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Episode 13: Reno or Bust

The Spinner Is Lit Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·2h 11m·analyzed·Apr 8, 2018
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.032

TL;DR

Reno Pinball League founder shares league startup journey, music composition work, and plans for Nevada's first pinball show.

Summary

Mark Scoff, founder of the Reno Pinball League, discusses his journey from discovering pinball in the 1970s to organizing competitive play in Nevada. He shares details about starting the RPL with community input, designing league logistics at Press Start arcade, composing the show's theme song, and working on music for a homebrew horror-themed pinball machine. He outlines ambitious plans for a Reno pinball show at the National Bowling Stadium.

Key Claims

  • Mark has been into pinball since the 1970s, introduced via friend's basement machines (SureShot and Klondike)

    high confidence · Mark Scoff speaking directly about his origin story

  • First location-based pinball experience was Haunted House at Aladdin's Castle in Brookfield Square mall near Milwaukee

    high confidence · Mark describing his childhood arcade experience

  • Reno Pinball League meets every other Tuesday at Press Start, with practice at 6pm and league play at 7pm

    high confidence · Mark detailing RPL logistics and scheduling

  • Press Start arcade provides free play for RPL league nights and has well-maintained machines curated by Kevin Woods

    high confidence · Mark praising Press Start's support and maintenance

  • Mark is composing music for a homebrew horror-themed pinball machine designed by Jim Martin, with goal of whitewood completion by Golden State Pinball Festival

    high confidence · Mark discussing music production work in progress

  • Mark wrote the Spinner Is Lit Pinball Podcast theme song using Logic Studio, MIDI keyboard, and samples inspired by Lego NXT robot sounds

    high confidence · Mark explaining theme song composition process

  • National Bowling Stadium banquet hall has optimal electrical setup (4-plug outlets every 8 feet at 20 amps each) and proximity to hotels for a potential Reno pinball show

    high confidence · Mark describing venue scouting and logistics for planned show

  • The Reno Pinball League inspired by Capital Corridor Pinball League format, which allows players to catch up in standings despite bad weeks

    high confidence · Mark explaining league format philosophy

  • Golden State Pinball Festival is scheduled for May 18-20 at Lodi Great Festival Grounds

    high confidence · Spencer announcing festival dates during episode

Notable Quotes

  • “I've been into pinball since the 70s...I still remember what they were. One was a SureShot, and the other one was a Klondike...I kept playing, like, nonstop...that was when the Atari came out.”

    Mark Scoff @ early in episode — Establishes Mark's deep roots in pinball from childhood and the cultural context of competing interests (Atari vs pinball)

  • “It's like a family reunion...my wife and I still look forward to every other Thursday because we get to see...It's about seeing your friends again.”

    Spencer Klingin @ mid-episode — Captures the social/community appeal of league play beyond competitive pinball mechanics

  • “It's all or nothing for you. It's so true. That's probably what I would put on my gravestone is all or nothing.”

    Mark Scoff @ near end — Reveals Mark's personal philosophy and work ethic approach to all his pursuits

  • “I spent probably hours trying to find the right sound for a spinner to make it sound like it was spinning. It's a perfect integration.”

    Mark Scoff / Spencer Klingin @ music discussion section — Details deliberate sound design choices for podcast branding

  • “He knows what he wants. So he is not afraid to say, you know what, I don't like it. It sucks...or I like it, but can you make it lower in pitch?”

    Mark Scoff @ homebrew music section — Shows collaborative feedback loop on homebrew pinball music composition

  • “Music is such an integral part of the pinball experience. It can really make or break your game.”

    Spencer Klingin @ near end — Thematic statement about importance of audio design in modern pinball

  • “As far as people coming in from out of state...They have a place to stay and they can just walk to the place...loading dock, elevator, roll it right into the room.”

    Mark Scoff @ Reno show planning section — Demonstrates logistical thinking about show feasibility and attendee experience

Entities

Mark ScoffpersonSpencer KlinginpersonSeth HolderpersonJim MartinpersonMichael HuntsmanpersonBrian FelkerpersonRick BartlettpersonKevin WoodspersonRoger BrownpersonJohn SimpsonpersonMichael Hozierperson

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Reno Pinball League established through deliberate community organizing, committee formation, and collaboration with local arcade (Press Start)

    high · Mark details 3-meeting process with Roger Brown, John Simpson, and others to define league structure, scheduling, and operational details

  • ?

    community_signal: Established pinball league organizers (Capital Corridor in Sacramento) actively mentoring new league founders in Nevada

    high · Mark consulted extensively with Michael Hozier and other league organizers in Sacramento and Las Vegas (Joe from Wondersville, Pinball Lounge in Orlando) for best practices

  • ?

    design_innovation: Original music composition for homebrew pinball machine using horror/atmospheric themes with heartbeat motif and layered mode-specific tracks

    high · Mark describing composition process for Escape machine with creepy ambience, synthesized metal sounds, heartbeat background, and mode-specific musical progression

  • ?

    content_signal: Podcast theme song designed with deliberate sonic matching to show concept (spinner sounds, frantic energy)

    high · Mark explaining inspiration from Lego NXT robot whirring sounds and matching frantic music to spinning spinner concept

  • ?

    venue_signal: Press Start arcade actively supporting local pinball community through free-play offerings and machine maintenance excellence

    high · Mark praising Kevin Woods' machine maintenance and Press Start's offer of free play for league nights, noting machines are in pristine condition

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.395

0:00
Welcome to the Spinner is Lit, Episode 13, Reno or Bund. Welcome to the Spinner is Lit Pinball Podcast, Episode 13. I'm your host, Spencer Klingin, and with me is my wonderful co-host, Seth Holder. Hey everybody. and tonight our very special guest from Reno, Nevada and one of the founders of the Reno Pinball League, Mark Scoff. Mark, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me on the show. This is awesome. You know, it's been a long time coming. We've been wanting to have you on for some time. So it's good to finally all get together. And, you know, the planets aligned and our schedules got all dialed in and we're ready to have some fun tonight and talk about pinball. Looking forward to it. Well, let's just jump right in. So, when and how did you first discover pinball? Oh my gosh, I've been into pinball since the 70s. I was born in 71, so I actually got introduced to pinball when I went to my friend's house, and he had three machines downstairs in his basement. And I still remember what they were. One was a SureShot, and the other one was a Klondike. And I remember just getting a chance to get my hands on the flippers and started getting totally addicted to it, trying to get all the numbers lit up on SureShot. And I kept playing, like, nonstop, and that was when the Atari came out. So I was kind of excited being able to play pinball, but then my friend always wanted to play Atari, and I wanted to keep playing pinball. But it all started from SureShot in his basement. And long story short, the person who designed our artwork for the back of our shirt is the same guy who had the machines down in his basement, which is really ironic.
2:10
It's his fault. But that's such an awesome story because in the 70s like that, you didn't hear about a lot of pinball collectors. You went out on location and played pinball. That is correct. And the place I went to was Aladdin's Castle. That was the place to go at the mall. I am originally from Milwaukee, and I lived in a suburb called Brookfield. And in Brookfield, I had a place called Brookfield Square, and they had an Aladdin's Castle there. And the first pinball machine I ever played as far as on location was Haunted House. and that game frustrated the heck out of me. And that's when I kind of looked at video games when they started coming about. But now I love that game. But before, oh my gosh, it was so frustrating, even trying to get used to it when I went in the basement. But it was still cool. And to see the ball flinging around and having it go down at the bottom and having the flippers kind of like a mirror design so it looked like they were, you know, they were like reversed. but it was just so trippy and it just totally got me interested in it. And from there on, I just loved pinball from that day on. But, yeah, it was pretty much in the mid-70s when I really got into it. And it was thanks to my friend. He had it in his basement and we played the old jukebox. We played Billy Joel and Queen. Oh, man, don't get started on Billy Joel. Patrick, he will stop listening to this show.

  • Jim Martin designed the Reno Pinball League logo featuring RPL initials and bumper cap; Brian Felker (web designer from Phoenix) created artwork for league shirts

    high confidence · Mark crediting specific contributors to league branding

    • “When I heard it on the show, it was like, oh my gosh, this sounds perfect...this is the first time I've ever made my music public.”

    Mark Scoff @ theme song discussion — Shows significance of podcast collaboration as Mark's public musical debut

    Adam Pressler
    person
    Jack Jarrettperson
    The Spinner Is Lit Pinball Podcastorganization
    Reno Pinball Leagueorganization
    Capital Corridor Pinball Leagueorganization
    Press Startorganization
    Press Startorganization
    National Bowling Stadiumorganization
    Golden State Pinball Festivalevent
    Haunted Housegame
    Escapegame
    Pinbot / Bride of Pinbotgame
    Aladdin's Castlevenue
  • ?

    event_signal: Early-stage planning for first Reno pinball show at National Bowling Stadium with venue approval already secured

    high · Mark discussing logistics, electrical infrastructure, hotel proximity, loading dock access, and commitment to start small for success; venue organizer already gave approval

  • $

    market_signal: Local Reno collector base willing to support community pinball show by donating machines for exhibition

    medium · Mark mentioning 'I have a lot of collectors in here that would probably be willing to donate it' and potential for California collectors to participate

  • ?

    product_strategy: Homebrew machine (Escape by Jim Martin) targeting whitewood completion by May 2025 Golden State Pinball Festival

    high · Mark stating 'The goal is to have that displayed in a whitewood by next Golden State Pinball Festival' with mechanics nearly complete

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Mark Scoff establishing himself as pinball audio composer; first professional music placement on podcast theme

    high · Mark noting 'this is the first time I've ever made my music public' and now actively composing for homebrew machine; theatrical background plus educational position

  • ?

    historical_signal: Documentation of Mark's discovery of pinball in 1970s via basement machines (SureShot, Klondike) and transition from arcade to collector/organizer

    high · Mark describing childhood introduction, Aladdin's Castle experience with Haunted House, and evolution to adult community organizing

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Reno Pinball League implementing Capital Corridor format with handicap/catch-up mechanics to serve mixed skill levels

    high · Mark praising Michael Hozier's system for allowing fairness and catch-up opportunities despite bad weeks, choosing this format deliberately

  • ?

    operational_signal: National Bowling Stadium offers optimized infrastructure for pinball show hosting (electrical, loading, hotel proximity, parking)

    high · Mark detailing 4-plug 20-amp outlets every 8 feet, loading dock with elevator, proximity to Circus Circus/Silver Legacy/El Dorado hotels, Circus Circus parking lot

