Who sent you? Uh, this drunk dude. He thought he was gonna pay us to do you. What's he paying you? Uh, ten, uh... Ten grand? All right, I got a better deal for you. I'll double it, I'll pay you twenty if you go back there and do him. Uh, you want us to do a guy? No way. I don't know, but that is a lot of money. Maybe if we close our eyes and pretend he's a chick. Coming to you from beautiful upstate New York, this is the Slam Tilt Podcast, a show about all things pinball. I'm Ron Hallett, here with my co-host, Bruce Nightingale. Yeah, hello. And welcome to Episode 5, Attack of the Clones. Yes, since it's Boba Fett, I don't say anything. Yeah, okay. Well, wait a minute. Boba Fett did talk a little. He did a couple lines. He really only talked in Empire Strikes Back. Think about it. When he says, you know, he's worth more to me, you know, live, and then the Empire will, you know, and that kind of stuff. Yeah, I think his only lines are like, no disintegrations, as you wish. And then, yeah, what if he doesn't survive? He's worth a lot to me. And then, yeah, put him in the cargo hold. I think that's literally the only lines he has. Yep. And then, yeah, in Return of the Jedi, he doesn't say anything. He just dies. Nope, dies. But Attack of the Clones, he does talk, but you don't know it's Boba Fett at the time. Yes. Well, is it Boba Fett or is it like it's his relative? Because they clone him. It's like Jango Fett or something. And he gets cloned. Well, yes. And then he becomes Boba Fett. This is really about pinball. Yes. Hi. Welcome. Welcome to Episode 5. Welcome. Episode 5. To Episode 5. I just want to put this out here right up front. Plug our new YouTube channel, which is out there. I'll have a link on at least the pin side post for the new podcast. But it will also be, if you just go to YouTube and search for Slam Tilt Podcast, not Slam Tilt but Slam Tilt Podcast it is the first thing that comes up I have a couple videos there from ReplayFX hopefully I will have some more from the upcoming show which we upcoming tournament which we will be talking about please subscribe that's what we like to see I'm going to give a big shout out right away to Steven Bowden from Fun With Bonus whenever he posts at our podcast on his Facebook page and also other stuff. We get big hits. So thank you, Steve. Big money, big points. Big hits. Can we get a free VCR? Cool. Free VCR. Okay, so let's see. Thank you, Steve. So let's just go in. I didn't get the plug-in, so that's one. The plug-in, yes, that's funwithbonus.com. Fun with bonus. which I believe they just had, the New Jersey guys just had a tournament at 8 on the break, which I mentioned in one of our previous episodes. And I think, I couldn't tell, but from some of the posts, it appeared that it ended quite late. Yes, I think Francisco got home at 4 in the morning. Yes, and what did I mention about not going anymore because of that very reason? That's extremely light. Even when I went there, it would never end that late. but yes did you did you see the points are out for pinberg already points are out for pinberg golly gee no i didn't see that did you see what i got i didn't look i they are out uh actually since uh josh has had a lot of help now with the points with adam uh they are coming through like smoke and uh two tournaments i've done this actually i did a tournament sunday they were up sunday night pretty impressive actually so big kudos to IFPA Josh and all of his Adam and all those guys and also the tournament directors who are actually putting in the results as fast as they can it's really nice seeing a fast turnaround instead of waiting for Adam? Adam Becker up in Canada he's actually won Pinberg one year and played him at Pinberg If you saw our episode four, he was one of the – and every year I seem to be in that one group where I'm playing guys way over my head. And that was – this year it was him and Kaylee George that I played. Yes. The over-the-head bank. So news, really not much news news this week. No news? Well, I'm sure our listeners will want to know what's going on with the hot dog in that you blew up. Yeah, gee. Well, first let's go over that last week we talked in the news segment about the $369 LED color DMD. Yes. And it's going to be used for T3, for Circus Voltaire, for Guns N' Roses. And I still haven't looked at the one other, but it's out there. I think one of us bought it. Yeah, you jokingly said, like, Ron's going to go out and get one right away. But I actually did. I got one for my T3. It's on the way. I should be getting it Thursday. So I'll see how that looks. I mean, I always liked T3. That was a game I remember playing. I played it at some mall. And it's just when I first started getting into pinball, and I really didn't understand why my scores were never that good because I would just get multiball over and over and over and not realizing you have to complete all these different tasks to get to the final battle where the real points are. I never could understand why I couldn't get the high score when I thought I was having a good game. So I liked it enough that I got one, and I'm going to put the old color DMD in it. We'll see how it looks. Cool, and you will have a report on that. We will have a report and possibly a video. I might put that on the new YouTube channel. Excellent. So very cool. So CR News even influences us. Yes. Yes, it does. uh so for me hot dogging uh i uh my two sound boards i had well first i sent my cpu board out and my sound board out i did blow them up pretty good uh they are irreparable for cost for my sound board it would cost like 160 170 repair not worth it and my cpu board is about $160, $170 repair. You can get an Alltech for $199. Needless to say, I got a box today. But for a soundboard, nobody makes an aftermarket soundboard until now. Until now? Until now. Oh, really? Please clue me in. Yes, clueless as I am, I'm going to tell you who to clue into. Mypinballs.com actually has been putting some stuff up on Pinside, and he actually is from Robert Englunds, and he actually makes a soundboard for the Ballys. Really? His name is My Pinballs? That's a weird legal name there. No, that's his website. Oh, oh, no. MyPinballs.com, and he actually makes a Pinball 2000 LCD monitor sync