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Episode 101 – The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Slam Tilt Podcast·podcast_episode·analyzed·Aug 1, 2018
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.032

TL;DR

Slam Tilt Ep 101: Stern/Godzilla, Monster Bash confirmed, Pinburg tournament recap.

Summary

Ron Hallett and Bruce Nightingale discuss Episode 101 of Slam Tilt Podcast, covering pinball industry news including Stern acquiring Godzilla license, Team Pinball's new Mafia machine, and Chicago Gaming's Monster Bash remake confirmation. The bulk of the episode focuses on their experiences at Pinburg (a major pinball tournament in Pittsburgh), detailing gameplay across multiple rounds, tournament logistics, and their impressions of various classic and modern machines.

Key Claims

  • Stern acquired the Godzilla license for a pinball machine

    high confidence · Ron and Bruce discussing news from This Week in Pinball; described as Stern taking Godzilla theme from Spooky

  • Team Pinball (ex-Highway Pinball employees from Wales) revealed a single-level pinball machine called 'The Mafia' priced at $7,500 USD

    high confidence · Direct news discussion; 100 machines to be made with 35 available in US exclusively through Pinball Star via Joe Newhart

  • Monster Bash (Chicago Gaming's remake) has passed UL certification testing and is ready for production except for a few assembly completions

    high confidence · Ron and Bruce discussing UL testing requirements; confirmation came after UL testing details were publicly discovered

  • The Beatles pinball machine (Stern/Kapow) is coming out in March

    high confidence · Direct discussion; expected before TPS (The Pinball Show)

  • Deadpool has not been officially announced by any manufacturer

    high confidence · Ron stating 'Deadpool they haven't officially announced, I don't believe'

  • Jersey Jack Pinball has started production on Pirates of the Caribbean

    high confidence · News item: 'Jersey Jackpin Ball starts Pirates of the Caribbean production'

  • Replay FX is 'the biggest show in the world' (pinball)

    medium confidence · Ron's personal assessment, stated casually during convention recap

  • Todd McCulloch (former NBA player and pinhead) was on the wait list at Pinburg and missed check-in, which disqualified him from participation despite being present

    high confidence · Detailed tournament logistics discussion; presented as fact

  • Alice Cooper's Nightmare Castle experienced flipper failures during a streaming event on July 30th

    high confidence · Jack Danger streaming event; flipper died three separate times according to Ryan C. of Head to Head Pinball Podcast

Notable Quotes

  • “Stern nabs Godzilla theme from Spooky Bastards”

    Ron Hallett (paraphrasing news source) @ early in episode — Major licensing announcement; indicates Stern acquiring IP previously thought associated with Spooky

  • “It's the biggest show in the world.”

    Ron Hallett @ Replay FX segment — Assessment of Replay FX's scale in the pinball world

  • “I specifically try to play games like that to get better. Play better.”

    Ron Hallett @ Silver Ball Saloon recap — Reflects competitive mindset and focus on improving gameplay skills

  • “It boots. Not anymore.”

    Ron Hallett / Bruce Nightingale @ Frankenstein/Stars machine discussion — Technical issue with restoration project; humorous back-and-forth

  • “He just kind of taped it on the rest of the show.”

    Bruce Nightingale @ Pinburg check-in recap — Zach broke his wristband immediately during check-in

  • “You think even if he didn't check in, how could you miss him?”

    Ron Hallett @ Todd McCulloch discussion — Comment on Todd McCulloch being recognizable but still needing to follow check-in protocol

  • “$4.8 billion point shot... It's just 4.8 billion comes up on the screen. But I'm like, what the fuck? Holy shit.”

    Ron Hallett @ Guardians of the Galaxy gameplay description — Reaction to high scoring in modern game; illustrates scoring inflation in newer titles

  • “That's how you become like a C player here that's how you make the playoffs which I haven't done in like four years or something”

    Bruce Nightingale @ Tournament prep discussion — Acknowledges note-taking and data collection as pathway to competitive improvement

  • “It's so nice and easy, isn't it? ...You can literally aim and hit the freaking SIM card.”

Entities

Ron HallettpersonBruce NightingalepersonSterncompanySpookycompanyTeam PinballcompanyChicago GamingcompanyJersey Jack PinballcompanyHighway PinballcompanyZach SharpepersonStephanie Guida

Signals

  • ?

    announcement: Stern officially acquired Godzilla license for upcoming pinball machine

    high · Direct news coverage; described as Stern taking theme from Spooky

  • ?

    product_launch: Team Pinball (new UK-based manufacturer) released details on single-level machine called 'The Mafia' at $7,500, with 100 total units and 35 reserved for US distribution

    high · Detailed product specs provided: single-level, one-ball, $7,500 price, 100 total units, 35 for US, exclusive distribution through Pinball Star

  • ?

    announcement: Chicago Gaming officially confirmed Monster Bash remake after UL testing discovery forced early announcement

    high · Ron explains Chicago Gaming revealed Monster Bash after regulatory testing documents were publicly found; machine passed UL certification except for final assemblies

  • ?

    announcement: Beatles pinball machine (Stern/Kapow) scheduled for March release

    high · Direct statement: 'March. All right. I think it's probably just before TPS.'

  • ?

    product_launch: Jersey Jack Pinball began production on Pirates of the Caribbean

    high · News item explicitly stated; Ron expresses concern about mechanical complexity of upper playfield mechanics

  • ?

    product_concern: Alice Cooper's Nightmare Castle experienced three separate flipper failures during streaming event on July 30th

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.324

0:00
Now, Beavis and Buckhead, if you don't give your reports, I'll be forced to give you both Fs for the semester. Okay?
0:07
Uh, okay. You guys will never graduate. Uh, never masturbate? Graduate. It's when you're all done with school. Uh, me? You mean like school ends?
0:30
Coming to you from beautiful upstate New York, this is the Flam Phil Podcast, a show about all things pinball. I'm your host, Ron Hallett, here with my co-host, Bruce Nightingale.
0:47
We're on. Wake up. Fuck, it's been only, I only got like three hours of sleep in the past week. Sucks for you, dude. It does, and I feel bad for Mr. Andy Cushman. Why? Because we had to commute back and forth from Rochester to Pittsburgh, and then back and forth from our hotel room to the convention center. So you feel bad for him because he had to hang out with you? Yes, he had the full Bruce. Okay, the full Bruce. And welcome to episode 101, Captain America, the Winter's Soldier. So actually, this is really 100 episodes. Why is this really 100? I'm joking. Huh? Well, because 101 minus... No, it doesn't work. It's not like years.
1:36
So how's the Winter Soldier? Is that better than Thor? You hated Thor. Thor sucked, and Winter Soldier is one of the best.
1:45

  • Ben Heck revealed that Stern paid 'an ungodly amount' for the Beatles license

    medium confidence · Paraphrased from Head-to-Head interview with Ben Heck; secondhand report

    • Ron Hallett @ Dialed In gameplay discussion — Praising Dialed In design without protector on SIM card hole; design feedback for manufacturers

  • “Manufacturers, here's what you need to do...”

    Ron Hallett @ End of Dialed In discussion — Launching into design philosophy feedback; implies direct commentary for game manufacturers

    • person
    Crystal Gemnickperson
    Andy Cushmanperson
    Todd McCullochperson
    Ryan C.person
    Ben Heckperson
    Nick Schellperson
    Joe Newhartperson
    Pinburgevent
    Replay FXevent
    Silver Ball Saloonvenue
    This Week in Pinballcontent
    Riptide Pinball Podcastproduct
    Head to Head Pinball Podcastproduct
    Frankenstein/Frankenshitaproduct
    Alice Cooper's Nightmare Castlegame

    high · Ryan C. report via Head to Head Pinball Podcast; flipper died three times during pre-production machine play session

  • ?

    event_signal: Pinburg tournament held in Pittsburgh with multiple rounds of classic and modern machines; Ron and Bruce participated as competitors

    high · Extensive detailed gameplay recounts; tournament logistics described (opening times, check-in procedures, scoring); both hosts participated

  • ?

    community_signal: Riptide Pinball Podcast (Crystal Gemnick, Stephanie Guida) established as independent voice; Slam Tilt will defer to Riptide for Stephanie-related stories going forward to avoid duplication

    high · Ron states: 'going forward, when it comes to stories involving Steph, I will defer to the Riptide podcast' after Stephanie called out coverage overlap

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Dialed In machine performs better without protector on SIM card hole; allows direct aiming and hitting; manufacturers should reconsider this design element

    high · Ron's direct commentary: 'And it's so nice and easy, isn't it? ...You can literally aim and hit the freaking SIM card. So, manufacturers, here's what you need to do'

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Guardians of the Galaxy's right ramp is extremely difficult to hit; even experienced players (Zach) recommend avoiding it

    high · Ron states Zach told him right ramp is terrible and to not even try hitting it; gameplay discussion indicates widespread difficulty perception

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Deadpool pinball has not been officially announced by any manufacturer

    high · Ron explicitly states: 'Well, Deadpool they haven't officially announced, I don't believe'

  • ?

    content_signal: Slam Tilt Podcast has distribution issues with Google Podcasts; available on iTunes, Stitcher, and Google Play but not appearing in Google Podcasts search

    high · Ron provides detailed technical explanation of RSS feed and podcast catcher limitations; states 'We are officially... We're going everywhere'

