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Tribe Multiball with Rachel and Tim, Episode 35: Submitted for Your Approval, The Popsicle Drop Target

Poor Man's Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·held·Feb 14, 2023
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.030

TL;DR

Tribe Multiball Ep. 35: Rachel's tournament win, Tim's market frustrations, Matt's collecting journey.

Summary

In Tribe Multiball Episode 35, hosts Tim Lee and Rachel Risto interview guest Matt Michaels, a pinball collector and location player from Illinois. The episode covers Rachel's recent tournament success (2nd place at Wisconsin Women's State championship), her travel to pinball museums in Asheville, Tim's struggles selling a Mandalorian machine due to buyer flakiness, Tim's purchase of a Star Wars (Pro), both hosts' Nerdy Award wins, and an extended discussion about Matt's pinball journey, collection philosophy, location play, and his evolving appreciation for EM machines versus modern DMD games.

Key Claims

  • Rachel came in 2nd place at the first IFPA women's state championship, losing to Cassidy (ranked #1 woman player)

    high confidence · Rachel Risto stated directly on the podcast

  • Asheville, NC has at least two pinball museums (Asheville Pinball Museum and Appalachian Pinball Museum in nearby Hendersonville)

    high confidence · Rachel described visiting both on her recent trip

  • Tim sold a Mandalorian machine for the cheapest price he's seen, after multiple buyers flaked or ghosted

    high confidence · Tim Lee discussed his selling experience in detail

  • Matt Michaels bought an EM machine from Chicago Coin for $150 after negotiating up from a $75 asking price

    high confidence · Matt Michaels recounted the specific transaction

  • Matt's area west of Chicago has grown from ~2 pinball machines 3-4 years ago to ~20 machines within a 10-mile radius today

    high confidence · Matt stated this growth explicitly

  • Rachel is considering trading her Iron Maiden: Legacy of the Beast The Beast (Pro) for a Rush (Premium/LE)

    high confidence · Rachel mentioned this decision she's thinking about

  • Rachel's Card Tricks EM game is currently being restored by someone named Steve

    high confidence · Rachel described the restoration project in detail

  • Matt has shifted from only collecting DMD and later machines to now appreciating EM machines after acquiring one

    high confidence · Matt described his collecting philosophy evolution

Notable Quotes

  • “I lost to Cassidy, who is the number one woman in the world. So I can't be too upset about that.”

    Rachel Risto @ ~15:00 — Rachel's achievement at the first IFPA women's state championship; demonstrates competitive level and gracious attitude toward loss

  • “I had so many people email me or message me and waste my time. It's they would tell me they want it...One guy backed out an hour before he came. Another guy backed out the night before he came.”

    Tim Lee @ ~40:00 — Illustrates market friction and buyer behavior challenges in secondary pinball market; signals broader market softening

  • “I wouldn't do that to somebody, but I've got burnt waiting for people as well. In the past, I've waited like a week for somebody. I've had people back out. I just haven't had three people in the same week and a half span back out.”

    Matt Michaels @ ~45:00 — Corroborates systemic issues in buyer/seller interactions; indicates Tim's experience is unusual but related to broader market stress

  • “There's like a pattern and you know different things you got to do so as soon as I had that game in my house it you know kind of sparked me to to get more games and it kind of snowballed from there”

    Matt Michaels @ ~70:00 — Describes typical collector origin story and path to active collecting

  • “I would not buy anything pre-DMD...but then you know games like funhouse when you play them a lot you're like i don't really need the dmd because i'm not looking at it”

    Matt Michaels @ ~95:00 — Shows evolving collector preferences and realization that DMD not essential to gameplay experience

  • “I typically have a collection of basically six to twelve games is about what I can fit. I currently only have six right now. I kind of downsized a bit and I've been doing a lot of location play.”

    Matt Michaels @ ~65:00 — Illustrates space constraints and shift toward location play over home collection

Entities

Rachel RistopersonTim LeepersonMatt MichaelspersonGlennie RogerspersonCassidypersonStevepersonRaymond DavidsonpersonTom GraffpersonOrbyperson

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: First IFPA-sanctioned women's state championship held in Wisconsin with Rachel organizing and competing; signals growing formalization of women's competitive pinball segment

    high · Rachel organized and finished 2nd at 'the very first IFPA one' women's state tournament; defeated only by Cassidy, ranked #1 woman in world

  • $

    market_signal: Significant buyer flakiness in secondary machine market; multiple cancellations, ghosting, and late pull-outs reported by seller

    high · Tim reported 3+ buyer cancellations on Mandalorian sale within 1-2 weeks, including: one hour before pickup, night before pickup, and complete ghosting

  • $

    market_signal: Seller reported having to accept below-target pricing for Mandalorian sale despite market difficulty

    medium · Tim stated: 'I didn't want to sell it as cheap as I did' after multiple buyer failures

  • ?

    venue_signal: Rapid proliferation of pinball at location venues in suburban Chicago area; 10x growth in 3-4 years driven by brewery openings

    high · Matt reported growth from ~2 to ~20 machines within 10-mile radius in 3-4 years due to brewery expansion west of Chicago

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Virtual pinball machines valued primarily for rules learning and game literacy before playing real machines

    medium · Matt and Tim discussed virtual pinball's benefit: 'you can learn the rules on how to play...every game' but agree nothing replaces real machines

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.205

0:00
Hey, Poor Man Tribe and listeners, this is Glennie Rogers, and you're listening to the Tribe Multiple Podcast with Rachel and Tim. Poor Man Tribe's the thing, that is who we are. It and Drew, they're not in this thing. So how could it go wrong? Flip away with us, to an old barcade. And then we'll learn about each other. From two pennants to another Uh-huh Hello everyone and welcome to Tribe Multiball with Rachel and Tim. I am Tim Lee and I'm here with my co-host Rachel Risto And we're here to bring you episode 35 this week. Wow, Rachel, 35 episodes. Whoop, that's insane, 35, here we are. almost as many episodes as my age, almost.
0:59
A couple go there. Yeah, it took some organizing to get this episode going. We had two or three tribe members that we were trying to schedule times with, and everybody's schedule was so busy. But today we're here. We did it, and we made it, and we're ready to bring you another great episode.
1:19
Absolutely. You know, like real life comes first before pinball, for sure. Yeah, I'm totally stoked. Yep. All right. Happy to be here. Yep. I'm going to go ahead and introduce our guest. Welcome to the show, tribe member number 32, Matt Michaels. How you doing, Matt? I'm doing pretty good. It's another beautiful Sunday. Yeah. It's actually kind of warm here. It was like 45, 48 degrees here, and it was five on Saturday, so I'll take it. I was just telling my neighbor that today. I love winter when it comes down to that. I mean, that's like you spend a couple days when it's really cold downstairs doing stuff, and then you come outside and it's a whole 35 degrees, and you're like, ah, I'm ready for shorts.
2:08
My neighbor, now I didn't like the fact that he was doing this at 7.30 a.m. He was power washing all his vehicles today.
Poor Man's Pinball Podcast
organization
Asheville Pinball Museumvenue
Appalachian Pinball Museumvenue
Fellowship of the Silver Ballorganization
Retrocadevenue
Level 256venue
Bogartsvenue
Fox Cities Pinballvenue
Star Wars (Pro)game
Mandaloriangame
Iron Maiden Legacy Of The Beast (Pro)game
Rush (Premium/LE)game
Card Tricksgame
Rick and Mortygame
Chicago Coincompany
Flip N Out Pinballvenue/dealer
?

