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BlahCade BackRoom #2

BlahCade Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·56m 4s·analyzed·Nov 14, 2015
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.028

TL;DR

Casual podcast banter about Vegas, gambling, weddings, and local pinball league logistics.

Summary

BlahCade BackRoom #2 is a casual, meandering podcast conversation between hosts (likely from Flippin' Out Pinball) discussing Vegas casino trips, gambling, weddings, travel preferences, environmental issues like Lake Havasu drying up, and briefly touching on their local pinball leagues. The episode is primarily personal anecdotes with minimal pinball industry content.

Key Claims

  • Host attended a pinball league that rotates through private collections of 8-9 members' homes/basements monthly

    high confidence · Speaker describes: 'We only go to one person's house each month. Okay. So there's probably eight guys, maybe nine guys whose houses that we go to.'

  • One member's collection (Mr. Whitewood) is a can't-miss monthly event and attracts full attendance

    high confidence · Speaker states: 'Everybody tends to show up for that one. Yeah, that one's the can't miss.'

  • Australian pinball league meets Monday evenings, recently moved start time from 6:30 PM to 6:00 PM due to increased attendance

    high confidence · Speaker says: 'Usually it was 6:30, but we've moved it to 6 because there's just so many people turning up. And we've only got six tables to play on.'

  • Australian league has tables including Stern Trident, Stern Magic, Black Knight 2000 (recently removed), Terminator 2, Family Guy, and World Poker Tour

    high confidence · Detailed machine inventory provided by speaker describing current league setup

  • League sessions run 6 PM to 9:30 PM with qualifying, then finals, often extending due to long-play tables like World Poker Tour

    high confidence · Speaker: 'from 6 o'clock to about 9:30, we're doing qualifying. And then from there, we go into the finals.'

Notable Quotes

  • “My strategy tended to be... I would go play Pai Gow Poker... 50, maybe 60% of the time, you were just tying, breaking even, not winning, not losing... Great table to sit at with the minimal amount of money in order to get drinks.”

    Host (US-based) @ ~13:00 — Illustrates casual gambling approach prioritizing free drinks over winning—relatable Vegas behavior for younger travelers

  • “I'm one of these people that I want four pinball machines, right? I want something tangible, not just a memory.”

    Host (US-based) @ ~22:00 — Reveals collector/pinball enthusiast mentality; values physical acquisitions over experiential spending—relevant to pinball community values

  • “The entire ceremony: six minutes. From the time she walked down the aisle to the time we walked out of the room – six minutes.”

    Host (US-based) @ ~33:00 — Humorous Vegas wedding experience; demonstrates no-frills approach typical of Las Vegas chapel weddings

  • “I really wish the operator would just go, 'Right, every table in this location is going to be a fast-play table... everyone could get through their games and then we could wrap up the night relatively early.'”

    Host (Australian) @ ~58:00 — Identifies operational pain point in league play: long-play tables like World Poker Tour slow down qualifying rounds, extending events to 9:30 PM

  • “There's a waiting list of people that want to get in to the league. Because one of those – I guess it rotates. It's a private collection, is it?”

    Host (US-based) @ ~44:00 — Indicates healthy demand for private pinball league play; competitive entry suggests community interest exceeds venue capacity

Entities

Flippin' Out PinballpodcastBlahCadeplatformMr. WhitewoodpersonHigh Roller CasinogameStern TridentgameStern MagicgameBlack Knight 2000gameTerminator 2gameFamily Guygame

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Long-play tables (Terminator 2, Family Guy, World Poker Tour) in league rotation create qualifying time inefficiency; sessions extend to 9:30 PM instead of earlier wrap-up; operator lacks fast-play-only strategy

    high · Speaker: 'I really wish the operator would just go, Right, every table in this location is going to be a fast-play table... it would just mean that everyone could get through their games and then we could wrap up the night relatively early. Sometimes it goes until like 9:30.'

  • ?

    community_signal: Pinball league has participation threshold; missing X meetings results in removal from roster with waiting list replacement; suggests active management and high demand

    high · Speaker: 'if you don't show up to X amount, you wind up getting dropped off the list. Because there's a waiting list of people that want to get in to the league.'

  • ?

    event_signal: Private collection rotation model with monthly gathering at different member's homes; 8-9 participating collectors; Mr. Whitewood's collection is anchor event

    high · Speaker describes: 'We only go to one person's house each month... there's probably eight guys, maybe nine guys whose houses that we go to' and 'Everybody tends to show up for that one [Mr. Whitewood's].'

  • ?

    community_signal: Australian pinball league demonstrates healthy participation with waiting list to join; recent operational changes (moved start time 6:30 PM to 6:00 PM) indicate growing attendance pressure on 6-table venue

    high · Speaker states: 'there's a waiting list of people that want to get in to the league' and 'we've moved it to 6 because there's just so many people turning up. And we've only got six tables to play on.'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.168

