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Episode 227 – Better Late Than Never

Slam Tilt Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 47m·analyzed·Apr 23, 2024
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.031

TL;DR

Slam Tilt discusses Fast's documentation issues, Home Pin's marketing failures, and personnel moves across manufacturers.

Summary

Slam Tilt Podcast Episode 227 features hosts Brian Hallett and Bruce Nightingale discussing pinball news and industry developments. Key topics include Fast Pinball's documentation issues and customer service response, Dennis Nordman's return to American Pinball as a consultant, Home Pin's controversial announcements (Blues Brothers open-source machine and negative marketing strategy), Stern's reissue of Black Knight Sword of Rage, and coverage of recent pinball events. The hosts also cover personnel changes including Ryan White's departure from Chicago Gaming.

Key Claims

  • Fast Pinball owner Aaron Davis responded within hours to customer complaints raised on the podcast, engaging in a two-hour phone call with the host

    high confidence · Host describes receiving email from Fast the day after criticizing them, then Aaron Davis messaging same night to discuss issues directly

  • Ryan White, VP of Sales for Chicago Gaming Company, left his position in December

    high confidence · Host verified departure via LinkedIn showing December departure date, notes White was spokesperson for company seminars and shows for 5+ years since 2018

  • Dennis Nordman is returning to American Pinball as a consultant for Whitewater 2 production

    high confidence · Host reports this as a deal, though notes confusion about production order with Cuphead and other titles in pipeline

  • Home Pin is releasing Blues Brothers as an open-source pinball machine with user-programmable rules at approximately $5,000

    high confidence · Host reads directly from Pinball Magazine announcement about Home Pin's open-source Blues Brothers machine launching July with Australian shipments in August

  • Star Wars pinball has three ball saves on a single ball, an unusual design choice

    high confidence · Host and Bruce discuss this specific mechanic detail; Bruce also mentions Godzilla has the same feature if executed quickly

Notable Quotes

  • “Don't buy a company's machine if they don't have good documentation. Because you're not going to be able to fix it later on.”

    Brian Hallett (Ron) @ Early episode — Establishes strong community standard for manufacturer accountability on technical documentation

  • “If it's Cuphead, it's fucked. If it's Cuphead, it's fucked. Is that your new line? Yep.”

    Bruce Nightingale @ Mid-episode — Expresses strong skepticism about American Pinball's rumored Cuphead licensing over Whitewater 2

  • “Mike, Mike, Mike, your fucking marketing is fucking terrible. I love when he's on podcast, though.”

    Bruce Nightingale @ Home Pin discussion — Summarizes criticism of Home Pin founder Mike Kalinowski's marketing strategy while acknowledging entertainment value

  • “We're going to ruin every fucking license we get because our game's going to suck.”

    Bruce Nightingale @ Home Pin marketing discussion — Blunt assessment of Home Pin's track record with licensed themes

  • “We don't make pinball machines for pinball players.”

    Quoting Mike Kalinowski/Home Pin philosophy @ Blues Brothers announcement discussion — Core criticism of Home Pin's strategy targeting 'average Joe' over experienced players

  • “Well, guess what? Who has money in this hobby? The old fucks. The old fucks. And guess what? We're spending the money.”

    Bruce Nightingale @ Discussion of game licensing appeal — Identifies core demographic with purchasing power in pinball market

  • “Their marketing is not towards the product that they should be trying for, which is the customer, say, of a Taylor Swift or something like that. Their marketing is to 50 to 55 year old men.”

    Bruce Nightingale @ Stern marketing critique — Identifies disconnect between Stern's licensing choices and their actual marketing focus

  • “Stern has 500 play fields over here and 300 toppers. What do you want to do with this stuff? We need to sell more of the toppers so we're going to make more of these games.”

Entities

Fast PinballcompanyAaron DavispersonHome PincompanyMike KalinowskipersonAmerican PinballcompanyDennis NordmanpersonRyan Whiteperson

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Stern rereleasing Black Knight Sword of Rage with 500 playfields and 300 toppers in inventory; hosts speculate this is inventory liquidation or comment on designer Steve Ritchie's absence post-retirement

    medium · Host speculates Stern needs to move inventory of playfields/toppers; alternately suggests intentional overshadowing of Ritchie's retirement

  • ?

    community_signal: Fast Pinball owner Aaron Davis responded rapidly and directly to podcast criticism, engaging in extended customer service dialogue the same night episode aired

    high · Host describes receiving Fast Pinball email within hours of broadcast, Aaron Davis messaging same night, two-hour phone conversation addressing documentation and technical issues

  • ?

    product_concern: Home Pin's licensing strategy acquiring controversial or problematic IP (Blues Brothers with music rights issues, rumored Beavis and Butt-Head, Spinal Tap redesign); hosts question long-term viability

    high · Hosts detail Blues Brothers music licensing problems, discuss frustration with Home Pin's prior theme choices (Thunderbirds, Spinal Tap), joke about future 'terrible' licenses

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Star Wars pinball criticized for mechanical design with three ball saves on single ball; unusual feature also present on Godzilla

    high · Bruce states Star Wars has three ball saves on one ball, Bruce notes Godzilla has same feature if executed quickly; hosts question whether this is intentional design or flaw

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Home Pin explicitly targeting 'average Joe' over experienced pinball players; hosts criticize this as self-sabotaging strategy in niche market of 8,000-10,000 potential customers maximum

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.323

0:00
Beavis and Butthead, what a pleasant surprise to see you guys here. What happened to the parking lot? Well, once a month we have a farmer's market here and it turns into a cornucopia of locally sourced farm-to-table cuisine. Does cornucopia mean butthole?
0:30
Coming to you from beautiful upstate New York, this is the Slam Tilt Podcast, the show about all things pinball. I'm your host, Brian Hallett, here with the other host, Bruce Nightingale. Oh, boy. And we were supposed to be with the other host, the co-host, Zach, but he didn't show up.
0:46
Sleepy, sleepy dee, sleepy doo. So the theme of tonight's show is, it's all Zach's fault. Oh, it's all Zach's fault.
0:54
Hey, Zach, where are you? It's 10 a.m. Where in the world is Zachary? Yeah. Where are you? Now the other Zach, Australian Zach, will not get his EM question answered. Oh, my God. Crikey. Yeah, that's right. That's why we had you on here, Zach. God damn it. You blew it. And we also had him on here to talk about Pintastic, which he was at. Pintastico. Maybe we should start with something else first in case he decides to show up. In case he wakes up. Yeah, that's a good idea. Yeah. All right. So I'll skip the Pentastic part first.
1:38
Right off the sheet. Here we go. Well, not off the sheet, just in a different spot on the sheet. Sheet.

Brian Hallett (speculating Stern's logic) @ Black Knight discussion — Suggests inventory management as possible driver behind Black Knight rerun decision

Chicago Gaming Company
company
Stern Pinballcompany
Steve Ritchieperson
Brian Hallettperson
Bruce Nightingaleperson
Zachperson
Blues Brothersgame
Black Knight Sword of Ragegame
Star Warsgame
Cupheadgame
Whitewater 2game
Godzillagame
Pintasticevent
Jersey Jack Pinballcompany
Spooky Pinballcompany
Multimorphiccompany

high · Direct quote from Home Pin marketing: 'We don't make pinball machines for pinball players.' Host analysis: alienating 8,000-9,000 of potential 10,000 customers immediately

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Blues Brothers licensing acquiring difficult/unexpected music rights; Home Pin unable to secure most famous soundtrack music; hosts speculate on Cab Calloway/Fleischer cartoon connection to Cuphead animation style

    high · Hosts discuss impossibility of securing Ray Charles, James Brown, Aretha Franklin, and other featured Blues Brothers musicians' music; extensive discussion of soundtrack limitations

  • $

    market_signal: Stern criticized for poor marketing of licensed themes; hosts argue major licensed games (Spider-Man, Deadpool, Tron) should have been heavily marketed at Comic-Con and entertainment events but received minimal promotional push

    high · Extended discussion of missed Comic-Con opportunities, lack of tie-ins with fan conventions, failure to advertise Star Wars/Marvel properties at appropriate venues

  • ?

    community_signal: Home Pin founder Mike Kalinowski characterized by hosts as having inflated ego and poor marketing understanding despite entertaining podcast presence; described as fun to listen to but fundamentally misunderstanding pinball market

    high · Bruce states 'His ego is incredible. I can't stop listening. I love it.' and 'Mike's marketing is just overwhelming' but questions his understanding of niche market dynamics

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Ryan White, VP of Sales for Chicago Gaming Company, departed in December after 5+ years tenure since 2018; was primary spokesperson for seminars and trade shows

    high · Host verified via LinkedIn showing December departure; characterizes as significant loss of company visibility and marketing presence

  • ?

    announcement: Home Pin announcing open-source Blues Brothers pinball machine with user-programmable rules at ~$5,000 price point; manufacturing to start July with August shipments to Australia for PinFest Newcastle 2024

    high · Host reads directly from Pinball Magazine announcement; notes machine represents shift toward user modification

  • ?

    product_strategy: Home Pin's Blues Brothers represents open-source commercial machine model allowing end-user rule modifications and community forum-based software versioning; positioned as alternative to traditional manufacturer software control

    high · Pinball Magazine announcement details open-source software approach, community forum for rules discussion, tested software packages available for download

