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Here Cum Da Guards

BlahCade Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·36m 54s·analyzed·Mar 19, 2017
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.031

TL;DR

Blockade Podcast: Swords of Fury beta review and Eight Ball Deluxe restoration progress with technical diagnostics.

Summary

Chris and Jared discuss the Blockade Podcast's week off (Chris was filming), miss Arcade Expo 3.0, and dive into Swords of Fury beta on Pinball Arcade with detailed technical feedback on tuning issues and unintentional innuendo in sound design. The bulk of the episode covers Chris's Eight Ball Deluxe restoration project, including diagnostic work with Mike Levitt from Wizard Amusement, troubleshooting electrical fuse and solenoid issues, and plans for future repairs with a Stern technician named Nick from Las Vegas.

Key Claims

  • Swords of Fury has tuning issues on the mini-flipper where the ball avoids the flipper and drains instead of being hittable

    high confidence · Chris and Jared experienced this directly in beta; developers acknowledged the issue and committed to fixing it before release

  • Pinball Arcade's Swords of Fury beta has plunger lane tuning problems on Android where the ball moves through mud-like resistance

    high confidence · Chris tested the beta; noted the issue existed in version 1, was partially fixed in version 2, but still needs work

  • Chris purchased an Eight Ball Deluxe in good play condition for $625

    high confidence · Chris states this directly; Mike Levitt confirmed it was 'an absolute steal'

  • Eight Ball Deluxe had a burnt fuse causing GI lights to be non-functional; replacing it restored the lights

    high confidence · Direct diagnostic work performed by Mike Levitt during the visit to Chris's house

  • Eight Ball Deluxe has a bent fuse holder contact on the playfield underside that needs replacement

    high confidence · Mike Levitt identified this during troubleshooting; caused MPU to lose power after the GI fuse was replaced

  • The knocker solenoid on Chris's Eight Ball Deluxe is completely fried and needs replacement

    high confidence · Diagnosed by Mike Levitt; Chris plans to have a Stern technician named Nick from Las Vegas service it

  • Arcade Expo 3.0 had a 'swarm of techs' including top techs in the country working on machines

    high confidence · Mike Levitt told Chris this; mentioned as context for why Expo machines stay more functional

  • Williams internally called Swords of Fury 'Dixie Fury' during development

    medium confidence · Chris references reading this online; not directly verified but presents it as fact from development lore

  • Eight Ball Deluxe has 12 drop targets total (7 in one bank, 5 in inline bonus bank)

Notable Quotes

  • “You got an absolute steal.”

    Mike Levitt @ ~45:00 — Validation of Chris's $625 Eight Ball Deluxe purchase as a bargain

  • “Dude, you're close. You're really close.”

    Mike Levitt @ ~75:00 — Encouragement on Eight Ball Deluxe restoration progress after diagnostics

  • “It's basically a table that appeals to every 13-year-old boy.”

    Chris Frebus @ ~30:00 — Commentary on Swords of Fury's unintentional innuendo in sound design

  • “Here come the guards... C-U-M. If you listen to certain sound effects on the table, it really becomes quite inappropriate.”

    Jared Morgan @ ~28:00 — Discovery of humorous/inappropriate Williams sound callout in Swords of Fury

  • “Just clean it with some Novus and deal with it. You'll be perfectly fine.”

    Mike Levitt @ ~50:00 — Practical advice on Eight Ball Deluxe playfield restoration (clearing vs. full restoration)

  • “They've done a really spectacular job... it looks beautiful.”

    Chris Frebus @ ~20:00 — High praise for Pinball Arcade's Swords of Fury rendering and photorealism

  • “Every single time you flip the flipper, it does that sound... I'm not digging that happening every single flip.”

    Jared Morgan @ ~22:00 — Criticism of Swords of Fury's default flip sound effect and lack of customization in regular mode

  • “If your goal is just to play it and enjoy it and not really give it grief about what it looks like on the playfield, you may as well just draw back the general outline of the playfield.”

    Jared Morgan @ ~85:00 — Practical advice on pragmatic vs. perfectionist restoration philosophy for Chris's Firepower

  • “I have no clue what these metal parts are... Just go back onto IPDB and have a look at all the pictures.”

