Journalist Tool

Kineticist

  • HDashboard
  • IItems
  • ↓Ingest
  • SSources
  • KBeats
  • BBriefs
  • RIntel
  • QSearch
  • NName Review
  • +Health

v0.1.0

← Back to items

Episode 231 – Slap Singles

Slam Tilt Podcast·podcast_episode·2h 18m·analyzed·Jul 2, 2024
View original
Export .md

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.033

TL;DR

Slam Tilt interviews Corey Hulse on competitive pinball, data projects, and Hall of Fame criticism.

Summary

Slam Tilt episode featuring guest Corey Hulse discussing his path into competitive pinball, his IFPA data analysis projects, criticism of Pinball Hall of Fame's operations and customer service, and insights into tournament organization challenges. Topics include geographic divisions in IFPA rankings, Super League controversies, home machine conversions using Papa tokens, and the difficulty of running Pro Circuit events.

Key Claims

  • Pinball Hall of Fame has approximately three-quarters of its machines non-functional

    high confidence · Corey directly states 'it doesn't work three-quarters of the machines' and describes visiting in 2022 finding broken drops and malfunctioning games

  • Multiple Google reviews of Pinball Hall of Fame cite staff yelling at children

    high confidence · Corey references reviewing Google one-star reviews and notes 'practically every single one of them is owner yelled at my kids, the staff yelled at my kids'

  • Modern Pinball's Super League enrollment practices inadvertently registered players without consent, creating IFPA numbers for non-participants

    high confidence · Corey's friend was 'signed up for Super League without actually knowing that he was signed up for Super League' and later found he had an IFPA number despite never playing competitively

  • Francesco's optimization of Super League rules created unfair geographic advantages for NYC area players

    high confidence · Ron and Bruce confirm upstate players were 'screwed' competing against '80- and 90-person monthly tournament groupings' while upstate had much smaller fields

  • IFPA currently does not support geographic subdivisions within states, relying only on state-level rankings

    high confidence · Corey states Josh from IFPA said 'there's no reason for us to support that because we just simply look at state'

  • Running CERN Pro Circuit events involves significantly higher pressure and expectations than local community events

    high confidence · Corey directly contrasts expectations: 'there's just so much pressure that comes from running a pro circuit event' versus local events where 'players come in and they expect games to be good'

  • The Beast tournament requires approximately two months of advance preparation

    high confidence · Bruce confirms 'there's like two months of prep going into making sure that everything's good for that'

  • Silver Ball Museum and other regional museums maintain better machine quality and educational presentation than Pinball Hall of Fame

Notable Quotes

  • “Because it doesn't work three-quarters of the machines.”

    Corey Hulse @ ~22:30 — Direct explanation for why Corey won't revisit Pinball Hall of Fame despite regular Vegas visits

  • “I don't think just because the profits from that place are going to charity gives you an excuse to be mean to people.”

    Corey Hulse @ ~26:00 — Central criticism addressing common defense of Pinball Hall of Fame's operations

  • “And there's just so much pressure that comes from running a pro circuit event. The expectations compared to your local event that players come in and they expect games to be good and they expect it to be consistent.”

    Corey Hulse @ ~55:00 — Articulates the burden of Pro Circuit event organization versus community events

  • “Like if I'm imagining what a Hall of Fame looks like, right, we put all the Wayneses and Nyans together and we do write-ups. And here's an art display of Greg Ferris art or Kristen Marchais, right?”

    Corey Hulse @ ~32:00 — Describes what a true pinball Hall of Fame should represent versus current operation

  • “He's known to the locals as the mean guy that works there.”

    Corey Hulse @ ~28:00 — Indicates Tim from Hall of Fame's reputation in Las Vegas community extends beyond pinball players

  • “Finding that edge. And thinking recently about stuff that people have done... thinking about kind of like the mindset and how it relates to competitive pinball, right?”

    Corey Hulse @ ~46:00 — Connects Kirby's Pinball Land exploit mechanics to competitive pinball edge-case exploitation strategy

  • “It is location, location, location. But also, it does put a bad spin on the attitude and also the feel of the place.”

    Bruce Nightingale @ ~36:00 — Acknowledges Pinball Hall of Fame's business success despite operational problems

  • “Without even you knowing. Well, this one I knew. This one I knew, right?”

Entities

Corey HulsepersonRon HallettpersonBruce NightingalepersonFrancescopersonTimpersonZach FrypersonPinball Hall of FamecompanyModern Pinballcompany

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Running CERN Pro Circuit events creates excessive operational burden and player expectations, causing organizers to shift toward local community focus

    high · Corey transitioned from running Allentown Pro Circuit event to local community focus; cites 'so much pressure' and expectations for multi-day events with separate match play/gauntlet tournaments

  • ?

    community_signal: Pinball Hall of Fame's poor customer service, especially toward children, generates sustained negative sentiment in pinball community forums and Google reviews

    high · Multiple references to controversy in Pinball Enthusiasts Facebook group; Corey cites numerous one-star Google reviews citing staff yelling at children; Bruce confirms direct observation of poor treatment

  • ?

    community_signal: Volunteer pinball technicians (like Zach Fry) providing essential tournament support through game donations and repair services despite time/effort burden

    high · Corey provides public praise for Zach's consistent volunteer work at Allentown Pinfest and York tournaments; describes Zach as 'always quick to volunteer' games and repair help

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Pinball enthusiasts express strong emotional reactions to Hall of Fame controversies despite acknowledging its business success, suggesting brand reputation damage extends beyond operational issues

    medium · Corey notes people 'get so worked up over this' in enthusiast groups; questions whether poor reputation stems partly from 'Hall of Fame' branding expectations versus operational reality

  • ?

    community_signal: Philadelphia/Pittsburgh geographic divide mirrors NYC/upstate NY division; community advocates for tournament venue rotation across Pennsylvania similar to what New York achieved

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.415

0:00
Ah, damn it, my packages didn't come. Now I don't have my GD hearing aid. I can't hear a goddamn thing. Uh, help?
0:15
Old guy, help us. Well, looks like I forgot to put this ladder in the shed. Old man. That's a whoopsie daisy. Hey, old guy, get us down from here. Help. There we go. Look up, dumbass.
0:44
Coming to you from beautiful upstate New York, this is the Slam Show Podcast, the show about all things pinball. I'm your host, Ron Hallett, here with the other host, Bruce Nightingale. Lost and found dog. Story at 11. Okay. We're going to hear a story about a lost and found. Okay. And this is episode 231. A week late. Yes. But not a dollar short or whatever. Not a dollar short, but because we have more of us. We have more of us. And we also have a guest. We do. Ron, who is this guest? We have Corey Hulse is with us. Oh, really? He was the latest in our queue of we said, like, anyone email us if you want to come on. He emailed us a long time ago. Yes. Actually, how long ago? Let's see. It was in March. A few months ago, I think. March. So that's actually not the worst one so far, as far as delays go. And at the time, I thought to myself, oh, man, I have so much to say. And then I don't know if I have much to say. Let's see how this goes tonight. Well, luckily, you put stuff in the email that you told us to ask you. So it's perfect, the ultimate of laziness for us. We don't have to do anything. Bonus points. I'll take Bruce's line. So why don't you tell us a little about yourself and how you got into this crazy hobby. Did I do that right, Bruce? Almost, yeah. Oh, okay. This crazy hobby we call pinball. Oh, okay, okay. Well, it goes back to probably when I was young. My dad loves cyclone pinball, and I grew up in central Jersey, right near Great Adventure, Six Flags, if you know where that is. and close enough to the Jersey Shore where my dad would love playing cyclone pinball. And then I'd go camping with my grandfather, and it was a twilight zone, like at the campground arcade. And so for that, like, oh, pinball, this pinball thing is cool. But really it was, again, as I was turning 30 that my college roommate moved from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, was doing his PhD, and for a 30th birthday party, had a party at Kickback Cafe.

medium confidence · Corey notes Silver Ball Museum in Asbury Park 'has better notes, better machines' and is 'probably one of the last places people want to go if you're a pinball player' when considering Hall of Fame

Corey Hulse @ ~12:00 — Humorous exchange about Francesco's enthusiastic Super League enrollment practices

Rochester Pinball Collective (RPC)
organization
The Beastevent
pinballspinner.comwebsite
Silver Ball Museumcompany
CERN Pro Circuitorganization
Kickback Cafecompany
Papa / ReplayFXcompany
Elizabeth Cromwellperson
Dougperson
Slam Tilt Podcastorganization
Allentown Pinfestevent
IFPAorganization
Doug Polkaperson
Jeffperson
Lancaster Barnstormerscompany

high · Corey explicitly states 'In Pennsylvania, we've got a split between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh... similar splits geographically' to upstate/NYC; Doug Polka consulted about rotating tournaments

  • ?

    event_signal: The Beast tournament requires extensive pre-event logistics including multi-week game storage and coordination with volunteer machine providers

    high · Bruce describes two months of prep; Jeff managing game sourcing; back room storage constraints; volunteers bringing vintage games from RPC

  • $

    market_signal: Alternative pinball museum venues (Silver Ball Museum, Lancaster Barnstormers stadium location) outperforming Pinball Hall of Fame in customer satisfaction and machine uptime

    medium · Corey and hosts recommend Silver Ball Museum as superior alternative; Lancaster Barnstormers venue hosting successful tournaments with well-maintained machines; Hall of Fame noted as 'probably one of the last places people want to go'

  • ?

    community_signal: Francesco's aggressive rule optimization at Modern Pinball Super League inadvertently inflated NYC tournament participation and created systemic unfairness to upstate competitors

    high · Corey confirms Francesco 'burned a lot of bridges' with rule changes; upstate faced 80-90 person NYC tournament groups versus much smaller local fields; rule changes eventually implemented to equalize

  • ?

    community_signal: Tournament organizers shifting away from Pro Circuit overhead toward locally-focused community events due to unsustainable operational demands

    high · Corey explicitly states burnout from CERN Pro Circuit requirements led to shift to 'mid-tier events for the local community'; cites pressure differential between formats

  • ?

    technology_signal: Community members developing custom IFPA data analysis tools (pinballspinner.com) to address geographic segmentation that official IFPA infrastructure doesn't support

    medium · Corey built pinballspinner.com to enable geographic analysis across Nielsen TV regions; states IFPA doesn't support this natively; used to demonstrate job skills to employers

