Episode 35 - The Super Fan

Special When Lit·podcast_episode·1h 1m·analyzed·Jan 22, 2019

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.032

TL;DR

SWL Episode 35: Stern visit, Munsters/Beatles demos, Zach Minney acquires Flippin' Out Pinball distributor.

Summary

Ken Cromwell and Bill Webb host Special When Lit Pinball Podcast episode 35, featuring their visit to Stern Pinball to demo the Munsters and Beatles machines before purchase, and a major segment with Zach Minney announcing he and his wife have purchased Flippin' Out Pinball, a pinball distribution business formerly owned by Larry and Donna Kitchen. The hosts discuss their impressions of both games, streaming setup plans, and the implications of Zach balancing distribution with his existing media roles.

Key Claims

Ken ordered a Pro model of Munsters after playing it at Stern, expecting delivery mid to end of February
high confidence · Ken Cromwell stated directly: 'I officially ordered a Pro' and 'I think I'm looking at mid to end, mid, middle to end of February, I think is what I was told.'
Beatles is a sleeper machine that exceeded expectations despite prior lack of interest from Ken
high confidence · Ken Cromwell: 'Boy, am I glad that I saw Beatles, because when we jumped on that machine, that's that's a sleeper machine, man. That is that is super fun as well.'
Dwight Sullivan and John Borg plan to attend Ken's Munsters unboxing event
high confidence · Ken Cromwell: 'John Borg and Dwight Sullivan, they're going to come. They're going to unbox Munsters here with us.'
Christopher Franchi designed Beatles art package
high confidence · Ken Cromwell: 'I was impressed with how it shot the art package. Christopher Franchi, this guy's a maniac.'
Zach Minney and his wife Nicole closed on acquisition of Flippin' Out Pinball on Friday
high confidence · Zach Minney: 'So you closed on Friday. Saw the video obviously, dude' (confirmed by Ken). Zach confirmed: 'Yes, thank you.'
Previous owners of Flippin' Out Pinball were Larry and Donna Kitchen
high confidence · Zach Minney: 'Previous owners were Larry and Donna Kitchen. You guys, many of you guys know Larry and Donna, just the loveliest people ever.'
Ken and Bill are planning a test pinball stream later in the week
high confidence · Bill Webb: 'I think what we're going to try to do is we're going to try to fire up a test pinball stream later this week.'
Zach Minney has been thinking about distribution for over a year
high confidence · Zach Minney: 'Yeah, I would say I've been thinking about this for over a year.'
Flippin' Out Pinball is authorized distributor for Stern, Jersey Jack, Chicago Gaming, American Pinball, P3 Multimorphic, Valley Dynamo, and Escalera

Notable Quotes

“Boy, am I glad that I saw Beatles, because when we jumped on that machine, that's a sleeper machine, man.”
Ken Cromwell @ ~18:00 — Ken's surprised enthusiasm for Beatles despite prior indifference, suggesting strong positive reception to the game at Stern
“I'm a madman, you guys know that. So I have, me and my wife have purchased a pinball distribution business, formerly known as Flippin' Out Pinball.”
Zach Minney @ ~32:00 — Official announcement of major business acquisition in pinball community
“I would love that. I always tell people, look, if you're going to buy a pinball machine, we're all addicted. We all love this stuff. You're going to buy one. Might as well buy one through a friend, somebody that loves it just as much as you do.”
Zach Minney @ ~68:00 — Zach's philosophy on customer relationship building as distributor
“The truth is I want to remain me. I don't think I can help it but remain me so I'm always going to be me.”
Zach Minney @ ~49:00 — Addressing conflict of interest concerns about balancing distribution role with media criticism
“I don't think about it being an undertaking. I really don't face anything in life like that. If I think something's interesting and creative and hasn't been done before, I just want to be the person to do it.”
Zach Minney @ ~35:00 — Revealing Zach's entrepreneurial mindset and motivation pattern
“Worst case scenario, I can switch all that stuff back. When that earth shaker came back, it shopped and LED'd and it was all cool whites in the GI... Wow, was that incredible, man.”
Ken Cromwell @ ~26:00 — Personal anecdote about LED restoration impact on classic machines
“Now you're so heavily involved in pinball media between Straight Down the Middle a pinball show and with This Week in Pinball... Two quick questions on this. One, when did you think it was a good idea to take on another huge undertaking?”
Ken Cromwell — Directly addressing Zach's overextension across multiple media and business roles

Entities

Ken CromwellpersonBill WebbpersonZach MinneypersonJack Dangerperson Dwight Sullivanperson John Borgperson Christopher Franchiperson Jerry Thompsonperson

Signals

?
product_launch: Ken Cromwell ordered Munsters Pro model after hands-on demo at Stern, with expected delivery mid-to-late February
high · Ken stated: 'I officially ordered a Pro' and 'I think I'm looking at mid to end, mid, middle to end of February, I think is what I was told.'
~
sentiment_shift: Beatles pinball exceeded expectations and shifted Ken from indifference to strong interest despite prior lack of appeal
high · Ken: 'I wasn't, I didn't care if I had seen one or not... Boy, am I glad that I saw Beatles... that's a sleeper machine, man.'
?
business_signal: Zach Minney and wife Nicole purchased Flippin' Out Pinball distribution business from Larry and Donna Kitchen
high · Zach announced: 'me and my wife have purchased a pinball distribution business, formerly known as Flippin' Out Pinball' with closing on Friday confirmed
?
personnel_signal: Zach Minney adding distributor role while maintaining media responsibilities (Straight Down the Middle, This Week in Pinball) and podcast editing
high · Ken questioned the overextension: 'when did you think it was a good idea to take on another huge undertaking?' Zach acknowledged ambition and multiple concurrent roles
?
content_signal: Ken Cromwell and Bill Webb planning pinball streaming setup with significant investment beyond initial $1000 budget target
high · Bill: 'we put a lot of money into this' in response to not wanting to do disservice to streaming quality. Test stream planned for later in week.