adapter. He makes a custom pinball controller, the Bally soundboard, and also a Bally soundboard effects for his Bally soundboard. and also a couple other little things, including he actually makes a brand-new Bally Squawk and Talk board for newer, older Ballys. So that would be starting at where? That would be starting after Xenon, going up to – After or including? After, because Xenon uses one of the few. Unfortunately, Bally was, like, in transition, So they actually used a Dash 51 board with an adapter card for Xenon for the vocalization. Then that's the only way they did that, too. Then they went back to the 51 for a little while. Then they went to the bigger Squawk and Talk that's used in, like, Embryon and up all the way up to just before 8-Ball Champ, which is, of course, the first 6803 board set. So the Squawk and Talk board is really used a lot, except for in the 82-83 era when they went to Speakeasy and that kind of stuff, Bally Cheap and Doubt, and went back to the Dash 51 board, which is basic sounds. Which is called the Cheap Squawk or something like that it's called? It's called the Cheap Squawk, yes. I love these names. I love these names. And they also had a Cheap Squawk Turbo. I love the Bally names, like the Squawk and Talk, the Say It Again board, instead of just calling it a reverb board. Yes. Yes. But so I actually had two sound boards and I was trying to play with them. So I'm like, well, dad's got a speakeasy. Dad's like, I'll let you borrow one of my sound boards. His sound board doesn't work either, folks. So guess what? I'm probably going to be ordering in the next week from from my pinballs dot com. And he'll put the problem in or like that. And hopefully I will have sound in my in my hot dog and hopefully by next week. And the good thing is I took the soundboard out of my skateboard, put it in hotdogging, so I know the wiring is all good and everything like that, and it actually made skateboard slash hotdogging sound patterns. So I know that works. Okay. How is the Firewood? I mean the Freedom Firewood game coming along. I have not touched it. Well, actually, the funny thing is Brown can actually see it in the video. It's sitting right there next to me. Yeah, versus on the webcam. I'm on the webcam and I'm downstairs. And it has not screwed up once. It's all back together. It just mysteriously fixed itself. No, no, I told you. After I swapped the switches, I actually still had a jumper wire. I actually pulled the pin out of the switch matrix and put a direct wire from the switch to the CPU in the harness. I put a wire in there, ran with that for a while, never screwed up. Put the old wire back in. Guess what hasn't happened? It hasn't screwed up once. So no phantom tilts or anything like that? No phantom tilts, no nothing. So I am hating solid state. I have not bought the schematics yet. Guess what? If somebody out there has schematics for freedom, I will plug you in the podcast. Not literally down boys and girls. In the podcast. So I will definitely give you props out. I will plug you. Okay. Yes. Parental warning. Yes. So I will give you big props. I will talk about you from now on in our podcast if that happens. Zach is coming over tomorrow to help me work on lifting three pinball machines. We had to mention Zach because it's part of our gimmick. It's part of the gimmick. But luckily, he doesn't have to lift too much. All it is is just dialing to – if no one's ever been to my house, a lot of people have been, but some people haven't been. I am crazy enough to actually build my own elevator. Actually, we call it – in the state of New York, you have to call it a dumb waiter. because in the state of New York, an elevator must be inspected. A dumbwaiter does not need to be. I built my own dumbwaiter to bring and lift pinball machines in and out of my basement easy. So we're going to be bringing the games up tomorrow for the Buffalo tournament. Segway. Segway. Segway for the Papa Circuit event, August 12th through the 14th. Called, I think, the Buffalo Pinball Open. I want to give it the full correct name. So, it would be Buffalo Pinball Open, which will be happening at the Pocketeer Billiards. In Buffalo, New York. And it is Friday and Saturday. Friday is first day of Classics. Qualifying for the main tournament is also on Friday. Continuing Saturday. and also Saturday also has a Classics 2 tournament. So you have three tournaments to take a chance in. Good time by all. There will be, I think, ten games for the main tournament and then six different Classics for each Classics tournament. So what's the format? You said Friday and Saturday, but I think there's finals on Sunday. Finals will be on Sunday. I take it the Classics finals are one per day. One per day. And the good thing about this is high score gets you the most points, and it'll break down. So it's sort of like a pump and dump. Oh, it is not sort of like a pump and dump. It is a pump and dump. It is a pump and dump. It sounds like, okay, so it's not entry-based. It's game-based. Game-based. So basically just keep plugging away until you get that score that you want. Yes, and I think the top six count, but I'm not 100% sure of that. I think they've talked about it more than I have. I am just a bringer of games and donating some time. Bringer of games? And what games are you bringing? Although I think we might have mentioned that in a previous show, but maybe not. We did. We did. We talked about it last time. It's going to be the Blackjack, the Paragon, and the Future Spa. Three good old classic ballets with an extra set of CPU boards with me and driver boards and other parts. Make sure nothing happens. So are they going to just be in one of the classics, or are they maybe in the main? They could be in the main for the finals Who knows I don even have the power All I doing is bringing three games And who are the tournament director and or directors? Directors is Nick Lane and Kevin Manning. Of the Bro, Do You Even Pinball podcast. I think I said it right that time. Finally. I think you did. Finally. So, yes, they are the directors. They're actually not playing in this tournament. Wow. Really? Yes. What a concept. I know. Pinball, it's actually they're taking out a Bowen. Bowen Kerins. You know, they're