collector_signal: Collector philosophy shift: Matt moved from strict DMD-only preference to appreciating EM machines after hands-on experience

high · Matt stated 8 years ago: 'I would not buy anything pre-DMD' but after acquiring EM machine: 'I would take the EM any day...I love the feel'

  • ?

    product_concern: Significant cleanup/restoration work needed on vintage EM machines; 50+ years of accumulated debris noted on Card Tricks

    medium · Rachel noted Steve found '50 years worth of crap' in Card Tricks apron, plus cigarette butts; extensive restoration work required

  • ?

    content_signal: Poor Man's Pinball Network shows cross-promoting each other; Tribe Multiball hosts promoting Ray Ray Show episode featuring Rachel's tournament detail

    high · Tim plugged Ray Ray Show Ep. 5 featuring Rachel's detailed tournament discussion, mentioning SiriusXM Rush songs and strategy talk

  • ?

    community_signal: Location play increasingly valued for social interaction and casual play with acquaintances rather than isolated home collection play

    medium · Matt and Rachel both emphasized joy of location play talking with friends/neighbors; Tim expanding location play due to collection space constraints

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Shift toward optimizing location play over home collection accumulation; downsizing/trading common among hosts

    medium · Tim actively buying/selling; Matt downsized from 12 to 6 machines; Rachel considering trade (Maiden Pro → Rush Premium)

  • ?

    industry_signal: Pinball Nerds Podcast Nerdy Awards recognize community contributors and players; signals formalization of grassroots pinball media and recognition

    medium · Tim won Nerdy Award for Sean Connery impersonation moment; Rachel won Women of the Year award; Orby hosting recognition ceremony

  • ?

    operational_signal: Sellers having to add explicit disclaimers about serious buyer commitment to reduce time-wasting and flaking

    medium · Tim stated he added message to Guardians listing: 'if you're not serious, don't waste my time' after Mandalorian experience

