've got husbands and wives who would prefer to travel together and then just friends, besties selling it, if you do it in 10 it's too many 4 is probably what they'll do I'm assuming but who knows The point is, get excited for it. I'm excited for it. It's going to be a fun time. We're going to hope that it keeps expanding. I don't know who it will be. I don't know if it will end up being the Beast. I don't know if it will end up being Pimberg. I don't know if it will be some other event. But everybody knows in the pinball industry, in the pinball world, that we want, want, want more, okay, more events like this where it's not just a sternament where you're not just showcasing sterns so that's the first thing more events like this that are match play where you can allow large groups of people in that are over multiple days and we want to get back to that glory of what Pemberg was originally where it really felt like summer camp for I mean a lot of people would people would come from Australia people would come from Japan there was a dude there from Japan there was Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Holland, Germany, you know, all through the UK, Ireland. I met so many people. And this is like their big trip of the year. Like this is, and not even just of the year, like you have someone like Rorden, cheers, shout out to Rorden there in Australia, one of the poor man's tribe members here I got to interview about a year ago, I believe, which was really fun.
    22:49
    But like something like that for him, you know, he doesn't come over all the time. He can only come a couple times a year, so if he were to go to something like that or any type of expert or anything, really, it would be a once-in-a-lifetime thing. And I would guess this would be in that same level for so many of those people that were there.
    23:07
    Let's read on a bit further here. Pembroke 2024 will also feature the return of WIPT. So for those of you who don't know, it's the Women's International Pinball Tournament. The tournament director used to be Kat Martin from Buttermouth Bar in good old New York City. I don't know if she's still seeing it or not. I'm not sure. But either way, I'm sure they'll have confident people involved in kicking it because those Pinbergians, they are some pinball nerds, yes. As well, they will have the Bash at the Berg. And I didn't know what that was, and then I reread it, and I was like, okay, okay, formerly known as the Intergalactic Pinball Championships, Intergalactic Planetary. So basically this is a tournament that is like a charity tournament, I believe. And it's done on the side, and it's a pump and dump, and it's pretty fun. It's just like a little side tournament. If and when you have a chance, you can go over and play it in between pinball rounds, like if your grouping got done way early.
    24:09
    And the way that Pinball works, I probably haven't explained this for any newer pinball nerds or listeners out there, basically once an hour on the hour, everyone says they recommend getting there like five minutes ahead of time minimum I tried to be there five minutes ahead because you know me if I'm no if I'm trying to get there right on time I'll end up being late so I always try to be five minutes ahead but once an hour on the hour maybe it was only for eight hours I think you basically play you meet up with three other individuals and you play four different machines all together and I forget the scoring I think it was like five three two one or something like that, or maybe something like that. It doesn't matter, but we have a great time. And if you end up getting a perfect round, which means you got first, first, first, first on all your pins, then you got a really cool, like, medal, like a Pemberton medal. And I never got one of those. I think I did. I think I got, like, a first, first, second, third or something. Like, so for a second I thought I'd get close. I believe I'd have to go back and check. But, yeah, what else do we have here? So some of the sponsors include the UK Open.
    25:20
    Thanks, Neil, for that. Neil actually joined me in my live stream chat on Pinball Nerds podcast Facebook page, which I don't keep up with as much as I should, but that is one of my other goals for 2024 is to start doing more live streams, especially with my Internet working better. Should be taking advantage of that. And then we also have Barrels of Fun. So the new company that made Labyrinth, can't wait to see what they do next. wow they were kind of the underdog story of the year in that uh before like you know we were we were all making kind of fun of barrels of fun and the exclamation point and all the marketing leading up to it then and then they came out with labyrinth we went okay like for a first freaking offering to be better than most boutiques companies best wow phenomenal so they did a great job um i can't wait to play labyrinth i can't wait to play labyrinth and then of course we have Flippin' Out Pinball, that's Zach and Nicole Mennie's company. And honestly, I got to give praise where praise is due. Sometimes I don't always see eye to eye with Zach, but I do really appreciate that him and his wife and their distribution company are supporting something this cool.
