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Rhymes with Switch

BlahCade Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·53m 51s·held·Aug 2, 2019
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.026

TL;DR

BlahCade hosts discuss Firepower restoration, Star Race prep for exhibition, and Stern's new $4,500 Star Wars home-use pinball.

Summary

BlahCade A A Pinball Podcast hosts Chris Friebus and Jared Morgan discuss their recent pinball restoration and maintenance work. Chris has been restoring a Firepower machine and applying decals, while Jared is preparing a Star Race machine for exhibition at Brisbane's Pinball and Arcade Collective. They also discuss Stern's new home-use Star Wars pinball machine announced at San Diego Comic Con, which features a simplified playfield compared to the Pro model but is priced $500 cheaper at $4,500.

Key Claims

  • Stern announced a new Star Wars home-use pinball machine at San Diego Comic Con, priced at $4,500 (compared to the Pro at $5,000)

    high confidence · Chris Friebus and Jared Morgan discussing the announcement during the podcast

  • Star Wars home-use machine has a simplified playfield with fewer features than the Pro version, including only the Death Star ramp and right ramp, and lacks the LCD screen above TIE Fighter targets

    high confidence · Chris and Jared analyzing screenshots and discussing specific playfield features

  • Star Wars home-use machines will be sold through Amazon and Costco.com, not through traditional pinball distributors

    high confidence · Chris clarifying the distribution strategy

  • Star Race machine will be exhibited for 10 days at Brisbane Pinball and Arcade Collective's showgrounds and will be used in a classic match play tournament

    high confidence · Jared describing his preparation and tournament plans

  • Jared diagnosed Star Race lighting malfunction to faulty DIP switch contacts, which were fixed by applying contact cleaner and manually toggling the switches multiple times

    high confidence · Jared explaining the troubleshooting process and solution

  • Chris is restoring a Firepower machine and has completed decal application but still needs to reattach the wire harness and apply clear coat

    high confidence · Chris discussing his recent work and ongoing restoration tasks

Notable Quotes

  • “We're recording live on Twitch this time. Trying that... everybody keeps on telling us, guys, if you're going to do this, you've got to do it on Twitch. And I was like, but nobody podcasts on Twitch.”

    Chris Friebus @ early in episode — Signals a content distribution strategy shift for the podcast, moving to live Twitch streaming

  • “I have a feeling the reason why I was getting strange lights and stuff going on it was actually the dip switches... I just got a bit of contact cleaner, squared it into the dip switch packages on the board and just gave them a bit of a flick... And the problem went away.”

    Jared Morgan @ early-mid episode — Demonstrates practical troubleshooting of a common issue in vintage pinball machines

  • “Really? That was what you – and not only that, it was a 30-second announcement video. But there was a two-minute countdown video to the 30-second video.”

    Chris Friebus @ mid episode — Captures community disappointment at Stern's announcement strategy and reveals anti-climactic reveal of Star Wars home-use model

  • “Why, other than maybe you don't have to go through a distributor, but that was the other thing that people were like, why are you telling distributors about this, if this is supposed to be sold via Costco and Amazon?”

    Chris Friebus @ mid episode — Identifies confusion in the market about Stern's distribution strategy for home-use machines

  • “Overall I'm looking at this going you know what it's actually it's not bad but for 500 bucks more you could have the real deal the pro”

    Chris Friebus @ mid episode — Expresses market skepticism about the value proposition of the Star Wars home-use machine versus the Pro

  • “Firepower is a goal-destroying machine... My goal was to have it completely done last summer.”

    Chris Friebus @ late episode — Humorous acknowledgment of extended restoration timeline, illustrating the challenges of vintage playfield restoration

Entities

Chris FriebuspersonJared MorganpersonBlahCade Pinball PodcastorganizationStern PinballcompanyStar Wars (Stern)gameStar RacegameFirepowergameBrisbane Pinball and Arcade Collectiveorganization[name withheld pending review]

Signals

  • ?

    content_signal: BlahCade Pinball Podcast shifting from YouTube-only to live Twitch streaming for episodes and challenge videos, with content being ported to YouTube afterwards

    high · Chris announces they are 'trying something a little new' and recording live on Twitch for the first time, planning to use channel 'blockade_underscore_pinball' for live content

  • ?

    product_launch: Stern officially announced Star Wars home-use pinball machine at San Diego Comic Con with simplified playfield compared to Pro model at $4,500 price point

    high · Chris and Jared discuss 30-second announcement video with two-minute YouTube countdown, analyze playfield features from screenshots

  • ?

    product_strategy: Stern shifting Star Wars home-use distribution away from traditional pinball distributors to direct online channels (Amazon and Costco.com)

    high · Chris clarifies 'it's going to be sold on Amazon and sold to Costco.com' as intention, notes confusion among community about why distributors were informed

  • ?

    product_concern: Star Wars home-use machine features significantly reduced playfield complexity vs Pro model, including only two ramps (Death Star and right ramp), minimal drop targets, and small LCD screen

    high · Chris comments 'that's a lot of open play field' and Jared notes 'it's not bad but for 500 bucks more you could have the real deal the pro'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Community disappointed by Star Wars home-use announcement after Stern's countdown hype, perceiving it as anti-climactic and underwhelming

