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The Madness Begins (2026)

NYC PinPod·podcast_episode·1h 37m·analyzed·Mar 16, 2026
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.031

TL;DR

NYC PinPod covers March 2026 tournament results and team league standings across NYC pinball venues.

Summary

NYC PinPod hosts discuss competitive pinball in New York City during March 2026, covering tournament results from multiple leagues and venues (Red Hook Women's Day Melee, Rock Fantasy Winter Open, Stern Army RWI, Pinball NYC team leagues), providing detailed standings and player performances. The episode includes extensive machine condition updates from various NYC locations, upcoming tournament schedules, and personal anecdotes about attending pinball events. Major announcements include Scrapple Land's first anniversary tournament, updates on league standings, and various machine maintenance issues across venues.

Key Claims

  • As of March 13th, 2026, there are 358 pinball machines in New York City at 74 public locations

    high confidence · Benjamin Furaga citing Pinball Map data on NYC PinPod

  • Kevin Murray won the International Women's Day March Madness Melee at Red Hook Pinball Museum on March 6th with 13.01 Whoppers

    high confidence · Benjamin Furaga reporting tournament results

  • Alberto Santana won the Stern Army March RWI on March 8th at Rulo's, beating two of Rob Wong's scores (one twice)

    high confidence · Benjamin Furaga reporting tournament results

  • Pinball NYC Pinball NYC leagues saw 21 of 33 Scrapple League participants enter an optional side pot—the first time more than half entered

    high confidence · Benjamin Furaga reporting Scrapple League statistics

  • Danger Danger, Ball Drainers, and Neptune's Treasure are undefeated teams in Pinball NYC leagues as of mid-March 2026

    high confidence · Benjamin Furaga reporting Pinball NYC Left Flipper and Right Flipper Division standings

  • Scrapple Land has grown from approximately 20-25 machines at opening to roughly 60-75 machines as of March 2026

    medium confidence · Benjamin Furaga noting Scrapple Land went from '20 and change when the doors opened' to 'three times that now'

  • There are only two Beetlejuice machines in the entire state of New York—one at Jack Bar and one at Scrapple Land

    medium confidence · User Flipper Eric comment via Pinball Map

  • Jess Warren (Stern Army RWI organizer) is out of town at the Texas Pinball Festival on March 21st

    high confidence · Benjamin Furaga announcing South Slope Strikes tournament schedule

Notable Quotes

  • “I want Spy Cat the Pinball Game.”

    Benjamin Furaga @ Opening remarks — Humorous aside about hypothetical pinball themes related to a CIA spy cat training anecdote; shows casual tone of the podcast

  • “If you have a failed switch, gate, or ramp, it's game over.”

    Zen Zakhiak @ Early in episode — Metaphor connecting public transit/pinball maintenance to his late arrival; establishes theme of machine reliability

  • “They've scored 31 of the 32 points that they've contested over the last week.”

    Benjamin Furaga @ Danger Danger team recap — Highlights dominant team performance; shows depth of league competition tracking

  • “Magnets are meant to create chaos in pinball. That's the fucking point.”

    Benjamin Furaga @ Beetlejuice magnet save discussion — Commentary on game design philosophy in response to magnet inconsistency complaint; reveals design intent debate

  • “Come in and help me lower the rake. We just got it and I want to make it easier to play.”

    User Dergy (via Pinball Map) @ Monopoly machine setup discussion — Benjamin calls this 'the cutest thing I've ever seen on Pinball Map'—shows community engagement and operator desire to make games accessible

  • “If Farfalla could possibly work one quarter of the times that I go to try to play it, it's worth taking up the real estate that it takes up.”

    Eric Sweetland @ Personal anecdote segment — Reflects on the value of even unreliable vintage machines to the community; shows deep affection for problematic equipment

  • “There was a dense fog advisory had come into effect. It was warm and super foggy and moody as I stepped out of the theater.”

    Eric Sweetland @ Saturday personal anecdote — Sets atmospheric scene for his impromptu check-in at Rulo's; shows narrative integration of personal life into pinball coverage

  • “I narrowly squeezed past the crowd to get back by the pinball machines.”

Entities

Benjamin FuragapersonEric SweetlandpersonZen ZakhiakpersonKevin MurraypersonGabriel ChasanovpersonWesley MichalskipersonAlberto SantanapersonGreg PavarellipersonRob WongpersonJess Warrenperson

Signals

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Pinball NYC team leagues show tight competition with multiple undefeated teams (Danger Danger, Ball Drainers, Neptune's Treasure) and several winless teams still seeking first victory; Danger Danger dominating with 31 of 32 contested points over two weeks

    high · Benjamin Furaga's detailed reporting of Left and Right Flipper division results showing competitive distribution

  • ?

    venue_signal: Scrapple Land has experienced significant growth from ~20-25 machines at opening to approximately 60-75 machines, driving first anniversary celebration with 100-player max tournament

    high · Benjamin's comment: 'They had 20 and change when the doors opened. They have three times that now.'

  • ?

    product_concern: Multiple machine reliability issues reported across NYC venues: flipper failures (King Kong, Roadshow, Harry Potter, Space Shuttle), magnet inconsistency (Beetlejuice), code glitches (Star Wars at Pioneers), bill acceptor problems, upper flipper issues (Winchester Mystery House), coin slot failures (Whitewater at Scrapple Land)

    high · Extensive Pinball Map user comments compiled by Benjamin detailing specific machine issues at multiple venues

  • ?

    operational_signal: Multiple tournament formats in use: Max Match Play with IFPA scoring (Red Hook, Rock Fantasy, Pinball NYC), head-to-head bracket play, group match play, PAPA scoring; tournaments ranging 20-33 players with optional side pots gaining traction

    high · Detailed tournament descriptions across multiple events with specific scoring systems and formats

  • ?

    community_signal: Pinball NYC leagues showing strong participation: Scrapple League saw nearly two-thirds (21 of 33) players enter optional side pot for the first time; multiple weekly tournaments across NYC drawing consistent crowds

