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Triple Drain Pinball Podcast Ep 23: LIVE From ClePin

Triple Drain Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 3m·analyzed·Sep 19, 2022
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.035

TL;DR

Triple Drain reports live from ClePin tournament with finals preview and leaked Bond game teaser.

Summary

Triple Drain podcast recorded live from ClePin (Cleveland Pinball) tournament on Saturday night with hosts Joel, Travis, and Tom reflecting on the day's competition. Main discussion covers tournament format and experience (Clepin uses a pump-and-dump ticket system where top 24 qualify for finals), memorable plays including Jeff Teolis grinding Quicksilver before dinner and affecting bracket standings, final round results (Travis and Steven Bowden advancing), and women's tournament outcomes. Brief mention of leaked Bond photos at episode's end but recording interrupted by late hour and host fatigue.

Key Claims

  • ClePin tournament uses a pump-and-dump format where players buy tickets, play games, give away tickets, and top 24 cumulative scorers make finals

    high confidence · Tom explains tournament mechanics in detail; confirmed by all three hosts who participated

  • Jeff Teolis, despite not making top 24 initially, ground Quicksilver scores and took Travis's number-one spot, which cascaded bracket changes affecting finalists

    high confidence · All three hosts confirm; Travis was tracking his standing during dinner and saw points drop from 20th to 22nd due to Teolis's grinding

  • Attack from Mars lock diverter malfunction was fixed between Friday and Saturday, causing high score to jump from 11 billion to 24 billion

    high confidence · Tom and Joel explain the technical fix; Carlos set 15 billion on first play after arriving Saturday afternoon

  • Monica (Muriemobile) won women's third place; Katie Koster won women's tournament overall

    high confidence · Confirmed by hosts; Katie Koster name provided by Ray (Raymond Davidson) via text message after he left

  • Gilligan's Island has a code quirk where the left outlane kickback gives all other players one million points

    high confidence · Tom witnessed Monica experience this; mentions there is a special ROM available to negate the effect, same issue experienced at District 82

  • Raymond Davidson won Classics tournament, blowing up Meteor in finals after practicing eight voids in a row beforehand

    high confidence · Ray confirms winning Classics; hosts watched his finals game and saw him win game three with Meteor

  • Straight Down the Middle (Chuck Wirt's crew) streamed ClePin tournament on Friday; watching stream helped Tom understand Transporter and Quicksilver strategy

    high confidence · Tom explicitly credits stream watching and Straight Down the Middle crew for tournament prep

  • Bond game photos have leaked and official review/release is scheduled for Thursday

Notable Quotes

  • “I think I can officially say it's three tournament players. I mean, I think we're officially just a tournament-focused podcast at this point.”

    Tom (possibly Joel) @ ~early show — Marks Tom's (the former 'outsider') transition to tournament competitor after playing in ClePin qualifying rounds

  • “Teol is a fact. Yeah. It was. Well, I would just say we were trying to enjoy dinner, and I could tell you were a little stressed.”

    Joel and Travis (discussing Jeff Teolis's butterfly effect) @ ~mid-show — Humorous acknowledgment of Teolis's late grinding causing bracket cascade; indicates intensity of tournament score tracking

  • “Luke is probably going to pick this, this, and this. And you're already preparing yourself for potentially what's going to happen. Oh, Tom and I both knew he was going to take us off a freaking cliff.”

    Travis and Tom (re: Luke Marburg's pick strategy) @ ~mid-show — Illustrates strategic depth of finals game selection and player expectations; Luke's unpredictable approach created mental challenge

  • “It's just to see it in person, one, it's a lot harder to see what's going on. You basically can see the DMD and you can see their body language and that's it.”

    Tom (observational commentary) @ ~mid-show — New tournament spectator perspective on viewing challenges compared to streamed tournaments

  • “Well, I'll take a quarter of your score. That's good enough for me.”

    Tom (re: his 5.9M TMNT vs. others' 20M+) @ ~early show — Humorous self-deprecating acknowledgment of skill gap between tournament regulars and newer players

  • “And the moment the kickback enables, it gives everybody else a million points.”

    Tom (explaining Gilligan's Island quirk) @ ~late show — Illustrates unexpected game design consequence affecting tournament play; suggests need for ROM modifications

  • “I think he's going to try to get some sleep and he's going to be up early tomorrow, because apparently he can't just roll out of bed and start playing, whereas that's like my superpower and specialty.”

Entities

ClePin (Cleapin)eventJoelpersonTravis (Travis Murray)personTompersonRaymond Davidson (Ray Day)personJeff TeolispersonLuke Marburgperson

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Straight Down the Middle podcast streaming strategy demonstrated real-time educational value for tournament preparation; Tom watched stream Friday and applied strategy learning to actual tournament play Saturday

    high · Tom: 'So just watching other people play the game kind of showed me, okay, this is what you're trying to do.' Directly credited Chuck Wirt's streaming crew.

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Pinball tournament participation creates positive reinforcement cycle for newer players; Tom's newfound enthusiasm suggests high satisfaction with tournament experience despite lower competitive placement

    medium · Tom: 'I thoroughly enjoyed it...It is a fun time. I understand the enjoyment of the competitiveness.' Indicates tournament accessibility and appeal beyond elite competitors.

  • ?

    community_signal: ClePin established as major regional tournament with 116 participants in Main division, sophisticated tournament management software (Never Drain), and competitive infrastructure matching industry standards

    high · Multiple references to queue systems, scoring management, streaming integration, and competitive depth; Tom notes efficiency of Carl D'Angelo's software; comparison to other tournaments like District 82 and Expo

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Finals 'bus driver' (top seed game selection) strategy reveals meta-game of psychological preparation; Travis anticipated Luke would pick Transporter but chose unexpected mix of Corvette/Kiss/AFM; Travis strategically picked first position to avoid Luke's nudging style

    high · Travis: 'I'm not doing that again [playing Luke's game selection second]'; hosts collectively anticipated Transporter but Luke chose differently; indicates game selection is strategic advantage in finals format

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.190

0:00
the pinball network is online launching triple drain pinball podcast oh man that's a good start um travis are you uh you ready i forgot we don't do pre-production meetings anymore No. We already had it. It was, what are we talking about? Oh, Cleveland and Bond. Should I write it down on a piece of paper for you real quick? That's fair. I forgot. I forgot we talked about that. Tom, where are we? Tom, are you ready?
0:40
Uh, yeah. Why are we in Joel's room, and why are you naked on the couch? We're all naked. It's like a sauna in here.
0:50
A swamp-ass sauna. Oh, man. We don't have a beep. We need a beep. It's freezing in the hall. I'm sorry, I forgot cussing. My fault. I'll be the beep. Just say a swear.
1:02
Beep! Oh, that was your phone. Alright, insert theme song? Starter song? We We're three guys who like to talk and ball So we came up with a clever name We're Joel and Travis Tom and Tom and Ball And we call ourselves Triple Drain, Triple Drain, Triple Drain We're Triple, Triple Drain Alright, it was inserted clearly. How did some of the things go? I don't know. We shared it. Where did you get it? Yeah, that one.
1:42
Triple Drain. We got that. Triple Drain. And then you always go, Triple Drain, Triple Drain. That was good enough. Okay, well, hello everyone. This is a... I don't even know what episode this is. Because you're so stupid. I don't even... Is this episode 20? No, we're way past 20. Is this episode 25? It's not 25. I think it's episode 23. We've done enough where people are at least rebelling on one of us. See what happens when I have half a beer? Half a beer. It is episode 23. If it sounds absurd, it's because all three of us are in the same hotel room, clothed, believe it or not. But if you want the mental image of us naked. I'm the only one not wearing a jacket. it is hot okay yes that's a good idea take it off I'll take the hoodie off we are together at cleapin that's all it took is for Tom to say I'm the only one no it actually it goes off and Joel's like it once again points out that Tom is the smartest guy in the room because we're complaining about being hot in here and we're wearing long sleeves I just want to say hi to my biggest fan Jer you have one fan or your biggest fan no his biggest fan yeah well we know who doesn't have fans Travis Meary trending down on the pinball show. How can you two even be in the same room? Oh, he's a mean man.

