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Episode 229: Steve Daniels

Pinball Profile·podcast_episode·23m 43s·analyzed·Nov 6, 2019
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.029

TL;DR

Steve Daniels discusses running Vermont's competitive pinball co-op, leagues, and tournaments.

Summary

Jeff Teolis interviews Steve Daniels, Vermont state rep and co-founder of Pinball Co-op, a competitive pinball clubhouse. They discuss Daniels' work organizing leagues (Vermont Pin Golf League, NEPL), running Flip Frenzy tournaments using Match Play software, managing the co-op's operations and repair crew, and his competitive play trajectory. The conversation touches on IFPA leadership transitions, the Champlain Cup international challenge series with Montreal, and observations about rising skill levels in competitive pinball.

Key Claims

  • Match Play software's Flip Frenzy feature made tournament organization significantly easier compared to manual Excel spreadsheet tracking

    high confidence · Daniels ran Flip Frenzy events manually in 2018, recently used Match Play for first time and received player compliments on smoothness

  • Pinball Co-op opened with 12 games at Vermont state championships, has grown to 16 games with regular rotation

    high confidence · Daniels directly states opening numbers and current inventory

  • Co-op's funding model: 50% from membership fees, 50% from $8 donations from casual visitors during league/fun nights

    high confidence · Daniels explicitly breaks down revenue sources

  • Vermont Pin Golf League has 8-10 teams (32-40 players) running in two shifts Wednesday and Friday nights

    high confidence · Daniels provides specific current participation numbers

  • Daniels' world ranking has declined from ~150 to 300-400 due to reduced tournament play and rising overall skill level in competitive pinball

    high confidence · Daniels self-reports ranking decline and attributes it to playing less and increased competition

  • Champlain Cup is a home-and-away team competition series between Vermont and Montreal with singles, doubles, and split flipper rounds

    high confidence · Daniels describes format and structure of annual competition

  • Pinball Co-op repair crew meets Tuesday nights 6-9pm with 6-8 volunteers, handles most repairs from operational budget except catastrophic issues

    high confidence · Daniels describes repair depth chart and budget model

  • Vermont has had five state championships under Daniels as state rep, suggesting 5-year tenure

    high confidence · Daniels states 'as long as Vermont has had a state rep' and mentions five championships

  • Josh Sharp has been IFPA president for 5+ years and is 'very responsive' and 'really great, very supportive'

Notable Quotes

  • “It requires a lot of games. If you have just the right amount of games for people playing games and not in the queue, when a person comes off, then they'd have to go back to that same game. You want a bit of a variety.”

    Steve Daniels — Explains practical tournament logistics for Flip Frenzy format; illustrates operational thinking

  • “Josh is very responsive. He's really great, very supportive. Anything I would ever need, he provides it in spades.”

    Steve Daniels — Initial testimony about outgoing IFPA president before interviewer jokingly pressures retraction

  • “Think of the future, my friend. Think of the future.”

    Jeff Teolis — Humorous interviewer pressure technique; illustrates community tone around IFPA leadership change

  • “I'm shocked when you say that you try to have knowledge of all the games in Pinberg. There were over 300 games or 87 banks.”

    Jeff Teolis — Highlights the scale of Pinberg tournament preparation; underscores competitive dedication

  • “The one place I could have an advantage would be to be familiar with as many games as I could, either with a lot of direct experience in owning the machines or just, you know, watching some videos or reading.”

    Steve Daniels — Reveals strategic approach to competitive preparation; reflects broader trend of rules/video study in modern play

  • “It's harder and harder to stay in the top whatever you'd want to be compared to how it was in the past. And I think that's a reasonable outcome for increased participation and increased skill level.”

    Steve Daniels — Concise analysis of competitive meta shift; acknowledges natural consequence of growing scene

  • “I just make sure that I have at least some general sense of how to play everything at least, and maybe more than that. But that used to be good enough...now it's with pin tips and with people having the same idea, you know, it's harder and harder.”

