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Episode 129 – Chicken Curry

Slam Tilt Podcast·podcast_episode·analyzed·May 25, 2019
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.032

TL;DR

NYC Pinball Championships recap with tournament results, event logistics, and Keith Elwin's office machine change.

Summary

Ron Hallett reports on the New York City Pinball Championships held at the Skyline Hotel, which featured Papa-supplied tournament games, live music performances, and competitive finals across classics, women's, and main divisions. The event included innovations like dual streaming setups, rotating announcers, and free-play games. Ron shares details about his tournament performance, player results, and learns that Keith Elwin's office Quicksilver has been replaced with a Beat the Clock machine.

Key Claims

  • The NYC Pinball Championships moved from a small penthouse ballroom last year to the main ballroom at the Skyline Hotel this year

    high confidence · Ron Hallett, comparing this year's event to last year's setup

  • All tournament games at the event were Papa games supplied by Fred Cochran and another person from Pittsburgh

    high confidence · Ron Hallett describing the tournament setup and game sourcing

  • The Black Knight Sword of Rage had new code that fixed the skill shot issue discussed in the previous episode

    high confidence · Ron Hallett, noting Timmy brought updated software to the event

  • Bob Merlo scored 350K on a rubber-less center post Stars machine, the high score at the event

    high confidence · Ron Hallett announcing Bob Merlo's high score achievement

  • Bowen Cairns won the classics finals with 1.1 million on Argosy, more than double the next closest score of 600K

    high confidence · Ron Hallett describing finals results and Bowen's dominant performance

  • Julie Dorsters from Canada won the women's tournament, Miriam Nadler was second, Anna Wolk third, Kate Martin fourth

    high confidence · Ron Hallett announcing women's finals results

  • Keith Elwin won the New York City Pinball Championships main finals, with Steve Bowden second, Raymond Davidson third, Jerry Bernard fourth

    high confidence · Ron Hallett reporting main finals results

  • Keith Elwin chose Alien Star as a finals game because he was hungry and wanted a faster game to move things along

    high confidence · Ron Hallett explaining Keith's game selection reasoning at the main finals

  • Keith Elwin's office Quicksilver has been replaced with a Beat the Clock (1984 Bally machine)

    high confidence · Keith Elwin sent message through Ron to Bruce about his machine change

Notable Quotes

  • “All the games that were there were Papa games.”

    Ron Hallett @ early in tournament discussion — Reveals the significant logistics choice to use Papa-supplied games, indicating a major partnership or sponsorship arrangement

  • “This Stars didn't have any rubber on the center post, which is just cruel. It is cruel. That is cruel and unusual punishment.”

    Ron Hallett and Bruce Nightingale @ during game setup discussion — Players' reaction to deliberately difficult machine setup affecting gameplay difficulty

  • “I'm hungry. We need, you know, I want something that's fast. I want to get this over with.”

    Keith Elwin (reported by Ron) @ during main finals game selection — Shows how personal factors influence professional tournament play decisions, adding humor to high-stakes competition

  • “The Quicksilver is no longer in his office. What? Nope. Did he sell it? No. It's been replaced. With? Beat the Clock.”

    Ron Hallett (reporting Keith Elwin's message) @ toward end of episode — Unexpected machine change in Keith Elwin's office that drew surprised reactions; Beat the Clock is an obscure 1984 machine

  • “Bowen in semifinals, he was untouchable. Like he was playing at a completely different level.”

    Ron Hallett @ during finals analysis — Commentary on skill disparity and announcer responsibility to acknowledge dominant play, relating to broader discussion about announcing quality

  • “What is good for the player is not necessarily good for the stream.”

    Ron Hallett @ during discussion of finals format and game selection — Identifies tension between competitive fairness and entertainment value in tournament broadcasting

  • “Any pinhead that could talk was pretty much on the list and could get pulled in.”

    Ron Hallett (reporting event logistics) @ discussing announcing crew composition — Shows inclusive and flexible approach to event broadcasting with rotating announcers

Entities

New York City Pinball ChampionshipseventRon HallettpersonBruce NightingalepersonFred CochranpersonKeith ElwinpersonBowen CairnspersonJoe Lemireperson

Signals

  • ?

    event_signal: NYC Pinball Championships upgraded from small penthouse ballroom to main ballroom, with Papa supplying all tournament games, indicating improved sponsorship, venue access, and event professionalization

    high · Ron: 'But unlike last year where they're in the tiny upstairs, like the penthouse ballroom, they actually got the main ballroom this time... All the games that were there were Papa games'

  • ?

    content_signal: Event featured dual streaming setups with professional-grade equipment (Carpi rig and studio mixing board) plus simulcast option, indicating growing sophistication of pinball event broadcasting

    high · Ron: 'Mark from Backbox Pinball had the full Carpi rig... Ben Benjamin from the New York City Pin Pod had a huge mixing board... simulcasting during finals'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Bowen Cairns demonstrated exceptional dominance in classics finals, scoring 1.1M on Argosy vs 600K next closest, with subsequent poor Monaco performance; indicates high-variance skill levels and format impact

    high · Ron: 'Bowen has like 1.1 million. The next closest score was like 600K... he started missing. And like the last two balls were just like lots of misses and drain out'

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Tournament format allowed players to select games, leading to predictable selections of 4 controllable games (Argosy, Monaco, Sinbad, Wizard) in finals, reducing variance and variety but improving consistency for elite players

    high · Ron: 'You were going to see either Argosy, Monaco, Sinbad, or Wizard... they were picking them because they were the most controllable games'

  • ?

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.210

0:00
Hey, Beavis, check it out. Spermothytal lubricant with a reservoir tip. Ribbed, for her pleasure. Yeah, I could use some of those.
0:13
Come on, butt munch. Coming to you from beautiful upstate New York, this is the Slam Tilt Podcast, the show about all things pinball. I'm your host, Ron Hallett, here with my co-host, Bruce Nightingale. Howdy ho, neighbor-oskies. Hi folks, welcome. This is episode 129. 129. 129 episodes. You've been stuck with me. Yeah, but unfortunately some podcasts have ended. Yeah, I was so upset about this. I heard about this. I heard about Head to Head finally giving up the ghost. They tried. They were really good at it. I feel so bad for them, but I'm going to miss this guy. What?
1:08
Bruce, it wasn't Head to Head. No, yeah, it was. It was head-to-head, you know. No, no. They do have a two. It does have a two in its name, but it wasn't head-to-head. What do you mean? It's coast-to-coast. Huh? Coast-to-coast. Nate's going to go on forever. No, Nate's going on forever. No, it was head-to-head. No, he said he's done. What? Yeah. That's not like Nate. It's not like Nate at all. Well, he had like six podcasts last year. I know. We need to make sure we stay ahead of that pace. We are. But seriously, congrats, Nate. Yes. He's the one who started it all, kind of. I think TopCast is truly the first one. Oh, actually, there was the guy from Arizona that did a couple before him. Yeah, he was terrible. Actually, I think it was Gary. Gary, that was his name. Gary from Arizona. Good old RGP, baby. Oh, God, he was a douchebag.
2:02
A douche-a-da, a bag-a-da. A douche-a-da, bag-a-da? Is that like on the Roadrunner when they put the names, you know, like... Yes. Speedius Fathivus. Yeah, I used to like some of those. Edus Sloppus. Those are good ones.

  • Black Knight Sword of Rage has flipper codes in the game that Timmy won't reveal

    high confidence · Ron Hallett reporting what Timmy shared about hidden flipper codes

  • “I have a very high chocolate tolerance, let's just say that.”