    • 2:17
    It was about 40. I guess he figured, you know, it's not going to freeze, so he was out there power washing all his trucks. Well, welcome to the show, Matt. It is currently 27 here in Wisconsin, so it's a little chilly, but I don't mind. We're in February. We're almost there, friends. Yeah. Almost through winter. Yeah. Think about how great it's been the last couple, you know, months. It hasn't even been that cold out there, right? Right. I think the weather, you're not far from me, so I think the weather's been just fine. and we haven't had a ton of snow and I'm okay with that because I hate driving in it. And as you know, I like to, you know, drive around and go play pinball. So if the roads are good, then I'm good. If it snows, man, I don't know, I probably won't go. Anyway. All right, Rachel. So let's start with you. You've been up to way more than me because I haven't really done crap. So tell me, what have you been up to? Well, I recently went out to Asheville, North Carolina, to have a nice nature reset. If you've never been there, there are the beautiful Appalachian Mountains. I was able to check out more than a dozen waterfalls. I washed my face and hands with the water coming right off the mountainside. Sounds gross to a lot of people probably, but it was pretty amazing. But the weather while I was there kind of took a turn south. so I had an opportunity to play quite a bit of pinball while I was there and Asheville itself is the Asheville Pinball Museum so you pay I think it was like 20 bucks you book like a time frame of like three hours for you to be there and you can go in and play all these really cool games from all different eras that have signs on them telling you you know when they were made and things like that it was very interesting that's cool there's also not far from Asheville the Appalachian Pinball Museum in Hendersonville. So I think it's kind of crazy that there's these two pinball museums so close to each other. Yeah. So I got to check that one out as well. Just really neat, neat collections to see. I also have an opportunity to play at Retrocade and Level 256, which are both, I would say, barcades that are located in Asheville itself. What I really like about this is they charge, I think, is $15 or $20 at the door. Oh, it's not bad. And he can come and go and play all day in games around free play. Yeah, that's kind of a deal. Yeah, it's a really good deal. I think so. And then the other cool thing is I had the opportunity to pop down to South Carolina and I played the Fellowship of the Silver Ball, which is a house league, on a Saturday night. That was really cool to check that out. What was really interesting about that league is that they have very specific rules to ensure that it's a very family-friendly environment. And I really appreciated that.
    5:11
    I felt so welcomed the entire time I was there in Asheville. Everyone was just the nicest people ever. So there was that. That sounds like a great time. Yes, it was fantastic. I got to play. I didn't play my best ever, but I had a really, really fun time. And just, you know, here's a cool thing about pinball, a really cool thing about it, is that when you get the opportunity to travel places, I think there's a lot of pinheads out there and fellow tribe members and pals that they look around on the pin map and look for a game to play while they're there. And Asheville really actually, it's definitely, they've got tens of breweries, and the mountains are definitely 100% while it was there. the waterfalls and all of that. But just by proxy, there's all this pinball that's there too. And it's so neat that there's these little pockets of people around the world that have these cool little communities of pinball. So that's just a neat bonus any time that I get to travel. And I'm going to try to plan another trip like that a little bit later this year where it's all about the nature of Reset and then it's pinball by proxy. No spoilers, but I'm very, very excited about that trip. Nice. And then the other really cool thing that I did is I organized the Women's State Himal Championship. That's the very first IFPA one. And I played it, and I came in second place, which I think is fantastic. That's amazing. I lost to Cassidy, who is the number one woman in the world. So I can't be too upset about that. I always wish I played a little bit better, but she's an incredible player. And I played really well. I'm really proud of myself. First time playing that style tournament. And I had a lot of fun. I had a lot of fun the whole the whole thing. So I guess that's what I've been doing mostly. That is awesome. That created kind of a buzz in the tribe that day. You were playing. We saw you. Fox Cities was posting and there was a lot of messages. Nobody was messaging you really because we didn't want to make you nervous. I know you put your phone down, I think, when you play. But there was 30 or 40 message threads going around, what's Rachel doing? How do you think she's doing? Then Fox City started to post it, and it was kind of cool to pay attention and hear that you got second place. So congratulations.
    7:32
    Thank you. Yeah, so much thanks to Tom Graff over at Fox City's Pinball for posting on the stuff on social media so I didn't have to. And you're right, when I'm playing, actually, I usually listen to music, And so my ear pod or ear bud, whatever you want to call them, the little case, goes on the game next to me on the glass, and so does my phone. And usually when I'm playing, I don't wear my smart watch either when I play pinball anymore, which I wish I would because I know that my heart rate, like, is way up there and the adrenaline is pumping, you know. So it's interesting to know that, but then, ugh, notifications and stuff and trying to shut it off, whatever. But anyway, thank you, Tim. I'm, you know, I'm really proud of myself. I guess two other little things. One is, you know, last year in 2022, I worked really hard to play competitive and I'm really proud of myself in terms of where I ended up overall. So good job to me. And oh shit, I forgot the second thing. Well, great job to you. Yeah, that's awesome. oh and the second thing is that i've had a little change up in my uh personal pinball machine collection okay at home i yeah my two i still have my maiden pro and my mouse in around but my two ems um one uh which was a sky jump and card tricks my sky jump is gone now forever and my pal Steve is working on repairing and refurbishing car tricks. And oh my goodness, friends, I am so excited about getting that game back. Steve has been amazing. He sends me like he cleaned part of it, took the apron off, showed me how dirty it was. It was probably 50 years worth of crap that was there. And then, you know, the before and after pictures and, you know, getting the scoring to work properly and the pop bumpers and stuff. So just a shout out to Steve because I know he's going to listen to this. I'm so super excited that when it's fixed, I'm going to do like maybe a little montage of all the stuff that he did to get that beautiful game up and running for me. So that's exciting. How many cigarette butts did he pull out of there?
    9:47
    Steve, you have to let me know how many cigarette butts are in there. They're in there. Yeah. Great. It's such a cool game. It's an add-a-ball, wedge head, that the back glass are these two women in a room. One's playing guitar and the other one's throwing cards into a hat. And on the play field, it is, I love playing cards. I played a ton of cards growing up, all sorts of games. And so on the playing field, you're collecting the cards in the suit of clubs. And that's my favorite suit of cards. So I'm really excited. So to me, the theme and everything is just so pretty, and I love the old junk, especially the little baby flippers. So, yes, it's a beautiful game to me, and I'm super excited about when that returns home. And then the other teeny tiny little thing is that I'm kind of thinking about trading my Iron Maiden Pro and upgrading to a Rush Premium. Ah, the greatest game ever, Rush. I love Rush. I you know it took me about 30 times playing the game until I really finally found the flow in the game for me and I really enjoy the rules of starting to dig a little bit deeper every time I get the opportunity to play it uh that game helped me do really well at the championship so um I feel like SiriusXM is listening to me uh I've probably vocalized that to a friend And SiriusXM, I swear that they're listening to me too. And they've been playing every time I'm in the vehicle and I turn on road trip radio or 80s on 8, it's some Rush song. It's Limelight or Fly By Night or something. It's never Tom Sawyer. It's some other song that's in that game. So, I don't know, a conspiracy. We can talk amongst ourselves. I said you're getting ads for it online, right? Like the pinball company is spamming every time you go on a computer. I don't get ads for pinball machines, but we'll see after talking about this today. If tomorrow I wake up and I've got the best of Rush suggested to me by, I don't know, Wish or something. It's a sign. Yeah, it's a sign. Yeah, maybe it's a sign. Maybe it's a sign. So, yeah, I'm good. I'm really, you know, having a good time playing pinball, organizing stuff, organizing MGC. It goes on, Tim, you know, but that's for another episode. What about you? Well, you're doing fantastic. We're all proud of you. Back to that note that Matt just brought up. That Tribe page gets me so many freaky ads just because of what people post on the Tribe page. Like, Amy was looking at my phone one day and I'm just like, that's from the Tribe page! I'm not out there looking at this stuff. But oh my goodness, it just... My