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Episode 246 – Get The Tables

Slam Tilt Podcast·podcast_episode·2h 17m·analyzed·Mar 4, 2025
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.030

TL;DR

Pinsnake creator Anthony Pepe discusses tool development, collection, and WPC-era game preferences on Slam Tilt.

Summary

Slam Tilt Podcast interviews Anthony Pepe, creator of the Pinsnake cleaning tool, who won a Twippy Award. The episode covers Pepe's entry into pinball, the development of the Pinsnake product, his eight-machine collection focused on Williams/classic games, and extended game preferences discussion between hosts and guest including criticism of Star Wars and Stern modern titles, with preference for 1990s WPC-era Williams games.

Key Claims

  • Pinsnake has sold over 1,700 units since July 2023 launch

    high confidence · Anthony Pepe stated directly: 'And right now we're sold over, I say sold over 1,700 units.'

  • Pinsnake development took approximately 8 months of R&D

    high confidence · Anthony Pepe: 'the snake, it took me about eight months of R&D to kind of like find the right sizes'

  • Cary Hardy's video was a major turning point for Pinsnake adoption

    high confidence · Anthony Pepe: 'And then in the Orange County Pinball League... And once Cary got into it, that was it. It started blowing up.'

  • Star Wars pinball has poor plunging and shooting mechanics

    medium confidence · Anthony Pepe and hosts agreed: 'When you have to have a close day for three fucking kickouts, that is a bad shooting, plunging game' and 'Plunging game is terrible.'

  • Star Wars was played at Rock Fantasy Winter Open with mostly negative reception

    high confidence · Ron: 'It was in play at the Rock Fantasy Winter Open. That just happened. And you'd be happy to know, Bruce, with the exception of probably me, and it seems like Anthony, everyone fucking hates that game.'

  • Pinsnake doesn't work on all modern Stern machines due to tight playfield ramps

    high confidence · Anthony discussing X-Men and Foo Fighters: 'on X-Men or on Deadpool, they can't get the snake around certain tight horses' and 'Foo Fighters is a little tight too'

  • Project Pinball partnership involves custom-colored Pinsnakes for children's hospital machines

    high confidence · Anthony: 'I just worked out a deal where I'm going to be putting pin snakes into Project Pinball's hands. So Project Pinball will have their own custom colored pin snakes'

  • Anthony owns primarily Williams/classic games with only one modern Stern (Tron)

    high confidence · Anthony listing collection: multiple Williams/Gottlieb titles, 'Turtles Stern Pro' identified as Stern, then clarified he only has one modern Stern

Notable Quotes

  • “This is not going to restore you back to zero... It's not the end-all be-all. You're going to use other tools as well, but it's a handy tool.”

    Anthony Pepe @ mid-interview — Clarifies Pinsnake positioning as maintenance tool, not complete restoration solution

  • “I'm the creator of Pinsnake. I make the Pinsnakes, yeah. What do you have?”

    Anthony Pepe @ opening — Self-deprecating humor about Twippy award defining his identity despite other accomplishments

  • “Star Wars is a great asset game. It's a great asset game. Guess what? You stole a ton of them. It's not the best shooter I've ever played, and it is hard.”

    Anthony Pepe @ game discussion — Balanced criticism of Star Wars: acknowledges theme/assets but criticizes mechanics

  • “everyone fucking hates that game. Yes. That's all they did was bitch about it the whole time they had to play it.”

    Ron Hallett @ Star Wars discussion — Direct evidence of negative Star Wars reception at Rock Fantasy Winter Open tournament

  • “Tron is an easy shooter. Everything's right there in front of you. Just building up everything and then getting to that wizard mode.”

    Anthony Pepe @ game preferences — Articulates preference for accessible, deep games with progression

  • “Attack from Mars is like the best game ever made, honestly, to me. I feel like Attack from Mars is just a perfect game, 10 out of 10.”

    Anthony Pepe @ game preferences — Establishes WPC-era preference and game design philosophy

  • “I'm all about the Williams. Williams, 90s Williams are the absolute pinnacle of all pinball.”

    Anthony Pepe @ game discussion — Clear statement of WPC snob position, dismissive of modern Stern and JJP

  • “If you let it go to grime, you're fucked, you know.”

    Anthony Pepe @ Pinsnake discussion — Addresses common misunderstandings about tool's purpose and maintenance requirements

Entities

Anthony PepepersonPinsnakeproductSlam Tilt PodcastorganizationRon HallettpersonBruce NightingalepersonProject PinballorganizationRock FantasyvenueRochester Pinball Collective (RPC)venue

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Project Pinball partnership demonstrates commercial product alignment with charitable pinball hospital initiative; custom Pinsnake branding for nonprofit machines

    high · Anthony: 'I just worked out a deal where I'm going to be putting pin snakes into Project Pinball's hands... custom colored pin snakes for all of their machines'

  • ?

    community_signal: Rock Fantasy Winter Open tournament in upstate NY demonstrates active tournament/league infrastructure with modern Stern title integration and player feedback mechanisms

    medium · Ron: 'It was in play at the Rock Fantasy Winter Open. That just happened' indicating recent tournament with competitive play and community commentary

  • ?

    competitive_signal: WPC-era Williams games (Attack from Mars, Tron) valued for balanced accessibility and skill progression; modern Stern mechanics criticized as gimmicky or mechanically flawed

    medium · Anthony preference: Attack from Mars 10/10 perfection, Tron 'easy to learn hard to master,' dismissal of modern titles as 'gimmicky and cute but not worth real estate'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Star Wars Pinball plunging and shooting mechanics widely criticized; three-position close-day kickout requirement identified as fundamental design flaw

    high · Anthony & Ron consensus: 'When you have to have a close day for three fucking kickouts, that is a bad shooting, plunging game... Plunging game is terrible'

  • $

    market_signal: Pinsnake rapid adoption (1,700+ units in ~15 months) indicates significant aftermarket demand for pinball maintenance solutions and community enthusiasm for innovative tools

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.411

0:00
Let's see what you're qualified for. Last job? I was fired from Burger World. And when was that? It was like two weeks ago. It says here 23 years ago. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that sounds right. Also, I donate blood and sperm. And you donate the sperm where? Just kind of everywhere, you know.
0:30
Coming to you from beautiful upstate New York, this is the Slam Kill Podcast, the show about all things pinball. I'm your host, Ron Hallett, here with the other host, Bruce Nightingale. Yeah, well, they got some things right and they didn't get some things right. What? What are you talking about? You'll see later on. Okay, this is episode 246.
0:55
But we're not alone. We're not alone because one of the things they did get right... is pick this guy as its Whippy winner.
1:04
Who is he? Ron, who do we have on? It's Anthony Pepe, creator of the Pinsnake. The Pinsnake. The Pinsnake, yes. The Pinsnake guy. This is what I'm real famous for now. Hey, you know, I have kids. I have a nice house. I have a great car. What do you have? I'm the creator of Pinsnake. I make the Pinsnakes, yeah.
1:27
Welcome, Anthony. Thank you guys so much. I'm really happy to be here. Ask him the question, Bruce. Ask him the question. What? The thing you ask of all new guests. How did you get into this hobby, Bob?
Cary Hardy
person
Steve Ritchieperson
Star Wars Pinball (Stern)game
Tron (Stern)game
Attack from Marsgame
X-Men (Stern)game
Elton John (Jersey Jack Pinball)game
Dialed Ingame
Twippy Awardsevent
Deadpoolgame
Foo Fightersgame
Stephen Keelerperson

high · Anthony: 'sold over 1,700 units' since July 2023 launch with continued product line expansion planning

  • ?

    product_strategy: Pinsnake Junior version planned to address tight playfield ramp issues on modern Stern machines (X-Men, Deadpool, Foo Fighters); smaller scale variant in development

    high · Anthony: 'I'm also working on a Pinsnake Junior, if you will. Kind of like a smaller version... on X-Men or on Deadpool, they can't get the snake around certain tight horses'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Significant negative sentiment toward Star Wars Pinball at Rock Fantasy Winter Open tournament; community consensus negative despite some individual player appreciation

    high · Ron: 'everyone fucking hates that game. Yes. That's all they did was bitch about it the whole time they had to play it' with exception of 2-3 players

  • ?

    technology_signal: 3D printing enabling rapid prototyping and custom manufacturing for pinball aftermarket tools; 8 months R&D cycle demonstrates feasibility of specialized solutions

    high · Anthony: 'I had just gotten 3D printing' and 8 months of iteration to develop Pinsnake with proper sizing and compatibility