Entities

Chris FrebuspersonJared MorganpersonMike LevittpersonNickpersonWizard Amusement.comcompanyBlockade PodcastorganizationPinball Arcadeproduct

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Chris actively seeking local help and expertise for machine restoration through podcast, Twitter, email, and Instagram; willing to pay for parts and provide podcast exposure

    high · Direct appeal at episode end for volunteers in Southern California; offering multiple contact methods and incentives (parts payment, podcast coverage)

  • ?

    community_signal: Arcade Expo 3.0 deployed swarm of top-level technicians to maintain machines throughout the weekend

    high · Mike Levitt told Chris about the swarm of techs including top techs in the country working the event

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Swords of Fury has unintentional innuendo in sound design with 'Here come the guards' spelled as 'cum' and flipper sword sound effects creating inappropriate content appeal

    high · Chris and Jared discover and laugh about the 'cum' callout; Chris notes it appeals to 13-year-old boys; Williams internally called game 'Dixie Fury' at some point

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Pragmatic restoration approach gaining traction: prioritize playability and prevention of further degradation over perfectionist cosmetic restoration

    medium · Mike Levitt advises Chris to clear-coat Firepower playfield to prevent further degradation rather than full restoration; Jared echoes this philosophy

  • ?

    leak_detection: Williams internal development name 'Dixie Fury' for Swords of Fury surfaced in public discussion

    medium · Chris references reading about this but doesn't specify source; Jared seems to confirm awareness of it; framed as internal trivia

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.111

0:00
this is the blockade podcast with your hosts chris and jared wizard amusement.com the site to visit for custom pinball shooter rides easy to install totally unique mention blockade podcast for 10 off your order wizard amusement.com sales restoration customization
0:30
You are listening to The Blockade Podcast. I'm your host, Shut Your Trap, aka Chris Frebus. Joining me as always, Jared Morgan. G'day, Chris.
0:40
So, in case anybody noticed, we skipped a week. Yeah, we kind of did have a gap week, because things were happening, right? Things were happening, yeah. So sometimes that happens, and sometimes we announce it, sometimes we don't.
0:56
But, you know, no one said, hey, where are you guys? So no one really cared. so it's okay it's all well I can tell you where I'm not right now as we speak and it was on Friday, Saturday and then today Sunday it's the Arcade Expo 3.0 where they have the mega amount of pinball machines and all the good things yeah unfortunately I was the show I've been on Disney's Stuck in the Middle We were supposed to finish filming on Wednesday. Yeah. Maybe my sword's weight and everything, right? Yes. And then it got extended to no, we're working on Thursday, which meant our wrap-out day was Friday. So I wouldn't be able to have gone to the expo on Friday. And there's no way in hell I would go on Saturday. And last year, Sunday, by that point, half the machines weren't working. so they do I mean they get hammered all weekend pretty much so C'est La Vie they don't really have a they do have a team of people there trying to keep them up but they don't it's not really well that's what I thought that is what I thought and I will go into just a little bit later as to more info but according to Mike Levitt who is the guy that does Wizard Amusements. He said they had a swarm of techs this weekend. Some of which are the absolute top techs in the country. Right. So you could have actually taken your EBD over there and said, I don't know what's wrong with the sound. They would have gone, oh, no worries. We'll just put some caps in for you. That would be fine. Right. So yeah, that's where I'm not. But that's okay.

medium confidence · Chris and Jared discuss the drop target configuration; Jared confirms the layout

  • Swords of Fury sounds unintentionally inappropriate with 'Here come the guards' spelled as 'cum' in callouts

    high confidence · Chris and Jared laugh about this feature being appealing to teenagers; appears to be unintentional but not explicitly confirmed by developers

    • Chris Frebus / Jared Morgan @ ~70:00 — Highlight of restoration challenge and IPDB utility for reference documentation

  • “Embiggen Chris's Pinball Machines... Send the monies to PayPal at...”

