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Asgard-land

BlahCade Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·46m 1s·analyzed·Nov 12, 2017
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.026

TL;DR

Blockade Podcast: Thor tournament recap, Farsight EM pack preview, Ghostbusters technical issues, celebrity harassment discussion.

Summary

Chris Freebus and Jared Morgan discuss their Zen Pinball Thor Ragnarok tournament (which Chris won with 228M), preview the upcoming Farsight EM pack (Spanish Eyes and Wild Card), report technical issues with Ghostbusters on Pinball Arcade/Stern, and digress extensively into celebrity sexual harassment scandals and political accountability.

Key Claims

  • Chris Freebus won the Thor Ragnarok Zen Pinball tournament with 228 million points, beating NimbleLee who had held first place at 180 million.

    high confidence · Chris announces his tournament victory and provides exact scores for top 5 competitors.

  • Farsight released a beta for two EM tables: Spanish Eyes and Wild Card, both Williams tables.

    high confidence · Chris and Jared discuss the new EM pack beta release and analyze both tables in detail.

  • Ghostbusters on Pinball Arcade had simultaneous releases across Android platforms, creating confusion about which version had which features.

    high confidence · Chris describes chaos managing multiple simultaneous Pinball Arcade and Android releases.

  • Ghostbusters on Stern Pinball Arcade has CPU performance issues on systems with older processors, causing freezes and crashes.

    high confidence · Chris details his 10-year-old processor bottlenecking, causing game to freeze and crash even before launching the ball.

  • Chris believes Farsight should add minimum spec warnings when purchasing Ghostbusters to prevent players with older systems from buying it.

    medium confidence · Chris expresses concern many people purchased the table without knowing their systems can't run it.

Notable Quotes

  • “I made it my mission to knock him off, and I did. I took first place at 228 million on Thor, and that was straight-up pinball, no add-ons at all.”

    Chris Freebus @ early in episode — Tournament victory announcement with exact score.

  • “Like, they're not difficult to start, but there's this one secret cavern that only opens up once you have the mode ramp open, and it's a really narrow, tight shot... it's that narrow of a shot, and you need the upper one, and it's really bizarre.”

    Chris Freebus @ Thor Ragnarok discussion — Technical critique of Thor table design quirks.

  • “For God's sake, do Gottlieb EMs. That was their bread and butter back in the day. That was when they were king and Williams was nothing.”

    Chris Freebus @ EM pack discussion — Criticism of Farsight's table selection prioritizing Williams over Gottlieb.

  • “It's just basically flip the ball and keep it alive. There's no... there's nothing... I just... I get bored of them real quickly. I lose interest.”

    Chris Freebus @ EM pack critique — Negative assessment of both EM tables' gameplay depth.

  • “I launched the ball and it launched in slow motion. Just I could hear it hit the pop bumpers, and the sound would activate from pop bumpers, and there would be no more sound because the whole thing froze.”

    Chris Freebus @ Ghostbusters technical issues — Detailed description of severe performance problems with Ghostbusters.

  • “Farsight needs to put that... or like when you go to purchase that table, a warning pops up saying, hey, you must have this minimum spec in order to run this table.”

    Chris Freebus @ Ghostbusters discussion — Specific recommendation for how Farsight should handle spec requirements.

Entities

Chris FreebuspersonJared MorganpersonBlockade PodcastorganizationFarsightcompanyThor RagnarokgameSpanish EyesgameWild CardgameGhostbustersgame

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Farsight table selection prioritizes Williams EM over Gottlieb EM despite Gottlieb being their historical peak period.

    medium · Chris expresses frustration: 'Look, we complain when we get Gottlieb Premier tables. For God's sake, do Gottlieb EMs. That was their bread and butter back in the day.'

  • ?

    event_signal: Blockade Podcast conducted Thor Ragnarok tournament with Chris winning at 228M, followed by World War Hulk 5-minute tournament announcement.

    high · Chris announces tournament victory and detailed leaderboard: CC178 (69M), MikL74 (73M), Creplo55012 (99M), NimbleLee (180M), Chris (228M).

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Wild Card criticized for over-reliance on random bounces and nudging rather than skill-based shooting, lacking drop targets.

    high · Chris: 'You can't shoot it from a flipper. You've got to shoot it up into the pop bumpers and hope the pop bumpers bounce it into that... I don't like that random... Both these tables are nudging tables.'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Spanish Eyes criticized as 'one-trick pony' relying primarily on central pop bumper mechanic with limited additional gameplay depth.

    high · Chris: 'Beyond that, I don't care for what... I mean, it's one of those tables... Beyond that I have horseshoe shot... That's about the extent of it... really does nothing for me. It's a one-trick pony, really.'

