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Episode 164 – Residual Magnetism

Slam Tilt Podcast·podcast_episode·analyzed·Apr 7, 2021
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.035

TL;DR

Dave Brennan details AP's service excellence, magnetism issues, and upcoming game pipeline.

Summary

Dave Brennan, service manager for American Pinball, discusses his journey from rural Minnesota pinball hobbyist to AP's remote service technician. He covers AP's serviceability advantages (Molex plugs, P-Rock modular architecture, off-the-shelf parts), recent code updates driving sales, the technical challenges of magnetized pinballs in games like Oktoberfest, and AP's upcoming pipeline (Game 4 with junior designer + Dennis Nordman, Game 5 by Nordman, Game 6 by Joe Balzer). The conversation touches on AP's manufacturing quality, licensing complexity, and competitive positioning versus other manufacturers.

Key Claims

  • Dave Brennan has been in the pinball industry for about one year (since May 2023 or 2024), having spent seven years total in pinball as a hobbyist and technician.

    high confidence · Dave Brennan directly stated this early in the episode

  • American Pinball uses P-Rock boards (similar to Spooky) with a modular architecture, where switch and coil boards are distributed underneath the playfield rather than centralized in the backbox.

    high confidence · Dave Brennan explained AP's technical architecture in detail

  • American Pinball playfields are manufactured by Bader, a supplier with a strong reputation for quality.

    high confidence · Dave Brennan stated playfields are made by Bader and the stamp is visible on the playfield itself

  • Carbon steel pinball quality varies by AISI rating (10.08 to 10.80+); lower carbon ratings are better for games with magnets because they hold less residual magnetism.

    high confidence · Dave Brennan conducted research and presented technical findings on magnetized ball specifications

  • American Pinball Game 4 will be designed by a junior designer with help from Dennis Nordman, Game 5 by Dennis Nordman solo, and Game 6 by Joe Balzer.

    high confidence · Dave Brennan stated AP's official designer pipeline

  • American Pinball currently has Hot Wheels and Oktoberfest available for purchase, with some Houdini stock still in circulation at distributors.

    high confidence · Dave Brennan confirmed current game availability

  • A recent major code update for Houdini (by Josh Kugler) reinvigorated customer interest and drove additional sales.

    high confidence · Dave Brennan mentioned Josh's Houdini code update and observed its effect on sales

  • American Pinball machines are built with tank-like durability comparable to Gottlieb System 3 cabinets.

    medium confidence · Dave Brennan stated this, and customers have made similar comparisons

Notable Quotes

  • “I haven't come across the game yet that I couldn't fix.”

    Dave Brennan @ ~19:00 — Demonstrates Dave's technical expertise and confidence in AP's serviceability

  • “The problem is none of the suppliers out there are saying this on their websites. They just say standard carbon steel.”

    Dave Brennan @ ~30:00 — Identifies industry-wide lack of transparency in pinball ball specifications, particularly regarding AISI carbon ratings

  • “If you have a higher amount of carbon in it, it will actually hold residual magnetism.”

    Dave Brennan @ ~29:30 — Core technical finding explaining why some pinballs perform poorly in magnet-heavy games

  • “Licensing takes more development time because you've got people on the outside that need to approve everything.”

    Dave Brennan @ ~48:00 — Explains why AP has focused on unlicensed themes; reveals complexity of IP licensing in pinball

  • “Hot Wheels is a good player. When you get one that's actually hooked up right, it plays really fast. It's a lot of fun.”

    Ron Hallett @ ~50:00 — Balanced assessment of Hot Wheels' gameplay quality despite shot tightness criticism

  • “I would say a game I like, and I would put this up against any early solid state, is Game Plan Cyclops.”

    Dave Brennan @ ~65:00 — Dave's personal favorite game reveals his appreciation for underrated, complex early solid-state machines

  • “The only main criticisms for American Pinball have always been basically the titles themselves and the tightness of the shots.”

    Ron Hallett @ ~23:00 — Summarizes the consensus community critique of AP games (excellent hardware, inconsistent themes)

  • “I do a service summary for every week, so I can keep track of the trends and what's happening.”

    Dave Brennan @ ~26:00 — Shows AP's commitment to data-driven service improvements and customer feedback integration

Entities

Dave BrennanpersonRon HallettpersonBruce NightingalepersonAmerican PinballcompanyDave FixpersonDennis NordmanpersonJoe BalzerpersonJosh Kuglerperson

Signals

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Dave Fix's leadership at AP described as bringing 'huge renewed excitement' to the company and invigorating the team with new hires; customers frequently asking about next game releases during service calls.

    high · Dave Brennan: 'I think there's a huge renewed excitement, especially with Day Fix coming in. It's really invigorated a lot of the team and brought some new people in.'

  • ?

    code_update: Recent major code update for Houdini by Josh Kugler reinvigorated customer interest; pattern observed where code updates drive sales surges.

    high · Dave Brennan: 'There's been a pretty massive code update for Houdini recently that Josh came out with, and that has reinvigorated the folks that were interested in it, have bought it up.'

  • ?

    product_concern: Industry-wide transparency gap: pinball ball suppliers do not publish AISI carbon steel ratings, making it impossible for consumers to select appropriate balls for magnet-heavy games; critical issue for Oktoberfest and similar designs.

    high · Dave Brennan: 'The problem is none of the suppliers out there are saying this on their websites. They just say standard carbon steel... what is it?'

  • ?

    design_innovation: Dave Brennan producing quick-reference service guides and instructional videos for AP games, including Oktoberfest magnetism guide, Houdini lockswitch guide, and basic ownership tutorials; signals shift toward customer self-service troubleshooting.

    high · Dave Brennan: 'I've made a series of videos that are on American Pinball's YouTube page. It's everything from very basic stuff like how do you register your game... to more in-depth adjustments and repairs.'

  • ?

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.327

0:00
Hey, Pudet, do you think Russian chicks know how to, um, you know, do it? Uh, she better. Cool. Maybe she could teach us.
0:23
Coming to you from beautiful upstate New York, this is the Slam Seal Podcast, The show about all things pinball. I'm your host, Ron Hallett, here with my co-host, Bruce Nightingale. I've heard you like Nine Inch Nails.
0:35
Uh, they're okay. It is Easter, right? It is Easter. What does that mean? Oh, my God. I don't get it. You don't get it, do you? I don't. What do they think of Easter? I don't know. This is episode 164, and Bruce has yet another reference. I have no clue. We have a guest. We do. Hey. Wow, two in two times. Holy crapola. This was a really long-awaited guest, though. Yes, we have Dave Brennan from American Pinball. Good evening. Hey, guys. How's it going? All righty. Where's Dave Fix?
1:10
He is not with me. I know. Yay! So, welcome, Dave. Hi, Dave. Thanks. Hey, guys. So, how long have you been pinballing? Well... For the whole first. Sure, sure. Well, I've been in pinball for about seven years total now, but in the industry for just about a year now, coming up in May. So it's been really a unique adventure, I would say, you know, getting so involved in it over the years. And mainly my journey is kind of focused on service and restoration, repairing games, that kind of thing. So I started out, my very first game was Valley Hot Dogging.
2:05
And I picked it up. Yeah, little did I know it was such a rare game at the time. So I brought the thing home and, you know, started playing it. And after a while, you know, some lights would go out or, you know, some things started to not work. And so I did a little bit of research like anybody would when they get their first game is like, well, how do you fix this thing? Like, who does this? This is kind of like getting a record player fixed or something. And so I looked around and I lived in Minnesota at the time and in rural Minnesota. So it would be a, you know, a haul to basically take it up to maybe one or two guys in Minneapolis that might work on it. You know, of course, they had a backlog of people to do that. So I searched around. Of course, I found Pinside. And from there, I was like, oh, there's a map on here. Hey, there's little dots, people next to me in the same town. So I reached out to people in the community and started soaking up repair knowledge like a sponge. And I got pretty good at fixing games. And then I started reaching out more and getting more and more involved and buying more games. And I would say that I'm not biased to any kind of manufacturer. I do favor some a little bit more than others, but I've probably repaired just about every era and every manufacturer available. Just about. I mean, there's some weird, you know, there's some European ones that I haven't come across yet, but I do have some European games. And so I did that for a long time. I've been into restoration, doing playfield restorations, cabinet restorations, circuit board repair, you name it. I ended up moving to Wisconsin a couple years ago. And while I was here, I saw a posting for American Pinball looking for a tech service guy. And so I was like, well, I could just kind of made up a resume or list of accomplishments that I've done, you know, how many games I've repaired and my involvement in that. And when I moved here, I also got involved with a friend actually down the road from me where I streamed for TurboGrafx-7 on Twitch. And so that's opened up a lot of, opened up me to the community of streaming and, you know, getting to know more and more people. And yeah, the last time I think I saw Ron was at Pinball Expo when we had it in 2019. And that's where I brought a couple of rare games. I brought a game plan Cyclops and a Zacharia robot, which we set up in the hallway there and we streamed it and basically invited. This is at the media table to kind of get people that didn't know what streaming was and all that kind of thing. So they could stop by and jump on the stream and see what it's about. Anyway, so I saw this posting one day. I think it was on Pinside, and AP was looking for a service manager. So I made up this resume of all the accomplishments, sent it to them, and they actually called me back, and I ended up going down to Illinois, talking with them, and they liked everything that they were hearing. So I started on, and I continue to, at the moment, I work remotely from Wisconsin for AP. and so yeah basically if you call the 833-API-HELP or service and send an email service at AmericanPinball.com you're going to get me and I'll be answering anybody that needs help on their American Pinball machine. You've also made a series of videos. Yes yep I've been getting into that quite a bit. It's something that I kind of promised early on, and I got more acclimated to making those. So I've made a series of videos that are on American Pinball's YouTube page. It's everything from very basic stuff like, how do you register your game? How do you submit a service ticket? And then there's also several people get their very first pinball machine, and they have no clue how to open it up, lift the play field, get into the back box, what a tilt bob is, you know, all these things that I think it's kind of like if you were to buy a boat or a motorcycle or something where, you know, you'd be able to talk with the service manager and this is where the gas goes, this is how the brakes work, This is how, you know, kind of walk you around this expensive toy that you've just bought. Well, I'm doing that, but in video form. So it's just quick videos that people can kind of get acclimated to. And I'll continue to make those, you know, getting more and more in depth with adjustments and repairs and things like that. So it actually helps me help the customer rather than me explaining the same things over and over again. You can just watch this quick video, and it's probably going to answer most of your questions.

