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#87 Post Pintastic 22 - The Classic Pinball Podcast

The Classic Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 7m·analyzed·Jul 6, 2022
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TL;DR

Classic Pinball Podcast post-Pintastic 22 recap featuring tournament play, hotel chaos, and machine impressions.

Summary

George and Dave from The Classic Pinball Podcast recap their experience at Pintastic 22. They discuss a podcast seminar they participated in, their tournament play on classic Stern games, a notable hotel room restoration of a Whirlwind machine, encounters with notable players like Eric Stone and designer Steve Ritchie, and gameplay impressions of various machines including Toy Story, Rush, Mandalorian, and others. A significant thread involves the deteriorating state of the host hotel and the improvisational restoration efforts during the event.

Key Claims

  • The Classic Pinball Podcast has been running for over three years with more than 100 episodes.

    high confidence · Dave stated during the podcast seminar discussion: 'I've been doing this for over two years now but 100 episodes under our belt and how about three how about three years'

  • Someone bought the rights to the Raza game at a public auction of company assets and may bring it back to market.

    low confidence · George mentions hearing through the grapevine: 'I don't know. I just kind of heard through the grapevine that, you know, they had a public auction of all the assets of the company and that somebody bought the rights to the game, I think.'

  • A Whirlwind machine was restored in a hotel room at Pintastic 22 using minimal tools, hand lotion, bubble gum, tape, and a spare main board.

    high confidence · Dave describes the restoration: 'he had like hand lotion that he had in his in his travel bag...he lubricated things with...bubble gum and tape...he brought a known working main board for the game with him and he threw that in'

  • Eric Stone (World Champion) lost in the finals on Doodlebug after being unable to choose his preferred game selections.

    high confidence · George explains: 'he was picking second choice rather than first choice...The long and short of it is he ended up losing...And he lost on, he was so pissed off on Doodlebug.'

  • Tim Allen was hired to do call-outs for the Toy Story pinball machine.

    high confidence · George states: 'they actually hired uh what's his name alan i keep wanting to say steve allen wrong steve help me what's his first name tim allen tim allen yeah they hired tim allen for a lot of the call outs in the game'

  • The Pintastic hotel had significant issues including an abandoned creepy miniature golf course, poor room conditions with earwigs, and inadequate staff attention to policy violations.

    high confidence · Multiple references: Dave mentions 'biohazard room' with 'distinct funk smell', excavation outside, and George notes 'that hotel is just a mess' with descriptions of 'Creepy Golf' and lack of security enforcement

Notable Quotes

  • “We don't do anything these other podcasts do. We covered our own special niche and do classic pinball talk...we're not just other ones do kind of a lot of tournament talk a lot of new game talk and we don't do that.”

    Dave @ early in episode — Defines the niche positioning of The Classic Pinball Podcast and its differentiation strategy in a crowded podcast market.

  • “George and I are very old school. We try to do things in person all the time...when we do do it remotely, we use Zoom as well. But we don't use the video...I know what you look like. You know what I look like. I mean, I don't need a video call.”

    Dave @ seminar discussion — Illustrates the unconventional approach of the hosts to remote recording and their philosophy on authenticity.

  • “I don't have the the vehicle to easily bring it to the show...this opening is not big enough in my vehicle at this point.”

    Dave @ Whirlwind restoration setup — Explains the logistical challenge that led to the hotel room restoration scenario.

  • “They called it the Whirlwind Ghetto Hotel...they started calling it the Ghetto Wind.”

    George @ during Whirlwind discussion — Community humor naming for the improvised hotel restoration effort.

  • “I get like he was on that game for i don't know it seemed like an hour he just couldn't lose he put up this super high score...he maxed out the whirlwind bonuses he maxed that out where he couldn't go any higher.”

    George @ Eric Stone Whirlwind play discussion — Describes Eric Stone's exceptional play on the restored Whirlwind, achieving near-perfect scoring.

  • “He walks right over to me, shakes my hand, says hello...everybody's kind of looking at me going who the hell are you...Steve Ritchie...just walked through there's you know probably a dozen people there everybody's like wow.”

    George @ lobby encounter section — Highlights the recognition George received from industry legend Steve Ritchie at the show.

  • “There's always cab driving for you instead of pinball. It sounds like you're good at that, maybe not pinball so much.”

Entities

GeorgepersonDavepersonJoe LeMayerpersonLauren GraypersonDave MarstonpersonJerrypersonEric StonepersonBenny Bloomsteinperson

Signals

  • ?

    event_signal: Comprehensive post-Pintastic 22 analysis covering tournament play, hotel conditions, game impressions, and industry encounters

    high · Extended episode detailing attendance, tournament participation, machine interactions, and venue issues at Pintastic 22

  • ?

    community_signal: Podcast seminar discussion highlighted The Classic Pinball Podcast's niche positioning around classic games vs. competitive tournament and new game coverage of other shows

    high · Dave states: 'we covered our own special niche and do classic pinball talk...other ones do kind of a lot of tournament talk a lot of new game talk and we don't do that'

  • ?

    design_innovation: Hotel room Whirlwind restoration used unconventional materials and methods including hand lotion for lubrication, bubble gum, tape, and spare main board to achieve functional machine

    high · Detailed description of restoration: 'he lubricated things with...hand lotion...bubble gum and tape...brought a known working main board...got LEDs from the bushy brothers and he bought a cheap piece of glass'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Tournament format frustration: top-seeded Eric Stone unable to select preferred games, forced into second-choice selections which contributed to finals loss

    high · George: 'his problem was when he's getting pissed off because he's supposed to be able to choose a game that he wanted because he was top pick but every game he wanted to pick you're not allowed to wait for your game and every game he wanted was someone was on it'

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Tim Allen hired to provide call-outs for Toy Story pinball; may represent strategic choice due to Tim Allen's departure from active Toy Story franchise and Disney relationship tensions