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.162

0:00
blockade pinball podcast hey this is the blockade pinball podcast i'm your host chris freebus aka shut your trap joining me as always halfway across the world jared morgan oh hello there how are you going everybody. Yeah, so we're going well, we think. We're trying something a little new this go-around. Those of you watching on YouTube, you're going, hey, how come I didn't get a live notification of the podcast this time around? And that's because we're recording live on Twitch this time. Trying that.
0:46
Yeah. It's pretty cool, I think. Yeah, we don't know. Everybody keeps on telling us, guys, if you're going to do this, you've got to do it on Twitch. And I was like, but nobody podcasts on Twitch. As a matter of fact, there's not even a tag. A category. Yeah.
1:02
Are we going to make one? Are we going to make our own? Well, I tried it. It wouldn't let me. It only lets you do the pre-selected ones.
1:11
Yeah, you know, that's how that goes. Anyway, we're trying to do something new, trying to make it so that it's maybe a little more interactive.
1:20
Also, it makes it easier if you guys want to throw a donation our way, I think. I don't know. That's good. I haven't actually figured that part out yet. I've been looking.
1:31
event
Amazoncompany
Costcocompany

high · Chris notes 'basically all the pinheads were like, really? That was what you –' and describes the 30-second video format as underwhelming

  • ?

    restoration_signal: Jared successfully diagnosed Star Race DIP switch contact corrosion issue through systematic troubleshooting and contact cleaner application

    high · Detailed explanation of switching between 8-15-25 credit settings, identifying flaky contacts, and fixing with contact cleaner and manual toggling

  • ?

    venue_signal: Star Race machine being prepared for 10-day exhibition at Brisbane Pinball and Arcade Collective with tournament play including classic match play format

    high · Jared preparing machine for delivery within 'about a week's time' and implementing tournament director credit button for easy play management

  • ?

    operational_signal: Jared implementing tournament-specific features on Star Race including modified coin slot as tournament director service credit button, allowing tournament directors to add 9 credits per press

    high · Jared explains converting left coin entry into tournament director switch for ease of credit management during tournament play

  • ?

    restoration_signal: Chris applying decals to Firepower playfield after clearing original paint and sanding, still pending wire harness reattachment and clear coat application

    high · Chris discusses learning decal application, dealing with cloudiness from water test, and anxiety about reattaching complex copper braid wire harness

  • $

    market_signal: Star Wars home-use at $4,500 undercuts Star Wars Pro at $5,000 by $500, but community questioning value proposition given feature reduction

    high · Chris notes price difference and expresses skepticism: 'for 500 bucks more you could have the real deal the pro'

