Journalist Tool

Kineticist

  • HDashboard
  • IItems
  • ↓Ingest
  • SSources
  • KBeats
  • BBriefs
  • RIntel
  • QSearch
  • AActivity
  • +Health
  • ?Guide

v0.1.0

← Back to items

Episode 54 – Black Sheep Squadron

Slam Tilt Podcast·podcast_episode·analyzed·Aug 3, 2017
View original
Export .md

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.029

TL;DR

Slam Tilt Podcast discusses Steve Daniels' collection and Pinberg tournament recap with detailed game analysis.

Summary

Slam Tilt Podcast Episode 54 features Steve Daniels discussing his pinball collection (11 games), his involvement with Pinball Coop in Vermont, and detailed recaps of his tournament performance at ReplayFX's Pinberg event (finished 67 points in A division). The hosts and guests discuss their Pinberg experiences, including specific game performances, upstate New York players' strong showing (six making A division, several making finals), and community highlights.

Key Claims

  • Steve Daniels owns 11 pinball games including Attack from Mars, Shadow, Space Shuttle, Metallica Pro, AC/DC Premium, Indianapolis 500, Harlem Globetrotters, Mustang Pro, Surf and Safari, Iron Man, and 8-Ball Deluxe

    high confidence · Steve Daniels directly lists his collection during the podcast interview

  • Pinball Coop has 15 machines and one pitch-and-bat game shared among several collectors' collections

    high confidence · Steve Daniels describes the clubhouse during interview

  • Pinberg tournament had 800 registered players but 796 competed, with dropouts occurring after round one or two

    high confidence · Discussion between Ron, Bruce, and Steve about tournament participation numbers

  • Six upstate New York players made the A division at Pinberg including Tim Sexton, Steve Daniels, Jason Lord, Eric Russell, Dave Cohen, Howard, Jerry, and Zach (who finished 33rd)

    high confidence · Ron Hallett recounts regional player achievements

  • Steve Daniels finished 67 points in A division at Pinberg

    high confidence · Steve states his final score during tournament recap

  • 8-Ball Deluxe playfields are available for purchase at $800-$850

    high confidence · Steve Daniels discussing whether to replace the overlay playfield on his 1981 8-Ball Deluxe

  • Surf and Safari is a well-designed game despite appearing to be rushed in development, with five or six major shots and gameplay depth even with skill shot and outlanes disabled

    medium confidence · Steve Daniels' opinion on the game based on his eight months of ownership

  • Ron experienced five consecutive house balls on Monaco without touching the ball or flippers

    high confidence · Ron describes his tournament experience at Pinberg in detail

  • Kevin Manning and Andy Cushman made the Pinberg playoffs

Notable Quotes

  • “I actually got rid of it because I probably wasn't that good at pinball. That helps. And the gopers taunting me made me mad”

    Steve Daniels@ 6:13 — Humorous self-deprecation about why he sold his first machine, No Good Gophers

  • “I totally recognize that it's very likely that they designed it in five seconds and rushed it out the door and put the software on it in, you know, two minutes, and it just happened to be really good.”

    Steve Daniels@ 8:24 — Steve's assessment of how Surf and Safari's quality may have been accidental despite rushed development

  • “Fifth ball, I actually slightly got a flipper on as it was draining down the middle with a slap save attempt.”

    Ron Hallett@ 21:09 — Ron describing his remarkable five consecutive house balls on Monaco at Pinberg

  • “I was surprised at how poor the games played...the games I had to play they probably played poorer than any other games I played.”

    Zach (paraphrased by Ron)@ 28:49 — Zach's criticism of the finals bank games at Pinberg despite finishing 33rd in A division

  • “That was the fifth one in a row. I'm like, congratulations. Congratulations. That's never happened to me before.”

    Steve Daniels@ 21:29 — Steve's response to Ron's extraordinary house ball streak on Monaco

  • “Upstate rules. We kicked ass.”

    Ron Hallett@ 27:15 — Ron celebrating upstate New York's strong showing at Pinberg

  • “Just hated all the games. Yes. Wow. I was very impressed with his play.”

    Bruce Nightingale@ 28:29 — Bruce noting Zach's success came from disliking games at Pinberg

Entities

Steve DanielspersonRon HallettpersonBruce NightingalepersonPinball CooporganizationPinbergeventReplayFXvenueNew England Pinball LeagueorganizationZach SharpepersonJason Lordperson

Signals

  • ?

    event_signal: Pinberg tournament hosted 800 registered players (796 competed), significant regional representation from upstate New York with six A-division finishers and several playoff participants

    high · Multiple sources confirm attendance numbers, Ron lists specific players from upstate making A division

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Upstate New York players achieved notable results: two 12-0s (Jason Lord round 2, Eric Russell round 4), six A-division finishers, Zach finished 33rd in first Pinberg, multiple playoff spots

    high · Ron's detailed accounting of regional achievements throughout podcast

  • ?

    venue_signal: Pinball Coop operates as shared clubhouse model with 15 machines, weekly league nights, and Tuesday repair nights for skill development

    high · Steve Daniels describes Coop's operation and philosophy during interview

  • ?

    collector_signal: Steve Daniels actively trades and buys machines, recently acquired Indianapolis 500 (last week), considering 8-Ball Deluxe playfield replacement ($800-850), has owned Surf and Safari for 8 months

    high · Steve's collection discussion and specific acquisition timeline

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Surf and Safari praised for depth despite apparent rushed development; competitive players disable skill shot and outlanes due to poor design; game still has five-six major shots and substantial gameplay

    medium · Steve's detailed analysis of Surf and Safari mechanics and design philosophy

Topics

Pinberg Tournament Performance and ResultsprimaryUpstate New York Pinball Community and PlayersprimarySteve Daniels' Pinball Collection and HistoryprimaryPinball Coop Organization and CommunityprimaryTournament Game-by-Game AnalysisprimarySpecific Game Design and Quality Discussion (Surf and Safari, 8-Ball Deluxe)secondaryCompetitive Tournament Format and RulessecondaryPinball Game Restoration and MaintenancesecondaryPodcast Community Challenges and Resultsmentioned

Sentiment

positive(0.78)— Hosts and guests express enthusiasm about Pinberg tournament experience and upstate New York community success. Humorous tone throughout with playful self-deprecation about tournament performance. Some frustration mentioned with specific games (Monaco house balls, Star Trek), but overall celebratory and community-focused. Steve is positive about his collection and game preferences despite acknowledging design flaws in some machines.

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.428

0:00
Hey, Beavis, we should, like, throw a party. Yeah, yeah, yeah! We could have, like, cake and stuff, and, like... No, you dumbass. We should have, like, a party with chicks. And, you know, a cup of ale. Yeah, that's not a good idea, but... Where'd you get these ideas? They come from my wiener. Oh, yeah?
0:30
Coming to you from beautiful upstate New York, this is the Slam Tilt Podcast, the show about all things pinball. I'm your host, Ron Hallett, here with my co-host, Bruce Nightingale. She's gone from suck to blow, Captain. That's right, because this is episode 54, the perennial Mel Brooks favorite, Spaceballs.
1:00
Spaceballs. It's MegaMade. She's gone from suck to blow. We ain't found shit. Yeah. Speaking of sucking and blowing, there's a lot of that at Pinberg. Yes, there was. We'll get into that. We have a guest. I asked him a couple weeks ago to come on to promote a tournament coming up in the future, and he is on with us tonight, the one and only Steve Daniels. Hey, guys. Welcome. How you doing, man?
1:30
Thanks. Thanks for having me. No, welcome, and thank you for coming on. Welcome to Spaceballs. Yeah, fantastic. Usually you guys are talking about movies I haven't seen, so I've seen this one. All right. Perfect. See? I've seen it too, Bruce. I know. All three of us watching and seeing the same movie. Who would have thunk? But before we get started, just a little tech note. Bruce is having some technical issues. Oh, my God, yeah. Yes, I am. No power. So he is on his cell phone, so we apologize for...
2:04

high confidence · Ron Hallett mentions their advancement in tournament

  • Zach finished 33rd in his first Pinberg tournament while making the A division top 48

    high confidence · Ron and Bruce discuss Zach's impressive first-time performance

  • “I think I'm going to leave. And he gets up and walks away.”

    Ron Hallett@ 29:36 — Ron describing Zach leaving the semifinals to depart early from Pinberg

    • Eric Russellperson
    Tim Sextonperson
    Dave Cohenperson
    Howardperson
    Jerryperson
    Kevin Manningperson
    Andy Cushmanperson
    Jeff Teolisperson
    Pinball Profilemedia
    Attack from Marsgame
    Surf and Safarigame
    8-Ball Deluxegame
    Pinball Wizardvenue
    ?

    operational_signal: Pinberg uses point-based A/B division system with tiebreakers, high A-division entry threshold (players barely over 500 points made A), Swiss-style tournament format with multiple rounds

    medium · Discussion of Ron's surprise at making A division with 33 starting seed, point threshold details

  • ?

    community_signal: Slam Tilt podcast hosts challenged other community figures (Pinball Princess, Jeff Teolis from Pinball Profile) to matches at Pinberg, indicating inter-podcast community engagement

    high · Ron and Bruce describe challenges and results (Bruce 3-0 vs Jeff, Ron 3-1 vs Jeff)

  • ?

    restoration_signal: 8-Ball Deluxe playfield overlays deteriorate over time; authentic playfields available aftermarket for $800-850; used overlays may sell for couple hundred dollars

    high · Steve's detailed discussion of his 8-Ball Deluxe condition and playfield replacement decision

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Steve's initial dismissal of Surf and Safari (planned to trade within 8 months) shifted to positive appreciation; recognizes quality despite believing it was accidental in design

    medium · Steve's statement about initial plans to move game on, but now enjoys it after continued play

  • ?

    content_signal: Slam Tilt Podcast providing detailed tournament recap coverage, comparing podcast hosts' competitive performance (Slam Tilt finished best among podcasts per their claim)

    medium · Hosts' discussion of tournament performance claims and competitive results versus other podcast participants