going away that way of, guess what? I'm going to put 110% into the tournament. Very good. So there's going to be special guests I hear at the Buffalo Pinball Open, a.k.a. us. Come up and say hi to us. Yes. The podcast, the Slamtail Podcast crew will be there. All two of us. All two of us. Get on the video. Hopefully you guys do. Hopefully I'll get on a video at some point. Yeah, maybe I'll take the video. I'm like the faceless voice. Maybe I'll be like that guy in Home Improvement that was always behind the fence. You never saw him? Yeah. I'll be that guy. You never see me, which may or may not be a good thing. I don't know. Yeah. Okay. So Ron will be coming over my house Friday. meeting me here at 12, and we'll be going over together. And then hopefully, hopefully I will get a secret present. That's all I'm saying. This could be a secret present. Yes, yes. Secret present. Not going to give away what it is. Not going to give away what it is because I know my luck. But Guns N' Roses is gone. Guns N' Roses is gone, and that was a sample Guns N' Roses. That was a sample Guns N' Roses. We are down one. Oh, we're down one. Oh, it's only 35. 35. Oh, my. Oh, what are we going to do? We've got to rectify that situation immediately. Now, hopefully it will go down to 34 when the space shuttle is truly out of the house also. Ah, so you sell the space shuttle? The space shuttle has been sold for a while. I've gotten the money, but I haven't gotten the game gone. He paid for it last month, and it's still sitting in the row. Don't you have a – isn't the Counterforce you have been like bought? No, no, that's actually a timeline. Oh, sorry. I'm thinking of – I actually had the Counterforce also. I had both. Yes, yes. So you have a timeline. So that's been sold for how long? Five years. Five years. I've owned this – I've actually never owned this game. I have a Gottlieb, the only Gottlieb I have in my collection. Not in my collection, but in my house. It's a timeline, and it's been sitting in my house for five years. Do I own it? No. But it's sitting in my house. It's like a museum. You know how people loan games to museums? Yes, yes. Yes, that's what I've asked the guy if he ever wants to pick it up, and he just says, whatever. Whatever. Whatever. It's on loan from the Syracuse Museum of Pinball. No, actually, yeah, the guy lives now in Syracuse. It was Jerry's. Now it's somebody else's. and yeah excuse me boy he is tired late night late night so my bally row is half decimated right now half decimated well the hot dogging or half up hot dogging has no soundboard in it embryon has no CPU board in it centaur has no CPU or driver board and the other three games are apart It sounds like you're ready for a tournament or something. Wait, no, I have league night in two weeks. Oh, my. Yeah, so Western New York Pinball League will be starting in two weeks. And, yeah, I am the first night. Yeah, but I think you have enough other games that could probably compensate. Yeah. Hopefully. And then hopefully Zach will be over tomorrow. We might work on Centaur a little bit. And hopefully maybe we'll actually be able to play a game. I've got to work on a coil on it, just the drop target coils, the reset ones. Maybe we'll actually be able to play a game when Ron comes over here this weekend. Looking forward to it. Yes. Excellent. Suntar. So what have you been up to this past week? Not that much other than most of my work is putting the Slam Tilt YouTube channel together. Which he did a great job. Which I'm going to put my fist through the frigging YouTube. Here's some YouTube stories. Like I go to put the graphic on the top, like the banner. And every graphic I put on there, it's like it's too small. It's too big. It's too this. It's too that. And our logo, you've seen our logo on the podcast, like a square logo with our pictures on it. That doesn't really work for the banner. It needs to be longer. So I ended up using one of my older original ideas for the slam tilt graphic that's on the banner. So I do this. I upload the first video, which is like five minutes long. I go to upload the second video, and in my connection, I have a very slow upload speed. So something like I uploaded a 20-minute clip, and that's going to take me like two hours. So I just set it off, and I leave the house for like two hours. It's on Saturday. I come back, and it tells me, your video exceeds the 15-minute limit for a non-verified YouTube channel. But it says, but wait, you can verify. Real fast. You can verify the channel, and you don't have to re-upload this video. Oh, okay. Excellent. Not bad. And so it was very easy. I mean, literally, they just want to make sure you actually have a Google Plus account, and it's valid. So you can just put your cell phone number in there, and they send you like a text, and you just respond. And boom, I'm verified. So I go back to the video, and it won't let me activate it. It just tells me, nope. I go under help. It tells me, just click on this little icon next to the video. There was no icon next to the video. So I had to re-upload that on Sunday, another two hours. Oh, my. That was a pain in the ass. I started the final shop out on the stars. Actually, I took it apart. It took longer than I thought. There's a ton of posts on it, I think. There's a ton of posts. That's the thing. There's not much in the way of Max or anything complicated on the top of the play field, but there's a lot of posts. I have them all off. I was just starting to clean all the parts off, so hopefully get that back together. Although with the tournament that I'm going to and some other things, it probably won't happen this week. That's about all on the pinball front that I have. Now, talking about stars, here's the funny thing. last week on Pinside and also on Pinball for Sale on Facebook somebody put a stars up in Indiana for $600 I had 14 people emailing me saying hey cheap stars in Indiana I was just like it's a little too far away for me I've gone farther so let's get that out of the way I've gone I brought my future spot is actually from North Carolina and when I owned a Twilight Zone, it was from Richmond, Virginia. Is that the furthest you've gone? What's the furthest you've gone to ever drive for a game? There's a