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The Extraordinarily Awkward Pause

BlahCade Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 36m·analyzed·Oct 3, 2014
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.031

TL;DR

Blockade discusses Addams Family Kickstarter success, licensing deals, and digital pinball platform features.

Summary

The Blockade Podcast hosts discuss the Addams Family Pinball Kickstarter campaign (70% funded in first week), analyze licensing strategy and stretch goals, explore Farsight's upcoming original digital pinball table, critique Pro Mode difficulty options versus physics customization in competitors, and rant about inefficient Redbox kiosk usage.

Key Claims

  • Addams Family Kickstarter was 3/4 funded (over $70,000) about one week into campaign

    high confidence · Chris Frebus states this as current status during recording

  • Over 200 backers are currently pledging for the Gold Edition tier

    medium confidence · Chris Frebus reports this observation from Kickstarter

  • Bram Stoker's Dracula is part of a package deal licensing agreement from Sony

    high confidence · Discussed as confirmed from Farsight interview; raises question about bundled music rights

  • Farsight is planning to create an original pinball table as part of Kickstarter stretch goals

    high confidence · Mentioned as 'nugget dropped' from interview with Farsight

  • Ask Homework allows flipper position and physics adjustments without charging Pro Mode fee

    high confidence · Jared confirms this feature exists in Ask Homework's pinball product

  • Pro Pinball (1990s) offered table slope, condition, and flipper strength adjustments for $90

    high confidence · Sean Don Carlos cites this historical precedent from nearly 20 years ago

Notable Quotes

  • “Well, I'll just say, for the purposes of those listening that want to hire me for Pinball projects, the name is Chris Franchi. But to everybody else, just shut your trap.”

    Chris Frebus (Shut Your Trap) @ early segment — Reveals real name for professional purposes; establishes podcast persona distinction

  • “We are Pinball Geek Chic.”

    Chris Frebus @ early segment — Proposed podcast tagline/description; rejected by co-hosts as 'too frou-frou'

  • “It's been over a year since the last one for Terminator 2. It is the Addams Family. It's the table that everybody since the dawn of The Pinball Arcade has been asking for.”

    Jeff Strong @ Kickstarter discussion — Explains why Kickstarter is succeeding; Addams Family as most-requested digital table

  • “These people are dishing out thousands of dollars. I mean, throw them a bone, you know?”

    Sean Don Carlos @ Kickstarter communication discussion — Criticizes Farsight for lack of backer updates; advocates for more frequent communication

  • “Yes. Yes. I hope it's a good answer. I don't know if that was just like a... It's not an answer. It's not an answer because it still doesn't address the outlanes.”

    Jared Morgz and Jeff Strong @ Orbles/difficulty discussion — Critique of physics-altering balls as insufficient difficulty option; fundamental game design issue

  • “I'd like to see Pro Mode be abolished in Season 4. But no, that's not going to happen.”

    Sean Don Carlos @ Pro Mode discussion — Expresses frustration with Pinball Arcade Pro Mode implementation limitations

  • “The fact that it just ruins all your high scores and you can't post to the forums or the leaderboards and stuff like that—it's just kind of that's annoying for me. That just makes me go, 'It's irrelevant.'”

    Sean Don Carlos @ Pro Mode leaderboard discussion — Identifies key friction point: Pro Mode locks players out of global leaderboard competition

Entities

Chris FrebuspersonJared MorgzpersonSean Don CarlospersonJeff StrongpersonAddams Family (Kickstarter)productFarsight StudioscompanyBram Stoker's DraculagamePinball ArcadeproductAsk HomeworkcompanyZen Pinballproduct

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Farsight allegedly allocating 99% of resources to DLC and 1% to feature development (Orbles)

    medium · Sean Don Carlos: 'they put almost 99% of their resources to DLC every month and the rest to Orbles'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Community expectation for regular Kickstarter updates (every 2-3 days); backers spending thousands demand transparency

    high · Jared and Sean discuss need for frequent updates; Sean: 'They're paying for updates and communication'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Ask Homework positioned as superior to Farsight's Pro Mode by offering free flipper and physics customization without leaderboard restrictions

    high · Jared: 'Ask is putting them in for free and Zen is putting them in for free'; Sean acknowledges this superiority

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Hosts critique Farsight's physics-altering Orbles balls as insufficient difficulty solution; does not address fundamental game mechanics

    high · Jeff Strong: 'It's not an answer because it still doesn't address the outlanes'; Sean: 'It still doesn't... address the other factors'

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Bram Stoker's Dracula confirmed as Sony package deal licensing; questions raised about bundled music rights (AC/DC possibility)

    high · Discussed extensively; raises speculation about AC/DC music licensing potential through Sony package

  • $

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.291

0:00
Oh my god, that is the ugliest strain I have ever seen. Back in my day, we didn't have jackpots. Monsters of Rock! Spanning the globe, this is the Blockade Podcast. I'm your host, Shut Your Trap, and no, that is not my real name. Sitting in with us, as usual, is Jeff Strong. Howdy. Jared Morgz. G'day, mates. And back from a couple of episodes absence, Sean Don Carlos. Greetings, Earthlings. It's alive!
0:38
I will mesmerize you with my semicircular movement. So why am I the only one that's still using a pseudonym?
0:48
I don't know, because you don't want everyone to know who you are. But how am I supposed to become big and famous so I can leave this dog and pony show if nobody knows what my name is? You're going to have to jump the camp, mate, and start using your real name. Well, at least your first name.
1:09
Well, I'll just say, for the purposes of those listening that want to hire me for Uber projects, the name is Chris Frebus. But to everybody else, just shut your trap. We're fine. The artist formerly known. Let's shut your trap. The same goes for me, too. If everyone's listening to this and wants to give me voiceover work or something, I'm in Australia, so I'm ahead of you guys anyhow. I'm from the future, and that brings its certain benefits. You do got an advantage being in the future. There's no doubt about that. It's good. It's a good thing.
1:44
Get a hold of his agent. Agent? I have to have one of those? Oh, okay. Yeah, they might be handy. I was trying to come up with a way of describing what our podcast is about just because we're not always all about pinball, obviously. We talk about all sorts of things. And I started trying to come up with a definition of what it is. They said we talk about pinball first and foremost, but we devolve into all sorts of other things that I think reflect the interests of the pinball fans in general, whether it's, I don't know, our frequent movie talks or the foods we eat, any of that crap. So anyway, I want to try this on for size with you guys, see what you think. We are Pinball Geek Chic.
Pro Pinball
game
Wizard Amusementcompany
Sonycompany
Johnny Pneumonicgame
Blockade Podcastorganization

market_signal: Addams Family Kickstarter achieving 70% funding in approximately one week; strong community demand for this table

high · Chris Frebus: 'over $70,000 at the moment' at ~1 week into campaign; 3/4 funded

  • $

    market_signal: $50 Orbles ball tier discussed; hosts uncertain if value justification sufficient given free alternatives elsewhere

    medium · Discussion of whether $50 tier for special balls is reasonable when free options exist in competitors

  • ?

    announcement: Farsight announcing original pinball table creation as part of Kickstarter stretch goal

    high · Chris Frebus states: 'the nugget that they're going to create their own original table—we had also heard a while back that they were in conversation with actual pinball designers'

  • ?

    product_concern: Pro Mode criticized for limiting leaderboard posting and global competition despite being $5.99 purchase; hosts compare unfavorably to free options in Ask Homework and Zen

    high · Sean: 'The fact that it just ruins all your high scores and you can't post to the forums or the leaderboards... it's irrelevant'