    • The crudeness. The crudeness, but not the rudeness. I'm sure that will follow. No, that rudeness will never go away. So let's first ask Steve, how did you get into this hobby? Tell us a little bit about yourself. All right, so I played pinball in college. I really started getting into playing it then. and I probably played a little bit before that, but I got, I wouldn't say semi-serious, but let's, you know, I was playing it all the time, let's put it that way, in college. So I got what I thought was good at the time,
    2:37
    you know, I could get replays, leave credits on games, and that was, like, obviously a big distinguisher between that and video games. So, and where I was, this was at UMass back in the early 90s, there was a ton of pinball machines all over the place. Like, even for the time, there were just a lot. Like, there was a big arcade. There were smaller places with a couple games here and there. There were a bunch of places with one game. I was just playing all of them. Like, any time I wanted, I could play pinball when I was in college. So, really good.
    3:08
    And then, you know, leave college. Things kind of disappear. I moved up to Vermont. So, not a ton of pinball. And then all of a sudden, I have a friend who, it turned out, had pinball machines in his basement. and I knew him for a couple years before I knew that about him. And then, you know, I was into pinball, so I, of course, was, you know, when he invited me over to play, I was like, yeah. And, you know, Light Dawns, well, first of all, okay, they're still making these things. We had, I think, a Lord of the Rings and maybe a Shadow at the time.
    3:38
    And, like, you know, even Shadow was kind of newer than maybe when I stopped playing pinball, and Lord of the Rings definitely was. And so, you know, the light's breaking and, you know, the light bulb's going off, and I'm thinking, oh, my God, I could maybe have one of these. And even at that point, this is like maybe 10, 12 years ago at this point, it still was a little while before I started buying games. But I was content to hang out with him. We had a little league going on. And then just down the road eventually, with his encouragement of helping me repair things
    4:09
    and figure out how to repair things, I bought my first game, and it was a situation where I was just like, I would buy one game and then have it, and then trade it for something else, trade it with maybe cash and did that a bunch of times. Eventually had two games and it started getting bigger and bigger and next thing you know, pinballcoop.com. So we have this clubhouse up here. If you guys have heard of the Sanctum in Connecticut, it's like a half scale version of that. I guess you could think of it that way. So we have about
    4:40
    well, we have 15 machines, one pitch and bat. So 15 pins, one pitch and bat. And it's like three or four people's collections all together. half of the games are mine, half of the pins are mine anyway. And, yeah, we have all that stuff together. We have league night once a week, whether it's New England Pinball League or in the New England Pinball League offseason, which is half the time, we have generally like a team pinball league, or we've done some other formats. So we're always doing that. And as I told Bruce before the call, Tuesday nights are repair nights.
    5:12
    So, like, that's the time when the machines get all the attention, and that's when people can come and hang out and learn how to repair machines. That's the co-op part of the co-op, pretty much. That's cool. What was your first machine? My first machine was a No Good Gophers. Prior to buying it, maybe five months before that, I had spent two weeks in North Dakota in the middle of winter working, and I played that machine at lunchtime,
    5:43
    and I had never played it before that point. This is like maybe year 2000, something like that. So I played the crap out of that game on location, and it made an impression on me. And so that was one that Gary, my friend, had connections with an operator, and that was one of the games that he had. I was like, yeah, I don't need to hear any other games that you have. I'll just take that. So I bought that one, played the crap out of it. I actually got rid of it because I probably wasn't that good at pinball.
    6:17
    That helps. And the gopers taunting me made me mad, and eventually I got sick of that because I couldn't, like, I mean, I could do fine in the game, but I couldn't, like, just play it forever, basically. So I have nothing. So how many games do you own right now? You know, you say you own half of the co-op, so at least that's seven, right? Yeah. So I own eight of the games at the co-op, I think, or maybe seven. Hard to say And I own Two games out
    6:48
    That are not currently in the co-op Okay List them off, big boy Oh, alright So here's the order that they are on Pinside So I'm not going to build up to anything Attack from Mars That's my favorite game Uh-oh, you were going to ask that Shadow Space Shuttle That's one that's not in the co-op Space Shuttle It's at home Metallica Pro ACDC Premium Indianapolis 500 I actually own 11 games I bought that one last week
    7:20
    Harlem Globetrotters on tour Mustang Pro Surf and Safari Iron Man and 8-Paw Deluxe Bruce and I have talked about Surf and Safari That's very nice to just do that Even why I had to play that effing game at freaking Pinberg It looked like it played well Yeah, I agree, it played well I played it after Pinberg, I like it It's a cool game There's enough going on That even though at Pinberg
    7:51
    Or, you know, the replay People have stripped out a couple main features Of the game, as have I Because they're terrible features competitively There's no skill shot and the outlanes are disabled There's no switches Even though you've taken out these two giant things There's still a ton of stuff to do in the game With the five or six major shots in the game It's very cool. I'm happy to talk about Surf and Safari all day, and I defend it. I got this, like, maybe eight months ago, and I really had planned to move it on by now because I figured I'd be sick of it. But the more I play it, you know, I really enjoy it.
    8:23
    I think it's cool. And I also totally recognize that it's very likely that they designed it in five seconds and rushed it out the door and put the software on it in, you know, two minutes, and it just happened to be really good. Like, they weren't revising and revising it. It just happened that their first attempt at doing this thing was, like, great. So just based on the fact that other games of that vintage feel kind of rushed and not balanced and cheesy and awful and unpleasant, then I wouldn't want to own them for very long.
    8:54
    Sorry to insult people who are thinking, oh, he has a surfing Ferrari, he must like my victory. Well, no, I don't really like your victory very much. But there's some other cool golly games. I'm about to buy a Hoops. Hoops is good Yeah you guys Thanks for doing that commentary While I was playing that It's fantastic That was the second game With hoops in my life It's a good game You played great Yeah Well you know I've just been I'm sorry to Pat myself on the shoulder here But I've been Doing a lot of reading up on it
    9:25
    Because Not because of that tournament Because I was about to buy one And watching competitive videos Of the word And all that kind of stuff So Yeah I was ready for it Even though I hadn't really played it before. Hoops is slam-tilt-approved. Slam-tilt-approved. Yes, it is. Did I go through all of them? I did, because I finished with 8-ball deluxe, which we're going to maybe talk about. Let's talk about it now. We've got an 8-ball deluxe, and you said you've never played it? Yeah. That's blasphemy. I think I might have played one ball on it. It's at a friend's house.
    9:56
    When I bought it, it's in really great shape cosmetically. It was restored like six years ago. That's how it was explained to me, and I believe it. The cabinet is perfect. It's been re-centered, and it's as good or better than I would want a cabinet to be, so it's really nice. Back glass is great, maybe one little spot. Playfield is very good, but it's an overlay. And so I know now that playfields are available,
    10:27
    and I'm wondering if I should spend the $800 or $850 to get it here and buy a new playfield. It's too bad that I haven't played the game, because if I played it with the overlay and was like, yeah, it's a little bit off, then it would be pretty easy to buy the playfield-ish. You know, easy as spending $800 is. But I'm just wondering what you guys think in terms of whether you're going to encourage me or discourage me from doing that. Like, I think Ape All Deluxe is a keeper, but I haven't even, you know, and I really like the game.
    10:58
    And it's an 81. It's a nice, you know, the one that you want. It's in super good shape except for the play field, which I might be fine with. You know, I might be fine with the overlay. I don't even know. So I want to do this before I can't get one anymore, basically, or not do it and not think about it anymore. Bruce, tell me what to do. Keeping in mind that I might need to buy a new couch. Well, Bruce, he's the one who thinks that the LE is the best cabinet, so he's kind of crazy. No, it isn't. It's pretty ugly, but I still wouldn't.
    11:30
    I had been looking for an E-Fall Deluxe for a while, and I certainly would have bought it. Would have bought an LE if that had been the one. It just would have had to have been appropriately discounted, and that would have been fine. No, buy it because you can always sell it on the play field. They're always in good hands. What do you think I could sell the used one for? That's, I guess, what I'm wondering. A couple hundred? Maybe. All right. Maybe. Depends on how bad it is or how good it is. You know, that's the thing. You can always sell. You'll always get some money for it. I mean, the overlay that went on, I say six years ago,
    12:02
    but it feels like the guy had played it, like, you know, 20 times because everything's in, you know, really nice shape. Then you'll get a little more for it, but you'll get some money for it easily because there's always going to be a blown-out 8-ball deluxe. Yeah, okay. That's good. I'm still going to sleep on it, but I know this podcast is going to come out, and then people will be like, oh, you can get your Files of Luck play field, and then there won't be any, which is totally fine. It's totally fine, Internet. I totally understand that if you buy it and I don't get one, it's my own fault. It's important.
    12:32
    Yes. Fire. All right. So we got all the way through my collection. I think that was 11. That's cool. Yeah. And what did you do this past weekend, Steve? I don't know. We were just. I don't know. My feet hurt really bad, so I must have done something. You must have stood for, what, like 40 games worth at least of pool? Oh, my goodness. Yeah, I played. I was at ReplayFX, and I played the Pinberg tournament, and I had an awesome time. Yes, and we did, too. We did? Pinberg, what's that?
    13:03
    What's that? 800 players. Okay, tell me why there were 796. Does anyone know? Dropouts. people who like said who showed up and then they dropped out in like round two or something? Yep, you can drop out, some people left, some people you know. And if you don't play through probably round five or six then you don't get counted as being in the tournament, right? Halfway. Okay. But you know, the reason that I'm concerned is that or you know, I was asking is because I actually had a friend who flew down there from
    13:34
    Vermont who did not, who was like deep in the wait list and was taking a chance and he didn't get in and And so I'm looking at that 796 number like, hmm, why not Alex? So that's why. And it makes sense. I think they dropped out after the first day. Yeah. I believe that's what happened. They just didn't show up the next day. Okay. Maybe they were not happy with their placement. So you're telling me round one there definitely were 800 players.
    14:04
    Yes, there was. There had to be. It was 800, yes. Okay. Mr. Josh Sharp also asked me, just before the tournament started, he said, so what's the bet between you and Ron? I said, there was no bet. He goes, oh, I should have bet. You should have bet. I should have bet. You should have bet because you beat me. Yeah, how'd you do, Bruce? I don't even know. I finished 67 points in A. So I was right behind you, Steve, because you finished a little ahead of me. Did I have 68? You had 68.
    14:35
    Okay. Congratulations. We both did very well. Yeah, I started, I might have started below you. I was at the very bottom of A, 33. That number I remember. I started off with 33 also. No, we were tied, so you got one better than me. So, yeah, I had a better day in the A division than I did against the public at large, which is, you know, that's pretty good. Listening to some of the podcasts, I found that we did the best we're on out of all the podcasts. We did? We did.
    15:06
    Just proves that we are superior players, brother. And that automatically makes a superior podcast, as everybody knows. Of course, yeah. Of course it does. Everybody knows. Oh, yeah. I finished in, I ended up in B. Ah. That was okay. That was cool with that. Mm-hmm. Then I finished, my final record was one better than last year, 62 and 58. There you go. Way too many zeros. So what was your high games?
    15:38
    What was your highest score in any of the rounds, Steve? I had a 10 in round two or three on day two, I think. Oh, my God. I probably should look. Ron, how was your best round? Nine or ten, I think. Good. Mine was an eight. Congratulations. But, no, the best thing was I never went below a five. I either had an 8, 7, 6, or 5. I was the mediocre man.
    16:09
    Consistently mediocre is better than what I did. Ron, are you saying that you had zero rounds or zero games? I had zero games. No, I didn't have any zero rounds. That would be bad. Avoid that. Yeah, but what I would do is I'd have, like, I had two wins that round. Oh, great. What did you have? Six? Because I had two wins and two less. Yeah, zeroes, yeah. I did that a lot. What was your lowest round, Ron? My lowest round? What was my lowest round?
    16:41
    I don't know. As you see, I really keep track of my score. Fail. D, what was your lowest round? I had two fours on day one, but I also had a seven, a nine, a nine, and a nine. Yeah, so it balanced out. and you didn't have to be too far over 500 to get into A this year with the huge A division because of the tiebreakers. So I really thought after it was all done that I was going to be at the top or the middle-ish of middle top of B,
    17:13
    and then it was very shocking to find that I had been in A. I was fine with it. I just knew that it was going to be very difficult, and if I was lucky, my prediction was that I would do well, get up, and then get beaten way down like it's gone when I've been in the A Division in the past. And that's my experience in the A Division. And, you know, I would have to jump up to go from the 194 seed where I started 40th. And I made it all the way down to 55, and then I trailed off a little and ended at like 81, I think.
    17:45
    Still a great play. Okay, Bruce, answer your question. Four. That's the lowest I had. Okay, so it worked out well. Cruz, what was your lowest? You said five. Five. Wow, that's really hard to do. Yeah, my lowest was a five, and I had two fives. I had two sixes, and then the rest were eights and sevens. I should have had more on a couple rounds. I got to play the good 60 bank. Bank 60? Bank 60.
    18:16
    Metallica. And the ground. Hoops. And target pool. Target pool. I took a three target pool. I took a two in hoops. I took a three in embryon. So I'm going to Metallica. Last game. I get a zero. Wow. Yeah. That Metallica set up hard, right? It was hard, but. Well, it sounds like you own a Metallica. No, no, no. I don't. Oh, maybe I do. Oh, that's right. You do. Yeah, you suck.
    18:46
    I suck big balls. But I left some points there. And then Stratoflight killed me. That fucking piece of shit. Four house balls. on five ball games. But Ron has one even better. Oh, I have even better. Yeah. Here's my story. And let's see. What round was this? This was... Round seven. If I remember correctly. Just before lunch. Yeah, it could be. It doesn't really list the games here. So, yeah. Yeah, this is probably...
    19:17
    Actually, no. It couldn't have been round seven because now she's not in there. Maybe eight. It's whatever one had High Roller Casino in it. No, it wasn't that. It wasn't that one. That was the other one. No, that High Roller. You're talking about Monaco. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. You're talking about Monaco. High Roller Casino. Yeah, but that wasn't High Roller Casino. Yeah, it was. No, it wasn't. Not High Roller Casino. Jesus Christ. Thank you. Whatever. Roller Coaster Tycoon. There you go. Monaco, Whirlwind, Solar Ride. Yes. Yes, that one. Solar Ride. Oh, my God. Yeah, I don't need to play that thing.
    19:48
    No, me neither. It won't be my game to hate, but it's only because I haven't played it enough. Yeah, I took a zero on that. I took a zero on Monaco, which I like Monaco. It's like a Sonic game. Hit left side, hit a spinner. Right side, hit a collect. Very simple. Top, there's lanes that give you bonus. And I actually got like 300,000. And then everyone else had 500,000 or above. Well, why is that? The 300,000 was impressive. because I never hit the ball.
    20:22
    I've never had that happen. Five house balls. I've never had that happen. All right, I'm sorry. I just laughed. No, laughing is good. Laughing is good. If you can laugh at it, maybe I will. I plunged the ball. Yeah, I did. It goes through the lanes, right out lane. Like, okay, house ball, whatever. Next ball. And I'm plunging different each time because there's like two or three lanes, so I'm trying to plunge a little differently, you know, figuring, changing trajectory, whatever. Second ball does the same thing. Comes out right out lane.
    20:52
    Like, okay. Third one. It was right down the middle this time. Like, okay, starting to not be funny. And then the fourth one, right out lane again. Like, okay. And then I walked over. This isn't funny anymore. Just on his fifth ball. Yeah. The fifth ball, I actually slightly got a flipper on as it was draining down the middle with a slap save attempt. All right, down to health ball then, technically. Technically, I barely raised that one. I'll give it to you.
    21:23
