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Ep 43: Crikey!

Final Round Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 20m·analyzed·Sep 28, 2021
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.032

TL;DR

Final Round discusses Silver Ball Saloon closure and Rochester Pinball Collective launch with operator Kat Nightingale.

Summary

Jeff Teolis and Martin Robbins interview Kat Nightingale about her and Bruce's transition from operating Silver Ball Saloon (a pinball bar that closed during COVID) to launching Rochester Pinball Collective, a membership-based pinball venue. The conversation covers the housing market challenges, bar/venue business models, the operational differences between coin-operated bars and free-play collectives, and updates on Haggis Pinball production quality and supply chain advantages.

Key Claims

  • Silver Ball Saloon's January-March 2020 profits exceeded the entire previous year's total

    high confidence · Kat Nightingale stated this directly about pre-COVID performance

  • Haggis Pinball's in-house manufacturing capability reduced dependence on external parts sourcing during supply chain crisis

    high confidence · Martin Robbins explained early equipment investment paid off as parts became scarce

  • Rochester housing market saw properties selling $40,000-$50,000+ over list price, with one instance of $100,000 over asking

    high confidence · Kat Nightingale described specific market conditions in Rochester, NY

  • Kelts (Haggis Pinball) received streaming feedback describing build quality and gameplay as 'better than Guns N' Roses'

    high confidence · Martin Robbins cited direct quote from stream feedback

  • Silver Ball Saloon's business model was approximately 50-50 split between pinball revenue and bar/food sales

    high confidence · Kat Nightingale directly stated this ratio

  • Rochester Pinball Collective operates with five partner stakeholders to distribute venue management burden

    high confidence · Kat Nightingale mentioned five partners involved in the collective structure

  • New York State entertainment licensing requires $2,000/year for cover charges on pinball or live entertainment

    high confidence · Kat Nightingale explained NY State licensing requirements for cover charges

  • Lord of the Rings is Kat's personal favorite machine and will never leave their collection

    high confidence · Kat stated this directly and confirmed it was the first machine she convinced Bruce to purchase new

  • Silver Ball Saloon achieved profitability by year three, unusually fast for Northeast bar/restaurant industry

    high confidence · Kat noted typical Northeast bars take 5-10 years to break even; they achieved it in 3

Notable Quotes

  • “Making a mediocre pinball machine is easy. Making a good machine, that's the challenge.”

    Martin Robbins @ ~53:00 — Articulates core manufacturing philosophy at Haggis Pinball; reinforces quality-first design approach

  • “Between January and March of 2020, we did better than we did the whole previous year.”

    Kat Nightingale @ ~30:00 — Emphasizes Silver Ball Saloon's strong pre-COVID momentum; raises counterfactual question about venue longevity

  • “It's bloody hard work because making a pinball machine is ridiculously complicated. There is so much that goes into this stuff.”

    Martin Robbins @ ~51:30 — Direct reflection on manufacturing complexity at Haggis; explains why quality control and parts sourcing are critical

  • “People will not pay a cover charge to come in a bar unless it's a nightclub type of environment.”

    Kat Nightingale @ ~43:00 — Explains operator reasoning for coin-drop vs. cover-charge models in pinball bars; regulatory and customer behavior factors

  • “The general consensus is the build quality is phenomenal. Gameplay is fantastic. Rules are great... Better than Guns N' Roses.”

    Martin Robbins @ ~50:00 — Streaming feedback benchmark for Kelts against recent Stern release; positive market reception signal

  • “We have a beautiful home now, but the hardest part about the move was actually finding a home we could afford.”

    Kat Nightingale @ ~12:00 — Illustrates post-pandemic housing market turbulence affecting even successful business operators

  • “With the collective, he has a beautiful place to go to work on machines, play the machines, enjoy the company of his friends. It's paying for itself.”

    Kat Nightingale @ ~24:00 — Explains ROI and non-financial benefits of collective model vs. bar ownership; stress reduction from liquor licensing

  • “If you have a bracelet or stamp that said they paid a cover charge, people will not pay it. That's not how it works.”

Entities

Kat NightingalepersonBruce NightingalepersonJeff TeolispersonMartin RobbinspersonSilver Ball SaloonvenueRochester Pinball CollectivevenueHaggis Pinballcompany

Signals

  • ?

    venue_signal: Silver Ball Saloon (pinball bar with food/beverage) closed during COVID; replaced by Rochester Pinball Collective (membership-based, free-play only). Represents shift from complex regulatory/staffing model to simplified venue structure.

    high · Kat described successful bar operations through March 2020, then pivot to collective model to avoid liquor licensing and reduce operational burden

  • ?

    operational_signal: Silver Ball Saloon achieved profitability in year 3, significantly faster than Northeast industry average (5-10 years). Pre-COVID trajectory was exceptionally strong (Jan-Mar 2020 > full prior year).

    high · Kat: 'For us to be making money and doing that well in our third year was absolutely historic' and combined Jan-Mar 2020 profits exceeded prior year total

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: Haggis Pinball's early investment in in-house manufacturing equipment (previously criticized) now proves advantageous. Vertical integration reduces dependence on external parts sourcing during semiconductor/material shortages.

    high · Martin: 'now have a look at it because we've got the ability to make so much more stuff in-house we're not so reliant on having to get parts which is now a major problem'

  • ?

    product_concern: Industry-wide parts scarcity affecting pinball manufacturers. Steel availability mentioned as problem. Furniture supply delays extending to 6+ months even for pre-orders.

    high · Martin noted steel sourcing issues; Marty mentioned June furniture order not arriving until December

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Kelts (Haggis Pinball) receiving positive streaming feedback with quality benchmarks comparing favorably to recent Stern release (Guns N' Roses). Community sentiment appears favorable for new Haggis title.

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.241

0:00
The Pinball Network is online. Launching final round pinball podcast. It's player versus player and player versus machine. Welcome to the final round Back once again, how you doing? My name is Jeff Teolas My name is Martin Robbins It's great to have you with us at the final round of Pimble Podcast Did you think we'd be doing it this long?
0:49
Yeah, I mean, I guess I did When you did call me and say let's do a podcast when I was looking forward to not having to podcast. When I did make that decision to say yes, I did expect it would go for a while. Well, I committed to recording for a while. Whether I thought we would have enough to talk about, well, that was debatable. Oh, it's like that every week, let's be honest. But even if it's just good old banter, I mean, people want to hear what's up with Marty, what stupid things have Jeff said, those type of things. Yeah, whether we're in lockdown, what our COVID rates are. Wow, one minute. One minute you mentioned it. Ian's already turned off the show.
1:38
Suck it, Ian. Oh, that's fun, fun, fun. You know, lockdown does kind of come into effect for this show, but I was supposed to be somewhere and I couldn't go. And that brings us to our next guest, who happens to be in Rochester, New York, Here she is, Kat Nightingale. How are you doing, Kat? I'm great. How are you doing, guys? We're very good. What's happening in Rochester at the moment? Well, there's not much going on right now. It's kind of dark outside. I know it's beautiful probably where you are, right? Oh, it's daytime where I am. I've got a lot of green trees around me, but the backdrop of that is grey skies and we're about to be dumped by a lot of rain. Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. Don't be sorry. I mean, we've been locked up indoors for a very long time, so it doesn't really make that much of a change whether it's raining or not. Well, it was beautiful here in Rochester. It was in the 80s and sunny all day, so pretty nice. I don't know what 80s is. Can you translate for me, Jeff? Well, again, Marty in Australia and Canada were Celsius, but we do certainly have some people that some people also use imperial versus metric. so that would be 80s i'm guessing low 20s not summer weather but pretty nice for this time of year for sure and it and it has been we've been lucky kathy uh i enjoy hearing you i hope it happens again because we got a glimpse of you and that old husband of yours bruce nightingale on the pinball network doing a little bit of podcasting one so far we can hear some more well yes and and we were it's funny because him and i were just talking about that today You know, between everything that went on with the bar and all that, you heard all that. And then we decided we were going to try and find a home to live in and move. And by the time we got that all done, now we're finally settled. And now he's got this new project that you guys all know about, which he's having a tournament today.

  • Haggis Pinball's manufacturing challenges include supply chain dependencies but early equipment investment mitigated worst impacts

    medium confidence · Martin Robbins' comments about steel and parts availability as ongoing industry issues

    • Kat Nightingale @ ~41:00 — Operational insight into casual pinball player behavior and low-friction entry barriers

  • “The town really helped. It was word of mouth that helped us more than anything else.”

    Kat Nightingale @ ~35:00 — Community-driven growth strategy; notes role of adjacent business (Italian restaurant) in driving traffic

  • “Now have a look at it because we've got the ability to make so much more stuff in-house. We're not so reliant on having to get parts.”