Transcript

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0:00

Coming at you out of St. Charles, Illinois, the Special When Lit Pinball Podcast starts now. Hello, Pinball Land! Welcome to episode number 35 of the Special When Lit Pinball Podcast. My name is Ken Cromwell. And I am Bill Webb. And we had a cool trip to Stern Pinball. Was that earlier? That was last week. We are all potential buyers on Stern Munsters and before we went in on a purchase, we wanted to make sure that we played the game, right? So we arranged some things and we were able to get in there and drive up to Stern. Now, you had arrived before I did. Yeah, I was in the area so it was easier for me to get there from where I was instead of coming home to drive back there. Steve, we met you at Stern. We walk in and we go to the Stern Arcade where they've got all their machines kind of set up to play. And Jack Danger's got a stream going on and he's banging out Metallica with Lyman Sheets and Keith Elwin. And I look into the arcade and Bill, you were playing Munsters with Dwight Sullivan. It was great because we got to jump on Munsters. And who better to show us the machine than Dwight, right? Oh, absolutely. So we get in and let me get your impressions. Now, we've heard all the coverage. We've seen the reveals. We did our thing with the Munsters, the making of the Munsters, but it was our first time physically having the machine in our presence and being able to flip the game. What did you think? Awesome game. Definitely want to buy one. Right. Now, I also thought it was a super fun shooting game. The code brings me back to Bally Williams era of code with some added complexities in regards to scoring. And I officially ordered a Pro. Now when we were at Stern, the pro model was there. Yep. Premium was not there. There was a premium that was at EAG in London. And there's a premium I know at Gex in Colorado on display there. But there was not one to play at Stern. So, and I was fine with it. Because as soon as I played Munsters Pro, it had everything that I really wanted in the game. Like I did prefer the color, even though the black and white looked beautiful on the pictures and on the stream. I still liked the color. I'm John Popadiuk, and I'll see you next time on The Pro Model. We'll be right back. I think I'm looking at mid to end, mid, middle to end of February, I think is what I was told. Now, the surprise of the night for me was right next to Munsters to the left was... Beatles! Right! So when I walked in, I'm like, I did not expect to see a Beatles there. And full disclosure, neither one of us had seen a Beatles in person. Not in the wild. Absolutely not. And to be real honest with you, I wasn't, I didn't care if I had seen one or not. I respected the machine for what it was, but it was something that I was like, you know, it doesn't really appeal to me. So if I never really see a Beatles, I'm not going to be losing any sleep. Boy, am I glad that I saw Beatles, because when we jumped on that machine, that's that's a sleeper machine, man. That is that is super fun as well. I was impressed with how it shot the art package. Christopher Franchi, this guy's a maniac. I mean, it was awesome. I love the colors on Beatles. I like the animations. I would like at some point to own a Beatles, I think. I couldn't agree more. Honestly, between the powder coating on the rails, styl 친 versus ball ooh uso leyная I'm a pinball player and I had a blast looking at it and playing it. So would I go new in box on Beatles? Probably not unless there was an incredible deal out there, but I can absolutely see myself trying to pick one up down the road as hopefully some of these get into the used market. I could absolutely see myself getting in on Beatles. So, you know, for those of you that might have been naysayers or didn't really interest you, if you get a chance, find one because that's cool. Now, when I was talking with Dwight and I was talking with John Borg and, you know, I let those guys know, hey, jumping in on a pro, would you guys want to come by when we unbox it? And both those guys are on board. So John Borg and Dwight Sullivan, they're going to come. They're going to unbox Munsters here with us. And if Christopher Franchi and Jerry Thompson happen to be in town, it'd be cool to have those guys have a little making of Munsters reunion over here. The Out Pinball Podcast is a production of Winn-Winn-Win.com, and is not intended to represent the views, opinions, or opinions of any individual. I'm your host, Scott Danesi, and I'm your host, Scott Danesi. I also reached out to Dennis Kriesel at the Eclectic Gamers Podcast because he's also streaming for their channel. Dennis was another very thorough wealth of knowledge in regards to what he's done and his approach. I really, really appreciated that. There was documentation online. Now, if you get a chance, Dead Flip Jack Danger has on Google. Just Google how to stream pinball and this tutorial kind of shows up and he gets very in-depth. Jeff, same thing I saw information from Buffalo Pinball, where they were giving information on minimum requirements and recommendations. Taking all that knowledge and kind of coming up with our own idea is what had happened. Now, originally I think our thought process was, is it possible for us to put together a serviceable streaming rig under a thousand dollars? That was kind of like the budget that we had had. And with mixed results, it was kind of possible, but it might not have offered the best viewer experience. Now, I think, and I think you might agree with me. Yeah, and honestly, these guys that are doing the streaming now have really set the bar so high on the quality of what they're producing. So you really don't want to go backwards and do streaming a disservice by having, you know, terrible audio or terrible video or jumpy feeds or anything like that. For sure. So, and I think with this podcast, I think part of the appreciation that we have as far as feedback is that our audio quality is above average and people appreciate that when they're listening to a podcast. So we