    • 1:45
    I guess I need to apologize to Flippin' Out. I guess Zach. Yeah, another Zach. Zach, maybe for Flippin' Out, proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that he did have the right phone number. and she was still like and it was it was messed up uh further up the chain okay there you go so i must apologize humbly deeply and sincerely and i'm and i'm still waiting for my cotter pin so feel free to send that in a nice envelope there you go all right i got a call i got a message from fast uh-huh a couple weeks ago oh yeah okay so yes you went off on fast big time our last episode so literally explained all the problems we had the next day i see this email in the ball bag hello you need to talk to us you need to talk and guess what guess what i i i sent it to bruce it's like yeah i've already been on the phone with him for two hours yeah and so here's the funny thing when i finally went back to our the owner of the fathom he's like i talked to him I was going all through the stuff with him. With him. Okay, start again. With the owner, which is the owner of Fast. So your former Fathom that was at. Oh, the Shipbox Fathom. The Fathom that was at RPC. It went to some other new owner. Owners. It's been plural. Okay. So that's who you're talking about with the state. Yes. Okay. but uh then aaron davis who runs fast i guess uh messaged me that night oh i hear you got problems with your game what's going on so i will i wake up at 3 45 i guess he was up at 12 45 and we were talking for about two hours straight and he's like you got to tell me who you were talking to well i talked to uh last night i finally got to see one of our the owner who owned the fathom and i'm like who'd you talk to was it you know at fast he's like oh let me go look back at my messages it was aaron that's so that's just a funny part but we were going over the problems with fast and the lack of documentation this is gonna be my new thing i'm just gonna start pounding all these companies who have a lack of documentation and who do well, I'm going to say great job.
    4:07
    And I just saw the manual for Pulp Fiction. Boy, it reminds me of Jersey Jack's manuals. Because it's the same guy. Exactly. And that's why it's so good.
    4:21
    Elton John's got a manual also? Yes, it does. No, but I'm saying at least they really went all in with the manual, and it was really nice. And then you get companies like Spooky, Crickets, nothing. And everyone keeps on accepting it.
    4:40
    Don't accept it. Don't buy a company's machine if they don't have good documentation. Being honest. Okay. Because you're not going to be able to fix it later on.
    4:52
    Well, most people probably don't. Yeah. A lot of people ain't going to fix it anyway. Exactly. Exactly, but the thing is, oh, let's just send out pieces and go from here. No.
    5:03
    Yeah, so pitiful, pitiful, pitiful. But they called you. Who else does? They called you. So someone's listening on the podcast. Oh, yeah, exactly. We've got one or two people listening. One or two people.
    5:14
    Wow. But, yeah, so that was one, and then we had a couple of comments, I think, from a couple of other things. Let me look back. I have to look back at the slam tilt thing. The slam tilt thing?
    5:24
    Ball bag. Oh, the ball bag. Thanks for the belching, Bruce. You got it. That's what I'm here for. Well, we can go over the ball bag later, Bruce. Okay. I love my ball bag. I'm sure you do. Don't you? Mm-hmm.
    5:39
    Not buying yours. Oh, God. Okay. Where the fuck is Zach? No, I'm just still thinking of DPX. Oh, yeah. We got a lot of comments about that.
    5:57
    Dutch's new offshoot where we'll make the games that no one else wants to make because they have such taint and no one should be making them. No. No one should be. But as we know, it now stands for dual penetration extreme.
    6:11
    We had so many people messaging us about that. Like, oh, that's fucking awesome. Oh, that's a great line.
    6:17
    DPX. DPX, DPX, DPX. Yes. You get extreme. Might as well go to the next thing I have Dennis Nordman Going from American Pinball Yeah, surprise, surprise I guess the deal is He'll come back as a consultant Whenever they do Whitewater 2 Which is so weird Because like I've said on this show before I know people who've played the Whitewater 2 And said it played good and all that So obviously it's to a shooting state And originally I think it was supposed to be
    6:53
    Like the next game. But they're doing Cuphead. And then Barrio jumps. Well, yeah, Barrio thing. But there was, yeah, then there's going to be another original theme. But actually, I can't get on it for this changing the order because I've been the champion the whole, like, why are you doing original themes? They don't sell. You need to do a license. So I guess I can't be there. Why no Whitewater 2? Why are you doing the licensed game first? I was like, no, you should be doing the licensed game first. But it's a bad licensed game, so it's going to suck anyway. That is if it's Cuphead, like everyone says. If it's Cuphead, it's fucked. Is that your new line? Yep.
    7:35
    I have no – literally, you just – But you're old, so you wouldn't – Yeah, I'm old. And guess what? Who has money in this hobby? The old fucks.
    7:49
    And guess what? We're spending the money. I'm not going to – it's like, ooh, I don't have either Godzilla or Cuphead. What am I going to pick? Hmm. Maybe you really hate Godzilla. I mean, it's possible. Oh, my God. I don't know. I don't hear many people say, I hate Godzilla. I mean, just as a theme. As a theme. Even – it's not the greatest theme to everybody, but at least it hits on everybody's – you at least have opinion. Cuphead, you had to watch a freak – what was it on? It was on Nickelodeon? Or was it on Teen Hunger? I forget. Whatever the fuck it was on. Well, there was a video game, and then, yeah, there was a cartoon show, whatever. So, you know, you're very limiting your audience there. It's like, oh, why don't you do a Taylor Swift or a pinball machine? 99% of the people who could buy that machine, her fans, will not buy it. oh so you're one of the ones that say don't do any of the new stuff you're not going to because it's not going to sell taylor swift would not sell no it would not because guess what here's what's going to happen okay tell me what's going to happen they would not advertise it right like with family guy and all the other themes that you would think would do really well like family guy tron all those other stuff they didn't sell that well they didn't like you would Think for Spider-Man and Avengers and Deadpool and everything else. You would put them on Comic-Con right off the bat. You would make sure it was released three weeks before Comic-Con. You put them on the floor at Comic-Con. You make a big, humongous push. What does Stern do? Nothing. These rock bands, you should be going following the band or have it part of the contract. Hey, you have 10 machines on location. We'll give you one repair guy that keeps up with 10 machines. He sets up the machines. You put them in the main hall. Free play.
    9:52
    You know what you would do? Then you would sell these machines. But nope. Word of mouth. Bruce is a marketing genius. Well, it's terrible.
    10:05
    Their marketing is not. Think about it. Their marketing is not towards the product that they should be trying for, which is the customer, say, of a Taylor Swift or something like that. Their marketing is to 50 to 55 year old men. Yeah, but you said we're the only ones who can afford it, right? We're the only ones who can afford it. But wait a sec. Taylor Swift fans will pay $4,000, $5,000 for a ticket. You would think they should have the money from either mommy or daddy or something else to get that. Mommy or daddy. Yes. And to buy this thing. or if they do have the money, they would spend it on it because they have probably excess money because they're staying at mommy and daddy's house.
    10:46
    It's Swifty Bruce, ladies and gentlemen. Yes. My name is what? My name is who? My name is Swifty Bruce.
    10:56
    But they got to start marketing it better. If you're going to pay a licensing for – let's go over the last ones. jaws there's jaws conventions all over the world there is and there's horror ones and you know do they bring machines out there even to the biggest one no they finally started i think they did comic-con what two years ago did they or was it something else someone's gonna be shouting like they already did comic-con you yeah i know but i'm talking i'm talking about in the early when they had you know dead they didn't do it for deadpool that's when they should have done it Deadpool was hot in 2017. First movie came out. People were always talking about it. Let's get Comic-Con booth. Even the smallest, you know, small booth. Who cares?
    11:48
    Shit. And now we have a new marketing. There is a good marketing system out there. Oh, there is. What is it, Chris? I'm going to change gears into third gear right now. Oh, into third gear. Okay. Yes. Because we skip first. We're going right to third. We're just doing the first, third, fifth. Okay. We're going right to Home Pin's marketing. Oh, God. Home Pin? Home Pin. They have the best marketing ever. Okay. Home Pin. Yes. Okay. Why do they have the best marketing ever, Bruce? Because they're going to ruin every fucking license they get because their game's going to suck. Okay. And they're just going to buy up every good license and ruin it. Wow. Okay. Well, we'll do that next. Yes, we will. I have one more thing. I didn't hear anyone mention this.
    12:39
    Another podcaster actually sent this or mentioned this to me, and I didn't hear anything about this. Ryan White, who was the vice president of sales for Chicago Gaming. He's gone. Yeah, he left in December. Yeah, he's been gone. Yeah, I looked at his LinkedIn. Yeah, he's been gone since December. Yep. I didn't hear that mentioned anywhere. Yeah, they probably were pissed because they couldn't get games out. because he was usually the one that would do the seminars and stuff. Seminars and pushing and being the spokesman to all the shows. He was there for like five years.
    13:12
    Over five years. He was there, I think, since – Well, it said 2018 on his LinkedIn. Oh, okay. I thought he was earlier. He was something else before that, I thought, but maybe I'm wrong. But, yeah, he was the mouth, and now he's not. So, yeah, HomePin, best marketing move ever. Let's buy, what's it called? Thunderbirds? We don't care. We don't care about it. Thunderbirds, then there's the Spinal Tap. Yep, there's the Spinal Tap, which everyone wanted. Yeah, well. Everyone did. It's technically, it's still coming out. I mean, they redesigned it. Yeah, we haven't seen the three-flipper edition of this game. they just had the prototype that's sitting at the Pinball Hall of Fame in Las Vegas yeah but yeah so now they've just announced and I got it right here are you ready Bruce oh I know what it is it's fucking terrible for me because I love this movie we're on a mission from God to get this is from Pinball Magazine they got Home Pin announces open source blues brothers pinball machine is that if you can't if we can't make a good which we've proven we can't you can try to fix our rules and make it better taiwan holy fuck manufacturer home pin is working on the world's first open source commercial pinball machine i guess they kind of forgot about multimorphic yeah they did but you know literally well maybe multimorphic doesn't import to uh vietnam and to north korea you know they They will because they're... Because, yeah, I'm pretty sure Multimorphic has people programming games for their... Yeah, open source, all over. Yeah. But Pinball Magazine... Fail one for the old Holpen. Holpen is pleased to announce the release of our new Blues Brothers licensed pinball machine.
    15:08
    Oh, no. It's a full-size mechanical machine that runs on open source software that can be played as supplied from the factory or changed at will by the end users. Because you'll want to because our rules have really sucked in the past. It's going to be $49.50.
    15:27
    $5K. This is the cheapest out there, Bruce. Yeah, because you have to make your own rules and be a programmer.
    15:35
