it's time for another pinball profile i'm your host jeff teals you can find everything on pinballprofile.com we're on facebook we're on instagram at pinball profile you can email pinballprofile at gmail.com If you'd like to show your support, keep this show going. That would be great. Don't worry, the show will always be free, but it certainly helps out. The Patreon sponsors like Francis W., Ken G., Jerry S., Jake C., Bart V., Erica's Pinball Journey, and more. You mean a lot to me. Thank you so much. That's patreon.com slash pinballprofile. So I was recently in Arizona, which is always a good place to go to, especially when you're Canadian, and it's January on the calendar. I didn't get the warm Carl Weathers I wanted. In fact, I woke up one day and it was zero degrees, and whether that's Celsius or Fahrenheit, either way, it's cold. But I still had a great time at Starfighters Arcade, and I got to meet some old friends and some new friends. And I want to introduce you to one of those new friends right now, Bird Arzumanian. Hi, Bird. How are you? I'm great, Jeff. Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. It was good to chat with you at Starfighters Arcade. Before we talk about what you've been doing, That was a great event, wasn't it? The first Stern Pro Circuit event and a wonderful job by the staff there. Oh, yeah. It was my first time going there, and I'm starting to travel a lot more for pinball since I recently got a job. And, yeah, the game setups were phenomenal. The people there were great. I saw some new friends. I saw some old friends. And everything ran really well, and it was really fun. So I'm probably going to go next year if I can swing it. But, yeah, no regrets. Yeah, that's one that I circle on my calendar every year. I can easily say without hesitation that was one of my five favorite tournaments I went to in the last 12 months. So that's the Starfighters Arcade. Congratulations to the wonderful Curtis family, Bob Kennedy, of course, Tracy Lindberg, Jim, John Schoppel. I'm forgetting some names, forgive me, but that is an exceptional staff there that put on a wonderful event. And you said, you know, your first time there traveling. So when you travel for a tournament, you're putting out a lot of money for travel, for flight, for hotel, if you get a rental, whatever, meals, all that kind of stuff. You want it to be a good experience. And at the very least, certainly the pinball needs to be that. It was. But a lot of people, that's a big deal to bite that bullet, if you will, and make that big trip. But it's nice to get feedback. I've heard this. I've heard that about different tournaments. Rest assured, if you're going to Starfighters, that's a good one. Oh, 100%. Yeah. I've gotten a lot of recommendations for it from friends, both in the Northwest and people I know online, and I will continue to propagate those recommendations to other people. It truly is a really good event. Well, one place where you'll probably be waxing poetically about Starfighters and other great things pinball is the Discord channel that you've created called Pinball People. And what amazes me about this wonderful channel that has almost 2,000 members is its positivity, and we're going to talk about that. But when I look at you, Bird, and I see that you've only been playing pinball since 2019, and that's not a long time, especially when in a year everything gets shut down. You can't play pinball. So you've just got this bug, and then they've taken it away from you, and that's what made you, in February of 2020, create this Discord channel. I love that you made that connection. Yeah, starting the Discord server really was just a leap of faith and a desire to connect more with this passion that I recently got, you know, in pinball, right? And I started it with the mod of Jack Danger's stream, Deadflip. I started it with the mod Tater Salad. You know, I've been around a little bit. I've been chatting. I've been in Deadflip's Discord server. And I had this idea for a Discord server. and so I reached out to kind of see if my ideas held any weight, if it was a good idea, if I should pursue it. And within that conversation, he agreed with me and following that agreement, I shot my shot and asked if he would like to moderate the server with me and help build it, help grow it, help mold it into what we want it to be, and he said yes. And so we're now coming up to almost six years of running the server. We have a great, positive community. that loves pinball and loves talking about all things pinball. We have many different channel topics. We have resources available to people. And honestly, it is probably one of my proudest achievements. And I'm biased, but the best place to talk about pinball online. Well, you should be proud of what you've created because any time you can bring your community together and as we discussed, meet new friends and share in positivity and so many different things too. It's a helpful Discord channel too. I know nothing when it comes to tech talk, and I don't think I'm alone there, but you certainly have people on your server that are experts when it comes to tech repair and can guide anybody, even the novice, where to go, how to fix, how to troubleshoot. That's really important. Yeah, the repair help channel is really one of the shining locations within