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#08: Back At It Again At Krispy Kreme

Mappin' Around with Scott and Ryan·podcast_episode·53m 31s·analyzed·Mar 22, 2024
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.032

TL;DR

Pinball Map hosts return after 4 years to discuss app evolution and community impact.

Summary

Scott and Ryan return to their Pinball Map/Mapping Around podcast after a 4-year hiatus to discuss the evolution of Pinball Map since 2008, including 56 app updates, infrastructure improvements, community impact, and new features like an operator map and location activity tracking. They also share personal updates, announce Good Times Billiards in Las Vegas as an official sponsor location, and introduce a new 'scene report' segment featuring Scott playing pinball at The Standard in Portland.

Key Claims

  • Pinball Map has been active since 2008 and will reach 16 years this year

    high confidence · Ryan discussing the longevity of the service

  • 56 app updates have been released since episode 6 of the podcast (approximately 4 years ago)

    high confidence · Ryan tracking and stating specific update count

  • Pinball Map won a Twippies Award in 2021 for best pinball app in Texas, accepted by Colorado administrator Deanna, and the category was discontinued in subsequent years

    high confidence · Scott and Ryan discussing award history

  • The most prolific non-admin Pinball Map user is A. Lambert from Sacramento/Bay Area with 5,546 edits

    high confidence · Ryan retrieving data from an endpoint he created showing top users

  • Ontario420 (second most active user) is also in the Bay Area with 4,820 edits

    high confidence · Ryan reviewing user statistics

  • Ryan recently changed jobs to work for a different urban planning consulting firm about 2.5 years ago, focusing on transportation planning

    high confidence · Ryan clarifying his employment history in the conversation

  • Scott has been divorced and now has more free time to play pinball

    high confidence · Scott mentioning his personal life change as context for increased pinball activity

  • Good Times Billiards in Las Vegas is now the official Pinball Map sponsor location

    high confidence · Scott and Ryan discussing their new official sponsorship partnership

  • Less than 5 GitHub contributions have been received in the past 4 years despite Pinball Map being open source

    high confidence · Ryan stating contribution metrics for the open source project

  • Pinball Map was redesigned with React Native and Beth led the rewrite around episode 6

Notable Quotes

  • “I got that new job and I feel like that just kind of took over for me, um, to where, uh, what I've done for The Last Arcade four years is mostly that job.”

    Ryan @ ~5:00 — Explains the 4-year hiatus from podcasting due to career demands

  • “I'm all about buses buses I love buses actually uh when i get laid off from my current job my plan is to try that bus drive for a little bit.”

    Ryan @ ~6:30 — Humorous aside revealing Ryan's interests outside pinball/tech

  • “I can't believe people are using this we started in 2008 so now it's been almost it will be 16 years coming up this year which is a long time”

    Scott @ ~13:00 — Reflects on the surprising longevity of Pinball Map

  • “I think the secret is to test your code really well so you're comfortable making big changes to it. That's my advice to you, young Pinball Mag successor.”

    Ryan @ ~18:00 — Software management advice to potential future competitors

  • “it's kind of a call back to what we were just talking about yeah it is always shocking to me when there's that recognition that they use the Pinball Mag”

    Scott @ ~28:00 — Reflects surprise at real-world discovery that people actually use their service

  • “We got an award for best pinball app. Yeah, where was that given out again? Was it Texas? Texas, yeah. And we were not there, but our Colorado administrator was there, and she accepted the award on our behalf, Deanna.”

    Scott and Ryan @ ~35:00 — Documents the Twippies Award win and delegation of acceptance

  • “I'll look over at my little sign and it tells me the most recent machines that have been added it's almost always wedgehead um that added something”

    Ryan @ ~62:00 — Demonstrates practical use case for Tidbit integration with Pinball Map API

  • “Check your spam, you goof. um do you want to hear a million dollar idea i had that would single-handedly save a dying company”

Entities

Pinball MapproductScottpersonRyanpersonBethpersonDeannapersonA. LambertpersonOntario420personThe Standardvenue

Signals

  • ?

    content_signal: Mapping Around podcast returns after 4-year hiatus with episode 8; previously ran 7 episodes as 'The Last Arcade'

    high · Scott: 'we did seven of them. And now we're back with podcast episode eight.' Four-year gap attributed to job demands and pandemic.

  • ?

    product_launch: Pinball Map has released 56 app updates in past 4 years; currently working on another update with bug fixes and enhancements expected within a month

    high · Ryan: 'we've had 56 updates released to the app stores since then, which is a lot of updates' and 'we're working on another app update right now'

  • ?

    venue_signal: Pinball Map has formalized sponsorship of Good Times Billiards in Las Vegas; provides shirts, stickers, and support for Stern machine launch parties

    high · Scott: 'we now have a location or there is a location that Pinball Mag is the official sponsor of and we're the official sponsor of good times with a z good times billiards in las vegas'

  • ?

    community_signal: Bay Area demonstrates highest concentration of Pinball Map contributors; top two non-admin users (A. Lambert, Ontario420) both from Sacramento/Bay Area with 5,546 and 4,820 edits respectively

    high · Ryan reviewing user statistics: 'A. Lambert is the number one user... 5,546... he's in the Sacramento area' and 'number two actually is username Ontario420 4820 edits and that person is also in the Bay Area'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Ryan created open-source API endpoints enabling third-party integrations; developed Tidbit integration displaying recent Pinball Map machine additions; stats endpoints built for future dashboard

