Red alert. Red alert. Red alert. You crossed my line of debt. You haven't dismantled your MX stockpile. Pakistan is threatening my border. That's it, buster. No more military aid. Nukem. Get them before they get you. Another quality home game from Casey Butler Brothers. Coming to you from beautiful upstate New York, this is the Slam Tilt Podcast, a show about all things pinball. I'm Ron Hallett, here with my co-host, Bruce Nightingale. Hello there. Hello there, and welcome to episode 19, Star Trek. Yeah, we're back to the beginning. We're back to the beginning, but this isn't Star Trek the motion picture. It's just Star Trek. It's just Star Trek. Oh, yeah, it's an alternate timeline. Yes. Gotta love sci-fi. You can just make anything happen you want. Make it up. Make it a show. That's what it's all about, man. How's it going? It's going. Where am I, Ron? He's back. He's back again. He's back to the stronghold. He's back to Xanadu, if you will. Xanadu. I am back in Xanadu. and it's nice to be back after four weeks. It really is. I missed everything about my home. I missed my pinball machines. I missed my wife. I missed my girls, which are my dogs. So, and bad note about my dogs. I didn't know it. Ron probably doesn't even know myself, but Cookie is now completely blind. Oh. Yep, the one eye is shot. And now she started bumping into things a couple of days ago and she's got a cataract now. So she's now blind completely. And the surgery to fix her would be twenty eight hundred dollars. I'm sorry, guys. She's 12 years old. She's going to live a perfectly happy life being blind. Poor cookie. Yeah. If you ever do need to go. Do you have a bully? You have ball bowler girl on. Yeah. Yeah. If you go to YouTube and you look up ball bowler dog, you will see Cookie in action. In my house. Yes. Bowling. A much younger Cookie. Yes, with the ball bowler. It's very entertaining. Yes. Cookie is awesome. She loves Mr. Rod. I'm a half an hour early on yawning. Yes. She's a very intelligent dog. Yes. Very smart. Very smart. So, Ron, how are you today? I'm just peachy. Very good. Just wonderful. I am also back from a trip away, although it was not a business trip. Yeah, for me it was both, but... Yeah. For me, I was in Florida. Florida? So we're going to go to news first, and then we'll talk about our trips? Sure, sure. Let's keep the usual format. What is the news? news of the week uh we were just talking about a few seconds before we got on i uh appa that was i a a p i appa i appa god bless you i appa is going on in florida like 10 20 minutes from where i was yes and you went there and you stole the show people were coming and flocking up to you yeah sure yeah they said are are you ron hallett of the slam tilt podcast of course no no actually i was not at iap it actually started monday which is when we left no but the interesting thing about the show is at the stern booth there is no batman 66 wow so i saw some video they do have like a banner for batman but no batman 66 no batman Batman and no Batman no Batman no Batman yes it is not there at all at the Jersey Jack booth they have two dialed ins it's the same ones that were at the Freeplay Florida show they have The Hobbit and Wizard of Oz so they pretty much have their whole fleet there if you will good very good no Batman I guess must not be ready yet and they just didn't feel like having it just sit there i guess i don't know and make a video you know make a uh just a rolling scrolling uh just want to make it you know just not play the intro the whole time and do nothing yeah yeah interesting it is it is kind of worrisome you know you think about it they went to two now shows big shows for them with neither you know This one especially, this is going towards ops and distributors and, yeah, not good. I'm not worried about the software because I know the best software guy in the past 30 years is on it. But still, it's a little worrisome that they were supposed to be shipping November. And we're already halfway through it and no one's even seen one. Well, I think Stern said Christmas like the last time. Yeah, but the beginning at the NF Expo, it was November. Yeah, I think you're right there. Yeah. I keep forgetting that was over a month ago. It just seems like yesterday. Oh. Oh. Oh. So, yeah, that's that going on. Today they finally released what we talked about last week with the Xbox and the PS4 for the Stern. you can actually get it online and actually buy the discs also for the new stern pinball arcade four game pack for your ps4 or your xbox one i saw that very cool games we talked about yep um also happened over the weekend while i was at florida new ghostbusters code 1.11 And they fixed all the bugs. Everything's working perfect. Uh, no. Bum, bum, ba-dum. Damn. I guess the main bug, it doesn't seem to happen with everybody, but it's an intermittent issue where your left flipper will get weak. Look for 1.12 soon. Yeah, well, the funny thing is one of the things it fixed I thought was, like I experienced it on mine, and I thought it was just a board issue with the light board issue. In the PKE lanes, the E will just flicker, and I thought it was basically like, oh, that must be the LED on the board is bad. But no, that's actually one of the things. It's bizarre. It's caused by the Slimer motor or something. It's weird. It's something. There's the 111 has a fix for that. So I was thinking of putting it on, and then reading about all these other issues, then it's like, and some of the, it's supposed to fix like the video mode hanging, which since I've never even gotten to the video mode or seen it since I've had the game, I'm not too concerned about that. Oh, I would be. God, I need it so bad. Yeah, yeah. I need to play the video mode. So that was that. I did see Tim Ball's stream of that. Tim Ball's. Oh, yeah. They had a little, I think it was a launch party at Rock Fantasy. Yes, it was a Ghostbusters Tales of the Arabian Nights launch party. Because that's their two newest games. So yes, Tim was streaming that. And Greg was there and Tim. And Tim took it all. And I didn't see who broke the tie for second place. It was Greg and somebody else. But it was 1245. I was exhausted. but gotta support Tim Balls Tim Balls, went that long? 12.45? oh yes oh dear lord that's too late yes very too late very too late other news is there any other news? I don't know it's been kind of a late light news period I don't really have anything I'm out I'm tapping that's it we're done thanks guys see you later Yep, it's going to be the shortest episode we've done. Some people are probably cheering now. Yes, they are. Psyche. Nope, we're talking about other stuff that we like to do. All right. Do you want to go first or me about our – You can go first. Okay. So over the weekend – I haven't heard anything about your trip, so. Okay. Over the weekend, I went to Orlando, Florida to go to the Freeplay Florida show. Hold on, hold on, hold on. Freeze. You didn't go see Mickey? No, I didn't go see Mickey. I couldn't care less, dude. I went to Disney World in 99, and that was it for me. I don't care. I don't care. I really don't care. The thing about, I'm trying to think of the