    • 2:53
    And so I, and I'll pay for a gossip, that's like five hours from Philadelphia, why would I ever go there? But oh, there's a pinball event that someone else is hosting, well this sounds fun. And then going to Kickback, 10 years ago, kicked off the bug. And went with my friends Matt and my friend Dylan, and they were talking about medieval madness, and did you know that Tina Fey's a voice actress in this? and, you know, oh, here's this other game, Circus Voltaire. And on the drive back, like, wow, that pinball thing was, like, really cool. So then I went and downloaded Pinball Arcade and said, oh, wow, there are ways that I can play, like, all these real actual games. And the free game of the month at that time was Circus Voltaire. And I played a real one and, okay, cool. Sent screenshots back and forth with my friends. Oh, man, I cracked, like, 20 million. Look at this.
    3:40
    And I was working at the time on a consulting project that was in New York City. And it must have been on Pinball Map. I think Pinball Map existed 10 years ago. And like, okay, I'm in New York City. Where do I find pinball? And that's when I walked into Modern Pinball and met Francesco. And I know Francesco is very known in the hobby here. And he had you join their Super League. That is exactly what happened. Without even you knowing. Well, this one I knew. This one I knew, right? So for me, walking in and, hey, we're doing the Super League. Oh, cool. You play these games and you write down your score. And it hit all the right buttons for, you know, I'm a data nerd. And so, oh, we track points, and these games have different things, and they're scoring, and there's a whole website that gets updated, and it's games and it's fun. And I kept going back week after week and doing the Super League, right, when the Super League was this huge, amazing thing, right? And at that point, I live in the Philadelphia area. So, okay, well, wait, where are the local places that are around here? And went to Railroad Bar and Grill because it was right near my house and walk in and there's 16 machines and they're doing a monthly tournament. And that was the start and how I got involved. So I have to give blame to or maybe thank Francesco for, like, shoving Super League in my face the minute I'm walking into the door at Modern Pinball. But then finding a local community here near home, near the Philadelphia area, and that's really where it all started about, gosh, nine, ten years ago now. Philadelphia.
    5:11
    So when you went into the Super League, like, Who are these 50 new people from the last time I was here? Wow, how'd you get all these people in there? There were 22 people in the building the whole week, but hey, we got 50 new people in one. Funny enough that my one friend who, you know, said, hey, we should go to this thing in Pittsburgh for the 30th birthday party. He had been to Modern Pinball, and funny enough, he was one of the people that was signed up for Super League without actually knowing that he was signed up for Super League. So he got his IFPA number established long ago without realizing it. Surprise, surprise, surprise. I love it. Yes. For those at home, that's why we had the whole upstate rankings and stuff, because of these kind of shenanigans with non-existent players or players that don't even know they're in the league. Yeah. Hey, do you have an IFPA number? No, I don't have one. Oh, it looks like you do. Huh?
    6:04
    It looks like you played in seven tournaments. I never played professional pinball in my life. Thank you, Francisco.
    6:12
    And to Francesco's credit, like, new rules come out, and he tries to super optimize around them. Oh, I know he did. He burned a lot of bridges with that one. And that's all I'm going to say about that. That's all I'm going to say about that. Well, how do you feel that all affected what you all did up in upstate? Oh, yeah, totally. The controversy in the New York City area, right? Oh, totally. It was terrible. Basically, if you were in upstate, you're screwed. You have no chance. Even Rock Fantasy, who was in the middle of the state, was screwed because they couldn't compete because we were going against 80- and 90-person monthly tournament groupings, and we're like, how the fuck are they doing this? And then it started leaking out, and then we're like, this is BS. Very much so, BS, yes.
    7:00
    And they changed all the rules. Yeah. They made it equal for a little while. They still have a ton of tournaments down there. That's true. Well, let's see. I have some questions for Corey. Ooh, I wonder if they're planned. There may or may not be questions that Corey put in. This is actually a good approach, people, if you want to be on the show. If you provide your own questions, it's great. It makes things weightier. It really is a pitch. Like, hey, can I be a somewhat interesting guest for your listeners here? Oh, the first question. Oh, this is going to inflate his already inflated ego. Why is Zach great? And so? And that would be our Zach. Zach Manning? He's great. I love him. He sells a lot of great games. He's out there for the hobby. Zach Sharp? I mean. Zach Sharp? I know. He's killing it, sir. Lots of Zachs. I'm actually drawing a blank right now. I don't know Zach's last name. I think we've said it. We've said it many times. Is it an enigma? No. But it's the Slam Tilt Zach. It's the Slam Tilt Zach. I think that's how you like to be known in his life. Yeah. Yeah, he's playing until tech. But why is he great? Well, I know his nickname's Smiley. He was... I know his nickname here is the Energy Vampire, right? Yes. But I was very involved in running the Allentown Pinfest tournament for many years, and more recently doing stuff in the York tournament for the White Rose Show. And Zach is great. He always volunteers games. He always volunteers to help. and I just want to say how appreciated that is as a tournament director to have somebody who's always willing to step up to say, yep, I've got a game, I've got my deadly weapon that I normally store in the garage here, I will happily load this up and go wheel this down. And for what we're doing, especially for the York tournament, that is such a perfect game because we have such oddball games for the York tournament, but he's always quick to send a message, he is always quick to volunteer his time, and with his repair prowess, right, that we can easily loop him in to make things as tournament-ready as we can for these events. And so just some public praise for Zach because I think he is doing great things for the tournament scene specifically and just to share my appreciation of that.
    9:17
    He's a good guy. Thank you, Zach. This has been a public service announcement from Zach.
    9:24
    From friends and family of Zach Fry. Let's see. You are converting all of your home machines to take Papa tokens. So this goes back to my two friends who dragged me out to Pittsburgh for this party at Kickback. And the next pitch that they tried to give to me, because my one friend was working in Harrisburg, my one friend, my other friend, was in Pittsburgh. And they said, hey, I was visiting Matt one weekend, and we were just working up stuff to do. And they found it was the Pinball World Championships that were happening. And they said, well, that sounds interesting. Let's go check that out. And they walked into Papa many years ago now, and it was, oh, wait, I can get tokens. I can go play the other, like, 380 games that aren't being used for finals right now. How amazing is this? And so they used that as a hook to get me to come out for Papa for ReplayFX. And so lots of fond memories with my friends being able to do really cool things at the Papa facility. And after they converted away from tokens and using FreePlate, they had all these tokens that they weren't using. So at one of the pinbergs, I talked to Elizabeth Cromwell and said, hey, you gave us all T-shirts. Could I trade in my T-shirt too? I'd really love some Papa tokens. So I followed up with her afterwards. She gave me a whole box of them. And then when my one friend who had dragged me out there got married, he's got a few pinball machines in his basement. So I talked with Doug and figured out, okay, there's 0.9 CoinMex. How do I get some of those? And gave them to him as a wedding gift so he can convert some of his home machines to his Papa tokens because he's got such fond memories of the events there. And so I said, well, I've got a few machines at home. Sure, free play is fine, but, like, what if you could have coin drop and, you know, the experience of coin drop and how memory evoking that is? And so I'm slowly collecting 0.9 coin mechs. So if anyone out there has 0.9 coin mechs that they want to sell, I've got three of the fixed machines set up at this point.
    11:22
    And when we run our house league and we run things locally, it's just fun to be able to hand people a handful of old Papa tokens and say, okay, yeah, this is what you use for the games here. I think I have some. I do have some. I have about 15 or 20. I would love to have a conversation about how to get some of those. And name your price.
    11:42
    Well, mine came because I was one of the backers. Oh, you're talking about the tokens, not the CoinMax? No, not the coin bags. Yeah, yeah, yeah. As far as the coin bags. Yeah, I don't have. I never had tokens, so I always had quarters. I might have one because my dad's Congo is the Papa Congo. So I'm guessing that they're still in there. They might be.
    12:06
    Let's see. What other thing can I ask you about? What games do you own right now and have you owned in the past? All right. Let me look over my screen here. Tell me if my voice gets too low. I've got a Mata Hari, a Harlem Globetrotters, a Fireball 2 that is currently for sale. I've got a Jurassic Park. A Foo Fighters. Jurassic Park and Foo Fighters are both pro. And an F-14 Tomcat. And then there's technically a seventh machine here. I've got an 8-ball Deluxe that I've technically been doing a playfield restore on for about six years now. So I've got a very empty cabinet and a partially done playfield that is over at my friend's house. And maybe a 2025 goal to get that 8-ball deluxe back up and running.
    12:52
    Yeah, it sounds like my goals. I still have the Quicksilver play field sitting crooked. Yeah, crooked, actually. It's vertical instead of horizontal. May I ask a question? I've heard you talk about blue versus black. Is that Quicksilver, or was that a different game? That's Cheetah. Cheetah, all right. I will correct the question. The blue cabinet is the prototype style, and the black cabinet is factory afterwards, after the first 100 years. Well, it's not really prototype. Early production, I would say, because I've seen lots of blues. Because they changed a lot of stuff. They didn't just change the paint. They changed the sounds also. A lot of it was blue also. Yeah. I had a blue. I sold a blue. Now I have a black.
    13:35
    Let's see. I hear you have a database that you export a historical IFPA result into a central repository. Tell us about that. It's a repository.
    13:50
    Well, it's a once-a-week flush of all the data. So I have a site called pinballspinner.com. And going back to old Pinberg experiences, a quick way to gather up information around various games and have them in a central location and tied to, especially when they did bank announcements, hey, an easy way to bring up a website to say, here's pin tips, here's pinball videos, here's the Tiltforms thread about, like, how do you quickly figure out a game that you've maybe never encountered before? But because I have that domain, I've got all sorts of half-baked, half-finished projects. But whenever I am searching for a new job is when I tend to put a bunch of energy into a data-pinball project that is public-facing, because it's a good way for me to kind of show my skills in particular technologies to employers, but do it with something fun that people might appreciate, which is pinball. And so for this stat, one of the, you know, you go back to like upstate New York rankings, right? Upstate versus down in New York City. And I feel like in Pennsylvania, we certainly have similar splits geographically. I feel like we have a lot of similar problems. You were talking about upstate New York. In Pennsylvania, we've got a split between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, and there's also a Harrisburg contingent. And one of the things that I wanted to be able to do was what if you could break things up a bit better geographically? as opposed to just relying on the state, right? And so how does Rochester compare to Albany, compare to New York City, compare to the Binghamton area? And the idea was, can I combine data that is coming out of the IFPA website with interactions that might be from a geographic point of view that, like, you know, Josh and the IFPA said, well, you know, there's no reason for us to support that because we just simply look at state. So it's looking at Nielsen geographic areas, like TV viewing areas essentially, and how you have a split between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Can I compare the relative strengths of those areas and the player base and where players might travel to? Because there's a lot more geographic density in the Northeast, so if you have stuff at the Delaware Pinball Collective, you're going to get a draw from New York, you're going to get a draw from New Jersey. And so the idea being it's taking the IFPA data and how do we bring extra information to it in order to be able to compare geographies, to look at strength of geographies, especially during kind of the Super League era that was happening in the Green Bay region. So it was a way to be able to combine interesting, hopefully interesting data together. And really like the subtext of all that was, hey, I know this technology. Please help me find a job in this technology. All right. The next one we got here is, oh, ask Corey why he won't go back to the Pinball Hall of Fame, even though his wife is from Vegas and he visits a few times a year. Because it doesn't work three-quarters of the machines. Sorry, did I say that out loud? You know, honestly, it's part of the argument there. It is. And so I feel like there was some, you know, I'll call it controversy. anytime Pinball Hall of Fame is brought up on Pinball Enthusiasts, that Facebook group. And I guess there was a recent post going around around Pinball Circus and someone claiming that Tim had no interest in fixing it because the schematics couldn't be found. Did either of you read this? Yeah, I did. Yes, I did.
    17:28
    And it's not that hard to figure out. It's just, it's frustrating to me because, you know, I've got, if you go, I guess the crux of my main problem is I've got a five-year-old. He loves pinball. He plays in our house league. He knows machines. But if you were to go and look at the Google reviews and look at all the one-star reviews, practically every single one of them is owner yelled at my kids, the staff yelled at my kids. and to me, like I don't want to expose him to a potential problem where, hey, hey look, there's 350 pinball machines, right, and my kid gets excited when he hears that. But like what I don't want is for him to run in and see a Spider-Man machine or see the Incredible Hulk and go run towards a machine because he's excited just to get yelled at by someone. And it's frustrating that the justification, that you see lots of defenders, right, come out in terms of, well, the money goes to charity. And that sounds frustrating to me because he doesn't seem to treat kids well. And there's all sorts of signs that it's no running and no jumping. And any one-star review is basically, hey, I got yelled at because my kid existed. And the justification that people say at times is that, well, the money goes to charity. But I don't think just because the profits from that place are going to charity gives you an excuse to be mean to people. And it's just frustrating. I think it's just his MO. He's just a grumpy old man, even grumpier more than me. Yeah, he does hate kids. He does hate kids. I've seen it. Yeah. I've been to all three locations. Yeah. He's a grumpy guy. I don't believe he has kids. No, he does not. Which, yeah, so. And to me it's interesting because the money goes to kid charities, right? It used to be the Salvation Army. Salvation Army, yeah. I don't know if he does that anymore. It's not the Salvation Army. It is? Okay. Yes. It's so interesting in the pinball enthusiast groups that people get so worked up over this, right? They get so worked up about anything that happens, anytime anyone posts anything, there's lots of kind of visceral reactions. and I've been trying to think, like, why even do I feel kind of this way about it? And I don't know if it's because he calls it the Hall of Fame, and if it were just, let's say, Vegas pinball, would it just be, oh, okay, this is the pinball place in Vegas, and, you know, it's known by, my sister-in-law lives there, and, you know, I mentioned, you know, the pinball place, and she's like, oh, yeah, oh, the mean guy that's there, the mean guy. and so he's known to the locals as the mean guy that works there and if it was just called I don't know if he called it Vegas Pinball I don't know if people would care that much I don't know if I would care that much because to me like a hall of fame implies we're celebrating the history of the game that we're celebrating the people that there would be inductions and it's not that at all like it is a museum that happens to have machines that are working some of the time yeah Well, I just find it funny a lot of times he has these people that spend, like, literally a week of their vacation coming in, working on the games, and I don't think he treats them much better than he does the regular customer. That fascinates me. Yeah, that's exactly what I thought also. Who are so dedicated, right? That, like, pinball techs are a rare breed, people who can fix stuff. You know, Bruce, I really admire all the stuff that, like, you can do, right? I try. Are you going to spend a week on vacation fixing some of the machines? I'm on a fucking cruise. You're going on a cruise, right? Fuck yeah. No, the only thing I'm fixing is literally Ron's stuff, Zach's stuff, my stuff, and the Rochester Pinball Collective. That's it. And if I'm at a place and if they said, hey, can you look at this? And I'll do my teching at the Beast, you know, for the next two months, actually. It's a month and a half, a month and a quarter away. So, yeah, so that's what I'll do to stuff. But, yeah, I would not be spending a week at a location and be rumped at and that kind of stuff. I still have my completest side in me wants to go there just so I can say I've been to all three of them. I have been, and it's, you know. All three of his Hall of Fames. Yes. Yeah. You know. across from Liberace next to the movie theater and now the new one.