    That's limiting your marketing skills even. Buyers will be able to register on the dedicated Open Blues Brothers forum and discuss software changes. Even those with no programming knowledge will be able to get different versions of software that have been tested by the moderators to try in their own Blues Brothers machine. Now, what happens if they use one of these software packages they get from the forum and it fries their machines? Yeah, well, we have nothing to do with this since we just put you in a room to get these fixes. What happens if it catches fire and burns down their house? Well, guess what? You can't sue us because we're in Taiwan? Taiwan. on marketing and you know and then we follow australian rules mate so go fuck yourself an early prototype machine will be displayed at the taipei gti arcade machine show april 26th to the 28th so it's coming up actually isn't that next week and more pictures and details you said no no april april 26th to the 28th oh wow and more pictures and details will be available at that time final artwork is awaiting approval by the licensor what and manufacturing expected to start in july with the first machines being shipped to australia early august for display at pinfest newcastle 2024 oh my god he just fucking keeps on you know with blues brothers home pin founder Mike Kalinowski is aiming for the average Joe and is looking for a pinball machine. Oh, the average Joe that is looking for a pinball machine for his home because women don't buy pinball. Yeah, women don't buy pinball and pinball people who have money don't want to buy his pinball. So guess what? You've cut yourself out. Hold on. Average Joe that is looking for a pinball machine for his home rather than veteran pinball players. Again, we do not make pinball machines for pinball players. More images of the prototype machine will become available later this week. Mike, Mike, Mike, your fucking marketing is fucking terrible. I love when he's on podcast, though. Fuck all that paper. His ego is incredible. I can't stop listening. I love it. We should have him on just so we can have a good fucking laugh because, oh, my God. But let's rule – we have a niche hobby of maybe companies could max out at 10,000 sales, and that's for a really good game. And let's alienate 8,000 – no, no. Let's alienate 8,000 to 9,000 of those people right off the bat and just go for the average Joe.
    18:19
    What the fuck is your marketing 101? What the fuck are they teaching down there? Holy shit balls. Holy shit, boss. The only good thing about this, if they get all the assets, would be Carrie Fisher. How are they getting these assets? How are they doing it? They can't be. They must have some guy. How are they getting these licenses? They must get lost in translation. The thing is, the rumors were it was going to be Animal House. So they had the right actor, just the wrong movie. Yeah. But now we get Carrie Fisher. We get Carrie Fisher now. On another film machine. She's in the, yeah. I get another, she's on another pinball machine. She's in the movie for maybe a total of five minutes. Exactly.
    19:04
    But you could get a lot of actors and, you know, singers. You could not get the soundtrack at all. Well, yeah, that's what I'm wondering. I mean. You are fucked on the soundtrack. Yeah, I mean, how you, yeah, that's because it's a musical. It's a complete musical. It's a musical. So it's a musical that they can't use any of the music. Yeah. And famous musical people. You can't think. What's wrong with me? You got to read the strangling. Think. You've got Aretha Franklin. You've got Ray Charles. You have their own music from the Blues Brothers Band. James Brown. Holy shit. You're not getting – Joe Walsh. Actually, Joe Walsh. He's at the end in the prison. He doesn't actually have a musical number. But you've just – how?
    19:53
    How? Howdy, howdy, howdy, howdy. Don't do this anymore. Howdy, howdy, howdy. Wait a minute. Yeah, Minnie the Moocher. That's what it's going to be, fucking Minnie the Moocher. Wait a minute.
    20:14
    Cab Calloway. I remember he used to be at Saratoga every year. Yep. But wait a minute, there's a Cuphead tie-in. How is there a Cuphead tie-in? Well, Cab Calloway was in a Fleischer cartoon in the 30s. Oh, Jesus Christ. And that's what the animation style of Cuphead is based on. See, I've made the correlation. Great.
    20:36
    Adi, adi, adi, adi, adi. Audio, audio, audio, audio. Are you the police? No, ma'am. We're musicians. We're just musicians.
    20:48
    They'll have a screen. We'll just play clips from the movie. God, it'll be so fucking... Well, they were right. I mean, I think he said in an interview, whatever license they get, it would piss people off. And he was right. I'm sure people piss off. It is. I love the movie.
    21:05
    Stop trying to do other things. Don't ruin everything. Hope and will now be doing Beavis and Bonnet. No! No, you fucker!
    21:19
    Jesus Christ. Why? Why, Delilah? Why? I really don't know what to say. Mike's marketing is just overwhelming. Yep, it's not for pinball players. It's not for pinball people. It's for the average Joe who wants to put a game in his game room. Yes.
    21:46
    Got it? Got it. Okay. We don't know how to make money. Okay. speaking about non-US pinball manufacturers did you see any of the ABBA gameplay? There was a video out Not at all, and I should have I like the theme A good theme! Wow, what a great idea! Especially for Europe Yes even though we have the European flag on there We have a mail on that to correct you on that whole thing Oh really? Oh yeah Great, I'd like to see how they can defute the European flag. Oh, they totally corrected you. They bitch slapped you in this. I can't wait for this one. Yeah. I don't even look that. So they bitch slapped you with actual facts. So actual facts. Although that doesn't always stop Bruce folks. Never stops me.
    22:39
    Yeah, I saw it. It played. It was a game. Was it good? It didn't look terrible. Does it do like Queen does and interrupt the song with other stupid quotes and i mean yes it does then if you're going yeah i'm trying to remember i only watched it once and it's only three minutes long so best three minutes of your life uh it plays lots of abba music so that that was good that's what it should do yep it should do that i mean it has this whole crazy storyline about getting souls and avatars and all this stuff so the thing The thing is, I believe the base software crew is the same as it's been for all three of their games.
    23:25
    It's like Joe Schober again, and I think Brian Tom, they did Alien, they did Queen, and they're doing this one. I mean, I think they've had different artists and other things, but I think the base software crew has been the same now in all three games.
    23:42
    Dead silence. You really should have watched. You've got to do some of the research, Bruce. We're on a pinball podcast, and you don't do any research. You don't do anything. I don't have to. I'm a marketing guru compared to these fucking fucknuts.
    23:57
    I promise you'll at least try to watch the video. I will try, because I actually am interested in the game. Unfortunately, Queen was a total dud. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love Queen. Who doesn't? Yeah. I know. You would think, like, hey, let's rock this one. I hate to say it, but the worst thing they ever did was get the band members to do the call-outs.
    24:19
    That made it suck more. They should have just had a really excited British person do it or something. It would have been better than what they had.
    24:27
    I think if Freddie was still alive, he would be embarrassed at the other two members for their call-outs in this game.
    24:33
    Yeah, there was a reason they weren't the front men. Oh, God, just so bad. Were they even coached? Did they just send them the lines, here, say this? I mean, there's a reason they usually have someone there to coach these people. Yeah. Because they don't know how to say these call-outs. They need to be told. It's going to cost me 1,000 euros to get to this flight to try to tell this guy how to say it. Oh, Jesus Christ. Fuck that. Just send the lines. It's a lot cheaper on email. I was going to say jackpot. Okay, jackpot. Jackpot. No, no, no. You need to be more excited. Excited. Jackpot. I said, imagine you're going to have tea and crumpets at 4 p.m. And there's going to be lots of cream here.
    25:19
    Shackport. Oh, that's great. Awesome. It did work with Clint Eastwood, though. He's an actor. He's a professional. Yeah, but he wasn't really excited. But that would totally not work. That would sound so weird if Clint Eastwood tried to be excited to a conference. Or you could get the 24 with, Jackpot! Like she's having an orgasm, you know?
    25:44
    No, she was always just, Jackpot! But I guess that was her character on the show, I've been told. She's a turd. Chloe? You don't like Chloe O'Brien? No. I'm Chloe O'Brien! She was Cunty McConterson.
    26:01
    She was. If you watch the show, she was a nasty little trollish person. Okay. I never watched the show, Bruce. That's why. Okay. Let's get Jack in trouble. Let's help Jack out. Let's get Jack in trouble. Let's help Jack out. That's all her fucking thing was. Okay.
    26:20
    I didn't expect to be conversing about 24. the last Stern full feature game at the regular price point before they started cutting everything out of the game and raising prices at first they cut corners and then they raised prices yes well speaking of Stern oh god it's the Manny the Moocher episode Stern has is rerunning Black Knight Sword of Rage why well hey guys we got 500 play fields over here and 300 toppers What do you want to do with this stuff We need to sell more of the toppers so we're going to make more of these games. We need to sell more of these toppers, make more of these games, and we'll get a windfall, man. Okay, man. Great idea. Or maybe they're trying to fuck with Steve Ritchie by selling as many of his games as possible while he's not there anymore. No.
    27:18
    You know? Black Knight's Out of Rage. He's still Star Wars. Yeah, well, Star Wars is at least a good theme, not a good game. But it's a good theme. Great game, great theme. No, no. No, it's awesome.
    27:31
    It's a turd, big old turd. It's bad when you have three ball saves and one ball. Name another game that has three ball saves and one ball. I know one other. Three ball saves and one ball. There's one other. I don't know. What's the other, Bruce? You own it. I own it. I don't own games I own. What is it, Bruce? Godzilla. Godzilla's three ball saves? Yep. If you do it fast enough, you can get three ball saves out of it. Yeah. Okay. But Stern Star Wars is set up that way.
    28:06
    Well, he added more ball savers later, Dwight. Yes. Boink, oomph, boink, oomph, boink, oomph. Oh, I didn't get a flip on this fucking thing. play better you know asshole play the playfield out better okay where's Zach it's all fucking Zach's fault we've stalled long enough to get into Pintastic there's been other shows there's the Midwest Gaming Classic which I didn't go to and don't know what happened at Nope. This weekend was – Michigan, I think. It was, yeah, Kalamazoo. Yeah.
    28:50
    I wasn't there, so I don't know anything about what happened there. Pictures look good. Picture pages, picture pages, lots to do with picture pages, lots to do with crayons and with pencils. Pencils, yes, yes. You're old. I'm very old. We were watching me and Kathy. Here's how bored we were last night. How bored were you, Bruce? I got in at about 8 o'clock from the coop working there and doing stuff. And you went to bed? No, no. Stayed up. And we were watching cartoons from the 70s.
    29:23
    Did you ever hear of ISIS cartoon? Wait a minute. They had a cartoon about ISIS? You mean the actual terrorist group? Nope. Oh. The Egyptian? No, I never heard of it. Yes. From 75 to 76. And it came on two programs. I was like, who the fuck? What the fuck? And then you've got the land of the lost. Oh, so cheesy. Man, cartoons must have sucked in the 70s. Oh, they did suck in the 70s. H.R. Puffin stuff. Can't get a little, but you can't get enough. Don't use that for marketing. Home pin, that's the pin you want to make. Oh, wow. H.R. Puffin stuff.
    30:04
    Actually, we could have all things like what. What is the worst theme you could ever think of? What do we hate that we want to see Home Pin make? H.R. Puff and stuff, The Land of the Lost, definitely.
    30:16
    Really bad movies, really fucking terrible movies. Any of the new Star Wars movies, perfect. Yes, yeah, perfect. Yeah, the new trilogy. Yeah, let's just do that. I agree. Steve, just relabel the Star Wars, put the rules on there, and it won't be any different.
    30:35
    Oh, what else can we put on there? What other movie? Titanic. The ship sinks. Done. There you go. I agree. Titanic, the pin. Yes. Yes, Titanic, the pin. It sinks instead of sucks. It sucks. It sinks.
    30:55
    What else can we do? What other movie that's really bad? If you would like to write us and tell us what wonderful themes that you want to see ruined because you hate them, so you want to see Home Pin do them, you can send it in to Slamtail Podcast at gmail.com. That's slamtailpodcast at gmail.com. What do you want to see Home Pin ruin?
    31:16
    Care Bears. You don't like the Care Bears? No, not at all. Okay. I'm surprised they're not doing a Barbie one. It's in the Barbie movie that's so well. Do a Barbie one, Home Pin. Barbie. Don't do Smurfs. I like Smurfs.
    31:36
    Come on, Cargamel. Well, yeah, we can't do that. Don't do that. Don't do Smurfs. But, yeah, Care Bears.
    31:45
    They're going to do another He-Man movie. Oh, my fucking God. Oh, He-Man. Yeah, He-Man. Don't do Voltron. I like Voltron. Which one?
    31:55
    Oh, the Lion one is the one I watched. Cars. The Cars? There was like 10 Cars or whatever. No, there's multiple Cars. There's 54 Cars. Yeah, there's like so many pieces to put this stupid thing together. That would be more. Oh my god, one piece is missing or damaged. We can't form Voltron. Now what the fuck do we do? It's poor design if you literally have a hundred pieces and one of them is not there and you can't form Voltron, as opposed to five.