    26:30
    Zach used to be a little bit, I'm not throwing shade here, just being honest, used to kind of be a little anti-tournament pinball. I think everybody knows that. I'm not saying anything they haven't heard before. At one point I even called him out and did a whole show because he had recommended that all tournament pinball machines just be blanks and not have any themes and not have any modes and not have any sounds and not have any callouts and not have any animations, and they just all be blank and you just play on them so that all the tournament players could get to learn the same blank pins. And I said that was the worst take I've ever heard in pinball. And it still to this day is maybe the worst thing I've ever heard was his interview with Dell. But I do, do, do appreciate that Zach is doing this. So cheers to you flipping out. Thanks for helping out with that sort of thing. And other distros, if you're listening, y'all should be out there supporting the pinball scene as much as you can because you're going to get free advertising on stuff like this, even if they didn't necessarily want to give free advertising to said company. All right. So about Pembroke 2024 tournament schedule. Should I click on the schedule and get my secretary to contact yours? See if we can do lunch or how about brunch? That'd be great. Okay. The schedule for the 2024 event is tentative, but reasonably certain the dates and location are firmly set and will not change ever. Note that each round of play is expected to last about two hours in total. Oh, see, I don't think there's, maybe that is what we did last time. I don't know. Maybe we did play like nine till nine in there. Two hour things. Cause I do remember we actually, yeah, Mike Dimas, Joe Stanzik, Nick Green, don't tell anyone because he might have been under 21 years of age. Pretty much between every round, we went down and had a beer or two. So I do think they were longer than an hour. But, okay, Wednesday, July 24th, 2 p.m., doors open, Pemberg check-in available. 3 to 4 p.m., strikes tournament registration available, $25. This is the only opportunity to practice on the Pemberg machines. So that would be really smart for each and every one of you to do. Book that in your schedule. 4-15 strikes tournament begins. Three strikes format. Strikes given to the bottom two players in each group. See ya. So that part does kind of suck because you could be out in three games and you're like, well, I'm really glad I got to practice three of the 50. Or I guess you'd probably be doing rounds. I don't know. Anyways, that would be cool. July 25th. You're there anyways. Just play, right? July 25th. Doors open. 9 a.m. Registration. Yada, yada, yada.
    29:00
    Uh-huh. Okay. Session 1 begins at 10 a.m. Session 2 is at 12.15. Session 3 is at 2.30. So it's an hour and 15 minutes for each one. Okay, dinner break. So they're doing five sessions a day, not eight.
    29:16
    And it looks to me then on Friday, July 26th, you'll also do five sessions. And then on Saturday, July 27th, there's a check-in for finals. So that does actually look pretty fun. 24 hours of play against 30 opponents guaranteed to each and every registrant, that's awesome so that's what I love, unlike a strikes tournament where you can be out in 2 or 3 rounds like the other one this one you are guaranteed minimum 20 hours of play, other events to be described here, so they're going to fill in some blanks, they haven't figured it all out yet the entire event takes place at the Resonene Esports Facility in Bridgeville, PA just outside Pittsburgh PA I believe stands for Pennsylvania. And that's not just because I watched the office version of a Pennsylvania Dutch Christmas with Dwight when he's that bell schnickle. Yes, bell schnickle. I remember you. Were you impish or admirable? Impish or admirable? And then he throws a soot in his face. All right. I went off topic. Sorry, guys. Let's get back to the program. Division A and prizes. I'm not going to read through all of these, but first place is 5K. Woo!
    30:31
    Damn. Plus, honestly, what you're all playing for is that trophy. Am I right? Or am I right? Second place, $2,500. Third place, $1,500. Fourth place, $1,000. Fifth place, $700. And then all the way down to $400 for the top qualifier, which is kind of nice that they do have a top qualifier prize because I have seen where the top qualifier does not even win or not even get to the second or third round. Total prize packaging, 25K. That's awesome. What I do love is there is at least a B division, because let's be honest, I know I'd be going for B division if any, especially with how I've been playing lately.
    31:08
    The old Orby might have thought he could qualify for Division A, but the older and less improved Orby knows he's Division B all the way, if anything, and I'd be looking for that 16th place down there at 300 bucks. would just be incredible to me. 300 US, that's like almost 600, maybe 550 Canadian or something. So that's nothing to sneeze at. That'd be a good chunk of my expenses probably for the trip. So to any of you thinking that you can't break even on a pinball tournament, well, you don't even have to get top 16 in A. You could just get top 16 in B. And so, I mean, the fact that the top minimum, the top 32 people of 120 people are making at least like 300 bucks US, that's like that's pretty legit like you're tripling your money so I like the way they've done the prizing I think that was very smart cheers to you again this isn't Pimberg starting from scratch they know what they're doing obviously all the people involved I know that Pinball Profile just had Doug on there Doug Polk I believe who used to be the old tournament director I haven't had the opportunity to listen to that I wanted to get you this news while it was red hot coming off the presses but I am going to go take a listen to that and you know if I have to be back with another tournament for another tournament with another podcast before the end of the year i will be but most likely i'll be taking some time off until elwyn's back you thought finally when it was you thought it was safe for your bank account elwyn's back to take a bite out of 2024 pricing all right most of this stuff we've gone over Bash at the Berg Whipped Pricing Hotel and Travel I not going to go over that List of Machines nah out rules Who cares Read it yourself Head over to pinberg Just like it sounds P I N B U R G H backslash 2024 And you'll get all the same information as me. I'm sure you can hit up their Papa's Facebook or any of their Instagram and all that other kind of stuff. I, I still don't really understand like who's replay effects and who's Papa and what's the difference. And I think I kind of do, but this sounds like this is more the replay effects people than Papa, because there's no Papa mentioned here. Oh, Papa, Papa.