    22:09
    I mean, the huge pinball sign that you can see from the plane. Oh, yeah. It is very fun to go into, right? And I think, you know, are we jaded? Because we know what good pinball is, right? That to walk into the place to see games off. I went in 2022, I think, and played a Superman and the drops weren't working. Played Fire. It was scoring when you flip. And there was a punchy the clown there. And we talked about Francesco earlier. He introduced me to that because modern pinball used to have one. And would show me the scoring exploits for, like, how to score big. And the drops weren't working, and it wouldn't loop. And it's just such a dissatisfying experience knowing that it could be that much better.
    22:51
    I just didn't understand why he went to a humongous place that is, it's literally a quarter storage. Yeah. and there's no inkling of him getting him up fully up the running. He doesn't have to. He makes plenty of money there. They do a ton of businesses. Other arcades would kill for the amount of business they do. I totally agree with that, and that's the problem. It is location, location, location. Yeah. But also, it does put a bad spin on the attitude and also the feel of the place. It looks great until you see half the game's dead. What does that say for pinball?
    23:36
    Boy, these break a lot. Is it really worth it to come here, even though it is coin drop? You know, people don't want to travel across the country, spend a day in Vegas on their vacation who do like pinball. Well, most don't anymore because most say, I'm not going to go there because I know half the stuff ain't working.
    23:55
    Honestly, the only time I was out, last time I was out there, I stopped in, two hours, I was out. I went, okay, yep, same stuff, even worse. Thanks. It's not a dig because maybe he's jaded everyone out there that he did have help from. And I go back to it being called Hall of Fame. Like, if I'm imagining, like, what a Hall of Fame looks like, right, that, like, I can imagine, hey, we put all the Wayne's, Nyan's machines together and we do write-ups. And here's an art display of Greg Ferris art or, like, Kristen Marchais, right? And here's a looped video produced by the Silver Ball Chronicles team, right, that talks about the games and the art, right?
    24:36
    Sorry, sorry, sorry. If I'm giving you work, Ron. Yeah. But it's not that. It's just him having notes on a 3x5 index card.
    24:47
    It's not what it should be. I think, honestly, a place down in Asbury Park in New Jersey is even better. Yeah, yeah. It has better notes, better machines. Honestly, Pinball Hall of Fame is probably one of the last places people want to go if you're a pinball player. So is it Jersey? It's the Silver Ball Museum? Yes. The Silver Ball Museum, yeah. And there's one also in Florida. In Florida, right? Yeah. And they're both very nice places. And what they've also done is, I'm sorry, I don't know the name of the gentleman who owns that, but the Lancaster Barnstormers, which is a minor league team, they've set up a whole deck of pinball machines at the baseball stadium. And there was a tournament that got run there last year, and everyone loved it. And I said to Doug Polka, who's our state rep, that, like, hey, we're rotating between Philly and Pittsburgh right now. We might want to consider doing that one year because the games seem to be high quality. They're being taken care of. And it is truly like a celebration of pinball. Yeah. And it does need to move around the state. We have the same problem up in New York State where we do move it now. But in the beginning, it was really hard to try to pull it away from New York City. Yeah. Has that gotten better for you all the past few years? Yes.
    26:02
    The last one was actually in Syracuse, so it was upstate. This year it will be in New York City. Next year. Next year, but you're coming up, yes. And then it will be, I don't know where it will be since it can't be back at Keeler's. That's kind of unfair also. So maybe at the level zero. Ooh. We'll see. No one's asked. So let's see. My next question is, ask Corey about the exploit on Kirby's Pinball Land for the Game Boy where you just played the soccer level over and over again to build bonus multiplier. I guess this goes back to pinball origin stories, right? I played a lot of Kirby's Pinball Land on Game Boy growing up. And there's three main levels that you have to beat, but all of them have kind of bonus levels that you go to. and in that game in, I think it's Wispy Woods, that there's a way to get into like a soccer level and every time you score a goal, you're building your bonus multiplier or the bonus amount itself. And you can just keep looping that over and over and over again. And the greater point isn't to teach people about a game that's 30-something years old, but thinking about kind of like the mindset and how it relates to competitive pinball, right? Finding that edge. And thinking recently about stuff that people have done for, was it, oh gosh, which tournament was it that they were playing Whirlwind? Not Whirlwind, Diner. Sorry, my mind is off right now. We're going to stop and then let the cup time out to then hit again and then just have safe ways that you keep getting like 500,000 points. And terribly boring to watch from a competitive point of view, but so interesting to continue to edge case and find these exploits in games.
    27:47
    I can agree totally with that. You know, there's a lot of – Yes, I agree. It's boring. Yes. Let's see. I also must ask, Corey, why are you burnt out from running CERN Pro Circuit events and have switched to focusing on mid-tier events for the local community? I used to run the Allentown event for a few years, and as they opened up what their criteria for Pro Circuit events were, I stumbled into the local community here, helping out, eventually started running it. And at that point, we were maxing out at like a 92% IPA event. We were doing separate events on a Friday, Saturday. And it was a fun event to run.
    28:30
    And as the opportunity came up to do a pro circuit event, it's, oh, man, okay, we need this to be bigger. We need this to be better. We need to have multiple days of stuff. And that was in the trend a couple of years ago where it really started that, hey, if you're going to be hosting an event, you really should be having multiple events across multiple days. So we tried adding in a match play event. We tried adding in this event that we were calling the gauntlet, but it was essentially like a single card event that you were doing. And, Ron, you won one of ours one year. Are you in the top four? Did you win? I was in the top something. Top something. And there's just so much pressure that comes from running a pro circuit event. the expectations compared to your local event that players come in and they expect games to be good and they expect it to be consistent. And it goes back to kind of the pre-COVID era, as I think that people were really kind of solidifying their views and opinions on what kind of good events are. And best game events are just so hard to run. And, Bruce, you have the Beast coming up, right? Yes, yes. And there's just so much work. And I hear you right. You said that there's like two months of prep going into making sure that everything's good for that. Yes. Well, I know my games will be good because I've been more collective. But, yeah, so, but it is, you know, right now behind the scenes, Jeff is just making sure he has all the games that he's bringing in because they don't have a lot. They have more. It's more of a modern stern, you know. Mostly modern. Yeah, but mostly modern. Yeah, so people need to bring in the older ones. So we're bringing in classics, and I'm bringing in two. And one, of course, is the official game of the Slam Tilt podcast. Meteor? No. Oh, sorry. That would be Stars.
    30:19
    And then the second one he hasn't announced yet, and I'm not going to bring it up until he does, but it's also coming from the RPC.
    30:26
    A second Stars? Big Dick. Oh, no, you don't have that one. Wow. Q. You got a Q. We got a Q. No, I'm just going to bring out Viper and piss off everybody.
    30:38
    Orbiter One. Orbiter One, yes. But, yeah, so it does take a lot of behind the scenes, and then Jeff has to drive down a couple times and try to get everything set up and ready, and then when we get there, like I bring the games out a week before, and I set them up, and they're in the back room, but the back room's already filled up with other games, so it's really tight for them during those couple weeks of trying to run a regular business. Yeah. And then, luckily, Ron will be with us this year, so I can throw one game in the back of Ron's car, one game in the back of mine, and he can bring it back home to my house.
    31:13
    I can't? What? Wink, wink. Wait, what? What? You'll do it. Don't worry about it. What? But I'm leaving, like, Sunday morning. Yes, I know.
    31:23
    Okay. That's fine. You can just drop it off at my house. Or in the garage. Just drop it off. Yeah, it's a light game. It's a light game. The guy with the red spine is going to be... Uh, who's got the worst spine? I don't know. Mine's pretty bad. I broke mine. Mine's pretty bad. I broke mine, though. Usually when you break your spine, it's pretty bad.
    31:44
    Touche. I win. Fatality. Okay. I injured mine about two hours ago. Oh. My dad is a machinist. He's closing down his shop and said, hey, you know, need some help moving stuff. Literally the last thing. Last thing that we were moving all of a sudden. and my lower back gives out. Isn't that great? Oh, my gosh. It's hard to walk right now. Came back from vacation. I'm in the basement. I just reach back for something, just literally reach back, and boom, goes out.
    32:16
    Lovely. That's so great. Mine just hurts all the time. But, Bruce, I admire all the work that's going into that because I know how much work it takes to run a best game event. Oh, it sucks. It does suck because you've got to keep the game running for it. It's fun. No, you have to keep the game running for at least 72 hours. Yeah. Because if not, people are going to complain, oh, I didn't get the chance to get my good game, and that's cost me this. And it's a lot of pressure. And that's why you bring spare boards and spare stuff to back up stuff. And it was so hard to execute. It was so hard to execute at Allentown because we're getting games, you know. You were getting a lot of junk games. Totally, 100%, right? I think Zach's games were pretty much like the, hey, this is a good game you got here. Yeah, exactly. And, like, does that work with what the tournament community demands for a Stern Pro Circuit event? The answer is no, right? No. That, like, if you want it to be a worthy Pro Circuit event, I think the goals of what the Pro Circuit is, and as I continue to formulate kind of the goals of what, like, the event that I wanted to run, when we were running Allentown before it was Pro Circuit, to me it was a, hey, a cheap entry, it's a way to collect names, try to get people involved in our local league and tournament scene, right? And that does not jive with, like, what people are expecting, especially these days for, like, a pro circuit event. It's hard to do the pro circuit shit at shows. Yeah. Just because you're relying on the other people's games to be awesome. It has to be at a dedicated location, I feel. Or if you have a situation like Pentastic where the Stankton crew brings all their games. Or Indy. Yes. So they know, you know, or like you said, locations. Yes. Indy because they're all, yeah. Yeah, they're all, you know, very respected people who own games and modifying themselves to make them even harder. Yeah. So, you know, that kind of thing is always hard. But there will be some changes, I think. I think the pro event next year will be changing, and some will be dropping, and some will be gaining, and it's going to be different. All this IPA crap. Let see Corey why do you think your local house league is the greatest thing ever This gets back to focusing on kind of like mid events for the local community So we have our normal league on Wednesday nights and it's at our local bar and grill railroad, Railroad Street in Linfield, Pennsylvania.
    34:48
    And a bunch of us knew, hey, we've got a bunch of local people who have six, eight machines, and it is just so chill. It is like the complete opposite of a certain pro circuit event, and maybe that's why I love it so much. It's a hangout on a Friday. And, you know, our league is pretty male heavy. But so on this, families come out, spouses come out, and whoever the host is, you put on a nice spread. Most of the entry fee goes to them. And we play six games. You take a mulligan and you replay a game or you try a new one. And it's just been fun. And it embraces kind of the spirit of, like, what I genuinely love around pinball. that the Stern Pro Circuit events, the amount of angry people during and after, just completely burns you out. But here, we're embracing what I think pinball really is. And one of the reasons I love your podcast, because you talk about the Rochester Pinball Collective, you talk about the local people and the local personalities, and we have that in our area as well. And it's just amazing to have. I think it's hard as an adult these days to have a sense of community with people, but to be able to have this, that, like, people are willing to open their homes, that we're willing to hang out on a Wednesday league and a Friday hangout. It makes me happy, and it makes me feel very fulfilled in an era that people aren't doing, like, bowling leagues as much. They're not doing the same, you know. Your VFWs and your social clubs just don't kind of exist in the same way that they did previously. So to find, like, a local tribe, right? I think it's been very fulfilling and valuable. And how do we sneak in some IFPA points? But really, like, it's just so much fun for what we're trying to do. And I think it makes people really happy that, like, this is a thing that we're doing. Yeah, like, we have the Western Europe Pinball League, and we formed that after Buffalo Pinball League. And, you know, it's just 24 people. We get together once a month, and we hang out and have fun. And it is for IFPA points, but it's 22 points. Who cares? Well, and I'll say, I just had an event at Level Zero. The Albany Bells had an event there this past Saturday. And the Bells events are my favorites. Yes, they are. They're awesome. They are the best events to have. I totally agree. They bring so much cool stuff. When they leave, it's like they were never there. I don't have to spend forever picking everything up because everyone's a slob. Yep. It's just, it's the best tournaments. I totally agree. I see the same thing in RPC.
    37:26
    Let's see. RPC, what does that stand for, Bruce? The Rochester Pinball Collective. Where is that located, Ron? 349 West Commercial Street in East Rochester, New York. Ooh, what's sweet. Come on. You can nail it. Is it four digits? Yes, it is. 29.65? Woo-hoo! Oh, man. You're in trouble now if I have that down. You'll never have to say it again. Full point.
    37:54
    Corey, I hear your state championships had three Stern electronic games in them, Quicksilver, Nineball, and Galaxy.
    38:02
    First, I've got to give a shout-out to local owner Brandon Service. Yes, we know Brandon very well. Yeah, and so Brandon went to school in Rochester, right? He did. He went to RIT. Yes, he did. And he's gone away for the summer because he's finishing up his internship to be able to graduate. So he brought the Galaxy, and then we got another local owner, Dennis, who brought the Nineball. We've had a Quicksilver on site for a while. So it was a very Stern Electronics-heavy state champs, which was good. I also have to – I don't know if you all had heard this. So Doug Polka is our state rep, and Elizabeth is the state rep for women's. Elizabeth was heading to drop off their dog and hit a nice patch. They got into a car accident. Everyone was okay. A car was totaled. Dog is okay. Elizabeth is okay. But I get a call from Doug saying, hey, we're not making it. Can you run the state champs? We were hosting it at Railroad around Philadelphia. So just a shout-out to Louis Bevins, who came out to, like, help co-host with me. But really, like, having those three Stern Electronics games helped things go fast, which was nice. The Pittsburgh crew, top four, came in and kicked all of our butts, so congrats to them. But I think about kind of the Stern Electronics games, and we had a Nitro Groundshaker there as well. But I think about the depth of in-game choice of a Stern Electronics game versus a Bally that, like, I'm looking at my Globetrotters, that, like, okay, I hit the drops, I hit the middle spinners to build bonus, then just hit left spinner. And it's fairly straight ahead for what you're trying to do, but we've got a local guy who's got a Stargazer. And the Stargazer, it's got oscillating lights that, okay, well, you hit it, And, well, is the spinner going to be worth more? Is the drops going to be worth more? Am I trying to lock in Zodiac? Am I trying to get the multiplier for bonus?
    39:53
    There just seems to be so much depth in terms of Stern Electronics games of that era versus the Ballys of a similar era. And even though when I got into things like, oh, these Ballys are great, Class of 81, the most amazing thing ever, like I'm gravitating more towards Stern Electronics games as my favorite games, especially in a tournament setting.