    Martin Robbins @ ~55:00 — Validates early capital investment in manufacturing equipment; supply chain resilience advantage

    • Kelts
    game
    Slam Tilt podcastcontent
    The Sanctumvenue
    Final Round Pinball Podcastcontent
    Guns N' Rosesgame
    Level Zero Arcadevenue
    Lord of the Ringsgame
    Monopolygame
    Fraley'sorganization
    Ron Hallettperson

    high · Martin: 'people have started streaming Kelts... general consensus is the build quality is phenomenal. Gameplay is fantastic... Better than Guns N' Roses'

  • ?

    operational_signal: Operator perspective: coin-drop model (low friction, casual entry) preferred over cover-charge for bar venues due to customer behavior and NY entertainment licensing ($2,000/year). Collective model avoids these constraints.

    high · Kat explained low-barrier entry (quarters in pocket) drives pinball adoption; cover charges deter casual players; entertainment license fees discourage venue operators from charging entry

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Martin Robbins articulates manufacturing approach: 'Making a mediocre pinball machine is easy. Making a good machine, that's the challenge.' Reflects quality-first prioritization over speed-to-market.

    high · Direct quote from Martin discussing manufacturing philosophy and Haggis approach to game development

  • ?

    community_signal: Post-COVID venue landscape in major markets (Melbourne, Rochester) shows significant closure of pinball bars. Collective model and free-play venues becoming dominant alternative for operators seeking sustainability.

    medium · Martin noted Melbourne venues 'have all pretty much shut down' post-COVID; Kat described difficulty of bar operations; Rochester Collective presented as sustainable alternative

  • $

    market_signal: Stern Connected and JJP Scorebit connectivity features driving new game pricing increases. Operators concerned about higher acquisition costs and ROI requirements for monetizing these machines.

    medium · Jeff noted: 'new machines, prices are going to go up... that's got to be a burden for the owners and operators... that's a lot more money you've got to get in return'

  • ?

    collector_signal: Lord of the Rings identified as Kat's permanent keeper (will never leave collection). First new machine she personally convinced Bruce to purchase. Indicates strong emotional attachment and potential rarity/desirability.

    high · Kat: 'That game will never, ever leave. That is mine forever' and confirmed it was her first new purchase recommendation

  • ?

    regulatory_signal: New York State liquor licensing and entertainment licensing create significant operational burden for pinball bars. Cover charges trigger $2,000/year entertainment license requirement. Regulatory environment favors non-alcoholic venues.

    high · Kat detailed NY State entertainment license fees ($2,000/year) and cover charge regulations; cited complexity as factor in choosing collective model over bar

  • ?

    venue_signal: Silver Ball Saloon's success partly attributed to foot traffic from adjacent businesses (Italian restaurant) and small-town word-of-mouth marketing. Location selection and community support critical to venue viability.

    high · Kat: 'walk-by' traffic from Italian restaurant, 'word of mouth that helped us more than anything else,' town's support for new business launches