didn't want to get into pinball streaming and we're not getting in to compete with these guys at all because this is going to be such a more laid back approach to pinball streaming. But we absolutely didn't want to let anybody down with the video quality. So we went way in and we put a lot of money into this. So the other thing is this, you can have all the equipment in the world and I'm realizing that unless you know what you're doing with that equipment, it's not going to make any difference. So hey Jack Danger and Dennis Kriesel and anybody else that's willing to offer advice, you will most likely be hearing from me. Hey Jack, we'll offer you some help with tools and stuff like that and any cabinet questions you might have to ask and you can come help us work on setting up some of the streaming. So, yeah, it's a little deal. Yep, everything's here. Computer's here, we've got all the equipment, and we set it up and it's in the studio right now and it looks great set up. Now it's going to be about interfacing with the computer and with the multiple software platforms that we're going to have to use. So it's exciting, it's awesome. Yeah, Ken and I are super excited and can't wait to start doing this. I think what we're going to try to do is we're going to try to fire up a test pinball stream later this week. And listen, if anybody is interested maybe in helping us in regards to that test stream, and we can give you kind of a direct link to the page in a time, and maybe you can kind of offer feedback as far as video and audio quality goes, please consider emailing us at specialwhenlitpinballpodcast at gmail.com, or just hit us up on Facebook Messenger, and you can find us under Special When Lit Pinball Podcast. While you're there, like the Facebook page if you haven't done that already. So, exciting to do it. Hey Bill, are you ready to play Drain It or Save It? Absolutely. It's time for this week's edition of Drain It or Save It. Drain It or Save It, for those of you that don't know, is a segment that we reintroduced to the show and we kind of retooled it a little bit where we're going to bring up three topics and myself and Bill will get about 60 seconds to discuss that topic and we will let you know why we would drain it or save it. Now, draining the topic means that we either don't agree with it or we don't want to hear about it anymore, or saving it means it's something that we appreciate or something that we think offers a level of importance and that we'd like to at least revisit it later. So are you ready? Yep. Let's go. All right. So the first topic, drain it or save it. Bill, we'll start with you. Shipping pinball machines. Go. I think it could be a good thing, especially when you've got a rare title that's in California and you live in Chicago or some part of the country that's not accessible to get it shipped. I'm your host, Scott Danesi, and I'll see you next time on Pinball Machines. I'm going to talk about the pinball machine and what I found is that could be as close to the state next to you or all the way across the country it seems to not make a difference. Whereas I can understand the value in receiving a machine that is not in your normal driving, you know, perimeter so to speak, I just don't like shipping machines so, again, I think it's necessary but personally if I had the choice I would actually drain shipping pinball machines. The second item we have is limited edition versions of new releases. L.E.s. Bill? I would have to save it. I think they add something to the hobby. Really enjoy when you have a run of like, you know, four or five hundred games that make those games special and unique. So on that I'd have to save it. Okay. I'm going to drain L.E.s. in limited edition pinball machines. Two for three. And I'm going to tell you why. And it's simply personal. It's not because I think it's right or wrong in the general grand scheme of things, but I'm usually not an LE buyer and I just find myself priced out of most limited edition pinball machines. When I think about lower tiers and middle tiers and upper tiers, I almost wish that there was a little bit more uniformality, whereas this is a machine that everybody can buy. I'm not one that needs to have something that's obscure or something that somebody else doesn't have. I just want something that's solid, that plays and a good value for my money. So personally for myself, LEDs, I drain them because I don't see myself really going out of my way to attain LEDs. See, I wouldn't be one to go into buying LEDs because, I mean, they're just simply out of my price range, but, you know, good for the person that can. Yeah. And we're going to wrap it up with this one. I have to save it. I love the way the old games look with LEDs. I think they bring a different touch and a different feel to the games. Definitely different from when they were originally designed. So I have to save it. I am also going to save LED replacements and I think where you need to make sure that you're not overdoing it. I think if you're going to replace incandescence with LEDs that you have to do it tastefully. But the great thing about LED in a pinball machine is that you can customize it to however you really want it to look. Whereas I might think something looks color bound or oversaturated with ridiculous colors, that might make somebody think that their pinball machine is the best thing they've ever seen. So I like the individual approach and the customization. I also tend to gravitate towards cool white bulbs, especially in GI. I'm your host, Scott Danesi, and I'll see you next time on Pinball Podcast. We're a completely different look and transformation of a pinball machine. For that alone, I will absolutely save it. And you know what? It's not super expensive to do. No. And you know what? I gotta jump back in on this thread, or to this topic. Yeah. I don't like games that are color bombed out like greens and funky blues all over. You know, a couple of colored bulbs that add a little flavor, cool. And I also like it because it's also helpful on the board for not drawing as much power and