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.202

0:30
Right through the hang down. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Classic Pinball Podcast. My name is George and today I'm joined by my co-host Dave. Hello Dave. Hello, George, and welcome from Jamestown, Rhode Island. And greetings from Jamestown, Rhode Island. Beautiful day today. Yeah, we're a little late. I stepped on you. We're a little late.
1:22
Post-pintastic. A little bit of a vacation week. Just a lot of junk going on. We won't get into it. We'll just leave it at that. Let's just say life gets in the way sometimes. Life does get in the way. But here we are. We're going to do a post-pentastic wrap-up. I'm going to start with something positive. We'll get into some of the not-so-positive things in a little bit. Dave, I want you to start. We're going to go in chronological order. why don't you tell the audience about the podcast seminar that you were part of on thursday night the first i guess day or evening of pentastic yeah that was uh that was fun um it was just three of us. It was myself,
2:21
Joe, and Lauren. Who? Joe LeMayer? That's the one. And Lauren Gray? Is that her last name? Yes, I think it is. That sounds right. I think Backhand Pinball Podcast, I believe. I think that's what it is.
2:39
No, isn't Backhand the people who did the... Backbox. Yeah. Isn't Backhand Mark, the guy who did the video production? Oh, you're right. You're right. Okay. Yeah. We'll get to him in a minute. Okay.
2:56
So tell us about the seminar. Good, bad, otherwise? It was interesting. Dave Marston got all our stats ahead of time and put them on the board, and then he came up to each of us and just asked us, so what makes your podcast special that you'd want to hear it or listen to it over any other ones that are here right now? you know kind of put you on the spot so it was fun just to kind of i had no notes right i just kind of spoke from the heart it's like well and i said uh we don't do anything these other podcasts do we we covered our own special niche and do uh classic pinball talk we do we talk about a little bit of life some philosophy some comedy and uh and bring it all around we're not just other ones do kind of a lot of tournament talk a lot of new game talk and we don't do that so we're uh we're something a little niche, and we have our own little audience for it. What did Joe say? He's not on a podcast, is he? No, he's not on a podcast. I even asked him to say because Joe was saying... So why was he even there? Well, here's the thing. Joe kind of said to me, he's like, you're on a podcast? Oh, that's right. I forgot he said that to you. And I said, yeah, Joe. You sat on the day as three years ago, right? yeah we were here we were here three years ago george i mean uh joe remember and on top of that i've been doing this for over two years now but 100 episodes under our belt and how about three years okay three years and uh are you i didn't know you were even on one right now joe are you well no i'm not it's like okay so what's your point you know okay so i'm black pod kettle black anything of i don't want to dwell on this any uh anything of substance come out of it that our audience should know about or can we move along we can move along it's going to be it's going to be on youtube it's going to be the pintastic youtube channel eventually all these things are on a live feed on twitch they're going to be converted to youtube including all the seminars that uh pintastic did including this one so we can all watch it again and uh uh yeah it was It was a nice little discussion. I kind of made the crowd laugh a little bit because I said, you know, George and I are very old school. We try to do things in person all the time. And the other two said, oh, no, we do mostly Zoom stuff or we do stuff with Duo or whatever, you know, remote because they have a lot of guests on. I said, no, George and I really don't have guests. But when we do do it remotely, we use Zoom as well. But we don't use the video. And they both turn around and look at me weirdly like, you guys don't use video on Zoom? They go, no. Like I said, George and I are different. I know what you look like. You know what I look like. I mean, I don't need a video call. It's a phone call. What do I need? As I've said forever, we break every rule. We break every rule. We like to do it that way. We're different.

Toy Story pinball is primarily aimed at children rather than adult enthusiasts.

medium confidence · George observes: 'This is not aimed at us. This is aimed at kids. Kids were all over the game all weekend from what I could say.'

George (to Eric Stone) @ dinner conversation — Lighthearted teasing of Eric Stone after his tournament loss, capturing the friendly dynamics between players.

  • “I think this was his, quote unquote, revenge to get back at Disney and say, hey, you know, they hired me. I'm going to do the call-outs because everybody wants to hear me.”

    George @ Toy Story discussion — Speculates on Tim Allen's motivation for involvement with Toy Story pinball as a response to Disney's direction changes.

  • “This is not aimed at us. This is aimed at kids. Kids were all over the game all weekend from what I could say.”

    George @ Toy Story impressions — Identifies the target demographic for Toy Story and acknowledges generational divide in machine appeal.

  • “He goes, oh, he said, I hate that game. That game sucks. It shouldn't be in the tournament. There's so many ways to lose in that game. It's just a luck box.”

    George (quoting Eric Stone on Doodlebug) @ finals discussion — Documents Eric Stone's pre-tournament complaint about Doodlebug, which he ultimately lost on, illustrating the friction between game design philosophy and competitive format.

    • Steve Bowden
    person
    Steve Ritchieperson
    Todd Tuckeyperson
    Jimperson
    Maureenperson
    Levy Naamanperson
    Stewperson
    Tim Allenperson
    The Classic Pinball Podcastorganization
    Backbox Pinball Podcastorganization
    Pintastic 22event
    Toy Storygame
    Whirlwindgame
    Doodlebuggame
    Rushgame
    Mandaloriangame
    Godzillagame

    high · George speculates: 'I think this was his, quote unquote, revenge to get back at Disney...they hired me. I'm going to do the call-outs because everybody wants to hear me.'

  • ?

    venue_signal: Pintastic 22 hotel exhibited significant problems: poor room conditions (earwigs, odors), inadequate maintenance (demolished miniature golf course), weak security enforcement of room policies

    high · Multiple reports: 'biohazard room' with 'distinct funk smell', 'Creepy Golf', excavation ongoing, staff not enforcing machine-in-room policies

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Toy Story pinball features jump ramp mechanic with tight timing window (3 seconds); primarily designed for child audience; three machines present at event; well-received by young players

    medium · George: 'I really like that jump ramp thing...you have one shot at it which i thought was kind of a drag...This is not aimed at us. This is aimed at kids. Kids were all over the game all weekend'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Benny Bloomstein (21 years old) demonstrated strong tournament performance, reaching finals despite early losses; coaches mentoring from established players; subsequently purchased Iron Maiden machine post-event

    medium · George: 'I was playing like Mickey from Rocky...just in his corner kind of thing...And he wound up qualifying all the way through and got to play the final round...he just bought an iron maiden for himself'

  • ?

    machine_intel: Unconfirmed report that someone purchased rights to Raza game at public asset auction; potential for future market release unclear

    low · George: 'I kind of heard through the grapevine that, you know, they had a public auction of all the assets of the company and that somebody bought the rights to the game'

  • ?

    content_signal: Classic Pinball Podcast hosts received recognition from industry figures Steve Ritchie and Todd Tuckey at Pintastic 22, suggesting growing media presence and industry awareness

    medium · George: 'Steve Ritchie...walks right over to me, shakes my hand...everybody's kind of looking at me going who the hell are you...The same thing happened with todd tucky'

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Tournament featured vintage Stern games (Firepower, Memory Lane, Big Game, Ali, Stargazer); players struggled with mechanical inconsistencies and scoring; limited flipper power on Firepower impacted multiball strategy

    high · George: 'firepower there was not enough power in that flipper to go around and lock the ball in the top saucer you could just not get there so you really couldn't get a multi-ball going'