    40:13
    We're sorry for all the more expensive Sterns that are out there now, folks. Valley class of 81 or Stern class of 80?
    40:23
    And pardon my ignorance, what are those Stern Electronics 80s games? Like Quicksilver. Stargazer.
    40:32
    What else do you have there? You have, actually, I think like Cheetah, Big Game, Alley. They made a ton of ones in 1980. That was probably your biggest production year. Yeah. Some of your best MPU-200s were all out in 1980.
    40:50
    So I'm going to say Stern because it's our gimmick. I say Stern always. Definitely. So when you have your class of 81, you got, okay, you got Ape All Deluxe. Okay. All-time classic. Centaur. Fathom, I'd say, I think is overrated. I was never usually into Fathom. You also got Flight 2000 in 1980. Oh, yeah, for sure. Oh, wow. Yeah, so Galaxy, Flight 2000, Cheetah, Big Game, Nineball, and Quicksilver. Yeah. And Stargazer. So there's your 80 lineup. Definitely better. Yeah. Definitely better.
    41:28
    I'm on pin side now. The prices are going up as we're talking. Oh, yes, they are. Of course they are. Although I'm doing a poor job because I've got a Fireball 2 to sell, right? if we're talking about how good the Stern games are.
    41:40
    Fireball 2. What a great sequel to Fireball. Actually, Fireball Classics kind of seems more like the sequel. The chairman of the sequel, yeah. Because they just reused the play field. Oh, and Ollie was also in that too. Ollie? I sit out of it. So, yeah, you've got a lot of great games. When was Dracula and Wildfire? That's earlier. Dracula was 79. Okay.
    42:03
    That's MPU 100. Wonderful. Wonderful sound. By wonderful, I mean horrible sound. All right, Corey, you ready to be our third host? I think so. Ready to do our third hosting duties?
    42:19
    So I'm going to go through my topic list here. So I got first thing on here I have, the Sanctum Lottery.
    42:29
    Does everyone know? Who knows what the Sanctum Lottery is? I do. I think I know as well. So the Sanctum Lottery, the Sanctum is the location in Connecticut, and every year they have the 24-hour tournament, which people say you're crazy for playing in, et cetera. But the problem is they have 100 spots and 200-plus people want to play in it. So what they do is they do a lottery where you put your name in and then they do a drawing, and the top 99, because whoever won at the previous year gets in automatically. So that player and the other 99 people, the first 99 people are in. And then everyone below that is in a waiting list in the order they were selected.
    43:13
    So our Zach, after being near the bottom last year with no chance to get in, he was in the top, what? He was like 17? Yeah, 17 or 18. So he's in. I was 125 or something. Yep. It's like, I don't know. I know you're going to make it. But so what they do is once they do this drawing, you have like a day to pay up. Yes. If you don't, that's it. You're out. Moving on. Moving on down the line. That moves down the line. And there had to be at least 20 people who didn't pay. Wow. So I went from like 25 in the waiting list to I am currently second in the waiting list. Yes. So he'll be getting it. Amazing. Yeah. There's a high probability that I would get it. at least enough where I should make arrangements. Hey, where did I end up, Ron? You didn't try. Yeah. You might be the smart one in our group. I think I'm the smart one. Well, I didn't want to get sick before my cruise. Ah. It just runs me down that whole weekend, you know, driving out all 24 hours, around 100 other people, and then coming back and then work that whole week, and then, oh, yeah, honey, I'm sick for the cruise. You can kill me now. So, Corey, would you be crazy enough to play in something like that, or is that like, nah? I've thought about this, and I'm such an IFPA points chaser that, you know, I'm proud of them for sticking to their guns of not modifying the format in order to try to maximize points. And to me, I try to look at events as kind of like getting maximum value, especially for the events that I am kind of point-seeking on. But it just sounds exhausting. I'm so exhausted after, like, Pinberg weekend when I would go to Pinberg that, like, I can't imagine just going for 24 hours straight. Maybe this is my age showing at this point. I know I've got a friend who lives up in Rhode Island. He put his name, and he's very low on the waiting list, and he says, yeah, I'd like to try it at some point. It's cool. Don't get me wrong, but it does kill you for, like, a week after. Yeah. And you don't want to touch a pinball machine for, like, two weeks after, too.
    45:22
    You're literally like, ugh. But, Bruce, it doesn't kill me. because you only live two or three hours away. Okay. You could stay over, Bruce, but you don't. You drive home like a maniac. Because I've got to get home the next day anyway. So what the hell? God damn it, Bobby. Was it Zach that talked about trying to cram, like, I feel like it was your podcast, right? Like six flip frenzies in a 24-hour period or something like that. I want to do six flip frenzies in one 24-hour. See, that adds an extra appeal of the IFPA points chasing. Oh, that would be. I love that. And what it also allows for is like, oh, man, you have a bad couple of rounds or games. Nope, nope, reset. We started a new tournament. Yeah, in hour four or hour eight. Yep.
    46:09
    Let's see. We got, I got a note here. IFPA on the clock. Oh, oh. Yes. The IFPA championships. Yes. how the whole discussion came up after this thing because of certain players taking a long time to plunge their ball, long periods of time, like every ball. And then playing over 30 seconds on their test balls and they're like that also. Oh, yeah, they're supposed to have 30 seconds of, what, practice and then being down there for like two minutes. Feel the tilt, feel the flippers. Feel them. Yeah, that's all it is. Not let's play two or three balls. Yeah, so... In the discussion, it turns out IPA does have a rule on this as far as being late to when you're supposed to be up. And it's actually a little more stringent than I thought it was. Two minutes. No, no, no. It was 60 seconds. 60 seconds? 60 seconds. If you're not there, you get a warning. You do it again, instant zero.
    47:11
    No plunging balls. The reason they don't plunge balls, and I vaguely remember this, There was an instance where balls were plunged for somebody that wasn't there for that round, and they end up getting third. They got third in a four-person group. Some person actually ended up less than them. Yeah. Wow. So they don't even bother. They just give, like, the insta-zero. Now, obviously this didn't happen, so I'm sure if Josh Sharp was here, it would be one of those, well, players got to complain about it. Yeah. Yeah, and the problem is, do you want to be the dick? Yeah, that's the thing. Do you want to be the dick? And in this case, once you get to a certain point, all the players are like kids. They're all like teenagers, 20-year-olds. They're all buddy-buddies. They're not going to be dicks to each other. You're going to need someone who's the asshole that just says, like, yo, put this dude on the clock. And that just never happens. I know. It never happens. Bruce would be the asshole. I'd be the asshole. He would totally do it. Have you considered doing this for your Rochester event? We're pretty – we actually have rules printed up on all the walls stating what is going on, and we follow them to the T. We really do.
    48:27
    And we had one instance during the last comp where we were getting ready to get the zero out. You know, they were on the clock, and they walked in like three or four seconds before it happened.
    48:39
    We're like, hey, man, you didn't say anything to anybody. Oh, I had to go to the bathroom. Like, okay, well, you should say it to your group before just running off to your bathroom. And you say rules. If I remember, I remember hearing Zach talk about, like, kind of derivations to the regular rules. So are these, like, IFPA rules? There are house rules. Because I think your rule is, like, two minutes. Yes, it is. I'd love a copy of that. Yeah, Zach would definitely be the one to ask you that. But, yeah, he has the house rules where, you know, being courteous and kind, you know, also, you know, swearing, that kind of stuff. Yeah. Well, if you're talking normal to somebody and they start F-bombing you or, you know, saying this bull-fucking-shit, you know, guess what? It happens. Stay fucking stuck. Yeah. Stop that fucking.
    49:30
    Okay. Then right under that, I have a note for Yagpin. Yes. Yankton in the Canadian tournament in, was it Edmonton? Edmonton. And that occurred since we last recorded. Yes. And that was the opposite of IFPA. This was like they had clocks like you, I can't remember how much time you had, but there were no issues with that. Nope. And it went fast and it felt like it was moving right along. It went fast itself. But the thing about Yankton, if we equate pinball to golf, as a lot of people do, Yagpin is like the U.S. Open. The U.S. Open in golf, in golf, there are four majors. There is the Masters, U.S. Open, PGA, and the Open, or the British Open. Don't want to say that in front of the British, they'll get pissed. Wankers. The U.S. Open, the gimmick of the U.S. Open is they make the course obscenely hard. That's the one you see where the dude will hit it on the green, and it looks good, and then it rolls 30 yards off the green. Yeah, you're like, what the fuck happened? Yeah, and it's one of my favorites to watch for that reason because I just like watching top players get just absolutely hosed. It's great. But that's what Yagpin is. And for that reason, a lot of top players will not play in it. The difference is in golf, you know, they have the chance to win millions of dollars by getting rings in here. And this, no, they've got to pay probably thousands of dollars to go to this thing, and they don't feel like getting absolutely destroyed. But for that reason, it's one of my favorite tournaments to watch the stream. Because even games, modern games that usually take forever, do not take forever.
    51:12
    Their tilts were very, very tight. They use those precision flippers. They have even shorter than lightning flipper flippers.
    51:23
    But that's actually one of my favorites to watch for that reason. Rhonda, I love your U.S. Open analogy because it's so perfect for this. you said you enjoy watching it, would you enjoy playing? No. Something like that. No. No, definitely not. They have a great turnout at Yank Pan. Yep, they always do. They always do. The Canadians form a solid wall of solidarity, eh? I don't think a Canadian won anything, though. No.
    51:51
    That's the thing. I don't have all the usual results because they have so many tournaments. Yeah, they do. They have like, I don't know, five, six. Yeah, there's six tournaments. I know, I think Luke Nahorniak won the main, the Pinberg-like one, the one that's the match play. I'm pretty sure that he won that. Who wants to play that much pinball one weekend and be exhausted? Obviously, everybody wants to do that.
    52:14
    But, yeah, like I said, for that reason, it's one of my favorites to watch. I love it. Let's see. And my next item I have, since we do this every episode, I'm just going to give it a name. You know, when we always look at the news and we just rip it off from Nap Arcade, I'm just going to call it Nap News. I say it Nap News Corner.
    52:37
    Because he has his own corner of our hearts and in our podcast. Isn't that like, wouldn't you just call it Nap Corner? I like Nap Corner. What do you think, Corey? Nap News, Nap Corner, or Nap News Corner? Nap Av. I like the Nap Corner. Ooh. Because it evokes, you know, I'm feeling a bit tired right now. One, maybe I want to just, you know, snuggle under a blanket and take a quick nap. Nice. Okay. But this news is exciting, right? It's exciting news. Not always. It's no time for a nap. Well, okay. If it's a sleepy news week, then, yes, nap corner feels very appropriate. Okay, so on the inaugural nap corner, I'm at Nap Arcade right now. Ooh. Jersey Jack is nearing the end of its, actually, I think they finished, producing all 1,000 collector's editions. Hold me close, a tiny dance. And you think they'll actually all get sold eventually? I don't think they made 1,000. So even though some people have said they made 1,000, you think that's a lie and they all think they made 1,000? No way. So you say no way they actually made 1,000. No way. They just made the amount of CEs they felt they were going to make. They needed to plus probably 50 more, 50 to 100 more. Okay. Guess what? If you sold 700 and you have 300 left, it's going to hurt your future game first off. Second, you're holding so much inventory in a machine, and it's going to depreciate. It's not worth it. So you're going to build as many as you need to and then 50 extra max. That's it. What do we think their next game is going to be? Is it going to be Harry Potter?
    54:15
    I don't know. I do not know. I don't know either. I don't get any really... You don't get no juicy information? I don't get no juicy information from that. All I know is it's probably going to be more in price.
    54:29
    You think they're going to make it... So if they came out with Harry Potter, they're going to make it even more expensive? Oh, of course they are. So $12K and $15K, not enough? It'll be $12K, $5K, and $16K. Really? Oh, yeah, because they've got to add this new system that they're going to have that arcade talked about. Oh, yeah, we'll get to that. I think people will buy it. If it's Harry Potter. If they're crackheads, yes, they will always buy it. I must be a crackhead, Bruce. I brought Elton John. Yeah, and you bought Dialed In, so there's no... It was the hit of the Bells Tournament. Everyone loves Elton John. I love Elton John, too. It's better than Dialed In.
    55:06
    I can't totally disagree with that. See? Elton John was very fun. I've only gotten kind of two games on it. They had it at the Pinball Gallery, which is over near us. and it was just, you know, I mean, it's got bops in it, man, right? Like, it is just fun to listen to while you play, and dialed in is also great. I did, you know, that's the real reason I came on to the podcast was to tell Vaughn that dialed in is great. Thank you. Now that's the sucking up part of our journey here, folks. Totally. Oh, 100%. But we had it dialed in on location, and so it was always there for league, And I can understand, like, if you're just playing one or two games on it, getting really frustrated by it. But if you've got a bunch of tournament nerds who are spending their time trying to optimize this game, and it became very fun. And I don't know, maybe it's a bit Stockholm Syndrome that, well, it's the game we have here, therefore we have to love it. But finding what we needed to do in terms of activating the modes and going for sim cards or when we would have higher level tournaments, just seeing people come in and really, like, blow up the game because they knew what they were doing. It is one of these games that, like, you need to know what you're doing. And when you do, and you've invested time in it, then it becomes super fun. But I can understand it being a total, like, non-starter for people who are more casual players. Dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun. David Beal, stop.
    56:41
    Okay. You don't even like the music, Bruce? I don't mind the game. I just don't like the scoring in it, and I don't like some of the shots. Shots are the best part. No, they're not. A hidden shot that gets you 100,000 points. Yeah. When the game is so clunky to get. Clunky? Combos in that game. Wait a second. Combos are so easy to do in this game, and you get shit for them. Bad, bad, bad.
    57:08
    Okay. Next item. I say I have a Butch Peel has left Chicago Gaming Company He's moving on around, moving on around to the next place He did the manuals for Jersey Jack and he was gone from there and now he was at Chicago Gaming, did the manuals for them and now he's gone. I found his comment was interesting It was weird I wish them all the best in their future endeavors but felt the need to step back due to differing priorities within the company Yeah. What the hell does that mean?
    57:42
    Maybe he didn't like the way they were dragging their feet on these games, and as an employee, you kind of take pride in what you do, and maybe he felt like, hey, why does it take so long to make a game? I have no choice in the matter, but I get to hear about it all the time, maybe. I don't know, but it did seem weird the way he stated it.
    58:03
    Let's see. Spooky moving into a new factory. Isn't this like third or fourth factory? Well, they're going to eventually own all of Benton, Wisconsin. Yes. I think so. Holy shit.
    58:15
    The number one employer over the fire department and all the county seat of, yes, we're going to have, it's going to be spooky. But they just built the current one, you know, to meet all their needs. And, but they're moving again? I don't see how. They just keep getting bigger, I guess. Let's see. It's moving all of its game assembly operations to a new building and leaving a lot of the old machinery, oh, in the existing building. Okay It's just like so many Yeah I think you're right They're going to own all of Benton, Wisconsin at a certain point Does that mean more lines? Does it mean more capacity? Quicker turnaround of games? I have no idea How about better rules? And they finally got manuals Hey congratulations Oh yes Bruce they heard you Holy fuckalaroo They have manuals Well they were for what? Scooby And the new ones Yeah all the new ones All the new ones Yes. Well, Scooby on. So, see, Bruce, they heard you. Clearly it was you that made them do that. Yeah, it had to be me. No Rob Zombie manual? No, no, no. I don't even know if they did a Rick and Morty. Maybe they did. I think maybe Rick was the first one. But, yeah, it's just, it's only been out for four years, guys. Great work in keeping up with the status quo.