heating up the connectors. Right. It is a longevity of changing those out so you not drawn to as much power I remember and going back to my first pinball machine I ever had which was an shaker and at the time I wasn really into I wasn comfortable taking it apart or shopping a machine And even in the very early stages, I didn't like knowing that I might have to lift the playfield at some point. I mean, now it just comes second nature to do those things. But I remember I sent earth shaker out to be shopped by somebody else, and I wanted to clean it up. And I remember the question, he's like, do you want to LED it or do you want to keep it incandescent? I was so afraid to LED it because I thought if I LED it and I brightened it up, it wouldn't really look like the true Earthshaker that was seen back in the 80s when it was on location. And I feel like I would be kind of taking away from the integrity of the machine. But then all that went out the window because I'm like, you know what, just do it. Worst case scenario, I can switch all that stuff back. When that earth shaker came back, it shopped and LED'd and it was all cool whites in the GI. For the most part, everything was color matched on the inserts and then under the plastics, again, just white. Wow, was that incredible, man. I remember that moment thinking to myself, I don't know how everybody does an LED in condensing pinball machines. I've even LED'd, I had flash and I tastefully LED'd that and where I think pure, especially in EMs, John Popadiuk, Automated Amusements, Jerry Klyce, Zach Meny, multiball, backglass, Dennis Kryce, Larry Oursler, Kanyo Klyce, Zach Meny, I've got to throw a shout out to Terry for how much aggravation we caused, man. You know, we come in and buy, you know, 300 light bulbs, but all good. Yeah, I mean, I've never had issues with Terry's LEDs and they're affordable and, you know, they're almost always in stock, so, you know, regardless of what you're looking for. So yeah, shout out to Pinball Life for sure. Getting the news from around the industry in this week's Industry Buzz. In this edition of Industry Buzz, we bring back on to the program Mr. Zachary Meny. Now Zach, who a lot of you know from co-hosting Straight Down the Middle, a pinball show with Greg Bone, he also hosts This Week in Pinball Podcast on the This Week in Pinball website. And now he's got a new hat to wear. Yeah, what's going on? So dude, first of all, it was great having you on the show a few weeks ago and now you come back on for a little segment here to discuss some news which you announced. For those that are not privy to understanding or had heard what had happened, do you want to kind of clue us in on what's going on with you right now, Zach? I would love to. First off, Ken, Bill, I just love you guys. Thanks for having me on again. Hey, thanks, man. I love this segment, this industry buzz segment. This is a good idea. I like this. Thanks, brother. Well, hey, guess what? You're on the segment. Woo-hoo! So, essentially, what I have done, I'm a madman, you guys know that. So I have, me and my wife have purchased a pinball distribution business, formerly known as Flippin' Out Pinball. Previous owners were Larry and Donna Kitchen. You guys, many of you guys know Larry and Donna, just the loveliest people ever. And I said formerly known as Flippin' Out, it's still known as Flippin' Out Pinball. We're continuing that tradition on. Hopefully a tradition of honesty, support, creativity when it comes to selling pinball machines and all things pinball products. Now you're so heavily involved in pinball media between Straight Down the Middle a pinball show and with This Week in Pinball with editing a podcast, with editing your multiple shows that yourself and Greg put out. Two quick questions on this. One, when did you think it was a good idea to take on another huge undertaking? And number two, when did you think it was a good idea for you to take on another huge undertaking? Yeah, I don't, when it comes to, you can ask my friends, you guys know this about me as well. I don't think about it being an undertaking. I really don't face anything in life like that. If I think something's interesting and creative and hasn't been done before, I just want to be the person to do it. Now, distribution has been done before, of course, but I don't know if I had a platform and I've been wanting to... You guys know me. I want to do everything there is in pinball. Hell, I'd like to design a pinball machine if I could. Zach, how does this even enter your mind? I mean, was this like a game plan that you've had for a long time or was there something that happened in your pinball life where you said, you know what, I want to be a distributor. I want to offer the public machines. I love pinball people. I would love to distribute to them. Yeah, I would say I've been thinking about this for over a year. And I don't know what hit me. I just I saw Larry and the business that he was doing and just kind of what he was bringing to the pinball community, making people happy. I loved hearing customers of his come up to me and be like, Larry's such a good guy. He's honest with me. He's just so good to me and stuff like that. And I really admired that and just walking through and becoming friends with a lot of these pinball distributors, you know, to name a few like Kurt up at Hemisphere or Chris Menyer up at Kingpin, like these, these guys became my friends. So I really admired them as people and what they were doing. And I thought, well, hell, I could do this, right? I would love to be able to, to, to look at my shop and think I distribute pinball machines to people. They get to unbox them and they get the joy that I get whenever I unbox a pinball machine or a mod or anything like that. So it's been kind of buzzing around for a year and I started speaking with Larry about it. And initially it was going to be a partnership where I would be head of sales and marketing. And that kind of morphed into, you know, Larry is, he just, I was, I was kind of sensitive here, I'll see you next time on thethetimeprun dwelling.-