    Yeah. And he turned around at me, and there I am looking at him. He goes, you're not going to believe it. That was the fifth one in a row. I'm like, congratulations. Congratulations. That's never happened to me before. Excellent. Another zero. I think that was another one of my zero-zero win-wins. I won, where did I win? I won High Roller Casino. and what was the other solid state game? What was it? You're talking about in that bank? Yeah. So that was Rolex Coast Tycoon
    21:54
    and Whirlwind. Whirlwind. Whirlwind is the one I won. Oh yes, right. I won that on the third ball getting the jackpot. Yes. That was sweet. Unfortunately, if you take two zeros then, ouch. Bum, bum, ba-dum. Duh! Yeah, that's an unfortunate... What about your high watermark? Was there any game that you really blew up? Well, let's see. I had my... I don't know what the score was, but I had definitely my best game of Creature from the Black Lagoon.
    22:28
    So I don't think I ever even got a jackpot on it in competition ever. So that was exciting. And I won the game. So that was good. Let's see. What other ones? Oh, the Ali game I had was good. I had a very good Ali game. And I won Motor Show. As Tim would say, Motor Show. That's like basically full throttle, right? Like there's no difference? Yeah, kind of. Because it took me, I had to step up to it. Like, how do flipper buttons work?
    22:59
    Because they're not like regular buttons. They're kind of like. You have to squeeze them from the side. Yeah, they're built in. With your pointer finger, almost. So it's weird. You fingered it with your middle finger. Yeah. I should just try to tap pass on that one. That's pretty advanced. Yeah, that would be. Very advanced. Extremely advanced. See, I'm looking at the gains list here. I know ones that I hate, but we'll save those. Man, there's so many on here that I hate now.
    23:30
    So much to hate. I'm going to have material for our... You have material for months. For months of guests now. I have to, yeah. All the games, the two I did best was Preacher. I got the super jackpot, and I still lost. Shoot. Wow. And Target Pool. I go in with 6,000 on Target Pool. People just turn around when I've done the game, and I turn around, and they're all looking at me like, really? Bruce, let's make sure that you're playing Target Pool correctly. Like, what's the most important thing in Target Pool?
    24:01
    The top three in lanes. Okay, you're fine. Because you get the top three in lanes, and you get what? Like 1,000. You got the 100. The 100. Oh, it's just a 100 pop-up. Yeah, whatever it is. But then you get the next ball. You get on the third ball, and then the fourth and fifth ball, you're aiming for that middle target. So, just go up, down, up, down, up, down. And that never happened? Or did you get two out of three at least? Oh, I got both fourth and fifth ball. That's why I got 6,000. Oh. People just turn around and say the fifth ball, and I walked away, and they're all going to look at me like, and they had like 32, 33, 35.
    24:34
    I'm like, yep, sorry. Great game. Yeah. Yeah, I don't want to brag or anything, but I had like almost 9K on that at Poffa. Just saying. Okay, yeah. But when you were playing against other people, that's more important. Oh, that's more important. Okay. So, Steve, what were your best games there that you... Well, you reminded me because I was going to... I'll give you two. And when you talked about Target Pool, you started... You reminded me about my second one that I'll tell you about. But the first one is Lil' Chief.
    25:05
    Or little to. That's just your basic EM. EMs? Yeah, and you want to find the left orbit and then the center lane and then build the bonus to the max, get the double bonus, and collect it. And I did that a lot, and I rolled that thing, and I got 170,000, 169,000 or something. Nice. And it was, like, right from the get-go one of those things where, A, I'm hitting the left orbit and not coming close to missing. I'm just drilling it every time on a rolling standstill.
    25:39
    It didn't matter. It felt great. And then the other thing was it never really wanted to stick on the left flipper, making me have a bad decision. Like, the game was giving me the ball on the flipper that I wanted at any point. So it was, like, super, super comfortable. And, like, that was one. I think eventually an opponent, one of my opponents got, like, $110,000, but they didn't get there until ball five, so I was pretty comfortable the whole time. I won the second game. And the second game was a revenge game for me, and this is revenge against the game and not people, but I had played the Card Whiz maybe three years ago at Pinnberg,
    26:17
    and Ron said four house balls. I can't beat that, but it was three house. No, Ron said five, four house balls. Like, didn't touch the ball, which that game is kind of standard for doing that, but I also did on my, you know, of my own accord, I never, like, plunged a lane that you want the jokers. I could never do anything, and I was trying different plunges. So this one, I'm plunging the middle joker. I plunged the middle joker four times, which lights the 3,000 lane on the left, and then that's motivation for, like, going back up there and getting more jokers. I just, I, like, torched that thing, at least relative to what everyone else in my group was getting.
    26:50
    And I want to say I got, like, 60 or 70,000, which is, you know, like my house ball game was maybe 7,500 or something like that. So I felt good about that. It was a win. So, like, that was, yeah, two EM highlights. That's good. That's a very good thing. I can only think of lowlights. It's that bad. Well, we had a lot of good things for our upstate New York guys, didn't we, Mr. Ron? Upstate rules. We kicked ass. We actually did kick ass this year with two 12-0s within our group.
    27:22
    Jason Lord got a 12-0 in round two. And Eric, I think, got it in round four, but I'm not going to – you'll probably quote me saying I was wrong, but he got also a 12-0. So two 12-0s in our group, and we had six players make A, which was Tim Sexton, myself, Jason Plourd, Eric Russell, Dave Cohen, and I think I'm missing one, but I don't have a computer in front of me since I'm on my phone, so it's kind of hard. Howard made it.
    27:53
    Howard made it from upstate. Yes, he did. And so did Jerry. Yep. So we did a good showing for Upstate. And we had a couple people make the finals, including Kevin Manning. He made the playoffs, and so did Andy Cushman. And who else did? And Zach. Can't forget Zach. First Pinberg. That's right. Zach made A. We forgot about Zach. Zach made A. And Zach made the top 48 in A.
    28:24
    I think he said the secret was he just hated all the games. Yes. Wow. Hated all the games and didn't care. Yep. I was very impressed with his play. I think he might have too high of an expectation or something. He's just like, you know. He had a post on Facebook that literally said, like, I was surprised at how poor the games played. And he was in the finals bank, and he's like, and I was in the finals bank, and the games I had to play They probably played poorer than any other games I played.
    28:55
    I was surprised. Like, wow, dude. That's our Zach. Yeah, yeah. But he finished 33rd. Shown that down a little bit there. He finished 33rd in his first Pinnberg ever. So what are the odds that he comes back, like, next year and doesn't make the finals? Like, is he good enough to be consistently making those top plays? He's good enough. Because, you know, you hope that you enjoy it enough. I don't think he enjoyed it at all. I think he did.
    29:25
    He just does his way of enjoying it. Okay, that's reasonable. I don't know. You can't, well. Then when he left, he was just like, I'm leaving, bye. He's gone. We're sitting there watching the semifinals. He turns to us and goes, I think I'm going to leave. And he gets up and walks away. And Ron's like, bye. That's our Zach. Oh, that's fine. We did have two challenges this weekend also. We did. We had challenges to the Slamtail podcast.
    29:57
    And somebody didn't put their best foot forward on the first match. I did. I just lost. I sucked. But in the weird rules of Bruce Land, it was like a half win or something. It was a half win because the person, who is the pinball princess, did not beat both of us. She beat me. She beat Ron three to one? Yeah. Three to one. Yeah. Well, I was victorious against her, 3-0. So she took the half win.
    30:28
    And then we played, then that night, we played Jeff Teolis. From Pinball Profile. Yes, from Pinball Profile. Hi, Jeff. And plus from the broadcast also. We'll get into that. We'll get into the broadcast. I'm sure Bruce will want to talk about that. Oh, yes. And I was victorious against Jeff, 3-0, and Ron was 3-1. Yeah, I had to play the horrifically bad Star Trek. Dated East Star Trek. Yeah, where it looks like multiball wasn't the right idea.
    31:02
    No, it never is. Just hit the ramps. Mystery Wars. Well, you hit the two ramps enough, and you get some kind of like hit the target mode where every hit on the target is worth a shitload of points. You're not talking about video mode. It doesn't sound like it. That's also a good one. It is very good. Well, the video mode would have been difficult with the monitor the way it was. Yeah, they're just like a spider. That's really funny. I think I've seen that exact phenomenon on the last DB Star Trek I played. That was at Pinball Wizard. Yeah. So that game really sucks.
    31:34
    It sure does. That's not the one I'm going to say, but that'll be followed away, because I don't think I've said that one. That's the last part they ever played that one. You're running out of games to hate. I feel like... Oh, no, no. I think Pinberg is going to reload it. It's definitely going to reload it. There were a couple of interesting little, I don't know, controversies or things that happened at Pinnberg. There's two discussions I've seen that have come up since. One is Hobbit.
    32:04
    Well, yeah, that one, okay. That was more of a controversy between like five or six players who got screwed by it. Yeah. Yeah, basically Hobbit was doing the deal, and I think I've seen this. I thought Jersey Jack had a fix for this, where you hit the ramp, When the ball comes back, it just flies off like the last habit trail, just drains. And you don't get it back. Even with the fix, it apparently still can have a problem, especially if you move the game, you know, you get it leveled in the back a little bit incorrectly or whatever. I guess it happened, but they put it in finals.
    32:38
    It happened, like, during regular play, but they put it in the finals, and it screwed a couple players, and they were like... The consensus was among a bunch of the top players. They really should have just taken it out. Wasn't it the game that was used for the tiebreaker to get into A? Yep. Yeah, it was. See, I didn't see it. I just had heard that. And then that makes you kind of cringe because then you think. No, it wasn't used for the tiebreaker to get in A. It was used for one of the. No, it wasn't. The game you get into A was Stargazer. Oh, yeah. No, Quicksilver.
    33:09
    Quicksilver, I mean. No, it was used for the tiebreaker to get into the finals of A. Yeah, finals of A. Okay, there we go. But yes. Yikes. Yeah, yikes. So that was one of the controversies. That was one of the controversies. Another one I almost want to say for Tim, but I think he's gotten over it. He seems to have gotten over it. Oh, he's all good. The final round. Yeah. The collusion. But, yeah, the collusion rule. Well, first, there's a lot of talk about the whole sandbagging thing.
    33:39
    Yes. And I call it the round five sandbagging conundrum. Yes. Conundrum, sorry. I said that wrong. Where, just to explain how this works, depending on how many points you have, you get into whatever division you're going to get in. Unless you have restrictions, like we talked about in the last episode, I was restricted to B. I was restricted to C. And were you, Steve, restricted to anything? Yeah, I was restricted to B based on my world ranking. Thank you very much. Congratulations. Thank you very much. Thanks.
    34:10
    So there's always going to be talk about the whole sandbagging thing. And typically it's the same scenario where you're in A and you don't want to be at the bottom of A. You want to be at the top of B. So you tank the last round to try to get the top of B. That's the most common use of it. I think I've said in a podcast before, I was in a group once that that happened. I think it was the last year it was at the actual pop-up facility where the person, like, they played the first two games,
    34:43
    they played regular, and then when they saw their point count, it was they tilted their last six balls. So their last two games. And so they took zeros, but they still had too many points and ended up at the bottom of A. Yeah, whoops. Isn't that great? I see that person every year. It's like a regular. Some people want, you know, playoffs is more important to them than the ultimate finishing position world rankings and bragging rights, I guess. I like the bragging.
    35:13
    Yeah, don't you want to face the best? No, I want a chance to win actual money. The only way I can think of that they could ever get rid of the sandbagging is you declare divisions. There's four separate tournaments, you know, like Pinberg A, B, C, and D. That would be four separate tournaments. Yeah, and that's just the only way they could do it, really. There no way you ever going to get rid of sandbagging period But then we get to the other one Woo you got power You got power Nice All right Well once you charge it up we can reconnect here and get you back in the headset
    35:49
    No, I'm fine. I'm fine right now. All right, so. At least I'll have Wi-Fi in a few seconds, so that'll be good. So, round 10 is the collusion round. The collusion round. There was two issues with this. and the fact that they did this. We'll explain what they did. But it was never announced that they were going to do this. And people literally found out when the groupings were posted for round 10 that this had happened.
    36:20
    And there were many people who were... A couple people questioned it. Yeah, yeah. They were people who weren't happy. And here's the deal. The way it usually works, round 10, you get paired with people at the same amount of points as you, which is supposed to promote and should promote, you know, cool, exciting, you know, down-to-the-wire matches. And beatdowns. Yeah, and it has. You're in a group with, like, you all have the same point total, and you need so many points to get into the finals,
    36:51
    and maybe only one or two of you is going to make it. You know, and it's a battle. and I guess they had an instance last year of attempted collusion which was they had a group of four people one of the person people and it was a situation where if they all got a six because that's the amount of points you get they would all make the finals. So one of the people was like hey if we all get a six we're all in the finals and we can drop we can make this happen
    37:23
    if you know what I mean. and the other players were like, uh... So they reported him to the tournament director and the dude got booted. Yep. As he should. So that's not collusion, that's attempted collusion. Yeah, that's attempted collusion, but I guess they felt there were other instances where it probably did happen. Where the other three people didn't say, like, we're reporting you, they were like, oh, yeah, you're right. I had heard that there was that attempt that the guy got booted and that there was also at least one incident that actually happened in addition to that.
    37:56
    I don't know the details. I just read that. Yep. So their solution to this issue was to group, do the final grouping where they would have, for example, say I'm trying to get into eight finals. Say I have, like, I don't know, 70 points. So someone else in my group would have, say, 70 points or 69, close. then someone else would be in the group that's already made it.
    38:27
    And then the fourth person in the group would be someone that has no chance. So, for example, say the Slamtail podcast is really kicking ass and me and Bruce are neck and neck. We've both got like 70 and we're in the same group. And then also in this group is Keith Elwin who has like 80. You know, he's already like he's the number one seed. And he's Keith Elwin. So he's not going to tank for any reason. He's going to try to win every game. And then you've got some, say we have Jeff Teolis.
    38:58
    He's in there, but he's got like, I don't know, 65. He's really, he's got no shot. So it's between me and Bruce, but however, we have one player who doesn't care because he can't make it, and then we have Keith Elwin in the group. And say we need a big total. Say we need like, one of us needs a 7 or 8 or 9 to get in. Well, it's not going to happen now. It's very unlikely it's going to happen now. Let's put it that way. Yeah. And that was the, people were upset over that. So that was.
    39:29
    Upsetting to some players. Your main pinball controversy. But luckily, no one listens to pinball podcasts talking about tournaments, a.k.a. Hi, Steve. The only complaints I've seen about that have been very respectful and said, recognizing all the moving parts and the reasons for everything. The argument really against it, the biggest one is that it wasn't announced ahead of time. That's the biggest one. That's the worst impression.
    39:59
    Then it could have been at least discussed, and we would have been having this discussion before and not after if anyone had thought of it. Which Tim would have, because I know Tim watches everything. Yeah, well, actually, when I look back, and I don't really pay attention to totals, as is obvious listening to this podcast. And that's a total shoot. When I said the other podcast, I don't look at my total. People kept asking me, like, what do you have, Ron? Like, I don't know. Like, the last round, I needed an eight to get into the B playoff to get into,
    40:31
    well, a one-game playoff to get into B playoffs. If that makes any sense. Nine would have been guaranteed in the B playoffs. I had no idea. I had no idea what I needed. I just go by the 10 rule. you want to be plussed. You always want to be plussed. So if you have seven, you're plus one. If you have eight, you're plus two. You never want to go below. Which he keeps calling it the golf thing, which confuses me as an actual golfer because plus would not be good. No, it's under. Yeah, under. So Tim was upset because he kind of got,
    41:04
    he ended up in a group with Josh Sharp. Yeah. Who ended up getting a 12 and getting a medallion in his group. And Tim got, I believe, a two. when he needed, like, I think a five or six to get in or something like that. He was not a happy camper. No, he wasn't. I talked to him right after that, and, yeah, that's accurate. So did we. Well, no, I avoided him, like the plague. Because when he walks away saying, like, I can't fucking play pinball, like, whoa, okay, we're going to just scooch over to the side here.