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.161

0:00
maps gimball and maps mapping around with scott and ryan long time no see ryan long time no see scott it's been over four years since we've talked a long a long december yeah yeah i i do remember fondly hiding in a basement with headphones on talking into a microphone. And now here I am in a basement talking into a microphone with headphones on. I don't remember why we stopped doing the last episodes, but we did seven of them. And now we're back with podcast episode eight. We had a pandemic. What else happened in these four years? Four years. I mean, my memory of why we stopped is, at least for my side, I'll speak for myself. You know, I got that new job and I feel like that just kind of took over for me, um, to where, uh, what I've done for the last four years is mostly that job. Sounds really sad. I'm saying it out loud, but I think that was the death of the podcast for me and you quit so now we could do it again yeah yeah i quit my job uh trying to see if we can make a run at uh getting some money from the podcast you know yeah sponsors like you know if you're out there monster energy drink um just kidding i didn't quit my job it's the same job that I had four years ago. I got a new job. What? What's your new job? I don't know. I think two and a half years ago, maybe I got a new job. I'm just another, I'm still an urban planner and I just work for a different consulting firm. May I ask you a question about urban planning as it relates to pinball? Sure. Is there any kind of term or like moment in your day-to-day when it's discussed like, this will be an entertainment area of an urban zone that could you know potentially have pinball machines in it and then i mean not in my day-to-day that would be like land use and planning land use type stuff and uh or zoning and i'm not involved in that i'm focused on transportation planning i'm all about buses buses i love buses actually uh when i get laid off from my current job my plan is to try that bus drive for a little bit. Yeah. Just like sauce. Yeah. Just like sauce. Do you, do you, well, maybe I'll ask sauce this question someday. What do you, do you think if sauce showed up right now and I was like, Hey sauce, it's me. What would sauce say? Um,
2:58
uh, do you think that would look bad on a resume to have, you know, a year of driving the bus? I don't know I really want to do it though maybe it looks good to diversify and just test out other things that you're interested in at the same time it might show that you're uncertain about what you want to do with your life and that you might not stick around the job you're applying for yeah that's wise, that's good analysis what else has been happening for four years? Well, I think, you know, right after we discontinued, I think it was right around episode six. Remember, we did seven. This is eight. Right around six, we released the new app where we, with Beth, rewrote it all with React Native and redesigned it all. And then we just stop the podcast shortly after that. So we've been working on that a lot. That's been, I, I tracked that we've had 56 updates released to the app stores since then, which is a lot of updates.

high confidence · Ryan describing the app redesign timeline

Ryan @ ~77:00 — Transitions to humorous pitch about Yahoo Mail and AI elderly parent simulation

  • “This might be peak pinball, actually, and it's like a game I can play for a while and still feel like I'm semi-competent at pinball.”

    Scott @ ~95:00 (voicemail) — Scott's scene report expressing fondness for Attack from Mars

  • “I got first The Place so right now at the standard first The Place attack from mars that's me come and get it”

    Scott @ ~102:00 — Jokingly celebrating his high score at The Standard location

    • Good Times Billiards
    venue
    Sterncompany
    Twippiesevent
    Mapping Aroundorganization
    Tidbitproduct
    Pinball Expoevent
    Attack from Marsgame
    Monster Bashgame
    Wedgeheadperson
    Matt Frank Michaelperson
    Revenge Ofvenue
    Cowperson
    Walter Dayperson
    Yahoo Mailproduct
    Pinball People Discordorganization

    high · Ryan: 'I made an endpoint that does show that... I made like five or six endpoints that just like return stats like that' and Tidbit integration 'pulls the three, five, maybe five...the either three or five most recent machines'

  • ?

    event_signal: Pinball Map hosted seminar at Pinball Expo (October); received direct community appreciation and validation from attendees using the service

    high · Scott: 'we went to pinball expo in october and they invite us to do a seminar... there was a lot of people that came up to us and said they appreciated the site'

  • ?

    operational_signal: Pinball Map completed data tagging of 1,200+ locations with location type classifications via Pinball People Discord volunteer effort

    high · Ryan: 'we had a lot of help with... from the folks that are in the Pinball People Discord... we tagged them all... 1,200 locations that weren't tagged with a location type'

  • ?

    community_signal: Despite being open source with published code, Pinball Map received fewer than 5 external GitHub contributions in past 4 years; encourages community contributions and issue-driven development

    high · Ryan: 'less than five on both. Let's say that. So not a lot of contributions from others... when we do get those contributions... very appreciated'

  • ?

    content_signal: Scott introduces new 'scene report' segment documenting pinball venue visits and local machine setups via voicemail recordings; inaugural report from The Standard in Portland

    high · Scott: 'I've decided that as I go to these locations, why not just pull out my cell phone while I play pinball and awkwardly describe what it is that around me... I'm thinking of it as a scene report'

  • ?