  • Dave Brennan currently owns 51-52 pinball machines, down from a peak of about 60; has owned over 100 in his lifetime.

    high confidence · Dave Brennan answered directly during the 'Game You Like/Hate' segment

  • Hot Wheels was supposed to launch as part of a larger Legends Tour marketing campaign that was disrupted by COVID-19 lockdowns.

    high confidence · Dave Brennan explained Hot Wheels' marketing setbacks during the pandemic

    • Joe Troberperson
    John Borgperson
    Barry Englerperson
    Stern Pinballcompany
    Spooky Pinballcompany
    Data Eastcompany
    Badercompany
    Gottliebcompany
    Williamscompany
    Pinball 2000product
    Hot Wheelsgame
    Oktoberfestgame
    Houdinigame
    Game Plan Cyclopsgame
    Fleetgame
    Valley Hot Dogginggame
    Pinsideorganization
    IFPAorganization

    product_strategy: AP prioritizing unlicensed themes (Hot Wheels, Oktoberfest, Houdini) due to faster development and lower licensing costs; licensed Game 4+ represents strategic shift requiring external approvals and longer timelines.

    high · Dave Brennan: 'There's a lot more freedom in doing a non-license than paying for a theme... you want to invest that cost.'

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: AP using off-the-shelf components (Molex plugs, standard Williams-style mechanics, P-Rock boards) reduces dependency on custom manufacturing and improves serviceability; no major supply chain bottlenecks reported.

    high · Dave Brennan: 'We use off-the-shelf parts that are easy to find, and we have a lot of them already listed on our website... they're fairly inexpensive to replace.'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Hot Wheels positioned as Williams-esque, approachable entry point; Houdini as complex, rules-heavy for experienced players seeking depth; targeting different market segments within home collector base.

    high · Dave Brennan: 'Hot Wheels is more approachable... Houdini is a complex game... more for people that love to dive into rules.'

  • ?

    content_signal: AP investing in educational video content and quick-reference guides for customer self-support; signals recognition of home collector market dominance and need for accessible technical resources.

    high · Dave Brennan: 'I'm in a unique position where I talk directly with the customers and know what their problems are. And so that is what feeds into... making a video on this common thing.'

  • $

    market_signal: Hot Wheels and Oktoberfest available for purchase; Houdini inventory depleting at distributor level due to code update-driven demand surge.

    high · Dave Brennan: 'Hot Wheels available, Oktoberfest... I believe we still have a few Houdinis. I know I've talked to some distributors that have Houdinis in stock still. So people are buying them up.'

  • ?

    product_launch: Hot Wheels' original marketing plan (Legends Tour, physical show presence) derailed by COVID-19 lockdowns; AP pivoted to streamer partnerships and IFPA streaming challenges as alternative launch strategy.

    high · Dave Brennan: 'There was a whole Legends tour that Hot Wheels was doing... all went online... How do you show off a game when operators aren't buying them because everything's shutting down?'

  • ?

    industry_signal: Pinball industry trending toward modular, distributed architecture (P-Rock, Stern node boards) rather than centralized backbox boards; reduces wiring complexity and improves serviceability for home owners.

    high · Dave Brennan: 'It seems that's the way most of the companies are going... you can put them wherever you need them underneath the play field... reduces the amount of wiring that you would need.'

  • ?

    operational_signal: Dave Brennan tracking weekly service trends and common issues; findings inform video content priorities and identify design improvement opportunities; data-driven service quality model.

    high · Dave Brennan: 'I do a service summary for every week, so I can keep track of the trends and what's happening... I'm in a unique position where I talk directly with the customers.'

