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Episode 44 - 2019 Texas Pinball Festival (Behind the Scenes)

Special When Lit·podcast_episode·1h 13m·analyzed·Mar 26, 2019
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TL;DR

Special When Lit recaps 2019 TPF behind-the-scenes with Black Knight Sword of Rage tease and leak.

Summary

Ken Cromwell and Bill Webb of Special When Lit Pinball Podcast recap their 2019 Texas Pinball Festival experience with guest Steve Beattie, focusing on behind-the-scenes stories rather than game reviews. The episode covers the teaser and leaked images of Steve Ritchie's Black Knight Sword of Rage, travel anecdotes, hotel experiences, and first impressions of TPF as a massive convention. The hosts discuss speculation about who might be coding the new Black Knight game and share humorous stories about their trip to Texas.

Key Claims

  • Black Knight Sword of Rage teaser video was released showing CGI of knight's armor with flames and Steve Ritchie's signature laughter

    high confidence · Ken Cromwell discussing the teaser that went out 'a few hours ago'

  • A leaked image of Black Knight Sword of Rage appeared on Facebook Pinball Enthusiasts showing side art with blues, a sword, and Black Knight on horseback

    high confidence · Steve Beattie brought the leaked image to the podcast studio before recording

  • Kaneda's Pinball Podcast reported that Tim Sexton is coding Black Knight Sword of Rage

    medium confidence · Ken Cromwell citing Kaneda's reporting; speculation by hosts that could be Tim Sexton, Lonnie, or another coder

  • Tim Sexton was nominated for Rookie of the Year and expressed interest in coming on Special When Lit Podcast

    medium confidence · Ken and Bill discussing Tim's background and his hint about working on something they'd 'really like knowing'

  • Texas Pinball Festival is the largest pinball exhibition/convention in the United States

    medium confidence · Ken Cromwell describing TPF as 'the largest pinball exhibition, the largest pinball convention in the world, I believe, at least in the United States'

  • TPF had a microphone technical issue on day two that prevented full podcast coverage

    high confidence · Ken apologizing for audio issues that hindered their ability to bring content on day two

  • The hosts attended Christopher Franchi's dinner at Buca di Beppo with various pinball personalities including Zach Sharpe and Jeff Patterson

    high confidence · Detailed recounting of the Thursday night dinner event

Notable Quotes

  • “the teaser video did not show anything as far as playfield artwork design. You did kind of get like some CGI of the knight's armor. Yeah, with some flames, some heavy metal music. The unmistakable laughter. Iconic.”

    Ken Cromwell and Bill Webb @ early in episode — Describing the Black Knight Sword of Rage teaser video reveal

  • “I feel like it's like a Pac-Man layout... I don't know what the overview looks like.”

    Bill Webb @ mid-episode — Describing the confusing layout of TPF with partitions between booths

  • “I felt like I was an animal that had escaped the zoo, dude. I was like running around trying to figure out if I was going to lick people or eat them.”

    Ken Cromwell @ discussing Thursday evening — Expressing excitement about being on vacation at TPF

  • “Red means go for Bill.”

    Ken Cromwell @ discussing rental car drive from airport — Joking about Bill's aggressive driving in Dallas traffic

  • “I needed to try the gravy which was what we were waiting for the whole reasoning of me wanting biscuits biscuits and gravy”

    Steve Beattie @ discussing Hotel Indigo breakfast — Explaining why he continued eating moldy biscuits to taste the gravy

  • “Dogwood has a distinct taste or smell, I should say. It's like a stale saltiness.”

    Ken Cromwell @ discussing patio area at hotel — Describing the smell of dogwood trees near the venue

  • “I was trying to buy him a key chain, taking pictures in front of the signs and everything... At one point he's like, I get it. I stop it.”

    Ken Cromwell @ discussing Jeff Patterson's reaction to Indigo promotions — Humorous anecdote about over-promoting the hotel to Jeff

  • “if I was asked to construct a timeline, it would not have been very good.”

    Steve Beattie @ mid-episode reflecting on the trip — Self-aware commentary on the fuzzy recollection of events due to drinking

Entities

Ken CromwellpersonBill WebbpersonSteve BeattiepersonSteve RitchiepersonTim SextonpersonJeff PattersonpersonChristopher FranchipersonZach Sharpe

Signals

  • ?

    announcement: Official teaser video for Black Knight Sword of Rage by Steve Ritchie released hours before podcast recording, featuring CGI armor, flames, and Ritchie's signature laughter

    high · Ken describes teaser video that 'just went out a few hours ago' with specific details about content

  • ?

    leak_detection: Leaked image of Black Knight Sword of Rage side art appeared on Facebook Pinball Enthusiasts showing blues, sword, Black Knight on horseback, and castle setting

    high · Steve Beattie brought leaked image to studio; hosts discuss specific visual details from the image

  • ?

    machine_intel: Speculation about code designer for Black Knight Sword of Rage; Kaneda's Pinball Podcast reported Tim Sexton is coding the game; hosts discuss alternative possibilities (Lonnie, others)

    medium · Ken citing Kaneda's reporting; Tim Sexton's hint about exciting work and Rookie of the Year nomination support credibility

  • ?

    event_signal: Texas Pinball Festival 2019 characterized as largest pinball convention in United States with extensive number of machines across multiple sections separated by tall barriers

    high · Multiple references to TPF's scale compared to Pinball Expo Chicago; descriptions of venue layout and booth partitions

  • ?

    community_signal: Multiple industry personalities (Jeff Patterson, Christopher Franchi, Jason and Cindy Fowler, Zach Sharpe, Mr. and Mrs. Pin) gathered at TPF; high engagement and frequent encounters throughout event

    high · Detailed recounting of dinners, drinks, and repeated meetings throughout TPF; gift exchange between personalities

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.220

0:00
Welcome to 2019 Texas Pinball Festival bonus coverage on the Special When Lit Pinball Podcast. Hello, what's going on Pinball Land? Welcome to episode number 44 of the Special When Lit Pinball Podcast. I'm Ken Cromwell. And I am Bill Webb. Joining us in the studio today for a TPF recap is... Steve Beattie. Steve. Hey, good to have you back in the studio. Thanks. Fun times. We've got a lot to cover today. If you're interested in all the games at TPF and all the new stuff, turn us off right now. Because I'm telling you right now, we hardly got on anything at TPF. And that's not a bad thing because we've got the back stories of TPF to share with everybody today. Two quick things I wanted to cover real fast before we get into it. Number one, teaser video just went out a few hours ago. So the new title that was teased today is Steve Ritchie's Black Knight Sword of Rage. And the teaser video did not show anything as far as playfield artwork design. You did kind of get like some CGI of the knight's armor. Yeah, with some flames, some heavy metal music. The unmistakable laughter. Iconic. Of Steve Ritchie. Yeah. So I assume that we'll be seeing something coming down the pipeline with that game soon. But number two is I wanted to apologize because the last full episode that we had, I had went on record as saying, hey, we're going to be going back to back to back to back with this coverage at TPF. And we had an audio issue. And what is that? That is a leaked image, supposedly, of Black Knight Sword of Rage. Oh, snap. Steve's coming with his A-game today. Wow, so we've got some leaked stuff. Right before I headed over here, I saw this picture here. What are you seeing? It looks like some sweet side art. Can I see? You are welcome to take a look.
2:02
Our live thoughts and opinions on what we see of the leaked images that were on what website? I think it was on the Facebook pinball enthusiasts. Okay, all right. So there's a lot of blues, it looks like, with the sword going across from back to front on the side with the Black Knight font underneath it. It looks like right outside of a castle. On each of the sides, you've got the Black Knight who's riding a horse that's in an upward stallion position with some crazy artwork on the side of the head. And then you've got the, which looks to be the Black Knight holding a shield on the back glass. or maybe that's a monster that he's supposed to fight. Hard to say, but interesting as we look at this in real time. Wow, Steve, the benefit of the show. Thanks for coming in, man. Yeah, man. So that's exciting. I'm not sure where this game is going to go. Full disclosure, I've never really been a big Black Knight fan as a theme. I don't dislike it. I've never went out of my way to buy one. You've had some Black Knights. I've had the original Black Knight, and I currently have Black Knight 2000. So you are a fan of this type of a theme appeal to you? I'm super pumped. when I saw that video and now the image. It's like, man, interesting. I can't wait to see more. I think it looks good. I think the backlash really does look iconic to the other ones, the modern-day version.
person
Jason Fowlerperson
Cindy Fowlerperson
Mr. and Mrs. Pin (Dr. Pin and Miss Pin)person
Black Knight Sword of Ragegame
Special When Lit Pinball Podcastorganization
Texas Pinball Festivalevent
Pinball Expo Chicagoevent
Kaneda's Pinball Podcastorganization
Slap Save Pinball Podcastorganization
This Week in Pinballorganization
Hotel Indigo Friscoproduct
Concrete Cowboyvenue
Buca di Beppovenue
Whataburgervenue
  • ?