phone's littered with just, we'll just say stuff. Oh, and I also want to say thank you to everybody in the tribe and everyone that was so kind and gave me such nice words about the women's state tournament and everything. I love you all. Just want to make sure I included that too. Okay, now we can move on. Hey, so I'm going to plug your next episode, the Ray Ray Show episode five, because you really go into great detail on the tournament and then Raymond's tournament and your trip. So everybody get out. It'll be released this week and listen to the Ray Ray Show episode five because you give a nice overview here. But that's a pretty good show where you kind of go really down into the tournament and talk strategy and everything that really happened. Correct. Good. I'm glad I haven't listened to the edit yet. Yeah. Well, thanks, Tim. I'm excited. I was excited to listen to it myself. Yeah, I will tell you this. One spoiler. There's a there's a part where Raymond's was laughing that somebody actually picked Rush to play against him. I would pick Rush a hundred times out of a hundred times to play Raymond. like there i wouldn't even think i would be like we're playing rush and i'm gonna beat you and he would probably beat me by three billion but you know me i'm a very confident man but yes you have nothing to lose if you play raymond in rush because one he's gonna beat you right but at least if you beat him on his own game you have some bragging rights so you know it's if if the one percent of the time you can actually beat him so i'd pick rush every time so that's a spoiler ray ray show episode five oh thanks tim lee that's awesome um so matt and rachel we'll get get into my news rachel i know you've sold a game or two matt have you ever sold any games are you a buyer and seller yeah i've sold a handful of games um i basically regret almost every single one of those um but space is an issue sure so that that definitely is yeah that's that's the problem you know everybody deals with that at some level right i mean it's either money or space and yeah pretty much every game i wish i still had at some level um but i just don't play them all the time anymore where i was going with that is so i have space issues as well but i'm constantly buying and selling games like drew i don't know what happened but i just sold this mandalorian and i sold it it's the cheapest mandalorian i've seen go i finally sold it i had some people that were friends of the show that listened to the show, reach out and offer to make me some trades. And that was great. But this has never happened to me before. I had so many people email me or message me and waste my time. It's they would tell me they want it. I had three talk to me for like a week and get all the way to the end. One guy backed out an hour before he came. Another guy backed out the night before he came. And another guy just quit talking to me after he said he wanted it and was all in. I don't know what's going on out there. I know the market's slowing down. I didn't want to sell it as cheap as I did, but man, I don't like to be negative, but I had a really hard time. So I posted Guardians this week and I actually put on there, if you're not serious, don't waste my time. I was much nicer. I said, if you want to talk pinball, just let me know up front that you don't want the game and we'll talk pinball all week because I can talk. But I'm like, Don't waste my time and make me think you went the game. But that's what I did. I sold Mando. Two gentlemen picked it up, great dudes from Ohio. I talked him into listening to the show on the way back, and they listened to it on the way back because they sent me a message. It said, Jenny Cremel, really? That's what you drink? I'm like, I know, right? It's a sophisticated beer, and that's what we do. We drink sophisticated drinks on the Poor Man's Pinball Network. that's kind of really my my big thing it's just i don't know it's just i was kind of disheartened by how hard it was to sell that game and just the people backing up well that's yeah i did take the money and i bought a game from flipping out pinball i bought a star wars pro and i brought the game home my kids wanted it and after playing it for a few weeks I like how did I not have this game before I love Star Wars I love fast games And it's got fantastic theme integration. I just, I don't know why I never bought it before. I never really heard it on location. Like, all the sounds to me are new. And it's always been really hard on location. It's really hard in my basement. But man, love that game. I love a Star Wars Pro 2. There's actually a premium on location not far from me that I go play, and that's a lot of fun. Really, really fun game. That really stinks that people kind of jerked you around a little bit there, Tim. You're like the nicest guy. Yeah, I was. So, well, you live and you learn. You buy, sell, and trade. It's all part of it. And it's hard, too. You get one person that says, hey, man, I'm interested, and then you want to be fair to that person because they're the first in line, And then, you know, they jack you around and you got four other people that are, you know, behind them. And, you know, you try and go through that process and it becomes very difficult when you're selling stuff. Yeah. Especially when people start flaking out.
    18:11
    Yeah. And you don't want to lose a cell either, right? But it was tough. Two gentlemen actually, at least they had the nerve to tell me that, hey, you know, I don't want it. One guy just ghosted me and never heard from him again.
    18:25
    What the heck? Yeah, and the worst thing that happens as a buyer is when you're a buyer and you want to secure the product.
    18:36
    Because I've had games sold out from underneath me. I'm on my way, a two-hour drive, and the guy ghosts you halfway through. You're like, what the fuck, man?
    18:47
    Yeah. So that's a difficult process as well. Yeah, that's happened to me a couple of times where you said, yeah, I want the game, and the next thing you know, they say, yeah, it's gone, sorry. Somebody showed up with cash. Okay.
    19:02
    I wouldn't do that to somebody, but I've got burnt waiting for people as well. In the past, I've waited like a week for somebody. I've had people back out. I just haven't had three people in the same week and a half span back out. Kind of crazy. Yeah, unusual. The only other thing I got going on, I mean, it's been a pretty boring month for me. I've had some pinball fatigue. I haven't been playing as much. But the most important thing is I won a Nerdy Award. I know. I was going to bring that up next. Congratulations. Yeah, I won a Nerdy Award for the time I drank a little bit too much Jenny Cream Ale and did my Sean Connery impersonation and woke Amy up while she was sleeping. So Pinball Nerds Podcast, I won a Nerdy Award. I was very excited. So that was a highlight of my year so far, my pinball year. I also won a Nerdy Award. Yeah, you did. For Women of the Year. Yeah. That's cool stuff. Yeah. Cool, cool. Yeah, very deserving. Thank you very much. It's so sweet of you to say that. My options there were a frozen muckaluck kick to the butt, a beer, a sloppy hug, and a kiss to the cheek or a drink. and I messaged Orby, and I told him that I would like a frozen muckaluck kicked to the butt.
    20:24
    I don't even know what that is. A muckaluck is a boot. I think it's a boot. Okay. No, I feel like I'm going to have to Google it.
    20:33
    A muckaluck is like a boot or a slipper, maybe. It's a soft boot, traditionally made of reindeer skin. Okay, well, maybe it's a vegan muckaluck. It was either that or a gravy on french fries, something like that. I like poutine. Here's a random fact. In my office, one of the attorneys that I work for, he's Canadian, and so sometimes when he goes out there, he brings back Canadian chocolates and so forth, including poutine gravy, like dry mixes. I think that's really entertaining, but anyways, I like poutine. You're close enough, I mean. Yeah, it's close enough. It's good. And he's got this great idea about having a poutine cart. Like, you know, there's, like, taco trucks and stuff, but, like, wandering the city streets of Sheboygan, Wisconsin, with a poutine cart. Anyway, unless I digress. I could see it up there in Appleton, for sure. I've been up there a few times. You never know. That's a real fun college atmosphere in hometown. Or Madison, maybe. But, anyway, I don't know. Anyways, thank you, Orby. That was just the coolest thing. So I'll wait for my frozen muck luck boot to the butt. I really appreciate that, that your kind words made me blush a little bit, made me feel really special inside. And it's cool to get that kind of like from Orby. That means so much to get that kind of like love and recognition because he's such a cool man, such a cool dude. You all have to listen to him here, right here on the Courtman's Pinball Network. Right? Right. In the spirit of the Pinball Nerds podcast, we got completely off track, so let's bring it back and let's get to the most important part of the show, Matt.
    22:24
    Matt, do you like poutine? You know what? I like all sorts of foods except for mushrooms. I'm not a fan of those. That's okay. I'll eat the mushrooms, your portion of mushrooms on this earth for you. How's that sound? That sounds fine with me, man. Mushrooms are, there's something about them. I just can't get into it. I keep trying to like them. Texture or flavor. It's a texture thing for sure. Yeah, it's okay. The flavor doesn't bother me, and there's so much great stuff you can do with it, but the texture, I can't get past.
    23:02