    • 7:44
    So do you enjoy what you're doing right now at American Pinball? And now that you're actually getting more games, more excitement building up in the company itself? Yeah, absolutely. I think there's a huge renewed excitement, especially with Day Fix coming in. It's really invigorated a lot of the team and brought some new people in. And, I mean, everything that he's been saying, it's been very positive in that way. I think, especially with the community, every time I stream, I think at least every other customer that calls me, what's the next game? When's it coming out? And so I think there's a lot of excitement around that. Yeah, it's been very good. I do enjoy what I'm doing. It's way different than I guess I thought it would be. I used to do home repair service for people locally that had a game or something. But this is a different animal. I'm working with people across the country or in different countries. and so I have to be able to communicate clearly and try to explain how to fix things over the phone. And it can be a challenge sometimes because you're working with people of all different skill sets. Like I said, it could be their very first pinball machine or it could be their 100th pinball machine. And the way that I approach it is I'm going to take the time to work with that customer individually and kind of work through what the issue is. So we will both stand in front of the machine and we'll go through, okay, what are you seeing here? This is what I'm seeing on my end, and I'll basically try to simulate any errors that they might be encountering, and we kind of go through it that way. We also have people on the AP staff that are support for me. So if it's like something to do with code or software, we have Josh Kugler and Joe Trober that are very knowledgeable about that kind of stuff. And so I bring in, as needed, anybody that could help with, you know, if we need more depth to an issue. So I haven't come across the game yet that I couldn't fix. But have you had, like, a call where you say, you'll need a Phillips screwdriver, and the person says, what's that? And you said, oh, no. No, not so much that. It's more, like, I've come across people that they don't have a multimeter, and I'll say, you know, I think I'll probably make a video like that. Here's some common things that, you know, every pinball owner should have in their toolbox. Multimeter is one. A switch adjustment tool is another one. I don't know. I have to make a little... Watch the fuses. Yeah, fuses. Yep, having some fuses on hand. Alligator clips. So, yeah, it basically, you know, having, just educating the new people to what they should have on hand and kind of get a basic knowledge because you don't need to be an expert at how to use a multimeter. If you can do continuity tests and measures and voltages, I mean, that's really all you need to know to get started. And, you know, we can walk through a lot of stuff and you figure it out. And honestly, like, I don't know if you've ever looked underneath the hood of an AP game, but they're fairly simplistic in the way that they're laid out. They're very serviceable. You know, all of our pinball coils, all the coils are Molex plugs. So there's no soldering at all. If you have a coil that goes bad, all you have to do is unplug it, change it out and you're off and running. So it's pretty simple. Well, I will say your website for the service side is way better than some other pinball companies out there. Well, I appreciate that. And I try to do that since I started. I've been doing things like I just finished the Oktoberfest quick reference guide. I also did a Houdini one and I have to do Hot Wheels. Basically what it is, you remember inside like a Williams back box or valley, they would have a few sheets of paper and they'd say like, here's all the fuses and here's the switch matrix and here's, you know, all the stuff. So operators, they wouldn't have to flip through a bunch of pages in a manual to find what they need. So what I have is basically just a two page thing so you can print it off and you have that right there in front of you that you can use for you know switch troubleshooting or coils or whatever what fuse values it is so i'm going to start doing those for all the games plus he actually has a service manual ron not like some other company out there so i'm sorry i'm looking right at it now so the american the american Fendable architecture, you're basically, you're using the Williams mechs, right, if I remember. Yeah, they're Williams style mechs, and yeah, they're pretty, there would be nothing underneath the playfield that would surprise you.
    13:16
    It's a lot of off-the-shelf stuff. I mean, even our coils are off-the-shelf, it's just they have a Molex plug attached to them to make it easier. Like you could, there's an equivalent Williams coil that you could use. So essentially it's like soldering on leads and crimping on a Molex plug is what you could do. You know, anybody that gets our games, they don't have to necessarily buy an AP coil, but, you know, it's just easier. And is it P-Rock? Is that what it's running? Yeah. So, yep, Houdini, Octoberfest, and Hot Wheels have been using P-Rock boards. So similar to what Spooky's doing. And it's basically like a modular system instead of it being, or sorry, segmented system. So instead of it being like a one big board that has all the components, like say, example of a System 11 or something where everything's on one, it's separated. So, and a lot of it is under the play field. So you have basically your computer communicates with the P-Rock board, which is the hub that communicates to all of your switch and coil boards under the play field. And there can be multiples of those. So there's 16, each switch board is 16 switches, and then each coil board is 16 coils. And so basically you can put them wherever you need them underneath the play field and kind of attach them that way rather than having a centralized board that you would run from the back box. It actually reduces the amount of wiring that you would need compared to how it was done in the past. And it seems that's the way most of the companies are going. Stern has this node board architecture, just similar. You just got the tiny little board in the back box and then all these other boards underneath the play field. And when you said computer, I saw one of your videos. It actually looks like just a desktop PC. It looks like mounted inside the back box. Yep, that's correct. It's just a typical desktop computer. It's just connected with USB connections and audio comes out of that and HDMI for the screen. So, yeah, it's pretty simple. It is funny that Pinball 2000 did that, where they used just your basic, you know, your off-the-shelf PC parts, and it took a long time for everyone else to just do that. The thing about that. Yeah, go ahead. No, I said a whole lot of years. Yeah, a whole lot of years. Yeah, they had Internet access, too. You could plug in the, what was it, the parallel port or something, or was that the printer? Or you could plug it into a modem or something like that. There was a way you could get it on the Internet, Pinball 2000. So think about it. If you listen to our show, we talk about a lot of manufacturers with a lot of different issues. We don't bring up American Pinball that often for any mechanical issues. They really don't seem to. I mean, have they ever had play field issues? No. And hardware issues. You just don't. The only main criticisms for American Pinball have always been basically the titles themselves. And the tightness of the games. Well, the tightness of the shots. Yeah. Yes. That's the only two flaws I can literally see with those games. With the flippers, you've got to crank the flipper power up? A little bit. So, yeah, I would say AP has the reputation of well-built.
    16:51
    And so I already covered, yeah, we use off-the-shelf parts that are easy to find, and we have a lot of them already listed on our website. and they're fairly inexpensive to replace if you needed to do that. And you touched on play fields. Well, we have really good quality play fields. It's no secret they're made by Bader, and it's stamped right on the play field, so I'm not saying anything that people don't already know. And they have a very good track record for having some of the best play field quality out there. So I think there's another manufacturer that used them that also has this good reputation.
    17:35
    So, but yeah, I wouldn't say that I have like a huge abundance of catastrophic things that are happening, which is great because I think it's more troubleshooting switches and, you know, common things that you would come across. I guess I'd rather field those and getting people back up and running than, you know, some of the cosmetic things. You know, we do get a few, you know, shipping mishaps here or there, but it doesn't happen very often. You know, I've even had people say, oh, the shipper probably dropped the thing or whatever. But, I mean, the cabinets that we have are actually built like tanks. I don't know if you've moved one of them around before, but they're very similar, I would say, to like a Gottlieb System 3. I've had customers say that before. Like, these things are hefty, for sure. Now, I know you're on the service side of it, and I used to do a lot of service with phone support. I know once a month we would have a meeting where we would talk about what the issues are and what we can do to improve what we're dealing with right now with either the machine that we're working on or for the system that you're working on, like, you know, seeing changes. I hope you are part of that process, and I hope I'm thinking AP does that, since I think almost every other pinball manufacturer does. Do you see better stuff coming along? You know, like, you're saying, like, hey, it's only going to get better from this. Right. You learn along the way, and yes. So making things more serviceable for customers, I mean, it's definitely trending more towards home buyers these days, as most of us know. And having it as easy as possible to get back up and running is certainly a priority. And yes, we do meet weekly. So I do a service summary for every week, you know, just so I can keep track of the trends and what's happening. And with that, I'm in a unique position where I talk directly with the customers and know what their problems are. And so that is what feeds into, okay, well, I can make a video on this common thing that people are bringing up to help with whatever their problem is. The latest one that I just did was for Oktoberfest, educating people about magnetized balls that can have a huge impact in how the game functions. I actually did quite a bit of research over the past week, just researching that very thing. What makes the actual ball better quality than another? And there's all different people supplying these. But I found that there, I don't know how technical you want me to get on it, but basically none of the suppliers are really telling you exactly what rating the carbon steel is in a pinball. And so the higher amount of or percentage of carbon that you, so say you've got carbon steel balls, which everybody says is good for games with magnets. Well, if you have a higher amount of carbon in it, it will actually hold residual magnetism. So what you need is a rating of that carbon steel to be lower. So therefore, when you do hit it with a magnet, it's going to drop that charge almost instantly. And so that's the best thing. But the problem is none of the suppliers out there are saying this on their websites. They just say standard carbon steel. okay, well, there's an AIFI rating for that carbon steel, so what is it? And the lowest that I found was like a 10.08 or 10.10, but they can go all the way up to like a 10.80, something like that, which would basically, you could charge them up and effectively make them like a supercharged magnet if it was that high a carbon level. And then this also goes into, looked at, you know, the Ninja Balls, the Chrome Balls out there. Those are absolutely horrid for games with magnets. Do not use those. They will magnetize instantly. But they're shiny. They go with my men's stadiums. Come on. Well, here's the thing. You know, once you put it in a game and it gets batted around, it's not shiny anymore. It's going to look, you know, just about the same as the standard carbon steel that you would get. So if you really want them shiny, I just went to Harbor Freight and got a rock tumbler and some, you know, some walnut media. And you can easily shine them back up again. It's not too hard. But, you know, so basically that video that I made for Oktoberfest was to help educate about that, as well as talk about lock switches and what it can do to your game, and it can confuse it, and people get super frustrated with that issue. Well, I guess you never heard the Data East solution to that, did you? The Data East? What's that with the, didn't they have some opto boards instead of the rollovers? No, no, no, no. They actually, what they would do is they'd have all the balls come down, they'd pump them in a big, humongous, big vat, and they magnetize them through a magnet, like a trail, a ball guide would be going through, and it would get stuck at one place. It would kick it to one pile. If it didn't get stuck, it would kick it to another pile.
    23:27
    And then what they would do is with the magnetized balls, they would throw them in a non-magnetized game, and the ones that didn't magnetize, they'd throw it into a... Oh, man. And they did this for years. Wow. So basically they didn't – so that's the problem too. Yes, they had manufacturing issues where they couldn't get an exact number. Right, or they get them mixed in with their lot. And they didn't want to waste money, so that was the easy way. Right, right. That sounds like Data East. It was Data East. It sounds like Data East. That's pretty ingenuity. It says some ingenuity there. I like that. It was. And John Borg was actually involved with that a little bit also. So they had a problem with Tales from the Crypt and then with Last Action Hero, where they had all the magnets and everything like that. And after that, they started having the same issues, and they started dealing with this stuff. And then they finally figured out around Frankenstein. You mean Frankenstein, the one where it was really cool until they actually put glass, play field glass on and realized that Frankenstein was hitting the glass every time? Because they never tested it with the glass on? I love that story. That's a good one. Great story, too.