    Ron Hallett @ discussing ice cream outing at Holy Cream — Humorous aside about Ron's food consumption capacity at post-event gathering

    • Julie Dorsters
    person
    Miriam Nadlerperson
    Anna Wolkperson
    Kate Martinperson
    Steve Bowdenperson
    Raymond Davidsonperson
    Jerry Bernardperson
    Bob Merloperson
    Markperson
    Ben Benjaminperson
    Levyperson
    Stephperson
    Tammy Olerperson
    Papaorganization
    The Knobsorganization
    Skyline Hotelvenue
    Cameron Silver Ball Saloonvenue

    code_update: Black Knight Sword of Rage received new code version that fixed the skill shot issue from previous episode; also introduced minor cosmetic bug with 'invalid' mystery award text, plus flipper codes feature that remains undocumented

    high · Ron: 'they had new code on it that fixed the skill shot issue we talked about last episode... did introduce another bug... invalid... He won't tell me what any of them are, of course, but there are different flipper codes'

  • ?

    collector_signal: Keith Elwin replaced his office Quicksilver machine with a Beat the Clock (1984 Bally), indicating collector evolution and interest in different title despite Quicksilver's rarity and iconic status

    high · Ron: 'The Quicksilver is no longer in his office... It's been replaced. With? Beat the Clock... 1984... One of the last MPU-35s'

  • ?

    community_signal: Event organizers used flexible announcing model where community members could be called to announce, reflecting inclusive approach and building community investment in event success

    high · Ron: 'Any pinhead that could talk was pretty much on the list and could get pulled in... they just kept throwing, like, hey. You, want to come over?'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Announcer discussion about tension between what is good for competitive fairness (diverse game selection) versus what is entertaining for broadcast audience (predictable controllable games), highlighting fundamental tradeoff in event design

    high · Ron: 'what is good for the player is not necessarily good for the stream... You always make everything sound dirty, Bruce... once we got to the finals, it was pretty much one of four games'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Papa's provision of tournament games plus free-play games (including rare titles like Willy Wonka LE) at NYC Championships suggests sponsorship strategy to increase brand visibility and access to their collection

    high · Ron: 'Papa bring all the tournament games, they brought games for free play... they had Willy Wonka there... after standing in line forever to play it at Allentown, you literally could just walk up and play this game at will'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Julie Dorsters' consecutive tournament wins (NYC Championships and Allentown) and dedicated women's tournament with strong field indicates growing visibility and competitive depth of women's pinball community

    medium · Ron: 'Julie is from Canada... she just won Allentown... She is en fuego' and dedicated women's final with 4-player field

  • ?

    industry_signal: Brief mention of podcast ending (likely Coast-to-Coast or Head2Head confusion) indicates churn in pinball media landscape, though specific context is unclear from exchange

    low · Bruce and Ron's confusion about which podcast ended, with mention of 'Head2Head' and 'Coast-to-Coast' in discussion