    • It might be one of those things where you have to first have X number of subscribers. But anyway. Okay, well, we'll look into it. Yeah, you know. The point is, I am going to now be also doing the challenge videos on Twitch. And doing the commentary live while recording them. because I figured out how to put the phone into Twitch. So follow the channel.
    2:03
    For those listening via podcast, it's on Twitch, it's blockade underscore pinball. That's what the channel is. And there's where the live videos will happen, and then I'll go ahead and port everything over to our YouTube channel also because I guess redundancy? yeah and also i'm not sure how i get videos off twitch and and rip them i think i think by a little bit of software i've got will actually use twitch um but i'll have to check that's okay jared i'm just recording directly onto my hard drive right now so oh you get it right so you actually get like a uh an offline file yes offline file and then hey you know what i can do i can even set a premiere like i've been doing for all the other videos on YouTube and they're, you know, so I don't know. It might be a best of both worlds. It might be a royal pain in the butt, but we're trying. That's the point. We're trying to give things a go. Just as I silence my phone. So it doesn't ding-a-ling. It does ding-a-ling quite a bit. Yes. Um, so what's been going on with you, Jared? What's this past week, uh, had in store? This past week, on the work front, I have been doing lots of technical writing. Actually, doing writing, not doing planning and other sort of stuff that I've been doing for the last sort of year. So it's been nice to actually get back into doing words, words and stuff. Yes, words and stuff can be fun. It can be fun, yes. But on the home front, I spent a little bit of time last week just getting Star Race, just double-double checking that everything seems to be working well on it. Because in about a week's time, it will be delivered to the Brisbane Pinball and Arcade Collective's shed that they've got at our showgrounds in Brisbane. And being prepared to get played, hopefully a lot, over the 10 days of the exhibition. hammered on and lots of money in the coin box please um so uh that hopefully i just really hope the thing holds up for 10 days if it dies on the on the 10th day it like catastrophically dies i'll be happy you'll count that as a victory that'll last that long that's a that's a win for me and i think you know the board is in pretty good shape i worked out why it was doing weird lighting things and you won't believe what the what the suspected fault is all right i have a feeling the reason why i was getting strange lights and stuff going on it was actually the dip switches so the dip switches on the board the operator settings dip switches yeah yep that's right so i changed some of the features in the game um and i was wiggling them around and switching it from three balls to five balls and changing the pricing and stuff like that. I'll go into the reasons why in a minute. But what I was finding was that's when we had the weirdness happening. So what I did is I just got a bit of contact cleaner, squared it into the dip switch packages on the board and just gave them a bit of a flick, like just flick them about 10 or 20 times on and off. And the problem went away.
    5:24
    That's a nice cheap solution. For now. Now, the thing that is, the question I have is that I have, what I've done is I have drawn a key line on the board and the connector. So, and what I did is I tried this because I thought, you know, if anything's going to go wrong, it's when I take the head off and then reconnect it at the venue. So, what I did is I tried doing that. I actually removed all the plugs from the back box that go to the play field and then reconnected them again. and I drew little lines so I could sort of match up where the connectors were going because the connectors at the moment, where they are in position, are working well. So I figured, well, why not mark them so that I can line everything up and sort of like, because there's a bit of play either way. There's about two or three, like two millimeters play each way on the connectors. So you can put them to the left or to the right a little bit and they're still contacting the pads, but they're contacting different parts of the pads. So at the moment, they're contacting parts of the pads that are good. So I want to mark that position.
    6:36
    And then what I did is I disconnected them all, I reconnected them all, plugged it in, no problems. And when I started changing switch settings for pricing and game features, I noticed that I couldn't get 26 no, 25 credits maximum on the game which is the highest amount of credits it will hold and I was going, well why is that? That's a low number, isn't it? 20, 25, yeah so it was stuck on about 8 and it wouldn't go higher than 8 and I was going, well why is that? so anyhow, there's two dip switches that control pricing So you can have 8, 15, 20, and 25, I think, are the options. So 8, 15, and 25 because you've got to have a spare one that is off because it's only like two switches. So that means you've got three combos for the switches. So I was switching around and I had it all switched.
    7:39
    Like one was off, one was on, and that was supposed to give me 25 credits maximum, but it was only giving me 15. And I was going, well, that means one of the switches is dodgy. So I thought, well, I've got to fix this, because I can't just have 15 credits maximum on the game. Like, the amount of players this is going to get in tournament, like the tournament directors are going to be constantly going over to the thing and putting more credits on it all the time. That's what I was going to ask you. Is that what's going to happen? There's going to have to be somebody there that's constantly just going and basically opening the door and feeding credits? Yeah, for the tournaments, that's exactly right. So, you know, I wanted to make sure that I could put the maximum on there for them so it's not a pain. Oh, this is actually in any other circumstances it's going to be a regular coin drop It will be a regular coin drop, yeah So, a regular coin drop there's a coin mechanic that will accept dollar coins and when it's not in tournament it will be just on the floor and anyone can come and play it, but during tournaments it will be like the usual on free play, but of course these old machines particularly Gottliebs don't have a free play setting No, that's what my The 8-Ball Deluxe doesn't, and so what they did was on the coin door, one of the previous owners had used one of the coin slots and put a little button there.
    8:53
    And then I figured, oh, shoot, what happens if I ever want to, you know... Put it on site. Yeah, yeah, put it on site. Well, not on site, but just, you know, out in the neighborhood and saying, hey, who wants to plug a quarter? And then it was just a matter of, oh, you know, you just put a little piece of metal over there, tape it down, and bobscotch. Nobody's going to understand what is underneath that under normal circumstances. That's right. All you really have to do is just put a little out of order and you're good to go, right? Yeah, well, that's exactly right. But what I did is – so I worked out – so I'll finish that story first and I'll tell you the next story. So I worked out that it was the switches that were dodgy. So I just really just flicked them back on and off, on and off. It would have been – it felt like 20 times. And then I was able to get it to set to 25. And after that, see, when I was doing the setting before, like, it was only going to, like, it was supposed to be set to 25 credits, but it was really only showing 15. And I have a feeling that the dodginess, like the sort of subtle weird contact thing going on with the switch was causing everything to malfunction because it was essentially switching it on and off during the game, the pricing, and you're supposed to be adjusting dip switches with the power off. So it was introducing, I think, some strange logic issues on the board just through vibration. Okay, that makes sense. Yeah, I think. So I've ruled out the fact that I suspected it was connectors. So I ruled that out by disconnecting and then reconnecting them, and the fault didn't come back. So it doesn't seem to be that. So the only thing I can assume is that it's got a bit of a – it was a dodgy contact in the dip switches.