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.293

0:00
sensal estate Happy Sunday, pinfolk, or whatever day you're listening. This is NYC Pin Pod, in which a panel talks location pinball in New York City and sometimes For those nearby surrounding areas, my name is Benjamin Furaga. My initials are BCF. And did you know that the CIA once tried to train cats as spies? I want Spy Cat the Pinball Game. My name is Eric Sweetland. My initials are HIP. And I'm a pinball tournament director in New York City. We're not sure if we're going to hear his voice this week or not, but he contributed highly. His name is Zen Zokniak. His initials are ZEN. And he is a multi-entrant to the NYC Pinpod Awesomeness Archive. My name is Zen Zakhiak. My initials are ZEN. I live in New York City. I haven't had a car in 28 years. I'm passionate about public transportation and pinball. And just like public transportation and pinball, if you have a failed switch, gate, or ramp, it's game over. Which is what I just experienced. Sorry for my delay. On this week's podcast, we'll do the things we usually do in Balls 1 and 2. In Ball 3, we will reveal the seeding for the NYC, double P, double A, brackets. That's right. It's March Madness. It's pinball. Let's get started.
1:57
Let's talk about competitive pinball in New York City and nearby surrounding areas over the past week. On Friday, March 6th, 33 players came out for Red Hook's own International Women's Day March Madness Melee, directed by Gabriel Chasanov at the Red Hook Pinball Museum. After 10 rounds of max match play, they cut to a top 16 head-to-head finals. Each of the rounds of the head-to-head finals was a best-of-three contest, and in the first round of the eight matches, only two of the higher seeds advanced on to the quarterfinals. Shout out to Dustin Bailey and Jonah Shlaes for being those two players. After eight players battled in the semifinals and four in the quarters, it was down to just two players in the finals. Kevin Murray won the day, beating in that last round, Wesley Michalski, two of the cooperative owners of the Red Hook Pinball Museum. I think of them as the two cooperators. There may be more. They joined us at the end of season four here on NYC Pin Pod to talk about what they were up to. Tommy Ortega took third place and Spica Geft got fourth. Kevin Murray got 13.01 Whoppers for the tournament and has entered the IFPA as officially Red Hook Kevin Murray. Assuming there's probably several other Kevin Murrays on the rolls. Word. On Saturday, March 7th, at Rock Fantasy in Middletown, New York, our friends, they, they, uh, We often would refer to them as the Orange County Pinball Club. They have a lot of events that are related to that, and there were surely some city players up there. But they gathered for Max Match Play qualifying for the Rock Fantasy Winter Open. It was 10 The Valley Company, Subsidiary of Walter Kidde & Co., Inc., Mirco Playfields, Tim Kitzrow, Barry Oursler. The top four were Mike Troup, Timothy Lawrence, Brian Estes, Flyin' Brian, who will set up your pinball machine if you want. He'll come down here to New York City and set up your pinball machine. He'll also transport it from wherever you bought it, in particular, if you're going to Allentown in a couple of weeks. I bet you Brian Estes will make you a deal. And Joshua Senzer and Kate Smith tied for fourth. Right on that money line were JT Harrison and Joe Brockley, who's been playing in Scrapple League sometimes too, I think, right? That's right, yeah. They each had 19 points after all of that. And Mike Trout came out on top after some finals. Mike Trout got 13.49 Whoppers. On Sunday, March 8th, 24 players showed up at RULO's for Stern Army's March RWI, directed by Jess Warren with assistance from me. It was bartender Marilee's birthday and her last shift and Bart made pot roast at her request. We played five rounds of match play with IFPA scoring and then cut to a top four. After a three-game round of finals with PAPA scoring, Alberto Santana won the day, Rob Wong came in second, Matt Grady third, and Andy Hayden in fourth. Alberto picked up 8.42 Whoppers. Both Alberto and Billy Vazine beat the cat that day. Alberto did it twice. The two of them did it in a game in a late round on Bond. The score table had been reset. And Rob added a score in an early round with his initials in, and then both Alberto and Billy beat him in a later round. Nice. And even though Alberto beat two of Rob's scores that day, he only gets one shirt. Them's the rules. Okay. On Monday, March 9th, all over the city, Pinball NYC's left flipper division contested round four, which, you know, might have been your fourth game or might have been your third Game or I think in one case might have been even your second question mark. Commonwealth saw the lesser players visiting Intermission Dolores and Intermission Dolores earned a nine to seven home win. The pin pals went to Rulo's host of pot roast the previous night and host of hot tiebreaker action this night against the aristocrats, The home team, the aristocrats, won 8-8. They stay undefeated with that tiebreak win, and the pinpals take their third consecutive loss. The mutants had the week off. We colliders went to Gebhard's Beer Culture, where the two-for-oners were simply waiting to hand us a 12-4 loss. We were down 7-1 at the half. I won two games on Indy. That's two of the four points. I lost badly on Spectrum and Pulp Fiction with partners in the other rounds. We were sad to not be able to play Embryon when we called it and it stopped working right after everyone had been able to practice on it and everything. It just like stopped working on the first ball. But it was also awesome to be there and see those folks.

Eric Sweetland @ Rulo's visit anecdote — Illustrates the reality of pinball venue management and how events can disrupt machine play/maintenance checks

Dustin Bailey
person
Jonah Shlaesperson
Stephen Flynnperson
Dante Olivaperson
Alex Kellyperson
Red Hook Pinball Museumvenue
Scrapple Landvenue
Rulo'svenue
Jack Barvenue
At The Wallacevenue
Pinball NYCorganization
Scrapple Leagueevent
Stern Army March RWIevent
Texas Pinball Festivalevent

high · Benjamin's note about Scrapple League side pot: 'By far the most, the first time it's ever been more than half, and in this case, nearly two-thirds'

  • ?

    venue_signal: Venues actively rotating machines: Revenge of Mars removed from Area 141st and replaced with Monopoly; Jurassic Park removed from Jack Bar to make space for Pokemon (second time)

    high · Pinball Map updates showing removals and additions at specific venues in specific weeks

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Strong community affection for vintage/unreliable machines despite functionality issues; Eric Sweetland values Farfalla even though it only works 25% of the time; references to Big Lebowski machine when 'barely functional' showing nostalgia/rarity appeal

    medium · Eric's statement: 'If Farfalla could possibly work one quarter of the times that I go to try to play it, it's worth taking up the real estate'

  • ?

    operational_signal: Venues host diverse events alongside pinball (baby showers, birthday celebrations, private parties); requires balancing machine access with other revenue/social uses

    medium · Baby shower at Red Hook Pinball Museum, Marilee's birthday party at Rulo's, private party at Rulo's during RWI prep visit

  • ?

    player_signal: Top NYC players participating in major IFPA tournaments; Alex Kelly and Dante Oliva recently attended INDISC (one of five major IFPA tournaments), indicating serious competitive infrastructure

    high · Benjamin noting Alex Kelly and Dante Oliva 'recently returned from INDISC, one of the five major tournaments on the IFPA pinball calendar'

  • ?

    operational_signal: Community members (like Glenn) providing ad-hoc machine maintenance and repair support at venues; tournament directors checking conditions pre-event; operators like Bart aware of machine issues in real-time

    medium · Glenn fixing stuck balls at At The Wallace, Eric checking Roadshow conditions pre-RWI, Bart knowing about flipper issue on Roadshow

  • $

    market_signal: Beetlejuice confirmed as rare in NY market with only two known instances; other classic games (Big Lebowski, Farfalla) valued despite poor condition, suggesting limited newer machine availability or collector preference for variety

    medium · Flipper Eric's comment: 'Only one other Beetlejuice machine in the entire state of New York' at Scrapple Land

