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Ep 54: The Three Amigos

Final Round Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 28m·held·Apr 13, 2022
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.035

TL;DR

TPF 2024 recap: Weird Al debut, playfield drama, and IFPA league restructuring.

Summary

Jeff Teolis and Marty Robbins of Final Round Pinball Podcast host Ryan C (voice of Jesse Jay's Pinball Adventures) for episode 54, diving into their TPF (Texas Pinball Festival) experience. Jeff attended the show and covers highlights including the Weird Al Multimorphic game, Rick and Morty, Funhaus 2.0, and tournament logistics. The trio discusses internet negativity vs. in-person community dynamics, Jersey Jack playfield issues, supply chain constraints, and the New England Pinball League's decision to leave IFPA affiliation due to rules misalignment with their league format.

Key Claims

  • Weird Al game had great feedback with good flipper feel and fitting theme integration (Weird Al making fun of players double-flipping through animations).

    high confidence · Jeff Teolis describing his hands-on experience at TPF

  • Jersey Jack has sold approximately 5,000 Guns N' Roses LE machines, compared to ~4,000 Wizard of Oz units.

    medium confidence · Marty Robbins citing previously released sales numbers

  • Jersey Jack is experiencing supply chain issues so severe they have completed machines but lack cardboard boxes to ship them.

    medium confidence · Jeff or Marty referencing an unverified claim about Jersey Jack manufacturing constraints

  • Merco's seminar on Forgotten Tales (Tales of the Arabian Nights upgrade) was cut short because attendees kept questioning the developer about playfield quality issues.

    high confidence · Jeff Teolis describing the TPF seminar experience firsthand

  • New England Pinball League voted 4-3 to leave IFPA affiliation because the majority of their players don't care about WPPR points.

    high confidence · Jeff citing Chuck Webster from New England Pinball League and Jeff Parsons from Pinball Players Podcast

  • Jeff placed 26th in the main tournament (top 24 advance) and struggled with games he owns (Rush, Stranger Things) due to machine-specific variations.

    high confidence · Jeff Teolis recounting his tournament results

  • TPF 2024 felt larger and more complete than Expo coming out of the pandemic, with 40,000 square feet of activity and stronger vendor presence.

    high confidence · Jeff Teolis comparing TPF experience to prior Expo events

  • Haggis Pinball (implied: Marty's company) is in 'full fathom mode' and decided not to attend TPF to prioritize shipping completed machines.

    high confidence · Marty Robbins explaining absence from TPF

Notable Quotes

  • “When you're at TPF, none of the online stuff really matters... it's like a summer camp for pinball enthusiasts.”

    Ryan C @ ~15:20 — Captures the fundamental cultural appeal of in-person events vs. online discourse in pinball community

  • “Pinside is everything. Pinside is the greatest place for pinball, and it's the worst place for pinball. It just depends on how much you want to read and which thread you go into.”

    Jeff Teolis @ ~20:15 — Articulates the paradox of Pinside as both essential resource and toxic echo chamber

  • “Finally, a good layout [for Friday the 13th homebrew based on Godzilla virtual pin].”

    Jeff Teolis @ ~35:45 — Humorous critique of Godzilla virtual pin community layout quality

  • “I hate to say that because my Jersey Jack pinball play field isn't great. But he didn't sell it to them, so he can't do anything if he's the third-party vendor.”

    Marty Robbins @ ~55:30 — Defends Merco against misdirected playfield criticism, acknowledges the third-party vendor problem

  • “If you've invested a lot of money in a pinball machine and it comes out of the box after a few plays and there's something seriously wrong... you go to the distributor, you go to the manufacturer, and hopefully they'll look after it.”

    Jeff Teolis @ ~56:20 — Establishes reasonable expectations for customer service on high-value products

  • “Stern still made the product... everyone who had this legitimate issue and they sent a video got a machine back.”

    Jeff Teolis @ ~54:00 — Documents Stern's responsive handling of LED Zeppelin warped playfield issues

  • “I played like shit, especially in the Classics... I was 26, so I just missed under the cut [for top 24].”

    Jeff Teolis @ ~65:00 — Self-deprecating tournament result commentary highlighting curse of playing your own machines

  • “The neat thing about it was you had to play 12 different machines to count on your card. And three of them had to be EMs, three of them had to be solid states, and three had to be modern games.”

Entities

Ryan CpersonJeff TeolispersonMarty RobbinspersonWeird AlgameRick and MortygameFunhaus 2.0gameFriday the 13th (Virtual Pin)game

Signals

  • ?

    event_signal: TPF 2024 described as larger, better organized, and more successful than prior Expo events; 40,000 sq ft venue, ~240 tournament competitors, improved tournament logistics with dedicated room and clear entry procedures.

    high · Jeff's direct comparison: 'It didn't feel like there had been three years since the last one. It was like, wow, this is bigger and better.'

  • ?

    product_launch: Weird Al by Multimorphic displayed and playable at TPF 2024 with strong positive reception. Featured bright animations, good flipper response, thematic integration of character call-outs that meta-comment on player behavior.

    high · Jeff: 'Weird Al makes fun of you for doing that. Oh, sorry, I guess you're in a hurry. I thought that was really cute, you know, that it fit the theme. So that was a big winner for sure.'

  • ?

    product_concern: Multiple mentions of playfield warping issues affecting recent Stern releases (LED Zeppelin, Avengers) and Jersey Jack machines (possibly Guns N' Roses). Merco (third-party playfield vendor) receiving criticism at TPF seminar; Jersey Jack offering full refunds for unhappy customers.

    high · Jeff: 'I know three other people that had warped playfields... They all got their populated playfields... Jersey Jack has offered full refunds too if you're not happy with it.'

  • ?

    supply_chain_signal: Jersey Jack reported lacking cardboard boxes to ship completed machines. General acknowledgment that supply chain issues persist across all manufacturers; single component delays cascade across production.

    medium · Marty/Jeff: 'they didn't have cardboard to send the machines. They've got some machines ready. They don't even have the cardboard to ship it.' and 'if you don't have that, like, one screw, you can't ship it.'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.266

0:00
The Pinball Network is online. Launching final round pinball podcast. it's player versus player and player versus machine welcome to the final round
0:39
Hey there, how you doing? It's Jeff Teolas. It's Martin Robbins, and this is the Final Round Pinball Podcast. What episode, Marty? Come on. 54, I think. It's 54, you're right. Is it 54, Jacob? By the way, this is the first time we have ever recorded, with the exception of the Drunk Show, where we're actually using video to see each other. So, Marty, you look good? Sure. You're supposed to say you look good too, Jeff. What a dick move. Yeah, well, I told you exactly what you'd expect. so this is going to be a tough show so we better bring someone in and you know and love this person do we though I know this person I think that's a bit presumptuous that we love this person well we know this, okay, you know this person somebody has to love me other than my mother is that the voice of Jesse Jay's pinball adventures which you hear all the time on TPN is that Ryan C Is that my claim to fame? We had like 13 episodes, it was amazing Oh, that's awesome How are you? Good It's the Melbourne International Comedy Festival is happening right now in Melbourne Marty, have you gone to see anyone yet? No Mainly because No, I'll tell you why Mainly because I really, really dislike stand-up comedy Go fuck yourself Well, no Why would you be offended by that Jeff? It's got nothing to do with you You have no stand up comedians you've ever laughed at Ever Look I have seen some very funny comedians But It's just not my favourite genre of comedy It really isn't As I shit on you Let me just tell you the same thing It's not mine either It's the rare person that makes me go crazy and laugh But I would say yeah 80% of it doesn't do it for me, but you could say the same thing about 80% of television shows and music and movies and all that kind of stuff. So I get it. Didn't you have a stand-up comedy career at some stage? It wasn't a career. It was a little bit of a hobby, and I did it in my 20s, and I was very successful for it. What are you laughing at, Ryan? You prick. Oh, I was very – It's your boy. No, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I was very successful as it not being a career but only being a hobby. Really successful. Hold on there, Big Mouth. the reason it was a hobby is because I had a full-time job. The comics I was doing the weekend circuits with were like that was all they had. And I was like, fuck, I have a full-time job with benefits that I love in radio, which I'm still doing to this day, by the way, 30 years later. So that's why I never pursued it as a full-time thing. It started off as shits and giggles for my buddies, and then you kind of toured the province and all that kind of good stuff. Yeah, but that happens to a lot of comedians where they start out, But then they get really good at it and it becomes their career.

Jeff Teolis @ ~62:15 — TPF tournament format enforces diverse machine sampling to prevent specialization farming

Forgotten Tales
game
Guns N' Rosesgame
Wizard of Ozgame
LED Zeppelingame
Rushgame
Stranger Thingsgame
Steve Ritchieperson
Jersey Jackcompany
Multimorphiccompany
Texas Pinball Festival (TPF)event
Mercocompany
New England Pinball Leagueorganization
Texas Pinball Leagueorganization
IFPAorganization
Haggis Pinballcompany
Jeff Parsonsperson
Chuck Websterperson
Lordofthegameroom.comcompany
$

market_signal: Jersey Jack Guns N' Roses LE sold ~5,000 units; Wizard of Oz sold ~4,000 units. Both are top performers for manufacturer but neither officially announced as sold out.

medium · Marty: 'they'd said it was about maybe 4,000 wizard of oz's... they sold 5,000 les of guns and roses... they've sold more'

  • ?

    community_signal: New England Pinball League voted 4-3 to leave IFPA affiliation citing majority player indifference to WPPR points. Texas Pinball League undergoing similar restructuring. Signals growing tension between casual/fun-oriented regional leagues and IFPA's competitive points structure.

    high · Jeff: 'New England Pinball League... have a panel of seven people and it was a vote of four to three, they are not going to be IFPA-affiliated anymore, at least for this upcoming season.'