previous name. I think it was, was it the Southern Pinball Festival? I think it was the original name, something like that. It had another name. I think it was the Southern Pinball Festival, but they changed their name the last year or the year before to Free Play Florida. it's at the uh double tree sea world did you go to sea world then uh no no no no i'm there for the pinball show man come on fuck uh i went there with uh dad we um got there early friday because just with the when you're in albany your flight choices are limited it's either early morning or last flight out yes yeah yes exactly even southwest there's just a couple flights so you You have to pick one or the other, and the show starts at like 4 p.m., so we went on a 6.30 a.m. flight, got there. Of course, our room's not ready yet, so we just kind of walked around the place. We played some foosball. They have a foosball table outside. We played a large checkers, you know, like a big checkers set. Big points, big. Yeah, where you move the pieces. It's like on the, yeah. I'm not explaining it right, but, you know, like life-size checker pieces. Life-size checker pieces are fun. Yes. So we played that and waiting for the show to start. The tournament actually this year was in a separate room. Okay. And it was run by the Project Pinball guys. Okay. And they started at 10 a.m. So I could have went in there and played, but I was like, no, I'm going to wait until Saturday before I start doing the tournament thing. I'm not going to burn myself out. No, yeah, exactly. So I just checked out what they had, and let's bring that up here. I will edit this down. Okay, I got the list up right now. Wow, that was fast. Yes, yes, no editing at all. So they had a main tournament and a classics tournament. We'll do the classics first. The classics games were Abracadabra, Bon Voyage, Quarterback. That's a ballet game. Oh, yeah. Quarterback is a – It was a ballet game. You sure? Yes, I am absolutely positive because it had, like, football players on it And two women wearing Bally shirts. Oh, the old 60s one. The old 60s. Yeah, okay. Gotcha. I have MTR. Oh, Meteor. Meteor. Meteor. Good game. Volley. And Sinbad. Sinbad. Yes, that was the Classics tournament. In the main tournament, they had ACDC, Barracora, Flight 2000, Grand Prix, harlem globetrotters iron man metallica radical radical dude world cup soccer and then here are the ems i college queens i think it was called and some other em whose initials they have is out something i can't remember i i played it during the finals unfortunately wow so So that was that. And how did you do in the – let's go first. I'm going to just take it out of the way. Let's go. How did you do in Classics? Well, that was a dumb thing. I started playing Saturday, and what they were doing is they had seven entries. Okay, just – it's pump-and-dump style tournament. Oh, I love the pumps. So if you remember our Papa conversation, same type of format. pump and dump it was basically it's seven entries for twenty dollars so you got 50 okay so we got so i got i got um i i paid the 40 and got an initial 14 entries and i i just played in order i played i played main and then i played classics then at some point i i did initial run and then i just that was in the morning and i just left and didn't come back till around four and then I realized I realized the classics didn't, the classics actually the qualifying went to midnight for the main, but for classics it actually went to six and the finals were Saturday, which if I had known that I wouldn't even bother playing the classics honestly, because I missed like the whole Friday and I was only I was gone most of the day Saturday so that was dumb, that was a waste of entries really, so I got back into the the main and just up some of my scores. And what they were doing was the top 16 were in a, and then 17 through 24 would be B unless you were ranked in the top 250, then you had to be an a. So if you didn't make it, you're out. And since Mr. How it is above two 50. Yeah. Well, below actually, I am less than two 50, even though it's a higher number, basically ranked. I'm like 300 something. So my plan was to try to get in B and not keep playing. I didn't want to be in A because you had – Josh Sharpe was there. Oh, come on. Play with the best. He arrived early for IAPA. Oh, and Josh agreed with me. He obviously heard at least one of the podcasts. He said, I was about to play a game and get tapped on the shoulder, and it's Josh. Hey, Ron. You know, I don't think I sound like you. and it's like yeah i agree i don't think you sound like me either so so that's at least one episode he listed too so there you go from the man himself we both don't think we sound like each other so there you go that's a comment from one of our listeners um so i played i i wanted to get nb because i didn't want to play josh or trent trent augustine was there jason wederick was there Bob Matthews was there. So you stand back. Jim Balsito was there. Yes. Well, I didn't stand back. I just didn't keep playing. You stand back. I spent the initial $40. I spent $20 more, kind of upping the scores. And then I spent $20 more after that just to – I wanted to play some alternate games in case, like, my Harlem Goat Riders didn't hold steady because a lot of people were playing that. So I played Flight 2000 because not too many people were playing that. and had a pretty good game on that. So, and I was up first or second in B, and it started to bleed out, and it ended up around seventh. I think it was seventh. Okay. So I got in. So that was the tournament end, and I got through the first round. It was funny. Some of the people in B you can tell had never been in playoffs before because, damn, they were nervous. They were ridiculously nervous. They were visibly nervous. Were they throwing up? Some of them looked like they were about to. You could just tell, and it's like, okay, they're out. And they both got, the ones that were that, they got eliminated in the first round. That was a cool thing because it was the top eight. There was only like two rounds. It's like semi-final, final. And they were doing Pinberg. So if you're familiar with Pinberg, think of Pinberg but with one less game. So you're playing a match with three games, Pinburgh scoring, 3-2-1-0. So basically or pop of finals with Pinburgh scoring if you want to say it that way And the high speed the high speed the high seed picks the gamer order for the whole thing So there you go. There you go. I got through the first round. I think I won the group in the first round. One or was tied, one or the other. We advanced and got into the finals, played. One of the guys in our group was an EM guy, and he was the high seed. So he's picking the one game I don't know what it was called, OUT, whatever game that is. And College Queens, we played that. I end up like last and third. And the one game, the only reason I ended up third is because I plunged down a lit lane, hit a lit pop bumper, which passed the guy that was in front of me. So otherwise I would have had last. Then we played the last game, Barracora. And Barracora was having none of me. None of me at all. didn't