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Triple Drain Pinball Podcast Ep 39: 5 Minutes Of Endless Ball Save

Triple Drain Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·2h 4m·analyzed·Jul 1, 2023
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.037

TL;DR

Tom returns to Triple Drain; hosts discuss European tournaments, Johannes's dominance, and competitive pinball dynamics.

Summary

Triple Drain Pinball Podcast hosts Joel, Travis, and returning co-host Tom Graff discuss their recent European tournament experiences, including the European Pinball Championship and World Pinball Championship. The episode covers tournament logistics, player skill analysis (particularly Johannes's dominance), and jet lag impacts on competitive performance. Tom celebrates achieving Twitch partner status.

Key Claims

  • Tom Graff achieved Twitch partner status after a concentrated two-week push with high viewership

    high confidence · Joel and Tom confirm Tom's recent Twitch partnership achievement; they discuss the requirements and mention Tom met the threshold with consistent views over multiple streams

  • There are only four partnered pinball Twitch streamers: Buffalo, Deadflip, IE Pinball, and Tom Graff

    medium confidence · Joel lists these four by name but acknowledges uncertainty about a potential fifth streamer; Travis notes he hasn't streamed in years

  • Johannes won the World Pinball Championship after advancing from near the bottom of the bracket through dominant play

    high confidence · Travis describes Johannes making finals as 'probably the biggest heater in the history of competitive pinball'; multiple hosts confirm he beat major players including Z-Mac, Escher, and others before defeating the #1 seed

  • The World Pinball Championship featured 80 of the world's top-ranked players competing in eight rounds of three games each

    high confidence · Tom and Travis discuss the 8-round format, top 32 advancement, and point requirements (13, 17, 21 points across rounds)

  • European tournament setups had stricter tilt sensitivity on older games, making nudging more risky than American machines

    high confidence · Tom describes games like Dolly Parton with hair-trigger tilt, mentions Eric Stone stomping and tilting a game, and notes Fire had aggressive tilt bob; contrasts with Stern machines being more forgiving

  • Nearly all Stern machines at the European World Championship had plastic protectors on the playfield

    high confidence · Tom notes this was unusual and affected gameplay; mentions Godzilla flipper placement issue as example

  • The Epstein Cup is a team competition with eight North American and eight European players, selected by IFPA ranking

    high confidence · Travis and Tom describe the format: top eight U.S. players by rank; Jared August didn't make the trip, so Colin got the spot; games played in groups of four with point systems

Notable Quotes

  • “I think anybody that's pretty much in the top 100 I've played. And playing against Johannes was probably – outside of playing ZMAC at Expo, it was like one of the few times that I felt absolutely helpless.”

    Travis @ ~45:00 — Demonstrates the exceptional skill level of Johannes compared to other elite players; emphasizes helplessness against him

  • “He's like a robot he barely moved... It's just like Terminator mode and it's just it's impressive to watch.”

    Travis @ ~46:00 — Vivid description of Johannes's playing style and emotional detachment during competition

  • “Everything seemed safe. like everything he shot at was he could get it back in control. It seemed like it. Yeah. Even if it was like an in lane, like he's back under control.”

    Tom @ ~52:00 — Technical observation of Johannes's trap control and ball security fundamentals

  • “Probably not human. probably something sent back from the future.”

    Tom @ ~51:00 — Humorous but revealing assessment of Johannes's superhuman pinball abilities

  • “It was like somebody dragging out somebody that's, like, drunk out of the pub. Like, you're my best friend. It's okay. Don't worry about it.”

    Travis @ ~82:00 — Vivid description of severe jet lag impact during World Championship competition

  • “If you look at my. I could tell you were really tired. Oh, Tom was trying to like talk me through it. He was helping me.”

    Travis @ ~81:00 — References stream visibility of jet lag; shows peer support among tournament community

  • “There probably has to be someone that's just the absolute best right now. And, I mean, I don't know. I would be excited to see him come over and play Indus or something like that.”

    Travis @ ~55:00 — Acknowledges Johannes's supremacy while questioning home-court advantage effects at European events

  • “You game the system just like the IFPA.”

Entities

Tom GraffpersonTravispersonJoelpersonJohannespersonNeil McCraepersonEric StonepersonKeith ElwinpersonEscherperson

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Young international players (Tyler from New Zealand, age 16-17) successfully competing at elite world championship level, demonstrating talent development and geographic expansion of competitive scene

    high · Tyler's advancement to World Championship finals despite being ranked near bottom; defeat of experienced players like Marcus Six; mentioned he listens to podcast

  • ?

    community_signal: Podcast listener engagement: Tyler confirmed as podcast listener; emotional investment in matchups and tournament outcomes across international audience

    medium · Travis mentions Tyler was excited to play him; pod hosts note listener awareness of tournament details

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Johannes established as dominant force in competitive pinball; operates at skill level significantly above current elite players; utilizes exceptional trap control and shot accuracy

    high · Travis's direct comparison of playing Johannes to helplessness; description of robot-like play; claim that Johannes would beat any player 50%+ in 100-game series

  • ?

    competitive_signal: North America maintains competitive parity with Europe at team level (Epstein Cup win) but Europe dominates individual elite championship (Johannes World Championship victory)

    high · North America won Epstein Cup team event; Johannes won World Championship as European; multiple European players in top 32 finals bracket

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Tournament machine setup philosophy reflects different regional approaches: European events prioritize difficulty/tilt sensitivity on vintage titles to challenge elite players; American venues prioritize playability balance

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.374

0:00
The Pinball Network is online. Launching Triple Drain Pinball Podcast. All right, Travis, how you feeling, man? You good? You feeling okay?
0:19
He's nodding his head. It's an audio podcast, Travis. I thought I was ready. Hey, Joel. Yeah, yeah. I got my towel in, by the way. Your towel? Yep. Oh, you bought one? No, I didn't buy one. Yeah, I got my towel in. Oh, God.
0:41
That's cute. Thanks for supporting us. Yep. Right before I hit the button to play the intro song, Travis literally coughed up something, and he was like, I think it all came out. He's coughing up blood. Too much whiskey, too many cigars. What can you do? Yeah. Smoke. And I have to ask, and I'm so excited to ask this, but Tom, are you ready?
1:05
Unfortunately for the listeners, yes, I am. No, no, no, unfortunately. No, you are back. He's back. It's been like five weeks since we recorded the three of us. So, yeah, I'm going to go ahead and hit the button here, and let's go. We're three guys who like to dunk and ball. So we came up with the plan for a name. We're Joey Travis and I'm the son of a ball. And we call ourselves Triple J.
1:42
Tom, I think we're just going to have to do it ourselves. Travis is dying. He is dying over there. Are you okay? It's all that Canadian smoke. Okay, no joke. I sent a text out to Mike with Pinballers, Craig Bobby, and David Dennis up there in Canada. I said, get your freaking smoke out of our country. Yeah, what the shit? Yeah. My kid's daycare, their outdoor day was canceled here in Indiana because of the air quality. For three days, three days we were advised not to go outside because of the forest fires up in Canada. So we got some pretty entertaining responses back. Mike just says they're cooking a ton of marshmallows up there. and he sent a picture of cooking hot dogs over the campfire. But it got all the way down. I mean, you're in Minnesota. Not Minnesota, Missouri, where Travis is. And, I mean, clearly he must be breathing it in right now. He's – you're going to be – Yeah, I'm fine, Joel. I'm just allergic to your shit. That's all. We just started. Tom, it's so great to have you back, by the way. Oh, thank you. I miss you so much, buddy. I had to be on here with Joel. And just, I missed you. I'm so glad you're back. Thanks. I appreciate that. The problem is now that we're a video. Although Greg was great. That's what I'm saying is now that we're a video podcast, you've set the bar. We have to find somebody that not only meets you and your charisma and what you bring there audio-wise, but we've got to find a good-looking guy, too, to fill your role. So, Greg Bone. Yeah, that's hard to do. It was a decent stand-in. Decent stand-in for the Tom Graff. Yeah. I was ready to, like, weekend at Bernie's and shit. Like, I was fully prepared.

  • North America won the Epstein Cup; Neil McCrae played on the team, taking first on Centaur and Skateball after struggling on his opening game

    high confidence · Joel confirms U.S. victory; Tom notes Neil's performance recovery across the three games

  • Johannes is described by top players as nearly unbeatable, with Travis estimating he would beat any current world player more than 50% of the time in a 100-game series

    medium confidence · Travis provides detailed analysis of Johannes's playstyle: trap control, shot accuracy, and ball security; compares the skill gap between himself and Johannes to coast-to-coast USA distance

  • Travis experienced severe jet lag affecting his performance during World Pinball Championship qualifying, particularly hitting a wall mid-day

    high confidence · Travis describes the experience as 'like I was drunk without being mentally impaired'; mentions making a 38 million point game on Congo while struggling; visible fatigue confirmed on stream

    • Joel @ ~15:00 — Playful jab at Tom's strategic approach to hitting Twitch partnership requirements

  • “We don't have that. Okay. A couple weeks at District 82.”

    Tom @ ~27:00 — Reveals absence of U.S. equivalent national championship to European Pinball Championship

  • “He probably beats everybody like more than 50 times. he probably wins more than half the time against anybody else in the world.”

    Travis @ ~54:00 — Statistical framing of Johannes's skill dominance; measurable competitive advantage claim

    • Zach McCarthy (Z-Mac)person
    European Pinball Championshipevent
    World Pinball Championshipevent
    Epstein Cupevent
    Tylerperson
    Jason Zollerperson
    Marcus Sixperson
    Colinperson
    Greg Boneperson
    Vigoperson
    Stephen Bowdenperson
    Jared Augustperson
    Twitchcompany
    Triple Drain Pinball Podcastorganization
    IFPAorganization
    Danieleperson
    Arvidperson

    medium · Tom's comment: 'I understand why they did it because of the quality of players' regarding strict European tilt; Stern machines given more forgiving setup

  • $

    market_signal: Skill ceiling conversation: elite players increasingly specialized (trap control, shot accuracy, rules knowledge) with Johannes representing possible outlier/superior skill integration across all dimensions

    medium · Extended discussion of Keith Elwin's ball control, Escher's rules knowledge, Eric Stone's shot accuracy; Travis comparing these specializations while noting Johannes masters all dimensions

  • ?

    event_signal: World Pinball Championship underdog story: lowest-ranked finalist defeated top seed (Johannes) to near-completion, representing 'biggest heater in competitive pinball history'

    high · Multiple hosts confirm finals came down to Johannes vs underdog who advanced from bottom of bracket through 9 consecutive strong games; reached 21-point requirement (perfect round)

  • $

    market_signal: International tournament participation increasing; players traveling across continents for competitions despite significant jet lag and logistics challenges

    medium · Tom's family trip to Europe; Travis's emergency travel; Neil McCrae's frequent international tournament attendance; New Zealand player participation at World Championship

  • ?

    community_signal: Jet lag's measurable impact on elite tournament performance: Travis competing at reduced cognitive capacity; compares experience to intoxication without impairment

    high · Travis's detailed account: 'perfectly fine' until mid-day wall; stream visibility of fatigue; 38M Congo score while struggling; Tom's supportive coaching through performance slump

  • ?

    community_signal: Tom Graff elevated to global recognition through Twitch partnership; international audience exposure during European tournament travel; fan interactions with non-pinball communities

    medium · Joel notes Tom's 'bubble' being invaded by random people in Germany; references international Twitch platform reach; comparison to earlier Hot Tub meta jokingly

  • ?

    community_signal: Tom Graff achieved Twitch partner status through strategic content planning, indicating pinball streaming as viable platform with growing audience metrics

    high · Tom's 2-week concentrated push with multiple streams; met threshold for consistent high viewership; only four confirmed partnered pinball streamers identified

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Machine setup differences between European and North American tournament venues: European machines feature stricter tilt sensitivity on vintage games, plastic playfield protectors on all Stern machines, inconsistent flipper positioning

    high · Tom's detailed observations: Dolly Parton hair-trigger tilt, Eric Stone anecdote, Fire's aggressive tilt bob, universal plastic protectors, Godzilla flipper issue

