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Summer/PHOF Trip Report

Don's Pinball Podcast (patreon feed)·podcast_episode·43m 58s·analyzed·Aug 17, 2024
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.031

TL;DR

Don's road trip report includes detailed Pinball Hall of Fame review and venue assessment.

Summary

Don shares a detailed 10-day U.S. road trip with family, covering the Badlands, Black Hills, Yellowstone, and Arches National Parks, culminating in a visit to the Pinball Hall of Fame in Las Vegas. He provides candid observations about the Hall of Fame's condition (40-60% of machines non-functional), layout, and potential for improvement, while also reflecting on his experiences with location pinball machines and his future purchasing decisions with Stern vs. Spooky.

Key Claims

  • Pinball Hall of Fame is between 40% and 60% broken/dark games or non-functional

    high confidence · Don, direct observation during visit

  • Spinal Tap was smoking under the playfield and is likely non-functional; only about two Spinal Tap machines were ever produced

    high confidence · Don, personal observation and hearsay from Roofer

  • Joe from Pinball Star had about nine Spinal Tap machines coming into the country (status of delivery unknown)

    medium confidence · Don paraphrasing Joe's comment from prior conversation

  • Pinball Hall of Fame does not allow alcohol and has no bar, limiting revenue diversification potential

    high confidence · Don, observation and interpretation

  • Don is staying with his Spooky subscription and will buy their next game regardless; holding off on Stern purchases to see multiple future releases

    high confidence · Don, explicit purchasing commitment

  • Thunderbirds at Pinball Hall of Fame is pitched higher than the one at Next Level, and the palm tree mechanism and multipall ramp weren't working properly

    high confidence · Don, direct gameplay observation

  • Next Level is a superior location venue compared to Pinball Hall of Fame

    high confidence · Don, comparative assessment

  • Spooky's Standard Edition Scooby-Doo lacks castle gate facade and many sculpts present in Collector's Edition

    high confidence · Don, hands-on observation at Hall of Fame

Notable Quotes

  • “I walk in the door. I see the signs on the door saying we'll basically kick you out if you're having any fun at all”

    Don @ ~52:00 — Don's first impression of Hall of Fame's strict/unwelcoming rules and tone

  • “I've heard some some less than optimal experiences when you try to do that like hey I noticed this thing isn't working over here happy to take a look at it for you and I guess he'll chew your head off”

    Don @ ~52:30 — Indirect comment about Hall of Fame management being difficult to approach or assist

  • “It wasn't 80% broken but it was between 40% and 60% broken games or dark games or whatever”

    Don @ ~54:00 — Key metric quantifying machine downtime at Hall of Fame

  • “for sure of the mega places that I've been to, next level, the one you want to go to. Pinball Hall of Fame, I mean, if you're in Vegas, you got to go to it, though”

    Don @ ~56:30 — Comparative venue ranking: Next Level > Hall of Fame, but Hall of Fame is a must-see for Vegas visitors

  • “this is the kind of thing that really makes it fun to go out on locations and play games. This is the only one that I know of that's on a public location”

    Don @ ~59:00 — Spinal Tap's rarity and uniqueness as a location-only playable machine (before it broke)

  • “I'm staying with my Spooky subscription. I think no matter what, their next game, like, I'm already ready to get it just based on the last games that I've owned from them”

    Don @ ~70:00 — Strong brand loyalty signal for Spooky; commitment to future purchase regardless of product details

  • “With Stern, I'm going to hold off now and kind of wait and see... I might want to see what their next two or three releases is and then pick the best one”

    Don @ ~71:00 — Shift in purchasing strategy with Stern: wait-and-see approach vs. immediate commitment

  • “If this place had a bar, which they seem to be just opposed to, I think they'd be killing it. If it was like nightclub music and alcohol being served, I think they could really increase their revenue”

Entities

DonpersonPinball Hall of FamevenueNext LevelvenueSpooky PinballcompanyStern PinballcompanyJoepersonRooferpersonSpinal Tapgame

Signals

  • ?

    venue_signal: Pinball Hall of Fame operating with 40-60% of machines non-functional or dark; multiple specific machines observed as down (Pinball Circus, Mario Mushroom Kingdom mini, one Mold-O-Rama, WrestleMania, Spinal Tap); Palm tree mechanism and multipall ramp not working on Thunderbirds

    high · Don's direct observation during visit: 'It wasn't 80% broken but it was between 40% and 60% broken games or dark games or whatever'

  • ?

    product_concern: Spinal Tap machine experiencing critical failure (smoking under playfield); rare machine status and low production numbers (only ~2 ever made) make reliability concerns particularly impactful for this title

    high · Roofer observed significant smoke coming from under playfield; Don notes 'Aren't there only like two spinal taps that were ever produced?'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Significant divergence in Don's confidence between Spooky (strong, committed) and Stern (cautious, wait-and-see). Don commits to Spooky's next game regardless but plans to evaluate multiple Stern releases before buying.

    high · Don: 'I'm staying with my Spooky subscription... I'm already ready to get it' vs. 'With Stern, I'm going to hold off... wait and see... I might want to see what their next two or three releases is'

  • ?

    venue_signal: Hall of Fame identified as undermonetized due to no-alcohol policy and lack of food/beverage or nightlife integration; Don suggests bar/lounge atmosphere and alternative revenue streams could significantly improve venue viability and funding for maintenance

    medium · Don: 'If this place had a bar, which they seem to be just opposed to, I think they'd be killing it... they could hire some full-time techs and really turn the place into something special'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.132