    • 3:40
    So it's difficult because we have about one day a week that we see each other. He works nights, I work days, and then he's at his co-op all day on Saturday. So it's been tough trying to find time to sit down and do it. That's part of the reason. We enjoyed it, though. It was a lot of fun, and I would like to get back to it for sure. Seeing each other one day a week, that's a good way to keep the marriage going, though. If you see them every day, it's just like, oh, get away, or in my hair, all that kind of stuff. I'm not speaking on behalf of my wife by any means.
    4:11
    I understand what you're saying, but when we were in quarantine, it wasn't fun. But now it's nice to get some time away from each other and get a break. one day a week is probably not enough though some people say you know martin you work such long hours at haggis that must be because you're so committed to getting games out well it's also because sometimes it's nice to be at work you know what i mean yeah when i was working from home boy it was tough it was i was ready to go back to the office after a while i get it we're going to talk some pinball in a second but you did mention you went into a new home and so did marty so all right Let's share some moving nightmares right now. Did you have any, Kat? Actually, the hardest part about the move was actually finding a home we could afford. The housing market here in the U.S. is absolutely insane. So we didn't want to live in our small townhouse anymore. And we were looking mostly on the east side where we used to live. I know you know the area somewhat, Jeff, where, you know, over towards where the bar was and that kind of thing. And we just couldn't find anything over there we can afford. It's a very, very, very nice area to live. So we had to move over to the western side of Rochester. We're over on the other side of the city now.
    5:25
    So we could get into an area that we can afford. We have a beautiful home now. We have a beautiful backyard for entertaining and a nice pool. And I enjoyed that all summer long. It was beautiful. As far as nightmares, no. I mean, just getting outbid like six or seven times on houses was getting absolutely frustrating. You know, the houses are going for $40,000, $50,000 US dollars over list price. It was insane. We got outbid by almost $100,000 on a house, which was crazy. So we decided to go with a little less expensive home, but exactly what we're looking for, a nice big ranch. That's what we wanted. Not that I want to one-up you on that, Kat, but when we were looking, because obviously that we're doing comparing our stories. When we did go, there was this place we absolutely loved. It was the only one that ticked all the boxes. It went for $500,000 over list price. Oh, my gosh. Our house wasn't even $500,000 to begin with.
    6:32
    I can't even imagine. The list house was $100,000. So, I mean, they really low-balled it. But actually, speaking of the low-ball, you two, I've heard that from a few agents, and I know nothing about real estate, but I think when you list a price, you think, okay, I really want to get X amount for the house. And you probably will based on the market right now, but a lot of real estate agents will go lower so that they can create a bidding war. That's kind of shady. I mean, hey, at the end of the day, you're getting, obviously, more value for your house than you want, but you kind of want to have a good estimate between what the bank values it and what you think the market's going for, but you're right. It's a crazy market. Well, and that was part of the problem because you have to bid higher than what you really want to spend or in your mind what you think the house is worth, right? So let's just use a nice round number. I mean, if you think the house is worth $250,000 and you bid at $250,000, they've got it listed for $235,000. You bid $250,000 because you're thinking, wow, I'm going to go $15,000 or so over list, so I should be good, right? No, the houses were going for $310,000, $315,000. And then the problem that you have is if you don't have a lot of liquid cash in the bank, and the bank is not going to approve, or I should say appraise, the house for that high. You've got to make up the difference. So that was a part of what we were running into was we had a limit we had to stick to, a budget we wanted to stay within. I didn't want to be house poor. So it was either we do it this year or we wait until next year and think, okay maybe we might not find any houses that we really liked so we had to kind of go for it and pay a little extra but we handled it we did what we could you know it looks like an amazing house i've seen pictures and i look forward to seeing it soon and maybe very very soon because it's one of the slam tilt podcasts famous stomp events and this time you know we've seen them at ron Howlett's Level Zero Arcade, and also at the old Silver Ball Saloon, which, you know, I went several times. Loved, loved that venue. We'll talk about that in a second, but here you've got this new Rochester Pinball Collective. So I wondered, after what happened with Silver Ball Saloon, Bruce comes to you with an idea and says, okay, there's a few other partners here, I think there are five involved, and we want to do a collective. These are things that happen in different areas. I know the Fraley's are involved with one in Virginia, and they're happening all over. I don't know what it's like in Australia. I don't even know about many here in Canada, but I do love the idea of the collectives. It's a lot easier. It's not as much strain for one person when you have five people involved. The Sanctum is another famous collective, if you will. So when Bruce comes to you after everything that happened, and again, because of COVID and the difficulties that have been in the last 18 months, okay, we've got the spot. We can put a bunch of games in there. Here's the business model. What did you think? Well, the idea of the collective came about before we decided to buy the home. So I'm going to take a couple of steps back. We had all of his pinball machines, and you know he has a very large collection. They were all sitting up on their, you know, folded up in our garage. We had a two-car garage, and it was absolutely full of pinball machines that he couldn't play. So he was trying to think of a way that he could use them without having to bring them into the house because we had a small townhouse. We didn't have the room to, we had like two machines set up at a time. That's about all we could fit. So he thought that, you know, with the, like you said, the idea of the sanctum, which is really kind of where it came from, he thought that he could find a place to rent on his own, even he was trying to do this, that he could go and play and have tournaments and do what, similar to what their business model is. And I told him to go for it. I thought it was a great idea because it was either that or we put them in storage because we really didn't have the room for them anymore. So really what he has now, it doesn't cost him anything. And he has a beautiful place to go to work on machines, play the machines, enjoy the company of his friends and his pinball buddies, and not have to pay for storage. And it's paying for itself, which is phenomenal. I thought it was a great idea. Not having to deal with a New York State Liquor Authority is absolutely insane to deal with. So in the health department, when you've got to deal with food and liquor, without having all of that aggravation and having to worry about it, this is a great thing for him. And it's not an everyday thing. The bar was just insane trying to keep it open and keep it busy. So you guys love to come play and that's the draw of it. And we get other people too. It's amazing. He gets a lot of people that have never even played pinball before. And there's one guy that's coming like every time they're open. So that's a nice thing, too. Can I ask a question about the bar? Just because it's something that sort of really came about in Melbourne where I am, where we don't really have that many venues. We certainly don't now, certainly post-COVID. They've all pretty much shut down. But what I'd heard from some of the owners was that pinball really is the backdrop, but really you make your money from drink sales. Was that the case at Silverball? Actually, it was pretty much 50-50. Jeff was there. He can verify this. It's such an amazing collection and a nice space to handle it. There isn't a lot of bars that can have such a large collection and have it not interfere with the bar and restaurant side of the business. And when I say interfere, I mean when you're having a tournament and you have 25 people there, you still have to also cater to the customers that are not there for the pinball. And our location was perfect for what we wanted because the bar was on a separate floor from the pinball and it could be separated. The original bar that we looked at was much smaller, and we knew that if we had more than 10 people for a tournament, that there wouldn't be people there to just come and have a nice time and a drink and dinner or just a snack or whatever you were there for. The social aspect of our bar was great because we had so many regulars that weren't pinball people because it was a totally separate thing. It felt like two separate venues when you were in there. And that's why I think our success was built on that. And so do you think if COVID hadn't happened, it would still be there today and still be successful? Or was it just it was hard work? But it was hard work, though. It was a lot of work. But we were between January and March of 2020. We had the two best months. If you combine the sales of, or I should say profit from those two months, we did better than we did the whole previous year. We were kicking butt and we had so many regulars and such a great crowd every weekend. And even on weeknights, we were starting to really do well. We were only closed one day a week. So on Mondays, we were closed. Tuesday nights was owner's night. So Bruce and I actually were the only ones that were working. I'd handled the bar. He did the kitchen back and forth. So we had a lot of people that would come in just to hang out with us because it was an owner's thing. And we had a lot of other things besides pinball. We had a trivia night, which was a huge success. We would pack the bar for five straight hours just for doing our trivia. And that was Sunday nights, which was great because our regular bartender loved his Sunday nights because he could get out there or out of there early and it would be done by like nine o'clock. And then the bar would just kind of clear out and we'd be done by 11, cleaned up and ready to go home. Thursday nights were becoming huge because we had awesome food, which Jeff can probably verify that. It was our night that we did burgers and we would do like a special burger each day. Each Thursday, we would do something like that. So we had a really good thing going besides the pinball. We were growing the other side of the business. Yeah, there were poker nights too. And again, that's the thing I wondered too, and Marty was asking about it, the sales from the liquor and whatnot. But you also alluded to the difficulty of the New York liquor license, whereas something like The Collective has just really pinball only. So it's tough to balance both parts because you have to make the restaurant successful, and it was. The food menu was great. and you had these incredible machines. And I always wonder, okay, do you want the pinball crowd? Do you want the drinking crowd? You are really one of the rare people that were able to make both successful. And again, this is obviously pre-COVID and stuff. That's not easy to do. I wonder when you first open up, and this is for anybody opening up a bar, a barcade, how do you get people to come in? What's the first thing? I mean, yeah, you've got a storefront, but people have to come inside and sample. Yeah. And honestly, though, the town really helped. It also has to do with your location. And you did mention a storefront, but it really wasn't the storefront that helped us. It was the small town feel that whenever a new business starts in that town, they're really good about promoting you. So the business that was there previous at the location, the business that was there before that was a very specific type of restaurant. It was a piano bar, wine bar type of thing. There was a piano, in fact, up by the pinball machines and it was a nice piano. I was like, OK, I guess that's from the previous owners. That's funny. Yes, it was. And