    • 8:54
    Special Winlet visited the deluxe horses at Barcade Brooklyn, and the home team handed them a loss 9 to 7. That's Special Unlit's fourth loss, but the seven points is their best result yet. Milo's Yard and the Worms hosted Parliament, who won 10-6 in their away match. Lion Persons went to At the Wallace, where your New York City Flipper Sport Association bested them 11-5. It's a tough fight against a tough team going in just up into the final rounds. Either side could have done it. I mean, that means you swept the last one, right? We did. They liked calling Shadow World Cup and Deadpool. And we liked calling NBA Foo Fighters and Deadpool. Well, you only played two of the three in the final round when it was when it came down to it. What were they? Foo and NBA. Because Deadpool was the common denominator. It was, yeah. Balls of Steel hosted the Pinbots at Midway and earned a 9-7 win. It's their fourth win and their closest win. On Tuesday, March 10th, at bars all around the city, Pinball NYC's Right Flipper Division contested its third round. Everybody Loves the Sunshine went up to At the Wallace to face Harlem Globe Flippers, and the Globe Flippers got an 11-5 home win. Penister 6 hosted No Quarters for Laundry at Skylark. No Quarters 10-6 on the road win. Arcade Brooklyn saw the Shlubs come to visit Restin Pinball, parenthetically RIP. Restin Pinball a 9-7 home win. RIP evens their record with the Shlubs with that win. Trolls were at Milo's yard to visit Neptune's Treasure. Neptune's Treasure got a 10-6 home win. There was a troll story on Instagram this week that I will now read to you. Nearing the vernal equinox, the trolls, a rare animal species, wake up from their winter hibernation looking for points, sushi, and tacos. They travel far through broken down subways to meet at the watering hole to fight for their resources against Danny and the ever elusive Neptune's treasure. Hashtag planet earth. Hashtag trolls on top. We butterballers went to Midway to meet the third ball and we picked up a 10 to 6 home win. That was a barrel of fun. I want to talk about that in my bullet journal. Scrapple Squad hosted the Pin Babes at Scrapple Land and got a 9-7 home win. The replays faced Ball Drainers at Jack Bar, Ball Drainers 11-5 home win, and Danger Danger hosted Harry's Hand Grenades at Buttermilk with a commanding 15-1 win. Danger Danger piled on points for a second week in a row. They've scored 31 of the 32 points that they've contested over the last week. These teams are still undefeated. Danger Danger, Ball Drainers, and Neptune's Treasure. These teams are still seeking their first win, the replays, pin babes, the hand grenades, and the third ball. On Wednesday, March 11, 33 players gathered at Scrapple Land in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, for the second qualifying week of Scrapple League's 2026 Season 2, directed by Greg Pavarelli, myself, Woody Richman, and Harlan Aida-Linda. We played five rounds of group match play with IFPA scoring in the hopes of garnering the most points towards our series total. CJ Smith and Greg Pavarelli both picked up 31 points on Wednesday night. Sean Grant got 28 and Alberto Santana 27. There were 21 entries into the optional side pot of the 33 people this past Wednesday. By far the most, the first time it's ever been more than half, and in this case, nearly two-thirds. All of the top four finishers were also top four moneyers. On Thursday, March 12th, at Jack Bar, at 8 o'clock sharp, strikes by the GC, who may or may not be the grand champion, but is almost certainly Gabriel Chasanov, were convened and Travis Rosenberg bested the field, the first of whom was, same said, Gabriel Chasanov. They were in front of Gideon Co. and David Potlock. Keep an eye out for future Thursday Night Strikes to maybe start a little earlier.
    14:52
    South Slope Pinball League had an off week this week. First week of qualifying for the second season of 2026. Next Thursday is your best intelligence. That's how I understand it. Yep. Very good. I don't see it on match play and I didn't go to IFPA to look, But because leagues are confusing there, but cool. Well, I'll tell you what we're going to do this week.
    15:15
    On Monday, March 16th, the two for one-ers, I sure hope we're going to go to Scrappleland, and at least based on one team member, I bet they are, to face the Pinbots. Two for one-ers and Pinbots are both with 500 records. One of them will end the night over 500. Your New York City Flipper Sport Association will host the Aristocrats at the Wallace. The Aristocrats are as of yet undefeated, but they are starting their toughest stretch of matches on their schedule. Well, we got NYC FSA this week, the Mutants next week, then Balls of Steel, and then their home rivals, Special When Lit. The Lesser Players will play host to the Lion Persons at Gebhardt's Beer Culture. Lion Persons still looking for their first win. Worms will have a bye week. Time to Collect Themselves, looking to get their first win in week five. The deluxe horses will visit their animalistic hosts, Parliament, at Owl Farm. The mutants will host Balls of Steel at Solid State. One of those teams will get their first loss. We Colliders will visit Rulo's for the second time this season and face Special When Lit. The people in lit is looking to get their first win. On Tuesday, March 17th in the right flipper division, trolls head to solid state to see no quarters for laundry. The replays visit schlubs at Jack Bar. Replays are looking for their first win on the road. Schlubs took their first loss last week. Everybody Loves the Sunshine will host Danger Danger at Sunshine Laundromats. And maybe if I were the home team, I'd be shaking in my shoes based on the results of the last two weeks. Rest in pinball, parenthetically RIP, will come to Buttermilk Bar to see us butterballers. Y'all are both two and one. RIP has 23 points so far. Y'all have 25 points so far. Someone will gain significant ground over the other here. It may not last more than a couple of weeks, but for at least a week or two, you're going to have a big bonus over the other team if you win this match, I think, whichever one of you does. Milo's Yard will see the Ball Drainers come to visit Neptune's Treasure. One of those teams will take their first loss this season. The Harlem Globe Flippers go to Scrapple Land to face Scrapple Squad. They're both 2-1, but the Globe Flippers have seven more points on the season already in just this short amount of time. The Pin Babes will welcome the third ball to birdies. It'll be their first visit, and one of those two teams will earn their first win this week. And Pinister Six goes to Bar Grade Harry to face Harry's Hand Grenades. Jerry's Hand Grenades is also looking for their first win. If they can get a win and a big score, they could jockey for position at the bottom of sort of the orbit playoffs while third ball and pin babes are beating up on each other. Like this is an opportunity for them if they can pick something up here. Christian Klossner emailed us to let us know that the pinbots and lesser players will make up their snow date match this Wednesday the 18th before Scrapple League. On Wednesday at pinball 8 o'clock at Scrapple Land, Scrapple League will be convened. That's in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. It might be easier to go from the G, it might be easier to go from the 7. It's pretty easy from the B48. You can take a city bike and get some spicy nudes on the way if that's how you get down. On Thursday at 8 o'clock sharp at Jack Bar in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, No Bro Presents Thursday Night Strikes, March 12th, 2026, which was last night. But it'll happen on the night, dude. South Slope Pinball League should have its first qualifying session of its next season at Buttermilk Bar in Park Slope, Pinball 8 o'clock. There are a couple of cool things on Saturday. One is the Scrapple Land first anniversary tournament. I want to say the most significant thing that I see on the listing in Match Play. Max of 100 players. It's the first anniversary. They had, you know, 20 and change when the doors opened. They have three times that now. I like it. I'm glad there's a first anniversary tournament. I'm probably not going to make it to Greenpoint, but I'm glad there's a first anniversary tournament. Also on Saturday, the 21st, South Slope Strikes at primarily out of Buttermilk this month. We'll have signups at five o'clock on a 5.30 start. Tournament Director Jess Warren will be out of town at the Texas Pinball Festival, so I'll be stepping in as the Guest Tournament Director. Ooh. Are you gonna bake something? She always bakes something. She has already given me cookies to bring. Good. Glad to hear that. And on Sunday, March 22nd, Michelle's Martini Max Match Play Madness will be held at Pennehan Gardens. Directed by Kate Martin with a cap of 32 players and it looks like it's full. But maybe there's a wait list. As of March 13th, 2026, there are 358 pinball machines in New York City at 74 public locations. Thanks to the creators and users of Pinball Mat for this data, here are machine updates from the past week. On Saturday, March 7th, user MHG commented on the King Kong at Bar Great Harry, saying, Playing really great except punch back is a little tired and doesn't always punch. Or doesn't punch hard enough to send it all the way back around. I really appreciate the compliment sandwich there of playing great and or maybe it's just like slightly not right. But, but that actually I'm reporting a problem but... User Levi's Stuff or Levi's Tough went to ScrappleLands. They commented on Harry Potter. Very fun to play. Spent about an hour just constantly playing it. And they also commented on Beetlejuice. Very fun game. Played about 10 matches on it and three of them I got extra games. Maybe rigged. I don't know. I love that they call it matches and I want to assume that they are British and that my liquid you just made a lot of sense to them. On Monday, user CKFlips played the Iron Maiden at Midway and said, rubber on right sling fraying at post and worse than a couple days ago affects the post transfer. That's interesting. I know a player with the initial CK who was at Midway on Monday night. Oh. User WATV went to a few places on Monday and left the following comments. At Barcade Brooklyn, WATV said that the total nuclear annihilation plays floaty and odd. Fucking tombstone. And Paragon is the best and cleanest machine here. For dialed