like you no didn't like me at all instodrain house ball action and my last ball just to put a cap on it the ball was actually going into the in lane and i'm like bumping it for no reason and literally shimmied it out of the in lane into the out lane excellent excellent you do good work yeah i did good work so i ended up third so i went against my motto never be cashing. I actually did cash. You actually did cash out. Very nice. Congratulations, sir. $163. Spent $80, so I came out ahead. Wow, you were like the big wiener. The big wiener. Now, the show itself was excellent. Once again, they had some issues at the beginning on a bunch of games that were not coining up or starting at $58. Yeah, but that seemed to be fixed, so I don't know if they just didn't have credits on them or whatever, but that seemed to get fixed. Really good selection of games. Newer games, older games, EMs, anything you can think of, it was there. They had two dial-ins there that were in constant use. Hobbit, Ghostbusters, all the new stuff was there. Well, except Batman. I'm Batman. I'm Batman. I'm not there. I'm not there. Yes. They had lots of video games there because it is pinball and video games. So that was, I don't know how many of our listeners are into video games, but I am. I know Bruce is. Yes, I is. So got to play a lot of video games, just all in wonderful 80-degree Orlando, Florida, which my father likes. He's sitting out there with the beer, 80 degrees, and he told me, like, I could totally live here. I could totally get used to this. I'm sure you could. Congratulations, Dad. I'll be happy to come down and visit you, too. So, that was an excellent show. It's at that perfect area where it's like, it's successful for us to stay around, but it doesn't get too crowded. Like California Extreme got to the point where I just never could play anything because it was so crowded. Okay. So, I have a couple questions for you. Go ahead. Shoot, sir. Vendors. How are the vendors? The vendors. Who are the vendors? You're always going for the vendors. I wasn't really paying attention to the vendors. Was Jim Knight there? Rotten Dog? No, I did not see him. Really? Wow. I did not see him. I'd recognize him if I saw him. I did not see him. I don't know if he was – maybe he was there, but I walked around a lot. I didn't see him there. Yeah, that's a shame. I like Jim. Yeah, I didn't see him there. They had a lot of the selling miscellaneous arcade type or pinball stuff, like artwork, that kind of thing. I don't know how many things they had there were just strict parts. It was just different kind of things there. Okay. Any good games for sale down there? Sale? For reasonable prices? Yes. I wasn't really looking at the for sale signs. Oh, my God. What are you doing to me? I'm sorry. I'm a complete failure. I was there to play games and relax. Just had two weekends in a row, if you listen to the podcast, two very long weekends where I was at work, and this was a welcome diversion. Ah. It was very relaxing. I am completely re-energized. So I wasn't really paying attention to that. Okay. Okay, that's fine. I can accept that. That's good, though. I'm glad you enjoyed yourself. Oh, yeah. You made some green. Did the points come out for your tournament yet? Have not looked. Let's look right now. So, luckily I have Mr. Ron Hallett searching really fast. Well, while he's searching, I will say the other thing they did during the tournament, which was cool, they brought, like, snacks in. They had a whole table of snacks and a cooler with beverages for tournament players. Nope, not up yet. Which I didn't even realize they had the cooler there until later. But, you know, candy bars, granola bars, chips, snacks, all that stuff, just table full of them. You want to know your ranking right now, sir? What's my ranking, Bruce? 370th. Yeah, I'm afraid that might be improving. Just because the way they did it, even though I ended up in B, because I didn't pick B, I get full points. And it's a tournament with at least a couple top 10, top 20 players were in it. And technically, I guess I finished, if you will, I finished, So if I finished third, I finished 19th overall, I guess you would say. The winner was, I can't remember who the winner was. I know he swore a lot. I could have swore he was losing because he was just F-bombs galore. Every like, that's bullshit, fuck, bull, fuck, fuck, fuck. Oh, man, he must be getting eliminated. Then he'd be in the next round. Like, oh, me ended up winning. Thus proving that swearing equals winning. Yes. Okay. And Jeff Palmer won the Classics. Okay. Very cool. That's enough of the show, enough of the tournament. Hopefully there's enough show talk and not too much tournament talk so people who get sick of the tournament stuff don't get too bored. Oh, wait, there's more. Wait, there's more? You did something, and it might have been a tournament. Yes, it was. That we've mentioned on the last five podcasts. Yes, we have. It was the... Finger Lakes Pinball Golf Open. Yes, it was a good time had by all. Except for your games. Except for my games. Oh, my God. I don't even go there with that. Oh, come on. People love that stuff. How many games did you have go down? Nine. Wait a minute. You said seven. Well, I fixed two when I was here. Actually, I fixed two when I was here. So, go on for our listeners. What went wrong? What died? uh what died uh first thing i do is i power well i got home midnight friday night for the tournament went to bed got up at seven got downstairs around eight kathy left for her weekend thing so when was the last when was the last time the games were on before this kathy had them on when she had her friends girlfriends up here when i was in europe okay so it wasn't like they hadn't been turned on in a month. No, it was two weeks. So when I turn on first, Harlem displays are out. Harlem Globetrotters displays are out. I'm like, what's going on there? I'm like, okay, let me go see. No power. No light up, no nothing in the display. So I'm like, okay, let me check the fuse, let me power it down, check the fuse on the board, fuse on the driver board. Fine. We'll go back to the F2 fuse. Blown. I'm like, that's weird. I'm going to go grab another one, pop it in. Boom, blows right away. I'm like, okay, let's disconnect all the displays. Boom. Okay. Let's disconnect all the driver board. Boom. So it's something either in the power board that hooks up to the transformer or something took out the transformer. So that was my first injury. About two hours into practice around 11 o'clock, a sea witch. Boom, dies. the right flipper completely dead all the right flippers dead all the left flippers good started digging around with that for a few minutes no uh centaur needs a couple more tweaks but it did make it all the way through the tournament all right that's a good thing uh eight ball regular the flipper stuck on that and that's a brand new flipper kit but one of the uh the actual coil stop is bent a little bit so i gotta fix that whodunit i had this problem with this whodunit before it resets now what i did to replace it i did use the car board which if you people don't if anyone doesn't know what