medium confidence · Mentioned at episode end with caveat that hosts were going to discuss but episode ran late; not fully explored due to recording time constraints

Joel (re: Carlos/Lowe's sleep prep vs. his own routine) @ ~mid-late show — Reveals personality-based tournament preparation differences among top players

Stephen Bowden
person
Monica (Muriemobile)person
Katie Kosterperson
Carlos (possibly Carlos Lowe)person
Chuck Wirtperson
Carl D'Angeloperson
Stern Pinballcompany
Data Eastcompany
Straight Down the Middleorganization
Triple Drain Pinball Podcastorganization
Pinball Profileorganization
District 82event
Bond (pinball game)game
?

event_signal: ClePin tournament demonstrates successful large-scale event management with 116+ participants, efficient software-driven logistics, streaming integration, and parallel divisions (Main, Classics, Women's)

high · Carl D'Angelo's Never Drain software praised; 30-45 minute queues on complex games; real-time bracket management affecting finals selection; smooth tournament flow allowing streaming by third-party content creators

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Gilligan's Island code quirk: left outlane kickback triggers million-point bonus to all other players instead of saving current player's ball, creating disadvantageous randomness in tournament play

    high · Tom witnesses Monica experience this; confirms special ROM exists to negate effect; same issue previously encountered at District 82; indicates design oversight in classic machine code

  • ?

    leak_detection: Bond pinball photos have leaked unofficially; game scheduled for Thursday release; hosts planned detailed discussion but episode ran too late for full coverage

    high · Tom: 'we were going to lead off with Bond leaked photos. It's technically the game is supposed to come out on Thursday. What's interes[ting...]' Episode cuts off mid-sentence at very end.

  • ?

    community_signal: Tom transitioned from podcast 'outsider/non-competitor' role to active tournament participant, fundamentally changing Triple Drain's format identity from 'two tournament players and one outsider' to 'three tournament-focused hosts'

    high · Tom and hosts explicitly state: 'I think I can officially say it's three tournament players. I mean, I think we're officially just a tournament-focused podcast at this point.'

  • ?

    product_concern: Attack from Mars experienced mechanical lock diverter malfunction causing unplayably difficult lock shot; high scores jumped from 11B to 24B after repair on Saturday

    high · Tom: 'once they fixed it, you could hit the lock shot. And it turns out when you can get multiball, you get a lot more billions.' Carlos set 15B on first attempt after repair.

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Pump-and-dump ticket system with 'no pressure' multiple plays enabling skill development and gradual score improvement appears to lower barrier to entry compared to traditional tournament formats

    medium · Tom as new player found format enjoyable and non-stressful; able to improve TMNT score through multiple attempts; contrasts with elimination pressure felt by Travis and others fighting for finals spots