    • 2:27
    Is that too frou-frou? No. Pinball Geek Chic. No. Sean, the voice of reason. There are limits here as to how much of my dignity I will sacrifice.
    2:45
    That's fine. this is why we like having Sean in here because we can just torture him now I remember why I've been gone that's why he joins every three months that's all I can take well hey Sean you have I know you have two tables and one of them is heavily modified which would be your Twilight Zone table correct? it is it's also in pieces but you know well whose pinball table is this? it's my pinball machine exactly Does your ACDC table have any mods done to it? No, I deliberately don't just because the other one is so tricked out Well, you know what you should do You should get a custom shooter rod from wizardamusement.com That's right, wizardamusement.com They have a selection of over 50 custom rods and shooters You can see a sampling of their wares by going to the website and viewing the gallery My personal favorite is they have an alien head that they created for use on Space Invaders, since Space Invaders so obviously ripped off the H.R. Giger alien.
    3:56
    And hey, tell them what table you have, so Sean, you can go, Hey, I have an ACDC table. And they go, Hey, you know what? We have a custom shooter mod just for that. And if you mention the blockade, you'll receive 10% off your order. Again, that's wizardamusement.com. How was that for a copy reading, huh?
    4:14
    But seriously, they had some cool stuff there. I know they had the eyeball for Scared Stiff and some other ones, but I'm trying to think what the ACDC one would be. The ACDC one is a lightning bolt.
    4:26
    Oh, that makes sense. I know they have a coffin for the Metallica table. I know for Pirates of the Caribbean they have a jackhead.
    4:39
    I know they've got a golem head for the Hobbit table. and they're all three-dimensional. They're pretty cool looking, hand-painted. They've even got a little brain from TMNT as well. Oh, no, it's a fish. And, oh, yeah, yeah, it's cool stuff. Yeah. Yeah, heaps of cool stuff. Yeah, if I had a pinball machine, I'd totally trick it out with one of these because it's a simple mod and you just chuck it on and it just completely blings up the table, particularly from the cabinet perspective. Yeah, you don't even have to wire anything. no I just chuck it in easy and you know we here at the blockade are going to be giving away a shooter rod mod to one lucky listener and better yet it's winner's choice it's not even like we already have the thing it's whatever one you want you're gonna get so keep listening I'll tell you how to win one at the end of the show I'll give you a hint though you're gonna have to get on Twitter and interact with the blockade so a little motivation let's rock yeah baby i'm cool i never got 3x for a jet you whippersnapper hey uh while we're kind of just reasoned about did you hear about this uh adam's family kickstarter i heard there was an interview about it oh yeah yeah yeah i heard something about that i heard it was pretty good too yeah yeah apparently it got uh it got heavily downloaded a little little more so than uh the usual podcast that these morons over at Blockhead... Oh, wait a second, that's us. That's us. That's you. I wasn't responsible for that one. I have no hand in it either. I can claim no responsibility for said podcast. No comment. No comment.
    6:24
    Everyone's running away. Run away! Run away! Snap. Hey, I'll put my stamp on it. You guys obviously had a chance to listen to it. The Kickstarter, as of today, when we were recording this, We're only about a week into the Kickstarter, and the thing is, almost three-quarters of the way funded. It's over $70,000 at the moment. You guys surprised?
    6:50
    No way. Is anybody surprised by this? By how quickly it's doing well? Not terribly surprised. I mean, it's been over a year since the last one for Terminator 2.
    7:08
    It is the Addams Family. It's the table that everybody since the dawn of TPA has been asking for. Yeah. It would be kind of sad if it wasn't doing this role, to be honest.
    7:20
    That is true. For as much pleading and begging, it's pretty much a sure thing. You've still got the typical troll, the errant troll backer that's on there, and the usual noise. but on the whole it seems to be kind of trucking along. I had to back it earlier today because I thought I had done it when it first started and I forgot that my credit card had changed. And so when I clicked the button to do the pledge, it didn't go and I didn't realize it. I'm like, why does this thing say I'm not a backer? And it's like, oh wait, because I'm not. Oh, sorry. So, Sean, does it actually do a verification check when you first do your Kickstarter pledge initially and then take payment at the end? I thought if you wanted to pledge, it was like, yeah, okay, and then we'll take payment at the end. You have to, at least in the U.S. I don't know how it works overseas, but at least in the U.S. it goes through Amazon Payments.
    8:17
    Ah, right. And I think it reserves like $20 or something just to see that the card's good. So it's kind of like a pre-order payment.
    8:30
    Well, it doesn't actually charge it. It just kind of reserves it. It's kind of like going to a hotel and they scan your card just in case you raid the minibar. Right, right. Or dress the room.
    8:44
    It's a security deposit. Party like a rock star. What do you guys think of the reward tiers? Or just what is even being offered in the rewards? I know that a lot of people, there's a lot of backers just to get the gold edition of the table. I think there's over 200 currently.
    9:02
    So are they not doing the beta testing this time around? They're not taking any more beta testers? I didn't see the beta testing being listed. I'm assuming they're out of slots. You see, they could offer it on Android. They couldn't offer it on iOS, because, yeah, you're right, they'd be out of testing slots for sure, or very close to it, in case of oversubscription in the Kickstarter. But they could do it pretty easily on Android as a private beta, if they wanted to.
    9:28
    Could they do it on Steam? I don't know. Is Steam limited with the number of testers you can have? I don't know what the PC limit is. I haven't heard.
    9:38
    I haven't done any work on Steam, so I don't know how that really operates. Did you guys like any of the things offered from the Adams Foundation itself? I mean, at least that was something unique, I thought, you know, to this Kickstarter. I thought that was kind of cool. They're offering a Translight. I know they're offering a book autographed by the author.
    9:59
    Yeah, yeah. There might be one or two other things. It's a limited edition print that nobody really knows what it is because nobody has described it yet.
    10:09
    I don't know. I'm not really that excited about the extras at that level because we're talking big bucks here at that level to get those collector pieces. Although, for a true diehard both Addams Family franchise and Addams Family pinball fan, that would be trifling money to spend to get an original artifact with a signature or something like that. So, you know, it all depends on the market, doesn't it, and what people are driven by when they actually look at the reward tiers.
    10:42
    Is there anything that you guys would do differently for a Kickstarter? I mean, do we feel, I feel that at least this time, as opposed to the T2, because everybody pretty much knows the T2 Kickstarter seemed like just an abysmal affair.
    10:56
    Yeah, it was. Farsight even said that they were a little bit distracted during that time. Yeah. obviously they're doing a lot more communication this time around.
    11:07
    But this far in, everybody is, again, going, hey, where's our update? How come we're not getting an update? We just want a word from Farsight. And yet to me it's like, well, they have said things on Facebook. They have said things on Twitter. Is it that people want it directly on the Kickstarter page, an update? Is that what needs to be done? I think that would be the way to go, yeah. Because it emails everybody and, you know, gives you a notification. So, I mean, I think they should be posting more updates, at least, you know, maybe every couple of days. Totally. Like every two or three days there should be an update. There should be photographs of the table being deconstructed. There should be photographs of, you know, some of the guys around it, like, doing stuff to it. And there should be, like, pictures of maybe some of the work being done digitally to it. You know, that sort of stuff that we don't see would be really cool to feature in a Kickstarter update. Yeah, these people are dishing out thousands of dollars. I mean, throw them a bone, you know? Yeah, like show them a bit of what's going on and communicate with them because that's essentially what they're paying for at the moment. They're paying for updates and communication. Yeah, you know? Seeing some excitement.
    12:19
    No, it was thrown out. Somebody was talking about, oh, they should announce their stretch goals. And then somebody else commented, no, you can't put out the stretch goals too early. and I'm not sure exactly what the psychology behind that is.
    12:34
    Arrogance. It looks a little like you're counting your chickens before they hatch type of thing if you put them up too early. So when would be an appropriate time, would you say? Like how close to the goal?
    12:48
    $70,000 is 20 grand away from the actual goal. That's about right for a stretch goal, I think. I'd say probably $85,000, $90,000. Are you right? Because I'm thinking, don't you want to give the people time enough to go, oh, yeah, I want to kick in even more, or is it pretty much, look, I've already kicked in, and it's not going to take much thought for me to kick in the extra for whatever stretch goal is. It depends on what the stretch goal is, too. Are we talking something that's, like, minor and only needs, like, another $10,000 or $20,000? Are we talking, you know, $150,000? You know, what kind of stretch goal are we talking about here? What would be a stretch goal that would get you excited then?
    13:29
    Another big license. Specifically, I don't know. I don't know that they do that again, though, because the TZ and STTNG one, when they put those two together, that did not go well with the backers. Especially when it became apparent that STTNG was not going to make it. That's true, but I think they do need to be specific with something, because when they're too ambiguous with just, oh, this will go towards another license down the road. Well, right. Who wants to donate to something that you don't even know what it is? Yeah, it's way too vague, you know? Yeah. Let's move into a little bit more about what happened in the interview itself. We had a couple of nuggets dropped on us, mainly with regards to Bram Stoker's Dracula being a package deal that they got from Sony.
    14:15
    Obviously, everybody jumped on the movie properties of Sony. does anybody think that this includes music rights from Sony?
    14:27
    Because if it does, that opens the door for things like ACDC. Ungodly expensive. That would be. But you know, there was that other pinball company that did the ACDC, their own version of ACDC pinball, and something else too, I can't recall. One that was the equivalent of the 25-cent toy that you used to buy at the supermarket that was a little piece of plastic with a BB in it. Was it actually Game Prom, I think, maybe? I don't know. I think it might have been. It was like iOS only. I mean, it was flashy and the graphics were good, but of course the physics left a lot to be desired, and Game Prom's notorious for having those super long flippers and the angle of the flippers. The angle that pretty much goes straight up and down. Yeah, it's pretty ridiculous. But I mean, at that time, this was almost pre-Pinball Arcade, so there really wasn't much to choose from as far as iOS pinball.
    15:22
    But yeah, they did ACDC, and I believe they did Slayer pinball, I think. So they had some licenses from Sony, so I don't know if that would be some kind of exclusive deal that they had.