    It's okay. We can still be friends. It's all right. Mushrooms are out. So what are you drinking, Matt? I am currently drinking a Hip Hop Hero by Revolution. Okay. It's a beer outside of, Revolution's a brewery outside of Chicago. Okay. Their big famous one is the Anti-Hero, so this came in a mixed pack with all that. Oh, nice. What are you drinking, Rachel? I'm having a Claremont Sparkling Water, which is a Wisconsin brand of sparkling water. that's my favorite flavor which is bucky's cherry berry it is delicious that sounds good as well what about you tim kind of boring i'm drinking a diet caffeine free coke and fireball so i went back to fireball nice yeah i kind of thanks it's been a few episodes yeah since you've uh been had fireballs yeah probably six or seven so i'm back to the fireball the question is was that sparkling water sold at Quick Trip? This sparkling water could be sold at a Quick Trip near you, here in Wisconsin land, yes. Here in Wisconsin. I can't believe how many of those are up and around there. It blows my mind. This came from a 12-pack from my local Piggly Wiggly. That's another staple up there, yep, for sure.
    24:24
    Actually, it's Festival Foods, but whatever, see the difference. Wiggly, wiggly. All right, Matt. So tell us a little bit. Wiggly, wiggly, Tim. All right. So tell us a little bit about yourself, Matt. You know, kind of we start out the show. What are you doing in the pinball world? You know, how do you play pinball? Where do you play pinball? What's going on here?
    24:42
    So I started out in the pinball world. Actually, my dad, when I was in like, I don't know, grade school, he brought a pinball machine home. It was an old EM pinball machine, and he was going to fix it up and make it real sparkly. After about six months of it sitting in the garage, he finally went back to a place and bought an actual pinball machine that worked.
    25:14
    That was in our house growing up for years. It was actually a Rocky. I don't remember what the first one was. okay the second one was a rocking bullwinkle okay day to east and so yeah that was in the house growing up and uh never i enjoyed it and played it frequently but not really you know um it wasn't until they sold their house and moved out and i had a house on my own that uh um that pinball machine being in my own house actually really kind of like sparked me to be like oh i've been playing this game forever and now I realize what is actually going on in here you know it's not just keep the ball alive or you know do a couple trick shots here and there there's like a pattern and you know different things you got to do so as soon as I had that game in my house it you know kind of sparked me to to get more games and it kind of snowballed from there so I typically have a collection of basically six to twelve games is about what I can fit I currently only have six right now. I kind of downsized a bit and I've been doing a lot of location play. There's been a lot more things opened up out by me. I'm about an hour and a half west of Chicago.
    26:29
    So there's a lot of great stuff in Chicago, but you got to drive down to get there. So I'm not a huge fan of the city itself, to be honest. Gotcha. That's all right. I've been playing locations out here. We've got a couple of breweries that have popped up that I've had games now. Now I got within a 10-mile radius, I got about 20 machines now, which is pretty crazy considering three, four years ago there was maybe two. Wow. That's crazy. That's really, really crazy. What games do you like to go out and play and where? So there's a place in St. Charles, Illinois, which is about 20 minutes east of me, and that is a place called Bogart's. um it's kind of a dive and it's only open you know basically after six most days and they have typically four machines there but they got a rick and morty which i've i've been loving yeah it's rick and morty deadpool pro and uh they they had a medieval madness now they switched it out to a monster bash and then um i can't remember the last game i think they recently they got a twilight its own which I own so I'm not too thrilled about that but the Rick and Morty is really the one I go for what you're there for that's definitely what I mean what's drawing you to that specific location to a specific game that's cool anytime I think there's like four games at a place that's such a fun place to go with a pal too I love my favorite way of playing pinball I don't know about this is a scenario for you Matt or Tim my favorite way is when you're standing there and someone else is playing their game and you're talking to each other. And sometimes I have the best big blowout games just standing there talking to somebody about casual whatever, about pinball or about the weather or about the Packers or whatever the case may be, you know, that day. What about you, Matt? Yeah, I mean, that's the best part about getting out and doing it. I mean, I have a couple neighbors now that have kind of roped into, you know, being they'll go out with me. I got one neighbor, he's transitioned into the virtual phase of pinball. Really? Yeah, so he's got a really, really limited space. So now he's got a virtual pinball table. And to me, it's only a matter of time before he actually gets a real one.
    28:59
    Because to me, it's not the same. It's really cool. He's got a lot of cool stuff on it. and I think he doesn't play enough pinball to realize how great it is to be all physical like that. I think the biggest benefit to a virtual pin is being able to learn the rules set because you can have a thousand different games or a hundred different games, hundreds of different games, and you can learn how to play Funhaus. You can learn the rules on how to play, I don't even know, Star Wars. It doesn't even matter what the game is. The point is having that all at your fingertips, I do think there's a lot of benefit to it. But I agree. I think it's going to be a short amount of time until if he really is into pinball and the bug has really bit him, that he will upgrade within a year, right, probably to a real pin if he can afford it or if he can do it. There's just nothing like a real actual game. As much as I think fun virtual games are, as well as playing on like xbox or whatever else too nothing beats a real game well that's it that's where if you would have told me 10 years ago like hey matt you could have this virtual pinball machine it's got every pinball machine ever made on it or you could have an em game i would have been like no hands down i want the you know the virtual pinball now after playing pinball machines for the last 15 years pretty consistently. I'll take the EM any day. Even though the rules aren't there and it's very slow and I love the feel of the EM machines and what it actually is versus the virtual stuff.
    30:54
    You do have a great point. It is great. I would love to learn the rules of a game. and go play it on location with the virtual pinball. So it doesn't have value. So that makes me have to question if you are more of an EM fan. I am not. I was actually, when I first started collecting, I really started building my collection probably eight years ago, and I would not buy anything pre-DMD. I was very dead set. I'm like, nope, anything that's – like I would look at Funhaus as a prime example and be like, that's a sweet game, but like it's not a DMD. I won't buy it.
    31:35
    Oh. So, yeah, I was very dead set on like DMD and above for a handful of years. And now I got a really good deal on an EM pinball machine from Chicago Coin a few years back. I paid like $150 for – Wow. What a deal. Yeah. Yeah, well, they wanted 75.
    31:59
    And I told them, I'm like, hey, if you hold it for me, I had to drive like an hour to get there. I'm like, if you hold it for me, I'll give you $150.
    32:07
    And they were like, yeah, no problem. They brought it up from the basement with the legs on. You know, they were like, do you have anybody to get it with you? I'm like, hold on, it's all good. I took the hat off and did all that stuff. And they were just shocked. at what was going on and uh yeah i i just grew to appreciate them a lot more um once i had that game in my collection i was like wow this is this is really cool and then and then you know games like funhouse when you play them a lot you're like i don't really need the dmd because i'm not looking at it you know absolutely i'm never ever looking at the back box while i'm playing i really am not unless it's a very tight score and i need like as you know player four ball three then maybe i'll actually look up at the score but i usually generally do not and i know that i'm missing things i'm missing cues but that's part of the reason why i'm standing there playing against three other people i'm definitely watching the back box at that point but i'm right there with you so like you realize that it really matters less while you're playing right yeah and then the games my kids have seen and gone through over the couple years uh But the ones they like the most are the EM games, and the other game they liked the most was Whirlwind.
    33:35
    Basically, simple games where you can figure out what to do, and Whirlwind, obviously, because it blows a fan out of you. Great.
    33:46
