Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the Wedgehead Pinball Podcast. My name is Alan, host of this podcast, joined in the basement studio of my good buddy, co-host of the Wedgehead Pinball Podcast. It's Alex, the water boy. How you doing? I'm doing great, Alan. I'm doing especially good because this week we're celebrating our one year anniversary, right? That's right. Yeah, 52 episodes or something like that, depending on... Something like that. 53, this might be 54. I don't know when it's going to be released. Yeah, so, you know, to celebrate, I don't know if this is necessarily easier on us, but, you know, it sounded easy in theory. We're going to take some questions from you all out there, the listeners and the people that make the podcast worth doing. We posted to a Reddit thread, Waterboy did, took some email responses from our last episode, and yeah, we got some Instagram comments too. So I bundled them all together and we'll start off. You want to read the first question, Alex? Yeah, sure thing. So first question is from David J. He says, thank you guys for doing the show. I look forward to it each week. You don't have to lie to us like that, David. Your show is the best pinball related show by far. You know, that part I'm not going to contest. We'll take it. Well, if you say so, David, we'll take it. It says, my question is, how much time does each episode take you guys? Do you write your episodes? Who does the editing? The production value is so good. And I find myself cracking up at down the hill episodes where you cut in sound bites for the reviews. Keep up the good work. I think it's about four hours for the average episode. Is that all in? All in, yeah, because I definitely write. Usually me, sometimes you'll jump in and help with the outlines and stuff too on episodes, but I'll usually write an outline, do some research, we'll do our recording, and then I'll do the editing and kind of EQing, uploading to the host and all that kind of back-end stuff. I say four hours for the average episode. I will say that like six or seven hours if it's a Roger Sharp episode. He's the best, but man, he can talk and he knows it and he's famous for it. And so those episodes are always fun, but they're always a challenge to keep them kind of on track and on point. There can be a big variety, especially in like the prep. Like some of them, if it's a topic that we're like looking forward to researching, which anything kind of historical we're doing because we're interested in it. And so then I know we'll both put in way more time than we should, than we should, because it's just like, ah, this is what I'm doing while I'm sitting at my job or whatever. It's like, oh, I'm just looking up all the history of every System 11 or whatever. So it's kind of funny how that goes. And we've also, you know, when Ty's been on those episodes, speaking of the System 11 episode, he'll put in a ton of time putting together gorgeous show notes and stuff, which is always fun for me to see. Yeah, we should link those two to that episode and put it on the website. I'm glad you like it, David. I appreciate you. Okay, next question is, it says, hey, fellas, love the show. Thank you for doing it. Maybe I missed it, but why does Alan always refer to Alex as the Waterboy? Is this some kind of inside joke? I've always wanted to know how we got that nickname. Alan, why do you refer to me as the Waterboy? We just have a lot of Alex's that either work at Wedgehead or are regulars at Wedgehead. It's not uncommon to be at Wedgehead and there's four Alex's in the building at the same time. Like we have our kitchen manager who's named Alex. We call him Honey Bear. We have a bartender. His name is Alex. We call him Trout. Alex sitting across from me is the water boy because he works for the shadowy underground world of Big Water. He's an electrical engineer working for the shadow organizations that control big water. Yeah, this is probably the question that I've been asked more than anything else. And I'm always like, it's just because of my day job. Alan, very early on when we kind of became buddies, he had asked like, oh, what do you do for a job? And I'm like, oh, I'm an electrical engineer. He kind of explained like, yeah, this is the industry I work in or whatever. And then it became kind of a joke with his wife. Casey once asked, like, to reconfirm we're out with dinner with them. She's like, so what do you do again? And I was like, oh, and I explained it again. And Alan was like, I told you he's a water boy. Yeah, she didn't believe me. I was like, I think he's like a water. He works on water. She's like, what are you talking about? I was like, he's a water boy. I don't know. Yeah. So I don't really talk about it too much. But electrical engineering consultant, I work in the water industry. So that's that's the name. and Alan just loves, you know, Adam Sandler movies. Yeah, that's also true. Next question says, that was, I don't know if I said that was from Derek A. I should be saying the names beforehand, maybe. Anthony D. asks or says, I enjoy the podcast, but I also like watching pinball streams to improve my skills, get to see games played that I don't get to play locally. Is there any chance we'll get a Wedgehead pinball stream in the future? I think you guys would run an awesome stream. Thanks, Anthony. Streaming seems like a lot of work to set up and run. I think you need like, kind of like lots of equipment. You need to dedicate the time and the energy to do it well. I mean, that's not that dissimilar from this podcast where we dedicate a lot of time and we have equipment to do it and all that kind of stuff. But I just have my plate full kind of with the bar and fixing games and doing this podcast. So I don't really have any desire whatsoever to stream. I kind of think I would have to do one or the other to do it well. And I chose this instead is really sort of the overall answer. Yeah, Alan doesn't want you guys to see in real time how bad he actually is at pinball. But yeah, streaming something, I think a big part of it that Alan kind of misses is that he doesn't watch pinball streams and he does listen to podcasts. So I think that kind of influences it. I enjoy streams. I don't watch a ton anymore. Over COVID, I used to a lot. And one of our buddies, Jay, would stream under the name Johnny Demonic. I was on his stream a good number of times back when he was streaming regularly. it is a lot of work getting set up and stuff it always does kind of appeal to me because there's no editing time which is sick yeah it's live it's something that i've always kind of been like yeah like if we hadn't started this podcast i probably would have started buying gear to stream last winter maybe because it's something i've always kind of been like i should do that i should do that it'd be fun to kind of like i don't know it's just a good way to interact with the community sometimes and have an excuse to just play pinball on a schedule and bullshit with people yeah i do think it would be fun to do in the future. I don't think we would do it while we're doing the podcast because it's just a lot. Yeah, it's a lot. It's a lot of time dedication. We dedicate a lot of time to this show, but it's fun. You know, it's sort of a different way for us to interact in the hobby. Like I'm a business owner. And so like I've already kind of monetized. I don't think anyone asked me this directly in this batch of questions, but I do get asked. They're always like, how come you guys don't have any sponsors? How come you guys don't do this or whatever? Yeah. Everyone's always like hey don't certain podcasters make money and i was like some do i doubt pinball podcasters really do maybe kaneda does kaneda makes some money off of his patreon i think he makes a decent bit now but it's like i already have a business where i have to monetize my love of pinball some of the big draw for the podcast was that i want it to be free i don't want to read ads i don't want to be sponsored i don't want to feel like i just can't say what i want to say about any company or any game at any time yeah like that's kind of it the stakes are too low for me to and that's no that's nothing against anyone else doing it because it's like for some people like that's cool you know you get some free shit from a company but yeah we can't just keep signing up for more work and no pay though so that's why yeah the stream is the that's the limit no exactly no stream you're like yeah so it's off the cards for now i do think at some point it would be fun to get into i could see myself down the road doing it but yeah for now No. OK, next question. It's from Luke M. He says, seen as the bar wedgehead is a big success. Are there any plans for second location? We could use a wedgehead down here in Albuquerque. That's a God. No, no way. That's not a diss on Albuquerque. I just mean to run a second location in general because I actually I love New Mexico. I think it's a beautiful state. It's just it's too hard to be in two places at the same time, let alone. I think he's probably joking about like we should move to Albuquerque because that's probably where he's from, I'm assuming. But even trying to scale up locally. So I'm not sure how the order of episodes will air. But we spoke with our buddy that owns the quarters locations in Salt Lake recently. And in that episode, we get into this a bit because he opened he had one very successful location the first quarters. And then he opened Sugar House. And he kind of speaks in that episode a lot about the challenges and how it does not always go exactly how you're expecting. It's hard to predict. Yeah. I think there's a big reason to just stay focused on one, making one thing. It's like the Ron Swanson quote, right? Yeah. Don't half-ass two things, whole-ass one thing. Yeah. And that's not a slight to anyone that has done it, but I think there's something to be said for just really going all in on the one place that's your baby. And I've talked to my business partner, Rhodesy, because he's brought it up to me multiple times. She's like, what if we did another one? Or what if we did a different part of town? I'm like, dude, I just want this one to be as good as it possibly can. Yeah. And we do the thing where we try to offer the best pinball, the most variety, best quality. And then we offer great food and great drinks. And like, it's, you just can't be two places at the same time. Nor do I want to be, cause there's just be a lot more headaches. And it's just like, there's a lot of shitty chain arcade bars popping up everywhere. Like, I don't want to become one of those. Yeah. Not to name names, but you know who we're talking about, right? Like, I like being an independent arcade. And I will also say that Wedgehead is not a big success. So the beginning of that question is a little bit. We've been open for six years. It's a lot of talk coming from a guy that's speaking at the How to Run a Successful Arcade Bar panel at Expo. I mean, success and we're here. Yeah, and I'll be... You outlasted the average bar in Portland. For sure. successful but it's not just you know i always joke the wedgehead crew is just like scrooge mcduck with just diving into a pile of quarters no it is not like that dude uh it is hard i thought we've we would close a few different times over the course of it been lots of stress it's been lots of fun too we have beaten the odds in the sense that like we're still here but yeah like diving into another one. Not looking forward to it, to be honest. Okay, next question from Trish L. She says, what's the weirdest moment you've experienced either at Wedgehead or out in the wilds of the pinball community? Okay, yeah, this is a good question. There's a ton of craziness that comes with like just running a bar. Some interesting characters that will wander in. That's true of any bar, but I don't think that's what she was talking about. She meant pinball related wildness we definitely had to years ago tell somebody that it wasn't cool for them to use one of the pinball machines as a baby changing table and changing like a poopy diaper on it we they shouldn't have had to been told that but we had to tell them that uh that was pretty wild i've had i almost got into uh like a physical fight one time with like a like kind of like a notorious leg kicker and machine thrasher screeching a game around and kicking it and i was working on a game i was like hey dude chill that's not cool yeah like and he's like no man's part of the game i go i'm warning you you do that shit again you're fucking out of here i close the game up i go back downstairs i hear him do it i run upstairs it was like i point right at his chest it was like get the fuck out and he's like oh really dude and i was just like this is the local guy that like literally