    10:33
    And ever since, it's not been malfunctioning. So fingers crossed it stays like that for the next 10 days when it's on site. One thing I do need to do, though, is go and get a bit of mild steel probably from our hardware store and just properly fix the on-off switch, the cabinet on-off switch, into place because it's just floating around inside the cabinet at the moment because I've not needed it. The power switch is literally right in front of the machine. Oh, okay. So I just need to get a bit of metal, drill it, and then fix it in place, and then I can put the power switch in line so you can reach under the machine and just turn it off and on.
    11:11
    Oh, the differences between home use and public use. Public use, that's right. Exactly. It's weird. So the other thing I do, because I'm nice, is that there's three chutes in the Star Race. There's a left, center, and right. And what I did is the center doesn't have any electronics on it. It's just a blank spot, which I blanked off with the little coin entries that I've got. from pinball resource but the the left hand side does have uh capacity to hold a coin mech and it does have the little switch so what i've done is i've turned that that coin entry into a tournament director switch and what that means is anyone with the key can go in there and press the the the little switch once and i'll get nine credits added at a time so they can back set the machine by pressing it three times and then they can just walk away and and go to the next machine and put more credits on so it's just you know they're gonna have a lot of machines in the classic match play tournament which i'm going to be a a player in so mainly because i'll be on site and if there's anything wrong with the machine i can go and fix it jump in and do the rescue and it also sort of like midway through the the the competition so it'll be a good opportunity maybe to go and give the thing a clean and see how it looks.
    12:30
    So, yeah, I'll be playing in it. So I just, I don't want any hassle. And I want the tournament directors to be able to, you know, use it as easily as possible for them because they're going to have to put credits on a lot of machines a lot of the time.
    12:44
    So it's nice if you can make it easier for them. And, you know, it's only got one coin making it anyhow. So it doesn't really matter that other shoots available. May as well put it to good use. and it's good too because essentially it acts like a service button, a service credit button, and it means that I can look at, I'll be resetting all the bookkeeping before I put it onto the show because I want to see how much it takes and I want to see how many games it gets. Right. So I'm going to be doing a little experiment with it while it's on site to see how many plays it actually does get and I want to see how many coins it drops through the coin mech and how many are actually put on service. So I want to keep those two bookkeeping items separate. Should be very interesting to see what all that does Did you speaking of home use games did you happen to hear Stern announcement Oh, yes, of Star Wars home use. So, it's like, really, you're bringing back The Pin, which nobody really liked?
    13:44
    No. Well, Spider-Man was the last one they did as The Pin. Right, which actually, they used the comic. They used the comic imagery, and that's what inspired the Vault Edition that they put out.
    14:00
    But it was a pretty successful release, I think, for them. The pin version was... I think it got some sales, which is why they decided to do this other one. Well, here's what I don't understand. You're charging $4,500 for this.
    14:16
    I was just going to buy the Pro. The Pro was $5,000. So? I just don't get it. Why, other than maybe you don't have to go through a distributor, but that was the other thing that people were like, why are you telling distributors about this, if this is supposed to be sold via Costco and Amazon? I was up with this before. Like, it's all online. Oh, yeah. No, no, no. That's the intention. It's going to be sold on Amazon and sold to Costco.com.
    14:49
    Oh, okay. so you can go and get a pinball machine to ship to you but you could do that with a distributor and the other point is these apparently the way they're constructed the parts are I don't want to say less likely to break but they're more friendly for servicing I think okay is the idea I think because there's less of them probably yeah yeah I imagine. Because, you know, it's a pretty cut-down build. It looks like the Pro with a bit of stuff taken off it. Because the Pro didn't have enough taken off of it already. Which is saying something. Because it's like, I think with the Pro there was like three ramps. This one's only got the Death Star ramp and the right ramp. And I think it has drop targets still, which would be a high precedent because the Pro barely has anything on it anyhow. It doesn't have that little LCD screen above the TIE Fighter targets either, I don't think. No. I think you're lucky that it actually has a drop target bank, and you should just be thankful that it does.
    15:59
    That's probably the most expensive thing on the bill of materials for the entire machine, I think. Because I'm pretty sure it does have the big ramp that goes around the playfield. Oh, no, no, it doesn't. it's just like a little fall off ramp that goes to the left of the play field there's not a lot to it I've had a lot of trouble actually seeing full play field screenshots for it so I'm going to need to hunt around for them because I'm just curious to see basically they introduced it at San Diego Comic Con which is this weekend happening right now that's where it was introduced and I think a lot of people's reactions to it was because Stern had this countdown of oh we're announcing something big and everybody was getting excited, thinking, oh, they're going to announce new, you know, whatever the next Stern table is. And then it gets announced and it's this. And basically all the pinheads were like, really? That was what you – and not only that, it was a 30-second announcement video. But there was – but as YouTube does, which I think is where it premiered, there was a two-minute countdown video to the 30-second video. Oh, wow. Really? yeah well that's whenever i premiere any of our videos on youtube that's what it always does it gives you a a two minute timer before the actual video lands so basically if i say that the video is coming at you know 8 30 in the morning then it allows people to tune in at 8 32 so you know they're not late missing something you know if you will right right i'm trying to hunt around for some some pictures while you're talking because i'm just curious to see just just show me oh yeah Oh, wow.
    17:40