    And that's such a cool thing to do, I'm sure, as a kid, too. That's pretty awesome, you know, hit these things. and look, get your fan on. That's going to be neat. To your point, Rachel, I never really look at the back box either. I'm starting to try, like on Rush, I look to see how many shots I have for the multi-ball, but there's only so many things I can focus on. The newer games I just can There just too many things Like everybody says it easy but I can pick out like two or three things otherwise i have to trap up i gotta trap up and i gotta stare at the screen and figure out where i'm at so um and flip through and see like how many shots do i need for the tie fighter multi-ball or whatever that's about all i can do but matt let's loop back to your collection so you on your collection you have some pre-dmd games so let's go through you had mentioned rocky and bullwinkle really cool so you do have the the game that was in in your parents house yeah yeah yeah so i have that game uh my dad gives me shit all the time um because when i'm cycling games in and out he goes you know that's my game right and i'm like yeah dad i know it's yours he's like so if you sell it you got to give me the money for it i'm I'm like, Dad, I know. Like, we're not, you know, we're not in positions where we, you know. He doesn't want me to sell it, but he won't tell me to not sell it because he'd take the money, you know. Yeah. Sure. Are you like, I'm never going to sell it. Well, that's where it's kind of trapped in there now. We're like, when they were selling their house, that's what he told me. He goes, we're downsizing. If you sell the house or you sell the game, I'll give you 30% of the game for what you sell it for. And then they moved out of their house. They ended up moving into my house. And he goes, here, can you just store this here? You know, so now it's just been here ever since, and he's never taken it to his other place or anything like that. So it's kind of been lingering here, but he just always points to the fact that he, you know, that's my game, right?
    35:54
    Matt, that's called abandoned property. hey well that's uh yeah it definitely is and uh you know i have the high score on it so i mean that's all that really matters there you go yeah yeah that's all matters that's right that's right it's yours now yep yeah and i bought a new back glass for it because the other one was flaking so i bought a new one you've loved it you've cared for it and nurtured it oh yeah yeah when i got at the drop targets, he repaired one of the broken drop targets with a popsicle stick and a scotch tape.
    36:32
    It was repaired in true poor man's fashion. That's great. I love that so much. Honestly, it stayed like that for like 15 years until I got into it. I was like, hey, I think I can make this better.
    36:50
    my question is like did he like did he eat the popsicle himself or was like a popsicle like a craft popsicle stick no questions so it would break off periodically i remember as a kid it would fall off every once in a while my dad be like oh i'll fix that don't worry yeah go back and like retape it with scotch tape so it broke off when i had it at my house i love your dad Yeah, me too. It was seriously harder to fix the way he was doing it than to just buy a new drop target.
    37:28
    I went to Pinball Life. I bought the part from there. I actually live really close to Pinball Life. So I went to Pinball Life, picked up the target, drove back home, and, like, fixed it within, like, two hours span total. That's great. It was a very simple fix versus trying to get my fingers under that thing and tape it.
    37:52
    I was going to giggle about that. Yeah. But literally, 20 years, it maybe broke three times from the tape. All right.
    38:02
    Yeah. From the tape. Yeah, from the tape. I don't know why that's so funny to me, but my goodness. I think it's perfect. I love your dad. Good for him for, you know, trying to do his best to keep the game going, you know? Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. Or him and Kyle. Just for that reason, I would never get rid of that game. Like, it's an heirloom. Right. Heck, yeah. It basically is. And, you know, to me, it's – I grew up – we would drive to Florida, and my dad would, like, pop in a little VHS tape with a TV. We were driving down to Florida, and that's the kind of stuff we would watch was Rocky and Bullwinkle, the cartoon, Monty Python's Flying Circus, stuff like that. Nice. So. I love that. Yeah, Medieval Madness and Rocky and Bullwinkle have a spot in my heart for those reasons. Sure. Now, you also said you have a Twilight Zone. I do, yeah. Okay. I have a question. Sure. On your Twilight Zone, when it feeds out of the scoop with your right flipper, do you let it dead bounce over to your left? Can you catch it, or do you end up, if you catch it, does it backhand it into the out lane? What happens on yours? I let it dead bounce off the right flipper and into the left flipper. Is it always clean? Yeah, I never, it never, you're talking about it shoots down the center?
    39:35
    Correct. Yeah, no, it's always to the right flipper. Well, no, not that it shoots down the center. Just like it shoots to the right flipper, and then you let it bounce over. That's always a clean pass. That's cool. Yeah, yeah. I like that game a lot, but I struggle with that game. That's where it's hard when you go to play it on location, where you just don't know how that's set up and how, you know, it can be very frustrating. Because to me, that's like, if it doesn't do that, then like it's really hard to maneuver around or you have to really adapt and adjust to it. You know? Correct. Do you like to also, let me ask you a second question. How do you like to skillshot that? Do you like to put, you like to do a short. I don't, I just go, I go right in. I don't even skip. I don't even waste my time. I don't want to spend any time in the pop on. Me too. That's what I'm getting to. If you did a hard punch or a short punch. Yeah. full plunge too all the way i'd rather have it come feet out of the scoop that's there than have to go anywhere near the pops because it's like that's an instant left out lean drain right yeah and i used to i used to try this this uh the skill shot and then i was having issues where sometimes when i ball would get stuck if it went too slow into the red and that that switch was a little bit too high and then i would have to shake it to get it loose and then i could waste a tilt and then I just, instead of adjusting it, I'm like, I'm just going all the way, full skill shot, and then I don't have to worry about it.
    41:10
    I love it. That's one of my favorite TV shows of all time. So to find it, it was a search, and then it's kind of in the same boat as Rockman Bullwinkle because it's – I love that show so much. So, like, my basement door looks like the door is opening into the Twilight Zone kind of in the space and all that stuff. That's awesome. Yeah. That's awesome. What is your favorite Twilight Zone episode? Oh, gosh.
    41:41
    Favorite Twilight Zone episode. I'm actually wearing the shirt, the Eye of the Beholder shirt right now.
    41:50
    I like to serve man. That's, you know, some of the classic ones. Those are two of the, like, main ones people remember. Yeah, that one was – so two years ago, me and my son watched every episode because I liked it as a child.
    42:05
    And To Serve Man was kind of a – I think that one freaked him out a little bit, as did The Eye of the Beholder. But To Serve Man was kind of – it was a weird one.
    42:17
    Oh, yeah, yeah. And I like – the one I remember specifically when I was a real little kid was – Yeah, so he's a bank teller and he goes down to the vault and like a nuclear bomb comes off and he never has enough time. Yeah. And then, yeah, I remember that one as a kid. Like, I remember watching like five episodes of Twilight Zone, if that, as a kid, like just catching clips. And that was one that really stuck out to me and being like, holy crap, you know. But yeah, I try and make my kids watch them just because they're really relevant to a lot of stuff today. It seems like at least, I mean. Yeah, I highly recommend anybody watch it. The little girl episode was really weird. Oh, the talking Tina? Yeah, that one freaked me out a little bit.
    43:10
    Yeah, the other one I really liked is the obsolete man. that's a good one I've not watched actually any of the episodes now I feel like I might need to you gotta go back and watch them yeah they were on Netflix I don't know where they are now they are have you have either of you seen the black and white twilight zone pinball machine I think it's great that guy lives really close to here he's about 35 40 minutes from me Yeah, if anybody's listening out there, that's really funny, Rachel. I'd encourage everyone to give that a Google search for the Black and White Twilight Zone pinball machine. And I think there's the Atomos Family one, too, but the Black and White Twilight Zone is just mind-blowing. I thought it was really mind-blowing to see it. I didn't get a chance to play it because I was leaving whatever expo it was. But just like, I can't wait until next year. I've got to play that. It just looks so, so cool. I've been to his shop. He's got a cool shop in West Chicago. So, yeah, it's cool. Yeah. All right. Well, there's a heavy rumor that they're going to remake Twilight Zone. And I was talking to the gentleman from Chicago Gaming at Cincinnati, and he didn't tell me anything. But right before I was leaving, he said, I think based on our conversation, you're going to be really happy with one of the games we're releasing this year. And I racked my brain, and the only game I brought up to him was Twilight Zone. He never told me it was Twilight Zone. We talked a lot, but the only game that I actually name-dropped was Twilight Zone, and he kind of said that. Don't know if that means anything, but hey, I've speculated with less information.
    45:04
    So you're telling us that it's all because of you, Tim Lee, that that game is going to come out next? Nah, I just think that he was dropping a hint to me. He might have been. Maybe I brought up something else and I just didn't remember it. But I'm going with it. Yeah, maybe. Come on, something hidden there, maybe. It's in the queue, along with 10 other games. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
