Happy Sunday, pin folk, or whatever day you're listening. This is NYC Pin Pod, in which a panel talks location pinball in New York City. My name is Benjamin Furiga. My initials are BCF, and I used to be on a drinking team with a bowling problem, but now I'm on a cuteness team with a pinball problem. My name is Eric Sweetland. My initials are HIP, and I'm a pinball tournament director in New York City. On this week's pop, we'll run down local competition results in Ball 1, just like we always do. In Ball 2, just like we always do. We'll have venue updates, courtesy of pinballmap.com and its users, thanks to Eric. And then we'll have our bullet journals. We'll talk about what we did in pinball this past week. And in Ball 3, we'll talk about some of the further fallout from last week's Ball 3 discussion. Let's get started. Let's talk competitive pinball results in New York City over the past week On Friday, November 14th 33 players made the trek to the Red Hook Pinball Museum for Red Hook's own Max Match Play Melee directed by Gabe Seat Following 10 rounds of Max Match Play they cut to 13 for their semifinals in an amazing race format. Having played each of the nine games, those 13 players were cut down to four who went on to compete in a final round in a group match play bracket. It does say group match play bracket, but the bracket is just the one group, right? That is the way that it is expressed, but it is just four players in the one group there. Following those three games, Alex Kelly won the day, earning 16.56 Whoppers. Sol and James got second. Kate Martin third and Jason Wilson fourth. From the match play, it looks like there was a tie break for that third place and it finished up around 1.30 a.m. on Saturday. And then we took the next 23 hours of Saturday off of competitive pinball here in New York City. But on Sunday jess warren gathered 20 players at rulos for stern army's november rwi they played five rounds of group match play and then cut to a four-player group elimination final group like again it says group elimination bracket but the bracket was just the one group and robert wong after whom the tournament is effectively named and certainly after whose high scores you chase while you're playing the tournament if you wish to play on after a walk-off or if you're not you know player two or player four rather it's for its group then you can get a t-shirt that says i beat the cat matt grady beat the cat this week oh how about that matthew carlson came in second aj gould third and Ed Horgan fourth. Rob got 7.07 Whoppers for his eponymous tournament. On Monday, November 17, in pinball NYC's left flipper division, it was week 11. Five teams had buys. Lion Persons, our New York City Flipper Sport Association, Parliament, the Pinbots, and the Pinpals all stayed home. meanwhile the colliders traveled to midway to face balls of steel and balls of steel got a 10-6 home win i understand it was down to the wire though yeah we were tied 6-6 going into the final round and then they got us on both deadpool and game of thrones for the win that they needed and we we would have needed the win if we had won we would have been in the in-lane playoffs i Harry's Hand Grenades hosted the Deluxe Horses at Bar Grade Harry. Harry's Hand Grenades with a 9-7 home win. It isn't just in the real world where Hand Grenades beat Horses, but it is true that Hand Grenades got their first win in the last week of the season. And the Horses loss would have opened up if we Colliders could have done anything to, could have got that win, that would have opened up our possibility of getting a fifth seed. The aristocrats and the lesser players met up at Gebhard's Beer Culture. The lesser players had a 9-7 home win. Lesser players would not be outdone by Harry's hand grenades. After they faced each other in week 10 and the lesser players got their first win, they would not be outdone. And when Harry's Hand Grenades got their first win, they had to go and get their second win here against the Aristocrats. Solid State saw the two-for-oners come to face off against the Mutants. Mutants with a commanding 13-3 home win. Either one of those teams needed a big win last week to hope that something might move them around. And Intermission Dolores went to Rulos to see Special When Lit. Special win lit got the big 14-2 home win. And with those big wins, both Mutants and special win lit become 5-0 at home teams. That was the last week of the regular season. The playoff picture is set. In the left orbit, our New York City Flipper Sport Association gets the top seed with a record of 8-2 and 115 points. and the second seed will be Balls of Steel, also 8-2 with 105 points. Third seed Mutants also finished 8-2 with 95 points, 10-point gap between each of those. They'll have a match in the first round of the playoffs against the sixth seed. The fourth, fifth, and sixth seeds were special when lit, Lion Persons and Parliament. so it'll be mutants in parliament and special and lit and lion persons the 7 through 12 teams will make up the in-lane playoffs the pen pals at 6 and 4 got 85 points and the two for oneers were 6 and 4 with 83 