0:00
and it's the blockade background yeah no formal introductions here this is uh this is what happens when we record real uh podcast earlier yes that's right we here's one we didn't prepare earlier it's it's not live but live if you're on blab so um come and join us at blab.im forward slash blockade if you um want to listen to us and to interact with us.
0:32
Yes. And Jared, you'll notice that unlike what I thought was going to happen, I'm still just the same old me with no boom arm, no windscreen, no cam. That's a bummer, isn't it? You know, sometimes Amazon treats you well. Sometimes they treat you just like as described.
0:51
That's right. Because when I ordered my mic, it showed up two days later. And I was like, wow! Yeah, and on the weekend, on a Sunday.
1:00
I selected the exact same shipping protocol this time, which was five to eight business days for the free shipping.
1:08
It's looking like they're going to write it right to that eighth day. I hate that. I just checked for an update and it hadn't even shipped yet. You were still going, yeah, it'd be all right if I got the
1:26
mic at some point and then boom, it arrived on the weekend. There you go. Do you really need that screen and the boom? So I can actually position the mic correctly, of course. Yep. You're going to wait for those because that's how it works.
World Poker Tour
game
Vegas/Las Vegaslocation
Monte Carlolocation
Lake Havasulocation
South Stradbroke Islandlocation
Treasury Casinolocation
Jupiter's Casinolocation
1:42
All right. So we've determined that maybe Jared is going to be a little stuttery today, but who knows? Yeah. And it's not because I'm using Wi-Fi today. I'm actually on a cable connection. I think it could be an issue with Blab today. So we'll see what happens. Oh, well. I'll just try to talk fast. So by the time everybody listens to this, the current table of the week is probably going to be almost finished, which we're playing in the High Roller Casino this week. But when I was posting what we were going to be doing, it reminded me of the Vegas trips I used to make. Because here in Southern California, we're – well, to Las Vegas, we're about a three-and-a-half-hour drive. But if you just go to State Line, which is the California-Nevada border, they have casinos two feet over the State Line. Oh, geez. Isn't that convenient? It is convenient.
2:37
So it's like Whiskey Pete's, and I can't remember what the other one was. And so you can hit those casinos because otherwise it's another half an hour, 45-minute drive to Las Vegas proper. To the Strip, yeah. Yeah, and there's nothing in between. so you know as soon as I turned 21 me and my friends all of a sudden we'd get this wild hair up our butt where it'd be 9 o'clock at night and somebody would go road trip Vegas and so we'd pile in the car and then drive for three hours and it would be a great time going out there we'd have music pumping and we'd be laughing and stop and get some food and all that jazz and then we'd get there and you know you're 21 you got no money so maybe 20 bucks to spend no we'd have 60 about 60 bucks which would last us all of maybe two hours right i mean the entire goal was to basically sit at a table long enough that the waitress could get you the free drink hopefully you didn't run out of money before she came back so that was the thing that if you sat there for long enough they gave you a complimentary beverage of some type. Vegas, yeah, that's the deal. While you're sitting at the tables, they've got their waitresses walking around. They'll ask you what you want for a drink. You tell them they come back with a drink. No charge. Basically, it's tip the waitress. The more you tip the waitress, the more often she'll come back. Right. Interesting. That's a good thing to know for people who are going to Vegas and want to get trolley. Can I just have $1 on black, please?
4:15
Well, my strategy tended to be because my friends would all go play blackjack and blackjack and just you know eat through your wallet real fast so I would go play Pigo poker and it's been a long time since I played Pigo so I couldn't even begin to explain it but it's one of these Asian card games or you know what it's based off of anyway you're trying to create the best hand you can and the dealer also creates the best hand they can.
4:49
But there's two hands that you both have. And in order to win, you have to beat both of the dealer's hands. And in order to lose, you have to lose both of your hands. If you don't do either, then it's called a push. Well, because of the push, it seemed like 50, maybe 60% of the time, you were just tying, breaking even, not winning, not losing. Okay. Great table to sit at with the minimal amount of money in order to get drinks. Yeah, totally, right? So that was my trick. I'm like, I'm going to go play Pygau. Everyone looks at you going, that's a crap game. But you go, yeah, but the drink service is good.
5:29
So you walked out trollied and everyone else is going, God, I lost all this money and I'm still sober.
5:35
Well, one of us would have to stay sober in order to drive. I never volunteered to drive because that drive back, I was also doing. yeah so because when that was when you were driving back that would be like early in the morning right we'd leave at like two in the morning yeah exactly you know to get back at five in the morning yeah that was before um energy drinks were around right yeah exactly it was either coffee or or no does or any of those or a big tankard of soda yeah and then three hours afterwards like a b-line for the toilet right yeah yeah and and the i mean the thing with vegas is that the only time driving back is good is if you did happen to win big yeah um but the odds of that actually happening are pretty minimal yeah right at least in our circle yep but it got me thinking well i should ask do you guys have casinos in australia we do in fact we have uh in queensland we have two major casinos both run by the same um cartel i mean sorry organization no they're all legit they're not um a speakeasy casinos they're all done by um a chain called jupiter's um so yeah we've got one in brisbane so in the heart of the city so i'm here from where i am at the moment at lutwich there's probably about a um a 10 minute drive away so you can go in there and um scam your life away on everything they got um poker machines are huge here in australia we've got them not only in casinos but we've also got them in bars um here as well so you can pretty much gamble anywhere here in australia which which pretty much speaks a lot about our culture really we like to have a punt on anything but the other one is actually down the gold coast so um there's a really massive casino down there called jupiter's casino which actually has a um accommodation as well it's um i guess you could call gibbity's casino a little bit like the casinos on the vegas strip where you can actually like stay there they actually got like shows that like are on there as well that you can go and see and it's sort of like a destination place whereas the one in brisbane is um the treasury casino which as its name suggests is actually in the old treasury building here it's like a heritage listed building which they're actually currently doing up at the moment because it's starting to fall into sort of disrepair a little bit.