    • 2:19
    Warning, warning, warning to our listeners. There's going to be a lot of tournament stuff in this episode. Yes, because what happened this weekend? Well, we should have both been there. Yeah, unfortunately, I've had a fun time at the bar this week. Oh, not really. So this is it was the New York City Pinball Championships with both me and Bruce signed up for. Yep. And everyone there was asking me, where's Bruce? Didn't he sign up? I did. And unfortunately, I had so many repairs this past week, I couldn't justify it. The compressor for the kitchen died for one of our kitchen refrigerators. So I had to put everything in the other refrigerator. Then the cooler compressor died for the beer. I had to get them in there. Last Tuesday, the one AC unit in the building crapped out. So needless to say, I've been running around ready to shoot myself. I thought you said someone called in sick. Yes, my bartender, my head bartender called in sick for two days on a weekend. Now, didn't this happen last year also? Yeah, but that was because it was new and everything like that. I was afraid, but I am going away tomorrow, even though the AC is not fixed and the other stuff is all fixed, but the AC is not fixed. I'm still dealing with that. I'm going to Florida. Wait a minute. Thursday is a business day, right? You can't be closed. I am not closed. Wait a minute. They're going to be open without you there? Is that even possible? That is possible. Very rare, but it is possible, and it's going to happen. So you're going to Florida to pick up a Quicksilver? No, I wish. God, please. I wish. If anyone's got one down there. so what what are you doing in florida i'm going to visit kathy's parents okay i thought you were going to say you were going to see like um the wonderful i'm gonna walk i'm gonna go visit uh willie wonka and the chocolate factory that's in florida i thought that was in england uh well you know i thought you were gonna say you were going to elo or something i would love to but that It doesn't start until July. Another tour? Oh, yeah. The Too Old to Rock tour? No, we're going to see him in July in Newark, New Jersey. Okay. All right. Well, speaking of that area, New York City, baby. Yes. The New York City Pinball Championships for this past weekend. And it's probably some of the most fun I've had at an event in a long time, I must say. Wow. Yeah. Well, me and Zach weren't there, so you couldn't have too much fun.
    4:56
    Zach will never be there because it's pump and dump. Yes, I don't like pump and dumps either in some ways. I only like pump and dump classics, not pump and dump regular. Sure, you would have loved this then. This was at the Skyline Hotel.
    5:09
    But unlike last year where they're in the tiny upstairs, like the penthouse ballroom, they actually got the main ballroom this time. Nice. So, yeah, that made a big difference. But the biggest difference was something I didn't know until I walked in the door. All the games that were there were Papa games. Ah, wow, I didn't know that either. I don't know how much that costs. Yeah. I wonder, could you rent out your games, Bruce? Like, tournament-ready games from the Silver Ball Saloon. I'm there. Yeah, I wonder how that deal happened. But it was Fred Cochran. Hi, Fred. And another guy from Pittsburgh. I'm sorry. I forgot your name. But they came down in a big-ass truck with all the games. I loaded them all. Then the Never Beef people, like, set them up. But, I mean, they're pretty much tournament ready to go, most of these games. Yes, they are. And, yeah, when you walked in, everything was done. They were all ready to go. and like I had played most of these games, if you've played at Papa or Pinburg enough, it's like, oh, there's Alien Star. Oh, there's Sinbad. Oh, there's Stars. Oh, man, Stars was really upsettingly difficult. But one of our upstate guys got the high score on it. Who? Bob Merlo. Congrats, Bob.
    6:35
    350K he got on it. Jesus Christ, that's insane. See what happens when you have a stars on location? It just makes you a better stars player.
    6:43
    This stars didn't have any rubber on the center post, which is just cruel. It is cruel. That is cruel and unusual punishment.
    6:54
    So, yeah, I took the train there. This is cool. I took the train. Took the train to the plane. I found out, like, my coworker sits right in front of me, lives like four blocks from the train station. Oh, nice. So I parked in front of his house, and it was like street parking, so it didn't cost me anything, and I just walked there. So I didn't have to pay for parking. It was like $45 round trip. And then when I got back Sunday, just walked back to my car, and it was like 80 degrees.
    7:23
    Yeah. Yeah, it was – that's the way to go. That's the way to go. And the timing was good. I went later this time. I got there way too early last year. There was nothing to do. This time I got there later. and yeah the timing everything pretty much worked out but then as you know said hi to timmy he's checking everyone in yes um bruce we're not in the game yet he did say yeah what the fuck yeah yeah that's good that's good i don't know if that he just said that to pacify me but maybe he did but he told me who the loop champion he told me the loop champion's gonna be but it's not you what no it's not you it's not you oh man don't forget kimmy i've driven out to chicago I can stalk you out there. You can stalk Timmy. I want to be in the game.
    8:10
    Play better. I guess the loop champion is Ashton, who is the kid that used to stream. He used to be on his stream all the time at the Sanctum. So that's kind of cool. That is cool. Yeah. So there is a loop champion. Fail.
    8:28
    Well, the funny thing about Black Knight Sword of Rage, it had a new code on it that I don't know if it's out yet. But it fixed the skill shot issue we talked about last episode. Nice. Yeah. So I decided I would play in the classics. Nice, as you should. Like I usually do. I usually don't play in main. Although that did change. I did end up playing in main. Or at least doing. Your four? Yeah, my, well, six. Oh. See, the way it works, folks, is it's pump and dump. And in classics, it's your four best games. In the main, it was your six best games. they actually had an A division and a B division. But to be in B, you had to be like 500 or lower. I would have been in. Wait a minute. How is your rank 500? It's lower. It's actually 670 now. How is that possible? It is because I haven't been in anything. So good. I can be in B now. Even with your pin, Burt, that's ridiculous. Yep. B, B, B, yeah, yeah. B, B, B, oh, yeah. And I boo you the whole time. B. Come on. So, yeah, then you had the Dahlia Rowan Women's Tournament. Yes. Which I think was, oh, God, I don't remember. Was it top three, top four? Top four. Which they had, how many games did they have there? Well, we'll go over that. So we had, for your classics games, the ones I was, where I decided to play, we had Argosy. Arrgh. Countdown. Good game. No center post, of course. Monaco. Good game. Then we had Satindal. I told you Satindal is not a great game. Sinbad. Not a great game. Stars. I love Sinbad. Stars rocks. Stars. Target Pool. Good game. And Wizard.
    10:19
    Good game. Mm-hmm. So Friday, I played pretty good. I was like in the middle of the pack. Yeah, I saw that. I was in the bleed out zone. I know I'm going to bleed out Saturday if I don't get a couple more good scores. Yes, you will.
    10:35
    So I spent quite a bit of money on Saturday. Great. I don't know, like 80 bucks. I figured I needed at least two good scores to improve two scores. I was only able to improve one of them. It was like the Void show. It was like a Void the Void, and I just kept Void, Void, Void, Void, Void, Void, Void. I honestly think I probably played some of the wrong games. I concentrated on Sinbad, Stars, and Target Pool, which were probably the three hardest-playing games that were there. Probably. So maybe that was not a wise decision. I didn't get in the queue for another game of Monaco or Argosy, because they were usually longer queue times, because they played longer, but they played longer for a reason. They're more controllable, the games aren't as short, and perhaps I should employ a different strategy next time. But I kept playing. I finally had a decent Stars game, like 190K. There you go. But I needed that one more good game or improved game, and I just freaking could not do it. I couldn't do it, man. I kept having shitty games. No Argosy for you. No, I probably should have played something like that. I ended up 27th, top 24 qualify, so three out. And realistically, I was like, I'm looking at 11 points out. So it wasn't that close. It was so frustrating. I was pissed.
    12:04
    The interesting thing there, they had a stage in the middle of the room. Like, with a drum kit on it, because they were going to have musical guests, artists, whatever. Basically, they were going to have Levy's band, The Knobs, and Sean Grant was going to rap.
    12:21
    Interesting, wouldn't you say? The weird thing is, the way the schedule happened. Well, first Friday, like the last 15 minutes of qualifying Friday, I get pulled into the booth. So I'm announcing with Levy as watching people get destroyed by Alien Star. Nice. Yeah, that was very nice. That was pretty cool. I enjoyed that. The setup they had there for, like, the streaming, first they had Mark from Backhand Pinball. I think this was his first, like, larger scale stream like this. He had the full Carl rig, and it was an awesome setup he had. And then next to him was Ben Benjamin from the New York City Pin Pod. Check him out. He had a huge mixing board, like the kind you'd see in a freaking studio sitting there. And he was simulcasting.
    13:19
    I don't know if people realize, he was doing the radio show. Plus, during the finals, he would have announcers in the booth. So if you didn't want to listen to the announcers on the Twitch feed, you could go over to the simulcast and listen to that, his simulcast instead. Okay. So Saturday, I get called into the booth during the Classics finals. So I got to announce the Classics finals with Fred, Fred Cochran, and then I think Louis Bevins came in later for the finals. and they did this thing where, like, once Levy was eliminated, because he had made the playoffs, they decided they were going to do the band thing, and I figured they were going to, like, they said they were going to play a song, and then we would go to the Classics Finals. So I was like, okay. So they play a song, and then they play another song. And then they start playing a third song, and I get the cue from Mark, like, yep, we're on. I'm like, wait a minute, they're still playing. But nope, Classics Finals start while the live music is going on. Isn't that cool?