    • 3:30
    No, it was cool. It was cool talking to him. I'll put my will to donate my corpse to you. Wow. Well, I mean, just in case. Just in case. To both of us? Yeah. Well, how's that going to work?
    3:45
    You'll figure it out. Figure it out. I will say we've had some really great guests on this show, and it's always cool when people want to be on the show. But Greg was a change of pace because we've had a lot of very technical or tournament, you know, very focused on scoring type of people. And Greg's not that guy, which was awesome. It was cool having somebody just there sharing his love of Halloween and Scooby-Doo. So it was great. It was really cool having Greg on. I'd love to have him on again. That was a lot of fun. At least one person does. Yeah. But we have a congratulations in order, and that is Mr. Tom Graff is now officially a Twitch partner, right? Yeah. Twitch partner, yes. That's awesome. Last time you were on, it was five weeks ago, there was a push, and we kind of said it on the podcast. Like, hey, Tom's doing a push here. The big thing is he needs to have consistently high views for like a week plus in a row. So you had kind of knocked that out. You pushed. You did a bunch of streams all within two weeks. I game the system just like the IFPA.
    4:52
    So your push worked. Your push worked. And thank you so much to all the listeners or anybody that supported him because it was enough to get him over the hurdle. And, yeah, officially now I'm the odd one out. We have two officially Twitch partnered people and me. I don't share my Twitch anymore. So it's awesome. Congrats, man. How does it feel, you know, just being, you know, now like a global rock star? I mean, you just. Well, I wouldn't go that far, but it feels pretty good. As far as I know. When we were in Germany, I was having to, like, beat people off of Tom. His bubble was getting invaded the entire time. It was unbelievable. Yeah. That's a great bubble you got, Tom. That's a great bubble. Yeah, and it wasn't just pinball people either. Oh, they know, yeah. It was just random people. International Twitch star at this point.
    5:46
    There aren't a ton. There aren't a ton of partnered pinball streamers. So you have made it. I can only name four. Four? I know Buffalo, Dead Flip, IE Pinball, you.
    6:02
    That's it. And that's it. I think there's one. There's somebody else. They said their name before, and that's who helped Buffalo get in. I don't know who it is, though. I don't think they streamed. and then technically Travis Marv Loco over here he hasn't streamed on Twitch in years but yeah that's awesome I mean I'll play Call of Duty again it's fine it's probably still a popular game I bet somewhere Fortnite something I don't know I don't even think I can remember the controls on Call of Duty I haven't played in like 8 years I didn't know the controls either Tom I just sat there and stared at the camera and talk the whole time, and somehow it worked. Yep. And I think the trick was I think he had Monica on stream a few times, and that probably included members at decent. Yeah, she was like once or twice. But we were very much pre-Hot Tub meta, though. It wasn't quite there, but I don't know. I got my floaties ready. I might bring it back.
    7:01
    Awesome. Well, last time we recorded, we had no tournament talk. That was the rule, no tournament talk whatsoever. I know Greg really wanted to talk about it, and you know I did. But now that, Tom, now that you are back, there are definitely things we have to review. So just real brief, the goal for this episode, we're going to talk about some of the tournament stuff that's happened the last few weeks. And then there's just a whole bunch of just kind of random news that's going out there. So we're going to share some of our takes on that and kind of our current state of where we are with pinball, as well as some of the stuff we're seeing with the market, the market of pinball. So if you don't love tournament talk, that's fine. Hang out. We got plenty more to talk about afterwards. But the main thing I want to address when it comes to the tournament is both of you guys actually traveled to Europe. You guys both went to Europe and played in – It's a whole other country, Joel. It was. A whole other continent. Yeah, it's a big plane ride over there. Tom, you paid your whole family, actually. Your whole family went to Europe on that vacation, right? Yeah. Well, not the whole time, but yeah. Yeah. But, yeah, so there was the – I mean, I'm going to let you guys discuss this, but I know the first week there was – well, first off, you didn't participate in it, but Neil did. There's like a tournament or it's like a one-night thing where it's Europe has a team and the U.S. or North America has a team, and they just head-to-head. That was later on. Oh, I thought that was early on, but what is that called? Well, it was early on with the later on. Yeah. That's what you're getting confused about. That's a good one. This was a while ago, and I wasn't there, so maybe I should let you guys talk through the order of events. It's crystal clear. It was early on with the later on.
    8:46
    No, not early on, later on. Early on with the later on. I got it, yeah. Because the true early on was the European Pinball Championship. Yeah, that's exactly what I was saying. Yep. Okay. So what is the U.S. equivalent of that? Like what tournament? Of what? the European pinball, whatever you just said. Probably the United States Pinball Championship. When did that happen? Never. We don't have that. Okay.
    9:17
    A couple weeks at District 82. So you – I mean, honestly, yeah, I don't know. Is there a pinball? I don't think there really is. So the European Pinball Championship, anybody can play in it, right? Because you, Tom, you played in it. You just have to sign up for it. Okay. Yeah.
    9:34
    Tom Graff can go. But is anybody like, if I would have flown to Europe, could I have played in it? Or is there a qualifying aspect to it? No, they would have kicked you out, Joel.
    9:47
    I just loved how you worded that. Thanks, Tom. That was awesome. You're so fair. Get the hell out of here. I know. It was a genuine question. I didn't know if this was. I know, obviously, Worlds, when you guys played Worlds, there is clearly a qualifying aspect of that. But the European Pinball Championship, because, you know, Newsflash, Tom's not European, but he played in it. So I was wondering, is there actually... My ancestors used to be. Okay, that's what I mean. Yeah, the lineage. Yeah, it's a blood draw beforehand, and they swab your spit to find... You're okay, you're okay. Yeah. No, for real. How do you get into that, or can anybody get into it? You pay for it. I think it was 256 people get to sign up for it. Yeah, something like that. But I could have... You could have? Okay. You could have signed up. You could have flown over there, and you could have got your ass whooped by Johannes. Yes. You could have done it. I think everybody got whooped by Johannes, right? And Asher. And Zoller. Zoller beat him. And Vigo. Once, I think. And Arvid. Yeah. There's a lot of excellent players over there, no doubt. Okay. So you played in – Travis, you were not there for that, right? You just went to the old tip. Well, yeah. Unfortunately – I'm sure it's gotten around to a lot of people. Unfortunately, my mom had some health issues that I had to decide to cancel that last second. And then I actually flew to Germany the day before the whole thing started. So I was like jet lagged the whole time. But I had like just a crazy whirlwind week to even get there. So I was happy just to be there. Let me tell you, jet lag is a real thing, Joel. Yes. It is real. It is tough. it sucks but you just get through it so what I'm learning is, I mean, Neil McCray flies over for like every big tournament so I'm just going to assume because of jet lag is why he places where he places, otherwise he'd be like middle to top of the pack every tournament, right? I honestly don't know how he does it, but it's hilarious He gave me some very sound advice of how to properly sleep on a flight over the ocean.
    12:05
    And, Neil, you can correct me if I'm wrong here. I think it's you have two beers and a bowl of pasta. Yep, pasta. That's what I was told. But, Joel, I didn't get to do that, though. But let's let Tom explain EPC, and then I'll tell you my little tangents. That'll only take two minutes of how much I dislike United Airlines and whatever airline goes over there. It really seems so long ago.
    12:32
    It's been a hot minute. Yeah. So basically you start with 256 people, and you're broken down into groups of 16, Joel, 16 people. And you play each person head-to-head. Okay. Travis Hayes head-to-head. He does. Yeah. He does. But he would have enjoyed this, maybe.
    12:54
    But so you have to be in the top four in your group to advance. Wow. Okay. I was one game away from advancing, and I held a tiebreaker with Vigo, and I lost my game. So I had beaten Vigo, went to my game. I'm like, oh, it's the same game. I blew it up. No problem.
    13:22
    Then all of a sudden the Joel magic starts happening where you can't hit a shot. That's not magic, Tom. It's not magic.
    13:34
    No, it's a curse. It's a curse. But no, yeah. So then I got to enjoy everybody else playing. And no, it was good, though. The EPC was good. Nice. And Neil played in that as well How far did he get?
    13:54
    Neil got top 16 I think Oh wow, nice Okay 32 top 16, something like that Let me look, I'm going to look it up Do you know top 3? He was 12 Nice, who were the top 3 or 4 of that one? Do you remember who won that? Escher won, Jason Zoller second Good for them Did Johannes play in that one? Uh, he... Yeah, he, uh, Zoller beat him in an earlier round. And this was a major tournament, too. Yeah, there were a lot of huge, huge names there. Not only from Europe, but from the U.S. Was, uh, what is it, Smorgasborgen? Was he... He's not there. Josh, right up. No, when we had Josh Sharp on here, the Johannes's name came up, And he's kind of this, like, at least over here in the U.S., because he doesn't come over here to play. But the guy is just like, he's like not a myth, but he's like a legend. He might as well be a myth. I have to actually play him in a group.
    15:04
    Well, I'm jumping ahead. That was for Worlds. Let's let Tom finish EP2. So maybe, my skill level to yours, Travis, versus your skill level to Johannes. Is that even a question? Which is the smaller gap from my skill level to yours or yours to Johannes?
    15:23
    Which one's the smaller gap? That's actually a tough question. Let's do Joel and Johannes. So if you're on the coast of the United States and you travel all the way to the West Coast and Travis's camera's out, that would be the gap between Joel and Johannes. Perfect. I think that's a great – that was not the question, but I think it illustrates it well. I mean, Travis is a top, what, 25 player, but Johannes is just insane. I'll put it this way, Joel. I've played against everybody. Like, I think anybody that's pretty much in the top 100 I've played.
    16:03
    And playing against Johannes was probably – outside of playing ZMAC at Expo, it was like one of the few times that I felt absolutely helpless. like it didn't matter what I was going to score it didn't matter what I was going to do Johannes was going to beat it and he was going to look much cooler while doing it like there was just he's like a robot he barely moved I mean he shows emotion outside of pinball like he's a nice guy like he's fun to talk to super nice but while he's playing I mean it's just like Terminator mode and it's just it's impressive to watch and if you go back and you watch the very, like, he made it all the way to, you know, finals and ended up winning, winning world. Spoiler alert for anybody who hasn't watched yet. But he literally just got to where he was just teleporting to, like, billions of points on Corvette and doing the same thing on Indy 500, and you don't do that. And you don't do that on those games in that situation either. It's just, it was just crazy the stuff he's able to do. So I know, and, like, this is, maybe I have no idea what I'm talking about, but, like, Eric Stone. I know people have said Eric Stone before, once he has a shot dialed in, he can just do the same shot for literally like a hundred times in a row. Like he's, some people describe him as that. Like once he finds that shot, he can't miss the shot.
    17:25
    But then you have people like, I think like an Escher, or that has such a crazy like understanding of the rules and the math at hand, the way that he can dissect code and know exactly what he needs to do. I'm just trying to like give a trait to some of these big players. So, Keith Elwin, like, what makes Keith Elwin so great? Is it his rules knowledge? Is it his accuracy? Is it his ball control? All the above?
    17:51
    I mean, I would put Elwin more in the ball control area. Like, he can settle in easily, and once he finds a shot, like, he can hit that shot. He can go to town on it, you know, and he can change his strategies according to what the pin's giving him, too. Like, you've seen it over the years. If you watch a lot of his games over the past decade or so, there's been plenty of times he's done something like that similar to make adjustments in the middle of a game. I know he kind of did something similar like that at Indisc when I was on Congo against him, and he was just, like, peppering the right ramp between the pops, like collecting a hippo bonus or whatever that was. I mean, it got way up there. I don't even remember if it got maxed out. He was just doing something crazy, getting up to $3 or $4 billion on that game. And that's the type of stuff people usually don't do. You never see that. But yet, he's able to achieve something like that. So that's kind of how I would put the way that Elwin does. Now, with Escher, Escher plays aggressive at times. Like, he'll nudge the machine. He'll get on it. He'll slap the shit out of the machine at times. But he's the same way. I mean, all elite players, they will dial in on a shot at some point. And they all have elite recovery skills. They all have elite shot-making ability. Now, not everybody knows every single nuance to a game. There is several people that do, but not everybody. And at times, you don't necessarily have to know. Like, that's the dirty secret about tournament pinball, that if anybody else is trying to get better, you don't necessarily have to know the entire game or the rule set, like the back of your hand. You just got to know your path. And you just got to know, okay, if I do A, B, C, then I can do the next thing. that's really what it amounts to. It's not knowing every single little minute detail of it because you're not going to do everything on a pin. Like it's not, unless you're playing at Expo or something like that, you're not going to get to wizard modes too often in a competitive setting. It's not impossible, but you're just mainly just going your pathway. So what is it, though, like why, what is Johannes doing, though, that's so much better? Probably not human. probably something sent back from the future.
    20:05
    There's a lot of things. The best way I described it to somebody playing him, it was like he had a magnet on both flippers. The ball would always find its way back there in a trap situation and then he would just go.
    20:22