    15:36
    Isn't that like a separate division? Is it what, Sony Music Entertainment? I don't know the name of it. Yeah, yeah. Is it a separate group? I don't know, and I'd have to re-listen.
    15:47
    Oh God, listen to myself. I'd have to re-listen to find out exactly, did he say Sony Pictures or did he just say Sony? I think you might have just said Sony, but that's just off the top of my head. Throw in, you know, a little more gristle on the fire for our intrepid batch of table-guessers out there.
    16:07
    Well, the question would be, would they have the emulation in place to do something like ACDC? I mean, you would hope so by this time. Yeah, let's say them too at that point. Yeah, I mean, like we had talked about before on a couple different occasions, it would be cool if they would do something like that for higher-end devices, but I don't know if that's something they would want to plunge into at this point, but maybe. I mean, the other thing is, and I believe I have my information correct on various, where I heard it exactly from. It was somebody at Farsight, but I've had other conversations that haven't been on the over-the-air. but as far as I know in terms of licenses so they have this Dracula license whatever other table they have bundled with it for license wise it has to be on par for how expensive it was because basically you're splitting the cost to all the licensees so you can't have one table that costs 100 grand for the license and another table that only costs 30 grand because the 30 grand people are basically going to be getting a lot more money than the 100 grand people then, and it's got to be of an equivalent thing. So I think that immediately, for some reason, shot me to thinking about Johnny Mnemonic as bringing it more to the forefront of what could possibly be another one of the licensed tables. Do you think it was, with the bulk licensing, I thought that it was more of a case of they negotiate, they just negotiate the tables up front, but I'm pretty sure that each table would be of a different value. Like the properties of each table would carry different value, but they'd bundle it up and negotiate it, which would save a whole lot of legal fees in one bulk package. But I think part of that bulk packaging is to saying, hey, it's a discount across the board. It's kind of like you've got the two cars that you really want, and there's the third one in the garage that the guy just wants to get rid of. And they go, here, take them all for this price.
    18:06
    So they're not necessarily saying it's not a la carte. You know, it's all this for this lump sum. I'd still think the licensors would get paid proportionally, though.
    18:19
    That's what I don't know. It wouldn't be hard to draw the contract up that way. Because they're residuals. I mean, what do you do if one person's property sells, you know, 40,000 units and the other one only sells 15? But this is where you get into, but now you just sold the whole season in a season pack.
    18:34
    Well, that's a total can of worms. I know, but how do you divide that up, right? And I don't know. That's a conversation for heads that actually know what they're talking about as opposed to us that just guess.
    18:49
    Licenses are hard. Let's go shopping. Cha-ching. So as far as the nugget that they're going to create their own original table, We had also heard a while back that they were in conversation with actual pinball designers. Do we think that this original table will be by a real designer, or is this some of the guys at Farsight creating their own table? I've got to believe it's from a real designer. I would certainly hope so.
    19:22
    Yeah, me too. It's hard to design a real table, but I'm sure that, Sean, you would know, very first-hand about this with Sin. Yeah, that project is dead, unfortunately. That's such a shame, because it would have been cool. I know. It would have been a good table.
    19:41
    Do we think this might be a beta test for their table creation kit? It was, like, rumored about a year or two ago. Yeah, possibly.
    19:53
    I would doubt it, but... I mean, not a public beta, but I'm saying, hey, here's our tools, now let's give it to an actual table designer and see what they would be able to come up with. And maybe in the process they would go, hey, you need to put something like this in so I can create this kind of thing. I don't know, I just kind of, the way the planets are aligning here and with all the things that are being said, it's kind of made me wonder if this is where we're going. You know, that would be the ideal way to do it, would be to have those tools in place. but knowing the way Farsight works... That's right, I forgot who we were talking about.
    20:31
    I would be really surprised if they were that far along with it. I mean, just, I don't know. It seems like they put almost 99% of their resources to DLC every month and the rest to Oribles, so I'd be really surprised. Yeah.
    20:46
    Sorry, guys, we love you up there, but, you know. The last interview you ever said. I'm honestly, on that subject, I'm a little perplexed by why so many people want the physics-altering balls when you can actually just get them through Orbles. Because you're going to then have to play with the Orbles balls on the table, and do you really want a puppy dog on your table?
    21:13
    Yeah. I'd rather have a Cousin It ball or a Thing ball or some Addams Family ball running around than some generic piece of fluff. In regards... I was going to say, maybe it would be worth the $50. I was going to say, well, the other thing is you'd actually have to, you know, play Orbles.
    21:33
    And potentially, you might even have to pay Orbles. Right. If you know what I mean. To unlock those characters. To unlock those balls. So maybe $50 is actually a pretty good deal. Speculation on my part only, but perhaps it's a good deal. There you go. I think we just sold a whole bunch more $50 tiers on the Kickstarter for Adam's family. Well, $50 more. Go gold.
    22:01
    Yeah. Were you guys at all just – Go ahead. We're in sync talking over each other and apologizing for talking over each other. Go, Jeff. I was just going to say, was I the only one that was a little disappointed that this is kind of their answer to adding difficulty options was these balls? Yes. I hope it's a good answer. I don't know if that was just like a... It's not an answer. It's not an answer because it still doesn't address the outlanes. It still doesn't... I mean, the only thing they're basically addressing is tilt. But you're not addressing any of the other factors in terms of what you can do with the table in general to make it tougher. Have you seen what the guys on Ask Homework are actually doing? They've allowed you to adjust the flipper positions in the game And they've allowed you to adjust quite a lot of physics behind the game as well, so you can actually increase the rake and all that sort of stuff on the table. There's some really cool stuff those guys are doing on their product. They don't charge a promo, do they? No, they don't. No, basically you buy it and you can just tweak to your heart's content. I think it's a brilliant, brilliant model to use. I definitely agree. I'd like to see Pro mode Be abolished in season 4 But no that's not going to happen Well you know even the pro pinball guys I mean this was back in the 90's They had options for adjusting the slope And the condition of the table And the flipper strength and all this stuff And this was over 15 Almost 20 years ago I mean come on man Bear in mind you were paying $90 for the game back then Yeah that's true That's true but you think for them to develop in an age where there was no DLC I mean they have to charge full price for a game otherwise there would be no way that they could possibly devote their resources to it and publish it This is a model that we're getting into in today's modern age of game publishing, we're looking at micro payments to facilitate in a lot of cases the that you used to spend on a game say on a PS3 or when I was playing on PS2 that were easily You translate that into the mobile market now and they doing that with IAP So you're still spending about the same amount or have the ability to spend the same amount of money. You're just doing it in little tiny payments.
    24:28
    It's basically you're paying off the game in installments. You're having it now and you're paying it off in installments. I think it's for me it's an issue of if the pro mode was just better you know I mean there's so much that can be improved about pro mode and as Flippy Floppy posted a list of everything that I don't know if you guys saw that list it was basically he went through the forum and found every request that anybody has ever made that they want in the game wrote of this just like scroll I had forgotten probably about three quarters of what was on there that it was just like, oh yeah, I remember everybody wanting that. I mean, it's just massive. But there's a whole bunch of things that were just mentioned in terms of what should be in Pro Mode. And it's like, yeah, if those things were in, then I feel that there's actually some value in the Pro Mode. And then I could understand. I mean, it does bug me that, yeah, Ask is putting them in for free and Zen is putting them in for free. I'm not going to question Farsight's business model anymore but if it's there the least you can do is make it brilliant make it awesome make it something that you have to have that you've got to have and it's worth it the fact that it just ruins all your high scores and you can't post to the forums or the leaderboards and stuff like that it's just kind of that's annoying for me that just makes me go it's irrelevant it's an irrelevant feature if it locks you out of the global leaderboards for what they're worth.
    26:05
    That's only while it's on, just for the benefit of the readers, the listeners, that you can turn it on and off.
    26:14
    Yeah, but if you want to actually set the game up hard, to actually give you a challenge, well, right, right.
    26:21
    It's still not a challenge. I have it on extra hard, no extra balls, and I still go an hour. Yeah. Well, do you know what I mean? You know, you don't win by having Pro Mode as far as, you know, being able to, like, interact fully with the game, but also you know, have the fun of tweaking things to your requirements, so I don't know. To me, it's certainly not something... I looked at it when it first came out and went, nope. not enough reasons. You know what's funny, though? Here I am groaning and moaning, saying that I want this in Pro Mode, or I want the difficulty levels, and blah, blah, blah. You know how many times I've ever touched those controls in Xen? Zero. Yeah. This is true. I never tweak with it either in Xen. It's more of a, yeah, I want the option to do it the way I want to do it, but I rarely am going to do it. So, I don't know why I'm getting all up in arms about it. Just the ability to go and zoom in on the table would be nice. Those sort of features, those should be standard.
    27:32
    Yeah, that one should not be locked behind us. Because you know how I have to do it instead? And I was just doing it with Bram Stoker's Dracula. I have to go into the instruction, read through the instructions in order to get a better view of what some of the inserts actually say. It's just kind of a butt that I have to do it that way in order to read things. I'd rather just be able to, during the game, push the button, scroll through the table real quick and go, oh, that's what that flashing light is saying. Boom, resume my game and keep going just like I do on a real pinball table where I cradle the ball, lean over the table, find the shot, read what it's saying, and then go get back into it.
    28:10
    It's just the thing. Hey, you know what? While I'm ranting, let's rant about something completely different, which is what we like to do in this show.
    28:18