    • I want to get started on news first this week. Oh, wow. You're just... Before we get into replay effects, because that's going to be its own private health. I mean, own great thing. Yeah, because last episode when we said there wasn't any news There actually was, I just didn't see it on the page, I fucked up Fail Yeah, I failed up again, what can I say So, this is from This Week in Pinball Hi Jeff Hey Jeff We forgot to mention that Stern nabs Godzilla theme from Spooky Bastards Yes So now you have a new idol, now you're going to be idling Stern instead of Spooky Well, CERN already did Godzilla, kind of, as in Sega. They did the shitty Godzilla.
    2:31
    So, I guess they acquired the license. Wow. Slugfest. Wow. Team Pinball reveals the Mafia. Yes. Did you see this? A single-level pinball machine from the UK. From Wales, I think? Yes, South Wales. They've been working on this for like a year. They were ex-employees. Of Highway Pinball. Ah. And how much does this thing cost? $7,500 U.S. of A. So, like, what, $1,500 more than T&A? Yes. Hmm. But not the great sound. Maybe. I don't know. We don't know that. Yeah, we don't know. You've got to talk about the Nisi sound, which is incredible, and light show of the Nisi. Would it be possible to get as good as that? I don't think so. I don't know. I'm looking at this. But we'll have to wait and see. We'll have to wait and see. Yes. I don't like the layout too much. We'll see what happens. First impressions were not very impressionable.
    3:39
    Ooh, look at me. I'm like fancy and shit. First impressions were not very... I think that's another versus because that doesn't sound right either. It is.
    3:47
    It says there'll be 100 made with 35 available in the U.S. exclusively through Joe Newhart at Pinball Star. Yes. And there's teaser videos and stuff like that, and we get to hear Bruce eating and crinkling his wrapper. No, I'm actually opening up a Marco parts box that I just received. It's like Christmas in July. It is Christmas in July, except it'll be August when this airs, but that's fine. That's fine. So it's a one-ball game. No multi-ball either. Wait a minute, single level, one ball, and it's $7,500. Yeah.
    4:21
    Issues? Well, we'll see. We'll see. I mean, they have ten of them in the picture. So, boom, there's ten right there. They got ten more than Predator ever had.
    4:34
    Oh, what's this? Slamtail Podcast interviews Lyman Sheets. We did? Oh, yeah, we did. I think that went very well. I think it went pretty well. I got her good feedback at Pinburg about it. Yeah. I probably should have said hi to Lyman, as I didn't. But he thinks I'm you anyway. I know. He thinks he's played me several times when he hasn't. I talked to a lot of our people who have been on our show. I thanked every single one that has been on our show, and I will thank them again, of course. I already have the 150th episode all ready to go, so we're good on that. So, yes. Yes, I saw you talking to Gary's turn. Yes. I can't wait. I know. Gary was like, didn't you get my phone number out? I'm like, not me. Not me. That was Ron. No, no. I told him it was head-to-head. It was perfect. It worked like a charm.
    5:26
    He knows that Australians like the freaking, you know, they're criminals down there. That's true. He put a hook on his finger. Yep. He put a hook on his finger. I said penal.
    5:37
    It's weird. It's weird seeing, like, our interview transcribed in, like, you know, text form here. Yes. It feels professional or something. Let's see. Almost. Then we got Beatles, which everyone knows that's, you know, Stern slash Kapow, whatever, are doing the Beatles. So when is that coming out? Is that the end of this year or the beginning of this year? March. All right. I think it's probably just before TPS. Let's see. When will we see Deadpool and the Monster Bash remake?
    6:09
    When will we? I don't know. When will we? Well, Deadpool they haven't officially announced, I don't believe. But Monster Bash, didn't they finally give a date? No, not on a date. The problem was they announced that they had it tested for UL. I mean, their new machine has been tested for UL testing, and it's all ready to go except for a couple of assemblies not being completed. Well, the problem is when you say that, UL actually puts out, because I know, because I used to have to deal with UL with a couple of printers we made. What's UL stand for? United Laboratories.
    6:43
    I think it's United or it's Universal Laboratories. I just called them UL because that's what we use. If you email them, it's actually at ul.com, which is really weird. They have to actually announce what they tested. So it's actually easy to find anything that's been tested and certified UL.
    7:03
    And certification for UL is a pain in the butt to do. It's just known as UL now, but in the 20th century it's known as Underwriters Laboratories. That's it, yes. people actually found out that, oh, wow, look, they had to approve this. And approval has to have the full name of the machine. And guess what it is? Monster Bash. So after people started saying, hey, I found it. It's this, this, this. The next day that, you know, Chicago Gaming came out and said, oh, by the way, our new machine is, because we couldn't keep a secret, Monster Bash. But they have surprises in store for us. And then we have on July 30th, which will have happened by the time this, Actually, this is occurring as we speak, probably.
    7:46
    Jack Danger will be streaming Alice Cooper's Nightmare Castle. Yeah, I'm talking to Ryan as we speak. And the flipper died on the stream three times.
    7:59
    Three separate times the flipper died. Bummer. Yeah, so that's not good. But he actually says... By Ryan, you mean Ryan C. of the Head to Head Pinball Podcast? He says Alex Cooper looks badass. So that's a good thing, I guess. Yeah. The artwork is tremendous. One of the nicest parts of the artwork is actually covered up. I know. Which is kind of a shame. So hopefully they get those issues straightened out. That's just some bad luck there. I'll guarantee it is. You know, don't forget it's probably a pre-production machine, and probably been played a ton before this, practicing and everything like that and making sure all the shots are smooth. So things are going to happen.
    8:41
    I think that's pretty much it for that week that we missed. Mm-hmm. So let's go to today's stories. Monster Best confirmed. Nice. Surprise, surprise. We've only all been talking about it for almost a year.
    8:56
    I'm surprised you didn't put up on your page, your Facebook page, or I should post the picture I took and sent to you at Pimberg. Oh, the fact that Keith Allen realizes roller games is awesome? Yes. Yep.
    9:11
    Head-to-head guys, and we can mention them now because the TTI is over. The head-to-head guys interviewed Ben Heck. I'm not all the way through it yet. I only started it. He's always interesting. I like when he just basically comes out and says, you know, like, the Godzilla license. Like, oh, yeah, Stern's got the Beatles license. They paid an ungodly amount for it, et cetera, et cetera. Jersey Jackpin Ball starts Pirates of the Caribbean production. Woo-hoo! All right. You don't sound too excited. No, because I want to see it. I want to see it out in the field. I want to play one where the upper right play field actually goes back and forth and not just center to left. Yeah, I'm afraid that it's going to be a mechanical nightmare.
    9:54
    Yeah, but Star Trek The Next Generation is a mechanical nightmare, and it's awesome. Not in the field. They made 10,000 of them, man. It was awesome. Not in the field. No? No. You know it. Admit it. All right. When you go to shows. What do you think? When you go to the world's famous Rock Fantasy, how does that one work? It's not there anymore, I don't believe. Yeah, why not? Shut up. Thank you. That's the one I got screwed because at Rock Fantasy, look, when you have the tournaments, you don't play extra balls, but they don't, like, change the games and take the extra ball's off, because it is also a commercial location, and usually people come in there while your tournament's going on, so you plunge extra balls. Unfortunately, the backdrop target wasn't working, so when I plunged my extra ball, it actually counted as a lock and started multi-ball, which I couldn't play. Oh, that's bone. Isn't that great? Woo-hoo!
    10:45
    That's about it. Because most of this was going to be about replay effects anyway. So what did you do this past weekend?
    10:54
    I went to replay effects. Really? What's that like? It's the biggest show in the world. The world? Well, before I went there, I listened to episode two and three of the Riptide Pinball Podcast. And who is in the Riptide Podcast? The Riptide Pinball Podcast is Crystal Gemnick and Stephanie Guida. I finally met Crystal. Very nice. Very great person to meet and talk and hang out with. I like her because she's sassy. I like her because she knows how to play pinball really well and probably would have kicked my ass if I was against her in TTI.
    11:30
    But she's also got a great heart, and she's a very nice person. That's what we need in pinball, more of that. And she's a tech. I know. That's even better. She's Canadian, though. Is that okay? Okay. Well, she's not a redhead. She's not a redhead of Canadian because those – Yeah, we know about those. We know about those. Yeah. Yeah, they came out. Steph pulled a couple of all-nighters and got the one that was recorded in May out, finally, and then the one that was recorded recently out, right before Pinnberg.
    12:05
    And going forward, when it comes to stories involving Steph, I will defer to the Riptide podcast. Because either episode two or three, she mentions, like, you know, I did this, but it was already covered on the Slamtail podcast, and I don't want that anymore. She's got her own podcast. She can cover her own stuff, you know?
    12:22
    You're just guilty because she called you out. She called me out? How did she call me out? She said that, you know, you already talked about it. She wanted the glory and you stole the thunder. She said the slam show podcast. I'm sure it was meant more towards you. Me? Yeah. Besides, she's like 20 podcasts behind and listening. She won't hear this for another two months. Exactly. We're good. We can talk about it. We're good.
    12:43
    And speaking of podcasts, I just want to address one thing quickly. This came into our slam-tilt Facebook email box or Facebook box or whatever you call it. From Joe. That our podcast is not showing up in Google Podcasts. And you're right. You're right. And there's nothing I can do about it. I've tested. I have a droid now. I'm no longer an iPhone person. I have a droid. And I tried at least four or five podcatchers, and they all find us just fine. Google Podcasts is actually a very minimalistic podcast catcher. It doesn't let you enter an actual RSS feed. Even the Apple one does that. They're a basic podcast program. You can put the RSS feed in. Literally, you just search, and if it comes up and the episode's not there, it's not there. I don't know what to say. We are officially... We're going everywhere. Yeah. Yeah, we're on iTunes, Google, and Stitcher. Yeah, did I say that right? Yeah. I said it in the wrong order, though. I got to say iTunes, Stitcher, and Google Play. Yes. And... Ron Hallett. Yes. And we're updated pretty much every podcast I've tested. So I don't know. And I still have the redirect on on the old RSS feed, so I really don't know what to do at this point. Fail. I'm sorry. We have failed. because I was going to suggest, like, just put our direct RSS feed in and do that, but the Google Podcast app doesn't let you do that. So please try another podcatcher. I'm sorry. Or listen to us through Google Play, which is included on your Droid.
    14:21
    Droid. Podcast Garden, we are officially, we're still on there, but our paid part ran out, so now I can only post, like, once a month. so that there will no longer be any updates to the podcast. I may next month just put like the 100th episode on there for posterity, which means it probably will show up in Google Podcasts. But after that, nope. That's it. Wow. All right. Are you ready?
    14:53
    Replay FX. Nope. Fail already. Okay. I got to Bruce's house Tuesday. Thank you. Yes. You got the Sea Frank and Cheetah. I got the Sea Frank and Cheetah. Well, even before that, because I had the whole week off. So I went Tuesday, me and my dad, we went down to the Silver Ball Saloon. Ooh, where's that? You tell me, where is it? In beautiful East Rochester, New York, 135 West Commercial Street. Woo-hoo! So I went there, and I decided, you know, I'm hanging out with Zach and Steph a lot. It's gotten me more into the whole rules thing. Like, yeah, maybe I need to learn some of these games. Oh, God, yes. Yeah. Yeah, see, Bruce, pretty much everyone knows these games except me. And Ronnie needs to up his game. So I went right over to Guardians of the Galaxy. With Zach. Which I know, he wasn't even there yet. I went there, but he knew I was coming. So I went over to, yeah, Guardians and started playing it. And then I spent some presents over my shoulder. And there's Zach. Hi, Zach. So it's like, here, Zach, show me how the hell this game works. What am I supposed to do? So we go over the game, and I actually kind of liked it. When I first played it, it was just group ball. Yes. But there's way more to the game now. The only thing I don't like is the right ramp. Like, I could not hit the right ramp at all. It's hard. And I told Zach, like, I can't hit the right ramp. And he said, like, yeah, it's terrible. It's like, don't even try to hit it. Like, wow, okay. So if he thinks it's too hard to hit, then maybe it's too hard. But we went through the game. We played one game, which he beat me. And then we played a second game.