    41:36
    We're going to give you your space. You know, I know it's A Division and everything, but if Keith Allen's in your group and you need a, what do you need, five? Yeah, it was Josh, but yeah, it was yes. Okay. But I'm just saying, you know, eight points are available when I'm playing Keith Elwin on games I can't possibly beat him on. Like, there's still eight points out there for me. Zach played him twice, and he hung with him pretty good both times. Five and six, I think. So that's pretty good, you know, for the first time ever. Yeah. I don't know if Tim's going to be on our podcast anymore, man.
    42:07
    I mean, you see him Saturday. Saturday, he's hanging out with all these, you know, A Division bigwigs. He's out there after the finals. He's not playing with us. He's playing with, like, Carl D'Angelo and Jim Belcido and Raymond Davidson. Yeah, they're playing dollar games on Walking Dead, doing this whole Walker thing. How many Walkers can you kill in a game? How many Walkers can you kill? And the person behind you had to pay the difference. Yep. If they're a plus, they didn't have to pay. You paid them. If they're a minus, you had to pay them.
    42:37
    And I turn to Tim after he's playing, and I go, Tim. Because Carl's like, come on, Bruce, come on in. And Tim Pilsen is like, come on in. And I look at him, and I go, well, hold on. Tim's my numbers person in the podcast. And I turn to Tim, and I go, Tim, is this the right thing? He goes, no, I'm losing money already. I'm like, nope, done. I'll watch the carnage and the fun. If you look around the room and you don't see a sucker, it's because you're the sucker. Yep. Yeah, that's the truth. the old 1940s comic, you know, the cartoon.
    43:09
    You know, they're in with the sucker, you know, thing on my head. You know, no, I knew better. But it was fun watching the guys because those were freaking hilarious. And it was fun hanging out with them all in the back area while we were watching the semifinals and the finals and the matches. We were BSing and having a good old time. Yeah, Bruce got interviewed and everything. I did. Yeah. It's nice to know somebody on the staff. Yeah, we can get into that. One thing I found different. Do you guys remember when the finals finished last year? Wasn't it like around 5 or 6 o'clock or something like that?
    43:41
    Yeah. I don't know if you remember, Steve, like what time it was. I'm trying to remember. I was driving home. Who won last year? Josh. No, not Josh. Zach. Zing. Okay, Zach won last year. No, he didn't. Keith Elwin won last year. It was Keith. Oh, it was Keith Elwin last year. Zach was the year before. That's right. It was a stage. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, okay. It was a stage, and Carl got second. There was only a small overlap between when the Intergalactic opened and when the final day was. Yes. And it was much bigger this year. Yes.
    44:11
    I just remember it finishing and me being able to play a lot of games afterwards. This year, the A final, well, I don't know when C and D finished. They finished around the same time. C finished, Andy Rosa won. Andrew Rosa. No. The younger Mr. No, he won B. He won B, but that was like only like that was during the finals of A. Well, I was going to say, C and D were done. If it wasn't for the fact they were moving cameras between every match in the semifinal and finals,
    44:43
    B would have been the last people to finish. Exactly. They would have been. There was a tiebreaker even in B for the finals. There was a tiebreaker, which was. On Diner. And congratulations. And your Rosa. I played him. He played pretty good. But I did beat him successfully before that. So look at me. Yes, I made A. He made B. I beat his head on Motor Show. Oh, God. I lost train of thought there.
    45:13
    But it finished, like, at 10.30. The finals start at 10. That's over 12 hours. Of talk full of fun. That's too long. What would make it take so much longer this year, though? But those hours, that really tells you how important it is to be able to relax. Players like Kaylee and Keith Owen, who seem to be very chill, I don't know what their inner dialogue is like. It's probably just like, do-do-do-do, nothing, according to their facial expressions.
    45:44
    If you're relaxed the whole time and you're not just pumping on adrenaline and dumping, that exhausts you, and those players have a huge... I think that's part of the success that players like that have in the later round. Keith actually said why he picked to go first on the third game of the finals. Because he was bored. He was sick of waiting a half an hour. Yeah. There you go. Yeah. What hat was Keith wearing? Jaws.
    46:16
    Trolling, trolling, trolling, trolling, trolling. No, no, no. It's clearly going to be Serge's next game. No, it's not. Oh, come on. You don't think they're giving those out to all the employees ahead of the game being picked? Hey, everybody, don't wear these outside the building. I love this shirt, though. His shirt was funny. Is that what the theory is? I think that's the theory. Or is the theory that, I guess, you know, it's straight up trolling, but, you know, that's funny if that's what he's doing. It is funny. Yeah. I like his boom shirt.
    46:46
    Boom shirt was freaking hilarious. Instead of boom, it said boom. Yeah, but what made it take so much longer? It was like five or six hours longer than the previous final. It was a lot of... I think they were trying to do the video and everything like that. Between games, between rounds. Yeah, no, no. I don't buy that because they only did video in the semifinal and finals. And I'll give you that. That added a massive delay to that. But still... Okay, say it added an hour. Say it added two hours. It's still not close. Okay, I'm blaming the Jersey Jackpin Ball Machines.
    47:18
    Oh, Jesus Christ. You mean dial in that was flawless the whole show? It was flawless. That actually was a compliment to that rules and the layout and everything. It really went well on that game. Man, it's almost like I wish I was getting one. I know. I wish you were. So you guys are both getting one of those, or what's happening? Ron's already coming in a week or two. Yep. Bruce, are you getting one? I am getting one, but it's going to be a lot longer. Oh, my goodness. It's on my radar, but it is ready.
    47:50
    It's a lot of money. My gosh. It plays so well, and the rules are so much fun. It really appeals to me. I talked to Kevin Manny of the Buffalo podcast, and we must have both got ours at the same time, or at least got in the queue at the same time, because he's getting his supposedly in August also. Can you just get one now? Because, like, you could. Pinball Star had them at the show.
    48:21
    That's true. But he had one guy picking up one of the two, so it was probably a customer beforehand and you got a little better deal. Oh, wait until all the bugs are out and then, you know, you guys can get the chippy playfield and everything else. Yep, we'll get the chippy playfields. Yep. Yeah, I'm more thinking about it in terms of things like that, the playfield. I'm not worried about the software. No, no, no. that software is really complete on it. But are we going to talk about the Final Four? Yes. Well, for the semifinals and the finals,
    48:52
    they had their streaming coverage, which there was bitching that, you know, aren't they going to stream all day Saturday? Why are they only streaming this? I actually think it's a good idea to just do the semifinals and the finals and not have a stream that's like nine hours long. Well, in this case, they did the whole playoffs, so it would have been freaking 12 hours long. Yeah. I mean, what do you want, people? Come on. To me, semifinals and finals is fine. I think that was four and a half hours. Yeah. In the beginning, when they did the slow motion, they were, like, cutting away to the slow motion or cutting away to the face shots, and there was no showing of play.
    49:28
    Everyone else was going bonkers. We were going bonkers. Like, what the fuck are you doing? And finally they realized, like, hey, if we just take one of the windows and put it as a slow motion or the face shot and we actually still show the play field, people won't get mad. Okay. And if people are wondering, like, what the hell is Bruce talking about? Imagine you're watching an NFL game and, like, they're showing a replay while an actual play is occurring. A touchdown. Yeah. Like, you missed a touchdown because they were showing a replay.
    49:58
    Well, that happens in the, you know, NFL broadcast every once in a while. and it's really annoying when it happens then too. Yeah. Or better yet, because that's kind of one play at a time. Imagine hockey. Yeah. Someone gets hit into the boards, so they show a slow motion replay of someone getting hit in the boards while skating is going on and people are shooting at the goal. Yeah, got to get the goal. Yeah, and that's what they were doing. And the next thing you hear is, and you're like, what happened? So they made adjustments.
    50:30
    Yes, they did. I mean, it just went on the fly, and then they had it like, because he... Luckily, somebody was making comments to somebody. Yes, it was all because of Bruce. Bruce is the reason that that happened, ladies and gentlemen. So please thank Bruce. Send him emails to thank him for this. It was completely his idea. Luckily, I'm like sitting there, Jeff, going, Jeff, can you tell him to stop making the freezing? Okay, well, we need background. You're saying, Jeff, people don't even know what you're talking about. They added some commentators.
    51:03
    Well, not just commentators. Well, they've always had commentators, but they tried to make it more like a pro sports event where they had Jeff Teolis actually interviewing people. Yes. In between games. In between games and then interviewing members of the audience with the audience background. Jeff Teolis is a professional in the industry, right? Yeah, he actually has a radio show, and he has a very professional-sounding voice. So it was a very good choice to do such an interview. Now I'm going to call him out, though, right now when he called.
    51:34
    He congratulated Kaylee on his win. Yes, Kaylee had a game where he was in the lead, but then who passed him? Keith. Yeah, Keith Allen passes him. So then they had him interview Kaylee, and Jeff congratulates him on his win, and Kaylee had to tell him, I didn't win. Kaylee handled that great. Like, I don't think I would have, like, especially after I lost. Yeah. I'm happy to correct someone and tell them that I won when they said that I came in second. But Jeff was like, uh. Well, even funnier is when Jeff interviewed Keith.
    52:08
    Keith was there. I don't think Kaylee's going to talk to you again. Yeah. Everything from this point forward is a spoiler for me because I've only watched up until that moment that we were discussing where Kaylee said. Yeah. Oh, my God. Yeah, I only watched the part that had Bruce on it because he's my idol. Yes, I got interviewed with Tim Balls himself outside in the audience. What did you guys talk about? We talked about how the Master of Source sighting, and Tim talked about how the sound effects were on RoboCop, the flipper sound.
    52:42
    The fact that it's the loud edition. Yes, that it's the loud edition. And then he also had Raymond Davidson come up and they had a nice interview with him. That was really good to see. Hi, Raymond. I know Raymond Rutherford and I'm up there playing instead of watching, and I know a lot of the guys, a lot of the A guys we were hanging out with were watching intently and also rooting somebody on. So the top four. Top four were? Keith Elwin, Josh Sharp, Kaylee George,
    53:14
    and I'm going to butcher the last name, but it's Colin McAlpine. Just like it's spelled. They were great, Mac. Just every game was really good, really intense. The first game, okay, the games they played, they played Dialed In. Dialed In first. And Card Whiz. Yep. No, not Card Whiz. No. No, it was High Hand. Oh, yeah, you're right. High Hand, then Robocop. Of course I'm right. Robocop.
    53:44
    And then finally Andromeda. Now, the sentimental pick, of course, is Josh Sharp. Yes. And everyone was pulling for Josh Sharp. And, you know, they had high hand in there, which is like the sharp killer. Yeah, it is. Which he conquered his demons on that seemingly. The interesting thing about it was Keith Ellinwood took his zero the first two games. He did. So he's out. And he, like, the final ball of high hand, as it's going down the middle,
    54:14
    he just walked away from the game because he knew it was gone. And you're like, ooh, okay, we're not having a repeat. No. That's for sure. And at that point, Josh was up by one. So we get to the next game, Robocop, and it was a great battle between Keith and Colin. And Josh, he couldn't get control of anything on that game. Yeah, honestly, I think that's where, like, Josh will be the first to tell you, and he said this in interviews, the difference between him and his brother, Zach,
    54:47
    And when he said, what's the biggest difference between you two as far as, you know, because Zach is now seen as the better player. So what is his advantage? And he'd say accuracy. For the semifinals and the finals up to Robocop, Josh was very accurate. He was hitting his shots, looking good. Somewhere in the middle of that Robocop game, he just lost the shot. And he just started missing and getting more out of control. And he actually lucked out in the fact that Kaylee tilted away his bonus,
    55:19
    which would have put him ahead of Josh. Yep. So Josh still got the point. And the funny thing was, after Keith took the two zeros, I think he made up in his mind that he was winning the next two games. Yeah. No one else was winning the next two games. He was going to win the next two games. But Colin tried. When you talk about accuracy, See, Keith and Colin on Robocop, they made it look really easy, and it's not easy to do that. They made it look like a jump look,
    55:50
    but Keith made Andromeda's spinner look super easy on that ball one. Keith had three million points on Andromeda just going for the spinner. Yep. So we had a situation where we get into the last game where it's Colin and Josh with six. Yep. And Kaylee and Keith with three. Three. So the math is that neither of the players with three can even be in a tiebreak because if they had gotten a three, then there'd be a point for one of the other players with six.
    56:24
    The only tiebreak would be for second. So you have this ultimate. The last game is in Andromeda, which is a game plan game. Which is where the father works. the games. Which they may even have an Andromeda. They said they have all the games back in the game. So I mean this is like, here it is and it's... Here's my softball. I'm throwing it up in the air. 1v1. But Josh did have bad luck and he said this in the past. He's only made the finals every
    56:55
    three years. Papa. Here's the funny part. He's made second place, Papa 14. Guess what he finished Papa 17. second place? you got it so Josh just couldn't get going no he was missing a lot getting way out of control not that that's a super controllable game but it was noticeable that he was like
    57:25
    he'd shoot, miss, and come down like pot shot shoot again, out of control try to get control, get a trap shoot, miss, out of control basically like say I would probably play the game. Or me. Or you. Yes, or you. And, I mean, we all have times where we just kind of lose it, accuracy-wise, but that was just a bad, bad time to lose it. And Colin, to his credit, and this is what I like, typically when you get these Final Four situations, when you get, like, the three players that you've seen a zillion times before
    57:56
    and that other guy, like the fourth guy, where does that fourth guy almost always end up? Fourth. Yeah, it always ends up fourth. Not this time. Collin, he represented, man. He did. He killed that game. And when he finished his third ball, he had a little fist pump there. It's like, all right. Yeah. Like, beat me, man. Beat me. Go ahead. It's like, if you beat this score, you deserve to be champ. And Josh strained out. And he was very happy.
    58:27
    Collin was very happy. I don't think Josh was very happy. No, no. But Collin was very happy. And Josh came right over to him and congratulated him, which was always nice to see everything like that. And I don't know if you heard the announcing feed, but Bowen was like, man, I wish I could go out there and hug Josh and unsuppress myself. Yeah, I know. That was very funny, actually. I want to unsuppress myself for him. So the day before, you know, me and Colin were talking, and he came up to me and goes, you know, hey, I'm a big fan of the show.
    58:58
    I'm like, oh, Colin, there you are. You know, I know you from Austin. You know, I know you from Bat City. You know, actually, I know him because one of the guys who used to live up here in Rochester, Matt Quans, moved down to Austin and said, Colin's been really cool to him. And I was like, oh, I didn't know that. You know, and I got, you know, we were our friends on Facebook. And the first time we really talked, he goes, guess who's in second. I said, I know. How did this happen? He goes, I don't know. It's really funny about it. He goes, but it felt really good. And he goes, I'm going to try it. I said, congratulations. Go for it. You know, just play your games and play them right.
    59:29
    And I saw him later on, and he gave me a little, you know, like, nod, and he nodded to me, and he was really feeling it. And he played the best out of all of us. Oh, he was, by far, he was the most consistent. Yeah. Didn't have any horrible, you know, take zeros or anything like that. That was really the key. He was the most consistent. He had his family there with him, so they all got to see the. Yeah, that was really cool. Although I think his sons, once they noticed they were on camera, they really didn't care that dad just won. They were on camera. Yep, they were on camera. but I would like to congratulate Colin again
    60:00
    great job congratulations poor Josh was just laying on the floor we say hi to everyone I came over there like hey Josh, playing any tournaments lately? and then I said to him I actually came up to him and said hey you know nobody's going to think about that dollar thing now it's $5 now so just making him feel better because, you know, it was such, he had so many people rooting behind him.
    60:31