    • 3:00
    Fuck you, Joel. Beep. I should have the biggest beep with Travis. He just knocked me out of the tournament. Yeah, that's a point. That wasn't my fault. That was Bowden's fault. That was my fault. I don't know what the goal of the podcast is. We just decided we're in the same room, literally, and we just spent the day together here at Cleapin. Well, now I feel like this podcast has completely changed. Before it was two tournament players and the outsider being me. And now, I think I can officially say it's three tournament players. I mean, I think we're officially just a tournament-focused podcast at this point.
    3:41
    So, I... You're in a final round. I played in a tournament. I did not make a final round, that's for sure.
    3:48
    This was the Cleapin tournament. it was a pump and dump. So you buy tickets and every time you play a game, you have to give away your ticket to then put in a score. And there's no pressure here. You can play as many games as you want and continue to improve your score. And then based off of all of the scores, the top score in that game would get 100 points and it would go down and down and down and down to somewhere where I am and I'd get a few points. Yeah. And then your cumulative total, I only played in the main category. The cumulative total of your best five games is what ends up giving you your player positions. And the top 24 players make the finals. The two of you made the finals. I was far from that, but I ended up at the end of qualifying, I was 89th out of 116 players. So, you know, Sorry to everybody above me. Not bad. Yeah. I was, I started my tournament life with turtles. It felt great. Loved it. I was impressed. Yeah. I was thoroughly impressed. Yeah. Like, everything you do is impressive. Oh, yeah, I forgot. So, Pinside apparently thinks Travis is too mean. So, I just need to remind myself that literally any compliment that comes out of your mouth is just completely made up and not real. I'm trending up. Trending up, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I will say, I mean, my overall view of playing in a tournament, I get it. I get the appeal. When you drain and you think to yourself, I could play better, you want to buy another ticket and you want to play it again. Oh, so you're saying we got you addicted. It is a fun time. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Are you going to play another one? If I'm there. If I go to another show, I would play another tournament. Oh, okay. I was about to say, if you're there, yeah, of course you would play. Next one's Expo. Yeah, well, I won't be at Expo, remember? Oh, shit. Yeah. Unfortunately, I'm not in a position to commit to, like, traveling specifically for a tournament. I would say that would be a little more disheartening if I actually went just for a tournament at my current skill level because I was far from making finals. But it was a good time. You had fun. I had fun. That's all that matters. I had fun. When you start playing pinball, you have fun. To see, it's a weird thing where when you have five games and you have five scores, and then you're, like, looking at the game going, can I improve on that score? Because it could potentially bump you up. And so I just wanted to see my number go up. But you guys are in a totally different spot where you guys are playing for buys. Or, Travis, you ended up right on the bubble. So it's like you had really good scores, but which one do you think you could possibly improve on? That's a little more stressful than what I was going through. Well, now you get an idea, though. So what was the main game that you played? I only played Turtles once. I was very surprised. I went up. I saw that the lowest score was one point something million. I said, well, I know my goal is more than one million. And I ended up scoring 5.9, which gave me like 40th place out of, I don't know, there was like 70 people or something that had played it. So I was like, I'll take that. That's like middle of the back. I'll feel good about that. But your scores were, you were like 20 something million. Yeah. And so were you, right? I had like 22, 23 million. Yeah. So my view was like, hey, I get a five point something. Like that's, I'll take a quarter of your score. That's good enough for me. What was your, besides Turtles, what was your favorite game that you played today in the tournament?
    7:18
    Did you try Transporter? I did try Transporter. So that was one thing. Shout out to straight down the middle, Chuck Wirt and his crew. They were streaming the tournament. So when I was working yesterday, I actually had the stream up, and the streaming rig was on Transporter and Quicksilver the most. So just watching other people play the game kind of showed me, okay, this is what you're trying to do. It's that easy, right? And then you step up to the game and, no, it's not that easy. That was a definite wake-up call because watching Transporter, it was like everybody was hitting down the six drop targets, locking them all, hitting them down, locking them all, boom, multi-ball, keep it alive. I never got all six drop targets down when I played it. but I well that brings up another thing that I've realized tournaments it's a lot of waiting so you got to get yourself in the queue you wait you wait you wait you get up there you kind of talk yourself into it and then you drain quickly and then you got to go through that old process again of waiting waiting waiting but definitely a mental game but I played that and I played a lot of Quicksilver because same thing I saw people doing stuff on stream with Quicksilver that I just assumed I could do and I was quickly humbled and proven that I can so they're fun but Getaway I had a good time on that and then Royal Rumble I never played that and had a good time there as well so definitely eye opening like when you actually play a game instead of just playing it to flip around and see what it's like when you go in with a goal it was a lot of fun and even Turtles I've never played Turtles in that light where either that or our neighbor wants us to shut up but yes I've never played Turtles in a way where I actually cared about score Oh, okay. I heard there's a recording. Yeah, we got an extra ball. We have an extra. Here, go ahead and sit over here. Are we already recording? Yeah, we're already recording.
    9:04
    Raymond Davidson, everybody. Give him a hand. Hey, whoo! There you go. Whoo, don't beat Neil DeMille.
    9:12
    So Ray Day's here. Ray Day just won Classics, so congrats on that. Well, thank you, Joe. Yeah, we were saying that clearly now we're just only a tournament-focused podcast now that I've played in one. You know, I'm no longer the outsider. But, no, we were walking through that. And, yeah. Continue. I'll sit and listen here and see if I have anything to add. Well, I was saying, based on watching a stream, because Chuck's streaming this on Friday, I saw a lot of Quicksilver and I saw a lot of Transporter. And I was thinking, oh, okay, that's pretty easy to do. And then you step up and try to do it. And in my case, this may not be as understandable for you three Because you guys are the ones doing the things that I'm watching you do. We're hearing that from your point of view, though. My point of view was, this looks like it can't be that bad. And then you do it, and it is that bad. It is that bad. But, no, it was a good time. And, no, I definitely see the appeal. And I went in very, like, I just wanted to have a good time. But to see it from your guys' point of view where it's a little more stressful, you know, you've got to make finals. And even at dinner, Travis, like, refreshing his phone because he was 20th and realizing, oh, yeah, you can talk about that. You went from 20th down to 22nd for one reason and one reason only. And if you want to talk about that, go ahead. Because of effing Jeff Teolis. Yeah.
    10:32
    So our good friend Jeff Teolis of Pinball Profile and Final Round, who was not in top 24, apparently was motivated to keep playing. and Travis all day pretty much had the number one spot in Quicksilver, which was 100 points. Number two spot is not 99. No, it drops all the way to 90 points. So going into dinner, Travis is like, as long as nobody takes my Quicksilver score, I think I'm going to be good.
    10:57
    And sure enough, Jeff Teolas was grinding away on Quicksilver for whatever reason. Screwed up all the groups. Yeah, he did. And Travis and I had to face each other again. And now I have to face Neil. Yeah. So it messed with your score, too. Yeah. The one Jeff Teol has. Because it knocked Brian down because Brian had the number two score on Quicksilver. Oh, yeah. So Brian fell below me, so then I moved up to Neil's group.
    11:24
    So it's insane that Jeff Teol, I don't. He didn't even make the damn play. No, I think he was just. Teol is freaking butterfly effect. She was doing it to do it, yeah. Teol is a fact. Yeah. It was. Well, I would just say we were trying to enjoy dinner, and I could tell you were a little stressed. Not stressed, but you were looking. I was just watching because I knew I was going to be in. I wasn't worried about that because there's a couple people below me, too. So it's like if you lose points, you know that the people below you probably have the same games or similar games, so they're going to lose a point, too. So really what I was looking at was, well, what are the groups going to be and what's it going to be solidified at? because I'd like to know who I'm playing too because I'd like to have a great idea. And of course, we ended up having Luke, the Horniac, be our bus driver, and it's literally like having a lunatic at the wheel. I don't know who Luke is going to pick. I really thought he was going to pick Transporter. I thought he was too. His two games he picked, I was very surprised. Didn't Luke put up like $6 million on Transporter or something good in qualifying? I think so. Seven, yeah. And Kiss, maybe he didn't know that the Kiss had such a tight tilt because Luke likes to move the game around. He was surprised. He said he had played it a few times for qualifying before it ended, and he was getting consistently 200 million. So we think they might have tightened that tilt up. Yeah, because the very first ball. Just for Luke. Yeah. I mean, it was tilty when I qualified on it. Like, I tilted the ball to danger, danger, tilt with one slap save. But otherwise, the love gun shot was the easiest love gun shot of any kiss ever. Like, you couldn't miss it. It was just so money. I busted that man.