so there was a certain clientele that would go there all the time. They played jazz, they had the piano bar, and they specifically catered to the wine enthusiast. They had a very large wine selection that you could come in. Now, right next door to us was an extremely, and still is, a very, very successful Italian restaurant. They've been there for, I don't know, 20 or 30 years or whatever. So a lot of our business was walk-by. People that were waiting for their table, they knew they were going to be waiting an hour or so, would come over and sit at our bar for a drink. And typically an older crowd that would go to this restaurant. They've been around for a very long time. So as you guys know, pinball is very nostalgic. So they would look and see them up on the second floor and say, oh, wow, there's pinball machines up there. Let's go play. Then the word would spread. Then they would tell their friends, you know, we're going to come back. We have a couple that love pinball. We'll bring them back. And it was more word of mouth that helped us in that small town than anything else. And of course, I was a fiend when it came to social media. I pushed us out there constantly. I posted something every day. I tried to come up with ideas to bring people in that weren't pinball based because I knew that the pinball crowd was there and they would always be there, but they weren't there every night. So I had to find another way to keep people coming in the front door. Looking back to the, obviously you said the last couple of months combined was better than the previous year. If you could go back to the start, what would you do differently? I'm not sure I would do anything different. I mean, typically here in New York State or Northeast, I should say, people say that bars and restaurants take five to ten years to get out of the red. So start making money, basically. For us to be making money and doing that well in our third year was absolutely historic, I think, for our business. So I don't think I would have done anything different because we really had success even though we weren't really making money yet. We still had a debt to pay back, but we were successful. We had a good crowd most nights of the week. We also had, like I said, the pinball crowd. We had the tournaments going on. We tried to do so many different things. Actually, I do think of something that I probably would do. I probably would have not done such a large menu to start out with because that was cumbersome for our small kitchen. I think I would have kept that scaled back. We expanded that pretty quickly. Even though our food was great, it was not easy for our small staff because we couldn't afford to staff a restaurant like a typical, you know, we have five waiters and all that because we didn't have that type of crowd. We had people that would come in, sit down, have a drink, and they wanted to order a snack. It really wasn't. We had tables in the side room that nobody ever used. And I think if I could have maybe gone back, I probably would have used that more for pinball space rather than try to keep it as a restaurant space. Are you really into pinball? Me personally, I enjoy pinball, but I am not like my husband. No. Aren't you a big Lord of the Rings fan? Like that game can never leave? That game will never, ever leave. That is mine forever. That was actually the first machine I convinced him to buy out of the box. And he was ecstatic because we didn't have a lot of money back then. So for us to, and it was nowhere near the prices of what they are now, but for us to drop that kind of money all at once on a pinball machine right out of the box was huge for us. Good taste though, Kat. That's a great game. Yeah. Well, I love Lord of the Rings, so it came from that. But it a phenomenal game too so I glad that we have it And the Monopoly So those are the two that he never get rid of Oh one for two You were so close No I like Monopoly You were right there Kat Oh I like Monopoly and I am going to stand by it You know me and my relationship with Pat Lawler games. It's not good. It's one of his games I actually quite like. Well, I love the theme. So the theme of Monopoly is what draws me anytime I see anything with Monopoly on it, although I'm terrible at the actual board game. My husband can verify I'm not good with that kind of thing, but I love the way the machine looks. It is also one of how many spaces are there on the board? I don't even know now at this point. It is for a one of 40, I believe, because it's one of the first LEs, so to speak. It's a Ventner Avenue, which is it's a lot of people don't even realize that that's what that machine is. It has a plaque and everything. Oh, yeah. It's not the regular production machine. So when he was able to get that, I was really excited. Okay, let's talk a little cash. Speaking of Monopoly, I know in Australia and Canada, we have very colorful money. It's often referred to as Monopoly money, where it's just greenbacks there. In the United States, all green. Okay, as we're speaking of money, and you look at the collective, which is a fee to enter and then all the games are on free play, versus a bar in which it's coin drop, which is very common. I've seen other places that will have a fee. These are more barcades and definitely not restaurants, So I guess that's probably why you couldn't do it. But they would do a set fee and all the games are on free play. And maybe there's a little bit of food and drink and probably more drink than food. Was that ever a consideration? And what are your thoughts on is it better to do one versus the other? Okay, so I guess now my thoughts are a little bit different than they were back then. But my thought was that how do you separate the bar patrons that aren't really there to play pinball and aren't going to pay a cover charge? so to speak, from the people that just want to come in and play pinball. Could you do something like it's $10 to come in, but that's good for food? We could, but it's very hard to track. When you have such a small staff like we did, we had a bartender, we had us, Bruce and I, and we had a cook. That's pretty much it. So Bruce and I were always the floaters. So he would have had to stay up on the floor, on the pinball floor, and make sure you could have maybe stuck a bracelet on them or given them a stamp of some kind or whatever that said they paid their cover charge, people will not pay a cover charge to come in a bar unless it's a nightclub type of environment. And New York State has very strict rules about cover charges. So we tended to steer away from that idea because we figured if somebody had four quarters in their pocket years ago, it was one quarter, right? Well, a quarter is in your pocket. There's a time when Marty played.
    22:55
    Shilling. they might say, oh, you know what? I got a couple quarters in my pocket. I'm going to go check out the machine. They're not going to pay $10 to go pay pinball for the whole night. I didn't think that would work. That's a good point too, Kat, because let's say, okay, I've got a few quarters. They put it in. They're like, wow, that was a lot of fun. Oh, my gosh, look over there. There's an Iron Maiden. There's a Metallica. There's all these great machines, the Star Treks, and you had great machines. All right, I'll get $5 worth of quarters, and then next thing you know, they're now hooked into pinball. I see your point. Yeah, and there was, and I could probably think of four or five people, off the top of my head that never played pinball until they came to our bar. Our friend Jeff is one of them. He came in and he was a dart guy. So he came in, he would play darts all the time. He went upstairs, decided to, you know, throw, like you said, throw a couple of quarters into a machine and he was hooked. And he would come nearly every day to play. He has his own collection now and, you know, that's his thing. So having a cover charge, I didn't think was going to work. It's an entertainment industry issue in the United States. So if you charge a cover charge, whether you do it for pinball, whether you do it for a live band or for even karaoke, you're supposed to have an entertainment license in the United States. It's an additional $2,000 a year because what that does is that pays back the money to those people. Like even if you have a band that doesn't do covers, like they don't play music that you would ever hear you've ever heard before. right it doesn't matter if they play one song that belongs to someone else they want a piece of it what about somebody tickling the ivories on that piano in the back there just uh playing the previous business probably had an entertainment license or they did their best to not have one so we had a jukebox okay so here in the united states you go you can play it on your phone you put money in it if you wanted to but that jukebox paid money to the entertainment industry through the jukebox company. We didn't have to worry about that. So having a jukebox was fine. We were allowed to do that. But if you make money at the door on alcohol and food, at least in New York State, I don't know about the whole United States, you have to pay an entertainment license. And that's why we tried to stay away from that type of thing. Any kind of cover charge, as soon as you advertise, they get it. They have people scouring the internet for stuff like that. Yeah, you are safe because I've never found Bruce entertaining, so you're always good. I know.
    25:21
    That's funny. Yeah, certainly. If he was to sing a song, nobody would recognize it to get royalties. He's got a good voice. Him and Ron were singing at Ron's place. They were doing karaoke, and I was like, I knew Ron could sing. And Bruce was singing a couple tunes, probably ELO, and I was like, he can carry a tune. So what I'm hearing is good for karaoke. Okay, got it. Good. Yeah. I don't know if you guys know this or not, but years ago, Bruce used to do karaoke shows when we met. He was the actual guy up there doing the entertaining and getting people to come up and sing. And you married him anyway? Yeah. Knowing this fact? Okay. Brave. Wow. Did he save your life or something? Did you give him a life? I need to know more. Well, you know, there has been a running joke for 20-something years that he was the only one that asked. So it is what it is. I'm kidding. I love you too. You know that.
    26:15
    So what's going on with you guys? What's new? Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. We asked the question. Oh, come on. I'm not allowed to ask? But we'd like to know. But what's going on with Haggis Pinball? Well, we are getting machines out the door as we speak. And what's really good is that people have started streaming Kelts as well, and we're getting a lot of feedback. and the general consensus is the build quality is phenomenal. Gameplay is fantastic. Rules are great. Blah, blah, blah. Better than Guns N' Roses. Just that was the quote that was said on the stream. I'm not making that up. Mic drop. Wow. Good for you. That's fantastic. That's really great news. It is good. I mean, it's fun to work there. It's bloody hard work because, let's face it, making a pinball machine, I sort of got it from day one, but now more than ever, it is ridiculously complicated. There is so much that goes into this stuff, and to get it all working perfectly all the time, that's quite a challenge. And I said it a couple of weeks ago, making a mediocre pinball machine is easy. Making a good machine, that's the challenge. And I would imagine that getting parts and stuff now must be a challenge for you guys, Because I know we're having trouble here getting cars and getting things just, you know, available for people to buy. Well, yes, but no. But yes. Also, no. Let me explain. When we because when when when we first got people sort of sort of were a little bit critical of how you say, why have you invested so much money in equipment when you could just go and buy this stuff? well now have a look at it because we've got the ability to make so much more stuff in-house we're not so reliant on having to get parts which is now a major problem you know someone spoke to me and said oh you know ridiculous steel's a problem yeah steel is a problem good thing we got it a while ago these parts were a problem yeah good that we can make these in-house so as said it was just weird that we got a lot of flack for investing up front in all of this equipment but it's now paying off well that's great i mean earlier you asked me jeff about nightmares of moving i still don't have furniture in my bedroom i have it won't be here till december and we ordered it in june wow there's an issue right there i mean it's it's not that we can't exist here in the house without we don't have we have mostly the house is full of furniture but our new bedroom set we have been waiting since june wait a second here yeah what kind of bedding has computer chip in it it's apparently it's wood and foam that they can't seem to get sure so couches and things of that nature it's terrible you can't get anything now they were able to get now memory foam you can get so we got our mattress and our bed but we don't have our dressers and nightstands Or sugar movers. So we're still living half and half and our old furniture in our spare bedroom. And still waiting for your bed-connected Wi-Fi connection so you can play with other people around the world with your bed. Okay. That's a thing, apparently. That's next in bedding technology.