    33:24
    So I don't know why it's not in here, but, yeah, remember, it's more fun to compete. Pemberg was subsequently, so this is just talking about prior to 2004, the original Pemberg tournament was in the style of a Papa World Championships, and Papa 7 took over that series starting that year. Pimberg was subsequently reintroduced in 2014 as a match play tournament and was immediately a huge success. The format guarantees days of fun play for every participant and does a great job introducing everyone to new opponents and perhaps more future friends in each round. So that's it. I guess I'm just I'm really excited for it. When is the registration? That's the part that I probably should have. It was somewhere on here. How to register. Eh, figure it out yourself. If you're interested, you'll figure it out. I trust you. If you can't figure out where, when, and how to register, you're going to have a lot more problems actually being able to get into the tournament. So I'm excited for you. Congrats to every person involved. Thank you for doing that. As it gets closer, I don't know if I'll be able to get a Doug Poco on my show or not, but as it gets closer, I definitely want to have someone, maybe Chris Stevens or someone else involved with it. Um, you know, especially someone that I've already chatted with, that sort of thing. So, anyways, I've talked too long about this, but I'm excited for it. Are you excited for it? If you're excited for it, or if you have a really cool Pimberg story you want me to read on the air, maybe it's a little bit embarrassing. If it's embarrassing or funny, it's way more likely for me to read it. Email me at pinballnerds at gmail.com. And, uh, for all intents and purposes, pinball nerds, get the hell out of here. And especially if you went to Pimberg with me and you don't want to listen to this whole story over again. but I'm going to try to keep it 8 minutes or less and that being said I'm at 34.24 so let's just say my favorite number 42.0 so 420, let's try to end at 420 guys 42 minutes, here we go, round it up and remember though, Glenn the Skateboarder his song will be going in the start so that could be slightly off but I do want to say, in case I forget later cheers to everybody I hope you're having an amazing vacation I hope at least most of you have a couple days off and if you do have to work at least you're getting that overtime pay you get some bang you're putting some money in there to go either play pinball or maybe even buy a pinball machine right and for those of us that have the time off just enjoy your time and uh you better get saving those nickels and dimes now because jaws is coming all right day one so for those of you don't know i put out a thing on the podcast saying hey i don't have a ton of money surprise surprise but uh if there's any friends of the show or listeners or anyone who would put me up on their couch or let me sleep in a bathtub or even give me a soft little spot to curl up like a little dog in front of the fireplace. If you just had somewhere for Ori to lay his head down a bowl of cereal, he would be happy to stay by your place. And lo and behold, moments after doing that podcast, Mr. Peace, that's right Peace Man Nick also just everyone calls him Peace he and believe me you'd know him if you've been to many pinball tournaments in and around Pittsburgh you'd know him so anyways Peace said I could stay in a spare bedroom I thought well this is hella better than a couch this is wonderful but as I got to the area that Peace lived in I realized it was a little bit different than the area that I lived in in that this area didn't have any working power I almost called it hydro, but then I realized people in the United States, people outside of Ontario wouldn't know what I was talking about. But basically all of the doors were like boarded up to, I'd say, 80% of the houses around there, all the windows were boarded up. The houses that like there was power on or any lights, it was like coming from candles or like a hanging like dollar store light.
    37:21
    It just was a very, very, very rough neighborhood. So right when I got there, the very first thing he said to me is, okay, we're going to take all your hubcaps off and then we're going to take all your owner's manual and all your insurance and everything we're going to take that out of your car and then you're going to empty out absolutely everything including the garbage on the ground so they don't think that's important and you're going to put it in your trunk and then you're going to leave all your doors open and then what we're going to do is I have a funnel we're going to funnel out all the gas out of your gas tank and honestly I do recommend that we get a lock for a gas tank while you're down here like look at all the other cars around here that like every car on the road had a lock I don't know if it's just the area I was in or that's like an American thing or that's like Pemberg. I've never seen that here. I'm sure there's like maybe one car in Toronto that has it or something, but I've never seen it unlock on your gas tank. I know Mike Diamond's got his like Cadillac converter and his O2 chip taken from somewhere, which, you know, again, I'm sure it's not just an American problem. I'm sure it happens all over the world. But in this particular case, this was a little more rough than I was used to. And then he specifically told me there were certain stores between there and where I'd be playing at Pemberg I couldn't go into. And then while we were walking there three or four times, he said, I think it's important that we cross the road now to the other side of it. And I was like, whoo! So Peace, thankfully, knows everybody around there, so I felt kind of safe. He was saying hello to everybody. But it's predominantly a, let's just say the white people in the area are definitely a minority. And at the same time it's a lower income area that's struggling and experiencing some issues. So did I feel super safe? No. But it was an interesting way to start my Pittsburgh experience. Let's just say that. Then we zoomed out to Halicon. We had a great time at Halicon. I still to this day remember the raspberry wheat being incredible. Thank God it was low ABV. I was able to have at least one and drive Nick and I back, possibly two, but I was there for many hours. I know I interviewed a whole bunch of people. Neil from the UK Open, actually, I believe, who runs it. I got to interview Neil, and I also got to interview what is his name? The gentleman what is the guy's name who did Metroid at Jersey Jack?