the car board is it's actually a daughter board that goes in between the cpu connector for the to the power and the power going from uh the driver board to the cpu and it feeds the 5 volts and the 12 volts well ignores the 5 volts and just puts and builds the five volts were off this board and puts it directly into it. Well, the whodunit was working good until like 7 o'clock at night, and then it just stopped working, died. But most WPCs reset. This wouldn't even reset. The watchdog wouldn't even kickback on. You had to turn the machine off physically, turn it back on, and it would power up. So I don't know what's going on with that. That's really weird. uh acdc my lower target on my uh premium playfield one of my targets is stuck behind one of the rubbers so i got a little hung hung target and uh simpsons then at nine o'clock just starting like this almost it wasn't the finals but it was the semi-finals of the tournament you kicked the ball into the garage door and the ball would not kick up to the upper playfield until it did a ball search so needless to say i got a lot of freaking work to go on plus i still have to work on kevin man manny say it right manny uh his uh vector uh you forgot one blackjack oh blackjack was uh the well i hope not the wire broke again but the wire that was feeding the light for the uh i gotta write that down shit uh that was feeding the light for the spade connector is not working again. Hopefully it's just the bulb, but I didn't really go into it that much. I've got to write down blackjack. Probably just the bulb. I hope so. Oh, and I've got to do 8-Ball Deluxe. A couple bulbs went out too. We had 33 people show up. We had a couple no-shows. One person, their dog died the next day, so that's pretty sad. It felt bad for John. 33 players came, so we had 16 in the finals. We had 18 holes of golf, so 18 games were played of mine. They were pre-picked by Random.org, and if one went down during it, we had to go to game 19 and game 20. Luckily, all 18 games made it through the qualifying. And let's get to the top 16 real fast. How long – when did this tournament end? We started at 1.20, and qualifying ended at 6 o'clock. The last golf was at, oh, sorry, 5 o'clock. We took an hour break. We started at 6 o'clock. And finals ended at 9.40. All right. So not too shabby. That's another excellent thing about the Freeplay Florida tournament was it ended, like, before the show, which is always good. Because the show, on Sunday, the show ends at 4. The tournament was over by 3. Nice. Very good. That is. And I give that in the props for the game selection. There was no hour-long Game of Thrones, Hand of the King games. No, God, no. So there was a tiebreaker for 17th and 16th. The 16th, one guy made it through, which was Stephen Orzelik. He made it through, and poor Joe Thurston got bumped down to 17th and did not get to play in the finals. What we did for finals was we had four groups of four out of the 16 players, top four players drove the bus which we've talked about before but driving the bus is picking all three games they uh played three of the people they got to pick the first game order and all three games for being high seats so nice perk for that and what was the uh point distribution four two one zero so you're basically doing your classic papa finals you got it yes uh the top four qualifiers for uh myself next was neil parish he finished second in the golf uh the final scores were actually uh 42 for myself neil had 51 third was uh nick lane he had 52 and eric russell was our fourth qualifier with a 53 so who was in the final four let's get to the final four oh wow you don't wait hold on i have to shout out to eric russell eric russell uh in the quarterfinals blew up my star trek not literally but score wise he got 370 million on star trek very good very very good very impressive he got the grand champion got to put his name up that was like whole crap. I wonder if someone's listening right now saying, weren't they supposed to have a guest this week? Did they just totally blow that off? We're totally blowing it off until later on. We'll keep you in suspense. Oh, okay, okay. Let people know we have not forgotten. Yes, we did plug that we were supposed to have a guest, but that did not happen. The mystery man had a late job night tonight, so he's going to be on next week. He promised me, guaranteed it. So we will talk about his new venture that he just started also. Oh, oh, well, we'll talk about that next week. Yes, we will. OK, because we talked about this week. We kind of give away who it is. Yes, we would. I love it. We just keep building the anticipation. How many more weeks do you think we can do this before people realize we don't actually have a guest? Yeah, right. OK. OK, top four players. Well, we paid out five spots. So fifth was Neil Parrish. Okay. He had a one-game playoff because he tied with Nick Lane, and they played taxi for trying to get into the Final Four. When it came to picks of tiebreakers, we used random.org, we used numbers, and then whatever number the game was, that's the game he played. Did you say taxi? Taxi. That is a subtle clue, folks. Subtle clue for our guest. But only certain people will get that. Yes. Yes. neil unfortunately did not have a good game of taxi had 350 000 for three balls of taxi and nick lane got the jackpot right on the first ball so took him right took neil right out unfortunately but neil had a great showing he finished uh fifth so the final four was uh nick lane zach we got to talk about zach eric russell the 370 million dollar point man star trek and yours truly oh wait a minute you're these are your games boo ron you know the history of my house how many tournaments have i won at my house uh at least how many tournaments i had at my house well you okay you you've you've you've won less than the number of tournaments you've had of course there you go i've i've won before this tournament so i'm not saying i wanted to not win but before this tournament i've won twice at my house one was a side tournament that doesn't count yes and one was pinnapalooza yes pinnapalooza i i have one in the hollow ground of you have won a couple times in the hollow ground he is actually the the first finger lakes pinball champion yes before before they were finals though yes we just played golf so we just play golf it's tainted it's tainted so uh the first game we played for our finals since I was driving the bus. What first game would you think out of all my games? Oh probably Paragon or something like that Close 8 Deluxe 8 Deluxe Some old Bally Yeah okay And it came out I got the score sheets right here Hold on Let me I think that's it. Yes. No. While he's doing that, I'm looking at the Freedom, and it is still not Firewood. It is still there. It is still not Firewood. Okay. So 8-Ball Deluxe. I have the sheets. Luckily, I'm still downstairs. So Zach took 8-Ball Deluxe with the four. Nick took second with a two. Eric took third with a one, and yours truly was zero on Eight Ball Deluxe. Fail. Fail. So I changed it up a bit. What would be my next game? Okay, if you changed it up a bit, you picked something new. It's a Williams. Oh, Jack