1 dollar at a time time time friend in me. You've got a friend in me. It's time for another Pinball Profile. I'm your host, Jeff Teels. You can find everything on pinballprofile.com. Check out our Facebook page. We're also on Twitter and Instagram at pinballprofile. Email us pinballprofile at gmail.com. I can't believe it has been five months since I've talked to this guy. I usually don't go five days, and it's been five months since we've heard from our president in the IFPA bunker right now, Josh Sharpe. Hello, Josh. Is that true? That's not true, is it? March. I brought you on. Oh, we did final round, right? Oh, I don't count that. Final round is a... I'm like, there's no way it's been five months. On Pinball Profile, your second home. Corrected. The unofficial co-host of Pinball Profile, the banter back and forth. I'm now plus one on Todd McCulloch. I earned my stroke back. That's funny. It's been a tough five months. Wait, was it McCulloch or McCullough? It's either or, as long as it's Ted. I'm kidding, man. I listened. I know. It's been a quiet five months, and we haven't talked about Pintastic, Pinberg, The Northwest Show, MGC, Pinfest, IFPA 17. What else? Hey, my IFPA 17 shirts are in. It's great. Yeah. So that was supposed to happen in May in Florida. Then it was postponed until November. Now it's postponed to be determined in 2021. Yeah. It's the right thing to do. It's difficult to invite people from all over the world to come to the United States when they're not allowed to leave the United States. I know. Although you think about the Whopper Farms, we could have a hell of a time with all of the world-class players stuck in America for some extended period of time. It's still not enough to make me come down to Florida right now. Yeah, man. That's depressing. It's depressing. It is for bigger reasons. You know, we obviously were joking because we're trying to make people laugh, but COVID is a serious thing. We have, you know, I know we have a lot of friends that have experienced this, have gone through hell and back. Some haven't unfortunately made it. And the right thing was done months ago when yourself, the other board members of the IFPA, the Women's Advisory Board, all collectively agreed with the country, state, provincial directors, we got to shut this thing down, at least as far as endorsing competitive pinball tournaments with the IFPA. Yeah. Not much has changed since then. No, right? I mean, it's been five months, and every day is the freaking same, man. Yeah. I'm glad I have some games down here. I can't believe you're my company, because if I didn't have this hobby, it would probably have been a much worse five months so far. I want to ask you about that, because you and I, we do, even though it's not on Pinball Profile, we talk about things, about games, and other things too. Sure, sure, sure. And I've asked you about certain games and I'm now playing games a little differently now that I've been homebound for five months. With COVID-19 and being homebound, like you are, like I am, like so many are, are you playing games differently now, Josh, than you were before? I find that I am to maybe explore the game, not necessarily to find a better scoring system because most of the older games, those things have been figured out, but I'm trying to find different things, maybe going for wizard modes, It's not like Carl, of course, but just doing different things. Are you doing different things or are you still, look, one track mind? No, absolutely. I'd say I've fallen more into the Carl camp. So, like, a lot of my games are I restore factory and I have extra balls and I have, you know, default ball saves and stuff because I'm wizard mode chasing and whatnot. And I know, like, Zach has been very close to getting to the end of Maiden a couple times this week, actually. So he's done the same thing. I think, you know, the getting sort of ready for tournament play. I mean, the big part in turning off ball savers and turning off extra balls that, you know, I've had in my house for the last 20 years has always been to to make sure that when you show up to to Papa or to Expo or to wherever that you don't have to mentally adjust to, you know, a game with no extras and no ball save. It just becomes, you know, most of the tournaments I go to, the games play easier than they do at my house. and it's been a good time to like not worry about such things. And my kids, you know, God bless my kids who before COVID have been playing all my games, bastardized and whatever, that I can see that they now tend to play the games that I have adjusted. Not all, you know, like Adam's Family is still, you know, tournament mode because you can tour the mansion on tournament play anyway. But, you know, I see them playing Jurassic and Maiden more now that those games are set up on factory because they're a little bit more accessible for the little ones. Charlotte doesn't mind looking at Eddie on Iron Maiden? No, man. I brought the game down and immediately explained. I knew it was going to be an issue because, I mean, my Walking Dead has a bunch of blankets on it, and Charlotte, you know, her, anytime she has a wish when she's down here, it's like, can you sell that one? I just tell her to shut up. But I brought Maiden down and immediately explained to them, like who the character was and he was this hilarious guy and look he wears all these costumes isn't he hilarious a mummy and he's a pharaoh and they like ate it up so they they think eddie is hilarious and they know that the beast is like the bad guy but eddie is this like cool fun guy who likes halloween good thing they didn't put number of the beast on that game how do you explain satan to her we'll gloss over that part i asked you about this because you and i had a conversation a while back about a