    16:31
    I said, like, let's play a second game. He's like, all right. So he plays a second game, and he proceeds to get to the final wizard mode of the game. Save Xandar. Yeah. Basically, I got to see everything in the game. Including a $4.8 billion ending save Xandar shot. Yeah. Dollar, point. Dollar points. Yeah, $4.8 billion point shot. It's just 4.8 billion comes up on the screen. But I'm like, what the fuck? Holy shit. What was the final score like? It was 9 billion? 9.2 billion. Ridiculous. It's like, okay, thanks for showing me how to play the game. I don't have to file that away. See, the things I've got to get down are the actual modes and what the shots are. They blink at you. Well, I know, but I mean, like, if I want to get an orb, I want to pick whatever mode is the one where orb is lit a lot. Yes. Those are the kinds of things I've got to memorize. On Dialed In, I have all that memorized because it's my game and I play it. I know every mode, what the shots are. That was fun. I specifically try to play games like that to get better. Play better. I had the greatest burgers ever and the awesome curly fries. Thank you, sir. I'm not just saying that, folks. It is one of the better burgers of any place I've been to, and they're big, and the fries are excellent. We need a half-pound Angus beef.
    17:53
    And Steph will tell you about the funnel cake fries. Yes, she will. So after I left there, went to Bruce's house. The new place. New place. Actually slept over, and then the next morning, before leaving for Pittsburgh, got to see the Frankenshita. Yes. Which booted. It boots. Not anymore. Well, here's the funny conversation. Like, it boots, but none of the coils work. Yeah. So, okay. So, I go in there. I turn it on. It boots. Now, most sterns, they reset the coils. All right. So, when I went back over there with Bruce, you know, like you say, none of the coils work. I put it in test mode, and all the coils start firing. Like, I thought you said the coils didn't work. Until one blew. Oh, no, we didn't blow that yet. Yeah, yeah. So, we tried, you know, right flipper. Good. Left flipper, you can hear like a... Then you flip it a second time, pop.
    18:50
    Done. Fuse done. Fuse blown up. Yeah. One of the flippers is bad. Coils, yeah. Had to water that. And then it won't boot right now because I had to steal the power driver board for a Stars that died over the weekend. Oh. That needs to work for... Well, we'll get into that. But then Bruce showed me all his loot, like his NOS Stars play field. Fuck you. His NLSG to play field? Fuck you. His perfect stars back glass? Fuck you. You've got to admit, that was a nice pick. Yes. Well, we're going to tell our listeners that when he got that, was it everything that was cracked up to be Bruce? And then more. And then some. Yes. And then more. And the funny thing is he left it in the bedroom where I slept, so I got to stare at this perfect stars back glass all night. What a dick. I was a dick for that one. Yeah, I was just sitting right there like, hi, I'm perfect. And I'm not in your game. Yes. It's not mine either yet. So you can... I mean, it's not yours either. It's not in my game yet. Well, yeah. Yeah, but you're going to have an NOS Playfield and almost NOS Backglass in the stars. I hate you. This is not fair. You could have bought it. I gave you a second chance. No, you didn't give me a second chance. You told me, like, I want to make sure you don't go to buy this. Unless I say no. No. It's on, folks, listen to episode, what is it, 99? You will hear exactly what he said.
    20:17
    So after that, me and Dad left. First, we went to the diner. We always thought that. Yep, right by my house. It seemed like a Jersey diner, which is really good. Yep. Then we were off to Pittsburgh, which was pretty smooth, pretty uneventful. Got there around 4, I don't know. Everything was in walking distance. We parked at the Grant Transportation Center, walked to the Omni, checked in. And then we walked to the Grant, was it Grant Grill? Not Grant. Was it Grant? I'm trying to remember what the hell the name of it was. I think it was the Grant Grill. I don't think it was the Grant Grill. I can't remember what it was. It was a grill, whatever. So you walk in. You get your wristband.
    21:01
    You get your Pinberg. You're checked in for Pinberg. So you don't have to check in at the actual convention center on Thursday. That's cool. Then you also get 10% off if you show them your wristband, which I had to remind the waitress because they did not give us 10% off. Fail.
    21:21
    Then Zach showed up. He checked in, attempted to put his wristband on, and immediately broke it. Oh, my God. He put it on too tight, and then he tried to take it off. And they're like, that's not going to work. It's going to break it. And it did. He just kind of taped it on the rest of the show. Yeah, he's done pretty fine. and me and Zach ended up, we just went to a, there's like a small arcade right by there. The games were all on five ball, and the tilts are like very loose. Oh, no. And what you just hear is games sliding.
    21:55
    Oh, God. Yeah. We played some Walking Dead, some, I think we played Guardians again, played Attack from Mars, Family Guy.
    22:05
    Then Steph arrived, and I think we went to Five Guys. which was excellent. I always like going to Five Guys.
    22:12
    And I think that was it for me. How was your Wednesday? I had to work from 2 to about 6.30. We had the concert across the street from the bar. Had to set up that with tents and get the regular bar ready to go.
    22:30
    And then Andy showed up at like 6.50. So, okay, 6.50. What was the last time you could actually go to the grill and get your tickets? From 1 to? 11 o'clock. That's 4 hours and 10 minutes. The time to make it from Rochester to Pittsburgh is 4 hours and 30 minutes. Bruce made it in 4 hours and 5 minutes. So you're admitting speeding on our podcast. Yeah, but I have to figure out exactly where I was speeding and how fast. Okay. You were speeding. All right. So you made it there. Made it there with four minutes to spare. We were the last people. I got to see Virginia and Petey. Hi, guys.
    23:15
    And got the last wristband, of course, for the night. And then they were packing up. And then we went back to the hotel and crashed. So you got a good night's sleep. I did. I got a good night's sleep every night. Mm-hmm. Six hours. Yeah, that's good. For Pinnberg, that's great. That's, yeah, 67 is about what I usually get. I can't sleep any more than that. If I sleep eight hours, I just, I'm tired all day and I have a headache.
    23:39
    So we begin on Thursday. Yeah. So it starts at, well, first they open at 8. You get to practice for an hour if you want. Yep.
    23:51
    Then at 9, you have to stop practicing. And then they have check-in starts at 9.30. Mm-hmm. And we actually had, I don't know if you heard about the Tom McCulloch deal. That happened? I heard about it, but let everyone else hear about it. Todd McCulloch, the former NBA player, and noted pinhead. He was on the waiting list. He was like 100. He was way down there. So he showed up and forgot to check in.
    24:21
    Like at 9.30, and it did say, like, you're supposed to check. If you were on the on-call or the wait list, check in at the front desk at 9.30. All you got to do is tell them, I'm here. Yep. And he did not, so he got passed over. He would have been in. How do you not miss? Well, that's the thing. You think even if he didn't check in, how could you miss him? But, I mean, they were trying to follow the rules. Yeah. Just don't assume, like, oh, you're here. No, you needed to actually go in and check in, and he did not. So that was unfortunate.
    24:54
    So we started at 10 o'clock, playing our first round, and let's go over our wonderful sessions. I have them all saved. Yeah, one thing I learned is a lot of these games, especially some of these EMs, really suck. They're really, really bad. Actually, the EMs I did the best on this year. Yeah, but some of the ones I had to play really sucked, but we'll get into that. Okay, so what did you have your first round? Heed the Storm Warning was the name of the bank. I had Pirates of the Caribbean, Aces and Kings, Hurricane, and X's and O's. That's a bad round. Pirates?
    25:32
    Probably brutal. Here's the thing. I didn't keep track of anything, so I have no idea what I got in any of these games. Oh, my God. Oh, yeah. Zach was disappointed. I did not collect data, and I don't remember anything half the time anyway. So, Pirates? I can't remember where I finished in half these games, unfortunately. Fail. I probably next year, well, if I get in, because you never know, with the two to three seconds max you have to, like, refresh and get in. If I get in, I will do pictures of all the score sheets because Zach actually did. He took pictures of all his score sheets and then made full notes on, like, anything he didn't get a three on, on how he failed. I did it even easier. You did it even easier. Okay. Yep. I actually put it in my notes for my phone. Before we started around, I took all four games, put it in the order that I was going to play them, and then put on the side of it notes that I need. so it was all together you people are really serious about this that's how you become like a C player here that's how you make the playoffs which I haven't done in like four years or something so Pirates I did the usual thing I was surprised they let the gig in right after the shooter the plunge so you can just stop plunge right flipper right to the time lock I just kept doing that till that started I sunk one ship I couldn't remember if multiball actually started when you sunk a ship I thought it did And it did So I had a decent multi But I believe Nick Schell hi Nick the guy I got my cheetah from he came back on his ball. He was player four. He came back on the last ball to beat me, so I ended up with a two. Aces and Kings is just, I'm looking at it here, basically there's two lanes, and you want to go through the lit one. It's one of the most important things in the game. Then it has this, like, a lamp. I always call it the lamp. It's the same mech that's on Tales of the Arabian Nights with the lamp on it, except without a lamp on it, but the same spinny thing. And then there's, like, collect holes.
    27:38
    So I played that. I don't remember what I did on that. Hurricane. Is Hurricane. Bad. Ah! I don't remember what I did on that. What was my, does it even have my score here?
    27:51
    Hold on. What did I have for that round? I'm trying to figure out what I had on the games. I don't remember. X's and O's is the one with the skill shot, which is only active for, like, what, five seconds. So when one person's done, you've got to run up there and boom. And I don't think anybody hit the skill shot. Not a single player hit it in all three balls. It's a hard skill shot. It's a very hard skill shot. So I got a six that round.
    28:19
    So what was your first round, your first session? I had Cactus Canyon, Liberty Bell, Funhaus, and Pinball Champ 82. So Cactus Canyon, zero. Total fail. Could not hit a shot to save my life. Liberty Bell squeaks out a one. I put in my notes.
    28:41
    Funhaus, got a two. And Pinball Champ, I got a three. Just hit the spinner all day. That's my notes. So I came out of that with a six also. Okay. So for mine, I think what I'm going to do here, I'm going to go over mine quicker because, unlike you, I don't remember anything. I have notes. If something bad happened, I'll remember it. Okay, this one, I actually do remember bad things that happened. Okay, Iron Man, I believe I won because I was the only one that got the monger up and then got multiball, hit the monger a bunch of times. What's the names? Tell them the games. before I answer. Oh, Iron Man, Slick Chick, Lethal Weapon 3, and 8-Ball Champ. Okay, I remember you saying Lethal Weapon 3. Best banker I wanted to have. Yes. Iron Man, like I said, I won that. Okay, so you have three. Slick Chick is the one-player game. It's one of the older games that they have. I think it's even like a manual launch into the shooter lane, and it's a bullshit luck box fuck face. Basically, I lost because I drained incorrectly. Yes, the other players drained out the gobble hole, which is 100 points. I drained out the out hole. That was the margin of victory. Total luck box bullshit. I know someone will say, that's a skill thing. Like, I guess I should have been shooting at the gobble hole. That is my fault. Eight ball champ. I don't remember what I did. I don't remember. Lethal weapon three.
    30:10
    I just hit the first two balls, and then the third ball I played forever. Full lethal weapon three awesomeness. I still want this game. I found them a couple of them. I pretty much did everything you can do. It's awesome. Love it. Just killed it. Destroyed everyone on that game. So what did I get? Let's see. In that, I got a six. So you only won two and you lost two. Yeah, I guess so. Oh, wow. That's right. I took two zero. No, I didn't have zero. Maybe I was second in Iron Man. Okay. Whatever. That's why you need to make notes. Why do I need to make notes? What does it matter? because you sound more professional. That's true, and I can see how I made mistakes. Exactly, and work on those mistakes. Yeah, but then I'll just speed up myself later. I do it all the time. Okay. Round two for me, Royal Flush Deluxe, Attack from Mars, Poker Plus, and Jurassic Park. Royal Flush Deluxe walked up there, and it was a big old fat goose egg. I had two house balls right next to my notes. Attack from Mars, crushed, got $5.7 billion.