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Multiple games noted for difficulty/machine variance issues. Rick and Morty praised for call-outs and theme integration. Funhaus 2.0 playfield strategy different from original (left ramp emphasis); animation length requires double-flip exits.

    medium · Jeff on Funhaus 2.0: 'The left ramp was very, very important versus the real Funhaus version.' On animations: 'can you get out of that? And so when you double flip to get out of most animations, Weird Al makes fun of you for doing that.'

  • ?

    tournament_signal: TPF 2024 used limited entry format: 25 games in main (best 12 count), 8 in classics (best 4 count). Requires diversity (3 EMs, 3 solid states, 3 modern). Dedicated tournament room with waiting area. Hosts praised organization as 'best one I've ever seen.'

    high · Jeff: 'you had to play 12 different machines to count on your card. And three of them had to be EMs, three of them had to be solid states, and three had to be modern games... really well plotted out... the best one I've ever seen'

  • ?

    industry_signal: Jersey Jack publicly confirmed they will NOT pursue two releases per year as previously stated; supply chain constraints force more conservative release schedule.

    high · Marty: 'he said when he came to Australia... it's time for Jersey Jack to grow up and we're going to release more than one game a year. Did they let us know when the next game is coming out... Two a year ain't happening.'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Hosts illustrate contrast between in-person TPF attendee sentiment (positive, forgiving) vs. online Pinside sentiment (negative, circular echo chambers). In-person experience absorbs negative news (playfield issues, disappointing seminars) more gracefully; online culture amplifies and perpetuates negativity.

    high · Ryan: 'you just move on to try and find something else that's going to bring you joy' vs. 'Pinside [had] this thread which is you know on fire... with 2,000 posts just talking about how much Daldin sucks.'

  • ?

    content_signal: Hosts commend emerging content creators (Nap/NapArcade, Martin from Pinball News) filling gap left by Jeff Patterson's This Week in Pinball hiatus. Recognition of strong community media ecosystem.

    medium · Jeff: 'Martin from Pinball News was at TPF. I commended him on the years of providing great content... Nap... I think he realized that there's definitely still a gap from Jeff Patterson... So here he is to save the day. He does a good job.'