0:00
What's up, Patreons? How about a trip report of my trip around the U.S.? And a review of the Pinball Hall of Fame. It's coming up right now, man. Just after all of Lindsey Buckingham go a little bit on the intro here.
0:19
Oh, man, holiday road trip time. Oh, thanks for that, Lindsey. Man, wouldn't any of the vacation movies be like the best theme for pinball? All right, so guys, I set out across the U.S. on a 10-day trip, and I just want to do a little episode talking about the trip report, how it went, to help inspire others, partially to entertain, and also to get my thoughts of the Pinball Hall of Fame in a space where I have some time to breathe. So throw the family in the truck, the family truckster from Wisconsin, and we headed out west for this trip. We had been doing Europe every summer. This time, I want to see more of the U.S., I want to get out west. So we left the middle of Wisconsin, and we headed west, young sir. First up was the Badlands of South Dakota, a cool geographical area where essentially if you wanted to look for, if you were like an old bandit in the old west and you wanted to hide up in some canyon somewhere so nobody could get your gold or dynamite or whatever the heck these guys were getting, this is where you would go. So it's a large national park in the U.S. on the way to Mount Rushmore if you're coming from the east, and it was cool. We stayed down there in a little hotel that was right on the outskirts, just outside of the National Park. It was actually at a campground that had a motel building. So we got to essentially stay in a little motel at a campground with campground amenities, all in the background of these cool rock formations and canyons to explore and things. It was super, super fun. We even saw a buffalo on the way into the park. How about that? The next day we got up and we went into the Rapid City area to go into the Black Hills of South Dakota, One of my favorite places, stopped at Wild Drug, which is like this legendary roadside attraction drug store right off the interstate in western South Dakota. If you're within 100 miles of this place, you'll see billboards for it. And it used to be this cool little outpost that you would go to. And then there was like leather goods and like a place to get some food. They give away free ice water. That was the thing that gets you to stop there. There was a giant eight-foot structure or statue of a jackalope that your kids could go jump on and a little water play area. Like, it was super fun because it was in the middle of nowhere. Now it seems like it's really been built up. The prices have tripled, and it was just kind of like ripoff city everywhere you went. So, I don't know. If you haven't been, it's worth the stop, but not, like, as cool as I remember it being from before. They did have an arcade. No pinball was located there, though, sadly, even though I did go around looking all over for it. But, yeah, wall drug. So, we go into Rapid City and into the Black Hills of South Dakota, which has really been built up, man. What a fun place, though, like, in a good way. So the Black Hills is a, uh, outdoor, uh, family, fun vacation destination, kind of like, uh, Gatlinburg, Tennessee, although not nearly built up to that level. Uh, but Custer State Park is there. You can drive through, watch the buffalo herds. Mount Rushmore is located there. And then there's a mountain coasters to go on, cave tours, zip lines, and all that kind of stuff, which like, it's all kind of stuff that I love. So I went and checked out a new mountain coaster. That was super fun. We didn't do the cave tour out there this time, Went to Mount Rushmore, had a great time. It was only like $10 or so to park, which, you know, at this point, the private company that runs the parking structure outside of Mount Rushmore National Monument could probably charge $25 and get people paying. We went during the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. It was happening that same weekend. It's like a week-long event in Sturgis, South Dakota. And so essentially it bled over into the entirety of the Black Hills. So if you're a motorcycle enthusiast, I don't know that there's a better place to go in the U.S. outside of the Smoky Mountains for cool mountain terrain riding. But dang it, it's awesome there. So it was us in the truck plus about 6,000 motorcycles just winding through the hills, going through the tunnels and things. Just spectacular views and things in the Black Hills. Had a great time at Mount Rushmore. Been several times, but took the kiddos, and they really remember this one because they're all, you know, pre-teenagers now. So, yeah, it was a good time. It was fun there. It was fun. We stayed the night in Deadwood, South Dakota, a destination that I'd been to a few times throughout my life. Last time I was there, that's been 15 years ago. So I roll into town with six million motorcycles, and it was okay. We stayed at Mineral King as an old casino right on the downtown main street there. Then we got to poke around for the rest of the afternoon and evening. The graveyard up on the hill, we went up there. It's where Calamity Jane and Wild Bill Hickok are buried right next to each other. You can go visit their graves among the rest of the early settlers from the Deadwood area. And it was cool, but I will say the strip has become, you know, commercialized just like anything else has. It was mainly just T-shirt shops and, you know, overpriced ice cream counters and a lot of saloons full of motorcyclists. What I did find was the only pinball machine in Deadwood, South Dakota, which was a Jaws Premium, which I appreciated, was not connected to Insider. Connected, womp, womp. But I did go by. It was cool to see it there. Somebody blew it up and put the GC at around 900 million points. So someone was there that understood Jaws, which I appreciated. But it was fun visiting that. I'm glad I went. It's not quite the Wild West Outpost that I remember it being. I think the best thing that we did outside of Mount Rushmore and the mountain coaster was this reservoir that we found up in the hills, just this big recreational lake that they created. Water was super clear, super deep, nice and, you know, not super cold, but warm enough to go swim in. We brought a paddle board out there with us, so we inflated it and paddled around the lake. Had a great time. It was one of the highlights of the whole trip, just being up in the mountains, all the pine trees. There's nothing better than a mountain lake in the middle of summer when it's super hot out to go paddle around in. So we had a fun time in Deadwood there and then left early in the morning for our drive into Yellowstone National Park, which if you haven't been, I mean, this is the granddaddy national park of the United States. It's located in western Wyoming in the top corner. Parts of the park go into Montana. Parts go into Idaho. Just a giant open wild area that you have to remind yourself because the animals out there, they are wild. We did see a grizzly bear this time. It was across the river. Didn't see any bison at all, which is weird. It was the middle of August, and from what I'm told, a lot of the wildlife migrates into kind of the higher country. So we were essentially around the geyser basins. Yellowstone National Park exists in a caldera of a super volcano. It's a hot spot where the crust is a little thinner, so the mantle can rise up closer to the surface. And that hot spot doesn't really move on the globe, but due to plate tectonics, the North American plate does drift across it. So Yellowstone, its whole geothermal formation, has existed across several areas over time of the North American plate, starting in California through parts of Idaho and Oregon. You can see evidence of the prior volcanic activity. And as the crust slowly drifts over this hot spot, Yellowstone moves steadily east in geological time. So hundreds of thousands of years, it might move a kilometer. But, yeah, that's what you see. So you go into this place. We entered through the north through Montana entrance, and we got to stop at Mammoth Hot Springs, which is a giant hot spring formation of terraced, what do they call it? What's that fancy stone material, tavertine, people do their floors out of? So it's all travertine, right, like limestone kind of thing. Lots of terraces. You can go climb all over this formation on the boardwalks. And it's all from hot spring activity. It's not quite hot enough to form geysers, but hot enough that it can bubble up and dissolve limestone. So really cool formation there. We drifted slower into the park, into the Yellowstone Valley, where the geyser basin for Old Faithful is. and I had managed somehow to snag one of the last rooms available at one of the Yellowstone Inns. There's three little hotel lodges, and these things are not huge, maybe 150 rooms, if that, each. This is a place, this place is so well attended, and there's so much demand, that you could put like a multi-level, like 20-story Hyatt complex and have the thing sold out, and they didn't do that because they wanted to preserve the history of the park. So essentially it's like staying in this lodge from like the early 1900s, and then you walk out right into the geyser basin with Old Faithful right there. It goes off every 90 minutes, essentially like clockwork, depending on the duration and the intensity of the prior eruption. They can kind of forecast when the next one will be. But essentially every 90 to 120 minutes, there's another two to four-minute geyser eruption. And as well as boardwalks around this whole geyser basin where there's so much geothermal activity, It's awesome.

