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Ep 31: Bonding

Final Round Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 53m·analyzed·Apr 8, 2021
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.031

TL;DR

Final Round discusses streaming, IFPA April Fool's joke, and competitive pinball rankings with Josh Sharpe.

Summary

Final Round Pinball Podcast hosts Jeff Teolis and Martin Robbins discuss streaming culture, the pinball community's response to an April Fool's IFPA Berg joke announcement, and interview IFPA president Josh Sharpe about competitive pinball rankings, the Whopper system, and alternative league structures. The episode touches on streaming trends, community growth, and the role of rankings in motivating competitive play.

Key Claims

  • IFPA posted an April Fool's announcement about 'IFPA Berg' with 1,500 players, $400,000 prize pool, and five Stern machines as giveaways

    high confidence · Jeff and Martin discussing Josh Sharpe's April 1st joke on IFPA social media

  • IFPA now has 78,915 registered competitive players

    high confidence · Josh Sharpe providing current IFPA membership number during interview

  • Josh Sharpe has been playing competitive pinball since 1993 (nearly 30 years)

    high confidence · Josh Sharpe stating his competitive play history directly

  • Stern Pinball machines qualified for manufacturing priority in Illinois vaccine rollout due to being classified as manufacturing

    medium confidence · Josh Sharpe discussing vaccine distribution in his industry circle

  • Multiple major tournaments have been cancelled: Pinberg and Papa (at least in the near future)

    high confidence · Jeff and Martin discussing current major tournament landscape

  • The Whopper system was created to allow indirect competition between elite international players who had never directly played each other

    high confidence · Josh Sharpe explaining the origin and purpose of the Whopper ranking system

  • Reach Around trophies were delayed because Josh miscalculated the order quantity and had to reorder extras

    high confidence · Jeff discussing the arrival of Reach Around trophies (except for Australian recipients)

  • Multiple new streamers were announced for The Pinball Network (TPN) this week including Mr. Scoop, Hup Challenge, The Pinballers, and Brian and Alison O'Neill

    high confidence · Martin and Jeff discussing new TPN roster additions

Notable Quotes

  • “With streaming, it's just about talking to people. So if I didn't have people to talk to and it was just playing the game, I probably wouldn't stream as long as I do.”

    Martin Robbins@ 4:27 — Explains the appeal of pinball streaming as a social activity rather than pure gameplay

  • “I think somebody needs to start doing pinball streaming in a hot tub. Oh, that is money to be made, I'm telling you right now.”

    Jeff Teolis@ 8:21 — Commentary on Twitch trends and satirical observation about streaming platform priorities

  • “I always believe, so when the things that are, when I'm going joke style, there's always an intentional, like, nuggets of information for people to be able to snuff it out.”

    Josh Sharpe@ 17:53 — Explains the methodology behind his April Fool's jokes—intentional clues to allow community due diligence

  • “IFPA was founded just to help continue to spread people playing competitive pinball, right? So to me, there's nothing, and I mean this is sort of just how Zach and I were raised from our dad. It's less about the IFPA needing to be any kind of integral part of the growth.”

    Josh Sharpe@ 24:05 — States IFPA's philosophical approach to competitive pinball governance and alternative leagues

  • “It was always just good to be able to see where you were, mainly with people around you, like friends and close people to have a bit of friendly rivalry with.”

    Martin Robbins@ 27:43 — Personal perspective on value of WPPR rankings for local competition and friendly rivalry

  • “The fact that I look at mine and I say, this player, that player, and that player, they're in my sights. They're my nemesis. And then someone comes up to me and says, you're my nemesis. I'm like, wow.”

    Jeff Teolis@ 30:06 — Illustrates the psychological dynamic of head-to-head rankings and competitive relationships

Entities

Josh SharpepersonJeff TeolispersonMartin RobbinspersonFinal Round Pinball PodcastorganizationThe Pinball Network (TPN)organizationPinball UndergroundorganizationReach AroundproductIFPA Bergevent

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Multiple new streamers announced for The Pinball Network this week, indicating growth in pinball content creation ecosystem and platform expansion

    high · Martin and Jeff discuss new TPN roster: Mr. Scoop, Hup Challenge, The Pinballers, Brian and Alison O'Neill; Joe Lemire also now streaming on Pinball Junkyard

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Mixed community response to IFPA Berg April Fool's joke; some found it lame/classless while those 'in on it' found it a 'riot'; typical range for April 1st IFPA jokes

    high · Josh describes feedback as 'pretty normal for April 1st'; comments included 'Lame, unfunny, classless, cruel, questionable taste'; Josh notes those in on joke found it funny

  • ?

    event_signal: Pinburg and Papa tournaments cancelled or suspended, creating significant void in major championship circuit; IFPA considering new tournament structures to fill gap

    high · Jeff/Martin state 'We've now lost Pinberg. We've now lost Papa, it looks like, certainly in the near future. So now we're down to three.'; Josh discusses possibility of satellite-based major event structure

  • ?

    business_signal: Stern Pinball and other coin-op manufacturers qualified for manufacturing priority in Illinois vaccine distribution, enabling earlier vaccination of industry workforce

    medium · Josh states: 'Illinois at least has their businesses that are classified as manufacturing got into, you know, one of the preferred groups, which Rothwells did qualify for. So, like, my circle of people in the coin-op industry, like Stern guys and the Ross Rills guys, like, I now know way more people that have gotten it'

  • ?

Topics

Streaming culture and communityprimaryIFPA April Fool's joke and community responseprimaryCompetitive pinball rankings and player motivationprimaryAlternative competitive league structuressecondaryTournament landscape and major event cancellationssecondaryVaccine rollout and its impact on pinball competitionsecondaryContent creation and merch in pinball communitymentionedTwitch streaming trends and platform evolutionmentioned

Sentiment

neutral(0)

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.340

0:00
The Pinball Network is online. Launching final round pinball podcast. It's player versus player and player versus machine.
0:30
Welcome to the final round. Here we are again. How you doing? It's final round. I'm Jeff Teolas. And I'm Martin Robbins. This is episode 31, 32. It's in the 30s, Jeff. We've had bonus episodes, so it really is difficult. We have the Super Bowl sponsor one. So is it 31? Is it 32? Tough to say. Is it 31.5? I can't say.
1:00
But Jeff, where can people contact us? You know, that is a great question. It probably has a great answer. I know we are on Facebook, and we have a pretty good group, and a lot of people are following what we're doing on there, including some polls, which we'll talk about. But I think we're on Twitter. I think we're on Instagram. We are on all the social medias. Just look up Final Round Pinball. You'll find us. Oh, and of course, if you want to email us, finalroundpinball at gmail.com. We've got a big show in the sense that we are saying hello to our good friend that we like to do every few weeks or so.
1:32
It's kind of a head-to-head reunion, if you will. Ryan C will be joining us in a bit. But before we get to Ryan, let's find out about what we've been doing the last couple of weeks for you. What has it been like? You know, there's been a bit of pinball. I've been watching some streams. I've been talking pinball. And I've been going over to people's places and putting GCs up on their machines. Just the usual. You say that jokingly, but it is true. I watched you do that a few times, and did you get invited back when you do this? Because I'd be like, fuck this guy. You know, I invite him over. He comes over, streams, drinks all my booze, and he puts up his stupid names all over my games.
WPPR
product
Whopper Systemproduct
IFPAorganization
Pinbergevent
Papaevent
Tom Graffperson
Mr. Scoopperson
Fliptronicperson
Laser Lossperson
Joe Lemireperson
NICS Dayevent
Vipers (Victoria)organization

community_signal: Discussion of how WPPR/Whopper rankings and alternative league structures (Vipers, USC Whoppers, IFPA Open) are motivating broader competitive participation; ecosystem expanding beyond traditional IFPA structure

high · Josh: 'Vipers, USC Whoppers, the challenge stuff that we're doing now, I mean, anything you can do that motivates someone to hit start on a game of pinball and compete against someone directly or indirectly, bring it on'; discusses 78,915 registered players

  • ?

    product_launch: Reach Around trophies experienced supply chain delay; Josh miscalculated order quantity and had to reorder extras; Australian recipients delayed by one week

    high · Jeff: 'The reach around, the trophies have finally arrived to everybody except for the Australians'; Josh: 'I miscalculated. Oh. But it could have been that there might have been a couple of extras added on the end, but I ordered a certain amount, and it wasn't enough. So I had to get two more ordered.'

  • ?

    content_signal: Martin discusses streaming sustainability improvements without alcohol (previously played better after 2-3 drinks); now finds increased stamina and better machine connection after 1-1.5 hours sober streaming

    medium · Martin: 'I'm now really starting to feel the machine getting connected with it and that's when I can start playing well...I have more stamina, I think. So by the time I'm about, I don't know, an hour to an hour and a half into the stream, I'm now really starting to feel the machine getting connected'

  • ?

    industry_signal: Josh Sharpe has established tradition of April Fool's IFPA announcements with embedded clues; community has developed skepticism but some details remain difficult to verify

    high · Josh: 'when I'm going joke style, there's always an intentional, like, nuggets of information for people to be able to snuff it out'; Jeff notes 'we have a pretty good track record of mixing in meta-April announcements of stuff'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: WPPR head-to-head rankings create psychological 'nemesis' effect; players develop subconscious fear/respect for opponents they've played frequently, particularly when head-to-head records are close

    medium · Jeff: 'I start to gain, I don't know, not like being afraid to play someone, but just having this weird subconscious, like, this is going to be a real challenge. And then you look and it's like, oh, those are all the people that I'm red against on my head-to-head'

  • ?

    community_signal: WPPR/Whopper system historically allowed international elite players (like Johannes) to gain respect from American players; system enabled recognition of players who would otherwise be unknown

    high · Josh: 'There was a whole lot of pushback from American players that, like, any of these international people who they had never heard of, like, the fact that they had never heard of them just meant, like, there's no way they were good, right? So, you'd have someone like a Johannes, who, without the Whopper system, like, he would just be, if he was just only playing in Europe, you'd never have that direct interaction'

  • ?

    regulatory_signal: IFPA representatives considering vaccine eligibility thresholds in their jurisdictions as prerequisite for sanctioning competitive events; vaccine distribution becoming de facto event authorization criterion

    high · Josh: 'There seems to be, for a lot of the reps who are voting for the IFA to reopen or not, it does seem to be at least having vaccines eligible to enough people within the areas that they are kind of responsible for...That seems to be where they're all falling as sort of their default'