    • 1:42
    Well, I originally started with main cabinets and emulators, and then I built myself a virtual pinball machine.
    1:50
    And once I put that together, I started playing a lot of that and said, you know, let me try to get a new one. I saw a real table, and I found a Terminator 2. And that started out the whole hobby of, you know, the addictive hobby of like, okay, I have one pinball machine. Now I own eight pinball machines. So it was kind of like I've always been playing video games my whole life. I always felt that pinball machines were a waste of money back in the 80s and 70s. So it came much later. I've only been playing pinball roughly about three years. Your life is now fulfilled. Very similar to my story, just more into video games and started with a MAME cabinet. Yeah, I have my MAME cabinet, I have my VPX, and then I didn't join a league. I joined Rock Fantasy about two years ago. Yeah, I love it. I joined my thing. Oh, Jesus Christ.
    2:48
    That is a really good killer. Yeah, it is. Yeah. Yeah, that's Stephen Keeler. Owns Rock Fantasy. The owner of the world famous Rock Fantasy. World famous Rock Fantasy. Get it right. I do love Steve. It's just, hey, how you doing? Bruce, you want to buy my yellow desk? You want to buy some yellow records from me, don't you?
    3:16
    Well, how did the whole pin snake thing come? What is the pin snake? Someone's like, what the hell is the pin snake? What is that? What does it do? Please describe the 2024 Pinsnake winner.
    3:28
    The Pinsnake is basically a cleaning wand for your pinball machine. And the reason I came up with it was when I had my T2, the only way I could really understand how things work is I had to take things apart and put them back together. So with the pinball machine, it was perfect. I took the entire thing apart, down to the wood, cleaned it all up, made it all nice. Because I had gotten a player's condition T2. And once I put it all back together, about a month later, I started noticing those little black trail lines in the orbits and things like that. And I'm wondering, like, okay, so it's getting dirty again. I don't want to take this whole thing apart again. You're going to start stripping screws. You'll break plastics and whatnot. So I was reading online everything I could find, like, oh, use a screwdriver and a rag or, you know, chopsticks or this bendable metal bracket or something you can do to clean those areas. And nothing really worked for me. I have two small kids. and one day I'm in their playroom cleaning up and I found this little toy that they had, which is like an articulated little fidget toy, like a fidget spinner.
    4:30
    And it brought me right back to those plastic snakes we used to have back in the 80s. The hinged ones that if you hold their tail, they kind of wave. You remember those? Yep, you swing them back and forth. You swing them back and forth. They were like white and black. You get them at the mall or you get them at like a street fair or something like that. Ron remembers that easily. He's just not admitting to it because he's old. No, I'm old too. Is that the one you could In the commercial you made it into a cobra Like you could make a cobra shape No those are the ones Those are the square ones that you click and bend That's the one you're talking about You could make a ball No I'm talking about like a plastic snake It actually looked like a snake It was hinged, segmented Must have been before my time Definitely not You're old fucker So I figured I could come up with some sort of way to do it And I had just gotten 3D printing. I work as a makeup and special effects artist in the film industry. And I've been doing that for the past 30 years, working on, you know, Hollywood movies or TV shows and whatnot. So I had all these fabrication types setups in my house. I have a shop here where I build prosthetics and animatronics.
    5:39
    And the snake came around because I just couldn't figure out a good way to get a rag into the orbits of T2, which is a pretty simple layout, you know. And the snake, it took me about eight months of R&D to kind of like find the right sizes, print the right diameters and whatnot just to get the thing to work and not get it caught on switches, not get it caught on the spinners or anything that would like, you know, mess it up. Because God forbid you send something out into the pinball community and it breaks someone's machine, everybody's going to hear about it. So it took a lot of research and a lot of just like practice to kind of formulate some sort of cleaning wand. And then the pin snake was born in July of last year. It finally came to market.
    6:23
    I want one. Yeah, you both have one. Bruce bought it first. I did. I was skeptical. You know what? A lot of people were skeptical. A lot of people thought it was a gimmick. I was like, oh, this is fucking awesome. Because I use the screwdriver. I use the magnet, the flexible magnet things. I use everything in the book. And I was like, let's see how this is. Holy fuck, this fucking works awesome. I love it. Oh, thank you. My rag's so dirty. It's like black now, so I got it from her rags. He does sell extra rags, people. Get them, too. I do sell extra rags, yeah. A lot of people were skeptical at first. A lot of people thought it was a gimmick or, you know, just another 3D-printed junkie mod because there's a lot of them out there, unfortunately. So it was one of those things like how do I convince people that this thing actually works. I did videos on all of my machines. I have eight pins. And then in the Orange County Pinball League, I had gone to their houses and did demonstrations on their machines. So the wide variety, I could show people, like, it works on a Williams, it works on a Bally, it works on a modern Stern, and so forth. And it started picking up until Cary Hardy did a video. And once Cary got into it, that was it. It started blowing up. And then I went out to Expo and got the word out more and more. Steve Ritchie bought one. It's like it's gotten bigger and bigger and bigger. And right now we're sold over, I say sold over 1,700 units. So it's been very popular. Yeah, it's been very popular. And I like using my snake.
    7:48
    Wow. Yeah, so it's definitely gotten some leverage to it. You know, I'm really happy with the results it's done so far. And you come right out of the bat and win an award. Like, we've been here fucking eight years, and we've done shit. We can't win shit. I didn't even realize I was going to get nominated. It was just one of those things. Like, the Twippy Awards was, and I heard it wasn't even done. Like I said, I'm only new to the pinball community. I've only been it to about just under three years. So I didn't really even know about the Twippies until, you know, I heard about it and they started advertising for it. But I'm really excited about where Pinsnake's going to lead next, you know, how far I can get it going. I've had people say, like, you know, oh, this thing doesn't work or it doesn't, you know, it doesn't get the grime off of the machine. Well, guess what? If you let it go to grime, you're fucked, you know. Yeah. I try to tell people, it's like, you need a full teardown first. This is a maintenance tool. This is not going to restore you back to zero.
    8:45
    How do I say it? It's not the end-all. It's not the end-all be-all. You're going to use other tools as well, but it's a handy tool. It worked for me. Thank you. It worked for me. You can put that on your thing, Ron and Bruce. Especially Bruce, because Bruce hates everything. I'm loving it. Guess what? Fuckers, it's good. I want the mini steak. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, I remember when you guys broke that up, and you said pinworm, which is a great name because it's also a horrible disease. But I am coming up with other ideas as well. My main thing right now is trying to figure out how to make a subway cleaner. And the subway cleaner, I think, would change because the worst part is taking off the subway and removing whatever's next to it. The problem is that subways are not generic enough. they're all custom. So for me to test it on every single machine that has a subway, it's next to impossible. So I have to figure out a general way to clean it without having to take the entire thing apart. You know, it's not going to be for every machine, obviously, because you have, like, Baywatch has the subway that goes from top to bottom, you know. Or Next Generation. Oh, God. Yeah. I mean, some subways are, like, Indiana Jones' subway is maybe, like, a foot. everything else is like, you know. So I'm working on things like that to kind of like figure out some way to floss out the subway. I'm also working on a Pinsnake Junior, if you will. Kind of like a smaller version. That way, you know, because some people have said like on the newer, like on X-Men or on Deadpool, they can't get the snake around certain tight horses. Some of the sharper turns. Yeah, I totally agree. And has that happened to you guys? Yes, on X-Men. So it is on X-Men. X-Men sucks. Honestly, Foo Fighters is a little tight too.
    10:40
    When you're trying to go around the inner orbit, it's really tight. Jack Danger requires a smaller snake. Oh my. Gotcha.
    10:50
    I'm sorry about that, but the word's out. Jack needs a smaller snake. Let me write that down. I definitely think I need something a little just to reduce it a bit or give us a smaller version and, you know, something that can sell as a kit. You know, you get the regular size and medium size and so forth. Yeah, if you go, like, maybe, I think, three-fifths smaller. Three-fifths smaller. Yeah, because don't forget the ball only goes through the whole guide, mostly in the middle. So if you're actually able to cover the middle still with the width and the rag difference, it should actually work out pretty darn well. And I'm going to be very excited. The only problem is going to be just the tightness, you know, how it flexes. Yeah, that's the thing. Because the way it moves now, it's mainly made for like most of my collection is Williams. I only own one modern Stern. We'll be there in a few seconds.
    11:45
    So for me, it's like whatever I can make it work for a lot of the older ramp games. The newer Sterns, I haven't even tested on Dungeons and Dragons yet, so I don't really know what they're creating and what I can do to make it work. Like, I'd have to make a stern, applicable snake, you know, that works for the modern ones, and then the regular one works for, like, the older machines. You know, there's many options I can come up with. And I'll be at PinFest and Pintastic, so I'm going to have hopefully something by Expo of this year. So I'm trying to, like, you know, build it all up. Cool. Nicey, nicey. Don't forget us little guys who, you know. No, of course. I've actually been listening to you guys since I started in the pinball hobby. Oh, I'm sorry. No, I started from the get-go because I was commuting to the city every day. I'm in upstate New York in Poughkeepsie. I was commuting to the city every day, and two-hour drive there, two-hour drive back, I had nothing to do but podcasts. So when I found you guys, I listened to it religiously. Nice. Well, thank you. Thank you very much. Of course. Cool. So what games do you have? Yeah, what games? We've got to judge all your games now. Yes. Oh, okay. Let's see. I'll start with my newest one that I just got was a Gottlieb Charlie's Angels, which I got for $300, and it totally works. Okay. So, yeah. You can't default the price there. Yeah, default the price and the game. It's completely folded up right now, but I just got that one. But my actual working machines that I have, I have a Gottlieb Haunted House, Black Knight 2000, a Pinbot, T2, Indy Jones, Williams. I have a Tales from the Crypt, a Tron Pro, and, oh, a Turtles Stern Pro. That's it. So wait a minute, you've got two Sterns then? No, I only have one Stern. Tron. Tron and Turtles. Oh, that's right. Tron is a Stern. No. Yes. Yep. I don't think of that as a modern Stern. I'm sorry. Yeah. It has the inferior, you know. DMD. Screw that. It's got that old DMD. Oh, it's so old. so pathetic and old. I love my Tron. That's probably my second favorite machine there. You know. The Tron Haunted House. Yeah, I got them all. I'm Costa, your host. Yeah, that's such a good game. I've never seen the movie, but I just know... I know if I saw the movie, I would like that guy. Ron doesn't see good movies. I saw the original Tron. I never saw the second Tron. That's the problem. It's worth it. It's definitely worth it. But I know I would like that character just based on him in the game. he just seems like I would like him. You know what I love about Tron is that it's easy to learn, hard to master. You know, it's an easy shooter. Everything's right there in front of you. It's just building up everything and then, you know, getting to that wizard mode. I like the end of line shot. That's the thing. If a game had something like that that I really like, I could just play it over and over, even if the rest of the game sucked. And the end of line shot is something that you could build up. Yeah, just trying to hit those combos. The side ramp, scoop. Side ramp, scoop. Just trying to hit that over and over. Right.
    14:50
    But just also want to mention about the pin snake is that I just worked out a deal where I'm going to be putting pin snakes into Project Pinball's hands. So Project Pinball will have their own custom colored pin snakes for all of their machines that they do. And for those, I'm sure you guys know what Project Pinball is. Yep. You can tell everyone here that Project Pinball is the thing that puts. They put games in children's hospitals across the country. Which is such a great idea. I mean, it's such a great idea. I never would have thought of anything cooler, like, you know, for these poor kids who have to stay in a hospital for long periods of times, and they get to play pinball machines. It's something that's dexterous. They're not staring at a screen, you know. Yeah. Like, they used to have the Nintendo 64s in the hospitals, which I thought was a cool idea then, but a pinball machine is such a great idea. So I'm going to hopefully have a Project Pinball Pinsnakes available for them. Nice. We'll be seeing Project Pinball at the world-famous RPC. Ron, where is that? What is that? That's the Rochester Pinball Collective. It's located at 349 West Commercial Street, East Rochester. What suite? 2965. You go. Yeah.
    16:06
    I have to make it up there. I have yet to be there. Oh, you can come this next weekend and play in Pin Masters with Stu McVicker.
    16:14
    I'd love to, but it's like a four or five-hour drive. Yeah, it's about four from Poughkeepsie. It's a long drive. Yeah, you'd have to go. You can either go up the thruway to Albany and hitch a ride with Ron, or you've got to go down to 84 and cut across and go that way. It's a long drive. It is a long drive. It's a long drive, Bruce. But it's a great drive because it's for a great thing. pinball. I like Stomp East. There you go. Stomp East is a lot closer. It's a lot closer to you. It's only an hour and a half. Yeah. Which will be coming up soon. But don't forget, we have Stomp West coming up in June. Our entries are going to be put into IFPA this weekend. And we'll be taking some money and getting people to play with the women's tournament and men's tournament and all tournaments. Sorry, I always say that. I fucked up. All tournaments. And we're going to have a good old time. And somebody's going to win a belt.
    17:13
    So, let's see. Do you want to go into our stuff? Well, we can always go into the stuff. But does Anthony have anything else? What's your next game you want on your list? Oh, yeah. What's the next game you want? Oh, God. If money was no object.
    17:30
    Okay. If money was no object. Well, I have two that I really want. But I definitely, I think I really want either a Jaws or a Bond. You know, I've been playing those long enough that I'm really getting into them. But in all honesty, I really want a Diner. I've been looking for a good Diner, and I have yet to find one that's really. We have one for sale at the RPC eventually. Eventually? Oh, you're going to sell that one? Well, it's next month or two that we're going to talk about it. Oh. Yeah, the play field was all redone. Oh, really? It's a new play field, yeah, so it's a. Oh, pretty. I would definitely be interested in talking to you. Yeah, you have to talk to Mark, definitely, but it's really nice. Ron's played it, so Ron can tell you. If money was no object, I would like a Jaws LE or a Bond LE. I think that would be the option. There you go. I'm not into the newer ones, like the D&D and the X-Men. I think they're gimmicky and they're cute, but they're not worth the real estate. Do you know what I mean? Well, yeah, if you have limited real estate, you've got to always move around and play around. Now, if you had a house like Ron's, you know. Move around and play around. I've got to remember that. Move around and play around. Get them all to fit. Well, Ron doesn't have any room left. He's got plenty of room. He's got bedrooms upstairs. Stop. You can do the Zach. What's the Zach? Zach had pinball machines in all of his spare bedrooms, and he slept with them. That's not creepy at all. Not at all. You know what, Bruce? In his new house, you know how many games he has upstairs where the bedrooms are? None. Because he still has room downstairs. Once he fills that up, you know it's going to happen. Oh, God. You know it's going to happen. Say it. Okay, Anthony. Game you like, game you hate.
    19:12
    Oh, game I like, game I hate. Okay, game I absolutely hate, every time I get it on, like, a match play situation, I think it has to be Mandalorian. I just cannot get into it. I did not watch the show. so if I'm not into the theme it's already a no-go for me but the way it's set up I just don't, I don't like the shots I don't like anything about it so it just makes me angry every time I have to play it and I've never really blown it up either that's the other thing, it's like I've played it numerous times at Rock Fantasy but I've never gotten that like, you know you get to that multi-ball mode where all of a sudden you're lighting up the whole machine, you have no idea how you did it and just like wow this game is actually pretty good but that's never happened So Mando is definitely the one I hate. Game I like, a game I love, aside from the ones that I already mentioned, one that I love but I don't have is Attack from Mars. It's like the best game ever made, honestly, to me. I feel like Attack from Mars is just a perfect game, 10 out of 10. I cannot disagree with both of your choices. Anthony is a classic WPC snob. Oh, 100%. I am all about the Williams. Snooty around with his pinky up in the air going, no. Williams, 90s Williams are the absolute pinnacle of all pinball. Jersey Jack in my house? You must be mad. Mad.