bends table legs yeah kicking them right yeah we've had to tell a few locals that are just kind of sweaty in general just to like not come back to certain kind of tournament nights and stuff just because they're kind of like they're maybe not the leg kicker level but they're but just creating kind of a toxic environment yeah just toxic players i don't have anything too crazy in my pinball days other than it's kind of the same thing i've just seen like random shit that you would see at any bar at while out playing pinball but um as far as pinball specific weird shit goes the weirdest thing i've ever experienced that firsthand is when you have a tournament just go really like if you're playing in a tournament or something and it just goes completely cold when people realize like oh this is competition and we're like we're no longer playing fun pinball we're serious pinball and it can be such if you're new to the competitive scene and you experience that like shift where you're like oh we're all buddies and then suddenly it's like oh no we're no longer buddies like that fucking is bizarre because that's like this isn't why I'm here and I've had that really bad when I played on the road and people didn't take me seriously because they didn't recognize me and then you start you know if you're doing well at a tournament or whatever yeah suddenly the whole thing everyone no one wants to talk to you no one gives a shit about where you're from or makes the normal small talk it's all done because it's like oh no you might win the fucking $15 pot here at like a Tuesday night tournament totally and you're like what the fuck so I would say that the behavior at tournaments is the weirdest part of pinball that I've experienced and a big part of why I don't play in them yeah and it's weird too because there's lots lots of really cool players yeah that are cool outside of tournaments and it's it's not necessarily that they're not cool anymore like they're dicks but it's just like the environment just gets sweaty it just gets weird act like this is like the fucking Super Bowl when it's a weeknight and that's crazy to me yeah competitive pinball in i mean both alan and i do but it's like we want it to be fun there's not enough people that take it seriously i know that it is if it's a serious competitive thing for you and we would both play in weeklies all the time if it wasn't so sweaty and serious but it just becomes like you're like hey this isn't like a big whopper palooza event like this isn't a big like yeah weekend tournament with 100 players like you know what i mean like this is just like a weekly like It should just be chill. We're playing a strikes tournament. Like it should just be chill. Next one from Sarah L. She says, first of all, love the podcast, but sometimes while I'm listening, I wish I could see what you guys are talking about on the screen. Have you thought about doing a YouTube channel and shooting video when you record? I'm sure it would be extra work, but I know I would love to see it. This is sort of like the stream again. I think a YouTube channel is the most work. We've thought about this a lot. We talk about it a lot because it's something that people have voiced since we started doing it. Yeah. Our episodes are heavily edited, so it's not a matter of just setting up a camera. I don't know if anybody's noticed, but our cadence of talking is not nearly as fast in real life generally. Yeah. We're much more direct and to the point in the podcast, usually because Alan's gone back through and made us sound that way, keeps it more engaging when you're listening. It's what we like to hear on podcasts. So going and syncing up video would be a nightmare to that. Yeah. Like, I think we could do the thing where it's like we record like we do now. We could just have a static camera on us due to the video version. But I'm not really. You'd be chopping like you'd be chopping little tiny bits of video out. We'd be hopping around. Yeah. I don't think it would add much. I know it's something that people like. I know people have gotten really used to watching YouTube podcasts at this point. It's just a lot of work. The way I would want to do it was I would really want it to be our audio file. But then we go over and we show pictures and clips and stuff like more like a video slideshow to coincide with what we're talking about. But again, that's just it's still editing. Like we would have the audio file already, but we would have to go in and create like a visual slideshow and pair it. And that's just it's just extra work right now. We've thought about doing it a lot. We always come back to it sounds like a ton of work. it would be cool to do for special episodes but i don't think it would get the views to justify the hours and hours figuring out video editing software and i do know that people tell me all the time they're like youtube's the best because you'll get more views because the algorithm will push your content and like if you're on a podcatcher app like it doesn't push content towards you you have to hear about it you have to go out of your way but the reverse of that is that your podcast audience, everyone here listening, you guys are regular listeners. Like you listen to every episode and you, and like, yeah, we like all of you guys and we can see the completion rates and the completion rates on episodes are like, damn near every one of you finishes an episode when you start it, which is not the case with YouTube. Like people are like, Oh, what's this? Click a thumbnail. And they're like, eh, whatever. Forget, you know, like, so it's, it's just different. It's just like, they're different mediums. And like, I always like the audio medium because I like to have something when I'm doing a road trip or if I'm anything, if I'm doing dishes or laundry or mowing the lawn, like I like to have a podcast to listen to. So where my heart was. Okay. Next question. We're getting into the meat of it here from Sean S. And he says, what's your dream band based pinball machine that should get made? Then when you're done discussing that, admit you're wrong. And the correct answer is Devo. I'm not gonna say anything about Devo I'm not gonna say anything he wants to say what you have to say about Devo first I got nothing to say about Devo it to me Devo is I can't even say anything he wants to say he hates Devo I don't hate Devo but what I'm because they're just a novelty band to me whoa there it is that's gonna like twist the knife to say and I know that will upset Sean I'm sorry but I'll upset anybody that likes that 80s pop stuff I like I just hey dude one of the members from Devo Mark Mothersbaugh wrote the Rugrats theme song dude so you might be pretty excited to know that I am okay so dream band that's not our dream band theme that's not Devo okay so I like Devo uh I like I think Devo is a cool band I just hate bands as themes like even bands i like the music of i just i don't think bands make good themes i feel like they're a little bit disjointed you're always like they can make good themes but i think that's a really easy one to go lazy on and do kind of a poor job of it's like collect the drumsticks collect the drummer like choose the song in the jukebox like it's just go on tour like i don't know i liked like i liked the way they did i like foo fighters the implementation of that kind of like combining it with the Saturday morning cartoon thing. I like ACDC how it's like, Oh, it's like real big corny. I don't like that game very much, but it's like, I like the game. I don't like how it's, I don't like how it's integrated. I'm not like in love with that game, but I like, like, it's like, here's the bell and here's like the highway. And there, you know, I'm just like, okay, this is some good ACDC shit. But then when you get to like Led Zeppelin and you're like, there's nothing. Yeah. We're going on this tour. Here's a blimp. Here's the little angel that pops up and down. I like that game, But it's just kind of like, damn, I really wish that was like if that had been a Led Zeppelin game and it was like a fantasy knockoff Lord of the Rings kind of theme tied in with it. That would be like my favorite game of all time. Yeah. And I remember when they kind of were teasing that as a theme. I was just like, man, that's going to be so sick. And they came out and I'm like. But to answer the question, you asked us a question. I'll give you an answer. I think the next one should be Taylor Swift. Oh, yeah. Just fucking do it. I think we're both agreed on that. Like make a Taylor Swift pin. She is super popular. She's super popular amongst a lot of different demographics and different demographics that don't currently play pinball. All these are old man bands, even Devo, Sean. We're talking about old men rock again. Like we're just, we can't get away from it. Make Taylor Swift. She's young, successful, and just get a different group of people into pinball. I think Taylor Swift would be just tops. Like that game would do so well. Yeah. I don't think anything could beat that. It's something I'd immediately buy in LA. And like your wife loves Taylor Swift. I don't think my wife particularly listens to a ton of Taylor Swift, and I don't really listen to it. I think a lot of people that aren't even big fans would just be excited to see something different. Yeah, I would be excited to see it. I don't think there would be a single – I don't think there's a single theme you could do that would be better for the hobby than Taylor Swift. I agree. Okay, next question. John says, congrats on a full year. I would love to hear more discussions about layouts, ramp locations, overall flow, what works on specific machines and what doesn't. This is such a big question, like especially for an audio medium, right? That we're just talking about. Like we're just like, all right, now let's describe these things to you. This is where the YouTube channel would be helpful. It's very subjective. I have some things that I know that I dislike or I view as like design mistakes. I think scoops should be placed on the edges of playfields, not on the centers of playfields. So I think, like, games like Monster Bash, Attack from Mars, even Deadpool, I think those are, like, mistake scoop placements. Is that just because you don't want people accidentally shooting, like, falling into scoops? No, it's more that I think that a scoop mech just gets bent and out of, like, it gets to the point where, like, it becomes inconsistent. and if you're ever playing those games, you'll play copies, and you're like, half the time it'll shoot down the middle, half the time it'll make it to a flipper, and I'll tell you as an operator, dialing those in and bending them and adjusting them, there's only so much you can do before it gets a little bit squirrely. There's too much movement and variance in those mechs, and the people that design those games should know that, and so they should put them on the edges. They usually are on the edges of playfields, and I'm just like, they should always be on the edges. Those ones where they're kind of on the center and they have to cross the center drain. That's where they're supposed to fire from like the right hand side across the left flipper. That's just bad because then when it doesn't do that, then it pisses the player off. The players are pissed that the operators, the operators pissed that the manufacturer. Right. Like we're all just like that's just a mistake. I also think that like there's a balance of like a fan layout because fan layout shoot really good. They're very smooth, repeatable, flowy. and then when you mix it up, you start adding upper flippers, you start adding weird pocket shots or setting stuff up, things get a little bit clunky, but they're more interesting maybe if you play a lot of pinball. So there's like that kind of common thing, but it's like I truly think that like fans shoot better than non-fans, and I think that upper and lower playfields are always a mistake. Like I think there's only – they kill flow, and they're not dangerous. That's my gripe with them. I just dislike like 90% of them. There's only a couple that I'm like, these add to the game. This is a tough question for me because I feel like it's hard to single out specific things as good or bad because you can find good and bad implementations of a lot of specific things. Things that I wish I could see more of in modern games, though, specifically, would be like inline drops. I really like inline drops. Yeah inline drops are sick I really like it when inline drops have a progressively meaner feedback out of them as you go on Like on Frontier you hit the first bear and it safe You hit the second bear and it kind of rolls out and it kicking more towards the middle And then like the third bear, it's like you've got to