points just two points apart both of those teams have a buy in the first round of the in-lane playoffs right right right they were they both had possibilities to be in the Orbit playoffs, but they're both they now have their buys. They get another week to contemplate their fate. At a record of 4-6, the Aristocrats and Intermission Dolores are the 3rd and 4th seed in the in-lanes with 80 and 72 points. And both the Deluxe Horses and the Pinbots finished 3-7. Those Horsies had 66 points and the Pinbots 59. They'll be the fifth and sixth seeds of the in-lane. Three teams have played their last game this season. We bid adieu to your colliders, Benjamin. Two and eight with 67 points. The lesser players, two and eight with 56 points. And Harry's Hand Grenades, one and nine. That 40 points is also pretty good for them. They had some really big losses at the beginning of the season, that team. Ending that season not just with a win, but with 40 points at the end of it, that feels pretty big to me. The trend line was going up. Yeah, exactly. They were going in the right direction at the end of the season, for sure. On Tuesday, Pinball NYC's Right Orbit playoffs began. It was time for the quarterfinals. Harlem Globe Flippers stayed at home and they awaited the winner of No Quarters for Laundry, who virtually visited Neptune's Treasure at Skylark. And No Quarters, the fifth seed, will go on to face Harlem Globe Flippers after a 9-7 win. Ball Drainers sat at home waiting for the winner of Danger, Danger and Schlubbs who faced off at Milo's Yard where Danger, Danger played the home team and took home a 9-7 win. the four teams that played this week in this division almost couldn't have been closer they were separated by one win two of the teams were seven win teams the teams that visited two of the teams had eight wins the teams that hosted and they there was just a range of only nine points accumulated across the whole season between these four teams it ranged from 93 points for the schlubs to 102 points for no quarters for Laundrie. And then, I don't know if you noticed the scores there, but it came down to nine to seven wins in the quarterfinals to determine who is going on to the semifinals to face those teams who just had those buys. Wow. Wow. It was a big pile in the middle, and they just kept piling until presumably the last round. I don't actually know how they played out. I don't know if, you know, maybe the two teams that won won the first nine and then said, we'll forfeit the next seven points. But I doubt it. Yeah, you usually don't. You don't even continue in the playoffs. Right, exactly. It would say 9-0. Yeah. The right in lane playoffs were met, well, met by some teams. Everybody Loves the Sunshine was waiting for the winner of Penister Six and the Butterballers. And it says there was a location change. I seem to remember thinking that we talked about this being at Commonwealth last week, but it says Barcade Fidei, and your Butterballers, Eric, won the night 10-6. Yeah, we got some advanced intel that Commonwealth would be having trivia there, as they do every other Tuesday night. During trivia, generally, they turn off the pinball machines, which would have made playing there difficult. And so we wound up having the venue moved to Barcade Fidei. The replays waited at home for the winners of Trolls facing Scrapples Squad at Buttermilk. Trolls won 9-7. Oh, I saw the Trolls story on Instagram this week, and this is the Trolls' first ever playoff win. And Trolls' captain Monica texted me after the win to say this, because she knows I'm not looking at Instagram. Trolls just won our first ever quarterfinals in our team history That was one text And then just seconds later another one I figured this may be important pinpot info Thank you Monica You can also see some pictures from the match And commentary on the troll story this week On Instagram at pinball trolls On Wednesday November 19th Scrapple Land hosted the third qualifying week of Scrapple League's Season 5, directed by Greg Pavarelli with assistance from myself and Woody Richman. 25 players came out to play five rounds of match play with IFPA scoring with the hopes of garnering the most points towards their series total Greg Pavarelli got the most on Wednesday with 29 points. Both Dan Merrill and Adam Kane got 27, and Peter Larson and Mike Pantino picked up 25. Seven players participated in the optional side pot, which paid out to Craig Pavarelli and Dan Merrill. I mean, we're halfway through, right? Yeah, three weeks in the books. Four count, but people have put up enough scores now to sort of see how it's shaping up. Craig Pavarelli in the front with 87 points. Adam Kane at 83. Peter Larson at 71. And Mike Pantino at 69. Sean Grant's only come twice and he's got 62 points 31 points on each of the meetings wow Nitsan Gabai at 61 and then there's three players tied for 7th place which would make for a tie break game if we're going actually into the A finals right now Woody Richmond, Matt Rudolph and Fred Cohen all have 59 one of those three would then be at the top of the the B standings and then in ninth place. And then Peter