    • 2:06
    I'd be like, beat it. Hey, hey, hey, hey. Hey. Oh, that's not what you do. I know. Let me just correct you on one of those things. Only one of them? Just the one. I have not drunk on stream in months, and this has got nothing to do with the reach around thing. because I'm still not streaming at home, I have to drive. So if I go to Dave and Ray's, it's an hour there and back. If I go to Eric's, it's about 50 minutes there and back. I'm not drinking. So I resent that remark, thank you. But the other stuff is true.
    2:37
    Now, you once said you played better with a little bit of sauce in you. And now I've been watching you play these incredible games. We'll talk about one of them later in Game of Thrones. but I have been seeing you, as you mentioned, put up grand champion scores, and you've been doing it sober. You used to play pretty on fire when you had a little bit in you. Booze, I'm sure you're talking about. Something. Yeah. So it's this middle ground, and it's funny. So there's a guy that watches my stream, Peppers.
    3:09
    Hi, how are you doing? And he has watched my stream so many times that he knows exactly the sweet spot, and it's between two and three drinks. If I maintain that level of drunkenness, I will stay performing really well. If it drops down, if it goes more than that, that's when my game goes down. So, yeah, it's a fun time. But I think what I'm finding now, not drinking, is I actually have more stamina, I think. So by the time I'm about, I don't know, an hour to an hour and a half into the stream,
    3:43
    I'm now really starting to feel the machine getting connected with it and that's when I can start playing well. And that's normally the time I'm really starting to go downhill because I've drunk too much. When you play at other people's homes and I watched you, I think it was this weekend, you were playing four-player games on Dialed In. That gives you a little bit of a break, but when you stream for three hours and if it's only yourself on the same game, and I'm asking you, I'm asking other streamers, I don't know if at my home, even with a new game, a new toy, if I have played a game for three hours straight?
    4:15
    Does that mean I don't love pinball or am I not committed? Or maybe my games are so long my legs get tired. It's tough to say what it possibly could be, but what is it for you that keeps you going? With streaming, it's just about talking to people. So if I didn't have people to talk to and it was just playing the game, I probably wouldn't stream as long as I do. You've seen me stream. I've got one eye on the pinball machine, one eye on chat, and that's what it does for three hours and three hours goes by really, really quickly.
    4:46
    I mean, I know Laser, Laser Loss, he streams for like seven, eight hours nearly every day. I couldn't do it like that. I get sick of pinball too quickly. But really it is, it's the interaction that you have with people that just makes the time fly. That is a good point. Laser Loss certainly does that. Our friends at Mystery Pinball Theatre 3000, Manu does that, Fliptronic, and we've got so many different great streamers here on TPN. And in fact, new ones were even announced this week. We should maybe mention those. Mr. Scoop being one, and I know Mr. Scoop because he comes on to my channel for chat.
    5:18
    I saw him raid your last stream with like 46 people. That was very nice. Yeah, that was cool. That is always good. I keep forgetting to do that. For people that look at me and go, he is such an asshole because he doesn't raid. It's only because I forget. Sorry. Okay, remember, because that is a cool thing. I like that everyone kind of pays it forward, the people that do that. And the question is, who don't? There, I said it. So don't you do it. I don't think you're questioning at all. I think you know. Hup Challenge is doing some great stuff. Good video work, too. You mentioned Mr. Scoot.
    5:48
    The Pinballers. Good to have more Canadians on the Pinball Network. That's the Castleman family. Good people. And Brian and Alison O'Neill. Not only good people, but incredible players. Both of them. So, boy, we've got some more amazing streamers on the TPN roster. And outside of TPN, I just noticed today that my old podcasting pal, Joe Lemire, is now streaming on Pinball Junkyard. So that's cool. Oh, very nice. And he's got a good collection, too, so we'll have to check out Joe's stuff for sure. Good player. I mean, I like to pretend that I'm a good player.
    6:21
    Joe's at a different level, and I'm the first to admit that Joe's an amazing player. Yeah, he is. So we'll get some good streams there. Okay, good, good, good, good. And, you know, the thing about streaming, you learn a little bit about pinball, and seeing all this pinball and all the streams and it's good video watching. By the way, I've noticed a few other videos, not necessarily streams, but people doing little videos or pictures of things that might have arrived in the mail. What could that be? That is true. The reach around, the trophies have finally arrived to everybody except for the Australians.
    6:56
    Which makes no sense, but that's fine. No, and I will explain. It is because, I will say, I miscalculated. Oh. But it could have been that there might have been a couple of extras added on the end, but I ordered a certain amount, and it wasn't enough. So I had to get two more ordered. Just charge some more money. Just say, hey, man, buck up. Dr. John. Yes. So the Australian ones will be delivered this week, I can assure you. You don't have to deliver Greg Selby's. I wasn't a big fan of his reaching around, if I'm being honest.
    7:28
    He was the best. He's definitely getting a reach around from me. Yeah, yeah. No, it was nice because I got the Canadian one, so Craig Bobby's going to get his. Brad Hopkins will get his. And Albert Agar, I think, I'm going to be seeing Orby sometime in June. So I don't know. Maybe I should trade it for some maple syrup or something. But anyway, that was good. My two weeks, well, not really a lot. I mean, I've been watching a lot of these streams. Again, there are so many out there. That's one of the positive things, and there's not many about the pandemic. It's just so many people, whether it's streaming and podcasting, It's nice to see the content, and there's always stuff going on because, you know, back in the day, I think, when I first got in, it was just dead flip in Buffalo, and they're still around and still doing great things.
    8:06
    But now you just have so many different options, and it's nice to see different people in different parts of the world. I wake up, and I'll see these guys from Germany going on, and I'm like, this is great. I don't understand a thing that's happening, but it's good pinball. I think somebody needs to start doing pinball streaming in a hot tub. Oh, that is money to be made, I'm telling you right now, because even the best streamers, you might get 100 people, but I'm telling you, if you sit on a floatable in a hot tub and you're wearing a bathing suit, bikini might be optional, and you start writing the names of the people subscribing or following on your arm and just chatting and basically doing fuck all, I'm telling you that is the stream to do.
    8:55
    It just, it fucking blows my mind. We've been joking about this before with the ones, people doing ASMR and, you know, whispering into the microphone and people painting with their assets out. And I thought that was Twitch probably going to a level they shouldn't have gone to because it's gone from being about gaming to now just being, let's call it, it's soft porn. Let's call it, that's really what it is. I hadn't noticed. These ones now where you've got these people sitting in hot tubs on floatable devices wearing very little, it's practically a peep show.
    9:35
    And that's what Twitch has become. And I guess they're getting away with it because it's within the guidelines. But I feel they might need to change their guidelines. The captions are usually just chatting. What else are you doing? I mean, it'd be different if you were making crafts or something. I've seen some people do that. At Fliptronic, we just mentioned, they made pens the other day. I thought that was kind of cool. They made badges and patches. They made one for just another pinball podcast. They sent me one for pinball profile. Some really cool stuff.
    10:05
    They said Final Round was too hard, by the way. Too many colors. I agree. But we'll work on the merch later. I like these kind of different streams. But gaming certainly is where it's at. And, you know, when you look at video games versus pinball, yeah, those people certainly do much better than Call of Duties or Fortnite. but they all pale in comparison to the occasional young woman in a fucking hot tub. Which, by the way, it's not even a hot tub. It's an inflatable pool inside their house. Where does the water go?
    10:36
    That's actually, that's the whole surprise to me. I think it's, I think it's hilarious that these people growing up, they may have had a degree. They may be a professor They may have PhDs coming out of every orifice Now we get to see them So it's an interesting career choice But it's like one of those things Like what do you want to be when you grow up? I want to be a streamer In an inflatable pool
    11:08
    On a flotation device Showing off my maps Again, we've said it several times on this episode As we are broadcasting now to maybe double-digit listeners, if we're being lucky. Based on the recent Twippies, I think that's what it is. But if it comes back to the question, what the fuck are we doing wrong? What are we doing wrong? What on earth? We have chosen the wrong topic. Hot tub next week, guaranteed, on this show, for sure.
    11:39
    Now, that may sound like a joke, but we don't like to do jokes on this show. In fact, we only like to talk about things that are serious, like recent IFPA announcements. Did you see what they posted? I did see something about IFPA Berg. Is that right? IFPA Berg. That's so exciting. Yes. I mean, Pinberg's gone. We need IFPA to step up and do something. So, wow, they're going to have 1,500 players, $400,000 in prize pool money, five different satellites of 300 people to pull together for the final 150 players,
    12:10
    five Stern pinball machines being given away. Yeah, this is all happening. If you're listening and this is the first time you're hearing about it, this was posted on IFPA Pinball on April 1st. It would have to be true because if it was a joke, it's not a funny one. I read it, and because it was April 1st, I was like, okay, this is a joke, but you're going to piss some people off because you're tugging at some, you know, the wounds are still there from not having pinball. That was just November they announced that it wasn't happening. We should be, you know, pressing F5 right about now, trying to get in for that summer
    12:41
    event. And not only just in the United States, but here in Canada, there in Australia, all across the UK. Neil McRae was probably already writing a program to get into Pinberg. Somebody needs to do some explaining. You know, I don't like to pull out the pinball profile card here, but I do have Josh on speed dial. Maybe we need to speak to him. All right, let me dial him up. There he is. Hey, Josh, how are you doing? Wonderful.
    13:12
    Actually, pretty good. Today is two weeks after my second vaccine dose. So pretty good day. Pretty good day today. Congratulations on that. That's important. I'm glad to hear that. And it's funny, here in Canada and Marty in Australia, we don't know many people that have had vaccines in our country. It is weird, man, because, I mean, Illinois at least has their businesses that are classified as manufacturing got into, you know, one of the preferred groups, which Rothwells did qualify for. So, like, my circle of people in the coin-op industry, like Stern guys and the Ross Rills guys, like, I now know way more people that have gotten it than not gotten it.
    13:52
    It's super interesting. Yeah, that's just strange for me. I don't know anyone. Our rollout has been absolutely a schmuzzle. So, I don't think a lot of people have been vaccinated to begin with. And really, I don't think I'm going to be in the first group. I would have thought that you would have had yours by now, Jeff, given that they're going for the old people first. I don't know what's funnier, that joke or using the word shemazel, which I haven't heard since the Laverne and Shirley theme song.
    14:22
    Shemiel, shemazel, hot pepper incorporated. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, well done. No, not here in Canada, maybe late June, early July, but here we are talking to one of our American friends, and I actually don't think I know anybody in the States that hasn't either had a vaccine, had two, or is getting one within the next two weeks. Hey, we're good at something related to the pandemic. It just took us a year to be good at anything. But it's really topical because I think a lot of people are relying on this vaccine to work
    14:54
    to bring back competitive pinball, right? Yes, me, hey? That's why you're the headliner on this. Maestro Marzell reference was fine. Thank you very much. But it's true. It is. Like, you know, watching the dialogue between the state reps and provincial reps and the country reps, the discussion has heated up a bit as, you know, the light at the end of the tunnel gets brighter.
    15:24
    There were many months where there was no communication between everyone because we were all in our various circles of hell. But, you know, there seems to be, for a lot of the reps who are voting for the IFA to reopen or not, it does seem to be at least having vaccines eligible to enough people within the areas that they are kind of responsible for passing on the status of. That seems to be where they're all falling as sort of their default.
    15:57
    Like, they'll feel good about endorsing the sanctioning of events once they feel that anyone who wants a vaccine shot can get one in their community. So I guess that's why we're having IFPA, Bert. Is that what this is? Yeah. Someday. Maybe someday. Okay. April 1st, we always expect a joke from you. And I look forward to it, like everybody else, perhaps. Me too. Some jokes may be better than the other. How has the feedback been so far on this one? It's been pretty normal. pretty normal for a given April 1st day.
    16:31
    You know, I don't know. No different than most. Here are some words in the comments I've read. Lame, unfunny, classless, cruel, questionable taste. That's pretty par for the course, Jeff. If you go back to any April 1st year, that's kind of where we land. Did people think that this was real? Like, did people understand it was an April Fool joke? I mean, like most of the ones I do, you kind of never know until April 2nd. especially with our track record of mixing in meta-April announcements of stuff.
    17:02
    Is that because normally April Fool's jokes are funny? Yes, they are funny sometimes to the person who is telling the joke and sometimes to the recipient of the joke, but I would dare say that it's definitely funny to someone. And those that were in on this from the beginning found it to be a fucking riot. So, yeah, yeah. Okay, you say everyone in on this thought it was okay. Can I ask you a couple questions? Of course. Was the sane IFPA Women's Advisory Board in on this joke prior to it?
    17:36
    They knew it was coming for about a month, yeah. And how about all the places you named, like the places for the satellites, and not only that, but Stern Pinball themselves, that we've now got our hopes up that, wow, there are going to be these five new-in-box machines being given away. Oh, that was just a joke. I always believe, so when the things that are, when I'm going joke style, there's always an intentional, like, nuggets of information for people to be able to snuff it out. And not the locations, like I saw Tom Graff snuffed it out because he reached out to the District 82 owner who had heard nothing about this.
    18:14
