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#5 - Tom Graf

A Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 9m·analyzed·Aug 27, 2020
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.035

TL;DR

Tom Graff on home pinball, Stern QA issues, and Wisconsin's booming tournament scene at District 82.

Summary

Tom Graff, a Wisconsin-based competitive pinball player (WPPR #63), discusses his home collection, tournament play during COVID, and the explosive growth of District 82 (formerly Titletown Pinball) arcade in Wisconsin. Key topics include Stern game quality issues (Ninja Turtles LE reliability problems), code updates (Stranger Things wizard modes), the Demogorgon shot difficulty, and how District 82's Tuesday night leagues grew from zero to 90+ participants.

Key Claims

  • Tom Graff is currently ranked 63rd in the country and has won Wisconsin state title at least once

    high confidence · Host introduction at episode start

  • District 82 Tuesday night leagues attract 80-95 participants and award 30-35 WPPR points per event

    high confidence · Tom Graff describing league growth during conversation

  • Ninja Turtles LE has a servo board failure preventing glider diverter operation since July 4th (filmed August 7th)

    high confidence · Host describing personal machine problems in detail

  • Ninja Turtles LE turtle van unintentionally eats balls during multiball if right ramp is hit during van reload sequence

    medium confidence · Host describing recurring mechanical issue; unconfirmed if widespread

  • Stranger Things code has received a dozen updates this year and still needs two more wizard modes

    high confidence · Tom Graff discussing code update frequency and missing modes

  • Stranger Things Demogorgon shot difficulty was improved by code updates allowing hits without mouth shot completion

    high confidence · Tom Graff explaining shot mechanic evolution

  • District 82 started from zero community and grew to 80-95 person Tuesday leagues within a short period

    high confidence · Tom Graff detailing Eric's launch of the venue and surprising growth trajectory

  • Host bricked a Star Wars Pro by applying code update immediately upon release

    high confidence · Host describing personal pinball failure incident approximately 2-3 years prior to episode

  • Tom's Spider-Man LE (2008-2009) shipped with incorrect fuse (.5-amp instead of 5-amp)

    high confidence · Tom describing factory QA failure from approximately 12 years prior to episode

Notable Quotes

  • “I'm just, I'm waiting. I always wait at least 48 hours to put the code in because... Smart. I don't. I just go for it. Well, I used to, and legit two years ago or three years ago, as soon as I got my Star Wars, I bricked the damn thing with one of the code updates.”

    Tom Graff / Host @ mid-conversation — Illustrates divergent risk tolerance around code updates after host's documented hardware failure

  • “What I don't have the expectation of is that node boards are going to completely fail or mechs are going to completely not work... I hate that that happens because I feel like that that takes away from Borg's hard work from Dwight Sullivan's hard work from everybody that's put time into that pen”

    Host @ discussing Ninja Turtles issues — Acknowledges designer effort while criticizing manufacturing QA failures

  • “He's like, don't even aim for the middle. He's like, don't do it. He's like, just avoid it. I was like, you're telling me the sucker shot is like the main shot in the game. Just avoid it.”

    Tom Graff (reporting Luke Nahorniak advice) @ Stranger Things strategy discussion — Reveals key competitive strategy for Stranger Things Demogorgon shot avoidance

  • “There's less than three leagues in the entire country in which they have to max out their participants in that form... That's insane. It's amazing.”

    Host @ discussing District 82 league size — Contextualizes District 82's exceptional growth relative to national pinball league landscape

  • “Honestly, no. [Eric said] 'Do you think I could get a lot of people?' And I'm like, honestly, no... The first Tuesday league he had probably 40 people, which was like a normal tournament for us.”

    Tom Graff @ recounting District 82 origin story — Documents unexpected explosive growth of District 82 from skepticism to 80+ person leagues

  • “It's kind of a unique thing that you're talking about though the fact that a lot of these pens you know we're paying good money for these pens obviously if it's new in box you're not paying less than 5500 usually you know you usually but typically right and so even the premiums and le's obviously they get even higher”

Entities

Tom GraffpersonDistrict 82event/organizationStranger ThingsgameNinja TurtlesgameSpider-MangameLuke NahorniakpersonJoe Lemireperson

Signals

  • ?

    event_signal: District 82 arcade Tuesday night leagues experiencing explosive growth from zero to 80-95 participants; one of fewer than three leagues nationally requiring sign-up caps

    high · Tom Graff predicted only 20 people max; first event drew 40; now maxes at 90-95; sign-ups required; host describes as exceptional relative to national pinball league landscape

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Stranger Things competitive strategy centered on Demogorgon shot avoidance rather than exploitation; players pursue alternative modes (Total Isolation equivalent)

    high · Luke Nahorniak explicitly recommends avoiding Demogorgon; Tom applied strategy in Colorado nationals side tournament; focus shifted to alternative mode progression

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Stranger Things Demogorgon shot initially unplayable by design; competitive players advised to avoid the shot entirely; improved via code updates but still challenging

    high · Tom describes initial hatred of game due to shot; Luke Nahorniak advised complete avoidance; code updates allowed hit registration without mouth shot; difficulty remains despite improvements

  • $

    market_signal: Pro model preferred over Premium/LE by players due to lock shot and projector issues on Premium/LE; cost-benefit analysis favors Pro

    medium · Tom states 'a lot of people complain about the lock shot on the premium' and believes $2000+ premium LE premium not worth feature unreliability

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Host credits John Borg (designer), Dwight Sullivan (code), and Zombie Yeti (art) for Ninja Turtles quality despite machine failures, indicating role awareness

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.208

0:00
Our guest this week on a pinball podcast is Tom Graff from Appleton, Wisconsin. Now, Tom, he's a hell of a nice guy, heck of a pinball player. He's currently ranked 63rd in the country, and I believe he's won the state title once up in Wisconsin. I think he might have pulled a Josh Sharp and taken second two or three times also. But this conversation, I really enjoyed it. We talked about Stern build qualities. We talked about InDisc. We talked about District 82, which is their main arcade up there. that looks like an incredible place to play, and I feel like this episode you guys are going to thoroughly enjoy. So, without further ado, Tom Graff. He's got the Rona. I got the Rona.
0:42
That's how we're going to start it out. I don't have the Rona. I'm just coughing. I'm good. We're fine. Tom, how are you doing there? Good, good. I'm good, Travis. How are you? Rona free for now. For now, how about yourself? Good. I'm really good.
1:01
Considering I work in healthcare, feeling blessed. Yeah, it's been crazy out there. We were just talking about off stream the state of pinball. It's like, what do you do? You're playing at home. I don't know about you. I'm still going out on location some, but we're having to wear a mask. And I've grown used to wearing a mask a little bit. because I just have to make sure I don't eat anything freaking terrible before I go out and play. I'm very well aware of my dental hygiene and my breath mints and all that, all of a sudden, more than ever. This might inadvertently be a good thing for pinball because it's always been about the deodorant and stuff like that, the body odor.
1:47
Now I'm pristine. I'm sanitized. I've got breath mints. I'm good. Yeah, I've been really limited about going out. I mean, I've done the Pinskins, which was really closed. I mean, we had probably 10 people there. and then I did a player two arcade bar and well they have one in Appleton here and they just opened one up in Green Bay and they had a Turtles and they invited me out to do the stream there which I was like yeah but basically again it was before they opened there was you know four of us I felt pretty comfortable and that Pinskins event that was actually a pretty successful event that was probably the best event that's been put on for all year long since what Penmasters pretty much yeah it's been the only event I think yeah I think there was something in Europe recently yeah but we're not going to count that no I'm sure I heard it was great I just haven't got to watch it yet no I haven't either but Yeah, there's not much to talk about with tournaments and stuff because there's really no IFPA. Now, there are tournaments in our area going on.