nudge, otherwise it's going to drain down the middle. I really like that. In general, I like for a real generic gripe, I guess. I think modern pinball is way too safe and pretty much every shot on a modern pinball machine feeds back to an in lane, which I think removes a huge aspect of what makes pinball fun, which is fighting for ball control. The ball's supposed to be wild. And when you're playing all these modern games and you can just sit there and rail shots and they all come right back to a flipper, it just means whoever has the best shot accuracy is going to be the best at the game. And pinball wasn't always just shot accuracy. It's supposed to be ball control too, at least to me. So that's something I really wish we saw more of. I agree. And that's just kind of like the way modern pinball design has gone. People like those games. I think a lot of them are very fun. But I think there'd be a way to kind of do that, to handle that or like to balance that better. I think if you're going to have all friendly shots, you need to incentivize hurry ups or incentivize combos. Something to play, play on the fly. You got to force people to play on the fly because if you're making every shot a safe feed and you're allowing people to cradle up for like any shot, that's a significant amount of points. You're just making the game now play slower and safer, which sucks. That's not what pinball should be. At least not to me. Harry Williams said the ball was wild and like it's becoming less wild. Yeah, I think I talked to some I'm reading my notes back here and I must have talked about this. There must be another similar question. But yeah, that's kind of my thoughts on it. I agree with the upper playfields are almost always bad. I don't mind upper flippers and stuff if you can't cradle on them. But if it's an upper play field where you can cradle because it's like whitewater, I don't know if that actually counts as an upper play field or upper play field. That's the one where it's like that's the one I think of like this is great. This upper play field is great. See, you can't cradle on that. Yeah, one flip at it. That feels, it's like an elevated upper flipper shot. It's not really an upper play field. If you can't cradle, it doesn't slow the game down. Because you get one shot and then the ball has to drain out. And I like the black hole lower play field. That's the other one I really like. It's dangerous. You die in the lower play field and you die in real life. Yep. Yeah. So it's the things that just kind of. It can be done well. It's just not usually done well. Yep. In my opinion. And then one thing that we've talked about a lot on the show is center ramps. Alex hates center ramps, dude. Only when they're real center ramps. This has been a big divisive thing. If it's a little bit off center, it's no longer a center ramp. It doesn't mean the game's necessarily good. Like, in Adam's Family Stairs, it's not a center ramp. It's a center ramp. It's easier from one flipper than the other. Oh, you can hit it from both. It has to be dead fucking center for me to call it a center ramp. I don't want to start naming specific games, but if you can think of a game right now and you're like, well, that's a center ramp, it probably is. We just did a bunch of System 11 games. A lot of those Python, Python Anghelo, Barry, Ousler games from that era, center ramp games. almost always a mistake. So yeah, there's a bit of what I like, what I don't like. Oh, we got a question from Ben M. Every episode is a little treasure. I like that. That's nice. I especially appreciate the interviews with the giants and geniuses of the pinball industry. The recent episodes with Roger Sharp painted a great picture of what it was like working in pinball during the golden era of the 1990s. They also touched a little on what it was like playing pinball during that time but i'd like to know more about that side of things and what it was like playing on location back then yeah ben m we would like to know yeah totally because we're both relatively young compared to at least this era of pinball yeah when i was a kid growing up like i played pinball in the 90s as a small little child and no one knew what the fuck we were doing we all just flapped like the flippers and you would try to hit like that's why i loved medieval madness as a little kid because it was like oh you could just hit the thing and it did a thing you know everyone would lose their fucking mind i wonder how we would get more of this information if you're an old guy that played a lot of pinball back in the day i would genuinely be curious to just kind of like hear about it like especially if it's yeah playing pinball during the 90s like playing in the heyday especially if you played in tournaments and were like paying attention if you were waiting for if you saw and recognized new games and stuff i would like to hear more from that yeah why don't you send us an email to wedgeheadinfo at gmail.com and we'll uh discuss it maybe we'll run a whole episode on like what location pinball was like in your experience i think that that would answer ben's question i think that'd be kind of an interesting compared to then and now like that'd be interesting yeah we'll work it into an episode somehow if we don't just read it off okay next question's from mitch c he asks how does one beat zoe were able in a pinball tournament. I like Zoe answered this. This was on our Instagram. Big Mitch man over on the East Coast. He was pinball over Boston. He asked us this question. I think he just finished second to Zoe in a tournament. And she responded to this comment directly with one doesn't and the nail Paul Fish emoji. Yeah, Mitch, I'd love to tell you how, but I would need to know the answer as well because I've lost to Zoe more than any other single person yeah i think i think you just give up you shoot for second man there's nothing wrong with nothing wrong with second i the things i know about zoe is that she's an insanely good player she's a very patient player and she's super competitive so the only thing i would say is i want to try to play mind games with zoe she doesn't need any extra bulletin board material so if you're talking shit that ain't gonna work like yeah you can't get in her head you know So she's a killer. If you're really in a tournament and you want to beat her, you just have to pray that she has a bad day. Yeah, or just a bad game. Because if she's playing good, you're fucked. Yeah, I agree. Okay, next question. I think it's from the same Mitch. He asked, if you could have a pinball location in any city in any decade in history, what would you choose? Decade would be the 1970s for sure. That was like peak pinball popularity. That's when they were making the most games. Pinball was everywhere. It was mainstream. Like, I would love to be in the 70s. You would be there for the switch from electromechanical to solid state. You get to see the small flipper turn into the three inch flipper. And back then, dude, operators are making fucking real money, dude. Like, do you want a second location? Hell yeah. We're opening up one, two, three, four and five, dude. Like, this shit's earning, dude. They would just be pulling buckets of coins out of cash boxes. dream city i thought a lot about this because there'd be a lot of cities in the u.s that'd be fun but i think mine would probably be mexico city i love mexico this 1970s were the time like mexico was like undergoing kind of like modernization the border was open we still traded a lot with them and it was before kind of like the drug wars and stuff and like to my knowledge pinball's never really been big in mexico but i don't know why it couldn't be especially back then yeah uh so this would just be like an excuse for me to live in mexico and i would fucking love it dude love it living in the 70s in mexico city that'd be fucking sick dude i would love that i'll just imagine you in like the the fucking nacho libre when he goes on his like date night outfit oh the one sure dude just be rocking the white pant blue shirt nacio your clothes look expensive thank you yeah my answer also kind of selfish like the mexico pick would probably be Tokyo or somewhere in Japan in the 1980s, mainly because I love Tokyo and Japan. Yeah. And yeah, it's also the 80s specifically because that's when pinball completely died there. Prior to that, they were kind of giving it a go for a bit. Sega was actually making domestic pins in Japan for a while. And then it just kind of died off when video games boomed there. I would love to have the chance, you know, if you could somehow sway history and keep pinball successful in Japan, seeing what it looked like now there would be insane. like that could impact things the 1980s were like i mean just a crazy decade for japan it was like a massive economic boom that led to a huge bubble economy but it was very cool led to a lot of cool shit so that's my pick lots of cool cars oh yeah lots of cool cars that's all right 80s japan tokyo yeah that'd be a good good pinball arcade yeah that'd be sick next question is from this must have been from a reddit reddit post yeah we got flannel heart asking or saying not only does Alan have a great lineup, but I'd like to give a shout out to one of Wedgehead's bartenders who, upon my last visit there, told the most annoying child I've ever been around to, hey, knock it off, when they would not stop hollering nonsense phrases the top of their lungs. I'm not going to name names, but tipping was good that day. All right, Flannery. I got to clarify, this isn't my lineup, right? Like I am, try on the show, I'm like, I'm one half of Wedgehead. I have my business partner, Chris Rhodes. Chris Rhodes has been an operator for 20 years. These are his collection of games he's got 150 plus games we rotate them in and out of wedge we're not blessed with space uh we have room for we squeeze 24 games and into our building at a time uh because rent is fucking expensive dude but we are blessed with rodsey's kind of like his deep collection of games from all eras we rotate them in all the time so it feels like we have more something's at least fresh you know but uh yeah we don't put up without a control kids i don't think anywhere should yeah like i even if you're the place that is family oriented yeah it ruins pinball spots that's the thing i responded to this on reddit but just to reiterate i said that i like that wedge allows kids i think it's good to expose kids to pinball i enjoy i have nine nieces and nephews and it's like i like having little kids play pinball but i like that wedge head doesn't allow kids to run the place and if this was a bartender i'm thinking or i'm assuming it was the little kid's lucky he didn't get suplexed but uh yeah it's just one of those things that like rowdy kids can ruin a spot for everybody you can ruin a spot for another family there with kids yeah if you've got kids don't let them scream that's not the point of taking them to a pinball let them scream run jump and like I mean, just the game should be hopefully stimulating enough. Yeah, teach them how to play pinball. That's what you're all there for, right? Just don't treat it like a daycare. That's really what it is. And we don't allow that at Wedge. It's like kids have to be supervised. Yep. You want to read the next one? This is from Don De La Mort off of Reddit. Love Wedgehead the bar. Love Wedgehead the podcast. Congrats on the year. Thank you, Don. I'd love to hear some discussion on pinball etiquette. Like, I know Wedgehead has signs up that say something to the effect of no camping. I've often found campers going for five or six plays in a row at free play spots, especially on whenever the brand new machine is in at that location. I'm fairly new to going out and playing regularly, so I've been wondering about any commonly agreed upon etiquette and sharing space on games. I figure more social people might just simply go up and say, hey, can I have the next game? But since, for example, Wedgehead specifically put a sign up, it makes me feel like there's some nuance to the matter. personally i'd love to not have to ask feels a little weird seems as if there's 20 sick ass pins to choose from at the bar you might as well just play a game then move on and play something else keep it circulating but i also guess i live in a society and other people might think differently than me that makes you just think of stanza we live in a society yeah is there general culture etiquette within pinball enthusiasts that dictates how people should behave with camping and queuing on games at coin op places do people put quarters down like on pool tables how to earn replays and matches get handled so it's always more awkward to deal with this i feel like at coin op spots because if someone coins of a machine if they have