    And to me, the fact that Tom reached out was enough for me. That was enough. Like, yeah, that's right. Go ask him, man. Go ask him. So there's always enough people that, you know, if you read the full announcement, you can do some real quick due diligence and either stuff something out or not. What were the flags for you, Marty? It's one of these weird ones where I looked at it and went, yeah, this is ridiculous, but it could be possible. You know, I don't think anything that you've said here is something that couldn't be done.
    18:47
    So, I mean, obviously, I knew because I know that this is coming every year. I know the date. You know, for us, because we are in the future, we've already had a gutful of April Fool's jokes. So this came late for us. It was like, oh, yeah, here's another one I knew. The flags for me, and I think maybe you put them out there for that reason, Josh, were the 300 people at all these various locations. At the sanctum. Impossible. That was the one that stood out for me. the horrible IFPA Berg logo that obviously an accountant made.
    19:23
    The fact of knowing how difficult it is to put this together and just the volunteers needed, we would have heard snuffs of this if it was real. And the fact that you really just shunned everyone in Europe, everyone in Australia, everyone in Canada. It's just go USA. Again, what I said, it all seems possible. I mean, bigger picture, and this was sort of part of our... No, you're right. Prickter. The April 2nd announcement, you know, this is something that I would say it's like, man,
    19:53
    I'm faced with these days with everyone that's posting misinformation. You get like the false, mostly false, neutral, mostly true, true. Like there's some spectrum of the dial where, you know, the idea of something like this is not out of the question. And I think, you know, once we figure out, like, where is the popper crew landing on things with respect to, you know, something match play related, like, I think the IFPA can then decide, is there a hole to fill here that we can do through a process like this?
    20:35
    And I mean, I liken it to, you know, NICS day, Jeff, that you've played in for the last few years. And we have a satellite day that's a head-to-head tournament where we have over a thousand people playing that day that feed a championship. So the idea of being able to organize something like that with a more open structure and a different playing format isn't something that I think is too far-fetched. The things in this April Fool's joke that I liked were, you're right, there is the possibility of something like this happening.
    21:09
    You gave the North American Championship Series as an example of a feeder event. Okay, that makes sense. The fact that there is now a big void, which you have said before, it doesn't matter, it does matter, it doesn't matter, back and forth. There are majors missing. We've now lost Pinberg. We've now lost Papa, it looks like, certainly in the near future. So now we're down to three. you know we did add the IFPA open so is there a need for another major? We added the IFPA open that was announced April 1st 2019. Well you also did the dollar thing too
    21:41
    on April 1st. That's right that's right I just wanted to Brad just wanted to tie that all together. The one thing about the $250 per person I think most of us that have participated in Pembroke said we don't care what the price is I mean not super ridiculous but $250 to plan that well you're pretty much paying $220 anyway to get in, we would probably do that. I'm sure Marty's travel costs for a Pinnberg trip, the entry fee is like a pimple on the ass of his total cost. Correct.
    22:12
    The $5,000. Oh, my God. Damn. Wow. Yeah. Get your eyes off Martin's ass, all right? He's my co-host here, all right? I've got some cream for those pimples. They're gone. I just wanted to let you know. But there it is. I mean, this is a possibility. So, yes, it was fake, and I'm dying to know some of the e-mails you got. You know, we had a pretty shitty one last week where we had some ransomware e-mail from Tiffany Hall last week. I bet you've got worse e-mails than we got.
    22:43
    Actually, honestly, I didn't get too much. Most people take their – they want their voice to be heard, so the Facebook comments and our website comments are probably home to most of the bad stuff. And some of your favorites? And some of your favorites. You go ahead and read that off. I'm not reading that stuff off. My favorite was April Fool's joke, what a knee slapper. Wow. Lame level 11. Now, you think you're being funny, Josh.
    23:14
    You know you are the president of an important pinball league. Yeah. Do you think the UFC pinball is going to pull shit like this? You have to ask them. It depends what kind of sick sense of humor the people that run that organization have, because I embrace my own sick sense of humor. Last week, we talked about the fact that Australia now has its vipers, right? Just for Victoria. It needs a logo so bad. It does.
    23:45
    Hold on, I'll make one for you that will be as good as FGAberg. And there it is. It's done in that amount of time. So I don't want to read your thoughts. I'd imagine you don't care because this is all going to come back, but is that on your radar, those kinds of things, and people doing alternate leagues? Yes, it is, and I think it's great. I think anything, IFPA was founded just to help continue to spread people playing competitive pinball, right?
    24:15
    So to me, there's nothing, and I mean this is sort of just how Zach and I were raised from our dad. It's less about, you know, the IFPA needing to be any kind of integral part of the growth or why people play. All we try to do is be a part of shouting in the same direction to get people to come out and play our crazy game. And anyone or anything that pushes people to that direction, hallelujah. You know, we need as much as we can get.
    24:46
    So, Vipers, USC Whoppers, the challenge stuff that we're doing now, I mean, anything you can do that motivates someone to hit start on a game of pinball and compete against someone directly or indirectly, bring it on. Bring it on. Do you know what it reminds me of, competitive pinball? We can play pinball at home, and we can play in a tournament or a league, and it's the same machine. It might have different settings and all that, but still, it's basically the same machine. Definitely the same rules. but what the competition does for me, I don't know what it is.
    25:19
    I think of if I were to play on a softball team and I led my team in home runs or hitting, okay, that's kind of fine and dandy, but what if the league all of a sudden said, you know what, we're going to keep stats for everyone and, oh, you can compare. And then we're going to go one step further. We're going to compare it across the country or the world. That's what the IFPA is for me. It's like, okay, well, you become this big fish in this little pond and all of a sudden the pond just got a lot bigger. So how big a fish are you? That's the attractiveness. That's kind of how it was. I mean, I think I've told the story enough times, but, I mean, really, the Whopper system started out of my own need and want to see how I compared against the best players in the world, many of which I never directly played against ever.
    26:01
    So you get, you know, a system that now allows people to indirectly compete. compete, and it's like, you know, I know early on, before you guys were both into all this, there was a whole lot of pushback from American players that, like, any of these international people who they had never heard of, like, the fact that they had never heard of them just meant, like, there's no way they were good, right? So, you'd have someone like a Johannes, who, without the Whopper system, like, he would just be, if he was just only playing in Europe, you'd never have that direct interaction that
    26:35
    would allow someone to, I guess, gain some level of respect from elite players. So it's been cool to see. I mean, we've now fast forwarded to it's way easier for people to watch people online and whatnot. But back in the day, you really had no idea. It's like, I know Frank Bona because he came over for an expo once, but I don't know any of these other names on here. The people that are winning EPCs and winning Dutch Pinball Opens and knowing if they're any good or not. So it was fun to put that initial list together and then see how it motivated people to kind of keep up with the Joneses, so to speak.
    27:12
    You used to chase that, didn't you, Marty, a little bit, to kind of see where you were in your state and your country? Yeah, to an extent. I was always happy with where I was. It was one of those things where, kind of going back to what you were saying before, it's like, wow, I can compare myself with all these people. So even when I was like top, I don't know, 100 in Australia, I was like, hey, that's freaking cool. I'm top 100. It got obviously a bit higher than that. But I was never thinking, oh, I'm not happy about this until I'm number one.
    27:43
    It was always just good to be able to see where you were, mainly with people around you, like friends and close people to have a bit of friendly rivalry with. Yeah, my dad and Steve Epstein, just to pick up on that, Marty. They were in the rankings comparing themselves to one another. That was kind of their shtick of being able to follow each other and say who was better or whatever. So the great thing about the system is it allows people to take whatever they want out of it for entertainment purposes.
    28:13
    I would find that I would look at the head page more than I would look at the world rankings Ha ha me too me too For me especially early on there was just a sense of like there would be players that I would just feel like, you know, I mean, I go into most matches, like, expecting to win, and then there was kind of a list of players where it's like, ah, fuck, you know, this is tough. And you start to gain, I don't know, not like being afraid to play someone, but just having this weird subconscious, like, this is going to be a real challenge.
    28:48
    And then you look and it's like, oh, those are all the people that I'm red against on my head-to-head for some reason. Like, why do I, I don't feel that same way against other good players, just based on my own experiences. It's really, it's fascinating. It is fascinating because I have a lot of friends that I see, certainly locally, that we play tons of matches. And when you look at your player versus player, the person you play the most will be the first one, whether you're red or whether you're green. And, you know, that becomes kind of your nemesis, if you will, especially if it's certainly close. And I really get a kick out of that. And then, of course, it's neat to see people you play infrequently, whether it be across the world.
    29:22
    And IFPA has all that. And, of course, it's all summed up by the, what are there, almost 80,000 players in the IFPA now? Let's see. 78,915. Wow. That's a lot of people. And, I mean, Josh, how long have you been playing? 93. Wow. Almost 30 years competitive. Yeah. It's been just about seven for me. I see you're 56th in the world. I know that's come down a little bit, but... Dying. Dying a slow death. I'm 48th. Hmm. That's a nice screenshot. Hold on.
    29:52
    Hold on. Let me... Okay, good. All right, my player versus player at least. Oh, good. 23-5-1 against Jeff Teolis. So, yeah, you're not someone I fear, so that's cool. 23-5-1, I'll take it. You know what's really funny about that is that I think it's really interesting that I look at mine and I say, this player, that player, and that player, they're in my sights. They're my nemesis. And then someone comes up to me and says, you're my nemesis. I'm like, wow. I'm like, oh, of course. It's the other reverse. I'm the one that's beating you.
    30:22
    Yeah, okay. I love it. I think that's cool. Yeah, you got me. 23-5-1. Oh, look at the last six, though. Three and three. Sure, yeah. It would be even better if you were like, hey, look at the last one. And then I could be like, yeah, look at the other 28. I like the way this is going. But I'm looking forward to competition so much, and I think it's safe to say we are going to see probably more competitions in a short amount of time than ever before once the IFBA comes up and is back again and endorsing these tournaments.
    30:53
    I think poor Adam Beckerman. It is going to be like someone dropping like 8 million anvils on his head, I think. hopefully though I know just before the pandemic hit he was we were starting to push Becker's boundaries of workload and I know Michael Trepp from Switzerland has stepped up and he's going to help with like European event approvals and stuff so he was ready to go and then the world ended so hopefully he is
    31:24
    still open to his volunteering his time now that we're a year later when we do get going again but yeah man And it's been a nice, I mean, even without me doing results stuff, just doing the payment deposits and answering emails was like one to two hours a day every day. And it's been nice to not have that for a while. You mentioned about 20 minutes ago the numbers from state reps, from provincial reps, from country reps, those percentages have been going up. Can you give us the latest status on that?
    31:55
    Still 35% still in favor. So we're still, Australia is a yes and Illinois is a yes, and that's all we can speak to on this phone call. I don't think my province is a yes for sure. There's not a chance in Ontario. There are no provinces in Canada that are a yes. Oh, really? I thought Alberta was. At one time I know they were. They were, but Derek must have rolled it back unless, yeah, yeah, yeah. He rolled it back in February. My guess, and who knows, right?
    32:25
    We have to survive this third wave and hopefully more vaccines roll out for everyone. I wonder if they'll do vaccine passports. That's going to be a nightmare, too. But maybe it's necessary. Who knows? My guess right now is probably August 1st. Who knows? Would you say that's a safe bet? Would I say it's a safe bet? I'm not going to say anything's a safe bet at this point. But August 1st, it would be great. I think August 1st would be great. It's my dad's birthday. That would be apropos. but let's just
    32:56
    you know get through it I mean depending on the news channel you watch even down here it's like are you supposed to be fearing the fourth wave that's coming or are you supposed to be like happy that you know a third of the country is vaccinated and it's like I don't know so I think I mean we were doing like 4 million shots a day here in our country over Easter weekend like let's fast forward a month and get 120 more shots in arms and see where we're sitting. You know, even talking with my wife about, you know,
    33:28
    plans into the fall and winter and whatever, it's like it's so hard to imagine what it's going to be like two months from now, because that could be 200 million shots in arms for this country by then. No, I think I've canvassed quite a few people in Australia, and everyone's sort of writing off this year, saying that it's all going to happen next year. There you go. Australia is a yes, so, yeah. Yeah, but Australia is a yes relying on the rest of the world for a yes. Relying on a lot of America to say yes. Well, I was
    33:58
    going to say the world. I really wasn't going to name names, but come on, guys. It's not me. We know where the majority... Well, the majority come from the state, so I guess it makes sense that the state has to be... It does make sense. No question about it. So, fingers crossed. That'll be soon. Thanks for your April Fool's Day joke and your conspiracies. I know you're a busy man with your work with QAnon. Anyway, Josh, thank you. They're not talking about you. They don't care. We care. We love pinball. And appreciate you coming on. Thanks, Josh.
    34:28
    Thanks, man. Have a good night. I know, Martin, you always like to say, you know, there's Josh. What did we learn? Not a lot. The guy likes to really just poke the bear. He really does. And a lot of people weren't happy, but it's just fun, people. It's fun until we don't have that tournament I mentioned, because that tournament sounded like a lot of fun. But there are other tournaments, and I'm sure we'll see a whack of them later in this year. But, you know, in lieu of tournaments, there is competition. There is