    24:39
    So American Pinball, from at least what American Pinball has stated, Game 4 will be a junior designer with help from Dennis Nordman, and then Game 5 will be Dennis Nordman's game, and then Game 6 will be Joe Balzer's game. So there's like three games in the pipeline. Yep, which is great. I know Dave Fix, the American Dream of American Pinball. That's me, baby. That's right, baby. The American Dream of American Pinball. I said we're going to have two games this year, baby. Does that feel true? Or at least they're going to try. Yeah, I mean, so I'm not really part of the development team per se. I help out with the bill of materials. So I get the spreadsheet job putting all the parts and pieces. And it's insane, you know, how many pieces go into a pinball machine. but you have to categorize them all and put them all in the right spot because that's how the line is set up so it flows together with that bill of materials so each station kind of lines up in that way so but as far as like pushing things along and the development um that's more people or other folks on the team that are working directly on that that's another strength of American pinball and actually make games. If I wanted any particular, if I wanted any of the three titles right now, I could probably get one.
    26:04
    Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, there's, we still have Hot Wheels available, Oktoberfest. I believe we still have a few Houdinis. I know I've talked to some distributors that have Houdinis in stock still. So people are buying them up. There's been a pretty massive code update for Houdini recently that Josh came out with, and that has reinvigorated the folks that were interested in it, have bought it up. Same thing, I think, happened with Oktoberfest. Yeah, it's kind of cool to see that whenever there's a code update, people flock and have to go and grab the game again.
    26:46
    Well, I know a lot of people that own Hot Wheels, they say it's the most William-esque style game, which is a compliment in my book. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it's more approachable. You know, I would, and I say this to customers all the time, is, you know, it's sort of a, I wouldn't say easier because there's a lot of depth to the game as well, but it more intuitive to walk up to it and be able to you know get something going get a multiball going versus Houdini is a complex game I would say it more for people that love to dive into rules You know, if you want to get a lot of game for the money, I hear that time and time again.
    27:29
    That's one of the major praises that people that like Houdini is they want a game that they're not going to get bored with really quickly. You know, they might have only space for one or two games. And so they want to get something that's got a lot of depth. And it's hard. They don't want to get something that's easy, and then they get to the wizard mode in the first day or something. I agree. I agree totally. Now, I know the biggest complaint we hear about American pinball is, of course, getting a great feed. Like, you know, don't get me wrong, Hot Wheels is a good player. It's actually a really good player. When you get one that's actually hooked up right, it plays really fast. It's a lot of fun. And I know Hot Wheels is a bought theme. I think people are hoping for the fourth and maybe the fifth game where you're going to get, like, a licensed theme that hopefully hits the home run with the play field fun of Hot Wheels. And I know that's the biggest challenge for any pinball machine company. And I'm hoping that's going to work out that way. And we'll only see better things. That's the biggest thing that we're hoping. Yeah, and this is my first development cycle. So I came in at the launch of Hot Wheels, and it basically helped to finish assembling the manual on that and kind of helped with the launch. But as far as theme goes, I mean, what I'm learning is, you know, you talk about development and lead times and acquiring a license. No, it just takes more development time to do a license and approval process because you've got people on the outside that need to approve everything, you know, and then it's also you want to invest that cost. So there's a lot more freedom in doing a non-license than paying for a theme. I mean, I get both sides of the coin there, but, yeah, I don't disagree with you, Bruce. I love it. started breaking out. Was it at a pinball show, though? Wasn't it at some other type of show? It was at a, not a pinball show, it was at IAPA or that kind of stuff that was... Yeah, New Orleans. Yeah, New Orleans, yes. The AMOA or something it was or something like that? Yep, yep. They had big plans. Oh, of course. Yeah, to line up with Texas and roll that out. Right, and there was a whole Legends tour that Hot Wheels was doing that basically that all went online. And we were a part of the Legends tour, and there was the game that was raffled off or given away at that. Anyway, but so, you know, you make the best of it. And I think the marketing, all the marketing plans that they had were kind of... Not their fault. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, you know, you work with what you have. But it did so well. Yeah, and we did a really good thing with working with the streamers and IFBA with the streaming challenge, which is really great. We had some really top-notch players playing it and showing off what it could do and competing in challenges. So I think that really got some emphasis behind it. And basically, how do you show off a game when there's, you know, operators aren't buying them because everything's shutting down and there's no shows to show it off. So, you know, we do the best we can to kind of get a product out. So I think it was amazing how many games were actually released during COVID and good titles. So it's pretty cool. All around, from almost every company, if you look at it, yes. Yeah, absolutely.
    32:01
    All right, Bruce, do you want to get to the contest? Yes, we have a contest. Ron, tell about all the prizes people can win.
    32:13
    Dave fixed the American dream from the American pinball baby. He has graciously offered this Houdini playfield print. basically it's Houdini play field on a premium photo paper. It's 18 inches by 24 inches. You can win one of these if you can answer our question.
    32:34
    Dun, dun, dun. I label hard over this. I labored hard because it's got to be different than most other... They'd ask a pinball question on another, but not us. I have another idea. So, if you would like to win this beautiful Houdini playfield print, if you can check this out, it's at American Pinball's store, if you want to see what it looks like. If you want this Houdini playfield print, all you have to do is be the first to email the correct answer to the following question. And the email, of course, would be slamtillpodcast at gmail.com. That's slamtillpodcast at gmail.com. So the first person who emails that address with the correct answer to this question. Are you ready, Bruce? I am waiting with bated breath. All right. What was the name of the sperm bank that Beavis and Butthead donated to?
    33:35
    Again, what was the name of the sperm bank that Beavis and Butthead donated to? The first to send the correct answer to slamfieldpodcast.gmail.com will win this beautiful Houdini plate-filled print, which I believe is the first giveaway we've done since the critical hit cards, I think. Yes, it was. So it's been a while. It's been a while. We're giving it back to the community, and we'd like to thank Dave Fix and all of American Pinball for that free giveaway. Thank you guys for that. Now, how many pinball machines have you owned in your lifetime, sir? Oh, man. In total?
    34:14
    Oh, easily over 100. But currently in my collection, I think I'm at 51 or 52, something like that. It was getting out of control for a little while there. I was probably pushing 60 for a bit. But, yeah, I have, in my basement I have 40 or 38, I think, and then I have another, I keep all the EMs upstairs, and they're the only ones that the wife allows in the living room.
    34:52
    Yeah. So I have all, I think, three Sonics and two Zachariah EMs up there. Nice. Yeah. So now we're going to ask you the most important question that you're going to be asked ever.
    35:09
    Game you like, game you hate. It could be any reason why. It could be the way you repaired one. It could be the way you've owned one and just said, oh, my God, it's the worst game or best game ever. This is all your personal preference.
    35:24
    Okay. It doesn't matter the era? Nope. Not at all. You can go any era. You can even go 30s if you had to. Okay. I really hate Fleet. Yes, I hate Fleet.
    35:36
    Well, I would say a game I like, and I would put this up against any early solid state, is Game Plan Cyclops. And I mean that because there's a lot to do in that game. It's unfortunate that they didn't make more of them, but I think it was at the tail end of the company. But, yeah, I mean, you've got two banks of drops with stand-ups behind them, a really nice spinner shot that's reminiscent of a firepower, as there is actually two spinner shots on that game. And then it also has the pop bumper instead of the left slingshot, which makes for interesting gameplay. So that's one that I like. And it has more ass than probably any game ever made. I would say, yeah. It was quite the compliment when we were streaming that in Chicago. Roger Sharp came and played, and we were able to record him talking about the game, and we have that on our Twitch, TurboGrafx-7 Twitch, as one of the highlight videos. So that was pretty cool. And then a game I hate, I would say Fishtails. if you want to beat me at a league play or tournament play just pick fish tails it kicks my butt every time I don't know what it is maybe it's the lightning flippers or I just brick on the boat and just drain but that game hates me that's two good answers I do Cyclops rocks. I'd love to find a nice game playing Cyclops. So just to reiterate, what's the name of that Twitch channel?
    37:31
    TurboGrafx7. Is it spelled weird though? Isn't it like missing an I or something? TurboGrafx and then 7. Give them a watch, especially on I think Fridays. Yep, Fridays at 8. We actually did Meteor last night. 8 Central. And we also have a Facebook page where I do basically anything general throughout the week if I'm doing any personal projects. I think the last thing I did was I replaced the cabinet bottom on the Sonic butterfly that I picked up. Somebody lost the keys to the coin door, and I'm pretty sure that they busted out the corner closest to the coin box. So they could reach in and try to get the lock open.
    38:24
    So I had this nice hole in there that I had to replace the whole bottom. Oh. So you've also done personal projects before even working for American Pinball with putting LEDs into old solid state valley and early sterns. Oh, yeah. Oh, that's so, yeah, I made a little video on that because I think if you're handy with circuit board repair, it's not anything too mind-blowing, but basically I made a video for TurboGrafx just showing how that's done to put resistors in line, which work very similarly to like an Alltech board or some of these piggyback mods that people are selling. So you can accomplish the same thing if you want to put in the work to do it. but even before getting involved with American, I've done some things like you might even have some of them if you're into early ballets. Me and a friend did the reproduction aprons for quite a few of the early ballet games. I did some reproduction parts, kind of getting involved with some of that. So it's a fun experience learning how to remake some things. I've also remade a circuit board for a Zacharia EM that didn't exist. Some of those old EMs, they're sort of a hybrid, and this one had electronic sounds and some effects to it. So I have a Combat and an Aerobatics that use a soundboard in it instead of chimes. Well, if that is missing, then you're kind of SOL. Well, but thanks to me, it is now available, I think, on Marco.
    40:15
    So you said you could actually help me with my Rick and Morty besides burning it. Oh, yeah, yeah, okay.
    40:21
    So I think we're all set with American Pinball now. Yes. Now we have you in touch support. He's changing hats. Because Dave said he could possibly fix Bruce's problem with your Rick and Morty flippers just randomly getting more powerful, less powerful. So, yeah, and, you know, I think because I've had TNA and Alice Cooper, but they recently came out with, I know. Decode. Yes. So they might have already addressed that. It still does not. The problem with when it is is when you actually get a kick out, and like every other company, if you hold the flipper up, it's got enough strength to hold the flipper up. It actually is acting like a Data East Robocop with no EOS switches. Right. And it just, you can actually see the flippers just, like, go down a quarter inch. And even with the new code, it's still not right. Yeah, and I think the problem is just not having end-of-stroke switches in there.
    41:34
    These do now. Yeah, they do. That's the weird part. They do now. My TNA didn't, but Rick and Morty does. It does. And it still is not going. Yeah, TNA and Alice Cooper didn't have them. No. And, yeah, so when it fired out of the scoop, especially on those two games, and it hits the flipper, well, after you've played, I've noticed it most after you play it several times, you know, or something, and then, yeah, it'll fire out, and then the ball speeds out of the scoop and hits the flipper, and then it dies. Yep. So it should be when the end of stroke switch gap opens, it now switches from low power, which is the hold, to high power to basically push it back up again. Well, if you don't have that programmed in, it's not going to work. And they said they changed it, and I actually think it's about maybe a hair better. But the problem is, I think it's just milliseconds behind. And I've played with the Gap on the EOS Switch. So, I mean, it's barely anything. I've gotten bigger. I've even had touching once in a while where I didn't realize until I'm like, okay, now, oh, wait, that ain't right. You know, and, of course, I am just getting sick of being underneath. Honestly, I've owned Game of Thrones, Ferns. I've owned other new boxes. This game is the most neediest game I've ever had. Welcome to the club. Yeah. It's a special club. I'm a member of the Spooky Club. My TNA by far had more issues than any other new-in-box game I've ever had. Yeah. And right when I finally got it working 100%, then I sold it. Yeah. And it's a shame because I think they do get a lot of goodwill, and maybe they are a small operation, but I just don't see... If anyone's going to give them heat, it's going to be Bruce. It's going to be me. Mm-hmm. I like, you know, I appreciate what Chuck is doing Yeah, I like, well, I've bought two of their games so far And I really haven't had that much problem with it Maybe other than what you just described And I'm sure they're well aware of it Oh, they are But I think, you know, going to talking about learning from the past and we brought this up of how you can learn from that and improve going forward, make your games more serviceable, make them and build in reliability to them, that kind of thing.