from Mars. Nope. Okay. Indiana Jones. Oh, yes, Dr. Jones, yes. Indy, Indy, pick me Indy. and I took that one with a four. Eric came in second with a two. Nick came in third with a one, and Zach came in with a zero. So it was four, four, three, three for the points. Yeah, it really helped you out there that second one. Yes, it did. Indy was great. And let's just say this. I had not picked – I picked eight-ball deluxe in the round before, But I did not pick Indiana Jones the whole time before this, and I did not pick the final game until the last game. The final game was, okay, what manufacturer? Stern. Oh, God. A World Poker Tour. Nope. A Simpsons Pinball Party. Nope. Lord of the Rings. Nope. Okay, I give up. Monopoly. Oh, yeah, okay. I could see that. Yep. I had to go first because after the first game, you go in reverse order of whoever finished last gets to pick fourth, third, second, or first. So everyone picked other things, and I got to go first on Monopoly. My first ball on Monopoly, I was at $14 million. Second ball, I got to $29 million. And the third ball, I finally finished at $34 million. But, unfortunately, I had somebody right behind me. Eric Russell. First ball, he had $9 million. Second ball, he had $14 or $15 million. And then the third ball, he finally finished at $19 million. So that would mean the champion is me, the winner of his own tournament, Bruce Nargengale. Yes. But there was a tie for second. Between? Eric and Zach. And the playoff was on? It was on Paragon. Oh, dear Lord. So that was quick. It was very quick. Yeah, it was Paragon, if I remember correctly. God, I can't remember now. I have to look real fast. I forget what it was. And this was between who? Zach and Eric. Zach had to pick that. No, nobody got to pick them. Oh, no, it was random? Okay. It was all random.org, and it was number eight. It was Paragon. and and uh i'm sure zach likes to like that pick he loved it until he didn't do well yes yes and eric took it all right so hold on he's showing he's showing me the trophy there it is very nice yes one good thing about our trophy guy he does a very good job and he doesn't you know gets us a Very good pricing. And this is about what? How big is it, Ron? Pretty big. I got one of them. I don't think it's that big. It wasn't a first-placer. But that was the other good thing. The trophy I got for Free Play Florida was small enough, and they made it so you could just disassemble the base so I could fit it in the luggage quite easy. Nice. So I took home some money, but that money is going right to the games to fix them. his prize money goes to repairs. Yes, it does. So that was my fun, fun weekend. And then, uh, other than that, good time. We, everyone stayed around until about 1130, 12 o'clock and then everyone went home. Just make sure like next year, you don't schedule this at the same, same weekend as free play Florida. Well, we were thinking about it. Here's the funny thing with the new format changes for pin golf. Now it's going to be worth a third of a point. Well, explain to our listeners what you're even talking about. With the new 2017, each game right now. IFPA rules. Yes. Right? Okay. Each pin golf game right now is worth one game value. With pin golf, it's going a third of a game because they're assuming you start a game and finish it all in one ball. So, okay. All right. So it's worth less then. It's going to be worth less. So this time it was worth 18 games for your qualifying towards your max of 25. This next time, if I do 18 holes again, it will be worth 6 games value. But if we do the same qualifying at the end, it will bring the tournament up to 96%. So it's still going to be almost full value. What do you mean if you do the same qualifying? If we have 16 people qualify? No, the same playoff format. Yes. Yeah, okay. I got you. It won't be a full 100%. It'll be a 96%, which is close enough. And if we get a full 40% next time, there'll be an extra round, extra pound people, so it'll be more fun. More fun. So Finger Lakes Open is a success? Very much so. Very much so. I enjoy having it run over. We had a lot of new players. I think we had three or four non-ranked players, So there was a first time ever playing in a points tournament. So that's really cool to see. Yep, yep, three new players, a couple of players that haven't hit their five minimum, but we had a lot of good upstate players up here. Excellent. So it sounds like you've got a lot of repairs. Yeah, so we'll have a lot of topics. But I did start on one repair so far, and that was Kevin's Vector, because Kevin's vector is really weird. What's your vector, Victor? Do we have clearance, Clarence? Roger. Roger. He has an all-tech board in his vector, and it boots up sometimes to six flashes. Sometimes it boots to five flashes. Sometimes it boots to four flashes. Oh, I already know the issue. What's the issue? The all-tech realizes it's in a vector, so it's just killing itself. It refuses to boot. If you change the dip switches to a good game, then it'll boot. Well, I moved the board to prove it onto my embryon. Boot it right up. I'm telling you, it knows it's in a vector, and it just will not boot itself. Sorry, Kevin. So I was starting to play with that a little bit. That was Saturday morning first thing. Well, typically, they give a note with the alt text that it does expect a very steady 5 volts. It is pickier than an actual stock CPU as far as booting. Well, hold on. Here's the weird thing. Brand new power driver board. Oh, there goes that theory. Yep. So digging into more. I'm going to look at connectors and make sure we're getting full 5 volts at the board. I just got to really dig into it. So that's going to be my fun the next week, a week and a half. Well, that's your fun. I got home from Florida on Monday, and it was early enough I figured, like, I'm going to set up that big game. Big game. Big game. Big game. So I was going to bring it downstairs because it's sitting in the living room. So the first thing I do, I bring the legs down there, and I was going to – I was fixing the casters. I wanted to get the casters in position. In other words, you know, back legs all the way up, front legs all the way down. And I'm looking at the legs, and inside one of the legs written on a piece of tape, it said victory. Now, victory is a Gottlieb game. Yes, it is. And just from my limited knowledge of Gottliebs, I know Gottliebs of that era have different size legs than the other. Well, some of them have that, but just overall they're different length. Yes. Bally's, Stern's, even the Williams games are all 28 1⁄2 inches. So before I bring this game downstairs, let me just – I put all four legs down. Are they the same length, like the same legs? Yes, they are. Okay, fine. Well, stern, actually, you're saying that wrong. Let's go backwards a little bit. Older sterns. Yeah, older sterns. Yeah, new sterns are like 31 inches or something, aren't they? Yeah, I have to make sure we're. Classic sterns. Yes, okay. The early solid state era, all those guys are pretty much 28 1⁄2 except Gottlieb for some reason. They had to be different. So I measure the legs on the Stargazer just to confirm. It's 