Jorgens in 10th with 58, a number of players here in, in the beer, just two week players so far, right? Just two sets of results so far. And B's ranging from 44 to 59 points on Thursday, November 20th. No bro presents Thursday night strikes was convened at Jack bar. in Williamsburg. It says strikes by Ida on the match play event, so I assume that Ida Kreutzer ran the night. Ian Leone bested the field with two strikes after nine games. Andy Hayden came in second, Tepper Safran third, and Michelle Capobianco and Alex Weisenberger tied for fourth. Also on Thursday, 18 players showed up to Buttermilk for the fifth qualifying week of SSPL Season 5, directed by Kate Martin. They played five rounds of match play with IFPA scoring. Matthew Carlson got 29 points out of that, while Matthew Grady and Tom Milburn picked up 27, Billy Vazine with 25. We've got all kinds of poor resulters in this one so far since there's five meetings in. Yeah. Just one more week to change your place in the standings. Right now, Matthew Carlson, four weeks with 108 points. Billy Vazine has 101 and would be the second seed. Rob Wong with 95. Tom Milburn with 90. Rob Adler 89, Steven Christopher 88 and both Janos Kiss Gonzalez and Zen Zokniak with 87 make up the A finals at the moment. All of them have their four meetings in as you might imagine with 80 some points but all of them have their four meetings in so if you're chasing them their first looks like Zen's first 16 and Janos Kiss's first 17 points scored next week aren't going to help them in the the overall series so like you know if you've got three and you're below this line or you've got a lower score than one of those to get up there you know or you just beat them next week you know kate's only a point behind them right you know kate kate can kate can move kate scores 18 points she's at their score if they don't better their least. AJ Gould at 81, but his replacements at a 16. A strong score could move him into... 35 moves him up. Matt Grady, only three weeks played so far. Coming from 73 is going to probably make it into the 90s. Right now, the line looks like 87. I think that something closer to 89 or 90 is maybe where it ends because he and David Barber has three meetings. I don't know if he's coming back to town for the final week or not. And John Chase has three meetings and they have 71 and 70 points. Right. Yeah. Yeah. But but and, you know, they have the 70, 71 and 70 points. So like they're just two points behind Grady. Same thing. a decent score gets them where Janos Kiss and Zen are. A good score gets them way up there. Next week at Barcade Brooklyn. Barcade Brooklyn Pinball League Season 7 will have its sixth meeting at 8pm. I might go to that one. Because also on Monday, November 14th, In Pinball NYC's left flipper division, round one of the playoffs. And our New York City Flipper Sport Association has a bye. And you might get some practice in it at Barcade if you went to Barcade Brooklyn. That might be where you play next week. Indeed. We're awaiting the winner of the fourth, fifth seed match. Lion Persons visiting special when lit at the virtual home bar of Solid State Deep Queen with the second seed in the left orbit playoffs the Balls of Steel also have a buy and they're looking forward to the winner of the three and six seed match between Parliament and the Mutants which will be held at Rulos also on Monday the left in lane playoffs will have the Pin Pals as the top seed, receiving a buy and waiting for the winner of the Deluxe Horses and Intermission Dolores, who will face off at Far Great Harry. And second seed, the Two for Oners, will stay home and wait for the results of the Pin Bots visiting the Aristocrats at Gebhardt's Beer Culture. Okay, so they're going right back to the scene of the crime. they lost there last week. They're going back this week. And they're the home team this time. This time it's personal. That's what the tagline would be. If you play in Pinball NYC on Tuesday nights, you're off this week. Enjoy your Thanksgiving. Come back in December. We'll see you then. On Wednesday, November 26th, Scrapple League will hold its fourth qualifying week of its fifth season. at Scrapple Land in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, at pinball 8 o'clock. And Thursday, I'm not going to play the stupid Thanksgiving, the stupid turkey sound effect that every goddamn thing you're going to hear is going to play over the next week. But it will be Thanksgiving, and so many people, I presume, will be thankful that they can get away from their racist uncle and go enjoy No Bro Presents Thursday Night Strikes at Jack Bar in Williamsburg. It starts at 8 o'clock sharp. As of November 21st, 2025, there are 355 pinball machines in New York City at 79 public locations. Thanks to the creators and users of Pinball Mat for this data, here are machine updates from the past week. On Friday, November 14th, user The Barracuda was at The Less Dead in Brooklyn and said of their Terminator 3, it takes dollars but does not work. Oh, man. On Saturday, user Flipper Fiend went by Rulo's and said of their Pulp Fiction, table plays well, but doesn't