    44:17
    I'm going to be honest here and I'm going to state a fact. They have six games underneath their belt, literally. Literally? Not figuratively? Literally have six games, and they have barely any manuals out for any of them. That, in my mind, is piss poor. That's my problem. I can go on your website for American Pinball, and there's a manual. Yeah, and I think I've read the TNA. There is a manual for L-Couple and TNA. It's very beta. Yeah, the TNA manual was like 10 pages. Yeah, 10 pages. It was just basic, like, this is how the lights work. Yeah. Right. And so I will tell you that, so they use similar board sets and that. Of course, yes. And so I get this from operators, well, where's the schematics? Where's the schematics? Well, here's the thing. If I had them, I would put them in there. But they're proprietary, and they're not passing those out. So we put in the vital information that you can use that's important, but you're not going to see those schematics.
    45:31
    It's something that I wanted to touch on, too. We talk about serviceability and cost and things. One thing I wanted to bring up of comparing it to the 80s and 90s of how circuit boards were done and how they are done today, and you can relate to, let's say, an Alltech or a Weebly. Well, those are hybrid boards. Basically, what I mean by that is it has a combination of through-hole and surface mount components. And I understand that you'd complain that, or people would complain that, oh, I can't work on a surface mount. Well, I mean, have you had to replace all of the components on a, you know, Bally or Stern MPU, is maybe there's a handful of things like chips that need to be socketed or, you know, there's common parts that you would replace like transistors on a coil driver board. But those are still through-hole. So you balance out that cost and you have equipment that's putting the surface mount components on the board versus paying labor to put all these through-hole components in there because there's a big difference there. So you could actually make it more cost-effective to making these boards. You think of all the stuff in there, they're really not all that expensive. I've talked to several operators where they don't have time to take the board out, take it to the shop, change out a resistor, they would much rather have a new board to pop in there and be on their way. So, you know, it's just a different mentality that I think. If you notice, though, going on another same subject is, Spurn did release finally the specs for the node boards for Spike and Spike 2. They actually finally did after pressure. So Is the schematics not available Because it's P-Rock And it's P-Rock's system Or something like that Or are their schematics available I have no idea Yeah those are multi-morphics And that's their proprietary stuff So Come on Jerry It does bring up an interesting thing Use someone else's like system Even if you wanted to release Stuff you can't Because it's their system But you could do wiring harnesses and that kind of stuff. Yeah, yeah. So for the boards that we do have, so there are Ametron-made boards or AP boards in there that, you know, for LEDs and things like that. So we would have all the schematics for those. And you actually see it on some of the stuff for Houdini and for Oktoberfest. You see the boards on there, which is great. That's a great thing. But when you barely release, not you, but these companies barely release anything or drag their feet to release stuff, it makes me, as the consumer, say maybe that's not the company I really want to work with because guess what? After your warranty's up, then I'm stuck. Well, you're more of a tech person anyway. I'm sure there's a lot of customers that don't, they're never going to look at a schematic. And if it doesn't work, can you just give me a board so I can just swap it and get it working again? But what is on the node board for a spike system is pretty cheap. But the node boards, when they're selling them, some of the boards are up there in price. Oh, yeah. And that hurts someone also.
    49:19
    Okay. It's a catch-22. Are we ready to get to my checklist? Checklist away. Let's get positive, or at least partially positive. The U.K. tax that we brought up when we had Mark Stilkhan, it's gone temporarily, I believe. Yes, three months. Three months. And it's not the U.K. tax. It's actually the whole EU.
    49:48
    EU. So, EU, if you want some games, this is the time. So, get your games. And I think that's why some of the people were waiting for the Jersey Jack run, which actually helped out now, for the CEs.
    50:02
    Oh, the Guns N' Roses. Yes. So by waiting, it actually helped them because, yeah, I got you. So. Speaking of Jersey Jack. Oh, gee. I figured I'd give this one to you because you've been sending me stuff. Oh, God. I guess play fields are an issue again. Oh, they're really an issue. And they changed their policies. Their policy is now, you get nothing except for washers. Well, no. That's not true. Wait, wait, wait. If you want to keep your game, that's all you're going to get. And you're going to get finished. No, because at the end of the run, you can buy a play field at car. Yeah, okay. Gee, great. I just don't understand their mentality. it's like giving you the big F you after you spent the most money for a pinball machine out of all the manufacturers they didn't give away play fields they changed that around Waka and Pirates they actually gave play fields out and now they're basically going back and basically their policy is if your play field, chipping, has issues whatever you can send the game back to them and they'll give you a refund because they'll find someone else who will want the game. Or, at the end of the run, you can buy a new playfield at cost. But if I bought a new machine at $12,500,
    51:28
    and we've seen it on Penn's side, we've seen it with some of our friends, Ron, personally, having these playfield issues and being told, here's your washer kit, or send it back to us, or suck it up.
    51:41
    That is piss-poor communication after spending so much money. do you think it's just they can't afford all these extra play fields? The problem is they keep on depending on this one company who's making their play fields, and their quality hasn't changed. And we've heard this now. Heard it from Wonka. GNR. Before that was, what else was bad? Dialed in. Had some issues. And what was the other one that had issues? Oh, and Pirates. Four play fields. we've seen is now it's just a repeating theme and the game is good they have a home run on their hands I just don't it makes more people get turned off by this and literally not want to buy a future product from them if you bought it at $9,500 and then you said like okay I'll send it back to you and now I want a new one it's going to cost $1,000 more yeah it's stupid Their policy, it's like if I bought a new car, and maybe in certain states, there's been talk about this, it might go under a lemon law. In California, people are talking about that now, where it might fall underneath a lemon law because it's so much money. Because in California, used cars over $10,000 are considered under lemon law. any product over $10,000 in considered lemon law if it's sold. Hey, guess what's over $10,000?
    53:15
    Okay. Interesting. My question would be, why do you use Mirko? Haven't they always used Mirko? Yes. And the thing is, they've had runs that didn't have problems, though. But Mirko definitely seems to have issues with every other run, seems to have some kind of clear coat issue. Yeah. Luckily, American Pinball doesn't have that. Yeah, I've been holding off a little bit on, because they came out with nine ball. I want to get a nine ball play field. And then I saw Quicksilver, there's a guy that did a swap, and then after the swap he had all these problems with it. Like, oh, my God, that would be terrible. Well, I have to admit, I was wrong and Bruce was right. I mean, when he would say how you get these Miracle play fields, in these turn games, and he's like, I'm going to send them off to be stand-in re-cleared. Like, re-cleared? It's already cleared. You're insane. Why are you going to do that? And he's there. They're clear shots. That's not cheap either. Well, no. That's not cheap either. They're send-in out and re-cleared. After you bought an $800 play field, go and spend more money to have it stand-in down and re-cleared. Yep. I mean, it kind of defeats the purpose. Oh, it defeats the purpose. I wish they wouldn clear them Well so yeah great wish I actually got Stargazer Playfield from him The second one I got I actually building one right now from scratch and I cleared it myself, and it saved a bit of money there, but, you know, that way I can control what that looks like and basically make it as thick as I want it to be and give it as much time to cure as I want it to. And I can put, you know, it doesn't matter. I can pick the top shelf clear, you know, BPG stuff, and, you know, I get to pick. So it's kind of. Like, I was excited when I saw Mirko do the nine ball play field. And then when they all brought up all the issues that he didn't make the play field properly. Right. Sex was wrong. And cheating was wrong. And just, I was like, and then I saw the newest one, the newest version, and it looks a lot better. There's still a couple little tweaks to it, just like the Quicksilver Playfield has a two-thing long. You guys are so anal.
    55:37
    I would probably still get it. It's better than a real- I got the Quicksilver one. He and Ron both got the Quicksilver. And I'm going to get the nine ball because guess what? Compared to what I have on my nine ball, it's 10 times better. Right. Unless you were sitting pristine original next to this restored one, are you really going to pick out the differences? No.
    55:58
    You're not. So that's why I'm going to get a nine ball eventually, but I'm going to ask him, do you have one not cleared? Just make sure he wraps it well so you don't scratch the direct print. If you ever had his shipping, it's actually not bad at all. That's the one thing I will say. He ships very well from Europe. Ron saw the one box when I got the Quicksilver and it was double wall lined he has a wrap around he has like three layers around it which is great for shipping of course the thing about the Jersey Jack playfields and some of these playfield issues is there are companies that don't have issues yes American Pinball and of course Spooky except for the beginning of the TNA run which, of course, I happened to get the, you know, probably couple hundred that had an issue, of course.
    56:51
    But, yeah, bad luck there. But it can be done right. It can be done right if you want to put the time and effort and the money into a proper company. And, you know, Stern is not immune. Stern, they seem to have issues now with you get warped play fields, especially if you get an LE.
    57:08
    Yes. We had Carl D'Angelo of IE Finball. He had his Avengers, warped play field. I know three people with Warped. Then we have Jeff Teal. It's a final round podcast. He's LE, Led Zeppelin, Warped Playfield. They're just using really shitty wood.
    57:29
    Do better. They showed the pin is a press board. I saw that on one of their hype videos, which I was surprised to see. and I just think of, well, I don't know how many times you're going to take a mech in and out, but you'd think with press board. Oh, you're going to screw it in three or four times and you're done. Your screws are gone. Your material's gone. You're screwed? You're screwed, screwed.
    57:58
    Sorry. You hope it's T-nutted all the way around. This is the only way it would actually somewhat save you.
    58:05
    But, yeah, it's just, come on. The cost of these machines. Yeah, that's the thing. They are quite expensive now to get one, and then your fucking artwork's chipping off, and you're being told, like, hey, oh, well. Suck it up or don't buy our stuff. You can buy another playfield if you want. Yeah, that's just unacceptable in my mind. And I know what they're trying to stop, which was the stern way of giving you a playfield, and then you're selling it three months later on eBay. Is it bad or do they just not want to give out the play fields? Is it a cost issue? It could be a cost issue. Because according to Eric Menier, at least in the interview and final round, he kind of intimated that the $1,000 price increase was due to the COVID, the supplier issues, like how everything's more expensive. So if that cost increased and they had to raise that $1,000 during the run,
    59:08
    I mean, how much money do you think they're actually making on these games? Well. I think people have this thought like they're just making billions of dollars off these machines, that the profit margin is incredible. I don't think they are making a ton of money off these machines. But I also don't think you should have a play field that's like chipping and your art's coming off. When other companies are doing it and selling the machine for $6,500 or $7,000,
    59:36
    and they don't have a problem with their playfield, and you're selling it for $12,500, and you're having problems with your playfields, and not just one or two, most of them, you've got to look back at yourself and say, we have a problem. We should address it and make sure the consumer is happy. Find out who Spooky and American used for their playfields and use them. Hey! Yay!
    59:57