good question because for me, it's probably somewhere in New Jersey. It might have been three and a half hours. I have a feeling yours is going to be more impressive. It's going to be North Carolina. I was actually working down in North Carolina for the time of my old job, so all I had to do instead of going down there and going back, all I did was rent the van and brought it back. Round Trip actually was not for my game at all. It was actually for a buddy of mine, Bill Fugel, who he traded his prototype Banzai Run for two games, and we drove all the way down to North Carolina in a snowstorm and back. Wow, that was pretty dumb. Yeah, but hey, it was a good trip. I enjoyed it. I got free food out of the thing. I got to fall asleep in his car a lot. And this is upstate New York, folks. This is Rochester. This is like – you don't want to be driving in the – And we did it all in one day. Yeah, yeah. We left at 6 in the morning, and we got back at like 5 in the morning the next day. Crazy pinheads, I'll tell you. Yes, it was. Crazy. So that's the furthest I went for a game. So we got the stars in Indiana. I saw it was on the – it was also on the Chicago Craigslist. Yes, it was. Which by the time you pointed it out to me, I looked for the Lincoln, and it was already one of those. It's been removed by the seller. But the funny thing is, Jack Danger got it. So, funny, funny, ha, ha, ha, ha, you know. Yeah, I saw the picture he had in the back of his car there. So, two. I shall avenge you. I shall avenge you. Well, the funny thing is, he's got a Stargazer, too, so his sterns are going to look a lot like my sterns. He's got, like, a Stargazer and stars, and a Stargazer and a stern. You've got to see which. Come on. What's wrong with that? I have also the nine ball. That's true. You have the nine ball. So I have two too. But you have stars. Stars is awesome. It is awesome. Stars is great. Pissing me off to no end in a good way. So I was talking about, and we'll get to the segment. We can do it now. The games you like and games you hate. See, there's a fine line, but there's the games that you play and they just piss you off. but in a good way. It's like, just one more time. I'm going to beat it this time. Fuck. Okay, just one more time. But there's other games. So you can go first this time. Oh, God. I'm just trying to think of... I kind of blew my load on the two that I hate the most, Black Hole and that stupid Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which the funny thing is talking to Zach, which we'll just mention him like crazy every show. He owns a black hole and loves it. So let's see. It's tough to get games. There's very few games I really, really hate. Let's try more like a game I like. We'll do that first. That I don't own. So here's one. Mousing Around. Okay. And I'm trying to think where I first played that. It was probably at the Pinball Expo in Chicago. And it was one of those deals where I actually didn't know what I was doing, so I'm just trying to spell or hit that one ramp over and over and over because I figured something good would happen. But it actually just builds the jackpot value. And then I just inadvertently spelled mousetrap and started multiball, so then I actually got the jackpot, which was maxed out, because I had unknowingly maxed it out by doing the other thing. And it's probably, to this day, the highest score I ever had at Mousin' Around. So, oh, boy, games I hate. Try to get, when I played Pinberg, if there was any games that just really pissed me off. I can't think of any. Man, this segment might die. I just, I got to think of more games I hate. Oh, Bruce has plenty. One I played at Pinberg. Okay, well, you go. I hate Stratoflight. Stratoflight. Okay, now why do you hate Stratoflight? Because it's just... Okay, let's put... Two, three, six, nine, twelve. Let's put twelve targets around in a square outer perimeter. And that's all you have to do. And then maybe you'll get lucky and hit a couple banks so you get the gate open. Or if you get the gate up top with the out hole, gobble hole, and just, if you hit the target that you want straight on, it's going right back down the middle on you. Fuck you and the horse you rode in on. Okay, okay, okay. I do have one. Okay. I haven't played it enough to really say, to give a reason why I hate it, but Space Invaders. Yeah, I will agree with that one. The funny thing is the largest, the highest selling of all the Ballywai bodies. It's the shittiest of them. It's just, it's just. The sounds are great. Yeah, and the artwork is great with the Predator on it, which isn't the Predator, but it is. Not Predator. What am I saying? Alien. Alien. Damn. I'm thinking Alien versus Predator. Yeah, fail. So, I don't know. Just when I played it, it's just like, man, it's got all the pop bumpers. It's just wide and slow, and I just never could get into it. Never could get into it. Okay. So now it's your turn for a game you like, and you can't own it. I don't own it. I'm going to go for – I'm actually going to shock some people now. I hope I do. I'm going to go with newer stuff. I'm actually going to go WWE. The new code is actually growing on me. Hold on. I got to check my headset here. tapping the headset. Now, you meant Royal Rumble, right? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. That thing's a... I like Royal Rumble. No, no, no. It's a wide-body, they only made one good one, and that is Guns N' Roses. No, no, no. WWE is actually growing on me. Okay, I can't see it from the webcam, but are you high? Is there some pot off-screen? No, no, no brownies for me. No pot brownies at all. Really? Really? Yes, because... Explain to me why. It's the new code. Well, why is it the new code? The new code has helped it a lot. Why is Lyman new code helping it Well actually I really enjoy DLE I got to play DLE at and I played went back to it and played more of it And I wish all LE spinner motors the spinner motor in the middle of the ring was on all the machines The spinner motor makes it so the upper play field is more random. Like, on the upper play field on the pros, you can actually pattern your slingshot hits and almost get a pin pretty easily. The Slammers, I think they're called there. Yeah, the Slammers. The new code