game that i am playing the hell out of now i've always liked it but because of covid and because how deep it is the simpsons pinball party i know raymond davidson who happens to be the number one player in the world he's a big fan of the game as well and when crawled the wizard mode on his second really attempt i was like are you kidding me so i find things in that game so much fun but you told me about when that game was in league and it's in competition mode there's one thing you do and one thing only yeah man it's couch multiball all day i will have a an argument get Keith P. Johnson at the same table and i'll that's just the way if it's If it's set up on tournament settings where the mystery award is advancing your TV modes, it's just the grind fest for me to a safe, large score. That's how, anytime it was in the pop of banks, that's how I always played it. It was in every one of my runs, and it was always game five in every one of my runs. I think you told me Zach was playing it in League once, and he put up $400 million. Yes, it was at Keith's house, I think. I have never gotten $400 million. I just passed $200 million the other day and was pretty excited about that. And that's with extra balls on. This wasn't that. This was League. I cannot believe that. But I also don't do couch multiball all day. I want to get my auto. I want to get the Springfield Mystery. Hey, guess what? You can do that stuff in couch multiball. I know, but I want to do alien invasion. The only thing I don't go for is itchy and scratchy. I'm like, that'll just fall into place. So you said that. I'm like, okay, I'm going to try just the stupid couch multiball all day. I like playing the other way. It's just more fun. I like playing games that are deeper, and there's so many games nowadays that have all these qualities. I get it, man. Dude, Metallica, I'm playing my crank it ups, and I'm shooting my shots, and I'm cashing out to get on to the next crank it up as quickly as possible now. That's not how I'd play in a tournament. Right. But you have a game that, when we were talking, you said it's just growing on you and growing on you, and when Lyman's behind it, you know it's going to be a good one. Elvira, House of Horrors. Yeah, man. I haven't played it since Expo. Obviously very early code. I found the shots. Okay, I can see how a novice player will enjoy this. That's a nice, safe ramp. The house is really cool. There's a lot of open shots on this fan layout, but it's gotten better and better. I'm dying to get my hands on the thing now. I mean, it's definitely a pretty easy, you know, the shots are very friendly. So I know, like, the kids play it a lot. Amanda plays it a lot. But just, you know, some of the nuances that Lyman is so good at with like the trailer, you know, there's opportunities, I think pretty much since ACDC, where these opportunities to set up something in such a way that you can cash out this exponentially high amount. And I think, you know, Lyman and I have joked over the years about the games where you can kind of tell how good you're doing based on the amount of time you've been playing. We call that the million a minute game. And, you know, his games don't fall into that at all. You can play for 30 minutes and get beat by someone who plays for six minutes because they execute on something that they're able to build, accumulate, and cash out something at a high level. And Elvira's got some of that, for sure. And, of course, you've got at your home Hot Wheels from American Pinball. I do. Looks like they've got a winner there. Another game I haven't played yet because of COVID, and I'll take your word for it because obviously you've played every machine out there. Tell me how great Hot Wheels is. It's a lot of fun, man. The team brought me and a while back to help consults, and it's been fun to see the game come together and then fun to see the – I mean, there's no surprise. The guys at American know I'm not a huge fan of their other two games. So I came in swinging a little bit in terms of where I thought they had been and where I thought they needed to go a little bit in terms of them executing on a game. And I think they've made something that, like, my kids can step up and learn how to play right away. And watching, you know, the various streamers and the other podcasters, people that have played it, that the reaction's been so consistently, game's fun. And it's always said with, like, a surprising tone. And, like, that's exactly what I think, like, makes the best game. Like, pinball's supposed to be effing fun, man. That's the whole idea of what makes good games. Like if you're not having fun, the games won't last. And they certainly won't last, you know, a forever long time in people's collections. Hot Wheels is fun, man. I enjoy all three games by American Pinball, but I'm really excited to play Hot Wheels. And I'm curious, when you say you contributed, was that more on the play field? Was that more in rules? Mostly rules. But I mean, I went and played it a lot. And a lot of like where stuff may have gotten adjusted in the play field versus, you know, previous iterations of the play field and, you know, artwork and just, you know, I did a lot of explaining and my dad did too. He got the license and was on the team over there that, you know, just how the play field layout is really a player's guide map to what lies ahead for the person that's playing. So, you know, they did a really good job, I think, compared to the other two games of it's very clear, it's very crisp in terms of like, you know, these creature battles and these epic features and these hero cars and this test, like where your eye goes when you look at the game it like okay I know there a bunch of stuff here And then it sort of holds your hand as you go to explore up from there Got to get my hands on that. I haven't even played Turtles yet. You haven't even. I have not played Turtles yet. You're like me as far as COVID. People can say we're crazy. I think there is no such thing as being crazy when you're overcautious. It's like I live in the city, Burlington, Ontario, roughly about 200,000, but we have a sister city, Oakville, also 200,000. So almost half a million in this really close radius. Our hospitals have zero cases of COVID. So that means, okay, great. Well, let's just go back to life as normal. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. COVID's still out there. We're just fortunate where we live. And I think that's a problem with a lot of the places that have reopened is that, you know, okay, the numbers have gone down a little bit. let's open up, but people aren't exactly the most diligent when it comes to social distancing or wearing masks or these other things. We can open up. We have to do it the right way. And unfortunately, that isn't always the case. Yeah, it's tough. And it's tough on the, you know, we were bike riding with the kids last night and the neighbor kids who are probably less, everyone's less careful than we are because my wife, bless her heart, her mom is high risk and we enjoy seeing her. So Amanda goes out of her way to make sure that there's nothing we could possibly do to infect her mom, which I think is smart. It's a very nice thing to do. And, you know, even just riding bikes down the street, you know, there's a worry that the other neighbor kids that are not, you know, they're all playing with each other and doing whatever. And it's, you know, they ride over to our kids and our kids are literally like riding bikes away from them. And it's like, there's this weird game where now the neighbor kids are chasing my kids on bikes. So the kids, you know, ride up the driveway and go in the garage and I just like stop everyone else from chasing them because it's like, you know, hey, I understand that everyone else can go go play with each other and that's fine. It's just not what we're doing. We talk about playing pinball machines differently. We're playing just regular games differently. Hide and seek has now just become hide. Charlotte taught us a game, I guess, called sardines that we've been playing a lot, which is like a version of hide and seek. I guess somebody hides and then everyone else looks for them. And as you find them, you hide with them until there's only one person left looking for where everyone else hid. It's pretty fun. Pretty fun around these parts. Jeff, we camped in the backyard last week. I took a vacation week and we stayed here and did nothing. You've got to find ways to do things for sure. I think that's a great idea. Carson has always done this ever since he was young. And, of course, now that he's got a cell phone, we'll be like, in the house, where's Carson? And then all of a sudden we'll get a text and he'll be like, you can't find me. So then he's basically challenging us to hide and seek in the house. And I don't know. It's goofy. It's fun. I will say having sports back on TV is phenomenal. Oh, I don't even want to be talking to you right now because there's a hockey game going on. Right. It's funny because I don't normally watch hockey. Sometimes playoff hockey. I absorb baseball. I love, love, love basketball. I mean, football, you can tell me it's coming back. It's not coming back, not if it's not in the bubble. There's no chance. I'm enjoying baseball right now before it gets shut down. Yeah, I think we're going to see the Miami Marlins win the NL East with a record of 10-4 or something silly like that. Because they have the best winning percentage. See, and this is where, like, if you get the right general manager who puts his Kaylee George head on, you on purpose test positive for COVID. If you're like, oh, there's 10 games left and we're up eight, shut it down, guys. We'll just sit this one out. Kaylee would never do that. What people are doing during COVID, ICR, and I think you and I talked, and you're quite surprised that there are so many challenges being done. I mean, you have this great opportunity to challenge people, even on different games, from the comfort of their own homes, or maybe it's a location pinball or wherever they are, and it's over 500 people already. Yeah, every day that I rerun, rebuild the ICR rankings, there's always a new player that I have to add to the spreadsheet. I've never had a day where there wasn't a new player, which is pretty cool. So we're just over 500 players and like 8,000 matches so far in two months. I'm sure you'll get to 1,000. Do you think there's going to be IFPA this calendar year? I don't know. You know, it's tough to, I still say, Amanda and I were going for a walk yesterday. And I remember, like, you know, at first she was wondering if the kids were going to go back to school before the school ended, you know, back in March. I wonder if they'll go back in May for a couple of weeks before, you know, they're supposed to get out. And I can remember like when that clearly was not happening, that we had sort of just resigned to the fate that like, all right, well, we're going to be in this until September. But the thought of them not going back to school like that, we didn't think about that. It's like, well, surely they'll be back in school in person because like it's six months away and whatever. And all of a sudden you creep up and it's like, here we are. And they are not going back to school. It's all remote for our district that it's so tough to know. I remember like when scheduling, you know, IFPA 17 for IAPA time down in Florida for November, figuring that there was a pretty high likelihood that we would be there because things would be much better. Now it's July, August, and it's like