    Chris Frebus / Jared Morgan @ ~90:00 — Humorous closing bit about crowdfunding Chris's restoration efforts

    • Swords of Fury
    game
    Eight Ball Deluxegame
    Firepowergame
    Arcade Expo 3.0event
    Williamscompany
    Stern Pinballcompany
    Nifty LEDcompany
    IPDBproduct
    CPR (California Pinball Restoration)company
    Disney's Stuck in the Middleproduct
  • $

    market_signal: Used Eight Ball Deluxe market: $625 in good play condition with minor electrical issues and one broken drop target assessed as 'absolute steal'

    high · Professional technician Mike Levitt validated pricing; machine in good play condition supports market value signal

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Stern Pinball technician named Nick from Las Vegas being brought in for specialized diagnostic and repair work on Eight Ball Deluxe

    medium · Mike Levitt contacted Nick to perform work on Chris's machine; positioned as someone familiar with classic Stern boards

  • ?

    product_strategy: Pinball Arcade's rendering quality has significantly improved with new 3D scanner technology producing photorealistic playfield visuals

    high · Both hosts praise the crispness and photorealism of Swords of Fury playfield in Pinball Arcade; Jared notes it looks like standing over real table

  • ?

    product_concern: Swords of Fury beta has multiple tuning issues on mini-flipper and plunger lane that developers have acknowledged and committed to fixing before release

    high · Chris and Jared both experienced the mini-flipper not catching the ball properly and the plunger lane having mud-like resistance on Android version

  • ?

    technology_signal: Pinball Arcade employing 3D scanner technology for parts and playfield documentation to improve digital rendering quality

    high · Chris and Jared discuss how 3D scanner is making a big difference in the crispness and photorealism of Swords of Fury graphics