Host's Ninja Turtles LE is a 'nine thousand dollar paperweight' due to recurring mechanical failures

high confidence · Host's self-deprecating description of LE reliability issues

Tom Graff @ discussing pricing and QA expectations — Links premium pricing to expectations for out-of-box reliability

  • “If you get a premium or an LE, like besides the turtle van spitting out, it's a major feature... the turtle van is actually eating balls during a multi-ball.”

    Host @ describing Ninja Turtles mechanical issue — Details specific mechanical flaw that undermines key premium/LE differentiator

  • “The fact that you feel a little bit better as a player to go explore more, to get out of your comfort zone. You're not necessarily just going to put in time on just a theme that you absolutely love. You're going to find the older games.”

    Host @ discussing free play league structure benefits — Articulates how league free play design encourages skill development across game diversity

  • “Did [Stern] ever test [the Spider-Man] when it left the factory? Because you think somebody would have caught that turning the game on”

    Host @ discussing 2008-2009 Spider-Man fuse failure — Questions Stern factory QA procedures based on documented critical failure

  • “I'm getting to that line where I'm like, what's acceptable that I know I've got to tweak something, dial something in, compared to just flat out having to fix something to where I feel like I'm actually an out-of-state line worker for Stern, constantly trying to get something just right.”

    Tom Graff @ discussing acceptable vs unacceptable QA issues — Expresses consumer frustration threshold with new pinball machines requiring extensive post-sale fixes

    • Eric
    person
    Dwight Sullivanperson
    John Borgperson
    Zombie Yetiperson
    InDiscevent/venue
    PinSkinsevent
    Stern Pinballcompany
    Jurassic Parkgame
    Hot Wheelsgame
    Houdinigame
    Fox Cities Winter Bashevent
    Project Pinballorganization
    Star Warsgame

    high · Host explicitly names and praises three Stern team members while discussing manufacturing/QA failures, suggesting distinction between design quality and assembly quality

  • $

    market_signal: Tom Graff expresses frustration with new-in-box pinball pricing ($5,500+ minimum) and expectation mismatch: accepting tweaks/dial-in vs requiring major repairs

    high · Tom articulates discomfort with premium/LE pricing relative to out-of-box quality; questions if he's becoming 'out-of-state Stern line worker' constantly fixing new machines

  • ?

    product_strategy: Stranger Things code has received approximately a dozen updates in single year with continued development; still missing two wizard modes

    high · Tom Graff confirms dozen updates reviewed; states game close to completion pending two additional wizard modes

  • ?

    product_concern: Historical Stern Spider-Man (2008-2009) shipped with incorrect fuse (.5-amp vs 5-amp required), indicating factory QA failure

    high · Tom Graff reports machine did not power on; fuse was wrong part; questions whether machine was tested at factory before shipping

  • ?

    product_concern: Ninja Turtles LE experiencing multiple critical failures post-release: servo board failure, glider diverter non-functional since July 4th, turtle van eating balls during multiball

    high · Host reports LE has been non-100% since July 4th (reported August 7th); servo board replacement in progress; glider diverter prevents core mechanical feature from functioning; turtle van ball-eating issue unconfirmed as widespread

  • ?

    technology_signal: Code update risk documented: host bricked Star Wars Pro 2-3 years prior with immediate update application; now waits 48 hours minimum before updates

    high · Host describes bricking Star Wars; Tom Graff implements 48-hour wait strategy; behavior change indicates known update instability risks