    59:29
    Motherfucker. Wow. It just annoys me. It really does. Okay. Oh, we have Pulp Fictions. The Pulp Fiction LEs are scheduled to ship in, let's see, late September, October, and early November. Motherfucker. All right.
    59:48
    When did that debut? That was like a year and a half ago. Yeah, that was not this Texas. It was a previous Texas. It was previous, a year and a half ago. Yeah. They took money a year and a half ago, and now they're finally coming out. With the LEs. Way to follow the Dutch pinball process. Well, no, they needed to take 10 years if they were going to do that. No, no, no, no. They put out a couple of pinball machines, so, you know. What is different about the LA machine?
    60:16
    It's got the topper. It's got more. It has something else, too. It's got, like, all the speaker grill or something. It's got, like, some speaker grill thing or something. Yeah, a couple little things. Yeah, I like that. But mainly, it's the top. Yeah. And it's a cool top. Is there one at Rochester? No. Really? You don't have one? Nope. We have one here at the local. At the local, local, local. The local family, friends. No, I'm sorry. Fun, funner, funnest. Yes. It's like, let's stomp my toe three fucking times in a row. Ow, ow, owie. Owie.
    60:59
    Let's see. According to multiple sources. Fucking terrible fucking name. Sorry. Hey. According to multiple sources, Stern Pinball is bringing Godzilla, the black and white edition, to Comic-Con. They are.
    61:14
    Yeah, I've heard. Yeah, I've heard, yes. This does exist. Hey, we're not going to do any more special things. Oh, wait a second. We are. We're going to break our own rules. Well, do you think, okay, since we're all here, do we think it'll actually be a new art package that's black and white, or they're just going to take the existing art package and make it black and white. It's the existing probably art package, make it black and white, and it'll be a premium. And there's your whole other cash grab. I agree on that. I can't see them redoing the art. No, no. The artwork works. They didn't do it for Elvira. No, the artwork works. They put the trim on it and said, like, here's the red version or whatever it was.
    61:54
    Yeah, I can see keeping the play field the same. Would they change the translate? I feel like that's an easy enough thing to maybe make a different black and white version of.
    62:03
    Cash grab is all I can think of. Well, according to, and this is from NAP Arcade, John Wick sales have been much slower. Really?
    62:14
    Hey, we got a new app, though. It wasn't working for a week, and now it's working again. What app? Oh, the Insider Connected. They're connected.
    62:23
    They say several industry people say that there's a good chance that Stern and other manufacturers will move up games that were originally planned for later in the year to keep their production lines moving. Do you believe this is true? Yes. You do? Yeah.
    62:36
    John Wick is not selling well. When used ones are already selling for $6,059, and, yeah, that tells you, Houston, we have a problem. Okay. Just like, Jaws did the same thing. The past two games have not been home runs. Well, you think it's for the economy and things like that? People don't want to do the fight thing? No, because if it's a good game, people are going to keep it. How many people did you see drop Godzilla?
    63:09
    Or, you know, a couple other games, you know, that were, wow. Not many. Jaws, think about it. Jaws, it was okay. It wasn't great. Bond, eh. Venom, eh. You know, it just, the past year has not been hitting some, they're getting slap singles.
    63:31
    I like it. They're getting slap singles. No doubles, no overs. No doubles, no triples, no in the parkers, no grand slammy. Okay. Godzilla grand slam.
    63:42
    But ever since Godzilla, I haven't seen anything. Think about it. It hasn't been that great. Do you guys agree or disagree? I'm really enjoying Foo Fighters. Oh, yeah, Foo Fighters. The one's newer. Foo's a good double, maybe a triple. Is it a double? Maybe a triple? It's a triple. I actually say it's a triple. It's a triple. The rules really help it out. Oh, 100%. The play field is different. It's different enough. Yes. It's different. But. It's not that home run. That's the last, I will say, better than a slap single.
    64:16
    Okay, we have our new rating system for Bruce. Yeah. It's like, is it a single or a double, triple, or a home run? No, we have worse than that, too. We have the old strikeout. We have the pass ball. You can get beamed if you bought a Barry O.
    64:31
    Wow. That's just, you got beamed. You got beamed. Okay. Oh, God. Let's see, what else do I got here? Okay. The other thing that's coming to Jersey Jack, pinball connect. Yes. It looks like an original guy. It looks like a pinball connect. That might be a placeholder name, but I guess it's in. It's going to be like multi-ball and tri-ball. It was in the release notes for one of the Elton John updates. So they are working on basically the score bit replacement, and they checked it. Yeah. So that's what this is. You would think you would have something right away instead of waiting a year.
    65:17
    It sounds like it's been, what, six months since they dropped that code. Score a bit. So if they haven't had it by now, you're talking almost a year.
    65:28
    Not good. Not good? Not good. Okay. Hey, for $15,000, hey, what do I know? I don't know, Bruce. What do you know? I know nothing. Come on. Let's see what else do I got here.
    65:43
    Oh, the Delaware Pinball Collective. They had the shit talker. Yeah, the shit talker, basically the trash talker tournament. Yeah. And it ended up being father versus son, Jason's dollar versus Steve's dollar. Did they ice each other out for two hours? Oh, that would be pretty funny. Oh, actually, I've got to watch the stream back. I wonder if anyone brought that up. I can see that. Are you guys going to ice each other? Yeah. How long is it going to take, seven hours?
    66:09
    That would be funny. But Steve won. It said it was the first time he beat his son in 14 years. Wow. Jason would show up at our tournaments and he was like, I don't know, eight? And he'd, like, walk away with trophies. So I think there is some truth in what Steve said. Although he'd be, like, six if he was beating him. So he's beaten him since he was six years old. I think that might have been a little exaggeration there. Yeah, a little bit, but, you know, it sounds good for television.
    66:38
    Okay. Let's do this right now. Game of the Year. We're going. Yep. Game of the Year. Hate. We ask this of all our guests. Let hate flow through you. I was thinking ahead of the show. We start with a game you like, right? Yep. You can do whatever you want. You can start with hate or you can start with like. I had a really good game on Foo Fighters the other day. And I'm like, ah, Foo Fighters is great. I sent Jack Danger a message on Facebook. I'm like, Jack, tell the team that this game is awesome because I was feeling real good. But I think my actual answer is Big Lebowski. and I have a friend who at Pinberg a couple years ago played the game. And it worked? Well, in the day that like everyone would throw, you know, down payments and deposits on things, he did that and waited and waited and then he saw, like, wait a second, they're going to lose, they're going to lose the rights to producing this game and this is two years ago now and worked with Cointaker and said to Cointaker, you know what, Just, you know, I don't need my little Lebowski Achievers version. Just get me the game. Get me the game as soon as you can. Because he was worried that they were going to lose the license and not be able to get to his game in the order that it was done. He goes and gets a call and says, oh, hey, like, randomly out of the blue, months and months later, oh, hey, we got your game. It's going to be delivered tomorrow. Oh, great. Well, he moved in the meantime. It got shipped to the wrong place. Oh!
    68:05
    Get that all worked out. And then he called at me and, like, hey, can you help me, like, unload this? like, yes, of course I'm going to help you unload a big Lebowski. Gets to the house, a forklift had gone through it. Oh.
    68:18
    But luckily, whatever forklift went through it was wide enough that it didn't damage the game. And so it's been awesome because he's had all sorts of problems in terms of the mechs and having to rebuild all the pinball under layer, and I've just gotten the experience of playing it and not having to do any of the repair work on it. You sound like an alien owner. Yeah, exactly, right?
    68:41
    I'm sure it will be improved with GPX. Dual Penetration Extreme. But yes, that's a good pick, you know, when you find one in the wild, or if you find one at a friend's house that works, hey. It's working well. The code is great, and it really evokes this old, like, Bally Williams like style of play from the you know late 90s And it just so much fun and really it so much fun without me having done any of the work to actually get it to be a good up game It a very fun 2014 game I agree Yes, I agree. Yeah. A game I hate?
    69:21
    Genie. I think it's Genie right now. You're going to hurt our stack on that one. I know, I know, and I was trying to think, because there are games that you just genuinely dislike, but, like, I like Genie, but I never do well in tournaments at it. And I get so nervous playing Genie. I know exactly what I need to do. I've played hours and hours on Pinball Arcade on it, but whenever I get it in a tournament, no matter what location that I find it at either, like, I always bungle it. I always mess up. I'm always losing by small margins. And so it's a game that I want to love that I just can't stand right now because I get so nervous if I get drawn on it in a tournament. that doesn't seem like total hate to me no i don't think so either that's a cop out hate that's a cop out hate that's like fake hate we need full hate we need full hate we need the you know motherfucker burned me so bad that i i will never forgive this game again i have one of them i did play out of turn on an Elvis at Pinberg.
    70:25
    And now I say I can't. I can't. Yeah, you're trying to get me to find a game that I really, really dislike.
    70:32
    And perhaps this needs to be edited, because I feel like what I need to do now is go to Match Play and look at, like, game history. Because there genuinely is nothing coming to mind, and maybe this is my problem as an optimist. All games are good. All games are great. Good. Okay, pretend you just played Thunderbirds. That game's pretty terrible. There you go. I don't want to, but that's the thing, right? But, like, I'm not purposely seeking out a Thunderbirds, right? Thank God. You just played Magic Girl, and it broke. I've never actually played Magic Girl. You're a lucky person. You're a better person. Is that a good game? I haven't played one that works. I haven't played one that works either. I played the one at Expo that supposedly was the one that made work, and it didn't do anything. It didn't work. Yeah, it didn't work. Fail. Well, my apologies for disappointing on the game that I hate. No problem. She's too positive. Yeah, that's the problem. Okay. Bruce, are you ready for the ball bag? I am always ready for the ball bag. Because we have a ball bag and we have a contest, a game. Ooh, I love contests. That Dr. John has sent us. So who knows what that's going to be about because his games are pretty interesting. They're a little demented. Demented. Hi, John. Hi, Dr. John. Dr. John's from Australia, for those things. Australia, mate. Our newer listeners, they don't know who that is. He has his own podcast, mate. He does. The Aussie Pinball Podcast. Let's see. We got one from Daniel.
    72:01
    Daniel was dying tonight on a plane. He's dying tonight on a plane? That's a shame. I can see the red taillights heading for Spain. He says, what's up, STD Godfathers? Ooh, yeah, like that, baby. Can you do me a favor and rank your top five Data East titles? I haven't played them all, but so far I think it goes something like this for me. Lethal Weapon 3, Tales from the Crypt, Jurassic Park, Star Wars. No. And honestly, I don't think I played another one that makes the list. Thanks. Okay, I got to look at the list. Shout out to One Up Lounge in Bellingham.
    72:44
    All right. Bellingham where? Massachusetts? No, Washington. I'll go with that. Good answer. What I have, I brought it up ahead of time. I was looking at this before. I don't know if I can do a particular order, but I can definitely do five. I can go with five. Because I went over this. So if I were to pick five, my five favorite Data East, I actually have – is Secret Service the one that's kind of like high speed? Yes. What's his name has? What's his name has one? Howard. It's got like the Capitol building on it and all that stuff. Yeah. I always liked that one. I like Time Machine. I like RoboCop.
    73:27
    Let's see. I'm not going to go down a while until I find another one I like here. Lethal Weapon 3, of course, the greatest of all. That's number one. I like me some Tales from the Crypt. Okay, I'm going to go a little different than you. Number one is... And I actually like, I know this is more than five. I like Royal Rumble, and I like Tommy also. So my top seven. Okay, top five for me. Number one, of course, Lethal Weapon 3.
    73:55
    Number two, RoboCop. Number three, pulling out that Ron did not think about, Torpedo Alley. good spinner game.
    74:04
    Good spinner game. Number four would be Tommy. Number five, Royal Rumble. And if you, I wish you put Sega in there, because then I'd throw Baywatch in there also. I don't have these in any order, as I've written down. Last Action Hero. Oh, I forgot about that one. I actually kind of like that one, too. That's a good one. Phantom of the Opera, I have a soft spot for that, because they used it in Papa one year. And so, like, that sounds terrible. It is terrible. But I've got good memories. The art's good. Yeah. Good job, Paul Ferris. Yes. It brings back good memories of Papa.
    74:40
    Royal Rumble's always fun, even though I got knocked out of state champs on it two years ago. Laser War? We had a Laser War locally for a while. We had one, too. It was just there. And Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. We used that in a selfie league that we did. So spent many, many hours a place down the road playing that because that was the game they had there.
    75:04
    I'm not saying these are good choices. If you notice, nobody said hook. No. We had a local place called Pensgate, and it was inside a skate park. And the guy who ran it, Chris, was also involved in Allentown. And he put just a whole bunch of pinball machines in back. And he had a whole bunch of these Data East games. He had Last Action Hero. He had Hook. I know Waterworld. Waterworld's not Data East, right? Nope, Gottlieb. Premier, actually. And all these kind of, like, weird 90s games, like, just an arcade chock full of them. And it was so much fun playing in those tournaments because it wasn't a sternament. The newest stern they had was, like, Sopranos. Yeah, which is good.
    75:44
    Okay, Ron? Well, this one, it says no to Slantel podcast, and then there's nothing in it. So I don't know if it's spam or I'm just not seeing it. I'm not in dark mode either, which sometimes I've seen where it doesn't show up. Well, while you're going there, I'll read the next one. Yep. This one's from Daniel. Oh, he says you sound good, Bruce, so your new mic sounds good. Well, somebody said I didn't sound as good. Well, I don't trust him. He's probably listening to it on his flip phone. On his flip phone, I agree.
    76:18
    And that would be Scott, our Scott. He says, Bruce's new microphone sounds exactly the same as the old one. How much was it? So, like I said, I think he's listening on his flip phone.
    76:29
    Yes, hold on. There's a picture. Did you look at the picture? I don't see a picture when I look at it. That's the problem.
    76:36
    It doesn't say anything. Well, what is the picture? It's just like him with a check. Oh. How come I can't see anything? I'm so confused why this doesn't work. I don't know, but I don't see anything. Yeah. But what if the check saver is? I can't read it. I can't blow it up that much. Oh. I can't blow it that much, so sorry. Jesus Christ. Yes. Oh, man.
    77:01
    All right. Hold on. I'm going to try it on my phone. I know this is scintillating content. Oh, God. Scintillating, but this really bothers me that this doesn't work because it makes no sense.
    77:13
    Damn it. I still can't see anything, even on my Pixel. But you see a picture. Yeah, picture. It's an IFBA check. and I can't tell how much it's for. Okay.
    77:29
    I'm sorry, Jacob. I can't read it. It's not coming through on my phone. Jacob, we don't got anything. I'm sorry. I apologize, Jacob.
    77:38
    We suck. Again, the ball bag, if you want to send something there, it's slamtillpodcast at gmail.com.
    77:46
    All right, so this is from Cole. It says, hey, Jolie, it's Jake in Elwood. Yes, after the Blues Brothers reference from the last few podcasts, I cannot look at your logo anymore without seeing you two wearing dark sunglasses and dark hats. I only wish I had the skill or talent to add them to your current logo, but the quote underneath from the Penguin, this disappointing pair have returned with filthy mouths and bad attitudes. Yeah. If somebody can do that, I'd be very, very happy. Either that or change the background to the Italian flag with the line underneath, Hey, what a, oh, God. What the fuck it up? Yeah, we make a good podcast up for you. We make a good pinball machine. We make it, you want it. Yes. Yes, Bruce, you are correct. You guys are pure class. You definitely put the ass in class. Yes, we do. That's what makes you guys awesome.
    78:40