credit games for the advertised price. Five dollars yields five plays, not seven as posted. Oh. Flipper Fiend also popped into solid state in Deep Queens. Deep Queens. And let us know that their Indiana Jones the Pinball Adventure was turned off. That's a hard one to maintain, I think. Yeah. Lots of mechs. Lots of mechs, lots of customized pieces, I think. And, you know, it hasn't been on a line for 30 years. And user JNS played the Demolition Man at the Quarter Club in Williamsburg. They said, played fine. Both slings dead. launch usually doesn't clear the full loop and drops into the bumpers. Fun, though. On Sunday, a Metallica was added to the lineup at Single Cut Beersmith's Queens and taken out were an NBA Fastbreak, a Machine Bride of Pinbot, a Dirty Harry, and a Fishtails. user d marmanio noted that the following games were all last serviced on november 15th world cup soccer whitewater rush monster bash metallica jaws godzilla foo fighters alvarez house of horrors and deadpool wow also on sunday a big change up at the gutter les Yes. A Stranger Things, a No Fear, and a Godzilla 70th anniversary were removed. Added a Godzilla Premium, a Black Knight 2000, a Diner, and a Hurricane. Oh, Diner and Hurricane. User Hitchhiker posted about the Hurricane. Left drops and Ferris wheel not registering. otherwise plays as it should, putting time in this week to solve the issue. Okay. Also on Sunday, user GPS went by Jackbar. They said of the fishtails, playing beautiful, looks amazing, absolutely classic. And of the Evil Dead, cool game, but pretty beat up. Seems like it's been played a lot. Huh. On Tuesday, user Banzai left a comment on the Cactus Canyon remake at Arcade Chelsea, referring to a couple of previous comments on this machine earlier this month with issues. Banzai said, this was repaired a few days ago. Both comments below were caused by the same ball trough issue. Balls flat spotting the trough's rails caused them to stick in place and not kick out additional balls for multiball or to later fall forward one position and end a ball in play. User Pinball Lizard played the Indianapolis 500 at Gebhardt's Beer Culture and said, beautiful game, extremely tight tilt. and user wingnut707 was at Scrapple Land and let us know that their getaway was turned off when they visited. On Wednesday, user flipperfiend also went by Scrapple Land and said of the Lost in Space, game plays great but both coin slots can be finicky And let us know that the Getaway Dungeons Dragons and NBA Fastbreak were all out of service And on Friday, November 21st, a Medieval Madness Remake Merlin Edition was added to the lineup at the Gutter LES. I sure didn't go out and play on Friday night after we talked. I didn't play on Saturday because I had a little bit of stuff to do in the kitchen. On Sunday, I played. Did you do anything before Sunday? On Saturday, I had my last regularly scheduled shift at Barcade Brooklyn as floor manager. I'll stay on picking up stuff here and there to help out, but I won't be working there the regular shift anymore. Gotcha. I did have an unlikely pinball repair. Okay. I'll call it. There was nothing outstanding about the repair itself. It was pretty mundane. A leaf switch was bent out of position, and I bent it back into place. It was the condition for discovering that that leaf switch was bent out of position. Okay. Because it was the left initial selection button on Bad Girls. Because that very weird era of Gottliebs includes separate buttons for entering your initials. On the front of the cabinet, typically, right? Yeah, on the front of the cabinet, down below the plunger on Bad Girls. Yeah. Down near the bottom, there's two buttons that scroll back and forth through the alphabet on the little alphanumeric display that it has. It's pre-DMD. and uh as i was doing my game playthrough of you know every game in the place i played bad girls and uh i think a lot of the high scores uh in the place got reset recently because my 1.9 million was good enough for fifth place on bad girls which goes up to five right uh and then i tried to enter my initials and i was like wait wait one of the buttons work but the other button doesn't work. I was like, oh, I discovered something that needs to be fixed. That's cool. That's cool. I like the I like that you were rewarded with good play by finding an error. Yeah. Or not an error, but a, you know, something that needed to be fixed. A problem. Identifying a problem. and so then you played on sunday yeah i played i went out uh in the afternoon i had other other things to accomplish on sunday the kitchen things had to happen on saturday but i had other stuff to accomplish on sunday uh so i couldn't get to rwi but i did go out and play a couple of games because i and i wasn't going to go the whole way up to midway and i don't think i was going to be playing late enough to want to be in Williamsburg, even starting at 5 o'clock. Like, I wanted to be home for dinner, and that just isn't always congruous to sort of be sure that I'm going to be home in Crown Heights at 8 p.m. or so and also start playing pinball in Williamsburg at 5 p.m. That's a little bit