    14:29
    It was interesting. I'll say that. It was very interesting. First, like, the knobs played, and then Sean Grant was rapping while the finals were going on. It was very entertaining. It was a unique experience. I'll say that. It's funny. Watching the finals and announcing, you know, announcing pinball is hard, Bruce. It is. That's what they all say. Just like making pinball is hard. You know why it's hard? Why is it hard? You always make everything sound dirty, Bruce. Why is it so hard? Exactly.
    15:03
    And this is an interesting discussion in that what is good for the player is not necessarily good for the stream. You know what I mean? Because once we got to the finals, even the semifinals, it was pretty much one of four games. they were doing the typical three-game series, Papa scoring, 4-2-1-0, and you were going to see either Argosy, Monaco, Satindal, or Wizard. That's what you were going to see every single round. Yay! Yeah, you were not going to see Stars or Target Pool or Sinbad. And they were picking them because they were the most controllable games, least houseball-ish, if you will. What they should have done is, like, say the Final Four, if you're driving the bus like usually people are, you can only pick the game once. Then it's gone.
    15:56
    I like that. Well, they'd be out of games. You couldn't pick it again. You could only pick it once per round. I'm saying that, but I mean, how many games did they have in the whole bank? The ones I just named before that you forgot already. There was eight. So there's eight games. So they use four per round. So if there's a semifinals and then a finals, because they only had the top 16 if I remember correctly, You still could do it. No, it was 24. Okay, so there's a buy even better. It goes down to 16. 16 goes to 8. 8 goes to 4. There you go. Well, yeah, you had one more time. But you couldn't make it. You couldn't use it one more round afterwards. You can do it that way. I think what, I think it was Yagpin did, is that they had them in banks. Yeah. And you could only pick the first game, and then you had to take the next two. And they put them in a way that you would have to play an older game, like a newer game. Like you were forced to play different stuff. Yeah, like they did in the finals for Pinnberg. Yeah, well, they're bang. This one was like there's a line of games, and you pick which one you start with, and then they go to the right. Yeah. I think it was Yagpin. I'm not sure about that. And the other thing that kind of sucked about it is it was over after the second game. So what happened was you had – it was Bowen Cairns, Elliot Keith, Ian Harrower, and Joe Lemire were playing in the finals, and the first two games, it was an Argosy.
    17:20
    Bowen has like 1.1 million. The next closest score was like 600K Then he playing Monaco And this is where I tried to do this when I was announcing because I think a lot of times when people are announcing they don't necessarily, I don't want to say too patronizing, but they won't just say when someone is losing it, like when it's right in front of them. Like Bowen in semifinals, he was untouchable. Like he was playing at a completely different level. I mean, he was just like an Argosy. It would come down the center lane, and he would drop catch it. I saw one other person try to drop catch it, and they semi-flubbed it. And it just wasn't missing. It was just like just completely other level, just noticeably higher level than anyone else there.
    18:08
    But on Monaco, after like either in the middle of the third ball or so, he started missing. Yeah. I mean, he had like 600,000, I think, by ball three, but he started missing. And like the last two balls were just like lots of misses and drain out. and you know i brought this up on the stream and like this is and it reminded me of like you remember that expo final where uh yorian echo brixon won and he was playing like star trek 30 zillion times and he just kept picking it over and over and he would time out every mode and it was like the most boring shit you've ever seen yep but he was completely dominant no one could touch him on that game but he had one game where he sucked and it was against trent trent augustine But unfortunately, Trent sucked more and could not catch him and was eliminated.
    18:58
    And I felt this was a similar situation. He left the door open. You had a shot at him. And Joe Lemire got close. It ended up being like $660,000, and Joe had $610,000. Wow. He was just a little short, and then it was over. Are you calling Joe short? Well, he's not tall.
    19:22
    But I'm just saying, as an announcer, I think there needs to be more of that. Like the year, like, I'll bring it up, the year Josh Sharp didn't win Pinberg, you know, he was in the finals. Yep. And he was, and he'll tell you, he'll be the first to tell you, he's not the most accurate player in the world. I mean, his skills are more like nudging, saving balls. But he was fairly accurate. That's why he got all the way to the finals. And he was playing awesome. And I believe it was RoboCop. Like, in the middle of RoboCop, he just started missing. Yeah, I remember that. And he never got it back, and he also started flailing. And you could tell he was pressing. But, like, no one on the announce crew, no one ever said anything like that.
    20:02
    I think we need to get a little more honest. Mmm. Like, I'll admit when I suck, which is frequent. But it was over at that point. So the third game was just basically for – it was close between the other three players. So it was for just the second, third, and fourth. So it ended up Bowen won with Ian Harrower in second,
    20:24
    and Joe Lemire in third, and Elliot Keith in fourth. So congrats to all. I can't remember what the prize money was. It was like, I think it was. $2,000. No, no. It was like a grand for first. Yeah, I think it was. Yeah. $15, $80. I know that. Again, shout out to Mark from Backhand Pinball. he was like running all over the place like moving the rig all that he was like answering the chat he was queuing us he was doing the sound thing because while the band was playing he had some kind of like hook in into Benjamin's like board too and they like so if you watch the stream you got like pro sounding like sound of the band did you see any of the live act it was interesting they had like Levy was playing drums they had a guitarist who was singing and they had a tuba player yeah and then they had another guy with dreadlocks who just came out and kind of announced the band you remember like guns and roses used to have that guy that would just all he did was like announce the band yeah that was kind of like what i felt like he was there he was that guy he's on the game too isn't he i think so he is he's like of all the bands in the world this is one of them uh so that was classics this was all like saturday night then they had the uh the women's finals so in the women's finals we had and actually well the games in women's which i probably should say were congo creature from the black lagoon dipsy doodle and spider-man and if you remember the original list it was supposed to be getaway but it must have had an issue because it was off to the side and they had uh they were placed with congo yeah that was the other improvement from last year, not only did Poplar bring all the tournament games, they brought, like, games for free play. Yeah. I saw that. Yeah, and including some of the, like, they had Zookeeper there, which I was psyched. They had a Donkey Kong and a Robotron. And there was also a friggin', they had a Willy Wonka there. So after standing in line forever to play it at Allentown, you literally could just walk up and play this game at will. Wow. Yeah. It was LE, too. It had, like, the, I'm assuming LE, it had, like, the red trim stuff on it. Yeah, I think it is the LA. So that was cool. I mean, they had it going on. And let's see. So those were the four games. I know Steph, the pinball princess, she likes Dipsy Duel. She had the number one score on it for a while. So then in the finals, we had, and this was funny, it was like New York versus Canada, as in three of the women are from New York, one from Canada.
    23:03
    So you had Kate Martin, Julie Dorsters. Did I say that right? I think I did. I don't think it's like a French last name. Miriam Nadler and Anna Wolk.
    23:14
    So Julie is from Canada. The other three are from New York City. Yes, they are. Yep. So guess who won?
    23:20
    Oh, Canada. Congrats to Julie. Yes, congrats. She took first. Miriam was second. Anna was third. And Kate was fourth. She is on a roll. Mm-hmm. Because she just, yeah, she won Allentown. Yes, she did. So she is en fuego.
    23:42
    And during this and I think the men's final, they had the simulcast with Benjamin's New York City pin pod. And announcing for the women's final, they actually had Tammy Oler and the pinball princess herself, Steph. Nice. So give that a listen. I can't remember who was on the Twitch stream, the regular announced team. because they were changing up the announcers a lot, which was kind of cool. They just keep putting people together. I don't think – they announced beforehand that they had, like, specific announcing teams. I don't think so. I think it was literally they just kept throwing, like, hey, because I just got called over. You, want to come over? Hey, you with the face. Yeah, I actually found out later, and I actually got a look at it. They had a list. Basically, any pinhead that could talk was pretty much on the list and could get pulled in. Cool. Yeah. So that was cool because they kept changing up the crew. I mean, I didn't hear any of the streams because I was actually there. I don't know if I'll actually ever watch them because I was there and I saw everything.
    24:45