    He'd do some flips, hit some shots, be trapped up. Hit some shots, do some flips, be trapped up. Everything seemed safe. like everything he shot at was he could get it back in control. It seemed like it. Yeah. Even if it was like an in lane, like he's back under control. Even if it looked like it's going out lane, little move back under control. I mean, it's, it's very impressive to watch. I would probably venture to say that it's highly likely that if he played anybody else in the world currently, I think if they played a hundred times, he probably beats everybody like more than 50 times. he probably wins more than half the time against anybody else in the world. He's just that good. And that's not to say, like, oh, everybody else is that bad. I mean, a lot of these players are elite-level players. There just has to be someone that's just the absolute best right now. And, I mean, I don't know. I would be excited to see him come over and play Indus or something like that because, I mean, naturally, you know, one of the first times that we really got to see him up close and see him against high-level American players, he was in an area that he was familiar with. I'm sure he's played those games tons of times. So, yeah, you could say that there might be a little home court advantage there. So I would be curious to see him come over here and play in America against the top American players and see how that goes. Or even, you know, any type of neutral site. Not saying that, like, the place that we were at wasn't, but you know what I mean. Like, it's different when you've got to travel that far and you're, like Tom alluded to, you're jet lagged, you're away from home, you're in a hotel for like a week and a half, two and a half weeks. I mean, yeah, there's a lot that goes into it. Maybe this is a really dumb question, but obviously European games run on a completely different type of power, not type of power, but like their, what is it, their voltage is different. Like it is a different power supply that's built into these games. I can tell you their water is different. Well, we know water, yeah, gas or no gas. I figured that out. Gas or no gas, tiny little stuff. But I know the power setup in Europe is different than here. Did you feel any, like, were the flippers stronger, weaker? Did they last longer? Any change like that or no? No, no, that was noticeable. No, I mean, the games played fine. The only difference at Worlds, I mean, I can't speak to how the games played. Where was it, Fulda? I think. Tom can't, though. That was pretty legendary for the American players. I can't speak on that. But at Worlds.
    22:50
    but go ahead yeah where was this so a lot of the older games are set up kind of tough in regards to nudging like you and a couple of the games you could not like oh that's a good example um i don't know dolly parton uh there are a couple of games like if you just gave it like a little nudge, like you were done, it's yeah, you tilt it out. Uh, there, there was an instance where a stone said he like stomped on the ground and it tilted the game. Um, which fire had a really outrageous tilt Bob in it. Uh, you know, so there were, There were just some setups that were like, I understand why they did it because of the quality of players and, you know, that. But then, like, some of the Stern games, you could sit there and, like, throw them around. And it was like, and then you'd get, like, a danger. And it was like, well, why is this set up like that? But the other games, you know, were nudgings of skill and you want to try to keep it in play.
    24:14
    You know, those were set up tougher. So, yeah, I just didn't agree with a couple of the setups. But, yeah, what do I know, I guess?
    24:25
    You're Tom Graff, you know, freaking American treasure over here. Twitch partner. every almost every stern machine had a plastic protector on the playfield no yes which was very are you talking worlds both oh so if old i had the same thing yeah no it was very odd to me um and i i just i just remember the guy i'm looking at godzilla i just remember the godzilla there yeah and like it was just whoever put the flippers back on they were like up oh no like every shot was way early whatever something's down now something dropped would you drop travis a pen that was lame an apple but it's not a lot heavier than that which i'm complaining to complain, you know, kind of thing. But, you know, at the end of the day, it's the same for everybody. Yeah. You learned to adapt, right? Right. Hopefully you learned to adapt. I didn't. You adapted and never talked. So you had the European Pinball Championship, and then you got to Worlds. And Worlds, I know, like, Keith Elwin traveled over for that, right, A. Escher. I mean, all the big names. All the big names were there. What is it? To qualify, you have to be. it was top 100 players. No? Top however many. How many? Top 80, I think. Top 80. Top 80 players in the world by the end of 2022.
    26:07
    Correct? Yeah. So, all I watched, I mean, this was a while ago. This was a while ago. But didn't the final two came down to Johannes, number one seed, and wasn't the next guy like the 30th seed or something? Like it was some underdog guy. Yeah. He basically was on probably the biggest heater in the history of competitive pinball. It's pure insanity. I think – so to give an idea, we had to play – I want to say it was – was it seven rounds, Tom? Or eight rounds of three games each? I forget. Eight rounds. Okay, so eight rounds of three games each. And it was the top 32, I think. That's what it was. It was 31, I think. Well, yeah. And not only that, he had to get, I think it was 13 points, then like 17 points and 21 points. He had to do something insane. And 21 points is a perfect round. Yeah. So he basically had to nearly win out against top-tier players for nine games in a row. Because he was, like, at the bottom after just a couple rounds. And so not only did he do that, then he went on, and I think he defeated Stephen Bowden in the first round going to game nine. And then I believe he beat Escher. I think, did he beat Z-Mac before? Or was it Z-Mac first? Yeah, I think so. Yeah, so then he beat Z-Mac, Zach McCarthy, who's a world champion, in the second round. And I think he even swept him 4-0, if I remember right. and then he played Escher the next round and then won that, and then he played, I want to say, was it Marcus Six at that point, or did he play?
    27:57
    I can't remember. I forget, but he was just on an absolute heater. And then, of course, he took Johannes all the way to nine games as well. Yeah, which was insane. It's just crazy. Yep. Well, I know watching that, so like you said, you had to do the qualifying for it. Tom, you didn't qualify, right?
    28:14
    I suck. Did Neil qualify? I think he did. He sucked. No, he didn't qualify? He didn't qualify at IFPA 18. He was kind of in his own head. He wasn't playing good, and then he just kind of got flustered. He knew when you're behind, like Marcus was, it's hard to come back. So you're like, I got to do this, I got to do this. And when it doesn't happen, you just, like, fold like a deck of cards. I mean, that's, you know. Yeah. I mean, these are the best players in the world. But I will say. Every matchup is. He did play in the early before the later. He played in the Epstein Cup. Oh, that's what it is, the Epstein Cup. Right. Which the U.S. did win that, by the way. So, yeah. So he did. He did come home with some hardware. Yeah. Which Neal did not play good on his first game. And then his next two, I think he took first on Centaur and Skateball. So the Epstein Cup, what's the rules to that?
    29:23
    It's a team. It's two teams, right? Like a European team and a North American team. How many players each team? Eight players per team. But how are those eight people picked?
    29:35
    Based off your rank. Your rank. It's the top eight U.S. players that are willing to play. And I think there was only one that didn't make the trip. And so Jared August, who's an extremely talented player, one of the best in the U.S., he didn't make the trip. So, therefore, the spots went down when I think it was Colin who got the spot. Nice. Yeah. Nice. They really need to do, like, the Ryder Cup where they have captain's picks.
    30:05
    Dodgeball. I'll take you. Was Johannes on the European team? He was. Oh. Johannes. I think they had Arvid and they had Daniele and Vigo. I mean, they were stacked. It wasn't. And Neil McRae.
    30:20
    I don't believe Neil McRae was part of that. He was in the top eight. No? Okay, just checking. I love you, Neil.
    30:29
    Okay, so that was cool. That was cool. And how does that format work, the 18? Is that head-to-head? Or how does that competition go, the two teams of eight? They play in groups of four, but each team picks who they're playing with. So, like, Neil played with Escher. Oh, okay. And then I think Carlos played with Jason Zoller. Colin played with Steven Bowden. And I think it was Raymond and Kaylee. So you just pair up, and then it's a point system. So first gets whatever. And then I guess you know the Americans pick some games Europeans pick some games and then they decide like who playing who So it pretty involved but it a lot of fun to watch honestly Cool. Well, congrats to the Americans. Or is it unfair to say Americans? Is it North America? No. Was there any Canadian there? Well, Teolis was there, but he wasn't on the Epstein Cup. So we're just going to count it as America. Okay. Well, cool. And then you get to Worlds, and I remember watching that. And, Travis, I saw you had made it, so I was watching you. And you went to a tiebreaker with a rather young kid. Is kid the right word? How old was he?
    31:51
    I'm not sure how old Tyler was. I think he could shave. Yeah. He barely shaved. 16 or 17. That's fair. Yeah.
    32:00
    Actually, Tyler listens to the podcast. He was very excited to play Travis. Did somebody drive him to the tournament?
    32:12
    His dad was there. I'm going to go with kid then. I'm going to go with kid. Is that a barometer? Yeah. No, he did excellent. So he came in. I think he told me that he was, like, second or third to last rank in there. He's from New Zealand, so it's kind of like a large type thing. But, no, he played exceptionally well. I mean, he made finals. He picked my ass. And I think he took a couple of games off Marcus Sticks in the second round also. That's awesome. Good on Tyler, for sure. Good on him. That's really cool. I didn't know he was from New Zealand. I mean, that's a trip. I'm not salty over losing at all. Hold on. I probably didn't have jet lag because, you know, he was flying in the other direction. So he was probably, like, superpowered somehow. Right. Isn't that how that works? I will say this. It was so freaking trippy because I would wake up and I would be like, at first I was just like, ah, this isn't going to be a real thing. Like, I'm fine. And I'd be perfectly fine until the middle of the day. Then I would just hit a wall. And it was like, yeah, it was like I was drunk without being mentally impaired. I mean, it's wild. If you look at my. I could tell you were really tired. Oh, Tom was trying to like talk me through it. He was helping me. It was like somebody dragging out somebody that's, like, drunk out of the pub. Like, you're my best friend. It's okay. Don't worry about it. We'll get here. But, no, it's, I mean, you know, I had to compete under the same exact conditions as everybody else. I just, it took everything in me just to qualify and make it through qualifying because there was, like, multiple rounds in which I had to act like I was perfectly fine. but yeah if you watch me on stream like I made it on there for a couple games you'll notice I was not perfectly fine I think I had like one game where I had 38 million on Congo I think something like that then my Tron game in which if I would have I think if I would have won that game I might have been close to a double buy so I just got like really lucky buying the dip and just staying up that way and I think I ended up with like 2 million on Tron when Josh Sharp got to, like, see a simulation on Ball 2 or something like that. So, yeah, I just, yeah, but I had fun. It was enjoyable. It was a good trip, so I was glad to do it. It was just, it was crazy because I felt like the very last day, right, it felt like I was just a day or two away from finally being, like, adjusted, and then I ended up having to come back home to the States, and I had to do it all over again. And get adjusted again, yeah. It literally, it took me a solid three weeks just to feel normal again, And just to be able to wake up and not have to live on caffeine the whole time. But it was a lot of fun. It was a great trip, and I thoroughly enjoyed getting to hang out with everybody over there and meeting a lot of the Europeans. And everybody that listens to this podcast, we definitely appreciate it. Surprisingly, we actually have people from other parts of the world that listen, so that's pretty cool. How many people? That's really neat, yeah. Just with Silver Ball Swag stuff, seeing where some of it's shipped to. It literally gets shipped all over the world, which is really humbling. Like, that's awesome. It's weird that the three of us who live in completely different states are talking over the Internet and yet people all over the world listen to this. So, hey, if you listen to this, thank you. Somebody's got to pay for Joel's golf cart, so we appreciate all you guys. Thank you. Speaking of which, Patreon supporters, thank you so much. Thank you so much for that. We have had a few Patreon supporters leave, and usually the answer is just the patron's not as active as they were hoping and I get it, some of the other patrons out there do other things or calls or all this Way to sell it Joel Way to really drive that home At the end of the day that was always our thing with Patreon this is just a way to support us if you'd like us to and if you do, thank you, thank you so much but unfortunately no we're busy enough to try to schedule If somebody wants to put $100,000 into our Patreon I will guarantee you Joel will drive his golf cart up to your house personally. Yeah, 100,000. I will make sure his golf cart gets there, and we will cart your ass around wherever you want to go. Maybe we need a higher tier where we do, you know, well, the three of us will Skype call you once a month. It's going to have to be a pretty high tier. But, no, it's just with the three of us, it's already hard enough to schedule just plenty of time for us to talk. Dude, this podcast is a lot of fun. But, yeah, it's like it's just difficult. Ten grand, we'll get in a hot tub with you. Yeah. With you. I'll bring the beer. It'll be fine. Anywhere in the world. I'll bring the blindfolds. Wow. If Tom stopped streaming and stopped his Dish 82 stuff, and if Travis did a job outside of pinball. No, no, no. I'm saying if you stop doing that, if I stop doing my streaming, and all we did was focus on this pinball, we could do a lot more of this podcast. But unfortunately, we... I'm just trying to keep my head above water raising four kids. I know. So, yes, what I'm saying, though, is anybody that buys our merch, wherever it is, that's awesome. It's incredibly flattering. Same with the Zazzle stuff, the lunchbox. We've gotten a few emails of people getting their lunchboxes, which is awesome. And, you know, all our Patreon supporters, I mean, we really appreciate it. It's incredibly undeserved, but we really appreciate the support. And I wanted to say, you know, the European community was very welcoming, just a great community. Bowls and Balls was fantastic Freddy's Pinball Paradise was fantastic I mean, I would definitely go back if I had the chance Well, in two years, right? Two years you probably won't Well, I won't be there I will be in Austria Oh, okay And I probably won't make it anymore, so You don't think you're going to go, oh, with Josh's rules Neil will make it though, right? Yeah, that's true I'll be poor by then We talked about that, yeah, because it's clear that the IPA is only changing the rules specifically to you know, screw Tom Graff Yeah Well, anything else? Anything else tournament-wise that we need to talk about? Anything new?
    38:21
    Nothing, I just knew we wanted to cover some of that We got it out of our system, right? Yeah We flipped some flippers, we played some games Yeah, we drank some beer That's Sounds like a plan They drank a lot of German beer. They had excellent beer. I couldn't think of anything better to do, honestly. Well, I will say from watching it from afar, it is a challenge, and that's why I have even more respect to any of the people in Europe or Australia that, like, watch my streams late at night because to watch your stuff, it was me staying up super late, and then some of the stuff was like, okay, they're getting into later rounds, but I'm not going to make it. So I'd go to bed, and then the first thing I'd do when I'd wake up would be, like, checking, like, what happened, and what do I – it's just that time zone, is legit. But yeah, mad respect to anybody that consumes our content live outside of the U.S. That's pretty awesome. Pretty awesome. Except for you Canadians. You need your stupid smoke. Just suck it all back in. They're not overseas, though.
    39:22