    Steve Daniels — Details democratization of competitive preparation; illustrates skill convergence from online resources

Entities

Steve DanielspersonJeff TeolispersonPinball Co-oporganizationVermont Pin Golf LeagueeventNew England Pinball League (NEPL)organizationChamplain CupeventJosh SharppersonMatch Play (software)productBuffalo Pinball Summer Openevent

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Pinball Co-op sustainable operating model: 50% membership revenue, 50% casual visitor donations; repair crew volunteer model eliminates significant operational costs

    high · Daniels explicitly describes funding split; details 6-8 volunteer repair crew meeting Tuesday nights covering most repairs from operations budget

  • ?

    event_signal: Vermont Pin Golf League successfully operating with 8-10 teams, two-shift structure, and specific mechanical format designed to onboard casual players while retaining competitive interest

    high · Daniels provides detailed league operations: 32-40 players, Wednesday/Friday scheduling, pin golf format with split flipper components, weekly non-score objectives for new player education

  • ?

    community_signal: New England region (particularly Vermont/Burlington area) represents significant competitive pinball hub with multiple leagues, tournaments, and co-op infrastructure

    high · Daniels runs state championships, NEPL Finals, Vermont Pin Golf League, Pin Golf League Golf League, Champlain Cup; Vermont has formalized state rep role

  • ?

    community_signal: Cross-border pinball community engagement: Champlain Cup annual home-and-away series between Vermont (state) and Montreal (city) with format variety; participants encouraged to develop international competitive experience

    high · Daniels describes Champlain Cup structure and goal to promote cross-border play; parallels Buffalo-Toronto City Pinball League challenge model

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Democratization of competitive preparation through online resources (pin tips, video tutorials, rules documentation) has compressed skill differentiation across player tiers

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.071

0:00
It's time now for another Pinball Profile. I'm your host, Jeff Teels. You can find our group on Facebook. We're also on Twitter at Pinball Profile. Email us, pinballprofile at gmail.com. Please subscribe on your favorite podcatcher and check us out on Instagram at pinballprofile. We go from my city of Burlington, Ontario to South Burlington, Vermont, where Steve Daniels joins us. Hi, Steve. How are you? Hey, Jeff. How's it going? It's good to talk to you. I think the last time I saw you was probably a year ago at the old Buffalo Pinball Summer Open when we were at the Yacht Club. That was a lot of fun. Yeah, that was a super great event. I'm hoping they bring that one back. It's a lot of work for Nick and Kevin. I understand their decision. And yeah, I think we're all fingers crossed that we'll come back. But I know you commentated on some of my games. I know I commentated on some of yours on the stream. And I think it had to be on Space Shuttle because we seem to be playing that game over and over and over again. Yeah, that sounds right. I may or may not have watched myself play that Space Shuttle game a couple times online, and I definitely remember you commentating on it. Was I nice? You were generally nice. Oh, once in a while.
1:13
Yeah, that's the one thing about a stream, too, is when players pick the games they want, it's not exactly the most exciting for streams because you want to see a variety of games, But, you know, players are going to go to their go-to games, especially if they're selecting games round to round. And, yeah, Space Shuttle certainly got used over and over again before Eric Stone blew it up. Yeah, there's definitely something to that. I mean, we've all experienced that. The players who are picking the games, assuming that they're winning on those games, there's no reason to switch things up unless the rules are dictating it or if they're trying to pick against different opponents. But usually, those are the people who are driving the bus or the confident players who can beat everybody on the games that they pick anyway. And Steve, if I remember from 2018, that was the first time I ever played a Flip Frenzy event. You were the TD of that event back before there was software. I mean, I think you were doing it on Excel spreadsheets and figuring things out. It's gotten a lot easier, hasn't it? Absolutely. I just ran another one this weekend. And for the first time, I used Match Play. That has had the Flip Frenzy option for, I guess, quite a while. It's just the first opportunity I've had to actually use it. And it went very, very smoothly. A lot of compliments from the players on their end this weekend. It's just so much easier what Andreas has done. You know, the best way to explain it to somebody who hasn't played this before is there are people that are going to be playing games, there are going to be people in the queue. And here's the order of operations. You'll be player one, player two in the queue. Player one, player two in the queue. Rotating that all the time. People say, oh, well, what if I win? Doesn't matter if you win or lose. Player one, player two in the queue. That's the rotation, and it makes it so much easier. Totally agree with you. The other thing that I'll always tell people is that after you do it once or twice through a rotation, you're going to know exactly what's happening. Makes sense, too. And what was your kind of buffer zone for the number of people in the queue? You just ran this, as you said, the Green Mountain Fall Classic Flip Frenzy. How many people did you have in the queue compared to how many people you had in the tournament? We had 36 players and we had eight in the queue, which means, what's that math?