    You guys, I know us in America know Redbox. Jared, you have Redbox? we got a thing called you're talking about like a kiosk right it has all the DVDs in it and they spit out when you want them for those that don't know it's exactly that it's a box that has a whole bunch of blu-rays and DVDs inside of it you go to the touch screen you select your movie it spits it out and you go home it's these days it's about the only way to rent a movie is how there's no video stores around anymore or if they are they're your mom and pop variety but in terms of just finding your local Hollywood video or blockbuster those are long gone and if you're not on Netflix Redbox becomes about the only way you can rent a movie because in where I live in North Lakes in Brisbane we've got really really bad internet here and as an aside I won't go on with this too much but we actually run out of ports in our exchange and people have been waiting for six months for internet here. So services like Redbox and those kiosk-style DVD things mean that people that don't have internet can actually watch movies. Right. And it's actually good. We have one up in a shopping center, and in fact outside the main shopping center where they sell DVDs, and they get a fair bit of use here. It's surprising.
    29:47
    So in the vein of my Slurpee Commandments rant, few podcasts back. I'm going to rant about Redbox users. Because here's what happened to me the other day. Well, I'm exempt because I've never used one. So rant away. Rant away. So the other day I know what movie I'm going to rent.
    30:06
    I go onto my phone because I have the Redbox app from which you can scroll and see every movie that they offer. And not only that, but you can pick your location and it'll show you at that location what movies that they have. So you can select your movie, it holds it for you, it charges your credit card right there over your phone. That way, all you have to do is walk into the store,
    30:31
    push pick up, you swipe your card, boom, it spits out the movie, boom, you're gone. Right? So, tops, takes you 30 seconds to get in and out and you're done, right?
    30:41
    Well, apparently people these days are treating it like they used to the way bygone days of the video store, where you'd start at rack A and walk the entire store and go, oh, I think I want that movie. Why don't you just hold on to it and then we'll keep on walking the store and then when we get done, we'll have a stack of ten movies and we'll put nine of them back on the shelves after we figure out for an hour and a half which movie we really want to go home with and then we'll check out, right? Right. Yeah. I can see where this is going. Right. So I walk into the store. There's a dude sitting at the box. He's scrolling through, and there's a couple in front of me. Now, the dude's taking his time. The couple in front of me, they're talking. The gal is sitting there texting, and they're just kind of shooting a breeze about what their night was going. I'm like, okay, she's on her phone. Hopefully she's smart, and she's been doing what I did.
    31:38
    So finally the guy leaves. The couple walks up to the box, and I hear these immortal words. So what should we watch tonight?
    31:48
    I'm like, are you kidding me? And they proceed to swipe through the touch screen and look at every single movie that is available in the red box that's there at the grocery store.
    32:00
    And they're going through, and the gal's like, no, no, no, no, no. Well, what about, oh, yeah, we saw that one. Oh, no. I'm like, oh, come on. You're killing me. You've essentially walked into the video store, had them lock the door behind you, and now you're walking the store. Only nobody else can walk to the store at the same time.
    32:22
    I also may hear, well, no, what I really want is a ha-ha movie. Yeah, it's called a comedy. So there... It feels like it's been ten minutes. It's probably only been five minutes, but when you're standing near the grocery store, and it's basically at the entrance of the grocery store, and people are walking in, and then you see the person that walked in walk back out with groceries. so you had the time to go find what you wanted, go through the checkout and then walk back out and I'm still standing in line waiting for this person to select the movie and so as they're deciding the dude's phone rings I'm like don't answer it, don't answer it he answers the phone, I'm like oh great 50% of the decision making process just walked got distracted so she's sitting there and she's like finally, finally picks their movies and goes. So now there was a little girl that was in front of me, and I could tell all she was going to be doing was returning the movie, because she didn't have a credit card. She was a little girl, right? So this poor thing's been standing there for 15 minutes waiting to just drop the movie off. Mom probably parked the car and was like, go return the movie, then hop back in. Now Mom's wondering if her kid got abducted or something. So the little girl goes. She just pushes the return button, jams the thing in the slot, walks away.
    33:45
    So it's now my turn to walk up. Meanwhile, the screen hasn't gone back to anything. And all of a sudden, there's been an error with your disc, and it spits the disc back out.
    33:54
    So I look, and I look at the disc. Well, they'd not turn the barcode face up so the machine could actually read it when it slides in. And I'm just like, oh, you're so lucky that I'm a good, honest person. Because I could just take this movie. I could take it home and enjoy it for myself and keep it for my personal collection, then you'd be charged for this movie, which was draft day, so nobody wanted to watch that.
    34:22
    That would require a special kind of heartless. Particularly with the little film, man. He would have been pretty hot. Yeah, return the movie for her, and then proceeded to push my pickup button, swipe my card, boom, I'm out of there. I walked away. Meanwhile, there's now a line five deep of people I didn't get any applause, which really disappointed me. I thought you were going to tell me that you hit the movie and the kiosk blew screened to death or something.
    34:53
    There had to be some sort of malfunction there. That would have made it even better. No, no, no. So here's my advice to people. Look, it's an app that's for free. You can scan while you're in line. If you didn't do this at home, you could do it in line. and you can quickly scroll through the movie, push the button, it tells you that it's there, reserve it so that the person in front of you doesn't go ahead and get it first, and have you go, oh, that's the one I wanted to rent.
    35:22
    And not only that, I pretty much don't even pay for my Redbox rentals, because they keep on sending me emails of, hey, rent a movie this weekend. And what it says is, rent one, get one free. But if you enter the promo code, it doesn't care if you didn't rent the second movie. so I just get a free rental and then for returning my movie they go, thanks for returning your movie. Here's a promo code for during the week to rent another movie. I pretty much haven't paid for Redbox in a couple of months because I use the app. I'm just saying, people, use your brain. Don't be a dick. And hog up the machine. You know, just don't be that person because next time I might have to say something. I don't know. First world problems Exactly You know what though All these people Will be listening to this The red box people will be listening to this podcast And going that bastard Beats the biggest song Guess what we're going to make a change now So you just You just ruined it for everyone Which guy is this? I think he said his name at the beginning of the podcast Hmm, what kind of music sound?
    36:38
    You've been flagged. And see, it is for this reason, too, that I go to Redbox first and then to 7-Eleven for my Slurpee. Because by this point, my Slurpee would have melted in the car. So, just saying. And you're all about convenience, right? That's right. I am all about convenience. Speaking of convenience, I'm not responsible for the next portion of this podcast. Because we have Shondon Carlos here, which means it's time for Lost in the Zone. You've got crossed over into the Twilight Zone.
    37:14
    Are you ready to battle? I love the dramatic pause that we all do, because you listeners at home may not know this. It's not like we have a soundboard or anything. We're not a professional gig. This isn't the Adam Carolla podcast. Speak for yourself.
    37:28
    I was just waiting for someone to say that. We do a very good job of faking it, and Jeff brings it the rest of the way home with wonderful sound effects and music and stuff. So we're sitting there doing the podcast, and I'll say that intro, and then there'll just be this, everybody knows, just shut up,
    37:47
    and let the music drop that none of us can hear. And it's a great thrill, because then when we listen to the podcast back, we get to hear all these wonderful production values that got thrown in. It's awesome. Just a little behind the scenes. There's also a side bet that goes on. So how many extra seconds did Jeff have to cut because we waited too long?
    38:09
    Yeah, that's right. Well, here's the thing. The awkward pause just got really awkward. Yeah. The extraordinarily awkward pause.
    38:17
    Well, I'm just too lazy to set up a soundboard, but the other thing is we'd probably, like, screw it up anyway, so I'd probably have to go back and edit it. Like, oh, you pushed the button at the wrong time or whatever. So it's just easier this way. It would probably be expletives that we'd have to do. Or I'd just insert a random comment. I ruined the whole thing we have to record the whole thing again Sean didn't keep his mouth shut during the loss of his own intro take two what have you got for us this time Sean we got two things for you in the end of season three and TPA has now managed to cross the 50 table threshold I know a couple years ago it would have been inconceivable to think that I could take my iPad and have 50 tables on it and could play them whenever I want. So I thought we'd just do kind of a little retrospective, almost a little award thing, and kind of pick our favorite tables of the first 50 in various categories. No, you actually have a name that you want to go with. It might be 52. I don't remember. Are RIPTA 52? I can't remember exactly where we have.
    39:27
    Wasn't Dracula 50th? No, 50th was a little earlier in the season. Oh, okay. Well, then, yeah, we're probably up to 52. It's a good number. Why not? By the time people listen to this podcast, we might have another table after this already. We might.
    39:42
    But anyway, just wanted to kind of pick your guys' brains and kind of recognize the best of the 50 tables. So the first one, best art and lighting in a table.
    39:57
    Who's going to go first? You are, because you spoke first. Damn it. You are the winner. My choice, drumroll please.
    40:07
    Big echoey voice, if you can manage that. Oh, yeah, right. My choice is, I've got to go with high speed.
    40:14
    And I mean, I know that's kind of weird, because it's not a lot going on that table, but the lighting on that table blows me away. I mean, just, they did such a good job. That was the first table that they did that dynamic lighting of it going dark, and then flashing back, it was just like a revelation to me. It was like, yes, that is exactly what a table should look like.
    40:36
    Yeah, can we get that for Circus and for Attack from Mars, please? Yeah, exactly. For Gaeon's robe. I mean, I know it's not quite the same, but it would go a long way. Yeah, and the other thing with the lighting is that it doesn't have the nuclear glow on it. You can actually read the inserts. They're not blown out. it's just got the right glow to everything if you will and as far as the art I think that it looks bang on like the real table and when I say that I don't notice a lot of jaggies I don't notice there aren't really any toys on the table so there's nothing wonky to be sculpted or anything to me it just looks exactly like high speed looks and for that reason I give that the best art in lighting, in my opinion.
    41:28
