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Magnitudes of Touch

NYC PinPod·podcast_episode·30m 21s·analyzed·May 18, 2026
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.029

TL;DR

NYC PinPod covers May tournament results and reflects on the show's origins as a resource for location pinball competition info.

Summary

Benjamin Furiga hosts NYC PinPod Season 3, delivering detailed coverage of New York City pinball competition results across multiple leagues and venues (Red Hook May Match Play, Stern Army RWI, Pinball NYC Orbit/In-Lane playoffs, Scrapple League, Thursday Night Strikes, SSPL). He shares personal practice experiences and reflects on NYC PinPod origins—starting as a solo project in 2017 with 138 episodes covering location pinball culture—and explains the podcast's mission to centralize information about competitive play, venues, and community for local enthusiasts.

Key Claims

  • Benjamin Furiga is playing in the lower finals of Pinball NYC at Scrappleland on Monday night

    high confidence · Host opening statement

  • Jonah Schlaes won Red Hook May Match Play on May 8th, earning 13.53 Whoppers

    high confidence · Competition results, Ball 1

  • Matt Grady won Stern Army's May RWI at Rulo's on Sunday, earning 6.22 Whoppers

    high confidence · Competition results, Ball 1

  • NYC PinPod ran 138 regular episodes from 2017 until location pinball shut down during the pandemic

    high confidence · Ball 3 - oral history segment

  • Benjamin Furiga started playing pinball in the 1990s in central Pennsylvania

    high confidence · Ball 3 - personal history narrative

  • It took Benjamin Furiga roughly two years from discovering a pinball machine at Bar 706 to joining a competitive league

    high confidence · Ball 3 - personal narrative about discovering local competition

  • Eric will not be a weekly contributor to NYC PinPod in the fall; Benjamin intends to step back to work on other projects

    high confidence · Host statement about future format

  • Buttermilk Bar recently changed pinball collections from Max's games to Kate's games

    high confidence · SSPL 3 meeting announcement, May 14th

Notable Quotes

  • “There's a difference between the way that Benjamin slides Max's old games around at Buttermilk and the way that Benjamin lightly taps on Peter's machines at Scrappleland. It's a very big difference between those two magnitudes of touch.”

    Benjamin Furiga @ Ball 2, personal narrative section — Humorous reflection on different playing styles and machine sensitivities; becomes the episode title 'Magnitudes of Touch'

  • “I wanted to do it on Thursday night... I had a frustrating start and did not feel like I was playing good pinball and didn't feel like I was going to have fun playing pinball if I didn't start playing better pinball. But I turned it around, not necessarily the pinball bit, but I turned around the mental bit, the mental health bit of it.”

    Benjamin Furiga @ Ball 2, SSPL experience — Reflective moment on performance anxiety and mental resilience during competition

  • “I started it in 2017 and it was literally just my voice on most of the episodes doing first competition results in ball one. Second, I always did a venue review of some venue in the city. And then ball three as it is now was freeform editorial.”

    Benjamin Furiga @ Ball 3, oral history — Establishes NYC PinPod's original format and content pillars

  • “I tried to put out an episode every single week for those three years. And if you do the math, you can realize I came pretty close.”

    Benjamin Furiga @ Ball 3, oral history — Demonstrates the sustained effort and commitment involved in producing the show

  • “I went looking for podcasts about pinball... I found all kinds of pinball podcasts, but most of them talked about being a hobbyist, being someone who owned your pinball machines and fixed your pinball machines. And none of it talked about the things that I was missing, the individual competition elements.”

    Benjamin Furiga @ Ball 3, oral history / motivation — Core mission statement: NYC PinPod filled a gap in location-based competitive pinball content

  • “I truly hope that there are more chapters of NYC Pinpod's history that someone else can tell you about later.”