    Somebody on the stream last night said what Canada's doing right now is an environmental terrorist attack. They're just blowing their smoke down on us, which I thought was hilarious. But anyways, other stuff to talk about. What's kind of going on in our collections? I know I have spent a lot of time with Foo Fighters, Godfather, and the Godzilla Topper. The Godzilla Topper, we talked about this a little bit last time. Tom, you were not on here, so I'm curious to hear your thoughts. But the new mode, I'm having a ton of fun with. I haven't tried it yet. Oh, man, you've got to. And one thing that really surprised me is, like, my wife does not care. Mad at Godzilla. My wife does not care about pinball at all. She doesn't really like playing it that much. But on Father's Day, this was the day before Father's Day, she's like, all right, we can do whatever you want tonight. Do you want to watch a movie? Do you want to play a board game? Or do you want to play pinball? I'm like, Nicole, I'm not going to make you play. There wasn't a fourth option? That was it. That's all I got.
    40:26
    Joel was like, Daddy wants to play pinball, man. So I said, I was like, I'm not going to make you play pinball. She's like, no, I actually want to play pinball. I'm like, I don't believe you, but okay. I've never heard those words out of my wife's mouth. I know, right? So I showed her the Godzilla, and I was like, well, hey, you may actually really like this mode. And because it's endless ball save for five minutes, and she loved it. Like, she wasn't faking it. She actually loved it. And it was because, yep. It was because – how many more in-the-windows can I give you? In-list time for five minutes. I mean, what else can I say here? Somebody's thinking it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
    41:13
    Well, the reason I say that is because I came – I was down here and I went to play another game, and she actually played the mode again by herself. And that, to me, was surprising. Oh, my gosh. You know. I'm trying, Joel. I'm trying. I know. I love you to death, buddy. This story is really moving forward. She played the game a second time. By herself. Okay. That's a big deal.
    41:41
    Yep. That's how good. I know. That's how good the King of the Monsters, right? We've got to be professional here. Time attack. I think you're both right. Is it a time attack? It's a time attack. Yeah. What is it? It's a time attack. It's guaranteed five minutes of fun.
    42:03
    Guaranteed five minutes of fun, endless ball save. Guaranteed. Yep. So while Travis composes himself here, I'm sorry, Keith, if Keith Elwin's listening to this, you know, I'm trying to be professional and talk about how great your mode is. Okay. But we actually played it, and what I will say is my wife genuinely enjoyed it, and it's five minutes of ball save. So to get through the first phase, you have to hit, you have to kill every monster. And what I've really enjoyed is when I play Godzilla casually, there are monsters that I avoid because I know I just, I'm not good at them. So, like, Megalon is one of them. Nice, Tom. Megalon is one of them. That's a hard monster for me.
    42:45
    But yet, like, this, it forces you to do it. And that's what I love. It just feels like an amazing training tool. It really forces you to hit the shots. and you miss it, it doesn't matter. You just keep going. And then the faster you beat phase one, that gives you more time for phase two. And then phase two is even more so. You have to focus in on very specific shots multiple times, which is quite a challenge. To be honest, I haven't beaten phase two yet. I got really close. I was one shot away. Just a heads up, once you get through all the shots, which the display is showing you, you then have to hit the scoop. And that's what screwed me over. Is that 10 seconds? You hit a scoop? Yeah, I hit my last shot, and I thought I hit it. I was like, yes, I hit it. I hit the left ramp or whatever my last thing was. And then it's like, hit the scoop for the knockout blow. And I was like, are you kidding me? So I had to get control, and then I had, like, one shot at the scoop, and I missed it. So I will beat it, but I will just tell you, like, my brother-in-law's played it. My wife has played it. This is an incredibly fun mode for even novice players because it's endless ball save. It's great music, great everything. It's just one more thing is kind of the icing on the cake of an already incredible game. I'm a big fan. Big fan. You're saying the mode gives you a chance to just Joel out. Yeah, man. Yep. So do you know what Joeling out is? Like we came up with it, right? Oh, yeah. Hell yeah. We came up with this at Worlds. Yeah. So when you Joel out or you go into Joel mode, it's where you flip a lot and you brick a ton of shots. Oh, yeah. But then you accidentally hit a shot and you advanced your progress, but you don't know you did it. Oh, boy. That sounds like me. Who made this up? Who was part of this? I mean, it might have been several of us. We're drinking beer and coming up with new pinball dictionary terms. I don't know. But you make the mode sound fun. It's genuinely fun. So is this mode tied to the topper? Like it's a topper only mode? Yes, you have to have the topper to have access to it. So I have to buy the topper now. You've sold this mode so much. Don't worry, because in, like, four months it'll be on Insider Connect, so don't worry. That is not true. Bullshit. I'm just saying. Why didn't they do the promo video that says, like, Joel's wife is not faking it? They could have sold so many more of those toppers. There's a lot they could have done on that promo video. I'm the guy crying behind the scene because he doesn't have a fucking topper. But, Joel, you're making me want the topper now. It's a blast. The way that you described the whole mode. It's really fun. The fact that your friends and family, apparently, like, they approve. Yeah, oh, yeah. And this is actually a good barometer. When Joel's friends and family make a game, it really is. This just brings up a lot, though. I mean, maybe this is a side note, but, like, we've talked a lot in some of our Facebook chats about like how hard it is to make code fun.
    45:50
    And how to make code fun for everyone, right? Because if a game has the complexity and the depth needed for players like you and Tom to stay involved and stay entertained, there's a chance that code may be too complicated for me to enjoy because it's not like you got to give me fun things close to the flipper that, are early on in the code that keep drawing me back, but it can't be repetitive. Like, if it's a very linear game and I'm playing the same mode over and over and over and I never get to see the third or fourth stage of the ladder, like, that to me is unfortunate because I know there's a ton of game there I'm never seeing.
    46:32
    So, but at the other end, if you have a game that's really where it's a shallow game but you have a ton of options, and sure, you get a ton of games to explore, but then they don't keep you guys entertained because you guys can just explore it all and it's like, whatever, I don't, there's nothing. So the one game we keep coming back to of like, well, what's a game that does it well? And the game we keep coming back to is Godzilla. Because Godzilla for me, for a novice player, the multi-ball, you know, you just bash the building enough, you're going to get to a multi-ball. You bash back at Godzilla enough, you're going to get to a multi-ball. You are making progress on mode shots. Like even if you're breaking or hitting any shot, the game, the audio is rewarding you with feeling like you're doing something. My dad made that comment. He's like, I don't know what I'm doing in Godzilla, but it's making me feel like I'm doing something right because you're actually hitting shots, you're hitting explosions, you're hitting this, you're hitting that. And then next thing you know, you're in a battle. Like, there's so much there for the novice player, but yet you, the three of us, I mean, we've gone into depth before. The complexity of Godzilla and the way you can never, you know, in a tournament setting, you're never locked out. if one path stops all of a sudden, you can divert and go a completely different way. It's balanced so well. There's insane depth to the game, too, all the way to whatever, King of the Monsters, Planet X, and then there's even one further than that. I don't know. I just – you guys don't understand. You like Godzilla. But we're saying Godzilla's code, the way that it's structured, it is such a good balance for all types of players.
    48:04
    Yeah. And, I mean, in all reality, I think that there's basically three types of players, right? You have your player that doesn't necessarily mean they're elite level, but you have your player that really focuses on tournaments, really focuses on rules, and going through the game that way, right? You have your casual to average player that may not play tournaments, but they know their way around a pinball machine. They could get to a wizard mode here and there. They'll get generally through the first parts of the game and get to the mid-game, right? And then you, yeah, I would put you, like, squarely in that category. And then you have the people that are very novice, either have never played pinball before or just flip their flippers like they're Ray Charles. Like, it happens sometimes, right? So it's like sometimes they just can't hit shots. Yeah, exactly, Tom. It just happens. So, you know, the thing is, those types of players, they thoroughly enjoy pinball, but they also don't pay attention to the rules at all. So if you ask them what starts modes, they'd have no idea. You ask them about play field multipliers, they'd have no idea. You ask them how to score a super jackpot on a multi-ball, they would have no idea. But what they do know is what it feels like to hit a shot, like whether they get a response from a call-out, a light show, just some type of sound, some type of haptic feedback for them through the shaker motor, whatever it could be. That's the way that they operate, and they look for pinball moments. Like, we hear that a lot, but they especially look for that in a lot of the pinball moments or what? Right up the middle. Sure. That's why, like, Attack from Mars, Medieval Madness, Stranger Things, games like that that have some type of bash or some type of objective that's just straight up the middle. It's just the most obvious thing for these players to go after. So that's kind of where code goes. You know, they see that. And then it's just, I don't know, I think overall for the vast majority of pinball players, they wouldn't know if they saw a balanced game. And it's not to say, oh, they have no clue what's going on. It's just that they don't pay attention close enough to scoring to see if something is unbalanced. Like saying, I'm going to do this mode instead of this all the time because it's obviously a higher scoring mode and easier shots and easier to get through. They probably don't notice those nuances at times. And that's kind of the way that it is with Godzilla in a way that it's just so balanced, but yet there are some modes to where you could get a little bit more scoring out of it. But guess what? You have to do something a little bit more skillful to do it. And Megalon falls directly under that. And that's what makes that mode so much fun to do is that you could either come away like with a complete stinker and not really have any points, or you could come away just like blowing the gates off the game in general. So, yeah. That's what makes the game a lot of fun for me. And plus, like you talked about earlier, the side quests and stuff like that. That's what I like calling them. Like if I have something on the side to do, as opposed to just doing my main progress, for me, that catches my attention a lot more, especially in a home setting, because then I can just part around and play the game different ways. And that's kind of the way you can do, like, any game, I guess. But with Godzilla, it rewards you, getting secret combos, all kinds of different city combos. like you could play the loop meta a lot of people don't realize that there's even a loop meta on there could do that as well so yeah i mean it's just it's a well-balanced game with that because you're asked to hit every single shot that's in the game and every single shot matters at one point or another and that's a sign of a of a well-rounded game yeah totally and i just think it's yeah the more i play it the more it really i don't know establishes to me just how well rounded the game is to all different levels. And what I think is interesting is the two other games that I have here and how different they are because Godfather, I've had a lot of my friends and family would step up to this over the last few weeks. And every single person is like, that is a beautiful game. They look up to it. They're like, this game is gorgeous. Then they're like, this game feels like Godfather.
    52:16
    But they play it like twice. They just feel like it, you know, it is, it's just, they're like, I have no idea what's going on. And to them, I get what you're saying with moments, but there's so many lights, there's so much light show, and then most of the time a novice player is looking for something mechanical they want to interact with. Like, what does that thing do? And, you know, this is not an insult to anything that Eric did, but, like, you got the main bash guy in the back, but it's not, he's not the most interactive thing.
    52:44
    And I don't know, there's just so much going on with it. It's just, like, it's not pulling in any of the novice people in my life. And that's my view with a lot of JJP games is that the code is actually very, like, there's a lot of depth there and very complex code. And it takes a lot for me to even grasp what I'm doing. I've only streamed it once. We're going to stream it again in a week. And I feel like I have to take notes, you know, to, like, learn these types of games. So for some people, they just chew this up because they love that type of complexity. But it just, to me, it does not strike a chord with an obvious player. Like they missed that. It goes back to that. If everything in your game is a moment, then there is no moment. You know what I mean? That's where they are suffered from that. Everything was just like, boom in your face. And it's not saying that that's necessarily a bad thing. It's just like we talked about the extreme casuals. They live for a moment, right? But it's got to feel like an earned moment as well, that you're doing something a couple of times that eventually something cool happens. Whereas if it's just like everything's popping off at the same time, you have no clue where it's coming from because the ball might not be staging or there might be like multiple things stacked on top of each other. And then you've got a light show that's all over the place. And that's not just Jersey Jack. I mean, there's games from every single manufacturer out there or something like that. So, yeah, it just it just gets confusing if you don't necessarily space out your moments in that way. Well, Tom, you have a Godfather. You've had one, and I know you also have a Foo Fighters, some of your newer purchases here, but overall, Godfather, is that a game, how much time have you spent on it? Is this game growing on you? Is it kind of getting, I don't know, laying? What are your thoughts having owned it a little while now? It's a game I got to spend more time on. Uh, reason being is I wasn't playing it a lot because I was going to Germany. So I'm like, Oh, I know this game isn't going to be in the tournament. So I avoid it. But now that I'm back, I'll, I'll put some more time on it. Uh, but I mean, I've enjoyed the time I've had on it. Haven't done anything like Carl has done. Yeah. Um, I still, uh, I still have to watch his stuff. and really dig into it.
    55:12
    Isn't his goal a trillion-point job cash-out? Yes. And he's going to do it. Because I know with the weapons, the weapons are essentially multipliers, so you can get all the way up to ten times, and then you can hit that shot, and I think you can get that up to, like, two or three times on top of it. Like, I don't know, whatever. And then there's something else where if you level something else, but he's built up some absurd multiplier, and then he's, like, doing something ridiculous in a mode. Like, it's insane the stack that he's building, but if he does it, boom. What's hilarious is, like, that game, the scoring is just off the cuff compared to all the other Jersey Jack games. I mean, like, Dialed In, you can maybe get a couple million. Wizard of Oz If you do a million You probably got to the end of the game But that game Yeah there's Huge scoring potential Compared to all the other Jersey Jack games Yeah I haven't made the scoreboard yet The lowest score on the scoreboard 75 million What are you doing all day long It's a freaking hard game I love how you were like There's no scoring opportunities here in Tolquay I'm not even on the deep ball. But that's the thing.