    29:40
    Nobody wants to see anything that goes on in my bedroom. Oh, Bruce streams it anyway. You knew about that, didn't you? Thanks. Thanks for letting me know that. Yeah, it's onlyfan.com slash slamtilt slash catdoesntknow. That's the website if you're looking for it. But anyway, Marty's talking about the connected thing, and that's obviously new with Stern and the Stern Connected, and JJP's been doing it with Scorebit. So new machines, prices are going to go up. Again, back to owning a bar that has pinball machines. Seeing these prices go up and up, that's got to be a burden for the owners and the operators of these machines because that's a lot more money you've got to get in return. I'm wondering if that internet connectivity would have been something that was interesting to you or just new machines in general, too. You've got this huge collection. Do new machines and titles, do they bring in extra revenue? Do you see that when a new machine comes in or is it, wow, it's just one of 20 or 30? I mean, honestly, I really think it had to do with the title because as much as people just bash Star Wars, that was a really popular machine. because of the theme. The average person who doesn't know about rules and doesn't understand one machine from the other, they're just up there flipping. They're going to go to Star Wars before they go to a machine they've never heard of before. And then go back to another dollar because the game ended that quickly. So yeah, maybe that is a good machine. It is a good machine to have on location because it attracts the person in the first place. It's a fast game. It's over quickly and they want to play more. So machines that people don't really understand what the theme is, Like I give you an example, like Medieval Madness is such a fun game to people that don't understand pinball because they want the castle to make noise. I mean, I would see people up there jumping up and down like, look, I got rid of the castle. They don't know what they're doing, but they're having fun and they're going to keep dropping quarters at it. And that was all I cared about. Just keep putting money in it. I still think that's the best toy in all of pinball. That's still the wow moment for me when you blew up the castle in Medieval Madness. and some of the other things that people enjoyed like like you were talking about lord of the rings earlier i have a friend that would go up there and just play that game because he's a huge movie fan and it follows the movie so closely that he understood what was happening there's not a lot of machines that have that connection like at least for me i don't know pinball as well as you guys do but for me i think that that game follows the movie so perfectly that if you're a big fan and you know them that well, you understand exactly what to do because you know what you're shooting for. That helped us to keep people up there on the floor. And when you walked in the front door of the bar and you saw five or six people up there playing and the bar was kind of empty, it looked like there was nobody in the bar, but there was a lot of people in the bar because a lot of people were up there playing. It was a huge bar, too. Gosh, I loved it. I had a Pinball Profile World Tour event there, Marty, and it was so much fun because Kat and Bruce, every person that came, they got free food and drink. we had some great prizes from Knox Amusement and Stern and all the other sponsors like JJP and ULOOK Store and Pinn Stadium and it was so much fun and we sold out quickly in that so that's really a testament to honestly it's the venue it's not anything I did it's just when you say you're going to have a tournament there whether it was that or please open the fucking border I know I know but you know our our proximity um being in Rochester we are close to you guys driving distance. We're also close to New York City. I mean, they've got to stay overnight, obviously. It's not like a day trip you can take, but they're willing to make that trip because they don't have to get on a plane. Easy trip for Ottawa, too. There were, I think, five or six people from the Ottawa area, and a lot of Canadians. It's a nice drive, too, and it's a good location. I imagine that's the exact same for the Rochester Pinball Collective. I watched a little bit of the stream. We're recording this well in advance, so there was a stream today, a tournament going on, a Mando release party. They had two LEs there. I mean, how amazing is that? And your husband was playing, so was Ron and Zach, and the place looks so good. You know, I don't know if you guys, and I don't even know if it's on the website, but the before and after pictures are actually amazing, absolutely amazing. These guys did such a great job cleaning that place up because that place was empty for so long. And, you know, a lot of places are having a hard time renting space, especially now. People are all working from home. And so office space is very reasonable right now, especially in this area. There's so many empty buildings that they were able to get a phenomenal deal on the rent to get started. And they had some money to invest in making it look beautiful inside. It did a really nice job. It's absolutely beautiful inside. And considering it and then please don't take this the wrong way. It was five guys. I said, come on, you guys aren't going to be able to design like this. The two of the guys that were their partners have such an eye for that. They made these beautiful counters and they painted the ceiling tiles, made it look like a rate, like a sort of like a racetrack flooring, like the black and white tiles. It looks beautiful. It really does. And the way that they set up the games is really great because it's not where you have all the sterns in one area and all and all the old stuff on one side. They they really kind of mixed it all up. So as you walk around, you play all different types of games in the rows of machines. It's really nice the way they did it, and it looks great. They put all brand-new carpets in there. They painted the whole place. And it's nice, too, because right below them is Ferrari Pizza Bar, which is a very popular bar in the town. And they have good food, and they have alcohol. You can go right downstairs. If you get food to go, you can bring it back upstairs and eat it in the co-op. They don't mind if you bring food in. No alcohol, but you can bring food in. I've just looked up on Google Maps. It's just over two hours away from you. Jeff. What, are you creeping my house? Yeah. I do that all the time. I haven't looked up your address. I've just looked up your, is it town, I guess, suburb, wherever you are. Anyway. City. City, whatever it is, trailer park. So, yeah, I just, it blows my mind, right, because I'm talking to Jeff. I know you're in Canada. I'm talking to you, Kat. I know you're in the U.S. And I'm looking and going, it's two hours away. This is bizarre to me. I mean, for me to get from here to the nearest major city, probably Adelaide might be eight hours. Sydney's nine and a half hours. And that's over a border that's just still in the same country. You're going to another country and it's two hours. It's so bizarre. Yeah, it's nice. We've been to Toronto. It's a beautiful city. Absolutely beautiful up there. I'm just west of there in a city called Burlington, but Toronto's an easy get. I've been seeing a lot of Blue Jays games. So, Cleapin was just this past weekend. and I had media passes to get into Buffalo to see the Buffalo Bisons, which is the AAA baseball team. I had media passes to go to Cleveland to see the Cleveland baseball team play and also Pittsburgh to see the Pirates play. So I had three different pieces of identification, and I called the U.S. border, and I said, look, this is part of my job, which it is, to cover Major League Baseball. Here are credentials that I've had for well over 20 years. Here are the exact dates. And they said it's non-essential. So I couldn't even get across that way. I was like, ah, forget it. We actually drove out there last night. Drove to where? To Cleveland. Oh, wow. We met a vendor that was at the show to pick up a game last night. Bruce and I drove out. Are we allowed to know what game? I don't even know what game it is. He put it in the back of the car. I don't even know what it is. You'll have to ask him. So we drove out there. We met his friend that he's known. He goes to all the big shows, you know, Allentown and York and all those. So it was nice to see him. We haven't seen him in a long time. So that was good time. That was quality time we got to spend together sitting in the car for eight hours. Sure. Marty, do you know that Kat wants to go to Australia more than anybody I know? So bad. Do you know what? I actually do know this. And I don't know why. I think it's because so many times Bruce has said to me, how much you love our accents. Oh, yeah. I have no idea. I know. We might have to hose you down.
    37:54
    You might. Um, my, my question to you is, I mean, I don't think I'm taking this the wrong way, but if you did come out to Australia, would you dump Bruce for me? Because I just feel I'm getting this vibe from you that that's actually a strong possibility. Let's find out. Marty, do you have the computer chip in your bed? Yes or no?
    38:17
    That would be the kicker right there. You know, I do. Our beds have been talking for some time now. Well, I don't know. I think it was the first time that I heard Ryan talking to Bruce one time on his podcast. Oh, not his voice. I'll give you Marty's got a great voice, but Ryan. It's just the accent. It's like he's fighting a piece of gum and a booger at the same time.
    38:45
    And I told Bruce to tell Ryan, just tell him to talk to me. That's all I want to know. All I want to hear is voice. Yeah, but honestly, we'd love to have anybody over to Australia because we are so far away from anything. It's a big deal for us, for anyone from overseas coming here. Obviously, we do get a lot of tourists, but not a lot of people that we necessarily know. Yeah, I'm dying to go there. Love to see New Zealand too. New Zealand is beautiful, I've got to tell you. It is beautiful. New Zealand is much better looking than Australia. There are some great parts of Australia, but New Zealand is spectacular. And of course, it goes back to my Lord of the Rings movie fans. Of course. I got to go see The Hobbits and all that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I think the reason why New Zealand is so beautiful is because it's such a raw country. It's not, there isn't a lot that's really still settled, right? I mean, a lot of it is old mountains and beautiful scenery, which is what I live for. I love that. So I would love to see it someday. But we're definitely going to do that someday if this world ever gets back to normal. like to take that trip? Just to give you an idea, a few years ago, I think I'm talking maybe 15 years ago, we did. So the two in the North Island, the two major cities are Wellington and Auckland. And we flew into Wellington and drove all the way up to Auckland. When we got to Wellington, it was snow Halfway through we then went to the geothermal pools at Rotorua Then when we got up to Auckland it was sunny and green mountain land And it went from 10 degrees, I don't know what that is in Fahrenheit, up to 25 degrees in the space of, I don't know, it might have been a six-hour drive. Wow, that's nice. It's just, oh my God, it's beautiful. such a good place one of these days i'm going to take that trip i always thought that that that would be my dream trip at this point yeah getting to see that so yeah and cat if you ever go you've got to play pinball because it's the easiest place to play it firsthand let me just tell you i mean you