    31:17
    Poker Plus, first time playing this, and it's all about the skill shot, which we'll go into later on. Up on the top, there's three lanes. If you hit the left one or the right one, you start with 50,000 points, and every drop target you take down and then sweep along the side rails gets you more points. We'll get into this later on. It's more important later. In Jurassic Park, I came out with a 2. So that round, I came out also with a 6. So me and Ron are tied at 12 after two rounds. Next round, I got to play on the stage. I played Dialed In, Starpool, Black Belt, and Harlem Globetrotters. Okay, so you got a guaranteed nine out of this one. Yes, that's what I got. I got a nine. I don't know. Yep, Dialed In. I had a cool little sequence where I was in a mode. I hit the big bang, the target that lights big bang, and then it hit big bang, like instant session. Like, big bang, ready, big bang, hit, boom. Like, ah.
    32:19
    Then the third ball, I got through a shit ton of modes and kicked ass. And I'll tell you, this dialed in to not have the protector on the SIM card hole. And it's so nice and easy, isn't it? Oh, same thing at Pentastic. That's the way to go. But, I mean, it also had a massive amount of wear on it. But, man, it just plays so much better without that on there. You can literally aim and hit the freaking SIM card. So, manufacturers, here's what you need to do. Make the hole a little bigger, and then put the cliff in it so it'll be a regular-sized hole. Done. Or do the carry scare protector from underneath somehow that it fits in there. Please, somebody. Yeah, but I like the other way. Somebody, because it's a completely different game when it doesn't reject out of that hole. Because it's really not an overly hard shot when it doesn't have the protector on it. Starpool, some EM, I can't remember what I did.
    33:14
    Blackbelt, trying to remember. Yeah, I think I was last going into ball three, and I was able to keep it up top of those two upper flipper things through, like, the crazy ramps it has and was able to pull ahead of the other two players and get a second.
    33:31
    And of Harlan Globetrotters, I believe I won. I played that pretty good. Yep, so there's your nine. There's my nine. Next. I had a round three eight ball deluxe. Break shot. 300. And Twilight Zone.
    33:47
    So eight ball deluxe. Valley Bruce, right? Zero. Break shot. Zero. 300. I got a point. The only reason why I got a point? Somebody tilted through. Cool. Or not for them. It was cool for me because I got a point. TZ. the last player tilted big time. I should have only got one point. He tilted his bonus away, so I got two points. So my round was a big old fat whopping three, one of the worst scores I've ever gotten in Pemburg. Hmm. That tells you how my day was going. I was actually, I screwed up. What else is new? I know. I gave you my fourth round. Oh, hell. So what was your third? So my third round, I got a, what did I get the third round? Oh, I got two.
    34:40
    Isn't that great? What did you play? I played Godzilla, Hylo Ace, Whirlwind, and Xenon. Hylo Ace was one of those. Actually, I don't remember. Whirlwind.
    34:53
    Actually, I don't remember. Xenon, I could have got a third, but I tilted trying to save the ball. I'm going to right out lane. I tried a little Wicked Shimmy action, and when I looked up, it's like, ah, I should have let it drain, because I could have at least got third. I could have got a point.
    35:09
    Godzilla, I had absolutely nothing until the end. Yeah, I think Godzilla I got a two. Wow. So, yeah, I took zero. So you were both dead bad three rounds, round threes. Round threes, yeah. Then round four, I was on the stage and all the stuff I said before. Okay. Round four for me, Johnny Mnemonic, Spanish Eyes, Genesis, and Flight 2000. And I was actually standing next to Zach during this round and next to Tim Sexton. So we had a good BS session going on.
    35:41
    And Johnny Mnemonic, I got a two. Spadestripes, I had a two. Genesis, I got this. People just came back on me. I got a one. And Flight 2000, I had two house balls. And then when I started like, okay, I better do something better. I'm just going to go for the spinner. I hit the spinner once, came back to my left flipper, hit the post next to the left spinner, right down the middle. Done. Won. So I came out of there with a six in round four. All right, round five, I played X-Men, Miss O, Police Force, and Firepower.
    36:15
    Miss O, I got the wonderful one-player bullshit where I got to put a score up that I actually thought was decent and then watched the other three players all pass it. Like, barely pass it, too. That's always awesome. I love that. That's so fun. I got to play Firepower, where I think I hit the spinner once. So I think I got one point on that. Then I got to play X-Men, and I took a zero. So that's the last three times I played X-Men in a tournament I have lost. I've forgotten the zero. Police Force, which the entire game is you just hit the center ramp. Yes. I got third on that. So I got a whopping two points again. So round three and round five, I had two point rounds. Isn't that great? Oh, that's beautiful. That's beautiful. So I'm feeling really, really good at this point. So what did you end up as your final halfway round point total? Halfway round? My halfway round point total was 27 and 33. Under 500, baby. Yeah. Okay. So for Bruce here, he was up on the stage with a different bank than Ron. He had Iron Maiden, Hotline, Escape from Lost World, and Time Fantasy, the snail game. Iron Maiden, crushed, $250 million, got my name up. Hotline, which is one of those EMs, the single player, crushed it, got a three. Escape from Lost World, followed pin tips, crushed it, got two multi-balls, got a three. And then Time Fantasy, couldn't hit. I hit the outer loop a couple times. Those guys just kept on hitting it, hitting it, hitting it, hitting it. I got a one on that, so I came out of that with a 10 for a grand total at the end of the round. I had 31 and 29, so I was above 500 and in high C, high C. High C. Yep. And you were in low C, weren't you? Low C, yep. But you would have been in D if he wasn't restricted. Oh, really? That was that bad? That was a bummer. Not bad. That was that bad. My father ended up in D. Yes, he did. Notable people that we knew, Eric Russell ended in B. Zach ended in B. Tim Sexton, A. Andy Cushman, B. Jason Floyd, C. And Summer, who was with me, was in C also. J.T. Harrison, also in C. J.T. Harrison was actually early. Yes. That's incredible. Later on, we'll get to a different thing about that. Oh, really? Okay. Yes. All right. So that was the first day all the divisions are established. Okay. Now, hold on. Before the day even started, we're waiting for a roll call before 10 o'clock, you know, giving us a heads up and rules like that. And I look over, and there's Martin in the middle of the table section, just looking around, taking it all in. And, Ron, am I a little loud sometimes when I need to be? Yes, you are. I yelled out, Martin! And everyone looked at Martin and me, and he came over, saw me, and I looked at him, and he came up, and we hugged, and we had a great time, and I actually hung out with Martin probably like 10 hours this whole weekend. One of the nicest guys. I called him Ryan C. a lot. Doesn't he have great hair? He does. Doesn't he look just like Steve Ritchie? Yes, he does. He does not realize how much he looks like Steve Ritchie yet. And he looks pretty good for his old age. He's getting the Stern Tour today. He did get it. I saw the pictures. From a distance, I've been to so many shows, I've seen Steve. Steve always wears black, all black. He's fairly short. He's got really skinny legs. And Martin looked like, literally, from the back, it's like, it's Steve Ritchie.
    40:07
    It's Steve Ritchie. Play better, mate. Mate, okay. Play better, mate. I got to meet Rob Peck from Australia also, hang out with him and have dinner with him. Great guy. He is the master of the System 11, if I remember correctly. Oh, yes. That's true. Yes. Very nice guy. Him and his wife, very friendly, very good, nice people. Actually, everyone I met from other countries were incredible. He's the one, his daughter is like 16, but she's in college already. College, smarter than a whip, and she's a great pinball player. Yep. And, oh, yeah, she won. In-disc women. In-disc. Yep. Danielle, I think, is her name. Yes, it is.
    40:48
    So my session six, round six. Ron got his good night's sleep, right? He's ready to rock. He's in sea fighting for his life. Sure. I got a good night's sleep. I was on one cactus per seashell. Huh? Whatever. Demoman, Safari, Cactus Jax, and Barracora. I played the same bank later on, so let's see how we did against each other. Safari, I don't remember. I remember I played this in practice, and I kind of got where the skill shot was, and I don't remember what I did on it. Baracora, I got. I actually got the multi-ball.
    41:26
    I think I was second, maybe. I don't remember. I am bad at this. I would need to write this down. Demoman, this I remember distinctly because I played this particular Demoman probably as much as I played my own. This is the one that I've always played when it was at Papa. It's got the claw disabled sign on it. I've played this exact one so many times.
    41:49
    It plays like Demoman. It's awesome. Unfortunately, though, I get the first multi-ball. Then I get all the jackpots. I get the super.
    41:59
    Drain out. Second ball, trying to remember. I think I drain out quickly. The third ball, I hit the – it says the claw is disabled. But when you hit the ramp, it lights the lock, or it gives you a freeze. So I hit the right ramp. I get the freeze. Multi-ball is ready. The next deal, the one we all love, the multi-ball. Mm-hmm. I proceed to hit the multi-ball start shot three consecutive times, like perfectly, and it rejects all three times. Demo, man. And I drain out. The next two players get it right away. Get it first time. First, it goes right in. player three passes me, then player four passes everybody. Wow. So I went from like thinking, you know, I have this in the bag to I'm like third. Wow, that sucks. So then Cactus Jacks, I don't think I hit a single shot. Not a single one, another zero.
    42:58
    So what did I have for that round? I had a five. Okay, so remember that, folks, when I get to my round of the same games. So I must have had a one on Demoman. What the hell did I do? It must have been Barracora. I probably won Barracora and then got a one on the EM. So, all right, you're round six. I had Countdown, Monster Bash, Target Pool, and Game Show.
    43:21
    Countdown, I came away with a two. Monster Bash, I crushed. I had like $55 million, not even a blink. Target Pool, I unfortunately liked Target Pool, didn't like me, got a one. and I got game show and I got barely a one. I squeaked out a one. So my total was a seven.
    43:40
    And I actually with a seven went down in points. Like I was ranked like 24th in C. I went down to 48th with a seven. All right, next round. Round seven. I got to play Walking Dead, Cosmos, Banzai Run, and Super Sonic. So I'm psyched. I mean, Walking Dead, I like playing Walking Dead. I did good on it last year. Banzai Run I like. Super Sonic I love. I'm going to kill that, right? First game I played Super Sonic, take a zero. Couldn't hit a thing. That's kind of my whole pin book. Literally could not hit anything. Yeah, I had a lot of house balls. Oh, no, I don't mean house balls. I mean just no accuracy at all. Just horrible levels.
    44:26
    Then what did I do? I think I took first on Walking Dead. I took second on Banzai Run. and I think I won yeah I won Cosmos so I ended up with a 8 which was nice after getting a 0 on Superstock that might have been my best mental performance of the night you know the game I figured I'm going to kill and I take a 0 on it but then come back and not suck and I had the lead in Banzai Run until the end I think you saw that game he got past me he actually got the multiball. He got multiball. That's insane. I got it.
    45:06
    So, round seven was my best round of the night. I had Evil Knievel, World Poker Tour, Gator, and Big Guns. So, of course, I went to Zach and said, how do I play Big Guns? I know the rest. And he told me, just go keep the ball up top and keep on trying to hit trolls and do not lock something for multiball because they can steal it. Not steal it, but, you know, make it easier for them. So, Evil Knievel, he got a three. Crushed it with a spinner Spinner all day. They didn't know what to hit in the first ball or hit 300,000. Spinner.
    45:38
    World Poker Tour. Crushed it. Got about 45 million. Gator. Got a two. Missed out by like 200 points.
    45:49
    And then Big Guns. Got a three. So I got an 11 and one. First time ever in Pemburg. I got 11 and one. Nice. So felt pretty good.
    45:59
    So we go to session eight. Round eight. I got to play Attack from Mars. Oh, this sounds familiar because you played this earlier. Yes, I did. Attack from Mars, Poker Plus, Jurassic Park, and Royal Flush Deluxe. And what was your scores on those?
    46:18