  • ?

    announcement: Farsight released beta for EM pack containing Spanish Eyes and Wild Card (both Williams tables).

    high · Chris states 'Farsight has dropped the beta for the next two tables, which are the EM pack' and provides detailed layout analysis of both tables.

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.138

0:00
this is the blockade podcast with your hosts chris and jared you are listening to the blockade podcast i'm your host chet chet trap aka chris freebus joining me as always from around the world jared morgan hello nice pregnant pause afterwards yes yeah I was trying to figure something out if I could also go in ascending voice as well but I didn't know if I could quite get there so I decided not to I'm trying to keep the volume down so I'm going to have my mouth very close to the mic here trying to keep the volume down because my son is also trying to record at the exact same time videos of his and he keeps on coming in here and giving me dirty looks because apparently he can hear me on his tablet microphone on the other side of the house.
1:03
It's super sensitive. You should just solve the problem and get him a nice Bluetooth mic that is nice and secure so that he doesn't get audio bleed. I'm going to point out, I know Jared can see it and that's about the only person that can see it. I'm going to point out the t-shirt that I'm wearing. We're recording on Saturday. I'm wearing a t-shirt that says Taco Tuesday, and there's a picture of a pizza on it. So get tricked.
1:34
That's my demographic right there. Confused. Confused about food and life in general. It's like when I've seen those t-shirts where it'll be a picture of Yoda, and then it'll say, you cannot pass, in quotes. And then quoting it, it'll say, Dumbledore. from Dumbledore. I know. It's basically a geek-pringed shirt, basically.
1:57
So everyone out on the internet who is watching or see that shirt is just like going, but it's BEEF!
NimbleLee
person
Pinball Arcadeproduct
Stern Pinball Arcadeproduct
  • ?

    product_concern: Ghostbusters on Pinball Arcade/Stern experiencing severe CPU bottlenecking, freezes, and crashes on older systems; no minimum spec warnings present.

    high · Chris details game launching in slow motion, freezing on pop bumper sounds, crashing after ball launch on 10-year-old processor; requests Farsight add spec warnings.

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Chris reports increased appreciation for Thor Ragnarok table after playing and understanding its mechanics, despite initial skepticism.

    high · Chris: 'I appreciate it more now that I've played it and understand how to play it... I do remember enjoying it enough, actually. It was okay for me. I like the ball elevator thing...'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Digital Pinball Arcade platform has infrastructure issues preventing players with multiple machines from testing across devices without data loss.

    medium · Jared mentions punishment from previous Xenia resolution requiring data recovery; Chris expresses frustration about infrastructure not being addressed.