high confidence · Daniels' testimony as state rep dealing directly with Sharp; later makes joking self-correction under interviewer pressure

  • Skill level across all competitive tiers has risen dramatically, making it harder for even mid-tier players to maintain rankings

    medium confidence · Daniels and Teolis discuss observation of rising skill levels; Daniels notes even rank 600 players display unreal ability

    • “It's a nice new golden age of pinball, and I know you're just as excited as I am.”

    Jeff Teolis — Reflects broader community sentiment about recent game releases and manufacturing activity

  • “I think that it's because it's a team format that makes it pretty popular because that caters to it being a bit more casual, and also people are feeling like they have their teammates' backs.”

    Steve Daniels — Explains success of Pin Golf League format; identifies appeal factors for casual/intermediate players

    • Green Mountain Fall Classic Flip Frenzy
    event
    Pinbergevent
    The Sanctumorganization
    Raymond Davidsonperson
    Johannes Ostermeyerperson
    Keith Elwinperson
    Buffalo Pinball Leagueorganization
    IFPAorganization
    Nick and Kevinperson
    Jack Tadmanperson
    Andreasperson

    high · Daniels notes knowledge advantage he once had (pre-study games) now insufficient; attributes decline from rank 150 to 300-400 to increased competition quality and his reduced play volume

  • $

    market_signal: 'Golden age of pinball' narrative: multiple high-quality new game releases creating sustained interest and acquisition opportunities for collectors/operators annually

    medium · Both Teolis and Daniels characterize recent releases positively; Daniels notes potential acquisitions (Ghostbusters code updates, Jurassic Park, Iron Maiden); contrasts with 5-10 year past scarcity

  • ?

    community_signal: IFPA leadership transition in 2020 from Josh Sharp (5+ years) to new president; described as major 'shakeup' being discussed extensively among state reps

    high · Daniels confirms Sharp tenure of 5+ years; Teolis references 2020 transition; described as 'top topic of the day' among state rep groups

  • ?

    technology_signal: Match Play software adoption for Flip Frenzy tournaments represents modernization from manual Excel-based tracking; received positive player feedback

    high · Daniels ran event manually in 2018, used Match Play for first time at recent Green Mountain Fall Classic with multiple player compliments on smoothness