will be a superstar there i promise you yeah because i'm not a superstar here i'm terrible in fact it's been so long since i really played a lot i went to the co-op the other day because i wanted to play Mando before everyone else you know I didn't want to go there today and be there in the middle of the big crowd and the tournament and stuff but I went there to play Mando the other day and I said I realized how bad I am still like I I just it's terrible I walked up to it I was there for like three seconds I walked away Bruce was like you're done already I said yep I'll try it again some other time but it's still it's a fun game I mean it's absolutely gorgeous machine especially the le's they're beautiful i enjoyed it it was nice they look good i look forward to going there soon i can't thank you enough for coming on this program good to talk to you once again cat yeah good to see and talk i should say shouldn't say see good to talk to both of you guys it's very nice good to talk to you for the first time well that's true you and i probably have never talked to each other right we haven't been on the same show before yeah yeah yeah but never spoken. So yeah, nice. I hope you do some podcasting again, because that was fun with you and Bruce, or even go back on Slam Tilt, or you can come back on here anytime. Oh, it was really fun. I miss it. I got to get back to it soon. I'm kind of starting a little bit of a venture of my own. I'm doing some art stuff and getting into doing some of that. It helps alleviate some of my anxiety. So I have discovered doing some acrylic painting and stuff like that. And I've been thinking about trying to sell some of that. Maybe I might, hey, at least pay for my art supplies, right? Who knows? I was really successful with my last business venture. Let's see how this one goes. What could possibly go wrong? That had nothing to do with what you and Bruce did. That is 100% COVID. So good luck with this venture. Good luck with the art. Good luck with the OnlyFans website. Kat, we appreciate you coming on the program. All the best to you. Same to you guys. Thank you. There you go. That was Kat Nightingale. love of my life. But what did we learn? I don't know what we learned, but I know what I'm dying to see. And it's that bed when it comes in in December. Like, what is in that bed?
    43:04
    Bruce snores. Is there like a cone of silence on it or something? Yeah. There's a hand that comes out and slaps you in the face as soon as it detects snoring, maybe. Or you can change the setting to slap you on the ass, depending on what you want. I mean, listen, we're staying out of people's bedrooms. Kat was wonderful. I hope to see her hopefully this weekend, but I know I will again soon. And that Rochester Pinball Collective, I'm always fascinated by these collectives too. Are there any in Australia? I think we had talked about this on the show a while ago. I don't listen. No, I know you don't. I don't know why. I think there have been, look, there's always been talks about it. Like if you go to any pinball meet, there's a group of people trying to get it off the ground. uh here's what i know because i've spoken to i've spoken to joe fox about i can't remember where this is where is this he's in delaware so it's either there pennsylvania yeah yeah because they're doing a collective there what i know there's a couple of things first of all the people that you go into this collective with is the most important part of it because it's a collective so there's not usually one person that's the majority stakeholder. It is a committee. So therefore, you've got to have a very similar outlook. You've got to want the same things and you've just got to be compatible because there are so many decisions that need to be made and friction could just happen so quickly. So if you're thinking about it, pick the people first and make sure that that works. Everything else should fall into place. You should have an odd number of people for voting purposes too, but a lot of people, I know that's the case with the Rochester Pinball Collective, they have five partners and that would certainly help. A 3-2 vote would decide things one way or another. I don't know if they require unanimous things for decisions to be made, but whatever it is, you also have to be careful about maybe too many cooks in the kitchen too. What is the goal of the collective really? So what is the golden number for the amount of people that you should have if it's an odd number is it three is it five is it seven i think it doesn't matter as long as again you're really compatible but the more numbers the more people you have the less likely you're gonna have cohesion so that's probably why there isn't a collective in australia because you're all a bunch of rotten yeah no we are rotten absolutely but yeah i mean i think that from what i can tell those people that have tried to get them up and running, it really hasn't gotten past the coming to an agreement of what it should be because people aren't compatible and they don't have the same outlook or same needs and wants. But think about it too. There might be people in that collective that have a lot of the machines. There might be people that have the tech experience. There might be people with the finances to be able to afford it. They're all different things. I mean, ideally, if you had all of it, you probably don't need a collective. But I like the idea of collectives. I like that there's kind of a support group and it looks like, you know, with this one in Rochester and hopefully the one that Joe Fox does. I know the Fraley's have the one in Virginia and there's others, the Sanctum we mentioned. The community really gets behind it. Here's a perfect example. I'm in a couple of leagues here in Ontario and we're still deciding, we haven't played yet since August 1st. We haven't played since the IFPA has come back. We're still kind of figuring things out because people come to our homes. Well, what's the right number of people you want in your home? Do you want them vaccinated or not? Do you want the mask? That's an essential thing here in Ontario. Those things are all difficult. If you had a collective or a barcade or something, you could go, all right, we're going there. Let someone else deal with the needs and the restrictions and the precautions and everything else like that, as opposed to me, a homeowner, having to worry about 10, 20, 30 people coming through my house. Jesus, it's nice being able to have people come into your house. I didn't say they were. That's part of the reason we have the place. We don't even have that choice at the moment. No one is allowed.
    47:14
    Yeah, yeah. Thanks, Ian. Just family? Not even family. I'm allowed my children to come over. That's co-parenting rules. So the most important people, besides obviously my partner, are my children. So if I couldn't see my children, I would just not be handling this situation at all. That's a good point. My kids live in, well, one's in college, but the other one lives about an hour away with his mom. And when this all started, I was like, I'm allowed to see my kids, aren't I? And at first they were kind of, well, you can only go so many kilometers away from your home or miles or whatever the case may be. And I was like, screw that. It never came to that. No one was going to stop you. That's essential stuff. So, I mean, they probably thought, said, we don't need to see your dad. We're good. Zoom's fine. Text once in a while. But I wanted to see the boys. And it's interesting. But thankfully, hopefully we're getting out of this soon. I'm excited that you said you've double vaxxed. And let's not talk anymore about COVID. All right. Well, I will just one more thing. So this is obviously sponsored by A&M. Thank you. Yes, A&M. Because it's the Delta variant that's, you know, rearing its ugly head and making things difficult. And I think right now, I'd said previously that the state that we're in, they were going for zero cases methodology. So everything was locking down to zero cases. They've effectively said now that is now impossible. So it's now they're looking at double vax rates. And I think once everyone gets to 70% double vax, then they will start easing restrictions. So it's now not looking at the numbers going when it's going to go to zero because they're doubling day on day. It's now, when are they going to, everybody get vaccinated, double vaccinated, 70%, and then we might be allowed to have people over, only if they're vaxxed, etc. Delta variant, old news. Moo is the new.
    49:06
    Like, come on. Is it like a virus? I mean, this is, we have no idea. I read, I don't listen to the news reports. Is it moo or mew or whatever the point is. Delta, that's like passe. say i mean apparently there's 19 variants in africa right now that they are worried they're all just going to start coming over so you know we're fucked you know we blame ian a lot but if you watch the loki series right but if you watch the loki series on disney it was all about variants i've been wanting to watch that oh okay i can't spoil it uh it was fun but they were all talking about variants did they know something we didn't know it's not hard yeah it's pretty much a lot of things out there that we just don't know before we get to our sponsor of the week i did notice that kat mentioned she met bruce singing karaoke like out of everything she said wasn't that the big one you went what yeah what wasn't that the big filter that would go yeah no thanks i say that because here's something I've done in the last two weeks. Thanks for asking, Martin.
    50:16
    Anne and I met our friends who were vacationing, doing a little getaway in Niagara Falls, not far from where I live. So we went for dinner. Outdoor patio was really nice. And as we were walking by, we saw this outdoor bar that was doing karaoke. And it was pretty bad. So when it was pretty bad, I thought, I can make it worse if that's the goal. And so could my buddy Jeff. So we did. We sang karaoke. And I know you did not too long ago. Man, it's a different crowd. In what way? That they're a tough crowd or that they are a very forgiving crowd? Well, no. We had them both in stitches. We went for the comedy angle, Jeff and I, and we sang different songs. Stick to your strengths, yeah. Oh, you try. He was wearing like a golf shirt and shorts, and he's a short little guy. and he sang Highway to Hell by ACDC and just screamed his nuts off. And it was pretty funny. He had people going like, let's hear it, Niagara Falls. You know, the person before was singing Adele. You know, we were like, screw this. We're going to do our thing. I sang Miss You by the Rolling Stones in honor of Charlie Watts' recent passing away. And if you know the song, those are some hard notes to hit without squeezing your balls.
    51:31
    Can I just say this? This will not surprise you, given you know my taste in music really does go towards the electronic side of things. I really do not like the Rolling Stones at all. Cannot stand their music except for one song. It's got to be in that Miss You era because that's when they were in the... It is Miss You. That's my favourite Rolling Stones song. Oh, it's so good. You know, I mean, a lot of bands at that time were like, hey, let's put out a disco song and varying degrees of success. I mean, Kiss have disowned I Was Made For Loving You, which is such a shame because it is such a great song. It is a great song. But Miss You by Rolling Stones, whoever wrote it, produced it, just assembled it, put it together, knew what they were doing. They were living in New York and they were hitting Club 54 all the time. so that kind of scene was happening too i don't think of it as a disco song i think of it as a very groovy song that bill wyman bass line is just deadly and then it's a fun mix song there's another great song you'd like to i think it's called dance part one check that out by the rolling stones okay no i don't know if that one oh again if you like miss you you'll like that same kind of groove and and kind of same era as well but true rolling stone fans they fucking hate miss you they're like that is not the stones they think maybe it's just again same as kiss true Kiss fans hate I Was Made For Loving You. I like that. I like Love Gun. I like God of Thunder. I like rock and roll all night. I can like both. And I like classic Stone stuff too, but I can see the big difference in what Miss You is. Yeah. I would class it as a disco song as I would class I Was Made For Loving You. And another band that successfully put out a disco track that weren't so disco at the time. Sorry, we're digressing. We're going to get back to Pimple shortly. Fuck it. One of the best disco songs of all time from a band that said, hey, let's do a disco tune. Do I know it? Yes, of course you do. Would it be a rock band? Yes, they were a rock band at the time. The song come out in the late 70s? Yes. For sure? Let me just Google it. I'm pretty sure. If you give me the year, I can nail it. I'm typing.