    • 3:38
    Well, again, asshole, the last time I ever did a stand-up comedy show, I won the best comic for the... I won... What was the award I won? In your lounge room? No.
    3:50
    I won an award which put me into the contest for funniest comedian of Canada. Now, I'm going to leave that story right there. I'm going to leave it there. That's enough. I won my city. So then you advance to the national finals. That's all I'll say. And what happened after that, Jeff? You dick. What happened was the sponsor of the national championships backed out, and they actually never had the national championships. So the last time I ever did it was when I was the winner for the regional, and I never did it again. I was like, ah, fuck. This is, again, full-time job. Love my career. This is the one that pays the bills. And I was like, what was I going to do with it anyway? It was all for fun. And I get to joke here. This sounds like Eurovision in 2020 when they canceled it and they just didn't redo it. And all those people, I could have won, I could have won, I could have been. That's Jeff. I never said I could have won. I just said I didn't go on because they didn't have national championships. I enjoy seeing stand-up comics and I especially enjoyed it this week because if you don't like the joke you can just get up, slap the shit out of the comedian and sit back down, like it's a new world out there, I actually saw like 8 comedians, it was like the 10 minutes each one and they were so bad, like Marty you don't like sitting in the cringe and hearing horrible jokes you know that, yet I still do this podcast so and you still listen to that joke that i just tried to pull um yeah this these comedians holy shit um the worst the one that bombed the most was the only one who had a show she was just like my name's and i can't i can't remember what her name was like come come see me and everyone's just like no like you you made my whole night awkward like so bad the first time i ever did stand-up i was watching an amateur night me and my buddy jeff allen and we were kind of considering doing stand-up comedy, but we said, okay, well, let's see what this is all about. We'd never been to a show, watched one, and we thought, I think you're supposed to heckle comedians. And as long as the heckles are funny, that's fine to do so. Usually they have a comeback. So we heckled this one guy, and he got really, really sad. And our jokes, they were laughing at what we were saying. And he goes, look, sit back, enjoy the show. If you like it, great. If not, just maybe keep quiet. It's not easy being up here. I'd like to see you try. And Jeff and I looked at each other, and we went, we'll do it next week. we did that's how we started do you remember jeff when we went to uh when i was in toronto and you took me out when a comedian starts picking on the crowds my heart races like out of my chest i don't know what it is even and it happened the other day and and lucky they didn't pick on me because i was pretty far back but even if it's a bad comedian i don't know what it is i feel like you know ryan's on the spot like someone's gonna make fun of ryan and everyone's gonna laugh I don't know what it is. Well, I don't know. To me, it's almost a badge of honor when you're being made fun of. As long as it's obviously not just viciously mean, that's different. But, you know, you have to have thick skin. You know, for me, if I'm going to dish it out, I better be able to take it. And I don't always, let's just say.
    7:11
    But I think we did it that night. And anyway, that's our little comedy thing. I've watched Ricky Gervais several times this week for no apparent reason. just to see how many punchlines he threw and yet no punches thrown.
    7:25
    Well done. So, Marty, let's talk pinball. Maybe we'll bounce back around this. So, Ryan, you and Marty have both been to TPF. It wasn't in the cards this year. I did go. Did you miss it? Oh, so much. I found it difficult. Well, not so much difficult to see all the footage and coverage of it, But I did pine. I really wanted to be there. From what I've heard from everybody, they've said yet again, it was an amazing show. I wanted to see some new machines that were there. I just wanted to meet all the people that I knew as well. And I just had so many people messaging me up to the day saying, am I going to see you? And I just had to say no to so many people. You're so popular, Marty. I only had one.
    8:17
    Well, let me tell you, Marty. I had several people come up to me, hey, is Marty here? And I said, no, he couldn't make it. And they said, thank God. And anyway, we did miss you there. It would have been nice to see you. Actually, we did have a lot of people ask about Haggis and whatnot. And I think it was kind of close. Maybe you and Damien were going to go. But again, it's full fathom mode right now, so it wasn't possible. Yeah, and that was it. It was really the decision was, do we take a week out of the factory getting games in boxes, or do we go to the show? And that was just the choice. What did you like about TPF when you went years ago, Ryan? I think it's kind of when you are obsessed with pinball and you want to gobble up as much information as possible, where it's listening to podcasts, watching streams, being on pin side, talking to your pinball friends, whatever it is. when you're at tpf none of the online stuff really matters and you're present in the moment with all these people and things are happening but you don't care about like the outside and the external conversation of it you're just there in this kind of pinball bubble for a couple of days and and you kind of like almost live with these people like you're bunking with them almost um and then you leave after three days and then you kind of like realize that no one cares about pinball outside of this thing, but it's like a summer camp for pinball enthusiasts.
    9:38
    And I'm sure, like everyone says, the people in pinball is what makes it great, and you've got this big conglomerate of people all together. Let me just elaborate on that, because what I also found is that at the show, if something bad or negative happens, and look, when I was there, the two sort of, I guess, underwhelming negative things that happened were Steve Ritchie seminar when he didn't talk about Black Knight, it might have been, and everyone was really disappointed. And the other one was that the big release that Jersey Jack had was Wizard of Oz... Yellow Brick Road Edition. And what happens is people say, oh, you know, it was really disappointing. But here's all this other positive stuff, right? So you lose a lot of that negative energy when you're having conversations with people and that's that's the reality of people versus the internet it just becomes a cesspool of negativity whereas in real life people say something negative and then move on they don't really harp on it because there's other positive stuff to go and explore you know this this is the the internet is where we are starved for information things just start to fester and we start getting circular conversations in the echo chamber whereas in real life something at tpf you just move on to try and find something else that's going to bring you joy kumbaya yeah at um i think it was expo the year before is when dialed in was released and everyone online was saying oh my gosh the seminar was the worst seminar ever and some people were saying that that were there as well i didn't have that experience but then everyone played it and the game kind of shot amazing um and then i come back to australia a couple of days later and I log into Pinside and there's this thread which is you know on fire uh with 2,000 posts just talking about how much Daldin sucks and hardly any like most of the comments were from people just watching online and I'm just like that wasn't that wasn't the experience oh my gosh the guy has genes and this this and that I'm like but that what's that got to do with you know and that's what you said Marty what's that got to do with it those are your voters those people online are the ones who are giving out all these awards. Those are the people that matter the most, the ones that aren't seeing it firsthand.
    11:57
    Could I sound more sarcastic? Yeah, you could. But again, it's just internet versus people. And, you know, we say, we do say that people are great, and they are great, but it still just reminds me when people say, they get into the hobby for the first time, and they say, where can I get more information? Do you want to send them to Pinside? Hells no. No. It depends. That's like saying, do you... Pinside is everything. Pinside is the greatest place for pinball, and it's the worst place for pinball. It just depends on how much you want to read and which thread you go into. No, I know, but Ryan, I'm putting words into your mouth. You would say to somebody, hey, come along to this pinball meet. Come along to these tournaments and meet people. You'll have a great time. Keep Ryan's words out of your fucking mouth. Nice, nice And that career didn't take off, I just don't understand Hilarious Anyway, so the person that was there this year was you, Jeff Please give us some highlights I think the biggest one for sure was Weird Al a big lineup to see the big multi-morphic display there already in Texas and a lot of great feedback on the play of the game, the call-outs, the visuals Steven Silver was there answering questions of course Jerry was there Did you play Jeff? Yeah I did, I got a few games in on it and thoroughly enjoyed it, it looked pretty deep the flippers felt great, you know that was always something that people were I guess concerned about but it was good lots of things there, it's funny watching the 10 minutes of the stream I did for the launch, I was like, okay, these animations are long. I mean, they're necessary. You don't know what the hell is going on. Weird Al's got to tell you he's funny, but can you get out of that? And so when you double flip to get out of most animations, Weird Al makes fun of you for doing that. Oh, sorry, I guess you're in a hurry. I thought that was really cute, you know, that it fit the theme. So that was a big winner for sure. Anything else? Okay, hold on.
    14:05
    Of course, the games were everywhere. There was 40,000 square feet of all kinds of activity. the huge display for Marco's specialties in Stern. All the major companies were there. Jersey Jack had a nice display. American had one. Spooky. The mod makers were just something to see. I mean, people that came out of it. I remember seeing this one person. I think I got their card. I'll give them a plug here.
    14:29
    Lordofthegameroom.com. And they had this big setup of like an Alice Cooper castle. They had a steampunk rush. They had this neat Godzilla thing. And then they were selling all these mods, and they were quite popular. and I think sold out a lot of their stuff. But there was just so many different vendors. It felt like a full show, whereas Expo was just kind of coming out of the Ian virus. And this was a full show. It didn't feel like there had been three years since the last one. It was like, wow, this is bigger and better. And so was the tournament too. Was it in the same location? The convention center in Frisco was the same location. They moved, I think for the third year in a row now, They moved the tournament area to a big room with a big waiting room. So that was really well done. And I know Marty and I were talking about it on previous episodes about it's a limited entry tournament. So in this case, there were 25 games in the main and you had your best 12 that counted. And you had quite a long time to get those in. And then it was harder in the classics. There were eight machines and your best four counted. So, you know, you better be good on those four as I was not. And the great thing about this whole limited thing, Texas in years past it was difficult to get all your entries in that was not the problem at all this time so really well plotted out so I commended them I said it was the best one I've ever seen So besides Weird Al what other highlights as far as games were there I mean I guess you probably get to play everything so it's not like there's anything that's new for you I'd imagine but lots of homebrew were there as well Yeah there were lots of fun homebrews that was good it's hard to really describe them because well there was one that It was a Friday the 13th virtual pin. And I looked at it. I'm like, that is 100% Godzilla. And they just turned it into Camp Crystal Lake and made it Friday the 13th. I sent Elwana a picture. I said, finally, a good layout.
    16:20
    But anyway, they had that. Then they had... I finally played Rick and Morty. Isn't that stupid? I have never played Rick and Morty until this trip. And what are your thoughts? What's your hot take on Rick and Morty, Jeff? Amazing call-outs. Great theme integration. It's good. I mean, I only played a couple of games on it, and I liked it. I mean, I don't know what some of the issues are because I haven't played a lot of it, but I enjoyed it. It looked like a real hit. It bruises the ego of a lot of people, I think. Yeah. It's one of the issues. Marty, the one big thing I was playing, and I was thinking of you when I was playing this, was Funhaus 2.0. Not because you look like Rudy. I mean, there's a little similarity, but it was just the 2.0 aspect and really, really good animations. I don't know if I got really deep enough to kind of see what this did and the score balancing and stuff, but I kind of like the idea. It was different. You know, you certainly played it a different way. The left ramp was very, very important versus the real Funhaus version. And the problem is they only had one, and the left flipper was broken, so it only kind of came up halfway. So that was a little bit too bad. Is that a problem for you often, Jeff, when it only comes up halfway? Hmm. At 52, I'll take half an hour. Just the left one.