    Benjamin Furiga — Signals openness to collaborative storytelling and future hosts contributing to the show's legacy

Entities

Benjamin FurigapersonEric SwedelandpersonJonah SchlaespersonMatt GradypersonGabe C.personHoward LevinepersonJess WarrenpersonGreg PavarellipersonSean GrantpersonPeter LarsonpersonChadperson

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Multiple established competitive leagues active in NYC with consistent participation: Pinball NYC (Orbit/In-Lane divisions), Scrapple League (32 players), South Slope Pinball League, Barcade Brooklyn Pinball League, Thursday Night Strikes, and Red Hook tournaments all running in May with high attendance.

    high · Detailed tournament schedules, player counts (e.g., 32 at Scrapple, 21 at SSPL, 30 at Red Hook), and multiple playoff rounds across venues

  • ?

    venue_signal: Buttermilk Bar underwent a significant pinball collection transition from Max's games to Kate's games, enabling SSPL Season 3 to run with new machines; indicates active venue management and curation.

    high · SSPL meeting announcement: 'first meeting of SSPL since the games have flipped. Jess Warren ran the night because Kate was out of town... 21 players who showed up on Thursday night to play on the new collection of seven games that are Kate's, not Max's any longer.'

  • ?

    community_signal: NYC PinPod is a long-standing community resource documenting local competition and venue culture; original format (2017-2020) was solo-hosted by Benjamin Furiga with 138 episodes, followed by Eric Swedeland's Season 2 post-pandemic, now Season 3 under Furiga.

    high · Detailed oral history in Ball 3 covering 2017 launch, weekly cadence for three years, pandemic hiatus, Eric's Season 2 attempt, and current collaborative format

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Discussion of different playing styles and machine sensitivity ('magnitudes of touch') suggests experienced players distinguish between machines and venues with different characteristics, indicating nuanced skill development.

    medium · Quote: 'There's a difference between the way that Benjamin slides Max's old games around at Buttermilk and the way that Benjamin lightly taps on Peter's machines at Scrappleland.'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.091

0:00
Gag Pins. Happy Sunday, pin folk, or whatever day you're listening. This is NYC Pin Pod, in which a panel talks location pinball in New York City and nearby surrounding areas. My name is Benjamin Furiga. My initials are B-C-F, and I'm pleased as punch to be playing in the finals, the lower finals, of Pinball NYC at Scrappleland on Monday night. On this week's pod, I will run down local competition results in Ball 1. Ball 2 is going to feel house ball-y, although I'll give you a little bit of my own bullet journal. In Ball 3, we'll have an oral history of NYC PinPod. Let's get started. On Friday, May 8th at the Red Hook Pinball Museum in Red Hook, Brooklyn, Red Hook's own May Match Play Mali was convened under Gabe C's direction with assistance by Jonah Schlaes. 30 players got out to Red Hook to play that max match play. It was 10 matches. I want to shout out to our friend Howard Levine, who was down from the Hudson Valley and qualified first, despite there only being one bowling theme on site. He has a lot of bowling pins. And if you win at his place, you hold the I think it's the Indonesian bowling pin of doom. If you win a tournament at Howard's place in the photo, Howard and Monica Weidekamp had the option to drive the bus in the semifinal groups. But in the final group, Jonah Schleys won the day, besting Kevin Murray, who'd won the last couple and is a cooperator in the collection, Wes Ulfug, and Matt Grady, respectively. Jonah got 13.53 Whoppers for his efforts. On Sunday, Jess Warren gathered Stern Army's May RWI at Rulo's in Park Slope. It started at 3.30 this time. Doors at 3 p.m. starts at 3.30. It's a five-round match play affair, and then there's four people going to finals just before karaoke starts, I think is the idea. Eric Swedeland assisted after those five rounds of match play. Matt Grady won in the finals beating Michael McNeila, Joe Broccoli, and Eric Swedeland tied for third and they agreed to split third place money and I think Whoppers are potentially necessarily split although Eric told me that they agreed to split money in Whoppers both. And Grady got 6.22 whoppers for his efforts.
3:12
On Monday, May 11th, in the Orbit playoffs of Pinball NYC's right flipper division, the top seed Balls of Steel were virtual hosts at Milo's yard to the two-for-oners. And Balls of Steel wins 12-4. However, Lion Persons visited Solid State where their virtual hosts, NYCFSA, that's Eric's New York City Flipper Sport Association. Not Eric's personally, he's not somehow an owner.
@ Ball 3, closing
Red Hook Pinball Museum
organization
Scrapple Landorganization
Buttermilk Barorganization
Rulo'sorganization
Barcade Brooklynorganization
We Collidersorganization
Balls of Steelorganization
Lion Personsorganization
Pinball NYCorganization
South Slope Pinball League (SSPL)organization
Scrapple Leagueorganization
Robertperson
Ben H.person
Bar 706organization
  • ?