    53:49
    I'm typing. 1979. Hmm. January 1979 from an album that was released, I believe, in 1978. American group, British group. American. Disco song. Yep. American band. I'm going to be so pissed off for not knowing this. Yeah, you will. Shit. One of the best songs of all time ever. And if you disagree with me, you can fucking fight me.
    54:20
    Is there a pinball machine made after this band? No. Disco Song 79 Yep I love disco I probably got it on my playlist You would It is Disco from a rock band Well I guess the same as Miss You and I Was Made For Loving You In that it's a disco song But from a rock band Alright I do give up This is taking too long Blondie Harder Glass Oh But Blondie did a bunch of disco songs But that was their first attempt At a disco song Yeah you're right I mean they came from CBGBs and stuff Did you know, you know how much I love Led Zeppelin? I may have heard about it. Yeah. I know you like a lot of bad things. Yeah. My favorite band before Led Zeppelin, which has been my favorite band since I was 10 years old, was Blondie.
    55:08
    And that's why I think of Blondie as, ah, they did a bunch of other disco numbers. I think of Atomic and stuff like that. Yep. Wow. Yeah, I saw them live, I want to say maybe 15 years ago. God, it was good. It was so good. Could Debbie still sing? Yes. Okay. Really, really well. I just got a kick out of it. If you ever watch the videos, she's so coked out and stuff. She's just like... It was a different presence with that band. And anyway, okay, let's go back to pinball after we get paid. It's time for our sponsor of the week. Travel restrictions getting you down? Yeah, I can't even drive to the US. Even though Canada has over 80% of eligible people vaxxed, which, by the way, is higher than every one of the 50 states. Then turn your attention to a magical place where everyone is welcome. Even criminals? Especially. Come to Australia. It's the oasis down under, and it's waiting for you. I would love to go back to Australia. So beautiful, good people, and the easiest way to win at pinball. Did I ever tell you about the time I was... Yes, yes, yes, we know. But as the temperatures start to drop in North America and Europe, we are just getting hotter and hotter. Summer is right around the corner. I remember the beaches and the sunsets in Perth. So gorgeous. I was warned about shark attacks though. That's not fair. You're more likely to be stung by a box jellyfish and go into immediate cardiac arrest, or get nipped by a saltwater crocodile. Okay, I'll just stay on land. Sounds good. I'm sure you'll avoid the many venomous spiders and bugs, or the over 170 species of snakes we have to offer. 100 of them poisonous. May I ask, how hard is it to get out of Australia when it's time to go? don't worry about it you won't even make it to the airport australia now with earthquakes one last thought on our previous karaoke talk we were talking about the crowds so should you be there to be a great singer or have fun should you play to the crowd or should you you've done karaoke if it's a small party and it's at someone's house doesn't matter but i'm talking you know this is main street niagara falls this is like a prime audience what do you do i do You go for the notes. No one gives a shit. No, of course you do. What you do is you do your best performance. Whatever level of quality that is, you always give it your best performance and go the notes. Pick a song that's in your range, though. Fuck it. That's probably in your key, in your range. If it's got a high note, make sure you can hit the high note. Didn't. No. Obviously. It's fun when you're with friends. All right. That's enough of that. Yeah. So what else has been happening in your fortnight, Jeff? I know you sort of alluded to before. What else has been happening? Okay. You know that I didn't go to Cleveland pinball. I really wanted to go to that a few weeks ago. And at the time of this recording, don't know if I'm going this weekend to Rochester. Hope I can. Doesn't look too good. Just for everybody, we are recording this a week early. So some of the stuff that we are going to be talking about may be a little bit dated. Ah, well, we'll lie. We do it anyway. Yeah, of course. Like, we've already played Godzilla 10 times, right? Oh, my God. I love the best bit is the ramps and the art. His spinner. The zombie yeti art is fantastic. Jerry Thompson's sound, so good. Oh, you know. Stop it. Keith Elwin has absolutely just cleaned up again. Well done, even though he's dead to you.
    58:33
    Yeah, we haven't seen the game yet. Obviously not. But I can't go across the border. I can't drive across all these wonderful places in the United States. So what did I do? I booked a trip. Want to guess where? Yep, I do. Oh, did I tell you already? Nope. I just want to guess because it could be anywhere and this will make a really boring part of the show. No, it's fun as shit. It will at least pad out this episode because we've got nothing else to talk about. We do. Somewhere in the States or in Canada? I'm flying somewhere because I can't drive across the border, so I've booked a flight. I'll give you three guesses. Okay. New York. I am going in December, but not this trip, which is in October. Are we talking east or west coast? Or center? Oh, are you going to Chicago? Is that your guess? Yes. I am going to Chicago, but I already was going for Expo. That's the end of the month. This is a trip before then. Last chance, Marty. Okay. My final answer is I don't care And you're not even in the right continent Where are you going? Germany What the fuck are you going to Germany for? I am going to Germany To the famous Bulls and Balls Arcade In Fulda, Germany I'm pretty sure it's something that's not an arcade It is Bulls and Balls I think you'll find it something else I'm going to Germany and I leave October 4th, come back on the 11th. Why? What's happening? This is like I speak to you all the time. I know. This is like I'm like, why am I hearing this now live on the podcast? This is the kind of stuff that you would tell me all the time Why am I hearing this now What are you doing I like the excitement Kind of like when Ryan read me a pin side thread right before we turned on the microphone a few episodes ago
    60:29
    It makes it a little more exciting. When I looked at the costs of me to fly to Cleveland, which pissed me off that I would have had to fly somewhere I could drive to, and look at the cost of COVID tests, sorry Ian, before and after I come back, I was like, holy shit, that's a lot of money. And then I thought, you know what? That's the kind of money you spend when you go to Europe. So I Googled, how much does it cost to fly to England, to Germany? It's cheaper. It's cheaper, and they have this great big tournament that's going on there. I don't know the name of it, but it's basically seven or eight tournaments in three or four days. It's kind of one of their whopper farms, but it's a place I want to go to. It's going to be the home of the IFPA 18 in 2023. I know the Fralies have been there. I think Colm McAlpine's been there, too. I could be wrong. But a lot of great German players. Peter Anderson, the number one player in the world at the time of this recording. He will be there. And just a chance to see wonderful people. I mentioned Tobias. I'm looking forward to seeing Jim and Dina Lindsey, who have been on this program from JDL Pinball. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm like, you know what? Another thing, too, is I have a bit of vacation time from this calendar year I haven't been able to use because I can't go anywhere. And if I don't use it by the end of the calendar year, I'm like, ah, it could be gone. So, all right, I might as well go away. So I'm going to Germany. Fine. You can't go anywhere, can you? Fine. Sure. Just go to fucking Germany. Yep. You know what? Auf Wiedersehen. You know, I can go wherever the fuck I like. I better go to Germany. Where are you going, Martin? To the liquor cabinet? Yeah, I am. Many times. Already have. Is there good gin in Germany? I'm literally now buying gins from overseas so I can say, huh, I've just bought Malfi gin. It's kind of like I've been to Italy. The Fanta gin, wasn't it? Is that what you called it? That was the one. I am today... I mean, we... Look, at some stage, we're going to have to get real and actually get a gin sponsor. Today, I'm drinking a raspberry gin from... Oh, fuck.
    62:36
    Did you spell it? Wait, wait, wait. Raspberry. He's Googling it. he's already drank the bottle but he's googling what he you know okay what was in this before boat rocker so i'm drinking i'm drinking a raspberry gin from boat rocker unfortunately it is a melbourne gin so it feels like i'm still in melbourne but it is still i'm getting so hammered that it feels like i could be anywhere in the world ah it'll be fun going to germany we had johannes ostermeyer on this program yeah we did i actually i mean i i do enjoy a lot of our episodes I really do. I mean, I never listen to them, as you know, but there are just some recordings that I just kind of just really enjoy, and the chat with Johannes was just awesome. It was just good to talk to him. We had a good one today. I know we've got a good one on our next show, a little sneak peek. Should we say who it is or tease? No. Marty says no. We're going to keep you guessing, so it'll be very exciting. Did you see, and again, think of when we're recording this. This is probably recorded a week or two before you're hearing it. The auction at the Museum of Pinball. I've been dying. You know what? So many times I wanted to bring it up when we were talking to Kat. I was like, how can I segue into maybe you should have just sold all your pinballs? But instead of doing a collective is what I mean. Oh, my dog. So the Museum of Pinball in Banning, which we've spoken about before, absolutely just a big travesty that they had to shut down and sell off their 1,300 pinballs and arcade cabinets. But holy fuck, the prices these things are going for. Jeff Teolis. There were guys streaming, and I really enjoyed this. They were streaming kind of reactions to the auction. So they had the auction on in the background and they were chatting and people were betting on how much the machines were. Every bet was under what it actually sold for. For example, I think it was South Park, $8,000 or something like that. Not worth $8. Every EM pretty much, $3,500.
    64:54
    Yeah. Certainly a lot of them. No, no, no. Yep. Wasn't there a Rocky that went for $10,000? Rocky, $10,000. No side art, just this kind of white cab. yep yep yep and it's fucking rocky which sucks oh i actually quite like that game i played it at pinbird you know me i've said this many times i gravitate towards unusual pins and it's it's interesting that we we had a nightingale on the show because bruce will now be rolling in his grave it's it's a weird time paradigm because at some stage i'm gonna have to decide who i'm going to save and who I'm going to die out of Ron and Bruce, and Bruce is obviously going to die, so he'll be there for rolling in his grave. And basically, that era of Gottlieb machines, I love, absolute love Gottliebs from that era, and everybody hates them, but I love them. So I actually really quite like that Rocky game. Okay. Do I like Rocky more than other odd? I like that it's unique. Let's give it that. Sure. it's not your fan layout. Oh, good. It's a little tricky to play with those flippers at the bottom. The set on each side, if you've never seen the Rocky play field, it had, like, to me, that's, you know how Godzilla was just remade, and a lot of these titles are remakes of games. Not remakes, but certainly reboots, if you will, and we're seeing newer versions. Rocky stands out as, you make a Rocky machine in 2021, 2022, that sells very well. That franchise will do very well. Yes. No brains. I'm not saying no. That's not my usual, really? That's like a, oh, really? That's a good franchise to do, for sure. There's so much there. And you can use old WrestleMania play fields with the ring. No, don't, please. But a new Rocky pinball machine, circle that as a license. Talk about that on Pinside. And then shit on me and the other threads. Fuck off. Anyway.