hard. We were going to play at Midway on Monday. Right, right. I sort of wanted to get some practice in for that. You know, it was a high-stakes situation. If we won, we were going to be in the playoffs and potentially knock them out of a buy. We had had good games at that venue in the past. I wanted to get some practice in, and there's a Game of Thrones at Franklin Park. So I went up and played that Game of Thrones. It sort of felt like it was I just want to get the rhythm of this game back in my body because that game really does have a rhythm to it. It is so trap and shooty. and the geometry of it allows for it. So I wanted to get that back in my bones for a minute because I knew I was going to have to play it at least once. Excuse me, I was going to get to play it at least once. Yeah. But I had a couple of mediocre games of it and felt like I should be scared about Monday night. And then I had one good game of Godzilla, and that was a beer's worth of Sunday pinball. I went out to the RWI at Rulo's on Sunday. Bart made chicken pot pie and it was fantastic sure that was so nice and I got to hand out our new NYC pin pod stickers for the first time to people I was doing that all this past week wherever I was hand out as many as I can and just to say if you're listening to this and you want a sticker and you see me I will have some on me and I can give them to you there you go if you don't regularly see me catch me on social media and I'll send some to you yeah I took a picture of the sandwich board outside Rulo's on the chalkboard they had written in you know 5pm Rob Wong tournament 9pm karaoke happy hour till 6 and I posted that picture on Blue Sky with the caption, guess who won and then about a half an hour later I was like, oh, and added as a reply to myself in parentheses, not me it was Rob Wong I just hope that Rob Wong also then sang some creed at karaoke after he took home his winning or before he took home his winnings and after he pocketed his winnings well on monday i i had that balls of steel match yeah uh it was fun we were cute i played greg fortel on game of thrones in round two we were not going to choose game of thrones against them. Yeah, I think that's probably a strategic choice. Look, I wasn't exactly scared. We didn't. Yeah, I wasn't exactly scared, although I also, you know, Greg plays that one in particular. Greg is, I think, generally a little bit better at pinball than I am. And he plays that one game at that one venue very, very, very, very, very well. and I was lucky that I got a win over him. I played an okay game, whatever, 600 million, something like that. 500, 600 million, I think. And I beat him. And when he stepped away, he looked at me and said, this is not just the first time I've lost on this game this season. It's the first time I've scored less than 1.2 billion points on this game this season. and you know that's like don't get me wrong my the one at franklin park has my initials in it three times with scores of over that but it's not just what i score every time i step up and play the fucking game right uh so i was i was happy to get a win it was also look it was 10 to 6 and the difference between 8 8 and 10 6 came down to his ball three on game of thrones he got hand of the king so duh whoever his partner was had an off game and we had two pretty good games chad and jess both played pretty good games we were you know their total was over a billion together and greg needed to do most of that based on what his partner had done in the game so far and he had completed two houses with minimal scoring and had two houses that were ready to stack on top of them and i looked at like i i walked up and looked at the state of the game before he started playing it just to see what was going on and i was like i see those i see those four houses there and i walked away and you know jess and chad were like yeah you know this this wasn't this was okay this is we we could still do this and i was like yes still can't like we're still here and then when i saw the second mode being completed i was like nope we can't nope even though he hasn't got you yet he's about to in a couple of shots and boy he killed it at that point it all came down to that that's why they have a buy or at least among the reasons they have a buy and we did not get in the mutants would have had a bye if we had won and we would have been in. But it was also fun. We were cute. Simon made a last-minute guest appearance, having been at a very long work day. Showed up, you know, kind of last-minute just to enjoy a quick hello. But that was nice. It was the last match of the season, so it was nice to see as many colliders as possible. Did you play on Monday when you had the... No. So we... NYC FSA was one of the five teams with the bye in week 11. I did not play Monday. Okay. But then on Tuesday, it was playoff times for the Rife Liberty Division. Good times with the Butterballers and Penister Six at Brooklyn Fight Eye. you know Barcade Fidei I said Barcade Fidei Barcade Fidei got some wacky games did you play Special Force? I did not, no did anyone play Special Force? uh not as part of the match