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Negotiating and different things like that. So we've got a we've got a good we've got a good plan I think Well, listen before we ask you to tell the listeners how they can get a hold of you and what you're distributing pinball wise I think that's important. If you don't mind, I did want to ask you a direct question, and it's just something that I think I've wondered myself, and I'm just kind of curious how you feel about it. Now, with your show, Straight Down the Middle, again, yourself and Greg Bone, part of your segment or part of your show schedule is actually reviewing pinball machines. The Out Pinball Podcast is a production of Iowa Public Television which is solely responsible for its content. Sorry man, listen we can skip over that. No, absolutely not. You guys know me, I'm going to answer any questions you fire at me. The truth is I want to remain me. I don't think I can help it but remain me so I'm always going to be me. Now I do have a pinball partner in Greg at Straight Down the Middle and a pinball partner in Jeff Patterson at This Week in Pinball. What does that mean for the show? A lot of people have been asking. I would like to think that the tone's gonna be the same. We're still going to be providing entertainment. We're still gonna be providing content. We're gonna be providing everything that, when we started this whole thing out, we wanted to relay. We wanted to make people laugh. We wanted to provide information for people and cool new products that were out in the pinball market. So I see that happening. Now, will we have to reformat the show a little bit? Yeah, I would think so. Yeah, I don't think- That's fair enough. We can do everything that we were doing before, but Greg has already said publicly he's going to be Greg and I'm going to be me, and I love that guy to death. He's my best friend, so... Greg's awesome, man. That does not stop him. I think we both have a great appreciation for him too, yeah. Yeah, and when it comes to the rumors, here's the thing. If people knew the level of information that I knew prior to becoming a distributor, I've not given any of this information out, so I don't see anything. Yeah, you haven't violated trust or for anybody. You guys have information that you don't put on a podcast or anything. Sure, and I always wonder what information you have and you probably wonder what we have, but out of respect for those people, we just kind of ... Too much, honestly. Yeah. We know pinball distribution. I will tell the listeners out there, and I don't think this is crossing the line, but Pinball distributors don't know as much as you think they know when it comes to new stuff. A lot of times they're informed right before release just for sales and marketing purposes. But for the most part, there's not a lot of information that is open for extended periods of time that could be leaked or discussed or talked about. So I'm going to take on this week of Pinball Podcast what is given to me news-wise. And as a host, I'm going to present that news. I'm not going to be adding anything to that as I have not been prior to being a distributor, so I don't see that changing too much. That makes sense. Makes sense, man. And I still going to be stupid and I going to do Dr Phil and I going to ask Jack Danger to tell me where he went on the road with it Maybe needs to be removed a little bit Yeah you can be a distributor and Dr Phil That true I think that the one thing that might have to be cut is Dr Phil Okay. I wonder what his thoughts are on becoming a distributor, Zach. You can talk to Dr. Phil. I think he's going on vacation with Larry Kitchen. He's going on vacation. I think they're retiring together. No, we're still going to have fun. The thing I'm most We're a team of champions of the Men�B subtitles and tips at www.F fashion I'm excited. Bill's excited. You guys don't lack in creativity. And, you know, I speak for myself and Bill. Man, we wish you the best of luck. I know this is something that you really, really want to do. And I've not yet, since we've been friends, I've not seen you put your efforts into something and not be completely successful at it. So, absolutely brother, why don't you do this? Can you let our listeners know how they can get a hold of you in the event that they do want to get a new in box pinball machine and they're looking for maybe a new distributor or they want to try a new distributor? How can they get a hold of you? I would love that. I always tell people, look, if you're going to buy a pinball machine, we're all addicted. We all love this stuff. You're going to buy one. Might as well buy one through a friend, somebody that loves it just as much as you do. So yeah, you can reach out to us at Flippin' Out Pinball. As a reminder, we do sell one of the biggest varieties of pinball products in the entire industry. We are authorized dealers for Stern Pinball Machines, Jersey Jack Pinball Machines, Chicago Gaming Company Pinball Machines, American Pinball Machines, P3 Multimorphic, Valley Dynamo, Escalera Stair Climbing Hand Trucks, and I promise you, there's some more even coming. So you can reach us at telephone number, jot this down everybody, 847-778-4876. You're going to get me directly, so be prepared to talk some pinball and I'm ready for your call. You can also reach me at Zach at FlippinOutPinball.com. That's Flipp, F-L-I-P, the letter N, Out, O-U-T, Pinball.com. We're revamping our website, Facebook presence and all of that, so give us a little time, but we're going to have a one-stop shop for each and every one of you to come shop pinball, talk pinball and everything at Flippin' Out. Man, it sounds like you got it down. It's the first time I heard you give a number out on a podcast that wasn't the Slap Safe Pinball Podcast. Yeah. So that makes sense, man. I was just waiting for them to troll me. Right, exactly. That number's out there. Something will happen. Really excited for you guys, man. And I really think that you guys will succeed. I think that you're the anti-sleep person of the year as you constantly have something going with editing and everything else. You just must not sleep now. Yeah, you guys are the best. Thanks so much for allowing me to come on and discuss this because I know some people were wondering. And thanks for being my friends. I always tell you guys that, but you don't hear it enough. So thank you, thank you, thank you. Yeah, you got it, brother. Good luck, man. Thanks for coming on. See you guys. So Bill, let me ask you this in regards to pinball podcasts. It's funny because when we started in July, we were like kind of the new kids on the block and there was like a level of responsibility that went with that because we didn't want We're not going to let anybody down. And it was an exciting time because we were kind of the only guys that kind of released in that general area of time, along with This Week in Pinball, that Jeff Patterson had asked Zach Meny to host. So it was kind of the two of us coming up the ranks at the same time. But now, like, we're just not the new kids on the block anymore. And I kind of like that we're not, and I kind of miss that we aren't, if that makes any sense. Oh, it does. We're like sophomores now. I'm learning more and more about additional pinball podcasts either that have been existing that I just didn't even realize had existed and that's completely my fault or I'm noticing like more and more pinball podcasts popping up and I just wanted to take a couple minutes and I don't know did you want to talk about maybe what you like to listen to or do you want to talk about what I've found recently I don't know how you want to tackle this but I wanted to talk about pinball podcasts and I just wanted to The Out Pinball Podcast is a production of WGBH. For more information, visit www.outpinball.com. I mean, she's young, I'm sure, but I mean, she's, yeah, she's not a new kid on the block anymore. Nope, nope. You know, as far as the newer ones, I haven't... We're like in this graduating class of podcasts, you know, like... Yep, we got a few under our belt now, so... Yep. You know, and then with the newer ones, I'm having a hard time keeping up because you got, you know, all the, you know, all traditional, you know, your Head to Head, your Kaneda, you know, Ms. Pin, Slapsave, Jeff Teolis and Collective Gamers Podcast. I mean, there's so many out there, you know, it's almost hard to find enough time in the week to listen to every single one. And I don't know if you run into that same problem. Yeah, so I think the problem is now like I've got so many pinball podcasts that I'm subscribed to that it's, I mean, it's taking its own undertaking for me keeping up with all these shows. And so I have Podcast Addict installed on my Android phone. And it just kind of, it's a nice easy place for me to stash and subscribe to all my podcasts. I mean, and these aren't even all of them.