like a coin break where it's like oh put in five dollars and get 10 credits instead of five if someone has 10 credits on there it's kind of like well they kind of just like rented that machine out for the next hour and i hate that we have the signs up because it's just a common problem at any pinball spot it's i think it's usually worse at coin op spots because yeah that's what i'm saying you can't really expect a player to leave behind their matches or replays and just let someone else jump in and take them because you paid for them or you earned them right and a lot of places will also incentivize the exact opposite of what you would want by giving players a price break for putting in more money out the gate right so it's like if they were just going to put a buck in and play and then walk away but now they're putting in two to get three plays or four to get five plays or whatever it is you know i don't know if there's really much you can do at those spots other than being assertive and offering to like add credits to the game that you play in between them yeah but i will say that at wedge we put those signs up and whenever we get a new game like we just got x-men everyone wants to play x-men everyone's like you got x-men yes we have it it's on free play we want you to play the shit out of it we want you to get your wristband and play it as much as you want but we do have our bartenders be like, yeah, you know, it's a popular game. Just make sure, you know, you move along. Like we have our bartenders will say that to customers as they come in and we're giving them their wristband. We don't go out of our way to say that to every customer when they come play pinball. We have the signs up in the room like, hey, don't camp on a machine. But when we have a new hot game like that, we will absolutely just be like, you know, just like make sure other people get to play, too. Yeah. And in general, I think that's what I mean, if you're listening to this podcast you probably already are kind of you have some social awareness regarding this but it's like when you're playing a new game just even if you think you're the only person in there look up and look around before you start the next one if someone's hovering you can ask if they want to get on it it's kind of like on you when you're playing to make sure no one else wants before you just keep going on game especially at a free play place i really wish that people would go back to the quarter on the glass yeah that would be so nice if i didn't have to talk to people and I could just slip a quarter on the glass and they would be like, okay, I need to like come up for air for a second. That's no one will know what you're doing. If you do that, that's a thing that existed back in the day that nobody does anymore. And so the people that are the problematic campers will not know what you're doing. Uh, I think usually the best thing to do is just be like, Hey, do you mind if I hop? Like, like you said, you got to just go out of your way to ask, be like, Hey, do you mind if I hop on the next one? If I see someone kind of start up another game right after they finish one without looking at that point i'm like ah fuck them i gotta go say something because otherwise they're just gonna keep doing this yeah you just go all right what even when you guys finish that game i like to get on yeah that's what i usually do it's like okay they got two in a row without looking that's you know i'll be like can i grab next and that's fair yeah it's fair you got to be assertive unfortunately i think there's kind of no way around it yeah that is kind of one of the rough spots though okay next question from tk turk he says i love listening to your podcast my way home from work it's great my question do you think a pinball arcade is a viable business idea without alcohol and food i have a friend that wants to build one but doesn't want to be bothered with alcohol which i think is a big part of how to build a successful modern arcade what do you think alan um he's asking me right yeah no yeah i don't think it's probably a good idea do you need me to elaborate um i'll elaborate you're not gonna make enough money off okay so they're okay so the thing is with with pinballs and arcades right there's a reason why they died the problem is and you'll still hear it when you go into forums or anywhere else people be like man that ain't good oh these games cost a dollar now they're too expensive you're like yeah that's just kind of keeping up with inflation that's actually lagging behind inflation but in people's mindsets the the value of one game of pinball is less than really what it should be. And so you have to subsidize it with other things. That's why arcade bars have become the model because you can sell them something else. The thing with pinball is it costs a lot of money. They take a lot of expertise and time and labor to maintain. They take up a lot of real estate. Real estate square footage is very expensive. So like trying to get people at 50 or 75 cents a play. It's not that it can't be done, but it's hard to do in big metro areas where the rents are bigger. If you inherited a building or you own a building, the math is a little bit different. If you're a rich person and you could just be like, hey, this is kind of my hobby. We have 10 people on staff, including me, and we're a small spot. There's no way we could do it with just pinball. Absolutely no way. There's just no way. Running a pinball-only spot with no other income can be done. And I can only say that because there's some that exist. But I don't know of any that exist in a major city or without something subsidizing the business. The one I will say, and they listen to the show, they're our friends, the electric bat. They're, you know, I know Kale and Rachel are always like, oh, Pinball can make money. And we're like, they've got a unique situation there. You go back and listen to our operator spotlight on them. but they basically they're in like a little strip mall next to a bar that's been there for 30 or 40 years it's like a staple of the scene and they're open for like something crazy like 20 hours a day or something they got the space next to it and there's an entrance through the bar to their arcade so they could be open way longer hours they don't necessarily have to be there they don't have to directly staff it at all hours that the bar is open plus the bar is still there so people can buy drinks and then go play the game so it's not necessarily still not only an arcade it'd be much harder to do as only a strict arcade yeah not impossible maybe you can't make any hard and fast rules for any of this but it's definitely going to be an uphill battle doing it without food and alcohol at least you can do it without food because it depends in oregon you can't Because you have to serve food if you serve liquor. So I would say as far as going back to this question was because his friend wants to open one without dealing with the alcohol. I would say start a route instead. Go operate pinball. Don't worry about anything except for the pinball then. Yeah, totally. And you can actually make money. It doesn't have to be your full-time job. It's just that would be a way better. Put it in somebody else's bar. Right. Or other public space. It's already being paid by the alcohol. Yes. And you just give them a split. you put in your games you get some income out of it you can kind of create a scene that way i would definitely start with a route especially if you don't want to handle the all-encompassing running a bar running a bar restaurant with an arcade if you're not looking to run a bar i feel like you should start a route yeah at least as an entry like if it goes amazingly then you get a set the new yeah yeah you can start an arcade later but a route it should be the number one way to start yes that was my official response okay next question from uh jim and hillman on reddit he said congratulations guys one year is very impressive thank you he said to here's to many more years of your awesome content with so many great games out now and more rumored to come out what is your dream theme game and what is dream one dream innovation you would like to see implemented in future machines so i responded saying i responded on reddit right away and i was like dream themes are something that like we've always been like i don't know if anybody cares like what me and alan want to see but we're gonna get into it a little bit because you know well we they asked we said we said who cares and then somebody's like well i care yeah so i guess like you asked okay so alan what's your dream game i don't really people ask me this all the time i just don't you don't want to get your hopes up almost it's like kind of apart from me yeah i don't really think about it to be honest like most of my favorite games are just like games before licenses were even a thing or the most common way right like a lot of time it's just like a very talented artist create something cool yeah again i like that but i know we're not going to get a lot of that in the future you're not going to get another whitewater yeah i like i understand we're not going to get that anymore but if they're licensed and i like the game i like a lot of licensed games where i don't like the license like i just play and i'm like oh i like this you're like bram stoker's dracula i've never seen the movie but i like the game quite a bit and i feel like they nailed the theme and i don't know i mean i like both that's one i like both but i would say like guardians of the galaxy or stranger things i like both of those games i don't like either of the original ips yeah like i recognize that they're popular but like i don't personally like them but i like the games then there's games where it's like i like the theme but i don't like the game so it's like i don't know it's rare for me to like both like for both of them to come together go awesome theme awesome game like that's rare for me yeah just uh demolition man okay that's the that's the number one that's it okay but if assuming an awesome theme is going to get an awesome game what's your best uh what's your best for business pick oh yeah i was gonna say i was gonna answer this in two ways yes best for business pokemon pokemon alan's a big pokemon guy he loves a little he loves them like i played it as a kid i don't i'm not still into pokemon i wouldn't even be like oh here's the pikachu edition or whatever like it wouldn't matter but like i you imagine if they did the le's and it was like you get to pick your starter as that you know like oh here's your charizard or squirtle or you know i just know that this like we said about taylor swift this would go nuts on location oh yeah this would open up the floodgates to new players and for me as an operator like i know rodsey like i even told rodsey because this is like a rumored one i'm like dude if they announce this buy three out the gate i'm gonna put it immediately like yeah the game doesn't even have to be good this will do well yeah exactly right like even if it's not good but best for me like if you're asking me personally i don't think these would be commercially viable but big trouble in little china is one of my favorite movies of all time i'm a big carussell fan we throw carussell birthday party every year yep it is march 17th for anyone that makes a war makes the trip out we throw a big birthday party for him every year maybe he'll come out this year yeah maybe it'll be this year sign some posters for us but yeah big trouble in little china or cliffhanger i really like those late 80s and early 90s like action cheesecake movies like they're just goofy and stupid and i love them i don't think either of these have a lot of mainstream appeal now like ideally they would have been made in the 90s but it would be kind of weird seeing one of the real kind of like 90s cheesy movies made with the modern like rgbl like it would not look it'd be weird it should have been made in the 90s that's the hard part about the like doing the dream theme okay for me me personally number one ultimate dream theme like if they if they were just like okay we'll make whatever pinball machine you want right now same answer as before taylor swift it would make my wife very happy i know zoe likes taylor swift so it'd make her happy yeah and make a lot of people happy make so many fucking people into pinball people and so many people and it would just be a very nice shake-up I don't think there could be one theme that would have more of a positive impact on the hobby and I'd say that like earnestly like I'm like I really really think doing a big pop game would be very good for the hobby and I hope it's something that we see soonish as far as like other stuff that's not realistic like just getting kind