    13:12
    Well, Luke was player one, and then on ball one, he tilted, and one of the dangers went into Travis's ball.
    13:24
    So that was actually interesting. So just to explain to people like me that are new to all this, It's whoever was the top seed going into it gets to pick all three games for that round. So Luke was picking the games. He was driving the bus. He was the bus driver. So Luke picked all three games. So Luke would pick a game, and then they'd go to the next seed, which happened to be Tom. And Tom was able to pick his spot. So normally you want to go last because then you know what you have to shoot for. So he went last. And then they go to the next seed, which was Stephen Bowden. So Bowden would pick third. And then they'd go to Travis last. And Travis had his choice to pick first or second. Normally you pick second, but because Luke throws the game around so much,
    14:07
    Travis is like, I'm not doing that again, so he picked first, which was kind of a surprise, but it paid off for you because you played Corvette in the second game and you blew it up on ball one. Another reason why I wanted to do that, too, is because you could lock in the balls, right, and then you could send it back up top for skill shots. But if they were locked previously by Luke. Then you get virtual lock. Oh, got it. So there's a lot here. And even going back all the way to dinner when we realized everything changed, who was playing who, then all of a sudden you guys are going through this mind game of, well, who's driving the bus? Luke is, so he's probably going to pick this, this, and this. And you're already preparing yourself for potentially what's going to happen. Oh, Tom and I both knew he was going to take us off a freaking cliff. Yeah.
    14:55
    Now they seem like standard picks to me, Corvette, Kiss, and AFM. It's not Luke picks, though. You know what I mean? We fully expected him to pick, what is it, transfer? So he was driving the bus on the road in the right lane going 60 miles an hour when you were expecting. We thought it worked so well. Maybe he was driving on the other side like a Neil McCrae type thing. But it's just fascinating. I mean, I obviously watched this firsthand, and my only experience with tournaments is watching them on stream. And it's just to see it in person, one, it's a lot harder. to see what's going on. You basically can, from the, I don't know, the stands, but like standing behind everybody, it's like you can see the DMD and you can see their body language and that's it. That's all you can really tell on how well they're doing. And I don't know, it's awesome to watch it on stream. I wish it was more clear Like I know I seen other ones where streams they have projectors or this that for for people watching but it still enjoyable to see and just seeing the mental challenge that is tournament stream i mean props to you guys for staying mentally engaged for the whole day and then as soon as the stream's over you know i understand tom grabbed a beer pretty quick and i respect that yeah yeah but no so it all came down to um so travis laid a big old goose egg on game one on Kiss, but you came out motivated game two, blew that up. I couldn't wait to do St. Ben. No. So you screwed. So you got four points there. Then by the time you guys got into game three, Steven was kind of pretty much for sure going through. He just needed a point. Mathematically, anybody still could have went through. But, yeah, he was in the driver's seat. Yeah, and it came down to you guys played Attack from Mars, and all three of you guys had similar scores going into ball three.
    16:45
    And at the end of the day, Luke got what, fourth? You got first in that game. Steven got second, and then Tom got third. And how it worked out. So Travis and Steven are through to the next round, which starts bright and early tomorrow morning, which I know is your favorite time to play, Ray Day. No.
    17:05
    So this is going to obviously come out, I don't know, maybe it would come out tomorrow. I highly doubt it. But sometimes, so yeah, in the future, congrats to whoever wins. Travis, congrats to winning the Olympics.
    17:18
    I never win those things. The goal is we've got to keep Ray Day up real late, and then he'll be ready to go tomorrow. Is that why you invited me into the room? No.
    17:28
    But Ray did win classics. He sure did. Big old trophy. That was a crazy classic. I was scrounging every round where it was like game three I had like two points most of the time. And I had to win my game three, and I pulled it off both rounds to get to the finals. And then in the finals I needed to win game three to win the tournament. And those eight voids of Meteor in a row during practice came in handy because the last game was Meteor, and I blew it up. Yeah, we were watching that. There was a lot of refreshing on phones during dinner. and it's like, oh, it's like Ray Day's right. He's going to have to do something, and boom, you did it. It was like, wow, he won the thing. It's like, yeah, don't. Did you get a fourth on any of the games in Classics? I think I dodged the goose egg. I dodged the fourth, and that was what made the difference. That's big, yeah. Because if I would have got a fourth, there would have definitely been, like, tiebreakers involved, or I would have just been done. Yeah. Well, I mean, at the end of the day, this has been a fun time. I mean, I've only been here one day. I understand also the appeal of coming on Thursday or coming earlier because the queue is a huge thing. Props to Carl D'Angelo. That software, that Never Drain software is pretty impressive stuff. And just the simplicity of it, of getting in line, waiting for your place, and having enough people directing it or what's the word? Scorekeeping. I mean, they're very quick. As soon as one game's over, the next person's up. And it's a well-oiled machine. But when you go to queue up and you realize every game has at least a 30-minute wait, you know, it's kind of a – then all of a sudden you're looking and it's like, well, I've got two and a half hours. How am I going to fit this in? And, you know, I understand you come Thursday, though. You've got a lot. You can play and play and play. I'm not like Jared or Elwin or Raymond. Did you show up the last day? Yeah, I just take like ten plays and I'm in.
    19:22
    That's a big part of it because the queues, they – well, here at Cleveland, too, So, like in Classics, there was only, what, six games and five count in the Classics. And then in Main, there's nine games and five count. So, it's one of those things to where these games here, at least for a Main division, they're set up pretty favorable. I mean, they're not super easy, but they're not super difficult either. So, a lot of these games aren't quick games. So, what ends up happening is that a lot of people end up just stacking up and you get good players in front of you that are putting up like $5 or $10 billion on attack from Mars or whatever it is. That's where you get your 30 to 45-minute queues. And we were seeing that happen later or even today. And the only game that was quick was Quicksilver. Quicksilver, the queue was always, it's like, oh, there's six people in the queue. It's like, well, that'll be five minutes. I feel like they always have one of those at every tournament as like the emergency latch of like, oh, it's the 11th hour and everything has a line. I normally wouldn't play this because it's risky or whatnot but it's my only option. Maybe that's why Jeff would get played right at the end. Everybody just saw the score and they're like, oh this able could do it. Yeah.
    20:32
    Well, Attack from Mars, that's another thing that was interesting because you said Thursday and Friday coming into today the high score for Attack from Mars was like it was like a billion. It wasn't much. I think something changed on it because even when we played it that lock shot was a lot easier to hit. Well, all of a sudden today, the high score went from like a billion to the final high score was 24 billion. It was, I think, entering today or maybe even yesterday, it was like around 9 to 11. It was 11. 11? Oh. It basically like doubled, almost tripled the high score when they fixed the lock diverter that was not setting right. So when you shot it, it would kind of rattle instead of go around smooth. And the right flipper was, it wasn't weak, but it was just strong enough for it to make it, but only if it was buttery smooth. So once they fixed it, you could hit the lock shot. And it turns out when you can get multiball, you get a lot more billions.
    21:30
    Well, that is funny. It's also a reminder of like watching somebody play Attack from Mars and it's literally billions of points. And then you walk over to Turtles and you're pumped if you get like a million. Like, you know, you hit a shot that's worth 500,000 points. You feel. Are you saying Dwight needs to change the goals? No, it's just.
    21:49