    • 5:56
    Let's move to Friday. I arrived on Friday to a whirlwind of activity, and we're going to come to whirlwind in a minute.
    6:07
    I had a piece of glass, I think I told the audience, that went from Ohio to New Hampshire down to Massachusetts. A guy from Middletown, New York, Glenn bought it. Nice guy. You met him real briefly. Introduced him to Eric. We'll get to him in a minute. um just a lot of junk going on when i first got there but got that all out of the way and uh you and i started playing in the tournament you want to talk about that for a couple of minutes yeah sure uh that tournament as soon as i because we we mentioned this tournament on our last show right what was going to be in it we said all the titles uh yeah we talked about all of games i'm going to talk about how well i did or didn't do um so let me let me begin and then yeah we'll cut to you sure um i didn't make the mistake of trying to cram five games in in four hours on a saturday so it was really chill to try to do it on a friday kind of do it at your own pace i took a break went and played some games but it was great i played after looking at the list I played old school sterns. So I was in a sternament. But that wasn't the game that I did the best on. You having had that firepower at your house that you were restoring. I played that game first. And believe it or not, at the beginning of the tournament, I had the number one score on firepower.
    7:45
    Awesome, George. well i i didn't remain there i dropped to number 11 but i thought that was pretty good you know given the talent that was at this show uh or at this tournament uh i also go ahead i was gonna say at that point i would cue curly from the three stooges saying i said i did hey hello hello ma hello pa it was a great fight i stood there like this not for long though hello mom hello pa it wasn't much of a fight i stood right there but not for long yep that's you yeah i i think i have that somewhere yes um so i played memory lane big game both not well and ali and stargazer i went from beginning at number 18, I think. So in the first two hours, I was number 18. Great. By the time the tournament ended, I dropped all the way to number, I think, 72. But I don't think that was too bad given that I only played one card. And again, there were a lot of very, very good tournament players there.
    9:00
    So that's my story. Not a lot there, but I had a lot of fun. What about you? You, I think, got the Jones and went for it. I got the Jones, went for it, started handing over my money. How many cards did you end up playing? I think I played a total of four. Kind of like Ohio.
    9:22
    But I did better than Ohio and wasn't quite as angry tournament guy. At least I had no excuse. I was playing classic games.
    9:30
    But I loved playing. I'd say out of all of them, what really gelled with me, which played close to my stuff, would be their Stargazer. That played really pretty close to mine.
    9:45
    I played big game. Basically, the first card I did, I played big game, Stargazer, Memory Lane, Ali, and Firepower. and firepower there was not enough power in that flipper to go around and lock the ball in the top saucer you could just not get there so you really couldn't get a multi-ball going but otherwise it played pretty well I didn't really get that good a score on that big game I needed some more practice on that one did pretty not too great on that one that was a tough game I did not do well I got zero points on big game It's amazing that I even played in the 70s with a zero. I did okay. I think I did okay on big games. I kept it in the spinner when it was lit, the upper left spinner.
    10:36
    I got a couple 80 percentiles. I got a couple lofty scores on a couple of them that put me within shot of something. I basically was in the top, I don't know, top 13 at one point, I think, which was pretty good. But that's early on, of course. and then more people started coming in and um then i played another card and i did worse on that card you know actually my first card i did was the best card the first so but the lesson learned just do really well the first time and just hope you do bet just go with that you know well you made a mistake too didn't they ask you do you want to keep your former score or do you want to keep your new score and what did you say to me and i said ah yeah i'll just take this score here but I'll take the new score. But you know what, though? They didn't do it because I told it to Eric so later on. He goes, no, no, I get your cards right here. You submitted the highest score right here. Your first card stuck. The other ones they didn't submit. It's like, okay, good. I guess they decided for me. I don't know. Well, that's good. It worked out. You know, so I put my best foot forward that way. I will say my friend Paul's nephew was there, Benny, and he is, how old is Benny? 21. won easily what's benny's last name bloomstein bloomstein yep yeah well i'm gonna take a bow you can take a bow too but i'm gonna take a bow because i told him when we were unloading your rush game that you know episode i said you're really good you should play in a tournament nah i'm not good enough you know he came guns a blazing and he's he's a very good player he ran into a buzzsaw but he's a really good player he is really good he's been playing with his with his father stew um in all these home tournaments there's a lot of home tournaments happening you know maybe monthly or whatever uh not real formal but he's got a lot of exposure to a lot of different games old and new and he's got a lot of he played and he bought a he bought a world poker tour he just bought after this tournament he did so well he bought a um an iron maiden for himself. Oh, no kidding. Yep.
    12:46
    So he's a nice guy. I asked him, I said, are you going to play in other tournaments? He said yes. Oh, yeah. He wound up qualifying all the way through and got to play the final round. And he went up against Steve Bowden. And I think he just got the jitters a little bit. He got the jitters. You know, he kind of won the first game. Then he had a lot of house balls. But it was great. I was playing like Mickey from Rocky. I was being his little coach and kind of, you know, tell him, give him little hints and tips and tricks, especially on the classic games and this and that. And I was basically, you know, just in his corner kind of thing and advising him and kind of give me encouragement the whole time. That was fun. I like doing that. I like being the coach like that. That was a lot of fun. Well, Steve was pretty gracious, too. Oh, he was. I saw you over there, you know, talking to him. I came over, you know, I introduced myself again. I said, hey, you know, we met in Houston. And it's funny because I said to him, I'm one of the few who's actually played Raza from, you know, that company. Never used the name. And he started chuckling. I said, you know, it's pretty strange when I did get to play that game in Houston that five guys were around me and they were asking every question in the world about, you know, whether I like the game or not. He started laughing. He was like, yeah, that's what we did.
    14:14
    And now I understand that maybe somebody has bought the rights to that game and might actually put it out. Did you hear that? I didn't hear that. Tell me more details. I don't know. I just I kind of heard through the grapevine that, you know, they had a public auction of all the assets of the company and that somebody bought the rights to the game, I think. I don't know how they're going to bring that thing out, but, you know, stay tuned, I guess.
    14:43
    All right. We will stay tuned. So I want to I'll come back to the tournament in the middle in a minute. I'm kind of going chronologically. When did you deliver the whirlwind? Tell the audience about that. All right. So I had a whirlwind. Because I missed it. I don't know what. I must have been with my friend Jim. I completely missed you guys playing that game. And that must have been when? Friday night?
    15:11
    Do you remember? No, I can remember. So Maureen and I got there Wednesday. We got there a day early, was set up, and tried to help the best we can. Just kind of got there early to get the feel of the place and the hotel room and all the drama that goes on with that, with the hotel rooms there. We're going to come to that in a minute. Oh, yeah. That's later on. A little teaser. Oh, God. That's a teaser.
    15:36