    • 2:07
    And their head explodes, basically. Alright, let's get into some things. First thing, it seems kind of like how we're going these days. Let's talk about the Zen tournament that we ran this past week. We were doing it with Thor, because the new Thor Ragnarok movie came out.
    2:33
    And here are your top five. Coming in in fifth place was CC178 at 69 million. Coming in at fourth was MikL74, coming in at 73 million. And then third place Creplo55012, 99 million.
    2:52
    And then NimbleLee topped out at 180 million, and he held on to first place for a long time, and I made it my mission to knock him off, and I did. I took first place at 228 million on Thor, and that was straight-up pinball, no add-ons at all.
    3:11
    You win! I win! I feel accomplished. Yes. Do you get a middle? No. I get a pat on the back, and that's about it. I was like, damn it, I need to win one of my turn-ins for once.
    3:28
    And this seemed to be the one that I had the best shot at. Like I said, I don't necessarily care for the table.
    3:36
    I appreciate it more now that I've played it and understand how to play it. But some of the shots on there are just weird. Like, hard to start. the mode starts aren't difficult but there's this one secret cavern that only opens up once you have the mode ramp open and it's a really narrow tight shot. It reminds me a lot of Ripley's with the upper flipper where you have the two lanes you can shoot. One circles back around towards the pop bumpers, the other one goes to the lower pop bumpers basically or something of that nature I can't remember.
    4:13
    But it's that narrow of a shot, and you need the upper one, and it's really bizarre. And then there's another mid-flipper on the left side that shoots into this ice cavern, and there's little to no time from the point you see the ball on the flipper to you needing to flip in order to get it into that loop. Yeah, it's pretty much as soon as you see the ball coming out of the mechanism, you've got to flip it. And the problem is it's not a slow drop either. It's quickly there. Boom, it's on the table. Yeah.
    4:48
    It's brutal, that shot. It's hard. So anyway, that was one of those sort of shots on, like there's, from memory, I haven't played it for a while, but I do remember, I remember enjoying it enough, actually. It was okay for me.
    5:02
    I like the ball elevator thing as it goes up to whatever it's called. Asgard. Asgard land in the back.
    5:11
    And that was kind of cool. That's mode start up there, isn't it? I think. Yeah, that's the mode shot. That's fun. And the modes is kind of interesting in terms of the very first one is, I don't want to say it's super easy, but it's pretty easy, and it's not timed. And then the next one is a little bit harder, and the next one after that is a little bit more harder until you finally get to the final mode. Well, I shouldn't say the final mode. The final visible mode is a bear. I mean, it's tough, and then you get the wizard mode, and that one was really difficult. I didn't wind up completing that one. It was kind of interesting that it ramps up in difficulty, and I thought that was kind of a good choice. It gracefully escalates. Gracefully escalates. Interestingly enough, in order to get the score that I got, I previously had been doing all of the modes in order, and then I'd get to that last mode that was hard and I'd wind up bricking it and it would be on my third ball and that would be the end of my score and so finally I said screw it I'm doing that one first because if I have a bad game and blow it there I can just shut the game down and start all over again and that wound up being my calling card for doing that Go hardest first go chop that wood basically and do it first So enough of the chopping of wood and this next week we're going to go a little bit easier in terms of grindage. It's going to be a five-minute tournament, sticking with the same theme because after I just went soft for Ragnarok and after seeing that, I realized, hey, World War Hulk is also part of this thing. So we're going to be playing World War Hulk five-minute mode, and this one, it'll be whatever add-on you want. Go for it. Throw it on.
    7:02
    So. You know, I could probably do a variation of this tournament just by following along on my Android tablet with probably not any of the power-up versions that you run, but I could do a five-minute burst and see if I could get it. Yeah, do it fun, because I'm kind of missing out here.
    7:23
    We're making Jero jealous. I'm trying... Actually, what did I do the other day? I played... I decided to go back through some of the Universal tables. I had a really good shot at Back to the Future.
    7:38
    I've got a taste for that game. It's actually pretty good. It's a really fun game. E.T., I can't really get into it.
    7:49
    I didn't even bother with Jaws. I just don't resonate with that game at all. Maybe I'm missing something with it. The problem I have with Jaws is it just doesn't flow to me. It's very perky-jerky. If you miss a shot, the ball comes clunking back down to you.
    8:06
    Some tables, you miss the shot, and yet the ball still finds a way of moving around. Jaws, you miss a shot, and it comes back at you at a walk-in angle. It's very starts and stops. I'm not thrilled with it. That's the thing I don't like about it. And E.T., like I said before, every time E.T. talks, I just want to tell him to shut up.
    8:29
    And the Elliot voice is clearly... A girl? It's the girl from Sorcerer's Lair. I keep on expecting her to call out for Whisper. Elliot's a boy. It sounds like a girl. That's where I was going,
    8:44
    hang on, it's been a while since I've seen that movie. I'm pretty sure Elliot was a bloke. No. It doesn't even remotely pass as being okay. I should mention that with Thor Ragnarok, I'm... I do watch all the Marvel movies. I've the three least favorite have been the two Thor movies and the first Captain America. I just, neither of those, any of those three resonated with me at all. So the only reason why I went and saw this was because it looked a lot like guardians of the galaxy and fun. And that totally translated. I really, I really had a good time with it. It was a good time. So I went and saw it.