there's no freaking way we're going to Florida in November. All these people won't be able to go home. Yeah, exactly. Have they canceled IAPA yet? No, we got an industry-wide email yesterday that every week they pound their chests that they're moving forward with an in-person show. I think to make sure that they're cashing their deposits for people's booth spaces. September 4th is their drop-dead date. That's when they say they're going to do remote or not. I saw the email that came to me and probably others that have attended in the past for Pinball Expo. and would you go and all this kind of question. I love that. And, you know, I didn't sign it anonymously. I said who I was and I said, I would love to go to Pinball Expo. Here's what I need, a vaccine, masks mandatory, and, of course, the border being open would help. Yeah, I remember joking with Zach because, you know, Rob is not from Illinois, right? He's from Ohio, even though he runs Expo here in Illinois. And we just laughed because in Illinois, like right now, You can't get together in groups larger than 50. Are you saying Expo wouldn't work with only 50 people? Not in Illinois. Are you saying if they sell out at 50, Expo would be a flop? Is that what you're saying, Josh? How dare you? Maybe. I guess if you charged $15,000 per ticket. I know a few that would go. Probably. But it wasn't happening because nothing in Illinois of any substantial measure is going to happen until we hit phase five, which is a vaccine, unless they alter the phases. Yeah, it's pretty interesting to hear people around the world. You mentioned Final Round Pinball Podcast, the one I do with Marty Robbins. He's in Australia, Melbourne, and they're at stage four, which their stages are the other way. The higher the number, the worse it gets. So they're in six-week lockdown, 8 p.m. curfew. Is that because they're getting worse, or they've been that way this whole time. They've had, I believe, up to 11 deaths a day in their country of 25 million, and it's now stage four. In other words, they take it more serious. And again, there is nothing crazy. Amanda's going to move to Australia. Well, unfortunately, I don't know if your passport will get you anywhere. According to Slam Tilt Podcast, which I just heard, the U.S. passport is good for four countries in the world. Australia is not one of them. Right. Nor is Canada, Europe. Other than that, I'm not making fun of COVID-19. It scares the freaking hell out of me. People that are close to me know that I've gone through some serious stress about that. So I have nothing better to do than make light of it when there's nothing funny about the damn thing. Sure. I have not been outside much. Thank God I have this podcast and I get to talk to people on social media and all that kind of stuff because it is an outlet. I'm not concerned for the future. I'm not. The world sucks right now, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and it's just social distancing. It's being careful. It's being responsible, washing your hands, wearing the masks, doing all the right things. The Spanish flu sucked, but humanity got through that. So we'll be fine. In all sincerity, I agree. It's just right now we have to be safe. It's not like we're being drafted to go to the war. It's okay. We can get through this. And we can help our friends out that are in need as well, too. So fingers crossed it will be sooner than later. But that being said, I bet you as the, I guess, official IFPA president, I guess you're getting a lot of feedback from country directors, state directors, provincial directors about where do we stand and do we open up the IFPA? And if you can maybe shed some light on that. I mean, obviously, I know I'm in the loop being the people's president, but let's just bring in some others. Okay. There are almost 80,000 IFPA members. they want to know what's going on with ifpa what can we tell them what are the extremes one way and the other you know the people saying let's open up and the other saying not a chance in hell oh and in north america we have about for the states where the state reps have deemed that sanctioning play would be something that could be done we are at 10.6 percent of north america is yes. Everyone else is still in situations where bars are closed. So any of the public places like can't have games on the, you know, you're running into various gathering limitations for number of people that are just not making it possible. And, you know, I track North America separate from the rest of the world, just because that seems to make the most sense to me because we We drill down at the state and provincial level for us, but we don't for the rest of the world. So the rest of the world is doing better than North America. There's 27% of the player base globally outside of North America is back to saying, you know, there's guidelines in place that would support events, you know, happening. So 27% of the country directors from outside North America are saying our countries are safe to reopen. I do it based on the number of players in the various countries. So it's pro rata. So you're not putting as much weight into Romania? Romania's no of 50 players versus Australia's no of 2,500 players. Australia's no carries more weight in terms of our ability to have the player base, so to speak, back out and playing. A majority of the player base. Interesting, because Romania and Australia have the same weight when it comes to entries into the World Championship. Interesting, Josh. Okay. It's different for COVID, but not for the World Championships. Got it. You could argue that one of those countries has a better chance of getting at-large bids than the other. I'm talking about the free bids. I understand you are. I'm just looking out for some of those people on the outside looking