    So all that rigmarole. And then Thursday, people started arriving, bringing games. And I already had a plan with my buddy Dave and Jerry from Pennsylvania. I made a deal with them, with Jerry, that he can buy the Whirlwind for me. It was a project game I bought, and I was planning on restoring it down the road, but I have so many games to restore, and it's like, you know, I'm never going to get to this thing. It's like I'd rather just make a quick nickel on it versus a long dime on it. Make a little – still sell it for a good enough price that it's worth buying, and I can make a little on my side for my trouble, and he can do whatever he wants to do with it. so but I couldn't he wanted me to bring it to the show but I don't have the the vehicle to easily bring it to the show for the for that uh for the newer type game you know I can do it but it's a real hassle you take it all apart and it's you know this opening is not big enough in my vehicle at this point so I said you really need to come pick it up so I put it in my neighbor's garage on Wednesday before we left for him to pick up Thursday night so what he did he came to the show did his thing got his games into the show brought his games he brought two games to the show to him himself in him and Dave in And then Thursday night he went back to where our place is my neighbor place And he picked up the whirlwind from her in a garage and then drove back to the show He put it in their hotel room and his hotel room was all the way in the back You know, third floor, long way walk around. He's walking all the way through the hotel with I don't know why, because you're supposed to have a pinball machine in your hotel room. So I know no one stopped him. We just kept going. Well, there was no but I mean, we'll get no security in a minute. But there was there were few employees. Exactly. And especially few that actually cared about things. So they let them do it. So they started working. There's a thread out on Pinside. I'm sure some of our audiences read it. But they started working on this thing in the room, right, on Thursday night? Yeah, they called it the Whirlwind Ghetto Hotel. No, they started calling it the Ghetto Wind. But also the thread is like Whirlwind Hotel Room Ghetto Restoration, something like that on Pinside. And they started working on it. And they didn't have any real tools or any parts. but the game was so close all off but he it was games that was so close to working jerry brought with him just because he knew he was going to try to try to do this he brought a known working main board for the game with him and he threw that in that took care of a lot of the problems with the game and now he decided to do a couple little minor things like some switches and and and basically a lot of bubble gum and tape so he lubricated things with he had like hand lotion that he had in his in his travel bag i saw that that is the craziest that's crazy hand lotion bubble gum tape and all in all he got it working really well um well he he got leds from the bushy brothers and he bought a cheap piece of glass because they broke the glass in the hotel room yeah they were taking it off and about to clean it he or about to do something and then he put it down on the rug in the hotel room and it just kind of shattered he put it down on its edge. That was Saturday night on its edge. Well, it certainly wouldn't ruin the aesthetics of the hotel room. That's for sure. See, I get these cheapo LED bulbs. Sometimes when I buy a game, it comes with cheapo LEDs from about 10 years ago when they first started making LEDs, and they're crap. And I just throw them in a bag. I normally throw them up, and I'm not going to use them. And Jerry has always said, I'll use them. I put them on games that I'm going to bring to a show because I'm not going to make a huge restoration piece. I'm just going to sell a game for decent money, but not for full resto money. So I don't care what kind of bulbs are in it. So we call them Jerry bulbs. I said, and here's your bonus bag of Jerry bulbs with your whirlwind game, Jerry. So he put my Jerry bulbs in his game along with some bushy bulbs, and he got all he needed to go. And the game played well, so much so that I said, hey, Eric, World Champion Eric Stone, before you participate in your tournament or halfway through, you want to come up and play this whirlwind. so they said and uh because jerry wanted to come up jerry wanted him to come up and play it and put it in and i introduced all of them and uh of course um eric said well i'll come up there if you got some iced tea for me he said no i have beer water and soda and eric said i need i need iced tea so i drive to come up there with an iced tea later i'll give you a couple ices just go up there so uh he did and he played he got like he was on that game for i don't know it seemed like an hour he just couldn't lose he put up this super high score of i don't know well but you guys were doing this like after midnight right oh it's like it's like almost 2 a.m and nobody in the hotel setting no other nobody next door was anybody next door i'm probably maybe there probably was but no one knocked i mean i couldn't hear anything in my room those rooms were were like bunkers i couldn't hear anything in the hallway nothing so it was pretty good i know uh maureen didn't have the same uh experience no we had we well our place where we were on the first floor was all the restored rooms all was sort of you know new beds new carpeting whatever they were all done the rooms you guys were all the same old same old rooms and some of the rooms over there uh you know yeah we were in the biohazard room biohazard our room had this distinct funk smell and the actually the end of the hall where we were in the 300 block. I don't know how anybody could even begin to stay in one of those rooms. It was, it was okay. It wasn't great. Did you get, did you, did you get some, we had some pets in our room. We had some, some lovely earwigs. We named them. I thought I saw a couple of bugs, but the hotel I mean the show is great I had a lot of fun but that hotel is just a mess and come to find out well outside my room I had a excavator they were tearing up which I later found out from Levy Naaman that there was a miniature golf course out there i guess that looked like it came out of a stephen king movie i can't even imagine what that looked like but it was probably a pretty good description do you did you remember ever seeing this before i never stayed in the hotel before so that was a first for me what did he describe it as he described it as a miniature golf course out of a stephen king movie yeah kind of like uh No. How about he called it Creepy Golf? Yeah, Creepy Golf. Which was probably pretty accurate. Wasn't there a video game back in the 90s about going to some kind of a carnival or something? It's a carnival, but it's evil carnival, something like that. It's something like that. Yeah. I just saw that game. Somebody listed the games that they had at a Fourth of July party, and that was one of them. So I'm guessing, was that a video game? Video game back in the 90s. Okay. okay so eric ended up blowing up the game i from what i understand is that correct yeah the first one he put was 35 and he went there again later on right before um right before the whole place when it played better he played the first one wasn't playing well he couldn't get multi-ball because switches weren't working right he kept getting robbed he goes yep this is what happens to me every time i the game treat me wrong it's you know it's like eric it's not all about you don't worry it's the game it's the switches you know it's like so um he spent some more time minute the next day then eric went back up and instead of getting like 35 it got like 65 million which is an insane score in that game um he maxed out the what was it called whatever the whirlwind bonuses he maxed that out where he where you couldn't go any higher he just kept getting this weird sound came out of the game every time he went around this these loops kept doing um yeah he's a he dials himself right in so well let's while we're on eric let's let's jump ahead a little bit to Saturday.
    23:47
    Eric made it into the finals. Obviously, you and I did not. He was a top eight player, so we got a bye.
    23:58
    And I believe we talked about, or at least I did, we thought we would interview Eric at some point in time during the show. Well, as things go, they don't always work out the way you would like. and Eric ended up losing the first game in the finals. Is that correct?
    24:20
    He played, it wasn't the first game in the finals. No, he was playing and doing okay. I think it was like win one, lose one, win one, lose one, I think. And I think his best of five or something like that. I thought it was back and forth match play. and it came the the other but he never got a chance to choose or i don't know why no his problem was when he's getting pissed off because he's supposed to be able to choose a game that he wanted because he was top pick but every game he wanted to pick you're not allowed to wait for your game and every game he wanted was someone was on it so he had to choose something else he didn't want to play ah yeah and that so he was picking second choice rather than first choice Yeah. The long and short of it is he ended up losing. And I believe you told me, right, he ended up losing and you guys went out to dinner?
    25:14