    45:26
    I would be really intrigued if they redid that. Because when they came out with their, what was it, Medieval Madness was the first one, I was kind of skeptical. Like, you know, is this better? is this, you know, they're pretty darn good games when they produce them. Yeah. I was very skeptical about the quality and all that stuff, but, man, they're just nice games for the most part. Yeah, they really are. I played a Cactus Canyon last night at the House League, Fox's pinball house league that I play in, and, man, that Cactus Canyon, it's just gorgeous. What a gorgeous game. It was just so much fun to play. It's just an enjoyable game. But, yeah, I think a lot of people probably out there, too, that are true collectors would be nervous about, you know, the repair or that quality of game, too. So you have the Twilight Zone, and what else? Let's see. I've got to recall. What else do you have now? I've got Top 10. That's that EM game, LaserQ. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold on.
    46:30
    So Top 10 is the name of the game. Yeah. Man, your text confused the hell out of me because you said Top 10, You only gave me six games. So I didn't realize the name of the game was Top 10. I'm like, man, Matt gave me six games for a – it totally confused me. But it makes sense now. Yeah, yeah. I believe it's by Chicago Coin, and it's a great game. It's got that spinner like in Avengers.
    47:02
    Okay. Infinity Quest where it's got the two – one on each side, and it's a record. So kind of like Beatles right in the middle. Okay. And then you hit that and spin it. My kids love the crap out of it. So every time it's not working because it's an EM, they're all upset. So it has like a pizza spinner. I just pulled up an image on the inside here. So it has like a pizza spinner or like a turtle's pizza or a record spinner. Like Beatles in the middle. That's really cool. Yeah. So just to take off of that, I just got rid of a Whirlwind, and I also have a Turtles. So I was really – I had a lot of spinners going on, you know, for a while. And top ten, the art on here looks so funky. It is Chicago coin. The art on here looks so funky because it has, like, people dancing. It's like top ten music, top ten records. It looks like how fun. Yeah, and like I said, I got such a good deal on the game. I didn't even, I never played it, never heard of it. And just, you know, people were happy. That's a super cool game. Yeah, it's a good game. And then same with LaserCube. I bought LaserCube based on how ridiculous the art was on that and how stupid it looked. It looks like a four-flipper layout. It looks like a cool layout. and then just the art was so ridiculous that I thought, yeah, this has got to be great, right? I mean, you can't space-themed pool, you know, pinball machine? Yeah, absolutely.
    48:45
    It's not a bad game. I kind of like it. Didn't Drew have a LaserCube? One of those guys had a LaserCube. He did. I actually reached out to him right before I bought it and said, if you had room for a larger collection, would you buy this game again?
    48:59
    And then I drove to like, I drove like two, two and a half hours. I thought it would be a great idea to schedule getting a game before I was supposed to be at work.
    49:13
    So I'm used to waking up early. And so at this time of my life, I had to be at work at like, oh, let's say nine o'clock or something like that. and uh i was like yeah i gotta be in you know two and a half hours away so i'll get up you know at x amount of time i'll be able to get up load the load the machine up and and get out of there and get back and it was such a stressful morning that i was able to do it all before nine o'clock which was great but the amount of stress that i forgot goes into like driving somewhere and picking stuff up and relying on someone else to like be on time yep uh was was very not appealing for the day like it ruined my whole day i bet yeah yeah yeah lesson learned lesson learned yeah you mentioned yeah you mentioned turtles i'm guessing you mean the new stern turtles yeah yeah i got that one i uh i love the shit out of that game i know a lot of people are very the opposite about it i love it man i i just it was my first new in box so that helps for my love of it yes but yeah i just love it's just such a game where i i look at it almost every day i play it and go like i just want to punch it because it's so difficult and i just haven't i haven't made it through everything so that's i just keep coming back for it you know yeah you want to finish shed i find that game okay so when i first started playing that game i found it to be because it was so brutal couldn't get a hold of the ball i couldn't find the shots and then i realized that maybe for me it's like the geometry for it just doesn't compute correctly in my head i do love the art package and the call outs and even the layout of the game is a lot of fun but i just really really struggled with that game really struggled with it my neighbor said it the best we had it on location for a short period of time and he hated it He goes this game fucking sucks It horrible It eating my money He goes it and then now he been around and comes down to my basement Like, that's what he gravitates toward. He gravitates towards it now because he's like, dude, I like this game, but I don't want to put a dollar in it because I don't feel like I get my value out of it. He goes, down here it's fine because I'm not paying for it. But, dude, he goes, I pay $5 and it's gone in two minutes at a bar. You're right. Yeah, I had that game and I had it for about six months and I sold it to one of our listeners, Dan the Party Man. That's what they call him.
    52:08
    Billy YJ and I kept playing it at Cincinnati and I kind of miss it. That's kind of where I was going with that. I would like to own it again. I, you know, it's hard. I had one beautiful game on it where I got like 198 million. And I think my second highest score was like 12 million. Like it was it was that big of a difference. I had one glorious game out of a thousand. Was it a premium or a pro pro pro? Yeah. Yeah. And see, that's the difference, too, is I've seen when I've played the pro on on location. it's a little bit easier to score on sometimes because you can set the multipliers by plunging into them essentially. You can't do that on the premium. And I could be wrong on that. Someone please correct me. Yeah, because you go up top in the premium. Like I said, I just like it because it beats me up every time. And I keep coming back for more because I've only had one game where it's like, yes, this was it. and that was so many games ago. I can't get back there. Yeah. Well, like I said, I only had one out of 1,000. I got to the end. I didn't beat it, but I didn't come anywhere close. And I haven't even got all the modes, you know, done all the modes. I'm trying to figure out the best way to score on that, and I can't quite do it.
    53:36
    You know what the answer is, right, Rachel? A center post. That's the answer. Oh, man. I played in an Avengers Infinity Quest that had a center post when I was out in Asheville. Yep. Wow. Couldn't believe that. I laughed so hard at that. And then I'm like, I'm trying to trust it, you know, trying to give it a little love and trust. Couldn't do it. Failed miserably on that game. That's crazy. Yeah, that talked about a center post where it doesn't belong. Oh, so that's where Drew's AIQ ended up. Asheville. all right matt so your last game is comet yeah comet i i bought that pretty roached out and then i fucked it up some more so um yeah that was a good learning yeah right outlane choo-choo the The outlanes are choo-choo trains, right? Yeah. Hello, Texas. Choo-choo. I'll give you a choo-choo train. Yeah. I like this game. I like that there's a progression. I like the story behind it. I like the artwork for it. You know, the fact that it's, you know, from a carnival, or not a carnival, but it's a theme park from Chicagoland. I like all of that aspect to it. And then I liked the fact that I just totally, like I was going to redo it, put a hard top on it. I was going to really, you know, clean this game up because I got a great deal on it. And then I fucked it up. You know, I had some like GI out on it, and I thought I was doing the right thing on the board to fix it. And I broached the board and put the wrong stuff in. Just not, you know, learning curve stuff. Sure. Yeah, I ended up having to fix all that. And, you know, a $10 fix cost me a couple hundred dollars.
    55:37
    But now it's in good playing condition. And, you know, there's no hard top or anything like that. The cabinet's not redone or anything that I wanted to do. But at the same time, you know, when they're in a lineup, it doesn't really bother me that much. Yeah, I've done that before as well. I actually hosed up a board and cost myself a few hundred bucks and had to buy one. And, you know, just a learning curve. Comet and Cyclone were my two favorite games as a child. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. I loved and played them both a lot. Actually, two people offered to sell me Cyclones out of the blue this week. So I don't know if I'll buy them, but I don't really have room. I put my Guardians up for sale, so I'd have to move that. But yeah, I was kind of keeping calm until the end because I love that game. We're at about an hour, and we kind of talked about your origin story, which actually I love that, the fact that you still have the game. The Popsicle, you know, that's making the title. I'm sorry, but that's – I always listen for something that makes the title, but that one's fantastic.