in. I'm talking. I just want to talk about the things that make my argument correct. This is going to be a hard show to do because we haven't talked in a while. We on the same page with everything you done with COVID and the restrictions in place So you have to pretend to be a hater I going to pretend that here the other side Where's my whoppers, asshole? All right. Thanks for the... You can be Tex. What other voices do you have? You could jump into character. Pinside Petey's a big fan of yours, so he would be on your side, whoever he is. He's quarantining with the pins, I've heard. He's been quarantining since he was born, all right? He has been social distancing forever. but the other side is going to say okay josh why can't we play what if we just keep it to 10 people that is in line with all these certain stages why can't we have tournaments or leagues with just 10 people why can't those be endorsed or why can't our country have their own separate rankings that would apply to our you know state country provincial finals the formula is there for ifpa So the first part is, you know, the idea of us to be sanctioning 10 player tournaments everywhere in the in the grand scheme of like how our formula works and in terms of capturing the global landscape of events, you know, being worth a ton of whoppers to few whoppers. The formula is based on that existing landscape of events that exist. I think it doesn't serve the current system to load it up with a bunch of three to five point events for a given area. Especially like for those people, like there's better reasons if a group of 10 people want to play. I don't think they need IFPA giving them three whoppers for the winner to do that. I see far more, you know, the negative aspects of us motivating people to organize and put themselves into unsafe situations. Which is the whole reason why you kind of suspended everything. With no upside of us being able to run states and run provincials and run nationals and run worlds like without the ability for sort of the sport to exist. It's kind of in a vacuum. So the whoppers become meaningless with no purpose to me, at least. We are seeing some tournaments being held in all parts of the world that are obviously not whopper-based, and it goes back to a time before the IFPA, when you were in college, when I was in college, or in high school, when we just played for the fun of it. Wow. Or we just played dollar games, or we just... We played for the glory, Jeff, for the glory. Is it really that much different than playing at home? I miss playing, and I mentioned earlier, I watched the Foosballers documentary, And after watching that, it was the first time that I was really bummed about Pinbird not happening and Florida not happening. Like the ability to play competitive pinball at the highest level against the best players in the world. Like that's my bag, baby. That's the number one thing that excites me about pinball is the ability to battle those that are the greatest on the planet at this thing. And it was like watching the Foosball World Championship unfold. And it's like, I just want to be in that, because I know what those players are feeling. I know what that six-time second-place finisher is feeling. And I want to, you know, they follow him through this championship. Foosball has a Josh Sharpe? It does, man. It's exciting. My new hero. He has more second-place finishers than I do. I mean, it's so sad. They go through like, oh, who do you want to win? They all talk about like the same. This is the same crap for the people that wish me the best of luck and root for me to win Pitbull or what I feel or whatever. And it's like, yeah, I feel that. I know that guy's pain. You know, when they show they transition from everyone talking about him to like the shot of him on the TV and the silence. And it's like, I know those eyes. Those are my eyes. The sadness behind those eyes. But do they focus on the audience and the joy that they get in seeing Charlie Brown miss the football again? Yeah. And Lucy pulling it away? Because it's equal. You know, it's yin and yang, right? For every tear that you cry, there's a smile. And, you know, he said a lot of the same comments of – because he – spoiler alert, he doesn't win this one. He does not finish second either. But he – you know, just the guys talking about better – the guy who did finish, I think, third was talking about – You know, obviously for these people and when you get when when your goal is to win and you're that competitive, like finishing in the top four is nice, but it's a disappointment. Right. If you have those expectations of yourself and the guy made the comment of like, I guess it's better to have gotten that far and failed than to not have gotten there at all. And I feel like that always settles in for me, you know, like after the fact. For sure. That's I can walk by my trophy shelf right now. And and the four second place finishes are like super frickin impressive. Right. That's awesome. And and the play like it looks it looks good and it makes me feel happy about my performance now. But like in the moment, it's just it's like ninety nine point eight percent just massive disappointment. It's like when you see an Olympic event and it comes down to the final two and that person's on the podium and someone says to them, congratulations, you won the silver. You didn't win the silver. You lost the gold. Right, right, right. So it's difficult. But the other side of that coin is there are a lot of other athletes or a lot of other pinball players, foosball players that would love to be in your shoes. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I can I'm looking at my my first pop a final four finish and like I got fourth and I was happy to be there. Like there was zero disappointment that day. Sure. And I just I got beyond that. Right. Like people, you have expectations for yourself and you sort of at some point expect something. And if you don't hit it, you're probably going to be disappointed. That's what expectations are all about. I've talked about it a lot on this show and also on Final Round Pinball Podcast where we talk some competitive pinball. I mentioned that when I just squeak into the playoffs like I did for Indisc, you know because we played against each other. Yeah, we were in the same round. When I squeak in, it doesn't matter where I finish after that. It's when I'm the bus driver and don't maintain that status. Obviously, if you're not winning, if you're the bus driver, it's a failure. So there is that interesting mindset. But even last year at Pintastic, you know, it was exciting for me to make the final four of a Stern Pro Circuit event with, obviously, Steven Bowden and Bowen Kerins and Brian O'Neill. Hey, man, I already, I know I was fourth, but I won. That's a big deal. So I miss these type of things. And obviously, I think of, one of the first times I think I did MC work was Pinberg 2017. You were there with Colin MacAlpine. Yeah, baby. Second place. And I bring that up because. It's worth zero whoppers now, my friend. Let's just have a moment of silence for those whopper points now gone. Colin messaged me when he noticed they were gone. And I messaged him back. I'm like, yeah, man, I rebuilt it this morning. It was time to rip the Band-Aid off. What Colin doesn't know is I was the one who asked you to take that. I was the one who asked you to rebuild it for this podcast. Before we talked, you wanted the updated. Sorry, Colin. Other side notes. It actually propelled me ahead of Adam Becker for the first time ever in my life. Right. Everyone with their own personal motivations. Josh, do you think you can rebuild today? No. You know, if you're not too busy. Listen, here's the truth. Wait, does that mean you're number one in Canada? God, no. Robert Gagnon forever until the end of time. But the point is, I did notice on the IFPA, and for those that are wondering when you look at your stats, wait a minute. I mean, if I add up my 20 totals, it doesn't add up to the number there in the rating because it hasn't been rebuilt, correct? Yeah, yeah. So it wasn't accurate, but now it's somewhat more accurate. Well, yeah. The system rebuilds itself every time there's a tournament that's uploaded and processed. Yeah, and just right. So right now what I have to do is I reload a random tournament from whatever, the March 17th, and then I click rebuild, and then the system goes, oh, hi. Oh, it's August 5th. Interesting. Okay, let's go do some work. That's the interesting thing about what's going on with IFPA being suspended. And again, many people listening to this program right now are competitive players, although there are a lot of collectors who are wondering about pinball. So I'm trying to keep them all in this conversation and not exclude anyone. The way the IFPA works, it takes your top 20 best scores, IFPA scoring from the past three years. That is your basis for your maximum 20 that you can do. But after a year, as a tournament passes a year, that number is reduced to 75% after two years, 50%, and after three years, like Pinberg 2017, zero. It's off the books. Yep. So your best 20 scores work. With the suspension since mid-March of IFPA, is that formula going to continue if we see IFPA continue into 2021 where there is no pinball? I don't see changing. The only thing I see possibly doing is, because I'm also not going to bug Shepard to have to go into the code and do all sorts of crazy stuff, is we had run a simulation years ago, maybe four years ago, five years ago, that the fourth year would be, or after the third year, it would be 25% instead of going to zero from 50. But that's not going to matter that much. Well, I mean, it will when you have no 100% events. You know what I mean? I was thinking the other thing. We ultimately didn't do it because there were so many 100% events that were populating people's top 20 that literally the number of 25% events that were hitting people's resumes was next to nothing, which makes sense, right? Because we've been in this resurgence of everyone is playing more and more events that you're more likely to have more 100% events on your resume. Hold on. I just got a phone call from Yorian asking for that 25%. Right? Colin would take it too. 25% of a Pemberg win. Sounds nice. I guess what I'm saying is, and again, this is playing devil's advocate, with the IFPA being suspended for, let's say, we're going to be six months, maybe a year. Three years. Three years, yeah. Do we look at... No. I can't even ask the question. No. No. What? Can we look at pausing... There'll be no change to get to that DK to 18 months for the first year or anything like that. That's fine by me. People are asking the question. It's irrelevant because once we turn back on playing, the rankings will, you know, once everyone gets back into it and you have new 100% events, things will get back to where we are properly ranking players' achievements from, you know, the most recent activity we can. They'll just be a hole. And an event that was two years ago was still two years ago. I don't know if that means that that player is just as good today or not. So you saw some of the pinball competitions that are happening. JDL Pinball Broadcast, Pinball Alps Tournament. Daniele was there. There was definitely social distancing. I guess masks were not mandatory in that country. So although I found out in some of these tournaments, and especially in Germany, they're taking temperatures before you enter. They're doing contact tracing and things like that, which made me really happy, actually. I was wondering, another kind