the server, one of the shining channels in the server. we have specific highlighted users. And yeah, people come and go and they're like, I have this game, I have this issue. It could be an EM, it could be a modern, it could be something that maybe is relatively simple to people who know a little bit of tech work, or it could be a complete rabbit hole of an issue. And these users, they will walk people through troubleshooting, walk people through what parts to buy, how to actually do the fix, pull up resources. And it really is a great place within the server Another great place within the server is the Pin and Gore channel, where people will find or come across the most atrocious pinball machines known to man. I'm talking Rodent's Nest. I'm talking stripped playfields. Anything and everything you can imagine and worse appears in that channel. And, you know, you were aware, but there is a little bit of a morbid curiosity to seeing some of our favorite games just be in absolute disarray. Yeah, it's painful to see a lack of care. But that being said, one person's garbage is another person's treasure. I see these things for sale on you know Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist or Kijiji here in Canada or Gumtree wherever it may be And people look at it and go oh 50 bucks as is well I can use this that some other little things here Maybe it some drop targets a spinner or who knows a pop or whatever it may be So people buy these things for parts and stuff, and some people, I've seen experts just really make it a project and try to rebuild, almost like Frankenstein, bring it back to the dead. So I think that's always cool. That's the pinball gore thing on your pinball people. Discord, you have an obsession I've noticed with the game Roller Games. Explain. It's more of a cultural obsession within the server. I'll be completely honest with you, Jeff. I don't remember how this started. But it's taken off. But it's taken off where we have a modified version of the Roller Games logo, and it says Pinball People as our server logo. we have roller games emojis when new people join the server if we know they're like a pinball person like they're in the hobby you experience this yourself our users will ask roller games related questions and I think my favorite part about this whole kind of cultural obsession is that on April Fool's Day we open up a special channel called The Gator Pit which is a it's a no-hold bars kind of just very meme-y channel that is only around for one day and everyone's looking forward to it and it really is a great time and it adds such a unique flavor to the community without being too in-jokey or gatekeepy don't you love that you've created this in the sense that you know especially people of my generation where we were used to old forums. There's wonderful tilt forums which I still recommend. But then we were kind of geared towards Pinside and there are certainly some great help tips on Pinside, especially if you're in the actual specific game groups. But then you see some topics that just go off the rails, completely cutthroat and just infighting. It's turned me off, unfortunately, of Pinside in general, whereas the whole concept of pinball people on Discord that you've created is none of that. Let's just talk pinball. Yeah. And that's kind of really the main inspiration for why I wanted to create the pinball people. You know, it was COVID, right? And I wanted to keep engaging with the hobby and talk about it. But, you know, all these other online spaces like, you know, pinball enthusiasts on Facebook groups or pin side, you know, they had their problems either, you know, it wasn't a great way to have active conversations or there were cultural issues and kind of a lot of negativity in these spaces, a lot of antagonism. And even on Discord itself, you know, there's these servers for streamers or for events, and that's great. Those are great places. But if you want to just talk shop, if you want to just be like, yo, guys, I just got this new game. Isn't it crazy? And then people will be like, that's a great game. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Congrats. You know, you can't really do that in those spaces, which, again, is fine. Because then you get people that come on, oh, that game's a turd and blah, blah, blah. Sure. It's a one-trick pony, blah, blah. And you're like, you're calling somebody's baby ugly. Yeah. Or it's just like, you know, that's cool you got a new game, but what does this have to do with InDisc, right? You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. So that was really the main inspiration. I wanted to kind of be the solution to the problems of, you know, online pinball spaces. Again, I am biased, but I feel like you can ask the users, new and longstanding, what they think of the server, and they'll agree with me. Best place to talk about pinball online. Almost 2,000 members. You were nominated for a Twippy back in 2024, so you're not being modest. You've done a wonderful thing here and really created a positive space, which is definitely needed. We saw what happened in November, sadly, with OBX, and that just horrible, horrible situation. Very bad. And it's turned some people off, and certainly people have demanded some change. And you're there in the Northwest, and I was there recently in October, and