    • 3:00
    I'm very broken at the moment. I did a mud run yesterday with my son. And it was a, I'd estimate probably a 2K course. Okay. And it was just around the school oval, basically. But, like, the school oval's got bushland and stuff. And they actually dug out mud pits that we had to, like, crawl through. and they had all these crawling areas and they had this bubble foam cannon that we had to go through as well. So it was pretty much like one of those, you know, tarred, feathered, and it was a bit of an experience, but it was a lot of fun. I was going to say, I can imagine your son was probably having the time of his life and you're just going, oh, God, I've got to wash all this.
    3:48
    Yeah, well, there was that because they had the sort of chalk paint stuff that they spray on you as you're running through things. So, yeah, it was pretty full on. And just as we finished, we thought, okay, we'll go up to the car and get our gear and we'll change out of that now and so we can, you know, get sort of dry. And then when we got to the car, the heavens just opened up and it was a torrential downpour. So we were already wet and muddy and we had a hose down. And we just went, well, not much point in us actually getting into our dry clothes. I was just staying in a wet place. Right. So we went back down into the oval and caught up with my wife, Kim. And she said, maybe you just want to, like, take everyone home now. And I went, yeah, probably.
    4:37
    So we all just trot back up to the car and we could see that it was clearing in the distance. And I thought, you know what, let's just wait here for five minutes and wait until the storm passes and we can sort of get out of our clothes and hop in the car and drive on home. So that's what we did. But it was good fun. It was very fun.
    4:56
    I think there would have been a claustrophobic worst nightmare, though. There were a couple of pipes you had to go through. And one of them, I was looking at it going, how am I going to fit through that?
    5:07
    But it was one of those ones where you sort of had to go down on your elbows, basically, and just sort of shimmy your way through it. And I thought, I can't believe I actually got through that pipe. It was so small.
    5:19
    But, yeah, I got through. It was good fun. It was a good fun day. So, in beta form right now on Pinball Arcade, we have Swords of Fury.
    5:31
    Lion Man! Have you gotten to mess with it at all? Oh yeah, I've been playing it a fair bit over the beta.
    5:38
    Fun game. Yeah, I've got a couple of comments about this table. The first comment, though, is regarding tuning, for how it's tuned at the moment. So, you plunge the ball. it then gets sent over to the mini playfield where it seems to avoid the flipper at all cost yeah there's some seriously strange tuning they're aware of it I was talking to the guys about it and I said yeah I sort of just around the sort of area where the flipper is and just below the light the sort of insert light that should flash when you roll over it there's some funky tuning going on there and they know that it's crook and they need to address it before they release it. So yeah, that'll be solved. Because I was like, I don't remember in my limited exposure to playing the table it being difficult to hit the ball with the mini-flipper. Because basically, you can't hit the ball as soon as it rolls off the habit trail. You can't hit it with the flipper. You have to wait for it to do a bounce. But then the bounce, 50% of the time, doesn't bounce back over to the flipper for you to be able to hit. It just would drain. It just did bounces. It did bounces straight down the guts, yeah. It's not good. Yeah, that was that issue. Okay, I'm glad that they're aware and will be addressing. There's also some plunger lane tuning issues on Android at the moment.
    7:00
    The plunger lane, it's almost like it's got glue in it. So when you plunge a ball and it rejects, it rolls back down slowly, slowly. It's like it's going through mud. But that's okay because they know about that too. It's obvious that there's something going on there, so they just need to tweak it. It was at the very first beta that went out. You couldn't even plunge a ball. like it wouldn't even get up the ramp they would get a rail and flip back out into the upper ramp area so yeah it was pretty broken but yeah they fixed that in the version 2 but yeah I think it still needs a bit of work, there is a little bit of tuning stuff outstanding I think for the game but overall though as far for the course now it looks beautiful it does, jeez done a really spectacular job and there's all sorts of little levels and parts there to render and it right um it's a little bit like um the complexity of black knight 2000 and all the stuff that it has on there but i think even more complex because black knight 2000 was dominated by the upper playfield whereas this is just like a little mini playfield up on the top and then all this other stuff well um it's yeah i actually went into camera view mode um and explore the table and I was looking at just the crispness of the play field. I'm going far out. Like, it actually looks, you know, the whole idea of photorealistic. Yeah. Like, I'm looking at it going, that actually, it looks like I'm standing right over the table looking into it in this orientation, like close up. I'm just going, it's incredible. They must have a super high-res camera now to do play field shots. Yeah, no, it's looking very good. I think the 3D scanner that they've got to do parts is really making a difference there super slick now the things I don't like about the table mainly is one thing that every single time you flip the flipper it does that sound or whatever like a claw or is it a sword I don't know I keep it for some reason sword swiping of course for some reason I'm thinking lion man and I thinking a claw yeah I not digging that happening every single flip I think you could turn it off in the operating settings but I think it's on by default, which is what... Well, that would be promo settings, though, right? Yeah, that's right. Right, which means it doesn't hold over to regular mode. Yeah, see, I don't like that. That's one thing I didn't... If they could... If you purchase pro mode and were able to do things that don't affect the gameplay. Yeah.