    venue_signal: The Standard in Portland features Attack from Mars and Monster Bash machines; serves as Scott's regular pre-school-pickup ritual location; community-accessible high score tracking

    high · Scott's scene report: 'I've had kind of a nice little ritual where I come here before I pick my kids up and play Attack from Mars or Monster Bash... I got first The Place so right now at the standard first The Place attack from mars'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Ryan changed jobs approximately 2.5 years ago to different urban planning consulting firm; maintains role as software manager overseeing Pinball Map development alongside full-time employment

    high · Ryan: 'two and a half years ago, maybe I got a new job... I'm still an urban planner and I just work for a different consulting firm'

  • ?

    industry_signal: Pinball Mag won Twippies Best Pinball App award in 2021; award category was discontinued for 2022 and 2023, making them potentially permanent sole winner of that category

    high · Scott: 'in 2021, we got an award for best pinball app... And then they discontinued the category. We were curious to see if we were going to be winning it next year... But for 2022, it wasn't around, nor 2023.'

    • 4:15
    There's a lot of updates. We gotta get, are we going to get Beth on here at some point? Yeah, definitely. Gotta get Beth on here. Bethanately. and so you know i think that sustains the popularity of pinball map i think one of the things we wonder about is like why is it still so popular why i can't believe people are using this we started in 2008 so now it's been almost it will be 16 years coming up this year which is a long time and we would i think we expected it to just kind of you know someone else to show up and be better than us and maybe the app has helped sustain us for longer than we expected i remember yeah almost certainly i remember in the early days of the map we were at least i was pretty hyper on the lookout for other people chasing the the holy grail of pinball location pinball mapping and there would occasionally be people that would pop up and be like it would make me wonder what the future was i don't think that's happened like has anyone even popped up no not really i mean some people use our data for their own sites um and they could potentially spin something up that's better using sharding off with that data but uh no i mean there i i was looking on the app store recently i don't remember why i wasn't looking specifically for that but maybe i just looked up pinball map or something and saw what else was around and there wasn't anything. I should be clear. I don't think there were like some untouchable force of location pinball mapping or anything like that. I'm more surprised than anything else.
    6:05
    Me too. That some young college student didn't use, I don't know, some programming language I haven't even heard of to take out what is essentially a big Rails app, you know? Mm-hmm. All right. Well, if you're out there, keep at it. Yep. Keep typing away. I think the secret is to test your code really well so you're comfortable making big changes to it. That's my advice to you, young pinball map successor.
    6:39
    That seems like good advice from a software – what are you, a manager, software manager? Yeah, I'm a software manager. I don't even write code anymore. I have like little pet projects, but my day-to-day is asking other people really nicely to write code. And sometimes they do it and sometimes they don't. And then you check their tests. You run their test suite and be like, yep, it works. Some of them will ask me to do code reviews for them because they know that I get a kick out of it. Like I'm helping, you know, like I'm participating in the process, but it's mostly meetings. so something happened to me which I'll be brief about because it leads into what I really want to talk about I got divorced did you know that Ryan yep yeah oh yeah we did talk about that but why that's notable for me is in my new divorced life I find that I have a little bit of extra time so i've used a reasonable chunk of that time to go out and play pinball and sometimes i will actually see other people playing pinball and sometimes the pinball map comes up and it's kind of a call back to what we were just talking about yeah it is always shocking to me when there's that recognition that they use the pinball map um yeah yeah it's just weird to me yeah and we saw that a lot related to that we went to pinball expo in october and they invite us to do a seminar on on uh on pinball map and yeah there was a lot of people that came up to us and said they appreciated the site and it's you know i feel like sometimes we're just in a cave and sure people contact us with questions and comments and things like that but still at the same time if you go to something like that or you're out and about in person at tournaments or whatever you realize that kind of like everyone seems to be using it good for them thanks yeah thanks everyone thank you i don't know it's just i it feels weird to talk about it even but it's even weirder to talk about it to a real person um i i never really know what to say yeah that's why you just have a pocket of stickers and say thank you and then you hand them a sticker oh that's good i like that that's what i always do okay i'll send you more stickers if you need some i think i have i have a decent amount i just don't carry them around with me like i should i you probably don't want me to bring this up but for a while i was carrying around your walter day trading cards.
    9:27
    But I only give those to people that we both know. For those who aren't familiar, Ryan was presented with an award. Is this like a Walter Day... What is this? An academy? A conglomerate? Just Walter Day's award? Yeah, I guess. His award. Superstar award. Superstar. for excellence in promoting the sport of pinball, I think is what it was. Yeah, they gave that to me for some reason, not to all of us.
    10:04
    That's you. Who am I? How do people know me? I feel like out of me, you and Beth, you are the public-facing person here in the best possible way. Yeah, probably just because I would respond to emails and write Ryan at the end of it. And I've stopped doing that as much. I don't know why. What do you write at the end of it? Well, I just send it from admin at pinball map and I don't write anything. Oh, interesting.
    10:36
    Interesting. Well, if you get one of those emails, everybody, you know who it really is. It could be from anyone. Yeah. Yeah, it could be from anyone. Could be me. Could be Beth.