    9:26
    Does sound good. I've had very good things. I've not seen it, of course, because movies are hard. In fact, everything is hard. Yeah, well, that's the beauty. My son has finally embraced seeing some of these, and so me and him went and saw them. Excuse.
    9:41
    Yeah, we went and saw them in IMAX 3D. Oh, that would have been pretty nice. Yeah. Recommended. That would have been pretty impressive. Well, I've never seen any of the Marvel movies in IMAX 3D, and I was very interested because when I get the Blu-rays, they do the frame-breaking on some of the movies, and I was hoping for those that did that and it unfortunately didn't.
    10:03
    Kind of a bummer. Not much came out at you, but it was still pretty cool to see it gigantic like that and it's a very colorful movie and Jeff Goldblum just eats the scenery, which is a lot of fun.
    10:19
    Oh, that's pretty cool. That is pretty cool. Yeah, it's pretty cool. Okay. Very early in the month, and kind of shocked to see it, but Farsight has dropped the beta for the next two tables, which are the EM pack. It's the EM pack, and it includes Spanish Eyes and Wild Card. Both of them are Williams tables, which... Look, we complain when we get Gottlieb Premier tables.
    10:54
    For God's sake, do Gottlieb EMs. That was their bread and butter back in the day. That was when they were king and Williams was nothing.
    11:07
    I'm looking at the Spanish. Let's go through the game, shall we? Let's go through Spanish Eyes. Let's try Spanish Eyes. The unique thing about Spanish Eyes is it has a pop bumper right at the center drain.
    11:24
    By a horseshoe, or not necessarily a horseshoe but bumper on the side So the ball can drop in and you think it going to drain but if you nudge the table and get that pop bumper going you can pop it right back out onto the play field
    11:35
    Yeah, that's kind of cool. Flippery wide, but on either side of the pop bumper. So that's kind of its unique.
    11:43
    Beyond that, I don't care for what, I mean, it's one of those tables where beyond that you have a horseshoe shot in the middle, capture in the center of the horseshoe. Then you've got four pop bumpers at the very top of the table.
    12:03
    That's about the extent of it. There's no lanes to shoot. There's no drop targets to hit. I get that it's a unique style with that pop bumper in the middle, but it really does nothing for me. It's a one-trick pony, really. I'm looking at the layout and it looks like there's your usual on EMs, you have the rubber contact surfaces, so all the long white rubbers and switches behind them for scoring. But it looks like there are targets, just stand-up targets, positioned strategically around the table. And, you know, it actually reminds me a little bit of Hyperball in the fact that it has all these targets really far away from you, all around the edge of the table a little bit. And it's got all that stuff in the middle, like the horseshoe, as you were saying, and the eject and the three pops at the top. It's got five rollover lanes at the top for skill shots. Yeah, but those are only, I mean, about the only time you get those are when you launch the ball. Yeah, which is going to be very strategic as far as skill shots go. You're going to need to actually really use your skill shot properly here because you only get one shot at this. Basically, one shot at five balls unless you get an extra ball. So you're going to have to really play it. Well, this is the other thing with the table. you can rack up the extra balls. Oh, you can? Oh, yeah. You can rack up a ton of extra balls.
    13:28
    So it's a bit like the edible feature on Central Park, where you just keep on going, basically. Yeah, I think you can get up to I want to say it's up to 10 extra balls if I'm not mistaken.
    13:43
    I haven't actually experienced the extra balls playing it in the beta because I just literally threw it on this morning. But I played the real table, and I recall that happening, where it was just like, oh, look, I got another extra ball. Okay, let's just keep on playing.
    13:57
    Yeah, right. And that was my impression when I played it for real, that it was just one of those tables where you're like, well, I guess I'll just keep on flipping.
    14:09
    Yeah, just keep on flipping. You're trying to get up in the pool. Should I just let the ball drain and walk away? I don't know. I'm kind of bored of this. again I get why Farsight picked it in terms of a unique layout but the second table is wildcard and although this one has a spinner in the middle and has proper flipper return lanes again they're all kind of wide open there's no drop targets at all I'm with both of these and these are the kind of EMs that I don't care for it's just basically flip the ball and keep it alive there's no anything like for instance on wildcard on the right hand side near the top there is a lane that you can get the ball to go into and drop down and score some bones and then the ball gets ejected back out the top.
    15:21
    It's a purely random landing in it. You can't shoot it from a flipper. You've got to shoot it up into the pop bumpers and hope the pop bumpers bounce it into that.
    15:30
    I don't like that random... It's a touch short. I want it to be that my skill got me in there, not that I... my skill of nudging. Both these tables are nudging. so for those of you that like nudging congratulations you'll have a ball for me I just I get bored of them real quickly I lose interest yeah it doesn't look super appealing I'm just looking at it going well okay yeah it doesn't really look so great I'm having a look at the play field when it's just lit up with it's general illumination and it's dark man yeah like there is zero there is zero lights in this thing because of all the vacancy in the middle of the playfield and it's the pitch it's pitch black like you guys on dx11 man you're gonna have to really adjust the the slider on this because it's dark as heck i didn't have to adjust it too much i i turned 20 room light and 50 bull brightness and it was plenty bright to see what was going on. But... I don't know. The fact that these are the two EMs that we're going to get for this year, I'm fairly disappointed. I just... Why can't we get some of these classic Gottlieb EMs? You know?