28 1⁄2, just like I expect. So I measure the legs that I had for the big game, 27 inches. Who chipped you at an inch and a half? Fail. Fail. If I set that up, that game would be sitting low. I would feel like Todd McCulloch, the former NBA player, playing it if it was that low. So that's a fail. But the only good thing is at least I checked that before I brought the game downstairs so I don't have it sitting down there not on its legs where a flood could take it out or something. You know, you never know. That would be my luck. That would be my luck. A wet big game, that would not be good. Damn, we call it damn. It's still sitting in the living room, and I put in a parts order with Pinball Resource. And I just didn't want to order legs, so I took a little gander at the Harlem. And, I mean, we know we got the power cord. I got it replaced on it. Yeah, what else is new? But looking at it, there was only one replaced coil on that thing. Oh, that's good. All the coils were original except one, one of the flipper coils. And that coil was the right one that was replaced with. So that's good. The only other issue are the flipper plates, the plates, the base plates for the flippers. Yes, stripped out. Well, no, not the parts that go to the base plate, but the base plate attaching to the play field. The wood screws, they're, like, missing a bunch of them. Like, it's just kind of hanging there, the one plate. Excellent. It's like, oh, I'll just put a screw in. Yeah, it won't even turn. The hole is so blown out. Yeah, time to get some toothpicks. Yeah, well, I think it's going to more, this is going to be a dowel variety. I don't think toothpicks are going to do it on this one because, yeah, there was plenty of play. I'm going to have to take the plates off and, yeah, fun awaits. But other than that, it looked, it shouldn't be that bad of a project. You know, the globe lights still don't work. I don't know if that's a board issue or sockets or whatever. Luckily you have other games down there you can swap it out with Yeah Well I have all my Altec board set My testing board set As I call it I don't like to leave them in the game But I use them to test stuff So I'll be working on that I play more Ghostbusters It's pissing me off more and more The more I play it How's that game doing for you? I don't even want to talk about it It's not that fun is it? No it's not It's not fun playing the same modes over and over and over and never progressing at all. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Most of my games are around like 80 million, and I refuse to put the center post in. That's the thing. I'm sure if I put the center post in, life may be a little easier, but I already turned extra balls on, which is like sacrilege. But what are you going to do? Yeah. Not feeling it. Not feeling it. But, you know, we'll wait to see if there's any software improvements. I don't think the you'd have to change the entire nature of how the software is on that game and that's not going to happen no no no no not a fun game but I still like the music I like play field but that's that man we're going to have to end this soon Bruce is going to literally fall asleep during the podcast he's impersonating one of our listeners falling asleep yes exactly so what do we got on the list here game you like game you hate Yeah, I figured I'd pick some from the show. I can't. Yeah, because you weren't on the show. So to start, and this has nothing to do with politics. Please do not respond as such. Hey, wait a second. Talking about politics. No, let's not talk about politics. No, no. Who guessed the right answer last week? Oh, that's right. You did guess Trump. But you already knew. You were in the future. I told you I was in the future. Yes. The future. The future is great. Yes. Game I like. Nugent. Not bad. It's not great. It's a classic stern, of course. But it's a weaker of the classic sterns. I never played one that actually worked correctly. And this one, it has another one of those, like, a thing you don't want to finish. It's all bonus. It's all bonus. You build the bonus by hitting, well, you can hit the inlanes if they're lit and get a shitload of bonus. But mostly it's a spinner. Builds the bonus. And there's a bonus collect hole on the left that you almost don't want to go in unless you have the multiplier. Because once you collect the bonus, it's not like you get it again at the end of the ball. You actually collect it. So trying to go back and forth and not collect it, it's draining. This one's just draining. That was brutal. Highest score I had on it was like 230K. That was as good as I could do. It was brutal. But I like brutal games. That's fun. Now, a game I hated. This one was painful. I've never seen one before either. It's by Allied Leisure. Mm-hmm. Dynamite. Dynamite. I love Dynamite. Yes. Yes. Oh, you're hot. You did see it. You did see it. Oh, yes. That's my game I hate. But you did see it. When did I see it? You saw it at Pintastic. I must have not played it. Yeah, I played it a lot with you. No, you didn't. Yes, I did. It was a two-player game. Oh, I forgot it then. that's how much of an impression it made on me it's got these flippers that are actually they're bigger than an average flipper and the space, it's like the opposite, it's the anti-Ghostbusters the space between the flippers is barely enough to fit a ball so you can just play for ridiculous amounts of time it's got Jimmy J.J. Walker on it, which it's obviously one of those they didn't actually pay any rights for that at all one of those deals, it's like It sucked. It sucked hard. It's dynamite. It's dynamite. Yeah, dynamite. Yeah, it was dino shit. It was dinosaur shit. It's dynamite. There you go. I do like their drop targets. Don't you like the drop targets for Allied? Well, it had your Scolari targets. Yes. It had four drop targets in the middle of the play field, but these would actually go down when you hit them, and you didn't usually drain immediately. So it's actually one step ahead of the Scolari targets. so you're still not loving that now you're turning on the Ghostbusters again on us aren't you yeah yeah it just frustrates the hell out of me and not in a good way it's not like Star's frustration yeah so you know I'm going to keep it I mean I'll have it into next year okay you keep on doing that yeah you could yeah there you go there you go yeah Brian I think I'm going to be selling that using the money for a uh using money for for mortgage payments uh did i see the color dmd for yes yes color dmd came out with their latest uh new display or not their latest codes it's supported game and it's the former one of mine family yep but now here's the funny thing i couldn't release i couldn't say anything but i did do a teaser on my own facebook page a month ago when I was down in Atlanta the guy who coded it brought the game where I was playing and I actually took a picture of it and it was color but nobody picked up on it except one person oh my pretty cool so I knew what it was going to be but I of course did not blurt it out because that was not right very good very good he put a little clue out there a little cryptic clue yes