    As you said before, he was the perennial favorite. He really was. Well, he's the sentimental favorite by far. And then Jeff Teolas interviews him after the loss, and the first thing he mentions is Susan Lucci. That was just me. I know it was. God, that was so me. Well, and Paul Bowen is on commentary still, and he's there, don't say Susan Lucci, don't say Susan Lucci. And literally the first thing Jeff Teolas says, just like Susan Lucci, just like the 1986 Red Sox. Just like Jesus Christ. I was like, Jesus Christ. I was like, Jesus Christ, stop.
    61:02
    Stop with the slaughter. Well, then Zach goes up there, and he's like, does Zach let you touch the trophy exactly? Oh, no, only champions get to touch the trophy. Like, wow. Damn. But Zach is the face of pinball. He's handled it very well. No, Josh is the face of pinball. He's got to get to Colin. So Colin finished first. Keith was third, and Kaylee finished fourth. Great showing by all four players. Where did we finish? I was 103rd or 104th, so I did pretty good.
    61:34
    I was, um, yeah, I'm B, so I wasn't, yeah, I suck. How'd you do an Intercontinental? The Intergalactic. You keep saying Intercontinental. I feel like it's going to be wrestling or something. I am the Intercontinental champion. Yeah, the belt. Did you play in that, Steve, at all? No, I didn't play in it. I was going to play it by ear, and I did, and I didn't have the energy, or I didn't feel like playing more competitive pinball at that point. Also, I was leaving Sunday morning, so not that I could qualify.
    62:07
    That was my exact scenario, too. Just don't feel like any more competitive pinball, and I'm leaving Sunday morning. But Bruce went. But one of us played. Oh. Bruce is really good at pinball. I wonder how he did. I was top five at 2 o'clock in the afternoon, played all my 10 games, and I bled. And then I was out of, it went from 10 to 5, and then I had a break from 5 to 9, and then at 9 o'clock, the 1.30 in the morning was the final qualifying.
    62:39
    Oh, my God, 1.30 in the morning, people are playing. And I took the top 40. I finally bled out at 1.20. I went past 40. I went the 45th at the end. Were you there while that was happening? Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. Because he didn't have a hotel room, so he was going to sleep on the floor of me and my dad's room. Yep. Okay, but he didn't have to. Nope. So what did I do? Left? Yeah. He drove home at 1.30 in the morning.
    63:10
    Four hours. I'm on 2.15. 2.15, actually. 2.15 in the morning until 6 in the morning. Yep. Yeah. Or whatever. I stopped for a couple hours, and then we got lunch and breakfast and that kind of stuff, and I got home around 9. If it makes you feel better, it's a 10-hour drive for me. No, no. I was surprised when I heard the Sanctum guys flew. I was like, man, it's kind of smart, actually, in some ways. Exactly. Yeah, I drove. Well, I should say, my dad drove. But it was very enjoyable. I got to meet a lot of people. I got to meet the guys from Tommy, from that flipping...
    63:47
    This Flippin' Podcast. I'll be always wrong about everything. And then I got to meet Nate Shivers. Oh, yeah, I never got to meet Nate. Nope, never did. So I got to meet Nate. He was very cool, very nice, very friendly guy. We were talking about Netherlands a little bit since I go over there and he now lives there. We met the doctor. We did meet the doctor. Right? He's Dr. John. He is Dr. John. He is the John Clawson, and he actually has a podcast with him.
    64:19
    Not a podcast, a videocast. Yep, a YouTube series of him and his daughter playing. Pimple machines in this basement. Yep. Very nice. He gave us both keychains. Awesome. It says G'day Mate on it. He gave other people that area. I saw Tim Tams again, though. Oh, yeah, Tim Tams. Yeah, and while I was walking around, I talked to all the other podcasters that use Podcast Garden, and they said, yeah, they're not getting stats either. Yeah, so we're all screwed.
    64:50
    We're all screwed. What does that mean? We can't find our stats. Yeah, stats. We used to get analytics of, like, downloads. Downloads. Not anymore. They just say zero. They just say it doesn't work. If you Google for this, you'll find a million people with that problem or no? Everyone usually. I think now it's been that problem. The thing is, the reason people use Podcast Garden, because it's cheap, you know, it's like, if you only post, like, once a month, it doesn't cost anything.
    65:21
    I gotcha. If you post, like, every week like we do, it's like $40 a year. Yeah. And the things are out there forever. so if we want really good analytics you'd have to go to a more professional like hosting like Libsyn or whatever the hell it's called and to do what we do it would be like I think $20 a month it's like $240 a year and I ain't paying that sorry we need to be making some money off the podcast if we're going to do that
    65:51
    yeah which we don't it's not about the money it's about the love of pinball yes it is And you have a love of pinball too actually Steve Since you are doing the pre-tournament Nice segue I am the master of segues So next Papa Circuit event is coming up It's the Buffalo Pinball Summer Open Bruce is talking about a pre-BPSO tournament That I'm running the Thursday before And I can tell you that it's
    66:24
    At the same location, at Pocketeer. It is limited to 50 players. This is everything I know coming up in bullet items. There are 26 people currently registered. Including yours truly. So you can come sign on to one of the Slangville podcast guys. So there's room for 24 more people. And I know that people will be starting to, you know, like really starting to think about the next event naturally now that ReplayFX is done. Yes
    66:54
    Jump in You can find it on Facebook If you go to buffalopinball.com You can find more information about that If you go to Buffalo Pinball on Facebook You'll find an event for Buffalo Pinball Summer Open It's actually called the Pre-BPSO3 Strikes Tournament So that's what you'd want to be Searching for on Facebook Find that information You'll find out how to pre-register I'm going to give it a pretty good chance of not selling out And that you'd be able to potentially add yourself on the day of the tournament.
    67:28
    And it goes for a good cause. It's all for Steve. It's 100% payout of what gets taken in. It's $20 per person. I actually am down 81 cents because someone did not send me friends and family. Fail. I'm okay with that. It was someone who's really good at pinball, so I'll allow it. $20 a person and everything minus the $50 basically that I paid for the trophies.
    68:00
    So right now the prize pool with the 26 people is $471. I could even tell you what first place would be if you care. No. Sure, we care. Well, how many people are you going to pay out if it goes full? If it goes to 26 people Per the rules we'll go to 5 And we're at 26 So even if people drop out I'm sure other people will add So I'm almost going to guarantee that there'll be enough To pay out 6 What did I say? I hope I said 5 That's the number So don't forget
    68:32
    And then that's the day before the Buffalo Pinball Open Which is going to be the Friday, Saturday And then the finals will be on Sunday And there'll be a classic tournament on Friday and a classic tournament on Saturday. We'll have Papa does it. So a lot of pinball for people to be playing. You could really focus on one thing or the other, all of them, if you're super into it. So definitely. Come play my classics. Go to Buffalo.
    69:03
    What was that again? Is it Buffalo Pinball? BuffaloPinball.com. Yeah, encouraging people to just go to Buffalo in the summer. It's fun. Nice and hot. It's fun. You can go see the Falls 20, 30 minutes away. Come play some of my classic games. Eat some Buffalo Wings. They just call them Wings. Go to Gabriel's Gate. That's the best place for Wings in Buffalo. That's actually from Nick Lane, and he brought me there, and it is the best. Yeah, he never brought me there. He only threatened to. No.
    69:33
    Threatened to. The first time I was ever in Buffalo was last summer at this time, and I didn't eat one wing, not even a single wing. And they're going to have food trucks again this year? Yep. With your ice cream on, so you're good with that. Yes! Yeah, they do a really good job with this tournament. They've gotten a lot of feedback. That's why it's a circuit major this year. Yeah, that means a lot. There's going to be, I believe, a certain sharp that will be playing there. Yes, I think so too.
    70:04
    Yeah. The same one as their last year. Same one as their last year. So the uncertain sharp is the one who came in second? And the certain one is the one who's won before? Yeah. Makes sense. Very good. I know that Robert Gagdo will be there because he is registered for the pre-BPSO three-strikes tournament. It would be really weird if he played in that and then not the rest of it. Maybe he's going on vacation. You never know. He's just going to Niagara Falls the next day.
    70:34
    They're not playing in the Buffalo Open. He's not. and then two weeks from now is actually the Saratoga Pinball Show right by Ron's house. Oh, oh, okay. Look, yep, we might as well just go through the events coming up now. Yep, while we're doing it. Yeah, while we're doing this. So this upcoming Sunday, actually, at Rock Fantasy will be the Star Wars launch party. Yeah, so check that out. Maybe it'll be up to code 1 by then, or maybe not. Maybe. Who knows? Maybe not. Hopefully it's on code that doesn't crash and has some kind of wizard mode.
    71:05
    0.87 didn't. Yeah. But in 0.87, they lowered a lot of the scoring. At least that's what the release said. So that's actually a good thing. It's kind of ridiculous. Then the next weekend after that that Saturday is the Saratoga show Yes The first year of the show First year and possibly last year if we don't get more games. Games, games, games. We need more games. So, you're bringing one, Ron? Well, if I can get... If you're not coming, I have to get Zach to help me
    71:35
    get it there then. Yeah, we'll figure it out. Yeah. How far is that from... How far are you to the show? Me? Three and a half hours. No, no, Ron. Me? Let's see. See, I'm still in, like, I live in colony mode, which is where I used to live, which really wouldn't be that far at all, probably only like half an hour or maybe 20 minutes to half an hour, so it's probably more like 40 minutes now or something. And what direction are you in compared to the show? South. Oh, that's the wrong direction. If you were north, it would be easier for me to help you.
    72:07
    Like, I could say I could, you know, on my way down, help you bring a game there, but left? I'm probably going to be... Bring in the flash. Thing is, what I want to do, I want to get the old boards back in the flash, make sure they work, and then I'll bring it and actually just put it for sale. You only have 10 days to go. Yeah. Yeah, I know. And if I do it, I'm going to go grab Stargazer. I know Stargazer. I'm going to go grab Quicksilver from Ron and bring that there. Do you guys want to talk me into bringing the game to this thing? Yeah, bring a game. I know.
    72:37
    I know you support shows. I know. And I'm going to the show as far as I know. which is I don't want to commit to anything that I'm not going to follow up on. I'm in the middle of, like, a long stretch of pinball tournaments, and it started before ReplayFX, too. It's, like, ten weekends, and eight of them are pinball. I know. That's why I took a couple weekends off. Yeah. Yeah, I'm kind of – August is kind of New York points whoring week or month for me. Yeah, I mean, there's the Star Wars launch party.
    73:11
    There's the, well, I don't know if Saratoga's going to have a tournament, but the next day, the Sunday after the Saratoga show, is going to be the Rock Fantasy Summer Open. More upstate points. And then the weekend after that is the Buffalo show, which I'll be playing more upstate points. And the weekend after that, for me, is the New England Pinball League Finals, which, you know, that's kind of a big deal in terms of the opportunities, but it's also, like, I have to stay over. It's four hours away from me in Connecticut,
    73:41
    So it's as big as any other tournament, roughly, for me to get to. I like that. Well, opportunities. I'll have a break. Oh, for me, no, sorry. The 26th is actually first night of the league for Western New York. Oh, and then the following weekend is the Ottawa show, and even though it'll be like the end of the run of 10 weeks, 8 shows or whatever, I'm going to the Ottawa pinball show. That's a really good show.
    74:11
    A? Yeah. And that's only four hours for me. You'd think that Ottawa would be a faraway place, but that's an easy drive. Hmm. That's good. Yeah. That's a very good name. So that's what's going on for next month. Yeah, so we have a league we're on out here. We have 30 people in one pinball league. 30 people. Wow. And it filled up. Do you get to play more than one game? We play five per night. Wow. Nice. Impressive.
    74:41
    What's the format? Match play. Random assignments all the time? Yep. We actually, last year, did it where we tried to, but it was mostly you played almost every person in the league, and sometimes you played them twice in eight months. That's not bad. But that doesn't sound random then. Well, no, we were trying to make it so each group you weren't. Yeah, balanced. More balanced. But once in a while you have to get towards the end. You're like, oh, God, this guy's going to play. person. And we were, you know, you plotted out a little more. It's actually much harder
    75:14
    to do than it would sound like. It's terrible. It seems like you could just snap your fingers and make it pretty close. But if you're lucky, you get somewhat close and only a few people angry. Yep. And they weren't too angry. You know, I think we had one person that had to play somebody three times. And they were like, okay, well, it could have more, you know, with getting, you know, generated and that kind of stuff also. So we do pretty good with it. We have a good time. 30 people going to people's houses. There are no, you know, it's all house locations, which is really nice also for Western New York.
    75:44
    So looking forward to that. That's the rest of my August. Bye-bye. Bye. Speaking of August, there was news in August. That was a terrible segue. There was news in July? There was a terrible segue right there. Yeah, see how I'm smooth and easy talking? Yeah. Time for piece of news. Piece of news. We have the, while Pinberg was going on, we have the total nuclear annihilation reveal.
    76:15
    Dun, dun, dun. Which it looks just like you thought it would look, which a retro look. I mean, I love it. It's got like the side rails look like an old 80s game. It does. But the price doesn't look like an old 80s game. No, 6K. Yeah, which is not a surprise. I didn't think it would be anything less than that. I know a lot of people are like, oh, Bart, if it's 4,000, it's not going to be 4,000. It's going to be more than 4,000. So what do you think? The back glass looks good. I like how they kind of made the nuclear part of it really small.
    76:50
    So when you look at it quick, it still looks like it's just this total annihilation. I liked it. I want to play one again with the new artwork and everything like that. So we'll still see. We shall see. They're going to make as many runs as they have to, up to 50. I might have to look at it more closely But I have nothing to criticize Like I don't As far as art and that Stuff goes, for me it just has to be A baseline of okay And it's beyond that So I'd be perfectly happy with that game I agree
    77:21
    I'm easy to please for artwork And the other thing is You said it's exactly what you'd expect But even though I could Even though I know what they were saying conceptually for what the top of the playfield was going to be and the bottom and reactor area and all that stuff. It's like, nah, I needed to see it. Like, my imagination's terrible. So it really pulled it together for me, and it made it, you know, much more coherent or whatever, like, to be able to understand what they were doing. So, like, it went from a, hey, this game was kind of interesting, keep it on my radar,
    77:51
    and now it's like, move it to the front of the thinking about buying it kind of a thing. I'm not buying it sight unseen. like it'll be wait for reviews and some videos and stuff. But I certainly have not ruled it out by any stretch. I played it, so I have that advantage. Yeah, that's cool. There's only been one prototype, so unless you get to where that is. It was at the Texas show, so I got to play that. Yeah. And you liked it? Oh, yeah. I liked it a lot.
    78:22
    If you look at the cabin, it looks like it's just a Bally Midway on the side because of the ball there. That's what it looks like. and it's got a topper on it, which kind of makes sense. I would think when the reactor's about to blow up that that will be rotating. I think it would be pretty cool. Yeah. I think they got a winner. I think they'll have no problem selling these. And then you have Stern putting out some great news also. Well, how about Highway? They're entering into full production of Alien. And Filda coming out.
    78:53
    I'm not saying a word. Well, they announced that they're entering into full production of Alien, which I kind of already thought they were entering into full production, but I guess not. And if you noticed, another company that was putting out things every Friday, I guess they didn't do this Friday. Put something out. You got it. How you doing? Yeah. We won't talk about that. Yeah, but Stern. Stern, yes. According to Stern, insert ghosting is normal.
    79:24
    It's normal. It's part of the pinball process. Yep. I'll even, it's short, so I'll read this. This is actually now in their Star Wars manual. You know, it has stuff like, that they've always had in there, like dimples. Like, your play tool will have dimpling. And after a while it'll have so much that it'll even itself out and all that. Which is, you know, that's true. I mean, fine. Great. But they added this little blurb. Normal plastic insert crazing. In other words, tiny stress cracks and ghosting small cloudy areas around insert edges are often seen in pinball machines due to a combination of plastic mold stress, pushing of inserts into purposely undersized holes, and heating and breaking of inserts' plastic skin when the play field is sanded.
    80:19
    You said that they added it, but did you, like, to clarify, it's at the beginning of the Star Wars manual, right? Yeah. Page one. Yep. So, folks, ghosting is normal. Uncern. I know it's your podcast and everything, but I totally have a take on this, if you're ready. Take away. You can do your rant. No, you wish. You wish out there. My take on Stern's customer service, and I've seen a little bit of this firsthand.
    80:53