of into like my actual personal dream themes that we never see that are going to remain dreams I would love to see someone do any of like the cool like really visually striking anime movies or series that people bring up all the time There's ones like Ghost in the Shell or Akira or Evangelion. Initial D would be insane for me because that's just, like, my favorite anime of all time. I don't know if we're going to get an anime theme ever. it just seems like it's like they license that shit out constantly all day they make little toys seems like the closest we would get would be pokemon i mean i know they made the show but i don't think anyone really considers that true anime do they i don't know yeah it's nice i mean it's not really like that's what i mean i think that's what it would be like that's what we would get anyway but yeah that's why you're like but anything like even if they did a dragon ball z i would be hyped it's just not something i would buy myself immediately would have to be one of like the big cool looking themes for me to go for it yeah um realistically like something that i think we actually see in the next few years i think we do see another john carpenter movie very soon that's my guess this isn't like an actual rumor it's just like i'm like i bet we see a john carpenter movie really soon and i bet alan blows his fucking brains out of spooky builds because it's gonna not be how he wants it so we'll see i think that's the problem with stream themes is like man that's kind of what i wanted to wrap up with that because i think the hard part it's like be careful what you wish for it was easy for me to really enjoy guardians and stranger things because i don't like the ip but the people that wanted those games and then they got them there's a lot of people like it's not how i wanted it and i'm like i don't care I love, like, if you haven't picked up throughout the course of this episode, I'm just kind of a weeb in general, and I like Japanese stuff, and I really wanted a kaiju game of any kind. I mean, obviously, I wanted a Godzilla game. Ultraman came out, it got announced, and I bought it immediately. Godzilla got announced a little bit later, and I was like, eh, it's a stir, and I'll play it everywhere, and I ended up buying one. So I do kind of buy stuff based off of theme, and it's hard if the game's not that good. That's all I'll say. You have the perfect theme, Godzilla, and they make the perfect game, Godzilla. Like, it's, they both, it came together. But, like, that's rare. That one came together. And so that's why it's like, okay, it can hit. But, like, there's a lot of themes that I do like that I don't like the games very much. Yeah, that's what I was saying. I mean. That's it. That's our dream theme talk. They got to make us a Pokemon Taylor Swift game. Combine them. Combo. Next question is from, I think this is the same guy. Same guy. Jim and Hill, man, he asked another. You only get one. No, we've already brought him that role. He said, what's something you saw in older games that's disappeared on modern games you would love to see brought back and implemented? I want to see a few things. They haven't really disappeared, but they become more marginalized. And I want to see them, like, return to their former glory. I think first and foremost, I want to make bonuses valuable again. End of all bonuses. Like, I love how in old EMs to solid states and even to, like, some 90s DMD era games, you could get massive bonuses. the kind where like it like really hurts or will lose you games if you play in a tournament to if you tilt like i miss that and i think it's important when you see that on a modern game it's like jarring like stranger things you're like oh shit the bonus actually matters yeah and it like changes you're like okay don't tell dude like if you tell you're a fucking moron yeah you're throwing away points because i feel like in the modern era you're like oh cool if we're having games where it's in the hundreds of millions or in the billions and people like join the billy club and you're like even on a hot ball you're like oh here's six million points like this ain't shit this matters nothing at all yeah right you know but like if it was a couple hundred you know like yeah under million 200 million like oh shit like yeah i need to consider this plus i love the meltdowns of big bonuses at the ends of balls like yeah i do love a good but that's the rick and morty has big bonuses too and the countdown's so good it's fun like that's the thing it's just it's something that was a common on so many it was the king of like old games were like you're building your bonus your bonus is so important in an old game and it's just there's so many games where like it's just an afterthought doesn't matter and uh you know that bumps me out where it's like you may as well just not have it like they did on ems back in the day where you're like okay it's not a bonus game it's not a bonus game i would also love to see multi balls without ball saves oh that's yeah what i love about some of the early 90s games is like i love multi balls with no ball saves but then if you don't hit a jackpot you can restart it but it's a two ball so it gives you like a chance to kind of go again so you don't just they all drain i really i think that's like the sweet spot to me of a multiball like make me earn it if i don't hit a jackpot give it back to me but we also have to do the thing where we have to go back to there are certain jackpot shots that are actually valuable and not every shot on the play field is lit for a jackpot that ain't worth shit yeah make jackpots jackpots again dude like i'm sick of these nothing jackpots like and i also think that in this day and age every game should have one awesome mech at the pro level like i'm talking about sterns here but like every game today should have a black knight with the flail and the shield or they should have the moving dinosaur head or the building should move in every godzilla like Maybe you don't get the tummy lock or the bridge breaking. The tummy lock. That's what you always call it. I understand that Stern's trying to sell you on bigger units, but every time I play Jurassic Park, I'm like, this head needs to move, man. This head moves, and it's magic. All of a sudden, this game is even better than it already is at getting new players involved. Yep. They see that one time, they're like, that was fucking cool. A new player's like, damn, that's cool. And I'm like, I want that back in pinball. it's like i want to see cool shit happen to the ball cool shit on location and it's like i know the pros are supposed to be like the you know the war ready ones that can just fucking sit there for 10 000 games and never break but it's like come on give us one mac like give us the one thing to like do with black knight and i think it's excellent like that makes that game really good example of like a simple one that's still very like dynamic and cool yeah it seems pretty robust okay for my wish that they would bring back from old games to modern games i said multiplayer multiplayer-friendly ball times because i'm sick of not being able to play modern games with my buddies because someone gets on a fucking tear and they're playing for 30 minutes we're all just sitting there looking at fucking instagram in the meantime like getting hammered just pounding beers when like someone blows it up and you're like okay man this is a joke we need more games coming out like pulp fiction where you can actually play multiplayer with your buddies and not you don't want to blow your brains out between rounds yeah i think a really really really good compromise to this would be just modifying the rules like even if you're going to have the same if you're going to have the same layouts and stuff because obviously people like modern games people like what they're doing over there at stern finval yeah i do too but i think it's very cool like on mando how there's like the impossible mode and i think it's really cool on jaws how like there's a little challenge shark mode in doing like the little stuff like that so we can still play multiplayer games with our buddies that's a really good compromise in my book i'm like that's just give me more shit like that if nothing else because it's like it's just good for multiplayer i think it's good to have more of us excited about the game i think the escape nooblar mode on jurassic park is super fucking fun yeah i mean all the little challenge modes i mean that's one thing that's not from coming from old games but yes all the challenge modes in general i'd just love to see more of stuff like that so hopefully string continues that next question from jaron is Karen says, I want to know how Howdy Partner was invented. I don't think I've ever seen such a consistently packed week before or weekly tournament before. I mean, I'm sure there are plenty of weeklies around the country that are just as packed. Howdy's pretty packed. It can be. We're going into the busy season. We actually, you know, if you want to come during the summer, they get they get lighter and they play faster. But we did an early episode about it, but I essentially created it because I felt like the established tournament scene in Portland was just sweaty that's i mean that's really it like and i hear from other people in different different cities and smaller scenes and they're like oh no man nobody's like that dude nobody's that serious they're serious in portland dude they're serious in seattle all i can tell you is that like it's different up here dude like yeah there's a lot of really good players and they're sweaty might be different but it was something that i think the portland scene needed and there's a lot of great players too they're not all sweaty it's not an indictment like we love the Portland pinball community but I was like man there's got to be something else because like these tournaments get lots of really good players that care a lot and it just gets a little bit weird for new players into the scene you know what I mean yep so this was something I wanted to talk about specifically because it's kind of something that I think looking from the outside in it's like oh this is just a simple little thing you thought up like co-op tournament think the reason how he's been so successful is because there was a lot more thought put into it than it might appear at first at first glance going back years to when howdy was first started or whatever the formation you know 3 000 years ago it was written in the scrolls i think it was me going to a tournament like one of the weird experiences i mentioned early and having a bad time and alan and i were talking about like what could we do to make a tournament not be like that we kind of started talking about the specific aspects of tournaments that we didn't like because we both like competitive pinball we both like getting together with people we know and don't know bullshitting drinking some beers or not and playing pinball competitively like that's fun the basic aspect of tournaments is fun we started listening to things we don't like and that's kind of the cold shoulder no talking headphones on competitive vibe the huge gaps between games and in general just how different it felt going to one those events versus actually just playing pinball with your friends and that's like what we want alan kept coming back we talked about this once we didn't really like get anywhere with it i thought it was just kind of like something we're making like we're just like bullshit and talking about like i would be fun to do a tournament without like this kind of shit or be like it'd be fun to do a podcast yeah it's all bullshit till we do it alan came back the next week with a little notebook salen always has his little notebook with him and he's got like a list of like 200 things i don't even know what all the fucking things were on this and it was basically this list that got called and refined on how to run the anti-tournament and it landed on the basics of what howdy partner became which was the team-based accumulative scoring balanced teams which were only balanced basically by alan's knowledge of the local scene i mean you put down your skill level but alan knows your actual skill level you know like i'd put the thumb on the scale and be like you're you're lying here having a friendly leader that's talkative a chatty person as your uh group you know like leading you through everything having the dentist office prizes that were exclusive to howdy partner that couldn't be purchased no amount of money can buy you one of those fucking howdy partner prizes i i've had people offer me like hey man i'll give you 20 for that patch or i'll give you this and i was like nope you gotta earn it dude gotta earn those prizes and it says