    I don't remember. Oh, God. I really don't remember. I remember Jurassic Park saying, like, oh, smart missile is disabled. Oh, well. I remember not starting multi-ball. So I probably didn't do well there. Royal Flush Deluxe was the one that screwed me last year. It's a stupid one with all the targets and it's got the lanes in the back you want to hit it in. I probably did shitty at that, too. Poker Plus, I don't even remember. Attack from Mars. Oh, Attack from Mars. I was in first. That's right. On my third ball, I'd already gotten multi-ball. I'd gotten the supers. I was ahead. And I had one more. oh, I just started Martian multiball, where the Martians are doing their jiggling thing, and I had the right ramp lit for total annihilation. So literally I was about to start total annihilation. I would have been able to get Martian multiball because the Martians would have just got hit and would have just started and couldn't make the shot, drained, and the fourth player basically just went for saucers and somehow in a single ball blew up two saucers without draining.
    47:28
    Just kept shooting saucers. Did not go for anything else and passed me. So what was your total on that one? Total on that one was six. Okay, so we tied on that one. That wasn't one we tied on because I played that the day before. So your session eight was? Barracora, Demoman, Safari, and Cactus Jacks. Wait a minute. These sound familiar. They do.
    47:54
    Barracora, I got a one. just couldn't hit anything. Demoman, crushed, got a three. Got two multi-balls, got the... Safari, I got a two. Cactus Jacks, I barely squeaked out a one. I actually put luck, so I ended up with a seven in round eight.
    48:16
    Okay, now we're at nine. We're getting to the nitty-gritty here. Yes, you need more points than ever. At this point, I'm 46 and 50. I'm not even over 500. All I want to be at this point is, I just want to be over 500.
    48:27
    So we play a very long tour. Batman's Turn, Stratoflight. Yeah, exactly. Roadshow and Alien Star. We talked about this during lunch. Stratoflight is a terrible game. Oh, it's a box. It is a box where basically you want to get it in the saucer at the top. And in hope. If it comes out of the saucer, there's a pop bumper there, and you want to bump it back in. If it gets out of that area, you're not going to score anything unless somehow it just amazingly gets back up in that area. Total bullshit luck box crap. I basically, what did I have on that? I think I took a, might have been like a three or something.
    49:15
    Yeah, I think it was. I think it was like, yeah, it was like I got one point, a third on that, because I just did not get it in the saucer as much as the other players did. Of course. That's exactly what it is. Yeah, bullshit. That's just a shit game. I played that game twice before, and both times I got a zero. And the last year, I actually saw my picture of me yesterday, four house balls.
    49:41
    Then I played Alien Star, which I love Alien Star. Zach has an alien star. And we both agreed, it's like, if I can do the thing once or twice, I'm probably going to win. And I did the thing, which is I shat to the right end lane, lit spinner, crushed it, got like,
    50:01
    I'm trying to remember how much I had. You know, the score just goes up exponentially. It might have been like 500K or something, from nothing to 500K, and no one could catch it. Because no one could do the thing. Do the thing. So I won that. Then we go to Batman Stern. Batman. I'm Batman. Which I did good. This is the one round we talked about what to actually do on the games, and it's the one round I did probably best on. What does that say? Yikes. We prepped them. Yeah. We gave you good prep work. You prepped me, and I actually executed. Batman, I got the Scarecrow, stacked with the Joker, got a shitload of jackpots and crap.
    50:36
    Jackpots. Yeah, and all in one ball. Did nothing else and won. Roadshow. Okay, Roadshow. Well, I was told they should go for Miami. Now, the problem is to, like, switch to different tracks or different routes, you've got to hit stand-ups. Yes. Which are dangerous.
    50:56
    And I was told, you know, Miami, switch hits, then hit the spinner, then you'll win. And I'm like, you know, what about multi-ball? I was basically going for the multi-ball. I was hitting Tad. I got it up to Friday.
    51:10
    Friday! Quitting time. Yeah. Through all this, though, I ended up hitting one of our stand-ups that changed it to Miami, and then it fell in the start from behind. Nice. Yeah, and I just see, spring break, Miami! And I'm like, holy shit, there it is! Spinner!
    51:26
    I hit the spinner, like, I don't know, twice. I got, like, $100 million, like, on one mode. Then I ended up having multiball ready and missed Ted twice.
    51:37
    But I ended up winning that game. So I ended up with a 10. Nice. Mm-hmm. Above 500 for the first time. Yes. Yes, I was. Round nine for me is your favorite round of all, I would say, for games-wise.
    51:55
    Six Million Dollar Man, Tron, Dragon, and Space Station. Six Million Dollar Man? Yeah. I got a one. Tron, I got a zero.
    52:10
    So now, think about it. Halfway through round nine, I'm going, I'm fucked. Dragon. Come back, take the three. I had a killer third ball. I actually wrote myself 450K on ball four.
    52:24
    On ball three, sorry, ball three. Space Station got a two. So I came out of that with a six in round nine. All right, we go to round ten. The final round.
    52:39
    And I am on Monopoly, Captain Fantastic, Road Kings, and Paragon. Wow, you think she'll be crushing this one. Yeah, yeah, sure. Actually, I didn't do that bad for the terrible start. Paragon was Paragon. Brutal. Yeah, brutal. I think I got a one, one point, a third, one point, I think.
    53:08
    Let's see. monopoly, I couldn't see. Why couldn't you see? First controversy is they had issues with glare in the Pembroke area. And they decided to combat these issues. The solution was to turn the lights almost off. Way down. At 10 o'clock at night, 9 o'clock at night. Well, they did it Wednesday night and Thursday night.
    53:32
    So you probably had half the people who were happy and half the people who were really pissed. Pissed. I was on the really pissed, right? Because with the glare, you could move your head, and I'm pretty flexible up there. I can go directly over the game, or I can do the line of chiefs position, and either works, so I can kind of move it around, and it's okay.
    53:55
    When you turn the lights down I can see a fucking thing You got it especially on a Monopoly A Monopoly and it didn have LEDs or anything It just a very dim game because of all the shit on it I literally could not I had lost one ball because I thought it was like going towards the right flipper It was actually going towards the left flipper. That's how far off it was. I literally could do nothing. So the third ball, I got a cash grab, started. Oh, and the upper right flipper was fucked up. It was, like, way up.
    54:23
    Like, not in the alignment hole. Like, not even close. like it was almost pointing at the safe. I don't know how you would hit the side ramp. Maybe it was put that way on purpose. I don't know. So I start cash grab and cannot get control.
    54:36
    I manage not to panic. I hit one shot. And I'm like last. I got nothing going. It's like, fuck it. I just went for the center ramp continuously. So I figure eventually the lock will let. I'll get some points. And it's literally the only thing. I just got really low to the game, stared at the flipper, the only thing I could see, and just try to hit the center ramp continuously.
    54:58
    And I think I managed to eke a point out. Yeah, I got a point. So I managed not to get last. Full point. Only because I just kept hitting the center ramp. Then we played captain. Fantastic. After three balls, I'm last. Last two balls, I finally, like, realized how I'm supposed to play the game. Yeah, do not use the left flipper. Well, I'm not using the upper right flipper at all. I'm literally using it to drop catch into the other flippers. You got it. And just hitting orbits continuously and totally blew it up. I got 100K plus on it in two balls after doing nothing and won that. Then we played Road Kings, which, thank God, did not have LEDs in it. If it did, I would have been totally screwed. I wouldn't have been able to see anything.
    55:42
    We had a woman in our group. I can't remember her name. She killed it. She went way ahead of us, and I got second, barely. Like, they didn't catch up to me, the other two players. So I ended up getting a seven, which this is a mistake, folks. I just assumed I didn't make it and didn't even look, which someone said later, like, hey, Ron, you just missed out. What do you mean I just missed out? There's no way. I didn't feel I played anywhere near good enough to make anything. But you were just good enough to miss it. Yeah, I guess so. It turns out I had, yeah, 64 got you into the tiebreaker, the weird tiebreaker stuff they had. Yes, we'll talk about that next. And I had 63. It's like, shit. So two points extra. Anywhere you would have got two points, you would have been joining. Yeah, if I was teaming in a Monopoly game or if Paragon was a little nicer, I would have been in the playoffs. Like, damn it. And remember, folks, I started like, I was only there because of restrictions. So I was at the most bottom of sea you can be. But my father, in round nine, he goes 1-11. She did. Then in round 10, he goes 11-1.
    56:57
    He misses out. The final game was flash. He lost by like 182K to 181K. Yep. And he missed out by one point. If he had won that game, he would have got a medallion, and he would have been in D playoffs. Yep. But, no. No. So how did yours end, Bruce? My last four games, giving her up right now, was Joker Poker, Dirty Harry, Magic City, and Indy, the good one, Williams. Joker Poker, only got a one. Couldn't get anything going on it. First two balls were house balls, I actually wrote. Dirty Harry, squeaked out a two. I even wrote that, squeaked out a two. I think I won like, I had like 258 million while the guy behind me had 257. So I got that extra point. Magic City, I crushed. I read pen tips and went for, I actually hit the, there's a target, there's a thing that goes across. It says spells Magic City. And then when there's actually a light that goes above each letter. and when it was blinking on the thing, you're supposed to hit the middle target, which is a star, which makes everything light up like a Christmas tree. I lit it up on the first ball and I just crushed the game. So that was a good thing. Indy, I got a two. So I came out of that with a eight for my final round and qualified for C playoffs. Very good. I even got a bye. Yes, you did. I'm trying to remember what else I did the rest of the day after that. Went home? I think I just played more games. We hung out for a few minutes, and then we were waiting. And then they said, nope, there's no tiebreakers. It's all the playoff system. You'll see it in another hour. Have a good night. Yeah, there were no tiebreakers. There's no tiebreakers. They had a different system now this year where they went by your past four rounds beforehand, so there was no sandbagging. And the reason they did this is just they've had issues in the past getting people, like people not being there for tiebreakers. Yeah. So I made it in. I was the ninth top qualifier in the state.
    59:17
    I did not. Pretty much everybody in our little group made it in except me and Steph. State of New York really represented. Steph ended up in B division.
    59:31
    She finished one win ahead of me. Wow. Which is more impressive because it's in B. Yes, so you really sucked this year. Yeah. She finished ahead of 603 people out of 843. Nice job, Steph. We're not supposed to talk about Steph, though. Exactly. I'm sure she'll go into it more in detail on the Pinball Podcast.
    59:53
    So Saturday pretty much had nothing to do as far as playoffs, so I went straight to Karate Champ and played it like three times and just could not get it going. You suck now. I couldn't get it going. The usual moves weren't working.
    60:12
    It's not the one. I usually play the other one. They have two of them. They have one that has nice half joysticks on it. That's the one I usually play. But then they have the second one that has the original Data East joysticks on them, which was playing fine. I just couldn't do it for whatever reason. I guess I officially suck at that now. Do-do-do. Yeah. You really suck. You're really old. Then I played. They had eight rushes there, Bruce. Yes, and they were special editions. And they were linked. It was beautiful. It was a beautiful thing. Yes, it was. We played it on Saturday. Yes, we did. And I beat Moron once and he beat me once. It was awesome. It was. It was great. We didn't do our usual video game rounds this year. No, because I was a little busy. Yeah, you suck. So I made the playoffs for the first time in years. And you didn't get to play for a while, so I was over watching Zach. I was watching Zach, and I was watching Andy, and I was watching Eric, and I was actually helping out Jason and Summer, who are in C, with rules.
    61:26
    What's Summer's last name? We haven't said her name. I think it's Lee. Yeah, Summer Lee of Buffalo. Yes. Hello, Summer. Hi, Summer. I know once you finally got started, you were like, you're texting like, where's my support? I know. Where the fuck's my support? Where's my support? Where's everybody?
    61:44
    Like everyone else. Well, we'll do you last. Let's see what happened to Zach. Oh, my. What happened to Zach? I think he made it to the first round. He made it to the first round.
    61:56
    And he faced Andy Cushman in the second round. and unfortunately Eric Russell, CNY, did not make it past the first round in B. And I think Andy was eliminated and Zach had to play a playoff game.
    62:11