    17:36
    Oh, hilarious! No jokes! Dennis Creasle keeps on talking about Funhaus animations, and I haven't seen it, but he keeps on referring to the hot dog and the mayonnaise, and I can only imagine what he's talking about. But have you seen this animation with the hot dog and the mayonnaise? I didn't see that. I saw the kind of mania where all these rooties were chasing him, but I didn't see that animation. The one thing I did notice about the animation, It was bright, it was vibrant, it was color. But if you were playing in a multiplayer game, it only showed the one person's score. That was a big no-no. You've got to show the other scores too, especially if you're using it in some sort of tournament or match play. Yeah, that's probably not their target market, I would say. But how hard is it to do, to add that? Probably not hard. What else was there? Well, they had the seminars. And the one seminar that kind of – there were a couple neat seminars. Steve Ritchie was there with Jersey Jack. they were talking about timelines and this and that. Nothing really to announce.
    18:36
    American Pinball announced that they are going to be releasing Barry Ousler's final game. The play field is done. Wait, jump back to that. They talked about timelines. What are the timelines? Because I remember Jack saying when he came to Australia, Marty, in like 2018, like it's time for Jesse Jack to grow up and we're going to release more than one game a year. Did they let us know when the next game is coming out or when Steve's game is coming out? This just in, two a year ain't happening. Come on, that's not going to happen with all the supply issues. So no, they didn't dangle that carrot again, nor should they. Yeah, fair enough. Ryan, you and I know, I can't remember how long ago it was. I could go into my phone and remember when it was. But it was a very long, long time ago we'd heard about Toy Story. yes the famous the famous leak from that everyone just calls him a disgruntled employee but he's like he's he's known like people know who he is he works for american pinball i was told by somebody that still works there can i say something about jersey jack i love their products i enjoy their games i kind of feel sorry for them is that the right or wrong thing to do because they have a big hit obviously with guns roses they've sold probably more of those than anything maybe more than wizard was maybe less i don't know what do you think well i think they said i don't wait the numbers came out for the units that they'd sold a couple of years ago and i think they'd said it was about maybe 4 000 wizard of oz's so i mean there was 5 000 les of guns and roses okay so they've sold more no no up to 5 000 like 5 000 is the is the limit so i thought they sold out though I don't think so. I've never heard a sold-out announcement either. I think there was rumors, like, if it keeps on going like this, it might sell out, but I don't think. So should I feel sorry for them? They've obviously got machines on the line. I thought I heard somebody say, and forgive me if it wasn't said, one of the problems they have, and again, supply issues like everyone else has, they didn't have cardboard to send the machines. They've got some machines ready. They don't even have the cardboard to ship it. Can you believe that? Yes, I can.
    20:48
    Marty, we've heard a thousand times, Marty, when we used to interview people, like, if you don't have that, like, one screw, you can't ship it. And as someone who doesn't make pinball machines, you're just like, ah, just, like, go and get the screw. Like, it's hard if you're not involved in pinball machine manufacturing. It's hard to grasp just how hard it is. You just have to believe the people that say it's hard.
    21:11
    According to Ryan, you just go to Pinball or Us and pick up the screws or the circuits or the chips. No, you're absolutely right. And what it is is stuff that you have just been getting, regular shipments, light clockwork, absolutely. And then all of a sudden you get a notification that says, oh, sorry, there's now a three-month delay. You go, what the fuck? How did this possibly happen? We have been getting these every two weeks for the last six months. Why now? And that's, it's card, I'm not saying it's cardboard, but it's the equivalent of cardboard in other ways. and it's exactly that so when you say that i kind of go yeah that's probably right if only you live next to pinball life like half an hour away like how jealous are you of when you know charlie emery just like oh yeah we just load up a van and we just go to pinball life and we buy 50 parts for the machines and then we just drive back i would imagine they having supply issues too though It everywhere It every industry Yeah it is They would be They would be, but Pinball Life aren't releasing pinball machines under the scrutiny of the public. Good point. I did mention Funhaus 2.0. The other one that they were trying to talk about was what Merco is doing. and they're doing the Forgotten Tales, which is the upgrade for Tales of the Arabian Nights, where you'll be able to play the original and also the new code. Sound familiar, Marty? No.
    22:40
    It's a new concept. Are they doing enhancements to the game, like, you know, Funhouse comes with the little screen in the play field and, you know, other things like Brighter Pinbot comes with a new speaker and LCD panel. Sexier artwork. It's all about sexier artwork. Yeah. On where? On the play field? On the cabinet? A bride of Pimbot, just bigger boobs, longer legs. Just the Toten. Is there a girl on Toten? Yeah, probably. If there is bigger boobs, longer legs, it works. That is sexist, Ryan. Do the mermaids have longer tails, Marty? His tails? Is that the hot thing in your... Well, they don't have legs. Hold on. Our resident freak guest host here is telling us about what's hot in animations. Go on. They're the same, Ryan. Okay. That was sexy enough. But here's the thing. This poor guy was trying to talk about the Forgotten Tales. It was a half an hour seminar. I believe it was supposed to be an hour. It only lasted half an hour because he essentially ended it when everyone wanted to talk about the Merco playfields and the issues that those are having. In fact, it was even brought up in the Jersey Jack seminar. And he's like, yeah, I'm not here to talk about that over and over and over again. And just send me an email. And somebody's like, well, I did send you an email. You didn't respond. Well, we responded to most of them. Well, I've sent you several. He's like, well, again, I don't want to comment about that right here. It didn't go well.
    24:02
    If people are just talking to him about the Jersey Jack issue, then I sympathize with him. I hate to say that because my Jersey Jack pinball play field isn't great. But he didn't sell it to them, so he can't do anything if he's the third-party vendor. Just like if you, I don't know, if you had an issue. Well, I mean, I guess you had an issue with one of your pinball machines, Jeff, and you might have got some help from Stern instead of your distributor, but Stern still made the product. What happened was you were talking about Led Zeppelin. It was warped, and there were others that were warped as well. I don't want to say their names, but I know three other people that had warped playfields, whether it was that or Avengers. And in all cases, and no, they weren't all pinball media people or pinfluencers. Boy, that's a weird term. They all got their populated playfields. So everyone who had this legitimate issue and they sent a video got a machine back. And I know it has been a little more difficult for Jersey Jack. They have offered full refunds too if you're not happy with it. What I'm saying though, Jeff, what if it was revealed that the maker of Stern Playfields is company XYZ?
    25:16
    Would you then go to company XYZ and say, hey, your Playfields are fucked. They're warped. Fix it. They'll be like, well, this is not our problem. you have to deal with Stern. That's what I'm talking about. Yes, he was there to promote a new product, and I'm glad that the pinball community finally stood up because everyone always goes crazy on pin side, like, I'm going to do this, and then no one... I'm going to talk to Kevin Kulik, and they take a picture at the back of his head.
    25:42
    But in this case, maybe it was a little bit misdirected. I think if you've invested a lot of money in a pinball machine and it comes out of the box after a few plays and there's something seriously wrong, I think, again, you go to the distributor, you go to the manufacturer, and hopefully they'll look after it. So I would be upset as well. I would have been upset if my Zeppelin was warped. It was unplayable. So I can see that, yeah. I'm just wondering whether it would have been better to just put somebody in front of everybody that's got nothing to do with play fields and just is the person that did the new code. Because then you can't ask them questions. They'll be like, the answer is, Sorry, I actually don't know. It's not my division. I'm going to talk about this new 2.0, whatever it is. I don't know. I just feel like it could have been avoided, and maybe they knew it was coming, and they were bracing themselves for it. You can watch that entire seminar from Mirko. Maybe they don't want you to, but it's on naparcade.org. By the way, are they the new This Week in Pinball? I mean, good blogs. Yeah, a lot of content coming out from Nap. Nice. I think he realized that there's definitely still a gap from Jeff Patterson, his hiatus from updating everyone weekly and everyone wants their fix. So here he is to save the day. He does a good job. Martin from Pinball News was at TPF. I commended him on the years of providing great content, and we appreciate it. So thanks to everyone who's doing that. What else? Go ahead.
    27:18
    I was just going to say, you touched on the tournament and your experience in Classics. How did you go overall?
    27:25
    Oh, I played like shit, especially in the Classics. If there were 240 people, I was right in the middle. And then in the main event, top 24 made it and I was 26. So, whoops, just missed under the cut. But it was tough. The neat thing about it was you had to play 12 different machines to count on your card. And three of them had to be EMs, three of them had to be solid states, and three had to be modern games. and if you can believe this a game I owned was my bane I couldn't blow up Rush of all games and fucking Stranger Things too got me bit me in the ass the slings were so tight it was tough I couldn't even get 80 million on Stranger Things brutal it really is a curse playing a game that you own in a tournament except for strategy because you get so used to playing the exact copy I hate using the word copy but your version of the game that you just assume because it's the same game that it's going to play the same, and it doesn't. So, I mean, I heard all that talk last week, you know, the tournament talk. What's going on? Like, I feel like everyone used to kind of bitch about the WAPA farming, and then now it's just like, well, if you can't beat them, join them thing. Do you see it as a slippery slope, Jeff, the way that things are going? I mean, you talked about running three tournaments in a day. If I'm going to travel somewhere, it better be worth it. What's the limit to these things? How far apart should they be spaced?
    28:57
    Okay, let me give you an update. Last week, we had Chuck Webster from the New England Pinball League on, and I was talking to people from the Texas Pinball League, two very similar leagues, huge amounts of people, satellite locations, so they'll play on a Friday night at this location, this location, and this location. Well, obviously you can't be at all of them, but if you win at this place, you get so many points and you move on, and then they all funnel together for the playoffs. Well, the way the IFPA is structured now, you can't really do that as a whole. You have to do them kind of separately. We talked about it last week, but this is what's happened since then. The New England Pinball League and Jeff Parsons, who we know from the Pinball Players podcast,
    29:41
    they have a panel of seven people and it was a vote of four to three, they are not going to be IFPA-affiliated anymore, at least for this upcoming season. They're just going to play their leagues because the majority of people didn't care about the points, but obviously the people who did care, cared a lot. So they're just going to still play the fun nights and all that kind of stuff, and I think Texas is doing some restructuring as well. So that's that aspect to what you're referring to. I would love to see it. I would love to see what the results are of that long-term because I feel like that's the hardest question to ask. What do you care about in a tournament? Because it's always, I think, you know, some stats were mentioned, like, ah, like 3% of people only, you know, care about whoppers and then, you know, 20% of people like a little bit. And then if you get rid of whoppers, like what actually happens? Because no one wants to admit that they're obsessed with seeing themselves climb up the ranks and whatever it is. It's not nice to verbalize it, but it may be true.
    30:45
