Journalist Tool

Kineticist

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

v0.1.0

← Back to items

Episode 155 – Missing Medallions

Slam Tilt Podcast·podcast_episode·analyzed·Nov 28, 2020
View original
Export .md

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.034

TL;DR

Slam Tilt analyzes ReplayFX/Pinburgh closure and its financial causes.

Summary

Ron Hallett and Bruce Nightingale of Slam Tilt Podcast discuss the closure of ReplayFX and Pinburgh tournaments due to the Replay Foundation's financial collapse. They provide detailed financial analysis showing annual operating losses of ~$473k (2018), with ReplayFX costing $685k to run while generating only $533k in revenue. The hosts reflect on Pinburgh's history since 2011, share personal tournament memories, and discuss the irreplaceable nature of the Papa/Pinburgh collection and legacy, while speculating on whether other venues like INDISC could fill the void.

Key Claims

  • Replay Foundation's 2018 revenue was $565,131 with operating expenses of $1,038,238, resulting in a $473,107 loss

    high confidence · Ron citing publicly available tax records for non-profit foundation

  • ReplayFX 2018 cost $685,236 to run and generated $532,914 in revenue

    high confidence · Ron discussing itemized ReplayFX operational breakdown

  • Replay Foundation has a $410,000 loan due at end of year, with Kevin Martin as the lender

    high confidence · Ron referencing foundation financial documents

  • Kevin Martin has pumped 'probably up to seven figures' of his own money into Replay Foundation over the years

    medium confidence · Ron's estimate based on financial analysis

  • Pinball machines in Replay Foundation inventory valued at $931,716 as of 2018, with sale list at ~$986,000

    high confidence · Ron citing foundation asset documentation

  • Over 100 games from Replay inventory have already sold

    high confidence · Ron stating games were sold quickly after dissolution announcement

  • First Pinburgh in 2011 had either 164 or 174 participants; Ron Hallett won the inaugural tournament

    high confidence · Ron describing his tournament history; Bruce confirming

  • Ron won the medallion (12-0 record) last year at Pinburgh, which turned out to be the final opportunity to win it

    high confidence · Ron reflecting on his competitive achievements

  • Papa had a full-time tech staff, which is not normal for facilities managing this many machines

    high confidence · Ron and Bruce discussing operational requirements for Papa vs INDISC

  • INDISC in Desert Hot Springs will become the biggest pinball show once players lose their Pinburgh venue

Notable Quotes

  • “If Kevin Martin is not in the Pinball Hall of Fame, he should be inducted immediately. Immediately. There is no if, and, or but.”

    Ron Hallett @ ~42:00 — Strong endorsement of Kevin Martin's contributions; reflects community gratitude despite financial collapse

  • “You can never put a collection like that together again. Especially with all those... Just think of the video tattoo assassins. They have two out of four. And that's because he worked there.”

    Ron Hallett @ ~60:00 — Highlights irreplaceable rarity of Papa's collection and the difficulty of recreating such a venue

  • “I have the medallion. And little did I know, that literally would have been the last opportunity for me to win the medallion.”

    Ron Hallett @ ~50:00 — Poignant reflection on timing of his championship achievement coinciding with tournament's final year

  • “They probably should have charged more, but a lot of people have been pissed off. But, I mean, in the end, they did.”

    Ron Hallett @ ~35:00 — Analysis of pricing strategy and community resistance to higher ticket costs

  • “It's not going to hit everybody until we go to the first show and we see everyone again. And then we're going to be like, oh, man.”

    Ron Hallett @ ~55:00 — Recognition that the emotional impact of losing Pinburgh will fully manifest at future tournaments

  • “It took a long time [to edit the last episode]. All I did was talk, hang up the thing with you, and ask you a couple days later, what's going on?”

    Bruce Nightingale @ ~02:00 — Meta-commentary on podcast production and editing challenges

  • “Just take it home with you. I'm not charging you anything. Just take it back... This is why you don't buy crappy games. Gottliebs suck.”

    Bruce Nightingale (paraphrased) @ ~75:00 — Candid critique of low-quality game repairs and Gottlieb reliability issues

  • “I would have paid $350, $400. I probably could have went double.”

Entities

Ron HallettpersonBruce NightingalepersonKevin MartinpersonReplay FoundationorganizationReplayFXeventPinburgheventPapa's Pinball Palace

Signals

  • ?

    event_signal: ReplayFX festival and Pinburgh tournament permanently discontinued; Papa's Pinball Palace warehouse closed; entire venue collection being liquidated

    high · Ron and Bruce confirm Replay Foundation dissolved and announced closure; asset sale already underway with 100+ machines sold

  • ?

    business_signal: Replay Foundation operated at substantial annual losses (~$473k in 2018) unsustainable without personal funding from Kevin Martin ($410k loan due plus seven figures invested)

    high · Detailed financial analysis of 2018 tax records showing revenue $565k, expenses $1.038M; replayFX 2018 loss of ~$153k standalone

  • ?

    community_signal: Loss of irreplaceable pinball collection and full-time technical infrastructure; community expresses inability to recreate Papa's unique ecosystem and venue quality

    high · Ron states 'you'll never get a collection like this back together' and discusses rarity of machines like Tattoo Assassins (2 of 4 worldwide at Papa)

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Pinburgh tournament format (match-play, medallion achievement, competitive structure) discontinued after 8 years; shift to INDISC as alternative venue with similar-but-different format

    high · Ron and Bruce discuss Pinburgh's 2011-2024 run; note INDISC's recent match-play strikes-based tournament as substitute; predict INDISC becomes new major venue

  • ?

    operational_signal: Papa's success attributed to full-time technical staff; INDISC and other venues lack permanent tech support, relying on volunteers with day jobs

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.315

0:00
Eh, live of a place, dude. Cool. Skull earrings rule. We're gonna look like we can kick some ass. I'm gonna get one in my nose.
0:13
I'm gonna get one in my butt. So, what can I do for you guys? We want earrings. Yeah, and butt rings.
0:30
Coming to you from beautiful upstate New York, this is the Slam Tilt Podcast, the show about all things pinball. I'm your host, Ron Hallett, here with my co-host, Bruce Nightingale. Excuse me. I am now known as the pinball player formerly known as Bruce.
0:50
Okay. Are you a symbol now? I am. And what symbol is that? A butt? The middle finger. That would be you. If you were Sniffle, it would just be a middle finger. Go fuck yourself.
1:04
And welcome to episode 155. Wow. We have some guests lined up for the next couple of shows. That Bruce just told me about, and he said it's in two weeks, which I didn't know we were bi-weekly now, but it seems like we are somehow. Oh, we are.
1:22
I'm going back to weekly, baby. That wasn't the plan. The plan was you being retired, but guess what? You got bored too.

medium confidence · Ron predicting future tournament attendance patterns

Bruce Nightingale @ ~40:00 — Indication that players would have accepted higher ticket prices to sustain tournament

  • “You'll help out at everything. [laughs] The pinball player formerly known as Bruce.”

    Ron Hallett @ ~65:00 — Playful banter about Bruce's volunteer commitments at future venues

  • “There's only like four [Tattoo Assassins], I think, and they have two out of four. And that's because he worked there.”

    Bruce Nightingale @ ~60:00 — Highlights extreme rarity of specific pinball machines in Papa's collection

    • venue
    Pair Networkscompany
    INDISCvenue
    Slam Tilt Podcastmedia
    Silver Ball Chroniclesmedia
    Zach Minneyperson
    Elizabeth Cromwellperson
    Fred Cochranperson
    Chris Lasigliaperson
    Ericperson
    Jasonperson
    Jim Pelcitoperson
    Keith Ellperson
    Steve Bowdenperson
    Kathyperson
    Josh Roopperson
    Doug Polkaperson
    Steve Epsteinperson
    Arcade Expoevent

    high · Ron and Bruce emphasize Papa had dedicated techs; contrast with INDISC where 'most techs are volunteers' with full-time jobs elsewhere

  • ?

    collector_signal: Replay Foundation rapidly liquidating pinball machine inventory (~$986k book value); over 100 machines already sold post-announcement

    high · Ron reports 'they had a master list' within a day of announcement; sale list valued ~$986k with 100+ machines already sold to collectors

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Sharp negative sentiment shift from excitement about annual Pinburgh event to realization of irreplaceable loss; mixed with appreciation for legacy and Kevin Martin's sacrifice

    high · Ron states 'It's a sad day' and 'it's not going to hit everybody until we go to the first show'; discusses won medallion being 'last opportunity'

  • ?

    industry_signal: Loss of marquee tournament venue shifts competitive pinball landscape; INDISC positioned as new dominant tournament destination for players seeking Pinburgh-style experience

    medium · Ron predicts INDISC 'will become the biggest show' once competitive players seek replacement; notes Carl (owner) will face increased burden from formerly Pinburgh-focused players

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Bruce Nightingale has transitioned out of Silver Ball Saloon employment and obtained new non-pinball job with NDA; continues podcast and repair work

    high · Bruce states 'I have a job now, guys' with non-pinball NDA; Ron notes 'no more Silver Ball Saloon'; Bruce indicates having 'two paychecks finally for the past three years'

  • ?

    product_concern: Flood-damaged Raven/Genesis game in repair showed severe deterioration; Bruce's candid critique of Gottlieb build quality and reliability

    medium · Bruce describes flooded game with LED issues, rusted components, flipper failures; states 'Gottliebs suck' and 'they really do fucking suck' based on repair experience

  • ?

    venue_signal: INDISC venue positioned as potential successor to Papa, though faces challenges: limited tech staff, geographic remoteness, mixed game condition in inventory

    medium · Ron and Bruce discuss INDISC having 'games', 'facility', 'owner with money'; note challenges including 'no full-time staff', 'middle of nowhere', many games broken (Zachariah section example)

  • ?

    content_signal: Slam Tilt Podcast returning to weekly schedule after attempting bi-weekly format; hosts acknowledge editing burden and audience engagement

    medium · Ron notes Bruce 'said it's in two weeks, which I didn't know we were bi-weekly'; Bruce states 'I'm so bored of editing' and 'it took a long time'; Ron confirms 'I'm going back to weekly, baby'