    I've bought one new inbox during a game in the past. My take is they say one thing in their warranty, and then they try as much as they can to go above and beyond. And I know that there's people on the inside who have definitely had experiences where they're not, or they're getting blown off for whatever reason. But in general, my overall impression is that they try to go above and beyond what's in their stated warranty for parts and things like that. But when they didn't have this language in there, they had two months for the boards and a year for whatever.
    81:30
    They would fall back to that when the customer was maybe pushing things or when they absolutely need to and there was no other choice. So I still think they're going to take that approach unless they have new management or a new management direction where even though this page says this, they're never going to refer to it. If you get a play field that has all of your inserts are, you know, glossy, you know, ghosted over, they'll address that.
    82:00
    I don't think that they're going to, it's a brand new world where they're going to say, this clearly defective play field is, you know, have fun with that and that's all yours to keep. I just, until that starts happening to people, I don't think it will. It just leaves a bad taste in people's mouths. Like, what happens if you do? You have to now even bang your head more against the wall trying to, you know, it's just, you know, like buying a new car. What if you got a car, you know, and, oh.
    82:30
    hey, you know, not for nothing, you only have five cylinders in your car. You got rid of the V6, but you already got a dead cylinder. But that's normal. Yeah. I think the question is going to be where in practice they end up drawing the line for people. Like, you know, currently I think people are getting taken care of in the long run, whether they're, you know, getting the runaround now or not. But the question is going to be, will CERN be saying, well, you have a couple, you know, just a couple inserts there and we're not going to deal with you.
    83:01
    If that starts happening, we'll know it. There'll be enough people coming on pin side and wherever else to say that this is my experience and we'll start to know it. So, you know, that means that people can sit and wait on the sidelines and see how it's going to go. I know, but you shouldn't have to bang your head against the wall. I know how hard it is sometimes. When I was working with them, when I had the, back when X-Men XLE came out and it was their first game with the fiber optic, not fiber optic cables,
    83:31
    but the data cables transmitting the signals between one to another. They had a lot of ghosting, we called it. Not ghosting, really. It was like lights turning on when they shouldn't have, and they didn't have shielded properly cables. And when I finally figured it out with a couple other people, we sent the private video saying, hey, this is your problem with this. And actually, Don Borg actually emailed me directly and said, what do you know? And I said, well, if you cover this cable with shielding, they'll all go away and I showed them a video of the next one and I got a thank you very much and
    84:03
    that was it but at least I was able to help them out because being from the phone business side we saw a lot of crosstalk we called it so this was LEDs that were ghosty blinking like that? well yeah what was happening was in the Magneto and Wolverine they had like little boards and they had wires that were firing the pulse to fire the LEDs, and they were such thick cables that they would be wrapped around next to each other, like the old days with incandescent bulbs where you didn't care about it.
    84:35
    But when they were wrapped so tightly next to each other, the current would actually jump the one wire and go to another wire. Ah. So it actually, instead of like, you know, it would be like the lock. You know, let's say your lock, no, where was it? It was actually on the dark Phoenix lights going up into, you know, there's four lights going towards the kick-out hole next to Wolverine, you know, the one to the left of Wolverine. And you would see all four sometimes do, like when one was flashing, all four would almost be flashing.
    85:06
    And then when we finally said, hey, here it is, I had the private video, and then came back and here's how you fix it, and they were like, oh, wow. And then within weeks they were sending out new cables. So did they issue a service bulletin for that? And did they mention your name? I think it was. If people complained, they, you know, here you go, here's the cabling. You know, and then they told the distributors also. They didn't put a true blue TSB out on it. Okay. But it was pretty cool. I was like, oh, good, they finally got it fixed. And, you know, by then I had sold the game.
    85:40
    So when Bruce isn't fixing coverage of Pinnberg, he's fixing X-Men games. See, exactly. Again, you should send your fan mail to Bruce. Yes, and you hate mail to Ron, because Ron just hates everything. No, Zach hates everything. I don't hate everything. Get that right. Let's see, what other news items? That's about it. I mean, most of this is Pinberg related. Pinberg is the only thing that matters, because that's what everyone wants to talk about. No, no one wants to talk about tournaments. No, I know.
    86:10
    No one cares about tournaments. Luckily, Steve Bowden proved that to us by saying that. Yep, Porter Steve who had to sit there for, and he probably loved every second of it, but man, he was there for like five, well, the semifinals and finals for at least four and a half to five hours, hey, to sit there. I can't talk about pinball for that long. He did, he did very well. That's why he is the ambassador for pinball. I'm just going to call him the ambassador. So, game you like, game you hate?
    86:40
    Let's do it. Oh, the pressure. Oh, there's no pressure. All right, so my game that I like is Scorpion. I know that's not the... What? Really? That's clearly a popular choice among all competitive players of this podcast. See, Bruce? Some people like it. And I want to know how Bruce plays Scorpion. You don't get to have an opinion on it if you don't know how to play it.
    87:12
    So, Bruce, tell me how to play Scorpion. I don't. I don't want to play it anymore. I've played it a couple times. It sucks. Algar is highly superior. The upper play field sucks. I do like one thing about Scorpion, the shot up the middle that spins around and comes back around, the loop shot. That is really cool. Your job on Scorpion is, if you didn't know this, is to light the spinner. And you do that by getting 1, 2, 3, and 4, 5, 6, or just two bags of 1, 2, 3, or two bags of 4, 5, 6.
    87:42
    and then when the spinner's lit, you then, you can rip it from any of the flippers, which is cool, except for the lower left flipper, so any of the three between the upper left, the upper right, the lower right. If it's a pop one and it's really rippable, then it's super fun. But what your job is at that point when the spinner's lit is to lock a ball, and then you plunge the ever-living crap out of the plunger and make the spinner really go, and that's super fun, and who doesn't like to win a game like that? And then, you know, plays the multi-ball, rips more spinner, and then if I'm playing competitively in like a heads-up or any other kind of match, I want to leave my opponent's one ball locked if I possibly can help it.
    88:24
    Or if I do leave one locked, I don't feel bad about that because there's kind of a lock-barring situation. So if you step up to that game and you're player two and there's a ball already locked, you lock a ball, the ball will kick out. So if I lift the spinner and then I lock the ball in that scenario and I'm player two, instead of me having a plunge, now the ball gets kicked out and I don't get the awesome power plunge to multiple, you know, tens of thousands of spins. So I think it's a cool game, but only really if the spinner's dialed.
    88:56
    And it's, you know, you treat it kind of like Space Shuttle in terms of multi-ball is really just used to do the fun thing that is the fun thing in the game. I like it. I totally get why people wouldn't like it because it's slow and goofy, and also it has the crazy-ass outlaying dreams that are just a half mile an hour. Really awful. I understand, but I still like it. Okay, that's your choice. I have no problem with your choice. It still sucks to me, but it's your choice. Now you know how to play it.
    89:27
    Maybe you'll beat me on it, and then you'll lord it over me, and that's a good way to enjoy a game, right? Yeah. It would be. I had to hear Keith Elwin a couple times this weekend come up to us and say, what did he say, Ron? Medusa sucks. Algar sucks and Medusa sucks. Medusa still sucks. He said Medusa sucks? When did he say that? He said it to me. Oh, he said it to you? He doesn't like Medusa? Okay. No. All right, real quick, how do you like the spinner on Algar?
    89:57
    I can't remember, but it's pretty easy. How can you say you don't even remember the rules? I'm with Ryan. It's pretty easy. It's a great easy game. Yeah, it's so easy. It's pretty easy to say how you do it. Yeah, you can't remember how to do it. It's so easy. Fail. I go for multipliers. Fail, fail. Let me mute Bruce here. Okay, Steve, what's the game you hate? All right, my game to hate. I think I might also be in trouble with Bruce here, but we'll see. It is title fight. And here's the thing. Some games that you hate, you just, you know, you hate from the get-go,
    90:31
    and everything about playing them is just annoying or boring or bold. Title Fight is not like that. I totally admit it. The first time anyone plays Title Fight, probably, if they're reasonable about pinball, they're going to enjoy it. Or the first ball, at least. They're going to do the thing. They're going to get the thing going. They're going to see how to fight. They're going to start winning those fights. They're going to win those fights. They're going to win the fights until it gets kind of hard. They're going to stop winning the fights, and then they're not going to have anything to do.
    91:01
    And they're going to be really bored, and then they're not going to want to do that again because that's the exact same thing you do on every single ball of title fight because that's the most important thing to do. It becomes like the worst chore in the world by ball two of that game. I agree. I'm disagreeing on that one. Yeah, and I think I only bring it up because there's plenty of games that are as bad as that. But I'm really bringing that one up because I see a lot of people saying that they like it. I'm wondering if they've only played one game of it.
    91:35
    Because, like, give it three. Give it until you get, like, unbelievably bored with it, and then see if you'd ever want to buy it again or play it again. They have that at Sanctum, don't they now? Yes, they sure do. I'm sorry to say. They sure do. I'm sorry to say, guys. It's right by the entrance, right? It's one of the first games, if it's free. Yeah, I remember it still in Sanctum. Yeah. Yeah, who's cool? I'm a group of one of yours. Okay. That's always important that the host agrees.
    92:06
    Yes, I'm one at least. Okay, who's going next? You can go next, Ron, since I am not the host. I'm the co-host. All right, let me see. I'm looking at all the games I played. I'll do a game I like. I don't believe I'm saying this. And Zach will probably like me. And again, in my case, we're saying this, but I didn't have any issues with Spanish eyes. I love Spanish eyes. Oh, my God. Does that have a center pop bumper? Yeah. And actually. And a loop in the middle. Yeah. And if you can get used to that center pop bumper, you can actually save the wall when it's, like, below where the flippers are and get it out of there, which is pretty neat.
    92:44
    Uh-huh. Yeah. And if you hit the little rollover on top to make the pop bumpers worth something, you can just hit it up there and get the pop bumpers over and over and over. I was surprised. Maybe it's because I got a three on that. Maybe if I counted zero, that'd be different. But, no, I like that. Oh, God, a game I hate. Let's see. I want to say a game, but I know I've said it before. You can even say, like, Pinberg, blah, blah, blah.
    93:16
    Oh, no. Royal Flush Deluxe. Oh, God. Now, you have a Royal Flush in EM, which I really didn't have that much of a problem with, but Royal Flush Deluxe. Should be flushed. It should be flushed. It's just, that's another one I completely played wrong and was informed by Zach later, like, oh, yeah, it lights up these hands, and that's what you're supposed to be shooting. Like, oh, okay. That's probably why I didn't get anything.
    93:46
    Wait, for the different balls, right? Maybe? He's got inserts in the middle that supposedly, like, you know, what hand you're supposed to want to get, and those are the drop targets you're supposed to be hitting. Meanwhile, I was playing it more like the EM or, like, other games like that I played before where you want to almost not hit the targets and hit it up in the lanes above the targets. The card waves. You know, like that kind of deal. Yeah. Which was a completely wrong way to play it. And cost me another zero. Yes.
    94:17
    Fail. How do you feel about these games in general that are the electronic remakes of the classic Gottliebs, EMs that they sold a lot of? They suck. Most of them. They suck. No, I'm talking about the subset that this is. He's talking like the El Dorado City of Gold. That's what I think. El Dorado, yeah. I see what I said. They suck. Amazon Hunt is a not famous version.
    94:47
    A lot of people haven't seen or played that game, but I had one, and it's a copy of Fast Draw, basically. Yes. Yeah. Stick with the EMs, folks. Why? When you hit two targets, you only get credit for one. I don't care. It's just more fun. To me, it's like you want to talk about no originality at that point. Do the EMs have electronic jungle noises? Because I like electronic jungle noises. Play Jungle Lord. Actually, don't play Jungle Lord. I take that back. Don't play Jungle Lord. Don't, don't, don't. I take that back. Forget I said that.
    95:18
    Play Congo. Yeah. Which doesn't really have... I've had one of those. It doesn't have jungle noises, though, does it? Really? Well, depending on what you're doing. Yeah, you're right. Not background noise. Yeah. Well, let's go Jungle Hunt Multi-Ball. It's got to have some kind of jungle-type music. Yeah, Jungle Jackpot. Or, what's it called? Ghost Tribe Multi-Ball? Yeah. That's some deep stuff. There you go. Nobody thinks about the name of that thing. There you go. Okay, Bruce. Wow us. I'm going to wire you, actually. Game I like.
    95:48
    This is going to blow your mind away. Jumping Jack. Nice. All right. I had a great game on that at PAPA in Pemburg, and I really fell in love with it and went back for more. Is that the one with, like, two saucers on the top? Each side. The huge line of drop targets? Yep. Okay. You got it. Yep. They made a two-player and a four-player, right? And they're different names? They did, yeah. And you have to get it in the lit one at some point on your ball, Otherwise, the drop targets aren't worth anything. Worth nothing.
    96:18
    Yep. So, game I hate, and me and Levy talked about this afterwards. It was so funny. World Cup. Oh, yeah. Nope. Yeah. The thing is, like, that's an easy target. Nobody likes that game. No, but it is too easy because we spent, we were A, lower A, and we spent 20 minutes on that game. four people could not it was just like drop, catch, drop, catch
    96:49
    pop, pop the ball would go to the saucers outside of the flippers oh my god it's terrible by the way folks he's not talking about world cup soccer no I'm talking about world cup 1977 Williams has the same kick outs by the flippers like space mission does yep but worse Those slippers look pretty close together. Yeah, they do. They do look close together. Like, physically ball-sized. Now, how bad is this one, Black Belt?
    97:21
    It looks like a great winning game next to that thing. I own the Black Belt. I'll defend Black Belt. Okay, defend Black Belt. It's not terrible. It's not good either. No, it's not. Oh, man. No, well, if you get one, like, if you own it, maybe not. But if you dialed in on the shots and you could, like, actually hit the ramps two-thirds of the time.
    97:52
    Oh, actually hit the ramps. You can hit the ramps. Yeah. Mine was fine. My flippers were good. The ramps were, you know, not broken and what have you. So I could hit the shots. You know, I had it with extra balls on. So the challenge is if you finish the body part on the lay. Oh, if you finish the guy on the body, the extra ball lights. If the last body part is nuts, then it's time and you get an extra ball in addition to getting your play field multiplier.
    98:28
    So the rules are actually pretty good. And there's other stuff to go for. But, yeah, you know, I could totally understand why it would suck. if it doesn't play well. Those ballet games with the plastic grants, I'd almost like to take one, rip out the Flipper Max, put their older style ballet Flipper Max in, and see what kind of difference that makes, if it helps. Yeah, the 6803, whatever, they're not great. No, they're not. No, no. They're not. No. The other thing is,
    98:58
    what is great is Heavy Metal Meltdown is still great. Heavy Metal Meltdown! There's a couple 6803s I'll deal with. I played that again. It's still awesome. My favorite 6803? Total Nuclear Annihilation. Yeah, very good. That's a 6803, right? Yeah. Yeah, I'll tell you one thing. I ain't paying incentive by that if it's got a number pad on it. Yes, go ahead. Oh, Zing. Oh, so, you know, what's a 6803 that doesn't have a number pad?
    99:33
    Bruce, you know stuff. I hear you know and stuff all the time on this podcast. I didn't know if there was one. Oh, the number pad. Oh, whoops. So this is some deep knowledge here. Atlantis. Okay. Well, it's not real. Well, the problem is it's a hybrid. The MPU is 6803. That would have been where the number pad came in. So I'm still going to not give you partial credit for that. Oh. Yeah, it's a hybrid. I don't consider it. You didn't give him a chance to guess, though.
    100:04
    I was going to go towards the higher number one Yeah, but you never got a chance to guess He just said what the answer was Well, when he said that he didn't know the numbers had existed I thought I was thinking along the lines because the first one was of course 8-ball champ Well, actually as soon as he said the question there it had to be whatever one of the last ones was Yeah, that's what I was thinking along the same way too You can get those replacements You can actually get those replacements They exist Don't give up if you're out there and they broke.