8:10
So yeah, they need to, because it's all sandstone, the buildings here. Yeah, because there was a lot of sandstone around when they were building things early in the century. So yeah, that sandstone was an easy material to find. But yeah, that of course is quite a soft rock. So it therefore degrades pretty quickly anyhow. um yeah so you can um go to the city one it's uh pretty accessible uh it's right opposite south bank parklands so if anyone's familiar with brisbane you'll know where that is but yeah it's got every sort of gambling there but it's not really destination i'd say like you can't actually stay there it's plenty of places you can stay around it but it's not like a one-stop shop type of thing so it got me thinking about these trips that we used to do like i said with the 60 bucks i don't know what the most you've ever put down while playing any tables and stuff well i never used to play tables my advice was um poker machines and i would spend too much money on those back in the day like you go out on a friday night and have a few drinks and then just go into the room and and um you know sink you know 20 or 30 bucks into them um sometimes more you know like maybe 50 or 60 um so see that's a drop in the bucket and that's the my my max is usually been like a hundred bucks i think the most i ever played with uh i was doing a film shoot and we were being put up in las vegas and when you whenever you work in las vegas on a film shoot you're working nights. Oh yeah. That's Vegas or the day is ugly. Boring. Yeah. So the very first day we work the all nighter, we get done, we land at the hotel and there's somebody with our per diem envelope going, here's your per diem for the week. So bam, there's the week. Yeah. So they gave it to you up front, right? And it can say, yeah, it's just, we're stepping onto the casino floor. Right. And it's in cash. By the way, your per diem is here. I mean, nobody went to sleep. Nobody went to sleep. Everybody just went straight to the tables.
10:19
You mean gambling budget. Well, because technically per diem is supposed to be used for food and lodging. Well, they're paying for your lodging and as soon as you show up on set, you've got pre-conserved and then they serve you lunch later.
10:37
It's free money, essentially. Basically. So I had 300 bucks in my hand and that's when I learned how to play craps.
10:45
Thank you, film industry junket. Right, right. But even that, it was like, you know what I mean? To me, that was the most I've ever played with.
10:54
Well, then you got the guy standing next to you that pulls up, and it's like, okay, 500 in chips. Thank you. Ten minutes later, he's out and walking away and getting ready to go get more. And that, to me, just boggles my mind. yeah so it got me wondering what is your the highest price you'd pay for fun oh because for some people gambling is fun yeah people right it's their entertainment and i've heard of guys talking about how oh we're gonna go have our ten thousand dollar weekend in vegas to which i can't even wrap my noodle around that right yeah exactly because in my head immediately i'm going oh what could what could i buy with ten thousand i think i'm one of these people that i want four pinball machines right i want i want something tangible not just a memory that's me this is a very bloke specific thing i think you'll find most blokes i'm speaking purely anecdotally here but blokes generally prefer to have physical things rather than memories like for example if we've got ten thousand dollars to spend i'm more likely to say well what can we do to the home or something like that to make that better or what stuff we'll be putting off for ages rather than well we got that ten thousand dollars let's go for a trip somewhere and get an experience no thank you no i want something physical i can look at each day going yeah that's where that ten thousand dollars went you know and right well travel is fun and you do get to life experiences uh it's a hard balancing act for me like to go i'd rather just sort of spend the money on something physical, like maybe get a really nice TV that we're going to be looking at every day for the next six or seven years, you know? Yeah.
12:40
Yeah. I'm physical things as well. I mean, I guess it's, I'm not much of a traveler. Well, I'm not really either, but my wife is, she loves to travel. And, you know, to her credit, we have been to some pretty fun places, mostly New Zealand, because that's where she grew up. But there's a lot of New Zealand that you can explore. If, for those people who are thinking of going to the U S New Zealand's quite like Canada in its terrain. So you can save a fortune by going to New Zealand in this, in the snow. Somebody just said to me the other day to maybe crack up Canada is Mexico with sweaters.
13:19
Mexico with sweaters. I don't know if that's very complimentary. Canada looks all right to me as a destination. Like it looks like a really friendly part of the world. Sure. And, you know, it would be a nice place to go. And they drink a little bit too much Coors, though, don't they? I have no idea what they're drinking, sir. I couldn't tell you. This is just what the movies tell me. So this is an informed decision from the colony. So don't mind me. Get a lot of Canadian movies up there, huh?
13:50
E. Yeah. Yeah because the only real trip I ever gone on was me and my wife took our honeymoon to Australia All right And that was because it was one of those places that we both really really really wanted to visit at some point in our lives Yep. But when we went there, it was also with the idea of, and we are going to do all fun things. Yep. So we made sure we went bungee jumping. We went whitewater rafting. We made sure we climbed on top of the Sydney Harbor bridge.
14:24
All the cool things. Yeah, because it was like we wanted to have something specific memory-wise and to have that kind of an experience that it's hard to duplicate anywhere else. Yeah. And the experience was great, and we talk about it to this day all the time. Yeah. But it was a big chunk of change. It was a big chunk of change.
14:53
Let's put it to you this way. there's a reason why we got married in las vegas because why spend all that money on a ceremony we're gonna spend it on us you know totally yeah screw all your friends because we have grand aspirations of being world travelers hey we still invited everybody out yeah that's right what to vegas yeah it'd be like they must cater for that just so well over there in Vegas. They've gotten really good at it. And my wife's sister and her cousin both got married in Vegas also.
15:31
And because it literally is one of those things where why are you going to spend a buttload of money on the ceremony and renting a space to host it and then paying for all the food and blah, blah, blah. where in Vegas, that's just what they do. There's not really an upcharge for weddings. You know what I mean? Because that's the reason why people go there. They have a Vegas wedding, you know? Well, see, we didn't do the drive-thru or anything.