Don @ ~74:00 — Strategic critique of Hall of Fame's business model and untapped revenue potential

Scooby-Doo (Standard Edition)game
Scooby-Doo (Collector's Edition)game
Thunderbirdsgame
John Wickgame
Wipeoutgame
Royal Rumblegame
Pinball Circusgame
Monicaperson
Emmaperson
Yellowstone National Parkvenue
Arches National Parkvenue
Badlands of South Dakotavenue
Black Hills of South Dakotavenue
Meow Wolfvenue
?

venue_signal: Hall of Fame management perceived as difficult to engage or assist with; Don avoided interaction based on 'less than optimal experiences' others have reported when offering help with broken machines

medium · Don: 'I've heard some some less than optimal experiences when you try to do that like hey I noticed this thing isn't working... and I guess he'll chew your head off'

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Spooky Scooby-Doo Standard Edition significantly stripped down compared to Collector's Edition; missing castle gate facade on upper playfield, many sculpts removed, exposing more mechanical understructure

    high · Don: 'The WrestleMania was down... they did have one spooky Scooby-Doo Standard Edition... I was struck with how many sculpts aren't in the standard edition... the whole castle gate facade that's on the upper playfield... it's just like a little metal or plastic ball guide'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Next Level ranked as superior location venue to Pinball Hall of Fame for machine condition, functionality, and overall player experience; multiple games cited as working better at Next Level

    high · Don: 'for sure of the mega places that I've been to, next level, the one you want to go to. Pinball Hall of Fame, I mean, if you're in Vegas, you got to go to it, though'

  • ?

    machine_intel: Spinal Tap very limited production; only approximately 2 machines known to exist; Joe from Pinball Star had ~9 machines in import pipeline with unknown delivery status or customer receipt status

    medium · Don: 'Aren't there only like two spinal taps that were ever produced?... Joe from Pinball Star... had about nine coming into the country. I don't know that he's received them or the people that bought them have received them'

  • ?

    collector_signal: Don expresses strong satisfaction with Scooby-Doo Collector's Edition and plans subscription commitment to Spooky based on quality and completeness of past releases; Collector's Edition offers significantly more content than Standard Edition

    high · Don: 'really made me appreciate my Collector's Edition so much more, man... I can't wait to see what Spooky's got next'

  • ?

    venue_signal: Pinball Hall of Fame well-attended on Friday night despite machine downtime; strong coin flow observed, particularly in Stern modern game section with multiple John Wick and Jaws machines

    high · Don: 'the place on this Friday night was very well attended a lot of coins were going in their stern row of modern sterns looks like it's doing fantastic'

  • ?

    product_concern: Thunderbirds at Hall of Fame has pitch inconsistency vs. Next Level version and mechanical issues: palm tree shake mechanism not working, multipall ramp inoperable despite game being otherwise playable

    high · Don: 'It was at more of a pitch than the one at next level... the palm trees, I didn't see them shake once... I wasn't able to drop the ramp for the multipall either'