    100:36
    EGLN makes them. Okay, yeah. EGLN makes them. Hey, guess what I got in the mail, Bruce? Oh, you did? Nice little light boards. Now, the funny thing is, my light boards are perfect. Oh. Because I replaced some of them. Why did you want one then? Because I wanted better. Yeah. I want better. Not working. I want better than working. Yeah, I want nice, solid strobing lights all the time. Yeah. Which mine are shot to hell. Yeah, yours is pretty bad. Yeah, mine is pretty bad.
    101:06
    He's talking about the light boards underneath the, next to the right of the drop targets. A nine ball. And all the nine balls themselves. I got nine balls. The ones that say wow? No, no, the actual balls. The ones that say 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. Like the grid. The middle, the grid, the diamond pattern? Yeah. Those are boards. Yes, unfortunately, yes. So when they go bad, you're screwed.
    101:37
    Then you've got to start trying to, like, file metal down and try to solder them to the board itself and try to get the solder to stick, which is nearly impossible. Pain in the ass. Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, the official yawn. Hey, it's the first one. First one in. That is late. This is pretty good. All right. I think it's time for the slam ball bag. No, it's not. You want to go slam ball back? We can go slam ball back. Let's go slam ball back first. What were you going to do?
    102:08
    What's my favorite segment? Oh, God. We're going to do that? Of course. We're going to. God. Oh, all right. I'm going to make you work. All right. It's only five. That's all. Five. I'm ready for that. I don't know what we're talking about. Would I buy that or would I not buy that? Oh, man. I do know what we're talking about. It is my favorite. You're an honor. It doesn't always happen when we have guests on. I'm going to buy all of these things. Just the podcast is ruined. You can't buy them. Or you buy eBay, both of you gentlemen, so I can give you the ticket numbers.
    102:42
    The race is on, Ron. You're not buying these things. Ticket number 162-600-905-952. Buy it now. Done. There's no buy it now. Centaur. Yes. Did you get a back last year? Centaur. It's the whole machine in El Paso, Texas. Is there a backlog? I don't know if there is or not. Let's see. But you can still get the backlog. That's the important part of any game. It's broken.
    103:12
    Great. But the play field looks pretty good on this thing. I was looking at the play field, even though they cover up a lot of it with, like, crap. The play field in the middle is pretty nice. With the glass? Oh, I should have let you say, but the glass is on, right? Of course. That's Ron's pet peeve. Of course. It's on. Fail. If you're taking this many pictures, just take two extra minutes of your lesson. The coin door is really nice on the inside. I was surprised how clean that coin door is. Yeah, I'm looking at the picture, but, you know.
    103:44
    The outside looks like hell, but the inside looks really nice. If the whole game looked like this, it would be fine. $1,400 for a centaur? That's where it currently is. Yeah, it's going to go up to, like, $1,800 probably. I'm thinking easily. Oh God, if it's more than that... You watch... I don't know what's become of the world. Oh, it's going to go bad. No, it's going to hell. Inside of Coindart isn't too bad. Centaurs have definitely gone up. It's a game that I like, but not at all for the money that they're paying for.
    104:19
    Agreed. Plus, you don't have to buy orb targets because it doesn't have them. It's got what looks like bullseye targets. In this game, you really need the correct targets. Otherwise, it doesn't make sense. That I can live with. I'm a day away from drop targets being delivered to me. You probably get them faster than that. They're probably right after you ordered pinball resources dropping them off for you. Yeah, we had to pay tax to go in New York. If you get them delivered to me, I'll send them back down to you. There you go. See? Cool. The whole thing would only take three days.
    104:51
    Exactly. So, Bally Hot Dog and Restored is back up again. the cheesy one with the written in stencils. Yeah, I don't want to look at that one again. I know, it's $1,111.11 this time. Oh, man, he's trying all kinds of funky things at the price. He is. The other hot dog, and that was from California, with the worn middle a little bit, still for sale, $900. So here we go. Ticket number, 322- Already bought it. 621-731-491.
    105:25
    You were just talking about this. Ooh. Better you than me. This one's really clean. Okay, the starting bid's too high. Yeah, $750 for a Spanish-sized... Did you do eBay wrong? No, not. It's clean. They usually wear out in the middle. This person's looking for the magical buyer who's looking for a Spanish-sized... Oh, no, of course. You contact him. You contact him and say, hey, I'll give you five for it. It does look nice, though. It is nice.
    105:55
    Yeah. Is this the Spanish eyes that is worth $750? Does that exist? No problem. From this dude with 94.1% positive feedback? Watch out for that. Woo-hoo! That's a bad number, America, by the way. And here we go. This one's for Ron. Ron only. Yeah, 94.1 with only selling 28 items. Yeah. Yeah, that's the little dude. Use with caution. Are you ready, Ron? This is for you. It's local pickup only, so you can only get so much burned on that one, but shitless.
    106:29
    I'm ready, Bruce. 282-594-124-966. Ooh, Stargazer. All right. Oh. Stern Stars Pinball Machine Backless. It looks a little bit expensive. $150. But the problem is what the problem here Look at the location Pennsylvania Pittsburgh You just there That the problem That the problem You know people in Pittsburgh are coming up to the Buffalo Open
    107:10
    Oh, there you go. There you go. Problem solved. You know, it doesn't look great, but that's still better. It is better. Which is sad how bad these are. What do they do to the Stars back last weekend's bad? I don't know. The whole game was like $500. Like, Tobacco Heads is worth $150? Well, you... You can sell yours for $50. Yeah, exactly. And you always look at mine going, oh, you're so nicer. This is assuming they'll let you pick it up or whatever.
    107:41
    I bet you they would. All right. One more. One last one. This one's a little high, but I like the game, so it's kind of cool. 3-3-2. 3-2-3. 475-572. What on earth is this? Yeah, what the hell is this, Bruce? You never seen him at Black Sheep Squadron? It's an Astro Black Sheep Squadron pinball machine for $1,300.
    108:14
    I gave you that, but I mean... Are you high? Yeah, I don't care if it's fair. I'm going to have to go to IPDB to look at the play field because the only pictures are upside down. That's great. And with the broken rubbers, it really adds to it. There are four people watching it. They? It's got to be good. Is one of them you? It's one of them me. I have to watch it. And they let the glass on in the pictures, of course. Glass on always. Super bizarre coin door. Yep. Because it's some weird manufacturer.
    108:45
    Is this an EM at least? No, it's a digital. It's Solid State Valley using Valley Forge. 1979. All right, she's using bally boards. Okay, so that's what I was going to ask, because otherwise you might be screwed. Nope, bally boards. Bally everything. Transformer everything. Does it have bally fun? No. It's not bad. Is there anything to do? I see spelling. There's a spinner. When you always have a spinner and a bally, what does that mean? Instant fun. This has one of the worst back glasses I've ever seen.
    109:17
    It doesn't work. Oh, fine. I was going to defend it because I kind of don't hate it. Oh, that's terrible. It's terrible. Oh, it's terrible, but I don't think it is so bad that it is all the way back to being bad. I think it's 100% on the other side, which makes it good. Uh-huh. It's not Spanish eyes bad, but it's bad. Yeah. I'm only looking at the not a lot of detail picture on the eBay one for the backlash. It's not a bad game. I've played a couple of them.
    109:48
    What is the in-lane, out-lane divider situation like? It's hard to tell from the pictures. Is there a ball guide that is dividing it? Yes. All right. Two-piece ball guide. Okay. But the flipper, the left flipper is really inventive. Do you see what that is? Got that together? No. Oh, on the... You mean the tape? Duct tape. Yeah, duct tape around it. Yes. So you know you're getting a quality item here, Stephanie.
    110:20
    You should buy it. I should. Yeah. Free pickup. Local pickup only. Who in Chicago? I can ask one of the Sharp boys to grab it for me. No, it's in Michigan. Am I looking at the wrong Black Sheep Squadron? No, you are. Sterling Heights, Michigan. But I'm sorry. I was reading Chicago on the thing also. Am I looking at the wrong Black Sheep Squadron? There's something you don't hear every day. Plus, I love the guy's eBay name. Triple X Bullfrog. Buddy has 500 items with 100% positive feedback, so that's pretty impressive.
    110:51
    Exactly 500, too. Yeah. What a weird name the hundred likes bulls. Best offer. You should make him an offer. He likes broad sacks, obviously. Bruce, are you scraping the bottom of the barrel for these things? No, no, no. We find goods and bads. I like the game, actually. It's a fun game. If you ever get to play one, you might change your mind on it. Where have you played it? York. Guy brings it every year until like two years ago. I like the description, just some of the, I don't know, the grammar punctuation.
    111:25
    Bought this in a large deal. Didn't know how rare it was until I got it home. The board are in great shape. Semi working with a capital S for semi. I have no idea. Original legs. No period. I just want to get offers before I restore it, and it's a crazy price. Wow. I hate shipping. What does Boston Pinball say about Black Sheep Squadron? I couldn't say, sir. Here we go.
    111:56
    $861 lifetime, and $1,500 is the highest they've ever gone for. See? So this isn't even the highest, folks. Yeah. Okay. It's time for the slam. the mail ball bag. Alright, that'll open these things up. We'll finish up with the mail ball bag. We got a lot. We got a lot of them. So we'll try to plow through these here. Got Sean. So I was listening to the back catalog of Pinball Profile and I heard the interview with the Buffalo Pinball guys.
    112:28
    They talked about the turdament. The turdament. Yes. And the two of you also discussed on Slam Tilt. So here's a topic for destruction. Destruction. Yeah, that's actually. Destruction. Sterns have their fair share of misses, especially in the dark days of pinball manufacturing. If you were to have a tournament of just modern Sterns, that meet Bruce's turd rating, what games would be in the sturdament? As in third tournament. From just the Stern era.
    113:01
    Oh, that includes that of East Vega. Most of Sega is, though. It does or doesn't include Sega? Well, first he just wants plain star, and then he wants Daddy's Sega also. Very demanding. Yeah, very demanding. Okay, so... Sega, everything. Yeah. Sega, everything. You only need to pull out a couple of Segas. Apollo 13. Really? Apollo 13? Really? Where are you removing that game? What are you doing with that game?
    113:32
    It's better than Jurassic Park. It's better than... Jurassic Park is in the Sega. And Dress for the Good Game. You're talking about the Lost World. Yeah, that's it. X-Files sucks. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. Okay, let's keep on going down those turds. Baywatch? Baywatch is okay. Baywatch is pretty good. People defend it a lot. It's pretty good. I like the shots on Apollo 13. I don't mind. The 13-ball and multi-ball is a gimmick. Yeah, yeah. If you can play the regular game, it's not a bad game. Okay. But you can't disable the 13-ball, which is a problem. The only one I wouldn't be in, every Sega except Baywatch.
    114:06
    Well, Godzilla's okay, too. Yeah, Godzilla's okay. Especially for what it is. Daddy East churds. Now you have to say what did. All early ones. No, I like a lot of the early ones. I like Torpedo Alley. I like Secret Service. I like WWF. Yeah, I like that, too. That seems so well made, too. That's the other weird thing about it, right? It's not only heavy, but it's like the cabinet is just. Last Action Hero, Tommy, even Rocky Bullwinkle I like.
    114:40
    Yeah. Who's David Turds? Jurassic Park is nice. Interesting. I can't think of any Daddy's Total Turds. I'm sure there are. Star Wars? Star Trek. I like Star Trek. Oh, yeah, you're right. Star Trek. Star Trek 25th Anniversary. Yeah, that would be in there. That's the reason I always hated D.D. East when I was playing pinball, is because that was the game. Hook's a turd. Oh, yeah, Hook. You're right, Hook. Even Checkpoint. So it's tolerable. How about things that people really love, like Phantom of the Opera, that is just not on the list?
    115:12
    Oh, that's terrible. All right, you're right. People defend that one, though. You're right, though. See, I was going to say that he's going to have anybody. Okay, now how about Stearns? See, I don't hate Rolling Stones that he's got on there. I don't mind. I like Mick on a Stick. So, I mean, High Roller Casino, which is fine, but it's a little ugly, and it feels like it's going to fall apart into dust when you play it, at least the ones I've played. The one we've had local is pretty good.
    115:43
    What's the Stern football one, the football soccer one that they did? NFL Striker Extreme? Yeah, Striker Extreme. Oh, that's terrible. Yeah. Sharky Shootout? Sharky Shootout I like. I kind of like it too, but I think we're the only ones, and I totally understand why it would be a turd. IJ4. IJ4, Turd. I hate that. Wait, that's a Sega. No. Wait. No, that's Turd. IJ. I thought... I was like Independence Day.
    116:14
    Independence Day. No. Yeah. Another Turd. IJ4, yeah. IJ4. You know who likes IJ4? Bruce, do you know stuff about stuff? Okay, no, I do not. Operators. Make some money. Oh, yeah. The general public doesn't care, apparently, that it's not the Williams one. because they're either confused or they just like the 13-ball multi-ball. They're just sick and demented. Yeah. But what else is a bad one? Rokush Tycoon.
    116:46
    CSI. NBA. Terrible. NBA is okay. Terrible. Yeah, whatever. No, I don't think it's terrible. I think it's not great. Space Jam 2 is terrible. Whatever. That's that. What do we think about Playboy, the third one? I like it. I like the shots. Yeah, it's like standard Gomez. Classic Gomez. Just fine. Yep. Works well. Themes, old.
    117:17
    What else is there? Austin Powers. Austin Powers, yeah, the turd. Yeah. It's funny how they basically turned it into Iron Man and fixed it. Yeah. Well done, Stern. and used the most, I mean, they used the time tunnel as the ring. The other thing is the crossbow and the monger is the whatever the hell that, who was that, fat bastard or whatever comes out.
    117:49
    It's definitely Star Wars. I'll put everyone's health on pin side. Okay. Next. Next email. Hi, guys. Does it have his name in here? Let's see. It's from Jason. Hi, guys. I traded in Elvis for a Tron, and I've been selling a few machines to make up the cash I added to trade. See, I will not out the guy's name, but wanted to share this message from him to me about a machine that I'm selling for $1,900.
    118:20
    He's haggling me over the price, which is okay. However, when I asked him if he wanted to see it tonight, this is what I got back. Okay. Can't tonight have people over, just got Star Wars and dialed in. Can I get back to you tomorrow? So he's haggling about Price when he just got a Star Wars and a dialed in. Yeah. Yeah, that's pretty bad. Then he adds to it. Oh, I want to ask you guys if Harrison Ford characters were on the most number of pinball machines.
    118:54
    Let me see. Am I saying this right? I once asked you guys if Harrison Ford characters were on the most number of pinball machines. With the new Sterns, he has to be, right? Well, Harrison Ford, he's been on what? Star Wars, Star Wars Trilogy, and Star Wars. People say Indiana Jones, but he's not. It's not him. Well, it's still Harrison Ford, though. Yeah, it is Harrison Ford. It's not. They didn't pay for it like this. They just made a person who everyone thinks it is him. Oh, it is him on both games.
    119:25
    It's not like, what's his face? But the difference is, if you ask Harrison Ford if he ever got money for being on that pinball machine, he'll say no because he didn't get paid because they didn't use his likeness. Like, that is way too close of a likeness that they happen to get away with. It doesn't count in my world. I don't see how you could defend that and say that it's him. Just because everyone thinks it's him. That's not the same as him. If you walk down the street and you see someone that you think is your friend, and then they turn around and it's not your friend, you no longer think it's your friend.
    119:57
    This is what we have here. No, no, it's him. It looks just like him in the Williams one, and it's basically a Photoshop picture of him in the I-104. Just when you're walking down the street. Oh, well, I-104, they might have a license. I'm talking about the Williams one. I'm talking about the Williams one, too. Yeah, it looks like him. I think it's him. I have it downstairs. Yep. It looks like him. Yep. I agree when you say it looks like him. There's no question. But when someone pointed out to me, then I looked at it and I said, oh, yeah, that's not him.
    120:27
    You're right. Jesus Christ. Okay, I have to look at it now. I got to take a look at it now. So he also followed up with that email right after with another one. Yeah, go ahead. Sorry for the follow-up, but the potential buyer has explained to me that he would have to LED the machine, and that's going to cost him several hundred dollars on his end. What? Yeah, you know, it's not LED to his machine. so he's going to have to spend money to LED it to make it look better. So it's going to cost him several hundred dollars on his end, so I should consider selling him the machine for way less
    120:59
    because of the money he'd have to spend on LEDs. I want to know what the odds are of these guys, of the problem guy being a listener of the show. Like, no, 0%? I don't care. He's not being called out by name, so I don't care. He sounds like what I refer to among my friends as, and this is really disparaging, as a diaper wiper. Someone who's not that interested in playing his games. Let's put it that way.
    121:29