    • 3:45
    Well, it's just this episode, but no, he's a good guy. And we got our practical ski shout-out, so, yeah. Well, Klondike is the one that has the reels in the middle, right, at the top of the play field. That's kind of a cool EM. I have played it recently and really liked it. Yeah, it's kind of like a slot machine. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's really cool. I don't know if I've ever played one yet. Hopefully somebody will bring one to the Golden State Pinball Festival. coming May 18th through the 20th at the Lodi Great Festival Grounds. And super excited about it. It's going to be the best show ever in the West. That's it.
    4:24
    It is going to be beyond epic. Oh, I can't wait. I'm, like, counting the days. I love it when Spencer puts on Pinside how many days are left until Golden State. Yeah, but it always makes me nervous when he goes quiet for a couple days because then I'm like, okay, is he in the hospital? What's going on? And you know we've never talked about that On the show so maybe someday But you know I'm doing Great man and right now I'm working on quitting Smoking I've been juicing Like Jacqueline Lane Not like Barry Barnes No no You know just all natural fruit juices Get my morning started Rusty makes Me a nice Both of us a nice fresh juice You know with spinach and kerosene, oranges or pineapple and like that. Just, you know, V8 without all the garbage, you know. I hear you. Yeah, yeah. So, all right, so the next question. Okay, well, you started a league in Reno, Mark.
    5:25
    Just tell us about it. How did it all come about? Oh, wow. It was something that we talked about for a very long time. I got to give shout-outs to Michael Huntsman. He's the one that started this whole pinball craze in Reno, getting people to come over to his house. And he had this one location that was awesome called Shabby Boutique. And in the back, he had like 15 pinball machines of all different kinds from DMD or from EMs all the way up to DMDs. And I got introduced to him when I was at Pinnagogo. So I met all my pinball friends at Pinnagogo. And I got their numbers and I said, hey, you know what? I'd like to contact you when we're back in Reno so we can get together. And the first year, it didn't happen. There was nothing really going on. And I remember when I talked to Michael, he was like, you know, I really want to start an arcade. I really want to get an arcade going in Reno. I'm like, okay, that sounds great. But, you know, when is that going to happen? And he's like, well, it hasn't gotten there yet. I'm still getting my machines all fixed up and everything. Well, eventually that time came, and his friend had a consignment or antique shop that was in the front. and he gave the space in the back to rent out to be able to have his machines. So they had kind of a little partnership. And what was really cool is there was all this stuff in the back. So what I did is I went in there and helped him clean it up and get everything all situated so we could start moving the machines in. And from that point forward, we moved in about 14 or 15 of his machines, and it was awesome. We went there like we had tournaments every other two weeks, and it was just for fun, nothing to if bar or anything like that, just to get a community to build. And then after that was done, we had an opportunity to invite more people. And I found out there's a lot more people than I knew that are interested in pinball in Reno. So that's kind of how it started. And then we always talked about starting a league and it really couldn't happen yet because unfortunately the place shut down and Mike had to move his machines out. So then he moved him into local bars. But the problem was that there was smoking in the bars and most people don't like to play pinball with smoke and it's not good for the machines, et cetera, et cetera. So we decided that we just are not ready for it yet. So when I went to Sacramento, I had an opportunity to see Michael Hosier, which I give huge shout outs to him as well as the Capital Corridor Pinball League, because they were the ones that really inspired me to get it started in Reno. I talked to Michael, I don't know, hours upon hours asking, what's the best format? What do you think I should do? I talked to somebody from Wondersville in Las Vegas, Joe, and he was giving me pointers on what format they use. And then I also talked to somebody who I met in Orlando, who also has a great place called the Pinball Lounge in Ovedo, Florida. And he gave me suggestions. So I really, at that point in time, I really did not know exactly what I wanted to do as far as what format I wanted to do, where I was going to have it, what was going to, if I was going to do IFBA or not. So all those questions were answered by Michael. And I found from all of the options that his system is the absolute best for having it where everybody competes against each other. But it does give you a chance to catch up with the points. If you have a bad week, you can still have an opportunity to get further in the rankings if you play well that next week. And I love that. And it really makes that competitive nature fun. But at the same time, it really helps you as a pinball player improve.
    9:27
    So that's how it kind of started off. And then I can go into more detail on exactly the whole process that went through it. But that was the that was like the inspiration. It's like, I had the best time ever when I was invited as a guest to go to Michael's league that he had around Halloween where he had a costume party. And I was there, and I just felt like home. And I'm like, I want to have this feeling here in Reno. So that's why I started a league. Yeah, no, and that's, you know, I play in the capital quarter of pinball league. It's really funny because Michael is 15, 20 minutes straight up Highway 50 from me.
    10:07
    But on his league nights, it's my boys' trail life night. So I play the Lodi side, which we met up there and played at Adams before because that's Thursday. And, you know, it's like a family reunion almost. You know, my wife and I still look forward to every other Thursday because we get to see. And Michael also plays in that league, in that side. He plays in both sides. And a few other people do as well. But it's just the gathering of the tribes sort of. And it's still about pinball, but it's just about seeing your friends again, you know, just hanging out. It's a family reunion. That's the best way to look at it. It really is, you know? And it's just a wonderful experience. Yeah, Michael and Adam and our, you know, in the capital quarter of Pinball League, Michael Hozier, Adam Pressler,
    10:58
    the Neff family and the Bannister family who host leagues. And I know there's somebody else who hosts on the Folsom side. I forget who it is. Jack Jarrett. Jack Jarrett. Thank you. So a shout out to him as well. But, you know, these people, they open up their homes and share their games. And it's wonderful. It's an awesome thing. And it's great that other leagues that you reached out to them and, you know, that they helped you and kind of, you know, pointed you in the right direction to continue to get your league started up. So I love the shirts. In fact, I want one. I've got to trade you a Capital Quarter shirt. And I do also play, like, at the tournaments Michael puts on because those are usually on weekends so I can make those. So, uh-huh. Yeah. I want to go to one of those tournaments that he held. I was bummed out. I missed out on the pin golf tournament he had just recently. And I also wanted to try out the pin bowling tournament, which sounded really fun. But it's just hard to get over to Sacramento sometimes with the weather and the Donner Pass. Right. Weather conditions, when it snows, it takes forever to get over there. Probably wouldn't even make it in time for the tournament because the roads close or this traffic is so slow moving. But, yeah, so as far as to answer your question of how it started, after I got all the information from all those people that I talked to, then I spent a considerable amount of time getting some people together to form a little, I don't know if you could call it a committee, but just kind of a group of people that are interested in wanting to start it and getting input from them. So I had four other people that were regulars that we had. We actually only had like three meetings. So we had the first meeting that Roger Brown put together, who is owner of Press Start, along with John Simpson. And they came together and decided to have a meeting at Press Start to say, hey, we really like to, you know, what are your ideas as far as what you want to have for a league? and basically we just heard input from everybody. Do we want to have it so it's fair for everybody? Do we want to have it so that there is like a handicap so people who are not experienced with pinball, they can have a better chance of doing better?
    13:20
    When are we going to have it? What nights are we going to have it? So those, you know, all the typical things that you have to think about when you're having an organization of people come every other week. So the good news is that Tuesday was the best night, and ironically that's the same night that Capital Corridor meets in Folsom. And it worked for us. We decided that we'll have practice at 6 o'clock to give them time for an hour, and then 7 o'clock we start.
    13:48
    The cool thing is that the people at Press Start offered to put their machines on free play for league night. Awesome. Which is incredible. and I tell you, a press start is a wonderful place to hang out and they really treat you well. And I'm really impressed with how well the machines are maintained, thanks to Kevin Woods, who works there. So he has it all pristine shape, and we know when he's gone that we can tell that the machines are like, oh, wow, yeah, he wasn't there for a while. But, man, he gets them all cleaned, and they work amazingly. So when we play for league, we have no issues. They work all the time. The other thing we've been doing to make it a little more interesting is we're having people bring in machines, including EMs, some older solid-state games, to mix it up a little bit, because most of the lineup that's there is mainly DMDs or newer sterns. But we do have a couple like Twilight Zone, and we do have a Jersey Jack dialed in, which is cool. So we have a good variety of machines, and it really allows competitive play to be very organized, and you can depend on the machines that work that night. So it's really cool. After we had a chance to talk about what day we want to have it, then we had to decide on a logo. And Jim Martin, who is a great friend of mine, he designed a really cool logo that would be simplified so it would be good for putting it on score sheets or on a website or on shirts in the front to go with our name. And it turned out really cool. He did a really good job on the font that he chose and the bumper cap, so it has the initials of RPL for the acronym. So it really turned out well. And then my friend who I talked about before, Brian Felker, he lives in Phoenix, and I've been longtime friends with him since he, long story short, he was adopted and he's from South Korea. And he was, fortunately, he was adopted into a very nice wealthy family. So he didn't have that opportunity when he was in South Korea. So he had all the cool toys and everything and I got to share that with him and we became really good friends. not through not just pinball but everything else so I talked to him about I'm starting a league and I'm really excited he says hey you know what I design websites and I'm like oh really so he was like um why don't I design artwork for you or a logo and I'm like okay sounds good he's like well what do you want I go well I don't know yet so then I had to get back to him and give him some ideas. But eventually it turned out to be really cool and I wanted something to represent Reno and it turned out that it represents pinball but it represents Reno at the same time and it's going to be really cool to wear the shirts at Golden State. Do you have a website yet? We have a Facebook group but we're going to be working on a website. But right now we just had a Facebook group so I could get the IFPA to accept the sanctioned... Right. You've got to have a web presence. Yep. Yep, you have to have a web presence. So I had to make sure that happened. I, of course, registered a domain, and even that was talked about because originally I was going to Reno Pinball League, but then people would misspell it and have three L's or two L's, and it wouldn't. So we shortened it to Renopinleague.com, and that was much easier to remember and type in. Oh, yeah. Well, you know, I think part of the story that's really cool is a childhood friend, you know, goes full circle, that helped introduce you to pinball, is now designing your website. Yeah, well, he's not designing the website, but he designed the artwork for the back of the shirt. So now we have something else really cool, and that I can tell you in a story later on. Okay, cool. But it's very cool. I mean, I could say it in the show, but it'll fit when we talk about the design. Okay, cool.
    18:06
    Now, you wrote the Spinners Lit Pinball Podcast theme song. And thank you. It is awesome, and we love it. And, you know, we've gotten good response about it.
    18:21
    You know, and I want to tell the listeners that you just popped in with, I think, a text or an email one day and said, Hey, man, I wrote you a theme song. Let me send it to you if you want to use it. And I was like, wow. And, like, I mean, it was unsolicited. You were just like, here you go, you know. So thank you again. How did you do that? I mean, what was the process? us. So it's interesting because I had that song before, but I never had any good use for it. I'm an educator. So I was a teacher at the time over at a charter school and I created a song for the robotics club. We have a robotics club at the end and we wanted to have like a theme song that went with it, but it just didn't go any further except it was just kind of a quick scratch track and I was like, oh, this sounds really cool. And what I was inspired by is if you're familiar with the NXT Lego robots, they make like a whirring sound when they spin their gears. And that whirring sound inspired me to sample it and then write music over it. So then I just kind of had it on the back burner and I'm like, okay, I'm not going to use this for anything. So I listened to it one time and I go, you know what? This would make really good music for an energetic theme for the spinners lit because I'm thinking, of course, the spinners spinning and making that fast music. So I was like, that sounds really frantic and perfect for a spinner. So then I was like, well, let me modify this and change it a little bit. So I fixed up some of the, um, the, I changed the tracks, cleaned them up a little bit, changed instruments and, um, sequenced it a little longer, uh, than I went ahead at before. And, uh, I did it just by using my keyboard and MIDI and using Logic Studio to put it all together. But then when I heard it on the show, it was like, oh, my gosh, this sounds perfect. And I spent probably hours trying to find the right sound for a spinner to make it sound like it was spinning. It's a perfect integration. It is. It's absolutely perfect. I mean, it just fits the show. It fits the theme. It's absolutely perfect. Thank you. I appreciate you using it. And this is the first time I've ever made my music public, having them use something for another purpose. So thank you. My pleasure, man. We're just glad, you know, we're glad to have it. Which kind of leads into the next question. Now, you're a teacher by trade, so that's how you earn a living.
    20:49