    20:43
    Nice. No, I'm totally about Williams. I think the Williams games are some of the best pinball machines ever made. Fish tails and all that. You've got to play Elton John. I've played Elton. I've played Elton a couple times. And Elton John is the closest Williamsville I've felt out of a pinball machine in 25, 30 years. You know what? I won't disagree with you on that. We have Elton John at Rock Fantasy. I feel that I can't play pinball to balance.
    21:14
    So if it's like Elton. What do you mean you can't? Come on. Hold me close. Come on. You don't want to play Yellow Brick Road. so it's one of those things like Elton's got a it's a great shooter and everything like that but that typical JJP light show doesn't do anything for me oh sorry guys no it's like how Guns N' Roses is no no no no no no way worse no no no no no best lighting of any Jersey Jack game is Elton John by far but don't you feel that the RGB lighting of Elton and Avatar and Guns N' Roses, don't they all just kind of look the same at this point? No. No. Actually, I like the Elton John better. I think he split it up a little bit differently. Guns N' Roses is just way overpowering. It's just, hey, we got a new toy. It's called 800 Lightbulbs. Let's light them all up at once. Avatar has its own gimmick. It's kind of darker. Yeah.
    22:13
    Yeah, I definitely would say Elton John. We frequently tell our guests they're wrong. No, I know I'm in the minority here because Elton is a very popular game, and I like Elton John. I like the musician. I listen to the music. I just feel that that one, it shoots great. You're right. It does shoot like a Williams, but the theme doesn't really sound good. No, it might not. It's just like if you were not an Aerosmith fan. The game shoots okay. It plays okay, but if you're not a really Aerosmith fan, you're going, okay, I'm there. Here you go. I'll ask a question. You'll make one of us happy. What do you think about Dialed In? I think Dialed In is actually... Where's that clean feed button? I can hit the delete right now. No, Dialed In is actually a great game because it's an original game, and that's what I really like about it. I like that they took a chance. Do you like how it shoots? No. There you go. No. It shoots great. There you go. I think that the phone and the – I'm still confused. I know you've got to power up the guy, then hit the phone. And there's too much shit in the back that it's like – I don't like games where I can't see the ball pretty much the whole time. If you hide it under all this junk in the back, then it's pointless. You want to see the ball all the time. What do you think of Stern Star Wars? Okay, I like Stern Star Wars. Yeah! I do. I really do. I think, not because I blown it up a couple times so it's enjoyable, like I really get into it, but, I mean, it's Star Wars, and it's not Jar Jar Binks Star Wars. It's not, you know, it's four, five, and six. I think I'd rather play episode one or the trilogy. No way. Or even Dating East I'd play before that. No.
    24:08
    Oh, God. That new one is terrible. I don't see how you think that. It's four, five, and six. It's got the death star. It's got the great sound effects. It's got great assets. Totally agree. The game plays like ass. It's awesome. When you have to have a close day for three fucking kickouts, that is a bad shooting, plunging game. It's a bad tournament game. No, it's a bad plunging game.
    24:33
    Plunging game is terrible. It was in play at the Rock Fantasy Winter Open. That just happened. And you'd be happy to know, Bruce, with the exception of probably me, and it seems like Anthony, everyone fucking hates that game. Yes. That's all they did was bitch about it the whole time they had to play it. Guess what? There's a lot of smart people in this world, and I'm stuck with a couple fucking idiots right here. Here's what I'll say. My final thing on Star Wars is that it's a great asset game. It is Star Wars. It's a great asset game. Guess what? You stole a ton of them. It's not the best shooter I've ever played, and it is hard. I think it is hard. Okay. Ron. Okay, I'm going to go for Ron right here. Ron. Yes. Elton John, Star Wars. Oh, Elton John. There you go. By far. But everyone has this hard-on for fucking Star Wars. Like, I could jerk myself off. Wait a minute. Who has a hard-on? It's like me, our Zach, and now Anthony. And that's about it. Yeah. Three people. Three people are all sick. Okay. You're demented. I think that's not a terrible game compared to, like, Rush or... It's like Doctor Who. 15 years ago. What? Did you just insult Rush? I'm sorry. I don't like Rush. It's like Doctor Who 15 years ago when everyone was going, oh, what's the greatest game ever? No, it's the most boring game ever when everyone just does Sonic Booms all fucking day. Right. Well, tournament players ruined that game. That's what I'm saying. Everyone at that point was like, oh, look, it's the best game. Tournaments ruined Doctor Who. It was much more fun when you actually just played for multiball. Yeah, exactly. But no one does that now. No. I don't hate Doctor Who. Yeah, I like him. You can't. You're a WPC snob. Yeah, I have to. You have to like it. Hold on, Anthony. I have the prototype with the topper on it. It's great. Anthony, do you like Popeye? Are you a snob for Popeye? You know, a friend of mine owns a Popeye, and there's those gimmicky games, you know, where let's try something completely off-the-wall new, and it just doesn't really work. No, it's terrible. They hide the ball. Gilligan's Island. I like Gilligan's Island. I do. I think it's, come on, it is what it is. It's like Rocky and Bullwing. Honestly, the point field is fine. It's just the way that the rules are implemented to gather all the things, and then you hit the same shot like six, seven times in a row. It's cool that it does different things, but I just think with a better rule set that could have been a lot better. It would have been a lot better game. How do you feel about the game Genesis?
    27:05
    Same thing. I like Genesis. Okay, but Genesis is the same thing. where you're just collecting things to build it up. Tron is the same thing. But there's more shots in Genesis. True. That's the difference. And when you go to Gilligan's Island, all you're hitting is one shot, and you're waiting for the team to turn. Not to gather the items. No, some of you are. Some of you are. You have to get the shot at least three times. You've got to get the coconuts. Yeah, right. You've got to get the rope and all that. Yeah. So you can hang yourself while playing this game. Oh!
    27:33
    Because it's fucking terrible. I don't hate it. I would never buy one. Don't get me wrong. I would never buy a Popeye or a Gilligan's, but if I saw one, of course I'd put a quarter in it. Why not, you know? Wow. I'll be the snob there and go, no.
    27:48
    There's very few games I would walk by and say, no, there's no way in hell I'm going to play it. Like, at Rock Fantasy they have Nugent and they have Catacomb. I love them. And I won't tell you. No, I love them. I'm an early Stern snob. You're an early Stern snob, yeah.
    28:03
    But I do love early Sterns. I mean, obviously the big game. Of course, everyone does. That's why we made them so expensive now. Yeah, that's all us. All us.
    28:13
    But, no, but a catacomb is, I've owned one, it's a dog shit. It really is. Yeah. It's so terrible. There's no way to lock the ball unless you actually luck into it. Yeah, it doesn't have beautiful locks. No one understands the Bagatelle rules. Even though it does explain them to you, but nobody listens to it. Nobody listens to it, yeah. No. Well, it's got that old early Stern voice, so you can't really make out what they're saying. Press, flap, flipper, fork, right, right, left, right, fork. It tells you how to do it. I know. So, yeah, and Nugent's fun. I like Nugent. I think it's an early try at stars, or later try at stars again, you know, or trying to recreate the, and it just doesn't work. Right. But, yeah, other than that. You know what also doesn't work? Me on Saturdays? My Facebook. Ah, yes, we all know this. Well, not everyone. So most people probably who have friended me on Facebook, a lot of them are through this podcast. Yeah, so go look at his page now. Number one, you won't be able to find me on Facebook because I'm gone now. The thing is, I post on Facebook once every two weeks to say that the podcast is ready. And happy birthdays, if there's anything else. That's it. But somehow, basically, I was in, I had Facebook open in one monitor, and I actually wasn't even using it. I'm working on my other monitor, and I just noticed that at a quarter of my eye, the page just reloads. And then it's just blank, like hanging. Like, what the hell? So I try to go to Facebook, and it just hangs. So I try another browser, and it comes right up. Like, okay, so Facebook's not down. So basically, every time I log into Facebook on a browser, it just bombs with an error.
    29:55
    Because that's odd. Then when I went to work, there's, oh, yeah, Ron, I can't see you on Facebook. And where are you going? Like, okay. So my app on my phone just hangs. I have to uninstall the Facebook app, reinstall, and then as soon as I log in as myself, it hangs again. So what I ended up doing is I had to uninstall the app from my phone and try it on the browser on my phone before it finally told me why I couldn't get in. It told me my account's locked. How do you unlock an account, Ron? Let's look this up. Well, it's a suspicious activity or whatever. Okay, but it won't let me. It says, would you like to unlock this? Yes, I would. So you go to another screen, and then I answer a question or do something, and it goes back to the original screen saying you're locked. I'm like in a loop. Like it will not get me out of there. So there's no way I can unlock this account. So I'm like, oh, well, what do I do? And then I start reading stuff and figure out that, yeah, I'm fucked because Facebook has no support. So you're basically screwed. There is no way I can go through and unlock it myself. And it's not even the deal where it thinks, like, it wants me to send ID in or any stuff. Like, I read some stuff about that. It's not even that. Like, I can log in. Every time I log in, I get the email that says, you know, someone has logged in your account from this. Was this you? But then you can't do anything.
    31:20
    So while I was at Rock Fantasy, I talked to someone there who had, like, oh, yeah, I had the same issue with my business account. And, yeah, yeah, I was screwed. So what I did is I went to LinkedIn, found all the Facebook employees I could, and just spammed them until someone could unlock me. Wow. And he said, it's probably not worth doing that for you. But that was my business account, so I had to do it. And I'm like, yeah, that doesn't sound worth it at all. But I'm just putting it out there. If any of you listeners work for Facebook or know anything or know any methods that might work here, otherwise I'm basically off of Facebook permanently unless I can get this unlocked. No book in the face for you. Luckily, I got a helper now. I got a new helper. Well, Stu McVicker has graciously allowed me to use his account because he has the Facebook account. So if you need to get to me, just send it to Stu now. And luckily, Stu has been very helpful. He asked me for permission, you know, so I had to go ask Ron. Ron, can I give Stu permission? He has permission now to update stuff on the Slam Tilt Facebook page. Yes, he does. I had to make sure it wasn't another scam here. If anybody knows any way I can do this, because there's a couple emails, but just looking through Reddit, people are like, yeah, I emailed there and no one responds. And there was actually another guy on Reddit who did the same thing that the guy at Rock Fantasy did, where he basically just spammed people from LinkedIn and got in that way. But that just seems utterly ridiculous. And the only time it even tells me why I can't get in is I have to do it on my phone with the app uninstalled. Because if you have the app installed, it automatically tries to use the app if you go to Facebook. That's the only place that ever told me why I can't get in. And technically, I can get in. It's just as soon as I'm in, I can't do anything and I get an error. It's almost like my account is actually corrupted.
    33:11
    Well, it's maybe not such a bad thing. You know, maybe you need to disconnect from the Internet more. You have IT pressure right now with your job and everything like that. The problem is tournaments, other stuff, it's all announced on Facebook. Yes, I know. Congratulations. I can't get out of there. That's why you need to listen to more podcasts now. Just so you can keep up. Okay. Spend more time looking out the window. Yes. And seeing the sights and seeing the pretty birds coming out. Go touch grass or whatever. We have grass back in Rochester now. All of our snow's gone. By the way, I'd like to give a memoriam to a couple things. Aw. And memoriam to Skype. Yes. It's going away in May.
    33:50
    It was where we got our start. It's what we used to record the first 100-plus episodes, 200-plus episodes, maybe. Yeah, about almost 200, yeah. It was a lot. It did its job for the most part. Sorry to see you go, but you've been replaced by Teams in Microsoft's world. Yep, Teams I use all the time, unfortunately. and also I like to say goodbye to James Bond yes he fucked Who was bought by Amazon Looks like Barbara Rockley didn want to deal Barbara Rockley, who just called Amazon fucking idiots, her exact words, a month prior. Yes. Those fucking idiots came to her with a billion dollars. Hey, would this be enough? Okay.
    34:34
    So get ready for the Money Penny spinoff. The Q spinoff. The Felix Leiter spinoff. the Goldfinger origin story, the Dr. No origin story. It's going to be great. We're going to have cute prequels. It's going to be the whole Bond cinematic universe. Bond Jr. when he was growing up and being like Indiana Jones Jr. So Bond fans will get to know what it feels like to be a Star Wars fan or an Indiana Jones fan and see your franchise completely fucking destroyed. So I'm sorry. I'm sorry for you. Yes. Bond will now be an American woman instead. Yeah, that's going to be the new James Bond.
    35:14
    So have fun. Have fun, folks. Yeah. I wonder if that fixed the pinball in any way, whether they can't make any updates now. Like Amazon, I'll be like, no.
    35:23
    I just thought of that. Possibly. Yeah, that'd be interesting. Mega Star number one. So, Ron, what are you doing next week? Because I see one of our friends is going to be playing in some pin masterage stuff. Okay. So, yeah, this upcoming week is the Nationals, which you all can't play in unless you want to skate. But, no, you can play the day of Nationals. Oh, you can, huh? Yes. From 6 o'clock in the morning to 9 o'clock in the morning, we're going to be on TV.
    35:56
    When is this? Wednesday? That's Thursday. Thursday morning. Yes. From 6 o'clock to 9 o'clock, we're going to be on the Rochester WAM 13. 6 a.m.? 6 a.m. Don't you? 6.30 is our first showing. So we're going to be open from 6 in the morning. Oh, no, no. Anyone can come in and play free. Yeah, yeah. No one will be there at 6 in the morning. I got six players already signed up. Yeah, the owners of the probably. No, no. Six players that are playing in nationals are coming in for the interviews. This is the Rochester Pinball Collective, by the way. Yes, it is. So we are having nationals. They start, practice starts at 9 o'clock. So from 6 to 9, you can't play the games, but you can come in and be on TV and be interviewed if you're in the Nationals. And if you want to play, you can come play. If I interview, you can be on a segment on their local news for maybe five seconds. No, actually, this is going to be live. So you're on for a little while. Okay, at least a minute. Yeah, at least a minute, which is cool. And hopefully I get Stu McVicker there. Then you have the international flavor.
    37:00
    Is this on local TV? Yeah, local TV. But what happened last time, they actually posted to their website, and then you can then see the links, and they've done this before. And it's really great, great things for everything, for pinball and everything like that. We're going to have Zach and Josh. You're going to take the last segment. Oh, God. Yep. So you've got two world-class pinball players right there at the 840 segment. Oh, not our Zach, but the others. No. The Sharps. The Sharp Brothers. See? So that will be a great segment at the end. And we have players from Virginia that's going to be on and a couple other states. And then, unfortunately, I have to get one of the owners to get up real early to join me for one of the segments. So, speaking of the RPC, the Pinmasters, if you remember from the Josh Sharp episode, he laid the gauntlet out. He did. He said to Stu McVicker that he would play him in their group, the morning group, the first day of Pinmasters. And Stu has accepted. I notice he is on the player list. He is on the player list. We have 78 players already signed up for Pinmasters, and there's room for more. There's room for more people to give $250 to the best players in the world. Just like Stu did. Yeah, I don't understand what Stu is doing. His ego is massive. He's going to get just bitch slapped when he's there. No, he's doing a con. He's doing con. He's doing con? He's doing con from freaking Star Trek II. He wants his – I spit in the air. I think he's going to get his ass handed to him, and it's going to be great. It's going to be awesome. I can't wait. I'll be watching with everyone else. Yes, you will, because we'll be on Twitch all four days. Backhand Pinball is going to be doing the streaming. And the good thing about Nationals will be we have a side room now for the weekend where we're going to have tables and chairs at about 700 square feet, where people can hang out and wait. Plus, that's where the streaming is going to be coming from also. So it's not going to be in the same room. Oh, I thought you were going to say there's karaoke. That would be awesome. No, no, it would be cool.
    39:08