    He's more about looking at them. So he goes, I'm like Ron on this part. I do not like LEDs in my old machines, which is really me also. Not needed, and I have seen awful results on machines I have bought and taken them out. That is definitely me. This really aggravates me that a guy who just bought two machines for over $13,000 and complaining to me about potential costs on something that is not needed. I really hate selling machines, and I wrote back saying, just blow them off. Let me find somebody else to buy the machine. Tell them to pound salt. Pound salt. Yep.
    122:00
    And going back to what Steve said, it is 100% Harrison Ford. Not only is it Harrison Ford in the flyer, in the flyer they actually have a picture of Harrison Ford, a photograph. It's Harrison Ford. Look at you sticking to your guns. Oh, yeah. He is very, he's very. And not only that, now looking at the side art, I mean, I forgot. He's on the side of the head, too. Da-da-da-da, da-da-da-da. I can't wait for IJ5. So I'm looking at the backlash now. The movie. And it totally looks like him.
    122:30
    It is not him. Yeah, it is him. It's him. All right, next email we have from Scott. Miss O. When did we mention Miss O? Miss O was a couple episodes ago, I think. No, we talked about it when we were doing the Pembroke preview. Oh. He says it's a great game, and we're nuts. No. I don't know how I'm nuts. I don't even know what game that is. Fail. Oh. Is that what it was? Missed out? Sorry. Yeah, missed out. Missed out. You got the next one. And we got one from, I believe this is from Eric Russell, too, because this is the one
    123:03
    that's... Yes. Yeah. He says, I second Tim's rant about the shot... Yeah. Man, I am not reading well today. I second Tim's rant about the shot multipliers being out of hand. I was playing the other day and had the multiplier up to 38x and didn't really feel like I had done anything special to get there. My score ended up being a little over 2 billion on a game that didn't feel any better than the average 300 to 5 million games that I usually have. It felt somewhat random.
    123:34
    And all of this was done with me basically just setting the multiplier to one of the main shots and leaving it there. I couldn't be bothered trying to change it every shot. He's right on with the game setup rant, too. Some TDs seem to be trying to solve problems that don't exist. When you see them bastardizing early solid-state games to reduce ball times, where a ball that lasts over a minute is a great ball on a normal setup, I have to question what they're really trying to do. See you guys on Thursday, meeting at Pinburn. Yes.
    124:05
    Yeah, shout out. You didn't mention this on the podcast, did you? What? Our buddy Ryan C. They started a podcast. and it's called Head-to-Head Pinball. That's Head, the number two, and then Head. Yep. They just released their second episode about 14 hours ago. And it was called I Love Why We Love LEDs? No. This show was 40 times better than the last. It was actually a funny title. I haven't heard it yet, but I'm going to listen to it tomorrow while driving around and work.
    124:37
    The next is Scott Charles talking about Firepower Rewrite. he's insane he wants to do a four ball multi ball on freaking firepower you are insane leave it alone see then emails us afterwards but the subject is Bruce Berg yes good day lads well done on making it to A Bruce Bruce 1 Ron 0 Ron you have a no fee at home
    125:09
    I'm an average player on my friend's pinball machine, and can you get to meet your maker almost every time I play? How do you make this thing hard? Left out lane can be touched. To Judy, this is exactly what it says, to Judy to right out lane and to take extra balls off. Well, first thing, Ryan, is we don't have any extra balls on our machines. That's right, and you never have, never, never, ever have Bruce attempt an Australian accent again. Yes, never. It's unbelievably bad. Oh, my God. What I would do, Ryan, see, actually, it's right.
    125:41
    You really can't change the left that much because it's got the kickback there. Just the... The kickback. Yeah. You can just... Well, you can change it to, like, hard in the settings. So you've got to... It's harder to relight and maybe it's not lit at the ball start. You can do that. And then on the right side, it's got the... The pass is like you can slide it back and forth, you know. But you just slide it as far right as you can, where it's not like impinging the shooter line because you can actually – well, I went Australian to British there.
    126:12
    You can slide it over to the right too far where the ball is just shooting out. We'll touch it. We'll spray graze against it. So just get it as far right as you can without a touching. You can also take the rubber off it if you really want to go crazy. The in-lane, out-lane divider, the rubber? Yeah. Yeah, and actually if you have a – let's see. So I don't know. It depends what you have. The non-U.S. No Fears have a post in the center. You can remove that. Remove that, yeah.
    126:42
    They're all drilled with the hole, but the U.S. ones have a nylon plug in it. You can also change the multi-ball settings to make it harder. I think by default, if you hit the drop target down, it lights the lock, and then the drop target stays down, so you can lock all three balls. Make it so it's like you have to hit it, goes down, Lock a ball, then the target comes back up, and you've got to hit it again. Do that. Unfortunately, unlike Star Trek Next Gen, it doesn't let you turn off locking balls from the first shot.
    127:17
    Yeah. Unfortunately, even though a lot of the modes on No Fear are just rip-offs of Star Trek modes. Like the ski one is just wormhole, and one shot is over. Skydive is asteroid. Yeah, there's one in, you know. Yeah, there's another one, too. There's similar modes. Other than that, just keep it steep, keep it fast. That's about... I'm surrounded by assholes. Yeah. How many assholes are on this ship?
    127:49
    Yo! There you go. Space boss, thank you. Wasn't his name Ron? Like, his name was Rottled Asshole or something? Yeah, maybe. I think it was. Maybe it was. Last one? Oh, Scott? Yeah, Scott, there's a lot of flipper hop. Yeah, there's a lot of flipper hop I saw there. Well, that's intentional, Scott. Just trying to make the games harder on a lot of them.
    128:19
    Let's see. Okay, I got the last one here. It's from the Pinball Princess. Another short one. The subject is, I fear the day my autocorrect takes the L out of tilt. Oh, my. I'll let that sit in there. Everyone get that? No. All right. Says, hi, guys. Hello. I'm so glad that I got to see you guys at Pinberg. I will definitely hone my skills and re-challenge the two of you one day. Ooh.
    128:50
    If you remember earlier, she beat me, but not Bruce. So she's going to re-challenge us. And she says, if I can, my half-throne is nice, but I'd rather prove that I can take you both down. Not getting incredibly lucky with Zach giving me a quick how not to fuck up Goldeneye. He did. Yeah, and he had a huge game on Goldeneye. Did you beat him or did he beat you? No, he beat me. He was on it forever. And to quickly respond to Tim Ball's analysis of my performance last year,
    129:20
    yes, I am fairly certain I know what went wrong. And it wasn't that I didn't eat lunch. It was a combination of factors. A lack of game knowledge and finesse in skill didn't help me. But it was more that my body's energy levels tanked midday, and energy drinks helped with it, that a tiny bit, but at the cost of the entirety of my mental state. Furthermore, that last round, ten, I saw my standing, and I knew I was on the cusp, and that pretty much sealed my fate. My mind wrecks me more than anything.
    129:52
    Also, if you extrapolate the above, and I tell you my mental state was wrecked before I signed in, that completely explains my performance this year. Enough about me, though. It was great playing with you guys in free play. I have some wonderful pictures of the Slantil host enjoying some Gottlieb System 3s, such as the incredibly complex and satisfying game known as Cactus Jacks. Or an egg as good known as a fruit. Yeah, that tells you something. I suppose if you consider a fruit to be the seed or seed casing of a tree,
    130:25
    and you consider anything that is progenitive component of an organism to be a seed, and an egg is also a progenitive component of an organism, then an egg is a fruit. Gottlieb Logic. Oh, God. Shout out to the Slam Tilt crew for kicking ass at Pinberg, too. Woo-hoo! Well, at least for his head. I know you both did quite well in the competition. I'm failing by not looking at the full standings, but I know Zach, Timmy, and Steve all did remarkably well, too. I love watching people I know kick ass and take names,
    130:57
    almost more than I love being able to sit back and play pinball with them. The event was awesome, and hanging out with you guys definitely made it awesomer. Papa TV would have benefited from having Bruce mic'd up for his sporadic commentary during the finals. I don't know about that. I don't think they would like to write our stuff. Let me impersonate Bruce during the finals. Do it, go up the fucking replay. We can't see what's going on. What the fuck are they doing? They're ruining everything. Although Ron would have to sit next to him with a centered button in his hands.
    131:29
    In his hands. Seven second delay for Bruce. Oh, yeah. The informal slam-tail commentary was a treat. Also, it was nice watching you guys meet listeners and meeting some myself. I wish that had to be awkward for her. Yeah, I know. Are you the pinball princess? Uh, yeah. It still kind of amazes me the ways that you've made in the pinball community. I'm always excited to see the yellow thumbnail with the Swampert logo pop up on my podcatcher.
    132:01
    Podcatcher? Yeah, podcatcher. And I find it so cool that other people seem to as well. You guys really do have an awesome thing going here. Why, thank you. Hope to see you next Pinberg. Well, before that, too, but that's not the point. Player 31915. P.S. Additional shout-out to heavy hitter Howard for making the A-finals. Yep, him and Zach both did incredible. Yes, and I think it was playing in stomp that did it. It got him ready. Yes, it was. I want to say one thing to all the staff at Pinberg.
    132:34
    They did an incredible job, all their pair of guys, all the people who make it happen. So thank you guys for having a great tournament this year also. Ditto. Totally agree. They were amazing. Yep. Can't wait to see what next year brings. I mean, I enjoyed the upgrades with the telecast. I mean, they put little graphics on there. Yeah, the graphics were nice. They did feel more like actual, like, you know, they're interviewing people. And Jeff was really good. Yeah, Jeff was good.
    133:05
    Jeff was really good. I wonder how some of the players felt. I don't know. They seemed to go with the flow. Yeah, I think they did. Keith was very funny in one of them. Keith is so deadpan humor. I know. I love it. Yeah, you really got to get. Yeah. Dry humor is the best humor. It is the best humor. And Beavis and Butthead rules. It does. Oh, Raymond Davidson wanted to know when we're going to wear shirts. Oh, I know. You want shirts where, like, they're Beavis and Butthead, but it's us?
    133:40
    So I call Beavis, of course, because I have to. Of course you do. Of course I do. Of course. We found our other voice now. Yes, we found Butthead. We found our other voice. We found Butthead. We found Butthead, and we're going to have him on. We've got to have him on. That's going to be awesome. We have to. Yeah, we call him. And they're going to speak the whole time that way. Oh, yeah, that won't get old. No, not at all. So, Steve, I have one more thing for you. Is it going to be busting your chops a little bit?
    134:10
    Oh, no. Oh, that's great to have guests on here and then bust their chops, Bruce. Of course. A year and a half ago, you mentored somebody. Oh. Yeah, all right. I'm with you. Okay. How did that go with mentoring somebody from Buffalo Pinball named Jay Fairbrother? You know, you can only Lead the horse to water And you can't make them flip I noticed Yeah
    134:42
    You know It's like a lot of things Yeah, so You know, I would say If you're out there and you want to get good at pinball Intentional practice Of specific skills And not just playing a lot You know, find a friend with a machine Because playing on free play is a huge thing If you're trying to practice tap passing Like, you know, Mixer Tuna would have had two more points In his finals round that he lost in
    135:14
    The finals final, so where he finished fourth He would have maybe finished second If he could chat comfortably Because there's nothing else to do on Mars Trek Yeah Like, everything you're going to do that doesn't involve shatting from the left flipper trap is your death. It's no way. And even if you can only shat like 50%, 70%, you're still better off. Yeah. Anyway. And what do you do with the right flipper on Marsh Truck? What do you do?
    135:45
    Good boy. Get it up for that top. Yeah, what else is there? I mean, the only thing that you can do is if you have the bonus built up sufficiently, look for the E or the K and see if you only need one. If you only need one. Yeah. Yeah, but that's something to do. Say that. Do it from the left looper. Yeah, I know. As a special treat. I'm right with you. Remember that the next time you're playing in Mars, correct? Which will surely happen out in the pinball wild a lot. Actually, we want a location in Syracuse. Of course you do.
    136:15
    But these conversations that we're having, and it's like all this knowledge, like, you know, Jay wouldn't, he's not listening to this podcast, but like he wouldn't, you know, he doesn't care to like really fill his brain with this kind of stuff. So he wants to be good He doesn't like being bad But this is what it really takes To be good All the people who are nodding along Who care about this stuff We get it You just gotta try your best And I'm not even putting him down
    136:46
    No, not at all I know I had to touch his balls Because he only comes up to me like I'm not playing well He had an excuse this time for Pembert I didn't realize this But he broke his arm Yeah The cast came off like a week ago I didn't know that either No excuse He could have worked on one-handed play He could have worked on dead flipping Or he could have shat some more Shat on one side Yeah, one-handed That would be impressive Hey, well he has blackjack
    137:17
    He has my old blackjack So he could have done it Really? Cool Yes See? Love blackjack Oh, and Cheetah is still awesome Yes it is Just saying that. Just putting that out there. And Quicksilver is still awesome. Yes. And we need a Dragon Fist and a Cheetah. We need it. Again, folks, Dragon Fist, Cheetah. Please, help a brother out here. Bruce gets all his games. I can't get any of mine. Am I supposed to be going for those drop targets on the top right for Cheetah and getting him to line up? Or is that a sucker thing and I really just need to go for the left saucer?
    137:50
    The left? Are we talking about the same game? Cheetah? Yeah. There's like a bonus collect over on the left, or maybe like a stand-up target or something. It's a lane. It's just a lane, and you have the five bank in the center. You have a three bank on the right side, and you have another three bank at the top. Three bank up at the top, which are your multipliers. Which are your multipliers, which carry over, but they're also the hardest damn thing to hit. Yes. What I like to do is a hard plunge, so you hopefully get in that pop bumper and kick up once in a while, and that's the key with Cheetah. Yeah, the three bank in the center is the one I'm talking about,
    138:22
    where those are, you have to line up all the colors. Yeah, there's another three bank in the center with like a grid. I almost never go for that. I don't even know what that is. Yeah, I do. If you hit it, you just hit it. But the spinner behind it is nice because it's 3K, always. Yeah, well, the thing is, every shot on the game feels good, and every shot is awesome. So shoot what you want. It's all awesome. Shoot away. That's why it's the greatest stern wide body ever, and my personal favorite wide body. I think it's time to face the bills, Bruce. Okay, www.pimbarlifter.com
    138:53
    Come check out my Pimbar Lifter stuff Eh? You're Canadian, okay Yes, to all my Canadian friends We do lifters, tilters, helpers And our helper, I think, was delivered A couple days ago So we should have gotten it The one who won our helper So hopefully he's enjoying it And hopefully we hear from him by email soon Don't forget Flipper Fidelity We don't get paid for these But we're just pointing out people we like Flipper Fidelity He sells Stern pinball machines, and he sells best speaker systems for your Stern Williams pinball machines.
    139:27
    And the who is Mike Pupo. Yes, who is Mike Pupo. And then also Pinball Star, who sold us both our dialed-ins. And he also sells AFM LEs, AFM, the new AFMs. And also he sells Spooky. And he's taking deposits on TNA. Oh, the TNA. Yes, that's an official initials of total nuclear annihilation. Also, thanks to, I know we already mentioned them, but what the hell, Jeff Teal, it's the Pinball Profile.
    139:57
    Steve Bowden, fun with bonus. Yep. Tim Balls, Tim Sexton, check it out. Look for Tim Balls, Switch Channel. Yep. And thanks to Steve. Steve Daniels being on our guest tonight. Thanks for having me. And don't forget to sign up for the Buffalo Pre tournament that he's running, which is the Thursday before the Buffalo Open. Anything you want to plug? You want to plug your Vermont stuff? You know, I had definitely, when we arranged this, I had planned to plug the Green Mountain Fall Classic,
    140:28
    which is happening, a tournament I'm running up here in September. It's one of our bigger events that we run, relatively speaking. But it's full, so good luck. Sorry, guys. You can get on the wait list if you look up Green Mountain Fall Classic if you're interested in playing up here. It's a super fun format, blah, blah, blah, but it is full. It's filled up in, like, less than a week. Wow. Very good. Man, all these pinball events fill up quickly now. Not yours and mine.
    140:59
    We just leave them open. We leave them open. This is the Unstoppable Podcast. Not a power hit or a poor Internet connection can stop us. You're unstoppable. We are. We can be found on the Internet. Just wait for Slam Tilt Podcast. We are hosted at the ever-reliable Podcast Garden. Just look for us on Facebook. Again, Slam Tilt Podcast. YouTube, Slam Tilt Podcast. Twitch, Slam Tilt Podcast. Our email address where you can send criticisms to Bruce or praise him.
    141:33
    I'll take them. You can send your Slam Tilt Podcast at gmail.com. This has been Episode 54, Spaceballs. Spaceballs! Say goodbye, Bruce. Goodbye, Jeff Bernardick.
    142:12
    Oh, my.
    142:42
    Thank you.