    32:21
    You make a mini Voltron. And we know, Bruce, you'll form the head. I'll form the head. I remember watching the other multi-part the non-lion Voltron and seeing people actually die. Yeah, I know. Go figure. And that was toned down from the original Japanese version. Yes, it is.
    32:48
    Battle of the Planets would be a good one that they cannot ruin. You don't even remember Battle of the Planets? No, I don't remember Battle of the Planets.
    32:55
    Gotcha, man. They could do Thunderbird. They already did that one. They already did Thunderbirds. Oh, I know what would ruin your heart right away. Oh, no, don't say it. Yes. No. Team America. No. You would fucking have a heart attack. Oh, I'd be so pissed if they did Team America.
    33:13
    Would Rod buy him from Home Pin? Oh, God. I don't believe this, Gary. You need to prove you're 100% devoted to the team.
    33:27
    Would you buy it now? No. Never. No. Oh, no, no, no. Even if it had all the raunchy humor in it and everything. I'm sorry, Gary. I would not buy that piece of complete shit.
    33:41
    Those re-themed Thunderbirds. I'm not here to fuck your mouth or buy this game, and my time is very valuable. Yes, it is. I am Spotswood.
    33:54
    God. Oh, that would be terrible. You wouldn't know what to do. You'd be like... Well, on the bright side, it would be cheap. It would be cheap, and we could program it ourselves. Yeah, I know a programmer who doesn't show up on time for podcasts. Yeah, I know. Half an hour now. Yeah. I messaged him again. Hello. He's asleep. No, it says active now. He still hasn't read the link I sent, so I think he's asleep. Or just doesn't care.
    34:26
    He was supposed to be up. I know he's got to be there by 1. Be where by 1? He's got to look at a house today. Oh, he's house hunting. House hunting. All right, I delayed all I can here. Yes. Pintastic.
    34:43
    You could have had two people that were there on this call, but instead you only have one. And one is better than none.
    34:49
    Go Voltron. So, yes, Pintastic, our big show in New England. Yes. Be closest show to me. It's awesome just driving two hours and I'm there. It's a wonderful thing.
    35:03
    So me and dad arrived on Friday. To the fanfare of millions, right? Yes, yes. I will say right before we arrived, the fire alarm went off. Yes, I heard about this, yes. Yeah, I guess the people were outside for like half hour. It was right, poor Eric Stone, he was doing a seminar, you know, how to play pinball or whatever. and it just basically went off right before a seminar and then half hour later everyone came back in they just skipped a seminar what was the seminar about how to talk during a competition oh sorry oh we'll get to that a little later on eric is very entertaining but i there are definitely people who don't like other people who are in the final so that term let's just say that We'll get to that one. Yeah, we're going to get to that. What? Really? Why? Yeah. Why?
    35:58
    Shoveling shit, baby. Just shoveling shit. Well, I got some information from Dave Marston of the New England Pinball Show. Fantastic. I asked about the fire alarm. I'm just curious if a machine set it off. But it sounded like it was a heating device in one of the stairwells. So it was not a machine that caught fire. so i heard there's one ac room in the whole place uh it was pretty warm uh and in the one hallway they just left the emergency exit door open so cold air could come in because it was colder outside than it was in oh yeah um let's see yeah it's it's going to be in april again next year and in the same hotel got some information there um yeah i mean it was pretty much the same as last year same setup i mean including some of the vendors in the exact same place it's like i went to a time machine and just went back in time like hey everything's the same um it was fairly hot in a lot of the rooms fairly uh which was great for me i actually got to go sweaterless which is uh a rare off the bod yeah showing off the hairy bod yep showing off the Guns, you know, biceps, awesome physique. It was great. No, he actually was packing.
    37:21
    What? Your guns. No, no. This wasn't TPF. This is not the Texas Pinball Festival for us. Yeah, I played in the tournament.
    37:35
    Didn't make it in, like usual. The funny thing is, Zach, you know, Zach usually makes it in, right? He played, you know, Friday. he played and Saturday you only have until like 10 to 2 to try to get in and I'm like where's Zach is he just gave up he doesn't show up until like afternoon and yeah he slept in he like didn't wake up on time hmm we see a correlation here see a possible problem yeah same so yeah the The Pentastic Tournament is run by the Sanctum guys. Hi, Sanctum guys. Hello. So it's all the Sanctum games that I've played a zillion times, so I'm used to them. They have Viper. I was excited. Love me some Viper. Viper is always good.
    38:25
    Yeah, and it's the card-based format. It's funny how the card-based format, which for those saying, what the fuck does that mean? Basically, you play, in this case, you have to play five games. Yes. And how good you do on all five is combined in one card. So consistency is key. So if you blow up one game or you blow up three games and completely suck at the other two, you're getting in. As opposed to the pump and dump, which would be you have to play five different games, but you can play them as many times as you want to try to get the best score on them. I do like the card-based game. The thing is, the card-based used to be a rare thing. It was just like Papa did it, and that was it. Now, everyone does it. Yeah, but… Indus does it. Papa, who's coming back, is going to do it. Pentastic does it. I think like the UK Open does it.
    39:16
    And it's just – it's like the hardest format to qualify for. Well, the problem was after Papa did it, Pinfest did it. And then everyone's like, we need to get more of these. And so more people did do it. And now people are complaining that too many people are doing it. You mean Pentastic? Pentastic. I mean, sorry, Pentastic. Yeah. Well, the funny thing is then Papa abandoned it and went to Pump and Dump for the last year or two. But now they're coming back. They're going to do card-based again.
    39:45
    But it's like the hardest format to qualify in. I had one card that maybe had a chance, but I bombed out on Meteor of all things. Oof. Yeah, exactly.
    39:59
    Yeah, I didn't make it in. Eric Russell, CNY, and Zach both ended up under the cut line for A. Or no, for B. B, yes. Because they actually, if you're in the top 250, if you're out of the top 250, you can play in B. Yeah. Guess who couldn't play in B? You. I can't play in B. No? I've got to get suckier. You've got to get worse. Yeah, I've got to get worse. You've got to retire. Yeah. So they were just, Eric and Zach were just below the cut line. And then when they had the finals, Eric showed up in case somebody maybe didn't show up. Yeah. And basically, they had multiple people that shouldn't have been in B. So he got in. Wow. And Zach wasn't there. So Zach could have gotten in. He could have gotten in if he had shown up. Wow. Yeah. And then Eric went all the way to the finals, the final match in B. and lost to another Eric, Eric Geddes, who's a really good classics player from New England. That's cool. So Eric got some cash and finished second. Congratulations.
    41:17
    Nice. And let's see, I got the other results here. Okay. Let's see. Winner of the main tournament was Jason Zahler again. Surprise, surprise. For the third straight year. He was down 3-0 and 3-1. Yeah, he was down 3-0 against Raymond Davis. and it came back. Then he was down 3-1 against Eric Stone and came back. I still prefer the three out of five that they used to do. Yeah, me too. I really do. But they do the four out of seven because of Whoppers. Yeah, but it's so long. Yeah, it is. I know people were trying to defend it. I know Jim did. They finished it like one in the morning. One in the morning. And everyone's like, oh, it's not a big deal. I'm like, yeah, it kind of is. I mean, you can have the ultimate. They have the ultimate comeback, though, So those great comebacks, that 3-0 and 3-1 comeback, couldn't have happened if it was four out of seven. Exactly. But still, I remember when he used to finish like 8-9 at night, and now it's like 1 in the morning. Yeah, that's a little nutty. It's just, ugh.
    42:19
    But congratulations to Mr. Zoller with his third straight win. Hey, where did Bowen end up? He lost in the semifinals. Who did he lose to? Eric Stone. Oh, really? Anything else happen during that match? Well, they don't get along. They don't. They do not get along at all. And then there was, like, harping back and forth on Facebook after the event. Oh, it was great.
    42:44
    Because Eric walked up to the machine while Bowen was walking up, while Eric was walking away and said, don't miss any shots.
    42:52
    And Bowen took it really seriously because, you know, you shouldn't say that to anybody when you're walking back and forth in a machine. And then Eric came back saying, well, you know, saying it because I didn't miss any shots and I still lost them all. Well, that's pinball.
    43:06
    Saying it to somebody else, kind of a dick move. Hate to say it, but it's a dick move. I'm not getting involved. No, you are. Come on, your opinion. I'm not getting involved. No, come on. Come on. I think they don't like each other no matter what they said to each other. It would have been an issue somehow. Yeah, it was turning to butter. Yeah. And I think it's pinball and nobody really cares. It's like, what are they going to do, throw down? It's like, come on. It's just silly. There's 10,000 people. Don't forget, there's only 1% of people who buy these pinball machines.
    43:45
    1% of people in the world? Yeah. Did you see that article from Chicago? No. Okay. Bruce, background. What are you talking about? There's an article from a local newspaper in Chicago saying there's 1% of all these Pimlin machines are made, and it's made in Chicago, and only 1% of the people in the world can buy them, saying that was all for the richy rich. And no, it's not for the richy rich. Well, the new ones are, yeah.
    44:15
    You bought one, so you must be one of the richy rich. Everyone knows I'm rich. Yeah. And our Zach is rich now, too, because he sold his Jaws. He did sell his Jaws. He sold his Jaws. It's not even at 1.0 yet. I know. He just didn't even give it a chance. No, he didn't like the shots. He did not like the shots. He just didn't feel it was promising. No. He just thought it was a crash and burn. Yeah. He sold it right away. Yeah.
    44:42
    It wasn't even like an if-and-or, but it was just, I'm selling it. Gone. Just, poor Jaws. Didn't get a chance. So how was the show besides that? A lot of games to play? I was saying the women's tournament, which was Sunday, Zoe Variable won that. Oh, there you go. Congratulations. People can't say I didn't give all the results. I think there was another women's tournament thing, but I can't find that anywhere or who won. Yeah, I saw they were doing like a Friday thing. They were playing free games in the different rooms, and they had some kind of format they were doing. I don't know. So how was the place? How was the games? How was the sales there? Games were good. I mean it's a smaller show for those who've never been there it's not like TPF or something it's smaller rooms and all that which I like I did notice things I look at the newer games the vendor section that has all the newer games in it just to see which ones get lines which ones don't have lines that kind of thing I was actually able to get on a Pulp Fiction at one point. Just walk up to it. Wow. That surprised me. That was very surprising. Of course, that was also at 1 in the morning on Saturday night going into Sunday, so that also could be a reason. I did notice and I noticed this at the last show too that Venoms typically would either have a short line or no line. You could just play it compared to a lot of the other games. Surprise, surprise, surprise. I don't think it's doing well. just from what I see at the show. So two in a row for him, that's bad. For him. Who are we talking about, Bruce? Who designed it? Oh, Mr. Eddie? Yeah. Well, wait, what was the previous game? Mandalorian. That did good. They sold Star Wars. They sold a ton of them. And Stranger Things did so good, they ran it again. Well, no, I think they had extra parts also, just like the other times. Stop, stop. I think so. No.
    46:46
    Stranger Things is a good game, Bruce. It was so much in demand that people couldn't sell now their Stranger Things anymore.
    46:56
    It's like, now here's the epitome of everything. Here we go. Ron, would you buy a Stranger Things? Would I buy a Stranger Things? No. Okay. But you said it's a great game. Yes.
    47:09