    9:40
    In terms of leaderboard. Or like the I think adjustments menu is actually where all those things hide out on those games.
    9:50
    You couldn't just filter it out from that, but yeah, it would be good if they... Family mode. Yeah, exactly. You play Spirit Stiff in non-family mode, but it would still count towards leaderboard. that kind of stuff just kind of bugs me because it's like I don't want to play Pro Mode because nothing counts essentially and it's a real pain to actually try and navigate through it as well like some of the tables in Pro Mode it really isn't well implemented at all so you get hangups in the menus and stuff like that I think what would be better as a compromise would be for those tables that have known features that you want to turn on and off, just have it as a pro mode pre-configured setting. So if you go, yep, I want family mode off, and then it just goes into the ROM and just basically sets that flag automatically as part of the ROM state that they load at the beginning of the game.
    10:52
    So you'd have basically three or four ROM states, basically. You'd have a tournament mode, which just locks it down to tournament. you'd have like the the pro not the pro the family mode options on those tables that support it you might have like extra balls off or something like that things that you know most people actually want to do um in most cases i have those as presets i think that would be a great thing to do yeah um the other thing that the part that cracks me up with the with the table and i think it's unintentional although i read something about what while the table was in development uh there's a euphemism that was associated with the table.
    11:32
    I think I know what you're talking about. I saw it as well. When the guards come out, you mean? When the guards come out? Yes.
    11:42
    Come out? Here come the guards, but they spell it C-U-M. Yes. If you listen to certain sound effects on the table, it really becomes quite inappropriate.
    11:55
    Yeah, I agree. When I read that, I went, when I got the mocha, I can't remember playing that game very much because as we talked about last time on the show, it was ages since I played that game. I played it when I was like 12. So I don't think I got that far in the games. When I saw it come up on screen, I went, here come the girls, come.
    12:18
    Yeah. If I'm not mistaken too, when the thing that I read was that internally at Williams, they had a name for the game.
    12:31
    What was it called? I believe it was called Dixifury. Yeah, that one got past the... No, not so much. Dixifury. If it was Capcom now, Capcom could have done that. Yeah, well, I think they attempted to with Zingy Bingy. Zingy Bingy, yeah, that's right.
    12:53
    That is very funny. All right, time out one second because my son is desperately wanting to ask a question. What? Okay. Okay, so the question is that in a science book or class that my son had, it said that Australians pop honey ants into their mouths?
    13:15
    You can, well, it's part of what they call Ush Taka here in Australia where the native Aborigines would actually know what things they could eat and what things they couldn't. Okay. Honey ants probably are one of those things you can eat. What you'd do is you'd pop off the abdomen of them, so the back end of them, and it probably would actually taste quite sweet. Okay. So the answer, buddy, is that it's something that the Aborigines of Australia used to do. What's Aborigines? Aborigines are the natives to Australia before the English came and gave all their prisoners over?
    13:55
    And basically turned it into a colony. Okay. Interesting. Okay. That was a desperate question brought in by my son. Thank you for interrupting.
    14:06
    That's okay. That is the trusted expert of all things nature here, Jared Morgan, the authority of everything. He's Australian.
    14:17
    So anyway, back to Dicks of Fury. Dicks of Fury, yes. It's only going to be the name of the show today.
    14:30
    But it is one of those things. Now, here's the other part they laugh about. There's one of those things I believe it's going to have to tune also, is that after you drain your ball, if you have the ball locked, it ejects the ball, right? But they haven't disabled any of the sound effects as the ball is coming back down. So in the silence, you hear this which again it's fantastic and they should not remove it so basically it's a table that appeals to every 13 year old boy maybe that's why I liked it so much when I played it back then I subconsciously thought that sounds interesting and it's stuck in my memory for that reason right so um anyway so there there was that a little bit of a pinball news let's move on to uh my eight ball deluxe and i'll update you on what's going on with there okay so here's the deal i had uh mike levitt as i mentioned earlier he he came over to my house literally two hours before recording this podcast all right cool and uh just give me just give a look see see uh see how he did with my purchase.
    15:46
    And also to see if he could diagnose what's going on with the sound. Other issues that I was having was none of the GI lights were on. I had all the flashing lights, but none of the GIs.
    15:58
    My replay knocker was not functioning. And I think that was basically the issues. So before he came, I was decided to do what everybody was saying that you should do, which is unplug and replug every single connector. Yes. So I went ahead and I did all that. And when I turned the machine back on, suddenly I had a couple of lights that weren't working. Hey, see, which was no, not fixed, not fixed. Um, so I have no clue what happened there. It was basically my, the, uh, first Ian deluxe wasn't lighting and the, uh, B insert light and the arrow that's above the B insert light at the top of the playfield on the little in lanes there. Neither of those suddenly wanted to work. So it was just those three lights. And literally before I was unplugging everything and replugging, they all worked. So there was that.