16:04
It's a drive-thru wedding service. Oh, Jared, you don't even know. Would you like Elvis with that? Yes. No, I'm not kidding you. There is a chapel called – Oh, guy, I want to say it's the Love Me Tender Chapel. But you can get married by Elvis. My sister and brother-in-law redid their vows there in Vegas, and they went to one of those type of Elvis chapels, and it was hilarious.
16:34
You could just tell they were standing there because it was recorded so they could relive the moment. It was the worst thing ever. We had ours at one of the hotels Monte Carlo and use our facility and everything. The entire ceremony, six minutes.
16:57
From the time she walked down the aisle to the time we walked out of the room, six minutes. So you walk up to the altar, we're here today to get married. Do you take your lovely wife to marry you? Yes. More or less. Alright, good. Let's sign these papers and we're done. Now go and gamble. He's a retainer. that's more or less what happened yeah wow that night i went and did the it's the only time i've ever done it uh before and since uh went and sang karaoke that night because you know it was just like okay ceremony's done we we have everybody up to our room for the reception and you know served a cake and and drink and stuff and then afterwards it was like okay well you know we don't have to entertain you anymore, right? It's Las Vegas. Go entertain yourselves. And so a bunch of my friends, I was like, what are you guys heading off and doing? They're like, oh, we're going to go sing karaoke. I was like, all right. Sure, let's do that.
17:58
Let's find out how appropriate this is. The song I sang, the clash is Should I Stay or Should I Go? Could it be worse? That's my wedding song. Every time I hear that, that's what I think of. Wedding in Vegas. You should have. It could have been worse. It could have been a white wedding, which is essentially all about divorce, really.
18:22
Yeah, I had this situation where I was at a friend's wedding and everyone was going around the table singing the chorus from songs that had a wedding theme. Okay. And as they were going through, I was saying, oh, yeah, that's pretty good. And then it was getting towards my end of the table. I was going, oh, what am I going to sing? And I was running through the different songs through my mind, and White Wedding was one of them. I went, I just reviewed the lyrics. I went, no, not suitable.
18:50
And then, oh, there was a couple of other ones which escaped me at the moment. I was like, on the edge there, I don't know. I get some strange looks if I sung them. And I just went, oh, I've got nothing. You've already sung all the songs I know, and then sort of like pass it off. But I just went, oh, jeez. I was going to laugh if the very next person didn't sing White Wedding. yeah there's a the other one that seems to be really popular at weddings is i'll be watching you by sting and that's a creepy song like that's sting openly admits that that is not the sort of song that i'd be singing at my wedding um because it's not about weddings you know it's it feels it sounds like it's um you know it's supposed to be really caring you know every step you take i'll be there i'll be watching you but no not really at least it wasn't wrapped around your finger yes jeez there's so many different inappropriate songs you can sing at a wedding like um really yeah the list could be endless it could be you know i wouldn't be surprised i mean how many uh how many bad songs get played at weddings i mean we all have been to them we all have heard them we've all rolled our eyes gone either oh god that song again or really okay at our wedding we we were going to do something cool but it didn't come off in the day do you know um dave dobbins song slice of heaven which is now foot trot flats the movie um well what's the movie foot trot flats it's an animated um um sort of sort of like a cartoon with a dog in it um it's very popular here in australia and new zealand um and it has not made it to our shores you should go and check it out it's um it's it's a short film it won't take too much of your time up but yeah there's this one song in it which is um very very popular called slice of heaven and um we were going to um have the wedding party sing the um the sort of intro to that which is they were going to start that off as um as we um were walking back up the aisle again they just start breaking into the song and then they were going to cut to the real version but um we we didn't quite orchestrate it that well but it would have been pretty cool like the groom's party just sort of started singing the the baritone of that and then the ladies started singing the um uh not falsetto but the um tenor range that would have been pretty cool there's lots of different things you can do at weddings to make them cool or different or memorable. We just had ours on an island. Okay. Yeah.
21:30
It was really good. They had this wedding island, which is on South Stradbroke Island, very close to the Gold Coast, actually.
21:39
And they basically had this boat, and we went over on the boat, and, yeah, they had this nice little sort of open-air wedding chapel there.
21:49
And then the reception venue was right there as well. So we just wandered up the path to the reception venue and had a nice meal and everyone danced and drank and it was great. And, you know, there was no driving. Everyone could actually come and see you get your photos taken rather than, you know, the wedding party just shooting off to some like exotic location. But, you know, we wanted beach shots and the beach is right there. So we had our sunset shots and everyone could watch if they wanted to. So it was kind of really, it was really inclusive. It was good.
22:22
Yeah, I think the worst would be, I mean, I've fortunately never been invited to one, but when they do the party boat for reception. Because the problem is you cannot leave. Well, it's a little bit like this island, too. It didn't have a bridge going to it. So it was boat in, boat out. But, you know, it wasn't like it was. But didn't everybody have to take the same boat? Yeah, yeah. Oh, so you were trapped. Yeah, technically. Unless you wanted to swim. You could order a water taxi if you wanted to. But, you know, that would start getting expensive. if you really want to get off the island. I think Uber is going to pick you up on that. Uber with jet skis.
22:58
Uber J, not Uber X. I wonder if they should do that at Havasu. I know I'm speaking a language you don't know.
23:08
There's the Colorado River that it runs on the border of Arizona, California, and winds up feeding... I'm probably getting this all messed up. But anyway, body of water, they call it Lake Havasu, and it's a very popular destination for spring break and such, but people just go get sloppy drunk on boats.
23:31
Is that the one that's drying up at the moment? We saw it. I'm sure it is. It's the one that was – wasn't it the one formed by accident when one of the levee banks broke and it just flooded this massive plain? Yeah, I'm not sure. Yeah, Lake Havasu. But anyway, you have so many people out on the water, and so many of them are just drunk.
23:57