    So I'm interested to see what the numbers are like. Ryan, you're a good player. Marty, you're a good player. When you play, and I think we like to say we don't care, but we do because we can probably win tournaments we're in. And I know when I first started playing, and maybe you two are the same way, I didn't care at all about Wobbers. The first time I played, but then once I heard it, That's the addiction. Yeah, once you see your name climbing the ladder, it's addictive and you just want to see how far you can go. And when that's taken away on a global scale, I can imagine that has an impact. They obviously will still have their local rankings and you'll see how you compare in that league itself. But it is different when you don't feel like you're part of something bigger. Exactly. I think when IFPA was kind of suspended here and we started the Vipers, the Victorian pinball flipper association, it was fine. And I enjoyed that because we had our own ranking, but there was no IFPA equivalent. I think if we all decided like, oh, hey, let's get rid of the IFPA and just do that. You're right, Marty. There's something bigger out there and there's a different ranking system and there's the Australian pinball championships. and um it said it's interesting if they can if they can break away from ifpa and still have fun and have all these people coming then that's absolutely amazing because um i i think it's sad if if you know as much as i admit that i'm pretty addicted to to whoppers and i love you know that system i still think it's a little bit sad that you know rules and structures need to be created because of whopper farms and all these little exploits. It's very easy to run and create rules for five tournaments, not for the entire world.
    32:41
    I wonder if the addiction is comparable to Stern Insider connected and getting those achievements. Marty, you and I have said on this podcast, hey, it's great. It's there. I'm not going to go out of my way to do it. I don't go out of my way to do it, but if it's there, all right, I scan it and I throw it in. But I know so many people, a lot of people that are just, oh, I'm only missing this achievement or they're checking their friends and all that stuff. They had a huge thing at Marco where they had a whole contest. So these shows, they do a lot of Stern Insider Connected contests and they were giving away prizes. Okay, from all those people in the three days that we're here, here are the winners of machine A, B, C, D. That's almost that same kind of addiction, that competition thing, how you're doing globally or regionally or whatever the case may be. It's been around for a long while on video games. Marty, you're a PlayStation fan. You know, there's the Platinum Trophies. I used to hang around with a lot of gamers, and if you get sucked into the achievement trophy vortex, it can become, like, people start playing for, not for enjoyment, but to be a completionist, right? And I don't think they've figured it out yet in Insider Connect. They'll get there eventually, but there's, yeah, I think as long as people are, well, like you said, Marty, people can draw fun from however they want from pinball. You can't tell someone how to have fun. Well, I guess a parallel I can give you is in a particular game, there are trophies that you earn and obviously the platinum is the one where you complete everything. But that then goes up to your overall ranking, which is on a world scale. so I don't care about my overall ranking that that's just not important to me but finishing a game is really important to me so I guess my parallel to these mega leagues is well just focus on your individual league and and how you're going to rank in that and don't worry about your global ranking, I guess. Look, it affects those people that are in the running. Those people that are just slightly under, that want to get into the top 100 or get into the top 50 or whatever. It's really going to affect those people because their ability to get into that ranking is now gone. But for the majority of people that probably won't ever see a top 100, they'd probably just be happy to just get a platinum trophy in their local league. You know what's the most important thing about pinball? I mean, I don't think anybody can argue. Ryan? I'll give you some rubbish answers and I'm just setting up your joke. I don't know. Seeing the new spinal tap by Home Pin. That's the most important thing.
    35:28
    Fucking joke. Fucking joke killer. What is the most important thing in pinball, Jeff? Our sponsor of the week.
    35:40
    So smooth. For over two years, we have been providing you free pinball content with the Final Round podcast. You have rewarded us with tens of listeners and zero to be votes. Your loyalty is noted. So what are we doing wrong? Nothing. We do what we want. But what do you want? We've ignored the request to tone down our jokes. Maybe watch our language. Well, now you can have the best of both worlds. original final round content unedited or final round 2.0, the Will Smith edited version. If you hear a joke that offends you, press the podcast action button to let the host know your feelings are hurt. If you hear a word that you think is inappropriate, slap the button. Tournament talk. COVID talk. Thanks, Ian. And what about, I didn't even say anything. If you hear something that you think will offend others, let them voice their own opinion. So in summary, if you're a piece of shit, finger-pointing crybaby, holier-than-thou hypocrite, QAnon-loving person who can't take a joke, you can finally listen to Final Round again. Here's what you do. A. Use the Will Smith Final Round filter. And B. Fuck off. It's Final Round 2.0 from Merco. No refunds.
    36:56
    What are you eating? Ryan, what are you eating? This isn't Jonathan Joosten doing the Pinball News and Pinball Magazine podcast. Take the food out of your mouth. Do you want it to be Jeff?
    37:08
    That's for Patreon subscribers only. You were asking before the break about some of the tournaments and going to tournaments. We actually did get an email from Derek, who's a big fan of the show, and we're a big fan of Derek's as well. In fact, Marty saved him not too long ago. I talked about how he was one of the first people to say hi to Marty. Derek's one of the people behind Pintastic, and he wrote us a note, and I should probably read it verbatim, but I'm paraphrasing. And this was back with Stephen Bowden when we were talking about different tournaments and the one thing to suggest. Let me just say, Pintastic is a spectacular show. It's a lot of fun. I know, Marty, you want to go to it? I really do. It's a great area. The showroom is perfect. Jim Swain runs an amazing Silver Ball Rumble tournament. My only suggestion was have more tournaments. Now, they do have a Bells tournament for the women as well, and I think they have some fun ones at midnight and stuff like that. But I was talking about kind of a full TGP tournaments that all people can play in. And when I listed, I think, 10 other Stern Pro Circuit events that have at least two, that is what I mean when I say, you know, I have to look at the money it cost me to probably fly there, the hotel, the time, the vacation time from work. And if I have a choice between picking one that has two tournaments or one that has one tournament, I'm probably going to lean towards one with at least two. I mean, why is Indisc so popular? There are several. Two classics, a classics target match play. there's a high stakes one there's the main open there's the women's there's a lot going on that's the attractiveness of that type of pinball tournament i know it's not a show like pintastic but that's what i meant ryan and i don't know i mean look why is brisbane master so popular there's 10 days of pinball tournaments no but it's the same it's the same thing they are dedicated tournaments there's nothing else to do so it's what it's what pintastic themselves have to really decide are you going to be first and foremost a pinball show or are you going to be a tournament or you're going to be somewhere in between because you're attracting people that either want to do one or the other or both so i i think that's a hard comparison to say in disc and brisbane masters versus pentesti because they are shows that it makes a big difference tpf is definitely a show first that happens to have again three tournaments but two that everyone can plan and that's again attractive yegpin has several in disc we talked about even when pinberg was around. They had the Intergalactic as well and if you were daring enough to try the pin golf the day before, well, I guess there's three, but Cleveland has a couple. There's just so many shows that have more than one. For me, that is thinking about tournaments first. I have to look at that. What's happening, Marty, this year with Melbourne Silver Bowl Championship? Is there any chance?
    39:56
    Do you know, funny you should mention that, Ryan, because I was literally having this conversation a couple of weeks ago because it was obviously it was linked to the flip out pinball show and i don't think the flip out pinball show is going to happen and what you've got to remember is that the bulk of the games that were provided were from the show or from from wayne he provided most of the the machines for the tournament but i literally had this conversation a couple of weeks ago that went maybe maybe we've just got to go it alone um and somebody that i think you both you and i know has mentioned a venue that we could have very cheap to do it. It's just sourcing the games, really. It's just reaching out to the community and seeing who wants to provide machines. Because I think the infrastructure is there as far as the people. I think the people to run the tournament would be the same people that helped out last time. It's now just reaching out to the community. And I'm not as much in the community anymore. So basically what I'm saying is I need all your machines, Ryan. So thank you for offering them. Hey, last time I was on the show, Jeff, you asked the question that you always seem to ask. Like, how's the pinball scene there in Melbourne? And I kind of said, yeah, it's back, but there's two monthly tournaments and that's it. And here's the plan moving forward. You're going to try and get people to run them at their house. And because Final Round is so famous, someone did reach out to us because they listened to the show. It's the only reason they did because of kind of my – I mean, it wasn't a plea, but I kind of said someone in the community kind of has to be great if they step up. And instead of stepping up and offering a one-time, you know, I'll let someone run this at my house, he has a business in the city. This guy's name is Dylan. His company is called Rubix Software.
    41:52
    Marty. I've streamed from his place before. I've streamed there probably three or four times. Yeah, so Rubix is a company. Did you get high scores on his machines, Marty? I might have.
    42:03
    A little suck at Eric on there? Or did you... That was before then. This guy has a company and he has... Well, he had nine pinball machines on like the 35th floor in the CBD. And if you know Melbourne CBD, there's a decent amount of high-rises, but it's not a cheap area. And we kind of went there to run a tournament. And I kind of thought if someone has nine pinball machines in their office, it's probably a really big office. It's not. Like the nine pinball machines take up, it's almost like half the space. Like this guy is a proud, crazy pinball nut. And I say that as a term of endearment. But that is now a monthly competition. And the best thing about it is that we all kind of decided as a community that instead of giving away, you know, a hundred bucks here or there to the person who wins, all the proceeds for these events will go towards like a fund and the fund will go to purchasing a pinball machine for the Royal Children's Hospital Good Friday appeal. Hopefully a toy story if and when that gets announced. Yeah, that's just me updating you on basically final round is going to be responsible for donating. Saving lives.
    43:19
    Yeah, saving lives, basically. Like curing cancer, basically. It was our mission statement from day one, wasn't it, Marty? Correct. Save people and zero fucks given.
    43:31
    Speaking of saving people, Marty, we might have had a little miss last time. We were rushed to get the show out before TPF, and I had people ask me, wait a minute, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Who will Marty save? And I went, yeah, yeah, I know. We'll get it. So I thought... So how many person asked you that? Five. Five of them. Yeah. I just said, can you read this card and say it in... was one of them pin side PD pin side PD wants everyone dead. Let's be honest, Marty. It's come to my attention that there's been a little dilemma this week that I don't know how, but somehow made a lot of news, forget everything else going on in the world, but this was the news So when this happened at the Oscars a week ago all I could think of is who will Marty save Will it be Will Smith or will it be Chris Rock Now I don know where this is going to go because you already talked about it I don't like stand-up comedy. It's not my thing. Okay, let me just stop you there, please, can I? I need to talk about this, and maybe this is a bit of therapy for me whilst you're both here. I am so pissed off at this whole Will Smith slapping Chris Rock, right? Because, let me tell you, it happened. Sure. I got a notification from my news feed saying, oh, this happened at the Oscars. I'm like, oh, okay, cool. That's the last I'll hear of it. No. No fucking way. I am still seeing meme after meme about Will Smith, Chris Rock. And first of all, it's really fucking pissing me off because, you know, that same day, thousands of people died in Ukraine. Sure, didn't get any coverage, but some guy slapped another guy at the Oscars. OK, that was the top news story for so long.
    45:23
    Let me tell you what's really, really pissed me off about this. is just the massive character assassination of these people. And sure, Will Smith, he did it to himself. He got up, couldn't control his emotions, slapped Chris Rock, he paid for it. The thing that's really pissing me off is all this negative stuff and memes that have been saying about his wife.
    45:54