    But then, so music is a hobby. Yeah, music is something I do on the side. I always started doing it when I was in college. I started really getting into it because that was when the synthesizer that came out had workstations built in. So the Korg M1 was a classic synthesizer from the 90s, and it had a built-in sequencer. So it was like, oh, my gosh, this is a band in the box right in my keyboard. So I purchased the other one. Actually, my stepfather did, and it was kind of a gift to me to help with my hobby. and it was a chord T2, which is kind of cool, T2. But it basically did the same thing, but it had a little more advanced sound architecture in it. And I wrote a lot of my songs using that in the sequencer before they had the band-in-the-box mixing boards, which were with the hard drives, and then they went to ADAT recorders, and then they went to hard disk recording, or in this case, the digital audio workstation within the computer with GarageBand and everything else. That was when it really took off. But I'm still a little behind in that because that's not what I grew up with. Well, you know what? What you're using works because it sounds great.
    22:09
    You know, and we just, you know, like when I first put it out there, before I even put it on the show, or Seth and I did, we put it out to our group, you know, the Capital Quarter Pinball League, and said, listen to this. What do you think of this? And everybody was just blown away. and they're like, that fits it perfect. It's awesome. You know, that is so cool. Yeah, so right away we got really positive feedback, and that's just continued on, you know, since we've been using it for the last few episodes. So, but you're not just, you didn't just do that. Well, you did that, but you are currently working on music for a homebrew pinball machine? I am. I am working on tracks to go with a homebrew pinball machine here right in Reno. and the person who is creating, his name is Jim Martin, and he and I met at a party, believe it or not. It was a pinball pool party over at Rick Bartlett's house, and you know who Rick Bartlett is. He moved from the Bay Area to Reno now, so he's in the Reno Sparks area, and we were invited over to his house, and I got to network some people that enjoyed pinball as well, and that's how I met Rick. That's how I got to know Rick, and that's how I got to meet Jim. And when I first met him, he was interested in making a virtual machine. And I was trying to get ideas because I wanted to see what we could do to help my friend Doug, who he also wants to, he wanted at the time to create a virtual pinball machine, and Jim had a lot of experience with it. so then one day I looked up on Pinside and saw this homebrew machine and it was called Escape and I was like wow this looks pretty cool and I contacted him through Pinside through private messenger and I said hey I just want to know you I really like your machine that's really cool what do you think of this track would this fit with your pinball machine so I sent it to him just out of the blue and said, hey, what do you think? And he's like, oh, I like it. It's pretty cool. He's like, but I'm looking for something with a little more spookiness, more horror theme. Because the pinball machine that he is doing is horror based and it's not your typical horror. It's pretty serious stuff, but the gameplay is really cool. I can't reveal a lot because it's still under disclosure, I guess you could say. But it's really cool to see the rules. He's really excited about it, and I decide, okay, let me send you some tracks and see what we can work with. And what I really like about Jim is he knows what he wants. So he is not afraid to say, you know what, I don't like it. It sucks. Okay, fine, no problem. or I like it, but can you make it lower in pitch instead of too high? We have too many highs. So I'm like, okay, let me go back to the drawing board and fix that. So now I finally got something that's really cool that sounds extremely creepy but would be really great on a pinball machine while you're going through the modes. So I'm working right now on the first part is I'm using the theme music that will loop over and over before you launch the ball. And then once the ball is launched, it goes into a real, almost like a melancholy, real slow-paced, kind of like you're walking into a creepy house or something like that. And then it has a heartbeat in the background, kind of like Pinbot, like Bride of Pinbot. And it kind of goes throughout the soundtrack, and it has these really cool synthesized sounds that like sound like clashing metal. It's very cool. So I kind of went with that. And then I just said, well, what do you want me to do to go to the other modes? And he's like, well, I need something maybe, you know, to go a little faster or add a little more layering to the music. So I just kind of use that same weird key. I can't even, I don't even know what key it's in, to be honest with you. but I just worked on that, and it's coming out that I have three tracks now that sound really good, and I also got a multi-ball, which I'm working on too, so it's coming together. I was kind of a little on a little streak where I had nothing, and I had writer's block, and I had no idea what to do, but now with this break that I had for spring break through the school district, I've had time to play around with my new toy. But, yeah, yeah, yeah, I had a time to play around with it and get things going. So now I need to really see it in action so I can really get inspired by what other music to write. But it's cool because each mode will have different music. Oh, cool.
    27:07
    Now, so is this something we might have a chance to see in the near future at a pinball show close to us? Absolutely. The goal is to have that displayed in a whitewood by next Golden State Pinball Festival.
    27:21
    It's very close to done as far as the mechanics go and everything. And he does have it posted on his website. I'm sorry, on YouTube he has it. And he also has it on Pinside. So if people want to look at it, they can look up, I think it's Jim56, if I'm not mistaken, is his handle. and you can go in there and search for it and he has pictures of his whitewood and his ramps and all his other mechanics. But he's still got some cool mechs that he's putting in there that are going to make it very unique among other pinball machines. So I would consider Jim as a really good pinball designer. Man, I can't wait to see this thing and get a chance to hear it and play it.
    28:01
    It's going to be fun. It's going to be really fun. As we're learning with TNA, right, music is such an integral part of the pinball experience. It can really make or break your game. Absolutely. And hearing what Scott Denisey did on his soundtrack is just amazing. And it's like, wow, I could do that. And he kind of inspired me to get going on this. So thanks to Scott for helping with that inspiration. I've been a composer forever. On the side, I do a lot of theatrical stuff on the side. I actually had an opportunity to write two pieces that were performed by the Susanville Symphony Orchestra. Oh, wow. Yeah, that was really cool. That was like writing a book moment.
    28:45
    So, yeah, it was great. So you're a man of many talents. That's cool. Yeah, I guess I am. Whatever I can. But my wife always has a great, great saying. She says it's all or nothing for you. It's so true. That's probably what I would put on my gravestone is all or nothing. I love that when she said that. And I love that, too. I love passionate people. You know, and we got paid a really nice compliment on Pinside. Somebody was asking about what podcast to listen to. It was a thread, and I went through and read it. And a fellow podcaster put, you know, it's mostly local NorCal or California stuff, but they're very passionate. That's right on, man. That was a nice compliment. So, yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. So, you know, that was like, wow, that was a nice thing to say. So, yeah, Mark, you had talked about, you and I talked about last year at Pinnagogo, you had talked about doing a pinball show in Reno. Is there anything still in the works or planning stages or anything?
    29:53
    That is a great thing. That is like my ultimate goal and my ultimate challenge at the same time. But I definitely want to do that. I do have people that would support it. I know Rick Bartlett would definitely support it. The place that I was thinking of having it was at the National Bowling Stadium. There's a banquet hall in there, which has a perfect setup for electrical because every eight feet is a four-plug outlet that handles 20 amps on each plug. So I was like, oh, my gosh, you don't even need extension cords here. I mean, it was just like perfect match. So I talked to the organizer of the Reno Events Center, who also works with the National Bowling Stadium, and pitched the idea and said, hey, you know, is this possible? Because I didn't want to start anything until I found out exactly if it was allowed or not. And he gave us the okay. So now it's just a matter of going through all of the liability, going through the insurance, choosing how we're going to have food and concessions and all that kind of stuff. and I really need to get a committee together to be able to make that happen because I cannot do it on my own.
    31:07
    There's just so much involved. And when I talked to, I think it was Eric is who I talked to, he gave me all the pointers on everything. And, yeah, there's a lot to go on. But, yes, eventually I do want to have it, and I do want to have it at the National Bowling Stand because, number one, it's really close to hotels. So as far as people coming in from out of state, at California or whatever. They have a place to stay and they can just walk to the place. Number two, it has a loading dock right where you can drive your trucks in, unload the machines, go right into a loading dock that's an elevator, go right up to the floor, and then just roll it right into the room and set it up.
    31:51
    That's amazing. Plus, they have a surface lot at Circus Circus, so people who have their big trucks can park their trucks that they rent right in that parking lot. and then they can stay in the hotel right across the street. So you could have Circus Circus. You could have Silver Legacy and El Dorado all get block rates for the show, and it would be really cool. Now, it's not as big of a space, but, you know, you want to start off small so it's successful. And as far as the cost, it would be fairly cheap. It wouldn't be expensive because, like I said, it would be the first show, and it wouldn't be like 200 pinball machines, but it still would be a good number. And I have a lot of collectors in here that would probably be willing to donate it to it. And I'm also thinking maybe people from California might want to bring in their machines too. Especially if you do it outside of snow season. I was really thinking of summer, sometime in the summer, because summer is the that the time when there not many pinball shows going on in the summer You got California Extreme in July and then you have a new Pinnagogo show that will be in October so you've got kind of that room in between. Right. I was thinking like a June show, but then that's close to Golden State. So, yeah, I have to find a time, or even in the fall would be good, but now there's Pinnagogo in the fall, so I don't know. I'd have to find a time and also a time that it wouldn't conflict with the Bowling Congress because they have their tournaments at that time. But even if there were tournaments going on, we still could have it because the banquet room would be available. But it's fairly large. You can sit on the wall probably 50 machines easily. So it's pretty cool. And the nice thing about it, like I said, is the facility is really easy to get to. There's free parking, which is great. It's covered parking, so it's a parking structure. So you can just walk right in the facility, go up the elevator, and you're there with a little bit of a walk. Not too bad. And the other cool thing about it is if there's tournaments going on, there's televisions that are mounted on different parts of the room, so you could have, like, tournament results happening without having it on a big screen, but you could just have it on little televisions. televisions or you could have announcements with, you know, if you had somebody who was speaking about something or something like that. There's just a huge, huge opportunity to have a show here in Reno. It can happen. But I think what I'm starting off first is starting off small, getting interested in leagues, then getting interested in getting him on the map here, and then, of course, holding tournaments that we want to invite people from California so we can have really good IFFA-sanctioned tournaments that will be popular to visit. So, yeah, that's what I'm working on. That's the right way to do it. Maybe step your way through it, you know, and build, get that solid foundation, get a following, and just keep growing it. Yeah, and it sounds like you've got a really strong community up there, and that's really wonderful to hear. We do. And knowing that they would accept that happening, I was shocked, actually. I thought they'd say, no, we can't do that. I mean, they even said, you know, you can't bring in food, but we can open the concessions for you. I'm like, okay, that works for me. So, yeah, it really would be a great place to have it. And it's family-friendly. It's not in a bad area town. It's the National Bowling Stadium on top of that. And, heck, it looks like a pinball. So how can you go wrong, right? Exactly. So, well, you know, a lot of us guys here in NorCal, guys in the Capital Quarter of the Pinball League, every, well, you know, Alex, one of the main ones, but there's a bunch more going, yeah, you guys are going to make a Reno trip? It's like, once the rain and the snow stop, yeah. You know, we're planning on it. I just don't know when, you know, because we've got Golden State coming up and everything else. But we do have a plan that works just to jump in the wife's minivan and, you know, Reno or bus to come up and spend the day playing pinball and having a good time. That would be awesome. There's some really good places now. I've got to give props to Peppermill, too. They've got two new techs there now, and their machines are working really well now. They have a good lineup, too, for newer machines. They got Mustang, Metallica, Kiss, Ghostbusters, Star Wars, and what's the other one?
    36:31
    Guardian. No, not Guardian. ACDC Pro. Oh, nice. That's a good lineup. Yeah, that's a good lineup. And they work really well because they got somebody that is passionate, once again, about keeping them in good condition. So, yeah, Peppermill is a good place to go now, too. And Press Start, of course, is fantastic. And then there's some really great bars around here that have a great collection, thanks to Michael Huntsman. One is called Jub Jub's, and the other place is called Hideout Lounge. So those are great places to play as well. What we'll have to do is do the pinball crawl. And then last time I was in Reno with my family, last October, we did the pepper mill, you know, for the world-famous pepper mill buffet.
    37:21
    Oh, yeah, absolutely. And a pinball crawl is another idea that would be really fun. Yeah, you know, we give everybody a little love and a few bucks in their machines and get some good food, man. So I'm in. Absolutely, absolutely. All right. Well, that's, I think, the end of the questions portion of the show. So, and where do we go from here? I just have to say one thing, which is really funny. When I talked about the Susanville Symphony Orchestra, one of my friends, Marcus Peterson, who lives in Susanville, he has an amazing collection. He's a great friend of mine, and I got to meet him also at Rick's party and also through Michael Huntsman. But I didn't know that the person who directs and is the head conductor of the Susanville Symphony Orchestra is a pinball fanatic. But here's the funny story. Do you know who the conductor is from the Susanville Symphony Orchestra? I have no idea.
    38:32