    10:47
    What else? We got a Twippy Award this weekend, pinball with a Y year. The Twippy, it's all capitalized, so you'd think the Y stands for something. Twippy.
    11:01
    In what, 2021, we got an award for best pinball app. Yeah, where was that given out again? Was it Texas? Texas, yeah. Texas, okay. And we were not there, but our Colorado administrator was there, and she accepted the award on our behalf, Deanna. And it was cool, cool to win that. And then they discontinued the category. We were curious to see if we were going to be winning it next year and the next year. But for 2022, it wasn't around, nor 2023. so we're the one and only best pinball app for forever forever uh who'd we well i don't want i was going to ask who we beat but i just watched uh the all good contenders all good contenders right yeah i just watched the oscars and i they tend to knock it on stage and recount who they beat so maybe you shouldn't do that here uh yeah cool twippy award thanks diana for picking that What do you think she did with it?
    12:14
    Well, she kept it, and then Beth expressed that she would really want it, and so Deanna sent it to Beth. So it's on Beth's mantle now. Well, Beth deserves it. Yeah. And I've sent Deanna lots of stickers, I hope, shirts maybe. I don't know if I remembered to do that.
    12:38
    We have more gear coming soon. maybe I'll well once we get that I don't want to say it until it's in my hands in case it sucks but next episode we'll we'll announce what that is I don't remember if we talked about this before but uh pre-pandemic we had the um what is that stuff hand sanitizer yeah prescient Yeah, that was... Prescient, right? Yeah, exactly. Is that the word? Yeah, it was like four months or something before the pandemic, we made pinball map hand sanitizers. And we gave that out to some of our Patreon supporters I actually still have a few of them What a great piece of swag And I will say now that I out there playing pinball more often I definitely feel like I wash my hands a million times more than I did before the pandemic when I play. And what I've noticed is that the bar hand sanitizer, at this point, it just feels like water. Like they've watered it down so much. I bring my own Really? I hadn't thought of places cutting the hand sanitizer To make it last Oh yeah the places I'm going to Are definitely cutting the hand sanitizer And it smells weird I don't know It's best just to have your own You bring your own fragrance with you Your own foam Or whatever type of Texture you appreciate How come people don't play in gloves, like surgical gloves? You ever seen anyone do that?
    14:20
    No. I mean, those don't breathe very well, so your hands would probably get all wrinkly inside of them, right? I don't know. Is that what it's like in surgery? Are these doctors, like, pulling their gloves off and their hands are gross?
    14:33
    No idea. Maybe there's, like, baby powder or something inside of them to keep your hands dry. Yeah. Hmm. I do see people wear fingerless gloves sometimes when they're playing.
    14:46
    I wonder if you could make gloves out of those N9, N90, what are they? Man, I'm forgetting all the words.
    14:55
    N98? The masks? The masks. Oh, yeah. N95? N95, I think, yeah. K90, yeah. Make gloves out of those. Anyway, this is going off the rails. I feel like I'm one step away from Elon Musk or something like that. But you've got to understand, when I say things like this, it's because I want them, not because I think they're ridiculous. I want my hands to be protected against other people's germs. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm using the hand sanitizer dispenser all the time when I'm playing. There's something about it that feels better to refresh your hands every once in a while. did we uh did we also pick up some sort of official sponsor speaking of sponsors yeah so we now have a location or there is a location that we are pinball map is the official sponsor of and we're the official sponsor of good times with a z good times billiards in las vegas and uh neither of us have been there but we we are their sponsor we're the we're the sponsor of that place so they're officially sponsored by pinball map they're the only place don't ask us i don't want to do any more that's great you should ask us we should do more but uh if i were to go to good times billiards like what is there like a big picture of a pinball on the wall and it says pinball map or something no they have some like uh dot matrix marquee that says different things on it and i think sometimes it says pinball map on it yeah you showed me that that's awesome yeah yeah and we we send them shirts and stickers and stuff so there'll be a bunch of stickers on there they have a they have a coin box that's or a coin dispenser that's loaded with stickers and uh there's a couple pinball map stickers on that and when they do launch parties um for stern machines or they needed a sponsor and so we were we we agreed to that and uh because all launch parties have to have a sponsor i guess i don't know and we send them some shirts and they give those out as prizes although we're pretty much out of shirts now so gotta think of something else for the next launch i love it though good times billiards las vegas nevada be sure to go yeah hit it up skip the hall of fame go to good times yeah skip the hall of fame i was actually in las vegas last november and for some reason did not make it to good times billiards uh yeah i went to the uh what do you call it was that art thing? Meow Wolf.
    17:54
    The fake supermarket. They had pinball in that building. It was very expensive. That's the end of the story.
    18:05
    Ryan, you mentioned 56 updates since we last talked and I'm sure tons of micro updates. Is there a way to summarize these site updates not really i mean i don't know what we've been doing yeah there's it and you know some of it is like a lot of behind the scenes stuff like upgraded to rail 7 or something like that who cares and uh but i guess the one thing we did add was an an operator map so i think if you go to pinballmap.com slash operators it'll uh it's a map that is very simple and it you could only search for operators on it, and it'll list all the machines that that, or sorry, all the locations that operators tagged at, and it's kind of just a quicker way for an operator to pull up their own sites if they want to quickly update them. Let's see, one other one is the, when you're looking at a location, seeing like the details showing the machines and stuff, it'll, there's a little button to show recent location activity, so you could, it's a little button that expands, I think it shows the last 20 machines that are added and removed and comments made and blah, blah, blah. So that was a way to get kind of parity with the app where we show that on the app. We wanted to show that on the website too. Let's see. Oh, one more would be, this is like a data entry thing, which we actually had a lot of help with.