    • 1:29
    Yeah, I'm so bored of editing for, that's how long it took to edit the last episode. I don't know, how long? It took a long time. All I did was talk, hang up the thing with you, and ask you a couple days later, what's going on? Yeah, you suck. I do.
    1:44
    All right. Well, at least I don't have to edit the other one I'm on, which is Silver Ball Chronicles to be found on the Pinball Network. Yes. And catch our latest episode about John Borg, the day to East Sega years. There was one thing I'll have to email you on. Oh, God. Okay, one thing that was wrong? And I was there, so I literally know. Oh, he was there. You were actually in Chicago? You were physically there? I was there. You were there in Chicago right next to Borg when it happened? No, when you made a comment about something. I made a comment about something. Yes, I will email you. I did think of you while recording because I was mentioning Guns N' Roses, and I was saying, like, two shooters. Yes. Like, two shooter, and I'm thinking, oh, wait a minute. That has the gun in the shooter. Someone's going to complain, so I immediately, like, oh, just to make a correction now. I know you did. I laughed. That was all because of you. It's like it's got a gun on the right and a rose shooter on the left. Just want to make sure it's correct.
    2:46
    That was funny, though. So, I got to see my brother a week and a half, two weeks ago. Yes, you did. And we're going to talk about that. In a few minutes. But first, we have to talk about the end of replay. Yes. The end of replay effects and Pinberg and all associated fun. Yeah. Unfortunately, COVID took down another place. and they announced their dissolving of Pinbird, not of ReplayFX, Replay Foundation. Yeah, they are technically the Replay Foundation. Yes. But ReplayFX will be all the money that was earned from ticket sales will be refunded. They have started to sell assets. Oh, they've already sold over 100 games. Well, here's the weird thing. We see the pinball pricing, which is right in front of me right now. Well, just to, when they first announced this, within like a day, they had a master list. Like, these are all the games available. The one thing I noticed immediately is... One CERN. Yeah. Like, Ali. So, all the other classic CERNs they had were either not available or already probably accounted for. Because I think people in the know, like, I think this was known probably among the inner circle for a while. And some were not theirs. Yes, and some were not theirs. But things like the famous TX Sector was not in there. The famous Alien Star was not in there. The famous Quicksilver was not in there. I know some people who have bought some machines. One, because he actually won C-Division on it, which was Chris Lasiglia. He won C-Division with Corvette, and he bought that. Yeah, that did present a unique opportunity to actually own a game that you won something on or beat someone on, which is kind of cool. It's like, I won on this, like, even though I wouldn't really want to own an Adams family, it would be cool to be like, this is the Adams family. I won Pinberg, C Division on. If I was going to buy a game from Papa, I would buy. Yeah, what would you buy? I would buy the Frontier and burn it. Oh, no, no, no. Give it to me. No, I'd burn it because it would have lost me C. No, no, no. Burn, Pete, burn. Just go inferno. No. The only one on the list, actually, that interested me from the – well, first, the pricing was all over the map. There was stuff that was like, oh, that's pretty good, and other stuff like a Slick Chick that was $2,000, $3,000 or whatever. That's the one with the gobble holes. I'm like, really? Is that some, like, super rare EM that I'm – am I missing stuff? I'm not an EM expert, but they had an $1,100 Jungle Lord. Yep. I was like, yeah, yeah. I had no way of getting it back. See? You have me. Well, that's true. Maybe, I think, before we start this, I want to do a little history lesson here. Well, first I want to say thank you to everyone who was involved with ReplayFX, you know, between Doug, Elizabeth. Well, I got the board right here. Yeah, please, let's go over everyone so we don't miss anybody. Well, not everyone's on the board, but some of the people I actually don't know who they are. On the board, and this was as of 2018, so Kevin Martin, Amanda Martin, Bowen, Bowen Cairns, Steve Zumoff, Stephen Marchuk, Matt Riffle, Malia Strimple, Elizabeth Cromwell, Mark Steinman, Doug Polka, also Petey Hendricks, Virginia Hendricks, Fred Cochran. I'm going to miss him. Fred, I love Fred. When I first played him, he was actually playing in the first Pimberg, and he's a character, and I love him. And honestly, ever since then, every time I see him, a smile comes to my face because he is always happy to be working there. I'm going to miss every single person there, everyone who's volunteered. Don't forget Jim from the Sanctum. He was one of the repair guys there. And special shout-out to their head tech. Yep. I can't remember his name. I can't remember his name as well. I would go out of his way to talk to him every year. He can't remember his board game. He's such a nice guy. He's actually a friend on Facebook. I can't find him on Facebook right now. He's the guy whenever, like, a game would break in the middle of a match and they need, like, a live, coil-soldered live with the power on, you'd see him there. Yep. But, you know, I just like to thank everyone. And I know it was a difficult decision, and who knows what's going to happen. Unfortunately, it's not good for pinball at all. It's not good for everybody who's in this hobby, because it is a void that I think can never be filled again. No. That was a special situation, and we're going to talk about that. You built it once.
    7:30
    And, you know, we'll go over to history. Yeah, yeah. I'll do my Silver Bowl Chronicles. Because I know you love it so. So, history lesson for you folks out there. A little background. I like giving you little backgrounds. The first Tinbergs were actually, I think they were more like Papa tournaments. They weren't like match play. And they were held from 2000 to 2003, and they were run by Kevin Martin. It's like, who is Kevin Martin? Well, Kevin Martin is from Pittsburgh, and he actually worked at Sega briefly. He is in Baywatch. That one mode where you save people from the water and it's got the three people floating, he's the Kevin. Yes, he is. He started a company called Pair Networks out of Pittsburgh. They are a web hosting provider in the Pittsburgh area. And it was very successful. Very. Which allotted Kevin the capital needed to do what he did, which was in 2004, he bought the rights for Papa from Steve Epstein. And he started amassing this huge collection, got the warehouse, the famous warehouse, filled it up with maybe 200 games at the first one. They had the first Papa. And then the weekend after they had it, the entire facility flooded. And every game was lost. Yes. And I remember him coming on RGP. Oh, yes. Saying like, do I rebuild? Do I try it again? What do you think, guys? And everyone's like, yeah, man, come on. You got to do it. It was great. It's like, okay, okay. So the next year, They had even more games than they had the previous year. Yes, they did. It began the ascension of Papa Land. So it became like a destination for us tournament people. And then they had other tournaments at Papa's. And they had... Yeah, in the old days, Papa was open, well, originally twice a year. Once for Papa, once for the Pear Network's Christmas party. Yes. Those were the two events. And then they started adding things like they had the cupids and canines. Yes. They had other charity tournaments they would do. Especially the one famous one where they had it during the snowstorm. Oh, yeah. That barely people could ever get to this thing, but Steve Bowden and a couple other people did. Yeah. So they did that, and it was just Papa every year until 2011. Yes. Then they decided to do this Pembroke thing.
    10:02
    174 people, I think it was, or 164, something like that. I think 174 sounds right for some reason. Yeah. and the first winner, the first person to ever win there was me. Just saying. I'm just saying that Ron was the first winner ever at Pinberg. Yep, yep, the new Pinberg. We got to play Keith Ell in the first match. Yeah, they had an odd number, so we got to be in a threesome. So it was me, Bruce, and Keith for some reason. It's like, are you kidding? Do you remember what we played? It was like we played nine ball, attack from Mars, and, yeah, I don't remember the other games. There was an older, and I think it was, I forget what the last one was, but the two others I can't remember. Yeah, I don't remember. So, yeah, first winner here. Just saying. Got the black and everything. Thank you. And I want to know, this is going to be my own personal prep project. Next week I'm going to ask Josh to see if I can get in Word document, how many went to all eight Pinbergs? How would Josh know? because he actually has the results for my FPA. Oh, okay. So then I can get it in Word document and then put it in Word and then start. Oh, you want to make it there. Oh, okay. So I want to see it. So that would be the easiest way to do it in Word. So, yes, me and Bruce went to every one. Yes, me and you were one of the 174 that have always made it there. You don't know what the true number was at the end. I'm thinking probably 100 people. And I'm sure there's people who probably went to all of them. Like I went to the four. Oh, yeah. before us, I guarantee you. So, in 2012, they formed the Replay Foundation, which was basically a way just to make it a non-profit, because up until this point, Kevin Martin owned everything. He owned the warehouse, he owned all the games, everything's under his name, so this was more of a way to, you know, now it's technically Replay Foundation owns everything. It's less of a liability towards him. And they start these, they do the pinbergs, and, you know, the Pappas were fine, the pinbergs, they had major parking issues around that facility, If anyone had been to the facility, they had a large dilapidated warehouse right out in front. And businesses that were there. Yeah. And businesses trying to run their businesses. The dilapidated warehouse was the problem. If they got rid of that, they would have so much more parking. Yeah. But Kevin inquired. He wanted to buy it and tear it down, but it would cost over a million dollars to remove the asbestos in the building before they would let him tear it down. The funny thing is, I think it fell down eventually. It collapsed. It finally collapsed, and they cleared it up. The parking was terrible for Penrose. Yes, it was. And it got more and more popular, more and more people wanted to do it, which led eventually to replay effects.
    12:41
    In 2015, they started doing the replay effects. And herein lies the problem. They could not afford to do those. No. But they did them anyway. That's the thing. As a non-for-profit, their tax records are public. Yes. I know a lot of people were shocked at this when they announced this, but if you actually look at their records, it is not shocking at all. Why they did what they did. In 2018, this is the last year they have out there. I'm sure 2019 will be out there eventually. It will be about to, yes. But just at its most basic level, the Replay Foundation, they made $565,131 for the year. So that's cool. Yeah, hey, half a million dollars, you know, pinball? Okay, we're making it. Their total operating and their expenses were $1,038,238.
    13:39
    That means they had a loss of $473,107. Yes. And they were doing this every year. Yes. And this is the problem. You can't do this. No. Even though it's a not-for-profit, you can't. You still cannot lose every year in average. You can't lose this money. So what they were doing was great for pinball, but not great for their own foundation. I would have paid more. That's the thing. They probably should have charged more, but a lot of people have been pissed off. But, I mean, in the end, they did. I think if you said the reasons why, I think it would have been more accepted. Yeah. If you said, hey, look at our 20, and since it was posted, they could have shown it. Look, this is our numbers.
    14:21
    This is what we're making. If you want this to continue, this is what we're going to have to charge. And if you don't want to pay that, not a problem. We understand. I'm sorry, but we are a business. We're not a charity. So their main revenue source was ReplayFX. Yes. So you know how much it cost to run ReplayFX. I know. So for the 2018 replay effects, it cost them $685,236.
    14:54
    Now, that's just everything. That's including moving trucks, bringing the stuff back and forth, hiring security, hiring the building, T-shirts, lanyards, all the stuff they needed. So everyone thinks, like, oh, that's a lot of money for a building. No, it's everything. And you know how much they made from replay effects. That's $532,914.
    15:18
    So you might ask yourself, if they're doing this every year, how do they even make it this far? Well, if Kevin Martin is not in the Pinball Hall of Fame, he should be inducted immediately. Immediately. There is no if, and, or but. Because I really believe what happened in this case is they realized there was not going to be a replay FX next year. There's not going to be any tournaments next year. And there's a certain loan coming due. And I haven't misread this the first time, but they have a $410,000 loan that comes due at the end of this year. But the lender is Kevin Martin. Yes.
    15:54