    16:59
    So he came over, he started taking a look at the soundboard. We are getting crackles and pops through the speaker.
    17:09
    So he was like, well, that's a good thing. and the MPU was functioning with blinking how it needed to be blinking. And so we were happy on that end.
    17:19
    And so he really wasn't. He was thinking that maybe my ROMs, I need new ROMs for the soundboard. They could be the capacitors.
    17:27
    I'd say it's probably voltage. That could be a thing. We weren't sure. And then I can't believe I didn't think of this. He was like, well, let's check the fuses. Oh, well, that's an idea. That's a good idea, yeah. So we lift it up the play field,
    17:46
    pulls off one fuse. Oh yeah, this fuse is burnt. So we put in a new fuse. Hey, look at that, all the GIA lights were back on. Oh.
    17:54
    Yeah. There was that. However, I then went to ask him, hey, my slingshots aren't very sensitive, you might say. The ball really has to come at them in order to trigger them. So I wasn't sure if that's something era appropriate for the table or if the springs just need to be adjusted to be a little more sensitive.
    18:20
    Because literally the ball if it coming on a shallow angle it hit the slings and not trigger them at all It just bounce the rubber It like you just need to re your contacts Right and that why I was going to ask him if it was again era-appropriate for them or not. But we go to activate the slingshots, and slingshots ain't activating. I was like, ooh, well, that's odd. And then touch the pop bumpers. Pop bumpers aren't activating. Oh, that's not good either. flip open the back box and we don't have any mpu light anymore oh what i after putting the fuse in for the gi that's what we were like we didn't touch the mpu what happened don't know so he's sitting there scratching his head about scratching his head about i don't know no he goes let's check the fuse on the playfield itself because there's one fuse on the underside of the playfield oh so we look on the other side of the playfield, and sure enough, the contact point is bent, and so the fuse isn't getting proper contact. So, I need to replace that.
    19:24
    Oh, right. That's just a fuse holder, right? That shouldn't be that hard to get. The question, I've got to figure out, we don't have electronics stores near me.
    19:34
    You know where it's at? Probably Wizard Amusements. You probably haven't watched some of those lying around. Well, there is a Fry's Electronics that I can get it from. it's literally a $2 part yeah it is, it's very inexpensive and I would need to defuse or desolder and then resolder the new one on which one of the guys on my show for a wrap gift gave me a rather called the beginner's soldering iron it's literally just a soldering iron, there's no, it's not fancy with a holder or anything else like that that's fine, that's fine good enough to at least get me going but But so what I'm hoping is that's what caused the MPU to flutz out.
    20:19
    Yeah. I mean, that's literally the only explanation we can think of because we didn't touch anything else on that. It probably does need to get that power loop back to the MPU to verify that everything is actually operating correctly. Right. I would think that it would have some sort of check saying, oh, yes, power to the play field. Check. Right. Wrong state. Check. alright let's fire up the game I think it would do that it would be intelligent enough to do that I think you probably got it right the other thing you do to test it is just put a nail in line and you'll be fine just put a big bullet in line in the fuse holder that will fit the bent contacts and you know it'll be fine no worries so anyway I say that because I've actually seen someone do something like that. Oh, wow. Yeah, dumb. Not with a bullet, but actually I think someone, not in a pinball, in a car, someone decided to put a bullet in line in a fuse because that's what they had. And then, you know, there was still something wrong with it, so it heated up and fired and blew their tail off. Now you've got other problems. Yeah.
    21:36
    Yep. so anyway i i asked him how did i do for the price i paid which uh i will reveal now 625 bucks is how much i paid bargain bargain and he said he said you got an absolute steal uh-huh he bloody well did so he said that the playfield itself looks like it had been clear-coated before um just kind of poorly yeah uh because it's the the it's cracked and so there's where dirt has gotten into the surfaces, you might say. But he goes, he just goes, dude, you're being nitpicky. He goes, just clean it with some Novus and deal with it. You'll be perfectly fine. Nobody's, you know, you're not doing a restoration. So, I think... It's what they call play condition. And when I say play condition, good play condition. Right. And then when he looked at the underside, he was just like, yeah, everything's just dirty. So I can give everything a rub down.
    22:40
    All the solenoids and stuff. So that's not an issue. Just vacuum it out. That's what I used to do when I was servicing them. Get your vacuum cleaner and quite literally vacuum out the bottom. Yeah. Huge difference. And then the knocker is completely fried. So that I will have to actually replace.
    23:02
    I wonder usually if a solenoid like that is fried, it was indicative of something else wrong with the system. So you might find that if you do get a new solenoid for that and you install it, if it locks on, you'll know you'll have a transistor problem on the board.
    23:19
    So what might have happened is it could have actually, like, got an open circuit with one of the transistors and it just locks on. That's what happens when coils burn out. So just check that if you do replace it, because it might be a crook transistor. He mentioned something about that it was a carryover from when it was chimes.