    competitive_signal: Match play structure heavily emphasizes team coordination and individual player contributions; recent matches show doubles rounds contributing majority of wins (e.g., We Colliders won 6 of 9 points in doubles).

    high · Match results across multiple leagues; explicit statement: 'We won six points in doubles. Of the nine points that we won we won six points in doubles. It was the teammates picking each other up.'

  • ?

    community_signal: Pinball competition extending beyond NYC proper to Hudson Valley (OCPC/Orange County Pinball Club hosting Catskill Classic at Howard Levine's place), indicating regional tournament ecosystem.

    medium · OCPC Memorial Catskill Classic announcement; Howard Levine profile as Hudson Valley player; reference to Rock Fantasy Collection and local collections used for tournaments

  • ?

    content_signal: NYC PinPod positioned as solution to information gap about location-based competitive pinball; original mission was centralizing tournament schedules, venue info, and community connection—addressing inefficiency of word-of-mouth.

    high · Ball 3 narrative: 'I went looking for podcasts about pinball... most of them talked about being a hobbyist... And none of it talked about the things that I was missing, the individual competition elements.'

  • ?

    venue_signal: Benjamin Furiga emphasizes ability to walk to nearby pinball venues (Buttermilk Bar within walking distance of his Brooklyn neighborhood), suggesting local infrastructure supports casual play and social pinball culture.

    medium · Ball 2 narrative: 'I love being able to do that and I appreciate that there's somewhere I can walk that close to do that now.'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: 'Whoppers' appear to be a standardized prize currency or scoring unit used across multiple tournaments (Red Hook, Stern Army RWI); suggests interoperable tournament economy.

    medium · Multiple tournament results cite 'Whoppers' as prize: '13.53 Whoppers' for Jonah Schlaes, '6.22 Whoppers' for Matt Grady; split third place money and 'Whoppers both'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Benjamin Furiga stepping back from weekly NYC PinPod contributions in fall to pursue other projects; indicates potential for rotating hosts and collaborative content model.

    high · Host statement: 'I am intending to at least not be an every week contributor to NYC PinPod in the fall as of right now. There are some other projects that I want to accomplish.'

  • ?

    community_signal: Entry into competitive pinball communities requires social connection and active recruitment; Benjamin Furiga took ~2 years from casual play to formal team membership, suggesting gatekeeping or friction in onboarding.

    medium · Ball 3 narrative: 'It took me months to just randomly meet someone out playing pinball... months more of going around for someone to actually say like, hey, we actively would like for you to be on our team.'