    34:59
    contesting, if you will, in pinball. And some people are saying, I'm just reading what the critics are saying, maybe the most exciting contest in pinball history. And it just so happens to be on Final Round. It's our most overrated Battle Royale. What has happened, Marty? Well, there was a bit of an interesting turn of events with this, because I think that people thought that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that was on the list was the Stern machine because it did get some, I would say, unnaturally high votes.
    35:29
    But it was actually the Data East one, which is ranked so low that I think people did get a bit of a mix-up. It did make it to I think maybe the quarter finals. Wow. But we're doing it in two parts because we have 64 different games, so we've only concluded kind of the one side of the bracket, correct? That's correct. Let's do the top four. Really was Pirates of the Caribbean, Jersey Jack versus Kingpin. Pirates of the Caribbean won that one. Isn't that interesting? They're both extremely expensive games.
    36:02
    Kingpin, I don't even know how many people would have played that, so maybe that's part of the factoring in the votes. Yeah, true. But Pirates, I did see a collector's edition up on, I think it might have been on Pinside, for $30,000 US. So I think that doesn't help its argument. And what was on the other side? We then had Adam's Family versus Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Data Race. Or Data Rease? Just don't say that. There's no R anywhere in that. Data. Stop. Ease.
    36:32
    Yeah. Sure. Aluminum. Yep. Keep going. Schedule. Mm-hmm. So I think Adam's Family won that. Yeah, it did comfortably. And so then it was Jersey Jack's Pirates of the Caribbean versus Adam's Family. Adam's Family wound up being the most overrated of the two. Do you agree with that? Yes. I think for me, taking away the price of the machines, all that kind of stuff, I still think Adam's Family, for me, it is one of the most overrated games ever.
    37:05
    Period. Full stop. Done. Where is it in Pinside Top 100 when Pinside.com is online? It was offline for a few days this week. I don't know. It's top 100 for sure, but probably top 50, I would assume. I would say probably top 30. It used to be really quite higher, but it's still right at the top. Tough to say for me for that one because I think Pirates is going to... I mean, I guess the complaint about Pirates is there's a lot of multiballs. Sure, you get that, but there's a lot of things to shoot too. Maybe some gimmicky things.
    37:37
    Is the boat up top right? Is that the greatest thing? I don't know. It's fun. It's hard to shoot. Wide bodies are always going to take a bit of a knock. And then there's the fact that, I don't know, the code's pretty deep, man. If I had to pick a code that I want to play, you can't say the code is overrated on Pirates compared to what you see and, again, what was available with Adam's family. So, interesting. Adam's family goes on to the finals against the next bracket of 32. So that'll be starting very soon. In fact, this week. Yes, it will. So look out.
    38:07
    It'll be on our Facebook page. Poor Ryan sees them waiting to get on, and I think, honestly, we're just stalling a little bit because, you know, you don't always get the greatest guests on the show. You do this every couple weeks. It was nice of Josh to join in, and we had Eric Menear last week, but Ryan's coming up, and it's funny how we actually can see the stats of when people stop listening. So I guess what I'm trying to say is we still have to get paid. Thank goodness for our sponsor of the week. Marty, when you think of streaming, drinking, and pinball, what do you think of?
    38:43
    Is this an ad for Melbourne Silver Bowl? Okay, yeah, that's true, but no, no, no. What if you add pro wrestling introductions, goofy imitations, and a whole lot of smackdown? You must be talking about top rope pinball with Robert Byers. The wigs, the robes, the belts, oh my. It's the most electrifying stream in pinball sports entertainment, and just in time for WrestleMania this weekend. Don't you remember his acceptance speech at the reach-arounds? I remember a lot of what Robert said, but not the whole 23 minutes. Well, let me tell you, if you want the best, you gotta beat the best.
    39:16
    Woo! And no one is better than Top Rope Pinball. Can I ask, were we paid to say these things? Of course we were. But that is not the point. I'm sure we would gladly plug this anyway. We would? Yeah, of course we would. Catch Top Rope Pinball on Twitch. Follow and subscribe today. And coming this October, Robert will not only be streaming pinball, but he'll be renting wrestling costumes for Halloween. Those costumes may have typical body odors, still drinks, stretch marks, and fist fangs. Marty, it is that time once again where we have to remember our past
    39:48
    and remember our roots, where we came from. And for you, most definitely, it was your bonding with one Ryan C. on Head to Head Pinball. He joins us once again. Hello, Ryan. My little pecker, my little pecker, my little pecker. G'day, lads. Thanks for making me come on after, like, Eric Meunier and then Josh Sharp. So, scraping the bottom of the barrel again. Definitely a route I'd like to forget, but you're here, so... It's good to hear you, Ryan. It's been a while since Jesse J's Pinball Adventure. Is that on hiatus?
    40:20
    I mean, it's not like you haven't ditched a podcast before. Ooh, too soon. Two years ago isn't too soon. I'm a fickle guy, what can I say? I get interested in people like Marty and Jesse Jay, and then, I don't know. I mean, with Marty, the reach-arounds just got a little bit lazy and weren't there. And I see that you've invigorated Marty, you know, a lot of reach-arounds. Jess, the writing's on the wall. Is it really? No. Oh, okay. You had me worried there.
    40:51
    No, it's like we started the podcast during peak, you know, isolation. And we've talked about it a million times before. or Melbourne had one of the most intense, you can't leave a five-kilometer zone. So we had nothing to do except record podcasts and have a good time. But now it's like, you know, we had summer, things are happening, work, life, relationships. It's hard to kind of prioritize people podcasting sometimes between two people. Sometimes I'm available, sometimes she's not.
    41:22
    The motivation may not be there. But like it was with Marty, just because we're not recording doesn't mean I'm not involved in a pinball landscape. I've said many times, I speak to Ryan all the time. We're still mates. We just don't do a podcast. I sold Marty's machine the other day for, I think you already talked about it two weeks ago, Marty, but for ridiculous amounts of money, like a running gag, that you're just fleecing the entire market with like an evil laugh. I'm actually not. Someone actually did reach out after the last episode and said,
    41:54
    they didn't ask how much I sold it for, but they said, look, here's my machine, Lord of the Rings, or what do you think it would go for? And I still think that mine was, even though I got good coin for it, Lord of the Rings goes for a lot more than mine. Yeah. No, it wasn't actually crazy amounts of money. And considering how much a Led Zeppelin sells for brand new, like a pro, compared to the Lord of the Rings, I don't care what price Lord of the Rings originally sold for out of the box and whatever.
    42:26
    If you put the machines side by side, I know there's more assets and it takes longer to, you know, more assets in terms of like the screen, you have to hire more people and maybe the license costs more now, etc. If you compare them side by side, like the new in-box pinball machine prices are what drives the old prices up. It becomes a thing. People are like, why can't I buy fishtails for $1,000 anymore? It's like, well, because fishtails is better than a Stern Pro. like certain Stern Pros, and they cost $9,500 here. So, yeah, you're going to have to pay like six, seven grand for an average for sales.
    42:59
    Prices have gone through the roof. It's, I think, related to the pandemic because of the supply. The supply has been ridiculous. I know, Ryan, you've been talking about it for a while. Are we getting good pinball machines nowadays? I think we definitely are getting amazing pinball machines. It's just the lack of supply. And I think maybe, you know, I don't think it's on purpose because of everything that kind of happens. But I think Stern are always learning about supply and demand and certain things and situations are forced upon them.
    43:30
    Sometimes they do it themselves. They're like, all right, let's sell a topper for $1,000. Let's see what happens. Like, okay, this still works. Let's push the ceiling. Oh, we can sell a Pimor machine, you know, a super limited edition Pimor machine for this much. Okay, we tested the market. but I think this situation, obviously, they didn't plan for it but the backlog just kind of shows that, yeah, when there's a limited supply of pinball machines then it kind of drives the market crazy because the second-hand market dries up.
    44:02
    Pinball machines aren't being sold. There's a Hobbit pinball machine in Australia that sold for, in the same condition that mine was in that I sold maybe two years ago. I sold mine for $8,700 Australian dollars. And this one sold, and I struggled to sell it, and this one sold for like $13,500 or something. I was like, oh my gosh, what an amazing deal. I'm like, well, it's just, yeah, things dry up. And it's like, well, if you have to pay $15,500 or $16,000 for Guns N' Roses, I guess a Hobbit is worth this much money.
    44:34
    Yeah, and sort of back to your question as well, Jeff, about are the machines better now? I am in the camp that says today's machines are better than Bally Williams. I know there's a lot of reverence for all those machines. I still think machines that come out today are better, mainly because of the deeper rule set so you get longevity out of them. But it comes back to what Ryan's saying. They're now so expensive that a $7,000 fishtails is good enough for a machine in somebody's house,
    45:06
    as opposed to a $12,000, $13,000 brand new machine. This is the hard part. People are still... The hobby has definitely expanded in the last year, especially in Australia. How do you guide someone that you know who's getting into the hobby what machine to buy? You might as well tell them to buy a brand new Stern Pro or a JJP or whatever it is and say, sorry, you have to suck it up because I struggle to tell people, oh, hey, it's okay, you can pick up a Judge Dredd for $6,000. it's like no, you might as well buy a Stern Pro
    45:38
    with a theme that you like for $9,500 because the old machines are going to come with a bunch of issues and if you want to restore one then you're paying a higher price than a brand new machine anyway so it's scary I wouldn't want to be new into pinball at the moment sport's the choice in terms of game selection but the prices are just a bit crazy Yeah, a friend of mine reached out probably about a month ago someone I've known for many, many years and he wanted to buy a pinball machine for the games room for his children and he was asking me for guidance on what to do
    46:10
    and I said, well, you know, if you buy a new one, it's this price. And he just went, oh, I'm out. You know what I mean? People just don't realise that they... And look, I've been selling my house, so I've had a lot of people in and it's always a number one question, how much do one of these things cost? And their jaws just drop. People just don't realise that that's how much they cost. It depends on how much you play it as someone new into the hobby. I have one of my daughter's friends' dad who reached out to me and is like, I've got a brand new house, Ryan.
    46:41
    I want a games room. Can you sell me a pinball machine? Can you do this? I'm like, no, but I can rent you a pinball machine because it costs this much to buy. And he's like, holy crap. And in that games room now, he has one of my machines rented. But for the same cost that it costs him to rent the machine off me for, say, three months, he has like an arcade machine with, you know, a thousand titles in one. And then he's got like a basketball hoop thing for his kids. And then there's a pinball machine. And the pinball machine is always going to be, unless you buy like a raw thrift machine, it's going to be the most expensive thing in the game room
    47:13
    because of what's involved. But people that are kind of into it casually, that it's just kind of like, okay, well, I'll play this, my mates can come over and have a beer. They're not going to appreciate why it costs how much it does. Don't tell these noobs about what toppers cost, because then they'll be losing their minds. I still can't get over the fact that people, I think the three of us, will never buy a topper. I think that's pretty safe to say. You know, my dream team came out. I'm not buying a topper. But I also can say that, not hurting the sales of toppers, because they will sell out instantly.
    47:46
    I think that's smart on them to limit them as far as knowing exactly what they're going to get. I think they could probably sell more even if they add a few to the limit. But I just don't get it. People are into pinball for different things. And I really have, in this pandemic, seen more and more about what the collectors are seeing, which is certainly not the category I would fall into. Or I don't think you two either. But the collectors, it's about the mods. It's about the toppers. It's about how it looks. And damn it all, that better not pool.
    48:18
    It better not have dimpling. It better not have this and that, you know, around the scoops. boy, there better be a Cliffy, it better be pristine. In other words, don't fucking play it, just look at it. That, I still don't get. There's a fine line. I know there's some collectors that'll have the world's most amazing machines, and also they play like an absolute dream. And then there's some collectors who'll have the brass-plated gold this, and the best, the limited edition Tupper and Totem, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But, you know, the feeds for the Demol machine are shit,
    48:48
    or the flippers need to be rebuilt, or something like that. and you can't put everyone in the same category because there are people that are anal about stuff, but it really depends. Like I dropped a pinball machine the other day to a customer that's been renting pinball machines for a year. He recommended me to his friend and it was in a very kind of affluent suburb. It was probably Marty's house because, you know, he's been making money off. Anyway, I dropped off. It ended up being Jurassic Park. This guy's an absolute noob. He got like my most wanted machine
    49:18
    and this guy's house, like the room that this machine went in, I wish I took a photo, like it would have been the cheapest thing in the room. Like he had like just, it was just the most plush room ever. And I was thinking, man, I'm lucky I bought Jurassic Park, like a brand new clean machine. I bought like a Getaway High Speed 2, which is, you know, like been in bars with that smells like smoke for the last, you know, like 25 years. It just wouldn't have fit. So we don't know where all these Pimor machines are going. and if you have money and you want it to be an accessory,
    49:52
    then that's also fine. Speaking of toppers, we saw that the Stranger Things topper got released in the last couple of weeks. $649, that's US, so it's down in price. Again, it's probably not the most complicated as far as mechanics go, but it's a very cool effect. I do love the infinity lighting sort of mirror effect. I think this is Stern kind of learning a bit where they're going, okay, we probably can't charge $1,000 for this because they haven't got any moving parts.
    50:25