    • 3:21
    I'm just choosing not to go to them at this point just because I don't really want to put myself or my patients at risk. Yeah. So, I mean, I'm pretty much going to work wearing an N95 mask all day long and then, you know, going back home. And we have done some outside activities like my kids at baseball. But that's been pretty, pretty good as far as social distancing goes, even with the kids as much as possible. right well the good thing is is even without going to pinball for those that are seeing this on youtube behind you you get plenty of pinball though that's true there's there's another room and then there's another room so and this is this is the small room so this is really considered the tv home theater room that that leaked pinball machines into it so so the small room has a stranger things and guardians and iron maiden i can't tell is that acdc nearest to you i can't tell uh it's deadpool deadpool no i was close it's yeah it's it's red yeah i mean it's yeah it's red it's got an action button you know it's fine they're just like each other i don't know what everybody's talking about well how do you like stranger things i'm curious about that because you're about the only person i know of that has extent well not just that but has extensive time on it like everybody's played it but to have actual extensive time on it i i actually enjoy it it's it's a good game it's you know as far as toys and stuff go on the pro model um you know you got the demogorgon and the the ramp flap and that's about it i do have the uv kit in it which is really cool.
    5:18
    But I really like the Stranger Things theme, and actually everything is pretty well integrated. I think Stern did a really good job with the code. They just got to put some, I think there's two more wizard modes that they need to add in. Okay. So it's close to being done. See, and that's interesting, too, because I was looking over some of the code updates, and it appears that they've had about a dozen this year alone on that thing. So it's interesting that they don't have the wizard modes in yet. Is it more or less that they've just been polishing stuff along the way? Pretty much. I mean, they've been adding some things in. They added the bullshit.
    6:02
    I heard about that. Like, what is that mode? I heard everybody talking about it. I haven't heard it yet or seen it yet. I just heard about it. It's kind of a mystery award. So you shoot it in the shot between the ramp, excuse me, the left ramp and the drop target area. And it just kind of starts randomly. And it's basically all the characters from the show saying bullshit. It's bullshit. and uh i think it's i i'm probably wrong but it i i think it has to do with you know your switches and stuff um and and it yeah bullshit bullshit bullshit there's a lot of bullshit that's that's funny it's it's a cool mode i'm glad they added it in see you gotta you gotta admit though there's a little meta to that that they have a mode in there saying everything's bullshit and that seems like what everybody's been saying at times on the forums and everything. No, it's one of those things. Like I'll freely admit I was in line for an Ellie early on. And the reason being, cause I'm a huge stranger things fan. Like I've watched the seasons maybe two or three times each. Like I love the, love the show. So I was thinking to myself, okay, great theme. You know, Stern's making it. Let's, let's see what it's all about. And then as soon as we got it, The only thing that was really stopping me is if I was in on a pro, I probably would have went through with it. But then the LE, as soon as I saw the Demogorgon, I immediately thought, that shot doesn't look right. Like immediately, as soon as I saw it. And that just, I don't have that much confidence in my play, Tom. Yes.
    7:46
    Well, and the code has brought that along because initially, I was going to say, when I initially played the game, I absolutely hated it. I played it at InDisc. Right. I think I was there with you the first time you might have played it. Because it was there off to the side. Project Pinball brought one, I think. Okay, that's what it was. And you'd throw a couple bucks in it. And, of course, the one thing you focus on when you first play it is the Demogorgon shot. Right. So you get the ramp down. And at the time, you had to get it in the mouth to progress. And now you can actually hit it. and it registers hits, and you can progress through without actually making that hole or the mouth shot.
    8:36
    But, you know, I'm playing this trying to hit it, and I'm like, oh, my God, this is absolutely terrible. Like I, you know, but I was so focused on that one shot. um but since i've bought the game a couple months ago um on my personal game i can make that shot pretty well trapping up on the left side and and i i'd say a good 60 70 percent of the time i'm making that shot really you think a lot of it is just set up i think it is so in terms of just having a little bit higher pitch maybe it's possible it's hard to say i mean i do typically pitch my games higher than most people just because you know you and i were used to playing in tournaments um and typically that's how they're set up uh but yeah i i don't know my my game also has a ton of plays on it so i don't know if it's just breaking it in too um it could be it there's probably a lot to say about muscle memory as well like you get in the groove you get used to the shot that's a little bit too because i mean i have less than 10 plays on it totally and the very first time i played it in disc i hit the mouth shot twice in a row i'm like i don't know what everybody's complaining about this is easy like i don't i don't have any idea so then i kept shooting and i was like after the five misses in a row i'm like oh okay and then i got up to 14 i'm I'm like, yep, yep, okay. That makes more sense. I get it now.
    10:17
    It gave me that false sense of security. I was just going beast mode on it because I got two in a row.
    10:25
    Well, and, of course, I was talking to Luke Nahorniak because we're good buds, and I was sitting there watching him put up these high scores, and I'm like, what the hell are you doing? And he's like, oh, I'm totally, he's like, I'm totally avoiding that and just playing all the modes. And I'm like, oh, okay. You know? So. Yeah, that was a funny part. That's why he, he told me immediately. He's like, don't even aim for the middle. He's like, don't do it. He's like, just avoid it. I was like, you're telling me the sucker shot is like the main shot in the game.
    10:58
    Just avoid it. So I listened to him. It's funny. Cause the next time I played, it was in Colorado during one of their side tournaments at nationals and pin masters. Is that one of the one ups? and I think I was, I forgot who was in my group. It might have been, I think I played it twice. I think I had Bowden and somebody else. And I think I played Joe Lemire on it once. And I just did the exact same thing. Like I just avoided the middle as much as I could. And then even when it did the, it's upside down thing or whatever, I was looking at it. I'm like, okay, I see the points counting down or whatever it's doing. I'm like, this looks like it's worth a lot, but I'm going to listen to Luke and just say, don't hit that, and I'm just going to leave it. So I'm just sitting there. I'm just watching 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2. I'm just watching millions count down. I'm thinking to myself, all right, maybe I should have done that. I don't know. But, I mean, it worked out, though. I just listened to what he was saying, just start modes, get into – I don't even know what it's called where you hit – it's like the attack from Mars thing where you get into total annihilation. What do they call that? It's called total isolation. Oh, there you go. So that's what I was going for as well. I didn't get there, but that's, I mean, I feel like even if you're going for that, you're going to start some modes along the way anyways in a multiball when it sticks. So, but yeah, it's just, it's fun. So you said you have a pro, right? Yes. Because that seems to be what everybody says that I do talk to. They prefer the pro over the premium. From what I've seen just online on Pinside, you know, a lot of people complain about the lock shot on the premium. I think the projector is cool but a lot of people seem to have trouble dialing in that shot to me it's like if I have to get a game, spend a couple thousand dollars more and try to get that feature to work, it's not worth it to me so yeah on most of the games nowadays i think i prefer playing the pros than i do the premium and alleys yeah i'm getting there as you can tell my nine thousand dollar paperweight behind me right now i know we've talked about that yeah oh gosh yeah for those that don't know i got a ninja turtles le and the reason why some of you may not know about that because i was talking about a lot early on but i haven't got the damn thing to work a hundred percent it's what we're filming this right now august 7th i got it july second and it was already less than a hundred percent by July 4th. And it has not been a hundred percent since then. I've been waiting on boards, got new boards in, something else goes out. Now I'm waiting on a servo board, which is supposed to be here today. So I'm hoping today, cause the gliders out right now, it'll score points, but I can't move it back and forth. I can't get the diverter to go where I want it. And that's a major feature. If you get a