    23:38
    Oh, okay. And that that's just it. They would lock on on the chime or something like that, and so it's the same circuit going to it, if I heard him correctly. Sounds about right, yeah. Anyway, so that'll be needing to be replaced. he got in contact with a gentleman, I believe his name is Nick from Las Vegas and Nick is going to come out and take a look, I guess Nick works for Stern and so is very familiar with these boards and stuff like that and should be able to hammer some, figure some things out troubleshoot properly and get me up and running, so that'll hopefully be not this week, but next week that he'll be able to address that and come over So at the moment, it's not playable because of your inline fuse issue. Right, so I've got to go take care of that. Yeah, that's fine. Get it back up. Other things that I... Oh, I had one drop target break on me, snapped at the base. So the game came with a couple of extra drop targets. So I went and did my first time ever changing a drop target without removing the assembly, which was fun trying to pull cotter pins. when you don't have the right tool for pulling a cotter pin. Because pliers, you know, they kind of work. They're slipper little buggers, though. So anyway, I replaced the one, and somehow in the process of replacing that and reassembling, wound up snapping the base on another one. So fortunately, I had yet another spare one, so I put that one in. Now I only have one spare left. You can tell, guess what part I'm going to be ordering soon. In fact, I think you should probably just order a whole set and then do them all in one hit because what are they, like $60 for a set? It's about $60 for the set, yeah. That's like fine. Like how many, what are we talking about, five, six drop targets in there? No, more than that. There's the five that are in line for the bonus. Yeah. And then there's one through seven. No, yeah, one through seven, so seven more.
    25:46
    Seven. Twelve. Yeah, each drop target stands for one ball. Ah, right. Yep, that's right. I thought that they were actually... Oh, that's right, there's a bank on each side, isn't there?
    26:04
    On April Deluxe. There's a bank on the left and a bank on the right. Is that right? I should probably just go and play it.
    26:13
    Okay, so where was I? Oh, I have no clue, because... A little technical glitch there, folks. My computer has been wanting me to reboot, because Avast Security had some new thing, and it kept on harassing me to reboot. And, of course, I didn't do that before the session, and then I think it probably just finally went, hey, you know what? Screw you. You're going to reboot. You're going to reboot at the most inconvenient time, which is exactly what computer update systems always do, unless you're on them. So, yeah. So we were talking about 8-Ball Deluxe, and we were talking about putting a bullet in line to solve fusing issues. And we were also talking about the knocker solenoid being completely locked up. Right. So that's one that I'm going to have to deal with. But all in all, what Mike's evaluation wound up being was he was like, dude, you're close. You're really close. Yeah, real close. Real close. That was good to hear.
    27:08
    And then I went one step further before he came, and I cleaned up firepower a bit. Oh, you did? Well, because the Able Deluxe is sitting right next to Firepower. I had the head off and I had a whole bunch of crap just on top of the table, so it didn't even look like a machine. So I cleaned everything off,
    27:32
    reattached the head, and just thought it was there you might say and kind of looked like a pinball machine Kind of looks like one yeah even though the playfield completely out And then I showed Mike the playfield and he was just kind of like oh, yeah, you know, go ahead, clear-coat it. And I was like, I've never done that, but, you know, he was like, don't be afraid of it. I was like, okay, fine, and then he goes, just, you know, repaint the red lines and the black area because that's where I sandpapered off.
    28:06
    because that's where the bumpy paint was. So I sandpapered all that, and he's like, just do that and spray it and put it back in. He's like, you're being new, Nick Bicky.
    28:15
    Just put it on so you can play it. Right. And then he goes, he saw that my pop bumpers were completely removed. He's like, oh, you took those off. I said, yeah. And he goes, was it difficult? I go, I don't remember, because it had been so long ago. And he was like, okay, because you've got to be careful. I go, well, let me show you what my pop bumpers look like. and I showed him why I pulled them off because they were hammered. There were chips out of the plastic. And he was like, oh, yeah. He goes, yeah, you just need to buy new pop bumpers completely and be done with it. And I was like, yep. And he goes, you going to remember how to put it all together again? And I go, nope.
    28:54
    It's fine. He goes, well, you need to take lots of pictures. I go, yeah, I thought I took a lot of pictures, but I can tell you right now, I'm sure I didn't take nearly enough because in my head it was, oh, well, I'm just going to spray this. and in a month I'm going to be putting that together again. I'll remember how to put all this back together again. When I was cleaning out the table and looking through the box of parts and stuff, I kind of was like, I have no clue what these metal parts are.
    29:17
    Well, I'm like, hmm. It's easy. Just go back onto IPDB and have a look at all the pictures. You'll be fine. I'll be fine.
    29:28
    Just fly me over and I'll help you put it back together again. yeah because that's only you know what ten thousand dollar round trip uh well you know maybe for five first class yeah if you want to if you want to fly me over first class i'll be fine with that but you know i'll be okay with the economy so anyway the the good news is that uh i feel like i'm i'm on my way to to getting back getting back up and running and into having actual pinball at my house.
    30:01