    You know, she was sitting there, She rolled her eyes. She got alopecia. A joke was made at her expense. But now people are saying the nastiest, nastiest things about her.
    46:08
    And it's really pissing me off that it's just got so much airtime. People are still talking about it. And it's just not important. Oh, it's so frustrating. She was the original victim.
    46:19
    Sure. That's right. You know? And it's forgotten because it escalated to worse, worse, worse, worse, right? But just really nasty targeted things about her and her alopecia, her and her relationship, her being a slut. It's just awful. It's pretty gross. I agree. And again, it's kind of what I was saying before about the whole internet versus people in real life. In real life, and maybe this is Australia, nobody I know has talked about this slap in real life. No one for a week. Yet you go on the news or you go on social media, that's what people are talking about. Oh, my God. Plenty of people have talked about it in real life, Marty. Not for me. Not with me. I've not had a single conversation.
    47:05
    There's a sign when you go into Haggis. It says, one, make sure you wear your safety hat. Two, no talking about Will Smith, Chris Rock. It's right there. Everyone can see it. So he's just trying to stay employed. Yeah, sure. Anyway, so is it wrong of me to have reacted? No. Are you actually surprised though, Marty? Yeah, I am. I am because... When was the last time you saw that happen? It's something that people have never seen before. So why would it not be talked about for weeks? It's okay to talk about it, but just to be really nasty about these people, it's just really disappointing.
    47:39
    Particularly the wife. Particularly the wife who did nothing, and now she's being called awful things, and bull jokes being made about her. Just making it even worse. Yeah? You like that? Cool. No, I don't like it. I'm so used to the internet. Yeah, here's the thing. Will Smith and Jada don't react to that, and certainly Will doesn't do what he does. What they're talking about is like, ooh, that was a low blow by Chris Rock. It wasn't even funny, really. It's such a shitty old school joke that you just don't do in 2022. It's not the worst thing I've ever heard in the world, but it was just kind of lame. It wasn't a home run by any means. By the way, he was making fun of three people before that, too, with Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem and some others as well. But that one, you know, there might have been some history there as to if they did nothing, people would be like, yeah, you really hurt him. And maybe he apologizes. And now no one's asking for his apology. It's just he was assaulted and he was attacked. It was nowhere near as bad as anything that Ricky Gervais has said. Ricky is, you know, he's my hero but Ricky should have been clobbered a million times for some of the things he says, but I think you know what you're getting with him. He was talking about Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, a great Quentin Tarantino movie that's like three and a half hours and Ricky Gervais said, that movie was so long, that's a movie that stars Leo DiCaprio, that movie is so long Ricky said, he goes, by the time he went to the premiere and the movie was done, his date was already too old for him because he dates younger women. That's a funny joke but leo was right there he said it to his face and leo probably didn't i don't know if he didn't like it he laughed he smiled some people laugh when they're nervous so maybe that's why i don't know maybe that's why well did it all this aside marty you gotta fucking save somebody do it this is the bigger issue who will marty save okay this is an easy choice for me i am going to save jada i'm gonna let will and chris rock both you haven't even told me the premise what's happening to them like how are they going to die a slap-off a violent slap-off till the death funny enough because of this some other stuff i've come up my social media feeds about the you know the actual slapping competitions that they have oh my god they're brutal they are so fucking brutal they oh my god who would do oh it's just no it's it's brutal anyway so So, Jada, she gets saved. Those other two can die.
    50:14
    Okay. That's an answer. I'll accept that one. I've let both people die before. Oh, yeah. Poor Colin McAlpine. I tried saving him, but you threw him under the bus, I think, with Ray Day. It was, yeah. I saw Colin again. I mean, he came on the show. He gluttoned for punishment. He's really. He's ghost, obviously.
    50:34
    He did a great job at TPF. No complaints there. Speaking about memes, Marty, and you probably have to disable your social media account for a while because I don't think the Will Smith and Chris Rock memes are going to go away anytime soon. But in the last week, I've kind of noticed, I don't know what his real name is, but his Instagram profile is Hup Challenge? H-U-P, H-U-P Challenge? Yes, he is so good. His name is Jordan. Yep. He, I feel like he is the first person, congratulations, he's a Twopie Award, that understands the current climate of making social media content. His last couple of videos are, like, fucking hilarious. And they're what people outside of pinball watch and like and is popular. And I'm not saying that no one else knows how to do it, but I haven't seen people create content like he's just started to create content like that. So, bigs up to him because hopefully one of his clips goes viral. I've seen Stern try to do it recently and it's just like, ah, you're almost there, but it's not really what I feel like people want to see. But it's also their live streaming is in the same format that a lot of the very professional video gamers do with a lot of clips that come up, soundbites, GIFs, the lot. they really know how to do that particular format well jordan j styles allen and you can follow him on hub challenge on uh the pinball network did you know that he's a professional wrestler as well actually yeah he is yeah okay renegade wrestling as opposed to as opposed to robert byers who's a fake wrestler what how dare you say that about top rope um i just yeah i just think it's it's awesome i was talking to a friend about the other day like if you i feel like if you want to create popular social media content like the actual juicy content is streaming like that's that's pinball but you can't just say here's a three-hour video consume this as someone who's new to pinball you need you need the reels you need that like short 10 seconds of like it really isn't anything informative like but if it's enough to capture your attention or attention of like everyone who's just on the spectrum of ADD that just needs, you know, content, content, content all day long. That's the format it needs to be in. And then hopefully they watch a video after that. It's the second video that's important, right? It's TikTok. It's that kind of mentality. It is. It's horrible, but that's the reality of the situation at the moment. You need to create TikTok style content. Yeah. That's going to draw people in to then watch the two, three hour streams. Can you make a TikTok video, Marty, of Haggis? I don't know, some kind of meme.
    53:21
    Maybe integrate the Will Smith the slap. Just something topical. Definitely. Yeah, for sure. I am amazed at the people that do that on a regular basis. And we see a lot of the videos, too, of pinball reveal reactions. There's some great people out there. Kerry Hardy does it. Travis Murray does it and some others. And is the content super great? It's okay. It's fine. Are the viewers huge? Holy shit, yes. Why are we doing podcasting? They open a game, watch a video, watch a teaser, talk about it. And I mean, it's so many more people watching that than listening to our crappy podcasts. I don't give people a pass for that.
    54:05
    So before we start a recording, I mentioned to you that I've just finished watching a TV show called Manifest. And the first thing I did after I finished, because I watched three seasons in a week. so that's first season had 16 episodes and 13 each so there was a lot seven episodes i watched last night and the first thing i did this morning when i woke up was i went to youtube and then just watched a lot of i guess reviews reactions all that kind of stuff because it's still in my mind and i want to have a conversation and there's only a couple of people i know that have watched it no one's up to the same, well, no one that I know has watched at all. So I want to, in my mind, I want to continue the conversation, continue dissecting it and hearing what other people think, because I want to know whether my thoughts are valid or whether I haven't thought about it or whether I'm wrong. And that's what happens with these reaction videos is you either get validation or you get the opposite, but it just continues the conversation after something's done. I think the problem or the slight hole you can fall into with Pimble in this example is that there aren't that many people doing it. So if you want that and then you open it up and it's like maybe it's just Kerry Hardy and this is just using him as an example, but it's not, you know. If he happens to have a negative reaction about something that you maybe were 10% negative, I feel like, you know, that can possibly change your mind. Whereas Marty, you're talking about a TV show with millions of viewers, you can jump from one video to the next. Or the person that you watch when you type it in, the one that comes up is a popular content creator who has risen the ranks because most people like him. But in pinball, it's just like, well, it might be two or three people. And if they're all negative about something, then what chance does someone have to be positive? It can change the view in the room so quickly and I don't like that that much about pinball. Yeah, I agree. My parallel was a couple of weeks ago when I finished Wheel of Time, the TV show, which I really enjoyed. I started watching a review and this guy just absolutely bagged it and I went, oh, I'm going to stop listening and try another one, which I guess comes down to that whole confirmation bias thing where I want content that agrees with me. And I think you're right. it would be pimple because there's so few you'd get limited views on it if i i'm gonna just flat out say if i didn't listen to any other content on weird owl and i listened to uh zach many and dennis kriesel's podcast a month ago whenever it was on weird owl i would have thought that this is like the biggest piece of shit game ever like they just went on and on about the all like all this negative stuff they sprinkled some some good stuff in there but i just like i just turned it because I was like, I don't need to listen to an hour and a half of people not enjoying this release. And I don't really care that much about Weird Al. I'm probably never going to get to play it unless I go to the US. But I think it's a trap that pinball people can fall into. And even like, I'm not saying I'm immune to it. I can have a strong opinion on something. And so can you, Marty and Jeff. But I think the pinball industry is so small. I'm not saying be positive about everything. It's just don't have your own opinion on things and be careful when you jump online to listen to a podcast. Ryan, Marty, I realize that we are pinfluencers and we have to be careful what we say. I personally am responsible for the hundreds, if not thousands of people that spent money with Deep Root because we went on and on about how great that was. And I just want to apologize to everyone for the massive hit to the wallet because of the words I said. So, Ryan, do you feel better? Just a little bit.
    58:04
    Did you guys see Yukon Yeti, the amazing play-filled foam core? Dennis Dorman. It wasn't made out of paper? Yeah. You know, it had that funky ramp down the left side or the, I don't know. It reminded me a lot of Insanity Falls. Yeah, okay. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, it did look... It looked like a mirrored whitewater. Not even mirrored. Like, that Insanity Falls is in the same area, just the flipper was facing a little bit different. It did seem like... Almost like a whitewater 1.5, not a 2.0. I want to know what... I mean, have people figured out, I haven't really looked online that much, what that ramp was with the stairs? Is the ball going up? Like, does it get locked in there and travel up slowly? or does it go down and fall down the steps? Did anyone figure that out? No. No idea. Could have just done a placeholder. Or maybe that it's a clear ramp with steps underneath it. Like rapids. Yeah. Who knows? I don't know. But when you said American Pinball, we're going to make Barry Osler's last game, what was said, do we know which one it was? It's an unlicensed theme. I don't know. I don't think they've released the title. They didn't say anything. I mean, we saw pictures of food truck, but I don't know if it's that or not. But I know he and Bowden were already talking. So whether that's from the deep root days or not, it's going to be the play field was done. And, you know, the engineers will tweak whatever needs to be tweaked. But it'll be nice to see Barry have one last game because the last one was 1996 junkyard. And this poor guy was trying to get one with highway. He was going to do queen. Didn't happen. and was going to do several with deeper. It didn't happen. So he finally gets to American, and unfortunately, yeah, you know what happened to Barry, and we lost him at the age of 70. But I did see his wife, Kathy, at TPF. They had a nice tribute for her, and still that GoFundMe page is out there if you want to assist with the huge medical bills. That would be wonderful. But it was nice to see Kathy and the acknowledgement they gave her at American Pinball. But I'm just happy that we're going to see a Barry Osler game. I love his games. Well, so just on that, so what we saw, that all of Deep Root's assets effectively went to an auction, so we got to see a couple of Whitewoods. What was everyone's impressions overall on, if this had been successful, would these have been good games? I can't see anything or I'll get shit on by Pinsight. I'm saying nothing. I mean, I saw a couple of pictures, but they weren't whitewoods. So, I mean, yes, I guess in the purest sense of whitewood, but they seem more like pieces of wood with drawings and paper all over them more than actual, you know, like they had an engineer, you know, form up this toy and things like that. So I remember at one point Robert Mueller was kind of bragging like, we have like 16 flippable whitewoods or, you know, whatever he said, I'm probably getting that totally wrong, but man, what a, I don't know. I don't, no one likes talking about Deep Root now, but it'd be, I'm sure a lot of collectors are sitting there, you know, there's, there's a couple of bargains to buy here and there with the manufacturing equipment. I don't know. I don't know what to say about Deep Root after all this time, Marty. I like, we were, we were there at the, at the start. We were, we were in our infancy of podcasting when he came about and like, can you imagine if we had a time machine and we could just tell everyone like hey by the way this guy is like a fucking crazy egomaniac and he's gonna hire like everyone in the industry to to gain gain credibility threatened to sue everyone who um has anything bad to say about him and then he's gonna steal grandma's money and then go bankrupt and play the fifth for everything and then probably get away and and you know get a one year good behavior bonds or whatever the fuck he's gonna to get it's a mess and it's a it's an ugly part of pinball and unfortunately this happens every few years hopefully it doesn't happen again buyer beware but that's you know people oh wow limited edition i'll put my money down and nothing's been produced yeah it's scary but uh what are you going to do don't buy pinball machines that don't exist full stop oh fuck i never thought of that that's a good point hey did you know that marty is right and i'm wrong yeah yes everyone knows that well I thought I was right. You thought you were right. You can be the decider, Ryan. Big Buck Hunter. Is it a good game? Yes or no?
    62:42
    Defying good. Is it a good tournament game? Is it a fun game to play? It is a fun game to play. I stand corrected. I am wrong. Is it a good game? Not really.
    62:55
    It's fun to bash the dough when it registers. Yes, we get that you like to bang deer. We understand that. We understand. Fine.
    63:05
    Kevin Peterson wrote... Hilarious. Kevin Peterson wrote he was playing a tournament last weekend and lucky me, he got to play Big Buck Hunter. The buck worked great. The game was set up fast. Everyone loved it. It's a great tournament game. Anyway, so thank you, Kevin. So it's just a game I don't like. But I'm glad you did well. Do you know what? Guess what? That is perfectly okay and that is absolutely valid. And this is what we were saying, is that there's been a vocal amount of people that have been bagging Big Bug Hunter for a long time, but there are a lot of people that like it. And, you know, my love with Avatar, and it has just been bagged out for so many years, but there are a lot of people that like it as well. You're allowed to like and dislike games. What you should try to do is not tell somebody that they're a dickhead because they like something that you don't like. True. So here's a really quick story. When I was running tournaments at my place, I had Big Buck Hunter and Eric came, Oz Eric, and he came last in every single game. And it was Swiss pairings. So he was coming last and then coming last in the last group. and then he played two games on Big Buck Hunter and came first in them both. And something happened to him when he came first in that game that he bought the machine off me. He started going to tournaments and he started buying sterns. He had zero stern machines before then and now how many stern machines does he have? He streams pinball, he's growing his collection, right? So Big Buck Hunter, and he ended up selling Big Buck Hunter, but for better or worse, Big Buck Hunter changed the way that he enjoys pinball for the better. Saving lives. What are other games that have things that move across? I know Mick on a Stick of Rolling Stones is terrible but there's another game I just played that had something that moves across. I know in a way Batman 66 does with the crane but there's another big game. Dracula. Dialed In. Dracula. Yeah, that does too with Multi-Ball on Ball 3. if you should start it. Monster Bash? Yeah, Dracula in the corner. Isn't it funny? It's got to work for the game to be effective, and I think that's why people don't like Rolling Stone, and it also moves too fast. At least in Big Buck Hunter, you know where it's going to be. You've got time in Batman 66, Dracula, you've got an idea with Monster Bash, dialed in, it's not moving until you hit it. Yeah. Yeah, that is the problem with Rolling Stones, is that you're lining up a shot, and just as you flip, literally milliseconds after you flip, Mick knows where you're shooting and he moves right in front of that shot. It's just, they could have just absolutely fixed that game if Mick on a stick didn't move as much as he does. Or it needs a code update. Maybe Tim Sexton and Raymond Davison can save it. They can do a rerun. Yeah. There's no, well, I was going to say, there's absolutely no reason for them to do this code because they've sold all the machines unless they vault it. you wouldn't fall to Rolling Stones, would you? No. Have you purchased any new games Ryan No Godzilla was the last one that I purchased but I haven been playing it too much because I think I just want to play it when it complete And I say that with asterisks that I probably still couldn't get to the end, but I don't know. I think my days of kind of playing evolving codes are over. Like, I'd rather just play it when it's like, well, here's the game. It's not going to change too much. Maybe like one last final update and spit and polish, as Marty used to like to say. But I don't know. I just want to play it when it's done. Plus, I don't know, like I've gone going through this thing where I don't play that much pinball anymore because I, you know, my hobby side business involves not playing pinball, but delivering pinball machines. But it's like, it's still pinball related. And I'm not going to say I feel sorry for you, Marty, but I don't know how you would do it if your job was to sit there and you talked on the last episode about you have dreams about pinball and creating rules and all this kind of stuff, surely that means that you just don't want to play pinball anymore when you get home. You're just like, I've had my 10 hours of pinball fixed today. Yeah, and that's what I say. It's not like I get sick of pinball. I just have a lot of pinball in my life. Actually, probably more pinball than everybody because whilst you're working, you might have 10, 15 times a day you think about pinball. I have 10-11 hours a day where that's all I'm thinking about is pinball so I do someone asked me the other day when was the last time I turned on my machines here it's been months the last time I streamed when I had people over which probably would have been two months ago was the last time I turned my machines on and it's not because I'm sick of it I just don't I have the desire to do other things like watch three seasons of a TV show Or play Elden Ring, which is just, you know, consuming as well. You know, 10, 11 hours a day playing, thinking pinball. You need to find something else to do. Why don't you go on the line? Why don't you go online, see what's in the news? Did you hear about Will Smith and Chris Rock? Like, do something else.
    68:30
    You are so funny. Hilarious. So that's what I'm saying. It's not like I'm not jaded with pinball by any means. I get to play a lot more pinball than most people. You are playing a lot. Ryan, I know you've got comps and things. The one big thing that happened,
    68:52
    and sorry for those in the New England Pinball League and Texas Pinball League that aren't really doing sanctions or making decisions or seeing how your league's changing. IFPA had their April Fool's post, and in this case it wasn't a joke. They're expanding the World Championships from 64 to 80 players for the first time in many, many years. It's a long time coming, but it's good. I know at IFPA 17 in May, there's only, I think, one Australian going. Or do you know of two? I thought there was only one. I know there's only one from the UK. Nicholas Nobin and Tim Chapman. So two are going. Okay. Now, is this something you might want to try to do? Ryan, you've got to be top ten in Australia, aren't you? I think I'm floating around there but that doesn't mean I'm close to being the 10th best player in Australia I think I would if I came I would pull a Grant Stevens I would fly all the way there and come 64th and then I'd be really upset with myself I'm not under any illusion I don't think and I was going to ask you that before Jeff what are you I think your goals in pinball are to make the world championships every year, but then do you one day hope to finish in the top 16? Okay. This will be my second world championship. The first time I got in, I was the first person on the alternative list. Herbert from Austria didn't show up. I got in. That's how I got in. So, earned kind of a little bit. This time I did... Why did he not rock up? Did we ever find out? I don't know if it's a... I have no idea. I don't know who looks after Austria, but I even said to Josh from there, like, did he pay 250 bucks? And he went, he went, uh, somebody paid for him. So it wasn't necessarily Herbert. He had no, I don't even know who Herbert's last name is, but it's a great folklore story. Anyway, Herbert from Austria got me in the world championships. Somebody paid for him, but never, he never showed. I mean, that's great. You paid the 250 to go to the world championships. It costs a lot more for flight and hotel when you're coming from Austria to go to Canada. Anyway, so this one I earned. But the next one is in Germany. And because of what you were talking about, the Whopper Farms and things like that. Oh, by the way, bring me back to it. But another tangent. I was told by Travis Murray from Tom Graff to be slapped in the mouth. This is before Will Smith because of what we said a week ago about District 82 being a Whopper Farm. This just in, it is a fucking Whopper Farm. And there's nothing wrong with that. What a whopper farm is, is a place to get whoppers over and over and over again. When you run that many tournaments at a place, that is the definition of a whopper farm. There's nothing wrong with it. The thing that they get a little jaded about is because they've got so many people in the top 100 in the world, and people rightfully ask, well, that's great. You do this all at District 82. What about doing it somewhere else? When all 20 of your things on your card are from the same place, okay, are you a big fish in a little pond, or how do you do at other shows? Well, there are a lot of people on that list that do well at other shows, but some that maybe don't. So they just don't travel. And you'll find that everywhere. You'll find a guy named Walt Wood. Sorry to go long on this. Walt Wood is one of my heroes now. He's from Colorado, and everybody in Colorado knows who he is. We saw him play Doctor Who at Indisc, and everyone fell in love with just his energy and his great skill. The little jump to the side. Everyone in Colorado says, check out his match play. If he's played nine tournaments, he's won seven of them. He's that good. Well, now he's starting to travel. He was at TPF. And so there are people that never travel that are excellent, and they just can't get enough whoppers because there aren't enough tournaments in areas. Well, in Wisconsin, there are a lot of tournaments. So these people that don't travel are going to do very, very well. So what's the rules, Jeff? It's the top two people from certain countries, and then the rest of the spots just get filled with whoever has the most Whoppers within the calendar year? That's basically it. So, yes, every country that has a certain amount of players will be allotted two people and they go down the list to a certain point and then that's it. I mean, if you're like 20th on the list, they're not going to bring you in. But then the rest is made up by the other people and there are different spots too. So, if you win the European Pinball Championship, you're granted a spot or whoever the highest person that wasn't already in the world championship. They'd get in. The same for the North American championship. And now they're doing, which I think is a great idea, they're including who wins the women's championship, which will grow the women's tournaments a lot more because now there's a nice carrot. Okay, there's something at the end of that. I really want to do well at the women's because, look at this, I could get a berth into the world championship. I would suspect there's probably going to be... How much pressure, though, if you don't happen to be someone who came first or second in a country and you get in with a women's championship.
    73:53