    39:31
    Wait. No, is he? The gentleman who did Metroid, I got to interview him and I got to watch him on Twitch before that building his Metroid machine. He was really cool. I also interviewed the gentleman who had the distro kind of guy who has all those pins at Helicon and stuff. So that was interesting. That was fun. And I didn't do very well in the tournament. I was out pretty quick, but I got to play Willy Wonka for the first time, and I was like, yes, I can confirm. It sounds like you're at a casino when you're standing there playing it. But it was brutal. It plays very fast. All the pins there. I know Tim Lee, you had a tournament not too long ago. I don't think it was at Helicon, or maybe it was, but somewhere like that, and he didn't do great. And I told him, I said, those pins are set up hard, and there's good players in and around that area. and mostly really good players are going to it. So my PC is running low. It was at 42%. I have talked too long. Surprise, surprise. Let's get on to day one of the actual. Oh, so yeah, so we get there. Peace and I get there and we're walking up the road from this arcade that I used to work at. I got to go play Wonka there once before I got to go play it at Helicon. So I guess I had played it once before that, but I'm walking up and lo and behold, I run into Jack Danger, who's just leaving the little cafe. I think it's the cafe that they own, the Kickback Cafe or something. I don't know. There's this local cafe there that you go to get your pinball badge and kind of say hi to some people and stuff like that. And Jack Danger was leaving and live on his live stream while I was just getting there. And so him and I have a quick convo for a couple of minutes while he's on the live stream. And it was kind of neat that my very first time I ever met Jack Danger is documented. And I don't know if it's still up. I have no clue. I haven't looked for years. I think I looked the week I got home and I did see that moment. It was pretty cool. But I did have an even cooler streaming moment with him on a following day. So let's get to day one, okay? Day one, I end up playing out of my mind and I end up, you know, when you walk into this, people don't understand. It's not just Pemberg that we lost. We lost Replayaflack. effects replay effects is the largest pinball the largest arcade in the galaxy the largest pinball the largest arcade in the world for like five days so i believe there was they had basically there's rows upon rows upon rows of every video game system with a television attached to it you've ever seen like every video game system and then they had the most number of japanese like arcade games of anywhere in North America altogether in one spot. Again, just for that period of time that that was on. Probably one of my favorite ones that you saw a lot of people doing was the drumming one where you go over and you do the drumming. There's other ones where you did... Yeah, there's tons of those. And then there was just this whole... I don't know. I call it the drunk dude area in the middle kind of it. It was almost like two beach volleyball courts that had... Oh, my gosh. What the heck? Someone's stepping on ducks over here. I just saw a little blip on the screen from that fart. Excuse me. Aren't you guys glad this isn't Smell-O-Vision? That's just a little bit of the old Christmas turkey making its way down the old buttholes. But you buttholes get it, you bunch of buttholes. All right. So, anyways, you walk in, and I'm not even kidding you. Just, like, go watch the video. just type Penberg or probably more appropriately type ReplayFX into YouTube and take a look and find there is some very good videos from different years but there is a Ferris wheel not like a little rinky dink like two story one like a full size freaking Ferris wheel inside here then there's this whole volleyball it wasn't like a volleyball court it just it looked like a beach type area there was like beach chairs, there was a little Tahiti, or Tahiti, there was a little Tiki Hut bar, there were, it was just, it was also crazy to me that you could just be, you could go absolutely anywhere and go get drunk there, like, they, literally, the security guards would be like, oh, we're just headed down to have a beer at the tailgate, and they're like, oh, have a nice beer, fellas, right, like, you could just go, like, you could, the security guards would walk by, we'd wave to them, we'd literally be sitting on Dynas' tailgate, and, like, I just love how you do this in the states there's nowhere in canada you can do that i mean prince edward island i know at the beach you're allowed to have alcohol if it's not glass and you don't leave it there and you're not drunk and there's like 15 different rules but like there's very rare rarely in canada anywhere in a parking lot where you can just like yeah let's just get hammered now i love that rule especially even as a driving instructor because there's so many times when if i knew i could just have a couple beers in the parking lot and go see a sports game, A, it would save me money, but B, more importantly, I could just leave my car there and go get trashed and then the next day just, you know, drive my car home and not even have to worry about it because if not, you have to go spend like 12 bucks a beer or like 8.95 a beer at like a cheap place to go get beers before you go before or after a concert or a sporting event or something like that. So, yeah, so, And then later on, after the whole day is done, I'm exhausted, but I had a fun time. It was great. It was really good. I'm way past eight minutes. Oh, my God, I better go fast, quicker. I'm not even done day one. So that was so fun. That night, I ended up going to the Dead Flip after party. So imagine I'm not only excited because I got to hang out with everybody at Pemberg and see all these people, but now I'm at, like, Jack Danger's Dead Flip after party. And right as I get there, he was just buying shots for a whole bunch of guys. Like, I'm sitting with most of the Canadian dudes over there at the Canadian table. Keith Ellens up at the bar. I know Kate Martin was there. I know Jack Danger was there. Steve Bowden was there.