    There's quite a difference between these different games of, well, what's actually the goal or the standard? Like, what's considered a good game? Like, instead of 250,000 points, you get 250 million points. Yeah, just a few more zeros do make you feel a little better about yourself. But, no, it was a good time. It's been a good time, and I'm excited to see how finals turns out tomorrow. so obviously good luck Travis and Ray Day here because you and me are hanging out tomorrow you and me are hanging out all day it's going to be great I have no idea I mean if they need somebody I'll do it I'm color commentary it was a big battle for a top seed did Lowe's end up keeping it? yeah I believe so he showed up today later in the afternoon after he heard that, and he must have heard that attack from Mars, something changed, because he walked right up to it, and his very first game of the day, he set that. 15 billion, yeah. It set a ridiculous score. It's like, all right, yep, Carlos is here and doing Carlos things. Here's the real question. Will Carlos pull an all-nighter tonight before finals? I think he told me he's going to try to get some sleep and he's going to be up early tomorrow, because apparently he can't just roll out of bed and start playing, whereas that's like my superpower and specialty. Well, there you go. Well, cool. I don't know. Did you guys have anything else to say that you wanted to say about today? Oh, well, we should say women's tournament. Oh, yeah. Travis, I don't know if you forgot about Monica. I didn't forget. How could we forget about Monica? He was carrying her purse, I mean, her trophy. Well, we do know for sure. The Muriemobile is driving home with at least one trophy. So, yeah, congrats to Monica. She actually got third in the women's tournament. So we kept checking in on her all day, and she ended up going into the finals with number one seed. And it was a ladder tournament, so it was, what, the bottom four people play, and the last, whoever loses, is out. And then they keep working their way up. So she sat and sat and sat and sat, got all the way to the final four, and made it through that, and then she lost on that. So third place. And then she proceeded to pick Gilligan's Island. That was her that picked it. She did survive. She survived the round of four. Yes. Yeah. Because she picked Space Shuttle, barely kind of squeaked out a win there, and then picked Gilligan's Island, and the very first thing she did was give all her opponents a million points. Yeah, so that's really interesting. They were all looking weird at each other, but yeah, apparently that's built into the code. So Monica went out the left out lane, which is a kickback, and the moment the kickback enables, it gives everybody else a million points. So that happened to me when it was at District 82, but there is like a special ROM out there that you can put in that will negate that. So it was funny that she was ball one, she was player one, ball one, drains her ball, and players two and three already had more points than her, and they hadn't even started playing yet. And it was because her kickback had gone off and they both got a million points. So kind of a... It's stupid is what it is. Ray, you haven't thought about putting that in any of your games where you just give out points to the other players? Hey, I mean, would you rather have your ball end or would you rather give everyone a million? I mean, between those two choices, I think the problem is the kickback doesn't always do that. That's the real... Because sometimes it gives you a million. so yeah yeah it's kind of random there's a there's something in alice cooper that does that lock yeah when you uh start a multi-ball it's someone else locked you give the person who locked the ball a million points yeah which oh so it's locked stealing but they get rewarded for it kind of yeah okay it doesn't make a lot of sense but okay it's kind of a nice way to steal it's like hey i'm stealing your ball but i'm paying for it yeah it's like imagine that in tna if Every time someone stole a multiball, you were getting paid. Oh, yeah. Yeah. There would always be a question of, do I want to steal that multiball? Yeah. Do you drink? Yeah, I do. Yeah, I'll take it. Yeah, I'm stealing it.
    26:11
    Well, yeah. But, no, so far, so good. It's a good show. I don't know. I don't have anything else. Oh, I thought you were talking about Triple Drain. Triple Drain is grabbing your face. Do we know who won the women's?
    26:22
    Was it Debra? No. It was second. Yeah, the final game was on Godzilla. Debra put up $16 million. It was playing really rough, really mean. Yeah, that game sucks.
    26:35
    Yeah, and then they... Who was it? I actually don't know who the winner was, because I don't have the names in front of me. Sorry. Sorry, whoever that was. Yeah, it's her awkward pause. But you did great, though. I didn't watch it, so don't blame me. Nope.
    26:53
    When Monica got out, we all got off the inflatable couches that were not fully inflated. It was like a blob. If I sat down and, like, launched Travis up, it was like a teeter-totter.
    27:07
    It was a good time. So you're, like, glowing, though, so now I know you're going to play tournaments. It was a fun time. I understand the enjoyment of the competitiveness. I'm just happy that when we do triple combo, you finally are going to pull your weight. you're going to need a competitive bar yeah right it's very clear I mean you can go into any game with a strat and it can fall apart real quick and then you got to kind of adapt and see what happens I mean I think I'm still on the tournament strat of survive like what's the goal for this game survive but yeah well that was cleapin the only other thing we thought about talking about was some of the leaked bond photos but I don't know if, I don't know if Ray Day, you want to participate in this conversation. I can get to sleep anyway, right? I got to sleep. All right. Yeah. Thanks for having me on briefly during the tournament talk. Yeah. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on everything else. Yeah. Sounds good. Get out. Yeah.
    28:11
    See you, Raymond. See you.
    28:22
    for his job to probably not discuss that. He was like, what leaked photo? Wait, what? What's happened? Raymond just snuck under the bed.
    28:35
    Guys, I'm not here. He's sitting right outside the door. No, he just left. Props to Raymond for just showing up. That's awesome. Props to you giving Raymond a chair and you made me sit on the bed. I gave you an entire bed. Yeah, but there are going to be so many crumbs on the bed. He ate Yeah, you ate, like, the most crumbliest whatever bar. That's totally Joel's fault for not realizing I'm, like, an 8-year-old inside a 30-plus-year-old's body. I think we all know. I think we know. That's not a new, this isn't a new thing. We can't be mean to each other. No. Okay, yeah. You guys are all great. If I had, like, a spray bottle of water.
    29:14
    Okay, well, if anybody's still listening to this podcast. so it is we're recording this late on a Saturday technically the official pond review is supposed to happen oh Katie Koster won women's that's what Ray just said so thank you congrats to her so he's still texting and maybe edit that in or for the who won part nah it's a little late He kind of laughed his ass off when he heard that. Yeah. There was discussion on where we're going to record this, and we're like, we can do it outside and this and this. I was like, that sounds like a lot of editing in Togus. That's not my problem. Oh, yeah. We were going to lead off with, if you have a kid or anything in your car while you're listening to this, you should probably turn it off. Oh, yeah. But good thing we give that disclaimer 30 minutes into the podcast. Yeah, that's true. Nothing's better than a disclaimer this far in. Yeah. So Bond leaked photos. It's technically the game is supposed to come out on Thursday. What's interesting here for anybody that's on, I mean, I'm assuming you guys know at this point, but the game was supposed to come out last Tuesday. It was supposed to be revealed at a, like, an expo, like kind of an arcade-based show over in England. And so there were two games, a pro and premium, that were shipped out there. And unfortunately, they were somehow set up on the floor on Monday. So they're in the process of being set up, and there were some pictures taken. Those pictures started being passed around, and all of a sudden, everybody sees everything, and it's all out. And so Stern's official response is they decided to not reveal the game at the expo out of respect to the queen's death and her funeral. But obviously, there's questions of, did these leaked photos potentially piss somebody off, thus saying, no, pull it. Let's not reveal it. So for a few days, all we had are these blurry leaked photos, which kind of stirred up a lot of questions about the artwork. It looks like it's a lot of art just pulled directly from movie posters. It is definitely Sean Connery Bond. The pro is definitely based off of Dr. No's artwork. The premium is based off of You Only Die Twice, I think is what it's called. But then looking at the different mechs a lot of people zooming in and out of very blurry photos Well what funny though is there was a Bond website that must have already had the press release and forgot to not release it Because this Bond website, I forget what it was, like 007 Fan Club or something, whatever it was, come Friday morning, actually puts out this press release of, hey, there's a new Bond pinball machine. Was it another website? It was another website. It was like a Bond Fan Club website. Oops. That put it out there, and it actually had high-res, nice, professional photos of the cabinet art and the play field for both the pro and the premium. So thank God for actual good images, but it was not purposeful. It was not purposeful, that's for sure. So there are on Pinside, in other words, those have since been pulled, but obviously they're already out there. So now that we've actually seen high-res images of both the cabinet art and the play fields for both the pro and premium, initial thoughts on those? Tom, you're typically in for an LE.
    32:50