    56:38
    I've played it a handful of times. I haven't played it a ton. I need to play it more. But then when we streamed it, it was really just like learning. It's like, oh, I got you. But you're in multi-ball a ton. But just because you're in multi-ball doesn't mean you're scoring points. It's not like a give me. Like, oh, I'm in multi-ball. Here comes a hundred point. Have you been using the multiplier? Carl told you to. So that's the thing is the more that I've streamed it, people are like, you have to be doing that multiplier constantly. like all the time and what we're talking about is when you hit spinners imagine having a multiplier in your hand the whole time all the time either spinner left spinner or right spinner you start building up your weapons but it will like build up to a threshold of like two times then you have to use it and then it will go to three times so you have to keep using it and building it until you get all the way up to the ten time and then you can just keep using ten time over and over again but you have to build it up every time Yeah, if you don't use it, you can't build it up. Yeah, so you have to. It's basically like ripping spinners, seeing your meters maxed out, and then using it, and to keep doing it and doing it and doing it. So some people are like, oh, yeah, I spend all of ball one doing nothing but trying to build up my multiplier. And then they start getting into jobs. And to me, I'm still playing the game. I'm still learning it. But the number one thing that I don't like with a pinball game is when I feel like there's one thing I have to do. Like when I start the game, I have to do this first. And with GNR, I felt like I had to get a bunch of certain patches before I got into my first mode. And so every time I hit the start button, I was focusing on just doing patches. Or if in this, if all of a sudden, well, you're telling me I have to focus on the multiplier before I do anything else. Like I don't want that. You have this huge game here that I want to play. I don't want to have to focus on one thing. Yeah, I don't think you have to do that. I mean, you have to do that, but I don't think it has to be a focus like the patches.
    58:35
    Yeah, I mean, you can do that during multi-ball. You can do that whenever. Sure. I mean, it's, you know, it's still a side thing to the game, but it's an important thing to boost your score. Yeah. Well, so GNR, I'm still enjoying it, but there's still a lot more I need to learn. And then that brings me to Foo Fighters. The other game that I have been playing, I streamed it last night. What I think is hilarious with Foo Fighters is the first night my brother and I streamed it, we came away from this game, and I came away from the game going like, crap. Do I have to buy this game? Like, it blew us away. The way it shot, the flow. My brother came off of it, and he's like, that game was so much fun. And it was just the shots and hitting things. To be honest, we didn't know a ton of what we were doing. We knew how to, like, get into a van mode, but we were really learning the game. but it was just like the immediate kinetic satisfaction and the immediate just joy we came out of the game, the animations, the call-outs, the music, everything. It's like this is really, really good. Well, now that I'm learning more and more and more about the game, I feel like I'm almost overthinking it. I need to Joel out apparently. I'm like we streamed it last night, and the game kicked our butt, and part of it was because now all of a sudden we're like focusing on upgrading our van. Upgrading your van is so powerful. But those shots bring so much side-to-side action in the game that it's just like the outlings were just destroying us. They were eating us alive. And so I'm pretty sure, like, the first stream I did it, I got to either DC or Austin. Like, I got through three modes and I was there. And now the best I did was, like, two and a half modes. And it just – I'm almost overthinking it because of the complexity there. And my fear with Foo Fighters is, like, because upgrading the van is so powerful, I don't want to feel like I can't play the game until my van's upgraded every single time. Like, that was one of my worries with Deadpool was I was like, well, I don't want to get into a battle unless I have Wolverine, you know, lit. You have an easy path, though. Like, why not? Are you trying to do this all in single ball?
    60:35
    Can you upgrade the van in multi-ball? I thought you couldn't. I thought maybe – has that changed? Because I felt like it wasn't – oh, well, there we go. So, I mean, I would just go ahead and just play your first mode out. If you feel like you can find ramps, just play Los Angeles, combo, like just jam on some shots. That right ramp is a hard shot in my mind from the left flipper. There's two other ramps. Yeah, but the left ramp, backhanding for the left flipper, not a problem. The left ramp from the right flipper, you better hit it or you're drilling a post and you're in trouble. So what does that tell you you need to do from the right flipper? Oh, get better or post-pass over and do it from the left flipper? Neither. Just hit the spinner, then the side ramp.
    61:25
    Okay. Because you're in L. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You are overthinking this. Like, just take what the game's giving you. Okay. Like, that's all you got to do. And so pretty much you can use, unless it's changed suddenly, you can use your Overlord multiball just to jam away on the targets there, on the drop targets, and it's your van mods. Yeah, and plus the bomb is worth using now. So now they kind of change that around to where you don't get negatively deemed, yeah, from using it. So for anybody that doesn't know, the bomb, when you upgrade, there are three drops in the middle of the play field. If you hit all three down there and there's a paddle behind it and you just keep hitting that paddle before the drops come back up, and that's how you upgrade whatever lit weapon was lit when you dropped them down. One of them is a bomb. What the bomb does is it basically gives you shots when you get into the mode. Previously if the bomb gave you three shots that great You progress further in the mode but you earned nothing for those three shots that it gave you So if you maxed the bomb out and it gave you I think it eight shots you could complete a mode in like one or two shots. Problem is you're getting only one or two shots worth of points. So there are certain people that were completely avoiding the bomb because they're like, no, it basically takes away points from you. I can't. So now that has changed. Now, when you use the bomb and it gives you the shots, it gives you the points you would have gotten for that. So now I watch Chuck Wirt was straight down the middle. He streamed it early on. If you fully max out the van, so that gives you max time, max points, and max shots hit, he was like starting a mode, finishing the mode in two shots, and getting like 400 plus million points. Like it's just boom. There it all is. So it's one of those, well, what do you want to do? Do you want to hit those shots in the mode, or do you want to just focus on it? Like, if you can get really good at hitting the drop sound consistently and over and over again, you could really do some damage on that game just because of the perks of the van.
    63:29
    But I don't know. What I think is what's cool about Foo Fighters is, coming back to what I was saying, you know, Godzilla is such an incredibly well-rounded game. Godfather, gorgeous game, incredible assets, beautiful to look at, but it's not grabbing. I just don't think it touches the novice people. Like, it doesn't entertain them crazy well. I think the Foo Fighters does entertain novice very well. I think it can be very fun to just step up and play. But I think there are some people that are complaining that this code isn't deep enough. Or there are people, like, really good players feel like they're like, yeah, I can blow through all six cities and I'm done. Now, I understand the Final Wizard mode isn't in it. There's the Combatron mode isn't in it. I think the FooBot mode is in it, which is like a task-based thing. You have to do five different things.
    64:19
    This is Tom. Tom, you have really grown to love this game, Foo Fighters. Yeah, I like it. So what is it about Foo Fighters that has really – I think you said – I think your exact words were, I hate Godzilla and now I love Foo Fighters. It was something like that? It was something along the lines? Hate and Godzilla work together. I have this hate with Godzilla because I do so bad at it in tournaments lately that I just want to get a flamethrower and fucking burn it to the ground.
    64:52
    Other than that, I like it. But no, Foo Fighters, I think the shots are just so accessible in Foo Fighters that it's a little easier. There's good flow. I don't know. I just like the way I like it. I just like the design and the rules so far. Do I think it needs to be a little deeper? Sure. But I enjoy it for what it is so far. So how do you, and this is us giving direct notes to Raymond Davidson, who's clearly listening right now. So we're going to go ahead and tell him how to do his job better is the goal. So, I mean, you can only use touch with inserts. What? I don't think that's possible. You don't think Rade can improve? No. I think that's a lie. He's too good. That's a lie. Last night on stream, there was a time when I was in a mode, my fork was up, but there was no ball in there. There was no ball in there. So I was ready to quit the mode. With the new code? New code, .95. Signed it with love, Raymond Davidson. That fork was up. I'm bashing a fork with no ball behind it. I can't beat my mode. Oh, my God. I was saying Ray. He's ripping his earphones. Why is my fork up, Ray? Go watch the stream, Ray. It's right around an hour. Explain what's going on.
    66:20
    Wow. I can tell you right now, it wasn't Tanya's code. It was definitely Ray's code. We know that for a fact.
    66:30
    No, but so, Ray, I mean, there's six cities. Maybe you just need to rush. there's no that'll be just no that just destroyed me and then there's the overlord mode but it's like if if really high-end players are kind of blowing through this game i don't know what do you do what do you do like you don't want to make the most harder because that hurts everybody else like what how do you i mean it's just it's an easier design is the thing and that's why a lot of casuals and a lot of average players are extremely drawn to it it's just like i said shots are all very accessible. I mean, it plays a little bit quicker in spots, but you're not necessarily, like, as long as you avoid trying to forehand the left ramp, you're really not in danger with any of the shots in particular. So, that's what leads to a little bit longer ball times anyways, and that's pretty much what leads to people, like, we're seeing a lot of people get through the game and wonder, okay, what else is there to do? But, I mean, you still gotta play exceptionally well if you want to truly do everything in the game, like getting Austin and DC and who bought Multiball and getting all your van mods completely maxed out. That still takes effort and work. It's not like everybody does that. But it is understandable how people feel like, okay, there may not be much here because, I mean, on the surface, there's not too many side things to necessarily extremely focus on. It's just this one thing. It's almost like there's side things that happen during you doing your main thing. So what I mean by that is, for instance, getting a foobot, right? You have to collect these parts, but in order to collect these six parts, you have to do various tasks in the game. But several of the tasks are, for instance, Area 51 multiball. Start it. You've got to do that. You're going to do that anyway. Score an overlord multiball super jackpot. I mean, you're going to play your first overlord. You're going to have a shot at doing that. so it's not like these things are just guaranteed, but it's kind of like you're going to play through the game anyways to achieve that, whereas there's some stuff in other games, like Godzilla, for instance, you may not necessarily see some of the things on purpose or without doing them on purpose, like Rampage or something like that, whereas other parts, Jet Fighters, you'll do just playing through the game. So that could be part of what it is, but let's face facts, too. Foo Fighters is still very much in its infancy when it comes to code. I'm sure there's tons of other stuff that they have in mind that they want to do. And overall right now with what's there, it's fun. Oh, yeah. It's not as if it's not fun to do all the things. I mean, Bot Frenzy is pretty cool just seeing how much you could, you know, bring up that value. It's fun doing the in-lane shats to get the 2x, 4x.
    69:22
    Overall, there's lots of fun elements to the game itself. Now, you know, they're going to figure it out in terms of where to take code. Because I've seen it feels like a lot of people, what they're very concerned about, it's not necessarily the depth of rules. It's the call outs. I see that more than anything on Facebook or even on the Foo Fighters group. They're all concerned about extra call outs. So Jack Danger was on the Marco specialty stream today, and I only caught a little of it. But what I did see was apparently did say on that stream there are more call outs coming. but there will not be any call-outs from the band. Like, that is, I think that was clearly said at this point. Like, no, don't hold that. But there are more call-outs coming.
    70:07
    Yeah, there was Pen Monk. Pen Monk actor, actually, Victor, said on Pen's side there was a post, and what he was referring to was Deadpool. Deadpool, the code was good, but it wasn't until .96. There we go. There's a Flipper fan right there. or the power supply fan, he said it wasn't until Deadpool .96 when they added MechSoup Multiball that it really, Deadpool code really became great, like where it is today. And for those of you who don't know, MechSoup Multiball, what's cool about that is the whole time you're playing a combo, any time you combo and then you cash them out, you're collecting them, and then you actually collect them at the scoop. Once you get to 45, so that's something you're kind of just doing gradually throughout the game. Once you get to 45, it gives you this little kind of random mini wizard mode called next to multiball, which is actually a blast. It's a really cool, fun mode. But it's kind of completely separate from everything else in the game.
    71:12