    design_philosophy: Hosts discuss whether theme matters less than gameplay quality; Black Knight not universally appealing but worth watching due to designer (Ritchie) and potential quality

    medium · Ken: 'if a game's fun and it plays decently, I don't care about the theme'; references Baywatch and Dialed In as examples

  • ?

    content_signal: Special When Lit faced microphone technical issues on day two of TPF that prevented normal coverage; adjusted strategy to focus on behind-the-scenes stories instead of game reviews

    high · Ken's apology about audio issue preventing back-to-back coverage; hosts acknowledge limited game playtime due to technical constraints

  • ?

    event_signal: TPF uses non-traditional layout with 8-9 foot barriers between sections, creating Pac-Man-like maze that makes navigation and overall venue comprehension difficult for attendees

    high · Multiple hosts describe difficulty navigating and viewing full expo; comparisons to Pac-Man maze layout

    • 3:21
    I'm willing to wager that this is probably a Zombie Yeti art package by looking at the front of it. I would disagree. I don't think that's Zombie Yeti style.
    3:30
    An artist can do whatever he needs to do, right? I suppose. That just doesn't look like Zombie Yeti to me. Yeah, but you don't think Greg Ferrer's did this, do you? No, I don't know. I don't think. I don't know. I didn't think about Greg Ferrer's. I don't think that's Zombie Yeti. What do you think, Steve? Now, for those of you that can't see the image, this is probably completely boring. Go on to Wall Enthusiast Facebook and check it out. Yeah, we can move on in a minute here. I'm just curious about first impressions. Does Black Knight as a theme appeal to you, Bill? Is that something that you'd like to get out? I really liked playing Steve's when we were at his house. I'm curious to see it. As far as theme, it's not the theme I would necessarily gravitate towards for me, but that's just my opinion. But I wanted to play a game of spin the speculation wheel. So who do you think would be coding this game if you were to throw a... Kaneda said a while ago on Kaneda's Pinball Podcast that he had heard that Tim Sexton was coding this game. And I know Tim does a lot of stuff in the background. In fact, he was nominated for Rookie of the Year this year. And I'm not sure exactly what his work for 2018 compiled, but obviously enough for people to recognize that he's there. I know that he had kind of shared with us that he'd like to come on the show at some point. And this was weeks ago, so maybe that's changed. But when I asked him what he had in the pipeline, he did say, you're going to really like knowing what I'm working on. He didn't share anything. So, I mean, he's excited about it. It makes sense that he's on Black Knight. I don't know. See, I was thinking about this on the way over, and I was thinking maybe it's Lonnie. Lonnie hasn't done any games recently, right? It could be anybody, man. I mean, I think we know it's not Dwight. He just got done with the Monsters. I know he wasn't working on two games like that. I don't know that, but I would doubt it, right? So, yeah, I don't know if they brought somebody else in. Some freshness on the code, which, again, would make sense that it would be Tim. We'll see. But anyways, interesting. Regarding the theme, for me, it's just now if a game's fun and it plays decently, I don't care about the theme.
    5:35
    Baywatch is a game we both like, and I'm not a Baywatch guy. Dialed in is something that I'm not into theme-wise, but I like how the game plays. So it's just one of those things. Black Knight is not a bad theme. It's not anything that – see, when I started playing pinball, I didn't start playing Black Knight. So it's not like I don't have that connection. Yeah, right. It's where that nostalgic feeling where, oh, man, they like they're not remaking family ties here for a reunion episode for me. It's just one of those things. But anyways, I was apologizing because we had an audio issue on day two down at Texas Pinball Festival with one of our microphones. And it really hindered our ability to bring content. So at that point, we kind of made a decision that we would just kind of discuss what happened at TPF when we returned. and that is going to happen today. Again, if you're looking for reviews of all the newest games, this is not the podcast that you want to listen to, but if you want to know what's kind of going on in the back, behind the scenes at TPF with a lot of the pinball personalities and a lot of the designers and all that kind of stuff, then this is the podcast you want to sit back and relax for the next 45 minutes or so. Would you agree? Absolutely. And honestly, I think we have a lot of backstories about all the different people that we ran into. We didn't play a whole lot of pinball, per se, because we kept interjecting with either people in the industry or people that listen to the show or just genuine people that had something that they wanted to discuss with us about something that they're working on or whatever. And, I mean, I hate to say it, but that was probably 90% of our time. We had every intention to go play pinball. And every time we walked into the room, we'd be talking to somebody within five minutes. See, my dad had a good quote for intentions. The road to hell is paved with them. Yes, absolutely. So we're going to hell now? No, we meant well. We just didn't. Oh, all right. I was like, what just happened there? No, no, no, no, no, no. TPF got serious. No, no, no, no, no. But, yeah, I mean, literally we'd get in the door and 30 minutes later we're still having to make it into the expo. Well, I mean, before the expo even opened, so we get on the plane, right? We flew out in the afternoon. I think we landed around 3, 3.30. right away on the plane the pilot's like yeah we're going to be able to shave about 40 minutes off the flight time as we arrive in uh in in dallas because you find the dallas fort worth and then you get over to frisco that was a little concerning like i was excited because hey we're going to shave 45 or 40 minutes off our arrival time but how is that possible that the pilot's going to shave 40 minutes off of a two and a half hour flight it was a little concerning extra fuel in the tank maybe i don't it was like experimental flight i didn't know it was gone yeah so that was real nice so we got in get the rental car now bill's responsible for for he's not responsible he offered to take lead on driving and uh a couple moments there bill where you were driving the car where i was a little concerned for my safety and uh my life actually um i'm sure steve can attest to this yeah yeah i i'd agree steve was oh man watched fast and fast and furious eight on the plane right and he's already an aggressive driver right so stack that with like three Starbucks that he slammed, right? Yeah, so the combination of Fast and the Furious 8 being viewed by Bill on the Flight and then slamming two or three Starbucks double shot things, it made for an interesting ride coming out of the airport going to the hotel. Well, you know what? We hit 5 o'clock traffic. Everyone's like locking them up, you know, getting off the brakes. So they're waiting the last second. And I'm just, you know, I'm beyond aggravated at this point. So I just wanted to get to the hotel, which we did. So you know what? No one died. No. We didn't catch any fingers. You know, you thought my methodology of switching lanes was questionable at best. I do recall Ken rolling up the back window. Yeah, and waving, like, sorry, man, I'm being kidnapped here. Don't blame me. Well, there were a couple concerns rolling the back window up. One was, for some reason, I thought people wouldn't be able to see me in the back after some of the maneuverability that was happening on the highway. And then secondly, I did not want to lose a limb by having anything sticking out of the window, so that's kind of where I went with that. Now, all seriousness here, like we appreciated the fact that you drove. Yeah, totally. But there was this thing that you had going on where we're driving on kind of like bumper-to-bumper traffic on the highway. And while Bill would turn behind himself to check if he could change lanes, he would speed up at the same time while I'm watching brake lights happen in front of us. So all this is happening at the same time. I'm just so used to slowing the car down when I see the brake lights. Red means go for Bill. But Bill puts it in another gear and then turns his face away from the car in front of him and then somehow maneuvers. I don't know how you did it. It scared the hell out of me, Bill. I was impressed. We didn't get close. I'm not going to lie. We didn't get close when I did that, though, did we? No. All right. No. Making moves. Yeah. So immediately we had to go to the Walmart. I needed to buy new underwear. That was something that I had to pick up. So we get to the hotel, and we were staying at the Indigo. Yep. And what a great impression we had of the Indigo, because we walk into this place not really knowing what's happening, except for the pictures that we had seen. The lady that was at the front desk was extremely, extremely nice. You had several conversations with her. She was such a sweetheart, man. I mean, literally, any time we had a problem or a question, hey, we thought we'd have a couch. No problem, baby. We'll take care of you. She was hooking you up, man. She gave us another room with a bed, and I was like, wow, you're awesome. And she was sort of rubbing your shoulders. I thought something was weird going on. I did have that kink from looking over too much while driving. So it helped.
    11:06