with the getting the – like, if you start a match, you can keep on working on matches, or if you hit the three drop targets, then you go to the tag team side of it, and then you go for tag team matches by hitting the two tag team targets or anything like that. really deep fun. You gotta get that pin while you're in tag team, which is really hard to do because you're concentrating on other stuff. I enjoy it a lot. The scoring is a little unbalanced. I will say that totally, but it's really starting to grow on me. Would I own one? No. Well, you know, brother, I think you're on something, dude. I don't understand what you're saying, brother. I know my signature's on the game and all, but even I wouldn't play it, dude. It's like you're in the ring all the time. It's boring as hell. What's the matter with you? Actually, the lower play field is tight and fun. I actually will say that. I actually am starting to really enjoy it. I will never own one unless they go on. If I find one for $1,500, $1,700. $1,500. Well, don't laugh at that because guess what? Guess what? Guess what? T3s. T3s. Look at T3s. You know what I bought my T3 for when I got my T3? $1,300. $1,300. Very nice. I expect it's E3 for $1,300. It was out there. I grabbed it and got it. And I feel like they still have LEs available at Stern. I don't think they sold them all. No, they didn't. No, they didn't. But I'm not paying $8,000 or $7,000 or even $6,000 for that. Speaking of Stern, speaking of Stern, one very hot topic. Is your Ghostbusters going to come with real live ghosts? Oh, yes. Is my Ghostbusters going to have ghosting? Yes. Which, and there's several different... Did you see the t-shirt that they did? Yeah, yes, I did see, yes. Wear My Code, who busts Stern's shops all the times, he actually made a t-shirt with an insert on the front of the t-shirt with ghosting and cracking on the insert. Saying, where's, you know... For those who are wondering what we're talking about, there are several different threads going on on Pinside about this, And basically, it's more than the past two months. It's at least since March. It's the beginning of this year. All the games they've been making, basically the Spider-Man Vault Editions, the Ghostbusters, the Ghostbusters Ali's, the Game of Thrones, have all been having ghosting issues. So you might be able to explain this better. Explain to our audience at home what the hell that even means. because even I'm a little... It's actually very simple. Ghosting can happen one of three different ways. When you're making a play field, you're actually first, you have a blank piece of wood. Then what you're going to do is put each insert into the wood and make sure it's smooth and it's glued in. And then what happens is you let that glue settle for a time and then you start putting your paint layers on. you do multiple layer coats. And if you want a good explanation about how this is done, the process, you can actually go to the CPR, which is CPR playfields. They actually show how playfields are actually made with the multi-layer coloring and everything like that. What's happening, ghosting can happen one of two ways, either bad glue or not enough time for that glue to set up and actually truly harden. what's happening is say you're looking at an insert any insert will do when you're looking at a lighted where a light shines through the play field is called an insert it can be any color any shape, any size and what happens is when they're glued in if they don't let the glue set in time then they go right to trying to paint over it contamination happens and the glue reacts with the insert and the clear that they're putting over it and the colors that are putting over it and actually can cause a little, almost like ghosting, like a frosting. So say if the insert is green, you can actually see on the bottom corners where the glue and where the insert is touching the glue actually almost like hazes up. It actually gets white. Yeah, what I would explain it, if you've ever seen like when Mylar starts to come up or starts to weaken. A bubble. It gets, bubble, like it'll get, like it'll turn white. It'll start to, you know, lighten in color. Yes. And that's what the inserts, like, and some of them are, a lot of them are really bad. I mean, they're shooting like all the way around. I actually saw one Ghostbusters. If, honestly, 14 inserts are either ghosting or cracking. Yes, because that's the next stage of the pain. Yes, what happens is the inserts actually crack because they didn't have enough time to settle. And then when you're trying to put paint over it or anything like that, the actual plate field actually moves and shifts a little bit too. So there's a lot of quality issues happening, and people are paying sometimes up to $9,000, $10,000 for ghosting issues. Now, I will give props out to Jersey Jack. When I looked at all the Hobbits that were on the floor at Pimberg, inserts were perfect. When I looked over at somebody else's website with machines from Metallica and that kind of stuff, I looked at those. Even those were ghosting. These are brand new out of the box. Yeah, yeah. And the funny thing is one of the stories I've heard is actually very – it's something that I believe we heard. Yes, I've heard many times now. And the idea is like the company that actually makes the playfields for Stern, who is – what is the company? Churchill, which is actually Chicago – here's the funny thing. Chicago Gaming, who is doing the MMR rebuilds. Yes. they make the playfields for stern and for themselves yes which which is funny because they have their own playfield issues with mmr yes and they said they were churchill before yes which and this is the same company they made playfields for williams yes back in the day and i guess one of the stories going around and it's something i we heard also is that you know that They've lost a couple of employees that knew what they were doing, and they have not been able to replace their knowledge, if you will. That's kind of scary to lose a couple of people. But actually, that's what I've heard, and that's actually – And it's not just one person I've heard about. No, no. Yeah, one of the posts on Pinside had this same – and that's what I heard. And unfortunately, it's