in, WATV commented far from dialed in conditionally. WATV also stopped by Scrap to try out Winchester Mystery House They said had some intermittent upper flip flipper issues as well but otherwise it a beautiful game And then WA TV was at Sunshine Laundromat They let us know whirlwind is turned off and for the shadow, avoid at all costs. What evil lurks in the heart of men? Of Space Shuttle, WA TV said, the best playing machine here, IMO. And of Super Mario Brothers Mushroom World, they said, plays great, what a treat. Also, they were on mushrooms when they said it was a treat to play this game. W.A.T.V. complained about Pop-A-Card saying, gave me one ball two times and no balls three times. Sad face. Pop-A-Card was on my list for the thing we're going to talk about in Ball 3. I don't think we're going to talk about it after this. But it was on my list for that. And of Evil Knievel, WATV said, left flipper sticks up in and out of position continuously. And then popped into Jack Bar also to let us know the Fishtails plays wonderfully. User Flipper Fiend was also at Jack Bar to comment on their Beetlejuice, the bill acceptor is working and ready to be fed your cash money. It's my favorite kind of money. Then user B Deacon popped into Barcade Chelsea and commented on Stranger Things, It's Back On. Third best state of repair. On Tuesday, user Flipper Eric was at Jack Bar to comment on Beetlejuice. They said, nice ad by Jack Bar. Only one other Beetlejuice machine in the entire state of New York. That would be the one at Scrapple Land, I guess. I mean, and who knows how long it lasts. That, you know, comment is true. It's that, that, that could, that's subject to change quickly, I imagine, based on the age of the machine. On Wednesday, user Flipper Fiend decided to try the Beetlejuice that's at Scrapplelands. Oh. They said, bill accepts are broken. But they also said, the magnet save feature is wonky, catches the ball as intended, But the release is wildly inconsistent. Sometimes throws up to the scoop with full strength, other times just kind of dribbles the ball into the season. Magnets are meant to create chaos in pinball. That's the fucking point. Flipper Fiend also commented on ScrappleLand's Whitewater to let us know the both coin slots are broken. Boo. User Murdapin tried the Star Wars that's at Pioneers and said, game code is completely busted, machine doing wacky things, glitching through menu items, disabling flippers, etc. Also on Wednesday, a revenge from Mars was removed from area 141st, that's a bar on First Avenue on the Lower East Side, and a monopoly was added in its place. User Dergy said, come in and help me lower the rake. We just got it and I want to make it easier to play. That is the cutest thing I've ever seen on Pinball Map. Durkee also commented on the World Cup Soccer that's at Area 141st and said, It's working well now. Harry gave her a tune-up. The goalie sometimes does not play his position, but other than that, a fun game. On Thursday, Flipper Fiend noted that the Cyclone at Scrapple Land has a pretty dramatic tilt to the left, visibly not level. Also on Thursday, Jurassic Park went out of the lineup at Jack Bar, again, to make space for Pokemon. You heard it here way after first.
    28:32
    What kind of pinball did you play? We talked last Friday. What have you done since then? Since then, we talked about how you competed, which is like data, which is like spreadsheets. But the real question here is, you know, what'd you do? How was Eric? I got a Saturday, but we talked on Friday. I bet you have a Saturday too. I do. Saturday evening, I had tickets to an event. I went to see Judge John Hodgman at the Bell House. It was a fun little casual show. Jesse Thorne had come in from LA and his special guest Ira Glass, who was very charming. They finished up the show with a few songs. Jesse Thorn sang a song accompanying himself on ukulele.
    29:33
    And then John Hodgman came out and did two songs accompanying himself on ukulele. Both songs by Tom Waits. First, he played Time using his regular voice. Sure. And then in his Tom Waits impression, which is a running gag on the Judge John Hodgman podcast that he does to annoy Jesse Thorne. I don't remember what the second song was. That ended the show and I stepped outside onto the streets of Gowanus and the dense fog advisory had come into effect. It was warm and super foggy and moody as I stepped out of the theater. Cool. I popped in my earphones and I played my favorite Tom Waits album while I walked up the hill to Fifth Avenue and took a stroll past all the pinball bars. Sure. I took a peek in at Skylark first. You didn't look at Hi-Dive? Ah, I wasn't that far. Oh, okay, very good. Sorry, yeah, yeah, yeah, right. I was on like 7th Street, Bell House. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right, right, right, right, right. Up there. Yeah, right. And I had a goal in mind. So I walked past Skylark, I could see Stephen Flynn through the front window. Right. And assumed, okay, there'll be some pinball people in there. But I had a goal in mind, I kept walking. You know, you can't actually see too much through the windows when you're just walking by. I didn't stop at Monroe. Not with that attitude, you can't. No. Didn't stop at Commonwealth. The bartenders know me at every bar except for Young Ethel's along Fifth Avenue. If I walked up and like planted my face against the glass to look and see if there was someone playing in there, at least if it's the afternoon bartender. The people who walk in the door at 9 to 9 p.m. to midnight, they don't know who the fuck I am. But the people who are there in the afternoon, if I just did that, they'd be like, oh, it's that guy who walks in and buys basically water and beer. Yeah, exactly. It's that time of year again. Exactly that. Like, it's that guy. They all know at least me in that way. But, but, so did you go to McConewell? What was the goal? I just had the idea in my head that the next day was the RWI and I thought I'd pop into Rulo's and check on the machine conditions. Sure. See if anything needed to be fixed or, you know, what to find out. It was pretty crowded. They were hopping on a Saturday night. Bart was right by the front, so I greeted Bart as I came in and said, hey, good business tonight. I thought I'd just drop in and play a couple games before tomorrow to check on conditions. He's like, oh, OK, well, I already know the one of the upper flippers on Roadshow is totally flaking out. But. So he he was already like jive to the conditions of stuff where so I sort of had to. I narrowly squeezed past the crowd to get back by the pinball machines. It turns out it was a party that had booked the place. So it was a big party. They were taking up most of the space. I didn't want to bother anyone. You know, I got a drink from Nico and a road show happened to be fairly free of the crowd and it had a credit on it. So I played it. Nice. I could verify, yes, the flipper is a little messed up. And then just to stay out of everyone's way, I went and played a couple games of X-Men. Because it's out of the way. It's way in the back, and even though you kinda gotta put your foot in a weird place because there is a very necessary and appropriate ramp that gets you out the back door, it, uh, just, you gotta put your foot in a weird place because it's by the back door. And there's gotta be a ramp up to the place. It's a little weird. But it also and it's X-Men, uncanny X-Men, not Magneto up center shot X-Men, Sentinel up center shot, up center right shot X-Men and weird panic room nonsense. Yeah, so I had a couple of blog games on that and then I had finished my drink and said, okay, that's, you know, I'm not going to force my way onto the other pins. There's a party happening. I don't want to get in their way. So I started heading out and then who had just come in? It was Stephen Flynn. Nice. And Lily and Pat. Of course, the Flynn's. Yeah. And they were, yeah, they were starting up a game of roadshow and I said, well, nice to see you for the moment, but I'm going to head home. Right. Back out into the fog and some more Tom Waits. Uh huh. Pin Pals 3 approached and yet you emerged into the fog. What did you do on Saturday?
    35:43
    You know, there was a baby shower at the Red Hook Pinball Museum. We Colliders were a team in the only thing that happened, which was a trivia thing from Trivial Dispute. The Valley Company, Subsidiary of Walter Kidde & Co., Inc., Mirco Playfields, Tim Kitzrow, Barry Oursler.
    36:26
    I saw a bunch of colliders and I saw people that I saw at the Chulia wedding. I saw the Flynn's also on on I guess the same Saturday you're you were talking about right? Yeah, we saw Stephen Flynn. The Flynn's were out and about or out and about if one of them was Canadian, but they are none of them are. I'm aware of this. We could, you know, if we had some ham, we could have a ham and cheese sandwich if we had some cheese. Nice. But I saw them on Saturday at the Red Hook Pinball Museum. You saw them somewhere else on Saturday. It was great to go play there. A lot of what I chose, what I will choose when you hear Ball 3 momentarily, is what was related to what I did there. I, you know, it was awesome. It was a great Saturday night. And then I met my wife at one of our favorite restaurants on 4th Avenue in Park Slope. No, 5th Avenue on Park Slope, but way up, like, almost by the Barclays Center. And I had a kick-ass pork chop with what I hoped was going to be a potato and mortadella mixed together cake. But it was a potato cake sitting on top of a slice of mortadella. And yes, that's right, I just said I had pork on pork fucking crime for dinner on Saturday night and it was delicious. Did you do a Sunday thing? You did a Sunday thing. You were at RWI. I'm not trying to tell you where you played pinball, but I think I heard before. I had a good time at RWI. Just missed, didn't just, but closely missed the cut line to get into finals, but was there to, you know, to help out TDing throughout the rest of it. But I mean, some of the highlights, I tried their frozen grasshopper drink, which is bright green and tastes like creme de menthe. Right. The pot roast that Bart made was really good and it was really cool, you know, having, being there for Marilee's last shift and her birthday. So it was like a big party for Marilee. Yeah. Very cool. I left work on the Upper West Side and walked to my pinball venue for the night. And I played a few games and then I went to the diner that was relatively nearby so that I could be somewhere other than my pinball venue for some amount of time before I went home on a long subway ride relatively late at night. You know, I mean, it's not that long. It's just once it gets to be late at night, it becomes more difficult.