    Great recommendations for food. So honestly, if you didn't have a great experience at TPF, we definitely recommend Indigo. Good time. Yeah. You recommend the Indigo for food? No, no, no. I thought that's what you just said. I'm sorry. Oh, yeah. Accommodations. For food, no. But she had good recommendations for our first night for food. Oh, for where to go, right? So we get into the room. The room's real nice. We get a view. So we're trying to figure out where to go. Because, again, it's Thursday. The show doesn't open until Friday, and it's like 5.30 on Thursday. Now, we wanted to kind of – first, the weather's great, right? So we got off the plane, and it was like 70 degrees from 35 degrees. And it felt tropical. It's like an instant great mood. Yes, yes. And the first thing that I experienced, like feeling that warm weather and the great mood, is I need a beer. Like I need to be drinking immediately because this is just drinking weather. Well, it said I survived winter mode. You know, like the first warm day you're outside and you're like, thank you, Jesus. Right, right, right. But I mean, I think we were all in agreement. Let's go to like a beer garden. Let's have a cocktail outside. Let's experience this weather. Now, it might not feel as warm to those that live down there, but for us to go from like 30s to 70s in two hours was pretty impressive. So we get recommended to go to this place called the Concrete Cowboy, which the name wasn't quite sure what was going on. But it ended up being right across the street from Ford Field, which is the practice facility for the Dallas Cowboys. It also hosts a lot of like concerts, different high school tournaments, that sort of thing. And when we went upstairs, we're in this outdoor beer garden area that still has like enclosure of a structure. and just the view turned around. I think we posted this on our Facebook. It was incredible. I mean, I could have stayed there for five days and been pretty happy. We were considering it. Yeah, I was like, do we really need to go to a pinball show? We were strongly considering it at that point. And we were there for probably, what, four hours? We were there for a long time. I know at one point Jeff Patterson from This Week in Pinball had joined us, so it was great having drinks with him. and we were kind of getting ready because that night we were going to go to the Christopher Franchi. He invited some people for dinner at Buca di Beppo. So we kind of wrapped up after four hours, I would say. Yep. So we were feeling pretty good. We went over to Buca di Beppo. Christopher Franchi was there. Some people had been in and out that we missed.
    13:33
    But I think Zach was there straight down the middle. Yeah. And flipping out pinball. I think we only missed Mr. and Mrs. Pin that night. Miss Pin and Dr. Pin. Yeah. And the Pin Kids. Yeah. Pinderella and Pincess, I think, is how they are going these days. Got a great gift from them. I got to mention them. I got a pair of burrito socks and a keychain. Yeah, that was crazy, right? Shout out to them for that. Yeah, yeah. I've never seen burrito socks. No. No, my wife was like, what burrito joint did you go to that they give out burrito socks? Right. It's like, well, they wrap the burritos in these things. Yeah, yeah, it was good. Yeah, that was very nice. I want to talk a little bit about them later, too. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So we did the lunch with Franchi. And this is where, at this point, what time is it? Do you guys remember what? 10.30 because we shut the place down. So it's 10.30. Where did we go? We got back to the hotel and then we grabbed drinks from our room. Then we walked to Jeff Patterson's place. That's right. So we went to Jeff's hotel. And then after that, we met with Jason Fowler and Cindy Fowler. So Jason Fowler is from Slap Save Pinball Podcast. And he co-hosts the show with Chris Haper. and then right so cindy fowler is jason fowler's wife we've always gotten along with jason and cindy yeah jason you're our buddy but your wife's so fun and laid back and she's like one of the guys it's like it's incredible so it was really good seeing them throughout the show and we saw them like every turn i took yeah they're so every 20 minutes it seemed like and then um after we met up with them at their place and we went back to uh our hotel to have drinks okay and then we We sat in the funky chairs with the different hair on the back of them. That's right. So we went back to Hotel Indigo, and then we were in the lobby bar. Yep. Yeah. And that was a lot of drinking that day because, again, we started kind of at 530, but it never stopped. No. It was just continuous. And honestly, I mean, we did some drinks at the Concrete Cowboy and then Boca de Vida, whatever place that was. Yeah. So it was a long day of drinking. But you know what? Honestly, they were great times. I felt like I was an animal that had escaped the zoo, dude. I was like running around trying to figure out if I was going to lick people or eat them. You know, it's like I was so excited because it's like, hey, I'm on vacation. It's nice out. Warm weather, drinks, not worried about a sleep schedule. Right. Friends that we haven't seen in a long time, some that we just met for the first time. So it was just exciting. And I don't know if there's anything else that I'm missing major that evening. We did kind of put up the initial podcast that night that we recorded from the room. And I think that caught Jeff Patterson a little bit off guard because I don't know that he's one that likes to do podcasts, but he agreed to come on. So we banged out like 18 minutes and uploaded that. And that was the last of the uploads podcast-wise from Special One Lit. Yeah, then we had the microphone issue. Right, that was the next night. Yeah, it's kind of a shame. So we close out day one, right? So Thursday's in the books, guys. Now we still have Friday, Saturday, and Sunday to go. And now we've got more pinball stories, I think, coming in into the thing here. Into the mix. So the show didn't start until 5 o'clock on Friday, which was good because we didn't actually get motivated and recovered until probably like 2 o'clock on Friday from the adventures of, yeah. Well, we got yelled at by the bartender on Thursday for shutting him down, too, at 2 o'clock in the morning. I don't know if you remember that. I don't remember that. Yeah. Why would he? I don't understand. Because he couldn't serve. That was another time, too. We shut him down because he's like, there's only five minutes left to order.
    17:02
    Do you remember that? No. Oh, yeah. Do you remember this, Bill? I think I do. Are you sure? Well, that night I'm lacking a little clarity because I drank as much as you guys did or close to. All right. But, man, whatever. All right. So, yeah, nonetheless, we had some time to kill, so we went and got some food that day. What did we have? I think it was. Well, it was horrible waking up. I mean, there's no two ways about it. Oh, it was death. Right. And you're in a strange area, and you're in a bed that you can't really get comfortable in, and you're waking up like every hour and a half trying to figure out why you're laying in a bed that's not yours. And somehow the room got down to like 32 degrees. Yeah, it was a frozen tundra in there, which was to our advantage. And the blackout curtains were so dark. It was almost like you were buried alive or in a chamber. It was pleasant when everything was open and the temperature had increased. But I think that was to our advantage than being up at 630 in the morning. We're like vampires that had needed to feed in this dark area. But yeah, so then we got up on that Friday. And then we went to, is that when we went to Whataburger? Yes. Never had Whataburger before. And it was a pretty good fast food place. Perfect for what we needed to do Hang on I think Friday was the hotel breakfast Yes Oh yeah We almost missed that Friday was the hotel breakfast So we were impressed with Hotel Indigo in general And it's a newer facility. Everything's brand new. And so we sat down for our breakfast because the menu's got some nice pictures. And, you know, we wanted like a suburb breakfast. It sounded awesome. Steve, explain. Walk us through what happened at breakfast at Hotel Indigo. I'm almost thinking, I don't know if I can eat right now. It's like noon.
    18:47
    And I'm like, I don't know if I can deal with it. We go down. We sit down. Really nice place. And the server's like running around. And she's like all flustered. And I'm like, hey, what's good on the menu? And she's like, I don't know. I don't eat breakfast. I'm like, okay, well, that doesn't help. So we all order. Strike one, which should have gave us our first order. Have you ever brought anything out that somebody looked like they appreciated while you were We should have taken the hint then and there. Basically, don't eat anything on the menu. Right. So we all get the breakfast tacos. And like a half an hour later, they come out, and they don't look too appetizing. No, but that wasn't even the worst part. The biscuits. Biscuit gate. Well, yeah. Oh, the biscuit gate. Oh, yeah. I had biscuits with mine, and I know, Steve, you had biscuits. Yeah, I wanted the biscuits and gravy. And she was like, we're out of gravy. Right? And Steve's like, son of a bitch. It's Texas. I can't get biscuits. I want to get some biscuits and gravy down south. so they make gravy magically in that 30 minutes somehow she just brings this order out which she didn't tell us about yeah and uh yeah there's uh there's maybe a little bit of mold on these biscuits i see a little green spot of mine i'm like oh yeah hey hey ken i think you might want to check your biscuit over there so he shows me his and there's like this little you know it almost looked like a like a fuzzy birthmark on the on the biscuit yeah i was like maybe a peppercorn or something but there's only one right i'm like okay so peppery right because everything in texas has some type of flair like i could not find just potato chips everything is salsa flavored or barbecue barbecue or hot and heavy but so yeah so i'm like huh i'm like that kind of kind of sucks for steve right especially since last time we hung out with him he ate like old warm chicken uh now he's in texas and he's getting like mold on his biscuits yeah totally okay with it right so i went to check mine and uh sure enough i also have the the furry birthmark now the difference between the way that we dealt with the situation i thought was interesting because i just kind of immediately stopped eating biscuits all together where steve just surgically removed his furry spot just the one spot and continue to consume the rest of the biscuit i needed to try the gravy which was what we were waiting for the whole you know reasoning of me wanting biscuits biscuits and gravy and when she came out she's like hey the chef made gravy i was like huh yeah he whipped up some gravy for you. Right. And now he's like smoking a cigarette. That was concerning too. It's like, why did he have to make gravy and then start smoking? But yeah, so the gravy came through the window watching us and we're going to eat it. I know. The gravy was disappointing because it just had like a chunky texture but with no taste. Yeah, it was no taste. Anyways, so we are now about 20 minutes in to this podcast. We probably lost half of our listenership, but we're going to go full bore here. But here's where I'm hoping that Jeff Patterson is listening and he's like, aha, maybe the indigo isn't so perfect. Oh, wait. Yeah, we need to edit all that out for Jeff and give him just his own version. Just five-star breakfast. Jeff was annoyed with me that I was touting up the indigo as highly as I was because I was very impressed with it. So was I. The hotel's only four months old. I was texting him pictures and I invited him in, gave him a tour at some point. I was trying to buy him a key chain, taking pictures in front of the signs and everything. I thought we got him a bathrobe, though. At one point he's like, I get it. I stop it. Like, that was it. I'm like, all right, so no more Indigo.