    It's Coach from Survivor. No. way seriously seriously coach from a survivor lives in Susanville and he's a pinhead and he's a pinhead big time pinhead how come he's never come to pin a go-go or now the Goldman State Pinball Festival I am going to try and get him to go he's very busy and he has a lot with he's a soccer coach as well and of course he's busy with the Susanville Symphony Orchestra and he's got a lot of kids, some little ones too that he definitely spends a lot of time with. But I'm going to try to get him to go to Golden State Pinball. He's got to go because you should have seen him. I invited him out of the blue to Marcus' house. I said, Coach, just if you've got a chance, come on, just come over to Marcus' house and you've got to check out these machines. And he was like, he said he was going to, I can't stay that long. He stayed for like six hours before he left. He was ecstatic. He was having so much fun, and it was a blast. Yeah, it was really cool. So now what's really cool is Marcus and Coach get together all the time now and play pinball. That's awesome. And he didn't have anybody to play with before or anybody to hang out with in Susanville. So how cool is that? Yeah, well, Susanville is probably not, other than home collections, probably not a big pinball market. You know, before I moved to Sacramento, when I was based in the Chico area, in the summer months, I would occasionally be sent up to the Susanville area to work on different projects. And it's a small town, you know. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So that was really a funny story to tell because, yeah, who would have thought that Coach is a pinball fanatic? I never would have known that. And it's funny because I just told him, I said, hey, I just want to let you know, I'm going to be in Susanville, but I'm at a friend's house and playing pinball. And he texted me back right away. And he's usually not really good with that. But, man, he texted back right away. He's like, pinball? Are you serious? I go, yeah. He's like, dude, I love pinball. And from there, he was like, okay, you got to come over to Marcus' house. And he did. So that was cool. You got to get him to Golden State, man. He'll have a good time.
    40:48
    I'm going to get him to Golden State. In fact, I'm going, that's a great idea. I've got to remember to remind him to text him. He's got to come out there. Send him a link to the show, man, because, you know, you outed him. So, you know, he's one of us. Absolutely. He's totally one of us. That's great, man. That's awesome. Yeah, I had to share that story because it's just funny how things are so ironic. And another story, this is a quick one, but when I went to go and look at trophies, when I wanted to provide for our league, the guy had an old kiss machine at his house who is doing the trophies, and he likes pinball and he also likes video games. So go figure, huh? Isn't that wild? The people you meet and they just mention it. You go, yeah, I got a couple of machines in my basement. My dad gave to me or whatever. Yeah. Yeah, it's cool. That's what I love about the pinball community is that people are so, I mean, yeah, everybody has the same passion, but you really get to know people. And like my story with you, Spencer, I mean, I'll never forget that when the Hobbit was there on display from Jersey Jack. And I remember we were saying, Hey, let's play a foursome. So I got to play with your wife and, and you, and then me, and then I think somebody else. And I remember I had the most amazing game on it. And I felt bad because I was taking time away from you guys waiting for your turn. And you're like, don't worry about it, man. Just keep going, keep going. And that just pumped me up. And I got the grand champion on the machine. It was the first time I ever played Hobbit. So that was really cool. And you killed it. I was like, no, man, just play through, play through. You got this, man. Just go. Yeah, that was great. And I knew you before, but I didn't get to know you in that light. And then I was like, man, Spencer's a really cool guy. I got to keep in touch with him. So then I text you once in a while and say, hey, how are things going? And then when you start a podcast, I love listening to it because it's just a great way to just talk among friends about our passion, which is pinball. So, yeah. Yeah, it's just like being in the car, going to a pinball show or going to a friend's house to spend the day playing pinball, man. It's me and Seth and whoever else jumps in the car with us. That's the show. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, when I went to California, I had to teach a computer camp that I do on the side. And Adam Pressler invited me over to his house, and we got to play pinball, and I got to meet him and get to know him. So it's just I love the people from the Sacramento area and Reno area. They're just, I don't know, it's just a really cool vibe from everybody in those areas because, like you said, it feels like you're family. And I know my wife sometimes laughs at me and is like, oh, my gosh, Is that all you talk about? But it's like there's more to it than just playing the game. It's about people and companionship and a passion that everybody has. And I think that's starting to grow more and more, especially when you look at the mainstream media of how it's being portrayed now. I mean, I just talked to somebody who said, yeah, it was just on Southwest, and they have an article on pinball of how it's coming back and the competition that's out there. and the new machines coming out, and the interest in it. And, yeah, it's becoming more accepted mainstream, which is kind of cool. And I hope it still stays like our specialized hobby. But, hey, if more people join, that helps with the business of making cooler and newer machines and also getting more people that you never know that you can meet and share the passion with them. So it's really cool. Oh, yeah, completely. Well, that's our question and answer portion, our interview portion of the show. Seth, what's up next? Well, let's see. Let's do top five. It's time for our top five games of the week this week or month, because it's been a couple of weeks since we did our last podcast. This week we've picked the science fiction genre to do our top five. We've all sat down independently without looking over each other's shoulders and kind of noodled on this. I'll call out a couple ground rules, and then we'll kick things off with Mark as our guest. He'll go first.
    45:10
    But science fiction, so we're looking for things that are both science and fiction is the primary driver of the theme of the pen. Any era is open. Mark, you're up first. Let's start with your number five and work our way to number one. Okay, we're just doing one at a time, right? Yeah. And we're just discussing each one? Okay. So, first of all, this was a really, really difficult one to try to alienate things that I was like, oh, man, I wish I could put that in there. It's a huge category. Oh, my gosh. It was so hard. But my fifth pick that I chose that I still think is a great machine has to be Star Trek Next Gen. That is just a great pinball machine because it has the two shooters on the side. It's got great modes on it. And the theme is really cool. The music is great. I love the three different mini wizard modes you can get to. and the points are really strategic depending on what you want to do. It's just a great, great wide-body game. I couldn't agree more. So my fourth pick is T2. I like that one because of the fast-flowing game. Of course, it is a classic Steve Richie. It's funny that there's two Steve Richies in a row, but I really like T2 because there's nothing more fun than having that gun try to shoot a target. That's just fun. and the other cool thing is the ramps and that lock mechanism is really fun with the rule set where you have to have it get the multi-ball going then you have to shoot it in again to get it to go and of course you can't miss out on Arnold using the call-outs so it's a great game and it's one I've grown up with, yeah it's a great one and the base is the almost every flow game since yeah pretty much that is kind of the template, as you can say, for Steve Ritchie games from that point forward. Correct. My third pick is this is the one I hold true to myself, and that has to be the Machine Bride of Pinbot. That game is... I used to respect you a lot, but okay. That game is so addictive because it's trying to finish that face and trying to get that billionaire shot. I don't know. There's something about it. I just love it when it goes into that mode where all of a sudden the lights just blink to the heartbeat. And it's a challenging game. It's a really challenging game. And it's the one I always played at Cal Neva when it was there.
    47:56
    I played it every chance I could get when I was visiting my mom up in Tahoe. So, yeah, that is a really good one. For the number two, it has to be Twilight Zone. Twilight Zone is an amazing game because of, of course, the magna flippers, which is great.
    48:16
    The theming is awesome. Trying to finish all of the door panels is not easy to do and a real challenge. But, man, when you get lost in the zone, that is the best feeling to get, to get that lost in the zone and get major points for it.
    48:34
    The one we have at Press Start is brutal. and it's one we hate the most when we play it in league because it's just not friendly whatsoever. It plays great, but it's just so difficult. But I just like that wide body feel and the ramps to be able to start the, you know, shoot into the piano and also into the slot machine and having that pattern go through it. Just a great game. And my last one for number one is, is Attack from Mars.
    49:09
    There's something about that game. I know they've had a remake of it. I know I played the original. There's one at Calneva that's kind of beat up, but it still plays pretty well. There's just something about that game with the flow and having to make choices when you play it. You're kind of like, well, first, do I just want to get all the saucers and save all the cities? Or do I want to try to get the highest points on the hurry up by shooting. There's just so much strategy involved, and you can go either way. And I love the flow of it. I love the saucer blowing up and moving, you know, when you blow it up. And the callouts are great. The music's great. It's just a great game, and you can never get bored of it. I don't know. We have the remake at press start, and everybody gets attracted to that game. So that would be my number one for sci-fi. And I don't think you went out on a limb on that one at all.
    50:06
    No. No, it's an amazing game. And it holds up so well. It's a great game. All right, that's a solid list. I've actually owned four out of that five on that list, so I don't hate it, other than Bride of Pinbot. But that's okay. That's a controversial title. People either love or hate it. Sure, sure. Spencer, what do you got for us, buddy? What's your number five? Okay, my number five isn't going to make you happy. Very happy, Seth, because you own this game. My number five is Embryon.
    50:39
    Oh, Embryon is the one I had in my top ten. You know, I just, and I labored over this because I had like 35 titles, you know, and I had to pick through to get down to a top ten and a top five. And there's just something about the art, the layout, everything. It paints a picture of an alien world, and it just intrigues me, and I love to play it, and my wife loves it. So great, great early solid-state wide-body game with just a ton of really easy and a ton of really hard shots.
    51:22
    Number four, Star Trek The Next Generation. You know, Mark, you pretty much hit most of it. I know Seth has owned the game. He's a huge Star Trek fan.
    51:31
    One of the things I think is most amazing about that game, beyond all the other aspects that we've kind of gone over, is that they had the actual character voices for, like, what, eight, nine characters in that game doing call-outs. So true. That's true. They had the original actors. Yeah. Nobody's done anything close to that, I don't think, since then. Adam's family is the closest in terms of voice actors, I think. But, yeah, I agree with you. my number three is Attack from Mars it just captures the essence of all those great old for me those great old B movies like all the Ray Harryhausen films or George Powell films of the 50s and 60s you know Earth vs. the Flying Saucers and War of the Worlds and it captured that with humor and you said You know, the flow on that's amazing, the shots, you know, just the gizmos, the toys, everything about that is a total package. And it just stands the test of time in the fact that it's been remade and it's selling well. My number two, this should be an easy one, Seth, TX Sector.
    52:45
    Unlike its original theme, well, you know, some of it's Attack of Mars and Emryon, but it just, the music in that makes the game. Best music ever. Yeah, and a pinball machine. Agreed. But, you know, beyond that, I mean, it's just got really unique features, you know, with, you know, the teleporting ball and the scoring and, you know, everything about that game. That's a game that you want to just sit in a dark room by yourself, no light at all, except that game, and just play it all night.
    53:20
    And my number one, which may create some controversy, I don't know. My number one is Pinball. Pinbot. Okay, because you picked Brian Pinbot. The music on that also amazing, fits the theme incredibly well. You know, the artwork is just captivating. Everything about that game is just, you know, it looks deceptively simple, but it is more complex than it actually looks, and it's a great shooter game. You know, you've got to be on everything because if you don't make your shots, it's very punishing. But it has that, I've got to play this again. You know, so pinball's my number one. Those targets are fun to shoot, to complete them, to open the visor. I have to agree with you on that. Yeah, that is a fun game.
    54:11
    All right, Seth? Well, I just, Spencer, that's probably the best top five you've ever done with me. I just feel like you've really grown as a person. Thank you. I'm juicy, so, you know. So I'll go top five as well, five through one, and then we'll each take a turn at throwing out a title or two for our honorable mentions. Okay. I wanted to be untainted with our list first. Number five, I'm a huge fan of System 9 games. I've owned all of them or babysat them for long periods of time. Number five is Space Shuttle. That's the game that got me to want to own pinball machines That childhood memory of playing on location I'm a science fiction nerd Coupled with the art and sound package Coupled with the really brutal gameplay That one has a firm place in my top five Number four, not to agree too much with Spencer tonight but Pinbot definitely has to be in the top five for me as well.
    55:23
    That one, just like we talked about already, the theme integration and the music, that one more playability of the game is just a brutal game.
    55:35
    None of you guys mentioned any EMs in your top five. That's a shame on you guys. They were in my top ten. Me too. Mars Track makes its way into Oh yeah Number three spot Love that game Which is in your game room Which I looked at earlier tonight Exactly And I played a while back It's an amazing game You know, like all EMs You get that extra sense of tactile feeling With the spinners and the sound Coupled with just really, really great art And then for You know, granted it's a late 70s EM so it's got a much more deeper rule set that makes it very engaging.
    56:19
    And there's a lot of dials on it, right, on the score wheel, from what I remember. Is that correct? It has a fake zero in the zero spot, so it makes it look like it's a seven-digit score. Oh, okay, okay. That's a great game. Michael Huntsman has that, too, Mars Trek. Yeah, I've been drooling over his for years. Obviously he will never sell that game Nope, no he won't I keep trying So I had to go take matters into my own hands Number two No surprise here either Embryon Is the quintessential early 80's Game for me in terms of Brutal Gameplay Perfect sound package I think it's probably the best sound package Of the early 80's games where you get a lot of beep-bop-boop type games. This game has a really good soundtrack and good special effects for its era.
    57:19