of devil's advocate question, when we get to playoffs, a lot of times it's a four-player game. You know, if older games, EMs might not be four player, but any game that can accommodate four players. Would you switch that up to make it maybe two players or maybe single player so that there more social distancing I don know Washing down of the lock bars I going to put that on the since I probably not hosting anything or playing in anything until there a vaccine most likely that I'm not preparing myself for things to really change because I won't be playing during this interim period anyway. I think, you know, for anyone that is choosing to do that, I think all of those common sense measures make sense, right? Like I heard there's a league in Tennessee that plays at a bar and, you know, they were pushing for re-sanctioning events because they were getting together to play. And I'd fill them in on the ICR stuff. And now that group shows up to the bar and they play a bunch of ICR matches for the night live in person, which is great, right? That's kind of what it's for. It's like it's for the remote people in their basements, but it's also to, hey, if you have that group of 10 people that want to go to the bar and play, hey, here's something that is meaningful for the moment. And they had someone test positive for COVID. Oh, not good. Not good. Not good. We were talking about when we played when we were younger, no IFPA, but you would play for maybe a gift certificate at the bar or maybe it was a T-shirt or, you know, there are pinball companies that the Stern Army has done so many great things with prizing and stuff. So there are other options other than Whoppers, but isn't it funny when you go back to think of when the dollar was first brought in, if you're going to play in competition that's IFPA endorsed, you've got to pay a dollar, which will then go back to the players. It grew the IFPA, and now there's no IFPA, and there's no dollar fee, but there are no pinball tournaments, which I think is more a reflection of the COVID situation and opportunities to play. But in the places that want to be open, that have better COVID numbers, the pinball tournaments aren't there. Again, the precautions are outweighing the need to play competitive pinball. Yeah, I think it's not hard to put your long-term hat on and just know that, like, hey, we're going to get back to beating the crap out of each other and blowing these games up and Kaylee finding exploits at some point. It's just – it sucks to have to – I feel like my kid's on a timeout, right? Like now I know how they feel when I yell at Charlotte and tell her to go to her room for 15 minutes. But, Dad, I'm crying looking at Eddie from Iron Maiden. Why are you yelling at me? I'm scared. But like that 15 minutes, it probably feels like eight years to Charlotte while she's wailing away in her bedroom. It's just kind of that right now. It sucks. And it's taken forever because it goes slow. And it's the kids I feel for the most. What their world is right now, not, you know, having to worry about jobs and things like that, but just their friends and the social aspect. And like you described your kids on the bikes. Our kids are left to like, oh, can we do, you know, insert really fun thing after the virus? And it's like, yeah, of course. And it's like, oh, man, all the things that they want to do that they can't. Here's how we can turn that into a positive. Families like your kids probably will grow closer. Oh, I've seen so Evan, who is 16 months, I have seen him more in his life than I have seen by probably two other kids combined over the last five years pre-COVID. Yeah. So that's been great, right? Like he, I'm not used to a kid under two really liking me because I'm usually between work and travel time. No, but before the kids were two, I was kind of the guy that was there for like 20 minutes in the morning and then sometimes getting home before they were already asleep. That it was like weekends and maybe an hour a day during the week. And now. Isn't that interesting? Very reminiscent of when Loser Kid was interviewing your dad and they were talking about. It is. It's like that. Except we have FaceTime now. FaceTime helps. Come full circle. Dad just had a big birthday. I know I made his day by reaching out to him while he was golfing. I don't know what you did, but... No, and usually it's the annual dad's birthday golf trip, and he is playing it less safe than Zach and myself. I don't judge. Well, I judge, but... You just totally did. He's an old man. He can do what he wants. As I told my dad, I'm not his dad, so he can do what he wants. I've had him on since you and I talked last. I had your mother on for Mother's Day. Yeah. That was a big score getting Ellen on. And how's she doing with online art lessons? The online was okay. It wasn't great, but they are fitted to resume actual classes with plastic, plexiglass barriers and social distancing and masks and whatever. Good. The class sizes aren't what they used to be, but they're back getting it going a little bit, which is cool. Is that sharpexpressions.com? I don't know what the hell my mom's website is. Are you kidding? So that's sharpexpressions.com if you want to check that out. And I saw some great artwork from Colin and Charlotte. Yeah. Now the artwork is, man, and when you get into the older kids, it's unbelievable the quality of artwork that comes out of. I think my mom talked about the Monart drawing method and it's the way that it deconstructs how to draw. You know, she's not lying when she says that anyone can learn how to draw using that method. It's cool. Very cool. We have been pretty in sync here, Josh. So I want to switch gears here before we say goodbye because people listening to you and I banter over the years on Pinball Profile, I'm