    But it's still quite an impressive thing to look at. What are your thoughts? Yeah, it's fine. It fits the theme. It's good. I can never, ever, ever justify the price. And I say that knowing that, you know, whether it's you selling Lord of the Rings, your Jurassic Park, or anybody selling any older titles that are getting big bucks for it, the game is worth what people are willing to pay for it. So if people are willing to pay $6.49 U.S. for a topper, then I guess that's what it's worth. It just isn't worth it to me, although it's one of those things.
    50:55
    If you have a collection and you've got one, and then you look at your other machines and go, oh, they're naked without a topper, you kind of want to – it's like the color DMV things we talked about last week. So it's that one pinball machine usually doesn't sit well by itself, and you've got to add another one and then another one, and then we all find that we've fallen down that rabbit hole. This is why I don't have Invisiglass on my machines, because I know it would be like a $15,000 exercise to get every single one of my machines with Invisiglass. So you're right.
    51:25
    Once you do one, you have to do them all. And when you think about it, the same logic you're applying, Jeff, to toppers is we can just take one step back and talk about just pinball machines in general. Like when I buy a limited edition machine or a really expensive machine, in the back of my head, I'm only buying it because I know it's going to hold enough value. and I can't apply that to accessories yet, but that's all that people have been doing now. Like, okay, I will buy this stupid topper because I like it and it will hold value. Like, toppers are now holding value
    51:55
    and people are making money off it. So if people are buying $1,000 toppers and then, you know, they go to sell the machine or they separate it and it's worth $200, no one's going to be doing it. It now has been turned into the same kind of like collector's market as limited edition pinball machines and that's why it's now a lot more successful. Take that away and you're back at the walking dead days where people were buying it and no one gave a shit about it. Now they're selling for $2,000. Yeah, I absolutely agree.
    52:25
    I've seen toppers up on Facebook Marketplace just being sold for ridiculous prices and they sell. They do. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's just a collector market within the collector market. There's nothing really different about it compared to limited edition pinball machines like Jurassic Park, which sell way above the purchase price? I still don't think pinball manufacturers are still making billions off this stuff. I still think it's relatively low margin as far as a physical product goes.
    53:01
    Stern's in a good position because they sell a lot of units. Jersey Jack now, obviously, with Guns N' Roses, sells a lot of units. but most companies don't make a lot of money. There hasn't been a new pinball machine released in a while and it seems like right now would be the perfect, I know you can't flick a switch and all of a sudden have 100 machines ready to go and ship out, but surely there'll be a point where manufacturing catches up to supply and then there's a bit of a lull and things will calm down,
    53:31
    unless they kind of leave it in this state where they're like, We actually like being in a deficit all the time because it drives prices up. But will there be a point kind of at the end of the year where everything catches up? I don't know. Probably not with the titles that Stern are going to come out with. They don't really release, like, dud licenses anymore. So, you know, if they bring out Godzilla or James Bond, whatever the rumors are, surely the backlog will just continue to grow. Do you think Godzilla and or James Bond are killer things?
    54:03
    Well, Godzilla's meant to be like Keith Allen, so I think that's like he has his own following, including me, regardless if he can take a shit on the play field and I'll still buy it. Guess what? Wait till you see his new toy. James Bond. I don't know. How do you do James Bond in a pinball machine? Do you do one movie? Do you do one guy? Do you do like Pierce Bronson James Bond? Do you do Daniel Craig? Do you do... George Lazenby. George Lazenby won. What's that one? Is that the Queen something?
    54:34
    Honor Majesty's Secret Service 1970. Yeah. Are you a massive James Bond fan, Jeff? Huge. Try me on anything. Okay, what movie took place in Malta? What James Bond movie had a couple of scenes in Malta? Ooh. Octopussy? I don't actually know the answer to the question. I'll check right now. what James Bond movie was in Malta. Man with a Golden Gun.
    55:05
    The Spy Who Loved Me. I was off. I had the right Bond, the wrong movie. The Spy Who Loved Me. Ah, yes. My two Bond questions. First one is, what's the best Bond car? The Aston Martin. Which is, I think, the DB5. The other one is that Lotus Esprit that goes underwater. I think that's pretty iconic. Sure. Yeah, yeah. When is the new James Bond movie coming out? There is the last Daniel Craig one, I think. Has it already been filmed and they're just holding it back?
    55:36
    No Time to Die. Yeah, it's been done for a while. It was supposed to be released in April of 2020. Whoops. Pandemic. So it's coming out this fall. Other question? Best Bond theme song. For years it would have been Goldfinger, but I've got to say Adele's Skyfall is just crazy good. What's the Casino Royale one? I think that's my favorite. That's Chris Cornell. It's a great song. You Know My Name. Yeah, that song. But it's not really a Bond. It's a great Cornell song. I don't know how Bond-y it is, though.
    56:06
    Does it have to be a female singing for it to be good, though? No. No, God, no. What makes a Bond song a Bond song? No, because Thunderball by Tom Jones is super powerful and awesome as well. You're both wrong. The best one is A Viewed or Killed by Duran Duran. Go Google when they sang it live at Live Aid. It's the worst note ever sung live. By Simon LeBlanc. A view to a kill! And by the way, that's actually how we did it. A little kiss is all we need Yeah it pretty bad The second is Living Daylights by Aha Just saying
    56:43
    Oh, come on. No, everyone hated that one. I loved it. And third, Madonna. Jeff, who's your favorite Bond girl? Oh, without a doubt. No question about it. But nobody knows who she is. Pussy Galore? Miranda Frost. Nobody knows who that is. Miranda Frost. I may have had a thing for Rosamund Pike for years and years and years. You might know her best from the movie Gone Girl. Mark Silk knows how much I love that woman. Oh, my gosh. You were talking about this girl before, Jeff.
    57:15
    I remember this. Number one in my books. I'll tell you that. By the way, my wife knows that, too. Mine's Simone Luttrell, who plays Solitaire in Her Majesty's Secret Service. Good one. Mine's Terry Hatcher. Terry Hatcher, yeah. That's funny. Yeah, she was in one of those Pierce Bronson movies too, wasn't she? Yeah, Tomorrow Never Dies. Yeah, she was great. So that's the thing. If you do a Bond pinball machine, to me, the things that are legendary about Bond movies are the villains, the gadgets, and the Bond girls.
    57:48
    How about that line that Pierce Bronson pulls when he's having sex with Denise Richards at the end of one of, I can't remember which movie it was, and her name is Christmas? Christmas Jones? and at the end it zooms out and he's like, I thought Christmas only comes one time a year. I'm like, ah, that is the worst fucking line in a Bond movie ever. The stereotypes have not held up well here in 2021 with many of the Bond movies, so let's just call that for what it is and who knows. I mean, we'll see if that game ever gets made,
    58:20
    but there are games that are being made. Guns and Roses, spectacular game, big winner at the Twippies, of course, and I think you have been in love with that game for quite some time, haven't you Ryan? Guns N' Roses? Yeah I do enjoy it I admit now I'm at the point where I don't understand the nuances enough with the patches and I'm at the point where I know how to get the I know how to get decent enough scores but when you kind of like watch Carl D'Angelo or see like a headline like Carl gets a 99 million
    58:51
    point jackpot you're like okay I need to do some research and learn this a bit more because there's definitely a different layer to the onion of that game that I haven't peeled back yet. So my GNR is on location and it's doing pretty well. I haven't really been paying attention to the quality of the play field, but a local competition guy messaged me the other day. He's like, did you know that your GNR is pooling? I'm like, holy shit, is it? And he sent me some photos. And sure enough, I got one of the first batches to Australia as a standard.
    59:24
    And there's some very light pooling around the posts, regardless of kind of like the rubber they have underneath, but there's some steel posts in the in lanes, at the top of the in lanes. And yeah, unfortunately it's pulling to the point where I know it's going to break apart. And I did reach out to Jersey Jack because the same thing happened to my Willy Wonka. And the process was I messaged them, showed them some pictures. And then after a year, I received a kind of a complimentary play field.
    59:55
    And I will never install that in the machine. It just kind of gets sold with the machine or apart, whatever. It's just kind of there. But it's kind of like peace of mind that, you know, like if someone is really crazy about it, your machine holds its value. I did reach out to Jersey Jack. I haven't, fair warning, I haven't reached out to my distributor. I know they can kind of help a little bit. And so I don't want this to be like an unfair thing where I'm saying it's not going to be sold. But I did reach out to them and Jersey Jack kind of said, this is no longer a thing. You will not receive a play field.
    60:26
    if you want, we can send you some washes. Full stop. So it's a bit disheartening. If this was a machine that was a limited edition and it was in my collection, I would go absolutely nuts. I don't think I would be able to buy another Jersey Jack machine or a Sturm machine. It doesn't really matter what manufacturer. You can't buy a new machine, spend that kind of money, and have that happen to you and have the manufacturer say, just like, ah, sorry, we don't fix these issues anymore. We make shit play fields, and that's what we do. because that's what it kind of is.
    60:57
    Because it's on location, I don't mind too much because it was bought kind of as an investment to make money and when I sell it, I don't think it'll matter. But I definitely feel for people if they bought this for themselves and I'm not sure why it's different, but it just is. And hopefully, I think the issue is now solved. But I don't really go on Pinsight anymore and read up about it and I heard rumours about it like, oh, hey, JGP aren't doing this anymore, and I didn't go and troll on the forums.
    61:28
    I just kind of reached out by myself. And, yeah, that was a direct email from the guy who's the head of whatever it is at JGP. He said, sorry, we don't fix it anymore. So there you go. That's the state of new pinball machines. Well, we tried to get somebody to come on, and, you know, I can't say we've tried extensively. We kind of put out the offer there. We would love to hear from anybody, from Jersey Jack, from Stern, from any pinball company, and talk about their warranties. We haven't had any traction yet on that.
    62:00
    I'm also concerned, and when I talked about my Led Zeppelin limited edition issues that I had last week, I didn't want to say anything for quite some time because nothing had been resolved yet. So I didn't think it was fair to say, oh, this, this, this, this, this. I thought it would be safe. Let me find out what's going on. Let me find out what their reaction is. And then when it's all said and done, then I can relay the entire story. Otherwise, it might have sounded like sour grapes and probably didn't really get any resolution. So it's funny, when I did that, I know people, Dr. Marty and both me,
    62:33
    do you think they did that because you are somebody who has a podcast or two? And I hope that's not the case because I know other people that have been receiving replacement populated play fields. They have to deal with it on a case-by-case basis. They can't come out and say, we will fix this. I remember what happened to Ghostbusters, and it was just an absolute shit show in Australia. I'm not sure if everyone else experienced the same thing. But they can't just say, we will fix everything, because then some people don't care about it. I would like to know what the degrees of a play field they would consider warped.
    63:08
    And one of the things they had me do was take a ruler and see if I could put coins underneath it. Sadly, I could put a few coins underneath it. A roll of coins. On both sides. So it was pretty clear cut that this was worked. But is there some degree where they allow? Okay, you know, if it's within one degree, maybe. That's what I kind of want to know. There's got to be something to give customers some sort of confidence in putting this big upfront payment. I want some more security.
    63:39
    I want to buy another game. I am waiting to see what the quality is like. and also I want some assurances of these warranties. I need to have that to have some sort of confidence because if I ever get burned, I get burned once. Once only, I learn my lesson. That would have been it. You said the same thing, Ryan. In any other industry, if this happened and say it was a car manufacturer and it got out in the news like, oh my gosh, Jeep is selling absolute lemons at the moment and they won't fix their issues, no one's going to buy a Jeep
    64:09
    and everyone's just going to jump onto the next thing. What we're seeing now is Stern obviously have a massive share of the market. JTP has that one title that everyone wants, and everyone else is kind of lagging behind. And there's a shortage. When you combine those three things together, like the lack of quality, the two people making thermal machines at the moment, mainly Stern, and the shortage, it's not a good combination of things to happen for the consumer. If you have a backlog of 5,000 machines and people are complaining about the quality,
    64:41
    but there's 5,000 people wanting the machines and potentially not caring as much as the other person, I think it's very hard for them to sit in a meeting. Obviously, they want to produce their machines to a really high standard and quality, but if there's that much money on the table for other people, they're just like, well, this is kind of the new... We can't obsess over these things when we have 5,000 people screaming for our machines and we've increased prices. Yeah, that's reality, but it's a shit reality. Well, what Ryan said was true. Right now, it's the perfect storm where they don't have to be responsible.
    65:13
    Look, we've got back orders. There's not a lot of supply out there. People will pay what they want to pay. It's not always going to be that case, and you want to keep your customers happy. So I would like to know what these kind of warranties are, what is considered fine. You know, JJP, we're hearing from some of the, not JJP, but we're hearing it from people who've had some feedback, what they consider fine as far as play fields are, as far as this pooling issue. And then customers make their choices after that. Yeah, I guess really is how is this going to play out?
    65:43
    That's what it is right now. They're in the position where they can do it. But will that have an impact on future sales? I think what we're saying is it depends. If they have another killer title that everybody wants, then it won't matter because people's desire to have that machine, they will overlook the shortcomings of the playfields. Exactly. GNR, CE are selling for like crazy amounts of money. So I think it's at the point now where whatever the next JGP CE is, I think it'll sell out because it'll have like the what do we call it the Rob Zombie effect
    66:13