going to be, you know, what is Stern going to do? I mean, I think Stern is going to try to get rid of the, you know, they're not going to fix the issue. I hope. I don't think they're ever going to publicly. Admit to an issue. Admit to it. I mean, well, they kind of have in communications, but they might admit it if you contact them. Yes. And it's going to be the only people who will, they'll probably just give out blank, you know, playfields. Oh, like we've never had that. Yeah, well, we can go into that with your episode. But they're not going to get populated playfields right there. They're going to give out playfields to people. I don't think they will. I actually have had one. Okay. But they're going to give out playfields to people who complain enough. Oh, yes. And they're probably going to want like, we need pictures of the ghosting to confirm, you know, and then you'll get one. Yes. Now, I have one player, a Western New York player, Jim Metzler. He bought a Metallica Pro last year. And the difference they had problem with Metallica Pros last year, going into play for the shoes, was not the inserts this time. It was actually the layering of the wood. And what was happening is the layers were not done properly at the factory. This is even before Churchill gets the wood. So it's actually not a Churchill or the manufacturer. It's not the process of doing the layering and the inserts or anything like that. This is actually the delaminization of the glue between each layer of the wood. And what was happening on his play field was the magnet in front of Sparky. He had about 300 plays on it, and he had a chunk about the size of a quarter next to his magnet. Ouch. Damn. So they offered to either start and realize this is part of the own. They admitted to the problem. They said, yes, we've had a bad batch. Actually, I saw one picture. There's one picture, if you go on Pennside, that shows the hell of all hell playfields. It actually looks like a Metallica with pop marks on it. The delimitation and the coating, I guess, just was really bad on it. It actually looks like it's missing chunks out of the play field. So he actually got the offer of either A, getting a blank play field, Or B, getting a whole play field shipped to him. The problem is, he had all these mods on this game. So he had to take all of his mods off. And by whole play field, you mean populated. Populated. As opposed to just the play field itself. Instead of a blank play field, they offered him a fully populated play field. So what he had to do was they shipped him a crate with his play field to pick up. He had to take his play field out of his game. They shipped his playfield all the way back to Chicago, took apart his playfield, put a new playfield on, put it all back together, and shipped it back to him. Time around, turnaround was two months, but guess what he's got? A perfect playfield, no ghosting, no insert wear, no nothing, and he's had it now for about 500 times. So it does happen. I had the option when I had my ACDC issue for my premium. And your AC tissue was? I actually had three ramps on my ACDC. Three ramps. That's what I call it. You have the left and right ramp, and then the face in the middle, which is usually the Angus face, is a lower play field. Well, my lip for my – the clear plastic on the play field had it – Which is basically just a huge insert, really. It's just humongous insert. I had a lip on my insert so bad that when I would shoot for the bell, it would actually pop up and airball almost every time. So I took a couple videos of that and sent it off to Stern, and I said – they're like, oh, we don't see it. We don't see it. I'm like, you don't see this thing airballing every time? I said, okay, here's the perfect thing. I put the play field – I rested it on a premium. You still have the stands underneath the play field. I put the play field on the stands, and I put a ball right on the play field, and guess where it stopped? Right at the lip. Right at the lip, yes. Next day I got an email back going, oh, Mr. Nightingale, how do you want to handle this? Do you want a new play field? I said, I'll take the blank play field. I have no problem. I didn't want to wait. I enjoy my game very much. I played a snot out of it. It's just starting to chip now, actually, so I'm probably going to eventually swap out the play field eventually, but it's shipping because of the... Yeah, that whole... I just... I don't know why they did it that way as opposed to doing, like, just... The Creature from the Black Moon? Yeah, Creature or Congo where it's a removable plastic piece. Instead, it's literally just a humongous insert. Yes. So, and in my case... You've got an optional one? Well, I have the Collector's Edition Cloudy version. Oh. The far superior version. The first one. The first run, the most superior version of all. Yes, because those have matched the LE versions. Yes, yes. And it's supposed to be cloudy. People don't realize that. It's supposed to be hell. It's supposed to be like smoke and fire under there. Yeah, okay. You can watch something like that. Yeah, and I've already had, you know, I love LEDs so much. I've already had at least three of them die on that game. In the lower playfield area, you know, the red lights. It's like, it's supposed to be, aren't they supposed to last? Isn't that the point? No, not LEDs. No, LEDs are bad. But we won't go on that. So going back to the play field issues, yes, there is a big issue. I don't know how those guys are handling it. You know, I hear – Probably one of the bigger issues they've had. I mean, they've had – like for those who don't remember or weren't around in the hobby yet, they had issues right around Elvis with the – if you remember, the flipper switches, The leaf switches for the flippers, they had a bad batch. And I'll tell you, almost without fail, I've played so many Elvis's where you can tell, and Sopranos. There were some on Sopranos, too, where when you flip and you get weird phantom-like, it won't flip, and then it kind of does. Almost like on a Williams game when the optos are starting to fail for the flipper buttons, you get that kind of bizarre behavior. Well, I got it at Pimberg on the Elvis, so I know they have not replaced their flippers. That's