    Damped right on the play field under the apron. There you go. But, you know, it's just, you know. Because I think of it from this side. Do you think, Eric, man, you're, like, seeing this? No, I don't think Keith or any other man. Or any of the designers, like, seeing their games have this stuff. They don't have power over this, and they can't go to the boss, like, well, I want you to change the play field manufacturer for my game. If I said that to my boss, my boss would say, okay, you're going to take a 20% cut. Hey! Huh? So it is a hard thing. It's just all around, but it has to be addressed at some point. It has to be addressed, and literally, you're going with a company that's overseas.
    60:40
    Don't you think the cost would be probably equal to a company in the United States that's doing this?
    60:47
    And it's not even like you could say, you know, it's on location. Well, they do have a lot of them on location, these LEs, Guns N' Roses. But, I mean, for the most part, these are made for home use. Yes. They're home products. And right out of the box. And right out of the box you have these. A hundred please. Yeah. It's getting old. All right.
    61:05
    Check your out hole. It's true. Find an older stern like an old Lord of the Rings or my Terminator 3. You will not have wear in the out hole ever because it used different wood. Look at the new one. They used different wood. Yes, they did. Well, it's interesting. you talk about that, and I don't know if you've worked on like a Zacharia or a Sonic game, but the density of the wood. Oh, those things.
    61:34
    They're like tanks. I don't know if it's like the old wood or what, but they are super dense. Oh, and I still contend they probably use highly toxic clear coat on there. Probably all their workers got cancer years later from using it. I'm not kidding. I don't think there was any safety concern. They sprayed that shit. When you see games that are 40 years old and the thing looks new, and you're looking at it, how has it looked? And it plays like lightning because it's all like a sheet of glass. There's just no way any of that stuff was safe. They probably didn't even have masks on or anything. I'm going to say one thing. They did not light any cigarettes around that stuff because it would have caught the whole building on fire.
    62:14
    The only downfall, I think, with Sonic is I do the cabinets. Oh, the cabinets are terrible. It's terrible. Oh, my God. Particle board is terrible. Particle board, yeah. It is terrible. But everything else about the game is great. My prospector was so awesome because the cabinet was good. That's like, I have to get this. The cabinet's good. That's just not going to happen. It actually is pretty good, I will say. But I've had some where I look underneath it, and it's just a bleh. It's gone.
    62:43
    I do like that the back panel in the back box is wood, not metal. Because, you know, my Spanish eyes, when you're nudging the game hard, and you just hear a clank, clank, clank, clank, clank, clank. You don't hear that on a Sonic. No. Sonic did it right, I will say. They were, and they're fun games. Yeah, they're fun games. They're fun games and back glasses. Their cabinets and their lamp sockets are garbage.
    63:06
    Honestly, most lamp sockets from the 70s, I think they just said, how do we cheapen this game out? Who's the cheapest distributor? Oh, you guys.
    63:17
    All right, next on my list I have a little note here. is this alien gameplay. Ooh, without the middle display. Give it to me, baby. Yeah. Pinball Brothers had some videos of alien gameplay. The thing I couldn't understand, and I can't understand, it's vertical. It looks like it was filmed with a cell phone. Yeah. But the sound was direct in. Like, the sound sounded awesome. And then the video was basically like a cell phone vertical video. I don't get it. If you want to sell, wouldn't you do some high production type stuff for that?
    63:52
    We've seen the goodness, you know, and that's just terrible. I don't know why. Do you think it's because they know that people already know what it is from the Highway 1? It's different, though. But it's different. It is different.
    64:11
    And, I mean, make it matter. Show it in the best light possible. We'll do like low lighting with high def. You would be screaming at the new Pimmo machine. You're working on a number four for AP, and then some guy puts it on an iPhone 6 camera and shows off the video. You'd be going, what?
    64:32
    You would be bringing the baseball bat up to them like, no, get away, get away. Yeah. No, I absolutely agree. I think it's, you know, that's why you don't want to reveal your hand before you're ready, because I think it's been preached, and I think we know the formula, that you've got to show the game in the best light and be ready to ship and all those good things. Yes, and you guys have always been doing that for the past couple of games. You have them ready. Even with the COVID, I know you had games in box ready to go I think a month after the AMOA show. The weird thing is they did direct in on the audio. So the audio sounds, like, tremendous.
    65:17
    I think that's, was that David Thiel, too, I believe, who did the video? I mean, it sounds incredible, and then you've got the vertical video. I hate vertical video. Maybe it's just my hatred of vertical video.
    65:29
    No, the quality was not that great. But you could have filmed that and, like, made a whole package, and just anyone who wasn't interested and maybe saw that, like, holy shit, yeah, okay, I've got to buy this now. Yeah, but I just don't know. I'm still way negative on the Pinball Brothers. Well, okay. I'm sorry. And unfortunately, I know two people have bought the new game. Oh, yes, I know. I know someone who got screwed on the original, but they're buying the new one. Yeah, great. We have the second Stern Heads Up Invitational, at least virtual one. Did any of us see that? No. Well, there goes that segment. Damn it. Well, tell us about it. Come on, tell us all about it, Ron. Did either of you see the first one? I can't remember how far back I was running around. Does anyone know what the Heads Up Champion, what it means?
    66:23
    Basically, you have the same game, in this case Avengers, and two people play head-to-head, and there's a challenge. Yes. Oh, like pin clash? Yes. Like, first to get the sore multiball, first to do this, first to do that. Yeah, basically the same as pin clash. But it's all prerecorded. so they had one person come in at a time and film their segments. So they had to do like every possible challenge that could be picked. And each person did that. That's how they did the last one. So no one knew whether they won or not. Then they ran it through the simulator, figured out who won. Then they called them all back in to do interviews and voice over all the video, which is what they did the first time.
    67:05
    And it was all spliced together to make it, you know, try to look like it's live. I think those mini games, like those timed ones, it's one of the only things where the better you are, the longer you play. And so having a timed thing makes for more entertaining to watch. Yes. So I thought, you know, I did watch Pin Clash when they had the Jurassic Park. I thought that was fantastic. That was fantastic. Yes. The weirdest thing they did, though, is they kept doing, like, these cutaways, like the reality shows do. And then they did this really bizarre thing. They had the person critiquing their own play, but it wasn't done like they were doing it after the fact. Like, if I was watching it, like, oh, yeah, I just couldn't hit this shot here, man. I just, yeah, I totally blew this right here. It was more like they were commenting on themselves like it was live. Like, come on, hit that shot, Ron. Oh, man, I keep missing. Like that. It was just bizarre. So bizarre. But the winner got a brand-new Stern pinball machine, and Anna Neal won. I wrote her name down. Congratulations on your new, I think it was Avengers Pro. I could be wrong. You are not wrong. Avengers Pro. Okay. So congratulations on your victory. But even the finals were weird because after doing all these challenges, the finals, they were doing best out of three, right? Except when they got to the finals. The final match was like two-minute drill, which I thought was weird. Because if anything, I thought you would do three out of five for the finals to make it. But they did a two-minute drill, and I can't remember Anna's opponent, but he was trying to set something up, and he kind of messed up and drained. And then he paused.
    68:57
    But you've got to remember, they were all filmed separately, so maybe he doesn't realize he's on the gun or whatever, but it was just weird. He just kind of stopped for a little bit and then continued. It was just kind of bizarre. I really hope we can get to the point where we see live ones again. Yeah. Oh, we will. It's called Pin Class 2. Yes. Electric Boogaloo. This time it will be on Avengers. Yes. So everyone will be really sick of Avengers after this. The problem is, and Zach's running into this problem now, is that he can't find people that want to play him. Want to play? What does that have to do? He doesn't need anyone to play him. Yes, you do. You need to get the ones you just. No, you're thinking of something else. Pin Clash, again, it's like it's heads up, but there's a qualifying stage. And if you stream, you have to do it on stream. You have to go through, what is it called, Battle Royale, one of the wizard most, in the lowest number of flips.
    69:58
    So the top, I don't remember how many it is, 20, 10, 15, I don't remember how many. They get into the finals for Pink Clash. And that's how that works. There you go. And I don't have Avengers, though. Neither do I, but Zach does now. Yeah, our own Zach, he all of a sudden has an Avengers. I found it for him. What a great guy. I didn't know that. He was like, I want to find one. and then a guy came to me like a day later. He's like, hey, I'm selling one. I put the peanut butter with the chocolate, and I made a race of peanut butter cups. Okay.
    70:32
    Here's some news you'll love, Bruce. Stranger Things Topper is out. Oh, God. Infinity. Infinity looks good. Looks good. It does look pretty good. Come on. Oh, I got to admit, it looks good. It does look good. I love Infinity. And no, Infinity Lights look great. Game still sucks. No. Incorrect. Yes. All right. Play the superior game, which is called AFM. All right, Dave, what's the consensus? What do you think of Stranger Things? I got the answer. I'm like, oh. Stranger Things, what do you think? Well, I haven't played the newest console, but I do enjoy the theme. I don't know if it would be my first pick, but, you know, I don't buy brand new games all the time, so I still like it. I like the game. I think I need to give it another play. There's, I think, a renewed interest in it. I have a few friends that have the game and absolutely love it. So I'm not going to. The reason why there's a renewed interest is because nobody can get it anymore. It's the only reason why. Look at Wonka. Because you can't get it. Is it like Pirates? Yeah, it's like Wonka and Pirates. As soon as the game goes out of production, people go, well, he's like, this could be a good game. It's already done. Oh, my God.
    71:51
    It's me? But you have to play premium with the UV kit, or it's just don't bother. And that's another thing that annoys me. Okay, I still have so many games. They're still selling pros, but I'm not going to sell the UV kit anymore?
    72:05
    Why? Yeah, that's – That's me not wanting to buy the pro now even more. Well, does Penn Stadium work with that? No. They have UV things. I don't think so. Not as good. They say it works on the other better. But why would you do that? Yeah, I'd want the original thing that was programmed for in the game. But if you still have... Everybody would want that. Exactly! Yeah, I don't... One of the coolest features of the game that was built into the game. I mean, they made all the play fields with the UV ink specifically to use this feature that now they're not selling anymore. Yeah, and they still want to sell the game.
    72:43
    You could install a blacklight above the game and just have somebody click the light on and off. No, a button on your foot. You just have to put it on. There you go. Look at me.
    72:56
    I know. That is really stupid. It's a good game. It's awesome. AFM is a lot better. Okay. All right. It's a different, totally different experience. It's a totally different experience. In AFM, I can actually hit the center shot and feel enjoyment about it. On Stranger Things, I can't get in the fucking Demogorgon. You know that. You can't get in the hole, yes. That's what I hear.
    73:20
    It's in the hole. All right. Moment of silence here. The super awesome pinball show has ceased operation. At least regular operation. I think we will do occasional episodes. Yes. And they did a great job for the past two years. My hat's off to them, honestly. For the quality of the show, it was incredible. It makes us look like rinky-dink assholes. As the editor here, I tap. I tap out, say, Uncle, I can never edit anything like that. I bow down to the editing prowess. They had great interviews. They had great chemistry. They really were on their way, but it does take, as Ron and me both said, it takes a toll on you. It takes a toll. Yeah, the interviews were, I think, Dr. Pinn came into his own as a top-notch interviewer. I can't imagine how much time it took to put together one episode. Oh, yeah. Well, and the other thing is you have the guy who's editing it, Chris Franchi, who is now working for, what, two or three different pinball companies, two or three different projects? Yeah, he's out of my free time. Yeah. Including American Pinball, whatever art package that is. And then we know Chicago Gaming, he has an art package. Yeah. So I was surprised he was honestly still doing it when he kept saying how he was getting all these new projects. I'm like, how does he have any time to edit this thing? And obviously he didn't. And when they did the hiatus thing, you know, we're taking a break, I had a feeling that this was probably just going to happen. Yeah. And we've all been through it, even when we were for a little bit. Yeah, we had a hiatus hernia. Yes. But we came back stronger, bigger, better than ever. Stronger, bigger, faster.
    75:04
    Ron's favorite pinball machine. What's my favorite pinball machine? Six Million Dollar Man. Oh. Why do you always have to bring up that game? Because I brought the bigger, stronger, and you completed the whole thing. I don't hate it as much. I hate the situation I was put in on it. Let's just put it that way. It got a bad rap because of that. But it's just another valley with the saucer up on top and all that. It looks like all the other valleys of the era, honestly. I know somebody's selling something for you, Ron. What? What's your favorite System 1 besides Countdown? Sinbad? You got it. I know somebody saw one. Woo, Simba. Of course, that's CPU issues, but that's a system one. Bah.