    He's basically pumping, like, he's probably up to seven figures now of his own money. He's pumped into this through the years to keep it going. And that's not fair to Kevin for us. I'm going to be honest. That is not fair for Kevin to. I mean, Paranetworks has been successful. I mean, he moved to South Carolina. He doesn't live in Pittsburgh anymore. He has a nice house and everything, but he's not made of money. He can't be just continually pumping hundreds of thousands of dollars into this. No, and as I said, I would have paid. How much would you have paid to go to ReplayFX for the tournament? How much was it when we last bought it? Was it $175? I would have paid $350, $400. I probably could have went double. Yeah, easily. But then you'll get like, well, not everyone can do that. It's not fair to everyone, et cetera. But guess what? It's still then the point of, I hate to say it, it's a once-a-year thing. So guess what? If you can only make one show, make it that show if you want that show. People sometimes are lucky enough to go travel to, you know, be close to, say, Indisk, maybe to Texas, maybe to Pittsburgh. You make the closest show the cheapest show. if you're traveling, that's the show you want to go to. It was a party. It was a great time to meet people and see people. But we couldn't make them the only people who were footing the bill. Yeah, there needed to be sponsors and things like that. It just didn't really happen. And the thing is, there was a lot of anger with this announcement of people like, you didn't even give us a chance to save you. Where did you go fund me?
    17:34
    The thing is, they're selling their entire inventory. Their video game and pinball assets are a little over a million. The pinball list was almost a million by itself, the list of pinballs. Yeah, well, they have in their documents their assets. They actually have how much. But the video games, I never saw the list yet. Oh, yeah, I don't think that, yeah, they said that was not, it was coming eventually, but it wasn't there. Here it is. So, pinball machines, book value, $900,000, and this is as of 2018. It's probably a bit higher now. $931,716 in pinball machines, $142,843 in video games. Yeah. And from 2018 to 2019, they added a lot of video games. Well, also, and the pinball value keeps going up and up and up. It does. Totally agree. The list that they had for the games when they were putting them on for sale was, I think, $986,000. I think that somebody added a lot. Yeah, that's right. And they sold over 100 of them already. Yes, a couple people I know have bought some. Congratulations.
    18:42
    That's a great thing. It hurts me because I know you'll never get a collection like this back together. Oh, you'll never see somebody's themes. You'll never see a hang glider again. You'll never see... The two motor shows are for sale. You want a motor show? Yeah. I think they're gone now. They're gone now? One is gone. Okay, because they had two. Motor show. What? Why are you playing this game?
    19:10
    Oh, my God, the pain. I mean, most of my memories of Papa are actually, they're more the old building. I mean, they sold the warehouse to actually probably save money and move it all into the storage. Yeah. So they lowered their costs. But something about that building, especially when the tournament was over, the after-hours party, which wasn't – I mean, okay, more history lesson. Back when they had Papa, at least the first few years, when the tournament ended on Sunday, that was it. Everyone went home. Yeah. And the one year I was there, when it ended, you know, Kevin always gave out the trophies and all that. And he said, I'm leaving. You can keep it open. I don't care what you do. I'm out of here. So everyone was like, holy shit! And we bought like 20, 30 pieces and stuff, and it was like party time. Then the next year they had a band. Thank God they only did that once. Like a DJ. That was terrible. And then the years after that, it became the thing. It was the post-party. The post-Papa party. And that's some of my favorite memories. For me, the memory is going to be hanging outside in between rounds for Papa and for Pinnberg. The amount of drinking and smoking of other substances that occurred in that parking lot. Food and just meeting people and seeing people. But I do have great replay effects memories because the tables, we'd always find a table to sit at. And every time after each round, we'd all be at this table and we'd all hang out and we'd all tell us how we did each other. The first replay effects when I didn't make the playoffs as usual, I got to play all the games. They were on free play because they weren't back then. They always made, when you were at the pop facility, it was tokens. It wasn't until like the last year or two of the warehouse that they just made you pay when you came in, like 20 bucks, whatever it was, a day. But it was, this was the first time I could just go crazy and play these games.
    21:08
    You won C division. I've been third in C division. So we're both Seaman? We're both Seaman, and I placed an A five times. That's better than me. Out of nine Pembergs. That's pretty, or eight Pembergs. You know, that's pretty good. I almost made eight playoffs. I missed by one point. I missed by one point two years. Actually, yeah, two years, yeah. So, you know, we were all in that game. But it's just, it's a lot of great memories. And then we're not even talking about the Papa memories. We're talking about the Pimberg memories more. Papa was great for trying to get that perfect card, you know, and it's just, it's a sad day. It's not going to hit everybody until we go to the first show and we see everyone again. And then we're going to be like, oh, man, you know, do we leave this? And when I get that refund, literally, no offense, I don't even want that refund.
    22:00
    I think you can choose to donate it back. I think I'm going to choose that. So I'll give one final memory for me. My tournament career is kind of winding down because I'm old, and I'm not going to get any better at this point. I'm just going to get worse. and honestly I have overachieved in my opinion I've done way more than I ever thought I would do playing competitive pinball to be perfectly honest and I kind of got to the point where I thought there was maybe only one thing left that I actually had a chance of doing seniors! no that I had a chance of winning and that was the medallion the 12 and 0 because I had 11 and 1's a couple times and I was 9-0 going into the last round. And I ended up second. So I had a chance. Multiple times. So I figured this was the one thing. And I've known multiple people who have done it, too. Who are probably as good as me. Eric and Jason and everyone else have done it. I've never done it. I haven't gotten close. And when I got, I got it last year. And I was just so happy. It's like, I've finally completed my pinball tournament career. It's now complete. I have the medallion. And little did I know, that literally would have been the last opportunity for me to win the medallion. I never got close. The best I ever did in a round was 10-2.
    23:26
    But the worst I've ever done in a round was 2-10. So I never got zero. I never got perfect. And my dad, I mean, he had a terrible pin where he was going to, like, not play. And I coaxed him into playing. And then he missed the playoffs by, like, one point. Yes, that was the year I was in. And he wasn't even mad. I think he was surprised he even made that. And he was so happy it was on Flash. It's like, holy shit, a game I know. It's just a lot of, you know, it's a lot of, you know, me and Kathy went to replay FX one year together. She didn't go to the old building. But, you know, we had, you know, it was, it's just, it's going to be missed. Is there anyone who could take the mantle? Oh, InDesk. They have the games. They don't have the techs. They have the facility. Well, that's still a small facility, and it would have to be dedicated because they have the one room that's all pinball and one room that's all video games.
    24:21
    But the guy, I guess the guy supposedly owns it. He owns other buildings in that lot. Yes, he does. He owns other buildings. He's got some money. So what you would need, though, you would need a full-time tech staff. Yes. I've been there. Most of the techs, they're volunteers. They're guys that have full-time jobs, and they come in maybe on a weekend or after work to fix as many things as they can. But they have too many games to keep up with without a full-time staff. I agree. I'll tell you that straight. That's one thing you forget about Papa. You just expected the games to play well because it's Papa. I mean, and this is not normal for this many games to play well. It just isn't because they had a full-time tech staff. You don't have that anywhere else. No, no. I mean, and in Indus, people forget a lot of those games, they're Jim Pelcito's games. Yes, they are. It's a combination of his games and games from that facility that have been gone over. Like, if you go in the back and start playing some of the other games, I mean, they have a Zachariah section with, like, say, 10, 15 Zachariahs. They might have one or two that are on because the rest of them are all broken. So that's the issue I see with them. Plus, who wants to be creepy enough? Yeah, that's the only place I can see. They're in the middle of nowhere, so you're going to have to drive there. Well, no, actually, there's one airport close by. Yeah, Palm Springs, but it sucks for me because it's way more expensive.
    25:47
    For me, I've got to go to San Francisco. No, you go to L.A. Oh, L.A., yeah, sorry. I've got to go to L.A., and then I've got to get there. I've got to either get there late at night and drive in, or I have to be there at like 2 in the morning and drive in, or I'm screwed. If you drive in any time from 8 to like 9 or 10 at night, it going to take you three hours plus to get there But I will say one thing That will become the biggest show Oh yes That will become now Your pinball competitive types yeah who don have their pinbird fix And I hope Carl survives because everyone's going to want – because just last year – or actually, no, it was this year. I forgot they actually had it this year. Yes, they did. They had the match play style on, I think it was Thursday, where it was basically like pinbird. But it was, I think it was strikes-based? Yes. Yeah, but it was like the same thing. Your match play, well, you're in groups. I guess not match play, strikes-based. But you're in groups, and you're playing mostly the classic games. So, but I'm just going to say one thing, Carl, Jim, my bitch ass will be out there every year now. Because, no offense, I'm not going to, you know, since there's no more Pinberg, I'd rather than go to that show, because that is not being disrespectful. Hopefully. That was the second best show. They made it into the second best show. Everyone loves Texas, but Texas is more like... It's a show. This is more of a tournament. Yes. And this is what I want. Well, plus they have Arcade Expo there. Don't forget. They do. And I love Arcade Expo there. And I love they have a Halloween thing also. They have a Halloween get-together. They have other things. We'll come out there. If we don't make it into the finals, Jim, guys, we'll help out. Yes, Bruce will help out. Oh, man. Ron, do you see that? Do you see how Ron is? I help out on the commentary. No, no, no. You'll help out at everything. Oh. So say it, Bruce. The pinball player. So say it, Bruce. The pinball player formerly known as Bruce. Oh, yes. You're just the middle finger symbol now. Yes. Well, you'll be able to go there now because, you know, no more Silver Ball Saloon. You have your job. Yes, I have a job now, guys. You won't tell me what you do. I can't. What do you mean you can't? I can't. Why can't you tell me what you do? I have an NDA. Wait a minute. Yeah. Okay, our whole gimmick as a podcast is no one pays us, and we don't have any NDAs, and we say it like it is. Yep, we do say it like it is. You're ruining our gimmick. This is life. I have an NDA for my job.
    28:23
    Well, is it pinball related? No. Okay, so we're still good. Yeah, we're still good. Okay. But I can't tell you what I do.
    28:32
    Okay. Yeah. All right. It's a good job, so that's all that matters. And it's actually nice having two paychecks finally for the past three years. It's like, oh, my God, hey.
    28:44
    All right. So I think we covered that. We did. I mean, gave more financial information than anyone ever wanted to hear. Yeah, but as, you know, they're all in our thoughts. Because it's heartbreaking to them than anybody else. Because we'll never get, you know, that collection was, that was attained in the early-mid-2000s. Before that. At lower prices, before this boom. You can never put a collection like that together again.
    29:11
    Especially with all those... Just think of the video tattoo assassins. Yep. Aren't they one of the only ones in existence? There's only like four, I think, and they have two out of four. Yeah. And that's because he worked there. Yeah, the kid worked there. Yes. So, if he's not there already, please, Expo Pinball Hall of Fame, induct Ted Martin immediately. Definitely. It's not a if, and, or, but. You've got to be done. If it's not done next year at the virtual expo or whatever we have, I will be highly insulted. Yes. The entire podcast will be insulted. Yes. Of course, someone is going to tell us he was already inducted and we'll look stupid. I don't think so, though.
    29:51
    So we got to see you this week, this past couple weeks. Oh, yes. I visited, as we stated. You kept inviting me out there. We did make the arrangements. Everything was in place. And I arrived on Friday after work. I got out of work early. And could I just say, you and Zach need to stream your repair sessions. Oh, why is that? Because they're entertaining as all hell. 100%. You want to see, like, Bruce fixing some dude's game as he insults how shitty the game is. Oh, it got worse after I saw you guys. But let's get into it. Yeah, I show up, and Zach and Bruce are there fixing a Genesis. No. No, no. Genesis would have been okay. Oh, no, it wasn't Genesis. What am I saying? No, it was the other one. It was Raven. Oh, yes. Yeah. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Genesis. I'm sorry. Yeah, Genesis was at least an okay game. This, no, not at all. And this thing had so many issues.
    30:50