    like remember when Rob Zombie sold out like regardless people didn't even care like who the fuck is Rob Zombie doesn't matter gonna make money off this everyone knows what Toy Story is if they release a CE which they will and it's 500 units it'll probably sell out again like it doesn't matter what the playful quality is like people are still gonna buy it in box for double the price of the original so I think we're past that well you said Keith Elwin potentially might be having a Godzilla machine coming out sometime this year, and you said he could take a turd on the machine and it would still sell out.
    66:44
    You actually have a theory about Keith Elwin games, that there are two layers. Is that true? I was talking to you about it before, Jeff. I mean, I remember me and Marty, back in the day when we first started recording, I think we asked Stephen Bowden, and we were like, what makes Lyman Sheets games so good, like The Walking Dead? And he was talking about the multiple layers to The Onion where it's very simple. like you bash on the well walker and it's very accessible and you get a multi ball and you hit the drop target you can get a mode you can hit some shots but then there's like all these rule
    67:17
    nuances that you kind of learn and it's what makes the game great and stay in a collection with heath elwyn games maybe not drastic park but maybe iron maiden and i'm not sure if there's a product of the software or the layout but i feel like there's definitely layers to the onion but to me it's like there's two layers there's one really accessible game to the everyday person right smash on you know smash on the uh on the captive ball you get floor multi-ball and there's
    67:47
    all the easy stuff that's really close to the flipper button and then there's the stuff for like the top 100 players that love the crazy rules and gems and this and that but then there's the stuff in the middle for people like me who at the moment don't really want to read rule books and i feel like there's like a there's a missing layer there's a missing layer for like the player who's decent at pinball which i think i am like i understand the easy rules like very much so i'm not good enough to appreciate the special nuance rules maybe that maybe that's just me but i feel like there isn't something in the middle it's like okay here's all the easy stuff
    68:21
    for the noobs like you fucking idiots like you could do this and i know you're gonna have fun and then it's like here's the stuff for me and my friends and then there's everyone else in the Am I alone in this thought? I don't know. I stopped listening. What do you think, Marty? I agree to an extent, but I don't think it matters with Lyman, the really secret, hidden stuff for the good players. I'm still of the feeling that if you can just keep the ball alive
    68:52
    and you can hit the flashing shots, you're going to activate a lot of that stuff anyway. I still really think that what really sets these top players from us is the ability to keep the ball alive, to recover from shots when they're going to go out the eight lane or the centre. Yeah, I mean, look, I use Escher as an example. I mean, he knows the rules as well, but you've still got to be able to hit your shots to make those rules actually happen. So the short of it is I agree to an extent,
    69:23
    but I still think that those rules aren't that far away from us. I think they're there. We've just got to be able to hit them. Let's use an example. Marty, you've gotten to the final Wizard mode of Wizard of Oz, which I've never gotten to before. It's pretty safe to say that you understand all of the rules. Well, you know, maybe 95% of the rules in Wizard of Oz. Is that correct? Yeah, there still are a couple that... Like the horse of a different color I still don't get, yeah. No one's going to understand that. what percentage of the rules do you think you knew for Jurassic Park?
    69:57
    Oh, quite a lot. Quite a lot. Like, I know what to do to get to the wizard mode. I know... What I don't really know is when you get into a particular mode, what are the shots and what are the rules that you need to do in each of the modes? But I know enough to just hit the flashing shots and how to get into them and complete them, I guess. How close do you think you got to the wizard mode? I know this isn't about nuances and more about how hard the wizard mode is, but is it collecting all the fossils? Is that what it is on Jurassic Park? No, I don't believe...
    70:28
    Well, it's highlighted that I don't know. I don't believe it is, unless that's the big final mega-sweeper-dooper mode. But no, it's getting to the visitor centre, it's getting to museum multiple, and it's getting to all the control room, I believe. Hmm. Okay. I don't know. I just, I feel like I'm too dumb. You asked the question you don't even know? What the fuck is this? It's just like the James Bond question. Jeez. And you know a lot more about rules than I do.
    70:58
    No, but that's not me anymore. I've changed. I just don't, I don't, I can't get into rules anymore. And people start explaining complex rules. Like, I'm very happy that I learned about Metallica when I did because I was interested in learning it. But if I approach Metallica now, I might not appreciate it because I was just like, meh, whatever. Like, this is chopping woods. Well, actually, you know what? Metallica is probably a good example to bring up because I thought I knew enough about Metallica, but there is this rule that I wasn't aware of. Somebody at the Business Masters explained it to me, how you can lock in the different shots, the inserts, either the snake or the grape. I still don't get that rule and I never knew that existed.
    71:41
    Can I try and explain it? No, it's better in person. But that is a very hard rule to wrap your head around, because there's nothing kind of really like it. But it's all about getting in to crank it up. You need a certain amount of hits on all four of the attributes, like the snake, the crosses, Sparty, and Coffin. And when you hit a shot, it then locks it kind of on that shot. and if you hit three things, like the snake, sparky, and the cross,
    72:12
    it'll then make that shot pulse, you hit it one more time, and then you hit the cotton and it locks it in. And that means when you hit that shot, it counts for one of all of those three things. So you're progressing to crank it up three times faster than normal. And you can light, you know, four of those lanes, so to speak. So, like, if you get the fifth lane lit, it starts Seek and Destroy, and you have to start that process over again. Plus, isn't there also the super skill shot that can lock all those in as well? Yeah, every time you plunge the ball,
    72:42
    if you hold then left flipper, it'll choose either a random shot if it's not in competition mode or if it's in competition mode, it's the same shot, which will rove around for each player. And you have a certain amount of time to hit that shot and it kind of saves you three shots. And Lyman has that rule in almost every game where the super skill shot plunging all the way around will progress you closer to something if you hit a shot that he wants you to hit, whether it be Medieval Madness or Attack from Mars. Attack from Mars will complete an entire lane for Total Annihilation.
    73:12
    Medieval Madness will start a hurry-up. He gets in a hurry-up to get an extra ball. Cool little rules like that. As I said, probably there's like 10 times better rules in Avengers. I just can't appreciate it. So I'm probably being a massive hypocrite. You know, Ryan, I brought you on this show not to hear the trials and tribulations of every aspect of pinball. I usually like hearing you and Marty come on and crack some jokes. And sometimes you're the butt end of the joke. And I find those ones the best. And that kind of just happened because during the pandemic, you've been renting out a bunch of machines.
    73:44
    And you rented out one. And I remember you telling me about it. And I said, oh, God, you might have just kissed that one goodbye. Well, why don't you tell the story? Try to keep it under five minutes. Under five minutes. Tell the story of renting out Guardians of the Galaxy. So Guardians of the Galaxy is one of the most popular machines. Everyone wants it. I listed it up. Someone contacted me, very desperate for the machine. Like, can you, like, you know, how much does it cost? I told him, like, perfect. Like, when can you deliver it? I'm like, in a couple of days. He's like, can you deliver it now?
    74:15
    Like, I will pay you $100 more to deliver it today. And I'm like, ooh, red flag. This is like, no one needs a pinball machine that quickly. I ended up saying, okay, I can't. It'll be in a couple of days. He messaged nonstop. How about today? Red flag. I am about to deliver the pinball machine. It was to a commercial location. And I said, what's the signage on the store? He says, there's no signage. It's an empty store. And I'm like, whoa, massive red flag. Like this guy could be renting a place just to hire equipment and sell it. I'm like, please bring all of your ID. I need to cite it to make sure I know who you are.
    74:48
    All these red flags and he still goes anyway. Massive red flags. I ring up Jeff on the way to do the pinball machine. And I'm talking about it. And Jeff's like, what the fuck are you doing? Like, don't rent the pinball machine out. I'm like, ah, but like, it doesn't make sense. Like no one, he paid me a deposit through his bank account. So I know his real name. It matches up. Like no one's that dumb to rent a pinball machine using, like to be traceable. Like you would just do cash. Anyway, it was like half red flags, half not red flags. I get there. The guy is like, let's just say it was in the middle of the day.
    75:19
    And he, I could tell that he had partaken in some party style drugs because of his kind of erratic behavior. and this wasn't like early in the morning or after a weekend. This was like a weekday. I walk inside the store and the store was half been fitted out and it was probably $10,000 worth of like power tools on the floor. I'm like, oh my gosh, this guy isn't saving his place to steal stuff. Like no one's going to have 10 grand worth of stuff on the floor and half the shelves up for his store. I ring the real estate agent.
    75:49
    The story matches up. I cite his like his ID, everything. Anyway, I still had a horrible feeling in my gut that this was like a bad idea. And for two months, I worried about this machine. I messaged him like a week or so out from picking up the machine. I said, hey, it's time to pick up your Pimple machine. Like, what day is good for you? No response. I give him a call the next day. His phone is off. I ring the real estate agent who leased him the property again. He's just like, I haven't heard from him in a while,
    76:20
    but he did pay his rent, you know, three weeks ago. I am freaking out. This was like a Monday. I am like, I can't concentrate at work. I'm like, the machine's gone. And there was no way of knowing. I did a drive-by at the store. The store was in the same condition that it was two months ago. So I'm like, okay, it is a front. I'm seriously freaking out. I called the cops. They are obviously like backlogged because they're dealing with like crimes, like murders and all that kind of stuff versus someone, someone's pinball machine potentially being stolen. I leave it with them. I call them back the next day.
    76:51
    They still haven't, like, started to open the case. I just want to, at this stage, like, I'd already discounted the pinball machine. I just wanted to know for my peace of mind if it was gone or not. And I ended up going to the gym with a friend, and he was just like, like, he messaged me afterwards. And he's like, you weren't yourself today. Is everything okay? And I told him. And he's like, shit, man, you should have told me. Like, is there anything I can do to help? I'm like, well, no, because you're not the cops. And he's like, give me all the information that you got off the guy. Like, give me his address, his name, his ID. And within half an hour, my best mate, Nimma, sends me a tweet from the Victorian police four years ago with this guy's face, Crime Stoppers, saying he's skipped bail for theft and he's wanted.
    77:32
    And I'm like, oh, my fucking God. Like, it's gone. My gut feeling that, like, I had for two months. So I get Jess involved, Jessie J. She's very good at research stuff. And she's helping. and I may find that he currently has two court cases under his name, including one that day. It had his lawyer's name on there. So I ring his lawyer, didn't get a hold of him. Very dodgy website that I found. This guy obviously only represents criminals. Saul Goodman.
    78:03
    Basically, yeah, Saul Goodman for Melbourne. And I managed to finally get a hold of him, and the guy was just like, oh, yeah, I think there's been a big misunderstanding. Like, I saw that pinball machine, and like, when? and he's like a month ago and like ah like yeah before he before he fucking sold it for to support his drug habit i don't know he's like give me a couple days to sort it out and then i magically get a call from the guy and uh i'm like hey like hey uh you wanted to contact me i'm like yeah wait like the people washing is up like your two months is up where have you been like i changed
    78:34
    my phone number i'm like when can i come pick it up and he's like whenever you want like i'm coming right now. So I just quit work that day, drove there, waited an hour for him to rock up, and magically the pinball machine was there. The locks had been drilled out. I don't know why he did... Yeah. He lost the key, and he drilled out the lock, and I didn't care. My pinball machine was there. It wasn't broken. He hadn't sold it. I have no idea what his intentions were. There's no high scores on there. He didn't even beat the fourth high score, which on
    79:05
    Guardians, I think, is like 75 million or something, pathetically low. I don't even know if he played it. And he's like, oh, let me have it for longer. And I'm like, no, dude. It was, I have no, like, this guy was wanted for theft. I have no idea why he rented the pinball machine. I reckon he was trying to sell it and he just forgot or maybe he got put into prison for a month of those two months. I have no idea. But the bottom line is trust your fucking gut and don't rent pinball machines to drug addicts. Well, there is a happy ending to this story
    79:36
    because he's going to join us right now. Let's bring him on. What? Anyway, that's my fucking guide into the galaxy story, something that I hope I never have to deal with again. It should have been the Avengers because then it would have been snap and gone. But anyway. So, oh. Is this the only time you've ever felt nervous about renting out these machines? Because you are just putting up a public message for anybody to hire them.
    80:09
    I'm usually, my gut is usually pretty good. There's only one other time where I had a bad feeling, and it did actually, the guy did damage the machine a little bit. It was when I delivered a pinball machine to a guy's house, and it was very rough, and it was in Ebbing. You know, that's a shit area. And I can say that's how I used to live there. And it was in a guy's garage. and while I was living in the machine, his mate rocks up and he looks at him and he says, oh, mate, when did you get out? And I'm like, oh, no. When did you get out?
    80:40
    Yeah, I should have just, like, oh, sorry, wrong address and packed up my machine. You know, everybody here in North America is just shocked to hear that, you know, wow, there are that many criminals in Australia? Who knew? Oh, that old thing. I don't know what you're talking about, Jeff. Oh, fuck yourself. We got an email, in fact, and I'm going to read it right now because we asked. Just let us know if Jeff says aboot or all that kind of crap. And we actually did get an email. I'm going to read it right now. We only got one. Hey, guys, I don't hear Jeff's supposed accent.
    81:13