I went to a place called Icebox, where you actually used to run tournaments before. the wonderful Max Stewart has done an incredible job in doing what Max is doing. Yeah. And I'm under the understanding now that they are now not IFPA and still getting great turnouts. So people still love pinball. So your thoughts on that? Yeah. I don't want to get too much in the weeds of this, right? It was a horrible situation. I think the IFPA should have done better and should continue to do better. and one of the critical moments in that whole situation was that the IFPA shut down conversation about the whole ordeal within their own Discord server. But people still wanted to talk about it. People still needed to talk about this. It was and still is a serious situation. And I kind of took it upon myself to pull up my pants and be like, okay, we're going to allow people to talk about this and we're going to try to have it be, you know, constructive conversation, but necessary conversation. And, you know, it'll be in our little tournament talk channel and people will talk about it. And it was a little stressful for about a week or so. You know, there's a lot of influx of people, a lot of opinions, a lot of emotions, which, you know, totally valid. But I feel like, again, you know, people need the space to be able to talk about these things. People need the space to be able to air their frustrations in a respectful way, in a constructive way. And when that's taken away from people, it's just, what are you going to do, right? Yeah, but I think you'll agree, understanding completely the emotions involved and even me who wasn't there and have so many friends in North Carolina, friends in the transgender community that I just heartfelt felt sorry that they were put in this situation. And you get the emotion, even from the outside looking in, I can only imagine what it was being there. Right. Yeah, you know, there was a lot of understandable anger. And, you know, as I was reading, and this is something that, you know, I've told some people, when that all happened, not being there, and being kind of in the pinball community or one of the voices or whatever you want to say that I do, I spent five hours reading every single line of that Discord. And to say it got off the rails at times, obviously. Sure. It certainly did, but you understood the emotion. And I guess my take from that whole thing, and this isn't just the only take by any means, but the one thing I was like yeah definitely a mistake was made And because we cannot turn back the clock let damn well make sure we never make that mistake again And hopefully and so far we haven seen that happen again and I've seen some changes that are hopefully putting some checks and balances in place to make sure this never happens. Fingers crossed, that's the end of that. Yeah, I hope so too. You know, there's a lot of cautious pessimism and a lot of cautious optimism around everything. You know, I love competitive pinball. I love pinball. And so, you know, I really hope for the best here. But yeah, it was it was a really trying time and still is a really trying time. And, you know, I do also have friends who were at that event who were friends with people in that event, you know, and I think I think, you know, it's kind of a watershed moment for everyone who's really into competitive pinball, you know, to really understand, like, where you stand and how things should be done. and how to listen, right? Because yes, conversation does go off the rails at times, right? But you got to understand what's underneath that. And you can't just swipe your hand and just silence everyone because, I don't know, you're tired of it or something. And again, I don't want to get too off track here, but it is important that people have the space to air their grievances and to have their concerns and emotions heard, understood, and for action to be made to better things moving forward. You're right on that, Bert, absolutely. Back to where you are in the Northwest, I mean, for someone, I can only imagine living there and just walking out your front door and being only a few steps away from a million great places to play pinball and top-notch games. You've got a plethora there in that area. And you, even though you were in pinball in 2019, it went away for a little bit. You've done the pinball people on Discord. The competitive side's really only been recent. And boy, did you ever do something that is not easy to do, especially with all that competition there in Washington State. You made your first state finals. That is correct. That's a big deal. You know, I like to think so, especially for Washington. not knocking the other states, but, you know, Washington State has the highest concentration of like top 100 players, top 500 players and probably top 1000 players. And in the beginning of 2025, you know, I had some life changes, which let me play more pinball. And I've always been into competitive pinball, but times, school, other hobbies, I didn't have the time or money to really commit to it. So 2025, I had one goal. It wasn't to work out, wasn't to read books, it wasn't to, I don't know, make a million dollars. It was to qualify for states. And I really went on the grind. We have a lot of high point tournaments. We have a lot of really good competition. And there's a back and