    39:39
    I was disappointed that when I walked in the door, Farfalla didn't work. And I put 50 cents in it, which is the cost of admission. And I pressed start and it reset all the switches the way it's supposed to and it did not start the game and the flippers never worked and there were zero credits. And so I put 50 more cents in to do the same thing and had the same result and, you know, understood that I was already insane, but I shouldn't be more so. When the other team showed up, I, you know, Hagen went straight to it and I said, dude, I, I tried. I'm not going to tell you not to put more money into it, but I tried and I don't think it will work. And he turned it off. And I'm incredibly gratified that Glenn came by on his way to his match with you at At The Wallace to see if he could fix Farfalla. After, like, I had walked in and identified that, like, there's a problem, and it's a problem that means that, like, we just can't put money in it. It's just not, like, we just shouldn't, we should turn it off. And that he stopped by on the way, and I was also disappointed, I'm sorry to say, and, but also, I recognized that this is par for the course, When we had been able to practice on Embryon, everyone had played Embryon during rounds one and two in practice. And then in round three, when we called two Embryon games, it stopped working. And stopped working in specifically the way that I had experienced it to have not been working a couple of weeks ago. It's still on to get to the place where we part.
    42:25
    He has solid state machines that are hard to maintain on site. And I, however often they're working in the same way that I will say in Ball 3 how I loved the Big Lebowski when Peter was the only one who had one and it was barely functional. I, this is the same thing. It, if Farfalla could possibly work one quarter of the times that I go to try to play it, it's worth taking up the real estate that it takes up. For me, to me, I, I don't, I don't pay the rent on that real estate. So it's not really relevant what it's worth to me, but it's worth that to me. Well, we were glad to have Glenn up at the Wallace. In fact, he helped us out with a couple of machine issue stuck balls. We had the keys, but he was able to get in and fix a couple of things. That's awesome. Up at the Wallace too. Awesome. I'm taking it. Philippe is on your team, right? That's right. On the team, but was not in attendance this past Sunday. That's awesome. That's awesome. Good match. There was a couple of cute moments. At one point, I was watching the match going on, as were my fellow New York City Flipper Sport Associate Alex Kelly and Lion person Dante Oliva. We're all in the group of people who are spectators. New York City champ, Dante Oliva. Yes, and former New York State champ, Alex Kelly. Alex Kelly, that's right. Both of whom recently returned from INDISC, one of the five major tournaments on the IFPA pinball calendar, an acronym for It Never Drains in Southern California. There was a definite different atmosphere at At The Wallace on Monday. Now, just as lovely as ever, still my favorite place, the music was very different. For some reason, the soundtrack being played was like 70s AM gold. Cool. It was, yeah, a lot of older songs, 70s and 80s. I mean like are we talking about, what is this like Kris Kristofferson? Would not have been out of place. I don't recall particularly hearing a Kris Kristofferson song. But what I do remember hearing is looking over and seeing both Alex and Dante bopping to the music, Which right then was playing the song, It Never Rains in Southern California. Nice. The namesake song of the tournament. Very nice. I also had another cute moment where I got a flirty duck out of the claw machine. Oh, flirty duck. Then on Tuesday nights, Butterballers went to Midway and we played the brand new team, The Third Ball. Also, by the way, let me issue a correction of my own statement here. The Third Ball has hosted, two weeks in a row, buttermilk teams, sister bar teams. I said last week that they went to buttermilk and then they were hosting a buttermilk team. But I'm incorrect. They were at home two weeks in a row. They hosted buttermilk teams two weeks in a row as the sister bar of buttermilk. In Williamsburg. They were like super high energy young team. Really cool to meet them. They seemed to be filming much of their own actions. They were very good about staying out of the way or not putting the cameras on us, but they were filming themselves. And I believe I heard they're making a documentary about this. That's cool. Or something. They were excited. I handed out NYC Pinpod stickers and pointed them to, you know, I had a couple flyers for some events. Sure. They were interested to hear more. Oh, and they had, they had a very funny team cheer. Oh. That some teams do. Yeah. Put all their hands in. Yeah. And then, you know, they lift them up and they yell, third ball is for medical reasons.
    47:22
    Okay. Not quite sure. Yeah. Not quite sure what to make of it. It was funny. I wanted to play Deadpool. I didn't get to warm up on it. And, uh, I did play it twice and not well. But in the first round, I scared them off of The Walking Dead. I got the GC. It's obviously been recently reset because it was 130 million, which is a nice game. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think 120 or 110 or 100 might be the like, you know, ooh, look, totally reset and change the battery GC score. Yeah. And I mean, and then they openly said to me, oh, wow, we're not going to pick that now. And they didn't. Oh, wow. I mean, they only have three options, right? So like, it's also, I get it. I got this amazing print. Let's see if I can get it without too much glare. I see it. I get it. Yeah. One of the Scrabble League players the past couple seasons Mary Ann drew that art and then printed those prints She had a stack of them with her on Wednesday She had just picked them up from the printers the print shop where they were drying Um, and they are going out there connected to, uh, a Kickstarter for an independent film that another one of the Scrapple League players is making. Cool. Uh, and it's some promotional art from that that's, you know, going out as a reward. And she had some, you know, leftover ones, the unsigned, unnumbered second run stuff. And let me have one. When she came in with them, I went over and said, oh my gosh, what do you got? And she was telling me about it. It's really cool artwork, but also that she printed them. And I'm really interested in printmaking. I've done a lot of that. So we talked a bit about it and it's really cool that she had a spare one. I really like it. Super cool. Did you play on Thursday? No. SSPL was off. I considered heading up to Jack Bar, but wasn't moving fast enough by the end of work when I'd have to really move to, you know, get in, dinner and travel. Eight o'clock sharp. Yep. South Brooklyn to North Brooklyn. If anyone's ever seen Run Lola Run, it's about like that. Yeah. Okay, let me just say before we go into the segment that we recorded here that this is probably going to be new to some of you and I don't think while I talked with Eric and Zen about it that I explained very well what's going on here. So let me give you a quick capsule. We're about to talk about some brackets like NCAA style brackets, but with a pinball twist. The Wally Winner is a member of the N.Y.C. Pinball Association, a member of the N.Y.C. Pinball Association, and a member of the N.Y.C. Pinball Association.
    51:19
    I'm going to do a thing where I have a drop down menu boxes so that you should be able to just choose things in drop down boxes. Fill out your brackets and send them back to us by noon Friday, March 20th. Whoever correctly predicts the most winners based on voting that Eric and Zen and I will do on the way through. Now that these are grouped, we seeded these, we submitted lists of our top 16 to seed these. And now that that was like the best game qualifying tournament for this, the NYC double P double A that stands for the NYC Pinpod Awesomeness Archive tournament. That's how we did the seeding. Now we're going to do, we're going to rank them. And like in each group, I'm going to give one seven points, one five points, one three points and one one point, just like they were playing pinball. At a match play thing, and Zen is going to do the same thing. Eric's going to do the same thing and we're going to tally those results and only one game from each group is going to advance and then we will have the last round in each region in two weeks. We will vote on those. But you have to submit your whole bracket right away. So fill out the whole bracket, send it to us by this coming Friday. That is March 20th at noon Eastern Time. And you will be entered to win a fabulous prize, which is a 2024 Harvest pint glass. Okay, I'll explain some of this in less detail now in this segment right here. Thank you for your time. And please go fill out a bracket.
    53:04