    Make sure you make a deal with the rock school that's down the hallway. Yeah, rock school. You can jump in and play and sing some songs with the rock groups. But, yeah, so there's going to be a 700-square-foot room on the side. People can sit, put their stuff, chairs, tables, everything like that. And then you can go play in all four days, you know. So this will be pretty cool. And we're going to be open normal hours Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. So people, if they want to watch, you can watch along with everyone in the golf. Lovely. I know that Howard Levine is bringing pin snakes up there for a project pinball.
    39:45
    Yes, but there's going to be a bounty game where you guys have to play for them. Yeah, we still have to choose that.
    39:51
    But we're up to 80 games fully out there. Minimal Madness went back on the floor. And Batman is fixed, finally. Which Batman? 66. The only Batman that matters. Oh, come on. That Data East one is not bad. Oh, it's terrible. Come on. Batman Forever? Batman Forever is a good shooter.
    40:13
    It's good if you have strong enough flippers. Yeah. The first five minutes, it'll be great. It'll be great. They go to turds. But, yeah, no, Batman 66, we put the new cable in. we did a couple other things, and it's been working now for a week straight, when usually it would error out after 15 minutes. That's good. That's across the fingers. Thank you very much. I hope it works. So we barely have anything in the back area right now. Mandalorian's almost fixed. We fixed Metallica. We fixed Metallica with the old one. It was getting bound up on the, when you hit it into the coffin, it wouldn't fall into the coffin completely. It would actually get hung up on one of the side arches of the trough underneath. We replaced the trough, and that is now working 100%. Blackjack is fixed now. Zach got all the monster bugs out of it.
    41:10
    We rebuilt every flipper, all new stern flippers, this past week at the RPC. Oh, every stern? Every new stern. Wow. We ate up all of the links, coil stops, everything. We ate them all up in our inventory. So everything's going to be fresh and tasty and new. And get pounded. Yeah, get pounded. Yeah. In the Nationals. We have, so literally, I am going to bring out a project again. I'm going to bring out Trident and try to get that up and running. Okay. Since we have room in the back now. Well, I might or might not. There's other things going on in the back room, boys and girls. Oh, my.
    41:54
    So the important question is, what color is the pin snake going to be that Project Pinball is giving out? What's the color scheme? I have six colors available now, so I gave him one of each. Nice. You have choices. People can play. Rainbow. You can pick your own color. I call it Rain-boa.
    42:12
    You see what I did there? It's like the Skittles of Snakes. Yeah. So there's the green-orange, which is the original color. There's a red-yellow, a blue-turquoise, a rain-boa, an orange-blue, and a purple-green. So Howard Levine has all six of them, and he's going to bounty them off, depending on... I don't know how you guys are going to work it out. That's all Howard. Luckily, I would be running around doing all the repairs and everything like that, so... Repairs? Everything is just going to work. Except Batman 66, hopefully. Well, that's not in the tournament, so it's just another game for the board. Oh, thank God that's not in the tournament. Oh, God. The tournament games are released, so if we want to go over those, we can.
    42:55
    Okay. Then that's what he really, really wants to. Go over those for the 70 people playing in Fan Masters? Yes, and also for the Nationals. Yeah, but the Nationals have already been, those people are, it's not like new people are going to be coming in. No, no, no, but I mean, well, you don't know about that. Say if somebody gets pulled out. Sure, Bruce, if it makes you happy, what are the games? What wonderful games does Stu get to suck at? Okay, so the old, what do you want to go? Old, mid, or new? Old. Old first? I say old first. Okay.
    43:25
    Abracadabra. Good game, right? Mm-hmm. Countdown? Oh, yeah. Great game. Okay. Dragon Fist. They'll get fisted, yeah. Yes, they will. Hot Tip EM. Oh, okay. I like that one. Hot Doggin'. Yeah, okay. Little Chief.
    43:46
    All right. Old Chicago. That's a good one Sky Jump Stargazer And the official pinball of the Slam Tilt Podcast Stars What do you want next? Let's go mid Which will be all the RPC WPC games I'm going to get real snobbish now Alien Star Oh That's mid Okay.
    44:19
    Arena. Oh, God. You shoot the skill shot endlessly. Okay. Bad girls. Okay. Cheetah. Multi-ball. Cheetah. Okay, good. Diner. Yes, always diner. Hoops. I like hoops. Yes, hoops. Surf and safari. Oh, yeah. Okay.
    44:43
    Taxi. Good. Tommy. It's Tales from the Cryptiverse. World Cup Soccer. Okay. Yes. Now we're going to the new machines. Oh, no. These are the worst ones.
    44:58
    Demoman. Oh. Okay. Oh. Good first choice right there. All little giddy in his pants. Foo Fighters. Boo.
    45:09
    Game of Thrones. Iron Maiden. Okay. Pro or LE? LE. It's that premium, actually. It's the best artwork. Yeah. Don't worry. I'm sure they'll shut all those features off anyway. We will. Right.
    45:26
    Iron Man. Okay. Jackbot. Okay. That's a modern? Jackbot is newer than Demoman. So, Jurassic Park, new. Yep. Monopoly. Oh, God. It's been forever.
    45:43
    Rush. Okay. And what do you think the last new game is? X-Men. Yeah, I'll say X-Men. Star Wars. Oh, yeah.
    45:54
    Star Wars, I'm talking Star Wars. So there's 30 games there, but only 18 of these games will be used. Which 18? We will not know until day of. But that is the Pin Master's game list. The moderns are... Stu is going to have issues with the moderns, I have a feeling. Well, Monopoly is just Adam's family, really, so you look at it that way. Jurassic Park, you know, Stu's played at your house a couple times, I think. Iron Man, he's played a couple times, you know, so. Game of Thrones will be a long player, I hate to say. Yeah. Tommy, that's a weird choice. I haven't heard Tommy really mentioned for anything in a long time. I know, exactly. He's going to be cool about it. That's going to throw a lot of people off. No, Arena will really screw up some people. What version does Tommy run? Is it running the new code? The new version, yes. Yes. And the good thing about us at the RPC, we have all the rule changes listed on the actual aprons.
    46:53
    So that's the good thing about it. You mean the rule cards, Bruce. The rule cards are modified. Nobody reads, but yes. But guess what? They are listed. They better be reading them now. Yes, exactly. I'm excited. Are you, brother?
    47:05
    I'm excited, Bruce. And Ron, you need to get up here earlier, too. You know why? Why? Hulk Hogan is going to be at Rochester selling his beer.
    47:16
    Well, you know, brother, when I'm not busy getting booed in front of crowds, I like to sell my beer.
    47:25
    In Henrietta, he is selling beer. And he's going to be in Middletown also on Wednesday. I'll even sign your beer for you, brother. But if you want a picture signed, that's at least $100, dude. Yes. I'll bring my pinball machine. Here we go. Can you sign this, brother?
    47:40
    I wonder how much you would charge to sign the translight of a WWF Royal Rumble. I don't know. That would be kind of cool, though. That would be a good one to have. Or the better one, which is WWFLE. No, WWE WrestleMania LE. I don't believe in the WWE thing. You don't believe in E? No, it's always WWF. It's always WWF. Well, you know, brother, that's why the World Wrestling Federation did.
    48:07
    Fuck those pandas. Fuck the World Wildlife Federation. Fuck them. They're pretty shitty way. Screw them.
    48:19
    For those who don't know, that's why they had to change the name. Yes, they had to change the name. They violated their own thing they agreed to and advertised this WWF in, like, UK, which they couldn't do. So they got bit slapped. And they lost it all. Well, honestly, they only lost the part where they couldn't be WWF in UK. I mean, they could have just said F-U. Yeah, that's right. But they just changed the name. Completely unrelated to pinball. Yes. So what else do we have, Ron, in the news? We have a lot more. Okay, we'll do news. Let's see. What do I got? RPC, we did that one. Yes, sir. Taking that off the list. These are all from NAP Arcade. Hi, NAP. A winner, too. Oh, yes. Ametron. You know Ametron, the parent company of American Pinball? Yeah, the one that's still hiring? They've created a new arcade contract manufacturing brand.
    49:15
    You know what it's called? I know what it's called. You can tell everyone else what it's called. Funds Up.
    49:21
    Funds Up. F-U-N-S-U-P. Funds Up. That sounds... Wow. Yeah. There you go. I had to cut myself there for a second. Yeah, you don't have to. We have no filter here. Well, let's see what their mission is. You should do it as Dave Fix. No, no, no. I'm saving him for later.
    49:41
    I'll say their mission here. Stewie will say their mission. Thank you. At Funds Up Manufacturing, our mission is to provide top-notch contract manufacturing services tailored to the amusement industry.
    49:53
    We are dedicated to quality, innovation, and customer satisfaction, ensuring that every product reflects our commitment to excellence.
    50:02
    Isn't that great? You can go to their website, fundsupmanufacturing.com. You said funs F-U-N-S-U-P Funs up But doesn't that mean like time out game over Funs up like we're finished Well no they have fun in one Color and then sup In the other color Oh like what's up So sup Sup bro That's not yeah That doesn't work I don't think of them as an urban company No no Funs up Yeah. Maybe in India it means something different.
    50:39
    It sounds like to me like, hey, fun's up, guys. We're out of here. You know, we're done. No, bro, fun's up. We're on the way out. Woo!
    50:48
    Plane is falling. Oh. And other news, Sir Pinball reveals official accessories for John Wick Pinball.
    50:58
    Did you see the topper? Isn't that the spinning hourglass thing? Yeah, it violates the thing where it has the game name on it again.
    51:06
    But it has an actual moving part. So it has a John Wick logo on the topper? Yeah, it says John Wick. Well, that's just in case you forgot which machine you were playing. Yes, but it has, at least it moves. It's got an hourglass that moves. And it ties into a mode in the game. The exclusive TikTok Mr. Wick game mode. This single-ball hurry-up mode starts with a 60-second unlimited ball saver, and players have three minutes tracked by the physical hourglass timer. That's pretty cool. For this high-octane gaming experience. It's available as a challenge mode feature for games installed with the topper.
    51:44
    You know, I really want to like that game, too, and I love the movies, but I feel like, maybe it's me, but I feel like that game is just such a clunk fest. It's like I brick on it all the time. I think I'm back. Whoa. Side armor. It's got side armor. Protect yourself with the foil-backed blood oath marker side armor. And the shooter knob, which I hate shooter knobs, but yes. Oh, and finally, the cabinet expression lighting. I keep forgetting this is like the one non-music pin that has it.
    52:17
    I think it's the only non-music pin that Stern has done that has the expression lights. The shooter knob actually looks pretty cool. Although, it's just too big. They're all too big. I don't like shooter dogs either. It just screws up the skill shot when you've got to deal with that thing. Oh, and speaker lights. It's got speaker lights.
    52:37
    But, yeah. It seems that Stern, though, always has issues keeping the expression lighting in stock. Yeah. I don't know why because, you know. Because it's popular. So, you think they'd order more or something. Yeah. There was new code for X-Men. And from what I heard, most of it sounded like it was bug fixes. They did all bug fixes, yes. Yeah. Yay.
    52:58
    I really want it to be good. I do, too. I like that play field, but I have a feeling, I almost want a game just so I can tweak the play field so at least all the shots will work for a brief period before they start not working. Before somebody moves it and leans and changes the hold. Yeah, or it just wears a little bit and now the stuff doesn't feed right and all that. I think their biggest misstep with X-Men was that they didn't use any of the 90s cartoon. Yeah, totally. The nostalgia factor would have went through the roof. It's just so odd that they put in this, what I like to call the stern animations now, where it's just like, oh, let's just move a flash animation over. It's weird. And it doesn't really work. Don't forget the killer call-outs. Oh, those are terrible. But Dungeons & Dragons, Dungeons & Dragons I think actually has worse call-outs. Yeah, Dungeons & Dragons. Even though they got celebrity voices. Here's the funny thing. Do you either watch Lost Machia or seen Lost Machia? No, I have not. I wonder if you're saying that right. Am I? I don't know. Let me see. Whenever you say something, I'm not sure if it's right.
    54:09
    Hold on. Let me look up. It's a cartoon that's on Netflix. Okay. And it sounds like they took some of the people who spoke on that into this. Yes. And I was like, oh, wow, that's kind of cool. I like it because the show is based off of Dungeons & Dragons, but with sarcasm, sex, and everything else. Oh, yeah. I've got to have that.
    54:33
    So it's kind of funny, you know, and I like it. And they swear a lot in the cartoon. Oh, definitely you're going to like it. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Fuck yeah.
    54:44
    I'm trying to find the show name of it, though, so I can make sure. It's fine, Bruce. We're good. Either way, we've never seen it. Yeah. I played Dungeons & Dragons for the first time. So have I. It's pretty okay. At the Rock Fantasy Winter Open, the world-famous Rock Fantasy, won by Adam Kane. Congratulations, Adam. Congratulations. I played, like, absolute shit most of the tournament and did not make the finals.
    55:13
    You and me both, man. That was fine because then I could go have some pizza and leave early. And I was home by 8.30. It was great. I made it home in time for the Twippies, so I was happy to get out of there. Ah, yes. We'll be getting into the Twippies. But, yes. But I played Dungeons & Dragons, so I played a couple games on it.
    55:31
    Are you going to ask me, Bruce? Like, what did you say? I don't know what you're talking about. Go ahead.
    55:38
    It doesn't play like anything else. I'll say that. Especially his other games, Brian Eddy's other games. I definitely didn't feel like I was playing another Attack from Mars again, like I did with Stranger Things or that kind of thing. I mean, this is, that upper right, the side flipper is at a weird angle. It juts out. It's weird. Yeah, very weird. Vox Machia. V-O-X-M-A-C-A-I. I told you I was going to fucking find it. Remember that thing I was talking about 10 minutes ago? That's what I'm talking about.
    56:09
    Yeah, the flipper I don't like on the upper side. Actually, I do like the flipper, though. But there's too many shots in the game. Another problem where they put too many tight shots. and when you're trying for the one shot, it doesn't, you're just. Let's see, what did I like? One thing I thought was weird. I don't know if anyone else will notice this or agree with me on this. So they have Worf as the dragon. Yes. Michael Dorn. Yes. Worf. Every time I, if I tilt, I'm expecting to hear you are without honor. You are without honor. But the effect they used on his voice is like the exact same effect they used on Steve Ritchie's voice on Black Knight Sword of Rage. So when I hear it from afar, it sounds like someone's playing Black Knight Sword of Rage to me whenever the dragon... It literally sounds like the exact same effect. It kept confusing me. I'm like, what? At Rock Fantasy, they have a Black Knight Sword of Rage. It's like, wait a minute, no one's playing it. Which is only... Remember, it's only two tables down. So Black Knight is right there. He's a table person. We'll be getting into that. Oh, I'm sorry. I said table. You said table. Sorry. I promised myself not to say that. And, you know, it's on a Netflix. I'm sorry. I had to change everything because, you know, I get people going, no, not for us.
    57:26
    So I'll retract. Two pins down is Black Knight Sword of Rage next to Dightly Easy. I didn't have any issues with the call outs. I thought they were fine. I liked the, I popped for the, what is it, bear owl, owl bear? Owl bear. Yeah, owl bear. I see this owl at first and I'm like, wow, that owl is like a massive steroid. That thing is huge. And then I see it's this owl bear. Like, oh, okay. All right, that's kind of cute. I like the owl bear. Yeah, the roving shot is the thing that really pisses me off. What pisses me off is the six-ball multi-ball. At least they try to do it differently where you lose stuff as you lose balls or whatever. Yes, and you have to hit the dragon. But I still don't like that many balls on the play field. I'm a three-ball guy with an animal. Maybe it's fourth ball. That's it. I don't like to get six balls. Practically every modern Stern does six balls. Every modern Stern has the six balls. That's the Gary Stern treatment right there. I understand what you're saying about the six balls, but I don't – if it was a more open play field, then you're okay. Yeah, like on Star Wars when it does, it doesn't seem like such a big deal. Or Zeppelin or something like really open. But D&D, I feel like – first off, my first impression was the dragon was way bigger than I thought it was going to be. Oh, yes, he's big. It takes up most of the field. I feel that if you don't hit that six-ball thing, like the wall underneath the dragon, it's a brick shot. So it's just too right in your face. It's too close. Sort of like how Black Knight is, you know, where everything's on the lower play field. I do love the spinner in the back. That thing rips every time. So you hit that spinner straight up, and that's the easiest shot in the game. The right flipper that shoots up into the left orbit ramps are really good shots, too. But what I don't like about the game is that it's Dungeons & Dragons. I needed more of a harder metal rock soundtrack as opposed to, you know, like I'm at Ren Faire, you know. Yeah, exactly. It's all liars and lutes and, you know, mandolins. And I'm like, no, no, no. Well, that's what it's all about. No, but if you guys have played the D&D from 1987, the older, that music is way better. The funk D&D. The funk.