forth at the end of the year where I was in it, I was out of it, and then I was in it, and then I was out of it. And through, surprisingly, a Seahawks playoff game, competitors dropped out to go see that game and I was in and I made the most of it let me tell you good for you speaking of your Seahawks see here's a perfect example we come from different backgrounds we're at different ages we're in different countries and we have this common bond of pinball your Seahawks are going to the Super Bowl by beating my LA Rams and we're still friends bird yeah that's beautiful i you know pinball is better than anything else in my opinion congrats to the seahawks there that should be some super bowl against the uh new Robert Englunds patriots for those who have no idea what i'm talking about sports ball i'll just say that sports ball sports ball but still don't forgive you guys taking out the mariners so well that's why i was there in october and uh you know what i was smart though because you know after the jays took two out of three there and then eventually went on to win in game seven and go on to the world series past the mariners obviously i wanted the jays to win but it was one of those things where i was like it's hard not to like this mariners team like person to person they're all good people the big dumper and just the pitching staff and everyone there i was like i wish it was somebody i could hate yeah you can't hate the ultimate underdogs it was easy when we played The Yankees, piece of cake. Hate is like off the charts. Sorry, Yankees fans, but, you know, evil empire until the Dodgers then take it over that title. Anyway, let's get off of baseball stuff. You've got great places to play there, Georgetown, pizza, an arcade, Wedgehead in Portland. I haven't been there. What's that like? Ooh, Wedgehead is great. You know, you and I, we both compete, right? Wedgehead has those kinds of setups. The tilts are tight. The games are steep. some games even have lightning flippers and um you would think oh well on quarter drop right you know that's not really worth my time if i'm going to drain out an entire game in 30 seconds that's the thing it's 12 for free play and they have a phenomenal perfect right and they they only have like 18 games but they rotate frequently and they're a mix of eras like i'm talking wood rails all the way to the moderns you know they have everything and the food is great uh they have a great podcast too uh i highly recommend oh yeah it's it's it's legendary it's a legendary podcast and you know i don't live in portland i live in seattle so you know i'm actually going there next week and it is hands down my favorite location uh if you haven't been you should go and if you think the games are set up too hard play better you know i love your motto and it's funny you say that because when i asked you what some of your favorite games are and you said play better you have a Steve Ritchie game in your favorite list that i have as well because all it does is beat you up and you know you're not going to be on there for hours and hours but my goodness if you miss a shot you get you get punished black knight sword of rage the pro edition you and i both love that game i i think it is probably one of the best uh spike two games released. It's fast. It's brutal. The rules are not too complicated, but they're not too simple. And, you know, I like complicated rules as much as the next guy, but sometimes you don't need them. Right. And yeah, when I first got into pinball, I remember playing that game, getting my part of my French, my ass handed to me and then seeing this other guy get like 70 million. And I was like, whoa, you can do that? Like, how? And it just kind of grew into an obsession. And yeah, you know, if a game is hard, fast, and brutal, I'm going to fall in love with it. You know TNA John Wick Mandalorian Oh my God what a great game Yeah you know anything that tests my skills and has me on my toes from the plunge great game but I like that you a young guy and you like some of the classics too, you're a big medieval madness fan, so am I Frontier, I mean, who doesn't love some crickets, Meteor we talk about kind of a one shot game, I mean, yes you can hit the drop targets, but you better be dialed in on that, Spinner, that's the key and you love that game another game, a game I used to own, and I miss it, I play it every time I see it, is simply 8-Ball with the candy cane right side, the fake fawns, and a little pool game. You've got a good mix of games there. What draws you to some of the older games? Is it just going to places like Wedgehead and finding some of these places? With 8-Ball specifically and Medieval Madness, Medieval Madness was the game that got me into pinball. So it will always have a place in my heart. And it is better than Attack from Mars. And that is a fact, and I'm sorry. but 8-Ball was also at the location and it was the only classic there and you know I kind of grew to love it grew to learn a lot about how classics play and you know as a tournament player right you have to learn how to play these classics and at Icebox they have such a great variety of them and that are well maintained and difficult and so you know I think it's a different it's a provide, you know, to modern pinball. And it still challenges your skills in a different