    Yeah, he had to play one game playoff and he'd get into the next round on Shaq. Yeah, Shaq attack. It did not go well. No, it did not. So he was eliminated. So Andy's gone, Eric's gone, Zach's gone.
    62:26
    So how about Jason and Summer? Summer, well, it was actually, here's the first we talked about JT before. At 925, if you have not checked in, please find these people. If you see them, please tell them to check in right away. And what did they say? JT Harrison. Also, he made the playoffs and was late. He almost missed it, but he did show up finally. So, in C, we had Joshua. What's his last name? Joshua from Middletown? Senzer? Yes, Josh Senzer. Yep. He was there. JT Harrison was here. I was in it. Jason was in it. And Summer was in it. JT, Summer, Joshua, all four had to play in that first round. And the only two people that played against each other was Summer and Jason. And, of course, I was helping out everyone. JT made it through. Joshua made it through. Jason made it through. But, unfortunately, Summer did not. She needed a good ball on the EM Poker Plus. As I said, we'll get back to that later on. And she didn't get a great game on it, unfortunately. She couldn't get the lane shot down up top. But she played really well. Round two, Aydin jumped in.
    63:41
    And I didn't play any of them. So all four of us were on different banks. And I got to play my first round, which I got to pick. So I had a choice of either Simpsons, Freakout, Dr. Dude, Space Shuttle so Dr. Dude I blew up first ball second ball I got a house ball third ball I get a house ball and I lose by 4,000 points so I was down 3-2 and the other guys were 1-0 game 2 we played Space Shuttle I went for Spinner all day of course that's the way you should play it another guy went for Multi Ball and crushed it and he got 1.1 I got 782,000. I have two points extra now, so I have four points.
    64:32
    The next guy has four points, and the third place guy has four points, so it's 4-4-4-0 going to game three. We go for Simpsons. Bruce, you love Simpsons. 32 million on Simpsons takes the win for seven. Then we play Freakout, the worst fucking game in history.
    64:54
    Wow, okay. I get a zero. and I almost lose on freakout with seven points. The way it worked out, somebody else stole a point, and I lost. So the finals were, in that round, 8-7-5-4.
    65:13
    Jason won with a 10. JT moved on to the next round with a 7. And Joshua moved on and won the round with a 7 also. He had a hard round. It was 7-6-6-5, and they had a playoff between Skyler and Mark Houser, and Mark Houser moved on.
    65:32
    Round three. So we played the middle bank of games, which was The Walking Dead, Volley, RoboCop, and Dracula. At that point, I'm asking Zach, okay? Stern Dracula. So, first game, Walking Dead. I get 8 million points, and I'm only at one point. I get third on that. It's like, ugh. That thing fed out of the pop bumper is terrible right down the middle. I actually tilted. First ball I tilted all time during this whole tournament was on Walking Dead. So I'm like, oh, boy, I need a really good game. So we go up and play Volley. I get 29,000 on Volley, which is really hard to even do because guess what? if you actually hit the in lanes and you hit five targets at the same color, you're going to have already 20,000 points.
    66:26
    I won with 29,000. Nobody can hit the in lanes. So RoboCop, I go up and I get a two. Really close game. I squeaked out a point, 1.6 million and 55,000 to 1.628,000. And then game four, I got one point on Dracula and squeaked out and took a 7-7-6-4. and moved on. Joshua Senzer also moved on with a seven in the next round. And Jason, unfortunately, had a tiebreaker. They had a three-way tiebreaker. It was 7-7-7, and they played, oh, no, it was Space Shuttle, and he didn't get it, unfortunately.
    67:07
    No, it was actually The Walking Dead, and he didn't do well in that. It was The Walking Dead. So that was the tiebreaker for round three. So now everyone's starting to talk about money, and I'm like not listening to him. I'm like, shut up, people. I don't want to know about money. I just want to keep on playing.
    67:21
    Next round, I get to play. That's the middle bank again. The Walking Dead, I did a little bit better this time. I got $35 million. I was getting used to the feed and got a second.
    67:33
    Volley, I did better. I got $58,000. Got three points for that. Robocop, worst game I had on it, was $1.3 million. I got a one point. And then Dracula, I got three points with 153,000. I already made it before we even played Dracula, and so did Ed there, the guy who was with me. And we moved, I think that was Ed, or no, it wasn't. It was Adam. We moved into the final round. I took it 9-8. Joshua, unfortunately, got beaten in that last round. He only took a two.
    68:05
    So we had our final round coming up. I was in the top four. Everyone starts coming over now. Mm-hmm. Yep. and let's break down this last round. First game, Spider-Man. Lightning flippers. I'm used to it because I have lightning flippers. First ball, I bumped out to like a 27 million lead.
    68:25
    Like, okay, I'm feeling pretty good. By the third ball, they all came back on me and passed me and I came over one point. I got 40 million. They had 56 and 54 million. Got one point.
    68:39
    So, Ron, remember what I was listening to the whole time? What was I listening to the whole time? You were listening to me, Bruce, your favorite KISS member, Gene Simmons. And what song was I listening to? Well, you were listening to Asshole, my platinum-selling out, well, maybe not, but my excellent, no, my incredible album, my solo effort. So thank you, Gene, for your support and motivating me to go through it. Yes, yes, I was expecting the residuals, Bruce. Yeah, exactly. So the second game I played Poker Plus, and my Poker Plus first three balls, what did I get? I had like 150,000, Ron? I don't remember. I had 150,000. Ball four, I blew it up and got up to 650.
    69:23
    That was my yeah, fuck yeah moment. I got six points. We're up to four points there, so it was four, two, two, and Brian had four. So it was four, four, two, two. Third game, Grand Lizard. I came away with two points. Just got beaten out. So now I'm in the driver's seat. Six, five, five, two. So I'm guaranteed third automatically. I want the golden ring.
    69:51
    So you would think Bruce would be in the cat's seat with Bally's. Bally's Frontier. So wait a sec. I look back on all my scores and all my games I played on Bally's.
    70:04
    You know how many points I got on all my... I played four Valley games the whole weekend in playoffs and in finals.
    70:12
    Guess how many points I got out of those four games? Two. One. Oh. Six million dollar man. Uh-huh. The rest, I all got zeros. And I got a zero again.
    70:25
    Eric took the win. He took the championship. He was the C finalist. So then I had a tiebreaker for second. He was the C finalist. He was the C champion. C finalist. The C champion.
    70:39
    Okay. A finalist would be all four of you were finalists. I didn't feel like it. I didn't feel like I was finalist after that. So we had to go play Freak Out. Oh, that's the game you love. Yeah. I did better this time, but I got beaten. He had the zipper flippers working. I couldn't get it ever to zip. And I lost 2,900 to 4,000.
    71:01
    He was second. I was third. Got a nice little medallion. And that was the good, the bad, and the ugly of the Pinberg championships. Hmm. So you were not successful in becoming a seaman? Nope, I was not successful. But I feel like I actually beat Ron in some ways. Okay, how did you beat me? Because I was hoping that you would win so then we'd be both C Division champions. Because then we could say we're the seaman. Yes, but then I would say I actually went through more rounds than you did. Yep, yeah, you did. He only had three rounds to make semen Mm-hmm I was going through round four at the time I was starting to run out of gas at the end I will say that That frontier I knew was going to be hard So you need to be in better shape Is that what you're saying? No, I was just exhausted Oh, okay Okay Just really tired So by this time It's always seven o'clock Yeah And the finals are going on on the stage Yep And by this time I think I'm walking around with Zach and Steph and we're playing different stuff. No, you're not. You went down and got the speaker system with me. Oh, yeah, that's right. Oh, yeah, I was over there watching you. Yeah. Oh, no, this actually, okay, this happened right before I came over to watch you in the finals. Okay. I'm walking with Zach and Steph, and Bowen comes over, and he asks Steph a question.
    72:33
    Oh, yes. I'm not going to say what the question is. I once again will leave that for the Riptide Pinball Podcast. I almost sound like I'm Gene Simmons, you know. Go to kissonline.com. But I would prefer she tell the story.
    72:47
    So after you're done, yes, you're eliminated, we watched some. Did we watch some of the finals? What did we do? I know Martin was right there watching them. Yeah, we watched them.
    72:57
    I think we played Rush. Yes, we did. and then you went to get your costume. Yep. I was looking hot. Yes, folks. He actually went. He had the boom box. He had the full 70s costume,
    73:13
    just like we've been discussing for the Trash Talker Invitational, and it was that wig doesn't really cover your head. Oh, I have too big of a melon head. Yeah, you look like Elvis with a severely receded hairline. So we They had a table set up It was actually in the Pinberg Well what was the Pinberg Banks area With the Chuck was setting everything up He had the trash can And we all assembled Eventually All the different teams Which I can't remember how many There was so many teams there You had us You had head to head You had the Buffalo Guys. You had the Riptide Pinball Podcast. You had the This Woodman Podcast.
    74:05
    You had the Pinball Profile with all his ringers. You had the Pinball Players Podcast. There's other ones I'm forgetting. Yep.
    74:17
    Well, help me then. I can't. Why can't you? I don't know, Maul. Oh, Jesus. Fail. So why don't you go over, what was the format? How were they doing this? Match play. Each person from each group would pick one game. The score would be 5-3-2-1. Top four teams moved on. The ringers played in the first round, so their points counted. In the second round, only the podcasters could play each other.
    74:47
    And then the four teams that won was Buffalo, that flipping podcast, Head to Head and... The Pinball Players Podcast. Yep, yep. The Power of New England. The Power of New England compels them. And the winner of the whole Kitten Caboodle was Martin. And he got to donate his... Everyone kicked in money. Yep. For charity. It was like $830. It went to a great cause, and hopefully some people realize that, that it went to a great cause and we were doing something good. I don't think some people did.
    75:27
    They actually donated a set of Penn Stadium lights to Project Pinball, and they'll be auctioning those off for the money. That'll be another good thing. So we did good, people. Yep, we did good.
    75:43
    I did what I said I was going to do because I'm the introvert here. So I became Triumph the Insult Dog. Yep. And you had a great time.
    75:53
    My first group, I had Greg Pepperoni slash Pavarelli, Snow Galvin. I think I got that right. And Tommy Skinner from the... Qualified A and was in the top 40. He played really well. So my comments were things like Greg was checking his phone right before he started. so I remarked on how he's checking he was texting Josh Sharp to ask why Whoppers weren't being awarded for the TTI so I thought that was funny when Snow was up I asked for a drug test because you know Colorado and then Tommy he's a pro wrestling fan which you are too so I know what kind of things would annoy a pro wrestling fan Tommy is a pro wrestling fan you do know it's not real, right, Tom? You know, stuff like that would piss the person off. You're laughing their asses off. I have to say, I was quite entertaining. I never pat myself on the back, but I must say, I was pretty good. I had some good ones. I was telling Tommy, you know, this flipping podcast, the shortest podcast around. No, just kidding. They're the longest podcast. They feel no need to edit, which at that point he said, that's Taylor, that's not me. It's like, oh, my God, he's throwing his own podcast partner under the bus. I had fun in the one round before I got eliminated. I had fun with Martin and Jeff. It was really good. Really good. Yeah. So that was the end of that. And let's go. What else we got here? Oh, the hug thing.
    77:32
    You made the little comment telling everyone to hug me. And to kiss you like they do in France. Yeah, I had like three hugs and one kiss. Did they ask to hug you beforehand?
    77:42
    Not really. Oh, wow. Luckily, I gave him permission, so it doesn't matter anyway. Yeah. Okay, Bruce. Did you feel uncomfortable about it? Actually, yes. I don't like people always hugging me, but you know that, so you made him do that because you're that kind of person.
    77:59
    Again, nobody hugged me, so it's perfect. The first person to hug me was actually, I'm just going to say M. Henning. Me-he. Yeah, no, I think it's like me-he. because he – I never say his name right. Yeah. And then he came in one time and said it. Yeah, and then he said it again like, you know, I should tell you how to say my name. It's like, oh, God. But he played in C. He was actually in C finals all of them. Also played pretty good. Yep. But, yeah, he came in and gave me – Yeah, and I had several people, you know, recognize the voice. Like, hey, you know, let's listen to the show. Someone recognized Zach's voice. No. Oh. We're standing outside of the grill that I can't remember the name of. Oh, Harris Grill. Harris. That's what it was. Yes, that's what it is. Harris Grill. So we're standing out front.