It's like, yeah, I wonder if an Uber app would work out there. Come pick me up on this boat, the name of this, and take me back to my campsite. Yeah, totally. I reckon it would. I think if it's the same place, I think they're – it's funny that they're actually talking about this down here in Australia, but it was just coincidental because last night they were running a story on it, one of our current affairs programs, where if it's the same lake, it's drying up. And because of the water crisis in California, they're actually going to like actually fix up the, the weir bank again. So it redirects the water back into the, don't think it's, no, it wouldn't be the Hudson. That's the wrong end of the country.
24:41
But it must be the river you're talking about, the Colorado river. Colorado. Yeah. And the idea is that because it's so flat and so shallow, the water evaporates really quickly in it. You guys don't need that at the moment. So yeah, they're going to fix it up. But the problem is that it's like, it'll actually turn that lake into a massive dust bowl. there are some exceedingly dramatic pictures of the various lakes in california that have been drying up yeah and i mean it's it's crazy when you see what the water level you know because you can clearly see where the water level used to be and then you know where it's down and and uh there's one particular lake that there was some old western town that had gotten it had been flooded when they did the thing and now it's completely dry and people can go and and visit where this town used to be before it got flooded that's pretty incredible bad but incredible yeah i remember that when our dam here was really low in the the height of the drought back in the early 2000s here um we like you could actually go and see the the old fences from the properties and stuff that were down um in the valley uh before they flooded it and there weren't any houses or anything they actually like cleaned all that up before they flooded the plane but um yeah it was it's like wow it's like a snapshot in time really that's sort of it's like atlantis yeah you know it's uh very strange to see what's what's hidden below things very strange indeed kind of scary too yeah it is yeah i really hope imagine if they imagine if that happened in like you know the swamps in florida or uh the the where is it in jersey basically where they dump all the bodies oh yeah they'd be like the billet boom it's a math grave i'm gonna ring well that's if the crocs don't get them first you know yeah yeah that's right Alligators here. Crocs to you. Alligators to us. Alligators, yeah. Big lizards. Big lizards with pointy teeth. Yeah.
26:58
We get a lot of the reality TV shows about, you know, swamp hunters and all the random bayou TV down here.
27:11
And just look at them going, there's no way I want to live anywhere in the swamp region. It sounds pretty terrible, really. Not to mention the mosquitoes that you have to put out with. But, yeah, no, thank you. No, hard pass. Yeah, I don't really want to have to deal with, yeah, large giant lizards or 18-foot boa constrictors.
27:35
Yeah, because it's not just the crocs you need, sorry, the alligators you need to worry about. It's all the other wildlife there as well. Well, apparently that's what they were talking about in Florida, in certain parts of Florida, the Burmese python. are taking over. Oh. And so, I mean, they're basically doing the, you know, if you see a python on site, kill it. You know that your They want you to get rid of them because they become a pest problem They already consumed all the mice which on the one hand you say yay but they basically screwing up the ecosystem the balance And one of those alpha predator kind of things, although the alligators can still beat them. But for now. For now. I've seen the videos before of the snake trying to take out alligators. Yeah.
28:25
It's like a battle of the reptiles. Oh, my God. It's a cage match. All of a sudden, it's 10,000 years BC or whatever. 10 million years BC.
28:37
Have you... I know you've been really busy on set and stuff at the moment. Have you actually done anything pinball related over the last couple of months at all? Apart from TPA, of course, which you're quite busy with. No, I have not been to my last three pinball meetings.
28:56
That's a real shame. The next one is first Sunday of December, so I will be doing everything in my power to go to that one.
29:04
Just because I think if you don't show up to X amount, you wind up getting dropped off the list. Because there's a waiting list of people that want to get in to the league. Because one of those, I guess it rotates. It's a private collection, is it? So you go to everyone's houses and do like a rotation around their garages or their basements. Is that the idea? We only go to one person's house each month. Okay.
29:32
So there's probably eight guys, maybe nine guys whose houses that we go to. Some of them wind up hosting twice in a year.
29:44
You just have to have your private collections. When the Mr. Whitewood comes around, hey? Because his collection sounds amazing. Yeah. Everybody tends to show up for that one. Yeah, that one's the can't miss. Yeah, I'll be there. That one's the can't miss. Interestingly enough, the one that always winds up landing on Super Bowl Sunday, a lot of people show up to also.
30:11
And it just becomes a Super Bowl party. With pinball. Yeah. For fans of Gridiron, it's probably a pretty good balance, really. Well, because the Super Bowl is typically not that good of a game anyway. No. So, you know, you got this gathering of people and, you know, all the snacks and everything. So, I mean, it's a pretty good time. It'd be fun. Well, is it usually like a day that you spend or is it like an evening? For the, what, the pinball league? Yeah.
30:46
It's basically doors open at two from two o'clock to four o'clock. It's open play, play whatever table you want as many times as you want. So that's your practice session. the tournament proper starts at four o'clock winds up finishing at about 7 30 or so so yeah i mean it winds up being you know five five hours six hours i wish it was a little bit like that for us here we do ours in the evening because everyone in the um in the tournament has day jobs of course so that means we have to do it after work so it's a monday uh it's usually one monday every month so So one blockade recording session every month is a bit of a long day for me. So, which I'm not complaining about. It's good because it's full of pinball. So, you know, no problems there. So, yeah, I think they've had to actually move the time forward. Usually it was 6.30, but we've moved it to 6 because there's just so many people turning up. And we've only got six tables to play on. And some of those tables are really long play tables. like the the ones at the moment we've got a um stern trident a stern magic which are really quick to play of course because they're early sold states um we had a black knight 2000 which is gone um and that's been substituted with um i can't remember off the top of my head i think it's another early um sold state so that's like the old the early sold state row of three machines is like everyone gets those done real quick and then they usually go on to free play for the rest of the night while people waiting for the other tables which are at the moment terminator 2 um family guy and um i'd like to say it's not world poker tour but it's um or maybe it is world poker tour yeah i think it's world poker to the one with all the drop targets everywhere yeah i think it's World Poker Tour. That's that one. Yeah, that where I was always the one that takes that everyone is waiting on towards the end of the night. I really wish the operator would just go, right, every table in this location is going to be a fast play table. So tables that either, you know, are quick to play or don't let you grind as much because it would just mean that everyone could get through their games and then we could wrap up the night relatively early. Sometimes it goes until like 9.30, and that's with the early start. So from 6 o'clock to about 9.30, we're doing qualifying. And then from there, we go into the finals. So it's just too long.