    • 3:43
    Pinball just doesn't work that way. But Lion Persons beat them at Solid State in Deep Queens. It was a 9-7 margin. Looks like at NYCFSA, Eric sent me the score sheet. Looks like they split the first round and then NYC FSA picked up three, then they split and then Lion Persons picked it up in the last four with a sweep of what looks like Demoman maybe and Jaws. It says D-E something on there. Also on Monday, May 11th, in the in-lane finals, fourth seed special when lit, visited Sunshine Laundromat where the aristocrats were their virtual hosts. This was the Battle of Rulos but in Greenpoint and the Aristocrats won by a 10 to 6 margin at Sunshine. We Colliders hosted at Barcade Fidai, our away from home, the Deluxe Horses and We Colliders won 9 to 7. Then we split the first round and then the horses won three to one in each of the singles rounds. But then in particular on the back of a massive champion pub by Chad and adequate frontiers by Jess and I on another game, we won nine to seven. On Tuesday, May 12th, Danger Danger went to Barcade, Brooklyn to host No Quarters for Laundry. And it was over after three rounds. They picked up a 10-2 win. Danger Danger will go on to the finals. No Quarters will go home. And Ball Drainers visited Neptune's Treasure at Buttermilk Bar while Danger Danger was virtually home somewhere else. And Neptune's Treasure picks up an 11-5 win. That's the top two seeds advancing to the finals. In the in-lane playoffs on Tuesday night, Rest in Pinball went to Scrappleland to visit Everybody Loves the Sunshine, who I guess were just up Manhattan Avenue to be virtually at home. And Everybody Loves the Sunshine wins 10-6 over Rest in Pinball. So the Butterballers hosted Pinnister Six at Gebhard's Beer Culture. It turned out that the Knicks swept, which is okay by me, but at the Wallace did not have an NBA playoff game that would have happened that night. And so a match was moved to Gebhard's and there Butterballers bested Pinnister Six, Nine to Seven. It looks like this was another one that went 2-2, 3-1, 2-2 and then took someone to sweep in the fourth. And it was AJ and Franklin on Spectrum and Chad again and Eric on Congo to win the night. So that's to say that Chad had two straight nights of semifinals heroics to win by having a sweep in the final round. On Wednesday, May 13th at Scrapple Land in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, Scrapple League was convened under Greg Pavarelli's direction with assistance by Eric Swedeland, Woody Richmond and Harlan Aida Linda. 32 players showed up and after five rounds of group match play all these folks by the way they were showing up to improve their score presumably on route to the finals after six individual weeks are put together You get your best four to contribute toward the standings in order to qualify for the finals. And this week, Sean Grant did it the best with 31 points. Peter Larson and Greg Pavarelli and Nitsan Gabai all tied with 27 apiece. That's two 31 point weeks in a row for Storm and 27 points two weeks in a row for Greg. Also, all four of those top four opted into the side pot. And so I presume they were the four who were paid out. There are four weeks left in Scrapple League. So if you haven't gone yet and you've been thinking, hey, I'd like to go to play that, you can put in a full scorecard this season if you start next Wednesday. On Thursday, May 14th at Jack Bar, No Bro Presents Thursday Night Strikes was convened under Gabe Chazanov's direction and Gabe Chazanov won the night after 11 rounds, beating Greg Fertel. And they were in front of Tomei Tenosovsky and Peter Larson rounding out the top four. Also on Thursday, SSPL 3 had its first meeting at Buttermilk. This is the first meeting of SSPL since the games have flipped.
    9:05
    Jess Warren ran the night because Kate was out of town and Caitlin was out of town. It seems like a lot of New York City is at stomp, but nonetheless, there were still 21 players who showed up on Thursday night to play on the new collection of seven games that are Kate's, not Max's any longer.
    9:28
    Joan Simander assisted Jess in directing the thing, and I was tapped to make rulings on their games. If the two of them were playing each other, I was the person who would rule on it.
    9:44
    Taylor Connolly won the night, also won the night by having keys a lot of times. That was really great that we had access to the games in a competition setting. That was nice. And thanks to Taylor for his service on that front. But he also won the night in points with 31. A.J. Gould and Dante Oliva tied at 27 apiece. And Matthew Carlson came in fourth with 25. This week on Monday, May 18th, in the finals of Pinball NYC's Right Orbit, lion persons will visit Balls of Steel at their virtual home of Rulo's. And we Colliders will be the visitors at the virtual home team, the Aristocrats, hosting us at Scrappleland in the in-lane finals. So two matches for trophies on Monday night. And in addition, Barcade Brooklyn Pinball League Season 9 will have its first meeting. It's another one of these, you know, six weeks of meetings, your best four and five rounds of match play. And finals on the seventh week. Looks like the finals