    59:38
    I mean, that shit is rocking. So I feel that that D&D, if I had just had characters and themes and even the cartoon from the 80s or something like that, that would have been fine. I didn't need to play D&D on my pinball because I played D&D when I was a kid in school. And, you know, it's talk. It's all talk. It's a fun game. It's imaginary. But it's boring in a pinball setting, you know? I'm not going to sit here and roll dice and go for my HP and my MPs and all that stuff like that. It just should have been a thematic Dungeons & Dragons, like the one from, was it Bally Williams? Yes, Bally. So, like, that one, honestly, I feel is slightly better because it's just a Dungeons & Dragons-style game. That's all I need. I needed a medieval game. I didn't need to play D&D. Yeah, but they were definitely going for play D&D. Yeah, they're going for the play D&D. And the thing is, almost every shot on that game can be stopped. Yeah. That's the other thing I noticed. You hit an orbit, it can stop it under the gelatinous cube. Every ramp shot, it can stop it. It can stop, like, everything. But the weird thing is, as I said, the roaming shot does not work. You guys know how to use the roaming shot? No. When you hold the middle button, say you've got one shot left. You hold the middle button down, and you hold it down, and it starts moving flashing lights across the play field. And when you release the button, if you're on the shot you're supposed to be hitting, and you hit it, it's supposed to take it away. But, of course, in typical Stern code, it doesn't. But X-Men has the same thing, right? Isn't that Bishop where you choose a shot? Yes. But this is different because it actually is moving completely. You have to stop the play. Instead of moving partially, it's moving completely. Okay. Yeah. And you have to actually hold the ball to do this, you know, because you're not doing this live because once you let up the button, you're releasing. Yeah, it fires.
    61:36
    I didn't dislike it as much as I would but I did dislike the things I figured I would dislike. Like the stopping of the ball, asking me decisions, all the decisions I have to make. I don't want to make decisions. I don't want to think. I want to turn my mind off when I play pinball. But that's not... No, not this one. This one is not... I do feel there's one too many shots in the game also. I think if they took away one of the shots and made them a little more open, it would have been a more fun game, flowing-wise. Right. And that's the problem lately. It's like, let's package 27 shots so nobody gets bored of it. Guess what? I want the game to be fun and shoot well.
    62:12
    But other than that, it's not bad. I'm waiting to see what the code is. But we know you love yourself some joy. Yeah, and the code is broken. I actually, I'm at this one scene, I'm playing Zack's machine at his house, and I'm playing it and I'm like, Zach, I'm not moving anymore. He looks over and goes, oh, you're in that mode. That's a broken mode.
    62:35
    What do I do? Drain it. It's all you're done. Are you fucking kidding me? Yep. Okay. Oh, fuck. So, typical Dwight. Go, Dwight. All right.
    62:47
    It's the truth, though. He breaks code. Okay, okay. So, let's see. What other tournaments? There were some other tournaments. We'll just do this quickly. There was Starfighters Tournament. Yes. In Arizona. A tournament at Starfighters in Arizona, which Zach went to. And I'm like, Zach went to this? Yeah. And I'm thinking, like, it's got to be a – he would only do that for certain types of formats. One of them is like Pinberg-style format, which is what it was. So, like, okay, I could see that. So that was won by Raymond Davidson. Yes, it was. Who also won the Classics also. Yes, he did. So congratulations. Then they had the – Zach came in ninth. Yeah. Good for you, Zach. Oh!
    63:32
    The whole time he was there qualifying, I figured he was in last place because he just bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch. I've come up with a new expression. It's called bitch and win. Bitch and win. I don't think I know what I'm talking about here. Frank, Frank Romero, the towel. All he does is bitch about every new stern and how they suck. And he wins almost every time. I know. Frank pretty much wins. We play at Rock Fantasy two Thursdays a month. and he pretty much takes it every time. But he'll do it without, you know, complaining every single one. Like, oh, I got Rush. Oh, I got X-Men. Oh, I got this. I got that. This sucks. Can we get some older games in here? He hates the stars. God, he hates them. But see, the older games at Rock Fantasy are like Genie and Catacomb and Nugent, so they're not exactly... I mean, he does have like Six Million Dollar Man and Evil Knievel.
    64:24
    Yeah, but his Sea Witch is pretty jacked, you know? Oh, yeah. Yes, the left drop targets don't – it doesn't register when they're all down, so you couldn't advance X when we were playing. Oh, cute. So basically I played the center bank and just get them all down and wait and then get the fourth one to get the – and just do that over and over and over. But it's a handicap that everybody has to deal with, so it actually makes it fair. It's the challenge of my games, yeah. Yeah.
    64:56
    Yeah, I make it so you got to hook. More money and yeah. But Towelie, Frank, Frank comes from a good place. Frank is awesome. He's awesome like that. He is a stomp winner. Yeah, he's quite the entertainment. Yes, he is quite the entertainment. I'm going to bitch about every game as I beat you on them. Oh, it's a fact. It's a fact. There was also the Australian Championship Series. Yes. Guess who won that? Gee, is he a new Australian? Yeah, he's a new Australian now. It's Escher. Escher won. Congrats to Escher.
    65:32
    It didn't look like it was overly close either. No, it was not. It was not at all. No. I watched some of it. He was playing the aforementioned Doctor Who. After about 150 loops, I kind of, I'm zoning out at this point. Somebody has to make new code for that where it actually diverts, you know, if it doesn't happen within a minute. Well, they played that, and then the next game I saw them play was No Fear. It's like, oh, my gosh. Oh, no. What are you doing? No!
    66:03
    See, the thing about No Fear, it has the magnets that you can divert it. You could change the code so you can't just loop forever. Yeah, exactly. What else do I have here? Elton John. Oh, Nicholas. Jersey Jack came out with one of those cool little graphical flow chart things for the rules. so now I actually know how to play the game that I own. Hey. It's cool. It looks pretty cool, and it's way less complicated than the Avatar one they gave us when we were there, where I was confused instantly. You needed a map and everything for that one. This one I was actually like, I was still confused at first because that's just the way I am, but after looking at it closer, it's like, oh, okay, all right, yeah, I think I can get this. Oh, big boss. But check it out. It's cool. They offer them in two different sizes, and you can print them out like on a big page. Also, I made a little note here. Twitch made some changes, which I'm surprised it took them this long to make. On Twitch, after a stream, you can highlight certain things.
    67:05
    On a typical Twitch streamer, who's not a partner, like, say, me, when you're finished streaming, if you set it up this way, it will keep all your stuff out there for, I think, two weeks, and then it's gone. But if you highlight it, it will stay out there forever. So what most of us would do is just highlight the entire stream. Yeah. They changed it so now you can only have 100 hours.
    67:29
    Oh, darn. Well, we were at like 230 on our Twitch channel. The nerve of that. That's it. It's fucking done. So I had to clean all that out. But never fear. All the stuff I cleared out is already on our YouTube channel. So you can just go there. So the only thing you're really going to miss is the chat.
    67:49
    Oh. So I just felt like throwing that out there because I know that's affected a bunch of Twitch streamers because they've had to all of a sudden, like, oh, shit, we've got to clean that up.
    68:00
    So I got my final item on here, just the regular stuff, is something that Anthony has won that we will probably never win.
    68:09
    I voted for you guys. Thank you. I'm glad most of our other listeners did not because that's great. We like that. And that's the Twippies. Now the Twippies, they had some issues with the stream Yes they did in the beginning Did you hear about that? The whole town went out So the original idea was they were streaming on Facebook Twitch and YouTube simultaneously When right when they started They had a fucking outage in the entire geographical area It just died for everyone Nice. Kind of like their power grids in Texas. Yeah. Luckily, we're all going electric here. Yeah. So what they had to do is they used the hotspot and did YouTube only. Yeah. And I watched it from that point on. That's when I started watching it. So to me, I didn't actually see any outage. It was up for me. But let's go over some of these. We'll save the best for last. Oh, yeah. Well, we have the breakout creator of the year was won by the Flipside Podcast with Retro Ralph. He was also the host of. Yeah, gee. Oh, he was the host. Cool. Good for him. Wait, so he's in Texas? No, he went down there. He did a little pseudo documentary about him going down there. All right. Great.
    69:24
    He was on Triple J, and he seemed fine. Retro Ralph is a cool name. It's better than Fun Zup. Yeah, Zup. Fun Zup. Well, I'd rather have a pinball company named Retro Ralph. That would sound much better. I imagine a bunch of boardroom guys saying, like, you know what the kids really like? They still say Zup, right? Zup, man. Fun Zup. Yeah.
    69:46
    Best publication, Nap Arcade. Yay. They got two right. Congrats to Nap. Wasn't even close. Let's see. Okay, this one. Innovation of the year.
    70:00
    The Uncanny X-Men Danger Room. What? It was already done. It was done in Gold Wings. It's literally the same thing. How is it an innovation? You know what the problem with this whole trippy thing is? Oh, God. It's a vote of popularity. Oh, yeah, it's a popularity contest. And the problem is most of these people who are voting for the top 100, 200, and 300 in Pinside, which we all know sucks, are the same people voting for fucking Twippies.
    70:30
    So what should happen is they should have a 50-50 award. 50% done by people who are in the hobby who actually, like what the pin awards thing that. The pinball awards that are not around anymore. Yes. Exactly. They should do 50% of that and 50% of vote. It should be industry people. Industry people versus public. Exactly. But no, we got fucking morons who don't know what a game is after 2013.
    70:58
    They really don't. And they're going, that's a great idea. Look at that thing. That thing's cool. So in second place was the Jaws flip-flop. Which I thought was better, actually, because it was a better use of a thing. I thought that the Prince's Bride Cliffs of Insanity thing was awesome. Yeah, it's on there. It's on there, but it wasn't a winner. Because you know what? People are... Put an echo on this one, Ron. Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid. I mean, we had Berrios, Barbecue, Bashlocks were on there, the Ninja Eclipse grappling hook kickback sequence, the John Wick Dynamic AI game mode system, the Battle for Pandora Scramp. Oh, the Scramp Ramp. Yeah, Scramp Ramp. Labyrinth of the Barrel Ball Mode.
    71:44
    Let's see. Best theme integration, we got Jaws. I agree. I want a Jaws. Second is Pulp Fiction, so Josh Sharpe in second. Congrats.
    71:55
    I'm just saying. Best game launch and reveal, Jaws. I thought Metallica was a pretty good reveal. I thought that was actually a little... Stand in a line for two hours just to play the game, but you sell out instantly. That's pretty good.
    72:11
    Yeah, Avatar was second. Metallica was third. Let's see. Most... Oh, this was a weird one. Most improved game. So they have Elton John. Did it really improve or did people just catch on? I mean, the rules haven't changed that much from when it came out. It was pretty complete when it was released. If anything that changed maybe more would be like James Bond. The code got better. Yeah. Yeah, that was the previous year. So that wasn't even included. I know. It makes no sense. That's why that's weird. It is a weird category because not every game gets improved that much. We should have Comeback Designer of the Year. If they had a shitty game and then it would come out with a good one. Oh, let's see. We have the Lime and Sheets Award for Best Rules. The winner is Jaws. The fucking worst fucking thing they ever did. Holy fucking people are stupid. What are you talking about? People are stupid. I would totally agree with Jaws. No, because guess what? Guess who made the rules for Metallica, mostly? We're not talking about Metallica. Jaws. Jaws won. No, I'm talking. How is that? Okay, Bruce, are you saying Jaws was not the best rules? No, I don't think so. I still think Metallica rules are really good, and with the new updates for Metallica Remastered, it's even better. Okay, 80% of the rules were already there. Exactly. And they were by linemen, so was he winning his own award? That'd be fucking smart, because he was made a masterpiece in 2013, and then people improved on it. I have no issues with Jaws. Anthony's the decider. What do you think? Jaws. Metallica, the new one, is a 2.0. It's the same old game. Jaws was the winner, 100%. It had better rules. The Metallica rules were great back in, what, 2013 when it came out? Yes. So, yeah, there's no changing it. They added a couple things. No, it's better. Way better. I disagree. I like the original Metallica more. But that's just, you know, I do. The premium, I didn't need it. Okay, we got best art package, Avatar. Yeah, I can agree with that one. Okay. I mean, especially since you had the next two after that were both Sabietti again. Yeah. and we need someone other than Zombie. We need someone once in a while. Something that's a different type of art. Yes. Although Godzilla was the black and white, but with red. Yeah. The centaur job, as I call it. But Avatar, I mean, I got the banner downstairs. It does look really good. I really do. Really good. Best play field layout. Jaws.
    74:39
    No. What's better? Metallica Premium. No, no, no. I'm not going to say that. They got on Candy X-Men a second. I actually like the play field for X-Men. I really do. I think it's better than Jaws because the whole left-hand side is kind of. I got to get the merits of the fact it doesn't work right a good portion of the time. Yeah, I agree. You got to demerit some on that. Yeah, but I think if you looked at overview, you'd be like, wow, this has got a lot.
    75:05
    I'm good with that. Oh, this one, people were pissed at this one. Best sound, Metallica Remastered. Because they're like, it can't be a band pin. That's not fair. He's not wrong. Not wrong, but it is the best sounding one. And they had Jaws second, Pulp Fiction third. See, Pulp Fiction has a great sound. Yeah, I think Pulp Fiction actually should have been the winner. Yeah. I really do. It's just got the, I think it's just got the mono speaker. I mean, it sounds terrible, but at least it quotes the movie. The quotes are good. Yeah, the quotes are really good. I agree. That's what I say. All that's good. Yeah. Let's see. Best Animations, this one okay, the winner Jaws, see I don't agree with that because it's just movie clips really, this award since it's inception, this Twippy award for Best Animations has only been won by JJP and I think Avatar probably should have won it, it's second but I was there in the factory looking at that stuff and it still blows away anything that anyone else does, they're still trying to catch up with what JJP does when it comes to animation. So I can't. I cannot realistically say that it was Jaws. I don't think so. And it was close. It was very close voting on that one. This one, okay, I like they split this out. The homebrew and custom games. So now they have, so the homebrew is like you built the game yourself, brand new, and the custom game is like the re-theme. At least that's how I'm taking it here. So the homebrew game of the year was Tony Hawk's Pro Skater. Have you guys played that? No. Did you play that? He should have played it, but I don't think I did. Oh, you should have played it. I was a vendor at Expo this past year, and he was setting it up, and I was a huge Tony Hawk fan playing the video games on my Xbox or my GameCube and whatever. So I go over there, and I start playing it, and immediately it's the first time I ever played a pinball machine where I said, I need to have this one, like own it. It has seven different shots that I've never seen in pinball before. The spinner alone, where it's a skateboard that spins on a Y-axis, it's on a disc, so it spins 360 degrees as well. And the spinner is six different types of shots. Depending if you hit it from above or below, or if you spin it left or you spin it right, it's brilliant. There's a 360-degree loop, which I've never seen in pinball, like a vertical loop that shoots straight around. There's a vertical flipper on, I guess you'd call it the back wall. You know, like normally where your flasher lights are on your back wall. There's a flipper that's pointing down. And you can flip it left and right. That'll knock the ball on. It's basically you're controlling a diverter. It's probably the most amazing complete machine I've ever seen. I mean, it needs, obviously, it needs a lot more budget to it. You know, it looks handmade, but it's a brilliant setup. and the guy who invented it, Nick Neitzel, he's a really nice guy, and I told him a million times I will put a down payment on this as soon as it becomes available. Luckily, he can hire a fund payment. Yeah, funds up. Funds up. It's going to make your game for you, man. Funds up. Yeah. Funds up. Yeah, Tony Hawk, 100%, he owned that award. He totally deserved it. I will say, I have to bring this up. So Motorhead was fourth by Mr. Peck. Hello, Mr. Peck. That should have been higher. Beavis and Butthead, and this is, I'm Mr. Beavis and Butthead here. There is no way that homebrew is better than Motorhead. No. No way. Motorhead should have been at least second or third. I'm just saying.
    78:44