    19:36
    Shout out to the folks that are in the Pinball People Discord. They helped out with this. tagging all the locations with a location type. And there were like 1,200 locations that weren't tagged with a location type, like restaurant, bar, arcade, family fun center, et cetera. And various people helped out, and we tagged them all. So that's not really that useful of a thing, but it still is nice to have it complete, and it gives you like a vague idea of what the location is about if you can't tell that like village laundromat is a laundromat, stuff like that. Can you search by type? I mean you can search by type, right? Yeah, yeah, you could. So I think it's very useful. Like what if you're searching by type and something isn't tagged and it's that type? You're getting a false sense of security that you have the exhaustive list of bowling alleys in Nevada or something. Yeah, I mean, I would respond to that by saying that there's a lot of overlap between these location types. And we're only tagging them with one. So if we tagged a place as a restaurant, but it also has a bar and we didn't tag it as a bar slash restaurant, like, I don't know.
    20:59
    You're picking one, but you're excluding others where it is similar. I don't know. Hey Ryan, you ever wonder who the most prolific user of the pinball map is? Like the most active one that isn't an admin?
    21:17
    Yeah, I do wonder that I wonder that too, we should look it up Not right now Well I made an endpoint that does show that Get out of here, really? Yeah, I wanted to have a stats page on the app Which we just haven't got to So I made like five or six endpoints that just like return stats like that.
    21:50
    All right, top users. the number one A. Lambert is the number one user in terms of edits to the map has made 5,546 what well I'd be real we gotta get A. Lambert to like a little interview here because I'm really curious that would be a good idea are these local is A. Lambert traveling he's in the Sacramento area and I don't know how much he travels or anything most of his edits seem to be around that area, Bay Area Northern California etc and number two actually is username Ontario 4820 edits and that person is also in the Bay Area wow I didn't know the Bay Area was that active like no portland people on the top 10 here yeah yeah definitely we have portland people oh okay all right all right yeah yeah that's a lot of updates what's next to talk about no no like to update on the map any big plans you know one of the plans for the last like a couple years was trying to reduce the amount of issues on the for the website you know GitHub issues that show us like to do stuff. And I just wanted to like get as many out of there as I could. So there's not that many left. And we encourage other people to an open source site and app. So anyone could contribute. I tell you in the last four years, less than five on both. Let's say that. So not a lot of contributions from others. It's very appreciated when we do get those contributions. That was really cool. but you know for a site where the code is out there if there's something you want create an issue so we could like talk about it make sure it's actually something we want before you spend the time and then help out we're working on another app update right now with some little bug fixes and a couple little enhancements and stuff like that but it'll I don't know within the next month probably come out It is fun when there's like something big and meaty to work on, but it's kind of hard to find those that are actually good ideas. I did release something small, if you remember. Yeah, let's hear about that. Tidbit.
    24:39
    For those who don't know what tidbit is, it's like this sign. I don't know. I'm going to mess this up. It's like a little wooden box where it'll display, like, here's what the weather is, here's what the time is, here's your stock, quote. But it looks cool. Like, it's a nice little dot thing, LED lights of different colors to make the sign. Anyway, I wrote a program for it that pulls the three, five, maybe five, I don't remember, the either three or five most recent machines that were added within whatever number of miles away from an address that you give it so as i'm walking around my house every once in a while i'll look over at my little sign and it tells me the most recent machines that have been added it's almost always wedgehead um that added something but it's kind of cool to see it and that's all open source and added an API. Yeah, so anyone can add that app to their tidbit, right? Yeah. Yeah, I wonder how many people listening have a tidbit. The place, the comic shop near me, Revenge Of, which is right down the street, they have a tidbit. They have machines and they have a tidbit and it shows the weather and stuff like that. So I should tell them to try to get the pinball map updates on there because you could cycle through different things, right?
    26:07
    Yeah. Yeah, you tell it, like, show the weather, then show the pinball map. So you told me about the site. What's been going on with the app itself, which is probably the most popular way to consume the pinball map, right, I think?
    26:24
    Probably, maybe. It's hard to tell, but I would say probably. And I don't know. It's just kind of like too much stuff to name, basically, going back four years. Check the log.
    26:37
    Check the log, everybody. Check the log. Stop bothering us Yeah You should probably make an app for the watch Apple Watch you know Yeah I mean we had that for a little while Frank Michael, Frank Michael in the, you know, eight years ago or something, he had some Apple Watch version of it, I think.
    27:02
    Yeah, I kind of remember that. What I would love is a – because everyone has these now, right? I feel like not too long ago, not a lot of people had them, but now I think people would get a lot of use out of it.
    27:15