    I'm not on this one. Okay. I'm not, like, the biggest James Bond fan, but I'll probably end up getting a pro. Yeah. But just to have it, get to know the rules, that sort of thing. I see now that I'm a tournament player, I see the advantage of having a game in your house. Even if it's just to buy the game, own it for a few months just to learn it, learn the rules, and then move it on just from a competitive standpoint, having that experience is worth owning the game, even if it would potentially cost you a few hundred bucks and a lot. So I totally see that. But I do know you moved from the – you said you're not the biggest Bond fan, so you're passing on the LE. Pro would be a good time. Travis, I don't know if – I don't know, what were your initial responses or thoughts on seeing the play field?
    33:45
    What is going on? Yeah. From the distributor and dealer side, it's just – it's been a whirlwind week. Yeah. It's just very confusing and just, you know, I mean, because it's like we spent all weekend getting ready for the reveal and thinking, okay, it's going to be at 3 a.m. because they're going to show it in London. And then all of a sudden you see some grainy photos and you're like, okay, you have your first impressions, but you're going to kind of wait until you see, you know, the official release, you know, the good pictures and video and all that. But, yeah, it was just. And then the queen dies and blows it up. She died like a week prior, but, yeah, they messed everything up. Yeah, so it's just I wasn't expecting it to be delayed at all. So it definitely, definitely costs, I won't say turmoil, but it caused a crazy week of just adjusting and saying, seeing, okay, when's this going to be out and what's going to move and how, how does that affect our schedule? How does that affect their schedule? I mean, it's just, it's a whole ordeal, Joel. Yeah, I don't, well, I've been reading the messages, obviously, in our Facebook group and whatnot. And just even, even trying to look at Pinside. I mean, it's just a roller coaster for everybody because, you know, you have LE buyers that feel like they need to commit even before the game is revealed. And then you have other people that are like, this is the worst thing that Stern's ever made based off a few grainy photos. Well, it's been crazy because opinions are all over the place. Like, you have some people saying, oh, this is the worst thing ever made and the art's horrible. I had somebody else tell me it's one of the best art packages they've seen based off the official. Like, they legitimately told me that. Yeah. And they liked the pro, I guess it's the pro cabinet that's yellow. Yeah. It's all yellow. They actually like that. Well. But, and then I guess Cary Hardy put out a video. Yeah. Comparing it to Godzilla. So there's some people giving it some big praise out there still. I mean, it's kind of, there's no middle of the road. No. That's the weird part. You're either thoroughly impressed with the whole package. Yeah. 10 out of 10 or complete garbage. Yeah. Or you're just kind of like, oh, what's going to happen? So, I mean, I don't know. I'm interested in it. I think the right side of the play field looks pretty cool with the right side ramp and then the right ramp. Then it looks like you have a shot through those two. Through the two, yeah. Yeah, and it almost looks like there's a captive ball back underneath there, too. I don't know if my eyes— I don't know what's under the—yeah. Yeah, that's why I could have swore I saw that, but I don't know that for a fact. Then I'm trying to figure out what the left side is with that eject, and it almost looks like a dead end. So I don't know if it's like a dead end target or if it's just— Dead end and then it drops down into it? Yeah, that's what I'm wondering. Because there's a left flipper, so Gomez game, absolutely we know for sure it's a Gomez game. There's an upper left flipper, and it looks like there's a difference over there. The pro, it looks like, I don't even know if there's a target. It just looks like you may hit something behind the flipper, and then the ball drops down into a scoop, and that ball would actually then shoot back out of the scoop.
    36:46
    The bed's more comfortable. Yeah, Travis is moving around. He's not comfy. So that's on the probe. That's why the women left.
    36:54
    But then on the premium over in that area, it looks like it's probably going to be something like Creature from the Black Lagoon, where instead of wood play field, it'll be an acrylic and then probably a sculpt or something underneath to give you some sort of visual appeal of, oh, you went underwater, something like that. So that kind of looks interesting. There's some other crazy mechs. There's James Bond on a stick, essentially, that'll swing out on the premium, and it looks like you're going to, with a magnet, drop a ball, like drop a ball onto a target, which is pretty unique. Poop a ball out. Or poop a ball out, yeah. Poop a ball out. But there's a little, yeah, shout out to Craig Bobby and his tongue. I don't know. He has a gift in making that song. There's a rocket in the upper left of the play field, though, that it was packed with foam around it, which means it moves. So that's the question. Is it going to move up and down? Is it going to spring? Does it move around? There are stand-up targets that kind of surround it. So it's very clear you're going to shoot the ball back in there, and hopefully the rocket is forcing that ball to move in some way. So that's kind of unknown. But that's where Kerry Hardy was kind of getting off, because the layout is very unique. And based off of how many shots, I think he counted like 15 shots, and the way it's going to flow and move, I think that was his biggest comparison to Godzilla because Godzilla is such a weird, flowy game. I mean, it's so far from a standard fan layout that I think he was looking at from a shots and layout standpoint. He thinks there's going to be a lot there. That this layout is just more dynamic. It looks to be, yes. Dynamic is a good word. I think it looks to be a very dynamic layout. Now, code-wise, just based off inserts, it's talking about villains. It's talking about henchmen. It's talking about Bond girls. Just that alone reminds me of episodes, villains, minor villains from Batman 66. Are we going to see a game here that's as deep as Batman 66? Maybe. I don't know. There's gadgets involved. There's a lot. There's a lot going on in this play field. The rumor is it's Dwight, but no one's confirmed that. And I think a lot of people are thinking Dwight based off of how many times it says play field multiplier. and there's an action button that involves a Playfield multiplier. So we'll have to wait and see on that. But if you're a fan of Sean Connery Bond and may have movie posters of these movies up in your game room, I mean, this may be, you know, you've already been looking at this art for years. You're probably all in on this cabinet. Yeah. No, they pulled the art directly from that time frame. So, I mean, it looks like straight out of the 60s and 70s. And obviously there's people that aren't going to necessarily like that artwork in 2022, but it is true to the theme. And it makes sense from a theme standpoint. Yeah. And there are other rumors. I mean, we're still, we have yet to see the LE. People think it may be, what is it, Goldfinger? I keep messing up. There's Goldfinger and Goldmember. Goldmember is the Austin Powers, right? Yeah. Let's go with the Goldmember LE. Is it Gold? Yeah, that's Austin Powers. No, Goldfinger is Austin Bowman. Okay, Goldfinger is Austin Bowman. Yeah, Goldmember is Bond. Is it the other way around? One of those, but people are like, oh, I'm assuming the LE is going to be all gold and gold this and gold that. But Diamonds are forever. That one hasn't been shown. It could be very shiny. I don't know. What's that? That's one of the other movies. Diamonds? Yeah. I know nothing about James Bond. I've never seen one second of it. Well, we don't know. We don't know what's going on in the LE, and then unfortunately there's an additional rumor of potentially another, like a fourth version. So obviously distributors are getting nailed from all directions of what is this, what is this, what is this, and you guys consistently have to say, with actual honesty, I don't know. I'll just put it out there, guys. Okay. I'll confirm something for everybody. There is a game coming that is made out of pure gold. It's going to be $100,000. it has one pot bumper in the middle of the play field and it has five flippers and dealers set the price and they're all like two and a half inch mini flippers so you heard it here first I'm confirming it it's all this way, you can send your deposits to Joel yeah Ray Day did the code, that's why he had to leave so quickly Robert Mueller did the code Robert Mueller wow so I don't know, we have I am assuming this episode will come out before Thursday, but we're just in a wait-and-see situation. And it's very strange. I mean, almost every pinball machine has a leak in some form, whether it's just verbal confirmation of this is what's coming or, like, discussion of this is what I'm hearing or the trailer will get leaked the day before or a few pictures or a sketch or something. But this has just been such a weird ride of all of us. It is Bond, and then what type? Is it going to be new, old? It's Sean Connery Bond. And then grainy photos with no idea what it was. Now a few high res, but no visual anything. As long as we can get a video out with a girl hitting a jackpot and a dad in the background just fist pumping his hands in the air, it's all good. That's all we need. But I don't know. We're kind of in a wait and see. But my initial reaction to the play field is it looks unique. I'm excited to shoot it just because it doesn't look familiar at all. Like, I'm really curious to see what the shots are going to feel like.
    42:38