    First, the left flipper wouldn't work, and we finally figured, or right flipper wouldn't work. This thing was in a flood. Everything underneath was rusty. It was LED, so we know you like it immediately. Oh, it's terrible. The LED view is blue, right, when we first played it, you know. We finally got it working. The next day, the guy comes over and is like, all right, I finally can play this thing. I turn this thing on. Half the things didn't work again.
    31:15
    I finally turned to him and I said, just take it home with you. I'm not charging you anything. Just take it back. He's like, I got this cheap. You know, I'm like, yeah, this is why you don't buy crappy games. Gottliebs suck. Wow.
    31:29
    And it's just been reaffirmed again. They really do fucking suck. Oh, that's not dumb. It's just so mean. Kevin Martin is not in the Pinball Expo Hall of Fame. So Pinball Expo, you know what you need to do. Yes, there is no. Do or do not, there is no try. So, yeah, just terrible. You know, just terrible game. But watching the Bruce-Zach interaction is something. I'm watching this and it's like, why isn't this being streamed? I think Zach agrees with me, but he thinks there needs to be a cameraman. It can't just be like a static shot. No, I totally agree. It has to be a cameraman. So someone has to be the cameraman. Or you do a wide angle. Even that, you kind of need to get close-ups. We need reactions. Maybe do it as a YouTube show instead. Well, you do it as a wide angle for the one shot. Then you have the overhead play field as another shot. And then you have headbands, like GoPros, on your head. so you can see exactly what we're doing. Oh, God, I would get sick.
    32:28
    All right, so I arrived. Mark was there with us. Mark. Oh, yes. Sorry, Mark. Yes, Mark was there. It was actually Mark, Bruce, and Zach when I arrived. And we got it working, and we said, like, hey, let's go play some Rick and Morty. So Ron was thinking we're going to go inside the house. Nope. No, I didn't think that. I knew that. You told me that. I know, but. You're ruining my story. Okay, then you tell it. Go fucking tell it, Dave.
    33:00
    Hey, guess what? The pinball player formerly known as Bruce salutes you, Ron. Oh. Good thing we don't actually use video chat. I can't see. Yes, please continue, Bruce. So we went up to see my pinball machine, Rick and Morty,
    33:16
    and we were dealing with the issues on that, which have now almost all been rectified. Oh. We put the new code in. The code actually helped out a lot. No more crashing. So it must have been a bug in the code. We changed the voltage on the power supply from 48 volts. We actually had like 47.9 volts. Spooky support told us to go up to 51 volts. And once we did that, it's been a lot better. Oh, okay.
    33:44
    He asked about the EOS switches. I said, yes, I've played with the EOS switches so many times, you know, it's not even funny. So he said, play with it. The only problem is, to adjust this screw on the power supply, it's hard to get to. So I had to take the power supply out, actually adjust it, and mount it back in. It wasn't that bad. But, you know, it did help. And also, I think I mentioned last week, my TNA, I said I didn't remember having EOS switches. It does not. It does not have EOS switches. I was correct. So now what do they do? So we went there. Ron got to play the first game. And, Ron, tell us what you think. Like, well, like, the first plunge, I hit, like, three or four consecutive loops on there. Like, wow, everyone said this shot's really hard. And then I don't think I ever hit a loop again on that. No, you did not. The entire rest of the night. No, you didn't. I just clunkified it. I could not remember to use the MagnaSafe. No. I had some kind of mental block there. I don't understand. Like, I had so many drains on the right side. It's like, hey, Ron, when are you going to use that MagnaSafe? Hey, Ron, MagnaSafe. Ron, there's an extra button there. MagnaSafe. So your first thoughts, I think Ron came away with, he really... I wasn't that crazy about it at first, at least playing the first one. Yeah. We'll have to go more into the story, but the call-outs were all hilarious. Yes. Which I figured. The light show's good. Oh, light show's good. Light show's very good. It's very Scott Denise-y. Yes, which I like. What? You don't like TNA? It's like his other game. I hate TNA. How do you like Scott and EC stuff when literally the light show, the music, all that is very TNA? I like it. Even when mode and one universe is TNA. Where the rants are worth nothing. I love that. I love that, too. So afterwards, I'm like, hey, let's go to Mark's house now. We're going to go play some Avengers LE. So we drove over there, and we got to play Avengers LE. Ron got to see a Deadpool LE. Central L.A., that was cool. Yes. And you got to see a non-chipping TNA.
    35:51
    Fuck you. Yes. Oh, that was the best part of it. Yeah, I got to see yet another R2-D2 topper. Yes, you did. There's a lot of R2-D2 toppers in Rochester for some reason. Yes, there is.
    36:05
    So he got to play Avengers L.A. And tell us what you think of that, sir. Shoots like a dream. I had no idea what I was doing. Yep. Just had Zach telling me, like, pick this gem. I know what this gem does. Pick this. Okay. Okay, now hit this shot. All right. The whole gem, moving stuff around and all that, it may be a little above my level of brain power to coordinate. Your pay level? Your pay level is a little too high.
    36:35
    Literally, it's like, and I've been watching Raymond play it on stream where he's moving gems around. I was like, oh, God. this is yeah because to be truthful everyone says Star Wars is complicated it's not that I own it it's just knowing what modes are the longer playing modes which I'm still learning but I think it's just the fact that you can stack all these modes that make it seem complicated but in the end Star Wars is you finish the four hot dogs you get a hundred TIE fighters you play Escape from Boba Fett Lightsaber Duel Jedi training, which just happens, and then you get to battle the Emperor. And that's the whole game.
    37:17
    Fuck you. Star Wars rules, bitch. No, it does not. And the music is absolutely incredible, because of course, John Williams and the whole, like, oh god. But, Avengers, the music, it sounds like, if you were going to go to YouTube and look up, give me some triumphant orchestral music. Put that in. Foreboding orchestral music, put it in.
    37:42
    The music just seemed generic, and the call-outs were so generic. I'm not going to say they're bad. They're not like was it Storm? It wasn't like that. Oh, it's Storm! Hear me! Here's the problem. He had his Deadpool right next to that. You play Deadpool, and you fire that up, and you listen to that music, and those call-outs, it makes it really confusing. The difference. You can hear the difference when you do that. It's kind of like, I remember once they had like World Cup soccer and it was right next to the 24 and you hear those call outs and then you hear World Cup soccer call outs and it's just like, wow, what a difference. And that's, to me, that's really the weakest parts of the game for the call outs and the music. But the artwork is tremendous. The play field, it just shoots awesome. It shoots like butter. I mean, you could just combo for days if you just keep hitting shots. So that was our night. Killer play field. Oh, no, we also played some Deadpool LE, which was awesome. Got a lot of scoop rejects. You got to play Star Wars. I got to play Star Wars Premium with the topper. That was nice. Realized why I definitely have the pro is I could not backhand the Death Star shot. It's not backhandable. That whole section in the Premium where the thing comes up, like you hit the Hoth shot, and it just rejects and bounces out because of the whole way it's designed. It's just poor. Yeah, it's a bad Steve Ritchie design. If he could have put, like, somehow had a magnet, think about, like, no fear, pulling it up, so you could backhand and it would actually go up, wow, that would make a major difference if you could get that.
    39:16
    But whatever. So that was that. Mark was very nice to let us come over. Thank you, Mark, again. And you get props out to your Rick and Morty co-owner. Yes, Jeff was gracious enough to let us come on over and hang out with him. Jeff has a pretty good collection. He even had his Hive Roller Casino. Next to Whodunit. Love Whodunit. And we had, next to Rick and Morty, we had a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Pro, which I don't even think we looked at.
    39:46
    I don't think we even played one game. Oh, that's right. He had two of them. He had the old and the new. Yeah, he had the old and the new. You didn't want to shoot the center ramp?
    39:55
    Shoot the center ramp, Bruce. So the next day, we went to another person in Rochester. James, the alien guy, as I affectionately know him, because he had the alien that he sold and has regretted it ever since. We did a count of how many games he's had new. Oh, that Stern's come out with? NJJP and stuff? Yeah. Oh, God, yes. There's 28 games that have been out since Alien, or 29. He's owned 22 of the 29 games. He had a Avengers LE, I think he sold. For a week. A week. Yeah. and he had a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles LE, which he sold and then got a pro. Got a pro because he realized that the pro is better than the LE. Yeah, I'd say in that case. So we got to play two games there also that Ron... Guns and Roses! Guns and Roses CE, which is the middle version. No, it was an LE. It was an LE? Sorry, yeah, that's right. CE is the fancy version. Yeah, super fancy version. Yes, why can't you pinball manufacturers just use the same terminology? Because it's copyrighted and trademarked. Well, they all call it MagnaSave, and even JJP calls it an action button. So at least they have some terms that they have the same. Yeah. So? We both, this is our first time. Yeah, and Bruce decided to fucking destroy it and get, like, what the hell was your song jackpot? Like, $10 million? $17 million. $17 million! Like, what the hell did you do? They have, like, I have this high scoreboard of all the song jackpots, and yours is so much higher than any other one. Yeah, I blew his high score away. Oh, my God. And the funny thing was, I really wasn't even playing that to pay attention to it. I was going over to Rick and Morty and playing more Rick and Morty. Well, the other funny thing is, Mr. Bruce, Mr. Hates Guns N' Roses, as he's singing along to every song, I know every song. He knows the lyrics more than I do. Yeah. But the reason why I did so well at Guns N' Roses, let's tell him why. Besides the magnet in my pocket.
    41:58
    I don't know how. You cheated? No. What is that game? It is not a catch and stop and try to figure out your shot, is it? No, the entire game wants you to flip as much as possible and never trap. Yes, so. It is a Bruce-style game. Well, let me ask you first, since we both played it for the first time. What did you think? I loved it. I thought it shot. Okay, I love the flow. I love the feel. When you were playing that game, it is probably the most in-depth feel of a game you're going to play. You feel like you're involved. You're actually singing the songs with it. You're actually humming along. You want to hear a song. That's what you're going to want to, you know, play. Shots, they're okay. They're not like, wow, they didn't wow me. It wasn't like, oh, yeah, this shot feels great, and this shot feels pretty good. The only shot I thought that felt really good was the left ramp. how it spins right back around and comes right back towards you. Oh, yeah, and trying to hit it with the upper flipper and time it right, which I could not get down. Yeah. Other than that, the light show was incredible. Oh, yeah. It would have been even better because we were in a well-lit room. I think with the lights off, it would have looked even better. Yeah, but I wouldn't have seen it because I would have been like, what the hell? But the cabinet, beautiful. Oh, my God. The LE is definitely the cabinet you want, the artwork there. That is the nicest cabinet. It's the nicest-looking JJP game that has ever existed. The JJP flippers, though. I felt them. They don't feel strong enough. Yeah. Okay. It's just like, ugh. So my impressions, and I've discussed before my game grading method, the game of death where you have to pass the various floors to get up to the top to face Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and floor one is gameplay, play field.
    43:47
    And honestly, I thought that was, for me, it was the weakest part. Yes, me too. Number one, it feels like a JJP. My dial then doesn't feel like a JJP because I cranked it up, like everything in it. So now it feels like a Williams game. And I think that's the issue. The slings were horrible. They were like my Iron Man slings. They were like the Iron Man. Like you're watching a tennis match, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. It's like, where's the sling power? The flippers just felt kind of weak. It was kind of floaty. And that's how their games usually feel. Not a fan of that, but that's how they feel. That's their games. That's the way it is. I think the reason I ended up with a dialed in is because when I first played the prototype, it didn't feel like that. They had those things, super snappy flippers, and it played really fast. And I was like, oh, this is great. If it had played floaty like that, I probably wouldn't have ended up getting it. That being said, Light Show is insane. The integration is absolutely the greatest I've ever seen. You feel like you're at a concert. I immediately picked Live and Let Die because I had to. Yes, that's my favorite song. To get the full experience and just the rotating spotlights in the back. It looks incredible.
    45:03