    PSP, pinball sensory perception, where it'll vibrate the closer you get to a machine or something like that. Or maybe it just puts an arrow that says, walk this way 500 feet, and there's a Flash Gordon. That'd be cool, right? Yeah. Is that cool? Okay. Yeah, that's definitely cool. When I get laid off, that's what I'll do. Or you should just work on it so much that you do get laid off because you're slacking. Wow. I think that, I mean, not to be pedantic here, but that would be fired. They would fire me. They wouldn't lay me off. Laying off is more like we ran out of budget or something. Yeah. It's not directly your fault. It's not you. It's us. Okay. The gentleman's goodbye is the layoff. Anyway, okay, cool. Good app news.
    28:25
    It's been a long time since we've really talked about the app. So we've had a long time to think about this. you've seen a lot of people using it over the last four years. You got any tips for people who want to use the app more efficiently than they're using it today, Ryan? Sure. I mean, we are catering to all kinds of users out there. We don't know your skills and abilities, I guess. I will say the one tip that is not so much a using the app Tip, and is more of a life tip perhaps, is to check your spam folder. So, you know, sometimes people sign up for the app or the website, whatever, and they don't ever confirm their account because they didn't get the email. These people are almost always using either Yahoo, Outlook, or Hotmail, or MSN. Your email is not a good email program, essentially. They're not doing a good job at filtering legitimate emails. And I'm sure maybe you've noticed this if you're using one of these email services. You should have noticed it. And you should be checking, if you're using those services, your spam all the time, every day, just like you check your inbox. Because I'm sure there's lots of legitimate emails going in there, including the pinball map confirm your account email. Check your spam, you goof. um do you want to hear a million dollar idea i had that would single-handedly save a dying company and also doubled as a sick burn against a close personal friend of mine yeah let's hear it okay it's one of my my proudest moments of the last i don't know five months so i was talking to my friend who works at yahoo um which is funny right there like yahoo it's still a thing uh and he was a little nervous he's like you know i don't know where the business is going it kind of feels like we're losing users every year and it was purchased by one of those um you know stock conglomerates that's going to try to squeeze as much money out of it as they can before they shut it down kind of deal um so i said okay here's what we're gonna do for yahoo mail ready for yahoo mail we're going to harness this wave of um generative ai you know the the llms the open ai stuff we're going to harness that we're going to have a plug-in for yahoo mail that um uh children can pay for their elderly parents to have enabled and it's going to scan email and on a regular basis it's going to send them a simulated email from either the parents or the grandparents so the sick burn part was that ha ha ha all the yahoo email users are really old and you work for a company that that is you know old people email but also like i don't know kind of a good idea um keep keep the older folks entertained and everybody's happy yeah gen gen ai humor there Yeah, that'd definitely be good. I mean, both my parents use Yahoo. My mother-in-law uses Yahoo. There's a lot of old people on there. And I was just reading today, I saw someone say, I went on my mom's Facebook account and I looked through the feed and every single post is an AI post and she has no clue that it's all generated content. yeah it's like the AI retirement home or something I don't know it's kind of sad I guess I don't want to think about this anymore hey Ryan as I mentioned earlier I'm divorced and as a divorced man I find myself with a lot of freedom to go to a bar just to play pinball every once in a while.
    32:54
    Freedom. That sounds good. Yeah. Freedom. Sure. Who doesn't? So I've decided that as I go to these locations, why not just pull out my cell phone while I play pinball and awkwardly describe what it is that I see around me. I'm thinking of it as a scene report. Perfect. If you kindly check your voicemail, you'll hear the first ever pinball map scene report all right i'm checking my voicemail now thursday march 14th 2024 at 3 0 4 p.m hey ryan uh it's scott from our podcast uh just calling in with a scene report here this one's kind of a special one for me uh i'm at the standard in beautiful portland oregon This is one of the few places that I actually go and play pinball. I've had kind of a nice little ritual where I come here before I pick my kids up and play Attack from Mars or Monster Bash or whatever new stern that they have. It's like an old man pinball, I guess. It reminds me of when we would play pinball in Portland together.
    34:22
    Yeah, here I am. This is an interesting time to be playing pinball, actually, at a bar. It's 3 o'clock, and there's not really a lot of people here. But it is a bar. And so when I'm in this situation, I'm always a little nervous that maybe I'm not doing it the right way. Like, here's my concern. Is it OK to go to a bar by yourself and just start playing pinball? Like, I'm not ordering a drink. I'm not I'm not doing any of that stuff. I'm just here to play pinball. um i got nothing against drinking i think drinking is great uh but there's a time and place and right now i really just want to play pinball do you think it's okay to just show up and do that i don't know i'm always like kind of looking over my shoulder when i play like i'm getting away with some sort of crime um yeah let me know what you think about that uh like here's Sorry, I'm going to harp on this for like one second more. Like, should I be ID'd right now? I'm just entering this bar and playing pinball. Do I have to be ID'd in order to do that?
    35:38
    Not super clear to me. This is a great place to play pinball. I think, did you used to live over here? Maybe not. I used to come over here and play pinball like a long time ago, but I can't really remember why I would have done that. It's kind of been a weird part of town. One of us lived over here. No, no, you did live over here. You lived right off Burnside-ish.
    36:03