33:32
Most of the guys with their collections, if they're into the DMD tables or the modern tables, that's all they're going to have. there's another there was one guy who he all he liked was ems so his entire collection was ems so those days usually go smooth there's a couple of guys though who is like 50 50 they got ems they've got more modern and those days are painfully long because you're right you go play the em boom bam you're done you're like i'm ready for my next round and then you got you know the guys that you know playing twilight zone and they're all masters of it and you're just sitting there oh my god you're like come on hurry up you gotta do it style hey you've got to go and have the operator be there on the night and widen up the out lanes to gaping holes and you know tweak the machine so it encourages fast play um yeah but even then that doesn't quite do it because some of these, I'm telling you, one of our players is like number 18 in the world. So, you know, you're not going to really mess him up much. Yeah, right.
34:49
Our play is just like what we do with Tournament of the Month, where it's you know, in the league it's six rounds.
34:56
Now you can move on to the next round whenever you can, but that just means you need the other three players to be able to play also. And that's what you wind up waiting on is, you know, the other players becoming available. Not only that, but some of the players are kind of inconsiderate in that they'll finish their table and then they'll go, you know, FO somewhere to, you know, to eat a snack and talk. And they won't pay any attention as to when it's time for their next table to play. They make somebody go hunt them down and say, hey, come on, we're ready to play. Oh, OK. It's like, come on, have a clue. Right. Don't make us go digging through 40 people through three different rooms trying to find you, you know, kind of thing. So that kind of annoys me. But the thing that really bones us, and this has happened on many occasions, like it'll be a second round of play and all of a sudden one of the machines will break.
35:54
So they'll spend the next 15 minutes trying to repair it first. All right. And even if they fix it, the problem is that table is now totally bogged down. It's the logjam. And there's been occasions where I've been ready to start round six, and the people that I'm supposed to be playing with are still on round four. And because you're not allowed, our league says during the tournament, you're not allowed to play tables other than what you're playing for the tournament. Okay. So they turn off all the machines that aren't actually in tournament.
36:31
Well, now you're surrounded by pinball machines and you can't play any of them. Can't play any of them. So you're just twiddling your thumbs waiting. And especially if you're ready for round six, you're like, I could just go home. Come on, come on, come on, come on. Yeah, I could just go home. This would be great. This is a problem we have at the league at the moment. I reckon I should have a whisper to the guy and say, look, could you put really fast playing machines? or if you're not going to put fast playing machines there, put all of them as long playing machines. So every machine has like an equal sort of time. The problem the guy has, of course, is he's running multiple locations. So he's got to rotate the machines in and out to sort of keep them fresh. And, you know, even though the Brisbane Pinball Club uses this site exclusively, he's only got a finite number of machines he can put in there at any one time but still keep his other locations happy. Because, of course, they want the latest machines there. They don't really want early solid states because they just don't really take the money. Though, I had a look in the cash box when he had Kingpin open the other day, which is a godly wedgehead. And I was pretty staggered with the amount of dollar coins in there for an EM. It was pretty impressive, the amount of money this thing was taking for an EM. I don't know when he does his collections, but man, there was like a fair few dollar coin. I reckon there would be about a hundred bucks in there for an EM, which is bloody good.
38:01
So yeah, this guy does all right out of it. Cause I think he gets paid a retainer for each tournament. So part of the tournament money goes to him directly. I think it's like a hundred bucks or something like that. So it's a pretty good night for him for just being up there and actually playing games and drinking beer himself. so they're getting paid to be there. Pretty good.
38:23
That is another thing with our tournament that everybody kind of... When I talk to people that don't know about ours, but there's no alcohol at our tournament allowed. Oh, really? That's the response that everybody gets. Everybody goes, but how do you play pinball without alcohol? I don't understand. I need performance-enhancing beers to play pinball. I don't play pinball well unless I've had a couple of drinks.
38:48
And I don't know about you, but I actually play better when people are talking to me. Like when they, when they like give me a bit of a heckling, I do so much better on pinball when they do, because I feel relaxed and like, I'm not trying to just concentrate on the ball and getting pissed off when it goes down the outline and stuff like that. I'm just, yeah, I play heaps better when people are giving me shit about my game going, Oh, you know, the other drop target, you know, just give me a real ribbing. It's great. I love it. I don't, I don't think I've ever been a heckle probably because my gameplay has never good enough to get heckled but uh you're just there for the lols exactly exactly i'm actually there for the beer and the the good company you get at tournaments like there's there's a lot of good people hanging around there so it is interesting though because uh i have my theory as to why alcohol is not allowed and it actually is twofold one it's you're at somebody's house and they probably don't want any mischief going on because of somebody not being able to handle the liquor.
39:54