    And the artwork is amazing. Yeah. The artwork is incredible on that game. Over the top, and then you couple that with, you know, you've got probably 17 different shots that you can make based on where the ball is at at the table. So lots of rules. the one drawback, I think, for that game is just that the multi-ball is hard to get and does absolutely nothing for you. So it's tough to have this wizard mode, if you will, for an early 80s game that does nothing for you. If you want to play a perfect embryon, Michael Huntsman has one that has literally a brand-new play field. Michael Huntsman has a perfect of every single ballet. Oh, my gosh. it's the most amazing Embryon you will ever play. It's amazing. Yeah. And another one who has one that is really good is John Friedrich, who lives in Fallon. He's got a great Embryon as well. So, I mean, yeah, that is a great game. Good choice. And then number one is a everyman game. It's an affordable game. It's a widely distributed game. And I think anybody that enjoys early 80s solid state, I should definitely own it. And I feel comfortable hyping it as much as I can because they are everywhere and they're so affordable that you won't see the scarcity issues you see with the TX sector. Without further ado, it's Blackout.
    58:47
    Oh yeah, good one. You got that early 80s voice call outs that I think are super attractive to me. It's got the great art, and it's just a brutal game. It's not even a multi-ball game, but with the drops and trying to get the machine to tell you blackout orbit complete, all the great little call-outs that it can do, that's my number one game. That's probably the number one game that I play in my house right now.
    59:22
    Maybe five years from now I'll have a different top five, but for right now, blackout's at the top for me.
    59:28
    And the best spinner rip sound, I think, in all of pinball. Agree, agree. And especially that blackout when all the lights go out and stuff. You have to finish that. That's so cool. Yeah, Marcus has that in Susanville. He's got a blackout, and it's a fun game. Super fun. So, Mark, tell me, give me an honorable mention. Something you haven't heard tonight that you would think could potentially be in the top five. Okay, honorable mention. I think it's a really cool game, and it's fun to play. It's Flight 2000 by Stern. Yeah, that's a good one. Brutal, brutal to get to the multi-ball. Brutal. But, man, is it fun to get to multi-ball. And then when those balls shoot out, you know, one by one, you hear that.
    60:15
    It's just cool. Just so cool. Yeah, that's a really good one. Spencer, what do you got? I love the spinner shot. The spinner shot. With the floating spinner that goes into the drop targets. Yep, and that's the way to get a lot of points, too. When I played it on Pinball Arcade on the iPad, that's what I went for, was just that spinner and hitting those drop targets. Yeah, that's me, too. I have my number eight pick is Starjet, mid-'60s ballet game. we have a collector here in the Sacramento-ish area that owns one. The artwork is amazing it's got spaceships that look similar to the Jetsons but I think it might have been before Jetsons and it's a two or three ball multi-ball game for a 60's EM, two player. Wow, that's cool Yeah, so it may, I believe may be on the list for Colton State Pinball Festival this year. Oh, cool. It was at Pinagogo last year, so I'll remind you, Mark, you and I got to get together and play a game. It's a really neat game. I'd love to play it. Let's see. For me, you guys have covered a lot of them that I considered.
    61:35
    I think from the modern... I only have one modern game that hasn't been mentioned that is a game that I'd like to own, but its price has gone up a little bit more than I think it's worth. Johnny Mnemonic, I really love playing that. I had that one in my top 10, and then I took it off because I wasn't sure. But that is a cool game. I had that at like 16. Yeah, I had it at like 11. I know it's not good for tournament, not good for league play. I get the exploitation of points, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But just in terms of flow and anticipation, I know it's a crappy game, but it's a fun game. I like that movie. I love all those cheesy 80s and 90s dystopian future science fiction films. Yep. Mark, you got anything else? Yeah, I do. I can't believe none of us mentioned it, but I had it in my top ten, and that's Centaur. Oh. Oh, good choice. That's an apple. That's like science fiction fantasy, but that totally qualifies.
    62:34
    That would qualify, wouldn't it? I wasn't sure. I wasn't sure, but that game is so good. And knowing you can get five multiball on that older of a solid state is just, it's incredible. That's such a good game. And going up in price rapidly. I know. And Michael has a good one there as well in his collection. He's never getting rid of that one. But, man, yeah, that's such a fun game. I love the multiball and the orbs and how you have to spell it in order. And the rule set is so much fun. And I love the drop target in the upper left-hand corner. Oh, yeah, the queen. It's such a tough shot. The queen. The queen shot. Yep, yep. Those are just such a great game, and, you know, the voice, you can't go wrong with that ballet voice, you know. The price point on it kills it a little bit, but.
    63:21
    Yeah, price does kill it because it's a high-demand machine, and, boy, it's fun, though. It's still ahead of its time, still ahead of its time. Oh, I absolutely agree, and it's, yeah, it definitely makes the mark, so. Yeah, absolutely. So that, yeah, I couldn't go without mentioning that. That's a good one. Spencer, you got anything else? Yeah, my number nine pick was Starship Troopers Oh, that's a horrible one Okay, it's cheesy and fun And I love that, you know, the way they integrated the film The book is always better, but they integrated the film with, you know, want to learn more And, you know, I just love that So, that was my number nine Hey, Mark, you want to go start a podcast with me? I'm looking for a new host uh hey you know what you love my top five okay let's just go with that the only one i haven't heard um tonight um that i would maybe put in my top 10 but i think it's worth a mention is the data east uh called laser wars oh yeah laser wars you know it's just so rare you just never see them you never see those but you know i think of laser wars then i immediately think of RoboCop, and I have a soft spot in my heart for RoboCop too, but at the end of the day, the Data East, kind of the way it plays,
    64:46
    I don't know, I'm just not a huge Data East fan, I guess, but those early Data East, because those were some of the first titles that came off the line for them, there's just something nostalgic about them for me that calls me, and then Laser Wars just has a really interesting rule set that kind of, you know, the only place I've played it is down in Banning, because they have one set up there, and so every year that's like a must-play pin. Oh, that's cool. I guess the other one, as far as, because I didn't mention any EMs, but the one I really like playing that's really fun is 2001. Oh, yeah. And that machine is kind of to my heart because that was designed in 1971 when I was building this. Oh, there you go. It's your first machine. And it has the most drop targets out of any. There you go, 20 drop targets, yeah. It's so much fun to hit those. And Michael had one of those when it was over at Shabby Boutique. Oh, wow. But he doesn't have it anymore, unfortunately. But, man, was that a fun game. For EM, that was really fun. Well, anything else, boys?
    65:41
    I think we about covered the top five for tonight So you know good list on everybody part Yeah good list Except my bride of Pinbot but I do like that You know man it a good game and it just you know like you said it is very fun I like it, you know. It's not like you said Starship Troopers. You know, that game is brutal. Even on the iPad, it's brutal. It is brutal. Yeah. I was playing Michael Hosier's last time I was up at his house. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah, he's got one. I don't know if it's his or just somebody else's, but he had it at his house.
    66:26
    Wow. All right, so up to our next. Seth, is this one on me? Yeah. New titles. So, you know, the pinball news. What's going on in pinball? You know the most recent thing Probably announced The most recent thing announced Iron Maiden Has finally been released And If they're not shipping already I know they will be in the next couple of days Because there's been videos YouTube videos leaked out They've got tons of those things on the line So It's the first game Designed by world champion, multi-world champion, Keith Elwin. And I love the theme because I like the band. Been a big fan for years. And the layout looks really neat. And if you played the Archer game at Pinagogo a couple years ago, his homebrew, the layout's quite similar. There are some changes.
    67:29
    And there's been talk about the rule set that he also helped with. And I think I'm very excited to play this. the call outs were so much better on the Archer pen though. But I love Archer. I've been watching, I've been, I've been binge watching Archer again. So yeah, I would love to have had Archer, but I'm happy to have my Iron Maiden in the art package, you know, a zombie Yeti. I think this, yeah, it looks great. The artwork looks absolutely incredible. I mean, it totally fits with the Iron Maiden theme. And I do, I did get a chance to play Archer and I really liked how that flowed. And of course, like everybody else, I love that very target where you have to hit it in the bullseye to get higher points. I think that's just genius to me. I've never seen that on a pinball machine. That's very cool.
    68:17
    So I'm excited to play it. And I do like, I mean, I'm not a fan of them, but I do like their music because it kind of paved the way for heavy metal that, you know, they pretty much started that sound. And then you got Megadeth and Metallica that kind of took over after that. But what a great, great soundtrack for playing it. I'm just curious, you know, if it's going to appeal to a lot of people with that kind of music. But it will be interesting to see. But if that game plays like it says it does, I don't know. It might be a different story. But it looks really cool, and the flow looks great, and it's nice to have a different design and not a cookie-cutter design. So that's, I think, yeah, exactly. I'm very excited for something new with the same old cookie cutter yeah I'm excited to try something new because you know it's like I felt like Star Wars was going to be that way and then I got up and played it and I was like hmm I don't know what I'm doing and so I played 10 more games on it and I'm like hmm I don't know what I'm doing so but I played 100 games on it and I still don't know what I'm doing and I cannot figure out to this day what when you use that button on the top to lock in the bonus. I don't get it. I still can't figure it out. So hopefully they haven't jumped the shark with Iron Maiden and over-complified it.
    69:41
    That's the frustrating thing about Star Wars. I never knew what I was doing on that game. And that's unusual for Steve Ritchie. Usually he designs games that you can figure out. But, man, these last couple of games he's done, they're just a little too complicated, and it's almost frustrating because you want to know what you're doing, but you have to, like, spend an hour watching a YouTube video to figure it out. Yeah, exactly. Up next is Houdini, which is now shipping. I thought you said on an earlier episode it shipped last year. Didn't you? Well, yeah, it shipped. It shipped. The first one shipped at the very end, like the last week of the year. Yep, in December, yep. Yeah, so, I mean, you know, I threw it in there because it's real recent in the news. Just a quick, hey, Houdini's shipping, you know, in American Pinball. They didn't start out of the gate too well, but you know what? I'm very impressed with the progress they've made and wish them all success. They had it set up down in Banning, and it was playing really well, shooting really well. They had a nice display set up.
    70:46
    You always root for these new companies to come in to do well because definitely as a consumer, it only helps us to have as many healthy pinball companies. and you can't beat the price for what they have available it's unbelievable what they're providing for the price for all the things in that thing it's unbelievable to me agreed yeah and i how did it compare to the one when it was at uh pentagogo last night and day difference oh yeah totally different pin i mean just the subtle changes they made with the play field plus software just it shot a lot better. I mean, the shots are tight in some spots, so it depends on what kind of player you want to be or you like to catch and shoot or what kind of style you're attracted to, but it makes sense. And then obviously I think it just does a wonderful job with the integration and using the LCD back... That is clever with the curtains. I do like how they did that. Like it's on a stage. That is clever. And I do like, do they still have the chains on the pop bumpers and stuff like that? Yeah, exactly. That's kind of cool. I mean, the art, the theme behind it really fits Houdini well, and the modes look really fun to shoot for. I do like that tight right shot, if it's the same one that I did on the prototype. That was, like, really satisfying if you hit it, but it was hard. It was really hard. But I did hit it one time when I tried it, and then the ball locked up, and then I had to lose my turn. But it was – Don't get Spencer talking about his experience on Houdini. We've all – Yeah, we've all heard it. It was when they slid off the glass, and then they had to, you know, reset the ball because the multi-ball wasn't working. But that was understandable. They were getting input, and they were listening to their customers and from the pinball community and making sure that they would get the kinks worked out before they had a production machine and they listened. So I give huge shout-outs to American Pinball to be able to offer that. Yeah, I agree. So I'm looking forward to playing it. Up next we have Guardians of the Galaxy, which, well, now they're getting ready to ship Iron Maiden, but Guardians is the last new title, and it's shipping, and people are playing it and enjoying it. But, you know, just from what I'm hearing, the code's a little early. But I'm really looking forward to play it. I love the movies. So I'm excited to play that. It looks like it's got some neat stuff on it. Groot. Everybody loves Groot. Yeah, that's a fun game, actually. We have it over at Press Start, and they have the premium edition with the hands going out for Groot. And a lot of people said, oh, it blocks the targets. It doesn't block the targets at all. It's not bad at all. But, man, that's a fun game. When they get the code up to par, it'll be really fun. I still don't know exactly what I'm doing on it, which makes me frustrated sometimes when there's newer code out. But as far as what they have available with the flow in the game, it's very fast and fun, and it is fun to bash Groot, even though Groot is my favorite character in Guardians of the Galaxy. But it is fun to have those balls go flying out of the mouth. And then, you know, I'm hoping they have like a risk-reward type of thing like they do with Mustang or Aerosmiths, where you can choose if you want to start two ball or three ball or four ball. But right now it's just you just lock three and then it starts. And then you can maximize your points if you keep going into multi-ball and then locking them in his mouth again as you go. and then you can get major points and have it multiply to three times, four times. It's a great, it's a good game, though. I really like it. The artwork is great. It's very colorful, and it's appealing. The talking is a little annoying. I don't know if you noticed that or not in the code update, but it seems like they chat too much while you're playing, and it kind of gets a little annoying. Did you notice that? I haven't played it yet. Oh, okay. You haven't played it. Have you played it? Yeah, I played two games on the premium version down in Banning, which is not enough for me to give it a good grade. I definitely agree with almost everything you're saying other than the Groot Arms.
    75:14