    Any game that has fisting in it like Motorhead, come on. It's a custom game of the year. Here's where we get to the popularity thing. And the fact that if you have a social media following, you can just, And that expands beyond pinball. You can guarantee yourself victory. Because this is like the second time Reby Hardy has won. She won. This is her custom game of the year. She won for Happy Gilmore, which is a rethemed Mustang. I think she previously won for, was it Ferris Bueller's Day Off, which was a rethemed Mustang. Yeah. A lot of Mustangs in that area. Yes. This was the, I think, least close. She won 63% of the vote. Yeah. Wow. I'm surprised Greatest Showman didn't take that one. Nope. It was, like, third. Saul was second. I mean, Greatest Showman was – Greatest Showman's – I mean, it's a whirlwind, but it's still – it's a good game. Like, it plays well. But that was – I mean – That's the popularity problem. Well, and the thing is, did you get a chance to play this? No. I mean, I remember when – I think it was Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Ferris Bueller's Day Off was at Pentastic. I think it was, like, in the private room. I didn't even get a chance to play the thing. I've seen all these other ones, like Saw, Greatest Showman, Hellraiser, Mass Effect. I've seen these games. I haven't seen Happy Gilmore in person. Of course not. Yeah, that's the problem. So she has her own followers. And, of course, Matt Hardy, professional wrestler, Hardy Boys, I'm sure. So it is the popularity contest. Oh, God, the locations. Here's where it gets fun. Okay. This is weird. I even thought this was weird. This is a little shit show. So the best location of the Northeast, despite different regions, so the best location in the United States Northeast is Jack Bar. Yeah, with 15 games.
    80:30
    186 first place posts. Yeah. I've been to Jack Bar. I've been to a lot of these places. If you're just talking about pure pinball location, there is no way Jack Bar is number one. But remember, it's about quality, not quantity. It still doesn't matter. It's not, no. No, it's not. Exactly. There's a lot better places than mine. I would even put that, you know, I would even put a lot of other places. The crazy thing is, and you have, because New York City, they basically have Jack Bar and they have Sunshine Laundry. Embarcade. I had to scroll way down to get to any of those.
    81:06
    And then there's that place on Long Island. Holy shit. Yeah, that's the shit. Go to Pinstine and read some threads on that. Holy shit. I don't want to get into that there. Ooh, yeah. But there's a lot of better places than a place that has 15 pinball machines. And if you say quality over quantity, I'm not saying anything bad about it. I'm just saying. It's like, did all 15 of Jack Barr's games work perfectly? Are they all? Well, I'm just going by that he had 100 more first place votes than anybody else. Than anybody else. That just seems like it should have been closer at least. Yeah. You got one spot. Yeah. The second, which it's like. That's in New Hampshire, right? Yeah. New Hampshire. And it's okay. Well, they greatly improved. They put money into the place. Yeah, well, the original owner, Bob Lawton, he died, and the kids took over. And one of the kids is a pinhead. So they kind of upped their pinball game and actually fixed a bunch of them, moved a bunch of them down to the second level by the bowling alley, and that's like where all the good ones are right now. And it was greatly improved. For someone who's been going there for 20 years, I can tell you it was greatly improved. Appreciate it. You have Arcadia in Maine, Delaware Pinball Collective. Yep, very good place. Did the Silver Ball Museum change their name? It's got the Silver Ball Retro Arcade in Asbury Park. They did. It's a different name now, yes. But that is the same place, right? Yes, it is. Silver Ball Museum. Okay. The Sanctum. The Sanctum is amazing, but the Sanctum's not public, but it's not a public place. It is a public place. It's a public, but it's only open certain. One night. Yeah. Monday night. And Monday, who's going to play pinball Monday night? Oh, I totally agree with that. I'm not. But wait a sec. they have at least tournaments of 60 to 50 people on Monday nights. How many tournaments are they having at Jack Bar?
    82:48
    Double Bowl, Tap House, the Helicon Brewing. But Jack Bar is more, I mean, not that I'm advocating for either one, because I've never personally even been to Jack Bar. Like, I've been to Sunshine. But Jack Bar is like, you know, it's a bar. It's open to the public seven days a week. So it's more accessible. So half these other places are too. Arcadia is a bar. And they got half the votes. Now, tied, both tied with 52 first place votes, we have Rock Fantasy and Rochester Pinball Collective.
    83:20
    Actually, he beat us out. He beat you guys. He's got higher perspective. Wait a second. Hold on. We've been here for three years. He's been here for 30. That's pretty good. He's also open way more than you guys. Exactly.
    83:31
    Guess what? I would never expect to even be close to winning on it, but I think there's a lot better places than that. But you've got to scroll down. Like, Pocketeer is way down. I know. It's kind of a loaded question, this kind of best location situation. That's the problem. Yeah, do they mean best games, best overall? Best arcade, yes. That's the problem with the Twippies. They go into sections now, like, ooh, best re-theme and best new game because there's too many conflicts with that. Now you should have maybe best arcade and best bar arcade. Oh, yeah, you're right. Or maybe best place with 50-plus pins, you know, something like that. Go for the bigger scale. Yeah. Okay. Best location in the U.S. Midwest, we got. Which was wrong, totally. Really? I've never been to Logan Arcade. Logan Arcade was the winner, and second was Past Times with their 400 games. Yeah. Not enough. No, not enough. And wait a second. And third, which is the Galloping Ghost place. No, third was District 82. Exactly. But I'm saying there's a lot better places than Logan. I've never been to Logan. Another popularity contest. Well, yeah, that's the interior was fourth. That I have been to. Atomic Pinball, Bad Penny. I'm sorry, Bruce, are you judging this based on quantity of games? No, I'm going with quality. So everything works? Everything works? Logan's okay, but it's mostly new stuff. I want to go to a pinball place. I want to see everything. Everything, I agree. And I'm not seeing everything. Guess what? If you want to go for a full experience of pinball from the 40s all the way to current, you go to past times. They have everything. They have stuff you're never going to see. And that doesn't be the location that has mostly stern and stern locations. You're right. I'm sorry. That's a problem with this thing. Okay. The best location in the U.S. southeast was the Asheville Pinball Museum in Asheville, North Carolina. That's one they got right, I feel. Okay. Best location, and this will tie into another category. But best location in the U.S. Southwest, Electric Bat Arcade. Yeah. In Tempe, Arizona. You thought it was in Texas for some reason. I did. For some reason, I know. They had 260 more votes, first place votes, than anyone else. Yeah. I mean, I would think they must have advertised heavily when you walked in the door, I'm thinking.
    85:52
    Then Wormhole was second, Texas Jacks, Starfighters Arcade, pinballs. U.S. West, I kind of figured these guys had to win. If they didn't, it would have been crazy. Next level in Oregon. Yeah.
    86:07
    522 first place. One of the biggest landslides. Yeah. What's second and third there? Ground control. Oh, I've been there. Honestly, ground control. They got like 20 games there, and they're not all good. Okay. Free gold watch. That's a great place. That, I would definitely have lots of games from lots of different eras. In Europe, it came down to a two-horse race between the Dutch Pinball Museum and the Budapest Pinball Museum. I will admit the Dutch, and it's a good place. Dutch just, one of the closest ones. Yeah, Dutch is like RPC, and they have a lot of good eras, a lot of good games, and a big, plenty of, not parking. Parking generally isn't bad about that place, but other than that, it's a great location. Okay, next we have Australia, Asia. Whatever. In other words, Australia, New Zealand. Yeah. Netherworld Arcade was number one. Yeah, I've never been there. Followed by the Australian Pinball Museum, the old pinball shop. Now, I'm going to say something. If you want to put your opinion on anything we're talking about, please talk to us. Yeah, talk to us. You can put it on the website. You can email us at swanshillpodcast at gmail.com. I'm not even saying my place should be a top five or top ten. You know, there's other places that are way better, like Pastime Arcade. I think just smokes literally a lot of places around here. Okay, best location in Canada. Wow, actually even closer race here. Mere percentage points, not even four percentage points between the Neon Ranch and Cabin Fever. Oh, wait a second, hold on. There's another category for newest arcade in Canada. What's that one? No, it was best new location. Yeah, new location, okay. Neon Ranch was third. I thought they won both. No, they didn't win both. No, they didn't. I'm looking right at it. Neon Ranch was first. Scabby Fever second. Best new location was won by Pinball Planet in Ohio. I thought, but it was the best one in Canada. Kickback followed by Neon Ranch. Yeah, it was the best one in Canada. Okay, we got best interactive mods. Godzilla Atomic, King of Topper. Yeah, Godzilla 2, King of Topper won. Best non-interactive mod was the Pinstake. Yes! So you want to hear something funny about this? Because thank you. First off, thank you. You went by 90 votes. Yeah, you crushed it. I did. I voted for you. Thank you. Your snake kicked Chumline's ass. So I'm good friends with Andy Sokol, who runs Rocket City Pinball. He's a nice guy. And he was funny because when the nominations came out, he hit me up. And he's like, it's my first time getting a Twippy, and I can't believe I'm going to lose to you. and I'm like I didn't even try to I was like I don't think I'm going to win we'll see I'm being very I guess humble would be the word but I'm also there's a word I learned called antisuppointment where you try not to like get yourself all worked up and then you're going to lose and you get all fucked up anyway what I'm trying to say is I got nominated for the award and people started coming at me saying like well this isn't a mod at all but the thing is the category is non-interactive mod or accessory right and now when they publish the the winnings they don't put or accessory anymore so now it's non-interactive mod but it's not really a mod it's really a tool and at the same time the other nominations in my category are not tools they're mods for specific machines so not that i'm saying i i'm happy i won the award But at the same time, was that fair to the other guys that it's like one tool versus three mods? Or am I just being, am I thinking too much? Oh, don't forget, those mods are only for certain games, as you just stated. So the popularity of them going against the thing that you use on every game works out in your favor. Hey, take the win. Take the win and run. I'm taking the win. I'm just trying to, I'm thankful to be nominated. I was happy to win. It was very cool that I remember like that. Guess what? I'm grateful that I was nominated for two things and Ron was nominated for two things. You were nominated for two things? Yes. We're nominated for RPC. Oh, RPC. Oh, yes. And also Slam Tilt. You're nominated for two things, which is Slam Tilt and... We won't go into that yet because you don't like what I mentioned. So... Oh, the other podcast? Yeah, that other podcast. Best OEM topper was Pulp Fiction. I'll go with that. And next year, it's going to be Evil Dead. Yeah, if I earned a Pulp Fiction, I would definitely have to get that topper. Yes. Yeah. Best aftermarket topper, the Electric Playground kind of took all three, Attack from Mars, Godzilla, and Big Lebowski toppers. One, two, three. Best pinball app or service was Third Insider Connected. Yeah. Which, eh. Yeah, I never use it. I only use it for just barcode. That's it. That's all I'm done. I use it, but it doesn't really bring any joy to my life. Best convention show. This used to be the TPS realm. Not anymore. Pinball Expo, number one. They might have won last year, too, I think. They did. They stepped up their game a lot. Yeah, they did. Texas Pinball Festival, second. Pintastic, third. Midwest Gaming Classic, Allentown.
    91:30
    Man, I've been to a lot of these shows. Yeah, Allentown, I thought, should have been the top three. It's the only one that has the uniqueness of, besides Pinnagogo, So, we're going to have a flea market. That's good. Right.
    91:41
    Midwest Gaming Classic had a flea market. Yeah, but it's all over the other side. Midwest Gaming Classic is more arcade. Yeah, I went out there, yeah. Let's see. Best tournament, InDisc. InDisc is totally. 24-hour battle second. Oh, man. And honestly, 24 hours, great too, you know. They both were a good one-two punch. Best online community group, Henskies. And there you go. That proves the voting's fucked. What were the other nominations for online community? Pinball Enthusiast on Facebook, which just had fun. No, fuck that. That's a shit show. Was that the one where the guy just banned someone and it was the wrong person? Yeah. Because he's a fucking moron. It was pretty funny. Yeah, he thought he was screwed over by this one guy, so he banned him, but it was another guy using the same name. Same name, yeah. And then he didn't even apologize when he unbanned him or whatever. And then anyone who got in his case, he just banned them. This is what happens when you put power in the wrong people's hands. Yeah, power in the wrong hands. With great power comes great responsibility. And he just went, oh. Till forums, Reddit.
    92:43
    Yeah. Pinball Degenerates. Yeah. There you go. And Pinball People on Discord. I don't know what that is. I don't know what that's like. Pinball Community Member of the Year, Rob Burke. Yes. Probably for his tireless work with the Expo. Oh, by the way, congratulations to Josh Sharp because he was second.
    93:03
    Love you, Josh. I have to say about Rob, Rob is such a nice guy. He's the reason I got Pinsnake out at Chicago Expo because I had no intentions of going. Oh, he probably got on you. You've got to bring it out. He called me up, and he was like, I want you to come out here to this. Yeah, that's what he'll do. And he's so genuine about it, and I really like him. He's a nice guy. Yeah, he tried. Our Zach, he really tried to get him to get the homebrew out there.
    93:31
    Oh, okay. The poker. Zach's like, nope. No, well, that's after he just had the freaking accident where the game barely survived. I know, yeah. It's like, no, I'm not bringing this anywhere else. Okay, content creator of the year was Cary Hardy.
    93:45
    I can see that. He's got a good following. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I know, they're popularity contests. Yeah, but that's exactly what that award is. That's what this is. I know, that's the one award I will agree with, you know, that it is a popularity contest. Yes, totally agree. Yeah, like, Carrie gave me my first review, and I didn't know who Carrie Hardy was until the review came out, and everybody's like, oh, I saw it on Carrie Hardy. So I realized that, you know, he's a big guy. It was like, I didn't know I needed this, but it actually works. Yeah, it actually works. I can't bash it. Best video, I guess best video content, I guess that means. Yeah, Carrie Hardy again.
    94:22
    Like, okay. But the one we, I saved the best for last, of course. Best Podcast. The winner was Electric Bat Podcast.
    94:34
    The fact that Chris didn't win. And he had like 80 votes extra than they did. No, more than 80 votes. He had 89 votes. He had 89 first place votes more. But the way they do the percentages and all that stuff, he just lost to Electric Bat, who I think they podcast like once a month. and they've been around for like a year and a half. And let's just say Chris did not take it well. No, God. At all. Oh, is that his name, Chris? Oh, that's what we call him, Chrissy. We call him Chrissy. I call him Chris for his call. I call him Chrissy. But, yes, so he was live streaming on Facebook and had a meltdown.
    95:18
    He was running with his poor wife. Now we see who is the... Yes, his poor wife and his kid screaming in the background. and he was, I mean, I'm just going by what people said. I haven't actually seen this. Oh, you watched it? Oh, you have to watch it, Ron. Because some people, okay, I heard he like, he made all the work he did. It escalates so well. And they only podcast once, and he podcasts all the time. You know what I do for this thing? I almost lost my job. I almost lost my marriage. He said Dave Fitz almost got him fired. Yeah. What was that? That was from two or three years ago, supposedly. That's right, baby. Day six, we are. He had the American dream. He was a dastardly, dastardly Chris the Podcaster, baby. He was going after American. He was going after American, so I had to take matters into my own hands with the baseball bat, baby. And I almost got his ass fired.
    96:08