    I have to agree with Ron about the topper for Black Knight as it is the best one I've ever seen. It is a great one, but now it's $1,500. No wonder Stern is running Black Knight Pros as the topper alone almost makes me want to buy one. I could actually watch someone else pay just to watch the topper move and talk crap. Yes, I am a child. Let's see. I know how Bruce's joy and happiness as the arcade I go play tournaments at just did a big lineup shift in a couple of the games they got rid of were Family Guy. Oh. Oh, that's horrible. Oh, my Stewie's like all over the place here. I think I was caught in between Quagmire. Yeah, you were. All right. They got rid of the family guy. That sucks. Yes, it does.
    79:31
    I just don't like that game. The second one they got rid of was, wait for it, Dialed In. Dun, dun. Yes. Oh, that's absolute and complete bullshit right there. Come on. That's terrible. Sorry, Ron, but my day just got better. Yes, it did. And to top it off, I can still take the fist when I go there. Oh, happy days. Oh, fucking happy days. As far as how it all sounded, it was way better than the new equipment. Oh, with the new equipment. And Bruce Elmer sounds sexier than ever. Oh, yes, Elmer. Elmer is my name. Playing pinball is my game. Cue the dueling banter. There, there, there, there, there, there, there. Keep the filthy mouth. Bad Attitude podcast coming. one of your many DPXing STDs. Oh.
    80:19
    By the way, STD stands for Slam, Tilt, Degenerate. Not what you sick people think it stands for. Not the other thing that everyone hates to see about when they get their test results from their doctor.
    80:30
    This one's from Grant. It says, thanks, Bruce, for the goodbye. Classic. I am very appreciative. Oh, yeah, thanks, Ron.
    80:37
    With smiley faces. Yes. I like smiley faces. I love smiley faces. Let's see. We got this one from Daniel. The subject is Kirk games. I assume you mean Steve Kirk. Yes. You boys have raved over Steve Kirk's Stern games, and rightfully so. What are your thoughts on Swords of Fury? I like it. He is credited first on the play field as designer along with Tony Kramer. Yeah, I don't know how much of it he did, though, before he got fired, because he got fired in the middle of that game. Yes. So I don't know how much of that is his. I haven't heard much in the way of history of this specific game. Well, there's some history. Are that era really outside of the big names like the Ritchie Brothers, Waller, Alistair, et cetera? Swords of Fury also doesn't seem to have the SK numeral anywhere. Yeah, I don't think it does. No. I think his other one did. What was it originally? It ended up being Truck Stop. Oh, God, yeah. But it was going to be Ramp Warrior? Yeah, Ramp Warrior. It was like it had the SK number on it, But then Truck Stop has it on a license plate, but the license plate fell off the car and it's just sitting on the ground or something like that. That's it. Although I would understand that being a stern electronics thing and didn't make the jump over anyways. I would like to hear your thoughts on the game and time frame. Thanks. I like Sword and Fury. It's okay. Is it worth what people want for it? No. It's okay. I like the upper play field thing. Love the upper play field. I think it's one of the better upper play fields from, you know, the early era. They kind of later made that again with Shadow. Yes. But, yeah. But a good game. I like it. I think it's the music that does it. It is the music, but I don't think it's worth four grand what people want for it. Exactly. Thank you. It is a less spinner-centric heavy game. Oh, yeah. And the only game I've ever seen that says, come. Yes, come on, feel the noise. Here come the guards. Girls, rock your boys. I don't know how that got past anyone, and it's right there. You see it every time you start multiball. ball. The 80s were a wild time, man. You get wild, wild, wild. But he got fired at some point in this game, so I don't know how much of it was his or how much was completed by other people.
    82:52
    Lion Man! Oh, God. Oh, Pinball Princess. Oh, boy. Oh, I think she wrote this while she was playing in the tournament in probably under five minutes. Okay, good. It's not too long. Dear Ron and Bruce.
    83:09
    Yes. Okay, she did write this yesterday. Earlier today, Ron told me an anecdote about Brian Smith using a super sophisticated registration system for the tournaments at Allentown with a cash-out option for unused entries. Yes, he did. Makes me wonder. For all the years of podcasting, I suspect there's still a wealth of pinball minutia that the two of you still have in your mental reservoirs. The little random pinball anecdotes will two times use that word. and to anecdotes of the olden days will be invaluable to pinball history nerds present and future. Without leading questions, or specifically, it may be difficult to pinpoint areas in which some of these nuggets of knowledge might reside, but I nevertheless implore you to consider some of the silly little moments in pinball. Think of the olden tournaments, the olden shows, the odd little details, and oddly specific memories. I would go so far as to suggest this deep dive down memory lane as a segment. And regrettably, however, every idea I've come up with so far has been scatological in nature. Is that a word? It's got to be a word. Anyway, we need more stories. More. Ever demanding of Pinball Storytime's player 31915.
    84:21
    And, yes, my story was I was just talking about how – I think I mentioned this on the show. Back in the day when we played the Allentown Tournament. You had a card. You were registered. You had this whole automated system. You would get a card. You'd swipe the card. And then you'd put your money into a dollar bill acceptor. Yeah, put money into a bill acceptor. And it would show up on the screen. Yep, to get entries. And he was using PDAs, maybe even pre-iPhone, to take down all the scores. He had a Betabright display that would go with the running leaderboard. And the coolest feature that nobody does, because in every pump-and-up tournament you ever play, if you don't end up using the entries, too bad. Win-win. His format or his system, when it was done, you know, you played up to a certain time, you could go and swipe your card and cash out. Like, I didn't use these, and get your money back. Back. What a novel idea. You actually get what you actually used instead of paying for more than what you used. It was a good system. And he would bring his own server and a backup server with him. Yep. and I know I think that kind of ended in well the thing is we were playing in that tournament and everything's like this automated system and then I go to like Papa which is you know like the biggest thing in the world they're still using clipboards for years after this and I was like wow weird and what year was that because I started getting involved oh my god well not 90s first like late 2000s. Yeah, because in 2016 I got involved and Brian was part of the scene, but he wasn't running tournaments in the same way. Nah, because he had the pinball, before it was, what was it called now, Pinfest? Yes. It was called the Allentown Pinball Wizards Convention. It was run by the Hine family, husband and wife, who actually didn't own any games. I always thought that was funny. I know, that was weird. But their view of tournaments was not the highest. We would just get stuck in a corner somewhere. And I think at the end there, I just remember that one of the last tournaments he ran there, he was just like, okay, I'm done. I'm done with them. I've had it. He was just pissed at them over something.
    86:42
    And, yeah. 2006. Yeah, wow. Well, he had them after that, too. Yeah, I know what I'm saying. I think that's the first one he had it with. Okay. Because I had the card for when. He also, when he brought up the Rochester game room, he did a tournament there. He did it. You know, we did it there also. And he was the one whose tournament I played in that I got my initial IFPA number of 365. Yep. And I'm at 671. We're old. Yeah. But now he's doing homebrews with his son. Yes, which is really cool. But they never mention his name in the early days of the whole tournament scene. And I think he should be mentioned more. Because he also did things like the monthly Masters tournaments. Yes. Which was also automated. I mean back when nothing is automated and we have them at various locations in the I think Pennsylvania New Jersey area and they would always end on time because they were all time based oh video video no not video video that location closed before I got into it oh yeah I remember video video also that was in New Jersey wasn't it that was in Morristown Brian's doing so much now He's got the two-player homebrew game. Yep, which looks really cool. And when he comes to our tournaments now, he loves talking about, like, how he's working on these things with his son. He'll talk about, like, tournament days of yore, right? He's not terribly old, but, like, he's been involved in this for a long time. And it's fun, like, talking to him about ways that they've tried to optimize or things that they would do to cut off tournaments or to make them shorter or arguments he'd have with the IFPA on stuff. So it's always a fun conversation with him when he comes out for tournaments these days. And when I started playing in his tournaments, his son didn't exist. Yeah. He was not born yet. He was dating his girlfriend. And his future wife. So, yeah. So I guess that's my story about one of the early pioneers of tournament pinball, Brian Smith. Put him in the IFPA Hall of Fame if there was such a thing. Have you thought about doing a history podcast, Ron? Yeah. We had a great idea, Ron. You should do a history podcast. I do one. It's called Silver Ball Chronicles, and you can listen to that on the Pinball Network. Our last episode was on bingos and was not well received from what I hear. No, it was a shit show.
    89:04
    Not when our own main sponsor, the owner of all things, the Pinball Network, Zach Binney, is busting on it on his own show. It's like, wow, damn, okay, I guess we're not doing bingo again. You know, people just don't respect the history. I mean, I enjoyed it. There's a lot of things I didn't know. We got into deepening a lot of the bingo stuff, but I think some people are just like, yeah, it's not pinball. Why are you talking about that? Make another Steve Ritchie podcast. Come on. They love those. Oh, oh, I was watching the senior tour of golf, and there was a Japanese golfer who was in the lead. I swear this guy is the Japanese Steve Ritchie. He looked exactly like if Steve Ritchie was a Japanese man, this is what he would look like. He had the crazy hair, exact same size, you know, he's short, skinny. He even walked like him. I'm like, it's Steve Ritchie.
    90:02
    So I just started, I hit that ball hard. I made that putt. I'm Steve Ritchie. So everyone looked that up. I'm telling you. I just like, I said that, and my father's like, oh, yeah, he does. And my dad and Steve Richie are pretty tight. Hiroyuki Fujita? Sure. I don't know if – Let's look at images. I assume he won because he was way in the lead. But, yeah, he even had – he had the hair like go crazy like Steve, and he's like the exact same size. Yes. This is Steve Richie. Steve, you didn't know I played golf, did you? I rule with that too.
    90:44
    Steve Richie. Have you played Elton John? It's the best game JJP's ever made. I think we're through the mail. Could I go back to a game I hate? Because I actually... Oh, yes. Most definitely. Oktoberfest. Fuck yeah. What, Bruce? You said you liked Oktoberfest. I liked Oktoberfest. I had to play it again, and it just... Oh, now you're going to... No, the rules are so... No, no, I like the shots. I actually like the shots in the game, which I'm one of the weird ones. Yeah, that's fucking weird, Bruce. You like the side ramp that doesn't work? No, except for the side ramp that does not work. I like the rest of the shots. I just don't like the animation because of Doxon. I like Doxons, and it just, the Doxon thing was so weird. You like the Simpsons Pinball Party, which has the other shittiest side ramp ever. I love Simpsons Pinball Party. It makes sense. Maybe it was the copies I played. I could hit the Simpsons Pinball Party side ramp every now and again. I could never hit it on Oktoberfest. And they put in a magnet, and they tried to line it up for you. and I could never finish, and it takes forever to get into a mode, and then you start a mode, and, you know, well, here's a random video mode, and you're playing Tapper. Like, that was the only way I could get points in this thing, because everything else was so clunky, and you couldn't start anything. And so, yes, that game, I'm looking back, I never won a single tournament game on that game, and I was just so angry any time that I had to play Oktoberfest. I like that we just finally got an answer out of him there. Yeah, the anger. Okay, so this is Dr. John of the Aussie Pinball Podcast. He has sent us a game. I looked at this briefly, but I didn't get into it because I didn't want to get into it until we did the show. And I assume there's questions because I see he sent one email. Then the second one says quiz answers. Like, don't open this until you actually try the questions I sent you. So let's do it. I'm opening up the email right now. Here we go. Hello, bye hosts. Slow news period in pinball at the moment, apart from the IFPA World Championship, which that could be very slow. But who watches competition pinball anyway? Not me. Speaking of the IFPA Championships, I saw thousands of viewers watching probably for the first time. And a common question in chat was, is there a time limit that they get to play?
    93:08
    Reconfirmed tournaments are not for public as people were getting frustrated and not only waiting for players to play through their turn and for games to be fixed or rules to be made, but also for the length of the games being played. That's the problem. Skill slows everything down. It's like the old baseball thing. You know, when you've got a base stealer on, he slows the game down. But the new rules change it. They're not new. It's just enforced them. No. No, no. The new rule is if you try to pick off move more than twice, All that. You better take him out. Or go to baseball. Yeah. Or you get the base. Which somewhere my favorite player, Ricky Henry, is like, oh, man. Ricky Henry. Ricky Henry says, man, I wish I played in this era. I'd have 200 stolen bases if that was the case. He would. Oh.
    93:58
    But apart from that, no pinball news. So time to resurrect another rubbish quiz for both. Woo-hoo. If there is a Tri-Host present. We do. Tri-Host Corey is here. Let's see, some games are designed with features that have to be removed due to licensing, costs, approvals, etc. I thought I would design a game with features that have been removed for various reasons. Can you name all the games I have stolen these missing features from? An obvious example to start you off would be my game would have ectoplasm beams that rotate across the playfield during modes. This was supposed to be in Ghostbusters, and it still has the thing about Obbies on the side, if you look. Oh, wow. Or whatever, that they were going to use for this. But it was removed due to costs. So here is my feature list. The next email will have details on what games these should have been, and according to my failing fuzzy memory. Good luck. Yeah, well, my fuzzy family memory won't help me either. All right. Let's see. The first one just says title Hunger Games. So I'm assuming this is the game that was supposed to be Hunger Games.
    95:12
    Wasn't that WWE? Didn't they just reuse that playbook for WWE? I thought it was Walking Dead originally. Okay. So you say Walking Dead. I say Hunger Games. What does Corey say? WWE comes to mind because it feels like it was of that same era. Yeah, I thought the ring was supposed to be for whatever they do in the Hunger Games. I've never seen the movie. Surprise, surprise, surprise. Bat Class, cameo appearance by Tom Hanks and Michael J. Fox. I think this is two games. Yeah, it's going to be Apollo 13 and Back to the Future. Back to the Future, right? Yeah. Yep. Let's see. Cabinet Art, characters armed with assault rifles.
    95:54
    Starship Troopers. Okay, I'll go with that. I have no idea. It feels right. Let's see. Topper, speaking moving head. Maybe Doctor Who, the Dalek had, but I've seen those. Yeah. But I think those were aftermarket. Well, no, the original 100 were prototypes, and then they took it away. So it could be that. I would go with the Doctor Who. So you'd go with the Daleks. Yep.
    96:24
    I don't know why Doctor Dude and the – oh, no. Doctor Who. No, Doctor Dude has the face in it. Party Zone. Oh, Party Zone. They've got the talking – Doctor Bizarre. Or Captain Bizarre, I'm sorry. Captain Bizarre. There's some things about that game I really like I just like the supersonic robotic comic This goes back to Francesco in teaching me exploits of games that you know, just try to shoot that right shot over and over again over and over and over and over and if you can't do it guess what, you do it again Let's see, two orbit magnets to grab the ball Twilight Zone Oh but you can drill, what you can drill the hole You can make it, there's a kit for it There's a kit. But in this factory, yeah. You can drill the hole and the software, there's software that can do it. I know people used to do that. Yes, that is a common thing.
    97:14
    Do you agree with us, Corey? Yes. It's always good to agree with us. Yes. Of course. Let's see. A working clock to show game feature time.
    97:24
    I believe I know what this is. I'll let you guys answer first. Was it Funhaus? Yeah. Oh. Oh, like an actual clock. An actual clock. that the inserts in the play field tell you the time. Because if you look at the play field, and I never noticed this until someone mentioned it, the clock that's in the center, it's being held by Rudy. Yes. I never noticed. He's holding the clock. He's actually holding the clock. That's the center. Rudy controls us all. He does. Let's see. A large sculpt that can swing out over the play field.
    97:58