    Then on Sunday, well, and then another thing I forgot to mention, on Saturday, they also had like this food fair thing that took like eight blocks worth of like just food. and it was like a couple blocks away. Like every different type of food place you could think of was here. It was insane. Nice. And Ronnie tried some Japanese food. Oh, Japanese food rocks. I basically had, I went to the Japanese food, like the booth, and I had, what did I have? Chicken curry with rice. Oh, chicken curry. That's really good. Sold. Guess what? Ronnie liked it. I liked it. He likes it. Hey, Ronnie. Hey, Mikey. Amazing. It was like the curry, it was just at my highest level of a spicy, yeah, hot enough. Yeah, hot level. If it was any hotter, I would have had a problem with it. Yeah. But, yeah, I was like, holy crap, I can't believe it. Ronnie likes something. I'm even amazed. Nice, nice, nice. And then we did, like, this is becoming, I guess, a tradition now, two years in a row now. Well, after everything ends Saturday at midnight, a bunch of us, we go to Holy Cream, which is an ice cream place. It could also be a porno with nuns, I guess, with a name like that. Oh, my. But, you know, it's an ice cream place.
    26:06
    And this time, I'm trying to remember what I had last time. I think I just had an ice cream cone. This time, Coy was there, Coy Morris. He gets this cup, this large cup of Belgian chocolate smothered in hot fudge. Wow. It looks insane. So I'm like, when it got to me for my order, I just pointed at it. I want that. Done. Yeah. So I got that. I finished it, of course.
    26:33
    And Steph got the same thing, ate half of it. And she's like, you want some of mine? So I took it and finished that. Everyone's looking at me like, how can you eat that? It's like ridiculous. Easy. I have a very high chocolate tolerance, let's just say that. And the food, there was a deli right across the street. I don't know how I didn't go there last year, but got a couple things from there that were delicious. Pizza place right there. Food's got it going on, man, I'll tell you. Food is good. So then Sunday were the finals. My train was leaving around 5, so I figured I was going to stay there until like 4. Last train to Albany.
    27:11
    Actually, it wasn't the last train, but yeah. so in the when we got to the final finals it was keith elwyn raymond davidson steve bowden and jerry bernard so three out of the four have been on the show that is true and i don't know how jerry has it being that i don't know i play with him all the time we should actually have jerry on jerry jerry jerry made the final four at allentown too so he is also hot he is el fuego And the first game they played was on Rolling Stones. They had some kind of malfunction stuff that occurred. I won't get into it. It's all explained on Tilt Forums. Just check it out.
    27:52
    So they end up having to pick another game, and Keith Ellen picked Alien Star. Oh, boy. And you know why he picked it? Why? He was hungry, and it was just taking too long, and he wanted to move it along. So he's like, let's get Alien Star. Yeah. You've got to love that reasoning. I like that reasoning. Of course, he had a high qualifying score on it, like a 2 million. So, yeah. Of course. So that doesn't help. Yeah, no, but he literally was like, I'm hungry. We need, you know, I want something that's fast. I want to get this over with. Nice. Yeah, nice. And as usual, Alien Star, by far the most exciting part of the stream. Well, actually, I didn't see the other two games, but nothing could equal the excitement of Alien Star. And? It ended up coming down to the last game where Keith Allen pulls it out. Oh, Jesus. Yeah, he pulls it out, wins the New York City Pinball Championships, and then we had a three-way tie. Oh, nice. So they had to play a fourth game on the shadow to decide the other places, which ended up being Steve Bowden in second, Raymond Davidson in third, and Jerry Bernard in fourth. Congratulations, guys. So congratulations to the one. Yes, the one had a message for you. Well, first you sent me something before this stating on YouTube how Willy Wonka was not a legal person. Okay, you botched that badly. But basically, yes, Ellen wanted me to send you a link of this lawyer on YouTube, and I guess he has these funny clips where he will go through a movie, and he'll see how much money he could actually get in damages for all the violations, the legal violations. and he did Willy Wonka. And he basically said he could get like $2 million per kid or something or whatever. Yeah. Advised viewing from the one. I like it. But he had some piece of news he wanted me to give you. Uh-oh. And he said you'd be disappointed. Of course I will be. The Quicksilver is no longer in his office. What? Nope. Did he sell it? No. It's been replaced. With? Beat the clock. Oh, my God. We're going to beat a clock now? Beat the clock. I know. We're going to get a beat-the-clock game now? The Bally. I know which one you're talking about. Yeah. 1984. Mm-hmm. Time game. Yep, and it talks a lot. It's a very talkative game. One of the last MPU 35s. What do you think about that, Bruce? Are you excited? You're going to get a beat-the-clock for the bar? God, no. No? No. No?
    30:22
    So I decided, though, well, I probably should have said this before we got into the finals, but I did play in the main. And I had two decent games, and then the other four sucked. And, you know, I never actually looked to see how decent or sucky they were. Let me see. I know I kicked ass on Quicksilver. Yeah, I had the fifth-highest score on Quicksilver with 1.4 million. And I thought I did good at Flash Gordon.
    30:48
    No, I guess not. 21st, 826K. Not bad. But all the rest of the games just sucked. I think I was like 100 and something overall. Keep up the good work. Well, I literally only played the games like once. I played Sword of Rage, and I don't think I even started multi. I don't think I even got a lock. Yeah, I didn't even light a lock. But the Sword of Rage they had there, Black Knight Sword of Rage, they had new software on that Timmy brought with them that corrected the skill shot. Good. So the skill shot on the top actually worked. it did introduce another bug that did not affect gameplay but was kind of humorous which was you'll see it on the stream when you get a mystery award and it scrolls through the different mystery awards oh it says invalid yeah one of them said invalid that actually was on the other version too oh it was it's on 0.93 also okay because it's at the bar and i see it i go there's invalid all right invalid i was like oh wow that's fucking funny but it never comes up as the final choice. No, no, no, no. That would be actually funny if it came up invalid or nothing. You get shipped. The other thing I got from Timmy is there are flipper codes in the game. Oh. He won't tell me what any of them are, of course, but there are different flipper codes in the game. Let's do slam, tilt on the flipper buttons. I think more than likely they are probably like initials, like most of them are, so probably just three. Three initials. So maybe try your initials and see if anything comes up, Bruce. Mm. That would be funny. I want, hey, I know you don't listen anymore, Tim, but someone else. He doesn't listen anymore? No, I don't think he does. He only listens when he's on. Wow. If Elwin's listening or anyone from Stern is listening, tell Timmy, I want, like, if you put B-E-N in, in the flipper codes, it does like Bruce doing the jackpot call from Demoman.
    32:42
    No, it just goes. Like, if you put the flipper code in. Make it happen, Timmy. You can do it. You are champion. Is that in there? No. It's not? No. I have not gotten to it yet. I've gotten Knight's Challenge twice in the same game. That's the, what's that, the retro mode? Yes. Okay. Well, wait a minute. Isn't Triple Knight's Challenge the multiball? Yeah. But is it? No, that's the regular multiball. That's the regular one. When you lock it three times, the retro mode one is when you spell knight, and then you get into the left lane. So segue here. Well, not segue. what's the term? Getting off the track a little bit, how is it earning so far? What do you think? Are you liking it? It's doing pretty good. It's just, you know, it's a little hard for some new players. It really is. It's like stars brutal. All right. It's holding up well, you know. The only thing I noticed the problem with, and, you know, Steve put in that email about the problems with, you know, trying to lock shot and that flap not being in a couple of things. What we've noticed at the bar is the ball getting stuck in the left lane for the night shot, for the up kick. If you get two balls in there before it kicks it out, it's almost like the kick out for medieval madness on the catapult. It keeps on kicking, kicking, kicking, kicking, and it sometimes does not clear itself out until you take the glass off. Or if you have an extra ball to hit and jar everything up and then make it work. The funny thing is on our last episode, we talked about the ball getting stuck in the lock area and not like one or two days later, Steve Ritchie posts on Facebook the fix, or several fixes, and how the game should be set up, which is funny because back in the day for Black Knight 2000, there was a supplemental guide that was sent out by Williams from Steve Ritchie that was basically, this is how you should set Black Knight 2000 up. Yes. Like, this is what the ball should do. It should loop here If it doesn get pliers and bend this ball guide so it does work When it comes off the upper play field this is where it supposed to hit on the flipper And it was interesting This is almost the same thing Like these issues you want to make sure this wire form is up high enough The issue with the ball getting hung up in the lock area is there's a gate there that's got like a spring-loaded thing, and it's just like basically just push it up to try to get the spring a little looser, and eventually it'll stop doing it, which is funny because it did it on stream. Oh, cute. during the semifinals, and I'm there, gee, if only we had Stern employees here that could figure this out.
    35:28
    We only have a few of them. Nice. It's like, really? Come on, guys, didn't you listen to Steve? I might even have done like a Steve or T-voice. Didn't you read my post? Fix the game, Timmy.
    35:39