champion on it like we're not giving it away the prizes are huge the prizes are a very delicate balancing act of being things that we all desperately want yeah we want the validation but none of it fucking matters we're playing for stickers and pens and shit in koozies and yeah like unserious vibe is big and that's something that i don't think other people that have tried to replicate this understand at all yeah that you're creating all of that it's all of the pieces working together big aspect of it is the judgment call ruling system there's no ifpa rules if you played in a tournament at howdy partner and you're like oh i got a stuck ball what's the official ruling for a stuck ball it's is it really stuck fucking try first before we go with somebody's time exactly and then it's like okay what can we do here to make this fair like every time it's like it's the goal is to keep it fair but first to keep it fun yeah and the like the unserious nature of howdy partner while still being seriously competitive is why it's been successful i don't know the format's one piece of the puzzle the vibe is the other significantly more important piece and cultivating that vibe is difficult it doesn't sound cool to say that you don't ever want a place to be like oh we're you don't want to be a vibe cop right we're putting in the effort to like really create this cool casual environment but it's all of the pieces the puzzle do that and that's why it works so well and why it's been such a hit and also when you get a sweaty in there and they start complaining about a ruling or whatever and they start comparing it you just go it's fucking howdy man calm down that's the thing like we're playing for stickers and keychains and shit bro like chill out that's it that's why it's like I don't think if you haven't been to one I don't think you get that yeah you're like there's not a single person there that is upset when they lose to Campbell yeah exactly like it's the kind of thing you're like we have characters where it's like Campbell winning feels like a win for the whole fucking place like no one cares it's all fun and that's like the beauty of it that is the beauty of it we and we switch players on different teams each week so it's like you get to know these people because you were probably on a team with them a week ago or a couple weeks ago and maybe you guys came in second or third but you guys became friends and now you're competing on different teams so even when somebody else when they win and they get their first howdy you're excited yeah it's one of your teammates winning even if they're not on your team that week that's all we were trying to do man that's all i was trying to do with the format as i was cooking it up and i'm you know it's awesome that it's been it's gone so well it's been sick seeing it like take off and seeing how positively people have received it. And obviously people trying to bite it across the country speaks for itself. Other people want it. Eventually it'll get out to the places that like, it makes sense. We got some regulars that are working on the app version of it and it's taken long, but they're doing it on their free time and they're not, they're doing it pro bono for everyone else. So it's almost done. It's almost there, guys. I know I get a lot of people asking me, I was like, it's almost there. I want you guys to have it. I can't wait for y'all to experience it. Yeah. Okay, next question. Revolutionary1666, very cool username. I always like good numbers tagged onto names. They say, I knew the show was going to be great when you guys started off with lightning flippers. That's right. That was a good way to start this, Alan. That was good. It says, not so much a question as a comment, but you guys made pinball fun for me again by not making it about speculation, rumors, or drama. For a long time, I got sucked into competitive play. I was probably not enjoying it so much, but I had a solid community. After listening to the show, I took a step back from competing and really fell in love with the game by just enjoying what it is and how wonderful and odd the whole experience is. I'll still join a tournament here and there with a totally different mindset. I really enjoy the show. Thanks for making it about people and not just consumerist garbage talk. Good luck, don't suck. This was awesome. Yeah, I guess if I want anyone to take anything away from this show, is that it's okay if you don't want to play in tournaments and it's okay if you don't own pinball machines pinball can be enjoyed in so many different ways yet it's so often represented in these two specific ways like home ownership buying games buying from certain distributors toppers like all these extra add-on mods and stuff and like what does your game room look like all that kind of stuff or the tournament players like i'm playing i got this place how do i get better i beat this player who's top whatever ranks like all that kind of stuff and you're like those things are cool but they're not the only ways to enjoy pinball i and i actually know for a fact that those two groups are significantly smaller than the casual person that will just play a pinball machine on location yep like and that's i think the big part of like the podcast is that it's like like the people that are just going and playing pinball on location that aren't playing tournaments regularly that don't own their own games you are the huge majority of the yeah but you don't get represented because it's usually the home collector that has a basement full of pins and all the mods and the toppers and follows the news cycle they're on pin side they're on the pinball subreddit and they're the ones that create their own podcast or or other shows or whatever usually yeah or it's the tournament players they're so far into the hobby they end up kind of disproportionately representing the whole hobby and the hobby is just a lot bigger than that you know we're happy to see that you were i don't know re-interested in pinball we could like spark that back in you because it's like that's the huge part you don't have to be discouraged if you're not doing good at tournaments you don't have to like like i just saw a post again on reddit i think today maybe it was on a facebook group and someone was like yeah i was 40th out of 40 at this tournament i've been playing for months kind of discouraging and you're like dude why are you comparing yourself to people like who cares you gotta go have fun if you're not having fun playing the pinball machines then it's like if you're not having fun coming in 40th then stop going yeah and if you are having fun coming in 40th and keep going going but it's just like the pinball hobby is not tournaments and vice versa so they're niches of niches you know like we are in a niche hobby they're niche of niches but like i'm a location owner and when i started the show you never heard anything from the operator's point of view or even like really much of the location players point of view either so it's like that's kind of what i wanted this show to be yeah we do history and we do other fun stuff like defending bad games on the show but like at the core of it it's like it's a location pinball podcast absolutely so glad to hear that it's finding the right people okay next question from boba gabe one says hey guys thanks for everything you do I do a lot, Boba Gabe. I really appreciate that. You're integral, dude. Everyone loves the water boy. He says, I fell in love with pinball this last year. And I must say, Whitechapel was a big part of that. I found myself drawn to the old EM games in the early solid state tables. I'd love to hear you guys explain why the old games are the best games. My fucking man, you're after my own heart here. Why older games are the best games. One, they play shorter. So they're great for multiplayer games. Yep. the art is typically more varied and way more unique than the modern games a lot of this has to do with just licensing constraints man they artists used to just like make shit like and now they're constrained you know and it's not the same when we talked to johnny crap on the show he was like yeah we're not going to see that again because like when i have to do an art package i have to get it approved by the licensor so yeah i don't get free reign like Python Anghelo did or like any of the old artists did. Yep. Three, I think the sounds on EMs and early solid states are really hard to beat. Yeah, I think that's massively, massively downplayed in the world of like licensed songs and full, you know, full quality audio and everything on modern games. You go play like a system one Gottlieb with fucking three beeps in it. And for some reason, that bonus countdown hits harder. It just works. And people love hearing the chime units and old EMs when those things are humming, right? Yep. And they love feeling the score reels clicking, like ripping a spinner on an old game. Like that's hard to beat. You know, I think they're also very easy to understand and learn what to do. Like maybe when you first walk up, but like they used to and they still do now. They'll put a small rule card, like an index size card. You used to be able to read those cards and know everything the game has to offer on that. Yeah, there was no secret multiplier. There was no fucking wizard mode past what was shown on the card. it was like do this you'll get this many points do that you'll get that many points and inserts will say 500 or 5,000 when lit like it's very here's how you like that thing yep and so like that's awesome that you know we don't get a new games i also just felt like the game still felt wild back then it didn't feel like a formula flipper placement sizes in lane stuff used to change a lot between the games and i love playing the old games to see that creativity it varies the play experience i wouldn't say that older games are the best games because there's a lot of fun to be had in all pinball eras like i'm glad that you associate us as the podcast and wedgehead the bar as like a place to be like this is old games are the best games dude i fucking love you dude like that's that's so rad i love hearing from people that love the old games but like there's good games all the way back to the wood rails like i think ramps are fun multi balls are fun modes are fun wizard modes those are all fun things just because i enjoy going to a movie doesn't mean i can't also enjoy going to like a live concert or show right like different things different things you know and they're and they could both be good and you could both enjoy most i find older games increasingly more fun as i get surrounded by deeper and deeper and longer and longer playing games i really like the breath of fresh air of like jumping back in and playing stars like it was like god this is like this is nice yep so i think there's a lot that we've already touched on this episode we've already i've brought up multiple things i'd like to see back from old games or whatever like it might not come across on the show but i like modern games quite a bit like i probably play at least 50 of my time playing pinball machines is probably on spike to like sterns like 50 of my time is probably on modern lcd screen sterns and 50 percent is on everything else but that being said the best part like pinball is the most fun with friends for me and old games are the games i play with friends for all the reasons that we've said above we all know what to do no one has some secret knowledge advantage we all what about the 80 page rule set for venom dude what about choosing your choosing your symbiote it's just like it's like i like i like the deep rules i think there's a time and place for deep rule set games i there's room for both actually enjoyed venom once i got into it but it's just like i'm never gonna play fucking venom with my friends unless they also know exactly what they're doing and we got the time to do that that's the thing old games like i wish more people would lean into this there's been obviously a few we talked about the throwback games and stuff in a different episode but i would just love to see more multiplayer that's the one thing i keep harping on here this episode i just realize all these questions it's like i just want more multiplayer friendly games give me more games I can play with my friends. Yeah. There used to be a fucking sign on every multiplayer pinball machine Williams made that it's more fun to compete. And they didn't. Gottlieb. Gottlieb did that? Oh, fuck. Edit this. I'm leaving it in. People need to know. But they didn't just like make that up. It's more fun. It's more fun to compete. It's more fun like playing with your friends. And it's more fun when it's fair competition. And that's the rules are a big part of that to me. So that's it. Old games, I