exactly what I'm talking about. Okay, so we played the same, because I played the Elvis, and it's like, God damn, it has the same issue. Because Lake George which is a resort area they have like an Elvis there that been broke for like you know eight years But it has the same issue and it used to be like for the upper flipper if you slammed it really hard you could get the upper flipper to actually flip Yes. But it's just – these things happen. This is kind of a bigger deal with them because – and it's kind of like they knew this was happening, but they kept releasing games with this issue. Well, the problem is they have to keep the factory busy. Yeah. And they did have the two weeks or so where they weren't doing anything because of this. And I know 95% of the operators who are getting these games are not going to care. They really are not going to care. But don't forget, as Gary used to say back in 2000, 90% of my business is operators, which it really wasn't back then. It was more like 70% to 30% operator, homeowner. Now, his home, I think it's actually probably close to 50-50 in my opinion. Yeah, and he's actually said that they have admitted that. So now you have to deal with more picky customers who are going to pick out the flaws. And if you have flaws, and don't forget this is the age of the Internet where everyone talks to everyone, the flaws just come in droves now. It really is bad. I hope they get through it. Trust me, I don't want to see a pinball machine factory have major issues. I used to work in manufacturing. It sucks. I just hope they clear up the issues. Yeah, and even though I'm not paying for my Ghostbusters, I would like to see it not ghosting and shipping soon after I start playing it. Yes. Well, the funny thing is I have now also, and let's go back to the clear coat. I've noticed on all Stern, and anyone who owns a Stern can actually see this, from probably 2009. Yeah, I know where you're going, and I think it goes to the original story. Again, a background for our listeners. At the end of 2008, probably right after Expo, is when the shit hit the fan, and Stern fired a ton of people. Yeah, they right-sized, as they said. The only person they kept was Borg. Yeah, and it really looked like this could be the end. And I believe at that point at Churchill or whoever they were making, I think they lost. I think they actually laid off some of the employees. Some of your knowledge left at that point. And there was a noticeable difference in the playfields manufactured after that. So if anyone who owns an Ironman and up, I'm going to say, if you look in your ball trough and you look at where the ball is entering the square hole. The out-hole area, if you will. Yes, the drain hole. You're going to see chipping. I don't care if you have an LE with extra clear coat or you've got a pro or you've got anything. Every Stern since 2009 has had this issue. Yep. But then we go over to your Lord of the Rings. Yes, I go to my Lord of the Rings or I go to my Spider-Man two years before that. Or any Williams game except for one. I've had one do the same thing, which was my Arabian Nights. And that thing had tons more plays than you can possibly imagine. had over 50,000. They're perfect. There's no chipping. You can get a, honestly, what was my last one? Game of Thrones. It was already starting to chip and break away to clear coat right there after 50 plays. Yeah. That's a problem. And you bring this problem up to Chaz. I really got upset. The only time Chaz of Stern, he's Stern's, What would you call them? Their main tech support guy? I showed him pictures. I said this. And he goes, well, that's a pinball machine. So then I took pictures of all my older Sterns and said, no, it's never happened before this. And, you know, so what do you want me to do about this? I'm like, well, this is kind of ridiculous. I paid, at the time, $6,000 to $7,000 for a play field. This is truly unacceptable. And you would think bringing the light of attention to it. And I'm not the only person that's seen it. I can go to anybody's machine, look down there and go, you got the same problem. Why do you think they now make protectors for this all? Or tell you to put Mylar there. Or put Mylar there or do anything. But, you know, try to fix the problem. Don't go – that's the one problem I do see with Stern, the difference between him and JJP, which is Jersey Jack Pinball. When Jersey Jack Pinball sees a problem, he will truly address it. Stern is going by the Churchill way of PPS, which is Chicago Gaming, blinders saying, I see nothing. Keep on producing. Make the money. And it's a bad way of doing business. An editorial by Bruce Knight and Gale. No, it's not an editorial. It's just, honestly, hopefully everyone looks at the – if you own a machine of Stern from newer stuff, look down your hole. Oh, yeah. Look down your hole. Look down your hole. Yeah, that's going to be our new logo. I like that. Look down your hole. We've got to have a T-shirt that says, Look down your hole with a picture of a worn-out out-hole. What a stirkin'. My out-hole has been worn by what? I don't know. Vote for me, I'm Trump. Inspect your hole. Inspect your hole because I guarantee it's worn. Yeah, I have an ACDC, the Star Trek LE. I mean, it's not huge, but, I mean, you can see, and it's more than a ship. It's just kind of, it wears. It's wearing away. The clear. The clear is breaking down into woodwares. Yeah. Now, the problem with that is it's bad clear, or it's not the right consistency clear, or not the coded clear. Because if I go to my Simpsons, I go to my Lord of the Rings, I go to my Monopoly, older games, at least five or six, seven years old, some of them more than these games. Perfect. Perfect. Perfect. Perfect. What the frick? And then as you tell, you know, as a consumer, you should have the right to tell the company what's wrong and telling them, and they still keep on pushing it out. So that's why it really does, you know, it burns my biscuits, you know. It grinds your gears, if you will. It grinds my gears. My hole is wearing, so, you know, it's really bad. I wish they would address some of their problems. What the hell, boy? Damn it. You know, if they clear-coated with propane, you wouldn't have this problem. That's