premium or an LE, like besides the turtle van spitting out, it's a major feature. And what I'm finding is, too, and I've talked about this a few times. I don't think I've talked to you about this, but the turtle van is actually eating balls during a multi-ball. So it'll reload. Whatever the code is, it causes the turtle van to reload three locked balls or whatever. So if you hit the right ramp while it's doing that action, you're going to lose your ball. Oh, nice. Yeah, that's what I say every single time it happens. So I'm like, great. I hit that shot, and I just upped myself. Yeah, it's so frustrating, and I haven't heard anybody else talk about it, so it's making me think, is something up with mine that it's just firing early, or is that what it's supposed to do? Because I haven't seen another premium or LE, and I think I watched Deadflip doing it, and I noticed it was shooting up there at the same time during his multiball, but he didn't hit a right ramp shot during that time. So that's really frustrating because that's a feature for the premium and LE too, having the turtle van load up and be able to spit out balls during the turtle power multiball. And I know they just released a code update, like, not a couple days ago. Yeah. Yeah, I'm just, I'm waiting. I always wait at least 48 hours to put the code in because. Smart. I don't. I just go for it. Well, I used to, and legit two years ago or three years ago, as soon as I got my Star Wars, I bricked the damn thing with one of the code updates. Like, it just bricked it. I remember that, and that was one of the times I had a Star Wars Pro, and I think that was one of the times where I didn't update my game, and I was like, good. Yeah, yeah. Well, to put this in perspective, Tom, that was one of the first times I updated my game immediately. Like, I'm usually really lazy about doing that, but I love Star Wars, and I love the theme. I'm like, oh, new code. Okay, let's go. Let's go. Get it loaded up. I'm all ready to go. Hit the start button, and nothing. And I'm like, what in the hell? It just, first world problems, man, breaking my shit. That's all I do. I've had, I've bought a lot of new in-box games. And I've had issues, I think, with every new in-box game I've had. Most of them have been small.
    16:17
    But, yeah, it's just kind of one of those things. I mean, with pinball, you're going to always have something amiss. Yeah.
    16:30
    I mean, I was actually thinking about it before we went live, and I was like, you know, what games have I gotten and, you know, had issues with? And it's like, okay, my first new in box was Spider-Man. Get it downstairs, put the legs on. my friend Eric was here and, you know, turn it on, nothing's happening. It's like, that's weird. You know, and at the time I didn't know a lot about fixing games, and he's pretty good at pinball repair.
    17:06
    And sure enough. About what year was this, that this was happening? This was probably 2008, 2009. Okay Okay so that gives everybody an idea about 12 years ago Okay Yeah and this was you know this was towards the end of the original Spider run because I think it came out in, like, 07.
    17:32
    Being new to the hobby, I bought it from pinballs.com, and my game is considered, like, a limited edition because it's signed by Steve Ritchie and Gary Stern. I was about to say, you might have the only $15,000 Spider-Man in existence. No, I wouldn't say that.
    17:53
    But getting back to my story, so it was the fuse in the service outlet. It was supposed to be a 5-amp fuse, I think it is, and it was like a .5. so obviously you know the list you're there yeah yeah so you know which which begged the question like did was this ever tested when it left the factory kind of thing because you think somebody would have caught that turning the game on but uh yeah put a put a fuse in there the right fuse and then everything worked great and i i really haven't had a lot of issues with that game since you know um i mean good good experience but um it's kind of a unique thing that you're talking about though the fact that a lot of these pens you know we're paying good money for these pens obviously if it's new in box you're not paying less than 5500 usually you know you usually but typically right and so even the premiums and le's obviously they get even higher so So it's kind of one of those things where I even find myself kind of getting to the point. I'm getting to that line where I'm like, what's acceptable that I know I've got to tweak something, dial something in, compared to just flat out having to fix something to where I feel like I'm actually an out-of-state line worker for Stern, constantly trying to get something just right. You know what I mean? Right. You've got to understand, I mean, the games are shipped. They're going to be moving around. Crap happens, you know. So, yeah, I mean, you might turn on your game and, you know, or you might want to check your game before you turn them on, make sure the connectors are okay. Yeah, absolutely. You know, I tend to play them, you know, I'll turn them on, play them. If I notice some things, like when I bought my Jurassic Park Pro, I was the target behind the Raptor that would start the Raptor was getting stuck on the post and I actually had to take the target out and reposition it so it wouldn't get stuck anymore but you know things can happen I mean switches can get out of whack you know there's just so many moving parts to the machine it's bound to have something always you're going to have something wrong with it if you buy a pinball machine expect at some point in its life you're going to have to fix something right that's kind of where I'm at that I have the expectations that there's going to be little things yeah especially out of box I have the expectation with everything that there's going to be little things what I don't have the expectation of is that node boards are going to completely fail or mechs are going to completely not work just like that turtle van you know digging into the back of the ramp i'm just kind of thinking to myself because i i hate that that happens because i feel like that that takes away from borg's hard work from dwight sullivan's hard work from everybody that's put time into that pen like the artwork with zombie yeti everybody and then you have one thing that's a central mech that just flat out you could tell that obviously it got past the whitewood stage and it should in theory work and it's working for a lot of people it is this isn't everybody so it means at some point whoever was actually assembling that just got flat out lazy and whoever was checking on the work just got flat out lazy that day that's the only thing i can think of yeah i mean with these boards you know with surface mount components and stuff it's hard to say if you know when when that stuff's gonna fail and you know you could get a faulty board from the fact, you know, from the actual maker. So it's not just stern because the same thing happened with my Hot Wheels. I have a driver board that went out within 48 hours and Hot Wheels has been the other brick that's been sitting there because the magnet and the slings don't work right now. I bought a Houdini and the CPU went out on it and ended up, you know, sending them back. They sent me one really quick.
    22:18
    It's obvious. We should have just played foosball. What does that mean? We should have just gotten a foosball.
    22:24
    Exactly. It would be a lot easier. These machines aren't light. No, they're not. That's why every single time I just push it upstairs because I can't use the Esclara to get up my stairs the way that they're set. So I have to actually physically put the machine on a piece of cardboard, and I just get underneath it, and I just push it up there, while Monica, my wife, just supports me along the way. She cheers me on. She'll sometimes help push, though. So do you have, like, a landing next to a wall? Yeah. So what we'll do, we'll pick it up, and I'll walk up there, and she'll be down at the bottom of it. Because she is brutally strong for her size. It's insane. She used to be in the fitness competitions and athletics and all that. So she still has that mama bear strength is what I call it. So, yeah, as soon as I lay down the landing, she'll just get underneath it and just push it straight up vertical to a 90 degree angle. And then we'll just kind of shift it around and then lay it down on the cardboard and just get on with our push. And I tell her every single time, like, that's my workout for the day. I'm good. Legs are done for three weeks. So I have to show you what I do because I have a real narrow landing and I would have to take the head off of my games to get the escalera and the body of the game down to the floor of my basement. Really? Even the modern games, like everything? Yeah. You got to take the heads off? Wow. No, I don't. What I do, I have a harbor freight lift table. Right. A lift table that I put. And what I do is I bring the game down to basically the first stair, put the game on on the lift and then I take the escalator off and that works out really well. and then I can just basically wheel my game into the basement and kind of, you know, the back end of the game with the coin door sticking up and then I can bring it in here and put the legs on and stuff.
    24:35
