Hello, my name is Jamie Burchill and you are listening to and or watching our podcast called Wormhole Pinball Presents. Wormhole Pinball Presents. Wormhole Pinball Presents. Today I'm very, very excited to be joined by two great individuals. Today I'm really excited to be joined by a very special guest. And today I'm very excited to be joined by two awesome guests all the way from Arizona. Hi, welcome to the Wormhole. I am Jamie Birchall. Episode 47 is kind of like a filler episode, if you will, for Thanksgiving break. Yes, the holiday break episode. And I had Erin Winnick-Anthony next to me, and we were already here filming, and we said, hey, let's do a quick little podcast to talk about something that recently happened to you that was really, really cool. Yeah, excited to be back on the podcast again. Yeah, I know. It's the third time. Well, I guess the second time as a guest, and then also some interviews and stuff now. You're becoming a regular. I love it. Thank you so much. So a couple of weeks ago, you were on BBC Two Radio. Yep. And you were the pin, an expert. Well, explain how did this happen? Yeah, I was the pinball expert on BBC Radio Two's show Midnight Mastermind, which felt very weird to be called a pinball expert. I think among the normal population, yes. And then when you're among all the people who are like the crazy experts all the time. You're like, okay, sure. Let's, let's do this. I'm now the pinball expert here. Uh, and yeah, I, um, I originally I had been on like BBC's expert list. Um, they were looking for more diverse voices, especially in science and technology. I had submitted to this list as like, yeah, I'm happy to talk about space and science and stuff. And by the way, I also do pinball and they had seen this on the list and they were like, actually love the space and science stuff. Let's get back to that. But first let's hear about the pinball. So, yes, I get to be on to talk about that. And I didn't get to hear it live because I am not good with time zones, but I did get to listen to it in its entirety. And you're going to get to listen to it in its entirety right now as well. Yes. And so just how this works is this host every day, a little bit after midnight, has a random guest that comes on that's a random expert. He doesn't know what the guest is going to be an expert in. And he gets a length of one song to research this topic. And then the expert gives three questions on it. And he sees how he does. And mine was pinball. And I think probably people here are going to think they're relatively easy. But I was trying to keep it for the general public who maybe doesn't play pinball. Oh, I thought it was great. I thought it was just fantastic. So, yeah, that's what this is. All right. Well, here it is right now. We'll be back right after you hear this awesome segment that Aaron was on. BBC Radio 2. Now, Midnight Mastermind. Yeah, indeed it is. Penultimate one of the week. Two very different subjects so far. Yesterday and the day before it was. The documentaries of Louis Theroux. Gardening names and numbers. Yeah, Lucy was brilliant. You just hear from that beautifully slow measured delivery that she was a gardener. And you can find her being like that on the Gardening Hour on BBC Essex. Now I have said because she slid into my DMs earlier I said that I would try calling in to say well I got a pH problem with my soil just to see if I can get through Anyway we had a blast Somehow I scraped a two out of three which means I've not even got lower than a two so far this week. Let's see what the subject is. We shall say, good morning. What is your name? Hi, I'm Erin Winnick-Anthony. Hello, Erin. Where in the world are you? I'm in Houston, Texas. Oh, I love this. Okay. What is your specialty subject this morning? My specialist subject is pinball. Ooh, okay. Amazing. Obviously, you've got to load up Pinball Wizard for afterwards. Tell me why. Not this moment. This moment, let me do some research, and then I'll get you to tell me why we're doing this subject. But I love a pinball machine. It's fading out, which means my time to do any research is now done. So let me shut it down. My five things I never knew about pinball webpage I was just using there. Erin is asking me the questions in Houston, Texas. Why are we doing this, Erin? Why this subject? Why pinball? So I am one of the top 100 women's pinball players in the world. And I make a social media series online called Learning to Flip. So I've been sharing my journey of learning to play pinball ever since I was getting last place in pinball tournaments. Oh, my word. Now, I love pinball. I remember I used to, I quit college to go and work as a glass collector. It was going to be my whole new career. I was just going to work as a glass collector for the rest