there's no accounting for taste there's no accounting for taste we had a a game of Congo in the first doubles rounds that I was looking forward to. I can, I like that copy of Congo. It, it usually plays well for me. Um, but at the end of the game, I recall I had, uh, 251 million. I had come just shy of starting my multiball. Um, the, uh, one of, one of the, uh, The Pinister Six players also had $251 million and a couple hundred thousand more than me. And the other Pinister Six player had $254 million. Oh. And then my Butterballer partner, Franklin, cracked a bill at a blow-up game. It was amazing. It was great. Nice. That was pretty cool. I played a mediocre game, but my teammate carried me through. Nice. And then I also played in the last doubles rounds. AJ and I played Rush. It was going kind of blah, but on ball three, I took off, stacked a mode and a multiball, and got 127 million real quick. And we picked up those points. Cool. AJ, also a strong game. And Zen came pretty darn close to coming back and beating us, both me and AJ over 100, then needed to get to about 200 or so. Right. And flamed out at 155. Wow. It was an exciting moment. I bet. And then real nice, we had a mass... And that was the difference between 10.6 and 8.8, is that right? That's right. Yeah. We had a mass butterballer subway trip Oh Really easy on the R right back to Park Slope for most people and I just stayed on a little bit longer Yeah, sure. Sure. Yeah, yeah. It is, Phi Di is easy if you are almost anywhere on a subway line in the city. It is easy to find a single seat ride to there. it is not that you know the exceptions obviously are the seven and the l you're there's no such thing as a single seat ride to there from the seven and the l but if you're on just about any other line you can get a single seat ride to within a couple of blocks of barcade fight i you might be on it for a long time if you're coming from somewhere far flung but you know if you're coming from the north bronx on the one train you're going to be on that one train for a minute and same if you're you know coming from the end of the r in queens you you might be on it for a minute but you'll you know you can get there everybody can get there it is it is maybe the most accessible place for exactly that reason because of the single seat ride thing i'm sure this happens all the time but i was standing just outside of barcade brooklyn on Saturday early in my shift and a father and a young son walked by and peeked through the window and you know their eyes got wide and then they they walked in right and I I was I I caught him as just as the father was going through the door and said I have to tell you I'm sorry it is 21 plus we have family days the first Sunday of every month but also our Fidei location has a family day every Sunday and oh the kid was bawling on the way out oh sure sure I would have been in the same boat you played Wednesday too I did I also went out Wednesday to scrap a league handed out more stickers dropped in at Gian Famous Foods for some spicy noodles. Seems like a recurring theme in your trips to Greenpoint. And caught a city bike the rest of the way up to Scrapple Land. Nice. Real nice. The routine was comforting, I imagine. Yeah. I went to Skylark on Thursday night. I did not play pinball. A friend of mine was in town, and he was staying in Park Slope, said like, hey, let's meet for dinner. And so he and my wife and I met up at Bartoto for dinner. Stephen Flynn of the pinball community is the executive chef of the restaurant group of which Bartoto is a part. That was pinball adjacent insofar as I walked down the hill with my buddy and my wife and we sat there and I, you know, ran into the denizens of Skylark, many of whom are denizens of pinball venues in general. All right. I kind of want to talk about this again because what we talked about in Fall 3 last week was disturbing to me to know that our community and the sanctioning body of our community were at some kind of – we weren't seeing eye to eye necessarily or at least significant portion of the community. and the governing body, such as it were. We're not seeing eye to eye. And I'll be honest, outside of the Monday Night Pinball League, I've not really wanted to think about IFPA-related pinball over this past week. There was part of me that wanted to walk into this episode saying, Eric, if you want to do the IFPA segments, then you can talk about those, but I don't want my voice on that. it's hard for me to want to think that perpetuating whatever is involved with the IFPA is something that I really am excited about the way that they seem to be tone deaf to this, to me. Maybe it's just because they're not listening to my voice, right? I'm not, you know, or the voices that agree with me. Because my voice shouldn't fucking matter here, to be clear. My opinion about this shouldn't matter much. but I you know it's been hard for me to want to think about competitive pinball I've thought about I remember a member of the Orange County pinball community who always showed up in the standings as suppressed name and I don't know what his beef was with the IFPA I don't