    45:37
    Crystal Gemnick, I think she was there. Mike Dimas came with me. So I went up to the bar to go buy a beer. But right as I was going up to the bar to buy a beer after we got there, Jack Danger had just bought a round of shots for like him and Elwin and maybe one or two people I'm not sure who all and he said to me hey Orby or Albert or Albie I think he used to call me Albie he's like Albie Albie Albie you want one of these and I was like yeah okay and I don't normally do shots but when I do do shots it looks like it's just an international look can you guys believe that we're getting hit by telemarketers right now.
    46:21
    So if I do do shots, I do them with Jack Danger and Keith Elwin. They better not leave a message. So anyways, I'm sitting there, and I just know at some point I told Elwin that I finally got to play Jurassic Park and how much I loved it, and I also told him even though I don't love the band Iron Maiden and I was more into punk rock and way less into metal, that I absolutely love the way Maiden shot, and that, like, my first game on it, I got, like, $218 million, and I've been in love with it since. And honestly, I have rarely ever scored over $200 million since my very first game, but I had a great time. I love playing it. I still, to this day, love Maiden. I usually get a round or two in. There's a Maiden Premium for you East Coast Maritime Pinball nerds. There is a Maiden Iron Maiden Premium at Spin It Records in Moncton.
    47:15
    So, no, I had a great time with that, But I'm just sitting there and I'm like, am I really just having a beer talking to Keith Ellin about his pinball machine? Now, in my head, I probably would guess I talked to him for like three minutes. I probably talked to him for 30 seconds. I think we talked slightly longer than that. But he may or may not have told me that Iron Maid may or may not have been his absolute favorite band at the time. So anyways, I had a great time. That was just so cool. I was too nervous to ask Keith Ellin for a selfie. I really wanted to. I really, really wanted to. I did get a selfie with Jack Danger that night. I did get a selfie with Steve Bowden that night, which was really cool. I did go outside with a couple other pinball celebrities, and I enjoyed a little bit of the fine devil's lettuce out there in the alleyway. I'm not going to give up their names, but we had a good time. Probably more people enjoy and partake than would be willing to admit upon most podcasts because I think there's still like two or three states where it's illegal in the U.S. I don't know. Like, I think there's still, like, it was probably, like, Rhode Island and, like, no, not Hawaii. They're way more like Hawaii 5-0, bro. There's probably, like, there's probably, like, some state. There's probably some little place where, I don't know. There's some little backwoods state that, like, it's not legal. But anyways, the point is, yeah, a lot of people do it, and a lot of people are doing it there, and we had a great time. Day two, I'm actually there, and I decided at the end of my day to do a live stream. unfortunately I had already ran out of my data on my phone and two or three times during the stream it popped up you are incurring blah blah blah large data amounts do you want to keep recording I'm like yes I recorded like a 40 minute walk around where I showed every single solitary pin at pinberg I did every single row and I believe it's still on pinball nerds you'll have to click onto the videos tab. But if you go to the Pinball Nerds podcast Facebook page and click on it, I believe it's there. If it not there feel free to message me and I find it wherever it is I hunt you down video I look for it Maybe I even repost it on Pinball Nerd Facebook group January 1st Who knows I back baby I back and so is Pinbird Woo! So ran into Jack. That was, oh, yeah. So then while I'm doing my live stream, I run into Jack Danger, who's doing a live stream, and then we're on each other's live streams at the same time, and then the world blew up. Because at the time, in my mind, I was probably, in my mind, okay, I was nowhere near Buffalo Pinball. I was still very very very new at pinball streaming but in my mind it was like I was on the precipice of like blowing up not blowing up because you can't blow up pinball media but like people were finding out about me finally like I was getting more than a couple hundred listens finally slowly by then like people outside of my because I made like a local pinball flog for like the first 150 episodes as you guys know I hardly ever talked about pinball drama I mostly talked about local tournaments local players local places to play I kind of did it more like coast-to-coast pinball but I should get back to that so moments after I ran into Jack doing that I ended up running into I believe Crystal Gevnick even on the thing and I secured an interview with her for the next day and that was really cool and I do remember there was a moment that day earlier on while I was playing I had done really well and played my way into A and there was a moment where I had done really bad. Like in A, A division is very hard. So that's the top 200 players of like 1,000, right, out of 1,000 players there. So I was playing with the top 200 players in the world who played the best at the world's biggest, best tournament. So I know even Jeff Teola said, oh, he flew a little bit too close to the sun. I was like, yeah. So I was just getting destroyed. I was getting like fourth, fourth, third, fourth. And then the next turn I'd get like fourth, third, second, fourth. and then the next turn I'd get like fourth, third, fourth, fourth, you