    56:44
    But we kind of talked about what you're doing in pinball. I love the smaller locations. I love that you play with your neighbors. That's really awesome. But we have one question. It's probably the most important question, Rachel. What do you think? I think that it is. Sometimes it can be real kind of trippy. So go ahead and ask it, Rachel. Matt, how did you get into the tribe of the Poor Man's Pinball Podcast?
    57:10
    Well, I don't know if I can say this because, you know. You can say anything. I mean, at this point, you're golden. You're golden. You know, there's all these pillars of excellence that you need to surpass.
    57:28
    I guess the one thing that I did that was out of the ordinary was, as I was listening to the Poor Man's Pinball podcast and all their different things, they had talked about fixing things with rocks at one point.
    57:47
    I remember. I mailed them a bunch of rocks, essentially. It was like a little kit. It was a poor man's kit. So I took a bunch of things that I used to repair other games. I had some cut-up pieces of Mylar and some random screws I found in games.
    58:10
    A couple liquor bottles. Was there a Popsicle stick? I don't think there was any popsicle sticks, but there was definitely zip ties and scotch tape and whatever I could find laying around the basement. Yeah. I, you know, I messaged Drew and I said, hey, this is kind of weird, but, you know, can I mail you something? And apparently that must have stuck. So between that and then, you know, messaging him every once in a while and seeing what was going on, I think that's how that all came to be. Okay. Because, like I said, I'm not on Facebook and a lot of different social medias. So apparently I hit one of the secret pillars in that time. That's awesome. Yeah, I think that fifth pillar was kind of just – at one point they announced it. It was just like as long as you check the box, the box could be anything. Like you did all the other pillars and as long as they liked you or you did something a little bit odd and you communicated with them, I think they let a few of us in. So, I mean, I shared one post on Facebook and I was in, but I had contacted them a lot. So I remember, you know, the rocks, they had mentioned that, kind of the box. So that's funny. I did also send them, I forgot about this until just now. I did send them, when Jurassic Park came out, I told them I was into mod making and that I knew Drew was buying a Jurassic Park, and I got a Whirlwind with really bad wiring, and it's speaker wiring throughout the game for extra lights.
    59:53
    And so then I took a bunch of my kids' dinosaurs, and I drilled out the dinosaurs and shoved the speaker wiring in and then mailed them a box and said, like, hey, you know, I'm into mod making. if you guys could promote my business, you know, it's, you know, whatever mods. And then send them like these like terrible looking, you know, homemade mods, quote unquote, pinball mods that looked like they could be wired into something. They probably would have worked at some level, but like they were pretty, pretty horrible, you know? So I didn't know if they took that as a, you know, serious or not, but that's pretty funny. Well, there's no doubt that Drew put them on his machine. so that's the other thing he's talking about those dolls and stuff like that back then and i'm like oh he can have my dolls you know uh well i i tell you what it was nice to hear drew and ian back on the air absolutely yeah i didn't listen yet but we all know that i love ian more than drew so i'm sure it was amazing it was i won't even spoil it for you but it was drew and ian in old poor man fashion i mean they can't make yeah i i laughed the entire time it was kind of like i didn't know what else to say other than the first communication i ever had with them was on pin side and i just wrote them a message and said your show is a train wreck but i loved every minute of it so that was my exact response to this episode i mean this is a train wreck but i i i loved every minute of it i also want to shout out foghorn lakehorn yeah has been uh pumping out episodes of the pinball junk drawer with uh craft brew sally and uh so you should also everyone should also take a listen to that pretty pretty good stuff there i'm a little bit behind in the pinball podcast stuff but hopefully i'll get caught up and listen to that episode but yeah i i they are really so funny when they're playing off of each other you can really tell that They're good buddies. That's my favorite part about all of it. They're sloppy and funny and all of that, but it's just like that camaraderie. That's what I love the most. Yeah, so it's good to have them back. And Ian's kind of an instigator. No, no. Yeah, he's like the voice of reason. He's the voice of reason and the voice of truth. And I love that about him. So, yeah, anyway. I like when he lets Drew just go on and then he's pretty much, I'm paraphrasing, He says, Drew, you're an idiot. That made no sense.
    62:31
    That's paraphrasing, but he says it much nicer. So, Matt, is there anything you want to talk about that we missed? Finally, good to talk to you. You were kind of the mysterious Matt 32 who wasn't on, you know, on what did you call it, Space Page or Space Book? Space Book. Yeah, that's what my wife's stepdad said. She said, when I die, you better not put me on that damn Space Book.
    62:56
    That's hilarious. I've kind of referred to it that way ever since. Yeah, I don't know if I have anything else that I really need to talk about.
    63:05
    You know, I'm glad to talk to you guys about, you know, pinball and make that connection. And, you know, you guys setting this up, that's been great. So I appreciate that. Yeah, we're happy to have you on and get to know you a little bit better. There's other Tri members. There's tribe members that, like, this is the podcast they really want to hear, is to hear and learn about the other people that are in the tribe, too. So it's really great to have you on. I'm going to do my best to make it to MGC this year. I made it last year, but I was very brief and very, like, the last couple of years I've been very brief in and out of different conventions in the area.
    63:48
    So I'm definitely going to try to make it to MGC this year. let's talk about MGC Midwest Gaming Classics I did want to just tack that in at the end of this episode is uh and I hope that you come up to me Matt because I will be in the open tournament area which is I think on the second level same place where it was last year and that will be all day Saturday but I really hope that you and other CHI members that are in the area or that decided to come up do stop in and say hi to me even though I might be running around with my head cut off um i also wanted to say that uh to support midwest gaming classic i'm going to encourage people that are in the area to bring a game to the show yes i am looking for games 15 of them to be quite frank uh for the tournament area but like the best way to support the show is to bring a game you also get your comp ticket to get in in and then i think there's also like extra special things fancy things that you get for bringing a game to the show so i just definitely wanted to plug that and I also wanted to say thank you to Dan Lucent who does so much work to make the overall Midwest Gaming Classic such a great event and making it work and then finally since I'm here to plug it I am looking for volunteers too you know it's a Midwest Gaming Classic it's not just Wisconsin so I'm hoping to get volunteers from other states in order to help with that pinball tournament so you can reach out to me that's I think everything but yeah Matt hopefully we'll run into each other at MGC. That's end of March, April 1st. It is one of my favorite shows in the area. It is great.
    65:21
    Milwaukee's great. The show's great. The venue's pretty good. It's way better than I don't know if you've been to the old venue in the hotel. Yeah, that was, it's way better here at the Wisconsin Center. Yes. than the old hotel that they used to do it at, but obviously it's a little more money, but at the same time, it's way better.
    65:48
    Yeah, and it keeps growing, so y'all need to come out and visit. And not just Matt and Try People, but everyone should stop and say hello.
    65:55
    Yeah. Fantastic show. And Scoots, I'm looking at you. I'm looking at you, Scoots, for cannoli or cookies or a sub if you decide to come up for the day because you were my lifesaver last year at MGC. he was to them remember yeah yeah he was my place so i i'm gonna challenge you i might come out of scoots will guarantee me 12 cannolis all for myself so that's three days four cannolis a day because i'm still on the fence i love the show last last year but yeah cannolis that might put me over the edge but i want to say something about the games and bringing a game you're absolutely right but firepower home pin doesn't count like if you're gonna bring a game bring a real game don't bring firepower home pin that doesn't even work and andrew andrew you cannot bring sorcerer this year because that is also spoken for already no firepower home pin now it It did work for like an hour and then it broke. But so I just got to pick on him. That was like, I don't know. It was like a little kid's game. All right. Well, I think that about wraps it up. I appreciate both of you. You know, it was good to meet you, Matt and Rachel. It's always a pleasure to talk to you.
    67:22
    Absolutely. All right. So we'll see you all. Happy flipping. And Drew sucks at pinball. There it is.
    67:59
    Thank you.