    That happened in .96 of the code. We just had .95 of Who Fighters. So I know the Combatron mode is not in there. Multiball. Yeah, Combatron. That could be something very similar. I know there's already stuff built in the game where you're mapping out different combos. So maybe there will be some sort of requirement. So that could be a whole other thing to like, okay, yeah, I've already got through three cities. I did DC. Oh, wait, I'm only one or two combos away from this thing. Let me go ahead and knock that out. Like there could be some other side modes. I know I love bot frenzy already. Maybe they have more than one type of other bot-related modes in there that could be really valuable. Yeah, and it's funny you mention that. That was one of the things that's – it almost feels like the bots are a big part of the game, right? So it would be pretty cool if there was just certain modes that were kind of tied in to the bot award besides just the bot frenzy. Because that is pretty neat to have some type of mode that's running in the background there, but you have to actually start it. You have to do a bunch of things to get to that point, and then you have to hit the left ramp to get it going. So, yeah, I like that in general as well. And I think we're probably going to see more code for sure. I mean, there's not a wizard mode in it yet, a final wizard mode. Just like you said, there's not even one. The multiballs aren't even in it. There's more call-outs coming. So I would just tell everybody that's out there that's wondering about that, just be patient. Sure. It's going to come. Final code for a gas station. Yeah, it's going to come. I just realized they could do, like, you have the UFO, which is how you, you know, you bash that UFO kind of captive ball in the back, and that's how you get your boom shots. I don't know exactly what they are. Your ray shots where you can. Your tractor beam. Tractor beam. I think that's what they call it. Yeah, but it's like they could. I'm not saying they will, but they could have a mode, like, once you've done so many UFO hits, then you qualify that mode. I mean, there's things like that where they could sprinkle in other things throughout the code, where it's things you are doing throughout the game. I mean, Godzilla has UFO multiple. I've never been to it where you destroy so many UFOs. There's a whole thing there. So it's like sprinkling in cool little modes like that of progressive shots or progressive hitting of different things. Could be really, really neat. But you're right. Foo Fighter Code is not done, but it still is a ton of fun. I'm having a ton of fun with that game. I know there's a lot of them out there and people are enjoying them. You did say Bond code. I actually watched Jack Danger on Deadfoot did a stream of the latest Bond code. And to be honest, they are fleshing that game out. There's a lot more in that game than when I had it. And when I was streaming it, I saw a lot more animations. I actually saw, I mean, I'm pretty sure all six villains are in, all six henchmen. The Bond women are in it now, which brings in a really interesting multiplier aspect, which I think points are going to get pretty nuts with that. what you can do with the multipliers. The Q modes, they're getting to the point where if you play the Q mode, the villain mode, the henchman mode, and the Bond girl from a particular movie, then that inserts that like that mini wizard mode.
    74:26
    So there will be a mini wizard mode for each movie. There's going to be a mini wizard mode for the first time you complete six of anything. So it's either six Q modes, six villains, six henchmen. And once you complete six of those, boom, there's your first mini wizard mode. And then apparently the next time you do the next six things, there will be your second one. But apparently the way they're setting it up is you're actually going to be able to select which wizard mode. So it's not like if you're really good at doing villains, you won't have to have the same wizard mode for completing the villains every single time you play. So they are really fleshing that game out. And there's people saying that's Lonnie code. and Lonnie's stuff usually takes a while. Stranger Things took a while. Guardians took a while. And from what I'm seeing, Bond is really fleshing out. It is getting a lot better. So if you own a Bond or you're really all in on Bond, you know, keep holding out. I think that game is getting better. Tom, you have a Pro. You had it on location. I don't have it anymore. I sold it. Never mind.
    75:29
    None of us have a Bond. But it is cool. I mean, I'm happy for it. You can't own everything, Joel. I know, I know, but... It wasn't an earnings powerhouse? Is that what you're saying?
    75:41
    What's that? It wasn't an earnings powerhouse location? I did all right. It earned something. I honestly, I haven't heard, I mean, just to be flat out honest, I have not heard anybody say that Bond is just destroying on location. It doesn't have anything to do, I wouldn't say it has anything to do with the code, but the design. I think it's simply just the theme. Yeah, I agree, and I've heard some really – I think it's really cool. Shout-out to Jason in the Pinball Party podcast, but he's had Cale Hernandez. And it's Emily. It's the owner, I feel, if that's not, I feel really bad. But it's the owners of Electric Pad Arcade.
    76:23
    I hope it's Emily. I really feel bad. Just make up a name. I'm sure you'll get it. Rachel? God, I feel terrible. She's really good. When we say Joel out, only do that on pinball, not trying to remember names. No, I just feel terrible. I feel terrible because she's actually awesome on the podcast. You should.
    76:40
    Anyways. They've been talking about, like, what, like, apparently freaking Toy Story just crushes. Like, they are having, they are getting crazy good money with Toy Story. They're also saying that they don't have to, like, do anything with it. Like, it's, the thing doesn't break, which is awesome. As soon as you say that. Yeah. Well, apparently it's not breaking, and they're doing very well with it. And then they said Scooby-Doo is just killing it. Like, they have had to do stuff with it, but just killing it, killing it. So those both are strong themes. Yeah, Scooby-Doo is a huge theme. So is Toy Story. Toy Story 4, no, but Toy Story, yes. The kids, they run up, they see Toy Story. Oh, yeah. Joel, are you figuring out this name? I've got to figure out her name I feel so bad I need somebody else to talk so I can actually focus on what I'm trying to say So, what's going on, Travis?
    77:45
    You know I'm just chilling, you know Just keeping it real while keeping it safe How about yourself? Doing good I wish Joel would fucking hurry up with this shit Can you imagine, Tom, if we were on a podcast that, you know, I don't know. Thousands of people listen to. Use the pre-production time to actually, I don't know. Be prepared. I can't find it. I'm all over Pinball Party's Instagram and he's got great pictures of, I feel terrible. Anyways.
    78:17
    I really hope their name is none of the names you said. I hope it's Amy or something like that. I feel, no. Is it Sarah?
    78:27
    It's definitely not Sarah. Yeah. Jane. What's sad is I'm pretty sure I've emailed her because I emailed her a long time ago saying how great her merch was. Leslie. Michaela. I think we're close. Abby.
    78:45
    I can't think of any other female names. Oh, Monica, my wife's name, Monica. Here we go. We're going to get this. Rachel. I was right. Rachel. Thank God. I actually knew that. You knew it was Rachel the whole time? Yes. You dick. Okay.
    79:06
    All right. Well, I'm glad I got this support. Anyways, anybody that sat through that, thank you for that. What do I have? Okay, let's just review our notes over here. So European vacation, got it. Joel doesn't know shit. Don't know why you wrote that. Okay, got it. Current stuff, useful. Joel's in a weird spot because he actually has money now. Ah, yes. So I like how you read all the Patreon we give you. No, what I meant by I'm in a weird spot is I sold Deadpool. I sold Deadpool now weeks ago, and that money is just sitting here. It's just sitting here burning a hole in my pocket. The goal is to buy a Cactus Canyon SE Plus with it. And once again, just to re-hash, I freaking love that game. and it's when we were talking about code earlier, there's, you said novices like moments. There are so many cool little things in that game that you can just immediately enjoy, whether it's bashing Bart, the quick draw with the, what's the word? Drop targets popping up and you just have to quickly hit them. I mean, there's some really cool mags. Quick draw? Quick draw, I said quick draw. Oh, you did? Okay. But I was trying to think of drop target. Oh, you can't remember the word drop target. If you think Food Fighters is shallow, let me tell you something. I know, I know, I know, I know, I know. But, like, what I found is it just immediately brings me and my family joy. Like, it's just a fun game, even though I have technically seen the end of it. I have beaten the game. So do you like it because you guys are into the old Western?
    80:38
    Or is it because you've been in the game? It's just, it gives me, there are just multiple things in that game that I find immediately enjoyable every time I do them. Does it make you feel like you're Johannes? Sure. I feel like I'm a better player because it's an easier game. But even if I'm looking at it that way, I'm thinking, okay, and we've had this discussion before, I want a game like that, that type of style, that type of code, really good mechs, easy to understand. That's what brings me to the Medieval Madness, the Monster Bash, you know, that type of game. But all these, like, Medieval Madness, The costs of those games now are absurd, are crazy high. And then even Monster Bash, it's like if you want an SE, which has, you know, the lights and the bigger screen, you're looking at almost $10,000, and it's just like I can't – like they're so high that I can't pull the trigger on that. But a Cactus Canyon, I feel like you're getting more for less than $10,000.
    81:38
    And then – but now there's, you know, there's a bunch of Cactus Canyons that are coming out used. There's big questions of what's going on with CGC. But anyways, that's what my money is being held onto. But yet I am starting to look at some of these other games where it's like, is there another game that I should pick up just to have fun with for a few months with the idea of selling it when an SE Plus is actually available?
    82:00
    But the more that I've been looking at the market, here's a transition to our next thing, use games in stock. The market is really doing some weird stuff right now. I think there are a lot of games on the market right now. There's a lot of games for sale. And I saw this earlier today. There are distributors now that have Godzilla premiums in stock. And they have Foo Fighter premiums in stock. Most of what Stern has to offer, you can buy from somebody. It's not like they've crazy marked up or anything. They're in stock. They are available. So most new in-box games that you want are there. And now we had a ton of games released at the beginning of the year. There are some people that are kind of getting over Foo Fighters. They're like, okay, I've played it. I've had a lot of fun with it. There are some people that are getting over, well, GTF has kind of come and it's not out. Nobody's played it, but people are kind of starting to forget it. Where are the lunch boxes? I know, right? Guns and Roses, though, there's not Guns and Roses. Godfather, there's a lot of these that are new in stock. You could get an Ultraman for $6,200 right now. Oh, yeah. Halloween. Yeah. Scooby-Doo. There's people that are already getting bored of Scooby-Doo. There are people that are. Wasn't there already Godfather LEs for below 10? Yeah. And then there's like a GNR LE that we saw for $79.99 or something like that. So it's just like there's a lot of even the modern, like the brand new-ish games, Cactus Canyons, there's a bunch of Cactus Canyons used that are out there in the market. It's just I feel like people are waiting for Pulp Fiction because that's the only new game that hasn't actually come out yet, which I did just see on App Arcade. Apparently they're planning on making some with the normal Coindor, the Suzohap Coindor or whatever, for location. I think they're planning October, I think is now what they're saying, is they're planning on doing that sooner than later to get some of those out on location. but they said the mother flipping additions, like those aren't happening until probably February of next year. Like it's, yeah. So buckle up. You got a while for those. Shocker. Yeah. Fairly shocked by that. But I just, I don't know. I don't know what's going on in the market here. Are we at a point where we, it's flooded? Or are we just at a weird, because everybody, you know, shot their load at the beginning of the year with five games, we're just sitting here waiting on what's next. Whoa, that is a nasty comment. You know, I feel like shot your load can be something besides just sexual. Could be wrong. Not to Travis.
    84:38
    Diggity. But I don't know. I mean, Venom. Venom is a rumor, but now there's other rumors. Basically what you're saying is supply is outpacing demand at this point. And it hasn't been like this in a long time. I mean, that's what happens, too, in the supply chain. It just kind of works itself out in a way. And like you said, there's just so many games out there right now. And people are going to wait. Summer has historically not been a good time to sell pinball machines. Yeah. So I'm grateful I've sold Deadpool, but I'm not – I don't feel like I'm in this crazy rush to buy a game right now, especially if the idea is I want to buy it just to own it for a few months, play the heck out of it, then to sell it again because I have no guarantee. I just – I don't know. I feel like over the last few years there were times where I just felt no hesitation to buy a game because I knew I could flip it a few months later for the same price, if not a little more almost. But right now it doesn't feel like that. It just, there's a lot of games out there. There's a lot of games out there. Yeah, if you can sell a used game that's still in production or right at MSRP,
    85:46
    like, good on you if you can pull that off. But, yeah, it's not happening in general just because now that supply has met demand at this point. And that's why we're even seeing some premium Foo Fighters being listed at MAP with free shipping. I mean, I'm seeing that around. And so stuff like that, it's just kind of, you know, it could just be one of those things to where the major boom that's happened is finally just reached that point atop the mountain, and we're just going to kind of just chill out there for a little while until the next game comes along. But, yeah, there's just a lot of games on the market right now. It is summertime. time. And what I'm most curious about is once Stern moves to a new factory here in August, to see where production goes from there. Are they going to try to produce more games? Is the demand going to be there? I mean, how is that going to work out? That's what I'm curious about. That's a good question. Yeah, I don't know. And there's rumors of, you know, they've said they're only doing two cornerstones, but two cornerstones. So they've done Pooh Fighters. They've done one this year. And then Stern's kind of, they've done this few years now where they announce a game right at the end of the year. So they like don't even count it for that year. They count it as next year's game. So we will probably get a game. Rumor is it'll be Elwyn's next game right at the end of the year. So between now and the end of the year, we're looking for something. Once again, there's already Comic-Con advertisements out there on, I think it says play Stern's latest release at Comic-Con. Comic-Con's in a few weeks. It's in late July. So that's the question. Are they really talking Foo Fighters? Are they talking, like, the next game? If the next game's Venom, once again, Todd McFarlane, I think is his name, is supposed to be in their booth again. He's the creator of Venom. But now the Pinball Party podcast, Jason, actually,
    87:40
    they said there was this post on Reddit. It was some guy that apparently is credible said apparently no, CERN is actually planning on releasing another game between now and Venom. They're saying it's not a vault, it's a relaunch, and that's an interesting thing. And the conversation that Jason and Cale went down was, well, if it isn't a vault and it can't be a retired game, it has to be a currently active game. And if it's a relaunch, is that kind of a – or not relaunch, it's a – I forget the wording they use. But it seems it's almost like an Elvira situation. Elvira was never retired, but then they released a new edition of Elvira. So it's kind of a, well, what game's current right now? You know, like obviously Star Wars was never retired, but then there was Star Wars comic book art. So it's like another version of the game. Well, what they were hinting at is because Jurassic Park just had its 30th anniversary, I think it was, that what if there was a 30th anniversary of Jurassic Park?
    88:38
    Cool, why not? I don't care. If they do that, that's great. But at the same time, there are people right now that have Jurassic Park Pro in premium in stock. So in these collectors, these avid Greg Bone Jurassic Park collectors, they probably already have either an LE or a fully modded out premium. They probably already have their Jurassic Park game. So now you're going to release another version of it. I don't know. I mean, I have no idea with that if there's any truth behind that. If there is, I don't know what other game it could be that's a non-retired game. Because I'm thinking through the only games that I can think of that aren't readily available, that aren't retired. Even Iron Maidens were just made, and some people have those in stock. Is what, like Deadpool? Deadpool's not in stock anywhere.