    That's what he says. I don't know. Yeah, that's like, wow, I was not aware of this. Yeah, supposedly that was it. But the way I look at it is, congratulations to the winners. You know, guess what? Chris can say all he wants. It's podcasting, Chris. You had about as many podcasts as they did. Did he forget to pay for the voters? No, he paid. He thought 89 or 90 votes would be enough, and it wasn't. But the thing is this, Chris, even you do 12 to 14 podcasts. Your live shit on Facebook does not count towards the podcasting. All your private stuff behind the firewall does not count. The paywall. Your shit show behind the scenes does not count. It's what you release to the public. And your 12 to 14 equaled their 12. So guess what? Apples to apples, you didn't win. Nobody won against them. Guess what? We did 28 episodes last year. Our 28 didn't meet their goals. Wow, we did 28 episodes. You counted? Yes, I did. Wow, look at this research he's done. I actually came prepared for this one almost. It's more than two a month. That's a good rate. Exactly. And guess what? It happened. Guess what? I do this for fun. I really do. If Ron said to me tomorrow, do you want to do the podcast anymore? I'm really getting fucking sick of this. Or if I said the same thing, like, we've done it in the past where, hey, can you break? Ron's done it in the past, but yes. Yes. And you say timeouts. I do it because I'm with my best friend, really. My best friend I get to talk to every two weeks, and we hang out and talk about one of our favorite things in the world, which is pinball. And Star Wars. I'll talk about episode 4 through 6 any day well the thing is below those below Electric Bat and Chris we had Loser Kids and the Pinball Show which is where if it's the popularity contest I believe the Pinball Show has the most listeners and Loser Kids probably second or at least close and I think Loser Kids should have won because they had the best interviews this year they had that scoop with David Fix they did everything right and they still lost, and that's where the problem is with this awards thing. It should be 50% from people who are inside the hobby, who are doing the things that they need to do, and 50% from popular vote. I've said this for many years. That's why I like what Zach did with the industry awards, pinball industry awards. And even they said it. Even the loser kids said it. I take that award better than the other ones. Well, let's go through these. We'll go through this one just because it's a podcast and it's us. So Loser Kids, Pinball Show, Don's Pinball Podcast, which he did a parody of the Chris Day. Oh, the parody. Awesome. But everyone got all butthurt by that. That I did see. My favorite part was, you know, I live in the Mecca of New York City. We have Jack Bar. We have Sunshine. We have Jack Bar. I thought that was funny. Triple Jane. I like Triple Jane. Triple Jane's good. I love the boys. Those guys are great. Wedgehead Pinball Podcast. the Slam Tilt Podcast. My personal favorite. Dude, Where's My Code? And then Silver Ball Chronicles. So, yes, I believe, once again, Slam Tilt Podcast has defeated Silver Ball Chronicles. My other podcast, which you can listen to me and David Dennis talk about pinball history. We're on the Pinball Network, Silver Ball Chronicles. Oh, and I'm also sorry, David Dennis is also one of the biggest Bond fans I know, so I'd like to apologize or not apologize, but just send my My condolences for the death of the Bond franchise. I'm sorry. Because I'm a Bond fan, too, but I don't think I'm as a huge Bond fan as he is. Then we had Arcade Hunters, Pinball Profile, Bash Pinball Podcast, Eclectic Gamers, We Are Pinball. Okay, there's too many. Way too many. I don't even know three-quarters of these. I beat myself again. Yes, you took away votes from us, Ron. I'm just blaming you every year. I just blame Ron every year. Silver Ball got higher than No If we had his 30 or 40 votes that they got If it went up It still wouldn't have been enough It would have been higher It would have been higher, yes Is Silver Ball really a podcast though? Is Silver Ball really a podcast? Is it more of a Or is it really more like a retro show? It should be considered a documentary It really is a documentary to me Exactly, so it should be in its own group of which we would win. Because it's not timely. You guys are talking about ancient history. And I love it. Don't get me wrong. I do like it. I like hearing the history. I love all the Steve Ritchie episodes and anything. Can you do an episode that's just all how Williams WPC is the greatest ever? Didn't you guys do like a Bagatelle episode? We did a bingo episode. That bingo episode.
    101:02
    I enjoy that. Fart in the church. I do like Silver Ball. I think it's fun. Oh, I love Silver Ball. I would love a WPC episode. That would be awesome. Of course.
    101:13
    From the greatest era of pinball ever. Some of the best titles ever. It's going to be coming out stronger and better than ever. Okay. Guess what? Release your shows more, maybe, instead of being behind a paywall. It's just so sad. It's so sad that he did that live with his wife and his kid. He's fucking yelling. I think it's wrong that if it means that much to you. It's just not. Like, I didn't even look at the results, literally, of the Twippies until the next day. And I was like, oh, okay, whatever, you know. You know, I was kind of pissed, like, in some things. Like, what the fuck? And I had this place, or had this do, but then I was happy for, like, you know, for, you know, Anthony and a couple other people. You know, I was like, oh, congratulations, great, you know. But it's still a fucking popularity contest. And guess what? Well, yes, that's what it's supposed to be. But it's supposed to, that's what I was going to say. The Oscars are a popularity contest. The Grammys are popular. No, no, no. The Oscars are done by insider people. It's all done by...
    102:11
    I've worked in the movie industry for 30 years, and I'll tell you, there's a lot more than just... Oh, well, now it's even worse. Now it would be the... It's all about who's popular. Yes. You know. And you have to have so many things to even be nominated. Yeah. Like, Wicked's going to walk away with something this year. But that doesn't mean it's not the next Godfather. You know what I mean? No.
    102:34
    All right, you ready for the ball bag, Bruce? Yeah! Okay. We got the first one is from Bill Hey Bill This is episode 245 It says first off I don use the term but there is the song that says I thought I was the bally table king.
    102:59
    Okay. It's, yes, it's Pinball Wizard, but it's by British people, so it doesn't count. Yeah, because they fucking don't know what the fuck you're talking about. No, that's what I'm talking. That's what I'm saying. Let's see. Bill has second email. He says, oh, and you forgot Vintage Flipper World, a.k.a. VFW Pinball. Also, the Ann Arbor Pinball Museum is 500 games plus. But they only are open twice a year. That's even worse. Twice? I thought it was once. Two weekends. They do two weekends. They do May, and they do one in the fall. And it's always the same weekend as Allentown. Yes, it is, which we'll never go see because. Yeah, unfortunately. But, yes. Yeah. I'd like to go there just to see some of the rare shit he's got there. Yeah, me too. Totally agree. Totally 100% agree. It's a great setup. This one's from GCF Claims. That's weird. It says, Dear Rep 513-595, you have been approved for the Green Climate Fund Sustainability Program. Wow. Nice. This is great. This initiative is designed to support individuals and businesses in the pursuit of sustainable solutions to the challenges posed by climate change. For additional information, contact us. Okay. That sounds legit. How do I contact them? I'm not going to read that on the air, but yeah.
    104:11
    All right. Let's see. We got, this is from Eelco. We gave him some tips, if you remember, and it says, the subject is thanks for the tips. Hi, Bruce and Ron. Thanks for the nice tips for older machines. I have bought a taxi and Harlem Globetrotters. Oh, two for two there. Two for two there. Both functioning and with good boards, but quite somewhere on the play field, back box and cabinet. Oh, wow. Which is fine by me. It has been a lot of fun so far. You did mention hoops in your list. I can buy hoops in very good condition. Would that be any fun or better stay away from it? Buy it immediately. Yes. Buy it now. Buy a Hoops, definitely. Buy it now. Do it now. The Street Level series was not really successful.
    104:55
    The Street Level series was not very successful because they were going against things like Whirlwind. Yeah. And people were like, really? No. No, this isn't going to happen. We'll continue my search for sure. I hope to find a Stern Stars. Yes. And we hope you find stars. That's the way. Uh-huh, uh-huh. I like it. Oh, I've got to get my announcer voice for this one. This is from Joe Cherovino. Ooh, the head degenerate. Head degenerate. Says, hi. Hey, Bruce and Ron. Joe Cherovino here from Pinball Degenerates. I hope this email finds you both well. Yes, I just got out of the washroom and I feel great. Just got to add some Canadian-ness there. Here's some info of the upcoming Pinball Degenerate Awards. Yes. Did you see what happened to Billy Ball? I did not. So Billy Ball is their mascot. Yes, he is. He got really fucked up the last degenerate awards. Yeah. And he's currently in a hospital right now, teetering on the edge of death. By Dr. Dude, I saw. But his doctor is Dr. Dude, and Dr. Dude can save him with his excellent ray. But it's going to cost $5,000. So they've got to raise $5,000 to save Billy Ball. So I think Billy Ball's dead. He's fucking gone. I think he's at Connor. He's fucking gone, man. It's over, man. Game over. Game over, man. Here's some info on the upcoming Pinball General Awards. It would be much appreciated if you could include the following in an episode of Slam Tilt in the near future. We're going to do it now. Thanks for everything you guys do in pinball. Okay, ready? Announce your voice. For immediate release, Saturday, March 15th at 8 p.m. Eastern, live from the Super Wonder Gallery in Toronto, Ontario, it's the fourth annual Pinball Degenerate Awards, a.k.a. the Degenis. Hosted by head degenerate Joe Chervino, this year's award ceremony will be presented in front of a live studio audience featuring a jam-packed night of pintertainment, including live variety acts, comedy, music, a game show with prizes, and the most awards in Degene's history. Get ready for surprises, fun, jokes, special guests, and a whole lot of pinball degeneracy, streamed live on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitch.
    107:05
    Now I want to go. We're nominated, Ron. We are? Yes, we're the most degenerative podcast. Oh, degenerate. Not degenerative. That would mean we're like disintegrating. No, we are. We're going worse and worse. We're going down the aisle. We're going down the list. So, yes. We're just whittling away. Yes, degenerate more said. So, don't forget, vote for us. Vote for us. Tell them to vote for us for this one because that we can be proud of more than any Twippy in the world. Yes, I mean, I'm proud of it. We're already winners. I saw each of us won a Degenerate. You won a Degenerate, right? I did win a Degenerate. I won the Whatchamacallit Awards. Oh, yeah. What were they called again? The Handies or whatever? The final round. Yes, I have. Yes. I'm sorry. Is there a list of Degenerate Awards somewhere? Well, he puts it on the Facebook page. So look for Pinball Degenerates on Facebook. Yeah, and then look up Slam Tilt underneath it, and then people talk about it. He shows the picture of the award, and people were saying it's between us and Al from Canada. Albert. The one I've melted down. Albert. Yes. Very good, Bruce. Yeah. He melted down. Yes. He hasn't done one in a while. We always do it. So you can actually go vote for Degenerates. So you can just say, you put on their posts, like, hey, this is the one you want to talk about. This is the one we want. Oh, I see. And we always plug. We just did a nice promo for him. You like that promo? You like my answer voice? I like that, yes. Let's see. This is from Scott. Hi, Scott. It says, subject, tables. Oh, God. Looking for the origin of the table term, perhaps we go back to the original pinball wizard.
    108:44
    Even on my favorite table, he can't be my best. Again, British. So pinball machines were born before that song, oh, yes. Doesn't count. Perhaps the history of pinball music could be covered in an upcoming episode of Silverball Chronicles, which can be found on the pinball network. He was just tapping away going, yeah.
    109:07
    Why is table such a divisive thing? Taboo? Yeah, it's taboo. I've never heard of it before, other than the song, I guess. When I think of a table, I think of a table. Coffee table, kitchen table, four legs, flat surface. Right. A pinball machine is not flat. True, but how many of you have used it as a table?
    109:30
    Me, never. I never put anything on top. I put stuff from another game next to that. Yeah, another game, which still makes it a pinball table because I'm putting pinball parts. Technically, it becomes a table, right? I mean, that's the whole thing. It becomes a pinball table. Yes, that's when it becomes a pinball table. That's when it becomes a pinball table, when I put pinball parts on my pinball table. No, no, Anthony's signal's getting weak here. I think he's getting trapped in the call. I don't know what's going on. You know what? Here's the thing. I always call the tables, because in the virtual pin community, you download a table. That's where I think it comes from. You know? Yeah. It's literally called BP Tables and stuff. Yes. You set up a folder called Tables, so it makes sense. But, yeah. I'm very good now to just call them pins. That works better. Next one is from Steve. Hey, Steve. Subject, Bruce on a cruise. Okay. Love the show. Bruce, stay grumpy. I have a non-pinball-related question for Bruce. Okay. Yes. You hate people. How do you love cruises so much? It's like Superman taking a shower with kryptonite. It's actually not that bad because guess what? I'm with my wife. We get along really well. We do our thing. She shields me from other people. Yeah, exactly. Here's the funny thing. We both own the bar. We had to be very pleasant, very polite to people because we do like people. I just don't like too many people. And when you go on a cruise, there's a lot of people, but you can always go back to your room and veg out. Like some areas of the ship, you'll never see me on a pool deck. First, because I burn like a lobster. And second is because I don't like people being like, ah, I'll play for them. It's a do. Yeah, it's a do. It's a do. But if I go to the adult area, the solarium where there's no kids, everyone's got to be 18 and above, I'm relaxing.
    111:13
    I'm saying fuck you to the world. Which cruise line do you usually frequent? Royal Caribbean. Yeah. And we're going to be going to Celebrity next. I've done Norwegian. Norwegian's good. They're beautiful. I like it. You get the private rooms, the spas and the solariums and such. That's where I like it. It's like a city. And guess what? You can go to the quiet parts of the city. You can go to the busy parts of the city. There's all things for everybody.
    111:40
    Next one we got is from Glenn. Okay. Hi, Glenn. Glenn, Mr. Weckner, who we always said his name wrong, and he never corrected us a single time. Wow.
    111:48
    Subject, would you buy this? Ooh. It's just a screenshot. It's a used mechanical bull ride. Ooh. Depending on the price and where you're going to put it. Yeah. Interesting. He's got the mechanical bull just surrounded by like a tube, like inflatable tube, because you're going to get thrown. Yeah. I wouldn't mind trying that. Not now. My spine is fucking gone now. Yeah, my spine is shot. In my younger days, I wouldn't mind trying it. Yeah, I would have tried this before my cancer, definitely.
    112:19
    So this is the last one. Last one. It's from Tom. It says, it's back. Hello, boys. I have some more Make It Pro for you. Make It Pro, number one. Remove three things from each title. Oh, I like this. Congo.
    112:35
    Remove the gorilla. Amy. Amy's gone. The bottom gorilla. That's not Amy, though. The bottom gorilla. You're talking about the white one on the bottom. Yeah. Take that away. Take away the kickoff and the volcano completely. Make Amy a plastic stand-up instead of a 3D piece. The Amy gorilla in the back left corner. Oh, yes. Yes. You can make that a plastic stand-up. And a volcano. Yeah, done. Wow, that was easy. That was really easy. You lose a lot, though. That game is fun. Game's awesome. But, of course, we know it's great because it's the WPC game, so it's the greatest game ever made. 100%. You'll love it. All three of these games are WPC games. Oh, this is tailor-made. I love it. Yeah, it was tailor-made. Okay. I'm going to say the name correctly, which no one ever does. The Champion Pub.
    113:22
    I don't like this one. I love this one. I actually like it. You can't screw with the boxer because that's the whole gimmick of the game. That is the game. You just put a stand-up target. That's all you do. You're good. No. It's the same boxer, but it doesn't turn around. It's always looking at you. So it's not the body bag. Yeah, it's not motorized. I'm going to do a cheap one here. Jump rope. No, I'm going to change the back glass into a trans light.
    113:49
    Mighty serious. Because it's got a back glass for some strange reason. I don't know why, but it does. I think Bruce is right. You lose the jump rope and the boxing gloves up in the top left and right. Yep. And you just make those shots for your buildup, you know. Yeah, which will make it stuck. You just hit it up there and it doesn't do anything. But, yeah. No, you make it like a ramp. Like, you're building up your – you make that shot three times instead, and then you build it up that way. Right. Like you do for, like, Cactus Canyon and that kind of stuff. Yeah.
    114:17
    Okay. Makes it, yeah. Not their best. Isn't that their last WPC? No. That's Cactus Canyon. Oh, that was, okay. Right, the unfinished one. Mm-hmm. Right. Doctor Who. Ugh. Uh. Hmm. Well, if you lose that three-level. There's no gimmick. That's like the gimmick of the game. The rest is just shots. The rest is fucks.
    114:41
    You said it the wrong way. I used the shots. It's you sucks. The TARDIS is the molded piece, isn't it? Well, if you have the prototype up top, get rid of that. If you don't, then... Well, no. We're not going to assume you have the topper. But isn't the TARDIS like an actual molded thing? So change that to like a plastic. Yep. That's one.
    115:02
    You take away the DMD and make it solid-state. And this is hard. The diverter for the... You can take away the booms, the sonic booms. You just make it a... Decrease the number of stand-ups on the right. Yeah. Because it's got like seven or eight. It's like a ridiculous number. It's like Joe Balser-level amount of stand-ups. Oh, take away the doctor's itself in the back box. Oh, yes. Take away, yes. Yeah, you can't. Well, you can choose them, but there's no display. There's no display. You have it on the D&D. Yeah, you can do that. Man, that one was hard. The three-level diverter, I mean, you could take the whole gimmick. You can't remove that. No. But if you made it that it didn't go up and down, all the shots were there, it's like maybe there was – you know how it ends where you have to shoot the six different shots? So you leave it like that, but the D&D changes, but the thing just stays the same. It doesn't go up and down. It's just one solid thing, and you just got to hit it. But then you have pin box 3.0. Wait a minute. I got an idea. You make it so it's two levels instead of three. That works. So you lock the ball up, and it just goes all the way up where you hit it into the flat things. Yeah, and you hit a flat thing seven times, and then you start multi-ball. So it's pinball in reverse. Yeah. Gotcha.