    • 3:21
    A little over 20%, yeah. Yeah, so 22% or 23%, something like that. That's kind of the number they estimate. You want to have about 20% in the queue. Again, it requires a lot of games. If you have just the right amount of games for people playing games and not in the queue, when a person comes off, then they'd have to go back to that same game. You want a bit of a variety. You want a mix-up, too. So I assume you had more than 14 games. Yeah, we had 16 games at the Pinball Co-op clubhouse. And, yeah, as you said, we had 14 groups playing, and that worked out really well. We had one game go down the whole day that we couldn't bring back up, and so we still had that one buffer, like you said, and it worked perfectly. You mentioned the Pinball Co-op, and you can find that on Facebook. You can look at the pinballcoop.com. It's kind of a neat blog. It's very, very informative, too, and I see when you have new games that come into the Vermont Pin Golf League and other information there, too. Explain what the Pin Mall Co-op is. So it's a clubhouse in the same vein as places like the Sanctum in Connecticut. And actually, that was the inspiration. The guys who run that are friends of mine. And so after the first time I went there, it didn't take multiple trips, but after the first time, it planted the seed that maybe I could do something like that. up here. This is three and a half hours away from us. So, you know, there's really nothing like that in this area and really nowhere that was that really catered to competitive pinball. Let's put it that way. We had one barcade, which was really great to bring a bunch of people into pinball in general. But of course, it's a public location and running things at times that we would want to run them. We'd have to run a schedule by them, among other things. So the idea grew that we would want to have something on our own to run things independently. And it took off from there. We were very lucky to find a location that works with our tiny budget. So that's a super helpful tip, which I know that when people are looking for this kind of thing, that's the biggest hurdle that they have to initially figure out. Yeah. Finding a location is definitely the big issue when you're trying to get one of these co-ops. And also too, who's going to front the money? I mean, you have to have a lot of people involved. Who's going to put the games in there? Who's going to pay for the utilities. All those things have to be worked out. It probably wasn't as easy as snapping your fingers and making this happen. It really does take a collective of people, and you obviously had that in Vermont Yeah absolutely There a core group of four people five people that we all have our games in the facility And you know even at the beginning when we were getting up and running if I can remember back four years ago it was just things like, well, we need to get a fridge, you know, well, I can buy it, but can you pick it up for me? Yeah. Okay, sure. What else do we need? Like, oh, let's, let's get some whiteboards and, you know, let's make sure we have parts that we, of course, parts for repairing pinball machines and things that we're going to need to have and tools. And I own a lot more tools than I used to when I only owned a couple machines for my own personal needs, just making sure that we have everything under control and that you would expect a club like that to have. Just the checklist that we would go through and making sure to get everything up and running. Basically, we opened, our soft opening was for the state championships of Vermont. And I think we had 12 games at the time. and probably a week before we had opened, we probably had something like eight or nine games, and then we were just buying games and pulling games in randomly or getting people to lend us games. So it's grown from 12 to 16, which just doesn't seem like a lot, but we move things around through the collection quite a bit. So we keep our players, I think, pretty interested with new things that come and go. Hopefully none of their favorites are leaving, but of course, every game to somebody's favorite. So explain to me, Steve, how much memberships would be. You don't have to be exactly specific, but I know there are people listening right now to Pinball Profile that are thinking, you know what, it's getting tougher and tougher to go to people's homes for people to host league nights. A collective, a co-op would be wonderful. And maybe we can find a place to put these games if everyone puts a few games in, if we all kick into an annual fee. I mean, how difficult was this to come to get to those numbers? And how many people do you have in the league to make this work? I mean, is there a certain amount that, okay, you know, we're going to need X amount of dollars, X amount of players to make this absolutely possible and not to make a profit, but certainly not to lose money either. Sure, sure. I think I can spitball some numbers for you and I do have everything, you know, detailed somewhere. About 50% of the money that we take in on any given year, it comes from the members. So people who aren't being asked for a donation every time they come in, half of the money would come in from the people who are being asked, who are not members, who are just being asked to donate $8, a very reasonable fee, when we have a league or a fun night. So