for this one is going to be June 29th. That's going to be the first meeting of BBPL season nine. I think I'm going to call it for now. On Tuesday, May 19th, Danger Danger will host Neptune's Treasure at Jack Bar in Williamsburg. And in the in-lane finals, that was the Orbit finals there. And in the in-lane finals, Everybody Loves the Sunshine will be the hosts at Barcade Fidai, where Butterballers will be the visitors. Again, two matches for trophies on Tuesday night. And this one, to me, just looks a little bit interesting because we, Colliders, a Buttermilk team, went to Barcade Fidai last week. And this week, a Buttermilk team is going to Barcade Fidai for the finals. On Wednesday, May 20th, Scrapple League will be convened under Greg Pavarelli's direction with a slew of assistance. It'll be the third meeting of season three. Starts at Pinball 8 o'clock, but, you know, they try to be kind of prompt. On Thursday the 21st, No Bro Presents Thursday Night Strikes will be convened at Jack Bar under Gabriel Chasanov's direction. That starts at 7.30 sharp. And also on Thursday, I believe the second meeting of South Slope Pinball League's third season of 2026 will be convened at Buttermilk in Park Slope at pinball 8 o'clock. But on Saturday, and in particular, it's funny, I mentioned his name earlier, Howard Levine will host the OCPC Memorial Catskill Classic. OCPC is Orange County Pinball Club. That's the sort of loose organization of a lot of folks' personal collections and also, you know, the Rock Fantasy Collection and some stuff that a lot of tournaments are played on up that way, up in the Hudson Valley. But the OCPC Memorial Catskill Classic will be held on Saturday at Howard's Place. I'm sure you can find a way to reach out to Howard if you would like to be invited. You should not just show up to someone's home, though. And that same day, South Slope Strikes will be convened at Buttermilk. It will primarily be at Buttermilk, at least. That's the home bar, but often it will spill over into Rulo's. That will be at 5 o'clock, or 5.30, I imagine, actually. 5 o'clock signups, 5.30, start. And on Sunday, the Brooklyn Memorial Classic 5 will be convened at a private collection in Brooklyn. All right, I'm going to do a quick bullet journal. I wanted to do at least a little something for Ball 2 this week. And on Saturday, I went to Barcade Phi Dive because I had the match coming up on Monday at Barcade Phi Dive and I practiced on a lot of games. I went late enough in the afternoon. I kind of intended to go get lunch, but it was late enough in the afternoon slash early enough in the evening that it didn't really line up for a meal, which was fine. I always enjoy that collection. I enjoy those games. I enjoy myself when I am at that place and work around the folks who curate that vibe. I appreciate that. And then on Monday, of course, I was back at Fideye. I didn't get there until pretty close to, you know, I think I got there in time to play like two or three practice games before we were starting to make decisions about what to play. I was pleased that the other team chose TX Sector in the first round because it was my number one, my top confidence pick.
    14:49
    And I played a very good game on it in that round. And Andrew and Ty both played good games on it and Chad just couldn't quite get a hold of it. But my very good game was enough to beat their two kind of good games And well you know with Chad I did need Chad I think It wasn just my score I didn do it alone I was really pleased that that was how it started And then of course I called it in the second round on singles and Andrew kicked my ass inside out I really liked that we really put it together We won six points in doubles Of the nine points that we won we won six points in doubles It was the teammates picking each other up that was the way that we got it done And I also I pointed out that Chad had a monster on Champion Pub. He like got the I fought everyone and am the Champion Pub like he got the whatever the championship multiball or whatever that thing is after you beat all the fighters. But also Jackie had an incredible game also was was advancing through fights and doing all kinds of crap. Just like it was crazy the way that both of them were playing. And I don't remember what the other two games were, but I don't think that they were complete crap either. It was really, we finished Frontier and I think they had just finished Ball 1 on Champion Pop. So it was going for a while and it was dramatic and everyone was standing around from both teams. It was fun, it was cool. On Wednesday, I worked remote here in Brooklyn and my wife left town for a little bit, for a couple of days, to go see some friends. And so I had an evening with not a shit ton to do. And so I was like, you know what?
    16:49