    Well, yeah. And I record a really funny conversation with him. He wasn't so funny on his aspect. It's funny because, you know, for different reasons. But the thing was really killer. I sort of jinxed him because before the tournament, before his finals, I go, yeah, let's just hope you don't get on Doodlebug. Because he goes, oh, he said, I hate that game. That game sucks. It shouldn't be in the tournament. There's so many ways to lose in that game. It's just a luck box. It sucks, you know. And he'll play anything, but he hates that game. Well, guess what he lost on? Doodlebug. He freaking, he just, like, house ball after house ball, couldn't do shit in that game. He lost on, he was so pissed off. He just wound up just, he just got out of there. He just, you know, said, you know, gone. Well, I was out in the parking lot. I was driving to go get a sandwich. and I saw him and I'm like, what the heck is he doing outside? The tournament's going on. And then I said to myself, uh-oh.
    26:10
    You confirmed it later on. You guys went to dinner and then he just split, right? Yeah, he went home. He wanted to go home. But I want to go to dinner with you guys first because he had no reason. If he's not in the tournament, he's out. He has no reason to be there. His reason for being is being in a tournament and winning. If he's not doing that, he's just going to go. So he must have been bummed. I'm sure he's also counting the quarters, so to speak, saying, oh, you know, I'm going to come out of this with some money. He probably put maybe 50 bucks in his pocket if he was lucky. Yeah, if he was lucky, he came away with something like for qualifying, but that's about it. He at least got a glass, I'm sure. He got a glass, but glasses they'll never use. Maureen saw him with a glass and Maureen goes uh oh, you got a glass that's not a good sign I'm surprised you didn't take it out to the parking lot and smash it yeah, he was fit to be tied I got some great I can submit later some great interview with him the problem is it's a loud restaurant so there might be some golden I'll give you one of the golden moments there and I give him some crap I kind of, you know, I'll tweak them because I know I can, you know, all in good fun because he'll tweak me back, you know. So especially when he's down like that. And I said, well, Eric, you know, you do drive that when you come back to New Hampshire, you drive that cab, right, with your buddy there, you know, with Craig, right? Craig was a cab company. So, you know, there's always cab driving for you instead of pinball. It sounds like you're good at that, maybe not pinball so much. And he just went, urgh.
    27:51
    I had a couple of cool things happen to me. I don't know what day it was. It doesn't matter. Sitting in the lobby for whatever reason,
    28:13
    who comes walking through, but Steve Ritchie. And there are a bunch of people there. He walks right over to me, shakes my hand, says hello i said hello steve how are you and he just keeps on walking everybody's kind of looking at me going who the hell are you right didn't say anything to anybody else just walked through there's you know probably a dozen people there everybody's like wow and the same thing happened with todd tucky he saw me and he started yelling at me like hey how are you i'm like i'm good todd how are you i'm like i i barely know either one of these people he probably knows you before but you're on a world famous you're on a world famous classic pinball podcast i i would like to believe that but after i just steved the last time saying i need a megaphone to talk to him um he was nice to me so that was cool i have a bone to pick with you all right pick the bone you made a statement oh i know where it was it was in one of the threads and i don't remember Oh, it was in the Ghetto Wind thread. You said that, oh, George doesn't play ramp games. Well, guess what? I played a lot of ramp games at this show. I had my buddy Jim from Cape Cod join me. And I said, well, you know, he's got to play all the newer games. So I already know the answer to this, but I'll ask it anyway. Did you have a chance to play Toy Story? i had a chance but i didn't okay i actually played it okay i thought it was okay i really like that jump ramp thing that they have in that game um and i got it a couple of times but i never i i got the mode to get it but i never was able to get the ball over the jump ramp because it's set for like three seconds you have one shot at it which i thought was kind of a drag but that was okay the call outs were good i guess they actually hired uh uh what's his name alan i keep wanting to say steve allen wrong steve help me what's his first name tim allen tim allen yeah they hired tim allen for a lot of the call outs in the game and uh i thought that was pretty good I think that's basically an F you to Disney Tom Hanks Because if you recall If you recall He used to have a TV show On ABC Right And it got cancelled Okay He also Was in the original Toy Story movie Which he is no longer part of Well Oh, when did he leave it, though? He was in 1, 2, and 3, right?
    31:05
    I've only seen 1, so I have no idea. But my point is, he's no longer part of the Disney family. So I think this was his, quote unquote, revenge to get back at Disney and say, hey, you know, they hired me. I'm going to do the call-outs because everybody wants to hear me. I couldn't even tell you who's the actor who's the new Buzz Lightyear, right? very, very, very forgettable film and it's failing at the box office. So that says a lot right there.
    31:35
    And you know, the controversy, but I think overall, the one thing I saw about the game and I'll just leave it at this. If you want to listen to everybody drone on about this game, I saw a lot of kids playing it. This is not aimed at us. This is aimed at kids. Kids were all over the game all weekend from what I could say. And they had three games there. So yeah. It's okay. I'll just say that. Okay. But I also played a lot of other things. I played your game a lot. What's my game? Rush. Okay. I played that a lot. You got a really good game. I mean, I couldn't hear it, but playability, that's a fun game. I had a lot of fun. I didn't know what I was doing, and I racked up some pretty good games. That's the best way. That's a pretty good game.
    32:29
    I'm going to continue down the ramp trail. I dissed Mandalorian. That's a fun game, too. With the spaceship dingus. I don't know what you call that thing. The upper right thing? That little thing in the middle? No, no, no. The thing right in the middle. It looks like a set of testicles hanging down.
    32:51
    Okay. You know what I'm talking about? No. After we get off, take a look at a picture. I don't know what you call this thing because I had never seen Mandalorian, but that's a fun game, too. I played that a lot. There was nobody playing it, so I played a lot of it.
    33:09
    Godzilla is still one of my favorites. Another good game, Cactus Canyon. Did you get to play that? I've played it before. I'm kind of underwhelmed by that game. I never saw the point of it. It's kind of a one-trick pony, but it was a fun – that's another fun – I mean, if you could only own one game and you wanted a family friendly game it's a pretty decent game okay i actually got to play rocky and bullwinkle and what your what your impression that game is not that bad you made it much worse All right I got a question Did the Nell saw thing work Usually it's broken.
    33:51
    I never got it to work, so my guess is no. Okay. I would have liked to have seen that thing work. Yeah. Okay. Why doesn't it ever work?
    34:02
    I think it's a cheap mech inside with a belt and something else. It's cheaply made, and I think it just breaks. So I've only really worked on one of these, and it was broken. And I looked at why it was broken. It's like, wow, this looks kind of cheaply made. So I figured if this one's broken, there's a lot more of them that are broken.
    34:21
    Starring that supersonic speedster, Rocket J. Squirrel, with his pal Bullwinkle the Moose. I also got to play some pinball with Benny and with PJ. Oh, nice. We were hanging out, and they were like, hey, you want to go play some pinball? So we went to the New Hampshire Pinball Club room, and I guess the Western Mass Pin Club, they were kind of together. Sure. And we got to play quite a few games in there, but the one that stood out, because you don't see it often, I said, oh, we've got to play this, is Elvis. That's not a bad game. That's not a bad game either. Actually, that game is pretty fun. I've actually played that game. It's kind of rare. Not a lot of them out there. And I've had two customers that have that game, and I've worked on them, and usually they're lightly played. Usually they seem to be a big shop-out job, but they're not like trash typically when I find them.
    35:13