    I don't know about sculpt. I know Attack from Mars was originally supposed to have the ship actually fly out. Ah. But I don't know how far they got with that or if they had a sculptor or a yard. I know they had a swinging thing. Is it supposed to move? Well, it does move when you hit the ball with kinetic energy. But, I mean, there's a magnet underneath that caught it, and that got taken away. So maybe that's it. I'm going to stick with my AFL. I'm going to say junkyard.
    98:24
    Corey says junkyard. Okay. Oh, here's an easy one. Center triple spinning disc. Oh, pirates. Pirates. The Pirates of the Caribbean. Specifically, Jersey Jack, Pirates of the Caribbean.
    98:38
    The Superior One. Let's see. Hidden room with swinging door entrance. Swinging door entrance. Texas Canyon. Yeah, I know Texas Canyon was supposed to have the saloon doors. Yeah, saloon doors. That's what I'm thinking. But was it a hidden room? I thought it was just a bash toy into another bash toy. Like, you hit the saloon doors so you could hit Bart. Where's the hidden room? Yeah, what does hidden room mean? I don't know. I don't think that's it. You go into the saloon, you do something? Yeah, I don't.
    99:07
    I'll say cactus cannon, but I don't think that's right. House of Ill Repute. Ball-elevating magnetic mech to lift to upper playfield. So basically like in – Magic Girl.
    99:21
    It sounds like the thing that's in Pinball Magic. Yeah. But isn't the thing in Pinball Magic not actually – Like, doesn't it move a mirror? It's a plastic ball.
    99:33
    Plastic ball? It's a plastic ball. I own one. But your ball elevates to the, how does it get up to the bar? It goes up. It just moves up, but the plastic ball stays at the bottom, and it kicks it up the other way. Trust me, it does. Okay. So it's meant to look like an illusion? Yes, it's an illusion. I'll say pinball magic. It was meant to actually work, but it doesn't.
    99:54
    Let's see. Left ramp stairway entrance by Zeppelin. Led Zeppelin, I'd have to say, too. What does Corey say? Led Zeppelin would make sense. This one could be one of two games, so I wonder which one this is. Yardley Smith doing call-outs. That would be Lisa Simpson. That's Lisa Simpson. Oh, so Simpsons or Simpsons Timbal Party. Yeah, which one? Or Herman's Head.
    100:21
    Yeah, she was in Herman's Head. She was in Herman's Head, too. But which one? I think she was in the original one, So I would say Simpsons. Oh, no, she was in both. No, she's not in the new one. Remember, they only wanted to pay because they were expensive as hell. They only had three people, so they had to pick. You got Hank Azaria, Dan Castellan. Yeah, I think it's the second one. It's Spinball Party. So you think it was Simpsons. I'll go with original Simpsons just for the hell of it. Wow. I'm probably wrong on that one. I had to be different.
    100:54
    Let's see. Parts of the game will occasionally stop working in some modes. Any American pinball machine?
    101:04
    Spooky. There's system shutdown in Johnny Mnemonic, but I don't think he means that. No, I don't think he means that because that actually is in the game. Like actually the game will occasionally stop working in some modes.
    101:19
    I don't know. No, no. Never heard that one. It stumped us there. All right, you ready for the answers? Yes, let's go for the answers. Bob. Quiz answers. Here we go.
    101:31
    Well, Hunger Games, we just had to know that it was an abandoned Stern title. Oh, okay. Okay, so I guess we got that one. Yeah. We all knew that. Backglass. Cameo appearances by Tom Hanks and Michael J. Fox.
    101:45
    Fox would not approve images being used. Both of them would not approve images being used. So Apollo 13 and Back to the Future. Yeah, correct. Got it.
    101:53
    Characters armed with assault rifles. John Wick. Oh. Duh. The new answer felt too obvious. I kind of feel that, you know. Okay. Because that's probably the initial artwork they sent in. Oh, maybe. Yeah, but we don't know. And they were like, no, can't be. It's camp guns. Talking, moving, Doctor Who topper. Yep. Oh, the dog. Had to be ceased in production after 100 made due to cost. I think you even said 100. Boy, you're a good person. Damn, you're good.
    102:24
    Cabinet featuring – oh, well, okay. I've got to look at this original question again then. A cabinet – a feature playfield bracket to allow easy removal for servicing. We didn't say that one. Oh, yeah, we didn't say that one. Yeah, so what was it? So you can't answer it since we don't – a cabinet that was what? Featuring playfield bracket to allow easy removal for servicing. I would have actually got this one possibly. Well, it would be Pinball 2000, but that's been used. So there was a couple different ones. Capcom used a different system, but that was work, too.
    102:57
    Jersey Jack? I don't know. I don't know which one. I'll give you a clue, brother. I'll give you one clue, and that's all I'm giving you, brother.
    103:04
    Does it have to be an actual game that made it to production? No, brother. None of our games made production, dude.
    103:11
    Highway Pinball. No, you're wrong, asshole. Don't you know the right... This is Hulk Hogan. I'm Robert Mueller, dude. Yeah, Robert Mueller. I'm going to lay the leg dropped out on you, brother. I know. We were going to make it. Remember the video, that wonderful thing? Yeah. That didn't work. That clusterfuck, that he couldn't get back in the machine. Yeah, yeah, that was funny. Turn the camera off.
    103:33
    All right we had two orbit magnets to stop the ball which was Twilight Zone How do you think Steve must have felt during that whole fucking thing Like oh my we should ask him We should get him on one time and just get Steve on We need to get stories Steve I going to ask him about it He's not. Yes. No. We need some deeper stories. I'm sure he wants to move on. Oh, that'd be great. We need it for history. Oh, God. Steve, if you're listening, which I know you are, we need the history. A working clock to show game feature time was Funhaus. Funhaus, yes. They waited until they could get it working correctly And then they used it in the Twilight Zone Yes Let's see A large sculpt that could swing out over the playfield Attack from Mars It was supposed to have a large saucer Meant to be a saucer Yeah, it was supposed to have The saucer was actually supposed to come out from the playfield Oh, interesting Wow, okay Triple spinning disc Of course, Pirates of the Caribbean by JJP Let's see Hidden room with swinging door entrance It's Cactus Canyon because we couldn't think of anything else. What's the hidden door? I thought you hit that. It opens up, and then you hit Bart. Yeah, maybe not.
    104:44
    Ball-elevating magnetic mech. Now, you said the answer. Magic Girl. Yeah, it's a joke. You are correct. I know I was correct. Magic Girl, weird thing that didn't work like the rest of the game. Yep. Left stairway entrance, Led Zeppelin. Yep. Okay. No Stairway, no Steve. No Steve, no Stairway. Let's see. Yardley Smith doing call-outs. Simpson Pinball Party. Yep. Only main cast member not voicing the game. That is incorrect.
    105:14
    Because they got Hank Azaria, Dan Casta, I can't say it, and Nancy Cartwright. They did not get Harry Shearer, who also does a ton of voices. And Yardley Smith. And Julie Carver, I think is their name, who does March. Yes. So that is incorrect. correcting the trivia guy. Woo-hoo! Parts of the game will occasionally stop working in some modes.
    105:39
    Gremlins. Gremlins? That's not a real game. Who was making that? Anybody? Was that a Daddy East thing? I don't know. I say fail on that one, Dr. John. Oh, God. So how did it all go? We're pretty smart. We got most of it right. We're not dumbasses. He's taking pre-orders, non-refundable right now, Dr. John. Dr. John, taking the money. No.
    106:05
    Okay. Gremlins, 1988, pinball shop of Bologna, Italy. Oh, Bologna. How did you not get that? Hey, what the fuck? It's only an hour away from where I used to work. What the fuck?
    106:22
    Okay. Yeah. All right. Let's see. What else do I got here? I got, don't worry, we're getting near the end here. Oh, the thing you sent me. You told me to send, Lizzy Boards. We are going to Tech Talk. What's a Lizzy Board, Bruce, for those at home? A Lizzy Board is a Gottlieb System 80, 80A, or 80B. Okay, which one is this? Is this one of the American ones, one of the foreign ones? No, this is from foreign ones. This is from Germany. Germany! Oh, foreign. Foreign. They said foreign there. Foreign. Yes. Yeah. We bought five of them. Yeah. What they use is they use the EPROMs, and they're put on a flash drive, and they get hard. They get coated by. They get hard? What? Yes. It's hard. Very hard.
    107:09
    But it does the actual light board, driver board, and CPU all in one board. Okay. We got five of them, and we're probably going to use all five.
    107:23
    Okay. With Zach's new Behemoth Star Race. Oh, God. Yeah, big, big, big board. 22, super, ultra wide. Yes.
    107:36
    I bought a board just to have extra for either Counterforce or my other game I own, which is Alien Star. And we got Counterforce to work, which was really cool. You know, we got that programmed. All you need is, we need to get more SD cards, which I'm going to go find tonight in my box of crap. I hope I still have it. I might not. Next two we got for it is, luckily, Excalibur died last week, and we ordered these boards like three or four weeks ago. And Excalibur, as soon as you press on the daughter board, it whacks out and does screwy stuff, wouldn't even boot. We put the Lizzy board in it with the Excalibur ROMs in it. Boom. So what made you pick Lizzy Boards over the other options out there, which I don't know what they are. A lot cheaper. Plus it does more things. It does 80A and 80B, which some of these games don't do all three. They only do 80. Some of the other board makers, I guess. Yes. What is the other two? I think they're – hold on. So there is the Noomf. The Noomf Boards. Noomf. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and then there's also... Isn't there like another foreign one? Yeah, there's another foreign one. It's by the French guys. French guys, okay. And by foreign, I mean non-American, being the ugly American I am. Anything that's not American is clearly foreign. Yes. Yeah. America.
    109:04
    Flip. Oh, like two Ps or something? They do a System 1 and they do a System 80 and 80A, but they don't do 80B. Ah, you needed the B. The B is the good one because it does the alphanumerics. You needed the bro board, the B board. And we used it in Excalibur. And, Ron, I know you've been heartbroken for the past four months at the RPC. Why? Arena's coming back. Oh, great. A game that's all skill shot. Yep, and it's going to get even better for you, Ron. Okay. Guess what other Gottlieb system ADA is coming to for the first time. The best ever ADA Gottlieb. I don't know. Sarcastic. What is the worst ADA Gottlieb? I don't know what other ADAs are. Oh, my God. Any guesses, Corey? I'm trying to look up ADA. Go ahead. I'm trying not to cheat. You can cheat. You can cheat on this one.
    110:02
    The worst ADA. In your opinion. Oh, no, no, no. This is guaranteed. Oh, Black Hole? No. No, that's not either.
    110:12
    Well, give me an ADA that doesn't suck. This is not a good sign. Alien Star. Oh, Alien Star. Wouldn't that be ADB or something? No, that's an ADA.
    110:25
    Any guesses while we keep you guys on suspense mode? On suspense? Not in suspense, but on suspense. All right, ADA. Okay, I got it. Let's see. What game could... There's a ton of these games. Oh, which one's the worst?
    110:42
    Q-Bert's Quest? You think we'd have a Q-Bert's Quest in our possession? Rocky. No. You're getting closer. Oh. Krull. You picked a... No, I'd love to have a Krull. Krull's awesome. No, it's not. It is. It breaks constantly. It sucks.
    110:57
    Superorbit? Ready, aim, fire. I like that. No. Come on. Well, you have one of the games. Oh, you do. I do. I had the games. Going nuts.
    111:07
    Holy man. You got one of them somehow. Oh, hold on. Make sure. Hold on. Maybe I'm not right. Maybe it is B. Oh, my God. Did you hear that, folks? He's not right. Maybe I'm not right. It might be a B. Hold on. I don't see any of these that are that horrible. Hold on. Amazon hunt. Oh, caveman. Caveman. No. Thank God it's not a caveman. Devil's Dare I like. El Dorado City of Gold is just a remake. Going nuts you're not going to have. No, it's not that. It's an ADB. So after all that, you give me incorrect information. Fail. Once you see it, you'll know it right away. What the hell is an ADB, then? Hoops is an ADB.
    111:46
    Actually, Hoops is a System 3. You're wrong again. You are failing hard. Okay, this is a System 3. You are failing hard, bro. I do have a bad girl, so that's another one I have of ADB. Are you sure? Yes, I'm looking right at it. Okay, come on. What is it, guys? Come on. Raven? Yes. Raven? Yeah! Isn't that the game he just hit the spinner? Yeah!
    112:09
    It's another in-lane hit the spinner game, if I remember. Okay. Terrible. It's going to be terrible. I can't wait. The boys, since now the boys have two CP boards they bought. One will be fixing Arena, and they're going to bring out Raven. Why couldn't you get a Big House or Genesis? We had a Big House. We had a Genesis. Wow. Bring it back.
    112:33
    Unfortunately, Mark sold them both. Oh. What arena? Arena is also 80. Yep. Bone Busters. What was it? Bone Busters is terrible. That thing is terrible.
    112:47
    Gold Wings is terrible, except for Siren. That's the only thing good about Gold Wings. You mean the thing they disconnect? I know. Everyone disconnects. I'd be the first one putting in and hooking up even stronger. Oh, God. Monte Carlo, another bad. Let's go for the million shot.
    113:03
    All right. Since you're on the boards, repairs, Bruce. Yes. Okay. Mark was working on my Viper. Mark is one of the owners of RPC? Yes, one of the owners. And he goes, the kick out is not kicking smooth, but I found that the bracket was bent.
    113:22
    Okay. So I was like, okay, can you fix that? I bent it back and it's free moving now and everything. I'm like, great. So the next day, Steph puts on the board Viper again. On the board. You mean it's being broken. Yeah. It only scores 200 points, won't kick out.
    113:39
    Okay. So I go inside underneath the play field, power on the game, you know. Yeah, nothing's kicking out. No flippers, no nothing.
    113:47
    So first thing I look for is the under play field fuse. Blown. I go, what was Mark just touching? There's a short. He mounted the coil vertically, so it was going against the apron.
    114:01
    Okay. Shorted right out, blew out the transistor, didn't blow the coil. Poor Mark. He made the bottom of my Viper now have arc welds on the apron.
    114:13
    As soon as we turn it on, you hear zap. I'm like, whoa. I'm like, quick, flick the machine off. It didn't blow the fuse yet, but it was ready to. It was just arcing right across it. I look at Zach. Zach goes, that's an easy fix. I'm like, yeah. We had to pull the board out, redo the new transistor. But it didn't blow the coil, which was really wild.
    114:37
    We blew a coil. We got ferro working three days later. That kick-out coil blows. Good. Stay broken. Who wants to buy a ferro? Raw.
    114:50
    Suck. That's a terrible game. but it's fun for you if you want to buy one. This is where Corey says, that's my favorite buy level. Yeah. What is your favorite buy level for Williams?
    115:02
    So basically you have Black Knight, Jungle Lord, Pharaoh, or Solar Fire. My friend has a Solar Fire, and it is a lot of fun to play. So I'm going to say Solar Fire. Yeah, it's the right answer.
    115:16
    It's not, but still, it's better than Pharaoh. Pharaoh is the only completely wrong answer. That is surely the wrong answer. Rah, rah, rah, rah, rah.
    115:26
    Go for Pharaoh. So bad. What else did we do? A couple little repairs. We have our first stern. I have to cut the flipper off of Godzilla.
    115:40
    Somebody tightened up the nut so much that it's stripped out, and it won't loosen up. Bummer. Yeah, so that will be my project this week. How do you cut that? What do you get in there? Dremel. cut the link first and then we'll just go across and cut the other thing and then pop the flipper off and take the rest of the part and put all these parts in
    116:05
    okay you're french now you're italian you're french you're just hey what the fuck are you taking all my power from me yes you're all europe for us i think i sold my bubble hockey finally Yay! All right. I think that's going to be gone tomorrow. And news for me, besides repairs, I did lose my dog for 36 hours this week, the past week. You lost your dog? Yeah, my dog skated right past me when I was going to go get Kathy out from the hospital. My wife had to go for an overnight procedure. I'm talking to Kathy on the phone, and I think she heard Kathy on the line, and she went, Oh, Mommy's outside. And I went outside, and she shot out, and she was gone for 36 hours. We tried to catch her. Finally, we had helpers come out, this rescue that was in the area that do really well, and they caught her. Bit the shit out of the poor lady that was reaching for her, but finally grabbed her. 36 hours in 95-degree weather. That was when we had our heat wave. So that sucked. But she's back at home now. She's still Satan. She's still biting other people. Yeah, still biting at me.
    117:19
    And, oh, and one other thing in my life, I had to buy a whole new furnace and AC unit this week. Yeah.
    117:27