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It's a great time. Yeah, for sure. I mean, anybody that doesn't think they like pinball podcasts, it's just because you haven't found the pinball podcast for you. And with the huge selection out there, something's going to call to you. Now, obviously, you're listening to our show at this point. So you are listening to a pinball podcast. But I did want to just focus on three pinball podcasts this week. And that is so Wayne Sager has been a friend of the show and the thing with Wayne is he's touched base with us on a couple things in the past and he's checked in and and I just consider him a friend of the show. Now I didn't even realize this but he hosts Tucson Pinball Podcast. Okay, so here's another podcaster reaching out to me who I think is just somebody that's listening to podcasts and he's got his own podcast and and he gets pretty technical on on you know repair and it's like a pinball diary of things that are going on in his life so if anybody gets a chance Wayne Sager a friend of the show listen to some pinball podcast second one is and this is a funny story right so this guy he hosts the pinball nerds podcast his name is Albert Agar. Albert has been podcasting since like October of last year and he's got like 90 episodes up. He does multiple episodes a day and he podcasts almost every single day. Now in all honesty, I just can't keep up with them all. So what I'll do is every few days I'll go like literally it'll be like three, four days in. You know, look and he'll have like 10 or 12 podcasts up over three days. So I kind of pick and choose the titles that I want to listen to. The Out Pinball Podcast is a production of WGBH. We're on episode 35. This guy's been podcasting, what, October, November, December, like three and a half months, and he's got like 90 plus episodes up. I mean, the guy's an animal. Averaging one a day. He's an animal. Yeah, so I mean, you know, check it out. Hey, kudos to you. Yeah, and now the third guy is Josh Roop, who, again, friend of the show. I've corresponded with Josh on a couple things. He was one of the guys that kind of, I think one of our original listeners or somebody that listened to the show from the beginning. Now he started Loser Kid Pinball Podcast. His first episode was like a five or six minute introductory episode, which is kind of cool, right? Because you kind of get an idea of what the guy's all about and you're not listening to somebody go on and on and on and on. Well, his second episode was uploaded a couple days ago, and he kind of covers a little bit of everything. And he had a co-host on, I think his name was Scott, and I apologize for not knowing his last name. But, you know, two guys talking pinball, another perspective in the hobby. So, and the reason I'm bringing this all up is that, one, again, we're not the new kids in the block anymore. There are new entries into the arena. We're not competitive to take down all these podcasts. So it's fun to have more people involved. And the other thing is this. I like knowing that I can reach out to somebody, you know, besides you, Bill, and have a conversation and kind of get that general feedback from the podcaster side on issues. I like being able to reach out to somebody and be like, Hey, what do you think about this? What are you doing with this? It's about creating the open world for the world. It is what Once. We're on the phone for like an hour and a half just talking pinball. Yeah, see? You know, it's just a different perspective from what you and I might have and, you know, great time talking with them. Well, and to your point, again, another guy that streams pinball is Chris Haper at Slap Save and before I finalized ordering my computer, I reached out to him and I'm like, dude, what are you streaming with? What do you got? And, you know, he was real nice, kind of sat down and on the phone walked me through kind of his decisions on what he was doing. So again, it's like a whole nother outlet that we're able to kind of touch base with in regards to pinball. And again, the podcast has offered us opportunities to extend our pinball friend base. And for that, you know, we're absolutely thankful. Now, I think what a lot of these podcasts are doing is like they offer swag, right? You've got in I think t shirts are what you normally see being offered. I mean, it's an easy way for somebody to advertise their podcast, provide some swag to a listener, allow that listener to support that podcast, and to show their support by wearing these t-shirts at shows and whatnot. You know, for whatever reason, we just never really pulled the trigger on doing t-shirts. Well, I mean, we always had something come up that we were trying to invest different time and energy into. The Out Pinball Podcast is a production of WGBH. We're here with the guy that celebrated pinball but wasn't too gaudy saying that, hey, special Winley Pinball Podcast. Listen now, yeah. Right. So I think what we'll do is we have a very talented artist that we are commissioning for this and we've got a very ... Dude, the shirt's awesome. And this guy has done pinball art, not going to say who he is until we have these in hand All these guys are going to be cool shirts and we'll give you more information about them as they come. I hope to have something by the end of February. It's too bad because I wish we had these before Texas Pinball Festival because we could have offered some shirts out there and see if anybody would actually wear these at TPF. Just letting you know, shirts are coming and we've got a couple people that we actually owe some swag to so they will be coming your way. Let's check in with Bill right now on Bill's Corner and see what's going on in the life of a Bill Webb. Life of Bill Webb. So, life of Bill Webb, we'll go with Project Whirlwind first. That's still at the Body Shop. Apparently he got a couple extra cars that needed to get dealt with before he could jump on my project. And that is for those that don't know what your project is at the Body Shop. So I have a Whirlwind cabinet that I built off of a trashed out original Whirlwind and doing a Playfield swap on it as well. The World 1 Cabinet, feel free to look on our Facebook page to see pictures of it.