    It's the NYC double P double A tournament time. 64 pinball machines enter. There will be three rounds of what is effectively group match play. One will remain at the end. We three, BCF, HIP, ZEN, will vote on four game groups. These pinball machines will each get IFPA scoring according to Eric's preferences, Zen's preferences, and my preferences with that kind of weighted scoring. Seven, five, three, one. And at the end there will be one winner. There are four regions, just like in the NCAA tournament, which I probably owe someone a lot of money just because I said that acronym. The, we will have the electromechanical region, the solid state region, the DMD region, and the flat screen region. We three have voted to a degree already in order to determine this seating. Here's what we did. I asked Eric and Zen to give me their top 16, following each of those categories and also specifically saying, take the latitude you want with what a flat screen is versus what a, you know, if you think total nuclear annihilation is a flat screen because it has one in the middle of the play field sometimes, I think, right? Then maybe I'm wrong about that. It's got both, uh, you know, a flat screen in the back box and... Oh, that's right. ...alphanumerics in the back. Right, so like, take that how you want, you know, same thing. They're just numerics, not alphanumerics. Oh, right, sure. But if you wanted, you know, baby Pac-Man as a flat screen, I guess, you could have taken it, probably. But I sort of said, please, you know, take whatever latitude you want, what are your top 16 in these, and that's how we've come up with these. I did it best game style for the seating. Everybody's number one got 16 points for a maximum total of, you know, 48 possible. If all of us ranked it number one, it would have got 48 points. If all of us ranked it number 16, it would have got three points and it probably would have made these standings. When I sat down to work today, I saw on my calendar, you know, the recording session for tonight and I was like, oh shoot, I forgot to do something. So I opened the sheet to start filling in, you know, these for the seeds and then you texted me just as I was starting. So I don't get to claim that I remembered before you reminded me. I did, but only briefly. You did. Not before the results came. Well, it was way more effort than I could have ever earned. I had no idea what was going on. Um, I basically recall the conversation, uh, and I said, sure, uh, cause that's usually how I operate in, uh, my, in, in my world. I'm like, yes, I will show up today as their pinball. Perfect. Right. I will do that. Right. Um, which is, I, I approached this exactly the same way and said, okay, well, I need to figure out what are the definitions of all these different four divisions to make sure I'm at least getting close to the right ones. We know a little bit about it, but you know, I had to figure it out as I went. Sure. I mean, also, to be fair, the sort of overarching concern is if you look at the backglass, if there are things, if there are reels that like flap your score around to change the score, that is generally what we might call electromechanical. If there are displays, whether they be alphanumeric or numeric, as Eric was just deftly weaving the, you know, a basket between exactly what display is which, but no matter which, if it isn't like a full dot matrix display, then we would call, generally call that solid state. % SeiteISKanko,
    58:09
    There are generations of some of these things that you kind of I think Sinbad and Eye of the Tiger might be roughly the same game but a two player and a one player at a ball and one of them is an electromechanical and one of them is a solid state I think. I might be wrong about that. They made Sinbad as both EM and solid state. And I think Eye of the Tiger is only EM. There you go. But like there's... You said Evil Knievel and I totally forgot to put that out there. That should be there somewhere. See? Well, I mean look, that's... The good news is we put together some lists, we made some choices. I have to say I didn't have as strict a guiding light except that I looked at the list and said if I walked into a place what's the first thing I would walk up to? Two private collections. Yeah. Penneham Gardens, where occasionally we talk about a tournament that is a private collection, has an Argosy, or at least had last time I was there. I love it. It has been on, at NYC PC, two of the four years, I think. Does that sound right to both of you? Yeah, I think so. That, yeah, the second one in town was formerly Levee's. Right. And that's when it showed up at NYC PC. Yeah. Of course. But yeah, we all like Argus. There's something about those buttons, right? Those rollovers? I've never seen anything like that on a pinball machine. And, you know, it's pretty cool. And if you look, all three of those put it, what, I think in the top three. Oh, that's interesting. I thought there was, yeah, I have it three, Eric has it one, Zen has it one. This is how you get to the top seed if two of the three people voting are going to drop 16 points. We're going to start going into it. Let's start talking about this stuff. Yeah. Let's set out right where we are. We're going to start talking about the electromechanical region. Yeah. And this is group one. Group one. So it'll be seed number one. Seed one, Argosy. Seed number eight will be Top Score. Seed number nine will be Dimension. And the 16th seed filling out this group is the Pabst Can Crusher. That's Argosy, Dimension, Top Score, and the Pabst Can Crusher. Side note, we recorded these and the spreadsheet that we had put our votes into was doing something a little funky. So you're going to hear me sometimes hop in on Eric's voice. He and I discussed it. Sorry, Eric. Zen said it's the buttons. Eric, what was it for you? What is it for you? Ah, Argosy is just like a perfect classic. I really like that it is asymmetrical. If you're on the left, there's that, oh, there's that nice spinner there. Yeah. Is it lit right now? Oh, maybe. Right. I could still shoot it. Yeah. And then if you're on the right, I mean, you've got options. You can think about the drops. Yeah. Really, I just love throwing it back up top. At anywhere up top. At the top. It just... It's so satisfying. Likes to be up there. It's got the amazing up facing bumper, the up facing sling, the rollover button that Zen loves. Yeah. I love rollover buttons too. And there's, you know, there's a lot in that era. Argosy's only got the one, but it's, oh, it's... It's so powerful. I mean, it's a bonus building game. Yeah. And it increases your bonus. It's right. Am I correct about that? Someone fact check me, but I believe I just said the right thing there. Yeah, it's it's it's advanced bonus. Right. And and then and then the one bonus is 19,000. I think 100,000 10 bonus counts is max, I think. Okay. But you don't know, you can build the second up to 90 and then it stops or anything. You're right. So like 190. Yeah, I feel like all I don't think that's that's EMs do this shit. That's what this region is all about. And then the wonderful single lane just out in the middle of the top of the playfield. Oh yeah. But, oh, getting the nudges to make it bounce into that lane just in the middle of nowhere, and that opens your gate. Ah. Yeah.
    63:12
    All right, so now we have to defend putting the Pabst can crusher into the electromechanical. Cam Crusher is, you know, exactly the same as a couple of other games that Stern has put out under a contract model. They also made Primus out of that. It's the best of them because it's the best artwork. It's Dirty Donny, who also did Metallica and Aerosmith, is a very cool artist. And it has Red Fang, the Oregon heavy metal band, doing the music in the pin and the call outs in the pin. And it's, you know, it's of an EM style. It has a reel, score reel in the back box. It has a small pager screen in the apron, which is weird. But yeah, plays like an old EM, but sort of enhanced rules, good game. I would also agree, it's a good game, but one of the reasons why I picked it is because I couldn't actually choose the real name that it should be called, which is Giant Swingin' Cucumber. Uh, which, uh, is somebody that we know invented and should have the artwork of what the other things should be having and it should be made and if I ever win the Mega Millions, it will be done. Uh, this is where, this is the direction we're headed. Should we credit this person? This could. Oh, very good. So at least that she's the one that first told me about it. Every time I play that game, that's what I'm thinking about. John Swain, cucumber. Let's move on to group two in the electromechanical region. The number four seed is Gold Strike. The number five seed, Mata Hari. The number 12 seed, Centigrade 37. And the number 13 seed, New York. I love Centigrade 37. I love New York. They might be here entirely because of me. I just I had them high on my list. I put in New York. It could have been Spirit of 76. It could have been whatever the other one is.
    65:34
    Something space related. Oh, Pioneer, right. Pioneer. Yes, it is Pioneer, but it includes space imagery on the back glass. It's all kinds of pioneers. Right. I mean, it's like the Pioneer Mercury capsule, right? Oh, maybe. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mercury capsules. Was that the first one in the orbit with Alan Shepard? I don't recall. That sounds, I mean, everything about that checks out in terms of a naming convention for sure. I'm wondering if our preferences were swayed a little bit by the fact that we all live in New York, although I grew up outside Chicago, so I threw up old Chicago. So that might be playing into this too. I yeah, well, yeah, that's we might talk about that in a second. And some of us might also have some Chicago time. I changed your because Zen is just jumping in. He doesn't know this. I haven't given him this in the production meeting yet. Because we didn't do it. But I changed your El Dorado to gold strike since they are the same playfield. Eric and I talked about it. And because there's a gold strike at Scrapple Land. We we opted for let's let's do the one that the You know that people will know on-site and so we combined those your El Dorado and my Gold Strike to get to this 9 seed for Gold Strike. Yeah it sounds good I was just picking stuff out of a hat. Well, it has a lot of drop targets and it's awesome and a lot of flippers. Yeah. Awesome. I mean and they're, you know, pretty much the same thing. So I'm just letting you know that this is this is your vote for El Dorado that got Gold Strike Eric, what's in group three in the electromechanical era? The number two seed, Spanish Eyes. The number seven seed, Atlantis. The number ten seed, Sky Jump. And the number fifteen seed, Fireball. I was embarrassed I didn't have Fireball on my list when I saw that y'all were smart enough to do that. Oh, I was just, I was just gonna say, what? Zen must have thrown Fireball in there at some point because I can't believe that's in here. Zen, how high did you have Fireball? I don't know why I have to actually look at my list again. No, it's okay. I see it. I see it. You had it. You had Fireball at number five. That's a high. That's a high seed. I mean, well... I like it though. Yeah, do you like to just play the skill shot game or is there something fun about it that isn't like the high score thing? I like the fact that it feels, for that era of the game, it feels smooth compared to some of the other ones. Yeah, and those zipper flippers, yeah, those zipper flippers are cool, man. The way that they flip are better than a lot of the other zipper flippers. The geometry of them are right. Yeah, you're right on that for sure. I'm a big fan. So, I mean, that's kind of the feeling. I'm a big fan of that skill shot on Fireball. It's one of the toughest to get right in there where it drops just the right way, and that's 3,000 big points in a game where a lot of things score one. Yes. In a game wherein... is the roll 100,000 or 10,000? No, it has to be 100,000 with the 3,000 skill shot. It has to be... on a game in which the roll is 100,000. You know? 3,000 is a ton. And one point. I love the artwork of Spanish Eyes so much. Me too. And shout out to the Spanish Eyes at the Red Hook Pinball Museum with the DC Bumpers that they are proud of and I played this week and was awesome. They import Spanish Eyes, different artwork. Also Atlantis is just gorgeous and one of my favorite Backglasses of all time, which is why I rank it so high on me. It's just pretty. I like Sky Jump because I rolled it twice at a competition. That's why it's there, probably.