    116:20
    Okay. And if that's not enough fun, let's play another round of Make It Premium. Okay, so we got one game, and this is perfect for our guest. Add three things to Terminator 2. Ooh.
    116:36
    Okay. Three things determinators to make it a premium. So basically we're making this like a JJP game. Okay. I would add things that obviously don't exist, but make it up, right? I'm going to make this up. So I would add some sort of like spinning ball of electricity, like an eye of the storm with the T-1000 in the center of it, you know, to kind of like show him like a unit piece. Does that make sense? You know, like when he transports. So like a glowing ball of electricity that actually like has an eye of the storm type situation in there. It's like the fake teleporter in Pinball Magic. It makes your ball appear in an area, yes. Yeah, something like that. A truck actually crashing onto your play field when you get the super jackpot. I've seen a mod. There's a mod out there where someone made one of those hunter-killer ships move and light and turn around and do all kinds of things. So I've seen that. That would be something cool. No, I got the perfect thing. Your ball turns to liquid metal. That's just stupid. Come on. How's your ball turn to liquid metal? That'd be awesome, wouldn't it? No, you know what? He's right. It goes into, like, a scoop. It goes into a scoop, and then you see this little channel in the plate field, sort of like in... Leak through, yeah. Like Fireball 2 or something like that. You remember those, like... Yeah, the little magnet. What's that game that you guys always like? Doodle. Doodle Bug. Yeah. So it's like, yeah, you have that little channel. and you see liquid metal move through it. It fills in, yeah. Right. That'd be cool. That's actually a great idea. See? And you fill up a thermometer of liquid metal like centigrade. Oh, centigrade, yeah. So you're building up this liquid metal, and then it becomes liquid metal multiball. Liquid metal. You just rip off what, yeah, because Elton John has the rocket fuel, so it's basically liquid metal. There you go. Liquid metal multiball. We're innovators here now. And then on top of it, you add some really cool armor to the sides. You powder coat it. Instead of a gun handle, you have a machine gun handle. Or a shotgun blast. You know, a shotgun handle. Oh, that would look good. That would look really good. So you can take off his legs when they're walking by. You get an action button on there. Yeah. And to throw it even more, you throw in, like, there's a reversion to Terminator 1 as well. Like, there's a mode that switches the game over. or you can even add like a nuclear decimation type scene where, you know, Sarah Connor sees the – because that's the iconic scene. Yes, it is. Something like that and the game gets totally blown out. You can do a lot with it. Yep. Wow. I want to play this new Terminator 2. Yeah. I honestly do. Do, do, do, do. Did you guys actually see – this is jutting from pinball, but they just announced a new Terminator 2 video game that's going to be coming out this September for like PlayStation, Xbox, and PC. and if you haven't seen the trailers for it, I recommend it. It is 100% the movie. It's beautiful. Shoot here and here for both of them.
    119:35
    Bruce, do you have anything else? I have one thing. One thing, okay. And it's fun for all. Hopefully it's just one of them. It's a couple. Oh, God. Would you or would you buy it now? Oh, I love this game. Would you or would you not buy that? Is this where you go on eBay? Just let me go on eBay. That's great, because I'm actually sitting in front of a computer for the first time. I'm usually driving, and you always say, don't look it up if you're driving. Don't look it up if you're driving. No, I tell you, just pull over. No, actually, just bring up your phone while you're driving and see if you can type this in. I'm not pulling over on a Taconic. Not on a Taconic. I'm not pulling over. Yeah, the hazard's right on everything.
    120:12
    Okay, are you ready, folks? So you're going to go to eBay, folks, and you're going to type in this number in the search box that Bruce is going to give you. And you can follow along at home. Follow along at home. 1-8-6-8-3-1-4-2-5-2-9-1.
    120:30
    What do we have here, Ron? Okay, so we have a Muhammad Ali pinball machine. An Ali for $5,000. Or best offer. Yeah. By some guy that sold 7,000 items, 99.1 positive. Let's see what the description says. Tested and working. This item was pulled from a working environment. Only items included in picture are included in the sale. Please look at all photos before purchasing. We'll ship the same day purchased in a professionally packaged box.
    121:06
    A cardboard box. Yes. Don't buy from this seller. This was the worst experience on eBay in 20 years. Doesn't know what he is listing. I'm just reading some of his feedback. I'm sorry. Yeah.
    121:20
    Okay. Would you or would you not buy that for no? No. I mean, the cabinet needs work. There's rust. I restore machines, and I fix a lot of machines in the area, and this is a lot of work. The play field is not terrible, but the play field, honestly, I'm looking at it zoomed in. It looks like it was Photoshopped. Because if you look near the mylar, near the slingshots, you see the texture on the purple ring. But then once it gets over the mylar, the texture almost looks like it was blurred out. Yep. Like they did some work, you know, they did some photo work on this to clean it up. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So five grand. I mean, I would probably do Muhammad Ali for like a grand mint. No. You know, you don't think so? More than that. More than that? I do like the game. I think it's a good game.
    122:14
    But, you know. No, we would not buy that person. No, we would not buy that. That's definitely no. Yeah. Muhammad Ali. Okay, ready for the next one. Yep.
    122:25
    167. 276. 216. 999. Did Anthony get it this time? No, I did not. It does not work. What the fuck is wrong with your eyes? Dude, I don't get it. That's the weirdest thing. I'll be in base for him, Ron. Please do. I already did. Okay.
    122:52
    Flash! It's a Flash Gordon for $3,000. Our best offer from Fossil's Rock. 100% positive. You've got to click the video in the pictures. Let's see. Flash Gordon is a pinball machine from February 81 blah, blah, blah. Yeah, it's giving you the shit from the Internet. Yes, of course it is. Okay, so it says nothing. Okay, it is a sought-after collectible for pinball enthusiasts and collectors looking to own a piece of nostalgia from the early days of arcade gaming in good working order, local pickup only. Click the video into the pictures. Okay. This is the best 15 seconds of my life right now. Yeah, that link's not working for me. Oh, my God. I'm sorry, man.
    123:42
    But if it's a flash Gordon, I would buy it. The video is awesome. Does it have sound? No. Okay. It just is a video of the thing. But with everything behind it. It's like you're in a disco with this game, and they just zoom in on it. Did we lose Anthony?
    124:02
    We lost Anthony. Uh-oh. I think he's got weird Internet issues. He's got weird stuff. I heard him talking and he was like, click! Yeah.
    124:13
    Come on back, Anthony! Oh, wait a second. Okay, there I am. There you are. Dude, I am deleting Chrome from my freaking computer. I don't know what happened there. I was on Opera and then I was looking at the eBay stuff and all of a sudden my Opera shut down. Yeah.
    124:30
    Okay, so we'll give you one more and then we'll be done. Would you buy that for $3,000 or best of all? Flash Gordon? Yes. I would buy a Flash Gordon for $3,000 regardless because I have to have one. Wait a minute. Is there any shots of the play field? No. There's not a single shot of the play field. One of the shots is just some random artwork that has nothing to do with the game. Oh, then I wouldn't buy that one. But if I saw a Flash Gordon in real life for $3,000, I would definitely get it. Come on, man. Let's get a better one. It's bad. All right. What do we got, Bruce? It's the last one? Last one. Okay. We don't want to get Anthony too discombobulated. No, no. This fucking computer. Let's try this again. 286-367-832-520.
    125:22
    I don't have it. Yeah, it won't give it to me. Can you send me that link? We'll try the link thing again. Please do. I think we're pretty positive now that the issues you're having are all on you.
    125:36
    Yeah, this is ridiculous. I've never seen it. Oh, here we go. Time Machine. Got it. There, we got it. Yes, it's a Time Machine by Zachariah. Yeah. $1,200. Well, one bit at $1,200. Yeah, but it's like a 500. $600 flat rate shipping. Yep. It is located in California. Yep.
    125:57
    It's not in bad shape at all. I mean, you've got to really be a Zachariah fan, though. Yeah, this is not what I, like, a farfella or something, I would go for over this one. Yeah. Or robot. It's not a bad game. No. Rising play field for $1,200. We're going to find a game for $1,200 lately these days that's working. And this is in good shape. Yeah, it's actually in nice shape. All the displays are nice and bright. This is a great deal. 100% working. Very rare and unique game from Italian pinball company Zachariah. Features four flippers and a play field section with bumpers that lowers, which is pretty cool, when the ball lands in the time hole. The time hole. A clear roof above the pumpers becoming the play field. Yes, it has the bonus ball feature. It speaks to you in English. Very weird sounding English. Yes, weird. And now we start.
    126:51
    What the fuck? Oh, this is the one that has the, um, a little more to the left, a little more to the right. Yes. What the fuck it up? I think it's a great conversation piece if you had it in your collection, you know? I think it's a good deal. I actually would buy this in a second.
    127:09
    For RPC especially. Yeah, I think it would be great for RPC. I like the coin door. I love the Zachariah coin door. That's cool. This is a good buy. Yeah, I think this is a win-win. Win-win? Win-win. Okay. You're in. You said you're in. You're in. That was it, folks. Zachariah. Action-packed, fun-filled episode. of Slant Show Podcast.
    127:36
    You know, I do this for a living. You know, I'm bleeding myself out for this. You don't understand how much heartbreak my wife almost left me because of this hobby. Yeah.
    127:47
    Wow. Sounds like I don't want to listen to this at all. Oh, you have to. No, you got to watch it. No. It's just, you're sitting there like, you're waiting for the car crash to happen, and you know it's just building up, like he's going faster and faster down the road, and you know the car's just going to flip. and then when he does flip, it's just like, ha ha, I knew it was coming.
    128:07
    There is a sadness to it, though. And then somebody who's recording it puts a dick on his head. That's fucked up. Wow. Fucked up. It's so funny. He's like ranting and the guy's drawing a dickhead on his head.
    128:24
    There's something about it, though. It's just weird. I don't know, man. It's fucking hilarious. On that note, Wow, Bruce really gets off on other people's pain. Oh, I have my own pain. So when everyone joins in with me, it's a fucking fun, filled with excitement time. It's his own fault he put it out there like that. Because he thought he was going to win. He thought he was going to be king of the castle again. I'm going to be the top guy. Do you think it's an act? No. No? Not this one, no. His wife was actually like, Chris, you know, you need to be nice about this. He's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, congratulations, guys. But Dan will do 12 episodes. Like, holy fuck. He considers everything else a podcast, and it's not. That's the problem. But see, the thing is, his whole gimmick is he likes to bitch about everything. Like, I stopped listening to his podcast because as a native New Yorker, I've never known anybody to complain as more than me, and this guy is just constantly negative about stuff. You think I'm negative? Holy fuck, he blows me away. Yeah.
    129:28
    Okay. And I have somebody to offset me, which is Ron. Yes, yes. You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both, and there you have it. The Slamtail Podcast. Well, I have someone here who wanted to say something. Do you want to?
    129:44
    Oh, Stu again. Yes, yes, this is Stu McVicker here. Come watch me at the Pin Masters kick Josh Sharf's ass. Wow. Yes, he's all going down. Pin Masters victory, I guarantee it. The 1978 Playboy Launch Party champion. We'll be victorious. Stu. What? Bring a chair.
    130:05
    I don't understand that. You're going to be sitting a lot. Yes, I'll be sitting on your face, you moron. I'm out of here. We know. All right, Stu. Ron. What? Do you have the phone number for ice?
    130:19
    That's funny. Okay. Anthony. I'm sorry. Anthony, do you have anything you want to plug at the end here as it's falling apart? I would love to plug. You can buy Pinsnakes at pinsnake.com, P-I-N-S-N-A-K-E.com. I sell them in six different colors. I have a really quick turnaround time, so I ship all over the United States as well as Europe. And if you don't have one and you own a pinball machine that has a ramp or has an orbit or has a hidden area, you need to buy a Pinsnake. That's what I'm saying. And that's what everybody else is saying. Please try and check one out. Also, I have to say, doesn't Stu McVicker sound like Triumph, the comic? He does. He sounds like the Triumph, yeah, the installed comic dog. I love it, man. A little less raspy. He's got a smoother voice, but, you know. But listen, I have to say, guys, I'm really thankful that you let me on the podcast. I've been a fan since the beginning. Thank you. I enjoy playing Stompies, and, you know, thank you again. I really appreciate it. Thanks for coming on. Yeah, and thanks for winning before we do. Yep. because we ain't winning shit ever. We ain't winning shit. Yeah. The Twippies, it was a nice honor, and I'm humbled by the pinball community because from what I've learned, the pinball community loves to just rip shit apart. They love to hate, and when I first released the Pinsnake, I was expecting, you know, like maybe I'll sell 10 or 15 of them, but it's been astronomical, and I'm very humbled and very honored that the pinball community has taken it. I'm very happy with ours. As I said, we're buying, And I get to see Howard next week, and he's got my rags, my extra stuff, so I can start cleaning more and more stuff. And I am very excited. I've been one of the first followers of it. I've always plugged in on the show, and it works, folks. It really does. So I like bringing on people who actually do something for the machinery and for the hobby, and this is why I wanted Anthony. Do it for the machinery, bro. Do it for the machines. The poor kids, they're sitting in your basement all the time. You keep care of them, man. Do it for the tables, man. The tables, man. Oh, God. Oh, no. Oh, Ron, you're never going to get the tables. Get the tables. The only time we're humbled is by the Iron Sheik, and we don't want to be humbled in that way. I got a great new gimmick. We start throwing people on pinball machines. The tables. The tables, man. Okay. We are the Slamtail Podcast. This has been episode 246? 246. You can check us out at our website, www.slamtailpodcast.com. You can send us emails to the world's famous ball bag at slamtailpodcast at gmail.com. That's slamtailpodcast at gmail.com. Hello to all our friends in the Clusterbuck. You know who you are? Yes. And this has been a long episode. It will be a horrible edit that Bruce won't have to worry about. Woo-hoo! I'm going to go upstairs and change because I have to go to RPC soon. the world-famous Rochester Pinball Collective. Yes. So if you want to see the both of us together, you can come this weekend to the World Pinball Collective. No, it's going to be me and Stu together. No, I'm going to be there, too. Oh, you are? It's not like we're the same person. What is with you? No, I didn't say that. No, I said I thought you weren't coming. I thought it was just going to be me hanging out with Stu. No, I'll be there. Usually you play. I've got to keep Stu in line. It's going to be like some Mrs. Doubtfire thing. He's switching back and forth with a wig. What? I don't know what you guys are talking about at all. Oh, my God.
    133:56
    If I see white stuff on your face, Ron, we're fucked. It's the Clark Kent, you know, the glassy one. Yeah, the glass is making it look totally different.
    134:07
    Oh, God. Okay, until next time, say goodbye, Bruce. No, we still got to say goodbye to our Clusterfuck people. I just did that. No, you did not. You just said Clusterfuck. I say hi, Steve, and hi, Zach, and hi, Jeff Teolis, and all our friends, and Pinball Princess. Cluster Bug for $2.50? No. Yes. Cluster Bug. See, everyone's demanding it. No, you need a Cluster Bug again. That was some of the best radio I've heard in a long time, man. See? It's so good. And honestly, Ron, you could just let it run. Yeah, I can go. Just let it run. I've got to figure out how to do it, though. Do we just continue to answer Zoom? No, it's our final Skype. Oh, God. It's the Skype at the end. Yeah, goodbye to Skype. Yeah, that's how you do it. That's going to be the title for our 250. It'll sound like shit, though. That's fine. People listening to it in their cars. Come on. People listening to it in their cars. Okay, do you listeners care if it sounds shittier? Because it's going to sound like shit. Come on, talk to us. Tell us in the email. Farewell to Skype. Cluster Buck. Yeah. Okay. Okay, enough. Thanks, Anthony, once again, for coming on. Thank you, Ron. Thank you, Bruce. Thanks to all the listeners out there. Until next time. Now, say goodbye, Bruce. Goodbye, Stephen Thaxton.
    135:44
    The Media! Blue Level Zero! Clusterbump! Toast to Kai! Jam Ball! Bruce Dism! Tournament Talk! Car Holder! Cheetah! Sanity! Cash Grab! ELO! Ball Parade! What You Buying! Game You Love! Game You Hurt! Tournament Talk! Keep them present! Yes, sir! Oh, my.
    136:24
    Oh, my. The Rock Fantasy Open. That me and Anthony both played in. Did you get beat by that 10-year-old girl in the unicorn hat? I did not get beat by that 10-year-old girl in the unicorn hat. Oh, my God. She trounced me, dude. She played me for a fool.