    I think Mike's actually got the right idea with Firepower. If your goal is just to play it and enjoy it and not really give it stuff about what it looks like on the playfield, you may as well just draw back the general outline of the planet and just sort of lock it in, really. Because if you get it clear-coded, at least it's not going to degrade anymore and you'll be able to play it. So this is good. You'll actually have two pinball machines to play then. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, exactly.
    30:37
    So yeah, do it. Do it. And put drop targets in it because for great justice. Well, no, that's a whole other process. That's fine. Just a three bank. Just get a three bank like from somewhere. It'll be fine. Two, three banks. No, yeah. What you don't realize is that you actually have to cut some of the play field out. I think they put the holes there still. No. No, that was the deal with the CPR playfield that they came out with. It was pre-drilled for if you wanted to put in the drop targets, whereas if you have a regular playfield, you have to modify it.
    31:18
    Hmm. Okay. And I forget where everybody was saying that they were getting the... the three banks from. Getting the three banks from.
    31:29
    But anyway, that could be way down the line. How's that? I'll just get it back. Step one, get it flipping. Step two, take it apart again and put the three banks in. Yes. As I keep on pleading, though, if anybody is like Jared and just wants to get their hands on a pinball machine and muck about and your hobby, and you happen to live in the Southern California area and feel like teaching somebody that is a complete noob while having your fun and mucking about, please, please, please, please contact me. Hit me up on Twitter at ShutYourTraps. Drop an email.
    32:13
    Blahblahblockade at gmail.com. Contact me on Instagram. Again, ShutYourTraps. do whatever, get a hold of me. I would more than welcome somebody coming over and sharing their expertise. Maybe you like to do clear-coating and can guide me in that. Maybe you want to teach me how to solder properly. I don't care. Whatever input anybody would like to give me regarding my machines, I would more than happily accept it. Basically, what you're offering is timeshare on your pinball machine.
    32:46
    And when I say timeshare on it, basically timeshare on all the crappy parts, like fixing it. Yeah, but there's some people who actually enjoy that. That's their favorite part. You know, as soon as they get up and running. Yeah, there's a lot of people that I've heard them where it's like, yeah, I've got that machine all fixed. I think it's time to get rid of it and get a new one. You know, it's like guys with their, guys with automobiles sometimes, you know, their hot rodders. You know, the fun is in building the vehicle. Once it's working, it's like, well, it ceases to be fun.
    33:16
    Because they can't build any more onto it. Exactly. Yeah, it's done. I need to sell it, flick it, and get another one that's a junker, and then do it up. Right. So anyway, in all honesty, I'm serious about that. If anybody wants to help, and I'd happily pay for the parts. I just need to be trained on stuff. Or if there's anybody out there, like Nate from Nifty LED, that decides that, hey, we need to LED out your tables, and then I will talk about you profusely on the Blockade podcast, then we can do that too. Yeah, we can totally do some sort of contra deal to embiggen Chris's pinball machines.
    33:58
    That is the campaign. They go fund me. Embiggen Chris's pinball machines. Yes. Send the monies to PayPal at... Anyway, we're going to call it a podcast with that little bit of fun. unless Jared has something else he needs to throw in. The only other thing that I have is that it is tournament day tomorrow at Metal World, and that's going to be so fun. I think the lineup is still the same, but it's going to be interesting to see. The way we pick the tables is on the day there's an announcement, and then they go, right, the first eight people to respond get to pick the table. So it's going to be interesting to see what they are. I hope it's going to be Ghostbusters again, and I'm kind of hoping it's going to be Batman 66 as well. I really quite like those two.
    34:49
    Well, I guess we'll find out next week then. We absolutely will. Hopefully I'll get in the top five again or top four. That'd be good.
    34:57
    But yeah, time will tell, I guess. Well, good luck to you. Thank you. Why don't we all wish Jared good luck on his Twitter feed? He is at JaredMorgz.
    35:07
    And last but not least, if you would be so kind, go ahead and visit our website, blockadepinball.com. There you can find past episodes, show notes, links to websites that we mentioned during podcasts, etc., etc. And another thing you can do there is also look at ways to donate because our website renewal is coming up, and it'll be kind of good to actually get a little bit of extra, a few bucks here and there in the bank account, in the PayPal account so we can actually pay for it. So, yeah, if you wouldn't mind just, you know, using the PayPal link, that would be great. Or actually, I could say buy a T-shirt, but honestly, just direct payment would be fine.
    35:52
    Because you'd actually get more from that. I think we're going to get a couple of bucks from each T-shirt. And no one really wants to buy them. So it'd be good if we could just, you know, get a couple of bucks. If every listener just gave $1, we'd have $5.
    36:08
    No. we got more listeners than that but that's we do and we appreciate every single one of you okay on that note we're out of here talk to y'all again next week bye-bye bye-bye wizard amusement.com the site to visit for custom pinball shooter guns easy to install totally unique mention blockade podcast for 10 off your order wizard amusement.com sales restoration, customization.
    36:35
    Don't forget to leave a review on iTunes or your favorite podcast hosting service that BlogCade is delivered to. We can't improve unless you tell us how. Now stop listening, play some Pingol.