    Correct me if I'm wrong, Jeff, but the last couple of years, it's been a male-dominated entry list? It has, and I don't think that would continue anyway. There are just too many women that are blowing it up. Cassidy in Wisconsin, Kerry Wing, just to name a few, and there are others that I know of that I just can't think of off the top of my head. So this fact that... Let me put things into perspective. The women's tournaments are brilliant. They're great because they bring people into pinball, and maybe they play in other tournaments as well. There's a comfort zone. There's all that kind of stuff. The one thing, and I've talked to Elizabeth Cromwell about this, is sometimes the way the tournament formats are, women have to choose, okay, am I going to play in the women's championship, or am I going to play in this other tournament? I can't play in both. And the fact that they can't play in both is not fair because that's missed opportunities. they can play in the women's and win these great prizes that's good but they actually can't play in the other ones so that's why a big reason why the numbers are down as far as top rankings for women it has nothing to do with their skill it has to do with the fact that they can't play in both so it actually kind of hurts them in a little bit in that aspect by the way there's five herberts in austria well they're all my heroes just to be safe like in in the entire country there are only five herberts Is that what you're saying? There's five Herberts that have ever played pinball, an IFBA comp in Austria. I'm going to read them. Herbert Butchberger. Herbert Fershitz. Oh, my gosh. Herbert Fershitz.
    75:29
    F-E-R-S-C-H-I-T-Z. Fershitz. Herbert for giggles. Herbert Fershitz. What else? we got Herbert Liener, Herbert Mayer and Herbert Mittelmayer oh and Herbert, no there's six, anyway it's one of those Herberts, thank you to all those Herberts out there when is your how to speak German audio book come out Ryan, I want to know just to did I say it right how do you say it? no no that's good is it a silent S-C-H-I-T-S It's like the name Coburn in Australia.
    76:12
    It's a silent CK. Yeah, it's not Cockburn, it's Coburn. Yeah, sure. Just ignore the CK. There's a guy in Canada, Bruce Coburn, he's a legendary folk singer. So, Lovers in a Dangerous Time, that's a Bruce Coburn song that very naked ladies had to hit for themselves.
    76:28
    Speaking of music, Marty, you love music. Yeah. I was at TPF when I heard about Taylor Hawkins dying. That really hit me hard. Yeah. Yeah, same. I don't own any of their music, but I do like Foo Fighters, and I have actually seen them live. And it's one of those things where when I think of Foo Fighters, I know that there's three members in the band, maybe. There's six. Go on. Are there, though? There are six, yep. So if you look at all their video clips, will all six members be in those clips? Yes.
    77:03
    Really? Yeah, absolutely. Okay, you guys are videoing this. See that Foo Fighters poster right there on my wall? The one with the spunk stains on it?
    77:14
    If you look carefully... It's like a Krispy Kreme glazed donut. If you look carefully, Dave Grohl... Look carefully, Dave Grohl's wearing a Rush t-shirt in that, by the way. Anyway, I like Foo Fighters. I've seen them a few times. Anyway, that hit me hard and I just got thinking... I'm not a huge Foo Fighters fan, but I was just thinking, what musical artist or what actor or what famous person, if you found out they died tomorrow, would hit you the hardest? Like obviously in the pinball world, we all were just hammered when we heard about Lyman losing his battle. That just killed us. But I was just wondering outside of pinball or maybe in pinball, what would be the one you'd be like, oh, no way. Like Taylor hit me hard. Well, I think I don't have an exact answer, but I think it's people who make people laugh and seem like they're happy. Like Robin Williams, when he died, hit me hard because it's just like he was, I guess, hiding it to the public.
    78:17
    And it's depressing to think that somebody commits suicide when they were making other people happy. Does that make sense? David Bowie was the big one for me. And again, I don't own any of his music I liked. I've liked a lot of his music, but I just understood that the impact that he had on so many people, and when that was gone, I felt that loss. But I know the answer to your question, but I just don't have an answer to right now. If somebody was just not to be, who would that be? I probably just don't want to think about it. Yeah, true. I know you're right with Robin Williams and with Lyman. And when we talk about suicide, I mean, that's just, you don't see that kind of thing coming. With David Bowie, I had known that he was sick for some time. It wasn't really public.
    79:06
    You know, there were some people that actually slipped out. I think Rod Stewart did an interview, and he kind of slipped it out and then kind of tried to retract it. So I knew he wasn't long. But I don't know, I got thinking about people I really admire a lot. And maybe it was because I was in Texas. I was thinking of Dolly Parton. I just love that woman. I think she's a brilliant songwriter. and she was certainly in the news recently for being possibly nominated for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I think of Stevie Wonder, who I just think is one of the most underrated masters of music for so many generations.
    79:36
    But those are two people in their 70s. So if they did go, I mean, what is a full life? I mean, you know, what's the number you want? Ryan, you're a young child. Marty and I, we're on our back nine here. We've got, what, years, maybe a decade, a few months, weeks? What do we got? What's a good number that you're like, okay, you know what? If something happens, okay, so be it. 77. Yeah. What's your number, Marty?
    80:04
    I just need to know because I'm going to put a countdown on our final round page. I don't know because I think that for me it would be when I feel like I've done everything that I need to do, and I don't know when that date's going to be. That is a really weird answer. I mean, it's an answer, but surely you have an unlimited amount of things that you want to do in life, Marty. That's right. So why would I say, well, 77? Because even though I've probably still got some other things to do, fuck them. Well, it depends. I mean, my in-laws are in their mid-80s, and they are both physically healthy, and they're both mentally healthy. So I'm like, wow, that's great. But I kind of half joke with my kids. So I'm like, you realize when I retire and if I can't take care of my home, you know what I'm going to do. And I'm not even trying to be funny. This is what I'm going to do is I'm going to do all kinds of vacations. I'm going to cruise around the world. It's cheaper to cruise around the world than going to a retirement home. And you've got all the food you want. You see different people, all that kind of stuff, all that kind of care. You've downsized. Everything's great. What's happening to all the cruises these days? Are they still like COVID hotspots? Well, who knows? You hear horror stories where people get gastro and then just the entire floating vessel of people shitting all day. So what's happening these days? I've been shitting for years as Ryan sent me a note during TPF that he was reading some comments from people that said, it's great to be back at the show, but somebody just crop dusted it and he wrote Jeff Teolas on the thing. He tagged me on it. And I said back to him, I said, you realize I had Hutchins barbecue twice. I had heartache once, and I think, what a burger. You think I'm only farting once? I was 12 a day minimum, and I was wearing my mask, so you guys were eating it, not me. Anyway, that's pinball etiquette to drop farts. Crop dusting. It's important.
    82:00
    It's a staple. I think it's great to end on farts. I mean, because you can't. We just transitioned from death to farts. Just good stuff. There's nothing left to talk about. I think that's it. I think we've put in our time for this show. It's a good way to end. Ryan, thank you again. We look forward to the next edition of Jesse J's Pinball Adventure. I know it's a work in progress. well she actually has a new pinball machine now so there there's there's there's talks about doing an episode whether or not we'll actually sit down it's it's an impossible thing to to predict but i know there's a lot of fans screaming for it i get messages every day when are you going to come back when are you going to come back messages every day i'm calling bullshit there's been no messages uh i did hear her name mentioned at tpf and i did hear that she might be coming back so ryan do you know anything about that no well i just i just i just said that yeah she has a new pinball machine now and she she perhaps wants to talk about it well ryan if you can squeeze us in we'd love to have you on this show uh whenever you can it's it's you actually announced me this time usually it's like fuck we don't have we don't have anyone ryan can you can you fill in i'm like all right um but this time like it was last week i was listening to the podcast that's that's actually not true by the way you you may only get it out of the blue but he mentions in the schedule of when he wants you on i'd have you on every week and now we're gonna get emails saying have one you wouldn't know marty you'd be done to keep marty happy ryan we we have to space it out a little bit okay i've been looking at marty's face for two hours and his his face pretty much says can we wrap this up so i can go watch more fucking tv yeah hey wait a second it's calling wait a second what if we did have ryan on every week but the condition was he had to edit the show i'm fucking putting my hand up oh for sure you you would put your hand down after i would make an absolute mess of the editing jeff you know my editing standard is horrible i think after every every podcast i've ever released you've messaged me and they're like hey good show but background noise this that like if you're going to edit it like put some fucking effort into it fine fine anyway thanks for joining us if people want to reach us marty where do they go uh they can look up final round pinball on facebook they can email us at final round pinball at gmail.com instagram is final round people podcast and twitter is at final round pin great can i request people to email in, because this is just a question and maybe you know the answer, Jeff, but is there enough format for pinball comps that I can run that people can rock up at different times besides best game? I'm not bored of the best game format, but I feel like it's the only thing I can run if... Yes? Pingolf?
    85:00
    Well, that's an answer to your question. I mean, pingolf is best game, just with different scoring. really. What do you mean different times? Do you have people that, okay, I can't make it for six. As in like, no, I'm doing this after hours. People come from all different areas of the city. There's traffic. People don't want to spend an hour and a half just to get there at 7pm. They might rock up at eight. Okay. Are they okay with waiting for playoffs if they play the early session? If you have, I can make it for six, but then, oh, playoffs don't start till 10. I got to wait a few hours. That's the dilemma. Yeah. Are you saying split up a group into like, you know, 6 to 7.30 and 7.30 to 9, like two, can you do that? Yeah. I mean, as long as it's direct play, for sure you can. Again, it's just, will people wait? And I don't know how much TGP you'd get for a tournament. I don't know. I still, I'll say this, and you're the guy who introduced it to me, those flip frenzies are the best. The absolute best for maximizing TGP in a short period of time. It's the best for not waiting around. You have to have a lot of machines. Yeah. That's it. Yeah, I mean, yeah. If you think about, let's say, match play, where you've got different groups,
    86:12
    couldn't you start one group at 6 o'clock and the next group at 7 o'clock and the best two players from that then go into the finals? As long as there's direct play, yeah. I mean, as long as everyone's playing the same amount of time, for sure. There are different tournaments. Like the Houston Arcade Expo has, you play six games and you're in a group of, let's say, 36, and the top six people go on to the finals. Well, then I'll have another session of another 36 people. So you could do something similar to that. Okay, I'm filling up the spots at 6 to 8. We've got this many people. From 8 to 10, it's this many people.
    86:49
    Could you do that over different nights? Yes. Yes, you could. And have a playoff on a set date? Yeah, you could. Do people want to come back twice?
    86:58
    I'm just wondering, though, if you put people in two different groups, someone might say, well, I don't want to play in this group because this has all the good players and I want to qualify in the group with lesser players. I don't know. I'm just trying to avoid like some people rock up in the best game format with 45 minutes to go and they smash out their games and they, you know. But if I want to change it up that month and run a match play or a flip frenzy or whatever it is, I can't because then all these people can't make it. Or maybe they can make it, but then they're in traffic for an hour and a half trying to beat after work hours stuff. I don't know. I don't know what the best way to do it is, but I feel like there's got to be something else other than best game that is similar to best game, if that makes sense. For the love of God, email us, finalroundpinball at gmail.com so we can give Ryan the answer he needs, and we will read those thousands and thousands of emails that we receive based on that quality question. Ryan, your content, once again, is just stellar. We should save this for award season, but maybe we'll have you back soon. How about that? Thanks, Jeff.
    88:07
    Slap. I was about to say, do you want me to slap myself in the face? Not any more than you normally do. We're good. Thank you. We'll talk to you in a couple of weeks.
    88:17
    Thanks, everyone. He did it. He actually did hit himself. Oh, now he's slapping something else. Oh, we got to go. This is gross.
    88:24
    See you, everyone. See you. you