    And I do see the left orbit goes into a ramp. I like shots that kind of go that route, orbit into a ramp. Stranger Things had one. There's a lot of games that have that. Deadpool. Deadpool, yeah. Well, on the premium has that, which will feel good. Which is also designed by Gomez. There you go. There's a controlled gate in the back, So it looks like if you do the orbit from the back, there will be times where that will stay down and it will drop into the pops. Will there be other times it will go all the way around and feed the left flipper? So there's a chance this may flow really well. But we really don't know. We really don't know until we see more. But I would say I've gone from, like, not excited to, like, really not excited. When I initially saw the images, I was like, God, that looks awful. Like, art-wise, it just was a huge turnoff. but now to actually see professional photos it's like that actually looks pretty good and now that I actually have a better understanding of the layout like that actually looks really fun so it's pretty incredible like and I don't even have any money in this so I can't imagine you know you elitist over here I'm not buying an LE you had a decision to make right you had to actually think through it now why did you not get an LE on this one again I think it's just more theme wise I just Is it the collecting the women part?
    43:57
    It's too close to home. This only goes up to seven? This only goes up to seven times? Come on.
    44:09
    He's like, we can only have a seven-way on this? Yeah, right. That's crap. Give me another game. There was kind of another pinball release of photos. Oh, there was. do you remember what it was Joel? it's what we cranked this podcast up to Joel oh 11 yeah this is Final Tap yeah why are you not excited about it? because 11 is not high enough my first reaction to this Final Tap release videos and photos were if people complained about the Rush artwork and the three Rush guys in the middle this is straight up just Photoshop copy paste from screen clips there are no inserts or so few inserts in the middle of the game, it makes it look really cheap. I think if you look close enough, you might actually even see that little clip art logo somewhere in the upper corner. The art package, it's amazing. Well, it really, it actually says a lot because of the two releases that we've seen this week, over the last week, what do we have to see? Really, it's just art. And you can really be impacted heavily one way or the other by just the art of a pen. I'm telling you. Like, it's huge. There's people that buy pins specifically for the artwork, and they'll just leave it in their game room, and they hardly ever play it. Yeah, it's like an art piece. Yeah. It really is. Well, I doubt any of those will be for Spinal Tap, because it looks rough. And it actually brings up another thing, which is, I saw a post, I forget who said it, but it was like, I think the art packages of all the pins released in 2022 so far are worse than, like, these are the worst art packages we've seen since 2010. I think Twippy, for the best art package, as of right now... It's going to be lit. I can't wait. It's just... I don't know. There hasn't been a standout in my mind. That's for sure. Maybe if it's standing out, it's in the wrong direction. I did like the Rush artwork, though. I like the cabinet artwork, and I like the back glass. I would say it's the best so far, for sure. Yeah. Well, yeah, and you're right. We haven't had very many good art pieces come out. Nothing stands out. Yeah, I mean, unless you crank it up to 11. Well, that's what it is. Shout out to Dennis Creasel because he just keeps taking our packages and increasing the saturation to make it pop. That's what he's saying. That's the problem with all these ARPAs. They're not popping enough. We've got to take that bright yellow Dr. No package and really make it. It's got to be like fluorescent yellow at this point. Well, that layout too on Spinal Tap, it's actually not half bad. I mean, all things considered, when you compare it to Thunderbirds, I mean, of course, anything's going to look better than Thunderbirds, but it still looks halfway decent. Yeah. It's a commendable layout. But how much are they charging for it, though? Is it $9,000, $10,000? It's like another, which we'll do the typical comparison. What do you want? You want that or you want a Godzilla premium? Yeah. Which is kind of another random comment of we still have no idea. We've been told to expect a price increase, but what does that actually mean for Stern games? Is it just James Bond that's increasing? Are all the Stern games increasing? Is that going to go into effect the day James Bond comes out? Is that going to go into effect January 1st? We don't know. Of course, expect to pay more money. But this is the other thing that stood out for me on the Spinal Tap pin is they were bragging about their in switches There are no longer actual physical switches They are doing some sort of opto switch in the in which is low friction more accurate all that I mean, I know Pinball Brothers and Alien, they don't have any physical switches. They're detecting the ball in some way. So, I mean, props for that. But this one, there's still a physical slot in the game, though. and you just see the opto like in it so i'm curious if dirt or anything over time will actually make that no good but um i don't and then this also this final tap game has a dmd and it has an lcd so from the little bit of footage i've seen it literally looks like the lcd is pretty much just playing the movie right it's just movie clips while the dmd is actually trying to track score in the game in some way. So I don't know. We're just – if you're a Spinal Tap fan and you're excited about that game, good on you. If you enjoy it, good on you. But that's not – I'm not rushing to – I don't think any – are you guys picking up Home Pin? You're going to be a distributor for Home Pin anytime soon? I can't remember who the guy is from Home Pin, but he basically came out and said, like, it's not for tournament players. which is not for you Joel that's not for me clearly not for me anymore as he takes a swing of his dream gotta get used to this new life there's no rules in the game so you should enjoy it it's just a bunch of lights there's a movie point you hit one shot and the scene goes and it just stops pauses until you hit the next shot it just barely creeps up I've owned turtles for quite a while but I've never cared about points. I'm all about progression. And when I played it today, I did no progression. I wasn't caring about modes. It was just get into this multi-ball, try to do these things. It's amazing how different a pin feels when you actually care about the points. So that's what this is like. So you actually have to think about where you're shooting it. You don't have to think when you're progressing through a game, but it is different. Well, the difference is when you're just doing general progression, for progression's sake, you're just going through whatever the game's telling you to do. Yeah. Pretty much. Because the game won't explicitly tell you, hey, you need to stack this mode with this multiball, or you need to get this multiplier ready to go, or you need to short plunge here, or you need to plunge and swat over there, or you need to backhand the shot. You know what I mean? Sure. There's a lot of nuance to it, so it's exciting to see that you are discovering this nuance, and you're like a little butterfly now that's just becoming like a big mothra. Oh, I can't wait. Sterns should just have some special code you put in, and it has Raymond or Keith just telling you how to play the game. Well, hey there, little butterfly.
    50:32
    Let's go ahead and spread those wings. Here we go. Hit right here. No, not there. Hit right here. Oh, wait. I've actually had Raymond on my stream telling me exactly what to hit, and it didn't exactly pan out.
    50:45
    But props to Ray Day and his patience, that's for sure. you should ask Ellen to do that for you I already feel bad wasting Ray Day's time I'm not going to waste hey Joel can you not ask me to do this again sorry Keith for the record that's Joel dissing on himself oh yeah not Travis is encouraging me I'm enabling you now for your addiction we need to just throw a bunch of tickets at you No, I get it. I definitely, this was fun. There's no doubt about it. Playing in tournament, I understand the appeal to it, especially when you have the skill to back it up. And if you guys are playing at that level consistently, obviously playing local tournaments probably doesn't give you the same kick as actually playing against, like, really good competition. I mean, that's a different feeling, but I still like playing at the local level. Yeah.
    51:42
    Tom's local level is awesome. Yeah, district games do. You play at the local level in your house, and Neil can hold his own and kick your butt. That's true. What were you going to say, Tom? Apologies, I totally interrupted you. No, I was just going to say, you know, the tournament's going on, but there's also a social aspect to it. Oh, 100%. You know, meet a lot of new people just playing.
    52:08
    I did a lot of square keeping, too, which was fun, and you get to meet people that way. Well, put names with faces too. And you're waiting more than you're playing. So to be able to engage, I mean, everybody you're waiting with is, or at least I'm waiting more than I'm playing, but everybody you're waiting with is all there for the same reason and shares the same joy and passions that you do. So, I mean, it's an instant. I can't mute sneezes, you know, when we're all in the same room. I sneezed in my elbow. Thanks for not grabbing my pillow and sneezing straight to that. I appreciate that.
    52:41
    That would have been something. But it's funny, Neil was scorekeeping, and he's like, yeah, some people take it really, really, like, you know, you come up to them, and they're like, I got a score. Yeah. It's like, yeah, you just got to take it out on me. They just stomp off. Yeah.