    Yeah, I mean the experience is like no other. I'll say that. Some other things, they need to work on the album modes, because the album modes, they're the things, like if you play, what, three minutes of a song, it activates, like you have an album mode, or whatever. You hit the scoop and you get into an album mode. And they're all single ball modes. And they're worth nothing. That was the issue. That was, even James was like, cancel out of that, you don't want to play them. They're not worth, because you'd be in a song and you're getting like your 17 million, you know, jackpot, or, you know, or a million jackpots, it's actually not bad. math. You play these album modes, but one of them wasn't even coded. It just had a title card that came up and just did basic scoring. Okay, so that's not done yet. It had another one that was super cool where you have posters on the wall and you hit the spinning disc to move your gun and then you hit the action button to fire. It's super cool, but it's a one-ball mode where you can drain and it's not worth anything compared to the slow-mo's. So you would just hold the action button down to cancel out of any album mode that was lit and get back into get, because you can't, I don't think you can build members, put your group members together while the album mode is lit.
    46:16
    It's almost like, it's truly a big cock block. Pretty much. So I think they gotta do something. We'll number one code that one that wasn't coded. The ones that were coded look really cool, but they need to be worth more. Or the song's worth less, or something. It needs some balancing there. They need some balancing. I do love the little, I'm going to state this for now on. I think this is what Stern needs to do next. LCD screen. Oh, yeah, yeah. That was the one thing with all these lights flashing, at no point did I not know what to shoot. Because you could see on the screen and it was still very obvious. And it's by album. So if you pick Appetite for Destruction, which most of the stuff I'm going to pick is, you know, it's like hit orange red shots.
    46:59
    So if you know the album, you already know what shots you're supposed to hit without even looking at the screen. But it worked out really well. I like the game. Now... Would you actually own it? I would like to play the standard. I want to play the standard. I want to play both standards. I want to play a standard of Avengers, and I want to play a standard of Guns N' Roses. The thing, the standard of Guns N' Roses, like the entire upper left, is just a platform with the axle on it. It has nothing in there. I still want to play it, though. Yeah. I think it'd be faster. Oh, yeah. I think it'd be much faster. But I don't think you want to have the great lights or anything like that either, you know? Yeah, you won't have the color-changing Hot Rails. Yes, only the white. Oh, no. So then in the other side of the room was another Rick and Morty run. Which, when I played this one, it was different. Oh, his was super strong. Holy cow, that made such a difference. And then I ended up playing probably more Rick and Morty than anything else. Yeah. Yep. And that Rick and Morty played well. And now mine plays better. The guy who has it right now, Jeff, he had $50 million on it. Nice. Yeah, so. It's very quirky design. The left side is very clunky. Oh, yes. It's hard to hit the loop. Yes. And even harder to hit that far left shot that you can only hit from the upper flipper. Yep. But, oh, my God, it's so much fun. What it might lack in play field, it makes up in the other areas. Yes. And, honestly, I think that's where Denise really shines. It light shows his music because that's his version of the Rick and Morty theme song. It's got a little more techno sound to it. And you get some of the modes and the music starts playing. It's like, yeah, all right.
    48:44
    And it's fucking hilarious. Oh, my God. The amount of call outs. I mean, you know. And you get four people playing with you. It is just like, oh, my God. You know, you get Justin Roiland the script and he just probably ad-libbed another hundred lines in there. I mean, just like you put your name in. You know, great, you're a pinball champ. That probably means something good somewhere. Yeah, something. Yeah, whatever.
    49:07
    And there's like all kinds of insider pinball references. There might even be a pin side reference or two on there. Yeah, there is. And there's callbacks to other games. Locke is lit, and so am I. You know, like, oh, okay, okay. So would you pay $8,000 for that? I already have, so I can't say anything. And I honestly... If I was really into the theme,
    49:32
    I don't know, it doesn't pass my first thing. The play field. But then again, TNA didn't really, but it was a simpler, I mean, it was meant to be simple.
    49:42
    That one is just, it's got the right ramp, which is nice. You can hit it beforehand, backhand, and the right orbit is nice. And the whole center section is pretty cool with the little turnaround. And the inner loop is cool. You can get that inner loop going. And then the scoop that sometimes rejects. Yep. Oh, that's one thing.
    50:03
    Props to JJP because they have a center scoop or a center saucer, whatever that is. Yeah, whatever. It never rejects. I have never seen it. I had it once in a while when I was trying to get the jackpot. I never saw it reject. I was trying to get the jackpot. That's when it rejected. I think whoever designed it, they should use that design forward because that thing, okay. They rejected once for you. I've never seen it rejected. Yeah. But it was, you know, so would you pay 80 grand? So you're saying this is wrong, or are you saying me? No, I don't think so. Okay. If it was as integrated, if it had as cool as call outs as it does, and it was Beavis and Butthead, then I'd do it. Now, I think they need more modes, and hopefully they are coming. I heard they're coming down the line. We'll have more modes. That will make the game hopefully a lot better. Oh, and I want to get just the way they approached that game. Because there's so many ways you could have done that. You could have, you, the player, help, Rick and Morty as they go. No, they made you Morty. And all these goofy Mortys. There's so many different Mortys that you are. And you just get insulted by Rick. Yes. Thumbs up, man. That was the way to, I wouldn't even have thought of that. What's your favorite mode?
    51:14
    I have to go with you. I know what you're going to say. Roy. Yeah. just to see what the hell it says depending on what path you take. And they're all funny. And we get to hear Jeff Parsons. Yes, we do. I love Roy. Yeah, we love Roy. All the different paths and different stuff.
    51:31
    You're doing good, then you're doing bad. It doesn't really matter. You're just trying to finish. Either you're trying to be good Roy or bad Roy. Yes. And that's the good thing about it. You make your choice by your colored shots. Yeah, bad Roy isn't necessarily bad for your scores. It's just bad for the outlook of your life. So, yeah. So, and then you went over to Zach's and played games over there and worked on his homebrew. Yeah, I played the Zach homebrew. I made suggestions at work, Nord. Of course. It's a point-and-shoot drop-target game, but it has a lot of flow shots in it. It does. You should have more, like, flow shots. Like, nope, nope, nope. It's like, okay, okay. What I told him is you should maybe, if you can combo four times, which you can on that game, maybe it gives you a free card. The thing is you don really end up comboing You want to hit specific cards and get your poker hand and that stuff So it really does not play into any kind of flow yet it has shots that are very flowy So it's just weird. And long and beautiful and, oh. Yeah, yeah, I don't understand. Zach, what are you doing? You're killing me. I know. You know, and it's so Zach. It's almost like an F you. It's like, I'm going to make this super flowy play field and. You have to stop. You have to stop and pinpoint hit specific drop targets. Fuck you. Like the third or fourth time I'm playing it, I'm hitting all the combos. And he goes, you're getting nothing for that. You need to hit the drop targets. I'm like, but it shoots. But it shoots so good. He's like, no, you need to hit the target. Like, ah. But, you know, the funniest thing of that weekend was my appreciation of another game, Jurassic Park. Oh, yes. It's a great game. I didn't play much of it. Like, when is it, Rock Fantasy? I haven't played that much of it in general. but we got into the whole Nublar thing because of the pin clash which is an event that is a stream based tournament that Carl D'Angelo is doing i.e. pinball, hi Carl which Zach made I asked him, are you going to do your Nublar run or what because he was waiting the last second he's got the streaming stuff set up and he did his run and then I wanted to do it I can't qualify for it but I wanted to, what's this Nublar thing about and I got fucking addicted to that new block, trying over and over and over again. You know how I get, or certain things, I just play it over and over and over. I was addicted to new block. So when are you getting your JP after you sell TNA?
    54:03
    It's already on order, Bruce. What? It's already on order. It's on order? I use my rewards. So I won't see it until next year. You got it on your rewards. Good job. Literally, for those, I know for those like Zach Manning, who doesn't like the fact that you can get to the wizard mode, I hate to tell you, that sold me on the game. Playing that wizard mode, that sold me. And the funny thing is, after Zach did his run, and he was like 24th or 23rd, he was like, and we're seeing some of these ridiculous runs, like sub two minutes. How are these people doing that? They were in a train. Yeah, we didn't know that. we watched, I think, Andy Rose's stream. Yep. And it's like, wait a minute, he's letting it stream. Like, wait a minute, the clock stops every time. Yep. And it was just like a light went off, so then I had to try that. I got addicted to trying that. And then I told Zach, you've got to do that. Well, I guess when I left, his power went out. Oh. So he couldn't try any more attempts. Mm. And luckily, he held. He held it. He ended up 24th. He just got him. And then someone dropped out, so he's 23rd now. I think I'm going to do the rewards maybe next month for Deadpool Pro. Because Avengers, he already announced that Avengers is not going to be on this year. Yes. And I didn't want to lose my rewards. No, and I'm close on almost losing next year's rewards. I am 928. Oh. My ranking keeps on dropping, but it only drops like 16 points. So I should hold on for the end of the year. That was like 3,400, so I'm probably good. Yeah, I've been dropping slowly. But now, with your secret job that you can't tell us about, well, you told us where you were working, but you can't tell us what you're doing. I think you're making fiberglass insulation, but it's like really hush-hush. Yes, it is.
    55:51
    So what else do we have on the docket, sir, since we have your trip out, which was always great to see you. I miss you. It's nice seeing people that you haven't seen in a while. It was great hanging out with you. And the dog. The doggie. of the dogs. She loves Ron. Every dog of mine, I swear to God, loves Ron. They know dog lovers. They do. Bruce, I found it. Found what? I found the pin bar! Oh, you found the pin bar! I found the pin bar. I was watching Fliptronic stream over the last week, dude, and I saw the pin bar, brother.
    56:30
    I did. I saw the pin bar. And it's a copy of the back box. Well, background, background. So, Deep Root brought Raza out. Yes, they did. To, was it a coffee house? Coffee house, two of them. Yeah, they brought, like, the arcade one, the cheaper model, and then one of the extra models. Yes. And, it turns out, Fliptronic, which is a TPN network streamer, they were, like, 40 minutes away. They're close to this place. So, they got in touch with them, like, can we stream it?
    57:04
    They said, okay. So we had basically a reveal stream. Whether they want to say it's a reveal stream or not, it was a reveal stream.
    57:14
    What I didn't realize, Steve Bowden was there and Robert Mueller. I didn't realize the second guy was Robert Mueller when I was watching this streak. You were expecting Hulk Hogan, weren't you? Robert was there. I thought he looked different. I don't know. I just didn't realize it was him.
    57:30
    So did you see the stream? A little bit. Very few. Like a minute or two only. I've been busy at work. I got worried.
    57:38
    It was like an hour and a half into the stream until I saw a multiball. Yeah. That kind of worried me. Yeah. It's anti-Guns N' Roses.
    57:49
    But I will say, I'm looking at the pictures of it on This Week in Pinball. It's beautiful. Hi, Jeff. It is beautiful. I mean, the back box art, the way it goes around, that looks. Super cool. It is. Oh, that looks super cool. The playfield picture I see, it looks kind of dark.
    58:11
    Yeah, I can see that. I mean, I don't know about this. And it's got, like, the blue lighting and all that stuff going on. The cabinets art looks nice. I like the flip it. Now, they actually now have me at, I'd like to flip it. Yeah. They show the pin bar. They did have, what, two crashes they had to boot, which that kind of, yeah, that still concerns me. It's still, it's only a beta. Until they have a production. No, these are supposed to be production machines. Well, no, until they are in production, I'm going to give them an event. That worried me because I guess it would have been Robert because there's only two people there. Three months. Yeah, but he's also talking about getting the initial ones out to see if there's any issues with them, and then they can be addressed. Like, what? That was weird the way he worded that. It's like, so get the initial games out to people that, you know, So then if they have any problems, we can fix them before the rest of the games come out. That was just weird the way he worded it. And the thing is, aren't the Zidware people the ones that are going to get them first? Yes, they will be. So you're the ones that waited this whole time and got screwed over by John Papaduke. So we're going to give you the first ones off the line. I'd be like, can I be at the end of the run, please? So I just turned on my camera for a run. Oh, yes, you did.
    59:24
    Oh, my God, put some clothes on. You're showing me something. It's super dark, and I can't see what it is.