    No, most of the games in that room were okay. Some better than others, but a fun diversion from playing all the vendor games, which I played a lot of. Didn't play a lot of stuff in the main hall or the free play area. and actually that room didn't have as many pins as I think even last November. It seemed like one whole area didn't have any pins in it at all. Did you find the same thing? Yeah, it was kind of light in that free play room this time, so much so what they did was a smart move. I think it was on Friday night or one of those, I think it was Friday night, they decided to move games and space them farther apart to make it fill up better to make it look more full instead of having empty spaces so they filled the room better by having games spaced out a little more and that that was actually aesthetically looked better so that's what they did well they should have taken a cue from uh the pimbrew fest people because i thought their room configurations how they had everything you know spaced out for a variety of reasons was well laid out and i think they could have probably accomplished that because they didn't have you know as many pins as normal um which is a shame but uh overall pretty you know there were some games i would have liked to have played but they were always being played in the free play area yeah there was some nice there were some nice restorations in there and uh you know again dave metrando the beautiful uh game he brought was uh it was fantastic to play Both of them were nice to play. That Valley cross country, 1963. Rare game. Very fun. Great looker. In fact, Steve Ritchie came up to Dave and said, wow, this is a nice game. You made a nice game here. So Steve Ritchie played that game a lot in the free play area. Oh, no kidding. Yeah.
    37:16
    Yeah. And he won a game of ribbon for it. He won a ribbon for that game. Well, you want to talk about that? You want to talk about. Sure. Do you want to talk about the ribbons or do you want to talk about the story leading up to the ribbons?
    37:28
    The story. Oh, the story. Yeah. Dave, I only have a couple items left. One in particular that was on the Pintastic thread. A gentleman by the name of Alberto. I think, wasn't he one of our, one of your previous winners? maybe not. Yeah.
    37:56
    Yeah. I think it was. It sounds, it sounds familiar. It doesn't matter. Alberto, whoever you are, he was looking for the best in show winners this year.
    38:09
    And Dave H chimed in and said, usually at Pintastic, the people judging quote unquote, the best in show hold up, releasing the winners to promote their podcast. Hopefully that isn't the case. Now, you can't ask the question in a very polite manner rather than an accusatory manner. You couldn't just say, hey, could you please post the winners of the Pentastic contest? We'd like to see them. Great. Nice way of asking. Instead, you got to be smarmy because you're holding it over us like the Sword of Damocles, that we held back the winners for a day when we first did our podcast because we were trying to get some traction. Okay, you got your fame, you got your fortune.
    39:03
    Haters are going to hate. I know you probably have a little bit of a history with this person. I don't really know him. I know of him. But man, here, you got your five minutes. You happy? yeah way back when we first started podcast he was the one out there on a pin side thread that was all pissy um that we didn't release the the winners on pin size said oh check with our podcast when you can see who won and then after the podcast or then i was gonna we were gonna post them on there and you know and put that kind of thing so he was all pissy and he basically went and listened to our podcast and then posted the winners after listening to our podcast and say, there, you know, he's just an angry guy. You know, I really feel kind of sorry for him, especially since we corrected that and going forward from that timeframe just to make it fair for people so they don't have to listen to our podcast, even though they should because they can hear the rest of the story about the winners and so forth. But, you know, whatever. We said, no, in the future, I'm not going to post it on Pinside. I'm going to post them to the Pintastic website. And that way you have to go to the Pintastic website for everything. Go there. And you did do that, right? For this show? Yep, we did. Every show since that little spat right there, we have done that. We have not modified from there. But for some reason, he just has an ax to grind against me or you. No, he has a hair across his ass. That's what he has. I think he's a very angry guy. I think he's angry at the world for whatever reasons, for whatever shortcomings he has. You know, someone pissed in his cornflakes a long time ago. The guy has issues. So I hope the best for him. And actually, I really do pray for the guy that actually finds help and happiness in his life. But he just seems very bitter. So I just hope he straightens himself out. Man, if we get a little problem up here, that thing really screwed him up. I don't think he can make it back.
    41:02
    You're okay, Cougar. Just stay on my wing. I'll take you all the way in Just stay with me I saw a guy do this in a toothpaste ad once Ta-da!
    41:25
    Ah, do-do-do-do The winners are As follows Maureen and I Did our best to filter everything out who won and we came up with best antique was frank roth douche for his 1952 gottlieb queen of hearts in 1960s was dave matrando for his 1963 bally cross country 1970s em dave matrando for his 1978 gottlieb neptune 1970s solid state brian hawkins for his 1977 Bally Matahari and 1980s Brian Urich for his 1988 Williams Swords of Fury. So those are the ones that that we personally went through and judged. We couldn't do the whole spectrum of all the games, you know, the newer ones and so forth. So we left that up to, you know, some other teams and some other fantastic people and also comments from people. went to the show, people that played games and that kind of thing. It's kind of a people's choice kind of deal.
    42:36
    And so what the Pentastic crew came up with were these two games were like where they were people's choice games. So the people's choice games were a 2011 Stern Tron, beautiful Tron that Sandra and Mark Antonucci, who have a great business of Pentavators, and they had this in their booth. Everybody got to play it. got to have a subwoofer on it. It really was spectacular. And it's his pride and joy. He ain't selling it unless you get some big money, you know. And then for custom, it was Dino Gasparri. Dino Gasparri out in, I think he's up in Montreal. He brought Jaws, which is a 2022 re-theme of Silver Ball Mania. I actually played that game. And the soundtrack of Jaws. It had fake blood on the lockdown bar in the cabinet. And it was really well done re-theming, at least visually. Visually, it was great.
    43:35
    Playability, you know, it's a silver ball mania. As our audience knows, we are not big fans of silver ball mania.
    43:45
    And that game just proved it again. Great looking game. He commissioned an artist to do the work. This isn't like Photoshopped artwork. This is actually commissioned artist. It was a beautiful looking game. It was a backlash of everything. Yeah. It's just, I didn't, you know, why silver ball mania? I guess you had one. He had one. It was probably cheap to do, you know, very basic game, you know, but very, very well done. I, I actually played it.
    44:14
    That was a lot of fun. Let's, unless you have anything else to talk about the winners. I only have one other thing we haven't talked about And that was Saturday Night, the band What did you think of Limelight, the Russian Tribute Band?
    44:32
    I think the band Limelight, they were very Well done They did a great Rush representation The people Yeah, it was Rush Yeah, Limelight, it was Rush Who do you think, this was last year My cohort here says It wasn't Rush, yeah it was Yeah it was I thought they were good Yeah it was really really good I did like If I had to go choose Between this year's band and last year's band I would say the Guns N' Roses band Edged them out a little bit Because they're a little more Go in the crowd, get personal A little more I don't know they just seemed a little more I didn't see the Guns N' Roses band So I'll reserve comment But I guess you weren't disappointed that there wasn't the marching band on Friday night. I know how much you love marching bands. Love them. Yeah. You better tune in to the end of this particular podcast. Oh, I can't wait, George. No, I'm not going to tell you. You're going to have to listen. You're going to tweak me, aren't you? Something. Oh, yes, I am. Oh, yes. Can't wait. You're going to love the outro song. You're going to love it. I'm sure I will. Can't wait to listen. It's going to be fantastic.
    45:58
    Let's see. So is that all for the show-wise? No, there's one other thing. I didn't go to them, but I know you did. I mentioned one of the people. You went to the seminar signings, didn't you? And you got to talk to a couple of people? I did. So I realized Jim Patton was going to be there. and that's pretty much, and I knew Steve Rich was going to be there too and some other people. Wasn't Borg there too? Borg was there too. Borg was a last minute guest. There's supposed to be someone else there that did the Rush game. I forget who.
    46:33
    I forget who it was. Someone else was going to be there instead but they couldn't make it or they couldn't fly and John Borg drove all the way out. He drove all the way out to go to this show. From where? Chicago? from Chicago. He drove. Wow. Amazing. Talk about above and beyond. Real nice. I got to talk to him for a while. I went up to him and had him sign a Rush L. Lee flyer for me. I talked to him for a while.
    47:03