    It's funny how we end up getting a system down. Yeah, pretty much. Other people can see it and they're like, how did you do this? Like, just watch. Just watch. I got it. When anybody buys a game, I'm like, let me do this kind of thing. Like, you're not going to know how to get it out of here. You know, we'll get it out in one piece. But just you got to trust me on this kind of thing. Oh, gosh. Yeah, exactly. That reminds me of our buddy Austin Trent, who's down here in Oklahoma. He puts his games. He has three of them. And he has them upstairs, right? Which sounds normal. a lot of people have them upstairs what's not normal is is that his landing is basically a full-on like 180 degree turn okay like to where you're going up and then you got to immediately turn go back right yeah sometimes he somehow has a hobbit jersey jack hobbit up there and i still have no idea the way he described how he got it up there that somebody had to come and they actually just carried it all the way and they got underneath it forcing it through and he's like yeah i thought my helper is just going to die or just going to drop on them at any point. And I'm like, and you're still willing to get it up there? Like, you're not.
    25:50
    Like the things we do for pinball. I think my help's going to die, but I'm going to chance it to get this dumb bitch up there. At least it's the helper, not myself.
    26:02
    Yeah, at least he's going to break the fall of the pin and it'll be okay. I'll still get Hobbit up there no matter what. so we touched base earlier on the uh pinskins event that was held at i think they were calling it district 82 at that point no it would yeah it was formerly uh title town pinball right and and now it's now it's district 82 pinball so tell us about that place a little bit because i've never been there but i've heard about it a lot and i know that that's the talk that eventually there will be some huge national level tournaments going there because you guys have built up like an insane scene there yeah you guys are getting like national level whopper numbers pretty much yeah uh i mean it's it's gotten to a point where we have uh tuesday night leagues and you know the winner's getting 30 35 whopper points because there's 80 90 people uh showing up That's incredible. On a Tuesday night. And the funny thing was when Eric, you know, he kind of came to me because he's in my Fox Cities Pinball League. And he's like, hey, I'm thinking about doing this. And I was kind of like, I don't know. You know, our area, you know, we have some pinball. I mean, I'm like, it'd be great.
    27:25
    But he's like, yeah, and I'm thinking about doing like a Tuesday night league. He's like, do you think I could get a lot of people? And I'm like, honestly, no. Wow. So he legit started this. See, I always thought the community was already established, that place. So that place established a bigger community is what you're saying? Yes. Yeah, the community has been established. But he certainly brought in a lot more people to the community.
    27:52
    Because there's always been tournaments. I was, I've been running tournaments out of my house for probably the past six, seven years.
    28:04
    And, you know, our, our scene was pretty much, we had a Milwaukee scene, which there wasn't a lot. It was mostly home collectors. There's Jim Radovich, Neil Skywalker. And then there's some, some local events. And then there was the Madison area. And that was more of a, you know, there's Madison pinball and they have a ton of locations out there, you know, supporting, you know, the hobby and local pinball. and a lot of tournaments were being done there.
    28:50
    And then, you know, Eric started this thing and it all kind of exploded. And getting back to the Tuesday thing, I was like, you know, Eric, they're doing Tuesday night leagues in Madison, which is a bigger area, and they're getting at most 20 people. So I'm like, you're probably only going to get about 20 people. I think the first Tuesday league he had probably 40 people, which was like a normal tournament for us. So, yeah, it's gotten to a point where it's like, well, now you've got to sign up for league.
    29:30
    I think he maxes out right now at like 90, 95 people. And it's gotten to a point where you got to sign up for tournaments and leagues early because you might miss out. And that is amazing in itself. The fact that there's a league out there, there's probably less than three leagues in the entire country in which they have to max out their participants in that form. You know what I mean? That gets up to that level. That's that's insane. It's amazing. And the amazing thing is he's actually he's still running tournaments during the, you know, COVID pandemic. He is doing things really the right way, though. He's he's doing temperature checks before you come in. And then everybody has to wear a mask when you're inside. So, you know, and there's hand sanitizer. I haven't felt comfortable to go back, but there's a lot of people still going. I mean, he's still getting 40 or 50 people at these events, which just it amazes me. That is really amazes me. So pretty much the way that he has it set up, not not currently now, obviously, during COVID, because there's a lot of different things. But the way that it was pre-COVID, was it pretty much what he had envisioned? why he came to you at the very first it pretty much matches up i think so yeah i i mean i can't speak for eric but right i'm sure he'd always you know he he always wants to expand and and get more people to come and you know he'll he'll call me up and how can we get more people and i'm like more people you got 95 people coming yeah it's just like collecting pinball machines you can't get one more you're collecting league members now we just need one more but you know it you know and it's hard to get in some regards it's hard to get new people to come and you know and and stick with it you know and that i think that's the challenge you know how do you get people to really keep that interest in pinball alive when you have that many people competing and I think he you know Eric does it the right way he he holds different events his leagues are all match play and he leaves it open to everybody to you know basically you can while matches are going on you You can play an open game as long as you're not annoying the people who are still playing. Yeah, and there's something to that, too. Whenever you pay a flat fee and you have all the pins on free play after that, the fact that you feel a little bit better as a player to go explore more, to get out of your comfort zone. You're not necessarily just going to put in time on just a theme that you absolutely love. You're going to find the older games. you're going to find stuff like that. I think that that really helps the community get better overall, players get better overall. I mean, I think it's very helpful for sure. Absolutely. And I would say for the most part, everybody's friendly there. You know, I, you know, would I, if somebody came up to me and said, how do you play this game? I would tell them, you know, unless we're in an active match, you know, then I'm like, you know, I really don't want to give you any tips to me. Right. Well, plus then you tell one person tips, you got to tell everybody then, just to make it right. Right, right. But, you know, when people come up to me and they're like, how did you do this? Or, you know, how do you get to this in this game? If I know, I'll tell them, you know. And everybody's like that there, you know. And that's the great thing about it. Yeah. that's everybody's friendly that's really helpful too especially when you have i would think having that bigger community also that a lot of people have a lot of knowledge on different games and therefore it makes it a lot easier and a lot more accessible for newer players to get involved because they have goals to go after immediately and they understand them easily because i'm sure people can explain it fairly easily to them as well well and that that i think his location has really helped me be a better all-around player because typically I collect mostly the DMD games and the newer sterns and newer games like that. Whereas I had limited EMs or early solid states, and there's a lot of that there. So I can go to those games and practice them and learn how to play them Going to my first Pinnberg I remember playing games that I don know what this game is There 300 plus games How can you have that knowledge unless you been playing competitively for a long time
    34:52
    Yeah, I would think Colin is about McAlpine. It's about the only one with his game or his notebook of like 600 games or whatever. Something like that. Because we were talking about that earlier. I was talking about that with somebody else that, you know, I get caught up in that as well, going mainly the modern route. And I think everybody kind of does at the very beginning. And then you start discovering that there's some other games out there in terms of solid states or EMs, because I know for a fact, at least on a competitive level, I love classics, but I'm terrible at playing them. I think one of the first times we met was at InDisc. And the ongoing joke there was that the people that did know me were supposed to be stopping me from playing classics. Because I knew I was just throwing away my money, but it was like, crack, I was just ready to go get more. Yeah, I put maybe two or four entries in classics, and I was like, I'm good. I'm going back to Maine.
    35:49