    I thought I wanted to walk. I thought I wanted to go try the new collection at Buttermilk. And I just like I had bandwidth to walk a few blocks. And so I went to Franklin Park. I ran into a neighbor. Matt Gross is a neighbor here. And I ran into him, played a game of each Game of Thrones, Godzilla and Ghostbusters. And then I doubled back to Godzilla because I had gotten a replay and had a quarter of a beer left. So it was kind of perfect. And it was just, you know, beers with a pinball in and out. And it was great. I love being able to do that and I appreciate that there's somewhere I can walk that close to do that now. And then last night, Thursday night, that is the 14th, May 14th, I, after work, I went straight to Scrappleland, took the 7 train out and walked across the bridge. It's that that in and of itself is kind of an experience if you do it like around the rush hour commute, because the number of just like people who were dressed for work whom I saw walking across that bridge was super cool. I love the idea that your commute is I walk from Queens to Brooklyn or vice versa for work. So that that was pretty cool. And I played a bunch of games. I enjoyed a lot of them. I find it really challenging to go to Scrappaland and not just want to dial in on a single game and just play it over and over again, despite the fact that there's a collection of like 60 some games. I went and played all the stuff that I am hopeful to play on Monday night, that I'm excited to play on Monday night, that I hope we have the opportunity to, that I hope I have the opportunity to contribute points toward the Collider's Cause on the games that I hope to be able to do that on. And, you know, I played way more than I can only play four games on Monday night. I played way more than four. So I'm trying to get ready, but also I'm trying to remember how to touch Peter's games, man. It's it's a special. There's a difference between the way that Benjamin slides Max's old games around at Buttermilk and the way that Benjamin lightly taps on Peter's machines at Scrappleland. It's a very big difference between those two magnitudes of touch. Magnitudes of Touch is my third favorite Rod Stewart song. And then I finished my second beer at Scrappleland. And again, my wife's out of town. I was on my way home on the G train and I realized that SSPL was happening at Buttermilk after I didn't go play on all the new games on Wednesday. And frankly, I was looking cute. I was wearing a new suit. And so being out didn't seem like a bad idea. And so I went straight to Buttermilk where I played SSPL. I don't think I'm going to play the whole season, but I did want to get there and play those games. I did want to do it on Thursday night. There was at least once that I considered asking, you know, asking myself if I should stay past the current round I was playing, but I soldiered through. I got there. And I had a lot of fun, too. Don't get me wrong. I had more fun the later I stayed. But I had a frustrating start and did not feel like I was playing good pinball and didn't feel like I was going to have fun playing pinball if I didn't start playing better pinball. But I turned it around, not necessarily the pinball bit, but I turned around the mental bit, the mental health bit of it. Ball 3. I originally thought that Ball 3 was going to be some content from Rochester and Eric sent me a text yesterday. I haven't found the wherewithal to gather any content and that's a-okay. I'm not mad at that. And in fact, what I want more than for them to gather content is for them to enjoy themselves. I thought when I started editing this episode that Ball 3 was going to be a house ball for that reason, but it occurred to me that I could take a moment to do a quick and dirty oral history of NYC Pinpod in particular because I think that a lot of our current audience was not the same as our past audience, or I should say as my past audience. For those of you who might not know, for those of you who might have only been on board since season three, NYC Pinpod was just me for several years, or at least primarily me, I should say. I started it in 2017 and it was literally just my voice on most of the episodes doing first competition results in ball one. Second, I always did a venue review of some venue in the city. And then ball three as it is now was freeform editorial. Occasionally there was an extra ball that would have an interview or something like that. I always tried to keep interviews in the 10-minute realm just to make it easy on the people I was interviewing, but it often got way out of hand.
    22:15
    And because I was doing it myself, I was able to let it get way out of hand as long as the person had the time to keep speaking to me. I did in that format I did 138 regular episodes from 2017 to the time that location Pinball just got shut down in the pandemic I have a very specific recollection of editing in not just some random hotel room somewhere but a location pinball podcast about New York City in a Marriott in Singapore I tried to put out an episode every single week for those three years. And if you do the math, you can realize I came pretty close.
    23:16