    • 9:01
    The park costs $35 to get into. If you buy yourself an annual pass to the national parks for $80, you can get in for a whole year to all of them. And so that's what we did. We ended up going to four or five national parks and saving that $30 fee each time. So we got a nice return on investment. But how cool was it that I happened to check a few days before going out there, looking for hotels around the park? This region of the country, not a ton of supply of motels and hotels and things. So you definitely want to book early if you're going in the summer to make sure you actually have a room within 200 miles of where you want to be. But there was like two rooms left at one of the Yellowstone hotels. And boom, I was able to get it. $450 is what it will run you in peak season. But I would manage to get it. And so what that allowed us to do is not only have a hotel, sure, for the night, but we didn't have to then drive, you know, 60 miles outside of the park, you know, going 30 to 40 miles an hour, you know, in order to get to an overpriced motel that honestly would have been probably that price. We got to stay right there. So in the evening, as the sun is getting low, we're able to go back out. And, of course, the geyser goes off every 90 to 120 minutes, 24 hours a day. So we got out and we checked out an evening eruption under the moonlight, saw the geyser blow, you could hear the steam and the water, and you could still see it too. It was light enough to do that in that twilight. What a cool experience. And hardly anybody was out there. It was actually a little bit cool because it is at higher elevation. so we were able to change into some fall clothes, go out there, watch the geyser, go check out animals in the evening. What a fun time. And then since we were staying there in the morning, we got to pop up and go see early morning eruptions, tour the geyser basin. We didn't have to fight for parking. We didn't have to drive in, none of that business. Super fun. Can't recommend it enough. Got to get back there. We left out the western entrance, which goes into Montana and then into Idaho. Met up with a friend of mine from my old Idaho days. And he was going tubing on the Buffalo River out there So we joined him for a couple hours tubing down the river Super fun It hot as heck And I was back in Idaho which was super fun for me So after tubing, we head down to Salt Lake City, where we spent the night there. Really kind of a fast pace. I noticed that I was passing some pinball places, but didn't really have the time to stop in order to maximize our time at the attractions and things that we were doing. But then we decided to do something fun. Everything was planned up until this point. After that, it was all free form. So we were in Salt Lake City for the evening. Cool place, lots to do. We decided to hit up Arches National Park, which is down in the Moab area, out in the desert, and to hike out to the Delicate Arch, which if you've seen a license plate for the state of Idaho, it's that cartoon arch that they have on the back of it. You can hike out there. Boy, it is a bit of a daunting hike. So we decided, here was our plan. We were going to leave Salt Lake City, go to Arches, which is about a three-hour drive or so, and then drive to Vegas, which is another five-hour drive from there, and then end the night in Las Vegas, right, with plans to go on to Tucson, Arizona, where my spouse and family lives down there. And we'll go visit the Tucson area and then go back from there and do a whole circle of the U.S. So that's what we did. We got out to Arches. We'll get a national park, $35 entry. You have to buy a timed entry ticket to get in. They're kind of trying to manage the entry entrance into the park so it doesn't get overcrowded. Earliest time I managed to get was noon, which is right about when we showed up there. It only costs $2 to make that reservation, but the thing is, if you want to get there early, you've got to make that well in advance because parking lots only hold so many people. I don't know why they don't make bigger parking lots at these national parks to try to hold all these people, but I guess it preserves the nature. Overall, it makes the experience better, but from a visitor standpoint, it makes it frustrating because you have to fight for parking spots. Fortunately, the parking spot for the Delicate Arch hike was only about half full, so we got a spot, no problem. That was the big thing. I was sweating. And then it's a three-mile round-trip hike, mile and a half up the hill, mile and a half back. We managed to do it each way in about 45 minutes. We started with four of us. And then it's 106 degrees. It's dry, altitudes around a couple thousand feet. And so we started peeling off. Story short, I was the only one that made it to the actual arch to touch it. We lost one of the kids pretty early on Parked her in the shade with some bottles of water Along a very well traveled trail Kept on going Monica had to take a little bit of a break She said go on ahead without me I felt like we were Hiking out of the desert with gold or something We had enough water with us It was just a daunting Strenuous hike up this Rock escarpment But we were determined Emma and I went up there We both made it to the summit She could see the arch and then she was like, you know what, I'm just going to watch it from afar here. You go on ahead. And I managed to soldier on and made it to the actual arch. So what the heck, man. This is definitely a hike that's much better at sunset when the heat of the sun is not baking on you. So going up there at noon 30 was probably the most intense part of the day. Going up in the early morning would also be favorable. Having some hiking experience probably would help too. It wasn't terrible. It wasn't like a straight up hike, but it was just a mixture of it being nearly 110 degrees. 0% humidity and you got to hike all your water in there. But we did have a good time. I did make it, took a bunch of pictures of it. It's fantastic. So I went to Delicate Arch, crossed that off the list. And then we all head back to the car, drove to the lower viewpoint so everybody could see the arch. You know, there isn't a viewpoint you can see it that you can just walk 100 feet to as well. But I wanted to touch the dang thing, the sandstone formation. All right. So from there, we left. We made it into Vegas. Actually got a favorable time change because they're in Pacific time. And then we made it there. Gosh, it must have been around 8 p.m. to one of the final hotels on a Saturday or Friday night in Las Vegas. Man, again, book ahead if you're planning on doing something like this. Friday and Saturday night year-round in Vegas, probably the worst times to go, given that everybody from Los Angeles is out there. And so we got one of the few hotel rooms left on the Vegas Strip, this cool little boutique hotel. Only paid about $400 to stay right on the Strip between the Stratosphere and Circus Circus. So that was fantastic. It's a cool little boutique hotel, the Air Rend or something. Really nice rooms, comfortable beds. Every other room, God, I'm telling you, every room in Vegas, the cheapest room I could find was $300, and that was at a motel on the outskirts of the city. Anything else on the Strip was like $800 to $1,000 if you wanted to stay there. It was Friday night. It was nuts. Middle of summer, super crowded. But we managed to snag this place for $400, a bargain, on a Friday night in Vegas. dropped the stuff off there and then the pinball hall of fame was open till 10pm so that's where we went and took some pictures outside of the place first off, photos I've seen of this place make it seem like the size of a Costco or a Sam's Club or like a Walmart Supercenter, it is not