    Wow. Exciting, isn't it? And you thought the play field on the Pro was a little bit light on. That's incredible. Does it actually have... Oh, I really wish they just had... Oh, here it is. Hold on. I'm going to do something new here, Jared.
    18:01
    Tell me where you're looking at this thing. I'm looking at it on laughingplace.com. laughing so if you do it yeah it's the first one that came up what you wanted something you sent me something on twitter or on skype that i'm like very interesting okay oh that is that is a bug report from uh from the oh it's got like a it looks like a set of drop targets that block the left ramp so you shoot the drop targets down and then you um you can shoot the ramp but it looks like there's no drop targets for the force um things so it doesn't there's not a lot going on um at all but you know this is this is how this works like the this type of pinball machine is look if you're a fan of the franchise it's got everything you want it's got the classic lifesavers there it's got um all the like it's actually got metal ramps on it which i'm quite surprised at um but yeah the force target if you're familiar with um uh the the monsters pinball they basically use the same target style in the monsters okay folks here's something new for our podcast let's see if this works oh look at this look what i can do okay so this is uh the pin yep and if i scroll down a little bit there we go give you an example of what you're actually looking at there so whoo that's a lot of open play field that's that's a lot of open play field yep and you know it's it's laid out very similar to the um the full-blown pro like i'm looking at it Now I'm going, ooh, what one do I actually like more? This or the Pro? Yeah.
    20:06
    Well, you look at it, there's a spinner. Like, it's got a spinner there. It's got, like, a loop. Essentially what they've done is they've changed the position of the pop bumpers. And it looks like you get, do you get four pop bumpers in this game? It looks like you do. Like, that's interesting.
    20:23
    It's four unique bolt. It's got a lot of stuff. like it's four unique multi-balls um it's got all the complete missions in it um it's got a r2d2 ball lock that allows you to steal your opponent's multi-ball i know it has it and i'm showing it here it's the exact same translate that is on the pro uh yeah but if you look giant speaker panels itty bitty screen yeah teeny tiny screen and that's better than the previous pros because the previous pros were actually a alphanumeric right display yeah so they're giving you a video screen here so that's that's a big deal like that's like from from a bill of materials perspective that's that's kind of been like quote-unquote cheap for them to do um so that's pretty pretty decent of course it does have the the lovely plastic lockdown and it doesn't have any um so it's got two steel ramps obviously a full-size translator as you mentioned yeah no no real coin door there's a door but it's not a it doesn't accept coins obviously it's got color changing led playfield lights so it's actually the same feature as the pro has which is pretty neat um and it's got auto launching so it's got a dual launching system so it's got the plunger plus auto launch which i guess that's another thing that's uh unique to it uh that the other ones didn't have it as a real plunger yes and it's a full-size playfield so unlike the other um the pins i'm pretty sure the other pins were um just like a special size playfield like like three-quarter size or something i think so yeah so think think like um safecracker size okay um so look overall I'm looking at this going you know what it's actually it's not bad but for 500 bucks more you could have the real deal the pro but look at it I don't know I would almost this is ridiculous I'm saying this I would almost want to put that beside a pro and see which one is more fun to play.
    22:47
    Like, because I think what they've done here is they've taken some lessons learned from the pro and the layout and they've kind of made some improvements to the play field.
    23:00
    Now we'll see. Yeah, I mean, this is interesting. Yeah, okay. Well, look, there you go. There you go. The Star Wars bin. yeah and for the first time ever we were actually able to show our audience what we were talking about that's right it's a bit nifty technology maybe next time I'll be actually prepared though and not have to do a search live on air that's alright we just fill the gaps it's fine fill the gaps okay so what I did this week you're not going to believe it Jared actual work on firepower you did work work on fire i did work work i uh yeah um went over to my friend's house he's got a laser printer which is what i needed to print up the decals since i had scraped all of them off when i did my sanding and since i decided you know what i'm not going to try and do any of the touch-up paint it's just ridiculous it's i'm going to make it look worse as an yeah you know it's like there's nothing worse than seeing a bad touch-up job rather than just seeing what the natural wear and tear is and the player's condition of the place the patina as you've called it in the past exactly you know i'm never going to get this thing looking show quality so why even attempt it because it because there's a dog of a play field to try and touch up people do it but they are masochists you know what you know what it reminds me of if you've seen any of these like you know the memes of they'll show what a cake is supposed to look like and then they show what the person made they go nailed it that's exactly what i'm trying to avoid yep um really yeah well also it's number two is how to draw an owl start with two circles start with so and then draw a line and then three here's your completed owl picture yeah steps to get from two to three uh long and arduous exactly so um so so yeah anyway so my buddy i had the pdf file that had you know all the decals that i needed so he went ahead and printed them out for me and i've never applied decals in my life so that was a uh a new experience too, just learning how to put them on. And put them on there. They went on relatively easy. They weren't sized necessarily 100% what they should have been. So, for instance, on the playfield, there's two, call it bean inserts. Yeah, there's fire and power. And the black outline that went around it was a little bit uh narrower than what the actual insert is so once i once i put the the decal down uh i wound up kind of getting a double black line if you will which again whatever pretty much pretty much whatever it's better than some of the the, the text, the insert text over some of the things on star race. Um, I've got some that were missing altogether, but I like, I did my best to touch them up. Yeah. And, and look, you can read the text like it's there and really, you don't even really notice it that much when you're playing. That's the thing. Like when you're playing the game, you, you don't really notice it. Like I, I don't notice lights going on and yeah, you know, then you're, there's a lot that you'll forgive. Um, I mean, for instance, like... You won't forgive it not working right, but you will forgive a few little bits and pieces on the play field. Right. And one of those things that I wasn sure of So obviously I had already put clear coat down I mean that was the whole point was that you have to have a layer of clear coat so that when you put the decals down and then you put the next layer of clear coat on that it's the same surface tension. Because otherwise, it's going to lift the decal completely up, and then you're going to get a nice cloudy effect. so but the problem was is that the the clear coat that was on there was obviously a little bit orange peeled and i was like well i don't know if that's the one thing that i read was like don't worry about it that's what helps give the uh the decal even more adhesion if you will and that once you once you put down the next layer of clear coat that it'll all go away and everything will look clear well in the past if you want to kind of see what clear coat looks like you just put a little bit of water down and you know that gives you that and it's amazing what that hides yeah oh yeah yeah well once the decals dried there's kind of a cloud effect to them i mean just by the very nature of it being a decal right yeah so then i put a little bit of water on top of and that cloud effect didn't go away, and I was like, uh-oh. Oh, dear. I don't know if this is going to be good or not. I don't know. So, again, we'll see. At this point, let me just throw some clear coat on and get to the ridiculously hard task of reapplying the wire harness.