    89:29
    But, like, everything else is kind of in stock everywhere. I don't know. I don't know what's going on. So it's just weird. It's just weird where we're at right now. but if you're looking to buy a pinball machine, you got a lot of options. You got a lot of options when it comes to buying a pinball machine right now.
    89:47
    But yeah, I know I'm personally really looking forward to Venom. My son freaking loves Spider-Man. So when I get a chance to stream one of those, I'm just steam alone. I know that game's going to be a hit in my house. He'll probably just want me to play it for the sake of playing it. But I also, I'm Brian Eddie's pretty creative. You can be very creative with his layouts. and I'm curious to see what he brings to the table. So, I don't know. We're just in a weird spot. Do you guys agree? Is that a weird – Tom's probably not thinking about buying a game because he says he has no money anymore. I don't have any money.
    90:20
    He has no money. I don't know. It's just the result of the time frame. It's literally as simple as that. I mean, summer months, historically slower. Combine that with so many games that came out right around Texas Pinball Festival, everybody, I guess like you said, Joel, to quote you, shot their load early on in the year, and they've got their games. I mean, that's pretty much what it is. And, I mean, it's like anything else. As soon as other games come out, we'll just see this go all over again. You'll see the rush to go buy whatever's on the line that's being produced by Stern, and then you'll see games go up for sale, used games. It's just how it is. It's the ebbs and flows of it all. What I can't say, though, is it's all good. Like, well, maybe there's a few games that aren't great. But the majority of pinball that we've gotten in the last even two years or more has been really good pinball. Like, really good pinball. Yeah, and it's like anything else. The supply had to catch up eventually to the demand. And it's still huge. The industry is still massive. I mean, look how many companies are producing pinball right now. Look at how big all the events, expos, this tournament pinball, how big everything's growing. people watching streaming on Twitch, everything is still rapidly growing.
    91:39
    So, from there, it's just, yeah. Well, Twitch is almost entirely because of Tom Graff. I mean, we know that. Oh, yeah. That's proven at this point. A thousand percent. Yeah, yeah. Well, one of the things I was very impressed with. Top six streamer and pinball. Top six. Top six pinball streamer. That's all that matters. For sure. Something I was actually very impressed with, I clicked on Twitch the other day just to see if there was any tournaments on or something like that. And it said there was 120 people watching on there, right? I think, okay, there's one big tournament on there. Nope, there was eight or nine streams going along, and they all had eight to 15 people in each one. So I think that's excellent that people are kind of curating their own little ecosystem and their own little Twitch stream right there and just doing what they do. It's pretty neat to see. Yeah, I've been not trying to toot my own horn, But I went to YouTube this year, and I was really worried about that because that's one thing that is really useful on Twitch is you can just go to pinball, and then you can see who all is playing pinball. YouTube doesn't have that. YouTube doesn't have that type of way to find live streams. So to see people turn out to watch my stream, I know they're either deliberately doing that or they just happen to be opening up YouTube and happen to be subscribed to Flippin' Out at the time, and that's where they'll see that I'm on. so it's I know it seems a lot more deliberate when people show up but it's it's gaining its own little you know ecosystem of people that come consistently every Wednesday night and I would love to see more people to see that platform grow even more because I know yeah it's I don't know it's cool it's cool to see things are growing um but yeah there's there's a lot more nap arcade's been killing it nap arcade's been killing it right now with a ton of rumors and I don't get super excited about rumors just because I don't. Is it all about the Spinal Tap pinball machine Oh no On a random side note there huge huge shout out to Dr John and Aussie Man Pinball Podcast or the Aussie Pinball Podcast. It's on the Pinball Network. He interviewed Mike, I don't know the guy's last name, I can't say it, the owner, the main dude at Home Pin, and it is one of the most incredible things I've ever listened to. If you're into pinball, listen to that podcast. You were really into Mike, weren't you? The guy is clearly smart But I've never heard somebody so confident In everything he says You've got to play a Thunderbirds Everything he says But that's the problem Is he saying anybody in pinball media That's ever said anything bad about Thunderbirds We've clearly never played it Or we're only piling on To get our 5 minutes of fame Or 15 minutes of fame For the record. I will go on record. I've played it. It's a piece of shit. You can quote me on that. So Tom's going on the record. I will go on the record and say I have played it. I played it at a tournament. And I was an a-hole enough that I was the bus driver. And you know what game I picked? You picked it. I picked that game. It was going to be game one. Because you know how good it was, right? Yes. We had an opportunity. There's four players that were going to play this game for three balls. We were going to play 12 balls. Okay. We got through one and a half balls, and the game shut off and stopped working.
    95:08
    That's the last time I played Thunderbirds. I gave it a shot. Clearly the operators. It clearly wasn't a motherboard issue. That was one thing he went off on. He basically described all pinball manufacturers as complete morons that are basing their game on a motherboard because apparently every motherboard is only meant to work for, like, two years. So he's like, all these manufacturers are – Yeah, the Valley Williams ones just crap out so fast. That's my question is, like, what is this guy – like, what is the different – like, what does he mean by motherboard? Are you talking about the motherboards, or are you just talking about the Spike 2 node system in general? That's the thing. He didn't clarify anything. He just said the motherboard. All I can think of is, I mean, like, a J.J.P. game is genuinely running on a computer. Like, there is a full-fledged computer with a separate hard drive running in that machine. But I know, like, I'm pretty confident, like, the P-Rock system is not that way. I mean, maybe we're just getting – we're going to base ourselves on, like, semantics because the little machine that's running everything is basically the size of a Raspberry Pi. While, yeah, the Stern, it's a whole CPU board and then a bunch of node boards. But does he count a Stern CPU as a motherboard? Like what? I don't know. But whatever it is, because his is running off of something. But whatever he's using is far superior, far superior. It's not going to, whatever. How do we even get on talking about HomePen?
    96:36
    Just go listen to the, it is so great. It is such an enjoyable podcast to listen to. I don't know. But at the same time, I don't think I'll ever buy a home pin game based on what the guy said. And he also said very clearly he is not making games for pinball people.
    96:55
    It's not his bag is what he kept saying. It's not my bag. He doesn't care about rules. It's not my bag, baby. He just wants – Is he Austin Powers?
    97:06
    No. His view of pinball is him and a buddy drinking beer, flipping the game around. It's all about mechanical. He just wants to see mechanical things happen on the play field. He does not care about score at all. Play a fucking bagatelle, too.
    97:20
    He doesn't care about score at all. It's not important. He's like, if my buddy scores one. It's just the number one fucking important thing about pinball.
    97:29
    He's like, I'm just stating facts. What is Joel, like, repeating right now, what I said earlier? That the extreme casuals, like, what he's describing is exactly what we see. Here's the problem, though. Your game still has to be good. Like, people still have to actually enjoy playing it. It still has to have moments in it. So you can't just have something that's mechanical that doesn't have the sound, right, and the light show with it also. You've got to build up the whole atmosphere. If it's just mechanical, I mean, it's mechanical. That's not exciting.
    98:11
    Apparently, if it was you, he's like, me and a buddy come over, have a few drinks. Flip a whitewood, let's go. He's like, my buddy has ten more points to me at the end of the game. I don't care. It's on my bag. He doesn't care. I don't know. It almost sounds like a carnival game that you're trying to build. No, it seems like what he wants to genuinely build is. He just wants to build licensed furniture, just something that sits in a game room that looks pretty. And as long as they can turn on, you can plunge a ball and flip it around a little bit. That's all he cares about. Then make a couple of cocktails then, like with, you know. Yeah, a cocktail table would probably work in that. You know, you could use it as a footrest one day and then play some pinball the other. I don't know. That is curious just because it's perfectly okay to not play for score. Sure. In the vast majority of people that play pinball in an arcade, they're not playing for score. They have no idea. But they are playing for the atmosphere. So you have to give them the atmosphere. And they have to feel that as soon as they hit the start button. Before they even plunge a ball, they have to feel like they're being pulled in to whatever world that that game is supposed to pull them in with. And so if you're not filling that, then you're not going to fill it. And I can tell you, I played Thunderbirds enough for all four and a half balls to tell you I did not feel pulled in to Thunderbirds. He said, Spinal Tap, there's a DMD, which is for the actual modes and score. And then there's an LCD to show clips of the movie. But he did say, he goes, what I will tell you is we tried to line up the clips of the movie with what you're doing in the game as much as possible. But he's like, it's a very active game. It's a really fast game. I can't pause the game to get a clip to finish to then start the next clip for the mode. Like, he's like, that's not possible. So we did our best. So really what it sounds like is it's just playing clips of the movie as he wants. But I'm thinking, like, every other one of these pins is trying to find a way to do that, trying to find a way to choreograph the actual assets of the theme into what you're doing in the game. And a lot of them do it rather successfully. So I don't know. Just go listen to the interview. It's incredible. But different strokes for different. I just, I just can't like, it seems to me that home pin. Sure. Is it a pinball machine at the end of the day? Yes. Is it a pinball machine meant for anybody that's listening to this podcast? No, not at all. I just don't. It just doesn't seem like, and he's basically clear. That's not his bag If it's not in Tom's collection Is it even a pinball machine? It's true Which is going to be crazy when he sells Godzilla Right? Yeah Not even a pinball machine So what's the other rumor? So Nap is killing it What's he killing it with? There's rumors of Ghostbusters But that brings up What's the rumor for Ghostbusters? Let's just pop into rumors Let's just straight up steal Denden's little thing that he does No, Nap Arcade You have Ghostbusters Has been rumored for a long time To do what? That they're going to remake it in some capacity Like a vault? Well, apparently the drama with that is What is it, Trudeau? Is obviously he's in prison for terrible things Whether or not the company would even want to associate Anything that he's done against So then the rumor is Well, what if George Gomez took his game, took the game and tweaked the layout a little bit enough that now the creator, Trudeau, doesn't actually get – is Trudeau the right word? What? John? We'll just call him Ass Clown. It's fine. Okay. I just want to make sure I'm not actually saying somebody else's name. But whatever, the designer of that, that was the thing. What if George Gomez tweaked it enough to then make it feel like it's his layout? I mean, why not? Isn't that game new? Well, the game's nearly a decade old now, right? Yeah, but Ghostbusters. Did it come out in 2015, 2016? So maybe not quite a decade. But that being said, I mean, why not just don't redo the layout, just come out with a new Ghostbusters? Oh, just a brand new one? Yeah, they did the same thing with Avengers. Like, why not just do that with Ghostbusters? They've done that with several. I mean, there's already new movies out. Can they have the same topper? But it's really good. That's the thing is the game is already really, really good. I mean, you say what you said, though, like to go from Dark Knight to Batman 66. Started with it, but then tweaked it. I don't think they'd do that. Take Ghostbusters and do almost an entirely new one. No, just redo it. Just get the Ghostbusters license. It's huge. Just do a whole new one. What are people going to do? say, oh, I don't want to get this brand new Ghostbusters that's on the Spike 2 that has all the movie clips and all that because this game came out several years ago, it would sell. Why not?
    103:17
    Licensing issues. But I'm saying, why not go ahead and just do that as opposed to tweaking what you have now?
    103:26
    Yeah, because if you just tweak, everybody has bought a Ghostbusters up until this point, what are they going to do? Just go run for the hills? Yeah. Yeah, like they're not going to. So why not just make a whole new game because then they will. That's kind of crazy. Yeah, I hadn't thought about that.
    103:41
    That's why I get paid the big bucks right there, Joel. There's rumors flying around for Big Bang Bar and Twilight Zone. Okay, what's the rumors there? That somebody's making them. Debunk or confirm or deny? I think people have bought the license for both. So somebody out there owns the license, which means there's a good chance those are going to get made. In my opinion, I don't care about Big Bang Bar at all. It's just a game and a theme that will never end up in my collection. I don't care. It just doesn't. The only thing that would bother me, if Chicago Gaming does it, that means they're tied up for another year plus making those. Yeah, make damn Pulp Fiction game. Do you have a blankie on there, Tom? It does. Yeah, I'm cold. Where's your comfy at? My wife is your comfy. My wife stole it. My wife wears it all the time. It's cold in the basement.
    104:35
    Twilight Zone? But Twilight Zone, though, my thought with Twilight Zone is if it's a big company, if it's a Chicago Gaming making that, then I care about it because I know it's going to be made, I know it's going to be made well, and I know they're not going to price it some crazy thing. If it's some brand new company, I have a little more speculation. Like, what's it going to be built off? What's the build quality going to be like? Like, I don't want to just throw my ring or my money into the hat. I don't know. What am I saying? Whatever saying I'm saying. I don't want to if I just want to risk it for that. But then you have people like Pedretti Gaming overseas that they're now doing these remake kits. Well, are they going to start actually doing full-fledged remakes?
    105:17
    I don't know. So, I don't know. I just, it seems like we, like we said, whatever, 10 minutes ago, there's a ton of really good games. right now available for anybody to buy new in box. But now there's rumors of just even more stuff or even more companies coming out making even more games or remaking old games. It's just what? There's just so much potentially coming down the pipeline that it's kind of nuts. I don't know how to feel about it. It's a fun time for speculation.
    105:50