know where they went sideways and I don't know if he now has if he now is back on, you can show my name on your website terms with them or not. But I thought about that. I thought about, do I write them and say suppress my name, take my name off this, which also means I would probably not want to pay an extra dollar to them to enter a tournament. That feels like a really big change in my life, but it's my principles are worth more than my pinball ranking. You know? And so I've had a hard time just thinking about it. Or wanting to think about pinball this past week. Because that just feels so alienating. It has cast a real pallor over my enthusiasm this past week. I I've been feeling disgusted and angry and scared. I mean, God, I hope not scared to go to Scrapple Land. I hope not scared to go to Phaidai, but I understand if so, also. Yeah, it's a little more amorphous. Jess and I have recently started planning for Valentine's Day coming in February and now you know not exactly sure what it'll look like how that'll come off and yeah not really you know like driving on the issue in the last week not really trying too hard to firm up any details yet just sort of like eh right right it's hard it's hard to want to look into it it's hard to want to deal with it right now yeah yeah exactly it's i i really kind of want to look the other way on it but also that is why it or one of the reasons why we don't find ourselves with much of an organized ball three segment this week or or something new really to present here other than that there are some updates to a couple of things yeah a couple of things that happened um this week the remaining entirety of the IFPA Women's Advisory Board resigned. They issued a statement about it that was posted on Kineticist.com. Once again, this week in pinball. That's right, this week in pinball is part of Kineticist.com. uh, Kineticist continues to have all of the articles about this and the summaries. I think he caught a little flack with the publishing of some, uh, chat logs. Oh, interesting. A couple of days ago, Colin Alshimer of Kineticist.com, uh, posted on blue sky, a link to our episode from last week when we were talking about this issue and wrote, where is the rest of pinball media on this? So just earlier this afternoon, the latest This Week in Pinball came out and included in it, Colin, again, links to us and our coverage from last week and then has also found the Slam Tilt podcast also just put out an episode. Good. They talk about OBX in it. Good. And as soon as I read that... Because people actually listen to them. Yeah, right? People are going to hear it. That's right. So as soon as I saw that on This Week in Pinball, I went and grabbed the latest episode of Slam Tilt and found the section of it and listened to it just before we started speaking here tonight. So I hear what they say, and I'm really glad to get their voices in on this. Yeah. It's a good discussion. Yeah. It's an important discussion. Ron and Bruce. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ron Hallett. Junior. Junior, yes. Right, exactly. His dad's also a pinball player. And Bruce... Nightingale. Nightingale. I always want to call him Bruce Campbell, but he's not quite that cool. He's cool, but he's not quite that cool. Bruce Nightingale of the Rochester Pinball Collective, who owns a lot of those games or some significant portion of those games. You've heard me say he was a great tournament director at a tournament I went to there. I think you heard Monica say that he was a great tournament director and just has all the right energy at that place. But those two guys doing that is important. The women's board stepping down thing, I found out today in actually our pinball team chat. And that was disappointing to me. It's also disappointing to me that I just can't be bothered to pay attention to it because it's just so fucking disappointing. I'm disappointed by how disappointed I am. It's a cycle of disappointment. Everything I have to say about this is hyperbolic because we just, there's not, I don't have enough information. I have a vibe and I'm floating on a vibe, but the vibe that I'm floating on is the vibe of a coalition. So right now my enthusiasm is down, but I don't expect that I'm going to stop playing competitive pinball and organizing competitive pinball in some way. Sure. But the one thing I'm sure of is that the some way will include the central plank of our pinball party platform. The pinball is for everyone. But join us in two weeks when in Ball 1 we'll run down local competition results, including both the quarter and semifinals in Pinball NYC's left flipper division and the semifinals in the right flipper division. We will talk about all the other competitive pinball in the city, I imagine. We'll have venue updates with Eric, courtesy of Pinball Map and its users, and also our bullet journals in Ball 2. And I'm really not sure, because it's two weeks away, what we're going to do in ball three, but I'm sure we'll come up with something. Between now and then, whatever you're up to, go get them, pin folk. Do I get a whiskey and then we ball two? Sure. Okay.