    22:08
    So we got out of there, and then we ate. Chilled for a couple hours. And then we, yeah, so we ate breakfast. We went back to the hotel, like tried to sleep. Went back out and got Whataburger for lunch. Went back to the hotel to sleep. And then we're like, hey, you know, while we're here, we might as well go across the street to Texas Pinball Festival, right? Well, we met up with Cindy and Jason again. and sat on the patio for a couple hours leading up to the start of the show. That was a whole dogwood incident. Yes. That had happened. Yes, the dogwood trees. You see the fuzziness in everyone's recollection of events here, right? Yeah, if I was asked to construct a timeline, it would not have been very good. But, yeah, we were commenting because there was a certain smell in the air as we were sitting outside. Was it the Hyatt? We were sitting outside, like, in their patio area. Hotel crashing. Yeah, we had brought beers and just sat out there because for whatever reason, the Indigo didn't have like an outdoor patio because it had a pool. But we weren't going to swim and the pool water was freezing. Like even, you know, I'm not there to swim. Yeah. But there's like a smell. We couldn't figure it out. And it was like I think it was the Arizona State hockey team was there and they had all their like hockey equipment sprawled out, strewn about on the grass in front of where we were sitting on the patio area. So we thought maybe we were just kind of like getting downdraft of some BO. Because for those of you who don't know, like hockey equipment, the amount of sweat that goes through hockey equipment is ridiculous. And it always just reeks. I mean, it's just bad. No amount of potpourri is going to recover the hockey equipment and make it smell like anything serviceable. But Dogwood will cover that smell. Now, Dogwood has a distinct taste or smell, I should say. It's like a stale saltiness.
    23:56
    It's like kind of the smell of a dogwood. Jason did have the best description of what it actually smells like. We will not. I don't know that we can put that on. We're not going to. We'll talk to Jason about that. For those of you that want to know more about the dogwood tree incident, I recommend that you contact the Slap State Pinball Podcast and email Jason Fowler and ask him about the dogwood. I guess it's a tree that's prominent where they live in St. Louis. and surprisingly he was able to identify the smell and correlate it 100% perfectly. So there was a running joke that had gone on through the rest of TPF about the dogwood trees and dogwood incidents, dogwood flying on you and getting in your face. Right, right. So we'll leave it at that. But we did go across the street to TPF. And let me ask you guys this. So when we went in, what were your impressions? Because we're used to Pinball Expo in Chicago, and now we're going into what is the largest pinball exhibition, the largest pinball convention in the world, I believe, at least in the United States. And what were your expectations and what did you ultimately think is a first impression walking in? Steve, you're the guest, so I'm going to let you go unless you want me to go first. All right. No, that's fine. You know, I never really looked at pictures of TPF. I didn't look at pictures of Indigo. I didn't look at pictures of Frisco. I didn't do any research.
    25:16
    I just like to be, you know, in the moment and surprised, surprised. Yeah. So, yeah, we walk into TPF and I'm like, wow, there's a lot of machines here. There's a ton of people here.
    25:30
    It's it's way bigger than Chicago. So many more machines. But I don't the way they section it off. It's kind of hard to tell, you know, when you're standing in certain spots. It was it was different. But yeah, I was I was blown away, man. See, for anyone that wasn't there, they have these like eight or nine foot tall barriers between booths and different sections, so you can't see the whole expo in one. They're like blacked out curtains and canvases and stuff. Yeah, exactly. So it makes it real hard to judge, and there's not like straight rows or anything, so it's very zigzagged. And, you know, I mean, sometimes if you're trying to find a place, it's very hard to get back to there because you're like, okay, do I need to make a right here or left here? I feel like it's like a Pac-Man layout. Yeah. I don't know what the overview looks like. Yeah. Right. Yeah, it probably is. I'm sorry to interject, but I just wanted to throw that in there. No, go ahead. I was just, yeah, I was blown away. That was my first impressions. What did you think, Bill? I thought it was crazy with how many machines there were. It was a little almost overwhelming with how busy it was. It was just so many people, and every single machine it seemed like had people on it, which was good because they had so many machines, but just very overwhelming with how much stuff there was to look at and actually do inside of there. all around very impressed with how big it was and the layout just very overwhelming a lot to take in for the census yeah i would agree i i think walking in you knew that uh this show meant business as far as the amount of people and the amount of selection that you were going to see first things that i noticed immediately was that it's a busy busy show so i tip my hat to everybody that's involved with texas pinball festival because it's it's looks like a huge undertaking to get that to make sense. You did. I did. I noticed that like video games and pinball machines weren't really segregated in their own sections. You would kind of walk a row and you'd see a row of like maybe 12 or 15 pins and then like three or four video games and then some pins, some video games. So if you were there specifically for pinball machines, you were going to be exposed to video games or like arcade games and vice versa. I don't think that's a bad thing. Just the only thing that really was uh because you know what it is it's me is i'm not one i hate lines i can't stand it yeah i never want to wait in lines and uh especially fighting the amount of tiredness that i had i was like the night before i wasn't going to wait in line for you know eight nine people deep to jump on an alice cooper nightmare castle now i noticed every single day regards to the time there there was very few times where there was just a machine where nobody was on it that you could walk up to And that's great because the show's busy. That means that it's drawing a lot of traffic. And with the amount of pins that they had there this year, for all those machines to be occupied and to have a line, speaks volumes for what's happening at TPF. For me, I'm used to more of a pinball expo where you still have a lot of machines. You just don't have the insurgence of people flying from all over the United States to go to this one show. So you can, you know, jump on a machine. there's always something open it seems at Expo to get on so that's kind of what I was used to was I disappointed? I wasn't disappointed again it was a transition that at some point I was just like I don't think I'm going to be playing very much pinball because I'm just impatient and I don't want to wait in line to get on a machine but that's fine because I usually don't play a lot of pinball at Expo either I just look at the machines not being occupied nobody's on that and I think for Expos or pinball festivals in general I think for us it's more or less just the friendship and getting together with people that you don't see that often and the stories that are created along the way. I'll tell you what, and by no means do I think that we are like these overwhelmingly popular people. But it was nice to know that we have, I guess reputation is probably the wrong word, but we've got a little bit of a presence in the pinball community because there were a lot of people that had come up that maybe read our name, that was on our lanyards, or maybe had Bill Webb, there were a few occasions where you were just talking and somebody had overheard your voice and recognized you from the podcast. A lot of people confused myself for Steve and Steve for myself this weekend because we were similar, so we had kind of a stunt double joke that was going on and on throughout the weekend. But it was just nice to have people come up to us that we had either interacted with on Facebook or via Messenger or via email, and we were able to kind of shake hands and put a face with a name. And people that we had never corresponded with that just appreciated the content that we were offering and trying to provide for people that are interested in pinball to be able to have conversations with those people was – it wasn't something that really had happened with us at Expo back in October. We had just kind of started our podcast in July. So we had July, August, September. In October, we were three and a half months in. People locally from Chicago had knew who we were, and that was sufficient for us to have fun. but this was just a completely different experience as far as the exposure that the show has offered us as far as being able to extend our circle of friends. It was really nicely, well-received by me at least. Oh, yeah, and honestly, I try and engage on pinball enthusiasts and stuff like that, so it was really refreshing to put a face with some of the names and actually some of the machines. So that was really, really cool, and I really wish I could remember names. It was kind of long days and longer nights.
    30:57
    And I think one of the coolest, and I've said this a few times already between us, but we were walking back from a food establishment, and his father and son were walking right behind us, and I started talking. He's like, you guys do that podcast. Yeah, that was incredible, right?
    31:11
    And just amazing that he could pick that voice out. More so your voice than mine. I didn't get any voice recognition this weekend, But people had absolutely remember what your voice sounds like on the podcast and were able to tap you on the shoulder and be like, hey, aren't you Bill Webb? Yeah. Which is pretty nice, man. That was real cool. It is cool. Just like, you know, you guys getting intermixed. Steve and I were walking a few times and people were like, oh, it's Ken and Bill. It's like, yeah, no, this is Chicken Steve. Yeah. But they knew who Steve was. So, you know, I think our jokes during the podcast really worked. I'm going to roll with it a little more next time. Hey, you know what? I'm Ken Cromwell. Whatever it takes, man. Colonel Steve.
    31:52
    Yeah, the after picture, because the before picture of Ken Cromwell, I need to drop a little bit of weight, man. I'm carrying some winter pounds, and I need to slim it out for summertime.
    32:02