    I had a chance to get one for you, and what did you do? I said no. Yeah. Fail. Okay. Stand by your morals. Stand by my morals Yeah you keep on saying Great game Oh my god best game ever So Bruce you're saying if any game I say that's great I have to buy it Yeah because you did it with Elton John Yeah but There's lots of games I like That I don't buy Yeah there are it's very rare with you Usually when you say it's a great game You're going to buy it Deadpool said a great game bought it I think Foo is a good game. I didn't buy that. Well, you never said it online, though. You never said it publicly. Now you said it. Okay, you heard it from Bruce. Now you've got to buy it. Any game you think is good, you have to buy. That's the rule. Or you're a hypocrite somehow. Yep, you're a hypocrite. Good Lord. Yep. Now you've got to buy Foo. So you just said it.
    48:09
    Alarczak actually liked Elton John. I know. I don't trust either of you. Wow. I mean, I like it. He likes it. Everyone I know likes it. I have not played it yet, so I'm not saying anything. Because I have not played it. I still don't know if they're going to sell them at $12,000. I think it's a deal. Well, here you go, Bruce. It's pretty bad when you ordered one and it came in a couple days, right?
    48:33
    Yeah, because he had it stuck. But the thing is. Not like eight months for Godzilla, you know, hey. I went to one seminar. I went to the Jersey Jack seminar. because they were going to have pizza there. And I figured, you know, I just felt, you know, I just spent 12K for a fucking machine. The least thing you can do is give me pizza. So I got some pizza. And it was good pizza. I liked it.
    49:01
    But it was, they had the Elton John crew up there, and then they had, you know, Jack was there. And one of the questions he asked about Elton John was something like, how many people here...
    49:16
    thought Elton John was better than they thought it was going to be or exceeded their expectations. And everyone in the room raises their hand, including me.
    49:27
    But, I mean, does that make them sell units, though? No. It's like, wow, I didn't think this game would be good. This game is awesome. Well, here's the problem. This game is $12,000. That's one of the problems. The second thing is, think about it. the way you see all these older games coming out like you can't find if you wanted to a 24 very easily because there wasn't much demand because of the recession and that kind of stuff also but you can find star wars you can find because it's a very popular game they've run a lot of them and it's you know it's out there you're not going to find a lot of the jersey jack titles if unless they're really bad which most of them are but you know think about it even if it even if Elton John is their best game ever, which people are saying, in three years, you're not going to be able to find this because either A, the people don't want to give them up,
    50:24
    and it's so good that they're going to cut the run eventually because they don't have multiple runs at their place. I don't think they do with the new one. Do they have the new one? Unless it's Wizard of Oz. Yeah, exactly.
    50:37
    Oh, and Hobbit. They did the Black Arrow edition or whatever. But it's just like you're – it's still $12,000. As an operator or a vendor, you're going to say, I can buy two machines almost at the same price as this one. Will I make double the money on Elton John? No, you will not. So in that case, you're not going to have the vendors who are, you know, out in the, you know, schlepping around and trying to make money just vending the machine say, I'm going to get me an Elton John because it's going to make me more money. They're out for one thing, to make the fastest buck they can on their money return. And they're not going to with that. The fastest buck they can on their money return. I don't even know what you said, but I kind of get it. Yes, you get it exactly. So that's the problem. You've cut out a big – so there will never be a high demand for these games. And when they tried to do the high demand for – Well, there's a high demand for Pirates. Yeah. But Willy Wonka, when they tried to do the cheaper version, and when they did the cheaper version for Guns N' Roses, that's the rarest version, don't forget. It is. It is, but guess what? It's also the shittiest version.
    51:56
    It really is. I like when they said, we will never take out features in a game. And then boom. And then they did. And it showed how bad it was. I was there at that seminar. That was the Pirates reveal. Yep. They said, we will never take out features in a game. Because they had another version of Dialed In, but it just didn't have the lights. It was the same exact play field, all that. They did have a cheaper version for Pirates. It had no camera.
    52:31
    They did have a pro version for that. No, they didn't. Pirates was Pirates. No, I'm not talking Pirates. I'm talking Dialed In. Yeah, dialed in. But I mean, the cheaper version, see, it had the camera, the flash thing on top. It didn't have the extra lighting on the ramp, but it had all the same features is what I'm saying.
    52:53
    I think, what was first, Wonka or Guns N' Roses? Wonka. Yeah, Wonka. That was the first one where they actually pulled something. I think it was. No, wait a second. Hold on. I might be backwards on that one. I think I am, actually. You might be backwards. I think I'm going backwards. Either way, Guns N' Roses and Waka were the only two that they actually pulled shit from. Yeah.
    53:13
    Because I think Waka doesn't have what the Waka Vader is not in the standard, whatever the hell they called it.
    53:22
    Yeah, they had the standard edition for dialed in, and then you had the other versions. The LE. Yeah. And the standard version only had chrome legs and looked like a regular Williams cabinet. with the artwork. It's the same exact play field, all the same hardware.
    53:42
    It was just bling that was dumbed down Yep So yeah Well you get to play Elton John soon enough Hold me close that my answer
    53:57
    I have the headlights on. I enjoyed the show. I was there late Saturday night on there playing Road Kings, of all things.
    54:08
    I like me some Road Kings. I'm sorry. You need to buy it now. You just said it. I like it. Fuck you, Bruce.
    54:20
    Road chains. A little Mark Ritchie action. Yeah. One hour for Zach now. The one game I played of Pulp Fiction, I think it was Broken.
    54:31
    Because the left side, is that where the inlines are? Yeah, I think so. I think all the inline targets were already down, and I just kept hitting it there over and over and over again, and nothing happened. I think a multi-ball is supposed to happen eventually. Yeah, it is. So I'm thinking that was broken. Yeah.
    54:53
    I'm trying to think of anything else as far as vendors and stuff. A lot of the same vendors. I mean, they had a ton of T2s there for some reason. This was the T2s year.
    55:08
    They had to have like four or five Terminator 2s. No, that would be Terminator 3. Oh, I thought you meant Terminator 3. Terminator 2 hit the stupid jackpot.
    55:23
    All the auxiliary rooms. Did I say that right? I think so. Auxiliary. Yeah, auxiliary. Yeah, you're right. You said it right. Wow, you said something right and I said it wrong. Wow.
    55:34
    But yeah, you go along this hallway. Oh, the Elton John cover band they had. They were good. That's good. I only have one issue with them. Uh-oh. Okay. So the guy, Elton John, the guy being Elton John in the group, he's all out. He's got the full Elton John, like, get up on. He's all in.
    55:58
    He's got the glasses. Yeah, fine. The rest of the group were just wearing, like, jeans and T-shirts. They looked like they could have just. Yes, you must have saw Philadelphia Freedom. You just take them up from the audience. I mean, it's like, wait a minute. Shouldn't they, like, be, I don't know, in 70s garb or something? Something. They're just like, come on, man. Give me the full experience.
    56:20
    Was it that band that I'm talking about? I have no idea what they were called. Maybe. I mean, they were good. Because I've seen that band, and that's the same thing as, like, ugh. It's like, come on, other guys. Yildred Road. Sorry. I've seen Philadelphia Freedmen. It's the same way. I was like, ugh.
    56:40
    We want full commit. As Steel Panther fans, we appreciate the full commitment to the gimmick. Ooh, when is it coming? Let's just look for that right now. That would be an awesome pinball machine. Don't do that one, Mike. The whole pin is going to do Steel Panther. No, fuck no.
    57:01
    I would fucking cry. Oh, man. I would fucking cry. I'd be like, no! Get ready for Glory Hole Multiball. Yeah.
    57:13
    Oh, that'd be so douchey. It wouldn't be funny. Oh. I just want to thank our listeners, all the listeners that came up to me while I was there. Did they give you hugs? I was humbled.
    57:28
    Did they give you hugs? No, no hugs, Bruce. No hugs. But did they say they were fans of Slim Tilt, or were they fans of your other show? Uh, both. I've had Slam Tilt, both, and just Silver Ball Chronicles, my other show. Silver Ball Chronicles, which you can hear on the Pinball Network.
    57:49
    Thank you for the plug there. Nah, but seriously, I was, I am humbled every time I go to one of these, and I have people come up to me, and it's just, it's just weird for me. Two weeks, less than two weeks, you'll see us together. Ah, yes, at Allentown. But thanks to everyone who came up to me. Thank you very much. I am humbled. Thank you. Thank you very much. I am humbled and not in an Iron Sheik-like humbling way. I'll be very humbled.
    58:19
    Yes, Allentown, Bruce. We will be in Allentown. Yes, we will. But actually, you're wrong. We'll be together before then. Yes, we will. Possibly. I'm hopeful now. No, no. I got told by my boss yesterday or two days ago that you're going to work next weekend. And I'm like, I got plans. She's like, no, no, no. We're going to make it mandatory if you can't work. I'm like, fuck you. So I'm now having a big argument with them about that. Wow. Yeah, because I'm off the next week after. That's why they're all panicked.
    58:48
    Panic, panic in Detroit. Yeah, because we're having this tournament here at my house called the Party Cup. Which I cannot win. I can win, but I can't win. All our local 518ers, people in the area trying to win the incredible and famous Varney Cup. So Bruce, of course, enters into this tournament. Like, what are you doing? Why? I can do it. Yeah, you can win, but you can't win the Varney Cup. I cannot win the Cup.
    59:21
    And Bruce has won here before, so that's why I'm kind of, this is bothersome. Yes, it is. and you hate winning at your house so you know i didn't want to play i was told i have to play at this see because i am the defending varney cup you know i i am i currently have the varney cup in my possession i wanted to just basically stream this thing and i didn't want to play in it i don't want to play it in my house anymore but i was told i should so i acquiesced that's funny but i won't get too much into it because it's only for us 518 or so i'm sure listeners don't care oh except for bruce and there's one other also there's another person that's on a 518 or he can't win the cup either but one thing you could win is the money is the vaunted belt at stomp stomp yes what's going on with stomp bruce stop that will be taking place at the famous rochester pinball collective and Where is that? That is at 349 West Commercial Street in beautiful East Rochester, New York. Suite number 2965 slash 70 slash 80.
    60:33
    Oh, two rooms. Two sections. Three sections, actually. Three sections. It's so big. You need more.
    60:43
    I'm going to send, while I'm talking to you, I'm going to send you a picture. Ron has not seen it lately. And no one listening will see this. Exactly. That's the beautiful thing about it. They'll be able to listen to us all and go, oh, this is awesome.
    60:58
    But it's coming along nicely. Very happy. Save image. We have all the ceiling tiles all done. The painting's all done. Partial cameras are up now. Carpeting gets installed on Friday. So we'll have to wait until Monday to walk on it. then we'll do the track lighting yes because we are big into track lighting give us our edge of lighting and then we will go for fun other stuff and get some games in there that would be the most fun part boom picture sent here we go we'll see his reaction my reaction live how did you send it? text oh boy
    61:48
    Still waiting. Oh, there it goes. Image. Still waiting. I see a ceiling. A ceiling. A done ceiling. Mm-hmm.
    62:03
    Checkerboard. Looks like I'm playing chess or something. Checkerboard is us. Oh, so yeah, we're getting close. We might even be a little, we might be able to, we will be open for stomp. That I guarantee. so we will have more games than ever.
    62:20
    Again, folks, this is in the morning and he's already yawning. I'm already yawning. Man, you're just tired all the time. I work a lot. I do a lot. I was at the coop last night fucking doing repairs. Repairs. We haven't got to that yet, Bruce. No, I know. Fucking Star sucks.
    62:39