    16:57
    Don't know. Yeah. So... But, oh well. I don't know man it's going to be a quiet month yep well I guess in some ways well I was going to say in some ways it's kind of probably a nice break after the chaos that was Ghostbusters trying to get that out like jeez on Android we were having like simultaneous Pimble Arcade and Pimble Arcade releases and I was seriously losing track of which one was what and what was missing things from which it was crazy man so I'm kind of I kept on checking Stern Pimble Arcade on Steam to see if it had been released yet and it did finally get released on Stern Pimble Arcade and I was very curious to see what it you know after all the CPU problems that I talked about last week I wanted to see if it was any different on Stern and result was the same but getting there was slightly different I was able to actually select the game and when I selected the game, there was a long pause and then finally it came where it seemed like it was going to be frozen and then I was able to start the game. It took a long time until all of a sudden I got the table itself up. I was like, okay. I launched the ball and it launched in slow motion. Just I could hear it hit the pop bumpers and the sound would activate from pop bumpers and there would be no more sound because the whole thing froze. Eventually the ball dropped down and I was able to get a flip motion and then the whole thing crashed again.
    18:42
    Sorry, is that on Pimple Arcade or Stern? No, that was on Stern. Again, I said this last week, my processor is 10 years old, so it's bottlenecking this whole thing and that's why it's not functioning. on every other Pimble Arcade table, it works just fine. And I really think that Farsight needs to put that, or like when you go to purchase that table, that a warning pops up saying, hey, you must have this minimum spec in order to run this table. Because I just suspect there's a lot of people that bought the table just like me.
    19:24
    Yeah. I would agree. I think people will be getting stung out there when they load this up on their machine that was being perfectly fine for pin blockade up until this particular release.
    19:36
    I'd be very curious to know if it runs on my laptop newer so the processor is better, but it has a crap video card. It cannot run DX11 version. It can run DX9, but it cannot run DX11.
    19:52
    The only reason why I'm not trying it out is because the whole thing of if I try a computer, then all my data gets lost.
    20:02
    Yeah. That punish that you had the last time that you had to get the Xenia to resolve. No desire to go back through that again. So that's why I haven't tried it on my laptop. I guarantee that Fossil have not addressed that issue with their same infrastructure. Are you kidding me? Absolutely not. If they guys, if you ever address that, please put it in those of us with multiple machines can actually try multiple machines.
    20:30
    And don't get pissed off in the process. Yeah. So that's what's going on with Pinball Arcade right now.
    20:41
    Interesting. So what else is happening? Oh my God. Well, okay. Non-Pinball Talk, folks. So, I'm sure the news has been reaching your shores, too, because it is every other day a male celebrity who has been a total rape jerk is getting brought down on sexual harassment charges. Yep.
    21:12
    And what's interesting is the swift action which is being taken place. So, this week it was Kevin Spacey Yeah, and he's been dropped like a ton of shit for everything. Oh, my God. Netflix. Like, recently out of a movie.
    21:29
    Netflix wasted absolutely no time whatsoever. They were like, hey, you know what? How's it going? We just started.
    21:36
    Two weeks in? Well, hey, there's going to be no seventh season, and as for the sixth season, yeah, we're shutting everything down, and we're going to think. Oh, by the way, Kevin Spacey, you're fired. We're going to get executive producer credit. it. So Spacey's completely gone out of that. And then he has a movie that's being released on December 22nd.
    21:56
    Forgive me for not recalling the title of it. It's a Ridley Scott movie. And they went, hey, you know what?
    22:03
    They are reshooting all of his scenes with a new actor, Christopher Plummer, and just going to replace him entirely.
    22:10
    Christopher Plummer was... Wow! Wasn't Christopher Plummer the guy, the Von Trapp, Colonel Von Trapp? Yeah. From the original Sound of Music? Yes.
    22:22
    I can't believe he's still alive, hey? No, he's done. He's in more movies than you would think. He's been in quite a few things. He's just a very stately Englishman. Dude. Yeah.
    22:38
    So he's in. They're refilming his... I guess part of the reason why they're able to do this is most of Spacey's stuff in that movie was him and him alone.
    22:48
    So easily replaceable. But still entirely unheard of. It one thing to be an antidote It like Well yeah like Paul what his face did in Fast and Furious Yeah Paul Walker
    23:07
    But yeah, man, I'll tell you what, as a celebrity, if you've got a few skeletons in the closet, it seems at the moment that it's only a matter of time until you're sprung. Because the thing with this sort of thing, like the action that Spacey has just accounted, like it's a cascading effect there will be other people victims who come out now and start basically when you had a titan like Weinstein get brought down that told everybody it's safe to do this and see actual action take place the other person that got brought down this week was Louis C.K. comedian and he had a movie that he filmed in secret last year funded entirely himself was just getting ready to release.