    59:31
    Oh, okay. Oh, Cheetah Playfield. Clear-coded. I keep forgetting to ask this. Where's my Quicksilver Playfield? Still in my garage. Oh, okay. Zach, what's his name, can't do them for a little while. Vance. Because they're actually moved. Vance can't do them for a while because they moved the building. So they're all torn up. He didn't want them getting damaged or lost in the move. That's fine. So they're still in my garage. Same as yours. Mine and yours are in the same position. You know, when this ends, we've got to really have the all-classics turn tournament. Yes, we do. Gosh. Because I just picked up another one. Oh, God. What did you pick up, Bruce, as I don't already know?
    60:11
    Memories. Memory Lane. Are the ones I love to touch. Or Memory Lane, as we said. Memory Lane. Some people, you put it on Facebook, and some people are like, Cosmic Princess? Like, no. Yeah, no. No, he's not getting Cosmic Princess. Mamrie Lane, my great friend, Mike Preska, got it for me. He paid, blah, blah, blah. He paid and he charged me $1 extra to get it for me. That was really cool. So literally when I saw him, I had the $1 extra added value. Thank you very much, man. It wasn't like trading places, just $1, just $1. And it works. It's got some wear on the play field, but not bad. Back glass is worse. the blues and the reds are chipping away. But for overall, the cabinet's perfect. For what I paid for it, I was very happy. Very nice. So I have another stern in the classic sterns.
    61:08
    Yeah, Raza. Yeah, back to Raza. I couldn't really figure out what you did. I know Fun with Bonus, Steve's site, Fun with Bonus had a thing about the store or the shop, The Cosmic Shop. Yes. I think I said that right. Yeah. Yes, you did. And they showed the pin bar in action. Pin bar! Here's one thing that worries me. See, you owned a location. Yes, I did. It looked like they were putting a code in to get to the diagnostic menus and all that.
    61:42
    Wouldn't you be worried about... Some other owner being able to get into your diagnostic? Yeah. Because I'm thinking these games are probably going to come with the same password. So I'm likely they're going to have a different password than everyone. It's probably going to have a default code that a lot of operators are probably not going to change. Well, hopefully they put a big thing in the play field where they have to remove it out of the play field saying change your password. Oh, yeah. They do that with a lot of products, Bruce, but how many people actually do it? Well, if you've got to take it out of the play field, you would think that would be your thing of, okay, here's your one chance. If you don't do this, you're a fucking moron. Maybe they could lock it out, put it in some kind of kiosk mode where you can't get into that menu unless you actually open the coin door and do something. Yeah, that would probably be the smartest way. And they might already have that. But I think when I was watching the stream, I wasn't sure they were opening the coin door or not. It looked like they were just putting a code in and getting into the menu just from a – because that's what I do at work, you know, IT stuff. Yeah, and just it's like you get a new router, like a home router. It's going to have, like, default password on it. Please change it. You know, things like that. People don't generally do that. Well, don't worry. When you have a password of just one, it's good. Yeah, one. My password is password backwards. Super secure. Yes. Yeah. No, I just have one. One. Most things will probably not let you use a single-digit password. No, the letter, you know, O-N-E. One. Oh, okay. It's probably still too short. It probably is.
    63:14
    Yeah, the pin bar looked cool. It did look cool. I thought the gameplay pretty good. I'd like to see more storytelling in the game. Well, the other issue was they couldn't really get the sound. Yeah, it sounded terrible. It has surround sound, so they couldn't really hook into it, and then they tried to put a mic in front of the speaker, but either the music would be super loud, you could barely hear the call-outs, or vice versa. So they've got to get a better way to get the direct in on the sound. Because, I mean, I believe David Thiel did the sound, so you know it's not going to suck.
    63:44
    It's going to be good. So you've just got to be able to hear it. Yes. I like to flip it. That's my next stage. I like to flip it. The ramp looked very makeable. Yes, it did. The slings were beyond bad on the one that showed. The left sling would only go if you literally hit it with your fist, for Christ's sake. It was so not sensitive, and it looked so weak. It needed some adjusting. Yes. I mean, it needed someone anal to look at the games before they went there. So I'm asking for a job from Deep. I'm just saying if I was doing something, well, you know, at first they didn't know it was going to be streamed. And maybe that's it. So it wasn't as big a deal. But once I found out it was going to be streamed, and that happened within like a day. Yeah. I think I would have at least just went to the screenshot, you know, and tighten up those, you know, gap those a little closer, try to put the best impression possible, make sure the flippers are aligned, et cetera. So this thing looks good on stream. That's what I would do. But I found the pin bar, Bruce, brother, and it looked pretty damn cool, dude.
    64:48
    Great, finally. But you wait until you touch the pin bar. That will be the thing. Oh, Jesus Christ. You know what you got to do, Hulk? I know what you got to do, Robert. You got to rip that pin bar off the pin bar machine and raise it over your head and say, I am the champion. The pin bar is the belt. Yes. I'm the pin bar champion, dude. Whenever you come to the game, you're going to put it, you know, the crotch, you know, the hands across the waistline. I need the pin bar.
    65:19
    I can't wait to see the pin bar. When do you think we'll get to see the pin bar? Is it going to be like a soon thing? You saying three months. He's saying three months. Yeah, but that doesn't – you think anyone local to here is going to buy this game? No. So it's going to have to be a show, and they won't happen until 2022. That's what I'm worried about. Yeah. I don't think I'm going to get to play this thing for like two years.
    65:40
    If anyone's going to buy it, it'll be James. James, we need you to buy this game. So we could check it out. I don't even think it's going to be three months. He was talking about three months. I think it's going to be at least six to eight months, at least before the first ones are released. Okay. I hate to say it. Oh, the other thing, they mentioned on the stream when they were setting it up, they used the tilter or whatever it's called, their thing that we didn't get to see during the expo stream. So it does exist. It's not vaporware. This thing exists. And they said it looked pretty cool. They were able to set the machine up easily, et cetera. Of course, we didn't see it, but... Yeah, exactly. The pictures look... I really love the way the art wraps around. You love your tilter. Oh, I love my tilter.
    66:24
    It's the ultimate thing if you're... And the only thing I'll say is if you're skinny shit like me, you've got to kind of stand on it. Yeah, but it still works.
    66:32
    All right. So that was Raza. Raza, Raza. I wish they would have led with a different game, though. Yeah. Like, you've got to lead with Goonies or the Who. The Goonies better be next or the Who. No, the Goonies better be next. You should have led with the license. Yeah, but they couldn't. They were trying to get rid of their lawsuits, so understandable. So what's next on the docket, sir?
    66:55
    Let's see. There was a Hot Wheels event. Yes. From Jay Leno's Garage. I don't know if that's an actual... It is a show. Oh, okay. And Snoop Dogg was there. He's down with Hot Wheels. Mm-hmm. 420 R Us. 420. I wonder if he's got a car that says 420. I don't know. So, yeah, they played Hot Wheels. Snoop gave a shout-out. Pinball's cool. And they gave away a free machine that same day on that show. They gave away a free machine. Lucky winner. Hot Wheels. Their best game, unlike what Bruce says. What? Well, you're the one who says that. Oktoberfest is their best game. No, I like Oktoberfest more than Hot Wheels. Hot Wheels, the problem is my hot wheels. Hot Wheels is your best game then? You're agreeing with me? No, I played the Hot Wheels at James, and it plays better. James also has a Hot Wheels. And it played better than the one that I play on location, which is now closed.
    67:49
    Oh, is that in Buffalo? Yes. So they're closed now? Yep, they're in the orange zone. Now we have zone colors now, guys. So we change the rules whenever we want to. This guy, a whack of a freaking governor, just likes making different rules. and then doesn't tell people what the rules are fully, and, you know, and he gets into arguments with the press. Oh, the press. That was fun. Yeah, that was great.
    68:12
    Let's see. What else do we got? This I thought was pretty cool. If you're a J.J.P. owner, own a J.J.P. game, play a partner with Scorebit. Okay. And we talked about Scorebit is the thing that, you know, it basically gets the scores directly from the game. You can use it for tournaments. You can also, it goes into the cloud. You can keep track of your scores and other things, and there is a cost associated with it. But if you have a Jersey Jack game, it comes included. Is this now just G&R? I don't know. See, I kind of hope that I see maybe a dialed-in update where this is in. That would be pretty fucking sweet. That would be smart, but it's probably not because, well, who knows? Probably not, even though I think they're running the same hardware they're running off of, I believe, the computer system. Yeah, but it could be because of the Wi-Fi enabling thing, and that's why. Ah, yes, that's true. I don't have that. So, yes, you're right. It'll probably be, yeah, going forward then. Damn it. Maybe I can get a kit. Hey. Ha-ha. It's right here.
    69:15
    I also have here heavy metals in production, Bruce. Want to be heavy metal. Got to be heavy metal. Come on, Bruce. I'm thinking the movie. Yeah. The movie's cool. The song's cool. That's about it.
    69:35
    I love in the movie where they go into the village and kill everyone, and they're playing Mob Rules by Black Sabbath. That was pretty good. And they're using those machine gun arrow guns. Yes, they are. Which, those are nasty. You get shot by, like, 30 arrows at once. The Mob Rules!
    69:51
    And then Stern released another game. Another game. They are on fire! They released the Star Wars comic book edition of the pin. Oh, Star Wars. Come on, Stern. Stop. Star Wars. I'm talking Star Wars. What, you don't like my Bill Murray Star Wars? No, I didn't say that. Stop with trying to do... The pin? ...the themes. Start using the pin for what it should have been originally. Oh, what? The base for Stern Electronic Games. Oh, Jesus Christ. Stars, the pin. Yes. Well, look how much stars are going for now. They're going up to almost two grand. If you can put a brand new one out there for 4K, guess what?
    70:36
    People will buy that. Do you think people would buy that? More than a freaking Star Wars. But you remember, the pin is supposed to be for your non-pin heads. Yeah. So Bruce does not believe in the Stern program for this. So hold on. So you got that, the pin for the Star Wars, for the home unit. But guess what? You still have a lot of possibilities with that pin. You have the schematics and everything for the other stuff. Make it work. Make a Stars, make a Quicksilver, make a Nineball, make all this other stuff. You have a whole catalog. Use it! Won't that make the value of our games go down, Bruce? No, because once they play it, they'll see, oh, I would like to play the original one. The original one would still play better. Oh, it would still play better? Okay.
    71:19
    Play better. Okay, Bruce. And they'd still win. But they need to do that to keep the pin edict working, you know. The pin edict? Well, $4,000 for the pin compared to $5,299 or $5,300 for a fully functioning pinball machine. Even though it is Star Wars, maybe I would just want the pin. Hey!
    71:43
    It's a different play field, Bruce. That's what I'm talking about, a better play field. That's the only thing I do like about the pin. Okay, Bruce. Yeah, totally.
    71:53
    All right, moving on. Yes, let's move on. TPF, Texas Pinball Festival, had an update. They did. Basically, Cliff Notes version. We're still planning on having it, but it may not happen depending on COVID. If it doesn't happen, it'll be moved to next year. Yes. The way it's going. It's going to be moved to next year. There's nothing going to be happening. If Replay Foundation pretty much didn't think Replay FX was happening next year, then TPF ain't happening. I mean, it is Texas, and they're a little more hardcore.
    72:26
    We ain't letting no COVID stop us. No, we have 4,000 days. Damn, COVID ain't going to stop me, boy. I use propane and propane accessories. Did you know propane actually makes COVID go away, boy? It does?
    72:41
    I'll tell you what, man. talk about W dot dot dot is in COVID, man. Let's go and COVID test, dude. Yep. I love how that character is literally just... Everything. Well, it's just the same voice, just higher and unintelligible. Yes. You know, like, if I'm doing Hank Hill and I just raise it up a bit, man, and I talk really fast and go up, like that, and I'm done, www.wcom, and I got naked chicks on there, man. Click, click, click, click, it's real easy, man.
    73:07
    Wow. BoomHour's internet thing. That dang old internet, man. That might be my favorite Boomhauer ever. Hey, Boomhauer, Boomhauer, do you want the pin bar? Talk about my empty pin bar, man. It goes tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, real easy, man.
    73:24