    When Pinball really got going again in the city after the pandemic, Eric did season two by himself or largely by himself. And it was mostly only the competition results segment. And probably part of why when you heard him last week say, I would like NYC Pinpod to continue, but it's daunting the idea to do it alone. I think he realized how much goes on in the background in order to make NYC Pinpod what it is, even with just a single voice. It's kind of a lot, which is part of why I am intending to at least not be an every week contributor to NYC PinPod in the fall as of right now. There are some other projects that I want to accomplish, and so that's why. But I did this that way for a while. I just wanted to make sure that we talked for a minute about why NYC PinPod. The important parts of the history are how did we get there and what should we do because of it? I can't tell you what to do because of it, but I can tell you how we got here. I started playing pinball in the 90s in central Pennsylvania and that's a long time ago and far away and just about as much science fiction as Star Wars anyway. Okay. But when my wife had a birthday gathering at a bar in our neighborhood, that there was a pinball machine at the back of it. Now, I didn't go play pinball that night when I found, when I saw that pinball machine. I did go back and look at it, but I didn't play it on that night that was her birthday that a bunch of our friends were in the neighborhood. But I did go back to that venue. It was 706 on Washington Avenue. It is no longer open nor a pinball venue in its current, in whatever has moved into the storefront. It was called Bar 706. It was at 706 Washington Avenue. And it had a Tales of the Arabian Nights in the back of it at that time. Just one, I think. In hindsight, I can identify that as Max's Tales of the Arabian Nights that I played for a long time at Buttermilk. But at the time, I just knew that there was some Tales of the Arabian Nights game in the back, and it's a game I didn't play in the 90s. So it seemed kind of new and weird to me. I then brought my friend Ben H., also now a fellow collider, there one night. It was actually just after he had opened Aladdin on Broadway. Anyway, he worked on the show. And so I brought him there and we played the Tales of the Arabian Nights pinball machine because he just couldn't get away from the flying carpets and shit. But we played that. We had a blast. And so both of us were kind of interested in doing this. And it took me months to just randomly meet someone out playing pinball before they said, hey, this guy does this app. It's called Pinball Map. You can find pinball machines. And then months more of going around and yeah, sure, I met people and I talked to people when I was out playing pinball. But like months more of going around for someone to actually say like, hey, we actively would like for you to be on our team. Not just like, hey, you know, there's this league on Monday. You do well. But like, hey, we actively are looking for people and you come here and play. Anyway, that said, it wasn't the Colliders themselves. It was the owner of Super Collider, Robert, who hooked me up with the team. But it was a slow evolution for me. I went looking for podcasts about pinball when I realized that people were playing pinball again, or still, really, it turns out. For me, I hadn't been playing in like 20 years, 15 years, and all of a sudden it seemed like it was back. So I was really happy about that. But I felt like there could have been more information out there about how to do it and where to do it and when to do it. It was only after I found that there was a rabid community of like 30 to 50 pinball players in the city who were playing tournaments every weekend and sometimes playing like leagues and all kinds of stuff like that, like individual stuff, not just the Monday night team thing, but that there were other things. And I kind of found out about all of this stuff by word of mouth. And that felt like a really inefficient way for someone who's obsessive as I am about something like this to have got the information. It took me two years to get from, oh, hey, there's a pinball machine in this bar to like, oh, I can play individual competitions.
    28:17
    And so that was really what I wanted to do with NYC PinPod. I went looking for this information via podcasts because podcasts were of the moment at that time. And I found all kinds of pinball podcasts, but most of them talked about being a hobbyist, being someone who owned your pinball machines and fixed your pinball machines. And none of it talked about the things that I was missing, the things that I wanted someone to help me find, the individual competition elements, The, you know, somewhere to go find homies to hang out with. And if nothing else, I wanted NYC Pinpod to be that. I truly hope that there are more chapters of NYC Pinpod's history that someone else can tell you about later. For right now, I just wanted to mention that because I'm not sure that the people listening, I'm not sure that everybody listening might realize what the first chapter of NYC Pin Pod's life looked like.
    29:27
    That's all for this week's pod. Join us next week when we will run down local competition results in Ball 1, including the Pinball NYC Championships.
    29:41
    We will do the things we usually do in Ball 2 and give you venue updates and our bullet journals. And I hope we're going to hear from Eric about his time in Rochester there. And in Ball 3, we're hoping to speak to the organizers of Topper's Pinball Club. Between now and then, whatever you're up to, go get them, Pinball.
    30:11
    Thank you.