    No pinballs for me for a while. Let's see. Repairs for me. During the tournament, we had the spinner in Surf and Safari popped out of the bracket, which is a pain in the ass because the whole fucking ramp is way in the back. Luckily, the way it popped out, it didn't pop all the way out of the bracket, and I was able to slide it and get it back in the hole. Thank God. Yeah, baby. Otherwise, that would have been bad. You got it in the hole, yeah. Yeah, I got it in the hole. It's in the hole. What else? We didn't have too many. The main issue was, as Rush, I have one of those mods in it that makes it so the interloop registers every time. Yeah. But the ball's actually getting stuck on the mod now. Yep, yep. So I'm going to have to, yeah, I'm going to probably just take a razor and cut some of it off so there's a little more room. Hopefully that will fix that. And I have to look at my nine ball, the stand-up target in the back that's actually also a drop target. Yes. It's a unique mech. Yes, I have an extra one. I think I have an extra one on the other play field I have, too. But it's doing a thing where it just keeps resetting over and over. It's not catching. It's not staying up, so it falls down, falls down, falls down. I got to work on that. Oh, I'm going to give you a little hint. Oh, give me a hint, Spruce. Besides fixing that is the two partners from RPC that made the sound boards for the speaking for Gamitron and all the system SB300 Stern games. Okay. They have a talking nine ball. Nope. They have something even better. Oh. They're making opto boards for a nine ball for the trough so it doesn't get confused anymore. Really? Yes. It works also on Flight 2000 because once in a while that will fail also. The Flight 2000 they've had working now in RPC for four months hasn't failed once. Nice. So I'm going to be doing them on my next, there's going to be nine ball for me, and we'll see how that goes. Yeah, put that sucker in RPC. I know. See how that works. Yep, because if that works there, then you know it's going to work for it. If it works there, then it should work, yeah, because that thing is horribly unreliable. Although, other than that target, it didn't have any issues. Yeah. Amazing. Oh, no, it did have one target and one ball blow by a trough switch. Yeah, which happens. But this Opto should solve that problem.
    119:57
    Cool. So I'm going to be to Guinea Pig next week for my home unit, and we'll see what happens there.
    120:02
    So if anyone's interested in that, that might be coming out soon for Flight 2000's 9-ball, and I think one other game has it also, the old style, where they had to move them always around. Move them always. Corey, any repairs?
    120:14
    Well, I have the F-14 that's down here. There's a multi-year journey associated with this one, but I've never been on before, so I've never told this story. My wife's family, they had a house with a bunch of people in Colorado, and there was a F-14 Tomcat and a barbed wire. And the barbed wire, a tank, never broke, never anything. F-14, 2018, we're playing one day. Hit the flippers, pop. Something popped, and it died. Well, we only go to this house like once a year, and no one else coming around has any idea for how to repair machines. 2019, we show up, try to figure it out. We figure, okay, it's the upper right flipper. And then we ended up driving two hours down to Denver to the game exchange in Denver. We're going to get replacement coils. We also stopped. We saw Omet's Rockies game that day, so we were down there. Replace the coil, fuses, and it still pops. And there's a 3-amp fuse, and it's just not working. Take pictures, take video. then pandemic happens and then we don't go back to that house for multiple years. Finally, in 2021, I have a whole kit of stuff to try. I got fuses, coils, switches, diodes. And finally, my friend Jay suggested that, well, maybe that replacement coil that you put in might also be bad. And we had tried everything else at that point. Finally, switched the coil out and, oh, yeah, the replacement coil that we put in was bad. So we put in a different coil and suddenly everything was working again. So now it's been running like a champ since then, but it took us so good three years to get figured out because I know nothing about pinball repair. Well, there you go. There you go. Nice. So the problem with my Foo Fighters, the drop targets would go down and they wouldn't come back up. And they wouldn't come back up on a drain. They wouldn't come back on a game restart. You turn it off and on. Maybe it resets. Maybe it doesn't. Go inside settings, try a coil test, and it would pop back up. Like, what is going on? Definitely a software issue, 100%. Well, it turned out. David Robinson. I looked at a, trolled the pin-side thread for Foo Fighters, searched drop targets. By the way, that's a great feature, to be able to, like, search for specific words so I don't have to look through a thousand posts about Foo Fighters. And someone had said, hey, a node board, try reseating the node board. And that was it.
    122:28
    So the drops work now. Yay! And I learned a little bit about note boards. Mm-hmm. And learn more about note boards when Spike 3 comes out. So is Metallica going to be Spike 3? Yes. You think so? Yeah. I mean, do you think there's going to be a Metallica? Yes. Everyone says there's going to be a Metallica. Yes, there's going to be a Metallica. Okay. Do you think it's going to have a different play field or the same play field? Different but same. I think it's going to be like a vault edition type deal. But I think it's going to be a different artwork. I don't think it'll be Dirty Donnie. I think it'll have, like, for the magnets, it'll have the improved magnet design thing with the extra metal ring or whatever. Like Spider-Man. Yeah. I can't see how they won't do that. Yeah. I'm wondering, so if they have an LCD display, I'm wondering how the multi-ball intro would look with that. Because it would have to be, it'd be all animated, right? It's going to be different. It's going to be different, yeah. It's going to be different. But, I mean, do you think it's still going to have Sparky? I don't even think Sparky's going to be on there. What? He's got to be on there. Nope. It's Sparky multiball. Then maybe it's something different now. Actually, I think technically it's electric chair multiball. Yeah, I think it is, too. So they have something other than Sparky on there? Yeah, I think so. Okay. Is that because Sparky's a Dirty Donnie thing? Yeah, I think so. And I think since it's not going to be Dirty Donnie, since I don't have the agreement anymore with him. Yeah, but he did that for the game. I mean, he doesn't own. Right, right. I doubt he could say, like, yeah, I doubt he could say. I think you still have to get paid and also sign a contract to get paid. So I think it's a very – Legal expert. Yeah, it's a very fine line there.
    124:08
    I think if it's Lars, it would be good. Yeah, just feel it. The electrocute Lars. Feel it play.
    124:16
    That would be good. That would be very good. I think even Metallica fans would like that. Napster. You have Napster mode. Napster. If you get this job, go. Napster multi-ball. Napster mode, you steal points from other players. There you go. I like that. Make it so stern. You've got to have a Napster mode in the new material. Hidden Napster mode. You have to do a certain way of playing the game to get it. Find out who's illegally sharing your music. Yes.
    124:46
    And hunt them down and kill them. Yes. I like that. All right, last thing I got on here, Bruce, is Stomp. Yes. I know you're saying, like, you guys just had Stomp. That's all you talked about for every episode. Yes, we did, and we're going to talk about this one now. This is the original. This is Stomp 6 East, which is the original, so it's called Stomp 6. Stomp 6, the original. Yes. It's the small stomp, as we'll call it now. It is the small stomp. It's a one-day stomp. It will be September 21st. we're thinking doors will open at 9 in the morning we're going to start at 10 10-10-30 oh no we're not going to win it's a Zach tournament baby he's whopper whoring this thing a little bit not much that's a little too early we have people come from like other areas that's not a good I don't like that at all well we'll talk about it we'll figure it out he's got to remember you've got people coming from like Maine to this thing you've got to be here at 10am now All right. That's not cool. Well, maybe we'll open at 10 and we'll start at 11, 1130. How's that? We'll see. But we'll be giving out all the information this week. Oh, we are? Yes. Yes, we are. And you will be winning the belt.
    126:08
    Yes. Only one tournament, though. Max of – Ron's going to state it right now. How many players, Ron? Well, it'll keep going up, as it always does. Yes, but I want to start at a low number to see what happens. 40? That's not a low number, Bruce.
    126:24
    Usually I start at 32, and we'll see how it goes from there. We blew through 32, I think, like the first three days. We'll see. I really think the more fun it is if it's not overly crowded. But if the public demands it be more, then they demand it be more. But we'll see. Everyone loves level zero. So, you know, people are just demanding. If you're doing it that much earlier, that might affect who wants to play in it, et cetera. So I would say start at 32 and we'll go from there. Okay. Well, we'll know all the details. They will be out probably by July 4th, and I think the tickets will go for the sale. I think we're talking the 11th. No, sorry, the 13th, July 13th. We'll be putting them up. First come, first serve, PayPal payment. We'll get all the information for you on the 4th. Be there, be square. And guess what? it's the only tournament, myself or Ron will not play in. Mm-hmm. Well, no, myself and Ron will not play in. Or don't know, it's that one of us may play in it. We never know. Oh, geez. You've got to get to an even number. I'm not playing in it. I'm not playing in it either. Period. I like it. I like actually vegging out. And I don't have to answer, you know, doors or anything this time and take cash or anything like that, so it's even better. No, it's even better. It's even better. And, Ron? Yes, sir? Reserving a room. Oh, the guest room, yes. Yes, I have reserved a guest room. Oh, wait a minute, but that's usually Scott's guest room. If Scott comes up, then I will jump out and sleep on the couch downstairs. Or you can sleep with Scott. No. Oh, okay. No.
    128:05
    No. All right. So, Corey. Would you like to plug anything? We always give our guests a chance to plug. Plug away. Three things, I think. Pin Crossing is our local place. We think our summer classic is going to be on August 24th. And I know that's not very definitive, but maybe if I say it out loud, that will cause some action to happen for us to lock in. That will be at Railroad Street Bar and Grill in a relatively simple format. Hopefully it will be fun. Pinballspinner.com is the site that I have half-completed projects. So feel free to visit that. We've got not a lot of active stuff right now, but it's good nerdy data pinball information. And then the last thing I wanted to do is just, you know, to thank the two of you specifically for all you did for Lyman's Foundation to bring money for mental health awareness. And for me personally, this has been a very tough year so far, and I'm very fortunate at work. They offer a mental health benefit and start talking to therapists. And I know that there's a lot of stigma around mental health. And really the two of you and what you did in response to raising money and bringing awareness to this sort of thing, I think it's so vitally important, especially in a day and age where there is a lot of stigma around this sort of thing. So just a thank you to the two of you, not only for the entertainment that you give here, but really bringing awareness to a really key issue, especially in today's society. you should bring up the suicide number more more prevalent which i think is what uh 988 if you dial 988 anybody you know if you have a problem where you feel like you know it's the end of the line talk to somebody if you can't talk to a family friend neighbor anybody dial that number you'll get in touch with somebody talk to somebody you know they're there to listen And they're there to help you. So that's definitely a great thing to have. And it's even bilingual. It's English and Spanish. Did not even know that part. It's pretty cool. But you learn something, you know, and you hope you're helping somebody. And I felt like we helped somebody. I hope we did.
    130:15
    You know, I was very, we were very lucky and very grateful to have listeners that gave a lot. And then my company gave a lot. So we were really lucky in both ways.
    130:26
    Okay. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you, Corey. Anybody, anything else? I don't think so. I think that's it. Okay. Nice long one for you to edit, Ron. Yeah, thank you. Thank you very much. Well, we will look at one thing, because we promised. Yes, we did.
    130:45
    Fireball 2. Mm-hmm. Well, Kim, Corey, would we or would we not buy that? That would be kind of, let's just look at it. It's like, no, no way in hell we'd buy that. But I need honest feedback, and who better to get feedback from than the two of you? He's got a video of it. Right, exactly.
    131:03
    We got some wear on it. It does have some wear, but it looks very clean. Got a lot of LEDs in it, I see. Uh-oh. Bruce ain't going to like that.
    131:16
    Backglass looks good. Cyanide, a couple of dings in it, but that's a, you know, almost, what, 43-year-old, 42-year-old game? Not too shabby.
    131:27
    Digits are all good on the old seven digits, which is nice also. And you can get a video on it. But would you buy it? I don't know if you're a fan. I own one. Oh, that's right. You owned one at one time. I owned one with an NOS Playfield in it. And sold that. So probably. It was okay. It wasn't great.
    131:47
    It'd be cool next to a Fireball Classic. If I had a chance to get another one, yeah, I might buy another one.
    131:55
    So would I buy this? Maybe. That's a possibility. LEDs have to come right out, though. Sorry. Rip them right out. The thing is, I wonder how many people have the full Fireball collection. Ooh, the three? If anyone has, like, a Fireball, Fireball Classic, and Fireball 2.
    132:14
    That'd be pretty cool. That'd be interesting. It would definitely be someone who just wants a complete, completest. because it'd be, to have Fireball and Fireball Classic, it'd be so weird. It's just like, it's the same exact play field. Yeah, it's the same play field. Except one is zipper flippers and one doesn't. One's not, yes. That's where you get the difference. Now, if you're looking to complete your Fireball collection. There you go. Beautiful. Here's the one for you. Mildly worn, LED'd out Fireball 2. Please get in touch. Yes. And where can they get in touch with you?
    132:45
    Pinballspinner at gmail.com is probably the best way to get in touch, Sure. I'm in various discords. Feel free to find me at Corey Hulse.
    132:53
    There you go. So you got everything. Got anything else, Bruce? Just we got to give everyone an info and say hi to everyone. I know. I mean, besides that. No, I'm good. All right. I'm good. You know, two and a half hours of me for these people. Yes. So this has been episode 231 of the Slamtail Podcast. Check out our website, www.slamtailpodcast.com. All our links are in the upper right-hand corner, including the Twitch feed where you can watch the Bells tournament that occurred just this past Saturday. You can see the finals. You can see a good portion of the main tournament. Ron running around to every game because it was a flip frenzy format. So it was fun trying to catch as many rounds as possible. It's also on our YouTube, the Slamtail Podcast YouTube. We have the finals for the Bells tournament. Check it out. Our email address, which I've already given multiple times, but I'll do it again, slamtailpodcast at gmail.com. If you would like to be like Corey and join us, just email us right away. And I'm on another podcast, which I'll mention for the third time. No, you already plugged it. Sorry, you already plugged it. I'm plugging it. No, no, because guess what? You've fallen behind now with this frigging bingo shit. After the bingo episode, I need to plug it more to recover. No, you do not. Nope, you didn't plug it for us. We will not be doing bingo. You've heard it here. It will be tiddlywinks and tic-tac-toe.
    134:22
    Silver Ball Chronicles, which can be heard on the Pinball Network. Check it out. When your boss is making fun of your show, that's pretty bad. That's pretty bad. I like how we say boss like he's mad. Yeah, he is the boss.
    134:35
    Hi to everyone in our cluster, Buck. Hi. Hey, Steve. The Fun with Bonus. The Pinball Princess. Everyone.
    134:44
    Zachariah. Everyone else, Jeff Deolis. So, where's their kids? They had Rob Burke on talking about the most exciting.
    134:52
    Nice reaction, Bruce. It wasn't that bad. He's a salesman, so it's always kind of. Oh, my God. He is so. It drips of salesmen. Well, that's what he is, Bruce. Oh, I know he is. That's literally what he does. But I can't wait for the next expo. I feel like I need to actually buy a new camcorder, like a new up-to-date HD one, and film that son of a bitch just to have it. Like I used to, like doing my walkthroughs and all that. The old days, the olden days. Yeah, because there's going to be so much. He's bringing so many of those foreign games there that I guarantee I've never seen before. And when I see games I've never seen before, it's a rarity these days. It's a rarity. I love it. So I can't wait for Expo. Well, thank you, Corey, for coming on today. And thank you for having me. You ever want to come on again? Just say so. Maybe we'll get you on with Zach so you can get on with Zach. On with Zach. Mr. Smiley.
    135:57
    But thanks, everyone, for listening. Thank you, guys. Thank you. Until next time, say goodbye, Bruce. This is going to be a special shout-out for Stacy and Jeanette. They just had their baby boy, and he's Mr. Flip. They're calling him. His name is Phillip. Welcome to the world, Phillip Frederick, and congratulations, guys.
    136:38
    All my fights, guaranteed to keep you alive. Meteor, Level Zero, Clusterfuck, George the Kind, Tim Balls, Bruce Dism, Tournament Talk, Car Holder, Cheetah, Senatue, Cash Crab, ELO, Ball Pay, What you buying? Give you love. Give you hurt. Turn it on. Be my princess. Oh, my.
    137:28
    Oh, my. You're going to make me edit now. Yes, I am. I'm going to have to edit that now, Bruce. I'm just singing a song here, man. All right. So, time code. This is my life.
    138:13
    I love doing this thing. He hates me for it.