    While I had his ear, I talked to him about the Blue Marge, about the idiot sandwich, about that stupid scoop thing. I said, yeah, have you heard much about that? I'm going to tell you And the fix for that is that Ninja Camp's Rubbermaid scoop thing they got going on. That's a really good fix. I put that on. I didn't do the Stern fix that you guys did because I don't like it. It doesn't look terrible in my opinion. Nothing against you, John, but this is the way to go. They said, oh, that's good feedback. So I didn't construct a criticism on it. I said, you made a really nice game.
    47:39
    I like how things play. and that scoop thing fixed a lot of issues with the game by having that Rubbermaid situation on it.
    47:48
    Did you tell him that you never played the game? No, I didn't tell him that. No. I've played your game more than you've played your game.
    48:00
    Probably at this rate, yeah. No, I have. Trust me, I have. I went to town on it at the show. I played a lot of games on it. Wow.
    48:09
    Good for you, George. You're going to be a ramper. Maybe I'll sell you my L.E. No, no. I knew you were going to say that. No, I'm not buying your game. I'm going to come over and play it and I'm sure it'll be at shows in the future. There's one other one other person I want to mention. Well, I'll tell you more about this. I got more sign in things. I get the sign. Go ahead. Yeah. So more signs. So basically, I had a time. Mike McGordy has a centaur and he was talking about I said, I'm going to get things signed. And it's, oh, can I can you do something for me? And I said, sure. So I printed out, I made up cards, like apron cards for all the games that I had by Jim Patla. It was like about, I think it was Mata Hari. I had Centaur.
    48:53
    Oh, and a couple of games, I forget. Whatever they are. It doesn't matter. So you had him signing for five minutes? I had a stack of cards. And then I had. Oh, he must have loved you. Well, I had a stack. And I said, well, I never go to these signing things. They just wanted to do one. I figured, well, if he's going to do a couple, whatever. Then I also had some plastics that Mike gave me. Mike McGordy gave me a full plastic set from Centaur and had him sign one of those. So I brought that with me and a card for PJ because PJ's got one of his games too, Amadahari. So I so and then on top of that, I went up and they said any questions before the sign in thing, before the sign stuff seminar or the whatever it's called, sign things. There are questions to ask for the Jim Patla. So I went up there to the microphone and I started asking some questions and, you know, and I can tell, you know, I started really asking more and more. I almost I felt like the hook was going to come out and kind of pull me away from him. I thought Marston tried grabbing the microphone from you. He did. And I did my famous just one more thing.
    49:54
    Just one more thing, please. Oh, boy. So I got one more thing. And the last thing that was great because he because Jim really liked it. And I said, Jim, on Centaur, Centaur is very sassy, especially when it says slow, aren't you? Are you responsible for that, Jim? Or how did they say, that is all me, he said. I'm the one that made that game wisecracking at you and kind of giving you guys a bunch of shit.
    50:20
    The crowd didn't really realize that. And he never heard that before, I guess, because he thought it was a really good question. So I'm glad they kept me on for that. Then when I finally the next one down from John Borg was Steve Ritchie And when I got John Borg to do mine I quickly left to come back and said oh you know what I need to go get I just bought a firepower back class from Mayfair So I'm going to go get that out of my car, bring it in, and have Steve Ritchie sign it. So I brought it back in, got back in line, and Steve Ritchie signed it. And Steve was really gracious. He said, oh, yeah, I'll sign it. I said, pick a spot, Steve. You signed it before. What was the best? I'm going to sign it right in the black sun right here. and said, you know what, I'm going to sign it. Get your camera out. I advise you to take a picture of me signing it. It's going to be worth more money if you get a picture of me doing it. Oh, right, because now you can authenticate that it is, in fact, him signing it. Exactly. So I was like, oh, thanks, Steve. So I did that. And I have a nice picture of him smiling with him signing it. And a real nice guy. I told him I have a bunch of his games or sort of a bunch of his games. He does a nice job and that kind of thing. Then under Jim Patla, Jim Patla was, like, you know, older. He just seemed like, you know, showing his age more than Steve. And so I said, well, you know, Jim, honestly, I have a bunch of stuff for you to sign. But, you know, tell me when enough's enough. And if you just want a couple, that's okay. You know, so I kind of demanded a couple. You know, if you only want to do a couple, that's okay. But just do a couple of these. So I started going through them, like, one, two. Like, you got to, like, number six. And I go, oh, is there much more? It's like, hey, check me out anytime you want. That's good enough. You know, you can stop. You know, don't worry about it. I see Dave Marsden eyeing me again. It's like you and Dave. the disruptor disruptor well let's let's go back to firepower because your customer was there that i got to meet scott yeah scott yeah he chewed my ear for like ever really what do you have to say to you what was uh you know this is the problem with doing a recording a you know a week later I don't really remember the conversation. I just remember him talking about games and asking me about games and what should I get next and what does Dave have? And it was just like, oh, my God, what kind of sales job did Dave do on him? And now he kind of pushed him over to me. You were talking to somebody else. And nice enough guy. I mean, happy for him. But he was bitten big by the pinball bug. He's just all over it. So he was excited to have that game. He's a big fan of our podcast, George, too. He's a big fan. He's going to hear it. So, yeah, no offense. I mean, I just, you know, I had no idea who he was until he said, oh, you know. And then he started quoting things and they started talking about the game and they started talking about you. And I'm like, I kind of heard all this before, but OK, you know, being polite. And he was all excited. He's looking for his next game, I guess. So whatever you got, he's going to buy. Oh, yeah. No, I already have. He's saving his nickels and dimes to buy the next game. It's already slated. It's already in the books. He's already he handed me another another bag of dough towards it. slowly kind of a layaway plan.
    53:36
    I told him I'm not going to start it for a while. I might start it this Christmas and hopefully get it done early next year. But it's going to be a beautiful nine ball when I'm done. Oh, that's right. That's what he was talking about. Okay. The game that we will eventually get to at some point in time. And I've done a lot of good, well, you know, again, sometimes you do a little too much when you get a little older. You do a little, you know, whatever. And I did a little too much today, but I don't know if it's worth it or whatever, but it is what it is. I cleaned out a lot of my area in my lower level there to make rooms. I really want to bring up another lineup downstairs, put up either a Stern, a classic Stern lineup again down there, and or an EM Chime Central lineup down there. I'm thinking right now to put a Stern lineup down there. You know what I'm voting for? Flight 2000. well one stargazer well that you can always put up that's a fun game ali no that that's okay no what's the other uh not fire uh nine ball no the other not big game is there another wide body that i want you to put well this flight 2000 this cheetah this big yeah flight 2000 that's the one Yeah, that's the one. Flight 2000 and Nineball are the two that I want you to put up.
    55:04
    Especially now that I can get – the Flight 2000 is brand new enhanced software. And this is not the whole rewrite. This is more like modified to make the game better, like finish writing the rules a little better. Right. That was done. So I'm going to put those new additional rules in the game, which make the game even cooler. just like I did with Stargazer as well to make that game better. So all these classic sterns have a lot of nice little rule enhancements, let's call them, that I like better than the Arduino board situation. Some people are doing an Arduino board, whole rewrite, whole different game.
    55:45
    It's okay. You know, a lot of people like that, but it's not really for me. It kind of changes the game too much for me. I'd rather keep it original but a little bit enhanced original. is where I like these games. You know, kind of keeping the soul of the game the way the designer intended, but if the designer had more time to tweak rules, that's what this winds up being.
    56:08