    Yeah, anyway, it really takes me back. So I like to come and play Attack from Mars, one of those games that never gets old for me. This might be peak pinball, actually, and it's like a game I can play for a while and still feel like I'm semi-competent at pinball. You just kind of shoot the ball and it goes somewhere good. um yeah so anyway uh my spot the standard uh late afternoon pick uh pre if you're ever in the neighborhood and your kids are about to get out of school and you think you know i got like 10 minutes maybe i should kill some time uh join me over at the standard it's fine all right talk you soon love you bye and there you have it um kind of a shaky start i was i was very nervous to be recording uh in a bar for some reason it just felt like i was uh like people were looking at me but no one's looking at me who cares i mean it just looks like you're on the phone right yeah but i don't know even that like who's on the phone yeah yeah true um yeah interesting side note to this scene report uh after i hung up i played another game of attack from mars and put up 12 billion holy moly well for me that's a good score like a really like for me that's a good score um and it's i got first place so right now at the standard first place attack from mars that's me come and get it yeah come take it down come to bounty that score down it's uh i'm behind cow um yeah but i think i can get him i think i can get him what is what's his score i think it's 19 billion um but i'm coming for you cow i'm coming for your score i i'm not very good at pinball so it's odds are i'll never get there again but i did have to leave like i could have played longer but I had to go get my kids so I think I can get them anyway well that's a good idea I like the I oddly enough also sometimes stop by uh the place near me that has pinball on my way to pick up my kid from school and I don't always time it very well sometimes I time it so I could play like one game and then I have to jog and pick her up but I'm going to try to time it better in the future where I can play more games, like three or four. But I'll do a scene report there too. Well, let's get this going. Looking forward to it. When we were doing these four years ago, you would sometimes cook up some funny quizzes or anecdotes or anything like that. You got any fun stats for us? Yeah. And the cynical part of me at first thought that this is about the names of locations. And at first I thought that everyone is trying to get around this trademark issue with Barcade. As most people know, Barcade is a trademark name. You can't call your place Barcade if you're in the U.S. or maybe Canada too. And so there's people opening up arcades that are bars that want to use this name. And so they come up with alternative names. But, you know, the less cynical part of me is just you know what these people are just probably coming up with creative cool names they don't care about barcade they just want a name that has cade in it to indicate that it is an arcade but something more so scott can you think of what would you name your place if you know already that you had to include cade in the name what would you call it um Rollercade and it would be themed after the TV show Roller Games and the movie Rollerball And the pinball machine Roller Games Yeah, yeah, and the pinball machine Roller Games. And also, like, any kind of disco thing. Roller skating's pretty hot in Portland right now. I bet I could coast by a couple years just having some roller skate themed bar. But it wouldn't be a A rink. It would just be an arcade bar, roller skating themed. It'd be like, what is that place where they take your food out to you on roller skates?
    40:45
    I don't know. A diner. Yeah, like Happy Days. A drive-in. But it would be indoors and the staff would be wearing roller skates. All right, rollercade. Yeah, rollercade. well on that note i looked through the database and uh found all the others are a selection of places that have cade in the name and a lot of them well which we'll start with are all kind of variations of beer essentially so we got beer cade feel free to rate these beer cade craft cade Nope. Sorry.
    41:27
    Craftcade? Draftcade? Draft, no. Sorry, I feel bad because I don't want to insult some, you know, small business owner. But I'll just speak from my heart, okay? So, beercade, pretty good.
    41:43
    Craftcade, niche, niche. Yeah, some of them just, they just don't flow off the tongue. Like, draftcade is a little tough to say. Draftcade, it just gets confusing. You know, like craftcade, I don't think craft beer. I think, what are we, needle pointing in here? And then draftcade is like fantasy sports or something.
    42:05
    Yeah. What about brewcade? Brewcade. It sounds like bouquet. Caskade. I mean, in Portland, like Cascadia. a pretty common thing. No, no, no. I think I made it harder by saying it slowly. But yeah, because caskade. But you just got to say cascade. I don't think of arcade at all, except for beercade. That's the only one. What about cidercade?
    42:45
    What? Cidercade. um yeah i feel like the only one we're missing is winecade yeah no no we can't do cidercade all right you're not behind any of these few more though uh we we break out of the alcohol themed ones to pincade okay i'm fine with pincade here's what you're gonna be fine with funcade oh yeah funcade that's the best one so far funcade i'll see you at the funcade yeah it's a good one yeah okay uh all right artcade artcade artcade i'm gonna i'm gonna follow up and see what that one actually is i'm intrigued and the more i say these the more i think of caves i don't know why i like a fun cave and art cave yeah i think art arcades really interesting to me i'm gonna find out what that is all right two more alternacade no and i feel like they're trying a little they're going for too much there this is all because they can't be a barcade i maybe oh oh got it i'm being cynical okay that's the cynical I'll take. Yeah. All right. Last one is retrocade. Retrocade feels, I mean, I don't love it, but that feels like the most easily identifiable alternative. I know what that's going to be. Yeah. Whereas pretty much every other one is, there's some question mark as to where I'm going.
    44:31