    28:25
    Oh, yeah, that thing's still off, isn't it? Because it's just play field only at the moment. Play field only at the moment, And I'm not looking forward to trying to put this thing back on.
    28:36
    I cheated and left my harness on when I did clear coating on Star Race. That's what my original intention was. I was totally going to do that. And then somebody said, you're going to have so many more issues if you leave it on. Because all the sanding that you do and all the clear coating, you're going to have to plug every single hole. and make sure that nothing gets down in it. And I just kind of was of the opinion, you know what? Hey, they know what they're doing. They're saying it's take it off. So I took it off. And, I mean, I think I can get everything back to sort of where it belongs. Oh, you're right. Yeah, but I think the part that worries me the most is the copper braid that goes around. Yes. Attaching that back on again. Yes, exactly. using the staple gun and putting that back in place where it needs to go um i have a suspicion that most people just relay their own tack it in place and then solder the the the the wiring harness back to where it needs to be potentially you can you can go and buy it but i think it'll be all right like you'll probably find out that a lot of this stuff has a lot of wire memory anyhow Oh, well, I didn't just wad up the wiring harness and throw it in a bin. I put it on a piece of cardboard and left it flat so that it should maintain most of its memory. Yeah, so you just slide it off like a pizza, basically. Yeah.
    30:08
    But even still, it makes me nervous. That'll be the biggest task at hand. So hopefully this next week, depending on what the weather is, because it's been kind of hot and it's not a good idea to clear coat when it's hot. Oh, okay. Good to know. Yeah, they basically say that you do the math because I'm not going to. If it's over 90 degrees, bad news. Best to clear coat and, yeah, no higher than like 85 degrees. So it's one of those things. That's probably with proper automotive, like, you know, cyanogen, carcinogen clear coat as well. Like I use the super cheap auto stuff in this spray bomb. Right. No, I'm using the real stuff. Yeah. It'll kill you if you breathe it in. Yeah. So I've got my respirator and a pair of glasses and I don't have the suit. I didn't bother with the suit. No, just don't breathe it in. Right. You know, it's funny because I watch all these, um, you know, car building shows and you know, they'll show the guys in the paint booth. And then it's amazing how sometimes the guys, they almost always wear a respirator, but sometimes they wear the suit and sometimes they don't. And I'm just kind of like, so what made you go? I need the suit today. Yeah. Exactly. It's like, oh, do I like this shirt? I don't want to get it covered with paint. Well, no, I don't think they care about their clothing because it's the fact that getting that stuff on your skin,
    31:33
    because it's clear coat. How do you get it off? It's not just soap and water going to rub that stuff off. It comes off eventually. Your skin sheds. It'll just fall off eventually. Give it two weeks. Yeah, just give it two weeks. It'll be fine. Yeah. You know, my spay booth was outside on two paint cans, and outside in the garden on two paint cans. That was my spray. Don't know why all the plants died, but, you know. No, no, it was, well, the grass was fine. It was just, like I said, this stuff is a non, it doesn't have any, whatever that horrible chemical is in it. It's free of that chemical. Okay. So you can spray it just with a, like, it's a good idea to put some respirator on, but you don't need the full-on, you know, rebreather style respirator. My absolute favorite, when I was first learning to do this, I was looking up YouTube videos, and I found this guy in New Jersey doing it in his single-car garage with the garage door open about two feet only, and that was it. No mask, no eyewear, no protective cure. He's just spraying the clear coat down. This cloud is rising, and I'm like, dude, what are you doing? Dude, you're going to die. You're going to die.
    32:46
    Oh, man. I don't know. But maybe it's one of those things where it's like, hey, I'm only doing it this once. It's not going to kill me as opposed to if I'm doing it daily. But even still, man.
    32:56
    I don't know. Oh, yeah. It's just nuts. Why risk it? Yeah, you don't do it. You just don't. No. Good luck. Are you going to do it this week? Are you going to put the clear on this week? That's going to be my goal.
    33:11
    Well, okay. I'm not very good at keeping goals with firepower. Firepower is a goal-destroying machine. Yeah, it's not really my forte because my goal was to have it completely done last summer.
    33:28
    Yeah, it's something like that. I seem to remember you saying, yeah, I'll just take the wire harness off and then I'll just go and clear coat this thing and put it back on again. It'll be great. Actually, I think it was two summers ago because I was injured last year. So it wouldn't have been last year. So I think it was two summers ago. Yeah, time flies.
    33:53
    Yeah, exactly right. Yeek. Let's move over to, there was a question regarding the Zen Williams pinball and leaderboards. And one of the users on the forum went ahead and posed the question to Zen. Basically, the question was, when you do a daily challenge and you finish the daily challenge, it'll give you a leaderboard rank.
    34:26
    Well, how the heck do you climb leaderboard on a challenge that ends as soon as you get the goal? It comes down to minute points, like 10 points either way? Well, no, I mean, I think what it can come down to is, let's say you're playing the five-minute challenge. You're down to the final 20 seconds, and you're doing, let's say, Attack from Mars.
    34:56
    And you've got the saucer ready to be destroyed with one last hit. and so you go ahead and wait for the countdown to go and then you fire it off right at the last second and then boom, get a giant point explosion. Yeah, right. It puts you well over the top. That's, I think, what the leaderboards would be doing for the survival challenge. That would be much trickier because it's not just, it's either get it done within a minute or beat the score, either or, whichever comes first. Yes, yeah. So, the question was posed, and basically there are seven unique leaderboards,
    35:40