of my life. And I'd go in early and there was an arcade on the way in and there was a pinball machine. And I got all right to the point where, you know, for a couple of quid, I could play for like an hour. Where did you get your skills from? Where did you get to the point where you wanted to become one of the top 100 women's pinball players in the world? How did you do this? what was the journey? Houston, Texas has a fantastic pinball community, both of people collecting, restoring machines and competing. And I moved here just before COVID. And coming out of that, I was kind of looking for a community. And I've always kind of I went to the diner, you know, with my dad, like our Melv hot dogs in Tampa, Florida and play an old fun house machine and just kind of decided to bring that back. So what are the skills then? So obviously, you do a series called learning to flip. If you were going to tell us just a couple of ways that we can be better at pinball, how would you do that? A, shoot the flashing stuff. If you don't know what the machine is usually they're trying to signal you something um don't be afraid to move the machine a little bit to give it a nudge yes uh-huh give it a nudge and i don't don't just flip try to get it under control a little bit yeah now i guess that means is when the ball's coming towards you you try and take the pace off it so then you nestle it in the crook don't you exactly yeah and be able to aim your shot a little better yeah i do that though and it bounce them back up and go down the middle is there is there like a technical name for that other than a swear word because that's what i use yeah there's a few you can uh dead flip which bounces it from one flipper over to the other you can live catch it which is like when you flip right when the ball's coming at it to stop it or you can drop catch and like lower the flipper and try to control it so yeah there's a few techniques oh do you know like i i have this you know it's someday in the future possibly when the kids have moved out i will like turn one of their rooms into an arcade and i love the idea of having a couple of video game cabinets and a pinball machine And have you got one in your house? I do. I have two machines downstairs. Jealous jealous Erin Let me set the mood Midnight Mastermind Three questions on pinball We all played it We all loved it at times in our life Let go for this Let see how I do All right. Well, I may, let's see. You now sound more of a pinball expert than I was even anticipating. So let's see. Okay. I'm very good at making it sound like I know stuff and then getting it all wrong. Perfect. All right. So your first question. So we mentioned, you know, in competitive pinball, you're encouraged to move machines a little bit in a move called nudging. However, what is a call when you move a pinball machine too much, causing your flippers to shut off and you lose end of ball bonus points? Ooh, okay. The only thing I can go for is something that I guess comes from traditional sports. That would be, would you call it a foul? Is it called a foul? It's called a tilt. Oh, of course it is, because the machine says tilt, doesn't it? That's exactly it, yep. I knew that. I knew that. Okay. Terrible. You see Erin? I sounded like I knew what I was doing, and then immediately I got something wrong. So let's go question two. Next one. All right. What is the best-selling pinball machine of all time? I know this one. It's one from the 1990s. I swear I've played this. I swear I've done all right on it. It was one which was made when Bally and Williams got together. It's the Addams Family pinball machine. Congrats. You got it. Nice job. Have you played it? Yes, I have. My local arcade has one. Oh, what's your top score? Oh, gosh, I don't know. I think around 100 million on that one. Oh, my God. Outrageous. Okay, let's go final question. All right, final question. In many more modern pinball machines, you can lock balls to prepare a multiball. What is the most common color for those shots to be lit? Hmm. It's either going to be red or green. I'm going to go red. It's green. Oh, I can't believe it, which means it's a one out of three. You were so close. Pinball. Erin, that was amazing. I love it. I need to watch your YouTube series, obviously, because I need to get better. Remind us what it's called and where we can watch it. Yeah, you can find me on all the social medias at Erin Winnick. And I also do some pinball commentary on Wormhole Pinballs if you want to see some full tournaments. Hang on. So are they live as well? Yeah, they'll live stream on Twitch and YouTube. Oh, my word. Why have I never watched this? When's the next tournament? When can I watch? I need to watch live pinball. Every Monday, there's a tournament stream and we have the Houston Arcade Expo coming up in a few weeks. There will be some big tournaments coming up in October. I love this. I absolutely love it. Erin, thank you so much for taking the time. It's been amazing. I had to play a pinball-based song afterwards. Of course, it's The Who. Of course. But Erin, thank you. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. Thank you, Erin. There we go. Three questions on pinball. It's a quite pathetic one out of three. But hey, we learned something. Isn't that right, pinball wizards? How great was that? That was super fun. Yeah. It's super cool. I'm glad you all get to hear it now, too, rather than just the UK at midnight. So you were on again, right? Yes, I was on a second time. They went back to the space science thing. They were like, okay, now we did the pinball. So then they went back to that. Well, yeah. Okay. And then I was on and I quiz a different host of guest hosts on microgravity. So that was a lot of fun. I don't know if this podcast would appreciate that. If you want to hear that, that's on my YouTube channel. So hey give a shout out Yeah my YouTube channel is Erin Winnick or all my social medias are at Erin Winnick and I posted that whole segment So if you want to see me talking about how people fly on parabolic flights in microgravity and what shape are flames in microgravity, that's over there too. What shape are flames in microgravity? Oh, people have to listen to me. Oh, all right. Because I would like to know that. I'll tell you afterwards. I'm making everyone have to go look at my YouTube channel. No, good move. That's a good move. That's why you're the best. Absolutely. So what do we have coming up in the wormhole? we have a pretty big announcement soon. In fact, that's next week, isn't it? I think so, yeah. Because when we're filming, yeah. Okay, so stay tuned. Really big thing coming. So if you're not following us on the wormhole, please follow us. Set that little bell so that you know when the new podcast comes out because this one is a big one. Yeah, for sure. And you're going to be on this one. I might be back again. So hope you aren't tired of hearing me. You will be back again for this one. So that's really awesome. Anything else that you've got going on? Oh, man, I'm hoping to have a fun end of the year here. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. That's what's happening right now. I'm trying to take a little bit of a break. And, yeah, then January I'm looking forward to. I know we're going to have some state championships and stuff coming up. So looking forward to seeing who of all of our wormholers qualify for that and seeing some commentary from our What's Brewing crew, too. Yeah, and guess who is going to be on that What's Brewing crew commentary team? Who's going to be? Yeah, me. Yeah. So, you know, we're very close with What's Brewing in San Antonio. And that's where the Texas state finals are going to be for both women and men. Yes. And they asked me to be a guest commentator. Amazing. I'm right on the border. So we'll see if I end up qualifying for women. So I am not on the border. I'm 109th in the state of Texas. I'm not on the border for the main. I'm just for the women's, but I hopefully, hopefully I make it over there. But that's my main pinball thing coming up. Yeah. Awesome. And then, of course, we have TPF. Of course. And we're even getting our gear ready. your friend Brandon, who is just, I call him IT support, but he has a name, ladies and gentlemen. And we're going to be really redoing everything. Yeah. I'm excited to see the outcome. I'm so nervous and so excited because the rigs themselves, if anyone knows, we finally got them dialed in and we're going to scrap it and go with something we think is even better. Yeah. That's pretty exciting. I know. Get rid of everything that works and try something completely new. But I love, I think it's going to be the right move, and hopefully maybe it'll be a test run, figure out the kinks, and share it with some other people, all the other pinball players. Yeah, I think so. I think, you know, essentially what we're doing is we're making it all into the network, and we're going to be broadcasting into the network. And no more Xsoons, no more transmitters. And you'll still have your old rig back. Sure, the rig will be itself with just the cameras and major changes. just what they are but made your chaos yeah change scares me but that's okay it's gonna be good and that's what we've got coming up uh at the wormhole so happy thanksgiving for everyone today is uh black friday so shop well and uh give your friend a twitch subscription to us of course of course what everyone wants and uh tell them jamie said all right thank you so much uh we'll see you soon have a great thanksgiving break bye everyone