that big it is not that big, it's also located right across the street from where the welcome to Las Vegas sign is so what a great prime freaking location to put this thing right near the airport, right near the sign where everybody's going, and then huge letters outside, pinball, all lit up. You can't advertise it any better than that. Free entry to go in there, too. So an amazing value, free parking, free entry, best location. You can walk from there to the Vegas sign and go get your picture. Like, phenomenal, phenomenal. I was very impressed with that going in there. So I walk in the door. I see the signs on the door saying we'll basically kick you out if you're having any fun at all, is what it gives you the impression of. but went in there the employees I did interact with nice enough you know the guy at the retail counter my kids won a bunch of those inflatable balls from the claw machine so they gave us some bags to carry those was super friendly so that was cool I think I saw the guy that runs the place he had a you know one of those headlamps on and some coveralls it looked a little bit grisly and you know I didn't try to engage at all because I've heard some some less than optimal experiences when you try to do that like hey I noticed this thing isn't working over here happy to take a look at it for you and I guess he'll chew your head off. From what I've heard, my interactions with him were none and so that was great. I managed to go around even live stream for a bit and I didn't get kicked out or hassled so that was phenomenal. How was the place? Well, I don't know. It wasn't 80% broken but it was between 40% and 60% broken games or dark games or whatever. They do have a lot there. They have some of these cool little mini games, that clown game or whatever. I got to play that. It was fun for what it was. I saw one of the tiny little Mario games. The tiny one was down. The Mario Mushroom Kingdom, the full-size Gottlieb, that was working, but I played that loads. Really wanted to play the small one, but, of course, it was down. Thunderbirds was working, so Monica got to play that, so she got her first home pin. I played it again. It was at more of a pitch than the one at next level was, but it seemed like the palm trees, I didn't see them shake once, so maybe that mechanism isn't working. I wasn't able to drop the ramp for the multipall either, And those are like kind of like the two mechanisms that are even in the game. So like while it was working and I appreciate it and I got to play it, it wasn't really the full experience. So I will say for sure of the mega places that I've been to, next level, the one you want to go to. Pinball Hall of Fame, I mean, if you're in Vegas, you got to go to it, though. You got to go to it and see what's working. The other thing I wanted to make sure I did was go see Spinal Tap because Pinball Circus, of course, wasn't working. I was able to go and oogle at it. It was cool for what it is, but again, it wasn't working. I don't know if they're ever well again. And from what I hear, people aren't sure they're ever well again either. But it seemed interesting for what it was. Spinal Tap, I really wanted to play it. I got to get my hands on it. It's a full-size machine. It actually looks kind of fun to shoot. I wish I would have had a chance to shoot it, but my buddy Roofer sent me a photo. He was there, I think, a week ago or a couple of days before I was there, was playing it. And then a lot of smoke started coming out from under the play field, like the right lower area. And he showed a lot of smoke under the glass. And so something's fried in there. And who knows if this thing will ever work. Aren't there only like two spinal taps that were ever produced? And this is one of them. I don't know anybody that's bought this game. I know, who is it? Joe from Pinball Star, I think, is selling these things. Last time I talked to him, he said he had about nine coming into the country. I don't know that he's received them or the people that bought them have received them or what the heck happened with that. But this is a rare game, probably for good reason. It's got a dot matrix display and an LCD screen, which is kind of redundant. And then the LCD screen just plays like the movie's trailer over and over or some such. But I still would have liked to have played it. You know, I know a lot, not a lot of people have played. It's a very rare game. And so for that reason, I wanted to get in on it. So I don't know. It looks like a pinball machine. I can't really give any first impressions because I didn't get to play it. Who knows why it was smoking? Would I buy one of these? Of course not. But it would have been fun to at least play it. It would have been fun to play it. So we'll see. Hopefully more of these get out there so people can play them. I think this is the kind of thing that really makes it fun to go out on locations and play games. This is the only one that I know of that's on a public location. And so that was part of the reason we decided to drive to Vegas was so I could go there and try to play this game. I knew full well that there was a better than half chance that I was going to get there. And of course, it was going to be broken, but I wanted to at least try. So if I had a location, say like a next level or, you know, an interior or a galloping ghost or something, I think I would try to get myself one of these just to be that draw for completionists that want to play everything like that would get you in there. as far as like the rest of the place it was laid out with games back to back in about four rows one of the rows was blocked off you couldn't go into it looked like it was full of projects there was a lot of projects scattered around the periphery of the building and so it's not like the best look you know but it's kind of just one big open hall that doesn't really have a back workspace I'm sure there's probably one in there somewhere maybe by the bathrooms I did not manage to get into the bathroom to see if the urinals were working I guess that's a thing there somebody showed a picture with like all the urinals were taped off like not usable I don't know how a urinal breaks because it's all just a gravity flush system but oh man so I don't know if it's a matter of just you know biting off more than you can chew being a little bit closed off to accepting extra help or whatever but I will say that the place on this Friday night was very well attended a lot of coins were going in their stern row of modern sterns looks like it's doing fantastic. There was like four John wakes and, uh, a bunch of jaws is there. So, um, they're, they very well equipped for what they have It could be a really cool place I guess it still is kind of a cool place Just don go in expecting everything to be functioning I was able to play a Wipeout That was kind of cool I saw some other games I really wanted to try. The WrestleMania was down, but their Royal Rumble was up. You know, so kind of a mixed bag. They did have one spooky Scooby-Doo Standard Edition, so I was able to go and play one of those. I don't think I've seen one of those in the flesh before with their non-color powder-coated ramps. And I was struck with how many sculpts aren't in the standard edition of the game, which really makes me appreciate the collector's edition, Spooky. Well done, guys.
    22:33