    69:57
    This next one, I think you guys have a lot to say in this next one. Yeah. Group four in the electrical mechanical region. Seed number three will be Doodle Bug. Seed number six, Old Chicago. Seed 11, Bow and Arrow. and Seed 14, Bristol Hills.
    70:43
    A kicker, I should say, mechanism over the switch, under the playfield. It's so cool. It's amazing. It's an early example of a magnet on a pinball playfield. Wow. It pulses briefly just enough to throw the ball up, and the ball continues up and then comes back down, and then the magnet pulses again. Right. I want to hear about Old Chicago. Because I was stupid enough to not put it on my list. I think that was probably just me, vicariously, where I grew up. It's where I like that one. I like the artwork too. Gameplay's okay, but that was one I was just thinking of. It's got a cool, you know, non-Italian bottom. I also grew up outside of Chicago. Yeah. It's got good, it's got, I like the artwork. It's, uh... It looks like what I wanted the green mill to look like when I walked in. Nice. In the solid state region, Group 1 will see the top seed Harlem Globetrotters face off against Frontier, TX Sector, and Centaur. Harlem Globetrotters, we all had that very high, right? Yeah. I like TX Sector because I didn't really know TX Sector until I started playing it recently, and I'm like, man, it's pretty good. Is that right? Man, I like that. I mean, look, it's all about that lit spinner, which is all about whatever the last in lane you rolled over was. But it's also just super fun. The transport thing is such a cool gimmick, even though I don't think there are actually anywhere near the points there as just banging on a spinner. But the transport thing is... It looks good, right? All of a sudden you're like, oh, I'm over here. You're like, holy cow, how did that ball get there? Yeah, and there's a light show that like this, on this solid state machine that has a chase that shows you where the ball is gonna come out. It's cool.
    72:45
    Frontier, you're like, well, I'm gonna go somewhere, I guess. I have no idea how that works. I will say that Centaur is generally high on this list, probably entirely because of me, question mark. But also, I just love it. I love Centaur. In Group 2 Dolly Parton will be the 4 seed facing off against Bobby Orr Power Play Stargazer and Paragon Dolly Parton I 100 love with the exception of playing it locally where I cannot seem to get any points on it It real hard to get purchase on the one at Barcade Fi Di I like it a lot still but it really hard to get purchase on that one I do think fondly of Bobby Orr's because the one I've played the most up at the Sanctum in Connecticut It's Group 3. The second seed, Banzai Run, will do its best against 8 Ball Deluxe, Diner, and Bad Girls. We all liked Banzai Run, I think, right? Everybody had Banzai Run on the list? Yeah. I just want to say I also have a fondness for Bad Girls because of the backglass artwork, Which is a photograph taken inside Exit, a punk bar in Chicago that I used to hang out in when I lived there. And also that plays a seminal role in my relationship with my wife. And if you want to add a little bit more drama, because we recorded this and the seeds were a little bit different, we didn't notice that Bad Girls and 8 Ball Deluxe are basically And the final group, group four, will see the three seed Stars taking on Funhaus, Black Knight 2000, and Silverball Mania. Stars, probably one of the best games ever made. It's like, I got stuff to do, I have to collect stars. And it's pretty obvious that you can do that, you just have to move through the process. And I enjoy that concept of just collecting the stars. When you have it, it's kind of like, you know, this is totally a different genre, but you get the 4X super jackpot on creature. Like, that's what you want to do. Yeah. Sign me up for that. It's the same feeling I get for stars. It's like, you can get it and then you can rip it. It's great. A lit and ripped spinner is one of the great joys in life. Yeah. And then Black Knight 2000 is the first distinct pinball machine that I can remember playing. Cool. Very cool. I think that Black Knight 2000 was also on all three of our lists and I'm not sure that other than the top seeds in most of these, I'm not sure that that many of these were on all of our lists. And then Silver Bowl Mania has a figure literally fucking a pinball machine in back glass artwork. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know another way to describe what that could possibly be. Yes, correct. In the DMD region, group one will consist of top seed Spider-Man against eight seed Game of Thrones, nine seed Lord of the Rings, and 16 seed The Shadow. We all three had Spider-Man top five. I'm shocked that Game of Thrones is this high, although it's probably about where it was last year. The other two are your faults. I don't know, I love game of thrones. Me too, me too. What about Lord of the Rings? I feel like that was high for you, Zen. Was that your top? That might have been your top DMT. It was high. I like Lord of the Rings because of the story. It's like you can progress through the entire Lord of the Rings saga and understand it and it makes sense. Um, and that is something that I think is missing in a lot of other, um, pinball games to where you're going to work your way through the actual story. Where you have the characters and you, you do the stuff and you're doing the things. Um, so that's my top one. I like Game of Thrones in similar fashion, except for the fact that it's just, you're getting points because you're doing a house or whatever. Right. You know? But, and so those are the differentials between those two. Eric Shadow. It's an old favorite of mine from the bowling alley in the basement of the student union at the University of Illinois in Champaign Urbana. Very good. In the second group, we have dad rock bands in the four and five seeds, Metallica and ACDC respectively, facing off against Congo and Indianapolis 500. I had the opportunity to play at Gebhardt's on Monday night. Metallica was your top game, Eric, I think. Yeah. In maybe two regions in a certain way. Yeah. I will say about ACDC, best implementation of the canon by Steve Ritchie. T2 didn't quite do it right. ACDC did it perfect. What I like about ACDC is that you can choose your own adventure in terms of how you're going to get points. Which is also similar to the last conversation on Game of Thrones. Do I want to play this, like this way today, or do I want to play like that tomorrow? And it's balanced. I think that's important when you start getting into the more complex games that you have moving forward. The next group has my top entry in it, which is the two-seed Theater of Magic. It faces the seven-seed Twilight Zone, which might break my heart because one of my two favorite games ever probably has to be deleted in the first round, definitely has to be deleted in the first round. And they will face a lot of people's favorite game ever, Attack from Mars, and something I think a lot of people in New York have at least grown to appreciate, NBA Fast Break. I'll tell you why I love Theater of Magic. It's all the shots return the way I expect them to return if the game is set up correctly and I can just play it.
    80:07
    My grandmother-in-law, the highest compliment she ever paid me was after she met me to my wife she said, we could just talk and with me and Theater of Magic, we can just play. NBA Fastbreak's a real dark horse in this group. Those are some tough opponents, but it's the only pinball game that has inspired me to memorize 20-some trivia questions. About 90s NBA? Where's Scottie Pippen's gender? 33. Nice. Very good. I was very good at this.
    80:55
    That was a good call. I think I like theater. Just because it's so smooth and then you can change your philosophy, which is what I like about theater. Yeah. It's like, alright, well, I gotta get a multiball, I'm gonna do this thing, and all of a sudden I'm gonna start ramping up my bonus. Yeah. So my bonus can be huge. Yeah. So you have options.
    81:16
    Yeah, just like ACDC. Theater Magic is 96. Yeah, that sounds about right. I remembered at Playland in State College, Pennsylvania, right about that time, which would have been my freshman year of college. That's how old I am. I played at Sunshine Laundromat in West Lafayette, Purdue University. That's what the 24-hour laundromat was called, which was ironic because that's what we have here, too. In group four, the final group of the DMD era, Iron Man, the third seed, will face Tron, the sixth seed, World Cup Soccer 94, the 11th seed, and Whitewater, the 14th seed. I like those games and I like the fact that it's two modern DMDs and two 90s DMDs. I like that about that. Hey, this is the hardest group. Yeah, three of those are like my favorite pin of all time.
    82:22
    I mean Iron Man, I mean if you can get to the point where you finish all of the all of the modes, you do all the stuff, I can't remember what it's called. Jericho, I think? Well, there's Jericho, but then there's Do or Die. Oh, Do or Die, Do or Die is the... The Do or Die Hurry Up. Yeah. So, it's pretty... That's pretty insane. Really satisfying pinball. Like, like, really accomplished pinball. When you've done that, it's, you feel a great sense of accomplishment. And Tron is Tron, man. And, and like, whether you get to Sea of Simulation or the actual end game with the actual Wizard mode, which you can get to by finishing Sea of Simulation, it's awesome. World Cup Soccer has an awesome wizard mode also, right? In fact, a really good multiball and a great wizard mode. And Whitewater... It's a little gimmicky maybe in this list, question mark. I love it. It might be my favorite game in the list, but it's a little gimmicky maybe, question mark. The Wedgehead Pinball Podcast out of Wedgehead Bar in Portland, Oregon, just recently did an entire episode about why Whitewater is the greatest pinball machine ever made.