    Star sucks? Oh, my God. Someone clip that. Because it does suck because they're fucking killing me right now. stars isn't very complicated what what's wrong with it transistor keeps on locking on oh yeah how you doing that doesn't sound good of course it's one of the luckily it's easy to disable because it's a chime coil ah have you ever replaced a chime coil on one of those things uh i mean if it locks up in the up or down position you're kind of fucked because you can't get it out oh oh yeah it was a pain in the ass with the wiring so tight on that yeah it kind of sucked so how's stomp coming along bruce stomp is coming along i'm going to be ordering the trophies this week and the belt this week i'm excited yes different belt than last time. So it's going to be the Stomp West Belt.
    63:41
    We have 45 people or 47. It's 45 right now with we have three reserve spots so we could be up to 48. Wow. Which would be very cool. We need more people though. The spots are starting to run out and we have more games and more room. It's going to be like floating in heaven. So much room. Floating in heaven. So much room. It's going to be like, oh, well, wait a minute. Do you have to like leave to go out to the other room or no? Because you're going to have to knock that wall out eventually. The wall's already knocked out, chief. Oh, OK. It's actually got black tarp in between the rooms right now. Oh, OK. It's all painted. It's all. I haven't been there in a while. Yeah. Hold on. I'll show you a picture.
    64:28
    I'll send you a picture. Another picture, Zach. Where is Zach? He's only an hour and 10 minutes. Yeah, he's not coming on. He's not coming on. He's a douche.
    64:40
    Very disappointed with him. And Zach, our Australian Zach is going to be upset because he had an EM question I was going to ask. Our resident EM expert, Zach.
    64:54
    There's so many Zacks, and he is not here to answer. He just totally blew us off. Zach blew off the other Zach. so let's see uh you can see the wall now hopefully uh image wow there's a tarp there's a tarp damn where's the games oh that's the other side i'm the other side neato but all the walls are down we're ready to rock this is exciting Electricity is all done. 1,300 more square feet of pleasurable room. Pleasurable room? Yes. Just think, you had the whole thing where you didn't, Zach didn't want to have 50 games. I know. 49, and now look at you. I know. We're going to be 75, 80, and then hopefully up to 90. Wow. Max power. Okay.
    65:57
    All right, Bruce. Well, the good thing is once we actually do get the carpeting in and it's finally dry for the 48 to 72 hours, we can wheel in some games out of the back. And then you know what's going to happen? That back is going to be empty for once.
    66:11
    We have like six games ready to go. We got Volley, Hot Tip, Lord of the Rings. You can leave that back there.
    66:23
    What else is back there that's ready to go? So what else? Tommy. Oh. Old Chicago is almost done. So we have a lot of fun older games coming out right away. And then we start pulling out of our basements.
    66:40
    You start pulling out games out of your basement. Yes. I pull out all the time in my basement, but that's for other times.
    66:49
    Speaking of pulling out, it's time for the mail ball bag. I love when I'm going to get criticized in the mail ball bag. No, you were just corrected. No, I'm not corrected yet. Oh, okay. Let's see. First one we have from Glenn. Hi, Glenn. Hi, boys. Sorry I haven't emailed in a while. Maybe I will soon, Glenn.
    67:09
    Okay. It's an apology. Apology. No need to apologize. Let's see. Next one's from Scott. Our Scott. the famous the famous stern scott uh let's see uh oh he sounds like you if they don't share their schematics they're useless to me so he's he's a justification works excellent yes yes uh let's see uh oh god this is also from scott and it's the subject is poop a duke's games i'm thinking he's not gonna like oh god scumbag scammer deluxe john synonym for toilet poopa dukes games ranked wow wow here we go world cup soccer saved by larry demar who was tired of working overtime because of john's stupid delays and rules yes okay theater of magic even a broken clock is right twice a day i totally agree circus voltaire hey i could see why people like it but it was a fucking turned back in the day and closed out all the distributors at like 1400 no one liked it then for sure yep okay um totan or uh tales of the ravenites total fucking piece of shit a lot better but nope trying to sell the game based on the sizzle of the hot girls in the artwork okay the guy never understood that pinball is supposed to just last about two minutes for an average player for the 50 cents they put in. His games play longer than they should. Biggest offender of this. Okay.
    68:52
    He's very strong opinions on Mr. Pompadour. He forgot the last one. Which one? The best one ever. What's the best one ever? Episode one.
    69:03
    I don't get it. He forgot the last one. Oh, Star Wars episode one. I thought you meant our episode one. No, episode one. He forgot that one, which is the last one anyway. So it's so bad you don't even talk about it. I agree with him. Scott says, he's sorry for me about what I did to my Spider-Man. Yeah. Any resolution with that yet? Or find a wood guy? You get some wood?
    69:27
    All right. Next one. Euro flag. Okay. Here we go. Got my information. Ready to hear his. Now, on the last episode, Bruce criticized the artwork of ABBA because it has the Euro flag, which Bruce says didn't come about until after ABBA had their heyday.
    69:46
    So this is Matt from City Pinball. Hi, Matt. He says, hey, fellas, I regret to inform, but the flag of Europe actually well predates the European Union or ABBA. It actually dates back to the 50s. No, no, no. And I'm going to stop each point when you're going to make a point. The history of the flag goes back. This is right in the EU. European Union the actual information. The history of the flag goes back to 1955 and promotes European culture. In 1983, the European Parliament decided that the community flag should also be used by the Council of Europe. In 1985, it was adopted by all EU leaders as the official emblem of the European communities, later known as the European Union. After it's 85, Abbott was only famous to 81, still fucking winning. The European Union simply adopted the flag when it officially formed in the 90s. Looking forward to seeing you at the Beast, Bruce. Yes, but he's wrong because guess what? In 85, it was adopted by all EU leaders.
    70:51
    85. Sorry you can't make it, Ron, but it was good to play with you at the District 82 Winter 3X. I will actually be at the Beast. Oh, you are coming now. I am coming.
    71:04
    Good, I've got a person to bring a game out with me. Oh, stop. I don't want to do two. Because Sunday morning, I'm just driving home. That's fine. I'll take one home Saturday and one Sunday.
    71:15
    I just need to get it there. You need to get it, bro. Yeah, baby. Yeah. Okay. Where are you staying? Up there? The same shit hotel that was in last time. Nice. I have to look for a hotel soon, too. Let's see. Oh, God. Okay. This next one is from Cole. Hi, Cole. He says, hey there, machine abuser. and grumpy fuck. I assume I'm the machine abuser and you're the grumpy fuck. I think we got it. Yes. Just listen to the last awesome episode and a few things come to mind.
    71:48
    Now you will have to introduce the show as the Slamtail Podcast coming to you in DPX. Dual Penetration Extreme. How else to spread your STDs? All while listening to a little mood music of Winner Takes It All. The winner takes it all.
    72:08
    The loser standing tall. Ron, as a fellow Spider-Man owner, it was sad to hear about what happened with yours and how you hurt its soul. You did hurt its soul, Ron. Now it's time to pay the penalty. Yep, you've got to sell it to me. I'll buy you $5,000. Just like Child Protective Services takes neglecting and abused children and places them with people who care for them, the Pinball Protective Services demand the same. Yep, you're going to have to give it to me, Ron. Since I'm the only person part of this organization, you could just ship me your Spider-Man to the address below so we looked after with love.
    72:45
    Okay, that didn't work, so I suggest the following. At the next stop before the tournament starts, Ron must walk throughout the RPC holding a picture of the abused game while the crowd shouts, Shame, shame, shame, like in Game of Thrones. Yes, that I will agree with. It should be done on the stream. I've never watched Game of Thrones, so I don't get the reference. Yes. Unless it's – was there a deal where a chick was like nude and they all shouted at her? No, I don't think so. I thought that was in Game of Thrones. No? I don't think so. Speaking of stop, since you give a belt out to the winner, you should somehow incorporate DPX and STD on it. Oh, God.
    73:22
    Then the belt could serve two purposes or actually three. Winner of the tournament, dual penetration extreme and spreading your STDs. Oh, my. And putting everything on at all. The winner gives it all. One of your slam-tilt-degenerates, STD Cole. Thank you, Cole. Wow.
    73:41
    Yeah, see? We found something there with DPX. It's like double. Okay, this is from Derek. This is, hi, Ron and Bruce. Giving a quick shout-out to our former third host, Tim Sexton, as he has recently been uploading pinball playing tips onto his YouTube channel again after a six-year hiatus. his channel name is Tim Sexton pinball developer check it out folks hi I'm Tim Sexton a lot of his he's very loud in these videos he's almost like trying to do like world poker tour or he'd be like hi I'm Billy Mays uh let's remind me I have to talk about Derek in a few minutes oh okay yes um Robert Robert sent us this email. It's, Ron, congrats for buying Elton John. I parked mine right next to my dialed in. Yes!
    74:37
    Clearly you and I are pinball game selection geniuses. We are. Bruce just needs more time on both of these machines to see your genius. I have not had time on Elton John. I've had plenty of time on fucking dialed in, and dialed in was a shit show.
    74:52
    I don't know what I celebrated more. Celebrated more Fathom being gone or dialed in being gone from the RPC. Fuck you. But after playing Elton John, it makes me want to somehow wire up 70 volts so they'll sling sundialed.
    75:08
    Okay, question. How do you love both the classic sterns with single-level play fields and simple rules versus the more complex modern machines? What is it about the older ones that makes you want them in your home arcade without getting bored?
    75:24
    They need to be difficult. It's the old, what is it? Easy to understand, hard to master. That's probably the best quote I can give with that.
    75:38
    Like, I want to get all five stars in the special on stars. I could play that forever and not have that happen. Or I could play one game and it happens immediately.
    75:49
    That's pretty much it. I could never have an older game if it was easy. If you just sat there and could play it forever, it would just be horrible. What game is like that? I remember. Oh, you know, World Cup. Not World Cup soccer. Oh, God, yes. But World Cup. I just remember being able to play that forever. And that sucks so bad. Oh, it's terrible.
    76:10
    But that was from Rob. Thank you, Rob. Hello, Rob. Thank you. We got one from Ryan. Ryan C? No. Fuck yeah. Ryan K of our TurboGrafx fame. Just writing in to say, Bruce is wrong. Dialed in is amazing. That is all. Keep up the great work. Thank you. So the five people that have owned Dialed In and kept them are now shouted out. Thanks, guys. You just proved my point. The five Dialed In owners are very happy with their purchase. Wow.
    76:41
    You notice Raymond Davidson didn't jump in with an email or a text. He still likes Dialed In. No, no. He hasn't done it. So either A, he doesn't listen anymore, fail, or B, he just doesn't have the passion like you other four do. Okay, okay. You five others. Raymond was at level zero after Pentastic. Yes. And he played Elton John. And guess what game he played after Elton John?
    77:06
    Dialed In. Elton John was so bad, he had to just go try another game and say, oh, this is so much better. Dialed what? Elton John was so bad? I think you screwed up your own insult. No, no, I didn't. Okay. Elton John was bad, so he had to try the other one, make sure which one plays worse.
    77:23
    Elton John is awesome. Everyone loves Elton John. We'll see. I'm just going with what I'm saying. All right. That was it for the ball bag. The ball bag has been emptied. Yes. So I'd like to congratulate somebody. Okay. Derek, one of our listeners for the longest time. He's got a job at Stern. We know another person at Stern. Derek Kay is working at Stern? He's working at Stern.
    77:51
    Cool. Did you hear about this? I did not hear about this. Oh, yeah. He got a job. He's actually a bold maker now. He should be working with designs and molds and everything like that. And, you know, like, what do you call those things? Almost like what – Now, he's a New England guy. Does that mean he's moving to Chicago? He's moving. He's moving out. Wow. He's moving out. It's amazing. It's just all these New England guys with all these different companies. New England's like a hotbed. And the fans of Slam Tilt.
    78:19
    You know, we just get these people these jobs. They mention, like, hey, you know, I'm in the interview. You know, I can do this. I can do that. and I listen to Slamtail Podcast, they're going to go, fuck.