    So then that evening, we went to the Jersey Jack Seminar, and they had unveiled the Wizard of Oz, the Yellow Brick Road edition. It's a semi-limited production because they're going to make about 200 of these things with the potential to make more. 500 you have um you've got like a glitter going through the yellow in the play field you've got a metallic yellow uh armor right which is going to be like your legs and uh all that kind of stuff the backlash was different uh the flying monkey is now gone now it's just a fly monkey is removed there's no gates there where the ball would be captive when the monkey drops it off um other than that it looks pretty much the same other than like the backlash and the topper the gui has implemented yellow, where the scoring sections were, where it was green for Emerald City, it was red for Ruby Red, and now it's yellow for Yellow Brick Road Edition.
    32:56
    That apron. That apron's pretty cool. That apron is the wood apron. The wood apron. And it had radcals. Yeah. So where there were some changes made to the machine, mostly cosmetic changes, you did have that wood apron that you only were able to get on the ECLE when it first came out. The radcals are a nice addition. I think the two surprises with that machine, at least the buzz in the show, one, was that the Flying Monkey mech being removed, a lot of people thought would have been followed up with a price reduction. It was the opposite. So the MSRP on the Wizard of Oz Yellow Brick Road Edition is $11,500. Yep. What are your thoughts on that? You know what? Honestly, I saw there were some people that had hesitations with the price, and I think it might be a little high, considering it's not a collector's edition. If it had that branding on it, I could see it.
    33:47
    But you know what? I mean, if they get it, they get it. They don't need to sell 500 of them, you know. Yeah. So I don't know. You know what? I'm kind of torn on that, but I really like the game. I think it's cool.
    34:01
    Yellow's not a big color of mine, but I love that play field in that game. You like the glitter and the yellow. Love that. Yeah, okay. That was just awesome. And then we got a picture that was posted, too, of me playing it. Plays just like mine, except for the monkey's different. What do you think, Steve? I think it looks great. I mean, I wouldn't probably get the yellow armor. I think it's a little too, you know, in your face.
    34:26
    But, yeah, I agree. I think the play field, the sparkle down the yellow road looks great. You know, the wood looks great, the wood apron. The 11.5 prices me out. Yeah, right. Maybe I'll get to use one down the road, but, you know. $11,490?
    34:44
    I agree with you. I think where the – I like what they did with the metallic flake in the trim because you see the glitter that's in the play field in the yellow. The yellow is very – I mean, it's noticeable. It's a big contrast on the machine. For me personally, I don't think that I want a machine to stick out like that with the armor. like i'd prefer something that like accentuated the rest of the machine uh maybe a little more subtly but if yellow's your thing and uh you like that theme where it's going with yellow brick road i mean there's no mistaking that that is a completely different wizard of oz uh how it looks so i brought my spoon with me to stir the pot on this one per se yeah so what did you think of that last action hero though with the yellow trim i so that yeah i i did i like that actually that was the nicest last action you're ever going to see absolutely yeah i agree with you though on that machine it might not have corresponded as well just because the colors on the cab that was cory hardy's uh last action hero yeah met him great guy yeah what a freaking awesome guy that is and he's a guy that just he teamed up with straight down the middle so now like his youtube internet content that he normally offers and he does everything right with yeah restorations repairs he's under their umbrella so to speak and unified so he's part of that brand and what a cool addition it was really nice to meet him talk pinball I loved the gaudiness on that last action hero because that's just kind of a fun pin where for some reason like Wizard of Oz comes across as more of like a high end sports car and like again maybe it's just me or I don't know I'm sure there are 200 people out there that will appreciate it I'm just not one that – I don't like yellow in general. And on that machine, it was just too much for me to take in. On Last Action Hero or Wizard of Oz No Wizard of Oz On the Last Action Hero it didn bother me at all I think it was perfect on that game Yeah Him and then his buddy brought down that Lethal Weapon That Lethal Weapon 3 That was black with the red armor. I think both those machines were awesome examples of Data East. I do not like Lethal Weapon 3 at all. And you've gone on record saying you hate it. I hate the game. Yeah. That Lethal Weapon 3 that was blacked out and trimmed out and blinged out, I want that in my basement. And it was beautiful. And that just shows you my approach to pinball, if you think about it. I can think the game is crap, but if it looks awesome, and it's got something that something else doesn't have, it makes it collectible to me, I want that. I want to put that on display. I want people to come over and go, wow, what the hell is that? That's Lethal Weapon 3? It's like, yes, it is. I hate the game, but check it out in attract mode. It's awesome. Yeah, I think that was just a great-looking machine. Great game. Steve, your thoughts on either of those games? Same, both top examples you're going to see of either of those titles. And I'm not a huge fan of either one, but I'm like Ken, I'd take either one of those in my collection any day. Yeah, for sure. Any day.
    37:47
    So, yeah, so we got off track there for a second. But, so, yeah, we saw the Jersey Jack presentation with the Yellow Brick Road. We're almost missing one of our key people of our adventure this weekend with Rorden.
    38:01
    Rorden. What a great guy. Rorden Osborne from Australia. Shout out to him. 15 hours. One way to get there. I think he said it was 22 hours from him to make it from door to door. It just shows you the dedication that he has. The sad thing with Rorden, we've been talking with him on Facebook for months and months and months. And at some point we just figured out, hey, we're both going to be at TPF. It would be fun to kind of connect. And he's like, hey, man, I got these shirts that I made up. point, we want to give you guys some of these Australian TPF shirts. And I'm like, oh, that's cool, man. I got the Special Enlits shirt. I still owed him a Deep Root shirt from Expo Contest. And for those of you that are looking for your Pirates of the Caribbean shirts, I snagged those from Eric Mignier at Expo, too. So better late than never, I have them. Contact the Special Enlits Pinball Podcast and let me know. Let me get those out to you. Chris Haper, I think you busted some balls on me in one of your podcasts about that. So I have it now, buddy. I'll make sure that I ship it first class for you. So anyways, I digress. I didn't mean to get off topic. No, no, no, no. But Rorden. What a great guy. We meet this guy, and he's just like, I love the guy. He's like, I wish he didn't live in Australia, and I wish he lived in St. Charles so that he could just come over and just hang out. I mean, the guy always has something to say. In a good way. In all fairness, those kind of people, usually I'm just like, well, hey, thanks for coming out. I'll see you next expo. But, no, like, he was engaging. Like, he was interesting, very respectful. Like, the dynamic that he kind of personified was sweet. The banter back and forth never got old. And it was great hanging out with him over every single day of Expo. Or Expo, sorry, Texas Pinball Festival. We had spent a lot of time with him, and it was great. I hope he's not like a serial killer back home. I doubt it. He seems too mellow. But you know what? The nice thing about that is, yeah, he always has something to say because he's been in pinball so long. Yeah. I think he's had 30 years he's been collecting and hanging out. But he's always respectful of what your thoughts on it are or something, whether you agreed or not. So it was just really refreshing to have somebody that could be that engaged in what you're talking about but still have respect for your point of view. I love listening to his Aussie etiquette stories, too, where it's like, you can say this and you can say this, but if this person says this, that's not good. It was just so interesting to hear all that kind of stuff. So it was fun listening to him talk, man. And just what a great guy. So, Rorden, thanks for making Texas Pinball Festival a pretty awesome place. Thank you, Rorden. Yeah. And he's not even being hospitable. It's not his hometown. He came from out of the country. Yeah. It made us feel at home, if that makes any sense. But there were a lot of people, and I know we're going to forget some people that we had great conversation with. So I would like to just talk a little bit for the next few minutes about the people that we had met that we remember to bring up right now. Because in all honesty, we're still – guys, I'm still recovering just sleep-wise. I did not sleep well out there. And I just don't feel myself. I don't feel 100%. Every single podcast I've ever done, I've been having an adult beverage with. And not today. I just can't do it, man. I just need to chill out, cleanse out.
    41:18
    One of the first guys that we met walking in for myself was Gabe, who runs Pentastic in New England. what a nice guy that guy is uh he was fun to talk to and we kind of ran into him a bunch of times um we sat down at the jersey jack uh reveal and we were sitting right next to uh sarah and christian line who are you know is mrs pin and uh dr pin and what genuinely nice people that they are awesome you always hear these shows and you kind of get an idea of the personalities and that sort of thing, and you kind of expect or anticipate one thing or another. And they were just super nice.
    41:59
    Can't say enough nice things about them. Yeah, they were definitely awesome. We had Chris Govner, who is – he is Albert Elgar's – now, Albert is the guy that runs the Pinball Nerds podcast out of Canada. And Chris is acting as his, like, his pin turn, so to speak, covering Texas Pinball Festival, and he's going other places in the United States. Chris was dressed up in this Willy Wonka outfit. And it was funny because I had some stuff that I had to give to Chris to give to Albert. And when I saw him walking off, I'm like, oh, my gosh. Who's this guy? This guy is a little off there. No, but he was. Here we go. Cosplay. The only guy, right? Yeah. No, he was an awesome guy. He was awesome. What a freaking nice guy, man. So it was great spending time with him. Albert, you couldn't have picked a better guy to unify with that podcast. and I think we were talking about getting together at Expo. Just a great guy. A lot of people that contact us with the show. Help me out, Bill. Michael and Ashton, those were guys I believe that were staying in our hotel. I know one was Michael. I thought the other was Ashton. I might be wrong. If I am, I'm sorry. Great guys out of Duluth, Minnesota which they're going to hopefully give us some news here in a couple of months about some of the things they're doing. So hopefully we can promote what they're doing.