know. And so then I was getting really down on myself and I was getting kind of angry and grumpy and hostile and yelling and screaming and bipolar Orby was, I'm in a nutshell. He was coming out with a nutshell for a little bit there and Mike Myers loved it. But I remember at one moment I was really disappointed and upset with my play and I looked to the player to my left and remember it's groupings of four so you're always going to have usually two or three empty spots beside you, right? Because it's like, it depends if that fourth player over there is on there for our one. But the closest player playing to my left was Robert Gagno of the movie Wizard Mode, formerly for very many years the top player in Canada, and the only player I believe to, did he win Pembert or like get second or something? But he's just, he's done some outstanding things, is still an incredible player to this day. I think he's still ranked in the top ten players in Canada or so, pretty close. So not only did I, you know, I was sitting there and I thought this player to my left is like the top player in Canada. He's also a guy I've watched his documentary movie that was, you know, even featured mentored on Vice and everything else. I've watched it like 10 times. He's basically my pinball hero that I finally get to meet for the first time. And then I look to my right and I see Roger Sharp playing. This is no joke. You can go back and look at the rounds. You can see the round where, you know, and then like basically my Canadian pinball hero and my American pinball hero are playing on both sides. me and I basically said, Orby, get out of here. Like you got to put yourself, you got to turn that frown upside down. It takes like 420 muscles to frown and like one to smile, right? So I was like, let's smile. Let's use that one little muscle and turn it upside down. And honestly, that changed it for me. And I think like moments later, I was standing in line to go to the bathroom and I was literally standing right in front of Zach Sharp and Josh Sharp. And they were just talking about pinball stuff and I don't even know what it was obviously it wasn't going to be anything like important behind the scenes or the next Stern pin or what's happening at IFPA but they were talking just about pinball stuff the whole time I'm going oh my god I'm standing in front of the two most famous pinball brothers like on the planet whose dad is the most well you know by far the most famous you know the man the myth the mustache the legend himself Roger Sharp right so anyways I couldn't believe it and then it I kind of got in a better mood than I just got into the mood of just enjoy it, have yourself a good time. And so the story I just told you about, you know, kind of feeling down, I think I told that to my friend Julie Dorsers at lunch. And she said, well, Albert, let me go introduce you to Roger Sharp and Robert Gagno. I said, oh, no, no, no, Julie. And I really meant it. Like, I was just too Roger Sharp. I can't talk to him. And she just said, I'm going to introduce you right now. And she, like, grabbed me by the arm and, like, literally dragged me over there. Okay, no, I don't think she dragged me. But basically said, come on, let's go. So she is not shy. You could say, you know, you could call her the grammar police, right? But you could never, ever, ever say that Julie was shy. So Julie brought us over there, and I got to go meet good old Roger Sharp and talk to him for about five minutes. I did get a nice selfie, and I'm pretty sure it's still the most likes I've ever got on Facebook, other than maybe when I proposed to Danielle and our wedding day. Like, and I don't know, maybe the birth of one of my sons or something like that. But, like, that got so many likes, people were just like, holy crap, he's really there. This little nerd from Shedden, Ontario, the rhubarb capital of Canada, 420 people ended up playing a round of pinball with the top pinball player on the planet, the most well-known anyways, the only one who's not a B-grade celebrity in all of pinball, put it that way, because people outside of pinball even know Roger Sharpe, and why wouldn't they? so that night I got to go to the oh and then at lunch I totally forgot about this at lunch Julie actually ran into me while I was sitting near Robert Gagnon she introduced me to him and then I got to do an interview with him so that was incredible but that night I went I was exhausted I had been partying for several days straight but I went to the DeGenees no not the award show the Pinball Degenerates after party with Joe Cervino back when Pinball Degenerates was much smaller That's right. I know y'all are listening to this going, oh, Albert probably just jumped on the D-Jenny train a couple years ago. Uh-uh. I'm OG. You can ask Joe. So I was there, and at the event, I actually ran into the other two-thirds of Deadflip. And if you're saying, huh, that's right. Jack Danger's Deadflip channel was originally a team which had a grand total of three different dudes in it, or four different dudes in their pinball team, but the other two of the three guys were there at Bemberg playing, and I got to playing around with them. And after they told me that, I saw them later that night at the Degenerates after party and I asked them for an interview. And they thankfully gave me an interview. And I know, I believe while I was doing the interview, they were like cleaning up. It was like 2.30 a.m. We were getting kicked out. I know right when Jack walked in with them, I bought him a beer. And he's so nice. I said, well, what type of beer do you want? He goes, oh, anything you're drinking, dude.