    Yeah, I'm going to have to agree with him. That was the first table. Because I do lighting for a living, and it was the first table that's like, oh, this actually looks like I could almost see this as being like a photograph of a table on location somewhere.
    41:48
    It acts like the real thing. It finally has the effects and stuff. Farsight, if you are listening to this, find whoever did the lighting for that table, have them teach the rest of them.
    42:01
    So, yes, Flippy Floppy, when you're blaring our podcast out loud across the studios, like you mentioned that you've done previously, just rewind.
    42:09
    I do need to watch what I'm saying then. No, you don't. I better edit some stuff out. There goes the first five minutes.
    42:21
    Well, for me, because I play on mobile platforms, we don't have dynamic lighting, so I have to take that with a grain of salt. So for me, and this still stands up today, the best art and lighting for me would be Attack from Mars. The reason being is it was the first table that really showed off Alpha Pane bloom really nicely in mobile. This was at a point where mobile was seriously thinking that we would never see any sort of realistic-looking flasher effects ever in a table, and then all of a sudden, boom, Attack from Mars lands, and we get these beautiful, like, flasher bloom coming up with the implementation of alpha paint, and it looks so good against that black background.
    43:09
    It just pops out. Of course, the only thing they need to catch up on is the strobe in that table, and that would make it perfect.
    43:20
    I think on that one, the graphics are quite crisp on mobile. You can actually see everything relatively easily. Some of the inserts at the back of the table are a little bit tricky to see. That's just because they're up the back of the table, though.
    43:34
    And, yeah, for me, it's Attack from Mars. It's an awesome-looking table, and it's still the one I use as a reference today when I'm talking about AlphaPain on mobile. That leaves you, Geoff. I'm going to say plus one for high speed, and I really look forward to seeing what it looks like with the DirectX 11 lighting, because if it looks this good on regular, it's got to look pretty pimping. So tell me, as a non-PC guy, what does DirectX offer? What is it going to change in the game for you guys? Well have you seen some of the like PS4 screenshots And stuff compared to like PS3 Yeah That kind of gives you a general idea I know PS4 doesn't use DirectX but Just to give you an idea Yeah it's a little different but the thought's the same Yeah just the increase of quality And dynamics Just a dramatic increase in graphical quality Plus you get like the The lighting mode settings for like dark room Bright room, medium Stuff like that Yeah, that's on PS4 only at the moment. And then PC is the stepchild down the road.
    44:43
    Next category, Sean. Next category, best gameplay. I went first last time. I'm not going first this time. I'll go first if you like. For me, it's time to get scared still.
    44:58
    Because it was best gameplay, not best found package. But go on. Well, it does win for that, too, because it's pretty awesome. Well, it's Elvira, that's all you have to say. That's right. Well, you know, the ascension to Scared Stiff, when you complete all five modes, is just something that gets my heart racing every single time. And I know what's ahead of me when I get it, and it's not that hard to get, but it still manages to escalate my heart rate and get it thumping through my chest, and that is a sign of a beautifully implemented pinball table.
    45:29
    I would say the real version, but the Pinball Arcade version, and I don't even play it because it's like, man, you've got to have a couple hours on your hands if you want to get a game out of that because it's just never-ending. I would just totally throw shade at you there, Jared. I know what he's talking about. No, nothing against Jared.
    45:49
    Even when I play it on mobile, which is at least a little harder, the first time, yeah, the 15th time I'm in Monster Multi-Ball in one game, it ceases to do that. But always the first one of each game when you're building this to Fameter, it's... There is something about the way they did that heartbeat that just... You can't help but get excited. Yeah, it's great. And yes, it does last for a long time, but it's still... Like, those first couple of times that you get scared stiff, it's still awesome. And I don't get it every time. Like, it still doesn't give it to me every time, so... Sounds like a problem there.
    46:27
    And they make pills for the bad time. burn. You don't get stiff every time. What? Family show. Really?
    46:36
    As far as best gameplay, I'm actually going to go with Monster Bash, just because there's something about that table that I like, just the way the loops and the orbits and everything works out.
    46:52
    The fact that you can stack everything and literally, like, you can have almost everything on the table lit just because you've stacked everything. And so if you want, you can just start a monster, get a good multi-ball going, and just mindlessly bash away at things. And you don't even really have to care, because whatever you hit is going to score. You hit creature, you hit bride, you hit whatever. It's going to be good for you.
    47:17
    Just that kind of freedom, I'd say. You don't get that with some of the other games that look like Monster Bash. like Medieval Madness doesn't really have that. Right. Where you can just mindlessly shoot anything on the table. You kind of have to go for what it's asking you to. So it gets the nod from me.
    47:39
    My choice would be for, can you guess, Ripley's. I know, shocking, right? That wasn't predictable at all. What's really sad is the fact that, you know, that's like the launch table.
    47:53
    Nice that it's held up, you know. For me, it's just... I'm basing this purely on the gameplay aspect, which is that I get absorbed in that table, and for a table that initially was so impenetrable to me, now it's like... Here's your $5 word for this podcast.
    48:13
    Impenetrable, unlike Scared Skip. Help me. Lots of penetration going on there. Anyway Anyway Anyway No for me it like once I unlock the secret to it it just offers so much And similar to what you were saying with Monster Bash the fact that you can just stack things and you can stack them differently each time, and get rewarded differently each time.
    48:38
    You know, and even though the ball movement is completely predictable, if you can recognize the patterns and don't freak out, you start recognizing the patterns of how the ball bounces around the table, which means you know how to get it. But to me, it's comfort food.
    48:54
    But it's gameplay that I don't get bored of, as opposed to, say, Creature, which I can go crazy on also, but after a while, I'm just like, ah, I'm so bored of this.
    49:06
    So that's why I go gameplay on Ripley's. All right, next category. Most faithful to the original machine.
    49:16
    Jeff, you're up. I probably have to say like big shot just because it's so basic they couldn't really screw anything up that would be what damning with ain't praise I think is the expression although I think the middle eight ball shot might be a little harder than it probably would be in real life it just seems like it's really hard to get it in that hole it is it really is the strength of the flippers but it's not EM strength, it's solid state strength on those flippers.
    49:51
    Have they played the original table lately? Because it wouldn't be that strong, I can guarantee it. For me, well actually before Bram Stoker's Dracula, which I think is pretty much on target as far as Faithful 2 the original goes, it was probably Fishtails, because those damn lightning flippers.
    50:13
    They make that game as hard as it is in real life, And, you know, just the slight randomness with rejects from the lock as well. Like, that's not an easy shot to get on the full anyhow. But, you know, get the rejects in there as well, and it makes it pretty tricky. This is what I'm talking about. All of my comments are relating to mobile here. So, yeah, not any other platform. I don't know what it's like on other platforms. But, yeah, for me, it's fishtails. For myself, I'm going with Firepower, and I'm doing it a tie, Circus Voltaire. Reasons being, I actually own a Firepower, and it's just as brutal as it is in TPA in terms of how quick it can get. And this is, I'm talking, when I was playing, I play on the PS3, and this is after the Mega Patch when they finally fixed the pop bumpers. but my scoring on TPA is not much better than it is on the real machine.
    51:16
    Circus, yes, my scoring is better on TPA but I found that the strategy that I use to approach Circus in Pinball Arcade works the exact same as when I approach the real table and I can't say that about most of the tables in Pinball Arcade. Usually your strategy winds up being completely different And I'll give the prime example is Monster Bash. If I try to play Monster Bash in real life the way I played in TPA, I lose my ball so fast it's ridiculous.
    51:48
    But playing it in Circus, I can use the exact same methods, and it tends to pay off. So that's why I say those are the most faithful to the original.
    51:59
    I'm going to go with Jared and go with Fishtails and Dracula. I remember when Fishtails was announced, I was thinking, Oh, great, because we have a really, really, really evil one on location here. Yeah.
    52:11
    I won a game in League with a crushing victory, which means I scored double the next highest player, and I only got $34 million. That's how big that thing is. That is harsh, man. And so I was like, oh, good, I can play a fishtail. I might actually see a super jackpot or get a little farther with it. No. No, at least on the iPad, the lack of fine control is making it just as tough as the real one.
    52:43
    And then Dracula... Go ahead. Even on mobile, I use a controller on Android, and it's no better. It's a hard game, regardless of what input method you're using. I do a little better with it on PC, but it's still tough. And then Dracula, when the testing for that first started, and I was like, okay, how many problems are we going to have with the ramp and all that? And they did have some in the beta, but they worked it out, and it actually, and we'll see in a little bit, it actually plays almost identically to the real one.
    53:18
    Everything that I would do on a real table is basically how I do it in TPA, and I get similar results, so good work.
    53:26
    It's taken us 52 tables, but we finally hit the nail on the head. Um, and, uh, for the last category, obviously, Best Overall.
    53:41
    And I will start this one since I haven't gone first. Um, it's actually, for me, is a tie between Attack from Mars and Medieval Madness, which shouldn't surprise anybody because they're two very similar machines, uh, same designer and all that. Um, they're just hysterical to play, both of them. the over-the-top super jackpot announcements in Attack from Mars, the damsel in Medieval Madness, just great depth of play. Medieval Madness is tough, more so than AFM is.
    54:17
    Battle for the Kingdom is still a rare event for me. I've still only ever gotten to that twice, and I never have beaten it.
    54:27
    I've beaten it once, and never again. it's rare that I get to it, even. But yeah, they're just... I know everybody was expecting me to say Twilight Zone, and maybe if it had the difficulty of a real Twilight Zone, I would have gone that way, but... As far as... If I don't know what to play, what am I probably... What am I playing on TPA? It's probably Attack from Mars or Medieval. well I'll go second here I'm going to step on you there Jared I seriously contemplated picking Medieval Madness strictly from the fact that it never gets old to me and I do truly enjoy playing it but in terms of the overall package so I'm including lighting, gameplay being faithful that's where I went with Monster Bash no I mean going nuts no I mean you should be kicked off the podcast just for saying that you know it's to me it's like you said earlier Monster Bash has a stacking which obviously I liked in Ripley's I think it has a good overall art package and I think the lighting is fairly well done obviously there are some improvements that can be made in it but I don't think it's terrible, and it's near the top for me.