    43:15
    Those guys jumped into the pool. They swam in the 50-degree pool. I was like, you guys are nuts. But they're from Duluth, so 70 to them is like 95. Fish would have been cold in that pool, man. These guys are jumping in. I'm like, you guys are out of your mind. But yeah, to them, they really know cold. So shout out to them. Don't forget, one for me that was really cool was I met Mark Ritchie. Sat down and talked with him. I met up with Wally, who's building the Scared Stiff right now and built Medieval Madnesses and stuff like that.
    43:50
    Well, I mean, we had a long conversation with Jack Canary, who runs Jersey Jack Pinball. He was the only owner there.
    43:58
    Had a long conversation with Joe Balser over at American Pinball. We've got some stuff in the works, I think, with Joe, which I'm excited about. Don't forget Zach Gregg. Zach and Gregg from straight down the middle. Miss Manny, Schmitty, Danger. Schmitty. Yeah. Schmitty was nice to meet, too. Schmitty's a great guy. Yeah. You know what I like about Schmitty is, like, he's just kind of, like, he smiles, like, in the background. And he's not, like, a very obnoxious guy or anything like that. But, like, when he talks, you listen because he's just kind of quiet. Yeah. But then he just comes in and busts out his pinball work. And I like seeing what he does. So he's an absolutely good guy. Absolutely.
    44:34
    And then Zach and Greg, we've hung out with them several times. And it never gets old. They're just – I like watching the two of them together because they feed off each other so well. Yeah, they're a true team. And to be able to see them pull off the Twippies with Jeff Patterson like they did, and we'll get into that in a second, was pretty remarkable. Jeff Teolis, we met him for the first time, which was nice. Yeah, it was nice meeting Jeff. And that was right after the Twippies. I had never met Jeff Teolis. We had exchanged messages a few times. And, yeah, I mean, we had a really good conversation, actually. And right after that, outside, we had met Martin from Head to Head Pinball. It was nice to meet Marty. I wish Ryan was there. I had not met those guys ever. And Martin seemed like a really class act, nice dude. So, I mean, that was fun. Dennis Creasel. Oh, yeah, Dennis. Almost forgot Dennis. Dennis and Tony. Not that we went to. Dennis and Tony from Eclectic Gamers Podcast. So I'm going to give you a little hint on this. The later that we saw you in the show, the less we were really remembering things. So it's not that we're trying to forget anybody because we just met so many people. And it's not even because we were inebriated. No, it was just no energy. Yeah. And I will remember all of these conversations. I just can't remember everybody right this minute. I'm still like, and it's not jet lag. It's just complete exhaustion. It's seven hours of sleep in three days. It doesn't really help. Jack Danger? Yeah, Jack. It's always good to talk to Jack. But, you know, we should probably jump back down. Oh, Joe Fox. It was good meeting Joe Fox. Yeah, Joe. He was a great guy, great guy.
    46:07
    So, honestly, I mean, we met so many people that if we didn't acknowledge you, it's not because we didn't mean to, just, you know, we're trying to run through all these names in our head, and we didn't write everything down like we should have. So our apologies if we don't. We definitely have the memories of that. And I think it's more important now to jump back into what we did Friday night, you know, after we went to the show. So if you remember, we met up with Zach Gregg, Christopher Franchi, John Borg, all these other gentlemen at the bar at that hotel. So after that, I'm going to let... Oh, Friday. Friday night. Yeah. So we were at the bar for, what, two hours inside, talking with all of these prominent pinball people,
    46:48
    just having the time of our lives. And then Jason showed up, and then we did a podcast with Jason, and Jason had how many different people on that show? He had quite a few. If you get a chance, it was fun because he was able to kind of document everything that was going on. And there were a lot of people on that podcast. I would say there was at least 10 or 12 individuals that were in that show. So you can go to Slap Save Pinball Podcast and you can listen. At the time of this recording, I think it was there. It's I forget what the title of it is, but he's got like three that were up. And the one where it's like a mashup of a bunch of people. that's the one that you want to listen to if you want to hear kind of everybody that was uh there with him that night uh in like a party like atmosphere which was great because this was literally right outside of the bar so we were all sitting outside having uh beverages and you know one person would come up we'd introduce or you know it was a circle of us then francie came out then jack danger came out um and jack danger had just landed he was like hours and hours behind I think he got in at like 1. I think, yeah. I think the podcast was like 1.30 or something. Yeah. I mean, was that the night that we were up till like 4.30 or something like that, right? That was the night that I actually got yelled at by the bartender because I was like, dude, I just want a Coke. He's like, we don't serve booze after 2 o'clock by Texas state law. And I'm like, dude, I want a Coca-Cola. No alcohol. He's like, we don't serve Coca-Cola unless there's alcohol in it. This is Texas. Yeah. Sorry about that. So he gave it to me. How about some jalapenos in the Coke? Yeah, it wouldn't have surprised me if there was something in it, but I wouldn't have been able to tell. So now it makes sense because I remember that bartender right off the bat saying, man, I got in big trouble last night. I kept this thing off early, and you pinball people are so loud that it's going all through. We weren't there that night. Yeah. Going through the building, people were complaining. My boss got in trouble. He's like, I've got to have you guys out here on time tonight. I was like, dude, I wasn't even here. Not even supposed to be here today. Yep, yep. So that was fun. But then we left that hotel. Didn't we try to record our second podcast? Yeah. Oh, my gosh. We started that recording at like 3 in the morning on the hotel patio of Jason's Hotel. By the Dogwood Trees. Yeah, by the Dogwood Trees. And absolutely hilarious. I literally was sore the next day from laughing so hard. I have to try to edit it up because, again, we had a microphone went down. So we brought three mics and a portable recording unit. And when one of those mics go down that's being passed, none of it makes any sense anymore. But I know I could probably pull some tidbits of commentary out of there, which would be pretty funny. So maybe we'll do like a lost episodes thing for TPF because there were some really funny comments. And that was we were sitting down with, well, Jason Fowler was there from Slap Save. Zach Menny was there that night. Jack Danger was with us. myself, Steve Beattie, Bill Webb. Schmitty was there. I think Rorden was there. Yep. And that was, man, I'm so mad that I lost that show. And that's what killed the rest of the content for TPF because I just had no way to kind of recover that. To say that we felt like death again on Saturday. Understatement. Was an understatement. And it's one of those situations where we were going to bed. It was five o'clock in the morning. and later that night are the Twippies and we had to present.
    50:13
    I'm feeling great at 5 o'clock in the morning. I'm like, oh, this is awesome. I'm going to go to sleep. I'm going to wake up at noon or 12. We were up early. We couldn't sleep. Man, the sleep was crucial. That was rough.
    50:26
    Not much happened on Saturday for us until we went into... Do you recall anything decent happening? We went to what was that burger? In-N-Out Burger like we had before? I think the Whataburger was better than In-N-Out. I've had In-N-Out before, but that was just kind of my Whataburger taste. I don't know. Whataburger was definitely better. After we ate Whataburger on the first day, we all felt a little better. Was it you, Steve? It's like, well, probably because our taste buds had been blasted off. Blasted away from the alcohol consumption.
    50:55
    And again, guys, if you've got family members or even kids that are listening to the show, alcohol does not correlate to good times always. you have to be a responsible drinker and be of age because going out and and just consuming too much you pay the price more than you know it's not worth it that's my public service announcement for the special one lit pinball podcast it wasn't but for us it was all about getting together with these people that we don't ever really get to see that often and that's really what it was and alcohol just kind of fell into the mix because there's a bar there well that's when right when we're getting into the twippies right we're waiting outside and then uh guess who walks in chris caloris right for those of you that don't know who chris caloris is or you don't know him by name um he's the host of canada's pinball podcast uh and he was in the running for podcast of the year and it was the first time i had ever ever met him i had talked to him online on a few different things we've always gotten along i haven't had any issues uh but he's very you know polarizing for some people controversial for others taboo um that's not for me to speak on i can only really correlate to somebody or what's happening with my direct interaction and just you know always listening but not making any decisions yeah it was very nice to meet him uh he was he told me that he would be the best dressed person there and he uh christopher franchi i'm sorry for using this term he freaking knocked it out of the park like the guy was like what the heck just happened i felt very underdressed yep uh but he did have a statement i thought was funny he's like he's like man he's like look around he's like all these people are acting like they're in college again you know it's like you're out of town you're drinking there's no wives and i was like you're exactly right i do feel like i'm in college again i'm like you're nailed it man like it was just funny to hear that um so we kind of spoke for a few minutes and then he went on his way we all kind of filed into the to the twippy awards now the twippies brought to you by this week in pinball um jeff patterson who this week in pinball that's his thing that's what he does not full-time as a job this is a full-time job that he does without really getting paid other than Patreon support or donations. So he goes, he puts this whole show on with his friends, Zach, Benny, and Greg Bone from Straight Down the Middle. Now, Zach hosts This Week in Pinball podcast. The three of them put on arguably the best pinball display celebration of a single year that I've ever seen or could ever have imagined. How professional was that? The animations that they put together or Zach put together for every award were just awesome. Yeah, that whole movie reel. Yeah. Oh, my God. Every time. It screamed award show. Yeah. Not to sound weird, but right when they started off and they started that initial movie thing, two things happened. I almost got goosebumps because I was like, whoa, this is not expected like this. And then I got this adrenaline rush where I just wanted to freaking go nuts and win all the awards. The only problem is there's no awards that I could win there. No, no. But it was so motivating to see that and to see everybody that had gotten recognition at the award show.