    Sounds fine to me. David Dennis. You've got to trust David from Silverwall Chronicles. I don't know where David happens to live, so he says I don't have a Canadian accent. So that's its final. I got called out by another Canadian, Albert Agar, and I haven't been able to respond to it because I just haven't recorded, but he challenged me to chug 250 mils of pure Canadian maple syrup. Have you ever performed such a feat, Jeff? No. I don't even remember the last time I had maple syrup. Sorry, Orby. I know you're boiling it and a lot of people like it. I just, no, not me. No.
    81:51
    You brought me maple syrup to my house when you came over here. I don't know what you were doing. It's a Canadian thing to do. That's, well, I had a big... Yeah, it's like us bringing roost hacks when we go over. It's one of those things you do. So, what did Orby say? Well, he challenged me. He said I was telling Jess off too much for just blogging. That's something that I definitely used to do on Head to Head. I was just like, here's a story for 20 minutes about what I did when I was at the Texas Film Festival.
    82:21
    Marty, please listen to me. I was telling him that I don't like critical hits that much, and apparently that's not cool. And he told me off for not listening to the Poor Man's Pinball podcast. So there's five things that he kind of challenged me on, and I had to rebut him or, I think, just chug 250 mils of maple syrup, which I think would just give me a fucking heart attack. Orby, you're not going to change this guy. He's set in his ways. I'm sorry, buddy. It's just not going to happen. But you mentioned Jesse Jay's pinball adventure. I hope there's another one coming soon. But you're on Slam Tilt Podcast, and you threw a little shade at me,
    82:54
    And, you know, I thought I knew something about comedy. But according to you, Ryan, I guess I just don't. Which is kind of strange because I remember all those times on Head to Head, you know, you, Ryan, asked me, oh, can I get a pin-side PD Clipper, Sylvester Stallone? But I guess that's all forgotten. But you were poking fun of the fact that I like to tease Josh Sharp on Pinball Profile. Maybe it's a little old. Well, here's a little tip on comedy, Ryan. It's called a running gag. Do you know that I get more feedback when I don't give him shit? People say, I like it better when you guys are going at each other.
    83:27
    So that's kind of why we do it. There. Just thought I'd pass that along, Ryan. You're so fucking sensitive, Jeff. Yeah, you are a little bit. And no one else contacted me. You invite me on the show just to be like, I'm allowed to tease Josh Sharp. Don't get rid of my one fucking joke. I don't think it's sensitive. I just, you know, if a joke's not funny, that's not funny. That's fine. I'm the people's president, guys. Ha ha, can you please write this down? Do you know how many people wanted to join in on that?
    84:01
    Because it's basically a way of saying we love Josh. We think it's kind of funny. It's a way of stroking your fucking ego, Jeff. There's a little bit of that. I can't deny that. Okay, okay. So you think you know everything about me. It's time to know everything about you. And guess what, Ryan? I'm going to hang up on you right now because here's what we're going to do. I'm going to ask Marty a bunch of questions. I mean, you guys have known each other for years. There's so much history between you two. I wonder how much Marty knows about Ryan.
    84:33
    So long, Ryan. I'm going to ask him the questions. I'll call you back once we get his answers, and you can see if you two, you know, are connected the way we like to think you are. So see you, Ryan. Okay, Marty. How well do you know Ryan? I can already tell you not well because I don't care. But let's see what happens. We keep this segment short then because I don know who really does care to be honest Who is his favorite pinball designer Um I think
    85:05
    And you're not typing him the questions so that you get the answers right, are you? No, where would I type? I don't know. I would say, I think Dennis Nordman. Really? I think. Okay, okay. We'll lock that in. Dennis Nordman. Interesting. If he could only own one game, which of these would it be? The Shadow, Jersey Jack's Guns and Roses, The Walking Dead, or The Bally Strikes and Spares? Well, the one you're missing is Tron, which I believe is the time issue.
    85:36
    I think The Walking Dead. Yeah, I'm curious to see his answer too. What is more important to Ryan? Rules, shot satisfaction, the sounds of a game, or artwork? Shot satisfaction. And finally, what is more likely to happen first with Ryan? He gets his COVID vaccine shot or he gets a shot for an STD? Oh, obvious. STD. I want you to get one right. So let's call him back, shall we? Okay. Hello. Okay. Marty's given us his answers.
    86:06
    You've gone in the soundproof booth. In other words, we just hung up on you. Are you ready? Sure. Okay. I asked Marty these questions about you, Ryan. Who is Ryan's favorite pinball designer? Hmm. Do I even fucking know the answer to that question? I think Marty revealed the other day that it was John Borg, because all my favorite games are John Borg games, so it has to be him. Marty? No, that's not what I said. I did have that in mind. I said Dennis Nordman. Hmm. I don't think I have one.
    86:37
    I think I'm more attached to the software guys, so I think it's a bit of a shit question, Jeff. Wow. Okay. All right. 0 for 1 for the host, I guess. If Ryan could only own one of these games, what would it be? The Shadow, Jersey Jacks, Guns N' Roses, The Walking Dead, or Bally Strikes N' Spares? Between The Shadow and The Walking Dead is very close, but I think I would choose The Walking Dead.
    87:08
    Marty got that right. Ding, ding, ding, ding. But he did mention he said Tron might be your favorite out of all of them. Yeah, but you didn't put that one in there. I know. Is Tron your favorite? Is Tron my favorite? It's not my favorite. It's just in a class of its own because I have hooked up to a subwoofer. I have all the mods on there. It's an alley. It is an experience in itself. But, I mean, I know that Walking Dead and many other games shit all over Tron in terms of gameplay. What's the next one, Jeff? Do we have a good question? There's this guy in Australia I know that wants to rent your Tron
    87:39
    if that's at all possible. He'll pay you an extra hundred bucks if you can do it tomorrow. Are you in? What is more important to Ryan? Rules, shot satisfaction, the sounds of the game, or artwork? Fuck. That's three very important things. I mentioned four. Yeah, not the artwork. Yeah, yeah, there's three important things and not the artwork. It's sounds. Sounds. That's not what Marty said. I actually thought it was sounds, too, because nobody that I know cares more about sounds than you when it comes to pinball.
    88:14
    Although shot satisfaction is important, but nobody talks and talks and talks about sounds. Marty thought it was shot satisfaction. I mean, between those three things, it's so close. I just feel more inclined to say sounds after earning Avengers and wanting to throw up every time I heard. So bad sounds are really the negative there. Okay. Marty nailed this one right. I'm sure you can get it too. What is more likely to happen first with Ryan? You get your COVID vaccine shot or you get a shot for an STD.
    88:51
    I think people call them STIs now, Jeff. I think the D stands for disease and it's a bit of a negative connotation. So it's definitely the STI. What's the positive connotation? It's a concession. It can go away like a disease is forever. Okay. You got two out of four right, Marty. I don't think we know each other. I don't think the three of us know each other. We've talked so many times on podcasts, but really, we don't really know each other. So it's time for each of us to learn a little bit about one another,
    89:22
    but also our few listeners that we have. And judging by the Twippy votes, very few. Which, by the way, back to when I said, what the fuck are we doing wrong, makes me think we need to change things up here on the show. So I don't know if this is going to be a new segment, but one thing we are going to do from now on is we're thinking about doing streaming. And not just any streaming. We're going to do the podcast live. You know, poor man's pinball podcast does it, bro. They do it. They do it live. I think Kerry Hardy does it live.
    89:52
    And they, you know, they put it on the podcast. Well, we're about to do that, too. But what we're going to do is we're going to do it live in a hot tub. And we're going to write down the names of the people chatting on our arms and things like that. We're going to have great bathing suits. I think it's going to take fun around to a whole new level. Are you in, Marty? I'm not sure anyone wants to see us in a hot tub, Jeff. I'm just telling you that's where the followers are on Twitch. Who did that? Who doesn't do that? Are you kidding? Like, I'm in. Count me in. Whatever it's going to take to get the clicks. Exactly.
    90:23
    Then we don't have to do OnlyFans and things like that. I mean, that still might be a possibility. But time to play Two Truths and a Lie. We will each mention two truths about us and one lie, and the others will have to try to figure it out. I'll go first. Two truths and a lie. Everyone knows that I usually only buy JGP, Stern and Bally Williams machines, but I at the moment actually own three Gottlieb machines. Okay, that's one. This week, I went to a pinball tournament and I left early.
    90:56
    Before the tournament was up, I just left because I just didn't want to be there anymore. That's another one. this week I was hanging out with a lady friend and I might have how do I say this without sounding like a fucking horrible asshole I might have just been like down there just doing stuff and I was down there for so long that I tweaked a muscle in my neck and I had to go to my myotherapist to release my neck muscles because I couldn't move my head to the right anymore
    91:27
    two truths and a lie Were you tying shoes? What were you doing down there? I don't know. I can't say it. This is like an M-rated podcast. It's not R-rated. Yeah, I think it is. I was down there. She was at the basement. What are we talking about? This might have been the beginning and the end of this game, but Marty. So, summarize the three. Summarize the three. I had three Gottlieb machines.
    91:57
    I left the pinball machine I left the pinball tournament early because I didn't want to be there anymore like without being knocked out and I fucked up my neck it's all three are so likely they're just all possible the neck one I would say is an absolute truth 100% because he's trying to make himself sound like a stud on this show let's not kid each other alright yeah I could also see you leaving a tournament early And as far as Gottlieb games, I think that's the one that's trying to throw us off the scent
    92:31
    because you're not a big fan of Gottlieb, so therefore it's also likely to happen because it's the opposite. So for me, I'm going to say leaving the tournament early was a lie. That's what I say as well. Okay. Well, I own a TX Vector, a Hoops, and an Alien Star, which will be here, I think, next week. Well, is it though? You don't actually have it. We'll tell them it's true. I own it. this week when I was at Pixel Alley, it was 9.30 and I was like, well, I hit the point where I thought if I do well in this tournament,
    93:02
    I'm going to be really grumpy for the rest of the week. And if I get knocked out, then I'll be going home in half an hour anyway, so why don't I just leave now? So I left it early. I think it was the very first tournament that I've ever left without getting knocked out. So those are the two truths. So my neck is 5.31, not from that activity. I didn't have to go to my purpose this week, so that one is a lie. Marty, I've got two truths and a lie, and they're not as elaborate as Ryan's. Okay, here we go. So I hurt my neck the other day.
    93:35
    No, no, I can take that one. I'm going to take that one. I'm going to scratch that one. Number one, I'm allergic to pickles. Number two, when I was 13 years old, I wanted to be a priest. And number three, I have never watched an episode of Two and a Half Men. Again, it's one of those things, knowing Jeff, any of those could be true. Hmm. I don't know. What do you think, Ryan? I think he definitely wanted to be a priest, because I've heard Jeff talking about it before.
    94:09
    I remember something similar to that. Two and a half men, I don't know, that sounds like a very Jeff Elitist thing to do, but I think it would be something like, he used to watch the one with Charlie Sheen, but Aspen Kutcher, no way. and what was the first one Jeff? I'm allergic to pickles oh man Jeff eats so much fucking fast food he's like the fast food master when I was there we did share some Swiss Chalet and other things and we did go to McDonald's we went to McDonald's when we were in Australia we didn't go to McDonald's we went to Swiss Chalet
    94:40
    in Australia when we went to Haggis we dropped by McDonald's I'm like what do you want to eat and you just saw the golden matches and you're like fucking give me some Maccas that's not how it happened And I don't remember you taste... No, you ordered a chicken burger. You like really basic burgers. I reckon it's the pickle thing. You think I'm allergic to pickles. Okay, Marty. Am I allergic to pickles? Did I want to be a priest? Or have I never seen an episode of Two and a Half Men? I think the lie is Two and a Half Men. I think you'd be all over that show because I think the comedy, the humour of that show
    95:13
    is right up your alley. Oh, yeah, sorry, I messed up. I think that you are allergic to the truth one, so your lie is the Two and a Half Men one. You both think the lie is the two and a half men? Yes. I have never seen that show, so that is a truth. I've never seen that. I've actually never seen Big Bang Theory. I have a thing about canned laughter in Chuck Lorre shows. Every line doesn't have to be funny. Do you know what I mean? It really bothers me. It's poor writing. I know a lot of people like it, but you're right. I'm a fucking elitist snob when it comes to comedy.
    95:45
    Sorry, Big Bang Theory. Sorry, Ed Robertson. I'm glad it's made you millions because it's a great song. Great song. I haven't seen it. When I was 13, yeah, you're right, Ryan. I probably did say it somewhere. I did want to be a priest. Short-lived. I am not allergic to pickles. That's a lie. Although I say that every single time I go to a restaurant so that they don't put one on my plate because I can't stand pickles. There you go. You make the chefs worry about killing you just because you don't find them. My kids, they're like, Dad, why? And I'm like, because one time they put a pickle.
    96:16
    I don't mind if it's on the side. I was always fine with that, but then the pickle sweat kind of bleeds into everything else. It's gross. I can't stand the smell. But one time I went to a restaurant, and they put a pickle, and I'm not making this up. They put it on top of my steak. No! Goodbye! Take it all back! I love how, like, the most passionate you ever sound, Jeff, is even talking about. Anyway, Marty, we've got to know something about you. Two truths and a lie. Okay. So my first one is, I've not listened to another podcast, or in fact, I've not listened to a podcast, any podcast, in the last 30 days.
    96:54
    In its entirety, or just like even a little snippet? In its entirety. Okay. Does that include our own? Yep. I've had my music on a kids' television show in Australia. Hmm. And three, I once went to a restaurant and had food instead of going to a pinball tournament. Oh, this is hard. I know the DJ Marty days. You've shared a little bit with me about that.
    97:27
    It didn't seem like the kind of music that would be on a children's TV show. It was kind of like hard music. you would definitely go to a restaurant instead of a pinball tournament that sums up your last three years in pinball tournaments, Marty jeez, this is a hard one, Jeff, what do you think? I either know the answer or Marty has lied to me within the last week okay, I believe he also hasn't listened to any podcasts in the last month so I'm going to go with the children's one