    55:58
    I have played real tables that behave similar to what it is in TPA. I've also played tables that are wildly different than what it plays in TPA. So I couldn't give it in terms of being faithful to the original, but I have had some that are.
    56:15
    And to me, it's basically a jack-of-all-trades table, master of none. but I think it does all of the parameters better than any one table in TPA does.
    56:30
    And I'll throw this out too. I really haven't put much time into Season 3. I have Season 3 on my PC. I don't have any of them on the PS3 yet that's where I primarily like to play so I haven't been able to give a fair shake to any of those. so that's why apart from high speed I didn't really take into account much of the season 3 not that Black Rose was going to win anything I actually have a soft spot for Black Rose because there's this particular music sting in it just before you're about to sink the ship and actually get the proper full on sink ship animation and everything it's got this little loop that for some reason I just love listening to and I just, I love playing that game. Just to hear that little loop, unfortunately, is really badly audio sampled. Sorry, Norman, but it's still a bit chunky.
    57:28
    And, you know, it could be a bit cleaner, but I still love listening to it. So it must have just been something out of my time when I was actually working in arcades and that machine was in the arcade. I used to do the same thing there too. So, yeah, I like Black Rose. That's a third-class Captain Morgan, eh? I just think Black Rose is a hard one it's a very difficult table to translate from real life into the video because it's a cluttered table and that center the cannon shot with the center habitrail it's visually very odd I think if you saw this in 3D it would make world of difference I almost say the same thing about Fishtails because in real life Fishtails is just a cluttered table. I mean, it's hard to see anything. And the steepness of the U-turn ramp, it's hard to get that sensation in video form. So again, I think once they implement 3D, it'll be a revelation.
    58:29
    But, I'm just going off on a tangent here. Okay, next. For me, the best overall table, it's Medieval Madness for sure. It's got that perfect balance, as Sean's set of humour and depth of gameplay. You know, I still haven't managed to get Barnyard and Mouldy Ball on it, and Rule the... Sorry, Kingdom.
    58:53
    I still haven't got that, whereas I have got Rule the Universe. Actually, the game I played the other day, I managed to get it twice and score 64 billion, which was the best I've ever done on that table. And I had to record that one and put it up on YouTube because I was pretty proud of it. But then, you know, you look at the scores for Rule of the Universe. Oh, sorry, you look at the scores from Attack from Mars, and it's 846 billion on mobile. And, like, that attempt, 64 billion, took me probably about 30 or 40 minutes, so I can't imagine how long it would have taken someone to grind through to 846 billion.
    59:33
    A long time, or a very easy hexadecimal hack on leaderboards. one of the two I'm going to have to say Medieval Madness as well but in honor of our good friend Heretic I'll give an honorable mention to Black Hole I have to say Black Hole I mean it is one of the ones I've played the most just because I don't know it is addicting if you like that era of tables so it's pretty well done in TPA I will say I'm surprised that I like Black Hole so much more than... Well, I shouldn't say so much more, but I expected, when thinking of Gottliebs, that I would like Haunted House better than Black Hole. I hate Haunted House. Black Hole I can actually play. Yeah, I really go with Haunted House as well. I don't know what it is, but it's supposed to be better than Black Hole. It's not. But it's not. I haven't played either of them lately, so I can't say anything.
    60:33
    Yeah. Pleading the thing. I'm not a huge Gottlieb fan. I think my hate of Gottlieb has been well documented. Yes, oh well.
    60:44
    Congrats to Medieval Madness on being voted unofficially the best overall table in TPA. Now, Sean, didn't you actually have a name for the award you wanted to issue?
    60:59
    I don't even know how you'd pronounce this, though. This is why I wanted you to say it. The blah-ee?
    61:07
    The blah-hees. The blah-hees? The blah-hees. The golden, the silver blah-hee? Can't be golden, that wouldn't be right. How about the blob? Silver blah-hee award.
    61:18
    It wins a blob award and it just beats you. The blob. Like a melted pinball. Well, the good news is they're not physically around to give trophies to, so we don't have to worry about it. Hooray!
    61:31
    Moving on. the other thing we're going to do assuming that we still have listeners with us at this point of course we do thank you for joining us now for part two no I'm just kidding don't understand this podcast is only half an hour we have to make up the lost time I hope you're ready for this no we're going to look at another table in depth and since all my previous ones that I've looked at have all come from season one we're actually going to do a new table. We're going to look at Bram Stoker's Dracula. Welcome to my home.
    62:12
    The first thing is, most of the time I'm doing these, I'm pointing out all the differences between the TPA version and the real one. I don't really have much to point out on this table because they, like we just talked about earlier, they actually got this one pretty close to right. It does play pretty much the same way that a real one does. The ball reacts the same way. If you hit a certain target, anybody familiar with the real machine is pretty much going to see in TPA what they expect to see. Well, that was a very quick loss in the zone, Sean. Wow, congratulations. Oh, wait, no.
    62:51
    Well, you said there wasn't anything to comment about. There was more. Oh, I jumped the gun there. I hate it.
    63:01
    No, I just, you know, quickly, what, you know, why do we think they got this one in particular right, as opposed to any of the other tables? I know it's not, it's not very cluttered. It's pretty open. There is that center bank, but other than that, I mean, there's not a whole huge amount of stuff stacked on top of each other.
    63:21
    Not a whole lot of intricate physics things like you see in, like, maybe Twilight Zone, where you've got a whole bunch of stuff crammed together, and, you know, the game has to figure out the collision calcs for all that. So I think that's part of the reason why it did a lot better than some other tables did, just because it's kind of clean in terms of play field.
    63:41
    And only one point, per se, you know, the coffin. Well, yeah, the coffin area is a little complicated, but it's like that on the real one, too. In fact, I actually played one last weekend and looked and compared it to what was on my iPad, and that's what it looks like. It's just a crowded mess up there. In fact, I actually found a new insert. I was looking at it on the beta, and there was an insert by the coffin. I'm like, what the hell is that? That's not supposed to be there. Well, I looked at the table that's the light for the coffin lock, and I had never known it was there, because you can't really see it on the real table either.
    64:25
    Do you guys like... I'm just going to interrupt here, because I like to do that. But you guys, I don't understand the color scheme on Dracula. I don't understand why it's blue.
    64:37
    Because there's nothing in the movie that's... The movie is not blue. You know, it doesn't have that kind of... It'd be basically like making a matrix table and having purple everywhere instead of the green. I don't know. There's something that I just find odd on an aesthetic level. Isn't it supposed to be like representing night time and darkness? I was going to say, I think it's supposed to be a night sky and a castle. Is that what it's supposed to be?
    65:01
    I'd have to look at a picture of a machine real quick to be sure. William, if you failed. There's a moon kind of where the mist fall comes out.
    65:16
    I don't know. It's my own personal gripe. I've always had it about that machine. But anyway, go on. But yeah, for some reason this one came out really well.
    65:28
    So we're not going to get into the whole what to expect differently. What we are going to get into is how to play this thing. Because this is not like your normal pinball machines. This thing's scoring range is ridiculously wide, depending on whether you get stuff started or not.
    65:47
    It is entirely possible to play a 600 million game and the next game get 15 million and pretty much have done the same things, just not as fully. I have won a league game with 20 million and I have lost one with 135 million that's how random this thing can be with its scoring that being said it's a great table for competitive play because no matter how far behind you are you still have a chance if you can stack those multiballs you can get half a billion really quickly and you don't even know that you've done it until it's over where did this 500 million points come from? your opponent's just like, but yeah, how to get this, the first thing you do is those two stand-up, banks of stand-up targets that set off the coffin lock, do not hit those in single ball play. They will drain your ball, just like on the real table.
    66:43
    Pretty much anything that's in the center of the table that's pointed directly at the center drain is not something you should be shooting, but this one, because it's lower down, is especially quick about draining you off of it. so just leave it alone if you need your castle lock start looping the left ramp pretty much just start looping the left ramp for everything your bats come from there, your missed multi-balls come from there, your castle locks come from there so just loop the left ramp for fun and profit pretty much, stop when interesting things happen that you need to take care of whenever anything else is going on or you don't know what to shoot for the left loop is always a good place to get going and it even rechecks the same way that a real one does if you don't quite hit it up the ramp it will get about three quarters of the way around and then come screaming back down at you sometimes on a flipper, sometimes in the center drain that is totally normal, unexpected behavior, please be prepared to nudge the real table is very cruel about that, in fact I was quite happy that the one I played this weekend they have finally rebuilt the flippers you can actually make the shot like without having to like push the table along with it to kind of give it that last little bit of oomph to get up there. You've really got to have good shot flippers for that table. Like, it's on the rocks. If you have a weak right flipper on a real Dracula, you may as well just not play, because it's not going to work. Yeah, just... It goes halfway up the ramp, and then the center drains down. Yeah, if it's weak enough, you literally cannot make that shot. And if you can't make the left ramp, you can't get half the stuff started. so what you do when you first obviously make your skull shot the timing for that is basically it's a little different on touch devices I've noticed just because I think it takes the touch screen a little while to register the touch there's a little bit of lag there that I don't seem to get with a physical controller but basically as for the first one as the center head is just moving off onto the left. If you hit it then, it should be coming back around right when the ball gets to the target up top that controls the skill shot.
    68:58
    And then just go a little faster each time you make it. Once you get to about the fourth or fifth one, the thing's rotating so fast that I'm not quite sure where on touchscreen it would be, but by that point, if you've gotten that many extra balls, you've gotten enough of a score that the four million or five million for the skill shot's not going to really bother you much anyway.