    Even the whole castle gate facade that's on the upper playfield, I didn't realize that that's not there on the standard edition. It's just like a little metal or plastic ball guide, and you can really see all the mechanistics up there on that upper playfield without the sculpts and things, so that was kind of surprising. really made me appreciate my Collider's Edition so much more, man. I can't wait to see what Spooky's got next. As far as, like, manufacturers, you know, it seems like I've had a subscription with Stern Pinball and Spooky Pinball for the last year. But essentially, I'm staying with my Spooky subscription. I think no matter what, their next game, like, I'm already ready to get it just based on the last games that I've owned from them and knowing the guys and touring the facility and knowing that I'll get my game if I order it. It's going to be full of stuff, and if any issues crop up, they're going to be remedied fairly quickly.
    23:23
    Yeah, so I'm keeping my subscription with Spooky. I'm pretty much getting their next game no matter what. Can't wait to see what it is. I'm very excited about it. They are very excited about it. So this is going to be awesome. This is going to be awesome.
    23:36
    With Stern, I'm going to hold off now and kind of wait and see. I'm sure their next game is going to shoot just like all their other games. It's going to be supported with Insider Connected and all that. I can't wait to see what it is. But as far as buying, I might want to see what their next two or three releases is and then pick the best one of those is probably where I'll go with that. And that will give me time to let John Wick kind of mature and everything. So was there anything else to comment about with the Pinball Hall of Fame? They did have a couple of Mold-O-Ramas from Disneyland, which was fantastic because I love me some Disneyland. Their Pluto machine was working. The one they had next to it was not, so we were able to buy a $4 Mold-O-Rama of Pluto, the dog, which was cool. So I'm glad we got one of those. That would be fun to have at home, man. I don't know if it's practical to own a Mold-O-Rama at home, but it would be cool to have one of those. It was cool to see it and it was functional. So I do appreciate what they're doing in terms of preserving games and trying to keep them, them working. Um, I think, uh, it's just, this need more text, man, to keep these things working in a good condition. And it's, it's a hard thing to do. Um, they don't seem to have any other alternative revenue streams either. Like there's no bar there. They don't allow drinking. Like what the heck dude, this is Vegas, right? This is Vegas. Um, so I think if this place had a bar, which they seem to be just opposed to, I think they'd be killing it. If it was like nightclub music and alcohol being served, I think they could really increase their revenue to the point that they could hire some full-time techs and really turn the place into something special. And I think that's what it needs. This is Las Vegas, after all. This is a place that needs to be over the top, that needs to be gilded in gold or faux gold. It needs velvet. It needs Wayne Newton music. It needs to be like the whole Vegas razzle-dazzle. And I think that would be a very special pinball place if you could just make it like a plush lounge. Generate some money with some nightclub music and some hypnotic shots or something. Do pinball specials. Turn it into more of like a festival atmosphere. It seems to be that's not what the owners want to do because they essentially just have an empty building full of mostly working pinball machines. and it's all on quarter drop. So it is what it is. Hopefully it's doing well for them. I could see this with some diversification and some alternative revenue streams being something really special and really making it a destination. We'll see what happens, but that's my first take on it. I was there for a couple of hours. So we went back to the hotel, completely crashed out. We did a drive up the strip and I got two preteen, early teens in the car who really haven't ever been to Vegas where they can remember it. And for one of them, it was their first time ever in the state of Nevada. So we drove slowly up the strip and just marveled at all the lights, the Bellagio fountains, the costume characters on the sidewalks, the weird billboards. These kids were giggling when the Chippendales billboard truck drove by. It was just a fun experience for them just to see the spectacle of Vegas. And if you could take some of that, distill it down, and release it in the Pinball Hall of Fame, I think you'd have the perfect mix of a cool location to have. So that was fun. The next day we went to Meow Wolf, you guys. There's locations of these around the country. It's an artist installation kind of walk-through exhibit, interactive, super fun, right in my wheelhouse. And they had the Omega Mart exhibition that the Meow Wolf Collective puts on. So what this place was was like a whole campus of different activities from like glow-in-the-dark mini golf to bars and restaurants to walk-through mazes to arcades.
    27:14
    And then chiefly among them is the attraction of the Omega Mart. And this is a kind of artist interpretation of kind of like a consumerism, social commentary kind of walk-through thing. Essentially it looks like you're walking into a Walmart. There's products on the shelves, and everything is off just a little bit. Like there's literal and satirical takes on products. A lot of the products that are on the shelves are just like kind of weird, kind of mutated. There's a whole backstory about this corporation mining this special material from the desert that makes things react in a weird way. A lot of the things that are available are for sale. There's plush rotisserie chickens that are all covered in tattoos. There's boxes of cereals that contain puzzles and they have weird writings on them. There was travel size apples. These are apples that are made to look like they fit into a cup holder in a car. and they had some of those as like refillable mugs. So we got ourselves one of those. They had some spray bottles that were muted to look like animals and giraffes. It was just like really weird and very surreal and just very much like excitement around every corner of the supermarket, right? The supermarket is only half of the attraction. As soon as you go like back through the wall, either you open a freezer door and walk through it, walk behind the meat counter, find some kind of like dimensional rift in the side of the wall and wander back. You're in this just like magical land of half of a factory, half of the corporate offices for this. They'll make a corporation and also this village in the desert that this corporation is mining the special material from or whatever. I forget what they called it. It was like the spice or something. And then there's this whole metagame that goes on in this attraction as well where you can pay $3, get yourself an RFID card, and then you go to various terminals and log in and it gives you little quests and achievements, you know, a little questions to answer and then you get an achievement or a little task to complete. And then like the story evolves. It starts out that you're an employee trainee for this store. And so you go to the training counters and it's kind of rudimentary. Like, you know, here's where the, you know, go find the employee break room and, you know, go through these different colors of what the different, you know, safety things mean or whatever. And so it's kind of fun and a little weird. And then as you get more into the story, you discover, you know, what's actually going on in the desert. You visit the homes of the people that are trying to be the resistance. You meet the corporate CEO of the corporation, and she gives you a mission to go and kind of infiltrate the resistance and copy some emails from their computers and send it back to them. And then as it goes on, you find more and more about the resistance. You have the opportunity to join them and end up taking over the whole Omega Mart at the end with some really cool effects that happens