like, wow, man, Jeff's really sick. He's him, Josh, they're getting along. Let me end with this. It took a pandemic. Isn't that funny? Because you've been begging to be social distancing from me for so long, and now it's legally forced. I mean, they've actually closed the border. This is perfect. But let me end with this. I have to tell you, talking to Keith Elwin on Final Round Pinball Podcast and him talking about tournament play and how he and Tim Sexton have made some changes to games to basically screw the Sharp brothers and their propensity to turn off ball saves and wreck these wonderful games that these designers, these coders, these programmers, they've made these wonderful games, and you go in and you hatchet them to hell. To be fair, I think Keith wasn't talking about the fact, I mean, we've turned off ball savers for the last 20 years we've ran events. I don't think he has a problem with that. I think the multiball ball saver issue, he certainly has a valid point that the amount of free time for a player to have a better chance to get deeper into a multiball is fine. The issue for us is always just time, right? So back in the day, before it was available for us to turn the timers down, we would take in-lane rubbers off. We would set games physically harder. And what we have chosen to do is set the games physically easier, knowing that we're pushing players into a more single ball play. So it's a balancing act. Like, I'm happy for games, you know, most games don't have the option, right? There's only like, whatever, there's like four games that start as done where this is even an option. So more often than not, we're still bastardizing games physically. And for us, it gave us an opportunity of like, what do you think, you know, as we're talking with like Zach and Becker, and we're setting games up, it's like, what do you guys think? Do we pull the outlane rubbers on Maiden and set the tilt super tight and make this thing just, you know, a pain in the ass and keep the settings factory? Or do we put the rubber on, you know, let people play a little bit, but turn the multiball ball savers down? And it's like, ah, you know, because I forget, I think Keith P. Johnson has mentioned it over the years, but like the worst thing you can do as a tournament director is do both. You need to pick a lane. The worst games are the ones that are set up insanely hard software-wise and then also set up to die physically. So, you know, we've had the opportunity to pick a lane where we've been able to make the game physically easier through those settings. That was a long-winded answer to defend what you've done in tournaments. All I know is what I heard from Keith Elwin when he said this. Suck it, Sharp. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, he's the GOAT man. He can say whatever he wants. He's not wrong. He's not wrong. And if he makes the game, he can dictate to us how, you know, if that setting's gone on Jurassic and Maiden, then look forward to having the outlane rubbers in the cash box because that's where they'll be. Don't you change, Josh. Don't you change who you are, all right? And keep up the good work with yourself, with the Women's Advisory Board, the IFPA, and looking forward to IFPA 17 in 2024 in Florida. It should be a good time. I mean, do you think I heard, was Carl on your show talking about? On Final Round, yeah. Yeah, yeah, like in-disc not happening, and we're on the same Slack channel for it, and nobody has even brought it up because, I mean, I'm in the same camp that Carl is. It's like how can you picture, you know, 800 people running around qualifying? I mean, thinking about the amount of not social distancing that was happening at Indisc this past year, I just don't know how you could execute that. And then you start, my mind drifts to like, you know, Papa was coming back in the spring, and that was part of the Pinberg cancellation announcement. And it's like, oh, great, sweet. I get to go to Pittsburgh. This is great. It's coming back. I'll get to go to Pittsburgh in the spring. And now it's like, are we going to get to go to Pittsburgh in the spring? You start doubting how far to the future. Have faith, Josh. It will happen. We just don't know when. Yeah, man. And at the time of this recording, when Carl mentioned that, you know, he was speaking on behalf of himself, not necessarily everyone else at InDisc. But I kind of agreed with him, and so did you. Yeah, and I know. I find it hard to believe that, you know, part of the reason we teamed up with those guys is that we think alike on a lot of things and the things that we find important with respect to tournament organization. You know, the same way that, like, if Zach and Becker and myself, you know, we knew we were canceling or postponing November, you know, a while ago. Eventually, I had enough emails from players asking about, like, refund money while we were figuring this out that I had to just let them know that, oh, yeah, November is not happening. That I feel like, you know, Carl and the Indis team are probably going through similar things of, like, at some point you're left just laughing. Like, is January happening? Like, come on, give me a break. Keep up the good work, Josh. Big hug to your family, and we'll talk again soon. We won't wait this long for the next time. Right, sounds like five months. I'll see you, and we'll do a live recording at Indus, my man, in person. Take care. Later. This has been your Pinball Profile. You can find everything on pinballprofile.com. Check us out on our Facebook group. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram at pinballprofile, and you can email us, pinballprofile at gmail.com. I'm Jeff Teelwuss. my wife won't let me play I'll never win a major I'm an idiot I'm an idiot I'm an idiot © BF-WATCH TV 2021