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    My dude or something like that. Or he just said, whatever you like. I can't remember exactly, but so I was drinking this incredible like Skittles type sour there, just super duper duper kettle sour, tons of just lactobacillus just up front, like big kettle sour, incredible beer. But Jack gets it and he has a sip, and I go, I don't think he likes it. And he goes, oh, no, thanks, dude, it's nice. I know it's like 10 minutes later, he's still slowly sipping on it. I'm like, I've been watching this man drink beer on dead flip for years. He doesn't sip that slowly. so then a couple weeks later he's on dead flip and someone offers to send him some beer including a sour from their local brewery and chat and he's like no no no no skip on the sour i don't i don't i'm not really big into sours dude but like the other ones yeah yeah now this could have changed this was like five years ago right maybe sours are his favorite freaking thing but jack danger for you drinking that sour beer i'll totally forgive you for never coming on my show again after that because that night after i bought him a beer and i talked to him he promised me he would do an interview, just not that night. So the next day I was able to track down Jack just before finals started. And actually, and I jokingly got mad at Jeff and he later got mad at me because Jeff Teolas was emceeing or hosting the finals, I guess you'd call it. And so he was just about to start and tell everybody, come on up here, we're about to start the finals. And as he was saying that, I'm in the middle of, you know, the last two minutes of my interview with Jack Danger, because we were sitting near the front stage trying to be far away from everybody. and as soon as he said that all these people started crowding into us from all different areas people were coming over and waving him talking to him they didn't know I was doing a podcast and then Jeff is talking in the background which we had to pause for a couple times thank god that mic wasn't working right so it stopped and I could get in a couple more questions but I really still think to this day that was probably one of my best interviews if not my best interview I've ever done I much prefer doing interviews when I can look at you in the face and read your I feel like I'm really good at like not talking over people in person I'm horrible at doing it on a mic especially if I've been drinking but I'm much better in person knowing you know how when not to speak over someone and to feel their their body vibes and that sort of thing their what do you call that body like their body language which is really hard to do through the phone which is why I say I would never do phone interviews again which is why even though I did a couple last year I haven't done them for a long time because they're very challenging and then sometimes you an interview with a host or an artist like Christopher Franchi, and he gives you the big scoop that he's done pinball podcasting. And then two months later, he goes on Slam Tilt. And then two months later, he announces he's coming back with a Christmas special, which I am excited for, Franchi. But stop saying you're going to quit on my show. It makes me look like more of a dork than I am. Well, that's not true. I make myself look like the biggest dork. All right. So what then what happened there um I did get to interview Joe Chervino as well uh that was really fun oh at the end of that night I everyone was getting up and uh sitting right beside me there was a bells and chimes shirt and I remember asking like Steve Bowden because he was hanging out with a couple of those ladies and um like that hall had the bells and chimes shirts on and I ended up asking Jack and asked a couple of the other people there I felt like I was annoying people was like excuse me do whose bells and chimes no no no no no I'm like okay well is there any way you know whose it is and then I ended up asking even more people the next day no one knows who it was so I just kept it brought it home drop target Danielle loves it it's a little bit big on her um it might have been one of the hot nudge girls because I'm pretty sure I don't know I have no clue because I thought they were at Jack Danger's uh after party but anyways were they at the D. Jenny's so I don't know I don't know whose shirt it was but whoever's shirt it was thank you for that shirt because I got to bring home my wife a gift, and it cost me $0.00, which is, you know, as a Dutch guy, those are really the best gifts, aren't they? Like hugs, handshakes, high fives, and free podcasts like this because there's no advertisements on this one. That's right. Say thanks to all the awesome pinball nerds that bought tons of angry alpaca in the end of my last shows a couple weeks ago because of them, I am sold out of coffee. I am sold out of tea. All I have is just one giant Christmas tree, and even that's going to be gone in a couple days. So on that last day, though, I did get to interview Mrs. Penn. That was really interesting. We did just hear from Mrs. Penn over there on Head to Head. Head to Head comes back once a year with, of course, Ryan Say and Marty Robbins, and wow, I really think this is the dirtiest, grossest, most disgusting, holy crap, I think they've outdone themselves. Marty and Ryan were always just filthy animals. That's part of the fun of listening to them. I totally agree with most of their takes on pinball as well, but there wasn't a lot of pinball takes. I think it's because Marty now works for a pinball company that instead of Marty Robbins being one of the most critical people when he was talking about pinball machines to now typically if Martin has something bad to say about a pin or if he can't say something nice and he says nothing at all,