    78:30
    Hey, Lois, tell everyone outside they're done. We found our person. It's Derek. So basically, if you listen to our podcast, you're just guaranteed. And you drop it. And you drop the name. Drop the name. It's just enough to get you. Yeah. Okay. Because they got good fucking manuals. They got good schematics. They got good shit.
    78:52
    Okay, Bruce. Repairs. Star sucks. Oh, Star sucks. I have one. I have a quick one. I have a bad one, but you can go first. There's a countdown at my house. Yeah, whose is that? That would be Bruce's. Yes. The pop-upper just continues to keep sticking, and I just got tired of it. When you? Which one?
    79:15
    There's only one pop-upper in Countdown. Yeah, I rebuilt that. It was all gummed up. Well, that happens. Maybe all that play you've been doing. All the play I've been doing, yes, just pounding into submission. Yes. I cleaned up the gumminess and put a new coil sleeve in.
    79:32
    Very good man. I tried. I can't figure out why the top drop target is just brick. Brick. The way they do it. Other than maybe it's because as the rubber up there gets stretched out, it's closer and closer to the back of the drop target, so it can't. So it's a little harder to go back. It's brand new rubber. It is brand new rubber.
    79:56
    So I don't know. I just tighten it a little on the back so it's got a little more room to go backwards. Maybe you need new strings.
    80:05
    Maybe you need new springs. It seems to work fine now. The mechs seem fine. I'm just saying, that's the only thing I can think of. Yeah. I don't know. Since you're taking care of it, you pay for the parts, buddy. Yeah. Yeah, you owe me $0.10 for that coil sleeve. Nope. So, yeah, stars have been kicking on my ass. One of the coil. Here's the funny thing.
    80:26
    Day before, Friday night, Steph comes into work at the coin. The famous Steph? Yep. The pinball princess? She goes we got to play two pinballs at a Pintastic Like oh great She goes yeah one was in the sweating room one was in the freezing room Pinball as in the game pinball And she goes, one was silent, one wasn't. I'm like, what do you mean one was silent? I said, was it a... She goes, both were solid states. I said, well, that's a problem right there. And she goes, and second,
    81:00
    one of the coils for the chines was locked on, so they just pulled the fuse and you're done. I'm like, oh, yeah. And next thing I know, I'm like, I'm walking past and Steph goes, next, like next 10 minutes, Steph goes, Bruce, there's no sound on the, on the stars. I'm like, so I opened up the coin door and I had a smell, woof, smoke come out. I'm like, fuck. I look, one of the coils is locked on. It's still up in the air. It's still locked on the position. The coil is black and the fuse blue. I'm like, okay, well, I know the coil smoked. I'm not even going to test that. the coil is an N-31-2000.
    81:42
    So I'm like, I don't have that, but I do at home. I have the coil bank from another stern coil from a chime unit. So I pulled one out of there, test it, ohms out good, great, throw it in there. It took me like a half an hour to get the whole old coil out because of being stuck in the up position.
    82:03
    Replace the fuse, turn it on, bing, pops right on. I'm like, oh, fuck. So now I'm like, I'm looking at the schematics. It's the furthest to the cabinet. So would that be the tens or would it be the extra chime? Because they have a ten, hundred, thousand, and an extra chime.
    82:20
    Like, I don't know what the fuck it is. Trying to look at the colors. All the color for the wiring is all faded. It's supposed to be white, blue, white, black, white, green. It's white.
    82:30
    It's literally white. So there I am toning it out up at the connector all the way down to the coil. Found it. It's the 10s. Okay. Ooh, that's a problem. Yep. Because that goes all the time. Yeah, so I go, okay, let's go get the coil. Test the transistor. Transistor test bad. Replace the transistor. Coil's still good. Turn it on. Bink. Lock's on. Turn it off. Fuck. What the fuck's going on here?
    82:56
    Finally, look and look. We only have one transistor. Because it's a Weebly board, it's using the IRL 540Ns. ends like fuck what i'm gonna do now i don't have another one fuck for fuck it's actually like a bit to the uh the the freaking caps blowing on it too really we had the transistor out again waiting for another one we're gonna get i'm gonna do today test the cap cap shot it was just an open source and it's locking right back on and destroying the transistor again like fuck so now today when i after this i'm gonna go to the coop hopefully we have a replacement one of the other owners has one He's bringing it in. We'll put that on, plug it in, and hopefully we'll have a coil.
    83:41
    It's actually working right now because I stole a board from the back. And I can have the beautiful sounds of chimes.
    83:53
    What else repairs? Oh, so shout out to Mike Magoo. He came out to the world famous RPC last week. A 518-er. Yep. and he spent four hours on a shit shack with me the shit oh god shack attack yep shit shack we call wow this thing was bad i sent you pictures on a ramp remember i i know i mean you've said everything like missing parts and all this oh it's just terrible but the owners determined to have it work for some reason now we're on the display the uh the basket display and that's another shit show. Half the displays are bad. Half the transistors are bad on it. This thing is just... We're finally getting through all the things. I had to replace a coil. Kick up. And I got to adjust the disc on it. And then fix that backboard and then hopefully it will be gone out of my sight forever, ever, and ever.
    84:50
    We've got about 10 hours in this thing so far. Wow. Yeah, it fucking sucks, this thing. And we still haven't gotten to Bart. Bert! Berto! Bird-O-Moon, send me my part. I haven't seen anything yet. He said he was going to send me something. Bird-O, come on, do it for me, babe.
    85:07
    That's how you get your name out. When you tell me you're going to bring me something, I'm going to yell out. Thank you.
    85:13
    Other than that, basic stuff, breaking down the RPC, you know. Oh, another piece of news. Sit down for this one. Oh, piece of news. Okay, I'm sitting down, Bruce. You're sitting down, okay. This is going to be very traumatic for you. Uh-oh. Very traumatic. Uh-oh. I'm down to one cheetah.
    85:33
    I didn't know you. I can never remember how many cheetahs you guys have. Well, I had three at once. Yes, but like Zach had multiple cheetahs too. And then I sold one to Zach. Okay. So then Zach's like, I really don't want to work on this one too much. Sell me your blue one.
    85:49
    I want to sell my black one. Well, we decided on the blue one. he bought my blue one and now he's going to sell the original shit shit one to another person so there'll be more cheetahs to go around for everyone so uh i am down to one cheetah i'm down to one cheetah well i only ever had one cheetah one yeah yes it's a black one uh yes blue is gone so uh i went once all the games leave here i only have one game here Oh, at your house? Yeah. You're basically clear out your basement and put them all at the – Yep, RPC. Okay. We got to move the bowler too. I want to move the bowler there. Then you'll have room for some Rush 2049s. Yes, exactly. I would love to have Rush 2049s at the coop. They had those at Pentastic. I know. I sent a picture to Bruce like, hey, Bruce, you missed it here. I was like, fuck.
    86:48
    And they worked. The keypads were fucked on them though. The keypads have been getting worse and worse. I couldn't put my number in to save any of my settings, but I remembered how to make my car advanced, so I just would win every race. Advanced, extreme! Yeah, because no one realized that. Yeah.
    87:06
    So that was all for me. Hopefully, Shit Shack will be gone maybe by next week. I want to finish it up today or this week. Oh, are you sitting down? I have a report. Uh-oh, where's Zach? Zach has just read. the actual link he was supposed to use at 10 o'clock an hour and a half ago he has read it crap I thought you meant next Sunday which means he probably like yeah I'm not going to bother at this point I just said we're still on yeah he can come on and answer the one question yeah we have a question no nothing No, I'm typing that. We have an EM question.
    87:54
    I think I met Nick Sunday. Crap. With a sad face. Oh, that's fucking awesome. That means he was sleeping that long. He literally thought you met Nick Sunday. I even said to him, this Sunday. And he's like, all right. Why would I bug his ass about this? Yeah, and you guys never planned ahead, so he should have known it was the immediate Sunday. Yeah, I never planned ahead. Yeah, no one plans that.
    88:20
    Want to dial a Zach for it, or did you already drag me into it? Drag me during. This could be the shortest appearance of Zach on a podcast ever. Come on.
    88:34
    I mean, we're pretty much done at this point. We went through everything. I know, so it would be perfect just to answer the question. Yeah, because it might take an hour to answer this question. It's at the end, so people can just fast-forward past it if they don't want more text. Did you drag me during the intro?
    88:47
    We did drag you. We totally did. Oh, it's fucking awesome. My play field is almost done. Quite silver? Okay. Yeah, I just haven't – I've been so busy at the coop for the past two months. I really have not done anything. The only thing I have done is put it on its side so it doesn't warp the play field.
    89:07
    I'm looking at it right now going, boy, yeah, it looks kind of nice here. Speaking of play fields, I did forget one thing. What? I sold my high-speed play field to one of our listeners at Pentastic. Nice. congratulations to the high-speed play field person. It's crazy. He lives in Nevada, but he has a very apparent New England accent, so he was obviously visiting, but he was driving back to Nevada.
    89:36
    Now you got me. I forget how to say it. I'm such an asshole. Yes, you are. So I will be requesting Ron's help in the next day or two. I need the file for the old.
    89:52
    File for the old what? Slam tilt picture so I can cut it down, crop it down, and get it for the. Oh, God. I don't even know where I have that. You'll have to find it. That's what I'm giving you.
    90:05
    Just to remind me multiple times. What else is new? Yeah, what else is new? What else is new? If you did make it here next weekend, I may have a present for you. Ooh. a countdown with more, you got a new pinball machine for me? No. Did you get me a Elton John too? No. Then I'll like it. No.
    90:25
    I guarantee I'll like it if you buy me a $12,000 game. Wouldn't you? You show up and I have a, um, uh, what's it called? I have a radical under a blanket. Just take that off. Here's your radical.
    90:41
    That'd be awesome. I need to get me another, uh, whodunit. Unless you're selling. Unless you're selling mine back. That would open up another spot. It would open another spot. And I would just love it because Zach would be so pissed if I had to play Udada the Dark PC.
    91:01
    And your dad redid the reels on that. He did. Yes. The reels are awesome on that game. The reels. The slot machine. The reels work.
    91:10
    He put new motors in those and everything. Mm-hmm. And it's got early LED action. Yes, it does. before the LEDs got brighter. Yeah.
    91:20
    I got to leave at noon, but he can quick. Come on. Yeah, even here he's taking forever. I know, Jesus Christ. Come on. Oh, there he is.
    91:32
    This will somehow screw up the recording entirely. It will. I can't wait. Yeah. Hello, Zach. Full echo. Cool.
    91:43
    I don't hear him yet. No, I hear us. you keep on knocking but you can't come in oh Zachary oh he just switched to his headset hello I thought I heard something there you go you're on hi Zach welcome on the Slamtail Podcast I'm thrilled to be here Bruce I can tell did we just wake up yep Jesus Christ, young and dumb. He's resting up for the league finals tonight. Oh, yeah, I've got to be fresh and ready to go. Yeah, that's got to be it. Okay. I totally did not sit up until 3 a.m. Okay, great. Oh, 3 a.m.? Okay.
    92:30
    Zach, ready for your E.M. question. Ready for your E.M. question? Yep, the million-dollar question. The million-dollar question? All right. Hold on. I had closed out of the ball bag. It wasn't really fully empty. It wasn't fully empty. There's still some dregs down in there. Yep. Hey, if anyone's selling a Spanish Eyes at Allentown, get in touch with me.
    92:52
    We need one for the RPC. Or a Freedom. You already have a Freedom. Why do you keep getting duplicates? Stop. Let other people get these games. Zach actually did get a – Zach needs another outside cabinet. Yeah, my Freedom cabinet is not in good shape, so I want to get a better cabinet and swap it. I don't actually want to have two Freedoms. I'm good with two countdowns, two Spanish eyes, and two cheetahs. You're not going to get two countdowns. I have two countdowns.
    93:21