    53:01
    That's why when he's asking me, it's like, what do you do in that situation? I'm like, I just put their score in.
    53:06
    They didn't tell me the points, so I'll just put it in. So when you finish the game, you're supposed to hold your hand up, and then one of the scorekeepers comes over, and they're supposed to type in your score. So they're looking at it, and they're looking at scores all day, so they kind of have an idea of what's good and bad. And so there was twice that I had a score that the scorekeeper's like, they're like, do you want to go ahead and void that? And I'm like, no, that's actually, I don't have a score yet. Go ahead and put that in, please. But it's like, whoops. Yes, I know you're used to a few more zeros on the end of that. But please go ahead and enter that in.
    53:41
    Uh-oh, somebody else is knocking. Here we are about to wrap up. Is it housekeeping telling us to shut up? No, it's third place in the women's division. Oh, we actually have a champion.
    53:55
    Yeah, come on in and tell us how to play pinball real quick. Why did you bring us to eat? She brought us a Diet Coke and three bites left. I'm the least qualified person to tell anyone how to play.
    54:06
    Well, you're the best. You're the only one so far who's done anything. Yeah, what's it feel like winning something today?
    54:17
    This is how Raymond Davidson feels. You're sitting in a seat right now. Yeah, he actually was sitting there all of 30 minutes ago. This is the champion seat. But did you have a donut? He didn't have a donut. A donut and bourbon? He did not have a donut and bourbon.
    54:32
    That's a winner right there. That's a winner. Well, congrats. We already talked about you a little bit. yeah we were like what a yeah we had to remind Travis why did you pick Gilligan's Island I told you not to ask me this I said I'm not coming here because I don't want to be asked why I picked Gilligan's Island see it's not just Joel he does it to his wife ask her why she picked Gilligan's Island real quick hey Monica no Tom how was the tournament oh okay hey tell us about that last game you played I felt really in control yeah Until you'll get violent. Well, I just like that ball three, Travis finally waves you over, ready to instruct, if asked. Because Joel asked me, he's like, do you ever tell Monica, give advice or anything? I'm like, I just leave her. I don't listen to you. I was like, I just leave her be unless she comes over. Only if she asks. Because I was sitting there and I was like, does she know how to play this game? He's like, I don't think she does. I was like, well, are you going to tell her? He goes, no, only if she asks. I used to give Neil advice, and now I don't. That's my discipline. No, this part's funny. Well, I love your answer, though, because he's like, hey, do you know you need to, like, collect some stuff over there on the left side? And your answer was, I'm scared of the left side. I don't want to do that. I was like, okay.
    55:49
    No, thanks. And he goes, so you're just going to flip around and hit stuff? She's like, yeah. I was like, well, it's got her this far. She was number one seed. So, yeah, got you third place. They tricked me. Uh-oh. They tricked me into going on to the stream today, which never happens. like with the headset on yes that was so weird you don't like talking about what you're seeing no I don't like it at all you don't like talking into a microphone that's Tom loves commentating that's when Tom talks that's the only time Tom talks that's the only time well believe it or not Monica we're already out of topics unless you have anything else you want to talk about they asked me when I was playing flip flop Who's they? Like, them. The other person? The people at the tournament? No, on the stream, on the commentator. Okay, the other commentator was asking. Okay, gotcha. He asked me what I was thinking on flip-flop, because I guess I did something, like, decently good. So he asked me what I was thinking, and I just thought, don't fucking flip. Don't do, don't mess the flippers up. Don't look like an idiot.
    57:01
    Like, I don't know if that's a proper pinball answer. I've had those moments, yes. I said my tactic all day was just survive. It didn't matter what game. Survive. F you, Joel. Me? What?
    57:14
    So I'm getting it for both Murys. It's not just Travis. Oh, I did. You knew me. I did. He was telling me all... You could have won the women's tournament, Joel. I would have shot the left side on Gilligan's Island.
    57:28
    He was telling me all afternoon, I just got to pass Monica. Just got to pass Monica. No, it's... He was like... He did. Yeah. He was hardcore. I looked at the players' scores, and I was like, why? I mean, all the names I recognize are like the top 20.
    57:44
    There's no way. Like, I know that. So it's like, what's a single name? I need a single name that I'm seeing. Goal number one, get over a million on turtles. Goal number two, pass Monica. He was literally the only one. I was like, oh, Monica Muri right there. Got it. What's she at? I was like, I need 100 points. okay let's go let the record show that Joel plays tournaments aiming after the women in the tournaments hey you know I gotta set goals I didn't say they were very high because the best part is you had 11 entries that you did on Thursday and then you hadn't played any I stole a couple of tickets from Travis I'm like I gotta get in the top 10 on all these games just get past the win There was plenty of women that had scored higher than that. But what I knew was Monica wasn't competing anymore, so her score was going to stay or lower. So I thought it was achievable. I actually played one more. Yeah, I had 11 injuries, you had 11 injuries, and I came out just a few above you. Kerry Wing and Cassidy are in the tournament. Why can't I pass them? Yeah, but you clearly were doing something better with your time, and you're actually playing in the women's tournament and winning it. Thank you, Joel. Yes. That's exactly what I was doing with my time. Yeah. Like not drinking until 2.30 a.m. and waking up with the worst hangover ever. Wandering into. No, she's talking about last night. Wandering into the women's tournament. That was too long. And butt dialing my boss at 2 a.m. Did you butt dial your boss at 2 a.m.? Oh, that's smart. He said, are you okay? That's how it started. and what'd you say no you said yes did you say the safe word yeah yes thanks bye yes thanks love you bye sorry about that I've definitely told I do software support for a living and I definitely said love you bye to a customer once and I called him back and he was laughing and I was like so my wife was leaving and I kind of waved at her and it kind of He goes, no, I just assume you're this close with all your customers. I was like, all right, good.
    60:04
    Well, on that note, we should probably wrap it up and say our goodbyes. You've got to have a Tom Talks. I've talked enough.
    60:13
    Is there anything you want to say about today, Tom? We're not going through two straight episodes without a Tom Talks.
    60:20
    Someday I'm taking Travis down again. Oh, that did happen, yes. So they were in the same group. We haven't talked about that yet. It got to game three, and Travis came back. It's for Cosmos. I think you motivated Tom. I don't know what happened. I didn't play very good. I think he goes into it going, Tom and I need to get through this group. But deep down, he's going, Tom can suck it. He's like, screw Tom. Yeah. I know how nice he is to his friends.
    60:48
    Technically, it was Balvin's fault. Yeah. If he would have passed me, right? It's his fault. I mean, not really. It's really my fault for not playing well. It's not really. You deserve better.
    61:02
    He was your wingman. Steven Bowles is the nicest guy in pinball. He is. Yeah, it's true. You know he doesn't play well with others. Monica agrees. Correct. Yes. A hundred percent.
    61:15
    I'm trending up now. On your own chart. On your own chart, yeah. That's the only chart that matters, Joel. Joel, sweetheart, you are trending up in my chart, too. Did you like grow up a little when you said that? That seemed forced. No, that was canned. Okay, I was kidding.
    61:33
    Make it say the same thing. Is that written on your hand anywhere, Monica? So that means at least three times we've been naked together.
    61:42
    That's all we need, okay. There's artificial insemination. Oh, God. Tom, you want to talk about anything? I don't know why you took it there. Those kids look like me. I'm pretty sure right especially when they're like crooked eyed like their hair is going crooked there's nobody still listening at this point everybody's skipped to the next podcast well this was the Tom Talks part thanks Tom for taking this I'm glad I could help alright we gotta plug stuff now yeah go ahead plug our podcast I've got nothing just listen to Triple Drain Podcast which is the 4th best podcast on the TPN Network out of how many? hey I'm better than four yeah I'm third you're the third best podcast on TPN yeah she got third place when did you do your podcast we're just talking numbers I'm third hey Monica go ahead and plug whatever you need to plug um no Tom go ahead Fox City's Pinball will have super series coming up in Pinball Expo so tune in Wait, when is the Pinball Super Series?
    62:53
    First week of October? It's like 6th or 9th. October 6th or 9th, I think. Holy fuck, that's too much. Beep. How many beeps do we have?
    63:02
    Sorry, I warned you people. Oh, yeah, the warning in the middle of the episode. Yeah, and I'm Joel. I do a Flippin' Out stream every Wednesday on the Pinball Network and then every other Thursday on the Flippin' Out stream and this podcast and just another pinball podcast. So, like always, Tom, you get the honors, you get the last words. Later, mofos.