Two, though, is it's these fully restored machines and they probably don't want anybody slamming the glass or spilling their drink on top of it. Yeah, but if you're at somebody's place, you would assume there'd be etiquette surrounding that. You wouldn't actually have drinks anywhere near the machines. And you've got to remember that these machines, They're designed to be thrown around and cigarettes stubbed out on them in the bars. They're designed to be flogged to death. Yeah, but one of our guys has a getaway and has been restoring it. He just painted the outside of the cabinet piano black lacquer.
40:34
Oh, really? So I'm talking about guys that treat these things like jewels. they really don't want a uh you know a drink ring yeah yeah so has he so he's done it in piano black lacquer but he's kept the original decals underneath it like he's essentially over sprayed the decals no he redid everything wow so he's put new decals on and then clear coated it with piano black wow yeah he i haven't he's only shown pictures to us um he's the one that usually hosts on superbowl so i'll see it then uh he's also the guy who he had a wizard of oz and just on the opposite side of it was firepower and whirlwind and that firepower he just finished restoration on this is the one that he put the dark uh the drop targets oh yes i mean it was his firepower was shinier than wizard of oz like yeah obviously clear-coated using automotive clear coat he had a uh cpr playfield oh wow wow yeah he got that but i mean there was there was not a flaw on this thing i mean it was gorgeous and his whirlwind also was uh crate fresh it was immaculate i mean it was crazy how polished it it looked So yeah I sure he already a bull had rolled on us us Something like that I know that he said he been working on Getaway for some time, and he actually had a new Translight designed.
42:13
I'm curious to see what that... His previous one was featured hot chicks. I think you've actually seen a picture of it. I posted somebody else bought that Translight off of him, and this current one, he had one of the guys in our group is an artist and so he had him paint up a vehicle and uh that was going to be his new translate but the the cabinet yeah he completely rebuilt the cab just butter smooth and uh yeah piano black i'm like oh that's gonna be gorgeous i've heard that some folks who have got um machines with cabinet decals on they're looking a bit dodgy and they want to actually essentially redo the cabinet themselves, what they're actually doing is getting cabinet makers to build them new cabinets again. There's a place in Australia that does it. And they'll fabricate you a cabinet. And then all you need to do is just give it a light sand and put a spray of black over the top. You don't have to do any filling or any of that sort of stuff that takes all the time. Then get a decal kit from over your way and stick it on and you're done. and you essentially got like this really solid cabinet that's going to last years and years and hasn't been like you know taken back and on and off the back of pickups and bashed around and like this thing is going to last you for ages and I think it's like $600 or something Australian to get it done that's not going to restore a pinball machine that is money in the bank well he even had on the legs he had the leg protector so that was it rubber it goes on the corner so that the legs aren't rubbing against the wood i mean i would too if i piano piano black that totally no i mean but this is on on any of the tables he's had restored so on the yeah like i said firepower whirlwind wizard of oz had it it's like man that you he's supposed to be getting hobbit on yeah he's supposed to be getting hobbit so i'll be able to play that next time we go over to his so that'll be interesting to get my hands on because i'm not impressed with wizard of oz it's i don't know the the table flow just it isn't there for me i played the crap out of when i was at free gold watch and i really enjoyed it they had a limited edition version at free gold watch when i was there and it was fun to play um it was a it was clown vomit vibrant though but yeah um you know that's part of that game's feature like it's supposed to you know dazzle you with light well yeah no it looks gorgeous but i just didn't i don't know there was even though even though you're dealing with brand new flippers and everything it didn't seem like it had much power it played like a it played kind of like an em i in terms of strength the same but i don't know it and and the way the ball flowed around unless you went up to that the on the right hand side the upper area that was like the quick area but everything else you kind of had a slower feel to it and i don't know it just didn't grab my attention fair enough yeah apparently it's still a top earner out of location i was i listened to another pinball yeah it's a new pinball well yeah but you know there's sometimes new pimples don't earn as much as old pimples do on location there's this one podcast called the coin box pinball podcast and these guys are hobbyist operators um with machines in a bowling alley in the u.s and they have they're pretty open when they're talking about their percentage of earnings. I don't talk about dollar values, but percentage earnings.
45:48
A lot of their fleet is new Sterns. And for them, for a long time, The Walking Dead was a real high earner for them. When they got, strangely enough, when they put 8 Ball Deluxe in, it was even giving the Sterns a run for their money.
46:08
Good to show you. yeah the the classics people latch on to them because it's nostalgic but you know i think if i was to set up an arcade which is a dream of mine when i get all that money all that money from like the magic factory that makes the money and sends it to yes you know i would love to get up like a destination location for pinball here in in queensland there's already kind of one down in the sun on the gold coast um which we talked about in past podcasts but um the problem with that is so far away from me and there's nothing on the north side of brisbane where we are so yeah it'd be great to get like this place set up where you could go and play the latest machines like when i was thinking of doing it i was going well you know it'd be great i'd put my money down on america's most haunted have that on location um you know do that sort of stuff to get people in um and playing it and getting them able to play these games that are like you know such limited runs and they probably never get to see them in their life ever unless they know a mate who's very rich and actually you know i mean truth be told that's what i feel about i don't know if i'll see america's most haunted i am dying to see big lebowski you know i'm hoping somebody blinds up buying that um you know i'd like to benton and um go to the pub and play it there in wisconsin where they've got the um where spooky people have got their one location that'll be about the only way. Yeah, because there is no location here that is going to be buying any of the new tables and putting them on site. So it's entirely up to these collectors that go into their house and whether or not they're going to drop the coin on, you know, you hear them talking about it all the time.
47:53