if you manage to get that far. Very much worth the $3. I managed to complete it in about an hour and 20 minutes with the help of an online walkthrough because some of it was a little bit difficult to figure out exactly what you're supposed to do, forwarding emails and copying things on these people's desktop computers. But it was super fun for a metagame. The attraction itself is about $60 to get into. You have to buy your ticket and reserve a time. I was able to do that ahead of time and got us a slot as soon as they opened on a Saturday. It was very well attended and very well done. and I can't wait to go to more of these Meow Wolf installations. So go check out some of the walkthroughs on YouTube that some YouTubers have done of the Meow Wolf Omega Mart to kind of get yourself a perspective on exactly what it is. But it was a super fun way to spend. I could have spent four hours there. We were there for two, and then we had to get moving. But, man, it was super fun. We left Vegas. We drove to the Grand Canyon so the kids could go see the canyon, went up to the rim there. It was a three- or four-hour drive. We spent about an hour there walking the rim of the canyon. The visitor center had already closed for the day. We found a family of elk wandering around the parking lot. So from a safe distance, we got some photos of this mama and her baby elk. These things are like murder deer, man. You know, they're kind of like deer creatures, but like the evolved form of that Pokemon, you know, if you will. This is like, you know, a deer, but, you know, three times the size. And it looks like it could be mean as all heck. Like a moose-sized deer is what it looked like. So, you know, mountain elk, super cool. The canyon was great. There was some rainstorms in the periphery. So it just made this real dramatic desert scape looking out over the canyon, which is about 10 miles across, and just seeing the thunderstorms out there in the distance on the other rim. Just cool, man. And that whole region of northern Arizona, if you've never been, around the Flagstaff area, it's higher elevation. It does snow up there. There's pine trees, so it's not just barren desert. It's just such a nice break. Even in the middle of August, it was about 65 degrees, nice and cool. The rain had come through. The trees are everywhere. It's just one of my favorite places in the southwest United States is right around that Grand Canyon Junction Flagstaff region. Super cool. So while we were in Flagstaff en route to Tucson, which we did make it by the evening, I was able to stop at the other Electric Bat Arcade in Flagstaff, their other location. So Electric Bat, love these guys, Rachel and Cale, super cool operators. They do the Electric Bat Podcast. They just dropped a new episode. Go listen if you haven't. I'm sure you know them because they're amazing. but I was able to go into their other location in Flagstaff so the Yucca Tap Room is the name of the location actually both locations for where the Electric Bat Arcade is located within the main one is in Tempe, Arizona which is in the Phoenix metro area and it's like a huge cool punk rock hole in the wall bar place with like three rooms two of them are full of pinball machines it's definitely the major location I think it's local to them and then there's another Yucca Tap Room in Flagstaff and there's about eight machines up there and a smaller place there's like an upper stage seating area which is where the pinball machines are then there the bar then looks like there a stage in the back just looks like a super cool place to hang out The lady working the bar was super nice I was driving and went in and got myself a Diet Pepsi so I could break a 20, get some coins. They're on a token coin drop. So I've got some Electric Bat tokens somewhere. We should give those away for Patreon members. But it was fun. I was able to play a Led Zeppelin, a Walking Dead. They had a Starz there. Godzilla was there. so they got some cool games a mix of modern and older only 8 so not really a huge destination Electric Bat and Tempe is fantastic there's like 30 games in there it's a place you want to go to I don't even know if the Yucca Taproom in Flagstaff would have enough games to really do a tournament I guess you could pull a small one off but for the town, man it's fantastic I would not be mad living in Flagstaff such a cool place college town, pine trees, mountains Weather's a lot more moderate for the desert southwest. Four seasons there, or at least two seasons because it does get some snow. Yeah, yeah, it's a cool place, man. Go check it out. And it's right off the interstate, easy to get to. And Sedona, Arizona is not far, and it's probably the most beautiful part of Arizona. So go check that out. We head on down to Tucson. We get in there kind of late evening, 10 p.m., crash in my parents' house. The kids go swimming. Super fun. We spend a full day in Tucson visiting with family. This was cool. Part of the reason, aside from visiting family and just because Tucson's a cool place, a lot of saguaro cactuses everywhere, but the only location for my favorite salad buffet restaurant chain, Sweet Tomatoes, has reopened in Tucson, Arizona. So for the uninitiated, Sweet Tomatoes, some places it was called Soup Plantation. it's a pay one price salad buffet that also has a soup station baked potato bar pasta station some pizza and a dessert counter kind of like sizzler was back in the day but like instead of having weird meats it's mainly like salad things um and i love it man i loved this chain there used to be one in casimi florida or a couple in florida so after the theme parks you could go hungry pay like 10 to 14 bucks and just it was all you can eat and it was like like salad type foods you know and like good grains and muffins and soups and things that weren't just like, I want to go and eat a greasy pizza or go eat McDonald's or go eat theme park food. It was like, I feel like I'm getting like at least some nutrition going there. Um, so I was really bummed COVID closed all of them, man. You can't operate a salad buffet in the middle of that pandemic, man. So of course they all closed like a lot of other chains did, but they're coming back and their very first location that has reopened is in Tucson, Arizona, and it's doing fantastically. So I think that bodes well for, you know, the rest of the rollout of sweet tomatoes. Hopefully it comes back because there's not another thing like this in the U.S. There's a place called, like, Mr. Cucumbers or something as, like, a one-off location in the Minneapolis area. And, like, that's all I can find. And, you know, when you're road tripping and you want to just go and you're hungry, but you don't want to just fill up on grease and then jump back in the car, like, it was so nice to be able to, like, sit down and, like, just have unlimited salad, Build it yourself, all kinds of stuff Grab a slice of pizza, make yourself a brownie sundae It was fun, man It was a fun thing, and I'm so glad it's back And we got to go to one of the only ones And then also The first Spirit Halloween stores were just opening So we went to Spirit Halloween, let the kids pick out some costumes Had super fun times there I gotta think that They're probably scrambling now They probably have so many unsold Joe Biden masks And now they gotta get a bunch of Kamala ones But the Trump stuff was there in full effect So we had fun goofing off in there. It's always a good time to go to the Spirit. So they're open. We're in the fall, man. It was Tucson, Arizona. We left in the morning for one of our final drives back. It took three days to get back home. We left Tucson, and we stopped in New Mexico at White Sands National Monument, National Park. This is the white desert sand dunes that