    I'm saying, mind, you're not going to get the RPC. I'm talking about the RPC. All right, guys. Let's get on. Let's get on with it. You know, I think this is part of Zach's master plan because now he can say, like, I was on this episode, so now I don't have to be on one for months. I don't have to listen to it. No, you're still on. You're still committed. I committed to what I thought was next weekend, so I can just come next weekend, too. You're ready to record one weekend later, right? No, because no. Well, we can. We can record earlier before Allentown. No. We can record before Allentown. No, no. Wait a minute. Allentown. Allentown's two weeks. He said next. Yeah, but he said next weekend. I know, but next week we won't be around. Well, we can't record in two weekends. That is Allentown. Exactly. We'd be busy. That is Allentown.
    93:55
    We just broke Ron. You just heard it. That was a minute. We should just do a drive back Saturday evening episode, Bruce. No, no. Like 7 p.m. Saturday. No, Sunday. Did you hear him break? He actually broke there like, oh. Sunday morning episode.
    94:12
    I'm busy Sunday morning. Me too. I'm going to be unloading all my treasures that we got. Is it crap or good?
    94:19
    Of course it's good. All right. This one is an EM question. Okay. This was sent by another Zach. Perfect. Zach of the Pinball Tapes. My favorite people. Podcast. Yes. Anyone named Zach? He says, hey, you magnificent bastards. How the hell are you? Zach from the On Again, Off Again podcast at Pinball Tapes here. Hope you've both been living the silver ball dream. I have a controversial electromechanical question that I need help with, and I feel you talented lads are the only ones I can ask, which we felt our Zach was the only one we could ask. Yeah, you guys aren't talented or lads. No, not with the M's. I'm not. Let's see. I spent a good part of, let's see, a good part of my life recently shopping out a superb Spanish-made Interflip Dragon EM. Bow. I think that's the bow game, right? Bow.
    95:15
    Which in Australia is a rare sight indeed. I've been playing it for a while, and I love it, but I'd really like to modify one of the rules.
    95:24
    So here we go. I'm sure you guys know, but in this game, the main aim is to knock down all the dragon head targets, and they make a hilarious mooing sound when hit.
    95:34
    Let's see. Once you've achieved this difficult objective, a kick-out hole in the middle of the play field lights up for special. This is a very dangerous shot and not really worth going for just to get a free credit and 5,000 points. So I know I'm opening up Pandora's box here, but I would like to change the value of the special to points.
    95:54
    Let's see. In my defense, this is a very common thing for home users to do on a pinball machine. that is usually an option on any machine with a circuit board. I'd ideally like to make this special a 100,000-point jackpot shot that resets itself once you achieve it. Do you tech legends have any advice on how you would achieve this? So I'll stop right there.
    96:16
    Zach, any idea how you would do this? You kind of did the opposite on the doodle shit, doodle bug, where the 5,000 overpowered 5,000 saucer you made it what, 500? 500, yeah.
    96:32
    Of course that's much easier because you know that both of those circuits are already there because there's other spots in the hole that award 500 every time, you know?
    96:39
    So when you're trying to make something that scores more, unless you're going to get really involved, you need to make sure there's actually something on the game that scores that much. In this case, like if you want 100,000 then you need there to be a 100,000 point relay because that'll go through and direct the scores to the proper score reel because it's a multiplayer game and all that. Luckily, I'm looking at the schematics and there is a hundred thousands relay. Oh!
    97:03
    So, the easiest thing for the special is just if you take the wire that goes to the knocker and you disconnect it from the knocker and you run it to the hundred thousands points relay, often that will just give you a hundred thousand points.
    97:19
    Wait a minute, that's it? It might be just that simple. okay alright well that was I thought it would be more involved well there's this stuff about resetting the special which that's more specific to the game I can't say that in five minutes but and as long as there's nothing else in parallel with the docker because if there's something else was and then you scored 100,000 points normally it would just also knock the docker you don't want to do that but yeah that's generally like since you have that relay already that's what you want to do is just try to get the signal from the special to just go over to the relay instead. And you could just start by just finding that wire and just jumping it over and just see what happens if you do it. If it works, it works. And if it doesn't, then you got more thinking to do. But sometimes it really is that easy.
    98:06
    Okay. Well, there you go. From one Zach to another. Give that a try and let us know if it worked. So Zach, how was Pentastic for you? Might as well ask you since you're here. uh disappointing oh well because you didn't buy a game yeah i didn't buy a game and it was hot well yeah you yeah you you hate heat yes and you like buying games so yep struck out twice there last year it was hot but i bought a game you know so 50 50 bearable yeah nothing else that's your in-depth uh fantastic review yeah pretty much you sold Jaws yeah sold Jaws why did you give up on it currently it's not good enough to keep in my house okay I'm worried about having it on location because of all the air balls and like the wear potential around the window you know I think that on location where I can't like monitor it normally and stuff there's a potential for having playfield issues develop sell sell sell lose $1,000 of value on the game because my playfield started chipping. Ah. So I figured chances of it getting good enough that I want it at my house again, low, because it's not my type of layout. So I better just get rid of it quick while the price is still high. It's not your type of layout. What's your type of layout? Not a fan layout. With all safe returns. Okay. All right. How about Elton John? What do you think of Elton John? Well, I already played it before I went to your house. Yeah, what do you think of playing my Elton John? It played better. There you go. It's the best playing Elton John I've played. Oh, I'm very happy. Now you can retire in peace. Yes, I can retire in peace now. You just made my day. Yep.
    99:59
    He was complaining. He was bitching that he's too high in ranking so he can't play in B. Yes, I was. That is true. That is 100% true. I bitched about it while I was there. Zach Kirby bitched about it. at the tournament you mean yeah the tournament because you're like 249 yeah something like that yeah yeah not that I would have made it into B anyway from the entry I had but yeah it was a very competitive year this year it's very hard to get into the finals anymore the finals that I probably wouldn't get past the first round you might make it through one round you know maybe that's always my goal you've got to eliminate the chaff you know the chaff wow okay you found out that you were also chaff but you got paired with another chaff and then you're out yeah yes all right guys we got anything else I think that was it nope I'll see you at Zach I'll see you at 2 30 good luck with your house hunt today good luck with your house hunting Zach yeah I'll see how many pins I can fit in this one you don't have to worry about that that much we're getting rid of more pins. I need to buy more pins now. I know. So you have time to fill it up and you'll have time before you have to move again. I don't want to move again. You always move again. Trust me. It's called life. I don't know. He's been in the same place for a while.
    101:19
    Yeah. That's why I'm trying to move. That's why he's trying to move. So guess what? It always happens.
    101:25
    Ron's ran out of room. Yeah. So guess what happens? Ron has to move now. Yeah. Ron has to move out to Rochester. No. God, no. No, no. It's too cold. No, it's not. It is. It's like the same temperature most of the year, I would say. Exactly. And the winters actually haven't been that bad for the last few years. No, we had the last two years, it's less than 50 inches. Climate change, baby. Yeah. New York is now going to be one of the destination spots to go. Yeah. That's why I got to buy the land now. Yeah, when the flooding happens, we'll lose all New York City, part of New Jersey, and, you know, and then we'll actually be able to vote. Our vote will matter.
    102:02
    Wow. Yeah. And we won't have to go down to New York City for the championships. For any tournaments. Yeah, exactly. So we're good. We can just move between level zero and RPC every year for the championships. Yeah, exactly. Okay. All right. This has been episode 227.
    102:18
    I would say thanks, Zach, but you totally blew us off and didn't even show up to the end. Wow. Well, you're welcome anyway. Yeah, okay. You got anything else, Bruce? I don't know yet. I'm still looking. You're still looking. Okay. I'm still looking. So give me a few more seconds. Give the shout-outs. Yeah, shout-outs to everybody on our Cluster Vuck. Hi, Flammo Bonus. Hi, Zach. Oh, he's here. Pinball Princess, et cetera. Check out our website, slamtillpodcast.com. That's slamtillpodcast.com. Check out. Don't forget, we still got spots for Stomp. We still got spots for Stomp. Okay. Plug, plug away. Slackers. Yeah, interrupting my plug. All the links are in the upper right-hand corner. uh expect to see some some streaming of the upcoming varney cup hopefully at least the finals so uh if you want to send us an email it's slamtailpodcast at gmail.com that's slam pill yeah slam tilt podcast at gmail.com he's only been doing this for seven or seven years guys do you have anything to plug that don't outbid me in the house i'm looking at i mean if they want to move to rochester and join uh the pinball scene here you know that's worth i think that's great for them that's a great thing that's one more stomp person to play you know exactly we've tapped out all 50 uh slam tilt listeners that are in the tri-state area exactly we have we need to bring more the women's tournament's doing very nicely with the with the people joining so we're all going to be kicking some ass there.
    103:51
    Ass kicking at the Rochester Pinball Collective. You heard it here, folks. Yes. I can pre-pump death ball in late August, you know. Yes, you can. The only place you can come compete on poker, the world-famous homebrew, endorsed by Slamto Podcast. Oh, I totally endorse, totally endorsed by the Slamto Podcast. You should bring it to RPC once in a while. It can't. It falls apart. Shh. I've got to make the next homebrew and then bring that to RPC. There you go. Yeah. Poker, like, survived a car crash. It's really... Yeah, it's now like... It's got its leg up in a cast on the bed. But you're going to have to move it if you do get a new house. Exactly.
    104:28
    I'll wrap it with lots and lots of blankets. I'll wrap it better than you wrapped up your Spider-Man. Alright, you wrapped up your Spider-Man. Yeah, that's what I meant. Which was nothing.
    104:40
    I forgot. Yeah, you did. I'm ready. You're ready? Okay. Thanks, everyone. Until the next time, you'll see us in, well, if we don't record... Allentown, two weeks, or all three of us. In two weeks, yeah, all three of us. All three of us will be in one spot, like the one time during the year this actually happens. Come hug Bruce, we'll be in Ron Watch. Yes. And then pre-Allentown, we'll have the show next weekend. You heard what he said. We're all good with that. Right, Zach? That'll be post-Allentown. No, free. We're going to do one next week, you said. No, we're not. Yes, we are. No, we're not. Who wants a pre-just text away message? No, who wants a pre- Don't you want a post-Varni Cup episode? Exactly. You need a post-Varni Cup episode live when it happens.
    105:26
    I just love stretching. We should have just left Zach off of this. I love it. It's a two-versus-one. I'm making sure you learn the hard way, Ron. Yeah. Yes, it is. You said hard way.
    105:41
    The latest from Home Pin. Beavis and Butthead. No. Oh, God, no. Oh, God. Ron will personally fly to Australia and beat someone up. I will. I might. He'll go to Taiwan. He'll even get that. Grab him by the lapels like, this needs to be good. I'll find as much shit about Mike at Homepin as I can and send it to Mike Judge and say, do you want this person making your game to try to get it killed? Yes. Anything I can do. Yes. Oh, God. All right. Thanks, everybody. Until next time. Say goodbye, Bruce. Goodbye, Aaron Davis.
    106:15
    Hold my mind, hold my mind Can you boogie, can you slide? Hold my mind, hold my mind You can boogie if you try Hold my mind, hold my mind Guaranteed to keep you alive
    106:45
    Meteor! Level Zero! Clusterfuck! George Takei! Timballs! Bruce Isles! Tournament Talk! Car Holder! Cheetah! Xanadu! Cash Grab! ELO! Ball Bank! What You Buy It! Game You Love! Game You Hate! Tournament Talk! Pinball Princess! Sir!
    107:15
    Oh my.