it's like Stern putting cryptic clues out Yeah. Game I dislike Okay Rollercoaster Tycoon All right Okay uh game i dislike okay roller coaster tycoon all right it is so late the shots are fun i actually don mind the shots the lawler play field the rules make it hideous terrible timing out modes back then just terrible and it had such good potential it really did but we know it's our favorite programmer from the early 2000s for stern who would that be oh i gotta look it up now but it's our favorite programmer who i don't know what his name is those are gonna come to me so so is it is that why it sucks it's just the software uh the software timing out modes yeah timing up modes i like actually like the shots the shots are fun you know the when the the ramps are really colorful and fun oh the troll sucks i will say that yeah yeah it goes against one of my main rules if you're gonna have an annoying moving moving character on a play field you have to be able to hit it period thought maybe it was somebody that i didn't know but it is not well God, he's got some. The guy who did the rules for us, I thought it was going to be Ronnie Lopp, but it isn't. Louis Cozzeri. Well, I don't know who Ronnie Lopp is. I know who Lonnie D. Ropp is. Yeah. Yeah, whatever. Poor Lonnie. Come on. He did some good at East Games. Come on. He did terrible. But this Louis, he did it. He did Roller Coaster Tycoon, and he also did No Good Gophers. He was on. Ripley's Believe It or Not, Tales of Arabian Nights. He was actually in Wizard Blocks. There you go. You need to apologize. No, I don't. By the way, interesting trivia, Lonnie Rupp did a video game. He did Nibbler. If anyone's ever played that. Nuff said. Nuff said, and I like video games. Oh, come on. It's Nibbler. Yeah. Oh, okay. No. I think there's a movie on that, too, like Man vs. Snake. They played it at Freeplay Florida. About two guys battling for the Nibbler world record, something like that. Okie dokie. Yes. So, okay, so now that we've insulted a programmer and falsely accused another one, what's the game you like? I'm going old Bally again. Of course. You're just going to name a different solid state valley every week. Wrong. Okay, it's an EM. An EM. Captain Fantastic and the brown what is that? The brown dirt cowboy. Dirt cowboy. Yes. I played a nice strong one and boy, when you get a nice strong one, you know, of the, you get a nice strong Captain Fantastic, it's really a fun game to play. Really is. One of the few, actually, there's not many Bally EMS I like from the 70s, but I've picked two in a row this past two weeks. You pick the Who-influenced one. So the Who have to be involved, obviously. So is your game next week going to be Tommy? Can you rear me? Good Lord. If you could use my head to steer you. Oh, boy. Tommy, can you rear me? Oh, sorry. Oh, Tommy. Tommy, can you edit me? Oh, no, we can't. Oh, we can't edit that. No, no. Got to keep the lunacy up. Yes. And offend everyone. Hey, we stayed off the politics. It's illogical. It's illogical, Captain. Which brings us back to Star Trek. It does, always. The motion picture. That's not the motion picture. Do you have any cool auctions? I have one okay one, but I'm not really... What happened to the ones we did last week? One of them actually sold? Gone. It sold the Thursday the podcast aired, so we can tell ourselves we helped sell that one. I hope so. And Faces Pinball, gone. They're both gone. So Feces is gone, and what was the other one? Oh, no, sorry. Nope. Feces is still there. Feces is still there. Okay. You can get your feces. That's faces for those at home. We're making fun of it. Yes. Yeah, because if you look at the backlash really fast, it does look like, you know, Faces. Feces? If I remember, it's got some shitty backlash. Oh, it's terrible. So, yes, I wanted to. Games, there's not much on this week. I'm going to say I would not buy anything this week. Okay. Yeah, that's one thing about this segment. We're not going to tell you to buy like a $4,000 getaway or something. We're not about that. We're going to try to find you some deals. Let me look at my notes here. I think that's it. That's it? I think we got it because Bruce wants to fall asleep. No, I'm doing pretty good. He's doing pretty good? Yeah. Only a couple tournaments coming up. This weekend is the Flippers tournament out in North Carolina. We'll have some of our famous people, including Tim Balls, on there. I don't know if Steven Bowden's going to be there. I don't know about that, so maybe Steve, maybe not. But we had to talk about Steve. Yes, Fun with Bonus. Fun with Bonus. Fun with Bonus. Funwithbonus.com. Also this Thursday at the comic book shop out in... Oh, I also have a correction, but I'll do that next. In the comic book shop in Syracuse, the Syracuse Pinheads and Sunjaneer Pinball are having a tournament, six-game tournament from 4.30 to 8.30 this Thursday, so the day the podcast comes out. Come on out. Have a good time. Six games to play. Win some magical pinball points. I have to make a correction. I've been calling Wizards Arcade, which is not right. It's Wizards Pinball in Syracuse. That's Mike Smith's location, which I still want to get him on. He just got the signs up last week. He's getting everything ready. He's really trying to get more games into the building. So don't want to interrupt the boy. Got to keep him going. But it is on Facebook, Wizards Pinball. Let's try this three times fast. So definitely check it out. He has his time posted on his Facebook page, if I remember correctly. If you can't find his thing, you can also go to Central New York Pinball. They have tournaments linking up to his place also. This Saturday, Howard's – what's Howard's – the Catskill Pinball Tournament, I think it is, something like that? I should – being that I'm going there, I probably should know what it is. Yeah, the Catskill Open? Yeah, something like that. Something like that. But while you're doing your thing, I'll make sure I get a proper name for that here. Yes, but it's this Saturday. Ron, one of half of Slam Tilt Podcast will be there. The Catskill Classic. There you go. It's more bowling theme, of course, and there is a side tournament, if I remember correctly, also in that. So Howard has a great place. Definitely check it out. Hi, Howard, if you're listening. Hi, Orange County guys. Hopefully you'll see a lot of the guys down there around. That would be a good time. Oh, yeah. What else do we have? We have Black Friday at the Rock Fantasy. So on Friday they're having the Black Friday tournament. I don't know the exact times. I didn't look really fast, but I think it's 3 o'clock it starts at. Central New York Pinball has their league fourth. I think it's the fourth. Yeah, it's the fourth. And it's this Friday on Black Friday. check out Central New York Pinball on Facebook for that information what else do we have going on here, the selfie leagues are going on for Syracuse for Central New York Location Pinball for Rochester it's Knox Amusements selfie league and for Buffalo Pinball it is Buffalo Pinball selfie league check all three of those out, if you're in the area magical pinball points boys We're getting down