    I don't feel that it wasn't a mechanical thing. It was an aesthetic thing. It just felt completely unnecessary in blocking the play field in terms of view. But I didn't feel like, yeah, I couldn't get targets with it. But, yeah, no, it did grab me immediately. It felt to me like, oh, okay, this is a little more fun than Star Wars. That was my first, like, I just. It is more fun than Star Wars. I just feel like it's a predecessor in terms of, you know, coming off the line. I was like, okay, this is good, you know. And, you know, the theme is probably I'm more of a Marvel comic book guy than I am a Star Wars guy because deep down I'm a Star Trek guy, and so it's hard for me to be open-minded about things that are Star Wars related. Yeah, that's understandable. Yeah, Star Wars was kind of a disappointment. I think everybody in the pinball community kind of got disappointed with that one. I don't know. There's something about it. I think it's just too complicated. The shots are fun. Yeah. The modes are fun. The integration is great. Like, I really feel like, you know, in terms of grabbing you thematically wise, Star Wars does a good job. But they made one mistake, and this is what I wish they did not do, is they put Xs on the insert. That tells me every time I'm thinking it's a bonus multiplier, and it's not. that's what frustrates me is that X in the insert I hadn't even thought about that now I'm going to have that problem yeah I'm sorry ok so moving on this is the little pinball machine that could man TNA, Total Nuclear Annihilation this is just taking the pinball world by storm and I have yet to play it but I am eagerly awaiting my chance at the Golden State Pinball Festival so it's got everything man yeah the festival I think we're going to have one in our showcase area and we're going to have one in the tournament so in the tournament too in the pin golf tournament oh awesome yeah because that'll go quick unlike some other games that take like two hours in the pin golf if you've ever done pin golf it can go real short or real long yeah that is so true I have not had a chance to play it yet, but my friend Jim is getting it delivered in May. Nice. So I'm really excited. Yeah, he's going to have a little unboxing party when he gets it delivered to his place. But he did order it, and I've heard nothing but good things about that game. And have you played it?
    77:47
    Yeah, I got to play it in Banning. They had it set up in a corner, and so I probably played half a dozen games on it over the course of the weekend.
    77:58
    It is a 100% immediately grabs you and pulls you in. It's just from, you know, the one I had had the shaker motor on it as well. So just from a tactile, light movement, you know, throbbing bass, it just really sucks you in and has that excitement of an early 80s solid state which is my sweet spot but with just a fantastic light show and sound package that you don't get with the early 80s in terms of complexity I heard the light show is something not to miss that is so cool I am so psyched to play it I can't wait I have not had a chance to get my hands on it yet it's just one of those machines that everybody is going to want to buy it, which is why it's not the fastest, but it's sold the most units out of any Spooky machine, and I suspect they'll continue selling it. The only thing that remains to be seen is, like with any Spooky machine, how well it holds up on route. Yeah, that's the only thing I'm concerned about. I heard some things about it, but then I've heard other people say it has really good build quality and durable parts, and it's holding up. So I don't know. Well, when you go back to their first machine, you know, I've actually worked a little bit on their first one, and you look at the progression, each machine, they kind of get it more and more dialed in. So I've got to believe, like, even by Alice Cooper timeframe, we're going to see machines that are holding their own against the sterns of the world. Which is great. Which is our next game we're going to be talking about is Alice Cooper's Nightmare Castle.
    79:46
    Or kitchen. Or kitchen, yeah. You know what? Boy, you know, bless Spooky, man, because they really just, they pretty much, from everything we've heard, pretty much owned Texas Pinball Festival this year. And, you know, it looks like it's got some really neat toys and gizmos, a different layout, not the same old cookie cutter, you know, left ramp, right ramp, bash toy up the middle, something different, something unique, something special. and great shot in the arm for pinball. Another one I'm really looking forward to playing. Yeah, that one really appealed to me when I saw that on the stream watching the Texas Pinball Festival. I was like, yeah, they were really cool. They were dressed up in the garb, and it would have been really cool if Alice was there. That would have been amazing. But it was just cool. They showed the video of him, and he was playing it, and a lovely artwork package. It fits perfectly. I know Alice totally approves of that, the way it looks. It's got that macabre look to it that he likes. And the modes look fun. I really like the wire forms with that brushed steel look to it. Oh, yeah. Or whatever that's called. I don't know what it's called exactly, but that looks so cool. And then the little spiral thing on the side. That is cool. That's so cool. Yeah. That spiral thing or whatever on that wire form is really neat. And, yeah, it looks – and they have an upper play field on it too, right? There's an upper play field? Yes. Yeah. Yeah, so that looks like that's a little more functional, a little more worthy to have in the machine. And Alice is doing the call-outs, which is awesome. You don't have another voice actor doing it. You actually have Alice doing it. I mean, who could be a better voice actor for that kind of stuff?
    81:37
    And it's really cool. Another story to kind of talk about, Alice, is when I went to a fundraiser with my mother, she was at a golf outing, and it was a fundraiser for, it was called the Parasol Foundation, and they give money to nonprofit organizations. And he was my mom's golf partner. Oh, no way. So I was invited to go to the banquet, and he was sitting at our table, and I got to chat with him for like an hour about stuff, about his new album coming out. Did not know he was into pinball, but yeah, I have a little bit of contact with him. I know when he came to Reno last time, I got backstage passes because my mom, believe it or not, had his number. Wow. So she lost it, which sucks now. But, yeah, I actually can say I actually met Alice personally and hung out with him. He's a really cool guy. That's awesome. Yeah. Yeah, it was neat. Yeah, I'm just looking forward to, like, dealing with everything new that I haven't played yet. Just looking forward to get a chance to play it and experience it because there's so much excitement. Before we get into the last one, I just want to point out something real quick. that right now we have five companies actually shipping new pinball games. Of course, you know, we have Stern, Jersey Jack Pinball, Spooky Pinball, American Pinball, and then we have Chicago Gaming with, you know, shipping reissues of pinball, classic 90s pinball machines. And then, you know, there's other stuff in the pipe, you know. And before we get hate mail, we also, they're shipping Home Pin Thunderbirds. They are shipping Home Pin now, so that's six. Is that better? Have they improved it or not? I don't know. I haven't got to touch one. It looks pretty perfect. I don't know. It looks like it's got a couple of cool mechs. Hopefully we'll get a chance to play it. Maybe it'll be a thing where, okay, you know what? Good first effort. Hey, can't wait to see what you guys got coming in the pipe. Or it could be a sleeper. You never know. I mean, sometimes you can't judge a machine until you play it. So we don't know. We don't know.
    83:52
    One of the cool things about Alice is, A, that we're going to have it at the show. Wow. That is just incredible. It's incredible that Spooky is coming all the way out to Lodi to represent. That's just too awesome. Yeah, it's her first time at a show, and we'll have the machine there. Really a big shout out to both Charlie Who worked hard to get us a production machine off the line Because that took some arranging for them To be able to have one that was production ready in time for our show And then getting the help from Rob Anthony Who's a distributor Who's also a good friend of the show And is there every year at the show He worked really hard too to help get that coordination between Charlie and us So without those guys, this machine wouldn't be at our show for all of us to play. So I think we're the first show to have a production Alice Cooper Nightmare Castle at its facility. So we're pretty excited to share that. Do you think the code will be a little more complete, too, by that time? Yeah, absolutely. Oh, my gosh. That's so cool. I mean, that's what I'm thinking. I was like, oh, man, I bummed out. I missed the Texas Pinball Festival. But when I'm looking at this lineup, what's going to be at Golden State,
    85:16
    I don't feel like I'm going to have to worry about missing Texas Toon Ball Festival. Right. You miss the reveals, but you get the more mature code. You get the more mature code, and you get to play it. Yeah, exactly. With not a thousand, well, who knows? There might be a lot of people coming to the show, and, man, I can't wait. It's going to be awesome. Well, Seth and I are working on doing fast passes for the show this year, so.
    85:38
    I'm kidding. That's a joke. There's no Fast Pass, okay? There might be now, but... Yeah, that's an idea. There you go. We'll throw that around. Okay, so last up is Jersey Jacks Pirates of the Caribbean. Still not shipping yet. So sometime possibly this quarter or... Well, we're in the second quarter now. So they're saying hopefully second quarter this year. So, you know, still making some tweaks to it. But, you know, the prototypes have been showing up or the sample games have been showing up to all the pinball shows. And the video footage looks really impressive. So, I mean, it's Jersey Jack, man. You know, how can you lose, right? Yeah, how can you lose? I mean, especially the production value of just the LCD is crazy how they can get all the licensing to be able to get those clips. and I'm hoping that it is a fun, energetic game where the modes are not too complicated, where Hobbit was kind of like, well, I kind of know what I'm doing, but it just didn't seem like there was, like, excitement to get to the next mode. It was kind of like, oh, I'm just there, I'm just keeping on going. But with this Pirates of the Caribbean having those concentric circles in the middle is really going to mess with you with the ball. Yeah, yeah, it's going to be like whipped around on steroids, you know? I got to play one, and I can tell you that those concentric circles are frustrating. They make the ball do the craziest stuff. Can't wait. I'm dying to play it.
    87:16
    Excuse me. For no other reason, just for that, because you know what a huge fan of Whirlwind I am. Oh, yeah, exactly. Yeah. And it sounds like it would be more powerful as far as the randomness than magnets, because you can flip them, you can have them spinning in either direction at different speeds. You can have it stutter and then start up again. I mean, you can do so many different variables to really mess with that ball. Yeah, or balls if you're in multi-ball. Or balls, yeah. It's, you know, so it's like all the Jersey Jacks. It's a wide-body game. So walking up to it, in the back of my head, I'm kind of thinking of my first experience with Hobbit, which Hobbit for me was, it felt a little barren just because of the design,
    88:06
    you know, minus the pop-up trap doors, but, you know, it felt kind of wide open. This one, over the course, there was four of us playing it.
    88:19
    I don't know, it was probably a five- or ten-minute game because, you know, we were figuring it out. We were constantly finding new elements on it as we stared at it over that five or ten minutes. It's like we realize, oh, there's a little – there's a hole there. Oh, okay. Oh, the ball can fall into that. Oh, okay. And like the top right upper play field that's basically a ship, the ball can come off that ship like in five different locations and do something. So there's just – Oh, wow. That is cool. I didn't know that either. There's like a ton of things that the ball can do that you can, you know, give you a different experience. So in terms of, you know, the Hobbit overkill in terms of, like, your options, I don't know. You know, we'll see how the code ends up. But I thought walking up to it, it was a cool theme integration. The first thing you do, each player picks the character they're going to be for that ball or for that game. And they have, like, 30-something characters. So, like, all the B- and C-level characters in the movie series are there for you to pick. So it kind of gives you a cool personalization of your playing experience. And I do like the little LCD panel that's in the bottom where you can see, for people who are not familiar with pinball, it gives you clues of where to shoot. And I really like that. Yeah, yeah. It definitely felt like you had a little bit more help on figuring out the game. That's kind of cool. I like that, especially for people who just walk up to a machine and have no idea what they're doing. You want to have something like that, like a tutorial while you're playing. and then you're not like, well, what do I shoot next? Because what we always say is shoot for the blinking lights. That's the object. Yeah, unless it's Star Wars and everything's blinking, right. Yeah, and not knowing what the colors represent. That's the other frustrating thing, but we won't go on that topic. Well, you know, another interesting thing about the game is it's another first game from a new designer, and darn it if the name escapes me.
    90:20
    But a lot of fresh new blood in pinball, and the most companies, in fact, more than we had at the peak of the 90s.
    90:28
    And ironically speaking, he is from Wisconsin, the designer. Yeah. And Spooky is the headquarter in Wisconsin. And hello, I'm from Wisconsin, so that's pretty cool. It must be the cheese, man. It must be the cheese. So, Seth, are you looking up who that is right now?
    90:47
    Yes, and IPDB doesn't have it listed. Well, we'll send our apologies and get it right the next time. I would look it up, but I have my information for our next segment.
    90:59
    Well, that's a good segue. You like that? And you were up, sir. Okay, next up on the show is we're going to introduce a couple of the upcoming pinball shows, hopefully one in an area near you. So today I get to cover a show that's near and dear to my heart. Yes, it's that time of year again. the Golden State Pinball Festival is coming up on May 18th through the 20th. That's a Friday, Saturday, Sunday show, full days, all three days. That's the weekend after Mother's Day weekend, which is when we host it every year, rain or shine. We're at a beautiful new location in Lodi, California.
    91:45
    And the theme this year is basically celebrating our state, our Golden State, as kind of an homage to our name change that we went through since last year. And we're really excited. We've been putting the word out. We've been going to all sorts of comic book conventions, gaming conventions, working with our local radio station. So I think the turnout is going to be really spectacular this year. We have a lot of excitement building in the Stockton and Lodi area, a really good participation. and so for this year we're really kind of trying to shoot for the moon. We have three full days of a pinball university curriculum where you can learn everything from how to play pinball to talking to industry insiders like David Peel, who's a total sound guru. He's going to be there talking about pinball and sound.
    92:48
    Ooh, that would be something I should go to for sure. Absolutely. It's a little bit of everything. We're going to have the world premiere unveiling of the homebrew project, Kill Bill. Yes. We're really excited about that. No way. Yeah, those guys are coming down, going to bring their machine. Really excited to see what that's going to be about. So lots of cool stuff going on at the Pinball University. That's going to be running all weekend. and then we're excited to have this new location where all the pins will be together and three connected buildings.
    93:25