    We should just think of all the ways you could stay if you want the pin bar. What, in different characters? Yes. I'll tell you what, boy, I really want that pin bar. I'll tell you what. Krusty, do you want your pin bar? No, I don't want my pin bar.
    73:40
    I want my residuals for a Simpsons game I'm on I didn't get. I love Krusty. Remember the pin bar. It's not just good. It's good enough. Good enough.
    73:51
    Alright. I've actually gone through... Oh, wait a minute. Hold on. We can either do... Would you not buy that? Or we can go to the mail ball bag. Mail ball bag. Okay, mail ball bag time. Everyone wants a little dunk in that mail ball bag. Okay. The artist formerly known as Bruce gives you the middle finger. Email from Glenn. Hi, Glenn. If Bruce ever opens a new location, it has to be called the Pin Bar. So you can ask, where's the Pin Bar? Where's the Pin Bar? If Bruce can tell you.
    74:28
    Oh, that'd be classic. Glenn says have a great weekend. Come to Nashville and check out the new Game Terminal. I heard about that. They just opened up with 70 games. Impressive. Nice. Very nice. It's Game Terminal. All right. Come get your... Oh, no, I don't want to say that. No, don't say that. I've been pretty edit-free so far, Bruce. Keep it that way. Yeah. It's just scary out there now. R. Scott. Hi, Scott. Mr. Scott. Notes. I don't know if all this was actually for the ball bag, but he says, Bad Cats was fixed long ago. So that means there's some kind of code that changes the RAM problem. Soren's remarks on Black Knight 2000 are completely accurate. No code is going to fix bad playfield design. Oh, no. That's blasphemy. He's asking about my TNA again. You know, I don't know if he's kidding or not. Does he want to buy it? I mean, because Scott doesn't pay more than, like, $800 for any game. He paid $50 for a Gottlieb, what's it called? I mean, so I keep thinking he's kidding about this because, you know, playfield shipping or not, I'm not selling it for $800. Yeah, or $1,000 or $2,000 or $3,000 or $4,000. It's going to be higher. Trade him for some older sterns. They'll be better in value anyway. I don't know if he's serious, serious. I just can't see how he's serious. If you're serious, Scott, tell me, and then I can tell him.
    75:56
    He says there's a lot of feedback regarding people building the Quicksilver Stargazers and that they don't play correctly. Yeah, I've heard that also. Okay, so you need the originals, not the remakes. Somebody got a Stargazer coming. It's a friend of ours. Yes. The one you always say your first name wrong, but I edit it out and fix it. Yeah, that's good. Hi, Kate. Hey. Enjoy your stargazer. Yes, congratulations. Kate Martin, her holy grail pin. I get to keep mine now because you were threatening me. If you ever sell this, I want it. I'm like, you're like third or fourth in line. No, no, no, no. No one's getting mine. Okay, we have one more. From Rob. Robert. Robert Byers. Hey! Top row pinball. He needed our help, I heard. Oh, he mentioned us during a stream. Yeah, because he was trying to repair stuff. Yeah, or put mods in a game or something. I don't do mods. I repair as I do. I don't do mods. Like, clearly you refused to put a mod in. What happens if it was a shaker? That's not a mod, right? No, it's not a mod. No, that's not a mod. Because the holes are in the bottom of the game. The stern puts the holes in there, so that's not a mod. No, I'm not going to put like 12 plastic pieces on there or put extra strip lights on my game so I make it nice and bright. Or toppers all over the front plates. You're funny. Oh, I need these little figurines or you just do that. Or I need 20 different sides. Well, I did put art plates on my Star Wars and they look fantastic. They look fantastic. They do. Great. Congratulations. Thank you. You also got a new, his girlfriend got him a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles LE. I'm sorry. And then he started the stream, and it was like one of those minis, like ornaments. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
    77:46
    Oh, he trolled his audience. I love it. He's saying his first new in-box game had a reverse, just like my Star Wars did. The right ramp and orbit were reversed on Iron Maiden Pro. It took me about three or four games to figure out why I wasn't getting progression towards the ramp completion. He did better than me. I didn't even notice it. Zach had to notice it on stream.
    78:07
    Thank you, Robert. So we're through the ball bag. You know, I'm looking. We're an hour and a half. It's flying by. That must be a good sign. This must be a decent episode. It must be. We must be. Because there's only two of us. That's why. Oh, we're killing it. We are. Just kicking some ass. We are kicking names and taking ass.
    78:30
    That's from the end game. Oh, okay. That sounds like a line Oh what the demolition man Demolition and Let go blow this guy Yeah I love that one
    78:43
    Let's go to would we or would we not buy that. Ron, tell them what it's all about. Would we or would we not buy that is where we peruse, usually eBay, sometimes Pinside, to look at games for sale. And we ask the internal question, would we or would we not buy that?
    79:01
    So are these eBay? These are eBay. So I'm going to eBay.com right now with my super awesome 1991 IBM keyboard. That's why you can hear the clicking. That's the only thing Ron wants. What, clicking? Hey, this keyboard weighs like 10 pounds. I'm not kidding. It's a full steel plate. If someone was intruding in the house, I would pick this up and use it as a weapon. He had seen a lot of porn, that keyboard.
    79:29
    Okay, Bruce. Are you ready? I don't know if I ever did this one, so I had to pull it back up again. Are you ready? I'm ready. 1-8-4-5-0-8-0-5-1-9-8-3.
    79:48
    Ah, the best Gottlieb System 1 pinball machine. Countdown. Free local pickup. It's currently at $800.
    79:57
    Let's buy it now. Oh, let's buy it now. Hmm. Let's look at this one. Let's look at it. Okay. First picture sucks. Maybe it improves. Not yet. Okay, second picture. Oh, play field. Glass on. Always good. Lots of reflection, too. So hard to see. Very good. Drop targets look like they're there, at least the ones that are up, which is most of them. Play field doesn't look bad at all. Play field looks pretty good. Okay. Cabinet is nice, solid colors on the one. Shows underneath. Looks pretty clean. Looks like a little dent in the coin door. Lower right. Unless I'm looking at that wrong. Yeah, that is a dent. Yeah. That's probably from someone who was having a very rough game and probably kicked it. That's probably me. Just wanted to kick the crap out of it. Would have died on me. Underneath. Looks pretty clean. Now, wait a minute. So he took the glass off to lift up the play field to show the underneath pictures, but didn't take the pictures of the play field with the glass on. Whatever.
    80:57
    Let's see. Inside, it's got the manual. $800, Tron. Looks pretty clean. Does it work? Let's read the description. Okay, here we go.
    81:09
    Oh, complete countdown. Boom, all the machines. All the state in good original condition. It has not been tested. When I bought it, it went straight to the warehouse and I have no way to check it out. The back glass and scoreboard is in good condition as well as the play field. Comes with schematic. For pickup only.
    81:26
    $800. Buy it now. Or you can maybe make an offer for $600 so you can offset your shipping a little bit if you had to get, you know, you'd probably, I guarantee you'd arrange somebody to pick it up. Yeah. And you have no idea if it boots. Yeah, but. The boards could be totally wasted for all you know. Of course, they probably are. But cosmetically, it looks pretty damn good. It looks pretty damn good. Yeah. Would you or would you not buy that, Ron? Sure. I would buy that, too, actually. That's a pretty good deal. If I was local? Yeah. Yes. If I was in North Carolina. I mean, I don't see anywhere. It looks so mean. It's actually really great. So as long as the boards are at least decent. I mean, you can always get new boards, but, I mean, that gets kind of expensive. The other thing is, how about the one back last picture? What kind of, where the woman's looking through the window. Yeah, it looks like it's worn there. That one center, the center of the window, yeah. That was the only thing I noticed. It looks really good, except for his suit. Yeah, I'd say way worse back last time. Oh, yeah. That's actually a pretty nice one. I think it's a good game. Wow, you started us off when we'd actually buy. I know. Go figure, huh? Hmm.
    82:29
    Next. Ticket number 154210302369. Classic Stern. We got Flight 2000. Yep. Not proper legs. Right off the bat. Oh, you with the light. Yes. They're just black legs. Instead of the gray. Actually, they're actually gray. They're rally legs instead of Stern. Yeah. I got that on one of my CERNs because that's all I had. Yeah, sometimes. But the play field is okay. It's got some wear and it's got some Mylar on it. Oh, okay. Again, pictures.
    83:08
    The pictures, everyone in the glass is on. Nothing in the back box. Nothing under the play field. It does look like they re-rubbered it. Yes, it does. Because the rubbers look all brand new. Yep. All the shots are from way far away. The camera they used sucks. It's blurry as hell. It's got a wear mark right in the center. Like they all do. What's that from? I think the slingshots are so powerful. Yeah. Like chew up, chew up, chew up, chew up. Are those drop targets correct? The font looks wrong. Let me see. Anyhow, the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 is supposed to look. It's supposed to look like big games does. Yeah, no, they're totally wrong. Yeah, they're totally wrong. So I don't know if that's decals or maybe from another game. I think it's decals. I think it's decals because if you look at the 3, it's crooked. Yes, it is. I can't see anyone actually hot stamping a crooked. No. So, I mean, you can get those, but they're going to be new, so they'll brick like hell. They'll suck like hell. Maybe take the stickers off, maybe, and go with the old crap and be happier. I think the three bank on the right are those repros, because they're like repro older style stern targets. You know, the S? Yeah, yeah. Doesn't it have the other S? I'm just trying to go from memory here. Again, we're being plastic stern, so we've got to be anal. I mean, as long as the targets work. I mean, it has a nice spinner, the S spinner. But did the original have, like, a custom art spinner? No, I think it had an S. Or just an S? Okay. I think they got rid of custom spinners by the time after big game. Flippers look right. Yes, they do. It's got the broken in lanes. Yep. Displays all look nice and strong.
    84:49
    Yeah. However, 1745? No. They made a ton of these. Yeah, and there's nicer ones out there that are cheaper. The one at Papa, which was worn also, but one for $1,300. I'd rather have that machine.
    85:06
    So, no, we are not going to buy this one. Are you ready for the next one? Sure. Ticket number 223-991-949-235. Really, Bruce?
    85:26
    Please give the description of this machine. We don't have Raymond on. It only works when Raymond is on the show. That's when you bring these stupid things up. Jesus Christ. Okay.
    85:36
    Actually, I should say it like they probably would have said it back in the day. Yeah. Coming to you from Acme Incorporated, the Relax-O-Later Vibration Machine.
    85:47
    That's literally what it's called. It is. used in spas and health clubs the world over. Refreshing. Bend knees slightly for back massage. Try it. Only 10 cents.
    86:02
    Really? You stand on this thing. What does it do? It shakes. It literally just shakes. It's a vibrating platform. Yes. That's all it does. Yep. It's $3,000, Bruce. Yep. But it's rare. It's rare. I don't know. He has 98.9% positive feedback. That's actually not great. What does it say? Excellent condition inside and out. Well maintained and kept very clean. It literally is a platform. It looks like a scale. Yes. I don't know how it would get too dirty. Original 1940s relaxolator, vibration machine, rare find. And exactly as it was pulled from form establishment, from establishment. It says form. I went wrong. However many decades that was. fully working and uses standard outlet. Simple but sound technology.
    86:54
    Great to clear lymph nodes and an incredible massage, both feet and body. Excellent condition. Oh, my God.
    87:02
    No. Now, I have a question. Hold on. I paid maybe $100 for it. Okay, so hold on. Bruce being Bruce as Bruce is. Yes. The pinball player formerly known as Bruce. Mm-hmm. What does it say on the top? It says refreshing, right? and it says below that, what did you say? Say that line again, please. It says, bend knees slightly for back massage. Okay, so if you go down a little bit further, who's on the scale right now? Uh-oh. A woman with a dress. Yeah. So if she bends down slightly, are you supposed to look under her dress? Is that what you're getting at? I don't know, because the guy's looking behind her waiting. Hey! Yeah. It says bend knees. It doesn't say bend over. Yeah, oh, darn. Jesus Christ. Everything's got to be nasty with you. Well, guess what? This is a slam-dial podcast. Yeah, this is. We are the most classless podcast there is. And then I'm going to show you one more. This is going to be a cut, but Ron can comment a little bit without giving it away. Oh, something Bruce is looking at. Yes. Okay.
    88:06
    Are you ready, Ronald? Yes. Ah, this looks familiar. We can't say what it is, but... I thought this already sold. Yeah. We were told this already sold, I guess. It didn't. Either that or this person might have more than one. Maybe, but I'm looking at this one. It's pretty rough.
    88:28
    Let's see. Well, let's compare it to other ones I haven't seen, and I can tell you how rough it is. Oh, my.
    88:36