    23:57
    And it's one of those secrets that every comedian already knew about him, but apparently hadn't been brought out. And that's Louis C.K. likes to whip it out in front of people and pleasure.
    24:13
    Fair enough. Five women had come against him, and he actually, unlike all these other people, went, yep, I did that, sorry. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Angel was like, whoa! That was amazing.
    24:26
    He, too, he got dropped by his agent, got dropped by FX, got dropped by... The movie's not going to come out at all now.
    24:33
    Bono was cash. You know, and it's just like, wow. So here's the thing. Yes. That's much for that money shot.
    24:45
    Lel, lel, lel, lel. Here's the thing. Because I work in this industry, I don't feel the least bit bad for these celebs or for anybody that's in a position of power because truly that's what it is. It's a power play. It's not a sexual play. It's purely about exerting power over somebody else and knowing that you can get away with it. Here's the part that I feel bad about.
    25:13
    So in the case of House of Cards, they just started this season. They were two weeks into shooting, and now it's been pulled on hold. do you know how many people that affects? Yeah. We're talking about on a daily basis, you're talking about 70 plus crew members on a daily basis and that's just working on the set itself. Then you go into post-production or the production office itself with accounting and anybody else of that nature.
    25:41
    The total people that it affects winds up usually being between 200 and 300 people. Just for one person's stupid... Because of one...
    25:54
    And that's who... I feel for the crew. I mean, it sucks. Because a lot of times, too, they've made a commitment to a show, maybe turn down other shows, and all of a sudden, boom, Carpe Diem stands out underneath them, and they're out of a job because of this idiot.
    26:12
    Yeah. It's a steal for... Or in the case of the Louis C.K. movie, it's, well, you spent all this time working on this film and usually you take pride in what you've worked on and you maybe want to show people what you've worked on and nope, go poof, away. And I actually have a movie that happened with. I did a movie years ago that was directed by the creator of X-Files. All right. And it was for the 2008 elections and so it was very timely and it was very and it was this movie called Fence Walker and he I don't know if he didn't get it edited in time or if it was kind of out there was some wackiness going on and whether he just didn't pick up a distributor supposed to come out before the election well the election came and went and that movie is never going to see the light of day.
    27:19
    And so it was kind of sexy because it's like, well, I spent time on this. I would like to see what the work is that we put in, but nope, it's gone. So it's kind of weird. It's a weird experience for crew members.
    27:32
    It's a little bit similar, I guess, to – kind of similar. You get the same feeling, probably not the same sort of investment, but you get the same feeling in software where you're working on something and you get it to the point where it's ready to release and for whatever reason, it never gets released or never gets turned on. It just rots on the vine. Digital rot, basically.
    27:54
    And you sort of go, well, hang on. We spent like a month on this. Multiple people spent a month on this and we're not releasing it? Why? You know, it's a really horrible feeling. So I know what that feels like as far as like, well what a waste of time that's eight months of my life I won't get back for your case probably because it would have been a long time doing all the shots and everything yeah so it's a punish man it's no good and the thing of it is with the names that have come out now I know of other names and I'm just waiting for news to come out about them because it's just like there are we may keep the secrets in the industry ourselves but doesn't mean that news doesn't travel among us in the industry so there's plenty of other people that we've heard horror stories none of these horror stories that have come out of the celebrities is shocking news to me in the least it's kind of like yep yeah we need that heard that story before this news about Spacey was not old news to the industry in other words the news about his sexual harassment I mean the main thing was it took place 20 years ago like the first bit dropped out but then it turns out that there's been recent stuff and I think that's why Netflix said goodbye but in terms of him being a bully on the set and being harassing that way that is not unheard of news yeah yeah the same thing goes with there's other people for instance I would love love to work on a Keanu Reeves movie because I have heard nothing but amazing stories how just incredibly gracious he is to the crew there's also positive stories that are out there about certain actors and talent but I mean I keep on waiting to hear when is the stuff about Michael Bay going to drop.
    30:11
    Oh, really? Because if... His abuse of the lens flare really does need to be taken into account. The stories of what his sets are like are basically scream fests.
    30:30
    Nonstop screaming. And think about this. Megan Fox called him Hitler. And got dropped or didn't want to do the third Transformers movie. That's how bad.
    30:44
    That's what I'm saying. It's only a matter of time before somebody drops something about him. You know? And there's a few people who like that. Or abuse or any number of things. And, gee, the amount of people coming out of that would work or just be like termites, basically. Yep. Yeah. Yep. So that's why I say there's various stories of various actors that you just kind of go, so when's that one going to come about? Yeah.
    31:14
    I think it comes down to, while it may be floating around in the industry, I think it comes down more to the weight that gets given by a victim coming forward. An actual victim who's had actual impact.