I think I answered one of your several questions. What else do you got? What did I miss? I guess you have to have people willing to donate their machines and have them there. So if they break because of usage, who's there to fix it? Is it up to the owners to fix their own games? Is there a group like yourself with this great toolbox that gets in there and fix these games. How does it work for these co-ops? Yeah, I'm really happy to talk about the repair crew, especially because, you know, as much as I do a lot for the co-op, I show up at repair nights. I try to organize the repair nights, but I'm not even one, two, or three on the repair depth chart. So we have a really strong repair crew who shows up every Tuesday night from 6 p.m. until things get done, which is usually not more than like, let's say, 9 p.m., but we have a large contingent. It's been like six or seven or eight people lately. And we will just have a punch list where we get through things that break, you know, through the week up until that time and things just get done. And so I think you were asking, like, let's say someone lends us a game and let's say it's TNA, which we do have someone's total nuclear annihilation in there right now. And let's say something breaks, like a part that we have on hand. we'll just replace that, you know, like it's coming out of the pinball co-ops budget for games, even for something. It's unlikely that a game like that would have anything more catastrophic that we'd have to think about, like five hundred dollar board or something like that. But even that we tend to just be able to we have people, multiple people, which is great, able to do board work for us. So things are just getting kind of banged out that way. And we don't have these multi-hundred dollar repair bills for pretty much any problem that we run into. You mentioned earlier the first time you had a big kind of event there was the state finals. Now you are the Vermont state rep. You've been that for how long now? As long as Vermont has had a state rep. So I think we can count state championships. We've had five of those. So that suggests that it's been five years. What do you think of the big shakeup in the IFPA with the new president coming in? Yeah, it's all we've been talking about, the state reps. We gather in our little groups and just chat it up, and it is the top topic of the day, I'll tell you that. I mean, it can't be worse than dealing with Josh. Be honest. You've had to deal with him for five years. How lazy is he? Be honest. Josh is very responsive. He's really great, very supportive. Anything I would ever need, he provides it in spades. And this interview is over. Just like that, Steve. We are done talking, all right? I'll give you a chance to reword your answer and think carefully about what you're saying. Once again, how lazy is Josh Sharp? My loyalties are being questioned and torn and divided right now. Think of the future, my friend. Think of the future.
    11:16
    Josh is terrible. You heard it from a state rep right there. And, I mean, he's been doing this for five-plus years. So, I mean, if you can't trust Steve Daniels, I don't know who you can trust. But anyway, let's move on because obviously the future is about to be brighter with the new presidency happening in 2020. Make IFPA great again is the slogan. Anyway, so you kind of divide your time a little bit, obviously, with the Vermont Pin Golf League and the NEPL, which is huge. But going back to Vermont for a second, Pin Golf League. Now most leagues are maybe best scores maybe they direct play match play I don know too many that do a Pin Golf League I think that pretty cool Well thanks It very very popular and I don know if the pin golf part of it is the reason I think that it's because it's a team format that makes it pretty popular because that caters to it being a bit more casual, and also people are feeling like they have their teammates' backs and their teammates have their backs, and they can get advice and help on particular games. Let me just describe what the format of this league is, if people are kind of wondering how that goes. Each night, we have six machines that the tournament director selects any given week. And of course, we have a bunch of machines to pick from, so we're trying to vary things up and make sure we go through the collection thoroughly. So of the six machines, four of those for a given team are being played as individual games, so four four-player games. So the team marches through and plays those with ping off objectives in mind. And then so I said six. And so then the other two would be split flipper games where a pair will play a split flipper on machine five and a pair will play a split flipper on machine six. It's, of course, one pair of the teammates will play on one and the other teammates will play on the other game, if that makes sense. Split flipper. And then the other thing that gets mixed in there, which, of course, happens if you're familiar with how pin golf format tends to work, is sometimes you have score objectives and sometimes you have other goals like earn an extra ball in Metallica, say. So what I like to do and what seems to work pretty well is for each week, I just have one or possibly two non-score based goals. and I feel like that allows the new players to kind of focus on at least one thing that they might not already be