way. And, you know, again, you know, the rules are simple, like spinner, rip spinner, but it's more difficult than that because the game's geometry is not as forgiving, right? You've really got to be on top of your nudges, your flipper skills, all that stuff to even get there and to make a dent on the scoreboard. And so, you know, I like pinball, period, you know. Different skill sets for different games for sure but they're all games of skill you know i i come across so many people when you have to play an em or an older game they're like oh this luck box i'm like really because take a look at who wins these classics championships and you'll see that funny enough they're the top players it's you know you definitely have more chances of maybe a house ball but not probably three house balls and you know i really get a kick out of that so i like hearing a young person like yourself realize the complexities and the wonderful things that are involved with older games so good on you i want to talk to you about one more thing too because you love pinball and one of your hobbies i think is a reason you're a good pinball player and i'm not tooting my own horn but i know a lot of people who also have the same hobby and it's being a drummer because Because of the hand-eye coordination that's needed. The timing. The timing of shots and stuff. And also, too, if you think of a drummer, it's not just your hands moving, it's your feet moving. It's juggling. Think of the person spinning the plates at a circus, trying to keep all of them going at the same time. That's kind of like a multiball, in a sense, when you've got three different things going on, and maybe you're trying to trap them up, but balls are flying everywhere. I find that drumming skill is something that helps from all players. Do you feel the same? You know, people have said the same thing to me. You know, oh, you're a drummer. That makes a lot of sense. Why are you good at pinball? And it's hard for me to say if it's true or not because I can't, you know. You don't know any other way. I don't know any other way, right? Like I was drumming before I got into pinball and, you know, like I can see the connections. But, you know, there's also plenty of other phenomenal pinball players who aren't drummers and they're better than me, right? I do think, though, that my love for drumming comes from the very tactile and percussive nature of it. It is a percussion instrument, and I find a lot of that same satisfaction from pinball. The feelings of the flippers and the pop bumpers and the ball sliding over an orbit or through a wire form, the clunk of the drain, as painful as it is, is kind of a satisfying, tactile thing that you can't really get from video games or movies or any other type of hobby or interest, which I do love my video games. I do love my movies, but pinball just has that novelty to it that isn't found anywhere else. I agree completely. And I can name a lot of people who play drums that are excellent pinball players. There are kind of three qualities. I think if you've got them in your back pocket, you might be good at pinball. And drumming is one. I'm not saying this because this is what I did as a kid, but I definitely feel out of anything I've ever done, it has translated into being better at pinball. Being a baseball player and the timing, because flippers are bats. I mean, they are bats. And do I need to pull the ball? Do I need to go the other way with the ball? It's the timing of hitting the ball on the bat, and I think that's helped. And the other thing, especially with newer games, is having a strong math sense and being able to figure out risk-reward and figuring out what the shot's worth, what multipliers are necessary, stacking, all that kind of stuff. Math really comes into play. If you've got all three of those qualities, you're probably an excellent pinball player, but some of those qualities certainly can help you. 100%. Just in talking with people, it's funny that those are kind of some common bonds I've noticed. But anyway, I have enjoyed talking with you. I hope to see you again. I love that you've found the competitive side, but that you've created the positive space, the pinball people on Discord. I recommend everyone join it. And I'll say this because I don't believe in sour grapes. Good luck to your Seahawks. Thank you. Thank you. And have fun at Wedgehead next week. I will. Bird, I look forward to seeing you again soon. Me too. I'm going to Indisc and Yankpin for sure. So you're going there. I'm going there. I will see you for sure. So we'll catch up again. And both great tournaments. If anyone's looking to sign up for those, you'll have a great time at both of those. Bird, all the best to you. Likewise. This has been your Pinball Profile. You can find everything on pinballprofile.com. We're on Facebook. We're on Instagram. You can email pinballprofile at gmail.com. And thank you so much to our Patreon subscribers. Wonderful people like Lua W., GMC Law, Tony V., Derek S., Fox Cities Pinball, Sean I., and more. Thank you so much. Patreon.com slash pinball profile. Don't worry. The show will always be free, but your support is certainly wonderful. It was great talking to Bird. We'll see how the Birds do in Seattle. Will the Seahawks win the Super Bowl? We'll have to find out. I'm Jeff DeOles. Thank you.