45:37

Still putting together some of the powder coating parts at the moment and just kind of you know taking it until you know I can get a lot more parts put together Cool And you had something that arrived from out of state at the Bill Webb Household this week So pinball shipping at its finest So if you listen to episode one I believe we were talking about my wife uncle that lived with us for a month that moved down to Tennessee. So I see this pinball machine in North Carolina and I'm like, well, it's not too far from his house. Maybe he can go and grab it for me. So contact the seller, make a deal with him, call the uncle-in-law and like, hey, you know, Tennessee and North Carolina aren't too far from each other. Would you mind picking it up? And he's like, that works out perfect. So he had to come up to Illinois in a couple weeks anyway. So he went to pick up the machine last week. That worked out real smooth and brought it up on Friday. So now we've got a Wizard of Oz with the pin stadiums put on it and a bunch of mods on the way. That's awesome. You've been wanting a Wizard of Oz for a long time. Forever. For you to actually have one now in your possession, it's got to just be like a relief. You know, it's crazy to see it sitting down there. And what was even more... Just sell it. No, no, no, no, no, no. It's too heavy to get down there. That's true. Sell the house with that downstairs. Exactly. Right. Or crane it out. But the crazy part was, so I got it all set up and even the wife came down. She's like, wow, so this is the game that you wanted. She played the game and she's like, wow, that's even really, really cool. Really? So she was, she was liking it, huh? She was digging it. She loved the ruby red slippers on it. Is she normally supportive of machines coming in and into the basement? Absolutely not. But she liked Wizard of Oz? She liked Wizard of Oz. So technically, if you rent out a room, this could end up in the master bedroom with no issues. I don't know about that. Alright, I'm just checking. But yeah, so that was a great, great, great week last week and how it arrived, you know, it got put in the van in North Carolina and then driven up here. You got a lot, that worked out well. See now that's an exception of favorable pinball shipping and it didn't cost you $450 and it didn't arrive damaged and you weren't really overwhelmingly concerned. It did cost me a little bit of money because I paid for the rental car and the gas to get it up here. Oh, okay. Which is fine because it wasn't on the truck. But then it cost you $450? Maybe. Well, then you could have just shipped it. I could have. Okay, I don't get it now. Well, because then it would have been on a truck, this, that, and the other. Oh, okay, okay. You know, this way I knew it was a climate controlled vehicle inside of a heated garage the whole time until it came here. So it worked out perfect. All right. Well, hey, I'm happy for you. I know you've been waiting for one. And we got to see the uncle-in-law. So you know what? Always a plus. Listen, this was the uncle-in-law that had the birds living in Bill's pinball room for a few weeks. For a month. Yeah, so there was no pinball to be had for that entire month. So it all came full circle. All came full circle, all good things. No pinball for a month with the uncle, but then he brings you a Wizard of Oz on the back end. And he was absolutely happy to do it. That's awesome, man. Congratulations, brother. And his number, if you were interested in shipping machines in Tennessee, I'm kidding. Yeah, right. I'm kidding. That's awesome. We're going to touch base on this because listen, so we do get a lot more show feedback than what I ever had anticipated. And some of these things we read on the air, but we respond to all of it. And it's always very humbling that we are able to kind of allow somebody to enjoy something that we're doing or putting together. Or maybe, you know, we made somebody laugh or they had a good day. Nothing makes me feel better in regards to the podcast when someone says, you know, hey, I'm a listener of the show, keep up the good work. And then, you know, we'll always take some constructive criticism, but we received something. Now, as we all know, so the Twippies, Jeff Patterson at This Week in Pinball has the Twippie Awards coming up, and it's going to be a live show that's at Texas Pinball Festival in March, and it's going to be hosted by Zach Meny and Greg Bone from Straight Down the Middle, and there are going to be like a lot of pinball celebrities and guest presenters and this, that, and the other thing. And if you want to vote, you can go to This Week in Pinball, find where the Twippies are, You can vote for your favorite pinball machine. You can vote for your favorite designer. Best light show. Yeah, best light show. It's just really fun. And if you haven't already done so, there are drop-down menus there and you can kind of select all these different things. Now, one of the awards that they're giving out for the Twippies is Best Pinball Podcast. And it's a write-in award. So you would go in and you would write in your favorite pinball Now, we received this from somebody, Scott, we'll say his name is, and he submitted an audio message for us in regards to his Twippy vote, and I thought it was so fun, it put such a big smile on my face that somebody took the time to do this, that I wanted to play it on the air. And I asked him if he minded, and he said no. So Bill, I know you've heard this, but I just want to share it because I'm just proud of it, man. I just wanted to record a message as I cast my ballot for the best podcast for the Twippies this year. Ken and Bill from Special Winlet Podcast got my vote. Now that the Bears are done playing for the year, I can focus on pinball and I just wanted to say I am a super fan of the Special Inlet Pinball Podcast. And not just because you have accents thicker than a Giordano's deep dish pizza, it's because you cover wide ranging topics from discussing art packages with lead designers, having great guests from all over the nation, and locals like Jack Danger, Rob Burke, Nermal from American Pinball and a bunch of guys from Stern Pinball. You guys are covering the detailed restoration of pinball machines too, and don't think we didn't notice that Whirlwind is the most appropriate pinball machine to restore in the Windy City. So thanks for having a great podcast and I wanted to let you know you had my vote for the Twippies this year. Yeah, man, so that's Scott Drager. And he's a local guy. I don't know Scott personally. Yeah, neither do I. But he, yeah, that just brightened my day when I heard that too. It really, really did. Scott, one, I mean, I thought it was funny. He really tied in so many different elements of the show into that message. Two, thanks for taking the time to not only touch base with us, but again, man, that was just really, really cool. So where, you know, we may not win the Twippy for best podcast of 2018, it's so very cool that there are actually people out there that listen to this show, appreciate it, All right, guys, thanks for tuning in. I'm not trying to coerce you. If I could recommend that you do one thing, it is to vote for your favorite podcast. And it doesn't mean that you don't have three or four favorite podcasts. Vote for the podcast that deserves it. There's a lot of guys that put a lot of effort into this each and every week. And anybody that pushes record and then follows by pushing upload is taking time out of