    78:49
    And either they recognize his voice or they just ask, like, you know, is this Zach? It's like, yes, this is Zach. It's like, Zach, you're famous now. Well, every time I was actually next to somebody who's been on the show and they were talking about the show, people would come up to me. I go, oh, there's Eric Russell. And there's Jason Flohr. They've both been on the show. And there's world famous Zach. and they would just go, because I was like, I'm throwing them underneath the bus. I don't, you know, I always get this. Let them get it for once or twice. But it was very nice having everyone come up and say hi to us and say they love the show. It's, it actually, like one person was talking to somebody and I'm running for the bathroom during C finals. I think it was in round four. And the guy's like, hey, I know you, you're Bruce. I'm like, I'm sorry, but I got to go to the bathroom. I'm going running real fast. And when I ran back to try to get back there, I was going to apologize, saying I'm sorry. And he was already gone. So I want to say right now, I heard you. I really acknowledge you, and I thank you for listening to the show. But I really had to go to the bathroom. I had to go so bad. So after that was over, well, we didn't even mention the actual finals. You had the final four. Keith Elwin. Yes. You had Jim Belsito. Yes. You had Andre Massingoff. Yes, yes. And you had Chris Stevens. Yes. I would say Chris Stevens was definitely the local favorite. Yes, he was. He was from the area. I always root for Jim Belsito. I do, too. Especially what happened with his mom a couple months ago, you know, passing away. I thought it was maybe like, you know, Divine Intervention was going to do it for him. And I was actually rooting for Andre also because he was one of my people in my fantasy league. Yeah, there was a fantasy league that was run by Tim Sexton to pick the winner.
    80:38
    I think my father finished, like, third? He did. Yeah. Good job, Dad. You know how to pick them better than I do. If you do this again, I'm just going to let you pick twice. Pick for me and pick for yourself. So it ended up it came down to oh it was the exact same total as in your round It was 6 Yep With I think Belcido at 6 Elwin at 5 I think Andre at 5 and Chris at 2 Yep And the last game was on Harlem Globetrotters which the one rolled Yep. He rolled it in the final game and ended up winning the championship. Belcedo, I think, finished second.
    81:21
    So he is your Pinnberg champion for the fourth time, I believe. The one? The one. They were calling him the GOAT, the greatest of all time. Yep. This year, the coverage they used, they used like a track in the back of the stage this time, so they could just roll. No, it wasn't a track. It was actually a quiz. It wasn't a track. It was on wheels. But, I mean, they were using two different units and just rolling them back and forth. And they tried something that I like where they actually had, they must have put a mic near the game. so if you were listening to the stream you could actually hear the harlem globetrotters game sounds which you normally can't hear normally you can only like hear the flippers yeah and things like that but they had the sound cranked up the only i think residual issue with that is you could also hear because it's a crowded convention hall so you get that like droning like almost like it's the ocean type sound and it bled through like you could hear it through the whole broadcast. Mm-hmm. So I don't know how you do anything for that. Get rid of that. I don't really know how you do anything for that. Well, you can probably get maybe like a cone around the microphone and point it towards the game. Yeah, maybe. And they had, they used a separate camera for like the score displays where they had the guy actually moving it, and then he'd focus on each individual score. And then they'd have the scores of everyone like up on the display. and it was called Pinberg presented by eBay. Mm-hmm. And it did have some ground rules for the announcers. You want to hear what they were? I heard a couple of them, but go ahead and tell everyone. Some of them were common sense, like, you know, don't swear, don't, you know, like, holy fucking shit, yeah, I hit that shot. You know, don't do anything like that. You know, keep it professional. Anytime you mention Pinberg, you have to say Pinberg presented by eBay. We weren't asked, I see. Well, no, we weren't asked. Thank God. Yeah. Because I was too busy. Actually, they did point to me and ask, do you want to, I'm like, I'm in the finals. And they said, okay. And they waved. That was it. I was like, I don't want to. Wait a minute. So they waved at you, but not at me. Yeah, of course. What kind of message does that send? I am the respectable one, and they want you on. Because I'm the funny one, the comical one, and the one that actually knows rules. Oh, that's true. I would have known Harlem.
    83:37
    Because I own it. Yay. Okay. What happens when you get the Guardians? I would have known that a little more. I want to know a little more. Okay. Then, what was I saying? Oh, yeah, the final rule was one of the games was TNA, which is what we usually call it. Yes. But they told them not to call it that. Call it total nuclear annihilation. Yeah. Which I can see because, let's face it, if you never watched Finval and it came on, it's like, we're now going to go to TNA. You'd be like, what? You'd be like, is this like boxing or ring girls? They're going to have, like, parading around before, you know, I can totally. Helen McAlpine was like, and we're going to T.A. Total Nucleotide violation.
    84:20
    What do you think about it? It makes sense even for other games. If you said, like, we're going to go to AFM. What the hell is AFM? What does that mean? They made a game called AFM. What a terrible name. I know.
    84:30
    It was good seeing a lot of the good players. You know, and the good thing about Pimberg is most, almost every good player is very open, very easy to talk to. So they'll come up to you, hey, how you doing? I got to meet Robert Byers for the first time because I missed him at New York City. Yeah, he's a crock shop himself. Talked to Eric Stone a lot during this weekend. Keith I talked a couple times to. Lyman a lot. Josh and Zach both. One time I asked for rules help. Timmy, of course.
    85:03
    Steve Bowden, of course. Jim Valsito. Asked him to come on. so hopefully we'll have him on in a couple weeks. We'll talk about his experience. Tim made A-Finals. I forgot the name. Yes, he did. Top 40. He was the 40th. He's improved every year. So that means next year he'll maybe get past the first round. He'll get to the second round. He's winning it. Yeah, and by the, like, fourth or fifth year he'll win it.
    85:28
    He'll get a little better every year. He's going for it. Oh, you're predicting he's just winning it all next year? You got it. Okay. So you heard it here, folks. Tim Saxton, the 2019 Pinbird Champion. Yep. We're predicting it. Yep. Maybe he'll come on then. Maybe. He needs to get permission. Yeah. So what else do we have here? I drove home after TTI. Yep. And I stuck around to 2 in the morning playing various games.
    85:57
    We have another suggestion or request, another Scott request. We should call that a new segment. Oh, no. What? I actually like this. Well, we had two requests. Or should I say Zach and Steph had two requests? Or maybe Zach. They might have agreed on it. I don't remember. But the loop value, maybe make it worth more. Because it's really not worth a lot to go around that loop. That was the first thing. That seems like a simple enough thing. The second one that I thought would be really cool, bonus collect.
    86:31
    There is no bonus collect. Once you max your bonus on C, which you basically just keep hitting targets, there's no way to collect it until you drain.
    86:39
    So we thought a cool bonus collect would be that star rollover that's underneath the upper flipper. No, not on the top. Like Spider-Man style. Lift the flipper up and you hit it. That way you could collect the bonus as the ball's in his shoe lane. You could get to hear it and all that. Wouldn't that be pretty cool? That was the suggestion. I don't know if Scott could do anything like that. But that would be pretty cool. So that was ReplayFX, because after 2 o'clock I left. Well, that wasn't all of ReplayFX. I left on Sunday morning. I think Zach left too. Steph stayed around because she was involved with the WIPT, which is the women's tournament. Yep. But she can go into her experience with that. The Intergalactic tournament, which was the other one going on, which I did play in. I got four of my ten entries in, enough to actually, you know, have four entries. so you needed four games to qualify and that's all I did I was burned out dude I played terrible I really did not feel like playing anymore I mean I haven't played a game of pinball since I left there I played because I had to fix stuff so the winner of the intergalactic was Jack Tadman very nice Jack congratulations he's on fire he's the state champion and now he's the intergalactic champion and the winner of the women's tournament who won an Iron Maiden LE signed by Keith Elwin. Yep. Nicole Bernier. I hope I'm saying that right. I know her as Nicole because she comes to Stomp, and she's had a lot of the same tournaments, but I always just know her as Nicole. I don't know how to pronounce her last name, so I probably totally butchered that. I'm sorry. But she won. Congratulations. She gets an Iron Maiden LE. Yes, congratulations. and she's, maybe we can get her on. Because then we get some class in the show, right? Get class. We should do that. Because, I mean, how many women have we had on the show other than Steph?
    88:42
    Exactly. We had Crystal. No, Crystal. Thank you. Yeah. Crystal and Steph. This is too much of a sausage fest here, you know. Oh, my. It really is. Especially with you, the masculine Bruce. Yeah, that's got to be it. Oh, my.
    88:59
    Just kudos to everyone on the ReplayFX crew. They did a great job. All right, so we're going to do the mail ball bag now. But before I start it, I have an apology to Zach, because Zach called me out. Zach doesn't like it when you misquote him. The story I said last week of how, like, he didn't want cake, so he wanted ice cream. So Steph went out and got ice cream for him. that was not presented in the proper way. It was more like, I would prefer ice cream over cake, and I would pay for the ice cream. So Steph got the ice cream because Zach's car was blocked in. Ah, now we've gotten more into the real story. Yeah, yeah. The more you know. Yeah, the more you know. So he had to correct me. I said, okay, okay. Sorry, Zach. So going into the mail ball bag, The first email we have is a request for Bruce's old bat class. However, that won't happen because...
    90:00
    I've already sold it. He's already sold it. It's actually to Scott. Oh, he sold it. Okay, there you go. That's right. I've got to keep the big guy happy. You've got to keep the big guy happy. So, sorry, it is not available.
    90:13
    So, then we have Mihi Henning, or M. Henning. The man who kissed you at the replay. Yeah, yeah. I'll never get this right, but I'll never get his name right. He says, Hi, Ron and Bruce. I really enjoy your podcast. Thanks, guys. Also, my congratulations on your 100th episode. I have listened to every single one of them. Unfortunately, during my recent health check, my doctor asked me, What's with your toenails? I told them about the podcast and that every time I hear another Bruce-ism, my toenails curl up a little bit more. He said, Well, you may have to make some hard choices in the interest of your future well-being. You've already done a couple of Bruce-isms this episode. So his toenails must be even more curled. What a clusterfuck. I'm currently evaluating whether continuing to listen is worth going to an early grave due to excessive Bruce-ism-induced cringing. Of course it's worth it. I've not fully made up my mind yet, though, so there's still hope that you won't lose 5% of your listenership in one fell swoop.
    91:10
    Is he saying we have very low listenership, Bruce? I guess so. I know what our listenership is. Yeah, I gave him the keys to the kingdom. He can look at the stats now and stop bugging me. Regardless, I look forward to meeting you at Pinnberg, Ron. If some 60-ish looking overweight guy with almost no white hair approaches you and kisses you on the cheek, that's me. He did. Bruce said on the podcast that doing this is okay. Oh, my. I love it. The next one is, I think we discussed this before. Carl DeAngelo said some more stuff about the HB Max setup. He was great. I talked to him. Yep. Hi, Carl. I talked to him more about some equipment, some equipment choices.
    91:50
    Okay, we have this from Jeff Patterson of This Week in Pinball. Hey, guys, great interview with Lyman. I always appreciate when you provide some awesome content for This Week in Pinball, and that interview was full of good stuff. Congrats on 100 episodes. Jeff from This Week in Pinball. Thanks, Jeff. High praise from the man who gives us all of our news. We gave him some back, finally.
    92:10