    That's about where I was at as well. like i purposely didn't go for the target classics that they had at the beginning did you play in that uh at all you know what well it was i forgot what they called it it was the uh classics event that they had oh day yes i think jason werdick won it yeah yes yeah i played horrible uh i i played absolutely horrible first of all i was we we uh i came with uh ryan spindler who's a player from Madison. Right. And we we got in that night. I think I I think I the night before I worked, we flew out late at night. I think we I think we got in like California time, like midnight, 1 a.m. And it's still an hour drive from there. Right. So, yeah, by the time we got to our hotel, I think it was maybe 1, 1.30 a.m. California time. And then, you know, you got to get up and go to the tournament in the morning. You know, so, and I can't remember when it started, but I remember I was so tired and I was like, why did I do this? And probably the first five rounds, I was like, I know I could be playing way better than this. And by the time we continued on, I was playing better, but I just felt like I should have been more rested, more prepared for it. It was fun. It was still fun. Yeah, I mean, it seemed like that tournament was absolutely stacked. Because obviously it's all the best players pretty much from around the country who are coming in for the Open anyways. Yep. And so a lot of them were using this as either ways to get more whoppers or ways to get warmed up or even – I'm sure there were some players there that just wanted the opportunity to play with some big names at the very beginning as well. Of course. The majority of people there, though, they were all legit players. and I was seeing big names at the bottom after five or six rounds. And, you know, I mean, it's going to happen. You know, when you're mixing that many great players, somebody's got to lose at some point. But, yeah, it looked like a great tournament, though. Yeah, it was. It was well done. Carl pretty much ran it. He didn't play in it. He just ran the whole thing. And, I mean, kudos to Carl for doing that. I mean, I, you know, running tournaments in my house, I'm like, there's no way I want to, you know, run a tournament all day and not playing it because I'd be like itching to play. Yeah.
    38:44
    Yeah. And that's that's a lot of sacrifice to to do something like that, especially when you're also a world class player yourself. You know, and you have this opportunity in your own backyard. I don't know where he lives but obviously he doesn't have quite as far to travel as the majority of people but yeah I mean when you get that many people in that's your friends that are great players you want to compete you want to give yourself an opportunity to play against the best as well so I mean that is a big deal that he helps put on that tournament without I mean it's totally a selfless thing to do for sure because it's a great I mean it's an excellent run tournament I had a lot of fun there yeah it was great and Jim Belcedo too I mean I think Bob Matthews.
    39:27
    Yeah, those guys. I mean, that is a fantastic tournament. I'd go back there in a heartbeat. Yeah, that'll be the one. If they cancel that this upcoming year, which word going around is pretty much. Sounds like it. Yeah, I am going to sit in the fetal position and just absolutely cry. Because I enjoyed that tournament so much. And, you know, getting out of Oklahoma has seen something completely different. because California is completely different than Oklahoma. I mean, it was bonkers. I don't know if you looked out of your plane at the roads down below. I've never seen that much traffic in my life.
    40:05
    I don't know how they do it. We kind of hit it going back to the airport. What was it? Sunday night. but uh well uh well we we left when um was that the high stakes tournament was going on and right there was even late at night there was there was a lot of traffic yeah it still took us an hour and a half to get back to the airport and this was 10 30 11 o'clock at night and everybody's driving around like it was like four or five o'clock traffic here in oklahoma i'm not kidding me here like my anxiety was just through the roof because i was driving with uh sam swain i don't know if you remember who that is he's based out of kansas wichita kansas but he was my ride there and uh sam decided we were driving on the autobahn apparently and we were just doing 90 95 all the way to get back and everybody else was doing 90 95 to get back i'm like this is freaking nuts just take me back to oklahoma where i might see somebody riding on a horse next to me or a tractor going down the road. Right. Ridiculous. The things I do for pinball, man. How did your overall Open end up going? Because I know you made A Division in Maine, which is incredible, because, I mean, it was tough out there. I made A Division, and I think I was the second or third seed in my group. And I basically didn't get to pick any of the games. So our first one was Starlight. I got knocked out the first round. Our first one was Starlight, which, honestly, I've played it enough where I felt comfortable on it.
    41:54
    But everybody in the group had just a horrible game. So it was basically like whoever could suck the least won that game. And, unfortunately, I think I sucked the most. You know, I was going into ball three. I didn't need much of a score. It's like if I just do something and I think I, you know, bricked a shot and it went down the out lane, it's like, well, there goes that, you know? So now I'm like, okay, now I got to really, really play hard. And I think we played, oh, yeah, class of 18-12 was picked next. And I can't remember if I took first or second on that. and then so I was feeling pretty good and I'm like okay now I just I have to have a really good next game and the next game was Jurassic Park and I was like I felt good about it and I played decent on it but not not good enough yeah so I think I took third on it or something like that and again if i just would have had had a good game i would have moved on just have that one extra shot yeah yeah it's like i started i started my control room i think i was close to getting multi-ball going and and yeah chaos multi-ball and that was further than i got on that i yeah i went there thinking jurassic park would be one of my cornerstones of my cards I played it twice. I'm like, I'm complete horseshit on this game. It played tough. I remember we were playing dollar games in the classics bank, and we were watching what was going on. And, you know, Elwin's on it, and I'm like, oh, he's going to destroy this. And he had a bad game on it. And I was just like, wow, if he had a bad game on that game, I'm like, man, that was playing tough. Yeah. Yeah, it really was. I remember that could not break 20 million on three games. I couldn't do it. The tilt was tight. So if you were making your shots, you were probably you were in trouble. Yeah. But that sums up my gameplay pretty much.
    44:18
    It's funny, too, because you mentioned Elwin. He actually played in front of me on one of my games on Jurassic Park. I'm like, you know, you could look at this two ways. And I was looking at it from the positive way. Great. I'm going to see how he does it, and I'm going to try to do it like that. That was in my head. I'm like, okay. And I noticed he was not post-passing at all from left to right. He would go into, I guess it's the helicopter shot. I don't even know what you call that shot. Like the right. The far right. Oh, the far right. Yeah, from the left that comes back to the right. The helipad shot. Yeah, helipad shot. Right. So he was going from left to the helipad shot, coming back to the right, and then comboing that T-Rex ramp. Okay. So I decided he's doing that all game. He's being successful with it. I'm like, I'm going to do the same thing. I get up there. I get all settled in. Brick? Yeah, brick, that lane, power drain. I'm like, shit.
    45:11
    So I get back on it. I do the same thing again. Ball two. I'm like, I'm going to do this again. I'm going to do it. Brick?
    45:18
    Back out again. One of my least favorite Pinnberg memories was playing in a group with Elwin, Bob Matthews, and Chris Stevens.
    45:33
    I think I was ranked, it was day one, I think I was ranked like 32 going into, it was the last round.
    45:42
    And I remember the Bank of Games pretty, we started on, I think it was Freedom. which me, um, right. And, uh, first ball I'm ahead of everybody. I'm like, yeah, I'm feeling good. That was the last time I led the entire, the entire four games.
    46:02