    We're going to try to outdo our pinball machine count and have more pins on display than we've ever had before. We're going to have indoor-outdoor seating for food. We have some great local vendors in the community are coming in, and we're going to have all sorts of food options. We're going to have a swap meet area, which just gets bigger and bigger every year. This year, because of the new location, it's completely covered. So whether it be raining or sun, we're going to have a nice space set up there. All sorts of exciting. Obviously, we have a huge tournament every year. It's one of the largest pin golf, if not the largest pin golf tournament in the country. I would say it's the largest in the country, for sure. Mainly because only somebody as insane as Tom would want to run a pin golf tournament that has 180-plus people in it. And Tom is the best tournament director ever. He is amazing, and I cannot believe how he can keep that pin golf running so smoothly with so many people. He's awesome. I think I definitely want to go in, and I'm sure you guys are going to get into it too, but I'm definitely going to try Friday night instead of Saturday because I want to have all day of Saturday to go to the seminars or play pinball in the – I don't actually get to enjoy the show. I spend the whole time running around. Yeah, I'm sure you do. That's why I'm excited that there's going to be an arena show that I can go to and just enjoy. Yeah, then I'll be running around. Yeah, absolutely.
    94:59
    Your turn. Exactly. I'll tell you something, though. I absolutely love the festival that you guys put on. I can't wait to see how this is going to turn out. I think it's going to be a huge smashing success, one, because machines won't be turned away. Two, it will be air conditioned so people will be comfortable. I think it's just going to be great, bigger campground space, so more people hanging out, having barbecues. Actually, that's a great point. Every year I look forward to this thing. Camp Silver Ball is off the chain this year it's almost double the spaces that we've had before we're allowing folks to pre-register I think we're down to two spots left for the pre-registration so if the link is still on the website that means there's still a couple spots left but right now we have over 100 people signed up in our campground and 10 dogs so it's going to be a rocking time out there in Camp Silver Ball So it just kind of adds a fun dimension to the overall festival. Are we still going to have the Sparky's barbecue? Oh, yeah. Like we did? That is a blast. I had not heard yet. I haven't talked to Sparky in a while. Last I heard, he was at All Systems Go, and we've been coordinating on when and how and where and all that good stuff. So I expect to see some official announcements soon when we have the details.
    96:28
    Excellent. Yeah, that's why I don't want to sign up on Saturday for the pin golf. I want to sign up on Friday. Nobody wants to sign up on Saturday because of the barbecue. Yeah, because of the barbecue. I don't want to miss out on that. And that's so much fun to hang out with people and get to know them. And I remember two years ago at Pinnagogo, I wasn't even a Pinside member, and they invited me over there, which I felt kind of weird. I was like, okay, do I really belong here? But, man, I felt like home. And after that, then I created my own Pinside name. So there you go. Well, and really, that barbecue, it's really about the Sacramento Pinball Group. That's what birthed that barbecue. It wasn't even a pin side thing. It was the local Sacramento. Oh, okay. Okay, that's good to know. But it kept growing and growing, and anybody, you know, come and join us.
    97:16
    Yeah, it's so much fun. And bring aside not cookies, okay, guys? Because we get enough cookies. So bring something with a green vegetable in it. It's always appreciated. Yeah, I need to bring a side for sure. I just got to make sure I can keep it refrigerated somewhere. That's the problem. That's always the key. Yep. Well, there'll be plenty of people at the campsites with refrigerators and ice chests, so we should be good. You're right. You're totally right about that. Just come see us, man. You know where to find us. Yeah, that's going to be a blast. So that's what's going on with Golden State coming up here in how many days, Spencer?
    97:54
    42. Nice. Oh, my gosh. That's so close. I'm counting the days, and I'm pretty soon the hours. We're two days and counting, ladies and gentlemen. Get your machines signed up on the website. Head out to www.GoldenStatePinball.org and go to the Breen Games page. We're trying to get all the games signed up now. It just makes the check-in process easier. Our counts are looking great for this year, so keep them coming in. Get those machines waxed, cleaned, and signed up, and we're looking forward to seeing all of you. how many are we at by the way just out of curiosity right now i think we're at 146 last i saw wow and that not even whoa okay that a lot yeah we doing good wow we yeah 143 there we go wow okay well up next is the Midwest Gaming Classic and that in the Wisconsin Center in Milwaukee Wisconsin Mark's hometown. That's right. That's where I'm from, and one of these days I want to get to go over there. Yeah, no doubt. So that's Friday, Saturday, Sunday, April 13th, 14th, and 15th. And, of course, that's Spooky Pinball's home show. It's close to Chicago. so all the pinball luminaries are going to be there. It's both pinball and arcade games. And so if you're in the Midwest or plan on traveling to the Midwest, next weekend, that's definitely a show to check out. I'd love to do that show sometime because it looks just like a fun show.
    99:27
    Oh, they also have, like, board games and stuff, too, and that's kind of neat. And, of course, up next after that is the Northwest Pinball and Arcade Show. And that's in the Pacific Northwest That's June 8th, 9th, and 10th And that's in Tacoma, Washington At the Tacoma Convention Center And of course they are also pinball And arcade and video games And they have a tournament Not unlike Our own local show The Golden State Pinball Festival They're a charitable organization And if I recall correctly They Donate proceeds to scholarships. So, definitely worth checking out, definitely worth lending your support. So, if you're in the area, June 8th through 10th, and all the Pacific Northwest folks, California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Idaho, or anywhere else in America, and you're traveling there, I hear it's a great show. It's another one I'd like to attend someday. So, that's what's going on with shows. And if you have a show, and we're not talking about it, shoot us an email at thespinnerislit at gmail.com. I just don't know why you're not letting Canadians come down to the Pacific Northwest. Canadians are very welcome. Our neighbors to the north, eh?
    100:49
    Sorry about that, guys. You know, and I'm going to get flack for this, but I just consider Canada a suburb of the U.S. Oh, wow. There goes a few thirds of our listening audience. Pretty much. Hey, I love guys. from the great white north. So, you know what, man? You guys are awesome up there and good pinheads. So, look forward to seeing some of you at the Golden State Pinball Festival. So, with the shows being put to side, I'm excited to bring back our most beloved game show, Factor Fantasy. I think it's time. My hand is on the buzzer, and I am excited. Oh, yeah. This is going to be fun.
    101:29
    Spencer? Yes, sir. Just make me proud this time, all right? I'm really rooting for you. Yeah, you're betting on a long shot there, pal.
    101:42
    All right. So, Factor Fantasy, for those new to the show, I'm going to make a statement, and then I'm going to ask our guests and our beloved host to decide if the statement is Factor Fantasy and defend it. Based on the response, I will award points of my choosing at the end of this game. Whoever has the most points wins. Are you gentlemen ready? Ready. Ready as ever.
    102:09
    We'll let the guests go first. So, Mark, you're up. Question number one. Iron Maiden will someday be the best-selling Stern music pin of all time. Fact or fantasy?
    102:24
    I'm going to have to say fantasy just because I don't think there's that many Iron Maiden fans that would want that kind of music as part of a pinball machine, but I could be proven wrong. I just don't think it would surpass ACDC.
    102:43
    Spencer, Iron Maiden will someday be the best-selling stern music pin of all time. Fact or fantasy? Fact, sir, fact.
    102:53
    Iron Maiden sells out 250,000-seat arenas around the world. You know, South America, Europe. I mean, they're massively huge outside of America.
    103:03
    Just from the early look I'm getting, it's a complete game changer for Stern. As we talked about earlier in the show, not the same cookie cutter layout. Designed by Keith Elwin, who's a multiple world champion with, you know, with flow and cool gizmos and toys and mechs and shots. And he's also been working on the rule set. and from what I understand, the rule set is going to be unlike anything we've ever seen in a pinball machine. Couple that with the Jeremy Packer, a.k.a. Zombie Yeti artwork, and you have the total package. This thing is, I mean, it's a juggernaut of a pinball machine, and I haven't even played the thing yet. If it plays as good as it looks, it is going to unleash the fury. It is going to completely change the way we look at pinball. I have to say, I do agree with you on that, Spencer, that it is a game changer for Stern. And it's almost like they planned revealing it after TPF because it kind of got all of the buzz out for everybody. And now it's like everybody's focusing on Maiden. So I don't know. I don't know what to say. The only thing is when I've read a lot of the pin side things, like I hate Iron Maiden, I don't like them, blah, blah, blah. So I don't know. It's either going to be the gameplay is going to make it a winner, and the music's not going to matter. So I don't know. Well, I'll tell you what, Mark, as a little hint into winning this game,
    104:35
    being wishy-washy is not the path to victory. Okay, got it. No, actually, you know, I was actually going to – Mark, you made a fair point. Spencer made a great point And then he pointed out that They sell out Everywhere but in the US Which I think Detracted from his point So Spencer I was going to give you two points But I'm going to Wait a minute I didn't say they don't sell out in the US I'm saying besides the US Everywhere else in the world is not where you sell pinball machines Which is what we're talking about Okay alright I'm still giving you a point Mark, I'm not going to give you a point because you're a little wishy-washy. A little wishy-washy. All right. Okay. Next question.
    105:19
    The Thunderbirds price point of $49.95, granted this is in U.S. dollars, is a fair price for what you get. Fact or fantasy, Spencer?
    105:31
    Fantasy. Too little, too late, man. If they had popped this thing out five years ago, before the LCD screens became the industry standard, I think they might have stood a chance. In spite of the fact that the theme is, although in other parts of the world is well-beloved, it really just doesn't have the fan base here.
    105:53
    And, you know, I look forward to playing it, but I just don't think it's, I just don't think at that price point when, for what? That price point, you can get a Stern Pro right now, or real close, maybe a couple hundred bucks more. Mark, the Thunderbirds price point of $49.95 USD is a fair price. I say fact. Just because it's under $5,000, it's a new machine and from a new company, and they will add things that will make it a little more fun to play, and I think that's a fair bet considering most of the pro models are kind of lackluster in Stern, except, of course, the newer ones. But I say it's fair. Under $5,000 is fair. Mark, I agree with you.
    106:45
    The way I look at it is if you try to level the playing field, a $5,000 Thunderbird versus a $5,500 Stern Pro, the Thunderbird just has a lot more going on on it. So from a feature perspective, I think it's a fair price point. Granted, the pros now have LCDs, but they just are usually inferior when it comes to mechanisms and interest. Now, granted, I think the Thunderbirds' actual gameplay doesn't look super impressive to me yet, but I think it's a fair price, especially when you consider the market is willing to bear, you know, $5,500 spooky games that are also, you know, I think a step down in terms of mechanisms. right and considering it's coming from Australia is that where the company is located? the factory is located in China so that's where they're being made and produced oh okay that makes sense so you know they're going to be high quality zing where's my river done alright Mark you're up next Steve Ritchie's next title will be unlicensed and he's very excited This title will be a departure from his usual designs. Fact or fantasy?
    108:08
    Definitely fact, because I think Steve Ritchie is hearing most people talk about him saying that he's always making the same design every time, and I think a lot of that had to do with the licensing that didn't allow him to have the freedom to create any design he wants, because the artwork had to match the specifications, in this case, of Disney for Star Wars and for other huge licensing intellectual properties. He didn't have a lot of freedom, but with a machine that is original, with artwork where he wants to place it, and with a theme that would work with the way he wants to have his shots laid out, He won't have that stifling effect from licensing issues that Stern always faces. Fair enough. Spencer, Steve Ritchie's next title is Unlicensed, and he is excited. This title will be a departure from his usual design. Fact or fantasy?
    109:09
    Fact. I'm in pretty much agreement with what Mark said. You know, I think it's, I mean, over the course of years, you know, it's been said a lot, and we've all heard, I'm sure, that a lot of the license holders, the IP holders, are very restrictive on what they'll allow the designers to do. And I think giving Steve Ritchie free reign just to unleash his power, you know, if you look at his games back in the Bally Williams days, his original titles, you know, High Speed, Black Knight, things like that. I mean, all the way back to Flash. You know, he really brought and still does bring a lot to the table. So I think giving him carte blanche to just do anything he wants, I think we're going to see probably, if not the best game he's ever designed, an absolute modern classic coming out from him very shortly. And to think that Stern is allowing a non-licensed game to come about is amazing to me. So, we have Spooky to thank for that. I believe we have Spooky to thank for that. And Jersey Jack. Well, yes, and Jersey Jack. And American Pinball. You know, these companies have the courage to say, you know what, we're going to sell a non-licensed team. It's going to be fun. It's going to sell, and it's going to play great. And they all have. So my hat's off to them. Well, think about it this way. If you have a game where you can get into the story that you don't even know versus one that you already know the story and the plot, wouldn't it be more exciting as a player to not only learn the rules but learn the story behind the game? Right. Yes, exactly. Good point. I think that makes the most sense to me, and I think I'm glad Stern is going that route. And I really like the idea that Stern allowed Keith Allen to use his design from Archer for his machine. I think that's awesome, too. Yeah.
    111:14
    Well, that's not only a good point, Mark. I'm going to award you the point on this particular question. Spencer, I agree with what you said to a certain extent, but I don't think IP holds the designers back from ramps here, ramps there, upper playfield, lower playfield. I think it's more of an art on the whiteboard kind of thing. So I'm going to give a little bit stronger argument to Mark on that one. Number four, Pinball Expo appears to be back on track with a new owner. This show will soon be back as the go-to show. Fact or fantasy? That is a fantasy, sir. Um, this really, I felt bad hearing this news. And, uh, you know, because, I mean, you know, people have talked and said, I suppose not what it used to be. I've never had the privilege of going, so I can't say. But, uh, breaking up a long-time team and having two people do two shows close together, I only see it as just you know I don't see it as a good thing I think it's going to hurt both shows and you know I just don't see it as a good thing I think it's going to do more harm than good and when the dust settles a year or two or three down the road maybe they'll regroup and hopefully they will and they'll continue to you know be the flagship of pinball shows but But, no, this is not a good thing.