    75:48
    I thought of you, Bruce, the other day. I saw a, I think it was a nine ball. It was. Oh, yeah. $3,800 one. And it had all this great stuff, great play field. It's a hard top. They said, oh, okay. And like $3,800, that's kind of expensive. And then it started going over all the things on it that didn't work. Yes. How does it not work? $3,800 and it doesn't work? Do you know why? Because somebody a week before that put a $6,000 one up. And it sold? It sold. Oh, God. The funny thing is, if you looked at that $3,800 one, did you notice the spinner was kind of like in the can't hit it position because it was probably broken? Yes. Which, if you don't have a nine ball, that's not like a common spinner part. That's the custom part. Yeah. All right, are we ready for the Twippies? Let's do it. All but one.
    76:45
    Dan was excited. Oh, I got a thing about that one. Yeah, I know. I was actually on the ballot for one of them. Yes. We will go over it. We got best music and sound effects. The winner, Guns N' Roses. And it wasn't even close. No, it wasn't even close. I believe that one. I thought you didn't like Guns N' Roses music, so that alone should make you not have picked that. No, because it is the best out of all of them. For this last year, that was the best music sound, definitely. I'm not going to argue with that. I put Stranger Things up there. I really like the sound. Oh, God. What? Okay. Oh, God. All right, all right. Favorite homebrew pinball machine?
    77:30
    Sonic the Hedgehog. Hedgehog, which was good. And it was one of the few that were out there, so it's not like it was a hard pick. But he did a good job. Well, it's tough to pick it when no one gets to play any of them because there's no shows. So you're just going by whoever streamed it the most, and the most people saw it, I think. Well, you get to play it, hopefully, at Pentastic. That's true, which if you listened to our previous episode, you'll know what that's all about. Yes. Let's see, best theme, Rick and Morty. I agree. I don't know if I agree.
    78:01
    I agree. Really? Yeah, I think it was the best integration of theme. That's what I look at. Well, that's another category, though. I know, but I really thought that. Well, then you're doing it wrong because they have two separate things. Well, I think a lot of people did it wrong. Because, I mean, if you look at ratings and stuff, this is Stranger Things, and I think even Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles would have more overall popularity than Rick and Morty.
    78:26
    Didn't. No? No. Dave? I don't remember exactly which one I picked but I think Rick and Morty was up there I mean I enjoy the show and it's a more relevant theme I was big into Turtles when I was a kid but I can't remember any of the cartoons that I watch I mean I remember the movies but Rick and Morty is more relevant more current I would say and I agree the theme integration music. I mean, it's really cool. They did a good job with that.
    79:05
    Then we got favorite pinball location, which being with COVID, I don't know how... Well, actually, District 82 is there. How close is that to you, Dan? About an hour and 45 north of me. But yeah, very cool. They got over, I think, just over 100 pinball machines. And it's really cool how they have it laid out where it's all alternating between modern and early solid state or EM. And then when you play in a tournament, you're forced to go alternate between them. Which really helped me in the last tournament because I did pretty well at the early solid state EM. I like that. So the favorite pinball location was voted Logan Arcade. Yeah, I don't agree with that one. Simply one again. You don't agree. Have you been there, Bruce? I have. Oh, you have. The parking sucks around there. So that's your criteria. If you've ever been to Chicago and tried to park a car, forget about it. But other than that, it's okay. It's just an okay location. I actually think there's a lot of other better locations out there. Wow. Okay. Favorite pinball publication or article? the Guns N' Roses deep dive overview from this week in pinball. Rig.
    80:30
    Yeah, I'd go with it. I actually think the better one was, I hate to say it, the Deep Root one. I think that article was better. Did you know Deep Root came out with another announcement? Yeah, I love it.
    80:44
    Did you know that, Dave? No, I didn't know that. Oh, we can. Basically, yeah, clip notes is some of our suppliers still suck and haven't got us stuff yet. Yep. Some suppliers are good. But we take full responsibility. URL testing is hard. We do take responsibility. URL testing, yeah. URL testing is hard, and we're not going to have extra games now. Yes. So we cut our quota down from 160 back to 120. We're going to be making games of. Why even make a game that's only 120 now? Are they obligated? I think they're obligated to the first people with the deal they made. But that's it. The thing is, if you have the game and it breaks, they don't have any parts for it because they didn't order any extra parts. If you have to make the games that you're obligated to, you might as well try to get as much volume as you can with other sales to spread that across. I don't know. It's unfortunate that more people couldn play it and get some more interest in it to make more of them if they could sell more of them And it also I sure people are wary of investing in a company that hasn made anything yet In three years. Yeah. County.
    82:06
    Best toys and gimmicks. I don't know if I agree with this. Guns N' Roses won. Yeah, I didn't agree with that at all. What's the toy? Unless the Hot Rail's the gimmick The Hot Rail's the gimmick And so is the guitar shaped You know on the LE And the sticks for the drum So I guess Bumbles on the pop bumpers Yeah the simple pop bumpers There's no toy Yeah they mean like a bash toy So when I think of toy I think of something like the crane in Heist Yeah Or like the one in Johnny Mnemonic Or something just some insane mechanical toys. What would you think this one was the best one to share? Dave? Well, I think the Industry Awards one probably would have been my pick. The crane was the most dynamic. Totally agree. It made the game. Yeah, for sure. It does say toy and gimmicks, so if you consider the other ones gimmicks. They are gimmicks, but I still don't think it's a good enough gimmick even for that. I think the crane in Heist should have taken it hands down. Okay. And you, Ron? Oh, yeah. That's why I said heist. I'm not sure. Okay. You're on record now for it. I was already on record because Pinball Industry Awards, I think, shows what I voted for. So, favorite pinball virtual event, the Pinball Expo with Pin Clash second. Yeah. I kind of think Pin Clash was first in my book. Well, here's the thing. As I can tell you from some of our reviews, most people don't care about tournaments.
    83:41
    Yeah. So, you're going to have your tournament crowd all watch that. but for your just the majority of the hobby because it wasn't close the number of first place votes is 646 to 347 almost 300 difference not close I think a lot of times tournament players might overestimate their overall impact on the hobby should I say that I'm not saying you shouldn't have tournaments at your shows I'm saying it's just like you know you gotta have tournaments you gotta like no we don't No, I don't. Most people don't play in tournaments. Hate to tell you. I agree. It's about one-third, I think, of the whole playing Hoppy probably. It's that, yeah. Yeah.
    84:23
    So, best theme integration. This one, there is no other answer to me. It's Guns N' Roses. Yes, of course. How can you? Slasher's hat. Drumsticks. You said cymbals in the pop-up. Two guitars. How can anything else possibly win? No, I agree.
    84:43
    Does Dave agree? Yeah, I agree It's like we're quizzing him If you answer it wrong You can always jump to the side Which we would love You're totally wrong on that one, dude You douchebag, what the fuck Favorite website We knew it was going to win this It's always going to win Nothing other than that will ever win It wasn't close, like a thousand votes Best rules Avengers Really?
    85:13
    I figure it's Avengers because they're complicated to the point where I don't know what's going on. So it's got to be good. I would agree with that. My streaming partner, Ryan, got one of those, and I have no clue what's going on. Exactly. Oh, my God. Yeah. It's like, wow, Jams placing all this stuff. I have no idea what's going on. This has to have the best rules. That's what I just think. Yeah. I kind of agree with you. But they are very cool. They're very intense. and if you do take the time, like you see with Raymond, who made the rules, but also talks about them on his streams, you kind of say, wow, and you see a score just go way up. You're like, hey, there is logic behind this. To give some of the other programmers credit, other people did work on the rules. It wasn't just all Raven, but yes. No, I know, but he really pushed for some of the stuff. And you can watch this tutorial in beautiful 4K. Yes.
    86:02
    Hey, Ray. Hi, Ray. And the thing about Avengers, it has the best combo champ initials ever. Just saying. Best animations in display. Can they just give this to Jersey Jack every year at this point?
    86:17
    Yeah, 27 in screen. You've got way more to play with than anyone else, and their stuff is so just next level every year. This should just be, okay, what's the Jersey Jack AMS here? Here you go. Yeah, here you go. Favorite pinball YouTube channel. your buddy, Zach's one, straight down the middle of Pinball Show, Zach Minney. Yeah, I was... I was not surprised. Yeah, they do a good job. It was going to be either them or TNT. Or Todd. Yeah, I was going for TNT for Todd. He's been around this whole time. Oh, yeah. He probably has the most videos. Oh, yeah.
    86:55
    It's just funny that he did make a video about not winning. Yeah, he basically stole the show with his Constellation video, basically. I lost again? Yeah. He is Mr. Campy. He is Mr. Ham it up. He's always been that way. But the thing I'm trying to figure out, Papa TV Pinball was third.
    87:15
    How? They didn't stream. Yeah, they barely streamed. They didn't do anything. I think they might have had one of Bo and Karen's tutorials. Yeah, I think that was the newest one. Yeah, like that was Dr. Dude or something. Something like that. That's all I remember. Other than that, they were showing mostly replays. That's just weird that that got to third when they didn't really stream anything all year. People are not smart. Yeah, popular vote is just... I know that name. Papa, I know. Yep. Okay, I checked that box. We're good! Yay!
    87:48
    Next one wasn't even a contest, in my opinion. Best call-outs. Rick and Morty. How can anything else win? You have the guy. Not only do you have the guy, he just improvises half the script. Yes, he did. He did really well. And he said Lion Man, so. Yeah, I know. Anyone that says Lion Man rocks. Unless he said Lion Man, you know. He had me at Lion Man. Oh, God.
    88:11
    He had me at Lion Man. That's a pinball quote. You've got to hear that spooky. You've got to put that in your next game. He had me at Lion Man.
    88:22
    Best pinball mod of 2020. Stranger Things UV mod. Yeah, I like that. That is definitely the coolest mod. Which is kind of funny when you win Best Mod for your own game. Yeah. And you can't even sell it to anybody right now. Well, yeah, you don't have it available. Yeah. How you doing, guys?
    88:41
    We're accepting this award that we cannot sell anymore. Thank you very much. The next one was weird.
    88:47
    I think maybe some ballot stuff in here. You had Favorite Pinball Streamer, which this is another one. And Deadflip's going to win this every year until they decide to stop streaming. I mean, he gets 150-plus every day on his stream. No one else gets 50. No, I agree. Yet, the actual first-place voting was close. Very close. It was the closest first-place vote out of everything. 11-38 to 9-65. Second place was RB Flip France, who I'd never heard of. No. But their teaser video was pretty good. Yes, it was. Very high production values on that. They should hire those guys to do the Alien video. Yeah, they're over there. Go do it. Do the Alien video. But I never heard those guys before. Is it possible they actually could have got that many votes just from Europe? Possibly. I guess so. It's just weird. Because from there, it's not even close. It drops down to almost 600 votes. 600 places.
    89:46
    Best light show. Well, this one was the biggest landslide, I believe. Yes, it was. By almost 2,000. Like 1,800 first place votes. the best light show, Guns N' Roses, which just one word, hot rails. Or is that two words? Hot rails. On the spotlights. Hot rails. On the spotlights to rotate the spotlights. Yeah, just everything about it. And how many more bulbs you get when you go higher up in your machine. Yes, the collector's edition has more bulbs than the LE, which has more bulbs than the standard. And more bulbs than the CE, yeah. It's been an edition, yeah, so I know. Yeah. Favorite pinball topper of 2020? I was going to say R2-D2, but that must have been 2019. Damn it. The winner, Rick and Morty. Three. Everyone loves three. Yeah. Second was Elvira's House of Horrors. $1,000. See what happens? When you charge $1,000, you get second place. You get second place. Another good quote. You charge $1,000, you get second place. That's all you got.
    90:43