their day, not just to play pinball, but to talk about pinball and to share that content with you. Exactly. aci-19 practitioner, The Out Pinball Podcast is a production of WGBH. Spare Treats Nacional, Juvenile names Free Sound Loais Under Living Galaxy �ru exponentially expedited streaming media talk comedy events at personalities limited budget in one store when 対 I Cotton let's wrap yo over cool real wheel for live planning b il service during n the The thing I like about our listener base is that I, from what I know about our listeners and the people that I've interacted with, these are people that I would like, I would have no problem getting along with on a personal basis. I would have no problem inviting these people in our home. I respect our listener base. They're people that I would want to associate myself with and I think that's very, very important. So. And we have to throw the, you know, we got an email a long time ago that we never really I got to address from a fellow pinball lover from St. Charles, Missouri. Yeah. So feel free to email us again because it's been a while, but just know that we never forgot about you. It's just we literally had all those interviews and everything that we couldn't really interject. That was a great letter. And he's from St. Charles, Missouri, inviting us to come down to St. Charles, Missouri, play some pinball. He associated with us right away because he's in St. Charles, Missouri. We're in St. Charles, Illinois. What a nice heartfelt letter and you know it's not like we have this huge mailbag where we just can't get through it. It's just with time restraints we don't want to have a podcast go on for two hours, three hours. That's just not our style to do so we try to keep them short and concise and you know what I'm going to find that email and I'm going to read that at some point. So I think to sum that up though Ken you know it's honestly with all the feedback from all We're all these different people. We really are humbled and appreciate all of your emails, voicemails, and everything that you've done. Not that, like you've said, we've got a bag of mail that we can't fit downstairs. No, no, no. You know, it's just very humbling. But you know, we take that and it motivates us to be better, which is why we're adding the streaming now. An opportunity for us to kind of further awareness of pinball and to have our listeners interact with us in real time. We're streaming pinball. We'll be able to talk to you guys about pinball in real time. And it doesn't have to be an email and it doesn't have to be a reply on Facebook. I mean, it's just live interaction, which I think is really, really cool. We also get an, you know, we want to bring more guests onto the show, people that you want to hear from. And when we talk about guests, now check this out. So, so this gentleman reached out to me on, on something and, and it just kind of went into an additional conversation. And his name is Brent. Brent Bruner. Now, Brent is a co-founder of Great Lakes Pinball. And for those of you that don't know, Great Lakes Pinball is a new pinball company that is manufacturing a machine right now, which is called Exposé. And there's been some art that's been on the internet. So long story short, these guys are getting into pinball manufacturing. And when I was talking with Brent, I thought it'd be a great idea for him to come on the show. Now, Brent has a pretty remarkable story personally, and he also has remarkable things going on at Great Lakes Pinball. And again, we don't know what he wants to talk about, what he doesn't want to talk about, but there are certain aspects of the story that I definitely want to share with you all, so I'm excited about that. Now, that's two weeks from now. Mm-hmm. And next week? Next week, guys, we have Mr. Steve Bowden coming on the show. Now, when you think of Steve Bowden, you think of a couple different things. You think of multiple things with Steve. And one, you think of world-ranked pinball player Steve Bowden. Then you think of pinball ambassador Steve Bowden. Just recently now you're thinking of employed by deeproot Steve Bowden. But what we're going to focus on is the pinball media side of Steve, and that is with running fun with bonus. Steve's kind of all over the place and everything that he does is benefiting pinball. And the Fun With Bonus website and the Facebook page takes everything that's happening in pinball and it combines it in one spot and it's updated like hourly. I don't understand how he's able to do that. We're talking about these great people in pinball and how they keep digging deeper and putting more and more time in it. It blows my mind. So I am super excited to have Steve on the show next week and we can talk to him about the time and the commitment in regards to Fun With Bonus. And for those of you that don't know what Fun With Bonus is, I jump on Facebook and search Fun With Bonus and get an idea of what's going on with that whole thing before we bring Steve in. We're not going to get into the competitive pinball aspect with Steve and we're not going to ask him behind the scenes questions regarding deeproot. But I do, this is one of those guys that I can't wait to have on the show because I've got so much respect for him. And for him to be so generous with his time to come on to talk on special when lit pinball podcast means a lot to both of us. So we're looking forward to doing that next week. And after hearing him at Expo, you can really feel his passion when he speaks about pinball. So, you know, I'm definitely looking forward to it as well. He's got a great following. He's got a lot of support. And it seems like Steve has a lot of credibility to whatever he decides to get involved with. So I'm excited to have him on the show and we'll see where that goes. So other than that, though, you know what, Bill, that's episode number 35. I think we're going to call this one a wrap. And we want to thank Zach Meny for coming on and touching base in regards to his new adventure and his endeavor in pinball distributorship. Best wishes. Yeah, best wishes, buddy. And you know what though? Happy to send people his way. We know him personally and I would not ever feel that I was doing a disservice by pointing them in Zach's direction. Absolutely. Great guy. And his wife Nicole, super fun, super nice person. We met her at Expo and it's kind of nice to see the both of them collaborating on something that they're passionate about and again, wish them the best of luck. Absolutely. If anybody wants to get involved with the show, you can contact us at SpecialWhenLitPinballPodcast at gmail.com. That's SpecialWhenLitPinballPodcast at gmail.com. You can also search us on Facebook, SpecialWhenLitPinballPodcast. I think you could just type us in Google, SpecialWhenLitPinballPodcast. It'll show you multiple outlets in which you can stream the show. And hey, you know what? Do us a favor. If you jump on our Facebook page, give us a like, follow us so that you can get our updates. And you know what? Tell a friend that might be into pinball. Let us know, let them know that, hey, there's a podcast out there that you appreciate listening to and we'd love to have them aboard. Hey, it gives you something to talk about making fun of us at that point. Absolutely, and if you don't like us on Facebook, there's a thumbs down somewhere on the page. Just keep on looking. Oh, is there a thumbs down? No. Okay. It's just, you know. But for 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.