    83:52
    I like the thesis, whether or not I would agree with it after examining the hypothesis, but I like the thesis. They really like Whitewater. Me too. In the flat screen region, group one will consist of these four pinball machines, Seed 1, Metallica Remastered, Seed 8, Elton John, Seed 9, Godzilla, and 16th Seed, Black Knight Sword of Rage. We got last year's champion here as the number one seed coming in. Yeah, I put this... And the second time Metallica's in the bracket. Yeah, and the second time it's there. I put it in because I told Eric last week that I want to make sure that all of last year's Final Four are in this year. And it was, being the champion, you were necessarily the final four. And so because of that, I was like, all right, I'm going to rank this somewhere in the top four. It may or may not actually be the fourth game I would play when I walked into a pinball bar, but if presented with all of the perfect flat screen options, but I ranked it fourth. You two had it higher than fourth, I think. Yeah, so I've ranked it pretty high multiple times and I would have to say and if you go into a flat screen, the graphics, the best graphics I've seen on a pinball machine.
    85:32
    For sure. Even though it's just a pinball machine and I'm playing pinball, this is a thing that is It's fundamentally not as gimmicky as Aerosmith or Foo Fighters or even Iron Maiden, right? The graphics are really good and people don't really talk about that when you're playing a flat screen pinball machine. Well, it's hard to watch them when you're playing but your opponents might really appreciate all of that concert footage back there. Well, not just the footage, but also the actual illustrations. The animations. The bat, when you, like, when you, yeah, the animations. Like, when you tilt, like, and the bat is, like, you know, biting something. I have no idea what the heck's going on. It's Black and White. They're great. Uh-huh. Eric, Black Knight Sword of Rage, I think, is your fault. Do you want to make any defense there? Special place in my heart since it lived in my apartment for a number of years. All right. Very good. It's another, it's another brutal game. I love it. Yeah. The LE and the non-LE or the premiums, however, wherever the break was for the upper playfield was a really big difference between them. In group two, four seed Jurassic Park, five seed Batman 66, 12 seed Jaws, and 13 seed 007, the 60th anniversary. This is three Elwins. 3L1s and Batman 66. Gomez. Yeah, but also like a really good Gomez. I don't... Yeah. It's gonna be hard for me not to vote for Batman 66, but also it's 3L1s and like they're all so good. I really like Jurassic Park. I'm a tough shooter, but it's some of the best rules out there. Next to Metallica, it's up there for, I think, best rules I've ever seen in a pinball machine. Very good rule. So I do like Jurassic Park, but I would have to say that James Bond, just the ability to be able to throw that ball back and forth throughout every single shot and just feeling I think it's really fun when you get the, uh, an achievement for spinning all four spinners at once. Oh yeah. That's cool. That is cool. Well, that could be a whole nother conversation to talk about all these weird achievements that you get when you start an entire thing up. I just, they just make weird breaking noises. I don't pay attention to them at all. In group number three in the flat screen region, two seed The Big Lebowski faces seven seed Guardians of the Galaxy, ten seed King Kong, and fifteen seed Elvira's House of Horrors. The Big Lebowski was my number one. The Big Lebowski has been my number one flat screen since the first time that I touched its flippers. The Big Lebowski remained my number one flat screen when I was heartbroken every time that it was broken, every time that I went to Sunshine for roughly a year, and yet it was turned on with, you know, the lights on. Still, that game. That game. What I heard, and though I can't confirm this, is that Dutch Pinball had to declare bankruptcy again. I heard that as well, yes. Yeah, that's gonna cause some problems for Lebowski moving forward because they weren't using Stern parts, which some of the other pinball companies actually do. So that's gonna be an issue. But I'm gonna go with King Kong. And King Kong, with the new code update? That's a good freaking game. You can play at modes, you can play whatever. I have to believe that both Guardians of the Galaxy and Elvira's House of Horrors appear here because of where they appeared on your lists, because I don't think either one of them was on mine. Oh, yeah, I'm a big fan of both Guardians and Elvira. Yeah, the shootin' ice guardians is a classic Borg design. All the elements I like out of Iron Man and Metallica. Yeah, and Elvira, the shots are just butter smooth. It's lots of fun. That they are. The fourth group of the flat screen region sees Seed 3 Deadpool against the sixth seed James Bond 007, the eleventh seed Dialed In, and the fourteenth seed Star Wars. This is the non-Elwin Bond, the Gomez Bond. Right. The pro-Premium LE one, not the throwback one. And the Star Wars, not whatever the current Star Wars, most recent, the Star Wars that has the up to 40x playfield multiplier and action button. Steve Ritchie Star Wars. Yes, there was Steve Ritchie Star Wars, yes. So there's two Gomez's here in Deadpool and Bond. And then a Pat Lawler dialed in. Yeah. So Zen had Deadpool number two, Eric had Deadpool number four, I had Deadpool number 14. So we did all have it, but I de-emphasized it significantly. And yet, despite my almost not having it on the list, it is a very high seating here. The two of you regard that highly. Star Wars is definitely my fault. I mean, Deadpool has got to be one of my top five games of all time. Deadpool is a really, really good game. I mean, you can progress your way through the different characters. You can stack your multiball with whatever different mode that you have if you choose it wisely. It's a really freaking good game. Yeah. And if you can snicked on top of it, it's awesome. R, kick ass. What's your favorite mode to play once you get flowing? Do you like the, what's it called, cyborg, where you get all the weapons? Or do you like the ninja apocalypse? Where do you like to go? What's your go-to? Well, you progress through it. So first you start off with Sabertooth, and then you progress through that and you get your points on it. Then you have to hit the inner loop a bunch of times to be able to get your team up. And then you had your team up and then you go into, what is it, whoever the red guy is. I think that's Juggernaut and you're looking at your team up and the question is with Wolverine I think here probably.
    92:57
    So you're hitting the inner orbit next to the scoop. Yeah. To, um, during Juggernaut, if you hit that over and over again, you can get 2x, 3x, 4x, 5x and then close it. You can get 100 million points just on that mode. See, this is why Zen always beats me at Deadpool. Oh no, you just have to remember you have to do it during the mode. So first you have to light the team up, then you have to collect the team up, then you have to start the mode, and then during the mode, that's when you have to start hitting that inner loop to the left of the scoop to be able to collect on it. And then you have to finish the mode and collect the mode. Yeah, I was thinking of Wolverine, which is on the other side of the scoop, but yes, quite so. That's quite the strategy, my friend. This is why Zen always kicks my ass at Deadpool.
    93:53
    We've got two Jersey Jack pinball machines here in the bracket, and I guess if we're going to pick two, these would be the two. In group one, we had Elton John, and this group now dialed in.
    94:12
    Yeah. I also had Hot Wheels and Houdini on my list. Mm-hmm. Some American games. Yeah, it looks to me... Oh, I see a Willy Wonka on Zen's list also. But I think those are the only other games that even peaked their head in. It is mostly Stern's. And to be fair, Stern has been drastically the dominant market force in the entirety of the flat screen era. Right. I considered, you know, each of the other manufacturers today and couldn't find a title that would knock something I had off, really. I like dialed in if it works. Yeah, the QED has to be set up just right and there's a lot of moving parts. Stranger Things showed up on one list and only one list, I think. Dungeons and Dragons showed up on one list and only one list, I think. There are a lot of Sterns out there now that, you know, the last couple of times we did this, it was not quite as obvious what the flat screen era had. Like it was or rather it was completely obvious what the 16 would be in the flat screen. But this is there. There's a little bit more room now, right? We don't see Pulp Fiction in terms of current games out on location. We didn't see Pulp Fiction anywhere here. I did have it in the solid state rankings myself. I was a little confused on that because I didn't know how Pulp Fiction fell into the solid state thing. I was like, I recognize that more as a modern game. Sure. And because if that was the case, I would probably would have put it in there. Right. And I just, I did it. It's been growing on me. Maybe it'll show up again next year. All right. I mean, look, you like you like tan crusher, apparently. So, sooner or later, a good game will come. What, giant swinging cucumber? Is that what we're talking about again? Yeah. That's all for this week's pod. I'd like to thank Zen a ton for joining us, and I believe we're going to have Zen with us for the next several weeks as we vote and get this bracket down to one champion. That said, that's what we're going to do for the next several weeks in Ball 3. You know what we're going to do in Balls 1 and 2. You can always reach us at nycpinpod at gmail.com. You can leave us a voice memo at speakpipe.com slash nycpinpod. Check out the blog at nycpinpod.wordpress.com. If you haven't heard me say it enough, this has been NYC Pin Pod, and you know what? Whatever you're up to this week, I want you to go get em, pinfolk!