aware of. So that's kind of my goal for them and it allows them to like, oh, figure out how well Walker multiball starts in Walking Dead or maybe get a couple 5x multipliers in Joker Poker or something like that. If they didn't realize that things were happening with the pinball machines where you hit certain things to make objectives happen within the game, this is a good introduction for that. The league, I feel like, caters to the new player pretty well, and it's proven that it's kept the interest of more than the beyond casual player as well. We have usually between eight and ten teams, so 32 to 40 players, four players each, which is pretty good for the space that we have. We actually will run in shifts on Wednesday nights. We don't have all six games going at once. We'll usually have like four or five groups or four or five teams going in the first shift and then whatever's left in the second shift. And then we'll also play on Fridays. So I try to be flexible with allowing people's schedules to work for whatever works for them. And for those wondering, it is IFPA sanctioned, but probably not the split flipper games, correct? Exactly. Yeah. You're totally on top of it. You know, you're nailing 100% of this. So there's a team component with team trophies and team results, but the individual stuff is just based on the four holes per person per week. But it's so much fun. I mean, it's a great way to get to know the players in your league. It's a great way to explain some of the intricacies of the game that you may not know if you're a new player to pinball. Yeah, it's been really popular. We haven't even considered switching it up, I guess. It's been that popular where people look forward to it all the time. We have people who play in just that league, and there's quite a few of those people. Speaking of team games, I know you're close to the border there in Vermont, so you've been kind of keeping up the U.S.-Canada relations with the Champlain Cup? Yep. The Champlain Cup is a challenge series between Vermont as an entire state and Montreal as a city, and it's yet another team challenge. And so it's a team format where there's singles and doubles and split flippers and a whole bunch of different rounds. And it's a home and away series with the overall for each year, the overall points in that home and away. The two different matches that determines the holder of the cup until the next time the challenge takes place. That's cool. I've only ever heard that once before. And that's what the Buffalo Pinball League does with the City Pinball League in Toronto. So Nick and Kevin and those crew come to Toronto and vice versa. They go to Buffalo and Jack Tadman and some of those people kind of have these great little, you know, fun matches too. International too. So that's neat to see that you're doing that with Montreal. And there's some great pinball places there for sure. Yeah, absolutely. People, you know, I want, that's among my goals for the scene in Vermont. I want people to get out and play in other places. And in this case, the other place is just an hour and a half away. That's how close we are to Montreal. So it's closer than a lot of other spots. Like if we wanted to go to Albany, New York, that's twice as far as that, basically, at least in terms of driving distance or driving time. And it's nice, too, that so many people have passports, too. That's great because I know people that live right on the border and have never, ever crossed over into Canada or Canadians who've never crossed over into the U.S. I'm like, what, what, what? You're right there. Yeah, absolutely. Not totally uncommon for people who just live up here to have one for that reason. It's just so close. So how's your playing, Ben? I know you're one of the top players, certainly in Vermont, but you've excelled every time I've seen you. And with all the new games that have come out in the last few years, first of all, what are some of the ones that you kind of gravitate to? And again, how have you been playing? I have been playing okay.
    17:24
    I think I've been playing a little bit less, traveling a little bit less, just picking and choosing the tournaments that I want to travel to. I always make it to Pinnberg. I will tend to go to New England Pinball League Finals, things like that. That's a that's a very large if you want to talk about how giant the New England Pinball League is by the way That a that a whole other that a whole other story about how amazing that league is Yeah just been okay I actually I think that I topped out around 150 in the world And then everyone else in the world got really good And I haven't played as much, apparently. And I think I got worse. And now I'm in like the 300s or something like that. But, you know, God, maybe it's 400 by now. But I'm somewhere in that area. And that's totally fine with me. What I've been noticing lately is either over people's shoulder or watching on stream, like watching people play, even people who aren't like the top 20 people in the world or whatever, I'll watch people and be like, how do I ever even compete with these people? Like, they're so good. There's so many people that are so good right now. Just pick like some random 600 in the world person who just wants, you know, on a stream that you've never, you might, you know, have heard their name before, but you've never seen them