    It happens like that. It happens after that. I, I, it was, it was the first time in Pinberg. I, I took a zero for the, for the entire, entire round. Oh man. What year was this? It was a couple of years ago. A couple of years ago. So it was probably 2017, 2018. Okay. So, yeah, and then that knocked me right into the B division. I was at the top of A, and the zero brought me down to B. Just a nuclear blast on your whole pinbird. It was Freedom, Vegas, which, God, that's a terrible game. Is that a solid state? Yeah, it's a Gottlieb early solid state. And basically the whole game is you loop the left, basically the left. And I'm watching Elwin doing like a freaking robot. And like he is just, he must have hit the shot 15 times in a row. And, you know, I'd get up there, hit it once, twice, three, brick, drain. you know and that pretty much how to score in that game is is what you do there and then we played force force 2 which at the time i had never played before in my life had no idea what to do and then we played uh batman dark knight uh which i owned at the time and i felt pretty comfortable on it i just uh you know i think i had like 30 million on it and that was that was last place wow i bet that ended up being a long play or two yeah even on pinberg settings that yeah yeah yeah the other game the other game hurry up that's what you should have did the billion point hurry up there you go to just focus on that well you tried to do the low score strategy didn't work yeah didn't work they weren't buying it was kind of funny you know yeah it was it was different it was different experience yeah and at that stage too it's i've only been able to play one pinberg so far and it was i had such a great time but it was such a beautiful disaster at the same time too i know we've talked about it a lot. And for those that don't know, I had one round in which I think my whole group ended up qualifying either E, D or C division. And I was the leader in the pack with C division. Like that's how bad we were all playing at the time. And what was really funny about it was, is this was a crucial round for me because I was still in the thick of things. Like I was around the cusp of A and B, right? I was like around the cut line and I felt like, okay, I'm playing bad, but I'm still here. Confident. Let's go for it. And we got Stern Dracula, very first game. And the group that I had was, they were all, well, no, actually, I take it back. I wasn't AB. I was BC. I was right there. So everybody here was kind of right around that area, right? And there was a nice lady in there that might have been like 60 some odd years old. Sweetest woman ever. she i think she went shopping in between rounds had a bag she never set the bag down left it on the shoulder the whole entire game just annihilated me just oh my gosh i just i got taken to school just took a dead last on that game and i was just i was tilted from there i'll admit like it wasn't even panic it wasn't anxiety it was like are you effing kidding me right now i just i couldn't hit anything i would get trapped up i'd get control i wasn't getting house balls i just i was blind i could not hit anything but a post and that's the way it goes sometimes it happens it happens i i kind of relate pinball to golf i mean you know you can go out one day play a course and just play great you know you're you're hitting your drives you're you're you're knocking your short game's great you're not going to close the hole you're making all your putts and then the next day you're you're hooking everything you're slicing everything you know you're hitting it over the green when you shouldn't be and uh you're not making any putts and that's sometimes how it can be yeah that's that's rough it's like you get out of that flow state where sometimes you can you can feel like you can hit any shot and then other times you're just praying that you hit the biggest ramp out there even if it's not for any points i'm like i'm i'm happy with that like how could i not be making this shot it happens every single time every single time i i remember one game in particular i think this is that cleave pen i was doing a qualifying match it was herb format so best game and i was on metallica and so i was just going to do sparky all day strategy and i legit missed sparky four times in a row from a trap like you've got to be kidding me and it just sometimes it just goes like that it just it is what it is and it sometimes be like that it's just it gets frustrating but that's that's why pinball is very humbling yes in that way very very humbling in that way well what's your plans then if there's not going to be any pinball coming up what's your plans for pinball in general are you going to be buying new games are you going to be anything got your eye right now i'd like to eventually get a turtles pro uh after playing that at uh you know when i did the stream at player two i'm like this is this is a really good game uh you know it's got a great layout uh i like how they put the three ramps in there too um yeah borg borg did a nice job i think with the game but you know other than that I going to do some streaming I hoping eventually to get back to playing some tournament pinball But I think until the numbers are at least down to, you know, right now in our area, they're kind of fluctuating. The governor has a mask mandate, so you have to wear a mask inside. but other than that, you know, our numbers are somewhere, they range from 400 to 800 cases a day. Right. Yeah, and it's hard to tell, especially with fall and winter coming up, when typically viruses get the worst. Yep. So there's no telling. That's why I'm just kind of just sitting back, and I don't even anticipate playing again at an actual event until TPF of next year. And even then, I'm caught. Yeah, even then I'm just cautiously. It would not surprise me one bit if we're still out until summer. Like did they give you, because they obviously have pushed off IFBA, which is the world championship for everybody. Do you know about when they pushed that off to? Did they give any indication? Yeah, Josh sent emails out. It sounds like they're going to move it basically to May, and it's kind of like nothing ever happened. So I guess originally it was supposed to be in Germany this year for the for IFPA to be 18. Was it? Well, is it Fort Myers? Because it's in Germany last year, is it? Yeah, I think it's supposed to be going back to Germany. Are you talking about for next year for 2020? Yeah. OK. Yeah. If we if if the the Fort Myers one happened, but it's still going to be in Fort Myers. okay so i was curious how they were going to do that if they were going to do basically two separate if buzz and how they were going to do the stern pro circuit since they had to cancel that also or postpone it at least i'm curious to see how they do that as well you know i'm assuming nationals isn't going to happen this year and the state championships and all that stuff which i would assume you know that's another thing it's like well there's dollars out there So I assume, you know, that all gets calculated into when it just restarts back up. Yeah.
    54:19
    Hopefully, hopefully there's some normalcy by, you know, 2021. But who knows? Yeah. You know, you know. Well, it's just one of those things that the toughest part about it is, too, is not just the lack of tournaments. It's just the lack of interaction with people that you're used to interacting with on a consistent basis as well. Like just, you know, like right now we're having last time we saw each other was what, March? And now we're having just to talk through a computer in August and there's still no end in sight. So I don't know. I mean, I would say first world problems, but everybody's having this issue and it's just ash. I mean, hopefully it ends at some point, but I could see eventually when things start kind of getting back to whatever normal normal is going to be at that point. I could see, you know, events like you guys held, like the Penskins event. I could see those types of events coming around because that one, the way that you guys had that and put that on that really interests me. Like, I would love to do an event similar to that. And I've tried to figure it out as well. I think that a lot of places, if they're still having events, that's a great example to look towards. And for those that are wondering, it's on Fox City's pinball, right, at your YouTube? Yes. And I'll link that down below in the show notes. And you guys will be able to see their full Pinskins event, which was 18 holes, I believe, and $10 per hole, per player. Yep. We each threw $10 in, and basically it was pin golf format. and we each came up with an objective and the idea was to come up with really kind of hard objectives but somewhat attainable.
    56:06
    So there was a lot of trying to get to mini wizard modes and things like that. And all those pins were set up tournament caliber too because they always are, which for those that don't know, when you've got a pin set up tournament caliber, You usually have open out lanes, usually no rubbers on post. I mean, sometimes you will, and things are set to competition mode, and the games are just incredibly hard to play. So when you watch this video and you see what the targets are, those are difficult to do on a default setup, and they're doing this on a tournament setting, which is pretty incredible. It was Hand of the King? Yeah, that was one of mine. Yeah, and so what else did you have? What else did you do? Because you're the crazy person that says Hand of the King on Game of Thrones. Typically, that's not a hard objective for me. Like, usually I can do it in three balls. That day I couldn't, you know.
    57:05
    And, of course, I was the one making the rules like, well, you can't pick this house or that house to make it harder too. What was the default house you guys had it on?
    57:17
    Do you remember? I think you could pick anything but Stark or Tarragon. Taraga-raga. Yeah, right. The dragon one.
    57:33
    Those two you couldn't pick but anything else. Okay. So what were the other games? Oh, no, no, I'm sorry. I think I just finally made it. I'm like, just pick Martel. Oh, okay. You can have the add-a-ball for multi-ball, which really, when you're getting a hand of the king right as long as you're completing your modes in after that doesn't really matter right um so the other ones i had i picked uh star trek premium which i picked kobayashi maru which blew up naturally face he goes for that every game no matter what he's playing right doesn't matter it's kobayashi maru I'm going to go Kobayashi Maru this. I'm playing Joker poker. Let's go for Kobayashi Maru.
    58:18