    112:51
    All right, Mark. Pinball Expo appears to be back on track with a new owner. This show will soon be back as the go-to show.
    113:00
    Definitely fantasy. I think their ship has sailed, and there's too much negative feedback about people not enjoying the show due to particular organizers that get under people's skin. and even with another person who is taking over another show with back-to-back, I think that's foolish too to have that one month after each other. So I think it really shoots themselves in the foot and I don't see it being successful because there's so many better pinball shows to go to, such as Texas Pinball Festival where there's reveals and the reveals have been very disappointing at the Pinball Expo where that should be where it's at, considering most of the companies are headquartered in Chicago.
    113:44
    All right. I'm going to give you both zero on that. Oh, rough, man. Tough crowd. Really? Ouch. You guys make fair points.
    113:58
    I don't know. I don't think maybe it will come back as the go-to show soon, but proximity, proximity, proximity.
    114:08
    And the guy that's taking it over is very much aware of the issues of the old show and appears to be trying to address them. So you couple open-mindedness with the infrastructure that's in place coupled with the actual industry that's there. And I think it's naturally going to float. So maybe it won't be the de facto industry show, but it'll be top three, I think. It can't help itself by its proximity. And from what I understand, the second show, that's still completely in the air. There's no location locked down. It's kind of a hot mess, at least from what we're hearing right now.
    114:55
    Attorneys are still doing their talking, so who knows how things will end up. But so, you know, while I could say fantasy, I think you guys made it out to be much more grimmer than the situation is.
    115:11
    Yeah, that's fair. I just think personally, in order for it to be the show to go to, it has to appeal to the people. Is it going to be for business or is it going to be for pinball enthusiasts? Right. That's the question. And if it appeals to pinball enthusiasts, then that's a different story, and it can be a go-to show, but that's not what people feel. It feels like it's more for industry. Like what they've done, I was reading the latest on Pinball News, and they've basically added into their contract all the space left at the hotel. So they're adding 5,000 more square feet of space, and they're really going to expand the players portion in terms of adding more pins on free play and really try to build up, I think, that portion of the show because I think you're right. They've got to get some community support there. That could help, though. That definitely could help because I always hear from people that go. One of my friends, Jeffrey Newman, who goes to all the pinball shows around the country, and he said that there were not many machines. That was his exact quote. Yeah, I think they're going to try to address that. So we'll see how. Yeah. All right, number five.
    116:28
    The Kingpin remake, which is coming soon, will outsell both the Medieval Madness remake and the Attack from Mars remake. Not combined, but it'll be better selling than either one of those titles. Mark, is that fact or fantasy?
    116:45
    I'm going to say it's fantasy. And the reason why is because I don't know if that company can produce that many machines like Chicago Gaming can. Also, considering that they already have gotten their feet off the ground for Chicago Gaming, and those two titles are very popular and they're great games, period.
    117:08
    Kingpin is a good game, but it's not as recognizable, so I would say that it would not sell as well as Evil Madness Remake or Attack from Mars Remake. Spencer, Kingpin remake will outsell MMR and AFMR. Back to fantasy.
    117:27
    Fantasy, sir. I agree with all of Mark's points. I'm going to take a different tact. The gentlemen who are running the show over there, what is it, Circus Maximus? Right.
    117:40
    They've had, what, four years working on Pinball Circus, and we haven't seen anything yet. but now they're going to come out of the gate and, oh, now we're doing kingpin? You know, building a one-off seems to be a lot of people can do a homebrew or do a continuation like a cactus can continued or Bride of Pinball 2.0 and pull that off very nicely.
    118:07
    Building a pinball machine, I don't think it's that hard because a lot of people are doing it. Manufacturing pinball machines, that's hard. So, I mean, do these guys have a factory? Do they have a game plan? Do they have the funding? I don't see this ever getting off the ground unless they get somebody else to contract manufacture. Then if we looked at some of the other people that wanted to pretend like they were starting a pinball company, do I dare mention the names? No, it's not even worth it.
    118:36
    You know, they know who they are, and everybody knows what a joke they are. so no I'd love to see it because I love playing Kingpin I love the theme I love the shots Mark Ritchie how can you lose and I really do want to see this game put into production I'm not optimistic about it and I'm so happy because when I went to Pinnagogo and I know when I go to Golden State it will be there to be able to be played the original and not many people get that opportunity so So go to the show. Make sure you get to play it. All right, guys. Spencer, I think you had a little bit more context, so I appreciate that. So I'm giving you a point. Thank you. I'll have to agree with that. You dropped the name of the Golden State Pinball Festival. I'm going to give you a point for name dropping. Good job. All right. I'm name dropping. This is my shout out. There you go. All right. Number six. Unless a game's shipped with a topper, the topper does not belong on a pin. Fact or fantasy, Spencer?
    119:45
    Fact. You know, if a topper is designed with the game and it interacts somehow, you know, I'm going way back here. Okay, Taxi, Whirlwind, Adam's Family, Fishtails, Whitewater. It does something. It interacts or it adds something. I mean, like the taxi one just lights up like the top of a taxi marquee. But there's a point to it or reason. Now, if people want to put a topper on their game, bless their hearts, it doesn't bother me. I'm not going to go, ooh, you awful person, you. No, no, no. It's not like they're putting an LED in an EM. Right. Got it.
    120:22
    Exactly. And I'm not, you know, I'm not knocking it or anything else. It's personal choice. And I think that's fine. I've seen some beautiful aftermarket toppers. But my personal preference here is to have, you know, Pimbot, another interactive topper. If a game comes with the topper and it's interactive and it's somehow, even if it's just lighting up, but it adds to the overall experience of the aesthetics or the gameplay, yes. If it's just there just because, well, you know, I want to put something on top of the game and that mash and look cool. So, you know. All right. Mark, unless the game shipped with a topper, they do not belong on a pin. Fact or fantasy?
    121:11
    I say fantasy because sometimes people can be really creative and pick a topper that really fits well with the theme of the game. I know I'll shout out to Jim Shelby, for example. He really knows how to pick toppers that really make it look great, And they do interact, like, with lighting of Ghostbusters that he has with Slimer on the top. I think the creative genius of people who really know how to do it well does belong on a pin. One, because it's more affordable, because usually when you buy the stock one, it always is way more than what it really would cost. And sometimes they're cheaply manufactured versus something that they can get as a mod that they create on their own or use from a different source. Fair enough. Let me ask a follow-up to you, Spencer, just to make sure I understand your position.
    122:03
    A Stern Walking Dead has an aftermarket factory topper, the Aquarium. Is that okay? You know what? Again, for somebody else, look, because Stern's making it for their games. So I would say yes. I don't think that's that great of a topper. That's way too small. There's the aesthetic of it, but just in general, you're okay with that topper because it's a factory topper.
    122:32
    Well, yeah, and I mean, most of them are interactive somehow, even if they just light up, you know. But, yeah, I don't know, man. Toppers are overrated. Like I said, yeah, I'm more of like if it comes with the game because it was made with the game. It is kind of aftermarket, but Stern's making it for their own game, so, you know. Like the Batman one's really cool, you know. I feel you. So yeah, I'm okay with that I came into this biased This is a biased question for me I don't I'm not a believer in non-factory Toppers, so Mark, I put you at a Disadvantage by your answer But I really like the Answer you gave So I'm going to give both of you a point Cool Alright, gentlemen, it's a close game It's all going to come down to this last question Saving money for the next game is more important than spending money to improve your current games? Back to Fantasy. Mark?
    123:32
    Okay, I'm going to say because there's so many good games coming out now, it would be hard to make a choice. But I would say that saving money for the next game when it's that right one that you want to get is more important than improving current games because it's going to cost a lot less fixing current games. And when you have a new game that you're saving up for, you want to be able to allocate that money to get that best machine that would fit with your collection. Okay. Spencer, factor fantasy. Saving money for the next game is more important than spending money to improve your current games.
    124:15
    Fantasy. You know, I would rather take a game that I get, you know, Personally, because I'm in a new game market, but take a game and make it perfect. Dial it in, man. You know, replace the worn and broken parts. You know, put the LEDs in it. Put the Titans in it. Rebuild the flippers. Have it playing as perfect as you can before you move on to something else, you know? Okay. So would that include things like saving up for a CPR play field, back glass? you'd rather do that than pick up a $400 EM.
    124:57
    Well, okay. I thought we were talking about the box game. No, you did not say new in box. Mark, in case you didn't notice, whenever we're playing this game show, Seth channels his spirit animal, the Marquis de Sade.
    125:17
    Yeah, man. See you got me over the ropes now Cause you know If I could pick up a $400 EM Oh yeah it's a good one That's what a flip flop smells like You know I'm not flip flopping I'm staying a sticking Let's get the CPR in there Let's get the replacement back last Let's get that game up and running man Make it nice And save one more game from destruction Wow not only do I disagree with you You flip flopped and then flip flopped back Well, Mark gets a point on that one, doesn't he? Mark's going to get two points on that one.
    125:53
    You know, I penalize flip-flopping. Yeah, big time. All right, let me tabulate the scores. Let's see here. I'm never going to win this game. And then add a say. And tonight, I'm happy to announce the winner of the second annual Fact or Fantasy segment is... Not Spencer. Congratulations, Mark. Continuing the streak. Well, thank you very much. But it was a great conversation regardless. It was a game well fought. Yes, it was. Spencer, take it away.
    126:34
    All right. Well, that is about it for our show because we're going long tonight. Wow, like over two hours, right? Yeah, yeah. But a great two hours, and it's just nice that everybody's home and we can get together, you know, because Seth and I have both had a really grueling work schedule lately and do continue to do so.
    126:56
    So it's great we can get together and put on this great little podcast. So any quick shout-outs or thank yous, anybody? I have a lot of shout-outs. First of all, I want to thank my wife, Heidi, and my two kids, Cassidy and Nathan, for supporting me in this crazy addiction, I guess you could say, and passion in doing pinball. And I want to give a huge shout out to my wife because she allowed me to have a pinball machine down in the family room now. and she's also encouraging me to clean out the storage room and put in a pinball arcade in there. Awesome. I love her beyond words, beyond words. Now we're going to get listeners that are going to email us asking if she has a sister that's single.
    127:48
    So anyway, she thinks I'm crazy about this, but she does support me and she knows that she's not going to change me. but I love her so much. And I want to give a shout out to my friend, Jim Martin for his home brew machine. That's going to be incredible when you guys get to play it, when it's ready to go. And he's going to have it really dialed in at that time. Michael Huntsman for getting pinball to start, press start for allowing us to have league, which we have now on average, 16 people that show up, which I forgot to mention, but it's been great. Attendance has been wonderful. and just the whole Reno pinball community.
    128:30
    Greg Wright, who has a great collection of EMs, and Kevin Woods for keeping things playing tip-top shape and offering his expertise in fixing machines whenever you need it. Just great, great people here in Reno. So keep the love coming for everybody. It's awesome. And all of you guys in Sacramento for helping make the league work. Awesome. Seth, you got anything?
    128:57
    You know, I'm in full-blown show mode, festival show. And so, you know, we're knee-deep in getting volunteers and organizing. And I just want to say a big thanks to the pinball community here in Northern California. We get so much support from you guys. this show is really only possible because of the collectors and the volunteers that come together to make this show what it is. So, you know, this is the time of year where I really can appreciate all the helping hands that come together to make this show work the way it does. So thanks, everybody.
    129:38
    Awesome. I've done so many shout outs. So I'm just going to throw this out real quick. I haven't had any negative feedback just people curious about my closing line which is play pinball keep America strong there is no political connotation to that I'll give you the origin real quick and we'll close out if you grew up in Sacramento, Northern California Bay Area in the 60's and 70's you know the dark ages even in the early 80's there was a great TV show on kind of like Sangooli or Avira, it was called Creature Features, with the host Bob Wilkins. And they'd have the station identification where they would just put up a little picture of Bob Wilkins always smoking his big cigars, and they'd have a picture of him with Frankenstein, and it would have the TV identification, and it would say, Watch horror films. Keep America strong. So I took that as an homage to the late, great Bob Wilkins, and then his replacement host later on, John Stanley. And so that's my tip of the hat to the old horror film show on Saturday nights, whether you watch it on Channel 2 in Oakland or on Channel 40 in Sacramento. And so it kind of shaped me as a person because I grew up with Creature Features and pinball and comic books and Kissing Van Halen records. So that's my little tip of the hat to Bob Rolkins. God rest his soul. So with that, boys and girls, ladies and gentlemen, children of all ages, we're going to close the show out. You guys know it. Play pinball. Keep America strong.