    54:03
    Anybody that was on a ballot or got recognized, because they had recognized the top three in all the categories, whether it was the categories that were preselected or the writing categories as far as who was there.
    54:16
    Myself and Bill, we were holding out some hope there for the Special One Lit Pinball Podcast to make a little presence known in the Podcast of the Year category. and it was Canadian's Pinball Podcast, Head to Head Pinball Podcast, and then this week in Pinball Podcast were the top three that were selected by those that had voted. I can't argue with it. No, they're all good selections. Absolutely, absolutely. All those podcasts put in a lot of work. And they got the votes because of their accolades. They all put in the hard work and time and dedication to do it. We're still kind of in order to do this. So congratulations to all of them for being nominated. being nominated is, uh, um, definitely a lot of recognition in itself in this event. I, and I, but I also, we wanted to make sure that I know for a fact there were people that did vote for us And um that was humbling and we appreciate that There were people that had told us that before the Twippies and after the Twippies and it just felt good to know that we have some support there So it gives us something to work hard towards next year because absolutely I'd like to be recognized at some point as a top three pinball podcast. So something to look at. I agree. But you know what? The thing about that, too, is when we were walking around there, we kept seeing people wearing our shirt, you know, special and lit. That was really, really inspiring. And I think kind of myself both tried to walk up to people that were wearing our shirts and say, you know, thank you for supporting us and thank you for listening and thank you for purchasing our shirt. And, you know, we hope to keep bringing the stuff that you keep listening to. So congratulations, everybody that was nominated, anybody that was voted for, anybody that's in pinball. It's awesome. There are two things I wanted to talk about, arguably the most controversial things that had happened during the Twippies. uh first was when there was uh an artwork category that was one uh artwork of the year uh was zombie eddie had one yep and i know that i i talked to chris franchi a week or two prior and he's like hey he's like i was talking to jeremy we're gonna do this bit where i'm gonna get some tin snips and when i go up to present the award on jeremy's behalf i'm gonna take the tin snips and i'm gonna cut them i'm gonna walk off the stage and i was like oh that's gonna be actually Kind of funny. That's cool that you did it. But what was going on that night was that during all the Stern Awards, because Keith Elwin wasn't there, Jerry Thompson won Twippy Man. I'm loving Jerry. I was sitting next to him, and it was good to see the accolades for that. Smile ear to ear on him. Yeah, man. It was good. But Mike Vinacore was coming up from Stern, and he was kind of picking up all the awards on Keith's behalf, because Iron Maiden and Pirates of the Caribbean were kind of going head to head, so to speak. and when it came up for artwork of the year and Jeremy had won,
    56:53
    Christopher Franchi wasn't there right away. Vinicore goes up and he makes his speech for Stern. And this is where it got weird, right? Because I'm watching as Mike is doing his acceptance for Jeremy, Franchi kind of comes off from the side and he's just kind of hovering over him. And I don't think Mike had realized that Franchi was there. And it was very evident to me that he did not know that there was any, like, background joke that was supposed to happen. So when Franchi, after Mike kind of gets done with the speech, he looks to his right and he's kind of surprised that Chris is there. Chris grabs the mic and he starts talking about, you know, how it was a big year for Zombie Yeti and how everybody works hard. And then everything just kind of turned dark where he started like getting a little bit nasty about, you know, things that are going on with the artwork and rivalry between them. He takes the Twippy that was a fake Twippy. It wasn't like an original award that was supposed to go out. And he puts it on the floor and he stomps on it. And then he picks it up and he's like, I hate you. And he throws this broken Twippy off and he stomps off. And I was like, it just played weird to me because I don't think that's how it was supposed to go. I think that he was supposed to start and end that himself. But to kind of get involved in Mike Vanacore's speech, Mike was like, what the f**k just happened here? Yeah, he had no clue what was going on. The look on his face, his eyes were big as saucers, and he just kind of walked down, and he's shaking his head. He's like, I don't even know what to do with this. It was kind of funny, but I felt bad for Mike because he was like a deer in the headlights just waiting to get hit. It was funny, but what made it uncomfortable for me was watching Mike's reaction because I was like, oh, my gosh. But it almost made it more realistic at the same time. But you're right. At one point, half the people didn't know that it was a joke. More than half. Yeah, way more than half. Because of Mike not knowing. And you know, Chris isn't one to hold stuff back. So for him to kind of jump on the twippies and take that as a platform, I don't think that's his style. But it wouldn't have been completely shocking if that was really. Now, me even knowing, like us knowing that it was supposed to happen, at one point I thought, wow, maybe there's some truth to this. This was a little uncomfortable. Right. Like, yeah, I felt a little bit awkward about it. So anyways, it was funny, but I'm still unsettled about it. So Chris could take up acting with how well that went that night. Yeah, that did go very well. Now, he's since addressed everybody on Facebook. He's like, everybody relax. It was a joke. The second now, and I find this funny and humorous and disappointing all in one. Funny and humorous because this, the podcast of the year category, right? which when you think of everything in pinball and all the designers and the artists and everybody that's working hard for their job, you don't really think is pinball podcasting being as a high level of importance in regards to what's actually or in comparison to what's happening at these manufacturers. I mean, this is their livelihoods. This is what we kind of do is as not a hobby, but it's like almost like journalism and content and that sort of thing. No doubt in my mind, the most controversial award that had happened. And I think one of the most highly anticipated rewards or awards that were going to go down.
    60:10
    A lot of people in the Head to Head Pinball camp, a lot of people in the Kaneda Pinball Podcast camp. And when those videos, because there were presentation videos that had happened for everybody, for the machines and for the person, for like YouTube channel. You get into the podcasting category. The video starts playing for Head to Head Pinball. and you're listening to like excerpts of Ryan and Marty's banter. And at one point, Zach had it edited up where Ryan's just kind of going down the list of everybody that he had introduced in the show throughout the year. And you're like, wow, this is this is pretty impressive. You know, people are clapping and they're getting pumped up. Then the video number two starts and it's for Canada's Pinball Podcast. Right. And I'm like, oh, I really want to see what Zach did, what he edited up for this, because I mean, Chris is polarizing. He's controversial. I think his thing is like, my show is entertainment, so you want to see the entertainment, right? So before you could even figure out what was going on, you get this heckler from the back. And no joke, loud and consistent, boo!
    61:15
    And then it goes, boo! I mean, louder. The entire, like, 30, 40 seconds of that introductory clip. But at one point, I'm like, this has got to be a bit, right? And we were in the back row, so it was easy for us to kind of look behind to the right and see this guy yelling. But then back there, I also noticed poor Martin's back there from head-to-head pinball. He's got his head down, looking away like, it's not me. He's like, dude, this is not me. He's like, I don't know what's going on. I think Teola said that he was kind of back there, and he's like, oh, my gosh, I had nothing to do with this. So I'm thinking, all right, Canada had put somebody up to it or something. so the video ends the guy stops and then the the third we were anticipating we were hoping hey maybe special when lick gets up there it was this week in pinball just a bit outside so what i thought was such a genius move because it was uncomfortable to hear this guy um heckle from the back when this week in pinball podcasts was introduced um zach just without even thinking just starts booing himself he's like boo boo boo and i thought it was such a such a classy way to kind of bring everything back under control except the only problem with getting everything under control with this guy in the back was the fact that the winner of the podcast of the year was was connect pinball podcast and uh he gets announced and you know people you're at an award show respectfully you know clapping giving the guys a lot of people laughed everyone a lot of people were very respectful exactly except except and this went again from when chris walked up through most of his speech till