    So overall, it was an enjoyable time. It seems like there was more and more swearing as the tournament wore on. No fucking way. Yeah. Bullshit. Yeah. Yeah, I guess the booth got somewhat animated at times. What a surprise, huh? Boom, fuckalucka. Yeah, it was pretty fun. When I got called in Friday, like the last ten minutes of qualifying, well, first I was going to get called in, but I was up on Alien Star, so I wore the blazer. They had these never-beef production blazers. Yes, I saw that. So I'm playing the game wearing the blazer, and as soon as I sit down, I come back, and Lovie's like, you beefed on that game or whatever the hell he said. Wow. And I didn't hear any of the announcing for the finals, but I guess it was quite a lot of swearing and different maybe inappropriate quotes being said. So, you know, that's why I kept thinking of you, Bruce. It's like, oh, my God, you would have loved this booth. I would have loved it. Actually, you in the booth with Levy might be scary. We were talking about, like, volume level, like who is louder. And I think you may be louder. Of course I am. Of course you are. But I just like that booth would have been insane. Nice. Because unlike Levy, you wouldn't own the rules.
    36:52
    So that was the New York City Pinball Championships. I think I covered everything on my list. So what's going on in pinball news, Bruce? Piece of news. New code for Munsters 1.0. So we're official. We're official. So now everything's fixed and everyone's happy with the code. Not at all.
    37:12
    You people are too demanding. I like Munsters. It's okay. It shoots well. It shoots great. Okay, what's wrong with the goal? What's so bad about a shallow game? Well, if you're buying it from home, it sucks. Just make it brutally hard. Problem solved. Wow. What? It's like Iron Man. Like, if you ever play an Iron Man that's set up easy, it gets boring. It needs to be set up hard. Mustard's is the same way. Just think of it that way. Okay. No.
    37:41
    No? No. You don't think it would earn good? I think it would earn good. It might. Well, New Code is not the only thing that it got. Yes, we got Catwoman from Stern. Well, no. First we got Color Munsters. Yes, we did. Color Munsters. And pissed off LE owners. Yeah. We're supposed to have the only color version with the lower play field. Never said that. And then, as you said, we got Catwoman, Batman 66.
    38:13
    So what do you think of that? Doesn't bother me at all. I just asked you about it. What do you think of that? You get a Julie Newmar signed baseball card. You do? Different head art. Yes, you do. Different head art. For the first hundred, you do. Different head art and different back glass. That's it. Everything else is the same.
    38:34
    Cash grab. Oh, we said the wrong word. How's yours earning? How's it going? Pretty good. And it's fixed. It's fixed? It's fixed. You fixed the rotisserie of doom? Yes, because with a new freaking rotisserie got sent to me. Wow, so the board that you replaced still didn't fix it. Board I replaced. Then I replaced the switch. They wanted to replace the switch. It made no sense. I replaced the coil for the pop-up post. None at all. So then I get this rotisserie, and I put it all in. Okay, great. and I power it up for the first time and it downloads the node board information and then it starts moving the wrong way.
    39:20
    Instead of rotating the way it should rotate, it rotates opposite. So I turn off the game real fast, which of course when you're in a panic mode, you always go for the under the cabinet switch, not the under the head cabinet switch.
    39:35
    I flip up the game again, pissed off, like, you know, And I see there's a white piece that the motors cycle on and actually also blocks the optical switches and that kind of stuff. And I look and I go, and I look at my old one, and I look at my new one, and I look at my old one, and I look at my new one. And I said, motherfucker, they didn't even test this thing because they had the white piece 100 – they had it flipped the wrong way. They had it on, like, say if it was in a certain home position, it should be on the left-hand side. On a new one, it was on the right-hand side. Okay. So they never tested it. How easy a fix is that? One screw. Flip. Oh, well, there you go. But wait a second. If you didn't know this, you'd be saying, what the fuck's going on here? Why is it screwing up?
    40:25
    And they didn't test it. But it works so far. so far I've been able to lock every ball no more virtual lock we're actually locking a ball in they call, actually Stern calls it the mini playfield like a little overkill on the mini they call that a mini it's the rotisserie of doom but uh it's working so knock on wood hopefully this will be the last problem I do have one more problem with the new rotisserie and I have to work on that probably next week when I get back from Florida. Wait, wait, wait. So it's not 100% working. There's still a problem. It works. The problem is the spinner in the front of the back car, the car on the one time, it's a little too low. So I have to loosen the set screw and raise it up a hair and then retighten it down, which means I have to take the whole rotisserie back out, take it apart. Jesus, this sounds like all the issues I had with the fucking Vengeance ship on my Star Trek. Yes, yes. I kept, like, having all these various issues, and I had to keep taking it off over and over again. Yes. It was a pain in the ass. I mean... It's a fucking ball buster. I mean, and then I got everything working, and then it just, like, this one screw came out, and it fell right off. Yeah. That was fun. Lovely, huh? All right. Well, since we're on repairs, any more repairs?
    41:50
    Oh, what else have I... I've had just a couple broken wires on coils, that kind of stuff. nothing too like oh my god more coin jams than ever lately i got a couple new coin mechs put them in and the new ones are actually the ones that are on batman fail once in a while it just will not take i'm like what the fuck so you get you know thank you hap yes thank you and uh i have two games for sale you do what are they bruce i thought ron was gonna buy one but he's too cheap, even though he loves these games. Well, I love the EM version of the one, but yeah. Blackjack and Hot Tip Solid State with Zach Rules. What does with Zach Rules mean exactly? Zach modified these rules. A lot of different things, like if you get the right in lane, the spinner blinks for 100 points for like 5 or 6 seconds and then turns off the spinner and puts it back to 10 points per spin. Kind of cool. The spinner doesn't light until you hit four of the six drop targets instead of three.
    42:59
    And just a lot of different little nuances that make the game a lot harder, but a lot more fun, a lot challenging. So if you want a good game, and I might be bringing to Pentastic since we have to go to Pentastic. We have to go to Pentastic for the Podcaster's Panel. Yes. So if you guys are interested in the game, hit me up, man. I take care of you. Pintastic, folks. We're going to be on the Podcaster's Panel. Yep. Be there or be square. Pintastic. It's going to be awesome. And it is going to be awesome because... I'll be Bruce. I'll be unfiltered. Bruce will be unfiltered. Oh, God.
    43:36
    We're going to have the Podcaster's Panel. We're going to have the tournament. It's going to be run by the Sanctum, as usual, and all the wonderful Sanctum games, including a Dragon Fist. It's going to be there. Mark from Backhand Pinball, who just did the New York City Pinball Championships, will be doing the streaming there. Nice. Very excited, Bruce. Very excited. It's going to be great. But Dragon Fist. Everyone loves the fist. Everyone loves Dragon Fist now. Everyone's really just, you know, they're just on our coattails. I mean, they're just, like, lagging behind us. We were ahead of the curve on the stern thing. Yes, yes, we were. But the funny thing is I had Jeff, one of my local guys, come over and play Dragon Fist, and he's like, why isn't this at the freaking bar yet? This game is great. Yeah, why isn't it at the bar yet, Bruce? I said, it's a little rough, you know, it needs a couple things. He's like, no, this game is great. He goes, it's better than Quicksilver. Oh, no. That's what he says.
    44:27
    I don't know about that. I don't know about that, Bruce. It's brutal. It's harder than Quicksilver. I think so. I'll say that. It's Sea Witch, but without this side flipper for an easily sweepable center bank. So you have to hit it directly and not die. And he loved, he loved the counter, counting the spins. Oh, the spin counter. Yeah. Yes. He loved it. He was like, oh, my God, that's freaking awesome.
    44:54
    Needless to say, I'll have to get it to the bar soon, especially with the other ones coming. Yes, you will. I'm going to wait until June for it.
    45:03
    I just sneezed. I was about to say, weren't you going to yawn? Why would you mute yourself? It's your trademark. No, I was going to sneeze. All right. I was like, oh.
    45:13
    Let's try that again. But I'm not going to bring any new games until June. I'm going to let the new games that we have right now with Batman and with Swords of Rage, we'll just wait until June for our new games. All right. I might have mentioned this on the last episode. A co-worker's retirement party at level zero. Yes. Went very well. Only broke one game. Right. Which one? Prospector. Bummer, huh? Everyone loves Prospector. Well, here's the funny thing. I think I've mentioned this before. One of my coworkers has had a Prospector in his garage for like 30 years.
    45:49
    And he's been holding out on me. When he started playing, it was very obvious. Like, wait a minute, this guy knows how to play. We got to play it here, folks. Yeah, I got him on stream. It's like, yeah, he played Prospector. First game, he had like 600K. Yeah, that's not right. I said, man, I told him, man, you should start playing in tournaments. You need to come to Saratoga. Saratoga show. So they just put the floor map out today. Yes, they did. We'll get into the Saratoga show. You know, what happened was after I drained, it started counting up the gold bonus and just kept counting and counting and counting and counting and wouldn't stop.
    46:27
    Nice. Yeah. Basically, it wasn't stepping down the gold bonus. So I just kept counting the points over and over and over and over and over. So but that's fixed now. Yay.
    46:41
    And I don't think I didn't have issues with anything else. I streamed it, but I don't think I archived it. It was just kind of a fun thing. That's cool. And it was weird because when you have non-pinheads over, basically they came over. No one played any pinball. They just, like, stood around and drank. Then they played pinball. Then they stood around and drank some more. Then they played a little more pinball, and then they left.