    31:29
    Because that's when stories become fact. Yeah, and what's interesting is you do have to worry about – because some of the things that have popped up recently in days, you just kind of go, okay, wait a second. That sounds like somebody just trying to ask you out on a date. It wasn't actual harassment.
    31:49
    Yeah. And it would have been from years ago. So I think some of these allegations, you do have to kind of go, okay, is somebody just because it's easy that they're throwing it out there now, or is it a legitimate case? But by and large, again, with some of these people, I think the reason why you're seeing these talent management and networks dropping them is because they've already heard the rumors. And now it's just a fact of somebody actually finally coming forward that them going up. Well, OK, there's the proof. You know, we don't need to wait for the court case. We already have heard these allegations. Now we're actually seeing somebody firsthand, you know, levy out the allegation. essentially they're sort of like guilty, they're innocent until proven guilty but not in a court of law basically just by someone reporting it publicly and that's another way you feel very uncomfortable about that the interesting part is that there's allegations coming out about some of our politicians too and the reaction couldn't be more different yeah and that's where it's like mess well well it becomes it becomes no this is my party and i'm going to stand behind the the party regardless of what the person did because i'm worried about what it'll do to the party and that's the that's the troubling aspect and trying to wrap your head around that that you know the very same people that'll jump all over these actors and be like how dare you then all of a sudden it comes out about somebody in their party that they favor and they go, well, you know, maybe we should just wait and see. Yeah, it's weird, isn't it? I don't know why it is. Is it the level of perceived authority that these people have that makes it different? Is it like, quote-unquote, just actors, so therefore we don't care?
    33:45
    But if it's somebody in Parliament or in an official capacity, does that make the gravity of the situation something that requires a little bit more due process, if you like. I don't know. Again, I think you're talking about with the entertainment industry, it is by and large a more liberal-minded group. And so if there is a perceived injustice, they're more likely to jump all over that and squash it and show that there is actual, you know, you can't sit there. A theory of action. Right. You can sit there and always be on your bully pulpit about how people need to be nice to each other and blah blah blah And then when something comes out you look the other way It like no you got to stand behind it Whereas with the politicians there a lot more involved And I think they can hide behind their, oh, look at my voting record. And no, that was the past and all this kind of thing. So I think there's a different perception. But then I also think that in the current climate, and I don't know if it's this way around the world or if it's just here in the U.S., I think Britain certainly is going through it with their whole Brexit deal and stuff. But where people are becoming bulletproof from scandal. We had a guy that was trying to become president, and literally his campaign fell apart when he misspelled potato.
    35:18
    Okay, I am not kidding you. He was the nominee for the Republicans to be president, and he went to a public school, and they were having a spelling bee, and this kid's word was potato. And he put up on, you know, he said, P-O, you know, geez, I'm doing this in the, P-O-T-A-T-O, and then the guy mouthed to him, E. And so he put E in there like, nope, that's misspelled. I'm not kidding you when I say that literally crushed the guy's campaign. What? Wow. Okay. As opposed to what's going on today where literally you could probably shoot somebody in the face and still be able to run. You know, it's... Jeez. How the standards of potato have dropped. It's amazing. The potato standard is out the window. Yeah. That is depressing in itself. Like I said, I don't know if it's just us or if it's happening all across the world.
    36:24
    We are getting problems here in Australia about dual citizenship. Apparently, there are some politicians in Australia that have dual citizenship, and apparently to be a politician, you can only be a citizen of Australia and no other. You cannot have another passport.
    36:42
    So there are these people coming out now that just all of a sudden, oh, yeah, I'm a dual citizen. See ya. and they're just going basically so there's all these politicians just going well yeah I've got dual Australian citizenship which is not uncommon you know Australia's past for people of an older generation and then all of a sudden there's like probably becoming a politician in Australia they would never have even been asked oh do you have another passport they would just go oh okay so you're elected cool whatever there wouldn't even be a problem but then someone made an issue of it and now everyone else is having to follow suit because someone made an issue about it so all these politicians going yep see ya I'm a dual citizen bye bye and off we go no longer a politician for dual citizenship like that's all we have in Australia at the moment for people you know invalidating their political careers there's a lot worse things going on out there um than just having a dual citizenship right um so i don't know it seems like ridiculous if you ask me but whatever like if if one of my members my local member had a dual citizenship i will go i don't actually give a single F about that.
    38:13
    Are you doing good for my community? Are you actually representing me well in Parliament? Are you trying to get things that matter to me passed?
    38:22
    Those things don't matter. Don't actually care. Do not care. No, no, no. Those things don't matter at all. It's not about you. It's about them.
    38:31