    Okay. Very fun time. that's my comments on it too many games what else do we got besides just that there's Indiana Jones rumors there's Matrix rumors obviously Harry Potter with JJP and then one of the rumors I mentioned last time Travis has gone out this is the third time I'm trying to be polite and ignore it but it's just so consistent the last episode I had mentioned with Harry Potter and nobody talked about it Nobody else said it except for Dennis with Eclectic Gamers Podcast did. He kind of took it even further. But the question was, with Harry Potter and J.J.P., what if there's a chance that for them to – what if Stern passed on a license purposely because of limitations that the Harry Potter license is expecting?
    106:37
    When we hinted at, like, well, what if you made a straight-up, like, home-pin level game or a lack of a coin door, something that couldn't be put on route? What if that was the limitation? That's what Eclectic Gamers Podcast took to a whole new level. He's saying, what if it's more like a, was it Zazzle or Zizzle game? Like almost more of like a home pin. A slightly smaller, full-on, cannot be, like, I hope it's not that extreme. Like that would really piss off a lot of people if it's not even a full-fledged pinball game. But that's Harry Potter rumor. You got Elton John rumors coming up with Jersey Jack. Indiana Jones was in there somewhere. I think that if somebody is thinking about doing Indiana Jones I think that would be a horrible thing to do right now like the new one that just came out well the Williams version of it's great and everything but I mean this new Indiana Jones that's coming out it's very lukewarm response and there's a ton of people that are just huge Indiana Jones fans that are just trying to associate the 4th and 5th movie I don't know if that would be good well maybe this I see we're coming up on time maybe this is the question for each of us but what is currently what are you currently excited about in pinball so what is currently grabbing your interest or what are you looking forward to in the near future with pinball I'm going to have to say Haggis' new little thing that they did they had a little trailer that dropped I don't know 10 minutes before we recorded Yeah. I have not seen Taylor yet.
    108:15
    There's nothing visual. It's just the Haggis logo. But the audio, you can see if you can hear it. I'm going to play it. It's like a minute, if that. A minute? Well, even that. It's really short. 20 seconds. Can you hear it? I can, as long as you're quiet.
    108:33
    So while Travis is listening, I don't want the audience to just sit in silence, guys. Oh, that's easy. Yeah, that's 8-Ball Deluxe. Yeah, that's what that is. If you listen to it, though, it's coming soon, and it's clearly pool balls clinging together, like billiard balls, but there's also the sound of a revving motorcycle. 8-Ball Deluxe. Does 8-Ball Deluxe have a motorcycle?
    109:00
    I don't know, but it has pool balls. Pool balls for sure, but Centaur is clearly some sort of mechanical. I hear a motorcycle and pool balls. So that's the question though A-Ball Deluxe clearly, pool balls, bang bang bang So what was it Fathom was the first of five games From the class of 80 Was that it?
    109:23
    And I think the games I mean there's only so many in that Realm But people had said like Centaur is one of them A-Ball Deluxe is one of them Fathom is one of them But the question is because you hear A motorcycle revving and you hear pool balls Are they about to announce two?
    109:41
    Why not? Manufacturing? I don't know. It has taken a long time to make fathom. I don't know if I would announce both at the same time. I mean, you can announce all the games you want.
    109:53
    Well, I mean, who knows? Maybe they have to due to a deal or something like that where they don't lose the license. They've got to get it out at a certain time. Like, I don't know. That's pure speculation on my part. But either way, yeah, these are two games that people expect it. To come at some point. I think the general idea that I get from talking to different people at Centaur that gets people's attention the most. Interesting. That they're excited about.
    110:20
    Centaur is a game that I would never own. It doesn't, like, find that art. How much would somebody pay for a new in-box 8-ball deluxe?
    110:33
    Eight. Think that much? Well, that's, it brings a question. If it's like an LE eight ball deluxe, like the new LE, not that weird ass LE. With new rules. Yeah, maybe eight, but I think a Centaur would go for 10. But not eight ball. The rules are solid. They're sound where they're at. But if you add the LCD into the apron like they did in Fathom, what are, I don't know, I feel like that's a rule set that would be really hard to make a more in-depth intro. I mean, April's all right. I just don't get excited about it for a remake like I did with Fathom. And Centaur I get excited about. Frontier I'd be very excited about. Sure. I wish somebody would do a Frontier.
    111:24
    Yeah, you could do the HD soundtrack, like really bring out the crickets. I already have a Frontier, though. I know. You have everything, Tom. I know. Do you have an 8-ball to watch? I'm just going to go to sleep. He's all bundled up. Good night, everybody. Yeah. Okay, so then there's that. So that's what I'm excited about. You're excited about Haggis. Well, I'm excited that there's a trailer out for a game, and we don't know what it is. This is the one rumor out of everything that I'm like, I'm pretty sure I have no idea what's going on. Okay. Everything else I feel very confident about, that I have a general idea with where it's going or what's happening. This, I don't know. So I'm excited by the unknown. Okay. All right. But I think it's a ball to life. Tom, what are you excited about? What are you excited about? What are you currently excited about in pinball or what's holding your excitement? Are you excited? Or is there something in the near future you're looking forward to? Super Series, sponsored by the Pinball Company. Oh, we're plugging. That's exciting. That's coming soon. That's not a plug. That's serious excitement. There you go. Yeah. Oh, speaking of plugs, here's something to get excited about. UK Open is coming up. So I don't know. It's the 29th of June. This might come out after tickets have already gone on sale. In that case, I'm sorry, they're sold out most likely. But they're supposed to go and sell This Saturday July 1st It's the 30th of June right now Right I really wish I could go to that one Yeah that'll be a fun one So that would be something to sign up for If you're thinking about it So I'm looking forward to that So Travis is excited about a trailer That he doesn't know about Tom is excited about more tournament pinball Seems fair I mean it's tournament pinball I mean, what are you excited about, Joel? Do you have a new hitch to your golf cart or something? I had a flat tire on the golf cart the other day. Dude, I accidentally did a flat tire on my car. Okay, tangent real quick. Don't humor me here. This is an argument my wife and I had, Monica and I had. She was right, whatever it is. Well, let me tell you the parameters. You can decide that real quick, and I'd like the audience to. Can we get Monica in the room for this? Yeah. Let's hear the truth. Let me ask you this. Tell me a bedtime story. If you hit, okay, both of you. If you hit a curb with your tire, okay? A car or a golf cart? In a car. Okay. Is that a crash? Is that a wreck? Yes or no? If you hit a curb. You hit a curb.
    114:16
    Did it stop you from driving? It's an accident. No, no, no. The person driving got to keep going forward a little bit. No, I would not call that a crash. Okay, you don't call it a crash. It's not a crash. Okay, thank you. I did not crash. Yes, he's calling it a crash. I didn't crash. Crash into what? No. Oh, we thought it was Monica. No, it was me, but I did not crash. Yeah, thank you. If it didn't stop your movement. Well, my movement did not stop The rim got all effed up The tire got a puncture in it How fast are you going?
    114:59
    Five miles an hour I just got a little excited Were you able to drive away from the situation? Or did you have to replace the tire? Or did you get a tow truck? So I was able to drive away But we then realized, wait There seems to be a hole in the tire We may not want to drive this on the highway So we did take it to somebody to get a new tire, and we have to get a new rim. And Monica won't let me live it down, but you know what? I did not wreck. You didn't wreck the car. I did not. Well, it wasn't a crash. So the question is, we should post this on our Facebook. Did Travis wreck the car? Is that an accurate question? Or is it, did Travis get into a wreck? I would say no. I would say Travis did not get into a wreck. Did I damage the car? Did Travis wreck the car? borderline. Or am I playing 4D Tress and now I don't even have to drive anymore? Wow.
    115:55
    Wow. Is Monica a better driver than Travis? No. Hell no. No. There's no way. If you were playing Russian Roulette, anytime you get in the same vehicle with that woman when she has control over the pedals, no. Hopefully she has control of the pedals and the steering wheel. Hopefully you don't tag me back. and see if you drive. There's a reason why I left that part out. All right, all right. Well, write us in at tripledrain.gmail.com. Let us know how terrible your driver drive is. Did you run into something? No. Why did you have a flat tire? You hit a curb too? No, no. I think it was actually just low on air, and what we did is we backed out of the garage. We kind of turned it quickly to then go down the driveway, and in the process of turning it quickly, all of a sudden the left back tire was completely down. So I think it kind of popped off the rim and literally went from having some air to none immediately. Because I took it off, and I found no puncture hole anywhere. But it was off the rim. So it was a little too wild on the go.
    117:01
    Speaking of driving things, I got to go on the Autobahn in Germany. Oh, no speed limit. I heard about that. And Ben Moser was driving, Colin McAlpine in the passenger seat, Neil and I in the back. How was that?
    117:20
    220 kilometers per hour. You know what that relates? It's like 135, 140 miles per hour. I was shitting a brick in the back. I was just like, Ben's like, just scream if I'm going too fast. I was like, holy fuck. Like, seriously, like, if somebody gets over, you are dead. That's it. Yeah. Wow. And Neil's like, Dad, calm down. Yeah, pretty much. He's like, it was pretty fast, you know. So what it sounds like is we need to get Monica on the Autobahn. That's what I'm saying. God, no. You have no idea. There's been times I've woke up after falling asleep, and it feels like we just teleported across the country.
    118:09
    You're a heavy seeker. Here's how my wife operates, and I'd like to know if anybody else's wife does this. I'm sorry. This is no longer a spin ball podcast. Here we go to wrap it up. Group therapy session right now.
    118:24
    When you go to sleep, right, and you barely open up your eyes, you're expecting to still be going, I don't know, what, around 10 miles an hour, the speed limit? Sure. It's acceptable to do 80, 85, right? And a 75, not in a school zone, no. Right. Exactly. There's levels to this.
    118:43
    But when you wake up and you see your wife eating a sandwich with her knees on the wheel, and you look over and it's 95, you're questioning life a little bit.
    118:56
    Chris down the highway, 95 eating a sandwich. If my wife was my Uber driver, I would give her a one. Five stars. My God, no way. Monica's awesome. One, no tip. Monica's awesome.
    119:09
    No, no, no. She has this rule. Joel, this is how much she values me. She has this rule. She barely speeds if the kids are in the vehicle. That's considerate. If they're in the vehicle, it's fine. If I'm in the vehicle. F Travis. She wants to get out of the vehicle as quick as possible. If you're in the vehicle, I want that trip to be as short as possible. That's what I'm hearing. That could be it. I've been telling her, I'm like, my life insurance is dick. I'm sorry. You're not going to kill me that easily. I mean, I just don't know why. I don't know what it is. That's incredible. Do your guys' wives not drive like lunatics whenever you're, like, asleep? I'm not trying to come off as misogynistic, but if we're all in the car, I drive. And it's not because I just, she typically wants to sleep a lot more. And if we're on a car trip and I don't sleep comfortably when she drives, she is a more aggressive driver than I am. Okay, Tom, what about in your situation? I've driven with you, Tom. You are a very calm, cool, collected driver. That's out of character for Tom. Tom obeys the law. Yeah. I may not. We're tragically stationed in Tom's car. Yeah, he sometimes does 72 and 70. What is it?
    120:35
    It's fine. He looks over his shoulder and he pushed that pedal down a little further. Sometimes I go off-roading. That's all right. But you don't wreck your car into a curve. That's for sure. No, I've done that before. I did not wreck. We decided that, Joel.
    120:50
    We voted. It's not a wreck. We're sticking to it. And when Monica listens to this, it's not a wreck. We're at two hours. And if I look back on what we've talked about today, I don't know.
    121:01
    It's been an episode. It had been five weeks. I knew we had to catch up. But it's been a weird five weeks. It's been a weird five weeks. No crazy news to really report. Just a lot of tournaments. Playing pinball. Missed my Tom graph. Yeah. Now we have our Tom graph back. We're basically talking. We're basically tucking Tom in and putting him to bed, which is pretty cool.
    121:21
    Well, let's plug it up here. Let's go ahead and plug away. We'll start with Travis. Yeah. You guys can find me on the Triple Drain Pinball Podcast. But I will say the next tournament I'm going to be at is the Route 66 Tilt Pinball Championship, which is in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It's by Hanger Pinball. And I believe this year Try to Tilt Pinball on Twitch is going to be showing it or streaming it. So, yeah, that's July 9th through the 11th, I believe. So a Thursday through a Sunday. Nice. And that's sometime around there. Maybe that's the 7th through the 11th. I don't know. It's sometime after 4th of July this upcoming week. Sweet. That's my plug. Thank you, Travis. You're welcome, Joel. Plug away, man. I stream pinball on Twitch. Yep. On Fox Cities Pinball.
    122:13
    Nighty night? No, just kidding. I'll be a part-time streamer. Checkmark. Maybe I should do a 24-hour stream. You can watch me sleep.
    122:26
    Just have Carlos playing in the background. It's fine. That has been talked about before. but no actually the next tournament I'm going to be streaming I believe is going to be at Interium in Chicago with my friend Andy Bagwell and also Travis will be there it sounds like nice I'm actually a tournament director now yes Andy asked me and I was like you couldn't pay me to do that nice he asked me and I said oh free oh Joel the dates July 6th to the 9th yeah so 6th to the 9th I think Interium's at the end of July so we'll probably stream before that anyways nice and yeah and I obviously do this podcast and then every Wednesday night on the Flippin' Out YouTube stream or YouTube channel from 10 to midnight Eastern Daylight Time, EDT, whatever, Eastern, whatever it is. My brother and I will either stream pinball or we do a chatting stream, so check all those out. All those bods are on YouTube. The chatting streams are fun to watch afterwards. We had a really fun game two weeks ago where we actually took pretty much every modern game and we were ranking their difficulty, and we had a lot of fun with that. That was a really fun conversation. And then we streamed Foo Fighters last week. Next week we're streaming Godfather, and I think I've been in talks with JJP, and I think we have some JJP giveaways that are going to go on during that stream, so that should be a good time. So next Wednesday, come check that out. But otherwise, yeah, thank you to all the Patreon supporters, anybody that chats with us on Facebook, anybody that said hey to Travis or Tom during their European tour.
    124:18
    I don't know. We love this sport. It's awesome. We enjoy doing this. Sorry if we're not doing it enough. Hopefully we can do it more. but I don't know if this is a good time. We enjoyed doing, you know, recording these episodes and thank you for everybody that enjoys it and supports it. But yeah, I think that's all I have. So like always Tom, you got the last words.
    124:40
    Good night, Joel and Travis.