think, are the best games. I think we can look at it through nostalgia. There's a lot of games that were made a long time ago that we just completely forget about because they were trash. They were missed. That's true. It's like looking back at music and when you're like, well, the music of the 70s was better. And you're like, no, there was a lot of shit in the 70s. You're just thinking of the one game. There's lots of Captain and Tennille happening in the 70s. That shit's trash. Hey, man, love can keep us together. But yeah, there's a lot of shit. And so that's the other part is old games were cherry picking the best ones. Yeah totally But that being said Desert Island like you going to get like one generation a game I would go old If I was by myself I think I would still go old If I was there with a buddy at Defmo this is a weird I don know Desert Island game we're getting into the whole thing. I mean, where do you plug it in? The coconut tree? Yeah, you'd get gills. If I was on a desert island, I'd get a gill against island. And I'd get really fucking good at looping those fucking Kona shots or whatever. What's the... Yeah, the Kona shot. Yeah. That's a good game. This is a Zoe episode. next question uh it's from csdf he says it's understandable but the podcast tends to be very u.s centric would love to hear a bit about the rest of the world every now and again zachariah endure the italian bottom even maybe that's beyond the scope of the podcast which is fine maybe that's beyond the scope of the podcast i feel like he's challenging us there i know that seems like a challenge i mean it's not beyond the scope of the podcast we could definitely do that But I will say, like, I mean, it's U.S. centric. Obviously, we're in the U.S., but pinball is an American game. Like from the inception of it, the vast majority of all games ever made were made in the U.S., almost all of them in Chicago. So in one specific city, a lot of those early European manufacturers were just straight up doing bootleg versions of American games with like different art and stuff, but like taking the play field layouts. but I would love to dive into some of those European manufacturers that you mentioned because, but a lot of them have like very little documentation. So it'd be like a challenge. It can be hard figuring out. You don't even know who the artist is. You don't know who the designer is. You don't know much about those companies themselves. Yeah. I responded to this on Reddit, but I said, it's not an intentional thing to stay us biased. I think it's just a reflection of what we know what we have access to and what we can find documentation of and i'd love to do more i'd love to learn more about the import pens imports to us yeah exactly i'm too u.s centric yeah dude so we have like the usdm pens i'd love to learn more about those especially if it means i get to go back out to past times in gerard ohio which has the largest collection of import pins anywhere in the U.S. It's an insane lineup of Italian and Spanish pens there. Yeah, if you guys are interested in all those European games, just book your trip to Past Times. Yeah, it's absolutely nuts how many import pens they have there and running and playable. Yeah, they're incredible. So yeah, I'd love to get more into it in the future. We'll see if we can manage to get an episode together, if we have anything. I've got one immediate topic that we think we could do, but it would be pretty boring because we're on the same side, which would be the Italian versus Spanish. We could do that real quick right here. Alex and I both played a bunch of these. Spanish games are better than Italian games. They just are. They just are. The Spanish pins, almost at least the ones of the sample, the ones, see, this is why we can't say in all certainty because we haven't played that many, but of the selection available at past times, Spanish pins were all very impressive, very fun games. Very fun, very weird captive ball mechs. Italian games, very cool art. Yeah. I'll just leave it at that yeah very very cool art but the spanish pens are fucking good games like i would own so many of those spanish pens i prefer the spanish pens too so we'd like to get more into that though next one from no impression 8118 he says listening to the pod at the gym and happy to see the water boy here on reddit you're famous dude i'm always on reddit you just don't know what my main is maybe it's down the line where i would like to see someone actually tackle the tarnished legacy of that one designer i'm not sure i'm allowed to name on this sub i responded to this one on reddit as well i said if only you knew how many times we've talked about doing a trudeau episode i don't know about how i really like his games so what a shit bag you are dude how can you like his games for anyone listening that's like who the fuck are they talking about what the fucking nerds talking about now trudeau was a bad i don't know why we always beat around this bush everyone's like he's a bad guy he had a collection of child porn he was he was accused of molesting his family members when they were younger he's a piece of shit dude who's rotting in prison and will be for a very long time he made fucking good pinball machines while he worked for gottlieb and bally williams along with a whole team of people that were working with him on all of those games and they didn't know what he was doing they didn't know he was secretly a pedo yeah it sucks and that's why we haven't done an episode and it it does suck his legacy is super tarnished um and it's inexcusable really what he did but we should do an episode on it because it is a weird thing that nobody talks about him yeah nobody talks about him it's like i even find myself it's like every everyone's always like oh yeah we don't talk about that oh he's a bad guy and it's like he was a fucking pedophile he's in prison he's a piece of shit congo still rips yeah like it sucks and i think there's something to be said i don't know if it's the place of a pinball podcast to go real deep into art versus artist discussion but it's like i don't know there's lots of bad people out there man that made art that i the way i look at the trudeau games is you know some people are like i would never buy one of those games anymore i'll never play one i would just say like he doesn't get royalties on any of this stuff you're in no way supporting him in any way shape or form it's a hard it's a hard episode but one that we should probably do in the future because my main thing is we've always talked about it and then he was like yeah but do we need to do that it's such a like it's not really fun and it's weird to be like hey this guy did all this shitty stuff now let's talk about how sweet these games are that's why but it's like and that's why i'm like it's hard to admit like you're like i like i like his games i like especially i like that era of got leaves and he was a big part of that and that sucks and it sucks but my thing is like we should do an episode because even if some people get new into pinball they google like hey i love creature oh i love i love all these other games and then they go hey i love john trudeau games in a room full of people and they all know and they're all like they kind of look at you weird it's like people should know that when they get into the hobby yeah it should be it should be common knowledge not this like we don't ever talk about it yeah this is not very fun it's not fun i just don't i'm not good at navigating this i feel like i'm gonna put my foot on my mouth i probably already have so we'll leave it there for now yeah next question much more fun thanks nate s says if wedgehead were an acronym what would it stand for like yeah the light-hearted good the acronym question alan what you got i was thinking about this i don't i wrote wedgehead so where every damn game eagerly haunts every alligator daily and then you know it's got some stuff on there that works it works i punched into chat gpt because i couldn't think of shit that didn't sound it was basically repeating a lot of your same words and so chat gpt after reiterating it like eight times it kept giving me ones that didn't actually spell wedgehead which i was like Okay, I thought this AI was supposed to be good, but the best I could get out of it was, we eat delicious grub, enjoy high scores, every alligator drinks. That's so good. Which is pretty good. I feel like you could put that on a shirt. No, that's really good. Got to give that one to ChatGPT. You know, you got to work, you got to put the work in, but then it could get something for you. Okay, next question. Is this, oh no, we got a few more. Coming to the homestretch. Darby S. writes, I love the podcast. Between you guys and Silver Ball Chronicles, I'm getting heavy doses of pinball history, which I'm loving. I really love the guest spots you guys have had, and I'm very much looking forward to more. Have you had any Atari pins in your lineup? I'll start off by saying that's good company. Silver Ball Chronicles is a great show that also covers pinball history. Silver Ball Chronicles rules. Yeah. I am very happy that it exists because otherwise I would feel a lot more obligated to just focus on covering pinball history. I mean, we currently do that, but I would feel like, oh, we got to go over all these topics, but they do such a great job of it. The hosts are great. Yeah, and it's a great podcast that everyone should check out if they don't already. As far as Ataris go, we don't have any Atari pins. It's not really high on the list to own either, to be honest. It's cool because they gave the Ritchie brothers the start in the factory floor, and Steve got to design a couple games for them, along with Eugene Jarvis who moved with Steve to Williams in the 80s and worked on video games and some of those early pins with him too but I just don't really like the Atari pins particularly they're all wide bodies like they invented the wide body I do think like Steve did two that are pretty good um I like Superman better than his other one Airborne Adventure I don't think like they're not super fun to me they seem like a company that was making video games like we got to get into pinball how do we make it different wide bodies like and then it just became like some of them are just like they're kind of fine but i would like to hear from darby since you asked i'm assuming you like some atari pins and if you'd like to write back again and tell me what which one you liked i'd like to hear more about it yeah me personally i've never owned an atari they pop up very cheap sometimes particularly if they're not working because they seem to be a headache to fix there's not a lot of documentation parts aren't super available but as a result you can get them dirt cheap like you'll find them it's like oh display's not working but gameplay's 300 bucks and you're like oh shit so it's the kind of thing where if you can get a deal on them i do think some of them are fun i've not played i've played actually probably almost all of them i think i've played all of them too in the i do i do like the richies there's that one of the guy I ride in the fucking space motorcycle that you see a lot. I think that must have been, is that the Atarians? No, I'm getting them all mixed up. They did some wonky stuff. They're kind of unconventional. I think they're fun in a way that all pinball machines are fun. And if you get one cheap, that's working. I'd say, you know, it could be fun. It's just not something that I've got space for at the moment. I only allow masterpieces in here like No Fear and Gottlieb's Rock designed by Trudeau. and uh yeah so maybe one day if i got more space you need a lot of space for an atari those things are big big boys boys at the display on the apron they got some wonky shit going on it's a weird they're weird games in they used magnetic switches this now i'm just getting atari shit they use magnetic switches that are under the playfield art so there's no like switches on a lot of them that it doesn't look like there's a switch on the inlanes which you realize quickly how bare that makes the game look and it feels like stuff doesn't do anything it feels like you're playing a home pin if you don't if you can't hear them if you can hear them and you hear like beep when you go over a rollover that's different but when you can't hear them you're like is this thing doing anything especially if those sound boards no longer work and there's no documentation or anyone making right yeah there kind of can be a can of worms i think they're fun i think they're a novel piece of history. Big question from Pops Pinball, our boys around the East Coast, how tall are both of you? I think we're a little over 12 feet tall together, aren't we? Yeah. Last time we stood