    Then we have Favorite Pinball Podcast. Hold on, hold on. I'm in sleep mode. Go ahead. Go. Well, you know, we're always juvenile because we don't say his name. I'll just say the only Twippy award-winning podcaster. Yes. Well, actually, that's not true because there are podcasters who have won other Twippies. The only podcast Twippy award winner ever won again, as he will every single year. He could do five podcasts for the whole year and he will win. Yep. It will never change. Because he's got Pinside in his little pinky. Oh, you mean Pinside, which he's banned from? Yeah, but he still tools them up, and he's not banned from it. He goes under different things. He has his 3,000 listeners, and they are extremely loyal, and they will make sure he wins every year. And more power to him? So I'm saying what they should do, it was to be a classy move, he should do a John Lorroquette. Do you know who John Lorroquette is? Yes, I do. The lawyer from Night Court. In the 80s, there was a show called Night Court, and on the show, John Lorroquette played Dan Fielding. It was like the DA or whatever. He was the prosecutor. Yes, he was. He would win the Emmy for best supporting actor in a comedy every year. He won it four straight years. The fifth year he was nominated, he turned the nomination down, just saying someone else needs to win this. Yep. As the only Twippy Award-winning podcaster, maybe he will let someone else have a chance. Nope. Ego rules. Okay.
    92:15
    Super awesome pinball show, of course, is a distant second. Yes, they were. Well, that's a surprise with some numbers there. Actually, bro, do you even talk pinball getting fourth? Or third was the pinball show. But the final round got like 90. Yeah. I was really disappointed with that. Buffalo definitely has some loyal listeners. Because they only actually podcast monthly. But I think they do it as a video, and I think that helps, honestly. It does. Because you can interact with it. I mean, we would do that, but I wouldn't be able to control Bruce, so we can't do that. No, you two would ban us right away. Yeah, well, no, Twitch would ban us, yes. Somehow we would get banned, even with no nudity or anything else. Bruce would find something to say to ban us.
    93:02
    Best artwork. This surprised me and didn't surprise me at the same time. Guns N' Roses. Yeah, I didn't agree with that. Okay, what do we think had the best art? I think Turtles had the best art. I think Turtles had the best start, I hate to say. What do you think, Dave? I'd like, I would say Avengers a little bit above Turtles. And I think that was the issue. Like, Zombie Eddie split his vote between his two games. If he just had one game this year, I think he would have won. Yeah. He took both away from himself.
    93:36
    Best game play in layout. Avengers. Yeah. I agree. Yeah. A couple times I played it, it shot good. Yep.
    93:47
    And game of the year. Not even close. Shards and Roses. The hype machine, bad play fields at all, wins at all, baby.
    93:59
    Wow. Hot rails and shipping play fields. We got a victory. I'm like spiking the bull for it, man. Woo-hoo. I know it's got to be a great game because Bruce hates guns and roses, as any actually expressed interest in the game. Until all those issues. Go fuck yourself now. Oh, okay. So he's now swore off Jersey Jack. No, until they fixed it, yeah. I'm not going to spend my dollar or $10,500 on a game where they're not even going to back. Okay. All right. Be honest. You missed one category. I'm going to buy you a car. Oh, I missed a category? What did I miss? Yeah. Rookie of the Year. Was that on? It was the one that I was in. Damn it! So, it's not in there. And I think maybe it's because Ken won with a landslide. Oh, yeah. But, yeah, it was, I think, four in there. So, it was Ken, Cromwell, myself, Steven, Silver, and Bug. Yeah. But, yeah, it was Ken that won that one. Ken Cromwell. I think Raymond was second. Was Raymond in there? Yeah, Raymond. Raymond Davidson was in there, yeah. He was kind of bummed, I think. The American Dream is going to be in there next year, though.
    95:17
    That's right. David Fick, baby. He's going to be the rookie of the year, baby, once the American Pinball comes out with all their games and changes the industry, baby. That's right.
    95:27
    The American Dream of American Pinball. I've known Dave for many, many years. I just love him. He's perfect. He's the American Dream. And it's American Pinball. It's perfect. It is. All right. Let's finish this up with the ball bag. So before we get to the old mail ball bag. Oh, okay. So you want to talk about something. I have a whole thing to talk about over here. All right. First, since we didn't record a couple weeks ago because of technical difficulties because Spectrum sucks. Well, no. First we didn't record because you were looking for a house, and then we didn't record because Spectrum sucked. Yes. I figured out both of them. Spectrum does suck. We had to get a new router and a new Wi-Fi sending unit. The whole thing was actually replaced. Wi-Fi sending unit. Yep. It's a lot of those, yeah. And so that was all replaced, and now I'm up to – I actually gained – we're supposed to be guaranteed 400, and I'm up to 505 now, gigabits. I have a megabits, so not too shabby.
    96:26
    But we found a house, Ron, and I'm going to be further away from you. Yeah, and you look closer to Zach now. I do. I'll leave like 10 minutes close. I'm about 10 minutes from Zach and about 15 minutes from Vance. So that's kind of cool. Two-bedroom, sorry, three-bedroom, two-bath ranch with a 1,600-square-foot basement.
    96:48
    Yes. With a pool, in-ground pool. Whoopi. You want that? Whoopi, you're in Rochester. Congrats. You'll get to use it twice a year. Eat it pool. Wow. You'll get to use it three times a year. Exactly.
    97:07
    Congratulations on the house. Thank you. Very excited to get the house again. What else? I sent Ron a couple pictures of the new carpeting put in at the Rochester Co-op.
    97:20
    So we are on our way to carpeting. We're going to start bringing games in Monday, tomorrow. So Monday the 4th, or 5th, we are starting to bring in games and setting them up. Did you get crazy black light carpeting? No, no, no, no. We did, it's gray, dark gray, light gray, and orange. But it's not dark, it's not glow-in-the-dark. Okay. So it's actually pretty cool. We did about 2,200 square feet of carpeting.
    97:53
    And with the walls all painted and everything like that and the ceiling all done, We are now into bringing product in and getting the office set up and everything else, and then seating and chairs, and then we go for the CO. So we've got some stuff done. So hopefully we're still going for the May 15th and May 30th. You're going for the what? What was the thing you said? May 15th. No, before that, you said like CO or something. What does that mean? Certificate of occupancy. Okay. We've got to stop using these terms. I don't know what that means, CO. I thought that meant commanding officer. It's like, what, you know, the military there? I'm confused. No, you have to go in front of the town that you're in to get your how many people can go into the building. And if you're safe to have, like, you know, fire extinguishers and exit signs and all that other kind of stuff.
    98:40
    And what else did I have on my list? Was that it? Yeah, I think that's it. That's it. That was my busy week. I had some quick repairs. I'll just do this very quickly. Yep. The Spanish eyes adjusted the whole kick out a little more so it goes towards the right flipper so you can actually one-time it over and over again because it was going almost right past the flipper, between the flipper and the pop-over.
    99:08
    That's where we're sending it every time, not the greatest spot to be sending the ball. Johnny Mnemonic's spinner, should I say the fucking spinner, spinner from hell. You love that game, don't you? Oh, I love the game, but that spinner. If anyone has any more tips, I asked Dr. John, who we know from Australia. He's got a giant mnemonic. Have you had any tips for the spinner? Because it just keeps, you'll play games and it'll be fine, and then it'll do the thing where it just goes. In the middle. Yeah. It basically just goes horizontal and sits there. Yep. And then you've got to bend it. You put it in, it works for a while, and then it screws up again. And you just, it never ends, this pattern. It's so annoying. Spinner that never ends. It just moves balls all the time. Okay. So pop-up birds on Cheetah, not sensitive enough, and also on Demoman.
    99:59
    And I had to replace the leg plate on my World Cup soccer. That's something I haven't put off for a while. At some point I went to take the leg ball out, and I noticed it wasn't really turning right, and I could tell it's stuck and it's going to snap. So I was just holding off until, yeah. So I finally went through it, it snapped it, and then took the thing out and put a new plate in. You should always have a tap. Yeah, I have a tap. And I usually always tap everything. If someone has cross-threads one bolt and then it gets passed around to all the other leg holes, yep, so I usually run a tap through it. Yeah. I do a tap through any game I get, even if it's new. Or even do anything. Like I've gotten stern games where I put the tap in, and it's kind of hard at first. Like, okay, interesting. My new X-Men actually was all eight holes were fucked.
    100:57
    All eight holes. Right out of the box. All eight holes were all fucked out of the box. Did they just put them in backwards or something? I couldn't tell what the hell they did, but I had to tap out. I got three of the four good. The fourth one, I couldn't even get the tap through it.
    101:12
    Wow. It was actually popping when I was doing it and ruining my tap. And I've been working on a blackout lately.
    101:19
    Blackout. Let me guess, the lights don't work. No, the lights do work. The relay does work. I thought that was funny. Okay. No, I had to get a rotten dog board because when I went to go pick up this game, I opened up the back box and I looked, and the batteries had been in there since 2000. and the acid and everything just destroyed. It actually had a hole in the board. That's how bad it was. I hate when you have a hole in the board. Yes, it was terrible.
    101:53
    Oh, hold on. The wife's coming down on me. Uh-oh. What's done? Ten minutes. Yes, honey. Love you.
    102:05
    The boss is giving us the time limit. Yes, she is. So we're out of here but in a few minutes. So let's go to the mail ball bag. We're going to the mail ball bag. So hopefully you can see my screen. Can everyone see my screen? I see your screen. Yep. So you see the pictures? I see all three. I see one. You see one. Yeah. Okay. So this email is from Tom. Hi, Tom. He sent us this contest before where he sends us pictures of various games, either play field, backless, whatever, just really small snippets of the game. and we have to guess what it is.
    102:43
    So I'm looking at this first picture here. I got it. I know what it is. You two know it. I don't know what it is. Yep. Marty, we got to go back. Yep. Back to the future. And the tricolored wire form. Yep. And the valley. Valley. The ball. Hill Valley. It's that whole wire form. You are correct. Of course I am. Back to the future. Now the second one. Ah. Yes, sir. This one I know. I know this one easy. Got it. Yeah. I own the game. I've owned it too.
    103:21
    Dave? That Star Trek? No. Star Trek? Be more specific. Next Generation. Make it so number one with a number two. You are correct. Star Trek, Next Generation. I just recognized that. The freaking ball poppers. It's that all three of them out at one point. The ball popper and the artwork. Yeah. On the right-hand side. The third one. Oh, this is a famous one.
    103:50
    It's got a president on it. It kind of gives it away. It's got a president and his wife, her first lady. Cyclone. Yep. Cyclone. Do you agree, Bruce? I totally agree. Okay. Cyclone. Woo-hoo! So you guys are three for three. Of course we're good. I'm only two for three. I did not get the Back to the Future, I must say. I'm sorry. He got you on the old D&E. I was not ready to go back in time. I'll go back in time. I think that clears out the ball bag. Wow, just one. After a month, we only had one? Well, you know, after this contest. We're going to have two. Again, the contest is for the Houdini print from American Pinball, courtesy of Dave Fitts, the American Dream of American Pinball Data. Again, the question is, what was the name of the sperm bank that Beavis and Butthead donate to? Again, the first person that correctly answers the question will win this prize. We'll win this print by emailing to slamtiltpodcast at gmail.com.
    105:02
    Would you like to say thanks to Dave? Dave, thank you. Well, thank you for having me on. So what would you like to plug? Well, I guess the point of me coming on was really to advocate for service and basically let people know that, hey, I'm here, I'm a real person, working behind the scenes to support your games. and whether you're the first owner or the 10th owner, doesn't matter. I'm here to support you and AP's gains. So when you call or email, you're going to get me on the phone, not some automated phone system or a complicated process. I think people find value in that. And also, I have been and continue to be part of the pinball community through streaming and on Pinside and doing things like this, coming on to podcasts. And you can always reach me at 833-API-HELP is the phone number, or service at AmericanPinball.com. I'm also on Pinside, Brennan98. You can also see us stream on TurboGrafx7 on Twitch. We do Fridays at 8 Central. and we also have a Facebook page as well. So I'm very reachable. Please reach out. I'd be happy to help you with your game. And that is important, being the personal touch. Yeah, it really is. We lose that a lot when you get to bigger companies, and it is a nice plus when you buy a machine from AP.
    106:41
    Thank you. Yeah, I think that's something, the feedback that I get a lot is like, oh my God, you actually pick up the phone. And I'm like, yep.
    106:52
    I have it on me all the time. And then they said, are you the guy that doesn't like fishtails? And then they hang up on you. Yeah, see, you're the guy.
    107:01
    So thanks, Dave, for coming on. Thank you, Dave, very much. This has been episode 164. We are the Slamtail Podcast. Again, we can be reached, and I probably said this more in this episode than I ever have. We can be reached at slamtailpodcast.gmail.com. Our website is slamshillpodcast.com. Just check it out. All our links are in the upper right. I have been streaming regularly pretty much Tuesdays at 8 p.m. You will see me. That's going to be my weekly day. I'm just going to do Tuesdays, 8 p.m., streaming whatever to whenever. Thanks to all our listeners. Check out Top Rope Pinball. Hi, Zach. I have to mention Top Rope because he told us to plug in. So he's permanently plugged. Oh. Okay.
    107:44
    Hi, Steve from Abonis. Everybody else out there, thanks. Say goodbye, Bruce. Goodbye, Adam Foltz. Have a seat beneath you alive Oh my
    108:44
    Everybody else out there, thanks. Say goodbye, Bruce. Goodbye, Seymour Butts.