    So, that's what I like. Okay, you got anything else? I'm done my list. A little longer than I would have thought, but good done the last. I can tell you some other stuff about I got a call from Herb Silvers the other day on the West Coast. He's been doing... Well, tell people who might not know who Herb Silvers is. I do. He's been doing this restoration since, I don't know, maybe the late 80s or maybe earlier, but he's been around forever. And out in Cal, I think near LA, a lot of high-end clientele. He basically chromes everything. He's all, you know, he's like Mr. Chromer. He likes to have everything like beautifully chromed. So it's a showpiece.
    56:57
    And his clientele, I think, maybe might not play the game. They probably just put it out there and have it as a look at my beautiful thing kind of thing, like a show car. So that's what he caters to, and he charges a good amount of money for it.
    57:12
    But I've never really played his games, so I can't say how well they play, but they look fantastic. So we've been doing it for a long time. In fact, we went to our first Pinball Fantasy in Las Vegas years ago in 1996, where it was actually his Herb Silver's Pinball Fantasy, which he ran that show. And we went to that show a couple times out there in the late 90s.
    57:35
    So I kind of met him out there way back. But I didn't really know the guy. But I got a call from him, and I said, oh, wow. He said, yeah, I have a client. I just sent on Martha's Vineyard, I just sent him restored 1940s gun game and a 1940s baseball pitch and bat game that are all done up, but they didn't survive the trip totally. There's a couple of switches that don't work or something that got them. This guy on Martha's Vineyard, he's got deep pockets and he wants a whole bunch. You'll have yourself plenty of work to do if you want to take this on because he's going to get more and more games from me and whoever. And he has a huge game room on his house, his mansion in Martha's Vineyard. and I said well I don't know and he said you can name your price he will actually fly you over to Martha's Vineyard he'll take a private flight and fly you there oh you gotta go do this put you up you gotta go do this I know I'm tempted then I realized before he asked me he asked Stu I don't even know how he knows Stu but Stu would be the guy to go because Stu, I could get it done, but Stu would know it better than me. Stu could probably do it. So what did Stu say? Stu didn't want to do it. It was too much time. It would be way too much time to deal with it, you know. And he runs a restaurant, so he works on pinball, but like quickie ones. He doesn't want to go to Martha's Vineyard and do all that stuff.
    59:01
    So I don't know. Right now I didn't really get back to him. I kind of thought I had someone else, but he already talked to Stu anyway. So and then, you know, especially right now, I got other things going on, which I can't get there anyway. You know, life gets in the way and so forth. So I don't know. We'll we'll see what happens. If he calls me again, he bugs me again about it. Well, I might do something with it. But if nothing else, I mean, it's a foot in the door not to scoop herb, but you might be able to sell a few more games to this deep pocket individual. Oh, I probably. Or maybe he has some other deep pocket friends on Martha's Vineyard who would like some vintage games as well. I probably could, but they all got to get in line, though. I've already got like a year and a half out. Money talks.
    59:51
    Money talks. I mean, I got some people waiting for two years right now, and I'm definitely trying to get them done by the end of this year. I want them done. I hate people waiting that long, but there's just so much stuff going on. And never mind life stuff and pinball stuff. It's hard to get all these fancy vacations. Get back to work. Right. Get back to work. I know you're going to live some time, too, even though I love working on pinball. Sometimes you get to stop and smell the roses, which what I'm doing right now, smelling roses on the water here. Birds. OK, don't don't rub it in. OK, don't rub it in. Yeah, it's nice, George. If you have the means, it is so choice from whatever the movie that's from. Well, Ferris Bueller, that's what it's from. Ferris Bueller's Day Off. I'll make that make a note there. What else did I get? Stern. Oh, yeah. So then I got a call from Orange County Pinball. They sent a. Orange County, New York or Orange County, California. Another California reached out to me. They have a game, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Stern game, Ellie and Ellie, that they sent to this huge Ninja Turtles fan in Rhode Island. and it had a big problem with the van not locking balls like it's supposed to and kept shooting balls. And I looked up on the web and people said, there's a street that falls out, and I talked to Stern. So they said, yeah, I can come out there. So basically I went there on the way to Rhode Island here. I stopped there. I thought it was going to be like a multi-hour call, but I looked through the whole – Stern sent me a whole little how to disassemble this whole area and get in there. It looked like just, I don't know, 20 pages worth of stuff. It's like, oh, boy, to get to this one screw, you do all this stuff. So I was armed and prepared for anything. I had the screws I needed, a special another screw that's better than the one they had in there. The original one's a modified deal. And I went in there and actually found out it was just the coil underneath dropped out. The screws fell out of this coil. And that was so it was a simple fix. So I went in there, did it. Game worked great. Simple for you, but not for the homeowner. No, homeowner, no, no. Homeowner had no clue, right? But I don't know what to do.
    62:09
    And Orange County was going to pay for it anyway. So he didn't care because, you know, he paid up for the game. This guy had he had Ninja Turtle, a curio cabinet full of all Ninja Turtle toys back in the day in this room. He had a Ninja Turtle video game in this room. He is reliving his childhood. And he's got a couple of kids on Ninja Turtles. Really cute. And they love them. They love the game. And so I said, hey, while I'm here, since, you know, I got a little bit of time and I brought some nice rubber, let's get rid of all this black rubber on the game because it looks hideous. And let's do a little bit of a tune up while we're here. And so I put in some colored posts. I put in clear rubber rings and we did a little bit of cleaning. I tightened his flippers up a little loose. I did a little kind of little spritzing on the game. And he came back upstairs. He goes, wow, this game looks even better now. This looks great. I wish it came like this from the first place from Stern. It's like, yeah, Stern doesn't do that. He just put black rubber because, I don't know. It's cheap and easy. So this is like, oh, this is way better. So he loved it. And he basically said, oh, I definitely want to look at your website and give you a nice comment and this kind of thing. So I said, oh, I appreciate that.
    63:17
    Yeah, so that's cool. What else did we do there? Those are two things. I get calls from Stern once in a while, too, to take care of warranty issues sometimes in their games. I'll get a call from them, too. So it's kind of cool being in game room, guys. They call me. I have a Stranger Things. They sent to somebody that's having an issue. So they reached out to me. So it's kind of nice being called by all these outfits to do some mop up, you know, for things.
    63:46
    You're busy. Certainly the economy has not affected you as of yet. As of yet. Yeah. It works. It works in my favor, I guess. It's, you know, my clientele, they're not really hurt by $5 gas yet anyway. So it works out. It doesn't sound like it, especially the person out on Martha's Vineyard. Well, if you don't have anything else, I'd like to cut here. We're recording on 4th of July, believe it or not, folks.
    64:20
    No fireworks today here. I like all my fingers. I especially need them to play pinball, so we won't be igniting anything today.
    64:32
    You were talking about seeing a great display last night in Rhode Island near whatever that bridge is. So that sounds cool. Yeah, it's the bridge that connects Jamestown, Rhode Island to Newport. And it lit up in red, white and blue last night with fireworks going right off in front of it, right in front of us, our porch here. and I had my little Bluetooth speaker and I played John Phillips Sousa appropriate patriotic music while it was going off and I cranked it up loud for all the neighbors to hear. And I had bottle rockets. So I was kind of helping the show. So people like that. Well, I'm going to wish everybody a happy Fourth of July, a little belated.
    65:13
    When you hear this, try to get this thing out in the next couple of days. Hopefully I don't have to do too much editing. And I'll see you when you get back from your vacation. How's that? That sounds good to me. So everybody be well. Happy flipping and we'll talk soon. Everybody have a happy and blessed Independence Day.
    65:38
    America. See you, George. Yep. Have a good one. You too. Bye-bye. Bye. Thank you. with selections from their great group now on 21-12.
    66:48
    But George, you don't know what you're saying. You're under their control. Dave, who? Dave, D-A-V-E Yeah, Dave Right