    97:58
    I think that's the lie Okay. I think the lie was that he hasn't listened to any podcasts. Because last week when we did the Dwight Sullivan clock, he hadn't heard it produced. And I produced it, and he sent me a note saying how much he loved it. And I said, did you hear the song I put underneath it? Because it's very subtle, but it's a real inside joke for a few of us. The song I put underneath the Dwight Sullivan wristwatch. And he said, oh, my God, that's hilarious. So you have had to have listened to our podcast in the last two weeks.
    98:30
    You changed in entirety, Jeff. No, he said... You changed in entirety. Oh, did you? Mm-hmm. You son of a gun. Am I right, Marty? I'm still going to the podcast. Yeah. The one that's a lie is I actually had listened to a podcast in its entirety in the last 30 days, and it was our show. Well, do you know why, though? But it's a surprise in a way to Marty because we do the raw stuff, and then Marty does a lot of editing before it gets to me, a lot of editing,
    99:03
    and I just kind of put the final touches on it and, you know, cut out my ums and ahs and my stutters and my aboots and all that kind of shit. And then so I guess when Marty hears it, it's really for the first time. It's not to hear it again. It's the first time. Yeah, it is because, you know, I do a lot of editing, and for those people that don't know, when you're doing editing, it's not like you're listening to the entire podcast. You're just listening to it in little snippets over and over and over again. So I do listen to it just to hear the final product
    99:35
    and that's the only one I listen to in its entirety. And congratulations on the two big eyes because you did receive 4.9% of the vote. Marty, that's why you listen because it's like the seventh or eighth greatest show out there. I don't even think we were that high, let's be honest. Yeah, correct. I mean, obviously the biggest disappointment was to see Pinball Profile higher than final round, but I was still satisfied that it was still only seventh. Jeff's better on his own. Hey, Jeff, I just want to congratulate you,
    100:05
    because I don't think anyone has on your 300th episode of Pinball Profile. It's an amazing feat. I mean, I know you got the first hundred with like, you know, five-minute podcasts, but you're putting in like a decent half an hour to one hour shows now, so just good job. Well done for keeping on going and I appreciate it. I'm waiting for the butt. There's no butt. You're amazing and people should recognise that Jeff Teolis is... Quit it. Pandering. Impressive.
    100:36
    And none of them, Jeff, none of them were just about you. They're all about everyone else and that's why your podcast is so awesome. Liar. And that's why he doesn't get that many votes because it's about other people. Well, Jeff once told me that his plan is to just get everyone in the entire pinball community on pinball profiles, so that everyone's sharing it with their friends. Yes. If I do everyone, then everyone's going to listen to it. That's it. I think he finally realized that they only listen to that one episode, and then they delete him off the podcast forever. Yes. Yeah, good point.
    101:07
    What I do realize, based on the... And congratulations to everybody that won a Twippy and everybody that was nominated, because a lot of hard work is done in manufacturing and producing and a lot of hours and blood, sweat, and tears into pinball and for content creators. And we've seen a lot more of them in the last couple of years. Kudos to every single person, nominated or not. So we appreciate what you do. And it doesn't matter whether you win a Twibby or not. It is important that you know that you have fans.
    101:38
    The content is unique and keep it coming because the more the merrier. But what I did learn, because we weren't nominated for the Twippy, you know what we fucked up, Marty? You know how we'd screwed up? All three of those nominees all said at one point during the year, we're done. That's it. Or we're going to take a month off or that's it. So we keep trucking along doing it every two weeks. We should have taken a hiatus. Ryan will know this. Everyone remembers Dr. John went on a TV show called Hard Quiz. and the host of that show,
    102:11
    to get the most prestigious award in Australia for TV, is a Logie. He intentionally quit the show just so he could win. And he did. So next year, I'm guessing we're done. That's it. You've got to get the timing right there, right? I think you have to quit at the right moment. Okay. Yeah. I don't know what that timing is, but we've got plenty of time to work it out, Jeff. You know, what would really tease people is to say, you know what, we're not going to do reach-arounds again. Nope, we're done. I mean, obviously, you don't love us, so we're not going to do it.
    102:45
    See you later. Goodbye. Off into the sunset. There we go. And then the demand in our heads is huge for us to come back. In reality, people are like, thank God those assholes are gone. I did want to ask you one more thing, Ryan, before we say goodbye. And Marty talked about this last week. It was the Vipers, the Victoria Points. Now, we're seeing a bunch of shows come back in the fall. A bunch have been announced and more are coming, and I would assume the same in Australia. IFPA hasn't endorsed these yet. That is coming.
    103:15
    You have to imagine probably, I'm guessing, and I don't know, August 1st, maybe. When IFPA comes back, I bet you there are going to be tons and tons of submissions for tournaments and stuff. It's funny because when you two first started, Marty was all about the competitions and you couldn't be bothered. You are totally into competitions now, Ryan. And it's Marty who doesn't really care so much except for putting them on. Is that safe to say? Which, by the way, Marty, you should be competing because I just watched on Melbourne Silver Ball, you destroy Game of Thrones to the best game I've ever seen in my life.
    103:48
    Iron Throne, not once, twice. And on ball one. It was a pretty epic game, I must admit. Nothing went wrong. The ball just wouldn't get out. My God, is that ever something to watch. and I think you VOD'd it so people can watch it on Melbourne Silverball. I just had to bring that up because I know you don't like to talk about my successes in Australia or anywhere, but that's fine. I had no problem doing that for you, Marty. Congratulations. Best Game of Thrones game I've ever seen. But you should get back into competitions.
    104:19
    Ryan, you must be jonesing to get back into it. I mean, you created the Vipers. Yeah, well, it's kind of like restrictions got lifted. We could play pinball again. Are we just going to play some funsies? Are we going to wait until the IFBA comes back? And it's like, well, why don't we create our own league, so to speak, and our own rules? And it'll just, at some point in the year, IFBA points will come back. But this can just kind of like run, and this will be the Victorian State Championships. It won't have anything to do with the official one that feeds into the Australian Pinball Championships.
    104:52
    Because what if it comes back in November? Then it's kind of like a whole year. Not wasted. Like, you can still have fun playing and winning. But a nice way of people to keep track of points. and we know that's kind of the addictive part of the IFPA. The downside of the IFPA, even when it's running in full force, is some people go so many times that unless they win, and I'm sure, Marty, you got kind of to that point, unless you win a tournament, it's not being included towards anything.
    105:22
    So we created our own ranking system with the help of, you know, Luke Marburg was a driving catalyst in this initiative. And it basically mimics the same IFPA structure of when IFPA first came out, when it was very exploitable. Except we kind of have a monopoly on the people that run in these tournaments, so we know people aren't going to cheat and exploit the system. And it's really simple. If you win, you get 50 Vipers. Vipers is kind of the slang term for the Victorian pinball player ranking points.
    105:55
    We have a leaderboard, and there's kind of an exponential curve that curves down to one Viper. so depending on how many people are there and what place you come you get a certain amount of vipers and at the end of the year the top 32 players will play in a championship and as I said this will run co-currently when IFBA comes back and even when it comes back I think this is a fun thing to do in the background to have two different ranking systems and they can just live happily together by each other's side the end, any questions?
    106:27
    No, well my question to you is Are you, like Jeff was saying, that you're all in the tournaments now, because obviously you left a tournament early. Are you still as excited about tournaments, or is it now running the tournaments that's more fun for you? I guess I had, no, I definitely love playing in it, and I ran the first one. Like, I've been helping kind of, like, run certain tournaments, and I've been to almost all of them, but I ran pin golf, and it was so much fun playing and running pin golf, because I wanted to see someone cave under the pressure on the last ball.
    106:59
    But it ended up, I kind of accidentally won that tournament. I know it sounds silly, but Simon Peel aced this guy, this local guy, aced the last six holes in a row in the final eight. I luckily just aced the last three and it was a tiebreaker and I won the tiebreaker. But it's just a fun format. I love it. I have no idea how many kind of whoppers it translates to, but the way we run Vipers is every tournament is worth 100% anyway. regardless of the structure. So we're experimenting with fun stuff.
    107:29
    But the question might be, do I really enjoy it? I do, but your voice is in the back of my head where you're like, when someone is new and rocks up, you have to be there and you have to usher them into pinball. You can't just expect them to be a massive extrovert and people to be like, hey, come play, and they come back every single time. It will happen to a percentage of people. It's a numbers game. Certain amount of people will come back. certain amount of people won't and it's my responsibility as a tournament director to make sure that a larger percentage of people come back and unfortunately the last tournament that i
    108:05
    ran it was so busy and it was a new format and i was playing and adjudicating and all this someone dropped water on my fucking laptop a whole bunch of stuff happened and i didn't pay enough attention to a couple there's about five new people and two of the people didn't even play their five qualifying games and they kind of just disappeared and i know that they will never come back again because of that experience, and I feel responsible for that. So I want to play because I love pinball, but I feel like I'm entering that stage now where I have to properly delegate
    108:37
    or look after these people to a point where I may not be able to play anymore. It depends, too, where you are, because I've seen how many times you've played in tournaments and you've run so many tournaments. I guess it really depends on whether they're your machines or not, because if you don't have the keys, it can be different on location. When was the last tournament you ran at your place? It might have been the Pinball Profile World Tour, Jeff. Oh, can't talk about it. Sorry. Can I talk about it? No, we're not talking about that.
    109:08
    Is it easier? I guess what I'm saying is your place had so many different games. I know they're on rent right now for COVID, but is it easier as a tournament director, and Marty, you can answer this too, when they are your own machines? because so many different things can happen out in the wild. I think when it's my own house, I'm under absolutely no pressures time-wise and other factors where the place that I run tournaments at closes at 11. I have to organize prizes on the night. You have to get people. Nothing's prepaid.
    109:38
    When it's at my house, it's like, here's a link to Eventbrite. It's $15, and everyone that rocks up has a ticket. Whereas I have to take payment, give people change, register people. when people prepay, like when you rock up, match play is already preloaded with everything. So there's definitely pressures. And I have to set machines to free play and then take extra balls off, and then I'm in a rush when I finish to set everything back. So there's definitely pressures on the night and random people rocking up and new players. So it's a balance, and I'm not going to say that I'm close to figuring out how to run a good tournament.
    110:09
    And Bolin Kieran's said it as well many times. A tournament has to be as fun to the person who wins to the person who comes last, and that is a very, very hard thing to do. I think the one thing that you're missing, and Marty, tell me if I'm wrong, is you have to probably not play to be the most successful tournament director you can possibly be. Marty, that's the case with you, isn't it? It depends on how complex the setup is and how much you've got it down pat. So Ryan's done a lot of tournaments, and I think the other benefit you've got
    110:43
    is where you have your tournament at Moondog World, you've got keys to all the machines, so if anything breaks down, you've got access to it. So I think it becomes easier to compete in the tournament when the actual format of the tournament runs better itself. I'm not going to pretend that I don't have, I hope I didn't infer that. I have so much help. Like, I probably didn't put down more than 10% of the scores the last tournament, and there were a lot of scores. I have people helping me do that. But even then, it's still hard to run, like, a chaotic kind of format and have it done in a couple of hours.
    111:15
    So the next one's in two weeks, so hopefully, you know, there was a new format, didn't know how long it would run for, hopefully it would be a bit more organized, but I just, I get like a sinking feeling in my stomach when I look back at the results and saw that two people only played like two or three qualifying games, and it was, maybe there wasn't a queue, they weren't getting along with the people, they had a bad game, and as I said, it's not all on me, I have to, it's almost like I have to recruit like a newbie force of people that like, hey, this person's new, like make them feel welcome.
    111:46
    And everyone is welcoming, but it's almost like you have to put extra effort to hold someone's hand because if they're not there with mates, then it's quite, you know, the pinball community is quite tight-knit here. And if everyone's friends and getting along and you're the new person, then you might seem like an outsider. Well, good luck in a couple of weeks with that tournament. I hope your neck muscles feel better and I appreciate you coming on the show. Thanks, Jeff and Marty. I'll see you in, what is it, every four months, every six months? I get to punch my card. Absolutely. We'll get you back. It's always fun to make more.
    112:17
    After Eric Mignet, okay, just get someone really average on and then I'll follow them up. Don't get the guy who wins like fucking seven or eight Twippies and Game of the Year and has the best calves and triceps and is super wholesome and good looking and smart and amazing and intelligent, everything, Eric Mignet. I've got a massive crush on him. Don't bring me on after him, please. That's my one request. Josh Hart is fine. Thanks very much, Ryan. See ya. All right, that's it. That's all you get for a couple of weeks.
    112:48
    We'll do this again in two weeks. Thank you very much. My name is Geoff Teolis. My name is Martin. Thank you very much to Josh, Ryan, and, of course, TopRopePinball on Twitch. Where can people reach out and say hello? They can email us at gmail. That's finalroundpinball at gmail.com. Look up Final Round Pinball on Facebook. We are at Final Round Pin on Twitter, and it's final round pinball podcast on Instagram. So you won't be alone for the next two weeks. We'll see you in a fortnight.