    for which basically you have a leaderboard for the basic challenge, for the advanced challenge, for the pro challenge, and for the premium challenge. And then you have a leaderboard for five-minute challenge, one-ball challenge, and survival challenge. now the main issue with the challenges are zen went and knocked down the score requirements on everything yes so now you're beating the challenge easier but all those scores when it was much tougher are what is on the leaderboard because it takes whatever your best score was and that's what that's right leaderboard yes so uh there's where the user kind of you know said hey zen you might want to take a look at this because now the leaderboards are impossible but i really do question why would you be chasing challenge leaderboard that's that's silly business that's that's a whole another level of of just i gotta be the top um yeah that yeah that's taking it to the extreme but people do that yeah so you know as we found out they take their leaderboards seriously very seriously to the point of death threats yes wow yeah so yes we are we are still waiting and i've put out notice to try and find out um we're still waiting when volume five is going to be uh yes it's landing um because it's taking longer than usual or maybe it's taking the same amount of time we're just impatient i think it's taking right amount the same amount of time but the problem is, well, our problem, not Zen's, Zen is heavily promoting the Star Wars coming to Switch. Oh, yeah. And I think that's where all their focus is right now. They're at Comic-Con right now promoting it. Yeah. So... It's good, too, that there's a lot of these style events coming up, leading up to Star Wars live on Twitch that, not Twitch, on Twitch. Rhymes with Twitch.
    37:52
    We've got Twitch on the brain, apparently. Oh, yeah. Yeah, on the Switch. On the Switch, yes. So it's good that they've got all these avenues to actually go and spruik it, you know, and actually have people in front of it playing it and experiencing it, because you can guarantee a lot of the people who go to the, you know, Comic-Cons and, you know, all these sort of festivals, like those lovely two ladies that were in the video last time that we were talking about. Right, Star Wars Celebration. Yeah, Star Wars Celebration. They'd never seen it before. It's great that they're actually taking this now in a new portable format to people that they can actually play. As we were talking last episode with the Nintendo Switch Lite coming out, that's another avenue for people to actually experience digital pinball now. on the go, not just on mobile. These kind of conventions, these comic book movie conventions, these are your people.
    38:52
    This is your target market for sure. Right. You're not going to go to a gun show and expect to find pinball enthusiasts.
    39:01
    No. Unless you take Big Buck Hunter there. Oh God, why? And then you still won't find any pinball enthusiasts after they play it. But you might find some people willing to take a shotgun to it. Yeah, that's right.
    39:15
    Beyond that, there's not a lot going on. I think Zacharia just released another table, another remake.
    39:31
    Unless that already happened, but Pinball Champ, I just saw another tweet, and I was like, wait, did that already come out or not? I don't know. I can't remember. But certainly it's worth popping over to Zacharia and checking it out, seeing if it's something new. yeah check it out so speaking of writing Jared I as I'm in the doldrums of the entertainment industry that we're just starting up TV season but it takes a while before if you didn't get on the series for second unit stuff to work to come in so I had been looking for ways of earning a little side cash oh okay and I wanted to do it with writing and so I found this site that basically have me do a whole series of tests to see if I could actually write Oh okay And not only did you write but follow instruction
    40:30
    Oh, yeah, well, that's hard. Not many people can actually follow instruction. Right. So it's this thing called steady content. And basically what you do is once you've qualified for it, they have all these writing assignments posted, and you can go ahead and claim a writing assignment. And just to give you an idea of what they pay, it's basically, if you write 2,000 words, it's $40.
    41:01
    $1,500 is $35. So, I mean, you do the math and see where it kind of goes from there. That's a lot of words you've got to write. It can be a lot of words. And what I've realized is, you know all those badly written articles that say next to nothing that you read on the internet? Yeah, you know, just fluff pieces. Guess what I'm writing! Fluff pieces.
    41:26
    You won't believe the ten different things, but the eleven thing will shock you. No, see, I wish it was those. No, these are literally, and this really, I found it kind of insulting. It was, you need to write a review on this product.
    41:43
    And I went, well, how in the heck am I supposed to write a review on something that I haven't touched?
    41:49
    Well, every article that they want you to write, they have attached other links to other articles that have been written. And basically, by researching those articles, you are then writing your article.
    42:09
    Oh, right. So, if I'm going to be reviewing something, I'm reviewing it based off of another person's review.
    42:19
    Okay. Which, something tells me that the review that I got linked to probably was also linked to a prior review.
    42:31
    Probably. So you're basically, everyone's reviewing reviews of reviews. Yeah, you're basically playing one of those games of telephone. I think in the end. Wow. So I kind of said, you know what? I'm not going to review something that I haven't personally touched. Fortunately, like two of the articles that came up were products that I do, do use daily. And I went, okay, at least I can speak with some authority. But the very first article that I had to write, this one was just, it was staggering to me. The article was literally,
    43:02
    what are the hours that McDonald's is open? And I had to write 2000 words about this. Oh, okay. Even better. This requires an article? Even better. Now, some of these, they give you a full outline. The outlines are kind of easy because then you can just fill in the blanks, if you will, and you know what to write, and that helps your word count. This had no outline whatsoever. It had, basically, it said what locations are open, what are the typical hours of operation, and how can you tell if a McDonald's is open or something like that. I mean, it was, like, ridiculous.
    43:41
    Yes, I can tell by the look on your face that, how does one do this? And they specifically said, no fluff.
    43:49
    No fluff in an article like that. Are you serious? So I then proceed to look up, okay, let's see what these articles are. The first article is, are all McDonald's open 24 hours? and the response was many are but a lot aren't and you kind of got to just check their hours i'm like yeah duh uh-huh yeah no kidding i mean it's not rocket science you drive by if it has an open window you know open sign it's open if it doesn't i don't know so but i was like okay fine whatever it is what's that it's it's totally just seo like all you're writing is articles for seo what does SEO stand for? Because I see that pop up a lot. Search engine optimization. So you're writing articles with things like keywords like McDonald's in. McDonald's is a pretty popular thing. Opening hours is also a pretty popular thing. So people will search for McDonald's and opening hours and depending on the site rank that your site that you're writing articles is for it'll come up first rather than And that's exactly it because they give me some keywords and those keywords have to appear two to four times every 500 words written. Yep, exactly. Yep. And that's what basically bumps up that article within the search engine optimization results that Google draws. And the problem is you have to use those exact keywords in that exact order, and those words don't necessarily work in actual human sentences.