    Yeah, exactly. Hey, folks. Welcome to the Blockade Podcast. the black political review right don't worry next week we're going to talk about Scientology I need to get on my e-meter get the e-meter out for that one believe me folks I would love nothing more than to deep dive into that madness but I also don't feel like having a death hit squad come to my front door so that shit gets real like real bad especially when you live near the epicenter so yeah nope that's a hot pass but hit me up on twitter folks and I'll gladly go off on a very very lengthy discussion or hit us up in our email that would be blahblahblockade at gmail.com If you want to talk politics or any other thing that really would bore you silly on the podcast listening, go for it.
    39:41
    Because then we can just offend one person instead of many. Also, why don't you check out our website? It is blockadepinball.com. There you can find our past episodes as well as show notes, websites that we have visited. It makes it all easy to click and clickable. You can follow us on Twitter, which I highly recommend. The show is at Blockade.
    40:10
    They're typically where I've weekly been announcing the Zen tournament. And we also... That's where I post episode summaries up and stuff. Mm-hmm, as well as links. Did you know that we've got 280 characters now? So I did a slightly longer show summary to help people understand what was on the show, which is kind of nice. Using Twitter 280 characters for good, not evil.
    40:37
    Yeah, I'm afraid I'm probably going to have to refrain from being evil because I don't know how to write short, and so Twitter is very difficult for me, and 280 just makes it slightly easier.
    40:50
    And I'm going to try not to be abusive of that, but I'm not holding my breath either. So if you want to... There's a whole thing... There's what? Go on. Keep going. I was going to say, if you want to subject yourself to my Twitter madness, I am at ShutYourTraps, and Jared is at JaredMorgz.
    41:13
    Yeah. So with the whole 280 thing, there's a few rules with 280 that I've seen on the internet so far. Okay. And that is, if you do an 80-character tweet, for the love of jeebers, put line breaks in. because it is just too hard to read a solid block of text. Yeah. And grok it, like scan it. It's just too hard. Use your line breaks. But it introduces another problem, which is on most Twitter apps on your phone, you get one tweet per scroll for 280 character tweets. Ah. So that's down significantly. Basically, you're scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, scrolling. If you've got a lot of people you follow in your Twitter feed, you've got a lot of scrolling to get through before you head to the top of your feed so that's what people are saying at the moment so there's a there's a trade-off between spacing out your tweets versus readability of tweets but i'd go with readability um and try and put a bit of white space in there to help people out it's funny i i don't follow that many people uh but two of the things that i follow that pretty much fill up my feed uh one i follow patten oswalt He's a comedian, and he retweets a lot of the political nonsense. And so basically it's a one-stop shop for me. I don't have to follow anybody else. Just follow him, and I get everybody else's thoughts.
    42:39
    He's essentially an aggregator. A full aggregator. Exactly. And then I also follow the Lakers. And so whenever there's a game day, all of a sudden I just get, for about three hours, nothing but Lakers tweets up as every score goes. and that about fills up my time with Twitter. If I had to scroll through much more beyond that, I'd just go nuts.
    43:02
    There's some days where I go to sleep at night and I've cleared out my Twitter feed and then I come back in the morning and there's like, with the people I follow, it could be anywhere between 40 to 100 tweets that I have to go through.
    43:16
    And it's just like, if I leave it for a couple of days, then I almost need to declare Twitter bankruptcy and just scroll to the top of the... So see, folks, this is why you should follow all three of these accounts of ours, because we will not abuse you. I guarantee that the Blockade Twitter feed will maybe feature five tweets a week at most.
    43:41
    Yeah. You know, and also we will never do an all caps post. So no, which is the kind of like, as an aside, kind of thing that triggers me really bad with pinball supernovas posts. They're all caps. on Twitter. Every time I look at it, I go,
    43:58
    Stern releases a new pinball machine called this. And it's like, wow. Don't need to shout sport. It's a title. Don't need to shout sport. Yeah.
    44:10
    Oh, man. All right, folks. Well, thank you for putting up with us on this podcast here, and hopefully we didn't scare you over it. Rather diverse podcast. Yes. we will be back again next week I forgot to mention and maybe we'll talk more about this but I'm apparently getting the good parenting award because I've introduced my son to Buffy the Vampire Slayer which would be his first taste of monsters and horror okay this is fine we'll see how that goes as we dive down that rabbit hole because we also just finished all of Cowboy Bebop, so he was looking for something else to watch. I was like, let's watch Buffy.
    44:56
    Hmm. Yeah, Buffy. Hey, it's a nice soft introduction to monsters. Exactly. But you know what? It's proper monster lore, at least. Unlike those abominations of the Twilight series.
    45:12
    Yeah, gross. So, anyway. There's only so much Spike Lee you can take. alright anyway enough of this we'll talk to you again next week thanks for listening bye bye toodaloo wizardamusement.com the site to visit for custom pinball shooter rugs easy to install totally unique mention blockade podcast for 10% off your order wizardamusement.com sales restoration customization don't forget to leave a review on iTunes or your favourite podcast hosting service that Blackade is delivered to. We can't improve unless you tell us how. Now stop listening and play some pinball.