    All right, this next one's from E.T. Oop-a-oop-a-oop-a-oop-a-oop-a. Eric Thompson. He asks us, hey, guys, love the podcast. I've been in the hobby for a while, but I'm still confused about two things. All right. What exactly is the meaning of a fan layout? Any Steve Ritchie game. Imagine putting your fingers out like a wide stance, and you see it's like a fan. That's almost like your shots on a pinball machine.
    92:37
    Just think of Game of Thrones, how all the shots come out from the center. AFM or Medieval Madness, they have a fan layout. Yeah, that's called a fan layout. As opposed to something like Alien. Walking Dead. Or walking, you know, anti-fan layout.
    92:55
    What the hell is a shats? And please use it in a sentence. Okay. I shat myself last night. No, no, no, shats, not shats. I shats myself last night after eating the chili. So, basically, the move is it's an alley pass.
    93:15
    It's called an alley pass. It's when the ball comes to the very tip of your flipper and you do a full flip into the other flippers, the other sides in lane. Hopefully, if you do it right. If you're too late, it could just go down the middle. If you do it too early, it could end up in a swing shot or something. People have taken to calling this shatting. From Neil Shatz. From Neil Shatz, who used to do this. Used to be on Journey? No. Oh, sorry. Whatever.
    93:43
    So he was one of the top players, I believe, in the Bay Area, in the California area. He's also the default high score, I believe, in Iron Maiden and ES for his initials. And he used this particular flipper skill a lot. So he became known for it, and it just started. It's kind of like that X game stuff when someone kind of invents a move and it becomes named after him. I mean, he didn't invent it, but he did it so much it just became associated with him. So it's used like learn to shat or shatzing the in lane. Yes, it is. Like I'm shatzing the in lane.
    94:23
    Finally, Bruce, I've been to Silver Ball Saloon about five times. I love it. The food is great. Looking forward to playing my first tournament there someday soon. Thanks, guys, and have a great day. There's one coming up Friday. Thank you, Eric. So when this comes out Thursday, you'll have one day. Yeah. Hopefully he listens fast. I have an email from Scott Larson. He says we should send these to Keith Elwin. They are Golden Girls action figures. Mmm. Yeah. They're such a thing as Golden Girls action figures. Nice. Isn't that cool? Yeah, I'm looking at them right now. And you already just said, didn't you? They're pretty authentic.
    95:02
    Man, Bea Arthur is huge. She could beat the shit out of the other three, man. Wow. I think she did. Yes, she probably did. Keep them in line. So, final email.
    95:13
    Oh, sorry. No, this is the one. Don't read on the air. So, I guess we're done with the mail ball bag. Oh.
    95:21
    That was pretty weak. I'm done. You're done. Yeah, he's tired. He's tired. He's worn out. We're all worn out from replay effects. One more thing. They finally posted the Pin Mania tournament on IPA. And you'll be happy to know I am now sixth in Maine. Yikes. Isn't that great? Yikes. I'll probably, if I make a state final, it'll be in Maine. It'll be like some ridiculous drive. Yikes, yikes, yikes. I'll probably pass on that, but we'll see. Mm-hmm. Because I'm probably, I just haven't played. In the tournaments I have played in New York, I've sucked, and I haven't played in that many. So it's not looking good for either the upstate or the regular New York finals this year for me. No, not for me either. So what are you going to do? Oh, well.
    96:12
    So back to our normal spiel, I'd like to say thanks to all the other podcasts out there. I keep debating whether we keep naming them all the time. There's so many of them. There's lots of pinball podcasts out there. Give them a try. Many of them are awesome. We love you all. I had a great time hanging out with Martin, definitely, and Jeff. Both of them were great friends, great buddies. It was good to hang out with them. And I got to meet one of Jeff's poor sons. He doesn't have his red hair, so he's good. Oh, Jesus. And we got to meet Mrs. Penn and Dr. Penn. Yes, I've met them before. And Dr. Penn does have his red hair. Yes, he does. Oh, I have to mention this because I'm sure she's going to mention this. Mrs. Penn beat our ringer. Twice.
    97:03
    She beat Steve Bowden on Algar. She got four center shots in a row. Encounter four. See? So there you go. Congratulations to Mrs. Payne. Hell yeah. Yeah, hell yeah. We got eliminated. But congratulations to Head to Head. Yes. Who were their ringers? Australian and that guy Carl. I think he does some show. Oh, Carl Angelo. That's why he was there. That's exactly why he was there. Damn, I was like, whose ringer is he? Like, oh, okay. I told him he needed to do some announcing. I would love to hear that. He is the voice of God. He is. He's literally, they should just have him, like, he voices over everyone. Whenever anyone makes a mistake, he just comes in, that is incorrect. This is actually the rule for the game.
    97:53
    Thanks to all our friends of the show, we have Joe Newhart of Pinball Star. And he's the distributor for way too many things now. I'm starting to lose track. Yeah, he just has a lot of pinball. Everyone but Stern. Basically, anyone but Stern, including Home Pin and that new company, the Mafia, made the Mafia game. It's Joe Newhart. Then for Stern and your speaker, pinball speaker needs, go to Flipper Fidelity. That's Mike Pupo. This has been episode 101, Captain America with the Winter Soldier. Yes. Did I get that right? Yes. Thanks, everyone. This is 101, starting the new batch of 100 episodes. We got our guests ready for 150, and I know we have a guest for next week already lined up. Woo-hoo! And the week after, I'm going to try for somebody else, so we'll have some good guests coming up. Mm-hmm. Any tech talk other than you fix some stuff? We really didn't have time to do much tech stuff, so. I did. Oh, you did? I came back to repairs. Repairs? All right. What did you repair? We'll do it quick. Stars. My wife calls me up Saturday night. I have no displays on Stars. Mm. So I'm like, okay, this ain't going to be good. So I get to the bar thinking it's going to be either a fuse on the bottom on the power, sorry, on the top in the power rectifier board, or the fuse that's on the power driver board. I get there, and I flip on the switch. The displays are on. There's no digits. They're lit. They have the power light underneath. You see the little glow?
    99:29
    Okay, let's open the back box up, turn it back on. Remember how we were looking at the CPU board? Yes. And like, oh, wow, look, you know, it's original CPU board or something like that. I turn it on, stuck on solid. I'm going to need a freaking driver and a new CPU board.
    99:47
    Knowing that I have a driver board downstairs, I'm like, but my voltmeter's at home with Frankenshita. So I'm like, oh, let's go grab the CPU board and I'll have everything here. It was a driver board. Yeah. 2.1 volts and 5 volts. So I put the new driver board in out of Cheetah, booted right up, not an issue.
    100:10
    In other words, it worked. Yes, it worked. I have lights and everything. And then I come back, and yesterday I put the two games on free play. One was Spider-Man, and one was ACDC. So about two hours later, my buddy Jeff goes, oh, by the way, the right flipper stuck on.
    100:32
    Like, oh, shit. On which one? Spider-Man. Okay. I'm like, oh, no, I don't need the board blowing up. Don't need the board blowing up. Let's go up there and run up there. Luckily, he turned it off, but it was still stuck up in the up position. So I'm like, what the hell happened here? So I go and try to move the flipper. It's frozen solid. I'm like, huh? The power's off, so it's mechanical. So I take the two bolts off for the coil stop, pull the coil stop out, slide the coil out, and it's pulling, like, really, it's actually pulling the flipper while I'm pulling the coil. The link and the shaft. Suddenly, it actually made a popping sound.
    101:10
    I'm like, what the hell? So I had an extra link there next to me, and I had a coil sleeve. And I can't fit the shaft into the coil. The coil must have heated or popped. The plunger. The plunger, I mean, yeah. You just wanted to say shaft. I didn't want to say shaft. Shaft. Can you dig it? And so it actually, something in the coil must have broke, like the plastic that the coil sleeve goes into.
    101:42
    Because when I finally get the coil sleeve out, you can actually see a bulge in the inside inner part of the coil.
    101:48
    So I replaced the coil today. I had one spare. Cut the two diodes. Luckily, Todd had a couple extras from one of my buddies. He was going to bring one over. By the time he got over there, it was already working, up and running, doing its thing. So why do you have to cut the diodes? Because on this machine it did not need diodes, but I had a coil that had diodes on it. Ah. And you should never use a machine when it says no diodes. You should not use a diode. And if it needs diodes, you should put them in and in the right direction. Good tip. Yes. And then I emptied out the machines today and did a lot of the work around the bar. And before we go, do you know what's coming up, Bruce? My birthday. Happy birthday, Bruce. It's coming up in, what, 10 days? The big 5-0, man. Yep. Yep, I'm finally catching up to you. Ooh.
    102:42
    Very good. See, that's what trash talkers should be like. Yeah. You got me there. Well, we have, actually, this weekend, nothing. Next weekend after that, I have the Saratoga show. Yep. Which I'll be bringing a game to, which I hear Mrs. Penn is coming to. Oh, wow. Maybe she should check out Level Zero. Yeah, maybe she should. I think she would never leave. Then, let's see, then two weeks after that is August 25th is our event, Stomp 2, Pinball Boogaloo. Yep. The spots are now being sold for $20 apiece. If you go to our Facebook page, the information is on top, And we already have eight people signed up out of the 36 max. Mm-hmm. So if you're thinking about getting in, jump in soon. A-S-A-P. So you are going to be putting an event page up? Yes, tomorrow. For instance, it's so late tonight. I'm going to do it tomorrow morning after I wake up, probably like at 2 o'clock in the afternoon.
    103:46
    So stop to Electric Boogaloo. Again, we're going to have three stars there. It's going to be amazing. Mm-hmm. I'm not playing in it. I will be running probably mostly the cameras, the rig or whatever. Rigs. Yeah, rigs. Rigs. I'm doing my part. I'm bringing out my game. Yep. Zach said he will be to bring over his camera.
    104:10
    I'm thinking for Saratoga, I can get him to bring over his rig so I can test to make sure it will work. Now, I have a question for you. Yes, sir. I was offered something when we were at Pemburg. Was it by some of the people outside? You know, the shady ones? Yes, yes, yes, yes They say, hey, you want a stars? You want another stars? I have a chance to bring a fourth stars Oh, where are we putting it? I don't know, figure something out No, we can start with the figure something Okay, yeah We'll put them in the living room Actually, that would work You could put it in the living room Yep We could put all three upstairs No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no No. Nope. The two are going to go where the couch is. The couch will move somewhere else. We need the couch in case certain people stay over. No, we leave yours downstairs for the match play. Then we leave the head-to-head upstairs.
    105:10
    No, there's no room for that upstairs. No. Upstairs? You just said there was plenty of room upstairs. No, there's room upstairs for one machine. That's where I usually put the for sale machine. We've got plenty of room. We just move the couch out of the way. Slide them over. Good to go. Nope. Not doing that. Especially when, if we have that many people, I want more seating up in that area. Nope. Not doing it. You're just an old fart. I'm not an old fart. I'm thinking practically here. I have no problem with you putting a game up there. So you don't want four stars. You only want three stars. We could have had the most stars ever since the production floor. Four stars is fine, Bruce. But what we could do, I mean, we could leave my stars where it is. We could put Scott's stars right on the first floor.
    105:59
    So people could play that, and that would be... Practice one? It could be the tournament. It doesn't matter. It'll work either way. Stars one and stars two? Stars one and stars two. And then we'll have, like, the two. If you're going to bring two, they'll be the head-to-head. There you go. I've got to see if I can get him to bring it. He offered it up. Okay. Mr. Ryan. All right. I don't know how it plays or anything either. Oh, that we don't know how it plays? I've never seen it. All right. Well, when are you coming up?
    106:28
    I'm thinking possibly that morning of. Oh, that's not good. We really need this stuff there earlier. No. In case we have issues. We're not going to have issues. We never have issues. Yeah, bullshit. You're talking to Bruce here. There's no way. You're killing me, man. You're killing me. I have to work at the bar. What up with this great banter? I'm sure everyone loves to hear about. We're still talking about pinball, so we're not breaking the rules. We're not breaking the rules. Hi, Christopher. Whatever.
    106:52
    So, yeah, stop two. It's going to be great. It's going to be exciting. $20. Check it out on the website. The event page will be coming soon. This has been Episode 101. Thank you, everybody. Say goodbye, Bruce. Goodbye, Justin Bath. Thank you. Oh my.
    107:45
    Oh my.