    Even though, but you know, it's a cade, right? I know it's a cade, but like, come on, cider cade? like all these like anything like right now i i'm oh my god this is i'll just be honest with you i'm trying to uh get good at making espresso at home like i got one of those little machines that make it for you um so i'm good at you're good at pushing a button no no i mean i have like the middle ground uh but anyway this kind of gets to my point there's so many little words like tamper you know like all these words that you wouldn't know if you didn't get into these little niche things um so when i see caskade my assumption is it's something to do with uh home brewing something might not even have anything to do with an arcade cidercade is even worse so yeah yeah i think if i was naming my place and it was like a cider spot with arcade games i think i would just call it like cider brewery and arcade or you know whatever hanks cider and pinball something like that just no just say and yeah that's right on like just be boring and descriptive but but you know what like this is me this is big city scott talking here like in the middle of you know in a smaller town um people are driving by and i'm sure it's very identifiable that there's also video games in there you know they're not banking on name alone so good for you arcade name makers yeah maybe i'll come up with a list next time where we're not just making fun of the places yeah yeah sorry well that's mostly a wrap isn't it yeah i don't know what else to say it's sad um four years and i mean is it maybe it's not sad four years on feels exactly the same um ton of work going on the pinball map strong user base the whole thing works because people are updating it which is awesome you got a new job our kids are getting older um i got a dog oh yeah you got a dog that's right it's that dog's name again jolene jolene yeah you know she got skunked sprayed by a skunk and right in her eyes a couple nights ago. Jesus. Yeah. Is she okay? Yeah, she was okay. We had to wash her about 10 times in a row with hydrogen peroxide and baking soda and Blue Dawn. And we actually washed her with hydrogen peroxide so many times trying to get out the smell that it dyed her hair a little bit. Her hair is lighter now. Wow. So you don't just dump her in a bucket of ragu or something like that? no that's been uh it's not true it doesn't uh that that like masks the smell i guess new new science has come out uh to just say that's not the way to go anymore it masks the smell but doesn't actually get rid of it the hydrogen peroxide more like it like it breaks it down in some way but it was so thick oil right on her face i mean i was definitely worried her eyes were injured but after the first wash she was fine that she just smelled terribly oh i'm glad she's okay um so sorry if if the ragu thing is is nothing does that mean you're not supposed to pee on um jellyfish stinks either i think that one might still be true yeah didn't joe do that once yeah i thought i read somewhere that it was uh not real and i just remember because we have we have a friend who did it and i remember thinking like haha you you did that and It wasn't real.
    48:36
    Anyway, I'll look that up. Yeah, that'll be a follow-up for next time. That's my homework. Arcade and can you pee on your friend if they step out a jellyfish? Yeah. I had to keep talking about that. I had to go and buy more hydrogen peroxide at 1130 at night when all this was going on. So I went to Ralph's. And when I walked out, the woman working there said, good luck. and I said, oh, my dog got skunked and she's all, I know.
    49:08
    Oh, because you smelled. Yeah, I changed all my clothes. I got in the car, drove there and I still completely stunk and was smelling up the entire grocery store like a skunk. Do you have a camera in your backyard? Like, did you see it happen?
    49:25
    No, I don't. I have just like motion sensor lights. I don't have a camera. And we have these culverts running through the yard, and wild animals use them as little thoroughfares sometimes at night. So if you sit by that back door, you could see the light turn on, and then a skunk will walk by. I see it all the time. Interesting. Yeah, possums and skunks and raccoons and rats, lots of different creatures.
    49:56
    Somebody's going to get mad at us for not talking about pinball enough. So maybe what we should do, can we wrap it up with you saying what your favorite pinball machine has been over these last four years? Sure, yeah. I have actually been enjoying the new Jaws a lot.
    50:14
    I would say before Jaws, my favorite might have been Jurassic Park. And now I think it's Jaws. And in part, it's just in large part, it's actually just because I like the color scheme so much. The nice light blues makes it so I could see everything really well. And that's made me realize how important that is for me to see clearly. I don't need like dark blacks and reds and stuff. I just like a nice, fresh nautical theme.
    50:48
    And, you know, I like the shots too. the shots are it has a nice flow to it so that's what i've been enjoying even though there's like code issues where it's like shoot the fin but the ball is actually stuck on a lock while it's counting down three two one so you can't actually shoot it little stuff like that's a little frustrating but it'll get fixed okay what about what about you me uh i don't know basic stuff attack from mars i've been really enjoying that one because i feel like i i know what i'm doing when I play that game.
    51:20
    Yeah. And, yeah, I don't always do that great on that one. So $12 billion seems humongous to me. So, yeah. I do luckily live near Ace Goge, which is a place in L.A. that always has the newest machine by any manufacturer, and I've been playing the Looney Tunes, which I think is really fun, by Spooky. and then i was surprised at how fun i think that is i think that the shots are really fun the call outs are nice again kind of a lighter color scheme which is good and then they also have like pulp fiction and labyrinth and the new barrios barbecue challenge they have they have all the new stuff they already have that's already out you can play the barbecue game at least there I would really like to spend a lot of time on Pulp Fiction. Have you played a lot of Labyrinth?
    52:18
    Yeah, maybe 10 games or something like that. Is it totally awesome? Like what? I think it's, yeah, I think it's pretty awesome. It's, remember when we played at Expo and we really liked that like ambient sound music that was playing? When I play in public, there's always other people playing around, so you don't hear that. and I think that's a real key element to hear that do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do and then just repeats that for the first four minutes of the game. Put you in a trance, yeah. Interesting. Okay, well, maybe next time we should go deeper on one of these newer pinball machines. I'll see if I can dig one up around town and awkwardly record myself talking about the condition of the machine. Yeah, definitely, because we have so many hot takes about new machines.
    53:11
    All right. Well, Ryan, great to talk to you again. Scott, you too. Talk to you soon. Okay. Good luck out there. All right. Bye.