to nitty-gritty. Getting down to nitty-gritty. Getting around to the end of the year. Yep, and then this weekend's project, we'll be sending out the emails to start figuring out who's in and who's not. We got reader mail. Yes, we did. We got a reader mail. We got some questions. This is from Ryan from Australia. Hi. How you doing, mate? I'm sure they love that, too. Well, you think about it. Last week I was Euroboy, and you see how they all flock to us. That's right. That's right. From Australia, maybe we should talk like this the whole time, you know, and just answer the whole question in their native tongue, you know. Yeah, and Crocodile Dundee, or we can have a little, you know. Just wanted to know what we thought about the fact that no one has seen any footage of Batman 66 yet. Yeah. Do you think Stern doesn't care too much because they've already sold three times the Super LEs they thought they would? And they sold out the 240 LEs. Do you think the software isn't going anywhere or is it anywhere near done? Or do you think Gary Stern and Joe Kamikow joined forces and together they have released evil until the pinball world? If that's true, they had joined forces before. It was called Data East in 1986. Because they were the two original guys that started it. I'm not worried about the software at all. Lyman's on it. Enough said. Lyman is not let down. I can't think of a game Lyman's really let people down on. Lyman takes it very personal. The weird thing is, is that the way it was worded by George Gomez at Expo, where like, it was just, it's just things weren't coordinated right yet. And then they had to be perfected. and it's been a month. You would think if the main stuff was coded and it was just basically kind of tweaking stuff, you would have thought it would have been, or something would have been ready by now. Maybe they're waiting on more voices from something. Maybe voices didn't work out right. You don't know. And as some people brought up, it was like Ghostbusters was revealed, and it was well over a month before any gameplay video that was shown. But the thing is, it wasn't revealed live in person at the main pinball show and just sitting there unplayable either yeah so that would have been like here's ghostbusters and you see oh the art oh look at this looks fantastic and then it just sits there and oh yes you can't play no no sorry sir sorry sorry uh what are the other questions you had uh that were worried about it i'm a little bit because it was supposed to be at the end of november but with stern i am going to think it's going to be January. Yeah. Okay. It was wondering if we thought maybe the Aerosmith, because it was supposed to be Aerosmith first originally. That was supposed to be like the next game before this whole partnership arose and they started to work on the Batman thing. Yep. The thing to remember with that, though, unlike Aerosmith, which was just the full production cycle, this was more like took a Batman Dark Knight and changed one side of the playfield. Yep. And added a spinning target mechanism, whatever is in there. Yeah. That's like the main toy or other than the crane, which you're just reusing, and then a topper. Yep. With a bat signal thing on it. Sold. Yeah, that you can buy in a store. You know, but and the I guess they had to come up with whatever they're using for the decals. Because the decals do look pretty cool. No, they do. I don't know what process they're coming up with. But, I mean, again, the Super Ellie thing, here's how I'll put it. Just pretend that Star Trek Ellie is like a $7,000 game, right? Super Ellie is a $15,000 game. Put them next to each other and take any person, any pinhead or any non-pinhead, and show them the games and say, this one game here costs more than this one. How much more do you think it costs than this one? No one is going to say $8,000. Again, if they can get the money, that's good. We had another reader email from our own Scott. Yes, who said the – because I mentioned when you mentioned the tournament that you were going to have blackjack in it. Yeah, and we talked about how bad it was for scoring. And bad it was for tournaments because if you – you could have a situation where you get up there and you are winning, and another player gets up there and the dealer is winning, he's totally screwed. Yep. In an unfair way. According to Scott, he already has software done. He just needs a tester. Yeah, unfortunately, I have an alt tech in there, so I've got to get a regular board in there. You've got to get a regular board. You've got to get a regular board, man. You've got to test it. I know. I know. Hey, man. Hey, man. Hey, man. And then we also had a third email. Oh, okay. Yeah, go ahead. Did you see that one? You mean from Eric? Yes. Yeah. Who thinks we should change the name of the podcast? To How Bruce Can Butcher a Name. Yes. Yes. Where is it? I'm trying to find where he actually says. I'll go right now. Oh, podcast. Here it is. He wants to formally request we change the name from Slam Tilt to Bruce Messes Up Pinball Related Names and Ron Corrects Him Podcast. Yes. Yes. Works. Works for me. I'll keep up the good work, guys. Kevin Manny. Eric Russell. Eric S. Russell. Russell. Yes. Also, it's not a different guy. That was hilarious. That was. That was quite funny. Yes. If you can't laugh at yourself, who can you laugh at? Oh, Bruce, he's literally falling asleep, just like the listeners. Okay. Now, here's the funny thing. It's 59 degrees in my basement right now. You would think I'd be wide awake. No, you're tired. You need to go to bed. You need some rest. I do need some rest. So let's pay some bills. Go for it. www.pinballlifter.com. Come check us out. We sell lifters, pinball, rotisseries, tilters, helpers, your creature mods. I even got lights and blade frames. Yay! We're going to sell you anything you want. Come check us out. Its prices are insane. Yeah, a combination of all that. And I just used my pinball lifter on Monday to move the getaway over to make room for the big game. So hopefully I'll be seeing Ron in a couple weeks. That's a tease for something else. Oh, my. Oh, my. So thanks, everyone, for listening to the podcast. We can be found at Facebook. Just search for Slam Till Podcast. Also on YouTube, just search for Slam Till Podcast. You can contact us and ask us anything you want. It would be nice to have, like, a mailbag section if people have any questions. Ball bag section? we have a ball bag section let's look ball bag let's look in the ball bag so yes the slam the slam bag is it wrinkled no just just send send messages to our slam bag at slam tilt podcast at gmail.com that's what we'll call the mail the mail segment the slam bag uh we can answer your questions i believe we could answer a lot of questions tech related show related tournaments pretty much anything you could think of, one of us will probably have some kind of answer for. So, that's it. Thank you. This has been Episode 19, Star Trek. Not the motion picture, just Star Trek. We will have our special guest on next week. If not, I will go four hours in Shanghai. Thanks, everybody. Say goodbye, Bruce. Goodbye, Neil. Thank you.