    45:21
    Yes. In sentences, yes. Because computers think differently to humans, and who would have thought? So I wind up going to the McDonald's website, just typing in location, looking for what the hours are, and literally writing sentences like,
    45:44
    Some McDonald's are open 6 to midnight. Others are open 4 to 11. It kind of depends on the area, but more than half of them are open 24 hours a day. so i'm sitting there doing the best i can to to like be serious and put all this stuff in i get done and i'm literally like 800 words short oh 800 i mean which is a massive amount stretching it and you were stretching it and i'm like what am i going to do so i read it off to my wife she starts laughing she's like oh this is ridiculous and she goes she said something about you know a big mac and and my wife is a commercial machine like you ask her a commercial from the 80s and she'll be able to sing the jingle recall it oh yes yeah it's literally you know that thing in in inside out yeah where it's that memory nugget that's yeah her to a t when it comes to those things so i said what's the big mac song she goes oh the two special um two or three special I went, perfect. So I go, let's say you're in the mood for a... Let's say you suddenly have a craving for a 2LB patty special. I'm like doing McDonald's jingles. I'm like, tell me every McDonald's jingle that you can think of.
    47:06
    Yes. And she's rattling them off. She's like, Big Mac Filet-O-Fish, apple pie, you know, whatever. And so I'm putting this stuff in. And then she starts going, she goes, you need to put in something like you don't want to miss out on that or it'll put a grimace on your face. I'm like, oh my god, I have got to put that in. So I'm starting to put in bad puns too. Excellent. I approve of this. This is excellent. I'm like, because it is the stupidest thing.
    47:39
    Literally this whole thing can be summed up in 250 words. Max. You know. That's right. You know, to get a Big Mac, you don't have to go on Hamburglar or anything. You can just walk up to the counter and get it.
    47:52
    I think I put in a reference to Fry Guys and, yeah, just all of that. So then I submitted it, and it got approved. So now I'm waiting to see if it actually gets posted somewhere. I will die laughing. And then someone will write their article based on yours. It's online, right? so what i did find out and this is a problem of mine uh and this is why i thought that i'd have no problem doing this because if anybody has read my posts on digital pinball fans you'll know that i'm kind of wordy um i don't get accused of being wordy as well it's just you know it's something i do yeah i don't do well with the quick short answer and so i figured this would be right up my alley and no problem and like i said it became a an absolute struggle to do that but i sat there with those 800 words i must have sat there for an hour trying to think of what to do and when all of a sudden done i got done with this i went wait a second i don't think this was worth the hourly i'm earning no way that i'm earning from this so then it became a challenge of okay if i'm going to do a 2,000 word article that's going to pay me $40, I need to finish it in two hours. That pays you $20 an hour, which isn't great, but it's something. But it's something, and it's, you know,
    49:18
    that's not bad for writing this kind of, I mean, if you're doing this kind of writing, you're not going to get paid much anyway.
    49:26
    So it is all about speed. So I literally... Yeah, I literally made the challenge that on the next one, And I was like, okay, let's see how fast we can crank this out. And I did one in two and a half hours and one in two hours. It was like, okay, it's possible, but it's not. It's possible. It's not fun, though. It's not creative writing. It's really just almost copy and paste without plagiarizing. So what you actually need is you need a plagiarism detector that then remixes the words for you. Right. And you're good. You basically copy and paste it out of the three or four articles you get sent. You get the plagiarism adjuster to adjust the text for you, and then you submit it. And 30 minutes, job done. I bet there's people out there that have done exactly that. Oh, you can guarantee it. There's actually platforms out there. There's one called, I think it's called writerly.com, which is Australian-based. And it will actually help you write blog posts about things. Right. and it's sort of like a blog post generator, kind of, but it actually uses, it's not just like rubbish words. So you can plug in things you want to talk about into it, and it will help you write words, basically. So if you wanted to really go deep into this, you could find services out there that basically did this for you, probably for a fraction of your hourly, and it would actually speed things up for you. So anyway, I just found it interesting because now I'm reading whenever I'm on the internet and I'm reading things. I'm like, ah, yeah, this is one of those assignments I can tell because I can tell where your bullet points are and I can tell what your headings are. I can see those keywords popping up. Oh, yeah.
    51:13
    Yeah, this is a writing factory SEO piece. Because all they want is clicks. They want clicks on the site and they want ad revenue. So what they do is they heavily index articles, and that brings you to the site, and then they can click you with their ad revenue.
    51:32
    It's all about the imprints, baby. Internet is magical. Yes. All right. Well, as you can tell with that story, again, not a lot of pinball going on this week, but we'll adjust that.
    51:49
    Make sure you follow our socials. And here, I'm going to even do this. watch this, Jared. So, I'm going to go. Oh, where did my social go? Oh, oh, it became blockade. Ooh, that was impressive. And watch, I can do it to Jared, too. Oh! Wait, I've got to get rid of his. There it is! Ta-da! So, yeah, follow the blockade, and that way you can know when we're going live with these kind of things, and with all the other videos, and any other news that we link. But, while you're at it, go ahead and follow Jared at Jordan Morgs and myself at ShutYourTraps.
    52:25
    Again, follow on Twitch, blockade underscore pinball. That'll be the channel for that. Go ahead and subscribe to the YouTube channel too. Yeah, just subscribe to everything and push like on everything, and that'll make us happy. Yeah, that's right. Do that.
    52:45
    And beyond that, I'm going to be... Yeah, well, as you can see, I can now do things on my phone, which is what I'm going to then be doing on Twitch, playing some things on the phone. If you hang around for just a little bit, I'm going to stop this Twitch and then start it back up again. Then you can see some actual pinball being played.
    53:08
    Very shiny. All right. With that being said, we will be back again next week talking about stuff.
    53:19
    of which I don't know. Jared, do you know what we'll talk about next week? Definitely about stuff and maybe some things. Oh, things. Things are important. Okay, good. So get ready for that. Stuff and things. I think we have a title for next week.
    53:35
    We do appreciate you for watching, listening, supporting the show. It warms our hearts. It does. All right. We will talk to you all again next time. Bye-bye. bye bye