    47:04
    Interesting the difference between the pinball crowd and your non-pinheads. Yeah. So, well, speaking of the Saratoga Show, my idea is to bring the Sea Witch. Nice. Well, if it doesn't sell at Pentastic, I'll be bringing something, hopefully, to the Saratoga Show just to sell, sell, sell, sell! Wait a minute. You're going to the Saratoga Show? Probably. I'm going to try. I don't believe you. When is that again? August something. Let's check right now. But I want to see if someone else is bringing a Beatles and see if I can put the Sea Witch next to the Beatles. Ah, there you go. Just to see if anyone, like, looks and goes, wait a minute. Hey, this looks familiar. August 9th and 10th. The weekend after. Pembroke. Yep. That's a little hard. That's hard. Tits a little hard? That's a little hard. Oh, my.
    47:56
    Phasers locked. Phasers set for stun. Mm-hmm. Ning. I'm trying. That's my main tech thing I want to get. I want to rip that sucker apart, get a play in the way, see what should play. I actually saw the knocker that it hasn't had, like, ever. I love knockers. I know you do. Memories.
    48:22
    Some various tech news. I noticed, I think we mentioned this before, the Weebly board that we promoted before on the show, that's W-E-E-B-L-Y. He changed his universe. His MPU board now for, like, Bally's and Stern's is more like an all-tech, like, universal thing. But you can still put your custom stuff in there if you want. Yep. But I saw, like, he sent me the list of, like, what he has in the one that comes with the board. Yeah. And he has a lot of Scott's ROMs in there already. Nice. Yeah, like the Cheetah, like, one-time bonus collect one is in there. The Dragon Fist one is in there. So give it a look-see, folks. Yes. And on top of that, we mentioned last episode about Ballyno Tilt ROMs. Yes, we have them now. We are set. Yeah, Scott sent them. Yep, Scott is the man. I at least sent a link to a place where Josh Sharp can get it. So maybe he can put it in an IFPA so they don't have to do the Player 1-3 crap, which I hate. But whether he'll do that or not, who knows? I think I did make another comment because Levy from New York City always calls me Custom Ron. because of all the custom software. And it's like, hey, we're surrounded by Papa Games. There's probably no organization that has more games with custom software than Papa does. Yeah. Pretty much every System 11 with a progressive jackpot has, like, custom software in there, so it doesn't happen. Exactly.
    49:51
    Just thought I'd bring that up. Yeah, I just noticed, I'm looking at the thing. That's pretty cool that they changed the whole board, so now it actually has dip switches, so it actually can... Oh, thank God, yes. Includes the free play options and the free play option also for the other, for Sterns too, if you're home. Yep. The other issue is he's got the Ballys and they're all like the free play versions, but the no tilt through versions are not free play. Yeah, which is. So you have to try to get a combo of that.
    50:18
    Combo. Oh, and I don't know if, did we mention this in a previous show? the co-alt boards he's or cook or the kahoot boards or however you say his name he's back oh really he's not selling the uh mpu and the driver boards though he is selling the um i think it's just the power boards it's pinball pcb.com and i'll check that out now to see what he's selling that's bs big at all make it so number one with a number two okay he's got a speech board sound board, flipper power supply, background sound, auxiliary driver board. And he's got, let's see, system 6, 7, and 9 speech board, 6, 7, and 9 sound board, the flipper power supply board, auxiliary driver board. System 11s. Yeah. The background sound board for system 11 and a snubber board for system 11. Yeah, I think he needs to make those for other boards. Come on. Yeah, but he got priced out of that. Yeah, but guess what? His board is the best board. That doesn't matter. People have spoken. That's why I still haven't sold my Flash. I need to get the original boards fixed so I can get the Kahoot boards out of there so I can use them again. Let's see. Any other tech stuff I can think of? Any tech stuff? Oh, I have a question for you. Questions away. On Air is as good as anywhere. Sweet. Stop. Do we know when it's going to be? I don't know yet. Is it at your house? Well, yeah. I mean, stop. East or whatever you want to call it. You have to actually be official with this. Original stop. I was thinking maybe September. Yeah, I was thinking fall also. Because there's a lot of stuff in the summer. Yeah, I think middle, maybe beginning of September, like two weeks after. Let's see what's on IFPA. While you're doing that. I'm going to do that right now. I'm going to hop over to This Week in Pinball. Thanks, Jeff. Or hi, Jeff. where, oh, the first thing we already talked about, the Munsters and Batman 66 Oh it looks like Superman is not going to get made No darn Darn So Superman and Beetlejuice are not going to get made Not a surprise. Okay, the only thing scheduled in September, even close to us, is Pingfrossing. So definitely. Yeah, don't do it then because that's the same. I think a lot of the same people go to that. Yeah, but they do it every month, So it's kind of hard to go around the ping crossing thing. Well, it's not every month. They have a main one. No, they have it every month. It's scheduled September 18th, October 16th. Really? Yes. Okay.
    53:00
    They're doing a cock block on us. How nice. Harry Potter virtual pinball. You're not into that? I mean, at least we're getting close. We're getting close. No. We're getting close to having a real one, right? No, you're not. That's the one everyone wants. No, you're not. Okay. I'm sorry.
    53:23
    See, not really much in news. No. I mean, I did, I got to play some more Wonka. Mm-hmm. And the upper right section, it's hard to see when you hit the ball there. You've got to, like, lean over to see it to hit it with that upper flipper. And the same deal, flippers were kind of weak, even there. The left flipper, the one that hit the cross shot, just seemed like I hit it, and it was just like a wet noodle. I love wet noodles. I don't get it, man. I don't get it is with the flipper power. It's like you need to have, you know, primo electric, and then you need to crank it all the way up, and then it will play fine. Yep. We have items in the ball bag.
    54:07
    The mail ball bag. Yes, we – okay. We bitched last week about not having anything. So our listeners have heeded the call. And given us something in our ball bag. Yes, they did. So here we go. First one. This is from Sean. Hello, Sean. Hey, what are you, Sean? Have I done Stewie in this episode? I haven't. No, not at all. You did a little voice thing. Oh, right. Okay. I was listening to your latest podcast with a discussion regarding Data East games. I have played most of them and always wonder why Last Action Hero isn't in the discussion. For the time period, it's a very deep game. There's lots of modes. sever multiballs in a wizard mode and shoots well. Yes, the theme is awful, but I wonder if it was a better theme whether it would be loved more. False. I like Last Action Hero. I love Last Action Hero. Yeah, we should have mentioned that when we were talking about Good Daddy's Games because that's up there. If that came out today, that would be like the super limited edition. That would be like a $10,000 game. Like only the $10,000 one would have the working crane. Yes. As far as it being a bad theme, I mean, it was an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie and it was at a period where usually his movies were hits, so it wasn't a bad thing to pick. It just turned out the movie kind of sucked.
    55:17
    But I always liked the game. It has one of those, you know, multi-stage, multi-balls I love. It's got, like, the smart missile button. It's a wide body. It's got tons of shit on it. I always found it very fun. We should have mentioned that. We failed. We should have. We failed. We suck. That was from our Canadian listener, Sean. That's how he signed off. So, Sean, you are absolutely correct. We missed one there. But a good game. Good game. Well, you like Maverick, right? I don't mind Maverick. I don't mind it. Because that's the other wide body I was thinking of. Yeah, it's just, it gets a little repetitive after a while. This is next email from Glenn. Hi, Glenn. From Nashville, Tennessee. He says, you've got no mail. Excellent. Very nice. Thank you, Glenn. Fail. The funny thing is, then, like 20 minutes later, you mailed again. What's your strategy on Star Wars? I'll be at pin golf tonight. Don't play it. Take this, your girl. I told him to use the Leia strategy. Yeah, Leia strategy does work well. Which, if you need, like, quick points. Yeah. So thanks, Len.
    56:21
    Terrible game. No, it's awesome, Bruce. No, it's not. It's great. Okay, wait a second. Wait a second. If it was so good, would you own one right now? No, you do not. So guess what? Until you own one. Wait a minute. You didn't even let me answer. Okay. If one came up at a good price, sure. Why not? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. If you thought this game was so good, you'd be buying it right now. I think lots of games are really good, and I'm not buying it right now, Bruce. Oh, bullshit. I still haven't gotten a Meteor. Well, there's a lot more Meteors than Star Wars, and you keep on raving about Star Wars. So money where the mouth is, Ronnie. Star Wars is a hit for CERN. Everyone loves Star Wars. Everyone recognizes Star Wars. See, I would be torn between the Premium and the Pro. I agree with that. There's some things about, like, the Premium, you can't really backhand the Death Star because you can't make it up that thing, but it's got the Supercharger, which is super cool.
    57:14
    So I don't know. It has that thing on the right side, too, like the Ball Saver, like, gate thing. Mm-hmm. Is that on the Premium, or is that just the LE?
    57:23