    69:22
    First thing you want to do is, there's two schools of thought. One is to loop the left ramp three times and get bats going. Bats is something that you want to get on ball one. And you want to make sure that you, if you can, get the full 50 million value out of it.
    69:39
    The bonus in this game is kind of weird. The bats and the rats both carry over each, from ball to ball. So if you get 50 million from bats on ball one, you will get 50 million on ball two and three for no additional charge. So basically that's 150 million just for looping the left ramp three times and hitting 15 switches. Wow.
    70:05
    Now the trick is hitting 15 switches in the 15 seconds that it gives you. It doesn't the timer doesn't really stop for much and And sometimes the ball has a habit of slipping through those bumpers without really hitting anything. So basically once the table, once bat starts, it'll fall into the plunger and the table will auto-fire. Once it starts getting into the bumpers, kind of gently nudge it a bit, just to make sure it stays in the bumpers for a good length of time.
    70:38
    Because once bat starts counting down, it counts down really fast. it really only gives you like 3 or 4 seconds for full value and then even if it takes you 6 or 7 seconds it's already down to 25 million I don't know why they made it count down so damn quickly but it does and then it sits at 2 million for like 5 seconds just taunting you like here have your 3 points really annoying the other school of thought is to shoot the coffin ramp which is the one shot that's slightly different on TPA it's actually a little harder than the real table and I know they were doing some adjustments with it in the beta at one point it was way too easy and then it became impossible and then it became slightly easy again and I guess this is where they finally made it end up but it takes five shots to open it for the locks it's good to have the thing open and maybe one lock put into it and then just kind of leave it there So then you'll get the random shots on the other multiball, right? No, actually, what you want to do is, every six loops of the left loop, it'll give you a castle bonus. And that's going to be one or two things. It's either going to be light castle lock, which is really good, because you don't want to be messing around with those deadly stand-up targets, which is the other way you light it. Or it's going to be advanced coffin, which is pretty not good, because it doesn't even give you a lock. it's just, it's really one of the five shots to open the coffin. Oh, okay. So if you open the coffin yourself, then it can't give you that anymore. And it will always, like, castle lock.
    72:25
    So basically you always, you always try to play with an open coffin. You don't actually finish it, because you don't want to start coffin multi-ball just yet.
    72:33
    But you just open the coffin then you just kind of let it sit there while you go about doing other things until you ready for it Obviously the idea is to stack all three multiballs to run at the same time which gives you triple jackpots and the lovely 30 million from this. There definitely is a certain Sesame Street quality to this table.
    72:57
    There really is. It's so funny, though, because every time, even the 20 million one, which isn't quite that exaggerated, it's just because it does it so often it's just like you just feel yourself raking in the points it's a glorious feeling it's really hard so you're already stoked from getting there and then the table's just announcing to anybody nearby that hey this man's scoring a lot that you're awesome basically the order in which you do that obviously it depends on kind of how you got there. I try not to start missed first, because missed is only a two-ball one.
    73:41
    And the problem with missed is you actually have to hit that other ball to start it. Otherwise, you've kind of wasted the opportunity. Oh, that's okay. It's sometimes a problem for me to just even come close to hitting that ball, and then it doesn't start, so I'm all good. No, okay.
    73:56
    It's hit and miss for me as well. I can't quite get it at the same time. You get yourself so that you've got mist lit, you've got two castle locks and two coffin locks.
    74:08
    I generally start coffin first. That's a three-ball multi-ball, so even if you lose a ball, you haven't screwed it up totally yet.
    74:18
    Then mist, because now you've got three balls running around, and even if you're not consciously shooting it, chances are that something is going to hit that ball just from random mercenaries and knock it off the magnet for you?
    74:31
    Lance Armstrong is so jealous of this conversation. Three balls, man. Okay. Horrible. You'd think this was lights, camera, action from the way you're talking.
    74:48
    Anyway, once you got misstarted, at some point in the ensuing chaos, throw something up the left ramp to start Castle.
    74:58
    While this is going on, the table's going to be announcing various jackpots and stuff. Once everything's going, the thing that scores the best is the Castle double jackpot, which can be $480 million plus if you lock both balls, have 3x going, and so forth.
    75:20
    Try for that. It's hard to do. if it's a thing where you've got a ball coming down the right flipper and it's perfectly going to line up with the loop just take it, don't try to aim for the hole just take your 240 million and run it's not like you're going to run out of those the double is something that you do if everything lines up and there's not balls in the way and everything's good the thing is with the lightning flippers trying to play a multiball in a trapped style is not going to work because there's not physically enough room on the flippers. Right, it bumps one off.
    75:58
    So you kind of have to play this in the, oh my god, let's juggle that thing mode. The coffin jackpot's kind of hard to do just because it takes so many shots to the coffin. And again, there's lots of balls flying around and getting in your way.
    76:14
    I usually don't start for that until I'm down to two balls because then you can't do the double jackpots on the castle anymore because you can't lock both of them. And then, you know, just shoot stuff for mist. Mist you don't even really have to because everything on the table scores it. The holes, the asylum on the ramps.
    76:34
    That one doesn't really have a strategy. Let's just pick your favorite shot and go for it. Now, that's what happens in the ideal once-in-100 perfect pinball game. let's discuss it and then there's the way that I play what happens when you're playing a real Bram Stokers is you're going to have everything set up and the ball is going to go into the mist hole probably from the bumpers because hey it's lit and you didn't want it in there so therefore that's where I'm going to go you're going to miss the missed shot and so there is one thing you can do and it does work on TPA I've tried it if you have tilt warnings left, if you violently hit the machine upward, and I mean violently, you do this in an arcade if the operator is looking at you, you can hit the thing hard enough that the magnet will let go of the ball on its own without being struck by anything,
    77:34
    simply because the magnet is no longer under the ball. It will burn... It's not at the bottom of the cabinet, but... It will burn two tilt warnings, but no more than that. Dracula actually has a special coil on its tilt bob that if you register a tilt warning, you can't get another one for three seconds and so that's why this works because you can, pretty much once per ball you can make a really violent shove and you're guaranteed not to get a full tilt from it which is also good for saving things that are going in the out lanes or something like that. Pretty much once per ball you can make a ridiculous a save and not get punished for it.
    78:17
    Of course, you'll get a tap on the finger or on your shoulder from the operator saying get the hell out of my arcade, you know, slam tilt is allowed. You don't have to strike it. It helps that I'm 207 pounds and weigh about as much as the machine does, and so if I really put my weight behind it, I can make it move without actually having to hit it. but it's definitely more than your normal nudge. It's not something where you can just kind of gently tap it and expect it to happen. You have to commit to it.
    78:51
    And operators, I apologize for people who are now going to be bashing the fronts of your Draculas, but, you know, these things happen.
    79:01
    It sucks to be you. It's been in the pop-up memorial as well, so it's not like I'm the first person to reveal this information.
    79:08
    That's actually where I learned it from. So anyway, yeah. I guess they probably don't try that in a tournament either, because you might get some dirty looks from people if you do. Actually, at the 2013 PAPA tournament, Dracula was in one of the final rounds, and you can actually see, I think it's Robert Gagno, but you can actually see him violently shake the thing. He doesn't succeed. He already picked up a tilt warning, and so it actually did tilt out on him. But you can see it's not a death save, it's not a bang back, so it is a legal move.
    79:47
    In our league, we actually have it written into the bylaws that slam tilt will get you disqualified. Well, I think it will, and Papa, too, if you actually slam tilt it. This is just a regular type of machine. Those aren't for public play.
    80:04
    Rules are whatever the owners say they are. which brings me to the point shut your trap that you know the machines that you play on in your league I'd be doing the same thing with the rule about slam tilting if anyone's kicking the door in of a what's he got there he's got a zingy bingy doesn't he no he's got a well we only play at that guy's house once a year oh right he does have a zingy bingy I have not yet seen it because when we go to his house it's been it's a all ages play so I think he gets Get shrouded.
    80:37
    I was going to say, you get pretty rough with that zingy-bingy, huh? Well, at least where I play, because sometimes he has other people's machines in, like he's shopping them for them or something, and sometimes he actually has to put signs up because, you know, the regulars can't always tell which machines are his and which are other people's, and sometimes, you know, if he knows they're particular about their machines,
    81:00
    you know, there'll be a sign on it saying, you know, don't, uh, don't be violent. He says don't. Play not sleep. Don't.
    81:09
    If you're thinking about, don't. Um, so yeah, anyway, getting back on track so this doesn't last until midnight. Um, so if things are not going to plan, um, there's two things to remember. One is that there is a pity missed on ball three if you have not started missed yet.
    81:31
    Um, Mist alone is not going to be worth a whole bunch, but if everybody else in your game has been doing badly as well, you know, it's 10 million a shot. It's more than anything else that's, you know, available. You can keep it going a while.
    81:48
    It's not a bad way to go. Rats. For some reason, I hit the altar a lot. I don't know why. but if it starts just hit your 15 switches and be done with it it's not really worth stressing over like bats is though because the highest frats is 13 million so it's not like you're going to get 150 million from it like you could with bats other things just to remember if your ball ends up in the asylum in single ball play hit your flippers, you'll get an extra 5 million for it and a cool little animation really other than that that's about it. There are some strange things that Dracula does, and in fact I'm kind of wondering if Farsight may have fixed some of these, or had Williams fix some of them, because I'm surprised nobody's complained about it stopping multi-ball early yet. The real table sometimes loses track of how many balls are out, especially during triple multi-ball.
    82:52