    66:55
    Yeah, but it's not worth $10,000. I'll tell you that. But if it is worth $10,000, ding, ding, ding, ding. Hello, pinball companies. No, it's worth $1,500, $2,000 tops. I'll give you more than that if it's working, and it probably is at the Museum of Pinball. Let's say it's rare, but I don't know whether it is rare. I'm just going to have a look at 1,500 units. Okay. That's rare. I mean, it's rare, but this is one of these things, you know, when people put up, I don't know if you've seen it. There's actually this really funny thread at the moment on one of the Australian pinball market sort of Facebook groups where... Yeah, I'm on those all the time. Go on. Yeah, of course you are. But where people are decoding what people say when they're like, home use only means it's never been serviced. But also people that go, you know, Rocky, Gottlieb Rocky, rare game, $15,000. Yeah, it's rare because they didn't make a lot of them because it's a shit game. So, you know, you've got to factor that in. And it's a great game. John Trudeau game. Yeah, great.
    67:55
    He's made some good games. Creature still goes for a lot of money. Yep. We talked about Mustang being one of the most underrated games ever. And I've said many, many times I wish that they had rethemed Mustang because I love the layout. I love the gameplay. And somebody did. As we know, they did a Ferris Bueller's Day Off retheme of it. You must have heard of Pinball Profile with Rebby Hardy or someone like that. Yeah, I must have because there's absolutely no other way I would have found out. Yep, there's no way. It's impossible. It wasn't in Twip. Anyway, it was.
    68:31
    But they rethemed that also for her Matt Hardy game, Expedition of Gold. So, yeah, I guess it's a fun game, good shots, good code, and it sounds like it's easy to change the code. So apparently we're going to see more of these. I get such a kick out of these rethemed games and hoping to see a few of them at Expo. I like seeing the home pins as well. But you're coming to Expo, aren't you? Oh, sorry. So it was that you like games from Home Pin, so you're therefore very pleased that Spinal Tap, this is Spinal Tap, has been confirmed as the next game from Home Pin. I do want to see the game. I will not buy the game. And even Mike himself, when talking to Dr. John on the Pinball Show Correspondence, said it's not for tournament players. It's not deep code. But it sounds like a very… Wasn't that Dave Peck that said that? Well, Dave did as well, but also it was an interview, actually, Dr. John did with Mike. So anyway, that all aside, I love that movie so much. I got Ryan Seed to finally watch it, too. If I were making a list of famous things from the movie, you'd watch, you'd make a list, and the list would be like 50 things, which you couldn't obviously all get into a machine, but you're going to want to have some things, and it sounds like they've got a few of them. So I'm curious to see it. You know, it could be fun. I can't imagine owning it, but it looks like they're going to be selling it to the distributors. So we shall see. I might be eating my words. I've never done that before. Aha. Ever. Okay. So anyway, back to what we're saying. This is the weird thing. Like everyone, when Museum of Pinball said we're selling and everyone was just like, oh, I wish they'd done this. I wish they'd done that. Basically saying, I wish they'd consulted with me. I would have got them out of this mess. which, no, you wouldn't have. Just so I'm just saying, you wouldn't have. You don't have 1,000 pinball machines and 300 arcade cabinets. So you've never been in that position. You've never owned a museum. You've never owned property in Banning. So, no, you don't know enough to know how to salvage this situation. Sorry, just had to just let that go. But these people that are selling these machines will retire from that money. And I say this. I say this, as much as it pains that we now can't go to the Museum of Pinball and Banning or we couldn't go to Palm Springs where they were trying to get up, those people have just sold pinballs and arcade cabinets for a shitload of money, more money than they ever, ever, ever would have made by opening up a venue to the public. There you go. Millions of dollars. Not a million. Millions of dollars. Tens of. A lot of money, for sure. And do you think, and we don't know, we are asking the question. We're not slandering. We're asking the question. Do you think this might have been the plan all along? Or do you think there was a legitimate hope to move that museum? No, I genuinely, I don't know. We don't know. If I get it wrong, don't come at me on the pin side and say that I'm responsible. Ryan will on the next episode. Go on. He will. But what you've got to remember is, I remember one of the very first podcasts that Nate Shivers did for Coast to Coast. That's how long ago this was. One of the first episodes that he did, might have been like four or five episodes. There was a Kickstarter or something like Kickstarter. It was probably Kickstarter to set up this museum in Banning. That's how long ago it was. So I genuinely think they wanted to have a place where people could enjoy all these machines. At some stage, you've got to say to yourself, not going to happen too hard. How about we just sell all these machines and have enough money to live out our lives? The reason I ask is, was this the plan maybe all along or was it in the back of the mind? No, I genuinely don't think. The reason I ask is you see how much these pinball machines are going for on the secondary market. Is this not the perfect time to sell? It is the perfect time, but I don't think that they said six years ago and went, you know what, in six years' time, we're going to sell these pinball machines for a lot of money. No, I think they genuinely did want to make it work, and then maybe someone came along to them and said, hey, you know what, given the market at the moment, how about you just sell all your games and get a shitload of cash? And stop trying to flog a dead horse or whatever it is. Just get your cash, live happy. That's all you need to do. Yeah. That's what I genuinely think happened. It is an amazing auction, no question about it. We should call it a day. I got to get my passport and everything ready for Germany. Well, I've got to get ready for my streaming as I have a new game in the house. I didn't even ask you what the fuck you've done. No, because you never do, because you really don't care about what I've been up to, Jeff Teolis. I do care what you've done, and that's why we're going to check the Haggis report. Ryan C., here he is. Hi there, it's Ryan C. with your Haggis pinball update. Big development, guys. It's mud time at Haggis. That's right, we've noticed a new addition in the parking lot. Still 11 cars daily, but now one of the vehicles has a honk if you're horny bumper sticker. I was horny. Unfortunately, I couldn't honk my horn because I was on my push bike, but I did give my bell a little ring. nice touch greg silby back to you boys okay so you're working that's good good good good anything else other than working no no just uh come on you got a new game i do have a new game so i have who gave you thunderbirds okay but it's again it's quiz time i have got a game in my house a game that you and i both absolutely loathed when it came out and i now really really like and i'm not sure whether you really like it now there you go there's the there's the clues that you've got so far new game relatively yeah stranger things yep i don't mind it yeah i've been playing it a little bit to try to get to like it i don't mind it it's not bad is it It's not bad. The code makes up for it. It really does. Yeah, it does. And once you dial it in, it's fine. I would say that I think that the code and the atmosphere that they create with the sounds and the vision from the show are really, really good. You take that away. I think it's still a good pin. It's not a great pin, but it's a good pin. But you add everything to it, and I think it's a great pin. So I'm going to stream that tonight. It's kind of reminding me a little bit of another pin when it came out. People really shit all over it. And that would have been Guardians. Yeah, yep, yep, yep. Bad code, but kind of good shots. And it was the other way around. Well, I wouldn't say it was great shots in Stranger Things. But once they fixed the Demogorgon to, okay, you know what? It's a bash toy now. Yep. And if you're lucky, you get it in the hole. No, no, no. Oh, my God. No. What I think's happened, because this is a pro model, and it was only, you know, it's a couple of months, I think a couple of months in Australia. I am convinced that they've now increased the hole on the Demogorgon because I can now get it in the gob consistently, and I've never been able to do that. And you know what? I'm not the world's best player. I'm not the world's worst player. I'm somewhere in between. so I should be able to get that fracking shot in the gob. On this machine, happens quite often. So I think that they've actually fixed that toy so the ball can actually now go through the mouth. I didn't think it was so much the size of the hole. That certainly was a factor. I thought just it was the launch of the ramp because it can go too high, it can go too low. Sure, but if you've got a bigger hole, then you've got more chances of getting it in. So what we're learning is you've got a bigger hole. Correct. I have a bigger hole so your balls can now go through my hole. I'm dead. Honestly. Is that what this... Well, you know, we've got to do something about my little pecker. I haven't played that. Well, you will. No. Sometimes I'll always play the Josh Sharp theme because people get a kick out of that. And I do too. And it's not like it's every week. But I don't have to do that with Ryan C. Sure. I've got you saying, stick your balls in my hole. I don't need to do that. I've got other sound bites now. Awesome. But we are done. That is it. Oh, so close to being done. So, so close. We are done. Thanks, everybody. We'll speak to you in a fortnight. Thank you. See you later. Bye. Hold on a second here. See you. Hang tight. No more. We're done. All right. You kind of teased that we might be saying it's going to be Ron, it's going to be Bruce in the who lives, who dies scenario. And you quickly said basically Bruce doesn't survive. Is that correct? Is there any reason? Give me any scenario and let's see if that's the case. You and these two gentlemen are in a room together. Is this like the movie Saw? It is like the movie Saw.
    78:06
    It's exactly like the movie Saw. But in this case, one person can save you and themselves by fixing a pinball machine. If they don't, you all die.
    78:20
    Okay, well, what's the pinball machine that needs to be fixed? Roller games. Just to make it hurt even more. Okay, cool. Good luck. Okay. So thank you. This is easy because Ron has owned a Roller Games for many, many years. So he knows this game inside out. Bruce hates Roller Games. So Bruce wouldn't know how to fix the game. Ron fixes the game, saves me. Out we go. See you, Bruce. Apparently you get decapitated or something. I don't know. I've never seen Saw, but apparently they die in very gruesome ways. So there you go. well done. Sounds like, I think in this way, the death is several balls to the gob, if I'm quoting you correctly.
    79:10
    Sorry, Bruce. Don't worry, we'll look after Kat. He really did. Like, Jeff really tried to put this in your favour, but it just backfired. Sorry, mate. Nothing personal, but it's personal. I'll let you go now. Go enjoy your Stranger Things. I will talk to you again soon. I think I'll talk to you before Germany, I think. Yeah, you will. We'll figure it out. Please stay safe, and we will speak to you again soon. Even you, Ian. My name's Geoff Hewellis. My name's Martin Robbins. Thanks, everyone. Where can they reach us? Oh, my God. The thing of it is, we say this every episode. No one reaches out to us. Oh, fuck them. That's the point. But why? We've said it nearly every episode. Nobody reaches out. Why do we have to do it? FinalRampinBall at gmail.com, at FinalRampin on Instagram, and Fano and Pinball on Facebook. They are all the places for you not to reach out to us. This one-way conversation is bullshit. It ends right now. If we don't get at least 10 emails and 10 new followers and this and that, I'm going to have a little bitch fest, and that's the end of the show. It's in your court. Ian. All right, I'm out of here. I'm Jeff Jules. Bow down.
    80:24
    I have a bigger hole so your balls can now go through my heart.