play before. You just watch them play. And it's like, it's unreal. And everyone, of course, has their own style, but just it's harder and harder to stay in the top whatever you'd want to be compared to how it was in the past. And I think that's a reasonable outcome for increased participation and increased skill level. There are so many more tournaments now. There are so many more players. You're right. It's really about the volume of play. But one thing I've learned in this pinball profile world tour that I'm doing, I go to different places and I see so much talent. It doesn't matter what their ranking is. Maybe they just play locally. Maybe they don't play a lot of tournaments. The skill is there. People are learning. They're learning online. They're learning from tutorials. They're getting deep into the rules. And it's tough to remain near the top. I tip my cap to people like Raymond Davidson and Johannes Ostermeyer and all these greats because there are people knocking at the door that are just so darn good. And you and I are both seeing that. Yeah, absolutely. I've always felt like, you know, my skills were just okay and they're, you know, not changing, except maybe for the worst. And the one place I could have an advantage would be to be familiar with as many games as I could, either with a lot of direct experience in owning the machines or just, you know, watching some videos or reading, like, I guess I'm referring specifically to, like, preparing for Pinberg. So I'll just make sure that I have at least some general sense of how to play everything at least, and maybe more than that. But that used to, like, you know, when I played my first Pinberg, like, however many years ago, that was kind of good enough. And like, that would be enough. And maybe the average person I would play in my middling rungs where I'd be finding my competition, like that would be enough to do well against those people. But now it's with pin tips and with people having the same idea, you know, it's harder and harder. And so I don't begrudge anybody, but it's just just recognizing that that advantage is definitely going away. I'm shocked when you say that you try to have knowledge of all the games in Pimber. There were over 300 games or 87 banks. You get the list and you take a look and you go, okay, let me find out something about that. Wow, that's amazing. Considering you're only going to play 40 of those games. I'm one of those people that has a spreadsheet that I willingly will share with people if they ask. And I've done that with many, many people that has a list of every game that when the Pinberg banks come out, I just will have from year to year. It's really great because like, let's say for this past year's Pinberg, when that list came out, there were only maybe 20 or 10 games that came out that I didn't already have notes on. So the maintenance of that list has really not been too bad, even with them adding banks of games. But the first time I ever had to do it when it was even with the 400 player Pinberg, which is what it was when I started, just diving in and writing down my thoughts on 100 games all at once, that took a good amount of time to do that. And now it's maybe a couple days of semi intensive work lately. And code updates, too. You have to refresh your notes when you see some of that. Boy, we've seen a lot of code updates lately. I'm sure you're just as excited as I am when you see games that are maybe games that are even a few years old get these great updates. I'm sure you've played Ghostbusters with the new code already, but I have not. I have less of an excuse for that particular title because I'm only a half hour away from the nearest Ghostbusters on location. but when it comes to a lot of the newer titles that are coming out, if I want to have those on location somewhere, I have to be the one buying them or roping someone else into buying them or splitting them with someone. So we have an Iron Maiden at the clubhouse getting back to that topic, and that's the latest machine that we have. I'm thinking about Jurassic Park, I guess, of course, because Keith Elwin is really great. It'll suit our needs very well. It's a fun game from what I've seen. I've played one a bit. But, you know, hey, these things cost a lot of money, and it might just be a question of a game or two that I need to sell to make that happen. For sure. Great games. We're seeing a lot of them come out now. It's a nice new golden age of pinball, and I know you're just as excited as I am. Yeah, absolutely. It's really nice to have so many games coming out that there's always going to be a game or two that I'll be very excited to play, if not consider owning every single year, which is not where we were five years ago or ten years ago. Steve, it's been a pleasure to talk to you once again. I wish you the best of luck with Vermont Pin Golf League, with the NEPL, with the Pinball Co-ops. Check it out on Facebook. And I wish you the best of luck. And don't worry, things will get better being a state rep. I mean, the management is just going to be so much better in 2020. Thanks so much, Jeff. This has been your Pinball Profile. You can find our group on Facebook. We're also on Twitter at Pinball Profile. Email us pinballprofile at gmail.com. And please subscribe on your favorite podcatcher and check us out on Instagram at pinballprofile. I'm Jeff Teels.