feet on top of our head, like on top of each other. I think we're over 12 feet. We went back to back at some point because I think we're about the same height, aren't we? I think you're, I think you're like maybe an inch taller than me, inch and a half maybe. I think we're right. I'm like six foot. Yeah, I'm six foot. I think you're like six one. Yeah. I don't think so. I always told people when I was in college, I was 5'11", because it makes Midwest guys lose their fucking mind if they say they're six foot. And you're like, I'm 5'11", and I'm taller than you. And they'll be like, what the fuck? And they get really mad. So that was always fun. I've done that many times. I did measure myself when I got a physical, and I was barefoot. And I think I was just over six foot, like six foot and a half inches or something like that. They have you take your shoes off to get measured, but then they're like, no, just keep your fucking jacket, your keys, everything. You're like, what the fuck, man? You're not doing me any favors here. Very funny. Okay, so that's it. We're 12 feet tall. I can't believe we answered that question. Yeah, we're 12 feet tall. Yeah, in Voltron form, we're 12 feet tall, Pops. We got to fight the other pinball podcast. That'll be relevant information in the future. Okay, next question is from a guest on the show. is Mike from Quarters SLC. You know, we were just talking about him earlier in this episode. He said, I would be interested in hearing how you guys approach rotating games. Oh, this is an Alan question. Boring. Be interested in hearing how you guys approach rotating games. Is it solely earnings-based? Do some games stay no matter what? Do you stick to a schedule? Well, Mike, I rotate games in my basement depending on when I get bored of them. Okay, Alan, you can answer. That's pretty much it. We don't have any hard-set schedule on where we rotate games, but Rhodes and myself, we definitely try and swap three to four games every single month. But it's not like we go, hey, it's once a week, new game on this week. Like sometimes we'll swap two at the same time. Sometimes we'll swap three in one week. We swap games for all types of reasons. Like a game could just need like massive board work, like brain surgery or something that like we're going to need to just be better do off the floor. Sometimes a game gets rented because my business partner, Rhodes, does private home rentals. And if a certain game is requested, he's going to move it out and bring something else in. But most of the time, we just swap games in to keep the lineup fresh and interesting. Like, I keep a Google Doc that helps keep track of how long everything's been on the floor. And I prioritize moving games out that have been on the floor the longest first. Like, for us, the main thing that we do do is that we have room for 24 games on the floor. but we try to maintain a ratio of games from all eras that's like big as to like what we do and what boba gabe loves so much about wedgehead right like so it's like within the 24 we have i try to keep like the ratio the same so we keep five to seven kind of 1990s or early 2000s dmd games eight to ten modern stern games from the last 10 years including like always getting the newest releases so that they could be on the floor for people to play uh three to four like kind of classic solid states and two to three ems so whenever we swap in one type of game we always try to swap it with something from the same generation yeah so that we kind of preserve the ratio and that we never actually kind of swing too far in any one direction uh as far as like earnings like we're on free play now yep but even before we were on free play i don't really consider earnings like i think it's more like outside of like we have to have some old classics we have to have some obscure stuff we have to have some undeniable like triple a big earners and you have a pretty good idea theoretically of what's earning you know what's getting played you know what people are sitting on well we got to have some of those my big thing is like when you have an arcade and you build a destination the problem is is like when people come into any location they have x amount of money if they have ten dollars they have twelve dollars they have twenty dollars they have whatever they're going to spend on pinball is what they're going to spend yeah it doesn't and they're going to water different plants around there as they see fit you can't just put the 20 best earning machines that you've ever had together because some of those great earning machines are going to go down yeah they don't all there's the pie just gets split up differently so i don't look at low earning games as necessarily like oh this is a dog we can't have it i think you should have those because they add variety and for some people that's the first time they've ever played a certain game or a certain title or they've ever seen it and there's certain players that like myself i'm one of those players i will seek out places that have that so you're going to earn my business just by having games that are unique weird shit this so wedge from my perspective it's like you guys always do have like an intentional variety like like you said every kind of demographic of pen represented on the floor and something that's noteworthy is that you'll have shit that is definitely not considered like oh this is like a real this is like a hot it's like like a lot of places will have like a cool rare oddball pen but it'll be something that's like a collector piece that's worth a ton like a stargazer or something and you're like oh shit like i love seeing a stargazer and you walk in a wedge and you'll have like big hurt on the floor or something every once in a while but you never have more than like two oddball ones ever it's pretty rare to see even one that's because it's like big hurt looking at like the the wedge you're looking at the pin side ratings would probably be one of the lowest rated pins you've had on the floor in a while and it's not like it's like i would say that that game if we would have been doing earnings that game would have fucking heard that game got played it's kind of funny to me i don't know what i'm trying to say with this it's just like you never you never really put like it's just always a good variety if you walked in on any random day you're not going to come into wedgehead and be like oh it's all like system 80s in here right now it's like no it's going to be a mix you're going to see big hits along with like deep cuts we got to have bangers we got to have games that are undeniable bangers that everyone wants we got to have the newest releases but then we also got to have cool ems we got to have cool solid state games you guys also rotate shit out really quick compared to a lot of locations yeah and i think other like if other operators or other location owners are listening to this i think a big reason that wedge does that is because roads runs a route so he's always running games around town anyway and it kind of just seems like it's like oh if roads has something the van that makes sense stop by swap it in wedge it's like i'm a regular i come into wedge every week and it's like there's a new game every fucking week it feels like it every week because that's the average as we we rotate three to four games every month yeah is the average so we rotate a lot and to me that's how we stand out that's like it's a big key part of i think why i like wedge because it's like yeah it's not a gigantic lineup but it never feels stale yeah except for when fucking hulk was there for like three years hulk was i will say the only games that don't move is like godzilla seems like it will never move iron man jack danger signed our copy on the apron to wedgehead not iron man or x-men x-men yeah sorry man shouldn't move dude iron man i wish when it moved i love that game iron man to go iron man's so good if we could get bork to sign that one man it would just stay forever yeah but yeah the fucking new x-men's good hopefully that's around for a while yeah that'll be around so yeah okay next question tim b he says what games are the best earners in location another earning question or question yeah if i wanted to start an arcade what would be the first games i should buy oh can i answer this before you i didn't even read yours i missed this question i think you should buy sterns you should buy some new stars you should fucking go buy whatever sterns your operator has and like uh put those in and yeah that's probably they're the easiest to get they're reliable people play them i would they're hard to it's it's hard to argue against them okay you can read your yeah you got your answer like i said i don't really i don't track them like i did when we were on coin drop my business partner still runs a route in addition to wedge but some big evergreen earners when we were on coin drop and we ran wedge at a different format and just from like watching it get played now on free play i would say attack from mars deadpool godzilla monster bash medieval madness guardians of the galaxy are sort of rage fucking crushes dude i've talked to some other operators where it does well i've talked to some where it doesn't do well at all but ours crushes sopranos maybe it has to be a pro so yeah it definitely has to be a pro sopranos lord of the rings star wars ghostbusters james bond people fucking look for people everyone a lot of people shit on bond when it came out and people play the shit out of that game it's a gomez game man gomez games get played dude that's that's a good thing by every gomez game they get played that's like a good rule of thumb uh he doesn't make enough games anymore but i know he's got he's wearing lots of hats but i would say that any advice i would give to a new operator is skip band pins because they always earn less on location than other themes do even if the game is great like metallica foo fighters iron maiden because people that hate the music are always put off by band pins so they get played less than movie, TV, or comic book themed games, even if you don't care about the comic book or the movie or whatever, for some reason, it's not as upsetting when somebody hates a band, they hold it against the pin and then they don't play it. It also, even if I'm lukewarm on a band, it feels like you're missing more when you don't have the audio, which a lot of the time you can't hear clearly at work with pins on location. And so it's like, it's kind of depressing to be like, I'm going to, I'm going to play rush and you like pick your song and you're like, I can't even hear it and even though i can't hear the fucking theme song on jurassic park either i'm like i don't feel like i'm missing as much i would just say that like we have other operators in town that won't even buy the band pins uh road still usually does but they never do as well as just the average other stern pin yeah they they always do less kind of makes sense even the great ones even the ones that are highly rated on pin side and pinball players love they don't earn as well on location Okay, last one. Last question. Alan and Alex, question for the show. Could you read my email on this show? Tim Lee sucks at pinball. Thanks, and congrats on one year. Damn, Tim Lee. That's brutal, dude. Glenn W. says you suck at pinball. I don't know if that's true or not, but he wrote us and you did it, so maybe you do suck at pinball. y'all seriousness thanks for listening we appreciate y'all we appreciate every one of you for sending us in questions we got just a shitload of questions way more than i thought we were going to get if we didn't get yours on the air we're sorry there were just a lot there was a lot and we tried to get to all of them read it over too many social medias yeah that's the other problem stitching it together yeah we appreciate y'all here cheers to one year and do this for another year i think yeah hopefully hopefully yes he's gotten in him for everyone else you know go out and play pinball on location right that's what this is all about some pinball damn it that's what it's all about you're in portland come into wedgehead say hi to alan slow him down when he's really busy uh if i'm in there you can say hi to me too now point out the water boy i love doing that i was like that's him that's the water boy dude they're like what yeah look at him he's 12 feet tall but yeah for everyone else go play pinball somewhere else if you're not in the portland area and until next time good luck don't suck love love will keep us together Think of me, babe, whenever Some sweet-talking girl comes along Singing a song Don't mess around, you just gotta be strong Just stop, cause I really love you Stop, I've been thinking of you Look in my heart and let love keep us together music music music