    Yeah, it's, it's, oh, yeah. Yeah, it is. That insert in the middle is pretty smooth. Oh, nice. all these nice pictures and then you get one that's like called ComaVision. Yeah. And then one that's way darker. It's like he was playing with the cameras as he was taking the pictures. Like the right pop bumper. I've never seen where. Yeah. Wrong Clipper bats. You'll have to replace those. Yeah. I don't even know how they would fit and they're not even right for the game. I can't even tell you. Yeah, I know. But the bottom right pop bumper where? It's just that You're giving it away. It's got a pop bumper. Yes. How dare I? Has the original battery still on the board? Yes, it does. but you can make an offer, but maybe we'll see what happens. And the back glass even has a chip on it and pulling and peeling, which I've never seen one of these back glasses actually have a problem with, which is kind of weird.
    89:25
    Okay. All right. That's as much as we can say about that. That's all I'm going to say about that, Bobby. So have we gotten any new comments on this week in pinball? Oh, God, you with that again? Yes, I'm going to go right for it. All right. Hold on. Because we could use some more comments, guys, good or bad. I thought we didn't beg for comments and stuff. No, we ask for people for comments. We ask. Oh, not beg. Not begging. Oh, okay. Please comment. God almighty. We need to get back on the first page. Look at that. Silver Ball Chronicles right on the first page. Five out of five stars. Just saying. Yeah, which, as we said before. God, I love that podcast. It's so great. Especially that Ron guy. He is so talented. Nope, we're still on page two. Yep. Five reviews.
    90:15
    We need more reviews, people. We need more reviews. You motherfuckers. We at least have 45 people that listen to us, so goddammit, people. 43 of us cannot be shut out.
    90:26
    Wow, these guys are legends. Wow. I didn't know I was a legend. The Wrecking Crew of Pinball Podcast. Wow. See? I like that. It's moles. Occasional bald dick jokes. Wow. I love that. Oh. Man, these are written better than anything we write. I know.
    90:45
    Damn. We pull no punches. We don't. People like that. We're like the only affiliate list podcast. Yes, we are. Yes. Did I make a word? That sounds like a Bruce word. Is that affiliate list? Is that an actual word? I don't know. But yeah, we don't take money. The only money we take is when Ron does his screaming, which I'm still waiting for my check. Oh, that's right. Yeah.
    91:10
    That was funny. I remember the first time I ever saw the Twitch streamers, it's like, 100 bits? You got 100 bits? And I looked up, how much is that? It's like a dollar. Dollar. Like a bit. Without P sticking out. Yeah. What? Oh.
    91:25
    It's ballsy. Ballsy. No, we already did that. That was the ball bag. Ball bag. Oh. Well, let's see if we get any more Apple podcasts once. Oh, we didn't think about that. Those are always good. see, we keep asking for negative ones and no one's responding. I want to hear how just terrible we are.
    91:46
    4.1 out of 5. We definitely don't. I think we went up. I think we've gone up. Really? 4.1 out of 5? These guys are funny. That one's old. We haven't gotten any in a while. Let's see. Hold on to the old. They also changed it. It was iTunes. Now it's Apple Podcasts. I don't know if that had anything to do with it or whether just no one's listening. nah no new ones that sucks come on people what the fuck you know these guys are new to podcasting but they just drone on and are not exciting to listen to not at all sorry guys yeah total bore fest here avoid long drawn out talks about tournament pinball also makes up fake news oh I think I know what that is yeah we know what that is I think that's our buddy that's our buddy in Wisconsin who's a douche bag all right i thought last last week last week i'm thinking we're weekly our last podcast with soren that went well that went very well very uh we even got the shout out on this week pinball thank you jeff oh yeah the new roms yes which are do you remember what they are Preacher from the Black Lagoon Radical Roadshow Red and Ted Roadshow and Junkyard very good I know what I'm for baby good just testing you don't forget Soarin' buy them make Soarin' buy your ROMs because the more ROMs you buy the more chance you'll get to see more ROMs exactly because if no one buys anything then why do it the first comments when this came out were like oh so we have to pay for them now so you knew that was coming yeah you knew that was coming cheap fucks. Come on, give me a fucking break. Come on, you can get all the old Stern ones for free if you know where to go. Come on! Yeah, jeez! Technically, you can get all the Williams, Stern, and everything but Gottlieb, the original ones, for free. Yep. It's not like they cost anything. No. I mean, they literally could come out and say like, remove all these ROMs from your site, like Gottlieb did. Yeah. If he wanted to. Douchebags. Yep. What?
    93:57
    We want all your broken code that you never updated, Gottlieb. Come on. Yeah. And try to fix one of those fucking shitty machines. Wow. They are shitty. You're... Yeah. Well, James, who we were talking about earlier, he has a good Gottlieb. Yes. Oops. Every time I see him, it's the one thing I do ask him for. When you're ready to sell, I want to be first. That's the one game that's always there. He has turnover, but that game is always there. It's got like a permanent spot in the corner. Hoops. That's what I'm going to look for next. That's my next game on the list. Hoops, guys. A dot lead? Oh, my God. Yep, I would like a hoops. All right. Every time I play it, I just smile. And then you can talk to Zach about how to change the flippers up so they actually work better. So you can't scrap everything. It'll probably make it even more fun. Oh, I think it would. Because he did that to Surf and Safari. Yes. And now the flipper travel is normal, not ridiculous. Oh, not ridiculous at all, which is a good thing. So, anything else on the list, sir? No. And we're recording on Thanksgiving. Yes. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Happy holidays. Please stay safe. Yeah, don't travel like an idiot. Don't travel at all. What are you eating? Are you eating turkey? I am eating turkey. Yeah. I'll be eating whatever I make. Yeah. So, peanut butter jelly sandwich. Yeah. Yep. We're staying home today. We're just going to veg out. I'm going to go buy me an Apple Watch now. And you have games there now, so you can actually play stuff. Yes, I'm actually here's the, when I turn on my camera, my computer is now on nine ball.
    95:33
    Because it's the flattest game out of the three, so it doesn't slide. Oh yes, yeah, I gotcha. It's almost like a table. It is. It is. That is one problem when I stream, I have to put one of those rubber mats on the game before I put my laptop on it so it doesn't slide off.
    95:50
    Yeah. Star Trek is going for rental in another hour. I've got to wrap that up, and it's going to be rented for the next two months.
    95:59
    Making money still. We're still doing rentals. I think I'm going to do a big last push for the pinball lifter guys. We're going to sell the rest of the stuff out. I'm not going to be selling anymore after this. Me and my dad, it was my dad and my project, and, you know, without my dad, it doesn't feel like the same. So I'm just going to get rid of some inventory. So if you want everything, a jack lifter, you can come locally and grab it from me. How do we get a hold of you? You can get a hold of me on Facebook under Pinball Lifter. Okay. Come and check me out. Check me out, thank you, boys. I got some videos on there so you can see what it does. And if you have any pricing questions, please contact me through either the Slamdellpodcast.gmail.com or through the Facebook page of Pinball Lifter or my personal pinball page. And when you email us, make sure you do it to slamtiltpodcast.gmail.com.
    96:53
    It's only been four years. Probably should. Five. No, four. We started in summer of 2016. God, we're old.
    97:03
    How do you put up with me? I have no idea. I'm trying to think of anything I can go over. Well, be sure to tune in to the next exciting episode of Silver Ball Chronicles on the Pinball Network, where we discuss John Borg, the priest during years, now available. I'm going to fucking get on Dennis' case, man. Okay. Mr. David Dennis? Yeah, Mr. David Dennis, because he does not plug as much as you plug on our show. He should be plugging. I plug our... It's an informative, historical podcast, Bruce. You put the Silver Ball Chronicle energy into that one. Hi. I'm going to put my fake voice on.
    97:46
    You do. Did you listen to Silver Ball Chronicles at all? I did. I told you. Did you hear my Crypt Keeper? I thought that was good. Yes, you did. You did a very good Crypt Keeper. Remember, I told you I had one comment I have to talk to you about. I'm going to email you guys. Was it about my Crypt Keeper? No, not at all. No, it's about the time of conversion between Data East and Sega. Oh, we missed something? Yeah. We'll be awaiting your corrections, Bruce. You will get it. Yeah. Okay. Because I was there, damn it. I was in the meeting where the actual transaction took place. I was at Expo that year. That was the first Expo I did. Mm-hmm.
    98:25
    Okay. This has been Episode 155. We are the Slam Till Podcast. You can reach us at slamtillpodcast at gmail.com. Check out our website, slamtillpodcast.com. Go in the upper right. All our links are there. Check out our Twitch channel. Check out our YouTube channel. I have been streaming somewhat regularly. Even Stu has made occasional appearances. Check out our YouTube channel specifically to watch me battle the Emperor in Star Wars. If you want to see the wizard mode, I was able to get there. Thank you for being so supportive, you dickhead. I wouldn't do that to you if you got to some wizard mode what's like the Batman 66 wizard mode I couldn't tell you yet it's too complicated I don't even know what it is I can know I'm still trying to get the mini wizard mode which is getting season 1 season 2 and season 3 I've gotten season 1 and I've gotten season 2 and then I won't get I can't get all 3 in a row well what happened to the rig is in the garage I'm trying wait I have a lot of so you can put You can put the rig in the room, put it over like Lord of the Rings, and show us Valinor. I know. I have to get cameras and everything. Well, yeah, you got to get that. Yeah. Maybe you can get some of mine. Yeah, maybe. You can get some of mine. That's what I'm thinking. Because I've noticed now, being that everyone is streaming now, everyone's Playfield cameras, especially your player cams, look so much clearer than mine. And they're all using like... And for me, if it wasn't clear, that'd be probably better for everyone. Whatever. Mirrorless cameras, whatever that means. And they're just, it looks so much better. So I'm thinking if I upgrade, maybe you can get some of my CX405s. There you go. And then we can actually have two streams per week.
    100:14
    Oh, my God. I can give you the stream key. Then I'll just see the stream. I can see the stream come up. What happens if I try to stream while you're streaming? You probably have power over me. Probably wouldn't work if I say you're already up. I hope we can cross our streams yeah we cross our streams alright so again thanks to everybody thanks to everyone out there don't forget to make comments on Twip or on Apple I'm very disappointed in you people I want more fucking information and comments about us yes we gotta get ready to collect that Twippy I wonder if Silver Ball Chronicles will be nominated Who knows? We have universal acclaim. We're not vulgar. We don't court controversy. So you're never going to win then? Oh, yeah, you're right. Yeah. Never mind. You got me there. Mm-hmm. Damn it. Oh, well. The only reason why in the past three years of Twippy's, besides somebody, we have been in the top five voting for all three years. We have? We have. Even I didn't know that. Yeah. That's pretty powerful, man. Yeah, pretty impressive. Yeah. Okay, thanks, everyone. Bruce, you can say all the people that I keep forgetting their names. Go for it. So, hi, Zach.
    101:33
    Hi, Steve from a bonus. Hi, Jeff from This Week in Pinball. Hi, Dr. Pin and Mrs. Pin. Hi, Marty. Hi, Ryan Slee. Hi, Robert Byers. Loser Kid Pinball Podcast with Josh and, oh, my God, I got so many fucking names. Yeah, there's so many names on our thread now, it's hard to... Hello, Crystal, who just interviewed Marty. Very good interview. Yep. The Plum. Pinball Princess. Hello, Steph.
    102:05
    Oh, who else we got on there? You're forgetting me, brother. Come on, you got to say hi to Robert Mueller, dude. Robert Mueller. Oh, I can't wait to get you... Oh, no, that will not happen for a while. If we could get him on for an interview, we just interview him as Hulk Hogan, that would be awesome. That would be freaking hilarious. It would be hilarious. Okay, Mr. Mueller, your phone call's on line one. Listen, brother, where's the pin bar?
    102:32
    Oh, all right. And poor Steve Bowden's in the corner going, no, guys, no, I got you this interview. I don't believe they fucked me over. Those assholes.
    102:45
    Oh, hi, Raymond. Hi, Raymond. Yes, definitely, Raymond. We have too many people now. We should just get into the thread and thank every person at this point.
    102:54
    Hi, Timmy. We're waiting for you. Timmy! Can't wait for Zeppelin or Godzilla or whatever it's going to be. Hi, The One. You know the one thing I want? What's the one thing I want? This podcast to end. Okay. Say goodbye, Bruce. Goodbye, ReplayFX.
    103:18
    Can you move it? Can you fly? Oh my, my, oh my, my Can you move it if you fly? Oh my, my, oh my, my Can I see you alive? Oh my
    103:48
    Oh my. Oh my, my. Another long edit. Oh my, my. Another two-hour podcast. Oh my. Actually, this will be under two hours. Thank God. Yeah, it'll be under two hours. We actually started at 9.07. Thank you. So, yes, we're under two hours easily. Killing me with all the editing. You started it. I started it? How did I start it? You're wise-ass-ness. But I am now the pinball player formerly known as Bruce. You are the middle finger. I am the middle finger.
    104:46
    Oh, that's so true. It's not true, isn't it?