what I'm talking about. Yes. So, Attack of the Clones. Attack of the Clones is about to end. No, it's not. We've got a couple more. Oh, we've got a couple more. We've got to pay the bills. We've got to pay the bills. That will be another. Yep. Pay the bills. Yep. Western. www.pinballlifter.com for my website for lifters, helpers. We are going to be at the York Pinball Show September 30th and October 1st. Come see me. Say hi. If you mention Slam Tim Pinball, I'll give you an extra 5% off your purchase. Look at that. Look at that. He's crazy, folks. He's crazy. I am insane. If you can tell me what that's from, I'll be really impressed. Second thing is a couple of tournaments coming up the next week or two. First, the Quarters and Caricatures, August 18th, Cloud City Comics up in Syracuse, New York. Did they purposely want to have the most unpronounceable name? I swear to God. Caricatures. Most people are like, Caricatures, really? Damn. So August 18th from 4.30 to 8.30, it's a free pinball tournament, only cost to pay. And the top player brings home a Starbucks gift card to compete on six games and maybe a couple surprises, he even says, too. Next thing we have is the Buffalo Open, of course, this weekend coming up. Say hi to us, check us out. Rock Fantasy has two things coming up soon. September 11th is the Gridiron on a Sunday tournament Gridiron Greats and then Rock Fantasy Summer Bash is going to be September 17th and come one come all you'll see me I know I'll be down there Ron you'll be probably down there too of course oh yeah because he's less than two hours from me it's the closest place I can go to play in a tournament which says how great my area is and then hopefully this weekend we'll actually get to see the Viking for the first time. Neil's invited me over to check out how the Viking's coming along. Viking. So we'll actually get to see that together. And what I'm going to tempt your tummy with next week's show is first going to be the results. Who do you think is going to win? Well, being that the Sharp Brothers are going to be there, I would assume one of them. No, no, no, no, no, no. Oh, no? Between us. Oh, between us. Now, Josh talked about this last time at Pimberg. We should say who's going to beat who. Well, I'm going to beat you. Of course. I'm going with you. I mean, you have the advantage. This is your home turf. Oh, yes, yes. Folks, folks, he plays at Pocketeer. I have never been there. So this immediate advantage and immediate excuses I'm making. But, yes, even with these handicaps, I will still come through the victory. Now, here's the funny thing is, right now, between the two of us, we have played each other. Player versus player. We have played each other 49 times. Okay, is this the IFPA list? Okay, so we didn't directly play each other. This would be the amount of times one has finished over the other. Yes. Okay, what's our record? I didn't even look. What is it? Ron Howlett is beating Bruce Nightingale 25-24. Oh, damn. So if I win, it's tied. Game on, bitch. So if you're first place in the tournament and I'm second, well, that means we're tied now in the overall. Yes. If you go by that, yes. So game on. Game on. Game on. Game on. Of course, Bruce will be driving, so he can just threaten not to drive me back. Exactly. That works always, too. Yeah, that works, too. So we'll be talking about the game room show for the Buffalo Open, how we all did, how everything went. Hopefully great success stories. And then also next week, we're going to talk about 2017 and Stern's future, and maybe even JJP's future. And maybe another surprise that Bruce mentioned earlier. Possibly. Possibly. You never know. Never know. But we're going to talk about next year, 2017. It's the year of the good movies. Could they be made into good pinball titles? Think about it. Star Wars, Justice League of America, Guardians of the Galaxy. Well, we don't know if the movies will be good, but definitely good licenses. Good licenses. Which ones do you think we'll be picking? I'm going to have a couple I'm going to pick of. Maybe Ron will by then next week. We're going to talk about it. So maybe you guys can input a little bit too. We know they have a good Marvel relationship, so there's at least one I think that's coming. Yes. And we've been getting your emails. Thank you for your emails. Thank you for your likes on Facebook. More likes on Facebook would be great. Come look at us at Slam Tilt Podcast and check us out. So I think that about wraps up the show. I think so too. Yep. So thanks, everyone, for listening to Episode 5 of Attack of the Clones. of the Slam Tilt Podcast. You can find us on Facebook. Search for SlamTiltPodcast.com or Slam Tilt Podcast. You can find us on YouTube now. Just look for Slam Tilt Podcast. You can find our ever-increasing number of videos. We are on Podcast Garden. And actually, if you just Google for Slam Tilt Podcast, you'll find us. So like us, subscribe us. Subscribe to us. We will be very thankful. And we'll see you all for Episode 6 Which is? Oh, God. Revenge of the Sith. Revenge of the Sith. God, I hate that movie. Okay. Well, goodbye, everyone. I can't wait to smell Crispy Critters. Crispy Critters? Yeah, like at the end, you know, where he starts burning and everything like that. Did you ever see the video? I'm going to post a video where they actually put, you know, like the, you know, when they were having a battle at the end and he tries to jump and he takes off his legs at the end. Hopefully they're not spoiling any movie for Revenge of the Sith. Don't worry. I'll never watch it again. But they actually put music from Titanic. For those who are still listening saying, I thought the ending was coming. What happened there? No, it's not yet. For those who thought the podcast was ending and never going on, I just want to say those movies don't exist. See, those three movies, the prequels, they don't exist. In my world, they don't exist. They're not there. Watch the new ones. They're better. That's all I have to say. That'll be the one after this morning coming up. So you've got to look forward to that one. Then I don't know what we're going to do. Okay. Say goodbye, Bruce. Goodbye, Bruce. Goodbye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.