chris got off stage and walked back there i mean it was just constant chris had like a i don't know it felt like a two two minute kind of acceptance speech Now, the whole time he's trying to Chris is one that he likes to entertain. Yeah. So I'm sure he had some things prepared that he said and he got through his speech. But he has to do this with this guy yelling from the back. I don't think it was two minutes. I think it felt like two minutes because it felt like be quiet for days. Yeah, because I was just uncomfortable. There were only a couple of words left. And I'm like, it was just sucking like all the energy out of me because I just didn't know what was going to happen. Like, is somebody going to like toss this guy out? I think security came at one point and kind of pulled him out. Chris got done with his acceptance speech. And if you go to straight down the middle pinball on Twitch, I don't know if it's archived there or I would recommend. I'm sure there's going to be a link up this week in pinball. It's on YouTube. So you can kind of see this happen live. The guy gets pulled out. Chris gets off the stage and he's the look of intensity on this guy's face with a direct march outside. and I'm like, oh my gosh, it's going to go down. I'm like, Canada's going to kick this guy's ass. That's what I thought. I'm like, everything's going to blow up here. TPF is going to have another controversial moment. But Chris went outside, he confronted the guy. He's like, what's your problem, man? Why'd you do that? Why'd you, there was no physical altercation. Now I'd since heard that, I don't know how true it is. I guess this guy, and I want to get your thoughts on this for a second. We're going to wrap this show up. This guy had a problem with Chris because of what had happened like at the New York show. I even had heard that the heckler's wife had some type of altercation with Chris. I don't know how true that is at all. The question I have for the both of you is, what were you thinking? Is that a platform for this guy, in your opinion, to protest or to get out of a system which something was obviously bothering him? Or is that, are you thinking something else? No, absolutely not. not the place, man, not the time. You know, these guys put so much work into the show. The audience is having a good time, and you come in for your own agenda. Like, that's complete bullsh**. Yeah, okay. I mean, I felt like getting up and doing something about it myself. Wow. I feel like everybody in the audience felt that, but nobody knew what to do, you know, without, you know. Well, and the other thing here. It was a volatile situation. Yeah, it was uncomfortable, to say the least. Well, you didn't know if it was a staged thing, you know, kind of like the trophy or whatever. Yeah.
    65:46
    And I think it was just so ridiculous that nobody knew that either. Yeah. Now, that said, you know, I mean, I think it sucks because that crapped down all the work that Jeff and... Jeff, Zach, and Greg did do this. And everybody else that put into this. I'm not just trying to say that they did this all by themselves. for sure but um you know that sucks for that reason i can kind of give the guy who screamed a little bit of credit for being able to confront him kind of in a crappy way you know he should have just pulled him to the side and said hey dude i think that was you know i don't like you and i think what you did at the new york show or whatever reason i have yeah you know because everybody's a keyboard tough guy these days and be able to call you out true this guy took a pretty big platform to uh well his whole thing was you know chris interrupted the new york show Is that what he was saying, huh? Yeah, that's what he said on Pinside. Oh, I haven't even read Pinside. And he goes and interrupts his thing. Well, two wrongs don't make a right. We know that. It sounds like a childish thing to say, but it's true. But I also agree. I think when you are going to go ahead and you want to ruin somebody's moment, you've got to consider the collateral damage. And when you exactly what you guys said at an award show where we're celebrating pinball and you've got the grand finale of things, you've got three awards left for him to kind of voice his his protest and detract from everything else that was going smoothly that night. I think it's an unfortunate circumstance that it happened. This guy might be just an awesome guy that had something pent up. And, you know, everybody makes mistakes, right? Could very well be. And maybe he stands by everything that he did, and it's not for me to judge if he was right or wrong. I personally thought it was distasteful that he carried on and carried on and carried on and didn't let up.
    67:38
    Again, maybe he's a cool guy. I'll sit down and have a beer with him one day. A boo or two? Come on. A boo or two. I get it. That's what I was thinking. The entire time. No one's ever wrong for their feelings. It's how you choose to handle those feelings. I agree. If you were to pull him off to the side and say, dude, I'm still a little miffed at what you pulled. Well, you know what? So be it. You're not going to please everybody. And some people are not going to accept apologies, and that's just the nature of people. But, yeah, for how he did it in that manner wasn't cool. But you know what? I mean, in the end, I think it all moved forward.
    68:06
    But did it? I mean, because you had the – I guess it did. You had the two awards left, and then the last award was like Game of the Year. Yeah. And I know I was still kind of looking in the back to see what was going on. A lot of people were still turning around. And that kind of sucked, man, that that happened at the end of the show. And this is where I think it's unfortunate. Something like that happens in the podcast category. You know what I mean? We're not even directly employed by pinball companies. We're not making games or nothing. No, right. We're just the guys that have all the drama in the podcast world. It's a little bit belittling, man, in general. It's like, oh, really? Do we really have to? Does the podcast category have to tear down the freaking Twippies? And it didn't. No. The show went on and it finished. Antoinette came up. How do you say her? Antoinette. Yeah, she came up with the rocking hair, and everybody forgot about the drama two minutes before. Yeah. So it was good. So all in all, the Twippies were a complete success with one mishap, unfortunately, regarding the podcast category. Womp, womp, womp, womp. Boo! But what are you going to do? Boo! Yeah, yeah, that's what I heard. So yeah, I mean, I think that kind of wrapped up the awards. festival yeah i mean we after that award show we were uh you know and it's it's tough because that would be the night that you want to get out and celebrate with everybody but we had to get up at 6 30 in the morning and fly out we we did that we we were good that night got to sleep uh i got sleep at three oh yeah because i laid in bed still like 12 30 to three o'clock because i can't sleep got on our plane got home and we survived and we uh took yesterday to kind of recover i'm still recovering today and and we're getting this episode number 44 out which is uh the texas pinball festival bonus coverage on the special one lit pinball podcast um i want to thank steve for experiencing texas pinball festival with us you made it super you guys hey it was awesome thank you guys for you know kind of twist my arm a little bit to get me down there because i was uh i was definitely leaning toward no you were at no we just kind of just kind of financially you know you might have said no i was like more than once yeah i have expo i don't need i don't need to do that yeah man i met so many cool people you know i appreciate a lot of people like knew who you were man which i think is funny too i'm ken cromwell yeah you're okay ken cromwell no you're steve beattie though so no but i made a lot of new you know friendships down there for for sure yeah um you know roden would love to have you in australia if you ever say you're going down by the way i bought some vegemite because we weren't able to try roden's where did you buy You can get on Amazon for like $7 a little So next Pinball night I host We're going to try Vegemite And report back with Our findings You should smoke the Vegemite in the drink smoker We're going to smoke some Vegemite It was great man, Bill, it's always fun hanging out I think The team we took down, the three of us Knocking out TPF was, I don't regret it at all No If you were to ask me today if I'm going to go down there next year I would have to think about it because it just took its toll on me. I just think I need to take about 350 days to relax and get back down to Texas at some point. More like six, seven months before Expo? Well, we did talk about we would like to get down to that Louisville show. I'd like to go to Pentastic and see what Gabe's got going on out there in New England. And we've got Midwest Gaming Classic, which is coming up here in two weeks in Milwaukee. We've got Expo that's in October. There is not a shortage of pinball shows. If you have never been to a pinball show or a pinball convention, I recommend finding out what's close in your area. Even if it's a three-, four-hour drive, make a weekend out of it. Bring your friends. Bring your family. Bring the kids down. There's always something to do, and you're going to find people that are in similar situations. And for us, it's always a good time to go to these events, but honestly for us, I think it's more about just the road trip and the stories. I mean, Expo, you know, going to Expo, you know, Expo is great, but, I mean, the stories and being in the hotel room and having the jokes and your face hurting for two days later because you're laughing so hard is what makes it in my eyes. It's the stories, it's the people, it's the friendships, it's bonding, and that's what makes the show for me. I can officially say, swear to God, I played one game of pinball at Texas Pinball Festival, and it was Saturday night after the Twippies, the night before we ran out. I put a game on Munster's Premium with you guys that's the only game I shot the whole time and if I were to do it again I might want to play two or three games of pinball but I wasn't mad, I loved experiencing the show Texas Pinball Festival, they did a great job and I was honored to be down there with you guys and everybody else so thank you so for episode 44 we'll wrap it up, I want to thank Steve for coming in Bill, we got 45 coming up next week and we're creeping up on 50. Wow, yeah. 50 episodes. Getting there, huh? Yeah. So we'll see what happens for Steve Beattie and Bill Webb. I am Ken Cromwell. Everybody have a good morning, good afternoon, good evening. And don't forget to take some time out of your day and play some pinball. So long, everybody. Boo!