They tend to go to California Extreme or any of these pinball shows that are in the area to try and test out the machines and see if there's actually something they want a purchase yeah there's very few of the guys that are like you know oh yeah dropping dropping the money before i've even touched the thing um yeah i mean there's a i think everyone's pretty gun shy about that now in the industry with um what happened with um john poppadook and and a couple of the other ones like skip b and stuff so yeah i think the the model moving forward as as nate from coast to coast has talked about constantly is just yep build the machine offer it and then people will buy it although what i did find really strange just talking about um earnings and stuff is that um of all the machines woe nelly was on the top of the earnings list in the latest pinball magazine woe nelly how is that on the top of the earnings list i don't know it's kind of insane anyhow have you played it no i haven't but of course i haven't there's no one's gonna have Well, you know.
49:03
It's... I mean, it plays just like an EM, but with the pluses of a solid state. Like the robot building.
49:14
And it looks fantastic. Like the deluxe version of it with the crate. Oh, the crate. It screams for your attention. I mean, you can't help but walk over to it and take a glance at it, and then once you're standing there, it's like well i might as well play it too you know so that doesn't surprise me but if that was on location on the crate man it would just like rake the money in because it's so different well see this is what i think was why adam's family was so successful because it looks great just standing there and the attract mode is it attracts i mean there's no doubt about it is something that is there's there's something timeless about it you know even if you've never seen the movie you've heard the yeah you know it is so pervasive in the ether that you you recognize it immediately and it's one of those that you're just going to naturally gravitate over you know that's why somebody just posted in the forum if you could own own only one table ever for the rest of your life. Which would it be? And a lot of people threw up Adam's Family and I was like, I can't necessarily disagree. It's a classic. It's a fair choice.
50:31
Like for, you have to look for longevity, I think, if you're going to own one for the rest of your life. And there's lots of stuff to do on that game. You've got to look at gameplay mechanics as well as the actual features of the game as well. because you could have a game full of features like Wizard of Oz, for example, but if it doesn't resonate with you or you just don't like the flow or there's something about it, it doesn't make it a good game for you. That's the thing. Yeah, because some people in media were like, oh, I go for this table because it's got really, really, really deep modes. And I'm like, well, that's cool. Do you like it? Exactly. You're basing it solely off of, well, it's going to take me a long time to get through it. Yeah, but... So is War and Peace, but would you want to read that cover to cover? Like, you know. You know, but if you got something like Atoms, then, hey, if people come over, they're going to want to play with it too. And you always say pinball's more fun with people. It's more fun to compete. That's right. You can have dollar games on it, you know. I don't know whether it's something you guys do at your pinball tournaments, but we have a thing here called dollar games. And basically, you know, for amusement only, how it says on the pinballs, for amusement only, yeah, we break that rule. So we use it as a wagering tool and we play, you know, put five bucks down each and whoever wins the game gets to take the kitty.
51:57
So yeah, I haven't seen any monetary exchanges that are at our league. Again, we set the pre-play. So it's not like, you know, you've got a pocket full of quarters anyway. This isn't so much like putting a dollar in the machine to play. This is like, right. No, I know. I get what you're saying.
52:17
You know, making it a little bit sweeter if you win, so to speak. I don't do it because I'm not good enough and I just lose my money. Although they do actually have Pokémachines on site at the Pinball Place. And really, if I was to get more enjoyment out of it, I should just save my dollars and play dollar games instead of playing Pokémachines because at least I'd have a chance of winning. It's not pure... Right. Random luck. yeah so yeah maybe I'll do that next time yeah so well hey you know what for a blockade backroom that isn't supposed to feature much pinball we've been talking pinball probably for the last half hour I kind of engineered it like that a bit go figure yeah so fun times so there is pinball in this backroom because yeah not that anybody will know not that anyone will know there's only a few people online here in um the blab room so um gee they'd be pretty annoyed if they um they were here and we were doing our actual topic today i know yeah that we have recorded previously and uh i'll be editing over the course of the next couple of days i don't know whether um i need to do like a special bump for these uh interview things. Maybe I should work on one so we can just do it like an interview special type of thing. Because I think moving forward, these might actually start to become more prevalent, and that's a good thing. But we'll see how that goes, right?
53:53
Yeah. You're going to be booking them? Yeah, hopefully. Okay, great. So Jared is now a booking coordinator. I'm the booking agent for Yeah, you're the booking agent. That's right. We'll move you into a producer status.
54:09
Well, post-processing. I'm in post-editor. So I could just... What the hell do I do? You steer the ship. I just stoke the engine.
54:24
Yeah. I stoke the engine. You steer the ship. And wear the pretty hat. Do you greet all the passengers as they come on too? Yes. I shake their hands and say, Welcome to the ship. SS Blackade. And then now and then I invite people to sit at my table at dinner. That's right, exactly. And I feel really happy while I'm downstairs shoveling the coal into the... Yeah.
54:49
Or like going command T and cutting out all the white space in the post-processed... Like the awkward gaps of silence that we sometimes have in the podcast. Yeah, that's me. Control command T on the Mac. just like the eyes of the audio engine yeah that's me but i like it it's fun i like all right the audio thing stuff it's good glad you do that's why this works it works well all righty well hey uh i think we're gonna i think we're gonna wrap it on up yeah let's wrap it up all right well thanks for everybody for listening to the blockade backroom we will resume regular podcasting on the usual times. This is always just a little bonus if we feel like throwing it in. We feel like throwing it in. Yeah, we will. And who knows, maybe next time I'll actually have a camera. Yeah, that'd be good.
55:46
Because right now my hand is going numb holding this mic in the same place for all this time. That would be tough. Yeah.
55:54
Alright. First world problems. We'll see you next time. Bye-bye. Okay, proper, not black room, not back room. Yes.