    Speaking of Joker poker, the 1F replay for him. Thank you. We were actually talking about that on the last podcast.
    58:30
    I briefly told that story on the last podcast when I had Dominic on, and we were kind of going over that, and I was telling myself, I need to get Luke on here for him to tell that story. yeah luke came up to me he's like you know there's no tilt in joker poker i'm like what i'm like i i guess i've been playing that game wrong and some seeing people like throwing the machine and by the end of the night i'm like oh my god well that's why i was telling uh telling somebody about it i was telling dom about it what cracked me up i was like luke was like the kid when he came up and told us this because i i remember this i was watching classics because i I wasn't playing classics. I was just watching it. I actually had some self-control back then. But Luke came up to us, and he's like a kid on Christmas morning that just discovered he didn't just get one bike. He has three bikes under the tree. He's like, you know, there's no tilt on Joker poker. I'm like, oh, shit. I know exactly what's going to happen. Not even ten minutes later. Not even ten minutes later, I see that back box come off a Joker poker. Because Luke is just having his way with it.
    59:44
    We're at a high level tournament. And he's trapped up trying to push the back box back in. The light board? Yes. Yeah, the light board. I remember that. That was classic. Oh, my gosh.
    60:02
    And it didn't even tilt. now i'm thinking myself oh my god everybody else sees this what else is going to happen this is going to be the most abused pin in the history of pinball and he he put up a high score too with that i think i just i just remember i had uh i had a good game on um um god what was it uh Robo war early on. I think I had the high score and, uh, I had about four tournaments players. I think it was like Adam Lefkoff and Jim Belcido and a bunch of people. I didn't know it at the time, but when I finished my game, I looked behind me and they're, they're just watching. Adam's like, what did, what did you do? You know, I told him, I'm like, well, first of all, cause the gate's missing. I'm like, I made sure not to live catch. Right. And then I tried to go. He's like, did you try to go for a multi-ball? I said, I tried a few times, and I did get a couple successful shots to it.
    61:12
    But I wasn't necessarily hardcore trying for it. Right. That game is a lot of spinner. and if you can get it to the right side, not drain down that right in lane. Right. And if you could get it, it'll light your spinner and you can really rip it. Just go to town on it. Yeah, but, you know, it's hard to do, but, you know, the ball's just kind of magically sometimes got to go over there. You got to nudge it over there. Well, it's one of those things, too, even in a herb format, you got to have a little bit of luck involved, at least on one or two. Like, there's always, to me, especially dealing with a lot of top-level players, there's always at least two or three games where you just know you're going to get a great score. Like, you feel confident on it, you just know. And then you always got those filler games that, you know, unless you're extremely lucky that they happen to have several games in which you have complete confidence on, you're always going to have those one or two games. You've got to kind of explore things and figure it out. And that seems like what you did on that game. You figured some stuff out, and you used that to your advantage. I mean, that's the perfect way to do it. And for anybody listening, if you're at a Herb format, that's something that you really want to keep in mind, that if there's a particular game, even if you've never played it before, even if you've never even heard it before, give it a shot. You'll be surprised sometimes. I mean, I've seen people. I remember Sinbad was down there at Freeplay, and I guarantee 90% of us have never played it before. And for even the 10% that did play it, probably wasn't confident on it either. but you know and then that that game was mean too i had a tough time on that game and that that one had the um the plastic protector on it so it just seemed like the ball didn't move like it normally would no it had some weird spin on it yeah weird yeah and i i played it a couple of times i finally just gave up on it but um yeah that was that was not one of my my fun fun sin bad moments i guess but i played that a couple of times but i got stuck on grand prix for legit two hours trying to put up a score on that and so i mean it goes like that sometimes that was me sunday morning i decided I am going to play Meteor. Because I knew I would have a good game if I just kept playing it, and I did. And that helped me get in. That was one of the games that helped me get in.
    63:48
    Yeah, I was salty that they took out Meteor out of finals. Yeah. I was so salty about that. You know, they asked me what I wanted to play, and I was like, I'll take Meteor. Yeah. And I was in a group with Jeff Teolis, Greg Pavarelli, and I can't remember a fourth person. But Jeff was – It might have been Dominic. It could have been. I'm not going to stick with you guys because I think you guys played the Guardians game too. Yes. Right? Okay. Yeah, I think it was Dominic. It was Dominic. You're correct. So we played, or, you know, Jeff came over and was like, you know, this game, the drop targets weren't resetting properly, which he's completely right. So it's like they decided to throw the game out. And so I ended up picking Devil's Dare, which I think I put like $2.5 million on it. And damn, Greg was so close to passing me on ball three, and he didn't. And then I picked Guardians, which I felt – I feel like Guardians is, like, one of my go-to games. Right. But that one there played particularly tough. Like, well, it had no ball save. It had a really tight tilt. And then the feed from the right almost every time hit the slingshot. Yes. And then the slingshots were very sensitive. So, I mean, if it just, like, grazed the rubber, it was going to throw it. It was gone. Yeah. Plus the flippers, too, were kind of depressed. I always forget how to call this. But, you know, they sagged a little bit. Sagged a little bit. Yep, yep, yep. Yeah. And I just remember I got to a good position. I started the blue mode, the pod one, and I started multi-ball. and that quickly went away in about five seconds. You know, it was like, what happened? Yeah. It played mean. I remember that because that was a legendary game where I think the winner might have even been Pavarelli with like 18.4 million. Oh, it was less than that. I think the winner had like 9 million. It was like 9, 8, 7, 6. It was that close. you know and then I had and then I had final pick and I wanted Robo War really bad and it wasn't available and everything else I wanted to pick was already taken so I ended up taking Volley which again I felt comfortable with but just had one of those games where you know the game decided yeah I'm gonna throw you a couple house balls yeah and then after that it was like I did what I could. It wasn't enough. At least you got yourself in a position to be a bus driver. That's always good to do. If you can do something like that, you're getting to pick the games.
    67:02
    It's a lot easier to be comfortable when you have those choices early on, even if they don't work out. I mean, I've had times where it doesn't work out, but at least you're taking the plus expected value play for sure. Exactly. exactly well dang so with no if book coming up no tournaments at least you got pinball behind you right yeah got pinball in the house i'll be probably streaming more i've been streaming a lot of rick and morty which has been a lot of fun yeah how's that game going with the new code pretty good i i really enjoy it it's fun all coming together really well yeah yeah the wizard mode in yet no no wizard mode it sounds like more adventures are coming so you know and they're tweaking things and it's it's fun being part of the beta too because i get to see what's coming before everybody else does but i also have to deal with you know trying to find bugs and things like that too right but that's not a big deal well that's excellent though because now it sounds like their intentions or at least their goals are to kind of expand the parts of the game that the majority of players are going to see obviously or that all players are going to see in terms of adding new modes or adding the way that the dimensions go and stuff like that so that's pretty exciting because i'm always curious about the wizard modes but at the same time that i feel like the end game content can definitely come a little bit later as long as your current game if you can make that experience so much better and it helps out a ton especially the longevity of a game absolutely absolutely all right tom where can we find you at we've been talking about your twitch and your youtube let's tell the viewers where we can find you so you can find me on twitch at fox cities pinball also uh facebook fox cities pinball stream uh instagram fox cities pinball and then youtube on fox cities pinball so pretty much just look Go fucks in his pitbull.
    69:05
    Branding on point. Branding is on point. There, everybody has it. Well, Tom Graff, I appreciate you being here, bud. Thank you so much. Thanks, Travis. It was fun talking to you. I appreciate it. Definitely, too. And you guys all take care. Tommy, take care. And everybody else take care. You, too.