    And so you could get into horrible situations where you've gone through you know, you spent the last 15 minutes delicately stacking them together, and then you lose a ball, and you've still got three on the table, and it ends the ball in play, which I've had happen. Oops.
    83:08
    Yeah, was not happy. Was really not happy. Actually left the arcade and went home, was that unhappy, because I'm like, I'm going to put my fist through one of his tables, and I can't have that, because I don't feel like buying him one.
    83:22
    Just walk away. Just walk away, try not to think about this on the 30-minute drive home, and please other drivers, do not give me any excuse to go into road rage because you are getting the worst of it. Go home and take it out of your punching bag, right?
    83:39
    I didn't own my own machine at the time, though, so that was a good thing. They were safe because they weren't there yet.
    83:46
    The Twilight Zone was still in the guy's office in Iowa. But yes, there are certain bugs with multiball. If you encounter one, I'm sorry, but just be aware that... The other thing is, if you're in the out lane, be careful about how hard you tilt. If you get a tilt warning while you're in the out lane,
    84:05
    and it decides to start counting bonus while the tilt warning thing is still displayed, it will not actually count your bonus. It will be just as if you full tilted. If you've got a good bat score, that is also annoying.
    84:17
    So if you're in the out lanes, and you're not sure, and you've got a good bonus, just let it go. It's not worth it. speaking of which those outlanes suck do not let the ball bounce back and forth on the flippers because it will find the outlane and it will do it faster and you can save it I was going to say I have noticed that this is a table that if you start getting it going side to side on those sling shots just start bumping it because it's going to go in the outlane yeah the thing is you have to bump it then because a lot of tables they have hungry outlanes but there's like rubber and stuff nearby that you can nudge off of. These are just, both of them, they're just bare plastic and metal. There's nothing to really nudge off of.
    85:05
    And so really, by the time you're over there, you're already in trouble. What you're saying is the table just goes, I want to suck your balls.
    85:14
    I've never had one say that to me, and I would have if it did. See, I'm telling you, this is why it's fun to have Sean on the podcast. because I just know that I make him squirm.
    85:27
    Just acting apart. Somebody has to play the straight man in these things. But anyway, any questions? That's about it for Dracula. It's not a terribly complicated table, but there's a lot of opportunity for skill and that glorious feeling of when you get the triple multivol and actually hit the jackpots. You watch your score go up ten times in two minutes. it's nice, that's why I played it it's a rush it's something to go for, I think we'll all have to achieve that at some point, otherwise our lives will be unfulfilled I'm actually happy at the moment he must have gone through and replaced the batteries in those machines, because almost all of them are reset and so the Grand Champion which was previously like 4.5 billion or something stupid was that its factory 300 million 600 auto score reset set on his high school table. I think he was saying he needed to do his batteries if he hadn't done them in a while. See, he could have preserved that battery just with the batteries with the power on. You know, he could do that. The thing is, if it was the auto one, the Grand Champion wouldn't be reset. The other four would be, but Grand Champion is not an auto reset.
    86:47
    Well, hey, I think with that it's time to close the door on lost in the zone. Who's going to close the door this time? Jared, I think you have to. You can't have him do it. What do I do?
    86:58
    The time you closed the, I think it was like the sixth one or something, you tried to do the, don't touch the door, don't touch the door, and it came out sounding exactly like a Dalek. Oh yeah, that's right. Well, I'll try another one. It won't be that. It won't be the frenetic power. This is no ordinary camera.
    87:21
    That was genius. Jeff's shaking his head like, oh my god. I'll just get the real quiet. Just shove it in.
    87:34
    Take three. So I teased it at the beginning, and if you've sat through this entire podcast, congratulations. You made it to the end, and it's time to talk about the contest. All right. Here's the deal. If you would like to win your very own custom rod mod shooter from Wizard Amusement, here's what you've got to do. I need you to tweet a picture of a pinball machine to blockade.
    88:03
    Hashtag blockaders. Yeah, that's right. I've given our listeners a name. You all are blockaders. Whee! Revel in it. Hashtag the crap out of it. but because we want to make sure that you actually did more than just a Google image search your picture must contain one of the following four hand gestures either a hang loose rocker horns or devil horns however you want to call them a thumbs up or you can be giving the finger so it's a hand selfie in front of a machine and if it's your own machine that's even better one entry per person we will draw the winner's name during our one-year anniversary podcast, which will be coming up very soon, sometime near the beginning of November. We need a minimum of 25 people sending in picks to atblockade, hashtag blockaders, just because I don't think it'd be cool if only 10 people sent in a pick.
    89:02
    Look, we've had hundreds upon hundreds of downloads of previous podcasts, so I know you're out there. do a little legwork and then maybe you can win one of these cool shooter rods.
    89:15
    I'm assuming the blockade staff is not eligible. No, a blockade staff is not eligible, but if the blockade staff would like to contribute a picture I think that'd be wonderful. I know I'm going to contribute a picture of my own firepower and you'll understand why I'm giving it the finger.
    89:33
    I don't know how to edit my Twilight Zone out because it's not appropriate. It's not ready for its close-up right now.
    89:39
    You can, though. If you want more than one entry, though, there's a really easy way. Get your friends involved. Have them take a picture. Don't tell them you can win a prize and you can claim the prize for yourself. Although we will be contacting you through Twitter to let you know that you won. So, you know.
    89:56
    What do you mean I won something? You told me to just take a picture. Anyway. So, yes. And, A, if you really want to be cool about it, you can go ahead and follow the blockade. We do posts here and there about what's going on. We do frequent hashtag pinball weekend. So you can let us know what your pinballing activities have been.
    90:22
    Beyond that, while you're favoriting and following at Blockade, why don't you go ahead and follow myself at ShutYourTraps or follow Jared at JaredMorgz. and beyond that is what there is for the contest so good luck everybody look forward to seeing your pictures again we look forward to seeing all the pinballs get and flick the bird so go forth and flick the bird or hang loose or rocker horns or a thumbs up I know I'm going to be giving a lot of fingers but you know pretty much eliminate the other three options Well, yeah, I didn't want to be outright vulgar We have kids listening You just wanted to be mostly vulgar I know, because I was so safe and sane during your lips Oh, yeah Yeah Hey, we didn't do it last time, but we're going to do it again this time Also, for those of you that are on the Pinball Arcade fans forum Time to change your avatars up Really? I just did it In honor of the Taft Kickstarter, and one of the things in Adam's family being greed,
    91:39
    I want stacks of money as your avatar. So find stacks of money and put that in your avatar. That'll be our little nod to the Kickstarter fund and greed of Adam's family. All right. with that being said I don't think we have anything else to cover gentlemen do we mentioned the next one being the anniversary one right I believe that our next podcast will be the anniversary yes one year of us blah blah blahing we used to be bar bar barring but then you know that happened so we are going to I have no idea yet what we're going to be doing but it's going to be a special podcast you won't want to miss it tell a friend and have them look funny at you.
    92:31
    They do that anyhow. I don't need to tell them about the podcast. That's just a thing anyway. Hey, before we go, I know Jared didn't because he's an Android freak. Anybody pick up a new iPhone?
    92:45
    No. Does anybody? I went from the original BlackBerry Storm to an iPhone 5 in one go. So I figure I'll be ready for an upgrade when the iPhone 15 comes out. See, I'm in the same boat. This is my first year of actually owning a smartphone. Prior to that, they were all dumb. So, yeah, I'm not, like, feeling the need to upgrade. But, no, the person who sits in the cubicle next to me at work, he's all about it. I'm sure if you wanted to know, I could get him in touch with you. I don't know. No, please don't. They're all like, no, no. I really don't enjoy talking to the cult of Apple. Yeah. I don't enjoy working next to them either.
    93:28
    I follow some on Twitter, and I have to say it's a bit tough reading some of the stuff they talk about when there's a new product release. I have to go, oh, do I mute you, or do I just, like, let it ride?
    93:43
    I think we lost Jeff. No, I'm here. I'm just chilling. He's working on his next Blu's lick. he's just trying to think of the soundbites he puts into the next podcast going what are we going to do with this he's still trying to figure out how to edit out that thing at the end of it and people wonder why we're down to only four people at a time usually doing these as opposed to our very first when we had eight people we need to get them back for the anniversary one though well I think we're going to do the very best we can to get all of our original players, which would be Neglectoid, Delta Echo, Time Lord, and even Heretic. Heretic will have to come back. Yes.
    94:30
    Prepare yourselves. Don't get your hopes up too high. He has a way of rejecting us, saying he'll tease us. Oh, no, no, no, I'm going to be... Don't worry, I'm there. I've got it all set up. Just let me know the time, and then about two days beforehand.
    94:50
    Are we still live? Or did we just kind of cut it off and not really cut it off? Of course we're still live.
    94:57
    The best stuff comes out at the end of our podcast, don't you know? That's kind of what I'm afraid of.
    95:05
    I wasn't on the last three. You didn't listen to the last three? Shame on you. I did listen to the last three. I may have fallen asleep, though, because I listen to them at night. Sometimes I don't make it to the end.
    95:18
    How dare you? That is a bit too long. Well, when you start one at 11 and it's an hour 30, and you get it for work at 5. Yeah, which probably means we should... I think it's you. It's just sometimes I don't make it. We should put the kibosh on this one then, too, because I think we're right around that magic number that we love to live by. So why don't we? I will send us off. Hey, thanks, everybody, for listening. We do appreciate it. All your feedback, please. Follow us on Twitter. If you feel like sending us an email, blah, blah, blah, at gmail.com.
    95:58
    For Jeff Strong, Jared Morgz, Sean Don Carlos, I'm your host, Shut Your Trap. We'll see you next time in the blockade.
    96:11
    What, no final comments? Anybody? Really? I was going to let somebody else do it this time. We're doing the dramatic pause for the closing music. right pause it's dramatic it's the other way it's not dramatic it's extraordinarily awkward pause there we go is that like a pregnant pause for an unmarried couple well I'm not even a couple so I don't know what it would be for me there's nobody for me to be awkward to I think we're done now we really are I think we're done. We'll just leave it at that.