    No, it's both. Really? Premium Mana, yes. I didn't really like that thing. No, I don't either. But it's like, I want the Pro, but I still want the Supercharger. like I don't care about the Death Star blowing up because it looks like shit anyway but I like the Supercharger especially when you get into the Hyperspace Multiball and the whole light show is in sync with the Supercharger that's not there on the Pro it's like damn it I wish that was there alright we have next email we have from John Cosson Dr. John he says hello nice men oh my Hello, nice man and Bruce. Oh, fuck. Great to hear you back on the web waves. My attempt at a Bruce-ism. Just FYI, the funny place name is Ace Kogi.
    58:15
    God bless you. Yeah, that's the place where Carl D'Angelo does a lot of his streaming. Or not San Francisco, but it's outside of San Francisco, yes. Yes, it's spelled A-Y-C-E-G-O-G-I. And A-Y-C-E stands for All You Can Eat. And yogi is Korean for meat. So it literally means all you can eat meat.
    58:38
    I thought you'd find that humorous. And he says, just what you needed, big slabs of meat for your mail ball bag.
    58:47
    Oh, Dr. John, you know us so well. Yes. Thank you, Dr. John. Nice, nice, nice. Let's see, that pretty much empties the mail ball bag. I mean, I did have an email from Corey attached to all the wonderful Bally No-Tilt ROMs. What's the deal with those ROMs? Now, is that, like, illegal to, like, give them to people?
    59:09
    It is a modified version, but I don't think Bally Williams will go after you. Well, no, it would be – I know the Weebly boards when Andrew, the guy who does the Weebly boards, was doing the Bally stuff, he had to, like – if you asked for a Stern ROM for a board you were ordering, it was, like, no problem. If you asked for a Bally one, there was an increase in cost. Yeah. Because he had to pay Planetary Pinball for it. I'm sorry. But I'm wondering, because he's selling the product, if you were just giving someone the ROM image, is that okay or not? I don't know. Honestly, what it should be, you need to take a picture of your game next to it. Then guess what? You own the game. You already had the ROM images. He should not have to pay for it again. Yeah, I wonder if it's like the whole MAME argument where, like, if you own the game, it's actually okay to download the ROM. Yep. But these are modified ROMs. Yeah, who knows? You know, I don't know. And some people get around it by they, like, they'll do the patch file that's not the actual modified ROM.
    60:12
    Like, I know Soren does that. Like, he'll give you a patch file. So you have to patch it yourself, which you need some skills to even do that because there's a lot of instructions and you need utility. and do all this stuff and check sums and all this to actually patch the ROM. But that way, he's not actually selling the modified ROM. He's just like, here's this patch. You're doing the patching. So I'm thinking that we couldn't just give these away. We would get in trouble.
    60:41
    And you listeners wouldn't want us getting in trouble, would you? So bring all the requests to Ron. Attention, Ron. And he will send you the Dropbox link so you can download these ROMs to the cows. Come home. Yes. So seriously, if there's any lawyers who listen to us, let us know. I'm curious what the legalities are on that. I think it's one of those deals where probably no one would care, but it probably is illegal.
    61:04
    That's what I'm thinking. So, okay, stop in September. Yes. September, stop. And don't forget, we need to find out who is going to Pinberg of our friends so we can all hang out and have a pretty picture together. Would you like a little pretty picture? Yeah, a picture with the celebrities that are the Slamtail Podcast. Slamtail tells himself.
    61:25
    Oh, I remember there was something I wanted to bring up last week and I forgot. I just remembered it. This was a suggestion by Scott, our own Scott, which I love this suggestion. We should have a tournament, have like Mrs. Penn do the trophies, and have the tournament called Whomper Stomper.
    61:46
    You like that? Are you on mute? Have you dropped? Nope. I'll disconnect you. Nope. Just that bad. What do you mean that bad? That was terrible. That's an awesome idea.
    62:01
    I think it's an awesome idea. Hey, listeners, let me know what you think. I want to actually have a women's tournament here at level zero, and I think that would be a great name, Whopper Stomper. So if any women, one or two women who listen to the podcast, please let us know if that sounds like a good idea.
    62:21
    Wow, Bruce, I can't believe you. I thought that was, I've told that to at least a couple other people, and they thought it was a great idea. You're the first person who didn't like the idea. Thank you.
    62:29
    What's wrong with the idea? Name sucks. The name is awesome. Whopper Stopper. Women of motherfucking pinball. Stop and shit. What's wrong with that? Wow, you are so wrong with this, Bruce. Almost as wrong as you are in Star Wars, but. No.
    62:47
    Wow, like a fart in church with Bruce here. I'm just disappointed. Disappointed? Why, what would you have called it? Well, they're not stomping anything. They're not crushing anything. I would just say, like, you know. Yes, they are. They're going to be crushing my games. The Womps are going to be crushing my games. No, no, no, no.
    63:05
    I'll have to think about it. You threw, you know, I'll have to think about it. I'll get a name up. Next time we record, I'll have a couple names ready to go. No, no. Okay. Okay, folks. Here you go. Here's your chance. right into the ball bag.
    63:18
    If you like Whopper Stopper and you think it's good enough, you let us know, man. Or do you want a Bruce-ism? Do you want a ridiculous Bruce-ism name? Yes. I think Whopper Stopper, or you could do Whop Stop, but I like the Whopper Stopper idea. To reiterate, I would like to have a women's tournament here at Level Zero, so if any women who listen to this podcast know of anyone who would like to run a tournament, we have a nice location in upstate New York for you. Yeah, it's called the Silver Bowl Saloon in East Rochester, New York. Yes.
    63:49
    It's my level zero. We have full streaming facilities. The whole thing will be streamed. I will literally just be a tool. All I will do is tech and run the stream, and it's all yours. The games are all yours, whatever format you want. Come on, ladies. Let's do this. Whopper Stomper, or whatever horrible name Bruce is going to come up with. Yes.
    64:13
    I can't believe you don't like that name. Not at all. Why not? It sounds like something we would come up with. No, it does not. Maybe you, not me. Okay, Bruce. Do we got anything else now that you just totally put me on a downer there? I'm sorry. Your name was Stux. You suck. That name rules. Again, again, slamtillpodcast at gmail.com. Let us know. Don't forget, most of the time when we have these things, these polls, what happens? I win.
    64:42
    Oh, God, no. So if we're going to have a poll, you've got to put the poll up. You've got to have some other names. No, no, no. I know. That's what I'm saying. Give me two weeks, and then I'll put it all together. But I want to see what people think in the next two weeks. Okay. So, yeah. So just email us. Email us at Slamtail. My thing will be great. Slamtail. Shut up.
    65:03
    Slamtailpodcast.gmail.com and say, like, Ron, you're totally high. Or, like, you know, Women's Tournament is a great idea, but the name is the worst we've ever heard. It's terrible. Which, it's Scott's name. So you're saying you're insulting Scott more than you're insulting me. That's not a problem. Or I'll do it again. Whopper, stopper, folks. I think it's a good name.
    65:25
    But Bruce thinks it sucks. Let us know what you think. And, again, Slam Tilt Podcast. I forgot to plug our website in the last episode. That's slamtiltpodcast.com, upper right-hand corner. All our links are there, including the link to e-mail us. Check us out. It's great. It's awesome. Greatest site ever. nice when is the pinball profile news site coming up it's been a while I'm still waiting let me hold my breath don't do that I'm dead Jim we love Jeff so anything else seems weird to be done after an hour but I mean not much other than New York City the New York City pinball championships was like the big news No. And probably half the people fell asleep because it was a tournament anyway. Yeah. Hopefully the tech woke them up. I don't have anything on eBay, so. By the way, this is Gene Simmons. Have you watched any of our latest tour? God, no. Sorry, Gene. Fail. Why not, Bruce? Because you suck.
    66:34
    Wow. Bruce just said Kiss sucks? Yes, I did. Because Gene's going for the cash grab again. Well, yeah, that's what Gene does, though. He's not like he's hiding it. That's true, too. Okay. Yep. Goodbye. No, this has been the Slam Tilt Podcast, episode 129. We can be reached at slamtiltpodcast at gmail.com. Once again, our Slam Tilt site is slamtiltpodcast.com. All the links are there. Thanks to all our pals out there in pinball land. Hi, pals. I'm kind of sick of naming them all, so what I'll do this time, just check out Backhand Pinball. Mark, check out the streams. They were awesome. They're golden. They were awesome. Using the Carl rig and a bunch of other stuff. We were talking some tech. There's some stuff I need to do to upgrade my stuff now. That's all I have to say to take it to the next level. So thanks, everybody. Oh, hi, Zach. Hi, Zach. Fun with Bonus. All the other podcasts. I'm tired of saying all your names because I forget everyone. I think I forgot someone last week. I always forget people. I'm sick of forgetting people. I'm sick of this podcast. I can't believe Bruce doesn't like my Whopper Stopper name. He's such an idiot. Say goodbye, Bruce. Oh, I'm trying to get my name right now. Hold on. You failed again. I'm in the middle. John Peters. Goodbye, John Peters.
    68:09
    Can you slide? Oh my, my. You can do me if you try. Oh my, my. Guaranteed to keep you alive.
    68:33
    Oh my. Oh my All right, as promised, here comes Ron Hallett wearing the Never Beef Productions jacket. Look how sharp Ron Hallett looks in that jacket. Wow. Is that going to be something if he blows this thing up wearing the MVP blazer?
    69:26
    All right. Ron, definitely a guy who can play some games like this. Huge old classic Stern collector. He knows about spinners and stand-up targets. From Slam Tilt Podcast.
    69:40
    I'm sorry. Oh, okay. There he is, Ron Hallett in the booth. Ron, that was a terrible game. Terrible? Well, you know, you got that 5X. I got 5X. Oh, boy. All right, maybe not as bad as this game.