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    he did go pretty hard at Godzilla for a very long time, which is kind of refreshing because pretty much everybody else is like, oh, spreading the buttcheeks and kissing Godzilla, and Marty's like, that's a little bit easy, mate, like, I'm playing it for an hour, right, like, an hour later, you're still playing it, right, my SRAM was just, yeah, that was not even close to cool, but go check it out, just go check it out, just don't do it with family and friends around, maybe put in the earplugs, because, like, I might swear a couple times a show, but the, yeah, that was insane, I enjoyed it. I did enjoy it. It was maybe even slightly too dirty for me, and I've probably never said that in my life. But that same day, I did get to interview Crystal Gemnick. I remember that was awesome. Jeff Parsons, formerly of the Pinball Players podcast, and then, of course, formerly of, well, him and, he ended up bringing on Joe Lemire, after Joe Lemire ended up being the other half of Head to Head for some time, and it was primarily talking about tournament pinball. So I used to listen to that as well. So shout out to Jeff Parsons, Joe Lemire, Marty Robbins, Ryan C., and everybody else who does all the hard work for all the – and Mrs. Pinn, Mrs. Pinn and Dr. Pinn, who it was very nice to hear from them. And that all wraps up nicely into the bow of us hearing from the new Super Awesome Pinball Show, of course, coming out in January. I think that will be really fun as well. I've said this before, but I really think that Dr. Pin is probably the best interviewer in all pinball. And that's not to take anything away from any of the other interviewers, but Dr. Pin was able to find a way, Kristen Line, of course, was able to find a way to ask really, really hard-hitting questions to the important people in a nice, kind, and respectful manner that usually got better than just a snarky, prefabbed answer from either, you know, the pinball maker, distributor, artist, whomever. And I just think they were the most thought-provoking, perfect questions. And I feel like if for some reason, Dr. Pin, the whole doctor gig don't work out or you get fired for writing all those prescriptions for A5, W35, extra strength or something, you could always have a career in being a journalist because I loved that part of the show. Now I just got a look over from Danielle like dude you said you're going to be 8 minutes that was like 40 minutes ago so I'm going to try to wrap this I'm sure she's enjoying reading her book but we also have we're playing a little pin golf tonight the Agars are playing a little pin golf on Guardians of the Galaxy I'm excited to set her all up we're just doing a little 9 hole so I will try to wrap quickly here but what else did I have here probably the highlight was interviewing Jack Danger maybe the second highlight was Crystal Gemnick not just because it was so great to talk to her and she's so cool and fun and outgoing but she actually brought me to a really cool spot that she liked to go to like in the very corner of the building outside of the patio I didn't even know it existed and it was really chill and we could see the whole city from there that was fun what else can I say I know I had to rush home I didn't get to watch all the finals because I had my brother-in-law's wedding show to O'Neal to get back to I had to drive for like 7 hours to get back that night I remember that I barely just barely was able to find somehow enough American quarters in the bottom of my bag and in my cup and in the bottom of my pocket to get through my final toll and there was like no more money left on the card that I could get that had the plus account to be able to take the money out so anyways I had a great time at Pemburg I'm excited for it to come back I'm sorry I didn't Keep it to eight minutes or even close. But listen, Pinball Nerds, I love you. Have yourselves a wonderful end of your holiday. Please have a safe yet fun party like a rock star, but maybe like a semi-retired rock star, not like a 19-year-old rock star for New Year's. If I don't talk to you, which I won't unless, like, I finish this podcast and, da-da, Jaws is back. But most likely I won't be talking to you guys until 2024. Take it easy, nerds. And remember, until next time, eat, sleep, and breathe. Pinberg. Thank you.