the Boyz II Men video, Let's Don't Wait Till the Water Runs Dry, was filmed, with the guys, like, walking on the sand dunes and stuff. I think Spice Girls have done filming out there. But it's these giant gypsum sand dunes. Gypsum is the same kind of mineral that drywall is made out of. So it's a real light, powdery, white sand. It comes down from the mountains and then gets blown apart into dust and then kind of makes these white dunes. And, of course, it's 110 degrees out in the middle of New Mexico, right next to the Missile Range in August with no shade at all. But because the grains are so white, they don't retain a lot of heat. So you can actually walk barefoot on the dunes. it's still warm but you can do it without scalding your feet so it's kind of a cool place it's my second time there first time since a kid wasn't an infant so we bought some dune sliding boards and some wax and let the kids go dune boarding down which is super fun to do a cool place but after about 45 minutes we were caked in sand and it was super hot and dry and there was no water in there to speak of at all what a great place for a lake that would have been so awesome to jump in a lake and play in the dunes but it's quite dry out there so we got back in the car and we headed out we ended up making it to the other side of Albuquerque and stayed the night on the way we stopped at this place called Pistachio Land I did a quick live stream from there it's the home to the world's largest pistachio nut which is made out of fiberglass and in the parking lot but they do pistachio farm tours they were closing for the day so we were able to go in there and buy some stuff and the ice cream counter was open and I got a giant plush pistachio nut the size of a throw pillow for the wife it was good times, it's a fun stop in the middle of essentially nowhere and then you have a decision if you want to go on to the Albuquerque region or head off to Roswell and so I was outvoted for Roswell so we ended up just driving up to the interstate and grabbing a hotel and eating some gas station pizza and that was that night, the next day was probably one of the longer drives, we left eastern New Mexico drove through Texas, stopped at Amarillo the Big Texan, home of the 72 ounce steak dinner, if you eat it all within an hour it's free. Go check that out. People have done it. Fun place to stop off in Texas. Went into Oklahoma and then crossed all of Kansas and we ended up staying in, what's the town? Lawrence? I think it was Lawrence, Kansas. Wherever the Rock Chalk KU University is. Cool college town. Went to a Detroit pizza place that evening. Got some food. Stayed at one of those true hotels.
    39:20
    Yeah, it was fun. It was cool. It was a lot of driving though managed to cover a lot of distance put us in spitting distance of wisconsin so the next day left kansas drove across missouri halfway across iowa to des moines and stopped at adventureland which is one of the coolest theme parks in the u.s uh it's cool because they modeled the front of the park after disneyland so when you enter like they have a train station just like disneyland does you enter through either the left or right side just like disneyland opens up at a town square and a main street that's again modeled just after disneyland's entrance on a more budget scale. My kids called it Wish.com Disneyland. But it's fun to go there. They've got about five roller coasters, including an indoor wooden roller coaster, the only one in the U.S. Essentially, they made a dark ride, but used a wood coaster to build it. So it's super fun. They just rethemed it and put new animatronics in it. It's called the Underground. I was very impressed with it, very happy with it for what it was. They have an attached water park, two other wood coasters, a couple of steel coasters, and just a fun regional amusement park theme park to go to. So I'm glad we got to stop there. We were there for about three and a half hours and rode absolutely everything. It was fantastic. And then we made it back home by the evening, left Iowa into Minnesota, and then we're back in Wisconsin. After 10 days of just, like, traveling on the road, all of a sudden we're, like, back where it's a little bit rainy, it's cool, it's a little bit humid, completely different from the weather throughout the entirety of the Western experience. And then we're back home and I'm playing some John Wick, and there was a new contract setter dropped, and I'm back into 3D printing some cool stuff and back to podcasting. So that was the whole trip. That's how I spent the last part of my summer vacation. Use this as an inspiration to get out on the road and go check some things out. There's so much cool stuff out there to do. I am road weary. For the last two months, I've been traveling. I've been in the Pacific Northwest. I went down to Georgia, Tennessee, Florida, and then I just did this whole western trip. And so it's like in the last 60 days, I've been on the road for about 45 of them. So I'm looking forward to spending a little bit of time at home here, getting caught up on my projects and everything. If you've got a Star Wars machine, Star Wars Pro Premium, and you're interested in that hard-to-find Star Wars topper, I'm making them. So I'm not making a lot of them. If you have any interest, email me. I'll get you on an interested list. I have one sold already, and I'll be talking more about that. So I'm releasing this only on the Patreon just for you folks because I don't want to put this out there and get like 100 orders. But if you're interested, I'm starting to put them into production. If you want to get a space on the list, no commitment. When it's ready to ship, I'll contact you. There will be a couple hundred dollars. And I'm working on some interactivity. So that's why I can't really settle on a price because I'm still working on building materials. But it will be a fair lot cheaper than a $3,500 topper. and looking at the one that I made right now it's freaking identical and actually I think the R2 looks a fair bit better so there's that putting that out to you thank you so much for being a Patreon member Lindsay why don't you come back on here thanks so much for being a member of this movement this community that we have we hang out on the discord thanks for interacting with us on there producers I love you guys we've been having high level discussions on that discord that's where I put most information that I don't really want to get out, but I want to share. I can't keep it all to myself. I still don't know for sure which machine is coming out next, but man, from Jersey Jack, are we talking about Margaritaville? That was going to be my next homebrew, man. What the heck are you doing to me, Jersey Jack? That's for sure going to be a purchase if they do that, man. I can't believe it. How are you spending your summer vacation? Let me know. Either Don's Billman Podcast, gmail.com. On the Discord, make sure you're following there. I'll see you guys around the interwebs, man. flip some pinball. Some cool stuff is coming in the next couple weeks. I just got a notice of a shipment from American Pinball. Their Aura lighting system, they've come up with some kind of system for their back box and it's on its way to me. So I can't wait for that to install it and just see what the heck this thing even is, man. I can tell you that it looks like it's around $79, but they went ahead and sent me a complimentary one for me to review. So that was super awesome. I'll comment on that and give you my first impressions of course on the Patreon. I want to get some more consistent bonus episodes going. What did you think of this bonus content? Again, let me know in the Discord or Don's Pinball Podcast at gmail.com. Lindsey Buckingham, take us out.